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78421 | Can I substitute bread flour for AP flour in banana bread recipe?
I have bread flour (King Arthur) at home all the time, but I don't usually have all-purpose flour, as bread is pretty much the only thing I bake from scratch. I want to make basic banana bread following this recipe. I have never made banana bread before.
Can I substitute bread flour for the all-purpose flour? I also have stone-ground whole-wheat flour that I use for chapatis. Would some mixture of whole-wheat and bread flour be a better substitute? The reviews for the banana bread recipe say that it results in a dense loaf, so would using bread flour make it even more dense and thereby unappetizing?
I don't particularly want to keep all-purpose flour on hand in addition to bread flour and whole wheat flour, as my pantry has tons of flours already; ten at last count. I searched online and on this site but the questions typically seem to be about subbing AP flour for bread flour, or using some other flour instead of wheat flour. I was unable to find anything specifically about using bread flour instead of AP flour.
Update I decided to risk replacing 1/3 cup of the bread flour with rice flour. I thought that since rice flour is lighter and has no gluten, it would offset the increased denseness caused by using a high-gluten flour. The banana bread turned out fine.
I have posted a follow-up question about using maida in combination with bread flour to create an all-purpose flour substitute.
I wouldn't recommend it. If you do, only barely mix it, as you don't want to develop too much gluten or you'll get tunneling. see http://cooking.stackexchange.com/a/1729/67
Bread flour is more dense... why would it give a lighter texture? Flour is rated by its protein content - cake flour is the lowest, AP in the middle and bread flour the highest.
@Catija oh yeah, good point. I forgot that it's the yeast interacting with the gluten that causes bread to rise, not just the high gluten flour by itself. Edited the question.
It could end up lighter when there is more lift due to more developed gluten that can take advantage of the leavening... but then, you are far into bread-bread, not banana bread territory....
With some precautions in your mixing method, you could substitute Bread Flour for AP Flour in Banana Bread. Mind you, it may make a stronger, more dense, more chewy banana bread than people expect--but it would still be pallatable, some may even prefer it.
As discussion here points out: the main concern in the substitution is the higher gluten of bread flour.
I checked the King Arthur website, found that this bread flour is 12.7% protein (gluten). According to this chart from Cooking for Geeks (I am not affiliated with the book) indicates, this is low-to-average for gluten in bread flours:
Not over-mixing is critical in this situation, since mixing forms gluten. I can't describe better than @Sam Ley did here. Sam makes a great point: you should be comfortable leaving some dry clumps in the batter.
Also, if tempted to sift the flour, I would hesitate. sifting the flour will increase powder surface area, which would facilitate more gluten formation.
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76303 | How to determine whether oven thermometer is accurate?
If there's a difference between what an oven is set to and what an oven thermometer shows, how do I know which one to trust? Reviews of oven thermometers suggest that not all oven thermometers give accurate readings. The reviews usually involve using three or four different thermometers and/or specially calibrated scientific precision instruments to gauge accuracy, but most home cooks / bakers don't have access to precision instruments or multiple thermometers. So I'm not sure how to determine whether my thermometer is accurate.
Here's the full story. I recently purchased a countertop Hamilton Beach toaster / convection oven. Dishes I prepare in it take significantly longer to bake/cook than the stated times. If something says "bake for 35 minutes or until a toothpick," etc., it usually takes 45 minutes or so for the dish to be done. I suspected the oven might be running cold, so I purchased a Rubbermaid oven thermometer to check. It's the first oven thermometer I've owned.
I tried the thermometer in the HB oven on both the convection and regular settings. I also tried it on the oven in my fifteen year old GE electric range. According to the thermometer, the GE oven is accurate: if I set it at 350, the thermometer shows 350. The Hamilton Beach one is apparently too hot by 10 degrees or so, on both regular and convection: if I set it at 350, the thermometer shows 360. I was surprised at this, because as I said the catalyst for my purchasing the thermometer was that I thought the Hamilton Beach might be running colder than the chosen temperature.
I've noticed that on the GE too I have to bake things for longer than the stated time, though to a lesser extent. I've always assumed it's just because recipes are conservative and err on the side of not burning food. If there's a range of times ("Put in a 350 degree oven for 45 to 50 minutes"), cook times on the GE are usually at midpoint to higher end of that range.
The Hamilton Beach does give off heat rather noticeably when in use. I'm wondering the higher actual temperature is an imperfect way for the manufacturer to compensate for heat escaping from the unit. As a countertop device, it's not anywhere as efficient as the very solid GE.
But I'm also wondering about the oven thermometer itself. After all, there's no guarantee that the thermometer isn't off! How do I know whether the oven thermometer is accurate? It's at least possible that the Hamilton Beach is entirely accurate, the GE runs ten degrees cold, and the thermometer readings are ten degrees too warm.
It probably wouldn't work with an oven thermometer, but I've tested kitchen thermometers by putting them in boiling water. Water boils at a constant temperature (100C at sea level) so it's a simple and accurate way to test a thermometer.
Of possible interest: http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/37470/can-i-test-my-oven-temperature-without-an-oven-thermometer
The larger oven will store more heat (especially as being older the metal may well be thicker). So it will cool down less when you put the food in. This has a big effect on cooking times. It may also have a more powerful element. An oven thermometer is also going to be a bit less predictable if much of the heat is radiant.
Use a pot of water!
Find out the lowest temperature of your oven (needs to be at least below 212 F for it to work). Preheat the oven to this heat
Heat water on the stove to a temperature let's say, about 10 F below the oven temp. Use a candy thermometer and leave it in the water, but not touching the bottom of the pan.
Once the oven is preheated, transfer the pot of water to the oven, and leave the candy thermometer on the whole time.
Periodically check the temperature of the water. It should asymptotically approach the temperature of the oven. If the water temp closes in on the temp of the oven, the oven thermometer is calibrated!
You can verify by checking the temperature on the opposite end. Warm the water on the stove to 10 F above the oven temp, and watch the candy thermometer go down to the oven temp.
Note: it is very important to get the water on the stove close to the oven temp. Water has a very large specific heat capacity and will take quite a while to heat up in the oven, as it takes a large amount of energy to heat water.
Why not put the candy thermometer besides the oven thermometer? While the heat capacity of water is a nice for buffering the temperature in the oven it also means that temperature equilibrium takes much time (even if you are presumably close by preheating) and the heat loss through evaporation can easily mess up this experiment (=> at least use a lid on the pot with water).
Depending where you live, you may be able to get official proof of accuracy for as low as $25 ~ $40 equivalent. If you bought an expensive thermometer and want to be really sure, this might be a decent option. If you are in food business and, for example, need to know for sure if meat reaches the minimum required temperature for minimum required time, it's a must.
Sometimes you can ask them nicely and if they are not busy, or have students on training, you can get it tested for free - without a paper, then, of course, so that's only for private use.
Consider looking for measurement agency in your area. Most countries that have sanitary requirements about temperature also allows to somehow obtain papers on your measurement tools.
Thanks for the suggestion! The thermometer I purchased is cheap ($7 or so). Also, I don't understand Polish, sadly, so I could not tell what the link you provided was saying. I live in the US, and I have no idea how I would go about contacting an agency that provides official proof of accuracy. I'm not sure I can take this route.
@verbose Link is just an example of agency that certifies thermometers for the price I gave - in my country. In other countries, well, comprehensive list would be oo long for Q&A. For $7 it has a little sense. For someone that really has to know for sure (like restaurants), it's another matter.
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78396 | How do big companies can products at large scales?
Canning product in small batches can be done using bath or pressure canning. But it takes a long time for canning a small batch. I was wondering how big companies do it at large scales.
I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it's not about cooking, but industrial processes.
What I've seen (on TV, not in person) is typically somewhat different than a home process - the food is sealed in the cans (raw) and then run through a giant pressure cooker, typically on some sort of conveyor system, and spends a number of hours being cooked in the cans at the same time as it's being "canned" (heat-processed to kill bacteria) - at least this seems to apply to canned beans. Labels are applied after the can has cooled.
I've always just assumed they're an oven or hot water bath that the conveyor belt ...For a pressure cooker, you'd have to seal the cans in, which means breaking the constant feed from the conveyors.
@Joe the point is that a hot water bath can't get hot enough (without pressure) for sufficient heat processing. Not much survives boiling water, but some of the species that do are real nasties. An oven might work but as the cans spend some time cooking a conveyor might not be the most space-efficient approach at that stage anyway.
@Ecnerwal so you are saying big companies use bigger version of pressure canners like this https://www.amazon.ca/National-Presto-01781-23-Quart-Pressure/dp/B0000BYCFU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1487058070&sr=8-1&keywords=pressure+canner?
So my point is do big companies use the same techniques or there is another way that cannot be done at home. If it's the same technique and just bigger equipments, then the problem is solved!
It's a simple enough technical issue to have an airlock/steamlock that accepts some number of cans at a time when you are building a cooker the size of a house in a factory... I would say that the process is not "exactly he same as at home" on a number of fronts - I don't know anyone that uses metal cans at home, for a start, and home processes are generally tuned to "cook the food, pack it hot, process it" rather than combining cooking and processing.
@AliBZ : it'd likely be more like an industrial autoclave, where it's a large pressurized room. I've been in ones that could fit an SUV in it. (and they were installing one that could fit a shipping container ... this was a place that made airplane parts). But those would bake at 350°F to 450°F ... so they'd take an hour to get up to temp, cook for 3-4 hours, then cool off for a couple of hours before they'd break the seal and open it. Then 30-45 minutes of venting before we'd go in and retrieve parts.
@Ecnerwal Upon thinking more about it -- I suspect that the cans are not put through any form of pressurized atmosphere. Because they're sealed before cooking, and the level of moisture and temperature are tightly controlled, they could easily be creating pressure inside the can, turning every one into its own little pressurized vessel.
You would be wrong. You need steam for fast, efficient heat transfer, and you need pressure to get adequate temperature from steam. An oven would be russian roulette - a vessel filled with 15 PSI steam is 252F everywhere for as long as that steam pressure is held, making for a nice predictable, safe process.
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77753 | How does the way chicken is cut affect the taste (if at all)?
I wonder if a sloppily filleted chicken breast will yield a drier, less flavorful chicken. If it does, why is this the case? And what is the proper way to filet a chicken?
The way meat is cut can affect it in a few ways. The most obvious is cooking time, a thinner cut of meat with more surface area will cook much more quickly than a thicker cut with less or equal surface area. Thus unevenly cut meat will cook unevenly, with thicker portions remaining raw while thinner portions are cooked through or overcooked. The way the meat is cut can also affect how well spices will stick to the surface of the meat, where again a higher surface area will lead to more spices sticking. This can be further increased by cutting the chicken in a jagged manner, which provides more area for spices or rubs to stick. The way it is cut can be especially important with chicken as it tends to cook and dry out very quickly, and so an unevenly filleted chicken breast will become very dry in areas while possibly remaining unsafe to eat in others. Thus, rather than cutting the chicken in a jagged manner to get spices to stick better, it is generally a better idea to make shallow cuts in the surface of the chicken breast and place seasoning or whatever you like inside (you have likely seen this before, called hasselback chicken, though it is more commonly done with steak), as the jagged cuts lead to differing thickness across the cutlet. Ideally when filleting a chicken breast you would make a single cut resulting in two evenly sized pieces of meat, then if you would like more surface area for your seasoning to take hold make shallow cuts across the grain of the meat. Here is a website that goes more in-depth on the proper method for fileting a chicken breast into cutlets.
You went in detail about how the size and shape of the cut affects the cooking, but what about the texture of the cut? For example, some fillets have a smooth surface that has a slight sheen while others have a jagged surface with many places where the meat was cut against the muscles. How does that affect the cooking?
Edited to include more information about that
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104542 | Not a tender steak
I have just grilled a AA boneless strip loin on the B.B.Q. I thawed it out in the fridge overnight. It was about 1" thick. I removed the outside moisture with paper towels and seasoned with salt and pepper. I grilled it on just off high (the thermostat read 400). Aesthetically, it was cooked to a perfectly medium rare, quite pink in the centre with distinctive grill marks. Only problem, it was dry and tough. It tasted like a well done steak! Did I miss an important cooking technique or was it simply the quality of the meat? Again, it was a AA with a reasonable amount of marbling.
Did you rest the steak after cooking? If so, how long?
You must be in Canada. The Canadian beef grading system is as follows, and these are all considered in the category of "high quality":
Prime - abundant marbling, about 2 percent of beef is graded as prime
AAA - small amounts of visual marbling, very high quality, up to 50% is graded AAA
AA - slight amount of marbling, a step down from AAA, 45% of beef is graded AA
A - the lowest rating, up to 3% of Canadian beef is rated A. Less evenly distributed fat...needs more attention and care when cooking.
Given the AA rating, you probably did not have much fat/marbling to help the texture.
One suggestion is to employ sous vide cooking. With this approach, you can make cuts more tender by cooking them longer, but also retaining the desired level of doneness.
I agree with part of moscafj's answer in regard to grading: the lack of marbling may have contributed to dryness as well as some reduction in tenderness.
However, I'm not sure that I agree that a strip loin steak is "not the most tender cut of meat to begin with." It's cut from the back part of the longissimus dorsi muscle (a muscle that receives very little work, and is thus tender), the part that makes the ribeye segments in the front of the cow that dreams are made of. Yes, it's not as tender as a filet mignon/tenderloin or ribeye, but it's difficult to find anything else on the cow that's as tender as a decent strip steak. (So, it probably beats out maybe 90% of the other meat on a cow for tenderness.)
All of that said, I've had very tender great strip steaks, and I've had others that were chewy and dry (as you experienced), even when cooked properly. Just as I've had awful ribeye and porterhouse steaks from some stores. Meat quality can vary a lot depending on your source, and a lower grade won't help.
It's tough to know what else may have gone wrong, but here are a few thoughts:
The question mentions "thawing in the fridge," so I assume this was a frozen steak too. Freezing, particularly when done in the home fridge (rather than rapid commercial freezing) can also remove moisture and have detrimental effects on texture.
Also, I'd note the description of the cooked steak: "It was cooked to a perfectly medium rare, quite pink in the centre with distinctive grill marks." Grill marks may look pretty, but they won't make a steak tender or juicy (and actually can harm these qualities slightly if you go overboard). As for "pinkness," I might recommend checking temperature with a thermometer the next time to see exactly what temperature you're ending up with. Color is not always a reliable indicator of doneness, and sometimes by the time a steak looks "pink" (instead of "red") it's well past the maximum juiciness medium-rare stage.
Lastly, if you're looking for cooking techniques to maximize tenderness and juiciness of steaks, you can't go wrong with moscafj's sous vide suggestion. But if you're looking for something less involved and which may not require specialized equipment, I might look into the so-called "reverse sear" technique, where you heat the steak for a while in a low oven, then just sear quickly at the end on your grill (or in a pan). (It's called "reverse" as it's the opposite of what steakhouses traditionally do, where one sears first and puts into an oven to finish the steak throughout. Both techniques will avoid wider gray bands of overdone and dry meat near the edges, though the "reverse" is better for maximizing tenderness with a longer slow cook at the outset.)
Thanks for all the great input. I actually was thinking of buying a sous vide. I will definitely try that cooking method!
Is sous vide really appropriate for a medium rare steak, where part of the "charm" is a barely warm and somewhat raw interior, yet an exterior that has been singed by intense heat and is slightly charred in spots? It strikes me that sous vide does the opposite of that (cooks the entire protein evenly inside and out). Or, do you use the sous vide to cook it through, and then sear afterwards?
@dwizum: Yes, sous vide is typically followed by a sear.
I see nothing about letting the steak rest after cooking, which should be done for at least 5-10 minutes if not more for really thick cuts. If you cut into the steak immediately, all of the juices end up on the cutting board/plate, and not in your mouth.
Welcome to our site! Actually the steaks had rested for a good 20 min. There were no juices on the plate OR in my mouth!
After 5-10 minutes, how is the steak still at an appropriate temperature? Does it rest in a warm oven or suchlike?
@Kingsley If you have a large BBQ, you can let it rest on the side (where there is only passive heat) in aluminium foil. Depending on the heat in the BBQ you might want to pull the steak early, because it might become too done.
I think what you might have experienced is - a tissue steak. I frequently buy strip loins, and there's a very specific thing you need to look for when buying them. If there's a prominent 'half circle' of gristle - you're probably dealing with a strip loin that was cut from the less pleasant end of the primal (sirloin end.) They are notoriously chewy and fibrous.
For more information see here
I had no idea. Now I am armed with great ammunition when visiting the butcher shop, or the supermarket!! Thanks!
For tough cuts of beef, dry brining is a wonderful technique. I also question, as above, if this cut would be considered tough.
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79201 | Is my heavy cream not actually heavy cream?
I am under the impression that the difference between milk and heavy cream is the percentage of butterfat/milkfat. I purchased a gallon of D enriched whole milk today, as well as some heavy "whipping" cream.
The heavy whipping cream lists Serving Size as 1 Tablespoon, Total Fat at 5g: 8%, Saturated Fat at 3.5g: 17%, and Monounsaturated Fat at 1.5g (with no percentage).
The whole milk lists Serving Size as 1 Cup, Total Fat at 8g: 12%, Saturated Fat at 5g: 25%, and does not list Monounsaturated Fat.
I believe that g = grams.
The Heavy Cream that I purchased is the only heavy cream available at the local store where I generally do my shopping.
So, if heavy cream is supposed to have more milkfat than whole milk (I've read 30-40%, and in some cases higher), why does my "heavy cream" seem to have much lower fat content than whole milk? Is it not heavy cream? Am I missing something?
Is my grocery store committing dairy fraud? (it's a store brand). If so, is there anything that I can or should do about it (aside from shopping elsewhere)?
I live in the U.S., btw,
You're comparing different quantities. A serving of cream (per your label) is a tablespoon. You're comparing that to 1 cup (or 16 tablespoons) of milk.
The percentage that you're seeing is not what percentage of your dairy product is fat, but the percentage of the recommended daily amount of that nutrient found in a single serving. % Daily Value is figured using 2000 total calories per person, per day.
From @Jefromi in comments: "And a tablespoon of cream is 15g, so with 5g of fat, that's indeed about 33%, right in the expected range. Similarly the milk is 8g of fat out of about 237g, or 3.4%, what you'd expect for whole milk."
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124692 | How do I store ready-to-eat salad better?
I have been buying ready-to-eat salad from a local store. It comes in different varieties and pretty big unwieldy transparent plastic boxes. One of the issues I have noticed is some boxes of salad go bad pretty fast, the leaves turning dark pretty quickly and ultimately reducing to unpalatable dark colored pulp. I also noticed they turn to mush much earlier than the stated best-by dates on the label. I just had a box of salad turn half bad today but the best-by date on the label is July 15, a good 5 days from now. What am I not doing right? I have a very old, small fridge where I store my salad so I think the temperatures inside were not always even, neither temporally (over a period of time) nor spatially (I can tell the fridge works better towards the back). Could that be the reason?
Is the salad sold sealed? If so, the best-before date probably applies only if you don't open it. Salads with leaves are very hard to keep fresh and I wouldn't expect an open one to last long (although I'm sure people can offer advice that helps a little).
@dbmag9 The boxes are not fully sealed and by no means air tight. The lid is snapped onto the lower half and that's literally how they sit in the store. Same packaging as this salad sold at Walmart. I buy a box and open it by simply breaking the half-connected side and lifting the lid. And afterwards I just clap it back on and I don't think it makes much of a difference because even unopened at the store the lid barely does anything more than being a cover.
How do I acquire this mythical eating by reading capability?
This is too short for an answer, but I find that a paper napkin inside the container absorbs humidity pretty well, and that helps too, besides all the good advice you got below. I personally have a rigid air tight container where I can pull a vacuum, and that works very very well - I suspect for humidity, too. I have a pretty new/decent fridge so that should theoretically not be a factor for me.
For what it's worth, replacing an old fridge will actually pay back for itself in power saved over the course of a few years. Especially if you factor the cost of expired food.
Does ready-to-eat mean the salat is already covered in a dressing or is just the salad leaves?
Refrigerators can vary quite a bit in terms of how consistently they keep the temperature (both over time and in different parts) depending on design. A simple design is cheap to produce but may have unexpected side effects. See this video for a fascinating (to me, at least) explanation.
I agree that it's very likely the fridge. Beside it swinging too wildly, there can be another problem though: too cold.
I've seen people, especially Americans, turning fridges down as cold as they will go. This can result in food partially freezing, at least for a little bit of the cooling cycle. If this happens in your fridge, you'll probably recognize it from sometimes noticing a bit of crystalization in yogurt. But it may also happen with loose salad leaves only, because they have very little mass and will be the first thing to freeze, maybe even only the outer layers.
Salad leaves which have been frozen and thawed exhibit the exact problem you describe: they turn to dark, unappetizing mush. This happens as soon as they've thawed, and at least at the beginning, there is no bad smell at all, just the changed texture.
If you suspect this might be the case, see if you can find (borrow?) a thermometer that can record the temperature over a period of time. Wireless would be ideal, but you can also use a thermometer with a probe on a long cable, fridge door seals close over probes without leaks. Just make sure it's accurate for low temperatures, so not a grill thermometer that was calibrated for the 50-250 C range only.
If you don't want to bother with a thermometer, and are already using a very low setting, turn it up a bit and see if the problem is solved.
Be sure to measure the temperature of the same bit of the fridge where you keep your salad. The temperature inside a fridge isn't uniform in space either.
For the record, recommendations are usually 35-38 deg F, but certainly never above 40 deg F
Yes, the official regulations in the USA prescribe 32-40 F for fridges. Assuming that you want to follow this standard: If your fridge is maintaining a temp close to 40, you shouldn't be having problems with freezing, unless it swings so much around the set point that it goes to below freezing - which then can't be corrected by changing your settings, you'll be looking at a new thermostat or a whole new fridge.
@ScottSeidman the official recommendation in the EU is 5°C (41°F) while here in Germany something between 6°C and 8°C (42,8°F and 46,4°F) is recommended. We're all still alive. 35°F is ridiculously cold for a fridge.
@Maeher: in France this is typically 7°C (44.6°F), this is the temperature I saw refrigerators starting on by default.
Can you provide a quote for the 32-40 F recommendation? Going below 35 or so is actively bad because temperature is not uniform across the fridge so if you put it in that range you will have temperatures of 32 or less in some parts which leads to the exact freezing problem you described.
As for temperature fluctuations in cheap fridges, look no further: https://youtu.be/8PTjPzw9VhY - TC has it covered :-)
@quarague, Some sites such as this one do quote the 32-40 range, but seems like the "official" advice from the USDA just says "Under 40 degrees throughout the refrigerator". I keep my "extra" fridge close to 32 and keep drinks in there because I want them as cold as possible, but the main food fridge isn't that low.
As others have covered the likely problems with your fridge, I'm just adding tips on how to give maximum lifetime to your salad greens after you fix the fridge:
The ideal container for greens is spacious yet sealed. This gives salad some air but seals in moisture, and prevents the leaves from being crushed. As such, those "unwieldy plastic boxes" are actually a better place for the salad ingredients than a produce bag; when I put salads in a bag, I often inflate the bag and tie it off.
One way you can improve the storage lifetime of the salad in those boxes is to take the salad out of the box, line the bottom with paper towels, and put it back in and seal it. This prevents moisture that pools at the bottom of the box from wilting the salad.
I go farther than that - I've noticed I get significantly better longevity out of all manner of leafy greens if I line, not only the bottom, but also the top, and ideally at least a couple layers in the middle as well. Moisture is definitely the enemy, or at least one of the bigger ones.
Interesting. I've always found that I keep greens longer if I put into a bag where I can push and keep all the air out. Especially with lettuce that I rinse and separate into layers with paper towels in a large zip-lock bag pressed down to remove all air.
It's probably your refrigerator. Old, crappy refrigerators end up with high hysteresis (that is, they don't turn on until it gets pretty warm, and then don't turn back off until it's way too cold). Depending on how the refrigerator is set, this means that the salad leaves are too warm for too long (causing decay mushiness) or repeatedly frozen (causing refreezing mushiness). Or both.
Try putting your salad near/under containers of liquid (milk, ketchup, w/e) to even out temperature variations. Also try playing with the thermostat on the refrigerator, turning it up if you've ever noticed ice collecting in your food or turning it down if the salad leaves smell moldy. Remember, once you've changed the thermostat, wait at least 24 hours before evaluating the results.
Once salad begins to wilt, I rinse in a few charges of fresh water to remove the putrid goop, then I steam it and freeze it like spinach. In fact, those general green salad mixes make a very good substitute for wilted spinach in many applications, like spanikopita, dips, smoothies, etc. If on the other hand, the salad shows mold, I toss it. I really expect to finish it off within 5 days of opening it tops. If your boxes consistently expire before then, there is either an issue with your refrigerator or the store's refrigerator.
Out of personal experience:
avoid squeezing the bag too hard against other solid objects in the fridge.
Avoid as much as possible direct contact with the fridge wall where the cooling circuit is located. The cooling circuit is way colder than the fridge, as you can tell from the ice that sometimes forms on it.
if the bag has been opened, try to close it but not too tight: you want some air circulation to prevent moisture condensation spoiling the leaves, but not so much to dry it quickly. I usually do a 2-3 rolls of the top and then let free.
I keep salad in a plastic lidded container, put some paper towels on top, then store it upside down, so that excess water drips into the paper towels. I then change those daily.
I first started doing this for my pet iguana's food, since I had to make it by hand from various veggies/fruits/greens, and she ate every day.
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117702 | Infuse flavor into dry-mushroom broth
Specifically porcini powder, may occasionally add other dried mushrooms.
Epicurious simmers dry porcini uncovered one hour; NYT just 30min.
Both include veg which I won't.
This broth should be as concentrated in flavor as practical for use as seasoning not soup.
I use it in mushroom paté.
Can't add porcini powder as is to paté due to grit.
(Beware of ingredient prices too good to be true).
1.How long to simmer
2.Does adding salt or oil help to
draw out the flavor
3. Any other tips
Porcini is a fairly strong flavor. I can't imagine much of a difference in simmering 3o minutes or an hour. I would start with whole, good quality (there is some variation) dehydrated porcini. Soak or simmer. Then, I would squeeze out the rehydrated porcini. Strain the soaking water through a coffee filter to remove grit. Put porcini and filtered soaking water into a high speed blender. Blend. Then strain and add to your pate. Just know that porcini will be the dominant flavor of the end product, but maybe that is what you are going for.
Powder. Am starting with powder not porcini pieces.
@PatSommer...got it, I just think you will get a better result with the non-powdered version. With powdered, you probably don't even need 30 minutes of soaking.
If you could provide any references then that would be the definitive answer. From my experience, much flavor with overnight soak after reaching boil but just my perception. The overnight is to allow grit to settle but also lose much body of broth
@PatSommer I don't have a reference. I am just speaking from experience...but why not try it yourself? Dried porcini are easy to come by, and it is easy to grind the dried into a powder. It would be fairly straight-forward to compare ground vs. sliced and short vs. long soak. See which you prefer. All versions will likely flavor your pate.
Not my question at all ground vrs soaked. Just how to get most out of my 1kg of powder. I will taste today if longer soaking makes perceivable difference.
I would switch to making it in a pressure cooker. That way, you definitely get much more taste out of it than by simply simmering.
You cannot add anything to "help draw out the flavor", but of course you can add ingredients which contribute their own flavor, such as salt, marmite, etc. It is better to add these after the broth has been made. I wouldn't add oil to the broth; add it to the final dish instead, at the appropriate time.
Will have to do a side by side with dry mushroom: finally got thru cheap powder. According to Cooks Illustrated: "both the color and the flavor of the stocks noticeably different. Pressure-broth was darker, more complex, meaty flavor, while the Dutch oven had a cleaner, purer chicken taste. What gives? Turns out high temp in pr cooker does more than just speed up the cooking time. promotes extraction of flavor from skin and bones with breakdown of proteins into peptides, producing rich meatiness. the broth cooked in a Dutch oven tasted more like chicken but was less meaty-tasting overall."
You can use a dashi infusing method with konbu (dried kelp), unheated or heated, and check the taste each step:
Try a 5:1 ratio by weight porcini powder to konbu to start, in 20 parts cold water. The mushroom powder may have lost some flavour due to age with a higher surface area, so experiment with a higher ratio of mushroom powder.
Steep the powder and konbu, preferably overnight and in the fridge. The long cold steeping will extract the flavour without extracting alginates in the konbu that would affect texture. Do a taste test here.
If desired, bring the mix to a very low simmer and turn off the burner for heated extraction. Allow the mix to cool and settle before decanting.
Konbu with its glutamic acid has a synergistic effect on taste with the guanylates from mushrooms. Other foods you can consider mixing can be found on umamiinfo.
Adapted from a shiitake mushroom dashi recipe from toiro kitchen.
This is an interesting idea!
Glutamic acid helps; get mine from Po Lo Ku Mushroom Seasoning Powder. Glad I finally finished that kg of powder!
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77744 | How do I stop my Crispie/Crispy cake from going stale?
I make a Crispie type cake, but with my own homemade ingredients, Mallows,etc when I make it with shop bought Marshmallows etc it lasts for weeks, when I make it with my own ingredients it goes soft/dry, the crispies loose their crisp and the gooeyness goes. How do I solve this? Would thicker packaging work? or vacuum sealer. At the moment they are just on trial and are being ept in thin "boil in a bag" vacuum packaging for home use.
Can anyone give me any advice that might help me please.
Thank you Sarah
I'm sorry, I don't know of Crispie type cakes. Can you post a recipe?
Marshmallows, butter and puffed rice
So what is also known as a rice krispy treat?
Yes, however, I am English, so over here we use a C instead of a K. :)
How do you make the crisped rice?
Sounds like you've got water migrating from your home-made marshmallow to your puffed rice. Packaging won't (can't) solve that.
How would I stop that? Because even shop bought marshmallows contain water. Do you have any suggestions that might help me solve the problem? Many thanks
I also buy the crisped rice as it is.
I usually store them in an airtight container, with wax paper underneath each layer. They keep very dry stored like this. It could be that your bag is not sealing 100%
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85228 | Citric acid for hard-boiled eggs?
I recently ordered some dish from a local food delivery company. The dish, among other ingredients, contained hard-boiled eggs. The ingredient list read the following:
[...] Hard-boiled eggs (egg, citric acid), [...]
Due to that formatting, the citric acid was definitely used for the eggs, not for the dish as a whole. I am wondering what the purpose of using citric acid for cooking hard boiled eggs could be. I am not sure how/in what quantity/when it is added to the eggs. I could think of a few possible reasons to using it, however, I am not sure if any of these is real. My ideas are:
Perhaps, given that it is acid, it helps removing the bacteria and/or feces remnants from the shell, or
Given the lime content of egg shells and the fact that lime is pretty reactive to some acids, it might help with peeling. It sounds reasonable as we are talking about a food delivery company, probably cooking eggs up in the quantities of the hundreds to thousands.
These are just my two cents, does anyone know the (possibly) real reason behind it?
Often the peeled eggs are stored in water and they can turn slightly brown. A touch of lemon keeps them more white.
US patent EP0020011 A2 describes a process of packaging shelled hard boiled eggs where the egg is dipped in a citric acid solution to prevent discoloration of the yolk at the white-yolk interface. I would guess that’s what is going on in this case.
Thanks for your remark, I was wrong about the translation, fixed it. In my country, we call it "lemon acid" for some unknown reason.
Reason not all that mysterious: Citric, citrus, lemons - and the taste is basically lemon with a lack of the complexity of actual lemon, but easily 90% of the way there ( I made some "citric acid lemon ice" as an experiment so that's a first-hand assessment. Citric acid, sugar and water.)
Citric acid is used after eggs are cooked and peeled to prevent grow of pathogenic bacteria especially Listeria monocytogenes. This bacteria should be readily destroyed during the boiling of eggs due to its low thermal resistance (D) value, however hard-boiled eggs may be subjected to post-processing contamination by food handlers or work surfaces during preparation and packaging. Post processing storage in citric acid is used as one of the solutions to make sure hardboiled eggs are safe to eat.
Citric acid also helps to get rid of 'grey ring' which might form around the yolk if eggs are overcooked but primary purpose of citric is food safety
Citric acid will not increase eggs peelability. It is age of egg which defines it. Fresher egg is more acidic and peels bad. While egg ages its pH increases and peelability improves.
I disagree on the "peelability" being related to the age; check this study out: https://foodscienceinstitute.com/2017/09/15/easy-peel-hard-boiled-eggs/comment-page-1/
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116547 | Why did my pot get so blackened after boiling some eggs?
I bought this pot a few weeks ago. I've only used it a couple times since, but yesterday I decided to boil some eggs in it.
I ended up forgetting about them for a minute, when I came back the water was not enough to cover them anymore. About 10% of the eggs surface were exposed to air, however, the pot was this very dark color.
I've never seen a pot blacken like that, at most something like a kettle if you let it run dry for a while.
The pot has what looks like a machined bottom, with some casting bubbles that you can see as the light spots at the bottom. Which leads me to believe this might have been caused by scrubbing, given the strange uneveness? But the coloring only manifested once I used it again.
By weight, and the fact it is so poorly cast, I think it might be aluminium, but there are no markings specifying the material of the pot. I even went back to the store and the label doesn't specify either.
Is the pot magnetic? If it is not magnetic, it is aluminum. If it is weakly magnetic, it is stainless steel. If it is magnetic, it is steel. You can also tell by weight if you have some experience with both metals. Aluminum is a LOT lighter.
I am pretty sure it is the sulphur in the eggs that is doing this. It is present even in the egg shell.
When iron and sulphur react under heat, it forms iron II sulphide which is black (or brown) in colour.
@DKNguen, that may be true but if you are going to answer with that you need to provide a basis. Perhaps this would be better as a comment than an answer, unless you want to edit and add detail?
@GdD Is that detail enough?
Uncoated aluminum pans are very prone to oxidization. Aluminum Oxide can be dark grey, or get close to black. Certain things can make aluminum oxidize faster, such as putting them through the dishwasher.
This is pretty common in uncoated aluminum pans. You can scrub it off, or soak it in water & vinegar then hand washing and drying. However, as soon as it's clean it will likely come back fairly quickly--though what you cook in the pot and how you wash and handle it could slow (but not entirely prevent) it from coming back.
Aluminum oxide is essentially "aluminum rust"... Though there are some differences. When iron gets that red iron oxide rust that we all know, it spreads and continues to degrade the iron. Aluminum oxide actually creates a bit of a protective coating and slows the further corrosion of the aluminum.
Interesting. Is it safe to use it in this oxidized state? The boiled water seemed to be clear, but chemically you can never be sure just by looking.
@Kroltan Aluminum oxide is the abrasive used in sandpaper sand and sharpening stones and is also what makes up rubies and sapphires. So though you might find eating out of a bowl made of abrasive unappealing (which is not as pure as it could be for most abrasive applications. Pure aluminum oxide of that form is white) it is basically the same as a ruby or sapphire bowl which you probably have much less issue with, sapphire being used as an exotic glass in some applications. Very unreactive. I'd be more concerned about consumption of actual aluminum.
To avoid this problem, you want anodized aluminium, which provides a better protective layer and is common.
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96251 | can i use yeast instead of baking powder in a cookie receipe?
I currently have no baking powder in the cupboard and I'm just wondering if i can use yeast in a cookie dough recipe instead of baking powder
Cookies don't require leavening. Look for shortbread or variations on brownies.
Your usual cookie recipe can't simply be adapted, but there are plenty of yeast cookie recipes (chocolate chip example). Some of them look rather interesting, but unlike the one I linked have significant rise times.
If you would be baking a cake, I would say there’s a good chance it would work. However the mechanism of action of yeast is not compatible with the usage of baking soda in baking cookies. For the following two reasons:
Cookie dough doesn’t really have much water content compared to other doughs and batters, and baking soda needs acidity and water to create the leavening effect. As you’re baking the dough, the butter will melt and create the right conditions for the baking soda to work. You’d want the leavening effect to be almost instantenous (or in a really short amount of time) in the oven so that as the CO2 escapes the dough in an instant, it will increase the surface area of the cookie and create the crips/crunch texture you’re accustomed to.
Baking soda also increases the pH of the dough, which results in prolonging the coagulation of the proteins (especially egg-proteins) and result in a flatter cookie (as you’d like to have). And higher pH also means promoted Maillard reaction, which will result in darker crust cookies.
The question is about baking powder, yet I’ve explained the mechanism through the baking soda, simply because baking powder = baking soda + acid
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83043 | What determines the length of sous vide cooking time?
What factors affect sous vide cooking time, generally? I imagine cooking time is essentially the amount of time needed for the food's internal temperature to reach equilibrium with the desired temperature. Are there pros or cons to cooking longer or shorter?
For reference, I am primarily interested in cooking custard base sous vide, but would be interested in responses with regard to other food types as well.
Specifically for custard, you pretty much want the known good time from your recipe, but cooking longer will be fine.
In general, there are two major things:
how long does it take to get everything up to the desired temperature?
how long does it need to stay at that temperature?
The time to reach the desired temperature is pretty much just determined by size/shape. If there's a point in the middle that's 5cm from the closest surface, whether it's a 10cm diameter sphere or a 10cm thick slab, it's going to take longer. (The two aren't exactly the same in terms of heat propagation, but it's a good rough way to think about it.) I'm guessing liquids like your custard base also cook a little faster than solids, since there can be a little bit of convection flow inside the bag, not enough to be well-mixed, but better heat transfer than a solid.
The time at the target temperature depends greatly on what you're cooking. With many things, you just have to reach the temperature and then you're done. Holding at the target temperature after that might make no difference, or it might result in slow loss of quality. For example, you can hold steak quite a while at temperature, with not much change. On the other hand, you don't want to hold fish forever, because it'll tend to lose texture. And with something like pork shoulder or brisket, you actually need the long cooking time in order to slowly break down connective tissue and get it tender.
So, if you already have a time you know works:
Cooking shorter means underdone, either under temperature, or not tender.
Cooking longer means avoiding the risk of undercooking, and is generally fine, especially in moderation. For some things, it may overcook, like making your meat fall apart too easily.
For custard, the former is obviously bad (you want it to actually set), but the latter is not really an issue (it's not going to rapidly un-set).
As a footnote, there are some sous vide recipes designed to not actually reach equilibrium temperature. For example, you can cook eggs at a temperature high enough to set the whites, but for a shorter time to avoid firmly setting the yolks. Those are more like "normal" cooking in terms of over- and under-cooking, e.g. for the eggs, too long and you set the yolk, too short and you don't set the whites.
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79043 | Queso fresco / queso latino is raw food?
In Spain, you can find "Queso latino" in the supermarkets (at least in DIA). It comes in sealed plastic bags as it contains a lot of water and quite soft. I understand that in other locations it's name might be "queso fresco". I've found here some photos of the product and it's varieties here.
My question is, if this variety cheese can be considered raw food.
I think that a good definition of raw food cheese is that it's made of unpasteurized milk and it's not heated above or 40°C
In order to separate the curd from the whey, the milk is heated to a boil, so no, I would not consider this a raw food based on the definition you have in parenthesis.
Edit: In response to the clarified definition of raw food cheese, I would still say queso fresco does not qualify since the milk is heated well above the 40 degrees Celsius in the process of making it. I believe you can use either pasteurized or unpasteurized milk to make it. It's very similar (almost identical) to Indian paneer.
