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67497 | Honing Steel Forward or Backward
I'm really confused before I thought when you hone a knife you bring the edge towards you however the other day I was watching gordon ramsay bringing the edge away when honing. I tried searching on this topic however couldn't find anything. Could someone explain to me if this is a different technique or what? Thanks appreicate it.
The video of him doing it is linked below https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBn1i9YqN1k
Does your honing steel have a cross-guard?
Think of this type of "Sharpening Steel" as a file. I brings up a raspy edge that when cutting could resemble a finely honed/stropped edge (although it is not). If you have a quality blade, why would anyone want to quickly file/grind it away.
I have a very simple reason for taking the edge away:
It's less dangerous - for you, don't do this before someone.
I don't know if it makes for better or worse honing (should be the same as long as the angle is the same I'd say).
Think of how metal gets an edge; you can get an edge on metal either forwards or backwards. My personal belief is when you sharpen a knife the traditional way you are honing the metal and thin edge back into the knife; when Gordon Ramsay hones in reverse, he's going forward, not folding backwards, so I believe you get a sharper edge because the metal is now pointing towards the part of the blade you cut with and has a sharper hone.
I have asked at least six chefs about what their training said; they could actually see the point of folding the blade towards the cutting edge. Obviously, you're supposed to use a stone afterward, but it works for a quick solution in the kitchen. The first time I saw Gordon Ramsay sharpen the knife that way I was surprised. After considering and asking questions it seemed quite logical. To each their own, but it is pretty hard to get away from what you have been taught. You never know, in a few years everyone may be honing the knives the other way; after all, everything evolves.
I apologize for the length of that post but with failing eyes it is the easiest way for me to communicate but I forget a text stands up being a paragraph my apologies again
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108430 | Raw sausage left at doorstep for 4 hours
So guidelines say 2 hours unrefrigerated for raw sausage and raw meatballs... but I was wondering if it's still ok at 4 hours if it passes the smell test.
I had a grocery delivery during the day where they didn't ring the doorbell and I only discovered it at 5pm. It was left in the shade but is the first hot day of the season. It was still luke cool to the touch but definitely not cold. The ice cream bars had melted and become runny.
I was going to cook all the bratwurst and meatballs the next day if it would be ok. Otherwise, I'd have to throw them out.
Should I eat or throw away?
Sorry, but more that “safe or unsafe” is impossible to say. The point is that you need to differentiate between “safe or unsafe” and “actually spoiled” - they are not the same thing. It’s up to you whether you want to take the risk of eating food that isn’t safe or not.
If it were me I would cook the sausage and not worry about it. Bacteria will grow in 1, 2, or 4 hours, but assuming it was handled properly before it got to your door (i.e. it hadn't already been sitting for hours) the difference between 2 and 4 hours is negligible. If you cook the sausage past 180F (which I normally do anyway) you should be fine. I prefer bratwurst "well done" so that a lot of the fat has rendered and the skin is crispy.
Smell is an unreliable test of food safety.
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70845 | Commercial yeast ( Saccharomyces cerevisiae) in a sourdough culture
I would like to know a good reason for adding commercial yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) to a sourdough culture and would it survive?
I think the question could refer to two somewhat different practices: (1) adding some commercial yeast to a particular sourdough recipe during the initial mix, or (2) adding commercial yeast to the sourdough culture itself, intending it to propagate from batch to batch.
The first -- mixing in commercial yeast along with sourdough starter in a recipe -- is commonly used by bakers for a few different reasons:
Enhance rising, particularly in heavy doughs (e.g., with lots of non-wheat whole grains or seeds, or with a lot of other added "stuff" like fruit, vegetables, nuts, meats, etc. to weigh it down). It also tends to be used in very rich doughs where sourdough yeast may not be as "happy" as commercial yeast.
Provide a more reliable fermentation timetable: sourdough can sometimes be finicky and unpredictable, but commercial bakers often need to bake on an exact schedule. Commercial yeast is pretty dependable.
Avoid an overly sour taste: natural (sourdough) yeast can be used for basically any type of bread, and for sweeter breads or standard (non-"sour") white breads, a pungent taste may be undesirable. In some cases, though, it may be difficult to achieve adequate rising before the dough turns too sour, so commercial yeast can give the dough a boost.
The second possibility -- adding commercial yeast to the sourdough culture directly -- is pretty rare and ultimately not very helpful in the long run. Some sourdough recipes suggest adding commercial yeast to "get a starter going" initially, but this is NOT a good practice, since it tends to delay the establishment of the natural yeast you actually want and need to propagate the starter longterm. When added to an established starter, commercial yeast will generally die off within a few feeding cycles. The acidic environment is not conducive to yeast growth in general, and commercial yeast will have a much harder time with it than the natural yeasts of established starters -- so the commercial yeast will decrease population significantly with each feeding.
All of that said, actual studies of sourdough cultures from commercial bakeries often show some baker's yeast as a minor component. This is likely due to contamination from bakers' hands and equipment where commercial yeast-based doughs are also handled and mixed. In controlled lab environments, the commercial yeast populations in those starters have been shown to die off pretty quickly after the starters were removed from their "native" bakery environment.
It would probably survive, and possibly dominate as it's selected for reproducing fast. But the exact behaviour would depend on when you added it. Added late (i.e. just before the culture is used) it's probably meant to make a reliable rise while keeping a sourdough flavour. Whether this works or not is another matter.
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67663 | why have the roast chicken pieces turned brown when put in a pot of boiling vegetables
Making soup from leftover roast chicken from the carcass. Has been refrigerated for two days after cooking. Boiled some veggies - potatoes, onions, carrots, leeks, swede, and then put in chicken that was pulled from carcass. The chicken has turned a red-brown colour in the pot. Is it still edible?
It sounds like the chicken has taken the color of the soup base, as long as it was safe when you put it into the pot it will still be safe now.
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67780 | Heating ham/cooking hashbrown potato casserole in same oven
I have to heat my spiral sliced ham at 275 for 2 hours. My hashbrown potato casserole needs to cook for 45 minutes at 350. I only have 1 oven--what is the best way to cook these 2 items so they are ready to eat at the same time?
This is what I would do.
Wait until the ham has 30 minutes left, then move it to the bottom shelf, put the hash browns on the top shelf, baste the ham well and set the oven for 350. Pull the ham out after 30 minutes so it has time to rest, and leave the hash browns in until they are done.
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91556 | Should I microwave-defrost sandwiches?
I freeze sandwiches made from homemade bread rolls at the weekend, paired in plastic bags, and get a set out at 6 am to take to work in a rucksack. They stay there until I eat them at noon, when they're still pretty cold and wet, possibly because they stay in the rucksack's dark inside. I could make them a bit closer to room temperature by defrosting them in my home's microwave before I leave, or by warming them slightly in a microwave at work, but I'm not sure how much I should use either method or on which setting. Alternatively (if it would be enough, but I think it would be socially suboptimal), I could take the bag out at work so the rolls get some light. Is there an optimum approach?
You make the whole sandwich and freeze it? What is in the sandwich?
Unfortunately a frozen sandwich kept in saran wrap or a plastic bag will always be soggy by time of defrost - unless crisped up in an oven (not microwave - which will make it more soggy).
It's chicken or turkey, with mayonnaise. The rolls come out of the oven crispy when they're made. The sandwiches actually aren't soggy; they're just wet from condensation. I wonder whether I should put them in the fridge the night before so the final 6 hours start from a much warmer point.
Have you got access to a toaster in work? Toastabags are great for making toasted sandwiches in a normal toaster and will allow you to rescue a previously frozen sandwich
Why not just freeze the meat separate and put the sandwich together at work?
No matter what you do in this situation, you are likely to end up with soggy sandwiches. This has nothing to do with light. Firstly, the bread of pre-made sandwiches will naturally pick up moisture from the filling and condiments. Often, even freshly made sandwiches will become a bit soggy by lunchtime. You've also created a further disadvantage by freezing. Freezing and thawing disrupts the cell structure of foods. When this happens, moisture is often lost. Of course, the bread will absorb this moisture. A microwave will thaw and warm, but will not remove much of this moisture. You would have better luck with an oven, but that would be more time consuming. Really, your optimal approach is to prepare the ingredients in advance, then take 2-3 minutes before you leave for work, and make a sandwich.
Suppose I stick with freezing and thawing, and care more about the temperature than moisture. Would it be better to defrost in the morning or at noon?
Some of this depends on what is in your sandwich, as you might have food safety issues to deal with as well. If you can experiment with the defrost cycle of the microwave, and zero in on an optimal time, it might be best to defrost at work. Alternately, bring the ingredients and make the sandwich at work. Sandwiches are best made fresh anyway.
I completely agree with moscafj. Bread is a sponge, @J.G. . I understand what you're trying to do, you want to save time in your week and I've been there myself, but freezing sandwiches is never going to give you a good result.
I think it is worth looking at your sandwich making process to see if there are any things you can do to reduce the likelihood of this dampness.
You mentioned that you freshly bake the rolls, do you allow them plenty of time to finish cooling and releasing steam before you start making them into sandwiches?
How 'damp' are the meats you use for fillings? Some processed meats have quite a high water content. Could you experiment with cheese or with drier meats like salamis or dried ham instead?
Does you mayonnaise have water listed as an ingredient? Many of the lower calorie mayonnaises have that and it can make the bread damp if it is in prolonged contact. A water-free mayo would avoid that, as would butter. Or can you keep a jar of mayo at work and add that just before you eat your sandwich?
You also say that you wrap them in plastic, which will seal in any moisture that might otherwise evaporate. You could consider a couple of options to combat that. You could unwrap them from the plastic in the morning and place them in a paper bag, or have them wrapped in paper kitchen towel inside the plastic as that wuld absorb some of the free moisture.
I do the paper towel thing. (even when I don't freeze them ... gives me something to clean up with afterwards)
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67814 | Corned Beef, Cabbage vs. Reuben - Multipurpose?
Good evening, all. Quick, specific question here (something too esoteric for most cooking sites I checked):
I have ~2.25lb of Corned Beef Brisket (Point Cut)", fresh & vacuum-sealed with spices and all that. I bought it with the intention of making Reuben sandwiches (R's) for my waifu and I... But then simultaneously bought a head of cabbage, thinking "Ah, Easter; corned beef & cabbage (CB&C)!" Aaaaand they have sat in the fridge, since I cannot figure out if I can do both.
My lack of culinary initiative aside, I am trying to determine:
Is the "Corned Beef" used in CB&C the same as used in R's?
Is the above a matter of preparation (i.e. my plans to slow-cooker it would be perfect for CB&C but bad for R's?)
If no to the above, can it be made so?
To further complicate things, I purchased a can of the very same substance ("Corned Beef"); is that useful for either CB&C, R's, or both (or neither; I'm not sure it's not just glorified SPAM)?
Anyway, thanks for reading my overly-complicated question. Any help would be appreciated!
Looking at some recipes for each, I would say different preparation. Which recipe(s) did you look at?
Canned corned beef is sort of Spam, but with different meat and flavoring. It's also more like hash, and doesn't always cleanly slice the same way Spam does. I definitely wouldn't put it on a Reuben sandwich, but it could work with cabbage. (Not great with cabbage, but that's an opinion issue -- I'm not a big fan of canned meat in general.)
In contrast, a cooked corned beef brisket can be used either in Reuben sandwiches or on a plate of corned beef & cabbage. The only particular difference is the thickness of the slices. In a sandwich, one generally wants thin-sliced meat that is easier to bite through. Thicker slices work well next to cabbage, when eating the dish with a knife and fork.
Thanks for the response!
(Canned) - As it was prophecied. I figured it wouldn't be ideal. Still, I'm sure it'll taste fine fried with some eggs or hash or whatever.
(Brisket) - Ah, wonderful. I can work out the slice issue, but I'm curious as to the answer to the 2nd question (sorry if unclear): "In what way should I prepare the Brisket so as best to use it for both" (corollary: "is there a "preferred" method of preparation for either recipe that would make it less usable for the alternative")?
Any corned beef brisket method should work -- your slow cooker plan, or simmering on the stovetop in a pot. This question might be a useful read: http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/13198/cooking-corned-beef-brisket-for-maximum-slice-ability
Just note that a Reuben is made with sauerkraut, which is cabbage, it's not something you are likely to make any time soon as sauerkraut is a fermented pickle. Buy a small bag of sauerkraut for your Reuben sandwich. :-)
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67837 | Why is a glaze applied to the top of a hot cross bun?
I am making hot cross buns and wondering why the buns have to have a glaze...
Any scientific answer or is it just because it's nicer?
Are you talking about a pre-bake eggwash/glaze or the post bake sugar glaze?
I am talking about the post bake glaze...
They're not "crossed" if they don't have the traditional x of glaze on the top... I think I'm still confused about what you're asking.
Sorry, I probably did not explain myself well enough! After you pull them out of the oven and let them cool. You apply a sugar glaze that is sticky. Is there a particular reason that that glaze has to go on - is it to seal it or is it just to make it look better and taste better?
Not on any of the recipes I've ever seen. The only glaze I see in any recipe is the eggwash to help them brown and the traditional cross of glaze/icing. Here's one of the ones I looked at. Perhaps if you could update your question to include your recipe and the source of it?
Hey, that's interesting! I literally only ever made the ones with the post glazing. Here is a recipe of one - http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/7695/hot+cross+buns It has the flour piping batter for the traditional cross and then another sticky glaze for after...
I would say that it's not required for any scientific reason. I believe that, traditionally, it's common to put a sweet topping to add an extra hint of sweetness to the buns, which are generally not very sweet themselves.
It may be in the US that it's more common to make the cross out of the glaze rather than creating a cross in the dough using a paste. When I found recipes from England (along with the one you linked from Australia), they both use the flour paste with a light glaze over the entire bun. This BBC recipe, specifically, uses a glaze made from apricot jam, which sounds very nice.
The American recipes tend to not have an all-over glaze, preferring to simplify the preparation process by making the cross with a white sugar icing after the baking process is completed, though (as seen as an option in this Martha Stewart recipe) you could certainly glaze the entire thing, as if it were a doughnut... though this would leave it without the traditional white "cross" on top.
But, as you can see from the images of the American recipes, provided there's a good eggwash before baking to make the buns golden, they should also get a nice shine, so the glaze shouldn't be necessary for that reason... and without, I'd think it would make them easier to handle, as they're not as sticky all over.
British hot cross buns traditionally have the cross made of a flour & water paste then have a shiny apricot glaze added post baking. It adds shine & a little fruity sweetness. It can make them very sticky though! Best to just brush the glaze over the very top & leave the sides so as to be less sticky to pick up :)
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100449 | How to efficiently shred a lot of cabbage?
I'm growing cabbages in my garden this year and would like to make lots of sauerkraut, to eat and to give as gifts. Gallons of it.
Is there an efficient way to slice or shred a dozen cabbages at a time? Using a grater for that much cabbage is going to destroy my arms.
I would buy a one-purpose gadget or an attachment for my Kitchenaid mixer that didn't cost more than ~$60 if that's the right way to proceed.
Wow, I tried to find the tool to do that but it seems English don't even have a word for it. It looks like this https://www.olx.pl/oferta/szatkownik-szatkownica-elektryczna-do-kapusty-i-warzyw-CID628-IDvmw2n.html#29f274317b;promoted this one is electric and cost around $250. maybe if you look on craigslist or ask some local maker they could make a handcranked one for less.
I wonder if you could come to some kind of arrangement with a local Polish deli?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWGquxvqI_Y&t=532 But also, no, I have no actually useful ideas.
I've used an electric knife before for this kind of job, but you have to be sure it's powerful enough. Some made for bread just won't cut it in the long run.
Here's how they do it at the sauerkraut factory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n53a4iSvgyk. Looks like about 2 seconds per head of cabbage on that shredding machine! Here's another 5000 kg/hour!
There is a kraut cutter, a wooden board about 2 ft long with a diagonal blade. We used all the time when I was a child. We laid it on a large pot. You cut heads of cabbage in half and push it over the blade flat side down. Try google or an old fashioned hard ware.
They are still made today, like oversized food graters. The truly large ones are not hand-held, but one end goes on the edge of the „bowl“ (washtub!), the other on the lap of the cook.
so basically a large mandoline?
Washtub or even a bathtub lined with a fresh white sheet!
In Poland you can easily buy them online, example offers: https://allegro.pl/listing?string=Szatkownica%20drewniana
@jk. : a large mandoline with multiple blades (three seems to be the norm)
In my family this is the standard tool for making sauerkraut. And we always make it from around 50-75kg of cabbage. It is very efficient! But be extra careful: It is really easy to get rid your fingertips with this. My dad lost one or two. :P My mom always uses steel mesh gloves to protect her fingers.
You can be more efficient with a knife than any sort of kitchen aid attachment, which will require lots of prep, and slow going. A better bet for home use would be the shredder on a food processor. However, even then, while it will make quick work of shredding, you will have to cut the cabbage into smaller portions to fit into the processor...and, of course, empty the bowl relatively quickly. Anything more efficient than that will cost you a few hundred bucks. Maybe your best bet is some friends and sharp knives.
Man, Vollrath makes everything.
Far less effort with a knife than a grater too. 1-2 mins per cabbage, call it 3 if you're out of practise; max an hour for a dozen, on your own... or Robot Coupe do a nice one for a mere 4 grand ;)
This answer sounds like dogma to me.
@PieterB - Dogma it may be.. but that doesn't stop it actually being a lot quicker to chop a cabbage ready for kraut or slaw by hand than to chunk it & run it through a food processor or a domestic mandoline.
@Tetsujin 1-2 minutes per cabbage seems a lot longer than it would take to chunk a cabbage into the size required for a food processor.
"Anything more efficient " - counter example from user76771 above (a handtool specifically for the task).
@JimmyJames - you then have to get it all in the food processor, which won't be in one go... then get it out again.
This is what Subway used to use for lettuce
@Tetsujin My food processor (a small one I got for $60) came with an attachment with various shredding plates that shoots the shreds out the side into a vessel of your choosing. For a small job, it's not worth the setup/cleanup time but when you have a lot to shred it's great.
A thin chinese cleaver or large nakiri could indeed need less force than a grater. Besides, cutting large amounts of stuff down with a chinese cleaver is therapeutic :)
Haha, we were doing that every fall in my childhood in Siberia. We used an enamelled bucket and "sechka" https://65.img.avito.st/640x480/4526427565.jpg
Splice a head of cabbage in big pieces with a knife, put them into the bucket until it is full, then smash it all with sechka. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ1HR9o4JGc - that guy is using another kind of sechka, but the principle is the same. I was able to fill about 30 three-liter jars in a couple of days being a kid so that'
s very effective way to deal with a cabbage (not speaking of using any kind of machine).
The device costs around $10-20 in Russia, I don't know if you will be able to find and buy it in your location though. At least now you know what to look for.
Do you have a food processor? Most food processors come with interchangeable blades including a blade for shredding. Put the shredder blade in, lock on the lid, cut the cabbage into wedges that will fit in the feed tube, power on, and feed in the cabbage. You may have to empty the work bowl a couple times, depending on how much cabbage, but it's the fastest way I know of.
My food processor doesn't send the shreds to the built-in bowl. The shredding attachment has a shoot on the side where they shredded food comes out.
@JimmyJames I feel like that is a terrifying design flaw
In what way? It's great.
As a clumsy person, I know for a fact that i'd end up moving the bowl it's supposed to shoot into and have to clean up shredded cabbage off the floor
Knife, shmife. You need a mulcher!
It is a $54 blower / mulcher from Home Depot. Get a new one so it will be cleanish. Quarter your cabbages then suck them up. Your bag will fill with cole slaw-to-be. Maybe wash it and set it aside for next year?
These things are merciless. They will chop your cabbages fine. Even if you use an old one and clean it first, the good thing about cabbage is that the pickling conditions naturally kill any bad germs. You can make sauerkraut by lining a ditch with hay, putting in the cabbages, then more hay, then covering it up. This is cleaner than that.
I really want this to work but it seems like there is a risk of machine oil contamination.
You need to purchase the Teflon® coated receiver bag, too, or the cabbage juice leaks out all over the place.
@IconDaemon or a cheap bucket.
@Willk Lol at the worldbuilding answer on Seasoned Advice.
@Sobachatina could still market that as mediocre Achar ;) (don't :) ).
If I'm making a small amount, I use a knife..if I'm making it for a large crowd, then I use a food processor. If you're curious about using a food processor or box grater, use this guide on how to shred Cabbage in a Food Processor to find more detailed instructions on shredding all the other veggies (including more tips for other types of leafy greens) stocked in your kitchen.
Daisy, are you in any way connected to the website? If so, please make that transparent (see [here]). If not, fine.
You mentioned a Kitchenaid stand mixer attachment. Kitchenaid used to make a shredder/slicer attachment that's very good for this usage. It had a wide hopper that could hold a quarter of a cabbage at once.
Unfortunately, the newer edition of this attachment has a smaller hopper and isn't suitable for cabbage, but the older style is still available from third party sellers.
Here's one example.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Kitchenaid-RVSA-Rotor-Slicer-Shredder-Cones-Stand-Mixer-Attachment-New/163792960617
I'm good with a knife, and I sometimes use this for a single head of cabbage. It's definitely faster than hand slicing for anything more than two or three heads, even with setup and cleaning time. It also produces a very consistent cut.
It's definitely still going to require cutting up the cabbage heads first, and won't be as fast as some of the more expensive options, but it's an affordable alternative to the professional grade options.
You can buy a cabbage shredder on amazon for $20
Or delis often use a deli slicer to finely slice lettuce
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124512 | How can i improve the strength/pigmentation of colours in my Swiss Meringue Buttercream Icing
I use Swiss Meringue Buttercream (SMBC) to cover my cakes. Whenever i colour them the colours always come out very pastel/light. I can sometimes get slightly more intense colour by adding black or adding enough that you can taste the colouring which is not ideal.
For example, i will need to make one soon that has a burgundy section. Based on my current abilities it would probably by quite pink-y.
What am I doing wrong? Is there a specific type of colouring I should use for SMBC? Or a technique i'm not aware of or something?
Thanks!
(ps if it make a difference i am UK based)
What you're trying is quite difficult, because buttercream is a foam, and foams are generally whitish due to the laws of physics.
The best you can do is to buy specialized food coloring meant for patisserie, produced by reputable brands. This food coloring is much more concentrated than the stuff sold in the supermarket, to the point that for most purposes I add it to my food with a toothpick. For your purpose (intense colors in buttercream) you will probably have to add it by the knifetip rather than the toothpick tip, but it should work.
It's a somewhat expensive way to go, but the results are gorgeous, and the bottles last forever unless you're baking in commercial quantities. It's a good idea to invest in the exact shade you want, because at these concentrations, it's very difficult to premix a shade and then color with it.
Use an immersion blender after adding the food coloring and it will brighten the color! Takes time and patience, but works really well.
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74985 | Does the temperature increase the longer the food is on the stovetop?
My physics knowledge is nonexistent, so I'm sorry for the ridiculously simple question.
When you're cooking on a stovetop (say on medium heat), does the temperature continuously increase the longer you're cooking, or is there a point where the temperature levels off? I know for the slow cooker, the temperature is kept constant once it reaches a certain level. Is the science the same for stoves?
Generally not, but of course it depends on the stove settings. What particular cooking technique are you asking about?
In your oven, or any cooking method which has a thermostat marked with temperatures, the heat source is designed to turn on and off as needed to keep your food [somewhat] constant at close to that selected temperature.
On the stovetop, with say the burner on medium heat, the heat source just keeps putting heat into your food at a steady rate until you turn off, or adjust, the burner. However the temperature of your food doesn't just keep increasing forever, because when you cook on top of the stove in a pot, you usually have some water in there with your food. When that water gets up to its boiling temperature, it can't get any hotter. It starts sucking up heat to become steam & starts boiling away. At that temperature, the water will take any heat that your burner puts out and use it to turn into steam & leave the food. So your pot stays at that temp, about 100 degrees C. until all the water is finished converting to steam, and the contents of your pot are dry, and free to begin increasing in temperature beyond that boiling point. Pretty soon after that the food starts to scorch and burn.
So to answer your question, yes the temperature levels off at the boiling point of water, but not because your stove guarantees it, it's because the water surrounding your food guarantees it. After your water boils away, the temperature of your pot is free to increase until it matches the temperature of your burner, at least on the bottom.
At a high level, there's always a period of initial heating followed by a period of stable temperature. To be completely precise, the stable temperature is reached asymptotically, but in practice we think of it as preheating til close enough, then stable. When food is added, the temperature drops then recovers.
We tend to cook at a relatively stable temperature, especially for more sustained cooking, though there are certainly exceptions, where the goal is simply to reach a given temperature, and then you're done cooking. I'm not sure if these are what you're looking for, but:
cooking meat - usually you want to reach a certain temperature for safety/doneness, and not overcook.
candymaking - the goal here is to carefully heat sugar to a given temperature, and then stop as soon as you reach it.
thickened sauces, puddings - starch and egg just need to get heated enough to set.
In your slow cooker example, yes, in equilibrium the temperature will be kept pretty much at 100C, since there should be at least a bit of liquid inside and it'll be at a very low boil. But it does take quite a long time to reach that equilibrium starting from room- or refrigerator-temperature food; sometimes people will even heat on the stove then transfer to the slow cooker.
It's pretty much the same on the stove. A given setting on the stove will translate into some amount of power. (You may not know what that translation is, but the stove is still producing some fixed power.) In combination with whatever's sitting on top of that burner, that'll result in some equilibrium temperature, where the power going into your pot or pan is equal to the power it's releasing into the air around it.
If you're cooking a pot of something with liquid, it'll take time to heat up, but once in equilibrium you'll presumably be simmering or boiling at a pretty constant temperature. If the liquid is thick or if things are stuck to the bottom, the temperature may not be quite constant through the whole pot, but it's certainly not just getting hotter and hotter over time.
If you're cooking without liquid, you generally find a setting that keeps things at roughly the temperature you want, and you generally preheat the pot or pan. You don't want it to take forever to cook, and maybe you want some browning but you don't want it to burn, so you get the heat in the right range. Again, as you add things the temperature will drop and recover, but you definitely don't want it getting arbitrarily hot and burning your food. So outside of preheating and recovery, the temperature will be roughly constant.
Even if you put an empty pan on the stove, and even if you crank the stove all the way up, it'll eventually reach some equilibrium temperature. It may have ruined your pan by that point, though.
Eventually, a temperature equilibrium will be reached, but how it will be reached is very dependent on what is on the stovetop.
A pot with water (or any other liquid that rather vaporizes than burns/pyrolizes) in it, and nothing stuck to the bottom, will stabilize at around 100°C, any further energy input will just end up creating steam. Same with a pressure cooker at 121°C (for 15 psi) if the mechanism that keeps the pressure works. Once all water is boiled off, see 2. If the heat input is too weak to support boiling, see 2a.
An empty pot, or one with solid contents or oil, will heat until either:
a.) a temperature is reached where the temperature gradient causes as much energy to be lost to the environment as is put in, or
b.) same as above, but before a stable point is reached, there will be a phase where contents pyrolize (consuming energy) or burn (adding energy)
c.) the equipment fails from heat damage.
Solid matter/oil could vaporize too, but burning/pyrolysis tend to be more likely.
As a dish cooks it will absorb less heat but lets assume that is constant
Let's say the serving temp is 160 F and burner is 200 F. If you left it on long enough the dish would get close to 200 F and over cooked. It will approach the (steady state) temperature in an asymptotic manner. (length should be temp on the graph)
In a crock pot it will come to cooking temp in an asymptotic manner and then hold that temperature.
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74993 | Could Agave syrup be used as a substitute for Golden Syrup?
I found a UK recipe calling for "Golden Syrup" and have read thru what is posted already. I'm wondering if Agave Syrup might be used. I do use it for many things because of it's low glycemic index and have had good luck with it in most cases. Like honey, it does have it's own flavor and doesn't work with everything.
Without more details on what sort of recipe the best you can hope for is "probably", though "try it and see" might be a more realistic answer.
It'd probably work. It won't be quite the same, as golden syrup has a distinct flavour of its own, but it may well still be quite tasty.
Agave syrup, as far as I recall from last time I used some, is a bit runnier at room temperature so depending on the recipe you may have problems with it being too liquid unless there's something else holding it together.
Flavour-wise, I believe the golden part of golden syrup comes because it has a small amount of molasses in it, so you might try adding a very small amount of that - but it may not be a strong enough flavour to make it worthwhile to go to that much trouble. As you mention, agave syrup has its own flavour so the result could still taste great.
The big thing to be wary of is comparative sweetness. Agave syrup is almost entirely fructose, while golden syrup is a mixture of fructose and glucose. Fructose tastes sweeter, so agave syrup may oversweeten if you use it 1:1 as a substitute.
Good points. Also it is not only a different sweetness, but a different interaction between sweetness and temperature. The difference in sweetness may be OK in something eaten at room temperature and cloying in ice cream, for example.
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78325 | Does the weather outside make a diference in oven temp. for baking
I know that the humidity can make a difference on how your bread might turn out. Do you ever have to adjust the temp. on the oven depending on the weather? I finally found a good bread recipe that my husband really liked. I made it again and the crust was really hard. I did every thing the same. It was colder out side when I made the first one. The bread tasted really good like the other one it's just the crust was very hard. I melted butter on it just like the first one. I always put melted butter on my bread when I take it out of the oven.
Did you determine your bread rise time by a watch or by visual appearance? Did you notice any difference in oven spring?
@Stephie. What is an oven spring, or did you mean the oven in Spring. Personally I do not believe that the ambient temperature should make that much difference, even if you moved from the equator to the north pole.
@dougal2.0.0 oven spring is the term for the expansion of the bread in the oven. That's when the slashes open or the crust tears, for example. The behavior of the bread in the oven can tell a lot about the state of the dough. Ambient temperature and humidity can have a huge influence on the bread.
