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66170 | How can I remove burnt smell from white sauce?
I was preparing white sauce from milk.
I started with boiling one half litres skimmed milk for the above.
The bottom was getting burnt as I was not stirring continuously.
Finally the white sauce for pasta had the pungent smell of burnt milk.
I have tried adding peeled raw potatoes but no idea if it worked as the burnt milk smell and taste prevailed.
Then, tried adding sugar step by step while stirring...still the smell was persisting.
I have tried increasing garlic and onion but the taste and smell remained.
Please let me know how the burnt smell of milk can be removed in these kind of sauces.
Thank you.
It won't help for this case ... but you don't actually need to heat the milk first.
The only trick that I know of for dealing with burnt foods won't work for milk or other liquids. For other things, if you realize you've burned the bottom, scoop out the food w/out scraping the bottom into a new pot. This might work for once the roux has been mixed in.
Related (not a dupe): http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/25898/tricks-to-mask-the-burnt-flour-taste
Also related : http://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/1032/67
There is nothing you can add or do to your sauce to remove or mask the burnt taste.
Really. Don't even try. Throw it out and start over, being careful not to burn it this time.
For some foods, there are various tricks you can try for removing the burnt taste, but they all start with removing the burnt bits. With a sauce where you've already thoroughly mixed everything together, that just isn't possible.
A side note: you don't need to boil the milk for white sauce. If you have trouble with remembering to stir the milk while it's heating, just use a method that involves adding cold milk to a hot roux. Of course, in that case you need to remember to not burn the roux, but for Béchamel/white sauce, you're basically barely cooking the fat+flour before you add the milk, so it shouldn't be an issue.
The recipe I use for bechamel (for mac and cheese) uses warmed milk (I put it in the microwave for a couple of minutes). I've never had issues with it, so I'm not sure that the temp of the milk really matters. When the milk is already hot, it takes less time for the sauce to finish, which is nice.
Catija is right, we have had the question about proper roux making before. It seems that every combination of cold/hot milk and cold/hot roux works as soon as the cook has mastered that combination, but that every cook learns a different one and then starts swearing that the others are wrong and will always clump.
@rumtscho: I edited my side note to emphasize why I'm suggesting not boiling the milk.
I'm not sure your exact recipe or method, but you cannot get rid of the burnt taste or smell and you will need to start over with fresh ingredients.
You don't need or want to boil the milk at any part of the process, just to heat the milk enough to activate the thickener. In the case of a classic flour roux thickened sauce you start by cooking the roux for a short time to cook the flour, then add the milk and stir while gently heating. Your sauce will start to steam a bit and then within a minute will thicken and get bubbly, at which time the sauce is done. You can take it off the heat or keep it warm on low after that point.
Your best bet is to change the pan for a clean pan, but I doubt if you can really get rid of the taste. Depends on how burnt it all was. To my knowledge, you cannot add things to burnt food to get rid of the taste.
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65294 | What would make a custard turn out looking like scrambled eggs?
I made a batch of custard cups at home and they came out beautiful. When I followed the recipe at work, using the same method and a still oven like at home, the results were a disaster. The custard had the texture of scrambled eggs. Any ideas on what went wrong?
Welcome! We need more information to try and help. Could you edit your question to include the recipe you used including how you prepared it?
Without knowing more, odds are that you heated them too much. (either too high of a temp, or raised the temperature too quickly)
I've had this exact same issue when making Creme Brulee. If you heat the mixture too long it will turn to the consistency of scrambled eggs. I have figured out that if I gently jiggle the pan a few minutes before it is supposed to be set and you will see a slight wobble. Repeat this for the next few minutes until it wobbles less, then remove it immediately
This is the method that works best for me. There are so many variations due to the oven, altitude, number of eggs in your mixture, etc. to give you an exact time. It took me at least 15 tries to finally get my creme brulee recipe right but now I know what to look for when its done.
When you heat egg yolk without proper tempering you'll end up cooking the egg into a solid. If you're baking custard, which is sounds as though you are, you should cook in a hot water bath to avoid direct heat. If you did use a water bath and did temper your yolks then perhaps lower the custard on the baking rack to avoid too much direct heat, as you want to cook it primarily with ambient heat.
I think you may have nailed my problem! The oven I used had only one rack, very near the bottom heat source of the oven. Next time I will move the rack into the middle of the oven. I did use a hot water bath, as I did at home.
@TagineBoy Ovens in general are not precise sources of heat. The middle is best for even heat, but even when an oven has a thermometer controlled heating element / gas levels, it is more of a suggestion than a precision instrument. A water bath is the way to go for this indeed, and if you want to replicate the same recipe with different ovens, make use of an oven thermometer in both ovens to see which setting produces which actual temperature...
I have had this happen stupidly following a recipe that said to drizzle the egg yolk into the cream when obviously it should be hot cream into yolks and sugar! I was making a sugar free version and instead of doing what my instincts said and just replacing the sugar with sweetener I just went by the letter... As well as being a bit too hot in the oven, so I got the ‘sweet scrambled eggs’ or curdled. However, I rescued it, whilst still warm, too all the Creme Brulee back into a large bowl or jug and whisk until the texture becomes smooth again. The burnt skin from the tops gave it a lot of brown flecks so I threw some nutmeg i there to disguise that! Texture still a little grainier than a proper Creme Brulee but servable...
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65229 | What type of sugar can preserve bread the longest?
I believe that honey preserves bread the longest. Are there any other sugars or sugar-like solutions that can preserve bread from mold longer?
related : http://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/7804/67
I don't think a spoonful of sugar, honey, etc added to a loaf to encourage the yeast will make much of a difference. Sugar can act as a preservative but only at pretty high concentrations, and the amount you use in bread isn't going to be high enough.
My experience is that home-made bread will get stale long before it gets moldy. I've seen supermarket bread go moldy but I assume that's because they use some pretty serious preservatives that means the bread has the time to develop the microbes - say, a week or more.
I'm thinking about cake, which is pretty much a ultra-sugary bread, and even the amount of sugar there isn't enough to avoid it going stale. And again, that goes stale faster than it goes moldy, at least here in the cold North of England.
+1, You cannot preserve bread with sugar, so there is no best type.
Some formulations of dextrins can extend shelf life, though that's only kind-of-sort-of a sugar solution. One example is MoisturLok, which is primarily aimed at preventing staling, but its ability to reduce available water also lowers microbial counts on baked goods over a few days.
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65346 | Sushi in lunch box? Sushi rice preservation
I want to make maki rolls for my 10 year old's lunch box.
As I will be making the sushi rice the evening before, I will be refrigerating it until the next morning when I will do the maki rolls with smoked salmon (it's for a 10 year old).
Obviously my primary concern is food safety over texture and I have come upon conflicting information on whether or not to refrigerate the sushi rice.
Any thoughts or ideas?
Are you asking whether you need to refrigerate overnight or for the time your child has the box at school?
I realize this is several years old, but there is some lack of information, as well as some misinformation here. Properly acidified sushi rice, to a pH of 4.2 or lower is extremely safe and can be out of temperature control for up to 12 hours.
If you are guessing about pH...or are not acidifying your sushi rice, then you need to take extra care to refrigerate and pay attention to time and temperature. However, if you want to do this and be safe about it, it is not expensive to acquire a pH meter, nor is it difficult to measure pH.
Check your local food safety regulations. Mine say that you can keep pH tested acidified rice for 8 hours if the temperature is kept at 5-15 degrees Celsius. There's also other good information in the link below, such as that maki rolls can be kept at 5-15 degrees Celsius for longer than nigiri type sushi.
https://www.mpi.govt.nz/dmsdocument/56740-Making-sushi-colour-card-template
On a note about the texture, refrigerating does seem to harden the rice in my experience, one recipe I was following suggested to freeze the rice instead, it said the texture would keep if frozen rather than chilled. I have not tried doing that though because I eat the sushi I make within hours.
I think four hours out of the fridge is no problem at all. You can always isolate the lunchbox with a towel, to keep it cool, but given that there are millions of japanese that do exactly what you are planning to do, and given that they are alive and kicking, even that seems unnecesary..
If your primary motivation is food safety, then you shouldn't keep rice at room temperature for extended periods of time.
There are some people who say that leftover rice shouldn't be kept at all, because there's a risk of Bacillus cereus multiplying between the time that you cooked the rice and got it chilled down.
As such, you should cook your rice, cool it down to make the sushi, and then either consume it, or refrigerate it immediately.
Also possibly of interest (although I don't know if it would work for sushi), scientists have found that adding coconut oil when cooking rice, then chilling it can convert sugars to a non-available form, if you're concerned about diabetes risk.
I probably should've also mentioned that I've heard that there are some varieties of rice that have less texture issue when chilled. Shorter grain rice typically is less problematic than long-grain rice, though.
This is all true, but the question states she's going to put the rice in the fridge right away and prep lunch the next day.
Sushi rice tends to harden up if kept exposed in air and 0-5°C which is fridge temperature. Use cling film to wrap them up, then roll it with newspaper and keep them in your fridge. Vinegar in Sushi rice can keep rice safe to eat for up to 2 days.
As sushi rice is marinated it can not be kept for more than few hours regardless of refrigerator.
Japanese do not keep sushi rice, and even supermarket sushi has about 4 hours best before.
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64102 | My cast iron has become flaky, did I damage it?
So I am quite new to this cast iron thing. After few uses I tried to clean it with kosher salt. Now some parts of it look like it's all flaky, as if the layer will come off if I scratch it with my fingernail. The part is grayish in color. Is it the seasoning that has come off, or have I damaged my pan? How do you really know the difference? I mean, how easy it is to damage a cast iron pan in a way it is no longer useful, and what will that damage look like?
If it's flaking, it wasn't seasoned right to begin with. However it really only matters on the cooking surface. You want seasoning to build up, but it shouldn't flake.
See if it really is coming off, try with you fingernail. If it's coming off then get all of it off that you can by chipping it away. Scrape it off. If it doesn't come off then leave it alone, and season as normal another new layer.
If you aren't happy with it, you can always strip it and start over but that's usually something you end up wishing you hadn't done. You do this by putting your cast iron in the oven and running it through a cleaning cycle. Be warned, don't do this unless you already know what to do and how to season your newly bare cast iron.
Old cast iron seasoning is the best, you don't want to start over. I have some with a 1/4 inch of seasoning (I am exaggerating) on the outside of the pan and it looks crusty, but the inside seasoning and finish is baby skin smooth and slicker than any Teflon coating. I keep it that way by scrubbing lightly with a green scrubby to "tip" the bumps down before putting back in the hot stove to cook another thin layer of oil.
You can't ruin cast iron except by breaking it. Don't worry, it's not ruined, it just needs some care. Some of my best cast iron was a lump of rust I rescued from the junk store.
You are so right about buying old, used cast iron — it's like gold. In fact, I can't think of any other object that retains its total usefulness and functionality, no matter how old it gets. Indeed, some of the oldest, US made cast iron is far, far superior to anything available in stores today.
I have a decades old Indian "tava." It's an 8", round, concave, cast iron surface for cooking flat breads on a stove top. The outer 1" of the tava (the 1" around the edges, furthest from the center or the flame, routinely flakes for two reasons:
1. Because the outer edge typically doesn't get hot enough, as it's furthest from the flame.
2. Because the outer edge typically doesn't get cooked upon. (A typical flat bread is less than 7" diameter). So, oils that I add to the flat bread only minimally, if at all, reach the outer edges of the tava.
Bottom line, flaking is normal under these conditions. About once a year I have to scrape the flaked material off. After doing this I very lightly coat the entire cooking surface with canola oil and place the tava in a 450-degree oven to season it. Regardless, the outer edge of the tava will start to flake again because of how I use the pan. I suppose I could overcome this imbalance in the cooking surface by routinely seasoning the outer edge, but that's a lot of work. The main thing I care about is that the inner 7" is smooth as glass and performs beautifully - even after 50+ years (My mother used this tava and now I use it).
I had that problem at first — I believe it was because I had been too aggressive in my initial seasoning process, by using too much oil.
I decided to start over by leaving the pans in a super hot oven (550°F) for a few hours — you could also use the self-cleaning cycle if your oven has one. After cooling, all the old seasoning can be scrubbed off with soap and water and you'll be down to bare cast iron. It's important to immediately season the pan again or it will start to rust.
People have differing philosophies about what kind of oil to use. I used plain old canola oil, with very good results. The most important thing I learned was to only use a very thin coat of oil — wipe it on, and then off again with a paper towel. If there's a "layer of oil" on the pan, that's what will form that soft coating that flakes off.
It'll take a few cycles of seasoning before the pan is ready to use, but the thin coatings will result in a much harder seasoned surface that will remain beautifully non-stick, the more you continue to cook with it.
The flakes are burnt oil. They occur because oil residue has built up in the pores of the pan and when it gets too hot they flake off. Companies who make such pans often deliberately place such oil deposits on the pan to retard corrosion. Also, many cooks will bake on oil to regenerate this oil layer, called "seasoning," as kind of a non-stick surface.
You can recondition the pan by scouring it with Scotch Brite and renewing the seasoning oil.
Personally, I don't mess with seasoning at all because it is a hassle and it can absorb bad odors and bacteria. Corrosion is caused by acids; so long as you keep the pH of the pan basic it will not rust. This can be done by rubbing it with baking soda.
Dude, this answer doesn't apply to cast iron. Not sure what you have, perhaps seasoned steel pans, but you would not be able to cook on cast iron at all with how you care for your pans.
@Escoce The idea you need to "season" a cast iron pan is just an old wives tale. Sure if you cook something like an egg in a new iron pan with no oil or butter some will stick. Well, I USE BUTTER. This whole "seasoning" thing is just a lot of hullabaloo.
I don't think you have cast iron, I think you have what's called seasoned steel which is an entirely different animal. Cast iron is cast in a mold, and it's inherently porous kinda like clay. Seasoned steel is stamped or forged from sheet steel which is relatively speaking anyway, not porous.
either that or you don't realize your pots and pans are seasoned and you have been maintaining a thin scrubbed down seasoning all along and just don't understand that.
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64176 | Safely making truffle honey
Since New Zealand has import restrictions on honey, I'm looking to make some truffle honey from scratch.
I recall reading somewhere that incorrectly making it could cause some horrible toxin buildup (something like botulism or similar, not totally sure which).
Does anyone have any advice on the subject of safely making truffle honey?
sf., welcome to the site and kudos for being a creative and responsible cook. You have given us a nice challenge here! Have you taken the [tour] and visited our [help] yet?
Botulism is spot on - not only can botulism spores survive in honey (hence the "no honey for babies under 1 year" rule), the truffles have grown in soil, which is a typical source of Clostridium botulinum spores.
There are well- known reports of botulism caused by garlic in oil and truffles in oil (albeit rarer due to the way smaller total amount of truffles used), honey is in that respect very similar to oil: anaerobic and low-accidic. So although I found no explicitly mentioned case of botulism caused by truffle honey, the general safety rules for preventing botulism should be applied. While honey has certain antibacterial properties, they do not affect botulism spores.
With C. botulinum you have to keep three temperatures in mind:
85°C / 185°F
At this temperature, live cells die.
100°C / 212°F
A few minutes at this temperature destroy the toxins.
121°C / 250°F
A few minutes kills C. botulinum spores.
Now a short evaluation of some recipes I found during a cursory Internet search:
Most recommend adding the shaved or chopped truffles to the honey and heating the mixture in a water bath or similar to 85C for a few minutes (5-15).
Keeping in mind that neither truffles nor honey are substances C. botulinum can feast and grow on in abundance - and hence are not exactly ladden with toxins - and that the truffles neither grew in nor typically were stored in anaerobic conditions, this step will be safe enough for immediate consumption of the truffle honey and short-term storage.
However, this will not kill the C. botulinum spores, which can germinate and grow in your non-sour, anaerobic environement in your honey jar, especially if stored at room temperature. (Storing your honey in a refrigerator will extend the time until you reach a critical mass considerably, but I can't give you a precise formula. One source mentioned one month in a refrigerator for home-made truffle oil prepared by this method, but as I couldn't verify this claim I can not comment on the correctness of this claim.)
If you want to play it really safe, you need to either
lower the ph to below 4.5, (which is not feasible for truffle honey) or
seal the jars and heat the mixture to at least 121 C / 250F for at least three minutes (which is usually not possible in home environement unless you have pressure canning equipment) or
heat the sealed jars to 100C / 212F (boiling water) for at least five minutes and repeat this after a day or two to kill leftover spores that have germinated in the mean time. This is known as Botulinum Cook and is safe even for very susceptible products like meat. This leaves your jars safe for long-term storage at room temperature.
Find a paper on these guidelines and thresholds for example here (issued by the NZ governement).
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15835 | Cooling gelatin without a refrigerator
I have a pint of fruit juice, and some Gelatin. I want to make a fruit jelly (gelatin dessert) for after dinner, which will be in 8 hours.
Living in the city with a vegetable shop around the corner, I do not have a refrigerator. It is however cold and rainy, and from experience, 6-7 hours on the windowsill will cause it to gel almost perfectly.
Are there any additional, simple tricks I can use to lower the temperature in the bowl by a few degrees more? I will be using a relatively flat bowl.
But where do you put your milk?
@rmx I drink only rice milk at home, which can stand warmth for a few days. If you don't need dairy products (or can live with having them only in winter), living without a fridge it works surprisingly well!
Head to the store, buy a bag of ice?
Perhaps you could chill some water outside at night, then put it in an ice chest (or other insulating container) and put the jelly in a sealed container in that, agitating now and then. Hard to see how you could take any more advantage of the cool exterior temperatures without a lot more work.
A lot more work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein_refrigerator
Thanks very much everyone! I ended up using a combination of cold water and @derobert's suggestion above. Out of three bowls, the ceramic one I placed in a larger bowl with cold water, in a windy spot, and ice cubes gelled best.
I'd place a tray in my sink a slowly run water through it, then sit the jelly on top of the tray, such that the bottom half of the jelly mould is under water. The constant, gentle, flow of cold water will cool the jelly quickly.
Wasting thousands of liters of drinkable water for slightly colder jelly?! No thanks.
This method works quite well, because water is an excellent heat conductor. @Rumtscho: You only need a slow trickle of water, not a full flow. Thousands of liters is a gross exaggeration. Besides, the water gets recycled into the sewage treatment system, purified, and can then be reused. It's not like he's watering a lawn in the dessert or something.
Sorry, it turns out I was wrong - it is hundreds, not thousands of liters. I measured .6 liters per minute with a minimal trickle, resulting in 235 liters over 6.5 hours. That's more than 3 times my daily use, just for some jelly which will set OK without it. And water recycling costs money, energy and labor. On a personal finance level, the tap water + sewage costs for 234 liters are Eur 1.40 in my city - more than the price for a liter of juice + a pack of gelatine. I know it will work, it is just a terrible waste.
Wouldn't need anywhere near that amount of water. Turning over the water at a rate of 1 litre per hour would probably be sufficient to cool the jelly. You could use less water at the beginning, tuning off the tap for some time, as the large temperature differences between the jelly and the bath will mean it cools quickly without any flow. Later, when the jelly is nearly set, you can increase the flow to actually chill it. Additionally, you don't need to discard the water used for cooling. It's still clean and can be used for cooking or washing.
Couldn't you recycle the water for the garden or something?
@BobMcGee, literally watering "the dessert"
Another solution - knock on a neighbours door and put the jelly in their fridge to set. Of course it depends on how well you know your neighbours. If you don't know your neighbours, this could be a useful way of breaking the ice - like the clichéd, "asking for a cup of sugar."
Yeah, that is the first thing that I thought of, but all those nearby who I know well work during the day. Still, absolutely worth mentioning
Take a large pot or pan and flip it over (flat side up) and place the item on top. This will improve the speed a lot. Of course the more conductive the pan the better -- copper or aluminum pans will work best.
This also works for defrosting items (for people with a fridge).
If you only have ceramic bowls this might not be such a good solution since ceramic is a very good insulator. If you can use a metal bowl (or no bowl when defrosting) this solution is very good and energy efficient.
In addition to this, be sure to put the rig in the coolest spot available. Perhaps the basement, or inside cabinets which don't get sun. Just a few degrees may make a difference.
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33044 | Can I replace rolled oats with instant oats in a cookie recipe?
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/healthy-banana-cookies/
That recipe asks for rolled oats. I don't have them. Can I replace them with these instant oats? How much should be the quantity then?
You can substitute 1 to 1. The major difference is in the 'healthy' part of the recipe as quick/instant oats are higher on the glycemic index (nearly double). This is likely why there is no wheat in the recipe. Since Nutrition is off-topic here, this will remain strictly as a comment.
(Disregard the previous version: I did not notice that this recipe had no wheat flour.)
This recipe gets all of its structure from oats.
Instant oats are pre-hydrolized, so that they can cook faster. Regular oats are just unprocessed oats, perhaps cut or steamed, and rolled flat. They need more moisture and time to hydrolize.
The recipe will probably work, perhaps with a slightly different texture. They may bake faster due to the fact that the oats are already hydrolyzed.
If you choose a recipe where the structure comes from wheat flour, the type of oats will not matter as much.
So, if we have to replace how much should be the ratio?
1 to 1, use the same amount.
Means for 1 cup rolled oats, I can use 1 cup instant oats?
Yes. The two products are really very similar so just use the same amount. This is one of those cases where the difference will be very subtle..
Thanks. Actually I haven't seen or heard about the other types of oats, that;'s why I asked.
Sometimes rolled oats are steamed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolled_oats
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17402 | Has anyone had experience canning with "Quattro Stagioni" Jars?
I am in the midst of canning a variety of items that require either boiling water bath processing or pressure canning. I usually use a two part lid and screw band (Ball or Kerr) with jars, but this year I found some really pretty jars made by Quattro Stagioni, that have one piece lids. There are directions for canning included, but they don't really advise whether the lids are appropriate for pressure canning. I am hoping that someone may have experience and can lend their advice to me.
I don't personally can, but I found a blog post that mentions "Quattro Stagioni lids (which I don't even know if they'll work with standard Ball or Kerr jars like I have) are also BPA-free and can be used in a pressure canner." ... of course, that's only the lids, not the jars.
I have used Quattro Staggioni jars for canning when using a boiling water bath as the processing method. Worked fine for a variety of preserves, both high-acid and low-acid. Sorry, no experience with a pressure canner.
I live in Italy - the Quattro Stagioni brand here has been around for more than 30 years, and it is considered the golden standard for in-house canning (other Bormioli glass products are well regarded, too); everyone I know who canned something in his or her life have been using them, and I've never heard of anybody saying anything but great stuff about them. It's rare that I go a whole month without eating something that is coming out of a Quattro Stagioni jar. The one-piece lids are indeed very handy, even if they are a bit pricey (but you probably already noticed that).
All of the Bormioli material (website) and instructions (I'm reading them now from the lid packaging) only mention canning with boiling (pasteurization to be precise), and I've only seen them used that way. This restricts the type of foods you can can (pun not intended) to highly-acidic ones: fruit conserves, tomato sauces, pickled vegetables, etc.
Of course, for maximum hygiene you should follow the instructions to the letter, and use a new cap every time. However, I've seen people successfully re-use caps for canning with less spoil-prone foods (e.g. pickled vegetables), but this is anedoctal and I don't think I can really suggest it.
The lid packaging also report a toll-free number “grandmother Amelia info” (not joking), but unfortunately it's late now as I write; I might call next Monday if I have time.
Happy canning!
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7804 | Is there anything I can add to homemade bread to preserve it?
I love making our own bread - we rarely buy shop bought, but it tends to go off very quickly. Part of the appeal is that it doesn't have any "junk" in it - artificial preservatives - which I'm sure contributes to the lovely flavor. Is there anything natural I can add to it to stop it going moldy so fast?
Could you provide some more details? How fast (day, week)? Are there other ingredients beside water, flour, starter, & salt?
Also consider how you're storing it : http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/5071/whats-the-purpose-of-a-bread-box ; http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/61/what-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-storing-bread-in-various-locations
Apple butter. While not a preservative per se (at all), it will result in the bread being eaten much quicker. :)
It tends to go off in a week. We use yeast, strong white flour, butter, sugar, salt, water.
Just to add to other answers, another thing that will help is to let the bread rest outside of the oven/machine for at least 3-4 hours until it is completely cooled prior to bagging/storing. You will notice a marked difference in the shelf life if you do this.
I can't find any support for this, but my observation has been that (commercial) bread that is packaged in cellophane and polyethylene (i.e. it has a crinkly, easily-torn inner wrap, and is then put inside a regular plastic bread bag) resists mold much longer than bread that comes in just the polyethylene bag.
Perhaps this "junk" coincidentally makes the store-bought bread last longer...
Sodium Benzoate is not terribly unnatural: https://bakerpedia.com/ingredients/sodium-benzoate/ It works well in breads when added at about 0.1%
Related: https://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/79026/67
Does this answer your question? What ingredients can I add to no-knead bread to extend its life?
My whole wheat bread takes 4x to go off than my white bread. Even a mixture of 50% whole wheat flour will make it last longer. But that will only help if the problem is the bread getting hard too soon. That can also be prevented by keeping it in a plastic bag. You'll get the mold before the bread goes stale.
If you're keeping the bread in a plastic bag, try paper bags.
To solve the mold problem, the traditional way is to add some acidity. For example, you can add a sourdough starter. If you don't like the taste of sourdough, a poolish starter should also help. The bacteria it grows will prevent the mold growing.
I know it's not what you're asking, but freezing will also help. When you bake more bread than you eat, freeze it wrapped in a plastic bag and thaw it overnight and you will get a good, fresh bread.
The bread isn't going hard - we keep it in a plastic airtight container, so that's not an issue.
I will think about the sourdough idea but I've never heard of poolish - what is that? Or should I ask it as another question?!
@Bluebelle I think that's a big topic worth another question. I made a quick search but nobody has asked that yet here.
The no knead method (long rise/fermentation) will also produce a lot more of the sour stuff.
Honey is considered a natural preservative. Try adding 2 Tbsp of honey, or replacing the sugar in your recipe with honey.
Do a google search for 'honey natural preservative' and you'll find lots of references.
Interesting idea - will definitely try this one.
Rather than adding a preservative, slice whatever bread you can't eat within one or two days (or whatever period it is before your bread goes 'off') and freeze it wrapped in heavy-duty aluminum foil. Whenever you'd like some of that bread, either thaw it in advance or warm in a toaster or toaster oven before eating.
Yeah, ok - nice solution. Thanks for the thought.
Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) is a natural preservative. A little also helps the yeast grow (you will find it in many commercial dough enhancers). When I make bread I use Fruit Fresh, a powdered vitamin C with some sugar used to preserve fruit in canning and freezing. I use about 1/4 teaspoon per loaf. I don't know if that is enough to provide additional preservative power, but it is worth a try as it has no downside. Of course you can just get some vitamin c tablets and crush them but it will take some experimentation to figure out how much to add.
The big problem is touching the bread with your fingers after it is baked. Your finger will put mold spores on your bread.
I have made bread that will last 3 weeks in my tropical climate by the following procedure:
Add 1 gram of calcium propionate to one kilo of flour. Your bread might rise a little slower but you can not taste it.
When the bread is cooled down to room temperature after baking, heat the oven to 100-120 degrees C. Place the bread back in the oven for 5-6 min.
When removing from the oven, don't touch the bread with your hands. Use plastic gloves or an unused plastic bag.
Wrap the bread in cling foil so it is fully covered and untouched.
When you use the bread, cut it through the wrap and use additional foil to cover the cut.
Hi and welcome - this was a little tough to read through, so I made a few edits to the formatting. Please feel free to revert if any of these removed key information.
I've found that washing my hands thoroughly before each time I handle the bread has at least doubled the length of time it takes for my bread to go mouldy
Although they will materially change the profile of the bread you are baking, dried fruits will do a lot to keep bread from molding, especially raisins. Cinnamon will also do this, but will reduce the activity of the yeast in the rising bread as well.
A dear friend of mine is from Greece, and he once told me a story that before WWII, no one in Greece really ate cinnamon raisin bread. But after the war, huge amounts of it was flown in from the USA to feed the hungry population, chosen because it was known to keep for long periods of time. Apparently, now it is a common thing to eat there.
I bake sourdough bread and if I put in clean sealed plastic bags it molds in 3-4 days. I finally gave up storing it in the bread box. I freeze the extra loaves when I bake. To keep the sourdough from going bad I now keep it in the fridge. I keep it in sealed plastic bags and add a couple of saltine crackers as a moisture absorbent. Keeps for days.
"Keeps for days" More days than before?
One commercial bread company has switched preservatives... They use vinegar (I suspect ordinary white vinegar).
Maybe you could give a little bit of vinegar a go and see how that works? You can still smell it if you sniff and sandwiches do have a faint vinegar flavour, but it seems to work well enough for the company and it apparently hasn't sabotaged the product line...
Then again, it /is/ commercial bread...
(Heck, just go with Julio's answer!)
This does not sound even remotely appealing.
@hobodave: Nor does eating week-old bread. :)
Interesting answer, but I'm sorry - I'm with hobodave on this one. The idea of my sandwiches having a faint vinegar flavour isn't something I'm happy with!
I donno, if you put mayo or mustard on your sandwiches…
This bothers me, especially when sourdough starter is a delicious and logical way to add acidity.
I've had bread made with cider vinegar. It was actually delicious (but it didn't seem to last any longer than bread without vinegar).
I have read bread labels that list preservatives; one was calcium propionate and sorbic acid found in Thomas English Muffins. You can look at your own bakery's labels and see if you can obtain the preservative from the baker, grocer, or drugstore.
You can also use citric acid, I use about a 1/2 tsp of citric acid. It does not do anything for the taste it just perserves. Also, push your dough down and let it rise more than once, I push mine down after the first rise then after the second then on the third I put it in my bread pan and let it rise again but this time in the oven, then after it rises I turn on the oven. It also makes for a lighter bread, more wholes helps it breath better when stored.
Hope it helps.
I don't know if the small amount of acid helps with preservation. It would certainly make chewier bread (due to the better gluten creation), which does not feel hard as soon as soft, low-gluten bread does. But I have trouble believing the second part. In my experience, the denser the crumb, the longer bread holds. A multi-rise process certainly helps make tastier bread, but if anything, I would expect it to have a negative effect on storage lifetime.
The best way I've found to keep my homemade bread fresh is to refrigerate it. After it's cooled to room temp I put it in a plastic bread bag and refrigerate. I make 1/2 whole wheat, 1/2 white flour bread and this is the only thing that keeps it from going moldy on me before I can finish it. My recipe makes a 2 lb. loaf. I put honey in it instead of sugar, but without the refrigeration still turns moldy within 3-4 days. I've tried adding ascorbic acid powder and a couple other things mentioned and they don't work for me. Just refrigerate.
Bread pectin. About a teaspoon per cup of flour. You can buy it from Pacific Pectin - a wonderful company.
They sell it in smaller quantities than what it says on the website but you have to call them.
https://pacificpectin.com/product/pacific-bread-pectin/
When making the bread dough. What you should do is bake what you need and wrap the unbaked dough in plastic wrap and place in the fridge if your going to bake it within a week or two or freeze the dough this way you dont have so much bread going to waste
How are you handling the yeast activity during that time? Do you start with very little to account for the long cold rise of the extra dough (in the fridge), or do you just accept the risk of the yeast being “spent” early?
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You should try to make is sourdough. Sourdough keeps a lot longer since it is naturally fermented.
First use 50% white Flour and 50% dark flour. This will help allready to make it last at least a couple of days longer then plain white flour. Also make sure you use Type 00 flour. This also is better to use and last longer. Now it can stay at least a week in very good eatable condition. Using olive oil in stead of butter, and changing sugar into honey, will make sure you can dry store this bread at for 1,5 week before it goed bad.
What do you mean by "dark flour"?
When making your sugar and yeast liquid, add a couple of tablespoons of white vinegar, this is enough acid to stop bread from growing mould before it is eaten, assuming you make delicious bread in the first place.
Try a little fresh lemon juice, along with the suggested honey from this answer.
Modern 'fast' bread made with store-bought yeast goes stale quickly because the organisms that make it stale can find a home in your fresh bread.
Making sourdough using a starter (even if it's not very sour!) means that you have a wide variety of organisms in your bread, so it doesn't go stale mouldy or stale nearly so easily.
I used to make bread with quick-action yeast, and it would go stale in a day or two. I now make it more slowly with my home-grown starter, and it's soft and tasty after a week.
Old-fashioned preservative - and much better for you!
See How To Make Sourdough Bread Last Longer, Katz explains how it works better in his book "The Art of Fermentation".
Stale bread is not the result of biological activity. Maybe you’re thinking of bread mold? Also, baking bread kills off the fermentation culture, so there aren’t really a “wide variety of organisms” on sourdough bread, any more than on non-sourdough bread. The extra preservative activity, rather, is from the chemicals that the sourdough culture generates during fermentation.
Redirects to some product page now. Archive is https://web.archive.org/web/20200319131719/https://www.farmdrop.com/blog/how-to-store-bread-properly-sourdough/
Also weird that you'd lead with, "goes stale quickly because the organisms..." then in the next sentence say, "you have a wide variety of organisms in your bread, so it doesn't go stale mouldy or stale nearly so easily."
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14038 | Why do they put the jelly-like substance in pork pies?
I don't like the jelly-like substance found in between the pastry and meat of pork pies, and I don't know anyone that does, so I was wondering why they put it in. Or is it a by-product of the cooking/manufacturing process? Why is it there, and is it possible to create a pork pie without it?
No, British pork pie has jelly specifically added to it in liquid form after the pie itself is cooked, through a hole left in the top crust specifically for this purpose.
There used to be a good reason to add the jelly to the meat pie: food safety. In the time before refrigerators, it was hard to keep meat without some spoilage. But a slaughtered fully grown pig meant some hundred kilos of meat, and it wasn't eaten on a single day.
Most of the bacteria which spoil meat need oxygen to proliferate. So once you pack the meat into a clinging skin, it keeps for longer. This is one of the reasons why people bothered to bake meat pies instead of roasts in the first place.
But there is a problem with meat pies. As the other answers mentioned, the meat steams while being baked, and this steam must be gathered below the upper crust and vented through a hole. You can't tightly wrap the meat in the crust and then bake; the steam will probably open the seam, resulting in an irregularly shaped pie, and the crust still won't cling. So, a meat pie has some space between the meat and the roof.
I don't know how quickly such a pie will dry out, as ElendilTheTall suggested. Surely, this is a factor. But I bet that, if you keep it outside of a refrigerator, it will spoil long before it dries. Filling this space with jelly (which happens to be available in big amounts too - after all, we just slaughtered our big pig and want to cook lots of it as quickly as possible, so we probably have more stock than we can use up) practically seals the meat airtight against bacteria. And while the cooks from that time didn't know about bacteria, they sure knew how quick a piece of meat spoils visibly (smellably?). This is how the traditional jelly-topped meat pie recipe was born.
We have refrigerators today, but we still follow the recipes as they always were. I don't see any reason not to. Drying out is probably a factor. And as for the taste - I have eaten more French patês than English meat pies, and maybe there is some difference. They never looked like on sarge_smith's picture. But I definitely like the jelly layer. I must confess that I have always eaten it in good restaurants or home made, so maybe the poor quality has ruined it for you.
