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12950
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Culinary uses for juniper extract?
I bought some juniper extract for making bath stuff, and it doesn't seem to be very effective for this purpose. I have used juniper berries before, so I thought I might be able to use the extract for cooking or baking. I have not been able to find any recipes online.
Is juniper extract ok to eat? What types of applications would it be good for, I assume whole berries is much better choice for marinades. Would it have the same uses as orange or peppermint extract?
Do you know if it is 'food-grade' oil? If it isn't you shouldn't eat it as it may contain stabilisers which are not edible.
I can check when I get home, I am pretty sure it is, and is probably why the bath stuff didn't turn out. Most sites that come up suggest taking a certain number of drops internally as a remedy but I'm not interested in doing that.
I agree with nixy. Make sure it's food grade. If it's not the extract may have other stabilizers that you don't want to consume. Glycerin is an example where glycerin that you use in soap is different from the food grade glycerin one would use to make non-alcoholic vanilla extract.
it is food grade, the bottle reccomends adding a certain amount to water to drink as a supplement.
I'm not familiar with cooking with juniper but juniper is commonly used with game and meats. Dilute with water as the instructions recommend then using that as a marinade ingredient sounds like it would a safe and appropriate use.
You could make gin! Add the juniper to vodka and you have instant gin. BTW, I don't drink alcohol.
Also, juniper extract could be used in any food recipe that calls for gin. Gin is a natural with cabbage.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:55.839023
| 2011-03-08T22:24:32 |
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|
19466
|
Does liver reheat well?
I have a large chunk of beef liver, too much to eat in one sitting. I would prefer to cook it all up at once, but would it be palatable reheated? Would it be ok cold?
Liver is extremely heat-sensitive. While it should be possible to reheat it and keep it palatable, it is tricky, because you risk ruining it every time you put it on the heat.
I know lots of people don't, but I love chopped liver - it's perfectly fine to eat cold (assuming it's been cooked).
insignificant idiom should be "cold chopped liver"? (had to say it)
If I didn't hate liver with every fiber of my being, I'd consider pâté, which is generally served chilled.
Beef liver is just so incredibly bad, why would anyone eat it. It is the organ that filters impurities out of the animals blood stream. Even if you are 100 percent certain of the quality of the livestock it still has a terrible mineral quality to it. Nope grind it and feed it to the cats
So this turned out to be delicious. First, slice the cold, cooked liver into strips approximately 1/4 inch thick, then cut strips into bite sized bits, and set aside. The liver needs to reach room temperature. I then cooked a serving of rice in beef broth instead of water, with the lid off. In a pan I sautéed onions, bell pepper and carrot in olive oil, all cut fairly small. Once the onion was translucent I added about a 1/4 cup of merlot and let it cook from a few minutes. I then combined the rice and the onion mixture, covered, and simmered until the rice was cooked. The I carefully added the liver on top of the rice(do not stir it in) and steamed the liver for a minute and a half. I removed the mixture from the heat and stirred the. I let it rest for a few minutes. The liver was still tender and moist. I will definitely try this again.
So the crucial information is “Steam room temperature cooked liver atop rice and veggies for 1.5 minutes, then mix and let rest off the heat for a bit longer”. Nice suggestion! That said, welcome to Seasoned Advice! If you have a moment, I recommend you take the [tour] and browse through the [help] to learn more about how the site works.
With liver I'd say there isn't much point in reheating it as it'll cook in about the same time if you cut it thinly.
You could eat it cold but whether you'd like it is a matter of personal taste.
I hate to waste food and I always have too much liver. I use beef broth or bouillon so the liver does not dry out or get tough.
To reheat:
Slice up fresh onions if you don't have enough left over onion.
Slice cooked liver on the diagonal into 1/2" thick strips.
In saucepan, make up enough beef broth or bouillon to completely cover liver in pan (about 3 cups), Keep hot.
Saute fresh batch of onions, remove from pan and set aside.
Add hot beef broth to pan, lightly scrape bottom to deglaze onion flavor.
Add liver to boiling broth for about 30-45 SECONDS, just enough to heat them through. Quickly remove from heat and drain.
If desired, quickly toss onions in pan to reheat.
Serve onions over liver strips.
After reading different sources on how to reheat liver, I tried by placing liver and onion in foil wrap, placed in 350 F oven for about 3 to 5 minutes. It came out very decent, not hot, not cold, but edible.
Hello Bill, we are glad you took the time to tell us about a working method. We would ask you to not use ALL CAPS when posting. On the Interent, this is understood to be the written equivalent of shouting, and comes across as rude. I rewrote your post in normal capitalization now.
I always soak my liver pieces in milk first, this seems to make it less dry. When ready to cook, drain, pat dry and dredge in a mixture on flour, salt & pepper maybe a herb such as thyme. Cook in bacon grease, or fry a few slices bacon first, cook 10 min as needed till tender. Serve as you wish. My husband will often reheat left-overs in Microwave 1 min., still awesome, not tough. I would love to try freezing this for later.
Palatability is largely a matter of taste...
Seriously, it will likely depend upon your cooking method. If you are cooking short high-heat, then reheating may well not work as well, as it will cook further and would likely become tough.
If you originally cooked in some kind of braising sauce, you are probably just fine to gently reheat, as the liquid should help to keep it tender.
Cold - mostly a matter of preference. OK for me might not be OK for you.
Ok, I looked at the answers and thought about how to try it. My 96 year old father said it was too tough when I reheated it the first time. Like everyone else I had too much left over. I sauteed more onions until they were almost burnt. I then cut the heat off and place a piece of liver that I had in the fridge, covered it with the onions and put a lid on it and let it sit for about 10 minutes on the off electric burner.
It was not super hot but he enjoyed it almost as if it was freshly cooked. Not tough at all. I can not eat it because of gout.
Oh, I am just learning to cook at 66 years old.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:55.839222
| 2011-12-07T00:40:56 |
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|
10580
|
how do I make my goat cheese creamy?
I tried to make goat cheese following the recipe below, I did not use any buttermilk although a comment indicated that could be done. I kept the milk at the desired temperature for 10-15 minutes with no curdling occuring, took off the stove then added the reccomeneded amount of lemon juice and still no curdling occured.
http://guiltykitchen.com/2010/12/06/back-to-basics-culinary-fundamentals-goat-cheese/
My solution was to put the milk back on the heat until it started to curdle, and then take off the heat and add more lemon juice which produced curds, and then I was able to continue following the recipe. The result was a crumbly cheese that wasn't very spreadable. I used milk from a local farm, it did not have any indication of how pasturized it was.
What did I do wrong? Should I have left the milk on the heat at a stable temperature until is started to curdle?
Classic Chevre uses a bacterial culture as well as rennet to coagulate the cheese, but that is not the only way to make a goat's cheese. The recipe you linked to doesn't have a long incubation time, so I doubt there's any intention that the buttermilk is inoculating the cheese and there's no rennet. So I think the "bacteria" idea is a red herring.
A very simple goat's cheese can be made with goat's milk and lemon juice. I have had great success with it. It does make a fairly soft cheese, though how soft depends on how long its left to drain.
The recipe I use has 1/3 cup (US) lemon juice to 1 quart milk. I'm in the UK so this works out as 2 lemons per litre. The result is quite "lemony" and you might want to use another acid source (white wine vinegar for instance) but if you keep trying you can home in on what you like.
Simple acid cheeses like reasonably high temperatures. My recipe uses 180 - 185F (which may be hotter than you have used) before adding the lemon juice.
The other thing is, its generally much easier to just let the milk sit after acidification so the curd can develop. 10 minutes is usually enough, but you can always leave it 20 or 30 minutes if the curd is slow to set. The guilty kitchen recipe goes straight to ladling out the curds. That is something you do for a ricotta or high acid cheese (which may sort of be what they are aiming for - I don't cook with buttermilk myself so don't have the experience) but I'd want to let things set a bit first with a simple goat's cheese.
So: warm slowly to 180-185F, add lemon, sit, strain through cheesecloth to the texture you like.
Crumbly may be an indication that its not setting long enough?
It does sound like it was more of an acid issue, the buttermilk would be more acidic but the culture probably didn't add much. When I had made paneer I certainly used alot more acid but figured there might be reason for the lack of acid in that recipe. If I can get my hands on more raw milk again I'll check out your recipe!
I'd say the buttermilk was a necessary ingredient that you shouldn't have left out. Milk usually needs to be inoculated with some kind of culture before your rennet (or lemon juice in this case) will successfully curdle it. Buttermilk is cultured (which means it has an active colony of beneficial bacteria), and would work well to inoculate your goat milk.
Leaving that out made the milk much more difficult to curdle, and left you with a less stable curd.
This makes sense. Buttermilk is more acidic than regular milk. Adding lemon juice makes the mixture even more acidic, causing it to curdle. Leaving the buttermilk out means the mixture is less acidic and so you get less curdling.
I assume by goat cheese you mean chevre. Leave the log at room temperature for a while like you would a stick of butter that needs to be softened. To have soft creamy goat cheese for croutons for a salad, let the cheese come to room temp, put in either the Kitchen Aid mixer or a food processor, add a couple of tablespoons of heavy cream, fresh cracked pepper, process and fines herbs which are tarragon, parsley, and chervil.
I meant homemade goat cheese, this stuff had a very hard curd and was not about to melt.
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.839612
| 2010-12-29T20:39:10 |
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|
55693
|
How to best keep a bunch of coriander fresh?
I bought this bunch of coriander at my local fruit shop. What is the best way to keep it fresh as long as possible? I usually cut off about 1 cm of the stems and then put them into a glass of water, at room temperature. I wonder if I would be better off putting them into the fridge, with or without the water. Or if there is another option I'm unaware of.
As far as I know many (most?) asian grocery stores in Germany have the coriander (with roots!) in plastic bags (without water). The coriander is stored in the fridge.
Coriander (cilantro) is similar to parsley... I wonder if one can keep it in water like a flower... that's how my dad stores parsley.
I keep them in a glass of water as well, but also in a fridge. Sounds like it would a useful experiment to see whether one method is more effective than another :)
@Erica : with the exception being that this is cilantro ... so the best way to store it is in a plastic bag, then place in the trash can.
@Joe I think you must have the "cilantro gene"... http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/09/14/161057954/love-to-hate-cilantro-its-in-your-genes-and-maybe-in-your-head
For almost all delicate green herbs, the best thing to do is
Hold them by the bottom of the bunch and gently swirl in plenty of
cool water to remove all the dirt
Gently shake to remove excess water
Wrap loosely in a damp paper towel
Place in a plastic bag and store in the crisper drawer of your refrigerator
This will keep most herbs fresh for many days.
I'd actually argue against washing them and/or using a damp towel. I can store most herbs (not basil) for 2+ weeks by wrapping them in a dry paper towel, plastic bag, and into the crisper. In my experience, moisture leads to rotting.
Taking off the twist tie (or whatever is holding the bunch together) is the first step--cilantro always seems to rot most when tightly packed. After that, I've had good luck with an occasional trip in the salad spinner. It can be used to help separate out (remove) any cilantro already completely turned to mush (which seems to happen to me even when most of the cilantro is completely fine) and should leave the remaining cilantro mostly dry. Then I wrap what remains in a dry paper towel (which usually gets a little damp as it wicks moisture from the cilantro) and put in a plastic bag in the crisper drawer.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.839924
| 2015-03-14T19:14:30 |
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|
14855
|
How to preserve the "sugar syrup" without using a cold storage?
I prepared the Gulab jamuns few days back. Now there is a lot of sugar syrup remaining, what's the way of preserving it without using the fridge?
One way is to boil it daily, but that'll consume a lot of gas. So, any other way out?
Sugar is a natural preservative and provided you store it in a dark, dry, cool place it should keep for a long time. You should store it in a sterilised glass jar or bottle.
To sterilise, place the empty, open jar in a pan of cold water and bring to the boil, boiling for ten minutes. Remove, pour in the syrup, then place the lid on and return to the boiling water for another ten minutes. Dry with a clean towel and store.
