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110032 | How does Ball mason jar size affect canning processing time?
I'm new to canning and food preserving and bought a basic starter kit including a water bath canner (I'll get into pressure canners later if I have success with this method).
One thing that is often cautioned is that the size of the container (pint or quart Ball mason jar) affects the cooking/processing (boiling) time, as well as the altitude!
Interestingly enough, in most recipes I see specific values given to adjust the processing time based on altitude (for example: if between 3000 and 6000 ft above sea level, add 5 mins to the processing time, etc.).
However, I have never seen anything that tells me how the jar size affects the processing time! Does anybody know if there is a rule of thumb here?
Many of my recipes specify "process pints for X minutes, quarts for Y minutes" -- you can't figure out how to adjust these times yourself. Use a recipe that tells you both jar size and time.
As pretty much always in canning, there are no rules of thumb for calculations/changes (the altitude thing is an exception, admittedly).
Each recipe has been developed and tested for a given jar size, and the institution which developed it should give you the size of jar you have to use. You cannot change the size to a larger one and add some number of minutes.
In general, you can change the recipe to a smaller jar size, but without reducing the time. This ensures that you don't run into problems with food safety, but you will likely end up with an overcooked product.
Bottom line, don't change jar sizes on your own, use the ones in the recipe.
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110169 | Can you preserve/can tomatoes of various sizes together?
I am new to canning and have a water bath canner. I have successfully (well...I think!) canned/jarred several dozen bread-and-butter pickles following a recipe I found in the official Ball Canning & Preserving Guide.
I am now trying to preserve/can/jar a bunch of my tomatoes following another recipe in the same book. The problem is, all of my tomatoes are drastically different sizes:
Is it generally OK to use the different-sized tomatoes when preserving them? Or do they all need to be the same type and generally same size?
I had initially posted an answer stating there would not be a problem in doing this. As @rumtscho pointed out, this was wrong and potentially dangerous advice, so that answer has been deleted.
Your intuition is correct here: cannng recipes are developed for a given chunk size (within a small range). If your recipe was developed for large chunks, the small ones will overcook and not taste as well, and if it was for small ones, the large won't heat up enough in the middle and thus it is unsafe.
Your options here are to:
sort the tomatoes into cans and use different processing times (unless you happen to find two recipes with the same time for large and small tomatoes because of different jar sizes)
cut up the whole tomatoes until they are roughly the same size as the small ones
find a recipe for hacked tomatoes and cut up all tomatoes before preserving them.
use a recipe for large chunks and see if the small ones still taste good enough for your personal standards
Hot water canning tends to be more forgiving than pressure canning, so if you find a recipe specifically intended for hot water canning tomatoes (hint, it will also require acidifying them), it might have a wide size range - you may test it and see if you are OK with the quality of the small chunks.
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113489 | Adjusting pressure setting and processing time when modifying pressure canning recipe
When it comes to pressure canning, is there a "golden rule" or standard for modifying recipe pressure settings or processing times when you want to change the quantity of jars used?
For instance, I am interested in cooking and canning this Split Pea and Ham Soup recipe.
Unfortunately, the recipe only makes 2 quart jars. I have a Presto 23-quart canner that can fit more than 2, and so -- if possible -- I would like to scale the recipe up to cook enough soup for 4 or maybe 5 quart jars worth.
But if I stuff 4 or 5 quart jars into the canner, does the pressure setting for this recipe (10 PSI) or the cook time (90 minutes) change? If so, what's the general rule for figuring these types of modifications out?
No modifications are necessary.
The pressure of the canner entirely determines the temperature of the water around the jar, and you don’t start timing until the canner is at that temperature/pressure, so regardless of the scale you’re assured of processing for long enough. In a larger canner and/or a weaker stove the contents of the jars will end up being slightly more cooked because of the longer lag time before you start the timer, but there’s not much you can safely do about that, and for pea soup it will make literally zero difference.
You may want to add that this is correct for a jar size consistent with the given recipe. For larger jars, the temperature may not be high/long enough.
get a different source for a recipe that will give you accurate timing for a larger batch. who is that chick on the recipe page anyway? i like to use usda official canning books for safety sake, or someone professionally certified at the very least. Like Ball Blue Book etc.
Split pea soup in her case has ham in it, and may have other things as well, so NO it isn't just split peas in that soup. but also MEAT. which has its own necessities in pressure canning. That's why people use tested recipes and follow them faithfully. It all makes a difference.
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110031 | Can I use Star San "no rinse" for sanitizing canning tools and utensils?
I've been brewing beer (totally amateur) for a few years as a hobby. I now want to get into canning my own garden-grown veggies.
I've bought several books and watched several videos (like this one from Ball) which recommend:
Using hot soapy water to clean all jars, lids and bands/rings; as well as all other utensils (ladles, jar funnels, jar lifters, cutting boards, etc.)
Keeping the lids in hot water (not boiling) until ready to be used
In brewing there is a product called Star San that is a "no rinse" sanitation solution. You basically dip your utensils into a tub of it, take them out and they are ready to be used.
I'm wondering if this product would be safe and effective for use in canning. Any thoughts?
No rinse sanitizer like Star San works great for sanitizing canning tools & jars. The sanitary considerations for canning and beer have quite a bit in common, so for the most part, if you sanitize things like you're bottling, you'll be in great shape.
Except...
You'll still want to follow the instructions to simmer your flat lids. The rubber seal on the lid needs the heat to "activate" in order for it to be appropriately soft to create a good seal between the lid & jar.
Edit
I just grabbed a package of lids to check the instructions, and they appear to have changed to no longer recommend / require the hot water simmering prep. A quick internet suggests this changed about 5 years ago. Who knew?!
I've been continuing to simmer the lids for about 5 minutes before canning--and probably will keep doing so out of habit. However, it would seem that based on the package directions, you just need to sanitize, not heat. So Star San should do the trick for the lids as well!
Thanks @AMtwo (+1) -- so for the lids should I hit them with Star San and then simmer them? And when it comes to "simmering", what do you usually do (specifically)? Just put them in a sauce pan and keep a medium flame on them, without allowing them to boil? How long do you simmer them for? Thanks again!
I went to check the package for simmer time--and seems they've changed the recommended instructions. Yes--I do exactly what you suggest: Medium flame just short of a boil, for about five minutes. However--it seems that is no longer necessary based on the package instructions.
This part of the Star San product description is concerning: "use caution since it is an acid; contact with soft metals, rubber, and plastic should be kept to a minimum." Does this mean that Star San will degrade the rubber seals on the lids?
@csk The Star San I have does not include this in the package directions. In fact, it specifically directs you to use rubber gloves--which makes me think there's not a major concern, particularly for single use lids with only 1 minute of sanitizing exposure. Can you provide a link or photo of the product description you're looking at?
It's in the "Additional Information" section on the page that OP linked to, on the right side of the page.
That comment seems to come from the reseller, and not from the manufacturer. The manufacturer product page doesn't make any mention of that. One of the images says "Safe for use on most brewing equipment surfaces except aluminum" -- other than the reseller adding that on their page, I can't find that guidance from Five Star themselves.
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96955 | When to use a slotted vs. solid turner?
When would you choose to use a slotted turner instead of a solid one, or vice versa?
I would have thought it’s just a personal preference but lots of utensil sets have both so apparently it’s more than that.
It's largely preference, and sets may include both to seem like better value, but there are sometimes reasons to choose one or the other.
Slotted: allows more fat (or water) to fall off the food; more flexible for the same thickness/material so can slip under things better.
Solid: supports crumbly or loose foods better (e.g. lifting out finely chopped veg). Extra stiffness allows it to be used to break things up in the pan and to support heavier foods, without being overly thick.
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105045 | Croissant baking temperature
The short story - cant get the temp in the oven right. It gets too brown, if I lower the temperature it is not cooked and the internal structure is not as good as it should be.
The long story - so far I tried the following.
Preheat Baking Time Internal structure "Brownishness"
------ 220 * 7min 10 10
then 180 * 10min 10 10
225* 180 * 20min 10 10
230 |*| 180 |*| 15min 4 10
250 | | 180 | | 18min 8 8
Legend:
* - convection
|*| - top/bottom plus rear fan
| | - top/bottom
So, whatever I try I get them too dark or not cooked/ugly internal structure
What I'm missing here?
What happens if you lower the temperature and further extend the cooking time?
see line 3, 180 is low enough?
No, I mean, extend the cooking time until it's not undercooked.
I know of 2 methods, the temperatures are for convection:
Start at 200C and keep it 200C, turning it down if they start to get too brown
Start at a high temperature and then lower it partway through, so you get an initial blast at about 200C for 5-6 minutes and then turn it down to 165C for another 9-10 minutes depending on size. This gives you the browning on the outside while cooking the inside
I don't do croissants often but when I do I use the second method.
will try it and report back
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128291 | I gave my frozen fried rice a flavor I only get when I get fried rice from a Hibachi restaurant. How can I do this again without creating smoke?
The other day I used my stainless steel pan to cook my frozen fried rice. I have done this often.
This time I accidentally left the stove to preheat the pan on its highest setting. When I sprayed in my vegetable oil it IMMEDIATELY smoked. Undeterred for some reason I threw on my frozen fried rice an turned the stove way down. Even tossed it a lil way above the burner.
What I stumbled into was this flavor I have been trying to replicate at home for quite awhile but did not realize may be more about the time/temperature than anything else. I have cooked frozen fried rice in a stainless steel but it never had this flavor I associate with fried rice from a Hibachi Restaurunt.
It was a bit tougher than normal, almost glazed, and had this delicious umami flavor to it. Little corners of some of the bits of rice were burned a little but overall this cleaned up easily except for the polymerized oil on the pan which did NOT come out without a fight.
What did cooking at such a high temperature here do to add in this flavor and texture change? Is it a temperature where vegetable oil will smoke and I should just deal with it or is there a lower temperature I can get away with potentially?
I thought it might be the mallard reaction and maybe it is but I have cooked my frozen fried rice at lower temperatures before and still seen browning and fond form without that flavor being added.
Sounds like "Wok hei"
YES these are both so useful. Thankyou!
In that case, this will probably get closed as duplicate. There are tons of answers on here about wok hei.
Yeah totally good with that. Probably good to keep this up so that there are more search terms pointing people towards said other question(s)
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126644 | Is my other pan frying vegetables and onions so differently because of oil or its material (stainless steel vs mystery metal)?
I had two pans side by side on my stove at similar settings. Both were given similar amounts of chopped onions, peppers, and carrots. These were being fried to add flavor before mixing in ground beef to brown for a chili. The recipe was finished in an oven then stovetop. However the oil content was very different. The left had oil leftover from frying eggs an hour earlier and on the right I probably put a bit too much oil to coat the pan.
The pans are also different. Both are Gotham Steel Nonstick Ceramic. However the left one is their "premium" stainless steel (triple reinforced stainless steel) and the right one is their more mysterious material:
PREMIUM HARD ANODIZED MATERIAL - Stronger than stainless steel
cookware, hard-anodized aluminum exterior is dense, nonporous, and
highly wear-resistant for the perfectly even heat and professional
performance
The right pan had also been rarely used. The left had been used for <1 month but almost daily.
As you can see the left pan is frying fairly well. Perhaps too well. The onions are browning and turning clearer and you can see the browning reactions that add so much flavor. It also was releasing more steam or whatever that is. You can see that nice brown stuff on the sides of the pan.
The right really never did it got mushy if anything. Didn't seem to sear at all but it did cook... maybe.
So what's going on here? Is it the difference in the pan materials? Did the right one have too much oil? Something else? A combination.
(And yes for those concerned had been a big cooking day. The stovetop was deep cleaned afterwards)
Hard to tell from the pictures, but are the pans different diameters? Right element looks like a quite a bit lower setting to me too.
The ultimate cause is that you didn't fry at the same "heat". The left pan was frying at a high heat, while the right one was at low-medium.
Now it's unclear which of the many potential variables went into that. It could have been the material, the amount of oil, or the time of preheating, or the pan size, or whatever. That's impossible to pinpoint, and there isn't a need for that.
Your job as a cook is to use a combination of good preheating and regulating the flame until you get the heat you're looking for. As Chris H. points out, preheating sometimes may mean that you use a small flame for a long time, to achieve even temperature within the pan material. For other pans and foods, an extra high flame may be needed for preheating, that's a matter of experience.
As for regulating the flame during cooking: to get to the same heat, this will almost certainly be a different position of the knob for two different pans; this is expected and not a problem in any way. Unless you find yourself in some very unlucky circumstances (e.g. a pan so thin that the lowest position on a gas stove burns some delicate food outright) any pan will give you good enough results.
One other issue with thin aluminium pans is cooking far faster where the flame hits than the rest of the pan. So you have to keep moving food into that ring, not into the middle. The middle does eventually get properly hot, but it takes a while for the heat to flow inwards (preheating for longer, but with a smaller flame at first, seems to help on one of mine)
@ChrisH thanks for pointing that out, I expanded the answer to include preheating.
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100003 | If a cheese sold as pasta-cheese does not melt, is it "cheese"?
This might sound like a dumb question:
Back in the day I cooked some pasta for some friends and they bought this cheap grated cheese in the supermarket. I remember my shock because the cheese did not melt no matter how much time we heated it (not with the hot pasta, neither in the microwave nor oven).
Months later I learned that not all cheeses melt: halloumi, kasseri, manouri, queso blanco, and paneer become a tad creamier, but don't melt the way cheddar, Swiss, and Gruyere do.
Those made with rennet and not acid, those with higher moister and higher fat are the ones to melt (or melt better).
But as far as I know, pasta cheese (the cheese used in pasta, it can be parmesan, emmental or even mozarella), are cheeses that might have the melting qualities, to give texture or good looks to the dish (as well as flavour).
So, is it "right" to sell a "pasta-cheese" which does not melt nor change any physical property (at least visually) when heat is applied?
The cheese's ingredients, translated to english, just in case, are:
CHEESE, concentrated DAIRY serum, MILK proteins, dietary fiber (corn dextrine) (4.5%), BUTTER, salt, melting salts(polyphosphates, sodium citrates), modified starch, acidic corrector (citric acid), conservator(potassic sorbate)
The presence of "melting salts" (specifically sodium citrate) indicates that it is intended to melt; so your experience strikes me as odd.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trisodium_citrate
See specifically the point: "Sodium citrate can be used as an emulsifier when making cheese. It allows the cheese to melt without becoming greasy."
That list of 'chemicals' would make me run away, very quickly. If you google the entire ingredients list, you get a scientific paper near the top, entitled "Modification in the Functional Properties of Sodium Caseinate-based Imitation Cheese through Use of Whey Protein and Stabilizer" ... or in plain English, "Avoid".
As to whether it's "right"... you know those cheese slices they put on burgers, or that you can buy, individually wrapped, like squares of orange goop, barely set, that taste absolutely nothing like cheese? Same laws let them sell your 'pasta cheese'.
@Tetsujin How is a scientific paper investigating how different concentrations of ingredients affects the properties of food something that tells you to avoid it? It sounds like it's a paper that charts things like melting points, texture, etc as you vary the amounts of whey protein in the cheese, rather than anything nefarious.
@nick012000 - forgive me if I find the very idea of "Sodium Caseinate-based Imitation Cheese" rather off-putting.
That's a processed cheese product. It may be allowed to be called cheese in some places, but that's a matter of product labelling regulations where you happen to be.
The melting is a different issue. I'd expect that product to melt, though possibly not if it has the texture of parmesan - parmesan doesn't really melt on its own though it melts into sauces. And parmesan is commonly served on pasta, so a non-melting (or not really melting) pasta cheese is a thing.
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114807 | Is there a way to make a generic cheese sauce?
Scenario: I have some nuggets, and thought it would be nice to dip them in some cheese sauce. I do not have that, but I thought I could make one with the ingredients I have. But I am not sure if there is a way to make a MORE OR LESS generic cheese sauce.
This is the cheese I have:
Ingredients in dutch: melk* (milk), zout (salt), zuursel (starter culture) and stremsel (which is Rennet, I am not sure what kind of cheese that is).
My main idea was melting the cheese with an amount of butter, salt, and maybe some milk or cooking cream. (No need of quantities right now but more of the process to follow).
I think that adding flour would be like making a cheesy bechamel, and I don't know if that is good to dip (or put on top of nachos, whatever is fine, as a cheese sauce, it's nice anywhere). But maybe flour is necessary for this process (specially if the cheese may be quite generic as well).
"cheesy bechamel" is what I think of as a "generic cheese sauce". Also known as a "mornay sauce". And the starch helps to keep the cheese from breaking. (although there are other ways, like in making American cheese)
Oh okay! I guess I have seen more liquidy cheese sauces and I have not been that used to it! But in the research I have done so far, there is flour (making this cheesy bechamel as I described it hahaha). I guess I did not see it often, that is why I find it strange! Thanks! @Joe
It's just a matter of what ratios you use (roux vs. milk vs. cheese) on how liquid it is ... and what temperature, as it'll thicken as it cools. Also see https://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/47015/67
'Cheese sauce' is really anything semi-liquid that tastes a bit like cheese & can be poured or dipped, depending on how liquid.
Some fast ideas:-
Camembert, brie etc - put it in the oven for 20 mins. Cross-cut the top, dip.
tbh, you can do this with most cheeses, just the French-style crusted cheeses provide a cool looking container.
Generic roux - oil or butter in a saucepan, add the same quantity of flour. Combine 2 mins, add milk slowly, stir. Add cheese, stir, serve.
Welsh rarebit - throw cheese, flour, milk, beer, worcestershire sauce in a pan, heat & stir until it's homogenous.
There's not really much you can do to hot cheese to spoil it ;)
The only two cheeses I can think of that don't work are haloumi & paneer, because they're both pre-cooked & don't melt.
Your "cheesy bechamel" is a classic cheese sauce. It works best with a fairly full-flavoured cheese in the usual proportions, but you can adjust the ratios successfully for flavour and texture. Served hot it's good as a topping or dip, though keeping a dip warm can be a hassle.
With the pictured cheese I'd probably make the bechamel a little on the thin side, then add plenty of cheese, but if it gets too thick you can always add a bit more milk. Personally I'd also add black pepper and a pinch of mustard powder (not enough to make it taste of mustard, just to enhance the flavour). I don't infuse the milk when I make cheese sauce this way.
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116033 | Leaving cake's dry ingredients together for later quicker preparation?
Let's say I want to bake a cake specifically on Monday night, so it can be fresh for Tuesday (no, I don't want to do it on Sunday). But I know that on Monday I am going to be extremely busy. So I thought, why don't I measure all the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, spices like cinnamon, and baking soda/salt), beforehand, a few days before, and leave them already mixed in a container/tupperware? In this way I already measured, cleaned everything, and I save up that part of the time.
Is it bad for these common cake ingredients to be together for some time? This is in a few days, but let's say you want to prepare for a day you are lazy but fancy baking a nice cake, but quicker. It would be like "homemade instant cake mix" but needing to add butter, eggs and milk, basically.
There's no issue with doing this, as you are no doubt aware ready-made cake mixes are sold boxed in stores and they aren't much different than you describe. Boxed mixes will often have anti-caking agents to prevent the dry ingredients from clumping up after a few weeks on the shelf, this won't be a concern for you if the mix will only be made a couple of days in advance.
yes! I did not look recently to the ingredients of mixes, but I was wondering that maybe the reason they hold time is usually due to preservatives. (Also I am not sure if mixing sugar with other dry ingredients, locked down, would do anything but my guess is no!) Thanks!
I store homemade pancake mix (just the dry ingredients from a normal pancake recipe) in an airtight container for months at a time without any problems with caking or clumping. If it did get some clumps, it would be easy enough to put through a sifter.
@csk: Yeah, makes sense. I think granulated sugar would be more likely to pull moisture out of the air and get a bit sticky / clumpy, than anything in a pancake mix. Still fine for home use, though, as you say. Commercial cake mixes are intended for people who rarely cook, and who would probably consider it a "better quality product" if it stays perfectly powdery like a powder "should be". Or that's what the marketing / product research departments probably think. They certainly want to avoid anyone ever having to use extra tools like a sifter. So that doesn't mean home mixes need it.
The key point is storing it in an airtight container to prevent moisture from building up and reacting with the ingredients (especially baking powder/soda.)
it seems rather funny to me that anti-caking agents are part of cake mix
No hygiene issues
however, if it's a recipe requiring highly sifted flour or cream-sugar-with-butter or mix-vanilla-paste-with-sugar then quality may be lost.
For a brownie recipe, dry mix can be left in a tupperware with room to add wet ingredients and shake.
There is certainly no problem with doing it in the exact described scenario (mixing for one cake a few days ahead).
I would be wary with mixing in bulk though. Not only is it very difficult to mix the powders perfectly evenly, but there is also a physical effect which makes the mix uneven if the box is moved during storage. So, if you start doing this for multiple cakes, I would suggest bagging each batch separately. It is a bit more work during mixing, but worth it.
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86025 | What needs to be added to quinoa flour make it "behave" like all-purpose flour?
I'm a Type 2 diabetic who loves bread and pasta, so I'm exploring ways of making my favorite foods more "blood sugar friendly", hoping that I can re-integrate them into my diet in a healthy way.
Compared to all-purpose flour, quinoa flour has higher amounts of dietary fiber and protein and lower amount of carbs, making it a great candidate, nutritionally, but I also know that it (like many other "ancient grains") doesn't have the gluten that gives all-purpose flour so many of its useful characteristics.
Unfortunately, given the popularity of "gluten-free", the vast majority of search results that I get for "quinoa flour" and "gluten" end up taking me to recipes/articles for gluten-free cooking/baking, which is really the opposite of what I am looking for.
So does anyone have any tips on or experience with making quinoa flour into a more suitable standalone replacement for all-purpose flour? Add gluten for structure/airiness? More liquid to avoid dryness? Anything else?
Upvoted for being an interesting question, but I am somewhat pessimistic here. Starch is a big part of what makes AP flour behave like AP flour, so without adding it back, you may be out of luck. But I'd love to see answers which prove me wrong!
I make mock AP flour by blending 650 grams of quinoa flour with 80 grams of wheat gluten. I use this flour for yeast Ed bread recipes.
For cake (strongly flavored cake) I combine 350 grams of 12% fat defatted peanut flour, 50 grams of wheat gluten, 60 grams of pectin powder, 30 grams of powdered lecithin.
Quinoa and Amaranth are from the same family and are quite similar in makeup and constitution. You’ll probably want to add some stabilizers and extra binding power to make up for the lack of gluten.
This recipe for amaranth bread adds rice flour, tapioca starch, arrowroot, and xanthan gum - which in my opinion is a bit of overkill. I would probably stick with just agar-agar for the mouthfeel, egg yolk for extra binding and xantham only if it’s too crumbly.
And on a side note, lightly toasted quinoa with bittersweet cocoa powder is a great (and classical if not downright tasty) addition to your breads. Good luck
So I guess my question would be, if I'm open to adding in gluten, are those stabilizers/binders still needed to cover the other differences between quinoa flour and regular flour? Sadly, while I'm very familiar with quinoa as a whole grain, I really don't know anything yet about its properties and characteristics as a flour. :/
And thanks for the tip on the toasted quinoa and bittersweet cocoa . ;)
@talemyn - well you could kind of think of it like a powdered nut, which will turn into a gooey paste that is so heavy and sticky that it won’t rise very easily so most appropriate in its pure form would be as a flatbread.
Oh, interesting . . . I had assumed that it would behave like other grain flour, just without the built in "structural support". Sounds more and more like I may need to do some experimenting.
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57909 | making cream with almond milk and fat
I want to make a replacement for heavy cream. I'm considering almond milk blended with a fat. I have a high powered blender on the way for this purpose (yes, it will blend).
Some fats I'm considering:
Coconut Oil
Butter
Tallow (wet rendered, pretty neutral in flavor)
Blending the almond milk and fat together, is it possible to create a reasonably stable suspension with a consistency similar to cream this way?
Will the fat invevitably separate after a few hours?
Do I need to add an emulsifier or other ingredient?
Don't have an answer to your question however, depending on how you want to use the replacement, this might be alternative: http://www.chefsteps.com/activities/swap-cream-with-onion-puree-for-better-brighter-flavor
Can you explain your plans for the cream? What do you want to do with it?
If butter is an option, why not just use real cream?
I have made what I call a mousse using full fat/lite coconut milk or unsweetened almond milk with the same results. I have always added chocolate (a mix of unsweetened cocoa powder and solid). I've not tried it without adding the chocolate component but have eaten it on its own and as a topping. It keeps for a few days in the fridge.
14 oz can full fat or lite coconut milk, or 2 cups unsweetened almond milk, divided;
1/4 cup or 1 oz solid dark chocolate;
2 T cocoa powder;
1/8-1/4 c. granulated sugar of your choice;
1 packet or .25 oz unflavoured gelatine;
1 large egg separated;
Refrigerate coconut milk over night. Open and take out the solid stuff on the top and put in a pot. Put the left over liquid in a bowl and sprinkle gelatine over it and let sit to the side. (If using almond or lite coconut milk, put half in a pot and sprinkle gelatine over remaining cup).
In the pot add chips, cocoa powder and sugar to milk. Bring to a slow boil stirring it constantly until chips are melted. Separate egg ad put yolk in bowl. Whisk yolk while slowly pouring hot chocolate mix into it. Once incorporated pour back into the pot. Whisk slowly, but well, while bringing it back to a slow boil. When it thickens, add to gelatine mix and whisk until completely incorporated. Put in fridge until it sets. When it is, whip the egg white to stiff peaks and fold into pudding. Cover and put back into fridge until ready to serve.
I usually eat it by itself with toasted shredded unsweetened coconut and/or toasted nuts. It can be used as a pie filling or as a whipped topping alternative. I've not tried piping it. There is a commercial stabilizer called
Dr. Oetker Whip It! that might help give it more structure for piping.
You should be able to mix almond butter into almond milk to raise the fat level to that of cream. That should be enough, assuming you want the cream as cream, or for a ganache or something. I've certainly done this with coconut milk and coconut oil, and used in a ganache for a chocolate cake.
For whipping, you'll need something with more stability than almonds. Adding gelatine or xanthan gum should help with that.
If only want to increase the fat content, adding an emulsifier is sufficent (e.g. lecithine or xanthan). According to rumtscho's answer the emulsion can be whipped but I doubt that the cream will be very stable.
If you want to have a stable whipped cream you will need a thickening agent. For futher studies, I recommend this question: Could coconut cream be used to create a non-dairy ganache for whipping? This question deals with coconut cream but it's close enough to your issue. Gelatine and xanthan gum should work. Please note that the actual fat content of the discussed mixture in the mentioned question is higher due to the chocolate.
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57930 | Should a teabag or looseleaf tea brew at room to cold temperature water?