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119972 | Blender for mincing bell pepper?
I tried to grate bell pepper on a grater and it doesn't really work.
It worked on a meat grinder but I prefer some kind of smaller device.
The blenders work best for fruits, they only have the blades at the bottom of the container. Is there some types of blenders that work well for bell peppers? Probably having blades in the middle too, not only on the bottom.
Or other simple machines - manual or electric.
Later edit: This one seems to be what I need:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lH3xKp3tk0g&t=35s
Does it have a name? How can I find one on Amazon?
That's a mini food processor/chopper.
I don't know where the information "blenders work best for fruits" comes from, but it is untrue. Blenders work equally well for fruits and vegetables, there is no difference there (and it would be strange if there were, since the fruit/vegetable distinction is not about the physical structure of the food). A difference that might be interesting for you is: blenders are meant to produce a thick liquid/puree, while food processors/choppers are meant to produce small bits of food.
The device pictured at the beginning of the video you attached is called a food processor. There are several sizes and ranges of quality. Just type "food processor" into the Amazon search bar.
An issue came up once before that there are some languages that don’t make a distinction between ‘blender’ and ‘food processor’. (I think it was ‘mixie’ in Indian) so you might need to use an English language search engine that doesn’t do synonym expansion.
Thanks, it looks like "food chopper" is also a good term for searching such machines - for example this one - https://www.amazon.com/Electric-Processor-Stainless-Titanium-Chopping/dp/B07H4K499J/
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110386 | Cooking meat inside pumpkin
I was wondering if cooking meat inside pumpkin in oven would lead to a kore tasty meat or it will only be dry and tasteless.
I still haven't tried it, but watching a video that made octopus inside a pumpkin, brought me up with the idea of repalcing red meat inside. which at first I know , that it needs to be pre-cooked. But then, I was thinking how dry would it come out of the oven? Should I choose a specific type of pumpkin ? any add ins to make more moisture ?
It won't be dry unless you overcook it. The pumpkin flesh will give off steam and keep the meat moist.
The meat will pick up some pumpkin taste from the pumpkin, but it won't brown. So you're trading the flavor of browned meat for the flavor of pumpkin.
If you pre-cook the meat, you can get the flavor of browned meat along with the flavor of pumpkin. As Max pointed out, the pumpkin may not survive the long cooking time required by starting with raw meat, so using pre-cooked meat is probably a good idea anyway.
Here's a recipe that uses ground beef, which is first sauteed with onions and green peppers, then tomato sauce and spices added. The pumpkin is also partially-cooked. Then the pre-cooked meat/sauce mixture is stuffed inside the pre-cooked pumpkin, and the whole thing is baked for another hour.
The final cooking presumably allows the flavors to blend and also finishes cooking the pumpkin. The moisture from the pumpkin should prevent the already cooked meat from getting dry and overcooked.
“Dryness” in meat is not a result of not having enough water. Meat already has plenty of moisture, and for that matter it is entirely possible to produce dry meat by steaming it.
For sure. I’d wager most of us have had dry, chalky, overcooked boiled chicken once or twice.
IMO, if you start from raw ingredients, the pumpkin will be overcooked and start breaking apart before the meat gets cooked.
There are recipes that start with raw ingredients but not really meat (disclaimer, I've not searched long... )
I would suggest cook the meat before (like a stew ?); cool down the preparation and just then stuff the pumpkin with the preparation and bake until the pumpkin is tender.
Food Wishes recipe browns the meat first, but otherwise fully cooks it in the pumpkin. https://foodwishes.blogspot.com/2018/10/pig-in-pumpkin-trick-and-treat.html?m=1
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100383 | How to keep the bottom of my bread from getting burned?
I have been experimenting with making whole grain sourdough bread at home. My current recipe is for a loaf that is about 4 cups of flour total, not counting sourdough starter, evenly split between bread flour, whole wheat, and dark rye. After preparation and rising, I cook in a dutch oven, with the dough shaped like a long cylinder stretching from one side of the dutch oven to the other, so that it rises into a loaf shape. Cook time is 30 mins with the lid on, then 5 mins uncovered; at 500 F in a conventional oven. After cook time, I immediately take the loaf out of the dutch oven and let it cool on the counter.
This creates a pretty satisfactory loaf of bread; simple to make, tasty enough, cooked all the way through with a nice crust on the outside. My only issue is that it "burns" on the bottom where the loaf is in contact with the dutch oven. The loaf is slightly blackened on bottom, though that is mostly a cosmetic issue, there is no burnt toast flavor. However, the bottom 1/4 inch of the loaf is very tough and hard to cut when slicing.
I've tried varying cook times and haven't be able to solve this burning problem. What are some tactics that might allow my loaf to cook the same way on the crust and insides, but not burn the bottom as much?
How are you heating the Dutch Oven? In a conventional oven or a more direct heat method like a fire or charcoal?
@ChrisCudmore Conventional oven, 500 F. I should edit that in.
Try an insulated baking sheet under the dutch oven. For Example purposes only https://www.nordicware.com/insulated-baking-sheet
Hey King. I have to answer in the comments, looks like. Take off the lid handle of your dutch oven (it will unscrew). Wire the lid of your dutch oven securely down to the pot handles so it wont come off. Then flip the whole thing upside-down halfway thru the 30 minute bake. Lid handle comes off so it will sit upside-down, or you could pull apart wires of your oven rack to make space. Or you could use oven on its side and roll it 90 degrees a few times during bake.
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99215 | Do smokeless grills have an advantage over gas grills?
On my quest to balcony charcoal grilling, without bothering my neighbours, I have researched many solutions.
I am now, pretty sure, that I can limit the smoke of the actual burning by using the right coal (like cocos coal) and lighting it the right way.
However, the main problem appears to be the fat on coal dripping, which results in a lot of smoke, no matter the coal type.
I have stumbled upon a "smokeless charcoal grill", which is specifically designed to be smokeless and it looks like this:
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmVlfXxh-x0
From what I can tell, this grill hides the coal and works by indirectly heating the food, preventing fat dripping on the coal.
While this makes sense, this also limits the flavors, which develop by the dripping.
I wonder if there is no fat on coal dripping, does this even have an advantage over using a gas or electric grill?
Would the food still get some smokey flavour from the coal? Or is this actually the same as gas or electric flavorwise?
Flavors don't develop by dripping onto the heat source
Flavor can enter a meat from smoke, but you want the flavor of hardwoods like hickory or apple. You do not want the flavor of burnt grease; I have never heard anyone describe burnt grease as a pleasant smell or taste.
Therefore, you want the drippings to go somewhere that isn't the heat source. For some fatty foods this can be a problem, particularly 70/30 hamburgers or a pork shoulder. Many barbeque-ers will put a drip pan (a small tin-foil pan) into their grill to catch grease, keeping it away from the coals or the gas flame. Also, the drippings from some cooked meats can be re-used (like in a gravy), another reason for a drip pan.
I have never seen or used a smokeless charcoal grill. But, as long as the device works as promised and keeps the grease away from the flame, there should be no change in flavor of your finished foods.
There has also been some evidence that the smoke from fat dripping on hot coals, or gas/electric heat elements is a carcinogen. In no way do I intend that comment from being alarmist, but some do consider it to be a moderate food risk. It tends to be far more of a bitter, harsh taste than the intended wood/coal smoke most of us look for, so indirect heat and drip catchers are really the way to go for most grill work. Melted or rendered fat = good in many cases. Burnt fat, not good eats and potentially not good for you.
Interesting! I watched a documentary on japanese grill, where they explained, that the drippings, causing smoke are an essential part of the falvor. But they could be wrong ofc. This sounds reassuring. But would you prefer this charcoal grill to a gas grill? It should still have more smokey flavor right?
@user1721135 Gas does not inherently give any smokey flavor; charcoal briquettes do but it tends to be less pleasant, especially with match-light briquettes. In either case, you want to add smoky flavor using wood; either wood chips or lump hardwood. You should read up about how smoking works; I'd recommend the Barbeque Bible.
But why do people prefer charcoal to gas then? Very few people bother with wood.
@user1721135 You can buy lump hardwood charcoal, as opposed to briquettes, and that will give you the smokey flavor. Also charcoal will burn hotter and there is the appeal to tradition.
@user1721135 Why? One of the things that flavors food is memory. If you grew up eating burnt popcorn it doesn't matter that it tastes terrible and smells worse. That's your memory. Nostalgia is a nice spice but understand why you like it before you prepare it for other people.
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97531 | Is a top heat gas grill, capable of 800°C / 1500°F perfect for pizza and sous vide steak?
I am talking about something like this:
The biggest problem with home made pizza seems to be the lack of temperature, which dries out the dough. Professional pizza makers bake a pizza for under 2 minutes at about 400-450°C / 800-900°F.
I also appreciate this machine's capability to sear a sous vide steak, without creating a gradient.
Basically, this looks like exactly what I am looking for, a steak / pizza machine, which can do grilling as well.
At first I wanted to get a Weber gas grill, but the problem is the low maximum temperature.
One downside of this machine is that it doesn't heat evenly at all. But I think I could get around that by turning the pizza.
Does this machine have any disadvantages compared to similar solutions, which are produced for home made pizza specifically?
The temperature checks out, but is it missing something critical? And also, would it actually produce crust without cooking the inside, similar to a torch, but hopefully a lot quicker?
If a grill existed, which could cover these two things (steak searing after sous vide and proper pizza) I would actually prefer something like a Weber gas grill. But my understanding is, that these have trouble achieving anything above 350°C / 700°F.
The problem with this for pizza is the top-heating feature. Best for Neapolitan pizza is a very hot surface that quickly cooks the crust, along with a very high ambient temperature that cooks the top.
I think the hot surface won't be a problem, since I can use a steel / stone in it. So the problem is basically uneven heat right? Any way to get around that somehow? Maybe use a cover over the pizza or something like that?
No, at least for pizza.
Pizza needs to be cooked as fast as possible from all sides so that the crust is cooked and the topping are not over-cooked/burned.
In the case of a top-heat oven, you will over-cook/burn the topping before the crust is cooked.
i think it would be OK for broiling the steaks after vacuum cooking them.
Agree completely, but I'll quibble with the phrase "vacuum cooking." I think you mean sous vide or low temperature cooking. While "sous vide" does translate to "under vacuum," the method is easily accomplished without vacuum, such as by using a ziploc bag.
Even if I use a well preheated stone on the bottom?
Given the choice between gas grill and this thing, which would you prefer for my needs? Obviously none of the options are perfect.
@user1721135 I would say that this is not suited for pizza, and you could do just fine for steak with a stove top or BBQ grill. This would not give you any major advantage. How hot does your oven get? I do pizza just fine (yes a pizza oven would be better) in my oven with a pizza steel.
240 C. It works but it's not great.
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79567 | Does eating foods made using transglutaminase pose any risk to your health?
Does transglutaminase, the enzyme that is used to glue bits of meat together, pose any health risks?
The question doesn't specify whether it is about consuming something that it has been used correctly on (or incorrectly even), or about handling it.
Transglutaminase (TG) is a naturally occurring enzyme that butchers and chefs, particularly modernist chefs, have been using for a long time. The enzyme bonds proteins, that is why it is also sometimes called "meat glue." It is perfectly safe for consumption. You can read a good primer here.
I've never heard of transglutaminase before but this sounds like the answer to what I've been wanting in making casings-free sausages and in shaping thinner pork loins together into a proper thickness. Thank you SO much for the very comprehensive, thorough and scientific link. The science part is important t me in understanding why and if there are potential issues with health and safety.
@Jude it can be used for both of the purposes you specify. You can google "Modernist Pantry" for one source for ordering.
I already had just after leaving my comment. Sold as Activa. Going to check at a local butcher plant to see if they might carry it too. Thanks.
@Jude there are different formulations. For your applications, use RM.
The health risks, by my understanding, involve the possibility of bacterial contamination on the "inside" (i.e., stick two pieces of meat together, the bacteria that were on the outside will still exist where the former borders were). Not a problem if you cook the meat well, but many people like their meat cooked less. However, I also remember reading that internal bacterial contamination can be just as much of an issue even for solid pieces of meat, so it may not make a difference anyway.
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97285 | What type of oolong is Twining's oolong? Or what would this be closest too?
Edit: From the UK site, there is good reason to believe that Twining's is ALSO Iron Goddess of Mercy, but it tastes nothing like the IGoM I got from Numi. From what I've read about oolong, "nutty and fruity" are not typical characteristics of IGoM, where as the floral, honey suckle-like flavor of Numi's is. So I'm thinking Twingings is mislabeling their tea since Iron Goddess of Mercy is a well known type of oolong. It wouldn't be the first time I've seen tea mislabeled so its not unthinkable. This chances the question, to "what oolong is nutty and fruity".
Recently I discovered that I love Twining's oolong tea. It has a light, refreshing flavor. Unfortunately, in the US, it is only sold in units of 20 bags, so I purchased a 1 pound bag of Numi's Iron Goddess of Mercy.
The tea is certainly good, but I prefer the Twinings. Where Twinings is nutty and fruity, and it tastes like neither black nor green tea, Numi's tastes much like green tea with a floral falvor. Its still good, but I like the Twinings better.
I then looked up oolong and found that unlike green, black, and white tea, oolong has a wider range of variation. While its true you can have different types of green or black tea (Darjeeling, gunpowder green, sencha, macha...) those all have, at their base, the same ingredient: camellia sinensis leaves that have been dried and processed either with 100% oxidation (black), or 0% (green and white). The difference between green and white is then when the leaves are plucked.
In the case of oolong, the oxidation, and the means of oxidizing, varies greatly (from 8% to 80%), and from mild bruising to fermenting. Iron Goddess of Mercy is one such type of oolong.
My question is then, "what type of oolong does Twinings sell" because I would like to buy a big bag of the stuff (albeit from another company).
Another bit of information that might help: The tea, brewed, is darker than the Iron Goddess of Mercy tea (at least Numi's) which implies greater oxidation.
This is on topic to me, I just have no idea.
From the UK site, it looks like it is also a type of Tieguanyin tea from Anxi in Fujian Province. Now Tieguanyin translates to "Iron Goddess of Mercy", so you are heading in the right direction.
I suspect, having had some incidental exposure to the tea manufacturing process for a different manufacturer, that the exact blend will be a matter of which farms they get the tea from, and which methods they use for preparation. These are likely single supplier farms - so they will only sell to Twinings or a handful of companies. It is said that teas have a terroir similar and even more complex than those ascribed to wines, so it could well be that the taste is down to the farms they have as suppliers.
I don't know...That link actually shows three different types of oolong. Only one is sourced from China (which is the case for what I have), but considering three are given with different names when the US box simply says "oolong" leaves the possibility that they might be different products. The oxidation levels are quite different, and that's doesn't have to do with where it was farmed. That's a processing thing. Its an unsatisfactory answer, but it would seem two companies are call two different things by the same name...I need to rephrase my question. Thanks, have an upvote.
Huh, I was sure I had pasted the link just for the Tieguanyin one - it turns out, I had just selected the "China" filter on the left-hand side. I see that the USA site says Fine Oolong tea expertly selected from the Fujian province, China. - which led me to filter for China. The Amazon ones say similar things for the US supplied tea - though they mention "mainly...Fujian"
After reading the comments, and more about Iron Goddess of Mercy tea, I think Twingings is accurately labeling their tea and its Numi that is selling their tea under an inappropriate name.
Tieguanyin is commonly a light oolong with floral characteristics. fruity and caramel like flavours are less coming, but not impossible. Slight variation can processing, or ratio of stem/leaf can make a lot of difference. For Twinings tea, given the color of the dry leaf, I think the leaves are slightly more oxidized before they're 'fixed'. This could developer more fruity notes.
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81062 | Why mixing hot syrup (sugar + water) into yolks in sabayon?
Recently I browsed for tiramisu recipes where ricotta replaces the mascarpone.
In this particular (italian) recipe the sabayon is started by adding hot syrup to whipped yolks: I have always mixed crystal sugar to yolks.
What is the point of using hot syrup instead of sugar?
It's not "hot melted sugar", The recipe calls for a syrup (made with sugar and water) in un pentolino versate lo zucchero, unite l’acqua (17), mescolate leggermente per far inumidire lo zucchero, poi scaldate lo sciroppo a fuoco moderato avendo cura di inserire un termometro per alimenti così da monitorare la temperatura che dovrà raggiungere i 121°. The reason is to make the sabayon firmer, like an italian meringue.
For sabayon, you have to cook the eggs to hold the foam. Normally, you first mix air into the (cold) sugar and yolk, then heat on a water bath. This looks like an alternative method for heating the yolks, similar to the Italian method for meringue.
I haven't used it, so cannot tell you how much it differs. If it behaves like Italian meringue, it will probably produce a slightly more stable foam, but with less volume, and will taste sweeter.
The sweetness depends on the sugar contents, not matter if it's granulated sugar, confectioner's sugar or a sugar syrup.
@roetnig no, the method of preparation also matters. There can be many different reasons behind it (e.g. needing more sugar to achieve the same texture, or having a denser foam so you have more sugar per bite, etc.) Empirically, Italian meringue is sweeter than French meringue.
If the quantity of sugar is the same, you will perceive the same sweetness. The differences using regular, caster, confectioners sugar or syrup in different states of hardness is the structure, the texture, etc. But the amount of sugar is what gives the sweetness.
First, no, you will perceive different sweetness at the same amount. Taste
is not simple linear sensing of chemistry. Second, different methods are likely to require different amounts too.
Whatever.. I won't discuss what is evident. Try it yourself.
@roetnig - you certainly can perceive sweetness differently with the same amount - density, surface area, texture, and homogeneity all play a role. The same amount of sugar will taste sweeter in grains than a candy (sensing sugar-per-time). With tea, the reverse is true - ground sugar will dissolve and be diluted, so it feels like less sugar per volume than drinking with a candy on the tongue concentrating sugar right at the tastebuds. This recipe, denser foam might mean more sugar in less volume, or texture leaving sugar easier to sense, or changing how one eats it (thus sugar-over-time).
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117229 | Canned Coconut milk is curdled when opened
I bought Coconut milk (88% coconut and rest water) in a sealed can, when I opened it the solid where already separated from the liquid. The solid part was at the top quite thick like frozen coconut oil.
It tastes perhaps (I am not sure) a little bit acidic. Has the coconut milk spoilt? Is there any use of it or I should just throw it? Can consuming it be harmful?
That's normal. The coconut oil and the coconut water won't stay mixed. It's not curdled at all.
I didn't notice an exact duplicate of this question anywhere, but it's quite common for canned coconut milk to separate leaving an opaque white solid layer of fat and solids, and a thin watery/syrup layer of cloudy coconut water.
Coconut water is naturally a little tart, so I don't find that concerning. If the can is in date and showed no signs of swelling or leakage, then I'm thinking it's fine.
But do what makes you feel comfortable/safe. And to avoid this next time, thoroughly shake the can before opening.
Before you shake the can look at your recipe, some call for spooning the cream off the top and frying it off with pastes or spices.
@GdD It sounds like frying stuff in coconut oil.
A well split can of coconut milk will not mix by shaking it. It will need stiring at least.
@Willeke: Absolutely. On the other hand, for many recipes (curries, soups, stews) it doesn’t need mixing — it will mix during cooking anyway.
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37724 | How to identify a fresh meat?
I live in a big city, and there are not many fresh butcher shops here. Meats are found on supermarkets and they are passed by a frozen proccess to be able to stay longer on shelfs.
I would like to know how to identify a fresh meat ?
Are you asking how to identity never-frozen versus previously frozen meat?
Both. Even frozen and never-frozen
Both doesn't make sense... what exactly are you trying to determine?
You live in a country that exports beef to all over the world. I looked for labeling requirements in-country. I couldn't find anything that would help answer your question, BUT, if I lived where you do and shopped at places that don't seem slimy, I'd relax. My instinct suggests that your judgement is all that you need.
In some stores, meat sits on the shelf while it is tough to identify which is fresh, vs. which was previously frozen but now thawed due to siting on the shelf for a while. Very crucial question for myself, even after asking the manager at the store. Any visual way or touch way to make a sound judgement is paramount.
Show it to a cat and gauge the cat's reaction. Cats can detect taint 1 part in a trillion.
Thanks to science, it has become very hard to determine the actual quality of meat these days. Packaged meat is flushed with a gas that has a high concentration of oxygen (60-85% or so) to oxidize the myoglobin in meat, which keeps the meat red.
What this means is that you cannot visibly determine if the meat is good, ever. It could've been "only" refigerated for a time and then frozen, without any optical change due to the gas that's in the package. Indicators of bad meat, however, are a bad smell (of course, you can only determine this at home) or if the container seems to be under pressure, which indicates that microbes produced additional gas that can't get out of the container.
Sadly, I have given up on trying to find out if meat from the supermarket is fresh or not, as there doesn't seem to be a way of knowing. While still having a lot of tricks at their disposal, going directly to a butcher seems to be the only option that gives you at least a better chance of getting fresh meat.
Going straight to the farm would probably be your best chance. With a butcher, I'd at least look for high turnover.
You can determine freshness by the bloom over the meat and by its reddish or pinkish color depending upon the quality of the meat and type of the meat. Moreover you can check by the smell and touch.
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94127 | Can I make cranberry sauce from frozen cranberries and re-freeze it?
I have cranberries which were fresh, and then accidentally placed in the freezer.
They are now frozen. Can I make cranberry sauce with them and then freeze that until Christmas?
see https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/40770/can-i-freeze-cranberry-sauce?rq=1 - almost a duplicate, since I think there is no difference between the berries having been frozen previouslz or not.
As they told me during my training at food factory: everything can be frozen if you boil it beforehand.
Yes you can.
I see no reason otherwise.
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96749 | Freezing fresh water fish
Should fresh water fish (like crappie or bream) be frozen in a salt brine?
Is it for home consumption ? will you freeze the fish whole or filet ?
For home consumption. Rather whole than filet.
I think it is overkill; it is a nice technique, but for home usage, maybe too much.
I grew up fishing and preserving the fish. We would only freeze and brine if we intended to smoke it later, we would would then re-brine it after it thawed (great way to make Northern Pike Jerky btw).
For smaller species like crappie, yellow perch and bream I wouldn't bother, as they freeze fast enough and consistent enough on their own. Key things to look out for would be ensure it's sealed tight, frozen flat (for easy storage and thawing), and descaled (if it's your preference) for some reason I am not sure why but descaling a previously frozen fish isn't terribly effective.
Good luck and tight lines.
Freezing it in brine will have no added effects, when you freeze the fish the cell walls are frozen solid making it impossible for the saline solution to soften the cell walls through the process of osmosis.
I have found brines most effective when the meat is defrosted and the brine room temprature. The colder the brine the longer the salting takes.
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94101 | How to clean up the smell of egg from a pot?
When I cook eggs, the smell spreads to other dishes, such as glasses or cups. This is very embarrassing. I used hot water to wash them, but failed to remove the smell. How do I clean them to remove it?
boil some baking soda + water in the pot/pan
I've never heard of lingering egg smell from eggs. Is there a possibility that there is a certain amount of sulfur content in your water?
Sulfur water (or sulphur water) is a condition where the running water contains a high amount of hydrogen sulfide gas that escapes into the air when the plumbing line is opened, giving a distinct "rotten egg" smell.
The condition indicates a high level of sulfate-reducing bacteria in the water supply. This may be due to the use of well water, poorly treated city water, or water heater contamination.
Wikipedia: Sulfur water
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95683 | Can I bake 2 cakes at a time on 2 different shelves in my oven toaster grill?
I have a 45 liter capacity oven toaster grill, with 3 rack levels. Can I use the 2 shelves at a time, to bake 2 cakes simultaneously?
What's an 'otg' ?
otg means oven toaster grill.
Thanks - though I still had to Google what an 'oven toaster grill' was. Google seems to think it's an Indian product type; I've only ever seen them in holiday homes & caravans, never in a real kitchen. it doesn't look like the type of thing that would be powerful enough, nor temperature-accurate enough to do serious baking. I've never used one to do anything more difficult than 2 slices of toast [nor have I seen one large enough to get more than 2 slices of toast in], so I can't provide a real answer, sorry.
It will most likely not work "just like that". Even if your otg has both top and bottom heating elements, the cake on the upper rack will have the heat to its bottom blocked by the cake on the lower rack, resulting in an overcooked top and undercooked bottom part, and for the cake on the lower rack it will be the other way round.
You can try to swap the two cakes after some time (probably between half and two thirds of the baking time) to compensate. But opening the oven door partway through the baking (thus letting hot, humid air out and colder, drier air in) might itself negatively impact the outcome.
If your otg has a convection fan, that is probably your best bet. The circulating air will distribute the heat much more evenly onto all sides of both cakes.
To convert a conventional recipe for convection baking, you typically reduce the temperature by 20°C, maybe put a bowl of already boiling water in the oven along with the cake (to make the air more humid and thus compensate for its movement, which would otherwise evaporate more water from the cake, causing it to dry out), and start keeping a close watch on the colour and texture of the cake's surface about 10-20 minutes earlier than the recipe says the cake will be done.
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128829 | Why can't a cafeteria serve chilled apples?
I like a cold apple. My cafeteria sells room temperature apples. My cafeteria has refrigerators that hold many cold products. Those refrigerators have lots of unused room. Being the trouble maker that I am I placed an apple in the fridge. Figured I'd come back for it later.
Being the honest guy that I am I confessed to this crime at check out. When I asked if this would be a problem I was shocked at how vehemently this idea was condemned.
I went back and removed the offending apple. As I paid for it I asked, "Is there any reason I shouldn't put this in my own fridge?" "Oh that's fine". They explained this is only an issue with their fridges which have to conform to health codes.
I know bureaucracy can get out of hand. Is their any good explanation for this rule? Or is bureaucracy at it again?
I’m voting to close this question because it is out of the scope as defined in [help]. Please do not post rants as questions, and note that we cannot guess at the motivations behind organisations' decisions.
@rumtscho Can you at least tell me if the apple in my fridge is safe to eat? I didn't ask for the history that created this rule. I asked for an explanation from people that likely know more about apples than I do. Is this a valid concern?
The fridge you put it in might have been for ‘low risk’ items. Stuff like canned and bottled drinks which wouldn’t transfer anything that might harbor bacterial growth unless they burst, and can’t easily spoil. Even in other fridges they probably have all food in containers, not just sitting bare on the fridge shelves. Chilling an apple itself is not directly dangerous, but can introduce other risk
@Joe I hadn't thought of that! The cafeteria fridge did contain exactly such items. The apple in question was wrapped in cellophane (cling wrap). Not sure if that matters. Pity you can't post that as an answer.
This question discussed on meta
This obviously depends on local laws, but at least where I am in the EU, food establishments have to strictly track and separate potential allergens. An apple is likely not that dangerous (nuts would certainly be), but putting it somewhere that's supposed to be allergen-free is still likely a bad idea for food safety reasons. Nobody will probably die because of your apple, but the operator could get fined if somebody noticed and complained that their allergen regime was a mess.
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117620 | Boil candy for 1-½ hours to soft ball stage?
I’ve recently run across a recipe in a vintage cookbook (probably the fifties, as the phone numbers in it are exchange numbers) for “Two-Hour Candy”:
Two-Hour Candy
7 c. sugar
1 cube butter
1 lg. can Pet milk
1 sm. can Pet milk
1 bottle white Karo syrup
3 c. nuts
Mix first 5 ingredients. Boil 1 1/2 hours. Stir often. Cook until it
forms soft ball or 235 deg. F. Remove from fire and beat 1/2 hour.
Add nuts.
While I’m not experienced with using evaporated milk, my general experience is that if I attempt to boil a mix like that for an hour and a half, it will go far beyond 235° Fahrenheit.
This is probably about six times the amount of candy I would normally make, but while I would expect it to take longer to come to a boil, I would not expect it to take such a long time after it comes to a boil.
Am I wrong? Or am I misreading this recipe in some way?
“Two-Hour Candy” appears to be a unique title, and I was surprised at how few responses “Pet Milk Candy” returns. I did find an interesting Pet Milk cookbook from 1930, Pet Recipes, (it’s part of MSU’s fascinating Little Cookbooks collection) but found no corresponding recipe in it.
I realize that I could just boil it to the appropriate temperature and disregard the time, but that assumes I’m reading the recipe correctly and not misunderstanding terms that may have changed over half a century or so.
I don't often say this, but a scan might be helpful this time. Also I wonder if there's some reason to assume a very low power cooker
@Chris H, Scan added.
That's certainly clear enough. I've seen print in old books so bad it could be misinterpreted, but not here
This is a known method to make dairy caramel. Instead of caramelizing the sugar quickly over a high heat and then quench it with the dairy, one starts with all ingredients combined, in a very wet mixture, and cooks the liquid out until the candy has the desired consistency. In the meantime, the sucrose/syrup's sugars and the dairy's lactose caramelize together.
It is not so unusual to need a long time for the process to work, for example Brunost also uses lactose caramelization and needs even longer.
I suppose the whole thing will work smoother if you keep it at a simmer rather than at a boil. I cannot say why the text says "boil", maybe they are not all that exact with terminology. Or maybe they really assume that you will sit at the stove all the time and stir as much as needed, as opposed to maybe letting it cook for an hour longer, but at a lower temperature. It is also possible that you do have to stir almost all the time once a certain consistency has been reached, so it makes sense to keep the boil a bit brisk from this point.
As for not being able to find similar recipes, it seems that the cookbook chose the title somewhat at random. It is a known method, and one can find many recipes for "caramel candy" or "fudge" which use it. "Evaporated milk fudge" will better discriminate between slowly-cooked methods and quenched methods. For example, that search term returned this video, which is a nice demonstration of the method. I would say that you can certainly disregard the time, as usual in candy making, it is the temperature that counts.
""Evaporated milk fudge" will better discriminate between slowly-cooked methods and quenched methods" Is this the same thing as Scottish Tablet or is that another confection altogether, even if it's also a sort of fudge made from condensed milk?
@nick012000 I don't know, I hear the term Scottish Tablet for the first time. Hopefully, somebody else will be able to clarify.
Here's a video on the process of making it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGotMbaVFlg
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128198 | What does “settled” mean when making puddings?
I’m hoping to make Amelia Simmons’s A Cream Almond Pudding from her 1796 American Cookery. The recipe is:
Boil gently a little mace and half a nutmeg (grated) in a quart cream; when cool, beat 8 yolks and 3 whites, ſtrain and mix with one ſpoon flour one quarter of a pound almonds; ſettled, add one ſpoon roſe-water, and by degrees the cold cream and beat well together; wet a thick cloth and flour it, and pour in the pudding, boil hard half an hour, take out, pour over it melted butter and ſugar.
My copy also has an errata:
A cream almond pudding: for 8 yolks and 3 whites, read 8 eggs; for 1 ſpoon flour, read 8 — boil an hour and half.
There is a note at the beginning of the PUDDINGS section apparently emphasizing that this is an important instruction, otherwise I would have considered just ignoring it:
N. B. The mode of introducing the ingredients, is a material point; in all caſes where eggs are mentioned it is underſtood to be well beat; whites and yolks and the ſpices, fine and ſettled.
I’m assuming that “ſettled” in both cases is “settled”, although since I don’t know what either would mean I could obviously be wrong. Chris H noted in the comments that it seems like it ought to apply similarly to both the spices (in the nota bene) and the almonds or almond/flour mixture (in the recipe). It does seem that “the spices, fine and settled” sounds vaguely like it could be some sort of then-recognizable phrase.
A search on archive.org for “settled” (and for “fettled” since the characters in this text are similar enough for OCR to make mistakes) and “pudding” seems to bring up relatively modern meanings: people can settle in a location; items in motion, such as boiling, can settle down, i.e., stop boiling; and items in suspension can settle to the bottom of a container. None of these seem to apply in this case. I suppose you could wait for the flour and almonds (or spices in the case of the nota bene) to settle to the bottom of the beaten eggs, but since it’s just going to be beaten well again there doesn’t seem to be any point to that interpretation.
It's definitely "settled". Why, though, is a mystery; generally when you beat eggs in a pudding you want to mold them as fast as possible in order to keep the batter aerated. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M28DdlJ1YT0 I suggest contacting Townsend's.
Also, unlike other flours, there's no reason to wait for almond flour to hydrate.
This is not a general pudding question, it's this specific recipe. If you look at any of her 30 or so other pudding recipes none of them say anything about settling.
It reads slightly ambiguously but it seems like the almonds in the first recipe and the spices in the second are what must be settled, not a liquid mixture containing them. But the rather odd use of semicolons doesn't help. And the almonds are weighe, so it's not about how to pack a volume measure. It feels like it's where an instruction would be for "finely ground" or similar, but I can't make it mean that, or even sieved.
I'm not certain enough to make this an answer, but I'm wondering if this is her way of saying "level spoonful". Though that'd mean she's applying it to the rosewater in the pudding recipe itself, and I'd be rather amazed if there's a way to measure a liquid by a heaping spoonful. :)
@Marti I tried to read it like that, as it seemed likely, but "one quarter of a pound almonds; ſettled" isn't a volume measure that would need levelling
The “ſ” as in “ſpoon” is a “long S”: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_s
As I said in the comments, the almonds are weighed, so it's not about how to pack a volume measure. The wording is ambiguous, not helped by the odd (to modern eyes) use of semicolons. Initially I couldn't join this "ſettled" ("settled" with a long s) to sieved, but a thesaurus can.
Merriam Webster has settled as a synonym for sieved (or sifted) - which seems like a bit of a stretch to me, but they're the experts. The rest of the recipe implies ground almonds so sieving is plausible, though for the ones I buy you'd need a fairly coarse sieve. If you were grinding them by hand, you'd want to sieve out lumps and big bits of skin, so it's not necessarily sifting to aerate as we might with flour. The same is true of the spices, where fine (or "ſine" if the OCR fails in the other direction) is very likely to refer to the grind (though quality would also be possible). You really don't want big lumps of spice in your puddings, so reminding the reader that they should be finely ground and sieved is a reasonable interpretation.
However on page 44 "To pickle Barberries", "ſettle" is definitely used in the sense of allowing bits to settle out of liquid. It could easily carry both meanings in the same book.
“Sieved” is a good catch—I hadn’t seen that. I notice it also has “filtered” and “clarified” as possible synonyms. While none of those three’s definitions seem to quite match, I could definitely see someone using it to describe making sure that chunks and (in the case of almonds) bits of the brown skin have been filtered/sieved out. “Filtered and sieved” makes sense in both the context of “spices, fine” and ground, potentially skinned to improve color, almonds.
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120783 | What was “Old Fashioned Brown Sugar” in 1910?
The Franklin Golden Syrup Recipes cookbook (ca. 1910 according to Michigan State University’s Little Cookbooks collection) has a recipe for Fruit Cake and a recipe for Franklin Peanut Bars that call for “Franklin Old Fashioned Brown Sugar”.
In the Fruit Cake recipe, this old fashioned brown sugar is creamed with butter:
In a large earthen bowl cream the butter and the sugar.
In the Peanut Bars recipe, it is brought (along with Franklin Golden Syrup and Franklin Granulated Sugar) to firm ball stage:
Cook with constant stirring to 260° F. or until the mixture forms a firm ball when tested in cold water.
Modern authors seem to use old fashioned to refer to dark brown sugar, although usually as an aside.
Light vs. Dark Brown Sugar: “Dark brown sugar (also called old-fashioned brown sugar) tends to be reserved primarily for recipes like baked beans, gingerbread, spice cakes, and other dishes where you really want a deep molasses flavor.”
Food.com: “Very dark or old-fashioned brown sugar has a more intense molasses flavor.”
The Gentle Chef’s Old-Fashioned Brown Sugar (Organic) appears to be less an attempt to emulate an old-fashioned brown sugar, than to create a modern brown sugar substitute with organic ingredients.
A search on archive.org for mention of old fashioned brown sugar (likely skewed to older cookbooks that are now in the public domain) finds a few references:
The 1927 Photoplay’s Cook Book: 100 Favorite Recipes of the Stars has one recipe that calls for it, Gloria Swanson’s Cream Fudge on page 41.
The 1912-13 Grayville Cook Book has a recipe for Pumpkin Pie (pp. 75 and 81—it’s the same recipe in both places) that calls for old fashioned brown sugar; it also has several recipes that call for dark brown sugar. However, since this is a community cookbook that could reflect a different contributor style rather than a distinction between dark brown sugar and old fashioned brown sugar. None of Mrs. B.F. Batson’s other recipes in the book call for dark brown sugar.
The 1926 Potters and Potteries of Bennington is not a cookbook but has an interesting anecdote on page 158 about discoloration: “Although the tea-pot in its long history was often filled with tea or coffee and set upon the kitchen stove, it is much less discolored than the sugar-bowl. For a long time I could not account for this fact, but now I know that the old-fashioned brown sugar frequently had this effect upon all sorts of white china.”
The 1958 Cousineau Sur la Baie a distinction is made between maple sugar and old fashioned brown sugar on page 10: “There was no white sugar in the bowls but maple sugar scraped fine, or the old fashioned brown sugar they used for baking pies, cakes, and puddings.”
The 1921 Timely Truths on Human Health, quoting from an earlier 1918 work, says on page 62 that “Twenty-five years ago, old-fashioned brown sugar manufactured on the sugar cane plantation, was in common use. Such sugar possessed not only all the sweetness of the cane, but also all of its aromatic and nutritive substances, including mineral salts, which are no longer present.”
The April 1918 Cuba Review on page 27, on the other hand, says that old-fashioned brown sugar gets its colors from caramelization. “At 320° F.… sugar… rapidly takes on an amber hue… If heated to higher temperature it browns, becoming less sweet and acquiring a somewhat bitter flavor. This browned sugar is called caramel. Old-fashioned brown sugar owed its color and flavor, at least partly, to caramel, for the process of manufacture formerly used involved evaporation over an open fire, which caused some of the sugar to become caramelized or half burnt…”
The Canadian Grocer of October 19, 1917 has an advertisement for Lantic Sugar’s Old-Fashioned Brown Sugar on page 49, calling it “absolutely pure, natural soft sugars, free from coloring matter” that “Makes such Delicious Preserves and Pickles”.
According to a recipe for Apple Pudding on page 4 of the April 23, 1937 Winchester Star, Domino also had an Old-Fashioned Brown Sugar.
The 1902 Pandex laments that “Old-Fashioned Brown Sugar with All Its Delights Is Gone” in an anecdote on page 150: “That isn’t brown sugar. It’s the kind you fellows all over town have been trying to sell me for brown sugar, but it isn’t brown; it’s a pale, whitish, sickly yellow. What I call brown sugar is the kind mother used to sweeten the pies with when I was a kid… It was dark and coarse-grained and full of lumps as big as your fist. There was more of the concentrated essence of sweetness in one of those lumps than in a whole shovelful of this yellow stuff…”
Is old-fashioned brown sugar marketed circa 1910 from sugar companies such as Franklin Sugar Refining Company like modern brown sugar (that is, white sugar with molasses added in varying amounts to vary the color and flavor), or is it something else?
You actually need to know what the Franklin Sugar Refinery called "Old fashioned brown sugar" rather than how the term was used in general. If you really want the answer to this, apparently there's a Franklin Research Center in Philly with their archives.
