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76519 | Pizza without yeast
I was wondering if it is possible to make a good pizza dough without yeast.
The only other things I can think of for leavening are baking soda, baking powder, and eggs, all of which are in most dough and batters.
My momma has run out of her active dry yeast so unless I can make pizza without yeast, I am stuck with bread or store bought crust if I want to make my own pizza and pizzerias and some grocery stores if I want pizza without all the extra work.
Now don't get me wrong, I love making myself a personal pizza using 4 pieces of bread (multi-grain is usually what I have) but it would be nice if I could make pizza dough without the yeast. Of course I will need multiple rises (I think 2 rises are needed for a good pizza dough and the leavening agents that I listed up top that aren't yeast can only do 1 rise so I will have to add the leavening agent twice.
This is a bit of a problem. Dough that tastes like eggs even after baking is not what you want for a pizza, nor are the tart spots you get with baking soda or baking powder.
So how can I avoid this problem with the taste while adding leavening agents like eggs and baking soda and baking powder when I have no yeast?
Google is full of baking powder pizza doughs. They have a different texture from classic pizza dough, but they can be pretty good. Especially if you like thin, crunchy style dough.
Nor is there anything wrong with storebought pizza dough. While you're there, pick up some yeast.
All this to avoid buying a package of yeast ?
It will depend a lot on what you want out of your pizza dough.
Are you looking for pizza dough that's thick, fluffy, rich, floppy, chewy, crisp, dry, flaky, crumbly? You can make good pizzas with any of these characteristics, and you can also prefer (even strongly) some over others. Changing leavening will change taste and texture, but it's up to you to say if the result is acceptable to you or not. I'm usually pretty happy with any of the above, as long as the tomato sauce and cheese and toppings tastes are all there with the crust.
You can make pizza with sourdough, which will take more time, and have a different flavor, but give a nicely risen end result. More investing in the beginning, but once the starter is running it will be very conveniently on hand. You can use bread dough (which I know needs yeast itself, but if you had a ball of the frozen sort hidden away, it can be pressed into service) and the results will be similar to, but not necessarily the same as, a made-for-pizza dough.
You can make baking powder pizza doughs, as Joshua Engles suggested, for a thin crisp crust, or use baking-powder risen biscuit dough or even pancake batter as the base for something thicker and fluffy rather than chewy.
You can use tortillas (either store-bought or handmade) as the basis for some nice, thin, pizzas, either floppy or very crisp - and they store pretty well, so it's usually little trouble to have an unopened pack tucked away in the pantry. You can use pie crust for a flaky, but very flat crust (though I've seen stuffed pocket-pastries more so than open faced pizza this way). Puff paste is also a fine, rich tasting option, as rackandboneman suggested.
Two other points - if you can grab store-bought crust or grocery-store pizza, you can also pick up yeast, yes? I mean, it solves the problem at the source. You can keep yeast in the freezer if you want to buy extra.
Also, this I'm not sure of, but I think pre-made (frozen, say) bread or pizza dough might be usable as a source for yeast, not just as an ingredient - take a bit out, and treat like a preferment or biga or poolish (look it up more specifically if you would like to try it - but generally, it's something like mix with equal parts flour and water till quite loose, give extra time [ie, overnight] for the yeasts to multiply and take over the world, mix back into dough and bake).
Or alternatively and more certainly, keep a bit of the batch of dough from the last of the yeast you had, and use it as a pate fermentee, or old dough, or mother-dough starter, where each batch uses some reserved dough as a starter, and has some reserved after rising for the next batch.
Bonus troubleshooting, after rereading your post - you mentioned wanting two raises, this helps when your yeast gets extra time to work in the dough and change the texture, and develop flavors, and all that. The actual raising doesn't actually do much for the dough once beaten down or spent, so when using other kinds of leavening only one raise is needed, and two may cause problems (off flavors from too much spent agent, etc). Also, you shouldn't get tart spots in your dough with baking soda or powder unless you're using too much (like enough for raising twice?) and/or don't mix enough so the baking powder or soda ends up unevenly mixed in the dough. And finally, the raising you get from eggs is mostly the proteins in whites plus any trapped air that has been whisked into it that survived the mixing, so you might be able to use less yolk to reduce any "eggy" flavor... whites are fairly subtle in flavor to begin with.
Puff pastry has been used to make things not entirely unlike Pizza :)
@rackandboneman - Yeah, that can be nice, too. Though the exhaustive list is very long, almost any dough, pastry, or starch can serve in a pinch, and make something quite tasty (though certainly quite different). it's a very versatile combination of flavors.
If you have time, you could create your own sourdough starter and use sourdough for pizza baking.
I think.
I'm baking bread without yeast, only with well developed sourdough. Since pizza is just some kind of flat bread garnished with some toppings, this should work.
Recipe: http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/sourdough-pizza-crust-recipe
Forget baking soda and baking powder. No need to buy any artificial agents. Just water and flour!
Edit: just noticed that the recipe calls for an awful industrial ingredient called pizza dough flavour. Just don't do that. We're not cooking our own meals with nice stuff and then put in the crap that is used in factory food, right?
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11324 | Recovering from Over Salted Sauerkraut
I recently finished my first batch of sauerkraut and tasted it only to find that it's way too salty. In referencing the original recipe, I realized that I used the amount of salt recommended for 5lbs of cabbage but I only had 2.5lbs.
What, if anything, can I do to salvage the sauerkraut? Because of the way it's made, I wasn't sure that just adding the missing cabbage is a viable solution and part of me wonders if the salt is just part of the food now.
Rinsing the sauerkraut absolutely does work - we do it all the time, both with store-bought and homemade sauerkraut. Every batch of sauerkraut is different, so rinsing & tasting is the only way to ensure that your dishes turn out appropriately salted. Yes, some of the salt has entered the cabbage itself, but most of it will be in the brine/on the surface.
If rinsing in a colander isn't enough (and if you used twice the recommended amount of salt it's likely not to be), then you can drain the liquid as best you can, then add clean water to cover, and let it soak. Rinse and repeat until the salt level tastes more acceptable.
Adding more cabbage and letting it ferment some more is also an option, although the twice-fermented parts can end up rather mushy.
I rinsed, soaked, and then rinsed again. Now it tastes good.
@Jonathan Campbell: glad it worked! Homemade sauerkraut is good stuff. :)
Adding the missing cabbage is a viable solution. You could also just remove some of the brine and replace it with water, until it's salty to your taste. Finally, you could just rinse some of the brine off of it before eating it.
I don't think rinsing the cabbage will work well since the salt will have entered the cabbage itself. Replacing some of the brine with water should work though.
@yacomink Rinsing the cabbage doesn't completely remove the salt, but it does remove a good deal of the salt. Sadly, it also removes some of the other flavours and some of the beneficial microörganisms. It's easy, though, and I think it's worth a shot.
I too made sauerkraut that was too salty, by adding more water and salt when the level of liquid dropped. Fortunately the too salty part was mostly on top, but the kraut by itself was still too salty. I drained the liquid from each jar onto a glass measuring cup (or bowl) and rinsed the kraut in a colander with cold water, squeezing the kraut throughout the process. Once done, I put the kraut back into the jars and added back the fermentation water (has salt) and the result was good kraut. Just don't add salt if you are cooking sausages or ribs with your kraut and it too will taste good. Next time, I will just add more water when the liquid level drops down and no additional salt.
An excellent point -- it's the water that evaporates ... the salt remains the same.
Unfortunatly, the amount of salt you used will not allow the fermentation process to occur. It will preserve the cabbage and is perfectly safe to eat, but it will not be fermented, therefor not saurkraut.
I would advise just tossing it and making some more.
After it has fermented it will be tasty, and if you want you can rinse some salt off then but it will affect the taste somewhat but still be tasty.
J W
Based on local experimentation, this is incorrect. 2% salt (by weight of veg) being "right" doubling to 4% slows things down, but does not stop them. 8% is looking like it probably stops (or excessively slows) the right bacteria, but that would be 4 times the generally recommended amount.
Since I didn't want to wash off the good bugs along with the salt, I solved the too salty by adding some of my kraut to another recipe from which I had omitted the salt. In this case, I added two teaspoons of kraut to a bowl of made from scratch coleslaw. It was delicious. I think you could also add it to unsalted potato salad, but I haven't tried that one yet.
I dechlorinated a small pot of tap water by boiling for 20 minutes, let cool and added enough to double up the amount of brine above the kraut once weighted down. I massaged the solution into the kraut then let it sit.
It was 2 weeks until I noticed I'd doubled the amount of salt and 2 weeks until I checked it and I found it still a bit salty but I'm leaving it because it was good and I think the fermentation has slowed but not stopped. I don't see bubbling anymore, but I think it's still working... time will tell!
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9769 | How to make "honeycomb" less sticky?
I made "honeycomb" (otherwise known as hokey-pokey, not real honeycomb) using this recipe: http://www.nigella.com/recipes/view/hokey-pokey-36
It tastes delicious but it is supposed to be crunchy / cripsy (like the inside of a Cadburys Crunchie bar) but it actually came out really sticky, like a soft toffee.
Is this likely to be due to overcooking, undercooking, something else? How can I make sure it comes out crunchier in future?
Good question - we also tried making this and it just came out a sticky gooey mess.
I never knew it could be called Hokey Pokey.
Since it's only been alluded to in the answers-- soft crack stage: 270-290F/135-145C. Hard crack: 300-310F/150-155C. The recipes I glance over make it clear you want to cook your syrup to hard crack. So, you can either get yourself a candy thermometer, and cook til your syrup is about 300F, or you can look up how to check using cold water, like RobynC down below mentions. I personally use a thermometer, so I'll awkwardly bow out with that. >.>
This sounds like peanut brittle, minus the peanuts.
Remember your stages of sugar boiling and how they come out, if it's too sticky or soft it is probably down to too low a final temperature (wrong texture) or more likely too much golden syrup.
Be sparing with the golden syrup / glucose syrup, the sucrose will set in to hard sugars, but the glucose/inverted sugar syrup acts as a crystallisation inhibitor, vinegar can be used to similar effect (though does not enrich the flavour so). It sets too, but I find too much can lead to weeping.
Also, I have heard that an overly humid environment can be a problem. People used to say not to cook toffee on a humid day.
Another good tip I found recently is to freeze it. It will continue to stay fresh and crunchy rather than turn soft and soggy. In fact, I even tried freezing it after it's turned soggy and it still succeeded at turning it back to rock. Not sure how long you could store it in the freezer but definitely lasted longer that way!
In nigellas recipe she says to only let it boil for 3 minutes before adding bicarb. When I make this I let it boil for 10 minutes before removing from the heat and adding bicarbonate and mine always turn out crispy.
Do you happen to know what temperature yours is done at?
Correct sugar temperature is the main factor, bring it just up to the heat required, sugar will overshoot because of heat latency
To improve bubble action add one teaspoon of plain white vinegar at begining of sugar heating processn
Less golden syrup...same happened to me, try 1 tablespoon instead of 4
Most likely due to not letting the toffee come up to a high enough temperature. Made it recently , and my candy thermometer said it was at 150 degrees C, but it turned out sticky. When I made it using the old-fashioned "drop a bit of toffee in a glass of water to see if it is at hard crack stage", it was perfect.
3 minutes sounds far too short to bring it to a high enough temperature - mine took more like 10 minutes.
I think often it can depend on the stove and whether it is electric or gas powered, but overall, as others have said, just cook it for longer.
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6034 | Can you assemble lasagna one day, and then bake it about 24 hrs later?
I've always made it on the spot and cooked it then and there, but would like to make at home and take it to a large party the next day and cook it then - will it work?
I would cook the lasagne and then re-heat the next day. If you assemble the lasagna while the sauce(s) are warm then you will find that the pasta starts to curl up.
Yes, and I find it taste better. When I make lasagna I will not fully cook the pasta. Instead, I keep a pot of boiling water and I dip the pasta into it to soften while I'm assembling the dish; the pasta is in the water for less than one minute. The pasta seems to absorb more of the sauce, keeping the flavor but making a dish that does not fall apart as easily.
I've found that day old lasagna tastes significantly better too. I think it takes a little time for the flavors to settle.
Absolutely, it will work! You can keep it in the refrigerator, ready to bake, for a couple of days.
It also works very well to freeze it at that point, to defrost & bake at a later date.
The only catch is that the baking time may need to be extended a bit, since you'll be working with a product that is refrigerator-cold, as opposed to freshly cooked.
Shouldn't you take it out of the fridge for some time before putting it in the oven?
@hobodave Not when you get home at 5:30 and want dinner on the table at 6:30. But ideally, yes. Now that I'm home all day I can do that... but not while I was working.
Some dishes might not like going straight from the fridge to the oven, and might be better off on a baking sheet to make the rise in heat more even and slower.
To follow up on ChrisH's comment -- I generally put the cold casserole in the cold oven, then heat it up. This way, you don't create the thermal shock from the cold vessel suddenly touching the hot oven shelf. Metal containers would be more resilient, but you can get some off flavors from tomato (an acid) in contact w/ metal for long periods. (most baking pans are coated steel or aluminum, not stainless steel).
My wife and I have made lasagna for over 100 people on a few occasions. The way we have done this is to make several full pans of the product and then freeze them down for later use (up to two weeks). We have seen great success with his technique.
As far as making it one day and then cooking it the next (without freezing), this is actually a real good way to do it. However, I wouldn't wait more than 48 hours, as the breakdown will start to occur at this stage.
We did this when I worked prep in a restaurant. Half cooked the pasta and pre-cooked the meat layer. Assembled it cold and refrigerated over night. It took about 45 minutes to cook on 350 f. It was also covered in plastic wrap first then a layer of tin foil. This helped keep it moisture while storing and cooking. It does seem to taste much better.
It will most certainly work. In fact, re-heated lasagne can taste better than it would straight off the stove.
I prepared lasagne last night uncooked and left in the fridge overnight, when i went to cook it the bechamel that i made has soaked in the uncooked lasagne sheets, wont do this mistake again
I find it actually tastes better when you just partially cook everything then let it sit in the fridge for a day and cook it.
The reason this was downvoted, not by me, was that this is more of a comment than an answer. I realize you don't have enough reputation to comment that will come with time. Welcome to Seasoned Advice!
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798 | How do I use no-boil lasagna noodles in a normal recipe?
How do I convert a normal lasagna recipe to use no-boil noodles? Do I need to add extra liquid or just make sure that the dish is covered really well?
You can use 'no-boil' pasta straight from the box, alternatively, you can soak it it warm water for a few minutes. The soaked pasta may prove to be a little easier to manipulate when building the lasagne. However, providing there is enough liquid in the sauce, soaking is unnecessary.
Personally, I'd cover the dish with foil until the last 10 to 15 minutes of the cooking process, this will allow the pasta to cook and it should prevent the sauce from drying out. The last 10 to 15 minutes uncovered will provide the colour.
Many lasagna recipes will cook raw noodles sufficiently. Experimentation will be necessary to determine if the resulting lasagna is too dry. A quick soak will alleviate some of the dryness.
I have had great success just simply substituting out the traditional and in with the no-boil, without any modification to the recipe. Usually I end up letting the dish sit for a while (5 minutes or so), and the liquid ends up starting to soak in at that point.
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3397 | What is the difference between a macaron and an amaretti biscuit?
Other than differing in origin (Italian (amaretti) and France (Macaron)), what is the difference between these two biscuits?
Macaron are Italian, Macaroon are French and these are quite different. I'm assuming your are referring to the Italian Macaron as these are the closer of the two to Amaretti?
Macron are in my experience much softer and more meringue like than amaretti, which are much more firm with a biscuit like texture.
According to this article the main difference is that French macaroons are usually sandwiched together and enjoyed alone while amaretti (pre-cursor to French macaroons) are used both as a cookie and often as an ingredient. Both are prepared from almond paste and meringue.
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27680 | When a recipe says, 'simmer uncovered', what's the issue?
Many a recipe or package instructs: 'cook uncovered' without stating a reason. As a general matter, is this to protect me from boilover, or does it have some more subtle purpose?
Simmering uncovered serves two purposes. The first is liquid reduction. Simmering with a lid on causes condensation on the inside of the lid that will drip back into the food. If you're trying to reduce the liquid, the steam needs to be able to evaporate away.
The second purpose is temperature regulation. With a lid on, the heat won't dissipate quickly enough and your food will eventually advance beyond a simmer and potentially throw off what you're making.
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28356 | Can I pre-cut sweet potatoes?
I am planning on making a sweet potato gratin. Can I slice the sweet potatoes the day before and keep them in the refrigerator?
If you want to do as much ahead of time as possible you have a couple of choices.
You can definitely peel the sweet potatoes the day before and store them under water, but I wouldn't recommend slicing them. If they are sliced thinly enough for gratin they're going to absorb a lot of water which will ruin the flavour. You can make the cream etc. mix up the day before though.
The alternative is to make the whole gratin up the day before and keep it in the fridge uncooked and covered. This will mean some of the cream is soaked up overnight and you'll get a very soft finish, but that might be what you want. Sweet potato doesn't hold as much texture as potatoes during cooking anyway so the difference might turn out to be negligible.
It might be best to do everything at once to maintain maximum flavour. Just make sure you actually use sweet potatoes.
Article on the yams against sweet potatoes
http://easyguyevo.hubpages.com/hub/Difference-Between-Yams-And-Sweet-Potato
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9595 | What's the best way to crack open a Brazil nut without breaking the nut?
How does one crack open a Brazil nut in order to get the whole nut? When I go to the store I can get entire nut meats. Unfortunately, with whole nuts, it's a pain.
I've used the nutcracker longitudinally and horizontally and/or both, but the nut never comes out whole.
From here
Freeze Brazil nuts, or soak them in water for several hours before cracking.
Stand frozen nuts with the point facing up and hit with a hard object, such as a hammer, to crack.
Crack soaked nuts with a nutcracker. Place the nut in the grip of the nutcracker so that the seam of the shell is subjected to the direct force.
Use minimum force necessary to split the shell when squeezing, in order to avoid crushing the nut kernel inside. Rotate the nut while squeezing so the shell cracks slowly.
Extract the kernel from the shell.
Allow the kernels of soaked nuts to dry for a few hours after cracking.
Read more: How to Crack Nuts | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how_10768_crack-nuts.html#ixzz16j8GzCOo
Microwave them. My microwave is 820W, so adjust the time according to the wattage of your microwave. Have a bowl of cold water near, as the nuts will be hot.
One brazil nut = 30 seconds on high. Drop the hot nut in the cold water for a few seconds, just until it's cool enough to handle. Use a nut cracker and gently crack it slightly. Put it back in the cold water until the nut inside is cool, or not if you want warm nuts, which are tasty as well. You may need to used the cracker again, but the nut should come out whole.
Welcome to the site! This sounds easy and delicious!
Very clever! Can you nuke more than one Brazil nut at at time?
If you own a vise, there's a very easy way. First, freeze the nuts for an hour or two. Then put them in your vise and squeeze the nut on the ends. Turning the vise handle allow precise, specific pressure on the shell while avoiding damaging the seed. I did a 1lb bag in 10 minutes.
****No soaking, no freezing, no boiling**! We had Brazil nuts that stuck to the shell so tightly that after they were cracked, they had to be scraped off the shell with a knife. I found that 30 seconds in the microwave before cracking them released them from the hull and every nut came out whole.
Interesting... how many did you 'nuke' at a time?
I use 45 seconds in a 1250 watt microwave, then, being careful not to burn my hand on the hot nut, crack carefully along the to seam using adjustable vice-grip pliers adjusted so that they don't crush the kernel when the shell breaks and the pliers slam shut.
3 or 4 cracks that way usually opens it up enough to extract the kernel intact. The microwaving seems to release the kernel from being stuck to the shell so that it comes out fairly readily. The vice-grips give you plenty of leverage if you use a large one and its adjusting feature lets you exert as much force as needed without concern that when the shell breaks, you would overshoot and crush the kernel.
A rubber band wrapped several times around the end of the handle and holding down release lever prevents the pliers from locking closed, allowing you to sort of "nibble" your way along the nut's seam without having to let go and release the pliers before taking the next "bite". The workshop vice, suggested above, would have the same advantage, but most people don't have one mounted on their kitchen table.
No need to follow the complicated instructions in the other responses. However, skip the nutcracker - you will need better tools.
I use a tongue-and-groove pliers set to the widest position that still "bites" to create an initial crack in the nut. After that I use a quite narrow regular, flat, screwdriver to widen the crack the pliers created, either by pushing in the screwdriver in the crack and rotate it or pushing it in between the kernel and the shell and bend.
Hard to describe the direction I insert the nut in the pliers, but if you think at is as an orange cleft, you place the narrow edge that is located towards the centre of the fruit and the wide edge that is next to the peel in the pliers.
This way 70-80 % of the nuts opens with the kernel in one piece.
I keep a my nutcracker and a small hammer in the nut bowl and a small solid cutting board underneath to crack them on. Only use hammer for Brazil's.
Just tap on the sides enough to hear a small crack. Then hit straight down on the tip vertically to break the nut. I eat them casually so microwaving freezing and soaking seems like a lot of work to crack open a couple nuts. This works 70 to 80% and the ones that don't break right just make me appreciate the whole nuts more
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10042 | How to make softer biscuits?
Sorry to ask a rather non-specific question, but I am actually trying to formulate an example. Suppose you have a recipe to make biscuits, but what you get is quite hard, and you would like to have a softer result. What do you need to add or change in the recipe?
It does not matter if it's not accurate. I just need a non-blatantly wrong process or component.
First question: Do you mean biscuits as a Brit might say, or as an American might? A British-style biscuit is a cookie in the US. In the US, what we call a biscuit is more like a scone. They're very different, so it would help the US folks to know which you mean.
@bikeboy389: let's say cookies. As I said, it's not really important. I just need a traditional methodology or ingredient that changes the result.
Your question is a little to vague to answer well. However, it is retained moisture that makes a cookie soft, and this article covers the question http://www.sunset.com/food-wine/techniques/perfect-chocolate-chip-cookie-00400000012170/
Do either of these questions help you at all? How do I get my chocolate chip cookies to turn out thick and soft? or Chewy chocolate chips cookies. Really what it all comes down to is increasing the moisture (more eggs, softer sugars) and increasing the fat (more butter), and also not overmixing the dough.
@Aaronut : what would happen if you added yeast, for example ? I know, maybe it's just heresy, but what would happen ?
@Stefano: To be honest, I don't know. Bread is one of the few things I never bother to make myself, and thus I never have yeast in my home. It doesn't sound like it would improve moisture retention - yeast is just a leavening agent - but that's speaking from intuition and not experience. Maybe someone else here can answer that, although there's no guarantee they'll see it as a comment - you should spell it out in the question.
Normally if you want to increase chewiness and softness, you increase your egg and fat. Also, instead of using water, use milk. These are blanket rules, having no idea what your specific issue is. Also, try using a flour that has lower protein count. You don't want a bread flour for cookies, cakes, biscuits - pastries in general. Of course if you are stuck with a bread flour, make sure to undermix your ingredients. The more you mix, the more gluten is produced. This is what you want for breads, but not the structure you are looking for in pastries, etc.
If the recipe contains them, you can replace the following ingredients:
Milk - Replace with buttermilk or heavy whipping cream
Butter - Replace with shortening, making sure to keep cold until ready to pop in the oven
Best if you can find the butter-flavoured shortening, so you don't lose too much of the buttery taste.
Shortening provides a huge improvement over butter.
One very useful trick for making moister cookies is to replace part of the white sugar with brown sugar. Brown sugar is hygroscopic, meaning it attracts and holds moisture. That is why molasses cookies are so incredibly moist, and why brown sugar tends to clump together in the bag.
In the latest Cook's Illustrated, their sugar cookie recipe swapped out some butter (saturated fat) with some vegetable oil (unsautrated), with the claim that it increased chewiness. However, you have to make up the flavor loss from giving up some of the butter (they added a bit of cream cheese).
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17262 | Why do so many dessert/biscuit recipes have salt in them?
Whilst I can understand salt in the majority of recipes, I never really understood why it is in so many desserts or biscuits.
When I have asked a few friends or family who do a lot of cookery, the vast majority say pretty much the same thing "the salt cuts across the other flavours", or "you always just add it!".
But... So many times, when I eat biscuits, if I chew a lot and then just as I swallow, I can always taste salt... The ones I probably taste salt the most on are (Worst first) : Custard Creams, Digestives, Rich Tea.
In my honest opinion, the salt just isn't needed - I don't think it adds anything, and, it just seems to leave a horrible after taste (I can usually always taste it, but a lot more when I chew a lot).
In particular, now that so many people are on low salt diets and so many people say it is bad for you, I don't understand why it is there!
So, is there a good reason why it is added?
I suspect that, even if you find some things too salty, you might find salt-free desserts to be missing something. There's a delicious middle ground in there.
@Jefomi - I have seen the recipes for some biscuits and I am not a good cook, but I think I may try to make two batches, one with salt and one without and really test it for myself!
@WH you might also add a batch with "half" the recommended salt.
It has been explained in a much more detail in the other answers, so I'll just add a comment of what amounts to my personal opinion instead: Adding salt improves the falvor. While you can certainly exclude salt from deserts, I've found that flavour of some of those dishes becomes much "thinner" without salt. And yes, you might just tryu to make the desert with- and without salt and taste the difference yourself...
Can we pass a law making it an automatic prison time felony to mention you're going to try some interesting food/cooking experiment to solve a challenge, then never returning with the results,leaving us all hanging? :^D If you're still around, wilhil, how did it go? Are you using more, the same, less or no salt in your desserts?
@MargeGunderson - I never gave a time frame on this!!! It is something I still need to do (and will do)... Just haven't had much free time since starting a new job.
Flavor enhancer. Increases the ionic strength of the food so whatever flavors it has can get to your taste buds rather than be bound up with protein, carbs, fats or whatever. https://www.google.com/search?q=ionic+strength+flavor&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
Salt has unique properties in how it interacts with the taste buds. While it has its own "flavor" it also has the ability to enhance some flavors while blocking your ability to experience others.
While I could go on, all I would be doing is repeating much of what I learned watching
The Food Network's Alton Brown. He goes in depth for the episode "The Ballad of Salty and Sweet" which is available on from the Food Network.
There are (of course) other resources, but AB does a really great job of teaching in this episode.
Yes, salt (in the right amount) does tweak other flavors. Chocolate is another ingredient that is really helped by salt-- that is why chocolate-covered pretzels are so delicious.
In the Good Eats episode I link to the first thing AB does is sprinkle salt (kosher salt of course) on top of a chocolate covered cookie.
+1 for now, but, I want to wait to see if anyone else answer. Thank you very much.
Not only does salt affect the taste of baked goods, it reacts with the dough chemically to slow the action of leaveners, and to change the texture. Here's a brief synopsis, which discusses how salt has an effect on water absorption, as well : http://www.progressivebaker.com/resources/tips_effects_of_salt.shtm
+1: Salt is not just for flavouring, and you exclude it at your peril.
Example: yeast will grow too fast and overproof your dough without salt, which helps to control it by killing some amount of the yeast.
Salt is an unnecessary ingredient in pretty much every recipe. Make recipes with and without it and you'll notice virtually no difference, at all.
I strongly disagree. I can taste the difference, and I think pretty much everyone I cook for can too (even if they don't realize it's the salt that they're tasting).
This doesn't hold true for the majority of recipes I have tried, nor for most of the people I cook for. While many can be quite tasty with little or no salt, "pretty much every" and "virtually no difference" is not accurate in my experience.
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3212 | Are there a better ways to crush biscuits/cookies than a rolling pin?
Can the old trick of putting biscuits (cookies or crackers to Americans) in a plastic bag and hitting them with a rolling pin be improved upon?
are we talking biscuits, as in the fluffy, flaky southern U.S. food or cookies?
...hard thin northern U.S. food...
@sarge_smith: sorry UK english speaker here. Biscuits as in American cookies.
@knives you yankees just don't understand that those are called crackers :)
I'm guessing "when in doubt, C4" doesn't apply here. Unless you're making a lot of crumbs.
Generally, I've only heard of the plastic bag or the food processor.
I have seen people who just bash the packet of biscuits on the kitchen top. Jamie Oliver likes to do that with slabs of chocolate!
Otherwise use a heavy duty snack-lock bag or else wrap the plastic bag in a tea towel.
It helps to have a small hole for the air to escape.
The kitchentop method doubles as excellent stress relief.
If neither a rolling pin or food processor are available substitute a wine bottle or large can of juice.
Or a cast-iron fry pan.
Has anyone tried this with a wine bottle? I have no idea how likely it is to break...
I have tried it with a wine bottle. Works just fine. (Works great as an impromptu rolling pin for actually rolling doughs, too, if you cleanly remove the label) So long as you're not bashing the thing against the edge of a counter like a maniac, I can't imagine you'd need to worry about breakage.
Can the old trick of putting them in a plastic bag and hitting them with a rolling pin be improved upon?
Why? It's quick, easy, and effective. If you're looking to avoid wasting a bag, then the food processor works well enough... But then you have a food processor to clean!
One suggestion: use a heavy rolling pin. I have a marble pin that's too awkward for most pastries, but works great for this: I don't really have to "beat" so much as just drop lightly and then roll...
general-purpose blade works fine, @Sean. Don't overload, and pulse until you get the texture you want.
I put the biscuits in a bowl, and mash them with a potato masher. It works well.
I prefer to put them in the food processor and pulse until I get the desired consistency.
I think the method can be improved the following ways but I don't have much call for crushed cookies myself, so if any of them don't work please let us know. Anyway, seems that what you need to cruch cookies/biscuits is some sort of crusher, something to prevent crumbs from flying all over your kitchen, and an easy way to transport the results around your work area.
In the original the plastic bag serves the purpose of the crumb catcher. You could use cheesecloth or a clean tea towel as a crumb catcher but those options don't seal and they pose a problem for the transportaion issue so I would say the plastic stays as the best of that part of the equation.
As the crusher, I find a rolling pin to be a poor one. Low curved surface area on your crusher just isn't what your looking for. I would suggest reaching for the best thing for pounding in your kitchen - your cast iron pan. It's heavy and nice and flat with a huge surface area, perfect for all you crushing needs.
Of course, we may not need even that, if your cookies are safely in a bag. You could just slam the bag into the counter top until you're left with the proper consistency. That seems labor intensive though, but maybe theraputic as well.
Also, a food processor like everyone else said is a great option.
The problem I've encountered using a cast-iron pan is the flat bottom aligning with the flat cookie and cracking but not crushing. Of course, almost anything will eventually produce fine crumbs given enough time and effort - as you note, even just pounding the bag will do. But I like the smooth, curved rolling pin because it rolls - you can get consistency by taking a few passes over the rough-crushed crumbs without missing anything. A grooved (lefse) rolling pin might be an interesting alternative for producing larger but still even crumbs...
That makes a lot of sense. I guess it entirely depends on what you need the crumbs for and how even they need to be. I know that when I need bread crumbs I often use the back of my knife to start the crushing action and finish with something heavier, but cookies are so much denser I don't know if that would help at all.
I just put them in an air-tight bag and instead of being such a drama queen and bashing the bag, I roll over them with the rolling pin. Quicker, cleaner and much quieter :)
I was making some lemon slice recently, and broke up my Marie biscuits by hand into small pieces and then whizzed them up in a foot processor for a bit. If you don't have a food processor -- maybe try gently breaking them up in a mortar and pestle?
I have used a mortar and pestle before when I had no food processor. It worked fine.
Another option is to just get a big knife and chop like you might with vegetables.
Other suggestions (mentioned here):
Use a potato masher
Put them in a bag, then drive over the bag a few times with your car
I once watched a neighbor across the street put cookies (Oreos if I recall correctly) in a zip bag and crush them by backing her car over them.
She drank a lot.
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33978 | What do I need to get started with American style Barbecue?