I recently noticed that an organic bigelow tea(teabag) starts brewing at room/cold temperature water. Not sure if it is brewing or not but the water starts to get green after dipping the tea few times.
I seriously doubt that tea could brew in cold water and that too in few dips. This has put a doub in my mind, whether I am drinking tea or something flavored? The ingredients on the packets say: Organic Green tea and nothing else!
Should I stop drinking the tea from tea bag and buy loose leaf teas only? Any suggestions/tips are appretiated.
The question in the title is pretty different from the one in the body. Is your tea actually fully transferring flavor quickly with room temperature water? Or is it just turning a bit green?
@Jefromi Yes, it starts to release color and upon sipping I confirmed it has flavor as well.
Right, but color and a little flavor is very different from fully steeped.
@Jefromi I think if I let it sit and dip for more than few time it will get steeped.
The initial color and a bit of flavor comes out really fast, but it takes a lot longer to get it fully steeped. You're welcome to try, but I find it pretty hard to imagine that looseleaf tea or teabags or anything but instant tea could fully steep that quickly in room temperature water. As Joe said, it takes hours to fully steep. That's why I asked for that information, and why you might want to edit your question - it might change the answers you get.
Yes, tea will brew at cold temperatures. Growing up, we'd make sun tea by leaving it in a sunny window for about 8 hrs. These days, I put it in the fridge to brew simply because you have a longer window before the more bitter flavors start getting extracted.
Tea bags will brew faster, as they tend to have smaller pieces and possibly dust in them, which means increased surface area.
Tea bags: yes, if you want convenience
Loose leaf tea: yes, if you want a more diverse and better taste experience
As with brewing with cold temperatures, this is possible. It's called 'cold brewing', but less common then brewing with boiled water. Cold brewing requires patience, as it takes several hours. After all, you'll have to compensate the low temperatures with longer steeping times. My recommendation would be to steep in the evening and let it sit in a fridge overnight.
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57964 | Eggs smell "fishy"
I recently went to the supermarket and bought a carton of eggs and some fish (for dinner). I left both right next to each other in the fridge for a little over a day.
So I made myself some scrambled eggs with a tiny bit of pepper and milk in the morning and when I ate them I swear they smelled fishy, pun intended. I only used a few eggs and I don't want to waste the rest that I still have not used.
Is there anyway to remove the fishy smell that the eggs took in while in the fridge?
I'd say your best bet to not have them go to waste is to cook a dish with fish and eggs in it. For use in regular egg dishes they are most likely ruined.
Eggshells are porous, therefore the egg inside can absorb flavors. Once they absorb a flavor it tends to stay. If it's just an odor they are safe to eat.
Baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) is often used to neutralize odors in the fridge, you could try putting the eggs in a container with a big spoon of soda in it (not touching the eggs) for a couple of days. This may decrease the fishy smell in the eggs although I wouldn't bank on it. Your best bet is to use the eggs in a recipe with strong flavors and smells which will overpower any fishy odors.
I'm not sure what the cause is but I know not everyone can smell or taste this. I cracked an egg once and the smell was instant and pretty strong, I had a friend smell it and he couldn't smell anything. I've experienced this with both regular and organic eggs but it seems to happen a lot less often with organic eggs. Also, I don't know if these things are related but I seem to find bitter things more bitter than most people. I think it's why I don't like alcohol especially beer.
What comes to mind is French and Italian folks who store eggs with truffles. The eggs tend to pick up the truffle aroma. Could it be that your eggs picked up the fish aroma? Perhaps...I don't think you can get rid of the smell...but, lesson learned. Keep the eggs apart from other aromatic ingredients.
I would suggest using the eggs with something that would be more potent of a taste than the fish flavor in the eggs. Maybe use salsa and cheese. You might even scramble the eggs and use that in a different dish.
The eggs, along with many other foods with allow for chemicals to transfer through to them. Smell is simply little bits of matter floating around in the air.
Your eggs actually already have fish in them. As GdD said, you might as well put more fish in them, or add flavors to the eggs that you would add to the type of fish you have next to it.
To check if eggs are fresh, put them in a bowl of water, those that float will have a build up of gas in them, the source of much sulphurous fishy stink, throw out the ones that rise to the surface. Both eggs and milk will absorb strong flavours from items that are nearby.
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104946 | What is this white powder on my grill?
I have a ceramic grill that I have only ever cooked organic chicken breast and organic steak on. I have occasionally added spice but not for months as it makes too much mess. After cooking, I drizzle warm water mixed with washing up liquid on it from a soft cloth, whilst the grill is still hot (generating a lot of steam), then wipe it in order to clean it efficiently.
After I have cleaned the grill and it starts to cool, I have noticed white powder on it, as shown below.
I can scratch this off gently with my thumbnail and it comes off cleanly, as shown by the highlighted area below:
This leaves a black substance under my nail that has a slight meaty smell:
Can anyone suggest what this is? My first thought was salt, but I don't add any to the meat (or is there enough in it to cause this?). Or could it be something to do with the washing up liquid I use to clean it?
(This is my first question here, be nice. And yes, I know I could write to the manufacturer, but trust impartial individuals on here just as much :))
If you're putting washing up liquid & water onto the hot grill, and creating steam, you'll leave dried up soap & water minerals on the surface of the grill. Normally all the soap residue would be rinsed away with fresh water. The steam will be only pure water, and all the minerals in the water+ soap will be left behind.
These could be proteins precipitated from the meat and denatured resulting in coagulation on the surface of your grill by the heat of cooking. These come out of the juices that run when cooking meat.
Denatured proteins are generally insoluble, and are fairly difficult to remove (think cooked egg when it sticks to a surface). The insolubility accounts for your not removing them effectively when using water and detergent, and they generally only appear white when dried.
Oh wow, that's very interesting, thank you! This does make sense actually since I note that the powder smells a bit meaty. Is there any way that I could prove this at all that you can think of?
You could try heating the grill and on a clean spot (i.e. no white residue) drip some meat juices and let sit for the time you would normally use for cooking meat, then see if something similar results after your usual cleaning.
Not sure anyone would be able to tell you definitively, but, if you add water after each use, my guess would be minerals from your water.
Oh that's interesting, thank you. This powder does not appear on any other utensils though (saucepans, baking trays), so could it be on my grill purely because I put the water straight on the grill when it is still at cooking temperature (thus creating a lot of steam), do you think?
As a test, drip your water/detergent mixture on a dark plate or counter. Don't wipe it up, rather, allow it to evaporate. It might take a day or two. See if you manage to reproduce the same residue.
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105155 | Are bread improvers really needed?
I am new to baking and I am in the process of creating and starting my bakery in my country.
I got a few questions, my bakery is planning on making pita bread. I have a fully automatic machine that will create the bread.
I plan to product fresh bread everyday and when needed. My main fears are mold, bad texture, and taste.
My questions are:
1- Would it mold after the first (1st) day If i don't put any preservatives?
2- I really don't want to add to the cost, should I think of adding Bread Improvers, would it even help the taste?
3- Are Bread improvers that important?
Here are the ingredient:
Brown Sugar for browning
Baking soda to help neutralize the acidity that comes from the molasses in the brown sugar.
Salt
Water
Yeast
Thanks!
If you are going to start a bakery - Have you made a few small, home-oven scale batches of the recipes you are going to sell? If not, I strongly recommend you do so, just to get a feeling for your product (e.g. how the dough should look and feel) before using large batches in the machines.
The bread improvers that I have seen simply encourage gluten development to improve bread texture. They are often called for for use in bread machines because those machines are not as effective at kneading. Many bread improvers are as simple as extra vitamin C.
Without knowing the details of the machine you are planning to use it is difficult to say whether a bread improver would help. I would try without it. If the bread is too crumbly then add some Vitamin C.
Bread improvers do not change the flavor of the bread so much as the texture. I don't think the slight change in acidity would make much difference to the shelf life but I've not read anything about that.
Whether bread will mold in one day depends greatly on how the bread is stored and what you climate is. If it is very humid and the bread is stored uncovered then it could possibly mold after one day. If the climate is too dry then the bread could be quite stale after a day.
There is a reason that preservative-free bread is usually sold the same day it is baked.
Note although not part of your question, brown sugar (and the soda to neutralize the brown sugar) are not at all required for bread to brown. A quick search for pita recipes shows either no sugar or just enough to activate the yeast in the recipe.
Here are the ratios from a bakery in Lebanon: Flour 100kg,
Water 55 liters,
Salt 400 grams,
Sugar 2.5 kg,
Yeast 1kg.
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105063 | What forms the pocket in Arabic/Pita bread?
I have always been curious of why a pocket is formed in the Arabic/Pita bread, what causes it & why does it NOT happen frequently, for example, in flatbread with yeast, it doesn't split and form a full pocket.
What's the science behind it?
Thanks!
The crucial ingredient is water - which turns into steam in a very hot oven.
Let me explain based on a standard pita bread process. A comparatively simple dough (flour, water, salt, yeast) is kneaded, shaped into balls and left to rise. Before baking, the balls are rolled out in thin circles or ovals and baked on a hot surface, either a baking stone in an oven or even near an open fire.
The pocket is physics: the high heat causes the outside of the dough to become firm almost immediately, while the water in the dough turns into steam. The steam needs a lot more room than water, but the vapor is contained by the outer surface. The only way the expansion can happen is by swelling up like a balloon - and the upper and lower dough portions are separated, forming the pocket. Of course the pita isn’t fully airtight, so it will deflate again after baking as it cools, but the pocket remains.
For other flatbreads or flattish breads, baking temperature is significantly lower, so that the bread gets an overall texture of holes. An example is focaccia, where a good baker will be super careful to preserve the larger bubbles created by the yeast in a comparatively soft dough. Large bubbles in pita are purposely destroyed by rolling them out immediately before baking. If you look really closely, you will probably see that some pitas have more than one major cavity, often ripped up at a later stage. And of course there are lots of ways how a baker can influence the texture (large holes, uniform small holes, one pocket) by the raising, shaping and baking techniques they choose.
Great answer! So If I want to make Tanoor Bread AKA Flatbread, as of now I am trying to make Tanoor Bread AKA Flatbread, what should I do to reduce the full air pocket? Would reducing the yeast and oven temp be a good idea?
I suggest you check out the Wikipedia entries for flatbread and tandoor bread. Both terms cover a lot of related, yet quite different things. You may even use the insights to improve your other question. This is an international site with users from literally all over the world. It helps if you define your target as precisely as possible. Thickness, size and baking equipment are a start.
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105162 | What type of baker percentage should one use for brown sugar when compared to white sugar?
I was told not to substitute by Brown sugar by weight since it weighs more.
How would I go about substitute then? I saw a few questions addressing this issue, but it does not say the Baker's Percentage and doesn't say how I would go about doing it when compared to white sugar.
Can someone explain?
Thanks!
It really depends on what you are baking. What is the recipe for what you are trying to make?
@GdD Here are the ratios used : Flour 100kg, Water 55 liters, Salt 400 grams, Sugar 2.5 kg, Yeast 1kg.
What is this recipe for? Bread? Why substitute the sugar?
When you have the substitution ratio, the percentage follows suit? I get the part about substituting one sugar for the other (although I am not sure whether the sugar is crucial at all), but not the part about the baker’s percentage?
First, be aware that substituting brown for white sugar will result in a different product. Brown sugar has molasses flavors, and absorbs water differently from white sugar, so both the taste and texture of the final baked goods will be different and no amount of adjusting quantities will change this.
With that in mind, 1 cup of packed brown sugar, weighing 220g, is equivalent to 1 cup of sifted white sugar, weighing 200g, according to the book Kitchen Companion. So in your example recipe, you would swap the 2.5kg white sugar for 2.75kg brown sugar.
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105076 | Precooked lasagna with fresh pasta
Can I assemble lasagna the day before I cook it. This is with fresh pasta. I’m worried the pasta will be soggy
Is there any particular reason you can't cook it the day before? 2nd day lasagne I feel would be far preferable. Also see https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/81009/can-fresh-pasta-sheets-be-used-to-assemble-a-lasagne-then-left-in-the-fridge-ov?rq=1
Conventional wisdom say to bake it now and reheat the day after; some people will say it tastes better.
Rather than fresh pasta you can use no boil dry lasagna sheets, these work well wen pre-assembling the day before.
@GdD - that's a bit like saying "rather than fresh strawberries you can use jam" - the results are just too far different to be adequate substitutes for each other.
I'm not sure I'd agree the differences are quite that marked, but that's just my opinion. When you want to pre-assemble lasagna there are trade-offs @Tetsujin, hence why I put this as a comment, not an answer.
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105193 | Freezed Expired Bread
So I'm an expatriate at a totally new place, and all bread sold in here got 2~4 days expiry and I usually don't finish it in that short period of time, I always store all kinds of breads and pastry/bakery in the freezer, and get them out before using by few hours, then get the rest back to the freezer.
So I was wondering is it safe to eat an expired bread? The color and smell of the bread never changed at all.
If it might make any difference, the type of bread I'm referring to is pita bread.
If I put a sticker on my breads to "make them expire the next day", i will be pretty sure nobody is somehow getting sick eating my bread. And paranoid people buy new breads every day, throwing the still good but unfinished breads in the bin.
@Tetsujin Yea I read the mentioned answer thank you. I was just asking specifically for the expiration date thing as I was worried about it, and I'm still not sure of an answer to my question. So to answer yours, not yet.
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105214 | Hot liquids in Ninja blenders
Are there health reasons for not using hot liquids in Ninja blenders, such as leeching of chemicals from the plastics?
Sorry, health is off topic on our site.
I suggest you avoid putting hot liquids in any of the Ninja blenders that do not allow air to leave the blending vessel. Models like Nutra Ninja Pro, for example. When you blend a hot liquid in a closed system, it creates a lot of pressure and you can easily make a mess or injure yourself with flying hot liquids.
We are not health experts, so I cannot comment on leeching chemicals beyond pointing you to fact that Ninja claims their products are BPA free. For details beyond that, I suggest contacting the manufacturer and asking for their recommendations in regards to hot liquids.
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120184 | My mango and lime achar is fermenting in the mustard oil
I made several bottles of lime and mango achar using this recipe https://cookpad.com/uk/recipes/8400937-mango-and-lime-pickle
I put it all in glass bottles and they are completely covered in mustard oil. They are now producing gas suggesting they are fermenting. They have been in the bottles for about 4 weeks now, out of the fridge.
Is this normal and how do I know it will be safe to eat?
Also, the limes were still quite tough, I tried one after about a week.
Hi John, achar bottles are usually kept in the fridge, since we would like them to last for longer. Only a little bit is taken out every time, for consumption within a few weeks, say. Apart from fermentation, you might run into the risk of fungal growth if you do not store the achar properly.
This is perfectly normal - for a rotting dish, that is. I’m sorry, but this preparation is by no means safe after four weeks at room temperature.
The recipe states:
This pickle is ready. Serve immediately or after few days.
And I would tend to interpret that as “after a few days in the fridge”. So while some pickles are supposed to age for a while before serving and some are safe at room temperature for months, this one isn’t. The difference is that in your recipe there is no step that would kill possible pathogens and seal the contents of the jars airtight (e.g. canning) or other means of reliability restricting bacteria and fungal growth (e.g. a very acidic environment). Frying the components is not the same as sterilization or pasteurization, covering with oil protects somewhat from oxygen, but anaerobic bacteria has a field day in the veggies and fruit beneath the oil.
Please be safe and do not consume this dish, discard it instead.
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107222 | stove burner size vs efficiency
I'm curious if there's a best choice for what burner to use (mostly for electric bill, but I'd be curious about any other unforeseen consequences), given that I have 2 options of burner sizes, and my pot of water is big enough for either one.
Of course if the pot is smaller than the burner, any "excess" burner size (any of the heating element touching air instead of the pot) results in waste (I would guess very close to 100%). But when the pot is large enough that the hearing element will reach out in both cases, that shouldn't be an issue.
This question and its answers note that the wattage of a small burner is lower, and it produces less heat. So to get a pot of water boiling (in a similar amount of time), I would set the smaller burner to a higher setting. Does that end up using the same amount of electricity?
I would cook on the largest burner available that is not too big for the pan or pot. The smaller the burner is the longer it will take to bring to temp and the more wasted energy you'll have from radiation from the pot and evaporation. I would also set the burner to its highest setting to bring to boil and then turn it down unless you are maintaining a boil in your recipe.
For a stove top burner there will be some heat loss to the stove and much more to the air. So I doubt that there is a definitive answer to this question. It no doubt depends on the stove and the cookware. The most efficient use of electricity would be a tea pot with an immersion coil.
A study determined roughly 80% efficiency when the burner was entirely covered but 40% efficiency when the burner was only partially covered. (See table 2, on page 4 of pdf)
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110268 | In terms of temperature, how can you tell if food is thawed?
I am planning to place a meal (salmon + rice) in the refrigerator to thaw it.
I will use a thermometer to check if the food is thawed. What is the temperature range for when the meal has been successfully thawed?
@moscafj lol. I what is the ideal temperature for thawed food - is it between 0C - 4C?
Ideal for what? There is no ideal. It is either thawed or frozen. You can store it between 0C and 4C (plenty of info on this site for how long)...cook or reheat. I'm really not sure what you need beyond that.
The thawed food will no longer be frozen (-> >= 0°C) and just have the same temperature as your refrigerator.
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110345 | How long can halloumi be stored in refrigerator?
I am planning to store a cooked meal of halloumi + couscous in the refrigerator.
How long can it be stored safely?
All cooked meals fall into the same “cooked dishes“ category in our generic Q/A, which was written to give general advice for all kinds of food combinations.
Halloumi by itself can last a long time in the fridge.
The problem is the couscous which should last at most 1 or 2 days (or less) in the fridge depending on other ingredients in the preparation..
But once it’s in a meal, even the halloumi won’t keep longer - it’s out of the protecting salty brine.
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110220 | My freezer is filled with ice - is it safe to to use it as is?
I have just discovered that my freezer has a significant amount of ice coating.
Is it safe to put meals in there for storage?
If so, what would be the recommended way for defrosting those meals?
Is your freezer supposed to be "frost free" or is it one of the older models? The old ones can build up quite a bit of frost before safety requires you to defrost them. If yours is "frost free", then it's busted and should be fixed.
In regards of food safety the ice layer should not do any harm. But be aware that the ice layer is working as an insulater and thus increases the amount of electricity consumed by the freezer. So it´s advisable to remove it from time to time for this reason alone. For details see: here and here.
If you have a newer freezer that is "frost free" as Wayfaring Stranger mentioned you should get your freezer repaired or replaced. From personal experience this can happen over time even with a frost free freezer, the important part is that it's the right temperature.
As far as safety, the FDA states pretty clearly that freezers must be at or below 0F. You can get a thermometer pretty cheaply to test this out. I would do this immediately and before storing any food in your freezer.
As far as methods to defrost food, there are plenty of other posts on that on this site.
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110245 | How can you tell if if a meal is thawed?
I am planning to place a meal (salmon + rice) in a refrigerator after having frozen it.
How can I tell when it's thawed?
Aside from simply feeling the package, a thermometer would be the most accurate way to tell.
thanks for the response - what temperature range should I be looking for?
32F (0C) is the freezing point of water. Most refrigerators are below 40F (4C), but above 32F (0C).
so a properly thawed meal should be between 0C - 4C?
0C will be frozen. Above 4C puts you in the danger zone.
so a properly thawed meal should be between 0C - 4C?
@nz_21 see above
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105620 | Why does oil puddle in some non-stick frying pans but not in others?
I have an old teflon frying pan with a non-stick coating (I think all teflon pans are non-stick, but let's not be picky :) ).
If I pour some oil on it, it doesn't spread out and cover the pan, it collects in small puddles.
I know this is expected because of the nature of the non-stick coating, but what I'm wondering is:
I bought a new teflon non-stick frying pan and when pouring oil on it, again, it doesn't spread and cover it but instead of forming in puddles it only leaves drips/drops on the surface.
Is this because my newer pan has a higher quality non-stick cover or is it some other property that dictates HOW MUCH oil won't puddle/spread on it?
All Teflon pans are non-stick, but not all non-stick pans are Teflon ;-)
Teflon, when new, is one of the slippiest substances known to man. Nothing will adhere to it, not even oil. When new, you can have a hard time getting an even coating of oil unless you make it deep enough to fill a base layer. The oil will be more attracted to itself than to the pan.
Once you've been frying in Teflon for a few months, the surface gradually does begin to get coated in carbon, from burnt ingredients &/or oil. I don't know quite what causes this - potentially the surface getting slightly damaged or roughened by abrasion; but an older Teflon pan will more easily coat in an even layer of oil.
If it pools in patches, then the best reason I can think is that some areas are more abraded than others, or the pan base may be going out of true. Most cheap frying pans will eventually bow one way or the other over time - some forming a 'moat' round the edges as the base has bowed inwards, others a 'pond' in the middle, as it bowed outwards.
A 'quick fix' for cheap pans affected in this manner is to put it [cold & clean] on a carpeted floor & gently stand in it. It's a bit rough & ready but it's not worth fixing professionally.
From comments - The Frying Pan Ballet Company…
[credit David Hoffman + 10 mins in Photoshop by yours truly]
I now have visions of lots of users balancing in their frying pans in the middle of their living room.
@Stephie - We could set up a dance troupe - the Frying Pan Ballet Company ;)
Just for the information of anyone visiting this question/answer in the future - upon further inspection it was, indeed, discovered my older pan is a bit dented in the center, thus the oil forms puddles. :) Also, thank you, @Tetsujin for the awesome answer!
@Stephie - there you go ;)
@stephie I asked dall-e to do a painting : https://labs.openai.com/s/P9lXjXZfpku3NquLsH2jHfiF
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105631 | What can pasta absorb from the water it's cooked in?
I know you're supposed to put salt in the water when you're cooking pasta, both to aid in anti-starch gelation and to add flavour.
This got me thinking - what ELSE can pasta absorb from the water it is boiled in? I suppose it couldn't be anything, probably depends on the surface of the pasta, its cells, etc.
To test I put a LOT of nutmeg in a bowl of water, boiled it and dropped some couscous in it.
The couscous didn't taste like nutmeg at all. I guess it could be because the nutmeg does not dissolve in water but still - does pasta absorb everything that is dissolved in the water it is cooked in? Does that mean we can create super-pasta if we boil it in sauce or something?
(kind of a serious and curious question ),If you bake a lasagna and after baking it you remove the pasta sheet and quickly rinse them under water , do they retain flavor ?
See my answer; I'd expect nutmeg to work. How long did the couscous cook, and did you add nutmeg to the water first?
@FuzzyChef, yup added nutmeg to the water, left it on the stove until it started boiling - added the couscous. Don't remember for how long it cooked but when I took it out it was nicely chewy.
Odd. That's exactly what I do with the cinnamon sticks, and nutmeg is really strong. I don't know why it wouldn't work.
BTW, link for "anti-starch gelation"? That's not one I'd heard before.
@FuzzyChef, I got it from this answer: https://cooking.stackexchange.com/a/2579/81417 no idea how accurate it is, haven't checked.
Interesting. There were fairly comprehensive tests at Cooks Illustrated that refuted the idea that adding salt made for any texture changes. I can't say I trust that answer, which makes a lot of bald statements of fact with zero links.
food coloring. don't ask me how i know...
It'll absorb flavors until it's cooked.Especially if you add some salt. I believe it's somewhat similar to brining a roast. The salt carries in other flavors with it.
It can absorb spices.
I have a Sicilian couscous recipe which involves boiling large couscous in water with a couple of cinnamon sticks. The couscous tastes mildly of cinnamon when it's done, which is part of the balanced spicing of the recipe. The large couscous in this case is boiled for 7 minutes, and you put the cinnamon sticks in while the water is still cold.
Not spices, you won't see chunks of basil mid-noodle. Specifically: It absorbs water-soluble compounds in spices (aromatics, esters, etc), but won't absorb oil-based (eg clove) flavors.
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105604 | Why do you add couscous to boiling water?
All recipes for couscous I've seen instruct to add the couscous to already boiling water.
Why is that so? What difference does it make if it will be added to boiling water or cold water on the stove?
the water doesn't even need to be boiling; i used to make it in the morning undergrad in my coffeemaker after my coffee, would be done after about 25mins...
You don't really 'cook' cous-cous, it's already cooked - you just need to rehydrate it sufficiently, without getting it too wet & going sloppy.
Starting with boiling water give you a better time-reference - 5/10/15 minutes from that known start-point, depending on the specific cous-cous type. You switch off the heat as soon as you add [or in many cases just pour water onto it fresh from the kettle then let stand.]
Starting from cold would introduce an unknown variable - how long does it take to boil?
Does the same go for other pasta like spaghetti?
No. cous-cous is pre-cooked; rice, pasta, bulgur etc are raw, which is why they get a period of simmering, rather than just adding boiling water & being allowed to soak.
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105789 | Why to store olive oil in opaque bottles?
Nowadays it is common to store olive oil in opaque (dark green/brown) bottles to preserve its condition.
Does the olive oil get bad if I would use clear glass bottles instead?
Does the light "damage" the oil in general, or would this only appear in case of strong sunlight exposure directly towards the bottles (but not in case of placing within shaded areas)?
I don't know what do you mean with nowadays, I've always seen dark or opaque bottles for olive oil.
With a lot of commercial oils, the industry distinguishes auto-oxidation from photo-oxidation (also called photosensitised oxidation), where the former is in the absence of the light, and the latter with light:
[W]hen olive oils are exposed to light, photo-oxidation occurs through the action of natural photosensitizers (i.e. chlorophyll), which react with triplet oxygen to form the excited state singlet oxygen. Thus, protection from direct light is required for commercial edible oils.
Note how the mechanisms are slightly different, even though both involve the C=C bond of monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids. The issue with photo-oxidation is that it is through the action of chlorophyll and other chemical pigments that absorb wavelengths of light.
Hence the reason that extra virgin olive oil requires darkened glass is more to do with the cause of its colour, i.e. the fact that it has a relatively large amount of chlorophyll. As the 2006 study states:
Light is much more important than temperature in 1O2 oxidation. Light of shorter wavelengths had more detrimental effects on the oils than longer wavelengths.
...and interestingly about the role of chlorophyll:
Although chlorophylls are strong prooxidants under light via acting as a sensitizer to produce 1O2, they act as antioxidants in
the dark possibly by donating hydrogen to free radicals.
The concentration of the antioxidant tocopherol on the other hand (well known in its role as Vitamin E), known for slowing oxidation, varies greatly across different olive oils:
Tocopherol content of virgin olive oils (VOOs) varies from 97 to 785 mg/kg. Despite differences in the concentration of total tocopherols that can be attributed to agronomical, geographical, and technological factors, α-tocopherol is the dominant homologue in virgin olive oils making more than 90% of total tocopherols.