(Speaking from experience - six years of baking artisanal bread in a wood-fired oven in a communal bake house.)
@Stephie. Ah I call that rising, thus the confusion. My baking skills are a bit rusty - not even rustic! I don't think dougal could cope with a communal bake house!
@Stephie I think you mean that the bread is affected by weather, but before the bake - is that right?
@ChrisH Exactly. And if one doesn't take that into account, the bread might be at another "stage" when put into the oven, hence the different results. That's what I'm trying to find out from OP.
A properly calibrated oven with a good thermistor will not be impacted by external temperatures or environmental factors. While, as you mentioned, humidity and environmental factors can impact cooking and baking, which influences the end product, they will not impact the temperature of the oven itself. I believe the problem is more related to the varying environmental factors, rather than the cooking temperature of the oven. As such, it might require a change in baking time, and more close monitoring the bread, rather than adjusting the temperature at which you are baking.
With that being said, I would suggest using an external oven thermometer/thermistor to confirm that there is no need for oven calibration [ie make sure that the temperature of the oven is what it was set to]. I have seen ovens begin overheating/underheating within a few days span, when the thermistor went bad. Also, it might help to make note of the ambient humidity and the results of each batch of bread you make. As you notice differences, you could take notes of what works best at differing levels of humidity, and therefore be prepared in the future to adjust according to environmental changes.
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82653 | When do you add spices to homemade butter?
I have looked up many homemade butter recipes. I know how to make plain butter. I have seen some recipes with herbs added and other seasoning. They don't say when to add the seasonings. Do you add them with the cream or after it is turning into butter?
I'd add herbs and spices after churning.
If you'd add them to the cream, you 'd discard at least some of it with the buttermilk and some more when "washing" the butter in cold water (depending on which method you use), which is a) wasteful and b) makes judging the correct amount very difficult.
When churning cream you'll eventually separate the fat from the whey, and after that you'll need to rinse the newly formed butter. If you add seasonings before that, they will be rinsed away and with it all the flavor, so I'd suggest to add after that.
LOL - same though, posted simultaneously!
Yeah I saw, lol
This must be a good answer both of you can't be wrong. How does that saying go? (great minds think alike)
Tradition way of preparing butter from curd or milk cream. I usually prefer to make butter from curd. Seasoning will works perfect as it is turning into butter and mix it.
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83554 | What is the purpose of nutmeg in apple zucchini bread?
I have looked up Apple Zucchini Bread recipes and most of them call for nutmeg. Does this make a big difference in the taste? I have not used nutmeg very much in my cooking or baking. All of my other zucchini bread recipes do not call for nutmeg, not even my apple sauce zucchini bread. Can this be left out and not affect the taste?
Do you like nutmeg? That's sort of the important question here. If you don't like nutmeg or you're ambivalent to it, don't use it. If you haven't tried it before and are curious, try it. I personally love it and think it adds a lovely depth of flavor to recipes but there are certainly some that it fits better with than others.
Of course the apple zucchini bread will taste different with nutmeg as opposed to without. As the nutmeg is added solely to add nutmeg flavor, the bread will otherwise be fine.
It just comes down to your personal taste as to whether you choose to use it or not.
Nutmeg is a common ingredient in apple spice recipes (eg. Apple pie, mulled apple cider, etc.) +1 if you don't like don't use it. But if you don't have it I don't think it's a game changer.
I made two batches. I used the nutmeg in one and left it out of the other one. Both turned out really good. Thank you for the advice.
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84253 | What does it mean when you feel bubbles pop when kneading bread dough?
Sometimes when I am kneading my dough I can feel some of the air bubbles popping. Is this a bad thing? Does this mean I am kneading it to long? Every were I have looked it says it is important to have air bubbles in your dough. I always use both the poke test and window test. The bread usually turns out ok. I'm just not sure why this happens sometimes.
This is completely normal and actually what you want bread dough to do, the bubbles mean that your yeast is active, and your bread will rise. However, bubbles that are too big can be undesired in your finished product and may actually cause the bread to cook unevenly. I make sure to eliminate all large bubbles during each kneading session. The presence of these bubbles means that you have a fair amount of gluten developed in your dough, which will ensure you get a light fluffy and well risen result.
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81182 | Are you supposed to get most of the air bubbles out of dough before the second rise?
I am confused about the air bubbles in my dough. Some of the recipes that I have say to get most of the bubbles out. I have other recipes that say nothing about the bubbles. The way I understand it the more air bubbles you have the lighter the bread will be. Which will make the holes in the bread. So I was wondering should I try to get most of the bubbles out? Does it really make that much of a difference? I know French bread has a lot of holes in it. But I don't want holes in my loaf breads.
Whether or not to get the bubbles out is a matter of what type of bread you are making. Something with a tight crumb structure, like a milk bread or bagel will probably have a pretty vigorous punch-down before a second rise, but something like a ciabatta might just have a gentle fold.
Any air bubbles left in your bread for the second rise are only going to get bigger (and eventually collapse). If you want a fine crumb, punch it down and get rid of them. If you want an open crumb, try to keep them
The recipe is a buttermilk bread it has lots of bubbles in it. I hope I got enough of them out. This clears things up for me. I have a much better understanding about the air bubbles.
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81039 | Why do you warm a Dutch oven up before baking bread?
I want to attempt to make bread in my Dutch oven. Most of the recipes that I have found say to warm your Dutch oven up before putting the dough in. I have found a few recipes that say you don't have to warm it up first. Why should you warm it up first, and will it make a big difference in the bread? And what breads are best for baking in a Dutch oven?
Related, but not a duplicate: https://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/43537/45428
I'd say the "why warm it up" part of this question seems like a duplicate of that previous question, though the conclusion there is far from solid. The "what breads are best" isn't a duplicate, though.
The point is you are actually using the dutch oven as the oven itself here--so you warm the dutch oven for the same reason that you would pre-heat your conventional oven: you want the bread to immediately go into the hot oven, instead of slowly raising the temperature.
With a hot dutch oven, you get the "oven spring" that you would get from putting the loaf into a hot oven, and the dutch oven traps the steam that the bread gives off, so it helps keep the crust soft while the bread expands. This is a great way to bake bread at home in ovens that don't have steam injection.
You might find the linked question interesting. The assertion from one of the testers at America's Test Kitchen is that this isn't really a big deal.
That makes since I never thought of it being like an oven. I read a lot of America's Test Kitchen articles I will check that out.
@Catija, I did find that interesting, but not convincing; indeed, the test done by the OP in that question suggests that pre-heating does still help
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81185 | If your bread doesn't sound hollow can it still be done?
This may be an old question, Can bread be done even if it does not sound hollow? The temperature is 197F but the bottom does not sound hollow. The bread is golden brown. The only thing that doesn't fit for being done is the hollow sound. It is a buttermilk bread. I have baked it 5 minutes longer than it says too.
Internal temperature is the most accurate indicator.
I went with the temperature and it turned out ok. I have never made buttermilk bread before, so it kind of thru me for a loop when it never sounded hollow.
If it's the bread you were referring to before, it's not uncommon for dense breads to sound less hollow. For instance, a 100% rye bread isn't going to sound hollow compared to a white artisan loaf.
Yes it was the same bread as earlier. I don't know why but this buttermilk bread has been a challenge for me. I didn't even have this much trouble with my sourdough bread. I must have been off my game today. It is nice to know that bread doesn't always have to sound hollow.
Absolutely, bread can be done without sounding hollow. We can make the analogy to a drum--if the drumhead is too loose, it won't sound hollow, and if the drum is full of something, it won't sound hollow. Similarly, if the crust is soft or if the inside of bread is undercooked and doughy, it won't sound hollow.
That said, for many breads--especially those made with enriched doughs--a crisp crust and a stiff interior are not good indicators of "doneness".
For a typical sandwich bread (one made with some milk, egg, sugar, and butter, like I expect your buttermilk bread is), it does often sound hollow when done. However, this is not a perfect (or even very good) test--even if it does not sound hollow, it may still be done.
The best test is to take a slice from the middle of the loaf after it has cooled. If the interior is too soft and doesn't spring back to shape when depressed, just bake a bit more next time--to 200F or 205F. Some more enriched doughs need to be baked to slightly higher temperatures.
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104366 | How do I store marshmallows?
My marshmallows always stick together in a big clump. I keep them in a dry and cool place. This doesn't seem to work. Is there a way to store them so this won't happen?
How well sealed is the container? I suspect humidity is getting in somehow.
Store-bought or homemade marshmallows?
Your best bet would be to place a desiccant into the container so that it absorbs the moisture which is causing your marshmallows to clump.
Silica gel packets would be fine and are often found in packets of jerky for this same reason. Alternatively some cornstarch would do since it absorbs moisture, but it may be harder to clean off of your marshmallows.
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110087 | Why does my honey always crystallized?
My honey always crystallizes no matter where I store it. I have some that hasn't been opened yet and it has crystallized. I have stored it in dark and warm places I tried cool places the outcome is the same. I know I can still use it but sometimes I haven't thought ahead and I didn't prepare the honey from being crystallized. Is there anything I can do to stop it from being crystallized?
Is it a bad thing? I only eat crystallized honey, as it has a more enjoyable texture to eat and liquid honey is messy.
If I get a jar of honey that is over prone to crystallizing, I'll add a few ml of water to it. That helps. You don't want to add a lot though, or you'll get into a water activity range where molds can grow.
The only change in recipes in using crystalized honey is that it's more prone to get more of it on spoon.
That's normal for honey. When you buy good quality honey, it will always crystalize, no matter what you do. The speed and crystalization and the appearance of the crystals depends on the plant from which the honey was made.
If you want honey that doesn't crystalize, you can go to the supermarket and look at the cheaper honeys. If they are liquid in the supermarket already, there is a good chance that they have been treated in ways which prevent crystalization. Alternatively, you can buy products which are a mixture of bee honey and other sugars, which can also be formulated to not crystalize.
I bought this one at Costco and it crystallized even without being opened.
@GJ.Baker nothing unusual about that. Honey crystalizes on its own, no matter what you do.
Additionally, other than a bit of inconvenience, there's nothing wrong about crystallized honey, it's just as good as fresh for any purposes where the 'liquid state' isn't essential.
found this on the back of my honey...
All pure honey will crystallise over time. This change is a sign of quality. It can be restored to its liquid state by loosening the lid and standing in hot water or removing the metal lid and heating gently in a microwave oven on the lowest power. However, don’t allow the honey temperature to exceed 40°C (104°F) as some of the goodness will be lost!
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110086 | My Carrot Apple Zucchini Bread is moist but it crumble when you cut it. How can I fix it?
I have been baking zucchini bread for many years. I bake several different kinds. I found this new recipe and decided to try it. It is moist and tastes great. The problem is when I cut a piece it crumbles. So you can't hold it and eat it like a piece of bread. Does anyone have any ideas on how I can fix this problem?
This is impossible to answer without a recipe.
Sorry forgot that part.
The recipe is. 1-cup butter
Sorry my tablet is acting weird. 1-cup butter, 2- cups sugar, 3- eggs, 1/4 cup orange juice, 1 Tbl. Vanilla, 3 1/4 cups flour, 1/2 tsp. Salt, 2 1/2 tsp. baking powder, 3/4 tsp. Baking soda, 1 tsp. Cinnamon, 1 cup shredded carrots, 2 cups shredded zucchini. I'm sorry for the format of the recipe as I said my tablet seems to have a mind of its own.
I forgot the recipe also calls for 1-cup of peeled and diced apple (any kind you want) can't believe I forgot to write down the apple it's in the name of the recipe
You are more likely to get answers if edit the question to include both the ingredients and your method.
Having looked at a recipe which seems to be the same as yours and compared it with some others I can see two possibilities, the sugar content seems high. Many people commenting on the recipe said they cut the sugar way back. Another issue could be if you don’t wring enough water from the courgettes, the steam from those could push the structure apart in baking.
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13789 | Molasses and Honey with burned beef suggestions?
Okay, so my lovely wife ("Plain Ol'Common Sense" here on the exchange) entrusted to me a mildly expensive roast as she left to spend a night with her sister.
Everything started out so well... I heated the cast iron skillet good and hot, browned the roast, poured a can of tomato paste onto it with a can of french onion soup and some fresh garlic and coarse pepper and popped the whole shebang into the oven at 375.
It all broke down when I let a project get me side-tracked and now I need to save my bacon (or beef as is the case now).
So, now I'm wondering something. I want to take this lovely, dry roast and crock-pot it with honey and molasses for a spicy-sweet fajita masterpiece before she gets home tomorrow and I'm looking for a recipe.
Now, mind you, I need to be at work 70 miles from home at 7:00 in the morning but I've got 2 teenage boys that can babysit the crock-pot. I'll have some time to put this together before heading out the door.
Any spicy-sweet ideas out there?
Thanks in advance!
Edit An excellent point was made in the comments: How bad is it?
The Roast pulls apart readily, is quite brown and very dry tasting. The french onion soup and tomato reduced down to a very caramelized reduction in the bottom of the pan leaving the top of the roast exposed for about an hour. Although, I did have a cast iron lid on the whole rig so it didn't 'burn' completely.
Could you edit your question to clarify exactly what state your roast is in? The only description I see is "burned" and that's just in the title.
@hobodave I've updated the post with the condition of the meat. Thanks for pointing out that I was remiss in mentioning it.
I think that a crock pot won't help you at all.
There is no way to reverse what has happened and make it taste non-dry. You have 3 changing components in meat: 2 types of protein, and connective tissue. When the first type of protein denatures (at 50°C - we are speaking meat core temperature here, not oven temperature) the meat is medium. When the second type denatures (65°C), the meat is well done. The denatured proteins can't conatin moisture and it all leaks away, leaving the meat dry. This is the stage at which your roast has arrived.
What happens in a crock pot is that the third component - connective tissue - changes into gooey gelatine (starts at around 70°C, needs lots of time). So while the muscle fibres are dry, they are covered in the gelatine, and easy to chew. That tastes good. But it isn't the liquid in the crock pot which makes the meat tender.
The prerequisite for the third change is that you have enough connective tissue in the meat. Roast cuts definitely don't have it! In fact, if you had it, this reaction would already have happened in the oven. The simple fact that the roast which stayed too long in the oven is is dry is the hint that putting it into a crock pot won't make it better. Even if you let it swim in the nicest liquids, they won't get absorbed by the meat. Its physical structure is changed and it cannot keep liquids absorbed. More cooking won't help.
However, the situation is not hopeless. In fact, daniel already gave the solution. The taste of the dry meat isn't a problem; its texture is the problem. It is too dry to chew. As there is no way to lubricate the inside of the roast, you need to tear it into small pieces and lubricate it on the outside. I am not sure that "shred with forks" is the best way though (that's what would have worked on a brisket out of the crock pot), I'd suggest first cutting it into slices against the grain and then shredding (or maybe dicing) the slices. Then my preference would be to surve in a rich, lubricating sauce. I don't think that honey will help much for texture, but adding it for taste should function. Go for something with a very smooth texture - e.g. a bearnaise. This should counteract the dryness well. If you use something else as a sauce, try for a higher fat content. You may need to create an emulsion if you use a water based sauce (like the one daniel suggests).
that is an excellent answer! I've always wondered why dry tasting meat could never be 're-moisturized' for lack of a better term. Essentially, the meat no longer has the capacity to taste moist and must now be sauced to get the point across. I love it. For the record, I've already loaded it into the pot on low for the day. I'll report back with the results later.
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11411 | Should Chorizo Be Peeled Before Cooking?
For years I've been chopping up Chorizo and cooking it, with no other preparation. I've recently been told that I've been doing it wrong and should peel the Chorizo first. It's pain to peel, and I've not noticed any difference.
What is the skin of a Chorizo sausage made of, and should it be removed before cooking or not?
Certainly, no chorizo skin is going to poison you. On that basis, if you're happy with your results, then carry on.
I have used chorizo where the papery skin peels off quite easily -- but I have never seen a need to remove it.
Thanks, the Chorizo I've been using only has a papery skin and I'd never thought about taking it off until someone said I should. I think I'm going to stick with leaving it on.
It depends on what chorizo you're using. If you're using soft (i.e. uncooked) chorizo then no, you don't need to remove the skin, because it should cook with the sausage. If you are using the cured, ready to eat chorizo you should take the skin off as it will be tough.
This may well vary by brand, incidentally.
+1. Followup question: would it typically be true that the skin comes off the cured chorizo easily and be harder to remove from the soft chorizo? I think I have had chorizo that was cured, but still had skin that was very hard to remove, but I'm not sure.
With soft chorizo it's easy to just squeeze it out - no need to try to peel it.
@ErikP., with cured chorizo it can be a bit fiddly to get the paper off. I usually make three longitudinal cuts and try to remove each of the resulting three strips of paper in one go.
The cured chorizo available at my local grocery store actually has a plastic skin so obviously that must be removed in order to make it edible. It also has metal clips holding the ends closed, so it's pretty clear that you're not supposed to eat it.
So, if you do choose to eat the skin, make sure it's not plastic. Again, it should be pretty obvious.
I have seen some with the metal clips which hold the string on to the sausage, but the skin has always been papery rather than plastic.
There is also the sticky adhesive that is used to attach the paper/plastic skin to the sausage contend with. The paper generally comes off leaving strands of this stuff that needs scraping with a knife.
When talking about chorizo, it's worth specifying Spanish (papery skin, fairly dense, often cured) or Mexican (often plastic skin, loose, usually uncured). Same name for two very different products. Mexican should be peeled, Spanish usually shouldn't.
Ah! I didn't know that there were two different products. I'm in the UK and have only ever come across the Spanish version. Thanks!
It's not even that simple. Cured Spanish chorizo tends to have papery skin, but fresh Spanish chorizo often has similar skin to English sausages. I'm not sure whether it's real intestine or some form of plastic.
@PeterTaylor I think (though I'm not sure) the "papery" skin is just how the skin you're used to becomes when dried. It could be intestine, or it could be manufactured from collagen or cellulose: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sausage_casing
Slice off a chunk you need, shallow cut length ways, run under tap and ensure all skin is damp, peels away easily.
I purchased los angelitos chorizos in NJ the casing is hard has metal on ends. it says remove casing before cooking. It makes sense-the casing is plastic and I am more concerned with bacteria.
Welcome to Seasoned Advice, lolin! It seems that the answer to this question is very much, "It depends on what kind of chorizo you buy."
I have always peeled my chorizo before using because I thought they were wrapped in some kind of paper as opposed to being skinned. My brother doesn't peel his and he's still alive so I guess it's a preference thing.
As for the difficulty in peeling them I have found that the more I pay for my chorizo, the easier they are to peel!!!! I don't know why this is but it seems to be the case, although the more expensive ones don't taste much different to the cheaper ones, they just peel easier.The cheaper ones usually end up with a bit of a sorry looking chorizo and the more expensive ones seem to peel really easily. I score the chorizo along its length and then peel.
I find the answer depends on what you are doing.
If the recipe is one where you add whole chorizos to a bean stew say, for slow boiling with the beans, then you will need to keep the skin on. This will tend to hold it together and limit oozing to either end of the sausage. the lovely paprika flavours will seep out into the stew, but the sausage will be intact for cutting up when serving.
If you are frying slices, eg before adding some mixed up eggs, like for a chorizo omelette, then remove the skin. I find this best done with a small sharp knife peeling from the ends of the sausage (the chain links naturally give you an opening when you cut through them. Put on your glasses and try and peel like an onion, ie upwards and roundwards. The skin should come off reasonably easily.
On cooked chorizo slices, prepacked, eg for tapas, appetisers, try a slice. If its rind is annoying, your decision will be to peel them.
Finally, I had some thin chorizo for grilling recently. It said so on its packet. I used it for frying into chorizo omelettes, and results wre that it was frazzled and hard. So it may be a lesson to check what it says on the pack, just in case it has a type of use.
Personally, I keep it on; it tends to lose its form if you remove it, and it's just a matter of personal taste.
It's not only extremely difficult to remove the soft casing, but it mushes up the chorizo. It really depends on what you're cooking with it. If it's going to be ground up, as in an egg dish, then squeeze it out. But the dish I make with it (my kids' #1 favorite meal!) is pasta with chorizo "balls" (more like mini sausage patties, than meatballs). It's ruined if it gets mashed up...btw, they've NEVER noticed the casing or had an issue with its taste. If it's not harmful, I'm sticking with my method!
Judging from some of the other answers, there are several distinct things being called Chorizo here. The stuff I buy usually is loose, without casing. After it gets a little on the old side, the butcher puts what's left through his casing machine, and still calls it Chorizo. It's still mushy. Sounds like some Chorizo makers actually let the stuff in casing dry some as well. Ahh, I see Dave Griffith's got this as well.
I just bought some Abuelita "Ready to Eat" chorizo, and for this brand the recommendation seems to be the opposite of what is written above. i.e. in the store the raw said on the package to remove the casing, and the ready to eat was silent, but "ready to eat" seems to be self-explanatory.
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34551 | How to emulate pike of Starbucks
Recently, I have developed a taste for pike roast flavor of Starbucks. I was wondering if I can make coffee with the same taste in my home? What would be the coffee bean and an appropriate coffee maker for that?
Definitely belongs to Cooking SE.
The simplest answer is: buy the Pike coffee blend from Starbucks, they sell their beans.
Brew it at home with any method you prefer. The coffee maker you use is a matter of preference. Starbucks themselves use a large drip pot, which is the most common home type.
If you want to avoid using Starbucks beans, from the description of the roast (I haven't tasted it in quite a while, and it didn't make an impression), it sounds like a mountain grown coffee, something like Kenyan would be a good choice. Since they describe it as low acidity, I am guessing that it might be somewhat less over-roasted than Starbucks coffee usually is, so I would suggest a Full City Roast, or perhaps a Vienna roast.
Its certainly a blend, so no single bean will replicate it. I would suggest finding a blend from a reputable coffee roaster that you like, or simply buying the Pike blend from Starbucks.
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49150 | Does vinegar have the same function as tartaric acid in a pavlova?
My recipe for pavlova roll has 4 egg whites, 1 teaspoon vinegar and 1 teaspoon cornflour in it. Would you suggest adding cream of tartar? If I doubled the mixture how long would I need to bake it?
I would replace vinegar with tartaric or citric acid, to rid the meringue of vinegary taste.
I would not recommend adding cream of tartar. Your ratio of 1 teaspoon vinegar to stabilize 4 egg whites is standard. My personal preference is to use cream of tartar instead of vinegar if it is available to you - I'd recommend 1/4 teaspoon for 4 egg whites.
I assume you have something like 1 cup of sugar going into your meringue as well?
See also: How much acid to use for stabilizing meringue?
Meringues bake at low temperatures for a long time. It is difficult to provide any kind of formula to predict how baking time might increase if you double the recipe. My recommendation would be to pipe-out your primary meringue disk along with a couple smaller test disks of similar thickness - the idea being that you can use the smaller disks to test for doneness without breaking-off a piece of your primary dessert form. If you're planning to make a wider disk (i.e. not thicker), the baking time shouldn't vary much from what is recommended in your recipe. Please note that the meringue should not brown - but when you break-apart a test disk, the interior should be neither sticky nor moist - the meringue is done as soon as the moisture from the eggs has baked-off enough for the result to be airy, crisp, and dry.
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23685 | Any tips on crushing garlic for alioli?
I tried making alioli at home, but in the first step (turning the garlic into a fine paste), I didn't make much progress. I chopped the garlic fairly finely first, but when I tried crushing them with a wooden spoon in a wide low mug, the little pieces just ping off.
What's the trick? Is there some way of softening them up first?
Note that I'm not making it in commercial quantities, so the amount of garlic I'm using would scarcely reach up to the blade on my immersion blender.
How did you crush it?
What does it mean for pieces of garlic to "ping off"
@Mien, wooden spoon in a wide low mug.
@Ray, they don't stay between the two crushing surfaces.
Your error is chopping the garlic. If you work with the whole clove it's far more manageable.
NB I've tagged [tag:aioli] because it's the closest tag, but I'm actually trying to make alioli. That isn't a typo.
My bad then, but are you sure you don't mean "aioli"? It is sometimes spelled "allioli".
I expanded the tag wiki to cover all variants of aioli and related sauces, whatever the spelling - we don't have that many questions about them as to create separate tags.
@Mien, al·lioli is the Catalan spelling; alioli is the Valencian and Castilian spelling; aioli is Provençal and different in that it uses egg.
I make garlic paste quite often, using this technique I saw on Bobby Flay.
Put the whole clove on the board.
Lay knife flat, and smack it with your hand.
Remove paper and root.
Dice finely.
Sprinkle with the quantity of salt your recipe calls for.
With the knife relatively flat, grind the garlic into the salt with the knife.
Typically, I'll make a pass in one direction with the edge on the board, leading with the spine, and then come back with the spine on the board, leading with the edge. You need a wide knife (at least a french chef's knife, cleaver or santuko) in order to keep your fingers out of danger. I apply the downward pressure with the top of my palm, with my fingers curled back.
Check this for a similar technique - http://www.howdini.com/howdini-video-6688064.html (The mincing starts around 2:40
After 5 or 6 passes, you should have a nice fine paste.
You don't need to add the salt, but it helps as an abrasive.
Garlic Press
I like to use a garlic press for this sort of thing. You drop a whole clove or two in the device, squeeze, and you get a perfectly smooth garlic paste. The one downside is that it can be quite a pain to clean.
Microplane
There is also the Microplane (I'm not sure if there is a generic name for this type of rasp-style grater). Although I see it as ideally suited for hard cheeses and citrus zests, it generally does a fine job on garlic too. It means that you don't have to have on extra specialized tool. The downsides are again the cleaning (though not as bad as the press) and the likelihood of nicking your finger as you get down to the last bit of garlic.
Knife Skills
Here's a simple method that I use when I really don't feel like getting one more device out (or dirty). Lay the garlic clove on a cutting board and lay the side of a chef's knife over top of it. Then smack it with the heel of your hand hard enough until you feel the garlic yield under the pressure. The garlic has been "crushed" but is still holding together. If you dice it very finely at this point, it will have a much better "crushed" texture than if you do not smack it first. I do find that the other methods yield a superior result, but this method is often more than sufficient.
Use a wooden toothpick or skewer to hold garlic down to last bit on microplane
Nice tip, TFD (pad)
The traditional way is to use a mortar and pestle. It works with very small quantities.
If you don't have a mortar and pestle, try approximating one with a cup rounded on the inside for the mortar and something sufficiently round for the pestle, for example the end of a rolling pin. It won't be as good as mortar and pestle, but will give you something crushed.
Another option is to use the immersion blender on a whole head or two of garlic, then freeze the part you won't be using immediately. If you do so in small portion, you can always get out a single portion for seasoning a dish.
Actually I suppose the freezing would help soften them up just by itself. Blend then freeze sounds like a very promising idea.
I found a bowl + a small cup worked pretty well before I got a mortar & pestle. I was using a metal cup, and just pressing firmly / grinding with salt, starting from whole cloves of garlic ... I'd steer clear of glass, as you don't want to pound and end up with broken glass everywhere.
Strong plastic bag and a rolling pin
Cutting board and a flat, heavy pan. Just grab the edges of the pan firmly and apply your weight down, creating some arcing motions from side to side.
Having successfully made aioli, I find that a garlic press squeezes each clove just fine. What's more, it retains the thick part of the peel.
I'd like to second the microplane zester. Produces the smoothest results exceptionally quickly. I also like the fact that I can get half garlic clove mashed to a paste. Most other methods work better on larger quantities. Here is a little video on how this works:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alY0OUKUeCA
I use a variation on Chris Cudmore's method given elsewhere in this thread:
Instead of dicing the garlic (Chris' step 4) I use the back of the knife blade to 'slice' the garlic very thinly. This actually squashes the garlic to a paste instead of dicing it. This is usually enough for most recipes that require 'crushed garlic' and is actually faster than dicer. Chris' steps 5 and 6 are not usually required though for a really smooth paste I may go on to 'grind' the garlic too.
Note that the above technique requires a large, heavy, thick-bladed knife. The back of the blade must be thick (mine is 3 or 4mm) or it won't work. The best part of this (and Chris') method is that there is no fiddly washing up of processors, graters, crushers etc.
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33957 | How can I tell which fruits etc. contain proteases?
After my second attempt at making a ginger mousse with gelatin and finding that it fails, I've discovered that fresh ginger contains a protease. I knew that pineapple does, and that it complicates making pineapple jelly, but I didn't realise that ginger does too.
Is there an authoritatively sourced and fairly complete list of fruits etc. which require cooking when making jellies? (Note that I'm not asking for a bunch of answers consisting of a single fruit, and such answers will likely be downvoted). Or is there some quick and simple way to tell whether a fruit contains proteases?
@SAJ14SAJ, I'm not promising downvotes: I realise that I'm treading close to a "list question" (although I hope I'm on the right side of the line), and I'm trying to pre-empt the kind of answers that are the reason that list questions have a bad reputation and that will almost certainly end up at -3 or below.
Enzymes which degrade proteins, called proteases, are found in many fruits. There is no simple test for it other than holding some in your mouth and seeing if it "eats" your flesh away after a few minutes
Commercial test are not practical or portable as they require maceration, heating, centrifuging and using florescent dye markers. Or just make some in gelatine and see what happens :-)
A quick list would be:
Fig - Ficin
Ginger - zingipain
Kiwi fruit - Actinidin
Papaya (Pawpaw) - Papain
Pineapple - Bromelain
Also to a lesser extent
Banana
Guava
Mango
It is in many other fruits, but at levels where they will not be a problem, of course at different levels depending on the specific fruit variety etc.
Is there maybe a food you could easily tell if it eats at, rather than using your mouth?