Thanks for responding, won't the glass break on boiling? Is glass necessary? I have the high quality plastic bottles: http://www.pearlpet.com/ Won't they do?
I've edited the answer actually - I'd neglected to say you should place the jar in the water when it's cold and then bring it to the boil: this means the glass shouldn't shatter with heat stress. I'm not sure how the plastic bottles would behave so can't say, but I wouldn't risk it.
and why did you mention "sterilised", BTW? Is it compulsory? If I use a "new" glass jar, will the sterilization be still necessary?
Because the longer you store something, the more likely it is to grow bacteria. If you use a brand new jar you may be ok.
But then, that jar will get old in a few days, then what, how many times am I supposed to purchase new jars? And now I realize I was talking to YOU in the photography section too. ;) Secondly, if you don't write @Anisha at the begining of the comments, I won't get the notifications, like in this case.
@anisha Yes, apparently I'm some kind of guru :D As long as you use a clean spoon (or just pour the syrup) and don't leave the lid off the jar, the syrup should last for a decent amount of time. If and when it does go bad you can simply clean it out and use it again.
I had preserved the sugar syrup in the plastic jar, a week ago and I opened it today only to find out that it is smelling like the wine :mad:
I'll try it again today, by boiling the plastic jar :D
@Anisha: You can also try heating the sealed jar with the syrup in it, fully immersed in a pot of water. Give it a half hour or so at a rolling boil. This should kill most bacteria, but because of risks of botulism, I would not use syrup stored more than a month. Adding a touch of lime juice or an ounce or two of vodka may also help extend shelf life.
"To sterilise, place the empty, open jar in a pan of cold water and bring to the boil, boiling for ten minutes. Remove, pour in the syrup, then place the lid on and return to the boiling water for another ten minutes."
Make sure that the syrup is concentrated enough, and store it with a reasonable airtight seal so that it doesn't attract moisture from the atmosphere.
I've got around 1.5 litres of syrup that I've used to pull moisture from apple pieces that I was candying, boiled to 110C (a strength just before it will start crystallising at room temperature) and in a demijohn with screw cap. From experience, I'd expect it to last for at least several months: degradation if stored in the light will be more of a problem than bacteria.
There's a long tradition of dressing wounds with honey, which has a natural antiseptic effect due to its tendency to pull moisture out of bacteria etc. An adequately-strong syrup will tend to sterilise glassware, not the other way round.
Some months later: the syrup was boiled up in November or perhaps October, and now- late June the following year- is beginning to look a bit scummy and bubbly. So it's certainly lasted more than six months without cooling or the use of a preservative, and probably would have lasted longer if I'd brought it up to boiling on occasion to get rid of any moisture or microorganisms that had got in when I was dispensing some.
You can can/bottle it. google for some good canning/bottling instructions.
You can then use the jars at your leisure. They should store for a long time in your cupboard.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.840142
| 2011-05-17T03:42:24 |
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|
33586
|
What combination of flours can be used as a substitution to a bread flour?
Following is the list of flours that I can get hold of in India easily:
Whole wheat flour
Semolina flour
Chickpea flour
Maida
Multi grain flour
Corn flour
Rice flour
What can be the combination of these flours which can then result in a substitute for the bread flour?
You don't actually need bread flour for bread in general, there are many countries which only grow soft wheat and make bread from AP flour. But if you want to make a specific high-gluten recipe, it is better to add gluten to AP flour than to substitute.
I don't know if the pricing and/or cost of shipping is a good value for your but you can order bread flour online. I have had good results from King Arthur Flours.
None of those flours on its own is a good substitute for bread flour, at least for making yeast raised breads.
Yeast raised breads require the development of gluten, which is possible only with a wheat based flour. This leaves you only three choices:
Whole wheat flour
Maida
Semolina
Comparing the characteristics of each of these to bread flour:
Whole wheat flour, depending on the wheat from which it is milled, may have higher or lower protein levels. Your particular whole wheat flour has a moderately high protein level, at the bottom end of the bread flour range.
However, the bran that is a component of whole wheat flour is very sharp at the small scale, and does not participate in the chemistry or physical structure of gluten creation. In fact, the sharp edges of the bran actually serve to physically block formation of gluten strands, and even cut already formed strands.
For this reason, whole wheat flour is less than ideal for some bread making. In general, you would want to substitute only a portion of bread flour with whole wheat flour; in fact, it is better to use it only in bread recipes specifically designed for it. If you do choose to use it in lieu of bread flour, consider starting with only 25% of the total flour amount.
Finally, whole wheat flour has a different flavor than white flours, due to the additional components in the flour from the entire wheat berry. The bran, the germ, and the endosperm all ground together (thus the term whole wheat), giving the flour its own flavor from each of these components--mostly the germ.
This is also what leads to the shorter shelf life of whole wheat flour.
Maida flour. According to Wikipedia, maida flour is a soft (low protein) flour comparable to cake flour or pastry flour.
This means that it has much less protein, and much less gluten formation potential than bread flour does, on a weight for weight basis.
Semolina. Semolina is a hard wheat flour with a high protein level, but is typically very coarsely ground. Generally, you can feel the individual granules when you pick it up and hold it between your fingers, and can see them when you look quite closely.
This is a much larger grind than bread flour.
You can make bread with semolina, as this recipe from King Arthur Flour demonstrates.
With these components available to you, you would need to experiment to find the best possible outcome—and unfortunately, that is not the best place to start if you are not already a a fairly comfortable bread maker.
My best guess is that your best outcome would be from a mixture of semolina and maida, probably about 50-50. However, the dough may take longer to hydrate and come together than expected, due to the larger grains of the semolina.
If you wish to incorporate whole wheat flour, I recommend starting with 25% of your total flour, and no more than 50% total.
Note: India Curry article refers to an Indian flour called atta which is much closer in its description to bread flours... is it not available in your region?
"Atta" IS the whole wheat flour. They have a translation problem. And my family and neighbors think that western people call Chapatis - breads.
Okay, I think I'll find out the biggest bakery shop around and see if they can sell me bread flour. BTW, what is bread flour composed of?
Okay, may there is a possiblity that the "Atta" they are referring to is made from a different kind of wheat? But anyway, if you are going to tell the shopkeeper to give you Atta, you'll only get the whole wheat flour.
Its just ground wheat endosperm, but from varieties of wheat that are higher in protein compared to the wheat from which cake/pastry flour or ground, and somewhat higher than all purpose. Note that all or any of these may also be a blend of different wheats.
Sorry, I don't know the local Indian products. I was only going by what I read on 'atta'.
I have no idea if this is available in India, but you can add wheat gluten (also sold as "vital wheat gluten" in the US) to a lower protein flour (like maida) to make it more like bread flour. You'll want to add somewhere around 1-3 tsp to each cup of regular flour.
@AnishaKaul look for a wheat flour with at least 12% protein (i.e. 12g protein per 100g), and preferably 14%. Protein=gluten.
@ElendilTheTall Please see the link in the first post. It says 12g per 100g.
Yes, but SAJ has given a good explanation why whole wheat flour, even of that strength, is not ideal for bread.
Probably the simplest thing to do here would be to sift the whole wheat you have available to remove some or most of the bran. While the flavor will still be somewhat different, the detrimental aspects of the bran (blocking/cutting gluten strands) is its major problem, and a fine sifter/strainer should pass flour (and germ) while retaining much of the bran.
In India the "Bhalia" wheat variety seems to be the closest match to the red wheat found in western countries containing high gluten, A study also found it to be superior for bread making. This variety is only grown and licensed exclusively in a region named "Bhal" in Gujarat India and is very difficult to source. "Khapli" wheat is another high gluten variety which is again difficult to find but has one of the highest gluten ideal for bread making , it has long grains and dark in colour:
Alternatively if you are unable to source the above wheat then you can get the "Khichda" wheat also called as "Khandela" wheat which has the outer coating of wheat scraped off, this is easily available in Muslim localities in Delhi which they use to prepare the traditional "Khichda" dish , this reduces the bran content and hence increases the gluten \ grain content.
I'm in Goa. I use maida, rawa (semolina) and atta. I also have atta with multigrain flour. I'm just looking at getting some Ashirvaad Select Wholewheat???. I was quizzing a Nepali at the German Bakery today. He said he can get me some of the flour he uses. It might be a hidden secret. Happy baking.
Please come back and let us know if you're able to get flour from the baker, and if you use the Ashirvaad Select Wholewheat. Also, do you mix the maida, rawa (semolina) and atta?
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:55.840487
| 2013-04-18T09:48:09 |
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|
28916
|
What is the procedure to dry out Fenugreek leaves?
It is winter here. I wish to purchase lots of fresh Fenugreek leaves and then dry them out for later use.
Questions:
What procedure should be followed to dry them out in winter as fast as possible without letting them catch fungus?
How much drying out time is expected in winter (daytime temperature 21 C)?
Can I use a fan to dry them out? Will that have some adverse effects?
P.S. I do NOT wish to purchase any special machines/tools for drying out herbs.
Why not simply buy the pre dried variety?
@spiceyokooko I will, when you lend me the money.
Fair enough. It's the other way round here in the UK, cheapish to buy the imported dried, expensive to buy the fresh!
@spiceyokooko I found the readymade one to be expensive. Now, that you have mentioned it, I'll compare the price of the fresh one with the readymade dried up. But, I seriously doubt if the fresh one will be more expensive.
@spiceyokooko Yesterday I checked the price - The fresh one costs Rs. 14 "per kilogram", and the dried one available in packets costs Rs 21 per "25 grams".
Anisha, thank you for taking the time to post that. Bear in mind though that fresh herbs have a very high % of water content (as well as unusable stalks and stems) and when dry can lose a very high majority its weight. Even still, the fresh may well work out to be 2 to 3 times cheaper than the pre-dried. So good call!
The biggest cause of mould or fungus is humidity (moisure, dampness, water in the air) and the leaves by nature will produce this as they dry. After all, the drying process is removing water from the plant.
As long as you dry the herbs in an area with plenty of air circulation (to avoid humidity build up and take away any moisture as the leaves dry) you should be fine.
Make sure the herbs aren't bunched together, spread them out on a tray so the air can circulate around them. Turn them over regularly - every day or every 6 hours or so so they can dry evenly.
Remove any damaged/crushed/torn leaves or stems where mould can get a hold and spread.
Also remember just because the outside leaves stems may feel dry, the insides may not be, so give them longer to dry out than you think.
Your tips are helpful.
You could also put them in your oven on it's lowest setting with the door cracked slightly. An overnight trip in the oven this way would dry them out I think. Also, something to think about is freeze-drying the herbs with something like dry-ice pellets. Liquid nitrogen would be best but that's not as easy to get.
Alton Brown had a great idea to dry out herbs with a fan and some air filters. You can probably substitute any similar products that you find around your house:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/videos/drying-herbs/1278.html
Fan drying should not affect your herbs in any way if you do it right.
I get "requested video cannot be found" error.
That is strange..I can see it just fine..try this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQUsAFhhGhk and watch from 13.12
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:55.841442
| 2012-12-05T06:29:31 |
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|
17660
|
How to cook rice in an electric oven meant for baking cakes?
Are there any special precautions to be taken? About the water quantity, soaking and timing etc?
Does it have to be done completely in the oven? I'd recommend using a rice pilaf technique, but you start that on the stovetop and finish in the oven.
@Joe See if you can explain that pilaf technique as an answer.
I make rice in the oven if I'm making a large meal and don't have a burner to spare for the rice. I bake it in an enamel cast iron Dutch oven (you can also use aluminum or stainless steel trays / hotel pans covered tightly with aluminum foil) using the same water-to-rice ratio (2:1) as when I make it on the stove. Cook at 350°F / 177°C for approximately 20-30 minutes, remove from the oven and let it sit, covered, for another 10 minutes. Fluff with a fork and serve!
(Note: The cooking time will depend on whether you pre-soak the rice and also how good your oven is at maintaining a constant temperature. You can check if it needs more time by wiggling the pot/tray a little; if you hear water sloshing around, it needs more time, but if it feels like a solid mass, it's probably done.)