With summer on the way here in the UK, I'd like to start trying some American style BBQ - ribs, pulled pork, brisket etc. as well as perhaps the odd steak and even pizza - with a relatively limited budget. I had originally looked at a hot smoker like this, but I've also read that you can use a straightforward Weber kettle grill. I've also heard that a chimney starter is useful.
What's the best, most cost effective but still authentic approach? Also, are there any books or websites you can recommend for good recipes/techniques for a BBQ-noob?
I'd start off by reading @waxeagle's awesome blog post: http://cooking.blogoverflow.com/2012/09/no-smoker-a-80-grill-is-enough-for-tasty-pulled-pork/
While a great subject, barbecue is a huge topic better suited to a book. And book recommendations are generally a poll. Can you narrow this down any?
https://www.google.com/search?q=barbecue+for+beginners A wealth of information... just remember, in common usage, "grill" and "barbecue" are synonymous, but you are looking for the type that is slow smoking, as opposed to high heat grilling. But I suspect you knew that.
@SAJ14SAJ, actually, some things are better with the high-heat grill method such as steaks so ElendilTheTall may need to understand that distinction. Smoker for slow-cooking, high-heat for searing and "grilling". Hubby and I grill all the time and find the chimney starter invaluable for getting the bbq briquettes going.
@KristinaLopez Yes, I realized after it was too late to change those comments that the question seems to be about both grilling and barbquecuing, which are very distinct. The list was all low and slow until steak and pizza....
From what I understand, both the grills I've linked to can be used for smoking and high heat grilling. Maybe I'm wrong. If it makes a difference, I'd rather low and slow than hot and fast.
@ElendilTheTall- I'd say to get started the first thing you need is a gun and a dog. Being overweight will also help. Never seen a thin BBQ proprietor. You can choose between overalls or a buckle and boots (depends whether you are cooking pork or brisket).
@Sobachatina I'm going for for a Carolina/Texas fusion and wearing overalls and boots.
I'm fairly certain the American Civil War was actually started over which region was the true "American Style BBQ," so be careful in asking about that. :D American Barbecue can be very, very different, in preparation, sauce flavorings and cooking methods, depending on which region you are looking at.
My recommendations would be as follows.
First, buy a cooker that will do everything you need, but is priced reasonably. You will want something that fits the following criteria:
Provides direct grilling capabilities.
Convects heat fairly evenly, so that you can use it for low-temperature, long-time, indirect-heat cooking (what most people in the US would consider barbecue).
Has the capability to control temperatures easily.
Has plenty of cooking area.
The basic Weber 22.5" (57cm) kettle grill fits all these needs, on a modest budget at that. You can set it up for high heat grilling, low heat barbecue, and just about anything in between, just by how you arrange your fuel. When you close the lid and arrange all your fuel to one side of the chamber, the parts of the chamber that are not over the fire heat very evenly, allowing you to cook things like pulled pork and brisket. The vents make it easy to control temperature by limiting or expanding the flow of oxygen to your fuel. Finally, there are numerous after-market accessories available to if you decide you want to expand your horizons, such as cast iron grates, pizza stones, inserts that make your grill into a pizza oven, etc. So you can start off with a small investment, and then build on piecemeal with accessories. I would recommend the 57cm model, as the 47cm one makes it difficult to cook with indirect heat. Link here: http://www.weberbbq.co.uk/product/one-touch-original/
Once you have your tools, make these sites your bibles:
http://tvwbb.com/
http://amazingribs.com/
Both are full of great information for making good food on the grill.
This is exactly how I got started. Eventually, after I felt proficient enough with my Weber grill, I purchased their Smokey Mountain smoker, as well as a couple of additional grills. It's become an obsession, and one that I have been able to get into fairly cheaply.
I'd definitely echo the Weber Kettle recommendation. It's a great first grill (heck, it's a great only grill). You can use it for grilling and smoking (I even smoke on the 47cm model). And it's a cinch to get set up and clean.
There are really three separate things that are encompassed by "American Style BBQ" plus your description.
Grilling - using medium to high direct heat to cook your food. Temperatures range from 350F (175C) to 600F (315C). For steaks and pizzas, you can also get in to very high temperatures 700F + (370C), but you're going to find that impossible at an entry level.
Smoking (short) - using low temperatures and smoke to cook your food. Temperatures between 200F (93C) - 350F (175C). Time less than 4 hours.
Smoking (long) - Same temp and technique as short, but times range from 4 - 12+ hours.
For all of these, you will need:
Grill tools - A spatula, fork, tongs, grill brush. You can use regular kitchen ones, but make sure their long so you can work safely with the hot grill and that they're metal (don't use a rubber spatula!). The grill brush is important to clean the grill before using.
Heat source - charcoal for any of them and wood for smoking. Get hard lump charcoal preferably. Do not, under any circumstances, use lighter fluid in this process (in the coals or adding it).
Starter - you need to light the coals to get started. A chimney is a great, cheap way to do this, but is not required. If you're using hard lump charcoal, you can dip paper towel in vegetable oil, nestle it in to your coals, and light it. It's cheap and easy, but might not work with normal charcoal. There are also electric heat elements that work great but are a bit gadget-y.
Cooking Implement - If you want to smoke primarily, then a dedicated smoker can have some advantages to a grill (like access to coals, better setup to pull smoke across the food, etc). The question is, which will you do more often, grill or smoke? You can definitely do both on Webber grill. If you want to do steaks and pizzas, you need to check that you can a) get enough coals to get proper temp and b) get your food close enough to the fire. If you go with a grill and want to smoke, get a grill grate that is hinged so that you can add more coals / wood to the fire without moving your food.
Thermometer - if you are smoking, you need a thermometer in your grill / smoker so that you can properly check grill temperature. You don't need this for grilling.
The distinction between long and short smoking is important for the gill / smoker. The longer the smoke time, the more work it is with entry level equipment. Still possible, but much more effort.
If you ever get serious about both grilling and smoking, I highly recommend A Big Green Egg (or any of it's competitors).
While certainly more expensive, the ProQ smoker that you link to has the advantage of versatility. As @SAJ14SAJ points out 'grilling' and 'barbecue' are often used interchangeably. If you remove the middle section of the ProQ you can use it for grilling, if you leave it in (as pictured) you can smoke with it. Again, leave it out and put a suitably sized pizza stone on the grill and you have an excellent pizza oven.
Something like the classic Weber kettle grill (per your link) is certainly well suited for grilling and can be used for smoking. To accomplish smoking using the Weber you need to properly bank your fire to one side, manage your cooking temperature (to keep it below @120°C (250°F)) which means keeping hot coals external to the Weber and adding them at the appropriate times. You should also add one aluminum dish to hold water to introduce steam in order to help regulate heat and prevent the drying of your meat. None of these consideration would I recommend for the 'beginner'. I can't speak to your budget, but I believe a beginner will get more out of the ProQ (or similar) equipment.
The "Chimney" starter is a nice accessory as it replaces the need to you use lighting fluid (either bottled or presoaked into your charcoal). Either way, you should let your coals reach a hot white ash stage before you begin grilling. This will achieve a consistent heating surface (rather like pre-heating your oven) and ensure that any and all starter fluid has burned off (if it was used).
The Food Network's US website (I believe they have a separate UK site) has a collection of videos from Bobby Flay, Alton Brown and others called "Grilling Essentials" which you should find informative and entertaining. Beyond that I suggest you search out other Bobby Flay videos on grilling.
BBQ is actually a hotly debated topic in the states, no pun intended. In several parts, BBQ refers to any outdoor grilling event, in which case you might want to know about all the different things that can be cooked over coals. These should be called cook-outs. There's little science behind grilling beef patties and sausages, it's easy enough for college graduates to understand. I'm sure Brits enjoy this as much as Americans do. However, in the heart of BBQ culture, BBQ is nothing like cook-outs. I'll assume you refer to the refined, Southern technique of slowcooking smoked meats.
First the hardware: If you have a lot of money, the best device for the job is a Traeger grill. However, there are ways of fashioning smokers out of basically any container (I'll echo the recommendation for Alton Brown's "Grilling Essentials" linked by @CosCallis). The key is being able to maintain a constant, low temperature for a very long period of time.
Then the software: A good BBQ sauce serves as a marinade, a basting solution, and a finishing sauce. These always have robust smokey, salty, sweet, sour, savory, and spicy notes, adjusted to the preference of the griller. Adobo, mesquite, worcestershire sauce, ketchup, apricot jelly, apple cider vinegar, soy sauce, tabasco sauce, honey, beer, and bourbon are all really common ingredients that are concocted for a homemade BBQ sauce.
Another important aspect of your software is wood for smoking. Applewood is probably the most popular smoking chip for BBQ, followed by mesquite and cedar. The wood adds a tremendous amount of flavor and aroma during the smoking process.
Temperature is really important. The philosophy of "low and slow" is essential to BBQ. Beef and pork can be smoked at 140*F (60*C) for as long as 18 hours to melt connective tissue and give a thick pink smoke ring in the meat as deep as 1" (a couple cm) the deepness of this pink ring is a crowning achievement of good BBQ. Poultry needs to be smoked at higher temps to kill salmonella. Fish can be cold smoked.
Cedar should never be used to smoke with. It produce many very nasty flavors. In general only hardwoods should be used: mesquite, pecan, oak, apple, etc. The popularity of woods varies by region. Around here mesquite and pecan are more often used. Apple not so much.
140F is too low for anything but creating a big ball of food poisoning! The typical smoking temperature for pork and beef are 220-240F (104-116*C).
All above comments are absolutely right. I admit I've only ever smoked fish. You will indeed need different wood (apple/hickory/mesquite/oak) and higher temps to kill the nasties. (internal temp needs to reach 160-180 for ~10 minutes before powering down).
There is a backyard barbecue, and then there is pit barbecue. Webber BBQ grills are for backyard barbecue - you are cooking meats and vegetables over open flames atop a metal grid. High heat, fairly quick cook times - sausages are great for this, especially if they're par-boiled first. There is an art and science to this, to put a decent char on the food without burning it or leaving the center raw. You need to learn when and how to turn the items, how to prepare them for the flame, and how to move them to an area where they'll receive heat indirectly to finish cooking.
For this, you'll need:
Kettle grill
Starter chimney
Decent quality charcoal
Crumpled Newspaper (to start the charcoal in the chimney)
Barbecue tools - traditionally a large flipper, tongs and meat fork.
Quick read thermometer
Pit barbecue is cooking meat through indirect heat and smoke, very slowly. This is how you'd prepare pulled pork and babyback ribs. This can be a very difficult cuisine to master - you need to understand how to prepare the meat for smoking and how to pair it with the correct sauce.
To get started, you'll need:
Smoker (Alton Brown and the internet shows you how to build your own on the cheap)
Quality hardwood chips/sawdust to produce the smoke
Large tongs or meat forks to turn the meat.
Quick read thermometer
Any grill can be used to make what you refer to as pit barbecue (though a Weber kettle does it better than most). One can easily cook several slabs of ribs or 15-20 pounds of pulled pork on a standard Weber kettle.
@SeanHart - This is true. You can also make a smoker out of a cardboard box and some sticks: http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Make-a-Cardboard-Smoker/
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12089 | How to deal with "no precooking required" lasagne sheets?
I've always been a bit suspicious of "no-precooking-required" lasagne sheets.
What are the benefits and detriments of these sheets?
What would happen if you ignore the instruction and cook them a little in any case? I tend to do so - am I wasting my time?
Lasagne typically need to cook in a hot oven for about 30 minutes. The main problem, as outlined by others in this thread, is the tendency of pasta sheets to dry up during this prolonged exposure to high temperatures.
To avoid this, I usually precook the sheets in slightly-salted boiling water for one minute (I just want to soften them, not cook them); a few oil drops in the boiling water should help preventing the sheets to stick to each other. Subsequently I drain the sheets and lay them on a clean cotton cloth to let the cooking water be absorbed while I attend the preparation of the sauces.
After lasagne are assembled in the pan, I cover it with aluminium foil and then put it in the oven to cook; after 20 minutes I remove the foil and let lasagne cook "naked" for the remaining 10 minutes.
Here are some pictures I took during the preparation of lasagne with crumbled sausages and mushrooms.
With this procedure, lasagne sheets retain most of the moisture, thus not needing an excessive amount of sauce to keep them hydrated.
I managed to obtain very good results even with Sainsbury's Value Lasagne Sheets (a brand of cheap "no precooking required" dry lasagne sheets commonly found in UK).
I don't think adding oil to the water will stop them from sticking
Generally speaking, me neither. Being Italian myself, I can confirm the uselessness of adding oil to prevent pasta from sticking. But in the case of lasagne sheets, it could be different given their much higher specific surface area compared to other pasta formats.
I don't have hard evidence supporting this theory and I'm a bit skeptikal myself (that's why I said "should help") but at least it shouldn't do any harm either since oil would be drained with the water anyway, without adding much fat to the dish.
And besides, I've learned the hard way to always stick to traditions and common knowledge when cooking :-)
For lasagne, it's probably irrelevant. For sauced pasta, adding oil is actually counterproductive, as it will prevent the sauce from clinging to the pasta.
They work fine. Here is an example of a vegetarian lasgana where I use them. The key is to make sure that there is plenty of well-seasoned liquid for them to absorb. You don't need to parboil them.
You can play it safe and precook them anyway.
@Aaronut: The hyperlink in the original source was of the form <href=..., not <a href=....
@Jefromi: So it was. Given that this is the second or third broken hyperlink I've seen in the past few days, I think it's sound advice to just use the Markdown instead, since it's much simpler.
I agree with the liquid recommendation: my lasagne sauce recipe yields a very thick, meaty sauce, and I've found that even 'no precooking required' sheets need a good hour to soften sufficiently, especially where there are multiple sheets overlapping.
Also, never attempt to use any sauce using an absorptive-type and/or coarse thickener (eg breadcrumbs, nut pastes/flours) with them, for any layer... the noodles will pull all the moisture they can from it and leave you with only the solids. Such sauces are problematic with all baked pasta, but especially so with no-boil noodles ...
Once again I will bring up America's Test Kitchen (AKA Cook's Illustrated). They like the no-boil sheets, but they have experienced some of the same problems already brought up here. To ameliorate those issues, they recommend soaking the sheets for 10 minutes in hot tap water before use. I've done it, it works great.
I do this too, based on CI's recommendation (they've never steered me wrong, and I'm a charter subscriber since the first issue in '83).
I prefer the flavor of fresh lasagna sheets over dried but between the different sorts of dried sheets I've not found there to be a big difference in "no-precooking-required" ones. I have however found that they vary a lot by brand.
The only thing I would say is that it can take a bit of trial and error to get a creamy texture with "no-precooking-required" ones as they soak up variable quantities of liquid depending on brand and how many layers you use so you can get a stodgy (but still delicious) finish. Dropping the layer count by one and adding extra sauce has worked for me.
I've been cooking lasagne for the past 15 years and never had a problem with instant sheets.
I use meat sauce, cheese sauce and the sheets, I cook for about 30-35 minutes in a moderate oven and stick a knife through the layers to check if it's done. Occasionally it will need an extra 5-10 minutes cooking time.
I love fresh pasta in every other instance but I find that dried sheets are a lot better for holding the shape of lasagne!
Do not boil the no-boil lasagna even for a minute. I did this and ruined every noodle. I can not unstuck them.
Sorry about your supper. Are you sure that "sticking" problem doesn't occur equally with both types (no-cook and cook) lasagne? that's my experience.
The no-boil noodles are par cooked by steaming; they will not tolerate boiling well.
No cook lasagne noodles are better than those that require parboiling. They shouldn't need to be soaked or cooked or parboiled. They DO need to be completely covered in sauce.
To do this, I use fewer of the ricotta and Bechamel layers, and more of the tomato sauce layers. I used to drain my tinned chopped tomatoes but now I add all the juice to my sauce and all the juice from the ground beef which I used to drain off.
If you test the lasagna when cooking by inserting a fork in several places you'll figure out how long it takes to bake it until the noodles are soft and it's hot through.
The biggest issue I've had with the no cook noodles is that it's difficult to find disposable foil pans to fit the noodles without having to break them. I make loads at a time (10 litres of tomato sauce, 5 1lb. Tubs ricotta etc.)
There are apparently flat precooked lasagne noodles without the ruffled edge but I've never seen them. My family and friends love my lasagne.
As an added note, I don't bake the lasagne right away unless I'm serving it that night. I usually freeze them without baking. I put plastic film on top and then foil with a taped on note to be sure to remove the plastic then put the foil back on before putting it into the oven.
The frozen lasagne takes at least an hour to cook in a convection oven (9x11" pan). I'd never go back to sticky wet lasagne noodles.
I used dry sheets in cooking but found them hard in places where perhaps the sauce had not reached them so decided next time to boil first as per the packet instructions for 10 mins. Most of them stuck together so ended up with about 50% not useable - a right pain. Give up - I will use fresh next time.
It is all about the sauce and the time. If you are boiling your pasta sheets [or if you have fresh ones] the lasagna will be done within 30 min baking time. However without boiling your sheets it would need rather an hour.
I am using a bit more sauce - making a ragù and using it generously. I also use a bechamel-ricotta mixture [first make the bechamel sauce and when done stir in ricotta until smooth] - and use it also generously. Mixing ricotta cheese and sauce together makes it very smooth [no usual graininess] - and you have more sauce - which your pasta sheet can soak up.
I made mine without parboiling the pasta sheets and it was like concrete. I suggest you parboil them for 2-5 mins so it can be soft but not cooked. But I am no professional, it's just my opinion. Hope it was good use.
I only ever use the packaged sheets. I cook them in a frying pan, not a saucepan. Start with hot tap water, no salt or oil added. About 3/4 heat. After 5 minutes, I use an egg lifter and slide between the sheets. Stops them sticking together. After 10 minutes, remove from stove and left one sheet out at a time and place on paper to towel to absorb excess water. Works well every time.
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14586 | How do I replace sugar with golden syrup in a cookie recipe?
I made Toll House Cookies using this recipe this recipe. They turned out fine, but you could feel the sugar crunching under your teeth (I used half brown, half normal granulated sugar). Next time I want to try for a more chewy texture and I read that this can be achieved by using golden syrup instead of sugar. What is a good ratio for replacing sugar in my recipe? I'm assuming that by adding syrup (= more liquid), I could be throwing off the balance between wet and dry ingredients. Also, should I use powdered sugar instead of granulated. Or maybe I just didn't cream my butter with sugar properly?
If you use golden syrup to make biscuits, they come out harder than they would with sugar, they don't come out chewy.
That's why most recipes for ginger nuts include syrup.
Corn syrup would give you the chewy texture you are seeking.
Alright, I'll try that. Any ideas how to go about replacing sugar for corn syrup in my recipe? Should I just do it 1:1 with granulated sugar?
Also, golden syrup will make your cookies cook faster be aware of it!
Hello Kiara, this got flagged as "not an answer". It is indeed very little information to go on. Can you elaborate how exactly to go about the substitution based on that?
The best way would be to substitute by weight: remove X grams of sugar, replace with X grams of syrup. However...
I think your real problem was with the brown sugar. Older brown sugar can develop lumps in it that don't cream properly, and stay as hard chunks in the finished cookie. I look out for these lumps while creaming the butter, and crush them with the back of a spoon to break them up. If your sugar has a lot of these lumps, you might consider either sifting it before use, or blitzing it in a food processor.
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104226 | Do fresh herbs have properties that dried herbs do not?
I previously asked a question on if fresh chilli peppers have properties that ground/dried chlli peppers do not and the answer was the latter would have no oils, aroma, vitamin c etc.
What about the case for fresh vs dried herbs such as parsley, tyme, oregano. Do they have oils, aromas any other properties that are lost when using them dried?
Yes. Buy some dried Cilantro sometime. It might as well be dry lawn clippings.
The answer is the same for herbs as you got for chili - you lose vitamins (not that you will get much from the amount of herbs usually used in cooking anyway) and some volatile compounds, which are the bits that make the flavors. In general you can expect to use about 2-3 times as much fresh herb as you would dried to get the same level of flavoring in a dish. Note that this amount of dried herb is equivalent to a larger amount of fresh herb as dried has shrunk as it lost water.
The degree to which the herb loses flavor when dried varies depending on the species of herb and most likely is a function of which aromatic compounds are present (i.e. how volatile they are) and how easy it is for them to escape the leaf (toughness of leaf). Some herbs, like sage and oregano, hold their flavor fairly well, while others, like basil and cilantro/coriander, lose their flavor very rapidly and should only be used fresh.
In my experience, if you are only able to get dried herbs, only get those that are whole leaf or crumbled. Do not get the powder ones, as these lose flavor very rapidly, indeed by the time they get to the store they are often almost flavorless. The same principle applies to spices too - whole is better than ground for storage and retention of flavor.
There are some herbs, like bay-leaf, that are best dried as it concentrates the flavor, but these are a rarity. This doesn't appear to be the case for spices, which are generally dried before use, but this may have something to do with many of the spices only growing in tropical areas and needing drying for storage while shipping rather than fresh spices not being good for cooking.
The only spices I can think of you can get in both forms are ginger/galangal - completely different beasts dried to fresh; & turmeric, which has become available in the UK in the past couple of years, which is murder to work with, as like ginger you must peel it first… & suffer yellow fingers for a week, or wear gloves. The end result i can't say I noticed the difference to be sufficient to warrant trying it again. Chillies, of course, have different purposes dried or fresh & I think we've all got used to where each best fits.
2-3 times more dried over fresh? I think that's supposed to be the other way around.
@Rob in a sense you're both right. Twice as much fresh as dried is certainly a good guideline, but that amount of dried herb will have come from even more fresh. This shrinkage is only really apparent if you dry your own herbs; if you buy them dried, you generally need less than fresh, or the same amount in some cases.
@Rob - whoops, you are quite right. Edited to fix.
Do fresh herbs contain oils like seeds do?
@JamesWilson Yes, though the amount depends on the herb type - rosemary contains (relatively) lots, while something like oregano lower amounts.
Bay leaves depend on what type of bay tree you have. If they are classic Turkish bay (laurel nobilis), then the leaves are more potent fresh. If it's the California bay tree, the leaves are better dried.
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85175 | Reformulating a rolled cookie recipe to reduce distortion of design
I want to make homemade oreo-type cookies using an embossed roller with a recipe I've used and love, but it puffs too much to keep the detail. Brave tart's oreo cookies are the look I'm after, but her recipe has far less cocoa and chocolate. Is it possible to change this recipe to avoid spreading and puffing?
Here's the recipe:
Homemade Oreo Cookies
Source: Flour Bakery, via Boston Globe
1 cup (2 sticks/228 grams) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
¾ cup (150 grams) granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup (200 grams) semisweet chocolate chips, melted and cooled slightly
1 egg
1½ cups (210 grams) unbleached all-purpose flour
¾ cup (90 grams) Dutch-processed cocoa powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
In a medium bowl, whisk together the butter and granulated sugar until well combined. Whisk in the vanilla and chocolate. Add the egg and whisk until thoroughly incorporated.
In another medium bowl, stir together the flour, cocoa powder, salt, and baking soda until well mixed. Using a wooden spoon, stir the flour mixture into the chocolate mixture. The dough will start to seem too floury, and you will find it easiest to switch to mixing it with your hands until it comes together. It will have the consistency of Play-Doh. Let the dough sit at room temperature for about 1 hour to firm up.
Transfer the dough to a 15-inch square sheet of parchment or waxed paper. Using your hands, shape the dough into a rough log about 10 inches long and 21/2 inches in diameter. Place the log at the edge of the sheet of parchment paper, and roll the parchment around the log. With the log fully encased in parchment, roll it into a smoother log, keeping it at 21/2 inches in diameter. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or until firm. The log may settle and sink a bit in the fridge, so reroll it every 15 minutes or so to maintain a nice round log, if you like. If not, your cookies will be more oblong than round, which is not a bad thing taste-wise, though they won’t look like the famous packaged cookie. (At this point, the dough log can be well wrapped in plastic wrap and stored in the refrigerator for up to 1 week or in the freezer for up to 1 month. If the dough is frozen, thaw overnight in the refrigerator before proceeding.)
Position a rack in the center of the oven, and heat the oven to 325 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or butter it.
Cut the dough log into 1/4-inch-thick slices. Place the slices about 1 inch apart on the prepared baking sheet.
Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the cookies are firm to the touch. Check them frequently after 16 or 17 minutes, poking them in the middle. As soon as they feel firm to the touch, remove them from the oven. You can’t judge by color because they start out black. Let cool on the baking sheet on a wire rack to warm or room temperature.
For reference, here's Brave Tart's recipe, via Serious Eats:
Ingredients
For the Chocolate Wafers:
4 ounces unsalted butter (about 8 tablespoons; 115g), creamy and soft, about 68°F (20°C)
3 1/2 ounces sugar (about 1/2 cup; 100g)
2 ounces golden syrup (about 3 tablespoons; 55g), such as Lyle’s
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon (1g) Diamond Crystal kosher salt; for table salt, use about half as much by volume or the same weight
1/4 teaspoon coconut extract (optional)
5 3/4 ounces bleached all-purpose flour (about 1 1/4 cups, spooned; 165g), such as Gold Medal
1 1/4 ounces Dutch-process cocoa powder (about 1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon; 35g), such as Cacao Barry Extra Brute, plus more for dusting
For the Filling:
6 ounces unsalted butter (about 12 tablespoons; 170g)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt
8 1/2 ounces powdered sugar (about 2 cups plus 1 tablespoon; 240g)
Directions
For the Chocolate Wafer Dough: Combine butter, sugar, golden syrup, baking soda, salt, and coconut extract (if using) in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Mix on low speed to moisten, then increase to medium and beat until fluffy and light, about 5 minutes, pausing to scrape bowl and beater about halfway through.
Sift flour and cocoa together. (If using cup measures, spoon into the cups and level with a knife before sifting.) With mixer running on low speed, sprinkle flour/cocoa mixture into butter mixture. It will seem dry and mealy at first, but continue mixing to form a smooth dough. Knead against sides of bowl to form a smooth ball, then divide in half and flatten into disks. Use immediately or wrap in plastic and refrigerate up to 1 week; soften cold dough 30 minutes at room temperature, then knead on a bare surface until pliable and smooth.
For the Wafers: Adjust oven rack to middle position and preheat to 350°F (180°C). On a cocoa-dusted surface, roll a portion of dough into a 7-inch square. Sprinkle both sides with cocoa and roll until 1/4 inch thick; generously dust with cocoa and continue rolling to 1/8 inch (see note). Alternatively, roll dough to 1/8 inch using an embossed pin. Slide an offset spatula under dough to loosen, brush away excess cocoa, and stamp into 1 1/2–inch rounds.
Arrange on a parchment-lined aluminum baking sheet, leaving 1/4 inch between wafers. Gather scraps, knead, re-roll, and cut as before. Repeat with remaining dough as well. Any remaining scraps can be discarded or baked to grind for crumbs. Bake until wafers are firm and dry, about 15 minutes, and cool to room temperature on the baking sheet. Fill immediately or store in an airtight container up to 1 week at room temperature.
Have you tried Brave Tart's recipe? Having less chocolate doesn't necessarily mean that the flavor won't be there.
How did you measure things? By weight or by volume? (volume is notoriously unreliable unless the recipe or cookbook give specific details on how to measure it (scoop & sweep, spoon & sweep, etc. Even then it's not great)
I haven't made them but Stella Parks (BraveTart) claims that her cookies are "bonkers chocolatey". She tweeted, in response to your question:
My homemade Oreos are bonkers chocolatey due to the high fat Dutch cocoa involved; if they didn’t turn it that way, I’d blame crappy cocoa.
It's unclear whether you made the recipe or not but I think you should try it. Having more chocolate doesn't necessarily mean that it will taste more chocolatey. High quality chocolate used the right way will make a stronger flavor than more, low-quality chocolate.
She also pointed out that the percentages of the two recipes are very different.
The bakers % of those 2 recipes are v diff, so OP isn’t looking at the whole picture.
And she's right. I'm not an expert in interpreting baking percentages but there's a lot of difference between the two. Stella's recipe is more of a cracker/biscuit (UK). There's no egg in the recipe, not much moisture at all, so there's not much to spread. As such, the cookies are rolled and cut out and retain their stamped designs.
The other recipe is more like a cake (and the images support that interpretation); liquid egg, liquid chocolate... melted butter. They're rolled into a tube and sliced. This leads to a leavened, puffy cookie that spreads, ruining any design.
There may be a way to adjust the Flour Bakery recipe but I think you might find it simpler to start by trying BraveTart's recipe (using a good quality cocoa powder) and seeing what you think.
I have not made Brave Tart's recipe, but I can see that's the best next step, especially since it was the picture in her book I got for my birthday, along with the gorgeous embossing roller, that was the inspiration for this post. I'll be making these for our annual church tea for 500 ladies, and I want to get it right! Thanks, Stella, Joe and Catija for your swift and seasoned advice.
Glad to help! If you find you want help adjusting Stella's recipe after you test it out, feel free to come back and ask a new question! I hope your tea is lovely!
I wonder if you could bake these cookies like springerle. That recipe calls for molding the cookies, then allowing them to dry on the baking sheet (at room temperature) for 8–12 hours before baking. This gives them a hardened exterior that will hold the details of the design during baking. The exact drying time depends on the recipe, room temperature, room humidity, etc., so it's best to try baking a few test cookies every few hours until you find the correct time.
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28963 | How can i decorate homemade dog biscuits?
I made a batch of dog biscuits for a Christmas gift, and I want to write the dog's name on them with colored sprinkles. The biscuits are the texture of over-baked sugar cookies. Does anyone have an idea of how I can get crystal sprinkles to stick without using a sugar glaze? Or another idea for a pretty way to put the dog's name on the cookies?
I am afraid this counts as off-topic :( See http://meta.cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/1108/would-a-question-regarding-making-homemade-pet-kitten-cat-food-be-considered-o
You could use egg whites, well beaten, (from pasteurized eggs), and a fine tipped squeeze bottle or a narrow paint brush to apply it, then sprinkle and let it dry.
They also make those tubes of icing sugar to decorate cookies that come in all kinds of colors. They look like small tubes of toothpaste and some are even sugar free in this kind of gel form that you can write/decorate very easily with. I've seen them in the baking isle of a well stocked grocery store but also can be found for sure at a craft store such as michaels or AC Moore.
Thank you all for giving me such great ideas before my question got closed!! :)
I ended up using a sugar-free gel to write on some of the cookies, and for others, I got egg whites from a carton (the only pasteurized ones available). I tried painting the whites free-hand, but because the biscuits are dark brown, I couldn't see the whites, so I cut a template of the name on cardboard, and used that as a guide for both brushing on the egg whites and pressing on colored sugar crystals. All turned out cute, and I'm sure would work well on people cookies, too! :)
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29654 | Is it okay to bake caramel pudding rather than steaming it?
I have a simple recipe for caramel pudding. It says to steam the pudding mix until it's set. It's a somewhat old recipe I've never tried before.
So, rather than steaming (which is very time consuming), can I use my oven instead? And what temperature and time would be preferable? Since the recipe only asks me to steam, I'm thinking of baking it for about 45 mins at 120°C.
Are you using the "pudding" in the US sense of a custard also thickened with starch, or in the British sense of what in the US is called in general a dessert? By steaming, what exactly do you mean? You may wish to post the recipe. If it is a US-meaning pudding, and the steaming is stove-top cooking with contant stirring, yes, you can convert to baking, but you would have to determine the time based on the container size, and a water bath would be advisable.
It's the latter. I'm gonna go with baking. :) thanks by the way.
It sounds like http://www.squidoo.com/steamed-puddings, which are known for being steamed. I had a number of microwave versions when I was in the UK, complete with caramel sauce, as they were cheap and tasty.
I haven't seen your recipe, but from looking at others, steamed pudding takes on the order of a couple hours of steaming. Doing it in the oven won't be any faster or less boring than steaming it - it may even be slower, since heat transfer from steam is pretty efficient. 45 minutes at 120°C would probably leave it undercooked, and if you cook at a higher temperature, you'll be missing the point - steaming for a long time lets it cook slowly and more evenly. You could work out how to cook it hotter and faster, but it wouldn't be a steamed pudding anymore, it'd be a "normal" pudding.