ALso: 1910 is in the middle of America's conversion from white sugar to brown sugar. So it's also possible that all brown sugar was called old-fashioned at the time.
Are you sure that modern brown sugar is made from white sugar with added in molasses? I was under the impression that sugar is initially brown and white sugar is made from brown sugar by some suitable bleaching.
Personally I'd use/substitute Muscovado sugar, which isn't (fully) refined
@quarague, I’m never absolutely sure about anything, but except possibly for C&H, which claims to use a special process to retain a natural brown in their sugar, I am pretty sure. Many brown sugars say so on the package: “brown sugar (sugar, cane syrup)”; even the ones that just say “brown sugar” seem to be sugar with molasses added if you dig deep enough.
Comment above is meant to say "conversion from brown sugar to white sugar", not the other way around.
@quarague: that is how most commercial brown sugar is made. The molasses and the white sugar crystals are separated, and then recombined to produce several grades of standard "darkness". It is not how brown sugar was made 150 years ago, which is why the OP question is relevant -- which one is meant?
@FuzzyChef, do you have a source, link, or physical address for the Franklin Research Center? I can’t find anything about a Franklin Research Center in Philadelphia, or a Franklin Research Center that deals with the sugar industry.
Ooops! One of the papers I looked up cited the Franklin RC, and I assumed it was founded by the sugar company. But it's actually named after John Hope Franklin, a famous Black professor, and the name is just a coincidence. Sorry!
There are three kinds of brown sugar this could be:
Modern dark brown sugar, which (as noted) is made by separating the white sugar from the molasses and then recombining them. This would not actually be "old-fashioned" in 1910, but it could have been marketed as such by the Franklin Sugar Refinery.
Dried, unpurified, sugar cane juice, known as "jaggery" or "gur shakkar" in Indian markets, which are the main places to acquire it. This would indeed be "old-fashioned", and is available in both ground and cake form.
Piloncillo, which is dark brown sugar made through the heat-evaporation/caramelization method as described in your Cuban source.
Of these, (2) feels like the best option since it is truly "old-fashioned", and matches the description in the Pandex source. However, I have no source confirming that it is what Franklin would have marketed in 1910, and that year is well after the culmination of the campaign against natural brown sugars by Domino and Franklin. For that reason, what they sold could actually have been (1), a more "hygenic" brown sugar.
(3) feels the least likely because Piloncillo has never really caught on in non-Spanish-speaking areas. Also it's always sold in cones or cakes, making it hard to measure by the cupful; recipes usually call for it by the cone or by weight.
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117822 | What is Baker’s Cookie Coconut?
The Joys of Jell-O, on page 73, has a recipe for “Marzipan” that calls for “1 package (7 oz.) Baker’s Cookie Coconut”. This product doesn’t appear to exist anymore. It appears to be something different from Baker’s Angel Flake Coconut; other recipes in the book call for that ingredient, such as the Citrus Ring on page 45 that calls for “⅓ cup Baker’s Angel Flake or Premium Shred Coconut”.
A search of the Baker’s or Kraft/Heinz web site brings up no such product as “Cookie Coconut”. Various Internet searches for “Baker’s Cookie Coconut” or “What is Baker’s Cookie Coconut” bring up a lot of recipes, but no product. A search limited to archive.org brings up the February 11, 1970, Romulus Roman and a recipe for Coconut Dream Squares that…
…use Baker’s Cookie Coconut, a form of coconut developed especially for cakes and cookies.
The photograph of the squares is “Courtesy Baker’s Cookie Coconut”, and the caption includes:
The squares use a medium-cut moist cookie coconut developed especially for baking.
What is the nearest equivalent to Baker’s Cookie Coconut available today?
Is it not this stuff shown here on Amazon
Nope. At the current answer’s link, Cookie Coconut is specifically distinguished from Angel Flake.
I don't know what this recipe book is trying to produce but marzipan is a traditional confectionary (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marzipan) which is based on almond flour (and sugar). I doesn't contain anything related to coconut.
@quarague the OP linked the recipe. It is indeed not real marzipan, I suspect the Jell-O marketing people called it that because their mass can be used for shaping decorations just like real marzipan. I would assume that the OP wants to make the linked recipe, whatever its classification.
I've found a Polish language website at https://docer.pl/doc/n581exe which appears to contain at least some of the text from a 1977 Baker's recipe book, Baker’s Chocolate and Coconut Favorites (this is the sixth edition; the Internet Archive dates an earlier edition with the same cover as 1962).
It says this about the Cookie Coconut variety (click the button above the tags list to see all the text):
Baker's Cookie Coconut is perfect as an ingredient. The moist, tender wisps, sweetened just enough to bring out the coconut flavor, mix easily into batters and doughs.
That would suggest to me undried, finely shredded and lightly sweetened coconut.
For comparison, Baker’s Chocolate and Coconut Favorites (pages 3-4) says that “These four types of Baker’s Coconut are available”:
Baker’s Angel Flake Coconut is moist, tender, sweetened flakes of coconut. This popular coconut gives a distinctive flavor to every dessert, whether used as an ingredient or a garnish. Flaked coconut is available in 3½-ounce and 7-ounce cans; also in 7-ounce and 14-ounce bags.
Baker’s Premium Shred Coconut is one of the most beautiful, delicious decorations and ingredients for cakes and other desserts. Buy the 4-ounce, 8-ounce, or 16-ounce bag.
Baker’s Southern Style Coconut contains both long and short shreds and is a bit moister, as southerners like it. This coconut, which has made coconut treats traditional in the south, is packed in 4-ounce cans.
Baker’s Cookie Coconut is perfect as an ingredient. The moist, tender wisps, sweetened just enough to bring out the coconut flavor, mix easily into batters and doughs. It comes in 7-ounce bags.
It provides this advice for substitutions on the bottom of page 4:
To substitute coconuts: In most cases the shredded and flaked coconuts are interchangeable. However, it’s best to use 1 cup cookie coconut for 1½ cups shredded coconut or 1⅓ cups flaked coconut. When using shredded coconut in cakes, you may want to cut the shreds slightly with a kitchen shears or knife—otherwise the cake may be difficult to cut.
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115055 | What is a refrigerator tray in older recipes?
Many older cookbooks call for filling a “refrigerator tray”. For example, in the 1960 Better Homes and Gardens Dessert Cook Book the recipe for “Banana Ice Cream” says to “Pour into refrigerator trays. Freeze till firm.” and in Anne London’s 1972 American-International Encyclopedic Cookbook, the recipe for “Refrigerator Tray Pie” says to “Pack half the crumb mixture into a refrigerator tray. Chill… Return to refrigerator to freeze.”
Doing a search for “refrigerator tray” on archive.org, I found the pamphlet for Use and Care of Your New Norge Refrigerator which mentions many uses for refrigerator trays, all involving freezing in some way. From the various recipes for ice cream and other frozen desserts on pages 31-32,
Pour into refrigerator trays and freeze.
Freeze in refrigerator tray.
…freeze in refrigerator tray until firm.
From this, I can deduce that a refrigerator tray is something that you can pour liquids into and then put into the freezer, but that’s about it.
Those pages also mention trays without the qualifier “refrigerator”:
Pour into tray of chilling unit and freeze to mush.
Pour into tray and chill to soft jelly… Return to tray and freeze to desired firmness.
Turn into freezer tray and freeze 45 minutes to 1 hour.
The list of definitions on page 9 does not include a definition for refrigerator trays, although it does include one for ice trays, and specifically mentions using them for making ice cream:
Ice Trays:
Fill the trays with water to within 1/4 in. of the top. Place trays in their section on top of main freezer compartment. When making Ice Cream, use the aluminium tray by removing plastic cups or dividers.
I would guess that the ice trays mentioned are the metal trays for making ice cubes, which used to come with a removable (always metal, in my limited experience) divider that doubled as a loosening device for the ice cubes. They seem awfully small for use as a dessert pan, but then the Better Homes and Garden recipe did use the plural for its mention of refrigerator trays.
Old recipes were pretty simple - there's no tricks, and they definitely expect that you have a basic understanding of what you're doing in the kitchen. A refrigerator tray is nothing more complicated than what it sounds like - a tray that fits in your refrigerator. The author of the recipe is assuming that you know what the dish should look like and that you are capable of selecting an appropriately sized and shaped tray to fit the recipe.
A thing to keep in mind is that, in modern times, many people don't really spend a lot of time in the kitchen and recipes are generally written for an audience that may not have a lot of experience cooking. A hundred years ago, however, nearly all adult women were effectively professional homemakers - they spent their full working days cooking, cleaning, and, looking after the home. Cookbooks from that time are written with that audience in mind, so they assume a certain routine familiarity and they omit a lot of details that such a professional would simply be expected to know.
@J… That looks wholly true and how did it help poor Jerry Stratton?
The problem here seems to be not what a refrigerator tray is, but how it might be involved in freezing which, of course, refrigerators can't do.
Jerry, don't you think the tray is one thing and what it's used for, quite another.
Some early fridges might not have but all half-way modern models did and do include freezing compartments… Is that enough to make sense of the recipes you quoted?
Thanks, Robbie. Yes, older recipes often assume a lot that isn’t general knowledge today. Note, the Norge fridge whose manual I referenced and linked does have a freezer section. For now, when a recipe calls for freezing in a refrigerator tray I mostly use dessert glasses, cover in plastic wrap, and freeze, so that I have single servings in the freezer. It works. But I would like to know what they mean by “refrigerator tray”; all modern references I could find were refrigerator bins. It seems unlikely they meant take the meat or crisper bin, fill with ice cream mix, and freeze.
For freezing ice cream or other confections in a refrigerator’s freezer area, a refrigerator tray was a rectangular, shallow, open container. The ice cube tray (often provided with the refrigerator) began, around the mid-to-late thirties, to be fitted with a removable divider so that it doubled as the refrigerator tray.
Ice cube trays with removable dividers are referred to as “refrigerator trays” and were designed specifically for freezing desserts.
The terms “refrigerator tray”, “freezer tray”, and “ice cube tray” were used somewhat interchangeably for making desserts with these trays, at least during the period after ice cube trays with removable dividers were included with refrigerators and until the included ice cube trays became one-piece plastic trays.
The Carnation Fun to Cook Book, for example, has a recipe for “tropical freeze” on page 40; for the final freeze, the recipe is poured into “two small (or 1 large) refrigerator trays”. The drawings accompanying the recipe show shallow, rectangular trays.
Experiences with Foods by L. Belle Pollard includes notes on “making ice cream in the home refrigerator” on page 258.
The ingredients have been combined according to the recipe and poured into the refrigerator trays or molds.
The accompanying photo shows two of these refrigerator trays. They are metal, rectangular, and shallow.
You can also see refrigerator trays used for desserts in this 1951 commercial for a Westinghouse refrigerator.
By at least the late 1960s, authors had begun to use the term “ice cube tray” in recipes for ice creams made in the refrigerator. In Vincent and Mary Price’s 1965 A Treasury of Great Recipes, there is a recipe for Tre Scalini’s Hazelnut Ice Cream on page 93 that says to “Pour into 2 ice-cube trays and freeze. This makes a soft ice cream.”
Borden’s The Dessert Lovers’ Hand Book from 1969 also contains recipes for making ice creams in the home refrigerator. The accompanying illustration shows the same shallow, rectangular container, but in this case calls it an “ice cube tray”—despite there being no cube shapes in that container as drawn. The ice cube grid has been removed.
Borden’s 1952 Borden’s Eagle Brand 70 Magic Recipes uses the term “freezer tray” for the same Vanilla Ice Cream recipe that their 1969 Dessert Lovers’ Hand Book contains. The recipe is the same; only the terminology has changed.
One patent for a refrigerator tray with removable grids for ice cubes is Richard E. Kaufmann’s patent 2,112,027 filed October 3, 1936, found in the Official Gazette of the United States Patent Office Volume 488. The patent is labeled “Refrigerator Tray” and shows a “removable grid for ice cube trays”.
A slightly earlier patent, Louis Brownstein’s patent 2,037,364 from March 17, 1934, is labeled “Ice Cube Tray”, but specifically mentions its use for desserts:
My invention further contemplates the provision of a freezing tray from which the grid partitions and other parts may be readily removed for purposes of cleaning or when the tray is to be used without its partitions, as when it is desired to freeze desserts, etc. in the tray.
Brownstein writes specifically that the grid-less tray may “be used for freezing liquid desserts in one mass”.
You can see ice cube trays with removable dividers in this 1954 commercial for a Crosley Super Shelvador.
Here’s an example of a later iteration of an ice cube tray with a removable divider, a double-sized Quickube from a Frigidaire refrigerator:
Notes
While traveling recently I acquired Borden’s Dessert Lovers’ Hand Book and Price’s A Treasury of Great Recipes. The reference to ice cube trays in these two books provided the necessary clue to answering my own question—that a refrigerator tray and an ice cube tray were at least in some instances the same thing. This led to finding Kaufmann’s patent on a refrigerator tray that was clearly an ice cube tray.
Borden’s 1969 Dessert Lovers’ Hand Book also includes instructions for making ice cream in specialized ice cream churns; the 1952 70 Magic Recipes only has recipes for making ice cream in the refrigerator.
The archived version of Borden’s 70 Magic Recipes that I linked to is supposedly dated 1956; I’m not sure how archive.org arrived at that date; the only obvious differences between the archived version and my copy appears to be that (a) mine has a copyright year of 1952 on the inside front cover where the archived version does not include the year in the inside-front-cover copyright statement; and (b) the inside back page on mine has what I think is a print date of 8-52 and a version of E-56 where the archived version has what I think is a print date of 5-63 and a version of E-56 Rev.
The Quickube ice cube tray has levers for more easily removing the grids from the tray, a feature mentioned in later patents such as F.W. Sampson’s 1946 patent 2,573,066 and E.H. Roberts’s 1956 patent 2,763,997 both of which are fascinating historically but don’t address this question.
This has to be the best researched and sourced answer for a not-that-popular question I've ever seen across all of stack exchange
I ran a quick search on ebay Images. Looks like a refrigerator tray is a shallow glass or enameled dish. I saw a few plastic ones, also from the 60s-70s.
I mean eBay, not Google Images! LOL
Hi, Sharon. In your searches, did you find any evidence that refrigerator makers include the cold storage trays for the purpose of freezing foods? That they expect the consumer to occasionally remove the meat or crisper bin from the refrigerator section, fill it with, say, an ice cream recipe, and then place it in the freezer to freeze?
Fridges circa that era didn't have a dedicated freezer compartment, instead they had a section in the main compartment, where you could utilize those trays, in or under. This Google search should give a better idea. These trays were used for ice, for which we have a modern resemblances.
With the recipe I think they mean that you don't have to empty your freezer section, simply putting a tray under it should be enough.
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114019 | What is a stem pan?
I have a vintage cookbook, from Charlotte, North Carolina and about 1958, that has a recipe for “Different Applesauce Cake”. It says to “Cook in stem pan approximately 1 hour, 10 minutes”.
Searches for “stem pan” brings up pan definition lists that don’t include “stem pan”; searches for “stem pan baking” brings up a lot of pages on how to teach STEM using baking. There is one patent that appears at first to be about stem pans, but on reading seems to be about stems on pans. Though it could be that stem pan is another word for skillet.
In all cases, search engines like to replace “stem” with “steam”. There does appear to be something called a “steam pan”, but it appears to be the kind of pan used by buffet restaurants to keep food warm, not something for baking.
Searches on “stem pan” with “apple cake” do bring up some variations on some odd sites; but they don’t explain what it is. Some recipes use a variation of “use a loaf pan or a stem pan” and others a variation of “use a bundt pan or a stem pan”. Some suggest using it ungreased, some greasing and flouring the pan, others lining the bottom with greased paper, which seems a bit difficult if it’s just another word for bundt pan, or even if it’s another term for “tube pan” which is what I most suspect.
On the idea that this might be a dialect around Mississippi and North Carolina, I tried a search for “stem pan” and “southern” and found two contradictory recipe pages with images of the pan in question. A recipe for corn bread that has a photo of the corn bread in a skillet; this may be a stock photo, however. And a recipe for tomato soup cake that has a photo of it being poured into what looks like a bundt pan. So it may be that this is a term that applies to multiple items.
I did image searches for various forms of “cake pan advertisement”, such as “mirro bakeware advertisement” and “old bakeware advertisement”. I found several for tube pans and bundt pans and none advertising stem pans.
I did a search specifically for the phrase “stem pan” limited to the site archive.org; the term appears to be exclusively found in older organizational cookbooks (five church organizations, one library association, one high school club, and one college club). They range from 1911 to 1982 except for two: one from 1991, but it’s the submitter’s grandmother’s recipe, and one from 2006, but it’s a reprint from the organization’s 1981 cookbook. (Of course, also, since it’s archive.org it’s likely to be weighted toward older books.)
There are no photos, as is normal for such cookbooks. There are no definitions, either, although there is one parenthetical: “Bake in greased and floured stem pan (I use cast iron bundt pan)” which could of course be read either as an example or an alternative. One intriguing set of directions ends, for Texas Pecan Cake, with “Bake in stem pan 10x4 inches”. I suspect that this means a 10-inch diameter, 4-inch deep pan, especially given the quantity of ingredients; it’s an odd direction, though, because by that point the batter has already been poured into “a well-greased tube pan”. However, it matches something I saw in The Joy of Cooking while trying to look up the term, that a 9-½ by 4-¼-inch plain tube (angel cake pan) is “Conventionally described as 10x4-inch plain tube” (p. 701 in my 2006 copy).
Recipes of Yesterday and Today (1991)
Our Favorite Recipes (1965)
The Arizona Cook Book (1911)
Centenarian Cooking (1971)
Feeding the Flock (2006)
National High School Rodeo Association (1979)
Entertainment Cook Book (1919)
Heavenly Delights (1982)
What is a stem pan? A skillet? A bundt pan? A tube pan? A loaf pan? A variation? Or something else? Or more than one item? I am at this point almost certain that it is either a tube pan (most likely), or a variation on a tube pan, but the lack of any definition or photo keeps me from knowing for sure what variation, if any, the term might mean.
I have never heard the term "stem pan" but it sounds like either a tube pan or a pan with a heating core.
I can't say conclusively, but based on all of the context you're giving, it sure sounds like a tube pan. (and I've seen quite a few recipes that call for baking in two loaf pans if you don't have a tube/bundt pan, so even that cooks.com link makes sense). And tube pans (like for angel food) are flat on the bottom, unlike the decorative bundt pans, so you'd still be able to line it with parchment, so long as you cut a hole out.
I also thought we had a tag specifically dealing with historical recipes, but it wasn't 'recipe' or 'history' based on their current descriptions
I also looked for vintage-recipes as a tag, but couldn’t find anything like that.
Where is your cookbook from? I found a 1951 cookbook from Corinth, Mississippi that mentions 'stem pan' on page 19 (pdf page 21), and was thinking that maybe it's a regional thing.
Good point. I’ve added Charlotte, North Carolina to the question.
I also believe a stem pan is what we would call a 'tube pan' or 'bundt pan', as in Joe's answer. I have, however, found a few links to back me up.
Here is a comment on a Chowhound question suggesting a recipe using a stem pan. When asked what a stem pan is, the poster replied: "basically, a stem pan is what they now call a tube pan".
This recipe for Sour Cream Pound Cake, from Adams Extract, calls for the use of a stem pan, and has a reproduction of a 1950's-looking recipe card depicting a bundt cake. The relevant text is:
Pour into well greased, lightly floured stem pan (or loaf pan).
And the image is clearly a cake made in what is now called a tube pan:
Adams Extract is a Texas company; their Classic Original Adams Recipes contain several other recipes that call for stem pans. Their Butter Rum Cake, Coconut Pound Cake, German Chocolate Pound Cake, Lemon Pecan Cake, and White Fruit Cake all call specifically for a stem pan. The accompanying photo for each of those recipes except the Coconut Pound Cake show a cake made in a simple tube pan. The Coconut Pound Cake shows a cake baked in a bundt pan.
At least at this company, or this part of the south, the term seems to have been used to refer to simple tube pans and segmented bundt pans.
Some recipe cards call for tube pans or bundt pans instead of stem pans; unfortunately, the cards are not dated, so that it is difficult to say whether this was a term that changed over time or was simply interchangeable.
Although I agree with the general vaguely toroidal shape of the individual compartments in Steve Chambers' answer, I don't believe those 'baked donut' pans existed in the 1950s, or at the very least didn't have sufficient distribution to assume that people would have them. (as is still true today).
I would recommend using a standard tube pan, a bundt pan, or similar pan in which there is a protrusion in the middle to allow for more even heating.
The only other possibility that I could think of would be something "stemmed" like a wine glass. Both those are typically made of glass, and considered dishes or bowls, not a pan. These are typically used for trifles, in which the dessert is assembled for serving after having been baked, and likely aren't oven-safe.
This annoyed me. the difficulty of the search not the question! ;-)
Though I finally did find something here.
And in the spirit of avoiding link-only answers a screencap of the page in question in case it goes away:
I am by no means 100% on this as being the Stem Pan you are looking for but depending on the recipe it might be close.
BTW I found this linked on Google with this earch
what is a stem pan for baking
After this search (below) failed after several pages of 'results' and the above search was suggested by Google
"stem pan" -steam
I don't think this is it, because the quote OP provides is "Cook in stem pan approximately 1 hour, 10 minutes" and that is way too long in a donut pan. Also the recipe is for a cake, not mini cakes. That said, a tube pan (as for angel food cake) is basically the same shape, just one big one instead of lots of little ones. So I think all this lends a little credence to the theory in the comments on the question that the recipe is talking about a tube pan.
Yes, I think the use of “stem” to refer to what would be the tube in a tube pan bolsters the probability that a stem pan is either another word for, or very similar to, a tube pan.
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116013 | What is a “small cup” in Australia and/or old recipes?
In older or Australian recipes, is “small cup” a specific (if not quite standardized) measurement? If so, what, approximately, is that measurement?
I’m going to be making a recipe from an Australian cookbook this weekend, “Jet Age Cookbook… compiled by The Royal Australian Air Force Women’s Association”, circa 1969-1976.
The recipe calls for “1 small cup boiling water”. This is a sauce that is basically a syrup, so I suspect that the water content does not need to be exact. I plan to use ½ cup. I’m also aware that in older recipes, measurements such as spoons, teaspoons, and cups (and in some countries such as Australia, dessert spoons) weren’t necessarily standardized but could refer to the various tableware the cook happened to have on hand. In those cases, however, they are referring to specific measurements even if it isn’t a standardized measurement—a spoon used for tea, a spoon used for dessert, a half of a specific cup (it makes little sense to call for half of a random cup out of the cupboard). I’m wondering if “small cup” is also a specific measurement, whether a standardized one or not.
It’s difficult to do a search on merely “small cup”, but I did find a few references in older recipes (that they’re older is not necessarily indicative of anything: I added “vintage recipes” to the search in an attempt to weed out mere references to smaller drinking vessels).
In some older recipes, a small cup does (to me at least) clearly refer merely to a smaller drinking vessel. These Martha’s Vineyard Hermits, for example, tell the cook “In a small cup, stir the sour cream and baking soda to mix well”.
Others seem to refer to a specific measurement. In Mrs. Edison’s Old Fashioned Recipe for Chocolate Caramels I found the only reference that might be a clue as to the size of a small cup. It calls for “1 small cup of butter (size of an egg)”. If that’s the approximate size of a “small cup”, even my ½ cup estimate may be too much.
But one reference is difficult to base a philosophy on.
I did a search for “small cup” limited to the Internet Archive, and found the reference in several very old cookbooks.
The 1809 Complete Confectioner has a recipe for Naple’s biscuits that calls for “one small cup full of orange flower water”.
The 1895 Universalist Social Circle Cook Book has a recipe for coffee bread that takes “1 small cup butter”, a recipe each for crumb pie and corn oysters that take “1 small cup flour”, a recipe for graham pudding that calls for “1 teaspoonful soda dissolved in small cup milk”, and, very interestingly, a recipe for steamed roly-poly pudding that calls for “nearly a small cup milk”. If “small cup” was another way of saying a scant cup (another of my guesses), this is a very odd phrasing.
The 1908 Council Cook Book has a recipe for fruit icing wafers that calls for “One small cup of sugar”, and a recipe for leb-kuchen that calls for “one small cup each of chopped nuts and citron”.
The 1909 Recipes of the Woman’s Club of San Mateo has a recipe for onion cream soup that says “Put small cup of cream in a heated soup-tureen…”.
The 1910 Magnolia Cook Book has a sponge cake recipe that calls for “another small cup sugar” and a fig cake that calls for “1 small cup butter”. It also has one recipe that calls for “a small ½ cup of sugar”. This might indicate that small refers to the opposite of heaping, similar to a scant cup, but that doesn’t seem to fit all of these recipes. And in my particular recipe, a scant cup of water would seem to me to be a lot (see below).
While some of these references seem as if they could be just saying “a little bit of”, others do seem to use the phrase “small cup” to reference something reasonably specific. It seems unlikely, for example, that a recipe would call for “nearly a small cup milk” if they’re just calling for a random small cup from the cupboard. Am I reading that right? What is the likely range of measurements if so?
I’m asking for an answer for either older recipes in general or for Australian recipes in particular because other research I did involving teaspoons, tablespoons, and cups indicated that measurements tended to be similar, though not exact, throughout the United States, Great Britain, Canada, and Australia before standardization. While I would prefer to know what a small cup is in this particular Australian recipe, I will accept knowing what a small cup used to be within the core Anglosphere.
Note: Jet Age Cookbook does not mention a year; I’m estimating the age via addresses in the advertisements in the book: two businesses used addresses of shopping malls that opened 1968 and 1969, and another business’s address diverged from the address they used in this book in 1976. The book itself seems like it ought to be older, to my American eyes. From the two-color cover, the cover font, and the interior typing, to the near-universal use of “moderate oven”, “hot oven”, or “slow oven”, it seems more like what I’d expect from the fifties.
Note: I’m also aware, from looking up the definition of dessert spoons, that the modern Australian tablespoon is four teaspoons, not three.
Full recipe for reference:
Jam Roly Poly (Noela Pomery)
1 cup Lion S.R. Flour, 1 tablespoon butter, 1 teaspoon baking powder,
salt.
Mix into paste with little milk. Roll out and spread with jam or
syrup. Roll up not too tight and put into pie dish and pour over
sauce.
Sauce: 1 small cup boiling water, ¼ cup sugar, 1 tblspn butter pour
hot over roll and bake ½ hour in mod. oven. Bake 1 hour for apple
roll.
I feel for you. This is why we now use ml & g… less confusion. Is my spoon/cup/bucket the same as yours;)
No idea if it's the one for this specific case, but we have some recipes calling for a "teacup" which appears to translate as ~ 6 ounces or 177 ml.
Ironically, @Tetsujin, the metrification of teaspoons/tablespoons appears to have been what resulted in Australia’s tablespoon diverging more significantly from everyone else’s!
How far out of 'true' was Australia's 'pint'? Anything close to the UK's, or did it take a US direction… or even its own independent? It's what we used to call here "One open, one shut, span of my hand & half a brick" measurements ;))
“…Now that’s a teaspoon.”
I'd get in touch with Anne Reardon (from the "How To Cook That" youtube channel), she's done older recipes, maybe she can help.
@Sneftel - "I see you've played knifey spooney before!"
I don't understand where your statement comes from: " In those cases, however, they are referring to specific measurements even if it isn’t a standardized measurement." Why do you dismiss the much more common case where the cook just uses a random (or in this case, a random small) cup from the cupboard?
Good point @rumtscho; I’ve updated the question to clarify my assumptions.
Hey, you're asking about Australian usage, but most of your example references are not Australian cookbooks. Why those references? Do you expect that "a small cup" in a US Cookbook from 1908 would be the same as one from Australia in 1960?
What I'm asking is: do you want to know the measurement for Australia, or for somewhere else? Please decide.
Also good point, @FuzzyChef. I’ve updated the question. Basically, Australia is preferred because that’s where the recipe is from, but for older definitions anywhere in the core Anglosphere should be acceptable.
Was asking because I have early American references, but nothing early Australian. I'll let you know what Martha Washington thought "a small cup" was later this weekend.
TL;DR: Based on early British and cooks' resources, "a small cup" was probably equivalent to "a teacup", which is 1/4 pint, or around 142ml. However, there are a lot of caveats to that.
First, I cannot tell you for certain whether "a small cup" in any particular recipe was a specific measurement. Until the very late 19th century, "a cup" was not a standard measure of anything. The standard measure that was smaller than a pint was a gill (1/4 pint). So in pre-Victorian and many Victorian cookbooks, "a cup" meant "whatever cup you happen to have around" and could thus be equivalent to anything from 75ml to 400ml. This kind of loose usage persisted well into the early 20th century, so one can never assume that "a cup" means precisely anything.
Second, British and American measurements diverged in 1824, so one cannot assume that anything in one system is necessarily true of the other. Since Australia was still British possession until 1942, I'm assuming that any measurement trends in mid-20th-century Australia would follow the British standard. The caveat is that I don't know that to be true; the simple truth is that sources for early Australian weight and measure practices are scarce-to-nonexistent in my library (I live in the US).
Thirdly, understand that volume measurements were not standardized between materials until the Victorian period in Britian; there, a pint of flour, a pint of milk, and a pint of beer would have all been different sizes in the mid-19th century. And in the US, they weren't standardized until the mid-20th century. We're going to assume that Australia standardized shortly after England, but that could be wrong.
Fourthly, I'm assuming (like you are) that your book is relying on older measurement systems, since "a small cup" is not a standard measure for any post-metrification Australia.
With that preface, I consulted British cooking references: the classic Mrs. Beeton's and Around The Clock Cooking. The first is one of the most published and updated cookbooks in the British world. For the second, a South African cookbook historian claims it was very popular across the Commonwealth in the mid-20th Century. I also consulted The Victorian Way cookbook.
While none of these references mentions "a small cup", both of them distinguish between "a breakfastcup" and "a teacup". The former is 1/2 pint, and the latter is 1/4 pint. The Epicurean, and excellent early American reference for measures, also uses breakfastcups and teacups, but puts them at 1/2 pint and 1/3 pint respectively, although the American pint was smaller (the Epicurean also has "a coffeecup" which is 1/5th American pint, so if the teacup still seems too large, try that).
This strongly suggests that "a small cup" is the same as "a teacup" which is 1/4 pint. However, how big was a pint?
In most of Australia today, a pint is 570ml, and only a little smaller before metrification (567ml). But in South Australia, it's 425ml, similar to the American pint. Since cups are defined in relation to pints, your "small cup" could be 142ml, or it could be 106ml, depending on where the author and their teacups were from.
The reference to the Edison recipe where "a small cup" is "the size of an egg", which would be about half that size, doesn't contradict this because Edison was American, and not British or Australian, and the notation "the size of an egg" suggests that the author knew they were not using a standard measure.
"Since Australia was still British possession until 1942, I'm assuming that any measurement trends in mid-20th-century Australia would follow the British standard." Australia became pretty heavily Americanized during and after WW2, so it's possible that there might have been some crossover between British and American units, there. That sort of blending of dialect is why we call both what Americans call "fries" and the British call "crisps" as "chips".
Nick, yeah, that's the problem with this kind of research. Without a source that specifically documents Australian measurements in the early 20th century, we have to guess.
Just an update. Using the lower end of that scale, a half cup, worked great. While I suspect there’s a lot of leeway in this recipe, that amount meant a syrupy sauce at the end that was neither too thick nor too runny when spooned over the pastry.
Jerry, aha! So that suggests like Nick says above that Australians were using American measurements -- or South Australian ones -- mid-century. Or, at least this author was.
The problem with ‘small cup’ is that you have to know what a normal size cup was at the time. I’d assume 6 to 10 oz for a ‘normal’ cup, back then, even though that would be considered ‘small’ in the days of venti coffees and big gulps
I would assume ‘small’ to be something smaller than a teacup, which would have been a fairly standard size, so your guess of 4 fl.oz, or even slightly less would be a reasonable plan for a first attempt, and then adjust if you think you need to.
Related: https://cooking.stackexchange.com/a/69023/67
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91903 | How much is "1-2 cents worth" of yeast in an old recipe?
I'm looking through an old cookbook, ''The Art of German Cooking and Baking'' by Lina Meier (2nd Ed., 1922, Milwaukee, file on wikipedia). There is a recipe for waffles here which calls for "1-2 cents worth of yeast." How much yeast actually is it calling for?
I know how much yeast two American pennies will buy me today: none. Practically, the smallest quantity of yeast I can buy today is an envelope of Fleischmann's active dry yeast, which, according to the internet, weighs about 7 grams (0.25 oz).
I've reproduced the recipe below since it is out of copyright and I've heard yeast is one of those ingredients where you've got to consider what's going on in the rest of the recipe. All I'm concerned about is the 'yeast' ingredient: how much does this mean in today's measurements.
No. 15—YEAST WAFFLES.
Quantity for 6 Persons.
½ lb. of butter ¾ pt. of milk or cream
4 eggs 1–2 cents worth of yeast
¼ cup of sugar ½ lb. of flour
½ grated lemon peel Lard for baking
1 pinch of nutmeg
Preparation: Cream the butter, stir in eggs, sugar, lemon
peel, nutmeg. The yeast is dissolved in the cream which has
been warmed, stirred into the mixture, then flour added to
make a stiff batter. Set to rise in a warm place. Grease the
waffle iron, put in 3 tablespoonfuls of batter, close the iron
and bake the waffles light brown, turning the iron to bake on
both sides. Waffles must be baked and served quickly, because
they are apt to lose their crispness and become tough.
When serving, sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon.
(I couldn't find any tags related to quantity, please retag as needed.)
beware of inflation, 1-2 cents is worth a lot more today :-)
I have no idea about historic yeast prices or measuring units, but there are typical ranges for yeast, and you are pretty flexible on the amount you use.
In bakers' percentages, 2% is a standard (for traditional wet yeast). You use more for rich doughs and short rises, and less for long rises. Your recipe is quite rich and short raised, so my gut feeling would be to start with 5% for the first batch and adjust in the next batch if needed. 5% of half a pound is 11,34 g, which converts to 3,8 g of dry yeast.
You could in principle chuck in the whole 7 g package as Cynetta suggests, but that gets into the range where you get the side effects of too quickly fermented yeast, which consist of off tastes due to ammonia and thiols. You might like that taste (many people whose grandmas baked on the "more is more" principle are accustomed to it), in which case just go for it. Else stay with the lower amount, and give it time to rise well (probably blubb, if it is as liquid as I imagine it from the recipe).
As a side note, you might want to reduce the eggs - home laid eggs in 1922 weren't the 55 g sold nowadays as a standard. Three instead of four would give you a more authentic taste.
King Aurtur Flour gives a guide of 1 packet of active dry yeast (7g, 2-1/4tsp) per 4 cups of flour. A cup of all-prupose flour has a mass of about 125g, if 'fluffed' properly.
(Mind that in 1922, it was fresh yeast - active dry yeast wasn't developed until during WWII)
Anyroad, to answer your question, 1 pkt (sachet if you are a Euro) is appropriate for this waffle recipe. (1/2 lb of flour is 227g) A bit more yeast (even double in this instance is just fine)
How much fresh yeast would this equate to?
@Cindy from https://www.thespruceeats.com/baking-yeast-dry-and-fresh-yeast-measurements-1446706 : "Because fresh yeast has moisture in it, you should use 3 times the fresh yeast in weight for the same rising ability of instant yeast and 2.5 times the amount of active dry yeast." (but they then give 17.5g to replace a packet of active dry, and 21g for instant yeast / (0.6 g ; 0.9 or 1oz when dealing w/ blocks. )
Parts of this conversation have been moved to chat.
"Cent worth" is not referring to how much yeast you can buy for money.
It's referring to 1-2/100 of it's weight.
So assuming (from my European knowledge) that package of yeast in 1922 was what we call now "compressed bakers yeast" (because it's long shelf life and the fct that they bought one big package at once) the weight was one pound.
So the recipe called for 2/100 of a pound.
That's interesting information. It would be a stellar answer if you could dig up a citation.
This seems doubtful. Besides the Internet not knowing of such a rule, I dug up the book itself. It is bilingual, with all recipes printed in English and German, and the German recipe says "für 1-2 Cent Hefe", which is a German idiom used for price ("how much cheese do you want?" "for five euros, please") but not for weight measurements.
If my conversion is correct, this is a weight of about 9 grams. A teaspoon of yeast is slightly less than 3 grams, so this would suggest 3 teaspoons of cake yeast. 2 teaspoons or one packet of modern active dry yeast should be adequate.
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78021 | Egg sizes of yesteryear and today
I have a great Mrs Beetons recipe for Almond Icing. However, as it's a very old recipe and calls for the whites of 4 eggs what size egg should I use. As eggs on the whole have been getting smaller over the years. Yes I can see that egg yolk sizes have been discussed on the site, but not this particular problem that I have.
ALMOND ICING FOR CAKES.
INGREDIENTS – To every lb. of finely-pounded loaf sugar allow 1 lb. of sweet almonds, the whites of 4 eggs, a little rose-water.
Mode.—Blanch the almonds, and pound them (a few at a time) in a mortar to a paste, adding a little rose-water to facilitate the operation. Whisk the whites of the eggs to a strong froth; mix them with the pounded almonds, stir in the sugar, and beat altogether. When the cake is sufficiently baked, lay on the almond icing, and put it into the oven to dry. Before laying this preparation on the cake, great care must be taken that it is nice and smooth, which is easily accomplished by well beating the mixture.
Have egg sizes really decreased? If I look at those I get from private (= non-standardized) sources, some breeds have larger, some smaller eggs on average, not taking the variances between birds of different age, during the seasons etc. into account. Do you have a source?
Having used Mrs Beeton's, I would be inclined to use medium eggs, although hers may have been small. This recipe creates a fondant so, if you're unsure, less is more. I'd start with two, adding the others one by one, so that icing is not too wet.
Be aware that US and European egg sizes are different. If not specified, typical (modern) advice is to assume an egg is 60 grams ... but that's a large egg in the US, and a medium egg in Europe. See http://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/3705/67 and http://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/784/67
There is no absolute conversion as egg sizes were not standardized back then. For the USA, not England, the food timeline http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodeggs.html under the section "Egg sizes the USA" (about 1/10th of the way down) starts with (bolding added):
What size hen's egg was used to make a cake in the 1840s? Excellent question with no simple answer. Today's consumers find eggs clearly marked with quality grades in different sizes. In the 1840s, many consumers found eggs under the chicken in the family coop. Pre-industrial American cook books regularly acknowledge the relationship between fresh eggs and best product but are silent on size. Cook books focus on identifying "good" eggs, proper storage, and preservation techniques. In those days, the size of chicken eggs depended upon breed, feed, season and cooping conditions.
Recreating old recipes with modern products always poses special challenges. When eggs are on the shopping list, think small or medium.
The section continues with various extracts describing approximate weights and other commentary.
From the above, I would go with Dorothy's comment and use medium, starting with two or three and adjust for consistency. Don't forget to weigh what you use so that you can repeat your success with any eggs.
I have been doing some research myself, however haven't got time at the moment, will post it later, great answer.