@Jefromi it will "eat" most meat proteins, but the effect is subtle, so using your mouth is the only way I know you will detect it. Similar to how a strong soap/akaline makes your skin feel very smooth, but you can't see any difference
What's an example of a non-protein-degrading protease?
@NickT none, by definition. If you wanted to only point out the unlucky choice of words: I edited the sentence.
@TFD +1 for the "eats your flesh away" test. While I knew about the protease in pineapple, and have always noticed the feeling strongly with fresh pineapple, I never connected the two and just assumed that it's the pineapple's acidity. Your explanation makes much more sense.
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62881 | I have a French Coconut pie recipe that calls for 1/2 cup butter. Could I replace it with condensed milk instead?
I have a coconut pie recipe that uses 1/2 cup butter and 3 eggs. Could I replace some of the butter with condensed milk? Any other substitutes besides margarine?
Are you sure it's 1 cup of butter, could it be 1 stick of butter? A quick Google search of recipes showed all using 1/2 cup (1 stick).
Sorry about that, yes you are right, Debbie. It's 1/2 cup. I would like to cut back on the butter without affecting taste or texture.
How is the butter used? Is it creamed, melted, or just whisked into the ingredients?
melted and then stirred into rest of ingredients.
Butter is about 80% fat, maybe a bit lower if you're getting it direct from the farmer; condensed milk is about 10% fat, so you'd need to use a lot of condensed milk and you'd probably have too much excess water to compensate by reducing extra liquids.
The best substitute would be another fat which is solid at room temperature. There aren't many (at least, not if you restrict to vegetable fats), but one which does meet the criterion is coconut oil, and since you're making a coconut pie that seems like an excellent substitute.
It will not come out the same. Butter and condensed milk are not really similar. Consenses or evaporated milk is what gives key lime pie filing its consistency. Coconut cream you want more of a pudding or custard like consistency.
This is not the same as coconut cream pie. It's not a custard type filling. More like a pecan pie filling but thicker.
Honestly, butter is somehow far away from condensed milk so I don't think you can use condensed milk as a substitution of butter at all. your pie will turn out totally different. As opposed to butter, you can use oil instead such as vegetable oil or coconut oil, both will work well. hope it helps. cheers
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35041 | Fermented rice horchata
I have been making some horchata (using white rice, cinnamon and water). I left it for a day and when I returned, it looked slightly fermented (a stream of bubbles were coming out of it and it was frothy ever so slightly). I blended and sweetened it and it tasted delicious, with a slightly tangy taste.
My question is will it be safe to eat? I see no reason why it shouldn't be, after all it is no different to fermented ginger beer, but I would like to have some advice.
There is a pathogen, Bacillus cereus, which can grow on rice left out at room temperature and cause food born illness.
I was unable to find any references to proper fermentation of horchata which is normally not fermented as far as I can tell.
You may wish to be cautious in the future.
OK thanks, I only had a few sips; but to be safe I'm going to chuck it
There are a number of rice beers found in Asia such as Amazake in Japan and Makgeolli in Korea. Both of these rely on the use of a starter, koji or nuruk respectively, to inoculate the cooked rice with yeasts and other flavor-producing fungi.
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17181 | Temperature of tandoor for making naan
What is the temperature used in a tandoor for making naan or kulcha? I know it's higher than 500 deg. F [260 deg. C], but don't know the exact range of temperatures resestaurants use.
Update: Having baked my naan in a Big Green Egg knockoff for more than a year now, I can say that the ideal temperature seems to be between 600 deg. F and 700 deg. F. This may not be the range of temperature in a tandoor, but for baking naan on a pizza stone in a ceramic oven, the range I mentioned seems to work.
There isn't much detailed information for this online. Even the various manufacturers don't generally cite desired temperatures. Wikipedia says up to 480C/900F, but does not cite a source for this temperature. The NY Times says that a traditional charcoal tandoor gets up to 750F, but does not mention a source either. Homedoor, the one manufacturer who mentions a temperature, says that their units go up to 650F.
None of these sources mention a desired optimal temperature, though. It seems likely that the temperature would be similar to the optimal temperature for Neopolitan pizza, between 600F and 700F.
Also, a tandoor is designed so that the clay walls will be hotter than the air inside the oven -- I'd assume probably 50-100F hotter, but that's basically a blind guess as I can't find any measurements anywhere.
The one thing I can tell you from personal experience is that you cannot make Indian naan with the proper texture in a home oven with a pizza stone which only gets up to 525F. Believe me, I've tried.
Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tandoor
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/11/dining/a-tandoor-oven-brings-indias-heat-to-the-backyard.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1
https://homdoor.com/index.php/home/
Thanks for your answer. I agree with your comment about home ovens. However, I am trying this out in a ceramic charcoal oven (similar to the Big Green Egg brand), so I can actually reach a temperature of upto 900 deg. F.
The Big Green Egg should work admirably well as a tandoor. That's essentially what it is.
Update to my question: I tried making naan at approximately 650 deg. F and it seemed to work well.
Glad to hear it. Now I know too ...
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115765 | Advice to making Boba Pearls
Today, I tried 3 different ways to make boba/tapioca pearls from scratch, and while the third time sort of worked I never got a "dough" that was of a playdoh consistency.
In reading several articles/recipes on the internet:
Joshua Weissman Video
Scientific American Article
Instructables Article
All use moderately different techniques, the essential technique appears to be:
Mix hot water and tapioca starch together, in approximately correct proportions, and you will get a playdoh-like doh.
All three of our attempts were with boiling water with brown sugar, and varying degrees of tapioca.
The first two were horrible non-newtonian liquid pieces, that were impossible to form. i.e. once we stopped applying pressure they oozed everywhere but had zero pliability.
Our third attempt, we let the brown sugar and water boil for a while (but not to a syrupy consistency) and that seemed to do better. It was manipulatable, but definitely NOT "playdoh" like consistency. Additionally, after about 10 minutes it was hard as a rock. We found 10 seconds in the microwave helped make it moderately pliable again, but again, nothing close to the consistencies we were seeing described or observed in the videos.
I'd like suggestions on how to improve. Various thoughts that have come to mind include:
Is there something wrong with our general approach here?
Are there "known" techniques for getting the right consistency?
Heat is pretty clearly important, is it just heat, or do proportions matter? Are there "sweet spots" in ratios of ingredients?
Does heating a partially dissolved starch help? Some recipes do that, some don't. I haven't found a clear discussion of how different techniques help/hinder the process.
I'm not really much of a cook, but all I would suggest is to measure the amounts to get the consistency you want, and maybe adjust it if necessary.
@DerrickWilliams, the point of the question is, I've already done that and failed. I will try again, but I'd like my next attempt to be better informed.
Did you ever figure this out? We're having the same problems.
I visited some Chinese language websites, and it seems that there really isn't any magic here. Since their recipe is basically the same as the first one you linked to, I won't post any links here. I've never made tapioca balls, but the technique used here is a technique common in Chinese cooking called "hot dough" (tangmian 烫面), which I often use.
The water mixture (syrup?) must be consistent and boiling hot, so boiling the mixture for a while might be a wise choice. Also, stir quickly and well. This might explain why your first two attempts failed: the phrase to remember here is starch gelatinization, and if your water-starch mixture doesn't stay hot enough, there wouldn't be enough gelatinization there.
It's usually better to err on the side of too much water (but of course, not way too much), as you can add starch to get the desired consistency.
Also, you are not supposed to leave it there for 10 minutes; it is normal for the dough to become hard after a while. You are supposed to make the tapioca balls from the dough _right away. Yes, it would be hot, so it would be wise to wear gloves. If you really need to leave it to cool down, covering the dough with a hot wet kitchen towel might help.
Once you craft your bobas, it would be just fine to leave it to harden. It might be wise to cover your bobas with (raw) tapioca powder to prevent sticking.
"Stir quickly and well" Can you expand on that point? As that point had been made in some of my references, I thought I did that the same both times. Presumably this is to facilitate the starch gelantinization?
Yes, I believe the purpose is to let the hot water mix with the starch thoroughly and quickly, without cooling down too much.
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44957 | What is a yeast cake?
Kids and I are reading a book written in the 50's, and there's a recipe in the book that uses one "yeast cake"? What is a suitable replacement in dry yeast?
The rest of the recipe (this is from memory) uses 1C Milk, 1 Egg, 1C flour and several other smaller amounts of flavoring/ingredients.
A whole yeast cake today is typically 2oz, which is a lot of yeast. How much of what does the recipe make?
Here's a handy converter once we figure out how much fresh yeast they mean by a "cake".
It looks like .6 oz cakes are standard too. That would be 2 tsp of instant dry yeast, which makes more sense.
@Jolenealaska : Bob's Red Mill shows one cake being the equivalent to one packet of dried : "One (1/4-ounce) yeast packet of dry yeast OR 1 cake fresh, compressed yeast EQUALS 2- 1/4 teaspoons dry yeast (active dry or instant active dry)"
@Joe That makes perfect sense and it meshes (pretty closely) with what I was able to find. I bet that's what the OP needs.
Bob's Red Mill website states that one cake is the equivalent to one packet of dried yeast (0.25oz or 2.25 tsp):
One (1/4-ounce) yeast packet of dry yeast OR 1 cake fresh, compressed yeast EQUALS 2- 1/4 teaspoons dry yeast (active dry or instant active dry)
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13501 | Black residue inside frying pan
I left my stainless steel frying pan on the hob empty for a while by mistake. It got very hot indeed, I ran it carefully under the tap to cool it down, which took a while - lots of steam. Now, there's a kind of black residue inside, that wasn't there before (it was clean while it was on the hob). I can't remove it even with the toughest of detergents and pan scourers, is it safe to cook with this pan any more?
What kind of pan do you have? It makes a big difference it it's teflon-coated or just stainless steel or cast iron.
Stainless steel, question updated.
Well, first off, you probably should have let it cool off in air. As for the darkening, stainless can do that when overheated. Barkeeper's friend may be able to remove that. Was this an aluminum-core pan? If so, you may have melted the core... See also http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/11916/overheated-stainless-steel-stock-pot
No idea, is it bad if it is?
The good news is that when you have something that's near impossible to clean off (including scrubbing, heat, acids, bases, other cleansers), it's very unlikely to come off when cooking, even if the pan doesn't look all that pretty.
What you are seeing is almost certainly a form of firescale, and it should be completely harmless. If the discoloration bothers you, you can try to remove it using the aforementioned Barkeeper's friend or a mixture of boric acid and denatured alcohol (which are non-toxic).
With regard to cooling off the pan, you should never put a hot, empty pan into a cold, wet sink: The temperature change can cause the pan to warp.
Stainless steel pans tend to get brown/black around where the flames are if you heat them empty. I wouldn't worry about it and you should be able to scrub it off eventually.
Boil water and Cascade dishwashing liquid inside the pan covering the black area. Rub with spatula after a few minutes to see if the black is loosened. Keep cooking until it rubs off with spatula.
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14335 | What kind of peppers are used in Gochugaru (고추가루)?
I'm trying to make kimchi, but I don't have any chili powder (gochugaru -고추가루). Does anyone know what type of chili pepper(s) this is made from? I'm trying to find it at a normal western grocery store (Wal-Mart, Kroger, Remke...) I figured if I knew what type of peppers it was made from I could find something equivalent.
Have you checked to see if there's an H Mart (a.k.a. Han Ah Reum) in your area?
Hah, no trust me there isn't one here... I live in KY.
Oh well, worth a check. There's a bunch of them in Georgia and Virginia. There are usually Asian groceries in big cities though, Louisville and Lexington have several according to Google maps :)
When I go to the Korean supermarkets in LA, I usually see half an aisle just dedicated to 고추가루 in all kinds of forms (mild to spicy, fine to coarse grind) and colors. I don't know that there's any specific pepper than it is all about how sweet and mildly spicy 고추가루 is supposed to be. You could start from there to make your own by sun drying and crushing whatever peppers are available to you.
If you are looking for a substitute that you can buy at a western store, try crushed red pepper flakes (the kind you see in the shakers at pizza places). You're going to be adjusting for taste/spiciness anyway, so not much of a dealbreaker.
The county I live in produces a lot of chillies called Cheonggyeol (청결). They also produce gochugaru here. Here's a link. After some asking around, I can confirm that these are the peppers they use to make Gochugaru (고추고루).
Mc Cormick now makes Korean Red Pepper Flakes for sale at some Costcos (also in smaller containes at the Supermarket). I bought a large container and I am going back for more. Great flavor and heat for just about everything.
Buy dried chilis and blend them into powder
It sounds like this community doesn't know more about the specific peppers used (and their North American subsitutes) than what @janeylicious has proposed. Howeover, I propose a different methodology for finding a good fit.
You can buy dried chilis of many varieties from Latino and sometimes American grocery stores: anchos, de arbols. pasillas, moritas, guajillos, puyas and more. Turn a chili or mix of chilis into a powder by putting them into your blender or food processor. Pro-level blenders like Ninjas, Oster Versas and Vitamixes are great for this.
Use the homemade powder as your recipe directs, and compare the taste to how you remember. You can use a chili guide to inform your adjustments. Eventually, you should be able to do much better than red pepper flakes for pizza.
Yes, you can buy just about anything from Amazon, but sometimes "the hard way" is more fun, and you get to put that much more love into your K-food. This is certainly not the authentic Korean method of making gochugaru, but it works for me, and my kimchi turns out great!:
Find a relatively "fresh" bag of dried "Chiles Japones" in the Mexican/Hispanic section of your grocery store; at least 6oz. (You want them to be slightly pliable; if they are overly dry and brittle, the next step will be frustrating, if not painfully impossible.)
Carefully remove and discard ALL the seeds and stems from the dried chiles; don't worry, it will be plenty spicy (and much tastier) without them... please, DO NOT scratch your eyes or touch any other sensitive part of your body at this point... ouch!
Put all the nice red parts in a coffee/spice grinder and process until it looks just right... like flaky dust (dusty flakes?)... you'll probably never want to use that grinder for coffee beans again, but it's worth the sacrifice.
3.5 No matter how pretty it looks, DON'T sniff it; you'll be sorry (like I was the first time)!
Now you have something that looks and tastes a whole heck of a lot like Gochugaru... Proceed to make yourself some Kentucky Kimchi ("Kentuck-chi"?), and let us know how it turns out!
It's really hard to find substitute because the way it is processed is different too. I'm not sure what the chilies are called but they are quite long and slender. The Korean ones are bright red and sweeter and the ones in western markets are pretty dark and bitter.
If you are unable to locate the real Korean pepper powder, I think you will have to make a blend of your own. Ancho chilis have a fairly similar flavor, but are not hot enough. So you would have to mix some amount of a hotter powder into ancho powder, and that could give you what you seek. Nothing is going to be perfect, but this can get you to a reasonable facsimile.
I find Aleppo chilies are quite similar. They’re also at the same heat level as the Cheonggyeol peppers. (10,000 scoville).
You can order from Amazon.com if you can not find in market near you.
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78512 | N2O canister getting stuck in whipping siphon?
this is the first time I tried to make homemade whipped cream, so I bought a new whipped cream siphon and some N2O cartridges, and the first time I tried to use it, all worked well and I made a bit of whipped cream. When I unscrewed the canister cover though (the one the canister goes in to be screwed onto the bottle), I found that it was stuck inside and it took me about 15 minutes to get out with pliers. (Note: It also took a surprising amount of force to screw in in the first place)
I looked up some videos on how to make whipped cream, and they show people just shaking the canister out of the cover once they're done. There's no way I can do this, as when I insert it into the cover and just slightly press it in with my thumb, it takes a lot of shaking to get out. It simply gets stuck there almost immediately.
Do I have the wrong type of cartridge, or is there a step I am missing?
Thanks in advance!
Instructions unclear, canister stuck in syphon.
Have you tried another batch of cartridges? Or another gas? My guess is that the syphon may be faulty rather than the cartridges although that can happen I suppose. Wrong type cartridges are also not too likely to have only slightly different dimensions; they are typically so different that there would be no way of putting one into the wrong equipment. In my somewhat limited experience, the cartridge always drops out readily without any help. How much gas is in the cartridge as printed on the box?
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78711 | Why does my 1 tablespoon of coffee grounds not equal 15 ml?
The bag of coffee I am using instructs to "Add 2 1/2 tablespoons (37 ml)" of ground coffee. When I measure out 2 1/2 tablespoons onto my food scale, it only comes out to about 13 ml.
Why does my 2 1/2 tablespoon measurement not equal 37 ml?
Are you using actual tablespoon measuring spoons? And what do you mean by food scale? Usually that means something that measures weight, not volume.
@Jefromi Yes I am using actual measuring spoons.And I am using a food scale that measures weight.
Okay, so do you mean the scale says 13 grams, not 13 mL?
@Jefromi Well, it is a digital kitchen scale ("Ozeri kitchen scale" from amazon) for measuring by weight, but it has a mL option (along with g and oz).
@Jefromi I just measured again and the scale will show 13 grams and 13 ml for the same measurement.
At room temperature 1 gram or water is about 1.03 ml but close enough to 1.00 for any recipe. A fluid oz of water is is also not exactly an oz but close enough for cooking.
@Paparazzi I think you meant 1.003? But yes, close enough to 1.
Your scale is measuring weight, not volume.
Some scales do have an option to "convert" to volume, but they have to do so based on density; they don't actually know what's on top of them. So unless yours is really fancy, and has a bunch of densities programmed into it, so that you can say "this is flour" and let it convert, it's probably just assuming everything is water, with a density of 1g/mL.
And this should be really easy to confirm. Just toggle it from weight to volume. If it says 13mL is 13g, then that's what it's doing.
So then it's telling you that your 2.5 tablespoons of coffee is 13g, not 13mL, because it's around 1/3 as dense as water.
So this is not an accurate way to measure dry ingredient mL (volume). Is it safe to assume that the ml can measure all liquid ingredients volume accurately?
Depends how much accuracy you need. It'll work for anything that's basically water, for sure, e.g. milk. Cream is only a few percent off. But a lot of things are farther off. Oil and alcohol are less dense than water, e.g. vegetable oil is .93g/mL, and vodka is .92g/mL. Water with enough stuff dissolved in it is denser, e.g. a lot of sweet liqueurs are around 1.1g/mL, and honey is 1.4g/mL. If you're unsure, you should probably just google the density of whatever you're trying to measure.
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78729 | Chances of getting sick from reusing utensils after checking chicken doneness
So last night I was cooking dinner for a friend, not at my house, and they don't own an instant read thermometer. I put the chicken breasts (boneless with skin on and wing attached from a local farm) into a preheated 375 degree oven. After 45 minutes I checked them and they looked done but the juices we're still a bit cloudy, but not any pink. I decided to be on the safe side and put them in for another 15 minutes.
Afterwards when I checked them again and then cut them into pieces I used the same utensils I'd used to check them the first time.
What are the chances of someone getting sick from this? I'm assuming very low, but she has a 1 year old that ate a couple bites of it as well. I'm usually very careful around chicken but I wasn't thinking.
The chances are very low that anyone would get sick from that because the chicken was probably already safe when you first checked it. Although the recommendation is to cook until the chicken is 160F, anything above 140F will start to kill salmonella pretty quickly, with 4 minutes at 145F being enough to kill it off. A handy table from this page gives good info:
Min Internal Temp °F 6.5 log lethality 7.0 log lethality
130°F 112 min 121 min
135°F 36 min 37 min
140°F 12 min 12 min
145°F 4 min 4 min
150°F 67 seconds 72 seconds
6.5 log means 99.99997% is killed 7.0 log means 99.99999999% is killed. At 160F the 7.0 log time is 4 seconds, which is why there's a recommendation to cook to that temperature.
From your description it sounds like your chicken was close to being done but not quite done, so you erred on the side of caution and cooked longer, it was probably above 150F, so the salmonella should have been dead.
But, just because you got away with it this time doesn't mean you should make a habit of it! As someone who has experienced the great fun that salmonella poisoning is I would encourage people to wash their utensils if there's ever any possibility that they've come into contact with undercooked chicken (or seafood for that matter, not salmonella but just as bad or worse).
This was great, thank you. I'm usually very careful, almost neurotic, about food poisoning (after having E.Coli) but I just wasn't paying attention this time. I actually woke up in the middle of the night in a panic after this day. Thankfully, nobody has been sick yet, so I'm pretty sure we're in the clear now.
I'm sure you're fine. Being careful is good.
Well the chicken would need to be infected and that is a very small transfer. But according to this the infective dose could be as small as 10-15 cells.
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81031 | Why do grape-flavored foods taste different than actual grapes?
Grapes are one of my favorite fruits, but I typically don't like grape-flavored foods. For example, grape jelly or grape candies (like Jolly Ranchers) have a distinctly different taste. I imagine some of the taste perception has to do with water content. Why is it so different?
Many candies use artificial grape flavor, which doesn't really taste like a real grape.
@GdD I think that's the point of the question... why doesn't artificial grape flavor actually taste anything like grapes...
What do you mean by "grape jelly"... (i.e. are you a Brit or an American)... is it the stuff you spread on toast or the stuff you have as dessert (gelatin aka "Jell-O" in the US)?
I don't have a good enough answer to why artificial grape doesn't taste like real grape, other than it's the result of industrial chemistry.
@Catija, I meant what you spread on toast. Didn't know the dessert went by that name in the UK!
Thanks! In that case, it's not usually artificial flavors... the candy or Jell-o probably is but Welches, Smuckers, etc don't generally use fake flavors. If I had to guess, I think Joe is likely correct. Have you ever tried a concord grape?
@Catija: Yes, concord grapes are delicious and taste very much like the candy/jam/drinks etc. labeled "grape flavor"; quite different from any other variety of grape I ever tried.
@Catija There are 3 types of stuff to spread on toast here: jelly, jam, and preserves. Jelly is very processed, very smooth and uniform, most like gelatin. Jam has real fruit in it and has medium processing. Preserves has real chunks of fruit and even seeds. Marmalade would be closest to preserves. I prefer preserves and marmalade.
@Chloe I'm not sure how that matters... I was trying to clarify between two usages of "jelly". I never said that jelly is the only thing spread on toast.
I've found very few artificial flavors that taste the same as natural flavors. Consider artificial cherry flavor (like you might find in candy or cough medicine)—does that taste anything like a real cherry to you? It doesn't to me. Or artificial banana flavor, which doesn't taste much like a real banana. The big exception is artificial vanilla favor, which they've done a very good job matching, but that's because the flavor profile for vanilla is mostly just the vanillin molecule, which can be relatively easily synthesized, giving you the entire flavor profile. In other words, simple to copy.
Does anyone ever make wine with this weird Concord halotype ?!
@CodyGray It's complicated. Flavors are usually a mix of many different chemicals, and their balance depends on many factors in the natural product - there's many kinds of apples, and even within the same strain, the flavours vary wildly based on nutrients available, amount of sunlight, rain, ripeness, storage... artificial flavours are a lot more specific than that. Banana flavour in particular is actually a quite accurate artificial flavouring - but of a banana cultivar that is now extinct! It's like saying Granny Smith isn't an apple, because it doesn't taste like Golden Delicious.
Down here in the American South, we have muscadine and scuppernong grapes growing wild, which taste exactly like "grape flavor". Delicious!
While parts of that are true (it is, indeed, complicated, and artificial flavorings lack a complex organic mix), it is a myth that artificial banana flavoring is based on a now-extinct cultivar of the fruit. While, yes, we now eat Cavendish bananas, and the Gros Michel variety has gone extinct due to a fungal infection (Fusarium oxysporum), there is no actual evidence that artificial banana flavoring is based on this Gros Michel cultivar. It is just isoamyl acetate, which tends to evoke "banana" (and "pear") thoughts in everyone who smells it, and is found in all cultivars of bananas. @lua
@CodyGray You're right. But some people still grow Gros Michel bananas (they're not really extinct, it just isn't possible to grow them in large quantities economically), and it is reported the artificial banana flavour tastes a lot more like Gros Michel than the Cavendish. Isoamyl acetate is the most important part of the flavour, yes (just like in many other flavourings, including strawberries), but the taste is very different, most likely due to it being much sweeter than most bananas today.
Grape candy is based on concord grapes, but concord grapes are rarely used as "table grapes"
Concord grapes, which most grape jellies/jams/preserves in the US are made from, are derived from the (US-native) "fox grape" (Vitis labrusca) rather than (Europe-native) wine grape (Vitis vinifera). Common table grapes (the ones eaten as fresh fruit) such as Thompson seedless are also derived from Vitis vinifera wine grapes.
Fox grapes have a "foxy" taste character, which is a result of the presence of the naturally occurring compound methyl anthranilate. Methyl anthranilate is a rather simple compound, and is used in many situations as an "artificial grape flavor". In many cases "grape flavored" candies, drinks and medicines are flavored not with grape extracts, but with synthetically produced methyl anthranilate. As such, these artificially flavored foods taste like Concord grapes (fox grapes), rather than table or wine grapes.
While it would be possible to come up with "artificial wine grape" flavor, the flavor profile of wine and table grapes is not dominated by a single compound, as fox grapes are. Therefore, any such "artificial wine grape" flavor would be much more expensive than artificial Concord grape flavor (i.e. just methyl anthranilate). As such, when companies reach for "grape flavor", they tend to go for the more inexpensive Concord grape flavor.
This also adds to the persistent expectation (at least in the US) as to what "grape flavored" means. Even if you came out with a wine-grape-flavored Jolly Rancher, many in the US would think it wouldn't taste right, as they expect grape flavored things to taste like Concord grapes.
What an amazing answer!
Glad to see this as an answer. I didn't know the chemical name, but the fake grape flavor is almost spot on for Concord grapes, but no one eats those by the handful. You can get them, but you always use them in "cooking" while the more subtle flavored grapes are eaten by the handful.
I was pretty thrilled to find and eat Concord grapes a few years ago - it was revelatory.
The fact that "grape flavor" means "Concord grape flavor" to the American palate may also have something to do with the use of pasteurized Concord grape juice as a substitute for communion wine, particularly during the Temperance Movement of the late 19th & early 20th centuries. The Wikipedia article on the Welch's Grape Juice Company has a brief but illuminating discussion of this.
This also explains why grape flavour seems to be more common in America than the UK. I don't think I've ever seen grape jam in the UK for example.
I've tried Concord grapes a couple of times, and aside from the distinctive taste they were not particularly aesthetically appealing. The flesh was slimy and gelatinous, the skins were tough and chewy, and the seeds were large and difficult to extract from the flesh with tongue/teeth. They're definitely not well suited for eating plain, IMO.
@hBy2Py: I find it hard to imagine a type of grape that with flesh that isn't slimy and gelatinous ... my experience is that the normal seedless grapes that I am used to fit that description pretty well. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing: many people like jello after all. There's the common Halloween practical joke of using peeled grapes as a tactile substitute for eyeballs.
@sumelic Just imagine if it were more slimy and gelatinous, and there you go. Normal table grape flesh splits when you chew it directly; Concord grape flesh "gives" quite a bit, more like gelatin.
Oh, that also explains why I don't like grape jelly, along with grape candy.
This answer is US-specific.
@BoundaryImposition: I don't think it necessarily is. It might even be more useful outside of the US, because many grape-flavoured things have this Concord grape flavour, even in countries where Concord grapes are completely unknown.
@BoundaryImposition The question is (more or less) US-specific, I'd bet. Where I'm from, outside of american candies, grape flavouring doesn't use the concord grape flavour. While I'm no fan of flavoured beverages, grape-flavoured drinks use wine grapes (or wine grape flavour) here. The flavour goes all the way from "basically wine grapes" to "basically wine".
"Concord grapes, from which most grape jellies/jams/preserves in the US are made from [sic]" even though OP didn't specify which country's jellies/jams/preserves they were asking about. .·. this (otherwise excellent) answer assumes US audience.
I was baffled by ordinary grape flavoring in foods well into my 30's, but finally I had a concord grape and everything became clear.
@coteyr I eat concord grapes by the handful. I like them!
+1 for the last sentence. If it makes you feel better, consider it "purple-flavored". That's what I've been doing.
Amusingly, I agree that “grape-flavored” things have this taste—but I’ve never had a Concord grape and had no idea that the “grape flavor” was actually based on any real grape. I had just accepted that “grape flavor” was completely different from actual grapes. (And I’m someone who quite enjoys “grape flavor” but is pretty meh on actual, by which I mean wine, grapes.)
There are lots of types of grapes. Grape flavored items tend to be closer to concord grapes than a wine grape, or the green/red ones available at the grocery store.
I wonder if there's a reason for this if concord grapes aren't the dominant variety. Were they the main type of grape available at some point? (I understand that something like this is why artificial banana tastes the way it does - it replicates a now-extinct variety.) Do they simply have a uniquely extractable flavor?
I suspect that it's because they were one of the main grapes available as juice (pasteurized, not fermented) in the US (it's a hybrid of American wild grapes).
I remember being grossed out the first time I ate concord grapes because they tasted exactly like nasty artificial grape flavoring.
I've only ever seen concord grapes as fake plastic grapes attached to fake plastic leaves. I didn't realize they were a real thing until now.
@logophobe Concord grapes (and a few other related varieties) have a tough skin that many people prefer not to eat. There's a technique for eating the meat of a Concord grape without the skin, but it's not as convenient as popping a whole grape in your mouth and chewing. Dealing with the Concord grape skin does have the reward of getting the fresh Concord grape flavor, but not as many people are willing to put up with it.
@logophobe Their flavour is dominated by one chemical that's easy to produce industrially. Concord grapes don't have a lot of variety in flavour -> more distinct. In contrast, wine grapes have hundreds of cultivars, each with variations of flavour depending on growing conditions, storage, processing etc. That's why you have thousands of different wines all over the world, and why different "years" have different flavours, and that's before you add mixing, which is very popular. Even the simplest wine-grape flavours are the result of complex mixture of chemicals that aren't as easy to produce.