If you want to do it in the oven, you should use a water bath to keep it from getting too hot - put the vessel with the pudding into a larger vessel, and add water to come most of the way up the sides of the pudding. Then you can increase the temperature of the oven, perhaps to 150-175°C, without overheating the pudding. But I doubt you'll be able to get the cooking time very much less than the original cooking time with steam without significantly changing the results.
Finally (thanks Elendil), steaming helps keep the pudding moist, and an oven even with a water bath is not a terribly humid environment, so it might still be drier than desired. Covering tightly, and possibly adding a tiny bit more liquid, might help with that.
Steaming also serves to make the pudding very moist. Doubt you'd get that even with a bain marie
@ElendilTheTall I was thinking that, but the things I saw showed the pudding fairly sealed, so I wasn't sure how much moisture got in.
@ElendilTheTall and Jefromi, thank you. will see what happens :)
@Sid It will probably still be good, it just won't be quite the same as if you'd steamed it, so you might want to take the couple hours sometime so you know what to compare it to!
It's not so much about moisture getting in as no moisture getting out.
@ElendilTheTall Ah - the couple recipes I looked at had you cover it when steaming too, so I figured if it was about keeping it in, you'd just do the same in the oven and be fine.
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74600 | What to do with left over rejuvelac grains
I have been making rejuvelac from wheat berries in order to make vegan cheese. After I am through with the rejuvelac, I have been throwing away the wheat berries. I tried to find something else I could do with them. The only things I saw were to grow wheat grass or dehydrate them.
I don't wish to grow wheat grass and do not have a dehydrator.
Is there anything else I could do?
Generally, "what can I do with _____" questions are off topic here, though we do sometimes make exceptions for very unusual ingredients. I think this may fall into that exception but I want to warn you that the community may close this question.
You could incorporate them into a sprouted grain bread?
A quick Google search came up with several ideas, one of which is making bread as @SourDoh mentions in his comment. Others include making crackers or drying until crunchy and using as a salad topping.
I love croutons in my salad, but I don't want to use refined flour products. I mix sprouted grains with a cashew cream blend, add some miso, kimchi, veggie mix left from my juicer, nutritional yeast flakes and herbs, mix it all together and dehydrate at under 104 degrees for a day, flip it over to dh another day and then crumble it up in a zip lock bag with a food grade desiccant packet. The chunks make awesome croutons!
I’ve just seen this. It says you can use your Rejuvelac sprouts to make the bread
http://www.living-foods.com/recipes/wigmore.html
Discard or compost them in a legal manner
Unfortunately, your post does not answer the question. The OP specifically states that he wants to use the leftover grains rather than throw them away.
Composting the spent ingredient is a perfectly legitimate use that does not just put then down the garbage disposal or send them to fill up the landfill.
I dunno, I see where you're coming from, but I think this is mostly just saying what the best way to not use them is, rather than how to use them in the kitchen. We get a fair number of questions like this, and I don't know that we need "compost them" as an answer on every one.
There are many questions here that are going to receive answers the questioner dos not want to hear or listen to. It is the nature of the problem they are asking to resolveThere is no 'good' use for something that is essentially garbage.
OK, put them in a bowl, add 'vegan' milk and a sweentener that is acceptavble to your lifestyle/diet then eat them. They might taste very good.
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15375 | What sauce can I just to de-sweeten a cheesecake?
Just made a cherry and raspberry cheesecake with a digestive biscuit base but it's too sweet and I need a sauce to go with it to take that sweetness away
Can anyone help?
I'd make a simple raspberry coulis by blending fresh raspberries with a little water in a blender, with perhaps a touch of sugar depending on their natural sweetness, then passing the results through a sieve to remove the pips. No need to get fancy, the cheesecake is the main event!
Sounds like a good plan, but unless the berries are very tart, I'd modify slightly by adding a splash of lemon or lime juice to perk up the tartness level.
Yes. Supermarket berries around my way are almost always tart. Adjust tartness as necessary, Louisa!
Sour neutralizes sweet and vice versa. So you want to make a sour sauce with almost no sugar.
The obvious idea is to use a fruit based sauce. Citrus goes really well with strawberries and cherries. Lemon, lime or maybe grapefruit juice should work well as base. Mix them with water to the desired acidity and thicken them with pectin or starch. Add zests for aroma. If you want a dairy based sauce, add a fermented product (yogurt, buttermilk or sour cream), milk or cream will curdle.
If you prefer it more exotic, you can make a zabaglione with a very dry wine (leave out most of the sugar).
I don't feel that bitter can mask sweet and vice versa, but many people seem to think so. If you are one of those (e. g. if you sense coffee as less bitter when it has sugar), you can make a bitter sauce. Bitter chocolate, cocoa powder (preferably non dutch) and coffee can be combined with milk or cream to produce a good sauce. If it has to be thickened, use starch again, or add mascarpone.
You can also divert from the sweetness by using an unusual, strong taste. It will dominate the sweet pudding and attract the attention to itself. For that, you could use a hot sauce (e. g. by adding cayenne to either a fruit based or chocolate based sauce). Or you could make a non salted pesto with a fresh herb. A comination of peppermint, almonds, almond oil and some lemon juice could work well, but something more unusual for a sweet dish would be better, like basil. Whatever you choose here, it is very daring, and it is easy to create a combination which won't work. So only try it out if you don't mind a fail or two. Else, stick to the sour or bitter sauces.
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77499 | How can I grind sesame seeds in my coffee grinder better?
When I grind sesame alone or with flax seeds, I can see that many of the sesame seeds are not ground.
When I grind several things together including sesame, flax seeds and mixed nuts, like walnuts, almonds, and cashews, the powder becomes more stuck together, and I can't see unground sesames.
Does the second way indeed grind sesame seeds finer or are the unground sesame seeds hidden in the powder?
My coffee grinder is KRUPS F203 Electric Spice and Coffee Grinder with Stainless Steel Blades, 3-Ounce, Black:
Ground hulled sesame seeds form a paste - tahini. There is probably too much oil in the sesame seeds to get a dry powder.
The reason your mix is becoming sticky when you mix nuts with your sesame is that you are making the nuts into a butter before your grinder can reach the small seeds. You should try grinding the sesame by itself, however try and pack the grinder as much as allowed. That way you'll allow the blade to always be working on something. Also make sure to scrape the sides and mix a couple of times in the process.
Hope this helps :)
I did that recently by first slowly roasting the sesame seeds in a frying pan over low heat. When the roasting is done, you let the seeds cool down. Then you grind. It works well.
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20728 | What is the origin of spam musubi, a Hawaiian dish?
I love spam musubi...basically spam sushi. It is made with some rice(some people use sushi rice)' a 1/4" slice of spam, and some teriyaki sauce...it is wrapped with a sheet of nori. This is the basic recipe.
How was this first conceived? I know that the Hawaiians are the biggest consumers of spam (chicken/egg problem? Did the creation of spam musubi help the Hawaians become the second largest consumers (Guam is first) of spam? :) ). There's also a large presence of Japanese on the islands. You can see that the environment is essentially set up for some sort of fusion of the two cultures.
Who was the first to conceive this dish?
I've noticed a good amount of Hawaiian cuisine is similar to Japanese cuisine
I've found some good info here.
According to author Ann Kondo Corum, Mitsuko Kaneshiro first made spam musubi for her children, but then started selling them out of City Pharmacy on Pensacola Street in Mo'ili'ili. By the early 1980s, she was selling 500 a day
Spam became prevalent in the US occupied Pacific islands during World War 2 since fresh meat was difficult to procure at the time. Since it was a primary food staple, it was incorporated into various dishes, and has remained a popular food. Spam musubi is just an an extension of this. Making do with the meat available to create a tasty dish, obviously influenced in this case by Japanese culture.
I think you provide some good background information but it doesn't answer his question per se.
Answers the part of why Hawaii and Guam are such large consumers of Spam, and why it was conceived - Milesmeow's answer definitely tackles the actual origin of the dish.
The garden island news paper Kauai has a story about a lady named Barbara Funimura that first made them over 30 years ago for her restaurant Joni-Hana. They later with friends created what we call "musubi makers"
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69362 | How can you make better tasting water with Silver Pulver and Mocca Master?
I want to make great water. My process
Filter water first through Brita
Put silver pulver to paper filter in Mocca Master.
Experience the taste and adjust the amount of silver pulver.
Here one publication in African setting, but it is about bacteria. I am interested in using Silver to make better taste in water because of positive feedback from my friends about the topic.
How can you make water taste better with Silver Pulver in Mocca Master?
I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it's not about cooking, but water purification.
It is about making good water, not just water purification. The problem is that you cannot purify too much, and I would like to understand how you can make good water from dirty tap water.
I understand what you are asking for @Masi, I'm just saying this isn't the right forum to ask it.
@GdD I made it now clearer. I am interested in making good taste of water, not about purification itself. I would like to use silver there because of good experiences from my colleaques.
@GdD Why would it be off topic? It is the preparation of a beverage for consumption, so cooking. (OK, in English "cooking" does not strictly cover beverages, but we have always had them in scope).
Yes, and good water, you need in every quality food. I want great water.
"good water" is different than "taste good" and "taste good" is subjective.
What is silver pulver?
@Paparazzi Some pulver form containing some amount of silver.
So does silver pulver taste good? Do you add it to other foods?
If you want water that was as pure as possible, and your contamination consists of solids or dissolved salts, you need to distill it - if that yields great taste is another matter, and using distilled water as a drink is the topic of a health controversy (would be safe for cooking in any case).
If the contamination is of dissolved gasses or hydrocarbons (organic solvents, volatile odors) activated charcoal might be your best bet (but neither charcoal nor distillation will guarantee that an UNSAFE contamination with such is dealt with!).
Silver tends to produce very unpleasant smelling compounds when corroding, so it might not really help....
What are those compounds? Can you be please more specific? They are probably only with too high concentrations of silver.
SIlver sulfide. The black stuff in tarnish. If actually disturbed, smells like burnt rubber and foul eggs. Luckily not very soluble in water.
How do you get silver sulfide? Is it with high temperature? Then, probably coffee machine is not the optimal with silver. What do you think about silver with cold water? Can you point to any source about the unpleasant smelling compounds when filtering. I have never done it so I do not know.
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69360 | Absorb precipitates when heating water in a microwave?
I boil filtered water. I notice much precipitates in the water after heating it up in microwave. I would like to remove them, and I am thinking the ways do it.
Ways
some absorbing stone etc ...
some specific rough ceramic bowl to which those precipitates attach to (I think this is the best bet)
material of the bowl?
How can you remove precipitates in water after its heating in microwave?
Which material would you use for the bowl?
I would simply filter them out. A coffee filter should take care of even the finest minerals.
I doubt that you can effectively do it while boiling. Even if you give them sites to attach to, a lot will stay afloat.
Great idea! I think I need to buy one Mocca Master because I do not have yet one - for good coffee! I am just interested in how hot the water becomes in Mocca Master. It is not boiling there. So it may be problematic. Hmm - I must think further which coffee machine to buy. Do you have any recommendations for safe water boiling?
By definition, precipitates fall to the bottom of the container.
Therefore, the standard procedure is simply to decant the liquid -- pour the liquid off the top, without pouring out the last little bit which contains the solids.
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15304 | How do I keep my bread pudding from collapsing?
I'm using my mom's bread pudding recipe which is:
2 1/2 Cups of Bread Bits
2 Eggs
1 Cup of Milk
1 Tsp of Vanilla
1 Tsp of Cinnamon
1/2 Cup of Sugar
I doubled the recipe and put it into two pans and baked it for 45 minutes. It rose quite a bit, but as soon as I pulled it out of the oven it collapsed like a dying star.
Is there anyway to keep it from collapsing?
It produced a singularity? Awesome!
For the record, most stars actually get extremely large before collapsing. I suggest avoiding this as red pudding giants will certainly require a thorough oven cleaning, and pudding supernovae will require a scrubbing of the entire room, bordering on power washing. Also, when baking supernovae in the oven, it is advisable to wear eye protection.
A souffle by any other name will fall as quick.
(Sorry, I couldn't resist). But this is absolutely normal, there is nothing in this recipe to support the structural integrity of cooling air bubbles. You can reduce the amount of rising, which will result in a smaller collapse. To do this, beat the mixture less (prepare it by hand instead with a mixer to be sure) and ensure slower, more even heating in the oven. But of course, the collapse will occur.
There is some advice floating around which is supposed to reduce the falling rate of souffles. You could try following it even if your recipe doesn't involve whipping the eggwhites. It involves things like not crowding the oven and carefully buttering the form, usually with layers of butter and sugar (or parmesan for savory souffles). It won't hurt to use them. But don't expect a risen pudding after it has cooled.
Update. I read Charlotte Farley's answer and thought that it would be great if it works. I had a hunch that it might not, but it would be so awesome if it helps! So I made the experiment.
I made the bread pudding exactly per the recipe given here. I didn't separate the eggs, but took care to whip them for a long time before adding the milk, to ensure a good rise. I baked it in silicon muffin cups, exactly 5 gram of bread and 45 gram of egg mixture per cup. After 45 min at 150°C, I quickly removed three cups from the oven and left the remaining three cups there for another 45 min. As a control, I used a simple cheese souffle (basically a mornay sauche with whipped egg whites) and repeated the procedures, using 50 g mixture per cup and baking for 20 min at 175°C.
The results:
These are the bread puddings. The directly removed are in the lower row, the ones which remained in the oven are in the upper row. I didn't measure them, but they are nearly the same height. In the oven, all had risen maybe 1 cm over the cup edges, so they all lost ~50% of their oven height. The first group collapsed the second they were out of the oven, the others deflated slowly in the oven, but were already low when I took them out.
I weighed both groups after cooling. The "direct from the oven group" weighed 116 g, or 11.3 g average moisture loss per pudding. The "left in oven group" weighed 101 g, or 16.3 g average moisture loss per pudding. When I tried them, I liked the moister ones better, but both groups were OK. Neither was unacceptably dry or egg-white-rubbery.
These are the cheese soufflés. They rose more in the oven, to maybe 2.5-3 cm above the cup edges. Again, directly removed ones are in the bottom row, the oven cooled ones are in the top row. There is no visible difference, they all seem deflated to the same size. The weight results are similar as in the bread pudding case: 122 g for the three directly removed souffles, 109 g for the oven cooled ones. Again, I felt that the moister ones tasted better, but this could be a subjective preference. I wouldn't consider the oven-cooled ones "bad" on their own.
Conclusion: The slow oven cooling doesn't work :(
Estimated 5000 calories worth of egg dishes plus a small package of American bread (opened) available for free, collect in person only.
Hmm ... so now you have to try for group #3 -- turning off the oven early, so the moisture loss is equal to those that were removed on time. Yay, scientific method!
@Joe I don't see a reason for that. Had the slowcooling method worked, this would have been a good shot at making it better. But as using it doesn't help, I don't see the point in refining it. Still, if you insist, I can try it and post the results. Just give me some time, I've had enough baked eggs for a while.
The eggs are the only thing that provides support, steam from the milk is what causes the puddings to rise, cooling the puddings causes the steam to condense, and the pudding collapses.
You are using your mother's recipe. If your mother produced puddings that looked like the "risen" version of yours, there is only one answer - she cooled the puddings very slowly.
I would try transferring the puds to the bottom of the oven at the end of 45min, turning the oven off and allowing the puds to cool slowly as the oven cools. If you want to prevent charring, cover them with aluminium foil at this point.
This is a very interesting idea. My theoretical objections would be that 1) the egg proportion must be quite high for that to function, 2) this is very likely to dry out the eggs terribly. But I don't know if any of these will occur in practice. I am actually tempted to make the recipe just to see what happens.
Actually you may try this.
The egg custard treaded like making a “Royal”(look it up if you don’t know what that is)
Bake it slower like 325° instead of 350°. Yes ,bake on lower Rack.
Make sure you cream the eggs for about 5 minutes before adding the milk (or half and half)
Don’t over bake.turn off oven let it finish in the remaining heat then cool to room temp in oven.
Same as one does with cheese cake.
Serve pudding with any Sauce you like.I use butter/rum banana.Vanilla Sauce.Chantilly Sauce.
Yes,All three.
It’s more festive that way
I have never had bad luck making bread pudding — I prefer to put my bread pudding dowm at the bottom of the oven, and turn the heat off. I find that doing that makes the bread pudding not fall as much, and additionally, the moisture is great.
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19687 | Can black pudding be stored long-term?
A local restaurateur and friend of mine is making black puddings, and I am trading him a christmas pudding for one of his black puddings. I was considering saving it for a month or two.
Can I freeze it? Is it shelf stable like a hard sausage or bologna would be?
Black pudding freezes very well and should keep for a couple of months easily. It is not cured like salamis or other hard sausages, it's just boiled in the skin, so it does not keep as well at ambient temperatures.
When you do cook it, try it with pork tenderloin, mashed potato and fresh apple sauce. Just fry half-inch slices. Fantastic.
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18346 | Is there a substitute for aluminum foil?
Is there a replacement that can be used for aluminum foil in the oven?
I don't want to foil in my kitchen. Is there an alternative which can be used in the same way as aluminum foil, but has no risk of transferring aluminum to the food?
For example, what can I use to cover a meatloaf when baking it in the oven? Or in a slow cooker?
Dear Shirley, welcome to the site. We do not discuss health topics here (see our [faq]), so the question as you had written it would have likely been closed. I edited it heavily, but I think I could preserve the actual culinary question here: what can you use instead of alu foil. Whatever alternatives we can offer, it is up to your own views on health to decide if they count as a "good healthy alternative" or not. (For example, to my knowledge no study has ever linked dietary aluminum to Alzheimer, although journalists have misinterpreted studies measuring alu deposits in the body that way).
Why aren't you using the lid on your slow cooker?
I've seen actual tin foil available for sale a few times. It's not nearly as easy to find as aluminum foil, and may not be available at all in some locations. I believe it's also thicker than aluminum foil, and tears/breaks more easily. It can also add a tinny taste to food. So the answers provided below are likely better solutions anyway. :)
The reason you put aluminum foil on something you bake is to block some of the heat. More specifically, you want to block the heat transfer by radiation. This is, you only want some kind of infrared-opaque shield between the heating elements and the food. Of course, it has to be also non-flammable at oven temperatures and either washable or environmentally friendly and cheap, making it one-use.
The best solution is to bake like generations of people did before there was freshly milled aluminum foil available in the supermarket: Get a clay bräter, or a tagine, or a dutch oven. Anything with a lid that is big enough to fit in your oven. Bake your food in it. It is slower, but gives you a much better taste due to slower, more even heating.
The second best solution would be to get some other stuff intended for baking, and use it as a cover. The problem is that baking paper as per Rikon's suggestion is probably not opaque enough in the infrared range - at least it is translucent in the visible spectrum. Maybe two layers of it will do, but it will get hard to work with, because it doesn't hold shape as well as aluminum foil. You could try it if you think it will help. I think that a silicone mat is more promising. It is preferable to use a light colored one of the light glossy platinum silicone - I have a black matte one which is great for rolling dough, but it will probably absorb and re-radiate too much heat.
Both solutions can't beat aluminum in one application: targeted charring protection. For a cake baked in an oven which overheats one corner there is still a chance - if your mat can be cut, you can cover half the cake with the piece (some mats shouldn't be cut because they are internally reinforced with something which shouldn't come into contact with food - if in doubt, contact the manufacturer). But if you are baking a whole bird and the protruding wings are getting overcooked, I don't see a good way to pack them in silicone or baking paper and get it to stay on them while the rest of the bird cooks. There, you will probably have to pack them in bread dough and then just break off the dough when the bird is ready.
I have never made meatloaf in a slow cooker - I didn't even know that you can bake in one - so I won't comment on that part.
I found this link about this subject : http://www.whistlepighollow.com/2013/06/16/7-ways-to-replace-aluminum-foil-in-your-kitchen/ It may be useful.
Some suggestions you will find :
(1) Covering dishes during/after baking. Dishes that need to be covered during baking can be accommodated by purchasing a casserole dish with a glass lid [...]
(2) Lining baking sheets during roasting. I’m not a huge roaster, but when I roast veggies, I just use a glass pan [...]
[...]
(5) Grilling veggies. Grilled veggies are delicious, and we’d often make a little veggie packet out of foil to throw right on the grill. There’s an easy fix for this though- just get a stainless steel grilling basket [...]
(6) Covering large birds (turkeys) while oven roasting to prevent uneven cooking and browning. To learn how to avoid foil next Thanksgiving, I had to seek the knowledge of the Chef Talk forum. I learned there are two ways to avoid covering your bird with foil. (1) As one person said, “before there was aluminum foil, folks used cheesecloth and basting.” Soak cheesecloth in ghee, rendered chicken fat, or oil, cover bird, and baste frequently. (2) Alternately, you can turn the bird frequently. [...]
[...]
The (6) may answer to your question I think
I have started to use a layer of baking paper on the food side and put a layer of aluminum foil over that to protect the paper from burning and help holding it in place. That way you have the radiation barrier and avoid contact between your food and the foil.
Unless the papir specifically states it is without conservatives or similiar, there is no guarantee that this is a much healthier solution.
I would go with parchment paper... Here's the wikipedia article on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parchment_paper_(baking)
I would experiment with it and make sure it fits for your specific scenarios... For instance I typically use it with baking, but I have never tried (and don't think it would work) in a slow cooker.
Parchment paper will smoke and burn eventually; it's not good for long or high oven heat.
I use round cast iron pots with lid. Place round rack in bottom for drainage. Put in meat loaf or other. Put on lid & bake. A roaster pan will also work with lid & rack in bottom. Moisten top of meat, or meat loaf put sauce on before baking. You might try a dutch oven with rack & expand from there.
Just found these rectangular silicone lids.
Just use a Carbon steel or stainless cookie sheet it works great, if you need to wrap the food in the oven then you can get the parchment paper as well.
In almost all cases, you can't use a cookie sheet. The parchment suggestion doesn't add anything to the existing answers.
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76510 | Is "vanilla extract" the same as "pure vanilla extract"?
My cookie recipe says to use 1 tsp of vanilla extract. I have "pure* vanilla extract. Do I still use 1 tsp of it or should I use less?
Isn't vanilla extract usually pure? I'm not familiar with diluted vanilla extract.
@Erik usually they say "pure" to separate it from "imitation". :)
Just as long as it isn't "premium" vanilla extract; boy, do I hate that word...
Vanilla extract and pure vanilla extract mean the same thing. Artificially flavored vanilla extract is also used the same way, with the same measurements.
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75759 | Substitute baking containers
I have a three-wheat batter bread recipe that calls for baking in four 16 oz cans. What size pan can I substitute?
Is the recipe on the web? If so, can you link to it? Is "16 oz" the only description?
Three small (but not mini) metal loaf pans (5"L x 3"W x 3"D) will do it. Check out vintage bakeware in thrift stores to find that odd size, or choose pans closest to that size.
If you know if a place that uses the small-ish aluminum foil takeout containers, they're typically about 1 1/4# (ie, 1.25lbs or 20oz)
Honestly, use whatever size pans you have available to you and just monitor the baking process. Get creative.
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75959 | Using sugar when making pizza dough
A lot of the recipes that I've seen on YouTube and different forums have used four main ingredients when making pizza dough - flour, water, yeast, and salt. I'm confused because I though sugar is also a main ingredient since yeast feeds on it. Would y'all recommend always adding sugar to the pizza dough recipe? Also, what if the flour that's being used already has a few grams of sugar - should I still add sugar to the list of ingredients?
There are plenty of fermentable sugars in the flours commonly used in pizza making. Additional sugar is completely unnecessary.
Sugar helps the dough rise faster, and increases browning. So using it is a matter of taste, and what you like in a pizza. If you're in for a day-long rise in the refrigerator (for example), you won't need any extra sugar. If you want it faster (say, an hour rise in a warm proofing box), a little extra sugar can help.
If you're happy with the way your pizza browns, leave it out. Extra sugar could even cause it to burn, especially if you're using very high heat. If you feel like your pizza could use an extra pinch of Maillardy goodness, add a little sugar (and be prepared for a shift in rising times).
So are you implying that you can't use a proofing box if you don't add sugar? Because that's what it sounds like. If the proofing temperature changes, of course the time is going to change. That doesn't necessarily mean that the sugar is a major part of that time change. Much of it is due to the temperature. I think your answer would be better if you compared apples to apples.
They were intended just as examples, but I can make that clearer.
The sugar is not for the yeast. It is for adding browning in a home oven that cannot reach the 600-900 degrees of commercial ovens.
For example, in this Peter Reinhart's Neo Neapolitan pizza recipe he advises to use a tablespoon of sugar to make four 10oz dough balls. https://www.bakepedia.com/peter-reinharts-neo-neopolitan-pizza-dough/
If I recall correctly, most of his recipes in his American Pie include 1 or 2 tablespoons of sugar.
The Enzyme Amylase helps break down flour starches into complex sugars that add to crust color, taste of the final produce and feed the yeast to produce Carbon Dioxide (bubbles). Slow rise gives the enzymes time to do their jobs.
A quick discription
It’s a myth that sugar helps the dough rise . As mentioned, sugar is for browning (which is ridiculous in itself for pizza) and taste.
Sugar in pizza dough? Absolutely not -- never! Pizza should not taste like cookies; it should taste like pizza.
You would need to add a lot of sugar to pizza dough to make it taste like cookies, and at that point that yeast wouldn’t work properly anyway. A smaller amount of sugar would not make it taste as sweet as cookies.
It's common (although not universal) to add sugar to tomato sauce, so there's probably some sugar in most pizzas, one way or another.
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76001 | Why did my tenderloin end up undercooked inside?
So last Thanksgiving, I tried (for the first time in a while actually) to cook a tenderloin and every single time I tried (I split the entire loin I bought into 5 4 oz-ish pieces) I kept charring or burning the outsides while the insides stayed rare/raw.
What I did before cooking it was I marinated the pieces in Ponzu a full day before taking it and putting on the pan. I used olive oil on a non-stick pan (?). I think I kept the heat at around medium-high and generally let it cook without moving the steak around too much.
I let it cook on each side for about a minute and a half just to be safe. Then when I finally cut steaks into slices, it was still mostly undercooked on the inside while being thoroughly cooked and charred on the outside.
I still served the steaks after cooking it again on the pan and giving it a squeeze of lemon over it...
Welcome! Broad questions like "what's the right way to cook X" don't work too well here, but the specific question of fixing the issue you had with your tenderloin is great, so I edited your title to reflect that. Hope that's okay, and feel free to edit further if that's not exactly what you want to ask.
It's a bit counter-intuitive ... but if you want a piece of meat cooked more towards well done, you need to lower the heat. (so that the inside cooks before the outside burns). You can either sear it quickly then move it to a medium or low oven, or cook it at low heat then sear it to finish. Also see http://cooking.stackexchange.com/a/16262/67
I am going to guess that your 4 oz tenderloin was probably about an inch thick. Not moving that, in a hot pan, for only a minute and a half left it under cooked in the center and over cooked on the outside. The pan was too hot and the cook time was too short. Given your limited experience cooking tenderloin, I would suggest a couple of adjustments. First, get a thermometer to accurately measure the temperature of your steak. Identify the doneness you prefer and look up the associated temperature. If you are cooking in a pan, on the stove top, then turn the heat down to medium at the most...add some fat to pan. Cook your steak, flipping every 30 seconds for about 5 minutes. Check the temperature. Continue flipping regularly until you are 5 - 10 degrees below your target temperature. Remove from the heat, tent with foil, and allow to rest 5 - 10 minutes (carry over heat should get you the rest of the way to your target). With experience, you will gain a feel for the doneness and can eliminate the thermometer. Time is not an accurate measure, as there are too many intervening variables. So, get a feel for temperature instead; not only measured temperature, but actually touch the cooked meat to see what it feels like. Over time, with experience, this can guide you quite well.
When you marinate meat in something like Ponzu, which has a lot of sugar, it's important to dry the meat thoroughly before pan-frying or using another conductive heating technique. You were probably burning the sugars in the sauce that adhered to the outside of the meat.
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75469 | Marshmallow in cones becoming soggy
We are using a product called Mallowhip from Bakels as the base for marshmallow which is then piped into wafer cones.
The wafer cones are lined with a compound chocolate prior to piping the marshmallow in to them to try and prevent the marshmallow from making the cones soggy.
For some reason sometimes they work fine, other times after a period of a few weeks the cones become soft and soggy and rubberish.
Any ideas on why and how to best resolve this?
We allow the Mallowhip to sit for roughly 3 - 4 hours prior to piping to help reduce the moisture content. Should we let this sit for longer?
The cones are coated with a compound chocolate rather than a pure chocolate. Would a pure chocolate work better?
We then let the entire cone sit for 3 days with the mallowhip inside prior to enrobing the entire product.
Any ideas would be appreciated.
How long do you expect to keep this product around? A few weeks sounds like a long time.
In my experience wafer cones go soggy on their own in a relatively short space of time once they're out of their airtight packaging...
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77540 | I think i undercooked my ghee - can I reboil it?
I made ghee for the first time on my gas stove. I followed several recipes, but I guess I got shy about how long it was taking. I definitely didn't get any brown bits at the bottom, although it did cook for at least 15 min on high heat.
Can I, and should I reboil?
I don't think there is any downside to heating it again. Note that the brown bits come from milk solids so if you've already removed those (e.g., scraped them off), then you're just stuck with clarified butter.
Also, for the next time you try this: the way its boiling changes as it runs out of water—and that's when the bits will start to brown. It's aroma will also change. You'd probably also see the temperature rise above 212°F/100°C if you had a candy thermometer in the pot (not sure, haven't tested as its not required). Those are the primary indicators of doneness, not how long its been cooking for.
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76184 | Old recipe conversions
My old recipe for buckeyes (cookies) calls for one package of crackers. That was when the box was a pound box. Does anyone know the conversion since the box is now less weight and less crackers?
Welcome, Diane! How much is in a box now? It's difficult for us to help you with conversions if we don't know what you're starting with.
Buy enough boxes to get 1 pound of crackers, done?
Just divide one pound (16 ounces) by the weight of the box you have now. For example, if the new box is 14.4 ounces (seems to be a common size for graham crackers), then you need 16/14.4 = 1.11 boxes.
You might find Google helpful for this kind of thing: you can search for 1 pounds / 14.4 ounces and get an answer.
In the end you're probably best off just weighing, though: get enough boxes to have more than a pound, then weigh out a pound.
Or... if you're in exactly this situation, with a 14.4 ounce box that contains 3 packages of 9 crackers each, then that 0.11 of a box is an extra three crackers (27 * 16 / 14.4 = 30).
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82957 | What size of jar, proportionally, should I keep my poolish in to prevent overflow?
This morning my ongoing poolish lived up to its troublemaking name. Over half of it (by weight) ran out over the counter overnight, through the screwed-down lid. This is after I saw it hitting the top last night and stirred it down before bed. In the photo below, the "after" photo is stirred down, but still pretty bubbly, so that's not even a completely fallen volume. I never fill the jar more than 1/3 full (at flat volume).
So, overnight, it at least sextupled in size.
Details: Commercial yeast 100% hydration bread flour poolish, maintained for about a month. Kitchen was probably 68F last night. I've let it rise and fall on the counter before, but the last two rest periods have been mostly in the fridge, if that matters.
So, primary question, what size jar, proportional to flat volume, should I use to be safe from overruns like this? I'd been going with 1/3 max, but then... this.
Secondary "why" questions to understand the answer:
Is this level of expansion normal, or at least somewhat frequent, or was this a bizarre fluke?
Did a counter rest after a couple fridge rests contribute to this explosion?
If the "Blob that ate Cincinnati" effect is expected now and then, would a biga be more predictable due to its stiffer consistency?