The only problem you might have with this: sometimes the rice on the bottom of the pot gets dried out and sticks to the pot. You can avoid this by boiling the water before you add the rice (on the stove, but I guess you could do it in the oven, too. If you have an electric kettle and you're making a relatively small amount of rice, you can heat the water in the kettle and just pour it over the rice, too).
There's a technique for pilaf (also pilau, pulav, pulao and lots of other names), which is finished in an oven ... it's possible that you might be able to get away with doing it in only an oven if you used the oven to pre-heat the pan and oil, didn't add vegetables to it (which would cool it down), and also pre-heated the liquid in the oven.
Preheat oven to 350°F / 177°C
Heat the pan with some oil or butter.
Sauté some onion, garlic, and whatever other vegetables you want (mushrooms, bell pepper, carrots, etc.)
Add the rice, and stir 'til it either gets lightly browned or smells nutty. (~3 minutes)
Add liquid (broth / stock / whatever), and bring to a boil.
Turn off the stove (if using a stove)
Cover the pan with a tight fitting lid
Place the pan in the oven for 15 minutes.
Remove pan from oven, still covered, and let sit for 15 minutes more.
Fluff with a fork & serve.
You can add dried herbs before putting it in the oven, as well as stuff that doesn't need a long time to cook (eg, corn or peas). If you want to add spices or nuts (pine nuts, slivered almonds, etc.), add 'em with the rice before you sauté it.
I have my special way to cook rice by oven:
At the first keep rice in enough amount of water and salt (1 tablespoon salt for every cup of rice ) for 5 or 6 hours, then on the stove boiling water and rice, if you see some floating rice on top of the water means that the time you must turn off stove and take it's water away, then add enough butter or oil to rice then cover it and put it in oven for 15 mintes.
You'll have very delicious cooked rice.
I think there is a language problem here. What you describe is suited for a stovetop, and the question asked about an oven.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:55.841742
| 2011-09-12T07:00:18 |
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|
47764
|
What is the best way to turn the chunks of jaggery into fine powder?
I have big chunks of jaggery. I want to turn them into fine powder.
What is the best way to turn the chunks of jaggery into their powdered form?
please tag the question yourself. I couldn't find any more relevant tags.
Relevant: http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/35140/does-jaggery-need-to-be-soaked
I don't get to an Indian grocery very often, so I buy a huge block of rock-like jaggery to keep at home. Over time, I chisel off some more manageable pieces, and turn those pieces into powder as needed. So, my process is:
Literally a hammer and chisel for the big block. Sometimes sawing with a serrated blade is useful, too.
To make powder from a chunk, I use a box grater with the "zester" or "star grater" side of the tool. Do not use the "shredding" side(s) of the box. I have not had luck with a food processor; the jaggery is too hard, and sticks to the blades rather than getting cut up. It stops making progress long before it's a powder.
Example of the grater side to use: (source)
Some misc notes:
Lots of recipes don't actually need a fine powder. You can just dissolve a chunk of jaggery in (hot) liquid, which may be easier.
In a pinch, a wide hammer (such as the flat side of a meat tenderizer) or rolling pin can be good for making powder. Put some smallish pieces of jaggery on a flat hard surface, and roll the hammer over them, crushing them. Do not whack in a hammering motion, just press down hard and roll it. This will not produce quite as fine a powder as the grating method, but it's pretty good.
It might be better to get a microplane-style "hand zester" and just use that on the big block directly. I haven't bothered buying one, yet.
You might have luck with a Parmesan grater — they are designed to turn a hard cheese into powder, which is not too far off from jaggery. Likewise, a nutmeg grater would have the right effect, too (though a little small). These all have essentially the same design as the "zester" side of a box grater, pictured, above; that's the important bit.
This video recommends microwaving the jaggery to soften it, then you can crumble it directly, rather than grating. It won't make quite as fine a powder still, but pretty good.
As others have mentioned, jaggery comes in various forms. Some softer/harder, bigger/smaller, etc. If you have the ability to visit the store as needed, you can maybe find something less labor-intensive (:
I usually grate my jaggery block on a microplane grater although your standard cheese grater will work too. I haven't tried a food processor yet, although that would probably work.
Next time I'm going to get granulated palm sugar as I've found working with a jaggery block too much hassle.
I'm fairly certain (though can't recall source, sorry) that jaggery is hard enough to damage food processor blades, so try at your own risk. I think the microplane is the way to go.
I think it depends on the jaggery. My block is fairly moist and more sticky than hard, but others have been harder. None of the ones I have had seemed hard enough to damage a processor blade but I would not assume anything.
A mortar and pestle should do a pretty good job also!
I have used successfully a small coffee and spice mill.
It is true, though, that the chunks have to be broken into pieces not larger than some ~3/8" or so, and there are occasional stickings that can, however, be easily handled.
Yields fine powdery or sand size particles that I use as my true, raw sugar! :)
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:55.842022
| 2014-10-08T05:07:03 |
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|
82882
|
Does it matter if I heat water and mik together and pour it in the instant coffee altogether?
Often I have heard that first we need to add little hot water and then mix the coffee properly and then add hot water and then add milk to taste.
Since instant coffee can be mixed easily, will it make a difference if I heat water and milk together and put it all at once in the cup and coffee and then mix everything?
This sounds like a holdover from ground coffee, where adding the milk during the brewing process would modify it, probably significantly. AFAIK there is no brewing process at all for instant coffee, it's simply dissolution (and possibly emulsion).
You can mix instant coffee with water, milk, cream, or any mixture of those, to your taste. It doesn't matter, and you don't have to do it in multiple steps.
This is different from fresh ground coffee. In ground coffee, you are making an extraction, which is a complicated chemical process. Your solvent has to get behind cell walls and get out again, this time with the solute in it. You never get full extraction anyway. Many factors such as heat, other stuff dissolved or dispersed in the solvent, etc. can hinder this already problematic process and give you a much weaker or different-tasting result.
Instant coffee is specifically made to be 100% soluble in water, so you only have a solution happening, not extraction. The process happens to be not very dependent on temperature (this is different for all combinations of solvent and solute). Maybe it is a bit slower in cold water, but the difference is not really noticeable in practice. The fat content in milk or cream is also not high enough to disturb the solution. So you can just do it any old way you want and you'll end up with 100% dissolved coffee.
It would be helpful if you explain why in answer.
I am not sure what there is to explain. You just mix it and get the mixture you wanted to drink. If you do it in multiple steps, you get the same mixture. It is difficult for me to explain why there is no difference when I cannot think of a reason why there could be a difference in the first place.
I meant why should method be different than the coffee made through freshly ground bean coffee powder
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:55.842328
| 2017-07-09T03:45:59 |
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|
78906
|
How to make home made jam retain the fruity taste?
Today I made a pulp of 2 strawberries, half apple, 4 orange pieces, and 1 teaspoon jaggery.
The pulp was tasting fruity.
To make jam I put the pulp in a frying pan and cooked on low fire for some time till some of the water dried up.
The resultant jam was not thick, it was runny. That is totally fine.
Problem is that the fruity taste was gone. It seemed a bit sour. I am just concerned about the fruity taste.
How can I retain the fruity taste in home made jam?
Just to clarify, you're not asking about preserving the jam for shelf stability, you are asking about making jam that will be refrigerated during its time, right?
@Jolenealaska this question is only about taste. Currently I am not thinking about any kind of preservation.
When you say "water", how much did you add? Or do you just mean the juice. It sounds like it might have been both overcooked and under-sugared. It would be best to start with a jam recipe and modify it once you've got the hang of it, rather than something than sounds more like a pie filling.
I did not add any water. @ChrisH
So "some of the juice dried up" would be a better description then
I'm not a jam/jelly maker ... but many recipes call for adding pectin to help it gel. This might reduce the amount that you would need to cook it, so the fruit flavors don't get as dulled from cooking.
I'd assume covering the pot to have less of the volatiles esters/alcohols escape could help...
Most fresh fruits will lose their "sweet fresh flavor" when cooked. (*geeky stuff at end) When making jams, jellies etc., a good amount of sugar is added. This is done for a couple of reasons, the first is to combine with acid and pectin for thickening, the second is for flavor.
When making jam, the proportion of sugar to fruit will be somewhere between 40-100% by weight. (Jaggery is not as sweet as granulated sugar and you would want to add 1/4 to 1/2 more if you were using it in a recipe that called for sugar) Your jam didn't have anywhere near enough sweetener.
What you can do to retain the fruity flavor:
For cooked jam, add more sweetener.
Make a fresh fruit (raw) jam that isn't cooked, which will not require a lot of added sweetener
Fruit generally contain all 3 sugar types, the majority often being fructose.
From Wikipedia Fructose
The relative sweetness of fructose has been reported in the range of 1.2-1.8 times that of sucrose.[21][22][23][24] However, it is the 6-membered ring form of fructose that is sweeter; the 5-membered ring form tastes about the same as usual table sugar. Warming fructose leads to formation of the 5-membered ring form.[25] Therefore the relative sweetness decreases with increasing temperature.
Or cook very briefly, basically just to soften the fruit.
A touch of lemon juice will help many fruits hold some of their fresh flavor through the heating and reduction process as well. Just a small splash, not enough to make them more tart or to taste the lemon unless you also want that. With orange in the mix this may not help though.
+1 for this answer! I use this product for raw jellies and it works very well!: http://www.clubhouse.ca/en-ca/products/specialites/freezer-jam/no-cook-freezer-jam-gelling-powder
Use a "low sugar" jelly/jam pectin, which balances the amount of pectin to reflect less added sugar, and then follow the directions for making freezer jam/jelly. Since it's preserved in the freezer, the fruit is added to the sugar/pectin/water after it gets taken off of heat, and is stirred for a minute. This results in minimal cooking of the fruit, and it retains a lot more fresh fruit character.
Along with balancing the sugar, I suggest a little lemon juice (or Vitamin C) to brighten/sharpen the fruit notes. This especially helps with very/borderline over-ripe fruit.
Good luck and good eating!
I recall making blackberry jam several years ago from berries that were quite smaller than usual, due to a unusual dry spell that year. The end result that the jam was noticeably stronger in taste and tasted far superior than I have ever had since. This might have been due the lower amount of fluid in the berries.
I generally pick my own berries, regardless of what species they are.
This jam lasted well over a year in good condition and never lost its' taste.
So you made essentially late-harvest jam?
@Catalyst Now that you mention it, yes.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:55.842532
| 2017-03-05T07:03:21 |
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|
53996
|
How to know whether the oven's door has loosened and leaking out some energy or is as tight as it was when new?
The child had been playing with the oven door without my knowledge for some time.
How to know whether the oven's door has loosened and is leaking out some energy or is as tight as it was when new?
Unless you have a measured baseline from before your child played with it there's no 100% way to know whether the seal is as good as it was when new - you have nothing to compare it to. If you want to determine if you have a decent seal you need to use your cheek and your ear.
Oven seals not only hold in heat but sound as well, while your cheek is sensitive to heat and airflow. Put something sizzly in your hot oven and then move your head all around the closed door. If you hear the sizzle (or the fan if you have a convection oven) and feel a blast of heat in an area that's a good indication your seal is not effective there anymore. Use your body weight against the door and see pushing it closed cuts the sound and heat. If pushing it closed works it's more likely weak hinges than the seal. If there's no sound or heat leakage you are still good.
Keep in mind oven seals do degrade and some oven hinges weaken over time, if you do have a leak it may have nothing to do with your kid.
Also hinges tend to be quite strong to start with - if the door opens downwards you could well be putting a heavy roasting tin on it while juggling dishes, and it would have to be strong enough to take that even if they tell you not to because the risk of dropping a hot heavy dish is so high. With a swing door (weaker hinges), look at the closed door compared to the nearest part of the frame - it should look parallel.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:55.842891
| 2015-01-26T06:37:37 |
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|
5927
|
How to correctly use a whisk?
I've tried many times to whip some cream or egg whites with a simple whisk, but I feel tired after about a minute of whipping, and I do not obtain good results also after whipping for sometime. I suspect that I'm doing it wrong.