Another important factor is that nice table grapes are raw. Jellies and juices have been cooked. Heat changes the flavour. Think how different are the tastes of fresh tomatoes and canned tomatoes. Drying also changes the flavour of fruits. Raisins are very different in taste from their fresh beginning.
A jelly or candy, even if using the same aroma compounds that a (raw or cooked) grape or glass of grape juice contains, has a very different balance of sweetness (jelly has a far higher sugar concentration), acidity (balanced by the sugar, or even removed in processing) and texture (jelly coats the tongue, has far less water).
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78881 | What's the proper order to add ingredients for an Indian curry?
Typically, when making an Indian curry, I heat oil, add whole spices, then add and cook onions, add and cook ginger + garlic, add dry spices + tomatoes, and cook the meat in the sauce.
Am I doing this correctly or is there a different order to add the ingredients for maximum flavor and efficient cook time?
Here are the ingredient types I usually use:
Oil
Whole spices (cumin, fenugreek, etc.)
Onion
Ginger
Garlic
Dry powdered spices (turmeric, chili powder, etc.)
Tomatoes
Meat
Sounds like the way most north indian recipes suggest, so it's canonical enough :) Some staggering of the whole spices might be needed lest your mustard isn't popped but your cumin is already burnt...
Personal experiences having lived in SEAsia for a number of years. Whole Spices to be ground are first gently heated in a dry pan till they begin toe release aromas- avoid burning/charing. Then...
Oil
For Southern Indian styles add mustard seed until it pops,
chilli whole or flaked
Onion till translucent
Chopped aromatics (ginger, garlic - or ginger garlic paste.
Ground/powdered spices (To avoid burning curry and other ground/powdered spices).
Meat, turn to coat with above (masala) simmer for a short time.
Add whole, Curry leaves, bay leaves, star anise, cinnamon,)
Cooking liquids (whether coconut milk, stock, water) and juicy ingredients (e.g. Tomato)simmer till meat is becoming tender.
Adjust flavor with prepared garam masala powder
Add in order of cooking time required e.g potato, squash, green beans, okra
When meat tender vegetables cooked but not mushy - adjust liquid and add thickening as required (e.g. stock, water, coconut milk/cream, yogurt_
Adjust acidity (tamarind, citrus, more yogurt) sweetness ( sugar, jaggery) salt,
contuinue at low simmer till oils separate -(float to top)
garnish and serve.
there's aload of variations, by chefs preference, geographical origin etc etc
"no best way" (taste being subjective) but the fresher/tastier the ingredients the better.
chilli powder vs. fresh chillis is non comparible etc, as with ginger tumeric etc.
some curries are "stewed" for hours, others quick pan fried in minutes.
if i were you, in a pan/wok brown your whole spice ("roast") to bring out flavour, then set aside and grind / pulverize.
next brown onions in oil to prefrence, then add meat and browned spice / garlic (all "base ingredients").
then your garnish vegetables (tomato / onion / chilli (whatever)) towards the end of cooking (meat).
can't have a curry without fresh coriander! (big handfull right at the end) imho....
Given what you said in your first sentence, I would remove your last sentence. Coriander has a time and a place, and should not be used in all curries (or even most curries)
1. Oil
2.Whole spices
3/4.If you are using whole garlic/ginger if using paste onion will go first.
5.Meat
6.Dry spices
7.Tomato
Adding tomato should be last because otherwise meat won't get tender due to acidity.
with meat whole spices are different though I prefer cinnamon,black pepper corns,cloves,bay leaf.
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79678 | Will a hot cornstarch slurry added to a cold mixture still have a thickening effect?
I'm trying to thicken a heat-sensitive mixture. I would like to use cornstarch as a thickener, but from my understanding, cornstarch must be heated to near-boiling (95 deg C) to gel in a mixture. I would like to avoid heating the whole mixture to boiling. If I make a cornstarch slurry, heat it to boiling, and then add it to a cold or room-temperature mixture, will it still have a thickening effect?
I would prefer to avoid other thickening alternatives like xanthan gum or arrowroot.
Why do you want to avoid arrowroot? It works well for this sort of thing.
What exactly are you thickening? ... some thickeners have issues with acids or dairy. And how thick do you need it? If you can warm it enough and it's not acidic or containing certain fruits, gelatin might work for you
Is the whole mixture heat sensitive, or is there maybe a component that's less so, which you could heat with the cornstarch?
Avoiding arrowroot for now because I want to see if this could be possible with cornstarch. This is a dairy mixture. I could definitely heat it with the cornstarch, but I'm finding it changes the flavor profile when I do, so I'm wondering if there are other options.
It would probably work but for the proper consistency of the finished product, your cooked cornstarch slurry would need to be very thick. This would make it difficult to mix into a homogenized smooth mixture unless you were to use a blender to mix them.
Rather than cornstarch, xanthan gum or arrowroot flour, why not use tapioca powder/flour? It thickens quickly starting around 140°F (60°C) and gives a nice clear gel, especially nice for fruit desserts. It also holds its gelling property and won't separate like cornstarch based desserts can.
I buy my tapioca flour in an Asian grocery store but I've also seen it sold in the Asian foods aisle in many larger supermarkets. It's quite inexpensive.
You substitute the same amount of tapioca flour as cornstarch in a recipe.
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78890 | How to recognize mold?
I am looking for criteria to tell whether food has mold on it. Some classic cases are easy to distinguish (unbaked flour vs bread mold). However in case I don't know what the product is supposed to look like, it is almost impossible to tell. Here is a recent example, mold or crystallized sugar?
Looks like crystallized and burnt sugar to me, but it is too close. What is it a picture of?
The dark spots are certainly burned sugar. I am wondering about the greenish, smaller spots.
Are there walnuts? Those can turn food purple.
This is not an exhaustive list, but it's what I use to tell mold on unevenly colored foods.
Obviously oddly colored spots are suspect, especially if the difference in appearance is very great. If the food has spots for some other reason, this can be harder to see - but it at least tells you where to focus in on to catch other little details.
Mold forms on the surface of food (of course). This means it will rise up above the surface of the food, usually in a vague dome shape. Oftentimes, you can see the edges as distinct from the food they're sitting on - usually when looking slantwise or sidewise, not straight up and down. A lumpy texture can make this harder to spot, but it helps to look at the spots as relative to what they're sitting on. Mold spots generally don't dip down into a food, they rise up above it, and all the similar spots should have a same-ish construction - like color changes around the edges, texture, or mounding up in the same way, since they would be colonies of the same mold.
Mold also has a, hm, furry or fuzzy texture. This sort of texture is not very common in foods, their upper edges might be moist, or shiny, or smooth, rough or flecked... but "furry" is not common. So, again looking slantwise or sideways, if you can see thin little hairs, or something that looks like fluff, on your oddly colored spot - it is likely mold.
And, a mold spot is a single colony. They spread out from a center, you usually don't get streaks, or squared off shapes, or folds (like inflated bubbles deflating have sags and wrinkles and folds) - they can be irregularly roundish, but they will be roundish. Also, if the dish is moist or wet, probing with a knife-tip or similar will have the whole colony move as a flat disc or even lift cleanly out. Foods that wet rarely have spots move that cleanly otherwise.
So, in your picture, the greenish spots you're talking about are the duller, matte areas, yeah? if you look at an angle or sideways, you should be able to tell if there's a fuzzy texture to the areas or if they're all mounding up the same way. Also, just focus in real close on one spot and see of you can tell what is going on - like all the high points got browned more, or dried patches, or there are little flat puddles of fat on the surface, or those are actually fuzzy little molds.
Aside from its discoloring effect, mold also eats away at the substrate it's attached to and changes the consistency. In the specific case of the example in the question, the easiest way to tell the difference between a fungus and brûléed sugar would be to take a paring knife and gently press the flat of the blade into a dark spot. If you hear a crack, then the discoloration is caramelized sugar crystals. For further confirmation, the cracking should allow removal of a small piece of the discoloration and you can see if the color below is different and if it tastes like sugar.
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78955 | Preservation of baked goods with eggs
When you bake (cookies etc) commercially with egg in your recipe, do you have to add any preservatives and if so, what?
I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because we explicitly don't discuss commercial cooking and baking. Please see the [help] for more info.
and apologies if I violated some rules, will go and read up in the "help center".
@Stephie that new? rule isn't very obvious from the help center FAQs, maybe link to the relevant meta thread? In any way, I do not disagree with considering commercial preservation via non-GRAS additives being best considered off topic - tends to attract questions that come too close to "strangers on the internet can take more responsibility than me for my usage of a biocidal additive" ;)
The short answer: no. I cooked/baked commercially for years, and never used any sort of preservative/stabilizer. The cooking (baking) process is what stabilizes the product. The egg only goes 'bad' from a raw state, not cooked.
thank you ever so much for the quick feedback. I just wanted to make 100% sure.
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81855 | mixed egg and bicarbonate of soda
I was half way through making a batch of peanut butter cookies when my mixer blew up - not a happy camper. As I had already mixed my eggs and bicarbonate of soda together, I would like to know if I can store this mixture in the fridge overnight and resume baking tomorrow?
thank you
You may lose some rise but might be ok.. only one way to find out. Why can't you finish mixing by hand?
it is a gluten free product and peanut butter is the base ingredient (1kg), tried but not getting the desired smooth consistency with the sugar and peanut blend (clearly need popeye. tks for the feedback
1kg of peanut butter! That's a lotta cookies! No wonder your mixer gave out lol. Good luck and let us know how you get on with it :)
LOL Yip and will do
Gluten free peanut butter cookies with pb as a main base...hmm. I've made, ah, they're called 1-2-3 peanut butter cookies (1c pb, 1c sugar, 1 egg, optional splash of vanilla or sprinkle cinnamon) which means you might be able to make decent cookies even if the soda doesn't survive. Or depending on your recipe, this one might be less finicky about mixing. Hope all turns out well.
Perishable food, including raw eggs, is safe in the fridge for a day. So you can do that.
The soda can spend its leavening power though, especially if you also have other ingredients mixed in. The cookies will not have the same texture as freshly made, and it is hard to say how much difference there will be and where on the spectrum is your limit for "acceptable quality". So, you can go ahead and make them, but be aware that you are facing a significant probability of failure.
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79247 | Shortbread with a snap
I would like my shortbread to have more of a "crunch" snap to it; to also allow it to travel and not get damaged.
Is it too obvious to say cook for longer, or do I need to add more flour?
My recipe is as follows: 1034g flour, 924g butter, 462g caster sugar and 264g corn startch. Oven temp 150 for 45min. I am then cutting them into fingers.
Are there any undocumented leaveners in your recipe?
Your recipe is a bit short of flour for a classic 3:2:1 flour:butter:sugar ratio, counting both the flour and cornstarch with the flour. You have 1298 grams of flour and cornstarch combined, it needs to be closer to 1386. A bit more flour will certainly help, but your method should also be considered. I would recommend cutting the butter in rather than mixing in order to deliver the best crunch.
Last, if you're cutting them into fingers then it sounds like it's pretty thick. I've found it's hard to get thick shortbread to be crunchy without overcooking it, I'd suggest thinner is better.
When baking use the touch test to detect when it's ready, you want to bake it until it firms up some, a few test batches will give you an idea when it's reached the point.
Thank you for the detailed response, it is really appreciated and will up the quantity of flour aswell as changing the method of mixing. thank you
not sure we get the different types of flour here. am assuming it would be cake flour and all purpose flour. will look into it. thank you
Strong flour is bread flour @TD
changing the ratio has helped some. will test the bread flour with cake flour. thanks everybody
Snap is unusual in standard shortbread. What gives cookies snap is a high level of sugar, with some butter. Think tuille cookies, they snap perfectly. You only have 35% sugar here, I would say increase that if you are willing to fiddle. Or start with a snappy recipe outright, for example a snickerdoodle recipe.
thank you for the feedback. Not brave enough :) to change the recipe. will look up a snickerdoodle recipe (not familiar with the name). thank you
When making shortbread it is important to keep track of the temperature. Normally one is looking for 'short' pastry which is quite crumbly, and in order to achieve this it is important to have cold butter. If you want them to be harder, it may be as easy as to allow the butter to warm up a bit more.
as it is summer here, room temp is around 20 and have worked with cold butter and then room temp. could try for a warmer temp, but thought that would make the shortbread softer. Perhaps I am creaming the butter and castor sugar for too long.
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84026 | Is the sprouted wheat used in any traditional recipes?
The healthy food movements uses sprouted/germinated wheat in many ways. They even make sprouted wheat grains bread. But is the sprouted wheat used in any traditional cuisines?
Some of the earliest uses of wheat called for germinating the seed as part of the malting process, i.e. making malt in order to make beer. There's archeological evidence shows evidence of sprouted grains being used in malting kilns from the time of the ancient romans.
In addition to beer, other traditional uses of malt, and therefore sprouted grains, include Samanu and Mammi.
Unlike wheat strains of the modern world, there's evidence that most of the ancient grains would germinate during storage, so it could be most ancient people's default experience with grains were with sprouted grains. Traditional recipes for porridge, gruel, or bread likely used germinated grains and flours.
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79125 | Why do you need raw milk to make butter?
I was reading about making butter at home and all the recipes called for raw (I presume this means unpasteurised) milk. Why is this?
They also said to wait for the cream to separate from the milk. I've never seen this happen - is there something about pasteurisation that stabilises the emulsion?
I have accidentally made butter a few times, and I did it once intentionally. In each case, I started with pasteurized (probably ultra-pasteurized) cream. Separation (or not) has to do with homogenization, not pasteurization.
Yeah, you need cream to make butter. The raw milk is milk that hasn't had the cream separated from it yet-- that's what you're doing when you wait for it to separate. You then take the cream off the top of the milk and churn it to butter. You could start with regular store-bought cream, like @Jolenealaska mentioned above, and skip the waiting.
You don't need raw milk (or more precisely, raw cream). I've made butter from cream many times, but never from unpasteurized cream -- I prefer locally sourced organic cream for reasons, but the actual butter-making process is exactly the same with a pint of store-bought.
If you are starting from milk rather than from cream, you will need to get non-homogenized (or unhomogenized) milk. Homogenization and pasteurization are separate processes (even though both are typically performed on milk): pasteurization uses heat to kill bacteria and other pathogens, while homogenization breaks up milk fat particles so they stay mixed into the milk instead of rising to the top.
If you want to buy pasteurized, non-homogenized milk to skim your own cream, it may be labeled as cream-top or creamline milk. Raw milk is both unpasteurized and non-homogenized, but I personally like the increased safety that comes with pasteurization.
Personal anecdote: I once bought cream-top milk to try to skim it for butter, and the amount of cream a half-gallon produced was about a tablespoon. For me, that wasn't nearly enough to justify the extra work -- my family doesn't drink nearly enough milk in a week to salvage the necessary cream for butter-making. I personally recommend skipping straight to cream :)
Well, as butter is somewhere around 95% fat and more and milk is usually around 3.5% fat, you can easily infer how much milk you need for one pound butter. :-)
@John : not so easy, unless you know what the density of the butter and milk are. Unless those percentages are by weight and not volume. (but then you'd still need to know the density of milk, as it's sold by volume).
Well, even allowing for some inaccuracy of the estimate, the amount of milk is still much more than I would ever want/need ;-)
If you want more cream, you really want a different type of cow. The "standard" image of a dairy cow is black and white because that's the coloration of the Holstein breed, which gives lots and lots of milk, but very little cream: a perfect factory-farm milker. For richer milk, you want other breeds of cow, such as the Jersey. They can give milk that's pretty heavy in cream, around 10% of the total.
@Joe Because it really matters whether you need 1.83 or 1.89 gal lqd of milk.
"pasteurized, non-homogenized milk [...] will likely be labeled as cream-top milk" That's surely dependent on where you live. For example, in the UK, milk with around 2% fat is invariably labelled as "semi-skimmed" but that term doesn't seem to exist in the US.
@DavidRicherby In the US there is "whole milk" (full fat), "2%" (semi skimmed, I guess), and "skim milk" -- all of which are homogenized. The "cream-top" is a sub-category related to processing rather than fat content -- regardless, I'll clarify that a bit :)
@Erica Sure -- I just mentioned "semi-skimmed" because it's a milk-related term that's widely used in one place that I'm fairly sure isn't used in another. I don't recall seeing the term "cream-top" in the UK but, on the other hand, the supermarkets don't sell any product that matches that description and I don't know what term people here do use for it.
Another personal anecdote: One time I opened a pack of cream and was surprised that half of it was already butter (it wasn't even over the best-before date). It somehow must have gotten shaken a lot.
They also said to wait for the cream to separate from the milk. I've never seen this happen - is there something about pasteurisation that stabilises the emulsion?
No. When I was a child, we had pasteurized full-fat milk delivered in bottles to our doorstep, and there was always a separated layer of cream on the top. It's homogenization that prevents the cream from separating.
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73992 | Can I make a pecan pie with corn syrup only?
I want to make a fructose free one for my dad. I am not a fan of sugar substitutes, either. Karo doesn't have fructose but sugar does. If I left out the sugar could I use corn syrup only or would it not set up?
It would seem to me that controlling the total amount of water in the recipe will be the trick, so you'll want a crystallized or powdered replacement for the table sugar rather than a syrup.
I've not tried it myself, but you might try using dextrose in place of the table sugar. Dextrose is the commercial name for crystalline glucose, and I found it readily available on Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/Now-Foods-Dextrose-2-Lbs/dp/B008MVJKFU/).
Normally when substituting one kind of sugar for another, assume 7 oz (by weight) per cup of sugar specified in your recipe, then weigh out that much of your alternative. But there are multiple sources online that state dextrose is only about 70% as sweet, meaning you'd want to divide by 0.7 to adjust the quantity from sucrose to dextrose. Here's a typical reference, though there were many others with the same information: http://www.livestrong.com/article/534691-how-to-bake-with-dextrose/
I'd love to know whether or not it works! If you try it, leave a comment and let us know how it goes.
Or, if like many people, you find pecan pies to be overly sweet anyway, you could leave the measurements the same.
Thanks! I was googling around and someone else suggested dextrose as a replacement for table sugar in the recipe, but I wasn't quite sure how much to use. Thanks for this answer.
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74098 | Making a dark, suspended chocolate sauce
I melted some dark chocolate at a low temperature and added whipping cream to keep it liquid at room temperature. I added more whipping cream after the mixture was at room temperature, but it thickened the mixture, rather than thinning it. It also reduced how dark the chocolate was to a large degree.
I understand the fat in the milk/cream helps to keep the solid chocolate particles in suspension to keep it from settling.
My goal is to make a very dark chocolate sauce at room temperature in which the solid chocolate particles remain suspended, and I would prefer also to not use starches or gums as they change the flavor. I would also like the consistency to be "squirtable," but a maybe a little thicker than Hershey's syrup. I also don't want a sweet sauce.
My questions are these: 1. Why did the sauce thicken instead of thin and 2. What means should I use to achieve the goals of the sauce and 3. If I reduce the fat content of the liquefier by using milk or water, does it reduce the suspension qualities?
Whipping cream has very little water in it. If you want to thin the chocolate sauce, you may need to introduce a bit more moisture to it. More saturated fats will just thicken it, particularly if there are coagulating enzymes present. I use a 1:1 mixture of distilled or purified water and honey or syrup for thinning. It doesn't add a lot of sweetness, but it does add some, so I'm not sure it will fit your needs.
I agree with the comment above. Whipped cream often has high fat content. Maybe you could try this with light cream, or whole milk. Also if your "whipped cream" is something like cool whip, it has a lot of other non dairy ingredients so it could react differently than homemade whipped cream.
With cocoa powder rather than solid dark chocolate, you should be able to get just about any consistency of sauce, without pbms w temperamental chocolate combining behavior. Melt cocoa powder together with butter (unsalted if desired), and thinning as desired with milk. I.e. just like hot fudge sauce, but it sounds like you want it a little bit thinner than that for room temperature squirtability, and of course leave out sugar if you don't want sweet. Experiment with ratios of those 3 ingredients until you get good consistency. Even with a little milk included, it ought to end up pretty dark.
1) Well, it happened because you used something that is rich in saturated fat.
Saturated fat liquefies when heated and solidifies when cool (this is why some places call the type of confectioner's chocolate that doesn't need to go to the fridge to solidify "hydrogenated chocolate", because it is rich in artificially saturated - hydrogenated - fat)
2) My recommendation for you would be adding milk or if you don't want to lose the "darkness" of your sauce, you could add in vegetable oil and food emulsifier (or if you have it on hand, pasteurized egg yolks)
3) You could also change the type of fat you're using, hence the vegetable oil (unsaturated fat) suggestion
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76066 | Cocoa butter sauce for beverages that doesn't resolidify
I'd like to make a cocoa butter sauce flavoring for beverages with the following properties:
Stays as close to pure cocoa butter as possible.
Doesn't re-solidify when drink is cold.
Prefer not to use emulsifiers, but will if really necessary.
Uses as natural ingredients as possible.
I think you are asking for something that isn't possible. Cocoa butter is a fat which solidifies below 34C (roughly), you can't change that physical property. What effect are you trying to achieve?
I think GdD's consideration is irrelevant here. There is no theoretical reason why it won't be possible. You'd simply need to make an eutectic system with another fat. But I don't know which other fat would be suitable here, especially with the "cold" requirement (the exact temperature would be important, achieving it at room temp would be much easier than in an iced chocolate). Also, I don't think you will get away with no emulsifiers for a beverage, unless you want to drink something made entirely out of fat.
The best way to make a fat not resolidify upon cooling is to make a recipe rely on it resolidifying upon cooling :) Is this intended as a "sauce" (stays on top/bottom of a cocktail) or "flavouring" (blended into the drink)?
I think you may be looking for "white chocolate" rather than pure cocoa butter. Cocoa butter doesn't have a huge amount of flavor; it's added to things largely for its texture. At the very least it generally needs sugar and vanilla.
Ghirardelli and Torani both make white chocolate sauces. Is that what you're after? You can make your own by dissolving white chocolate in sweetened condensed milk, which is dense enough that you don't need an emulsifier if you grate it finely and stir.
I'd use this recipe as a starting point. (Omit the coffee powder)
http://www.food.com/recipe/white-chocolate-mocha-syrup-recipe-376916
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91005 | Fermentation: volume vs. time
This is specifically a question about chiles, but I hope it can be (semi)universally applied.
I was watching a documentary on how they make Tabasco and it was effectively: age chile pepper puree in oak (whiskey) barrels with salt poured over the top for about two years. Cut the resulting mix with vinegar. Strain. Bottle.
So I thought I would try to do something similar, but on a smaller scale and I found a 3 liter oak barrel online that I figured might do the trick.
My question: if I put three liters of chile puree in the three liter barrel and pour a bunch of salt on the lid like Tabasco does, will I need the same amount of fermentation time? My gut says no, but I have been wrong before. Also, if I do need less time, how can I figure out how much less time I need?
So, I checked Wikipedia, and want to make sure you plan to add salt into the barrel WITH the chile puree. I'm not sure why they would add more on top, but I'm not judging, here. However, if you want fermentation and not nightmare juice, you NEED to mix salt into that puree. It looks like you want 2.5% salt.
Another general advice thing I need to mention-- When your puree ferments it will grow. The bacteria magicking your mash into sauce will produce gas that will literally push your sauce up and out of your container if you don't give it some room to, quite literally, breathe.
To answer your actual question, when it comes to fermentation, smaller amounts don't actually mean smaller fermentation times. Your chile peppers will all be nice and full of bacteria and natural sugars to feed them, and the salt will help keep the bad stuff from taking over. More bacteria would give you a faster ferment, but the amount of bacteria you have depends on the amount of peppers you use. The time of your ferment will depend on your environment and personal preference more than anything.
If you WANT a faster ferment, you can look into adding extra bacteria to start things off. You could add some dried chile flakes (Korean flakes are mild but tasty if you've never tried them) or look into tossing in a commercial starter. But doing either of those things will change the character of your final product.
This is really helpful and I'm both surprised and not surprised that volume doesn't change fermentation times. I'll give it some time but this will probably be my accepted answer.
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117517 | What done-ness is safe, but still juicy, to order wild boar cooked to?
I recently went to a restaurant here that claims to offer local fair. It was in a super touristy area so I have my doubts, but it plays the part well.
Anyway, what I ordered was the Shogun Farms Wild Boar loin, though I can't remember how it was cooked, but I think it was either on a grill or seared. However, I have always been told that you have to cook pork to well done or you will get parasites and die. And I learned from watching Monsters Inside Me on Animal Planet that you should cook wild game well done or you will get parasites and your life will suck. So basically, I ordered my wild pork game pork well done so I wouldn't get parasites and have my life suck until I die.
Now. The food was excellent. Even the boar loin. However, to paraphrase the famous Canadian food critic Squirrely Dan, it was drier than a fart. So my question is: at what done-ness should/could I have ordered this at such that it would have been juicy and delicious and I wouldn't get eye worms, trichinosis, or that thing where your skin will be itchy forever?
Addendum: I will accept answers that state that loin, due to its low fat, and boar, due to its lower fat, basically has to be cardboard to be safe. I will then at least be able to make an informed decision.
In 2011, the FDA has lowered the minimum recommended cooking temperature for pork. Previously, many folks considered the FDA safe temperature (previously 160°F) to be "overcooked."
According to the FDA, the internal temperature at the center should be 145°F:
Cook beef, pork, veal, and lamb roasts, steaks, and chops to at least 145° F (63° C), with a 3 minute rest time.
145°F generally falls into the colloquial category of ordering a meat cooked to "medium" at a restaurant. However, good safety is always based on temperature. Despite the FDA's prior recommendations being a much higher temperature, 145°F is still a sufficient cooking temperature to kill the parasite that causes trichinosis.
From another article, specifically addressing parasites and wild boar:
According to a Centers for Disease Control study that surveyed incidence of the disease from 2008 to 2012, there were only 84 cases of trichinosis in all of America. Of those, 43 were eating wild game. That’s 43 people in a five-year period, and 30 of those 43 were in one incident, an unfortunate party
...
The actual temperature that kills the trichinella parasite is 137°F, which happens to be medium-rare. But be forewarned: Every iota of meat must hit that temperature to kill the parasite
it's easy to ensure all the meat has reached the safe temperature with sous vide
The reason why they were able to lower from their previous recommendations is because hogs used to be fed any leftovers, scraps, trash, etc, and there would be problems with parasites, especially trichinosis. The Swine Protection Act, passed in 1980, required that any human food scraps that came in contact or had meat had to be cooked at boiling temps (212F/100C) for at least 30 minutes. With that requirement, there no longer needed to be cooking the meat, itself, as long to take care of parasites. However, with truly wild boar, one has no control over what the boar has been eating.
From the web site, it looks like these animals are not harvested from the wild, as much as initially captured, then managed/raised after that, so probably the lower standard is okay.
The linked website says the animals are trapped, dewormed, deloused and checked for other problems. As this is a USDA approved farm (according to their website), they will have to follow USDA rules around parasites etc. This also means that the USDA food safety rules apply. To quote the USDA:
Cooking Whole Cuts of Pork: USDA has lowered the recommended safe cooking temperature for whole cuts of pork from 160 ºF to 145 ºF with the addition of a three-minute rest time. Cook pork, roasts, and chops to 145 ºF as measured with a food thermometer before removing meat from the heat source, with a three-minute rest time before carving or consuming. This will result in a product that is both safe and at its best quality—juicy and tender.
The company also states:
The hogs are contained on our USDA state approved property where they are cared for daily by our trained and professional staff.
This means, that they aren't actually wild, at best this would be considered free-range. From the photos on the website these aren't actually wild boar (Sus scrofa), simply free-range pigs (Sus domestica), possibly bordering on feral pigs (though daily tending doesn't indicate this at all), but still a completely different species.
actually trichinosis already is killed with enough time at 52.4°C, so 55°C(131°F) for, depending on the cut 2-4 hours sous vide will be plenty to kill pretty much anything. in domestic pigs even freeing in a cold home freezer for a couple weeks is sufficient to prevent trichinosis, though pasteurization needs to be done anyway for other stuff, some of the trichinosis parasites in wild game are more cold resistant. 55°C is also here you've killed Salmonella. go 57°C to be extra safe. the reason the FDA states much higher numbers is that they assume the meat is removed from the heat once it reaches the temperature, only held there for a few minutes(resting with the heat of the meat around the core giving off heat)in which case you need significantly higher temps. 70-75°C/160.165°F are the instantly safe temperatures, good to keep uneducated people safe, bad for having a nice, juicy piece of meat.
PS: I think you were scared by sensationalist media, yeah, there are some nasty parasites, but it's not that easy to get, most restaurants wouldn't dare serve something that isn't 99.99% safe and even if you get the big bad trichinosis, he majority of cases are so mild people don't even notice, mortality rate is about 0.2%. now if you get a major infection it's gonna be nasty but the realistic worst case is your gonna be sick for a few days to weeks, then possibly take a few months till your back to 100% but that's what you can get from covid or even a really bad flu. I'm not telling you to eat raw wild game, definetly nor omnivores or carnivores but but it's not the horror show of suffering for the rest of your life you seem to expect, this are extremely rare, worst case scenarios in those shows, you could do the same thing about walking around in publi or doin' literally anything, there's always a risk, but you can decrease it to where it's pretty much negligable.
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113603 | What does it mean for a dish to be called poêlé?
I was watching a show and they mentioned Fois Gras Poêlé. Now I know what fois gras is so I looked up what poêlé meant since I assumed it was a cooking technique. However, Google (patent pending) turned up that poêlé was either a kind of pan (basically a frying pan) or meant "pot roasting".
Now, when I look up fois gras poêlé on Google (patent still pending) it returns recipes for Pan-Seared Foie Gras that you then make a sauce for using its drippings, yet when I look up other terms like "chicken" poêlé it is basically cooking chicken in a covered pot with ingredients similar to the sauce step in fois gras poêlé.