But anyway, if you want to bake meat pies without it, you don't have to include it. The problem is that, if you leave the space hollow, you'll have a cosmetic problem (your crust will probably shatter when you try to cut it) and the already mentioned drying possibility. The solution is to bake the pie without the upper crust. You'll then have meat pie slices which only have crust on three sides. If you don't want a baked crust to form on the meat, or if you experience heat control problems because of the missing insulator, use a temporary cover (aluminum foil, bacon stripes, or lay some big lettuce leaves on it and throw out later, or you can try a plate, but must somehow leave an opening for the steam). If you want a pie with four crust sides, blind bake a sheet of pastry pre-cut for the open side (allow for shrinkage when cutting), then glue it to the meat pie somehow. Sticky honey glaze, or a layer of cream cheese should work (as would jellied stock :) )
This doesn't guarantee that you won't get some congealed fluid within the pie. sarge_smith correctly pointed out that the meat in a pie is collagen-rich, and all the juices which would become roast drippings in roasted meat are staying between the meat and the crust. Some will get absorbed, but maybe not all. It may be worth to try making the pie with ground tender meat. I am however not sure whether this will provide you with a good jelliless pie, or with a pie with a soggy crust.
While the original purpose of the pie was to preserve the excess of meat, nobody has mentioned that the pie pastry would also be discarded in old times, and only the filling was intended for eating.
This answer is incorrect. Gelatine (along with agar) are substances that are used in chemistry specifically to culture bacteria because they are the ideal growth medium. Adding aspic to a room temperature pie will hasten spoilage, not slow it down.
@Shalmanese the gelatine growth medium is exposed to oxygen(unless you are culturing anaerobic bacteria). Almost all foodborne pathogens need oxygen. And filling the hole in the meatpie with gelatine seals the access of oxygen to the meat surface and the gelatine surface, except for a small filling hole. An important point I have not stated explicitly in the answer: the practice is definitely not safe by current food safety standards. But it does reduce bacterial growth a lot, and that was important in pre-refrigeration days.
@CharlotteFarley - I think that discarding rather than consuming the pastry is a more debated point than it seems... After all, there were people who were literally starving to death in those times, and would eat anything that didn't kill them, and the pastry is actually food. It was probably eaten by servants, or slaves, or beggars even if it wasn't 'up to standard' for the household which baked it.
The jelly in British pork pies is added deliberately, after the rest of the pie is cooked, to help keep the meat moist. In good pies it is usually either ham or chicken stock which jellifies as it cools.
It is entirely possible to make a pork pie and omit this step at the end, but the pie then needs to be eaten sooner before it dries out.
The quality of the jelly added is a big factor in how good the pie is as a whole these: http://www.porkpie.co.uk/shoppe-product.asp?ID=2 are the best. Just without question.
"usually either ham or chicken stock" Are you sure about that? Surely the traditional way is to use the bone from the joint that you use to make the pie? Then the beauty of it is that all you need to make a pork pie is a joint, a bag of flour and a tiny bit of spice (render the fat to make the pastry).
I have been a baker for over 30 years and made many pork pies in that time,the above answers stating that the jelly acts as a preservative and stops the meat drying out are correct, but also the jelly when added at the correct time, roughly 20 minutes half an hour after baking, absorb the pork juices that would otherwise soak into the pastry which would make the pastry limp and not crisp and eventually go dry.
As the answers included above, the jelly traditionally found in pork pies was used as preservative and to keep the meat most. However clarified butter was more commonly used as a preservative in pies.
Try making a more filled pork pie using a mold to stop the seams from splitting during the cooking process, so you don't have a gap where the jelly should go. Or try making your own jelly. Get some split trotter, tails from the butchers and boil it up with a carrot and onion (this will also give a natural colour to the jelly) cloves, allspice, thyme and rosemary. Leave the jelly to set over night in the fridge and scape off the fat on the top. Bring it back to the boil before pouring it into your pie with a small funnel or an icing syringe which I use.
I think by simply knowing where the jelly has come from will make it more palatable and using natural jelly which is home spiced is much better than that found in manufactured pies.
Also use good pork; outdoor reared, grass fed pies will have more nutrition and more flavour. When starting my own pork pie business I was fully aware of people's disgust at the jelly, I now have many customers who never like jelly but thoroughly enjoy the jelly in my pies.
"knowing [the boiled-down hooves and tails that] the jelly has come from will make it more palatable" - I'm super skeptical of this claim. Have you tried selling pies without the jelly, clearly labelled as such? Did people buy them preferentially? I most certainly would.
Another reason is simply that it tastes good. I have always loved the 'jelly' from being a little girl, when a pork pie is heated the jelly melts and the juice is delicious. I am 73 and remember pouring the juice onto a spoon as a child to sip before devouring the pie.
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63255 | Can Parkay Spray be used in place of melted butter for baking muffins?
Can Parkay Spray be used in place of melted butter for baking muffins to reduce calories?
Welcome Donna. Technically, yes, but I would not recommend it. There are better substitution choices, depending on what you are trying to accomplish. If you would edit your question to tell us why you want to make this substitution we can better help you.
@dpollitt the OP had tried to add this information as an answer. After the edit was made, I deleted the post, as it was not an answer.
@rumtscho great thanks for the note! I couldn't see that post(either because of my rep or the fact that I'm on mobile). Thanks!
Although a single serving of Parkay Spray lists 0 calories on its label that is not true (due to labeling rules they are allowed to state it as such).
An 8oz bottle of Parkay Spray contains 832 calories.
8oz of butter contain approximately 1625 calories.
Parkay Spray:
Ingredients: Water, Soybean Oil, Buttermilk, Salt, Contains Less Than 2% of The Following: Soy Lecithin And Polyglycerol Esters of Fatty Acids (Emulsifiers), Xanthan Gum, Potassium Sorbate And Sodium Benzoate (to Preserve Freshness), Lactic Acid (Acidulant), Natural And Artificial Flavor, Vitamin A Palmitate, Colored With Beta Carotene (Source of Vitamin A). Contains Milk, Soy.
With a list of ingredients like that there are better ways to lessen the calorie count of your baked goods. Additionally the water in the spray may have a negative effect on your final product as well.
Many times you can just use less butter/oil. Some recipes replace some or all of the fat with things like unsweetened applesauce (approximately 100 calories for 8oz), canned pumpkin puree (100 calories/8oz) or baby food fruit purees. These kinds of substitutions can add additional nutrients and flavors, making for a tastier finished product.
The internet is a great resource for low/reduced calorie/fat recipes.
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75898 | How long do pre-chopped portobello mushrooms last in the refrigerator?
I'm looking to clean, wash, and pre-chop about 10lbs of portobello mushrooms. Will they be the same quality in the refrigerator for about 24 hours?
This is in an effort to find more efficient preparation methods. Is there a most suitable way to store them for 24 hours?
You may be able to use a quicker method for chopping (like a mandolin), which would mean you don't need to chop the day before.
This is probably way too late, but for the benefit of others with the same question...
I have been taught, and my experiences verify, that fresh mushrooms of any sort should only be washed if absolutely necessary and if do so, to do it at the last possible moment. I just brush off any noticeable growing media and continue on. For Portobello mushrooms, I do this while cleaning out the "Gills" so it takes no extra time whatsoever.
That said, Pre-chopping / slicing, will reduce the shelf life over the long term, but for an overnight stay in the fridge it will not be a problem.
I would love to hear how you made out. Did you end up washing them? Your experience will also help others with the same question.
Thanks for your reply. I don't usually wash mushrooms either. I included that in my question because I had never actually verified that washing wasn't something that was necessary for mushrooms. Figured that it would be easiest to get that verified here. I actually didn't end up pre-prepping mushrooms. Had to refocus my prep for the day but I was able to get the mix done the next day no problem. Still your reply is much appreciated! Thanks for sharing!
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79637 | Slow cooking with diet coke
I really want to make the SW coke gammon in the slow cooker, but I'm going to be out of the house for around 6 hours is it safe to leave it unattended?
Hi Jennie! I am not sure what you mean by "is it safe". Are you asking if you can leave a slow cooker unattended for 6 hours? Are you afraid of the carbonation in the coke damaging the cooker after heating? Something else?
I've seen a few recipes for braising in soda ... and many of them specifically say not to use diet soda. I don't know if it's the sweeteners breaking down under heat, or what.
Sorry didn't explain fully. Yeah to leave it unattended
Are you talking about this recipe? More often than not, including a link to the recipe is helpful to the question. :D
@Jefromi : and that "duplicate" mentioned diet soda where? That's a related, not a duplicate.
@Joe Is there something that's unsafe with diet soda specifically? I'm happy to reopen if so, but the closest I see here is that it foams when you boil it - but slow cookers don't bring things to a boil rapidly. (It might need clarification before reopening, though, because it's gotten answers about the quality of the recipe instead, and even health.)
OP states clearly that the focus in on cooking time, not diet soda, so I think this is a dupe.
We've slow cooked gammon in (full sugar) coke before, and what happens is that all the CO2 comes out in the first few minutes as it comes up to temperature. So if you start (as we do and most recipes suggest) by bringing the cooking liquid to the boil the foaming will happen while you're standing over it.
This makes sense as gases are less soluble in hot liquids than cold; in fact I've used heating in the lab to drive off dissolved gas.
Most of the sugar is poured away in the cooking liquid, so there's not much benefit (in terms of calories) from using diet. If you plan to finish the gammon off with direct heat for browning, sugary coke is likely to give a nicer finished item (colour, flavour and smell). Some sweeteners go bitter when cooked too hot (and the reaction products may not be good to eat), while sugar caramelises.
If you're asking in reference to the artificial sweeteners, I'd say it's probably not a great idea, but not necessarily for safety reasons.
Aspartame is the most common artificial sweetener, and the one used in most varieties of Diet Coke (apparently there are some, less common that use Splenda).
There are a lot of claims about health risks of aspartame, however, the general laboratory-tested medical and scientific consensus is that it's relatively safe. When aspartame breaks down, it breaks down into Phenylanaline, aspartic acid, and methanol, mainly, and also formaldehyde. The ratio of the first three are something like 4:5:1. Keep in mind what makes a sweetener "low cal" is the fact that much less of it is needed to attain the sweetening. Overall, as it breaks down, the exposure, though daunting to read or hear what it breaks down into, is really fairly trace and does not cause harm. I suspect people would never eat if they realized all the by-products we are regularly exposed to.
So, this "break down" happens in our natural digestive processes, and we are exposed to the components. When aspartame is heated, it starts breaking down, without our digestive systems getting a chance to work on it. Does this somehow expose us to MORE of those substances? I don't believe it does, it just happens before initial ingestion if it's already breaking down.
However, if the heat is making it break down, that means what is in the heated solution is no longer aspartame, but, rather, phenylanaline (an amino acid), aspartic acid and methanol. That combination probably does not deliver the flavor sweetening because it is no longer, molecularly, aspartame, the sweetener that gets its sweetening characteristic from its molecular structure.
I suspect your taste will be markedly different if any significant amount of the sweetener breaks down (which usually happens after it's traveled past your taste buds and into your digestive tract) into its component parts before you ever get a chance to put it in your mouth. If you slow cook it, that's a long time heating and breaking down the sweetener.
Asking about the health effects of the artificial sweetners might not be on topic. The question seems to be phrased in regards to an unattended slow cooker.
@Catija - You'll see the my recommendation is focused on the taste of the ingredients and possible unintended consequences of using an artificial sweetener on the final taste.
That information has no bearing on the question, though. You don't even address whether it's safe to leave it unattended or not. This is likely useful info but it doesn't answer the question. Also, your third paragraph is specifically about health.
It's sort of a nonissue because this is a duplicate, so the answers to the actual question exist elsewhere, but Catija does have a point here: yes, you wrote something that'd be a good answer to "is it a good idea to use artificial sweeteners in a slow cooker recipe like this", but that wasn't the question.
@Jefromi - since the title is "slow cooking with Diet Coke," it seemed appropriate to address something specific to that substance. As it seems to stand now, the question title should be changed to "can I leave a slow cooker unwatched?" since it has nothing at all to do with Diet Coke.
People often don't pick great titles, especially new users, and it's important to look at the whole question and see what they actually ask. I do try to edit titles a lot because people tend to put a lot of weight on them; you can suggest edits too.
@Catija - "your third paragraph is specifically about health" - well, yes, because if I just say "health is not an issue" on a stackexchange site without backing it up I get down-voted for "hand-waving." So I mention it is not really an issue, and then back it up. Regardless, if that's not relevant, and it's just a matter of leaving it alone, and that's an exact duplicate of other answered questions, why are you harping on my answer instead asking to delete the question?
We don't delete questions that are duplicates. That isn't how SE works. I hardly think that two comments are "harping", particularly since they say different things.
@Catija - sorry, "close," not delete. Or does THIS SE not close duplicates?
I'm confused... this question is closed as a duplicate? I don't have the entire contents of this site downloaded into my brain any more than you do. If that were the case, you could just as easily be asked "why are you answering this question if it's a duplicate"... the answer is the same. Neither of us knew. The dupe predates my use of this site by at least two years.
@Catija - I never said that, though it looks like it was temporarily (based on comments under the question). Not sure why it was re-opened.
It's still showing up as closed to me. The question title ends with [duplicate] and it has the duplicate banner with the link to the other question. The edit history only has it being closed as a duplicate and no sign of it being reopened and reclosed. It's common for a moderator who unilaterally closes things to state that, should the question be clarified to explain why it's not a dupe, it may be reopened, so I'm guessing that's what @Jefromi means by the comment.
Whoops, me too, now, though once I answer a question, I don't notice its status that closely, so maybe before, too. Have a good rest of your day!
I wasn't really suggesting reopening here, just that in general if you're thinking "should be edited" then, well, edit :) Since duplicates do stick around as signposts, there's some value in editing them, though of course less than open questions. (On the question I conditionally mentioned reopening - if it's not actually a duplicate, then it should of course be reopened, but if so it's unclear and needs editing.)
@Jefromi - I understood what you meant. Editing as I think it should be edited would have made it entirely indistinguishable from the marked duplicates, since the title would also have matched, so I passed.
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85300 | Jars didn't seal
I made a ton of jams and jellies about six weeks ago to sell at an upcoming open house. Normally I am very diligent in ensuring they have sealed within 24 hours of processing before I put them away. Unfortunately there was a lot going on so they got put aside in the jar boxes after they cooled and I forgot to check them to see if they sealed properly. I've never had jars not seal properly, so I probably didn't think too much about it. But this time I had seven jars not seal (out of about 100). Of course it's all different flavors, so I can't blame one fruit for being uncooperative! They haven't been opened since their water bath. Despite not sealing, are they safe for consumption? Can I reprocess them after that long (I know for marmalade you can up to about two weeks but none of these are marmalade)? Or should I just dump them all? I'd prefer not to waste them if possible. Of course I wouldn't sell these, but if they are still safe for me to eat...
7 out of 100? I'd take the loss rather than risk getting a rep as the person who sells moldy jelly. I expect the local health agency agrees with me.
This person stated, "Of course I wouldn't sell these."
@LorelC. Missed that, sorry. For my own use, I'd check for mold, and reprocess the clean ones. Not many pathogens grow in that much sugar.
@WayfaringStranger, Should I reheat the contents first or just check for mold, check for cracks around the ring, (perhaps a quick taste test ;P), put new lids on the jars, and reprocess?
Take lids off check for mold, then cracks, etc and then reheat and reprocess. Mold is most likely on lids, or jelly surface.
The standard answer is that NO you cannot reprocess them and you should not eat them (and thus should toss them). These unsealed jars should be considered similarly to jam that had been placed into a plastic tupperware-type container and put on the counter for the same length of time.
If you would feel comfortable eating jam that had sat unsealed on the counter for that length of time in a tupperware, then I suppose you could eat them. Personally though that sounds gross to me (and my health is more important than 7 jars of jam).
Of note: Marmalade is really no different. It too should not technically be consumed/reprocessed more than 24 hours after the original processing unless it had been placed into the fridge. (Canning "rule-of-thumb" is that things can be reprocessed/eaten/refrigerated within 24 hours of the processing and considered safe.)
As they are jams, they are a high-acid product (assuming you followed canning guidelines and didn't try to jam once of the few low acid fruits like watermelon). This means that any spoilage is going to be mold or something similar so botulism shouldn't be a concern. Additionally they are unsealed so the "air-free" environment that botulism likes is not present.
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115094 | Why are most circular pizza peels designed with holes in metal
I am looking to buy a pizza peel. In the UK, I'm noticing a difference in styles, and was curious if there was a reason more than design
There is the "paddle" design, which is more rectangular and a solid piece of metal
Almost all of the longer handled circular (rounded) peels seem to have holes in the metal as per below.
This design seems counter intuitive to me - the dough could easily sink into the hole making it more difficult to slide the pizza off. Not only that, but by having holes, there is less area to be floured before putting the pizza on top of the peel
Given both of the designs are (as far as I know) designed for the same purpose (to transfer the pizza), is there a reason why circular peels with longer handles seem to all have cut outs like the picture above? If any one has used them, does it hinder transfer (or at least, sliding the pizza off)
You should add links to provide source of the pictures unless you happened to snap these photos yourself.
The Chef Pomodoro round peel you picture is described by the manufacturer as a ‘turning peel’.
A turning peel is a must-have to easily rotate the pizza multiple times with precision.
Taking that cue I checked a few more on Amazon and they were mostly described that way.
A Turning Peel is specifically for rotating the pizza while it is cooking. I imagine that the radial slots allow increased friction making it easier to turn the pizza. I don’t think you could use it to put a thin, fresh, homemade pizza into an oven.
One reviewer of the Chef Pomodoro peel says:
The turning peel worked great and freed up my regular peel so we could keep making pizzas inside while I was cooking them outside.
which indicates a separate function from a peel you would build a pizza on.
Ah, it's for "rotating" not pulling out ??
@Fattie I think it’s more that it’s not for putting in.
holes also make the peel lighter and easier to use
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125153 | Why wasn’t my chicken broth boiling in jars when I took it out of the pressure canner?
I pressure canned chicken broth in my electric pressure canner. When I took the jars out of the canner the broth was not boiling inside the jar. Should I be concerned? That has never happened before. All the jars have sealed.
Since the top was sealed properly, the vapor pressure of the steam builds up so that the steam and the liquid are now in equilibrium at the canning temperature - you won't get "boiling" inside the jar.
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114803 | Undoing the flavor effects of baking soda in cooking
I recently learned that if you put a bit of sodium bicarbonate on onion when frying it, the onion will literally melt away. This is absolutely amazing, and I love that trick.
But I tried it now when I was cooking some tomato sauce, and while the mouthfeel was incredibly creaming (as opposed to a bit chewy when I do without), there was a clear and ever present sensation of the baking soda at the back of my throat.
Is it just because I've put too much baking soda (about half a teaspoon for one small-medium onion, and also two and a half plum tomatoes that came in shortly thereafter), or is there something else to do to resolve this without changing the intended flavor profile too much? (I don't want to add vinegar, for example, if that causes the sauce to taste like vinegar)
I think you added too much - less than 1/4 tsp can tenderize a couple hundred grams of beef, so you probably need much less. Unfortunately I don't have any numbers on how much per weight, so it would have to be trial and error.
Oh, I didn't know that it's really that effective. I'll try next time with a pinch instead.
You cannot remove a flavor that's been added to a dish once. There are very few exceptions to this, and I would say this isn't one of the exceptions.
You will find people telling you that baking soda is neutralized by acids. While chemically, baking soda can react with an acid, I would say that this won't help you here:
baking powder is a combination of baking soda and acid and I personally easily notice the metallic taste in anything made with baking powder. So the reaction products don't taste much better than the baking soda itself.
a tomato sauce likely also has fat. Some of the unpleasant soapy taste of adding baking soda to food happens due to its reactions with fat, and I don't think that the products of this reaction will react with acid.
your sauce has quite some acid already, through the tomatoes (and possibly more, if you used canned tomatoes or more ingredients which add acid, like vinegar). If acid was enough to prevent the bad taste, it would have happened already.
So, if you want to enjoy the effects of baking soda, you generally also have to live with its taste.
Thanks. I've tried again since then with about a 1/4 of the amount I previously used (so, a tiny pinch really), and it did the work of melting the onions without imparting too much flavor. But the point you make are great and hit the general version of my question, so I'm accepting the answer nonetheless.
The best way would be to add some acidic touch to neutralise it. Lemon and vinegar might be too strong for a tomato sauce.
I see several options:
What about tartar cream, sour cream or even some sugar? Might also add creaminess to the sauce
In general, incrementing ingredients solves the issue (by balancing), but you will also need to add onions, which loses the whole idea. Tomatoes are acidic and might help to add.
Maybe a combination of these two options is a good idea
Given the comment by bob1 on the question, it seems that the real solution is cutting the baking soda amount to a quarter of what I used (so a pinch, maybe just the tip of the spoon). Which is the equivalent of increasing the ingredients, really. I don't want to cook more sauce than I use.
That would make sense! I suggested that as I am not very sure if by using less, you will get the texture on the onions that you wanted! But that would definetly be the best solution so far I think! (to reduce the amoun of baking soda!) @Inkblot
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82039 | Sanitizing a meat rack
If a meat roaster rack has become contaminated with mold, etc, would soaking it in hot water and bleach (0.5 cup bleach to 1 gal of hot water) for 2 - 1 hour cycles with hard scrubbing between soaks the baking in the oven at 450°F for 1 hour be sufficient to kill any toxins that may be present?
No proof but that seems excessive. I reckon most BBQ grills get mouldy at some point. If mine does it gets a clean with detergent+bleach, a good rinse, then thoroughly heated as the coals start to burn. That seems like plenty.
You don't have to go crazy, you just need to get all the grease and accumulated gunk off of it to make it safe to use. Bleach won't help you get it clean, it will only sterilize, and then only if the water itself is clean - there's no point putting chlorine in dirty water. If you want something to help you get it clean a heavy duty kitchen cleaner or something like simple green is what you are looking for, although lots of liquid dish soap and a scourer will probably do just fine. If you get it good and clean you won't need to use chlorine or bake it because you'll have removed anything potentially harmful, but if once you clean it you still want extra assurance then wiping it down with a chlorine solution or baking it as you suggest will work - both is overkill.
Yes. The only reason my BBQ gets bleach (as in my comment) is that I have a spray bottle of kitchen cleaner that's got it mixed with a good degreasing detergent. If there are particles that you miss, heat will get into them better than bleach
That works for me too @ChrisH, in fact I rarely use water at all, I usually give my bbq meat rack a brushdown while it's still hot after cooking, which gets rid of a lot. I let it get nice and hot the next use so the heat will get rid of any nasties.
Yes, I scrape mine after use and leave it over the hot coals, with the lid shut. But a few wet weeks seem to lead to mould anyway.
Oh definitely, there's always something left.
Just heating it at your 450F for an hour should surely destroy all organisms and their metabolites without any prior washing or bleaching. If you must use an oxidiser, a dilute hydrogen peroxide would be safer than a chlorine based product.
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96851 | What is the Key Difference Between Nougat and Meringue?
Both are made from whipped eggs and caramel syrup. Why nougat is viscous and meringue is soft and can become dry and crunchy?
Can anybody create "nougat", "meringue" and "confection" tags?
The key difference is that Meringue is mixed/whipped sweetened egg whites; while nougat is sugar/honey mixed with egg whites and other ingredients (nuts)
I just complement sayng that nougat can be soft (a bar with very chewy and viscous structure) and meringue be totally crispy although the whipping results il a light easy to crunch sponge. A natural ingredient at play is water, the content of which depends on the ratio of the other ones as well as cooking time. I.e. a relatively short cooking of nougat gives something chewy, a soft nougat. Prolonged cooking gives a very hard sometimes brittle nougat bar.
The basic difference is consistency: meringue tends to be lighter, airier, and drier, while nougat is more chewy.
This is achieved by different ratios of sugar to egg whites. Nougat has significantly more sugar in proportion to egg whites. (Compare this nougat recipe, ~4 cups sugar/honey to four egg whites, and this meringue recipe, 1/4 cup sugar to four egg whites.)
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67974 | Why does my ricotta cheese go bad in a few days?
No matter if I buy my ricotta by weight or by package it goes bad (funky smell, the puddle of cheese water gets grainy, some yellow tint on the sides of the cheese, losing its mellow sweet taste) within 2-3 days. I know it could have a fridge life of 1 to 2 weeks - why is it not the case with me?
Most store bought ricotta is a pasteurized product, so this probably isn't a safety issue. Can you specify "goes bad?" Describe your observations.
why would it have a shelf life of 1 to 2 weeks?
I have added my observations. @rumtscho well I find it hard to believe ricotta should go bad in 3 days?
Fresh cheeses don't generally have much of a shelf life... my dad always freezes his extra ricotta.
...still think we need more info....it is not unreasonable to expect mass produced, pasteurized ricotta to last a week or two. So, what brand? What was the expiration date when purchased vs. when you noticed spoilage? ...or are we talking fresh ricotta? What is the temp of your fridge? ...notice anything else not lasting very long?
No, just the ricotta. Everything else lasts fine (you wont know the brands, its Israel). I guess I will just use ricotta the day I buy it. Thanks guys :)
If you buy ricotta and don't open it, it still goes bad? Are you buy fresh or are you buying a packages product such as breakstone or land'olakes? I don't know if they make ricotta but you get the picture.
Pasteurized ricotta should last 2-4 weeks in the fridge, unpastuerized 1-2 weeks.
So, A Few Possibilities:
Your fridge is way too warm, like close to room temperature. Ricotta will spoil if left out at room temperature or warmer in a few days. Have you checked fridge temp? Where in the fridge are you storing the ricotta?
You have a lot of spoiled milk bacteria in your fridge. If you've had dairy products go "off" many times in your fridge (or only once, but you spilled it), and not cleaned it, then you may have cultures of dairy-eating bacteria living in your fridge. Do other dairy products spoil quickly for you?
Your ricotta vendor is contaminated. If you've been getting all of this ricotta from the same store or the same maker, it's possible that their equipment/storage is contaminated. Try a different source/store.
You are buying ricotta which is already old. When was this ricotta made? How close is it to the expiration date when you buy it?
In fact, the brand I buy says on the container: for maximum freshness, use entire contents with 3-5 days of opening.
Strain/drain it when you bring it home, and leave it in an airtight sealed clean container.
Could you add some details of why this helps it last longer? I'm curious about the science.
You're removing excess moisture
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69006 | How do you avoid getting burnt by hot oil?
I find myself getting hit too much by boiling oil. Even when I keep my face really far from the pan it hits me.
Are there any general guidelines or best practices to avoid getting hit by boiling oil?
What's the setup here? Are you deep frying in a pan on the stove? Frying things with moisture that splatter a lot?
@jefromi that usually happens when im either adding veggies for a saute or when I place and flip chicken breasts. Not deep frying.
Possible duplicate of Cooking steak in frying pan, problem with oil splatter
In a hot pan, the oil droplets jump off for three reasons usually:
When you add oil to a hot pan that is not completely dry yet (i.e some water present in the pan). This residue water will boil, turn into steam and splatter oil.
When you are adding wet food to the hot oil. The water turns into steam and splatters oil. Solution: Making sure the food is fairly dry before putting in oil. E.g. drying vegetables with a paper towel.
When you are turning food. Solution: as @Wayfaring Stranger said, flip to food towards the opposite end, not towards you.
Another thing might be that you are using a very shallow walled-pan, but mostly, splattering oil is due to water being present.
I would also imagine using less oil to be part of the solution
Yeah, drying food before you add it deals with 95% of spatter. If there's more than that, I tend to cover it with a pan lid.
@SteveCooper : normal lids can actually be dangerous -- moisture escapes from the food, then condenses on the lid. When you lift the lid, you shake the water back into the oil, causing it to suddenly spit just as you lift the lid. Look for a 'spatter screen' (sometimes 'splatter screen'), which is a metal mesh mounted on a ring that you can set over the top of the pan. Water vapor can still escape, but it greatly reduces the oil escaping.
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98813 | Is the milk spoiled when a thin layered textured appears in the bottom of pan?
I use Pasteurized Amul milk (see here). Last time, I purchased it on May 3rd and has expiry as today, 05-05-19.
(Outside temperate in our area is around 35-40 degrees)
I keep it (packaged when not boiled, in pan once opened and boiled) in the fridge all the time except when it is used. I first brought it out on May 4th morning, boiled it and used half of it (total 500 ml). Stored the remaining again in fridge in pan.
I boiled the remaining milk just a few minutes ago (tonight will be expiry).
Here's what I observe:
Mostly, I see no layer or negligible layer when I first boil the milk on 4th
When I boil it again next day in same pan (I don't change the pan during whole process), there's still fat in it, a creamy yellow layer on top but the bottom layer (highlighted in image) is perfectly noticeable this time.
Now, I don't note any sour taste or bad smell or the curd like solids in it. It seems fine to me.
But does this layer mean it has started to go sour and will rise eventually?
This layer just means some milk proteins have cooked onto the bottom of the pan, and says nothing at all about the age or condition of the milk. It's more likely when you boil a smaller quantity due to the more rapid heating. Stirring can help avoid this.
However repeated heating and cooling isn't generally a good idea. With milk you can get away with it but it would be a better idea to boil only what you need (which would also be quicker and use less energy).
Okay, I also want to counter confirm this. If it had started becoming sour (spoiling), will the milk fat (cream) be also spoiled? Or milk will spoil and the cream will survive?
Cream is part of the milk, so once the milk is spilled it's all spoiled. Merely soured is slightly different, but it doesn't happen the same if the milk has been boiled so isn't relevant here. The fat is irrelevant to what happened here as well. You'd get the same effect in skimmed milk.
Boiling milk again and again kills/destroys the useful stuff right?
That depends on your definition of useful stuff but in general heating and cooling foods repeatedly can cause food poisoning as not everything nasty is killed by boiling but it multiplies while the food is warm. Milk isn't a good host for species that survive boiling (and being a liquid is easy to heat to boiling throughout) so it's not the big deal it would be in other things
This line With milk you can get away with it but it would be a better idea to boil only what you need is a little confusing. We need milk, so we boil it?
Pasteurised milk doesn't need boiling. If you're making something that requires boiling milk, or you want it hot, measure it first, then boil it.
Ok got it now! I boil because I have a belief (maybe false) that it helps it last longer.
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64840 | Reaheating 2 Spiral hams at same time
I'm reheating 2 9.8# spiral hams in 1 oven. Do I need to change the cooking times and if I do how much time do I add?
See here - the same principles apply.
If your oven can maintain the set temperature, and there's adequate spacing between the two hams, you shouldn't change the time.
Note that I'm assuming that they're both going next to each other on the same rack of the oven -- if this were casseroles, you'd have to increase the time slightly and swap the two part way through, as they'd end up shielding each other from the elements.
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68180 | Can you use wine for cooking even after it's past it's drinking date?
They say you should drink your wine in the 24 hours window since you have uncorked it. But what about using the wine in flavor bases to give sauces a sweet taste? Is it ok to use white wine for sauces even 2 weeks after you have uncorked it as long as it does not have a foul taste?
Whoever "they" are, "they" are wrong, in this case. I would suggest that if you have refrigeration available you should skip uncorking entirely and become familiar with the utter convenience of a 5 liter wine box (bag-in-box) which can last for months, undiminished in quality.
@Ecnerwal Only problem with those is you sometimes get a leaky spigot. That can turn into a smelly mess in your fridge. Been there done that.
Never had that problem myself. What did the maker say when you contacted them about the problem?
There's no rule that you have to drink your wine 24 hours after un-corking it, in fact some wines can taste better after 24 hours. 3 or 4 days is fine in many cases, and some wines are still drinkable a week after opening. This can be extended by refrigerating your wine after opening, white or red, you can get 2 weeks out of a bottle of wine if it's stored in the fridge. With reds let the glass stand for 10 minutes or so after pouring to get the optimal temperature.
2 weeks out of the fridge and it's probably vinegar, but if it still takes ok you can cook with it no problem.
So if it tastes sweet to me then its good for cooking yeah? I assume so because I am after the sugars of the wine after all?
@BarAkiva, wines add sugars, acidity, mineral content, or tannins depending on red or white and the variety. A cabernet red is going to add very different qualities than a fruity riesling.
I'll just emphasize @GdD 's comment, "if it still tastes OK, you can cook with it no problem". That's the essence right there. You're making a dish and you want a particular flavor. Taste your wine and if you think it tastes good and will give you the flavor you want, that's all you need to know.
If it turns to vinegar than you have wine vinegar, if it tastes good as a vinegar then keep it and use it.
Depending on what you're cooking, you might be able to use it if it's just past its best.
For example I make a red wine and smoked garlic pasta sauce. It normally has a tiny bit of vinegar in and robust (if not rough) red wine. So if the wine is past its best, just omit the vinegar.
The equivalent for white is probably a stir fry of some sort - rice wine (which might be in the recipe) is often quite acidic.
The problem is, "just past its best" may not indicate any increase in acidity.
@moscafj that's true, but when the recipe is made up without a specific wine in mind, and can be tasted, it's not a big deal.
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65052 | Freezer temperature
I checked my freezer temp., when it was somehow empty the thermometer indicated range between -20 to -4C (depend on opening and closing the door) and when I put stuff inside (50% full) indicated -6 to -10C, I have located the thermometer in the freezer, my fridge is a 12ft regular refrigerator and freezer with separate door, the refrigerator works well, my concern is if the thermostat or timer works? since I could not reach -18C when there are stuff in the freezer
How long did you give it to come to equilibrium after filling it? If it had to freeze half its volume worth of food, it might take quite a while, but eventually it should come to the same temperature as it would empty. Also, assuming you can't control freezer and fridge temperature separately, what temperature is your fridge holding?
-18C (0F) is ideal, but freezer temps fluctuate, usually with -18C at the low end of that fluctuation. It sounds to me that your freezer is fine. Your food will be fine while you scope out and buy a thermometer that you can move to different parts of your freezer, like this:
Note from that picture that the "safe" zone includes a range just below freezing. The ideal temp of -18C is about quality, not safety.
One like this takes a bit of installation, but it monitors the temperature of your freezer constantly, without you having to open the door to read it: $25 Refrigerator/Freezer Monitor
For more information from a very reliable (if very conservative) source, see what the FDA has to say.
This is a very minor point, but there are a few bacteria types that cause foodborne illness which can grow (very slowly) even at 30-32F, depending on the texture of the food. It's hard to note that on a thermometer dial, but you do want to keep everything in your freezer at least at 29F (-2C) or below for food safety reasons. Of course, if your freezer gets warmer than that, you'll likely see the significant degradation of food quality due to temperature cycling before any bacterial hazards would grow enough to be significant.
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96586 | Citrus allergy, need substitute
I’m allergic to lemons, limes, and all citrus fruit. what can I substitute in making my own jams/jellies, other items that seem to require the juice of a lemon?
Are you allergic to citric acid, or something else in citrus? If you are allergic to citric acid it's in tomatoes and used as a preservative too.
Is it an allergy as in "I'll get an anaphylatic shock" ? If so, please state the protein as it could be the seed, the skin, or any other part that is the issue.
If you are not allergic to citric acid you can use it as a substitute for lemon juice in canning.
Related Can I use citric acid instead of lemon juice when canning?
