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94841 | Guidance about using pith in marmalade
I've been looking at recipes for orange marmalade and some say "don't use the pith because it's too bitter" but the photos often show the peel and pith (the part just under the peel) in the final product. And some say just to use the pith and pips in a muslin bag (ie thrown out at the end). Any guidance on this?
I'm posting this as an answer even though I really have very little experience, just some vague stuff I've picked up along the way.
The pith is all about bitterness. Bitter is a big part of the flavor profile of marmalade. So, how much pith you want to use is very subjective. How bitter do you like it? That's the difference in recipes.
Personally, I like maybe 3mm of pith still on the peel that stays in the marmalade.
I can see no benefit at all to using the pips.
Good answer, but cooking the pith and pips in a bag to be removed, is done to extract pectin.
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64540 | Using the same baking paper as always, suddenly my bread sticks, what's happening?
I regularly bake bread (1+ times a week). I usually reuse a sheet of baking paper a few times, and for the last 20+ times it has been from the same roll. Now suddenly the last two breads I made are completely stuck to the (new sheet of) paper after baking. I have to cut off the bottom after slicing the bread.
What is happening? Some people told me certain brands of baking paper have two sides, one shiney (non-stick). Today I actually checked which side I was using and made sure to use the shiney side, but again it got completely stuck.
I thought the dough might be a bit too wet, but it wasn't that wet. Definitely not wetter than I've sometimes had in the past without problems.
Might be worth grabbing the box (so you can read any production codes off it) and calling the manufacturer - sounds like a potential quality control screw-up to me (i.e., you have baking paper which has not actually been treated in whatever way it should have been before it was packaged and sold.) Not, mind you, that I generally use baking paper (aka parchment) at all for bread.
Thanks, I did call the manufacturer who ended up sending me 2 new boxes, so that was great. I only realised later that my partner bought a refill for the box by a different brand. I felt sorry for blaming it on the original company as it turned out we just got a crappy replacement, and I didn't realise it..
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69153 | How can I make a "lighter" cheese sauce?
I am looking to make some cheese-sauce filled choux pastry balls as an appetizer.
I was considering making a classical mornay sauce for the filling. But when it goes cold, I find it tends to be quite heavy, and I want to avoid it becoming nausiating.
Here is my Mornay sauce recipe:
125g roux (half butter, half flour)
1 litre milk
300g cheddar cheese
salt, pepper and nutmeg, to taste
Here is what I've thought of to make it lighter:
1) Egg whites, beaten to peaks, to make a kinda soufflé-esque filling. But I would have liked to avoid re-cooking to pastry balls after filling, and don't really like the idea of raw egg whites.
2) Whipped cream, folding it into the cold mornay sauce.
3) Cream cheese, folding it into the cold mornal sauce.
Has anyone tried anything like this to make a lighter mornay sauce? Any other suggestions?
I'm assuming by "lighter" you don't mean lower-calorie?
@Catija No. I'm looking to make a cheesy appetizer/amuse-bouche, and find a mornay sauce has too thick of a consistency. I wanted to add a little air to the sauce, but not lose structure or cheese taste.
Are you serving hot or cold?
What you describe might be better called a mousse ... and there are recipes out there for a cheddar cheese mousse.
I see two options for you.
The author of this Q How would I produce (stable) foamy bechamel sauce? reports success using gelatin. That Q is Bechamel sauce, which is the base of Mornay.
or
Use of an immersion blender to incorporate air into the sauce, making it a lighter texture. You can immersion blend at two points in the process: after the milk was thickened by the roux and/or after melting the cheese in. (I believe this is where @Pat Summer's answer was leading to)
(immersion blender)
instead of melting in the cheese, whip it with high-speed gizmo.
stays fluffy even when cold
pour over hot mixture and give it a few pulses
Sorry, but I don't get it - and the fact that it was flagged as low quality indicates that others agree. Could you please [edit] this post with more details?
the above post was not visible when I answered . Basically identical: whip in air at the melting point. Either by blender or immersion.
Adjusting the amount of roux in the recipe can affect the consistency of the product. Play both with the volume of roux added, and also with the ratio of flour and butter. Generally speaking, higher ratios of butter to flour will decrease the viscosity of the product. A "slack" roux is generally appropriate for sauces, where peaks form from stirring quickly flow back as a liquid rapidly.
Roux's also tend to become quite solid when cold, as the fat (butter) is saturated at room temperature. If you use a different thickening agent (Corn starch, gelatin, a thickening gum) you might achieve better results in a dish being served cold.
Another option would be to adjust the ratio of cheese to liquid, though that would serve to make the sauce less rich, not necessarily less dense.
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34776 | substitues for confectioners sugar when making icing
I am making homemade cupcakes. For the icing my recipe says that I need confectioners sugar. I already know that I can make my own, but i don't want to right now. Can I substitute the confectioners sugar with powdered sugar?
Confectioner's sugar and powdered sugar are two names for the same thing, at least in US usage. In the UK, this product would be called icing sugar.
So it is not even a substitution, it is the requested ingredient, and of course you can use it by either name.
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34929 | How do I prevent fudge browning?
I'm trying to make a fudge inspired by some I have seen made in a fudge shop here in the UK (although it is an American-style fudge, not the softer British kind). The recipe the shop uses substitutes cream for the butter in traditional recipes, and uses pure corn syrup as the sugar. They manage to get the fudge to stay completely white, without it browning at all, yet when I try to replicate this at home I always get a pale brown colour with a toffee flavour that isn't present in the shop-made fudge. The process I'm using is this:
Mix milk, cream and corn syrup
Heat to 112C
Add vanilla
Pour into a cold tray to cool
Stir and stretch for the final phase of cooling
Any suggestions what might be going wrong?
What corn syrup are you using?
Are you sure it is 112 C and not 112 F? Or why do you heat it to 112 C?
The corn syrup is a korean corn syrup (the only reasonably-priced syrup I can purchase locally). I'm not quite sure, therefore, what type of syrup it is. I can eliminate the presence of oligosaccharides (as discussed in the comments of the answer below) because the syrup's nutritional info states 72g/100ml carbohydrates, of which 72g sugar. From the clear colour, I presume it is not a high fructose syrup (all of which I've seen before have a golden brown colour). But beyond these deductions I do not know the exact composition.
Fructose is one of the sugars in corn syrup. The problem is that 112 C is above the caramelization temperature of fructose, which is 110 C (230 F); this is uniquely low among the various common sugar molecules, most of which begin to caramelize around 160 C (320 F).
The toffee flavor that you are getting is due to the caramelization components.
However, without seeing your exact recipe it is hard to know what to change. I would suggest using table sugar with its much higher caramelization temperature instead of corn syrup would be the most appropriate solution.
It should dissolve the dairy, so you should not need to make a syrup.
However, sucrose (table sugar) has different crystallization properties than fructose and corn syrup, so after you get the main part of the candy mixture up to temperature and then cooled some, you might wish to add a tablespoon or two of corn syrup to help reduce the likelihood of graininess.
You could also try reducing the temperature to say 108 C, but this may affect the final ratio of water to sugar as less water will have been evaporated off, which would change the crystallization pattern in the confection, and thus is texture. It could end up quite sticky or even gooey.
It will probably be easier to search for a recipe for this confection that is already tuned to do what you want, as modifying candy recipes is very tricky; you must get the science and technique just right.
Note: fudge by its very nature is a a solid suspension of very tiny sugar crystals embedded in a dairy/syrup phase. The cooling and beating in traditional fudge recipes are to control the growth of the sugar crystals, so that they are numerous and very, very tiny (which gives the smooth silky texture) as opposed to larger and fewer (which gives a grainy texture).
As fructose and corn syrup tend to resist crystallization, it is odd to have a fudge like recipe with corn syrup as its main sugar component.
Did not know that about fructose. It might be best to do most of the heating in a double boiler (100°C), so as to minimize time on the hob when bottom of pan is exposed to full burner temperature.
@WayfaringStranger Sorry, fudge (and candy in general) cannot generally be made in a double boiler as they depend on getting hotter than the boiling point of plain water.
@SAJ14SJ My point was that it can be started, heated to 100°C, on a double boiler. You're right in saying you can't finish it wo putting it straight on the burner and getting it up above 100°C, but any time on the burner exposes the material at the bottom of the pan to high temperatures, even if you stir hard. Minimizing the amount of time that can happen will minimize caramelization.
@WayfaringStranger The thing is, this whole recipe is not making sense in terms of the chemistry and desired outcome. A well structured recipe should not require resorting to such strange workarounds.
@SAJ14SJ True, then again the shop the recipe came from might have a dedicated fudge cooking setup with a precise temperature controller that'll be hard to replicate at home.
@WayfaringStranger I suspect there are multiple additional unknown factors behind this recipe.
Are you sure about the presence of fructose in corn syrup? My understanding was that corn syrup was entirely fructose-free, and was essentially pure glucose syrup except for trace impurities.
@Jules Now that you questioned it, I looked, and evidently there are multiple products labelled corn syrup, some of which do not contain fructose. Many HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) varieties are of course defined by the presence of fructose. Since the OP is complaining of toffee flavors and color, this indicates unexpected caramelization. Only fructose fit with the temperature specified in the recipe, so I had to assume it was present.
Looking into the composition of non-high-fructose corn syrups in more detail, it seems at least some contain oligosaccharides of unspecified type; this may (or may not) be oligofructose, which I believe may decompose to fructose at high temperatures (it seems hard to find hard data about this). This could be the problem. It looks like what I ideally want is a high-maltose corn syrup, which will have had all the oligosaccharides converted to maltose, which does not caramelize at low temperatures.
What you want is confectionary grade glucose syrup. In the US, home cooks commonly substitute light Karo brand corn syrup because it is the only brand that does not include HFCS in it's blend. Other brands and "Corn syrups" from other countries likely contain HFCS and will not be suitable for this recipe as @SAJ14SAJ has pointed out. In the UK look for Dr. Oetker Liquid Glucose (http://www.oetkeronline.co.uk/products/Liquid-Glucose.html)
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34958 | Is cheese a condiment? (Burgers, sandwiches, etc)
I work at a restaurant and got a request for no condiments on a burger. I took that to include cheese as well as ketchup, mustard, etc. The customer was not pleased and requested his money back.
So what's the verdict on cheese? Is it a condiment?
I would suspect it highly depends on if he asked for a cheeseburger when a hamburger option is also available...
I would have interpreted it to mean a sauce, chutney, or relish or similar item sold specifically as a condiment, in context it would mean mustard, ketchup or mayo, but not the cheese.
But probably as a server you would have been best positioned to ask exactly what the customer did want on their burger to prevent misunderstandings.
The places I have visited in the US, cheeseburgers and hamburgers have always been different items (with cheeseburgers costing more). I would be surprised to find cheese on a hamburger, though I wouldn't complain, personally. Additionally, I've found I can usually request cheese for an additional charge. Cheese is usually part of the menu item, as in "Cheeseburger", "Cheesy Nachos", or "Pizza". Therefore, since it costs extra and is specific to the item, its probably not a condiment.
I can only speak about the US, and here, we have been conditioned to believe condiments are things which are squeezed from packets, like mustard, ketchup, mayo, hot sauces, tartar sauce, cocktail sauce, etc. Things like pickles, onions, cheese, etc are generally not condiments (even though technically, they could be), they're actually called toppings. The exception being hotdogs, in which case everything is a condiment. Condiments for ice creams, which may include nuts or bits of candy. Condiments for salads, which could mean croutons, bacon bits, as well as dressing, but cheese would be an ingredient (like carrots), not a condiment.
McDonalds has it right:
http://nutrition.mcdonalds.com/getnutrition/nutritionfacts.pdf
Taco Bell even differentiates between condiments and sauces:
http://www.tacobell.com/nutrition/information
Subway classifies cheese under the "condiments and extras" category, which implies condiments are the liquid things, while the extras are the things like cheese, pepperoni, and bacon.
http://www.subway.com/nutrition/NutritionList.aspx?id=breadtop&Countrycode=USA
In summary, cheese is not a condiment where burgers, sandwiches, tacos, and salads are concerned. It could be considered a condiment for hotdogs, but I would prefer the term "topping" and reserve "condiments" to mean "sauces".
I have only had cheeseburgers with slices of processed cheese. But when the OP described thinking of cheese as a condiment, I thought that their workplace may use processed cheese from the bottle, which then would make it consistent with your "squeezed" definition. I have never seen squeezable cheese used in neither McD nor Subway, so their definitions may not be applicable here (there are no Taco Bells where I live, so no comments about them).
That's an "impressive outside the box" observation, but the question was asked with such deliberate generality that I believe it includes cheese of any definition. I wouldn't generally expect to find squeezable cheese on burgers since most of it would ooze out into a big mess and cold sandwiches would have cold slices. The exception would be hot sandwiches like Philly Cheese Steaks or Arby's sandwiches, but again, the cheese is usually part of the menu item, therefore an ingredient. If you order a Philly Cheese without the condiments, you still get cheese just like you still get beef.
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35018 | Sushi / sashimi knives
I've been making sushi for a while at home and now decided to get a set of knives specifically for this purpose (as I have only a couple of general-purpose knives which are horrendous).
The question is - which types of knives should I get? Is there a one universal knife for cutting rolls & carving fish & making sashimi or there are several and what are their names? Maybe there is a standard set for this?
See: http://www.wisegeek.org/what-is-special-about-a-sushi-knife.htm
The traditional knife for sushi and sashimi is the yanagi sashimi. It features a long blade (approx 10in or 270mm) that has a chisel ground blade which is often hollow ground on the back, called urasaki. The long blade allows you to cut thin slices in one continuous motion so that you don't you don't have slashes marks from changing direction. There are also other traditional Japanese knives for specific food preparation tasks such as vegetable chopping and meat preparation. If you already have European-style knives you are comfortable with, there is no need to purchase Japanese-style knives for those tasks.
I second this. If you have a general sushi knife, you do not really need any other special blades. When I worked in a sushi restaurant, most of the chefs only used their sushi knife. And if any other knives were used, they were simply basic paring knives or cleavers.
I would suggest getting a single, long sujihiki style knife with the following features:
High-carbon stainless or carbon steel - This will help maintain a sharp edge with good retention. Carbon steel needs to be kept very dry to avoid rusting, so it's a little harder to maintain.
Comfortable grip - Cutting sushi involves long, repeated and consistent slices and fish is slippery to work with so you will need a grip that will not slip in your hands and affords very strong precision not only on the pull part of the cut but also in blade positioning.
Shallow height - Raw fish creates a lot of friction on a blade, which is why sushi knives are low-profile in height. This reduces surface area in contact with the fish, which in turn reduces friction.
Moderate thickness - Professional sushi knives are actually quite thick, because they are designed to allow the fish to peel away from the edge, to reduce friction. However, sushi chef's are trained to be able to use these blades without having the knife drift while cutting...home chefs are rarely able to master this movement so I would not get a knife that is too thick.
Rigidity - A good sushi knife is long but rigid. You want the cut to be clean and straight so the knife cannot flex while you're cutting.
Bevel geometry - If you're ambitious, go ahead and get a single bevel sushi knife. This will be a lot sharper, but much harder to maintain.
Professional sushi knives are actually not necessarily hard. Sushi chef's know how to sharpen their knives with wetstones and hones, so they often prefer to work with slightly softer steel because it's easier to maintain. I wouldn't recommend this approach at home because it's hard to get sharpening done at the appropriate angles, so it's usually a better tradeoff to go with a high performance, hard steel like VG-10, japanese blue steel or CPM154 which will hold an edge pretty well without need for frequent sharpening.
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35394 | Egg of a dove in my flowerpot
A dove just laid an egg in my flowerpot, on the window on the third floor. I really wanted to let it hatch, however, my wife said the chick has no chance to survive in this environment, it will surely fall and die. So, I thought maybe it is better to take the egg and eat it - this will at least save the dove the incubation time.
But, I have no idea if and how it is possible to eat an egg of a dove?
The eggs of all birds are pretty much the same in terms of edibility, although the flavor and obviously the size vary. I am not sure I would want to eat an egg from a wild bird, since I don't know what if any pathogens they may carry.
That egg is also very likely to be fertilized and if it's a city dove, it may contain contaminants. your initial idea of letting hatch might be the better than interfering ;) life wants to be.
You need to save pennies to eat a wild bird's egg? Leave nature alone and it will leave you alone. If the safety of the hatchling really worries you, ask a wildlife expert, not cooks.
@CareyGregory: From nature's point of view, I don't see any difference between eating a dove's egg and a hen's egg... On the contrary, the industry of hen's eggs causes much more discomfort to the hens: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/10238118/French-farmers-threaten-to-slaughter-hens-amid-egg-price-protest.html
@ErelSegalHalevi - But your wife's theory that the egg can't survive is totally unfounded. Birds raise chicks on narrow window sills and perches all over the world and the chicks rarely fall. Justifying killing it by saying you're saving chickens is silly.
According to the American Dove Association:
How many eggs do doves lay?
Most doves lay two eggs; some species only lay one. Wild doves are notorious for infertile eggs.
Why do foreign doves abandon their eggs or young?
Abandoning eggs may be due to biting pests (lice, mites), noises that frighten brooding birds, or overcrowding and fighting. Frightened doves will abandon young, or if the nest is disturbed in any way, parents may refuse to care for the young.
There is a chance the egg was not fertilized, and there is also a chance the bird could have had pests (whether or not that affects the egg, I do not know).
Based on this info, if it was me, I'd steer clear.
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54865 | The persimmon jam makes my tongue dry
I made a persimmon jam, just like I successfully made other jams, i.e.: took 7 persimmons, added a cup of sugar and a little lemon juice, put in a bread baker and activated the special jam program.
The jam is delicious, but, after several seconds in the mouth, it gives a very unpleasant feeling that the tongue and the entire mouth becomes dry.
What happened to the jam? Is there a way to rescue it?
It sounds like the persimmons (or one of the persimmons) were not quite ripe enough.
When you eat an unripe astringent persimmon (American or Asian) the
mouth immediately draws up. Sometimes you'll get a hint of sweetness
(if it is near-ripe) but the mouth-feel is immediate. Tannins in
persimmons make your tongue, cheeks, and gums feel as though you're
chewing on a cross between aspirin, alum, and chalk. Your tongue
almost feels like a fine sandpaper. Judging the Ripeness of Persimmons
Unfortunately, I think that specific batch of jam can't be salvaged -- I don't know any way to "ripen" a persimmon if it's already been cooked into something. Next time you try this, taste a small bit of each fruit first to see if they're ripe enough.
Is this dangerous? Or just untasty?
And this is why I hate persimmons.
@ErelSegalHalevi Wikipedia indicates that a phytobezoar can form in your stomach if you eat unripe persimmons, but also states this "should not be of concern when consuming moderate quantities of persimmons" -- so it isn't risk-free, but is probably very low risk (although higher for individuals with certain medical conditions). I wouldn't worry that you've already eaten some.
It sounds like you'd know if you were at risk - you'd be eating a lot of persimmons and if they're just mildly unripe, there's not as much tannin.
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46897 | Can alcohol and salt lengthen the shelf life of vegetables in room temperature?
My refrigerator is small, so often I have to keep some vegetables outside the refrigerator, in room temperature. I was wondering, whether spraying alcohol and/or salt around the vegetables can help in keeping bacteria away for them and thus lengthen their shelf life. Do you have any experience with this?
Yes, if you drink the alcohol and use the salt to pickle the vegetables. But this probably isn't the answer you were looking for.
No, salting or spraying alcohol on your vegetables will not help keep them fresh at all, in fact salting them would probably have the opposite effect.
You are probably connecting the fact that salt is used as a preservative with keeping food fresh, but these are 2 different concepts. Keeping things fresh involves trying to keep a plant metabolizing as long as possible as @rumtscho says, while preserving food is about slowing the growth of bacteria and other microbial life which rots food and can make it harmful to life so it can be safe a long time. This can be done through a combination of any or all of the below:
Exposure to cold: refrigeration and freezing
Sterilization: this usually means heating food for a certain length of time and storing it in a sealed container like a can, jar, or carton
Preservatives: preservatives create an environment that is hostile to bacteria and other microbes, these can be natural (salt, vinegar, citric acid), or artificial (sulfites, benzoic acid). Note that alcohol is not listed among them - you'd need to use alcohol in such concentrations as it could be dangerous in a kitchen (think explosions and fire so don't do it!)
Often food preservation is a combination of the above, like a preservative and sterilization. In any case preserving food means making changes to the texture and often flavor of the food, so in no case would it ever be considered fresh.
So save your salt and your alcohol, they won't help you there.
I am not sure I understand. When I leave tomatoes on the shelf, they get rotten or mouldy. Isn't this the result of micro-organisms that are killed by alcohol/salt?
No, it won't help you at all. Your vegetables aren't being eaten by bacteria or similar (and this is a good thing, foods which are rendered unsafe by bacteria shouldn't be kept more than 4 hours at room temperature). They are simply wilting.
There is no way to stop the wilting process. It is the plant cells dying off and stopping being able to "take care of themselves". You have to buy vegetables more frequently if you want them to be pleasantly fresh. The only thing you can do is to cool them, which slows down their metabolism and so prolongs the time they have left until they die. For a few types of vegetable, providing water helps, e.g. carrots or any bunch of leafy herbs, but this is an exception.
As a matter of fact, adding alcohol or salt would throw off the osmotic balance of the vegetable cells, potentially leading to faster breakdown and wilting.
Water is definitely useful for this. Also note that some vegetable-like foods, such as tomatoes and peppers, are better unrefrigerated - take a look at where they're stored in the grocery store; if it's out on the tables in the middle of the aisle, you shouldn't refrigerate either.
@JoeM "better off" is relative here. The final taste gets worse once you place them in the refrigerator, but they do stay fresh for longer.
Fruit and Vegetable storage guidelines Note that you can probably store most of the stuff listed there for a day or two on the counter with no freshness issues, and washing should remove any contamination. Most issues with produce is mold/insects; any e-colli or salmonella is usually cross contamination at home or at the source, and refrigeration won't help with that anyways. Generally, the hardier the produce, the longer it will remain fresh at room temp.
I am not sure I understand. When I leave tomatoes on the shelf, they get rotten or mouldy. Isn't this the result of micro-organisms that are killed by alcohol/salt?
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44274 | Dehydration temperatures for long-term preservation
I am dehydrating fruits and vegetables with a home dehydrator. I found in the internet varying recommendations about dehydration temperatures, ranging from 45 to 65 C (113 to 150 F). However, since dehydration is used also for short-term consumption (by raw-food enthusiasts), I am not sure the recommendations are good for long-term preservation.
So, my questions are:
If I dehydrate in 45 C (113 F), for about 24 hours, and keep the dehydrated stuff in tightly closed glass jars - can I expect them to be preserved for about 2 years?
If the answer is no - what is the minimal temperature that I should use in order to guarantee preservation for 2 years?
The temperature varies not by how long you want to keep the item, but by what you are dehydrating. Consider a carrot. A raw carrot will keep for literally months. A cooked one at room temperature will not even keep for days. So, when you're dehydrating carrots (for example to reduce the weight of the food you take camping) you want to be sure not to cook them in the process. Now, consider raw meat such as jerky. This has a LOT of water in it. If you dry it at too low a temperature, it will spoil before you have reduced the water content enough. Same for a fruit puree. But herbs, if you have it too hot you will draw out the flavours and just keep dehydrated dust.
My dehydrator came with a book telling me what temperatures to use for what products. There are also words on the temperature dial. This is a cropped shot of my model on the manufacturer's website:
While you can't read the words, they say "fruit", "vegetables" etc. The coolest temps are for herbs, then it goes raising bread, making yogurt, then dehydrating veg, then fruit, and finally jerky.
And just as you can't choose one temperature to use for dehydrating any and all food, nor can you assume one keeping time for any and all food. My book also tells me which things keep for months, and which for years. I don't think there's anything that will let your dried meat keep for years, but you should do ok with legumes and some vegetables.
In terms of the science, it is not the temperature to which you set the dehydrator which is important, but the percentage of water remaining in the dehydrated food which will control its shelf life (along with other factors). The dehydrator temperature influences, instead, how long it will take the food to dehydrate, and the quality of the product (how much of a cooked flavor, for example, the food picks up).
Still, home dehydrated food is not recommended for long term preservation. They recommend jerky, for example, be held at room temperature for no more than two weeks; fruits can be held up to six months to a year.
This is because perfect quality control and stronger dehydration is difficult to achieve with home type equipment.
See the National Center for Home Food Preservations guide to dehydration, which links several in house and university supported articles about home dehydration.
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62566 | An electronic tool for mixing while the pot is on the fire
When cooking a pudding cream, we need to constantly mix the cream while it is on the fire, in order to prevent chunks from forming and keep the cream smooth. It takes a long time and the hand becomes tired. Is there an electronic tool that can be used to mix the cream while it is on the fire?
Just for clarity's sake, when you say on the fire, do you just mean when its cooking, or are you referring to a specific method I'm just not familiar with?
I mean: when it is cooking.
For thick sauces and puddings, I would think an immersion blender is the way to go. Some even have removable shafts, so you can change the length of stick attachment to fit your pot, or switch it out for different accessories, like a whisk attachment. And at risk of sounding like an infomercial, they even sell bowl clamps for hands free operation!
Me personally, I like a drill and mixer attachment.
There exist automatic pot stirrers:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0000TPBYG
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B013L1XYU2/
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004JELGHE/
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F3WUB8Q/
... but unless it's just the right size for the pot, I would think that you would run into issues with it not clearing the corners of the pot well, and scorching the cream.
(note : I've never used any of them ... and the product pages don't show the working end of the device except for the last one ... which obviously won't get to the corners)
I can't speak for the other 3, but I've actually seen the 4th stirrer (robostir) in action. It will move around the bottom of the pot, so it will actually get into the corners. The one thing you'll have to watch out for is that it doesn't have too much power--it was designed for soups and sauces, nothing too thick.
Perhaps a Thermomix would do the job? ...or a magnetic stirrer/hotplate? Search Chemistry supply houses. Though the pudding may be too thick for that to work.
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46712 | Dehydrating herbs - leaves vs. stems
I use my dehydrator to dehydrate herbs such as parsley and dill. I use low temperature (95 F = 35 C) to preserve the taste. The dark-green leaves are usually completely dry after several hours, but the light-green stems remain slightly wet.
At one time, I made the mistake of putting everything together in a jar; it caught the mold in several days and I had to trash it.
I tried to cut the stems from the leaves and dehydrate them separately, but it turned out to be a very tedious task as each piece has a different length so I had to cut each piece separately.
What do you do?
Both parsley and dill has a lot of flavour in the stems.
Freezing is good, as suggested by Joe, but maybe chopping the stems with a machine/grinder prior to drying might help the process. Discard them if the stems are really woody of course.