This is after I saw it hitting the top last night and stirred it down before bed.
You have been warned. But it's certainly not a bizzare fluke.
What could have helped the dough out:
at 100% hydration and low volumes you have a good chance that you get less-than-90% hydration dough by only a slight mistake in measurements; 90% dough can actually be pretty stable to support itself all the way up (especially if you have some better bread flour)
there might be a giant heap of nutrients left for the yeast/bacteria after 2 less-active fridge rests
your jar is quite narrow, which in fact provides lots of support to rising dough
In my opinion, to your original question, filling 1/3 for counter rests is on the edge, 1/4 should be okay. You can add some extra safety by having a wider jar, wetter dough, and feeding the starter much less for fridge rests (I actually always let the culture feed on the new flour for a day or two on the counter, before putting it to fridge).
About your "why"s:
Just 1 gram of consumed sugar produces ~0.248 litres of carbon oxide. Not bizzare at all, just a bit of bad luck that your dough was strong enough to be able to trap it. :]
IMO yes.
Biga is a short-lived starter culture, people usually don't keep it for longer than 1 day. Given there's much less water (40%) the dough usually starts to tear instead of rising very much. Btw. poolish is usually also taken to be short-lived; isn't your poolish actually sourdough-ish?
It's sourdough-ish, but I have seen poolish used as the definition even for a long-lived starter if it's from commercial yeast and I haven't made any particular effort to invite bacteria to the party. Thanks for the tips! I'll see about a wider jar. (Fridge space is at a premium, though...)
Re: hydration, I'm measuring in grams and erring on the side of slightly more water, so I'm confident it's at least 100%, but I'll be sure to be careful of that so as not to exacerbate the issue further.
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81756 | What brand of tupperware-style (kitchen storage containers) are the easiest to clean?
I'm trying my best to keep this from being too opinionated, but I won't be offended if this gets closed.
I'm looking for a new set of storage containers and while there are a lot of factors that would weigh my choice (nesting/stacking, ecology, etc), the most critical would be ease of cleaning.
Factors to consider:
Materials, and how prone they are to stain, scratch or get food stuck
on
Texture and Corrugation. I hate, HATE, the embossed brand names
on my current cheap set. It's like they're specifically designed to
capture scraps in them that are a pain to wash out!
Please include in your answer available brands that are a good fit for the above.
This is pretty opinion based... it's also a bit unclear what you mean by "kitchen storage containers"... there are about 3-4 vastly different products that could go by this name. Do you have a particular brand or two as examples? Are you talking about permanent ones or semi-reusable?
I didn't put a brand because I am looking for a brand that exemplifies the criteria. I figured "kitchen storage containers" was specific enough for what I call 'tupperware'. I didn't want to use that since it's a brand name. What would you suggest?
There's nothing wrong with stating product names if it helps us understand what you mean. "Tupperware" is very different in purpose and reusability than "Gladware"... and both are more for storing prepared foods than canisters like Oxo's POP containers, which are generally for ingredients.
Wait a sec... so you don't want to talk about brands but you want us to list brands? You're willing to add that to your question but you're not willing to even explain what types of containers you're looking for or what their purpose is?
@Catija Okay! I've been cajoled before about wording things properly. I'll edit it!
@HighlandRat I believe Catija wasn't suggesting asking for brand recommendations, she was suggesting asking for examples of products (or brands) that are the general type of container you're looking for.
@Catija I saw his question first. I can only do one thing at a time!
@Jefromi that is correct. Requesting brand recommendations would be specifically off topic as it is across the network.
@Catija I don't understand, what do you mean by off-topic? Am I breaking a rule? Should I remove the question?
The part of your question about brands is indeed off topic. The part about "how to choose" can probably be made to work, but it can use some editing. For example, asking about the corrugations is impossible to answer without mentioning brands. The "which material is easier to clean" sounds like a good question, but you will have to narrow it down - an unglazed clay amphora is easy to clean if you store wheat in it and impossible to restore to the original condition if you store olive oil in it. And I intentionally picked an unlikely example (clay amphora) to remind you that (cont.)
(cont.) that your current question covers any possible container for any possible purpose of storage of any possible food. I think that, to become answerable, you have to narrow it down, saying which foods you intend to store, under what conditions, for how long, in what sizes, etc.
Also: what cleaning methods are available to you (hand washing, dishwasher?)
Unfortunately corrugation is the crux of the question for me. I don't think this is a good place for this question. Thank you for your input, I'll use your suggestions when asking on another site. - Thank you
Glass containers will be the best one to use for liquid and or dry goods that can stain (some spices...)
Either mason jar type of containers or jars with clamp lids; both type can have replaceable lids or seals.
The upside of glass is that it is inert and will clean up easily.
The downside of glass is that they break more easily than plastic.
Plastic containers are good for dry goods (rice, grains, pastas...); they wear down in the long run, but good quality ones will be good for years if taking good care of them.
The downside of plastic is that it can take up odor of what it contains and can stain easily (depending on the plastic quality).
The upside is that they are cheap, and will not break that easily.
This is great information in terms of materials! Can you offer any suggestions for corrugation? ie: brands that avoid putting unnecessary grooves in lids that catch food. I'll edit my question.
don't know about that, I assume you have to shop around to find something you like (I don't think it really matters IMO)
I like reuse and not wasting, so for me jars are a great option when appropriate. Most store bought items in jars are not usable for canning, though some brands have gone to using straight canning jars so you can, and the lids are never reusable due to modern rules and regs, for canning, but they certainly can be used for storage.
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82434 | Please tell me what this kitchen tool is called and its use, specifically
This vintage tool is stamped "Guelon, France." I believe it is some type of zester, but I cannot find an image of it anywhere online, nor any info on it.
Please help me and, if you can, tell me its specific use and possible decade(s) when it was sold. The image I have added here is the tool shown on its side.
The tool is 7" long overall and the diameter of the round head is 1.5".
Looks like a butter curler to me.
A butter curler is a kitchen tool designed to produce decorative butter shapes for use in food decoration. It can also be used to make chocolate and wax shavings. In typical use, the material to be cut is chilled slightly while the curler is dipped into hot water to ease the cutting.
Here's an example of a more modern one and the results of using it:
Catija. Wonderful. You are right. Now I know. And am amazed, as this seems like such a beefy tool for the job. Thank you thank you for enlightening me. Much appreciated.
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82280 | Applying a binder to chicken after wet marinating
I usually marinate my chicken breasts/wings in a wet marinade overnight and apply a dry rub shortly before I throw them on the smoker. The main problem I'm facing is that I'm not able to get nice and consistent bark. I was wondering if applying a mustard binder as I would with something like ribs or brisket would help remedy this issue?
This is a good tutorial: http://www.wikihow.com/Apply-Dry-Rub-to-Chicken
2 things from the above link:
Properly dry the meat before applying the rub.
Let the meat rest a little while with the rub so that the rub re-hydrate a little bit and that will help it stick more to the meat.
So you will need to adjust your timing between getting the meat out of the wet marinade and putting it in the smoker.
I know that Cook's Illustrated recommends allowing a chicken to sit in the fridge, uncovered, after brining (if time/space allows) to allow the skin to dry off/out a bit. Their suggestion is more for crisper skin, but I'd imagine it might help with this, too.
From Wikipedia:
"A pellicle is a skin or coating of proteins on the surface of meat, fish or poultry, which allow smoke to better adhere to the surface of the meat during the smoking process. Useful in all smoking applications and with any kind of animal protein, it is best used with fish where the flesh of, say, salmon, forms a pellicle, the surface that will attract more smoke to adhere to it than would be the case if it had not been used. Without a pellicle the fish would be inedibly dry from enough smoking to produce a tasty finished product. It is the pellicle which permits the transformation creating delectable smoked salmon."
Basically, after applying your dry rub, allow to dry in the fridge.
Hello and welcome to Seasoned Advice. Your answer is copied. Please edit your post to include the source.
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73872 | Why aren't my vanilla beans imparting vanilla flavor?
Has anyone noticed the lack of vanilla flavor in vanilla beans?
I have tried several varieties, from different countries and suppliers. While there is a hint of vanilla, I am using triple the beans plus extract and gain some but not much effect. I have taken all the beans, (new ones) and made vanilla paste, which should be omg this kitchen reeks with vanilla! But it does not.
Please ask only one question per topic. I have removed your second question. Feel free to ask it on its own.
The beans may have dried out a bit too much, and can be refreshed by soaking in hot water for a few minutes.
The aroma of vanilla beans is not easy to release. You have to extract it somehow. The most popular way is a prolonged extraction with alcohol, but you can also boil the seeds in milk or other dairy (that method is especially popular for custards).
If you simply throw seeds into whatever you are making, you are not going to get much aroma.
seeds and pods were added into ice cream base which was not boiling but hot, taken off the stove, and brought to room temp.
Also tried making Vanilla paste with the beans, simple syrup and a bit of acid. Cooked on the stove for 20 minutes.
Also tried adding alcohol, in case that was the flavor missing... still not very vanilla.
I recently made vanilla gelato with vanilla bean. It soaked in my "sauce" overnight. There was an amazing aroma. Maybe vanilla bean flavor needs "released," i.e., in liquid, etc. I am fairly new to cooking, so I'm no expert, but again, mine was heavenly.
Dorothy recommended soaking the beans in a liquid to "rehydrate" them. They were new from both vials and vacuum-packed bags. All were not dry. I did try 2 iterations of vanilla bean paste and still the beans lacked flavor. I also added a bit of Grey Goose to a portion of the beans to coax some flavor. But they are still lacking.
If you are using the whole bean, there is a significant dilution of flavour caused by the actual 'pod' of the bean. While using the whole bean makes most economic sense, for the most concentrated flavour use only the seeds scraped out of the inside of the pod.
I also find the seeds have less of the slightly herbal bitterness that the whole pod imparts into food.
@iDoVooDoo makes a good point that flavour will only continue to be released over time, so try preparing things ahead when possible.
I don't know how you are making your bean paste, but you should try simmering the whole or chopped up beans in water before adding sugar and reducing to make a syrup that will turn into a satisfyingly rich and thick paste after blending everything. The inital simmering will make sure the flavour compounds in the bean are released into the 'substrate' of the paste. This will not happen as effectively if you only simmer them in sugar syrup, as the syrup is not a good solvent.
I was thinking that something oily is being added to the pod exterior, that I am tasting. I will try it sans pod, beans only,in water, then try adding the sugar. thank you.
Great - let me know if this helps!
I did try this in cream, only the seeds. then added sugar. no dice. maybe its too hot?
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74622 | How to sweeten bread without sugar
I know that sugar molecules are large and too many of them can prevent a proper gluten network from forming when making bread. What other things can be used to sweeten bread instead of sugar?
I'm thinking about trying to make some sort of dessert bread.
The detrimental ingredient for gluten in sweet breads is not sugar, it's fat. If you worry about gluten development, mix your flour with water first, let it hydrate for 20minutes and then knead it. Add sugar, fat, eggs etc. after the gluten has already developed.
Ok, sweetening bread without changing the texture overmuch.
Most natural sweeteners - including honey, maple or agave or corn syrup, or raw, palm, date, or coconut sugars, all of that - will tend to change the texture of bread in ways similar to (even if not identical to) white sugar. Even if the texture changes aren't the same, they still exist. You can use them as part of the sweetening in your bread, as well as or instead of white sugar, but they won't "not act" like sugar does in changing the texture. You can look at the previous link to see some of the textural differences, and maybe some will be more appealing to you than others - but substituting natural sweeteners, are not recommended for trying to keep bread's texture unaltered. I would suggest looking at date sugar especially, the test recipe (a cookie) stayed firm, and didn't smooth out or change texture in baking the same way as other sweeteners did, but I don't know how it might effect a bread recipe.
One possibility is using something like stevia for a sweetener - it doesn't chemically affect the recipe much, and it also has a low bulk for the amount of sweetening it adds. For the same reason, baking blends with stevia use percentages of real sugar, because it won't give the same effects on its own. I can't tell you how much to add - it will, among other things, depend on the brand you use - but you can try some stevia powder or granules to add sweetness to your bread. You might also be able to find other herbal sweeteners like licorice root, Azetec sweet herb or Katemfe, miracle fruit or serendipity berries, and others. I have also heard of monk fruit sweetener being available recently, you might have some luck with that. Obviously, some of these sweeteners will be easier to source than others, depending on location and popularity - but you might be able to find online sources if one of them really catches your fancy and your local stores don't carry it.
Other artificial sweeteners might do as well, as long as you don't grab the brands specifically formulated to work like sugar in recipes (baking blends) - but I have less experience with these, and it will depend on your tolerances for the sweeteners in question - some can have different aftertastes or effects for some people, being bitter or saccharine, and others don't hold up very well to heating.
As a final note - if you are using herbal or artificial sweeteners, I would recommend actually sweetening your dessert bread with natural sweeteners to the extent your bread can bear (that is, until the texture change is too much), then adding artificial for the extra sweetness you want, the better to avoid off tastes or textures in your bread. Having all the sweetness provided by the artificial or herbal sweetener runs a greater risk of not having the textural changes you do want (being a little softer or more tender), or having off tastes appear from the varying tolerances or experiences people have to the specific sweetener.
Alternatively, you might try something like fruit - adding raisins is a classic way to make a dessert bread, or variations on dried fruit, fresh fruit, or fruit sauce, puree, or paste. The more available your fruit is, the more likely you will change the texture since the inherent sugars will be more mixed in, more available to your bread dough - so fruit juice rather than dried fruit will give very different results. But, in general, the sweetness can be more locked up in your fruit than interfering with your gluten formation in the dough, and release the sweetness while being eaten.
Another possibility is to segregate your sweeteners somehow. Swirl breads are one example, where the sugar (and spices) are trapped between layers of dough, not mixed in. Another way is having pockets or clumps of flavor (using pearl sugar, or chocolate chips, or something mixed in like that). The sugar interferes in gluten formation when it's running free in the dough when the gluten is developing - if it's locked in clumps somehow, or if it is added after the gluten is already formed, it can't interfere in the development. You will want to think about texture at this stage, though, having something crunchy (like pearl sugar), will give a different overall effect from something like chocolate chips, which range from cool and firm to liquid when heated, and different again from a sweet swirl, which will pull apart more and tend to be softer to the tooth because the texture differences are spread out more, not clumped.
Another possibility is sweetening the bread after it has cooled. I will assume you have thought about glazes or frosting, or brushing with syrup or dusting with powdered sugar or even serving with jam or something. However, you might also think about piercing the loaf and letting a syrup soak into the bread after it has baked (a technique I saw used for cakes, but should moisten and sweeten a bread just as well). Or injecting some kind of sweet filling in patterns - again, a cake technique, but I see no reason why it couldn't work for a sweet bread.
Licorice (Glycyrrhiza glabra, the plant not the sweets) is a natural sweetener I missed in your good answer. It should not alter the texture much but adds a lot of sweetness. Mixed with stevia it could combine the sweetness of both without having their own flavours becoming too strong.
@Umbranus - Ah, neat, I hadn't heard of it before. I'll look it up in a bit and add it to my answer. Thanks!
on the 'segregate' aspect -- look up recipes for suikerbrood. (although, it will change the texture)
@Joe - Pearl sugar is shiny and interesting, I agree - and it definitely will add sweetness and texture. Suikerbrood recipes look so very tasty, though I had seen suikerwafel recipes first :)
First, you don't have to go without sugar. You can add up to 20 g of sugar per 100 g of flour without inhibiting gluten formation. There is a ton of dessert breads made with white sugar or honey out there, and they are very tasty. In fact, they are counted in the "cake" category in countries where they exist (the yeast->bread, batter->cake rule is typically Anglosaxonian). Many of them use enriched dough (e.g. adding milk or butter) to make the taste more reminiscent of dessert than of bread. Also, sweet fillings or dried fruit are very commonly baked in.
Second, Corriher ("Cookwise") suggests that malting the flour can give you extra sweetness. She says that, if you add the enzyme to the dough, you get a sweeter bread without texture problems, although she only has speculation on why this is so.
Of course, artificial sweeteners are also an option, if you are OK with their taste (each sweetener or combination tends to have an aftertaste detectable by some percentage of the population). You'll have to choose some - go with the pure version, not something with filler like Splenda, else the filler will give you the same inhibition as sugar does.
If you use sugar, add some more yeast and knead longer. This will give you a better texture, more comparable with traditional bread.
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77411 | Is there a use for bean juice - the cooking liquid of beans?
When I cook beans there's heaps of brown-coloured water. Is there a use for this? Do you drink it or something?
It can be used as an egg substitute in various baking applications; search with the keyword "aquafaba" to learn more about this.
Also, it is used as a thickener in some bean-based dishes (eg common in chana masala).
Also, it can be used as stock for some types of soups.
Since you describe the juice as brown, it seems that you are cooking dark coloured beans like black or kidney beans; the same usages apply but might be limited by the unwanted color.
The same usages apply to bean juice from canned beans.
Mind that bean juices do have the same (or even stronger) flatulence-inducing effects that beans have.
Let me start by clarifying any water (from can or your boil) from any bean / legume (garbanzo, white bean, soy, etc) is called aquafaba. Currently the most popular way to use it is in baking. Here is a good guide https://www.vegansociety.com/whats-new/blog/13-amazing-things-you-can-do-aquafaba
For a "salty" perspective http://lynnecurry.com/2010/03/dont-throw-out-that-bean-water/
Hope this helps :)
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72960 | Why does the inside of fried chicken sometimes turn brown?
Tonight I cooked fried chicken on the stove. However, I have seen chicken with brown ligaments or bones, after cooking before. Not just from frying the chicken either. Is it due to the age of the chicken, or an incorrect temperature or overcooking?
I hate seeing that when I eat chicken and if I knew what was causing it, I could avoid it, and enjoy my chicken more.
The darkening is harmless. It is more likely to occur in younger birds, since their bones are immature, soft, and porous. It is also exacerbated by deep chilling or freezing, since microscopic ice crystallization will allow various colored substances (e.g., marrow) to coalesce around the bones. When the meat is cooked, these substances will usually turn brown.
Therefore, interior browning can be avoided by using older chickens and avoiding meat that has ever been frozen. Given that most commercial chickens in large countries like the USA are slaughtered very young (less than seven weeks old), it may be difficult, but not impossible, to find an older chicken.
It's likely the brown you are noticing is the blood seeping from the bones during the cooking process, and then turning brown after being exposed to heat.
There is no blood in properly slaughtered chicken. It is drained off as part of the process.
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79388 | Cooking sous vide a steak which was vac pac frozen
I bought a nice 1.5 inch New York cut steak from a butcher some time ago, and without thinking I vac packed it and froze it without spices. I feel like trying to cook it with my Anova tomorrow, so I took it out of the freezer and placed it in fridge instead. I am just a bit worried if I am doing the right thing here - my plan is to wait for it to thaw, take it out of the vac bag, apply salt and vac pack it again (maybe with a rosemary branch?) to sous vide it.
Is it ok to allow it to thaw in fridge for 1-2 days (unopened)?
Is it ok to let it thaw and then repack it and sous vide it straight away? Will that raise any risk of any bacterial growth (botulin etc)?
Yes, you can allow the steak to thaw in the refrigerator. You can also repackage prior to cooking. A third option is to cook sous vide from the frozen state.
Yes. In fact the proper way to defrost all meats would be in the refrigerator NOT on a counter.
But do NOT defrost then thaw then freeze again.
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90156 | How to incorporate grape flavor in a chiffon cake?
I'm trying to make a layer of chiffon cake, with a grape flavor but I'm not satisfied with the flavor. I have tried using the juice from the grapes, incorporated into the batter, but it is not particularly potent and the end result is rather bland for my palate.
What would be the best way to incorporate a grape flavor? Is there anything I can do to the grapes to enhance the flavor and maybe add more depth or complexity?
Grape Extract as used in candy making seems like a good bet.
It's really going to depend on the kind of grape flavor you're looking for... are you looking for the "candy" grape flavor or the more subtle grape flavor from actual grapes such as white grapes?
@GdD please post such info as an answer or not at all, comments are not a suitable place for it.
Grape juice, purchased as such, is often diluted with water and sugar and other juices. Additionally, many varieties of grapes, especially table grapes, don't have very much flavor at all.
Using grape juice concentrate will add a ton of sugar which you might be able to compensate for in the recipe. Unfortunately, in a chiffon cake, the sugar plays a role in stabilizing the egg foam.
Fresh, undiluted, unsweetened, Concord grape juice has a lot of flavor and color and is not overly sweet. I don't know where one can acquire it as I get it from neighbors who grow it. Perhaps homebrew supply store might have some for small wine batches.
Failing that, grape extract could most easily be used, as renisis commented above, but the flavor will be less fruity and simpler- like grape candy.
hey sobachatina, nice to see you again on the site! Good answer, as always.
In the US, Welch's sells 100% Concord grape juice, shelf stable concentrate, and frozen concentrate. They also sell 100% red grape juice and 100% white grape juice. Should be quite easy to find. These are all 100% juice, unlike grape juice drinks or grape juice cocktail.
Odd. It seems sweeter than when I get juicing grapes myself. Maybe it's a sweeter variety or I'm selectively remembering things.
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72895 | Are egg yolks neccessary for proper pancake structure in flourless pancakes?
I have read many great things about the surfacing two-ingredient egg/banana pancake recipes...
However, I am a fitness nut and don't want to overdo it on the cholesterol, which is found in the yolk.
Question:
Does this recipe work if I use two egg whites only (instead of eggs with the yolk)?
Removed discussion about nutrition - it's off-topic here. Let's focus on the culinary issue of whites vs whole eggs!
Will it "work" in the sense that the batter on the skillet will coagulate and form a solid flat pancake-like thing? Yes, it should. That doesn't mean you'll necessarily like the results.
Keep in mind that the egg/banana pancakes aren't really producing something that tastes like or has the texture of a standard "pancake" (or even most gluten-free "flourless" pancakes). The result will be something like a cross between banana-flavored custard and the middle of a piece of French toast.
However, yolks provide flavor and some tenderness (mostly due to the fat in them, which isn't present in the whites). If you remove them, you might not like the flavor that results, so you might consider adding an alternative fat and/or something that can give more flavor (e.g., vanilla, complementary spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, etc.). The "structure" shouldn't be worsened much without the yolks, but these "pancakes" don't tend to rise much anyway. If you want something with a more airy texture somewhat closer to "normal" pancakes, you might want to add a small amount of baking powder and/or beat the egg whites and fold them in.
(Of course all of these additions and substitutions sort of defeat the purpose of the "super fast and easy" two-ingredient "pancake," but it really depends on whether you like the flavor and texture that results when you try to cook them, or whether you want to take a few extra steps to improve them.)
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90554 | Slow cookers - capacity and mess
I am thinking of buying a slow cooker because the communal kitchen is usually really nasty and I want to save time. I will use it for cooking up big amounts of meat (chicken fillet, minced meat mostly).
The biggest I found has a capacity of 6.8 Liters. Would it be possible to cook 2 kg of chicken fillet in this at once, if not, how much? (I.e do I need to add water or can I use 6.8 Liters purely for food?)
I can't leave it in the kitchen, so can I use it in my corridor room or how much odor / mess does a slow cooker usually create? Is everything sealed or is it like when cooking normally?
Do you want the 2 kg of chicken as one piece (whole chicken) or are you going to cut it into pieces first?
"chicken fillet" I assume it is sliced breasts.
I missed the 'chicken fillet' in the question,
a 6.8 liter slow cooker is more than big enough to cook 2 kg of meat
By the way there are also 20 quart roasters
Is everything sealed or is it like when cooking normally?
Slow cookers are definitely not sealed. It'll release odor while cooking (which, depending on what you're making, might be pleasant!) and there's no way to get around the potential mess of transferring food to/from the cooker. You'll want at minimum to have a relatively clean, clear area where you can fill and use the cooker.
That said, the enclosed and relatively weak heating elements of slow cookers generate less excess heat and can be used outside of a kitchen without too much risk. Make sure the surrounding area is relatively clean and free of flammable material for safety; make sure your electrical outlets are likewise in good working order.
do I need to add water or can I use 6.8 Liters purely for food?
Check out this related answer - you need some sufficient level of liquid for just about any slow-cooked recipe. I would advise you to carefully follow a recipe at first rather than going off-script and trying to develop your own. You'll be better assured of success this way.
(That said: yes, 2 kilograms of chicken should fit in a cooker this large.)
I want to save time
Keep in mind that they don't call it a "slow" cooker for nothing. These devices are only capable of low, slow heating, and can only be used for recipes that take extended low-temperature cooking, usually at least a few hours. They can't sear, or saute, or boil; they are by design incapable of any fast cooking method. Those methods can be key to developing flavors (browning meat is often quite important) and although you can usually cook safely without them, you don't want to just skip those steps if they're called for in a recipe.
Slow cookers can be convenient in that they can safely run for several hours without being actively tended (unlike, say, a pot on the stove) but how and where this will actually save you time depends on how well you can plan your cooking ahead. If you have an unpredictable schedule, limited refrigerator space to store prepared food, or simply don't want to eat the same thing a few days in a row, a slow cooker probably won't save you time, money, or aggravation.
As noted by @Catija, you could consider a "multi-cooker" as an alternative; that would broaden the variety of cooking you can do, allowing the options of searing or sauteeing whether called for in a slow-cooked recipe or just if you're in a hurry to make dinner. Many of these devices will allow for pressure cooking that cuts down on overall cooking time, and they have enclosed heating elements and other safety mechanisms. Keep in mind though that this would not minimize the mess, odor, etc. of those cooking methods. Oil can splatter whether you're doing it in a pan or a fancy multi-cooker in your bedroom; the same applies to the odor, smoke, and noise involved. These devices are also generally more expensive than a traditional slow cooker, so if you have budgetary constraints you might want to try a cheap slow cooker first, figure out if it works well for you, then upgrade later on.
The other option would be a multi cooker, which would have searing/browning options along with slow cooking options.
Pretty sure the OP is talking about their time and not calendar time. Some newer cookers do have a light seal.
@Catija True, and I'm a big advocate for such devices. There are a few things to consider, though - I'll edit in some more information about that.
Some slow cookers have a metal ‘pan’ insert (they’re actually the only type I ever use), so you can fry off in it & just lift into the slow base for the long cook.
You can fill it to within about 2cm of the top (1"). That should be plenty for cooking 2kg of chicken that will pack in, even if you're adding liquid.
You don't need to add liquid, though many recipes are quite wet. For example you can cook a whole chicken.
At that volume you might need to freeze. It might be easier to cook a smaller amount like every 3 days. It would also create less odor.
Unless you have trimmed the fat the fat will be plenty of liquid.
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84037 | Substitution of applesauce for eggs in a boxed brownie mix was a failure. Did I do something wrong?
Has anyone been successful in replacing eggs with applesauce in a box brownies recipe? I'm trying to stick with a boxed brownie mix but has an egg and we have someone with an egg allergy in the house. When I tried it (1/4cup of applesauce per egg) the brownies came out oily, runny, and wouldn't bake. I am hoping to get a fudgy, chewy final product and not to dry out at all. Has anyone had any luck doing so?
Possible duplicate of Brownies without egg
You should make sure there's no egg in the brownie mixture in general. Many boxed mixes have powdered egg.
I do not agree that this is a duplicate, since it's specifically asking about substituting applesauce and troubleshooting the results. The suggested duplicate has many potential substitutes, including applesauce.
Jennifer, it may depend on the brand of mix you used. Could you post the brand and the ingredients/method you used here?
Egg yokes contain molecules called lecithins that act as an emulsifier (something that helps oils to mix with water). I'm guessing the brownie mix calls for canola oil to be added, which is what is causing it to come out oily. You can address this in a couple ways.
Substitute the oil with butter. Butter is already an emulsion itself, and so will tend to separate less from the liquid ingredients. This will make the brownies thicker when cooled, so the mouthfeel will be less moist.
Substitute 1 Tbsp soy lecithin (available from Amazon) per egg yolk. This is the most direct way to compensate.
Egg whites also have useful material properties for baking. They act as a leavening agent and also help provide a set texture when the protein denatures at high temperatures. These are harder to compensate for but also less critical than emulsification. Try these next ideas if you are still unsatisfied with the texture.
Add baking powder if you want the brownies fluffier.
I've never tried this personally, but apparently substituting 1/4 cup pureed silken tofu per egg will help your batter set as though it had egg whites. It makes sense since both are basically networks of hydrophilic proteins.
You can only substitute applesauce for oil. Can use powered egg, being sold on Amazon. But don't really need the egg at all. If you want...can use 1 Tlb per egg of Greek yogurt. Hav'nt tried it, but the chef on TV uses it.
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68819 | How to prevent a baker's chocolate mixture from resolidifying so that it can be used in beverages?
Is it possible to directly melt baker's chocolate (sliced from bar form), mix with sugar, then add an a sort of "inverting" chemical to prevent it for resolidifying?
I currently work with baker's unsweetened chocolate. I believe this is the product of cacao butter? Not sure.
What I do with the chocolate is emulsify it in water under slow heat whilst stirring rapidly. Typically a 1:2.5 ratio of baker's chocolate to water, then add 1:2.5 ratio of chocolate to brown sugar.
I add this to chocolate drinks, and I've always appreciated its ability to add thickness to the beverage. But if I can make it even thicker, that would be good right?
The bigger problem I suppose is that I've never trained with a chocolatier. I don't know what the pros do!
So you're trying to turn baking chocolate into as thick/dense/flavorful a chocolate syrup as possible, basically? Might be clearer if you said that more directly, especially in the title. ("melt" in the title implies hot)
"inverting" chemical ... are you familiar with using/making inverted syrup?
Adding chocolate thickness to a drink is far simpler - insert drink in blender, add cocoa powder (and sugar to taste), blend. I have also done this with baking chocolate, but you need to stir a lot and drink quickly, or most of it falls to the bottom. Cocoa powder is easier.
I'm not sure if this is what you're looking for, but what came to my mind was making a ganache - pouring heated cream over chopped chocolate and then stirring until the chocolate is melted. By adjusting the ratios of cream to chocolate, you can make a lovely thick chocolate syrup that works well for stirring into beverages.
There are 4 standard ratios of chocolate and cream, for different purposes:
2:1 (chocolate:cream) is very firm and holds its shape, good for uncoated truffles.
3:2 is firm but slightly softer; good for coated chocolates and cake icings.
1:1 is soft and smooth; good for tart and cake fillings, some cake icings, and spreads
1:2 is pourable and sauce-like - the obvious choice for sauces.
(from a Chowhound article on ganache)
Inverted sugar (or any of its cousins: dextrose, honey, HFCS) won't help you, as what is happening is not recrystallization of the sugar, but that cocoa butter is solid at room temperature (it has a fusion point of 28-36 °C, 82-96 °F).
What a chocolatier would tell you is that chocolate and water are natural enemies, and they don't belong together.
If your objective is to add more "chocolatey" flavor to a water based drink, my suggestion is to use cocoa, and leave the fats out.
If your objective is to add thicken a drink, many options are available, depending on the composition of the drink: pectin, xanthan, carrageenan, what you would be looking for is a hydrocolloid.
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82889 | How to imitate the oven on the stovetop?
I would like to know if there are techniques of replicating oven-cooking on the stovetop, without using actual stovetop ovens (aluminum box that sits atop a flame).
Although I can cover skillets and grill pans with foil, the problem would be that meats would burn on the bottom side.
Hoping you could share some tips for an amateur cook.
Can you be more specific about what you want to do? Please don't rely on tags. There's many kinds of oven cooking methods. Grilling is generally not done in the oven and searing is generally done on the stovetop, too.
What are you cooking and what is the result you are trying to achieve?
@GdD, I would just like to caramelize the surfaces of mac n' cheese, melt cheese on bread. If there's enough energy I might like to oven-finish chicken breasts.