I'm allergic to citrus too. For savory dishes, I substitute sumac. For other uses, I mix one part mango balsamic with one part rice vinegar. You can also try cider vinegar in savory dishes. Citric acid is not a problem. In the US, it comes from corn and does not have the protein that causes citrus allergies.
So with an alergy, you will always have to be careful and test things before going all in.
For a lemon flavour Lemongrass is close and is not a citrus fruit. This can be pulped and should add some flavour. You'll still need something to increase the acidity as the other answers have said.
It looks like the primary purpose of the lemon juice in preserves, jam, or jelly is to increase acidity for safety.
So you should then be able to substitute any other acid to serve this purpose. The other common and versatile acid that comes to mind from cooking would be vinegar. It looks like vinegar can be substituted. I've seen instructions to use about half as much white vinegar as lemon juice. That last link also mentions wine as a possible substitute.
Since the other result of changing lemon juice for plain white vinegar would be less flavor, you may want to try to add some flavor back in. You could use a more flavorful vinegar - apple cider vinegar is apparently preferred for this reason, even though I think it'd take more of it. Or you could try adding some other flavor in to sort of balance the jam/jelly. Something with sour notes, or bitter ones, or just something different and contrasting to make the flavors pop. I'd think something like cranberries for the sour, or pine needles (as a tea in various ways or as infused sugar or syrup) for the citrusy aroma - or just some other juice or syrup you might have on hand to give a little something to your recipe.
There are a large number of alternative acids you can use successfully. As I am not an allergy expert, I make no claims that any of these will be safe for you and you should use your own judgment / consult your doctor before trying this.
White wine vinegar. The acid in vinegar is acetic acid, and good white wine or champagne vinegars will have complex flavors that can add a lot to a fruit preserve.
Malic acid. This is the acid present in green apples (and on warheads candies) and will add a reminiscent flavor. It is quite tart and should be used drop-by-drop in 10:1 solution.
Tartaric acid. This acid is the primary acid in wine and has a bracing, drying effect. Like malic acid, it is potent and should be used drop-by-drop in 10:1 solution. I probably wouldn't use this as my only acid in canning as it would alter the flavor too much.
Citric acid. If your allergy is not to citric acid specifically, but to some proteins in citrus fruits, then a 4:1 solution of citric acid can be added drop-by-drop.
All of the plain acids can be purchased as refined powders on Amazon, Modernist Pantry, or sometimes in the baking sections of upscale grocers. If you're canning, you should use a pH meter to verify the safety of your jams and jellies (below 4.6).
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62267 | Cracked Eggs & Safety
I bought some fresh eggs the other day which don't expire until next month.
They've remained in the fridge in their carton. I just realised that a few of the eggs are cracked.
Is it still safe to hard boil and eat the eggs from that carton that haven't been cracked?
To be clear they were probably cracked in the supermarket or on the way home the other day. I didn't cracked them just now.
Cracked eggs shouldn't be eaten: FDA, USDA, NSW Food Authority, and Departments of Health for Queensland and Victoria.
It does seem dangerous to me. You don't know where they have been before you bought them, so bacteria and other stuff can contaminate the eggs with their shell broken. You can safely eat the eggs that didn't break. Their shell and membrane protects them. The broken ones should be thrown away if you want to be sure you are safe.
This reference puts it this way:
Cracks in the shells of eggs can allow bacteria or other pathogens to contaminate the egg and make you sick. While cooking does reduce the amount of most contaminants, it does not remove them completely.
And from the USDA:
Bacteria can enter eggs through cracks in the shell. Never purchase cracked eggs. However, if eggs crack on the way home from the store, break them into a clean container, cover it tightly, keep refrigerated, and use within 2 days. If eggs crack during hard cooking, they are safe. Remember that all eggs should be thoroughly cooked.
So I can't even boil eggs that are not cracked, but came from the same carton?
You can eat the eggs that didn't break. Their shell protects them. The broken ones should be thrown away if you want to be sure you are safe.
The shell is permeable and is not part of what keeps out infections and bacteria. It's the membrane that does that. If the membrane hasn't ruptured than an egg riddled with cracks is just as protected as one without cracks in the shell.
@Escoce, can you cite your claim? The FDA, the USDA, and the Departments of Health for Queensland and Victoria all agree that cracked eggs shouldn't be eaten unless they're immediately shelled and refrigerated.
@Escoce, moreover, these egg safety guidelines from the NSW government distinguish between broken and cracked eggs. A broken egg has neither shell nor membrane intact, and a cracked egg has membrane intact, but shell not intact. It also indicates that both are considered unsafe.
@kdbanman thanks for the useful links. I have incorporated one in my answer.
As is common of regulatory documents, links to original, peer reviewed research do not exist in the documents I just shared, so I am willing to believe that cracked eggs still could be safe, but I will not believe it until appropriate citations are provided. Sure, shells are porous, but they're still protection. One of the documents I linked instructed not to wash eggs with water, because the shell is more porous when wet and more readily allows bacteria through. Surely if the membrane were perfect protection, then a more porous shell would not matter.
Shells protect the the shape of the egg, the membrane protects the biological aspects.
Regarding the FDA and USDA, they also say that eggs are not safe if not kept refrigerated, yet anyone who has grown chickens or has forthwith just given it a try discovers that eggs are perfectly safe kept out on the counter for weeks on end. I haven't refrigerated an uncooked unbroken egg in decades. It's common practice to not refrigerate eggs in most of the world. A bad egg is evident, they go bad very quickly when they do go bad.
@Escoce, when I lived in Australia I didn't refrigerate eggs either. But those are not citations, those are anecdotes. I believe your claim that the membrane's primary purpose is to protect "biological aspects" of the egg, but only to the extent that keeps a growing chicken embryo alive. That's not the same as keeping an unfertilized egg safe for human consumption. I also have a hard time believing that the shell provides zero protection from contamination.
I've left comments everywhere on this thread because food safety deserves a lot of visibility. Summary here:
While this may not be standard terminology, these egg safety guidelines from the NSW government distinguish between broken and cracked eggs. (It also says that both are unsafe.)
A broken egg has neither shell nor membrane intact
A cracked egg has membrane intact, but shell not intact
Cracked eggs shouldn't be eaten says the FDA, the USDA, the NSW Food Authority, and the Departments of Health for Queensland and Victoria.
As is common of regulatory documents, links to original, peer reviewed research do not exist in the documents I just shared, so I am willing to believe that cracked eggs still could be safe, but I will not believe it until appropriate citations are provided.
My own speculation: sure, shells are porous, but they're still protection. One of the documents I linked instructed not to wash eggs with water, because the shell is more porous when wet and more readily allows bacteria through. Surely if the membrane were perfect protection, then a more porous shell would not matter.
Shells offer zero biological protection. They only provide structural support.
@Escoce, citation please.
If you dropped a carton of eggs while loading your groceries in the fridge i would cook those eggs ASAP the moment they dropped get that frying pan ready and cook them whether you're hungry or not other wise toss them out in the garbage.Eggs are not very expensive.Cracked eggs can easily be replaced with only a few dollars but a human life can not be replaced. Toss the cracked or broken eggs out.
Normally only safe for a few hours. Need to be cooked right away. Setting a few days I would not chance it. That is fresh eggs. Farm fresh that day's eggs. Not store bought & set for how long?
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68136 | Xanthan Gum v. Guar Gum v. Cellulose Gum v. Glucomannan
Of these four titular ingredients, can someone please help elucidate for me when one would want to use each one? So far the only one I've used personally is glucomannan(konjac root flour), and I have used it in a pudding and in cakes, both of which completely lacked any sort of grain or flour. I'm wondering primarily for making things like syrups, sauces and jellies. I've stumbled across some Walden Farms products and saw that different combinations of these gums seem to appear in nearly all of their products and was wondering what I would want to use to imitate those recipes. I've seen recipes like this online:
http://gwens-nest.com/stevia-syrup-recipe/
And also like this:
http://jamesonwolfffitnesssystems.com/2014/homemade-walden-farms-pancake-syrup/
And am not sure what to expect the difference(s) between them to be. Would I be able to get away with only using glucomannan, or would that only be able to give me a "solid" gel and not a syrup? If it wouldn't work, what would? Any help appreciated.
Definitely bookmarking this, because I'd like to know too. The only way I make syrup is by cooking down liquids and purées, so this could be handy knowledge if I ever want a shortcut.
related but not sure its a duplicate
Methyl Cellulose is the same stuff used in wallpaper paste. Food grade, with no fungsides added (etc) obvious.
A notable property is that it thickenes as you heat it. And it thins as it cool. The oposite of most gels. This let's you create things like 'hot ice cream'
Guar and Xanthan gums are ment to be pretty interchangeable in baking (I think). I find that Guar gum when used in sauses/gravey can be a bit slimy to my taste.
(I haven't tried Xanthan gum for that yet)
I haven't used glucomannan before.
There are a few other gelling agents you can look at:
Sodium alginate. Made from seaweed. This is the thicker used in MacDonald's apple pies. It is temperature stable. (Same thickness hot or cold) Adding calcium causes it to thickened more. This let's you make 'fruit caviar' by dropping slightly thickened juice into a bath of water with calcium added.
There are kappa and iota carrageen. Also made from seaweed. I forget which but one is a very brittle gel (think like jello or egg white) the other is a not brittle (think soft boiled egg yoke)
There is gelan. It is very clear. Good for making fancy cocktail jelly's. Haut couture jello shots!
There is pectin. Made from citrus. This is what makes jam thick. Nuf said.
This site has some good info, recipes, and a shop for these gelling agents etc: http://molecularrecipes.com/
Glucomanan (konjac root) is suitable for making syrups, but it will have a different consistency than xanthan (some people use them completely interchangeably in puddings and sauces), though it is completely interchangeable with xanthan gum/guar gum in gluten free baking. Cellulose gum is also very similar to guar gum.
I don't know about the other two, but both xanthan and guar gum are hydrocolloids (hydrocolloids are essentially substances that gel up in the presence of water). Guar gum comes from the guar bean while xanthan gum is essentially bacteria poop. Both gums are usually used in commercial ice creams; guar gum helps prevent the formation of ice crystals while xanthan gum helps retain the air. If you want to read up more about these, try ChefStep's Ingredient Wiki. They might have information on the other two.
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62976 | How can I adjust oven temperature correctly
I recently bought an oven but it was just yesterday that I saw that the knob for the temperature does not indicate any temperature. Only hi and lo. How can I adjust the temperature correctly?
Welcome to the site! What kind of oven did you buy? Is it electric or gas? Can you send a link and/or some pictures?
Did you check the manual?
I completely agree that an oven thermometer is the way to go. In addition to telling you what your settings mean, it can help let you know if the oven is working properly. Once you've established a baseline comparison between the thermometer and the knob settings, move it to different sections of the oven, as well as different racks, and check to see if the reading stays the same. You may lose a degree or two by opening the door, so give it a few minutes.
I had a problem with various things taking longer to cook in certain parts of my oven. I bought a cheap thermometer, heated the oven to the proper temperature, then started placing the thermometer in a number of locations. It turned out that a part of the back section of the oven was twenty degrees cooler than the front! We were able to have it repaired, and things are now cooking evenly no matter where in the oven I put them!
It sounds like you need to buy an oven thermometer. Put it on the same rack you'll be using for baking, and it will tell you what "hi," "lo," and in between (if available) settings really mean.
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63490 | Why did the crust get too hard on my Blueberry Cheesecake?
I recently made a no bake blueberry cheesecake with its crust made of cookie crumbs(Used Digestive Biscuits as cookies), Brown sugar and melted butter. After keeping the cake overnight in the refrigerator, the crust turned out to be too solid, so solid that not it was difficult to cut it using a knife. What did go wrong? Did i keep it in the refrigerator for too long? Or should i increase the cookie crumbs or the melted butter content to avoid it?
What was your ratio of cookie to butter? And can you give more details as to the process of preparing the crust? (cook, temp, time, etc..
@talon8 I read "no bake"...
@Stephie : yes, on the crust side of things, the digestive biscuits might've been roughly crumbled, turned to dust in a food processor, or somewhere in between. I seem to recall cutting the crust of cheesecakes is always a bit of a problem.
Proportions are necessary, but one option is to just omit the crust and use the biscuits as a garnish.
@Stephie, the reason I ask about the crust, is often the crust is baked even when the "no-bake" cheesecake itself is not. I do a similar recipe with graham crackers, partially crushed, and butter (I partially bake it). It turns out perfectly. I would expect digestive biscuits to be not that different.
@talon8 The origin recipe made use of grahan Cracker crumbs and melted butter, but i stay in india and i could not get my hands on graham cracker crumbs.. So replaced them with Digestive Biscuits..
So how much butter are you using compared to your biscuits?
Your ratio of butter to cookie is probably the main problem here: using too much butter and refrigerating it overnight will give your crust the texture of... well... refrigerated butter.
So, change the recipe and use one of the following options:
Lightly soak the cookies in coffee/tea/lemonade/Cognac/whatever liquid is to your taste.
Use less volume of butter and add the same volume of cookies.
Powder the cookies in a blender
Use a mixture of oil and butter (take one with a neutral taste like grape-seed oil). Test out a few spoonfuls in some shot glasses (50/50, 60/40, ... until you get the texture you want)
You can also combine the above, but that would be riskier: change one parameter at a time...
Can I have a piece of that perfect blueberry cheesecake now? :-)
Sure you can have it.. I'll try it out.. Thanks.. :)
It’s often simply a case of compressing the mix too much! I have done this many times before - I press the cookie and butter mix down into the tin too hard. This can make it very hard to cut through once it’s set. Try compressing it more gently: it doesn’t need to be packed in to set well as a base.
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63547 | Is Hobgoblin a good substitute for Newcastle Brown in a beef stew recipe?
I've bought some beer called Hobgoblin. I was going to buy Newcastle Brown as the ingredients in my recipe say brown ale. However, someone in the supermarket said Hobgoblin was not a brown ale. So what I want to know is, is this Hobgoblin any good in the stew or should I buy another type? If so which?
Pretty well any beer except lager will be OK in a stew. Guinness is a good beer for beef stew, essentially the darker the beer the better. I think Hobgoblin is a better choice than Newcastle Brown, its a richer beer.
Of course it all depends on your tastes. I don't use beer at all in my stews, I use wine. Just saying, this because lager can be just fine to use depending on what profile you are trying to achieve.
@user23614 agree that a budweiser or similarly pale flavourless lager would be no good for a stew, but there are lagers that would work fine. I've cooked with this dark lager before, was nice :)
The dark lagers would indeed be fine, I didn't think about them as they are quite rare in the UK, some of the ones I've tasted have been quite sweet though.
You might also want to try trappist for stews (see also dubbel and tripel). There tends to be some sweetness to them that you may want to balance out, but they work quite nicely.
Hobgoblin is a dark brown ale and would work just fine as a replacement for Newcastle Nut Brown Ale for cooking purposes. Newcastle is more widely available than Hobgoblin, so is often used in recipes, but at the end of the day, any decent brown ale will do.
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83752 | How to choose coconut in supermarket?
I am an avid eater of coconut... Well, I would be if I had some decent coconut to begin with! It happened quite a few times that when I bought a coconut in a supermarket (you know the brown, ripe fruits? - well, here in Europe there is no abundance of fresh coconuts), and when I ate its content... it tasted like dish-soap (eeek!).
How can I be sure to select a coconut, which won't ruin my day?
Just to be sure: Did you learn the taste of coconut through eating fresh coconuts, or through eating [stuff with or including] processed [parts of] coconut? There tends to be quite a difference between, say, coconut milk, a Bounty bar, and cracking open a fresh coconut, and eating the flesh. Although "dish-soap" wouldn't be my immediate association and does sound wrong, the taste profile is definitely quite different, and can leave people wondering if this is how it should be.
related https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/32922/how-to-know-whether-a-coconut-is-ripe-or-rancid-before-buying
No i actually ate the real thing. Fresh as well. But the point is: sometimes here it really tastes like soap
Those at the store should be heavy and 2/3 full of milk or more. So shake them and listen, and also judge the weight, holding them in one hand.
Once you buy a coconut, place it between a rock or three. Make one slice with a large heavy knife to remove the top and the top hull inside the outer hull. Pour out the milk and chill if you wish. Then cut the coconut in half. Scoop out the meat. It should be firm but soft. Place that on a plate or eat with your hands.
When harvesting, after dropping a bunch of coconuts, you select the ones whose outer hull is 1/3 to 1/4 brown. Those you sell locally. The green ones you take to the road to sell to the waiting trucks. Those are for shipment.
All extra coconuts should be saved for making coconut rum. The outer and inner hulls are saved for cooking and coconut charcoal. Any that drop from the tree and split open go into the rum also, or can be used as pig fodder.
I've edited this answer too, to put the answer to the actual question (how do I pick out a good one) up front. The rest... I edited for clarity and left it, but honestly, it's a little hard to see how it relates to the question at hand and I would consider removing it. The OP is buying coconuts in stores, not harvesting them. They're not going to be making their own rum. It's interesting information, but I might save it for a question that actually asks for it.
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76723 | Making large amount of Gravy
When making larger amounts of gravy do you have to increase the amount of roux I usually use 4 TBSP of fat and 4 TBSP of flour but wondering if making larger amount of gravy like maybe 8 cups would you increase amount of roux?
Ate you serving all that gravy in one meal, or are you just pre-cooking many servings?
I would assume yes.
you use 4tbsp flour and fat for what amount of liquid ?
if you double the liquid, you should double the roux.
If there's not enough roux, then your gravy will be too "liquid".
for reference this recipe :
http://www.chef-menus.com/large_quantity_recipes_gravy.html
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66937 | Is it possible to brew good tea on a mountain?
As I understand it, it is due to the relative atmospheric pressure that water boils at lower temperature further above sea level: 70C at the top of Mt Everest, for example.
Surely, then, the water could not get hot enough (and remain liquid) to brew a cup of tea? Or is that the water be boiling the important property, rather than temperature?
Tea brewed under different conditions will taste slightly differently. So no, on a high mountain, you cannot get absolutely the same taste as when brewing at sea level.
So no, it is not the boiling state of the water which determines the exact taste of the tea, it is the combination of all parameters, including temperature. And by the way, this is not simply a matter of altitude - if you use a different teapot or make a different amount of tea at the same altitude, you´ll also get temperature differences.
Of course, not that many people will notice the difference in taste when changing the brewing temperature slightly. And among the ones who notice, there is no telling whether they will like the 100 Celsius brewed tea more or less than the tea brewed at lower temperatures.
So, it is entirely possible to make good tea on a mountain, unless your personal definition is "there is exactly one type of good tea in the world, and it is the one brewed by my favorite process, and that process requires 100 degrees".
Boiling point decreases with altitude:
Optimum temperature for brewing black tea is 100C (sea level). However, optimum temperature for green tea is 80C which corresponds to 6000m.
If you use a pressure cooker you can raise water's boiling point up to 120*C. In theory, you could make perfectly good tea in an unpressurized spaceship. How you would drink it through your space helmet is another problem.
So the answer to your question is "yes".
I cannot think of any possible way to brew "good" tea in a pressure cooker, one which would avoid over-steeping and not result in the loss of volatile aromas.
....okay actually I can. But it involves, like, mechanical engineering. And I'm pretty sure those tea-loving sherpas don't do anything of the sort.
@sneftel ...Do Sherpas drink green tea? Another work-around would be to brew your tea in the bottom section of a stove-top espresso pot. They make small pack-pack versions.
@Sneftel Just an idea that's not too convoluted if you already have a pressure pot to begin with: Insert tea in metal mesh ball (those tea ball things you can buy, I don't know the proper name). Put ball in pressure cooker but attach it to the inside of the lid using a magnet on the outside of the lid. Heat water. Remove magnet. Get tea out before it oversteeps. If you're already carring a pressure cooker up there, a mesh ball and magnet won't be out of the realm of possibilities.
Given that you can make tea at room temperature with adequate time, not so much of a problem, really.
If you are the sort of person that will now proceed to go off on a rant about "that not being tea" you might not be a good choice to climb high mountains, at a guess...or if you do, you should only drink powdered tea mix.
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67766 | Why is the milk used in latte steamed and not boiled?
Does it make a big difference in the flavor of my latte if I boil the milk, versus steaming it?
You are very welcome to post here, but let me also point you to our sister site Coffee.SE where you will find more Q/A's about coffee. (But please don't jilt us for them, ok? ^_^)
A latte is similar to a cappuccino but with different proportions. It's unsurprising that a similar method and equipment would be used. Cappuccino needs steamed milk to get the froth, so a coffee bar machine has a steam pipe. To boil the milk for a latte would require an extra piece of equipment and the associated space.
Is perfectly possible to make an espresso-based drink with milk heated on the stove or in a microwave, that would be a close approximation to a latte -- possibly indistinguishable. But if you boil the milk, it will change the flavour.
Steaming solves for the dual-purpose of both heating as well as creating the froth (milk foam). The froth is formed when the steam condenses onto the surface of the milk and these air bubbles are stabilized (do not collapse) thanks to whey molecules surrounding them.
You could also boil the milk but then you'd have to froth it separately.
I actually have a milk frother that can heat the milk too (operates hot or cold) The froth is added by a spinning element, and it is heated a little like a kettle - only with no exposed heating element for the milk to burn onto.
when boiled it most likely get's an "Café au Lait"
when steamed it get's more like frothy milk wich you usually get in a "Latte macchiato"
The difference between a café au lait and latte macciato is not the temperature of the milk....
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71335 | Can I use unsweetened baking cocoa raw, or do products with it in it need to be cooked?
I'm asking because I found a recipe online for an ice cream that calls for baking coco, but doesn't call for cooking. I've used baking coco before to make hot chocolate, but it seems that it wouldn't dissolve fully if not first put in some sort of hot liquid, even though it's finely ground. If not, do I need to treat it differently before putting it in a recipe?
Very related: http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/8274/dissolving-cocoa-powder-in-milk (especially Marti's answer - heat is not the only way to make cocoa dissolve)
Most of the ice creams I've made have been custard-based, meaning that egg yolks are cooked together with cream and sugar. The mixture is chilled and then churned. For a custard-style ice cream recipe including cocoa powder, the cocoa would likely be dissolved during the cooking step.
If you are following a no-cook recipe that includes cocoa powder, I would at least use a whisk to mix the cocoa in as thoroughly as possible. However, dissolving the cocoa in a hot liquid would likely result in a smoother ice cream.
Not sure what kind of recipe you are following, but you could probably heat the milk/cream, stir in the cocoa powder to dissolve, then chill the mixture before churning it.
Ironically enough it was a no churn, no cook recipe. Cream, sweetened condensed milk, raw baking coco, brownie bits, 2 types of chocolate. Mix and freeze. I know uncooked coco is nasty in large quantities (2-3 TBSP) , which is why i asked!
I'd be kind of wary of a no-churn ice cream recipe. Or rather, expect more of a popsicle texture than an ice cream texture. Without the churning process, you won't get air incorporated into the mixture as it's freezing. Anyway, I would take the extra time to heat the cream and stir in the cocoa powder.
If we are talking about something like Hershey's (the brand I know) unsweetened cocoa powder (the dark reddish-brown very fine powder), it can be mixed with cold milk if you make a paste of it first, and then dilute it to the consistency you want. I.e. start with the powder, pour in the milk bit by bit stirring and "mashing" as you go so as not to let any of the powder float on the milk. This cocoa powder also mixes easily with oil & fat, so that property should help with your ice cream ingredients which probably have some butterfat included.
If your recipe includes only ingredients and no instructions, perhaps that paste technique can help.
I enjoy buying vanilla ice cream and mixing in baking cocoa to taste. You can make it as rich as you want, and it tastes good.
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115278 | Is anyone aware of cast iron pots and pans that are enameled on the exterior with plain cast iron (no enamel, no non-stick) interiors?
Looking for a brand of cast iron pans that is enameled on the outside, but with a bare iron interior. In other words no enamel, no ceramic, no non-stick on the inside. (so it is less likely to scratch an induction cooktop)
Many...very many. From £20 cheap to toe-curlingly expensive. You can get them anywhere - Aldi, Sainsbury's or any kitchen shop.
@Trish Le Creuset doesn’t make any cookware with uncoated interiors, that I’m aware of.
@DebbieM. I wish they did!
BeccaCooks where in the world are you located, there may be a local manufacturer someone knows about.
@Tetsujin I’m not seeing uncoated interiors on any enameled exterior cast iron.
@DebbieM. U.S. I will need to make some inquiries.
Le Creuset make exactly what you’re looking for, but there are many cheaper supermarket copies.
@Tetsujin regarding Le Creuset interiors, no unfinished pans are available in the US. There are a couple of pans that look like unfinished cast iron, but they actually have a matte black enamel coating.
Sure they’re not just ready-seasoned? Mine was.
@Tetsujin https://www.lecreuset.com/signature-skillet/LS2024.html or check Amazon.com or other high end kitchen product suppliers.
Enameling technology has traditionally prevented one-sided coatings because thermally-induced warping can damage the enamel. I assume it's possible to develop a functional pan without the enamel on the interior, but the results may be less consistently successful, and for the most part the point of enameling is to have the interior coated for easier use and cleanup. (That's also the point of seasoning a cast iron skillet, of course-- you always want the metal to have a coating of some sort.) See here for protecting the glass from cast iron.
Staub has cast iron enameled outside and bare iron inside
Currently all of Staub’s pots, pans & even cast iron skillets that appear bare inside, actually have a matte black enameled coating.
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116760 | When to start the timer on crock pot chicken confit
The recipes I have read call for 3 hours on Low temp, then 1.5 - 2 hours on High.
Do I start the timer as soon as I turn on the crockpot, or let the crockpot come up to temp before starting the timer?
This is probably covered in the manual for your crockpot (if you bought your crockpot used, without a manual, or no longer have your manual, they are often available online for download), but in general you fill the room temperature crock with cold, room temperature, or partly pre-cooked food and follow the times given in the recipe without any preheating of the crockpot before or after adding food.
Most manuals I have seen, including this random Rival manual, caution against preheating either the base or the crock.
If the stoneware has been preheated or is hot to the touch, do not put in cold foods. Do not preheat Crock-Pot® slow cooker before using unless specified in the recipe. The stoneware should be at room temperature before adding hot foods.
Manuals also tend to note that a wide variation in times is possible.
This is due to voltage variations which are commonplace everywhere; altitude; or even extreme humidity. The slight fluctuations in power do not have a noticeable effect on most appliances; however, it can slightly alter the cooking times. Allow plenty of time, and remember, it is practically impossible to overcook. You will learn through experience whether to decrease or increase cooking times.
In some slow cookers, such as the Crock-Pot, the difference between low and high is the speed of getting up to temperature, not the maximum temperature, which is the same for both settings.
Crockpot™ Slow Cookers reach the simmer point and stabilize on both "High" and "Low" at about 209°F.
Your particular make and device may vary, of course. But in general you will use the times given without any extra preheating, and then verify on your own that the food is ready for whatever purpose you are creating it.
Generally speaking crock pot recipes require preheating the empty pot (for how long depends on the model, but it can be as much as half an hour, and usually on high even if cooking on low). This isn't included in the cooking time. Then the time normally starts when you put the food in, at the temperature specified in the recipe.
If you don't have time to fully preheat you can generally start with hot ingredients, and add the preheating time to the cooking time - the contents will cool at first, but not dangerously so. In this case, with the unusual process of starting low then turning on to high, I wouldn't do that.
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97441 | Choux pastry, general questions with gluten free flour
I have a few questions regarding choux (cream puff pastry) and gluten free flour. After trying a few different recipes with a huge range of butter/ flour ratios, I settled with this one
https://www.biggerbolderbaking.com/choux-pastry-recipe-easy/
So far they always rose nicely and I never had a problem. But when I switched to gluten free flour, each time I got a different result with the same flour. Sometimes they rose, sometimes I had only really small air bubbles inside. Once the dough got so sticky I had problems getting it off the spoon (I just made/ dropped them as small sticky hills ~3cm wide and they turned out great). Since I'm almost sure to always use the same amount and brand of ingredients, there has to be a step in between that affects the result.
Duration with heat while stirring the flour into the mix. The dough forms within 20 sec after dumping it in and mixing (as well with covering the bottom of the pot), is longer stirring affecting the result? (Less water in dough, less steam in oven?)
I dump the steaming mix into stand mixer on a low setting and don't add eggs one by one before the mix stops steaming. Can gluten free dough be over beaten?
Usually I'm too lazy to pipe them and just form a ball by hand or use an ice cream scooper to form them. All forms had high and low rising results, but can one type give a better result or is it more an optical result? (Piped looked always nicest to the eye but made the most mess for cleaning)
The oven is usually around 200-210 with 20-25 min baking and another 5 min of resting time inside with turned off heat. Does upper/ lower heat vs fan makes a difference?
Choux pastry and puff pastry are not the same thing. From the rest of your question is seems that you mean choux, is that correct?
Isnt a cream puff just a filled choux with a cream? The german name for the dough is Brandteig( chaux) and the desert called Windbeutel (cream puff).
Zibelas, you are correct, a cream puff is a filled choux pastry. I think that @senschen has mis-read your question.
In a mobile device, there is a line break between "cream" and "puff pastry" in your first sentence, and it's easy to gloss over and misread (I did too!). No particular need to edit, though, just a funny coincidence ;)
I would suggest piping your dough.
Also, be sure your oven is thoroughly preheated, and you'll have much better results using a pizza stone or oven steel. I would suggest baking in the middle of the oven on only one layer (don't use two racks at once). Preheat the oven to about 15°C hotter than you are going to bake and then turn it down to baking temp as soon as you put in your puffs. Use the fan (convection) setting if your oven has one. You probably want to use about 15°C lower temperature with a fan than the recipe states unless it specifies with fan.
My recommendation is put your dough on a piece of parchment paper on a flat metal tray, then slide the whole piece of parchment paper onto the stone/steel (like you were using a pizza peel).
Just for fun: it's called choux because the puffs look like little cabbages (choux in French).
In a pizza making class I took once, in NY, a person asked "what advice to you have for gluten free crusts" The teacher said "don't do it"...
basically, gluten is a very important part of flour from most aspects of baking, and forgoing it makes life a lot harder. But, I understand, some people have reasons.
I would say this, yes, you can over beat choux, undoubtable. 2 cooking for too long when you first dump in the flour can have a huge impact. You are right, its about the water in the pastry available to steam.
Then, yes, piping will give you better results. All of these things introduce variables, and I think flour with gluten is just more forgiving so you are not noticing the differing results as much. Take out that gluten, and you need to get it perfect.
on temp, my experience has been higher temp, no fan. Higher temp helps it steam more quickly, I find that fan tends to start drying and even blackening the outside before my inside is done.
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115939 | Can you water bath a cooked then cooled jam recipe?
I tried a peach jam recipe that is cooked then cooled to thicken without pectin (6+ hour cool time). The recipe says you can freeze it or can it. What would be the safest method to can it? I have always used the water bath method while the jam was still hot. Would you put the cooled jam in sanitized jars, seal and band them, then place in a 'cool' water bath bringing it up to boiling? Would you then process for 10 minutes like usual?
BTW...the jam is the perfect consistency. Would heating it change that? Thanks!
Welcome to SA! While theoretically you could can the jam using some kind of very-slow-heating of the jars in a water bath, in practice I can't find any canning authority who thinks that's a good idea.
Yes, you may can it, but you will need to bring it to a boil again.
From The University of Georgia for the National Center for Home Food Preservation
Because we are interested in recommending jam and jelly making procedures that offer
the highest quality, the least health and safety risks, and the lowest chance of losing product, all
Extension recommendations for jams and jellies include a boiling water canning process for
room temperature storage of sealed jars. Standard canning jars used with self-sealing lids and
ring bands, pre-sterilization of clean canning jars, hot filling of product into the jars, and
processing for 5 minutes in a boiling water canner are recommended for highest quality and to
prevent mold growth.
Emphasis mine.
Please consult a reputable canning source for processing times for your situation and altitude.
The consistency may change, but I don't think it would be drastically different.
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91695 | How to prevent home-made apricot marmalade from going mouldy
I made a decent amount of apricot marmalade about a month or so ago and canned them in a clean and new containers and the lids appeared to be air-tight. A few days ago I opened one:
I did a Google search and decided to toss them away. How could I prevent it? I also read about it, some people suggested freezing that doesn't sound like the best solution to me. What's your suggestion?
Ratio of apricot to sugar was 2/1 and approximately half of the sugar I used was light brown sugar. I'm not entirely sure but it probably wasn't hot-packing.
Did you do anything to sterlise the jars before use? "Clean" isn't enough, especially if hot-packing. What ratio of fruit to sugar (recipe)?
Please edit your question to include the recipe and how exactly you canned your marmalade, this will help to determine what went wrong.
@ChrisH: No, I didn't sterilize the jars. I read a few articles about boiling the jars when they contain jam but didn't do it. I edited the question to add the ratio.
@DebbieM.: Edited the question. I am not sure what you mean by "how" I canned the marmalade.
@Gigili there are a number of things you can do, one of which is boiling the jars after filling (requiring specific jars, and the recommended method in some places. Heating the jars to ~150C in an oven before filling them with boiling-hot jam is another, and what I do. This hot-packing approach is normal in the UK, and works well if the jam/marmalade has enough sugar in it.
Marmalade/jam-making is one of the easiest forms of preserving, but all preserving needs attention to detail on the cleaning/sterilising steps, i.e. following proper instructions properly.
There are two parts to the process of making jams, marmalades (and the like) shelf stable for extended periods:
The first part is the recipe - It must contain the correct combination of fruit, sugar, acid and pectin. (If the sugar ratio is not correct it may lead to mold or yeast growth.)
The second part is the canning - Using sanitized canning jars and lids, filling the jars to the recommended level (usually 1/4" from top) then processing in a boiling water canner for the recommended time for your altitude and checking the lids afterward to make sure they sealed properly.
In the case of your recipe, there was not enough sugar and no added acid. This probably would have kept for a while in the refrigerator, but not long term. Filling a jar and putting on an airtight lid does not make your jam shelf stable, there is still air in the jar along with microscopic microbes that can cause mold and illness. Proper canning will remove the air, creating a vacuum seal that can last for many years.
All that being said, I hope you are not discouraged by the above answer. Jam making and canning are not difficult, with a few proper tools and a good resource to learn the proper steps involved, you can be making all kinds of preserves that can last in your pantry for a year (or more).
To get started please check out this link National Center for Home Food Preservation - Apricot Jam. The website has tons of information on how to get started. Freshpreserving.com/canning-101 is also a good resource, but they do promote their own products.
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74916 | Do I need to cook homemade brown beer mustard?
I want to try making a spicy brown beer mustard, and was wondering if I need to simmer the mustard to cook off the alcohol, or if I don't need to, how "alcoholic" the mustard can be (aka safe for kids)?
Thank you!
Checking out recipes for brown beer mustard online, it looks like there's a pretty even split between cooked and uncooked. Be advised that cooking will not remove all the alcohol - this question Cooking away alcohol and answers may help you should you decide to cook the mustard.
I can not answer as to how much beer would be safe for a child to consume (that would fall under health, which this site does not discuss). But you can look at how much beer is in the final product and go from there.