My wife loves the stems, so I think this is the answer I will use.
Don't dry the stems is the answer, simply discard them. I strip the leaves off the stems either before or after drying for the same reasons you describe - they don't dry well. For many herbs there isn't as much flavor in the stems as the leaves, so less value in drying them anyway.
You can toss the stems in when you're next making stock. (freeze 'em if it'll be a while before your next batch), so that they don't go to waste.
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39407 | Utilizing both oven racks when baking
Are there any "rules of thumb" when it comes to utilizing both racks in the oven? I'm primarily concerned when it comes to frozen meats in the oven, but I also want to utilize both racks when I bake sweets (pies, cakes, cookies, etc..).
Is this something I need to worry about? For example, does it matter where the racks are placed? I would imagine that foods placed on the lower rack would need to be taken out a bit earlier than the upper rack, because the lower rack is closer to the heating elements.
What kind of oven is it?
(as in electric or gas)
Does it have heating elements on the bottom only? I have only ever had ovens which have heating on both top and bottom. Also, does it have a fan?
Bottom line
When you use both racks at once, your cooking pattern will become somewhat uneven.
Normally, you will only see this as a serious effect in thin, rapidly cooking foods like cookies. Some cookies on the tray may be browned and done, while others are still pale and underdone. This is why cookie recipes almost always specify swapping the trays between the racks, and rotating them front to back, half way through. The idea is to balance out the influence of these various affects.
For thicker and longer cooking foods like a casserole or a braise, internal conduction or convection will tend to even out the influence of the local hot and cool spots over time, making use of both racks fairly irrelevent to the outcome.
Background
Ovens transfer heat into food in two modes:
Infrared radiation (much like a heat lamp puts out) warms the surface of the foods (or their containers) directly
The hot air in contact with the food (or their container) conducts heat into the surface
Furtheremore, the conduction of heat into the food from the air is strongly influenced by the convection (circulation of the air due to temperature differentials). If the air were pefectly still (which it never is), then the part that is in contact with the food would soon come into thermal equilibrium with the food. As air is a very poor thermal conductor, it would then take some time for it to heat up from the adjectent air, and the food would cook very slowly.
In the real world, air also changes density when the temperature changes, becoming denser and sinking as it cools, and becoming less dense and rising when it is heated. This causes the air in the oven to circulate, even if there are no fans, and is called convection. It increases the ability of the air to transfer heat energy into the food.
There are also ovens which have fans to force air circulation, technincally called forced air convection ovens, although often simply called "convection ovens" for short.
Understanding these modes of heat transfer allow you to understand what happens when you use two racks within the oven:
Shadowing
As radiant heat is a major mode of heating, and infrared is light (just of a wavelength too long for people to see), it can be blocked and cast a shadow.
When you use only a single rack, the food (or its container) is bathed in the radiant heat from all of the walls (and floor and ceiling).
As soon as you use two racks, the food on one rack absorbs and blocks the radiant heat from at least one direction from getting to the food on the other rack.
This will cause the baking to slow down slightly, and change the pattern by which heat reaches the food.
Convection patterns
When you use more racks, the pattern of natural convection within the oven will change. Its like being in a city where the wind patterns are affected by the shape of the buildings. This can create hotter (more air going by) and colder (less air going by) spots within the oven.
If you have forced air convection (a fan), this affect is reduced but not eliminated, because the air still must circulate past the foods to actually transfer heat energy into them.
A note on on oven design
All ovens have radiant heat as a major cooking modality. The hot air from burner or heating element heats the walls of the oven, which then begin to emit infrared radiation back to the foods.
Some ovens also directly expose their heating element within the main oven cavity. In this case, infrared can be an even stronger mode, and become very directional.
This is particularly true of electric ovens with directly exposed coils. The shadowing affect becomes stronger in this type of oven.
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38118 | Is the cover of Parmigiano-Reggiano edible?
It seems that the "cover" is harder than the other parts...
It would be edible (for true Parmesano Reggiano, anyway), but it may not be very pleasant, as it is where most salt from the brining period will be, and it is dry and hard.
It is traditional to use pieces of it in soup to add flavor to the broth.
If you save up a few, you can simmer them gently in water for a couple of hours to make a kind of 'cheese stock'. Lots of umami.
Someone mentioned adding to soups and stocks...I also save them for that purpose. However, a family favorite, is to insert, with other aromatics, in the cavity of a chicken that will be roasted. Remove when carving and serve with the chicken. It will be soft and delicious.
Mmmm...I have some Parmesan rinds in the freezer, I'm going to have to try that.
Absolutely edible, specifically goes well in hot dishes like soup.
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38153 | BBQ Rib problem, need suggestions
I have a pretty fail safe method for cooking BBQ baby back pork ribs at home.
make a rub and apply to ribs
wrap in aluminum foil
one hour at 325 in the oven
the reduce to 225 and cook for two more hours
Add BBQ sauce at the end and maybe back in the oven for ten more minutes.
Usually this yields excellent "fall off the bone" ribs. Last night however I did the exact same thing and the ribs were certainly not fall of the bone and a knife was needed. Too bad really because the rub was amazing. These ribs were more meaty than normal.
Is this a situation where the ribs need to actually cook longer? Further, could I put the leftovers back in the oven a day later and cook them longer to try and achieve the proper tenderness?
Did you get the ribs from the same source as before? Same grade? Are you sure that they were same cut?
Hi, yes they are the same brand and type that we usually get..the only difference this time were that they were labeled "extra meaty" and they did seem to have more meat than usual, but I didn't think that would be a problem.
My instincts suggest that "extra meaty" would require extra time at the same temperature to get the same results. As far as rehabilitating leftovers, I hope that someone with more knowledge of the subject than me answers. I'd like to know myself.
Your ribs were undercooked. Time is a guideline in barbecue, not an absolute. The folksy rule of thumb is "the meat will tell you when it's ready." Rather than watching a clock and taking the ribs out when a certain amount of time has elapsed, you should pick a time when you will start checking your ribs to see if they are done, and keep cooking them until finished. These are your cues:
Sight test - the meat on the ribs should pull back from the end of the bones considerably, usually around a half inch.
Bend test - if you pick up one end of your rack of ribs with a pair of tongs, the rack should be able to bend easily.
Probe test - you should be able to slide a skewer through the meat between the bones with VERY little resistance, if any.
Tear test - the meat between the bones should tear easily with just your fingers.
As far as reheating, it is possible. I would suggest wrapping them in foil, and perhaps putting some liquid in the bottom of the foil pack. It will not be as good as if you had cooked them in one stint, but it should still work.
There are two things that will help here:
"Low and Slow"; drop your heat to 250°F for about 5-6 hours
and
Add a braising liquid, this will generate steam inside your aluminum foil pack.
Both of these will help to break down the meat to the desired 'falling of the bone' condition.
You can see a demonstration of this by Alton Brown at Foodnetwork.com
Alton provides both a good rub and braising liquid, but I prefer to use beer rather than wine in the liquid and have tried it with other recipes that follow the same 'basic formula'. Mt. Dew or Dr. Pepper are both good choices.
Yeah, not adding any braising liquid was probably the culprit. Usually ribs have enough liquid in them where they can get by without it, but if the meat was aged longer than usual or was leaner than usual, it won't give off enough juice to self-braise, resulting in tough meat.
It's almost certainly the "extra meaty" part that got you: just like a larger turkey needs more time to roast, these ribs could've used more time in the oven.
Baking the leftovers some more is not likely to get you good results. The fall-off-the-bone part comes with long cooking at an appropriate temperature; when you let the ribs cool, all that broken-down-collagen will firm up again, but not into what it started as. It'll have lost a lot of moisture, for example. Baking it again will likely just dry it out.
Perhaps some sort of wet cooking method could help, but then you'll lose flavor to the cooking liquid.
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38224 | Chinese cooking troubleshooting: still biting into pieces of ginger
I'm trying my hand at Chinese cooking. I doctored a mung bean soup that otherwise turned out okay. I took the spices, veg, added them to stock, waited till boiling over medium heat then simmered away (standard method in Asian cooking...?)
The trouble's the ginger. I chopped up pieces of ginger pretty finely because I assumed that more surface area = more flavor released. However, I wound up wincing every two bites as I'd bite into the bits of ginger. Not fun.
What to do?
Perhaps you're unusually sensitive to ginger? Assuming what you mean by "pretty finely" is minced, or cut into pieces you couldn't make any smaller without pureeing them, they really shouldn't be noticeable as individual pieces.
I know I haven't been here in a while, but I'm not too sensitive to ginger, actually. For sore throats/Ayurvedic, the stronger, the better, but for dishes it just seems to overwhelm. I haven't tried the paste yet (next project) but the coins worked well.
Ginger is grateable.
I like using a microplane to very finely grate the ginger (that's easier to do if the ginger is frozen), or making a paste with the ginger in a food processor or blender. Just peel the ginger (you don't have to be perfect), cut it into chunks, add just enough water to get almost a baby food consistency and puree. Then you can stir-fry the puree to flavor the oil, add it to soup, add it to anything that you want, and use as much as you want but you'll never bite into a chunk, nor will you ever need to fish it out of anything. The ginger paste will last quite a while in the fridge and won't suffer a bit by being frozen for up to a year or so. Make the paste with half ginger and half garlic and you've got a great convenient ingredient for all kinds of applications.
EDIT: This question inspired me. I needed a housewarming gift for my new neighbor and landlord. When I freeze ginger/garlic paste for myself I have always just used ice cube trays, but for a gift a little cookie scoop worked great. I just scooped the paste, froze the little rounds on freezer paper, then packed them in Ziplocs.
It's also possible to buy ready-made ginger paste such as you describe.
I buy the big bag (3lbs) of peeled garlic at Sam's Club and ~3lbs of ginger when it looks good. I make garlic paste, ginger paste and ginger/garlic paste with it. The whole thing takes me about 15 minutes, and requires one washing of my food processor. I give most of it away, yet still keep a six month's supply in my freezer for the price of a couple of those jars. :) Old habits die hard from my cafe running days.
While it may not be traditional, you could cut the ginger into thin coins, which will still leave a significant surface area for the flavor to infuse into the broth. You could then remove them for service.
If you don't want to have to fish through the soup to get them, placing them in a tea ball would allow you to get them out all at once.
Growing up with ginger in all sorts of food (ethnic Chinese here), I was never afraid to find slivers of ginger in my food and I wouldn't hesitate to eat it like just another vegetable. I think the reason is because the dish was always cooked long enough that the flavour from the ginger had already dissipated fully into the dish. Thus, the slivers of ginger were mostly flavourless.
You are like me, I had congee once in China that was virtually inedible for me because there was pieces of ginger spread throughout and I absolutely hate hate hate ginger, and I am Chinese. So, I believe I can provide you with some very practical answers.
By mung bean soup I think you mean congee/zhou/粥?
First, what is your actual problem? Do you hate the taste of ginger altogether, or just don't like biting it? If you don't like biting it, then you can use ginger powder. I can detect tiny pieces of ginger even if you chop it finely or grate it so that is not an option for me. You will have to experiment with the quantity because fresh ginger tastes different to several-days old dried ginger (by dried ginger I mean after you cut a piece and leave the rest in the fridge or outside, not actual 'dried' ginger as in, dried fruit) and probably to ginger powder. I use whole pieces of ginger slices so I can pick them out except in meat fillings for dumplings and baozi.
Second, what I use ginger for:
I use ginger in all meat products (meat = non-vegetarian and therefore fish) to get rid of what we call ‘xing', or a fishy/bloody/meaty flavour. A little bit of ginger (fresh or powder) plus cooking wine gets rid of the xing flavour, too much and you will actually taste the ginger. Trust me, I can taste and smell it. I do not use it in anything else. For meat fillings, you can use ginger powder so you will not have a chunk of ginger in your dumpling or baozi.
Third, a solution. If you want the fishy flavour eliminating power, then simply use whole larger slices instead of dicing them or grating them. Grating them will spread out the ginger in your entire dish and every mouthful will have it. You can easily pick out the larger slices. This is good if you need to stirfry the ginger first. If you need to boil the ginger as in your case, put your ginger in a cotton gauze spice bag and tie it up - the flavours will diffuse into the soup but your ginger and other spices will stay in the bag and you can pick it out in one go afterwards. Just use the right amount of ginger according to taste (you will need to experiment), a little to eliminate xing flavour, a lot to actually taste the ginger itself.
Try slicing it very, very thin like paper. A mandolin can work well for this.
There is less to bite through and it incereases the surface area, but it also minimizes the amount of interior away from the surface. This means the exchange of flavours between the interior of the slice and the rest of the dish can be more complete where even a fine mince leaves chunks that have a deeper interior that gives up less ginger flavour (Until you bite it) and absorbs less other flavour than the surface does.
Super thinly sliced ginger is a great test of knife skills. Pulling it off with finesse seems almost Michelin Star worthy. It, like, melts. I'm not, nor have I ever been, that good, but I do appreciate the artistry of those who are!
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38230 | Confused about the addition of garlic
I keep reading online that garlic should be added at the end of dishes because they'll otherwise turn brown and bitter.
What confuses me is that a lot of recipes using various methods (sauteeing, frying, etc) begin with garlic.
What further confuses me is that I've had crispy browned garlic before, as an addition on top of casseroles and even some Asian dishes, such as rice porridge, and they're not bitter.
I'd like some clarity on this. Is it that cooking garlic at the beginning of a dish ends up with softer flavor than one at the end? Or is one that everyone's doing wrong and garlic should be added at the end? Or...???
I think it would be more correct to say that garlic turns bitter when it is overcooked or burned; a touch of browning is not going to do that. Since it is usually sliced, minced, or crushed, overcooking it is easy to do in high heat methods.
Garlic, like many of the aliums family (including onions, shallots, scallions and so on) can present different flavors depending on how it is cooked.
The different cooking methods in the many cuisines of the world bring out different aspects of the flavor or use it differently. Most cooking methods reduce the sharpness or pungency of raw garlic. How long you cook depends on how much of the sharpness you desire.
Raw, it has a sharp, pungent flavor
When sauteed or fried quickly at the beginning of a dish (common in both Asian and Western methods), it releases its flavor into the cooking oil, which will then permeat the entire dish with its perfume, as well as cooking the pieces through so that they are softer and more palatable. The edges might brown a little bit, but they will not become a deep sienna color, indicating the burned flavor is present.
Roasted, the garlic mellows and can be used in much larger quantities for its aromatic qualities, without the pungency.
Recipes where it is fried until crisp will direct you to only go to a light brown (for example, as in this recipe for gnoccii with crispy garlic—and of course, the garlic must be sliced quite thinly to do this. The goal is to get it crisp before it is overcooked, and avoid the burned flavors.
Garlic is normally added to recipes at the beginning of their preparation, in order to allow its flavor to permeat the entire dish. however, in a salad dressing or similar (especially in a raw applicaiton), it may be added right before service so that it is at its sharpest without the ... stale... taste that some aliums can get when chopped but not cooked for a longer time.
I often add garlic in 2 parts, first I add some garlic at the beginning, thickly cut, so that the flavor permeates the dish. Often I will reserve a small amount of the garlic and add it finely chopped at the very end for the armoma and punchier flavor. It all depends on the effect I want.
The important thing is not to burn the garlic, that truly is a nasty flavor. The spectrum from raw to gently browned gives different flavors at every level. Just like garlic has a very different flavor if it is crushed vs chopped vs sliced, every level of doneness gives a different flavor to the recipe, even if the amount is the same. As a general rule, the less garlic is cooked, the sharper the flavor.
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45861 | Homemade/DIY Frozen Vegetables: Can steaming be used instead of blanching?
I want to try making my own frozen veg since they go bad fairly quickly in my fridge. I've got carrots, beans and some greens.
I've never blanched anything before, so I'm willing to try, and I understand that each veggie has their own respective cooking time.
However, I'd rather steam them.
Is this possible? Or does the blanching process do magical things to preserving the veg that steaming won't?
If you've never blanched before, why the expressed preference for steaming?
I've heard steaming locks in more nutrients and other good stuff, basically. Plus, although it is somewhat looked down upon to do things in a microwave, I've had some success making things in the microwave, which including steaming veggies. This isn't steaming veg, but here's a recipe that worked really well for me: http://food52.com/blog/8139-barbara-kafka-s-marinated-eggplant
The part about blanching that is important is that the vegetables are briefly cooked and then immediately doused in cold water to stop the cooking process. Processors use boiling water as it is easier to manage and you can put flavorings and other additives (preservatives, color enhancers, etc) to the water to get the effect desired. There's no reason you can't steam them instead as long as you dip them in ice water to arrest the cooking process. There's some things that steam blanching wouldn't be good for, like removing the skins from tomatoes, for that boiling water is the way to go, but for preparing vegetables for the freezer it will work fine.
Some considerations:
Industrialization of the process: it's easy to set up a line with a pot of boiling water and a bowl of ice water while using a basket to immerse. Steaming won't be as straightforward, and will be more time consuming. If you have a lot of vegetables you may want to consider boiling instead
Safety: You will need to be able to move the vegetables from your steamer to the ice water quickly without getting scalded, so think about your setup and tools
Frozen veg almost always has enough ice crystals to steam itself. You can jumpstart the process by poking holes in the top side of a bag of frozen veggies, then microwaving the whole bag 30 seconds at a time until done to taste. It works surprisingly well if you're in a hurry.
For "actual" steaming, the advantage over blanching is that the cooking process is a little gentler. Heat is transferred at a steady rate into the food, and very evenly throughout, meaning larger batches are easier to cook all at once to the same "doneness". There's no water motion attacking your veg, so you avoid wear and tear, which can be important as frozen veggies can be more fragile than fresh stuff (e.g. broccoli).
The only disadvantage would be that steaming is somewhat slower, which means with frozen veg the outer parts can be mush while the insides are still cold, common in thick-cut veggies like some kinds of frozen carrots, cauliflower, etc. You can get around this by microwaving as above, just until the veggies are almost (but not quite) thawed.
I've worked in restaurants whose frozen veg was done both ways. I've found the results better with steaming.
I think you may have misunderstood. The OP isn't talking about how to cook already-frozen vegetables, but rather how to precook fresh vegetables before freezing them.
@Jefromi Amazing no -ve for this one, yet totally wrong answer?
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45362 | Nonstick Pans: Purpose, Cleaning and Heating
Three newbie questions:
Purpose - I read somewhere (can't find the link again) that nonstick pans were purposefully designed to be used without oil. Is this really true? Or just that food generally won't stick?
Cleaning - I also read that one of the options for cleaning grease off is boiling a vinegar-water mixture, based on the principle that oil and vinegar don't mix. It seems the hazard is that the oil can stick to the back wall of the pan when pouring the mixture out. Has anyone tried and/or have tips to prevent oil on the wall? I was thinking I'd get a paper towel and lay it on top to soak up the grease but not sure if it'll work.
Heating - It seems that it is unsafe to heat up a nonstick pan without anything in it. How do I safely heat up the pan to the right temperature, without any oil in it? If you put the ingredients you're to cook as it's heating up, doesn't that affect cooking the food?
Purpose
Non-stick is a bit of a misnomer, they are actually significantly-less-stick. You can and should use oil in non-stick pans just as you would in a stainless steel pan. Certain things are much easier to do well in a non-stick pan, eggs would be number 1 on that list. I use them all the time. What they are not good for is anything with which you plan to make a pan sauce. Pan sauces need that brown, caramelized "stuff" that sticks to the bottom of the pan after searing something, usually a protein. That "stuff" is called fond, and when you add a liquid to a hot pan that has fond, the fond releases from the pan and flavors the liquid. That is called "deglazing" and it's the basis of all kinds of beautiful sauces. Non-stick will not work for that. You get little or no fond with non-stick pans. That disadvantage of non-stick is also it's advantage. No fond means easier clean-up.
Cleaning I'm sure the vinegar method works, and I suppose that there are times that it's appropriate since a lot of people do it. In my decades of using non-stick pans on a regular basis, frequently with oil, I've never found it necessary. I just wash my pans in hot soapy water (dishwashing soap, I like Dawn) and a scrubby sponge, rinse, and set to dry in a drainer. Some non-stick pans are labeled dishwasher safe, so I suppose those pans are OK to put in the dishwasher. I never do though, pots and pans get hand washed in the sink. Just never use steel wool or very abrasive cleaners on non-stick; the pans will scratch and they'll never be the same after. Scratched like that they can also flake off in your food which, of course, is not desirable.
I'm not sure exactly what you're asking about the "back wall". Do you mean how do you clean the outside of the pan? The outside gets washed just like the inside. Basically, I wash a non-stick pan the same way I would a dinner plate. One of the advantages of a non-stick pan is they generally don't require much more than that to clean. Occasionally they're easier to clean after leaving them to soak for a while. That's fine to do. You don't need worry about rusting or anything like that.
Heating It is fine to heat up non-stick pans before you add anything to them, just heat them slowly over nothing higher than medium heat, and don't let them sit on the heat for too long. Do it with care, or don't do it at all - go ahead and add the oil to the cold pan and warm them up together. It is true that non-stick pans will become ruined and potentially release nasty fumes if overheated. That most commonly happens by stupid mistake, putting it on high heat and then forgetting about it. Do not use non-stick pans for super high heat applications like Cajun blackening or high-searing steaks. That's what cast-iron is for.
Well nonstick pans were created so that the likelihood of food sticking to the surface of the pan is reduced and the idea that they were designed to be used without oil is not true. You certainly can use it with oil.
Secondly, cleaning oily residue from the pan can be done as mentioned here. It is suggesting to do the following:
Fill the pan with water
Pour in half cup of vinegar
Bring the mixture to a boil
Allowing the oily residue to float on top the surface.
Use a paper towel to skim off the residue
Pour out all the liquid in the pan
Finally, wash the pan with soapy water and non-abrasive nylon.
Thirdly, about heating nonstick pans, its alright as long as you don't cross the limit of 470 °F/243 °C as it will cause the Teflon surface to melt and release toxic chemicals. When heating up a nonstick pan empty start with a low temperature instead of going all high at the beginning which might pose a risk. The previous facts were taken from here.
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41898 | Other apple varieties for a Granny Smith fan
When I buy apples I tend to buy the Granny Smith variety. I've heard that it's more of a baking variety than one for eating directly, but I like it better than others I've tried. The only two names I can recall are Red Jacket and Red Delicious. I know there are tons of types of apple that I'll never eat unless I make an effort. Which types should I, as a Granny Smith fan, go out of my way to try? As far as I can tell I like both the acidity and the crispness of the Granny Smiths.
Wikipedia tells me that Granny Smiths "The tree is thought to be a hybrid of Malus sylvestris, the European Wild Apple, with the domestic apple M. domestica as the polleniser." I've been unable to find European Wild Apples nor any other varietals that are derived from them.
Nobody sells wild apples because 1) they are just way too sour for almost all customers' tastes, and 2) you get much less and smaller apples than from a cultivated tree.
Have you tried Red Delicious? You mention it but did not say if you've tried it or not. It's very crisp, semi tart, and is also good for both eating out of the hand and baking.
@ava, I have thanks. They're good, but I like the Granny Smith apples better.
Granny Smith apples are rather tangy. I would reccommend Pink Lady's or Braeburns.
Let me know if you have any questions
Granny Smith's popularity as a baking variety is mostly due to its firmness and tartness, which will offset the caramalized sugars from baking the apple and prevents the apple from falling apart, but theres no reason you can't eat it plain as well. Actually I also prefer fresh apples which arent too sweet, and granny smith's are one of my favorites to snack on as well.
Now, there are hundreds of different apple cultivars (or varieties), and many will probably not be available locally, and you haven't mentioned what it is you like about granny smith apples, so I can't specifically reccomend that many apples.
That being said, I would cross reference wikipedia's list of apple cultivars with attributes you like in an apple, and see what comes up. For example if you like tart apples you could try Honeycrisp or Pippins. If you like firm apples try Golden Delicious, or Golden Gala.
Your best bet is to try a number of apples and try to establish what characteristics you like. Granny Smiths are easy to have as a fave because they're pretty much the only bright green apple you'll see in the store. But if you start to read the signs or labels, and buy 1 or 2 of various kinds, you might discover some stars. For example I'm a Granny Smith fan too, and I really like Honeycrisp, which are not always available (oooh, seasons, there's a concept) and I get excited when they appear in the stores. But I don't like Gala, which look very much the same.
After a while you can get even more particular. I like a Macintosh in September but not in June. Nitrogen storage or no nitrogen storage, Macs are not a keeping apple and I don't like them by the summer time. You can also start going to a more specifically fruit-and-veg store, or a farmer's market, to discover cultivars that don't get sold in the big stores. Chances are, you'll only be able to eat that apple when it's in season, but that's not such a bad thing.
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68497 | When making soda bread, 45 min on baking sheet or 15 min on cast iron skillet?
I am looking at these two recipes for making Irish soda bread:
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/213830/brennans-irish-soda-bread
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/51447/irish-soda-bread-in-a-skillet/
They look almost identical to each other, same ingredients (minus sugar) and same oven temperature. But one says to bake for 45 minutes and the other one says to bake for 15 min. That seems like a huge difference, doesn't it?
45 min recipe says to use the baking sheet and 15 min recipe says to use cast iron skillet. Does the skillet really affect baking time that much?
If you read some of the reviews on the one that says to bake for 45 minutes (Brennan's), many of them say it was done in less time:
sunnieday:
Really great and simple recipe. Recommended cook time is too long. I cooked mine for about 25 minutes and it was perfect. Will use this again.
Nutmeg~n~Pepper
After making as written and baking for the stated time, I find it hard to review how the bread tastes as it comes out way overcooked and rubbery.
lambertfan
I did follow the advice of another review post with only baking for 30 min.
So it looks like the bake time on Brennan's recipe is too long.
As to the pan vs sheet, with the sides of the pan so close to the loaf, it can certainly absorb and radiate some extra heat to the bread, so that might explain a little of the time difference... but not 30 minutes worth... but since the actual bake time for the sheet loaf is really 25-30 minutes, that might account for it... but the skillet would also take longer to heat up initially (assuming it's not preheated), so it would probably make the bottom of the bread cook more slowly.
So, as always with baking, don't bake by time. Keep an eye on your baking and pull it when it's done, not when the time is up.
And there is at least one review for the other one, saying they baked for 20 minutes and it could have used a few more. So basically the same....
thanks for few more sets of eyes. I was curious if there was more than that because both recipes had a lot of reviews and a good chunk of them said, "followed the recipe exactly and it was great" and I actually made the 45 min bread few weeks back and did not think it was over done at all, hence why I was even more confused about the 15 min bake time
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10980 | What are the differences between candy thermometers and meat thermometers?
I know that meat thermometers generally won't handle as high a temperature range as candy, but I'm only planning to make caramels and fudge (so soft ball and firm ball) and that's within the range of the meat thermometer that I already own.