My question: looking at these seemingly disparate cases, what does it mean for the dish to be called poêlé? The pan? The cooking method? How you make the sauce?
"Une poêle" (pronounced "pwal") is a frying pan, so we have the verb "poêler"(pronounced "pwale") which means to cook in the pan. So we use the word "poêlée" (pronounced "pwale") for anything cooked in a pan, with a more or less reasonable amount of fat, generally at a medium to high heat. In the case of your foie gras poêlé, it will be quickly seared on each face on a high heat.
Poêler is very similar to sauté, except that sauté is generally used for vegetables you will put in a small amount of fat on a high heat for a short time.
But =D
For professional chefs, when it comes to meat, "poêler" can also mean put in the oven in a "poêlon", which is a different kind of poêle that is thicker and can go to the oven. So very often they will start cooking the meat in the poêlon on the fire to sear it, and then finish the cooking process in the oven in the covered poêlon for a maximum tenderness and juiciness.
Sorry for the complicated explanation but with French cuisine nothing is simple...
Now for your sauce there are many possibilities for a foie gras poêlé : with white wine, red wine, balsamic vinegar, red wine and honey... But they would all start the same way: once you seared your foie gras put it on a plate, turn up your fire to a high heat, and add the liquid to deglaze (you can also add shallots first, but I woulnd't suggest garlic whose taste is too strong for the foie gras). If you're using wine or another alcohol, wait until all the alcohol has evaporated, otherwise it will give acidity to the sauce (you can't really see it but you can smell it!). Let us know how it went!
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91872 | How do I tell if my fermented sauce has gone bad?
Related to another question of mine:
I found this recipe for a lacto fermented hot sauce. Basically you take blended up chiles, 2.5% salt, water (not sure if necessary), and oak cubes (I kind of just want to buy a small barrel) and age it all together for 3 months to 2 years and cut it with vinegar. Easy enough.
However, in the answer to my previous question it mentioned that I might end up with "nightmare juice". How do I ensure that my sauce, assuming I use enough salt, has not spoiled (or at least is not unsafe to eat)? If I add garlic or other herbs/spices to the mix, will this change?
The thing about fermentation is that it's a biological process. It's been used for thousands of years to prepare a wide variety of foods, it's extremely easy, and it's (generally) pretty safe if you follow the appropriate guidelines. But biological processes are inherently messy, and things can go wrong. You must be aware of this and able to identify as best you can when a product has fermented unsafely.
One thing to note here is that the related answer's comment about "nightmare juice" is related to the potential consequences of not adding enough salt. This is one of the basic guidelines of lactic fermentation. You need a high enough salt concentration to kill or render inert most of the bacteria that are naturally present in our air and food, while still providing a hospitable medium for the cultures that process food through lactic fermentation. (On the flip side, adding too much salt will prevent much of anything from surviving, in which case you're salting or curing rather than fermenting.) As the food ferments, those cultures will produce enough lactic acid that they'll kill off most anything else trying to grow. But there's always the risk that something hardy enough to survive that environment and potentially harmful to humans will make it into your ferment.
Other guidelines for the process include using clean equipment (to reduce the risk of adding unintended or unsafe bacteria in the first place), making sure your ferment stays submerged (to maintain the salt level throughout; this is less a concern with a blended product like your pepper sauce), and releasing excess gas if you're using a sealed vessel (so it doesn't explode).
Once your ferment is completed, you'll want to check for certain indicators of spoilage or fermentation issues:
Continued outgassing. Lactic cultures will usually produce a lot of gas during the first week or two, and then slow down; if you're seeing a lot of excess gas produced after about a month of fermentation, it can be a sign that some other opportunistic organism has moved in, and it's best not to risk consuming the product.
Discoloration. Like canning or other preservation methods, fermentation will usually oxidize the bright chlorophyll greens of certain vegetables (beans, cucumbers, etc.) and it will mute some other colors. But it should not drastically change the color of the food otherwise. If you have pepper puree that's predominantly orange when it goes in, it should be mostly the same after fermentation. Big patches of different color are a major indicator of spoilage.
Obvious surface scum or growths. Anything that looks like it's growing on the surface of your ferment isn't a good sign; it can indicate unwelcome bacterial or fungal growth and should generally be considered unsafe.
Unpleasant smell. This can be a little tricky; lacto-fermented foods do have a certain tangy, vinegar-ish smell, and that's to be expected. But if your ferment smells like it's rotting, it probably is.
As far as adding other ingredients... as long as your salt balance isn't affected, this won't usually disturb a ferment too much. As the many varieties of kimchi show, lots of different vegetables can be fermented successfully and eaten safely. But like canning, it's best to work from an established, known-good recipe, particularly if this is the first ferment you've tried on your own. Added ingredients can make it more difficult to detect things like color changes; you may instead wish to find a similar recipe that includes the sort of flavor additions you want, and work from that instead.
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91653 | Can a charcoal grill maintain a constant high temperature?
In the example in this question I mention getting the grill to 400 Fahrenheit. This example is not in a vacuum. I really do need to roast my brussels sprouts at 400 Fahrenheit and I won't necessarily have oven space as it is Thanksgiving. So my question has evolved. Most charcoal grill recipes I have read involve temperatures in the 200 to 300 Fahrenheit range. Can I get a charcoal grill (for this example consider a Weber kettle grill) to 400 Fahrenheit and keep it there consistently?
Also, if I add smoking wood, will that change a lot? I am glazing brussels sprout in black pepper, bacon, and maple syrup if it matters and I will smoke them with whatever is available at the house. The recipe I am using involves roasting them in a pan, so I would prefer to keep it that way (lest I have to clean the grill).
How long does it take to cook? You typically want a roast or bird to rest for a while (as much as an hour for a large turkey), so you can typically bake a couple of sides in that period. (and make up some gravy and keep it on the stovetop in case it cools off too much)
@Joe 20 or 30 minutes. Most of the other sides went in and my sprouts were not on that list as they cooked at a higher temperature than the rest.
The recipes you are referring to are probably for BBQ/smoking, rather than grilling, which happens at a much higher temperature. It is fairly easy to get a kettle-type grill to reach 400 F (and well beyond). The challenge will be maintaining your desired temperature. However, that is what the vents are for. There should be a vent on top and a vent on bottom. With a little practice, you should be able to manipulate the vents to maintain the temperature. Try to overshoot your mark by 25 - 50 degrees F before you reduce the airflow. You will get some smoke flavor from the charcoal, particularly if you use hardwood. The addition of smoking wood will add stronger smoke. For vegetables, I would stick with fruit woods.
The simple answer is yes. No different than trying to smoke a piece of meat 250 F for 6 hours, you can keep a grill at 400 F under the same principles.
Any wood you add in the form of chips or blocks as used in smoking will inevitably burn and burn hotter than the charcoal causing spikes in temperatures. Don't add too much at a time.
You will have to play with the vents to see what your grill wants. I would start your grill and let the temperature normalize and adjust the vents to attempt to get it down (or up) to the correct temperature.
Why does it have to be 400 F out of curiosity? I've roasted sprouts on my grill before and never cared about temps unless it was extremely low or extremely high. I cook them usually between 400-600 and just keep an eye on them. I'll put them in some aluminum foil, olive oil, salt and pepper and close it up then throw on the rack. The highest you can get it off the flame the better.
400 is what the oven roasting recipe calls for.
@Jake : don't worry so much about the recipe. You just have to keep an eye on it, really. If it's cooking too hot, you move it over to a cooler section of the grill. Also, with what Travis mentioned re: new wood; you want to let the coals cook 'til they're covered in ash before you put your food on.
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87822 | How long does jarred chopped garlic keep?
I have some chopped garlic in a jar (from Spice World if it matters). I have used it. Not sure when, but it is open. The best by date is June 2018.
My question: I have always heard that after opening jarred food you should throw it out after 2 weeks. For chopped garlic: should I look at the use by date or should I toss it 2 weeks after opening it?
Chopped garlic in what? I've seen it in oil, and in vinegar. these hace different keeping properties.
"Use by" is typically for an unopened container, as they have no way to control for how you have stored it or possibly contaminated it with other ingredients after opening.
The specific risk of garlic is that Clostridium botulinum spores are pretty commonly found on garlic. These spores are hard to kill, although commercially-prepared canned garlic has usually been processed hot enough and long enough to do so or you hear about recalls. However, that is typically after someone gets ill.
The general risk of any food left in refrigeration long-term is that when you remove it from refrigeration, scoop out some, and return it 1) how long was it outside of refrigeration and what temperature did it get to, and 2) did you contaminate it with anything that might now be growing, albeit gradually, in the refrigerator.
If it is bubbling, definitely throw it out. If it smells bad or unusual, definitely throw it out. Otherwise, there is an ever-increasing risk the longer the opened jar is in the refrigerator, influenced by how it has been previously handled, but specific information is not readily available on the USDA or FDA websites for this product.
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91288 | How accurate is the hand technique for grilling?
I have read several articles and watched several videos talking about the proper way to gauge the temperature of a grill. Basically they state if you can hold your hand X inches over a grill for Y seconds the grill is at some range of Z1 to Z2 degrees. I have read, for example, if you can hold you hand 3 inches above the grill for 2 to 3 seconds then the grill is 350F to 400F degrees.
How accurate are these measurements? Especially on a charcoal grill?
Example: I am making a Brussels sprouts recipe that calls for roasting them on 400F for 10 minutes in the oven. Unfortunately the oven is full. Can I throw my Brussels sprouts on a grill that I can hold my hand over for 1-2 seconds at 3 inches above the grill and expect similar results? I realize grilling and roasting are very different, but I was wanting for a baseline.
Yes and it will be even better, make certain you keep an eye on them.
Any particular reason you don't have a thermometer for your grill?
accuracy always depends on the skill of the operator.
regardless of the instrument used (or its precision)
While I suspect that the formula is mostly reliable if you repeat the experiment with the same person, I found the individual heat sensitivity varies a lot. Most professional cooks and seasoned homemakers can handle (pun intended) higher heat than those who rarely expose their hands to high temperatures. In our home, we’ve had heated discussions about whether the dishes in the just finished dishwasher are too hot to touch or not. And this is just one example.
If you exclude the differences between individuals, using your own hand’s heat sensitivity to gauge a temperature range is absolutely possible (as long as a few degrees don’t matter). It takes time and practice - which is usually described as “experience”. I personally don’t think in “degrees” though, but more in categories like “too cold” / “should be ok” / “too hot” and a few steps in between.
So in short, if you need a precise temperature, get a thermometer. If you are still working on judging by hand, either get a thermometer or plan a few trial-and-error loops. And sometimes the exact temperature is not important for a recipe to work.
Using the X-time at Y-distance formula may work, if your heat sensitivity is similar to the author’s.
Heated discussions about whether something is too hot?? :)
I used to work in a rotisserie, and I cook all the food at home, and I can say that for me, "warm" is "unbearable" for a lot of people I know. So +1 for you here, this definitely is a case by case thing.
Interestingly, an early-childhood expert attached to the NICU once told me that parents can usually estimate their babies' temperature within about a degree (F) once they establish a baseline, and I've since found that to be true for my own kids.
Given that difference between normal and fever is defined as 2.9 degrees, knowing what "normal" is and knowing whether it's above that puts you within a degree just by random luck a vast majority of the time. As a rule it's pointless - you have normal, warm, concerning, fever. Anything beyond that requires accuracy better than 1°F.
I'll answer by way of similar situations:
I have an italian coffee machine with an external milk frother. This works by shooting hot air into the milk. You hold the milk in a very thin-walled metal jug and heat it until you feel the correct temperature. This works quite explosively and fast. The hand method works incredibly well here; I've not seen a thermometer yet which would be fast enough.
I roast coffee beans. While many go with digital temperature sensors etc., and in a professional setting you absolutely want to do that to get reproducable (and sellable) results, I went the route of going by visuals, sound and especially smell. This is of course very much "analog" and non-scientific, but over time my experience tells me pretty well what's going on. Including when parameters (like outside temperature, bean type/age, charge volume and so on) change.
For cooking, I use the "hand test" for e.g. judging when to put the eggs into the pan, or for grilling, to get a picture of if the coal is "ready", or too hot, or too cold.
In all of these cases, the "hand technique" is accurate enough. I've not measured anything to see how close I get, but it fulfills its purpose of giving good results. I could never tell you exact measurements (X inches for Y seconds), all these tests are meant to be individual for your situation.
I hear that some people are able to decide when a steak is rare/medium/well done by pressing on it; but for these things I'd prefer an internal thermometer. I'm pretty sure that if I had lots of experience grilling steaks (which I don't), over time some "thumb test" would maybe work as well.
I wouldn't say that the technique is accurate at all. However, it is reliable, if the measuring instrument (you) is well "calibrated" (trained).
There are lots of good cooks which go by intuition. After years of cooking, they have gotten a very finely tuned sense of how to do things. Their brain does what is best at - it takes all information available to it (memories, heat perception, smell, sense of passing time, etc.), does some unconscious pattern recognition, and arrives at the decision "the grill is at the right temperature now", which turns out to be correct. This is how they get consistently good results almost every time.
Cooks who do not have that kind of experience can try finding other means to get consistently good results. Measuring the temperature with a thermometer is a good one, since it is usually the most important factor in baking and roasting. They replace the decision based on intuition with one based on a technical measurement.
Advice like the one you discovered is well-meant, but misleading. When an experienced cook tries to teach you how to do it "their way", they try to put in words whatever they think is going on in their head. They know they use their hand to check if the temperature is good enough, so they try to tell you how they came to the conclusion, e.g. "if you feel a burning feeling in the skin after 3 seconds, it's all right". There are two problems with that approach. First, as Stephie said, the connection between external stimulus (heat) and its interpretation by your CNS that turns it into a thought ("I have a burning feeling in the skin") is very individual. Second, it is not correct that the decision ("now is the time to put on the food") is made based on just that one stimulus. The cook cannot tell you how they made it, since it is an unconscious process. They are second guessing themselves.
So, if you are not yet an expert-with-great-intuition cook, then using this method will not result in consistently well baked food. At that stage, if you want that, you should be using a thermometer.
There is nevertheless a reason why you might want to use the method. If you want to turn into an expert cook with great intuition, the way to do it is by training your intuition through multiple repetitions. Your learning progress is determined by a combination of the number of repetitions, and the attention/concentration you use in each repetition. So, if you take some moments to pay attention to how the heat feels on your hand when roasting your food, you will become an expert sooner than if you ignore the feeling. Still, if the quality of the food is important to you, you should rely on the thermometer and not the feeling until you have trained your intuition a lot.
The measurement is not accurate for glass blowers. Might also be true for others who work with extremely high heat (people in foundries and such).
But for your average home chef, it gives a close enough estimation of the temperature that you can reduce the chance of burning / severely undercooking your food. But I'd only recommend it if it's for something that you're watching closely and can pull off / move to a cooler area of the grill if it's cooking too quickly, or add additional time as needed.
I wouldn't recommend this for dishes which must be cooked to a specific temperature (eg, sugar glazes, cheesecake, many egg dishes), or cook unsupervised without an opportunity to adjust (eg, soufflé)
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117474 | Do I have to dry the blanched and cool-rinsed basil leaves before freezing?
I harvested all my basil today. I plan to blanch for 3 to 5 seconds and cool quickly with ice water. (In batches.) Now what? Do I really have to spread out the leaves and dry them before freezing? Sounds tedious!
Because they are blanched, they will never be as good as fresh.
I'd squish the water out of them and freeze them packed in ice cube trays and store the resulting cubes in ziplock type bags
So no need to spread them out and dry them (after blanching and cooling)? That was what all the online instructions said to do but I have a lot of basil to process. (Summer is over....)
Okay, the little cubes are all in the freezer now. Thanks. I put the cooled leaves in a strainer and then patted dry with a couple paper towels and then stuffed them in the ice cube tray. Glad that's over. (I'm allergic to dairy so home-made pesto is a special treat for me.)
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74565 | Can gluten-free flour be cooked and eaten as a hot breakfast cereal?
I'm talking about single flours, such as quinoa flour, amaranth flour, and buckwheat flour, not flour blends or hot cereal mixes.
Are you asking if it's healthy (we don't answer that here), if it's tasty (very subjective), or something else?
Yes, you can do it. It will taste more like a pudding (not necessarily wheat pudding) than like a cereal. The consistency will depend on the grind size, and can get down to standard starch pudding, or be a bit gritty like semolina pudding.
Most people won't find the taste of a pure flour + water or even flour + milk pudding interesting enough, so you can experiment adding stuff to it. You're only limited by your own imagination.
Would the proportions of water and flour be the same as the proportions of water and grain, were I preparing the same amount of whole-grains? In other words, should the amount of water and quinoa flour be the same as if I was boiling regular quinoa? Should the proportions of water and buckwheat flour be the same as if I was boiling regular buckwheat groats?
That's a separate question to be asked on its own, and I'm not even sure that it is the same for all grains. In any case, you'll have to specify what end results you want when you ask for the ratio.
I do lightly brown my gluten free flour, brown rice, sorghum, and millet are my favorites. Then make a slurry as the first answer suggested. The amount of flour to water (or milk) ratio depends on the flour and how thick you like your porridge. Personally I found brown rice to be 2-3Tbsp of browned flour to 1 cup of water, but some of the other flours take more. We like to sweeten ours after it is cooked with a little honey (brown sugar would also work) or your sweetener of choice.
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74775 | How long will flour keep in the freezer in Food Saver Vacuum Sealed Bags?
I found some flour in my freezer that I stored 5 years ago in Food Saver vacuum sealed bags. Do you think it's still safe to use?
I'm reasonably sure that flour stored this way is safe. Obviously, if there are any obvious issues with the flour - off colors, tastes, or textures, or evidence of poor storage that allowed the flour to thaw and refreeze, or leaked moisture into it enough for quality concerns - you would want to be safe and discard it, but it should be reasonable to expect the flour to still be safe if it was properly stored.
Flour has a shelf life of 5-10 years if well stored. On top of that, freezing usually doubles the shelf life of grains - and that doubled time is best-before time, the flour may still reasonably expected to be safe after that amount of time, just with reduced quality or nutrition. Storing foods in the freezer, if kept consistently at temperature and well wrapped against moisture, is often about loss of quality rather than safety in any case.
So if the storage was uncompromised, flour stored in the freezer should be best used before 10-20 years. As for how long after that your flour may be edible for, well, hardtack has been known to last fifty or a hundred years, and still work for rations without killing or starving the eaters - I would guess probably modern freezers intended for food preservation are at least as efficient as baking the flour into dry dehydrated cakes (which is really all that hardtack is). That may explain why flour is said to last indefinitely if properly stored in a freezer.
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74794 | What supermarket fish is good for frying, besides tilapia?
I've been frying tilapia fillets in flour for a while and I like it, easy and tasty, just getting a bit tired of the same fish. Is there any other fish available in most supermarkets that is just as good for frying (I know some fish can't be fried easily)? I'm not looking for any exotic dishes, just some basic fried fish fillets to mix things up a bit.
Farm-raised fried catfish is very popular in the US South, and not much more expensive than Tillapia.
In addition to catfish, basa (a Vietnamese catfish) fries very nicely, as does haddock or cod. Basa has the advantage of being inexpensive as well. Any firm white fish is a good candidate for frying, for that matter.
These are high quality fishes you can fry at home: silver pomfret, grouper, mullets, black sea bream, red snapper, carp, and tilapia.
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74804 | Can I use casserole steak instead of braising beef for this Chinese Beef Casserole recipe?
I can't find braising beef easily, but I do have casserole steak. Are they the same? Would they work the same for this recipe?
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/9646/chinesestyle-braised-beef-onepot
Is it chopped up already? I would suspect that meat for braising would be left whole, while casserole steak might be like the american 'stew meat' where it's cut into chunks before sale. (although I'd suspect casserole meat could cut smaller than stew meat)
For the recipe you are using, any flavorful cut of meat that is up for long cooking should work okay. Had to look up casserole steak as that is not something I've ever seen in the US, at least not by that name.
From a Jamie Oliver forum , please see the following:
Braising steak is often used in a casserole. Mostly nowadays "Chuck" steak is sold for braising steak and is often used in "Casseroles". This is a cut of beef from the "forequarter" of beef and is the shoulder piece of the beast. It contains a fair bit of fat which is normally rendered down and incorporated into the dish. Sometimes the "Blade or LMC (leg of mutton cut)" is also sold as braising joint of beef......which is on the other side of the blade bone to the Chuck steak but is very lean and somewhat void of flavour.
Stewing steak is nowadays mostly "shin of beef"....which is what is says...shin. This can be from the forequarter or the hindquarter of the beast. It differs quite a lot from braising steak as it contains a lot of sinnue and membrane which separates the individual muscles within the cut. All these sinues render down in cooking to give a gelatinous addition which a good stew requires. You are more likely to see the hindquarter shin for sale as stewing beef as the fore-shin is usually taken for sausagemeat or burgers etc....along with the neck (clod) and skirt which we don't really see anymore.
The terminology may or may not be exact, depending on where you are located, but again, any cut that will stand up to long cooking should work.
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78347 | Liquid underneath clotted cream
TL;DR Why do I find liquid at the bottom of the pan when I make clotted cream?
I've read about clotted cream in books all my life, but it wasn't a thing where I grew up. I recently discovered this recipe online and have tried it out a few times. I follow the directions exactly:
Set convection oven to about 170º or 175º F
Pour cream into clear Pyrex baking dish to about 1" thickness
Put dish in oven and let it remain there for at least 8 hours
Remove dish from oven and let cool for 15 minutes
Refrigerate for 5 or 6 hours.
Each time, I have the same issue. The top layer of the result looks just like in the video, but the buttery portion goes only about three-quarters of the way down the baking dish. The rest is just liquid. In the video, when Steve scoops out the cream at 4:27, it is obvious that there is no liquid at the base.
What accounts for this difference? I have three theories, but don't know whether any of them is correct:
Steve says to use "fresh cream". Does that mean unpasteurized? Raw cream, as it's called here, is super expensive and only semi-legal to buy. So I have to buy pasteurized. I've used both UHT and non-UHT pasteurized cream, and have seen the same results from both. Is it possible that using pasteurized cream causes there to be liquid?
Steve also says to use the "thick cream that we would use for whipping up", which according to Wikipedia means cream that is about 35% milkfat, in UK usage. I used heavy cream, which is 36% milkfat in US usage. So I think I'm using the correct equivalent of what Steve says to use, but perhaps I'm using the wrong kind of cream?
Is my oven temperature wrong somehow? I thought perhaps the milkfat was rising to the top too rapidly and then forming a thick seal that prevented the cream at the bottom from separating. Is this a possibility, and if so, how can I fix it?
I'm attaching two pictures. The first shows the liquid after I've removed a small portion of the clotted cream from the top.
The second shows the liquid by itself, poured out into a jar.
From reading this other question, it seems that whey accumulates at the bottom of clotted cream. But I don't see any liquid at all in the video. And besides, the liquid I have does not correspond to my idea of whey. It's still somewhat viscous and yellow, and lacks the grey, transparent thinness of the whey I get from yogurt.
I thought that it might be buttermilk that remains after the milkfat separates, but it also seems too thick to be buttermilk. I put a dash of it in the scrambled eggs I was making to go with the bread I baked to go with the clotted cream, and the eggs were fine. I've previously used it instead of whey or water to bake bread, but it turned the bread somewhat gummy. So what is this liquid anyway?
Oh by the way, the semisolid stuff above the liquid layer is very tasty, but since I've never had any other clotted cream, I don't know whether it is the taste it's supposed to be.
Of course it's hard to tell from a photo but it doesn't look much runnier than I've sometimes seen in the bottom of commercial clotted cream - how does the viscosity compare to the cream you started with?
@ChrisH it is somewhat thinner and runnier than the heavy cream; around the same viscosity as full-fat milk.
Runnier than it looks then, and runnier than I've seen under clotted cream.
Clotting will work better with an unpasteurized or pasteurized (not ultra-pasteurized) cream, and when you use heavy whipping cream with as high a fat content as you can find (as high as 40 %).
Every recipe I've ever seen for homemade clotted cream has mentioned that layer under the clotted cream.
Clotted cream is essentially clotted milk solids (similar to butter or cheese, but obviously made quite different, and with a different taste), and the leftover liquid is analogous to the whey left over from cheese making or the liquid that remains after churning cream into butter.
It's likely that using a higher fat content or raw (as in fresh from the cow this morning) cream may result in less leftover liquid, but I've never tried it to be sure-- perhaps someone with more experience can tell us.
The cream used to make clotted cream in England is Double Cream, which contains at least 48% fat. The cream being used here is probably 36% fat. The cream starts with more water, so it follows that it will end up with more water.
When I make it, I always have a little bit of liquid leftover. I use it to make scones, which call for heavy cream. (I also use just regular heavy whipping cream that I get here in the states, pasteurized.) But I also bake mine in the oven for 12 hours and refrigerate for another 12 hours. For 2 cups of heavy whipping cream, I'll get about a cup of clotted cream and enough liquid for one batch of cream scones. It turns out great, and it's the only way I can get it here in the States as only specialty grocers carry it in jars.
I have used ultra pasteurized heavy whipping cream to make clotted cream and it works- because I inoculate it first with a bit of plain yogurt. Then it is cultured and I believe it makes the difference. Thanks
You must use batch pasteurized NOT ultra pasteurized. Ultra does not work. It's hard to find, but it's out there. Kalona SuperNatural cream is what I use. Horizon and Organic Valley won't work. After 12 hours in the oven at 180 degrees, you let it cool for an hour or two at room temp, then into the fridge for several hours. When it's very cold, you scoop (GENTLY!) the solid and creamy portion from the top with a slotted spoon and put it into a bowl. The semi-translucent liquid below is the whey. The buttery top layer and the creamy layer just below it (that sticks to the buttery crust) is what you put into a bowl. I stir it together a bit, then put in the fridge over night. Basically I start on Friday night with putting it on to bake overnight, the pull it out in in the morning, cool it in the 'fridge, and Saturday night I scoop and stir. On Sunday it will be ready to go!
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77593 | Why does the Instant Pot use pressure while steaming?
I think this question falls under "equipment", but if it's off-topic, please close and I'll delete it.
I recently acquired an Instant Pot. To my surprise, its "steam" setting generates and uses pressure. If I steam something for 10 minutes, for example, I have to manually release the pressure or let it equalize naturally before I can open the lid. This has deleterious effects on certain foods. For example, idlis will not puff up the way one would expect; the pressure prevents it.
I hadn't thought that steaming food used pressure, generally speaking. The Wikipedia page on steaming explicitly contrasts the two:
The food is kept separate from the boiling water but has direct contact with the steam, resulting in a moist texture to the food. This differs from double boiling, in which food is not directly exposed to steam, or pressure cooking, which uses a sealed vessel.
My earlier rice cooker (which the IP replaced) had a steam setting as well; on that one, steam escaped continually from the vent during the steaming process.
I'm trying to figure out what the advantage is of sealing the vessel and building up pressure if the intention is to steam food. The product manual is very sparse on detail regarding steaming, but does mention that steaming vegetables "require[s] 1~2 minutes pressure cooking time" and that pressure must be released manually after steaming.
Is it the case that the "steam" function of the IP is not actually meant for steaming, say for custards or dishes that rise? Is it meant for pressure cooking vegetables in a way that replicates the effect of steaming, but faster? I tried searching online to find out more about how the steaming function of the IP works, but found nothing useful.
From the manual, it looks like there's a sealed and vented position for a release valve - does it build up pressure even when in the vented position? (I'm not entirely sure which way it means you to use it for steaming.)
@Jefromi having recently acquired an Instant Pot myself, I know that the pressure relief valve pops back to the vented position several minutes after the time for pressure cooking has expired. In other words, it cooks under pressure, then it releases pressure naturally. Or you can turn the valve into the vent position after pressure cooking, which will allow you to open the lid within a minute or less.
@Jefromi No, it doesn't build up pressure in the vented position, but you can't leave the valve open to vent for steaming. The manual says to keep the vent sealed for all operations except sautéing, keeping food warm, and slow cooking.
It's advertised as a pressure cooker (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pressure_cooking), so it sounds like it's doing its job. I don't own one, is it supposed to provide a no-pressure steaming option? If not I suppose you could experiment with ways to prop the valve open and see what happens, just do it in the sink or over a towel and be very paranoid of burns and such until you know what to expect, might not be the best idea though. Even so it might not be ideal for steaming.
@JasonC Yes, the IP Duo60 v2 is supposed to be a seven-in-one multifunction cooker. From the Amazon description (https://www.amazon.com/Instant-Pot-IP-DUO60-Multi-Functional-Pressure/dp/B00FLYWNYQ): Pressure Cooker, Slow Cooker, Rice Cooker, Saute/Browning, Yogurt Maker, Steamer & Warmer. I thought I could replace my rice cooker and my yogurt maker with the IP. Plus there's the giant "Steam" button on the panel. I'm happy enough with it on the whole, but the yogurt it makes is not as good as the one from my dedicated yogurt maker, and I miss the steam function of my old rice cooker....
Check out this article about using the Instant Pot as a steamer: https://paleopot.com/2016/12/steaming-vegetables-instant-pot/ (author is not the same Jason, heh). It mentions an optional glass lid with a vent hole. Perhaps that lid is a required accessory for that mode? Do you have that lid, or maybe a vented saucepan lid that fits? I don't know if that article applies to the model you have, though.
@JasonC Wow, that's useful! Your Google-fu is better than mine; I didn't come across it in my hunt for resources. I don't have the IP-branded lid, but I have one that fits it exactly and has a venting hole. I'll try it out!
Verbose, don't forget to post an answer after trying the other lid!
@Stephie Well I'm not sure that answers my question, though. The other lid may work to steam as intended, but my question is about why the IP uses pressure for steaming, not how to steam with an IP. The technique described in the link doesn't use the steam function of the IP, it uses the sauté function.