Example:
If beer makes up half the volume of the finished product and you have a 1 Tbsp serving, you would be consuming 1/2 Tbsp of beer (1/4 ounce), a 1/4 cup serving would have 2 Tbsp of beer (1 ounce).
The formula to determine how much in any given serving is:
Serving size X % beer in finished product = how much beer per serving.
It is probably fine without extra cooking.
The recipes for beer mustard suggest that beer would likely be a third or less of the volume of the finished mustard (the major ingredients I saw being mustard seeds, vinegar, and any other flavorings). Beer tends to be quite low in alcohol, as a rule, averaging about 5% (I've seen 3%-8%, and a few outliers with higher %s, but 5% is fairly common). So your mustard is going to be, roughly 1.66% alcohol by volume - for comparison's sake, yeast brewed sodas are usually under 1% alcohol. That is probably kid-safe, especially since mustard is usually used by the spoonful, not cupful, the alcohol intake will be likely be drops. Now, if you pick a beer that's, say, 15% (among the highest I recall seeing), then your mustard might be as high as 5%, and if your kids take a cupful or more in a sitting, they will likely get buzzed - so some common sense should still apply.
On the other hand, it tends to take more time for alcohol to cook out than people think - like an hour or two. Alcohol does evaporate faster than water, but not enough faster that they aren't being lost at the same time, so the going is pretty slow. So a couple hours simmering will be needed to be pretty sure you got most of the alcohol out (and you will have to replace the water, or use more beer and deal with stronger flavor, something like that). And if you're absolutely militant about not having any alcohol in your recipe, if for example you're dealing with allergies, you still won't be sure of getting every drop of alcohol out of the mustard.
If you want no alcohol at all, with no wiggle-room, you could probably find a non-alcoholic mustard recipe, or possibly experiment with non-alcoholic beer in your mustard. But, if you're only worried about excess consumption - your beer mustard is likely safe even for kids, since the amount of alcohol consumed per serving is very low.
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73393 | Old melting chocolate problem?
I have some melting chocolate that is over a year old and wonder if there is anything I can do to get it to melt to a smooth dipping consistency. It is melting, but very stiff and not really good for dipping.
You might try melting it into some water.
When melting chocolate, a little bit of water will cause it to seize (break and become grainy), but if you use more water to start with it will melt smoothly - about a tablespoon per six ounces should work to start, add more till you've reached your desired consistency. It has to do with the chocolate being soluble in either fat or in water, but having trouble in the middle when they were competing for sugar and cocoa solids. If you do this, you are basically making a chocolate sauce - even if the proportions mean it is a fairly thick one. Of course, after you have made it you can doctor it to your tastes, thin it till it is dippable, add flavors or additives, as you prefer.
Alternatively, you might melt it into something richer for your sauce - milk, or cream, or butter.
These alternatives will make your chocolate sauce progressively richer, depending on which one you pick, and may alter the flavors more than plain water (which may or may not be desirable to you). They do also have water in them (in decreasing proportion), but in an emulsion with fats which means they are less likely to cause the chocolate to seize. You might start with the same proportions, one tablespoon to six ounces, and keep adding until it has reached your desired consistency.
Of course, you can use other liquids (like alcohol) or fats (like oils) to thin the chocolate and make the sauce, but they will be increasingly less like the chocolate you started with the more flavors you add, and more like a fancy chocolate sauce. Which can be nice, but may not be what you're asking for.
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87987 | Is it possible to replace the sugar in Tapioca Meringue pudding with stevia?
I'd like to know if powdered stevia can be used to make the meringue in the pudding. I'm trying to get away from sugar, but not sure how to use stevia. I've seen a recipe for stevia in the pudding, but I like the fluffy form of tapioca made by mixing the pudding with meringue, but I need advice on the meringue part.
Also want to try replacing the milk with coconut milk. Has anyone tried this?
In meringues sugar is important mainly for the final texture, much more so than for it's sweetening effect.
Since Stevia is much sweeter than sugar, one would have to use far less in order to not ruin the taste. ("collectively, they give stevia 100 to 300 times the sweetness of sucrose")
Yet even taking half as much normal sugar than the recipe calls for will result in a vastly different meringue (not as stiff and less stable over time). The same problem stands for other sweeteners.
I'd therefore try using a sugar alcohol that has comparable (or even lower) sweetness to sucrose, so you can use a similar weight of material and get the texture just right (after some experimentation perhaps). Then, if that ends up not being sweet enough, you can still add a tiny bit of stevia solely for sweetening.
For meringue, the following properties seem especially important in sugar substitutes:
similar hygroscopicity to household sugar
less or comparably sweet than household sugar (so that bulk quantities may be used without ruining the taste)
low laxativity (because rather high amounts might be consumed)
Have a look at this list.
Erythritol won't work well because it is not hygroscopic enough, all the other options have a laxative effect.
I'd therefore advise against using sugar substitutes if you don't absolutely need to.
If you want to just sweeten the pudding itself separately with stevia, go for it. Pudding gets it's texture mostly from starch (or gelatin) so the lack of sugar won't have a detrimental (or even positive, in the case of starch) effect on texture.
Having said all that; it seems possible to get decent meringue without adding any sugar at all if you get the technique just right otherwise (and add cream of tartar and perhaps starch). See also this answer. Personally, I've been dissatisfied whenever I used less than a ratio of 1/3 of sugar to egg whites and find 1/2 best for swiss meringue.
While I can't answer you specifically regarding meringue, I have experimented using stevia in other desserts and have found that I get better results with half sugar and half stevia, as opposed to all stevia.
Yes, you can replace sugar with stevia powder in the beaten egg whites. Make sure to only use the amount needed for equivalent sweetness.
As for replacing the dairy milk with coconut milk, this Answer and comments deal with that substitution pretty thoroughly.
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78876 | Food safety of cooked Lasagna that has been left on a counter and uncovered for 18 hours
Food safety of cooked Lasagna that has been left on a counter and uncovered for 18 hours. What is the proper amount of time it can be left out of frig, and safe to eat as a leftover the next day.
As the answer on the duplicate says, more like two hours, once it's cooled below 140F.
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88618 | What is the difference between toffee and caramel?
I always wondered and hope someone here can clear it up for me.
"Caramel" is a substance which is created by heating sugar. It is hard at room temperature, aromatic, and has many uses as an ingredient. It can be used "pure", for example poured into very thin slices, which are used for cake decoration. More frequently, it is dissolved in liquids to make a sauce or creme.
"Toffee" is a kind of confection. It is made by adding butter, and sometime other ingredients, to hot caramel, and then shaping it into small suckable hard candies. It is also possible to add more ingredients to change the texture, as in Storck's Toffifee, which are chewy candies. In such cases, you could say that toffee is also an ingredient sometimes.
The aroma of toffee is mostly the aroma of caramel, because this is the main ingredient. But they are not the same thing, one is an ingredient and the other is (originally) a candy.
As Robin Betts mentioned, some candies can also be called "caramels", which is a second meaning of the word "caramel". There, you cannot really draw a line of difference, because the usage is not consistent. The same candy may be considered "a caramel" or "a toffee" by different speakers.
In short, Butter. Toffee has Butter, caramel does not.
Of course there are lots of variations, and there are some candies called 'Caramels', which may in fact be hard toffees. The softness or hardness of a toffee depends on the amount of fat added, and the temperature to which the sugar is raised.
Strictly speaking, though, caramel is either 'dry' (pure white sugar), or 'wet' (white sugar and water), heated until it is browns, more or less, to taste, and stopped before burning.
Thanks. Did I understand correctly that toffees are without butter? And caramels are with butter and soft?
Sorry about that, Edited.
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73666 | Can I freeze left over Shake & Bake coating mix after it's used?
After coating my chicken with Shake & Bake, I transfer the remainder into a container and freeze it until I need it again. Is this an unsafe practice? I figure if I'm freezing meat so it won't spoil, then the Shake & Bake coating mix should be safe in the freezer until I need it again.
You can freeze any shake&bake coating if it has not been used.I would think there would be a strong possibility of bacterial contamination (which is not killed in the freezing process.)
it's not really necessary to freeze the coating mix; it should stay good for awhile as long as it is tightly covered. However, do NOT re-use any mix that has come into contact with the chicken, ESPECIALLY raw.
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129211 | Can I substitute whole eggs instead of egg yokes in lemon pudding?
Can I use 2 whole eggs instead of 4 egg yolks in a lemon pudding pie filling?
Without knowing more about the specific recipe you're following, I don't think anyone will be able to give you an accurate, concise answer. Could you please edit your original post to include the recipe?
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121501 | Can I reprocess jars that have sealed?
We lost track of the venting time but since it was a strong heavy steam, husband put the weight on. Regulating the jiggles was hard to do and finally we just turned the heat off. Thinking to start over. We opened up the canner after it set an hour. Opened it, pulled the jars out. But some of the jars started to ping. Must we open them up, and put new lids on? Or can we put the jars back in to reprocess as is?
See also https://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/82745/34242 • https://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/28130/34242 • https://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/76343/34242
Official advice (which is the only sort here on food safety issues) is to empty, and repack into a clean jar with a new lid.
But why? It sealed, and I'm going to process it more?
Because the processing times published are (usually) based on the hot jars being packed with hot food, not room temperature jars of food being subjected to heat. Particularly with any thick pasty food, the center of the jars may not heat adequately from "just reprocessing" and the odds that your family will show up posthumously in one of those cautionary tales about doing canning wrong go way, way up...
Sealed is NOT "safe" if the path to sealed was not the path in the tested safe recipe.
While most "reprocessing" advice assume the seal failed, failing to maintain the time/temperature as specified in the tested process is a path to jars that look sealed, but are not safe. Reprocessing them without emptying, reheating, and repacking is likewise unsafe.
You describe a pressure canning process.
Jars seal just fine in a boiling-water or steam process at much lower temperatures, which will result in unsafe food if following a recipe intended for pressure canning (low-acid.)
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123640 | How much cake flour equals 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour?
Making instant pot lemon cake. Calls for 1 1/2 cups of all purpose flour ALL I have is cake flour.
Those aren't ingredients with different quantities, they're different kinds of flour with different grinds and protein content. See the other question for details.
You should use the same amount of flour, 1 1/2 cups.
As others have pointed out in the comments, cake flour and all purpose flour are not somehow convertible to each other by amount. They have different properties, and produce different results in baked goods. So there is not a perfect substitution where you just have to change the volume, like you could have done with e.g. powdered sugar instead of crystal sugar.
At the same time, there is a very good chance that your cake will turn out to be good if you make it with cake flour. First, cake flour generally makes good cakes - very few recipes require all purpose flour, they are more likely made with it because it is ubiquitous. Second, cake batters are rather forgiving to changes in gluten content (which is the main difference between cake and ap flour). Third, you are obviously not trying to get Michelin stars with an instant pot cake. At home, people are less critical of the cake they are eating, because they don't have the overhoned expectations of professional bakers. Fourth, if the cake is not that great, it will probably be due to it being an instant pot cake (which are never as good as the ones from the oven) than the change in flour.
So, in short, use the flour in a 1:1 substitution and see what happens. It will in most likelihood be a cake you enjoy.
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82507 | Not enough sugar in strawberry jelly
I just made 38 jars of strawberry jelly and realized I did not put all the sugar in recipe. I thought I could scale back until I read the small print on Certgel.
Can I dump it all back in a pot and recook it adding the rest of the sugar, or do I have to throw it all out and restart?
You probably can, but I'd expect the results to be not ideal (but better than throwing it all out). Since I'm not definite about this, I'm commenting instead of answering. My strawberry picking this weekend went much, much faster than I thought, so we wound up with 24 lbs. Making a lot of freezer jam.
Best treat it as perishable food while it is in that under-sugared state (unless you have good reason to assume otherwise) - and as perished food if it has been stored in a blatantly unsafe manner...
It might be okay as it is. What exactly does the Certgel packaging say that makes you think its no good now? Also what kind of jelly--- canned, or freezer? And have you frozen/processed it yet?
What is certgel when it comes to Jelly/Jam? The only certgel I know of is a hand sanitizer.
I am not sure what Certgel is, but with a regular recipe, you can add the sugar and recook it. I've done it a couple of time when the texture was not right. As specified by @PoloHoleSet, the result will be quite off but it's better than wasting the whole thing.
"Certain" "gel" - sounds like a fruit pectin (Probably the most well-know US jelly/jam pectin product is called "Sure-Jell") mixture.
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76944 | Roasting pork and traveling
I have a 4 lb pork loin to roast, approx 2 hours. I also need to travel 1 hour distance. The pork is the main entree. Dinner is set for 6 pm. What is the best method to cook the roast so that it remains moist? I cannot arrive much before 5:45 and we can eat a little later. Cook for 1 hr, travel for 1 hr and complete 1 hr cooking at destination? Any combo of these?
That's actually just about perfect, since meat should rest before you slice it. Start the roast at 3. Cook it for 2 hours. Wrap it in aluminum foil. Put it in something to retain heat (a cooler, or even just a box with some towels). Drive 1 hour to your destination.
The muscle fibers will re-absorb the moisture, making it perfectly juicy. Without resting, it will seem "juicy" when the juices pool on your slicing board, but that's moisture that's lost. The sensation of juiciness is strongest when it has re-absorbed the moisture among the fibers, so it comes out in your mouth when you chew.
Wrapping it in aluminum foil will keep it warm as you go. Heat will equalize throughout the roast. Since it cooks from the outside in, the outermost layers are hottest. Take it just to the very bottom of the cooking range (145°F), or even a little lower, and let the carryover heat from the hotter outer layers finish the cooking. It will arrive perfect for you to slice and eat.
If you're eating any later than, say 6:30, then keep it warm in the oven at 200 or even 180 if your oven will do that. Another hour of warmth will still be perfectly safe, and won't go too far towards moisture loss.
I don't think foil will be sufficient to keep it warm for an hour—especially not if part of your trip is through the cold. You'll need some insulation—a small cooler would work.
That's a good point. I'll add a bit more verbiage to that effect.
This sounds like a good application for sous vide cooking.
If you haven't heard of it, the idea is that you seal your food and submerge it in water that is held at the temperature you want your food cooked to. The advantages are food that is cooked very slowly and can't overcook. Professional cooks use this to be able to prep their food in advance and still have it come out perfectly when it is served.
J. Kenji Lopez-Alt has a good description of how to accomplish this effect with a cooler. The cooler will keep the water at the target temp for a long time.
http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/04/cook-your-meat-in-a-beer-cooler-the-worlds-best-sous-vide-hack.html
When you get there, 15 minutes will be enough time to just brown the surface under a broiler and serve.
If you aren't feeling so adventurous and want to use a traditional method, you should roast the pork completely, wrap it in foil, and pack it in a towel and then a cooler. It will retain most of its heat for an hour. You might need to warm it up a little but that won't dry it out.
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57553 | While making pepper oil with dry crushed red pepper, do I need to sterilize the jars to store for up to 6 months?
I am planning to make a large quantity of oil cooked with dry crushed red pepper. I fry the oil on low heat with the dry crushed red pepper for awhile and then remove it.
I plan to distribute it to friends as a wedding favor.
I don't have any experience with canning. Is there a risk for botulism if I just throw it in a jar? Or will I need to fully sterilize the jars?
Botulism is killed at over 250 degrees Fahrenheit. Most oils have much higher smoke points than this. Can you infuse, remove the peppers, then increase the heat on the oil afterwards. This would at least remove botulism spores from the oil itself although it doesn't help with the jars.
Basic answer: it's generally recommended to sterilize jars before storing low-acid foods at room temperature. (Many canning procedures effectively sterilize the jars during processing.) In your case, you should be certain the jars are clean and thoroughly dry as well.
Regarding your overall proposal: I'd only give away food gifts like this if I had prepared them according to an established procedure and recipe tested by a reputable food safety and preservation organization. Your proposal sounds like it could be safe, but I can't find any such recipes at the National Center for Home Food Preservation or similar sources. Generally, most food safety websites don't recommend storing any homemade flavored oils at room temperature or for more than a few days in the refrigerator. (There were some older recommendations that allowed for dried herbs and/or herbs that were strained out of oil after a brief infusion, but even these were found to have a small risk -- because only lab testing can determine whether herbs are dried sufficiently or whether you've managed to strain out all the small particles -- and are no longer listed on most food preservation sites.) Commercial preparations of flavored oils almost exclusively involve prior acidification of the additives to ensure safety.
Also, I would note that heating the oil hot enough to kill botulism bacteria will cause it to degrade somewhat in quality and flavor. (This is another reason why commercial preparations use acidification.)
Lastly, just my opinion: I don't want to overstate the risk here (which is likely low), but without a tested procedure it's impossible to know for certain when storing low-acid foods at room temperature. And botulism toxin can be deadly. I know it sounds like a nice idea, but I personally would not give flavored oils as gifts. Even if I found a reputable recipe from a food preservation site that had been scientifically tested, the people I give these things to have to trust that I know what I'm doing. Personally, I tend to discard any flavored oils I've received as gifts before using (unless I would trust the person and know how the food was prepared).
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58040 | Do people eat clotted cream AND butter at the same time?
In The Hobbit, Gandalf is described as eating loaves with clotted cream, butter, and honey. I'm familiar with clotted cream, but I always eat it with jam - clotted cream PLUS butter seems excessive. Do people frequently eat these things together?
I'm sure that someone does. I don't know that it's standard.
@Catija - that's more the question.
I am inclined to close this, as there is no standard in eating food. Or does someone see a way to provide an objective answer to this question?
@rumtscho Please do! I so agree with you - too broad and opinion based. What can we say beyond "some do, some don't". Many of us have their personal, regional or cultural quirks with regard to food....
It's hard to butter while you're eating clotted cream.
It's really a matter of preference. Some people like the salty dimension that butter gives along with clotted cream and jam, others think the cream is enough saturated fat to be going on with.
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58573 | Culinary term for frying in water (without oil)?
Is there a culinary term describing "frying in about 4mm of water" in a frying pan without oil (with this technique, if water evaporates you just keep adding more from a glass, keeping it shallow).
Could this be considered a type of roasting if the main heat transfer is from cookware to food?
I disagree with Neil's answer here. All the three terms of "poaching", "boiling" or "simmering" require that your food is fully submerged, especially for poaching it has to be free-floating in a large amount of water. I doubt that you are submerging anything in 4 mm, and this little amount of water would boil off quickly if you had so little food that it is submerged.
Depending on the exact circumstances and the type of food (veggies vs grains vs meat), but also on the size of the food chunks, what you are doing is either sweating, steaming or braising, but in a very inefficient form.
Sweating would be part of the initial browning of vegetables before further use in a soup or similar, until they are softer. It usually involves some browning, but this won't happen when you are using water. In fact, you're better off leaving the water out altogether in this case and use either fat or nothing.
Steaming can be done with vegetables or grains. It is better done with somewhat more water than you describe, but still much less than needed for boiling them. The "mix food and water in the pan/pot" technique is better suited for grains, vegetables do better in a steamer suspended over a large amount of boiling water, without touching the water.
Braising is normally used for meat, but can also be done with other food which can be cut up in largish chunks (aubergines would do, but not peas, for example). It is tastier when done in a sauce than in water.
Unlike shallow frying, which is done with oil, what you are doing does not have a name of its own, because it is not something usually done when cooking. Depending on what you are trying to do, there are better ways to go about it.
No, really, this is the best way. Lards and fats are unhealthy and when olive oil or worse oils are heated they break down and become less healthy, so, sweating in very shallow water, adding water as it evaporates, is the best way to go when doing stuff like slightly cooking garlic and onion, or even for roasting a bit of celery and carrots before adding plum tomato liquid or water for cooking lentils in spices and vegetable cube.
@JackMaddington health discussion is completely off topic here. I can tell you that it is much tastier to use fat. And even if you don't, have you tried it completely dry, without the water? You may need to change the temperature, but it does the opposite of what the fat does, preventing browning and making the vegetables mushier than they could be. Another option would be to roast them in an oven, on a rack (placed in the oven rails or just above a pan). Both are better taste-wise than stovetop with water.
I don't understand your comment. If I put garlic and onion in a frying pan without adding water (or anything else), then it will burn. But I've tried that for toasted sunflower seeds and works for that. So please explain your comment.
If your onion burns in a pan without water, you should reduce the heat setting. Different vegetables need different temperatures, but 100 C plus wetness (which is what water does for you) is not optimal for any vegetable that I know of.
What do you mean by optimal? Do you mean optimal for the food industry that has you purchase more stuff to be consumed in making food than plain water? Please explain.
By "optimal", I mean the cooking process which results in the best taste and texture.
Sorry, but best taste and texture is subjective, plus it's not what I'm looking for. I'm looking to preserve the food (vegetables) in as original a state as possible while preserving their edibility. Chemistry is objective, not subjective.
You are free to cook your food in the way which best suits you, and use any criteria you like (taste, chemistry, beliefs about health). My point was that most people don't want their food prepared that way, so this process is not commonly used in cooking traditions, and so it has not received a specific name. Names are given to the standard way a process is done. If none of the standard ways fits your criteria to how you like your food to be, you don't have to try them. I simply assumed that you use the "best taste" criteria because this is what this site is based on.
Poaching and simmering is often used to describe cooking in a shallow liquid in a pan where the food isn't anywhere near fully submerged. Eg: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poaching_(cooking)#Shallow_Poaching I don't think shallow boiling is a thing, and as you say 4mm of water would boil off too quickly in any case. So overall I think Neil Meyer's answer is the most correct. However, I do agree that what original poster is doing appears to be very unusual. I'm not sure if any word adequately describes the process.
@RossRidge interesting, I'd never come across a half-submerged version of poaching before. I still assume that the OP's temperature is way too high for being poaching (he indicated his vegetables burn if he left out the water) but I'm glad I learned something new from your comment.
@JackMaddington You might want to do some research if you believe that frying/sauteing a vegetable in hot oil changes the state of that vegetable more than boiling it. I am pretty sure that is actually backwards -- you lose more nutrients, etc., by boiling than by frying.
@goldilocks could you please quote your source. Anyways my point was thst the oil molecules break down when oil is fried. Not sure how much when oil is boiled with spices and other stuff.
I was always under the impression that braising requires a step where you sear the ingredients first, which should require oil and thus would not be a valid description. Is this not correct?
@JackMaddington Only if you heat oil to its smoking point. http://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/13132/23376 But even then, the ingestion probably isn't harmful, rather the inhalation of the fumes. Regarding aclylamide: http://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/56831/23376 Most vegetables consist almost completely of water and have few carbs and proteins, so you don't have to be afraid of acrylamide. Perhaps it makes the discussion easier if you would also share your sources of information.
@DanielChui to my knowledge, "browning first" is not what makes braising to be braising. It is just that everybody does it, because it tastes better.
@ChingChong and everybody else, this discussion is getting way too long and very close to off topic. I'd suggest starting a chat room if you want to pursue it.
To get water to boil at a typical frying temp of 375°F (830 K) you'd need a pressure of about 20 megaPascal, 2900 PSI.
If the veggies are barely submerged, you're effectively steaming. It is not as pure a method as actually raising them slightly above the (I presume very rapidly boiling) water, but if you keep them moving enough, the result is going to be more similar than it would be to be boiling/poaching/simmering.
In case you are unaware, you can get very inexpensive steamer baskets that fit into any size pan. This is a pretty effective way to cook vegetables. It also means you can cover the pan and not have to keep everything moving. If you have layers of veggies in the steamer you may want to rotate them around occasionally.
IMHO proper steaming is not the same as vegetables are exposed to more steam and end up being less tasty. With the method I describe sliced courgettes remain crunchy. Maybe their nutrients are better preserved too in this way when compared to steaming.
How crunchy they are depends on how long you steam them. If you do it in a shallow pan with water long enough, they will go mushy there too. The difference is you are paying more attention to the stuff in a pan and so stop when you get to where you want to go.
The Germans call it "dünsten", which would translate to "steam" just as the word "dämpfen" would (which describes cooking methods where the water does not touch the food). I think the difference between the methods is that with a separated steaming liquid, flavor compounds (or loosely attached seasonings) can be lost into it if they drip off the food or a condensing surface.
If you are using a thin layer of oil atop the water, you are water-velveting. If you are beginning with a very small amount of oil, and then adding water to the pan and covering once the oil is mostly absorbed into the dish, you are steam-frying.
If you are using the water alone to keep the ingredients from sticking to the pan, or to release it once stuck, without covering the pan or submerging a substantial part of the ingredients in liquid, there isn't a western culinary term for the technique that's appropriate.
You are cooking with direct heat, so steaming, poaching or braising isn't appropriate.
You are using no oils or fats, so neither is grilling, frying, sweating or sauteing.
You are using heat in direct contact with the ingredients, rather than ambient, so roasting or broiling doesn't work, either.
Deglazing is generally reserved for sauce building rather than pan-frying, even though that's probably the most appropriate term for what you're doing: using a liquid to release stuck-on food from the pan to keep it from burning.
I would call this steam-to-release if I wanted a single term to describe it. It's not a common technique in European or American cooking, so you could probably christen it whatever you wanted with a compelling enough recipe blog or youtube tutorial."Funkytown Super Style Aqua-Panambulation" has a nice ring to it if steam-to-release isn't working for you.
I'm calling everything that now.
Poaching, Boiling and Simmering.
Boiling is the method of cooking food in boiling water, or other water-based liquids such as stock or milk. Simmering is gentle boiling, while in poaching the cooking liquid moves but scarcely bubbles.
SOURCE
I've heard this method with vegetable broth called "stock-velveting" so maybe water velveting? Or just switch to vegetable stock and call it stock velveting. I eat no processed oils (meaning ONLY oil intake is from Whole Foods such as avocados, nuts, and coconuts. I use both of the above methods frequently and sometimes add a few drops of soy sauce at the end of the process to brown my veggies.
It looks like the closest we can get on this is 'water sauté'. But there certainly should be a more elegant term. Why no one has invented one is beyond me.
I have been using this method to cook meat and other things for many years, and I too have asked various places what it is called. The fact is, it is not a common cooking method, so none of the names of "proper" cooking methods fit it exactly. Braising, for example, is "low and slow" while this method is hot and fast. Many other water-based methods require a larger amount of water that is not meant to burn off in a minute or so.
So, having never found a truly accurate answer, I've taken to calling it pan frying with water. I feel that is the most accurate description of what you are doing. It's a great way to cook pork chops, steaks, and more. The water soaks into the cooking meat and keeps it very moist. The trick to getting good color on the meat is to allow dry cooking time in between the additions of water. You can also add a little bit (1 tspn) of butter at the end to get some added final browning and to flavor the pan au jus, though that is optional.
Some people call it "steam frying."
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58614 | Complete list of terms used to describe cooking methods?
I am trying to build up a list of all the cooking methods which can be used to cook something, including terms used in the stages of the cooking process used to cook such food. Here is what I have come up with so far:
boiling
simmering
steaming
poaching
sweating
braising
frying
shallow-frying
stir-frying
deep-frying
refrying
toasting
broiling
stewing
charbroiling
grilling
sauteéing
browning
baking
marinading
pickling
macerating
Is there anything else which can be added to this list (or where can I find a complete list of these in English (I expect these terms to differ a little bit from language to language, even with some incompatibilities, given that different cultures are associated with cooking methods that to some extent would differ), and if such book or other source is proprietary than could someone please quote from it and post an answer)? Thanks.
I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because this is a poll
Defined very broadly since they don't all involve heat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cooking_techniques
Jack, I know that you are new here and don't know how the site works yet. Closing a question is not something personal, it just means "this question is out of our scope". It is done because we know that certain types of question don't work well with this format, producing bad collections of answer in which nobody can orient themselves. One very common type are "list" questions. They end up incomplete, ridden of duplicates, and voting does not help the best answer to rise to the top because there is no best answer, per definition. This is why we have a rule that they should be closed.
Thanks @goldilocks. The Wikipedia page you point to is, and will be very useful, now and in the future.
related (but also closed) : http://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/47434/67
I think any "exhaustive" list here is bound to be arbitrary. Some of your own categories overlap (e.g., frying, plus several subcategories of such); so, e.g., is "slow cooking" a cooking method or is it the same as simmering? Is frying in a wok (aka. stir frying) a distinct method from what you call "shallow-frying"? I would say it is, which makes me think of your other question regarding "frying in water": Could it have a distinct name as a style of boiling or streaming? I don't see why not, but I do not think there is one.
Anyway, here's a few:
Roasting
Basting
Smoking
Blanching
Sous vide
Pit barbecue
Reducing as in a reduction
Finally, although it does not involve heat and thus might not be "cooking", marinading ceviche, since it achieves the same denaturation via acid, still seems like a form of cooking to me.
I'd think baking has a lot of distinct subcategories too -- what does a waffle iron count as?
Sorry, couldn't find a dictionary entry for basting in Merriam-Webster Dictionary assuming one has to look up the verb "to bast". Could you please provide a reference? Thanks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basting_(cooking) It's usually combined with roasting.
Thanks for the link. That will do. I've also added three more terms to the bottom of the list. Let us know if you can think of anything else. Thanks.
I added reducing above, since that is pretty distinct from boiling.
Isn't reducing just the opposite of oxidizing (either one or the other takes place in a chemical reaction). Or is the term used differently here, or perhaps connected to the chemistry meaning in some not-so-obvious way?
I think the reactions taking place in a reduction would depend on what's in the liquid, although primarily it's just about vapourization. E.g., you take equal parts light stock and balsamic vinegar or orange juice, boil it down to 1/4 - 1/5 the volume, and you are left with a sweet sauce good for glazing, etc. They can get as complicated as soups, but the general principle is that you're cooking something down from mostly water to a syrup, including possibly dissolving things in it.
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79241 | Why do garlic pots have holes?
If garlic pots didn't have holes, why would the garlic in it get soggy (which as I understand it means moist). After all, garlic as bought at the store is dry, and to my knowledge doesn't have much water in it. Do the holes I the garlic pot allow moisture to leave the garlic and pass through the holes and diffuse itself in the air?
NOTE: I have heard of garlic pots but never seen one. If someone could post a picture it would be appreciated.
Thank you for your clarifications.
Pictures of garlic pots. Also includes garlic roasters and some non-related items.
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81557 | storage tips for fresh corn tortillas
How do I store bought-warm corn tortillas to keep fresh longer?
reheating tortillas has been discussed here
After refridgerating 24hrs, a quick reheat in micowave or on griddle yielded a pliable tortilla for tacos. 48hrs in fridge, Fat-free reheating methods yielded a flacky easily-cracked-when-folded taco.
Absolutely didn't let them dry out.
Room temp storage or other tips for keeping fresh longer?
Will hold off on frying to soften as long as possible
I am curious if oxygen-free ie nitrogen storage keeps tortillas pliable but not flakey. Just don't understand WHAT change takes place that isn't drying out...?
My personal experience is that corn tortillas will stay more pliable if stored at room temperature, but may not last as long. I'd assumed that I could find some head-to-head tests from one of the usual sources, but surprisingly not, which means that it's more likely that storing them in the fridge vs. counter doesn't actually make any difference.
Regardless of where they're stored, though, corn tortillas will only be pliable for a few days. Even my homemade tortillas are really only good for 3-4 days, before they're good for nothing but making chips.
If you're buying them warm, first you want to store them in the open or wrapped in cloth while they're cooling (so that moisture evaporates and they don't get moldy), and then immediately put them in airtight packaging (so that they don't dry any further).
Incidentally, there's one other way of heading tortillas: putting them in a moist container (a cloth wrapper or a plastic food cointainer) and microwaving them for a short time. This effectively steams them, and the tortillas will be pliable until they cool.
There is more than one type of pre-made corn tortillas that you can buy in the store. What you'll find in American grocery stores are shelf-stable, and those don't really benefit from refrigeration, as you've mentioned.
In Latin markets, you will find that type, but you will also find them in the refrigerated section. Those must be kept cold. If you don't, they will mold. And even in the fridge, they'll develop mold after a week or two. (and it's a pain to go looking between every tortilla for signs of white mold (purple and green are easy to find).
What's most important for these two isn't so much about how they're stored, but how they're reheated. For tacos, you want to heat them up in pairs on the griddle. This keeps them thick enough that the top won't flake up badly on you. The space between the two tortillas will steam, and you'll be able to get a bit of a crust on the two outer sides if you wish (but that will make it less flexible, potentially leading to tortilla failure.) Keep the two together as you assemble your taco, and you won't have any problems.
The third type of tortilla that I'm familiar with are the Salvadoran style. These are about a 1/4" (6mm) thick, and made from a much finer grind of corn. They just don't work for tortillas, as when heated, they only fold a little bit. These are better for the sort of things you'd use tostadas for. (they're not arepas ... they're thinner than those and the flour is different, and they're not stuffed like a pupusa, either)
For these, you'll want to heat them slowly, so they don't end up too rigid, but you can cook them separately as they won't have issues with flaking up like thinner tortillas from coarser cornmeal will.
interesting take with the double tortilla. will try. Am in Mexico for now, so super fresh is always available (but I buy too many and hate to waste)
@PatSommer : I actually realized the double tortilla trick when I was at a tacqueria in Boulder, Colorado. I think I was told that they make their own. I don't even remember why I noticed that they were doubled up, so I just assumed it was a normal thing. (around where I live, we have more pupusas and burritos ... not too many tacos)
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113222 | How to substitute unsweetened coconut for sweetened coconut?
I'm planning to make a coconut macaroon recipe that calls for:
1 cup of cream of coconut
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
4 egg whites
3 cups of unsweetened shredded coconut
3 cups of sweetened shredded coconut
plus small amounts of salt and vanilla (which are probably not relevant for this question.)
My local grocer was out of sweetened coconut, so I need to make the recipe with only unsweetened coconut instead. What should I add to the unsweetened coconut to make it sufficiently sweet and moist? How much?
The recipe, ironically, gives instructions on how to substitute sweetened coconut for the unsweetened (reduce cream of coconut to 1/2 c, omit corn syrup, add 2 Tbsp cake flour), but does not say how to go the other direction; and the presence of the additional cake flour makes it difficult to reverse the directions.
Assuming you want to keep the recipe as close as possible to the original, you could simply replace the 3 cups of sweetened shredded coconut by sweetening yourself 3 cups of unsweetened shredded coconut.
Here, as an example, this is a recipe to sweeten 1 cup of unsweetened shredded coconut. You can find the details and adjust the recipe to make 3 cups. Keep in mind that it is designed for organic unsweetened shredded coconut, so the quality of your coconut should play an important role in the result. As a quick summary of the recipe they provide this image
PS: If you plan on storing some, remember to allow to dry as the recipe says.
It's fine to have a link to reference the source, but it's better if you write the main part in your answer instead of an image.
I understand. As the summary was already available in this format, I simply decided to provide it more as a quick overview rather than a follow up on the recipe and thought the image was better in contrast.
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119487 | What is this seed pod?
Every now and then I come across this seed pod when I order Baingan Bharta (aka Punjabi Eggplant) from my favorite Indian restaurant. They're roughly 2cm (3/4 inch) long and about as thick as a wooden pencil. The taste is strong and earthy and rather savory to my palate. The pod has three folds, for lack of a better word, and the seeds are smaller than okra/gumbo but have similar texture.
Thank you for your time.
Here they are in action: https://youtu.be/9biIOtEYeHc?t=76
There are also larger black cardamom seed pods which are used in the same way in South Asian dishes.