OK, really I give up, having spent way too long looking things up this afternoon I just have to accept that maybe things have changed a bit over the years. x-large eggs are now jumbo, a term that would have Mrs Beeton turning in her grave, I will just use large eggs and be done with it. I will however use Dorothy's idea of starting with two and going from there, thanks guys...
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85407 | Mystery ingredient in cookies with cream tartar
The attached picture is of a cookie recipe from my grandmother who passed a year ago. I would like to make the cookies, especially since they share my daughter's name, but there is one ingredient that I can't decode. It appears that the recipe calls for:
Nora's Cookies:
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 cup ????
1/2 cup milk
2 tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp soda
salt
vanilla and lemon extract
flour to roll out
What might the 3rd ingredient be?
Beside the ingredient (which you now decoded) she seems to have forgotten mentioning the flour. You might be supposed to knead this all into so much flour that the consistency is "right" - which makes it very difficult to reproduce.
@rumtscho It looks like a pretty standard sugar cookie recipe, so probably about 3 cups of flour.
The thing I see missing is shortening.
@GdD that’s the “mystery ingredient”! Spry = shortening.
Never heard of Spry. This reminds me of my grandmother's recipes which left out important things like flour, baking powder, etc. Security through obscurity I think @Stephie
@GdD LOL! I also have a few old recipes of the "add as much X as required". Unless you at least once watched the recipe being made and ideally touched and tasted it, you are in for a lot of experimentation - or you already have a lot of experience.
Same here @Stephie, nana's recipes were more notes.
If y'all think following Grandma's recipe is hard, my sister has been translating some 16th century Hungarian cookbooks recently. So in addition to possibly-incomplete recipes that assume (wrongly) that you know what the dish is supposed to be like, there are issues of words that have changed meaning, or words that we simply can't decipher at all, because nobody alive today knows the equivalent of "oh, that was an old brand name for shortening".
@Stephie I think ignorance might be bliss here. If they don't what the end result is supposed to be like they won't know if the otherwise good cookies they've made are too thick/thin, chewy/crumbly or soft/crisp, etc. when compared to grandma's.
It's "spry"... which is actually what it looks like.
Spry was apparently a brand name shortening.
This related question "Is there anything special about "homogenized" shortening?" recommends simply using any type of vegetable shortening, like Crisco.
Spry did a great job of making itself a household word. Their advertisements with Aunt Jenny were quite charming. But they lost out to Crisco in the 50s.
The mystery ingredient reads spry, which is a brand of vegetable shortening. It's probably not available any more, just use any other brand.
Spry Vegetable Shortening. Spry was a brand of vegetable shortening produced by Lever Brothers starting in 1936. It was a competitor for Procter & Gamble's Crisco, and through aggressive marketing through its mascot Aunt Jenny had reached 75 percent of Crisco's market share. Just google it. enjoy your cookies
Bridget welcome to the site! There are a few issues with your answer: 1. You are simply copying the first few sentences from Wikipedia, without mentioning the origin. That's not ok. You may quote other sources, but please give the source. Also, if you are only copying text, we consider it not really "your" answer. 2. Answering "just google it" is not an answer. Often people have googeled before asking here and in this case, the asker was also unsure how to read the word. And, as a side note, we are often one of the first google hits when people have cooking questions! (And proud of it!)
You should take the [tour] and browse our [help] to learn a bit more about how the site works. Once you have gained just a bit reputation ("points"), you will start to get more and more privileges. Again: welcome!
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85881 | What temperature would a "quiet oven" be in old fashioned temperature vocabulary?
I’m looking at a couple of recipes from the early twentieth century. One calls for a quick oven. The temperature for that (375 - 400°F) was easy enough to work out, several places online have it, including a 2010 Q&A from this site. The other one, quiet oven, is proving a little more challenging. (If this is a mistake, it was a typo/typesetting mistake in the original article: it is a newspaper article and is pretty clearly 'quiet'.) I am leaning toward ‘slow oven’, 300-325°F, because it is difficult to imagine anything being cooked at lower temperatures. (It is a sweet potato biscuit if that makes a difference to anyone’s logic process.)
So, any ideas what a ‘quiet oven’ might be?
Got a reference for "quiet oven"? Where did you see that? That's a term I've never heard before.
If you don't get an answer here, btw, you could try asking Jas Townsend & Sons.
“Sweet Potatoes Make Good Bread,” Detroit Free Press, December 24, 1917, Page 7. During the First World War there was an effort to conserve wheat so alternatives, such as sweet potatoes were attempted for items like biscuits and muffins. Lots of papers at the time carried recipes like these.
Feh, can't gain access to the recipe without paying. What's the cooking time?
It doesn't actually say. After the ingredient list all it says is "Mash the boiled sweet potato smoothly, add butter and sugar. Dissolve soda in the buttermilk. Sift flour and salt and add to the mixture. Roll and cut as other biscuit and bake in a quiet oven. This recipe makes 24 biscuits."
Were there any ovens that did not qualify as a "still oven" (not having any forced convection facility), and might this be the intended meaning?
Could this be poor OCR from a scanned book reading quick? When you say biscuit what sort do you mean? It would seem reasonable to assume the American sort but it's as well to check. The first hit for "bake in a quick oven" biscuit suggests I might be right
It is a newspaper article and is pretty clearly 'quiet' though from the number of editorial mistakes I routinely see in newspapers it is entirely possible that the person laying the little tiles down could easily have laid out the wrong ones. Proofreading was no better in 1917 then than it is 2017. Given the reaction I am getting here, I am starting to think that there was no such term and it is entirely probable it was a typo.
I was searching hard, trying to find any reference to a 'quiet oven'. Can't find one anywhere. So, I proceeded to look at early 1900's sweet potato biscuit recipes. I found one from Jan 2018 that says to bake in a 'quick oven'. So, at this point, I'm with you on the typo.
There are a few 'named' temperatures in the links I put at https://cooking.stackexchange.com/a/27517/67 , but they're too inconsistent. I wonder if 'quiet' means "not a crackling fire", which would be more pure-coals
@PearlH : the Linotype was patented in 1900. A newspaper with any sort of money would've been using one, not movable type. Yes, there are still the possibilities of typos, but they'd have been easy to fix.
Well, quiet and quick look similar to an OCR, especially one with a spell-checking dictionary looking at faded and/or poorly forged letterset.
If you have ever reacted buttermilk and baking soda, you know that it is a violent reaction, and one that is not endless. If you want your batter to rise and keep its form, you would use a hot preheated oven to capture the bubbles, a quick oven.
So I am pretty sure that a quiet oven is actually quick.
The only thing that it could possibly be if quiet is really what was meant and an accurate description of the oven, in my opinion, is a stage in the wood-firing of a bakers oven where there are only coals glowing and the oven isn’t making any sound. But that is an assumption that I have no reference for. (And this would probably be a very hot environment, ergo quiet = quick).
Thinking about this some more, linguistically speaking, a ‘quick oven’ might be a shortened form for ‘quick ovening’. This could come from a German baker who anglicized the German: e.g. schnellbacken which is implicitly only possible in a very hot environment, regardless of the oven type. It would also mean that you don’t have time to do errands or chores while the biscuit is in the oven.
This seems to be based on a tenuous assumption. There are many other ways to reason about the source of the term. For example, a wood fired oven is much louder at some temperatures than at others. So, I wouldn't be too quick to accept this one as the correct.
based on 2 assumptions, 1 maybe "tenuous", but the other very solid, [how you would cook biscuits = hot, "quick" oven].
You may wish to update (and shorten) your answer based on the clarification from the question and its comments: the newspaper article definitely said "quiet". The OP does acknowledge the possibility that the article itself was wrong, but there's no need to worry about OCR and so on.
A “quiet” oven is likely around 325° to 375°.
The two main resources I’ve used are the Internet Archive and Michigan State University’s Sliker Culinary Collection.
The term “quiet oven” does not appear to be as common as other terms such as slow, moderate, or quick, but it does appear in older cookbooks. The Internet Archive has entries that include the term from 1853 and into the 1900s, though some of the latter ones are reprints of earlier recipes.
Newspapers.com also shows several recipes that call for a “quiet oven”, including one “relatively quiet oven”. I’m pretty sure it provided more mistaken “quick oven” and “quiet even” hits as “quiet oven” than valid “quiet oven” hits, but “quiet oven” clearly was a term used when sharing recipes with readers.
The earliest reference I found on the Internet Archive is Miss Crawford’s 1853 French Cookery Adapted for English Families; on page 181 her Petits Patés Hot recipe reads:
Having prepared your paste as directed, roll it out very thin, cut it out with a paste-cutter in rounds as large as a crown piece, put two or three rounds one on the other, with a little minced meat, of what kind you please in each, cover it, moisten the edges with beaten yolk of egg, egg them over, and bake in a quiet oven.
Later, Margaret Black’s 1882 Household Cookery and Laundry Work has at least three references to a quiet oven. From page 95,
Light sponge cakes, and all light cakes, must have a quiet oven, as well as all large cakes which contain much baking powder.
And two on facing pages on 100-101:
Mix thoroughly, and pour into a prepared tin, and bake till ready in a quiet oven.
…
Butter a cake-tin and dust it with fine sugar; pour in the mixture, and bake in a very quiet oven till ready—about half-an-hour, perhaps.
The term even appears in a poem by Walter Eldred Warde, in his 1885 Lines Grave and Gray. Look on page 93 for “What Might Be”, a poem to the muffin man. “In quiet oven you do bake…”.
The term appears to show up mostly in British Commonwealth cookbooks: England (mostly London) and Australia being what showed up in my searches. It wasn’t limited to baking. In May Byron’s 1914/1915 Pot-luck/or the British Home Cookery Book she writes about boiling meat that the uniform heat required “is not boiling but quiet simmering. Meat boiled is meat spoiled.”
It is ridiculously uncommon even when used: in all of her 427 pages, Byron uses the term “quiet” twice. Once for the above-mentioned low simmer, and once for baking Kent Lemon Buns. She uses the terms slow oven, moderate oven, quick oven, hot oven, good oven, fierce oven, crisp oven, steady oven, brisk oven, cool oven, moderately hot oven, fairly quick oven, slack oven, gentle oven, very slow oven, moderately heated oven, good hot oven, rather hot oven, sharp oven, over-heated oven, nice hot oven, and just plain oven over 200 times.
I’d love to talk to three random cooks from the era and ask them to rate those terms, and see if the rankings are consistent. It’s difficult to believe that all of those terms could be differentiated from each other or were even meant to be differentiated.
There is one clue to the temperature that quiet ovens represented in the September 5, 1896 London Reader of Literature, Science, Art and General Information. On page 503 (I think), there are answers to correspondence. One answer specifically contrasts a “very quiet oven” to ovens that are “too hot”:
GINGER.—The reason your loaf sinks in the middle is that your oven may be too hot; gingerbread requires a very quiet oven; you see the treacle melts and so does the sugar, and if your oven is too hot it cooks quickly round the edges and draws the flour away from the middle; when eggs are in it they more quickly cook, and to some extent prevent it sinking; probably in your plain gingerbread you have scarcely enough flour; a little more would make it all right.
Bob Brown’s 1955 The Complete Book of Cheese states on page 118 that a quiet oven is a moderate oven:
Bake 1 hour in a “quiet” oven, as the English used to say for a moderate one, and when done set aside for 12 hours before eating.
And in his 2011 Small Adventures in Cooking James Ramsden writes about a vintage recipe:
It also suggests that sponge should be baked in ‘a quiet oven’, which is a lovely but useless instruction, bless.
His version of the recipe uses an oven temperature of 170°C, or 338°F.
The various terms were compared for the use in making cakes in the November 29, 1908 Chicago Inter Ocean and the December 16, 1908 edition of the London, Middlesex London Evening News:
…Large cakes should be put into a moderate oven.
If put into a very hot oven the outside will be browned and the inside left uncooked. Light sponge cakes and all light cakes must have a quiet oven, as well as large cakes which contain much baking powder.
A very light cake put into a quick oven rises rapidly round the sides, but leaves a hollow in the center.
This appears to differentiate “quiet” ovens from “moderate”, “quick”, or “very hot” ovens.
There are two potentially more useful references to quiet ovens in an article on Christmas cakes on page 24 of the December 2, 1924, issue of The Australian Woman’s Mirror. The introduction contains advice on temperatures for baking cakes that includes:
The oven should be hot, if it is a gas oven, when the cake is put in, and then the flame should be lowered to ensure a quiet, steady heat, so that the cake will not need attention for at least half an hour. In a fuel stove a moderate heat should be maintained throughout.
This can be reasonably interpreted as corroboration of a quiet oven being a moderate oven, at least as an upper limit—if we assume that a “quiet, steady heat” is what quiet ovens produce.
In the recipe for Rich Christmas Cake that immediately follows, the baking instructions are:
…bake in a quiet oven from 3 to 4 hours.
The lack of explicit baking powder or soda in the recipe makes it difficult to compare to modern recipes (it’s possible the recipe assumes self-rising flour, and also possible it’s relying on the eggs and other ingredients to provide a rise), but that long of a baking time likely places a quiet oven in the middle of, or at the low end of, a moderate oven.
Early oven manuals occasionally contained conversion charts, tables that both corresponded older terms to modern temperatures and tables that corresponded baked goods to specific temperatures. I was unable to find any that include “quiet” in their tables. Many do contain “moderate” and “gingerbread”, however. The latter are surprisingly consistent.
Occident Flour’s ca. 1920 Occident Cake Recipes, on page 3, places gingerbread under the column for “slow” ovens, or “250°F.—325°F.—350°F.”. Both the ca. 1925 Universal Electric Range Instruction Cook Book and Pyrofax Gas’s ca. 1930 Cooking Made Easier place gingerbread at 350° in their charts on pages 15 and 32, respectively.
Even the more common terms are all over the place in these charts. They were never specific to begin with. Calumet Baking Powder’s 1923 Modern Biscuit Making calls for baking in a moderate oven that is 325° F on page 12, and then a moderate oven of 350° F across the fold on page 13.
That’s expected. But even the ranges given in oven manuals vary. The ca. 1925 Universal Electric Range Instruction Cook Book places moderate ovens at 325° to 400°. The ca. 1925 Monarch Electric Cook Book places moderate ovens very tightly at “350 to 360 Degrees F.” on page 68. They loosen up in their ca. 1930 Monarch Electric Range Instruction Book to “350 to 400 Degrees F.”. Frigidaire in ca. 1950 puts moderate at 325°F to 375°F and then in 1961 at 350° to 375°F.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary combines them all into a definition for moderate oven of “an oven heated to a temperature between 325° and 400° F”.
So even if a table from the transition period to temperatures could be found that includes the term “quiet oven”, it would likely be just as subjective.
Many oven manuals did not contain a conversion chart. At least one actively denigrated the terms for being too subjective to use. The Estate Stove Company’s 1925 Estate Cook Book begins on page 2 with:
CULINARY efficiency demands the complete elimination of guesswork and rule-o’-thumb methods in baking and roasting.
Such terms as “slow” oven, “fast” oven, “moderate” oven are not found in modern cook-books. They are too hazy and indefinite. Instead, exact temperatures are specified.
Such homely, old-fashioned expedients as testing the oven by a piece of manila paper—“when it becomes the proper shade of brown,” or by a teaspoonful of flour—“if it browns while I count forty, the oven is just hot enough for bread,” are merely poor makeshifts. There is nothing scientific about them; nothing accurate; nothing certain; nothing dependable.
Unsurprisingly their cook book does not contain a conversion chart. Why would it? Any such chart would be inaccurate, uncertain, and undependable!
The Estate Cook Book’s two gingerbreads (page 10) bake at 350 and at 325.
The clues I’ve found are somewhat contradictory, at least potentially. Is the “very quiet oven” that is required for gingerbread going to have a higher or lower temperature than a merely “quiet” oven? Because the author is telling the questioner that they were probably using too hot of an oven, I suspect that “very” quiet means cooler rather than hotter. If so, and if a gingerbread’s 325° to 350° is a “very quiet” oven, then a merely “quiet” oven would likely be 350° to 375°.
This somewhat matches James Ramsden’s 170C which is likely to be translated to either 325F or 350F, since recipes that use Fahrenheit tend to use even multiples of 25.
A range of 325°F to 375°F or perhaps 350°F to 375°F for a quiet oven fits roughly with Bob Brown’s correspondence of “quiet” and “moderate” as well.
So, while it’s important to remember that such terms are necessarily vague, it is likely that a “quiet oven” is around 325°F to 375°F.
Google Books has a number of results calling for a "quiet oven" in older recipes, but it seems to have been such a ubiquitous concept that they didn't feel the need to explain what it meant. The only source I could find that gave any indication at all was this book by Robert Carlton Brown, published in 1955, which indicates that it was an English term for a "moderate" oven. He doesn't say what that specifically means, or when it fell out of favor as a term (I would assume with the advent of electric ovens), but I would posit that it's somewhere around 350-75 degrees, based on modern usage.
I have an old (early 20th century) book with a recipe that also calls for a 'quiet oven' so I'm pretty sure it's not a typo. I'm inclined to agree that it's a moderate temperature (around 350-375F) as I found it in a cake recipe.
Welcome to Seasoned Advice SE. :) I'm surprised that you found it in an old book, so cool! Can you tell us which one, what recipe/page #, etc.? Or a reference to it online?
Must be a quick oven. Only thing I can think of as a quit oven. Would be a oven, stove banked down for the night. With the 10 gallon water tank on the side. So you would have hot or warm water in the morning when you got up in that tank. That would be under 200f By morning if cold out 120f. In the kitchen. Ready to stir the coals shake them out & add more wood for heat. Shake the ash out leave the coals to start the new wood burning. A warm place to stand as the kitchen warmed up was near the stove oven. We called it a banked down oven in the cold months. May be wrong her.
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96214 | What would be considered thick milk in old recipe
I have a cake recipe from my Grandmother that calls for thick milk? Anyone know what this might be? Not sure of the cake name, handwriting is hard to read. Full recipe is 1 c sugar, 2 eggs, 1 c thick milk, 1 tsp baking soda, 1 tsp cream of tartar, 1/2 c butter.
What area of the world are we talking about? https://www.yourdictionary.com/clabber
Or rather, what region of the world did your grandma (or rather: the recipe) come from? You can also add a photo to the post, we’ve seen (and deciphered) old handwritten recipes before.
And: is there no flour or similar amongst the ingredients?
I am pretty sure she means milk which went sour naturally, or spoiled milk.
Before refrigeration and even after refrigeration but before ESL and UHT milks, a milk that got sufficient microbial activity would visibly curdle and get thicker and somewhat sour. Such milk is unpleasant to drink, but people used to not want to afford to throw this milk away, and took the risk of using it within something that gets baked. The reasons for baking it are 1) to hide the taste, and 2) to reduce the risk of food borne disease.
My own family has this kind of recipes, and I still remember my mother using them in this way when I was a child (it was in the 90s, but food safety rules hadn't reached us yet). Also, this is how names like the German Dickmilch (which literally translates as "thick milk") came to be. So I think it's plausible that this must be the case here, given that your recipe is old. Also, if the recipe really has no flour, using soured milk improves your chances of getting something firm and custardlike (albeit grainy), as opposed to the much more finicky flans made with fresh milk. Although I must admit my mothers' recipes wouldn't be for a completely flourless cake - she had some that were used as filling for baked pastries, and a savory one which contains just a little bit of flour, gets poured into a pan and baked. It doesn't form a doughy texture, but rather something like a pie filling, or a quiche without crust and vegetables.
For recreating the recipe nowadays, I would suggest that you use the stuff that American supermarkets sell today as "buttermilk". This is milk soured by known-harmless bacterial cultures, somewhat similar to yogurt. If you live in a part of the world which uses the term "buttermilk" in its original meaning (the watery liquid that is left after butter has been beaten out of the current-american-meaning-buttermilk) try searching for similar cultured products under a different name, maybe "cultured milk" or "soured milk". If you cannot find any, appropriate substitutes would be kefir or yogurt thinned with milk, even creme fraiche thinned with milk for a creamier result. I am not a fan of adding acids to fresh milk as a substitute, in my experience this creates the wrong texture and it is difficult to get the acidity right. Do not let your own raw milk out, this is unsafe by modern standards, and our grandmothers were wrong in assuming that it will become safe by heating.
Actually, I doubt that we are talking about real spoiled milk. Spoiled = disgusting, soured = good. And I would probably pick something thicker than buttermilk?
@stephie There is no real boundary, one person's good is another person's disgusting. I would argue that in contemporary use, milk left out until it thickens on its own is not considered "good, soured", even though that was different in other times and cultures. And I hoped to be clear about the double use of the word "buttermilk" - I am suggesting the thick modern kind, which is equivalent to the oldfashioned soured milk, not the thin traditional kind, which is equivalent to the whey left after churning oldfashioned soured milk.
@GeorgeM it is actually a lousy substitute. I"d only use it if I am out of any kind of cultured dairy, and even then, I might consider going shopping or baking something else.
I think it is extremely rare for somebody to have a local source of fresh milk, but no local source of any kind of cultured dairy, such as yogurt, indian curd, creme fraiche, etc, even if they don't have access to buttermilk specifically. And any of these cultured dairy products is a much better substitute than fresh milk with acid.
serious eats did an article about kefir substitutes in baking https://www.seriouseats.com/2017/04/how-to-substitute-buttermilk.html - the best substitute is Kefir, which is available in many places where buttermilk is not
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122720 | My grandmother's recipe for cookies from the 50s or 60s calls for a 5 cent cake of yeast. How many ounces is a 5 cent yeast cake?
I have my grandmother's recipe for cookies, from the 50s or 60s, it calls for a 5 cent cake of yeast. How many ounces is a 5 cent yeast cake?
Does this answer your question? Converting yeast amounts from old recipes
The 5-cent is likely a distractor...it's just a cake of yeast, and we already have a question on this for you to refer to.
@moscafj I am not sure it's a distractor. As the other question notes, there used to be two sizes - so I interpret it as a descriptor of the cake's size.
I think the question would be easier to answer if you gave the amounts of flour and liquids and asked how much yeast this might require. Also, the tme the dough is supposed to raise is helpful
@rumtscho fair point...one could look at the recipe, look at the conversion for "small" and "large" cake, and make an educated guess (see @eulenfuchswiesel). Alternately, if the is a 5-cent cake, it is probably safe to assume it is the smallest...would there be a 3-cent cake? ...a 1-cent cake? ... Probably not.
@moscafj I don't see how it is safe to assume it's the smallest. Historical inflation is tricky, especially since inflation indices don't take into account the relative rate of change between different types of goods. In any case, there were times where one cent was enough money to purchase something - and maybe the 50s were such a time for yeast. As for the recipe, it is interesting to see - but since these are cookies, and in western baking, it is not typical to make cookies from a yeast dough, I doubt that we will be able to reverse-engineer from typical ratios.
@rumtscho in 1937 (only data I could find) a cake of yeast cost 3 cents in Morris county NJ. https://www.mclib.info/Research/Local-History-Genealogy/Historic-Prices/Historic-Prices-1937 If it were me, I would use conversion for small cake of yeast.
While the older question is certainly related, I don't think it answers this question, because we don't know whether 5 cents for yeast was a lot or a little. More details about the recipe would definitely help.
Related: https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/91903/how-much-is-1-2-cents-worth-of-yeast-in-an-old-recipe
@moscafj yet your link doesn’t specify whether the 3 cents is for a large or small cake?
@Stephie..again, I am making an assumption that there is not a lower priced yeast. Yes, I realize it is a leap for some. As you point out in your answer, "it is reasonably likely." Given the lack of any other information, as I stated much earlier, this is what I would go with. If I didn't think it was a duplicate, I would have answered along the lines of what you posted.
As elaborated here, there were two standard sizes of fresh yeast common in the US, small with 3/5 oz, and large with 2 oz.
Without further sources we can not be sure whether the “5 cents” is truly the smaller size as discussed (although it’s reasonably likely).
What I would recommend is that you make your dough with the smaller amount for one very simple reason: Yeast is a living organism, so if you add too little, you simply need to wait a bit longer until it has multiplied enough to give your dough the desired lift. Add too much initially, and you run the risk of an overpowering yeast taste and a dough that goes into overly risen faster than you can shape and bake the cookies.
This also means that you should judge the ripeness of your dough not based on time, but based on visual clues (e.g. “until doubled”), which hopefully should be included in your recipe anyway, because environmental parameters (especially temperature) can and will influence the necessary rise time.
Cake yeast has moisture and dry yeast is dry. A small cake of yeast is the amount for a loaf of bread and usually weighs 0.6 ounces. An envelope of active dry yeast is also the amount for a loaf of bread and weighs about 0.25 ounces, or about one-third as much as a small cake of yeast. Newer forms of dry yeast are more active and less might be needed for a cookie recipe.
My Fannie Farmer Boston Cooking School Cookbook, 1923, has numerous recipes for cookies made with sour milk and soda and others made with milk and baking powder. I was unable to find a single cookie made with yeast. I suspect that your recipe makes what would be called a cake by most people, and legally a cake in the UK, where tax laws distinguish cakes from biscuits.
I thought I'd look at this from a different perspective. Using this online inflation calculator, 5¢ in about 1950 is about 50¢ now, or £0.40 as I'm in the UK and struggling to get sensible results for US sources of fresh yeast.
Most of the fresh yeast I can find online (supermarkets seem to have stopped selling it in the last few years) are organic and specialist. But 42g for about £1.20 is fairly typical. That 1½ oz.
So inflation calculations suggest about ½ oz - not far from the 0.6 oz small cake mentioned before - in fact surprisingly close, given that inflation doesn't apply uniformly to goods, and the supply/demand situation for fresh yeast has changed dramatically since then.
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112434 | What size were Baker's Chocolate bars when they were first introduced?
I have a recipe from my grandmother that calls for a bar of Baker's Chocolate.
What size (weight) were these bars made by Baker's Chocolates when they were first introduced?
Does this answer your question? Bakers semi sweet chocolate bar
This question is related, but is specifically about the former size of the individual squares rather than a full bar.
Bakers Chocolate Bars prior to mid 2013 were 8 ounce bars, after mid 2013 they became a 4 ounce bar.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/1960s-BAKERS-CHOCOLATE-Box-vintage-baking-/184157356155
Thank you so much!!! I knew there had to be a difference
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70680 | Why isn't my steak fat cooking?
Recently, I've been experimenting with trying to cook steak on the stovetop (or in the oven), and I'm having a problem with each one that is really frustrating me. Typically when fat is left in a steak, its white and moist, while seeming to have at least partially rendered. In each steak I've cooked however, there remains chunks of solid, uncooked fat that ruins the dish. They are cold and hard and persistent throughout the cut, as if they hadn't been melted away at all. Its not the typical type of fat one sees remaining in a cooked steak. My question then is, what is happening and how do I avoid it? I've tried broiling and cooking over as high of heat as I can, and I've tried slow-roasting on medium heat for awhile. Is this "fat" mostly a consequence of cook time or temperature, and how can I fix it without obliterating my steak to shoe-leather town.
I should also mention that the steak is cooked past my liking (IE to medium-well) and there are pieces that have none of this fat so it seems like another culprit might be that I'm not cooking it evenly but I don't know what to do differently.
Thanks in advance!
EDIT: Types of steak include flank steak, sirloin, and petite tender.
If that's you on both the OP and the suggested edit, you might want to merge your accounts. See here: http://cooking.stackexchange.com/help/merging-accounts
What stake cuts are you using and what grade if in the US? Prime, choice, select?
I think a picture of the finished product may be very helpful. I am having trouble envisioning a full cooked steak with a hunk of cold uncooked fat in the middle.
Summary: The cure to hard or overly chewy fat is generally longer cooking, but you may also want to consider trying a different source for procuring steaks.
My guess, based on the description in the question, is that this is a collagen issue. Beef fat will begin to melt over around 100F (~40C), and it will begin rendering in earnest by the time you hit the "medium rare" temperature. (That's often why "medium rare" is considered ideal for steaks; it's not as tender as rare or "blue" meat, but the fat rendering makes it taste more succulent.) If the steak is really done to "medium well," it should be plenty warm enough to get the process of internal fat melting going well.
[Sidenote: I'm not sure I understand the question description of the fat as "cold" or "uncooked" -- it's basically impossible for internal fat to have those characteristics when surrounded by muscle cooked to medium-well, unless you have a giant vein of connective tissue running through the middle of the steak. However, fat has a different heat capacity than muscle, and it often seems to be at a different temperature when eaten. I'm guessing that's what's going on here?]
So if the fat is still tough, the problem seems most likely to be collagen content. Collagen gradually converts to gelatin during cooking, a process that speeds up as the cooking temperature gets higher. While collagen is found in greater quantities in tougher muscles (e.g., the chunk or shoulder), it also helps to hold the structure together even in more tender cuts. Often, the stuff we call "gristle" in fatty steaks isn't the true gristle of elastin and tendon which wouldn't be broken down with prolonged cooking, but merely fat or connective tissue with a higher collagen content. In a pot roast cooked for many hours, this stuff would gradually turn into gelatin.
Anyhow, there are many different types of collagen too, some of which take much longer or higher temperatures to break down. Depending on the diet of the animal, how it is exercised, how old it is at slaughter, and whether (and how) the meat is aged, the collagen around and within some sections of fat -- even typically "tender" fatty cuts like ribeye -- can be quite tough and resistant to breakdown. The biggest factor is often age: as an animal gets older, the types of collagen networks get more complex and harder to break down.
If this is indeed the issue in your steaks, there are two solutions:
Try buying different steaks. It could be your source. I don't know where the OP is from, but in the U.S., grocery stores (for example) often sell ungraded meat under "store brands." The meat isn't necessarily bad quality, but one reason to not bother to grade the meat is that the animal is a little older at slaughter, which automatically will disqualify the meat from the higher grades most people look for. Or it could contain very little marbling, which tends to mean that the fat which is present has a higher concentration of connective tissue. I've had plenty of grocery-store steaks over the years which had flavorful muscle, but most of the fat would never render and would remain tough, likely due to higher collagen content. This seemed to be much more common in steaks from some stores, but not at others. (Also, if you're in the U.S., be careful to note that graded steaks should specify USDA grading and generally carry the USDA seal -- it's actually perfectly legal for stores to sell an ungraded steak under a label like "America's Choice," even if the meat is not USDA Choice grade.)
If you can't change sources, or the problem still occurs, the solution is longer, slower cooking. Perhaps a lot longer. Collagen breakdown can occur at lower temperatures, but the higher the temperature, the faster it will happen. If you want to cook for a long time but still maintain a medium or medium-rare steak, the ideal method is sous vide (i.e., sealed meat in a water bath held to constant temperature). Alternatively, I have had success with a long, slow-roasting method cooking a steak in a very low oven (perhaps one that is barely heated to "warm" and then turned off; you'll probably need to monitor the internal steak temperature with a probe) for a couple hours, then searing very quickly before eating. This latter method often gets me closest to the "steakhouse" experience at home, since the slow-roasting at low temp effectively does a bit of accelerated dry-aging, and the fat in a cut like a ribeye will often end up soft, buttery, and ready to burst with juices. (However, even after a couple hours of slow cooking, I've still had some grocery store steaks where the fat remained tough. I stopped buying steaks at those stores.)
Just as another note: I mentioned above that I didn't really believe the fat could still be uncooked and cold in a medium-well steak. If, for some reason, I'm wrong, and that is actually happening here, the solution will still be longer, slower cooking to even out the temperature as the meat cooks. You may not need to go to the extremes I mentioned in the previous point, but you'll perhaps want to slow down the cooking process significantly.
Of course, these alternate cooking methods will take long, and most people want to cook their steak for a few minutes and then eat. In that case, I'd strongly recommend trying meat from a different source and see if your results improve.
As a steak cooks fat will melt away but not all the fat will melt away even well done.
If you want less fat in the cooked steak then you need to start with a low fat cut such as fillet minion. You can trim fat prior to cooking.
You can trim fat after cooking. Some people like a big hunk of fat in the middle to keep the meat moist. Does not mean you need to eat it.
Low heat is going to cook more evenly.
A pan is going to hold fat.
You should not have cold hard fat unless you are just searing a fatty cut.
As far as I can tell, petite tender and flank steak are not generally fatty cuts of meat... Sirloin can be but isn't always.
@Catija Exactly. "In each steak I've cooked however, there remains chunks of solid, uncooked fat that ruins the dish" does not compute.
Let us continue this discussion in chat. (removing the discussion from here)
Make sure that the meat is taken out of the refrigerator for at least an hour before cooking.
Had a similar problem cooking my steaks in my cast iron skillet. I like my steaks pretty rare but it's a real problem when the fat doesn't cook soft enough. I found that just browning the fat on its one side near the end of cooking is enough to get them up to temperature for soft, buttery steak fat without cooking too close to well.
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89298 | Gelatin powder vs Gelatin leaf when and why
When preparing jelly type recipes there seem to be two options gelatin leaf and gelatin powder.
When looking around I found explanations for the ratio of powder to leaf such as here how much powdered gelatin to one gelatin leaf? but I'm struggling to find any good explanation of the difference and when one is preferable over the other.
The only difference I've noticed personally is that it can be a little tricky to get powder right in that if I put it in and don't mix it quickly it can become a separate ball.
So as for the question, Gelatin leaf vs gelatin powder when and why?
I have never personally noticed a difference. I saw that there are other answers which say that a difference exists, but the points made are not inherent in the form (powder or leaf). The difference (which is already slight in itself) is more likely to appear between different brands of gelatine, and it can simply happen that in some market, the available leaves have a quality which the powder doesn't, or vice versa. It is like filling olive oil in square or round bottles: the final shape is different, but it has no effect on the content.
There can be some slight personal preferences in handling one over the other - as you said, for you blooming the powder sometimes fails. There is nothing universal about that, I suspect that every cook makes fewer mistakes with whichever they are more familiar with. I remember how comically I failed when I tried to bloom leaves for the first time.
For me, there is no culinary reason to choose one over the other.
From my experience with reading cookbooks, the main thing that I’ve noticed is that American recipes call for powder, while British recipes call for leaf
I have no idea what the availability of powder is in the UK, but leaf isn’t typically available in regular grocery stores in any of the places that I’ve lives
So, gelatin leaf and powder both have to be bloomed in cold water. Recipes using powder will account for the exact quantity of water needed to hydrate it. With gelatin powder, there is one strength, with the leaf there are three (bronze (weak), silver (medium), gold (strong)) and most often recipes will use the silver. Gelatin leaf is one set weight, so it is easy to know how much you are adding without having to weigh (for example, mine are always 2g each, but different manufacturers provide different weighted leaves).
I prefer the flavour of the leaf (neutral flavour), whenever I have used powder I have been totally turned off by the scent and flavour of it. In professional pastry the leaf is generally preferred.
Also, both forms of gelatin will melt after 140F and will denature (no longer gel) after 185F.
5 blooms: titanium, bronze, silver, gold, platinum. and the leaf weight is not the same between them. and due to this, 1 leaf of one strength is equivalent to 1 leaf of another... so they are interchangeable.
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94619 | Should I buy more expensive oats?
Whenever I buy oats I go to buy oats I'm always left wondering if the higher price could result in a better product. I auspect it could be that a higher price just means an expensive cardboard box or a better position on the shelf.
I've checked for factors that I think might explain it such as origin and organic claims but that doesn't seem to explain either.
Can oats be different quality and how can I tell the difference. What effect does it have on what I prepare with it?
The Oats
The types of Oates I'm asking about are the varieties that are plain and not premixed with other ingredients. There are a number of forms I know of such as Rolled, quick and steel cut oats.
As for the uses, I mostly mix with boiling water for breakfast but occasionally use in cooking as well so If there is a difference for different uses then knowing about that would also be useful.
An example shelf
The above pricing ranges from $1.5 to $6 for what appears to be the same quantity of the same product. Note some of the products are mixed are not really oats they are mixes and not included in my question.
@Stephie I could not find a way to practically remove the content to the right. The centre left are more to the point but the actually samples are not that important as this will vary across countries and regions. Also there is a mix of quick and rolled oats the same question applies there
Ah. Just thought I’d check. So let’s ignore the honey-flavored ones etc. I still see quick and rolled oats. Do I read your question right as “if I buy the same kind of oat product, e.g. rolled oats, does it matter which brand I pick” or something like that?
What are you doing with them? I usually buy the cheapest generic rolled oats for making porridge, flapjack, and granola, and haven't noticed a difference if I end up buying more expensive ones. But maybe you're doing something more unusual
Why not do a blind taste test?
@Stephie thanks for the questions, I've updated the question and your interpretation is right. Also, I don't take it as nagging I just give short responses.
@ChrisH usually porridge / breakfast but want to know if it makes a difference for other uses
Does anyone have anything to say that's even remotely close to the question being asked besides @ChrisH
@aris round here they do that by adding price reduction stickers in the shop. Stock control takes care of minimising the need to do this. If large quantities of something long life are going out of date before they reach the retailers, there are other routes (an online shop I use, for example).
My experience is that for making porridge (various methods, sometimes soaked but not always) or granola, or for baking (flapjack/oat bars, crumble topping), all rolled oats are equivalent. I usually buy the cheapest (bottom shelf, boring packaging in UK supermarkets) but occasionally have to get more expensive ones.
One thing occurred to me that might possibly make a difference: some, such as Lidl's cheapest that I currently have, are packed in a paper bag. Many others, including the more expensive ones I've bought, have a plastic bag, possibly inside a box. If you're storing them for long periods in a humid place or exposed to strong odours, the paper may not be as good. Of course you could always put them in a sealed container when you get them home.
Find Raw groats. Cook em. Much better than steamed rolled, or steel cut. I'd say more, but someone seems not to like that. All your oats are vulnerable to air oxidation, going stale.
@WayfaringStranger I get through mine quick enough, thank you. If you include making big batches of granola that is.
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70524 | heavy cream and half-and-half substitute
I am trying to make ice cream and it calls for 3 cups half-and-half and 1 cup heavy cream.
I don't have either but I do have one gal of 2% milk
If I can make some half-and-half and heavy cream out of it that would be awesome or if you know a good substitute for both that would be nice too!
UPDATE :
Full recipe
"Ingredients
3 cups half-and-half
1 cup heavy cream
8 large egg yolks
9 ounces vanilla sugar
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
Place the half-and-half and the heavy cream into a medium saucepan, over medium heat. Bring the mixture just to a simmer, stirring occasionally, and remove from the heat.
In a medium mixing bowl whisk the egg yolks until they lighten in color. Gradually add the sugar and whisk to combine. Temper the cream mixture into the eggs and sugar by gradually adding small amounts, until about a third of the cream mixture has been added. Pour in the remainder and return the entire mixture to the saucepan and place over low heat. Continue to cook, stirring frequently, until the mixture thickens slightly and coats the back of a spoon and reaches 170 to 175 degrees F. Pour the mixture into a container and allow to sit at room temperature for 30 minutes. Stir in the vanilla extract. Place the mixture into the refrigerator and once it is cool enough not to form condensation on the lid, cover and store for 4 to 8 hours or until the temperature reaches 40 degrees F or below.
Pour into an ice cream maker and process according to the manufacturer's directions. This should take approximately 25 to 35 minutes. Serve as is for soft serve or freeze for another 3 to 4 hours to allow the ice cream to harden.