Also note that these oxidised products, the hydroxyperoxides, generally aren't detectable on their own - it is their breakdown products that are directly detected by our nose as "rancid".
"Nowadays" means - "since the moment we learned to make clear glass and noticed how bad it is to store oil in it."
Light damages oil in general. Among the many reactions it speeds up or makes possible, the most noticeable is the oil going rancid. My ex mother-in-law thought she'd gotten a great deal on bottles of olive oil in Italy. It took two days of transportation in transparent glass and one day of storage on a shelf for it to go rancid (due to oxidation).
When we're talking about direct sunlight, what is meant is (mainly) "temperature rise." You start to give so much energy in a short period of time that you might start chemical reactions within the product (think "over low heat").
Just "light" (even a shaded area, which is why we usually say "store in a dark place") gives oil a dose of UV light. Saturated fats take that pretty well. Unsaturated, not as well.
Not all olive oil comes in dark bottles. Google Images shows about a 50/50 split, with mainly the extra virgins being most likely to be in dark glass. For Italian, Bertolli is a good example, only their extra virgin is in green, the rest is in clear.
@Tetsujin saturated and unsaturated fats. Also you don't cold press oil to be then boiled in transparet (plastic usually) bottle.
You're going to have to explain to me how the %age of mono-, poly-unsaturated & saturated fats changes in non-virgin olive oil & how this will affect the need for dark glass. Looking it up gives me reams of opinions on 'health' sites & no actual data.
@Tetsujin https://meridian.allenpress.com/jfp/article/53/5/430/165797/Light-Effects-on-Food Page 434
yeah… but no. I'm not reading all that lot to figure out why at least half the olive oil on the shelf in my local supermarket is in clear bottles.
@Tetsujin because it low in unsaturated fats (due to hot pressing) and is probably refined. So light won't do a lot of harm because there is not a lot to thing that would react with light. Extra virgin or virgin means it was cold pressed. Or it could be olive oil made from mixing few type, for exmaple from third or fourth pressing.
I'm still not getting why. According to google, virgin olive oil is 14g sat, 11 poly-unsat, 73 mono-unsat. The clear bottle of non-virgin I have in front of me says 13g sat, 7.5 poly, 67 mono [it's got weight in g but values per 100ml just to be awkward]. That doesn't swing with what you seem to be telling me.
@Tetsujin I think it's not so much the percentage of different fat types as that certain specific compounds, that are prone to degradation, are more present in the unrefined oils
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105857 | Stock Pot vs. Dutch Oven / Sauce Pot
I currently have this on order and plan on using it for stocks, broths, and boiling grains/vegetables.
My question is: what are the advantages of a dutch oven / sauce pot over this when it comes to most other types of cooking? Rather than the advantages of cast-iron vs. stainless steel I'm more interested in the general question of why a stock pot isn't ideal for braising, sauteing, or stew/chili, especially when the one I ordered has a clad bottom and is oven-safe. Does it just come down to the tall, narrow shape and clunky size?
If it really does make sense to also have a dutch oven / sauce pot on hand, would I be wiser to start with stainless steel or enameled cast iron?
According to Wikipedia "A Dutch oven is a thick-walled cooking pot with a tight-fitting lid." So depending on how you define thick and tight-fitting lid, what you have may already be a Dutch oven in everything but name.
The answer is that both can be used just fine for the same purposes, however stock pots tend to have much thinner walls than the bottom and thinner than those found on Dutch ovens. The thinner walls mean that they retain less heat and so are less efficient at cooking on the stove top (e.g. soups), and more likely to burn or stick around the walls if placed in the oven - because of the faster heat transfer on these thin surfaces.
Stainless steel is more prone to sticking for some items too (e.g. eggs, meats), and is relatively difficult to season (it's generally not done to stainless), whereas cast-iron can be seasoned very easily, it's more or less mandatory for this material and essentially makes it more or less non-stick.
Enameled/ceramic-coated cast-iron pots such as the Le-Creuset ones are generally non-stick from the shop and have the same benefits as cast-iron.
Having said that I use an oven-safe stock pot for making things like pasta-bake, where it is in the oven for relatively short periods of time (~40 min - 1h), and don't generally have any problems.
If you want to do stocks I would get the stainless steel one, biggest that'll work on your stove/have room for? If you want to do soups/stews roasting frying bread casseroles ...get the dutch oven ... you can do "stocks, broths, and boiling grains/vegetables" in either.
This article by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt (from Serious Eats and author of The Food Lab) may be helpful:
I am fortunate to have a Le Creuset Dutch oven that I received as a gift from my wife. In my opinion, it beats anything else out there. I seem to recall reading (America's Test Kitchen?) that the Tramontina brand ranked second to Le Creuset and is considerably less expensive, but have not personally compared them.
Though costly, I use it for a lot of different things (i.e., pot roast; chili; braised short-ribs; etc.) and have no complaints.
Welcome to the site. Please summarize the information in the link as they tend to go stale after a while, so having a more permanent record of that information here is useful to us.
I dislike the article linked because it's very biased against slowcookers. It complains about the dishes being watery and lacking maillard browning. While the general advice for slowcooking is: brown your meat and everything else before you put it in the slowcooker and be very conservative in liquid, use half, if not less liquid you would use in a traditional recipe.
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105949 | Markings/smudges/wear on steel springform pans
Hi folks. Can someone tell me what the markings are on this steel springform pan? I tried cleaning it with Bar Keeper's Friend already. Also interested to know if they are still okay to use if they cannot be removed.
Looks like normal markings on well used baking tins. It's fat that polymerised from heat (same procedure as for seasoning cast iron, just unintentionally). It's perfectly safe to use the pan like that. It can theoretically be removed with outrageous amounts of elbow grease and heavy duty cleaning chemicals, but it's not worth the effort in my opinion.
I would suggest boiling this in a larger pot with baking soda. This will often lift these right off or require very minimal scrubbing. You can try four tablespoons baking soda to 1/2 cup water* for difficult stains (or as little as 2 tbsp baking soda to one quart for non-stick such as enameled cast iron). If the stains don't come out on their own, let the pan cool, then rinse and scrub with a paste of baking soda and water. You can also try vinegar and baking soda, but you may find simply boiling with a baking soda solution is all you need. Please post your results.
*Depending on the pan and the situation, less baking soda works. I have used this trick with great success in my french oven (aka enameled dutch oven) with much less baking soda.
Can you confirm that 4 tbsp baking soda to 1/2 cup water is the correct proportion to boil it in? This seems like it would be very thick.
Marc — sorry if my answer wasn't clear. You'll have to experiment with how much is needed for your material and staining/burnt-on food. You could start with less and see how it goes and then try again with more and/or scrub with a baking soda paste. You can also leave overnight in non-rust metal after boiling. I have had great success using this method.
I boiled them in some baking soda, let cool, and scrubbed in a baking soda paste and it seems to have helped a bit with some hidden rust and bits of junk that floated in the water but the black markings are still pretty bad. Thanks for trying! I'm going to ignore them.
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105979 | Can I freeze stew made from leftover roast beef?
I bought a large joint of beef which I roasted on Sunday. On Monday I made a stew from leftovers.
From a food hygiene/bacterial growth perspective am I ok to reheat the stew after freezing/refrigeration? I wouldn't do this with ordinary leftovers but I wonder if the boiling for 1.5Hrs kills any bacteria in the leftovers.
Thanks
You absolutely can.
I'm confused by the statement that you would not freeze or reheat ordinary leftovers. Why not? Also, boiling is irrelevant. This important factor is time that your food has spent in the "danger zone"of 4.5 - 60 C (40 - 140 F).
Yes, you can freeze and reheat the stew. Just keep in mind the total amount of time the meat is between 40°-140°F. If you make the stew and serve some and immediately chill and then freeze the leftovers then you should be fine. If you leave the stew out for several hours before freezing then it may be a little iffy.
Also, you don't want to be putting warm items into your fridge and freezer, so a good course of action is to chill in an ice bath (in the sink or beer cooler works well) and then put into the fridge or freezer. Otherwise you're warming the temperature of your fridge/freezer and causing everything else stored in there to spoil prematurely. Obviously don't put the meat directly into ice water, but put it into, say a glass storage container or if it's cool enough (below 190°F) a freezer zip-lock bag is great.
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107120 | Cornmeal won’t set up
I feel this is violating at least one law of physics. I’ve tried twice now to make polenta recently. All my life it’s worked as expected. But these last two times the cornmeal starts to setup within a few minutes of stirring, then progressively begins to reverse course until it’s just water and some grit at the bottom.
The cornmeal was bought about a month ago.
Does anyone have an explanation for what can cause this?
Hi! Welcome to Seasoned Advice! Posting your recipe (ingredients + method) would be helpful for anyone who is trying to answer
It sounds like maybe you have introduced an enzyme (such as alpha amylase) into your polenta. What is in your recipe? You might try cooking your polenta at a boil for at least 30 seconds.
3.5 cups of water, 1.5 cups cornmeal, 1tsp salt, .5tsp cinnamon. Bring salted water to a boil then stir in cornmeal for about a minute. It thickens somewhat. Reduce heat and keep stirring, but that’s when it starts to loosen and turn watery.
Corn naturally contains some amylase. There are also varieties of corn that have been engineered for commercial use, such as Enogen which have high amounts of alpha amylase. Try cooking your polenta to a full boil for 30 seconds as I suggested and see if that helps. I'd be curious to know your results.
xl600: please update your original question with the cooking information
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109914 | How do I make Chicken 65 crunchy?
My older sister keeps telling me that the Chicken 65 she had at a restaurant had this crunchy taste and since I've made this recipe twice now: I've been unable to get that crunch. I believed that it was an issue with the flour I was using, but that doesn't seem to be the case? My first Chicken 65 recipe consisted of just using Corn Starch--at the time there was no Corn Flour available: the chicken after being deep-fried came out soft but not crunchy. On the second try, this time with Corn Flour mixed with Rice Flour and a tablespoon of Corn Starch: there still remains to be no crunch, only a soft coating. What ingredient am I missing to get that crunch?
Is your oil at proper frying temperature ? are you putting too many pieces in the oil at the same time ?
@Max I don't measure the frying temperature; I sprinkle some flour onto the oil to check if it's hot enough? I try not to overcrowd the pan: I leave space for each piece of meat.
What is chicken 65?
@GdD : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_65
Hi! What is known as corn flour around the world (yellow-coloured) is not called corn flour in India. Rather, cornstarch in India is referred to as corn flour. Also, the recipe usually calls for maida, i.e. refined wheat flour along with rice flour and cornflour (white-coloured stuff). Have you tried this variation?
So, 2 things: First use rice flour instead of corn starch. Corn starch is mostly used in Indo-Chinese recipes. In Indian recipes like chili chicken, always fry chicken 65 in super hot oil. I am not sure if you make it with sauce or dry but if you are making it with sauce make sure you add chicken at very end.
For your reference you can see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZtqRaHYsf8. The video is mostly in Hindi but you will get the steps precisely
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107311 | Why are my homemade Manicotti Shells doughy?
I handmade fresh pasta sheets for my manicotti recipe.
Without cooking the pasta sheets in boiling water I stuffed the sheets (shells) with the cheese filling, topped with tomato sauce and cooked for about 60 minutes.
The pasta was doughy and soft, almost undercooked.
Do you advise cooking the fresh pasta sheets first? Why was it undercooked?
I always cook the noodles first. I'd expect that will solve your problem. Are you specifically looking for a no-boil solution?
I would guess that they were too thick. They need to be so thin they're almost translucent, especially if you roll them with overlap. Fresh pasta feels doughy easily if it's too thick.
This makes sense. I stopped rolling with my stand mixer at Setting 5. I’ll make it thinner next time. Thanks
Thickness might be an issue, but I would also suggest blanching the sheets before filling/rolling. A minute or two is all you need.
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107396 | Why sugar butter cocopowder mixture got hard in double boiler
i was making a fudge brownie without chocolate. The recipe asked to put 1 1/2 cup sugar,3/4+2 tbsp cocopowder and 10tbsps of butter into double boiler and get everthing to be shiny. But when i did the same my mixture ended up as hard sugar rocks and separated butter. Still i managed to stop the disaster by adding little by little water on my own and succeeded. But my fudge brownie ended up to smell like coconut oil. It's not the first time. Once i was making a chocolate frosting and had to do the same,adding sugar butter and coco powder in double boiler until all sugar is melted. But the sugar was not melting as shown in the recipe and it was hard like rock. Please help me a way out.
Can you please add the whole recipe?
You might find this helpful
When I hear the method, I don't see a way it could work as described.
Suger will neither dissolve in the melted butter, nor will it melt at low temperatures - and the water bath keeps them from getting high enough. I don't see what the double boiler is supposed to do, maybe prevent the butter from browning. But when using this procedure, there is no reason for the sugar to do anything but stay hard. Even if you were to use powdered sugar, it will give a grainy texture to the mixture.
I was going to tell you to just ditch the recipe for being impossible to work, but on a second thought, I started wondering why you want the sugar to melt in the first place. Upon looking around for brownie recipes with cocoa powder, they do start with melted butter, sometimes even mentioning a double boiler, but none of them had directions to wait until the sugar is melted. Others just skipped the double boiler step and directed to mix the sugar and cocoa powder with the already-melted butter. So your recipe is only bad in the sense of telling you for waiting for the sugar to melt. If you prefer to keep using it, simply wait until the butter in the mixture is melted (with a double boiler or without, as you wish - just don't brown the butter) and keep going with the sugar as hard as-is.
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107418 | Kansui powder to Kansui liquid (Koon Chun) conversion?
I was curious if you could help me figure out the proper conversion from Kansui powder to Kansui liquid (Koon Chun bottle). Interestingly enough, I have a bottle of the liquid but almost any and all recipes anywhere on line are built under the consideration that one cannot find the liquid. For instance, Ivan Ramen book recipe is 10g of Kansui powder.. what would that equate to when using the bottled liquid in a recipe?
Google gave me this - which I don't feel in any way qualified to elucidate upon…
From Omnivore's Cookbook - Kansui (lye water, alkaline solution, 枧水)
Homemade kansui
Making baked baking soda is easy.
Preheat oven to 250 degrees F (120 C). Line a baking tray with aluminium foil.
Spread baking soda on the foil and bake for 1 hour. The baking soda will lose about one third of its weight and you’ll gain a stronger
alkali. Do not touch it with your bare hands. It will cause irritation
to sensitive skin.
Transfer baked baking soda to an airtight jar to prevent it from absorbing moisture from the air.
To make an alkaline solution for mooncakes, add 1 teaspoon baked baking soda to 4 teaspoons water; stir to mix well.
I'd guess that would give you the made up strength.
I don't think the OP wants to make kansui, rather he wants to use liquid in place of powdered. So, there are two issues: the strength of the solution and how to account for the extra liquid in his noodle recipe.
The two issues are: (a) what is the relationship between the strength of powdered kansui and it's strength when it is in solution, and (b) how to account for the extra liquid in your recipe. I have been unable to find specific information on the strength relationship. However, I found this recipe for ramen noodles where the author experimented with different amounts of liquid kansui. He ultimately landed on 1 tsp liquid kansui for 2 cups of flour and 1/2 cup water. You might take your recipe and extrapolate from there, using this as a starting point.
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107501 | Is seeding peppers a must when making hot sauce
I'm trying my hand at a homemade hot sauce using some habaneros and every recipe I've seen calls for unseeding them. I'm not particularly worried about making the sauce too hot, so I'm wondering if I can keep the seeds and whether that would change the texture of the sauce any. Curious if folks have any thoughts there?
I've always used a Victotorio strainer to remove pepper and tomato seeds. From ads, it looks like those have gone upscale. There is probably a cheaper brand to be found. I would not deseed habaneros by hand, but seeds make your hot sauce bitter.
Does this answer your question? Hot sauce; Remove seeds?
The seeds of all peppers are bitter, you won't notice this when you are using a single pepper in a large dish of food, but if you make hot sauce without removing the seeds you will have a noticeable, and possibly unpleasant bitterness. Grinding the seeds will add more off flavors, so it is worth the effort to get rid of them.
FTR, when you write “all peppers” you mean “all capsicum”. The seeds of pepper (piper) are a different story, and so are pink peppercorns or Szechuan pepper (which are, like capsicum/chilies, not actually peppers despite their English name).
As black pepper was known in England before the capsicum peppers, it would be better to say that the capsicum peppers are not really pepper despite their English name.
On the other hand, I've bought dozens of hot sauces with seeds in them and never noticed anything weird about the sauce. I would suggest trying to mash the seeds separately from the flesh of the peppers and tasting them to see if they are worth adding to the sauce or not.
FWIW in my culture (Malaysian) we never remove seeds from chili peppers (any kind) when making sauces. I've never considered them bitter. But YMMV - I grew up eating it so someone who haven't grown up with it may get the "bitterness" (I put it in quotes because I still don't quite believe it). The same is true for most Thai cooking I've had - they never remove seeds either
@Willeke The story is that Europeans tried to go to India to buy pepper and ended up in the Americas. They realized that there was a similarly 'hot' spice (now know as chilly-peppers) and called it Pepper. The word has origins in Sanskrit.
The only thing I've noticed about sauces with ground seeds in them is that they tend to settle out; so if you don't shake the bottle before use you'll end up with a layer of sediment at the bottom when the liquid is used up.
I get the bitterness bit. Sometimes I've noticed it, sometimes not, so maybe some are worse than others. What I was interested in was the texture; I've often noticed a slightly gritty texture after blending with the seeds intact, but it doesn't always bother me when I open a jar a month down the line. Not sure if the seed bits soften, or if I get used to them, so I'd love to know what others' experience is.
First, the most capsaicin (heat) is in the pith of the peppers. You'll find it to a lesser extent in the seeds. Keeping the seeds will definitely change the texture of the sauce, but if you like that texture then by all means, use them. You can also purée the sauce to make it smoother. I would start with the flesh of the pepper and then use the pith to alter the spiciness to your taste.
I leave seeds in while either cooking my peppers or fermenting them.
Once I'm ready to process it into sauce, I run the peppers thru a masticating juicer. I end up with the most amount of pulp in the sauce that way. And zero seeds.
I always figure if you want the hot sauce hotter leave the seeds in, if you want just hot sauce and not killer hot sauce take them out. I would take them out with habanero peppers. I like the flavor of hot sauce with onion garlic and tomato. I don't think it should be painful......good luck.
Welcome to Cooking Stack Exchange. Sorry for having to give you a downvote on your first answer, but unfortunately what you state is incorrect. Pepper seeds themselves do not contain much hotness. That's a myth. And as you can read in the top answer, the seeds are mostly bitter, which is usually undesired in hot sauce. Most of the hotness is in the fibers which hold the seeds. The myth persists because most people remove the seeds by scraping them out together with the fibers and don't take care to leave the fibers in.
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119662 | Does blanching cause loss of mass/weight in the vegetable?
Let's say I am water-blanching 100g of green beans. After the blanching process will the resulting weight be less than 100g?
I aim to dehydrate the blanched 100 g of green beans. Will dehydrating 100g of blanched beans and 100g of unbalanced beans result in the same dried mass?
The weight is more likely to increase than decrease when blanching as some water or (condensed steam if you do it by steaming) will stay on the surface. With something like broccoli that has a lot of surface area that could be quite a lot. With beans less, unless you cut them up and immerse them so the water gets inside.
The dehydrated mass should be the same though. You're aiming to get the water content down to the same level. If you start the dehydrating process with extra water, it will take longer to reach the same point.
You may be concerned about the loss of things that dissolve in the blanching water, and thus losing weight that way. I really don't think you need to be. Most vegetables (including beans) are high in water to start with, and most of what's left is insoluble. This nutrition information table has fat+protein+carbs adding up to about 10%. Of that only the sugar (3.6% of the total weight) is soluble. But (i) blanching is brief and (ii) most of the sugar is trapped in the plant's cells so it won't dissolve out easily until cooked to mush.
I have tested steaming broccoli and green beans, and the result always weights slightly less than the raw ingredients. Heat will squeeze water out of the vegetables, and they won't absorb back the same volume from the steam.
Interesting @Luciano - I only steam for full cooking (e.g. beans with new potatoes cooking underneath) and never weigh afterwards. I only blanch by immersion, and when I've weighed I've seen an increase. I now wonder about immersion blanching, drying using a salad spinner, and weighing
I suppose blanching could increase the weight, since the vegetables are immersed in water there might be absorption through osmosis
@Luciano The last thing I blanched was probably runner beans, cut up (I either get a glut or the slugs kill the plants early). Then there's a lot empty space to fill with water, no need for osmosis
Since I am concerned about the mass/content of the vegetables other than water. So would it be safe to assume that blanching will change the water weight (probably increase if water blanching than steam blanching) but after the dehydration process, the mass/content of the vegetable will remain the same?
I am also concerned if blanching will cause breakage of fiber in veggies like spinach and mushroom. Is that so? Would it cause change in mass though?
@aztec242 the mass of the vegetable is mostly water. That's why it gets so much lighter when you dehydrate it. Losses other than water will be immeasurably small, so the final dehydrated weight should be the same to within what can be measured with the best kitchen scales. The affect of blanching on fibre content is a different question, but consider this: even if the fibre did break down, would it leave the veg? For that to happen (i) the breakdown would have to result in something soluble and (ii) the soluble product would have to get into the blanching water, from inside the veg
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122555 | Do spices grown in higher altitude above 1500m for e.g. ( Himalayan foothills ) have any special feature or higher potency?
Do spices and herbs sourced from the foothills of the Himalayas such as Black Cardamom, Ginger, Pepper, etc have higher potency or flavor profile?
Compared to hills, they would lack nutrition, but how does a lack of abundant nutrition and a tough climate result in the potency and flavor profile?
Would love to learn about your research findings as well as personal experiences.
Also note that buying your spices from a good importer rather than a supermarket will increase the potency considerably.
I would say the potency is less from mountain areas. The kasmiri chilli powder I use is a pleasantly mild chilli powder.
This is only a partial answer concerning pepper, but it is known that coffee plants grown in higher altitudes have lower caffeine content [1]. This is due to the lower abundance of insects, against which the coffee plants protects itself with caffeine (which is an insecticide).
It seems there are studies on the effect of piperine (the active ingredient in black pepper, piper nigrum) as insecticide as well [2]. Also, there is the well known effect of capsaicin in capsicum plants (chilis) that also serve as a deterrent against mammal consumption (but not against birds, which is the evolutionary intent, so to speak, as to spread the seeds further).
Together, I think it might be possible to conclude that pepper grown in higher altitudes/harsher climates might be milder actually, due to lower pressure on the plant to protect itself against consumption. If the flavour profile overall, on the other hand, is more potent or developed, is probably a subjective taste.
Also, consider the sought-after Kampot pepper is grown in an area very close to the sea in a humid climate, pretty much the opposite of an arid mountain climate.
[1]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0963996917307858#:~:text=Caffeine%20and%20CGA%20contents%20decreased,1%20100%20m%E2%88%92%201).
[2]: https://academic.oup.com/jee/article-abstract/70/1/18/2212311
In general, the benefit of "mountain grown" spices is not anything inherent to altitude, but rather that being grown in the Himalayas necessarily means that the plants are hand-cultivated rather than factory-farmed. This results in a higher-quality product because of the greater attention paid to each harvested spice.
Additionally, Black Cardamom in particular is native to the Himalayas and as such can be expected to grow better in that environment. The other spices you mention are native to the lowlands, though, and would not have this same benefit.
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128863 | How to calculate baker's percentages for indirect doughs?
I maintain a sourdough starter at 100% hydration (in other words, it contains equal masses of flour and water). Today I was documenting a recipe for pizza dough that includes some starter, and I wanted to include the baker's percentages. As I was doing so it occurred to me to wonder,
What constitutes the flour? In other words, what mass should I use as
the denominator when calculating all of my percentages? Should I use
only the total mass of all of the (dry) flours, or should I also
account for the flour contained in the starter?
As an example, if a recipe's ingredients called for 500 g of all-purpose flour and 100 g of starter, should I consider the total mass of flour to be 500 g or 500 g plus one half of 100 g, which is to say 550 g?
I checked several cookbooks, including the 2nd edition of Jeffrey Hamelman's Bread: A Baker's Book of Techniques and Recipes. Nowhere did I find this question addressed specifically, but I did observe a pretty consistent trend: the authors (including Hamelman) did not include the flour contained by the starter when calculating baker's percentages.
To be doubly sure, I phoned King Arthur Baking's ever-helpful Baker's Hotline. The answer their representative gave me is that one is free to take either approach. I pointed out that this freedom must easily lead to ambiguity when bakers are communicating, to which he replied that when that is a concern, he'd suggest explicitly stating which approach one was using. He also confirmed my recently formed sense that of the two approaches, perhaps the more typical is the one that Hamelman uses in Bread: ignore the starter's flour in your calculations.
Afterward I found a discussion of precisely my question within King Arthur's page about baker's percentages under its heading "Baker's Percent and Preferments." In their terminology, when one performs the "slightly more complicated" calculation (counting the starter's flour as part of the total four), the result is the "overall baker's percent."
The rule I follow is that it's calculated by the flour that goes into the recipe as such. Anything contained in a preferment is not counted.
This aligns nicely with the purposes of using baker's percentages.
it's a vehicle for easily remembering and executing recipes in a fast paced environment with complex social interactions. When you follow a recipe in a bakery (or tell your nervous apprentice to do so), you don't want to be calculating percentages in your head. Instead, you need a formula which tells you how much of each ingredient to grab - including how much of the preferment.
it's a way for "standardizing" recipes. An experienced baker can make a very good guess at a dough's properties from looking at the formula. And here, the ratio of other stuff to dry flour is very predictive. Even the ratio of preferment to dry flour is informative! If you were to use total flour, you'd lose that purpose of the formula.
I also checked my books and found that Reinhart's "Bread baker's apprentice" does discuss this exact question. He states that both approaches are valid, and both have advantages and disadvantages. And then he goes on to recommend using dry flour as 100% for anything which has an overnight-or-longer preferment (which I suppose is the same as your classification of "indirect dough"). His recommendation is to use the "dry plus preferment flour" approach for breads which are made with an ad-hoc sponge that's only fermented for around an hour or so, and for enriched breads like panettone (and notes that the two categories will frequently overlap). This aligns with my argumentation above - first, whatever flour you're measuring out at the moment you start doing this exact recipe (no matter whether you'll divide it for a sponge or not) is the amount you want to have written down. Also, flour which has only sat for an hour in a sponge behaves more like dry flour in its readiness to absorb even more water, to form new gluten bonds etc., than the already-bound flour in an overnight preferment, so in these breads, it has more influence on the prediction.