Also, meat thermometers are often labelled "medium well" etc., rather than "soft ball". Since I have access to the temps required, that's not an issue.
I'm definitely a noob to candy, so is there some magical reason I can't use a meat thermometer for my candy? Is it a huge no-no? Does it contain leprechauns that will destroy my caramels?
I'm not sure about fudge, but I prefer to make caramels without my candy thermometer. The cold water test is far more accurate. Drop a small amount of the cooking caramel in a bowl of ice water, let it cool for a few seconds, and pull it out. The consistency of this bit of caramel is roughly what you will get in the final result. What you see is what you get. (As a side note, temperatures in caramel recipes are guide, not a fact. You can't just use someone else's temperatures and expect to get the same texture. That's why the cold water test is easier.)
I've heard of the cold water test, but I totally haven't tried it. You make a really good point about not using other people's temperatures -- if I'd thought of that earlier, there'd be about 15 batches of caramels over the last year that'd have a chance at not being thrown out. :D
I think Doug and yossarian both touched on the main points, but to summarize, there are four reasons why you might not want to use a meat thermometer for candy:
Range A meat thermometer might go from 140 F to 220 F or something like that, which is plenty for meat. Candy often requires a range from about 75 degrees (chocolate) up to 400+ degrees (hard candy). The range on most thermometers is simply not sufficient for most candies.
Accuracy When you temper chocolate, 88 F degrees is an ideal working temperature (for dark chocolate). Some people would consider 91 so high you might want to think about starting over. When you make caramels, the difference between 235 F and 240 F can be the difference between wonderfully chewy caramels and a sugar-flavored rock. If you can't read one degree increments at a glance, you need a real candy thermometer.
Speed Meat thermometers often take 30 seconds to a minute to get an accurate result. When you are making candies, you have to be able to tell what the temperature is right now.
Contamination I don't want the thermometer that goes in semi-raw meat anywhere near my chocolate.
No kidding about the speed. I've had at least 4 different "instant read" thermometers at various points in time that were all completely worthless, unless you define "instant" as "some time today".
Excellent points. Accuracy & speed're the things that keep coming up.. I had no idea that meat thermometers were considered that crappy in those terms. Contamination is a great point, too. It happens that the meat thermometer I own hasn't yet been used, so not something I'd yet thought about. :D
Re #4: you do know that thermometers can be washed, right? Right?
I have a digital meat thermometer which reads just about instantly, is accurate, and goes up to about 500F degrees. I can absolutely not see why I shouldn't be able to use it.
And I have no qualms in using a thermometer that has been in contact with meat. If you don't clean the tip after that, you have no place in a kitchen anyway.
If your meat thermometer is accurate and responsive you will be fine using it. However, some meat thermometers are slow and basic and not particularly accurate with no means of adjusting. With meat, once you are in a range of temperatures, you will have edible food, although it might not be exactly what you are looking for. With candy, a difference of a few degrees means a different kind of candy...again, still edible, but much more different than say between medium-rare and medium on your roast.
The goal with any thermometer is to have it be accurate within the range that you need to measure. Just because the range you want is on that thermometer doesn't mean that it is accurate in that range. If you trust it, fine. Worst case, you lose a batch of sugar water.
Ah, valid point, thanks. I hadn't thought that meat thermometers don't need to be as accurate.
You would think that thermometers used to determine whether a food might kill you would be more accurate than those where the worst thing that can happen is having to throw away some ingredients and time. I've never understood why so many meat thermometers are so crappy.
There's another common practical difference - candy thermometers often have a clip or some other way to make it easy to attach them to a pot, so you can have your hands free for stirring and whatever else needs doing.
Aaronut -- lol, I've often wondered that about the little red thing that pops up on a turkey when it's supposed to be done. From what everyone's saying it sounds like meat thermometers are not much more than a step above that. :/
Jefromi -- good point on that.
If the temperatures you are looking for are within the stated range of the meat thermometer you will be fine. The difference between the two is just as you guessed, they are focused on different temperature ranges. A candy thermometer will need to be able to accurately measure melted sugar, which is way hotter than a medium rare steak. Putting a meat thermometer in to 350F sugar may break the thermometer. But putting it in to 160F fudge would be just fine.
And it's actually the pixies that will destroy your candy! Everyone knows there's no such thing as leprechauns.
Pixies!! Those jerks. I believe I have new nemeses. :D
Candy thermometer
Candy thermometers are, as you may have guessed, mostly used to measure temperature of a sugar solution whilst cooking. As sugar is heated it goes through stages and a candy thermometer can help you identify which stage of the process is happening, based upon the temperature.
It is well known that when you are making candy, you must stay within a certain temperature range. A candy thermometer helps you do just that, especially if this is your first time making some. The typical temperature range is from 220 degree F to 360 degree F. A quality candy thermometer comes with different ranges for specific stages of the candy making like soft crack and hard crack stage or the soft ball and hard ball stages. This is a scientifically based calculation and meaning you must pay attention when preparing candy because you can easily over- or under-heat the candy. This will destroy the whole recipe and wash your effort and expenses down the drain.
A meat thermometer is a thermometer used to measure the internal temperature of meat, especially roasts and steaks, and other cooked foods. The degree of "doneness" of meat or bread correlates closely with the internal temperature, so that a thermometer reading indicates when it is cooked as desired. When cooking, food should always be cooked so that the interior reaches a temperature sufficient, that in the case of meat is enough to kill pathogens that may cause foodborne illness or, in the case of bread, that is done baking the thermometer helps to ensure this.
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29271 | Storage of chocolates/candies in process (i.e. prior to cutting, dipping, etc)?
Especially around the holidays, it usually seems more efficient to build up a selection of projects in need of some finishing steps (usually chocolate dipping). What steps should one take to ensure that undipped centers are stored safely for a few days? Would an oven (off, obviously) be a decent place to store things out of the way?
EDIT:
Specific examples:
Ganache (hand-rolled)
Ganache (slabbed)
Candied citrus peels
Unwrapped caramels
etc
Could you be more specific about what you need to store? Are we talking candied orange peel, pretzels or strawberries here?
Edited with specific examples
The best storage depends on the particular confection:
Refrigerate (in a sealed container to not pick up orders or absorb water):
Ganache
Soft caramel
Cool dry storage, again in an air-tight container to minimize changes in moisture level:
Candied citrus peal
Nuts - Dry storage
Marzipan
Raisins and other dry fruits
Fondant
Hard caramel or toffee
Ovens without pilot lights probably qualify as cool dry storage, and will keep the pets out if you have any, but accidents happen. I would use a cabinet or pantry if you have room.
I wouldn't use an oven. Even when you clean your oven regularly, some drippings tend to accumulate around the oven in places you can't reach (or to connect to the walls as polymerized oils, practically impossible to strip) and get rancid, stale and burned. Every oven I have encountered has a faint stale+roasted/crisped smell. When you bake something in the oven, its own roasting smell overpowers the oven smell and nothing bad happens. But if you store chocolate or sweets, they can absorb some of the smell. Also, it can happen that somebody trying to do something good in the pre-holiday chaos gets into the kitchen and turns on the oven for preheating without opening it and noticing that there is chocolate inside.
I would store everything in the pantry, or, lacking space, inside a cabinet. If this is unavailable too, on top of a cabinet, or in another room (preferably not very warm - basement or attic would be good, if not humid) would be good. Ganache and chocolate do best in the 15°C - 20°C range, although they can tolerate more or less than that. Of course, packaging them is best, to prevent moisture and dust from ruining them. If you are storing them in a room colder than the kitchen, let them cool to the storage room's temperature before creating an air-tight seal, else moisture from the warm air inside the container can condense on the surface of the centers.
I would just use a food-storage container for all of those (and separate with wax or parchment paper so they don't stick together).
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10270 | Looking for a recipe generator
Possible Duplicate:
How does one find recipes given an ingredient rather than the recipe name?
I'd like to get a recipe by given food (fridge content ;) )
After years of cooking, I don't really need this service anymore, but I sure did wish there was something good like this 5 years ago. I couldn't find anything then, though. However, I've seen a couple of sites pop up since then. I can't really testify to how well they work, because I haven't used any of them. But here are some things to explore:
Recipe Key - Lets you create your own pantry and then get matching recipes. This looks like it could be a really cool tool if you use it regularly as well as a good spot solution for inspiration.
Recipe Matcher - Lets you type in the ingredients you have for matches.
And now I need to run, so here are a couple more sites to check out:
Super Cook
All Recipes
Recipe Puppy
Yummly
Hope one of those helps. I think the first two (recipe key and recipe matcher) look like your best options. Let us know how you fare.
Thank you! I will try them next time. I'm marking this question as answered now. However, other people still can provide their favorite pages.
@yossarian provides excellent links, and I would like to add that typing the ingredients into Google is a good starting point.
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10543 | How do you coat almonds in wasabi and keep it spicy and crunchy? (my wasabi paradox)
I've been trying to make wasabi and soy sauce almonds, like the ones you find at the store (Blue Diamond) but the only recipe I've found (food.com) is very underwhelming. Despite using varying increasing amounts of wasabi, the spicy factor is non-existant.
I suspect the heat from baking causes wasabi flavor to lose it's intensity, so it must be added at the end. But, I haven't been able to find anything to coat the almonds to the outer shell and maintain the roasted/crunchy almond exterior.
Since wasabi powder is "matured" [and activated] with water and a short (covered) resting period, refining it into more powdery makes it stick better but still not spicy.
How do I get my wasabi almonds to come out spicy?
Note: I have also tried horseradish on almonds (which is just wasabi without food coloring) and baking it off.
Maybe you should try roasting the almonds first at a higher temperature than the recipe indicates, but without the wasabi coating. Then coat them with the wasabi mixture and let them sit in the oven at a considerably lower temperature, drying them out rather than baking them. More work, yes, but if you suspect that the heat takes the edge off the wasabi, perhaps it will be worth it.
Building on this idea, what about mixing the wasabi with a small amount of egg white and tossing it on the already roasted nuts, then putting them back in the oven at a very low temperature, just long enough to set the egg white?
@Mike we insist that answers are actually a solution to the question. You supplied relevant info which doesn't solve the problem, so I converted it to a comment.
Heating wasabi up drives off all the volatiles (Taste) so therefore the flavour needs to added cold. This is done in the same way that colours and flavours are added to jelly beans, by tumbling and then drying.
It is possible (highly probable) that they are using mustard which doesn't degrade as much with heat. They are only calling them wasabi nuts to use the latest food buzzword.
Out of "frustration", I bought a can late last night to see if they used anything else. Horseradish is up there on the ingredients list but I'll try anything at this point. If I had real wasabi, I wouldn't waste them on almonds :)
Just an opinion from me.
I took a look at your recipe. Have you tried to sprinkle extra couple of teaspoons of wasabi powder in between Step 9 & 10? I think if you sprinkle the wasabi powder between the almonds cool down, the powder will stick on the almonds and should give you the kick you are after.
Good Luck
I simply toss my almonds (or edamame) in olive oil, dry roast them (single layer) about an hour. Remove from oven, let cool (a little), Spray them with "PAM" (olive oil), place in zip lock bag and toss in wasabi powder. The spray olive oil ensures that most all of wasabi powder adheres to the nuts. Be careful though~~~ the "spicy-ness" will blow your head off!!!
perhaps do like chex mix and combine soy sauce with the wasabi and then sprinkle on your almonds and bake.
Try using raw almonds soak them in water twelve hrs to remove toxins coat in a salt and wasabi powder mix and place in a dehydrator
What toxins do you suspect in raw almonds, and why would they be removed after a soak?
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10794 | What's the purpose of sugar in a pickling solution?
This might seem like a dumb question, but I am going to make a pickled pepper relish of sorts that is really just chopped carrot, onion, and habanero pepper cooked briefly in a pickling solution and jarred. In reviewing several recipes for pickled peppers, all use vinegar and salt, and some but not all use sugar. I'd rather just count on the natural sweetness of the habaneros and carrots for flavor.
My specific question is: does the sugar do anything to the texture of the vegetables or affect the preservative qualities of the brine in pickling recipes, or is it just for flavor?
UPDATE: I just cracked open the first jar of the pickled peppers, and I have to say that I don't think the sugar would have added anything to the flavor of them. The carrots and habaneros are both naturally pretty sweet (if you can taste it past the habanero's capsaicin bonfire). The onions also mellowed with just the vinegar brine. I've made pickled onions and jalepenos (which are less naturally sweet), and even there I've had to be careful to avoid making the pickling solution cloying. All in all, in this case I'm glad I didn't use it. Thanks everyone for the info!
The sugar is mostly just for flavor. I use sugar when making pickled beets and eggs, but don't use it in my dill pickles or pickled peppers and onions. It just depends on if you are trying for a sour, sweet and sour, or sweet pickle (note that there is no vinegar in many fruit pickles).
Before you decide to run off and leave out the vinegar, however, I would note that for pickling safety purposes there has to be enough acid to keep botulism causing bacteria from forming and peppers are a low acid vegetable. If you wanted to eliminate the vinegar, you'd have to move to pressure canning.
Sugar is a natural preservative, and makes the flavor milder (not less hot if these are hot peppers, but reduces sourness of vinegar and saltiness of salt.) That way you have more of natural preservatives and not as heavy impact on the flavor - you might use just vinegar, just salt, or just sugar in amounts that add up to the combined 3 for the same preservative effect, but obviously the impact on flavor would be quite unpleasant, the result too sour, too salty or just stupidly sweet. By dividing the task between the three you have a way more 'neutral' tasting pickling solution (when comparing to single-ingredient ones) while keeping the preservative potency.
Recipes that involve paste consistency products (like Sambal Oelek) will also add olive/oil, which is a fourth natural preservative. If you pickle big slices or other large pieces, olive would just separate and float to the surface, so three-ingredient pickling solution it is. Two-ingredient will just have the preservatives dominate the flavor of the peppers.
Sugar is also a powerful flavour enhancer. Added in small quantities to, say, a tomato sauce, doesn't add noticeable sweetness, but intensifies the original flavour of the tomatoes. I'd assume it would work for peppers as well.
As mentioned above, sugar has its own preservation qualities.
But don't dismiss the effect of sugar on our buds.
Sugar balances out the acidity from the vinegar. It's part of the reason why carbonic acid is added to colas.
Flavones are complex things. A little bit of sweetness with acidity works wonders. Different acids and different types of sugars adds huge layers of complexity.
Hi all: From my search for quick pickle recipes I've found there are nearly as many unique twists of flavor added spices as there are people that write them. Vinegar and cucumbers are the only common denominator among them. On the dill side, kosher salt is used in most but not all of them. On the sweet side sugar was used in most but not all of them. Sugar is not a required but only a preferred (by some) ingredient. If you are looking to make a low sodium pickle you can cut salt by what ever amount you like based on how it appeals to your taste. The same holds true for making low sugar (if low sugar) pickles are what you require. So in summary I would say "have fun, and don't be afraid to experiment". The total exclusion of both salt and vinegar will have a bearing on how long your quick pickles may be stored before spoiling in the refrigerator.
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62551 | UK versus US expiration dates on diet sodas
I took a trip to the UK last week, and as an avid Coke Zero drinker, was surprised to find that my Coke Zero supposedly expired in March 2016 in most places I went.
Surprised, because in the US, diet sodas are typically dated 3-4 months from production, and actually do taste noticeably less sweet at that point (to the point that some brands of soda, including Coke Zero, are undrinkable for me if they're at the expiration date). March 2016, even assuming they were produced next door and stocked that day, was almost 6 months out, and considering about 75% of the sodas I found were that date (I did see some Jan and Dec, but almost all Mar) it sounds like they're dated at least six months out. But even the Dec dated sodas tasted fine (Which, if they were 3 months old, would start tasting off to me normally in the US).
Why is that? Does the UK have different regulations, or are there different formulas that explain it, or different storage, or ... something else? The base sweeteners were the same (Aspartame and Ace-K), though of course it's impossible to tell %s in the US so who knows if they're the same; and I think it all tasted differently there than in the US, so it's hard to say if there's more/less in there.
Are you certain the dates are the same function, the discrepancy could be explained if the US date was sell by and the European date was use by (or best before).
@user23614 Fairly certain. Soda isn't something that you would freeze or otherwise store in a preserved fashion, and I'm talking about single serving soda bottles here - so there should be minimal if any discrepancy between the two concepts, even if they are technically different. (And - the US date is a use by date, at least as far as my tastebuds are concerned...)
First of all, sweeteners like Aspartame lose their sweetening property over time, as you have noticed yourself. This is very strongly tied to the pH level they are in.
US and UK/EU coke (or any country) is different, but you usually only notice the difference if you have them available for direct comparison. Coca Cola issues licenses and the plant managers produce the coke, but they do have a certain bandwidth they can operate in - usually to cater to local issues, like component availability, price, water quality. You can even taste differences in different batches of the same production plant, if you have them available for direct comparison and if you have a trained taste.
So, the deviation of the pH level in the different products results in different best before dates. The US coke pH level deviates more from the optimal level for Aspartame than the UK coke, so the US coke has a shorter best before date.
Whether the different pH level is on purpose or a necessity: no idea.
Hmm. The ingredients are identical excepting UK: Sodium Citrate instead of US: Potassium Citrate [a preservative/acidity regulator], and Potassium Benzoate US (none UK) (preservative). I could see that having some impact on pH. I don't see any evidence of this on the 'Net though - I can't find a consistent pH value for US, not to mention UK, Coke Zero (I've seen 3.18 - 3.5 values in various equally potentially valid sites).
Either way - very possibly correct, would be better with some references (perhaps to the Aspartame wiki page which discusses the pH, as well as if you do have evidence of the pH).
There are various possible reasons for different expiration dates in different markets:
As mentioned, formulation might be different.
Expected storage conditions (average temperature, or standard refrigerator temperatures with refrigerated goods) can be different regionally.
Criteria for when a product is still considered palatable and/or of prime quality can be different with different audiences.
Criteria when a product is considered unsafe or unfit for consumption can be differently defined by local law.
The costs/consequences of a mistake in estimating shelf life (leading to an unsatisfied or harmed customer) are dependent on local markets and regulations, so different risk factors will be accepted.
There could also be different legal standards on how a stated expiration date has to be scientifically proven.
That's an interesting list, but which one(s) specifically apply in this situation?
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59636 | Stir-fry pan choices
We like to make stir-fry occasionally, and we do so currently in a medium-sized stainless steel wok over a gas burner (but, a regular one, nothing that is super-stir-fry powered). It's a pretty good quality wok (Cuisinart), but not too huge. Cooking for a family of four.
We also use frozen veggies, so it's quite hard to avoid mushy vegetables. We're guessing one of our options is to change our pan to get faster heat, but disagree over how to do so...
My wife thinks we should try cast iron. Thick, holds heat very well, doesn't transfer it as well though. Heat it up in the oven and/or just leave it over the burner for a long time, then keep heat on high and cook the stir-fry.
I think we need a bigger wok. Stainless steel (with perhaps an aluminum and/or copper inner layer and base) transfers heat much faster, so hotter stir-frying, but contact with the pan is key - so a bigger wok will transfer more heat to the food.
We may need to start using our grill instead... but if we stay indoors, which of us is right?
Other stir-fry tips are always welcome, but please focus the answer on the pan choice specifically (and cast-iron versus steel).
Have you considered carbon steel?
@Cindy Not specifically, is it particularly better for this purpose than the two above? If so I'd certainly be willing to consider it. My understanding of carbon steel is it's mostly similar to cast iron, but beyond that I don't really know much about it.
While carbon steel requires a certain measure of care like cast iron, it is lighter, gets hot quicker, and is lighter (easier to handle when tossing or flipping stir fry ingredients). We've tried several and carbon steel is our favorite go-to. I would suggest that you at least take a look and get some information on them. The ultimate choice is yours, of course, but they definitely merit consideration.
I'm not sure the pan is the problem here. As you point out, frozen vegetables will tend to be mushy when they thaw. Fresh vegetables will help, changing pans probably won't. Also, if you want more of the food to have contact with the pan, you might be happier with a heavy, flat regular or non-stick frying pan rather than a larger wok. The shape of a wok gives you variation in heat -- hot below, less up the sides -- and lets you use less oil and move the ingredients through it quickly and sort of flash-fry them rather than having them sit the whole time in oil.
The wok is a traditional tool for stir-fry, but not necessarily a good tool, depending on your stove-top. It's difficult to bring enough heat to bear on the wok from a flat cooking surface, like almost all western cooktops and ranges have.
A larger wok means that the very flat heat source will have to heat a larger curved surface, much of which curves away from it. All the heat will be concentrated on the very bottom of the dome. There are ways to replicate a wok range on your home stovetop for more even and intense heat, but most of them are spectacularly unsafe.
A decent flat pan that can hold onto a lot of heat will work much better for most home applications. I usually use an enameled cast-iron skillet on the extra-large burner on my electric cooktop, and have had good results with an ordinary saute pan when quickly fine-tuning temperature is desired (seafood, mostly).
A billion Asian households use a thin carbon steel "wok like" device to cook on quickly and efficiently. I have never seen anything work as well, or last as long. Daily use for 20+ years is normal
After the first 10 or 20 uses, the patina is well developed, and they work as intended
Buy one from a Asian food supplier for a few tens of dollars, there is no point in getting a fancy brand name one, it will not be as good
The heat transfer issue, is a factor of your burner. The heat output rating of your burner will dictate how much food you can stir fry at once. If you want to do more at once, you need a bigger burner, not a fancy pan
A comment by @nadjacs is right on the money here: the choice of cooking pans is not your primary method of getting your vegetables to not be mushy. Your vegetables are mushy because they have lost their cellular structure's strength. Part of this comes from the liquid in the cells expanding as it freezes, which damages cell boundaries. Part of this comes from the damage created by heat as it slowly starts to decompose the cell walls. You therefore want to cook these vegetables as fast as possible, and serve immediately.
The first and most important thing you could do would be to defrost the vegetables to get the centers warmer: this can be in a microwave, as long as you do not microwave them until they are hot.(Microwaves tend to be pretty good about heating up the middles of things, as the microwave wavelength is centimeters long or so.)
The vegetables in a stir-fry do not cook principally by heat contact with the pan, but by getting steamed. You want this steam to be as hot as possible to get the vegetables warm as fast as possible. For this, thicker woks tend to be better. My experience with stainless steel woks has been that they're thinner, so they'll lower their temperature faster and give you less-hot steam for stir-frying your vegetables.
As an option over getting a new wok:
Cook the ingredients in batches.
When I'm cooking for a large number of people, I'll cook some onions and some of the firmer vegetables (carrots, broccoli stem, bok choy (non-leafy bits), etc), then move them to a bowl to the side for holding. I'll add another bit of onion (it also acts as a gauge for how far cooked things are), and some of the other vegetables .... then again, put it to the side. Then cook whatever other aromatics you have with the meat, then possibly make a sauce, and mix everything back together (along with the greens from the bok choy, and anything that doesn't take much cooking) for a minute or two for the flavors to meld.
It does take a little bit longer, but being able to get more heat into each batch individual might help mitigate some of your problems with frozen mushiness. (although frozen veg. almost always have a little bit of mushiness)
I appreciate the advice, but I'm specifically asking about the pans. I'm aware there are many different ways to improve the technique.
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117205 | Coating fruit in Oreos
My (eight year old) son has come up with a dessert idea that he is in love with: fruit coated in Oreos. Specifically, removing the filling, crushing the cookies, then coating the fruit in the filling and then in the crumbs.
This works pretty well, except that the filling tends to stick more to the hands than to the fruit!
Is there a relatively easy (for an 8 year old) way to improve the consistency of the Oreo filling, so that it sticks better to the fruit and less to the hands?
I don't want to create a new filling or dip - it should be mostly Oreo filling, just adjusted some. I have also thought about doing a 3 layer - crumbs, filling, crumbs - which works for some fruit (wetter fruit, like an apple slice), but still the filling is not quite the right consistency to stay on well.
Generally when breading you do either do a ‘three part breading’ (flour, eggs, then bread crumbs) or a batter.
The three part breading relies on the fact that dry things will stick to wet things in small layers. (As a thick layer would be all dry or all wet trying to stick to itself)
Batter is just a viscous liquid, which then crisps up when deep frying…. Which you’re not actually doing here.
There’s also the issue of ‘club hand’ when you’re doing a three part breading unless you keep one hand solely for the dry stuff, and one hand for dipping into the egg, so you don’t end up building up layers of breading on your hands.
As you’re dealing with kids, it might be easier to use a bag— put the Oreo crumbs in the bag, drop the fruit in, close the bag, and then shake to coat.
The issue is going to be two things. (1) making sure the filling sticks to the fruit, and (2) trying to keep the filling from sticking to everything else.
And for this, a vague ‘batter’ might be more appropriate. I would try mashing the filling until it starts to soften up, trying to work it until it gets creamy, and then possibly mix in a spoonful or two of a non-dairy whipped topping (such as coolwhip). You would have to experiment with how well it stuck to the fruit to get the consistency correct.
If it were me, I would probably just apply the filling to the cut edges, then dip it in a tray of crumbs. You could also make the filling a little bit runnier, so you can dip the fruit in (like you might do chocolate dipped strawberries), then roll it in the crumbs.
If you wanted something that’s going to firm up more, I might try making a vanilla pudding (if using a box mix, follow the instructions for pie filling rather than pudding if you want spreadable and not dip-able
Have you tried mixing a small amount of water, milk, or cream into the filling to loosen it up a bit? Use small additions, because too loose and you won't have the same effect, but you might be able to achieve a thick, coating consistency. It is likely mostly sugar or corn syrup, perhaps even warming it a bit, or using warm water, milk, or cream would help.
I'll definitely give it a try. I worried that it would be too hard to mix in - the filling is practically rubbery texture - but you're probably right that this is at least the default thing we should try.
I suspect the mixing in would be best done by mashing with a sturdy fork
You could use yogurt instead as the binder
@JasonPSallinger OP said he didn't want a new filling or dip.
This answer is maybe only half fitting, but I'd like to put it forward as a frame-challenge type of answer.
My suggestion is to actively decide to not coat the fruit in Oreo filling. The reason behind it is that I suspect that there are no satisfactory methods to do this. Fruit is inherently hard to coat in stuff; the fruit skin evolved such that insects, pathogens, and any moisture-trapping sun-shading dirt will have a hard time sticking to the fruit. Cut fruit exudes moisture, which "washes" any layers of coating away.
It is not entirely impossible to get around that, but you are limited to using ingredients and techniques that work exceptionally well for coating. First, you would need your coating to be quite sticky (used for example in candy-glazed apples), and I don't think this applies to Oreo filling. Second, you would need an amount that is sufficient for a dipping technique, smearing won't really work - and most eight-year-olds don't have the patience to scratch at Oreos until they have a good-sized bowl full of the filling (and hopefully they are not buying the Oreos out of their pocket money). Third, you will need something which is liquid during the dipping, and then air-dries sufficiently well to not drop off, such as warm sugar syrup or melted chocolate. While you can dilute the filling (helping with the volume), it won't solidify afterwards.