Recipe courtesy of Alton Brown, 2005
"
edit
i don't want a full substitute like almond milk and coconut cream
i can use butter ect
Not an exact duplicate, but explains why it can't be done: http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/35270/how-to-effectively-take-cream-from-milk, http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/35662/getting-cream-from-evaporated-milk, http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/35208/how-can-i-make-whipped-cream-if-i-cant-always-get-cream/35238#35238
Can you please include the full recipe and the method? Some methods do not require the full fat content of half and half or cream. My general recommendation is to find a recipe that calls for the ingredients you have already, though.
...or go shopping for the ingredients you need. Or in this case, view the show if you're a video-head or read the script if you are not, and understand why it's using those things, and what else you could do to change it (one of the Good Eats scripts is my default "messing with frozen concoctions" reference, and I NEVER follow the recipes in it, because it's not the way I'm wired.) But the amount of foolishness from people usually all of 15 minutes from a store with what they need to do the job right is absurd.
Cream has a high fat content, fat adds elasticity, flavor and a smooth mouth feel to ice cream. You can use 2% milk in ice cream instead of cream and it will work, however it will not have many of the desirable properties you get from cream. It will be harder and taste "weak" for lack of a better term.
If you want to make a lower fat ice cream then you can make up for the lack of milk fat somewhat by using more egg yolks and adding stabilizers like xanthan gum, guar gum, etc. See my answer to this question for a bit more detail on gums in ice cream.
It is possible to make a cream substitute by mixing 1/3 cup melted unsalted butter with 3/4 cup milk, but this would only work for recipes where the emulsion of fat in the liquid is not required - all you will get from this is milk with fat floating around in it. This may work in some baking applications, but it won't whip and it won't make ice cream you'd want to eat.
i did not read your post tell now but
last night i put 14 oz of milk and 1/2 cup sugar and 1/3 cup butter and 2 caps vanilla extract heated it to get the water out it made a thicker milk and the ice cream was CREAMY :) but it has a little balls of oil that are not that grate if i can get them out that would be Awesome i think using less butter might work
Such a mixture does not work as a cream substitute under any circumstances. If you need it in a place where the emulsion doesn't matter, you don't need to either melt the butter or mix it with the cream, you can just put both into the dough separately. If the emulsion matters, it cannot work. In the end, suggesting it as a substitute creates unneeded work for people who don't need the emulsion, and seriously misleads people who need it.
You are right @rumtscho, I didn't state that strongly enough before. I've edited to make it more plain.
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70727 | Is there an alternative to using oil when baking muffins
I make a lot of muffins and I am constantly altering the recipes to try and create the perfect muffin to satisfy my taste and keep me regular.
I also avoid using sugar and oil.
I have been substituting unsweetened applesauce (equal part) for the oil; and I just read a great response on this forum regarding the role that oil/applesauce plays in baking (very informative, thank you!).
I'm wondering if there is an alternative to oil/butter/margarine/lard/vegan butter, etc. that will give me the taste and consistency that I would get had I used the fat called for.
Editorial:
I am not looking for a substitute for the sugar.....There are many ways to add sweetness to the recipe. The article I mentioned above (role of oil in baking) explained that the fat protects the flour from becoming to glutenous (or chewy) in the baking process. It further explained that the pectin in applesauce has the same (albeit diminished) affect on flour as does the oil. However, it said that this is where the comparison stops ~ implying that there are other desired effects from oil in the baking process.
I know from eating my muffins that there is something different about them than had I used oil. I just can't put my finger on what it is (it is more in the consistency than in the taste). And so I am wondering if there is some ingredient I could add, perhaps in addition to the applesauce, that would make up for whatever else the oil is good for that is missing from my muffins.
Thanks.
By "non-oil" do you mean "non-fat"? and by "non-sugar" do you mean all sugars?
Yoghurt, squashes, yams, sweet potatoes, egg yolks, tofu or ground nuts could possible be added as an alternative.
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74519 | What am I doing wrong with my rice cooker?
I have a Breville rice cooker and follow the instructions exactly (for 2 cups of rice). There are two settings - on or off (keep warm). The manual says:
But no matter what type of (white) rice I use, there is always a layer of hard (overcooked) rice at the bottom. I've tried various timings, stirring between cooking and resting etc. but that releases the steam and I still had the same problem.
The manual has some tips:
But again, even changing the amount of water slightly (tip 1) seems to do very little to the end result. I must say, apart from the layer at the bottom the rest of the rice is absolutely fine. However when you're cooking only 2 cups and losing half a cup or more it isn't exactly efficient. Is it just because I'm cooking such a small amount of rice in a relatively large/shallow cooker?
I've already searched Google, and I'm going to try some other methods. I was wondering though if anyone can see anything obviously wrong with the manual that I have, or if I'm simply missing an additional step that would solve the problem?
I already rinse the rice beforehand. I came back from visiting the Philippines with a rice addiction after eating so much of it, but until now have never really cooked it much myself. Very much an amateur...
Any advice or constructive criticism welcome :)
EDIT May 2018: I've been using it as a steamer with the included thingy and for that it works wonderfully!
Probably just a bad rice cooker. I have had a couple and never had that problem.
@Paparazzi I was hoping that wasn't the case as it was a birthday present, and it seems like a good brand. You could be right though.
I agree with @Paparazzi, it sounds like it's busted to me. Send it back while it's still in warranty, in the meantime use a pan with a lid - making rice is very easy.
The hard layer at the bottom of the pot of rice is actually considered a delicacy in some cuisines. It’s called socarrat (Spain), tahdig (Persia), nurungji (Korea)
The table above seems highly questionable. It calls for rice:water in a 1:1 ratio by volume, which I suspect would result in extremely "chewy" (i.e. hard) rice. My entire life, I've always used a 1:2 ratio, and so does everyone else I've asked. My rice, made in a National rice cooker, comes out perfect every time.
Does your rice cooker have a scale up the inside of the bowl?
With mine, you add a number of scoops of rice, then fill with water up to the correct number on the side of the bowl. Maybe it is just that the manual is badly worded, and this isn't clear?
It's a long shot, I know, but just thought I'd mention it in case you hadn't noticed :)
Hi - just checked and it does have markings that say "4", "6", "8" and "10 cup" so I'll give that a shot with four cups and filling to that line. I guess there isn't a marking for two cups due to the bowl starting to curve towards the base that low down in the bowl. It could be that it just doesn't like such a small amount of rice/water. Thanks!
Note that 'cups' can be different depending on the rice cooker. Mine comes with a 'cup' for the rice, but it's not 1 Cup, it's significantly less. As a result, the markings in the bowl usually only work if you use the measuring 'cup' that came with the rice cooker.
I observe the same behavior with my own rice cooker. The reason this is happening seems to be due to the simple, but in my opinion incredibly smart principle behind the rice cooker's operation. It just turns off when the bottom of the pot reaches temperatures above the boiling point of water - it means that there is no more water left, so the rice must be cooked.
I learned that the following procedure greatly reduces the amount and crunchiness of the crust:
Do not use the 'keep warm' feature of the rice cooker. Immediately after it turns off, I turn it off completely. There's no need to add more heat to the rice now.
Take the lid off, let the condensed water drip into the rice. Fluff up the rice. This helps to mix the dryer bottom layers of the rice with the upper layers, which are more moister. Put the lid back on to prevent the rice from drying up.
Put the pot on a cold surface (I just put it on the floor). This makes steam condensate under and on the crust at the bottom of the pot and not so much on the lid. The crust gets rehydrated by the condensation.
Wait for some time. After about 5-10 minutes the rice will still not be too cold but the crust will be much softer.
When taking the rice out of the pot, the rice should be much easier to scrape off the surface. I usually eat the remaining crust (which is now rather pliable) because I find it tasty due to the small amount of Maillard reaction that occurs at the bottom.
Enjoy!
I originally had issues with a rice cooker and had burned and crusty rice on the bottom and discovered that my house voltage was much higher than it should be and not the rice cookers fault. If your expensive breville is making crusty rice, it's probably defective. You shouldn't have all these issues.
I was going to suggest the same thing. If the voltage in the home is higher than expected, the heating element could be running hotter than expected.
Maybe you are just underresting the rice (a seemingly hard or even stuck layer of rice that becomes palatable when rested is common with simple rice cookers), or using a water ratio that is ill-suited to the actual brand and type of rice you are using?
Thanks - I've tried lots of different rices and brands (was given a load as a gift along with the cooker) so I'll check next time that it rests for the full amount of time.
Basic, inexpensive rice cookers do a good job of cooking rice evenly, without a crusty layer at the bottom. I find it rather surprising that a Breville product (which are pricey) would fail to do this basic feature properly.
The crust is generally associated with cooking in a pot on the stove, rather than a rice cooker.
I would make sure that you are using the "cup" that comes with the rice cooker. This cup should be calibrated with the water lines in the main pot, but is probably not a cup in the imperial measurement sense. In other words, do not substitute an imperial cup for the rice cooker cup.
Thanks - yes I am using the cup that came with it (following the instructions in the manual exactly like I said). I am surprised too, it was a birthday present which is why I'm trying to get it to work properly.
You can try stirring a tablespoon or 2 of oil to the mix after washing but before cooking the rice. I find that this prevents rice from sticking to the bottom. At least to me, the oil does not seem to affect the taste or texture of the rice very much.
As an aside, some people actually enjoy the overcooked "sheet" of rice at the bottom. It may be inevitable that you get at a least a bit of overcooking on the bottom if you enjoy your rice with some bite like me.
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102448 | Traditionally, why are 'pasta bowls' wide and shallow?
I was curious as to why they're marketed as pasta bowls in the UK, and it's because they're frequently used for pasta (obviously). Buy why are bowls used for pasta traditionally wide and relatively shallow? As opposed to other types of bowl?
The reasons I can think of are potentially to do with serving size (i.e. can fit more in the bowl) or thermodynamics (larger surface area to allow faster cooling). But I don't know why either of these would specifically apply to pasta dishes.
For context, this is what is generally considered a pasta bowl here in the UK as far as I'm aware:
As compared to a cereal/all-purpose bowl:
Or a soup bowl/lipped bowl:
I understand that a 'pasta bowl' is not exclusively for pasta dishes and I know that other types of bowl are also used when it comes to serving pasta. But I'm interested in why, in the UK at least, a 'pasta bowl' is sold as such.
What would you call a "normal" bowl? Soup plate, cereal bowl… one has a rim, the other doesn't… Also a quick Google for 'pasta bowl' shows up both types [& many other variations] though scrolling down shows me more rimless than rimmed.
@Tetsujin here pasta bowls are generally rimless and wide, while a 'normal' bowl can be like a cereal bowl or a rimmed bowl. I did check Google for an answer before I asked :)
We don't know where 'here' is, & you still haven't defined what you consider to be a 'normal' bowl. What is 'normal' depends on the style of the dinner service, & the intended purpose.
@Tetsujin I've added some context, I'm in the UK.
I'm a little confused. In your question you say that pasta bowls traditionally have a wide rim. But the picture you posted of a pasta bowl doesn't have a rim. Then in comments you say that pasta bowls are generally rimless and wide. Can you please edit your question to clarify?
Could this just be marketing? A lot of pasta is eaten from all of those bowls, and, in fact, it might be just as common to serve it on a plate, depending on the recipe of course.
@Cindy Sorry, when I wrote the question my Google results used 'wide rim' as rimless and wide. To be honest I never thought about rims/lips or bowl terminology before...
@moscafj That's a possibility, would be interesting to know why though
@Lyall To sell bowls!
The question is still contradictory, can you please edit it so that it's not?
The reason I ask is that here in the US the "soup bowl" you have on the bottom is often sold as a "pasta bowl".
@FuzzyChef I've made some updates to the question to try and help clarify - I hope it helps :)
Yeah, that works.
I think I've also seen the soup plate shown in the question sold as a pasta bowl, while my pasta bowls are wide with vertical sides
My hypothesis is that there is no functional reason for having a wide rim on a pasta bowl. I contend that this is simply marketing, and the choice of the person presenting the meal. It is just a name for a bowl. Pasta is served in all sorts of vessels; plates, deep bowls, shallow bowls. Saucing, in part, determines the vessel. For example, you can't serve tortellini in brodo on a plate. Plates, bowls, and dishes are often designed and chosen for the way they compliment a final dish's visual appeal. The Chinese (and other noodle eating cultures) don't necessarily eat noodles from wide-rimmed bowls, and I would confidently guess that you wouldn't have to look that far back to find a time that there was really was no such thing presented as a wide-rimmed, pasta bowl. So, I would say that this is not a tradition at all. This is a product of restaurants, ceramic makers, and the media (magazines and food TV).
It's just like all the different wine glasses, with a different glass for each varietal. Lots of folks don't realize that "tradition" was created by Reidel.
Id wager that the wider rim is for laying hunks / slices of bread on without them falling vertically into the dish ;-) At least that's how we used them at some of restaurants I've worked at. So yes, presentation.
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102304 | Are all these ingredients edible?
I'm cooking a Chinese soup base kit that I found in my local Asian supermarket (an amazing place!) But I'm not familiar with the ingredients. As some of them look strange and 'woody' I wanted to check if I'm supposed to fish them out like a bay leaf (or rather, strain the soup) or leave them in and eat them? I've checked Google but I'm not sure.
Chinese yam <- pretty sure I can eat this
Fox nuts <- these too
Lotus seed
Changium
Red Medeberry
Longan Pulp
Astragali
Regardless, it smells amazing and has chicken in it too :)
Edit: Now that it's been cooking for a couple of hours and things have opened up/softened I'm pretty sure it's all edible. Even the twiggy looking things are now soft and easy to bite into
[I don't know] but I have visions reminiscent of finding the whole cardamom in the last mouthful of biryani… it's 'traditional' but a roulette in practise. ;)
I think the medeberry is goji, so that's edible. You can eat lotus seed and Longan pulp. I am familiar with those "packs of dried things" and usually you can eat all of the stuff, but I usually leave the twig-looking stuff.
Thank you :) yes one of them does look very twiggy...
Yes, I think you can eat the twig like stuff, too. I just love the dates, goji, and longan flavors more. The tastes are so subtle and nuanced. Enjoy!
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71431 | Identify this dessert
One of the best desserts I've ever tasted came from a restaurant which no longer exists, and I am trying to identify what it might be called and how to prepare it myself. It looked sort of like a colorful flan--pie shaped with about four fruit-based layers stacked on top of each other. I would call it a tart, but it had no crust. The bottom layer was quite thin (maybe .5 cm) and contained passion fruit and probably some lime juice, and it was about the most delicious thing I've ever had.
So the questions are:
What should I call such a dessert?
Can someone suggest a recipe for the fruit layers (especially the passion fruit layer)? The layers were stiff enough to stand on their own, but soft enough to be cut with a fork.
Edit: In response to comments:
The texture and consistency was about like a brownie---but maybe slightly softer and smoother. There were no chunks or slices of fruit visible.
I don't know other flavors specifically, but I'm pretty sure there was a berry layer (raspberry maybe?). Lemon might have been another. The flavors were not declared explicitly on the menu, and the only reason I know that passion fruit was in the dessert is that I was so impressed I asked the server what the flavor of the bottom layer was.
It was served at close to room temperature, maybe slightly chilled.
I would describe the restaurant as "trendy modern cuisine". It was in a mountain resort area, and typical plates ran $20-$30. I think the main dish I had that evening was pan-seared medallions.
After searching various combinations of terms, I found this:
http://www.talitaskitchen.com/2012/02/entremets-passionata.html
Is that anything like what you are describing? If you could describe the dessert in more detail, that would be helpful. For example, could you identify any of the other flavors? What was the texture of the layers (mousse, for example)?
@Kathleen The texture was indeed about like a mousse. I don't recall specifically the other flavors, but raspberry would be a good bet. Perhaps lemon was another? I don't think there was any coconut (which seems to otherwise be commonly paired with passion fruit).
Some more detail would indeed be helpful - were there slices of fruit involved (embedded in the layers, perhaps?), was it served chilled or warm, was it delicate to the touch or fairly sturdy? If you can recall anything from the restaurants' description, that will also help - for example, do you know it was passion fruit because it was called that, because you've had passion fruit (mousse) before, or because you liked it, asked, and then remembered it - each will suggest different things about how it was intended to be received. (also, it helps to edit these details into the question)
I hope someone can find an answer because this sounds tasty! Do you happen to remember the name and location of the restaurant? If it was fairly well known, then maybe there's an old menu or restaurant review online.
What kind of restaurant is it?
If it's a restaurant in New York City, the New York Public Library has a collection of menus that goes back over a century. It's possible that there might be other libraries that do similar things in their city.
You might just do a search for the restaurant if there were any articles online that mention the restaurant and find the people that could help you, then you could end up getting THEIR recipe too!
Did it look like this http://bakingwithbeurre.blogspot.com/2013/09/baking-passionata.html (the cake toward the bottom---sponge cake layered with fruit mousse)
The best I can guess is that this dessert is, in fact, a layered flan.
(or other free-standing baked custard, I suppose).
There are a lot of recipes for fruit flans, including passion fruit (with or without lime juice), lemon, raspberry, and others. In that case, the individual recipes would be the key to search for, rather than the whole confection - once the custard mixtures were made, it would not be impossible to somehow layer them into individual molds before setting, for a similar effect as you describe. Very impressive in a restaurant, and efficient enough in time and effort when they can make full batches of each custard, since they end up making many individual portions.
In any case, you would likely have to find recipes for passion fruit flan (you can check for lime juice, or not, as you prefer), and either simply find a recipe you like, or slowly tweak to match the taste you remember.
Just to give examples - here is one for passion fruit and lemon flan, here is a softer but tasty looking no cook version, This one claims an intense enough flavor to not need vanilla (quite the claim), Here's one with lime in the recipe. This is completely different flavors, but shows an example of a layered flan jelly. A pastry case can be omitted (or inversely, added), the flan can still be cooked and set. Caramel can be omitted, possibly replaced by (fruit) syrups after cooking if desired.
Of course, how close this comes to your expectations depends on which recipe you start with and your desired results, but I had some thoughts on tweaking recipes to match your description - no guarantees, it's mostly speculative. It sounds like this dessert of yours was fairly stiff if it was comparable to a brownie - a higher proportion of egg will make a flan stiffer, obviously liquids will make it softer and looser. Using a recipe witch includes pulp (smoothly pureed, for consistency) will probably make a thicker end result than one only flavored with juice. Using cream vs condensed milk vs cream cheese or egg yolks vs whole eggs should help tweak rich and soft versus firmer and drier.
Some recipes are thickened with gelatin, and it may be possible to further thicken the recipe with starch or even flour (if it ends up well cooked) to make a batter, which will get you a bit further afield from most flan recipes, but might help if the texture is not quite what you wanted.
I would be tempted to call it a dessert terrine with a tart shape.
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71371 | Impossible to manage sticky dough
Even after finding many people with my same problem and some nice answers, nothing really works. I have watched many youtube tutorials on how to handle and shape sticky dough but believe me, I have never seen something as sticky as what I'm dealing with right here.
My dough will stick to absolutely everything, even the brand new dough scraper that I bought is useless against this. I have tried everything: oil, flour, cold water, a spatula, a scraper... NOTHING works.
I'm doing just as many youtube videos and tutorials suggest and they never end up with such an sticky monster as I do. It's driving me crazy.
I really appreciate your help,
This is a short clip of me tryng to fold my dough: https://www.dropbox.com/s/h12qkh14uyrd0ev/video-1468336333.mp4?dl=0
Thanks!
Add more flour to your dough when you mix it so it's not so wet?
What kind of dough is it? Can you link to the recipe?
It looked like the scraper was doing a pretty good job. (It's one of my favorite kitchen tools, by the way.) Is this a yeast bread recipe? If you can provide some more information, that will help us figure out if there's something wrong with the recipe.
Unfortunately, your link does not seem to be working for me right now, but assuming you are making a leavened bread dough, here's some tips. Let me know if you've tried all these before.
Wet your hands before handling the dough. This will temporarily keep the dough from sticking to your hands but be warned: this effect will not last forever. Make sure to keep wetting your hands as you go.
If you're getting near baking time, go ahead and flour the surface and your hands. Ge generous with the flour, too little will find yourself elbow-deep in dough with no way out
With the scraper, wet the scraper a bit before using it to reduce "drag" on the dough.
If you could provide more details on the exact makeup of the dough, that could provide more insight, but that's all I have for you right now.
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124095 | Will a premixed sauce made of corn starch, soy sauce, and sugar degrade in quality when stored in a fridge?
I’ve read this canonical question about food safety, so my question is explicitly not about the safety aspect. I was curious if there were quality implications of storage of the sauce, and what the expected storage lifetime would be in the fridge.
Specifically, I’m making a mixture of:
Quantity
Ingredient
2 Tbsp
Low-sodium soy sauce
2 tsp
Sesame Oil
1/4 cup
Water
2 Tbsp
Brown Sugar (packed)
2 tsp
Corn Starch
Based on the linked question I would expect it to be safe in the fridge for at least 3-5 days, but I was wondering if there’s any weird interactions to be aware of, such as between the sugar, soy sauce, and corn starch that would degrade the quality even if it’s still safe to eat.
This is a sauce for a stir fry that is intended to thicken after being heated, and I don’t know whether the corn starch will still be effective after a few days, for example. I was hoping to be able to make a somewhat larger amount and cook with it over the course of a week or so. I plan on mixing these ingredients but not actually heating them until I actually add the sauce to the dish.
It's unclear from your description -- do you intend to cook the sauce (thickening it) before storage, or just to have the cornstarch mixed in and quickly settling to the bottom?
@Sneftel good point; it’s intended to be mixed but not heated until I actually want to cook with it
I would imagine your main enemy will be separation.
The oil will float to the top - which is easily if temporarily fixed by shaking it…
… but the corn starch will solidify at the bottom, which will require much more vigorous shaking, and may in fact resist all attempts short of disturbing it with a spoon/stirrer once it's fully settled. [It can do this in 20 minutes. I've never tried leaving it for much longer.]
As there seems to be some uncertainty as to whether you're going to cook it first… if cooked, the corn starch will gelatinise on cooling, which makes it rather intransigent afterwards.
What you call 'intransigent' I call 'homogeneous'. I'd much rather scoop thick sauce than figure out how to bring 1/4 of the corn starch up from the bottom to go with 1/4 of the sauce.
Hmmm, didn’t realize how finicky the corn starch could be. My plan was to use a squeeze bottle which would make vigorous shaking fairly simple, but it sounds like the corn starch might not mix even then
@Sneftel - it won't thicken its intended target properly either; you'll just fight to stir it in, over-working it & getting nowhere really. Same as trying to microwave yesterdays' Bisto, custard, or the Chinese you made too much of, with a lovely shiny sauce. Alright to save having to bin it, but not ideal. They stay 'chunky' until almost boiling, then go runny.
@fyrepenguin - try a couple of portions & see how it goes. Cornflour [cornstarch] is funny stuff at the best of times, its properties make it good for 'fun' scientific experiments too. Mix it really, really thick & if you push it it squishes, but if you hit it with a hammer it shatters. Google for videos if you don't want to try it yourself.
@Tetsujin oh believe me, I’ve made both cornstarch and borax based non-Newtonian liquids. They’re fun as heck.
+1, cornstarch settled on the bottom is MUCH harder to mix again than newly added corn starch.
Reporting back; I've tried this a couple times since asking the question, and it works just fine. Some vigorous shaking successfully mixed in the corn starch as well as mixing in the oil. And yes, the sauce does gelatinize a bit on cooling, but it's basically a sauce for a stir fry, so that's more or less expected. Side note: I've discovered that the sauce (with a bit less sugar and soy and a tad more water) works shockingly well with scrambled eggs. added just before the eggs are done cooking. Looks ugly as heck, but tastes great
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128960 | Do tomato seeds release all their flavours if fried or boiled?
The centre of the tomato and seeds carry a lot of intense flavours, so I’m wondering if you cook tomatoes say by frying or making a stew, will the acidic and other flavours come out and get released into the frying oil and stew liquid? Then, would it be fine to filter the cooked seeds out without any loss of flavour?
I imagine all that remains within the seed AFTER cooking is the shell itself and the fiber in it but not the things that give tomatoes their many flavours.
Never noticed tomato seeds to actually have much of a flavour, and if anything not a pleasant one. It's the pulp that's tasty.
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128550 | Jarred grapes in fridge for over a month or so?
Is there anything I can do with grapes left in a sealed jar in the fridge that now taste tingly? Or throw away? Hate to throw away if I can use them another way?
Sounds like they are fermenting.
You've made sparkling (carbonated) fruit, apparently.
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126574 | "bags" for making potato dumplings
Two days ago, as the Belgian son of a German mother, I tried to make Grüne Klöße, a German potato dish, created from grated (?) potatoes. The potato flakes get squeezed, in order to get the water out, the resulting potato flakes become a dough, which gets formed into balls and those get cooked in a very gentle way: even experienced Klöße-cookers sometimes end up with potato soup :-)
As I'm a complete newbie, I also ended up with a mess and in future, I would like to avoid this. In supermarkets in Germany, it's possible to buy prepared Klöße, which are packed in a kind of paper bags, preventing the potato flakes from getting loose and ruining the dish.
I would like to buy such paper bags (although I believe other material, like cotton might be better suited), I could search for these on bol.com (or any other e-commerce platform) but I have no idea how those bags are called, not in English nor in Dutch (my mother tongue).
Does anybody have an idea where I might find such Klöße-bags?
Beware: at the beginning of the preparation process, the grated potato flakes must be squeezed in order to get the moisture out of it. For that I use a regular kitchen towel, so this is not what I'm talking about: I'm specifically looking for the small bags in which the individual Klöße are to be cooked.
The German term is „Kochbeutel“, literally translated „cooking bags”.
Just to confirm - the klöße are cooked in the paper bag and water gets through?
In the US, makeshift dumpling bags made of cheesecloth maybe?
@bob1: indeed, the water gets through.
@bob1 This is an example of the ready made version available in German supermarkets: https://www.edeka24.de/Lebensmittel/Beilagen/Knoedel-Kartoffelprodukte/Maggi-Kartoffel-Knoedel-Halb-Halb-im-Kochbeutel-200G.html OP is trying to get the paper/cloth bag and fill them themselves.
@quarague: you couldn't be more right!
@quarague Thanks. Though my German is rather limited, the only reference I see there is to tearing open a cooking bag, which doesn't provide any information about how it works. I've had Knödel at restaurants while visiting Germany, but never attempted to make them myself and am unlikely to find these sorts of packets in my country at the other end of the world.
One idea you could try is using empty cotton tea bags. These seem to be available easily (I just found a few on ebay when trying to search for 'Kochbeutel' in German). Check the size but large ones should be big enough for reasonably sized potato dumplings. They are also designed for immersing in boiling water and letting the water through.
Although this is a very good idea, it won't work as a Kloß is about twice as large as a tea bag.
@Dominique there are different sizes of reusable tea bags, they aren't the same size as pre-packaged tea.
@Dominique You need to check the size of the tea bags. There are some that are the same size as already filled tea bags and these are way too small but there are also some that are much bigger, maybe 8 times 12 cm when lying flat. Not really spherical for round dumplings but should be big enough.
One option might be "nut milk bags" which are designed to filter the liquid squeezed out of nuts. It's just cheesecloth sewn into a sturdy bag shape.
This looks like a great idea (I also found some items on the mentioned website), but one thing's not clear to me: it's the idea to boil the Klöße in those bags. Are they foreseen to handle that high temperature?
@Dominique if it’s cheesecloth made of cotton, it can handle boiling; that’s a common use-case, where you wrap herbs in cheesecloth to make a sachet that you can later remove after cooking. I can’t comment on other materials.
I don't think this is a good idea. A nut milk bag has a large volume. If you make a Kloß the size of a nut milk bag, it will never cook through.
@rumtscho considering the size of a Serviettenknödel, even a whole nut milk bag might work. But the material can also be sewn into smaller pieces.
@Stephie I would consider "buy cheesecloth and sew your own cooking bags" to be an entirely different answer from "buy nut milk bags and use them".
An entirely separate point, concerning anything made from cheesecloth: It's difficult to wash starch out of cloth, especially when it has been set right into the fibres of an absorbent material like cotton. Washing by hand would leave the bags gunked up. Machine washing will likely require putting the bags through the machine more than once, especially at the mild cycles used in today's eco-concious washing machines. This will considerably shorten the life of the bags.
I know it's not a 'cooking bag' answer, but my experience (Dutch heritage, culinary experience and training) is that most of the successful recipes for these kinds of 'dumplings' use some kind of binder, usually a starch. Ranging from the 'saved' potato starch settled out 'sediment' at the bottom of the potato water bowl, to added 'flour (either wheat flour or potato starch or even 'cream of wheat' (farina) - as many variations as there are home cooks! Hope this helps.
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128668 | Can melted chocolate covered coffee beans be put in the freezer to restore them
I had ordered chocolate covered coffee beans by mail, but they arrived melted and soupy. Should I throw them away or try to save them? I am unable to return them.
The coating may or may not need tempering to look nice, (depends on what sort of coating chocolate was used) but food-safety-wise it doesn't matter, and that won't affect the taste much (more the texture.)
Merely refrigerating should reharden the coating, though presumably you'll end up with beans stuck together with coating.
Not really any good reason to throw them out. Refrigerate (or freeze if you like) probably hit with a hammer or rolling pin to break up the mass into manageable chunks, and rest assured that it would look much the same after one bite if it had arrived un-melted.
If the coating won't stay solid when taken out of the refrigerator it probably was one that was tempered. Re-tempering it seems impractical. Many coatings don't need tempering (they use cocoa powder with some fat other than cocoa butter to manage that trick.)
And if it does need tempering to stay solid, you can always just store them in the fridge/freezer
Breaking up the mass will be easier if chilled in a thin layer - plate or baking sheet rather than bowl
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92548 | Can one eat a balanced diet if one only cooks once a week?
Is it possible to have a balanced (healthy) diet if one only cooks once a week? I am talking about batch cooking, not eating lots of costly pre-made foods.
”Pre-made food” refers to pre-prepared salads, microwaveable dinners, and other similar foods, which are invariably expensive.
If so, how?
This is off-topic as it's about nutrition, and is also open to opinion. It's also extremely broad.
Whose definition do you use for a "balanced diet". How do you define "cooking" (for instance, is microwave and/or stovetop reheating considered "cooking"?)
What is a "pre-made foods"? Is a can of peas and carrots considered pre-made? What about a can of gravy, or a can of stew, or a box of crackers, or container of lunch meat?
@Keeta I assume OP means the pre-made ready-to-eat meals you can get at most grocery stores. Such as pre-made salads, or "adult" lunchables sort of things (with chesse, fruit, crackers, meat, etc). Those are all expensive options if used regularly.
I make no assumptions on the OP, and I based my question to OP on how vague the rest of the question is, I can't assume what is and what is not allowed. If I had the rep, I would ask the question to be closed as "too broad" or "out of scope". With how broad the question is, it could even be answered with something like "Find 6 friends and have each one choose one day for each person to cook for all of the others." I am trying to use comments to clarify the question, and unless you are OP, I don't see that we can assume anything.
@Keeta SnakeDoc is correct, yes.
@Demi PLEASE UPDATE YOUR QUESTION to address the issues from comments.
related : https://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/149/67
@GdD how is nutrition off topi on a cooking Q&A? Isn't the point of cooking to get nutrition?
If you read the help you'll see that questions on nutrition are off topic @YetAnotherRandomUser. Feel free to ask more on Meta.
The types of foods that reheat well are also quite suitable for being balanced in one main dish. Generally speaking, dishes with stuff in sauce freeze/chill and reheat well. So stew, curry, chilli, ratatouille etc. should work. Any of those can be made with plenty of veg, which is important if you're aiming for a balanced diet. An accompanying carbohydrate side can often be cooked in a similar time to reheating the main dish, so this doesn't need to be included (unless you want to of course). From the point of view of sticking to nutritional guidelines you can do much better this way than buying ready prepared stuff, and cheaper.
Freezing in single portions is important; I tend to use containers intended for takeaway meals. Freezing means after 2 or 3 sessions of cooking you've got a variety of meals. I tend to defrost in the fridge, allowing 24 hours.
Personally I batch cook about 5-6 portions most Sundays, but don't rely on reheating these every night. Quick simple meals (like a stir fry or an omelette) add a nice variety.
Often, you don't even need to defrost: just put the block of frozen food in a pan that's big enough for it to lie flat and use a low heat until it's melted.
@DavidRicherby, indeed, but by choosing the night before and defrosting I get to eat sooner! As a bonus it saves energy
@Tim that's wrong I'm afraid. In fact it will help keep the fridge cool, reducing the electricity use of the fridge (consider a cool box with ice packs in). If you heat the house, you're right in that it takes heat from the air, cooling the house (in fact this applies to the fridge case as well, because the waste heat contributes to keeping the house warm). So you get into things like relative efficiencies. But if you only heat your house for a few months of the year the saving is real if small. Maybe I'll run the numbers later
Did the same thing when I was studying, make 4-6 meals, freeze 4 of them and then just cycle through the last 3 cooking sessions frozen packs for variety.
And even the de-frosting wasn't too hard, picked a weekend where I was able to cook two days and so was able to not have anything in the fridge for a day
A quick calculation suggests that it takes ~0.03 kWh to get take a frozen meal (modelled as 250ml water) from -20 °C to 4°C defrosted. But that assumesd Energy use: 100% efficiency which we don't have on a stove or in a microwave (defrosting at room temp heated with a modern gas central heating system probably reaches around 90% marginal efficiency, but gets into food safety issues). So doing this 3x/week saves a grand total of ~5kWh/year, AKA next to nothing (efficiency and use of food as an ice pack in the fridge ignored, but small effects)
Yes - this process is often called "Meal Prepping".
Typically with Meal Prepping, you would prepare and cook dinner for the rest of the week - either by cooking something that can be portioned out into individual servings (chili, soup, casserole, crock pot meal, enchiladas, etc), or by cooking multiple portions of the same meal (chicken with rice and vegetables, etc).
There are entire cook books dedicated to meal prepping! Here's just one example:
The Healthy Meal Prep Cookbook
For breakfast and lunch, meal preppers often take easy and quick items that can be portioned out for the week. Such as cheese cut into cubes, baby carrot sticks, hard boiled eggs, yogurt, grapes, crackers, etc.
One caveat that derails people from their meal prepping plans is the monotony of eating the same thing every day for a week. If this happens to you, maybe try food prepping twice a week, and prepare fewer meals. This way you can get a variety of food items, and keep a better variety of nutrients in your system.
For storage, I personally use the RubberMaid Brilliance collection. They have locking covers, can stack easily, are dishwasher safe (I'm lazy), and come in a variety of shapes and sizes - including "Bento" box style, and salad prep style.
Meal prepping can be a lot of fun, can be very healthy, and can save a lot of time!
I thought these foods only lasted 3-4 days in the fridge. What kind of containers would allow easily thawing small portions?
@Demi I personally use the RubberMaid Brilliance collection. They're more expensive than normal tupperware, but are more durable, are dishwasher safe, had better secure seals (with locks), and come in a wide range of shapes and sizes. Plus they're stackable: https://www.target.com/p/rubbermaid-brilliance-food-storage-containers-clear-10-piece-set/-/A-51097873
@Demi Prep twice a week - that's what I usually do. Eating the same thing every day for 7 days gets old quick... Or prep on Monday and over the weekend cook normal meals since you're home anyway and have more time.
Freeze some. I like rectangular Ziploc containers. A little hot water over frozen container and the "brick" of frozen food will pop out. Then that fits into a rectangular ceramic Corning casserole dish which I microwave.
With careful use of a freezer and portion-sized containers it's perfectly possible to have good variety and convenience. It takes a few cooking sessions to build up a decent stock in the freezer but after that it can be maintained on one session a week. I tend to make a big batch on a Sunday evening, and cook once or twice properly in the week, with the other dinners coming from batches. Sometimes I make a second dish as well, like a pasta sauce (not much extra washing up if you're making chilli/curry etc. at the same time)
A mistake I sometimes make is to cook too much when the freezer is full. Eating the same meal 8 times in 6 days is a personal worst in that regard.
Interesting. How feasible is it, instead of eating the same stuff 3-4 days in a row, based on 2 cooking sessions a week, to rotate recipes from the 2 preps?
i.e. chili-enchiladas-chili-....
@ItalianPhilosopher with the use of a freezer it's trivial, at least after the first couple of weeks.
I recommend a mix. Batch your sauces, soups, and protein. Put some in the fridge and the rest in the freezer. I will make noodles, cold sandwich, and salad fresh.
Chili and chicken thigh are my go to. On chicken thigh I crook with skin on and then remove the skin when cooked. Boiled eggs work on salad and as a snack.
I also clean the vegetables. You can get like 4 days in the fridge. You can get a week on some fruit like oranges.
Cooked chicken cut into slices goes wonderfully on salad or as a snack too. It can even be cold!
There are a few very important key things to do, but yes it's generally possible. With some practice, it's even less wasteful (though not at first probably), and some could argue time-saving.
So, the first real problem to tackle is storage. You don't really want to store things in plastic containers. You want to favor glass or pyrex (soda ash) with a good sealable (plastic works well here) lid. Generally, you should avoid Rubbermaid or Tupperware plastic containers. If you do want to use plastic get the disposable kind. The main reason is strongly caustic foods (like tomato sauce) tend to "melt into" the plastic making them hard to clean, and very hard to remove that taste. Using glass, even if it has a plastic lid, removes that problem. As do disposable solutions, but those make a lot of waste.
Next is going to be storage. This is tricky. Avoid the freezer for foods that separate. Normally this is foods that have fruits or high water content. Honestly I never freeze (preference) but that limits me to about 4-5 days. If you freeze you can get longer (weeks I suppose), but I hate when the act of freezing changes the flavor of the food. Do not store at room temperature. At best you will get a day or two, and that can be pushing it.
Labeling is very important. You should label what the food is and most importantly when it was cooked.
Store like foods together. For example, if you make a ton of Penne (just the noodles) store the 10 pounds of pasta together. In one bowl. Save the mixing it in with the sauce for later.
You will have to experiment a bit for this one, but try to stick with foods that have simple textures. You don't want to store food that isn't right if it's a bit too soggy, or that is nasty if it's a bit too crispy. Instead things like corn, green beans, peas, chicken thigh or breast. Things that don't rely on texture much. Conversely, don't try anything that has a texture that needs to be just right. I find that sauces, soups, and stews work well. Crisp foods like salad do not.
Finally, for your own sanity. Don't stop eating out. It's easy to rely on the pre-made meals, but that means you miss out on relaxing or taking a break from the sameness.
I am scared of thermal shock with glass. Soup around 212°F on the inside, and water at a much lower temperature on the outside, doesn't sound safe.
I would be much happier if I could get true borosilicate glass, but I have no idea where to find it.
@demi: https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/32571/where-can-i-buy-borosilicate-pyrex-bakeware-in-the-u-s would seem to cover that
If you defrost gently (up to low power in the microwave) and reheat in a metal/pyrex/ceramic container then you can freeze in plastic with no trouble at all. I do this all the time with tomato-based sauces. Reheating many foods in many plastic containers is problematic (or putting them in really hot).
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73435 | Using/selecting a centrifuge in the kitchen?