@Catjia, I would like to be able to oven cook some things on the stovetop, for example in a pop-up situation.
related : https://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/18648/67
I'd definitely encourage putting the tasks you want to do in the question, so that people can provide better answers. A general oven replacement is a tall order (we wouldn't spend so much space in our kitchens on them if they were easily replaceable!) but for some specific tasks, there may be specific workarounds (e.g. blowtorch for browning surfaces).
Your examples seem to be of broiling rather than grilling so I've changed the tag for that. I've also edited the tag wiki excerpt to point UK users towards the broiling tag instead of grilling.
I'm not sure what you mean by a "pop-up situation".
@Catjia, an example of that may be farmers markets where you might want to cook something with things and equipment you brought yourself, sans an oven or bbq grill.
I just remembered form my camping days that I once had an aluminum folding box like thing that would sit atop a Coleman stove. I baked a pie in it and it worked great. You should be able to find one of these in an outdoors store that sells camping supplies.
Here's one on Amazon... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0009PURJA/ref=asc_df_B0009PURJA5069270/?tag=hyprod-20&creative=394997&creativeASIN=B0009PURJA&linkCode=df0&hvadid=167131408724&hvpos=1o2&hvnetw=g&hvrand=12152129017567034111&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9028736&hvtargid=pla-276206510065
I wonder if it was purposely designed for camping situations? Maybe there was also an intention for it to be used in micro-living situations where you don't have an oven? Secondly, does this aluminum box just conduct heat through its frame/enclosure, or is there anything more sophisticated with it?
There is no great solution for an oven on the stovetop, even stovetop ovens aren't that great. The two are entirely different styles of cooking. The only thing I can think of that comes close is a dutch oven as the thick sides conduct more heat around the vessel, but that still gets most heat on the bottom.
If you want to do a lot of browning of the tops of things in a commercial situation then you could invest in a dedicated top grill unit, these are just for that purpose, a bit like a broiler except it's a table-top unit. If you want to brown the top of things and melt cheese every once and awhile but can't have an oven then I would introduce you to my good friend the piezo ignition gas torch which you can pick up in most hardware stores.
Other than the equipment side I'd suggest you modify your choice of dishes and ingredients to fit the equipment you have available. You can struggle trying to re-create oven cooking on a stovetop with mediocre results, or you can learn to make falling off the bone stovetop slow-cooked meats. One approach is more rewarding than the other.
I made a pizza once on the stove top. I placed a rimmed cookie sheet on top of a saute pan. I put the pizza on the cookie sheet and placed another larger rimmed cookie sheet on top and perpendicular to the lower sheet holding the pizza. This allowed moisture to escape and the pizza came out very good.
It is going to be impossible to get a good immitation of an oven, on the stovetop, due to the fact that there is no way to get a dry heat source on all sides. Baking is a dry-heat cooking method in which the heat comes from all around. The problem you'll have on the stove is that the heat comes from only the bottom.
However if you have a deep enough pan/pot you can "elevate" the protein on a wire rack or even a bed of vegetables, such as onions and carrots, to prevent the bottom from burning. Cover with a tight fitting lid and you will have something that is similar to an oven, but you still won't get much browning like you would in a real oven. So it would be best to carmalize your meat on a higher heat on the stove first then transfer to this type of set up.
Hi Jan. Have you ever actually tried using the wire rack?
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61658 | Kassler vs Pork Shoulder vs butt
I need to cook pork for a large party. Due to price and amount issues I would prefer cooking kassler (pork neck) but the recipes I found for pork discuss almost every other part of the pig except neck.
How much does kassler differ from a pork shoulder, for example? If I slow cook kassler like I'd slow cook a shoulder or any other part in given recipes, will it be inedible or disgusting?
Are there any pork preparations that are completely inappropriate for kassler?
Welcome to Seasoned Advice! I've edited your question a bit to help with some clarity and I hope I've got your meaning correct. Please feel free to [edit] if I got anything wrong!
Are we talking about the cut or curing method? Kassler is cured, neck not necessarily so.
@Stephie I'm talking about neck. Sorry for mixing it up with kassler.
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61867 | Poured boiling water over pork belly and then refrigerated
I read about a method of preparing pork belly in the below article that involved pouring boiling water over the rind of belly pork, then refrigerating it over night(so it has a chance to dry before cooking). It's supposed to make the crackling nicer.
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2010/apr/15/how-to-make-perfect-crackling
I placed the pork belly slab in a roasting tray in the sink and poured boiling water over it from a kettle. It was in a pool of boiled water for a good 10 seconds before i managed to lift it out(I didn't think this through properly). It looked like the outside of the meat was starting to cook, but I'm not sure if this is the case or not.
I then placed it in the fridge in some marinade, where it will sit over night.
I plan on cooking it tomorrow at 200C(fan oven) for 30mins, then 160C for 2-3 hours. but I'm worried. Will we be at risk of food poisoning?
Welcome to the site! It's recommended that you limit your questions to one topic only rather than asking multiple questions in one. To answer your second question, this answer should be helpful to you, so I'm going to remove the second question from your question body.
Assuming the marinade itself was room temperature or cooler, I wouldn't worry about it. The cooked/heated portions of the belly will chill quickly enough.
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75921 | How can I fix brownies that I accidentally added ketchup and pepper to?
When whisking eggs with flour, I accidentally added about 3 tablespoons of ketchup (I know, I know - I was making pizza at the same time and mixed up the two doughs). I also added ground pepper. I'm afraid I messed everything up irrevocably - the brownies are already in the oven, but I tried the dough and it was salty/creamy. Is there any way I can counteract the saltiness/creaminess? Should I add more chocolate?
There is no "fix" here other than "don't do that again next time." Live and learn.
LOL this is one of the funniest "oops, what do I do now?" questions I have ever seen.
Are you asking what to do after they're baked, if they still taste odd? Or what you should've done before putting them in the oven?
@Jefromi, after they've baked. I had time constraints, so I had no time to fix the dough. But now they taste salty and like vinegar. You're the experts, so how do I fix this issue? Would whipped cream help? Any suggestions?
At the risk of being quite judgmental, I'm going to say ketchup has no business anywhere in the making of a pizza, as well. But I'm not a particular fan of that condiment in any situation, so take that for what it's worth.
Change your diners' expectations. Tell everyone they are "holiday spice" brownies with a secret ingredient, and dust the top with cinnamon and powdered sugar.
Perhaps your brownies could be saved, and even improved, by the addition of a caramel layer on the top, creating a salted caramel and chocolate version. Simply boil sugar with a small amount of water until it's a deep golden amber color, take off the heat and whisk in several tablespoons of heavy cream and several of butter. Drizzle over the top, before or after cutting into squares, and let cool completely.
mmmh tomato and caramel, my favourite pairing!
So I'm pretty sure that your brownies, as brownies, are un-salvageable. Tossing on more chocolate, or caramel, or whipped cream, is probably tossing good ingredients after bad - the addition of ketchup and pepper will not quietly fade away, and nothing will take them out.
That's just what the situation is, you may have been able to spice over some of the taste if you'd caught it pre-baking, but it would have likely taken a lot of diluting (extra flour and water and binders) and a lot of spicing (cinnamon and nutmeg and clove, cardamom, coffee, ginger, all of them, all of them) and then think about extra distracting additives like caramel or whipped cream to make it palatable - not great, just palatable with a niggling off taste at the core.
What you might be able to do, maybe, if you really have a reason to not want to waste the ingredients and are willing to put in the extra effort, is salvage the pan-full as an ingredient for further cooking. You would have to taste it carefully, to see whether the overall effect was salty or sweet. That is, it would still be both - but which category you put it in will depend on which is stronger to the tongue (you call it salty and creamy, but whether that's the overall flavor, or just the as-compared-to-other-brownies flavor is your call). You might dry it out into crumbs, and use it as an additive to larger dishes - well diluted, maybe using a cupful or maybe half that per recipe.
A cupful of these crumbs might be added to a heavily spiced cake for a bit of extra depth and just a touch of a savory peppery kick. A half a cupful might go in a hamburger mix, or a stew, for some extra depth and a bit of sweetness - depending on the specific results of your taste test, and your own food preferences, of course. Chocolate itself can go either sweet or savory (it gives depth, a touch of bitterness, and can work in a lot of dishes), and you have both sugar and fats, and salt and pepper in the mix - just use sparingly to add a touch, a touch of depth and complexity and balancing flavor to your recipes.
Really, I think it's worth tossing the whole thing, there isn't a lot you can do with it. Either the pepper or the ketchup may have been salvageable with a lot of work and tolerant tasters who are willing to re-set their expectations, but both is just too much. Using it as an ingredient in a larger dish (or three) might salvage the ingredients, but it's a lot of work and a single panful is often not worth the effort.
Continue adding spices, starting with cinnamon or clove. Eventually it would come to resemble that of a chocolate spice cake.
after the baking?!
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68397 | Replacing toaster oven with convection oven or convection microwave?
I am getting new counter tops and want to move the toaster oven off the counter.
Would an oven with a convection function be an equivalent replacement for the toaster convection oven?
Alternately, would a convection microwave be a good replacement for the toaster oven?
Do these devices serve similar purposes?
"Better" is subjective and not something we can answer here. I've edited your question to something that we can answer: whether they serve the same purpose. If I have missed your point, please feel free to [edit] your question to add more information.
This depends on what you use the toaster oven for? Reheating food? Toasting bread? Cooking?
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but if I've read your question correctly, you already have a toaster oven with a convection function and are considering options for replacing it. If that's the case, you know how convection cooking fits into your lifestyle, and when and why you like to use it.
Hopefully I can help with one part of your question! We recently bought a new regular oven and a new toaster oven, both with convection options. The convection functions work exactly the same way and serve the same purpose, which is primarily to cook food more quickly and evenly. My oven takes longer to pre-heat, which makes sense because it's bigger, but that's the only major difference. The actual cooking time doesn't vary, even though I originally thought it would. I use each appliance at different times depending on various factors, but I cook the same foods in both, and the end result is very much the same.
I don't have any experience with convection microwaves, so I'm sorry but I can't help you there.
I would say it depends on what equipment you already have, and if you are willing to replace your (current?) microwave or oven. Also, do you have room for the convection microwave? It would have to be above your range, if you don't want it on the countertop anymore.
Another factor would be what kinds of food you would cook - convection ovens are typically much larger and can hold more space, have several racks, etc. Hope that gives you a few things to consider.
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81962 | Art of making delicate French butter cookies (Madeleines)
I love making Madeleine cookies, but I can't seem to make them without burning them. Well, they're not really burnt as far as cookies go, but they are too golden brown and have a slight crisp that Madeleines shouldn't have.
Baked for 14 minutes.
I've shortening my baking time to 10 minutes (4 minutes shorter than my recipe states), but they still are coming up a little too brown. (At 375 in a gas oven)
Baked for 10 minutes.
I'm afraid to shorten it too much because I don't want them to come out raw and mushy.
Any ideas how I can make my cookies softer, but still fully baked through?
If they're cooking too fast that they're browning and fully cooked through after 10 minutes instead of the recommended 14... that's probably a signal that you should turn the oven temperature down.
If you don't already have an oven thermometer, get one. It's possible for ovens' internal thermostat to be significantly off - by 50 degrees or more at times. Rather than depending on it, you will be better served by having a thermometer. These are generally inexpensive and can be found at most kitchen stores or on the web.
If you find that your thermostat is off, look into how to reset it, or learn the offset and add/subtract that amount from the dial temperature. If it's not off, try dropping the temperature by 25 F to start. The recommended oven temp seems to vary based on the recipe... from between 350 to 400 F. One thing that the 400 F recipe does is they place a cookie sheet under the madeleine pan, which may protect the underside somewhat.
Another possibility - you don't show your madeleine pans but to reduce browning, it's generally recommended to use very light colored pans. From Serious Eats:
If you want foods to brown on the bottom, reach for a darker metal sheet pan because dark pans will absorb more heat and therefore more heat will radiate off the surface. I like to use dark pans when I'm baking pizza or crispy-edged potato wedges and roasted veggies that I want to brown. Recently, I've even started baking pies in dark metal pie plates instead of glass so the bottom of the pie crust heats up more and browns.
I'm glad to hear that you're using a thermometer and were successful in your recipe! I know it's not fun to buy new pans but I'd certainly be interested to see if you get even lighter results with silver-tone pans than the dark ones if you do buy them! Best of luck in your madeleine attempts.
With some trial and error (and a ton of batter!) I figured out a solution. I lowered my oven temp to 360 (in response to the previous answer, yes, I have an oven thermometer and my cookie pan is dark) and baked for 8 minutes. The center is still completely baked through and they are a lovely light golden color.
They're not perfectly white on both sides like the kind I find at the counter at Starbucks! LOL!
But they look and taste delicious and are perfect for dunking in tea! I feel French already ;)
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76514 | What are berry grains?
For several years, I ordered items from Finland. Typically, things not common or not found in the US. To my dismay, the place I ordered from went out of business.
I found another Finnish website that carries many of the same items. I was particularly looking for bilberry jam and I saw that the grocery category I wanted was "Jams, Marmalades, & Berry Grains".
There were several different types of berry grains made from different berries and/or fruits. However, there is no real description. Some may have nutritional info, but nothing else. They are definitely fruit products.
I have never heard of berry grains in the US and I have never seen such a product. I have Google searched several times but all I get are results for wheat berries or other things related to grains, nothing about berries or fruit.
Here's a picture of one of the products, Chokeberry Grain. (Sorry, can't translate.)
Any idea what this is or what the US equivalent would be?
What's the Finnish term?
@Catija Aroniarouhe.
Ah, I found a better image... Looks like it's a powdered fruit product? Some sort of (possibly freeze-dried) fruit concentrate.
@Catija Feel free to edit the image in if you like.
The term rouhe in Finnish means "something coarsely ground" [1], [2]. (Google translates it as "groats", but that's a bit too simple.)
Double-checking with the English, German and Italian version of the shop, they always use a version of "grain or granule" in the specific language: Note that "granello" in Italian, for example, which is about the shape, not a cereal.
As the product sites for the various "rouhe" claim that they use the whole berry, it means whole dried berries (aronia in your case), coarsely ground. The weight and volume data given is "250ml / 85g". I confirmed "dried" (as opposed to compote-style fruit preparations) by weighing a cup of fruit tea: 76 g, but of course a much coarser texture.
Edit:
Another website writes (according to google translate):
Berry powders and grits, prepared by grinding whole dried berries, without adding or removing anything.
Edit 2:
The manufacturer suggests adding the granules into dairy products or porridge or using them in baked goods.
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70631 | Can I bake oatmeal drop cookies in a bar form?
I am making oatmeal cookies for a family get together and was wondering, can I make them as a bar cookie like as in chocolate chip, rather than a drop cookie.
Yes; just spread the dough in a well-greased pan. I'd use a pan size such that the bars are not too much thicker than the cookies would be, or the cooking time/temperature will be trickier.
You will likely need to lower the oven temperature (I'd try 25 degrees cooler.) and bake for longer. If you notice the edges browning and the center is still very raw, go ahead and turn the oven down a bit more. Make sure to pull the pan from the oven when the center is not quite baked through, since it will continue to cook for a few minutes once it's out of the oven.
Most drop cookies that are made by creaming butter and sugar turn out fairly well as bar cookies.
One thing to think about is the additional baking time - since they are thicker, you may have an underdone center even once the top is golden brown.
You should probably bake them slightly longer than you would normally, and check them fairly frequently. I prefer my cookies chewy (almost like cookie dough) in the middle, so I tend to bake them for less time.
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86149 | How do I substitute a recipe that calls for yellow cornmeal for self rising corn meal mix
I have a recipe that I am trying to make but it calls for regular yellow cornmeal. I have self rising yellow corn meal mix, so the question is how do I make the recipe turn out right? It calls for
3 cups all purpose flour
1 cup yellow corn meal
1/4 cup of sugar
2 Tbsp baking powder
2 tsp of salt
2 cups of milk
3 extra large eggs
2 sticks of butter
It also calls for jalapenos, cheddar, and scallions.
Hi Jessica, I'm sorry but this site really isn't able to provide just in time answers. We need time to allow our users to see the questions and respond. Also, you haven't really given us enough information. What's in the cornmeal mix? Some may have only a leavener and others may have flour and sugar and baking powder... we need to know what it contains before we can tell you how to substitute for it.
It sounds like you're just making a cornbread (more of a sodabread with cornmeal in it) that has some "fun" things added to it. If that's the case, find whatever cornbread recipe is on the side of your self-rising cornmeal-and-flour container and add cheddar, jalapeno, and scallions.
Since we do not know the proportions that constitute the mixture, we have to guess. This recipe suggests that a traditional cornbread is approximately a 1:1:1 ratio (1c corn meal, 1c flour, 1 tbsp baking powder). I'll assume these are the proportions of your mixture.
I would take 2 cups (and a tablespoon) of self-rising cornmeal mixture, then add 2 cups of flour, and 1 tbsp of baking powder: in total that would make 1 cup of corn meal, 3 cups of flour, and 2 tablespoons of leavening cornmeal. The rest can be figured from there.
Then never buy self-rising anything again! It's much easier and more versatile to just stock baking soda and baking powder as pantry essentials.
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66439 | What can I use to substitute for Italian sausage to make it appropriate for vegetarians?
I want to make a butternut lasagna which calls for sausage. Is there something I can substitute the sausage with to make it vegetarian that will still taste great??
I guess it depends what flavor you are trying to go for? There are so many options for vegetarian lasagna like spinach, eggplant, etc. Also straight up cheese lasagna is really good!
Marilyn, welcome to Seasoned Advice! Could you please post the original recipe just to give us an idea of the ratios? Substituting a main component (volume-wise) is different from substituting a minor part that is included for flavour...
Onegreenplanet.org has a recipe for a vegan spicy Italian sausage
One thing always worth trying when sausage or bacon is called for is smoked tofu. It usually comes very firm, which suits the purpose well. I would recommend shallow-frying it before adding it to a sauce/filling if using big pieces, or putting it in the oil a few minutes ahead of other aromatics if using brunoise/small dice-size pieces. In the second case, try adding brunoised/diced standard mushrooms and maybe some (fresh or reconstituted) shiitake too; also make sure these are well fried.
You can substitute the sausage meat itself with any suitable veg that's normally used as the star of a dish, such as eggplants or firmer squashes, however if you want that sausage taste the principle flavoring spices of Italian sausage are caraway seed, sage and sometimes paprika. If you want to add an umami element (meaty taste) substitute all salt with soy sauce, and perhaps add a little extra soy (experiment) to get the level of taste you want without making the lasagna over watery.
Depending on your locality, you can certainly substitute in vegetarian Italian sausage made with something like soy instead of meat.
This will give you a really similar taste and texture to the sausage and won't add a bunch of extra water, which would be an issue with some other vegetable options.
Brands to check out are "Tofurky", "Lightlife" and "Field Roast", even some stores offer their own in-house options including Trader Joe's.
Other options for true "sausage" substitutes would be to follow a recipe to make your own, like this one, made primarily out of mushrooms and black-eyed peas or this one made from vital wheat gluten (though it can be difficult to find for some people).
As a note, I do not endorse any of these products or recipes as I have not tried them myself.
The answer to this is: anything, except meat. The rest is a matter of taste.
Let me give a few suggestions. If you want to stay close to the meaty idea, you could use garlic, rosemary, sage, and cumin (cumin goes really well with squash, countless recipes and cultures make this combination). I would put in some nuts as well, preferably pistacchios. Anything really, except peanuts.
Or you could go the other way and use spinach or kale. Or perhaps Cauliflower puree.
Marc, would you care to join us in chat? Friendly invitation... ^_^
Cindy's edit served you well.
Hi Marc. I edited your answer to soften the tone. As it is your answer you can change it back if you like. Just trying to be helpful.
Let us continue this discussion in chat.
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73633 | Dissolving xylitol in a raw, home-made chocolate
I was doing a home-made, raw chocolate, made of:
raw cocoa powder
raw cocoa butter
xylitol, substituting sugar
The problem was that xylitol was not dissolving well in the butter. One could feel tiny grains of it in the chocolate and also during the process it slowly settled at the bottom of the melted chocolate. I'd say the same problem would exist with sugar, as they are water-soluble, not fat-soluble.
Is there a way/trick how to dissolve xylitol in chocolate properly?
To what temperature were you heating the mixture? Wikipedia suggests 92 to 96 °C as a melting point for xylitol.
I believe that sugars are usually suspended in chocolate by emulsion - emulsifiers, like soy lecithin, are sometimes commercially used and may improve sugar staying suspended in the chocolate - which may answer part of your problem, if you can find some to try it.
But I think the real answer to how sugar usually stays suspended in chocolate lies in mechanical emulsion, where sugar is mixed into chocolate and stays suspended in fine particles. Commercial chocolate does so in the 'conching' stage of chocolate production - where the chocolate is mechanically ground very fine for hours or days, giving a minute particle size to both the cocoa solids and the sugar granules.
Homemade chocolate using cocoa powder and cocoa butter don't usually need conching, since the solids are already ground to a fine powder - but your xylitol may be slightly coarser and so is apparent in the mixed chocolate as a gritty texture. Perhaps home chocolate making uses powdered sugar, or the sugar dissolves more easily into the chocolate butter, or in the mouth when tasting, I'm not sure. I don't think you can add something to make your xylitol dissolve or distribute better, though, as it will probably make the chocolate seize.
You might try grinding your xylitol (with a mortar and pestle, or a spice grinder or what have you) till it becomes a fine powder - if there isn't already a finer grind available, which would be less work. This should also help with settling since the smaller particles will be lighter, although you might need to keep stirring until it's thick enough, or plan to cool quickly enough after it is poured, so that it doesn't have time to settle.
Thanks, mortar sounds like a good idea. For my amount it'd be quite doable.
@PetrPudlák - I'm glad you found it helpful! Mortar and pestle can get tricky for large amounts, but I find it pretty useful for pulverizing little amounts of stuff.
I tried it and it's much better.
@PetrPudlák - I'm glad to hear it - thanks for letting me know!
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73891 | Is burnt ceramic frying pan safe to use?
I've been using a Bergner ceramic frying pan for a month and it has been ok up until today when I decided to cook beef burgers on it. After I was finished the ceramic coating was pretty burnt out. I've follow a cleaning method I found online with boiling water and baking soda, which cleaned it a lot, but there are still burnt bits here and there that won't go away.
Is it still safe to use?
Hello, and welcome to Stack Exchange. Is this burned bits on top of the underlying coating, or burning of the coating itself?
Another thing you can do to unstick burnt bits is 1/3 fill the pan with water, add some washing up liquid and heat gently.
The frying pain is still safe to use (unless the ceramic chipped or cracked badly as well). A bit of vinegar (white) and a soft scrubber may get the rest of those burnt bits out as well. Either way, though, as long as the ceramic is intact, you can still use the frying pan safely.
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73700 | How to make fluffy Appam without Sweet?
I have seen all recipies of Appam that use sugar for fermenting. How can I make salty tasting fluffy white appam ? I have wasted around 3 kgs of rice trying it but, still unsuccessful.
Hey, It would be helpful if you added your recipe and method - that is, what kinds of things you have been trying and why they didn't work for you. It will make it easier for people to figure out what's going on and what might help.
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67435 | Baking powder/leavener in the microwave
When cooking muffins/cup cakes in the microwave, how can I know that the baking powder/leavener is cooked thoroughly? Most recipes are kind of short. Could cooking dough in the microwave result in something containing baking powder/leavener that's too raw?
The most reassuring part first:
Even if you decided to eat a spoonful of "raw" baking powder, the worst that would happen is a fizzy feeling in your mouth, a bloated feeling in your stomach and probably a few really loud burps not fit for polite company when excess gas exits backwards again.
The chemical reaction of baking powder and baking soda starts the moment it gets wet - at least the first stage. That's one of the reasons you don't want to have your batter standing around idly and get it into the oven asap instead.
"Double-action" baking powders get a second round of "activity" once they get warm / hot, ensuring that the cake rises properly in the oven.
Even microwave recipes need at least a few minutes until they are done (baking powder lifting the batter, eggs setting properly...), once your mug cake is hot inside, you can be pretty sure the baking powder has been hot enough to "complete the chemical reaction", assuming that's what you meant by "cooked". And there are at least another few minutes until you actually eat the cake (even if you serve it hot).
If you really want to see how fast the reaction really is, I recommend a few experiments:
I just dumped a teaspoon of baking powder in a bowl of hot water and the fizzing was over in less that five seconds.
Yes, batter will slow that process down a bit, but I think it's way harder (or near impossible with standard recipes) to prepare a a mug cake where the baking powder did not react.
Nice answer! What do you think about cooking it in the microwave but at less power for more time? Might improve the whole baking process (if we decrease, insteaad of 2 minutes, we can do it to 10, for example)
@M.K would probably be worth a few experiments?
I think I'l try 3 experiments and post the results! Should I post it as an answer in here or publish a new question (because we don't know the answer yet), and publish it when I do them?
@M.K Ask yourself: would the results of the experiment answer this question? If yes, post an answer, if no, write a matching question and answer that.
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72885 | What other meat can I use instead of pork in a Spaghetti Carbonara?
I don't want to eat pancetta (or pork) but I want to be able to recreate a similar taste and texture.
What can I substitute for the pancetta?
A quick search for 'kosher carbonara recipe' (which would also exclude either all meat or the dairy) had a recommendation for 'bacon salt'. Others used beef cheek (might be harder to find), or smoked fatty poultry (eg, goose or duck) and replaced the cheese with nutritional yeast or left it out. And a few used some vegetable that's either roasted or smoked (zucchini, mushrooms, etc.) or morningstar farm's vegetarian bacon (which won't be available everywhere).
And 'halal carbonara recipe' agreed w/ djmadscribbler -- either turkey bacon or beef bacon.
Related question. (not dupe because it's asking for vegetarian options)
Bacon is often substituted for pancetta. While bacon is also traditionally made from pork, there are companies that produce bacon from turkey, beef, lamb, venison, elk, buffalo and even seitan. If you could find one of these bacons in your area, then you could substitute one of them for the pancetta.
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73048 | Looking for the name of an orange crunchy snack
The snack I'm talking about has an exterior similar to Chinese sweet and sour pork.
However, its shape is long and spindly. There is no meat in it. It is just the dough part. It is a bit sour and it is really sweet. It was sold in a box of the sweet. It is possibly Jewish or Arabic (I'm not certain about the letters I saw), I'm not sure. The texture is similar to the exterior of sweet and sour pork too, but it's only the outsider, doughy fried part.
The snack was encountered in Canada. It was long and looked kind of like a kebab without a stick and if all the pieces of meat were joined together. It definitely wasn't made of fruit though.
Jalebi (as mentioned in comments) just might be a possibilty. Whether or not it's really jalebi, it definitely looks similar to the food I'm thinking of. I will try it given the chance and update this.
I'm tempted to remove the image as it makes it look like you're trying to ID the food in the image, which isn't the case. I don't know if the image is really helpful to the question.
What country did you see this food in?
Candied fruit strips could possibly look like that. Perhaps candied papaya?
Possibly a variation of jalebi though it's more usually pretzel shaped in Indian sweet shops. Basically fried dough soaked in honey.
Yes, it is indeed jalebi. Everyone, go out to your local Indian eatery and try it out!
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88332 | How interchangeable are fats in yeast bread recipes?
I know that unsalted butter has a water content - can I substitute clarified butter, vegetable oil, or shortening in equal amounts? If I do use unsalted butter, do I need to adjust the hydration percentage? Adversely, if I use a fat with no water content, do I need to adjust the hydration level up a bit? Or do I just rely on how the dough comes together, and tweak as I go?
Should we assume that you're uninterested in flavor changes? Are you specifically talking about yeast-leavened breads?
Yeast- leavened breads, yes. And I’m also interested in changing the flavor very subtly, depending on the loaf. I love the nutty flavor of ghee, and sometimes coconut oil seems to match my mood. Pizza dough is what I usually make, and that’s olive oil, of course :).
If you're the type of person who measures all your ingredients on a gram scale, theoretically you do.
However, unless the fat in the recipe is on the order of 1/2 cup, the amount of omitted water is going to be less than the amount of variance in water you get from uncontrollable sources, such as the ambient humidity. There's also that you never know exactly how much water is in that generic unsalted butter to begin with. American butter varies between 11% and 18% for water content, not just between brands, but also by season and year as the price and quality of cream fluctuates. Not only do you not actually know how much water content is in your butter, you don't know how much was in the cookbook author's butter (also, some cheaper brands of ghee, such as the one sold at Trader Joe's, are not actually water-free).
If we were to assume that a recipe called for 200g of unsalted American butter, then you'd theoretically want assume an average water content of 15%, and swap that for, say, 170g of oil and 30g (roughly 2 Tbs) of water.
But my practical advice is "add a couple extra teaspoons of water and see how it comes together".
In their analysis of Chocolate Chip Cookie recipes America's Test Kitchens alternated butter, shortening, egg yolk and some other oils. They described various subtle differences between the results (flatter/fluffier/etc) based solely on the fat substitution. All of the variations were described as "good" but (in their test case) they settled on adding one additional egg yolk to their recipe (This is the cookie recipe I use...great, thanks, now I'm going to have to make cookies tonight).
Ultimately your answer comes down to what is important to you. Different fats (and as FuzzyChef points out - hydration levels) are going to result in different tastes and textures, but they will all likely end up in the range of "good" but may not be "the best". (none of them should explode) Will it be 'the same'? No.
Can you explain how a cookie recipe relates to bread dough?
It is an example of how alternating fats makes a significant difference the end result...even if it is all in the range of "good" it is not the same. OP asks about "Substitution" I am pointing out that he should not expect the same results from such a substitution. Both the texture and flavor will be impacted. Given the similarity in the ingredient set (flour, sugar, fat) the analogy seems pretty good to me.
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90966 | Can I use Portobello Mushrooms in Lasagna?
I'd like to make a lasagna with mushrooms finely chopped and cooked with some Italian sausage to make the base for the meat sauce. However, all I have are Portobello Mushrooms. Will they work for this?
I've made lasagna with Portobello chunks. It came out same as with button mushrooms. Diced fine should be OK, haven't done that exact thing. Sauce'll end up looking a little browner than usual.
@WayfaringStranger I would expect buttons and portobello to give you the same results ;-)
The simple answer is Yes. Of course you can use Portobello in your lasagna. You can dice them up and add them to your sauce, no problem at all.
If that is the end product you want then you should make it that way but I would recommend slicing the Portobello into long thin slices. This will accentuate the lovely texture of the Portobello and you could add a nice layering effect to an already nicely layered dish.
Be sure with whatever method you use you cook them quickly on high heat with a little Salt and Pepper to help bring out their flavor.
I use portobellas in my lasagnas very often.
I would dice them and give them a quick sear in a skillet before throwing them into the lasagna. This will enhance the texture and bring out more flavor.
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91216 | Multilayered brownie help
I'm not new to baking but I'm new to experimenting with baking. I just don't want to experiment with baking when many resources are invested in the recipe.
So, I'm looking to make a huge multilayered brownie "cake" for my company potluck, I just don't know if it's possible:
Top to bottom:
1/2 Ghirardelli Brownie mix
Any Caramel chocolate crushed and melted
1/2 Ghirardelli Brownie mix
Any white chocolate crushed and melted
1/2 Ghirardelli Brownie mix
Any regular chocolate crushed and melted
1/2 Ghirardelli Brownie mix
For the layers between the brownie layers, I was thinking just taking 3-5 chocolate bars and crushing them.
The eggs, oil, and water will be mixed as per the Ghirardelli recipe so I'll use 2/3 cup water, 2/3 vegetable oil, 2 eggs. Maybe more for better consistency?
Multi-layered brownies are certainly possible, however if you try and make it too thick it can be too dense at the bottom because the weight won't allow any sort of rise (most brownies do rise, just not much but it's still important). I make a triple chocolate brownie with a layer of salted caramel in between and it comes out really well, that's a single recipe split into halves.