My suggestion is to instead turn it into a teaching moment and gently suggest to your child that a designer has to work with the materials available and not against them. Then challenge him to come up with a different dessert which combines the tastes, without presenting engineering problems. With some luck and prodding, he may come up with alternatives like a pie with a cracker crust made from the cookies and a filling where cut-up fruit pieces are mixed with the original cream. Or cutting out perfect oreo-sized circles out of fruit slices, halving the Oreos and adding the fruit as the upper layer. Or gelling a fruit smoothie in a vessel whose bottom is covered in Oreos. Or even dip the cookie in the fruit (puree first, add gelatine, wait to solidify). There are tons of ideas that are doable, just let him discover them.
So your answer is 'give up'? If the design requirements don't work, then you get them to agree that maybe the filling isn't the right thing to use for the sticky layer, and go to marshmallow fluff. Or you coat the fruit in white chocolate, and then stick the filling to that. Just because you don't have a solution doesn't mean that there's no solution
Indeed, it doesn't mean that there is no solution. But this is is a situation I have encountered pretty often in both cooking and real life, and usually the best way forward is indeed to change the requirements. If you say that you prefer to relax the requirements in the direction of "use marshmallow fluff instead of oreo filling, but keep the structure" instead of "change the structure, but keep the ingredients", then that's of course fine too. My point is: the original requirements were made by a designer who didn't know his medium, and learning to recognize this is a valuable life skill.
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123070 | What proportion of the natural yeast in Sourdough comes from the flour?
Inspired by this question... when making a sourdough starter or similar, does the flour contribute a significant amount of yeast to the final product [either from the flour's origins in the fields, or from the factory where it is milled], as opposed to yeast that is in the environment (floating in the air or whatnot)? Would two different sourdoughs, both made in the same kitchen, but with different sourced flour, be significantly different due to the yeast (ignoring differences in the flours themselves)? Or would the natural environment dominate the yeast production?
I recognize that some flours might be different than others, so if that is significant (such as bleached flour versus unbleached, more highly processed, etc., please mention that.
Thank you for asking that! As said in my answer in the question I linked, I have seen assertions about it being all from the flour (by which people usually mean "from the wheat itself" as opposed to how you defined it) or all from the air, but no firm proof. If somebody can come up with well-sourced evidence, I would love reading about it.
Yeah, I should probably have been more clear that your answer was part of the inspiration as well :)
Somebody did an experiment here: https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/37259/mythbusters-grain-yeast-or-air-yeast - take from that what you will, or do an experiment yourself.
@BillyKerr That sounds like an answer to me! At least, something of one.
Considering that I pulled wild yeast cultures from apple peels, elderflowers, grapes/raisins and a few other plants, all initially in closed containers and without opening (except to relieve excess pressure), I am leaning towards the “on the plant” camp. But as I never experimented, no reliable answer from me.
@rumtscho as far as I can tell, nobody's ever done a real scientific study. What we have is a lot of plausible explanations of why the majority of yeast comes from the flour -- and none arguing that it's coming from the environment. Given that starting a new starter isn't something that one does often, I think that's as good as you'll get.
Scientific American has an article worth reading here
@BillyKerr That definitely seems like an answer to me!
@JoeM - ok, I've turned it into an answer!!!
It Depends, but ...
First, it depends on the flour. Bleached, sterilized, hot-rolled white flour has the least (possibly none) naturally-occurring wild yeast on it. Cold-rolled unbleached organic whole-grain rye flour has the most. Everything else is in between. Clearly, if you're using sterile flour, any yeast is going to need to come from elsewhere.
Second, it depends on your environment. If your starter is being incubated in a open bakery during the rainy season in San Francisco, it absolutely will pick up some yeast from the environment, more from surface contact than from "the air". In my personal experience as a San Francisco sourdough baker, the primary place that environmental yeast in California comes from is the fruit flies that drown in your starter (nobody wants to say this, but it's true, fruit flies are huge yeast carriers). But, if you're creating sourdough in the New Mexico desert or on the International Space Station, you're not going to have much environmental yeast available.
Within those parameters, for a reasonable starter using non-sterile flour in an average kitchen, where is most of the yeast coming from?
The flour.
Per the wild yeast blog:
Yeast grow on grain and arrive with the flour. One gram of flour contains about 13,000 yeast cells. I don’t deny that there are a few yeast in the environment that find their way into the starter, but by and large the yeast that will survive in the starter are the ones that like the menu there, i.e, the ones that have a taste for grain.
Given this, why even bother with the whole open-dish sourdough cultivation if you don't live somewhere with ample environmental yeast? Mostly for the bacteria. Sourdough is a culture of yeast and bacteria, and benefits from your environmental bacteria (as well as those on the flour) if you get the right ones.
For what it's worth the ISS doesn't have much diversity in its microflora; only 5 genera of fungi, of which only 1 is a yeast, and it isn't in the baker's yeast genus. paper here. So, I don't think environmental yeast started sourdough would work up there, even if you could work with a particulate like flour.
FuzzyChef, I must admit that I am disappointed by this answer. I loved that the question was posted exactly because all the information I have seen so far has been random blogs full of assertions of unclear origin, and hoped that our community can turn up trustworthy information. Your first link is a Quora question (already not a high-quality source) and its answer is that bleached flour makes good starter. If we interpret this as evidence for the starter content in the flour (which is a shaky conclusion depending on already knowing the overall answer!) then it would argue for bleached ...
... flour having good levels of yeast. The second and the third link are also typical posts from influencer blogs - no sources, no indication that the writer is an expert on the microbiology of sourdough, they look just like repetition of baker lore. And the fifth link directly contradicts the third. I don't know if you intended the fourth link to be a serious answer or a bit of humor, but if serious, I don't see the grounds for claiming that this newly introduced source of yeast will trump the others. The fifth link is the most interesting one, but unsourced, and also with logical gaps...
... we don't know if 13 000 cells per gram of flour is a lot or a little. I would have really liked to see authoritative information that solves the discrepancy between all the random, easily-found, mutually-contradicting sources which fill the Internet.
@rumtscho if you can find a serious scientific study on this, post an answer. I searched the DBs I have access to, and turned up nothing to the point.
@FuzzyChef sadly, I think this is why I am so haunted by the idea of a definitive answer - I don't know it myself and don't know where to find it :( I don't even want to wake the impression that "yeast comes from the grain" must be wrong - maybe it is right, I am just upset with the quality of the available sources. I will take a look myself, but if you find a source that's locked for you, shoot me the link in the Frying Pan, I have lots of journal access over my work account.
If it's bothering you that much, then just do a version of TheFreshLoaf's test, only much more robustly.
@FuzzyChef I don't doubt that it is doable for a bio-hacker with a garage lab, but you overestimate me if you think I am one :) I lack both free access to both the proper instruments and the wetlab skills needed to operate them and do the study. If I did, this would be a project I'd love to throw myself into.
Doesn't require that much. A sous vide setup, plus a bunch of canning jars. Mostly what it requires is time, space, and flour.
There's an article in Scientific American which is worth a read here: The Science of Sourdough. It's also archived here in case the link rots.
I'll summarise the intersting part.
A team of researchers have conducted an experiment whereby they gave the same flour to 18 bakers around the world to make sourdough starters using identical techniques. They then used DNA sequencing to analyse the yeast and bacterial species. They are still to publish their full findings in a scientific paper, so perhaps best to wait for that for a definitive answer.
But anyway, here's the most relevant quote (bold highlight is mine).
Even though all the bakers started with the same flour, their starters
were all different. Most contained various strains of common baker’s
yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, along with a host of other yeasts in
varying proportions, they found. The starters also contained a wide
range of lactic acid bacteria, mostly in the genus Lactobacillus —
though once again, the details varied widely from one starter to the
next. Most microbes appeared to have come from the flour — a different
draw each time — though a few also originated with the baker’s hands
or kitchen.
This article is from 2020. Might be worthwhile trying to find out if they ever did publish that scientific paper
Update: apparently they did publish the paper. My mistake, the link is in the article.
I am a bit confused about "they are still to publish" and "find out if they ever did publish" - the SA article has a link to a full scientific paper already, and the paragraph you cite describes it.
@rumtscho - the article was from 2020. I didn't know they had published the paper. The article mentions that they had not published it when it was written. Perhaps that link is an update.
Sourdough is about creating an environment that supports the growth of a desirable bacteria and yeast colony (not yeast only). In fact, this process has less to do with yeast than you think. In a typical starter lactic acid bacteria outnumber yeast cells 100 to 1. The goal is for that desirable community to essentially take over and propagate as nutrients (flours) are added to the mix, creating an active, but also consistent (flavor and activity) product. Starters with different flavor and behavior profiles can be created and maintained, but it is not a function of the yeast only. Grain type and liquid being used during feeding might impact flavor more. Anyway, maybe I am not exactly clear what you are asking, but my starter began with flour and water in a closed container, and is maintained in a closed container. I suppose any yeast and bacteria started with the initial ingredients. I've now had that starter for maybe 10 years. So, what is "the final product?" ...a ready to use starter? The bread I baked last weekend?
This isn't really answering the question - I'm asking how much of that yeast (and I'm open to bacteria/etc.) is coming from the air/environment versus how much was on the flour in the bag.
@JoeM how much at what point in the process? As I mention in my answer, I began in a closed system. So, probably most came from the flour. Not sure how to pin down what you are asking....or why.
It may be that I don't understand your answer, it's fairly dense - are you saying you've made a starter and precluded any environmental factors, so only including "on the grain" yeast/bacteria?
@JoeM Yes. That is with relatively freshly milled flour (mail ordered from a mill), as opposed to the flour you might find on the shelf of your grocery store. But again, it is not solely about yeast. That is why I am curious about what you are interested in learning. Why the question?
The why is mostly curiosity - I had thought I understood how "natural" dough leavening worked, and the other question and answers made me question my understanding (apparently, correctly!).
@JoeM good question, but I think tough one to answer, given the variation in ingredients and environments. Maybe there are some microbiologists lurking about who can set us straight.
I also don't see how this answers the question. You have a starter, and you know that there is yeast in that starter. But which of all possible sources of yeast started the strain that became dominant in it? I couldn't find any place where you provide evidence for either of the possible options, just some background information on sourdough starters.
@rumtscho the question was less than clear, I was making the points that (a) yeast is present in the initial flour (see about 3rd sentence from the end), a starter has far more LAB than yeast, and that it is a changing environment. I found it difficult to answer because the OP didn't specify at what point in the process they were looking...or why they were asking the question. So, at the time, this was my effort to create a more comprehensive picture of the environment, and perhaps get more clarity on the question. Kudos to Fuzzy's. See also Kerr's answer, which confirms yeast in flour.
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42672 | cooking pastry for bottom of pie using cold filling
Sometimes my meat pies do not cook properly on the bottom.
I usually put the filling in cold rather than hot.
Should I cook the bottom pastry blind before adding filling and top.
Can you describe in more detail what not being cooked properly is? A photo if you have one would be helpful too. How long are you baking the pie? What kind of crust?
There are two techniques (that I know of) that will help you. I often use both...
A thin layer of fat on the inside (the "top of the bottom") will prevent the water from the filling from soaking into the crust and allow the crust to 'cook through'. I use butter but shortening, lard or cooking oil will do.
Par baking with pie weights will allow the crust to begin cook
before the filling is added.
I don't know if this helps with 'cooking properly' or not, but I use vodka to replace half of the water to mix the dough. This inhibits the production of gluten and makes a 'flakier' crust. (based on a tip from Alton Brown specifically for apple pie, but it works all around...)
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116969 | What is the milk in Bratwurst for?
I'm looking at making homemade kosher bratwurst and I picked up this book to get a general idea of the recipes. I was surprised to find that many of the brat recipes call for either one cup of cream or one ounce of powdered milk per 5 pounds of meat. Many recipes online also call for dry milk but I haven't seen an explanation.
What is dairy doing for these recipes? If it's just for flavor I could omit it, but I'm worried it adds something important to the recipe. If that's the case, I'm interested in finding a suitable substitute.
None of the DIY-Bratwurst recipes I know over here (Germany) contains milk or cream (although in general we love milk and add it almost everywhere :-) ).
The general composition is always meat (lean + fatty to arrive at 20 - 30 % fat), spices (salt, pepper, herbs, possibly garlic). Homemade Bratwurst usually avoids adding water/ice, and also avoids starchy components - they are mostly seen as cheap components to dilute the Bratwurst in commercial settings.
OTOH, a friend with milk allergy always asks specifically when buying ready-made Bratwurst to be on the safe side, and told me they sometimes contain milk/cream.
The Austrian Codex Alimentarius lists milk as possible ingredient only with very few sausage types. (And in general is more concerned with limiting the amount of water and starch in commercial Bratwurst)
The predominant meat for Bratwurst over here is pork, which is rather fat compared to other meats (also Speck is often added to Bratwurst that uses lean non-pork meats such as game).
If you have looked for pork-free Bratwurst recipes, the required amount of fat needs to come from somewhere and that may be the reason for e.g. adding cream as an easily availabe non-pork source of animal fat (maybe try goose fat?).
I took this as a blessing to avoid the milk and just do meat + fat + spices. I had trouble getting fatty meat and ended up using beef ribs in there since it was the fattiest cut I could get and supplementing with some non-dairy butter substitute. They turned out great.
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109493 | Where does the green part of the scallion start and the white part end?
I've been using Hello Fresh for a while now and many of their recipes include the step: "Trim and thinly slice scallions, separating whites from greens." Looking at a typical scallion, I see a clearly green part, a clearly white part, and a relatively substantial greenish-white no man's land in the in the middle.
In the recipes, the greens are used as a garnish or sometimes in salsas, so I feel like the super green, super thin parts are most desirable there. The whites, on the other hand, are usually used as a cooked ingredient, sometimes, but not always in something lightly colored like rice. In my gut, the greenish-white part feel like it should be considered a white, up until the part where it loses it's white-ish moisture and softness. Are there any problems (flavor, cooked texture, etc) I should worry about by using that middle section as whites, or where should I draw the line?
Replace "Trash" with "drop in wet jar" and you'll have more green onions to transplant to a garden soon :)
I hope nobody is considering throwing away any part of it (except maybe for the roots or parts which have gone bad)
@JacobKrall I'm a little iffy on that one. I've experimented with that a bit and it seemed like I had to sacrifice too much of the white part to get it to grow. Then when it did, it seemed like all that was growing was more green.
If you want to be really, really picky, then the 'green' is each individual leaf as it breaks away from the cylindrical whole.
That leaves you with the decision as to whether to pick off each leaf, giving you a bit of extra 'white' or just make some relatively arbitrary decision after you hit that first leaf 'node'.
So, unless you want to pick off each leaf, then it's 'about here… ish… '
Personally, if I'm being 'a bit picky' I will unwrap the outer layer for the first couple of nodes, where they go unattractively lumpy, purely for aesthetic reasons & include the rest in my 'white' distinction. Once I get far enough I [that I can't be bothered any further] then I pick out any remaining 'white' bits & go all-in for the rest of the greens, until I hit the raggy ends, which join the roots in the compost bag.
Once you've actually cut to the green line, separation for 'fussy distinction' reasons does get easier, as you're no longer dealing with the entirety of the onion & its reluctance to part layers without ripping down to the root - you can just pull bits off & deal with them separately.
Green line is exactly where I separate mine as well. The whites below the green line are great for putting into hamburger or other meats cooking on a stove, and the greens above the green line are perfect for an uncooked, lighter flavor or garnish on a dish.
@SnakeDoc Same here - I always go by where the 'leaves' start to separate out from the main stem, although I never thought about it consciously before now
The classic "high dining" answer is as you propose: the tender light green part gets kept with the white, while the mature part of the leaf gets removed and thrown away, or used for something different than the white part. This applies also to leeks.
The practical answer is: as you like it. Not everybody follows the French culinary traditions, and there are people who use the whole plant, as well as those who use only the green part, throwing out the white. You can easily experiment with this and decide which you like best, it is unlikely that you will get anything more terrible than a snot-colored vichyssoisse.
By the way, rather than throw out the white part, stick it in the ground to re-grow anew.
It varies a lot. In Chinese cuisine, where scallions are extremely commonly used, the dark green end is used for garnish, while the lighter part and white end are usually used as an aromatic with ginger and garlic.
A few examples from my favorite Chinese cooking channel, here's a recipe for scallion pancakes that cuts somewhere in the middle of the light green section:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iblk2-1QNGM
If you watch videos from that channel (almost all of which incorporate scallions or something similar), you will see that many different choices are made. If you are going for a garnish, only the dark green ends would usually be used, but sometimes you do see the method of julienning the lighter part and blanching in ice water to cause them to curl up, then using as garnish. Sometimes the entire length is used, chopped into sections 1-2 inches long, or sometimes cut on a diagonal. It's really up to you and what you prefer and what recipe you're making, scallions are extremely versatile!
Now I'm going to have to make those pancakes. :) It's neat to see scallions being used so many different ways.
Darn it! Now I'm hungry for scallion pancakes!
It depends on the recipe, but most commonly I would cut across the whole bunch where the lowest clearly green part is. In your photo, that would be about 1/3 way down from the top of ???. I would call the part above the cut green and that below white. It depends somewhat on the recipe. If green color is a distraction I will cut off more greens and probably not use them at all. Try it and see what you like. One of the great things about cooking is you do a lot of it. If one dinner isn't perfect, you will learn and the next will be better.
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65296 | Can I use store-bought orange juice instead of fresh squeezed
Can I use store-bought orange juice instead of fresh squeezed?
I don't have a juicer and the recipe assumes fresh squeezed juices...
Is there a big enough reason to go through the hassle for a weeknight dinner?
What are you making?
Braised pork shoulder... Or carnitas.
Why do you need a juicer to juice oranges... last I checked, hands work just fine.
Probably won't make too much difference. FWIW, when I make carnitas, I cut up an orange or two and cook it with the pork for a while. Then remove before cooking down completely.
Sounds great moscafj, thanks. Make that an answer please. :)
Some store bought juices are really good and taste as fresh as fresh squeezed, they may not be the exact same but it may very well be what you need.
Yes, look in the refrigerated section of your grocery store, unpasteurized fresh juice is nowadays commonly available...
Probably won't make too much difference for carnitas. FWIW, when I make them, I cut up an orange or two and cook it with the pork for a while. Then remove before cooking down completely
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42806 | Soy Sauce storage container
I use a fair bit of Soy Sauce for cooking as well as the occasional Chinese take away. My question is fairly simple. Can I store Soy Sauce in a glass vinegar type shaker narrow neck bottle that's not sealed as it has a 1/16 inch hole in top plastic cap. If I can store in that bottle, is it best in a cupboard or refrigerator. Thanks in advance.
Soy sauce is extremely salty, which will inhibit growth of pathogens; Eat by date suggests 2-3 years, once opened, if kept refrigerated.
With the small hole, better safe than sorry. I would recommend keeping it in the refrigerator.
If you are not going to use it for a longer time, give it a better seal by placing plastic wrap over opening. Depending on the exact nature of the container, you may be able to remove the top, place plastic wrap over the opening, and then replace the cap.
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107302 | Smooth ricotta texture
I once had the opportunity to taste ricotta that was very smooth. The texture was like a thick greek yogurt (but the taste very different). I loved it. I could not find that anywhere else as a consumer. (I am in Andorra, a small country in Europe. I can find Ricotta here but it is not very common and there are not many options)
I try to reproduce that smooth ricotta, without success.
All the ricotta recipes that I have tried do not have that texture. I tried to reincorporate some of the whey at the end and stir. It does not work.
How to make smooth ricotta?
Have you tried using a food processer or blender?
@mestackoverflow Good idea, I will try that. First I discarded because I tried with other fresh cheeses and it became too "soupy" and the taste changed. Perhaps I could try carefully as it was whipped cream
Wow, a very small country indeed!
I hope you tried real ricotta recipes for homemade ricotta. Sadly, the Internet is full of recipes for congealing whole milk with acid and calling it a ricotta, when it is in fact a different cheese which is an acceptable substitute for some recipes, but doesn't have the actual taste or texture of real ricotta.
@rumtscho: I am just learning. Can you recommend a good recipe?
I don't have any special recipe to share, looking around, this is a good summary of the process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCfBvXtKPHg. Just search for "ricotta from whey" and you will find written and videotaped recipes of different length and explanation quality. Also, you can use yogurt whey instead of cheese whey.
Assuming that what you had was indeed ricotta, and not some other smoother cheese (like mascarpone), what you probably had was ricotta forced through a very fine-mesh sieve, as is common for making cannoli, also known as ricotta impastata. Some cooks also add a little cream to it to make it even smoother.
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107470 | The whey of ricotta
I have made ricotta. (hot milk and lemon)
I have seen some recommendations in relation to the whey of other cheeses. But I am not sure If I can apply it here.
Can you recommend a good use of the whey after making ricotta?
Nitpick, just because it's a pet peeve of mine: You didn't make ricotta. You made an entirely different cheese which can work as an okay substitute for ricotta in some applications.
It's no different than the recommendation for other cheeses. I've seen suggestions to add to soup, or use in place of water during bread making.
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42927 | How do I make dried soup mix?
I do a lot of backpacking, and I usually buy freeze dried meals, like these ones.
This year I would like to make my own dried meals. I know how to dehydrate my main ingredients, but I'm not sure how to make a good soup base.
Does anyone have some tips on how to make good mix bases? Or dried meals in general?
If you google "dried soup mix recipe" you will find a myriad recipes and articles.
In many countries you can buy real stock concentrate gels in little pouches or packs
Brands like Continental, Knorr, and often "private label" from local famous chef's
I can't vouch for a specific brands flavour, but in general they add a lot of flavour for very little weight (30 to 40 grams, 1 ounce in old money)
Add that to some lentils, split peas, or dried vegetables and it should make a tasty and high calorie meal
Pack some vacuum sealed bacon fat or other fats for a bit more zing and calories if you need
In total: 120 g of lentils etc, 30 g stock, 30 g fat or dried meat makes a tasty meal for two, and about same weight as your average dehydrated meal. And you can pack your own, and leave out most of the the fancy foil packaging
Some lentils and split peas take more than 15t minutes cook time, so you either need a wood fire or an insulated cook pot
I wonder how well pre-cooking the beans and then dehydrating them would work? I imagine it would "cook" much more quickly as the second time it really only has to re-hydrate.
The creator of the video linked in What are 'quick cook' beans? claims that this works well...
You can usually buy par cooked beans and rice. Often labeled "instant"
A large bottle of caramelized onions and toasted garlic mix is essential in any situation.
And a bottle of powdered Parmesan, adulterated with broken blue cheese bits.
I have been thinking of the possibility of dried green peas, because adding unfrozen green peas (those I get from the frozen veg dept at the supermart) to my soup would sweeten up my soup. I would like to know if drying up the peas would be possible, and that dried green peas would not be a disaster to my broth.
I have a slow cooker. I use it to make spice mixes. I mix into the pot a combination of
cumin powder, various types
broken up anise
coriander seeds
cardamom
cloves
celery seeds
fanugreek seeds
tamarind
I don't think you should mix all of them together, but you should make different combinations of them. I put in sufficient water for each mixture and slow-cook them for a few hours. And they sit in bottles unrefrigerated on my shelf for a few months without getting spoiled.
Then, I have bottles of mint chutney to supplement my soup base above. Mint should not be cooked. Mint is topped onto your food or soup together with the parmesan/blue cheese, when it's being served. Cooking would destroy the scent and flavour of mint.
But then, this is my preference due to my upbringing.
Just get some bouillon powder or cubes (usually comes in chicken, vegetable, beef and pork) and then add whatever spices you want.
http://www.drugstore.com/products/prod.asp?pid=393351
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001J8V54M/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_3DXltb0TD4K09Q09
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43139 | Used Pan.... Old Oil.... Can this pose a risk before washing?
After frying Pierogies in oil in frying pan for dinner Wednesday evening, I left pan on the stove to cool and meaning to wash later. Got caught up with different things and went to bed. The next day I was out all day never to set foot into the kitchen and Friday night after work went to kitchen to clean any dishes in sink and noticed the pan on the stove!!! I put it in the sink to rinse before washing dishes. Then the dreaded thought came to me! Could that pan with the left oil oil have collected the botulism toxin and then by pouring water in the pan did I contaminate my sink, my sponge and other dishes?! I know it may sound stupid, but I'm nervous as I don't want to harm anyone! I've never done such an absent minded thing and am very concerned. Please advise.
It is highly unlikely that your pan will pose danger of botulism.
The botulinum bacteria doesn't live in oil, it lives in plant matter which is cut off from air. This is why storing plants (garlic, spices and the like) for a long time under oil is dangerous. But the oil by itself is not the medium in which the bacteria can grow, it is only needed as an airless buffer between their actual medium (the plant) and the environment.
Even if you had fried plants (e.g. potatoes) in that oil, it wouldn't have been much of a problem. The bacteria's spores can easily survive home canning temperatures, but they are only slightly higher than 100 Celsius, even in a pressure cooker. But when you fry in that oil, you use at least 180 Celsius; in my experience, home cooks (myself included) are prone to letting the temperature get a bit too hot, frequently over 200 Celsius. Combined with the fact that any crumbles left after frying are probably charred, so too low moisture to support the bacteria, I can't imagine a colony establishing itself.
Lastly, the toxin itself is much easier to destroy by heat than the spores. In the very unlikely event of contamination, the spores will die on your sink and other dishes, because they will be in contact with air. If you are still nervous, fill your sink, together with the dishes, with just-boiled water. The toxin itself is neutralized after 10 minutes at 80 celsius.
There's one big difference from eg garlic oil to consider here: The oil residue in a frying pan, and anything that got burnt in it ... it is dry, very dry. "Bugs" might survive as spores, but they won't multiply in that environment. And typical frying pan temperatures, unlike boiling temperatures, WILL sterilize the pan. If really paranoid, heat some fresh oil in it to, say, 170°C (be safe handling hot oil!) for a couple of minutes - that is more hostile to bacteria than medical grade sterilization procedures....
Botulism is one of the least likely results here. The bacteria are obligate anaerobes, and will grow extremely slowly or not at all in an open pan.
This doesn't mean that there aren't plenty of other bacteria which will compete in that environment, especially if there are any bits of food left over. I certainly wouldn't cook with that pan again before washing it, for example.
As far as contaminating the sink and sponge: sinks, sponges, and dishcloths are disgusting. They are surprisingly common sources of cross-contamination and general food-related illness in home kitchens. They harbour not only bacteria but also various molds. This rarely causes fatalities but is frequently responsible for the typical stomach aches, diarrhea, and other minor symptoms that people tend to incorrectly attribute to restaurants or whatever they last ate.