Is there a correct way to use a whisk? How to avoid so much fatigue? About the quantity of the food to whip?
Get a mixer with a whisk attachment! As long as it takes to make a meringue or whipped cream in an electric mixer, I get tired just thinking about trying it by hand.
I've got one in my home, but not in my girlfriend's home, I don't want to be beaten by an egg in front of her!
Keep in mind that whipping cream or egg whites by hand may take longer than you expect.
That said, there is a proper way to whisk egg whites, and it is quite likely that taking breaks due to your fatigue is interfering.
See this site for detailed instructions. In particular, see below for an excerpt on one possible problem (although there are numerous things that can potentially go wrong).
We will split the whisking of egg whites into two parts. The first covers the disintegration of the mucous mass up to the point when it becomes a grayish, roundish mass. This part requires mixing with an easy and rhythmic effort. The second part covers the conversion of the round, gray mass into a smooth, light, firm, stunningly white batter. This second part, unlike the first, requires a very vigorous and accelerated effort.
During both these periods, the whisking, even though different in strength and speed, must not be interrupted. Under no circumstances should you stop once you have begun to whisk. Stopping causes the whites to disintegreate. Instead of rising and firming up more and more, their mass will remain semi-solid and will take on a blotchy, grainy look.
Both cream and egg-whites should be cold. You can place the mixing bowl on top of an ice bath to keep the temperature low.
For egg-whites use a very clean bowl. Fats interfere with the formation of the bubbles.
I alternate between whipping from the elbow and the shoulder (keeping my elbow slightly bent but not engaged). I also find that a slightly wider stance helps, distributing my weight equally to both legs, and rooting them firmly to the ground.
I belive you also want to move more at the wrist than at the elbow.
I would say: keep your wrist stiff and make the movement from your elbow.
I'm not sure if what you're saying is the opposite of that, or the same - in what I'm describing, the elbow stays in the same place and the wrist moves along with the rest of the arm, so in some sense we agree, but the movement originates from the elbow.
I completely agree with @Erik P. Follow @roux's instructions for bowl placement, and Erik's for arm movement (or lack thereof)
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.843077
| 2010-08-25T07:40:13 |
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30644
|
What is this cotton-like stuff growing on my pizza sauce?
The sauce was to expire in Nov 2013. I kept it in the fridge all the time. The thing that grew on it was white in color (just like cotton). There was a greenish center. The overall "ball" was about 1 cm in diameter, and they were all over in the bottle.
I don't have a picture of it, because I had to throw it out. I don't know what it was, or how it started growing.
What was it? Why was it there?
FUNGUS
Note that the expiration date applies only to an unopened jar. Once open, you can't count on more than a few days before it starts getting fuzzy.
It's mould. You've probably seen it growing on bread. Refrigeration slows it down, but eventually it'll grow.
You didn't say when you bought it and opened it. Perhaps your fridge is not set cold enough?
In terms of timeline, I bought it on day 0, opened on day 3, and refrigerated it ASAP. Then the second time, I opened it on day 6-ish, and found some of the mold. I'm just confused how can mold grow on a new food product in the fridge.
So what is the temperature of your fridge? Are you sure the door is still sealed correctly and it's in working order? I ask this as a person who once had a fridge with a slightly wonky door and this made everything spoil really quickly.
I don't know about the temperature. But it is pretty cool. The door is fine though.
@KaranGoel Your fridge should be in the 2-4C range, not just cool, but close to freezing.
To answer the question how anything could have grown in there -- did you dip anything into the container that might've been contaminated? A spoon that's also touched other stuff can be enough to add mold or other contaminents.
Fungus spores are floating around in the air. It only takes one spore to land in your sauce while it's open. They will grow at fridge temperature.
@None Fungus can grow even on refrigerated food if you don't handle it safely. For e.g. keeping it out of the fridge for longer periods or using wet or unclean spoon or touching food without washing your hands.
Like @sarino and @megasaur mentioned already, it is mold and you did the right thing by throwing it away. This link explains pretty well why mold grows on the food: http://wanttoknowit.com/why-does-mold-grow-on-food/
Also, the reason that food stays good in these unopened bottles in normal temperatures is that the food is vacuum sealed, so it doesn't come into contact with air or outside moisture. Once its opened, it is highly recommended to go into the fridge straight away, like you did.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.843350
| 2013-02-02T23:03:23 |
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30787
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Storing oil coated and unrefrigerated egg
Is there any truth to coating eggs with oil, placing them in the cartons upside down and then not storing them in the refrigerator - will make them last a few months???
Conceivably, as the oil would block the pores in the egg shell and prevent evaporation/contamination. However, the oil would also eventually absorb in through the shell, so I would certainly avoid using mineral oil as some sites suggest, as it's toxic.
Having said that, I'm not sure of the logic behind storing them upside down.
If you were to use food-grade mineral oil, you'd probably be okay, since it's specifically treated to be non-toxic.
If you dip the bottom half then flip, it'll trickle down over the top half? That's the only reasoning I can think of for storing them upsidown.
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.843713
| 2013-02-09T06:24:21 |
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56782
|
Is it okay to put a hot pan on a granite counter?
Is it okay to put a hot pan/pot on a granite counter? Or will it burn it? I don't know if there's a sealer on it.
I've been placing hot pots and pans on directly on thin, 3/8 inch?, granite and labradorite counter tiles for a decade. Never had any cracks or other problems.
In general, the chances of significant heat damage to granite are very small, though depending on the pan, the granite, and any products that may be on the granite (not only sealant, but residue from granite cleaning or polishing products, etc.), you might sometimes get some staining/charring.
I would also take into account the amount of heat that will transfer from the pan/pot/tray -- a small pan which is nearly empty and not very hot is a very different thing from a giant cast iron dutch oven filled with chili or superheated cooking oil. I personally wouldn't risk injecting a huge amount of heat into a small area, because it will cause the material to expand and contract unevenly. When done repeatedly, it could even lead to cracking. Unlikely? Yes. Impossible? No, particularly if the granite is thin or lower quality (e.g., with some minor fissures or weak spots already in the stone, etc.).
Another issue is a safety one -- granite countertops that absorb heat from very hot pans can stay exceptionally hot for a quite a while. Since there's often no visual cue about the temperature (unlike a stovetop), it can easily cause burns if you forget that that part of the countertop may be hot.
Other answers have mentioned that most references on the internet say it's safe, but with just a quick search in the first 10 links or so that came up, I see a number of places that actually manufacture or install granite do NOT recommend placing hot things directly on granite.
See, for example:
here: "Trivets or cloths are highly recommended."
here: "Repeated exposure to high heat can eventually leave black marks and gashes on granite slabs."
here: "The darker the material the more dense and therefore the more heat it will hold. The biggest issue with putting a hot pan on granite is that if you touched the spot it could be as hot as the pan itself and therefore cause you an injury. You should especially be cautious with black granite since it is the most dense and with repeat exposure may actually crack."
here in a list of myths: " 'Granite is heat resistant, so it is perfectly okay to place hot pots on a granite countertop.' While it’s true that granite is quite resistant to the sorts of temperatures encountered in kitchens, excessive heat can damage or discolor some types of granite sealers. Rapid heating can also generate internal stresses that could cause a crack at a weak spot, such as a natural flaw or fissure in the stone. An easy way to eliminate potential problems is by using a trivet with feet."
Many sites agree with these cautions. There are other sites that say it should be okay, or it's safe up to X degrees, or it's okay but you shouldn't do it repeatedly, or whatever. Everybody seems to have their opinion. And you can find sources that claim the cracking is a myth. This video, for example, heats small blocks of granite in a toaster oven and with a blowtorch and observes no damage. But the heat damage (if it exists) is not going to be caused simply by heating, but by thermal shock created when a large slab is heated unevenly and thus expands and contracts unevenly (usually repeatedly over a period of years). If you look around a bit, the internet does have anecdotes of people who have had granite countertops develop cracks or discoloration.
Personally, I have granite, and I avoid doing it on a regular basis. However, in a pinch when I have a lot of hot pans or trays around the kitchen, and I need to set something down, I don't worry too much about doing it once in a while. I think the chances of damage are quite small. But with the cost of granite, why take any risk when you can just use a trivet or something (as you'd do on just about any other surface)? That's just my habit anywhere.
Thanks! With the price of replacing a granite counter as long as there's even a small chance of cracking I think I'll stick with buying trivets.
Yesterday, my granite/quartzinite (mineral combination of marble and quartz) cracked by using an electric skillet sitting without a trivet or cutting board. The material is 3 cm thick. Although I've used hot pads/trivets for pans when needing to place on counter temporarily, it never occurred to me an electric skillet 2.5 - 3" above the counter at 350 degrees for approximately 20 minutes would cause the granite to crack. Appeared to be plenty of air flow space. I'm an idiot. Do be like me. Put something between the heat source and the stone.
Granite is a naturally occurring volcanic rock so unless you've got tungsten kettles and a nuclear-powered stove, it should be very safe to put hot pots on there if its thickness is more then a few cm (>1"). ;-)
If you don't know whether it's synthetically sealed, take an cotton bud and dab a bit of nailpolish remover on it and apply it to a small area on the (under)side of your counter. If there are no stains left (either on the bud or on the counter), there is no synthetic sealer and it should be absolutely safe.
Thank you for the information. When you say earbud are you talking about earplugs like these or something else? I tried to google earbud and it just brings up headphones. http://3mcollision.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/2/9/29008_3M-Uncorded-Foam-Earplugs.jpg
@Jemmeh Sorry, In my native language cotton buds are called earbuds and earbuds are called earphones... So I meant "a wooden stick with a bit of cotton on the end that is usually used to clean out ears" ;-) (answer edited)
also known as "Cotton swabs" (US)
... or q-tips (actually a brand name but is used as generic name). And earbuds is an awful name; you're not supposed to use them in your ears!
@Jefromi Hey, I Just use them to generally clean... I didn't make up the word in my language! ;-)
Most reference on the Internet say it is OK to put a hot pan on a granite counter.
BUT.
If the granite slab is thin (YMMV), it might break due to thermal shock.
Personally, I never put my pan directly on the counter, always on a mat of some sort.
I have just broken my granite. Hot pan.
Was that a solid slab or a composite?
Hello, and welcome to Stack Exchange. Any loose guidance on how hot that pan was? Boiling water? Cast iron pan hot enough to blacken salmon?
I personally tested hot pots and pans on granite, and found even boiling pots of water will cause surface cracks. A cast iron pan with oil will completely crack the slab.
https://youtu.be/ZUYYjVb6hRM
Thanks for abusing these materials so we don't have to!
Probably won't hurt the granite - but it can warp your pans, making them unstable on any stove and unusable on a glass top stove.
How does it do that? I would think it wouldn't be much different than my glass top stove.
It "does that" by the granite suddenly cooling the bottom of the pan. For a glass top stove, the pan must be flat so it's in contact all around.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.843844
| 2015-04-18T18:58:50 |
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32339
|
Semolina substitute
I live in Okinawa, Japan, and I've had a hard time finding semolina flour. I enjoy making home made pasta, and was wondering if there was a good substitute for semolina that would help give my pasta a bit more structure and flavor.
longevity noodles (pulled) are made from softer flour but the intensive working of the dough results in a chewy noodle: Japan have any similar noodle traditions?
Semolina is hard wheat (Triticum Durum). If it's labelled as 00 flour it means it's very finely milled. Sometimes it's labelled as semola di grano duro rimacinatta which literally means re-milled (milled twice) hard wheat.
As you said, it gives more flavor and is chewier (if processed as pasta) than normal soft wheat. But you can perfectly substitute it for normal wheat. I would try with low gluten one.
Anecdote: Another use for hard wheat flour in Mediterranean cuisine is covering fish pieces before deep frying them. If Portuguese missionaries couldn't find hard wheat when they arrived to Japan and successfully introduced tempura with soft flour, I think you can make the same substitution.
As @J.A.I.L suggested, you can. Make sure you mix your pasta dough enough times to work the gluten into a stronger dough.