Your idea is to make two boxes and then do 4 layers, it may work just fine, if it were me I'd do it in two batches and then place the top 2 layers on after they all cool.
As for what to put in between you'll want to choose ingredients that are markedly different from the brownie itself. Caramel contrasts as does white chocolate, but a layer of chocolate in chocolate brownie is less likely to be noticed.
As for the amounts of oils and eggs, follow the recipe to the letter, don't mess around with it as the consistency is already optimized. If you want to experiment do it in small batches so you can measure the results before committing to a big bake.
I don't know about the mix the OP is using, but a really dark bittersweet chocolate can also contrast with a fairly sweet brownie
A good point @ChrisH. I was thinking more about visual impact than flavor impact. It would be important to make sure they all complement each other, having salted caramel and mint would be... interesting.
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89799 | Simulating the discontinued Lawry's Roasted Garlic Salt?
Lawry's Roasted Garlic Salt was simply the best spice I've ever had. And had I known it was discontinued I would've bought a few cases.
If you're familiar with it can you recommend something similar.
I think Mrs dash garlic and herb is pretty similar
The ingredient list from the back of the bottle, in order: Salt, sugar, modified corn starch, roasted garlic, spices (including oregano and basil), natural flavor, extractives of carrots.
This was flagged for closure because this site doesn't do recipe requests. However, since you're trying to mimic an existing recipe, it might be acceptable. Have you tried duplicating it yourself? What were the particular flavor components of it that you find lacking in other spice blends?
Ok, well I don't want the question closed I've remove the request to create an equivalent instead of just finding one.
(If someone offered a recipe without hinting at asking one would it also be flagged for closure?)
Asking for a substitute for a discontinued product is certainly fine, the close voters were probably trying to follow the law, not the spirit.
And that means the law is not effective because all it does is leave a sour taste.
@Cindy if you post the nutritional values as well, I might be able to come up with a simulation...
Restaurant mimicry has been considered on topic since the early days of this site, as you have a specific goal that other people would be familiar with, and this would be similar (Although it might get iffy if you asked some hole in the wall restaurant unless you also tell what you’ve tried and how it differed from the restaurant)
@Fabby If you do an image search for Lawry's Roasted Garlic Salt you should find an image of the back of the bottle. You should see the info there.
We know that:
1.1g contains 13% of the daily value of sodium which according to the FDA is < 2400mg/day so 320 mg checks out correctly.
The total weight of the entire container is 201 g and the amount of servings is 183, so that checks out as well. (183 * 1.1)
The ingredients are in order of weight:
salt
sugar
modified corn starch
roasted garlic
spices (including oregano and basil)
natural flavor
extractives [sic] of carrots
and that means the content of salt is highest, then sugar, then starch, ... until the carrot extract.
Salt is NaCl and 1 teaspoon weighs 10.7g so 1/4 teaspoon weighs 2.7g, not the 1.1g that the container displays, so the other ingredients must be lighter to come to a weight of 1.1g for the overall mixture
1 teaspoon of sugar weighs 3.95g
1 teaspoon of corn starch weighs 2.77g
1ml of garlic flakes weighs 0.35g, so 1 teaspoon weighs 0.07g
1ml of BBQ spices weighs 0.48g, so 1 teaspoon weighs 0.1g
"Natural flavor" and "carrot extract" are really hard to find and are the ingredients with the least amount of weight in this recipe so I'll leave them out of this for the moment.
If we would mix 5 teaspoons of the above ingredients we'd come to a total of 0.8795g, which is too low so let's increase the cheapest and heaviest ingredient:
1.4 teaspoons of salt + 1 teaspoon sugar + 1 teaspoon of corn starch + 1 teaspoon of garlic +1 of spices is 1.09 g
That leaves you to play with 0.01g of natural flavor and carrot extract to get it just right, but the above should be 99% correct.
Great answer! I would be very interested to know the results from anyone who tries this.
@Cindy I don't know what the original tastes like as I've never used it, so I just took a best shot at recreating a recipe from best estimates but if you know what it tastes like, it'l take just 5 teaspoons of ingredients you already have in the house to test it out...
Sorry, I've never used it. I'm hoping that someone who is familiar with it will try your recipe and let us know.
Looking at those ingredients I'm going to go out on a limb and say it tastes mostly like salt.
And I cook without salt and with a ton of herbs... 0:-) @Sobachatina
I would like to try it since I posted the question! But are there different flavors of garlic flakes? ... roasted?... where does one procure.
Where I live, garlic flakes are sometimes called "powdered garlic" and it's available in the herbs section of any supermarket. @RandyZeitman
Will it taste like Lawry's or just garlic?
I've never tasted Lawry's, I just went by ingredients and what it looks like and cost and then reverse-engineered... @RandyZeitman
I am also looking to replace the Roasted Garlic salt from Lawry's. The flavor was perfect and just a little dash or two enhanced the flavor of so many things.
As an experiment, I tried blending one part 'Lawry's Seasoned Salt' to one part 'McCormicks Roasted Garlic' (something I bought looking for an alternative) in a small shaker. I compared the two (yes, I have about 1/2 inch left in my last bottle of 'Lawry's Roasted Garlic Salt'!) and it isn’t too bad. I put a little bit on boiled potatoes and it is by far the closest thing I have found to date.
I will be experimenting further in the future hoping to make it a closer match.
Thank you Tommy. I'll give that a go! I have 4" left in my shaker and you're welcome to one of them for your help! (Yes, I'd really send it.) Is the MCCORMICK the ROASTED GARLIC POWDER?
But I also see this ... "McCormick Grill Mates Roasted Garlic & Herb" to try in combo.
And I can tell you the McCormick Black Garlic Powder Seasoning is already $9 ... up from $6 ... up from $3. I bought ten at $6. I go through a bottle every two weeks ... I'd like to buy a case but have not yet been able to.
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81009 | Can fresh pasta sheets be used to assemble a lasagne, then left in the fridge overnight before baking?
Or will this make them mushy or otherwise degrade them?
I have recently gotten into making fresh pasta, and I want to prep a lasagne the night before. I have done this before with store-bough dried noodles, but I'm not sure if doing this will have a negative effect on fresh, more delicate pasta.
It can be done (my mom does it every year for Christmas Eve).
One thing to note, however -- you must boil the noodles before assembly -- it doesn't take long, maybe a minute or less (although, work in batches).
This will prevent the noodles from turning into paste as they sit.
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81249 | Name of the snack (possibly Indian)
I wanted to ask if anyone have any idea what is the name of that snack that can be seen on top of a salad, between burgers.
I know the name in my country, but now, in Canada I can't find it anywhere.
Appreciate any help!
Tom
We'll see what people have to say, but often, these kinds of things don't have English names, so it's hard to offer much besides suggesting finding the right kind of grocery store.
So how are the d... things called in your fine country? That would give a good starting point to people...
This is funny because:
In English they are called " fried snacks" :)
But it's a polish thing, they are called "przysmak świętokrzyski" or "crates". It's basically wheat flour (97,5%) and water. Then fried.
I think there is only one company that make them https://www.wspspolem.com.pl/produkty/snack-przysmak-swietokrzyski/snack-kratka/ and although they write there are other shapes I have never ever seen anything beside crates.
BUT
I have eaten something similar in England but they were sweet, it's called Jalebi.
Yes, that good old English word jalebi! Seriously, it's just a piece of garnish, of Hindi origin. Not so different to some establishments putting crisps on a plate.
@dougal you know that English like to wait for other languages in dark alleys and then rob them of loose words.
I don't believe they have a name in English. A known brand name of a snack made from the same material is Pom Bears, but just like the grid thingies, it is very strongly associated with the shape, to the point where a snack with the same content but different shape will be considered to be a different "thing".
You can try calling them "crisps" but even in the UK, asking for crisps is likely to get you the non-puffy version, not any shape of the puffy one.
It looks like "Vada Pav".
Vada Pav
It's a typical Indian street dish consisting of spiced potato, deep-fried and served in a bun. Various sauces and toppings are common.
Link to Wikipedia article
I think you misread the question - it is about "that snack that can be seen on top of a salad, between burgers". So whatever is served in the bun is not part of the question, it is the small fried grid between them.
@rumtscho yes, I sure did.
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67315 | What methods make tomato chopping less messy?
Chopping tomato is real mess sometimes. I just want to know that what is the best chop tomatoes without any mess?
One trick I did was to deep freeze tomatoes before cutting them and then used to chop them. But if we don't have time to deep freeze i.e 20 mins then what are other options?
Putting tomatoes in the refrigerator or freezer will change the texture of the interior and the taste of the tomato. Don't do it.
@LarsTech: http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/09/why-you-should-refrigerate-tomatoes.html
@Batman deep freeze is different than refrigerating.
You need a sharper knife. With a dull knife, you'll have trouble getting through the skin, and end up tearing and smashing, releasing a lot of juice. With a sharp knife, you'll get through the skin cleanly and leave the tomatoes much more intact.
Serrated knives are another common option: they get through the skin very easily. A dull serrated knife will tear the flesh up a lot, though, so you still do need a reasonably sharp blade, and while a cheap bread knife or steak knife might be better than nothing, it's not ideal. The best ones are probably the ones actually marketed as tomato knives: they're sharp, not too thick, and have a serration pattern that's meant for this.
If you're forced to make do with an inadequate knife, you can break the skin with the tip, then extend that with the blade and slice from there. If the knife is so dull that it still makes a mess, you might be out of luck. This is pretty time-consuming, though, so I wouldn't suggest it as an everyday method for a lot of slices.
Freezing, as you suggested, doesn't sound like a great idea. If you freeze tomatoes thoroughly enough to make them firmer and easier to chop, then you'll have formed a lot of ice, and once they thaw, they'll tend to disintegrate and release all that juice. It won't affect the flavor, but it's kind of pointless, since if you're willing to mess up the texture that much, you might as well just hack it up whatever messy way you like.
+1. I have a special knife just for tomatoes: I sharpen it, just a few seconds on each side, before each use. I have to hide it when visitors are helping me to cook :-)
Look into stropping techniques to refresh that knife :)
Although a sharp or serrated knife are the best solution, there's also a trick that you can use when you're working with less than ideal knives (ie, in someone else's kitchen).
Use the tip of the knife to stab the tomato at the spacing that you'll be cutting it.
Slice at each of the stab marks
If dicing, place a couple of slices on the board, and then slice down through them.
When dicing the ends, place the slice skin-side down before cutting.
Effectively, you're breaking the skin of the tomato like a serrated knife would to help you get it started. For the other slices, you're not cutting from the skin side, so you won't have the problem with the knife slipping.
My favored way is a very sharp cooks knife.
Others have said serrated knifes. I also do that if my cooks knife needs sharpening (sometimes I neglect it). Note: there are general use serrated knives, often used to slice bread. Also on the market are serrated knives specifically made for tomatoes. I think the serrations purpose-built for tomatoes are gentler on the flesh and meat of the tomato. I've seen them at decent prices 6 to 8 U.S. dollars.
Tomato Knife
Here's another (I've never used a knife like this, but it has 400+ reviews and 4.5 stars on Amazon)
The bottom knife is actually a cheese knife, though they do work well on tomatoes.
Amazon is touting it as a tomato and cheese knife, I guess more customers. I bet those air gaps in the blade keep cheese and tomato from sticking.
Use a serrated knife with a long blade. Like a bread knife!
When cutting, try not to apply too much pressure (i.e. press down into the berry, or use a vigorous sawing motion). That squeezes out tomato juice. Instead, let the weight of the blade do most of the work. This is why I recommend a long blade. A nice, slow draw from the heel of the knife to its tip across the flesh of the berry should get you most--if not all--of the way through the fruit.
If you have a particularly tough-skinned tomato, try using the tip of the blade to make an initial slit, then finish the cut with the serration. Once the interior of the tomato is exposed it should be smooth going.
While using a sharp serrated knife, place the whole tomatoe upside down on the cutting block. Cut down through the tomatoe without cutting through (I.e. Let the top of the tomato hold together).
Cut as thick or thin as you want. If you want slices, then once you have cut then all then turn the tomato on its side and hold the tomato together with the top toward your knife and slice through and you'll have a neat stack of slices.
If you want diced or chopped, then leave the tomato upside down and turn it 90 degrees. Hold the slices together. Slice down to but not through the top again, as thick or thin as you like.
Now the fun part. Turn the tomato over onto its side so that the stem points away from the cutting board. Hold the tomatoe around so the pieces don't slide all over, and slice down through the tomatoe starting at the bottom of the tomato for the first slice.
You should be gifted with a perfectly chopped or diced tomato, uniform pieces and a top of the tomato being all that's left.
Works perfectly for onions too, with the exception of cutting the onion in half through the base first.
Get a ceramics blade knife! It's just the best for cutting tomatoes and will stay sharp FOREVER ;)
I posted an answer to look for a purpose made tomato knife. There some ceramic tomato knives--pretty pricy. But for someone with a future of cutting many tomatoes, it's a sound investment.
Well, I got mine for 6€. Check lidl online. Idk if they ship to other countries also...
Here's the one that shocked me http://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/kyocera-ceramic-serrated-tomato-knife/ The company makes signature quality sound amplifiers, and knives. JP is unusual.
Probably this can safe your life ;)
@Paulb: Kyocera is a big-ass industrial conglomerate, somewhat like General Electric or Siemens, although not quite so big.
There are also tomato knives made by quality knife brands like Global (whose chef knives will handle hundreds and hundreds of tomatoes after properly sharpening them :) )
@Paulb and some of the best laser printers. So they make printers, amplifiers and knives... useful stuff I'd say :)
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76695 | Can you cover an angel food cake with fondant?
can anyone tell me if I can cover an angel food cake with fondant or is it too heavy for this sort of cake?
What is the best for this kind of cake...
I think you can cover an angel food cake with fondant, but it seems that it would clash. Angel food cake begs for a light glaze if anything.
@Jolenealaska I think people use a whipped cream topping sometimes... but, again, that's a very light frosting.
What do you mean by "What is the best for this kind of cake..."?
I would say a matter of taste, but most I think would side with a taste/style clash. In the MidWest US I do know icing Angel food cakes is a bit more common than I see elsewhere, sometimes up to a fairly heavy buttercream icing, but I think fondant would still be beyond any I have seen. If you want to, I would definitely roll it very thin, not use a heavy layer like modeling clay.
Angel food cake has a very light and springy texture. It has no fat and so can sometimes feel more dry than other types of cake.
It is eaten precisely because it has a lighter, less rich, flavor. Toppings should accentuate this not detract. It's rare to see a rich buttercream frosting on an angel food cake, for example. Common toppings are whipped cream and fruit, a simple glaze, or just a dusting of powdered sugar.
Once cooled, an angel food cake would be able to support the weight of thinly rolled fondant but it is my opinion that it would not at all work with the simplicity of that cake. If you are going to eat the cake then you should use a lighter topping. If you aren't going to eat it then put your fondant on a cake that is less work to make.
Much of this information was written years ago in comments by Jolenealaska, Catija, and dlb.
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73737 | Ceramic knives for boning?
I have read that one shouldn't use ceramic knives for cutting THROUGH bones, but how about for cutting AROUND bones? Examples would include cutting breasts off a chicken, carving around bones in steaks, etc. So the knife would probably come into occasional contact with a bone, but not with any serious amount of force.
Boning/fillet knives are typically flexible ... the exact opposite of ceramic.
Some aren't flexible (Honesuki/Garasuki/Deba), but they are typically not made of ceramic (though a ceramic deba exists).
the problem with ceramic knives and bones is that they are incredibly brittle. Any slip into bone can cause chips in your blade so I would just not use them when bones are involved.
Save your ceramics for fruits and vegetables. Warnings are not limited to THROUGH bones. For me a meat cuts fine with metal.
I'd even keep thinner ceramics clear of peach pits :)
I would agree, a ceramic knife would not be the best knife for de-boning. They were not intended to be used for this purpose. The size, shape and weight are not suitable for de-bone most proteins. I believe in the long run you would damage the knife.
Some bones, say pork or beef bones are harder, and if you hit them too hard with a ceramic knife, it could damage the edge. Also some techniques require you to hit and break a bone to remove the meat from the bone. A ceramic knife would probably shatter from the repeated impact.
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79292 | How do I change the flavour of honey?
I am currently planning to make my own energy gel, for which I will need some form of carbohydrate source, in my case honey. I will appreciate if you can tell me another carbohydrate "agent" that I can easily flavour.
Now I am a person that doesn't like the taste of honey, no matter which one I try I do not like it.
How do I remove the flavour of honey?
It's not totally clear whether you're asking for alternatives to honey that are shelf-stable, or ways to flavor honey. A shelf-stable viscous sugary alternative is agave nectar.
well the question clearly asks how to change the flavour of honey, then in the question body I go on to explain why I would ask such a thing, in case going another way woudl be easier
I don't know to re-flavor honey, but have you considered agave nectar as a replacement. It has a much more subtle flavor that could overridden by other ingredients in your gel (IMHO) ...also it's cheaper :)
I think that's the point of what beth was saying... why bother trying to mask the flavor of something you don't like rather than just using a similar product? You're trying to solve a problem that may not be a problem. Is there a particular reason you're using honey when you dislike it?
well one reason honey might be a better solution for me is that I can get it fairly cheap, and I must say I havent extensively looked into alternatives because I was overwhelmed how many syrup's and the like there are, but dans advice if it is to be trusted sounds solid
@zython - if agave nectar doesn't work for you, you can also probably further dehydrate any syrup (maple, for example, is commonly available) into a thicker consistency. Even a simple sugar syrup can be made thick and gel-like (soft ball stage or a little looser, or even a caramel), and can be flavored by extracts as you please.
Adding to what Megha said, if a syrup isn't as gel-like as you want you could add thickeners such as starch powders which can gel when you heat the mixture and then cool it.
Agave nectar is expensive at places like Whole Foods but pretty cheap at Mexican grocery stores.
I accidentally reduced the honey taste when I added cream of tartar to a honey gummy recipe.
You cannot change it. It is always going to be there and bug you.
You taste things when some chemical compound hits a receptor in your mouth or nose (in this case, it is likely to be the nose). It doesn't matter what you add, the offending compound will still be there, and you will still notice it. And as we don't know which compound it is, and given the limited chemical changes you can do to food while staying palatable (basically you can heat things or change the pH and hope that some reactions occur) you are unlikely to ever change that compound. Worse, it is even more likely to be the combination of multiple compounds which you hate in honey, and then you cannot hope to randomly change them all.
People do try masking or dilution. For masking, you add something with such a strong smell that the signal from that one compound gets drowned out when the brain is creating the olfactory sensation. It can work for things to which you are mostly indifferent, but once you absolutely hate something, it stays salient and is perceived together with the masking smell.
Dilution works because some aromas are only unpleasant when they are too intense. But seeing that you want the honey to be a major component, you cannot use dilution here.
So, there is nothing you can do. Either eat cheap bars which you hate, or switch to something else regardless of cost.
Masking base flavors is more than just drowning out - there is some receptor blocking involved at a pre-brain level :) But since these are indeed likely aromas, no such luck :)
I am not sure that much receptor blocking occurs, if yes, that would be quite a coincidence and only work between some very specific pairs of compounds. There will be some information loss or information suppression on each step of the process of course, both before and within the brain, independently of what docked onto the receptor, and it is impossible to say how and why the person will recognize a given smell in the end. But this goes way too deep, and usually hated aromas do not get filtered out when you try to mask them, which makes sense, since they are associated with an emotion.
Consider making inverted sugar syrup (plenty of documentation about how to on the web). Can be made very viscous and (from my experience) does not easily catch mold, especially when left acidic. Won't crystallize easily, and can be added to other syrups to keep them from crystallizing. Taste could be too close to honey though...
Consider using commercially made syrups - eg corn syrup, oligosaccharide syrup (check your korean grocery), malt syrup, rice syrup, low grade maple syrup, molasses...
Most of these alternatives (except the maple syrup, and the aforementioned agave nectar) tend to be CHEAPER than honey....
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78721 | Using food as a cooking fuel to cook other food?
I was thinking about it and we use charcoal, gas, wood chips, etc to heat our food; for obvious reasons and since they burn for a long time.
But what if, for example, you set a few steaks on fire and use those steaks to cook a hamburger? Would it improve the taste of the hamburger?
LOL - Hickory makes good stakes and adds a nice flavor to the hamburgers.
Braising comes to mind.
Why would you waste expensive meat to cook cheap meat? For that matter, why would you waste food to cook other food at all?
Why not? I'm asking about in general. Could you use food, as a cooking fuel to potentially change the taste of another food. Almost like a spice.
In India ( and other places i am sure ) they use cow dung as fuel for fires and they pour butter on to feed it. Technically dung and butter are foods that have been processed . Just saying.
Isn't this why a lot of gas grills have two racks, i.e., so you can use the smoke from the lower rack to cook the food on the higher one? (yeah... I said it!)
Are you just looking for any example of the general concept in the title (including burning a bit of something when cooking with another fuel source), or are you actually asking about using food as a fuel as in the body of your question? None of the answers addresses the latter, yet you've accepted one.
@Jefromi The comment seems to imply "cooking fuel". I suppose the accepted answer does involve burning herbs when smoking.
@Alaskaman : that was my first thought, too ... after all, it's the remains of food being used to cook other food. But it's also important to mention that it's dried dung being used. It's less common today, but more likely to be found in areas with people 'living off the land' in areas with grazing animals and few trees.
It's possible to smoke meat using nuts or herbs, and fish can be baked on a huge slab of rock salt, but other than that, people don't really bother.
There's nothing wrong with experimenting though. Maybe you'll invent something new by burning fruit. Who knows.
I've also heard of meat smoked with tea leaves either cooked wrapped in them, or using the leaves for smoke - but you're right, it isn't very common. Probably because it "wastes" whatever food is burnt.
Is tea smoked stuff really that uncommon in chinese cuisine?
As far as I understand, this does not mean actually using nuts and herbs as a fuel source, just as a smoke source, and the rock salt isn't burned at all.
If you just want the concept, there are pasta sauces involving egg or egg yolk where the heat from the pasta is the only thing that cooks the egg. In that way you cooked your food with food, but you didn't have to do without either piece of it.
I like the carbonara.
But you're not using the pasta as the source of the flame... you're not burning the pasta to cook the egg, you're using residual heat to do that.
I answered before the edit saying "as fuel", @Catija
It's obvious in the question that "as fuel" was always the goal. See the OP's comment on the question from yesterday. You can hardly ignore the only example in the question (setting steak on fire to cook a burger).
I do similar things with eggs on rice, though the rice is still in the rice cooker when I do it so it doesn't quite count. Though I suppose it would work with freshly cooked rice that was still piping hot
In a way, exactly that happens in a flambe - potable alcohol (you can drink it and it has calories - food ;) ) is set on fire to cook stuff... and in some preparations (eg very high heat wok cooking), cooking oil (edible calories too) are set on fire for a moment...
Of course, there is a symbolic/style/fashion/hip/just plain decadent factor to take into account here - a burger prepared that way would make people CLAIM it tasted better, and that make enough people PERCEIVE it as tasting better, no matter what the actual influence of the technique is - unless it renders the food patently unpalatable, unsafe (though that has a hip factor in itself) or inedible.
Also, in a way, any smoking wood you use IS a food ingredient: You process it (by burning it) to extract an edible/palatable fraction (the smoke particles) and add that fraction to your food (by exposing it to the smoke).
Cooking wood is definitely a food ingredient... also, there are some dishes which use wood-specific charcoal as an ingredient. I've seen bamboo charcoal, there's bread made with that charcoal ground finely. So the wood can be a food ingredient twice over, the smoke can make one thing and the charcoal a second thing, and the whole is used up.
What about acidity to "cook" fish ? You can make ceviche by "cooking" the fish in lime and/or lemon juice.
or salt to cure fish and meat ? You can make gravlax by "cooking" the fish with sugar and salt.
Stakes may burn well, steak does not. Go ahead, light a pile of them. I dare you. How long did those burn for before they fizzled out?
I generally try to avoid having fat-flare-ups when grilling, as the thick greasy black smoke is the opposite of an improvement in flavor. That would be most of what you'd get from tossing a steak on the coals, which is about the only way you're going to "burn steaks" without having them either not light at all or go out in seconds, depending how hard you try to light them. Your fuel would still be charcoal.
The only "practical" application of your general concept which comes to mind (only "practical" due to weird US farming subsidies) would be using a corn-burning stove, and I doubt that would have any particular flavor benefit. You could burn other dry grains, pasta, or nuts if money is no object (presumably if you are starting with "burn steaks.") The nuts will tend to greasy black smoke again (I once gave up on shelling some black walnuts and used the remaining ones for firestarters; They burned quite well.)
There is a self-fueling food, but it's only partially self-fueling. You need another heat source to provide the ignition.
First, get the fattiest grind of ground/minced beef that you can find. Cook it over either charcoal or a gas grill with a heat deflector. Place the burger directly over the charcoal or heat deflector.
Close the lid, which will help heat the entire burger so it renders the fat. As the fat drips, it will create flare-ups which will cook the burger faster than just the starting heat source.
It helps to use thinner patties -- as all of the fat is then relatively close to the surface, a higher percentage will drip out ... and the thing will be cooked before the outside becomes a hardened husk.
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55217 | Can you cook a 25 lb turkey in an oven that is 9 inches from the bottom rack to the heating elements?
I am trying to find out how big an oven has to be to cook a 25 lb. turkey. There is a new double oven on the market at Sears that has the two ovens about the same size...a standing stove not a built in with two ovens. The clearance is about 9 inches from the bottom rack to the elements above. Is 9 inches big enough for a 25 pound bird?
My double oven now is a Maytag 14 years old with two oven, one being small in height and the bottom oven is much larger and does indeed take a 25 pound bird. I wish I had a 25 pound bird here so I could measure its height. I like the idea of the two oven being about the same size BUT not sure about a bird.
Do you cook on a raised rack? That will add an inch to the height of the turkey at least. Even if it's tall enough, it would probably severely limit the airflow. I honestly doubt it would be enough room. How big is your current oven, by the way?
Have you tried measuring your current oven just for comparison?
9" is tiny. You might be able to fit a spatchcocked turkey if it's wide enough, but there's no way it'd fit even a standard chicken in there in its original shape.
9 Inches in height does indeed sound like it might not be enough to fit the turkey in at all. You also need to take into consideration that you need some space around the bird to allow the heat to spread evenly through the inside of the oven. I would generally not try to cook something in an oven that it barely fits in to.
I did a bit of Googling for you and found this semi relevant link where you find a little table with advised sizes for roasting pans compared to turkey weight.
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66388 | Homemade chocolate turns crumbly
I have been making Peanut Clusters a lot lately, and it seems that I just can't get them right. Once I add the butter, the chocolate turns brittle and crumbly before I can shape them on the wax paper. Does anyone know why this is happening and how I can make the chocolate stay smooth until I put them in the fridge?
This is my recipe:
1/2 c. sugar
1/4 c. milk
1 heaping tbsp. cocoa
1 heaping tbsp. butter
1/2 c. roasted peanuts
Mix sugar, cocoa, and milk. Boil 6 minutes, counting from time the bubbling begins. Add butter, nuts and vanilla. Take from the heat and stir just enough to mix in the nuts. Drop by spoonfuls on waxed paper.`
GdD gives a good answer, but I am going to give a recommendation type answer based on your ingredients because although the quantities are different the ingredients are exactly the same. Go to Hershey.com and search for their fudge recipe. Follow this recipe.
When your "fudge" reaches nearly the desired consistency from stirring, start stirring in the peanuts, and quickly spoon out your clusters onto wax paper.
I think that will give you the desired results and give you a silky fudge chocolate peanut cluster.
This is a good answer. The recipe above is not for chocolate covered peanuts but for a simple fudge that is crystallizing. Finding a better fudge recipe will work better.
Hershy.com has about 50 fudge recepies, which one are you thinking
Chocolate gets its texture from cocoa butter, which is substituted by regular butter in this recipe, so what you get from this recipe is not really chocolate, but a chocolate flavored mix. You are never going to get as silky a texture with regular butter as opposed to cocoa butter.
There's quite a bit that could be going wrong with the recipe and method you posted. It does not give exact measurements (heaping tbsp is not a good measurement), or give much details of what you are looking for texture-wise during the cooking process. It also calls for boiling it for 6 minutes, which I would never do myself. If I were using that recipe I would add add more butter, and I would not boil it. I would mix the cocoa and sugar with a bit of the milk to make a thick paste, then I would add the rest of the milk and the butter and cook gently for 5 minutes, say about 170F, stirring to keep it from burning. Then I'd add the vanilla (unspecified amount, maybe 1/2 tsp at most) and nuts, then let it cool some until it gets a bit more viscous before spooning it out.
My gut tells me this recipe and method are pretty flawed though, so I would try a different recipe first or just melt some chocolate and add nuts.
What difference does Cocoa Butter make, and where do you get it?
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64193 | Can I soak dried fruit in sweet wine instead of liqueur for use in fruitcakes?
The recipes for fruitcake that I've looked at say to soak the dried fruit in brandy, rum, etc., i.e., something with a high alcohol content. I've been using liqueur which works well.
I was wondering if using a sweet wine would work; has anyone tried this?
What do you mean by "work"? You can reconstitute dried fruit in any sort of (potable) water-based liquid... including water... but the point of using booze is to add flavor and ... booze.
A good quality ($20 or so) sweet Port, Madeira, or Sherry could be lovely, and add a delicious flavor note of its own. Make sure it's something that tastes good by itself, with a flavor that appeals to you, complimenting a piece of cake.
Note that these are so-called "fortified wines" — they are distilled to a higher alcohol content. Historically, this was done to achieve a long shelf-life without preservatives, so they're more like spirits. Unlike regular "corked" wines, an opened bottle of fortified wine can last a long time, so the cork is made as a stopper that can be easily resealed.
I don't think you'd get good results with a moscato or such. I also wouldn't skimp and buy a cheap (e.g.: Taylor) bottle of Port — that would be like using cheap, imitation vanilla extract! Spending $30 to get a high-quality flavor that you enjoy, is money well spent.
This kind of wine typically comes in both sweet and dry variants. If you're making an entrée sauce, you probably want a dry wine. For fruitcake, be sure to select a sweet variety. Sometimes, they're not specifically labeled "dry" or "sweet", so you need to read how it's described the label, or ask your vintner for a recommendation.
I so completely agree... The old adage holds... Don't cook with anything that you couldn't tolerate to drink.
You can, but it will have a very different effect to your fruitcake. The booziness of liquor is what makes the fruitcake taste the way it does.
The fruitcake will probably still taste great, but it won't be what people expect from a fruitcake, which is the boozy mouth and nose feel of the cake.
I would think that the amount of booze added by soaking the fruit is insignificant compared to the amount of booze you add after the fruitcake is baked. (Well, assuming you make the good kind of fruitcake, i.e. after baking it you put it in a tin, sprinkle it with a shot or two of brandy, wait a few days, and repeat ad libitum.)
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58501 | Substitute For Cream of Tartar
I recently bought tartar sauce instead of cream of tartar as my recipe said. The thing is I can't decide if tartar sauce is the same thing as cream of tartar.
Please advise whether I can use this as a substitute or if there are other substitutes or a recipe for cream of tartar.
Most excellent error! Tartar sauce belongs on fish sticks. Cream of tartar in egg whites you plan to whip.
@WayfaringStranger Is meringue not supposed to have little green lumps in it, then?
Cream of Tartar is potassium bitartrate in the form of powder. It is acidic, and is used in cooking mainly to stabilise meringue.
Tartare sauce is a mayonnaise-based sauce made using cornichons, capers, and tarragon or dill. It is usually served with seafood.
The two items are completely different and cannot be substituted one for the other.
Like JavaScript and Java. No wait, wrong stackexchange...
@iamnotmaynard More like Javascript and a cat. Javascript and Java are at least both programming languages; Cream of Tartar and Tartar sauce aren't even in the same category of things.