I'd have a hard time believing that washing a few-day-old pan could make your sink or sponge any worse than these things already are. You have to consider that sinks and sponges are wet environments and bacteria can grow in or on them almost as easily as they can in your used pan. Studies like the one linked above indicate that dish detergent will help reduce some, but not all bacteria in sponges specifically.
The bottom line is that you should be replacing sponges and tea towels and disinfecting your sink regularly anyway, especially if you've recently been working with anything likely to be contaminated, such as raw meat. If you don't do this regularly, now's as good a time as any to start.
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43497 | Which rack level of oven is suitable for baking choco lava cakes?
I've always done baking and cooking in microwave ovens but I don't have any idea of the ovens installed under the cooktops..
Today I'm trying it first time..baking choco lava cakes (funfoods bake mix).
On the pack it is mentioned-bake at 200 degrees for 15 mins.
There are four rack levels in the oven but I don't know in which one I should bake it.
Please help!
Thanks a lot!
When a recipe doesn't specify a rack level, try to place whatever you are baking in the middle. So, with 4 levels, you place it on the second (counted from bottom to top). It is the default for most things. Generally, a recipe will tell you if another level is needed.
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43609 | Baking side of pizza stone
How do I tell which side of my pizza stone is the top side and is the side to bake a pizza on? I did not buy the stone but was given to me some years ago and I have not used it because I do not know which side I should put the pizza on and which side is not used to bake on.
The vast majority can be used either way. Do you have pictures?
Thank you for your info and help. I do not have a photo but one side does have the Pfazgraff logo cut into it and since I have been reading that pizzas can stick to the stone I would imagine that the safest side to use would be the smooth side, especially since I have never used it to place a pizza directly on it to bake.
Either way up will do as you don't actually have to cook on the stone, it's just thermal mass to keep you oven hotter for longer
Turn the oven all the way up to maximum, wait until you thermometer show no change in temperature. This may take about 30+ minutes depending on the stone/steel mass
Cook your pizza on your favourite metal tray/pan on a rack above the stone. Much easier clean-up, and same if not better results
Thank you so very much for your advice. I will certainly try cooking my pizzas this way.
Many pizza stones are double-sided, if so you can use either. If you have a big difference between the two surfaces then I suggest using the smoother one.
Pizza can stick like glue to a baking stone, if you liberally sprinkle fine cornmeal, or better yet medium ground semolina under the dough it will keep it from adhering to the surface.
Also be sure to pre-heat the oven a long time before baking to get the stone up to temperature. An inch of stone takes well oven an hour to be ready to bake on.
I so appreciate your info on pizza stones. Since one side of mine does have a logo imprinted on it and the other is smooth I will be using the smooth side. I have never used it to cook a pizza directly on it so now I know which side will be easier to use and clean if it should stick.
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43957 | Closest thing to a donut I can drink coffee out of
One joking characterization of a topologist is someone who can't tell their donut from their coffee mug. As a novelty, I would very much like a food I can drink coffee out of. Does this exist? If not, what could I do to make it? It doesn't have to be anything like a donut, but if it is, that would be excellent.
All of the solutions in http://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/40024/67 can't handle hot liquids.
Thou shalt avoid using a preposition in a sentence on which to terminate with. Anyway, logically speaking, anything that could withstand hot liquids would also be hardly digestible.
What about a hollowed-out pumpkin? Or does it have to be something that you can eat after you've finished the coffee?
@BlessedGeek I don't think temperature resistance or structural integrity have much to do with edibility. Think of root vegetables for example. That's also a made up nonsense rule; English SE has a good question about it if I recall correctly.
As far as foods that double as dishes, off the top of my head I could only thing of a bread bowl for soup. You could certainly drink coffee out of a bread bowl, but I don't think it will be enjoyable.
A bit of googling leads me to:
http://www.fastcoexist.com/1680504/a-cookie-coffee-cup-thats-easy-to-recycle-just-eat-it
The trick behind this is that it's a cookie lined with "special icing sugar" that works as a semi-waterproof barrier and an insulator. It will dissolve over a long enough time, though, and will sweeten the coffee as it sits in the cup. I can't find any information on when it hits stores, but it's a Lavazza product.
Ooh, nice. From the image, it doesn't look like it's topologically equivalent to a donut, but that should be fixable easily enough by poking a hole in the handle. (I don't require something topologically equivalent to a donut, but having the equivalence is a plus.)
Stipulate that it's equivalent to a long john? Though then you've got the filling to contend with...
Coffee and bread are delicious together, just drink the coffee first.
As long as you're content with single-use edible containers, a hard vegetable which can be eaten raw would serve. For example, you could drill a carrot to make a shot glass; if you get a big carrot then it would hold an espresso. The flavour imparted might not be so great, though: it would probably be better for vodka or other beverages which are known to mix well with carrot juice, because even if you dry the inside after drilling juice will continue to leach into it.
Repeated use would suffer from problems of mould, as well as from the inner surface becoming cooked.
I'd attack this by making a cup shaped pastry (or some kind of hard cookie dough in a cup shape) and then sealing the inside of it with high temperature chocolate. You could then serve coffee in it as long as it isn't too hot to melt the chocolate.
Note that regular chocolate melts at too low a temperature, you'd need to shop around for the right product.
And because chocolate melts at temperatures between 30 and 33 Celsius, you are practically limited to lukewarm and iced coffee. Which makes it completely irrelevant to most coffee drinkers.
True, but there are chocolates with higher melting temperatures. See my edit.
I have never heard of such chocolates. I opened a question on them, maybe you could go in detail about them there? http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/43977.
As a child, if i was every lucky, i used to have hot chocolate and croissants on saturday mornings. One thing i would do is tear one of the arms off the croissant, dip it into the hot chocolate, and use it as a tiny drinking horn.
A quarter of a century later, we live in an age when humanity has the technology to deep-fry croissants.
It is surely not beyond the wit of man to put these two ideas together: make some sort of cup out of croissant dough, probably bake it a bit to give it some shape, then deep-fry it.
It won't be the same texture as a doughnut. It will, however, be topologically equivalent to a doughnut - a jam doughnut!
This is probably as close as you are going to get, at least that I know of.
http://www.eater.com/2015/2/25/8106849/kfc-edible-coffee-cups-cookie-cups-buckets-fried-chicken
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64623 | Is it possible to turn Rice Krispies back into rice?
Specifically, would it be possible to turn Rice Krispies into rice suitable for serving with chicken teriyaki?
One of the main characters of the webcomic Leftover Soup is an expert cook. To establish the character's skills, the author has him prepare a restaurant-quality meal from the contents of an extremely understocked kitchen, with only one hand. One of the feats involved in preparing this meal is reconstituting Rice Krispies into rice, to go with chicken teriyaki.
I have no idea how realistic this scene is. Is this actually something you can do with Rice Krispies? If this is possible, how would you do it, and would the results be any good? The author's notes say it'll be explained in the strip how this works, but by the time I stopped reading, it hadn't been explained yet.
Oh goddammit I found the explanation strip after it finally occurred to me to search the comic's forums.
Rice Krispies are made from a sweetened, malted and cooked and partially dried rice that is then "popped" similar to popcorn.
The manufacturer writes:
Each piece is made from a single, toasted grain of rice (...)
The physical/chemical process is basically the same as for popcorn.
Unlike corn, rice grains contain very little water so the initial boiling step introduces enough humidity inside the kernel. The partial re-drying to harden the shell allows it to hold it inside while the water turns into steam and pressure builds. When the grain can't contain the steam any longer, it will expand and the gelatinized starch forms a sponge-like texture. Note that a careful balance of humidity and drying is required to get the best results.
As you are changing the structure of the starch, consider this a one-way process. Neither popcorn nor puffed rice can be transformed back to their original "kernel / grain state":
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again.
The "modern" puffed rice method using pressure / sudden release is attributed to Alexander P. Anderson, who stumbeled about it when testing the humidity of grains in the early 1900s. The process was taken over by Quaker Oats and used for other grains as well.
you got it all right except I don't see where you answer the question "no you can't do it" :-)
@Escoce "As you are changing the structure of the starch, consider this a one-way process" not clear enough?
I guess I just didn't make the final step :-)
@Escoce, edited just for you ;-)
awwww, hugs!!!!
No, you can't revert a Rice Krispies kernel back into something that resembles a grain of steamed rice. According to the company itself on their website and in this video, individual grains of Rice Krispies are in fact individual grains of rice, but there is no way to make them fluffy again.
If I were to use the product in a savory application, I agree with @ElmerCat that the best way to do it would be to treat it as a crunchy element, like crunchy chow mein noodles.
In comments, you linked to the answer in the comic strip that made you wonder, so that answer is here
That particular comic is oddly apropos for Seasoned Advice :-)
If Rice Krispies are all you have to work with, then use them exactly as they are right out of the box.
It sounds interesting and possibly appetizing to think of Rice Krispies in a savory setting such as chicken teriyaki, similar to chow mein being served with crispy noodles.
As @Stephie correctly points out, you can't turn them back into actual grains of rice.
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44010 | Cooked chicken stuffed with a can (of soda)?
I just saw a bit of "Come Dine With Me" which is a UK TV show where people cook/host a dinner party for other strangers to win the prize money.
When she took the chicken out of the oven, the guy who was carving it took out a can of Irn Bru (which may be just because they're in Scotland and this is a popular drink over there)
Why would they put a can in the chicken before cooking it (as I missed that bit)?
There has been a belief, at times wildly popular, the using a half full can of beer (or soda, or other beverage) as a base when barbqecuing or roasting chicken helps keep it moist, and imparts flavor.
This is pretty much debunked. As Meathead says in the linked article:
No way the beer adds moisture. The method is supposed to add moisture to the meat. But the can is inserted half way up the cavity and blocks the meat from contact with moisture. It acts like a condom. so any vapor that escapes the top of the can, and there isn't much, will only come in contact with the upper half of the cavity. The surface area of the exterior of the bird is vastly greater than the surface area of the cavity, and after blocking off half the cavity with the can, there is very little surface area for flavor to penetrate.
He also explains in detail why beer cannot add much flavor, if any--there are very few flavorful ingredients in beer as a proportion of the whole which is mostly water. While I am not familiar with Irn Bru, I imagine that most or all of the logic still applies.
Irn Bru is a soda found in the UK. It may be that they were just using the can and added their own liquid to it.
@GdD Sure. It pretty much doesn't matter what was in the can.
Using a can of beverage inside the bird keeps it moist and juicy during cooking.
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44165 | How do you store away freshly peeled and sliced potatoes?
After peeling potatoes and slicing them to your desired size, how do I store them away?
The main problem with storing pre-cut potatoes is oxidation, where they start to turn brown from contact with the air. To prevent this, store them submerged in water. You can get about 24 hours, refrigerated, in this manner.
This is is how restaurants that do natural cut fries store the pre-cut fries.
This has the added benefit for fries of removing excess starch from the surface. The fries get crisper in the outside, fluffier on the inside. It's a bit of a disadvantage for baked applications (like gratins) but not much. It doesn't seem to make much difference for mashed.
Would putting some lemon juice on the surface also work?
I know lemon juice is sometimes used on sliced apples... it works slightly differently by being oxidized itself rather than the apples.
For duplicate questions, please only add answers to the question they are duplicates of.
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73227 | Is two-month old eggs laid by backyard chicken still edible?
Someone gave me some eggs laid by his backyard chicken about two months ago. I left them in a regular egg container on my kitchen counter for about two months now. The room temperature ranges between 50 F degrees to high eighties. Are they still edible?
You can test an egg for its freshness by placing an egg in a bowl of water as seen here.
If the egg sinks to the bottom and lays on its side, it should be fresh and safe to eat.
If the egg sinks to the bottom and stands upright on one end, it should still be fine to eat.
If the egg floats to the top, it's not fresh but not necessarily unsafe to eat. In this case you should break open the egg shell and smell if there is an unpleasant odor see here. If there is an unpleasant odor, you shouldn't eat the egg.
Probably not. Certainly not by the typical standard this site hews to (everything must be treated as though you are feeding an immune-compromised person, infant, etc.) but without refrigeration or a preservative process such as waterglass, 2 months is a very, very, long time for eggs to sit out. I'd fully expect that they smell rather bad without even cracking them, and probably have a very large air space as well from evaporation through the shell.
If they haven't been washed, eggs keep better if they're not refrigerated, but once chilled they should stay chilled (we've had a couple of questions here but my mobile signal is too slow to track them down now). Evaporation will only affect the quality not the safety, and only in some recipes.
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79556 | How are "salmon mesh" made?
I heard in British Columbia, sometimes salmon are made into mesh-like meat product that looks like the following:
How are they made?
Where is the picture from?
I believe the image you are showing is of fresh-caught salmon which is on racks being air dryed or smoked. The pattern you see are cuts made in the flesh to aid in the process. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game has an information sheet on smoking and drying fish.
Cutting is done so that the fish will dry quickly by exposing as much surface area as possible to the air. In Alaska, a traditional method is to cut the flesh away from the backbone, scoring it so that folds of flesh hang exposed to the air.
This method of fish drying has a strong tradition among the peoples in the Pacific Northwest within Canada's First Nation and Alaska's Native Communities, with each group having its own unique cutting technique. This University of Alaska at Anchorage publication has an excellent overview of the process of cutting and drying fish.
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95469 | Is there any cooking oil mister designed such that the oil is never in contact with plastic parts?
Is there any cooking oil mister designed such that the oil is never in contact with plastic parts? I just don't like the possibility of having any plastic chemicals dissolved in the oil.
in my experience most, if not all, commercially available sprayers use plastic parts for the pump and pickup tube. If you get a high end sprayer they will use better "food grade" plastic that wont leech chemicals into your food.
I need some concrete recommendation. An hour of browsing on Amazon has proven me a failure to find such a "high end sprayer."
You can always disassemble it so the sprayer part isn't sitting in oil all the time .... but I actually prefer the plastic canister ones. You can't see inside of the metal ones, so you have no clue what's going on in there. (if it's sufficiently filled / sufficient head space / what direction the intake tube is pointing / if there's anything growing in there)
And if you really want something that never touches plastic, you'd likely have to find a metal venturi (the type of mechanism that's in old perfume bottles) or manufacture your own.
There's a wide range of glass spray bottles on Amazon marked as BPA free, at least the UK site. I accept these have plastic spray parts but the length of time that the oil is contact with the plastic will be extremely short and any leaching will be minimal, probably to the point of negligibility. This could be mitigated further be cleaning down the spray parts after use and re-sealing the bottle with a screw cap. Not all plastic is bad\harmful.
Must it be a mister? Is there a reason that you want a mister, or would another type of device be suitable?
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76222 | Is filtering Japanese matcha green tea drink recommended?
When pouring Japanese matcha green tea drink into cups, is filtering with a filter cone or something equivalent recommended? Why?
Matcha is supposed to be thick and frothy - one of the reasons it is traditionally prepared with a whisk is to froth up the texture - and filtering it would remove both the texture and the powder that has taken considerable effort to get properly suspended in the tea.
Matcha tea is very expensive because it is exceedingly high quality, and carefully ground smooth and stored well, and this is because the powder is all meant to be ingested. If it was meant to be filtered out and removed, then it would simply be green tea, and it would be much easier to have larger flakes and lower standards.
Smaller particles will brew faster, that is pretty much the advantage of powder, but they will also overbrew very quickly and can introduce off flavors (compared to whole leaf tea) if the quality is not very good. Teabags make this tradeoff, using crushed powder (fannings) which are meant to be steeped very quickly and removed, and usually end up being made of lower quality because it;s use is that steeps fast and strong, and the finer qualities of high quality teas are usually not preserved through the process. Matcha makes a different tradeoff, if it is to be worth using only the highest quality leaf, the results must be much, much better than regular green tea for it to be worth the extra effort and expense - so the leaf is carefully selected and drunk whole for a very different experience than regular green tea, not strained out (which would give a teabag-like experience).
So is 'crushed powder' and 'matcha' in your answer referring to the same thing or not? I'm confused.
@qazwsx - yes and no. Matcha is finely ground tea leaf, so yes it is crushed powder - albeit crushed powder of the highest quality and with the finest processing. Fannings, the shredded stuff in tea bags, is also crushed tea leaf powder - generally the lowest quality stuff. I am comparing the two in my answer, noting that the higher quality and finer processing of matcha is because the powder is meant to be whisked into the tea and drunk, and not strained out like the lower quality fannings used in teabags.
When I drink a cup of matcha drink, it often eventually have some particulars or powers left at the bottom. Am I supposed to whisk the cup and the all mixed into my final few sips?
@qazwsx - depends on how much powder you have left, I guess. If the matcha was well-mixed, there should be very little powder left, and you might mix it into your last few sips easily. If your matcha was poorly mixed, and there's a lot of powder - then trying to fit it into the last few sips would be unpleasant, though you might add a few spoonfuls of extra water if you don't want to lose the flavor still in the powder. Matcha is supposed to be served in small cups, whisked thoroughly and drunk quickly, so there shouldn't be time for the powder to settle much.
If the matcha is of good quality, then it should almost completely dissolve when you twisk well. If it doesn't dissolve, most likely it's not from good raw material or not well processed. High quality is only worth it when you drink it pure. If you want to cook with it or make shakes, then go for a lower quality one. Good matcha would be a waste for such purpose.
@LisaatTeasenz - I don't think Matcha dissolves, exactly, since leaves aren't soluble leaf powder isn't either. But you are correct that a good grade should be able to easily mix into and stay in the water. Just, as a suspension rather than a solution, if you'll forgive the nitpicking :)
@Megha ok agree. What I mean is that a good matcha is really really fine powder. So you can't really strain it out easily.
Matcha is very finely ground tea powder, so it is advisable to run it through a fine sifter before making the tea in order to prevent any lumps. A filter would catch all of the powder (which you want in the water), so I don't think that makes sense.
Will simply steering the drink and crushing any lumps with the tummy of a spoon work?
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79419 | How to store honey so it's fresh and the opening of the container is not always a mess?
How to store honey so it's fresh and the opening of the container is not always a mess? The plastic container the honey comes in has a small opening for squeezing, but it is always a mess.
Related/possible duplicate: http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/16696/what-is-the-best-temperature-to-store-honey-at
Do you have one of those containers that have a hole that is covered with a kind if a "valve", that opens when you squeeze the bottle?
That was obviously what I meant by "a small opening for squeezing."
@qazwsx no need to be rude; a small opening (hole) may or may not have a valve on it, so clarification is helpful.
It's this kind of opening: https://www.amazon.com/Desert-Creek-Honey-Unfiltered-Unpasteurized/dp/B00Q33NM12
Honey by its very nature is sticky and will stick to any surface it will touch. If wiping away the excess honey from a container with a small hole for squeezing is not something you want to have to do, you may want to consider procuring yourself another kind of airtight container.
If being able to squeeze honey out is important, a lid with a rubber valve like below may be suitable for you. The valve opens as you squeeze the bottle and closes itself on its own when you stop squeezing, preventing the honey from accumulating too much. It works better than a plain hole, but may need occasional cleaning.
If cleanliness is more important than squeezability, a glass jar may be the way to go for you. A wide enough opening will allow you to scoop the honey out with a spoon or a honey dipper without it gunking anything up, though you'll need to be careful not to drip too much on your way out, or the lid will become sticky as well.
I am going to buy a glass jar with metal cap.
There are a variety of storage containers that can keep honey fresh, as long as the container is airtight. When I buy local honey in jars, I leave it in there; if I buy a squeezable container with a small dispensing hole, I leave it in there.
The key to avoiding sticky buildup (which frequently makes it difficult to open the jar or bottle, beyond just being icky) is to wipe down the container after dispensing honey. A damp cloth or damp paper towel, or even a slightly damp forefinger, is sufficient to remove the small amount of honey residue and leave the container clean for storage.
A messy dispensing hole on my honey container is like a stuffy nose for me; I'm not satisfied enough to always have to wipe it. What is a thorough solution?
A stuffy nose requires frequent wiping to breathe properly. Surely you don't use honey multiple times a day making a quick wipe inconvenient. Every time I have a drink of juice or tea, I have to wash the cup. I don't consider it inconvenient to do so. I view wiping the lid of honey the same.
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68715 | Carbonated Beverage in Pressure Cooker
This recipe for Root Beer Pulled Pork Sandwich is written for 8 hours in a slow cooker. I'm considering doing it for an hour in a pressure cooker.
I'll paraphrase the cooker ingredients at the click through:
1 pork tenderloin
12 oz. can of Root Beer
Salt and smoke flavor
Would the the carbonated liquid under pressure be a concern? I think there should be no problems. But when tinkering with pressure, a second opinion is prudent.
so? how was it?
As the bubbles are going to come out in the cooking, if you're really paranoid you can stir it 'til it's flat before you start cooking ... but really, it's just going to help it get up to pressure sooner.
Everyone's first temptation is to think of the carbonation, but with a highly artificial foodstuff like soda, you should perhaps more importantly be thinking about how the engineered ingredients may behave at the elevated temperatures found in a pressure cooker. You would definitely not want to do this with a diet root beer, but then you probably wouldn't want to make the atmospheric pressure version with that either.
Every pressure cooker comes with a safety valve.
So even if not most of the CO2 is lost during pouring and heating, the safety valve will make sure nothing bad happens.
That you should always make sure the valve is in good condition and working is a general pressure cooker rule independent of the liquid used.
Good take. It was designed not to blow up. I should use per the manual and have faith in the valve.
Foaming up a syrup (like a soft drink) in a pressure cooker could come with the risk of clogging safety valves with sugar residue. So that recipe is probably in "do it but pay close attention" territory.
Think about the thickness of a soda can and the thickness of a pressure cooker. That, plus pressure release valves on the pressure cooker's lid will do exactly that: release pressure. So, no need to worry about pressure cooking soda. Though, I personally would not.
I published a recipe pressure cooking and entire chicken in beer 5 years ago - and despite it being a very popular recipe (aka cooked in many pressure cooker kinds by different people) I haven't gotten any reports or problems.
Ciao,
L
Stability of a large vessel at 120°C vs stability of a small vessel at room temperature, even if the vessels are made of metal - literally two different kettles. While the assumption is PROBABLY right, saying "it MUST be safe" is what leads to accidents...
In actuality, the pressure in a soda can at room temperature is on the order of twice that in a pressure cooker at operating temperature.
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66871 | A recipe inspired by Brat cheese sauce/Cooking in Wine
I followed a recipe to the effect of:
boil Brat sausages in 24 ounces of beer
remove sausages (do not drain the beer), pan fry or grill them
add 2 c. sharp cheddar, and 1 package cream cheese to the remaining beer, whisk over heat until you get a nice creamy cheese sauce.**
It was very simple. Very tasty. It was like a good Welsh Rarebit sauce.
Do you think this could be adapted to wine and white cheeses, to the effect of:
boil sausage or chicken in a dry white wine
remove meat; grill or pan fry it
add 2 cups motzarella, 1 cup grated parmesan to the boiled wine--whisk over heat until you have a smooth sauce.
Do you think that would work? I've never cooked in large quantities of wine. I don't recall recipes that have done so. Any recommendations on the cheeses/quantities?
** I used store brand cream cheese. It didn't melt completely. Next time I will use a higher quality cream cheese.
I wouldn't use mozzarella, it won't melt smoothly into a sauce. Look at recipes for white (or whitish) smooth cheese sauces, or Mornay sauces. Consider:
Monterey Jack
Swiss (Emmental)
White Cheddar
Gruyere (that would be my choice)
Instead of boiling chicken (or sausage) in the wine, consider browning the chicken in the skillet (preferably not non-stick) and then deglazing with the wine. After all of the brown goodness is mixed into the small amount of wine used for deglazing, you can add more wine (as much as you want to use for the final sauce) to allow it cook out a bit. You might want to use 1/2 or 1/3 wine, the rest chicken broth and possibly cream.
Look at white wine cheese sauce recipes to get an idea of quantities. To get a thick, smooth sauce, you might get your best results by thickening your liquid with a roux before adding shredded cheese, much like the recipes above for Mornay sauce.
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61825 | Chicken texture: Store Rotisserie v. Pressure Cooker
I just cooked my first hen in a pressure cooker. As you might guess, it didn't come out nicely browned and attractive--because that isn't a characteristic of pressure cookers.
But the meat was incredibly moist, with a texture that is hard to describe (but it was good, maybe free-range like). It had discernable grain or strands, or strings of meat, and I now have some great chicken stock.
Which brings me to Rotisserie from the store: Yes, they look and smell great, and are wonderful economics--but the texture is off, for my taste at least. The last few had a breast texture hard to describe, I'll try these words: balsa wood like, pulpy, mushy, rubbery. In any event, it wasn't going to convey well into an enchilada.
Is my store doing it wrong? Will the rotisserie I get be like that more often than not? I really do like the cost and convenience, but the texture was a turn off.
You're comparing two completely different cooking methods, so it's no surprise that there would be a difference. A pressure cooker is a sealed vessel which retains the moisture in the cooked food, except for any steam that's vented off. By contrast, rotisserie is a form of roasting, done by definition over a heat source or within an oven, but not sealed.
Rotisserie roasting is great in that it allows the food to baste itself, but there is inevitably some moisture loss as juices drip away from the meat, certainly much more so than in pressure cooking. That's what contributes to the drier texture of the rotisserie chicken. The breast meat will also dry out more quickly than the darker thighs and legs, but big markets want to minimize any food safety concerns, so they're probably playing it safe and cooking the chicken to a point above its minimum internal temperature.
So no, they're not doing anything wrong, but they are using a different cooking method than your pressure-cooked chicken, with predictably different results.
I knew the elemental diff btw pressure and rotisserie. What I didn't know: am I getting bad rotisserie.The store over-cooking for safety could be the issue... the breast meat was just blech. The darks meats were OK.
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39724 | Can white wine vinegar be used instead of white vinegar?
Recipe calls for white vinegar
Can I use white wine vinegar diluted to 5 % acidity?
Usually wine vinegar has less acidity, so diluting would be counter-productive. What are you making? Please provide a recipe.
@SAJ14SAJ She probably means it says on the label that it's diluted to 5% acidity. That's commonly seen.
Yeah, usually that would be OK, what are you making? - Come to think of it I can't think of any application where it wouldn't be OK, but I'd still like to know what you're making before I post it as an answer.
Agree we need to know the application. I’m curious about the very specific acidity. As others have said, there’s a big flavour difference.
Generally, vinegars that aren't central to the application (e.g. Balsamic Vinegar in in a Balsamic Reduction) are interchangeable within the same acidity level. Every kind of vinegar has a different distinct flavor and color, so any substitutions will affect the final dish, but not necessarily negatively. Distilled (regular white) vinegar ranges from 5-8% acidity, is colorless and pretty flavorless. Since white wine vinegar has very little color and is mildly flavored, and your vinegar is 5% acidity, it should be a fine substitution.