I've seen several articles about using a centrifuge for clarifying solutions, making colorless sauces and other things. Where does this practice come from? What is your experience with it? Are there cheap options outside of lab-grade devices?
The idea of using "science" equipment in the kitchen is a byproduct of the modernist cuisine movement, famously nurtured by Ferran Adria of the restaurant El Bulli in Spain. A centrifuge would be the optimal piece of equipment for separation and clarification, though there are other techniques that can be applied in home kitchens...admittedly slower, but which work fairly well. High quality, high capacity, bench top, refrigerated centrifuges can cost several thousand dollars. On the other hand, small, kitchen counter models can also be had for under $200 (see Amazon.com). What you get for that price is much less capacity, no refrigeration, and slower speeds...but you could play. Dave Arnold, inventor, author, cocktail expert, and owner of Booker & Dax bar in NYC has developed and is preparing to release a fairly powerful home centrifuge. If I remember correctly, word is forthcoming this fall/early winter. You could Google him...or follow him on twitter. A word of caution, some have recommissioned used lab centrifuges. You have to be super careful, as these may have been used to spin liquids that could be dangerous if consumed. Again, Arnold has discussed, and maybe even written about how to very carefully clean these reclaimed machines. This link would probably have some helpful info for you.
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124366 | Difference between letting yeast dough rise cold and slowly or warm and quickly
Some yeast dough recipes call for storing the dough in a cold place overnight (and usually more rising steps); others ask for keeping it warm for a shorter period of time.
It is clear that the yeast is more active (does more fermentation per time) when warm. The optimum is around body temperature. If nothing else changed, short rising times at higher temperatures should be entirely equivalent to long rising times at cooler temperatures, but apparently there is a difference.
What is it? Does the fermentation process change (in addition to simply slowing down) when cool, by favoring different metabolism pathways? Does the dough change significantly while resting?
Retarding fermentation allows, as you wrote, different and additional metabolic pathways to have a greater influence on the flavour. In addition, extended enzymatic activity of the flour has a greater influence on taste and texture. This all leads to a more complex and interesting taste profile.
You can read, e.g., J Kenji Lopez-Alt's description of his tests on cold fermenting pizza dough for up to ten days to get an idea of the changes engendered by the longer, cold fermentation; both good and bad.
Great article! And at the bottom is a link to an in-depth and informative Brioche dough discussion. Brioche actually inspired the question, so I'm doubly pleased. :-).
Yes, there are certainly differences in what you get dependent on the speed at which you let your dough rise. I am talking about first rise here; the second rise is generally the same length for mid- and long-fermented breads, and people who proof quickly usually don't bother with a second rise.
Quick rise: 40-60 min, 25-35°C
You get a very vigorous yeast colony that rises quickly. It suffers from overcrowding and produces characteristically smelling compounds, including thiosulfates and some ammonia.
This quick process is mostly used by home bakers. Typical reasons to choose it are:
you're pressed for time,
you love a bread that smells "yeasty",
you're uncertain of your skills or your yeast quality and decide to use more yeast and/or higher temperature, to be sure your bread won't be a dud
you don't know that there are slower options, or that slower options produce different results, or you don't care enough about the taste difference to bother with
The time is normally sufficient to hydrate the dough well, but you don't get any noticeable autolyse. Any gluten development has to be achieved mechanically. For good results, you have to make sure that you don't over- or underknead. You may have trouble shaping this into products that require good gluten development, such as round pizza bases or braided breads.
Standard rise: 2-5 hours, 15-20°C
This creates the most neutrally-tasting bread. You get a steady, nice fermentation without noticeable byproducts, and interrupt the colony's development while still very young. It produces a good texture, and you have a bit more leeway with kneading.
Retarded fermentation: 1-3 nights, 4-8°C
This technique has been gaining popularity in the 21st century, and is frequently considered "artisanal" bread. The long fermentation lets you develop a bit of the taste that has been classically produced by using sourdough, mostly based on acetic and lactic acid. You don't get the full-blown sourdough taste, but it's reminiscent, and the aroma is more complex than either the standard or the quick rise.
You can either knead the dough, or go completely for autolyse. Also, the texture is quite different from the shorter rises. The dough itself is very well hydrated, but becomes to some degree plastic rather than elastic, and this is noticeable also in the baked bread.
Reasons to choose this technique are:
you want a sourdough-like taste without bothering to do the whole sourdough process
you enjoy the idea of making modern artisanal bread
you prefer the texture produced by this method
your logistics prevent you from doing everything on the same day
your logistics require you to minimize your hands-on time spent baking, so you want a no-knead (and possibly one-pan) recipe.
The above is a very rough guide. The ranges don't overlap on purpose, because I wanted to point out the most typical way of doing it; in reality, you have a continuum. If you proof your recipe such that it rises in 1.5 hours, you get dough/bread that's midway between the typical classic and quick rise.
The result descriptions aren't precise, they're rather broad guidelines. Especially the texture will depend a lot on the recipe ingredients and ratios, and your kneading technique.
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127933 | Adding fat to Konnyaku block recipe?
Konjac or Konnyaku blocks are bland but I notice an unpleasant alkaline flavor.
However the texture is very useful in many dishes.
Can I improve flavor of home-made blocks by adding oil?
Or will that prevent gelling at some percentage?
Recipe searches turn up only readymade blocks in dishes with added oil.
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116187 | Sharpen a blue cheese dressing?
My penecillium rocqueforti ripened blue nutcheese still hasn't sharpened in flavor ie ketone development which takes 6mo or more.
Otherwise flavor and aroma fine at this point.
Would like to use in dressing.
Adding bit of sharpness to mix desireable.
Sodium citrate suggesting in this post: How does kraft mac and cheese or velveeta get that tangy flavor?
Any other suggestion for rocquefort-like tang?
FWIW, absolutely not sodium citrate. Different sort of tang. I'm afraid the answer is likely "several more months".
Will try prickly ash oil ie sichuan pepper for added burn. Wish there was a source of these flavorsome blue ketones. Perilla leaves do have some but are heavier in sassafras flavor
As per old chef acquaintance:
dry mustard and white pepper.
I also added a couple drops prickly ash oil (sichuan pepper)
And that perked things up immensely.
I'm not sure of the background, but mustard powder definitely acts as a sort of flavour enhancer for cheese. I haven't tried it on blue cheese though and it might be better at bringing out the cheese flavour than the blueness
I do have plenty of blue flavor in cheese but not tangy-sharp, think cambozola mild. Some blue cheese dressing recipes out there have mustard powder (english best) and black pepper so it didn't taste odd at all.
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120934 | Closest substitute for niçoise olives?
Many recipes with niçoise olives call for substituting with kalamata or even green olives.
Which olive is actually closest in flavor for a salad niçoise?
Niçoise not available locally nor on some popular online markets in my delivery area.
These are available for delivery.
Turkish/Lebanese. CooksInfo.com describes Lebanese as "The olives have a grainy texture and a slightly bitter taste"
Nicoise are a slightly sour black olive. As such, they're going to be closest in flavor to the kalamata out of the varieties you mentioned. Kalamatas are 3-4x the size of the nicoise, though, so depending on the recipe you might need to cut them into pieces. There are other olives that are even closer in flavor, such as arbequina, but those are going to be even harder for you to find.
The olives in your photo are not kalamatas, though; they are salt-cured olives. They are very little like nicoise olives -- they have a very different texture and much saltier and not at all sour -- and I wouldn't use them as a substitute in every recipe. That said, they could work for a few recipes, including salad nicoise, although you might want to cut some salt from elsewhere in the recipe.
Rinse Lebanese and soak in salad dressing to make tart?
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120860 | Improving mouth feel of vegan hard boiled yolk
This recipe is typical of vegan hard boiled egg for salad.
Egg white portion fine. Yolk could use some improvement in mouth feel:
https://www.onegreenplanet.org/vegan-recipe/the-ultimate-genius-vegan-eggs/
2 Tbsp vegan dried instant mashed potatoes, dehydrated flakes or powder
1 tsp nutritional yeast
¼ tsp turmeric (use a little less if you prefer)
¼ tsp kala namak salt
1 tsp potato starch
3 1/3 ounces hot water
1 tsp vegan margarine or 1 tsp refined pure coconut oil
1 tsp sunflower or canola oil
Some vegan hard boiled egg products coming onto market recently. Mycoprotein being one of their ingredients I don't see getting ahold of.
But maybe lecithin would help?
Any other add ins to make yolk less like mash potato?
I use a commercial yolk flavor to replace kala namak so this is strictly a texture question.
What's the actual problem? Is it too soft? Too starchy? Describe the result you are getting.
Less like mash potato more like hard yolk.
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119615 | Marinade for hard olives?
Will any marinade soften overly tough large green olives?
I tried simmering in veggie broth before stoning and adding to pasta sauce: even an hour made little difference.
If something like that was going to work, I'd reckon stoning first might be better (to expose the flesh to the liquid).
I reckon they are Gordal according to Serious Eats: firm, meaty richness. Most diners would send meat back this tough
No, you cannot soften them, by marinade or by other means.
Olives are pickled anyway, they have been sitting in a marinade for weeks. Adding a bit more will not change them.
The real difference between soft olives and hard olives is ripeness. Soft olives are a ripe fruit, and hard olives get picked and pickled while still unripe. This is no different than, say, an unripe peach - the fruit is simply not juicy. And unlike some kinds of fruit, you cannot ripen olives at home - since they are marinated, they are already dead and cannot develop any longer.
If you want soft olives, you have to buy the kind which is already soft. I would suggest trying to find Greek olives, they tend to be sold soft, as opposed to Spanish olives, which are sold in many supermarkets in Western Europe as tiny, hard, unripe and tasteless pieces.
If there are any references, then this is the correct answer.
According to oliveoilsource.com "Olives naturally turn black as they ripen. ... "Ripe Black Olives" in a can are actually olives which are neither black nor ripe when they are picked. They are picked very green and then cured using dilute brine and lye solutions. Lye treatments cause natural phenolic compounds in the olives to oxidize to a black color.Nov 7, 2005" conflicting info out there
theatlantic.com "First thing you need to know about curing olives with lye is that you must use fresh green olives. Not black ones, not half-ripe ones. The lye process softens the meat of the olive, so you want it as hard as possible (insert "that's what she said" joke here).Oct 28, 2010" so I might try drain cleaner as it is a gallon container otherwise going to waste
@PatSommer your olives are already cured, you cannot re-cure them. Sure, lye can soften anything made out of cellulose, but the result will be terrible in texture and taste. Also, pure drain cleaner will be way too concentrated to use on food, and may contain stuff beside pure sodium hydroxyde.
I will experiment with a weak lye solution; what do I have to lose?
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122055 | Layering of Moussaka
I cannot find a definitive layering of aubergine/eggplant, meat sauce, potato, bechamel and cheese for 'authentic' moussaka: quite a variety in the order from good sources.
So, what is the best order for my priority; portions that plate well ie more brick than puddle?
Either fresh and hot or plated and reheated from cold?
Traditional recipes never have a definitive ordering for anything. It's a tradition and there will be many variations on ingredients, process, and flavor. The only times that there are definitive recipes for any food is when it had a well-known single point of origin (e.g. Caesar Salad). For example: Serbian Moussaka usually has peppers instead of potatoes.
Fresh and hot moussaka is a puddle. If you want it to cut it into "bricks", you have to let it sit overnight before serving. This is not changed by your layering approach.
The classic layering consists of two layers. The first one is the vegetables, meat and tomato sauce, all cut into cubes (up to 1.5 cm, some cooks make them smaller), and mixed well. It is quite similar to any other gyuvech, or to a ratatouille.
The top layer is the bechamel. It is usually added after the vegetable layer is cooked through, and it stays in the oven until it thickens a bit and browns nicely.
Yes, I have read thru many many instructions.
As with lasagna and other casseroles, the secret to making moussaka as "dry" as possible is to make sure that the ingredients going into the casserole dish are as dry as possible. The order in which you layer the ingredients makes no difference.
This would include:
Making the bechamel extra-thick (high flour-to-milk ratio)
Make the meat sauce on the thick/dry side, by searing the meat dry and cooking it down quite a bit, and maybe increasing the proportion of tomato paste
Precook the vegetables as dry as possible.
For the last tip, you have some different process options to make sure that most of the water is out of the veggies before they go into the casserole:
Oven-roast or air-fry them instead of shallow-frying
Fry them until crispy, then carefully blot off all excess oil
Fry them as normal, but dry them in the oven afterwards
I've personally used roasting method, simply because I've already got the oven heated for the eventual casserole. It works for making a more cohesive moussaka, but does change the taste and texture compared to the version I've had at Greek festivals, where having a ton of oil is considered desireable.
Seems I can't post 2 pics.
This pic is wikipedia which is a lot more squishy the bottom half than a pic from a greek site.
Both have a cleanly cut bechamel top so firm bechamel is critical to good plating.
The tip I found elsewhere is to layer a bit of cheese throughout. That and nice thin eggplant slices at the bottom to crisp for a solid base.
The "rule" is that the bechamel/custard layer is on top. The meat/vegetable layer(s) are "adjustable" as you see fit.
Some recipes call for the eggplant/potatoes to be cut into cubes or some call for thin slices. If you're doing it with slices you'll likely want to build up numerous alternating layers of meat/vegetables, similar to lasagne, but this isn't an absolute "must". I think it might help to hold it all together.
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73833 | Garlic Cloves Size Differentiation
I understand the ins and outs of peeling, what a clove is, mincing, crushing, etc., as I am new to cooking and learning one step at a time. My question is about size. When I purchase a bulb of garlic, the size can vary a lot, even down to several different sizes of cloves in one bulb. If a recipe calls for eight cloves, the size variation can be pretty big. Do I just pick a size and make sure they are all the same, or do I purchase in a particular way? Or, is a clove a clove?
( Same thing for eggs, and vegetables ) That's why recipes need to list ingredients by weight or volume; 50 grams of garlic is a better description than 8 cloves.
A clove is not a clove. There are 2 main types of garlic:
Hard Neck: hard neck garlic varieties have larger bulbs (or head as you call it), and fewer, larger cloves
Soft Neck: soft neck garlic are generally smaller than hard necks, and have more but smaller cloves
Hard neck varieties are on the whole stronger flavored than soft neck varieties, although a lot of it depends on the richness of the soil and how well it was farmed. All garlic varieties have larger cloves on the outside and smaller ones on the inside.
As for how many to use, if a recipe calls for 8 cloves I generally treat one large hardneck clove as 2-3 cloves, and softneck cloves on a 1:1 ratio. Some of the varieties I grow are very strong, so if I'm using a red duke I may just use 1 clove for a recipe that calls for 8. Generally the rule I gave will work fine for store bought garlic.
Thank you! That was amazingly helpful. I edited, now knowing garlic comes in "bulbs" and not "heads," so thank you for that too.
@iDoVooDoo "Head" is a perfectly fine term for this, in fact the more common term: http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/6886/what-do-you-call-a-bunch-of-garlic-when-you-dont-remove-the-cloves
Head works for me. In gardening it's a bulb but I knew what was meant.
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74032 | Prevent cocoa from settling
I want to make a lightly sweetened, very dark chocolate sauce. I've been trying to make this with water or milk and cocoa powder and a small amount of sugar. It has the taste I want, but the problem I'm having is that the cocoa settles to the bottom of whatever it's stored in and is a pain to mix every time it's used.
I've thought about making a syrup, however that requires a lot of sugar. I've thought about adding a gum, but that seems to change the taste.
Any ideas? I'm also open to better dark recipes, such as @rumtscho suggested (using chocolate instead of cocoa powder).
Related question: http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/68819/how-to-prevent-a-bakers-chocolate-mixture-from-resolidifying-so-that-it-can-be/68953#68953
You are fighting a losing battle here. Cocoa powder does not dissolve in water, and it will simply sediment over time. If you are unwilling to do something about viscosity (and I understand that - gums do change flavor), you can only slow the process by using methods which are increasingly difficult to apply at home (basically, creating smaller cocoa powder pieces).
If you are not already doing so, boiling the sauce first will help somewhat. This is the same line of thinking as adding some starch (cornstarch or tapioca were mentioned, doesn't matter which). Cocoa powder itself is mostly starch, so once it is cooked, it will be more puddinglike and will bind water better.
My preferred solution though would be to abandon the recipe and start working with chocolate instead. Chocolate is a sol, consisting of solid particles suspended in fat. Much like an emulsion, only both phases are solid. When you mix it with the fatty emulsion of milk, you achieve a much smoother mixture than the cocoa powder + water combination. It won't guarantee perfect dispersion, but should be better. Unlike the previous suggestion, do not boil or you will lose the advantages of the existing sol/emulsion.
Now just add a link behind sol that explains to us ordinary mortals what a sol is, pretty please! ;-)
@Stephie a sol is a substance in which solid particles are suspended in [other solid particles or a liquid], in this case fat. If you want a link, Wikipedia has a nice table enumerating the colloid names: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colloid
One possibility might be to simply store the sauce as a powder (with the desired proportions of cocoa, sugar, perhaps milk powder). This would let you mix it either with water or milk, as you wished, for individual uses - and mixing an individual portion might not be as annoying as trying to remix a whole container every time.
Another possibility might be to store it as a paste - mixed with a minimal amount of water or milk, which can be thinned to the correct consistency when needed. This might be easier to mix than a powder (it might tend to clump), and so might be more convenient if you're making several batches in a short period of time.
You might also consider the means of storage - I was thinking such a sauce might not last too long in the fridge to begin with - since it doesn't have the preservative qualities, say, a syrup would have. But if you portioned it off and froze it, that would make it last longer - and getting back to the question, having the sauce mixed thoroughly just before freezing individual sized portions might mean it doesn't have time to settle too badly before it freezes, and so might not need too much mixing after thawing, especially if used promptly.
Another option might be a small quantity of corn starch and heating to activate - it usually doesn't add much flavor to my taste, especially if only using a bit (though tastes may differ) - even getting the sauce a little thicker might encourage the cocoa solids to stay in suspension rather than settle (I think this might be helped by using milk rather than water in the sauce, because it is just an emulsion and just a bit thicker).
Actually, since you didn't add your process - just heating the sauce might help (if you did not do so in the sauce-making process). Heating the cocoa solids should help melt the cocoa butter and disperse the solids. I'm only mentioning it because I could see a sauce made with those ingredients in a cold process, just mechanical mixing - heating may change the flavor, if you enjoyed the taste of the cold processed sauce, but it might be a good or bad change.
Along the same lines (and from the same source) the type of cocoa powder you use might make a difference (dutch cocoa is supposedly easier to dissolve). This will change the flavor - but it might be worth experimenting with.
Also, while I was looking things up I found this recipe for a chocolate syrup that offers a substitution of liquid stevia - which makes me think the sugar in this recipe isn't needed in this recipe for chemical or physical purposes. The syrup is made by heating chocolate and water (and the sugar or stevia, and a bit of vanilla extract), and it forms a thick sauce that dissolves far better than cocoa powder (in cold milk, for this particular recipe) and doesn't sound like it settles as badly. I'm not sure if the heating is the only difference, or if the vanilla extract might also play a role or what - but you might be able to make a syrup (via heating) with much less sugar than you think. And you can thin to taste either just before serving or before storing, whichever works best for you and settles the least.
And, finally, a moderate use of soy lecithin may help prevent settling (that recipe uses heating, and also using unsweetened chocolate aka cocoa liquor rather than cocoa powder may help, with the higher proportion of cocoa butter). Soy lecithin is often used in chocolate bars and the like, because it is an emulsifier and helps prevent settling - and it shouldn't have negative effects on the flavor when combined with chocolate, otherwise it wouldn't be so widely used. It can be certainly be purchased online, or it may be carried in some shops (especially those that carry bulk spices or raw ingredients).
I would inquire as to the best place to introduce "Tapioca Flour." It is a great thickener and can often used in many dessert applications.
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74629 | Chocolate Twang Aftertaste
I was sampling several brands of dark chocolate bars. Here are two of them.
Lindt 90% Supreme Dark
Ghirardelli 86% Intense Dark
This bar of Ghirardelli chocolate (as well as other Ghirardelli chocolates) I tried have a twang aftertaste to them. The closest I can describe it is a citric acid / vitamin c flavor. Perhaps even "fruity". The Lindt bar didn't have that twang and was very smooth.
Can you tell me:
What is it I'm tasting
What causes the "twang"
What are other chocolates brands I can buy that are "twang"-free like this Lindt bar.
Wow, what an interesting question! Unfortunately I have no-idea what you are talking about. Makes me want to go out & get those 2 chocolate bars & see if I can perceive it too.
At a guess, you're tasting the chocolate.
Plain chocolate can actually have a lot of different flavor notes, depending on the bean type, origin, batch, and year. A fruity taste is quite likely the result of working with a single-origin batch of beans that had that characteristic. Other tastes can be mellow or sharp, reminiscent of different scents or flavors or kinds of sweetness that are actually not added to the chocolate bar - caramel, or tobacco, or marshmallow, or various fruits, spices, herbs. Various kinds of fruity tastes are quite common - you can look up descriptions of types of cocoa beans for sale by batch or origin, or single-origin chocolates, and they will usually describe what typical notes might be found in the beans, growing area, or batch that they used.
Of course, some kinds of beans don't have that varied flavor, being more single-note. Mixing several batches of beans can also lose the extra flavors, since instead of a few notes working together strongly, the much more varied and less concentrated extra tastes get kinda mixed together into a generic sweetness. Big chocolate makers will likely deliberately blend different batches of chocolate together to get specific and reliable tastes in their products. And those kinds of scent undertones are also often lost the more processed or diluted the chocolate is, with the addition of sugar or milk powder to help mask them, which is where the "typical" chocolate taste comes from, and why you don't get fruity notes until you hit very dark, pure chocolate.
If you would like to avoid the fruity notes, then you should perhaps avoid single-origin chocolates, or else specifically look for descriptors that match what you're looking for (smooth, intense, deep notes, something like that), and avoid what you don't want (fruity, tangy, floral, light). You can also track which companies blend their chocolates the way you like, for pure dark chocolate (they will want consistent products, you understand) - though I have no knowledge of how the companies stack up against each other in this fashion, you may be stuck with trial and error.
In my research I also read that fermentation affects the flavor as well.
@MicahBurnett - This is true, but not necessarily a helpful sort of true. All cocoa beans are fermented pre-chocolate, there's no non-fermented option and I don't think fermentation method is linked to specific types of flavors. It's likely that is part of what makes single-origin chocolates unique, since they're not only the same place-of-origin but also the same year-batch... growing conditions make a difference, fermenting conditions make a difference, and the specific microbiota fermenting in that batch also make a difference - so similar flavors will be reinforced in the same batch.
I've bought non-fermented raw cacao.
@MicahB. - I don't think non-fermented raw cacao is the same thing as chocolate, just like milk is not the same as buttermilk, or cream is not the same thing as sour cream, despite some similar properties and the same starting point. Fermentation is a pretty big change.
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74143 | Why peel tomatoes when making salsa?
I'm making salsa. Do I really need to peel the tomatoes? I've canned salsa and stewed tomatoes for years. Peeling is such a messy process. If I chop the tomatoes in my food processor do I really need to peel them?
Also my salsa is quite runny. Is that why I should core and seed them? Just what is the core?
Welcome! We have a previous question that I think pretty much answers the "why peel?" question: http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/7519/why-peel-tomatoes
My opinion is that it is a personal preference, but many people are very off-put by the texture of the skins. Probably more in a smoother salsa than in a chunkier one. Also, the skins can often be bitter and peeling eliminates that.
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74315 | Raw Eggs in Hot Black Tea: Common in Ukraine? Correct Preparation?
I just heard an account from someone who studied in the Soviet Union in the late 1950's, early 1960's. She said when she was served given a glass with a raw egg in it, and then very hot black tea was added. Then, a pat of butter was put on top.
Is this true? Is this something common now? What is it called?
She said she was sick at the time. Is this something only for sick people?
It sounds tasty to me; I want to know how to prepare it properly, and the correct occasion for drinking it.
Edit: I just got a clarification, she was studying in the Ukraine SSR, not Russian SSR. I have edited the title to fix it.
Sounds sort of like chinese tea eggs (though with butter instead of extra spices) - maybe more like an egg-prepared-with-tea, than a tea drink with egg added. The heat from the tea should cook the egg and infuse it with the flavor. It does sound very good, though I would want more salt in mine :)
@Megha Do you mean the hard boiled eggs that are soaked in tea? You're right, this is similar. I didn't consider that.
yeah, that's what I meant. The chinese version is much more heavily spiced, but the amount of flavor that reaches the egg is less since it's also seasoned while still mostly in its shell (shell is cracked before a second boil and soaking with the spices) - which probably mostly works out about the same, just with pretty designs.
i live in Moscow and never heard about such method, googling in russian shows only chinese marbled eggs recipes. I'd rather say it was chicken broth - she refered sick people and it's widespread to add an egg to the broth (boiled though)
@EugenePetrov Thanks for your comment - I just asked which part of the Soviet Union she was sick in, and it turns out it was in the Ukraine near Dnipropetrovsk, not Russia. I'm a little embarrassed I make this mistake.
Could it be that the raw egg was cracked into the glass, and then stirred after the hot tea was added? This sounds a lot like Tibetan butter tea, except with egg replacing the butter.
We've had two comments in Russian saying they drink a raw egg in hot tea. (one says they're Ukranian, the other says they're Russian). But as they're "not an answer" they risk being deleted by the moderators
Google's AI claims this is a thing, and gives it an AI... and when I check the links they give, none of them actually mention this concoction... But I did find an egg and hot tea dish from Indonesia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teh_talua
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90944 | Does the fruit label get put on a bad spot, or does the bad spot develop as a result of the label?
So often when I take the little barcode sticker off the piece of fruit when I'm washing it, I discover a blemish under the sticker. Is that because the sticker was placed so as to cover up the blemish, or because the act of putting on the sticker tends to result in some local damage to the fruit?
You also missed the possibilities that the act of removing the sticker causes damage, or that the sticker somehow results in damage that's not related to it being put on (eg, different permeability, rolling damage as it's slightly higher than the surrounding area, etc.)
There's also the fact that the sticker prevents the skin from being exposed to both light and air, affecting ripening.
@Joe, I think you're on to something. I wonder what effect trapping ethylene would have, and certainly inspecting the back of a label after peeling it off can reveal traces of peel.
I freely admit I haven't measured the frequency. But I've often noticed that in an amazingly unblemished fruit, the only blemish that fruit has resides precisely under the sticker, hidden from view until the sticker comes off.
God, how I hate these stupid little stickers! :-D (Full disclaimer: Never do these contain barcodes, where I live.)
Out of curiosity, where can you find those stickers? Here we don't have them.
@plasmahh I think it’s an American thing. They weren’t really needed until they had to differentiate between organic and non organic, places that sell lots of similar looking items (eg, varieties of apples) or where you didn’t have experienced cashiers (many US supermarkets)
@Joe: at most of such places here we have printers for barcodes where you print that out and put the sticker on the bag where you put your apples into
@martin the number is more useful than a barcode. If you’re complaining about grocery stores with self checkout registers, most these days have an option to enter a number, just use that. (Older ones had a camera, and you’d press a button to alert the cashier, and they’d enter the code)
@Joe in Austria, I've never encountered stickers with anything but a logo. Mostly on the more expensive fruit. Many fruit don't have any stickers. Maybe it's a QA thing packaging side. In the store / consumer side they're totally pointless. :-)
@martin it might be a copyright issue. You can’t typically copyright a type of Apple, but you can copyright the name used in selling it. The same thing would go for logos
My experience is that fruit/veg tends to go bad where it is in contact with plastic wrap or an impervious bowl or counter top. I thought this is why we keep fruit in wire baskets. I have presumed that the label effect was due to the same cause, although I can't find any source to support my theorising.
@KeithMcClary - Still, I'd be glad to see this idea in an answer. It's easier for others to collaborate with documentation, and the voting process is helpful for the OP.
A few years ago I had the rare chance to take a look behind the scenes of the largest manufacturer of fruit sorting, labeling and packaging equipment in the Pacific Northwest and it was impressive to see how much effort and planning goes into designing everything in a way that damage to fruit is avoided at all costs. We talked about how the business evolved and what the biggest challenges are.
And yes, the stickers are a crucial part. Developing a glue that is food-safe, will stick well and come off without damaging the fruit is a challenge and different manufacturers have solved it more or less well. If you observe carefully, you will notice that the stickers will behave differently.
There are two main ways how stickers can lead to damage:
Too much local pressure when applying the stickers and
A glue that is too sticky and tears the fruit when the sticker is pulled off.
The former will result in a soft spot or other blemish, the latter is visibly fresh. Soft-skinned fruit like peaches are much more prone to damage and a real challenge compared to e.g. apples. The damage is not unavoidable, a lot depends on the settings of the equipment and a good operating personnel.
But I can assure you that no fruit packaging plant will “cover up” blemishes with a sticker - simply because they label way too many pieces per hour. Blemished fruit will be sorted out before packaging, damaged fruit in packs will typically mean the whole package is rejected by wholesalers - because they won’t travel and store well.
Knowing all this, one of my pet peeves is supermarket workers that think refilling displays is best done by upending boxes of apples, but that’s not part of your question.
we, as consumers, sometime lose scale on volume of items that go through facilities like a packing plant. It is easy to think that the tags might be used to cover up when we think of the handful of an item we buy, but what would be involved with doing that on the millions of items going through the plant is not easy to recognize. As someone who has grown and raised product, I so agree it your pet peeve as well and expand it to handles, stockers, and passer-by shoppers who handle items and put them back for others to buy.
On at least two occasions I have pulled the sticker off of a big butternut squash before cleaning and putting in oven to bake, and lo-and-behold found a little gouge (maybe abt. half a cm across, and similar depth) in the relatively tough squash skin. That injury was not caused by me pulling the sticker off or by anyone putting the sticker on in the first place. And considering how big a butternut squash is, the sticker placement was too accurate to be an accident. Maybe it wasn't the farmer or packer who covered up the ding, maybe it was the grocer? But I think it was on purpose.
@dlb I don't get it. Is handling an item and putting it back a bad thing because of possible personal hygiene issues or something else?
@muru the problem is mechanical damage: every time someone picks up a piece of fruit and puts it down again it may cause small soft spots and local damage - And think about the shoppers that try to judge ripeness by pushing or pinching the produce. This will cause damage, invisible at first, but rotting soon, either in the store or at other unsuspecting customers’ homes
@Stephie thanks, posted: https://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/90953/62710.
@Stephie bruises don't cause rotting. As fruit ripens it becomes more susceptible to bruising, and also more susceptible to rotting. Given how incredibly wasteful of wood we are already, finding new reasons to dump perfectly wholesome food into landfills is dubious at best.
@muru, Stephie hit it. As a grower, I did everything possible to handle items gently. Even the gentlest handling is too rough. Careless handling greatly degrades produce for both quality and storage life. It is also what contributes to items being picked and shipped under ripe and varieties being grown that look better and hold up better, but are actually lower quality. Because they ship and show well.
I've often wondered the same thing. Here's a video of stickers being applied to fruit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62nJzuKjUBc
Since it's done mechanically, there's no way to intentionally cover up the bad spots (without spending more money than it's worth). So in other words, the bad spots under the stickers are a coincidence... unless the stickers are moved later on by, say, an employee at the store.
Assuming that the stickers weren't moved, here are a couple of other possible reasons that stickers seem to cover up bad spots so often:
some sort of "confirmation bias" (we remember those particular cases because they support our suspicion)
the fruit with visible bad spots weren't chosen by the customer
As a student, I used to work at one of the biggest vegetable and fruit processing/trading companies in the world. (They would import/export fruits and vegetables all over the world, and would also sell bags of pre-cut vegetables for instant use).
One of the most boring jobs was putting the stickers on the fruits. Because this was all still done manually. This was done with some kind of "sticker-gun", that gave you a sticker if you pulled the trigger, after which you had to press the tip of the gun on the fruit.
I can imagine that this pressure would be enough to cause a small bruise, that would become visible several days later.
Also: They had some kind of "deal" with a local daycenter for the mentally handicapped. I think it was 3 times a week, the ones that were able to do some basic labour (mostly down-syndrome) came to do some of the basic tasks. One of those tasks was putting the stickers on the fruits.
I can imagine that, even though they were very hard working and responsible, they would have slightly less control of how much pressure they had to put on the fruit and sticker-gun, causing the bruise to be slightly bigger.
Edit: forgot to answer part of the question: in no way was it done on purpose to hide existing bruises. This task was already extremely boring and time consuming, so that no one would take the time to find a bruise to put the sticker on. You would just do "tack tack tack tack", and place it anywhere you could, as fast as possible.
I have a friend with Down Syndrome who has some motor planning issues, so I can relate. Also, from your description, I can see that the process could involve some inherent damage to even a slightly soft fruit.
@aparente001 To be honest: I think I wrote my answer too negative. I just wanted to point out that it's very unlikely that it's done on purpose to hide existing bruises.
Yes, it is possible that someone puts a little too much pressure on a certain point, and thus damages the fruit, but imho I think there are much more plausible explanations to the damages under the labels, for example the glue underneath it, or the lack of sunlight on it. Or maybe even the lack of being able to "sweat" (yes, fruit excrete some kind of oil, maybe if it gets trapped underneath the sticker it causes a defect?)
I had a high school biology teacher whose sister had downs. She took a lot of time in class explaining how workers with downs can be better workers depending on the task they are to perform. She mentioned sorting fruit specifically and how most people will get bored with a repetitive task quickly or in a few hours and her sister could literally sort fruit all day with just as much attention in the last hour as the first 5 minutes. I cannot address motor issues because it isn't my story :–)
I'll offer up an alternative explanation to the two that you mention in your question. Like Stephie explains, stickers are generally applied by automated machinery in a process designed to minimize damage. The packaging process also includes steps to weed out damaged fruit before shipping. If a machine happens to place a sticker so that it covers up existing damage, then the inspection process would be significantly less likely to notice that damage and flag the fruit. It's not malicious sticker placement to fool the buyer, it's coincidental sticker placement that allows an existing blemish to slip past quality control.
I don't have any direct experience with fruit-processing machinery, but I've seen this sort of thing happen on other types of manufacturing/processing equipment. There's a lot of probability involved with the coincidental cover-up so the odds of this happening to a particular piece of fruit are quite low, but multiply that times the volume processed and you get a reasonable chance of this occurring a couple of times a day.
I'm fairly sure the stickers go on after checking. The rejected fruit will end up in processed food, animal feed or compost/anaerobic digestion, none of which can handle a plastic label (at least they're plastic here)
@ChrisH and bta - I'm curious, I wonder what sort of proportion gets rejected in the weeding/checking process? I'm guessing they aim for less than 15%?
@aparente001 I don't know, but I do know that the supermarkets charge their suppliers for rejects (and I think this applies to other big processors) so there may be some screening even before that.
@ChrisH - possibly, but there also has to be some sort of QC after processing. Otherwise, you'd miss any damage caused during processing and risk shipping damaged product.
@bta Many processing facilities have persons at the end of the production line who visually inspect and remove any damaged product.
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96864 | Replacement for sun-dried tomato pesto sauce?
I'm crazy about the Barilla sun-dried tomato pesto. However, the local store where I was buying it has dropped it. Can I get a similar effect by putting in a blender or food processor the sun-dried tomatoes that come in oil in a jar?
Note, I have not found another dairy-free brand of sun-dried tomato pesto. (I'm allergic to dairy.) The Barilla version seems to be the only one. (I am in the U.S.)
I see that there is a close vote. Feedback would be helpful so I can recast the question or avoid asking off-topic in future.
Ingredients list for it is : "DICED TOMATOES, SUNFLOWER OIL, ONIONS, SUN-DRIED TOMATOES, BASIL, SALT, GARLIC, SUGAR, OREGANO, CAPERS"
Not sure how much storage space you have, but you could trying asking the store if they would order you a case of the sauce. Jarred sauce would keep for a long time. Stores only have so much shelf space and they tend to stock items that turn over. If they don't sell much they will switch to something else.
You can also amazon it if you want to buy online
Yes, you can use chopped up sun dried tomatoes, either in oil or dry stored.
For the dry sun-dried tomatoes, you should re-hydrated them a little bit in warm water before mixing them up.
As always, you will need to experiment with the ingredient ratios to get the flavour you like best.
What do you think about the blender or food processor?
food processor, you do not want to turn it into a paste.
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74726 | Using an electric deep fryer does the food need to be totally immersed?
***Edit**** So there seems to be much confusion about the way I worded the question and how I described the situation. So I will try to clarify. The max fill line is about halfway down the fryer. The minimum fill line is very near the bottom. I am unclear whether this fill line is for ONLY oil or for oil and food both. Originally I assumed it was just for oil. There is no marking higher up as some have asked/mentioned.
I put a whole chicken that was wrapped inside the vessel. I then covered with water until the chicken was covered by an inch or two. as I put the water in I was calculating how much water it was I added. I added 8 qts of water on top of the chicken to cover it. I then removed the chicken and noticed that by chance the 8 qts of water reached the max fill line.
A commenter mentioned that the more food you have (a turkey compared to chicken for example) the less oil it will take to cook as the item will displace the oil. This should have been fairly obvious but I wasn't thinking correctly.
The box of the fryer says 22 qt capacity. I have no idea what this references. The box mentions cooking turkeys up to 14 lbs.
At this point in time I assume the max fill line is for oil only as it is halfway down the vessel and it takes 8 qts to reach that point which isn't much.
When I buy a turkey I will do the water test again (unwrapped) and see how much oil it takes. I am going under the assumption the max fill line is for oil only. I am assuming it is possible to cook a turkey since it is marketed as such.
I am hoping for the best and if you see a plume of smoke coming from Columbus, oh then pray for me lol. Thanks to all
Hello I have an electric deep fryer that will hold a maximum of 8 qts of oil.
I put in a whole chicken (young chicken) and added water to measure how much oil would be needed to cover the chicken and it takes the whole 8 qts to cover it by an inch or two.
The problem is for thanksgiving we want to deep fry a whole turkey which is significantly bigger than the chicken. The 8 qts to cover the chicken is by chance the maximum the fryer can hold. The box of the fryer says it can fry a turkey up to 12 pounds.
I understand the oil may bubble up as it's cooking. But the 8 qts barely covers the chicken. How can we cook a turkey with the same amount of oil that barely covers the chicken?
Would it be okay to do this?
How much did the chicken weigh? And does the chicken plus those 8 quarts of oil actually reach the fill line? Is the 8 quarts a number from the manual or the box, or is it the amount of oil it took to reach the fill line with the chicken? You said it was a 22 quart fryer so it seems a bit odd to say it can only take 8 quarts of oil. (and... just in case, the chicken wasn't wrapped, was it? the water could get inside it?)
Question title should maybe be rephrased to be more specific to whole birds - hard to generalize an answer due to lighter-than-oil foods etc...
@rackandboneman Well, if you read all the comments it seems the question title may be misrepresenting the situation. I would definitely encourage an edit bringing all that information into the question; unfortunately it's a bunch of stuff and I don't have time just now!
Based on the comments, it sounds like your fryer has a fill line for just the oil, calibrated so that if you use that much oil then add a reasonably-sized turkey, you'll end up with the oil still safely below the top of the fryer. You'd never actually use 22 quarts of oil; then it'd be completely full of oil, on the verge of overflowing, with no room for food.