"the ratio of other stuff to dry flour is very predictive" -- So are you saying a hypothetical recipe of 500g flour, 250g water and 500g 1:1 preferment behaves more like a 50% direct hydration dough (500g flour & 250g water) versus a 67% hydration dough (750g flour and 500g water)? Or are you just saying that someone who knows how a 1:0.5:1 ratio of flour/water/1:1 preferment behaves also knows how a 2:1:2 flour/water/1:1 preferment behaves? (And wouldn't necessarily be able to say how a 1:2 or a 3:2 preferment might affect things.)
@R.M. the second one. The flour in the preferment doesn't behave like freshly mixed up flour, so if you have a 100-50-50 flour-water-preferment, that would behave roughly similarly to 100-50-50 flour-water-another preferment, but not similar to 150-75 flour-water (if we assume a 25-25 preferment).
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107713 | What is fine semolina? (For baghrir recipe)
Background: I would like to cook baghrir. There are many recipes, all very similar: put fine semolina, warm water, yeast, sugar, salt in a blender and blend it for a few minutes, in the end it should have a liquid consistency. I tried it once but it was a disaster, I figure the problem is that it wasn't liquid at all, but very thick and sticky. It didn't have many bubbles and stuck to the greased pan badly.
Semolina, according to Wikipedia, is coarse by definition. So the first problem is that fine semolina sounds like an oxymoron to me, a finer version of it would be flour basically. I can only buy one type of it anyway (here in Switzerland), here's a close up photo: https://i.sstatic.net/3sQwG.jpg . Looks quite coarse to me. Also I don't think my blender has any effect. Here's a photo of it: https://i.sstatic.net/y7U78.jpg . I know it says chopper, but it has sharp blades that rotate so I figured it should work. I saw a video that suggested that blending coarse semolina should give you fine semolina. So I tried grinding raw semolina for a few minutes and the result looked exactly the same, I couldn't tell it from the original.
So the recipes suggest fine semolina, blended even finer, and I have coarse one and unable to blend further. Do you think this issue could cause my batter to behave badly? Any suggestion to fix this?
"thick and sticky" would suggest not enough water rather than 'wrong semolina' Semolina, by definition, is made from durum wheat. Check that's what you have.
I don't know about the quantity, I was just following the recipe, the quantities are usually the same in multiple recipes. My package shows Hartweizengriess, definitely durum.
Three things:
"Semolina" refers to meal or flour made from durum wheat using particular grinding methods. It is available in coarse, medium, and fine, the last of which is almost as fine as regular wheat flour. However, since a medium grind is used for making pasta, that's frequently all you can find in stores, both in the US and Europe.
Bagrir apparently requires fine semolina, and likely will not easily work with medium or coarse, because the batter will not homogenize well using coarser grains (I base this on my experience with similar South Indian pancakes). I suspect that an expert Moroccan chef could make medium grind work, but not someone making them for the first time.
A regular blender will not grind coarse semolina into fine. For this, you need a food grinder, grain mill, or at least a high-powered blender like a Vitamix (and then you need to follow the special instructions for grinding in it).
Conclusion: maybe wait until the craziness is over and you can buy fine semolina online again. Alternately, if you have an Indian market in your area, you can look for "fine Sooji", which is the same thing.
Thanks, that answers all my questions! I'm a bit disappointed that this is not highlighted in the recipes. Also I'll miss the texture of coarse semolina, looks like it might end up more like normal pancake in the end.
I've run across the "fine semolina" problem before, which is why I answered this. Even more confusingly, some American writers will say "fine semolina" when they actually mean medium (pasta grade), or even meaning cream of wheat.
I never have made baghrir, so I can't guarantee that this will work. But if your problem is indeed only particle size, I would suggest that you just buy your raw material ("semolina") from a specialized provider online. If there are none in Switzerland, I suppose that German mills may ship to you.
My suggestion would be to try buying Weizendunst. This is a grade of milling that is finer than Grieß (which is the typical translation for "semolina") but coarser than flour. This will give you a particle size that is smaller than what you can buy in the supermarket. Seeing that this kind of dish was likely traditionally prepared with home milled semolina anyway, you are unlikely to need something very exact in milling size. If that's too difficult for you, just try flour - Spätzlemehl might work better there, since it's coarser than baking flour.
The durum vs. soft wheat difference might be more important. I frankly don't know if original baghrir are made with durum or wheat flour, the term "semolina" is a bit unfortunate in English because it sometimes refers to the milling grade only, sometimes to durum flour only, and sometimes requires a combination of the right milling grade and durum wheat. If nobody else tells you which wheat is meant, you might want to get one pack of both kinds and see which turns out closer to the original.
The "didn't have many bubbles" and "stuck to the greased pan" parts don't sound like a problem with the flour size though, more like the wrong temperature. Make sure that the temperature is hot enough, that you have enough oil - not just brushing a bit of fat on the pan, use enough oil and if needed add after every pancake - and be prepared to sacrifice the first one or two pieces, they are always worse in any style of pancake.
To address the exact question in the title, "fine semolina" is not an oxymoron at all, there are just many milling grades for flour and semolina. The German Wikipedia defines them as:
coarse semolina: 600-1000 µm
medium semolina: 475-600 µm
fine semolina: 300-475 µm
Dunst: 150-300 µm (no idea what the English term is, likely they either label it as flour or as semolina, not recognizing a middle type)
flour: less than 150 µm
And above coarse semolina, you have other grades like bulgur and broken wheat.
The recipes are referring specifically to durum wheat. It's very popular in Morocco and other parts of North Africa, much more so than other varieties of wheat.
@FuzzyChef good to know! Then it seems that the OP does have options, I found https://editiongut.ch/Bezugsquellen-Hartweizen under the top search results.
Thanks for the info. I ordered this already: https://www.piccantino.ch/de-CH/rosenfellner-muehle/bio-hartweizengriess-durumgriess . I also found similar types here: https://www.swissmill.ch/hartweizen .
I just ground semolina in a coffee grinder - an old fashioned one I also use to grind flax seeds or poppy seed. You put it in the top and it comes out the other side (since some American coffee grinders just swirl around - not that kind). I can regulate the coarseness. It seems to make coarse semolina into very fine one.
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107738 | ozone and its impact on cold fermentation
Baking is my new hobby and I am experimenting a lot. There is an interesting observation and a guess, I'd like to hear some opinions from more experienced bakers.
I have a number of failures with the recipes where dough required to be fermented in the fridge, e.g. ciabatta bread. With a number of trials I figured out that the less time the dough spend in the fridge the better result I see.
And just today I realized that the fridge I have is with O3 (ozone) generator.
So my guess is that ozone kills the bacteria required for the fermentation. This would also explain the fact that the less time the dough spent in the fridge the better result I see.
I didn't try yet to ferment the dough with ozone generator off. But will do it this week.
What do you think about this? I wonder whether it is all makes sense or pure silliness and I should look for an issue elsewhere.
Why do you say your fridge generates ozone? Is this a special feature? Could you point us to its specifications?
Sure, it is not the manual from exactly my fridge, but very similar from the same vendor: https://docs.hotpoint.eu/_doc/F088570_IFU.pdf. See page #3, look for Active Oxygen.
Well I've never come across that before. I'm not sure of the benefit, as the few things that spoil in my fridge are (like most things in there) sealed. I suppose if fruit and veg are consumed very slowly it may help, but proving dough (or indeed storing a starter) in the fridge has to be done in an unsealed container so the ozone could be a problem
TIL some fridge have ozone generator.
I will update this question with an answer as soon as I re-do the experiments and be sure ozone is affecting or not affecting the result. :-)
I've got relly good results today with the first batch without Ozone generator. I will give it a few more tries. May be even switch the generator back to see whether I can get bad result again. @ChrisH, I also spotted that you wrote that proving dough has to be done in unsealed container. Is it a must? I mean the would the result be good at all with anaerobic proofing/fermentation in fridge?
Covered containers are fine, but the CO2 produced by the yeast has to go somewhere, and a seal tight enough to keep the ozone out will keep that in (though something like a brewing airlock could be used I suppose).
I was experimenting for almost a month and now I can confirm that enabled Ozone(Active Oxygen) does indeed impact, kills really, on the dough and bacteria during cold fermentation.
The results I have with Ozone off are fantastic. And out of curiosity I also did cold fermentation with Ozone enabled. I kept the dough for 14 hours and got terrible bread.
It makes sense that it would have an affect -- ozone is used to disinfect water (it just doesn't have any long-term preventative effects like chlorine, as it doesn't stay in the water). Oh ... and ozone can cause some materials to degrade (aluminum, anything with a natural rubber seal), so you might need to be careful about what containers you use: https://www.ozonesolutions.com/knowledge-center/ozone-compatible-materials.html
What are you using as fermentation agent? Yeast or sourdough?
Sourdough will proof much slower, and possibly not noticeable at all in the fridge.
However, I've been baking bread using retardation overnight in the fridge for years. And with great success.
Personally I've never heard of a fridge that can create ozone
I am using Sourdough. There is a fridge manual[1], check page #3. Look for Active Oxygen. https://docs.hotpoint.eu/_doc/F088570_IFU.pdf
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107756 | How can I make cakes in 20Ltr ONIDA Black Diamond conventional microwave oven?
I am using 20Ltr ONIDA Black Diamond conventional microwave oven. I couldn't bake cakes in this oven at 180 degree temperature. Please send me feedback -how to use this oven for baking cakes?
Google tells me that's a convection microwave, not 'conventional' [which is really the 'opposite' of a microwave. You'll have to read the manual on how to use the convection facility.
I don't have specific instructions for that oven - and it is likely you won't find any recipes specific for that oven unless it came with a cook-book when supplied. However, it is possible to cook cakes in a microwave oven, there are many recipes available on the internet (e.g. this one).
You will need a recipe for a cake that is designed to be cooked in the microwave; conventional recipes do not usually work without some adapting.
Microwaves generally don't come with a temperature setting because they don't work off transferred heat (infra-red radiation) like a convection or fan oven, instead they use microwave frequency radiation, which gets absorbed by the items in the microwave cooking them directly - water is a strong absorber of microwaves, meaning it gets heated rapidly compared to a transferred heat system. Microwaves do however come with a power setting - again, this is a little confusing, because what it actually is, is a timer that switches the microwave generator on and off for different periods of time - longer breaks between it being on at "lower power" settings. These power settings are often useful for baking, especially if you are trying to cook a large cake.
You will also not be able to use your metal or teflon-lined metal baking pans in a microwave. I recommend using a well-greased glass or ceramic bowl or a silicone baking mould.
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107773 | What is "dumpling soit"?
I am watching a Gordon Ramsey youtube video, he is cooking dumplings. At approximately the 6:04 mark of the video Gordon mentions "Next the dumpling essentail, soit". It looks to be a off white substance about the size of rice kernels, almost exactly like shredded cheese.
What is this "dumpling soit"? I assume some form of animal fat?
Yes, it is animal fat. The word is spelled "suet" and it comes from beef.
I haven't been able to find a recording of the word with British accent, but this is what fits the context too. It also seems to exist in this flaky form that is shown in the video.
You can get vegetarian suet too - Atora is the best-known manufacturer of both in the UK Link to product on supermarket site Basically, it's just fat & flour, well-rubbed. I found their site too - https://www.atora.co.uk idk how common it is as an export.
Brings back memories of one of my favourite pubs that sold a steak and kidney pudding followed by jam roly poly for dessert. Two suet classics.
I can't check with the video as it's blocked here in the UK, but yes, that's almost certainly right. I think most of us would pronounce ‘suet’ somewhere between ‘soo-it’ and ‘syoo-it’ — mostly near the former (except for those affecting RP). Stress on the first syllable. In some regional accents, either vowel may drop a little.
I have been told that in the US suet is considered animal / bird food and not for humans. Which is a shame as it means you're missing out on loads of lovely dumplings and steamed pastry puddings.
@Vicky, in the US, a traditionalist who wants to make those things will probably just use lard instead of suet. You can probably also get suet, but might have to special-order it from the butcher's counter.
@ThePhoton lard and suet are very different things ... sure, they're both fat from animals, but they have different properties and affect the final product in different ways. If you substitute lard for suet, you're going to have disappointing results in most recipes that call for suet.
@StephenM.Webb, some recipe adjustment might be needed, but lard is very commonly used for the fat in pastry (I assume Vicky used the word pudding to mean what I would call a dessert). I don't know as much about dumplings so maybe you're right and lard can't be substituted there.
@ThePhoton I use lard in baked pastry all the time, but I would expect if I used it in a steamed pudding pastry it would come out tough as leather. Sounds like a reasonable grounds for investigative comparison cooking, though, if only the rest of my family would eat steak and kidney.
@StephenM.Webb, can you share a link to what you call a "pudding pastry"? When I google this term I just get things that look like ordinary baked pastries.
Definitive version, Delia ;-) https://www.deliaonline.com/how-to-cook/baking/how-to-make-suet-pastry
UK pronunciations: MacMillan, Oxford Learner's. I found a few others but these sound more like Gordon.
@Tetsujin - Is vegetable suet made from transfats?
There are no manufacturers selling hydrogenated oils in food in the UK. There is no law against it, but in 2012 an agreement was reached & the practise ended. The only law on it is "if it's there it must be clearly labelled as such", which is why when one stopped the practise, so did all the others within a year.
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107827 | Ground beef stays pink for 10 days, doesn’t seem right
I have a 1-lb package of 80/20 ground beef that seemed unnaturally pink. Did not open it for 10 days. Refrigerated, not frozen. Still within the “use by” date. But it’s still totally bright pink, none of the natural browning I would expect. What’s going on here? Has this meat been treated with some chemical?
The browning you are referring to is caused by oxidation. Well-wrapped products are protected from air, and thus, browning caused by oxidation.
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107845 | Can you heat up a pudding mixture with cool whip?
I'm making a dessert that needed instant pudding, but I got the cooking one by accident. I added it without realizing. The mixture is the pudding, milk, and cool whip. If I heat it up, will it ruin the cool whip part? Will it be okay? I don't wanna ruin it. Thanks!!!
Welcome to SA! Could you share the recipe, or at least let us know what the final product is supposed to be?
Try it and let us know what happens
I've never tried heating cool whip, but your only option is to try. Instant pudding will set without heating it, but if you don't cook a heat-set pudding mix it will stay runny, so there's 3 possible outcomes:
Don't heat it - ruined
Heat it and the cool whip goes wrong - ruined
Heat it and it works - success
You lose little by trying.
If you heat the whipped topping it will deflate. Somewhere I saw a recipe for fluff made with cooked pudding.You cook and cool the pudding, whip the topping ( or use ready whipped Cool Whip), drain any fruit you are adding, stir the fruit into the pudding and then fold in the whipped topping. That’s how I recall the recipe, but I haven’t tried it.
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108138 | Bread making, lightly oiled bowl covered, why?
Every dough recipe I have ever seen follows the same paradigm. Mix ingredients, kneed, rest, kneed, roll into a ball and place in a lightly oiled covered bowl, separate and form. Allow to rise again, bake.
I don’t understand the significance of the bowl step. Why the ball? Maximizing surface area?
How does the oil help? Is that just to stop it from sticking to the bowl? Why the bowl? Why cover it? Is this to limit oxygen? Bread yeast shouldn’t need anaerobic production should it?
The bowl is simply to contain the dough. You can use any container you like. Depending on the type of bread you are making, you often need to build gluten strength, this ends with pre-shaping and shaping. Shaping matters at this point. With kneaded bread, the "ball" is simply an artifact of kneading or stretching and folding. Covering reduces the chance of the surface drying out, and helps maintain temperature. Oil in the bowl is not necessary in most situations, and is not part of "every recipe."
Interesting. So really the only relevant purpose is to prevent the bread from drying out? I would think covering it with a moist towel on the work surface would achieve the same results.
@mreff555, a moist towel is not necessary, but yes that would keep it from drying. However, you need a container, in many cases, to keep the dough from spreading too much. Once a dough has the proper strength, again depending on the formula, a container might not be necessary. For example, my pizza dough, once formed in balls, rests on the counter until I shape it into a pizza.
Don't discount the statement of maintaining temperature moscafj included. Dry surface is a bad thing, but in many recipes where you are not doing a slow rise you start with warm water to activate the yeast, and you want to maintain that 100-110 F/40-45C temp range somewhat to keep the yeast happy. You do not want it stalling out too soon. Even many slow rise techniques call for this in the initial phase to get the yeast jump started.
If a crust forms on the dough while it is rising, the rising will be inhibited. So the outside of the dough should be soft and moist the whole time. Two ways to ensure this are to put it in a bowl with some kind of lid (plastic wrap, damp towel, or a plate or hard lid), and to coat the outside of the dough lightly in oil which prevents it from drying out. So the usual process is to form a ball, roll it around in a small amount of oil to coat it, then put it in the bowl and cover it.
I think that creating some surface tension in the dough also helps, so I form it into a ball by pulling the edges of the ball towards the bottom and pinching them together.
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108011 | Sourdough getting too brown
I am baking loaves of sourdough using this recipe: https://www.theperfectloaf.com/beginners-sourdough-bread/
I cook my loaves in a staub cocette and after the allotted time, they're very, very brown, verging on blackened on all sides. Otherwise, they're great (good crumb, etc). I have tried lowering the oven temperature somewhat (and verified it with a oven thermometer), but by the time they are done internal temp-wise, they're still just as brown. Any advice on how to adjust would be helpful.
I am at a bit over 5k elevation and in a dry environment, if that matters.
Have you asked Maurizio, the author? I find he is very responsive.
The recipe suggests starting at the highest temperature 260C and then reducing it to 230C. An initial burst of intense heat is important for a well-risen loaf. But after that you could try reducing the temperature a bit more, e.g. 260C for 20 minutes then 200C for 30 minutes. Also try leaving the lid on for a bit longer: the moister environment in the dutch oven will slow down crust browning.
By the way, I think your altitude might be relevant: of course it lowers the boiling point of water, so one might expect a drier loaf and more browning.
It might also be an issue with differences in starters -- acid inhibits browning, so if it's not at the same pH, it's going to brown differently. (there are some baked goods recipes that specifically add baking soda to improve browning)
Also worth mentioning that I've had bread that we thought was burned beyond saving (completely black, cooked in a brick oven), but it actually was really good dipped in the drippings from the porchetta that night
Some people find very brown crusts on sourdough desirable. Judging from the first picture at your link, the author of your recipe may be one. If you don't, one thing to try is to remove the loaf from the cocette something like 10-15 minutes before the end of baking time. This way the crust isn't directly exposed to the heat of the cocotte itself and will brown less. (We started doing this when the bottom crust was getting too dark by the time the top crust, after removing the lid, was browned to our liking.)
I've been wondering recently about how fast oven temperatures fall - modern ovens are much better insulated than old ones so the temperature will fall more slowly.
I'd knock a few degrees off the start temperature. I use 240°C anyway, but that's because the oven my recipe was tested in wouldn't go hotter. If you have a modern oven that cools rather slowly, you might want to leave the door open for a few seconds when taking the lid off the pan.
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108063 | Alternatives to Broil?
I have taken up cooking while stuck in quarantine and wanted to know if there's an alternative to broiling. I have seen plenty of recipes which recommend broiling but I don't have a broiler. Any alternatives to it?
For instance, I found a good pasta recipe that suggests broiling after cooking to melt the cheese. How can I get it done without broiler.
Link to the recipe- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cETpXxcAiM
Do you have an oven at all?
A broiler is the US name for a Grill, which is the common term in the rest of the world. If you have an oven you've almost certainly got one.
The Searzall! -> https://www.amazon.com/SEARZALL-Stainless-Steel-Culinary-Restaurants/dp/B00L2P0KNO
Yeah I do have an oven.
F&P make an oven without a Broil function? Do you have a model #?
I couldn't find the model number. I did not buy it as I am living in a rented house but it's the one that goes into the wall. I am not sure what those are called
Adjacent to Johanna's comment on the question:
If you have an oven at all, it likely has some sort of broil or grill function - per the accepted answer to this question, it might be a broiler drawer, rather than a function of the main body of the oven.
Assuming that you do have an oven, I would figure out which of those tools it uses, and then grab a cookie sheet and aluminum foil to simulate broiling, as in this article.
If you have neither an oven, nor a cookie sheet, nor aluminum foil, I'm out of helpful advice, and that torch idea starts to sound a little more appealing.
You don't need the foil and cookie sheet to broil a pasta dish and melt the cheese.
I checked my oven and unfortunately, it does not have a broiler drawer. It's a fisher and paykel oven.
You can use a torch.
Is it safe to use a propane torch bought at a Hardware store?
https://www.scienceofcooking.com/blow-torch-cooking.htm
https://modernistcuisine.com/2011/02/torch-tastes/
A torch is not going to work for most things you'd use a broiler for. Its temperature is too high and its heat output is too low. Useful for caramelizing, useless for cooking. It certainly won't work well for the situation the OP asked about.
(note that in the US, 'broil' means to apply top-heat. In Australia and some other places, this is called 'grill')
So long as you have an oven with a heating element on the top, you can simply adjust the top shelf so the item to be broiled is an inch or two away from the heating element, and use that.
You will want to adjust the oven temperature as high as it will go, and leave the oven door open slightly. (or the heating element will shut off because it's gotten too hot).
If you think the bottom of whatever is being broiled is cooking too much, you can place a sheet pan (preferably shiny or light-colored, like alumnimum) on a lower shelf to shield the item from radiant heat.
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108073 | Why does cheese need boiling while paneer not?
I am from Syria, but currently I am living in India. Back in my country we have to boil the cheese (and the milk) before consuming, otherwise it may carry harmful bacteria. One of my friends was taken to hospital after consuming raw cheese. In my country all people boil the cheese (and the milk) because of this.
In India, there is paneer which is similar to our cheese but not identical. However, I asked many Indians and they said it is ok to consume it raw (they said the same answer for milk).
My question is:
1) Is it ok to eat paneer (and milk) without boiling in India (or any other country)?
2) If yes, then why in my country we have to boil both cheese and milk?
3) Isn't cheese made from boiled milk, so why do we need to boil it again to remove the bacteria?
I have difficulty picturing the situation. How do you boil cheese? Almost any type of cheese I can think of will melt during boiling, then congeal when cooling and become terrible to eat. Do you mean that, if your milk goes sour by itself and forms chunks, you are instructed to boil these chunks before eating them as cheese, or do you buy cheese in the store such as gouda, feta, etc. in a block and then boil it?
(I'm in Germany, in case that is relevant)
Here, you can eat/drink most dairy products without boiling - with the exception of raw milk that is sold "has to be boiled before consumption".
Milk: possibly because in your country milk is usually sold raw?
Cheese: some recipes/processes call for boiling at various steps, e.g. for removing whey.
Not all cheese is made from pasteurized/boiled milk. And in particular fresh cheeses can spoil by mold or other microorganisms with which they can get contaminated after the cooking.
There may also be regional differences in the prevalence of various diseases that mean that in some parts of the world you can skip the additional boiling steps while in other parts that comes at a high risk. TB comes to mind in that respect.
Milk:
The vast majority of milk that one can buy here is already pasteurized, so no further boiling is needed.
Raw milk can be sold/bought only if:
either the customer is told unambiguously that they should boil the milk. This is allowed only if the milk is sold directly at the farm.
so-called attested milk (Vorzugsmilch): here the farm is under a very strict hygiene and animal health regime and is therefore allowed to sell raw milk that is for raw consumption (I know that this possibility exists, but I've never consciously seen any such milk offered).
Cheese:
In general, some cheeses are made from raw milk, while others are made from pasteurized/cooked milk.
Whey cheeses are always prepared by cooking: the whey protein is the protein fraction that did not precipitate by acid (casein), it precipitates by heat.
Many cheeses (as well as Qurk, yoghurt etc.) are made by adding particular microorganisms to the milk. This includes cheeses made from raw milk. "Bad" microorganisms that may be around in small quantities will at least be seriously outgrown by the "good" ones that are added. Of course, processes starting with pasteurized/cooked milk are of still less concern.
So one difference between German Quark and Indian Paneer is that while both precipitate the protein (curdle the milk) by acid, for Quark the acid is produced by (lacto) bacteria rather than adding acid like lemon juice or vinegar (and AFAIK, both usually start from pasteurized or boiled milk). Because the milk is inoculated with these bacteria, we know they are "good" ones.
The harder the cheese, i.e. the longer it did ripen, the safer: if a "bad" microorganism gets into the milk, that will become obvious long before the year or two of ripening is over.
Many hard cheeses also start with raw milk but have an intermediate step where they are heated to maybe 60 °C.
Fresh raw milk cheeses have again particular hygiene restrictions. Such cheese has also to be labeled as "made with raw milk", so e.g. pregnant women or people with compromised immune system can avoid them (toxoplasmosis and listeria risk)
For immunocompetent (and not pregnant) people, the recommendation is that our senses are good at detecting if something is wrong with dairy products (exception is the raw milk for raw consumption).
Around here, bovine tuberculosis is very rare nowadays (it basically only happens to happy cows out on a meadow who meet a coughing deer or if a farmer with TB infects their cow). In 2018, there were 63 cases of bovine tuberculosis among the 5429 tuberculosis cases (and 70 % of the tuberculosis patients are foreigners, but most farmers have German nationality).
The vast majority of dairy products here is produced industrially and under industrial hygiene regulations.
The only exception are fresh cheeses like yoghurt or kefir that are home made from boiled milk that is then inoculated with the desired microorganisms.
I don't know anyone who still makes sour milk by hoping that the correct bacteria fall in (and the family tales do include stories of that way of making sour milk going wrong every once in a while, usually leading to some bitter slime). My yoghurt experience also includes that this can go wrong.
As I understand Indian Paneer, that is consumed really fresh. I.e., in contrast to Quark, there is no time needed to culture microorganisms. You boil the milk, add acid, get rid of the whey (in the cold) and it is ready to eat. This naturally leaves less time for contamination after the boiling and consecutive growth of microorganisms than keeping the stuff at a nice warm temperature for several hours before you start separating the whey.
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109321 | Is it possible to use puree in a siphon whip?
does someone have experience with putting puree in a siphon whip, to achieve a fluffier texture? Does it work?
Yes you can; you can do both sweet and savory foams.
I never did it (I don't have a siphon), but from what I can feel when eating foam/espuma is that the input purée needs to be quite fine; blend/purée and then pass through a fine mesh sieve.
Just google "foam espuma recipe" and you will find a lot of recipes.
And if you don't to this step, you risk the siphon getting clogged ... which means you have to unscrew the top of it, which can be bad. (my mom had to do it once when she used fresh ground nutmeg in a recipe he had for spiced whipped cream ... at first they were just scrapping it off as it leaked out, but then one it was unscrewed far enough, I was told it made a real mess. (she was at a dinner party at a friend's house, so I didn't see it))
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108132 | Left sourdough starter out overnight after feeding and it overflowed?