No, because white vinegar is distilled with water and chemicals. White wine vinegar is a stronger substance and will damage the sterilizer. White vinegar has a strong and sour taste to it, while white wine vinegar is sour and used as a dressing for salads.
Welcome! I'm afraid I'm not understanding your answer. What sterilizer?
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44818 | Can beef stew be reheated several times?
I purchased 2 pound of meat, and the same day cooked it into a stew. For dinner I had a small amount of it, and then put the pot into the refrigerator.
The next day for lunch I would like to reheat the entire pot of stew to boiling temperature, let it cool to eating temperature, eat some, and afterwards put the entire pot back into the refrigerator.
I would like to repeat this pattern for a few days. I am told there is a risk of bacterial contamination, and the proper way is to only reheat the small amount I want to eat each time, not the entire pot. But as long as I reheat to boiling temperature, is that really true?
Logophobe has all the right answers as to why not do it: bacteria multiplication, toxin, taste, harmful to equipment. Also, it's not because you boil a stew that the inside of the each piece of meat or veg is at boiling temp. It'll take several minutes before the biggest piece are heated through. For canned food effective sterilization is done at 121c (210 F)(http://www.nzifst.org.nz/unitoperations/httrapps2.htm), you'll never , by definition, reach this temperature simply by boiling.
There is some very useful information for you in this thread.
The direct answer is, every time you re-heat and cool the entire pot, you're passing through the "danger zone" (40-140 °F or 4-60 °C) where bacteria will continue growing. Even if you manage to kill all of them, this is a problem because:
Some bacteria leave behind harmful protein toxins that cannot be
"killed" (denatured) by cooking. Cooking food is only effective
against live organisms, not their toxic waste products.
So yes, there is a very real risk. To reduce this risk as much as possible, you'll want to follow the alternate method you describe of only re-heating the amount that you want to eat at any given time.
That's also desirable because:
If you bring the entire pot back up to boiling each time, you're continuing to cook it. Besides the risk of contamination, that will also affect the quality and palatability of the stew because it will be drastically overcooked after just a couple repetitions.
It's a lot more efficient to apply just the heat needed to re-heat a small portion than it is to re-heat a larger amount that you're just going to let cool back down anyway.
Also, keeping your stew in the pot may be undesirable, especially if it has acidic ingredients like tomatoes, which can react with a metal pot (particularly aluminum) and give your stew a faintly metallic taste.
Do yourself a favor and don't try to to take this shortcut. It's a bad idea for a number of reasons. Pack the stew into individual servings instead and keep them refrigerated until you're ready to eat them.
has all the right answers: I've seen that too many time pro kitchens, people always forgot about toxins. Also, it's not because you boil a stew that the inside of the each piece of meat or veg is at boiling temp. It'll take several minutes before the biggest piece are heated through. For canned food effective sterilization is done at 121c (210 F)(http://www.nzifst.org.nz/unitoperations/httrapps2.htm), you'll never , by definition, reach this temperature simply by boiling.
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39881 | What is the layer of grey stuff on the bottom of salmon?
On the bottom of a piece of salmon there is a layer of grey stuff, I am wondering what this is? I assume this is its fat?
It is coagulated albumin leaked from the flesh of the fish. Not terribly inviting, but not harmful either.
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44725 | Does beef/pork stew require a dutch oven?
I am learning how to make beef/pork stew. Every recipe I see says to use a Dutch oven, that will be placed inside the oven. Couldnt stew be made just as well with a regular stainless steel pot that I simmer on top of the oven range?
I feel bad, I am dutch and I have never heard of a Dutch oven before :P Nor, after searching what it is, ever seen one in real life :P .
It can. There's nothing wrong with braising or stewing with a stainless steel pot. Just know that if you brown your meat before stewing it, it will cook faster in a stainless steel pot than in a cast iron or enameled cast iron pot, because cast iron retains heat well and conducts it evenly. So be careful not to over-brown your meaty bits.
Sometimes, braising on the stovetop is desirable, especially if you want to further reduce your liquid. When we cook in our commercial kitchen, half the time we braise in the oven with our enamel-ware, the other half we do in a stainless steel stockpot on the stove.
Assuming you don't have any plastic pieces on your stainless steel cookware, there's no reason why you couldn't place it in the oven, just as the dutch oven.
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40020 | Home-made fermented/ cured sausages numbing sensation
I have two questions regarding my home made sausages.
1- They were great after the normal time-period, fermented well and were a great taste. Now, after another 2 months, all of them taste strongly perfumed, not nice at all and I have to throw them away. How come?
2- In the beginning a bit, but now a lot, they give me a numb sensation in my mouth. What is causing that?
I used color salt for fermenting and ensuring I wouldn't get botulism, but I believe that never is a guarantee?
Thanks for your answers!
B
The name or chemical compound responsible for a specific quality of some spices (numbness) Should answer your question concerning numbness pretty handily. Eugenol can intensify over time. It just so happens that I have been playing with that particular phenomenon quite a bit lately.
You've only answered half the question here, and eugenol isn't the only thing that can cause numbing - how do you know that's what's going on here?
@Jefromi True, I can't know, since I don't know if he's got any other ingredients that could be causing it as well, but the comments about it getting more pronounced over time and "heavy perfume" allow me to be pretty darn confident about it. Of course a list of ingredients would be helpful, and I will post a comment to that effect. I can only address that half of the question because I don't have any idea about the other half.
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57367 | How to increase the temperature of my double boiler?
I have a double boiler that I wish to use to prepare a batch of fudge. The recipe I am using calls for heating to 240°F (=116°C), but a double boiler is limited to the boiling point of the working fluid used, so plain water, boiling at only 100°C, won't work.
I know that one can increase the boiling point of a liquid by dissolving material in it, governed by ∆T = Kb m, where Kb is the boiling point elevation coefficient and m is the molal concentration of solute.
Using this, to get the boiling point of water to 116°C requires a ∆T=16 K, and Kb = 0.512 K / m, so that would require a 31.25 molal solution. Using NaCl, that would mean about 1.8 kg of salt per kg of water, which is around 5 times as much salt as will even dissolve at all.
What can I do to increase the temperature of my double boiler?
To move it that far, you'd have to use some other liquid, as a fuly saturated brine will only get you to 108°C / 226°F. Unfortunately, you'd have to find something that was food safe and didn't cause irritation in gaseous form. Another option might be to try using the oven, rather than the stovetop. (to at least get it close, then finish on the stovetop, watching it like a hawk?)
Why do you specifically want to use a double boiler for this application given the inherent temperature limitation?
Sugar solutions (sucrose/water) will get you there. Soft ball stage runs about 115 °C: http://www.craftybaking.com/howto/candy-sugar-syrup-temperature-chart Can't find a decent table of BP°C vs percent sugar today, or I'd make this an answer.
@WayfaringStranger I wouldn't try to make a sugar-solution double boiler. The problem is that a suger solution's temperature is not limited, and once they start supersaturating, they spend very short time at each temperature, frequently even less than the reading delay of a sugar thermometer. You can certainly take a sugar solution to 115 C, but you cannot hold it there for a prolonged time without some complex apparatus (which would have been capable of doing the double boiler duty in the first place).
@rumtscho Agreed, now that I think about it. If you really want some oddball temperature, you're better off with a precisely thermostatted heating plate.
Id like to know how to increase the temp of a double boiler, but not why you shouldnt do so. Tips?
While I personally appreciate your scientific approach to this, I think this concept is fraught with peril. :)
For the acute application of a double-boiler to fudge: don't. Fudge is sugarwork/candy! Managing the heat and temperature over direct heat is part of the fun and peril of sugarwork in general! logophobe's "why" is on-point. You want to boil-off a fair amount of water in making fudge; indirect heat like a double-boiler probably isn't a good choice for that.
If you're interested in another take on the science of fudge, I recommend the fudge episode of Good Eats.
For the actual question of making a double-boiler work at much higher temperatures: I think you'll want a different (non-water) substrate. But unless you've got something with exactly the right boiling point, it's not going to automatically regulate the temperature any better than direct heat, and that entirely defeats the purpose of a double-boiler. You could try regulating something like vegetable oil at the correct temperature; perhaps there's an electronically-regulated temperature-controlled deep fryer or something that has a temperature setting in the low-100C/200F range, but most frying is in the 175C+/350F+ range.
As an aside: As pertains to Wayfaring's recommendation from comments to use sucrose syrup: Keep in mind that fudge is in fact itself candy / sugarwork at soft ball stage. Unless I misunderstand, I strongly believe that you do not want to use sugar syrup in the bottom vessel of a double-boiler. While clever, this solution will soon exceed the temperature you want to achieve, then in the worst case boil-off all the water and burn. Wayfaring's link is a good one and does contain percentages: sugar temperature chart; another from FAO has a more concise percentage chart by weight. Kb for water is 0.512°C/m ; more here. For any substance in the bottom of a double-boiler, you're going to be boiling-off some of the water, making higher concentration of whatever solute. That is, your boiling point is going to keep creeping up.
The more expensive immersion circulators can circulate oil at temperatures above 100°C, and of course hold that temperature very accurately.
You are thinking wrong about how to use a double boiler. If you read on bouble boilers, you will find the water is not intended to be in contact with the inside pan. It is only the steam from the boiling water BElLOW the pan that heats the inside pan. Since steam at normal atmospheric pressure never exceds 212 what your wanting to do is not posible. If you want to make a double boiler that used superheated steam, make sure your life insurance is paid up.
I think you got it wrong. It's liquid water that can't go above 100°C/212°F at normal pressure, steam definitely can go much higher. Now of course, in a double boiler configuration, steam will move away from the heat source and thus won't be able to get much hotter than 100°C.
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40217 | Chocolate ganache
I followed a recipe I found in a (last year's) magazine, for chocolate ganache. 300ml water and 125g caster sugar brought to the boil and poured over 250g chopped dark chocolate. The recipe said whisk until smooth. I whisked for AGES and it just never thickened!! Eventually I left it in the fridge for a couple of hours and eventually it was thick enough to spread and allow to drip down the sides of my roulade - still softer than I expected. What did I do wrong??? Thank you.
What chocolate product did you use? This ratio should give you a fairly thick product if made with pure chocolate, my guess is that you maybe used chocolate glaze or a similar product.
That may produce some sort of chocolate sauce or confection, but ganache is by definition made from cream and chocolate.
Basic ganache is equal parts chocolate and cream by weight. Given that ganache is typically made with whipping cream (30% milkfat), the water being added is about 70% of the weight of the chocolate.
Your product contains more water than chocolate, not less.
So there are likely two problems:
Simply too much liquid
It would be much more difficult to form the water-fat emulsion with the sugar syrup than with cream. You may not have beat it fast enough for long enough (an electric mixer would certainly have a better chance).
I suspect the too much liquid issue predominates.
Next time, make the ganache from the traditional 1:1 ratio of cream and chocolate. You can find many good sets of instructions such as these from Alton Brown at the Food Network.
Temperature is also a factor when whipping a cream-based ganache - there's little point in whipping a hot ganache. It may be the same case for syrup-based ganache.
@ElendilTheTall nowhere does she say that she tried whipping it at all. It was too fluid after just stirring to smoothness.
True--I linked Alton Brown's recipe because it covers both the emulsion stage, and optional whipping.
@rumtscho whisking = whipping
@SAJ14SAJ I have made water based ganache, as well as cream ganaches in ratios with much more liquid than she had. None of these should cause a problem.
Well, I continue to insist without cream, it isn't ganache. But I don't see anything else obvious.
@ElendilTheTall no, it is not the same. "Whisk until smooth" may involve using a whisk, but it supposes that you want a smooth liquid, not a foam. It is just stirring.
"I whisked for ages and it never thickened" suggests to me that the recipe tells you to whisk in order to thicken.
I have to admit, I interpreted it as whipped as well on first reading--because a sugar syrup should emulsify with chocolate quite easily. And I have made whipped ganaches with a 2:1 ratio of cream to chocolate, although that is still a lower ratio of water to fat.
I think the "sauce" bit is spot on. Glucose syrup is frequently added to cream ganache to keep it more pliable and glossy when it sets, and since this 'ganache' is all syrup, it would be more like a chocolate glaze than a traditional ganache.
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40271 | Is there any alcohol remaining in beer-stewed chicken?
We once tried to use beer instead of water when stewing cubed chicken breast pieces on a lark, and it turned out pretty tasty (surprise, since we don't actually like to drink beer).
However, we were leery about offering the result to the kids since weren't sure how much alcohol would remain in the dish after it's done.
Is there any reliable information about how much alcohol from beer would remain after stewing for 1/2 to 1 hour?
Did you see the top related question, cooking away alcohol? It has plenty of information about things like this.
@Jefromi - I did. It didn't mention beer and my assumption is beer would possibly be different from wine or other spirits.
Also, consider the portion size you give your children. Beer is only typically on the order of 5-8% alcohol; when diluted with the rest of the ingredients, even without cooking down, they may be getting no more actual alcohol content than they would in a dose of cough medicine, for example. You are quite unlikely to have tipsy children running around!
@DVK Nope, everything in the other question applies here too, and the answer SAJ14SAJ gave you is exactly the same form as the answers on the other question. (Sure, beer generally starts with less alcohol, so 35% left is less for beer than for something stronger, but none of the answers say they depend on the starting alcohol content.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmQPwgV-WbQ
The short answer is: it depends, on exactly how you cooked the dish, and what other ingredients are in it.
In practice, for a long simmered dish, the answer is going to approach about 20% as documented in the USDA Table of Nutrient Retention Factors Release 6 under the table entry "ALC BEV,STIRRED,BKD/SIMMRD 1.5 HR". Increasing time to 2.5 hours would go down to about 5%.
Would it affect things that it's beer, not wine? that document doesn't seem to distinguish.
Not significantly, ethanol is ethanol.
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71456 | Should I use oil to stop the steaks from sticking to the grill?
I tried grilling my steaks on a little sparse steel grill in a convection oven.
They came out great, with one annoying issue: they stick to the grill and have to be ripped off. This both damages the steak a bit, AND makes the grill hard to clean with the caked-on pieces of meat.
I was thinking of using a bit of oil to solve this, but don't know if it's OK?
If so, should I oil the steak, or the metal of the grill? And which oil do I use? The grill is set to 450 degrees.
related : http://cooking.stackexchange.com/a/2921/67 ; http://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/87/67
I typically oil the grill. After brushing it to get off any remnants from the last grilling session, I take a paper towel soaked in vegetable oil (something with a high smoke point), and rub my grill down with it. (I hold it using a pair of tongs).
I then let it sit for a couple of minutes, and then rub it down again it again -- you're effectively making a plastic coating, as you do when seasoning a cast iron pan.
Now for the unbelievable part -- the next time you run into problems with it sticking ... wait. I know it sounds crazy, but basically after a few seconds of grilling, the meat sticks to the grill ... after it's cooked long enough, it releases. Maybe not full releasing, but it gets ... less stuck. (assuming you're not using a sugary marinade that's turned into glue).
So long as you're okay with medium rare to medium, just give it another minute, and then try giving it a nudge to see if it's starting to release. You won't get the cross-hatch grill marks, but most people really don't care so long as it tastes good.
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78702 | Is there a difference between chicken broth made with breast vs. leg meat and why?
Subjectively, I have often heard people's opinion that there's a marked difference between a broth made with chicken breast meat vs. one made with chicken leg meat (assuming all other things in the process are the same). Usually, the latter is claimed to be tastier.
Is there actually an established difference in two broths and what exactly is it?
What leads to such difference, if it exists? Is it difference in the muscle tissue? Presence of bones and/or cartilage in the legs?
Other than cost?
White meat chicken has less fat than dark meat (e.g. legs), so that's one key difference {1}. Dark-meat poultry has tastes generally considered stronger/gamier; whether one likes the stronger tastes is a personal choice. Myself, if not using a whole bird, I like to use leg quarters for chicken soup.
{1} Although that's less of a factor after skimming off some fat, which IMHO you really ought to do.
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81932 | What am I doing wrong regarding flipping omlettes or pancakes?
It seems that whenever I need to flip an omelette, either the top is way too liquid (thus, I can't flip it effectively, as it just runs off the top); or by the time the top solidifies, the bottom is over-cooked if not charred.
I suspect I'm doing something wrong but not sure what (aside from using way less so the omelette is much thinner and cooks through faster - mine are ~1.5cm thick).
(the question is primarily about omelettes but I had similar issues with large pancakes with more liquidy batter).
This has already been answered a couple times on SA, most notably here: https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/4464/how-to-succeed-with-making-omelette/4481#4481
Lower heat should help prevent the bottom from burning while the top is still setting.
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40280 | Roasting two ham roasts at once
I am cooking two fresh ham roasts at once for a large crowd. The instructions are for minutes per pound. Do I add my roasts for total pounds or figure for one?
It depends on your oven and how big the hams are. If you try to cram 2 big hams into your oven and it's not a fan oven then you probably need to add extra time. If they are moderate size then it shouldn't make much difference at all. If they are big but you have a fan oven then you shouldn't need to add time.
The best way to make sure something is done is not by time, but using a meat thermometer. When the ham is 150F at the center of the meat's mass then it is ready to come out, below that it still needs more cooking.
No, cooking two roasts at once will not change the cooking time for either.
Remove each when it is cooked through. Since these are fresh ham roasts, you should be cooking them until they are done to the standard are using, not based on a single time.
If you are using a low and slow method, there is enough flexibility that you can probably leave them in together until they are both done, assuming they are even close in size.
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121894 | How do tamales cook?
We just steamed a couple dozen tamales and I'm entirely baffled by the idea that they cook over hours. How? Why? What's happening?
I initially figured I could check for doneness with a temperature probe. After less than 30 minutes, the probe read 212 degrees throughout -- and obviously the tamal cannot heat beyond this point as we're steaming.
It was doughy and undercooked.
We left the tamales for another couple hours, as instructed, and voilà, the husk fell off neatly and the tamal was solid.
I don't understand.
212 degrees is well below the point where the Maillard reaction takes place. Is something else chemical going on? Is it purely physical -- maybe as simple as water boiling off?
I'm at a total loss as to the science behind cooking tamales, and it's driving me crazy.
Do you think quickly boiling a pork shoulder to 190 will give you the same result as roasting it to that point over 8 hours?
Um, I don't think you understand what "the malliard reaction" means. It certainly isn't involved in tamales. https://www.scienceofcooking.com/maillard_reaction.htm
@FuzzyChef I specifically said it wasn't lol
You might research the difference between temperature and heat. Cooking food is not about making it a certain temperature, even in cases where we use temperature to assess whether a food is done cooking. At certain temperatures, cooking processes can begin, but they can take a long time and require continued input of heat to progress to completion.
To be specifically clear, what takes an hour (or more) is the starch gelatinization of the masa:
During heating and in the presence of excess water, starch granules initially imbibe (bind) water causing them to gradually swell and form a viscous slurry. As heating continues and temperature increases, the granules start losing their crystallinity becoming amorphous ...
Subsequent heating causes the granules size to increase until they can no longer absorb more water and burst. Rheologically, this is accompanied by maximum viscosity build up followed by a drop to a plateau. As molecules making up the granule start to leach out from the swollen granules and disperse/solubilize in the aqueous medium, yield a gel or paste whose properties depend on the concentration and type of starch in the slurry.
Just as the case for baking bread, it takes a considerable amount of time for the starches to go through these chemical and physical changes, and convert from a paste of cornmeal and water to a firm medium. The time required is further extended by the addition of ample fat (lard or butter) to the masa dough, which slows down the gelatinization.
Don't do the tamales with no fat, though, they really aren't good. Trust me on this one.
Cooking isn’t instant. You don’t just bring food to a particular temperature and then the physical reactions have happened and the food is done. Many of the processes happen slowly at the target temperatures. In fact, many of them also happen at room temperature - just way too slowly.
In the case of tamales going from squishy to not-squishy, that’s the starch granules hydrating, absorbing some of the water from the dough and cohering. This isn’t instant because it takes a while for the water to diffuse into the granules.
Yes...this is primarily about the gelatinization of starch in the masa (which happens pretty quickly), and the the setting of that gel structure over time. I tried to find some scientific literature on the topic, but no luck yet.
ie, see traditional barbeque and it's 12+ hours of cooking at very low temperatures (< 250*F)
@SnakeDoc yes but BBQ is a bit different typically since you don't hit an internal temp 20% of the way through and hold it for hours.
anacdotally, Masa takes a lot longer to hydrate than regular flour - tortilla dough is unworkable before 20-30 minutes have passed ,whereas I could use a flour dough pretty much instantly. There's definitely a difference in the process
@Behacad traditional barbecue (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbecue#Etymology_and_history , the original Carribean pit-based approach, not referring to modern BBQ on a grill) is entirely about hitting an internal temp 20% of the way and holding it for many hours.
There are dozens, if not hundreds, of things going on, physically and thermodynamically, during cooking. The Maillard reaction is not especially important. It is just one of several types of browning, and it only serves to improve the taste somewhat, not to cook your food through.
The most important types of chemical and physical processes during cooking (and by "cooking", I mean applying heat to food, not other modes of preparation) are the denaturing of proteins, the breaking down of cellulose and hemicellulose in plant cell walls, the hydration and gelatinatization of starch, the dissolving of different molecules (e.g. sugars) in your cooking liquid or in the "own juice" exiting the cells, and the changes in aggregate state of lipids (which are much more complicated than the three phase transitions you learned in high school, with their amorphous solid state and tendency to emulsify). This is a rough list of what makes noticeable changes to texture and digestibility; there are also tons of reactions which influence flavor, or are unnoticeable by the eater.
Also, you seem to think that chemical and physical reactions are quick. Maybe high school chemistry is also to blame for this; the teachers tend to demonstrate quick-and-spectacular ones; sitting around watching iron rust does not make for good teaching. In fact, many chemical reactions are slow, and some of those in cooking are also slow.
In many cases in the kitchen, slow cooking is even preferred. It creates a much nicer, rounder taste, and sometimes a more pleasant texture. Tamales are intentionally designed for slow-cooking; both the steaming (which is slower than boiling) and the wrapping in leaves slows down the heat transfer, and ensures that they can sit around for a long time at heat without overcooking. So yes, it is perfectly normal for them to need a few hours even for the reactions which would be quicker in other dishes, such as the starch gelatinization, which is responsible for the sensory transition from "doughy dough" to "cooked-through-dough".
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54974 | Getting seasoning into a roast
I'm getting into braising a lot of pork and beef roasts. Standard routine: pick cuts with more connective tissue, sear on all sides, then into the oven with seasonings, herbs, veggies, and liquid (I use broth; can't use wine or beer, or add a bunch of fat or carbs, for dietary reasons), and cook for several hours at about 325F.
I'm getting good results texture-wise, but the inside of meat is always bland. What techniques can I use to season the inside of the meat? It seems like if I could just get some salt in there it would help. With the pork, maybe brining is the way to go? Not sure if you can even brine a beef roast, though.
Very tangentially related, and a bit of a bummer: http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/39436/how-deeply-will-the-flavors-in-a-brine-penetrate-chicken-experiment-results/39437#39437
Sounds like you've over cooked the meat, try lower and slower.
I have only a partial answer that you may find interesting anyway.
In case of your beef recipes you might be able to use the chemical composition of the muscle fibers and they way they react to heating and cooling to your advantage. When you heat beef, the muscle fibers contract, pushing out some of the moisture. A phenomenon every cook will have encoutered.
A little used fact in kitchens is that this effect is reversible. Once let the meat cool back down to below the 60C temperature point the muscle fibers extend back out and "suck in" some of the stewing liquid that it is in contact with.
I use this effect very succesfully with lamb stews and espcially Rendang and other Indonesian stew dishes. It is often used as a partial explanation for why stews taste better the next day (Others provided here), but I have found that you can achieve similar results on the same day by rapidly force cooling the dish and then gently reheating before serving.
I must admit I'm not sure if you can use this effect to its full potential with larger cuts of meat, but I am quite sure it will help some with flavour penetration.
For Smaller meat items that i sear and then oven finish. I use a technique that I call cross flavoring. I get my wooden chopping board and drop some olive or vegetable oil on it.
then drop the spices directly into the oil. such as pepper corns, garlic, Chile & rosemary. work the seasoning into the chopping board. then push the seasoning mater to one side of the board leaving the infused oil.
add some salt to the board the rub the meat on the infused chopping board.
This method works well when you want to subtly flavour the meat when using things such as garlic and rosemary with out over powering the finished dish.
The main ways of getting flavoring deeper into a roast involve putting the flavoring below the surface.
You can stab the roast every couple of inches, and shove a sliver of garlic, or a paste of salt and herbs in each one.
You can also get giant syringes, so that you can inject a flavorful liquid into the roast.
Yet another option is to slice the roast open, pound it flat, and turn it into a roulade ... although you often use some other cut for that technique.
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40338 | Silicone utensils are changing the taste of my egg whites
I eat scrambled egg whites every morning, cooked over low or medium heat (they have better taste and texture over low, but sometimes I'm in a hurry) in a non-stick pan with cooking spray. I have to do it this way because I'm on a doctor-supervised protein-sparing modified fast and can't add fats.
I use a good quality silicone spatula to stir/scramble the egg whites, and it often seems like the spatula imparts a taste to them. It's the same taste I've noticed if I use that utensil to stir a a stew or sauce and then lick what I stirred off of the spatula. I've tried multiple silicone spatulas and have always had this problem.
Is there something I'm doing wrong, or a better utensil to use? It seems like I need something fairly flexible since it's scrambled eggs, and it needs to be somewhat soft since the pan is non-stick.
Are you sure it's not the cooking spray adding the flavor?
Doesn't seem to be. I use either butter-flavored, original (which is supposed to be no flavor I guess?), or olive-oil flavored Pam, and I steer clear of the cheaper brands (which may not make any difference anyway, but I pay the extra buck just in case). The taste persists no matter which one I use.
Both have an "off" flavor perceptible to some people, especially when cooking something as bland as egg whites. Can you try it in a microwave without any added lubricant, just to see? Pam type sprays have lecithin and propellants. Those things have a flavor, it's just that those flavors are so mild that most people can't detect them in actual food
By "both" do you mean cooking sprays?
Yep, all cooking sprays
Not only that, but cooking sprays aren't as fat-free as they would have us believe. The spray is almost all fat. Spray long enough and you might as well be sauteing in butter.
I agree that cooking an egg with the spray but without using a spatula is the best way to find out if it is really the silicone. Should it turn out that you are indeed sensitive to the silicone and not to the spray, you can just switch to wooden spatulas, they work OK with a non-stick pan. It isn't flexible, but I really don't understand why you'd need flexibility for scrambled eggs.