In that case, your chicken test doesn't really tell you very much. A turkey will fill the vessel more completely, so it may well take less oil to cover it. If you end up able to put your whole turkey in, and cover it with liquid, without getting dangerously close to the top of the pot, then you're okay. I would hope your fryer has another line closer to the top to tell you what a safe margin is there.
Do note that testing with wrapped birds also is misleading. That keeps the liquid from getting into the cavity, so it'll take less liquid to fill and cover that way.
And if the turkey is too big, then filling it to that 8 quart fill line then adding the turkey could cause it to overflow. So it really seems like you need to test with the turkey first (not wrapped!), to be sure it'll fit safely.
With all that said, supposing you do actually end up in the situation you mention in the question - not enough oil to cover the food - that's not good.
If your food is sticking out of the oil, it's not really cooking. It'll be in contact with hot air over the oil, but that's nowhere near actual hot oil.
Along with that, it'd indicate you've overfilled it, which is asking for trouble. The manual for your fryer almost certainly has some really strong warnings against that sort of thing. And even if the oil stops at the fill line, you have a huge turkey in there just waiting to shift or settle a bit, displace more oil, and push the oil above the max - it's still overfilled.
Doing something like that would make it really easy to splash hot oil out of the fryer, especially while you're putting the food in and getting that burst of boiling water and steam, which is incredibly dangerous. It's probably a fire hazard even with an electric fryer. And even without a fire, it's nothing you want splashing on you.
And in general, I'd strongly suggest you look at general safety guides before you attempt to deep fry a turkey, especially if you're not sure about part of the process.
thank you for your reply. I'm not really sure what kind of plan you're referring to as I never elaborated on any plan. I never intended or mentioned going past the fill line.
I'm just really confused why the manufacturer claims this fryer can cook a turkey up to 12 pounds when the maximum fill line clearly only holds enough oil to cover a chicken that's a couple/few pounds.
@061jrs I'm referring to your plan of using the fryer to fry a turkey which is too big to be completely covered in oil in the fryer. And as I said, even if the oil doesn't go past the fill line, if there's turkey sticking up above that, the fryer is overfilled. There's enough stuff there to fill it to a higher level than the fill line. I suppose it's a moot point because it's not going to cook the exposed meat so you wouldn't want to do it anyway, but it's important to mention safety too. As for the fryer capacity, maybe they exaggerated? Tell us the model and we can look, I suppose.
@061jrs the fryer doesn't hold 8 qts of oil... It holds 8 qts of everything in the pot. If you're cooking something bigger, you use less oil. You need to be sure that you still have sufficient oil to fully submerge the turkey but you probably don't need 8 qts.
@061jrs - It may be possible, depending on the physical layout of the pan and physical dimensions of the turkey, that if a large turkey (by itself) can be placed in the fryer, and if it will fit entirely under the maximum fill line, it can perhaps be fried by using less oil than the 8 quarts, and relying on displacement to raise the oil high enough to cover the turkey. More food in the pan means less oil needed to cover it, since the food will actually displace some of the oil. Again, that depends on the actual food still fitting under the maximum fill line, though.
@Jefromi Thanks for your response. Masterbuilt electic turkey fryer 22 qt https://www.walmart.com/ip/12442231 It seems to be no longer available for sale at wally world or a few other websites which yielded results from a bing search. I don't have any manuals but only the box. The box actually says for turkeys up to 14 lbs (not the 12 I originally said). It's really wild because like I mentioned I measured water with a young chicken and the 8 qts that puts it to the fill line (despite it saying 22 qt capacity???) it just covers the chicken
Okay, this answer is based on you saying the turkey wouldn't be submerged, but now I'm getting suspicious we don't quite understand the dimensions/capacity.
@061jrs you seem to not understand how water displacement works. A bigger item put in the same size vessel will require less liquid to fill the vessel to the same level. Usually when they say capacity, that means the entire pot is 22 qts... To the brim. The fill line will be less than that. The chicken displaces all but 8 qts of the remaining volume. So, if the volume to the fill line is 18 qts, that means your chicken displaces 10 qts of volume.
thank you everyone for your replies. Shout out to Megha for being polite and informative
@061jrs It would really help us if you could just edit the question to clarify. You got an answer here based on what was originally in the question (you saying, pretty clearly, "it won't fit") but your subsequent comments suggest that a 10-12 pound turkey might actually fit. I'd be quite happy to revise my answer if you can make it clear what the situation is.
@jefromi Hello again, I believed I was clear but in case I wasn't let me start over. The box of the fryer says 22 qt capacity. The box of the fryer says can cook a turkey up to 14 lbs. I have no manuals. I put a whole wrapped chicken inside the vessel and then added water to cover the chicken by an inch or two. This took 8 quarts of water to cover the chicken. I then removed the chicken and basket and by chance noticed that the water was almost precisely at the maximum fill line marked on the inside of the vessel.
@ jefromi my assumption was the maximum fill line indicated the maximum amount of liquid to be poured in and that this did NOT factor in the food item. Other comments seem to say this is not a correct assumption. I tend to think that Megha summed it up correctly so I assume if I put a turkey and liquid in and they both fit under the max fill line then all is well??? Sorry for the confusion and thanks for taking time from your life to comment
The maximum fill line is indeed the highest you want the oil to be with the food in it. The food displaces oil, yes, so you need less oil to reach the line with food in there than you would without. But yes, if it fits, it fits: if the turkey fits under the line, and you add oil to cover it and it's still under the line, then it's okay. But we're all a little baffled what you're telling us - now it sounds like just 8 quarts of water (after you removed the chicken!) reached the fill line? There's no way the fill line in a 22 quart fryer pot should be reached with 8 quarts of water.
@Catija "It holds 8 qts of everything in the pot." OP clearly stated added chicken and it took 8 qts to cover it.
@061jrs - If the fryer is supposed to be able to hold 22 quarts... If you look in the fryer when it is filled to the 8-quart line, and if it looks like there's a lot of space between it and the top of the fryer (and perhaps another line closer to the top, which is the actual maximum fill line) - it might be that the line at 8 quarts is a minimum fill line - if using less oil than that may be unsafe, due to the way it's calibrated or heated or something. It doesn't make sense to limit the oil to 8 quarts out of 22 as it can't hold the heat for up to 14 quarts of food in that little oil.
I have a fryer that I think is the same, or at least very similar, as the OP describes. The minimum amount of oil to be used is 4 quarts and the maximum is 8 quarts. The fill line is for the oil only and is for the max amount, 8 quarts. Similar to this: https://masterbuilt.com/product/23010115-butterball-indoor-electric-turkey-fryer/
@cindy This is all so confusing lol. I do believe the max fill line is for the oil only. The maximum fill line is approximately halfway down or just a tad under halfway down. The minimum fill line is very near the bottom.
@061jrs You are correct regarding the min and max fill lines. The reason the full capacity is listed is that the unit is not only used for frying. It can also be used for steaming and boiling foods.
Lots of discussion on this. (I have weighed in, too.) The type of unit the OP is refering to is designed for safe indoor turkey frying. As in the comments, the minimum amount of oil to be used is 4 quarts and the maximum amount is 8 quarts. With 2 gallons (8 quarts) of oil, a 12 pound turkey should fry okay in this unit.
I have a same or very similar unit with the same min and max fill amounts. Mine says it will take up to a 14 pound turkey. I have only fried 10 - 12 pound birds, but haven't had any problems.
All said, it should always be 'safety first' anytime someone is working with hot oil.
Last but not least, the reason the full capacity of the unit is listed (in this case 22 quarts) is because the unit can also be used for steaming and boiling foods.
Yes, the food needs to be immersed completely.
Also, frying needs certain temperatures. If the temperature drops too much when the turkey goes in, it'll not be a good thing. The fryer might struggle to get the temperature back up quick enough. Also the size of the turkey might make that the oil can't circulate freely enough, so you'll end up with colder areas within the oil.
Overfilling a deep fryer is a bad idea. Not only can you splash very hot oil everywhere, you will also overwhelm the fryer's heating element to where it can't keep the oil hot, and you'll get a lousy result. If you want to deep fry a whole turkey there is equipment for that, otherwise joint it and cook the pieces one or two at a time.
The problem with cooking whole is the height. Cooking whole the problem is packing factor. Is it an option to cut it in half and remove the legs? If you can cut it up you will get a lot more meat under the same amount of oil.
Yes the meat needs to be totally immersed.
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17650 | Does dairy (e.g. crème fraîche) spoil faster if using the same spoon in older and newer product?
If I'm using up the last of one package of crème fraîche and then starting on a newer package (later "best by" date), I avoid using the same spoon because of a theory that the newer package will get spoilt quicker.
Does anyone know if there is any sense in this?
Food in general spoils when bacteria, fungus, and other little bugs eat the food, multiply into more, create waste, and then die. I would imagine that the increased population of "bugs" found on a old, used, not washed spoon would cause the decomposition of new creme fraiche to accelerate, but if you wash the spoon, then no-problem.
I'm with you there. I always change spoon before starting a new product.
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103955 | Cooking brined green peppercorns to be soft
In my green pepper sauce I use brined green peppercorns. The supermarket has changed brands and the new one has seemingly fresh picked/uncooked corns in a brine.
I start my sauce by simmering dark beer and immediately add the peppercorns. With the new brand of peppercorns, as it simmered, the peppercorns were still hard/fresh after many tastings and adding water for the longer simmering time. The simmer time was about an hour.
Is there a better way to cook the peppercorns?
After the peppercorns are soft I add the rest of the recipe.
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41474 | Indian Curry: Frying spices vs marinating the meat in them
I'm on a bit of a quest to make a great lamb vindaloo, and through my research I've seen two pieces of advice (often given together) that I can't quite reconcile. First is to marinate the meat in the spices for up to a day beforehand.
The second is that when making any curry, you should toast the spices separately first and then add the meat afterwards to brown it. It seems impossible to do both!
Any recommendations? My current thought is to toast and grind the whole spices, then marinate the meat with the powder. Then fry the onions and brown the meat from there.
Many thanks
For Vindaloo, it is not customary (nor necessary) to fry the spices before marinating.
Curries vary quite a bit within and across parts of India. Many do not require the roasting of spices before addition.
For a minimalist vindaloo, marinate with ground Goan (aldona) or Kashmiri red chillies, garlic, salt and coconut vinegar. Stir fry marinated meat, then simmer with onions. Add a little jaggery and serve.
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117141 | How long can I keep chopped potato without soaking in a fridge?
I've read that you can chop potatoes up to 24 hours before cooking with them, and store them in water in the fridge. I'd like to know how long can chopped potatoes be left without soaking in the fridge? I'm not expecting them to last to the next day, but if I need to pop out for a short time before cooking can I chop the potatoes before I go out and avoid the need to find room in the fridge for a large bowl of water? For example, would they last okay for 5 minutes? 10 minutes? Half an hour?
Clarification: This question is about any deterioration in quality. From the responses here it sounds like discolouration will occur long before any safety problems, so that's what I would like to know about the timing of. How long can a chopped potato be left exposed to the air before it discolours?
Putting potatoes in water doesn't stop them from going bad @Tim, it's the refrigeration, putting them in water only slows oxidation and keeps them from going brown.
@rumtscho this is not a safety or shelf-life question. It is about oxidation. I don't think the suggested duplicate is about that.
And the question is about time scales where refrigeration isn't even needed (30 mins or less)
@moscafj sorry, this was indeed my mistake, I read the question too superficially before going with the other close vote. Reopened. (and +1 for your answer).
This is not about the potato "going bad" or becoming unsafe. Chopped or sliced potato is placed in water to keep it from oxidizing, or browning. This might be unpleasant to look at, but is not a safety issue. Depending on the variety of potato, it can happen in a matter of minutes, or take longer. If you don't mind the browning, then it is not too much of an issue. If you like to maintain the natural color, use the water, which keeps the potato from oxidizing.
It's more than just looks -- a browned potato is difficult to cook, as you can't rely on one of your senses to tell when it's done. (as it's already brown). I don't know if it might also change aspects about how it cooks. (like refrigerating your potatoes for long periods would do).
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96680 | How to roast potatoes in the oven to make them crispy?
What is a good way to roast potatoes in the oven in a way that they get crispy ?
At the moment this is how I do:
I start from raw potatoes (I never got why I have to boil them first).
I put them in a baking tray, and some oil, and turn them many times, and take care that they are all covered by oil.
Put the oven on the maximum (482° F) with ventilation.
After 15 min I take them out and turn them
After 15 min I turn them again, put the oven on 390° F, switch on the grill and put them on the last floor of the oven.
Here the last 10 minutes I open the oven door 3-4 times to make the steam go out and make them a bit less humid.
This is, in effect, a 'recipe request' which is off-topic for Seasoned Advice. No single answer can be 'correct' & there are as many ways to make roasties as there are cooks.
How are you doing it now? Do you start from raw or boil a little first? What heat are you using? How long do you roast them? Do you find they are cooked but not crispy, or crispy but not cooked inside? Be clearer about your problem and you'll get a clearer answer
@Tetsujin how you would reframe it?
The questions that Kate asks are details that we need to really make it answerable. What are you doing now that you don't like?
Are the potatoes not getting crispy using your current method?
First you want the right potatoes, a medium starch content works best. Waxy potatoes don't work, they have too much water in them. Maris Piper potatoes work well, in the US Yukon Golds are a good choice.
Next you have to peel them, don't try and get them crispy with the skins on. Crispy skins are great, but you'd use a different method then this to get them.
Boil them in salted water until you can get a fork into them but they aren't completely done. Drain them while still in the pot and then shake them around a bit as it will rough up the outsides, giving a good surface area. This is the real secret, the rough outside of the potatoes.
While the water was heating up you needed to be putting a baking tray in the hottest oven you can manage or just below the smoke point of your oil or fat. Do not use olive oil, butter or anything with a low smoke point. Goose fat, duck fat, peanut oil, canola, sunflower will all work, it all depends on how thick you want your arteries to get ;) . 200C (about 400F) is a good temperature to shoot for with most oils.
Once the potatoes are boiled, drained and roughed up get the hot pan with the oil out and pour the potatoes in, spreading them out. Tilt the pan so the oil pool at one end and use a big spoon to coat the potatoes in the oil, then get them right into the oven. Really crispy potatoes take about 45 minutes, it helps if you take the pan out halfway and turn the potatoes over, then do the tilt and spoon trick again. Once they're done get them out of the oil into a bowl, you don't want them sitting in the oil when you serve.
If you overboil the potatoes you can come back from it, you simply shape the loose potato with your hands and drop them onto the pan, the outside will harden and get crispy, holding it all together. I know people who boil their potatoes until they fall apart on purpose as they like them that way, to me it's too much extra work, but they do get really crispy.
Do you really need to cook the potatoes first? I make potato wedges from raw potatoes in the oven; after some 45–60 minutes they start getting crispy but are cooked to the core. While I’ve never tried, I suppose you could substitute some extra time in the oven for the boiling, saves you one step in the process.
@user149408 The pre-boiling is to create that rough exterior when you shake around the potatoes. This increases the surface area for crisping. From Serious Eats: https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2016/12/the-best-roast-potatoes-ever-recipe.html "Parboiling the potatoes in alkaline water breaks down their surfaces, creating tons of starchy slurry for added surface area and crunch."
@Fodder Good to know. My potato wedges recipe involves tossing them in a mixture of oil, spices and flour before they go in the oven, so I get a certain amount of starch on the outside anyway. Might want to try boiling instead… I understand you only need to get the surface in the right shape then, not to cook them to the core?
That's right @user149408, you don't need to cook them all the way through.
What temperature do you roast the potatoes at?
200C (400F) is about the limit @Richard , depending on the oil you use. You don't want to go above the smoke point. My oven goes up to 200C fan, and that's what I use. I've edited to make that clear.
You will want to boil them first, starting in cold water. When they are well cooked but before they crumble into mash, get them out gently.
Then I'd set my oven to about 200/210 degrees Celsius. Coat your potatoes with the fat of your choice. Goose fat is great but you can use veg oil too. Don't use oils that can't sustain high heats though. I'd add some rosemary and thyme too. And salt.
Then give it around 20 minutes, if they're golden turn them over and give them another 5 to 10 minutes. Keep check every 5 minutes after that and take them out when they've reached a nice golden colour.
Boil the potatoes first until soft , drain water put lid on the pot and give the potatoes a shake , heat some oil and butter 50 / 50 mix in a microwave until butter has melted cover the potatoes with it season with salt place in hot oven till crispy .
The others cover the boiling method, but I want to point to something you are doing wrong in your current method. Namely venting your oven. Your oven should have a vent to release excess humidity. By opening the oven so frequently, which you also do when turning, you are allowing the heat from the oven to escape. For a good crisp potato you need high heat and you need to maintain that heat. You aren't doing that. A crispy dry should be turned only once during cooking approx halfway through.
Coat your potatoes in a seasoned corn starch blend, then coat them with an oil/fat, and finally roast until done.
You're welcome. :)
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117957 | Can I pre-smoke a brisket safely?
For Thanksgiving, I was planning on slow-cooking a brisket in a smoker. However, I have learned somewhat last minute that instead of my family coming to my place for dinner, I will be going to their place. The issue is that we live roughly 6-7 hours apart by car.
So my question is this: can I do a partial cook in the smoker, then chill the brisket back down and put it in a cooler for transport, then finish the cooking there in a Crock Pot? Most places I've looked at on Google talks about cold-smoking the brisket, but I don't have time to go through that whole process (I leave early Wednesday morning and smoking there isn't an option).
My concerns:
Partially cooking the meat then cooling it back down will cause it to go dry and/or chewy.
I'd rather not fully refreeze the meat during transport (and I doubt I have time to anyway), but bringing it to fridge temps might result in it sweating during refrigeration and/or transport, damaging the crust and reducing or eliminating the flavor of the smoke.
Bringing the meat back and forth through the danger zone a minimum of three times may result in the meat being unsafe to eat.
Is there a way to do this in a way that is safe and retains the flavor (within reason), or should I just forget about it and settle for liquid smoke or something?
Yes, it can be done safely if you cook it fully (do not only partially cook it), chill it down quickly and keep it cold in transit.
You want to minimize the time that it's in the 'food danger zone' (40°F to 140°F), so even if you're planning on getting it to fridge temperatures, you should still place it directly in the freezer to chill it down for an hour or so, then move it to the fridge. You can also place some sheet pans in the freezer ahead of time, so you have direct contact with something nice and cold as soon as it's done smoking.
Meat that's been cooked and then chilled with have a firmer texture than if it's cooked and served immediately, because you'd have to re-melt the gelatin. (Alton Brown made use of this when he made stew)
To minimize the reheating time, I would heat some sort of flavorful liquid (like beef stock, or if you had drippings from the meat), slice the meat, and then place the meat in the hot liquid to come up to temperature.
I don't think you can save the crust easily. In a question about something similar with a pork roast, someone suggested cutting off the skin and heating that back up separately with dry heat (someone else suggested reheating in an air frier)
So it comes down to whether I want to have a smoked-then-reheated brisket with a soft crust or a fresh Crock Pot brisket with no smoke or crust. Maybe it would be better then to just use liquid smoke for the next best thing or come up with a different flavor profile entirely. I'd rather find a different way to cook the brisket at their place than insist on smoking it and end up with a subpar roast from all the cooling and reheating.
Just a note, I would emphasize that you can not partially cook, cool, then continue cooking, as OP noted, this increases time in the danger zone and hence risk.
@Abion47 : you might be able to reheat it dry, but it's just not going to come out the same as if it were fresh smoked, and I'm not a fan of dry meat, which is why I suggested reheating it in liquid. Maybe you could give them a hot bath to get them heated quickly, then put them in the oven to dry the surface? Maybe someone who does catering would have a better suggestion on how to handle this.
@Joe At the rate this is going, I'd almost rather just slow cook the meat in a Crock-Pot with beef stock and liquid smoke (among other things) and then sear it in a cast-iron pan or broiler before serving.
Okay, I think that I've decided that a good compromise would be to bring the brisket with me uncooked, then make some sort of a brine with liquid smoke and apple cider vinegar (my mom is on the keto diet so no sugar, unfortunately) to brine it for 3 hours or so before cooking it normally. That sounds to me like the best way to get the smoke flavor inside the meat short of actually smoking it.
@Abion47 : if you use paprika in your rub, you can swap it with smoked paprika to add a little bit of smoke flavor
@Abion47 - if you wanted to brine for longer, you could easily brine it before transport and potentially during travel too (depending on travel method). The thermal mass of the brine will help keep it cool during transport.
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21128 | What is the difference between white and pink ginger?
Some sushi places serve white ginger flakes with their food, while others serve pink colored ginger. There doesn't seem to be any detectable taste difference that I've found. So, what is the difference between the two other than just color, and, why serve one over the other?
Although white ginger and red (or pink) ginger do exist, the different colors in sushi ginger are from a dye. The color in white sushi ginger comes from the pickling process and the red/pink color in ink sushi ginger comes from an artificial dye (usually E124 -cochineal red- or in other brands beet extract). The generic name for sushi ginger is gari and here's the Wikipedia page.
White gari/sushi ginger on the left and pink gari/sushi ginger on the right.
Worth noting that traditionally, the pink colour would come from red perilla (shiso) leaves, and thus would have a subtly different flavour
The bright pink ginger is pink because of food coloring.
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/599069
http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/514063793/Pickled_Sushi_Ginger.html?s=p
Salt and acids (in the case of pickled ginger, vinegar and citric acid) turn ginger pink during the pickling process naturally. However, this hue will eventually fade to pale yellow and then brown in less than 3 months as the ginger gets exposed to UV light and heat. This is why food coloring is added to the pink variety. As for the yellow/white pickled ginger, sodium metabisuphite must be added to stop the product from turning brown. This sulphite is an allergen and must be accordingly labeled.
If you want to preserve the natural pinkish hue of the pickled ginger, keep the product refrigerated at 2 degrees Celsius. Away from UV light and heat, the color will remain for up to 1 year.
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18358 | How to make cookies less crumbly?
I baked cookies last night and they came out rather crumbly. It felt like I put in quite a lot of flour - would that affect the crumbliness?
Well, looking at the recipe...
The sugar (brown sugar + honey) level looks roughly appropriate compared to the flour so that's unlikely.
The fat level looks a tad low for the cookies I normally do, but I've never used oil in cookies before. You might try increasing the oil just a bit to lend extra tenderness, but I don't think this is the real issue. (Using oil in cookies also means you're not creaming, which is typically important in most cookies...so its a bit odd, but I don't know that it would cause them to be 'crumbly'.)
The lack of the egg definitely isn't helping it to keep structural support. The recipe is basically banking on the fact that it needs to be moist to hold together. There's not really enough liquid to form gluten to add structure (which you don't usually want for cookies anyway). Since there's nothing in the cookie to give it 'structure', if you dry it out its just going to fall apart on you.
I suspect your problem is from the directions of 'Don’t overbake these, or they’ll dry out a little.' They dried out a bit too much and lost all support. It's easy to over bake cookies and this is a recipe with very little room for error in that area.
I would agree, and add that even though using oil for the fat might very well not be helping matters, it seems the ratio of 4:1::flour:fat seems low. Most of my favorites use approximately a 2-3:1-2 flour:fat ratio (for higher fats, normally a nut butter is mixed in). Also recall, if you are shooting for a low fat recipe, you can substitute in apple sauce. I find oil tends anyway to harden cookies; I understand the author was scooting away from shortening and butter, maybe apple sauce would be a better way to go.
@rfusca if I added this ratio of oil to flour, will the recipe be less sticky? I tries this recipe while adding an egg to it, but it ended up a little sticky, it stuck over my hands also when I was placing them in the pan.
You probably have a problem from not letting them rest long enough before putting them in the oven. Looking over your recipe, I did not see this step, which is something that effects the binding. I have encountered this explanation while reading other recipes.
Too much flour can definitely cause crumbliness. I suggest you experiment with the amount by trial and error. This (alone) may not be the most effective solution though...
Moreover, the lack of eggs in that recipe is naturally going to have its effect. Egg is used in baking primarily as a binding agent, and the lack of such here is going to lead to lack of cohesion/increased crumbliness. If you don't mind adding eggs, this is the easiest solution. Otherwise, there are alternative binding agents that could do the job pretty well:
Cornstarch and water
Soy flour and water
Flour, vegetable shortening, baking powder, water
The recipe you give seems to utilise baking powder and vegetable oil as binding agents, but this is quite possibly insufficient. Also, I have heard that using whole-wheat flour decreases crumbliness.
There is a great page on Egg-Free Cooking Options in general over at exploreveg.org, which mentions the above options and more. (And gives exact measurements.)
Baking powder is a leavening agent rather than a binding agent. And fats will act to make baked goods more tender by reducing the amount that the proteins in the flour can combine.
Let me be explicit then: Your information on eggs is right on. As to the link you provided, your representation of the data from the link is misleading. As presented in your answer, vegetable shortening and baking powder on their own are presented as binding agents. They are not. Combined with other ingredients they can replace an egg, but that is not clear from the information provided in your answer. Also, I would appreciate it if your comment could be edited to remove the personal attack.
The linked page doesn't indicate shortening and baking powder are a binder...it mentions flour,water,shortening, and baking powder replace eggs as a binder...that's quite a bit different.
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103697 | How long to boil curry sauce left sealed in fridge three weeks to make safe
Please this is not a duplicate: This is not a general question about food storage time and safety, about warming stored food but about boiling food that is possibly spoiled. Or even let's say spoiled.
I am not talking about simply reheating but about raising the temperature to at least boiling and keeping it there for at least an hour.
I didn't bother freezing it because I was planning on returning home after the weekend. But things turned out to keep me away for three weeks.
It's a tomato sauce based curry with some ground meat. I'm thinking to add a bit of water bring it to a boil and let it simmer for the afternoon.
Safe?
Welcome to the site! It is a duplicate, please read the link as it has everything you need to know, which is throw it away for your own good.
You might get lucky and not get sick if you eat it, but it would be risky to eat it at this point.
Boiling won't fix the kind of spoilage that happens with tomatoes and meat over time.
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103757 | How do I add a strawberry swirl to my cheesecake without cracks and craters?
I have recently experimented with adding a strawberry swirl to my cheesecake. I am using homemade strawberry jam to swirl in the flavor. Everything has gone great with it other than I get a bunch of big red craters! What am I doing wrong? How do I make a strawberry swirl without having the cheesecake full of the cracks and craters?
Here is a second picture after it cools a bit. Some of the crack come back together and others are still wide open.
Edit:
I was using this recipe and then added my own swirl: https://sugarspunrun.com/best-cheesecake-recipe/
Have you considered using a no bake cheesecake? Much easier to swirl as above! Please post the recipe of your bake in your question
I had considered it but everyone loves this recipe so much that I thought I'd try adding a swirl to it. It dose still taste amazing, even with the craters! If the answer is that I can't prevent the craters when baking one I'll have to try a no bake next time! Just thought I'd see if I can fix this recipe.
Here is advice I found online for adding a swirl into a similar cheesecake recipe:
Put the jam and lemon juice in a small saucepan and heat over low heat, stirring often, until melted and smooth. Drizzle 1/4 of the jam mixture in stripes over the batter. Spoon the remaining batter over the jam, then drizzle with the remaining jam. Swirl gently with a thin knife to marbleize the batter slightly.
Made roughly this: strawberries, sugar, and orange juice (no lemon juice on hand) over medium heat. Cool then swirl. Worked perfectly!
I'd mix a small amount of your cheesecake batter with your strawberry component to help with it's bake stability. Try that and swirl that in. Hope that helps.
This worked relatively well but I saved too much batter and lost most of the coloring. I will try it again next time and accept this as the answer if I get similar results.
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103805 | Oatmeal pancake deflates
My wife's diet breakfast includes a pancake made only with:
one egg;
one spoonful of oat flour.
I also add two spoonful of water. I have tried different procedures to make it the best possible.
The best, so far, is to combine the yolk with the sifted oat flour and the water in one cup, whip the egg white with the planetary mixer for five minutes and finally mix all together. I cook the pancake on the electric crepe maker at 75% power, covered, until the top starts to dry, which takes about 10 minutes, then I turn it on the other side and cook for a couple of minutes.
It is still not satisfactory: if I cook it less, it deflates; if I keep it more, it is no longer soft. Maybe I should cook faster, but in this case the bottom burns and the top and the center remain too moist, flattening completely when I turn it. Using less water seemed to have a harder result. I still have to find the sweet spot.
I made at least 30-40 pancakes until now, but since the "search space" is so big, I need some directions: for example maybe when I used less water I made some other mistake, and dismissed an otherwise good idea.
Is the egg enough to keep the structure once the air cools down, or the missing sugar or gluten would have a role in it, so their absence is important, so I have to add some?
Maybe should I try to cook it in the oven?
I know the starting temperature of eggs has a role in whipping, but can it make the pancake deflating?
As it inflates correctly as is, would baking powder help? How much should I use?
Any advice would be appreciated.
P.S.: my wife is lactose intolerant, so I cannot add milk.
P.P.S.: excuse me for my English, it's the first time I write about cooking and I'm almost sure some words will be wrong: I would also appreciate corrections of them.
10 minutes seems an awfully long time to cook on the first side of a pancake. Normally, you want to flip pancakes before any gas in the batter starts to bubble out the top, but you say this causes the center to remain "too moist." A few questions: What are the proportions of ingredients in your recipe? (You might consider adding the recipe to your question.) Is the oatmeal precooked? Is it whole oats or instant? If the oatmeal is not precooked, do you let the batter sit for a while to hydrate the oats at all?
Yes, it's a very long time, but the heat is low. Since there is no baking powder, there are no gas bubbles, the air is incomporated in the egg white during the whipping. I can add powder if it can help. The recipe in the diet is just one egg, one tablespoon of oat flour, to which I add two tablespoons of water; I'll edit the question so it will be clearer. As for "oatmeal", I'm sorry it's a translation issue: it's oat flour. Thank you for your comment.
I actually was referring to the gas bubbles you whipped into the eggs; they should expand while cooking (from the heat) and provide some lightness, and (depending on how much air is in the batter) they could perhaps begin to move upward in the batter just as those from baking powder. I was curious as to whether that might be happening or not. Thanks for the clarification; I'll post some further thoughts in a bit.
Yes, I can see them appearing and popping on the top surface, so I think they move upward from within as you say.
I've never made pancakes with this exact kind of recipe before (though I have made some that were similar, with eggs, no other leavening, etc.). My limited experience with similar recipes is that I ended up with a rather spongy result, not really a "light" pancake. Thus, it might not be possible to get a very light result without modifying the recipe a bit.
Nevertheless, here are a few thoughts:
Is the egg enough to keep the structure once the air cools down, or the missing sugar or gluten would have a role in it, so their absence is important, so I have to add some?
I don't think you're going to be able to get a very light textured pancake just using eggs, oat flour, and water. Even when whipping the whites, at best you'll get something with the texture of a souffle omelet (that is, an omelet made by whipping the egg whites separately first), but it will be weighed down a bit by the oat flour.
Eggs can provide structure, but my guess is that the fine bubbles in the egg whites are simply not providing enough lift, probably because they aren't being trapped sufficiently in the structure of the pancake. Yes, gluten and/or sugar could help reinforce the structure (as in angel food cake, for example), but I'd try leavening first.
Maybe should I try to cook it in the oven?
You could try this. Puffy pancakes, puffy omelets, souffles, etc. can work better when made in the oven. The bubbles have more time to expand as the batter bakes, and you don't have to do a flip, which may squash the structure.
I know the starting temperature of eggs has a role in whipping, but can it make the pancake deflating?
I doubt that's a significant issue here. If you're whipping up the egg whites well, you will have incorporated a significant amount of air. Having the eggs not too cold may help with that a bit, but there's only so much the egg whites can do. Once they are mixed with yolks and oats, they will be weighed down a bit.
As it inflates correctly as is, would baking powder help? How much should I use?
If the problem you are having is that it seems to rise properly but then deflates when flipped, baking powder could indeed help. "Normal" pancakes (with flour, etc.) tend to have an excess amount of baking powder in their batter to produce excess air. Baking powder could continue to produce gas as the second side cooks and keep lifting the batter up. I would start with a very small amount -- you'd probably only need a 1-2 teaspoons for a cup of oat flour, so if you're only using two tablespoons of flour, perhaps start with 1/8 teaspoon and see if it makes a difference. If not, try 1/4 teaspoon or something in between.
In comments, you also mention that bubbles are appearing and popping on the surface -- keep in mind that you don't want to wait until a significant number of them pop before flipping, or you will lose the lift provided by the existing air bubbles from the egg whites. I'd try to adjust that first -- usually, taking so long to cook pancakes will cause too much gas to bubble out before they are flipped.
But since you've already tried cooking them faster and have not seen better results, I'd recommend trying the oven baking technique or try adding a tiny bit of baking powder and see if it makes a difference first. I know I haven't narrowed down your options much, but it's tough to figure out how to make these better without seeing exactly how they are already coming out and trying a few experiments.
Perhaps others have better ideas. Do let us know if you come up with something that works.
Thanks to your suggestions I got a very nice result today. First, I tried adding baking powder and change cooking method to shorten the time. I add half dose of the batter for each pancake, cook for two minutes, then add the rest, cook for two minutes, then turn around and cook two minutes (dose is enough for two pancakes). The result was great. I also tried the method without leavening and didn't work.
@neclepsio - glad to hear you found a solution. I suspected the baking powder would help, but it's good to hear a confirmation.
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103983 | are syrup more flavorful than powder or similar?
I'm going to make a recipe which includes
45 Grams of vanilla powder
2 Syrup pumps of Fruit syrup (20 Grams)
but i'm changing some in the recipe so i will use vanilla extract instead of powder and after doing the math 1 syrup pump = 10-10.25 grams,
so my question is , are extracts more flavorful than powder or similar ?
so should i add 4.5 pumps of vanilla extract to the recipe or should i go lower.
You need to be very careful with the definition of "vanilla powder". It could be dried extract, it could be a powdered product flavoured with vanilla (real or artificial), or it could even be pure vanillin. A link would be good, or a verbatim quote.
Extracts and syrup are different things, can you clarify in your question what products you mean?
@Tinuviel , Done, it's a syrup
@ChrisH , actually i was at a store and i asked for a recipe for the mango tango smoothie they make and the recipe is:
45 gm of vanilla powder (pointing to the box the keep the powder in)
2 pumps of mango (Pointing to a big jar of a mango syrup)
and spoon of cinnamon
I hope that clarifies it enough
@user1294027 ok, but in the question you still talk about extract. I think it would be a good idea if you could link the exact product you are considering
@Tinuviel there is no link, it was a verbal recipe from a barista i know.
@ChrisH all belnded in a 16 ounce cup of ice
Hm if we don't know what their vanilla powder actually is this will be very difficult to answer. Also, to convert directly from dry weight of a vanilla powder to the weight of a liquid is difficult because it depends on whether the liquid is water or alcohol and on the concentration of the flavoring agent. I would suggest you make the smoothie with different amounts of extract/syrup and adjust until you find the ratio whose taste you like best.
@Tinuviel , i was considering the same, i will try to sample the recipe all in grams to find the desired the result.
Thank you :)
45 gm of vanilla powder (pointing to the box the keep the powder in) 2 pumps of mango (Pointing to a big jar of a mango syrup) and spoon of cinnamon
all belnded in a 16 ounce cup of ice
That sounds like it's vanilla-flavoured powder of some sort, perhaps milk-based, (or plant-milk-based), perhaps including maltodextrin, to give texture as well, It could even be flavoured protein powder in some places (though they'd normally say so); that's about the right quantity compared to when I've made chocolate-vanilla milkshake with vanilla protein powder.
Certainly anything purer than that wouldn't be used in such large quantities.
As far as mimicking it goes, I'd start by using a teaspoonful of extract, and 45g of your best guess as to the rest of the powder.
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124634 | Is 山核桃 (Chinese Hickory) similar to pecan?
I heard that pecan is healthier than Walnut. One of the reasons is that it has less Omega-6 per 100 grams, and ALA is an inefficient and therefore negligible form of Omega-3 fatty acid.
Pecan is called 美国山核桃 in China, which emphasizes that it is grown from the species in US (美国).
There are some species native in China, whose nuts are also called 山核桃. For example, this product is said to be from Changbai Mountain (长白山).
I was wondering if the Chinese species in Changbai Mountain is a closer relative to pecan than to walnut.
I am also wondering if their nuts are similar to pecan in nutrients, and also have less Omega 6 than walnuts.
Thanks.
Common names mean very little. There are multiple things sold as a ‘yam’ that aren’t related. And a ‘sweet potato’ isn’t a potato (or an apple, as the name is ‘dirt apple’ in some languages). Breadfruit contains no bread, ‘peanut’ is not a nut, and actually, neither is a pecan: https://www.livescience.com/what-are-nuts.html
A bit of Googling and Wikipedia tells me that those are Chinese Hickory nuts, Carya cathayensis
Tim, questions specifically about nutritional information are off-limited for SA. Do you want to edit the question and keep it with the nutritional portion removed?
@FuzzyChef I thought questions asking about specific, named nutrients are fine?
Based on the Chinese name you gave for those nuts, Wikipedia identifies them as Chinese Hickory nuts, or Carya cathayensis. American pecans are also a species of hickory, Carya illinoinensis, so the two are related.
The only information I could find was for generic "hickory nuts", which seems to refer to the ones you listed, but there are a number of different edible varieties of hickory nuts, so I can't say for sure.
Here is a chart of nutrition information per 100g of nuts:
Type
Omega-3
Omega-6
Walnut
9.079 g
38.092 g
Pecan
.986 g
20.630 g
Hickory
1.071 g
21.07 g
As one would guess based on the fact that the two nuts are related, pecan and hickory do appear to have a very similar nutritional profile with regards to omega-3 and omega-6 content.
All nutrition facts are from Nutrition Advance.
Thanks. Shame that I can't access both links. Internet access is severely restricted here for political censorship. From the limited number of websites that I had accessed, 28g pecan has 5.48g Omega 6, and walnut 10.8g, and 100g pecan has 20.6g Omega 6, and walnut 35.7g
Is walnut not a species of hickory?
@Tim no, they are not. They of the Juglans genus (walnut), not Carya (hickory).
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127752 | Refrigerator life of live clams
When I cook live clams, I usually purchase them from the local grocery store on the day I plan to prepare them. However, sometimes that is inconvenient for me to run to the store the same day.
So my question is how far in advance can I purchase them and keep them in refrigerator until I am ready to cook and have them still safe to eat?
The previously linked duplicate doesn't truly answer the question I asked, although I do see it is related. The question states that the clams in question were left out in cold water (not in the fridge). and the answer just mentions that they are "exceedingly perishable" and that they shouldn't be eaten if they died before cooking. It doesn't give an idea of what length of time that can be kept refrigerated.
I had closed because I thought it obvious from the other question that there is no such thing as "clams have a refrigerator life of X hours/days". But following your edit, it seems that it wasn't so obvious - so I decided to reopen and spell it out. The dupe target was https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/43157
@rumtscho thanks. I can understand why you closed it originally, but yeah, i was hoping for a more straight forward answer than was in the duplicate. Appreciate the reopen and the answer.