I have a new sourdough starter I made about 2 weeks ago. I took it out of the fridge yesterday afternoon and fed it. It was slow to rise and even placed in the oven with light for a about an hour. I checked in the evening and nothing, then forgot about it and went to bed. Next morning it has overflowed. Is it still good, what should I do with it after sitting out for 18 hours? Can I put it in the fridge again and use it in a couple days? Do I need to feed it again before using it to make bread?
Deanna
Welcome to the site. It's fine. You can use a larger container. I would encourage you to search the site to see if you find the answer to your questions before posting a new question. Take a look at the related questions linked to this question, for example...or use the search bar.
Since yeast will survive up to 55C, unless your oven with the light on is unusually hot, your starter still has active yeast. It overflowed because (at least for some period of time) there were the ideal conditions for rapid growth of the yeast. Certainly you should feed it now, just as you would every 24 hours.
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108199 | My Italian meringue macarons won’t stop coming out hollow
I’ve been making Macarons for a while but I have recently started to try the Italian method for making them and have basically failed 95% of the time. I’ve probably made around 25 batches all that have come out extremely hollow. I’ve tried like 15 to 20 different oven temperatures and times, all which have failed. I’ve invested in an oven thermometer and my oven is working as it supposed to; it’s a brand new oven, only about a year and a half old. I’m pretty positive that the entire macaron assembling stages are on point. I know the macaronage is essential and can be easily messed up but I am confident that I’m doing it correctly and that my problem is the oven temperature and time because my macarons have come out fine a couple times. I have a whirlpool electric oven. i’ve tried temperatures like 300F+ for 12-14 min and that cracked my shells. I tried 295F for 20 minutes and that made them dry and overcooked. I tried 275 convection for 10 minutes, then flipped the pan and baked another 10 and they were also hollow. I believe I’ve tried 285 as well and everything in between. I’m really not sure on where I should position my racks and what other temperatures I should try. I’m getting desperate and I just need to figure out what temperature works so that I can stop wasting so many ingredients!
Please help!
You need to edit and add detail on the method you are using to make them. The problem could be the method, not the temperature.
Tried the resting and rapping the tray on the bench to remove bubbles?
@bob1 yes most definitely. I Never skip that. I know it’s not the method that I’m using to make them because I’ve had them checked by a professional baker
Banging the tray is a french meringue macaron technique, I don't think it applies to Italian .
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108336 | I can't seem to get my nougat to come out right and I don't know why
I tried this pistachio nougat recipe once and it came out great. I've tried it two other times and the nougat hasn't set well at all. I'm thinking that this is because the recipe doesnt list a temperature and I probably didn't reach the correct temperature. Is that a good assessment? Additionally, why are most nougat recipes made by adding the syrup to the whipped eggs instead of the whipped eggs to the syrup (like this recipe)? It seems like it would be easier to reduce the mixture to the correct thickness if you added the eggs to the syrup. Thanks
As you suggest, most nougat recipes require the sugar syrup to be brought to specific temperatures (typically "hard ball" or "soft crack" stage, see for example this page for details of the stages of cooking sugar). By that time, any water that you started out with (in your case in the form of rose water) has boiled off. Simply bringing the mixture up to a boil will not be accurate.
For repeatable results, I suggest you use an instant-read thermometer (or a sugar thermometer) to ensure your sugar syrup is at a consistent temperature. If the nougat does not set, increase the temperature next time.
Regarding your second question: Even in your recipe, you add some of the syrup to the egg whites, to raise their temperature before adding them to the syrup. This is called 'tempering' and is common when using eggs in sweet applications with something hot. In the case of nougat, however, you can probably add the egg whites directly to the syrup, as was pointed out in a comment.
The whipped egg whites can be added to the hot syrup even without tempering. Nougat goes way back to ancient times, obviously before thermometers or electric mixers, and according to chef John traditionally nougat is made more like OP's recipe. That said, totally second getting a thermometer for more precise results. https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/246463/torrone-italian-nut-and-nougat-confection/
@kitukwfyer Sure, you can make nougat without a thermometer. You would still need to make sure your sugar has reached the appropriate temperature, by taking some of the syrup and cooling it down. This is where the names for the cooking stages ("hard ball" etc) come from. Looks like I was wrong about the tempering, though -- I will edit my answer to reflect this.
@kitukwfyer That's interesting you mention that. I've since seen a few recipes for torrone where they keep the heat very low the whole time and stir the syrup for ~30 mins, whip the eggs, incorporate those slowly, and then stir for 30 mins and it forms a nice hard nougat. But there was no boiling. I have made the recipe above three times. The first time it was great. Second and third times not so much. I noticed it looked sort of grainy (at least the second and third times when I was paying attention) when I add the eggs to the syrup but very smooth when I add the syrup to the eggs.
That grainy appearance IS weird. The sugar water shouldn't boil until it's in solution. Adding the glucose syrup should prevent recrystallization. Only thing I can imagine is so much water boiled off it became super saturated... Good luck anyway!
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108385 | JKWhy is my brisket rubbery when I cooked it
Injected, cooked until 160, wrapped, cooked until 200, just like it says online. Still very rubbery and tough.
Maybe my meat thermometer is inaccurate? Maybe I should go beyond 200 next time.
It was a very small brisket, about 4.5 pounds.
Hi Derek, and welcome to the site! I have a couple questions to help get you a good answer. Does your graph show time in hours? Did you insert your thermometer into the thickest part of the brisket?
Not sure. The thickest part of the brisket was pointy, thus exposing it to more surface area. I put it in a slightly thinner part but that was smack in the middle of the brisket. To actually work out which was more thermally central would require some integration.
I would like to add that even the part of the brisket containing the thermometer was rubbery as well—the whole thing was.
Brisket is so freaking difficult. It is the triple Lindy of meat cooking.
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108387 | Cooking Brown Rice on a Portable Induction Burner
Are there any tips on how to properly cook brown rice using a portable induction burner? I use my standard ratio of 1 cup rice to 1 1/2 cup water bring to a boil, cover and reduce to low for 20 minutes, let stand for 10 minutes on the regular electric stove top. However my induction burner is labeled warm, simmer, boil and I have yet to achieve satisfactory results.
What have you tried that doesn't work?
And what type of 'unsatisfactory'? gummy? undercooked? burned/scorched bottom? something else entirely?
I did forget that little nugget of information - Following the mentioned cooking directions it is undercooked.
"my induction burner is labeled warm, simmer, boil" -- can you please clarify: does your burner literally have just those three settings? Or are those simply three markings found on a control that can be adjusted to settings between those markings as well?
For what it's worth, I find it difficult to get brown rice cooked properly using any sort of regimented process. It seems sensitive to the variables involved, and it doesn't come out right without me being more involved in the cooking process.
So, I follow the procedure which (if I recall correctly) I found in Cook's Illustrated: cook the rice in a much larger volume of water than is needed (two-to-one, or even three-to-one if you can spare the room in the pot), stirring occasionally, monitor done-ness by tasting the rice periodically, and when the rice has the desired consistency (different people prefer different degrees of firmness), take it off the heat and drain it (e.g. in a chinois).
Even using this approach, it's important to maintain the heat relatively low, at a simmer. But it's a lot more forgiving than techniques that demand you get the rice-to-water ratio perfect, because you never run out of water, and the rice never sticks to the bottom of the pot.
The "simmer" setting on your hob should work well with this approach, but if the hob is so underpowered that "simmer" doesn't simmer, the "boil" setting might work out okay, if that setting doesn't in fact result in a very vigorous boil.
At the end of the day though, if your hob has only two cooking levels (plus the "warm" setting), it might just not be a hob worth using. There are plenty of other hob choices out there, which allow a more fine-grained control than choosing between "not quite warm enough to simmer" and "rolling boil", and with a better hob, cooking rice should be very easy, whatever technique you prefer.
I have learned to cook my rice (any kind) this way:
Cook for a set time in a lot of water, drain almost all of the water and let stand for 15 minutes with a closed lid (or other cover.)
If you live where it is not hot, cover the pan or keep it in a protected environment, under the covers of a bed or in a straw filled box will do nicely. In an office environment you can use an (old) winter coat.
For the rice I use 15 minutes of cooking time will do, with the additional 15 minutes resting time. But you can experiment to get the right time for you. You can regulate the water temperature a bit by adding a lid or leaving it off, throwing in a small handful of water if it is going too fast. The more covered, the more heat it retains and the more rolling the boil.
This method still allows you to over cook for a mushy, sticky, rice or under cook for rice needed to cook a bit in the next stage of food preparation. Just adjust the cook time and still drain and rest.
An other advantage of this cooking method is that it allows you to use your hob(s) for a sauce while the rice is resting.
Like with any burner you want to bring the water to a boil first and then cover and simmer. So you'll want the lowest setting on the burner, and if the burner is too hot on the lowest setting (so the water boils off and the bottom burns before it's cooked through and tender with just a bit of bite) then you can try offsetting the pot from the burner so maybe 2/3rds of the pot is on the burner (or less, depending on how hot your burner is). This works best with a pot with good conduction, such as a copper bottom.
You can also use more water to offset the extra water loss from evaporation. All rice needs a 1:1 ratio of water to rice to cook properly, but because of evaporation you generally need more water than this. The amount more depends on cooking method, pan surface to volume ratio, and other factors. I'd suggest adding 1/4 cup more water and see how you fare.
If you have a sous vide setup you can seal the water and rice in a bag (1:1 ratio) and it will come out perfectly. If you want to try this, cook at 200°F for the amount of time the recipe calls for for the type of rice.
First, you seem to be cooking by using a timer. Forget that. Time given in recipes tends to only be a rough guide for how to cook - you should cook until done, not until a timer goes off.
Second, the labels on your induction cooker don't matter. They could be called "S", "M" and "L" for what it's worth. Just because a setting is labeled "simmer" it doesn't mean that it will actually keep any pot with any amount of any food at a simmer.
So, what you have to do is to stop relying on settings and formulas and pay attention to your food. Place the rice in the cooking water, and reduce until it is at a constant simmer ("constant" here means averagely, over time - it is not a problem if you hear the bubble noise go up for a few seconds at the peak of the induction heat cycle). If it turns out that you don't have a setting that produces a constant simmer, you may even have to change settings once per minute, or pull the pot off the cooker for a few seconds, then back on, etc. (Since that's tiring, if it happens, try using a different pot or make a different-sized portion next time, and hopefully you will find a combination that works). You may want to start with less water than anticipated and add it during the cooking, or with more water and then throw it out, as Willeke suggested. And you stop when the rice is done - the decision is reached by tasting it, not by the clock.
When you have found a combination of pot, portion size, rice variety, rice/water ratio and cooker setting that works for you, you can write it down so you can leave it alone next time. You can also pre-emptively turn it off and let it sit the last minutes (probably longer than if it were still on the stove) as your current recipe suggests. But you will have to find out empirically what time works for your situation.
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108463 | How to avoid cream breaking / splitting in oven?
A peculiar Swedish recipe calls for ladling curry flavored whipped cream over chicken and baking in the oven, at 225c for 20-30 minutes typically.
During my childhood, this resulted in a creamy, emulsified result.
Now, when trying to recreate it, it always comes out thin, with visible butterfat and coagulated proteins.
Does anyone know why this happens? When reducing cream in the pan, this never happens. Id suspect the whipping to be the culprit, but it was never a problem during my childhood.
Should I try lower heat for a longer time, higher heat for even shorter time, or could it be that I use enameled ceramic cookware while my mother used ovensafe glass cookware?
Do you have a link to the recipe ?
@Max Here you go, it's not completely accurate (I omit the mushrooms, use only curry and no chili sauce, but for cooking purposes should be very similar): https://www.dietdoctor.com/recipes/flying-jacob-casserole
What type of cream are you using? "heavy whipping cream" in the US often has stabilizers in it (and at least 36% fat). You're likely not in the US (as you mention 225c (which is also hotter than the recipe calls for))
@Joe I'm using 40% "whipping cream" without stabilizers (36% with stabilizers exist, but usually I go for the 40%). It should be fairly similar to US cream, and it says it's pasteurized at a low temperature. I could only find one recipe already translated to english which is the one posted, but most Swedish ones put the temp at 225c.
@Max : although this is an English language website, there are a lot of people on here who speak some other language. If you're actually following some other recipe, it would be a good idea to post a link to it, even if it's not in English. We can always use Google Translate to get the basic idea of the recipe.
The splitting of cream depends a lot on the ratio of fat to water in the sauce, and can be influenced through stabilizers. Some possible reasons for the change are:
the chicken or the bacon of your childhood might have exuded less liquid. Nowadays, chicken meat gets injected with water for "plumpness", and that water seeps out in the oven. The same happens with bacon.
the chicken of your childhood might have been fattier. Due to customer preference and economic pressure, today's food animals are raised to have lower amounts of fat than several decades ago.
your mother might have been using a different recipe, or might have stabilized the cream somehow. This can be done with packages of "whipped cream stabilizer" from the supermarket, or adding some flour or starch to the sauce, or using other thickeners. Or she might have been using a brand of curry made with emulsifiers.
My suggestion for you is to try some kind of thickener. The simplest way would be to dredge the chicken and bacon through flour and see if this helps. If not, consider making a slurry with a tablespoon or two from the cream and some flour or starch, or some emulsifier like xanthan, and folding it into the whipped cream.
Additionally, the milk and cream from decades ago is different than what is found today. Today almost all milk and cream is pasteurized, sometimes ultra-pasteurized, and homogenized. Homogenization means essentially spraying the milk through a very fine sprayer to make all of the fat globules equal in size, and this can increase the milk's tendency to curdle or break when used in a sauce. The milk and cream of decades ago was not always homogenized.
@UncleLongHair you are right about milk and cream being almost certainly homogenized nowadays. I am a bit surprised from your conclusion that it will split more easily - both in theory and in my own experience, homogenization is a process that reduces the likelihood of splitting.
I think you're spot on about the stabilizers, I knew she didn't use any extra stabilizer but I think it's likely she used 36% pre-stabilized whipping cream instead of the 40% I usually use. I think I'll start at something like 1 teaspoon of corn starch for every 2 dl cream and try it out at 225c and 175c and see if I can perfect the recipe. Thank you. :)
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108621 | What are the grades of Italian pasta?
I'm a Russian student. I'm writing a report about Italian pasta. There is no information on the Russian web sites, so guys, help me, please. I need to learn more about the grade/quality of pasta. What are the exact grades(e.g. in Russia we have three grades of pasta. it depends on wheat quality)?. Any information will help me. Maybe, you know some kind of sources where i can find the information. Any books?
Can you explain what the Russian classification describes exactly? If you're referring to the numbers like spaghetti no. 3, no. 4.. then I'm afraid there's no universal meaning and every manufacturer has its own grading.
@DavidP The classification depends on the type of wheat flour(durum, soft,). Also, there are three groups (like A, B,C) and each group has a grade that depends on the amount of ash (the first grade, the second one..)I need to find some official documents, science articles
After the clarifying comments, I think the question now boils down to reading the nutrition table and to the Italian classification of flour, in particular, durum since it's the most used for the pasta production. I can refer to the table on the Italian Wikipedia, where it's compared with the US classification. https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farina#Sfarinati_di_grano_duro
However, also concerning food, Italy is the land of exceptions. For instance, fresh pasta usually has a part of soft wheat and some regional types may use flours from other cereals at all. Not to mention the pasta for the gluten-free market.
Exceptions do not mean that something can be called pasta in a region and not in another. The regulations are the same for the whole country and are here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasta#Italy
thank you! You mentioned that Italy has exceptions. Can you explain this, please? Does it mean that different provinces in Italy have their own laws of the pasta production?
I just meant that some regional types use other cereals. Didn't mean that you can call something pasta in a region and not in another region. Anyway I'm editing my answer with a link.
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108748 | Having difficulties seasoning my new cast iron pan due to the coarseness of the texture. Please help!
I just bought a new cast iron casserole pan that is only enameled on the outside. I tried seasoning it earlier today by pouring a tablespoon of flax seed oil on the inside and spreading it around with a paper towel. Sadly, I realized shortly after that the texture on the inside of the pan is quite coarse and it causes the paper towel to "shred" leaving very little pieces of paper behind everywhere around the pan. These pieces are obviously instantly soaked in oil and become quite hard to remove. It's almost impossible to do a good job at covering the whole pan in the oil because of this. Something similar happens when I use a kitchen towel, except rather than leaving pieces of paper behind, the coarse texture of the pan causes little "hairs" from the fabric of the towel to be left behind on every wipe.
I imagine I don't have to sand down a brand new pan just to get it to a point where I can season it properly, right? It's my first cast iron pan so any help is appreciated.
Why not use something less lint-prone, like a sponge?
@Tetsujin You mean a normal kitchen sponge, green on one side and yellow on the other? My idea was to apply the oil with a paper towel and then use a second towel to wipe all the oil off, leaving a very thing layer. Would this be possible with a sponge?
I really mean any sponge [I'd never considered someone would consider a pan-scrub to be the primary 'kitchen sponge' type]. Basically anything that won't rub off on the surface.
@Tetsujin It's worth a shot, though I'm not sure if the sandpaper-like texture on the inside will be kind to a sponge. Better than nothing I guess.
@CharlieShuffler In the same line of thought, you could try a cotton kitchen towel.
@LSchoon I do have those, but sadly they are precisely the ones leaving lint behind everywhere.
Cotton is not lint-free. Sponge [of almost any material, I don't mean to steal the posh organic one from next to the bath;) is. Basically, something not made of natural fibre is far more likely to be lint-free. Sponge just seems to be the one you're more likely to already have to hand in a kitchen.
@Tetsujin Alright, fair point. I will be giving it a shot. Thanks!
Apologies. I did not read carefully enough and thought you were only using paper towels.
My personal guess would be a toothbrush to scrub it in, then blot any excess out with a paper towel.
We have many comments, but I'm going to throw this in as an answer…
Your issue is lint, on a rough surface, so use something that is categorically lint-free.
A sponge. Any type.
A Moppet, the yellow side of a pan-scrub, anything.
It won't absorb quite so well as a cotton or paper towel & squeezing it out to mop the last bit might be a bit of a task, but it won't shed fluff all over the surface.
Just use your fingers to spread the oil. It also is a moisturizer for you hands :-)
You can buy lint free rags at many stores, that should fix the problem. In the mean time, you can use an old shirt (still very small amounts of lint but I find it so little it doesn't matter). And yes, someone mentioned it, make sure you wipe out all excess oil before putting in the oven or you could find the seasoning chipping after time goes by. Slow and steady wins this race.
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108773 | What am I doing wrong during the seasoning process of my cast iron skillet
I have read a lot of articles and watch several videos on how to season a cast-iron skillet. But the outcome I am getting is nothing like what I find online.
My cast iron skillet comes out with spotty marks which are a bit sticky. I've repeated the process twice but now I am doubtful about doing it one more time. I am using canola oil and a convection oven at 450F, leaving the pan upside down for 1 hour.
Here is a photo of the results.
Sounds hot to me, maybe that causes thinning and beading. Or, was the it a spray oil with other agents? Shouldn't hurt anything to keep going and build on some more layers, imho. My experience is mostly outdoors, but lots of layers happen naturally from years of use.
How did you apply the canola oil?
If this a cast iron pan with a finish or texture on it?
@gdD It is a cast iron pan with a smooth finish. I had to clean up the pan with a brillo pad, soap, and some kosher salt to remove the oil and start all over again the seasoning process. It seemed that the cleanup job I did the first time, with just soap and the rough side of the sponge, was not enough and therefore it left some sort of the texture that then developed into what I shared on the photo. I had applied the canola oil by rubbing it with a paper towel but on the second try I used flaxseed oil rubbing it with a dish towel and the result is so much better now. Thank you all
You're using way too much oil. "A thin coat" really means thin--apply a small amount of oil, spread it around, and wipe it ALL off, leaving nothing but the shine.
100% agree ... that surface looks like when you have too much oil in the pan, it sorta beads up, and then doesn't quite fully cure where the beads of oil are.
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108790 | My Sourdough Starter has a brown layer at the top?
So my sourdough starter is about two weeks old, but it suddenly stopped growing three days ago (after a couple days of very active growth)and developed a brown layer on top.The layer is mostly brown with about 15 percent of it being normal starter. Most of what I researched is that it is hooch, but the brown layer is more solid (the same thickness as my starter) and isn’t separate from the top layer of the normal starter. I have been keeping my starter in the oven with just the light on. As for my feeding schedule, I feed it 1 cup of AP Flour and 1/2 cup of water every day. If anyone has an answer, please let me know; it would very helpful.
Your starter is drying out. Don't keep it in the oven with the light on. It's been too warm.
Depending on your comfortable room temperature, you should be able to leave it on a kitchen counter top. You should have a lid or other covering on it, too.
Thank you! I will leave it out and see what happens.
Dried yeast and dead microbae. The recipe I follow tells me to discard the upper layer with every feeding and get 50g from the lower fresh layers, add 80g flour and 50g water.
Thanks for identifying what it is. Hopefully this doesn’t present an opportunity for bad bacteria to dominate the starter.
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108795 | What caused my grass-fed beef to taste & smell ‘off’ this time? Not sure if gamey or barnyard-y is the right description
So this relates to an expensive order I made from a local farm, that’s highly reviewed online by the few who know about it, and they check all the boxes for my standards in terms of their beef being a) 100% grass-fed & finished and b) certified organic. The owners seem like fantastic people from my interactions with them, and I can tell they’re quite knowledgable about the industry, and share many of the same views on nutrition and the benefits of grass-fed beef as I do.
Today I defrosted some striploin steaks I bought as part of my large order. Prior to putting them on the BBQ, I could tell they had quite a noticeable scent to them. I don’t know if “gamey” accurately describes what it was, or “barnyard-y” — but something just seemed off about the smell overall. I cooked them anyway, but that ‘off’ smell came out in the taste. Unfortunately I couldn’t finish it. I was frustrated and confused.
I’ve ordered & eaten organic, 100% grass-fed/finished steaks before while in another city (aka from other farms), yet there was no taste or smell issue for me.
These striploin steaks + the rest of my order were also very, very fresh and delivered to the farm by the butcher just a day before I went. I remember when I bought meat from this farm last year as well, that the butcher or slaughter date noted on the sticker was just 2 weeks prior. So really fresh stuff. If anything, I thought that the closer you are to the slaughter date of the animal, the more mild/lack of taste the beef will have? So what’s with this noticeable smell & taste I’m picking up this time around? Also, last year I made tartare from this same farm’s cut of tenderloin, and I know for sure I wouldn’t have eaten it if the smell was what I’m noticing now.
It’s also not exclusive to the striploin steaks I tried today, because I began defrosting some of the rib steaks and it seems like they have the same smell & could turn out the same. :(
What would you speculate the potential issue is? Could it be the breed of cow? The 'freshness' of the steak? Whether it was dry-aged or not? (I'm going to ask them, but if I had to guess I don't think it is).
I'm not sure, but the age of the animal prior to slaughter might be the cause here.
Hmm. I checked the farm's website and while it doesn't say explicitly at what age they slaughter, it does make a comparison between their cows and factory farmed ones by citing the difference in weight at 18 months (which seems to be a standard, common age for when beef is slaughtered). So that may not be it :/
Have you considered the possibility they'd simply gone bad?
What did the farm say about your issue? You say they are knowledgeable and "fantastic people." Why not ask them?
Without being able to taste the meat, I don't know that anyone could provide a satisfactory answer. That said, my experience has been that truly grass-fed beef, i.e. entirely raised on pasture grazing, does in fact have a different smell/taste from supermarket grain-fed beef, and that this is inherent in the product. It can be a bit of an acquired taste, and I would suggest that if you had other beef advertised as grass-fed but which tasted the same as regular grain-fed beef, that it probably wasn't really grass-fed (i.e. falsely advertised as grass-fed).
If I understand your description correctly, chances are that the animal was not neutered properly.
I have had the same experience with farm fresh beef. Same smell and everything. This meat was given to us by a friend who owned the cows. Got liver from them once ... do not recommend that. It smelled like a barn in my house while I was cooking it. I just add a lot of spices to try and help cover up the smell in the ground meat. But still trying to find an answer.
Based on your explanation I can only speculate a bit. I have ordered beef and other meats including yak (which is from a bovine) online from various places. I prefer grass fed and free range beef and also eat some game meats (venison, rabbit, ostrich, boar, etc) so am familiar with some variety of meats besides the farm raised packaged meat in most grocery stores.
Free range meat tends to be leaner, and a bit tougher and gamier, with stronger smell and flavor, than grocery store meat. The best way I'd describe "gamey" is a flavor somewhat like liver, and sometimes what seems like a slightly powdery texture or mouth feel. It can indeed smell a bit musky. The meat tends to be leaner and tougher and so depending on how you prepare it can be chewier. Not sure if this describes your experience? One person might find this appetizing while another might find it off-putting.
In my experience the fat on free-range meat often has a yellow color rather than pale white, has a stronger smell and flavor, and often a lot of the gaminess in the meat is actually in the fat. So if it is very well trimmed you can eliminate some of that.
Another possibility is that the meat wasn't handled well between slaughter and when you got it. The meat needs to be hung before it is processed, as short as 3-5 days and as long as 21, this varies based on the animal and how it is prepared, and this is where the experience and quality of your producer come into play. It is not true that fresher i.e. closer to the slaughter date is always better, the meat needs to hang for a while to become tender. A cattle is a huge animal, hundreds of pounds, and it takes a while for the meat to age before processing. It could also be that something went wrong with the shipping, maybe the steaks were allowed to thaw and refreeze or exposed to air.
I would take all of these questions to your beef producer and see if you can figure it out.
What you're describing is likely "barnyard" flavor. An off note often found in meat products. This study (about sheep, and not beef) suggests it's most likely due to the naturally occurring compound; 3‐methylindole, which is more common in perirenal fat for grass fed sheep.
Given that barnyard is a flavor that occurs in beef as well, it's reasonable to assume it's the same kind of situation.
It likely depends on your cut of meat as to the flavor, but removing some of the external fat should help cut down the issue.
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108802 | How Not to Lose Liquid in Vegetable Stock
I just made my first vegetable stock (I chopped everything roughly and started by sauteeing the onions celery and carrots a bit, added a lot of veg like celeriac and leek tops, then I added 3 liters of liquid, brought it to a boil and simmered it uncovered for 1.5 hours.)
I feel like I only have 2.5 cups of stock after and am upset. It's a waste.
I simmered it uncovered. Should you simmer it covered? Any tips for not losing so much stock liquid? Also, do you use the leftover stock veg for anything?
If your remaining stock is strongly flavored, as it should be with that much reduction, you can always add water back to the concentrated stock.