Looks like cardamom to me, regularly used in Indian and other South Asian cuisine and often left as whole seed pods in dishes for unsuspecting diners to accidentally chew on.
That's right, either push them to the side of the plate or eat them but if the latter don't chew too much - too much flavour and they get stuck in your teeth.
They’re guaranteed to be in the very last mouthful;)
@ChrisH 'too much flavour' is entirely subjective, as the degree to which they stick in teeth is heavily dependent on one's dentition. ;-)
@Spagirl indeed, my light squeeze would be too much for many people, and I do leave some on the plate, but overall like them. Others I know would eject a pod they'd accidentally eaten, and perhaps you might enjoy them more than me.
The spice is also popular in baked goods in Scandinavia. In such recipes, the dark seeds are removed from the pods and ground before adding them to a dough or filling.
I have a Palestinian friend who chew them like people chew tobacco. He'd just idly plop a couple in his mouth every so often. I have no idea how he can stand it. To each his own I guess.
@slebetman I bet people would say that about coffee beans too. And in parts of the Middle east, cardamom coffee is popular. It's very nice, but hard to get a light enough roast coffee in the UK.
Also elevates rice to unexpected new heights. Main ingredient in Bryani spice.
@ChrisH cardamom milkshake made from cardamom syrup is also a great treat.
Cardamom is also the world's 3rd most expensive spice. Only being beat by vanilla pods and saffron.
@NeilMeyer I'll have to try that (not that I'm much of a milkshake drinker). Searching for that also suggested various hot drinks with milk, with or without chocolate
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67495 | How to cook popcorn from frozen popcorn kernels?
I'm in a part of the tropics where weevils and other similar critters seem to get everywhere. Last time I bought popcorn kernels, they'd somehow got infested before I'd even opened the packet (the same thing happened once before with ants in an unopened pack of sugar).
I've read that a good fix for such (potential) infestations is to keep grains in the freezer, which kills any eggs and prevents any more getting in, and it seems to work.
Can I cook the frozen popcorn the usual way in a pan straight from the freezer, or do I need to adjust the recipe and approach in any way?
I've got a feeling thawing the corn is probably a bad idea as it might result in moisture and soggy popcorn, but I've not tested it yet.
I tweaked your title a bit. When I first saw it, I thought your question was going to be about frozen sweet corn :) Interesting question!
Fortunately, popcorn is inexpensive enough to just do some tests and see.
+1 Great question! I'm interested to see some experimental data in the answers for this question.
The thing that would worry me is the popcorn drying out in the freezer. The relative humidity is very low in the freezer. Popcorn is so dry that the water probably wouldn't freeze in an ordinary freezer. Might work if you kept popcorn carefully sealed. Double sealed to try avoid frost free cycle would be even better.
Hopefully you're not getting ice crystals on them; if you are, I'd be worried that the popcorn won't pop ever. Popcorn pops because there is some water inside the kernel, and under heat it expands. The kernel traps the water, pressure builds and builds to ~130PSI, and then it explodes. If freezing damages the kernel and lets the vapor escape, it just won't pop.
Also, I believe you can heat-treat weevils as well—at somewhere around 120–130F. As long as you can do that without drying the popcorn out, that should work.
First results in - success! I just chucked them in the pan straight from the freezer and they popped like normal, maybe even slightly faster. The only apparent difference was maybe more steam than usual - it felt like I needed to hold the pan further open than usual to let all the steam out, and until I did they came out slightly un-crispy. Otherwise, fine
I would say that qualifies as an answer! You can self-answer and I'll come back and upvote if you leave me a comment after you did! ;-)
I've done this a few times now. It works, straight from the freezer, no defrosting required.
Here are some observations, based on cooking the kernels in a stove-top metal saucepan with a little medium-hot oil over a moderate heat:
More steam than usual comes off the frozen popcorn during cooking. Without a pretty big gap between pan and lid (bigger than usual) for all the extra steam to escape, the popcorn can come out not soggy, but soft and less-than-crisp. It's a little tricky to get the right gap without letting popcorn pop out the pan. Holding the lid flat about 2cm above the pan with one hand while moving the pan with the other seems to work.
Even after doing this, the cooked popcorn is still a bit less than crisp immediately after cooking. If I leave it in the hot pan for about 5 minutes, with the stove off, no lid, moving it around occasionally, that seems to be enough for any extra moisture to evaporate and the popcorn to finish up nice and crisp.
I tend to use small amounts of oil for popcorn, so spitting when I added the frozen corn wasn't a big problem. Certainly, there was less spitting than, for example, stir-frying frozen vegetables. That said, it's still worth having the lid in the other hand ready to hold over the pan immediately, but primarily to stop any fast-popping corn, more than to shield from spitting oil.
Apart from that, and maybe taking very slightly longer to pop (not nearly as big a difference as I expected, and some seem to possibly pop faster, which doesn't make much sense), it seems to cook exactly as normal straight from the freezer, no defrosting required.
So I wouldn't keep popcorn kernels in the freezer unless (like me) you need to, but if you do need to, it's no big deal, just slightly less convenient.
I'm not totally sure about this, I haven't done it but I have worked with deep fryers and frozen foods in a commercial kitchen so I do have a few ideas for you.
Don't try frozen corn in hot oil! Your oil will probably spit and jump like crazy. Shallow frying oil reacts more explosively than dropping something frozen into deep frying oil.
As far as defrosting goes, you could defrost and then dry off the corn. Try rubbing dry in a clean tea towel and if you still think it's a bit damp either spread it, on the towel, in sunlight outside or in a nice hot spot behind a window pane. Alternatively, after towel drying, spread on a baking sheet in a low oven just until dry.
Then cook as usual.
As I've said I haven't tried this before but I think these might be your best options.
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84809 | substituting rosehip solution for lemon juice/citric acid
Syrup recipe calls for citric acid, 3Tbsp.
I want to use rosehips to achieve the same degree of tartness.
3Tbsp equals 2 1/4 cups of lemon juice. I can boil/steep dry rosehips to that subjective degree of tartness...
...or is there a more accurate way? Rule of Thumb?
Syrup will be stored in fridge so not crucial as preservative
This is going to be difficult to boil down (excuse the pun) to an objective guideline, even a rule-of-thumb. The problem is the wide variation in the acid content of rosehips.
This academic paper (which looked at varieties grown in Poland, but is fairly representative of what I can find; for similar examples see abstracts available here, here, and here) found a wide range in the two major acidic compounds which contribute to the tartness of rosehips:
Citric acid: mean of 3.16 with a standard deviation of 1.12, minimum of 0.20 and maximum of 5.37
Ascorbic acid/Vitamin C: mean of 1.06 with a standard deviation of 0.58, minimum of 0.08 (!) and maximum of 2.67
(All values given here are in grams per 100 grams of dried rosehip matter)
This is a pretty wide variation, and it means that it's going to be difficult to predict exactly how much of either compound the particular rosehips you have contain. Rosehips at the higher end of acidity could easily contain twice or three times as much acid as rosehips at the lower end, meaning the amounts you extract (even given a precise temperature and time of extraction) could vary widely.
My recommendation is to simply adjust this subjectively; you can either make more rosehip extract than you need and modify the amount to add the desired amount of tartness, or vary your extraction process to concentrate the extract. I would stick with the first as it will be easier to adjust on the fly.
Keep in mind that you will need to repeat this whole practice if you're making more syrup in future, unless you're using the same source batch of rosehips each time.
using the same company for dried rosehips but who knows? just did a test and don't reckon I can get lemon juice strength tartness so will have to be completely subjective with the recipe. Thanks!
As you've got 2 different acids you need to consider how they combine. I reckon they won't be equivalent to each other measured either by mass or pH.
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121783 | How to dispose large amount of wet sugar?
I semi- regularly make my own dried, aged meat. As the first step, I keep it for 24-48 hours in sugar. Sugar sucks water out beautifully and when I'm done with it, it's dripping wet.
So I have 10kg of dripping wet sugar that cannot go into compost bin (meat byproduct, not allowed by law where I live), and cannot be put in the general trash bin (trash should be dry). How can I get rid of it, without using large amount of water and risking pipe clogging? Environmentally friendly ways preferred.
Is it home or municipal composting? If the latter, make sure you can't put meaty stuff in it. My food waste collection can include meat (though I hardly ever eat meat and even more rarely have scraps to dispose of).
@ChrisH municipal. Only vegan stuff and eggshells. Strict no-meat rule with large fines. And fines or no, if it's unsafe, then I don't want to do it.
I compost at home (but pay attention to get a large (~1m in all dimensions) and thus warm (60°C +) compost pile) and have successfully added e.g. bone, meat leftovers, fallen birds, etc. One would hope that commercial composting operations (that can also take compostable bioplastics) would be similarly hot. Obviously not an option for smaller home piles. I would be more concerned by the sugar, but just because I don't know - I would guess it might actually be beneficial. Informative re. composting: Joe Jenkins' Humanure Handbook.
@frIT I can't compost on my own. Legal issues with living in multiple family building. and having minimum distance between compost and someone else's bedroom larger than the size of the flats here.
@Mołot you are right, more musing re. your local compost operation. It would seem they (or your local laws) try to err on the safe side of practical experience. Truth told, I would too if I collected feedstock from who knows what. All sorts of things can happen with meaty stuff until you get the chance to add it to the pile.
@frIT commercial composting can be very open and accessible to scavengers, with implications for animal disease control as well as smells. My (municipal) garden waste is done in the open. There were plans to add food waste into that stream but instead the local authority went for anaerobic digestion of food waste which is inherently sealed. The different methods mean it's worth asking
What quantity of meat are you making if you need 10kg of sugar for drying it?
@quarague over 11kg. I'm feeding friends and family ;)
@Molot perhaps you can enlist your friends and family with disposing of the sugar as well? Giving some sugar to each meat recipient and having them dispose of it in their own drains would reduce the chances of overloading your drains.
FWIW, if you're ending up with soaking wet sugar, you're using too much sugar. What you want at the end is mostly saturated sugar syrup, and a bit of undissolved sugar. Additional sugar beyond that won't dry the meat more quickly or thoroughly.
@Sneftel in theory, you are right. In practice, no one wanted me to make meat for them when I used that method. Now, the way I do it, they do. I tend to find results more pleasant, too. Don't know the science behind that, and I don't quite care. I do care that now I have more meat to play with ^^.
@Sneftel the excess of sucrose sustains a uniform all-around osmotic gradient with Aw <0.86 at saturation. Using the bare minimum amount of sugar for saturation, partway through the moisture transfer the sucrose would settle by density - solids at the bottom, aqueous sucrose along the meat surface layer becoming more dilute as it reaches an equilibrium Aw likely above 0.86. The less 'pleasant' nature of this method was likely due to spoilage organism activity at the meat surface layer.
Just put it in the oven and dry it out. Then toss it.
@Keltari Would drying it out cost more than diluting it in enough water to safely go down the drain?
@MonkeyZeus or just let it air dry... then you are not using any resources.
@Keltari 10kg of sugar let out to dry is quite difficult to manage without inconvenience. To dry it quickly you would want to spread it out, which requires lots of surface, so probably it requires putting it outdoors, where it could attract all kind of bugs. Leaving it indoor is unpractical, unless you have a home with a room to spare. Moreover I fear it could be unhealthy for the home environment (bugs? germs?) since it is mixed with meat residues.
I see from your profile that you are in Poland. Since you are concerned about environmental issues, did you try to contact your local recycling center and ask them about ways of safely and legally disposing of that quantity of sugar? Maybe there are industries nearby who could process the sugar and also make a profit out of it (animal food?), so they could even be willing to come and take the sugar from you for free.
@LorenzoDonatisupportUkraine animal food here is almost as tightly regulated as human food, companies cannot accept anything from unregulated source. And for contacting officials — I failed. Let's leave it at that.
There are a couple options, in increasing order of effort:
Pour it down the sink. Sucrose forms a saturated aqueous solution at ~200 g sucrose per 100 g water at 15C/~60F - for 10 kg of dry sucrose, you'd need a minimum ~5 L tap cold water to dissolve it - without accounting for the water it's already absorbed. You can add this water to the sugar before pouring down the drain to dissolve it first, and if you knew the mass of water absorbed you can subtract that amount.
There's low risk of clogging since sucrose readily dissolves in water - and if it does, add hot water.
Added clarification for dissolving sugar:
~5 litres of tap-cold, 15C water is the minimum amount physically required to dissolve ~10 kg sucrose for energy and water-saving purposes. More water can be used to dissolve this.
Dissolved sucrose flows easily and further dilutes very readily. The same cannot be said for other types of fluid sugars, i.e. high-fructose corn syrup, honey, caramel - these flow and dissolve very differently, and in the case of honey, may rapidly crystallize before dissolving.
The experimental solubility of sucrose in water (grams per gam) is 1.94 @15C, 1.89 @10c, 1.85 @5C, 1.81 @0C. Given a worst-case scenario with 10 kg sucrose saturated solution at 15C being instantaneously chilled and ignoring the enthalpy of crystallization:
At 10C, 258 g sucrose will precipitate, requiring an additional 138 mL of water (slightly more than half a cup) to remain dissolved;
At 5C, 464 g sucrose will precipitate, requiring an additional 251 mL of water (one cup) to remain dissolved;
At 0C, 671 g sucrose will precipitate, requiring an additional 371 mL of water to remain dissolved - if your indoor pipes are at 0C, you've got bigger problems to worry about.
The kitchen sink and not flush toilets is the preferred disposal receptacle for both efficiency of water use and ease of addressing clogs.
Both should have p-bends/air traps to stop sewer gases entering the home, though the kitchen sink will 1) be more easily accessible with the trap normally in a vertical line under the sink drain, 2) the toilet's thermal mass may rapidly cool any added hot water, and 3) some toilets may feature multiple bend traps, leaving undissolved sugar stuck in harder to reach areas. Regardless, both sinks and toilets will clog if enough solid sugar is dumped in as it settles.
Figures of toilet cross-sections from Wikipedia.
Graph from The Engineering Toolbox.
Store the sugar in the fridge uncovered and allow it to slowly desiccate before disposing in garbage. Requires space, preferably at the bottom for food safety, and a larger surface area for faster drying.
Air dry the sugar outside and then dispose in garbage. There is a risk that it may generate odours and attract pests during drying.
For future projects, would you consider reusable silica dessicants? Dehydration time would be longer and you'd need a larger volume container, but you would also not need to have it in direct contact with the meat.
Unconventional option: heat the sugar to boil off the water and make meaty caramel. If you enjoy salted caramel flavours, this might add extra Maillard browning complexity from the dissolved meat proteins and other compounds.
As someone who’s taken classes on designing sewage treatment systems, I’d avoid pouring it down the drain (as who knows what it might feed… also scouring pipes if not fully dissolved). #4 was my thought on the matter. You might also be able to bake it to dry & sterilize it for disposal (as sugar doesn’t actually melt; see https://www.seriouseats.com/dry-toasted-sugar-granulated-caramel-recipe )
@Joe the sucrose would just be an easily digestible carbohydrate source for the sewage organisms - if anything, it'll help them get a head start degrading other biosolids before reaching a treatment system, on-site or municipal. Again, from 1) above, dissolve the sugar with the minimum water needed before pouring down. Spending energy solely to heat an oven to discard sugar isn't quite environmentally friendly.
Wouldn't it be safer to dump it into the toilet? If further diluted by urine there should be little chance of clogging the drain.
@FluidCode dumping it into the toilet as is wil clog it. Trust me, I know...
There's certainly enough to be worth trying out reuse options. You could also make a sugary glaze for meat and freeze that until needed, though it's probably not going to use up a large proportion.
@Mołot a little at a time and there would be enough water to fully dissolve it. A large scoop each time you're flushing anyway, for example.
@ChrisH I am overweight and fighting it. I avoid eating sugar. I use it in meat prep because hardly any sugar is left in the final product, and I'm ok with trace amounts of it. Even when I still ate sugar, I always considered it cheap enough to avoid food safety concerns by not reusing.
While you should not use hot water to get it down the drain in the first place (it will precipitate as it cools in contact with metal pipes etc), if it does end up clogging, hot water can dissolve it enough to get it into larger pipes with other water that will keep it dissolved as it cools.
I agree, a cupful or two in the toilet when you're otherwise flushing anyways shouldn't cause clogs; if you want to be on the safe side, only do it with urination. Given that you described it as "dripping wet" it's already nearly saturated anyways.
It's fair enough to dispose of it in this case, and of course whatever yoy do must be safe. But I try to avoid food waste as much as possible, which has nothing to do with the price
@DoktorJ PVC has been the norm for indoor waste plumbing for more than 50 years. If the sugar does come into contact with metal pipes, it would be at the municipal connection if they haven't upgraded it - and at that point it'll be further diluted with other household liquid waste, in a much larger diameter pipe for precipitation to be a concern; also, refer above re: tap cold water and minimum volume for saturated solution.
@borkymcfood I think you vastly underestimate the number of homes that were constructed before ~1970... unless one knows their home's plumbing for certain, it'd be better to assume metal just to be safe in this case.
@DoktorJ I think you vastly overestimate the solubility drop of sucrose in water with decreased temperatures, misunderstand the saturation values above, and are positing unrealistically cold indoor home temperatures. Given that molot is in a multi-family dwelling, further dilution of the sucrose solution from the endpoint of his plumbing line is a given and makes both our arguments on pipe material irrelevant.
Pipes are ceramic, then plastic. I needed thrice the water this answer indicated to dissolve it in reasonable time. Couldn't wait, because of the fly and stench problem. I ended up with slower flow in the toilet, but it fixed itself after about a day. Not ideal, but worked.
@Mołot Glad it worked out in the end and sorry it wasn't as helpful. If water quantity isn't a concern then diluting more and pouring down the kitchen sink should be better for future batches - the air trap bends on most toilets will greatly restrict the volume of water you can work with to the bowl volume.
Wouldn't pouring hot water in a toilet, destroy the toilet?
@BЈовић there's a worry with very hot water in countries that use wax for sealing (melting the wax). But toilets themselves are generally made of the same sort of ceramic as we use in the kitchen, and, like mugs, can take boiling water from cold. Hand hot (around 40°C) wouldn't be an issue at all, and is sometimes used in clearing blockages combined with detergent.
@Mołot the key of course is "in reasonable time" - getting to a saturated solution isn't quick especially if you can't stir
I was thinking along the lines of #4 as well. This might be the perfect opportunity to invent meat candy.
I don't see how #3 is going to work in practice. Remember: the sugar was used in the first place because of its hygroscopic (water-drawing) properties. (I live in Germany, with a climate that is not so different from Poland in terms of humidity and temperature. If sugar is to be stored for longer time, we put it into tight containers to prevent it becoming moist and caking from air humidity. You can store and use syrup, though - but OP indicates that this isn't their preferred option)
@cbeleitesunhappywithSX Solid sucrose will pick up moisture, reach equilibrium, and remain solid as dense, hydrated (but dry to touch) sucrose cake in environments <RH 80% - above that it'll have sufficient moisture to liquefy. Water in the mix will become distributed and evaporate until it reaches equilibrium with RH. Added heat input from the sun will increase the solubility of the sucrose but at the same time (very slowly) remove the excess water. Syrups in open air <RH 80% will slowly dry and crystallize. https://doi.org/10.1080/10942910903474393 , https://doi.org/10.1023/a:1015942022789
@cbeleitesunhappywithSX Syrup is highly unadvisable - E. coli and other pathogens have likely contaminated the sugar, and while they won't grow in saturated solution, survivors will contaminate whatever it's used for. Dissolved nitrogen compounds from the meat (amino acids etc.) will degrade into very odorous compounds if any moisture is present.
Dump the sugar in non-standard-refuse dumps operated by the local city district. Where I live, there are refuse dumps operated by the city districts, such as electronics, garden waste, large refuse (e.g. furniture), and DIY waste. They usually accept most non-standard waste, and I expect soggy meat-laced sugar will find its appropriate demise there. :)
Use it for animal feed
Bees
Pigs & Chickens
Humming birds correction not a good idea for humming birds
Find an apiarist (bee keeper) and donate the sugar to them to feed their bees. Or donate it to a pig or chicken farmer to enrich their feed. Or feed the humming birds.
Bees
No you don't have to worry about the meat flavor affecting the taste of honey because that isn't what the sugar is for. An experienced apiarist will know when to feed the sugar to the bees to prevent this.
In particular, bees frequently run low on honey in the spring time (particularly if the spring thaw comes late). This can lead to colony starvation. Apiarists will feed bees sugar, either solid or as a syrup to prevent this. Sugar is also widely used to stimulate a colony to increase brood rearing.
The two main things that would be of concern for an apiarist is the presence of salt (a little is ok, a lot is toxic to bees), or the fermentation of yeast (again toxic to bees.) However any natural flavors that might have been extracted from the meat should be of little consequence to the bees.
Pigs and Chickens
As far as pig or chicken farmers go. Both pigs and chickens will eat just about anything. While no one would feed their pigs or chickens just sugar both absolutely love sugar. It's probably more feasible for a pig farmer as 10kg is easily consumed by just a few pigs as an addendum to their normal diet. For chickens it would depend on the size of flock. The primary concern is here is if it considered an animal by product there can be restrictions on where you feed it. For example if it is a beef byproduct you would never feed it cows.
Humming birds
Sugar water is all that is really in humming bird feeders. Any meat flavor may or may not make an impact but i doubt they would care.
I like your answer, avoiding wasting the calories. Can I ask for a reference for the yeast is toxic to bees statement? A quick google seems to say otherwise, and there is a lot around the environment.
A big NO on the hummingbirds. Impurities in hummingbird sugar water are a very bad idea; the birds are highly vulnerable to bacterial and fungal infections.
@User65535 it's not really that yeast is toxic, but that the byproducts of yeast fermentation (alcohol) affects bees much the same way that it affects humans, i.e. they get drunk and have problems flying. As you can imagine it doesn't take much to get a bee drunk and also just like people too much alcohol will kill them. Bees also don't have AAA or sponsors so they tend to develop alcoholism and will suffer with-drawl symptoms. (No really that's only half a joke this really happens.)
@JustinOhms Now I can't unsee swarms of drunken bees! Besides the scientific truths, that's hilarious! An idea worth of a comedy-thriller Hollywood movie: "The day of the drunken bees". It has the potential of beating the "Sharknado" franchise. You made my day, man! :-)
If your trash has to be dry, then you can try mixing your wet sugar with kitty litter. You will have to experiment as to the exact proportions and mixing method (I suppose you will have to pour the sugar onto the litter, not the other way round), but it really does its job in creating easy-to-dispose clumps.
It is not necessarily environmentally friendly, since kitty litter production and transport is energy-hungry, but drying it in the oven and similar also eats up a lot of energy.
I am throwing this out into the ring as an additional option, but if it were me, I would probably go the "dissolve first, then dump" route. 10 kg of sugar should get very nicely dissolved into 15 to 20 liters of water , without being thick enough to clog - a session of handwashing clothes will easily use up that much, or watering once 4-5 tomato plants. So I wouldn't call it "large amounts of water", when considering the environmental impact.
You wouldn't even have to waste any water if you disposed of a couple of kg each time you poured away a bowl of washing up water, a bit less each time you drain pasta, etc.
@ChrisH: Put a cup of dirty sugar into your bathtub/shower stall before you shower each day? Only half-joking...
Find someone really into composting at home to compost it for you.
Animal by product or not, sugar is an excellent addition to a compost pile. Sugar is particularly useful in raising the temperature of a green pile to speed up the breakdown of cellulose
Any home composter aware of this trick would be happy to take the sugar off your hands.
10kg is a lot, but I have made simple syrup from sugar. Use a 1:1 ratio of boiling hot water to sugar. Keep it in a large maple syrup jar or other jug in the frige.
From there, you can use it in any savory recipe like chili, and would be especially good in sauces like teriyaki glaze, BBQ sauce, ketchup. (you'd be surprised how much sugar is in all of the above sauces!). If you get good at making your own home recipes, you can bottle them and give to family.
Maybe more labor intensive than you're thinking, but the sugar wouldn't go to waste!
For a different approach, why sugar? Rice and salt are known sorbents, and might offer different venues of disposal (including cooking something else).
I suppose contact with raw meat potentially "contaminates" whatever sorbent you use, so it should be cooked after thorough thermal treatment. How about 10 kilos of meat-flavoured strawberry jam? ;)
Salt is my second phase sorbent. Sugar is beneficial for meat againg bacteria culture.
Make booze.
Put sugar in a large saucepan, add water and flavourings (elderflowers makes it into elderflower champane, ginger and tartaric acid makes it into ginger beer), bring to the boil, turn off heat and leave to cool. Add yeast and put it somewhere warm for a few days. Drink when it is nice.
I have no experience on what effect the meat juices will have on the product. The boiling process will destroy any pathogenic bacteria that may have been present, and I would guess the remaining meat juices will do nothing but ensure the yeast has the micronutrients it needs, but I could be wrong and it will impart a flavour.
[EDIT] I will highlight that in the comments the OP claims to be an experienced brewer and states this will not work. I am in not position to dispute them, so everyone should bare that in mind if they try this.
I'm curious why you think that the meat juice won't add flavor, but other things you add will.
I am quite experienced homebrewer too. This won't work. Way to much sugar, not enough other ingredients to add flavor, and meat juice is just great nutrient for mold. And judging by smell of the wet sugar, product wouldn't be anything anyone would want to drink even if I'd be able to avoid mold
@Cascabel You need a lot of quite strong flavours to effect the eventual outcome. My suspicion is that that flavours absorbed by the sugar will be suttle enough that they will not have a major effect on the outcome.
And yet not all liquor tastes the same :) Anyway it's not me you need to convince, it's the experienced homebrewer OP.
@Cascabel home distillation is illegal where I live, and other methods of separating alcohol from water, like freezing out, are not great at removing aromas. I once got nice over 40% booze from apple cider and it still smelled like apples all right. I would need to do something illegal to get usable alcohol from this sugar.
@Mołot My implication was that even distilled liquor has flavors that depend on the non-sugar/starch parts of the input. I was simply trying to nudge User65535 away from assuming that it'd work.
Buy a 5-gallon bucket with a lid
Put a paper bag inside
Dump the sugar in the bag
Close the lid
Transport the bucket of bagged sugar to a dumping location away from civilization
Dump the contents of the bucket
Bugs, animals, and rain will gladly dispose of your issue
Bring the bucket back home and wash it
I don't understand the downvote
The downvote wasn't me, but I can totally understand why someone might dislike your fly-tipping suggestion.
Yep - fly tipping, and illegal (animal waste byproducts) in many jurisdictions around the world. This much sugar would likely kill any plants and animals/insects it was poured onto. It would also be residual in the soil to some extent until dispersed through water flow through the soil, which is not a bulk-flow situation. Don't tip it into rivers/ocean either!
One of the downvotes was mine. All the above ecological reasons, plus the penalty for dumping it in the wild would be higher than penalty for dumping it in front of the Presidential Palace. And Presidential Palace is closer, plus I could claim free speech ;)
@Mołot: Well, it looks like you’ve just offered a good answer to your own question then :-P
Jeez, with this kind of tenacity you'd think I was talking about dumping used motor oil or anti-freeze. It's sugar and meat juices, people. Fine, take the paper bag home and dry it out.
Just because something "is natural" doesn't mean it's good for the local area to dump a load of it in one place.
@MonkeyZeus Sugar in nature is not available in such huge quantity at that concentration. The processes that could naturally get rid of moderate quantities of sugar, e.g. fruits from a tree fallen to ground, cannot cope with that quantity without consequences. You would want to spread it on a very large area to avoid polluting the land, and this is quite impractical (and illegal anyway, as the OP said).
@LorenzoDonatisupportUkraine I don't think OP is going to cause an ecological disaster by releasing 10kg of sugar into the wild. I'm half tempted to try it in my own backyard to be honest but I don't want to get scathing questions from my wife like "why are you pouring out so much sugar?" or "why does it have so much blood?"
I was rethinking about this answer while walking to work, trying to figure out what part of it made me feel uneasy, and I remembered one article I read. The article was talking about how some industrial sugars (candies?) were left out in the open or something, because of which bees were feeding out of it instead of flowers. As a result, the bees produced blue honey instead of the typical yellow one. That raised some questions as to whether it was consumable, safe to eat, the consequences for the bees, if it was just colour additive, etc. ->
-> In the case of this answer though, I think I would sum it up to: we cannot tell for sure what the (unintended) consequences can possibly be. It certainly ain't as dangerous as disposing nuclear wastes, but for the "scientific minds", you can't help but wonder. In case of asker, the sugar would be dripping in blood. Is it a cause for concern if ants/bees/any other creature have a taste at bloody sugar? They probably won't turn into bloodthirsty creatures but it's still something I would wonder. There's also the chance the "place away from civilisation" is a road break for a family trip ->
-> which means some random kid could stumble on it. I don't know anything about bees, but I'm thinking they might get grumpy if they get disturbed (even unintentionally). I think "unintended consequences" is the only explanation I can find as to why I think it's a bad idea, because it doesn't sound like it could go wrong, but then again we can't tell for sure either.
@Clockwork I rightfully crown the 2022/2023 Seasoned Advice "Overthink It" award to this comment thread.
@MonkeyZeus I have a knack for it.
@Clockwork It wasn't aimed at you specifically, unfortunately StackExchange doesn't support an @all-commenters ping.
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76103 | Candi sugar problems around 130°C — what happened?
Today I was brewing a candi sugar. Recipe I use is simple: unrefined beet sugar, white sugar (for cost saving), a pinch of dry malt extract for Millard reactions, and water just to dissolve it all. Then heat to 120 — 130°C, keep at this range for an hour or so, heat to 150°C, pour on baking paper and let it cool.
Previous time result was like a brown glass. Smooth. And making it was straightforward, it stayed liquid all the time, from start to finish.
This time when I reached around 130°C, sugar suddenly started to solidify, formed thick mass and big solid chunks. I added hot water to keep it from burning, tried to keep it closer to 120°C, but this happened again. Result has less rich taste and is not so transparent. And of course brighter, because I kept it, on average, at lower temperature, but colour I can easily work around in finished product.
What might be the reason for this difference? Using more % of unrefined cane sugar could cause this? Original Belgian candi is 100% unrefined, so I expected it to be better. Or maybe going too fast with heating? I used pot better suited for induction this time. Or anything else I should think of?
"how to fix it" might be my follow up question, so please concentrate on what I messed up and what to do differently, not on saving what I have.
Candy is generally spelled with a y. Is "candi" something particular? or merely a misspelling?
@Catija https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candi_sugar - candi basically means candy but it's spelled with i in this particular name. Don't know why, don't really care.
Might be related to German Kandiszucker (a caramellized rock sugar popular to have in black tea) :)
I think you heated the sugar too quickly. Try again with a slower increase in temperature and you should have better results.
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9191 | Why do microwave ovens make bread rubbery?
Why does heating bread (cinnamon buns) in a microwave give it a rubbery texture, when a regular oven doesn't? What are the chemical or structural changes?
It is simply that the microwave heats primarily the water molecules, causing the bread to steam. A normal oven heats all of the molecules of the bread, and by the time the water is heavily steaming you will have pulled it out of the oven.
I thought that it was also related to the way the bread is heated. In a conventional oven it is heated by conduction, allowing the water content to evaporate as heat flows in. In a MO heat transfer is too quick and uniform.
Primarily water, but also fats and sugars and other polar molecules.
@belisarius: I'm sure you're right about conventional ovens. I think the microwave thing isn't just about how fast it is, though--microwaves penetrate the loaf, heating water on the inside as well as the outside. So steam is generated well inside the loaf at the same time as outside, causing the effect we all know.
@Bikeboy389 That was I tried to imply with the word "uniform". Anyway be careful with heating water on the inside as well as the outside. as bread is not "transparent" for microwaves (surely MW penetrate deeper than infrared). You almost sure have seen that when defrosting food too quickly and got a nasty cooked oustside with a frozen inside.
BTW a nice non-scientific article on MOs in Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_oven
'A common misconception is that microwave ovens cook food "from the inside out". In reality, microwaves are absorbed in the outer layers of food in a manner somewhat similar to heat from other methods. The misconception arises because microwaves penetrate dry non-conductive substances at the surfaces of many common foods, and thus often induce initial heat more deeply than other methods.'
But I still don't understand why heating the water selectively would have this effect on the structure of the bread.
I am not entirely sure about this, but my theory is based on the way microwaves interact with water. Microwaves are resonant with the rotational frequency of water's dipole, and works by using frequencies that are not quite resonant so that instead of causing rotations some of the energy is lost to friction which increases the vibrational frequencies of the water, which is a synonym for saying that it adds heat, but it also increases the rotational frequency of the water. When the entire water molecule is forced to rotate, the many of the critical hydrogen bonds that give bread its structure are likely broken resulting in a collapsing of the bread and more different hydrogen bonds form that are more stable and thus more rubbery.
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10526 | How can I emulsify cod liver oil, or otherwise mask its taste?
Background
I have some cod liver oil to take a supplement, but the taste is sufficiently unpleasant that I am not sure how to finish the bottle off. In the past, I have found emulsified cod liver oil fully tolerable, even pleasant, and I would like to know if it would be simple to make a similar product at home from raw cod liver oil.
The Twinlab website states that the product is
emulsified with natural soy lecithin
and apple pectin making the EPA and
DHA more readily available to the
digestive system for better
absorption, assimilation and
utilization.
And the ingredients are (in order):
water
cod liver ois
glycerin
sorbitol
soy lecithin
cellulose
orange flavors
tragacanth gum resin
apple pectin
alpha tocopherol
ascorbyl palmitate
beta carotene
But it is not clear to me which of these ingredients are required, what quantities, or how to blend them.
Questions
Is there a way that I can emulsify cod liver at home in such a way that will accomplish this?
Are there any other suggestions for how to consume cod-liver oil without having either the initial taste or the residual flavor in the mouth and breath?
Can you describe the difference? Maybe somebody else already knows the answer but I am only familiar with the term emulsification as referring to an actual emulsion or occasionally in the case of creating a gel or foam. The former doesn't make much sense here and I'm not sure if I should be assuming the latter to be correct, since it generally doesn't affect the taste at all, it involves the incorporation of air.
@Aaronut I think that the term emulsification is used in the standard sense, that the oil is mechanically blended with a more tasty water-based solution to create a palatable product. I have read that the water based solution includes citrus flavoring and pectin.
This should be no problem. It is basically the same process as making a vinaigrette, only using water instead of vinegar, and lecithin instead of mustard. Here's how I would go about it. Let's say you have 1 cup of oil to emulsify. Go buy soy lecithin at a health food store. Take 1/2 cup of water, and dissolve 1 teaspoon of the soy lecithin in it. Use a blender or immersion blender. With the blender running, slowly drizzle in the cod liver oil. It will emulsify - the oil will disperse into ultra-fine droplets in the water, and presumably the taste will be both diluted and somewhat hidden by being locked up in little droplets. If this doesn't work, you just need more lecithin, so dissolve a bit more in another 1/4 cup of water and drizzle the whole thing back in to the blender.
Naturally you'll want to take 50% more, since the oil is now only 2/3 of the volume.
Those other ingredients are for flavor and anti-oxidation, not needed for the basic thing you are trying to accomplish.