I know that I once forgot to lock the lid when I first got my instant pot. It got hot, just not pressurized. You'd have to watch the water level, as you'll lose a fair bit of steam this way.
@verbose Well, unless it turns out to be user error, I think it might be tough to answer why Instant Pot uses pressure for its "steam" mode. I mean, maybe they are nickel and diming you for accessories like the lid (assuming that's the solution), or maybe the marketing department thought 7-in-1 sounded better than 6-in-1, and since the thing can make steam, why not? They could've gone 8-in-1 if only they thought of "soak", heh. 9-in-1 if you count "air dry" (lid not required) or "funny hat" (turn upside down).
@Stephie I tried it. I misrememebered; the lid I have lacks venting hole. See my follow-up question.
I'm guessing they call it "steam" mode because, well, it's for steaming things. For most things that most people would want to steam, it doesn't matter whether or not the steam is pressurized, except that it cooks more quickly.
TL;DR
The Instant Pot is primarily a pressure cooker and its "steam" function is for pressure steaming. I guess typically you do raw/frozen veggies and seafood with this function.
You can do normal steaming in "sauté" mode with a vented glass lid (sold as an optional accessory, or if you have a vented lid that fits).
Why?
Is it the case that the "steam" function of the IP is not actually meant for steaming, say for custards or dishes that rise? Is it meant for pressure cooking vegetables in a way that replicates the effect of steaming, but faster?
... my question is about why the IP uses pressure for steaming, not how to steam with an IP. The technique described in the link doesn't use the steam function of the IP, it uses the sauté function.
Assuming it doesn't turn out to be user error (I don't own one to confirm), I believe the "steam" function is just intended for pressure steaming. After all, it is a pressure cooker. So you'd use it when you need to do pressure steaming.
It's possible that the button only says "steam" and not "pressure steam" because the designers felt the use of pressure was implied for this product. As for why it just says "steamer" in the product description, that's a question only their marketing department can answer. They could've gone 8-in-1 if they counted "air dry" (lid and electricity not required) or "funny hat".¹
Here is a long-winded YouTube video² about pressure steaming with the Instant Pot. At the very start he states:
The steam function is mostly used to cook raw or frozen vegetables as well as shellfish and other seafood.
At 4:05 he uses the "steam" function. I'm not going to describe the video in detail because I suspect it echoes the manual for this particular process.
Note also about pressure steaming in the Instant Pot, the video states at 2:30 that a typical stove-top pressure cooker runs at 15 psi but the IP runs at 10.15-11.6 psi, and thus recommends increasing pressure cooking times for stove-top recipes by 7-15%. I can't personally comment on or confirm this as I don't have a lot of pressure cooking experience.
Regular Steaming How-To
As for normal steaming, I do not own an Instant Pot and can not say for sure, but I found this article about using it as a steamer (author is a different Jason), which pretty much hacks it with the "sauté" function. In particular (emphasis mine):
I’m not talking about pressure steaming here, but simply using the Instant Pot as a countertop steamer.
...
The optional Instant Pot glass lid has a small vent hole at the top that releases some steam. The power of the steam in the pot also causes the lid to rattle ever so slightly, the same way some slow cookers do.
The article gives the following steps:
Place your steamer basket and 2 cups of water into your Instant Pot
Set Instant Pot to saute mode, and adjust the heat level to ‘more’
Place the glass lid onto your Instant Pot to allow the water to reach a low boil / simmer
Add your vegetables to the steamer basket and re-cover the pot with your lid.
Steam to desired doneness!
It also makes a note about the initial step:
The water reached 203°F after 6 minutes without the lid on. The water will reach temperature a minute or so faster if you leave the lid on while preheating.
The key point here is there appears to be an optional glass lid with a vent hole. If you don't have this accessory you might have a vented saucepan lid that fits. Also don't forget a steamer basket.
Now, I don't know if that applies exactly to your model (not sure which one the author of the article has) or if the linked products fit, so that part's up to you.
1 For an extra $29.99 you can even get the 9-in-1 "leak stopper" version which can catch rainwater if placed under a leaky roof.
2 Which perfectly complements my long-winded answer...
I didn't even know "pressure steaming" was a thing. I guess the feature is meant to be used to clean my carpets?
@verbose Make that 10-in-1, lol.
As the owner of an Instant Pot, I wondered about this for a long time too, and for a long time never bothered to use it for steaming. Recently I purchased a newer model, and found that it can be adjusted to steam without pressure - possibly a response to this exact end user confusion.
If the Steam setting is pressure steaming, then what's the difference from using the Manual (pressure) setting and putting the food on the steamer rack?
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114036 | Verdigris on copper-bottomed pan
I have a small stainless steel pan with a copper bottom. The diameter is around 4in or 10cm, so it is really small. I use it exclusively for tempering or what is known in India as tadka. That is, I heat a couple of spoonfuls of ghee, add the necessary spices (mustard seeds, cumin seeds, curry leaves, chili peppers, asafœtida, whatever the recipe calls for), then add the tempering to the main dish, usually lentils or a stew.
Since the pan is tiny, my usual method of adding the tempering is just to dunk the entire pan into the larger pan that has the main dish. Then I scoop up some of the main dish with the smaller pan, swirl it around to gather any fat or spices left in the pan, and pour this back into the main dish, repeating the process a couple of times.
The last time I tried this (a couple days ago), I was horrified to notice that the copper bottom of the pan was beginning to develop verdigris. Here is a picture:
I'm obviously concerned about this. I have three questions:
Should I give up the habit of dunking this little pan into the larger pan? Will the verdigris get into the food and make it dangerous to eat?
Is there any way I can get the verdigris off the bottom of the pan?
Assuming there is, what can I do to prevent a recurrence? For example, I usually put this pan in the dishwasher. Should I be washing it by hand instead?
I want to avoid replacing the pan if possible. It is very useful and I don't know where I'd find a similar pan; the pan was gifted to me many years ago by someone who in turn had had it for some time before she gave it to me.
Corrosion like that can be scrubbed off with copper polish (or, in a pinch, with salt and vinegar). The result will be bright copper, which will quickly tarnish and darken through regular use. The pan is absolutely not ruined. As with other solid metal cookware, if it isn’t literally broken in pieces then it can be scoured into a like-new state. That pan likely has centuries of use left in it.
Dunking the pan like that doesn’t sound like a problem. The upper surface of the pan comes into contact with food, after all; no reason the bottom surface can’t. I think it’s a clever technique.
The dishwasher is your real enemy here. It’ll strip away the patina and bring the surface into contact with some pretty harsh detergents, leading to that sort of corrosion. Copper should be hand-washed.
Thanks! The pan is copper-bottomed stainless steel and I was worried about the verdigris coming into contact with the food ... the inside of the pan, being stainless steel, doesn't have any corrosion. But since I can scour off the verdigris, I will do that.
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75471 | In Indian cooking, what does it mean when a recipe says "until the oil begins to leave the side of the pan"?
In many Indian recipes I see the phrase "cook until the oil leaves the side of the pan". For example, this recipe says:
Add tomato puree and cook until oil leaves the side.
Similarly, this one says:
[C]ook the gravy until the oil leaves the sides of the pan.
Is this the same as "cook until the oil separates" as described in this other question? Or is it something different? Since the other question talks about the oil leaving the curry/gravy rather than the "sides of the pan", they seem to be different phenomena. Thanks for your help!
Not an authoritative answer, and not a native English speaker, but FWIW: I encounter both in recipes (with a slight preference for "leaves the side of the pan", I'd say), and interpret them as describing the same thing. I also wouldn't know what phenomena it would otherwise be describing.
Having read the recipes, I think this is just a question of careless wording in a translation or something like that. Both recipes show pictures of a mixture sitting in the middle of the pan's surface, and in the first case you can even see the moment of separation where the oil leaves hte sides of the mixture.
See also https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/28832/oil-separating-from-fried-onion-spice-mixture-why-does-it-happen and https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/10570/what-is-meant-by-cook-until-the-oil-separates-in-indian-curry-recipes
Since I'm not an expert in Indian cuisine, I can't say this for certain, but I agree with the comments so far that this seems basically equivalent to the separation of the oil from the curry.
To my mind, the wording makes perfect sense, because in some cases with a lot of oil/butter, you can get separation happening early on the pan's edges. Oil tends to float on top, and usually the center of a pan is heated more strongly over a burner. Thus, you tend to get boiling/bubbling in the center, which tends to push any floating oil toward the edges.
But these recipes are not looking for that small amount of oil along the edge (which, depending on stirring and the thickness of the curry, can stay there through much of the cooking process). They are specifically waiting for the time when separation increases and fat appears floating on the surface even away from the edges of the pan.
Thanks @Athanasius. So it means something like "until the oil isn't visible just at the edges but has separated in the center too"?
Maybe not the "center," but at least starts to spread away from the edges (hence "begins to leave the side..."). To my mind, this may be highlighting when separation begins and in underway, rather than cooking until all of it separates as much as possible. (But again, I'm speculating a bit.)
It's a visual indicator of when the sauce is dry enough & actually frying rather than boiling, that you can continue on to the next step.
If you fry onion puree or tomato puree [paste] etc, initially it turns into more of a boil, it won't really fry. The idea is that you keep going until it will actually start to properly fry in the oil/ghee.
The oil will emulsify into this initially - you won't really be able to see it as a separate component.
As your mixture dries & starts to pull together, oil will separate once more. Once you do see it start to separate out, then you're properly frying & nearly ready for your next step. It's a good way to control water content in the early stages. You will at that point be getting some caramelisation - but you don't want to burn it.
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76820 | What would cause dough not to rise while making no-knead bread?
I have made both the classic and the speedy version of the no-knead bread recipe provided by Mark Bittman in the New York Times. The one change I make is that I use active dry yeast rather than instant, simply because I don't typically have the latter at hand. I measure out the amount of water the recipe calls for, take out a quarter cup or so, heat it for a few seconds in the microwave so that it is warm (but not hot), dissolve the yeast in the warmed water, then add the dissolved yeast and the rest of the water to the flour to make the dough.
In the video that accompanies the speedy bread recipe, Jim Lahey suggests using hot water and adding a couple drops of red wine vinegar. The last couple of times I tried the recipe, I tried those suggestions. I separated out the water for dissolving the yeast and heated the rest beyond merely warming as needed for the yeast. I warmed the water for the yeast as usual. I added the hot water and a couple drops vinegar to the flour and gave it a couple of stirs first before adding the yeast water, as I thought the yeast would die if it came in contact with the hot water.
Both times, the bread was disastrous. The dough simply failed to rise sufficiently. Instead of more than doubling in size in four hours, it looked as though it had gotten to perhaps 1.5 times the original size, and it was quite smooth, like kneaded dough, instead of bubbly and stringy as the no-knead dough is supposed to be.
The first time, I thought I had made a mistake and added too little yeast, so I didn't think too much about it. The second time, though, I know I measured out the right amount of yeast and I was pretty careful in following the procedure. So I'm trying to account for the lack of rising. A little research suggested that perhaps the vinegar didn't help the yeast to rise, as it ordinarily would, but overwhelmed and killed the yeast.
I used a stainless steel bowl for mixing dough and letting it rise. I know that using stainless steel is generally fine, but perhaps it's a bad idea to add vinegar to the dough if I'm using stainless steel? Would this account for the lack of rise in the dough?
What other reasons might there be for the failure of the dough to rise? I tested my yeast with sugar dissolved in water and it's fine. Thanks!
A few drops of vinegar should be safe to do. I suspect the water was to hot and may have killed some of the yeast. It is better to measure ingredients by weight and water temperature (body temperature is safe). Give yeast a head start before contact with the salt.
@Optionparty I was pretty careful to make sure that the water in which I dissolved the yeast was not too hot, and that this water was added to the dough only after the rest of the water (which was hot) had been stirred in a bit with the dry ingredients so it was no longer too hot.
What kind if flour did you use and did you check the temperature in your kitchen? Usually it's a good idea to judge rising by volume, not by time.
King Arthur bread flour. I didn't specifically check the temperature but it hasn't been exceptionally cold or anything. I'm fortunate to live in a part of the world where temperatures are mild year round. Also, the dough didn't look like it was partway through its rise. I've never seen the dough be smooth rather than bubbly before.
Yeast doesnt "help yeast to rise", actually it inhibits yeast. but it is used in breadmaking because acetic acid in the vinegar weakens gluten molecules, making the dough more susceptible to bubble formation, and the chemical composition of acetic acid being CH3COOH means that additional carbon dioxide will be released as the acetic acid is neutralised by the gluten.
First and foremost, the classic recipes states quite clearly, "Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles." Expecting microorganisms to do their work in precisely the same amount of time, every time, requires a good bit of precision on your part.
Why the slow rise? Almost definitely a yeast problem. The question is, which kind of yeast problem? Acid can kill yeast, heat can kill yeast, salt can kill yeast, sitting in a package forever can kill them, and there are other, less likely scenarios too.
Are you using jarred active dry yeast or individual packets? You mention testing it, but what technique did you use, a little water and sugar, watch for bubbles? You can (and probably should) do this at the beginning of the recipe, so that your yeast is kickstarted into alertness.
Stainless steel is not the problem. It's non-reactive.
Vinegar is likely to slow the growth, so you probably just need to give it more time. The best way to judge readiness is by the dough, not by the clock.
Another factor is that a few degrees difference can make a difference in the rate of yeast growth and CO2 production:
"With glucose as growth-limiting substrate in the chemostat and aerobic conditions in the respirometer, the carbon dioxide output was found to be higher as temperature at which the organisms were cultured increased from 25 to 39" --Journal of Microbiosology
Hope these help, but I think there's not just one answer here.
Thanks @JK. I tested jarred active dry yeast using sugar and water. I also made bread today using the classic recipe and it turned out fine. The batches I asked about definitely had dead yeast. It wasn't that the bread hadn't risen enough—more time would have solved that. The bread had risen a bit and then stopped. I know what rising bread looks like with those recipes: it's bubbly and stringy. The smooth, flat appearance of the dough after several hours indicated to me that the rising had failed. I don't know what killed the yeast but your suggestions are as good as any I'll get.
what about big jar vs. individual packages? getting air? if the yeast comes from a big package but, following the manufacturer's instructions, is kept in an air-tight container in the pantry, should it be ok? I realize this is an old thread dug up recently, but may be useful in these days since some buy dry yeast online
I find adding about a teaspoon of sugar to the warm yeast mixture will help the yeast grow, vinegar does the opposite. Also, take into consideration the weather, humidity and rainy days are sometimes a disaster for rising bread.
My experience when the dough doesn't rise enough is that I haven't added enough water (assuming of course that your yeast is still good).
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78493 | Using maida + bread flour to create AP flour substitute
This is a follow-up to my earlier question about using bread flour instead of all-purpose flour in a banana bread recipe. The consensus was that using bread flour would yield a denser, chewier loaf, which could be undesirable (or perhaps desirable, depending on the eaters' preferences).
Among the flours I have at hand is maida. As explained here and here, maida is a soft flour with around 7.5% gluten, similar to what is sold as cake flour in the US. My understanding from the Cooking for Engineers article linked from the latter question is that using such a low-gluten flour for this recipe would not be good:
Cake flour is produced from soft wheat and is low in gluten content (8-10%). This flour is used for making delicate cakes. Baked goods made with cake flour has a tendency to crumble because of the low gluten content.
This is the opposite danger to the one of using bread flour in the recipe: instead of being too dense and chewy, by using maida I risk making the bread too crumbly.
Can I split the difference? Since maida is around 7.5% gluten and the bread flour I'm using (King Arthur) about 12.5% gluten, if I use 50-50 maida and bread flour, I would get a flour with (7.5 + 12.5) / 2 = 10% gluten. That is within the range of AP flour, which could be from 9% to 12% according to that Cooking for Engineers article.
It seems to me that I could just combine maida and bread flour in equal proportions and use it, not just in this banana bread recipe, but in any recipe that calls for AP flour. Is this understanding sound? Or are there risks I'm not seeing in this approach? Are there specific properties other than the gluten/protein content of maida, bread flour, and AP flour that would cause the recipes to turn out badly?
Yes you can.
Truth of the matter is... If you work in a pastry shop (which I did for a number of years), you use hard flour (high protein) for bread. You use cake or pastry flour for, you guessed it, cakes and pastries. If you really need an AP flour, it's fine to blend.
However, I was taught, and still to this day believe, that AP flour was created for home use only, back when people weren't super-sophisticated and didn't know (or want to know) the differences in flours. That was for a baker, who was supposed to have a real deep understanding.
I only have hard flour and Swans-Down Pastry Flour, and I use one of those for whatever I make. I would personally use the bread flour for my banana bread, and I would make it 'just mixed'. I am then not developing gluten from the protein. Also, protein is not gluten. Gluten is created by the mechanical mixing of the proteins.
Long story short, blending the two is fine. That's what AP flour is - a blend.
I'm sorry that you felt the need to rant; I felt the need to remove the rant from this post, which is otherwise a very good post (+1). If you feel that something is wrong with the way the site is run, please bring it up in meta or we can open a chat room to discuss what you feel needs improvement
It's great to hear from an expert! I don't know what "just mixed" should look like, and I worry that I'll either under- or over mix the batter. So I'm scared of using bread flour by itself for this recipe. I will try the 50-50 blend and update the question in a couple weeks. And at some point I should ask for pictures of "just mixed".
@verbose That would be another great question (one that I am sure would get good answers). What does 'just mixed' mean in this context? You can specifically ask for photos too.
Sorry... 'Just mixed' means literally once all ingredients are combined in a homogenous mix, stop. Gluten is not developed...
Regarding the edit for my 'rant'... the irony of editing that part of my post is certainly not lost.
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78697 | What provides the acid for leavening in this banana bread recipe?
I have made this banana bread recipe a couple of times. The ingredients are:
All-purpose flour
Salt
Brown sugar
Baking soda
Bananas
Butter
Eggs
My understanding is that baking soda requires some acid such as milk or yogurt to provide leavening. But this recipe doesn't call for anything that is an acid that I can see. Yet it does produce a perfectly edible loaf and not a dense brick.
What is reacting with the baking soda to provide leavening?
Getting an actual brick is harder than people think, especially if there is water (from the bananas) in the recipe - and even if not, that recipe would probably yield something shortbread like and not inedible.
@rackandboneman Challenge accepted
Most of the ingredients in this recipe are acidic.
ph values:
flour 5.5-6.5
brown sugar slightly acidic
bananas 4.5-5.2
butter 6.1-6.4
The salt is neutral and the eggs are not acidic, ph 7.1-7.9
The combination of these ingredients is acidic enough to interact with the baking soda to leaven the bread.
Even without the bananas, there would be some leavening. Consider the standard ingredients in chocolate chip cookies: flour, sugar, butter, eggs, salt, baking soda and chocolate chips. Though they don't raise nearly as much as banana bread, they do poof up a bit.
chocolate chip cookies puff because you beat air into the butter while creaming it and that air expands as i warms. this is not the case with banana bread
The banana does. Bananas have a pH level of 4-5 making them more acidic than milk.
This depends on the banana that you are using there. You need to check if its ripe or unripe because unripe ones are little more acidic than the other. To be specific unripe bananas have a pH of around 5.6 and ripe one has a pH of 6.5
All of your answers have linked to this site. Are you affiliated with it?
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77700 | Must a lid for a pot used for steaming be vented?
This is a follow-up to my earlier question about steaming using the Instant Pot. The answer there said that the "steam" function of the Instant Pot was only for pressure steaming; for ordinary steaming, one needed the optional lid that has a small hole for a steaming vent.
I have a lid that fits the Instant Pot exactly, but it lacks the steam release vent. How much does this matter? This question suggests that the venting holes in lids are generally too small to make much of a difference; but that was in the context of slow cooking, which generates far less steam. For steaming, would the absence of a vent cause too much steam to remain in the pot? Would this in turn affect the food being prepared?
As an experiment, I tried steaming idlis in the Instant Pot using the lid I have. I used store-bought batter that simply needed to be poured into the idli molds and then steamed for 7–8 minutes. I steamed the idlis for 8 minutes. During the steaming, the lid "danced" a little on the pot rim and steam was noticeably escaping. The idlis came out okay, but were a little sticky on the bottom. I'm wondering whether the lack of a vent hole on the lid could have caused this, or whether I should look elsewhere.
If a lid doesn't have a vent and the pot does not have any sort of locking mechanism like a pressure cooker, then the pressure of the steam inside will lift the lid off the pot and steam will escape. That was the "dancing" of the lid that you experienced. Venting holes in a lid just let some steam escape so the lid doesn't bang around, having a vent hole or not wouldn't make your idli's sticky.
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75840 | I forgot the milk in the mac and cheese
Help! I made my mac and cheese last night; the cheese sauce was not creamy, I poured it into the noodles. This morning I realized I forgot to add the milk when heating the sauce. Can someone help me find a fix? Can I warm the milk and put in the casserole dish before i bake it?
please help me, i need this for guests this afternoon
What kind of mac & cheese - boxed? Scratch? Please post the full recipe!
You can't just warm the milk and add it, but you could warm the mac and cheese mix and stir the milk in to combine. You'd want to transfer it to a bowl to do that, then back into the baking dish. You should be fine.
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91068 | Bitter taste of rocket pesto
I've gone overboard with sowing rocket (Eruca sativa, also known as arugula, eruca, rucola, roquette, etc.) in my vegetable garden... To use up the surplus I've made some fresh salad (recommended), filling some omelets, and also tried a pesto using these leaves instead of the more common basil. My question is about the latter. Basic ingredients I had at hand:
rocket leaves
lightly toasted sunflower seeds
some matured white cheddar
olive oil
salt, pepper, chilly flakes, balsamic vinegar
While I quite liked the peppery-tasting result on pasta, my first impression was that this was quite bitter. Not bitter enough for me to avoid in future, but I would be hesitant serving this to someone else.
I've been comparing with recipes on the internet, and those do not seem to differ much. Some add a twist of lemon zest, garlic, some basil leaves, and of course the more traditional pecorino or parmesan. But I don't think enough to dilute the bitter taste.
So I am wondering if other people that have made this sort of pesto have the same reaction of bitterness? If so, do you have any tricks for me to bring down the bitterness to acceptable levels - and would you consider this to be suitable for general consumption (e.g. guests that may be used to different fare than you)?
Rocket has an inherent bitterness and not much sweetness, so any pesto you make from it will have that quality. You can try and balance it with sweetness, acidity, etc but that will only go so far. Basically, if it's going to be too bitter for someone's taste you're better off making something else, or using the rocket's strong flavors in conjunction with something like coriander leaf, cilantro leaf or basil.
I believe cilantro and coriander is the same plant, or am I mistaken? I believe it could do the trick, I have some in the garden, unfortunately not nearly as much as the rocket...
They are the same plant @fr13d, I said both because cilantro is a term only used in the US.
I've chosen this answer after trying various of the suggestions in various answers, and coming to the conclusion that one is not going to change a lot about the bitter taste. Thanks for all the suggestions. A. Leistra's answer however does a good job of collating most suggestions. If I ever serve this to others, I'll probably give it a spin of being a health new fad, bitter being the new sweet or some such ;-)
Consider adding more salt and fat as both do a good job of cutting through bitter flavors and making them more palatable.
So adjust the amount of olive oil and salt, or find a cheese with a saltier profile than your cheddar for a bit of both.
What's your opinion of a brined cheese like plain old feta-style from cow's milk? (I'm a cheapskate, I know....)
Go for it! Greek food often combines feta with other bitter flavors.
Dolmades (Rice wrapped in Olive leaves soaked in olive oil) comes to mind.
To avoid bitterness in argula it's a good idea to pick the leaves very young, especially during hot weather. Staggering your planting is a good technique, but this isn't going to help you until next year. Once you've got the bitterness, some ideas:
A momentary blanch in boiling salt water - literally just a few seconds - can reduce bitterness.
Salt and fat both offset bitterness. Increase the olive oil, and consider a saltier cheese - parmesan or romano or something along those lines - rather than cheddar.
If all else fails, dilute the bitterness by adding another herb or green to your pesto.
My practice when making pesto with any pungent or bitter herb (I've done sage and sorrel) is to add parsley to provide a more mellow taste. With sage, I've had to do as much as 1 part parsley to 1 part sage; with sorrel, 1 part parsley to 4 parts sorrel.
Adding sweetness, saltiness, fattiness, or acidity will cut down the bitterness of the rocket. For this application i don't think you would want much acidity or sweetness, so I would add saltiness and fattiness in the form of a more traditional parmesan cheese or just plain salt, and a little more olive oil. Another option would be to embrace the sweet side and make it more of a rocket/sun dried tomato pesto.
This may be an oblique solution to the problem. I have found that a similar garden herb, Diplotaxis tenuifolia (common names: Perennial wall rocket, wild rocket, sand rocket, Lincoln weed, white rocket, wild Italian arugula, sylvetta arugula) is a adequate replacement for most uses mentioned in the original post. Its peppery taste is perhaps a little less strong. It does have a bitter taste too, but when made into pesto, this seems to all but disappear with overnight fridge storage.
So it seems I'm sowing wild rocket in future in stead of the other kind.
Most of the other answers haven't mentioned this: if you are using olive oil, especially extra virgin, then it can be quite bitter. I find you don't taste it so much unless you mix it into a dressing or mayonnaise; if you've ever tasted fresh olives directly from the tree, you'll know they are unpleasantly bitter. The bitterness is reduced during the pipcling process by soaking them in salt water or similar - which demonstrates the bitterness is water soluble and explains why the bitterness comes out when you make a dressing.
Interesting, thanks. I've tasted it with mayonnaise. I thought it may have been due to oil going rancid...
the compound that makes fresh uncured olives bitter, oleuropein, is usually stripped out of the olives during the curing process by water. Given that it is soluble in water, I doubt that it is present in the oil in significant concentrations. On the other hand, bitterness is a very powerful taste and bitter compounds can be detected by taste in incredibly low concentrations.
Try another herb - unfortunately only available for a few weeks in Spring - Wild Garlic leaves...makes a wonderful and not bitter pesto.. and the usual pine nuts (can be dry toasted) and Parmesan or Grana and either good olive oil or flavoured rapeseed - especially basil flavoured.. I also add smoked garlic!
I guess you've been downvoted because your suggestions may be a bit tangential. I nevertheless found the smoked garlic bit interesting and will try it some time - or perhaps even roasted garlic (flakes) - if I have the time :-)
And I agree that wild garlic would make a wonderful pesto. I've had an abundance of garlic chives throughout summer and made a very nice pesto a couple of times - unfortunately I'm in the southern hemisphere and we have winter at the moment.
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86570 | Can "low fat" eggs have an impact on meringue formation?
Yesterday I tried making a meringue-based dessert with a recipe I've used successfully a few times before, which calls for 6 egg whites and 1.5 cups of sugar. I made sure to have no egg yolk with the whites, I used a stainless steel bowl and mixer attachment, the eggs were at room temperature - everything to my knowledge that should result in perfect peaks after mixing thoroughly.
After getting everything together though, my first batch of meringue never got past a marshmallow fluff-like thick but somewhat runny consistency. I tried again two more times being very careful to make sure everything was perfectly clean, and ended up with the same results each time.
At this point while cleaning up, I notice the packaging for the eggs stating that they have "25% less saturated fat than regular eggs" eggs, due to a special diet.
Could lower than average fat content in eggs affect getting stiff peaks from a meringue?
I think (and I'll look for a source) that nearly all of the fat is in the yolk, which you don't use (hence the whole egg-white omelette fad). Of course it's possible that the fat that's missing from your eggs is the little that's in the white. But are they actually lower fat, or lower saturated fat (replaced by unsaturated)?
By chance, were you using pasteurized eggs?
@Cindy These were the exact ones I bought, I don't believe they were pasteurized.
In general, fat is the enemy when making the meringue and egg white foams, so on the surface a lower fat egg should be good, though the fat is almost entirely in the yolk anyway. But, I would tend to question what else was done via diet, or as Cindy questioned, possible pasteurization. I would speculate that maybe a pH issue caused via diet, Did you use any pH adjuster such as cream of tartar? Did the whites by any chance seem runny, which might be from diet or might be older than expected egg. If so, this can be an indication the pH may be skewed a bit and need help to form a good foam.
@dlb With two of the batches, I added a 1/4 tsp cream of tartar and a 1/2 tsp a few minutes into mixing when I was seeing the same results from the first batch, and it didn't seem to change anything. They did seem more runny than normal, but that could just be me trying to remember anything that would explain this.
@QuestionMarks That seems like plenty of CoT to me to usually fix. I have used a lot of duck eggs which can be a real issue and have had more luck going the other way, using lemon to push to acid but usually pushing either way works unless fat contaminated. Anything I could add would just be speculative but makes me wonder if they altered something else with feed supplements. If you have more, might be worth a try with lemon juice, but might be worth trip to get some farm fresh if you can and use you lower fat ones for other things.
I would look at the age of the eggs - take a look at the sell by date on the carton.
If the eggs are fresh it takes more whisking to get it to stiffen up, but once there it will hold longer.
If the eggs are older it doesn't take much whisking to get stiff, but you need to not let it sit out for too long or it will get runny and collapse.
You might also look at the temperature. If the eggs were room temp they would act more like older eggs. If the eggs were cold from the fridge they would act more like newer eggs.
Sounds like you did a good job of checking for a clean bowl and no yolks. Buying new eggs that are fresh, cold and not served a special low fat diet will probably do the trick.
Hope that is helpful.
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76339 | Should I take the cake out of oven immediately after it is baked or leave it in oven for some time
I follow all the recipe guidelines, but very often my cakes crumble and tend to be either moist of heavy inside although they appear nice brown and light outside and the tester comes out clean. I have a doubt that it is because I remove the cakes from the oven immediately as they are cooked.