If you are using a pasta roller, roll the sheets through the machine a few times. Pasta comes from the far east anyway, so if you use local noodle making techniques you it won't be wrong.
To improve the flavor, try finding fresher flour and perhaps a better source (organic, small farm type, etc). Some of the flour in the grocery stores is really old and becomes rancid/tasteless.
JAIL mentioned low-gluten flour, you mention high-gluten. Which is it?
Thanks, updated the answer. What matters is to build the strength by working the gluten.
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.844442
| 2013-03-02T09:33:22 |
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32376
|
Should peanut oil be stored in the fridge?
I know walnut oil should be stored in the fridge. Is the same also true for peanut oil?
No. Peanut oil has a similar fat profile to that of sunflower, corn, and soybean oils, all of which do not require refrigeration after opening and are typically used for frying. Walnut and other edible nut-based oils more easily oxidize after exposure to air, light, or high temperatures. They are primarily used for their light, subtle flavors. Any oil will go rancid given enough time so unless you're using your peanut oil very infrequently, there is no need to store it in the refrigerator.
There is not need to store peanut oil in the fridge. If still in its original container, it will last for up to 2 years in a cool dark place, like the bottom shelf of your pantry. Once used, you can reuse, with a recommended discard date of 6 months after first use.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.844600
| 2013-03-03T03:45:55 |
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21592
|
Is there a difference between the grocery store package of chow mein noodles and the package of lo mein noodles?
I'm looking at making a recipe that calls for lo mein noodles. All I can find in the grocery store are chow mein noodles. Is there a difference between these two types of noodles? I am referring specifically to the packaged ingredient, not a dish.
It becomes quite confusing when talking about the difference between chow mein and lo mein mainly due to the error in translation.
In Chinese chow mein literally translate as "fried noodles." However when buying chow mein at a chinese restaurant, you get vegetables with a side of deep fried noodles. Somehow the title of a dish is referring the to side rather than the main dish which leads to much confusion.
When talking about chow mein at a grocery store, it also gets confusing because you can get two types of noodles. The first kind is a fried noodle that looks something like this:
This is definitely not what your recipe is referring to. The second type of chow mein you will find is very much similar to lo mein. It should be a raw noodles that is still semi-soft. It should look like this:
If the chow mein you have at your grocery store resembles the second type of noodle, then you may use that as a substitute. If it resembles the first type, don't. The first type is used as a topping sort of like chinese croutons.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.844688
| 2012-02-21T21:26:36 |
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58493
|
Is it normal for the colour of the cooked lentils to change overnight even when they were kept in fridge?
Last night we cooked the lentils in a pressure cooker 20:00. They were on the kitchen shelf for about 3 hours before I put them in fridge.
I took them out in the morning at 9:30, and took them to office on scooter (It takes 30 minutes to reach office). Day time temperature here is 35 C.
Office has AC switched on. I opened the box of cooked lentils at 14:00 in the office and found colour of the lentils quite a pale green. That is not normal for properly freshly cooked lentils.
I stirred the lentil box with a spoon and found that the lentils below the surface were of normal green colour.
Is it normal for the colour of the cooked lentils to change overnight even when they were kept in fridge?
Yes, some lentils will change colour if exposed to air.
If I understand you correctly, only the surface layer of lentils changed color; the rest retained their color. It sounds like the surface of the lentils was influenced by changes in moisture in the air above them when you put them in the fridge. I've seen many foods change color on their surface a bit after refrigeration for this reason. (I don't know for certain this is the reason, which is why I'm posting as a comment rather than as an answer.)
I haven't had that kind of problem, though the kind of lentils I eat (in the US) are a dark gray color. But as a food safety matter you should read though this How do I know if food left at room temperature is still safe to eat?. You went well past the 2 hour limit at unsafe temperatures.
Cooked lentils hate dry air and light... I found that an airtight container of cooled lentils will loose the least amount of color when refrigerated. Also; if your recipe allows, a squirt of lemon juice or lime juice helps preserve the colors of the lentils.
the color change you've observed is from oxidation. If you want to prevent this, lay some plastic wrap over the surface of your lentils to prevent air from getting to them, or add some acid, like lime juice, to the recipe.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.844810
| 2015-06-24T09:07:21 |
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|
56529
|
Which cookware material should be used to retain the heat of the prepared tea?
I have glass, plastic, stainless steel, earthenware, and melamine vessels.
Which one of out of them should be used to retain the heat of the prepared tea for a long duration?
Is there any better material too? Which one?
Update:
See the claim here. They say metal changes the taste of tea.
http://teamasters.blogspot.in/2007/04/dont-use-filter.html?m=1
If you had vessels of the exact equal shape, you could have gone by material. But in reality, you are likely to have different shapes and sizes, so there is no good way to tell which one to use. The general rules (each of which holds as long as the features in all the other ones are kept equal)
earthenware is better than glass, which is better than steel. Different plastics and resins have different insulation, but usually worse than earthenware and I believe glass.
a larger vessel filled with more liquid is better than a smaller vessel filled with less liquid
a smaller vessel filled with a given amount of liquid is better than a larger vessel filled with the same amount of liquid
a vessel with a narrower opening is better than a vessel with a wider opening
a vessel in which the width at the tea-air border is smaller is better than a vessel in which the width is larger
a vessel with a more compact shape is better than a vessel in which one dimension is larger than the others
a vessel with thick walls is better than a vessel with thin walls
If one of your vessels you have ticks all the criteria, it is superior to the rest. In the more usual case where one of them is better by one criterion and worse by another one, there is no simple way to predict which one is better on the whole. The simple number of criteria is also not guaranteed to give results, as a very bad performance in only one of them can "trump" the combined contribution of the rest. But in practice, it is probably a decent heuristic. So you could try choosing one which seems to fit the above criteria best.
The even better option (optimized both for material and for the other properties listed above) is to use an insulated mug or teapot. They are available in all sizes and shapes, and all of them are better than simple earthenware. Even an insulated mug without the cap will be better than a simple mug.
If you don't want to invest in an insulated teapot, or want traditional aesthetics, you can also use a porcelain or earthenware teapot in combination with an woolen cozy. You should really knit it in wool or another animal fiber like alpaca. Silk, plant fibers and artificial ones don't insulate well.
See also Ceramic vs Stainless Steel in coffee mugs for a related discussion.
Or a thermos flask...there, stainless steel is nice since it does not break when abused - my 30+ year old one is dented, but still fine. Preheat it with boiling water if going for the longest possible duration of hot tea.
@Ecnerwal The "isolated mug" version is nothing but a thermos flask in a more convenient shape. The OP can use a flask if she has one lying around, but if she buys a new one specifically for tea drinking, the mug is the better option.
"a smaller vessel filled with a given amount of liquid is better than a smaller [did you mean "larger"?] vessel filled with the same amount of liquid " :o
I am interested in knowing why has this been downvoted?
And you haven't talked about melamine ?
@TheIndependentAquarius: first bullet point: plastics and resins => melamine.
Have edited the question. See please.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:55.845012
| 2015-04-09T17:19:58 |
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|
56813
|
How to roast peanuts on the gas stove without getting the brown spots?
I have the iron kadhai and gas stove.
When I roast the peanuts (without exterior shell) they get the brown spots on them. Of course I do keep on moving the peanuts in the kadhai but still I can't move my arm terribly fast since I have to move it continuously for 10 minutes. I get tired.
What can be done so that they do get roasted properly without the brown spots?
Do you have an oven? You'll get much more consistent results roasting in an oven, especially if it is a convection oven.
Yes, similar to this one: http://shop.bajajelectricals.com/OTG-2200T-pc-793-9.aspx
Still ovens can get you even worse results, at least you will need to cover the nuts from direct radiant heat...
Roasting peanuts in a pan on a stove cooks them primarily via conduction (i.e., the surface of the peanuts touching the hot surface of the pan). Since peanuts are round, each part of the peanut must touch the pan for an equal amount of time during the cooking process to be evenly roasted. That's nearly impossible without something like a barrel roaster (which very few people will have in a home kitchen).
Cooking with convection (i.e., hot air) will produce much more even results since the heat will transfer to all sides of the peanut relatively evenly. Roast the peanuts at 175°C/350°F for 30 to 35 minutes, rotating the pan half-way. You can also try putting the peanuts on a wire rack (as opposed to directly on the sheet tray), which will help the hot air to more evenly cook their bottoms.
If it does not interfere with your ultimate use of the peanuts, you can also try coating them in peanut oil before cooking (roughly 30ml of oil per kilo of peanuts). The oil will help the heat transfer more evenly to the peanuts.
Finally, you can also use the Chinese method of deep-frying the peanuts in your kadhai; roughly 15 to 20 minutes. Immersion in hot oil will cook the peanuts evenly.
frying longer than 2min? that must be a low-temp
I've only done it once or twice, so those numbers are just from memory. Basically, you just fry until the peanuts have reached the desired color/doneness.
I am with @PatSommer on this, I usually fry them for around 30-45 seconds! Good answer nevertheless
Use salt in the kadhai - about 300-400 gramms or more.
Heat it, then add peanuts and roast until they smell for about 6-8 minutes on medium gas. Your peanuts will not burn as heat is transferred to all parts of the peanuts.
Use washed, clean, dry, fine sand. Heat the sand and peanuts (shelled/unshelled) in a kadhai over stove stirring with a steel spatula. The stirring need not be so continuous that it tires your arm. Use a steel spoon with holes as used for frying pakoras to separate the sand and peanuts. Store the sand for future use (of course after it has cooled off)
You can roast the peanuts on a gas stove by simply leaving the seed coat on while roasting the peanuts. The seed coat will prevent the actual nut inside from burning and producing those brown spots. You’ll also have to keep on stirring the peanut as usual however.
Honestly, the easiest way would be to use any big utensil you have (i use a cooker), let it heat for a min on high flame, add 6 tbs of salt (yes the normal cooking salt) let it heat till you smell it (1/2mins )
For the peanuts, soak them in salt water 15 mins prior, drain the water and add it
You will see lumps and salt clusters initially but keep moving it around for 7/8 mins
Take a few of them out and let them cool while stirring the rest
Taste to see if they've roasted enough
I've been doing this for more than a year now and it is by far, the easiest way out there
The process of roasting is to remove moisture from the peanut by heating. The heating starts from the outer surface. The temperature starts increasing slowly, bringing the inner moisture to the surface and then evaporating it.
The heat transfer is by conduction through the contact point of the peanut and the kadhai. The larger the size of the peanut, the higher is the temperature required.
Usually, the peanut turns black indicating a high temperature at the contact point. It is necessary to turn the peanut contineously so that the black spot does not appear.
For the moisture to come out, I did several experiments by piercing the peanut. With this hole, it was easier for the moisture to come out with a lower temperature. The time required was reduced by about 40%.
And when salted, the taste of peanut was very good as the salt has entered in the peanut. We prepared a small manufacturing gadget which could make holes in for 30-40 peanuts at a time. There were no black spots on the peanut.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.845317
| 2015-04-20T13:04:04 |
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|
55009
|
What is the difference between chocolate flavor cocoa powder and drinking chocolate?
Both contain low fat cocoa and chocolate flavor as ingredients.
What would be the real difference between them in terms of taste and usage?
Some info here? Not probably as in-depth: http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/54161/difference-between-instant-cocoa-and-drinking-chocolate
Drinking Chocolate is whole chocolate which will often also contain sugar and milk Solids.
To make cocoa powder you could put the drinking chocolate in a hydrolic press. and the cocoa buter from the chocolate would separate out. and you would be left with what's called a "cake" which you could then smash and sift into cocoa powder.
although cocoa powder would usually be produced before sugar or milk solids were added to the chocolate making process. one would call the unsweetened chocolate mixture "liquor" with is effectively made in the same process nut butter is made. in the case of chocolate if you let the nut butter like "liquor" fat mass sit to long it would set rock hard into unsweetened chocolate.
for cocoa powder you are simply removing the cocoa Butter and only leaving cocoa powder.
the Chocolate maker can then sell the cocoa Butter for much more than you payed for the powder as there is always a higher demand for cocoa butter, ether in expensive blocks of chocolate or in the case of cadburys they were selling there butter to the cometic industry and replacing it with palm oil for there own chocolate production
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:55.845727
| 2015-02-22T02:01:48 |
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|
42353
|
How to make a strong mug of instant Coffee?