@DavidRicherby Sometimes, both cats and Javascript don't play nicely :(
Substitutes for cream of tartar:
For stablizing egg whites - lemon juice or white vinegar use equal amount.
For leavening - replace cream of tartar and baking soda with baking powder. 1 tsp. baking powder = 1/3 tsp. baking soda + 2/3 tsp. cream of tartar.
it's also used to aid sugar inversion, when the lemon juice will work; and in sherbets, in which case citric or malic acid will work.
Another good substitute for cream of tartar is a little pinch of salt, especially for stabilizing egg whites.
Enjoy!
Sorry, but it is not a substitute in any case, not even in egg whites. You can add salt to them, but it won't have the same effect chemically speaking, so it doesn't stabilize the foam. You can use acids or metal ions (beating in a pure copper bowl) but not salt.
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68099 | Is it possible to make yoghurt at home with dairy-free milks (soy, coconut, etc)?
I regularly make my own yoghurt from cow's milk by adding live yoghurt and leaving it to incubate for a few hours. Is it possible to make dairy free yoghurt (from soy milk, or coconut milk, or other dairy free milk alternatives?) I know it is available to buy in the shops but what would the process be for making it at home?
There are tons of recipes for "homemade soy yogurt". Just search the web...
Although I cannot speak with too much authority, I do know that in general, the less fat yogurt is made with, the more sugar is added to make it palatable. Here are a couple of references:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-health/10563265/Theres-HOW-MUCH-sugar-in-a-low-fat-yoghurt-Skirting-the-Issue.html
http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/6-dangerous-foods-in-disguise.html
Yes, you can. You just have to use a culture that can be used on vegetable milks. The method is basically the same as with regular yogurt.
To improve your answer, could you perhaps explain what is different about the cultures that work on vegetable milks from the "normal" cultures? Perhaps describe if they're more difficult to find or if they are likely the cultures that the OP may already be using.
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68617 | Tricks for knowing when a cheesecake is correctly done
I have just made a cheesecake, (not my first), but will admit that for me it is a bit of a guessing game to know when it is perfectly done. I know that the sign is when the middle still jiggles, but how big of a middle? Dime size, nickel size, quarter size, or salad plate size? Fortunately, luck was on my side and it turned out perfect, but not without worrying about its doneness! Other than the "jiggle", is there any concrete way of knowing when it is done? Is it possible to use a thermometer for the middle and what would the temperature be? Luckily, even if a cheesecake is under or over done, it's still delicious, but when serving it to company, it an added bonus if it turns out perfect! Any tips?
I suspect you might be happier with jiggling it than poking a hole with a thermometer!
I use a therometer.
King Arthur flour suggests measuring 1 inch away from the edge of the cheesecake and looking for a temperature between 165F and 170F.
Americas Test Kitchen/Cooks Illustrated has recommended 165F in the center (checked in 20 minute intervals, provided that you're not close to 165F). However, I remember on the television show that they said 150F many years ago (their blog uses 150F in the center for some recipes too; others say 150F but don't say where to measure it).
I find that the King Arthur method comes out a little bit overdone, so I generally err a bit lower to 160F for 1 inch away from the edge of the cheesecake.
This is all assuming a 9 inch springform (certainly, this will make a difference for the edge based methods, not sure for the center based methods if you change the size of the pan); Your desired temperature will vary based on recipe, but I've tried this with a few recipes and had good results. I generally use recipes which have just cream cheese, eggs and sugar (and maybe a bit of flour) along with add-ins (pumpkin puree+spices for pumpkin cheesecake or lemon zest + berries for a berry cheesecake) for the filling (no sour cream or ricotta or other stuff). Some of the recipes I've tried don't use water baths, others do.
As for aesthetics, I always poke in the same place, and make sure when slicing that I cut through the hole. People don't notice -- they're too busy stuffing their face with cheesecake.
Thanks for the tip Batman. I'll give that a try next time!
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64928 | Does "American" Food exist around the world?
In America, foods generally considered to be of foreign origin are referred to by the country or region which they are originally from.
For example, "That Italian restaurant just opened, let's try it.", there are many Italian restaurants in America which serve food generally considered to be Italian.
For countries other than the United States, is this still the case?
This example demonstrates the question, Would this ever be used in a country other than America? "Let's go to that American restaurant for dinner tonight".
Just as an aside, in the UK we don't really have 'English' restaurants either, we only ever refer to a cuisine by it's perceived nationality if it is 'foreign'. An 'American diner' might conceivably be considered as such.
Note: this is protected in order to among other things discourage answers which simply report the existence of an American restaurant somewhere. More detailed answers are strongly preferred.
There are 3 meanings to the phrase "Italian Restaurant"; one implies Italian origin/ownership, the second implies specialization in Italian cuisine, and the third merely 'style'. These are distinct; an Indian couple can run an Italian restaurant.
Many answers that talk about chains focus on ownership & style aspects, because the fact is that developing a distinct cuisine takes a lot of time.
Newly populated places like N. America & Australia just don't have enough independent depth and breadth in cuisine to justify an entire menu devoted to the cuisine, which is largely derivative or fusion.
In germany you can find also the diners as american style restaurants. most of the times these are like 50s diners mixed with sport bars, where the serve burgers, fries, chicken, salads... like: http://www.chelsea-wuerzburg.de/
Sometimes, if you are lucky, you can find southern USA style bars like creole/Cajoun style food: http://www.kidcreole.de/ in germany.
Besides that, there are often mexican style restaurants which is also american style. :)
Personally, I think it's a sad state of how we handle cuisines in America -- we have mostly 'American Chinese' restaurants these days, when I remember growing up going to a specifically Hunan restaurant. And most 'Italian' places are 'American Italian' unless you find yourself an decades old restaurant in your area's Little Italy. I remember when my neighbors had my family's lasagna for the first time -- fresh spinach noodles, bechamel & ragu ... very little tomato, no ricotta -- Kristie's reaction after trying it was 'that's not lasagna'.
@Pranab The OP is clearly talking about cuisine, not ownership - and the answers largely do as well. And your second and third categories are really more of a continuum of foreign cuisine, from fully authentic cuisine to simply inspired cuisine. That's what the OP refers to, without weighing heavily on the issue of exactly how authentic the food is. Beyond that, if you'd like to write an answer about your idea that American cuisine can't possibly fill a menu, go for it (but be ready for some Americans who have eaten at American restaurants in the US to have a thing or two to say about it).
@Joe: I believe there was a particular moment, greatest in the late 60s and 70s, when interest in "authentic" Chinese cuisine grew in the U.S. Before that, Chinese restaurants were even worse than today, often serving up a hodgepodge of American cuisine beside Chinese-American novelties. As for Italian, it's impossible to have "authentic" unless you specialize: Tuscan, Neapolitan, Roman, Lombard, Sicilian, etc. are all incredibly different. And the problem is not unique to U.S.: I've eaten "Italian" food in at least 3 European countries other than Italy, and it also had authenticity issues.
The "big chain" type certainly exists basically everywhere by now. There is a reason why the Big Mac Index is suitable as an economic indicator: you can calculate it for almost all countries in the world, because you can buy a Big Mac in almost all countries in the world.
A second type of "American restaurant" is much harder to find. It is the kind of small diner which serves grilled cheese sandwiches, thick pancakes and other American style food, without being a chain. I have seen this in places with large expat populations, but most Europeans will probably spend their lives without ever having been in one. I can't talk about other continents.
A third category of "American food" would be American homemade food. Chicken pot pie, eggplant parmesan, Southern biscuits, that kind of stuff. I have not seen it served in any restaurant in Europe. I have never seen an "American home food restaurant", nor an "American fine dining restaurant". They could exist, but as I've visited many large European cities and lived in places with a large number of American expats, they are likely to be quite rare, or maybe clustered somewhere I haven't been.
What I have seen more in later years seem to be fancy burger places - they are sometimes chains, sometimes not, but I would distinguish them from fast food chains because they tend to have things like mushroom-and-arugula burgers on sourdough bread. Also, you nowadays see more burgers in restaurants which are some sort of middle tier without special relation to a specific cuisine - more of a nonfrench equivalent of a bistro. Also, Starbucks style chains (including Starbucks itself) are pretty established - while Europe had an extensive coffee culture before them, the type of drinks served there is pretty distinctive.
American packaged food such as marshmallows or pumpkin pie filling can be also found in specialized grocery stores selling American products, and as a seasonal article in large European supermarket chains like Lidl, who tend to have "American week", "Greek week" etc. in rotation. A few selected American products are also found as staples in most stores, such as Snickers bars or Coca-Cola, or are less available but still within easy reach, such as Jelly Belly candy.
@Stephie last time I checked, yes. It was the foremost reason I wrote the second paragraph. Although I haven't been there in a while, and now with the army pulling out, I don't know if they want to / can afford to stay.
It's closed now, but there used to be a Tex-Mex restaurant in Trafalgar Square, London that my mom and I went to. Wasn't great but it was fun to find.
@Catija indeed, Mexican restaurants are moderately common. I wouldn't be surprised if some of them turn out to be Tex Mex rather than standard Mexican. Or, as the OP didn't specify, you could say that he means food from the American continent(s) and Mexican counts too. Although the second interpretation seems unlikely.
Yeah, that was one thing I found "unclear"... what is meant by "American"... the USA is a huge country and has many varied cuisines. One restaurant is unlikely to cater to all of them... Cajun, California Cuisine, Southern cooking, New England cuisine... it's all different...
@Catija I doubt that a restaurant will make the distinction. French cuisine is also extremely varied, but I have rarely seen a restaurant which specializes in "Provencal cuisine". Ethnic cuisine restaurants tend to offer a few signature dishes from all the regions of their country, not to concentrate on one region.
I agree with that... but only to a degree... I've been to "Southern Indian" restaurants, which have extremely different foods than the more standard "Indian" restaurants... I've also seen Italian restaurants that specify they're Northern Italian cuisine, as opposed to Southern... so, they do exist... I have a difficult time imagining a single restaurant that could specialize in "American cuisine" without limiting it somehow.
Is chicken parmesan American? That would be very American for there to be a food native to American cuisine, that most Americans consider to be Italian, so much so that it's named after a place in Italy!
Why am I reminded of the 'Blues Brothers'?… "We have burgers and fries...
If this is the "eggplant parmesan" that you are listing as American homemade food, sorry to burst your bubble but it is Italian. :)
I'm pretty sure the American style eggplant parmesan is not the same dish which is still being prepared in Italy. It's like pizza: a food which clearly originated in America, even though within America, it's recognized for having Italian roots and connected to Americans with Italian roots. The orignial Italian parmigianas are of course the ancestor, but I see them as sufficiently different by now to consider them distinct.
Same can be said of pizzas. The American-style pizza bears little resemblance to the classical Italian food.
I went to an "American Food" restaurant in Berlin (chosen by our hosts) and their interpretations of fried chicken, burgers etc were certainly interesting. Beer was very good :-)
@KateGregory Well, US interpretations of foreign food can be pretty interesting too, but people still consider them to be (at least somewhat) foreign.
@rumtscho - I have seen a proliferation of slow-smoked BBQ recently, predominantly Texas style (as proclaimed by their menus), often served with cornbread and "Mac-N-Cheese", but not the other sides normally found with BBQ. Arguably these are pretty quintessential "American food", though more predominantly Southern than Northern. Cajun places have sprung up too - though this is very regional in the US too.
I have to mention "Hard Rock Cafe", "Planet Hollywood", and other movie/music themed restaurants that pay homage to this particular aspect of America. There seem to be at least one of these in each major city. There were smaller, less chain operations that did this at one point but the ones that I visited years ago have all apparently closed.
An interesting note is Hooters. Not only is it heavily American themed, but I visited one a number of years ago in Europe where the waitresses were brought over from the United States.
It's doubtful that Hooters would import waitresses, unless they're specifically there to train other staff, such as when the restaurant is first opening. If it's been open for a while (and they're not under a performance review), it's more likely that they favor Americans when hiring, and they have some source nearby (eg, international students). Then they'd also be more likely to speak the local language.
@Joe I think it was some sort of incentive program for US waitresses who wanted to go abroad but your suggestions make some sense . This was early 2000s so the program probably wouldnt be in place anymore. I don't know if all of the waitresses were American (doubt it in retrospect but know at least 2 were). Sorry for not remembering the details but the fact it was surprising is why I remembered it at all was why I mentioned it here.
I've never been to a Hooters, but when we used to go to TGI Fridays regularly before we were asked to never come back we made friends w/ one of the trainers (he grew up nearby, so worked there when he wasn't traveling), and I know he didn't train solo. It's possible that if it were 2 to 4 at a new restaurant, that they were trainers. I've also heard of trainers being sent out if there are complaints about a franchise in the chain. (note -- I saw a TGIFridays in Kiev, Ukraine in ~2008).
I actually know a couple in continental Europe - cowboy/Texas themed, serving large steaks.
There are also some American-inspired burger restaurants - proper ones, not McDonalds.
But of course. Why would there not be?
There are McDonald's in almost every country around the world... along with many other American chain restaurants including Chili's, KFC, Subway, and many others... In fact, all of the 12 top world food chains are American based.
Cool image from this foodbeast article:
The 50s style American Diner is quite common in the UK
That graphic is super depressing. The culinary legacy is of the US is...fast food chains.
But you'd never say "Let's go to that American restaurant", meaning any of those places.
Those are American franchises, but the do not sell "American" food. Unless you think no one had burgers and fries before America.
@Davor "American" food does not mean food that originated in America... It's food that is quintessentially American, regardless of where else it's consumed. By your strict definition, the only possible "American" foods would involve ingredients like potatoes, tomatoes, corn etc... that originated in the new world. That's simply absurd.
@mikeTheLiar It's true that the big popular chains are big and popular. But that doesn't mean that they're the entire culinary legacy, just that they're the big obvious one. And big chains are inevitably going to be bigger than, well, smaller chains or individual restaurants.
@Catija - and burgers and fries are quintessentially American? Now that is really absurd.
McDonald's might not be the best example, as they also customize their menu to suit regional tastes : https://www.google.com/search?q=mcdonald%27s+food+you+can%27t+get+in+america&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
Agreeing with @user23614 here. I can think of at least 5 "American Style Diner"s within about a 20mi radius of where I live. They mostly seem to sell big burgers, hot dogs, steaks, sometimes Tex-Mex stuff, and lots of things covered in cheese.
@WhatEvil : is that in the US, or somewhere else? The funny thing about what most people think of as the "American" diner ... a significant number of them in the US are run by Greek immigrants. One of the places I used to go to regularly at my past job that served diner fare was owned by a Vietnamese woman. It took us at least 10 years before we convinced her to add some Vietnamese food to the menu.
That's in the UK.
We go to an amazing deep Southern place in Brisbane (Australia), but not sure if we'd refer to it as American food, maybe Southern food though.
I would think that 'southern food' would be a confusing term, as 'southern' in Italy or Ireland might mean something much different. 'Soul food' (south-eastern US slow-cooked foods) might be a less confusing term for it.
As someone from Brisbane, I doubt that calling it only "Southern" is very common at all!
@Joe I can't speak for Italy or Ireland but although we obviously refer to southern England as "the south", it doesn't have its own distinctive cuisine so "southern cooking" wouldn't be understood as meaning southern-English cooking in England. Having said that, I doubt people here would interpret it as southern-American cooking, either.
I think in the UK creole/soul food/Cajun would all be understood as Southern US styles.
As others have mentioned, American owned restaurants are prevalent around the world, though the exact menu they serve in different countries varies based on local cuisine and preferences.
While traveling abroad, I have encountered "American Inspired" sections on a menu. While not a full fledged restaurant, it was a unique look at how the rest of our world views what "American" food is.
The Salisbury steak sushi and cheeseburger sushi I had in the Philippines was definitely an experience.
Many of those American "owned" restaurants are actually locally owned franchises. But that pedantry doesn't really affect your point.
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59314 | Cooking issue with cheap plastic forks
I was cooking rice, beans and sausage for my friend and I but since we are living very low budget my only utensils were plastic forks, knives, and spoons (really cheap ones that come in packs of like 48). I was picking up the sausage in pieces and putting them in a bowl when I noticed the fork had begun to melt. Luckily these are not for until tomorrow but I was wondering if it is safe to eat them since the fork did not seem to leave any plastic behind and was only in the sausage for about 30 seconds. I just don't want to feed my friend contaminated sausage. Thanks.
Unless you make a habit of it, you should be fine. But if I were you, I'd check how much a set of used silverware is (at a garage sale or thriftstore). I have a hunch that buying two packs of plastic ones costs more...
It's none of my business, not knowing your situation, nor do I know where you're located, but IKEA sells 24 piece stainless steel cutlery sets starting from €10 / £7.75 / $8. Is plastic cutlery really much more cost effective?
And I forgot: Your metal forks and spoons can do double duty as cooking utensils in pots and (non-nonstick) pans, your plastic ones obviously can't.
@WillemvanRumpt Right! And there's craigslist, freecycle etc. Sometimes people are simply happy that Granny's old stuff will be used again instead of going to the dumpster.
Well its actually that my friend and I are in an exchange program to America and won't be able to do anything with silverware once we have to leave so we thought it better to just get plastic. Thanks for the help though!
@Dev : Thrift stores and/or yard sales are your friend -- you can often get a few utensils for couple of dollars. Even if you can't bring them home with you, you can either sell them off to someone else or donate them back to the thrift store. Your next best options are dollar stores -- still inexpensive, but they're likely of lower quality (although new, not used)
Think about it this way. There are bound to be laws that govern the materials that eating utensils are made from, and it would be very strange if those laws didn't cover the possibility that the utensils may get hot! You and your friend are quite safe
Are you located in the US? If so, I have so much stuff I would be happy to send you a set of 8 piece cutlery, since my parents passed away very recently and my kids are just giving things away for the last 4 months to friends and people they know who can use things. I'm sure I can find it. Plastic and paper is when you get older and for desert and are too lazy to do dishes. My friends and I are great examples of that. Don't use plastic to cook, it's not good and it could break while you are using it and you could burn your hand, bad idea. Also, someone said, it is an expensive proposition
The plastic fork just melt (soften) a little bit, no biggie, you should be able to eat that.
You should buy cheap cutlery at the dollar store, you do not need many, maybe 4 sets (fork, spoon knife); when your exchange session is over, just leave them in your apartment; no need to bring them back with you.
Using real cutlery and washing them is better for the environment than using cheap plastic cutlery and throwing them in the trash (*)
(*) Unless you buy expensive biodegradable or compostable cutlery.
Various studies have shown that the energy used to make and wash cups is more than their lifetimes worth energy to make polystyrene cups. May apply to plastic forks too?
No it won't hurt you but for the money you spend on plastic you can find stainless at a thrift store or garage sale.
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77632 | Whipped egg white snack texture and preservation
I am trying to make whipped marshmallow egg white snacks. I would like the end texture to be between heavy whipped topping and a marshmallow and preserve flavors and texture for 5-7 days.
I have been following the following recipe.
However I ended up with an outcome which was more like a heavy whipped cream as opposed to a gooey like marshmallow cream snack, which is what is desired. Also, dipping it in the chocolate made it fall apart.
Note, the sugar syrup color and thickness was slightly lighter than what was in the video.
Would adding gelatin be a good idea for the desired outcome, if so at what point should it be added and at what ratio?
Adding cocoa powder for a chocolate flavored whipping caused the density of the cream to undesirably reduce.
What is the best way to preserve this to ensure it lasts 5-7 days?
The treat you are describing I believe is a meringue. These little guys are tricky to get right the first time, as it is all about how long you cook them for and how finely you whip the egg white mixture. What I like to do is add a bit of lemon zest on each one. Not only does it enhance the vanilla flavour (if you're using it), but it also serves to tell you when the meringue is just about ready (goes brown/near black). I have never tried adding gelatin but I don't suppose that would turn out well.
My suggestion: Cook the meringues at about 160-180 degrees celsius, checking on them every 5-10 minutes. Press your finger into one of them if you feel they are ready (the sacrifice of one for the survival of many, I know) and keep repeating this until you feel you have reached your desired texture. The beautiful thing about them is: you can cook them a little to leave them marshmallow-ey or you can cook them into crumbly, crunchy, snacks.
As for how long they last, meringue tend to last about two weeks without a significant change in quality in an airtight, sealed container.
Quick Tip: To keep them soft in texture, let them cool slowly in the oven with the door ajar.
Good Luck!
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24191 | Why do my macarons become lopsided?
I've recently started making macarons using the Italian meringue method. I got this recipe from a macaron class I attended at the Waitrose Cooking School (in the UK). When I made them at my class, they were perfect, but I can't say the same for making them at home.
I don't think there is anything wrong with my mixture but rather with my oven that is making my macarons either lop-sided, or spew their "guts" out.
The meringue is glossy/shiny and gooey when I remove it from the mixer.
The paste is firm.
After mixing the meringue into the paste it's the right consistency i.e not runny and not firm that its doesn't fall off the spatula. It looks a bit like ice-cream if you keep mixing for lack of a better description.
Piping them, they keep their shape and size and have the "nipple" on top. Banging them on the counter sets/smooths them and they look ready to go.
The recipe said to have the oven on 145 degrees Celsius (with fan) (293°F) for 14 minutes.
I have one tray in the middle of the oven and my first batch cracked. I left the next batch to set for a few minutes before putting them in and this solved my cracking issue.
Now however, they just spew out the sides and are lop-sided. What could be causing this?
I started trying different temperatures, fan off and on, double tray, putting the tray higher up but nothing really fixed it.
Is the oven not ventilated enough?
Is it too hot?
Too much moisture? (it's quite humid today and rainy)
I have an electrical single oven (top and bottom elements).
The best result seemed to be 125 degrees Celsius (257°F) with fan, in the middle with a double tray. No cracks and spillages but just lop-sided (only one side had "feet"). I tried piping as straight as I could but this didn't seem to help either.
Does anyone have any ideas? I really want these to work :(
Are you sure that your oven bakes evenly? Many ovens are hotter in one corner than in another. If your dishes tend to always brown/burn in one side first, then it is an uneven oven.
As you probably know, making Macarons is tough, especially making them at home. But it is possible as I have been able to create perfect macarons in my home kitchen, using Italian and french meringue. The Italian meringue always got me better results.
There are many reasons why your macarons don't come out like expected. First off, the meringue. It should be glossy and shiny like you say and also firm, but not too thick. When you take your whisk out of the meringue it should look like this:
The French say that when you take the whisk out of the meringue, it has to look a bit like a bird's beak, hence the way the meringue forms a soft peak slightly pointing downwards.
The consistency of the meringue mixed with the almond paste is very important. People often say it has to fall like a ribbon or like magma, but I always thought that is hard to imagine.
You can take a knife and cut through the batter. If it flows back immediately, it's ready. But let me tell you: One or two strokes too much with the spatula and the batter becomes unusable.
I always tried to make sure not to under-mix it. Then, every time making Macarons, I mixed it a tad more until I ended with an over-mixed batter one day. Since then I know how far I can go without destroying the better. Some people even count there strokes, maybe this helps you.
And one tip I can give you: The process of transferring the batter into the piping bag also 'mixes' the batter, so maybe don't go too far if you are unsure.
From my experience, making macarons with fan turned on always fails in my oven. For yours it could be different as every oven is different, but I only use top & bottom heat, 13 minutes at 150 °C in the middle of the oven.
When piping them it is really important to pipe them directly from the top (90 degree angle). Directly after piping them, I also tap against the bottom of the tray to remove any air bubbles.
You really have to experiment with the temperature and baking time. This process was really hard for me because even when the Macarons looked good from the outside, they could be hollow.
Although some sources say it's not necessary, I always wait a few minutes before baking my Macarons. When you touch them, they can be sticky but shouldn't stick to your finger. I never have tried baking them without resting.
Your first batch cracked, because the temperature was so high that the batter expanded too fast I believe.
What exactly do you mean with lopsided, do your Macarons look like this?
Or like this? (left one)
Maybe you should bake them longer at a lower temperature, you really have to experiment here, every oven is different. It took me a few weeks until I figured it out.
Also, make sure you let them rest enough.
Moisture could be a problem, but I don't think so. As long as they don't stick to your finger after resting and before baking, it always worked for me - even on rainy days.
So the thing I would try first is baking them without fan. If that fails, I would experiment with baking time and temperature.
Thanks for responding, Jay!
They look pretty much like the ones on the bottom left.
When I had the oven on 125°C and used a double tray, they looked more like your first macaron picture.
I suspect maybe the bottom of my oven is too hot (heat rises after all!)
Maybe I'll try no fan like you say, tray in the middle, top and bottom heat and just fiddle with the temperature. I thought that less that 145°C would not be hot enough for it but 125°C is the best result so far.
Thanks for your great post!
This can happen for various reasons, some more info is needed. Did you let them rest long enough? How did you make the meringue, italian or french method? What type of oven did you use & with what settings?
First, it's easy to fix your oven.
Grab a spare tray and put it right next to the heating element. This will diffuse the heat and even it out. Since you have 2 elements, maybe switch one off or use 2 trays?
To test it, grab another tray, dust it with flour and put it in the middle of the oven. Bake until the flour browns. 100C for 20 minutes or something.
If your oven is uneven, you can see the that some parts of the flour are darker than others. On your diffusing tray, place one or two layers of foil above the brown areas to absorb more heat. Retest and adjust as you like.
This works for macarons since the baking temp is not that high. But isn't great for other things.
Other things that have given me lob-sided shells:
The mix is not even and there are lumps of TPT mix. To help fold in the meringue, take a small portion of the meringue and just stir it in the TPT mix to loosen it up. You just want to make it wetter to make it easier to work with. Then fold in the rest of the meringue. My method of testing the consistency is to just give the bowl a little shake, and any peaks and troughs formed will flow back.
Your tray is not flat. Most people have aluminium trays and these probably buckle in the oven when they get ho enough. I've had perfect shells in one area and lob-sided shells in another area. Bakeries use steel trays that don't buckle.
And just in case there is something wrong with your meringue, for a fool proof italian meringue:
Start with room temperature egg whites. Don't worry about 'ageing' them. This is not necessary. It's a preventative measure that ensures you don't over whip you meringue.
Grab a sugar thermometer or thermocouple.
Start making your syrup.
When the syrup hits 115C, turn on your mixer at full.
When your syrup hits 118C your whites should be at soft peak. About 2 minutes.
Pour the syrup straight in. If you hit 118C slightly before that should be OK. No more than some seconds though.
Keep mixing at maximum for a minute and put it down to medium until the bowl feels 'comfortable to the touch'. They say this is about 50C, but I just touch the bowl. You can also go to a hardware store and get one of those fancy infrared thermometers. They look a bit like phasers from Star Trek. This only tells you surface temperature but that should be OK here.
I have done all of this and i still get lopsided macs
What percentage are lopsided and where?
And also try letting the moisture out of the oven by using a wooden spoon or chop stick to hold the oven door.
There is a lot of good information already here, and it is comprehensive. Here are four simple things that relate to your issue, and work for me: 1) turn your convection fan off, 2) after piping on pan, lift pan a few inches above counter and drop it on the counter...twice, 3) wait 30 minutes before placing in oven, and 4) halfway through baking process turn baking sheets around.
I have solved my lopsided/slanted and burst macaron issue.
Bottom line, my oven was too hot. But the king of macarons [Pierre Hermé] says cook them at 180c [356f], so i did, then they were slanted. Tried at 170c[338f], still the same issue.
Googled and googled this issue as well as getting to know my oven.
IMPORTANT: GET TO KNOW YOUR OVEN.
The book might say 180c but that is based on professional ovens that will distribute even precise heat. A fan oven set at 180c will go hotter and will float around 180 -185c the longer it is left on.
After reading this website http://foodnouveau.com/recipes/desserts/macarons/macaron-troubleshooting-guide/#aesthetic-02-uneven-feet I then turned down my oven 150c[302f], and boom! Amazing uniform macarons came out, that looked awesome.
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59889 | What are some flavors that have a strong early presence?
I've just started using Soylent and I'm in the process of making it more palatable. Most of the flavors I've tried adding help, but they come in as an aftertaste.
What are some flavors I can try that might come in before the Soylent taste? Or, is there a way to figure out what kinds of flavors generally do?
Welcome to [se]. What have you tried so far? (Aside: In general, you'll get better reception if you mention things like that). Do you seek sweet, savoury, spicy, ...? Or simply anything that will hit your senses first? Entirely non-nutritive? Which Soylent version, and does it have vanilla/vanillin in it already? A big factor in taste is smell; you might also consider some highly aromatic additive -- or a clothes-pin to block your nose!
Personally, I could never get past the texture of the stuff. We tried all sorts of flavor additives, particularly the chocolate/strawberry syrups. As requested above, some background of what you've tried already and what sort of flavors (sweet or savory) you're trying for will be really helpful. I know the newer releases are more phlegm-like and less batter-like but they also don't taste "sweet".
You might be better off with a shot of something strongly flavored first to confuse your palate, then chug the soylent.
Capsaicin for kick, chili powder for aftertaste. Maybe a little sage or cumin. IOW you don't have to think of it as a 'smoothie'.
Fresh (ie, not roasted to mellow it any) garlic springs right to mind.
Soylent Spices
My favorite way to spice up my Soylet is with 3 Table Spoons of Durian Powder, and 1 Table Spoon of Tony Chacheres Creole Seasoning.
Durian Powder. Durian Powder brings an authentic south-east Asian flavor that will remind of a warm summer day in Laos.
Tony Chacheres Creole Seasoning adds a little bit of New Orleans into the mix. You can have too much Laos.
Try a cup of Soylent before, and a cup of Soylent after. I'm 100% sure you'll be pleased with the results. It truly is a marked improvement.
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68117 | Why use gloves when handling food?
I watched this video yesterday https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LerF1zgRDE . (Its a video that the manufacturer shows how they make candy and in this case its also seen they work the candy with naked hands). And reading the comments most people were shocked that they do not use gloves for (consumer health reasons). Chefs don't use gloves when working with food which in this case should be seen as the same as candy.
It doesn't bug people (as much) when people at restaurants working with your food do not wear gloves. Yet when a manufacturer touches food or candy its frowned on.
So how dangerous is it really to the consumer if who ever is working with your food or candy touches it with their naked hands, if they practice good hygiene (disinfecting hands) ?
My understanding is that the reason for gloves is often to forgo washing -- when you're changing between meat and vegetables, you can change gloves faster than scrubbing up. When you're in a factory making just one thing, if you don't have any open wounds and aren't exceptionally hairy, washing your hands is generally sufficient. (although local health codes have the final say on this). And gloves don't stop someone from touching their face and then touching the food, so they aren't automatically hygienic if you have someone w/ bad practices.
I am afraid that gloves make things worse. Even with proper training, people who wear gloves seem to be more complacent that those who do not wear gloves. I have seen people handle dollar bills then turn around and touch my food with the same gloves on. Disgusting, and I refuse the food, and when I tell them why, they say the gloves are to protect me...what the F ever. Then I ask them how that glove protects me
From
The germs on those dollars you just touched?
I find its better to enforce good hand washing habits than it is to allow gloves to be used at all. When you are wearing gloves, you don't even wipe your hand on a towel, without gloves your hands kinda start to tell you they need to be washed if you've been lax.
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73629 | How much salt should be used in dishes for the best flavor?
Is there a way to determine how much salt per quantity of food is required? For example if I use 1kg of ingredients then I need at most one tbsp of salt. Any such metrics?
The quantity of salt to be added to food is a major problem for many people just learning to cook.
A bit pre-emptive, but: if you want to debate about whether everyone else's food is over- or under-salted, about health/nutrition, or the One True Answer to the question, this isn't the place. Try [chat] if you like.
I would think that official recommend limits, while admittedly a health topic, would only be half OT here because grossly ignoring them would be bad practice. And I think that I am tired of always hearing the same "salt to taste" copout... if there were no reasonable ranges to describe at least a regional taste for salt, restaurants would be unable to satisfy a majority of customers.