Unlike almost any other food item, you can recognize exactly when a clam is no longer safe to cook: when it's dead. So, there are no storage time rules based on time periods. If it's alive, you cook it - if it's dead, it's unsafe.
As for an estimate of how long you can keep them until they die - it doesn't have a precise answer. You can buy them the day before, and with good storage, most of the time, most of the clams will still live on the next day.
The longer you try to keep them, the larger a proportion of the clams will die - but there is no strict number of "you can keep them for X days". I'm not aware of a precise function in the sense of "if you keep them for X days, you have to expect Y% loss" either. So, experience has shown that it's best practice to buy them the same day. If you prefer to buy them earlier, you can do this, you're simply taking a chance that you'll end up with less clams (or no clams) and nobody can tell you how much less.
For completeness, you may want to provide information about how to recognize dead clams. (I could check if they're breathing, but I don't have a mirror that small.)
@R.M. you could use a dental mirror :D
Since this hasn't been updated: the best way to figure out if a clam is alive or not is to tap its shell; it should close tight in reaction.
Based on personal experience, if you store the clams in the ideal manner, they will last between 1 and 4 days in the fridge. As the other answer says, you will lose more clams each day as they die. One major variable that you likely can't control is how long the clams were on ice before you got them; if the clams are already 3 days out of the ocean, then they're not going to last much longer in the fridge.
In practice, I never buy live clams or mussels more than 48 hours in advance, it's just too risky. If I need them further ahead than that, I use frozen.
wish i could have accepted both answers as i found both extremely helpful.
That's fine, we're more about making sure that there's complete information for future readers.
I know - and I mostly left that comment there to help someone coming to this in the future that I found this answer very helpful as well.
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123492 | Excess oil when boiling vegetables even though no added oil
When I make my vegetables, I boil tomatoes, onions, broccoli, cauliflower, mushrooms, collard greens and eggplants in plain water. To my surprise I always find oil on top of the water, even though I added none. What could be the cause?
My thought is the seeds from the eggplants and tomatoes emit oil when boiled. Is this possible?
Does oil float on top of water/gravy ? Or are you describing the texture of the vegetable pieces ? Is this texture present when egg plants are not added ? Does your experience match this ?
How are you cooking them (boiling, baking etc.)? It sounds odd, none of the vegetables you list have significant oil content.
I boil them and the water that I used to boil them becomes oily. What could be the cause for this?
I think you are likely mistaking wax for oil.
Plants generally have a protective wax layer on their surface, just like humans have sebum on their skin. There are also other nonpolar substances within plant cells that would have a waxy or oily texture when clumped together, but they are less likely to be the cause, because they are not, in fact, clumped together, but exist as a single molecule here, another one there.
the seeds from the eggplants and tomatoes will emit oil when boiled
This is highly unlikely. First, tomatoes and eggplants are not an oil crop, and their seeds contain very little oil, when compared to other seeds such as walnut or sunflower seeds. Second, boiling doesn't really get oil out of an oil-containing seed in any appreciable amount.
And third, if there is anything in your soup emitting actual oil, you wouldn't end up with the water feeling oily. Oils are way too light, and boiling disperses them into an emulsion. You can easily observe this when you start a regular soup. Sweat some onions in oil, then add water and let it boil up. The water will be cloudy, but it won't feel oily to the touch, even though there obviously is oil in the mixture. The oil droplets at these small amounts of fat are just too small to coalesce into anything that makes your soup feel oily.
In contrast, plant waxes are much heavier and like clumping into a skin on the surface. So when you touch the water there, you can easily perceive it as oily.
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126132 | Cake baking surfactants
Surfactants are molecules that have a hydrophobic and hydrophilic part. This includes soap, detergent, and basically anything "bubbly".
I am trying to bake a vanilla cake (with chocolate icing) and would like to use a high dose of surfactants with extensive whipping to make a light stable foam. My hope is to lower the calorie density by incorporating air.
What is a common, edible surfactant home cooks can buy? Preferably one with a high concentration of active ingredient so that less inactive filler needs to be added.
The normal emulsifier used in baked goods is egg yolk, which contains lecithin. There’s also soy lecithin, widely used in processed food but rarely used directly by home cooks and more difficult to source.
I would be wary of using lecithin. It's more of an emulsifier, and it isn't easy to create a foam with it. Even if one succeeds in whipping it into a foam, it won't be very stable, especially during baking.
There are lots of edible surfactants, but they won't help you here.
People love airy cakes. Each good sponge recipe is already optimised for being as airy as possible while maintaining structural integrity and a pleasant texture during eating. Adding some random surfactant won't make it airier.
If you really insist on trying that, work with such textural modifiers is demanding. Sourcing the ingredients will be the smallest problem. You'll have to find out which one tends to work with your favorite cake recipe, which will require maybe a dozen of cake batches, and from there continue to experiment for several dozens of batches until you get a workable texture. At the same time, the improvement in aeration won't be all that great, and you'll sacrifice a lot of other properties of the cake.
All in all, I think that your premise is flawed. Not only is the expectation of "add some random surfactant in a random amount and you'll get a cake" physically wrong, but the idea of a superaerated cake isn't all that attractive either. Such cakes exist, with Meissner Fummel taking the idea to the extreme, but there is a reason they haven't replaced typical sponge cakes.
Not all surfactants are foamy and not all of them are good to mix with other things. The suitability for foam (or other structures) is determined by the molecular structure, especially of the head/tail ratio. There is a whole branch of science around this.
So what I would use is something from which the desired properties are reported; good candidates are foamed egg white and aqua faba, both reportedly used to make fluffy doughs.
I also know peole who just make a light dough and incorporate lots of baking powder and carbonated water (possibly with low pH).
Best Luck!
I'm not sure how easy some of them are for home cooks to get in reasonable quantities, but
https://www.pacmoore.com/blog/natural-surfactants-food/ lists:
Alkyl glycoside
Carrageenan (carbohydrate)
Cholesterol
Lanolin
Lecithin
Monoglyceride (fatty acid)
Phytosterol
Protein
Tea saponin extract
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117766 | How to know what variety of tomatoes will be good as a spaghetti sauce?
I have never succeeded from making great tomato sauce using our native tomatoes and the final product always tastes flat. When I eat the tomato, there is always 0 hints of sweetness in them and not much juice comes out of it. Just by looking at the color, it may be simply poor quality farming as we live in a 3rd world country.
I have never been able to find tomatoes looking very vibrant red here.
So I always end up using packaged tomato sauce and add spices/meat to them instead of making them fresh because it never tastes as good.
I don't see how your country being "3rd world" would hurt the quality of your tomatoes. Tomatoes have been cultivated since at least 500 BC, well before the invention of modern industrial farming practices. And generally speaking, "first world farming" doesn't necessarily make food taste better; it just allows farmers to grow and harvest more food per unit of land, or to do it with less manual labor, which makes the food cheaper.
Unless you have access to excellent tomatoes it will always be better to use a good canned product.
Adding sugar usually improves tomato sauce, I use canned ones and still add a dab of sugar for that extra bit of goodness. (I usually add some wine vinegar as well, have to match the acids to the sweetness! Mother Nature doesn't use measurements, you see. )
@eps I bought a 12 pack of San Marzano 400g cans off Amazon. It's a bit more expensive than the stuff at the supermarket, but you can taste the difference. I do add a couple teaspoons of sugar, but I probably don't need to. Plus there's no need to peel!
"So I always end up using packaged tomato sauce and add spices/meat to them instead of making them fresh because it never tastes as good." -- nothing wrong with that at all. Preservation methods such as canning exist exactly because ('even' in 21st Century first world countries etc.) we can't have the best fresh year-round. It's not easy to beat quality canned, because it can be canned so quickly after picking, hardly any time for them to damage or spoil. (I'm assuming by 'packaged tomato sauce' you do mean chopped tomatoes or passata, not a pre-made & flavoured 'pasta sauce'?)
@MJ713: I can think of a very good reason why 3rd world countries might have worse tomatoes: tomato cultivars have been created in 1st world countries, intended for local use. Using a cultivar in a entirely different climate could be a problem. Then again, Wikipedia suggests we've passed 10.000 cultivars by now, so there should be options for most climates.
As @OJFord mentions, a lot of places, even in italy, canned tomatoes are used as they are available all year round, the quality is stable (less variation can to can) and you save on preparation time. Try to get San Marzano or Plum tomatoes (either chopped or whole) if you can only get canned.
Let them ripen a bit more.
I prefer the taste of sauce made with canned San Marzano (or other "vulcano" tomatoes) over fresh ones. The tomato flavor seems to be stronger. "Canned" isn't necessarily a bad thing.
I have never succeeded from making great tomato sauce using our native tomatos and the final product always tastes flat. When I eat the tomato, there is always 0 hints of sweetness in them and not much juice comes out of it. Just by looking at the color, it may be simply poor quality farming as we live in a 3rd world country.
Living in the US (supposedly a first-world country), I’ve had the same issues with most store-bought brands of tomatoes. The issue isn’t how they’re grown, it’s two specific aspects related to them being sold commercially in grocery stores:
The varieties typically sold are ones which have been actively bred to maximize shelf life and allow for growing year-round in greenhouses. This is, to some extent, at odds with getting good flavor.
Even with that optimization for shelf life, tomatoes still have a relatively short shelf life, so the ones shipped to stores are usually shipped under-ripe (they’re more durable this way and have a longer shelf life), and often are either not let ripen at all, or are artificially ripened (yes, this is actually a thing).
There are a couple of options I’ve found to get around this:
Look for tomatoes sold ‘on the vine’. That is, instead of being picked, a section of vine with ripe or near ripe tomatoes on it is cut from the plant and then sold as a whole. This approach results in a longer shelf life without the tomatoes needing to be significantly under-ripe, so the tomatoes you get tend to taste better and have a better texture.
See if you can source tomatoes from a local farmer’s market, or even direct from a local farm. These will tend to be in much better condition than what you get from a store, and also avoid the issues with ripening involved in getting them from a store.
Possibly consider growing your own. Tomatoes are relatively easy to grow, the only tricky parts are making sure the flowers are pollinated (without this, you won’t get any actual tomatoes) and picking the ripe tomatoes before they rot on the vine. This has the bonus that you can pick exactly the varieties you want for what you are making (I’m partial to Roma tomatoes for most things, though Beefsteak are my go-to for pureés and sauce bases due to them being enormous, and Super Sweet 100 are my go-to for salads due to their small size).
Failing all else, canned tomatoes work perfectly well for sauces and soups. Just make sure to get good quality ones of a variety that works well for what you want to do with them.
"Tomatoes are relatively easy to grow" That's something of an understatement. If anything, the difficulty with growing (at least some varieties of) tomatoes is stopping them from growing like weeds and taking over your entire yard!
Yeah, for sauces canned is the easiest option. Since they're usually processed right from the field, tomatoes grown for the can are usually varieties that haven't had their flavor ruined
"the only tricky parts" you forgot dealing with wildlife that would eat them before you can. Cages, nets, etc. must be set up around the plants.
@nick012000 I live in the UK and I envy you. Here, they need a decent summer (or a greenhouse). All too often they get cut down by frost just as they hit their stride. But the flavour compared to supermarket ones makes it completely worth while.
@nigel222 Sure, I imagine that would make things more difficult. I live in a subtropical climate, so that's not something that my family's cherry tomatoes ever had to worry about. I guess that makes sense since they're a plant that originally came from Mexico.
One point to add: When you buy tomatoes that are under-ripe, don't just stick them in the fridge when you get home. Instead, put them out in the open, preferably in a place where they can get direct sunlight, like a window sill. Even without the vine, they will continue to ripen for another few days. (Don't overdo it or they'll rot, of course.)
If you get "less than ripe" tomatoes, put them with some apples or bananas and they'll ripen up faster/better.
It might just be the variety of tomatoes, but the in example you posted these look a little unripe to me. Perhaps try leaving them in a sunny place such as by a window, and wait a few days until they ripen fully.
Might also be worth while using some tomato purée (aka tomato paste) in addition to the fresh tomatoes. It can help increase the flavour.
If you live in a warm country or have a greenhouse, maybe think about growing your own. I live in a cold country (Scotland), and finding good fresh tomatoes for sauce isn't so easy. I make tomato sauce with homegrown tomatoes which are far superior to those on sale in supermarkets generally. Supermarket tomatoes always taste too watery to me, and generally lack flavour even when ripe.
When I run out of homegrown I generally return to using canned tomatoes from Italy. There's absolutely nothing wrong with using canned tomatoes. Even Italians use them when they're out of season.
Ripe tomatoes are hard to find because they have a very short shelf life. Less ripe tomatoes are easier to handle and last longer, so very ripe tomatoes are usually find where the commercialisation route is short (e.g. bought direct from a producer that harvested them the day before) or from relatively expensive groceries that can afford to throw away wasted tomatoes if they don't manage to sell all the ripe tomatoes in time.
I live in Australia, we have a warm climate, and abundant fresh produce year round. However the tomatoes available for purchase in supermarkets are universally bland & tasteless. They are desirable to the supermarket because they stay green & firm quite well, so can be transported and stored more cheaply. Flavour does not seem to factor into the supermarket's idea of a good tomato at all.
Some of the much smaller tomatoes still have flavour, but these are quite expensive relative to ordinary tomatoes.
Can you buy better tomatoes at a Farmers' Market? Or grow them yourself? I had success growing tomatoes indoors in Switzerland. After I realised that I had to pollinate the flowers myself.
I agree that the breed of tomato is the main determiner of flavor. It's worth noting that the tomato breeds used for canning (tomato purée, tomato sauce, etc.) usually go straight from the field to the nearby canning factory, so they can be bred for flavor rather than durability.
German here, supermarket tomatoes are pretty much universally horrible abominations of what that fruit could be. Cherry tomatoes have an ok chance of tasting like tomatoes, but sadly it's canned or self-grown if you want flavor from tomatoes in our modern economic system
As tomatoes are an agricultural product, they’re always going to be a little different each time. If you think it’s not sweet enough, you can add a heavy pinch of sugar and see if that improves the flavor. Sometimes a splash of vinegar can help if it’s overly sweet, and salt can help to bring out muted flavors.
I personally take out a little insurance … onions will add sweetness if cooked slowly. Finely minced (or grated) carrots also help, so sweat them down at the beginning of cooking, before you add the tomatoes. (As the acid in the tomatoes will keep them from softening)
And yes, I often use canned tomatoes, as most store bought tomatoes in my area are grown for how well they ship and store, not flavor.
I think you'll find added sugar in almost any "good" tomato sauce. Not only will adding some sugar give you the sweetness you're looking for, it will also cut/negate any acidity in your sauce - at least in my experience as a home cook (not a trained chef).
Something else to consider would be to keep the lid on your pot when making the sauce to reduce the volume of water lost to evaporation, if it's still too dry - a splash of white wine in the sauce wouldn't do any harm to the flavour profile while adding some liquid.
Better still - add a muscato white wine like muscatel in place of the sugar!
The best tomatoes for spaghetti sauce are plum tomatoes (such as Romas) because they have less water content which makes them perfect for sauces, paste & processing. For the BEST variety, you should choose specifically San Marzano tomatoes because they are meaty, sweet & have a lot of tomato flavor. Use canned San Marzano tomatoes for a convenient way to add them to your sauce. However, true San Marzano canned tomatoes are pricey. Because of this, it is a known fact that many cans labeled 'San Marzano' are often fake and mislabeled by unscrupulous suppliers to get a higher price (just like avocado oil).
The fake bit would be the "DOP" (Designated Origin) part? Because there are plenty of San Marzano tomatoes grown outside the San Marzano region in Italy.
My advice is to seek out people who really care about tomato flavor, and I don't know anyone who cares about it more than tomato gardeners (many of them grow with flavor as their top priority). There are lots of online tomato communities, but tomatojunction.com is the one I would recommend.
I also recommend a number of things when growing the tomatoes for improved flavor:
Warm the soil (such as with black plastic, or whatever other method you like); this seems to improve the concentration of sugars/acids in many (not all) kinds of tomatoes
Add nutrients to the soil; they can impact the flavor; a lot of people (including me) think Epsom salt impacts the flavor.
I think fertilizing with foliar sprays helps the flavor, too (foliar sprays are said to increase the nutrients in fruits compared to ground fertilization; so, that would probably make a flavor difference).
Soil. Different soils produce different flavors.
Sunlight: insufficient sunlight can lessen the flavor at times
Season: tomatoes taste different when they ripen at different times of the year
Vine-ripened tomatoes usually taste the best, in my opinion
Many people think tomatoes taste better if you don't refrigerate them.
Dry-farming (many people think this increases the flavor)
Variety makes a big difference, of course. There are maybe 20k+ kinds of tomatoes out there, and there are a lot of different flavors. Most people I meet on gardening forums prefer the flavors of big pink beefsteaks, such as Stump of the World and Aunt Ginny's Purple (which is actually dark pink), for example--not particularly for sauce, but if you ask, they generally recommend such for sauce, too (flavor-wise). They also often like oxhearts, which are often a lot like paste tomatoes, with more flavor (they're meaty with few seeds). Some people like the taste of lots of kinds of tomatoes mixed together.
Some tomatoes taste better cooked than others. I think Peaceful Valley's Beefsteak is excellent cooked. I think Early Girl F1 makes a nice spaghetti sauce (but they've improved the variety since I've had it as a spaghetti sauce--so it might not taste the same).
As far as paste tomatoes go, though, if you want those, I recommend just growing a bunch of kinds to see what you like. Most paste tomatoes I've tried are kind of normal-tasting. I've read good reviews about the flavor of orange paste tomatoes, though (e.g. Orange Banana); I plan to try some next year.
If you're worried about the higher water content of big pink beefsteaks, and such, there are plenty of methods to thicken the sauce. Remember that sauce and paste aren't the same thing, though; you don't always need or want tomato paste. Tomato paste is quite a bit thicker than jam (it doesn't flow at all). You wouldn't dip breadsticks in tomato paste, normally, I imagine. One trick to thicken sauce is to add oil and a little ground mustard (or another emulsifier). The carotenoids that color the tomatoes also mix with the oil. You wouldn't want to add oil if you're canning the sauce, however (due to botulism risk with oil).
Be sure to add plenty of black pepper. It really brings out the flavor of tomatoes, raw or cooked (much as it helps strawberries taste even sweeter). I think adding paprika also helps add some extra zest. I like to add brown sugar or raisins (blended up) to my sauce if it isn't sweet enough; I think brown sugar helps thicken the sauce, too. My typical spaghetti sauce includes ingredients like these:
Pink salt
Black pepper
Paprika
Fresh sage leaves (blended into the sauce)
Onion powder
Sometimes celery (it adds a nice flavor)
Basil
Add these things when it's nearly done (if they're over-cooked, it's not as good):
Extra virgin olive oil
Garlic
Chives are really nice cooked into spaghetti sauce, too.
I've always gotten the "best" tomato I could find in the grocery store, if the Roma wasn't looking good. I've had good results with any type.
Peel the tomatoes first. Then cut in half and scoop out the liquid, seeds, and ribs. Those can add bitterness and reduce the sweetness, so you want to leave them out. I'll add a can of crushed tomatoes too if I end up needing more; I buy 2 pounds fresh but always have cans stored at home. Perhaps using fresh and canned combines the subtleties of the fresh with the intensity of the canned; you might try using both intentionally. When I was first starting to make it myself, I would always wind up with not enough liquid, and found a brand of crushed tomatoes sold in a carton (not a can) that was very good; ended up just making that part of the usual recipe. (I've not seen that where I live now. You'll have to find a high-quality brand you have locally)
Then, add a can of tomato paste to add sweetness and some intensity. Mom would add a spoon of sugar but I've never needed to. Using wine in the sauce helps bring out the flavors.
It might depend on the herbs too. Using a lot of parsley seems to bring out the tomato flavor. Also, what else is in the sauce? Simmering it with something savory (like a meat sauce rather than plain) makes a big difference. I use meat and mushrooms.
Your linked picture look like perfectly reasonable commercial canning tomatoes. If that's the only type you can find locally and want something different you'll have to grow different cultivars.
Your regional, or perhaps national, research university should have an agricultural department that could recommend alternative cultivars suited to your local climate. In the United States this function is held by State Universities' Agricultural Extensions, which are the public outreach arm of their Agricultural Experimentation Stations.
Each US state contracts with at least one University to run an Agricultural Experiment Station, often that University's founding charter requires it to operate one. Your country's equivalent intuitions will differ, but most will have them.
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124079 | Stockpot size required - formula to calculate
Is there a formula for working out the pot size required for specified bone weight and water volume?
For example, I would like to make beef stock using 5kg of bones and 5 litres of water, what pot size do I need?
Bones are somewhat more dense than water, but you can just take the density as 1 kg/L as an approximation. That means 10 L of water+bones. It's easiest to avoid splashing if you only fill your pot to about 3/4 full, so that's about a 12 L pot required.
As Sneftel says, you'll have about 10l*.
With stock simmering very gently you can go really quite close to the top. I'd use a 10l pot because I have one but also they're easily available. Put the bones and any veg in first then fill to say 5cm from the top if starting from cold to allow for thermal expansion. I'd simmer with it full to 2cm from the top. Top up water as required. Even with a lid (which you should be using for long simmers) some evaporation will occur, so starting with 5l doesn't mean finishing with 5l unless you top up.
* Beef bone has a density of about 1.4 g/cm³, meaning that 5kg of bone only takes up 3.6 litres. But that assumes the bones fill with water and lack marrow, also that you don't add any veg.
In fact, I'd fill a little less than that until I see how much it rises. That close to the top I'd probably still put a screen or the like over it to make sure it doesn't splash too much when it bubbles.
@KeithDavies I do have a splash screen, but the thing to use here is the lid.
for some reason I imagined you described simmering with no lid, dunno why. I use a lid while simmering, a screen when reducing (by which time I've normally removed the material I'm making stock from, which brings the stock level way down also).
Assuming you are looking to purchase a stockpot, my advice is to buy the biggest (and best quality) you can afford (plus conveniently handle, store, etc.) You will never regret having a big, high quality pot. I bought a restaurant brand 22-quart [22 US quarts is ~20.8 litres] a few years ago, and love it.
You may regret having to store something so big. I have 5l and 10l stockpots (used mainly for making soup and paneer - when I make stock it's in the slow cooker). One fits inside the other for storage and I can lift the pair down from the top shelf. Twice as big again will take up a lot of room
I agree with you, that a single pot as large as you can handle/store is a very good answer to many questions including making stock. However I think it is important to make sure it will fit all the requirements you have for a large pot. For me that includes making stews, being able to go in the oven for large casseroles and also work as a fermentation vessel.
I'll add that you want to make sure you get the biggest one that will fit on your stove top, for example, my 40qt stock pot is too big for a normal stove and requires a special oversize (200k btu) propane burner to properly boil water in it.
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42694 | How to store red bean paste?
I've bought some red bean paste to use to fill mochi. I don't think I'll use it all in one go and I'm not able to translate what the package says for how to store it.
What is the best way to store it once the package is opened and how long will it last for?
(This is the paste I am using: http://www.japancentre.com/items/maeda-hokkaido-red-bean-paste-koshian)
Many thanks :)
As a fermented bean product, I suspect it will last an extremely long time if you freeze it.
As a fermented bean paste, it should last for weeks in an airtight container in the fridge. For best results, make sure to leave as little head room (for air) as possible in the container.
To be honest, when I store Miso (for example), I just squeeze the air out and put a clip on the bag it came in, and then leave it in the fridge.
If you need longer storage than several weeks, you can probably freeze it, though at that point you might want to consider buying smaller packages.
take the rest of the paste out of the bag, and wrap it with some cling film, then put it into a container. I use this method to store that kind of paste for weeks, and still ok.
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21400 | What is the base of a seasoning blend for something like roast chicken?
I'm not looking for the recipies, I'm just looking for the principle behind this idea.
There is a product that I love which is a seasoning blend that you put in a roasting bag with chicken that then goes in the oven for an hour. The sauce that you end up with in the bag is thicker than water but not very thick at all.
The seasoning blend is floury with lots of herbs and spices in it and I'd love to try and replicate it so that I can get the taste without all of the preservatives in the store-bought version.
I guess that I'll have to experiment with the spices, but can anyone tell me more about the floury base? Is this just flour or is there something like corn-starch in these things?
Surely the list of ingredients on the packet would give you some clue?
Commercial spice mixes often contain flour or starch to keep the spices from clumping, maltodextrin as a "filler", and sometimes roasted maltodextrin for umami. Except for the last purpose (which is better achieved by other means), I don't see why you would want to recreate this at home, it doesn't make your chicken taste better. Is it only the slight thickening you want to achieve?
I guess it's just something different to try with roast chicken that's going to be a different taste to the things I cook from scratch now.
@ElendilTheTall I have a number of different products, one of them says corn starch but others dont.
Without a reference to the specific product, I would assume that it is in fact flour.
It's very common for many chicken (and other meat) recipes to call for dredging in either seasoned flour, or flour followed by an egg wash and spice/breadcrumb mix. Since these commercial mixes obviously have to be completely dry, they are most likely to be seasoned flour.
Check out some recipes for seasoned flour (alternatively called seasoning flour), you'll probably find them to be very similar to the mixes you've been using.
I usually greese with ghee, giving it a nice base flavour. Then use salt and black pepper along with a mix of rosemary and thyme. Plenty thyme. Yum yum. Also, grease it well so that it won't dry out in the oven. Open it every 5-10 minutes and spoon the grease back on top. Oh, boy, now I'm hungry.
I'm not really sure how this answers the question about packets of seasoning?
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28533 | Is "swimming in broth" a common cooking technique for pasta and broccoli rabe?
In two "old school" Italian restaurants in New York, USA, I've ordered penne with sausage and broccoli rabe. Both times the pasta was served with a good 1/4 to 1/2 cup of liquid in the bottom of the dish.
I'm trying to figure out whether this liquid is chicken stock (it kind of tastes like it), and as such is part of the recipe, or whether it is leftover water from the cooking process (the broccoli rabe and penne were both overcooked).
A quick search of recipes for penne with broccoli rabe and sausage do not include stock as an ingredient.
Yet, the broth was quite flavorful, so I'd be surprised if it was only water.
Maybe "old school" Italian restaurants in NY use chicken stock in these dishes? Any insight?
Thank you so far for these answers. It would be amazing if someone could specifically tie this style of preparation (with broth/stock) to a regional (NY state or New England) style of Italian/American cuisine. Any takers?
I am not sure whether it is a common way to prepare it in the US, but I would say that it is definitely not the traditional Italian way to serve pasta salsiccia e friarielli which is instead a fairly dry pasta dish.
Of course nothing stops you from making variations on the theme. For instance, I know some people who purée the broccoli rabe.
However, in Napoli (where the dish is from) you would generally have it dry.
Indeed, if I were to make the dish myself (without a recipe), the ingredients would be lightly coated in olive oil, but no liquid for sure.
@Jeremy: sure, when I say "dry" I really mean "not saucy". A little bit of olive oil is perfect on it!
The fact that the rabe and pasta were overcooked (they bring shame upon my home town!) would make me question the authenticity of anything they do in those restaurants. The answer as to whether you add stock or water will vary in Italy from region to region, and town to town. You'll never get a bigger argument with Italians from diverse regions then asking them how pasta carbonara should be made (dry or wet), and each will have their own "right" answer. In the north it's probably wet where the eggs are added to the pasta after it has been removed from the water, in the south it's probably dry with the eggs cooked in the pan and the pasta added after. What's right in this case depends on how you personally like it because you are in the enviable position of being able to cherry-pick what you like out of any cuisine.
So the answer is that there is no right answer as there are many different regional styles of Italian food, and it all comes down to personal taste. I make this dish myself, and I usually do not use stock, what I may do is add a ladle of pasta water because I like having a bit of liquid. Try it both ways, see how you like it.
Yeah, they were very "Italian American" style restaurants. My worst complaint was the overcooked rabe and pasta. One time I even had this dish where the liquid in the bottom tasted bitter, so it was obviously poorly drained rabe water!
It appears that some recipes do call for using a small amount of stock. Perhaps this restaurant just used an excess.
http://www.examiner.com/article/penne-pasta-with-sausage-and-broccoli-rabe-recipe
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125829 | What is it about Malthouse flours that makes them so "special"?
I have recently started making bread in a breadmaker. I generally prefer the taste of white bread but for health reasons try to make loaves with as much fibre as possible. I have tried multiple flours, and the ones labelled "Malthouse" seem to have particularly high fibre but produce bread that to my palate tastes better that anything I can make with other flours other than white. It is also worth noting that it seems these flours are quite expensive, I have not found one for under £2/Kg.
Here are the flours I have tried:
Flour
Fibre content %
Price £/Kg
White
1.7
0.87
Brown
6.4
1
Wholemeal 1
9.1
1
Wholemeal 2
11
2.9
Malthouse 1
7.4
2.4
Malthouse 2
9
2
To me the malthouse fours make bread that is far more palatable than either brown or wholemeal, but the fibre content in both is higher than the brown, and one is as high as the lower fibre wholemeal.
The ingredients of the two malthouse flours are fairly similar, with malthouse 1 having percentages:
Ingredients: wheat , malted wheat flakes 15%, rye 3%, barley malt flour 3%, antioxidant (ascorbic acid).
It strikes me that there is a significant amount of malted wheat flakes, and these can be bought separately for the same price as the flour. I already have rye flour, I have used that to boost the fibre content of loaves.
What is it about these malthouse flours that seems so "special"? Am I likely to be able to recreate it with cheaper ingredients such as White, wholemeal, rye and/or malted flakes (and perhaps malted barley if that 3% is likely to be critical)?
Malting is a process used in brewing and sometimes in manufacture of flours etc, where the grain is germinated by soaking and then dried again. This process converts the starches that the seed contains as energy storage in the grain into simple sugars like glucose and maltose. The germination uses a bunch of enzymes that are also naturally in the grain to convert the starch -> sugar and is part of the natural germination, where the plant uses the starch for energy storage, but needs the sugars to grow rapidly until it can produce it's own leaves and start photosynthesis.
Yeasts don't grow particularly well on starches and starches are relatively hard to hydrate as they form starch granules which require quite a lot of water and time to hydrate fully. Instead, yeasts prefer to use simple sugars, such as the glucose and maltose produced in the malting process.
Be aware that "malt flour" and "malted flour" may mean two different things (possibly location and supplier dependent) - the first is made from grains that have been through the malt process, while the second means flour treated with malt (the residual enzymes etc produced naturally during the malting of other grain) to produce a similar result.
as to whether you can replicate the effect of the malting in your baking - I suspect you could get the flavour and possibly the effect by adding some malt extract (available from brewer supply shops where I am). This should contain a lot of the enzymes and sugars in the extract, though it will depend on exactly how the extract is made as to how active the enzymes are. How much to add would depend on how sweet you like your bread and the ingredients already in there. For a 2 lb/1 kg loaf I would start with about 1/3 of a cup (hazarding a guess at about 60 g) of malt extract.
I see a comment from @ChrisH about diastatic malt vs non-diastatic. The difference is that the diastatic still has the active enzymes present, which means that there will be some conversion of the starches in any flour into sugars, which might make your rise better. The non-diastatic would only add taste as the enzymes have been destroyed by heating. Malt extracts come in diastatic and non-diastatic forms too.
I reckon there are two factors:
the flakes, which concentrate fibre, so the actual flour and therefore the bread has a bit less.
the flavour from the malt. This is generally reckoned to give a tasty loaf. The rye may contribute to the flavour as well, but at 3% it would be very subtle from rye, unlike from malted barley.
To try and replicate it, I'd start with white and wholemeal wheat flours, white rye flour (unless you think you can spot specks of dark rye), barley malt flour, and malted wheat flakes. You know the proportions of some ingredients, then it's just a matter of mixing the flours. I'd go for 50:50 white:wholemeal to start with, but guided by trying to match the colour.
From supermarket loaves, 50% wholemeal can be closer in taste/feel to white than to brown. I make about a 60% wholemeal sourdough because the rise seems more reliable with a variable temperature and a fixed schedule than if I use more wholemeal, so there may be a texture effect around this point as well as the effect on the rise.
Thank you for this answer. Can I ask about barley malt flour? Googling I get loads of non-malted barley flour and malted wheat flour, being more specific I get Malted Barley Powder which I THINK is a fertiliser and Roasted Barley Malt which looks lovely but different. I guess you mean none of those?
I also found Diastatic Malt Flour but that seems even more specialist
@User65535 the barley powder is definitely a fertilizer, while the roasted malt is definitely for bread. Malt means that the grain has been allowed to germinate and then re-dried. The germination converts starches in the endosperm into simpler sugars. Be aware that "malt flour" and "malted flour" may mean two different things (possibly location and supplier dependent) - the first made from grains that have been through the malt process, while the second means flour treated with malt (the residual enzymes etc produced naturally during the malting of other grain) to produce a similar result.
I'm going to convert my comment above into an answer, seeing as a lot of it actually answers the question, but it'll take me some time.
From https://bakerpedia.com/processes/malt/ and the fact that the malt flour in the ingredients list isn't described as roasted, I reckon you want diastatic malt flour. That's readily available - as you found, Shipton Mill (who are local to me) make it. But on the other hand they suggest a lower proportion because the active enzymes will make the dough sticky - but at that low proportion they'll improve the texture of your loaf. I'd get both roasted and diastatic, because you need to experiment.
Not a full answer, but the ascorbic acid listed as an "antioxidant" is vitamin C, which is used to help bread rise by strengthening the gluten. You may not need it in your own custom mix, but you may actually need to add a bit (.03% by weight is typical) to get the right rise.
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107124 | Can pickles (like beetroot) be frozen?
Living alone I can not resist buying pots of pickles.
But I do not dare to open them as I know I will not finish them before they go off, even when kept in the fridge. I have binned a few pots with at least half the pickles still in, gone nasty.
My question, can you freeze the pickles out of a freshly opened pot? My intention is to freeze them in 'one use' portions in plastic bags, so I can get them back to room temperature in the amount(s) I think I will use.
And if you can only do so with some of them, is there a list somewhere?
If I can freeze them, I expect them to be still nice to eat, not coming out as mush or dried out.
At this time I have beetroot, garlic and mini corn on the cob pickles.
You can freeze pickles no problem. Please note that freezing will change the texture of your pickles. Freezing them faster will create smaller ice crystals which will generate less damage and thus less texture change.
For this reason I suggest pre-"freezing" a glass baking dish or heavy steel tray (like a baking steel) and refrigerate your pickles as cold as possible. Then lay your pickles out on it on parchment paper on the pre-chilled tray to let them freeze quickly. Once frozen, put them into individual bags with all the air removed (or wrap in freezer-safe cling wrap then put them into a bag). If you slice your pickles in half they will freeze even faster.
Yes, you can freeze pickles, there are no safety considerations you need to be aware of. Freezing ruptures cells and can change the texture food, so your pickles may have a different consistency when they are thawed.
You can minimise the rupturing by freezing things very quickly. This why IVF is possible and how sushi is rid of worm eggs. Quick freezing also helps make nice ice cream.
-cool things down in the fridge first
-make the portions flat and not too large
-try not to wrap them in anything insulating.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.192842 | 2020-03-29T10:11:16 | {
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128223 | How can I convert this cottage cheese pancake recipe to waffle?
I know that the general rule for converting pancakes to waffles is add an egg and 1/3 cup of oil. However, as you can see below this recipe has 8 eggs and no oil (except that used for cooking the pancakes. I wondered if adding an extra egg and 1/3 cup oil would work for this recipe? Or should I add cornstarch? I hate to waste all the ingredients until I know there is a chance it will work.
Ingredients:
2 cups cottage Cheese
8 eggs
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon Stevia
2 tablespoons Coconut Oil (for cooking)
2 cups oats, whole, dry, organic
Directions:
Mix all ingredients except oil in a blender.
Heat pan with 1 Tbsp coconut oil in each of 2 pans at low medium heat (300°). Pour 2/3 cups batter into pan and add any fruits like blueberries or apple
pieces to it.
Cook each side for 3-5 minutes.
Top with organic maple syrup or apple sauce and fruits.
I would not expect to be able to convert that recipe to a waffle at all. That's a no-gluten, low-carb recipe with a lot of moisture. It would be hard enough to flip as a pancake; as a waffle, there is no way it will hold together.
We have a similar high-protein ricotta pancake recipe we make periodically. This one also cannot be turned into a waffle, the pancakes are just too delicate.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.193028 | 2024-04-25T19:32:52 | {
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88783 | Does near expiration date milk continue to "age" in a cooked dish?
I have 2% milk that has two more days before its Best Buy date. If I use it in a baked casserole, such as green bean casserole, does it continue to age? Would the leftovers be safe for 2-3 days?
How about in a boxed cheesecake mix that is not baked? Sometimes this brand does smell off at this point.
I've always wondered about this.
Welcome to Seasoned Advice!
You have either a "Best before" or a "Use by" date.
If it's an unopened pack with a "Best before" date, the milk should still be perfectly safe even quite some time after that date (it's sterilised or UHT treated) in the unopened package.
If it's an unopened pack with a "Use by" date, it depends on how the pack was stored: a "Use by" date is for raw or pasteurised milk, which should always be kept refrigerated. And normally, the milk should be used on or before that date.
If the pack has been opened, you should be able to keep it for a few days at 4°C (refrigerator), but not beyond a "Use by" date.
I use as a rule of thumb "don't use it if it smells off". If the milk still smells good, when using it in a casserole that is baked, the leftovers should keep normally. In a cheesecake mix, if the milk isn't reheated, I'd be more careful, and not go beyond a "Use by date", or 3-4 days after opening the package.
And the "going off" isn't a matter of aging, but of microbial growth. If it's lactic bacteria, you'll finish with yoghurt; if it's something else, all bets are off...
In the US, most refrigerated, pasteurized or ultra-pasteurized milk products have a 'sell by' date rather than a 'best by' or 'use by' date. (I can't say for sure that this is the case everywhere in the US, but it seems to be predominant in most areas.)
With milk and other dairy products, the date (of any type) is just a guideline. You can't guarantee that because the date is good, the milk will be. Or because the date has passed, the milk will be bad. There's no magic clock that makes it go bad at a given time. The most important thing is how the product has been handled, all the way from production to consumption.
From NOVANEXT article about milk dating:
Potentially harmful bacteria are destroyed in the pasteurization process. They can’t spontaneously regenerate, so old milk stored in the fridge doesn’t present an increased risk of foodborne illness.
So what is it? Often, the date is set for around three weeks after pasteurization, which is when the milk will begin to taste off. After reacting with oxygen and light, the fat in milk becomes rancid or stale. The distinct sour taste of aged milk is a byproduct of harmless lactic acid bacteria that feed on the sugar in milk. “It’s more of a sensory defect that we don’t like, but you’re not going to get sick on it,” says Randy Worobo, professor of food science at Cornell University.
Essentially, the issue here is about quality, not safety. The best guides you have are your senses. If the milk looks okay, smells okay, and tastes okay, it will be okay to use. With milk, if I am unsure, I pour a little in a clean cup, eye it, smell it, and taste it. (Remember that the top of a milk carton or bottle can smell bad even if the milk is okay.)
So, to answer your questions, if the milk is okay when you prepare your dishes, it really doesn't matter what the date is on the carton. It won't change how long your food will keep after preparation.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.193153 | 2018-03-31T16:58:09 | {
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