I am not an avid coffee drinker.
Yesterday, I tried Bru Gold coffee brand. I mixed one teaspoon milk with 1 teaspoon coffee and added the remaining 200ml hot milk premixed with 2 teaspoons of sugar.
The result wasn't great. The coffee was NOT strong nor did it contain any froth.
I want strong, not bitter coffee.
How do I know how much coffee to add to how much milk?
Secondly, do I have to mix coffee in whole milk and then boil the whole thing like it is done for tea?
Does the amount of time I spend in mixing coffee with milk also have an effect on the outcome?
"Did not contain any froth" - do you expect a "crema" from instant coffee? I don't think there is a way to get it (although I admit I don't have that much knowledge in coffee). Your question reads as if you expect something espresso-like.
Turkish Coffee: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_coffee
@rumtscho I don't know anything about coffee. I had seen in tv ads about the froth. What should I expect from this coffee?
@TheRebelAquarius "Crema" is a light-colored foam layer which builds on top of espresso, and many people like it. Espresso is also stronger than normal coffee. For both, you need an espresso machine and real coffee beans. Different coffee brewing methods produce different types of coffee. Espresso is the hardest to make at home. Instant coffee is easy, but has bad reputation taste-wise, so don't expect to get coffee shop quality with it.
As pointed out, use real coffee in a coffee maker. but you don't have to buy an expensive coffee machine, just a single cup stove-top pot is great. the freshness of the beans and when they were ground can also make quite a difference.
If you're looking into a cheap coffee making process: you can get an Aeropress for $30. Look into it, it's cheap, easy and allows you to make a strong coffee that will taste great.
Did this product come with instructions to use only milk? I have never heard of any coffee, instant or otherwise, being made that way. It sounds disgusting, and no wonder it didn't taste strong - you were drinking milk! Even a latte has to be mixed with espresso, which is very strong/concentrated coffee on its own. Instant coffee is also specifically made to dissolve, so I can't think how it would ever give you "froth", unless maybe you whip the milk first - but then the froth is entirely from the milk, not the coffee.
The milk-only thing made me jump back a little as I read it. I LOVE drinking milk straight but I don't let that stuff near my coffee.
What is too bitter is likely to be primarily opinion-based. That said, when I make instant coffee, I usually use one teaspoon per 200-250 ml of water - not milk. The result is a nice, even cup of coffee, which is not what I would characterize as strong. If I want strong coffee, I will use as much as four teaspoons to the same amount of water.
The milk will have a mellowing effect on the end result. In combination with the sugar, it has been my experience that the milk masks the bitter taste of coffee that many people do not enjoy.
I would recommend playing around with how much coffee you use. Once you get the strength you want, you can add or remove sugar to reduce the bitterness.
To make froth in coffee.. Take 1 teaspoon of instant coffee and sugar to taste.. add a teaspoon of boiling water to this. Mix them by whisking and beating.. you can see the mixture turn to froth.. now add 1 cup of hot milk to this.. Tasty frothy coffee is ready.. fir a strong coffee add little more coffee..
Good idea. You can use an immersion blender to accomplish similar results.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.845990
| 2014-02-27T06:01:58 |
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|
42662
|
How to select a coffee powder for preparing Turkish Coffee?
This is what I can get here:
http://www.devans.in/product.html
What kind of roasted (mild/medium/strong/very strong) powder/beans should be selected for Turkish Coffee?
Can the coffee powder meant for preparing Filter coffee be used for Turkish coffee?
I'd prefer a sweeter taste of coffee rather than bitter.
This is something that is likely to depend somewhat on your preference. That said, when I cannot get purpose-made turkish coffee, I usually use a very dark roast for turkish coffee, mixing it with a bit of cardamom (about one tablespoon to every twenty tablespoons of powdered coffee).
From the offerings you have available, I would recommend the Very Strong "Arabica french roast". You may very well find that this is too bitter for your palate. If so, I would recommend sweetening the coffee using sugar, rather than going for a lighter roast, but again, you may find a lighter roast.
If you have one of these roasts in your house already, I would recommend starting out by trying that, then playing around with spicing it with cardamom, and sweetening with sugar before getting a different type of coffee. This will help you determine what way you want to go with your finished brew.
Just to add my pinch of salt as razunny said you have to find your taste initially try an espresso (whole beans) and grind these coarser (or have them ground) than you would for other coffees
Turkish coffee uses a finer ground than espresso grind.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.846300
| 2014-03-11T13:48:33 |
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|
11246
|
Converting Peppermint Marshmallow Recipe to Raspberry
I have the following peppermint marshmallow recipe that I know works well:
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar, plus more for dusting the marshmallows' surface and the work surface
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons cold water
2 1/2 tablespoons unflavored powdered gelatin (3 to 4 packages)
2 cups granulated sugar
1 cup light corn syrup
1/3 cup crushed peppermint pinwheel hard candies
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup warm water
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 or 4 drops peppermint oil (optional)
2 or 3 drops red liquid food color (optional)
(Source)
I would like to convert this to raspberry marshmallows. My current intuition is to change out 1/3 cup crushed peppermint pinwheels for a strained raspberry puree and perhaps increase the corn syrup, but I am not sure this will work and don't know how much time I'll have messing around with the mass on the stove to get the exact sweetness right. I also could use raspberry oil (when I've made the peppermint version I left both oil and food coloring out). I'd like to have a pretty strong raspberry flavor.
The original recipe dipped the finished marshmallows in 55-65% cacao chocolate. Am I right in thinking that a darker chocolate would be better for raspberry if I can figure this out?
If you can get the flavour punchy enough, then a very dark chocolate coating will work well, it does with most red fruit in my opinion, cherry best of all; strawberry is the exception - I think that is better with milk chocolate or even white.
The easy way: Use raspberry oil (preferably) or a raspberry extract in place of the peppermint oil.
The (probably) much better way: Leave out the oil and food coloring and use raspberry puree as you suggested. Strain frozen or fresh raspberries through a fine strainer or cheese cloth. Weigh the resulting juice/puree and then put it on the stove an cook it until the puree is half of its original weight (roughly). This reduced puree will be more intensely raspberry, so it will get all of the raspberry flavor without having to add as much water to the recipe. You'll have to experiment with the amount of reduced raspberry puree to use.
I wouldn't increase the corn syrup, but you certainly could if you want them sweeter. I would personally go for the opposite effect and add a small amount of lemon juice to the raspberry puree to give a little tartness to complement the sweetness of the marshmallow.
As far as the chocolate, I would recommend a darker chocolate. 55% is quite sweet, especially around a marshmallow. You should also consider the type of chocolate. Cocoa percentage isn't everything in dark chocolate. Experiment with different types of chocolate and see what fits well with the marshmallows. Just like wine, chocolate should be paired with other foods according to the subtleties of the taste of the individual chocolate.
I ended up doing something like the second way. To get the puree to strain I added water to the strainer mix and then cooked it down quite a bit. Unfortunately I mis-calculated and added the full amount of warm water, meaning I had to add more gelatin part way through, but the un-set marshmallows tasted great, although I'm still waiting for them to set and see how they are when I cut them.
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.846447
| 2011-01-19T18:38:06 |
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|
33795
|
What is the fastest way / highest temp you made duck confit?
I know I know this is supposed to be a slow thing, but how have you "cheated" and got away with it?
Most recipes calls for at least 4 hours of cooking and at less than 275F. Cooling then re-crisping the skin.
Simply recipe has a version that I feel works sometimes (~300F for 2 hours), but the skin is often as not great, because it gets uneven, and curls too fast.
If you're looking into cheats for duck confit, this might be the grandest:
Simply dousing the duck with oil after cooking is some shortcut that apparently some world class chefs couldn't tell the difference:
Based on taste tests run by Nathan Myhrvold and his Modernist Cuisine
team, this appears to be the case: “We performed this
experiment with duck confit and pork carnitas. In each case, we
prepared one batch traditionally and made a second batch by cooking
the meat sous-vide or steaming it. We then anointed it with oil (duck
fat for duck, pork fat for pork).
Excerpt From: Ferriss, Timothy. “The 4-Hour Chef: The Simple Path to Cooking Like a Pro, Learning Anything, and Living the Good Life.”
Tim has a fake-confit recipe to match the above. Even if you don't use the recipe (i recommend the book), just knowing the above might help you in your quest.
The recursive quote within Tim's book is from page 129 of Vol.2 of Modernist Cuisine. While they actually do the opposite (Sous-vide for 48hrs) of your goal, what's important here is that frying the duck in oil doesn't impart flavour beyond the skin. So once you have a cooked duck and then pan fry with oil, you're cheat is nearly complete.
a note about the skin if you've brined the duck with skin, the salt will make the skin hold more water and become chewy. A trick is to inject the brine into the meat using syringes.
@SAJ14SAJ thanks for the edit! was coming back to fix it, but they're making nutella in the kitchen and I was 'help up'.
Chocolate always has priority :-)
That is something I want to try soon, sous-vide then deep fry in duck fat.
Kenji Alt recommends 135 for two hours, then pan-searing to crisp the skin if doing sous-vide. http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2010/09/sous-vide-101-duck-breast-recipe.html
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.846688
| 2013-04-27T09:45:12 |
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|
16933
|
Forties dinner buffet
I'm serving food to 11 people in a dinner that is supposed to be set at the house of the Deputy Mayor of Casablanca in 1942. I can't seat that many people at table, so the food will have to be capable of being eaten from laps - I'm thinking of nibbles for a starter, followed by either a fork buffet or fork food such as a boeuf bourguignon.
How or where can I find out what food would have been served at one of these historical dinners?
I doubt that there is much fork food typical for that period. They used to dine on gigantic hams etc. But it shouldn't be hard to find recipe books from that period, maybe ask an antiquarian. I have a book on old English cuisine, but it is about much older times (although written in 1969). It cost 3 Euros on Amazon.
You only need to find a ninety year old to ask...well one who was exposed to society dinners in their young adulthood. I admit they are not thick on the ground, but you must know someone who knows someone. The people I know of that age are mostly in nursing homes and similar places, and they generally appreciate company. Alas, my last surviving relative of that era has bad memory trouble caused by TIAs and in any case is about four states away.
The Los Angeles public library has a historical restaurant menu archive online, which will allow you to search restaurant menus for specific years. It will give you an idea of what fashionable people were eating at that time. The menu archive is a GREAT way to find ideas for period cuisine.
EDIT: I have a second historical menu archive for you! Collectiblemeals hosts a collection of menus for famous meals, including many presidential dinners.
Add in some Moroccan fare and a splash of French haute cuisine, and you should be able to build a historical and delicious menu.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.846933
| 2011-08-17T17:40:29 |
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|
5246
|
Savoury equivalent of choco-cornflake cakes
I'm currently trying to work out a savoury equivalent to chocolate to allow the creation of a non-sweet version of chocolate cornflake cakes.
Currently the best equivalent of chocolate (in terms of melting point and water content) that I can think of is cheese. Another alternative would be to use egg and bake the cornflake cakes to get the egg to set.
Before I set off and possibly create a cheese and cornflake omelette, I wanted to check if there is an ingredient or technique that I've overlooked which would cement the cornflakes together without making them too soggy or burning them.
Any suggestions?
Similar to a macaroon, whip egg whites with cream of tartar and season with whatever savory spices and herbs you might like before folding with the corn flakes, corn chips, or crushed tortilla chips, and then bake at a low temperature until crisp and dry but not browned.
Peanut Butter, cream cheese, or mashed potatoes (maybe mashed sweet potatoes) come to mind.
Consider adding gelatin to the mixture to help it set and possibly help the corn flakes not get as soggy as they possibly would.