@rackandboneman If you want to base an answer on the FDA limits, go for it. They're not necessarily going to give you the best taste, but they're fine to mention. (What's not on topic here is discussing the health merits of that or any other amount of salt in your diet.)
There's a reason so many recipes say "salt to taste": there's no single answer. Most of the time, we use close to 0.5% salt by weight (so 1kg food has 5g or 1 teaspoon of salt), but "close to" leaves plenty of wiggle room about what exactly is best.
Different people have different tastes. What's perfectly salted for one person may be oversalted or undersalted for another.
Different dishes need different ratios too. Some things are supposed to taste a bit salty, while some just need a hint to amplify other flavors. Some ingredients need more salt to balance them than others.
Sure, you can get approximate starting points, e.g. bread might be around 1% salt by weight, cookie dough might be about 0.5%, soups and stews might be something like 0.5% (with tons of variation - that's a couple random recipes). So very roughly, 1kg of food often comes with 5 grams of salt (1 teaspoon) with exceptions ranging up to 10 grams (2 teaspoons).
But your best bet is always going to be to find a good recipe for the specific dish you're making, and possibly adjust it if you know your preferences lean one way or another. Failing that, when cooking something improvised or new, or using one of the many recipes that just says "salt to taste", letting you do what suits you, trust the instincts that you've developed for your own tastes.
If you're cooking for others, with possibly varying tastes, it gets trickier. For things where salt can be added after the fact, you can use less salt and let everyone individually salt to taste. For things you can't mix after cooking, you pretty much have to compromise somewhere in the middle and hope it works for everyone.
Beyond that, if you can't decide what the right amount of salt is, don't worry about it. There's surely a range that works for you, so if two different amounts both taste good, there you are. And if you find yourself disagreeing with someone about what amount of salt results in the best flavor, stop. You probably just have different tastes from the person you're arguing with.
Here is my answer from a related question:
You can do a pretty good job seasoning your food simply by measuring its weight. From the book Ideas in Food:
Interestingly, as we have become more diligent about recording our recipes, we have noticed that our personal salt concentrations are very stable. Across the board, regardless of the recipe, we tend to season our food at a level of 0.5 percent of the weight of what we are cooking. There are a few exceptions where the level creeps up to 0.75 percent or down to 0.4 percent, but generally speaking, our palates are amazingly consistent.[Emphasis is mine.]
Nice reference, but I'll have to say I think the source material makes some HUGE assumptions.
One practical roblem with stating an amount like in ESultanik's answer is not having the answer but casually implementing it - 0.5% would mean measuring out 5g of salt for a kg of food or 0.5g for 100g, and many kitchen scales will be difficult to use with any degree of accuracy at that level. Traditional tsp/tbsp measurements will be imprecise enough to seriously spoil or underseason a dish if followed by an inexperienced cook unless actual measuring spoons are used.
Variables to take into account: Differences in regional taste, differences in cuisine and dish (how other common seasonings balance with the salt and how much a briny/salty flavor is desired or undesirable), liquid content of the food and how the salt is distributed in it (or sprinkled on).
"Balance" is especially important if other bitter seasonings/aromatics are introduced in quantity (eg in curry dishes).
Also, there are scientifically accepted recommendations by medical organizations (at time of writing, 500mg minimum and 2300mg maximum) for daily sodium intake, in which salt plays a big role but not the only role; baking soda and MSG, for example, have sodium too. Sodium intake from salt = grams of salt times 0.4 .
Good example of how other factors matter: storebought potato chips are usually still just 0.5-0.6% salt by weight, but they seem quite salty, presumably because there's plenty of surface area and no liquid.
Surface salted items, where salt texture matters too ;) Salt dust on the table, or kosher salt on fries, in both cases something will not turn out quite right...
Not to mention that other ingredients can add to the saltiness like mustard in potato salad or use of bullion cubes in stew.
Yes, these ingredients add actual salt. There are also non-salt flavors that can mess with the perception of saltiness - cilantro certainly does that for me :)
We often add mustard when what the dish is really missing ... is vinegar! Mustard has plenty vinegar. Vinegar enhances salty taste.
Other variables to take into account are specific to the people in question - preferences, scenario in which it's cooked, or even health concerns... random example, with heat or exertion one may crave salt to replace what was lost, so a dish salted to taste would be much saltier than the same dish seasoned at a different time. Alternately, having a heavily salted diet for a while may lead to a smaller tolerance and less salty food, or may dull sensitivity leading to heavier use of salt.
From my experience, the 'salt to taste' is a big obstacle to cooking tasty food. Imagine cooking a giant pot of soup (say 5000L). One would have to shovel salt in it, but how much is enough?
I use the following:
In the recipe for the bread you add 20g of salt per 1kg of flour (this is the ratio for every bread recipe I have seen). Now, flour is almost totaly dry (it has around 15% water content, but to make things simpler, let's say it has no water in it). With this you get a perfectly seasoned bread.
Let's use this in the case of potatoes. Potatoes have 75% water content (it doesn't change much, whether they are fresh, boiled,...). So, 1kg of potatoes has 250g of dry content and using the ratios from the bread recipe, this would amount to 5g of salt per 1kg of potatoes.
I think accurately measuring all of the ingridients, and especially salt, is the key to tasty food, and it also makes cooking food less stressful and a fun routine every day task, because you can mindlessly throw stuff in the pot and know that in the end you will be able enjoy the meal.
measuring everything to the fraction of a gram isn't needed for most every recipe. There's usually a major amount of leeway, up to and including swapping out ingredients for something else entirely. Salt is no exception to this. Heck, I hardly use any salt at all and my food comes out generally more tasty (at least to me) than the salt laden recipes that you find in cookbooks for the same stuff.
I think salt has an undeserved reputation of being unhealthy. This, at least for me, subconsciously resulted in me not putting enough salt in my food. I survived, but I was not really looking forward to eating what I cooked. But the rational part of my mind suggested that if I follow a detailed enough recipe to the last dot, then I should be able produce the same quality meal as some world renowned cook. I think this is not controversial, I want to be able to reproduce the exact meal from the recipe, and maybe only later adding some personal spin on it.
yes and no. As always, the dose makes the poison and many packaged foods (and foods prepared in restaurants, certainly cheaper restaurants) will effectively overdose you on salt. Worst example of that I encountered was a jar of beans in tomatoe sauce that was so salty it felt like the inside of my mouth was burning, and it wasn't from heating it too much. Salt is a very cheap (these days) preservative and taste enhancer, and many companies just add more and more of it in the mistaken idea that it is a cheap way of improving flavour and making things last longer.
This is a trick question. There is no way to add salt and pepper to taste before you cook. I have Never found a scale that says to start with use so much S-N-P per lbs of chicken. Every recipe is different. Some take more some take less. And it depends of your taste buds. You can always add more but your SOL if you add to much. Most of the time I have to cook something 2 or 3 times in order to get it right. Slow down think about what your doing and write down exactly what your doing. Then you can go back and add or cut back as needed. Think of it as a road map to get the taste you want.
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58990 | Soda carbonation
With the process below, why wouldn't the yeast eat all the sugar or explode the bottle whichever comes first? How does the yeast eat the sugar to make carbonation, yet keep the soda sweet?
Directions from Homebrew4less.com:
Sprinkle 1/8 teaspoon dry yeast (Red Star preferred) in 6-oz. of warm water. Let sit undisturbed for 15 minutes then stir gently to thoroughly dissolve. While waiting for the yeast to dissolve, shake extract bottle well, mix 2-1/4 cups of sugar and 1 tablespoon of soda extract in 1 gallon of lukewarm water. Mix until sugar is completely dissolved, then add yeast mixture stirring well. Pour 1/2 of this mixture in each 2 liter soda bottle and top off each one with plain water to within 1 1/2 to 2 inches of top. Attach a resealable cap and shake well. Store bottles at room temperature, preferably between 70 and 75 degree F for 4 to 6 days. You can tell by the firmness of the bottle how your carbonation is coming along. Move to cooler area if possible for another week of aging. When fully carbonated and aged the bottle should be just about as hard as a glass bottle. At this point chill thoroughly for 24 - 48 hours before opening and enjoying.
Do you know what your yeast produces besides CO2? Welcome to the site!
Are you trying to make beer? I don't know why you'd go through with this multi-day process rather than just force carbonating with a soda-stream or similar device. You're going to get dead yeast sediments, probably some small amount of alcohol, and, since there's no boiling or sanitation process, you're probably going to get some sort of secondary contamination in the liquid. We homebrew beer... And this is, essentially, the same process... without removing the dead yeast cells (and, obviously, without the grain).
The recipe in the OP is a lot like Alton Brown's ginger ale. I've never made it, but it has been on my list for years to try it.
Also similar to homemade root beer recipe: http://nourishedkitchen.com/homemade-root-beer-recipe/
The less space left (liquid to cap) the faster the carbonation brings the contents to pressure, and the yeast dies.
If you follow the process, the yeast are not cold-tolerant strains and shut down for most intents and purposes when the bottles are chilled. Plastic soda bottles also take a LOT of pressure to burst, and unlike glass you CAN gauge the pressure by feeling them (and they don't make shards if they do explode, but they sure do make a mess.)
This is pretty much the standard "extract soda carbonated with yeast" recipe.
With glass bottles (or if you don't chill them) explosions are not uncommon, and were much harder to clean up (not to mention the hazard if you happened to be in the area at the time.)
In summary, use plastic bottles only, and storing them in a big plastic tub or a room you can easily hose down into a floor drain is not a bad precaution, just in case. But there's no real hazard beyond the mess if you use plastic, so dive in and have fun. The alcohol production is trivial; the dead yeast is only in the dregs if you pour carefully.
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68737 | freeze then roast red bell peppers?
I frequently make a pasta sauce with red bell peppers that I roast in the oven. All of the other ingredients are staples in my house and always available, but it's frustrating to go to the store for red peppers.
Would it work to freeze and then roast the red peppers? If so, then I could keep a lot of frozen red peppers in the house and not have to go to the store so much.
Red bell peppers freeze really well after being roasted. This is the method I would recommend for you.
The problem with freezing first is that it can degrade the peppers (breaks the firm cell walls) and would likely make them more difficult to roast afterwards. If you roast them first, the cooking starts the cell collapse itself and the peppers don't tend to degrade more afterwards, plus your peppers are already roasted, so you've saved yourself that step in your pasta making process.
The process is pretty simple... roast as usual, parcel into recipe-sized portions in small zip top bags (don't forget to date the bags) and freeze or roast, put on a cookie sheet (if you have one that fits in the freezer), and freeze in a single layer. Once frozen, they can all go in one big bag and they shouldn't stick to each other too badly.
Here's a guide that explains the process with some roasting tips. And another here.
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68794 | How do we keep our roasted cashews from smelling bad eventually?
We are from a small manufacturing unit and do roasting and packing of cashews. After roasting we pack them in polypropylene pouches with nitrogen flushing. But after 2-3 months cashews are smelling bad when packets are opened. Kindly help us learn how to overcome this issue.
How are they being stored for those 2-3 months? In particular, what's the temperature like?
What do you mean by "smell bad"? Is there another smell you could compare it to ?
How thick are the polyprop pouches? The thinner ones will leak oxygen over a period of weeks. That'll give you rancidity problems over time.
@ Catija - They are packed in pouches and stored in ambient temperature.. The temp may be 30+ Deg.
@ Sarumanatee - No. FOUL smell.
@ Wayfaring Stranger - Its 12 PET 12 MET PET 80 N OCTANE POLY
Presumably you are experiencing rancidity, due to oxygen.
While you have nitrogen flushed the bags at filling time, the bags are not impervious to oxygen diffusion.
A different type of bag (an "oxygen barrier" bag material) or package (glass jar, or metal can) and, in addition, (based on other packaging I have seen) oxygen absorbing packets inside the bag may be required for long shelf life. Either alone would probably extend the shelf-life somewhat.
Temperature of the storage area can also be be a significant factor in terms of storage longevity. Nuts will last much longer kept quite cold ( 4 degrees C or less) and even longer when frozen, than they do at room temperatures. Some storage facilities can get very warm at times.
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55965 | Does anyone know how to make a Sous Vide style cooking vessel?
The last year I was in culinary school (2014) my chef instructor was really excited about culinology and the new innovations that were emerging and becoming to be utilized more often in the industry, like for example Sous Vide cooking or "under vacuum" in French.
I was wondering if any one has come up with a solution to obtaining one of these cooking utilities without having to go out and spend a bunch of money.
If so... What do I need to get to make one?
Just clarifying, the pressure you mean is water pressure, right? because a sous vide is not a pressure cooker, it's just a (generally immersible) heat source, often with a water pump to move the water around like a convection oven. Where are you and what do you consider "inexpensive"?
It means under vacuum, not pressure. (It's also a bit of a misnomer at this point, since plenty can be done without a vacuum sealer. But the name is stuck!)
I've seen the Anova circulator advertised on Amazon for as low as $165US. ...almost not worth the DYI project.
going back through the archives : http://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/27461/67 ; http://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/32309/67 ; http://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/2827/67
You could probably do it on the cheap, but the temperature precision might suffer in the process:
($0-$3) A container for water that can handle being warmed up a bit. (recycle something or buy a 5 gallon bucket)
(~$20) A small submersible garden pump. (I have no idea what temperature they're rated for, but I use one in my greenhouse hydroponics systems, and it gets rather warm in there in the summer)
($10-20) An immersion heater
(~$65) : a thermostat control unit
Total : ~$100
If you're comfortable wiring up your own circuits, you could likely make your own temperature control unit for less, as that's the bulk of the cost.
If you're not comfortable with all of this, then the Anova Precision Cooker is under $200. (currently $25 off, bringing it to ~$155). You'll have to supply your own water container.
Update : Ecnerwal got me thinking -- vessels with thermostat controls. (heater is easy, it's the thermostat that's expensive). Crock pots have the unfortunate problem that they only have one to three present temperatures (low, high and warm). There are, however, a few things that might be useful :
a deep-fat fryer. Preferably cleaned, or one that can be disassembled to clean. They tend to have very powerful heating elements, so you may need a screen to ensure that the pump and the food don't get to close to it. You'll also want to check the dial for the lowest temperature that it can maintain. (it might not go below 200°F)
electric skillet. They're quite shallow, but if you're just cooking a steak for 1 or 2, it might work. (again, check the dial to see what the minimum temp it'll hold is). Depending on he size, it might be possible to put another container inside it to hold more water.
Coffee urns. They can be much larger, but they typically just have one setting, so you'dd need a termostat on it.
Vessel and heater in one - crock-pot/slow cooker. Just add temp controller and either a pump or an impeller - or an aquarium-air-stone might be adequate and cheapest. Hot pumps (and heaters and controllers) are easy enough to find at a well-stocked brewing supply for one option.
@Ecnerwal : but it's a small container. Most large slow cookers are only about 7qts. A good size roast would fill it, not leaving room for the pump and water ... but you got me thinking ... let me go and update.
You have several possibilities to approximate sous vide cooking at home.
Manually control a heater in a pot. Absolutely not recommended, needs constant babysitting and is never precise enough. But there are people who try it out as a step in the process of convincing themselves to spend the money.
Beer cooler. Inexpensive (especially if you already have the beer cooler), not precise enough for certain recipes. The idea is simply to preheat the water, fill into an insulated vessel and leave it there, hoping that it won't cool down too much in the next hours. Kenji Lopez Alt published a column about it claiming decent results. Can probably be combined with baby sitting if you have an immersion heater, will need much less frequent adjustment.
Build your own using an existing controller. Joe already explained it in his answer. I don't know how exact these controllers are, hopefully there is some tolerance rating in the product description.
Build your own, programming your own controller. Perfectly flexible, you can do whatever you want with it, for example write an app to control it from your smartphone. It's also the cheapest option - I started the project some time ago and paid just under 50 Euro for everything (electronics, container, heater, pump). The downside is that you have to be able to solder a circuit and program a microcontroller, and have the free time to do it. It is also suitable as somebody's first microcontroller project, as the logic is very simple, and there are already good schematics on the Internet, so you don't have to design your own circuit. I wouldn't suggest doing it if you have never worked with electronics though, as the circuit has a mains side running on 220 volt, and debugging can literally kill you. So if you are new to this kind of thing, get a friend experienced with electronics to construct this part with you and teach you appropriate working habits for being around live circuits in the process.
Note that the market is finally catching up with demand, so getting a commercial device is already quite attractive when you compare it to the price/effort ratio of the DIY solutions.
The good news is that the US only uses 110/120V ... which hurts (I speak from experience), and still might kill you. But you can reduce the risk if you're willing to pay more by using an X10 appliance module (~$25)... so you just send a radio signal to turn it on & off.
@Joe Very good idea, it sounds like a nice alternative to the traditional optocoupler circuits. Does the module you are speaking of contain both an emitter and receiver unit, or do you have to add radio signal emitting capability to your controller by using an Arduino shield or similar?
I was wrong about it being radio ... x10 uses pulses along the mains. There are USB adaptors that can be used on Arduino : http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/x10 . It's possible that there might be other home automation stuff that works similarly. (A former roommate had some X10 stuff ~15 years ago, so that's what came to mind ... ZigBee and Z-Wave are newer and there might be others. The important thing is to get an 'appliance' not a 'lamp' or 'lighting' module for higher wattages. (although if you can find a lamp module rated for your cooker, it might be dimmable, allowing better precision)
My former roommate got the PID controller kit from AdaFruit ... but he said after his first test, it took a LONG time to come up to temp (almost 2 hrs) and the lack of a circulation pump made it prone to wide temp swings (he thinks it was getting better as it learned as it went, but it didn't seem to save between runs, so it would have to re-learn each time ... this might be fixable in software).
I found this video searching the web for sous vide videos. I found this video that reminded me of a question I posted on cooking.stackexchange on how to make a Sous Vide style cooking vessel. This is the YouTube video link explaining how.
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56542 | Mysterious bitter taste from tropical fruits and coconut
I cook every day, and today I had an experience I am at a total loss to explain. I am hoping the combined knowledge of the Internet can help.
Today, I decided to make a tropical fruit custard. Being as it's passover, it contained matzoh meal. I blended the ingredients together, and it tasted fine--a little bland, but fine. I sprayed a casserole dish with canola oil, and poured in the mixture. 30 minutes later, I test it for doneness with my finger, then taste the batter on my finger. It was BITTER! Not curdled milk, not sour, not anything but overwhelming bitterness, like I was chewing on the pith of a grapefruit.
I ate some raisins to cleanse my palette, drank a glass of water, and tried again with a spoon. BITTER. I called down my fiance, who loves this sort of thing. (I was making it for her.) She made a face and said "bitter!" In three letters, WTH? Any help would be very welcome.
2 cups Goya frozen coconut
1 cup frozen mango
1 cup frozen pineapple
1/2 tsp Vanns Spices coconut extract (propylene glycol base)
1 tsp homemade vanilla (Madagascar beans, vodka base)
1 cup matzo meal
1 cup Breakstones lowfat cottage cheese
1 cup Wegman's egg white
1/2 cup Fage 0% greek yogurt
1/2 cup Breakstone's lowfat sour cream
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp molasses
These are all ingredients that I use routinely, with the exception of the Vanns. None of them are particularly bitter. (Molasses is slightly bitter, of course, but nothing like this.)
I had cleaned the casserole dish two days earlier, dried it by hand, and put it on the shelf. I washed the pan with soap and a scrubbing pad. Its preceding use was in roasting tomatoes. Burnt tomatoes can be bitter, but not like this, and anyways, it was pretty clean. It definitely didn't taste like soap.
Does propylene glycol have some kind of reaction where it can turn into hell bitter juice? What else can it be?
Welcome to the site! Thank you for such a detailed and fully explained question, we'd love to see more of these here!
The culprit is the pineapple.
Raw pineapple contains bromelain, an enzyme that breaks down the protein in your milk, making it bitter. The same principle is applied when bromelain is used as meat tenderizer, either as powdered additive or as fruit-based brine.
This process takes a short while, so if you used pineapple in your cereal and eat it right away, it will not be bitter (unless the enzyme content in your fruit is excepitonally high), but after 30 minutes it will be noticeable.
Bromelaine will also keeping gelatine from firming up. Heating destroys the enzyme, so canned pineapple is perfectly "safe".
Other fruit with similar properties are papaya (papain) and kiwifruit (actinidin).
This article explains it a bit more in detail.
Exactly what I was going to say, I was just researching this today along with papain which is also a meat tenderizer found in papaya. I believe there is also an enzyme similar to both the bromelain and the papain, found in mango's as well. Always be cautious when using tropical fruits and dairy, kiwi's another fruit that has a natural meat tenderizer.
So cooking the pineapple would have prevented the bitterness? That's good to know, great answer @Stephie!
@GdD: absolutely. Always keep dairy products and gelatin apart from pineapple, kiwi and the likes. Actually, that's why I prefer canned pineapple for dairy-based deserts and cake fillings. (And I'm someone who always uses fresh produce whenever possible.) Canned pineapple come unsweetened, too.
@Stephie, I learned about Kiwi when I was 9 and made a jello for the family. It never set and we ended up spooning an ice-cold flavored liquid!
Oh, that's why that milk and kiwi smoothie I drank years ago tasted terrible.
What about pineapple with non-dairy sorts of protein, such as hemp?
@RachelS the enzymes will react with various proteins (one of the reasons pineapple is sometimes used in meat marinades where it softens the meat), but I can’t say whether they will always create bitter compounds. The meat example suggest that there are cases where it’s ok. I have no experience with hemp „milk“ or similar.
today, pineapple ruined our overnight oats recipe having loaded with lots of fruits, raisins, almonds :(
The combination of fresh pineapple and the cottage cheese is where the bitter taste came from. I found that out when we moved to Hawaii. Before that, I used to eat cottage cheese with canned pineapple for breakfast a lot. After moving to Hawaii I chopped the fresh pineapple and mixed it with the cottage cheese………tasted like penicillin!
I edited your question to add clarity. If that is not what you meant, you can edit out any errors.
Is this opposed to eating cottage cheese with canned pineapple...or the fact that it was in Hawaii? How did it taste like butter and like "penicillin"? Was it spoiled?
This does not really answer the question. If you have a different question, you can ask it by clicking Ask Question. To get notified when this question gets new answers, you can follow this question. Once you have enough reputation, you can also add a bounty to draw more attention to this question. - From Review
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68233 | Is it possible to make caramel that does not taste sweet?
Since sugar turns into caramel when heated, caramel is not sugar. I suppose then, that caramel still tastes sweet because of the uncaramelized sugar mixed in the caramel. Is it practically and/or theoretically possible to remove the sugar from the caramel, so that it won't have a sense of sweetness anymore? How would that taste?
Might be of interest: http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/45952/can-you-candy-salt-experiment-results
Off-topic, but any mention of non-sweet caramel makes me think of Norwegian Gjetost (brunost, brown cheese). It's sweet, but not sugary sweet. It gets its color from milk sugars that get caramelized during cooking. It reportedly is good as an ice cream flavor, too.
Yes. Burn it. It tastes... burnt.
It is very simple, you just have to heat it long enough. It can even happen by accident :)
The taste is a mixture of bitter and sour, while the smell component is mostly towards something burnt.
Also, your assumption "because of the uncaramelized sugar mixed in the caramel" is incorrect, or at least incomplete. There usually is such sugar, but many of the caramelization products of the early stages of caramelization also taste sweet on their own. In later stages, you get more and more nonsweet stuff until you get into the state I described (barely liquid charcoal).
Indeed, in beer, for instance, there is a good deal of use of partially caramelized barley sugars (in the form of "kilned malts") to make sweetness which is inaccessible to yeast (so it does not ferment into alcohol) but perceptible to human tasting. And the pretty much burnt variety as well.
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68011 | How do I make this quick-bread recipe less moist?
I modified a Paleo quick bread recipe so I could make it without any flour - coconut, nut, or other alternative. It is really good but super moist. Grilling it helps, but is there something I'm missing in the recipe? I haven't yet tried to pat dry the shredded carrots. Thoughts?
Coconut Carrot Quick Bread
2/3 cup processed dried flake coconut
1 tsp. cinnamon
dash sea salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
5 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2.5 cups shredded carrots (medium grate)
Combine coconut, cinnamon, sea salt, baking soda. In separate bowl, beat eggs and vanilla. Add dry to wet, mix thoroughly, add grated carrot. Pour into glass bread loaf dish greased with coconut oil. Bake at 325 degrees F. for 1.25 hours or until done. Best served grilled in frying pan, warm. (recipe by ZeraMarie)
Not sure what done is for this; maybe you just need to bake it longer? That should drive out water—though possibly it will cause other problems. But probably it'll be OK since you can grill it.
I think getting some water out of the shredded carrots is the first thing to try—they have a lot of water (like all vegetables). Patting them dry will remove some. Pressing them between dry towels/paper towels will remove more. Roasting (or sautéing) them can remove even more (and will change the flavor). Or you could use a food dehydrator or low oven to just dry them.
Reducing the amount of carrot may help too, but that will again alter the flavor.
Another thing that might help: I suspect you have the eggs for binding & richness. That's mostly the yolk—you could try leaving out some or all of the whites (using the yolk only).
Or even a combination of yolks and whole eggs... like two or three whole eggs plus three or two yolks or something similar. No need to cut out all of the whites.
@Catija good point, suggestion incorporated.
You could probably also salt the carrots and let them sit a bit before squeezing. Works for things like zucchini bread, at least.
Thank you for the great tips!! Greatly appreciated. I'll give them a try.
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69227 | How to get heat high enough for stir fry?
Considering that mounting a fighter jet afterburner in my kitchen (or anything, for that matter) isn't very convenient or realistic, what would be a realistic way to get the extreme heat output that stir frying requires?
I have heard of people using small gas burners, while these are a step in the right direction, they don't seem to have quite the required output.
I've also heard of people using a charcoal barbecue and putting the wok directly on top of the coals. This seems better, but at the cost of convenience.
Is there a way to replicate professional kitchen's high heat output at home?
The easiest method without buying new gear : cook in batches, so you're not putting in too much food at once. (this even works w/ electric burners)
In addition to Joe's comment, having a pan/wok with some mass so that once it's hot it stays hotter longer when the food is dropped in helps also. That also means having a pan much larger than the amount of food you cook in each batch helps.
I have never tried it but when I googled wok burners (thinking to find a standalone high-output gas hob), I found this article about a wok ring called the "WokMon" on Serious Eats and had to post it here:
A couple months ago I was approached by Glen Lee, an inventor who claimed to have an ingenious new device for cooking in a wok at home. Seemed to me that if it worked the way he promised, it would to revolutionize home wok cooking in the same way that the Baking Steel revolutionized home pizza-making.
I played around with it a lot, measuring, tinkering, reporting a few issues (it's still in development phase and has kinks to work out—luckily Glen has been extremely receptive to feedback), and generally cooking up a storm. I'm happy to report that this thing solves a problem I've been trying to work around for over a decade.
It's called the WokMon, and it's like steroids for your gas burner, helping to concentrate your flames and, more importantly, put them under the center of your wok, where they're supposed to be.
It looks like it does exactly what you need but is way cheaper than buying a specialized heat source and doesn't require more equipment.
Unfortunately, they're not quite in production yet, it seems, though you can pre-order them on their site.
Here's an action photo of the flame it produces off a standard gas stove:
Much as I love a good home-made stir-fry... I'm frightened.
@ToddWilcox, it's not a demonic flame. Most of the purple in that picture is an artifact of the camera -- the flame's putting out enough near-infrared that it's overpowering the camera's IR filter and affecting the sensor in funny ways.
@Mark That's a shame.
@Mark Someone from photography.SE lurking? xD
Surely it's a bit frightening because of the height of the flame, not just the color?
+1 but that can't be good for the enamel on the stove top........
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66869 | How to make cornbread less crumbly?
I have a pretty basic cornbread recipe that I make very occasionally (with a bit of canned creamed corn added). The taste seems fine, but the texture is more crumbly than I want.
I've tried backing off the milk a bit because I'm adding liquid with the creamed corn, but that hasn't made much of a difference.
Because I don't make it often and it still tastes good, I keep failing to change things up when I make it the next time. Is there one thing I should try next that is most likely to help?
I was hesitating to include the recipe as I am away from it, but since I just made it, I'm pretty confident in
Dry mixed together
1 cup cornmeal
1 cup flour
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 beaten egg
~1/2 cup milk, plus more later if batter is too dry
1/4 cup melted butter
~6 oz canned cream corn
small bell pepper, diced
Wet into dry, stir until moist. Bake 20-25min at 425F
Please include the recipe. It's difficult to "fix" a recipe if we can't see what's already going into it.
Good Q... I look forward to the responses. I used a recipe that used milk powder (without full reconstitution) that worked well. But I'll step aside for the more experienced bakers.
If you want to avoid adding gluten or more egg, you could try incorporating some xanthan gum or another binding agent.
Two things hold cornbread together:
Egg and gluten.
Gluten forms from the wheat flour interacting with the liquid. In general you don't want too much gluten or the bread will be tough and chewy instead of the characteristic tenderness of cornbread.
The egg in your recipe is similar to other recipes that call for 1 egg and 2 cups of flour. The 1/2 cup of milk is about half of the low end of what is typical.
Many recipes, especially those that add interfering ingredients like canned corn, add an extra egg for binding.
Browsing recipes online, it is common to see more liquid than you are listing here. Even if you get another half cup of water from the canned corn it would still be the low end of liquid. More liquid in the batter will give the flour more binding ability.
Don't overdo it. A good way to get tough cornbread is to mix it well and make a lot of gluten.
Some well rated examples:
This recipe with creamed corn, after scaling it to two cups of flour+cornmeal, calls for both more milk and butter than yours.
This very popular recipe, while not including creamed corn, contains an extra egg and more liquid.
I would add an extra egg and increase your milk to 1 cup in your recipe.
Wasn't able to make it for a while, but have done a few batches since. Raising the liquid helped greatly. Haven't bothered with egg, but increasing the milk has allowed it to hold together for last 3 batches.
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63521 | What is the shelf life of cookies made with Greek Yogurt?
After baking cookies with greek yogurt,
How long would they be good if stored in the freezer or fridge?
Will they still be safe to enjoy?
Is this the same with greek yogurt cakes/pies?
This is a kind of odd question. The main thing that matters is just cake vs cookie vs pie; the fact that they contain greek yogurt likely doesn't tell us much. So you're going to get pretty vague answers about refrigerator lifetime unless you provide a lot more detail (i.e. recipes).
@Jefromi: I'm guessing that the OP is concerned that yoghurt contains active bacterial cultures, and is wondering if that would affect the shelf life of the baked cookies.
In general, the yogurt is not going to affect the shelf life of any baked goods. You're going to kill the culture when you bake it, so it's just a question of how long that particular baked good lasts.
And so the answer varies drastically depending on what you've made. It's mostly a function of how moist it is. Dry cookies last several days or even weeks at room temperature, just slowly getting stale. Don't bother putting them in the fridge; it'll just make them go stale faster. Very moist cookies might start to mold at room temperature, so they're best eaten quickly. Pies and cakes generally need to be kept in the fridge. They'll generally last at least several days, with cakes tending to dry out and pie crust suffering a bit.
If you want things to last longer, freeze them. Everything essentially lasts forever in the freezer: it's safe forever and all you have to worry about is decline in quality. You just need to make sure they're stored airtight with as little extra space as possible so that they don't take on smells and they don't accumulate a lot of frost.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.041765 | 2015-11-16T19:13:10 | {
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51815 | Can I reduce heavy whipping cream for a sauce a day ahead of use?
Can this be done the day before using it for a sauce? Because of a time crunch, I was wondering if I could reduce the heavy whipping cream the day before I make the actual sauce?
The only issue with reducing cream and then cooling it, is when you then reheat it you'll likely find the sauce will split leaving a layer of fat floating on the top. This is easily fixed by adding a touch more cream during the reheating process.
It's how we deal with white wine cream sauce at work.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.041947 | 2014-12-21T14:12:03 | {
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