I have this problem as well! It’s not the spray, it’s the silicon utensils. The first time I noticed it was after trying silicon cupcake liners... I’ve had this problem with everything I’ve tried. No answer as to how to prevent it, unfortunately.
Assuming that your spatula and cookware is completely clean of any residual food, I strongly suspect that cooking spray is your issue. If I'm cooking something very bland (like egg white) I won't use cooking sprays for exactly that reason - I taste it too. Do you have a microwave? You may not need any oil at all, although scrambled egg (or egg white) in a microwave without oil can actually be a tricky technique (which I'm pretty sure is covered here). With a high quality, new, non-stick pan you might also be able to get away with a truly negligible amount of oil by dampening a paper towel with vegetable oil and wiping that on the surface. Mimicking the so-called-fat-free-sprays by using a paper towel dampened with vegetable oil might be a much better choice for you.
With a non-stick pan you don't need any oil if you are scrambelling them. Leave it out completely.
@GdD I agree, but egg whites love to stick. The tiniest amount of a truly neutral oil (not Pam) could save a lot of frustration, not to mention elbow grease.
If it is the silicone spatula, you can find utensils made of wood, plastic, or nylon that should be similarly gentle on your nonstick cookware. You can use just about anything to scramble eggs, so check for whisks, turners, flattish slotted spoons... anything that might be able to break up the egg in the pan.
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40368 | Powder to prevent foam in egg white protein?
I have a bunch of egg white protein powder to take as a supplement. Only when I mix it in a shaker bottle, it foams up. Reading the answers about souffles I got the idea that if the egg yolk prevents foaming, and that yolks contain lecithin--that must be what the soy lecithin is for in the commercial egg proteins which don't foam up at all. But that didn't work. What is a powder--natural if possible--that I can add so that it mixes like the store bought stuff?
Have you tried a bit of fat? Like a drop of vegetable oil?
@Jolenealaska I was hoping for something in powder form, so that I can prepare this all up front. Can fat come in a powder?
Yes it can, but I can't think of a "straight fat" in a powdered form at the moment. Check this out though http://www.molecularrecipes.com/techniques/converting-high-fat-liquids-powder/, at least in the meantime.
You may have less foamy results simply by mixing it by stirring rather than shaking.
I don't think that there can be a powder for that. The physical properties of a foam inhibitor will point to compounds which are unlikely to make a usable powder (too soft at room temperature). Not an answer, because maybe there is a chemist out there who knows the perfect class of molecules which is separate of the fats and waxes I am thinking of, and still inhibits foaming.
@Jeremy - fat can come in a powder - powdered butter is a thing, for example, used for camping or unrefrigerated storage - though I don't know if it will still work the same way on foaming.
You're looking for a "food grade" antifoam agent. A brief look at the linked search results shows antifoam powders look to be mostly silicone based. They may or may not work for your heavy protein foam.
Reading up on the silicone based antifoam powders it seems like something I can't do at home, i.e.: how do I ensure 5PPM? Is this something that commercial products don't have to list? The stuff I'm comparing it with has this ingredient list: Egg Albumen, Cocoa, Artificial Flavor, Lecithin, Sucralose.
@Jeremy are you using cocoa powder in yours? It may have enough fat to cut down the foam somewhat.
@sourd'oh, I am and though it helps, it is still super foamy. I have to drink it, then put more water to pick up all the foam. I usually stop there because I get lazy, but it is still foamy the second time. I also tried putting some olive oil as someone mentioned above, but that didn't do much.
You had the solution in your question. Add a hard boiled egg with your protein shake and blend it up in your blender. The egg yolk will lessen the foaming of the powder. It works, that's what I do, and I use 15 grams of egg white protein powder. Stay away from soy lecithin.
I put the protein powder in a 2 cup glass measuring cup. Then I add the water slowly, 1 or 2 Tbsp at a time, and stir whith a spoon. The egg white protein powder clumps as you stir, but keep adding water and stirring; it will eventually mix. This process still produces a little bit of foam, but not nearly so much as using a whisk.
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40382 | malted balls centers
How can make malted milk ball centers - not the chocolate covering? If I mix malted milk powder with any liquid it just melts into it. I don't have any way to compress the powder mechanically, which might work. There used to be pressed hard malted candies but I can't find them anymore.
The ingredients of Whoppers are:
SUGAR; CORN SYRUP; PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED PALM KERNEL OIL; WHEY (MILK); MALTED MILK (BARLEY MALT; WHEAT FLOUR; MILK; SALT; SODIUM BICARBONATE); COCOA; CONTAINS 2% OR LESS OF: RESINOUS GLAZE; SORBITAN TRISTEARATE; SOY LECITHIN; SALT; NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR; CALCIUM CARBONATE; TAPIOCA DEXTRIN
I'm guessing that the sugar, corn syrup, palm kernel oil, cocoa, glaze, and lecithin are in the chocolate coating. This leaves you with a few things to play with for the filling. The wheat flour could be adding some bulk and helping to hold the filling together. However!
Tapioca dextrin... the plot thickens! Tapioca dextrin is a filler made from cassava that has almost no flavor. It is used as a bulking agent in things like sauces and dressings, but it is also used as a binding agent. One of it's main functions is to hold medication together in pills, so that could easily also be holding malted milk powder together in the filling.
I'm not so sure about the "holding together" part. Generally, starches thicken but do not hold together, it is proteins which really bind. Also it is listed at the end, even after the flavor, so there really isn't enough of it to do anything, I could imagine it being dusted on the surface the things are put to cool or similar. The whey can bind, depending on how it is used, and the palm oil can be emulsified with the malted milk for a nice smooth paste.
@rumtscho I added a link explaining the binding. Wikipedia also has a page on dextrins showing several uses as binders. Starches in food are not frequently used to hold things together, but outside of the food industry it's pretty common (wheatpaste, etc). I also don't think the palm oil is binding the center because as you said, it would be a paste. The oil wouldn't dry to leave the centers crisp.
Here ya go: http://creativeepicure.blogspot.com/2012/02/homemade-malted-milk-balls.html
4 egg whites
1/8 teaspoon Cream of Tarter
1/2 Cup White Sugar
1 Cup Confectioners Sugar
4 Tbsp Cocoa Powder
5 Tbsp Malt Powder
2 Tbsp Turbinado Sugar
Have fun!
eek, a recipe!!!
I don't think the traditional (Whoppers type) malted milk ball center is meringue based. It is much harder and crunchier than that.
It is not a meringue. You heat the sugar, corn syrup, milk and malted barley(malted milk powder) together to 300 degrees. Hard candy stage. Remove from heat and add sodium bicarbonate (baking soda). It will rise 2-3 times in volume. Do not over stir. Poor onto a sill pad. And let cool for 10-20 min. It will have a light airy and crunchy texture. Break into pieces and coat with chocolate.
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40437 | Rocky road seized up?
I tried to make rocky road and stuck exactly to the recipe which called for butter and syrup to be added to melted chocolate..but very single time I added the butter to the chocolate it just seized up? It's ended up as very expensive rocky road as I tried it several times all with same result. I ended up just using chocolate. What did I do wrong?
Did you control for temperature with a candy thermometer? If not, this is the most likely problem. If yes, what temperature did you use? If your recipe does not specify temperatures, it is no good, find another one.
Please see also: http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/3012/solutions-for-when-heating-chocolate-and-butter-doesnt-mix-well?rq=1 Note the correctiosn and clarifications I have written to the accepted answer. chocolate siezing (if that is what is happening) is due to insufficient water being added. You either have to add no water, or enough to overcome the seizing and smooth it out again, and both butter and syrup contain water.
Thank you. No temp was specified. So I will look for a different recipe. It was in a children's book so I was hoping it would be simple as I was cooking with my daughter. The chocolate seizing answer was very helpful too.
Every recipe I looked up said pretty much the same thing. You have to make sure that the melted chocolate does not touch any water or steam, otherwise the chocolate will seize up.
Recipe: "Melt white chocolate in a microwave safe bowl, in the microwave by heating on high for 1 minute, stir with a metal spoon then heat for bursts of 30 seconds stirring in between bursts until melted. Make sure that anything that touches the chocolate (bowl, spoon etc) is really dry otherwise the chocolate will seize up (so don't use a wooden spoon coz the wood may have moisture in it!)"
Recipe: "Melt the chocolate in a bowl placed over a pot of gently simmering water. Don’t let water or steam come into contact with the chocolate as the chocolate will seize. Stir until melted."
I found this recipe (with butter and syrup) and it uses chips instead of the normal chocolate: "Before you make your shopping list, please note that there are three measures of white chocolate - I used white chocolate melts for the top because they are whiter and easier to melt than normal white chocolate, which can seize up if you don't treat if very gently"
There are many more similar recipes and all of them mention the water not touching chocolate bit to avoid seizing.
In the recipe described by the OP, they are already adding butter and syrup to the chocolate, so the option to not add any water has already been lost, as both of those ingredients contain water.
Try making it with butter (or marge) syrup and cocoa (no chocolate). Much easier as no problems with chocolate congealing, and much tastier!
Maybe you melted the choc too quick (your microwave might be more powerful than the recipe writer's). I prefer to melt choc as slowly as possible so it stays runny. Have a saucepan of hot water on the stove on the lowest heat with a heatproof bowl sat on the pan, within which the choc can melt slowly along with the butter and syrup.
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40451 | If a recipe calls for Pectin NH can I use other pectin?
I am making this yule log for christmas which requires pectin NH for the glaze. Can I use any other normal pectin instead of the pectin NH and have the same glossy finish?
See related: http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/24205/what-is-the-difference-between-pectin-and-pectin-nh
No, you can't.
Different pectins set under different conditions. Some require calcium, others require a high percentage of sugar. All have their own optimal pH range.
When a recipe is optimised for one type of pectin, other types won't set properly. Normally, you cannot substitute in any direction.
The linked question from Jolenealaska's comment provides further information.
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40593 | transporting roast beef
I know how to roast beef in the correct way and let it rest before slicing, without wrapping it and making it sweat etc. etc.
My question is though that I'm roasting beef to take to a friends for dinner and I'm worried that after cooking if I transport it in a tupperware or something while warm, it will sweat and dry out and maybe even over cook. Do you think the best option after resting is to slice the entire thing and let it cool before transporting then just serving it cold at the other end?! Reheating the meat the other end will obviously over cook it...
How long must it be held before service (including the trip time)? And how large is the roast?
I guess shortest time to serve is about 2hours. The roast is 1.4kg
Answered all my questions and as a results avoiding any stress related to traveling with this roast today!!! Merry Christmas my Christmas angels from 2013!!!
It sounds like there's going to be some time between when it is cooked to when it is served, in which case the last thing you'd want to do is pre-carve it as it will dry out. Beef should rest after roasting, some chefs recommend roasting it as long as you cooked it, so don't worry if it takes 2-3 hours.
The important thing is to make sure you keep it warm and as moist as possible, so what I would do is wrap it in foil and put it in the bottom part of a tupperware container. The foil will keep it warm while the container will catch any drips. You can put the container at the bottom of a bag for transport, just keep the bag open. It's not going to overcook as long as you take it out 10-15 degrees F below the target temperature.
Just today I made a 2 rib roast and rested it by wrapping it in foil. The temperature climbed about 12 degrees after I took it out, and an hour and a half later it was still warmer than when I took it out of the oven, so the method works.
But immediately after cooking I want to 'tent' it in foil, right? Not wrap, as that will cause sweating, drying out & possibly over cooking..... So are you saying I should rest it first at home (what would be the minimum time?) and then 'wrap' in foil? And the tupperware should be lidded or not lidded? Thanks.
Or are you saying to bring it out of the oven early and wrap it immediately in foil to finish cooking?.... First problem, I don't have a thermometer! (I know I know I know I should but no time to get one now!).... So considering I was going to cook my 1.3kg roast for 1hr20mins @ 180c, how early would you recommend removal from the oven & wrapping? Thanks
You are correct, you take it out early and let it finish cooking while wrapped. No matter whether you wrap a roast or not it will finish cooking after you take it out. Wrapping it means that it will cook a bit more in the middle. I would say take it out 15 minutes early for a roast that size.
Brilliant! Thank you so much! I actually ended up taking the roast out 20mins early. I then wrapped it in 3 layers of foil & transported it in a well insulated but open Tupperware. Approximately an hour later I unwrapped the roast (which had expelled quite a bit of juice - worryingly) & let it rest in the open air but tented in foil for another 30mins or so..... I then carved it to find the most beautifully, perfectly & evenly cooked juicy medium pink flesh inside! It was absolutely perfect & everyone enjoyed it immensely! Thank you!
Great, glad it all came out well for you!
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120608 | When should I use a rounded balloon whisk attachment vs a bulb-shaped balloon whisk attachment
Many electric whisks come with two balloon whisk attachments: A bulb-shaped whisk and a rounded whisk. Is there a specific reason I should prefer one or the other? Both seem to yield similar results.
Honestly, I'd just use the first one you find in your drawer.
@GdD Just don't mix them (pun intended)
This is a little speculative, but I'd use the taller one for larger depths, and the more spherical one for shallower work.
You could use the elongated one for everything, except if you have a small amount of something stiff, when the longer wires might flex too much. The shorter one might splash a little less in a shallow container as well
But I've never had both for the same mixer - my Kenwood stand mixer has a different shape again, closer to the ball shape but tapered at the bottom, to better follow the shape of the bowl, while handheld ones have always been the tall sort.
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40880 | How do I clean burnt milk from a glass-ceramic stove?
I have a glass-ceramic stove (Ceran), and I did spill some milk on it, which of course instantly burnt itself onto the surface. It seems resistant to any mild way of removing it, and I'm not sure how harsh I can try to remove it without damaging the glass-ceramic surface.
What is the easiest way to remove such burnt milk from a glass-ceramic stove without damaging it?
Soak with full strength Ammonia in a sponge or paper towel for about half an hour. Then try a Scotch scouring pad, their green may be soft enough to not scratch. Full strength ammonia is hard on the lungs, try to not breath it in.
There are a couple things you can try. I'll list them from most conservative to
Let it cool. Squeeze some cleaning paste on it, and cover with a
paper towel. Wet the towel, let it soak, then buff it with the paper
towel or a non-scratch scouring pad.
Magic Eraser-type melamine foam sponge
Plastic razor blade scraper, sometimes called "Safe Scraper" sold
at hardware and automotive stores
Metal razor blade scraper
I tried the cerama bryte and wasn't budging. Then I put down baking soda with enough water to make a paste and it came right up very easily with paper towel. I am not sure I have ever gotten my stove top that clean. I will use only baking soda from now on. I was amazed!!
Thanks for advice with the baking soda paste to clean spilled milk off glass top stove. It works wonders. Also didn't take long to wipe off. Have to use a little extra elbow grease. But, it's gone.
I used the baking soda+water paste too and scrubbed it off just after applying with the rougher side of those blue sponges and it came off great; thanks!!
After looking at these fine answers and going to Safeway during the COVID19 debacle I couldn't find Baking Soda. What I did see was Mr Clean Magic Eraser...worked great and quickly. Its a white sponge that you wet, squeeze on the spot and then wipe off with a little elbow grease.
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40919 | How can I make bread within one and a half hour?
Since we have to make bread in cooking class, there is only one and a half hour. Should I use more time to knead, or rise?
Consider "Bread in a bag", http://allrecipes.com/recipe/bread-in-a-bag/ it helps overcome peoples fear of kneading.
Does it have to be a yeast bread? There are plenty of great quickbreads out there.
Yet another. http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Bread-in-a-Bag
If it is a cooking class, they should be providing you a recipe suitable for the short time period available. Some foccacia type breads can be made after only a 20-30 minute rise.
While there are plenty of quick breads, you could also prepare one batch an hour before class, set it aside and then start a new batch 'in front' of the class and switch them out during the class.
Do you have bread baking Oven I mean there is a special kind of bread baking oven is coming... in which you just need to pour ingredients and it will automatically make bread with in half to two hour according to the color you want..
Are you instructing this class? Or are you a student with the bread as an assignment? It's an important distinction, not made clear in your question.
I have made bread at home for 45 years, that's my only experience, I have found that if you use very fresh yeast, allow the bread to rest for a few minutes after you get most of the flour in, and don't keep adding flour once you begin to knead, leave the bread slightly sticky, it will rise faster. there are single rise recipes, I have one using yogurt ,but if I am in a hurry, I add extra yeast.
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40949 | Unsightly chicken soup
The chicken in my chicken soup turns into little stringy pieces--i.e. it doesn't stay in nice bite-sized pieces. It happens in chicken/rice and chicken/noodle recipes. Is there a way of avoiding this?
It sounds like you are badly overcooking the chicken. Try first cooking the browned chicken pieces in the broth for a very short time, just until done, then getting them out and cooking the rest of the soup in the broth. Add the chicken pieces back to the pot after you have turned the stove off.
The above paragraph assumes that you are cutting white meat (chicken breast) into neat bites. I can't imagine this to work for dark meat (chicken thighs), but if you are using dark meat, you should cook it for a long time and live with the fact that it looks ugly. White meat gets tough and dry when overcooked, besides falling apart into strings; dark chicken meat is tough if it is just cooked, it only gets pleasantly soft after it has reached the stage where it shreds by itself.
Cooked long enough in broth, even dark meat will have its gelatin and flavor dissolve into the liquid and become stringy.
Yes, don't cook the chicken the entire time in the soup. Any chicken that is simmered long enough to create broth or stock is going to be very well cooked, and will shred easily.
Instead, near the end of the cooking, add fresh diced chicken, that poaches in the broth. You can also cook it separately, and add it at the time of service.
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42121 | Soaking millet before making ogi
I have a recipe for making Ogi - soured mixed millet, that calls for soaking whole millet grains, then blending them, then souring them with whey for three days. I'm wondering why is there the first soaking, is it for reducing phytate content, that wouldn't be reduced if the millet is actually blended or grinded?
Even if it does reduce the content of phytates, I doubt that this is the reason why the recipe was made that way - traditionally cooks had no way of measuring phytates (and didn't know what they are!) There are many simpler alternative explanations - for example, if all you have is mortar and pestle, it is much easier to "blend" soaked grains than dry ones.
To reduce phytates and to soften the outer coating. The whey, if acid whey, also reduces phytates even more. If it calls for soaking for two days or so, it is to germinate the grain/seed.
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43775 | Hamburger meat falling apart
I ran the meat through mincer once, formed burger approx. 3cm high, seasoned it, oiled from one side and put it in very heated pot and I put the lid on it. When I was turning it the other side down, it started to fall apart.
What do I need to change in my process to keep the hamburger whole? I guess the flaw can be that the meat is not enough oily, it didn't taste very oily. But the meat that I have isn't oily, will adding some external oil fix it?
beside the duplicate, also see the other question from the "related" list, http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/826/how-to-stop-meatballs-falling-apart-when-frying
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55553 | Butter clarifying mixing mistake
During the making of clarified butter, I mistakenly mixed the oil and protiens in the pot with a wooden spoon. So I have an emulsion now. I was thinking, that the oil and the rest will separate anyway, but it is not the case, it is just an emulsion.
Is there a way, how to still separate the oil and the rest, so I can grab the oil and have clarified butter?
Sounds like magic butter to me. Warming it back up should make it split again if not... I've got no idea it's never happened to me before.
Agreed, it was an emulsion when you started and you broke it by heating. You re-emulsified, so you're just back where you started. If you melt it again, it should be fine.
after it become a emulsion , did you leave the pan in low heat to separate ?
Try straining it out through a fine mesh strainer.
The two comments above are correct in a certain way and incorrect in another way. This happened to me 2 nights ago. I made a desert that needed 4 cups of clarified butter for a specific desert. I forgot what I was doing and last night when I got to making it I stirred it up after taking off the foam off the top, then saw the the white milky part and more junk. I decided to reheat that one and start another one "just in case". After melting, cooling and I thought everything was ready, boy was I wrong. By the way, I was taught you do this on a low heat not fast and furious. So after hours, the one that was messed up was still messed up and the "new one" was perfect" and I treated as such. My desert came out perfect with those 4 cups of clarified butter. The bad one I clean up some more, got some more milky stuff off and more foam and used it for another one of my other deserts. It turned out great. JUST AS A NOTE. CLARIFIED BUTTER DOES NOT HAVE TO BE PUT IN THE FRIDGE, IT CAN STAY OUT AND IT DOES NOT BURN. MY ENTIRE LIFE MOST OF MY FAMILY HAVE USED THIS BUT... IT NEEDS TO BE GOOD QUALITY BUTTER, SWEET, UNSALTED BUTTER.
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49979 | Filter out sand from amaranth and teff
I'm having sand in the cooked amaranth and teff if the package has some in it. Is there a way, how to filter it out before cooking it? Or I just need to find a proper brand?
Related? http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/21424/remediation-methods-for-rice-contaminated-with-broken-glass
If the sand is significantly smaller than the grains, rinse the grain in an appropriately sized sieve. If the sand is denser than the grain, perhaps the grain would float and the sand would sink in a large amount of water?
If neither of those ideas work, then you may need to find another brand.
Yes, good idea. Amaranth floats like crazy, I have trouble keeping it down in the water when I cook it.
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42219 | Rye flour in starter
I have a recipe for sourdough starter, that says I should use rye flour. But which is that? I have grinded my own flour from whole rye berries. There is a lot of bigger parts from the outer layer of the grain in the starter. Will it work? Should I sift the flour before using it?
Actually, you should leave it as it is. The outer coating has a much higher concentration of natural yeasts which is what you want. You'll have a better chance of getting a successful starter if you use all of the ground berry.
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43943 | Beef parts interchangeability
I see in many recipes with beef meat concrete part of the cow in the ingredients. I'm always wondering, what would happen if I put the meat I actually have and not the exact one. Is it that different?
These are the parts of beef: neck, brisket, chuck, rib, sirloin, tenderloin, flank, shankle, round. Are any of them interchangeable, so it is safe to replace one type of meat with another? Are there any general on-this-site-explainable modifications, that need to be applied when using different kind of meat?
There is one major aspect that controls what type of cooking properties an individual cut of beef has: the amount of connective tissue. This is what groups the various cuts into two basic categories:
Slow cooking cuts
Slow cooking cuts have a lot of connective tissue, which means they are tough but flavorful.
As a general rule (there are exceptions), they benefit from slow cooking techniques which provide the time (usually several hours or more) for the connective proteins in the meat (collagen) to break down and be hydrated into gelatin, rendering them sumptuous and delicious.
Historically, these were often the cheaper cuts including shank, ribs, chuck, brisket and tail.
Typical preparation methods include braising, barbecuing, slow roasting, smoking, and grinding (into sausage or hamburger).
Fast cooking cuts
Fast cooking cuts have little connective tissue, so if not overcooked, they can be tender and delicious (although more delicate of flavor than a high connective tissue cut).
As a general rule, they benefit from fast, high heat cooking methods which develop flavor on the surface through browning, but leave the interior rare to medium rare, thus retaining tenderness.
These were the more expensive cuts including the surloin, tenderloin, and center cut steaks.
Typical cooking methods include sauteeing, griddling, pan frying, sauteeing and so on.
The outliers
There is one small group of outiers, the fast cooking tougher cuts, including flank, skirt, and "london broil." Today, these are extremely popular for fajitas, at least in the US.
These cuts have high flavor, and very distinct banding or grain, but little fat.
If they are cooked rapidly, and cut against the grain, they can be served medium-rare to medium and have a lot of flavor without being overly tough although they will never be as delicate as some of the true fast cooking cuts.
Hoof and Horn
You will see that the general characterization butchers often use is that the steak is more tender the farther you get from the hoof or the horn.
This is because muscles the animal used heavily (like its neck and shoulder muscles to hold its own weight up and walk around, or its tail constantly flicking) have a great deal of connective tissue and become tougher.
Less used muscles such the tenderloins along the spine stay tender.
In this diagram (from Wikipedia):
almost all of the tender cuts come from the loin and surloin. Some of the best slow cooking cuts come from the chuck, shank and round.
Interchangability
In general, you can exchange cuts from the same group with a relatively good degree of success.
So using a rib eye steak instead of a tenderloin for fast grilling will be quite successful; using a chuck instead of a shank for stew will have a good outcome. But trying to change a filet for a shank will not.
Cooking and Presentation
Cooking method and presentation do have a important role to play.
Fast cooking cuts cooked well done will become tough, dry, and almost stringy.
Some tougher cuts can be tenderized mechanically (by beating them with a meat mallet, or using a tenederizer that creates many small cuts). This is typical of the so-called cube steak or swiss steak. At the extreme end, these cuts can be ground for very flavorful sausage or hamburger.
Another example is the round, which is often good for roasting, if sliced thinly across the grain which helps maximize the tenderness.
Substitution
So to substitute one cut for another, you want to select one from the same basic category, and cut to approximately the same thickness (for your application).
See also:
What makes a moist steak (or roast)?
Dude. Beautiful.
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40960 | Run gas when outside of home
I have some recipes, that took quite long to cook, for example 8 hours. I want to start cooking those in the morning, so it is ready after I come from work in the evening. Is it safe to cook it on the gas? I put it on the smallest flame, so the amount of gas is very low. Are there generally any risks of some accident, or is the amount of gas so low, that when I open a window, the gas will be dissolved (in case that it would stop burning at some point in the process of cooking)?
Have you considered using a slow cooker (Crock Pot) instead?
This is one of the principal reasons a Crock Pot exists.
I would say that there is pretty much always some risk in having an open flame in your house with nobody around to watch it.
Assuming your're talking about natural gas (methane) then unlike some other gases such as LPG it is less dense than air and will tend to float up. While in the case of a leak much would probably go out the window I wouldn't consider leaving it unattended 100% safe and can think of a few situations that could occur:
The remaining gas could accumulate between the top of the window and the ceiling. You probably won't be able to smell it but air turbulence from opening doors etc could cause it to circulate downwards and cause a hazard. Things like a small spark in a light or ceiling fan could ignite it as well.
Gas regulators can fail open, so as the regulator ages or if defective a small surge in the gas pressure for example might cause the flame to become much larger than you set. That would't be a good thing if you're not around to keep your eye on it.
Instead I'd probably go with a slow cooker as a few people have suggested in comments. It will vary by brand / size but my slow cooker uses 120 watts on the low setting. Over the eight hours of cooking that would use around 1kWh of power, costing under 20 cents for most of the United States so they are quite economical as well.
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43410 | Bottled coconut oil
I order coconut oil and it is bottled. In the room temperature, it is solid, so I cannot reach the contents of the bottle. Is there a way, how to get that oil? I don't want to spoil it.
Put the bottle in a hot water bath, with tepid water at about 100 F (38 C), and it will melt so you can pour it.