Rather than lose the chocolate in the recipe, you could lose the corn syrup and add some chili's and a small amount of peanut butter as your new binder. You actually wouldn't even need the peanut butter as the dark chocolate should refirm quite easily in the fridge. This would be a take off on the mexican [mole sauce](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mole_(sauce)
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.847111
| 2010-08-15T17:33:29 |
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|
5428
|
What can I do with 2 lbs. of pecans?
I just bought 2 pounds of pecans from a friend who received them from a fresh source. I know of all kinds of regular things to do with pecans, but short of making more or bigger dishes that happen to have some pecans in them, what are good things to do with 2 lbs of pecans?
I should mention that I'm vegan, so veg-friendly suggestions particularly welcome.
Hey, would you consider making this question 'community wiki'? That means that it doesn't have a single 'right' answer, and people can edit eachother's posts more easily if it turns into a collaborative answer. All you have to do is click [edit] and check the box on the lower right marked [community wiki].
Too open ended....
@ocaasi have to have this as a community wiki question-- it looks like someone else might have done that already?
thanks for all the ideas-- i was also thinking (as some suggested) of making a few different pecan pestos, and then freezing them. and whatever is leftover would be nice to enjoy making a variety of dishes with them.
I don't know if I'd say you "have to", but it's pretty much site policy that a question with no single right answer should be community wiki. It looks like a moderator came by and did it for you.
I'm not sure why the rush. Pecans are not a cheap ingredient where I am, and I actually have to slow myself down from using too many.
A perhaps unusual preparation is to grind your pecans and coat whatever your main is with them as if the pecans were bread crumbs. This could be done with egg plant, for example.
As an omnivore I really enjoy fish coated with ground nuts.
One of my favorite ways to do green beans is to roast them under a broiler with onions and pecans until all ingredients are toasty and golden.
Pecan pie is one of my favorite desserts, and with a replacement for heavy cream my recipe could be made vegan. Google appears to agree that this is a definite option for vegans. Another excellent recipe if you can save your pecans for fall is a pumpkin pie base with a pecan pie topping. Oh. My. Goodness. So decadent. There are many options out there.
I rarely make cookies without pecans. In fact, my ideal cookie is pecans held together by cookie dough. I love pecans in muffins. They also taste good in quick breads - zucchini, banana, and many others. You can also grind the pecans and use them with white or whole wheat flour in a bread recipe.
I'm trying that green bean application; it sounds excellent!
mmm yes it does sound excellent!
you could make pecan butter! that takes a lot of pecans, i'm sure.
Pecan pie, obviously
Pecan brittle
Candied pecans
Grind to make a pecan crust for fish/chicken
Chocolate chip pecan cookies
Pecan banana bread
feel free to edit this list
Also, freeze them in an airtight bag and they'll last for a long time.
Pecan brittle! Yum!
You can use pretty much any nut in pesto. It'll taste different, but pecan pesto probably wouldn't be bad.
I use pecans in my pesto. It's quite good. Just toast them first!
This one is hard to answer because you said "I know of all kinds of regular things to do with pecans". I'm second guessing myself wondering if all the things I do are "regular" or not. :)
Seriously though- this shouldn't be a problem and I don't think you should try and waste them all at once just because you have them. As I'm sure you know, most recipes call for a relatively small amount. Pecans stay good frozen for a long time (I've done a year with no noticeable effects).
Stuff I do with Pecans but again they're all normal:
Throw in some in cereal and yogurt,
brownies,
banana bread,
pie (very infrequently! That's a bit rich)
various salads
chopped with a vinaigrette on cooked veggies,
Any recipe that calls for walnuts as I never have them.
I'm with you on this - don't use them all at once! And two pounds isn't really that much, by the time you do some serious baking.
You could try a sweet dish called charoset. Most recipes call for a cup or so of walnuts, but I always use pecans instead, and it comes out great.
That is a new one to me. I have never had charoset that tasted good enough to have pecans among the ingredients.
One good thing about using freezing pecans is that after you freeze them, you can make pecan nut flour by tossing your pecans into the food processor. Freezing the pecans allows the nuts to not turn into pecan butter when you grind them.
With the pecan nut flour, you can substitute it in lots of baking recipes for a richer flavor. I've found it to be a great additive to vegan recipes to give pie crusts, cakes and cookies a more moist texture. Just replace 1/4 of your regular all purpose flour with the pecan flour.
You can make a great vegan cheesecake with Tofutti (homemade vegan cream cheese), using pecan nut flour in your crust, and topping with toasted pecans and maple syrup.
My wife makes Mexican Wedding Cookies, from 'The Joy of Vegan Baking'. These are very addictive. Besides the pecans, everything else is a basic pantry item (flour, sugar, vanilla extract, etc).
I'd recommend that until you use them, you may want to consider storing them in the fridge or freezer, since the oils can go rancid, causing an off taste. Particularly with two pounds of them, you may not use them up in time.
Fruitcake.
Okay, well, not exactly -- my mom makes what she calls "pecan whisky cake", which is essentially a fruitcake -- nuts, fruit (well, just sultanas aka. golden raisins) and bourbon. Then it's wrapped in cheesecloth and misted every few weeks with more bourbon over the course of 4 months.
(but I'd just toss 'em in the freezer, 2 lbs doesn't take up much space, assuming they're already shelled)
I have 2 big pecan trees in my garden, which supply endless amounts of pecans. So I have a similar "problem". And although pecans can stay tasty when stored in a dry place, they do loose their taste over time (~ after a year, although they're still good for cooking).
Basically, what I like to do with my pecans is just eat them raw (without toasting, without salt, without sugar, just open them up one by one and eat them). Fresh pecans don't need any additions as they taste incredible when fresh.
The fact that you have to peel them one by one, slows down the pace of eating, so by the time you've eaten 6-7 you're pretty full and tired of peeling :)
Also, I just bring a bag of them to work and watch my colleagues enjoy pecans. It's actually became similar to a "water cooler effect" where everybody just hangs around the pecans, eating them and talking while taking a break. Which is much better than eating waffles as we normally do when pecans are not around.
More pecan pies.
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.847295
| 2010-08-18T11:06:22 |
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32804
|
How to add flavouring ingredients to steamed or boiled veggies?
I'm a newbie cook from to prepare the nightly dinner for my wife and I. I usually have a meat and stream or boil sweet potato, corn, Brussels sprouts, asparagus or broccolini.
It occurred to me that I was adding a little bit of butter and salt to everything that I cooked. I know if I bake something I could add rosemary etc, but how can I season / flavour food different steaming / boiling? Adding herbs to the water??
I would take back the closure vote if I could; I realize its not a "what goes with X" but a how to add stuff when steaming, which is a good technique quesiton. Recommend other folks not vote yes to close.
Is "botton" supposed to be butter? I am going to edit for clarity, but if that is not right, feel free to roll the edit back.
Please don't mark the correct answer so quickly, leave it a few days and more answer may appear from the masses :-)
I edited the title so it won't mislead other people to think that it is a "what goes with X" question (this is how I interpreted it initially too).
While not a direct answer to your question, I would add that roasting vegetables adds considerable flavor, and is very easy to do. The basic no-recipe technique is to cut the veggies into uniform size chunks, add some oil or butter, optionally some herbs, salt, pepper or acid (vinegar, lemon juince)--just a splash. Roast in an oven between 350 F to 450 F (depending on what else you were doing in the oven) until browned and delicious looking. This is very popular with all my guests. Broccoli, green beans, and asparagus are among the vegetables that this works especially well for.
Adding flavors to the water will not transfer to the vegetables. Steam is a poor medium for flavor as water carries almost nothing with it when it becomes gas. There are a few very good methods to add some flavor to steamed veggies, so you can just use one of those!
You can add herbs and other aromatics to the veggies This works best with fresh herbs, but a few sprigs of rosemary or a few leaves of basil in contact with your steamed veggies will get some good flavor action. Alternately, mixing them in right after you take the veggies off the steam will let the residual heat of the veg to bring out the flavors in the herbs. Other things that work well is cooking your veggies on a bed of orange peels or lemon peels to add some citrus flavor.
Add oil, plus any flavors you want to infuse into the oil Once you have steamed your veggies, hit them with a light drizzle of oil. I make a chili-infused olive oil that I toss my steamed carrots in that is always a huge hit. There are wide array of lipid soluble flavors that you can infuse your oil with.
Compound butters are great, but so is just butter Animal fats added after cooking almost always turn ho-hum into yum-yum. Butter has long been the french way to add a bunch of subtle flavor to a side dish. You don't have to use a ton, normally a light toss is enough to make a difference. Compound butter is just butter with herbs chopped in and it gives you the double whammy when you use it.
Any ground spice You can also just shake some ground spices on. Pepper, curry powder, cinnamon, pretty much anything that sprinkles and fits the profile you are looking for will work. If your spices are fresh ground, you will get even more taste for your buck.
If you are boiling your veggies, your options open up. Most root veggies will take on the flavor of whatever you cook them in, so using stock or vegetable broth can add some flavor. Vegetables that you cook with each other in a pot of boiling water will also get some transference among themselves. That's the basis for a large number folk dishes like New England Boil and the reason Cajuns always throw some taters and corn in with the crawfish.
You can also marinate your vegetables before steaming or cooking. Try throwing them in a bag with some fresh herbs and some oil or butter several hours or the night before you plan on cooking them to infuse some flavors. You can also achieve similar results by steaming in a bag with those herbs and butter so that the food is in constant contact with the flavorants.
For example, packaging asparagus in a ziploc bag with some butter and garlic and rosemary and then steaming the bag until your desired doneness will give you a nice flavor on the asparagus while also providing a flavorful liquid to accompany it. One thing to consider with this method is whether you would like to blanch the veggies first to keep their bright color.
Being unable to transfer flavor using a steamer is simply not true. In (NZ) traditional Maori culture we have an earth oven or "Hangi" (pronouned har+ng+ee) where food is loaded into baskets and cooked in a pit where a fire (bonfire) was lit to heat stones. The pit is cleaned after the fire has burnt and the stones put back in. The baskets are put on top of the stones and covered with wet sacking. The sacking is then covered with dirt taken from the original pit. Heat from the stones and the walls of the pit plus steam from the sacking and a small amount of water added to the final mound cook the food. The final product is food that has infused a slight woody, earthy flavor.
Because the process of laying a Hangi is very labor intensive it is usually saved for special occasions such as a wedding, where you are cooking for a lot of people.
So let's try to replicate it in a steamer. While I am going to create a cheats Hangi you can have any combination of vegetable in the steamer. In my case I have whole cabbage leaves on the bottom; one or two leaves overlapping but covering the entire base. Then I have a layer of sliced pumpkin cut about 8mm thick. More cabbage leaf and layer of potato 8mm thick. More cabbage leaf and with thinly sliced carrot 2-3mm and a few more slices of potato. To finish I have some pork on top (de-boned chops) with more carrot added to fill).
That is the general idea it is not a recipe set in stone. Sweet potato is great in there as is brussel sprouts cut in half or sliced. Chicken, lamb or any other meat (or no meat) can be used.
In a 15 cm steamer you can make enough for one or two. In a 20 cm steamer you can make enough for 4-6 people. My measurements below are for the smaller steamer. For a 20 cm steamer go 1.5 times. For larger than 20 cm double it but you will be cooking for 8 or more.
So the real magic begins with what goes in the water. Remember I am trying to achieve an earthy, woody flavor. So I have added to my water 4-6 cloves crushed garlic, 1 tsp Thyme, 1 tsp Rosemary, 1 tsp Sage, 1 tsp Tarragon. You can add others or take some out. In my opinion once you use over four types of herbs the end result gets a bit confusing.
The second key is to have the steamer set low. When you lift the steamer basket or pot you want to be seeing to garlic gently rolling around through convection. Not boiling or even simmering. Low and slow is critical.
The cooking time will vary depending on the size of your steamer and how much you have in it. I expect my little steamer to take about 1.5 - 2 hours. I like to put some potato at the top to test and remember around 8 mm slices. At that size it becomes a good timer. Any bigger and they take longer than the meat needs to cook. After 3 - 4 hrs things will still be okay but the flavor from the garlic and herb mixture will be stronger.