Most recipes will indicate if the cake should come out of the oven right away, and whether there should be a rest period where the cake is left to set and cool. What does your recipe say for this particular cake?
Most cake recipes I have seen give an approximate baking time and also instructions for determining doneness by observation (the "toothpick comes out clean" sort of guideline). When the criteria for doneness are met, it is assumed you will take the cake out of the oven immediately.
Very often there are further instructions about cooling, removing from the cake pans, frosting, etc. But they don't expect you to leave the cake in the oven (whether turned "off" or "on") past when it is done. Leaving it in the oven while the oven is cooling down would just introduce too much variability as ovens would cool at different rates.
I agree with your speculation that cake problems must be from some other cause.
New York Cheesecake often is left in the oven turned off for some time. But usually is noted in the recipe.The reason is to avoid cracking on the surface letting it to gradually cool down inside the oven and then transfer to a rack to complete the cooling.
Recipes will usually specify a timing that assumes the cake will be removed from the oven and left at room temperature to cool, unless otherwise stated. Anything else would yield results vastly dependent on how quickly a given oven cools down - which is again dependent on oven volume, insulation and design. Also, in case of a convection oven, you would create an even more complex temperature profile because you would bake with convection but finish in a slowly cooling still oven.
When it's cooked it should come out. Otherwise it's just over ooking. Best of all, it should come out marginally before its finished and continue with risidual heat but that's if you really want to take things to the next level.
Yes, you should take the bread out as soon it is baked. Let it cool for 5 minutes and de-mould it. Keep it on a wired rack otherwise the base will become soggy.
Please note if you want to promote your own product/blog you must disclose your affiliation, otherwise your answer may be flagged as spam. Please read How to not be a spammer
Do you mean cake? Or bread?
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76478 | Refrigerator freezes
I have a refrigerator/freezer in our unheated garage. During the lower temps of winter the refrigerator section freezes and the freezer section is fine. What do I do to keep refrigerator from freezing everything?
Is it already on the warmest setting?
Does it get below freezing in the garage?
Put it somewhere that does not go below freezing - either build it a heated closet in the garage, or move it to a place with heat.
Add heat. A heating pad, several light bulbs. They can be on all the time and the cooling unit will remove excess heat.
If your refrigerator is in an unheated part of your house and that area regularly reaches temperatures below freezing, your refrigerator will eventually freeze. Good fridges are certainly insulated well but no amount of insulation will prevent temperature change over time, particularly if you're opening and closing the fridge. Refrigerators only cool. They don't have heating elements.
The only possible way to keep your fridge from freezing during the winter is to store it somewhere that stays above freezing or work out some sort of hack where you hook a heating element (say a heat lamp) up to a thermometer and whenever it hits below 33F (1C), it turns on for a short period of time to bump the temperature back up again.
When we were brewing beer during the winter we occasionally had to do something like this as our fermenting fridge needed to be kept at 70F (21C). We had a special setup, though, which allowed one compartment to have the heat lamp and a fan to blow the warm air into the beer compartment. This prevented hot spots, which would be really bad for you in the case of perishable foods.
Some refrigerators will have a cold spot. For example, my old fridge would freeze any food on the top shelf that was near the back. If all your food is freezing I would make sure it doesn't go below freezing in your garage and turn it on it's warmest setting.
Yep, many freeze at the very back, freezing the ends of long beans or celery to mush :)
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76550 | In making a cookie dough I forgot to add the salt. Is there a way to still add the salt?
I forgot to add the salt ingredient to a cookie dough that is already mixed. Is there still a way to add the salt?
At this point, I recommend skipping it. In the long run, it's not likely to "ruin" your cookies. It's usually just there for a bit of flavor enhancement, not likely for any chemical reason. There may be some slight difference in the importance of the salt depending on the type of cookie you're making, though. Something like a sugar cookie or chocolate chip isn't likely to need it much. A peanut butter cookie, though, the salt does a lot for the flavoring but if you use salted peanuts/peanut butter, there's probably already a good amount of salt in the ingredients, so you'll still probably be OK.
Mixing the salt with the flour is an important step in making sure it's distributed evenly. Once the dough is complete, getting the salt mixed in well would likely overwork the dough and give you tough cookies and even then, you may end up with salty pockets and some parts that are unsalted.
There's also a fair bit of salt in regular butter. Some recipes call for unsalted butter so you can control the salt more precisely, but most butter is salted and that will provide enough salt to keep the cookies from being totally bland.
Personally, I like the salt ;-)
I always use unsalted butter in cookies, so I didn't even think of that. I only buy salted butter during the summer for corn.
Many cookie doughs are pretty tolerant of over-mixing. You can just throw in the salt and give it a spin in the mixer. The salt won't be perfectly evenly distributed, but it should be good enough.
In fact... it's becoming trendy to put salt on top of things rather than mixing it all in. (Cf salted caramels). You use bigger salt crystals, to add crunch and textural contrast. It dissolves in your mouth, making for an interesting contrast of flavors.
So, if you've got some kosher salt or other fancy salt on hand, you could just bake them and sprinkle the salt on while they're still warm. (Use about 1.5-2x as much of a big fluffy salt as you would with ordinary table salt. Or just use plain table salt, if that's what you've got.) I often do this with bar cookies, sprinkling the salt right before they go in the oven.
plus one for sprinkling it over the top - it will likely end up in each bite, which is probably good-enough for most recipes.
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76592 | Substitute for pumpkin pie filling
I have a recipe for a French Toast Bake which calls for 30 ounces of pumpkin pie filling. I am looking for something I can substitute since my family is not crazy about pumpkin flavor. Any ideas?
Can you post or link to the full recipe?
30 ounces is a lot of filling. Instead of a substitution, I'd look for a whole different recipe. It's kind of like asking what can I substitute for chicken in chicken and dumplings.
Squash can easily be substituted for pumpkin, but since the taste is so close to pumpkin it's likely your audience would similarly give it the thumbs-down.
Looking around at similar-sounding recipes, why not leave it out altogether, or use another canned pie mix such as apple, cherry, blueberry? If your recipe has spices (cinnamon etc.), the apple might work best.
As much as this sounds like one of those dreaded recipe requests, or an opinion question, I'm going to run with Dorothy's suggestions and add: applesauce...!
Following on to @LorelC. - apple butter or marmalade
Yams can be made into pie that tastes just like pumpkin pie, but again, you want something that tastes different. Maybe there's a subtle difference they might pick up on, though (it tasted the same to me). What kind of flavor are you going for? If it's the bitter pumpkin taste they don't like, it should be noted that not all pumpkins have it. You might consider Blue Doll F1 or Long Island Cheese Pumpkin.
Whatever you use as a replacement, be careful of the sugar content. Depending upon where you live, try mashed/pureed breadfruit - hope it works
Perhaps a custard would work?
I recently saw a custard pie (just custard, which surprised me a bit as I usually see custard with something in pies), and the texture was fairly similar to pumpkin pie. I also recently saw a pumpkin dessert, with a custard baked in a cleaned out pie pumpkin (flavors overall should be reminiscent of pie, and texture similar, just somewhat deconstructed). This is perhaps not so surprising, since the pie is something like a custard plus pumpkin paste - and I've seen successful pie filling be quite liquid, or quite thick.
You might also think about cream pie fillings - I'm thinking coconut cream pie, or banana cream pie, something along those lines, though if you're inspired by a chocolate cream pie filling, more power to you.
So, if the pie filling (perhaps from a separate recipe) was supposed to be quite liquid, a not-yet-cooked custard filling should work, and cook up to a similar texture. If it was supposed to be thicker, a cooked custard might do well.
Of course, you could also probably substitute pudding of various flavors, or some other kind of sweet mash (perhaps sweet potato, or squash - though that does taste similar to pumpkin, or perhaps some starchy fruit). Or see what you can just add in, like bean pie, or buttermilk pie, or the sweet red bean paste (adzuki bean) that serves as a filling in Asian cakes and pastries.
Overall, when I think of pumpkin filling, I think sweet and starchy and kinda creamy, making custards or puddings a closer substitute than, say, fruit pie fillings (which are sweeter, sharper, a bit tarter). And of course, adding any kind of thick mash should help with consistency, as long as its a flavor you'll like. Go wild, if it pleases you.
Good luck with your recipe
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78061 | Do you need to cook tomato puree?
I'm making a tomato sauce cold from tinned tomatoes and I was going to add tomato puree to thicken the sauce. Is it ok to use tomato puree without cooking it?
Could you edit your question to clarify it? First, it's very confusing that the question you've used as a title is the exact opposite of the question you asked in the body. You accepted the answer "yes" but it's not clear whether that means "Yes it needs to be cooked" or "Yes, it's OK to use raw." Second, it's unclear whether by "tomato puree", you mean something like passata (essentially, tomatoes that have been blended to a liquid) or tomato paste (the result of reducing that liquid into a thick paste, which is sold as "tomato puree" in the UK and maybe other places, too).
While it is perfectly safe to eat tomato puree without cooking it, it is not generally recommended.
Uncooked tomato puree in a sauce can be undesirably sour and have a rather raw, rough flavour.
If you don't mind this then go ahead, but I would recommend simmering the sauce for at least another 10 minutes after adding the puree.
I completely agree, it's safe but blech. You could fry off the paste in a bit of oil in a small pan and then add it, but using it raw would not lead to a good result .
Tomato purée differs from country to country. In the US it is cooked but quite different from tomato paste. It can be used raw quite well, but is generally not preferred for fresh sauces because it tastes cooked rather than fresh (like fresh or other canned tomatoes).
In Germany it's usually tripple-concentrated and very strong. Still, I have friends who like to eat it with a spoon.
I believe this answer can be generalized to say that any canned food allowed for sale (by the US FDA which specifies heating during the canning process; e.g., at least 3 minute 250F for tomatoes) is safe without cooking, right? Green beans, kidney beans, chicken...
@bobuhito - true, but (at least in the UK) tomato puree doesn't always come in cans, and there are foods that come in similar packaging that do require cooking
@simbabque the question is whether the stuff at hand here is closer to "passierte tomaten" or "tomatenmark" :)
@rackandboneman I guess you can drink the "passierte Tomaten" as well. It just doesn't taste very good. At the end of the day raw tomato is fine.
I make tomato juice by thinning a couple of spoons of tomato puree and water. With a can of tomato puree, I can make about 2 litters of tomato juice. At a MUCH lower cost.
Rod, welcome! The first rule here is “Answer the Question” - unlike in many forums you may be more familiar with. So while your use of tomato puree is creative, do you really want to say: “Yes, one can use the puree uncooked. And I use it for...“? If you [edit] your post, it’d be much clearer. I also invite you to register for Seasoned Advice: This is a friendly and welcoming community and we appreciate all contributions. Take the [tour] and browse our [help] to learn more about how the site works.
Yes, I assume you are talking about what comes in a tube or a small jar.
OK, I seriously don't understand that answer. The title asks "do you need to cook". The body asks "is it OK to use without cooking". You say "yes" - but yes to which of the two?
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110058 | Home-school science curriculum using cooking
My sister has decided to home-school her children (all daughters, ranging from 5-14 years old) this year and has asked me, her physicist brother, for help creating a science curriculum. I would like to suggest to her to teach concepts using practical things so at the end of the year they will have useful skills.
I would like to have most of the concepts taught by cooking, but I'm not a great cook myself. So, I'm looking for suggestions for things that I may be overlooking. There are other questions here asking about the science of cooking, but are generally geared towards adults. I'm hoping to get ideas for something that teaches science to children and is useful for everyday cooking. Here are some of the things I have so far:
Maillard reaction
fermentation/yeast (making yogurt, kefir, sourdough)
Carmelization
Osmotic pressure (pickling, curing meat, etc)
Altitude effects (boiling point, adding flour, pressure cookers, etc)
thickeners (molecular structure, etc)
germs and bottling/preserving
Thank you for your help!
Those sound like fairly specific and advanced topics for the age range provided. These standard guidelines might help you with a way to think about how to approach this. With some knowledge about what kids should learn at various levels, you can determine how kitchen experiences could meet those needs.
I don't know if this question will remain open. In fact, you might get better answers here by posing a question like: How can I use the making of ice cream to illustrate the concept of states of matter?
Anyhow....I think you need to begin more broadly at first, then drill down with the help of curriculum guides.
Concepts that could be addressed in the kitchen:
The scientific process
Observation
State of matter
Chemical reactions
Mass, volume, forms of measurement
Acids and bases
basic math
fractions
conversions
You are probably right that my suggestions were too advanced (I'm about as good at teaching kids science as I am at cooking). My thought was to gear it towards the 11 year-old and done in such a way that the most basic concepts would be accessible to all of them. But most importantly, I wanted it to be fun (and tasty).
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78248 | Any benefit to buy high-quality meat for a mediocre cook?
Quite honestly, I consider myself a mediocre cook as I am consistently able to make decent dishes. Nothing I ever make is fantastic and almost never terrible.
The question is this: will my cooking benefit from buying higher-quality meat even though my cooking skills are not fantastic? What improvements could I expect to see?
I think this could be generalized to any ingredient, not necessarily meat.
On the other hand, buying a terrible piece of meat will most likely result in a terrible dish. If you had the misfortune of always buying horrible meat, and managed to produce mediocre food, then buying better meat would most likely result in a great improvement.
I often cook bolognese. I once used regular mince instead of premium mince because it was a few dollars cheaper (but not much). The sauce ended up with a lot of visible fat though it which had turned orangey-red because of the tomatoes, and it left an unpleasant greasy feeling in the mouth afterwards. While this is not a cut of meat, I feel it is relevant.
I would not by premium meat for a bolognese, however would certainly buy it for a grilled dish.
Meat is the perfect example of something that is extremely easy to cook. The only difference in meat is "how good the meat is" - so buy the best you can. The only "cooking skill" with meat, is not overcooking it. Indeed, better meat is more flexible; it doesn't matter much if you under or overcook it; and it's just your preference if you prefer it well done or rare.
Conversely, it's true that meat is so very expensive, it's worth simply taking a lot of care (notably, not overcooking it / burning it) when you cook it.
This is a great question, but not one that can be answered with "yes" or "no".
In some areas, it is known that the professional grade tools and ingredients require much skill to use well and so the general public is better off using consumer grade tools. (Try tasking the average office drone to create a report with Word or QuarkXpress and you'll see what I mean). But there is no such general rule in cooking. And yet, this does not mean that better quality meat will always make better quality food. It depends on the details of each situation.
First, what does "high quality meat" mean? A filet mignon is a prized cut, and costs much more than shank. But even the best cook cannot make a good stew out of filet mignon. So in the first place, you have to know which category of meat is suited for the dish you are making. Only within a given category will better meat produce better results.
Second, "quality" means different things to different people. A cooking beginner usually cannot recognize which meat will produce better results in the given category and goes by factors like price and store reputation to decide which meat must be better quality. This is not necessarily correlated to better taste. So, as a beginner, you can pick meat you believe to be better, but end up with worse results.
The combination of these two points means that you should be aware of the difference between a "better" cut and a higher-quality version of the same cut. A "better" cut is actually a different cut, so it's a substitution that usually won't guarantee a better result. But a higher-quality upgrade of the same cut is likely to make a dish better. So, you need the cooking skill to tell a given piece of meat will be a good substitution for your earlier choice (a higher-quality version) or not (it is simply a better cut). Also, if somebody is trying to sell you a different version, you need to be able to recognize its quality (marbling in steaks, color intensity in pork chops, etc.)
Third, you can certainly find many cases where the more refined dishes, which need rarer, prized cuts, require a lot of skill to pull off well. So, if you decide to buy the "better" meat - as in the filet mignon vs. shank example - and have enough knowledge to match the dish to it, your skill might not be sufficient to pull off the dish for that meat well, while it would have been sufficient to make a good dish of the type for which the cheaper meat was suited.
Fourth, for each dish, the relative influence of skill vs. ingredient quality will be different for the final dish quality. So, it is possible that for going from "horrible" to "kinda edible" you need to get some skill, no matter what meat you use, but the jump from "kinda edible" to "not that bad" requires better meat, not better skill.
It is impossible to list all possible situations, dishes and meat cuts and say for each where the end result quality is skill-limited and where it is ingredient-limited. I am afraid that you have to be an intermediate cook before you can recognize if a mediocre cook can improve his results by cooking a given dish with better ingredients.
Great answer, well done sir!
My philosophy: Don't switch the cut of meat, switch to a better quality of the cut. Better quality here (The Netherlands) usually translates to happy (or blissfully unaware) animals eating the good stuff that appears magically from ground, and frolicking around until the reaper comes along (which might be quite quick if you're a piglet, veal or lamb). Differences in the butchered meat are immediately visible to the eye and nose, and to the structure and the taste. And I'm not gifted with exceptional vision, smell or taste.
A good, trustworthy butcher (hard to determine when you cannot independently judge his or her work, but nonetheless) can go a long way towards mitigating the concerns of a low-skill chef failing to recognize higher or lower quality meat; might be worth mentioning in the answer.
Many of my recipes state specifically which cut to use; fillet or stewing steak or whatever. Actually our local supermarket has its own butchery and their meat is just as "good" as the local butcher, but slightly cheaper.
So the TLDR; is, "Experiment; and learn," then? ;-)
Whether you are a skilled cook or not, the quality of the end result will be helped by better quality ingredients.
Take insalata caprese as an example, this is a salad of tomatoes, mozzarella and basil finished with a bit of olive oil and seasoned with salt and maybe a bit of pepper. It takes almost no skill to prepare this salad, you simply slice the tomatoes and mozzarella and then arrange them stacked on a plate with basil leaves on top, then drizzle olive oil on it and sprinkle a bit of salt on it.
The end result in this case depends entirely on the quality of the ingredients, if all you can get are hard tomatoes and flavorless mozzarella you may as well save your money, but if you can get ripe tomatoes and good buffalo mozzarella with fresh spicy basil and a bit of fine sea salt then you will be a cooking hero to whoever eats it.
Meat is similar, it takes very little skill to make a decent steak as long as your meat is ok, but no amount of skill will turn really bad quality steak into a really good result. By bad quality I mean from an animal which has been raised poorly with a bad diet resulting in meat that has no marbling, lots of sinew, and no flavor.
You can make up for lower quality meat quite a bit using techniques like marinading, mechanical tenderization and sous vide cooking, but it's not a replacement for really good meat to start with.
The insalada is an excellent example.
I agree, good ingredients no messing with them - excellent result.
I'd say doh! but on this site I should probably say dough!
I 100% agree with the first paragraph. I disagree partly with the second. For example, there are simple yet effective tricks to improve the taste and texture of a bad quality steak (if salting it is good enough for Kenji then it’s good enough for me). Conversely, if you cook meat to be chewy anyway, there’s no need to shell out double the price. There’s a reason why ordering a “well done” steak at a restaurant will cause the chef to use their worst steak: you won’t taste the difference anyway.
My father was an executive chef (prepared dinners for U.S. Congress twice). He often demonstrated that your 2nd paragraph is incorrect. Your 1st is good.
@user2338816 "no amount of skill" may be an exaggeration; but for a beginner, I'd have to think it's true enough, yeah?
I've edited in order to make my points clearer in the second paragraph. I am not saying that skill does not enter into cooking meat, skill makes a huge difference. The point I am making is that quality does matter, and buying lower quality because of a lack of cooking skill is a false economy.
Much better, and upped as a result.
There's no general answer, but you might be able to do a decent job of figuring out each case on your own by considering:
how strongly does the ingredient contribute to the dish?
how big is the difference in quality between your choices for the ingredient?
If it's a core ingredient whose flavor and/or texture comes through strongly in the dish, then there's room for a higher-quality version to make a big difference. That is, if you're just eating a steak, the quality matters more than the quality of ground meat in meatballs in in a flavorful sauce that covers up the meat some, and a lot more than the quality of the bacon crumbles you sprinkle over the top of a dish. Conversely, if you want to try a high-quality version of some cut of meat, you'll probably be best off making something simple with to start with, so you can get the full benefit of the quality.
Then there's the quality range. There's a pretty decent range of quality in meat in general, but if your options are limited to a grocery store that has a couple different USDA grades of a couple different cuts, there may not actually be that big of a difference to make. On the other hand, if someone at your farmer's market sells really good meat, it might be a pretty obvious difference from your supermarket meat.
It's difficult to be too specific, though; you might ultimately have to try a few things and look at the prices and see whether you think it's worth it. That's especially true for steaks, since a lot of different cuts can be cooked as a simple steak, and plenty of room for personal preference.
Bottom line, I suppose: use your best judgment about the dish you're aiming to make, and if you want to explore, just explore!
Most actionable answer I've seen, esp for a beginner (like me).
I would to the high quality answers already provided that what is considered to be higher quality even when correct for the application is a common opinion, but might not be shared by an individual. For me, and most common grading a high quality steak is one with marbling the melts when cooked and a steak or roast cooked on bone has higher flavor. My partner however will not eat meat cooked on the bone and any hint of fat gets immediately carved our making a well marbled T-bone fit for the trash in her opinion.
In addition, very high quality can sometimes also be less forgiving. An average steak which has been allowed to go over temp by a few degrees might not be as good as the same piece of meat cooked perfectly, but a prized piece of Kobe or Wagu overcooked the same amount would make me cry.
I personally would work on a technique for a recipe with a common, good but not overly priced quality of meat and experiment with heat control, spicing, finish temperature, etc., one or two variables at a time until I had what I thought was a consistently good result. Then I would upgrade quality as a separate variable to validate improvement.
Second answer from me because unrelated advice on the same topic:
For a learner, it is helpful to adopt two habits:
Try different varieties and qualities of a main ingredient in a dish that you are already good at
Use a reliable staple quality of any ingredient that you do not want to "put to the test" in what you are doing. Best example is in baking - standardizing on a default flour, baking margarine, milk, yeast, sugar grade/brand (not using different ones unless intentionally) helps understanding which differences recipe changes cause.
This is a fantastic question. And I am tempted to give a completely different, much shorter and possibly more scientific answer, than the accepted one.
I will be assuming that you are referring to a better quality of an otherwise equivalent piece of meat, i.e. the same cut, and that you are referring to preparing the same dish with different qualities of meat.
Generally, the taste of the food will change to the better most definitely if the switch in quality is from cheap supermarket meat (that is often full of water, hormones and chemicals and is produced in quantities) to artisan meat (from healthy, naturally grown animals), whatever the dish. It could turn out, however, that you used to cook with cheap meat and learned how it behaves in the pan, and using a better quality of meat it could happen that you experience that it behaves completely differently and not as intended. Applying rules that work well for cheap meat to higher quality meat could lead to results that are inferior, at least initially, as long as your cooking did not adapt to the changed situation. The benefits in taste and ease of handling. After a couple of tries, you should experience that it is much easier to make a better quality piece of meat make taste good than a cheap piece of meat.
The answer is less definitive when going further upward in quality. The reason is in particular, that a particular way of handling and feeding the animals can lead to a different nature of the piece of meat at hand that either suits or does not suit the dish at hand, but does not per se mean having better or worse quality.
Concerning your cooking skills, trying out different qualities of meat for the same dish most ceartainly will benefits your experience and improves your skills.
As others have pointed out this is not a binary situation. Nor is it a problem of scale.
There are two basic sides to this.
First, there are times when you want a lessor cut of meat, or a lessor "quality" fruit. For examples:
When making Banana Bread you don't want green bananas you want nearly rotten "over ripe" bananas. You go to the produce store and ask for the bananas that are so bad they pulled them off the shelf.
One of our favorite meats is a "Utility cut" pork steak. It's almost a pork chop, but it's a lessor "grade" of meat. It's fatty, but that fattiness make it excellent for grilling at a high temperature. So I use it to make "Pork chops" that have a caramelized tangy sauce on it. If I tried that with a "high end" pork chop I would end up with shoe leather.
In these cases "quality" can be deceiving. The foods with a perceived higher quality would ruin the recipes.
Next up is the other side, when my wife and I first mover in together, I warned her that she was probably going to get a mild upset stomach for a week or two. She didn't believe me, but then she did. When she asked why, I pointer out that the cuts of meat, the fruit, and veggies that I use to cook are of a much higher quality then what most people eat. That that change in diet can cause people to get a little sick. It's no big deal for us to go out and eat once in a while, but if we eat out for a week straight, we end up with that mild stomach ache again.
In this example, the "lower" quality foods make us a bit sick. Mostly because after a while you get used to not eating them. This includes all processed foods, all artificial foods, frozen (not fresh) fruits and veggies, and meats that are from unknown sources. Now I know that sounds really bad and "food hippie" like, but it's really not.
So in this way, for us eating "higher quality" foods makes a difference. A great example is bread. We do not eat store bought bread. We make it our selves. The bread is of very high quality when made at home. Some times, for larger events (like a huge cook out) we get bakery bread. Again much higher quality then the normal store bought stuff. So a ham sandwich with home made bread, home cooked ham, and high quality cheeses, is much better then Wonder Bread, Oscar Mayer ham, and Kraft cheese squares. But then again that gap is so wide, we would actually get sick if eating the latter for a few days (in contrast, that's about what we eat from Dec. 26th to Jan 1)
You asked if your cooking will benefit from more expensive cuts of meat, or better 'grades' of meat, but also were far too humble! If you are able to make 'consistently decent dishes', you are quite accomplished, although perhaps not a 'chef' or expert in culinary ability.
I have read many comments here, and there were many that said...explore, vary your cuts with different seasonings, spices, perhaps marinades, such as what Jefromi said:
..."It's difficult to be too specific, though; you might ultimately have to try a few things and look at the prices and see whether you think it's worth it. That's especially true for steaks, since a lot of different cuts can be cooked as a simple steak, and plenty of room for personal preference.
Bottom line, I suppose: use your best judgment about the dish you're aiming to make, and if you want to explore, just explore!"...
I have had cuts of beef that I was told were practically inedible, and tough, but rendered them delicious, tender and great, all by playing with marinades, length of cooking and temperatures. And dlb stated it well, that one person who loves marbling in their meat may not be able to bear a leaner, dryer piece of steak.
You sound perhaps, that you are just a bit bored by your own cooking, I know I get into a rut and would like a 'superbly prepared and delightfully delicious roast, or prime rib, but it is not out of your reach! Play in the kitchen!
Always buy the best that you can afford. Start with good ingredients and don't mess with them too much. That said, if you are using mediocre products/meat due to financial reasons then try looking at some of the less fashionable/cheap cuts. For example: HERE
There is only one way to become a better cook - practice, practice, practice.
Just a quick edit: If you really are unsure about what to buy, or why the price is one thing or another, talk to the butcher, not only will you have a whole wealth of knowledge to plunder, but he really would like to keep you as a long term customer, it's in his interest to inform you and sell you meat that you enjoy.
What value is a subjectively "high quality" (opposed to objective qualities eg sanitary and safe!) ingredient unless it is used in a dish that takes advantage of it - a steak dinner will, will a broth or burger?
I hate this "always buy the best you can afford" advice. Makes me feel the recipe author wants to blame me if it does not taste right, as in "your fault, you should have bought the $50/lbs meat".
That is not at all what I meant. As a default you should always buy the best you can afford. And as my edit suggested - talk to the butcher...
There are at least two valid basic philosophies:
It is the cook's responsibility to make non-defective ingredients taste great.
It is the cook's responsibility to prepare great ingredients without causing defects.
Especially in the first "school", "quality" is extremely subjective unless it is about using sanitary, unspoiled, safe, legally sourced and correctly declared ingredients.
As others have mentioned, the right cut for the dish is important, as is knowing when to cut across the grain for a tenderer chew. That seems to be the key to using cheaper cuts, which definitely have their place (fajitas if nothing else). Don't be scare to cook it rare.
Also even though some folks don't consider it "meat" when selecting fish it should smell inoffensive, "like the ocean". And don't overcook it. I am a fellow mediocre cook and I think your question is a good one.
You should eschew Wagyu beef (not that great) and anything sold as "Kobe" because it's definitely fake.
One of the ways I learned was to use the same cut from the same supplier over and over, changing small things in how I prepared it, and most importantly writing it down
More Garlic, less basil. was it good? And so on and so on. When I was able to get consistent results, I graduated to higher quality cuts and that made things even better, but I think the key was consistency in the cooking method.
I would strive for consistency before trying to figure out all the variables of meat quality.
So be patient and practice. Don't sell yourself short, you may think yourself a mediocre cook, but the fact that you are trying at all puts you light years beyond soooo many others out there. Keep it up, cooking is fun.
If all else is exactly the same (cook, recipe, etc), then using cheap-o meat from the Aldi or other meat discounter could never produce the same quality meal as when you'd buy the same cuts from a butcher. But on the other hand cheap meat is cheap because that's what most people want. There is thus a demand, so know your audience, as some people may not even notice a difference.
I would say it would benefit you more.
A high end cook can better salvage lower end ingredients.
Higher quality meat can mean a lot of things. Need to cook appropriate for the meat.
I would rather send a high end cook to market with $60 than a mediocre with $100. Your question is vague.
There's something about this question attracting downvotes. I've no idea what.
It's not the question methinks - but those currently on-line...
@dougal2.0.0 There is voting group here that favor long answers. Like I commented in meta just don't let it bother you and be nice.
Could y'all please cool it with the downvote complaints? It's okay for people to disagree with you, and to vote based on it. If you complain like this, all you do is guarantee that no one will ever want to tell you why they voted how they did.
I agree that a better chef can do more, as they'll know how to deal with the cheaper cuts of meat (not everything is suitable as a steak) ... but I don't know if I agree that buying higher quality meat is the right move (because the question is vague in that there are too many unknowns). And trust me, I didn't downvote. I only do it a few times a year (although there was one user that might've attracted most of 'em)
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79260 | Can I bake my bread in a loaf pan instead of baking sheet?