@moscafj it's a bit sweet from the carrot. Is stock often sweet or did I put too much carrot?
Carrot certainly adds sweetness.
If you uncover the stock, liquid will evaporate. For maximum yield, keep the stock covered. There are no downsides to this as far as I know.
The leftover vegetables are likely very completely mushy and flavourless, depending on how long you have cooked the stock. They have given their flavour to the stock. Any vegetables with flavour left you can use however you want (although their texture might still make them less than desirable). If not, composting is an option.
Regarding cooking time: if your stock tastes good (I like to add a small pinch of salt to a spoonful of stock to taste), and most of your vegetables don't, there is no point in cooking the stock further.
what's funny is they have flavor left. I did simmer them for more than an hour. Plus I love the taste of cooked celeriac and I put it in there. Do you think I should have simmered it longer?
also I couldn't unscrew the top of my pepper mill so I didn't use whole peppercorns instead just put a teaspoon of ground pepper :( which was of course a mistake that made it very spicy.
what should the stock taste like when it's done? (I included the usual celery onions carrots along with leeks celeriac and tomato)
@drivegg Some of the more hardy vegetables might have flavour left. Use those however you want, although their texture might not be great for eating. Your stock should taste 'good': full of complex, deep flavour. Assuming you haven't added salt to the stock when starting out (which you shouldn't!), add some salt when tasting.
Oh dear, one recipe told me to add it (I used the kitchn and a couple other sites' recipes). It tastes pretty decent, a bit tomatoey cause I added tomato.. though it's hard to tell under the flavor of the ground pepper I added by mistake instead of whole peppercorns :/
@drivegg The risk of adding salt, especially when simmering the stock uncovered, is that you reduce the liquid down to being inedibly salty. If that hasn't happened, don't worry about it. Regarding the pepper: one solution I can think of is straining the liquid through a fine sieve or muslin, then using it to extract another batch of stock without pepper but with added water.
First, don't even simmer the stock - it should probably be around 85C.
You should make sure the food is covered so all the flavour transfers to the water.
Reduced stock is a godsend to those of us who need to store it! Why not simply add water if you want more? Obviously this will dilute the stock.
Wait do you mean to keep it at extremely low heat so it doesn't bubble at all and keep it covered? Would you still cook it for only an hour? Sorry I'm a bit of a novice and don't have a cooking thermometer. Do you bring it to a boil first before reducing to 85C?
Yes. But even at that temperature you'll get evaporation. Yes, only about an hour for veg stock, if that - meat and poultry stock is different.
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108870 | Mold on citrus: is it safe to eat?
I've been making fruit kefir (or tibicos), using only some sugar and a lemon for 1L of tap water (boiled to remove chlorine and sterilize my bottle, and of course left to cool down before adding the kefir grains).
After some 24 hours I've noticed a thin film of white mold forming on the surface of the water and on the slices of lemon. The mold looks a lot like some starting colony of penicillium digitatum and/or penicillium italicum (I was not thinking about making a post about this, sorry for the absence of picture!), which are common attacker of citrus fruits, and as far as I guess are rather harmless.
After about 36h of fermentation I've transfered the drink (+some mold!) into new bottles and put the ferments (+some mold!) back into a clean container. Neither of them smelled like rotten fruits, otherwise I would've thrown them both away. I've also added the juice of the lemon to decrease the pH and hopefully prevent the mold from growing again.
Is the filtered drink (which I'm going to let sit in the fridge for a couple more days) safe to drink if no more mold develops? Such small amount of a common mold seems unlikely to cause anything serious, but I'd rather avoid food poisining if there's a chance for it.
Can the kefir grains safely be used for future batches?
Thanks in advance!
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109013 | Where can I source my own food safe pizza steel?
I am looking to save some money and order a slab of scrap steel from a local company.
My question is what kind of steel should I be asking for to ensure the steel is food grade quality?
As long as it hasn't been used as a container of some toxic material it'll be fine. Cast iron pans are made from recycled disk brakes and nobody has any problems with them at all.
I've just made one from aluminium, but it takes a lot of semolina to stop the pizza sticking to it. https://woodworking.stackexchange.com/q/10527/1344 should soon have a picture
Most people recommend A36 steel, which is a fairly common low-carbon steel. As far as I understand it (procured mine through ebay), you just need to work at scraping off the mill scale with some abrasive. Wash, dry, then season like a cast iron pan. After that you should be good to go.
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110420 | Beating egg whites cold vs. warm - Japanese cheesecake
Namiko Chen's recipe for Japanese cheesecake specifically requires that the egg whites be beaten chilled. I have also asked my Japanese friends to check other Japanese recipes and they get the same instructions. On the other hand, Western recipes for Japanese cake calls for the egg whites to be beaten at room temperature. I assume that since Japanese souffle cheesecake is originally from Japan, the Japanese version is the "correct" one and that the room-temperature requirement is a modification by Westerners who copied the recipe.
I have tried Namiko's recipe with great results. The egg whites took quite some time to beat, but they remained stable even without cream of tartar. I presume beating the egg whites cold will take a longer time but will give more stability, but is this something that's well-known? I know that the same holds for cream, I just have never read it for egg whites.
To throw a curveball, I've been always taught that beating egg (or eggs whites) that are chilled and doing it in cold room make things faster. We also never use cream of tartar, just a pinch of salt to keep the temp low.
Interesting. So I guess it's not just a Japanese thing then.
I've always heard beat egg whites at room temperature, but cream when it's cold. I was only able to find one study that included this information.
According to Miller and Vail 42 the whipping temperature of the egg white affects its foaming capacity and stability. Beating egg whites at room temperature (70–80 °F/21–27 °C) resulted in improved whipping quality, more stable foams and tenderer cakes with greater volume than egg whites beaten at lower temperatures.38, 42 Conversely, beating egg whites (to the soft peak stage) at 2 °C or 22 °C did not show any significant difference in the time needed to achieve such consistency nor in the final volume of the cake
Essentially colder eggs tend to be less stable when made into meringue, but shouldn't take a significantly different amount of time. They go on to say that if you're using an electric mixer it probably doesn't matter as much.
McGee6 recommends using eggs at room temperature but also states that eggs kept under refrigeration warm up while beating and will whip just as well, especially when using electric mixers.
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110130 | Converting kneading recipe to no knead recipe
I'm a beginning baker planning to make ensaymada, which has a sweet buttery dough. The recipe I found requires kneading. Do I have to make some adjustments to the recipe, or can I just make the dough, let it rise for 2 hours, and then put it in the fridge as Gemma Stafford did for her cinnamon rolls? According to this question, someone made a no knead recipe out of a regular recipe without any changes other than letting the bread sit. Will this work or do I have to add more liquid? Thanks in advance!
No knead breads follow a high hydration recipe. The typical baker’s percentage for no-knead bread is 75% (meaning for every 100 g flour, you use 75g water).
Based on your recipe, i think it might have enough hydration to try the no knead option. I think you can try blending all the liquid ingredients (and also melted butter and sugar) and then move on to preparing your dough.
I have yet to try the recipe. Maybe I will make two batches, one with kneading and the other without and post the results here. Thanks a lot.
I am not an expert by any means, but my understanding of the no-knead process is that it really is just TIME that makes all the difference. I do not think you would need to alter the amount of liquid in your recipe. The time is just for the yeast to do its thing and develop flavor in your dough. Kneading accelerates the process, but if you have the time to allow the dough to sit, you can achieve the same thing with less hands-on work.
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120905 | How to get brown tops to my garlic knots
I've found some good recipes for garlic knots, but can't get them to have that restaurant style brown tops to them. The best I can do is get them slightly brown at the top if I cook them longer than expected, on the verge of burning the bottoms. I have the same problem with pizza crusts too and some other rolls I've tried in the past.
Is there a tip to get these to brown better in a regular home oven?
what temperature are you baking them at, and for how long?
The recipe calls for 20 minutes at 450, though I I've tinkered with it a bit and take it out a bit earlier. I've tried it with a bit of lower temp, maybe 425 or 400
The usual tips for browning the tips of baked goods:
move them higher in the oven, so there’s more top heat
a milk wash, butter, or something with protein or sugar to brown
Add sugar or protein to the dough
Add baking soda to the dough (because acids inhibit browning, bases promote it)
… but I would avoid that first one for garlic knots. Burned garlic is not good. And I assume they’re covered in butter already, so you will likely need to adjust the dough.
Is it just as simple as adding a bit more sugar or adding baking soda to the dough? Would I need to worry about any of the other recipe's ratios in it like reducing the flour or add a bit more water?
Regarding the wash, in a lot of recipes it's egg wash, it does the browning as well!
@gdawgrancid : if baking soda, just add a little, as it can be soapy in large amounts. You might be able to mix with water and brush it on, as pretzels don’t have it all the way through the dough, but you usually have a butter wash with garlic knots, and I don’t know what would happen if you added baking soda to the butter. For the sugar, yes, just try adding a tablespoon to your dough; milk powder might also work (adds protein). You shouldn’t need to adjust liquid
Brushing the tops with an egg wash helps to get these to brown better in a regular home oven. Also, you can try placing the baking sheet closer to the upper heat in the oven.
Please don’t repeat what others have written.
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119371 | Is this mold in hot sauce?
I have several 1 year old bottles of fermented Serrano hot sauce (I do not remember if this batch had an onion in it or not).
The sauce was canned via hot fill hold processing in woozy bottles at a safe temperature and time held at that temperature according to University of Wisconsin food safety charts. pH at canning time was 3.29 (according to a calibrated electronic meter).
Note: I am not interested in a discussion about hot-fill-hold versus water bath canning. I realize that home canning authorities don’t “allow” this process, but it is the standard FDA certified process for commercial canning, and it is the only option for hot sauce in woozy bottles (plastic caps can’t be water bath canned).
All of the bottles have settled solids and a clear liquid layer on top — that’s expected as the sauce isn’t filtered. But some of the bottles have a layer between the liquid and settled solids of something that I assume is a fungi of some sort, but I’d like to know what it likely is as it doesn’t look like a traditional mold. In fact it really can’t be a traditional mold (which are all aerobic) as the bottles still have a vacuum seal (opened one to confirm) and the layer is submerged anyway so could get oxygen even from the small concentration that remains in the headspace in all canning.
The sauce remains at a pH below 3.4.
Welcome to SA! The layer honestly looks like mother-of-vinegar. Is there any way it could be? Maybe share the recipe?
There’s no vinegar in it — it’s just a mash of serranos with 3% salt added and fermented. In some batches I’ve added a small amount of onion also.
Hmm, but now that you’ve got me thinking, that’d be an interesting idea. Acetobachter is common in the environment, but I’d have expected hot fill hold processing to kill all of that (boiling when added to the jar; above 150° in the jar for 5+ minutes, and above 190° for the initial seconds, either of which is effectively sterilizing for bacteria).
Could be an oxidative layer - sediment below is non-oxidized, while that at the liquid interface is?
@bob1 That certainly could be part of it, but that layer moves around cohesively (it will fall apart easily if you shake it, but if you move the bottle around more gently it acts like it’s a single thing).
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109635 | Can freezer jam not be frozen if sealed?
I make my jam in sterile jars and use a freezer jam recipe. I then seal using a hot water bath for 15 minutes. I know you don't need to seal it but I always do. Something about it makes me feel safer especially if you gift it and they don't freeze it immediately. My question is can I leave it in the pantry on the shelf since I did seal it. The jam was only "cooked" during the hot water bath.
Do you use a jam recipe made for canning? (I.e. without non-fruit additives like chia seeds.)
Only recipes from trusted sources should be used for shelf stable canning, as they are proven to produce a product with a sufficiently low pH to be safe when stored at room temperature.
The boiling water bath process is a way to create a vacuum seal, it is also a way to get the contents of the jar to near boiling for a certain amount of time, this will kill most microorganisms (any remaining will not be able to thrive in the low pH high sugar environment).
As you are not using a recipe specifically designed for a shelf stable product and you are not putting very hot jam/jelly into the jars prior to processing (you have no way of knowing how hot the center of the jam gets), your jam will not be shelf stable.
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109821 | Brine level goes down as pickles removed - top off or not?
I made some refrigerator pickles and they turned out great. However, as finished pickles are removed for eating, the brine level goes down and no longer covers the tops of the remaining pickles. Should the opened jar be topped off to cover remaining pickles? If so, with what? The opened jars will be put back in the frig.
Keeping vegetables submerged is important in a lacto-fermented product, because the fermentation is anaerobic (happens in the absence of oxygen). Keeping the product submerged during fermentation also makes it less likely that mold will grow on the product.
Refrigerator pickles are not generally fermented, and are just kept in a vinegar and seasoning base to flavor the product. Refrigeration also drastically slows any problem bacteria and such. Just avoid sticking your fingers in the jar to keep potential mold at bay, and given that you will likely consume in relatively short order, I would say there is no need to top off.
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109846 | Steaming and steam temperature
With a boiling pot of water with lid on, can I get different steam temperature? This is without the use of a pressure cooker.
I understand the phase change process of water to steam and that steam contains higher energy than boiling water. But is the steam maxed at 100 deg C by boiling a household-pot of water and a lid? Or can I increase the steam's temperature further by applying more heat on the pot? Or will that just increase the production rate of steam?
The heat of steam is limited by the amount of pressure you can build. If you want much hotter steam, you will need some pressured vessel. Having said this a tight-fitting lid will increase the pressure somewhat. We know this increases the pressure as sometimes with a tight light you might have the lid bounce up off the pot. This is due to the pressure overcoming the weight of the lid. This happens even if the lid has a steam vent. Only so much pressure can be released through the steam vent.
Having said all that if I don't think this will be very useful but of course this depends on what you are trying to do.
To answer your question the question you posed in the comments: "So once i have an open pot of boiling water and I then increase the flame, what changes? Is it the steam production rate or am I just wasting energy/gas?" You are almost certainly wasting energy/gas. In almost all circumstances, more steam will be produced as you try to add more heat to the water. This will increase the rate of production of the steam, but unless you have a way to trap the steam and build pressure all you are doing is building up a diffuse cloud of water vapour across all of your kitchen.
If you tell us what is your use case perhaps we could help more?
Thanks for the insight. I went down this rabbit hole because I have been told that some items are better steamed with a more 'powerful' steam. That nebulous comment made me think it is either higher temperature steam, or more steam.
How to think about this is, the more pressure the higher the temperature, the faster thinks will cook. The only way to get more pressure is to trap more steam than you let escape. If you have a pot with a tight lid and a small steam hole, you can build a small pressure because a smaller amount of steam leaves the vent than is created. But I wouldn't worry about this too much.
No, it is impossible. There is a physics law which tells you how the temperature and pressure of a gas are related. If you try to heat a gas up, its pressure also increases automatically. If the gas is enclosed in a hermetically closed system (like a pressure cooker) then the pressure of the system becomes higher. That's actually how (and why) pressure cookers came into widespread use - not because people wanted higher pressure, but because they wanted higher steam temperature.
In a pot with the lid, the momentarily increased pressure lifts the lid of the pot, some steam escapes, and the pressure (and temperature) fall back, until a little bit more of pressure is built, the lid is lifted again, and so on, until something changes (you turn off the stove, or the water in the pot is spent). This process is frequently observed in kitchens - experienced cooks know they have to rush to a rattling pot and reduce the stove setting before something happens.
So once i have an open pot of boiling water and I then increase the flame, what changes? Is it the steam production rate or am I just wasting energy/gas?
@Martin I can't tell you what will happen to the production rate of steam - it can get faster, or slower, or stay the same, depending on which of many competing effects gets to dominate the process. There are probably studies on this, but I haven't encountered them. Here is an article relevant to cooks: https://www.seriouseats.com/2010/08/how-to-boil-water-faster-simmer-temperatures.html. If you read it to the end, you will find a description of a scenario (not yours!) where the higher temperature leads to significantly slower evaporation.
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109893 | Binding oil to glucose in candy
I'm trying to mix (coconut) oil into glucose using sunflower lecithin as an emulsifying agent, this is being mixed into a candy (vegan) mix that consists mainly of glucose syrup, pectin, colouring and flavourings. I'm not too sure on the exact process and can't find much information online. The oil is heated and mixed with the lecithin and then mixed in with the hot candy mix (at around 220 F) but this is not mixing at all. Anyone have any pointers?
What kind of candy is this? The product list sounds unusual, is it supposed to imitate a helva? Where did you get the recipe from?
No, it is more an experiment. I have CBD oil and am making my own edibles. They are too expensive to buy for me and I'd like to take it this way! It comes in oil form and the presence of more oil in the edible helps with the uptake so better to have it in the recipe!
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110791 | Making cake and added oil at end instead of at the beginning
I forgot to add the oil at the beginning of my zucchini cake and had to add it at the end, after all the flour was in. So I had to beat it in a little. Do you think it will still turn out?
Welcome to the site! There's no way to answer this without knowing the complete recipe and method you are supposed to follow. Please edit and add these details.
I'm guessing you've baked it by now. How'd it turn out?
It's been a while since I've done it (mine were mostly with muffins, although I might've done it with some zucchini brownies this past spring), but I want to say it'll come out, but it might be different.
You'll have developed more gluten, as oil coating the flour prevents the water from getting to it as quickly. And there's the extra beating to get it all in there. So it probably won't come out as light as you were hoping.
But I find zucchini bread & cake recipes to be highly variable anyway -- as how much liquid you squeeze out of it (and by extension, how finely you grate it), has a huge impact on the final result.
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112149 | trying to rescue bland chicken soup that is already quite thick
how do you save a bland chicken soup that's already quite thick? i made a chicken/leek/rice soup last night that has a nice thick texture but it's bland -- i definitely didn't use enough salt in the cooking process. i'm wondering if i sweat another onion in some chicken fat and/or butter, add the soup, a little more water, and some vinegar, that might bring out some more depth, but i'm a little concerned that adding more water will just reinforce the blandness. thoughts?
If it's under-seasoned why not just add a bit more salt?
Personally, I would add about half a bottle of Sherry. :-)
Hot Sauce. Put Hot Sauce in your bowl and you're good ;)
It is generally helpful if you can give us the recipe you were working to so that we understand what is already in play. I appreciate soup can be less precise than many things, but an idea of your ingredients and process would be useful.
@GdD i def did add some more salt to counteract the bland, but was hoping to bring out more depth as well :)
@LeeDanielCrocker sherry is a good idea, i need to replace mine..
@SnakeDoc excellent tip, i'm going to do that for next bowl
@Spagirl sure thing! i was riffing on this recipe https://smittenkitchen.com/2020/03/chicken-leek-and-rice-soup/ but i made a few changes based on what i had/what's worked well in the past, eg i used 4 leeks, 3 cloves of garlic, and a yellow onion, sweated them with schmaltz and butter. however, i subbed breasts for thighs and had less stock than called for, and i think that, plus covering it, were what made for a bland final result (whenever i've made this soup or a variation before, i've let it simmer uncover so it can reduce a bit/to prevent the steam buildup from diluting flavor).
I always equate "depth" with "time".
The longer it simmers, the more depth it gains.
Adding anything you mentioned at the end may punch up the flavour, but I'd consider it to be 'top end' rather than 'depth'.
My first thought would be to drop it in a slow cooker & see how it is in 4-6 hours - with or without your added ingredients, though definitely half the salt you are considering adding if it really is under-salted. Salt during the process seems more effective than at the end. However, you can always lift it a little more at the end more easily than taking it out again if you over-do it ;)
I'd also consider 'cheating' with a good chicken or veg stock cube.
I'd be wary of vinegar, I'd be more inclined to butter &/or cream.
thanks for this! i think you're right about time. i ended up re-simmering it on the stove (i don't have a slow cooker) with some caramelized onions, white miso (unfortunately i didn't have any stock cubes) and some white wine vinegar and that seemed to fill out the flavor a bit more :)
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112522 | What would happen if I add an extra egg yolk to some cookie dough?
I'm making a batch of candied pecans which require the egg white from a single egg, well that leaves me with an extra yolk. I'm going to make some pecan sandie type cookies, and was wondering what would happen if I add the extra yolk? Will my cookies come out ok or will I botch my dough? I had to hand shell all these pecans so really don't want to waste them.
Pecan Sandies are sometimes basically shortbread (flour, butter, sugar, little to no water, no eggs). Other recipes include eggs and baking soda, which will give a softer, more cakelike cookie. If you add an egg yolk to the second type, it probably will make little difference. I'm not sure what the effect will be if you add an egg yolk to the shortbread type. However, I did find a shortbread recipe that includes egg yolks, so I don't think it will be a problem.
I found this article that recommends adding hard-boiled egg yolks to "scones, shortbread, biscuits, cornbread, and cake doughnuts." A shortbread-type Pecan Sandy recipe would fit the bill. Crumble the cooked egg yolk by using a spoon to press it through a sieve.
What happens is this: The tiny bits of cooked yolk intersperse throughout the batter and get in the way of the gluten network that forms when flour mixes with wet ingredients. Gluten is necessary in baked goods to give them structure, but too much makes for a tough, chewy crumb that’s generally undesirable in the pastry world. Cooked egg yolks prevent too much gluten (a.k.a. toughness) from developing without weighing the batter down. The result is a cake, cookie, or biscuit so tender that it feels like a mass of buttery crumbs just barely held together until they dissolve in your mouth.
Of course, now that your egg yolk is out of the shell, it's a bit late to boil it as a normal boiled egg. But you can poach an egg yolk in gently boiling water. The yolk has a sort of membrane that will keep it intact if you handle it gently. Here's a recipe for a soft poached egg yolk, but you will want to cook it until it's hard (maybe 5 minutes, but that's a guess).
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112556 | How do you cook more successfully in a different kitchen?
We rarely host holidays at my house and therefore end up traveling to visit with family. Since I cook frequently (and enjoy doing so!) I am generally asked/expected to help in the kitchen with the main dish, sides, and/or desserts.
My question is how do you generally deal with cooking in a kitchen other than at home? At home:
I have my "favorite" knives, cutting boards, pots/pans, mixing bowls,
etc
I am used to my stove and oven, and have tuned my recipes to those
times/temperatures
I know where all the seasonings/spices and other ingredients are
and to complicate things there are generally multiple other people helping in the kitchen and/or socializing, which is a great time to hang out with family but obviously makes moving around the kitchen more cumbersome.
None of the above are showstoppers as I am still able to cook okay, I just find that nothing comes out quite as ideally as I know I could've executed if I were cooking at home.
What are some specific things I can do or bring to make cooking in other kitchens more successful?
related : https://cooking.stackexchange.com/a/53820/67
Show up with a knife sharpener/whetstone and oven thermometer, and rearrange their spice cabinet when you arrive. ;)
I'm voting to close this as it is opinion based. There's many different ways you can deal with this, and there's no definite, fact based answer. I personally lower my expectations about what I can achieve, simplify recipes and make less complex dishes when I travel, but that's just me.
I don't think this is something that should be closed: it's not perfectly fact-based, and doesn't have exactly one answer, but there's lots of cooking questions that are similar. It's a fine fit for this site and for this format; it's not inviting discussion or similar.
Planning, planning, planning. As you say, you are used to your kitchen and know where everything is. Go over the recipe(s) in advance and locate everything you will use. When you cook at home, you know where the measuring spoons are. Find them. Make sure there is one of the size you need. You know you have all the spices, but put your finger on each one you need and open the jar to make sure there is enough. You might even poll the other cooks to make sure you aren't all using turmeric and there isn't enough to go around. Even better, premeasure the spices and hide them somewhere. Decide what pan, cooking implements, serving dish, and serving implements you will use and make sure nobody else wants them. When the gathering is large the house often doesn't have enough big ones. Foil covered cookie sheets can be a lifesaver. I find there are always enough burners on the stove to go around, but the oven can be a problem. If you do this the day before there is time to recover from problems.
Having done so, recognize that you are your own worst critic and are not looking for your Michelin star today. There will be glitches. Probably you can recover from them, perhaps with some loss of quality. If it is small, nobody else will notice. If it is large, they will share your pain. It may become one of the family stories. It isn't the end of the world. I recently burned up an entire rack of ribs on an unfamiliar grill. Fortunately there was some meat in the freezer for a replacement.
One challenge is the conflict in attention. When you are cooking at home you get to think about what can be done before guests arrive and how you will share your energy between cooking and talking to guests once they arrive. When you cook for a family gathering the guests are there already and competing for your attention long before the meal. There are a range of ways to deal with this, but recognizing it in advance can make it easier.
Good point about the diverted attention -- kitchen timer are your friend. (and a good way to get away from an annoying uncle). Yes, you can try to rely on your smartphone as a timer, but I've had so many of them that I try to stick with real timing devices.
Assuming you are not catering, and this, as you state, is most often holiday meals with friends and family, then practically speaking, you can bring your own knife (or knives), and a positive attitude. What else can you really control? Maybe, during these times, the ideal food is not as important as the interactions of family and friends.
If you're bringing your own knife, bring a cutting board too. You don't want to get there and find that they have a glass cutting board.
Glass cutting board? ...can I borrow a knife?
Obligatory video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5aEVGkkgVo
"It wasn't premeditated, I swear, I just always bring my knives in case I have to cook!"
@user3067860 : I used to work at a facility that would have random "full vehicle checks". I don't think they ever even searched the bins thoroughly enough to notice there were knives under the paper plates and such. Of course, it took them 5 or 6 inspections before they realized that I kept a Fiskars brush axe in my truck ... right between the passenger seat and the door, so it was pretty out in the open every time they had searched.
Maybe, during these times, limiting interactions in person with family and friends would be important?
Personally, I do a few things:
I keep a bin of supplies in my car. It's more geared towards serving food rather than cooking initially (as I'm mostly dealing with meetings where there's food being served, and they don't have the proper supplies). Although it has paper goods (napkins, paper towels, plates, bowls) and plastic utensils, I also have serving tools (smaller tongs & large spoons), cloth kitchen towels, an apron**, knives (chefs, paring, and serrated), a metal spatula, cutting mats, a probe thermometer, a pair of 12" metal tongs, salt & pepper.
It's actually a bit of a joke with my friends & family, as I'll often say "I think I have (something) in my car", and can then produce a straw, plastic table cloth, or something else unexpected.
My bin is actually two restaurant bus bins stacked together, with a lid. So I have a second bin available to collect up all of the dirty stuff to be cleaned.
For people whose homes I cook at regularly, I give them gifts of cooking tools over the years ... house warming, christmas, birthdays, etc. So then I know that they have some basic stuff there for me to use.
If I know that I'm going to be going over there to cook something specific, then I'll either grab one of my other bins of supplies (I have three -- one with grilling supplies (longer tongs, long handled spatulas, grill brush, welding gloves, infrared thermometer, more aprons, and space for m to throw some aluminum foil in there, etc); one for tea / coffee service (hot cups, lids, stirrers, sugar canister, artificial sweeteners, assorted teas); and another with cleaning supplies, deli & takeout containers, ziploc bags and similar for cleaning & packing up food).