Depends on the kind of bottle. If it is wide-mouth, like a milk bottle, you can use either an ice cream spoon (its bowl is as large as a teaspoon, but the handle is ca. 20 cm long), or a warmish silicone brush. The second method is also recommended for coconut oil in jars when you need to reapply very little fat to a hot griddle (or a more specialized version like a waffle maker) after each item.
If it is close-mouth, SAJ's advice applies. Oils don't start to lose quality until they get to very high temperatures, and coconut oil melts long before that. You won't be spoiling it by melting.
Set the jar in warm water or in the sun for a minute or two. The heat should soften it and make it accessible.
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42825 | Right stock color
I did beef stock for two times, with more-or-less same ingredients/steps, but the resulting color was different. For the first time, the color was amber, for the second time, it was brownish.
What does participate in the color of the stock and what is the "right" color of the stock, that signalizes, that the result is successful?
The differences between the stocks, that I can tell, were:
There was a little meaty part in the second stock, the first was just bones and joints
The second had a bunch of thyme
The second was simmering for ~36 hours, the first for ~22.
There is no single right color for stock. The color will depend on:
How deeply you have roasted the ingredients (which makes the stock more brown) before extracting the stock; and
How concentrated or reduced the stock is
If you have a good flavor, your stock is good.
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42029 | Honey in porridge
Honey degrades in temperatures over 40°C. When I cook the porridge in the morning, it definitely has more that 40°C. If I mix in the porridge a tablespoon of honey just before eating it, I guess the porridge can have 70°C or so, will it survive such a short exposition to the higher than 40°C temperature without degradation?
What kind of degradation are you talking about? Losing flavor?
@Jefromi losing nutritional quality. I have an information, that heating the honey degrades it. I'm trying to find, where is the threshold.
Okay, well, rumtscho's answer probably applies, but you'd better figure out what substance(s) you're actually worried about degrading, because "nutritional quality" isn't really well-defined or within the scope of our site. Generally when you see claims like that, they're based on pretty sketchy evidence about nutritional benefits, and we don't want to get into those debates.
There is no single well-defined idea of "degradation" of honey. I guess there will be some temperature above which it stops being honey, but that be a charring temperature somewhere above 200 celsius.
This doesn't mean that honey stays the same all the time. It is very complex, and some compounds can certainly get destroyed when heated. Some are even fragile enough to get destroyed without heating, just from staying around.
If some author has decided that some compound is especially important for some reason (taste, health, whatever) and has measured that it gets destroyed at 40 celsius, than it will get destroyed no matter if you heat it in porridge or not. If this compound is important to you for some reason, don't put honey in your porridge, it will be destroyed there too.
But if for you, hot porridge with flavor-degraded honey tastes better than cold porridge with full-flavor honey, or hot porridge without honey, then the flavor degradation of the porridge as a whole obviously happens when you don't add the honey to the hot porridge, so it doesn't make sense to stop doing it.
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41513 | Foam in beef stock
I'm making the beef stock and after the stock has been brought to the boil, the recipe calls for skimming the foam. What is in the foam? Why it is bad and must be skimmed?
The foam is accumulated proteins—mostly albumen—that comes off of the meat and bones.
The main reason to remove it is that it is unsightly and unpleasant aesthetically. It isn't unsafe, just ugly.
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41035 | Lemon zest in large volumes
I need a LOT of organic lemon zest. Is there a commercial machine that can zest faster and better than a hand held zester? How do the dried zest companies produce their lemon zest? There's gotta be an efficient way.
Thank you,
Dina
Frequently gourmet/high end grocery stores will carry frozen lemon zest, which would save you a lot of time. If you contact a restaurant produce supplier, they might sell you some as well.
Thank you for your response. We manufacture cookies and I am going need a lot on a regular basis. I would like to find out what kind of machine they use so I can purchase one. Any ideas... Thanks!!!
There is a rotating zester that works kind of like a rotating peeler, but if you're zesting the lemons yourself, you'll also have a lot of lemons to deal with. Unless you also have a use for tons of lemon juice, most people find it easier to just get the zest.
@sourd'oh Big Lemonade Stand!
Boyajian Pure Lemon Oil can (sometimes) be used as a substitute for lemon zest when what you're after is really just the oil and the aromatics. It's a good product in my opinion, and a little goes a long way.
What is "a lot"? Have you tried just cutting strips of zest off with a knife (preferrably chisel ground and very sharp) and practice and mincing them (which can give you a more intense zest because you can zero in on the perfect thickness, and less oil is just sprayed off than with grater/zester tools)?
A Google search for "lemon zest machine" and "lemon zest machine commercial" found this and this. Both will surely zest faster than a hand zester, but probably will not zest
better than a hand zester. The caveat of zesting a lot of fruit in house is that you will then have a lot of peeled fruit that you will also need to find a use for. This frequently works well for places making custards or fruit curds where they will need both the zest and juice. If only the zest is needed, it would be much easier to just get the zest from a produce company or frozen food supplier.
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69416 | To finely spray a thin layer of warm liquid Coconut Oil?
Online, I've been seeing these metal, glass, poly/ plastic bottles that are said to keep & spray cooking/ edible oils.
Let's assume the oil is warm & liquid, not cold & frozen, which happens at times.
Does anyone here have any actual experience with using them? Are they able to create a Fine Spray of small droplets and hence ability to leave a well spread layer on incident surface.
If so, would it work well long term for using unrefined all natural cold pressed Coconut Oil, given its consistency, viscosity and stickiness.
Also, at times I use a warm/ hot water bath, in a larger vessel to warm the oil in its container for liquid usage. Any other ideas/ techniques so that I can do a warm liquid spray of it.
And what would / is its cleaning & maintenance routine be like?
(this is more a comment, as I haven't actually done what you're asking, but based on what I know ...)
I've used two types -- there are ones that you pressurize and then it works like an aerosol, and there are ones that are just your standard pump sprayers like you'd have on bottles of cleaning solutions where each trigger pull pumps a bit of liquid..
I prefer the pressurized ones, although over time they can get gummed up and may require a thorough warm soak to clean so they continue spraying well. I also prefer the clear ones, as you can see what the level is inside and orientation of the feed tube as you get towards the end.
... but I don't know how well it would work with coconut oil if you're in a cold climate. At the very least, I would treat it like a can of spray paint, and after using it, turn the container open and hold the spray button down until it's only blowing air. This way, you won't leave (as much) oil in the areas where it'd be difficult to melt it.
I'd also look for one of the sprayers with a filter at the end of it, but that doesn't mean that you could just warm up the bottom of the oil to use it -- you'd need to warm up the sides sufficiently for the air pressure to transfer and you'd need to make sure that the intake tube in the center is warmed up. (and the spraying mechanism, so it doesn't seize as you try to use it).
Which oils have you used them with? Where/ what kind of weather?
I am confused. In the first paragraph you say that there is a type "that you pump up", and another which is "standard pump", and in the second one you say "I prefer the pump ones" - maybe you could use a different term to distinguish them better?
@rumtscho : sorry ... I prefer the pressurized ones. I'll try to make it more clear.
@AlexS : olive oil in the mid-atlantic US. And I don't heat my kitchen in the winter, so it can get chilly in there but generally not below 50°F
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41636 | Using the bone from a spiral cut ham
I'm making pork stock for the first time from raw pork bones I bought at the store, and I just opened a spiral cut ham to cut it up. Can I put the cooked ham bone in with the cooking pork bones, since it's all pork anyway?
Also, in some cultures they consume whatever is soft on meat bones such as the marrow. Is this safe to do with the ham bone, or is it not cooked enough?
If it's a "ham" it's already fully cooked, so there is no danger in eating any part of it. If it's a leg of pork, that's a wholly different animal: different texture, flavor, everything, and...not to belabor the point...it's raw.
That being said, you can lump all the bones in the pot together, no problem. You'll get better results though if you cook the raw bones for a while in the oven first: 425 for ~15 minutes, or until they start to brown a bit. Not only will you lose a little fat, but the crispy carcinogens of the maillard reaction will add more body to your stock.
Is that what "roasting" the bones is, putting it in the oven?
@JFA: Yep. Or you can stick 'em on the grill, or whatever. Typically if you're going to stew something, you sear it a little first. It's the same reason you brown pot roast before you slow cook it.
It is a leg of fully cooked ham, it's one of those spiral cut jobs you get at Kroger's that comes premade.
But still, try roasting (baking) the ham bone before you simmer it. Do that with all of your bones, raw or cooked. The browning really does add to the stock. When you do simmer let it go long and slow. That one bone holds a lot of flavor. I you do it right you should end up with a rich, deeply colored, gelatinous stock. In my opinion, the best part of buying a ham.
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41729 | Substitutions for Wheat Flour in Pie Crust
I am trying not to use wheat flour in my pie crust but nothing seems to come close to the flaky crust I get with wheat. I tried all oat and cashew flour and the crust was more like a crumbly crust if that makes sense. Like a cookie. Tasted great but not that flaky crust that I want. This morning I am going to try a combo with quinoa flour, oat flour, cashew flour and whatever else I can find in the pantry. The quinoa flour is new to me, can anyone tell me how this might bake up? Flaky, heavy, crumbly? The recipe I use is 2.5 cups flour, 2 sticks butter .5 cup + 3tbs ice water and 1 tsp salt. Or if anyone has a recipe that uses all butter and does not use wheat would you share it? Thank you!!!
Are you trying to avoid wheat in particular, or gluten in general? Because it is the gluten that makes flaky crust flaky, you are never going to get an exact copy of the texture with substitutes.
I agree with rumtscho. Gluten actually forms sheets when dough is mixed, and this lets you get a flaky texture. Without it the crumbly texture is about the best you can expect.
I'm going to assume that the primary question is "How can I make a flaky pie crust without wheat flour?" Note that recipe requests are off-topic on this site, but substitution questions are on-topic.
The key thing which wheat flour gives you is gluten. Quinoa is gluten-free, so it's not going to help you much. However, there are ways of making gluten-free breads, cakes, etc. The first hit which Google gives me uses cornstarch, xanthan gum, and gluten-free flours. The second uses arrowroot starch, xanthan, and gluten-free flours. Xanthan isn't the only way of substituting for gluten, but it seems promising.
Xanthan and other polysaccharid goos don't create the same texture as gluten. They are enough to hold together cakes, but if the OP wants a flaky crust and not a one-piece-of-foamed-rubber crust, I doubt that xanthan is a good substitution. Still, could be worth trying if there are no other suggestions. And +1 for recognizing that the culprit is the missing gluten.
Use white spelt flour. It comes out flakier than even regular white flour. It’s amazing!
Spelt is wheat (one of several species) and contains gluten. Your advice is wrong, and if the OP is catering for someone with a gluten intolerance, it's dangerous.
@JanDoggen, spelt is a member of the genus Triticum, which is the wheat genus. It's sometimes considered a subspecies of common wheat. Spelt is wheat sums this up. The answer you link is interesting but a list that doesn't have space to go into those details. My downvote stays, and I'm very sparing with them. As to gluten: that bit came out of the responses not the Q, and the OP never replied, so you're right there. But it's a logical conclusion as indicated by the responses, so should be addressed if proposing a different gluten-containing flour.
At no point does the asker specify that they want to avoid gluten, just wheat. Some consumers consider the "modern" wheat strains "bad", but will accept the "older" types like spelt. (Not that we'd discuss health philosophies here.) So imho, the answer is not wrong per se.
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42048 | Best way to impart rum flavor in caramel candies?
I have a caramel candy recipe that uses spiced honey instead of corn syrup that I really love. I also have a caramel syrup recipe that uses rum and it was a huge hit with the family. I am hoping to merge the two and make a spiced caramel candy that has rum flavor.
I saw a recipe that called for 1/4 cup of Rum in its recipe, but I was afraid to add too much moisture to a recipe with honey in it (especially since the reviews for this particular recipe complained a lot about the caramels not setting properly), so I tried adding 2-3 tablespoons of rum during the initial heating of the sugar and honey. They turned out well as far as firmness goes but the rum seemed to evaporate and leave no flavor behind.
Second attempt I tried adding a teaspoon of strong, dark spiced rum at the end after taking the whole batch off the heat, much like you would vanilla extract, but yet again there was no flavor left. This time they also turned out a bit soft.
I guess I'm wondering... is there a better way to do this, or should I just use a rum extract instead? Do you have any experience adding rum or other alcohol flavors to candy?
Thanks so much for your time!
Your best bet is to use rum extract, especially one designed for candy making, and to add it only after the sugar (or honey) syrup comes to temperature.
The extract is going to have a much stronger flavor than actual rum. You will not need to dilute your syrup base to get a good flavor.
Adding it at the end minimizes the amount of volatile flavor lost to evaporation.
I had no idea there were extracts designed for candy making in particular. Thank you for explaining when and why; this was very helpful. :)
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42053 | What is the shelf-life of home-made tomato sauce?
My husband made home-made tomato sauce two years ago that we still have on the shelf. It's stored in air tight mason jars and smells fine. Can we still eat this?
Were the jars vacuum sealed in any way when you put them in the jars? Was the vacuum still there when you opened them?
Homemade tomato sauce CAN last two years, it doesn't mean or guarantee however that this particular jar is good.
I would be very wary of that sauce, despite its good smell. For full disclosure, I am extremely conservative when it comes to food safety and shelf life, but here is some information that I found compelling:
WRT to average time any commercial tomato sauce can last on the shelf, a quick answer can be inferred by using this site:
http://www.eatbydate.com/vegetables/fresh-vegetables/spaghetti-sauce-shelf-life-expiration-date/
It states that commercial sauce has a shelf life of about 1 year past the "eat-by" date. Your sauce, of course, has no such date, but assuming an eat-by date of about 1 year past bottling is probably pushing it. So, even a commercial product is probably on the edge of your 2 year scenario.
From a home-preparation POV, if you used the boiling-water method to preserve the sauce, I would say no, don't eat it. The pH associated with most spaghetti sauces (~5.0) is rarely low enough for the boiling-water method to be workable. Pressure-canning is an option (and if your sauce had meat or any meat products in it pressure canning is the ONLY option). If you pressure-canned, then I still think you're on the edge, but it's less scary to me.
Here's a link to a good article on that subject.
http://foodinjars.com/2010/08/canning-101-why-you-cant-can-your-familys-tomato-sauce/
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45556 | 3 tier steamer: Will chillies in the bottom tier make veg in the other levels spicy?
I was wondering if anybody had tried this or if it's even possible, but I thought I would ask before failing miserably and wasting good ingredients. Is it possible to place strong tasting ingredients, eg chillies, ginger, garlic etc, into the bottom of a 3 tier steamer for the sole purpose of infusing the veg in the other tiers with the flavors as the steam rises through?
If anyone has tried this or knows the answer please let me know! :)
I wouldn't rely on steam to spread flavors through food. If you put chilis and ginger in one tier and meat/veg in the other tiers you will get meat and veggies with maybe, possibly a hint of chili and ginger. Many flavor compounds are oil based, and oil and water don't mix, so you aren't going to get the steam and vapor carrying your flavors around for you. Some of the oils may get airborne, but the majority of the flavor will stay with the foods.
If you want flavor transfer in a steamer you'll need to have the food in direct contact. Sliced chilis and garlic placed on top of a piece of fish will transfer some flavors to the fish, but it's better to contain them by placing them in between 2 pieces of fish/vegetables/meat, or wrapping them up in foil or wax paper.
Alternately you make a sauce separately and put it on the steamed ingredients after cooking.
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42420 | Frozen canned soup
I recently moved, and during the process I stored some things (canned soup for one) in a non temperature-controlled storage unit. As you know this winter has been science fiction cold, and the cans froze.
A while after the move, I decided to have some soup. It had been more than enough time for it to thaw, and the can wasn't cold. However when I dumped it out, the consistency was was ... well ... wrong. It was sort of like refried beans - but imagine that the refried beans had been left out for awhile and they had dry patches throughout, and then imagine somebody mixed in cottage cheese and sour milk and then blended it with maggots. It was kind of like that.
There was no danger of me eating it, and I didn't connect to the freezing immediately, but it has happened again.
Can anyone explain, or bare witness to, this horrifying soup behavior.
Freezing expands soup. Where the cans still intact?
As much as I could tell.
Your soup (and almost every other canned food) is mostly water. Water expands when it freezes.
This exerts a fairly large amount of force on the can, which will at minimum cause it to bulge (while frozen). It also potentially causes the can to rupture, possibly only a tiny amount at one of the seals.
If you were to transfer the cans to a freezer at this point, they'd remain safe, as freezing would prevent spoilage. Of course, you have no way to know for sure that the bulging is from freezing only, and not from microbes.
When it thaws, the water returns to its original size. This creates a vacuum inside the can again, at least if it didn't burst. That can also un-bulge the can. But any microbes that got in remain, and can begin spoiling (or worse) the contents.
But at that point, there may already be microorganisms allowed in when one of the seals gave temporarily under the pressure.
It may be possible to carefully inspect the seals to see if they've been damaged. It's also probably not worth the risk, especially for low-acid foods.
The cans weren't (at least noticeably) bulging. That could be explained by what you said about the suction during thaw?
@user1167442 yes, it could be. Or maybe those particular cans don't bulge much (which could mean the seals are failing quickly, and the excess pressure is being vented—allowing microbes in) or that there is a fair bit of headspace in the cans. If you really want to find out, you could get a new can (of the same product) from the store, put it in a ziploc bag (in case it bursts) and throw it in your freezer. Wait a few days and find out. If you want to eat it after that, thaw in the fridge or under cold running water and consume immediately. Quality will be reduced, but safety shouldn't be.
I would say that putting the cans in a NON-temperature controlled storage unit that the ambient temperature changes probably did in the soup. A side question, did the cans puff up or the tops and bottoms become able to make a popping sound when pushed. This is bad, maybe even botulism.
Nothing obvious. I would've guessed that, but is it that visibly obvious with botulism?
@user1167442 some bacteria release gasses as they grow, thus if they grow they'll create pressure in the can, causing it to bulge. But not all of the harmful ones do, and even the ones that do may get to harmful quantities before the pressure rises enough to bulge the can. But if you see a can bulging, you shouldn't eat it. Or even open it...
@derobert why not even open it? Get on my hands?
@user1167442 On your hands, around the kitchen, etc. You may want to review e.g., http://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/portal/fsis/topics/food-safety-education/get-answers/food-safety-fact-sheets/safe-food-handling/shelf-stable-food-safety/CT_Index (you'll not that it also has an answer to your original question—do not use the cans that have frozen and thawed)
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97392 | Am I thawing this London Broil safely?
I started thawing a thick cut of London Broil (maybe 1.5 lbs) in cold water and then I realized I didn’t want to start cooking it yet. I’ve moved it to the fridge.
While thawing in cold water, I had not sealed the meat completely in a zipper bag, but instead wrapped it in cling wrap. It was pretty well covered (double wrapped), but some water may have gotten in and it wasn’t sealed off entirely from the air. (Research has left me concerned that this may have been bad)
Is this a problem?
Background info: In total it was out of the freezer in cold water for maybe 45 minutes, and the outside has begun to thaw. I’ve put it back in the fridge after washing the container it was in with soap and hot water.
I plan to cook it in a crock pot for 8 hours after browning it on the stove top.
Water, air, and cooking method are not the issues to worry about. It is temperature and time that you have to consider. This covers what you need to know: https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/34670/how-do-i-know-if-food-left-at-room-temperature-is-still-safe-to-eat There are also several questions that address thawing.
What's the water quality in Michigan like?
@Richard We have well water, but I think it's good.
Safely? Yes.
Cold water thaws are fine. It's hot or warm water thawing that's bad.
Cold running water will thaw faster than cold still water, but cold still water is okay as you basically have a giant ice cube in the water (the thing you're thawing), so the water stays at a safe temperature until you're towards the end of the thaw ... it just takes a really long time compared to thaw running water.
The only issue here would be the meat getting wet. If it's clean water, and you don't drip it on other things it shouldn't be a problem from a safety standpoint. It can change the quality of the food being thawed (wash away flavors, cause the food to absorb too much water), so if you're going to do it intentionally, it can be worth adding salt to brine the item being thawed.
So, from a safety standpoint, what you're doing is fine ... so long as your fridge temp is set well.
Thank you very much. I’ve probably gotten away with much less care than this in the past, but I tend to get overly worried about things like this. Your answer definitely eased my anxiety.
Also - fwiw - while researching this, I came across several articles that suggest hot water may not actually be unsafe despite common knowledge - according to new studies. Obviously not gospel, and I didn’t consider them trustworthy enough to try it, but might be something to look into if you’re interested.
@dgo : it's really a time thing -- you don't want to spend too long at unsafe temperatures, but hot enough to be safe is nearly cooking temperatures ... so it can't be too hot and if it's not warm enough you might not get the center thawed for thicker cuts and roasts by the time the outside has been at unsafe temperatures for too long. So thin, small things in warm water are generally okay ... it's just the big things (like what you have)
@dgo : of course, there's also the people who are pushing for cooking from frozen on some times of things (generally requires different heat / cooking techniques) so that you can get a medium rare with minimal overcooking of the outside
Do keep in mind that "safe" thawing practices are developed to be cooking-method agnostic. As long as you're not having to deal with the health department it's perfectly possible to compensate for substandard thawing conditions by altering the cooking procedure. Refrigeration is a relatively recent development in human history. If the currently recommended methods were the only way to deal with germs on your food we'd all have died out long ago.
@Perkins Cooking improperly thawed food can kill the bacteria that have grown, but may not destroy their toxic byproducts. In some cases, it's not possible to compensate for substandard thawing conditions by altering the cooking procedure. Not sure what you're getting at with your last point, as many people did die long ago from food-related illness - the modern world has the tools and knowledge to minimize that, hence the food safety recommendations. Don't get me wrong, I'd eat a slightly improperly thawed steak at home, but I acknowledge that it is a risk.
@NuclearWang Everything in life is a calculated risk. The most heat-stable toxins of which I am aware are produced by staphylococcus. How stable they are depends heavily on the environment they're in, but even under optimal conditions about half the toxin is destroyed for every 30 minutes it spends above 90C. In the modern first world we're rich enough to just throw it out if there's any question. Otherwise, make stew.
I'll agree with other Joe on the safety side of things: as long as the water didn't get much above 40° Fahrenheit, which it won't until after it's thawed, you're fine.
As far as the water getting in the cling wrap: that's where I tend to have more worries. I sous-vide a lot, and the worst thing to happen there is for water to get into the bag. Water that's been sitting out for a while, especially if it's in a plastic container (like my sous-vide setup), will have all sorts of smells and tastes - less if it's cold than if it's warm like my sous-vide, but still some - and additionally even plain water will have effects on the texture and taste of the meat.
If it was still largely frozen, odds are it won't have too much of an impact - especially if not very much water got in. But I would use a zip-top bag, or something else that is definitely water impermeable, if I were going to thaw it in water of any sort, to avoid any potential issues with the flavor and texture. And, I'd probably remove it from the wrapping now and put it in a new wrapping, to make sure there's not water trapped inside the plastic.
Thanks for the addition to the other Joe. I ended up following your advice about taking it out of the plastic, and I think it would've been a minimal amount that got in. As I said earlier, I can be a worry-head about these things, so I appreciate the additional peace of mind.
In most of the world, 40 is just above body temperature. Staying below 40 makes for an excellent environment for bacterial growth. I presume you are in the US and mean 40 F. Please, please, please use units, this advice could be misunderstood and cause harm. :)
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117719 | Cheesemaking and recipe scaling
I made my first attempt at cheesemaking this past weekend, this cheese specifically, and it didn't work out - I got curds separated from the whey fine, but they never became stretchy.
I'm curious whether the issue was that I attempted to scale the recipe. I didn't want to make the full batch the first time - mostly because 2 gallons of milk would have filled my 8 quart pan, the largest I have - and so cut things in half, like I would for a bread or similar.
Is this possible in cheesemaking? Or do scales work differently? It's very possible I had other issues - I don't think I scaled perfectly in a few places, and I may have allowed the temperature to vary a bit more than I should have - but I want to nail down this one first.
Usually, the issue with pasta filata cheeses is the temperature at the stretching stage. Maybe you will get better advice if you provide an accurate description of your process after you created the curd.
@moscafj I am not too worried about the specific issues - I'm sure a lot of it is just me being a novice and will be trying various different techniques - so I'm really focused just on, "can I scale the recipe" in this case. Thanks!!
I don't think scaling is your issue. If you were able to create curds, the issues is in the stretching phase. So, short answer... the recipe should scale.
Cheese recipes scale pretty linearly, at least until you get small enough that it's hard to measure out the rennet or culture accurately, or large enough that it's challenging to heat and cool the milk. I have, on occasion, made a 1 liter of milk batch when 6oz of cheese was all I needed.
Queso Oaxaca is a "mozzarella process" cheese, though, and getting the temperature and acidity right for good stretching is notoriously finicky. I've made mozzarella at least a dozen times and I still got a stretch failure on my last batch, for reasons I'm not completely sure of. If you weren't able to hold the temperature steady during stage 4, for example, the curd might not have become acidic, and would have stretched poorly.
So: your cheese failure is normal, and had little or nothing to do with changing the scale, unless you really did mismeasure.
Incidentally: if you get into this, let me recommend buying Ricki Carroll's book, which has more detail than the online recipes do.
Out of curiosity does lacking stretchiness mean it's a total loss, or can you still make another kind of cheese with the curds?
That's good to hear - I definitely don't want to make 8L of milk->cheese, and that seems to be the common size. I'm going to use my sous vide for my next attempt, which hopefully will allow me to keep the temperature much more well controlled than my induction stove (which isn't bad, but it's not a super fancy one, so it was very tricky keeping it to one temp).
@GdD you can still eat it, it'll just have inferior taste and texture.
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46518 | Does boiling a salsa or BBQ sauce for 30 min alter the taste?
So after I "cook" my salsa ingredients for 30 min, then blend and place it in the jar, does boiling the jar for another 30 min affect the taste? I don't notice it but wonder what other think. Also, what's the difference or advantage of hot fill BBQ sauce vs boiling? Is it the type of lid you have to use? I know you can't boil a plastic lid.
Boiling something after putting it in a jar is normally for canning (i.e., killing all microbes that could grow in that environment to render it shelf-stable). Is that what you're doing?
Not really.
Cooking something for 30 more minutes after cooking it for 30 minutes isn't going to change the flavors much more than they already had. After 30 minutes at a given temperature, most of the chemical reactions that are going to occur in your food will have occurred already. The one caveat to this is if the original cooking temperature is much lower than the second-cook. (i.e. heating it up to only 150F for the initial cook, vs. 212F for the second cook) If you're talking about boiling it for 10 hours, then YES, there will be some changes.
Boiling the whole jar with the food inside (and the lid just barely unscrewed) will allow the whole setup to be sanitized, and thus keep the whole works food-safe for much longer than just dumping in hot food.
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