I have found a lot of recipes that says to bake your bread on a cookie sheet. I was wondering if I can use a loaf pan instead? Do you have to adjust time or any thing else? My family like sandwich style bread better than French style. Most of the recipes are sourdough some are French bread.
You always can, but just expect some level of variation. In this case, the shape is an obvious change, but you also might bake longer than expected if you don't immediately pop the loaf out of the pan after removing it from the oven.
"Sandwich style" doesn't just mean that it was made in a loaf... If that's all you're concerned with, go for it... but I'd be concerned that you'll be unhappy with the crust. Putting it in a pan won't make it have the nice, soft texture and crust that you see in standard American white loaves.
Just use a thermometer and bake to an internal temperature of 190F (88C) ...or 200F (93C) if the dough is enriched with butter, eggs or milk.
That's what I was thinking, always good to have a second opinion. Thank you
I do this all the time. You can keep a soft crust by doing 1 of 2 things - a pan/bowl of water in the oven (lowest shelf possible) the last 5/10 minutes of baking OR once the bread is out of the pan (immediately after removal from oven), lay a moist towel (paper towel works best as there no weight) over the loaf as it cools.
Note: this is what I have done for years, have no idea how well it will work for someone else.
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78965 | How can you tell if pizza dough has been kneaded enough?
I am making pizza dough for the first time. I know that you can use the window test and the poke test for bread, to see if it has ben kneaded long enough. Can you use the same tests for pizza dough and bread sticks? Some of the recipes say only knead for 2 minutes, other say 7-8 minutes. I can not find any tips for how to tell if it is kneaded enough.
The window test works well for pizza as well and is really the only one of which I am aware. I do not believe the poke test will work as well.
That is what I thought, I use the window test on all of my breads. I usually do the poke test to. That way I'm double sure. I am new at bread making, I figure I'm double covered.
The window pane test is for testing gluten formation and the poke test is generally for proofing, when to turn your dough while proofing. and testing weather you have proofed your loaf long enough and are ready to bake.
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78641 | Do I have to change the cooking time when I cook homemade noodles?
I want to make my own egg noodles for a casserole dish. Do I have to adjust the cooking time? I have been told homemade noodles cook faster, does this mean I should add the noodles later? The recipe has to bake for 45 minutes. I do not want my noodles to be mushy.
Cooking time compared to what? Dry noodles or store bought fresh noodles? Are the noodles cooked before they are baked for 45 minutes? Please give us some additional information!
The noodles I was going to use are the uncooked ones that I buy at the store. The only thing that is pre-cooked is the hamburger. I think I will hold off on using my homemade noodle. I am going to make a small soup out of them. This way if they are not very good I wont mess up the whole dinner.
I suspect that your instinct is correct @GJ.Baker, I would try a small-scale test before committing to a large dish.
Homemade noodles have a completely different texture from dried pasta. The times I've made lasagne for friends with fresh spinach noodles, they were quite confused by the texture. And even if there's lots of moisture and time for it to cook in the casserole, you need to boil them for 30 to 60 seconds or they'll disintegrate in the casserole.
Depending on the recipe, I might consider starting with everything already hot, the pasta boiled for a minute or so, assemble it, then put it under the broiler (grill, whatever you call 'top heat only' in your country) to get a bit of a crust on top, then let it sit for a few minutes to firm up some.
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82638 | The use of chicken bones that have frost on them
I have chicken bones in the freezer that have frost on them. Can I still use them to make chicken broth?
Yep, you sure can. Frost, freezer burn, anything like that will have virtually no effect on broth making.
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82681 | Tasting food while cooking
I cook quite regularly at home, but I have trouble tasting food while cooking. All I want to know is if I should adjust salt, pepper or sourness. On the rare occasions that I taste, I invariable mess up the ingredient that I tasted. For example, I might place a little quantity (enough to lick) on my palm, wait/ blow for it to cool down, taste and adjust for salt. Later when eating the meal, I discover that I have added too much salt.
Any tips?
If it matters - this is South Indian style vegetarian cooking - lentils, vegetables.
Yes, do as professional chefs do - give it a real raste, not such a small taste that it's only a "lick". You can't properly get the sense of what something tastes like when the amount is that small.
Keep a soup spoon handy as a 'tasting spoon'. When you want to taste your cooking for possible seasoning adjustment, use the larger spoon (used for stirring your cooking) to scoop about a teaspoon of food onto your 'tasting spoon'. You can blow on that without worrying about burning yourself and by putting it a separate spoon, you don't have to get a clean spoon each time. No cross-contamination either.
Don't just swallow that teaspoonful of food either. Savour it. Move it around your mouth so you can taste what it's really like. If you're not sure, take another small spoonful out. You get a much better idea than simply a lick.
Thanks, I think this is the most immediate suggestion for me. I will start by tasting more quantity, and learn as indicated by dlb in the other answer.
Tasting while in progress is trial and error and a learned skill. If a sauce needs to cook for an hour or more to meld favors together, it will not taste the same early in the process as the finished product. Some ingredients mellow during the process, others concentrate. Garlic as an example may taste strong to begin with, or be undetectable in other areas until it has melded with the other ingredients. Salt will often become stronger as the product cooks towards completion. The art is learning that at the half way mark knowing what the salt or other ingredient should taste like and how forward it should be to have it where you want in the finished product. If you cannot taste it at all at the half way point, there almost certainly is not enough, but if it tastes like what you want at the end, then you may have too much and need to make other adjustments.
For me, this comes only with experience and you will get that only by consistently tasting and learning what it tasted like in progress when it turns out the way you want in the end. You will definitely make mistakes, the key is remember and learn from those. In the long term, you final results will tend to be better if you go by taste in many products than trying to go by one pinch in this dish, two dashes in this, and so on. Meat is especially notorious for one piece taking more spice than another, but many vegetables are the same way, especially things like onions that can vary in strength, tomatoes that vary in acid, etc.
In learning on some dishes, like sauces, you can even consider dividing into two sauce pans. One you spice a bit heavier than he other, taste side by side, and proceed. Then compare the end product and see which was closer to what you wanted. If both are OK, but one better, you now have a better idea of what the mid point target was, combine them for serving so no loss and remember the lesson.
And for tastes like salt, pepper and sourness, when you're unsure, start learning "backwards": Start by adjusting as late in the dish as possible. As you cook and gain experience, you will be able to start adjusting them earlier and earlier. I also prefer to use measurable quantities as much as possible, so you can easily keep track of mistakes, i.e. "last time too salty, this time one quarter-teaspoon less".
In addition to @WillemvanRumpt 'learn backwards' suggestion, also "learn by scent". For salt this is difficult, for most other seasoning it's pretty easy. A dish will 'smell like' the final outcome much sooner than it will 'taste like' it.
Thanks for the suggestion, so I have to keep tasting. I hardly ever taste, and since I messed up a few times, I avoid tasting.
@user61034 Yeah, I went through same thing. I was originally taught not to taste. Claims of unhygienic and such. But once you get used to it, tasting becomes almost 2nd nature and just a routine thing. My partner and I cannot cook at the same time though as we keep tasting, and adjusting the other persons dishes. ;)
South Indian vegetarian cuisine is often stew-like, no? While many seasoning do need to cook with the dish so that the flavors meld, in most cases, if you add salt, then continue to cook, the end result will be saltier. That is because as you cook, evaporation occurs and the salt becomes more concentrated. I would wait until the cooking is complete, then just before serving taste and adjust seasoning, especially salt.
Always taste any sauce that you're cooking. If it tastes 'bad' then do something about it. If you're not sure do nothing.
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82758 | Sticky candy apples
Last night I made candy apples for the second time. The first time they were perfect. Last night I made them at 10 pm and let them sit out over night. This morning they were hard but still sticky.
The only difference with the first batch is the sugar I used, this time it was super fine. The humidity in my house was at 60%. Was it the sugar I used?
Was the superfine sugar the first batch, or the recent one? Also, are you using a candy thermometer? (if you don't get it to the right temperature, it can end up sticky, even if you have low humidity)
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82859 | Jam and Marmalade setting
I recently made a batch of marmalade and Ginger Marmalade and although I used the same recipe as I have before, this batch did not set very well at all. I didn't use any extra setting agent. My question is, can I reheat the marmalade and add in some pectin to hopefully set it ?
Yes you can. You do want to make sure you have given your marmalade a couple of weeks to set completely before deciding to remake with additional pectin.
In the US, pectin found on grocery store shelves generally contain a sheet with basic recipes, as well as instructions on how to remake your cooked jam/jelly/marmalade if it doesn't set properly.
Here are additional options from The National Center for Home Food Preservation:
Making Jams and Jellies
Remaking Soft Jellies
Measure jelly to be recooked. Work with no more than 4 to 6 cups at a
time.
Please read Using Boiling Water Canners before beginning. If this is
your first time canning, it is recommended that you read Principles of
Home Canning.
To Remake With Powdered Pectin
For each quart of jelly, mix ¼ cup sugar, ½ cup water, 2 tablespoons
bottled lemon juice, and 4 teaspoons powdered pectin. Bring to a boil
while stirring. Add jelly and bring to a rolling boil over high heat,
stirring constantly. Boil hard ½ minute. Remove from heat, quickly
skim foam off jelly, and fill sterile jars, leaving ¼-inch headspace.
Adjust new lids and process as recommended in Table 1. For more
information on how to sterilize jars see "Sterilization of Empty
Jars".
To Remake With Liquid Pectin
For each quart of jelly, measure ¾ cup sugar, 2 tablespoons bottled
lemon juice, and 2 tablespoons liquid pectin. Bring jelly only to boil
over high heat, while stirring. Remove from heat and quickly add the
sugar, lemon juice, and pectin. Bring to a full rolling boil, stirring
constantly. Boil hard for 1 minute. Quickly skim off foam and fill
sterile jars, leaving ¼-inch headspace. Adjust new lids and process as
recommended in Table 1.
To Remake Without Added Pectin
For each quart of jelly, add 2 tablespoons bottled lemon juice. Heat
to boiling and boil for 3 to 4 minutes. Use one of the tests described
in Testing Jelly without Added Pectin to determine jelly doneness.
Remove from heat, quickly skim off foam, and fill sterile jars,
leaving ¼-inch headspace. Adjust new lids and process as recommended in Table 1..
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83016 | Spices become wet and clumpy once I start cooking
Lately, whenever I've been cooking food like chicken breasts or hamburgers, after I'm done seasoning them and set them on the pan, once I flip the food over I notice the seasoning gets really wet and starts clumping together or it sticks to the pan and dries up. It didn't happen a few months ago but for the past 5 weeks it has. I've tried cooking at different temperatures and difderent pans but nothing works. I've looked it this problem everywhere yet I never find an answer.
Could you add some more information, please? What sort of seasonings are you adding? Putting them in a pan means you're frying them? How much fat do you use and what type? Has the weather changed a great deal from 5 weeks back? All these details can help us understand better since we're not there personally to witness what's happening.
Are you seasoning dry meat? Adding a small amount of oil before seasoning might help it stick better to steak and chicken... usually hamburger you work the seasoning into the hamburger before forming patties.
If searing the meat in the pan, then once you put the seasoned meat in the pan, do not move it. Leave it in position until you flip it to avoid the seasoning rubbing off onto the pan or clumping.
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83119 | Food Safety: Do I have to boil pork and then fry it?
I know that I should cook pork at 63 °C and without rinsing to avoid cross-contamination. My question is the following; I want to fry pork chops: Does this means I have to boil the pork in water until that temperature and then fry or just toss it into the oil and wait until it reaches that temp? And if I don't rinse it, does it mean the pork just goes with the blood to the boiler or frying pan?
Sorry for the stupid question, but I'm really a noob at cooking and everyone adviced me to just rinse it with vinegar.
I strongly recommend you find a recipe for fried pork chops from a reputable website like this This will walk you through the entire process. It even has step-by-step photos!
No, you do not. A pork chop can be safely cooked by only frying it. That doesn't mean that if you fry a pork chop it's guaranteed to be safe. You can use a meat thermometer to see if the inside has reached 63 (or whatever recommend temperature you're aiming for), and don't take it out of the pan until it does. (Note you are not cooking it at 63, you are cooking it to 63.)
When the chop is very thick, you might find it too seared on the outside by the time it gets to temp in the middle. A way around that is to sear both sides and then put it in the oven. Again you use the thermometer to be sure it is cooked.
I won't say that no-one ever boils pork. Many people boil (or more accurately, simmer) ribs for a long time, to break down the connective tissue, before quickly glazing them on a grill. But boiling a pork chop is pretty unusual.
I don't rinse pork before I cook it. Many cultures have a tradition of rinsing meat with water, vinegar, or lemon before cooking it. Modern advice is that this isn't needed. It won't hurt the pork if you do, but it's possible you could spread contamination through your sink or wherever the water ends up. That's why people advise you to skip any kind of rinsing.
As a final note, I don't add oil when I fry a pork chop. I don't "toss it into the oil" I put it in a pan - nonstick, or a heavy stainless steel. Don't turn it too often: it will release from the pan as it cooks.
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85712 | Is heating rate important with sugar syrups?
I make hot fudge syrup ; heat chocolate , sugar , butter, etc, to 240 F ,then put in half and half . I end up with a spoon-able viscosity at room temperature but warming to 100 F makes it pour-able. Does it make any difference how fast I heat it ? I don't need it to firm up into fudge.
The limiting factor for how fast you can heat your syrups is how evenly that heat is distributed through the liquid. If you have a runny liquid, a thick pot that distributes well and you stir constantly, you can heat very fast. The heated liquid is immediately mixed throughout.
On the other hand, if your syrup is viscous it won't mix easily. If your pan is thin then there will be hot spots. The syrup will get too hot and burn at those points.
Another consideration is precise temperatures needed for candy making. If your syrup is destined for a denser candy then you want to hit a final temperature that is within about a 5F range. It might be hard to hit accurately if you are heating too fast.
Personally, I start my syrups on medium-medium low until the sugar is dissolved and then bump the temp up to almost high. If I'm making candy I'll go back to a medium high when it starts getting close.
As for reheating- just use a microwave. The syrup won't burn.
Some recipes need to be heated gently. Eggs, for example, are more likely to curdle when they are heated abruptly- even if they are only heated to the same temperature.
This does not apply to sugar syrups.
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85825 | How to clean a whetstone?
I prefer a whetstone to a "steel" for knife sharpening. Over the years my whetstone has become loaded with steel particles from the knives. As it is basically 13 % chrome stainless steel it is not easy to dissolve. It is immune to nitric acid and hydrochloric is very slow , if at all . Any ideas for cleaning a whetstone ?
Steels are not for sharpening. They hone and should be used every time you use the knife. Whetstones actually sharpen of course and should NOT be used all the time or you will needlessly grind away your knives.
Is it an oilstone or a waterstone?
If this is an oilstone (which is considered old fashioned exactly because of these issues), an oft-mentioned ultima ratio remedy is boiling it in soapy water. YMMV, this could destroy the stone. If you know what exact type (eg arkansas) your oilstone is, research instructions specific to that stone type.
If it is a waterstone, abrading the stone - with a flattening plate, diamond stone, another waterstone until unaffected material is brought to the surface is the recommended method.
My uncle used a dry stiff wire brush to remove crud, then dipped the brush into a pail of sudsy water and scrub it again. Then use a cloth with clean water (well wrung out), a dry up with a clean cloth, and a final dry wire brush on any remaining spots.
On a whetstone for use with water you use a nagura stone.
There are natural and artificial nagura, cheap ones and expensive ones.
The nagura is harder than your whetstone.
You rub it on your whetstone in between sharpening your knife whenever you feel the surface of your whetstone is loaded (clogged) with particles.
It abrases the surface of your stone, thus cleaning its surface while also creating the slurry, the mix of water and whetstone particles needed for a less aggressive, more regular sharpening of a knife.
Here’s a YouTube video of cleaning a stone and creating a slurry with a nagura.
My stone is very fine texture and very hard. It looks perfectly flat except for one very small corner chip. It is also very old, guessing my father got it before 1970. I do have a variety of grinding wheels for tungsten carbides, I will try rubbing with one of them.
I think the best way to clean a old whetstone with lots of buildup would be to rub it on a flattening plate, which also has the advantage of flattening your whetstone.
A concrete sidewalk will work for this purpose.
@WayfaringStranger Sorry if I'm taking your comment too literally here; have you tried this? I have a cheap King whetstone so I'd be willing to give this a shot if anyone has done this successfully!
Yes, I've done it. You want an old out of the way piece of sidewalk, because not all of the wear goes to the whetstone. Some water spraying helps as you work at it. It'll both clean and flatten your stone.
While Bar Keepers Friend is a great cleaner with many uses, it is NOT great enough to clean an ultra-fine whetstone.
I use three grades of whetstone surfaces between two stones to do my sharpening jobs: Coarse, Fine, and Ultra-Fine. Coarse and Fine are on a single bastard stone, and Ultra-fine is a smaller dedicated stone.
The cleaning problem is presented by the ultra-fine whetstone; it remains clogged by particulates and discolored by impurities, the colors of which range from the expected shades of grey to suspicious sticky brown.
Boiling with detergents did not help. Lye (potassium hydroxide or sodium hydroxide) did. Two caveats: Do NOT allow it ANYWHERE near aluminum (it acts as does acid), and use VINEGAR (acetic acid) to neutralize it.
Lye works greatly on lots of things, especially when it comes to deposits involving extremes of heat and time, but it should be used with great care. The reasons why "excessive" bathing was generally regarded as unhealthy was understandable—considering people over a century ago were horribly ignorant regarding chemistry and physics. (nobody thought to bathe with vinegar after applying lye soap)
You have to find out (eg by googling images of oilstones and waterstones), since cleaning methods that work on a friable waterstone will not work well on an oilstone, whereas methods recommendable for oilstones will likely total a waterstone.
I can appreciate the distinctions NOW between different types of stones. The trouble is that I didn't research such things BEFORE buying my stones. I have one bastard stone coarse on one side and fine on the other, and it's a dry stone composite, while the ultra-fine stone I have is an oil stone. It's the darned OIL stone that's giving me problems. I'm thinking of simply chucking it into the dustbin; more darned trouble than it's worth. Dry stones are a lot easier to clean.
Ultra-fine oilstones have their worth. So do coarse oilstones that have never been oiled - as stone flatteners for waterstones.
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88350 | Why not corned pork instead of beef?
I have made a few corned beef with chuck and pot roast cuts. Using salt,sugar nitrite salt , etc: the results have been excellent. I have not used brisket because they are so big. Pork loins and shoulders are so cheap I would like to try corned pork . What could go wrong ?
What could go wrong? Probably not much. The same process that turns beef into corned beef turns pork into corned pork - and if you use another piece and compare recipes, you might recognize the process from curing ham. You might have to compare recipes a bit - curing times ranging from two to ten days depending on the author - and the actual cooking process could require a slightly different timing, but overall, nothing specific to the animal.
And like corned beef, corned pork is sold canned as luncheon meat. The iconic Spam being an (slightly infamous) example.
I even found one writer that claims pork was actually the more „Irish” version for Irish families (beef being more expensive and mostly exported), while using beef became the American-Irish tradition, resorting to the (Jewish) brisket when beef was actually cheaper and easier to get than pork.
Wanted to mention Spam and the like too. Also a famous danish label sell what is basically corned pork.
In St.Mary's county Md they have been corning fresh hams for years. You take a fresh ham and put into a brine of pickling spice for 7/10 days than they cut slits in the ham and stuff it with a mixture of greens, Kale,Cabbage,Onion and spices and wrap it up in cheese cloth and place inside a pillow case and place in a large pot and boil for about 18 minutes per pound, remove and let drain good, place in refrigerator for a day or two, unwrap ham and slice thin and serve with some of the stuffing or make a sandwich. For more info look up St Mary's County Md Stuffed Ham recipes.
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88897 | How significant is the Pickle Spice blend to a corned beef?
I was out of pickle spice and Kroger did not have it. So I looked up a few recipes and averaged them with the spices I had on hand. I used ground ginger and apparently that made the solution cloudy, I have a Bay tree so it is pretty heavy on the bay. I used prepared mustard as I had no seed. But how much flavor difference can there be when it is done and I then simmer it with garlic, etc . It may be a little different as I am making the corned beef from a pork loin.
Really buried the lede here. Using a pork loin rather than a brisket is going to have way more impact on the final result than the exact balance of spices. Technically, you're not making a corned beef at all.
@logophobe 'may be a little different.'
The exact spice blend for any 'Pickling Spice' varies from maker to maker, from region to region, from season to season, etc...
It sounds like you found substitutes for each of the basic flavor components, so this plan looks good so far. The 'corning' process traditionally is a long, slow process which is usually approximated by a spice blend that gives a similar flavor, and a long, slow cooking process that cooks but leaves the meat tender.
There is more about the history, and how 'Corned Beef' is not a traditional Irish dish in this article.
Your use of pork loin is another substitution, and be careful, as the loin is relatively more lean that the brisket that corned beef is usually prepared with. Check on cooking time, as a several hour simmer, which is great for a 3# brisket, could make the pork very dry.
The cloudiness from the ginger will resolve as all the spices simmer together, and protein will come out of the meat. You aere on the right track, just know that you are making an interpretation of the dish, as a number of variables have changed. Cook, enjoy, take notes, adjust.
Powdered or dried spices have a different flavor than fresh. Not always worse or one-noted but usually that is the case. So will it taste different than if you used fresh? Absolutely.
But being that your planning on using a pre-made pickling spice either way, as long as your included the same spices it should taste the same.
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96631 | Why is pork pink after roasting to 205 F?
I have browned then roasted a 6 lb. pork shoulder in a covered pan in an oven set to 275 F for 5+ hours. The results were excellent , very tender and moist and high gelatin/protein stock. I started with one cup+ of liquid ( wine, lemon juice, honey, soy sauce, liquid smoke, Worcester , etc). It reached 205 F internal temperature , measured with an accurate electronic thermometer . When cool and sliced it was pink below the surface. Is pink color normal for well done pork ?
Different question ,I did not ask if it was done., I know the thermometer is accurate as stated in the question . My question is ; why is cooked pork pink?
Color is not necessarily an accurate indicator of doneness. The only way to check this is to be sure that your thermometer is accurate, and that you placed the probe at the center of your roast. You can check the accuracy by using ice water (or boiling water...ice water is safer).
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.455574 | 2019-03-01T16:05:03 | {
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83260 | Is the jar ok if the lid pops before i start the pressure canning?
What does it mean when the jar pops before pressure canning?
Are you hot packing? Please include a bit more information on what you are canning, method, etc. If you are canning hot items, this may happen and not be a big deal, but I would question if you might have too little head space which may cause spillage when you start processing so I would suggest you verify you are leaving adequate space.
Before they are sealed, canning lids pop. That is, the raised button in the middle of the lid can be depressed.
Sealing the lids involves heating the contents of the bottle which, when it cools, creates a vacuum that sucks the lids in. That vacuum is entirely responsible for the seal that keeps canning lids on. If the seal is broken or failed to form the lid won't be sucked down and will pop.
(Before consuming bottled food always check the seal to make sure the food inside was properly preserved.)
Pressure canning, besides sterilizing the contents of the jar, is also responsible for sealing the jars. There is no reason to expect the jars to be sealed before this step. In fact, the jars won't seal until they have cooled down after the pressure canning. My favorite part of canning is when the jars are all set out to cool and the lids start loudly popping as the vacuum forms and suck the lids down.
If after pressure canning the lids still pop then they failed to seal and that is a new question. Dlb commented above on reasons that might happen.
Ah, yes, an addition piece of info. I assumed that by "popped" the OP meant depressed in a soft seal. But they may have also meant popped up which is a normal state for an unsealed lid. We definitely need more clarification.
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83115 | How to conserve natural fruit juices without alcohol?
Sorry if this is not the proper place to ask this. I would like to produce some natural fruit juices to sell, and it must last at least a week once bottled.
It will be made with natural fruit, water, and sugar. I would prefer it to be AS NATURAL AS POSSIBLE.
What can be added to help preserve it longer (as natural as possible)?
This is basically making must but not adding yeast to it and making wine.
I would do one of three things to your juice:
Boil the juice(must), or heat to 85 deg C for 15 min, then bottle into sterilised bottles.
Treat with a Campden Tablet, then again bottle into sterilised bottles.
Pasteurise after bottling as EZ suggests.
https://www.leaf.tv/articles/how-to-pasteurize-juice-at-home/
Yes, this is basically about "pasteurization"...
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.455850 | 2017-07-10T16:43:54 | {
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83326 | What all spices and herbs can be used to flavor vinegar?
What all spices/herbs can be included to flavor vinegar. Also want to know which spices/herbs can be paired together in this case.
Wouldn't this be a matter of taste since someone may think a particular combination works well together whereas someone else would think it was terrible?
@JudeI you can tell me what you think fits the best. I would pick things up out of that and find the right combination for me.
Again, any answer would depend on what purpose you'd use it for. Also what type of vinegar since there are ordinary white vinegar as well as white wine, red wine, malt, apple cider, balsamic and rice vinegars. For me, I'd tend to flavour the vinegar(s) with the same combination as I'd use in the foods I'd pair them with e.g. for salads with Italian foods I'd use similar spices, for Asian salads I'd use spices and herbs used in Asian dishes.
@Jude I would like to use them in making variety of noodles/pasta recipes probably vegan. Which spices/herbs could be combined for my specific purpose which would lend a different taste and flavor? (Have already tested basil, thyme, rosemary, ginger, garlic and parsley. kindly suggest something apart from them.
Welcome to the site @SaurabhCooks. Unfortunately this question is both too broad and opinion based. There are thousands of possible combinations and everyone will have their own favorites.
@GdD I probably know that but I guess, a little help from the pros would go a long way in helping me.
Okay, here's a few suggestions - garlic and tarragon with white wine vinegar; basil, walnuts and garlic; sesame seeds and ginger with rice vinegar (I'd add some soy sauce to the dish too and use bean thread (transparent) noodles rather than wheat pasta; cinnamon and nutmeg with apple cider vinegar.
Do you want more combinations or are these enough?
Thanks for the combinations. A few more would be helpful.
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83400 | Can you use both melted and creamed butter for cookies?
I've been reading up on cookie science, and read that melted butter makes a denser cookie, and creamed room temp butter makes a cakey cookie. I'm looking to make a cookie thats mostly thin and very crispy on the edges with a little chewiness on the inside. Would mixing butter be a bad idea/does anyone know what the outcome would be if i did a 50/50 melted/creamed butter mix?
The process of mixing butter and sugar is called 'creaming' and the purpose is "Creaming adds air. Air is fluffy." so you are on the right track, but unlikely to get consistency out of just using 'melted butter'. The creaming process is time sensitive, that is, the more you do it, the more 'cake like' your cookies will be. Rather than using melted butter, which will not mix well with your sugar, just cream for a shorter period of time. In this picture you see the results of creaming over time...
These are from the linked article [above] showing minute-by-minute
progress of creamed butter, with the egg added in the last stage.
You are probably looking to only reach #3 or #4 to consistently get the results you seek. (Have fun experimenting to get it 'just right')
Also, the 16ish percent water content in the butter makes steam which slightly leavens the cookie! If it's clarified butter, that would make it much more dense.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.456116 | 2017-07-31T20:18:16 | {
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83433 | How long to warm taco bar dishes in a roaster
With beef, mexican rice, and refried beans in a roaster that has 3 separator bowls, how long does it take to reheat these taco bar dishes, and what would be the best temperature?
I intend to prepare them the night before, the next day I fill the roaster with hot water and insert separator pans with the taco dishes for reheating. This will be presented in a lunch room with no stove/oven, but it does have a microwave.
FYI, I will prepare the taco dishes the night before and then the next day I intend to fill roaster with hot water and insert separator pans with taco dishes for reheating.
is the device you are using this (or something very similar)?Oster Roster Oven with Buffet insert
Is the 'roaster' meant for cooking, or just "warming"? The "warming" ones are to hold stuff once they're already heated up ... it might take hours to warm stuff up in them (which means it's in the 'food danger zone' for way too long. You're better off warming things through other means (even a microwave on low) than in trying to heat things up in them, typically.
Well, if anybody gives you a solid figure on how long it's going to take, they almost certainly don't know what they're talking about. Even if they did know how hot your appliance gets and how quickly; the quantities of your ingredients, the initial temperature of your ingredients; the water content, fat content, and density are of your ingredients; how big the pieces of beef are, etc, providing anything more than a ballpark figure would be overly optimistic. In almost every circumstance, time is the least precise measurement to measure how cooked something is.
A good temperature to shoot for with any buffet items is just above 140 degrees without going too far over. If your beef is rare or medium rare, be sure to heat it immediately before serving so it's not sitting around hot– it will become tough, dry, and overcooked quickly. Stirring makes a huge difference in both quality and reheating time, so be sure to consistently stir it up.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.456258 | 2017-08-02T01:26:42 | {
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83482 | How do you convert British recipes to American measurements?
How do you convert British recipes to American measurements?
"British?" Do you mean gramms etc. ounces? Honestly, you do it like we Europeans use American recipes with cups and oz. : look up the conversion (table, formula, online tool) and do the math.
I'm going to assume you're dealing with British Imperial measurements (as opposed to metric).
The main 'gotchas' are cups/pints/quarts, and tablespoons:
US cup = 8 fl.oz. British cup = 10 fl.oz
US pint = 16 fl.oz British pint = 20 fl.oz
US quart = 32 fl.oz British quart = 40 fl.oz
US tablespoon = 14.2 mL ; British tablespoon = 17.7 mL
Also see Translating cooking terms between US / UK / AU / CA / NZ .
and there's also the "metric cup" (8.45 fl.oz; 250mL). And the infamous 'dessert spoon' (9.5mL)
not to mention that a 15ml tablespoon isn't a tables-poon but a dessert-spoon. Though for recipes this is now always taken to be ~15ml, older cookbooks will mean ~25ml when they use the term "table-spoon"
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