I'd try to find the liquid lecithin for this - it would just be a little easier - but any lecithin will do. The ingredients also list a bunch of fruit flavours - apple pectin and orange flavouring - so some sort of fruit extract would help, maybe even apple or orange juice.
Ok I can give you an idea on what to do but it is a long shot.
From what i see they use
1 Emulsifier
•soy lecithin
3 Thickeners
•tragacanth gum resin
•apple pectin
•cellulose
1 Swetener
•sorbitol
1 flavour
•orange flavors
The rest is Vitamins. You dont need to add them.
So you can use sugar instead of sorbitol.
Soy lecithin should not be hard to find. I am making a fish oil emulsion using whey protein isolate. You can try that one to.
If you want something that is in all kitchens I can sugest egg whites.
For thichener if you dont want to find this "exotic stuff" you can try using gelatin you can find in all supermarkets.
Flavour you can really use any flavour you like it does not have to be orange ^^.
Now the tricky part is to find the proper proportions between oil/water and emulsifier.
This needs experimentation and it is different with each emulsifier.
The good part is that you can use any oil like used cooking oils for the experimentation you dont have to use expenssive fish oil. Make the emulsion and leave it for a day.
If it has not split after 24h it is a success!
Use the fastest rotating mixer you have and leave it running for more than 3 minutes. (must be really really powerfull if you want to stand a chance, you Cannot do it with a joke mixer.
If you want to avoid experimentation you can try an emulsion using 67% fish oil, 3 % whey protein isolate 30 % water. It works.
Take one tablespoon of cod liver oil. Add 2 tbsp of fresh squeezed orange juice or skim milk. Put in a little jar, like a baby food jar, and shake hard for 15 seconds. Drink down fast. Don't make a large batch at one time.
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89824 | What's the beef cut with solid, thick bone?
I need a cut of beef with very specific requirements. I'm interested in bone first:
It should have it medullary cavity approximately in the size of a small finger.
It should have compact (dense, cohesive) bone walls as thick as possible.
It should be cut perpendicularly to the bone, in a way that does not create fracture.
Seasoning and cooking it to preserve bone strength may be a follow up question, but it is out of scope for now. Now I want to know:
What cut I should ask a butcher for?
I want meat and bone, for specific aesthetic purpose. I want it to be edible, but artistic vision comes first.
This is confusing @Molot, you say you want compact bone walls, but thick. Compact and thick are opposite, what are you asking here? Also, how do you plan to cook it?
@GdD I meant compact as per this diagram. I admit it may be more a biology term than cooking. It means dense, cohesive... Do you know how to reword it to be less confusing?
I'm still confused, @Molot, are you after a bone with meat around it, or just a bone?
@GdD I want a cut of meat with a good, strong bone inside. Bone that will not break on me when I'll try to get creative ;) But yes, I want to try to make it into a dish, a dish that can be displayed interestingly. Ultimately, it'll be more about show than taste, but it should be edible.
Most common dish with this, the italian ossobuco (in Europe at least) - maybe that gives you some ideas for preparation.
@Daniel Thanks! And article you linked contains pretty good image of bone I actually wanted!
@Mołot I’m quite curious, so would you indulge me: what are you trying to create?
Yeah, you want veal shanks.
Whoa, thanks for making it Hot Network Question, guys! I didn't think it'll be so popular. I just had this one little weird issue...
Think "round steak" with bone in. Shank cross cut.
You're doing it wrong™.
Your question is, essentially, "What code-word should I use to tell my butcher to give me a cut of beef with properties X, Y and Z?" Don't do that. Just go to your butcher and describe what you want.
Quite apart from anything else, the cuts of meat that, say, a British butcher understands will be different to the ones that and American butcher understands and you haven't told us what language your butcher speaks.
In spanish: zancarrón or jarrete. :)
This sounds like it'd work well if you have a knowledgeable butcher with no language barrier and no motivation to rip you off, but if you can't rely on your butcher for help, you may need to figure out what to ask for without them.
David is right. Different regions have different appreciation for cuts of meat. By appreciation I mean their butcher charts are sometimes totally different. And that is certainly going to be true in Brazil versus Argentina versus Spain. Until recently, an American butcher would have been clueless if you'd asked for picanha or even "rump cap". But all butchers understand meat, so asking for the fatty part of the rump roast or asking for a cut with a dense bone, and you are always speaking their language.
@user2357112 If you don’t trust the person you’re working with, all the bets are off anyway. And, if they’re going to rip you off, I don’t see how your knowing the name of the cut of meat would change that.
@user2357112: if you can't rely on your butcher for help, you need to find a proper butcher!
@Daniel Easier said than done! Real, properly trained butchers, like many other small retailers, are becoming rare in the Western world. Where I used to live, in Berlin, most butchers sold pre-cut meat, and finding a competent butcher was no small hassle (it’s somewhat better where I live now, but in food-related crafts are worse, e.g. bakers).
@Daniel "How to cook a proper butcher?" oh, waaaaait.
@Konrad Rudolph: You have to be creative. Live in Hamburg and just phoned the Fleischgroßmarkt when I wanted to bbq a whole cow´s leg, for example - no problem. Also the Restaurants often get their meat from experts who sell to the occasional enthusiast too. If that does not work, go a little into the countryside, you´ll find your traditional butcher there.
If you are looking for a bone-in cut of beef for an aesthetic purpose then it would be hard to do better than beef shin, also known as shank. It has a good, strong bone with a cavity and the bone will be cut straight across. It's also very flavorful meat.
The consideration with it is cooking, shin is very tough and requires low and slow with moisture, typically braising for at least 2.5 hours.
I was thinking beef shank, too. Just wanted to add that Molot may want to request a whole or half shank (depending on the overall size). Most of what I normally see in the grocery store is typically sliced into approximately 1.5" - 2" thick pieces.
True @Cindy, generally 1-2 inch pieces are what you want! The OP isn't really clear about the look that's needed, so that may or may not work.
Specifically Shank cross cut.
I believe an arm roast is what you are after:
For cooking purposes note that this is a "roast" (and not just a 'big honk'in steak') and is suitable for a low & slow cook time in a crock pot but not just 'throwing it on the grill'.
If that is a little too big, you should consider getting a cur of leg of lamb. That's smaller. Unless it screws with the artistic vision of course.
@HaakonLøtveit OP asks specifically for beef
He also said "I want meat and bone, for specific aesthetic purpose. I want it to be edible, but artistic vision comes first."
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121812 | What's the optimal temperature to dry cheese using oven or dehydrator?
I want to make a dried cheese powder to use as seasoning and, if possible, extend shelf life and reduce weight.
I don't have a freeze dryer so I'll need to use air for that. Problem with using dehydrators for cheese is that above certain temperatures protein matrix gets destroyed, fat escapes, and you end up with a sub-par, separated product. It's still edible and it still has somewhat extended shelf life, but it's oily mess not pleasant to use and needs to be refrigerated, freezed and preferably vacuum sealed.
I can use my oven in dehydrator mode, and I can set any air temperature between room temperature and baking one. I usually dry meats, fruit and vegetables at around 40°C / 104°F. For fastest drying, I of course want as high as I can get, but what's the temperature I need to be below to keep cheese from separating?
If cheese kind matter, assume inexpensive European Gouda. Specifically this one* if it matters, but I hope for answers to be as universal as possible.
* I'm not affiliated with this brand, it simply was cheap enough to experiment on, but tasty enough to make it worthwhile, in my purely subjective opinion. So that's what I got.
A lot of the resources I checked say that you cannot dehydrate cheese in a dehydrator, you need to freeze-dry it: https://www.thepurposefulpantry.com/do-not-dehydrate-list/
@FuzzyChef sure you can, if you don't mind losing fat. I kinda do mind, but it's not worth couple thousands of dollars to me. Currently trying at 40°C, I'll post an answer to tell everyone if it works in like 24 hours. Maybe it'll separate, if so I'll have worse, but still usable powder. Of course, I'll need to re-grind it then.
@FuzzyChef I edited the question to acknowledge issues with dehydrated cheese that separated.
What's your goal with drying the cheese? Just extend the shelf life? Besides flavor, what else do you want to preserve? I might have a different solution.
@Luciano ideally, to get dust for dusting dishes. But removing weight and extending shelf life would be great.
Molot: yeah, I'm not posting what I have as an answer because I've never tried it. Just noting some obstacles you might face.
Short answer: slow-dry the cheese under refrigeration.
Long answer:
The cheese protein matrix (casein micelles) relies on a fine balance and arrangement of milk fats finely dispersed in small globules within the protein to maintain its structure [1,2]. Heating the cheese has multiple effects - the fats flow more easily, allowing the fat globules to coalesce and break the balanced arrangement. The micelles themselves also lose their structure when heated [3,4], though some may remain intact up to 70C[1].
The milk fats, however, have a wide range of melting temperatures from -40C to 37C [5,6]. Some will remain liquid under refrigeration and most will be solid up to and above room temperature.
Fatty acid composition and melting points in fluid raw milk.
From Fee & Chand, Table 3 [6].
The table above highlights the major fats fatty acids in liquid milk, and will vary in cheeses.
The freeze-drying suggested by FuzzyChef relies on sublimation to remove water at or near room temperature; a more home-chef friendly option would be to simply use relative humidity gradients (drier air) to dehydrate the cheese, though much more slowly. This post and answer (work-in-progress) What is the science of drying/dehydrating meat? Biltong, jerky, etc explains the basic concepts for dehydration.
For your equipment, you can use room-temperature air at a high flow rate to dehydrate your cheese, though for food safety it's preferable to perform this under refrigeration - it's much slower, but you can increase surface area for drying by thinly slicing or coarsely grating the cheese, then grinding to your desired final particle size. More fatty acids milk fats will solidify as well, helping the casein retain its structure better during water loss.
You could also lightly dust the cheese with a neutral easily soluble starch, i.e. corn or rice, to sequester some of the fats that will be released.
Basic biology clarification regarding the table of fatty acids above:
'Milk fats' are triglycerides composed of three fatty acids attached to a glycerol chain. The melting points of the component fatty acids affect the melting point of the triglyceride as a whole, and will occur between the highest and lowest fatty acid melting points. The melting point of each fatty acid does not in itself present an 'upper limit'.
Triglycerides in milk tend to present with three different fatty acids unless one component presents at higher than 33% of the total, due to environmental or animal variation factors.
The following excerpts from Principles of Dairy Chemistry [Robert Jenness and Stuart Patton, 1959, New York, John Wiley and Sons, 1959, p38, 45-47] provide a more technical explanation and reference a complete milk fat melting point of 41C:
[1] The cheese matrix: Understanding the impact of cheese structure on aspects of cardiovascular health – A food science and a human nutrition perspective.
Emma L Feeney, Prabin Lamichhane, Jeremiah J Sheehan.
https://doi.org/10.1111/1471-0307.12755
[1] On the Stability of Casein Micelles.
Pieter Walstra.
https://doi.org/10.3168/jds.S0022-0302(90)78875-3
[3] Lipids in cheese.
Michael H Tunick.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/lite.201500015
[4] Effects of Homogenitation and Proteolysis on Free Oil in Mozzarella Cheese.
Michael H. Tunick.
https://doi.org/10.3168/jds.S0022-0302(94)77190-3
[5] Physical Properties of Milk Fat.
J.M. deMan.
https://doi.org/10.3168/jds.S0022-0302(64)88880-9
[6] Capture of lactoferrin and lactoperoxidase from raw whole milk by cation exchange chromatography.
C. Fee, A. Chand.
https://doi.org/10.1016/J.SEPPUR.2005.07.011
That table is interesting, but in my experience cheddar releases quite a bit of oil between room temperature (familiar from cheeseboards and packed lunches, where it softens a bit but no more than that) and about 30°C (bike camping in surprisingly sunny conditions) - that sets a rough upper limit, but the mechanism behind what I found doesn't obviously derive from the fat composition
It would be easy to rig a fan inside a fridge, blowing over the cheese - either 5V and a USB battery pack or a 12V computer fan and run wires in through the door seal. Some very gentle heat could be added - perhaps an old-fashioned torch (flashlighht) bulb of about the right voltage, for about 1W, before the fan with something to ensure the fan pulls air over the heater.
@ChrisH the table is for the major fatty acid components in milk triglycerides, to give an idea of the range of melting points. As stated above this will vary from cheeses - lipase activity from bacterial/fungal culturing will shorten the fatty acid chains and reduce their melting point, giving even more variation by type of cheese. The fatty acid composition of individual triglycerides will affect melting point, between the lowest and highest melting acid.
@ChrisH The softening and release of liquid fats by your cheddar between room temp and 30C is in line with the referenced literature. It's still not the 'upper limit' of liquid fat release if the cheese retained its structure while softening - some triglycerides are still in solid state. The 'upper limit' occurs with complete melting and loss of casein micelle cohesion, with the very obviously melted blob of protein in a pool of liquid fat, above 37C.
@ChrisH the suggestion for a small fan for air movement in the fridge is good, the suggestion for a heat source is completely counterproductive to the reason for refrigeration.
Very gentle heat would increase drying, without warming the cheese appreciably. Note that I suggested a very low power. It was a bit too low - now I've run the numbers that 1W with a PC fan would only warm the air forced by the fan by about 0.2°C. I was aiming for more like 1°C - so still fridge cold, but with a lower RH because of the slightly higher temperature, taking your RH gradient and enhancing it. To be counterproductive you'd have to put in 10s of W, which would make the fridge work a lot harder and would make me worry about the other food.
It might be a good idea to run the numbers yourself before saying that fridge cold, but slightly less so, is counterproductive
@ChrisH quick napkin math - CV of 0.2 Wh/(Kg*C) with approx. 0.38 kg air in a ~300 L fridge gives me ∆T +0.5C for 0.2 W and +2.6C for your 1 W bulb, please check that.
@ChrisH given the ∆T and 1) household fridges barely maintain 0C-4C due to improper consumer practices, based on professional experience, 2) nitpicking about Listeria - https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2672.1988.tb01898.x , adding a heat source to the inside of your fridge is very counterproductive for food safety - and for our friends in Europe, not helpful with the energy crisis.
The fridge runs (intermittently of course, as it has a couple of orders of magnitude more cooling power than the heat load ) and cools the air again, so I war considering the amount of air pushed around by a fan, not the static air in the fridge. That would be an appropriate amount if you turned it off. As for the energy use, you could make up for what's used in a day by what I suggest by turning off a 2kW cooker 43 seconds sooner. It's negligible which is why the fridge can handle it. Anyway, this is getting a bit silly now, so I'll leave it there
I believe a great temperature to dry cheese is around 4°C.
No, that's not a typo. I have observed cheeses wrapped in parchment paper drying in my fridge while keeping (most) of the fat and the flavor. It will take longer than using a hot dehidrator, but it will not break the protein down as it would at high temperature.
I currently have some leftover cheese that dried in my fridge, I just got lazy to grind it but it's there for months without signs of spoilage.
Any thoughts as to how? From the way I've seen accidentally exposed edges dry out I'd guess: slice thinly, spread out open in a single layer, chop/grind after a few days. I froze some cheddar recently (they only had huge blocks in the shop that day) in a slightly oversize container, and noticed a lot of ice crystals and some slight drying when I defrosted a chunk
Ideally you'd probably warm the cheese slightly (still below 20°C) while it's in the fridge (hard cheeses such as cheddar can be stored at room temperature - USDA)
@ChrisH Grate it and spread it out on a plate?
@dbmag9 possibly, grating tends to give clumps. Slices would sit on a ventilated tray like a dehydrator tray, though grated could sit on such a tray on cheesecloth
@ChrisH whenever I leave cheese for long enough the whole piece dries out. I guess grating would help dry the fastest, provided there's some way to keep external moisture out of it - slices would probably be a good compromise.
@Luciano IME it would be likely to go mouldy in the clumps while the outside would dry. Grating seems to encourage mould formation, probably because of all the handling
I would argue that even 4°C is too warm to deserve the term "optimal". Even if we don't nitpick about the low efficiency, it is not even effective. I also have had cheese go dry on me in the fridge, but I also have had it go moldy - and mold can be dangerous long before it is visible or smellable. Fridges tend to lack the ventilation needed for proper ventilation. So it will not only fail sometimes, it will fail undetectably, which is the most dangerous way of failure.
@rumtscho Drying isn't usually the goal when I put cheese on my fridge... I'm not claiming it's an optimal method, this is just my observation. More of a starting point for what's described in borkymcfood's more complete answer.
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119483 | Getting well domed muffins
Seems to be conflicting info on achieving well domed muffin tops. None seem to offer science based references.
These two are good examples of conflicting advice.
Higher temp seems to be all that is agreed.
https://www.bakingkneads.com/how-to-make-muffins-rise-higher/
1 – Get the Temperature Right
400f
2 – Use Room-Temperature Ingredients
3 – Don’t Wait Too Long to Put the Muffins in the Oven
4 – Try to Make Thick Batter
5 – Fill the Muffin Tins Properly
3/4 full
https://www.thekitchenwhisperer.net/2012/07/22/bakery-style-high-domed-muffins-how-do-they-do-that/
Let the batter rest at least an hour or overnight in the fridge (preferred)
Do you know why you should let your muffin batter rest? During the resting period, starch molecules in the flour are absorbing the liquid in the batter.
This causes them to swell and gives the batter a thicker, more viscous consistency. Any gluten formed during the mixing of the batter is also getting time to relax, and air bubbles are slowly working their way out.
Instructions
Always use a From-Scratch muffin recipe, never boxed!
Never use a mixer to incorporate your dry ingredients to your wet. Use a spatula or spoon.
Do not over mix your batter.
Cover your batter tightly and refrigerate for at least 1 hour (can go overnight as well).
Preheat your oven to 425F. Yes, I know the recipe calls for 350 but trust me on this. I typically bake my muffins in the upper third of the oven. You see placing the muffins in the upper third of the oven it tends to be hotter and the heat more constant. You can most certainly use the middle rack as well if you want.
Spray the top of your muffin pan with non-stick spray. Line the pan with cupcake/muffin liners.
The batter will be THICK. You can gently stir it first. Just try not to deflate it. Fill the muffin papers almost ALL THE WAY TO THE TOP OF THE PAPER. (just leave about a 1/8″ from the top).
Yes I know, it’s spilled over before but this works.If you have empty cavities in your muffin tin (not enough batter), remove the liner and add 1/2 cup water in each.
Bake 6-9 minutes at 425. The muffins should be about a 1/4″-1/2″ above the paper. That’s the sign the heat can be turned down.
Reduce heat to 350 (DO NOT OPEN THE DOOR TO DROP THE TEMP.. sorry for the YELLING.. lol) and bake for 6-10 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out barely clean (crumbs are OK).
What does the science (and experience) tell us?
The only thing the two sets of instructions disagree on is waiting to put the batter in. The high temperature, need for a thick batter and filling the muffin tins up are in both sets of instructions. The differences are due to the ingredients and how they work.
The rationale on baking right away versus waiting is due to chemical leavening agents, the two most widely used are baking soda and baking powder and they work differently. Both work on the principle of an acid reacting with a base creating carbon dioxide bubbles in the batter. Some of these gases are trapped in the batter, causing it to rise, the rest escapes. Baking soda is a base which reacts to acids in other ingredients in the batter (lemon juice, buttermilk, yogurt, honey, etc), and starts to act as soon as the ingredients are mixed. If you leave it too long the baking soda will get used up and you won't get any rise in the oven. refrigeration will slow that chemical process but not stop it, if you refrigerate the batter overnight you'll lose it all.
Baking powder on the other hand is a combination of baking soda and a powdered acid. You use baking powder in a recipe where there isn't enough acid from the rest of the ingredients to activate baking soda. Baking powder is "double acting" in that you get an initial reaction from the baking soda reacting to the acids available in the batter, which is the first action, but the powdered acid is heat activated so you can put it in the refrigerator and it will react very slowly. If you refrigerate a baking powder batter you will lose the first action's rise but the second action will mostly be there.
So if your batter uses baking soda you should bake it right away, if it uses baking powder you can refrigerate it. If it uses a mix of baking soda and baking powder I'd bake it right away.
The theory behind resting the batter is not about starches absorbing moisture, it only takes a few minutes for the starches in ordinary white flour to gelaltinize. You can see this in pancake batter when it thickens up a few minutes after mixing - this is why you should let batters sit for a little bit after mixing to test consistency. The real reason for letting a batter rest is to allow natural enzymes to break down starches and proteins, the theory is this will improve the structure. This is sounds advice if you are making Yorkshire Puddings, but I'm not convinced for a cake/muffin batter. This site details an experiment where two types of batter were baked right away, after refrigerating one hour, refrigerating for 24 hours and freezing a week. There was no improvement found from waiting to bake the batter, if anything it was more dense after 24 hours in the refrigerator.
An actual experiment; just what I was looking for. So, cold or room temp, I won't worry about it. Still curious if 3/4 full or 7/8 makes any real difference: will check myself.
I suspect that will vary depending on the recipe @PatSommer
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85592 | Red "white" onion?
Why would a vidalia onion be purple? It smelled felt and looked normal otherwise.
My understanding is that Vidalia isn't just a variety, its ones that are grown in a region with low sulphur content in the soil. So it might be possible to have a red vidalia (but I would think it'd be specially labeled). I guess it also could be a sign of abnormal pH (sometimes things turn blue if exposed to... bases, I think)
The skin on these onions looks darker than the skin on Vidalias. Also the shape doesn't look quite right.
As Wikipedia states (with good sources):
A Vidalia onion (/vɪˈdeɪliə/ or /vaɪˈdeɪliə/) is a sweet onion of certain varieties, grown in a production area defined by law of the U.S. state of Georgia and by the United States Code of Federal Regulations (CFR).
The varieties include the hybrid yellow granex, varieties of granex parentage, and other similar varieties
As far as I understand, there are varieties with puprlish tint in the mix. The most defining thing about onion being accepted as Vidalia is taste, capability of growing well and not developing sharp taste when grown on low sulfur soil around Vidalia, Georgia. If taste is sweet and mellow as you would expect it to, then color is probably OK and onion is within what state of Georgia allows to call an vidalia onion.
It is also possible that what you got was unplanned crossbreed with red onions from near field. This can happen if onion is grown from seeds, especially seeds gathered by the farmer himself, as seed selling companies tend to be very careful about that. In that case, these onions should not be sold as Vidalia onion - but if they are half-Vidalia-accepted-variety and grown in proper soil, taste should be pretty close to what you paid for.
I think it would indicate a genetic cross- breeding with a purple onion. Should not affect taste or edibility.
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58999 | Do chefs use customer feedback to improve dishes?
I understand that chefs can gauge the quality of a dish by monitoring its popularity. However, suppose a chef wants to improve an existing recipe, how might he/she do that?
Will the chef rely on customer feedback? Suppose a customer says he likes the steak but thinks the sauce can be improved. How can a chef use that information?
Clarification - I want to understand if and how chefs might use customer feedback to improve dishes.
Suppose a chef surveys 100 customers. 60 of them say that the steak sauce need some improvement. Will the chef investigate further to improve his recipe? If so, how would he do it?
Also, suppose that the same 60 customers say that they prefer the steak sauce in another restaurant, will the chef go to the another restaurant to investigate?
I'm not senior enough to leave comment, so thanks to everyone that tries to help!
There is a phrase "too many cooks spoil the dinner"... A chef is always welcome to accept criticism but there's no need for them to change it. Food is full of opinions. One person can love a dish and another person think it's awful... Were a chef to try and please everyone, they would probably quit in frustration. Should a chef want to improve a dish, I'd guess they'd be more likely to talk with their other staff/friends/family before talking to random customers.
Can you clarify what you're actually trying to find out? Are you asking if it's useful for you to give feedback? Or are you asking if it's a good idea as a chef to take feedback into account?
IMPE, most chefs will think the sauce is perfect, and the customer is defective for thinking otherwise. If you don't like the food, you're better off looking for a restaurant that cooks food you like.
I am closing this question because it is about restaurant management and business practices. Our scope is food preparation methods, not how restaurants should be run, and even less how they are ran in practice. Your question is quite unanswerable anyway, because I'm certain that out of the millions of chefs in the world, there will be a large range of different responses, none of them being "the way chefs do it".
Thank you for trying to clarify the question, though. I unfortunately agree that it's a bit broad to answer; good chefs when presented with evidence that a lot of people don't like the food would surely try to do something about it. Beyond that it's down to whether the chef is actually good, and the details of how to improve a specific dish. (Also it's better that you edited anyway, but you're supposed to always be able to comment on your own question.)
I'm only a semi-pro chef, but let's have a go at answering your question.
There are some people who have an actual impact when they provide feedback on one of my dishes. These are people I have cooked for more often and whose tastes are familiar to me. They will often function as a "test panel" when I want to try out a dish I'm considering for the menu of a commercial event I'm planning.
Should this test panel think my sauce needs more seasoning or more acidity, this would certainly cause me to adjust the recipe and/or process.
On the other hand, feedback from an individual guest whose tastes are unknown to me is pretty much meaningless. How would I be able to tell whether their likes and dislikes are anywhere near an average opinion? There those who will nearly always reach for the salt shaker when served a dish, even if to the average taste it is well seasoned.
So this hypothetical individual customer that features in your question seems pretty unlikely to cause a chef to change his recipe, unless of course the same feedback has been given before and a pattern emerges. In that case an individual customer can of course tip the scales in favor of a change.
This is a very broad question. My answer would be "yes and no". When a customer has an opinion, that's just an opinion. For instance, 'the hot sauce isn't hot enough'. The chef should taste the hot sauce (again) because maybe the client is right.
At any rate, the chef will let his own opinion prevail over the customer's.
By chef, I assume you say the cook, in any situation, including at home host feeding guests, as well as chefs making rounds after a restaurant meal.
The only time a chef will use customer feedback to improve a recipe is when a benefit is at stake, trying to compensate for a loss, or improve for a potential gain. There is a minimum to learn about proper way of cooking things, but when wandering about taste beyond that point, sky is the limit, who do you want to come and eat your food?
A chef will adjust his recipe to whatever taste, including awful, as long as it would bring more guests or more money. Sad :-(
E.G. I've had long discussions with chefs on top of Las Vegas tower restaurant about some great food not offered because of customers rejecting the concepts, not yet knowing what the ingredients would be. Tough start.
Guests at home aren't "customers".
Unfortunately, plenty of us are inviting guests at home which are more business related than simple friends or family crowd. Some invite me to help them with staff related problem in their own businesses. They better treat me with a good meal first.
That's still pretty from different customers in a restaurant, but really, it all seems kind of beside the point. The OP's asking specifically about customer feedback given to chefs. You can just answer that question, without trying to explain that sometimes people serve customers in their own home, and without writing it a way that misleadingly suggests you're trying to broaden it to include cooking for friends and family.
I said it before, I'll say it again: The only time a chef will use customer feedback to improve a recipe is when a benefit is at stake, trying to compensate for a loss, or improve for a potential gain.
If you read what I wrote, you'll notice that I didn't at all disagree with that part of your answer. It's cynical but presumably mostly true. All I'm saying is that it's confusing that you're implying in the opening sentence of your answer that it all applies equally to people at home cooking for guests too; that's not really true and the OP didn't ask about it.
Let us continue this discussion in chat. (Cleaning up comments here now that there's chat.)
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59373 | The three Cs - spices with chicken
I watched a TV programme that was talking about a particular combination of three spices which are often used together, especially with chicken.
The TV presenter said that they were used together so often that they were referred to as 'the three Cs'.
I know one of them is cumin, but I can't remember the other two.
Does anyone know what they might be?
http://www.food.com/recipe/three-cs-chicken-citrus-chilli-and-coriander-299706? Or this one: http://www.nigella.com/recipes/view/three-cs-chicken-1616 Or this one: http://picniconthird.com/blog/dishes/3-cs-rubbed-chicken/ (I'm guessing this last one is more likely the one you're looking for?)
Sorry I keep commenting but it seems like everyone has a different list of three "cs" for chicken. There's a book that lists cinnamon, coriander and cumin. Another place lists cumin, coriander and cayenne... and another that replaces the cayenne with cardamom...
So, I can pretty much bet that two of them are cumin and coriander... the third one seems to depend on what sort of flavor you're looking for.
@Catija - wow, thanks! I didn't expect an answer so fast! Yes, it seems that one of them is definitely coriander. I wonder if the original that I heard was cardamom
Just the power of Google, to be honest. If you're looking for a nice, subtle flavor, cardamom would be a very classic choice, just don't try to eat a whole pod, it's very bitter.
Fair enough. Thanks. Are there no other c herbs that might fit the bill?
@Catija these comments are sufficient for a full answer! It's much better to put even partial answers into the answers than to make them as comments.
Those are spices and not herbs with the exception of coriander which can come as a herb (the leaves) and a spice (the seeds). If the recipe was 3 spice chicken then @Catija has probably answered, however if the recipe is for herbs than it's not right.
Good point @GdD. I'll amend the question.
What was the cuisine that the program was showing @Charon? The 3 Cs will vary depending on the answer.
I know, I just can't remember! From the way that the presenter had said it, I presumed that 'the three Cs' was a constant and well-known combination, hence my question. Apparently however, it's neither of those things.
Generally, it depends on the sort of cuisine you're talking about.
However, there is a very common "chord" of three spices, which is popular in Greece, Turkey, Arab cultures, Indian cooking genres and even China.
That "chord" is Cumin, Coriander seed and Cardamom. It's definitely used with chicken, but is also applied to plenty of vegetarian dishes as well.
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62387 | Chicken and Beef stored in the freezer not entirely frozen - safe?
Recently (four days ago), a friend gave me a large chicken leg and some beef chunks for me to use at some point to cook with. Both of them were raw, but totally frozen, when I received them.
I put them in the freezer of my small fridge (I am a college student studying in a foreign country) to keep until I decided to make something with them. However, I opened the small freezer door (it's one of those student fridges where the freezer is a small box at the top of the fridge - you have to open the main door to open the freezer) and realized that the meat was no longer totally frozen. The freezer itself is apparently still cold enough that there is still ice and frost on the walls and floor of the freezer, and most of the meat is still frozen as well. However, some of the edges are not frozen, and are actually quite thawed. They are still cold, though.
Is this meat safe to eat/cook with?
If it's not completely frozen, then it will last roughly as long as meat stored in the fridge. So if "recently" was within the last 4-5 days, it's fine. If "recently" is more than a week ago, it should not be eaten.
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62453 | Coconut milk/cream vs cow milk in recipes
I want to know if I can freely substitute coconut milk and/or cream for cow milk in dessert recipes.
The reason I wish to substitute is to try new flavors and explore new frontiers. I have never used or even seen coconut milk or cream before, therefore I have no idea not only if I can substitute them but what to look for in said products.
I saw that my local store sells canned coconut milk and cream, however I am not sure about their quality and have no way to tell from my experience.
In addition what is the difference between coconut milk and coconut cream? Are they like cow milk and cow cream?
If you are not expecting a dairy-specific reaction, you can generally substitute fairly freely. Caveats are things like cheese- or yogurt-making, or whipping cream -- you can make yogurt or whipped cream but the process is not identical; non-dairy cheeses exist but I have never tasted one that approximates a flavor or texture that I associate with cheese; on the other hand, I don't think I've ever had one made from coconut, either.
One issue you may have, though, is in the terminology of defining coconut milk and cream. :-)
Coconut Milk #1 - In the US, you will find something called coconut milk in the refrigerated dairy section of well-stocked grocery stores in places where they cater to vegans and the lactose-intolerant. This is a good 1-to-1 substitute for regular dairy milk in most cases. I personally find that coconut milk is a lot closer to dairy milk than most soy or almond milks, and I think they have to work less hard to get it that way, meaning potentially fewer ingredients and stabilizers to mess with the chemistry of what you're cooking.
Coconut Milk #2 - In the baking section and/or the Asian food section, you may find something called coconut milk in cans. This is a good direct substitute for dairy cream as long as you're not trying for whipped cream (if you are, you need to chill it first to separate the actual fatty cream from the liquid). Check the ingredients. There should be no added sugar, it should look something like this:
Coconut Cream #1 - In the US, most products called "coconut cream" are cans of a combination of coconut milk with various stabilizers and flavorings (to make it taste more coconutty -- real coconut milk has a distinctive but mild flavor) and a lot of sugar. These are generally intended as mixers for tropical drinks, but they are sometimes found in the baking section as well. Check the ingredients. If it has a lot of sugar, it's not meant for baking and it is not a good direct substitute. (you'd have to adjust other ingredients, and depending on the brands and what else is in there you could get some weird flavors.) If you see an American recipe that calls for coconut cream, you may need to use some judgment to determine what is actually intended, unless it gives a brand name like Coco Lopez.
Not good for substitutions:
If you have a good Asian market nearby, you have some other options.
Coconut Milk Powder - In addition to tins of Coconut Milk #2 from above, you may also find Coconut Milk Powder (Maggi brand is common in Indian markets) which is an acceptable substitute for either dairy or coconut milk or cream in baking or curries (adjusting the liquid to powder ratio gives you the distinction), but it is a little harder to get fully reconstituted to a smooth texture, so while I do like to have some on hand and I do use it in my baking, it isn't really quite as simple a substitution.
Coconut Cream #2 - You may find pressed blocks of semi-dry coconut cream, the fatty part that was separated out when you chilled your can of coconut milk to make whipped coconut cream. This is another one that is great to have on hand and can work but it's not as easy to work with as a direct substitution.
EDIT: I didn't answer all of the question, I think, regarding what coconut milk is like.
Coconut milk has a very mild taste. It is mostly fairly neutral (reasonably similar to cow's milk) and not what you think of for "coconut" flavor (or at least, for me, that is more the flavor of the toasted coconut flesh). It does impart a distinctive flavor to foods, but it is still a mild flavor and can be overpowered by other ingredients and may not be as pronounced as you might expect at first.
The drinking style of coconut milk (non-dairy cow's milk substitute) is pretty much just like cow's milk in texture, or as close as they can manage to get it.
The baking/cooking style of tinned coconut milk is a little fattier than heavy cream, and tends to separate, but mixes back up to a similar consistency to dairy cream. (It mixes better at room temperature, or when just a little bit warm.)
It may be worth mentioning that alternatives to milk can react very differently with starch. I tried mixing instant pudding mixes (containing modified corn starch) with soy milk, almond milk, and cashew milk. It didn't thicken at all with the soy milk. The almond milk actually worked pretty well, but not as well as cow milk. It barely thickened with the cashew milk. I haven't tried it with coconut milk yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if it produced undesirable results.
you are a god among men! :) Thank you for this detailed and plentiful explanation! Well, like @mrog I intend to use it for pudding for the time being and I will try substituting the cow's milk at a 1:1 basis and see where that gets me. :)
@mathgenius a quick search online shows a number of recipes which use either cornstarch, tapioca powder or arrowroot to thicken coconut milk to make pudding, so I think you should be fine. I can't recall if I have done that specifically before or not. I have used it for rice pudding (with egg and coconut milk forming the custard). I might have to try coconut milk with Bird's Custard powder next time I am making it. I like coconut. :-)
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63135 | fluffiness of medu vada without baking soda
How do we keep the medu vada batter fluffy without adding baking soda?
I would like to use it less, hence trying to find a substitute for the ingredient, or better if the technique for cooking medu vada can be changed so that I don't need to use a substitute either.