Or I'll throw together a new bin of things that I think we might need for that specific event. I try to ask ahead to figure out what they're less likely to have, and focus on those 'nice to have' things like microplane zester, mandoline (with a cut-resistant glove!), larger pots, but will also try to make sure we have duplicate things like vegetable peelers, knives and cutting boards, so we can have multiple people working if there's sufficient space.
Depending on the where I'm cooking, and what the item is, this might turn into a situation like #2, where I just intentionally leave items with them for next time. (I've given out a lot of sheet pans through the years, as I had access to restaurant supply stores)
Now, when it comes time to actually cooking in someone else's place
As you mentioned, don't trust their oven behaves like theirs -- check things early, and adjust as needed. I've also run into strange cases like a burner that was either broken or only intended for simmering -- it just refused to boil a large pot of water.
Give yourself extra time. Even if things don't go horribly wrong, things are unlikely to be like your most optimistic time predictions and you'll want time to recover.
Try to have someone who lives there hang around in the kitchen. Even if you're doing all of the cooking, they can be getting out supplies for you, so you're not spending 5 minutes going through all of the drawers trying to find a fork.
Be flexible and creative. Although it drives one of my friends crazy, you just need something that works, even if it's not ideal. So if I'll mix sauces or scramble eggs in a (clean) coffee cup with a fork if that's what I know where they are or find first.
Try to take inventory of what you have before you start. It really sucks to think 'oh, it's still in the car' only to find out that you forgot to pack something, or something that you thought they have they no longer do. If you take a quick inventory before you start, you can send someone to the store, or try to call someone who's still on the way. (for my office's annual "awards picnic", we would specifically have a couple of people held in reserve for this, as the location took a while to get to).
** It's usually one that says "Don't Make Me Poison Your Food", but sometimes it's "The Spice Must Flow" or some of my even less appropriate ones.
If you're vaguely in charge of the menu, you could cook things with non-crtitical timings.
Nothing worse than one pan going off like a shot while the next one seemingly takes forever to come to the boil. You're thinking, "why can't these people have sharp knives, pans & rings that all behave the same… spices where I want them to be…" Then you realise their oven runs at least 20° cooler than yours…
Your external appearance is one of calm, but inside you are in a flat panic.
You can't beat that, you have to relax & enjoy the day. Non-critical timings will help that a lot.
Late addition
If you can't control what's being cooked, try to control what part you play - do prep - sprouts for 15 will keep you nicely occupied & looking helpful for a while, or take charge of anything long-cook where you can, something set-and-forget. Anything that means you don't also have to figure out what their cooker is like.
Also… You can sharpen their cheap, soft knives on the spine of another. It will scar the spine of one knife & the edge won't be great, but it will cut… & they obviously didn't care about their knives anyway ;)
In addition to things like knives that others have mentioned, I have brought things like induction cooktops (with pans), instant pots, crock pots, roaster ovens, etc. That's often helpful because you just need to find your own corner to plug in, rather than coordinating the use of a shared oven or cooktop.
For ingredients, it can be helpful to go more mise en place than you usually do at home. Get everything you need together first, so you are just quickly dumping things in, instead of having a deadline for finding the next ingredient.
Agreed on the mise en place -- ven if you're not prepping everything fully ahead of time, it's worth taking things out of cabinets early on, just to make sure you're not missing a critical ingredient, and have time to get someone to bring it and/or make a run to the store.
I interpret "Help in the kitchen" as meaning that you are not the primary cook, so you don't completely decide what to cook.
I'd bring in a few items that could be useful and are likely to in short supply, if they're even available at all:
As others have suggested, a few good knives. Cutting board? Might be too big, but it could be useful.
Probably some measuring utensils. My breadmaking machine has a gradated plastic measuring cup that is lightweight, for example.
Spices/herbs. Say you're helping with desserts. Having cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom in small quantities quickly allows you to chip in some extra flavors. Meat? - how about unexpected things like tamarind paste or smoked chipotle? Fresh herbs are also a possibility.
if you are cooking a dish yourself, figure out the exact recipe you want to use, print it out. Check with the host what ingredients are available there.
(TLDR version: Become a leader. The rest is just adaptation and experience.)
Great answers already about bringing your own knives (buy a knife roll/bag) and maybe even extra things, especially for the dishes you plan to make. I've also stocked up at least 3 people's kitchens with things they didn't have because I cooked there frequently enough. Yeah, I'm out a few hundred bucks, but my holiday stress level is reduced. By that same token, try to bring anything that's important for your dishes, especially if you're not sure about what the host keeps around -- your set of spices/herbs is a big thing is often forgotten when packing your ingredients.
However, the biggest advice I can give you is to become the respected cooking expert in the group. If you take a serious role in helping plan and execute the major part of the meal, just letting others volunteer to bring pre-prepared dishes -- i.e. they won't be in the kitchen -- and you become the "problem solver" for the cooking, over a couple of years, you will start to take on the role of the kitchen leader, and others will defer to you. Pretty much every kitchen you walk into where the meal was planned with you will become your kitchen for the day. If you're lucky enough to have someone in-the-know with a good sarcastic streak helping, you might even get the occasional mocking "YES, CHEF!" to let you know when you're getting a little too bossy and forgetting to say "please" and "thank you".
Note that you don't get here through a hissy fit or power play. This requires actual leadership skill on top of having a passion for cooking and being willing to take responsibility for the success of the meal. It also means you're taking on the stress of it, but you're doing it because you like it. This is exactly why this method works; people like to follow a confident leader and let them take responsibility. If someone else is running the kitchen, then just remember that it's their stress, not yours, and you're just there to help them as best you can, so don't sweat the small stuff.
Once you've moved into the kitchen leader role, you'll probably find that people will not just invite themselves into your kitchen (that's rude). They will volunteer with "is there anything I can help with?" Since you should now be aware of everything going on in your kitchen and what needs to happen, you should always be prepared to answer this question. If there's nothing at the moment, then defer to the host to see if they need anything done not in the kitchen. But also realize that now you can control the kitchen traffic. For instance, "Yeah, actually, I could really use someone to prep these Brussels sprouts. Here's a paring knife and a couple of bowls; there's more space at the table if you want to sit there and do it." It's also OK to say "not at the moment, but check with me again in 20 minutes".
And as Joe mentioned, try to keep someone who lives there nearby to help find things. They may be your "sous" for the day, or they may not even be much of a cook themselves. I would go a step further by pre-gaming the cook with your main "crew" and asking for the location of major items you will need. If there's room, maybe even do a little supply mise en place so you can just go to your "supply station" instead of remembering. Call out for things while you're finishing tasks and let your "assistant(s)" locate them for you. Do all your sink-centric prep work early, then let a volunteer help clean dishes and clear away the mess while you and the other cooks focus on cooking. You'll definitely need that big bowl again, and someone at the sink won't be in the way too much.
Source: Experience. I run every home kitchen I walk into now by default. It helps that I'm also comfortable in a leadership role in general, so this is not just a kitchen thing for me. If I'm not the head cook for the day, I'll drop by the kitchen as I'm unloading anything I brought and just let them know, "Hey guys, I'm here, give me a shout if you need anything." Usually, I just enjoy myself and let them work. Frequently, I will be called in to taste-test, so at most it's just suggesting a pinch more salt or a splash of vinegar to brighten the gravy, or saying "I think it's good!". Sometimes I may get called in to troubleshoot, at which point I usually become the de facto leader again. This means I need to be conscious of the whole kitchen, especially because the overwhelmed head cook is now worried about this failing dish. So if it's taking a while, I may have to say, "I've got this for now if you need to check on your other food" to remind them. Once I'm done helping with that, I step out and let the cook take over again. I'll come back and check on them to make sure they're still good, but otherwise stay out of the way unless they request me. If I do get asked to stick around, I often have to remind them that it's their meal and I'm just helping, because people will instinctually expect me to take charge. So be aware of that, too -- once a leader, always a leader, even when you're in the follower role that day.
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112707 | Is there a way to dilute oil?
I like to drink protein shakes, but I find that it's very hard to dissolve the protein powder into water or milk. You get clumps, and unless you want to get your blender dirty or spend ten minutes whisking you're out of luck. Recently I've started experimenting, and I've made some discoveries that could solve this problem.
First off, my protein powder dissolves in oil. I can dissolve it in oil then add water, and then instead of clumps I'll just have two separate layers, one with protein powder dissolved in oil and the other water. This is still better than clumps and tastes super creamy, but obviously this is much more calorie dense and kinda defeats the purpose of drinking protein shakes.
My next experiment was to try adding as little oil as possible. I added just enough oil to the protein powder to get the texture of wet sand, then added my water and stirred. This seemed to create an emulsification although there were some small clumps, but I think with some refinement I could get clump free emulsions using this technique. My theory is that when I added the water it mixed slowly with the oil and protein since the oil protein mixture was still in mostly solid form, and this allowed an emulsion to form while it could not in the previous case. But that's just a guess. Just like with the previous method, this was delicious but unhealthy.
So, is there something else I could try dissolving my protein powder in, or something I could dilute my oil with so it will still dissolve the powder but be less calorie dense? I'm using some sort of vegan protein powder with added emulsifiers. I can tell you what kind of protein it is later if it helps, but I suspect I'd get similar results with whey protein.
I think you want to emulsify, preferably without needing to use oil.
An emulsion is one liquid intermixed with another, either temporarily (salad dressing) or permanently (homogenised milk or household paint). What the OP is creating is a suspension or slurry, a solid in a liquid. Ironically, the best way to get this to disperse rapidly would probably be a couple of drips of dish-washing liquid… which I really wouldn't recommend ;)
Lecithin as an emulsifier?
@technophile or maybe egg yolk or mustard :)
@wumpusD'00m raw egg yolk is a great emulsifier, besides being good for you. (Don't eat raw whites, because they contain certain biotin and protein digestion inhibitors.)
Solubility is temperature-dependent. Try increasing the temperature of the water in which you attempt to dissolve the powder. This should help it to dissolve more readily. Once dissolved, you should be able to cool the liquid back down. So, in this way, you can prepare some batches (perhaps a couple of days) in advance, keeping them in the refrigerator for handy mixing into shakes without the hassle of poor solubility. (That said, you do say this is protein powder, which tends to have poor or no solubility in water. In fact, it just emulsifies. So thorough mixing may be your only option.)
Wait, so basically your question is "how to blend protein shakes without using the blender"? I always used the blender and didn't even know there was a problem :) TIL! If you get access to an emulsifier, you could try adding a bit - maybe lecithin.
Forget the oil. Get an immersion/stick blender. Seriously. It takes five seconds to clean and it works (blendingprotein powder in milk/water/whatever).
In my experience, time helps a lot, even with only little shaking/whisking: unlike e.g. starch, the clumps do not form a coating that prevents further water to diffuse in. Unless you do something that causes the protein to denature. It helps to know what protein you have in front of you to decide what to (not) do. E.g. whey protein is quite easily denatured by heat - it's the part of the milk that makes the "skin" when cooking milk. If you try to dissolve that in hot water or milk, you'll have an irreversible disaster. Gelatin, OTOH, will melt (once swollen).
It doesn't actually dissolve. It disperses (easily seen as some will eventually settle out). The distinction is important, as dissolving could be solved by time or heat.
A few things may help when mixing with water (or milk):
Make a paste with the powder and a little water, then dilute
(this is what I do for protein shakes) Put a little water in the bottle. Add the powder on top and put the lid on. Shake briefly but vigorously. Add more water to about 1/3 full, shake again. Top up to 2/3 full, shake a final time. If you insist on using a blender, a similar approach might be good. It stops the clumps forming stuck to the sides where they're hard to get free. This is normally with whey derivatives. I've tried it with a plant-based powder but it was too disgusting to drink.
I've never used them (because they wouldn't fit in the bike bottles I use for shakes) but there are mixing balls. They're basically a whisk made of wires and makes the shaking more effective.
If you like your shakes cold, a few ice cubes are a very good substitute for the whisk balls (again used with room for everything to move around in the bottle).
People at work who have protein shakes use those whisk balls, they seem quite effective. Similarly with Huel
I've been having some trouble with my whisk-ball-bottle myself. I'll have to try adding a bit of water (well, coffee actually) at a time tomorrow morning and see if that improves the blend
The MyProtein pea and rice protein powder I have is very easy to mix with water. If you can stand the taste it might be an option for shakes. I only use it for baking and porridge (would love to use it for more if it didn’t have the distinct taste).
@Michael I'm slowly using up the pea (etc.) one I've got at less than 5% in flavoured whey - any more and the taste comes through. A tiny bit in porridge works too
I'm another satisfied user of shaker bottles. (Bottle + whisk ball sold as a combination so the whisk ball is properly matched to the bottle.) Don't get it too full, shake it hard.
I just finished my coffee and can happily confirm that starting the shaking process with a less full bottle results in a much smoother blend!
Pre-mixing in a small volume of water works for a lot of things. It seems counter-intuitive but the smaller volume is easier to mix vigorously and clumps can't 'hide'. In a large volume they just get pushed around.
@BThompson When the first clumps form they need to be slammed around inside the bottle by the water/coffee to break them up. That's why a little at a time works better. I might have to try using coffee to make up protein drinks for after my fasted training rides, when they restart.
@JimmyJames: but OTOH also not too small a volume of water otherwise the drop will move around in the powder. Help dissolving by heat works only for some proteins, others (whey) will denature and thus form irreversible clumps!
@cbeleitesunhappywithSX Sure, you have to have enough water to get it mixed, of course. I first learned this because it's essential with cornstarch but now I use this trick all the time like when I fill a big travel mug with coffee: it's much quicker and easier to dissolve the sugar in a little bit of coffee and then add the rest than to try to do it in the full volume.
@cbeleitesunhappywithSX I just realised you've answered what went wrong with my attempt at protein hot chocolate on Saturday (I tried to make up flavoured whey protein+cocoa with hot water, got a good smooth paste, but when I added more near-boiling water lumps suddenly appeared)
@ChrisH: a) important outdoors wisdom: when preparing milk from powder, always use cold water. With time, the clumps will dissolve on their own. b) whey protein is the protein fraction that forms the delicious skin when boiling milk (and which is not precipitated by acid, at least not in acids the edible range) - so nothing really bad happened to your chocolate - unless you happen to be one of those who dislike the skin on the milk. (The other fraction is casein which is precipitated by acid, but takes heat quite well.)
@cbeleitesunhappywithSX It was hot and revitalising - I drank it anyway despite the lumps. Apart from the bread machine I mainly use milk powder for DIY instant porridge - oats, milk powder, sugar, salt (as we were discussing in another thread) mixed dry to take camping or into work. In that case you can make it with boiling water, presumably as the milk powder is so dispersed by all the other solids there isn't enough in one place to form clumps
To answer your question as stated: no, there is no way to dilute oil, at least not in a sense that would be helpful for your situation.
In cooking, there are basically only three edible liquids: water, oil and alcohol. Everything else is a mixture based on one or more of these. This view of things is terribly oversimplified, but it provides us with a good way to approach your problem.
First, alcohol is out - I suppose you don't want to get drunk from your protein breakfast.
Second, other oils are out, they have the same amount of calories. (When I use the imprecise term "oil" here, I mean cooking oils and not nonpolar nonnutritious ingestible solvents such as glycerine or propylene glycol, you shouldn't be using them in such amounts).
Third, water is also pretty much out. Water doesn't mix with oil. If you start looking into ways of using an emulsion, you will find that oil-in-water emulsions such as milk will behave pretty much like water for your case. You would need a water-in-oil emulsion, and these are rare in cooking, not necessarily tasty, and to make your emulsion, you will also have to dirty the blender.
So, the conclusion here is, there is no way you can dilute your oil as you intended.
For the actual solution of your situation, you can either implement one of the suggestions in ChrisH's answer, or see if a mixture with another powder will be sufficient for your powder to not clump (this could be sugar, or maybe a nut flour), or switch brands to a different protein powder that dissolves better.
I think we can agree that solvents (acetone, gasoline, etc.) are also out!
@Technophile - ethanol is a fine solvent. Tasty too.
Good answer, but I would definitely add acetic acid and glycerol to the list of edible liquids.
"First, alcohol is out - I suppose you don't want to get drunk from your protein breakfast." One of the other answers suggested using alcohol to dissolve the powder, then mixing it with water and boiling the alcohol out.
@nick012000 this doesn't sound like an especially good strategy. 1) it is more effort than just whisking for a few minutes. 2) the cooking will chnage the taste of the shake. 3) alcohol never boils completely off, you always end up with a mixture of water and alcohol.
@leftaroundabout For practical purposes, they aren't. You cannot chug down a glass of acetic acid without dire consequences. Sure you can have an edible liquid which contains a small amount of them, but this is covered by the phrase "mixture based on one of those" and does not help us further for answering the question. There are many other chemical compounds which are liquid at room temperature and are present in small amounts of food, but they are not used as the bulk liquid in drinks, and enumerating them here won't help us.
@rumtscho well, you hardly ever deal with pure alcohol either. You can however use both alcohol and acetic acid as a solvent. If it were possible to dissolve the powder in acetic acid (probably it's not, on the contrary the protein would denaturate in the acid), you could very well use this as a means to disperse it in water. At that point then, the acid itself could be neutralised with e.g. baking soda, to make the mix drinkeable. And as for glycerol, that can actually be drunk/slurped in pure form, though one shouldn't overdo it and it's kind of gross.
Acetic acid is NOT an edible liquid. Drink it and you'll end up in the hospital. Vinegar is not acetic acid, it's mostly water, with a small percentage of acetic acid, usually around 5%. Don't take my word for it, review the msds... https://www.msdsonline.com/2014/11/19/acetic-acid-hazards-safety-information/
@barbecue distilled vinegars with 10%, 25%, and even 85% acetic acid content are sold as food ingredients (obviously not for consuming them neat!) in various locations.
Not that it would affect the point of your answer, but note that neither glycerol nor propylene glycol (nor any other glycol) can be classified as "nonpolar" liquids. Light alcohols like these are textbook examples of polar liquids. They are miscible with water and don't mix very well with "oil".
@rackandboneman 85% acetic acid is not "edible."
The same would apply to a neat habanero chile, for most people :)
@barbecue nor is neat oil. Although I did see someone try it at university. Did not end well.
I invented a method to facilitate dissolving of protein powder shakes for an Innocentive contest. It worked pretty well but I did not win so there must be a better method out there.
The idea is that the powder would rather stay with powder than move off into the water - it is hydrophobic to some degree.
I mixed the powder with a small amount of baking soda and a small amount of powdered citric acid. When dry it was just another powder. When wet, the baking soda and citric acid foamed up, breaking up interactions between the particles of protein shake. The foam
(containing shake powder particles) then stirred in easily.
Maybe they did not like the additives. You could taste them both in the shake. It occurs to me that if you have a hard time finding powdered citric acid (I ordered mine) you could powder some vitamin C (ascorbic acid) tabs and try with that.
It occurs to me that you could achieve the same end by breaking up the protein powder particles with some hydrophilic powder that did not alter the flavor or nutritional value of the shake. I propose you could use dextrin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dextrin This is on the market as a laxative (usually in the store next to metamucil and fiber supplements) but it mixes to imperceptibility in drinks - it is soluble fiber. A brand name in the US in Benefiber. Adding this to the powder and mixing well in advance should facilitate dispersal of the protein shake powder without altering flavor or nutritional benefit.
Third idea: alcohol. If your protein powder dissolves in oil it will dissolve in pure ethanol. Dissolve powder in pure grain spirits - Everclear is a brand in the US. Use the smallest amount of alcohol to get the job done. Once dissolved, make your shake with boiling water then let it sit and cool off before you drink it, or leave it overnight in the refrigerator. The ethanol will evaporate as it cools. Or if you are digging a little kick just make the shake cool and drink the ethanol with. If you are about to go exercise ethanol is good low-carb fuel.
I like the acid/base foam idea. For the flavour you'd want an excess of acid to ensure all the soda was neutralised; I've been known to add citric acid to overly-sweet shakes when I'm out of lemon or lime juice so that taste can be fine. I have worked out the mass ratio of bicarb to citric acid before, but don't have the figure to hand. I doubt it's actually soluble in alcohol though; just as with oil it's not dissolving, but wetting better than with water. You might get away with very little but mixing with boiling water won't drive off very much (search here; it's been discussed before)
@ChrisH - If I recall I did use an excess of acid so there was some residual sourness which was good. The baking soda made it a little salty which is not terrible but unusual for an American drink.
I read somewhere that ethanol was the first performance enhancing substance to be banned. Biathlon competitors were using it to steady their aim.
Careful with the acid: proteins can be denatured by acid, and if that happens, the precipitate "coating" of the powder bubble will prevent the protein powder inside from dissolving.
Interesting ideas. I did one experiment where I tried making a shake with boiling water, but it seemed to cook the proteins, so that could be a problem with the boiling off the alcohol idea. I also tried making a shake with vodka because that was the purest alcohol I had on hand, but that did not work. At the time I figured alcohol was no better than water for dissolving the protein powder, but it sounds like the problem was just that vodka is mostly water.
If you buy a shaker (at least in Spain, even the cheaper 3e ones), it will in most cases come with a mixer in it, either a Ball as seen in the first image,
or they just come with a mixer inside, like in the second image (sorry if it looks promotional, it's not). This should definetly end your problems (supposing you are taking your protein shakes in these). You should be able to buy for a very low price these separate parts.
The ball might look hard to clean but it is definetly not!
Here is what I do:
Use just water or milk, no oil.
Start by mixing the powder with just a tiny amount of liquid.
It will be a very thick paste.
Mix thoroughly, then add a bit more liquid.
It should still be a paste.
Alternate adding more liquid and mixing thoroughly.
Once it is thin like a gravy you can add the rest of the liquid.
I have also found that using hot liquid works better, but it is not necessary.
+1. Exactly that is a common technique I use when mixing any powders with water. It works well not only with proteins shakes but also with flour (when preparing flour to make "thickener")
In a similar vein to @Wilik's solution, I often use carbonated/sparkling water with my protein shake (pea-protein usually). As this foams up dramatically, you are forced to add it in small amounts stirring it in until the foam is dissolved, then adding more and stirring again, repeating until you get to where it will all fit in the glass. I can still get a large clump of powder on the bottom if my stirring is insufficient to start with, but the foam has helped separate out the particles and the top portion is usually fine.
You don’t say what kind of oil you are using, just that you want to dilute it for health reasons. Since there is no handy “dilution” for oil, what if you try coconut oil, or even MCT oil? MCT is used for bulletproof coffee and the health benefits may Interest you. It is also tasteless and doesn’t seem so oily. BTW, Thanks for the tip to dissolve protein powder in oil first. What brand do you use?
@NaniBly I think your comment was intended for a different answer
The technique I use for diet shakes is to add ice to the water and use a hand shaker. The ice takes on a similar role to mixing balls etc.
Add water to the shaker, then the powder, then ice on top, just one or two cubes.
Swirl gently until the powder is more or less submerged (this prevents the first shake from propelling dry clumps of powder against the top of the shaker).
Then shake until mixed in. After this, allow it to rest a while. This allows the ice to melt (if you prefer) and allows some of the trapped air bubbles to escape- I found they were causing burping!
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112815 | Thaw / Brine partially frozen turkey at the same time
I’ve found sites that say it’s ok to start a brine for a partially frozen turkey. My question is, when you thaw a turkey using the cold water method, they say to change the water every 30 minutes. If you’re brining a partially frozen turkey, do you have to change the brine (including all the herbs and whatnot) every 30 minutes as well?
Are you cold-water thawing your turkey in the fridge? Are you water-brining your turkey in the fridge?
I’ve been just refrigerator thawing for the past three days. It’s still in its original wrapping but based on poking it, I can tell it isn’t quite thawed the whole way so I anticipate that I’ll have to start the brine with it still partially frozen.
sorry, when it comes to food safety, our site assumes that you intend to follow official guidelines. Since your method is unsafe by guidelines, we cannot give you further advice on what variations somebody might see as OK or not OK. So I closed as a duplicate of a safe thawing methods question - I could have closed it as opinion based, but that wouldn't change the outcome for you.
I believe the reasoning for changing the water every 30 minutes is to speed up defrosting. I imagine the defrost time would be reduced drastically. However, that seems like a mess and a lot of work. If you're brining a partially frozen turkey, from a safety perspective, I would not change the water out. I'd just leave it in the water. The main thing you are looking for is that the water temp never goes above 4C/40F. You can do this by doing in the fridge, or cooler, or outside if you live in the right place.
See these related questions for more info:
How can I effectively time a short thawing and brining of a a turkey?
How cold can a brining turkey get before freezing?
Thanks for this! I thought the water was swapped for some weird bacterial reason, but if it isn’t then I can worry less.
I'd actually hazard that switching the water out would greatly increase your chances of baterial issues. (ie: Dumping raw poultry water and splashing it everywhere, every 30 minutes).
You cannot brine frozen or partially frozen food. Brining is in essence the process of osmosis. By adding the meat to a saline solution, you repeatedly dehydrate and hydrate the meat. The salt molecules draw moisture out of the protein structures which is then replaced by the water. This is done because this process breaks down the cell walls in the protein, which aids in moisture retention, which just means juicier meat. Something which works well with lean cuts of meat like chicken and turkey.
But the saline solution cannot do this when the cell walls are frozen solid. You are also probably risking some sort of pathogen growing in the meat. You can dredge the frozen meat in luke warm water while still in its plastic to aid in a quicker defrost. Also it is worth noting that cold water and cold meat leads to a retardation in the osmosis process, you really want the brine and the meat to be at room temperature. If you use the correct amount of salt with defrosted meat the salt will have a anti-microbial effect on the water and the meat, which will keep things safe.
Then, why: https://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-safely-thaw-a-turkey-225724?amp=1 https://lifehacker.com/brine-and-thaw-a-turkey-at-the-same-time-1744396379/amp https://www.cnet.com/google-amp/news/how-and-why-to-brine-a-turkey/
You absolutely do not want to brine at room temperature https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2017/11/16/brining-safely-will-bring-tender-flavorful-meat-thanksgiving-table
https://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/portal/fsis/topics/food-safety-education/get-answers/food-safety-fact-sheets/poultry-preparation/poultry-basting-brining-and-marinating
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123155 | Roasting Par boiled Vegetables
I parboiled zucchini broccoli cauliflower carrots and butternut squash now I want to roast them in the oven what temperature and how long should I roast them since they're partially cooked?
We don't know how cooked your items are after the par boil. It also depends on the size of the items. So, we can't be very precise here. I would use high heat (400F or higher) because you probably want some color before the items overcook. As soon as they have some color, test for done-ness. Zucchini cooks much faster than the other items, so you might add that when the other items are almost complete.