Discussing the health of an ingredient is not allowed here. That being said, I've never heard anyone ever say that there's anything wrong with baking soda.
Hello and welcome to cooking stack exchange! I hope you don't mind the edits I made to remove the health part of the question.
I believe baking soda was a recent addition to medu vada and is not a required or traditional ingredient. It helps to make the vadas fluffier and it might make it easier to have a good result if your batter consistency is to not quite right, but it isn't required. Personally I find that it affects the flavor so I don't like to add it.
I think you can just leave it out entirely.
The keys to having fluffy vada without extra leavening would be oil temperature in frying and the amount of water in your vada batter. Also, whip the batter again after adding the seasonings so there is a lot of air in the batter to begin with.
The oil should be hot enough that when you drop a bit of the batter in, it immediately puffs up and floats to the top and starts cooking. If it immediately starts turning color, the oil is too hot. If it doesn't float, the oil is too cool.
If the oil is too cool, the vada will soak up a lot of oil and it will be soggy and dense and won't rise. If the oil is too hot, the outside will burn before the inside is cooked.
The batter should be almost like a very soft dough. If you hold a clump of it in your palm you should be able to hold it and not have it run out between your fingers, and it should hold the shape you give it. You should also see that it is a bit lighter and fluffier when you whip it. If it has too little water, it will tend to stay clumpy when you whip it up.
If the batter has too much water, it will not hold its shape and won't support the rising action and will be soggy. If there is not enough water it will be too dense and not rise well, so it can be hard after cooking.
It is easier to add more water if the first one is too firm, though, so err on having too little water if you aren't sure and test the first one you make.
Here's a recipe with a video so you can see how the proper texture looks. I really like Manjula-ji's recipes and demonstrations, they are very clear and easy to follow, so hopefully this video can help with the batter.
Nice! I didn't realize that medu vada are such an edge case, and gave an answer which covers most (but not all) soda-containing baked goods. I'll leave it there in case somebody wants to try an alternative leavener, but yours is much more specific.
Yes, you answered for substitution and I answered for vada technique. Together we have a full answer either way.:-)
For me the secret to get nice fluffy medu wadas is correctly soaking the dal!!
You should soak the udat dal for ample of time in good amount of water till the soaked dal size doubles.
Grind the dal to make a smooth batter.
Oil temperature and frying technique are also important factors to get good wadas.
What I do is that I add 2 spoons of toor dal (pigeon pea) along with udat dal for soaking.
This gives me wadas which are soft inside and crispy at the outside.
It depends only on the batter. See medu vada from restaurants are always fluffy and crisp. The reason for that is they use a wet grinder to make the batter. And if you are using a mixer grinder (blender) to make the batter, you should follow some tips.....
Soak the dal for at least 3 – 4 hours or overnight.
Use ice-cold water and pour 2 – 3 teaspoons after every 3 – 4 spins.
After making the batter beat in one direction either clockwise or anti-clockwise for 1 minute. This will infuse some air into the batter.
Fry them on medium hot oil.
Here is a recipe you can read for more details: Medu vada recipe.
Your only possible choice is ammonium carbonate. The class of leaveners which can be substituted for baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) consists of
baking powder, which contains baking soda
potash, which is an inconvenient old-fashioned ingredient containing potassium carbonate. It is almost the same thing as baking soda, but as far as I know, it isn't sold nowadays.
ammonium carbonate
Ammonium carbonate has its drawbacks. It gives baked goods an off taste which I personally dislike. It is also harder to obtain, and more expensive. And finally, it's chemically very close to baking soda. Depending on why you believe baking soda to be unhealthy, the restriction may cover ammonium carbonate too.
If you can't or don't want to use ammonium carbonate, there is nothing you can do. You have to give up medu vada, and most other baked goods such as cakes and cookies.
Potash ("Pottasche") and ammonium (bi)carbonate ("Hirschhornsalz") are sold here in the winter season in many grocery stores because they are still commonly used for making some traditional christmas sweets (gingerbreads etc), so it is definitely still produced and marketed (maybe not worldwide) as a food grade ingredient.
No leavening agent is ever added to medu wada. Advice in Zeba and Mobasir’s answers with some practice should give you the fluffiness that you need.
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63458 | How to fry eggplant with less oil?
Frying eggplant is somewhat tricky, as it absorbs oil like a sponge. I read some tricks like brushing egg white or flour on the eggplant slices before frying. None of these tricks are good enough to avoid oil soaking into the eggplant body.
Is there any practical way to fry eggplant using minimal oil?
You could get small eggplants (asian types - be careful, these overcook very quickly!), stuff them and fry them whole, with little unprotected flesh exposed to oil.
Also, I remember reading something about how the direction you cut it (more surface with or against the "grain" exposed to oil) matters ... cannot find it for the world of it...
@rackandboneman from direction you mean vertical vs. horizontal ?
yes, as in roundels (probably exposing a lot of cut fibre ends) vs strips cut top to bottom (probably side of the fibre)...
Why do you fry it if you don't want it oily?
@rumtscho there is oily, and then there is eggplant which sponges up more oil than you could possible want. Grilling(broiling) or baking in oven is the trick
Method I recently tried with small (japanese style) eggplants: cutting them crosswise like you would for stuffing them, then braising them whole (unstuffed) - will suck up oil and cooking liquid through the cuts, but not as much as if the inner surfaces were exposed straight. Gets them tender without disintegrating or washing all the flavor out. You can cut them further apart when almost done... This might or might not work with the bigger styles...
I've fried the long asian types in slices, with or w/o breading, and they absorb less oil than the American grocery store globe types. Tastier too, plus you don't have to press them with salt.
I had the same problem before, but I learned this great trick from Larousse:
Try sprinkling slices of your eggplant with plenty of salt on both sides and let rest for about fifteen minutes. The salt will draw out a lot of water from the vegetable, making it less spongy.
Then, dry off the slices before adding them to very hot oil in a frying pan. The hot oil should help make a nice sear, sealing off the eggplant, so it doesn't soak up anymore oil. If you need to, turn down the heat after the eggplant is browned to let it finish cooking.
I've had the best luck using the following method:
Gently rub some salt on the eggplant and leave for a few minutes
Dab the eggplant pieces with a paper towel to absorb the excess moisture.
Microwave (I know, it sounds awful, but give it a shot) the eggplant for couple of minutes. This will partially cook the eggplant and also collapse the air pockets in the eggplant, reducing the amount of oil that it will absorb when frying
Fry with a bit of oil
The result is some of the best fried eggplant I've had.
Spray them lightly with olive oil on both sides, add your choice of fresh herbs¹, put them on an oven shelf and bake them in the oven at 150°C (300°F) until you get the texture you want.
Don't go above that T° as the smoke point for olive oil is 160°C.
Disadvantage: It's not really frying, it's baking
Advantage: no extra sodium! :-)
¹: I like a mix of oregano and thyme myself, but YMMV...
While this may be a good solution... the question is specifically asking for a method for frying eggplant, and this is baking it.
@Catija: yes, it is! But sometimes you have to read between the lines and baking an oil sponge with a light sprinkling of oil is probably closer to the end-result the OP is trying to achieve then actually trying to fry it with less oil... :-/ Let's await OP's stance on this... ;-)
@Catija: Answer edited. Better now? ;-)
I experimented with salting and brining. Brining the cut-up pieces of aubergine for a few hours gives by far the best results. This methods gets rid of the bitter taste, and even takes care of the slightly allergic reaction I always get eating aubergines. The brine becomes quite brown. They will hardly take up any oil like this, cook quickly and evenly.
I brine in water about a salty as sea water, more or less.
This website agrees with me, check it out!
http://www.seriouseats.com/2015/02/how-to-make-sichuan-hot-and-sour-eggplant-vegan-experience-food-lab-fish-fragrant-eggplant.html
agree! seems counter-intuitive, but I have had success with brining too!
i have grilled egg plant before with a little brush of oil and it came out fine. i think this could work with frying if you fried it on a gentle heat for a longer time so the water was released,and so it steams in its own juice. they are very juicy when they are cooked. i have also baked with minimal oil, just a drizzle and tossed, and into a medium oven. i think keeping the heat down is key as it allows time for the moisture to be released.
I have done this and it definitely works. You can increase the temperature towards the end to get a nice sear. If you cut it into small or at least thin slices and use a non-stick pan, you can fry without any oil - although you will probably want to add some for the taste.
According to other answers I read "rub some salt on the eggplant and leave for a few minutes" is great, but it might not be the way to reduce its absorption of oil, I guess !?
My way is :
1) Use round pan
2) Pour some oil (a small amount - but enough amount to fry the eggplants) into the pan
3) Shake the pan after the oil has been cooked. (make sure oil are all over the pan and not gathering in the middle)
4) Fry those eggplants.
Preparations before above steps
You can cut the eggplants into round shape (slicing horizontally) or stick shape (slicing vertically).
Don't cut into very big size.
And yes, rub it with a little salt together with water in a bowl for 10~15 minutes before getting started to fry.
Hope it helps! ;-)
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73097 | Can an old rosette “iron” that's starting to stick be reconditioned?
My Mom's chruściki (rozetki) iron is about 50 years old. The batter is sticking to it and doesn't release easily now. How can I recondition it?
I picked up a new one (aluminum!) but it’s not the same. I’d like to get the old one working again. It weighs 39 grams, compared to the new one’s 24. Since the new one is thinner, 50% makes sense for the difference in mass, with them being the same density.
I think the old one needs to be cleaned, since it’s discolored on the sides. The new one worked out of the box. So what can remove the staining?
I had assumed that it was cast iron, but comparing the weight against the new one, I'm not sure. I suspect it’s aluminum too.
Cast aluminum molds for this sort of cookie do not season in the same way as cast iron. It doesn't rely entirely on polymerization of oil upon the metal for a nice release, it simply needs a very clean and smooth surface for the cooking oil to cling to before adding the batter. Over the years, small burnt-on bits and oxidation may accumulate upon the metal, making a clean release hard to achieve.
It sounds like it simply needs a good and thorough cleaning with a long soak in hot vinegar. If that doesn't work, a kitchen rag doused with lemon juice and sprinkled with table salt is the next step, be gentle and get inside all of the nooks and crannies. If that fails, A metal scouring pad, or even a wire kitchen brush, may need to be employed, but take care not to leave deep scratches. The idea is to smooth the surface.
Don't clean it with soap after using it again, which may damage the aluminum, instead wipe away any cruft with a paper towel and leave it to drain on a stack of paper towels. The oil will protect it from tarnish. (We'll just call it tarnish. Aluminum and oxidation in cookware is too complex a topic to cover in this answer.)
I thought s.d.u. was way off the mark in his answer to season it like a fry pan.
I am going to assume that your chrusciki is cast iron. I have been collecting and using vintage cast iron for 30 plus years and use the following method for reconditioning pieces which have lost their seasoned finish. Your irons must be able to separate from their handles, unless the entire piece is cast iron.
Separate all non-cast iron pieces from the cast iron pieces.
If there are crusty bits stuck to the cast iron remove these. I use a variety of methods including fire, scraping, and soaking in a hot water bath for 15 minutes or so. Soapy water is only okay before skillet is seasoned, never after. Keep the cast iron off porous surfaces during the soak as rust may form and be difficult to remove from them
Dry cast iron pieces and apply heavy coat of fresh cooking oil to entire piece.
Bake on a foil covered cookie sheet in a hot oven (350-375) for up to 1 hour.
Let cool, pieces may be sticky and this is normal.
Store on wax paper until first use.
Use as recipe suggests. Clean up irons using hot water only and a cloth of some type.
To keep seasoned, dry after cleaning, wipe with a paper towel dipped into fresh cooking oil, store away from moisture. Pieces don't need to be dripping with oil, just lightly covered completely. Can repeat steps 3-6 once yearly.
It's nothing like a seasoned frypan. IAC we leave it in the hot fry oil for 10 to 20 minutes before use.
Cast aluminum can be seasoned in much the same way as cast iron, but I don't personally have experience with that. Soaking or dipping into hot oil would not be a substitute for the seasoning process, there does not seem to be an effective shortcut method.
@TimPost I think there are existing posts on (re)seasoning cast-iron pans that would discuss this in detail.
@TimPost I put my cast pieces directly into a bonfire type of fire if they are particularly grubby /or and have a lot of caked on grubbiness on them.
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64125 | How to make soft popsicles
Frozen juice or frozen punch freeze up as a solid block of ice. I want them to be more like a sorbet or gelato, though still solid enough to hold the shape.
How might I make them softer? Either aerated, or polycrystalline without having to "do anything" while it's in the freezer?
One thought is to somehow make it more syrupy so it will hold air long enough to stay there while freezing. Gelatin comes to mind, but I wonder if something better is advised?
Could you edit to clarify your goals a little bit? I worry that "nice" and "more interesting" are going to attract a lot of random tips over time, rather than focused answers. Given that you later mention aerated and polycrystalline as options, it sounds like you're just trying to turn them soft and edible?
Yes, not a rock-hard block of ice.
This may be a cultural problem, but I was certain you want them to be rock hard, the kind meant to be licked, not bitten. If you want them soft, you are simply asking how to make sorbet.
I see, @rumtscho. Store-bought popsicles can't be used as hammers. Though still solid, you could bite them easily. They seem to be more like compacted snow, not rock-hard blocks of ice.
OK. I have never seen actual brand name popsicles (they seem to be an US product) and here in Europe, I have encountered both sorbet-on-a-stick products and small pieces of fruit drink ice, which are rock-hard and meant to be sucked on slowly. For some reason, I always imagined that "popsicles" refers to the second kind. Anyway, googling popsicles turned up quite a few recipes for homemade ones, you can probably just try them out.
The main factors are a gelling agent, alcohol, sugar and air/stirring.
Sugars may decrease the freezig point - add enough sugar and your ice remains soft-ish. Unfortunately this can mean your ice gets too sweet. So instead of using plain sugar, add some "inverted sugar": glucose syrup (aka corn syrup), which stays runny and doesn't crystalize.
You could even take it up a notch and use trehalose, which is basically two linked glucose molecules. It is used in ice-cream making to inhibit the formation of ice crystals. It tastes also less sweet than regular sugar, allowing for less sweet ice cream. Find an award-winning sample recipe here (further down). And if you really must have some hard science, a study on the use of trehalose in ice cream.
Alcohol has a low freezing point. But apart from the question whether you want to use it at all, you should note that you need a certain amount of ethanol to have a noticeable effect - high-proof alcohol and yes, you will taste it.
Glycerine (a sugar alcohol) helps keep ice cream soft.
Likewise the addition of gelling agents may inhibit the formation of ice crystals - locust bean gum is often used to replace eggs in custard-based ice cream and agar agar and pectin may serve a simmilar purpose.
And finally you can mechanically avoid / hinder the formation of large ice crystals by churning your juice first and freezing the slush instead of pouring the juice straight in the molds. The ice will still be rather hard, but not as much of a "solid icicle", especially if combined with one of the additives above.
IIRC, corn syrup forces the water and sugar to go microcrystalline on freezing. Yes, here: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22corn+syrup%22+popsicle&t=ffsb&ia=web Glycerine or galactose or any other odd sugar you have around should break up the crystal struck about as effectively.
I love to make popsicles out of store bought yogurt. They stay creamy and are delicious in any yogurt flavor.
A great choice for that is adding alcohol, as long as everybody eating them can also imbibe. Since pure alcohol resists freezing until it's as cold as -114°C (-173.2°F), it doesn't take a whole lot of alcohol to inhibit popsicles from freezing hard. A great list of recipes for use as a guide can be found here.
The freezing point of pure ethanol is impressively low, but it takes reasonably high concentrations to get a decent drop in freezing point with a water mixture. http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/ethanol-water-d_989.html The sugar in the juice is a big contributor to this actually working, I think.
I seem to recall recipes adding a small amount of alcohol to ice cream. If the stated reason is wrong, it might still affect the crystallization while it's being machined.
@JDługosz My comment isn't meant to say this doesn't work, just that the reason it doesn't take much alcohol is that there are other factors pushing the freezing point down, so you don't need to lower it much more with the alcohol.
I have two tips that will make your Popsicles soft and perfectly Quiescently frozen treats every time!
First, pre-freeze some of your ingredients or get them all soft frozen and then blend them into a pourable slush before putting in the popsicle molds.
PLUS the addition of a little bit of natural guar gum powder while you’re blending all ingredients into a slush.
This makes the perfect consistency soft, beautifully textured frozen treats!!
Simply adjusting (increasing) the sugar level will do it, and/or other things that interfere with crystal formation, such as pectin (either use some jelly/jam in making the mixture, or add pectin sold for making jelly/jam to your mixture.)
I'd encourage doing some practical tests where you add known amounts of sugar to your mixture until you find a level that works for the texture you want. If your juice label tells you how much sugar it has per volume, try adding sufficient sugar to have 30g/100ml as a "typical known to work" level - but you may want to aim higher or lower based on personal preference.
I know exactly what you mean,not like an ice cube, more scrunchy that you can bite in to, there are 15g of sugar in just one! my guess is that it's mostly that and possibly fast freezing with a liquid gas, like nitrogen, plenty of sugar and press the fast freeze button on your freezer and make them tomorrow, is as near as you will get.
If you have rock hard pops, just let them set out for a few minutes. They will develop desired texture.
Waiting for popsicles to soften is a challenge for kids (who are often the ones the popsicles are for), but regardless, this doesn't really answer the question of how to avoid solid popsicles in the first place. (I also don't think it works, because setting out a juice ice cube just results in melting juice and a smaller cube, not a softer "biteable" consistency throughout.)
Right: it works for ice cream and proper sherbet, but dos not work for solid ice, which is what the question is about.
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65963 | Cobbler vs pie?
How is a Southern U.S. style "peach cobbler" different from "peach pie"? It seems to use pie crust rather than biscuit dough, and it's a woven top, not cobblestones. I'll bet if I put the same recipe in a square disposable foil pan and a round glass pan, people would call them cobbler and pie respectively even though they're the identical contents.
I had a similar (but broader) question recently (ref) -- I think specific to the "pie crust" topped cobblers you see in the Southern US, it's not a pie because there's no bottom crust. I agree it's almost its own variant, though (confused the heck out of me when I first encountered it!)
Wikipedia points out that the Georgia variety can also have a bottom crust and be ectra deep.
Cobbler is a funny creature. In general, even in the South, many cobblers only have a single, top, crust and it is usually not a pie-style crust. It is usually more biscuit like:
From here
They may also have a single top pie crust, either solid or latticed and some of them do have a double crust, though it doesn't usually come up the sides of the pan.
There's a restaurant in town that we went to in the summer and we ordered a peach cobbler. Upon receipt of our cobbler, I (slightly inebriated from a very strong margarita) dubbed it a "pobbler" because it was a pie with two crusts and not the true cobbler I was expecting. I spent the next 30 minutes laughing about my new term.
So, to address your statement about changing the pans and calling them different things, I'd argue that, to some degree you could do that... but many wouldn't say that a pie in a square pan is a cobbler, simply because they don't believe that cobblers should have crusts. Use the newly minted, proper term for a square pie/crusted cobbler: "pobbler".
In general, though, the filling of a fruit pie, cobbler, or crisp can be identical with only the crust/topping treatment to discern them. In fact, my favorite Dutch apple pie recipe offers the simple variation of turning into a Dutch apple crisp by following the instructions, omitting the pie dough and baking in an 8-inch square baking dish rather than the pie dish.
As a note, due to the crusts (which you want to keep dry rather than soggy) and wanting a pretty wedge slice with the filling staying put, pie fillings are generally thicker than cobblers, where it's fine if the filling flows all over, so a recipe for blueberry pie may include additional thickeners like potato starch or tapioca powder to solidify the juices that are released from the fruit.
So, you want your pie to look like this:
from here
And you want your cobbler to look like the image at the top, without the starch to solidify the filling.
My favorite baking book includes recipes for both blueberry pie and blueberry cobbler (biscuit style topping) and they differ for specifically this reason. And, because it's an awesome book that explains why they make the choices they do, they explain why (emphasis added):
Blueberry pies traditionally rely on four or cornstarch to thicken the fresh fruit filling. We sometimes find these thickeners problematic. We thickened our blueberry cobbler with cornstarch with good results, but a pie requires a firmer filling than a cobbler and hence more cornstarch. If you use cornstarch, it will thicken a blueberry pie quite well. But in our tests, such a large amount of cornstarch dulled the fruit flavor and made it noticeably less tart.
This will depend greatly on the fruit. Some fruits are juicier than others so, while an apple pie/cobbler would need no adjustments, fruits like peaches and blueberries will need to add or increase the amount of thickener in a pie.
I guess if you make the Georgia style that the OP mentioned (with a bottom crust) then you do think that the dish is the main difference - square and deeper vs round and shallower. But I suspect that's the exception, not the rule, with cobbler also meaning no bottom crust in most cases.
@Jefromi Deep-dish pies are always possible... so I'm not sure the depth is really a factor. Look at the hot water crust pies in the UK... they're generally round but 3-5 inches deep. (yes, not the same, exactly, but still... a pie.)
I was talking pretty specifically about regions (or families) in the South that make that kind of cobbler, so UK pies aren't too relevant - I suppose it's possible that they also have deep-dish pies like that in Georgia, but I suspect most pies are the typical shallower ones. But anyway, the square vs round is the more obvious difference to be sure.
@Jefromi I don't know anything, personally, about pies in Georgia... so I'm not really able to talk about that. I do think that the other, subtler differences (thickeners) are an important difference. I wouldn't generally expect a cobbler, even one with two crusts, to have a solid filling like a pie does.
Agreed about that too! All just responding to your point that you don't think of shape as the difference. I don't either, but some people who make that style of cobbler might.
@Jefromi Ah, I suppose. Actually, now that i think about it, my blueberry cobbler recipe... with a biscuit topping... is made in a pie pan :P To confuse things only a bit more.
My peach pie (as shown by Mom) adds a bit of flour to the fruit to thicken it. I see the point, Besides the container, the cobbler is scooped into a bowl and the pie is sliced onto a plate. So the way it actually turns out may be somewhere in between.
I grew up (in Texas) enjoying cobbler on a frequent basis. Deep pan, a layer of biscuit dough on top with just a bit of dough dropped between, I guess you'd say layers. Nothing else like it,delicious, warm from the oven. It was biscuit dough. It wasn't pie crust, it wasn't thick dough, and it certainly wasn't batter poured in the bottom to rise through the fruit. (That's a whole other recipe, not cobbler.)
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82160 | Is canned “tomato sauce” already cooked?
The can says the ingredients are tomato puree, garlic, etc. I suspect that cooking turns puree into sauce. But then why does it change again when simmered for half an hour with ground meat and chili seasonings?
The meat's already browned prior to adding the tomato sauce, so I was thinking that we wait until the tomato is cooked. But my wife says the tomato is already cooked. So what is happening, and what do we call this when cooking?
To reiterate, suppose the components are not “raw”. But you still have to simmer it all together for 30 minutes. What do you call that, since you’re not moving from a state of being uncooked to being cooked?
All canned foods are indeed cooked because they have to go through the high temperatures of the canning process. What do you mean by "why does it change again"? There is no rigid definition distinguishing sauce from puree (or sauce from soup). A puree is just an extremely finely cut form of the original food, liquidised. It is common to make a sauce from puree by adding or diluting it with water but this is not necessarily always done.
Heating for canning does not have to cook the contents — it can be held for a short time to kill germs but nowhere near a “cooking time”.
“change again“ — you pour it all in the pan and it's clearly not done yet, by how it looks and tastes. The meat is already browned. Cook it for half an hour and it comes together, no longer tasking like raw tomato sauce. How can I explain that better?
It's all about water content. Less water means higher concentration of flavour.
@Doug no, it simmers with the lid on so it doesn’t lose much water. And adding water to a taste does not change it to become more like the pre-simmer state.
@JDługosz, agree that a few minutes even at canning temperatures are well short of cooking time. Even so, canned food texture tends to be like overcooked food. I am struggling to think of an exception.
Also agree that you mixing everything pre-cooked together is not going to get the same result as holding them at elevated temperatures for a period of time for flavours to develop together.
I wonder if letting the same (pre-cooked) ingredients sit together for a time will show a similar change, or else cooking the sauce by itself. Ingredients cooked together will not taste the same as pre-cooked and mixed, the flavors will not have had time to mingle and intertwine - one reason some foods (like bean dishes or stews) are considered better for long cooking times and long resting times. It could be there is further cooking needed, it could be heating together allows some specific reaction (tomato+fats?), or it could be the flavors just need the time to mingle. don't know.
@user110084 not all canned food is cooked. Though they are usually put on high temperatures, the reason is to kill germs and you don't need to apply heat for a long period of time (as cooking does).
Yes, in some sense, the contents of a can of tomato sauce are already cooked. But "cooked" is a pretty vague term, and we know that there are different degrees of it. Did you cook your onion on a low heat until it was soft, or until golden, or until caramelised? Did you cook your steak until it was rare, or medium, or well done?
Likewise with tomatoes, if you blend them up and then cook them for ten minutes they're not going to taste the same as when you've cooked them for three hours in a low oven with the lid off. Lots of chemical reactions are going on inside the food as it's cooking, and some of them only happen over rather long time periods.
So what you're doing when you're putting the "cooked" canned tomato sauce in with your "cooked" meat and leaving it for a while is... cooking. The combination of ingredients plus more heat and more time will cause further changes and different flavours to emerge.
Also, canned tomato sauce will only be cooked enough to preserve it in the can - it's not been cooked to the point where it's going to be at its best for eating. That part's up to you.
The term 'cooked' is being used subjectively here. Canned tomatoes are 'pasteurized' which is a process similar to cooking. The contents are held at a slightly elevated temperature for a short period to kill the germs. The temperature and time used are not enough to significantly change the structure of the contents, however it may slightly change the flavor. This step of the canning process is necessary to avoid botulism and other bacterial growth while the canned goods are waiting to be used.
You can use the tomatoes straight out of the can if you wish, provided that the canning process was performed correctly and the container is not breached(dented, rusted through, punctured, etc). However if you choose to cook them further you will most likely be using temperatures much higher than the temperature used to 'pasteurize' them and the structure and flavor will change significantly.
Tomatoes are rich in nutrients. Cooking the tomatoes further changes the nutrient content and effectiveness. Lycopene for instance is activated by cooking the tomatoes. Vitamin C however is destroyed by the cooking process and possibly by the canning process. i.e. Fruit juice that is pasteurized has to have Vitamin C reintroduced. (sorry for the sideline but I feel it helps to understand the difference between cooking and pasteurization).
Did you first brown your meat before adding tomato sauce? If you did, there's a chemical reaction called the Maillard reaction between the sugars and protein in the meat. The byproducts would mix with the tomato sauce altering the flavour. If you used onions and browned them, they too would change the flavour. Even spices will mingle to make a new combined taste. Don't forget that tomato sauce is acidic and acids de-nature protein (break them down) in meat, some which dissolve into the sauce enriching its flavour.
If you were to pre-cook sauce and meat separately, then mix them (as Megha mentioned), it wouldn't taste the same as if cooked together. Heat speeds chemical reactions up and cooking is a chemical reaction between different foodstuffs. If you were to mix them pre-cooked, it's conceivable that it may taste similar to cooked together if you allowed enough time for the reaction to occur. But it would proceed so slowly at refrigerator temperature (or even room temperature) that the food would spoil first.
« you first brown your meat before adding tomato sauce?» yes, that's what I meant by “the meat's already browned”.
Missed that trying to keep track of comments. My answer stands though.
Ok; I wondered if it wasn’t clear as written.
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76210 | Is ok to have boxes of raw chicken stacked on top of each other
I have a small walk in refrigerator. To save space I stacked eight boxes of raw chicken wings on top of one another on a completely separate shelf from everything else. Is this safe health inspector/ food safety wise?
how are the wings packaged internally? Will the weight of the upper boxes cause the internal packaging in the bottom boxes to split, either spilling liquid onto the shelf or allowing air into contact with the wings?
By «separate shelf» would that be wire racks above and below different shelves? Then they can still drip onto items on a lower shelf.
This should be fine if there is no other food below the chicken wings. What you don't want is for the chicken to be in a position to contaminate other foods.
General food service guide lines include:
From "Preventing Cross-Contamination During Storage Fact Sheet" (appears to originally be from the National Restaurant Educational Foundation, hosted here by New York's National Guard food service):
Store raw meat, poultry and fish separately from prepared and ready-to-eat food. If these items cannot be stored separately, store them below prepared or ready-to-eat food. Raw meat, poultry and fish should be stored in the following [order (top to bottom)]: whole fish, whole cuts of beef and pork, ground meats and fish, and whole and ground poultry.
If the wings started under 40 and the refrigerator is under 40 then you are good.
Say the wings are over 40 and you need to get them cooled in a certain period of time. Stacking would increase the cooling time.
Place in a water tight bin or tray so liquid could not contaminate food below. I guess you could risk contaminating the floor but still maybe not a good idea. Maybe even an air tight container to reduce odor contamination.
Something like this is space and operational efficient. Boxes are typically not packed tight. Use a size to take to the cooks stations.
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60051 | Michelin Three Star Restaurant; but if the chef is not there
When going to Michelin three star French restaurant in Paris, should I first find out if the star chef is actually cooking or at least present?
I have been visiting a French restaurant in Paris that is highly rated and I never questioned myself if the star chef is actually cooking. At my last visit and it was lunch time, I ordered from the grand menu, not express lunch menu. I thought something was different with food but was not sure what it was. Then I was invited (the first time, it was my birthday that day) to the kitchen and was greeted by the those who are responsible for different parts (dessert, sauces, bread, etc) and the chief chef, who was not the Chef I wanted to meet (I didn't say that). I go there because I like the food which is prepared by the Chef(at least that was I believed til then) but what is the point of spending the same money if the chef is not there and if the taste is not the same? Is it a damn question to ask if the chef will be there the day I will be visiting?
P.S. I read the first few. I'd like to thank each of you for taking time to reply my question. All answers are exactly what I wanted to know!
Welcome Naomi to Seasoned Advice. It seems like your question is essentially "What is the point of going to a Michelin Three Star Restaurant if the star chef isn't there?" This seems very opinion-based and not really a good format for this site.
In your opinion you're able to notice the difference.
Since Michelin Guide reviewers are anonymous, the restaurant doesn't know when they're being reviewed and so can't arrange for the reviews to only occur when the chef de cuisine is present. This means you have a good of a chance of eating at the restaurant when the head chef is there as the reviewers. Or to put it another way, the stars are awarded to the restaurant, not its chef.
I can almost guarantee that the star chef is not cooking. Despite all of my other personal misgivings about Todd English, he gave the only appropriate answer to a reporter who asked him the question, "Who's cooking when you're not in the restaurant?" "The same people who're cooking when I'm there."
I believe that reply actually originated from Paul Bocuse: http://articles.latimes.com/1987-03-22/entertainment/ca-14621_1_executive-chef, @mikeTheLiar.
@JoshCaswell entirely possible that Todd English stole it. The guy's a pretty big scumbag in all other walks of life, wouldn't surprise me in the least.
Entirely agreed, @mikeTheLiar.
It's not physically possible for one person to produce all the three-star food for more than perhaps fifty covers a night. Even with a completely fixed menu and set seatings, for anything more than six people at a time, you'd at least need help plating. The expectation that the person at the top of the kitchen hierarchy in a busy restaurant will personally prepare your individual plate is generally unrealistic.
The Chef has the same job as a conductor. You're there to listen to the orchestra (who've practiced enough with the conductor that they can play the same even without him around), not the conductor.
3 star restaurants are a business (*); for (probably bad) example, if I was to buy a Tesla car, I would not expect Elon Musk to build my car or even be at the auto-dealer.
Chefs will rarely cook; they will create the dishes, they might cook the prototypes and do trial plating to show his staff how the dish should cooked and presented; and the team will do the cooking day-to-day.
Chefs do high-level business management (human resources, produce handling and buying, do PR,...) and that takes time, they are not superman, they need to sleep and rest.
If they have to cook or be in the kitchen, then they need to be there early in the day for lunch preparation, they need to be there in the evening up to late because client will usually leave dinner at around midnight-ish; it is impossible to keep that schedule.
They will even be traveling to their other restaurants or do special appearances at food festivals around the world.
For example Pascal Barbot of the 3 star L'Astrance in Paris will be in Montréal for the Omnivore festival this week-end, so he will not be in Paris to "cook" or handle vip clients (in that case, maybe the restaurant is closed in august, I don't know).
(*) All restaurants are business, but 3 star michelin are the top of the pyramid.
As Jean-Georges Vongerichten once said: 'People always ask, 'Who does the cooking when you're not here?' It's the same person who does it when I am here: the chef de cuisine.'
It's not a bad question. You can always ask, you're a customer, no harm done in asking.
Asking or assuming that he/she will personally cook your food would be an entirely different matter.
The Chef does not do Everything.
Just approach it from a different direction:
If The Chef thinks his kitchen is in good hands while absent, why shouldn't you?
He/she is (presumably) more qualified to judge than you.
In fact, the chef doesn't actually cook but supervises the cooking done by his staff.
Hence the name "Chef" :p
Although I assume that every once in a while he actually might touch some kitchen utensils during serving ;)
More accurately, the Chef is the kitchen manager.
Quite simply,
"the chef is not there" ⇒ "the taste is not the same"
seems to be a logical fallacy.
I suppose that could be true – if the food you ordered required special skills that we assume could only be replicated by the head chef. But I think that's unlikely to reflect reality.
The quality of the restaurant as a whole is more likely to hinge on factors such as recipes, ingredients, freshness, and preparation, as opposed to the abilities of one all-star performer. A kitchen staff can be trained.
It's an interesting question, though, and I've thought of a few analogies: Is a Broadway musical quite the same on a night when an understudy replaces the lead actress? Would you enjoy a concert by The Black Keys as much if they played with a substitute drummer? Is watching the San Antonio Spurs the same on a night when Tony Parker is sidelined by an injury?
Interesting questions. Assuming the understudy can hit all the right notes, though – assuming the drummer can keep time and add fills, and assuming the rest of the Spurs play to win – you are still likely to have an A-1 experience.
Similarly, if we assume the kitchen is staffed by competent professionals, the absence of a head chef is unlikely to affect the taste of a single meal on his or her night off.
That said, if the actress was your favorite actress, or if your sister dated Patrick Carney back when he was in high school and you really wanted to watch him play on stage, or if Tony Parker has been your favorite point guard for some time, then I suppose there would be a tinge of disappointment that you didn't get to watch exactly what you were hoping to see. C'est la vie!
If you happen to know something about the chef and you want to eat there on a day when he is on duty, I suppose there's nothing wrong with calling the restaurant ahead of time, inquiring about the head chef's schedule, and planning accordingly.
Your analogies are generally replacing someone who actually has an active role in the actual ongoing performances; this isn't so drastic. The head chef being missing is more like a Broadway musical without the director there (but they were there for all the rehearsals and so on), or The Black Keys performing without someone who helped with the songwriting and tweaking for recording, or the Spurs playing without their general manager and personal trainers.
@Jefromi - Exactly my point. If the Black Keys played with a substitute drummer, or an understudy replaced the lead actress on Broadway, I probably wouldn't even notice. I don't know enough about Broadway or The Black Keys to even recognize the difference – just like I wouldn't notice if a chef was working in the kitchen or napping at home. But your modified analogy is a point well-taken.
In a large restaurant with many staff the chef does not cook, they just tested, planned, and managed some stuff beforehand
You are buying their menu creations/themes, and their location, décor, and staff selection
Personally I would rather not have to work so hard (work less, earn less, spend less), and cook a nice meal for my family and friends at home with top quality ingredients
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61576 | How can I make and store multiple pizzas before a potluck?
My job is having a potluck soon.
I plan on making 2 Buffalo NY style pizzas, 2 Papa Johns clones, and 2 Traditional NY style pizzas.
How should I store the pizza once i'm done cooking it?
Once finished making the pizzas, should I put them straight in the fridge?
Luckily, I work at a restaurant, so microwave ovens and hot air ovens are at our own use if anyone wants to reheat their pizza.
How far ahead of time should I bake the pizzas? It will take me 15 mins to get to my job with my bicycle and me hauling pizzas on a trailer.
Should I buy pizza boxes to transport them in?
Any thoughts would be welcome.
I totally want to blow everyone away and show them homemade pizza is the truth.
What to you mean by 'making'? Do you mean putting them together or baking?
Sorry about that. I would like to know should I leave the Pizzas out at room temp or whether to immediately put in them in the fridge. I plan on making them 2 hours ahead of time. Potluck starts at 2:00PM so I'm looking to start at 12:00PM
Is there no way to bake the pizzas on location?
If you really want to blow them away, the best option is to cook them on-site, at least partially. If you can prepare and partially bake the crusts in advance, the rest of the process won't take as long to cook and the results will be better.
If that isn't practical, 2 hours is a long time for the pizza to sit out before you transport it to a party where it will sit out even more, especially the one with chicken on it. Refrigeration would be a good idea.
You may also want to try your recipes in advance and see how well they hold up to reheating.
I've had reason to make large quantities of personal pizzas in the past and found that making the crusts in advance, freezing them, then at the time of the party baking with the toppings to heat it and cook the toppings worked well.
As for the transportation question, if you don't use pizza boxes to transport them, do you have some other way to keep the pizzas from getting smashed up and sticking to each other? This is another thing that will probably be easier to manage if you assemble and bake the pizzas at the party instead of transporting them fully prepared.
Well, the only oven at my job, is set to 350*, far too low. I also am NOT allowed to change the temp on it. We do have a flat top grill with guards and a tent. So that may be my only option S, that is reheating it. I'll purchase pizza boxes as well.
I'll see how well the pizzas hold up. I'm making the dough today.
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61730 | How to remove garlic smell from refrigerator/ice maker
Is there a certain cleaner or chemical that will remove a lingering garlic odor from an ice maker or other food processing equipment?
About a month ago, my wife and I noticed that the ice from our fridge had a slight garlic smell and taste. On inspection, I noticed a jar of minced garlic that wasn't completely closed in the door right under the ice maker (The ice maker is in the fridge, and has a rubber seal to the door where the ice comes out like this.)
I removed the garlic, dumped the ice, and soaked the removable ice tray/conveyer mechanism in hot soapy water. The first few batches of ice were better, but now the smell and taste are back.
Right now we simply can't use the ice maker. Is there a trick to garlic smell?
Also, the garlic issue with the ice maker was from garlic fumes only. The jar did not spill, and there was never any direct contact between the garlic and the fridge.
I found this question that is about cleaning smell from a plastic lid with vinegar and baking soda. It seems at least somewhat related, but the answer was never accepted, so not sure if it worked or not. I'll give it a shot if I don't get a better recommendation.
http://www.wikihow.com/Get-Rid-of-Bad-Smells-in-Your-Fridge . Try that link. A pretty thorough step by step how to clean the fridge and remove smells.
Duplicate of How do you remove strong garlic odor from enclosed space (garage)?
@banavalikar Thanks, but cleaning a smell out of a fridge and cleaning the garage are going to be quite a bit different.
Leave some stale bread or biscuits, lime/lemon rind in the affected area.
Buy an activated charcoal filter. They make some specifically for the fridge (search on Amazon):
Fridge-It Naturally Activated Charcoal Odor Absorber - $6
And ones that you can use anywhere (and they last up to two years):
Mini Moso Natural Air Purifying Bags - $10
To me, at least, it seems like the old baking soda in the fridge thing doesn't work; but activated charcoal clears up everything, even stale cigarette smoke.
Basically you need to turn it off, remove everything from it and then thoroughly clean it using a solution of warm water and baking soda.
Baking soda will help remove/absorb any odors that have leeched into the fabric of the fridge.
Once that is done and it has completely dried, you can restock the fridge, examining carefully anything you are putting back in for cracks, leaks or spillage that might have caused the bad smell.
Note that it is more likely that any smell is coming from something spoiled or spilled in the fridge rather than the fridge itself as refrigerators are made out of materials that are designed to NOT absorb bad smells.
Have you tried baking soda? It will absorb odors in your refrigerator. Often, people leave a box in the fridge all the time (though it needs to be changed every few months to stay effective). Some manufacturers (such as Arm & Hammer) even package it in boxes that have a whole side that opens, exposing a coffee filter like material to help expose more surface for absorption.
I'll certainly try, but I was hoping to find something like a "lemon juice for fingers" trick to actually clean the garlic smell that has somehow imbued the ice maker with smell.
This is a trick @JPhi1618. It's low cost, easy, and it can clean the odors out where you can't reach with a brush
@GdD I was thinking of the baking soda as absorbing odors rather than cleaning the source of them. My worry is that the ice will also absorb the odor if it's not cleaned once and for all.
-1 for the old "baking soda helps remove odors" myth. I don't know why it is so popular in the USA, although I've heard that it might be the product of a successful marketing campaign in the mid-20th century. Anyway, there is no good chemical reason why baking soda will be useful for most odors, and when it is, keeping it as crystals around is particularly badly suited for the job.
+1 for the baking soda. Works for me, and in use as deodorizer in toothpaste. I've not found crystals in my fridge box.
Old fashion method-put a piece of coal on the fridge shelf. The coal absorb the garlic's smell.
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61831 | Knife for cutting steak slices from whole ribeye?
What type of knife is good for slicing a whole ribeye into individual steak slices?
I've looked at some instructional videos on youtube and a butcher used a curved blade, someone else used a long rectangular blade, but I did not know what either of them were called.
What type of knife should I use for slicing a whole ribeye?
Let's start with the requirements...
For cutting large blocks of meat it's good to have:
Long edge - This will minimize the number of cutting strokes needed, resulting in a cleaner cut.
Low friction geometry - Raw meat is quite sticky, so a short blade height can help reduce friction from the product as you slice. Other geometry features which can help are surface channels (found in cheese and some japanese santoku knives), and a mid-mounted spine.
Very sharp edge - There are many ways to achieve this, but since this knife is used for carving and slicing, it doesn't need great ductility so you can find a knife made with very hard steel (e.g. carbon or high-end stainless) which will hold a sharp edge well.
Now the options...
Butcher's knife
As @Arrowfar notes above, a 10" (or longer) butcher's knife fits the requirements above, and is popular with butchers who slice raw meat professionally. It allows for quick slicing with moderate precision: a curved blade is harder to slice with precisely than a straight blade.
Slicing or sujihiki knife
For most home chefs, a long carving knife is likely to be a far better investment than a butcher's knife:
A Hattori HD 270mm sujihiki knife
It has a long straight edge, allowing for more even pressure across the entire edge while cutting, and more precise slicing
The curve tip provides modest edge contact (but at lower pressure) for cutting skin flaps close to the board. For touch skins you may have to do a final push-style cut to cut through the flap.
The knife can also be used to slice cooked foods (rib roast, hams, etc)
For cooks trained in japanese-style slicing (make a small cutting incision using a push stroke, and then a swift, long pull with good pressure), the sujihiki cuts meat with incredible precision and cleanliness.
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67861 | Is there a way to revive an old potato?
I was making mashed potatoes the other day and one of the potatoes I had was a little old. It was not as firm, and was slightly wrinkled than the potatoes I'd just bought. I didn't use it at all.
Is there a way to revive an old potato? For instance, with celery, I sometimes stick it in a cup of water for re-crisping.
Related: http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/13314/how-can-i-know-whether-a-potato-is-too-old
Sometimes when they've gone a bit soft but not downright squishy, if it's the right time of the year I'll cut them up and plant them.
Cut out any green parts then remove the skin. If you can see any remaining green parts after the skin is removed then cut them out too. What you'll have at this point will likely look and feel like any other peeled potato except with bits cut out. If it still feels soft or looks unusual throw it out, otherwise its fine. Just a normal potato whose skin had gone a bit wrinkly and soft.
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77692 | Can you use cooked fish heads and bones in stock?
Is there any reason not to put the heads and bones from cooked fish in stock?
Nope, go ahead. I do it all the time, and in fact some stock recipes call for roasted bones. Just make sure to store the heads/bones safely to keep a nice taste between the original cooking and the stock-making.
If you season the fish heavily during the original cooking, it may influence the taste of the stock.
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76616 | First time sharpening, do I sharpen on the coarse or fine side?
I have a Japanese Shun chef's knfve, and I've been bad about sharpening it. I haven't sharpened it since buying it in August and now it takes a bit of effort to slice through a potato or carrot.
I just bought a Japanese Water stone on recommendation from my butcher, it's dual sided with 1,000 grit on one side and 4,000 on the other. The advice I was given, was to sharpen it on the fine side (4,000) weekly and the coarse (1,000) ever few months. Given, that I've never sharpened it since buying it months ago, should I start on the 1,000 side and then give it a go on the 4,000 side ?
Also... if this is your first time sharpening a knife with a water stone (sounds like it), practice on something cheap. Getting it wrong (e.g., wrong angle) can do some serious damage to the knife.
How do I find the right angle?
Start with the courser (smaller number). Many guides and videos on the Internet. http://www.knifeplanet.net/how-to-sharpen-knife-on-japanese-water-stone/ You should practice with the finer stone.
Also include stropping in your knife maintenance regime - a supply of clean whole newspapers is all you need, but flat leather with or without polishing paste will work too. .... Was the "fine side weekly" recommendation given for professional-duty use?
Regarding the angle: Assuming it is a VG10-cored knife and has reasonably symmetrical geometry: 14-18 degrees per side if going for a simple "V" edge, 10-12 if you intend to put a very minute, less steep bevel on top of it (a so called microbevel. For VG10, recommendable.). Mind that going back from a higher angle (18 degrees) means a lot of grinding work! Also, doing a big angle change on too fine a stone tends to leave you with a convex edge (sometimes desirable, sometimes not).
Ask the manufacture for their recommendations.
Yes. The coarser grit removes material faster, but leaves a rougher finish. The finer side then allows you to bring the edge to a fine polish. The most important thing to remember when sharpening is to keep the blade at a constant angle relative to the stone -- don't change the tilt of the blade as you move or you'll just make a mess of it.
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85357 | Cooking eggs too soon for Keto dough
I've recently been looking at Keto recipes and Fathead dough came up. The recipe specifies that I should be careful to not cook the egg before you put the dough in the oven. It was really difficult to get the egg to mix into the melted cheese, almond flour mix. I'm wondering why I shouldn't just mix the egg in with the almond flour and cheese before melting the cheese?
Fathead recipe: https://www.ditchthecarbs.com/fat-head-pizza/
I love Fathead dough!*
No, don't microwave the egg. If the temp gets up to about 145°F, the proteins in an egg will solidify and you'll end up with bits of scrambled eggs smushed into the pizza crust. Unless that's your thing, I wouldn't microwave the egg.
But...you are right. It can be hard to mix the cheese(s) and flour together and then to incorporate the egg into that mixture. So...the real secret is to just use your hands to mix it all together. It's messy but well worth it.
*However, I don't follow the recipe exactly. I leave out the cream cheese (personal preference). And I usually don't do the second, 30-second microwaving. If the dough were to cool too much, I might do 10-15 more seconds, but otherwise I just immediately start mixing the egg in (so I have it already broken in a bowl with the rosemary and/or other seasoning for speed).
I always cook it on one side for about 8 minutes and then flip it and finish baking of the crust. Only then do I add toppings (already cooked) and bake a final few minutes until the cheese topping is nicely melted.
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120292 | Once unwashed eggs have been refrigerated, must they remain so?
Other questions on this site have addressed the fact that unwashed eggs do not need refrigeration because they are protected by a "cuticle". Washing removes the cuticle, and therefore washed eggs need to be refrigerated.
If unwashed eggs have already been refrigerated for a few weeks, and are subsequently left out unrefrigerated for a another week or two, is it still safe to use them? That is, does refrigerating the unwashed eggs remove the protection of the cuticle in some way, or otherwise make it dangerous to subsequently leave the eggs unrefrigerated?
Edited to add: Since originally posting this question, I have come across the following claim:
In America, food safety officials emphasize that once eggs have been refrigerated, it is critical they remain that way. A cool egg at room temperature can sweat, facilitating the growth of bacteria that could enter the egg through its porous shell.
From the phrasing of this statement, it's not completely clear to me whether this principle ("once eggs have been refrigerated, it is critical that they remain that way") only applies to washed eggs (the context "in America" suggests that may be the case), or whether it applies to all eggs, whether washed or not.
Based on your edited addition:
A cool egg at room temperature can sweat, facilitating the growth of bacteria that could enter the egg through its porous shell.
it sounds like they are saying:
A cold egg brought into room temperature can have moisture from the air form as condensation on the outside of the shell, and this moisture may ""wash"" parts of the cuticle off, allowing bacteria to penetrate inside through the pores (microscopic holes) that now have no protective barrier (the cuticle) covering the pores.
- my uneducated interpretation and extropolation of what they mean
It sounds like the extent to which this may make eggs unsafe is directly related to the amount of condensation that forms on the outside. Theoretically, eggs could be gradually brought to room temperature, preventing condensation from forming.
Alternatively, the eggs could be put into an airtight container, with the air inside also cold, and it'd be the outside of the container, instead of the eggshells, that'd do the sweating.
It is possible that a regular egg carton would form condensation instead of the eggs.
None of this is safe food handling advice, merely me thinking through theoretically what might be going on based on the statements provided.
This is an interesting (and plausible) interpretation. I am still hoping for something more authoritative and less speculative, but I appreciate the help.
I agree with the interpretation - as the cuticle is good protection, it's hard to see how the "sweat" could be coming from inside
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63598 | Not sure my meat spent long enough on high in the crock pot?
Last night, I was making chili and realized I'd forgotten to thaw the meat. I was most of the way through putting the veggies and sweet potatoes in, so I put them on high and let the meat thaw in the fridge. I took the thawed meat from the fridge and put it in the crock pot before I went to bed, but I'm pretty sure my crock pot (which is a digital model) had actually switched to the "warm" setting by that point, or shortly thereafter. I was tired and not paying close enough attention. When I woke up, the food was still really hot and steaming, but now I'm scared to eat it because I don't know how long it spent on high, if at all. (I guess that'll teach me to cook while I'm tired ...)
Would it be safe to eat? Or should I toss it?
These sorts of questions are generally unanswerable. A properly functioning crockpot should likely have raised the internal temperature of the meat within an acceptable time window, but we simply can't know how your crockpot works, whether its thermostat is functioning well, etc. Official food safety guidelines generally say when you're uncertain, you should throw it out. If you want to be absolutely safe, that's what you should do. Many people make their own personal exceptions for all sorts of reasons, but everyone here probably has less knowledge about what happened than you.
Check the crock pot manual.
Usually, the "keep warm" setting will keep a temperature of between 145°F to 165°F (62°C to 74°C). This is the recommended food safety temperature to keep hot food in that is not immediately served (which is likely why the "keep warm" temperature is in this particular range in the first place). 145°F is also the safe internal temperature for beef, pork, lamb and veal.
Do you know if the meat was actually thawed (no parts of its interior were frozen) before you put it in the crock-pot? If you don't know, there's no way to know for sure whether the meat may have spent too much time in the "danger zone" of 40-140F. If it was totally thawed, my guess is that it's OK, but the axiom "When in doubt, throw it out" is an axiom for a reason: it's the best advice in this situation. Is the cost of the ingredients worth the risk?
I will give you the same kind of answer that I usually give to these kinds of questions.
This is a risk assessment question based on food safety. If it were my kitchen and I knew that I used good hygiene the I would be comfortable eating it and serving it to my immediate family. This is not advice, this is just what I would do if what you describe is accurate and if it were MY kitchen with MY known conditions of hygiene.
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104364 | First time making fudge. Will it be okay if I forgot to add vanilla?
My mom always made chocolate fudge, unfortunately I never learned how she did it. I tried making it for the first time and I forgot to put the vanilla in. Will this be okay. Should I toss it and start over?
Try some and see is the only way to know if a recipe really works, so no, don't toss it.
Vanilla is not an essential ingredient in fudge. The essential ingredients are sugar (or an equally calorie-rich sugar substitute like corn syrup), milk and butter. Everything else you might find in a fudge recipe is just added to modify the basic flavor, texture and/or color. There are lots of fudge recipes around which don't use vanilla at all (it's a treat which is very open to experimentation in general).
So if you don't add vanilla, it won't taste like vanilla, but that doesn't necessarily mean it will taste bad, have the wrong consistency or behave differently when cooked and cooled. It's certainly worth a try to complete the recipe, even if just to collect some experience with the non-trivial phases of making fudge which are going to follow.
I forgot vanilla, but it was the best batch of Fantasy (Kraft) Fudge I've ever cooked. So I will not sweat it and won't tell anyone. It's like, do you prefer mocha or vanilla Starbucks? Both types are different and very good.
it's gonna be ok;
vanilla is usually not used in large quantity in recipes.
You might feel there's something missing, but it will still be good
Vanilla is kinda like bacon to those that like bacon. Everything is better with it, but in most things if you leave it out you probably won't even miss it unless someone tells you it is not there. I am someone who tends to not measure vanilla and end up putting in 2 or 3 times as much as called for because I like it. But if I forget, no one notices in most things like fudge.
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93920 | Ideal Coffee Grind for dough-like recipes
Is there an ideal coffee grind for culinary (i.e. actual food, not beverages) use, particularly in dough? More particularly, when the coffee is the main ingredient (in matters of flavor)?
What effect, if any, does the kind of grind have on a solid recipe taking ground coffee?
This question appeared to me from a recipe of my own, which is Coffee Cookies (essentially a typical chocolate chip cookie, with cocoa, ground coffee, less flour and dark chocolate chips), in case it implies a more specific answer.
If you're putting the actual ground-up beans in the dough rather than brewing/extracting, I suggest one of two extremes, depending on the effect you're aiming for:
A very fine grind so it's evenly incorporated and not easily detected by feel (think of nut flour for the texture you'd be aiming for). As you're replacing some flour with coffee in your recipe this might be your best option.
Very coarse, more like cracked beans than actually ground. Then you get the pleasant* crunch of the beans, and the burst of flavour. If you were just adding coffee to a normal chocolate chip cookie recipe this would be better (IMO). This is what I'd do, but I rarely bake for coffee-lovers.
Anything in between could easily lead to an unpleasant graininess, while there's no advantage in terms of flavour over a fine grind.
* Pleasant to those of us that enjoy eating chocolate-coated coffee beans and similar things.
Have both, fine for flavor and coarse for your crunch.
that's one of the points I was expecting to be talked about in answers: which grind would give more flavor to my recipe, if any (?) would fine grind give More flavor? Or are you just saying it would give flavor, while coarse grind wouldn't?
@Pedro I would expect the same weight of ground coffee to give the same amount of flavour independent of the grind; you're not relying on extracting it in the normal way. And this should be fairly true for volume measurements as well, as the grind won't have a strong effect on how it packs into a spoon, compared to how consistently you scoop. The cracked beans will be different as the flavour is localised so really intense when you crunch one
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91410 | Pitaya Red Velvet Cake became brown
Starting point:
I was trying to follow a red velvet cake recipe from the internet, but since I always try to replace industrial/artificial ingredients by more "natural" ones (just out of curiosity), I decided to replace the buttermilk and the liquid red food color with red pitaya pulp (which is tasteless and mostly made of water, similar to carrots, which can also turn into good cakes).
The recipe I've found is as follow:
! – 200ml of (whole) milk
– 1 table spoon of lime juice
(left to rest for 10 minutes)
-> replacement for buttermilk (which is unusual to find here)
//
– 3 teacups of wheat flour
– 2 teacups of sugar
! – 1 table spoons of cocoa powder
– 3 tea spoons of baking soda (1 table spoon)
– 1 tea spoon of salt
! – 1 table spoon of baking powder
//
– 100g of unsalted soft (non-refrigerated) butter
– 2 eggs
! – 3 tea spoons of white vinegar (1 table spoon)
– 1 tea spoon of vanilla extract
! – 4 table spoons of liquid red food color
– 5 more table spoons of lime juice
and I've changed it to that:
! – 300g of fresh red pitaya pulp
– 1 table spoon of lime juice
//
– 3 teacups of wheat flour
– 2 teacups of sugar
! – 1 table spoons of cocoa powder
! – 5 tea spoons of baking soda
– 1 tea spoon of salt
//
– 100g of unsalted soft (non-refrigerated) butter
– 2 eggs
! – 4 tea spoons of white vinegar
– 2 tea spoons of vanilla extract
! – 2 table spoons of anatto*
– 5 more table spoons of lime juice
Besides replacing milk and food color with pitaya pulp (turned to juice), I added 2 table spoons of anatto and replaced the 1 table spoon of baking powder with 2 more tea spoons of baking soda and 1 more tea spoon of vinegar, since I always do this for every cake recipe.
Result:
Perfect in matters of structure/texture, taste and smell... BUT after half of the time in the oven, it started turning from a dark reddish purple to honey cake brown.
->
Question:
Was my idea of replacement a guaranteed failure with regard to the resulting color? did I missed something? Is there any trick or technique I could/should try to preserve the natural color of pitaya through the baking process? More acid ingredients, like lime juice? Less of them, maybe? Does anyone knows how much heat can pitaya pigments (betalain?) take before stopping giving vivid colors (?) and if there are any other natural red/purple pigment more heat-resistant (?). (note that its vivid color survived until half of the baking process)
I strongly suspect that the same mechanisms are at play as in this related Q/A.
Likely straight oxidation is at work. The natural color chemicals are oxidized in the hot environment. You can test this by simmering the pulp. If it color changes due to just heat then you know.
Note that carrot cake isn't the bright orange of raw or even boiled carrots either. This is especially true of the crust and from your description of partway through cooking I suspect that's the colour you're looking at. If the inside is much better, there's still hope.
Many colourful compounds in plants aren't stable under heat, but even ignoring that, sugar and flour both brown on the outside of cakes. Both caramelisation and the Maillard reaction (the former is probably more important in cake) take place at typical oven temperatures, so you may have some success with a cooler oven. This is a moist recipe so it may not turn out too dry, but you may want to cover it for the end of the cooking time. A cheating approach is to cut the crusts off, then ice all over.
I've had a play with DIY plant extract colouring and the crust colour is clear (I didn't make enough extract, and was going for orange) You may want to look at anthocyanins, in fact given your comments about acid you may already have done so
the inside wasn't any better. The cake has uniformly turned brown
Removing the buttermilk is a large part of your problem. Besides helping to keep a more tender crumb, it affects the red color in two ways: :
The acid makes the cocoa turn more redish
The acid reduces the amount of surface browning in baked goods. (alkalai will make it more brown, like in pretzels)
I'd suggest adding some some acid back into the cake, if you're going to leave out the buttermilk
I knew that, but buttermilk simply doesn't exist in Brazil and neither does undutched cocoa. So I couldn't rely on that to produce the "redness". Given that, I've tried the recipe I've shared as an alternative to artificial food colors as I could. But I'll check "how acid" the original 20s/30s recipe looks like, to try to reproduce that aspect. Thank you.
I've just made a cake with buttermilk, and a suggested replacement was 3/8 natural yoghurt and 5/8 milk. Might be worth a try.
@ChrisH : good point. I’ve used sour cream and milk as a replacement before, but I can’t recall the proportions
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104821 | GIving that alcoholic taste to yeast-leavened cakes (panettones)
For the last 3 new year evenings I've tried to make panettones (both chocolate and fruit ones) and my recipe is getting better, with the last one being the first reasonably successful one. However I don't know much about yeast-leavening and there is one thing that I'm really missing on my panettones: that slightly alcoholic taste most store-bought ones have.
What is the trick to achieve such taste or what may I be doing wrong to be missing it?
None I've ever bought - having that taste - had any kind of alcohol/beverages listed as an ingredient. Only vanilla extract and, sometimes, fake panettone flavour, which I strongly think not to be the answer. Also, I know yeast can produce alcohol, but I do not know how or "why". (I've noticed that flavor to be much more intense around the panettone fillings, for truffled and dulce de leche ones)
Yeast naturally creates alcohol from the sugars (gluten) found in bread flour. However, this probably won't be enough to leave an 'alcohol' taste, depending on the amount of yeast used and the amount of time the dough is left to leaven. You'll find that sourdough bread has more of that alcohol taste (and is also a lot fluffier) than a quick 2-hour no-knead bread, for instance.
Traditionally, the dough for Panettone is cured for a couple of days, which results in the fermentation leaving that alcohol taste you're familiar with. However, some Christmas fruit cake recipes (especially the ones in South Africa) do ask for alcohol. Although Panettone doesn't contain alcohol traditionally, you could soak the fruit pieces in liqueur overnight. This is a lot quicker than curing the dough for a couple of days. Perhaps try this recipe and see if you like it more.
that would also explain why the alcohol flavor is more intense near the fillings as described in the question.
Yeast doesn't really give you an alcoholic taste in bread. Little yeast activity doesn't give you much aroma, and high yeast activity gives you a bread-typical aroma based around thiols and even hints of ammonia. If you leave your dough to ferment until you can smell alcohol in it, it is no longer suitable for baking.
As to why you are sensing something alcohol-like, it is probable that it is the aromatics that were used have some alcoholic compound. Possible sources are
the filling was soaked in alcohol (raisins are a candidate for that)
the filling is orangeat or citronat, and was created either using alcohol or with added flavors that are reminiscent of alcohol-based flavors
you are sensing the alcohol from the vanilla extract (which is very unlikely, unless you notice this effect in all baked goods made with vanilla extract)
the producers used some aromas that imitate alcoholic beverages without actually containing alcohol. For example, there are additives that imitate rum, and these are frequently used in celebratory breads from different cultures. This can be combined with some of the factors above (e.g. raisins being soaked in a liquid using this kind of additive instead of real alcohol)
For all of these cases, it depends very strong on labeling laws whether the alcohol will be listed or not, so it is possible that real alcohol was used but not listed (e.g. if the labeling law doesn't require manufacturers to differentiated between "raisins" and "rum-soaked raisins").
How you repeat the exact taste depends on what the manufacturer actually used, but if you are just after some nice alcoholic taste that is frequently associated with pannetone, I would suggest buying a rum-tasting additive and using it in your dough.
The above assumes that the taste you call "alcoholic" is really due to alcohol. If for some reason you describe the taste of yeast fermentation as "alcoholic" (which I think is the low probability here, especially since you want to imitate store bought products), the solution is to use more yeast than the recipe calls for, and shorter fermentation times at higher temperature. This will give you the thiol-ammonia aroma mentioned above.
Try this recipe. Mine tastes as if it was SOAKED in booze! I think all down to leaving the dough out for a while. I actually left mine for longer than the recipe recommended...
https://www.greatitalianchefs.com/recipes/panettone-recipe
Oh, and I also highly recommend homemade candied peel. Miles better!
Hi and welcome to Seasoned Advice. Since things on the internet can be ephemeral, could you include more detail in your answer as to the process and the amounts of standing time. If that link disappears your answer, as it is, wouldn't help am much as if you included that info. Cheers
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64080 | How long should I let durian ripen in a freezer bag?
I recently picked up some cut up durian at an Asian supermarket, and since pre-packaged fruit normally is a little under ripe, I was wondering how long I should allow the durian to ripen in the bag before Christmas.
It's a matter of taste. Since your durian is already cut, as it continues to ripen (which it will, although much more slowly than uncut fruit) it is also rotting/fermenting (which is desired by many). You don't say where you are from, but durian season is long over in the northern hemisphere. Most durian sold in the US this time of year has been frozen. Previously frozen durian rots more rapidly and ripens less rapidly than fruit that hasn't been frozen, some sources say that previously frozen durian won't ripen at all, only mature (rot).
So the bottom line for you is that you should taste your durian every 12 hours or so and put it in the freezer (or consume it) when it has matured to your liking. The ripening (not rotting) of durian is accelerated by the ethylene it produces. Since sources are not in complete agreement concerning additional ripening of previously frozen durian, keeping the pieces in a bag with ethylene may help. Most of the ethylene is produced by the husk, not the flesh of the fruit. If your fruit still has the husk, it is worthwhile to keep it in a closed bag for that reason. Whether or not the Durian still has the husk, it wouldn't hurt to add an apple to the bag for more ethylene.
If you can, store your durian with an apple in a few separate bags, so that "tasting you go" doesn't release all of the ethylene available to all of the durian.
Some durian lovers go as far as to keep ripe, cut durian on the counter; rotting away (and producing alcohol) for 3-4 weeks. Others prefer durian under-ripe and freshly cut.
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76953 | Sauce with Jalapeno, garlic, cumin and lime?
I created this sauce/topping with chopped jalapenos, fresno chilies,minced garlic, cumin, olive oil and lime or lemon juice. I used it as a topping for steak or fish. I'm pretty sure I've had this type of sauce or something close to it at restaurants and wondered what the name of that type of sauce would be?
This looks great, and if it was offered in a restaurant I expect it to be called a 'Fresh Jalapeño Salsa'. That would give me all the information I would need when deciding to order or not.
Thanks for the compliment, it was delicious. I also do a lot of salsas but I have put cumin in one before but your right, all the other elements are pretty much in a salsa. The one key ingredient that is missing is tomato, that to me would make it a salsa
Yes, a very good comment about the tomato, however, I think you have rocked it with this one.
Tomato is not necessary for a condiment to be identified as a salsa. See: salsa verde, for example.
I guess I assumed salsas need to contain tomato, but yes I've seen a salsa verde which usually has tomatillos.
wondered what the name of that type of sauce would be?
As you commented in another Q, salsa would be out, as that leads to tomato.
Your dominant ingredients are peppers (chilies, jalapeno): pimiento or aji
Your preparation is chopped: picada.
Looks spicy: picante
Combinations that come to mind:
Picante Picada Pimiento
Picada Pimiento
Picante Picada Aji
Picada Aji
Because Pimiento is often lacks spice (think of the ones stuffed into olives), I like Picada Aji.
Of course, Spanish has many dialects and Picada Aji may not make any sense in some areas. Locale dialect needs to be considered.
I only understand enough Spanish to eat.
I think your word order is wrong. Spanish puts adjectives after the words they modify. So your "preferred" one should be "aji picada". That being said, as a Texan I've never heard the word "aji" so I don't know if it's a good option.
Regionalization affect. Aji http://www.limaeasy.com/peruvian-food-guide/typical-aji-chilli-peppers . Visually, the OP dish reminded me of http://www.baldmanrecipes.com/colombian-aji-sauce-aji-de-paula/
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75607 | Crunchy onions in soup?
I go to a food cart regularly and I've had this red lentil soup before but today I noticed that the minced onions were really crunchy but didn't taste strong as if they were raw. The lentils were soft so I'm sure that the soup was cooked long enough to make the added vegetables tender. I'm assuming this is because they weren't sauteed before they were added to the soup? Could there be some other reason?
Can you be more specific about crunchy? Do you mean like raw onion? Did they taste raw or cooked?
It seemed they were just cut up and thrown into the soup after to soup had cooked, as if they forgot to add onions. I was just wondering if there could be any other reason they would be crunchy like that.
I think you've answered your own question then. They added raw onion at the end without giving it time to cook in the soup. You are right that onion is usually sauteed first. Perhaps someone else knows of a chemical process in soup that can revert onions to a raw texture.
The difference between raw and cooked should be pretty obvious. Raw are more opaque and less flexible with a sharper taste, cooked are translucent and more flexible with a smoother taste. Lightly cooked onions can still be crunchy, but the crunch is different. So... if they seemed raw, I'm not sure what the question is. Was there something that made you think they weren't actually raw, and there was another reason they were crunchy?
@jefromi - they didn't taste raw, that's what threw me off.
Well, it'd be awesome if you could edit your question and provide as clear a description as you can, including all the stuff about flavor and appearance and texture that you remember. It's good to know they didn't taste raw; still not sure if they looked raw, or if they were crunchy in the same way as raw. Without that it's going to be hard for people to give specific answers.
Could the onions have been dehydrated onions?
@haakon319 - If they were planning on adding raw onion to the soup, they may have intentionally used sweet onions which wouldn't taste sharp.
Onions that have been blanched (briefly dipped in boiling water) will taste less sharp than raw onions - so it is possible that the onions were merely added at the end, and the soup may have been hot enough to mellow the taste even if the onions remain firm.
It may also be possible that the onions in the soup that day were dehydrated - if they had run out of onions and were substituting, or had dehydrated on hand because they are much more shelf stable, or they were just experimenting. Dried onions rehydrated in soup might have a crunchy or crisp texture like raw onion, without the sharp flavor raw onion have. Also, a dried and rehydrated onion might be crunchy even after being sauteed, and may not soften even when simmered, which could account for your soup.
When I use dehydrated onion in soup they are never crunchy after rehydrating. I wonder what is different.
@Sobachatina - I would think maybe they'd be crunchy of they were just, just added (no time to fully rehydrate). Or in the linked answer, something about being sauteed first, though I don't know the exact mechanism. But really it's speculation on my part.
Makes sense. That is true that still-dehydrated onions are crisp but they aren't mistaken for raw as the OP is describing.
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79573 | Dutch Baby Disaster!
So I made these Dutch Babies this morning following the New York Times recipe and usually they puff up beautifully but today they didn't and were a disaster. What did I do wrong? I'm thinking to much flour perhaps??
3 eggs
½ cup flour
½ cup milk
1 tablespoon sugar
Pinch of nutmeg
4 tablespoons butter
Is there an award for the best title?
It's going to help us a lot if you give us the recipe and what you may have done differently.
I figured it out after looking at the recipe as I was copying it to my question. I didn't add the milk!
Did you taste your disaster? Looks quite tasty though they might be chewy. That's not a bad thing.
I'm a perfectionist, if it doesn't look like a typical Dutch baby I won't try it lol
That's okay. I'm always willing to taste my mistakes if they look edible and semi-appealing. At times, I've discovered new ways to cook something or a new recipe. I was telling my son that I wished I had a nice big combination lab-kitchen (science being one of my passions) to work in but would really love to have a lab assistant/flunky to help and then clean up afterward! :D
I think I need to make some! I make popover often but never sweetened ones like these. They look very good!
I'm intrigued - how is a Dutch baby different from a Yorkshire pudding, which it very much resembles (in appearance at least)?
@PieterGeerkens the recipes are very similar but Dutch babies are sweet and you cook in butter not meat drippings
I'm wondering about the legality of eating 'babies', don't we have laws against that sort of thing?
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