It might even be worth putting them under the broiler to get the color on the outside without cooking the middle too much more
...yes...what@Joe says....
I would not par boil zucchini, they will be over cooked and mushy
par boil just enough that the vegetables are starting to be tender; stick a for in them.
Remove from the water and make sure you drain them completely, or as close to. Put them on a sheet pan and less the steam steam away.
Toss with olive oil and seasoning and put in an high temperature oven (400F+)
The high temperature is kinda required to remove as much humidity as quickly as possible so the vegetables can get some colors.
You have to keep an eye on them.
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124159 | Oven baking potatoes to make mashed potato/pomme puree - how to store the cooked skins
Whenever I make pomme puree or mashed potatoes (with warm milk/cream and softened butter depending), I always bake the potatoes after covering them in oil & salt and use the inside for mash/pomme puree. However, with most meals (like the lamb roast dinner I am making today), I do not particularly want to eat the potatoes skins there and then.
I tried Googling but most of it just comes up with how to store potatoes which is unhelpful. How can I store the cooked skins for the next day (loaded skins with tuna and mayonnaise for example)?
My first thought was just to let them cool and then fridge them before putting them back in the oven prior the next day but I am not sure if this is optimal or if they will go soggy etc.
I’ve never tried storing them filled, but they do okay empty in the fridge and then you can reheat and fill later
@Joe thank you, I assumed so but just wanted confirmation before I ruined them by accident! I am happy to accept an answer if you want to provide one
You can chill the unfilled potato skins, and then reheat them and fill them (or fill and heat, as appropriate for the filling)
I would recommend letting them cool some before packing up, and using waxed paper or similar between layers so they don’t stick together.
It’s possible that they might be a little more firm than freshly baked, so you want them to be more tender, may want to scoop the skins out to slightly thinner than you typically would. I usually don’t have an issue with this, but I suspect that it would be affected by potato variety.
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123497 | Does bean/pea milk made by just blending cooked beans/peas come out just as well as making it by blending soaked beans/peas and boiling them?
So I am vegan and make my own bean and pea milk using mostly Northern White beans and green split peas(finding the yellow ones is a bit hard). I have not made soymilk yet. Anyway, the way I make the bean/peamilk is by cooking them in a crockpot, then blending them in my Nutribullet. I also usually add bananas, sugar, and/or fat(cooking oil/Crisco).
But from what I heard and seen, most people make Bean/peamilk by soaking them overnight, and then blending them and boiling it and filtering it.
Does just cooking and blending get the same result as if I 'properly' made the milk?
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127873 | Soy sauce thickens roux. Why?
I know that veloute/espagnole is fundamentally roux and stock. Stock is basically salt, flavoring, and water. I was building a Japanese-inspired recipe, and I was curious how replacing stock with soy sauce would affect the resulting mixture.
I made a roughly 1:1 white roux with AP flour and neutral oil (a random mixture of LT olive and canola), heated approximately 1 part soy sauce in the microwave, added a spoonful of roux to the soy sauce to temper it (probably unnecessary since the soy was already hot) then combined all ingredients and stirred.
The mixture immediately thickened up into a paste. It was not clumpy and still had a good texture on my palate. I was easily able to get the mixture to relax back into a gravy by adding vegetable stock.
I recall seeing the mixture strongly foam up when I added the soy sauce, which is interesting. Kikkoman mentions that their soy sauce contains around 2% ABV, and I know that evaporative action can cause foaming. I doubt whatever chemical change happened was primarily heat-mediated--the thickening happened rather quickly. I had done this once before, but using cold soy sauce, and the foaming happened but the roux broke from the cold.
So what happened? I'm looking for answers that explain the underlying mechanism, so I can generalize and apply the knowledge in the future.
Doesn't roux always go paste-like when you add a small amount of liquid? That's the magic of it. I make mine on the stove, with butter, and it's pretty runny before I gradually add liquid (usually milk), but it turns into something resembling mashed potato as soon as I add the first milk (or stock). Then as I add more it starts to thin, starting from about when there's more liquid than roux. You never reached that stage, so it doesn't sound like what happened was at all unusual (maybe the foaming but I'm not sure).
Ah, so it's not just soy sauce. "Mashed potatoes" is a good texture descriptor for what I got, so the action must be between the water in the added liquid and something about the roux.
That's right. Of course the point is to thicken liquid, and it thickens small initial amounts of liquid very quickly. If you're used to adding a lot of liquid in one go, it's not obvious.
"Soy sauce thickens roux. Why?" It's the other way around: the roux is thickening the soy sauce. You just don't think of the roux as "thick" to start with because it's so thick that it doesn't behave like a liquid any more.
Wait, roux isn't supposed to behave like a liquid? My roux was about the viscosity of gravy before I added soy sauce, which is why I was surprised to see it seize up when I added a small amount of liquid.
@ChrisH that's an answer, you should post it as one.
@FuzzyChef I wrote my first comment assuming the OP was experiencing something different, and trying to find what. But now it seems like your'e right
Roux always goes paste-like when you add a small amount of liquid. That's the magic of it. I make mine on the stove, with butter, and it's pretty runny before I gradually add liquid (usually milk), but it turns into something resembling mashed potato as soon as I add the first milk (or stock). I would expect this effect to be even more noticeable with an oil-based roux, which is runnier to start with.
Then as I add more it starts to thin, starting from about when there's more liquid than roux. You never reached that stage, so it doesn't sound like what happened was at all unusual (except maybe the foaming).
Essentially, roux thickens small amounts of liquid very quickly. If you normally use a method that dumps in all the liquid at once, you won't notice this. I suspect you might, given all the hot stock and tempering; if you add small but increasing amounts you can add cold liquid.
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124073 | Can I steam Kao Fu in a steam oven?
I recently made kao fu from this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwFhvy3ug3M. From what I can tell it's just seitan with added yeast for the rise
I steamed it in the largest sauce pan I have, and it was successful but it was way too big for the pan and kept pushing up against the pan lid every couple of minutes (when it got too big I'd take the lid off and let it settle back down a bit)
I've got an AEG BES355010M steam oven, and though I've never used the steam functionality I was wondering if it would be useful for a task like this? I'm unsure if using it as a steam oven would serve the same purpose, or if it'll be more oven and less steam
Any advice would be much appreciated, thank you!
Welcome to SA! Apparently this was too specialized a question for our community. My only suggestion is "try it and see".
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124178 | What to put in the water when cooking white asparagus?
The recipes for cooking white asparagus (the kind popular in Germany, not the green one) add a few things to the water for cooking that seem a bit odd to me. Typical recipes use some or all of the following ingredients
salt
sugar
lemon juice
butter
Salt I understand of course. The lemon juice is supposed to affect the color or prevent discoloration, which seems plausible enough. I'm not sure about the sugar, the asparagus didn't really taste bitter or so without it. But the ingredient that makes me wonder the most is the butter.
Adding butter to the cooking water here seems similar to the often discredited advice to put olive oil in the water for cooking pasta. Oil and water don't really mix, so adding butter seems unlikely to affect the flavor of the asparagus a lot. So it seems like this would be a waster of butter for no or minimal effect. And it seems even more pointless as you typically add a far superior butter delivery device like Sauce Hollondaise to white asparagus.
Are there good reasons to add these ingredients, especially the butter?
Can you add links to some of the recipes, especially ones that include butter?
Also, suggestion: if you make this question exclusively about the butter (i.e. "Should I add butter to the water when cooking white asparagus") you'll get better quality answers.
@FuzzyChef I did not link any recipes because they're all in German and these components are ubiquitous in the recipes I found. And I intentionally made the question a bit broader to allow for more comprehensive answers, I'm not sure restricting it more would improve it.
I make my white asparagus (when i can find it) the same as I make my green.
I can‘t provide any hard scientific facts but I can think of three possibilities: 1) fat extract more of the bitterness (that you can stilll get if you cook asparagus shavings for too long) 2) you extract flavor for using the cooking liquid to make asparagus soup (also known practice by my grandparents, cooking the shavings with cooking liquid and more water or stock) or 3) the „Stich gute Butter“ was always added for good measure and never was questioned
@jmk I just checked my go-to recipe for making asparagus soup from shavings and while it does feature butter, that's only for making a roux (salt/sugar/lemon go into the cooking water for the peels though - I steam the asparagus itself, which means I don't really have cooking liquid from that to use). But now I'm curious enough to look it up in a South German "standard" cookbook when I get home - the recipes from that have been around for almost a century by this point.
The plot thickens - „Kochen und Backen nach Grundrezepten“, which is almost a century old and IIRC has been „gently modernized“ in the 80s, makes no mention of sugar, lemon or butter in its asparagus recipe. All it says is to use one of two basic recipes for preparing vegetables: steaming or cooking (where the latter only features salt in the cooking water, though it suggests using the resulting broth for making sauce).
Without knowing the specific recipes, I'd say they all seem to be added just for flavour. While I would never boil asparagus, I could see any or all of these as ingredients to a recipe that includes asparagus.
Or, are you sure that the recipes say boil? Maybe they meant for you to braise the asparagus.
By the way, fun fact; white asparagus is just asparagus that hasn't been exposed to light. In Germany they have huge fields with rows of what looks like white tubes, that are covered asparagus.
asparagus is boiled more than braised where I come from, especially in traditional recipes. Bring a tall pot of water to a boil with some salt, insert the asparagus vertically, and boil until soft and ready to eat. Not my favourite food (don't like the taste, though asparagus soup is ok) but that's how it's done here.
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124182 | How do you clean mussel shells for serving appetizers at a wedding?
We collected a bunch of mussel shells at Venice beach we wanted to clean them and use them to serve appetizers at our wedding celebration.
Mussel shells are robust. Hot water, soap and a brush will work fine. If you have a lot the dish-washer is an option as well.
Dishwasher detergent can be pretty aggressive, I wouldn't count on the shells surviving that unharmed.
And don't use any vinegar or similar, they will dissolve
@MaxD I'm pretty certain they'd be fine with dishwasher detergent as they're calcium carbonate, and the detergent is alkaline (CaCO₃ reacts readily with acids, not with bases). Eggshells are also calcium carbonate, and I've put them in the dishwasher to use for a craft project. The only worry might be that they'd fade a little. However I'd use a program without a drying cycle and give them an extra rinse afterwards. That's because being bowl-shaped and light, some of them will end up with water inside
@moscafj That's a different answer, received more upvotes than the answer you comment on - but OP can not accept it as a solution.
I would suggest if you're going to put them through the dishwasher, try one first to see how it affects the appearance.
@pipe...there you go....
@ChrisH: Put them in the dishwasher open-side down so the water won't pool? Or if your rack will hold them, then standing vertically like a bowl. Or maybe they're so light that some would probably get flipped over.
@peter they're definitely so light they'll get blown over if you layer them flat. You could stand them up in the cutlery basket but they wouldn't get as well washed as they would spread out, and would tend to nest together as they moved around.
Make sure you remove all of the mussle meat. This might require some scraping. After good cleaning, perhaps with detergent, I would put them in some type of sanitizing solution and make sure they dry fully.
Would this + a good wash be sufficiently safe for guests with seafood allergies? Probably a good idea to prep some alternate serving mechanism for some appetizers for guests with severe allergies that don't want to risk it.
I would not risk serving to guests with seafood allergies. I don't know if could possibly trigger a reaction, but it would just be weird. I would hope it is one of a selection of appetizers. It would, of course, be obvious enough for people with allergies to self-police.
Agreed. I mostly wanted to leave a reminder for the OP that they should consider this possibility and make sure there's a good snack option for people who don't want to eat out of seafood shells but are hungry when these are being served.
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124346 | Caffeine content in brewed tea
how can i calculate how much caffeine is in a brew of 3 teabags of green tea and 1 teabag of earl grey in 24 cups of water? I'm trying to reduce the caffeine content.
this depends highly on exactly what tea and exactly how you brewed it, so all we can give you is a range (and without lab equipment, that's about how accurate you will get it).
https://tecompanytea.com/blogs/tea-atelier/tea-caffeine
Related: https://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/91262/67 ; https://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/57758/67
You didn’t ask specifically about reducing caffeine, and I think there’s another question about that on here. From what I remember: caffeine comes out early in steeping, so you let it sit for 30?60?seconds or so, dump the water, then brew again. As you’re reusing the bags, each subsequent brew should have less caffeine
You won't be able to directly measure the caffeine content without lab equipment. You can use estimates, but the caffeine content of tea varies between different varieties, and varies by the preparation method (time to steep, temperature).
For example, this BBC Good Food guide to your question says:
An average cup of black tea with milk contains around 47mg of
caffeine.
Green tea contains less caffeine than
black tea, with on average 33mg per cup.
This Twinings page about caffeine in green tea says:
Twinings green tea contains around 30-40mg of caffeine per cup, based on 200ml of water being used.
These are both British references, so will be based on a cup of tea made by steeping one teabag in a mug of near-boiling water for a few minutes. If you search online you will find caffeine ranges for other preparation methods.
If you are interested in reducing your caffeine consumption, the important fact for you is that green tea contains a little less than black (so drinking more green and less Earl Grey will reduce caffeine intake), and of course you can dilute the tea so that you are consuming less of it (but this will also dilute the flavour). The simplest thing to do would be to buy decaffeinated tea.
interesting, all I've ever seen is that green has more caffeine than black, and then I saw this site that basically says "it depends"
I'm trying to stay hydrated at work- it's not easy in a Cardiac ICU working 12 hour shifts basically w/o breaks. Yes, I will be buying decaf tea, but I have 2 boxes (160 count each) of Bigelow green teabags. I use Red Rose Earl Grey teabags. I brew the tea in a 12 cup coffee maker and then reuse the bags for another 12 cups, so I'm assuming it's pretty watered down and the caffeine content should be lower. Thanks for your help!
@NurseMom There's always water! But happy tea-drinking and all the best for your long work days.
@NurseMom https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/102939/how-much-caffeine-would-there-be-if-i-reuse-tea-leaves-in-a-second-brewing?rq=1
Yes, I do drink water, but I get tired of just drinking that all day.
@nursemom If you haven't tried it before I strongly recommend getting a small sample of decaf tea first. Obviously tastes vary, but I recently did the direct experiment of comparing a certain well known NE England brand of tea with it's decaf variety and it was very underwhelming to say the least! Personally I'd suggest trying redbush (also called rooibos) for a caffeine-free tea-like substitute drink, the taste is different but the "feel" of the drink is the same.
you could just add oil of bergamot to the green (or even better white) tea to get the earl gray flavor without needing the higher-caffeine black tea. Also brew the green tea longer at a lower temp; caffeine comes out best with near-boiling water.
Also, note that Earl Grey is as popular as it is because most commercial varieties are higher than average for caffeine. So eliminating the Earl Grey would be a good step. Also, definitely stay away from Assam for the same reason.
Also, tip from another caffeine-sensitive: carbonated mineral water is a good way to get away from "water boredom", as is water mixed with a small amount of shrub (as in, vinegar/fruit concentrate).
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124365 | Do I have black mold or a stain on my water bottle gasket?
I have a water bottle that the silicone seal/gasket/o ring developed some black mold. I soaked it overnight in undiluted vinegar (I always see it being diluted should I be doing this?) but it still has a black discoloration. Is this stained or evidence that it still has mold? I scrubbed this with a stiff brush and even scraped it with my fingernail and there is nothing on the surface that can be felt.
Also, I see all these mixtures of baking powder, water, bleach, vinegar etc and then the option of boiling. If boiling will do the trick why not just boil? Do these other techniques do something that boiling doesn’t? Thanks!
This is very likely a mold species.
It is impossible to say if you have killed it by your treatment methods, but the boiling at least should kill any growing mold, but won't affect any spores if they have been produced. Bleach and other chemical methods such as benzalkonium chloride might work against spores, but you would need to ensure that
your seal is chemically compatible (most silicone-ware is very stable and unaffected by many chemicals).
that you use a high-enough concentration.
that you have sufficient penetration of the seal by the chemical - killing surface contamination might not be effective against stuff inside.
(most importantly) that you can wash it out again so that you aren't drinking the chemical.
The black coloration is merely an indicator that you have had the mold there, so it can be dead and still be discoloured. Even if you killed it, the color will still be there as you haven't gotten rid of the actual cause of the discoloration, which is produced by the mold and is unaffected by the killing methods used. Bleaching would be the only method that might take out the color, but even that might still leave some residual color - possibly a brownish or yellow patch left.
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126072 | How to avoid buying chestnuts that are green or rotten on the inside?
Hello I live in Wisconsin and bought some Chestnuts imported from Italy early December from a grocery store. I noticed while I was scoring them that majority of them were green or powdery inside I assume this means they were rotting.
When I bought them from the grocery, they were sold next to other holiday nuts in a open air basket.
Is there anything I can watch out for to buy good Chestnuts?
After decades of trying, my conclusion is you must buy them in a place that sells a lot of them so they are always fresh. Where I live that means an Asian market.
Or buy the pre-shelled vacuum/foil packed ones. Which don't have any "roasting on an open fire" prospects.
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129303 | How to maintain a carbon steel skillet?
I am familiar with maintaining cast iron. Is maintaining carbon steel have similar rules of thumb?
Avoid abrasive materials
After cleaning, wipe and heat up and apply layer of oil
I'm no expert, and only have one carbon steel skillet, but it seems to be rather similar... but the warnings against pre-heating seem to be even more important (but mostly seem to be to prevent burning off the seasoning, not causing it to bow and be ruined)
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126242 | Taiyaki mold with electric coil stove top?
Examples online of people cooking Taiyaki usually involve a gas range or grill. Would a metal mold work on a electric coil stovetop?
If you have sufficient contact area it can work. This depends on the mold you have.
The one I have is not flat on the outside as it follows the inner shape, so it would have little contact area with an electric coil stove top, while a gas burner would heat it up more evenly.
I would say it would be fine. As the previous poster said, will depend on your taiyaki mold. Some molds have no border or frame around the actual fish shape, others have it. Mine happens to have it, and I have cooked on an electric coil range and it’s fine. If you don’t have the border then it will still cook ok, just slightly uneven heating. One other thing with the borderless molds is being level. If it is not level then you are more likely to have uneven thickness in the batter or spillover. So make sure that the batter is mostly set by holding or stabilizing it until the batter is mostly set, add your filling and then pour the other half in. I would go with a slightly thicker batter as well.
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129448 | How to get accurate reading from clip on candy thermometer?
I am new to candy making and I bought a clip on candy thermometer.
I noticed while using it that the side of pot and content is always a bit cooler than the center of the pot. I was making candy in a Dutch oven where the center of the pot was 20 degrees hotter than the edge which is not good when watching the candy thermometer to access the temperature.
Using the clip on candy thermometer seems misleading. Am I using it correctly? Should it only be used for smaller pots?
That is an accurate reading. It is not misleading. It’s a measurement of the temperature of the syrup, taken from near the edge of the pot.
It sounds like there’s a significant temperature gradient in your pot. This can happen with large batches, particularly if heated very quickly and if the burner is smaller than the pot, and if there’s little convection (say, if you’re not stirring well).
But again, that is the actual temperature of that part of the syrup. If you only try to get the middle of the pot to the target temperature, your results will not be good overall.
Also, if Dutch oven is made of cast iron, it will have poor thermal conductivity, possibly explaining the temperature gradient. I would try with a stainless steel pot with an aluminum core to see if it helps.
@Najkin No pot is going to have good enough thermal conductivity to directly keep its sides up to temperature. The difference between plain old cast iron and expensive fancy aluminium-core cookware would be in hot spots on the bottom, which there's no reason to believe are a problem in this case. Honestly, cast iron is nearly ideal here, but the choice of pot is not going to make a big difference as long as the burner is large enough.
So the advice for accurate use of the thermometer is essentially better temperature management of the candy? For example, stir the candy, use a burner that aligns with the pot etc?
Well, it’s not entirely clear that advice is needed here. Again, you do not have a problem with accuracy. If the candy you are making is coming out well then there’s nothing you need to do. If you find that the candy is burning or not achieving the proper consistency then you might consider those approaches.
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129282 | Questions about using a public grill
I've been thinking about buying a grill but before diving in I noticed a grill at a nearby park.
I was curious if people have tips for using one. Some concerns I have is no control over airflow for the charcoal therefore no control over temperature. Also, I am not sure how to put already hot charcoal inside. Do I use a shovel?
I've only used them a couple of times, and when we did, we placed the cold charcoal in the grill, then lit it, rather than using a charcoal chimney.
A shovel is still a good idea to clear out the ashes and if you need to move hot coals around.
As for temperature, you adjust the height of the grate over the coals...
this generally requires two people, each with a heavy welding or fireplace glove to do it smoothly.
I would also recommend bringing some sort of a smaller grid cooking surface. You can cook large items on them, but they tend to have rather widely spaced bars, so smaller stuff tends to fall on. the surface can also get pretty bad, as they're often exposed to the elements and with no owner to care for them, they might not have been scraped and re-seasoned in years.
You should also check to see if your park has any sort of a signup schedule. sometimes it's just whoever gets there first, but other places let you reserve them if you're planning an event.
How was lighting cold charcoal? Did you use lighter fluid? All videos I have seen use chimney
@VictorFeagins it takes longer to get them to coals so you can start cooking. If the bars are particularly wide, and you're using briquettes (not lump), you might be able to pour them through the grate, maybe pushing down a few stragglers. I don't use lighter fluid, usually just newspaper or similar to catch the first flame and get the charcoal going, but sometimes with a bit of oil on it so it burns more like a candle
Thank you! How do you clean up afterwards?
That's the problem. You usually have to have the coals cool off to dispose of the ash... you don't want to take them with you before hand or they might self-ignite. People often don't... but check with the park to see what their rules are, as if you have to reserve a slot, they know who you are. (but they might also have a safe place to dispose of the ashes)
I've moved away from lighter fluid @VictorFeagins, I use firelighters made with wood savings soaked in paraffin wax. They don't make your food take like gasoline. In an emergency you can use a paper towel with a load of alcohol hand gel, it's still better. In a barbecue like that I would put a layer of charcoal, then the firelighter, then the rest of the charcoal in a pyramid, the bottom layer will enable airflow.
I rarely bother with these, but I've certainly used them occasionally. I'm still moderately amused by the non-updated roadside rest areas that still have them, as I consider folks stopping for an hour or more beside a busy highway to fire one of these up and cook their lunch.
Apart from using height to control temperature, you can also normally build your fire on only one side, since the grill surface is very large unless you have a very large gathering to cook for, so you can move things off to the side for finer control. Likewise, you can pile the coals up higher or spread them out with some tool that you bring. It's essentially a slightly more convenient campfire, as opposed to the sort of grill with dampers to control airflow.
It's not normal to put already-hot charcoal in one, but if you want to, a metal shovel would be appropriate. In most locations you should drown the fire completely with water at the end of using it, though local practices may vary somewhat. Some (evidently not this one) do allow the grate to rotate up at the highest level so you could use a chimney-type starter, but capturing the grate in some manner is normal, since some people will steal them otherwise.
As in any other kind of grill, actual charcoal is faster and easier to light than briquettes (which are mostly coal dust, rather than charcoal at all - and slow and annoying to light. And foul-smelling if they are "easy lighting" ones, so it still takes a long time before the stink burns off and you'd want to cook food over them.)
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128227 | Cooking lasagna in a circle dutch oven?
I don't own a casserole dish to make lasagna and was curious if anyone has tried to make lasagna with circular pot? I plan on after cooking the pasta cutting into shape when layering. I should mention that I have not made lasagna before.
Do a search for "pan lasagna" recipe and you'll see the gamut from loaf pans to Bundt pans to sheet pans. Lasagna is pretty forgiving - as long as the noodles have something on them so they don't dry out, pretty much any heat-safe container will work if you don't go too hot to start and leave enough time to warm up.
I suspect that “pan lasagna” may include other stuff. In the US, I would recommend the term “ skillet lasagna”
You'll also want to plan to have an excess of noodles, since there will be a lot of loss inherent in cutting circles.
I doubt the shape of the dish makes that much difference, assuming that you adjust for the difference in area - if you'll be piling a recipe that's designed for a large shallow rectangular pan into a smaller round pan, much deeper, there would likely be an effect on cooking time from the added depth.
If you scale the recipe from the bottom area of the dish called for to the bottom area of the dish you have, it should end up the same depth and cook pretty much the same. You won't have somewhat more crispy corners, since you don't have corners; which is good or bad depending on if you or someone you're serving particularly seeks out corner sections of lasagna casserole. I don't happen to know anyone who seems to care that much about the location of their slice, so I doubt it's a major issue. But I'd not be surprised if some people did care, one way or the other.
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124959 | Did I press tofu enough? Or is there another problem? Created tofu spread
Hello I was making tofu for the first time starting with dried soy beans. I was following this youtube tutorial: https://youtu.be/IdGwL5dFgCQ
I used lemon juice diluted with water as my coagulant. The end result after pressing with 10 lbs or 5 kg worth of weight for 3 hours is below:
Is the reason the tofu did not firm up because I didn't press enough or could there have been another issue?
I would try again with gypsum (calcium sulfate) or nigari as your coagulant. The result will be more consistent and of higher quality. Lemon and other acids are less common coagulants.
I'll try and update the post.
Yep just tried again this time with nigari and it worked like a charm. Thanks for the help!
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.554030 | 2023-08-12T21:22:21 | {
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124633 | Troubleshooting an Issue with the Instant Pot Duo Plus 6 Quart Model - Pot is Making Clicking Sounds When Preheating and Cooking
My 6 quart Instant Pot Duo Plus makes a clicking sound when it is preheating and cooking (it is still cooking right now; just started it a few hours ago). Please refer to the videos in the Reddit post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/PressureCooking/comments/14p7pnw/troubleshooting_an_issue_with_the_instant_pot_duo/. I only used the slow cooking option so far. For Instant Pot Duo Plus owners, has this happened with anyone, and how did you fix this? I had cancelled the slow cooking setting a few times, as I forgot to add a few ingredients. When I ran the cooker for the first time, I didn't hear the cooking sound. Is it possible that I may have broken something on the lid?
When I first used this, I did not familiarize myself with all of the parts (I've used an Instant Pot before), but when I was reading through the instruction manual, I saw that this model had a condensation collector, but initially could not find it. I started exploring the pot after cancelling the slow cook setting (after starting it for the first time). I explored the lid and initially removed the float valve plastic cover. I had trouble getting it back on (had to hold the valve to keep it from going back up when I turn the lid with the inside out. Did any of my actions break a part, leading to to clicking sound?
Any input regarding this would be much appreciated; thanks so much for reading!
Is the thing malfunctioning in any way you’re aware of, beyond making a clicking sound?
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.554116 | 2023-07-03T05:23:05 | {
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