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.848107
| 2013-03-19T02:10:30 |
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17170
|
Where can I find a quality comparison for Zwilling Knives?
I'm trying to find comparisons between various knives from Zwilling. I know the difference between the lines: JA Henckels International tends to be of different build quality as compared to Zwilling.
However, I'm having trouble differentiating between the different knives from within the Zwilling brand. For instance, sets are named things like Cuisine, Gourmet, Signature, Four Star, and Professional S.
Even the Zwilling website doesn't really offer too much information about the specific lines. In fact, it doesn't even list some of the lines I've seen for sale, such as Gourmet. Can anyone provide info about these knives, or a link to further descriptions and comparisons?
There's a serious dearth of information about the differences between the Henckels product lines, but from what I can tell:
The biggest difference is the handle design, which impacts the balance. You'll want to hold the knives to find which is right for you.
Stamped blades are used in the following lines: Twin Signature, Twin Gourmet, International Everedge, International Everedge Plus, International Fine Edge Pro, International Fine Edge Synergy, International Eversharp. Source: Henckels Site.
Forged blades are used for the following lines: Twin Profection, Twin Four Star and Four Star II, Twin Cuisine, Twin Professional S, Twin Select, International Classic, International Forged Premio, and International Forged Synergy. Sources: Henckels site, Squidoo, Amazon
Microserrated blades are used in the following product lines: Eversharp Pro, Everedge, Everedge Plus (Source: Henckels International website)
All but the Twin Cermax line are X50CrMoV15 steel, hardened to 54-56 HRC (some reports say up to 57 Rockwell C). This means they're slightly softer than Wusthof (which now hardens many of their products to 58 HRC), but less brittle.
Twin Cermax uses special, superhard (66 HRC) MC66 steel, meaning they take a sharper edge and hold it MUCH longer than the other lines. This is probably a clone of the ZDP-189 supersteel. (source)
The microserrated blades aid in slicing, but hurt the ability to chop and mince. They WILL help retain a cutting edge longer, but also cannot be sharpened normally.
Edit:
Personally, I've not been impressed by Henckels knives. Wusthof knives strike me as better quality at a similar price, and Victorinox is almost as good but a lot cheaper. Why do I say this? Well, Wusthof blades aren't as thick and unwieldy as Henckels, and they harden the steel to 58 Rockwell, so it takes a better edge. Victorinox is comparable hardness to Henckels, but about half the price, and the shapes of the blades just seem so perfect, with a deeper belly to slice thick items, and awesome grippy Fibrox handles.
Edit 2: 5 March 2016 - Henckels appears to have moved to a 57-58 HRC steel standard now for many of their blades, and switched to a narrower 15 degree bevel. This means they are capable of finer cuts, but the edges may be a tad more fragile. Twin Profection is now 60 HRC. This means that steel-on-steel, the knives should now be competitive with Wusthof. The Twin Signature and International Forged Classic still use the inferior 53-55 HRC steels. Victorinox has also raised the prices on their Fibrox-handled knives. Personal opinion, they're still a much better value than Henckels, but Henckels may be more competitive with Wusthof now.
I know this is a very old thread... however just wanted to mention that most of the "pro" lines of Zwilling knives are 57 Rockwell and higher... you can check this site for more detailed information
http://www.metrokitchen.com/zwilling-ja-henckels-knives-comparison-guide
About time they pumped to a higher hardness, too. 54-56 HRC is unacceptable for a knife at that price point IMO - updating my answer.
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.848782
| 2011-08-27T04:06:57 |
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17112
|
What sort of rice and noodles are "brown rice" or "brown noodles"?
I am a university student about to enter his second year. At my school, only freshman are given (relatively cheap) access to the Dining Commons, and I recall, near the end of the year, a nutrition specialist held a table inside with recommendations to students about convenient ways to cook when thrown to the lions den their sophomore year. She said something about brown rice or brown noodles, cooked with my choice source of protein as well as vegetables, as a default meal when time is scarce during the work week. I thought it sounded like an enterprising idea, but my family and I are baffled at its execution.
What sort of rice and noodles was she referring to?
Also, what sort of meat and vegetables can I put into it?
Finally, how do I cook this?
No noodles are actually called "brown noodles" but the only noodles I'm aware of that are brownish in colour are either wheat or buckwheat.
Given the suggestion to cook it with a "protein source", and given that this is meant to be a quick and easy meal, I'm sure that the idea was to cook some dried noodles briefly in soup along with some sliced or shredded meat. This is common in Asian cuisine, and it can be nutritious, assuming you don't rely on instant noodles and artificial flavour packets.
You'd probably be looking at one of the following:
Ramen, which is traditionally made from la mian (hand-pulled buckwheat noodles, although sometimes they're made from wheat), served in broth, usually with meat and green onions, and often flavoured with soy sauce. Keep in mind that real ramen is actually quite difficult and time-consuming to make, and is not even close to the "instant ramen" you see for 99 cents a package. You can cheat a little and still have a decent meal by buying quality dried noodles and cooking them in real homemade broth, or at least canned broth.
Udon, AKA "thick noodles" (made from wheat), which are also typically prepared in broth, specifically dashi - broth made from kombu (kelp), dried tuna or bonito flakes, and occasionally mushrooms, and seasoned with soy sauce and mirin (rice wine). Meat isn't as common in udon, but fish and tofu are, especially deep-fried. You can still make it with beef or chicken. You can find decent-quality instant dashi at Asian grocery stores, so again, prep time is minimal if you get the right ingredients.
Soba (buckwheat) noodle soup, which (in my experience) is almost always served in miso (again, available in instant form). Seasonings and toppings are otherwise similar to udon, although they tend to get a bit more elaborate. For example, the wiki page references tsukimi soba which means poaching a raw egg in the cooked soup.
Finally Phở, which is the Vietnamese take on this, which uses rice noodles (so definitely not brown). The most common preparation (at least in all of the Vietnamese restaurants around here) is simply the hot soup and noodles with some rare beef dropped in to briefly cook, then topped with basil and bean sprouts just before eating. The broth is really very difficult for non-natives to learn and instant pho is usually terrible, so I wouldn't recommend this for beginners.
Of course you can always just go with good old-fashioned Western chicken noodle soup or chicken soup with rice and vegetables. Chicken noodle soup usually uses egg noodles, which are, again, definitely not brown, so although they're a fine choice, they're almost certainly not what the question is referring to.
Thanks! I still have no clue what the nutritionist was referring to exactly, but this answers my question and others I was pondering. :)
Although I am beginning to wonder if these meals aren't considered time-savers to make per se, but that they are easily refrigerated and last relatively long if made in bulk?
@user7179: You can probably freeze them (they are essentially soup, after all), but I wouldn't count on them lasting more than a few days in the refrigerator. Meat broth is a veritable breeding ground for bacteria and some of them can survive refrigeration temperatures. Frozen, you're fine. I consider these to be very quick meals, but perhaps, depending on your frame of reference, they are more like effort savers than time savers. You just throw your ingredients in a pot and let it simmer for however long you like.
As brown rice has already been explained. I'm guessing whole wheat noodles to be the 'brown' noodles.
My thought as well. I personally can't stand the stuff. Eat a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast, and eat the regular noodles.
@Satanicpuppy: Yeah, whole wheat noodles don't sound particularly appetizing, now that I think about it. I will take that into consideration...
Never ate the stuff, never will(?)
Hey, I didn't say I will never eat it; I just said I'll take his advice into consideration.
@user7179, I was making a note to myself :) Should have been a mental note, of course
@satanicpuppy : I'd admit that a lot of the whole wheat noodles have a flavor/texture that takes a little getting used to ... and I haven't kept good notes on which were the ones that didn't suck ... but when you're using heavy sauces, it's definately less noticable,
Well, brown rice is brown rice: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_rice
That's not a particularly fast-cooking meal, though; brown rice can take up to 50min to cook fully. It is very nutritious, though.
I have no idea what your anonymous tipster meant by "brown noodles". I would help if you actually quoted her or gave us a name.
The modernist food periodical Lucky Peach (http://www.mcsweeneys.net/luckypeach) included a long article on how to spruce up instant ramen; maybe you should check it out.
Sorry, I really don't have any more relevant information. It wasn't official; just some woman with fliers giving nutrition advice. I don't remember much.
I think the idea behind the whole thing is sort of an Asian-inspired balanced meal. But I guess there's no such thing as brown noodles? Haha, it's all really bizarre. Well, thanks for trying.
Well, if what you have in mind is health, then I'd recommend soba noodles with yam, which you can get at Asian food stores. Since these noodles have both whole buckwheat and Japanese yam in them, they're a lot more nutritious than instant ramen or pasta. In general, if you are looking for very healthful food, plain & simple Chinese or Japanese foods are hard to beat. They get boring pretty quick too, though. For non-Asian pasta, whole wheat noodles work well with a few recipes but not for most.
Thanks! I still have no clue what the nutritionist was referring to exactly, but this answers my question and others I was pondering. :)
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.849076
| 2011-08-25T03:50:36 |
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29855
|
Extraordinary Beef Gravy?
I recently overcooked a rib roast – not badly, but into the “well-done” class. The roast itself was still OK – but the gravy…the gravy was fantastic. I can only assume this is because I cooked a lot more juices out of the beef. I enjoyed just having leftover mashed potatoes and gravy from this roast, so I don’t even need a roast to come along with the gravy!
What made the gravy so good? What tecnique can I use to replicate this type of gravy?
Unfortunately recipe requests are off topic here on Seasoned Advice.
The original question would have been closed as a recipe request. I tried to edit it into a "How to achieve this effect" type of question, which is on-topic here. It is still a bit tautological - obviously, if you want long-cooked gravy, you have to cook your roast for a long time - but this was the best I could to to salvage the question. If somebody has a better edit idea, they are welcome.
This question would be better if you explained what made the gravy so delicious - was the flavor super-condensed or was there a lot of umami?
It's probably less to do with the amount of juices that came out of the rib roast and more to do with the extended caramelisation of those juices produced by overcooking. Those burnt, caramelised bits left in the bottom of the pan are full of flavour and it's probably that, that added so much more flavour to your gravy than you're used to.
Just replicate it the next time you make a rib roast. Once the roast is done, take it out, cut a slice or two of the meat off, chop it up into small pieces, put it back in the pan and continue cooking until the pieces are burnt and caramelised. Make your gravy as before.
Have you ever heard of "rice and gravy"? It's ubiquitous in Cajun country. That's essentially what you made.
To repeat it, all you have to do it brown your meat really well and then deglaze the pan repeatedly throughout the cooking process. It should be a covered braise and you can make it with anything from a roast to meatloaf. You can do it with most meats, but beef and pork make the best gravy.
It's a process of browning, then deglazing with liquid (water works, so does wine and better), then letting the liquid evaporate, and browning some more, then deglazing, etc. Over and over until the meat is cooked.
Add some finely diced onions, bell peppers, and celery (and a small amount of garlic later in the process (don't burn it, else very bitter) to achieve what the Cajuns do. It cooks down and melds with the gravy to make something that taste just short of fantastic. Careful not to burn it, as you can't fix the dish if the onions or pepper burn.
When just about done, deglaze one last time, but don't use too much liquid. Scrap all the delicious brown bits off the bottom of the pan and call it done.
Also, it's much better on Day 2 and 3 after it rests.
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.849582
| 2013-01-08T01:55:49 |
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71274
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Can you pasteurize flour at home?
As a follow-up to this question about the safety of raw flour, and to possibly update this question about eating raw cookie dough:
Is it possible/how can I pasteurize raw flour, at home, to kill any E. coli that may be present?
If possible, what other effects (e.g., flavor, color, texture) if any, will this have on the flour?
You might add why you want to do this. Is it because you want to use flour in something that won't be cooked?
Here's a useful article that summarizes some of the advantages/disadvantages of current ways to limit microbial growth in flour. I don't know anything about attempts to standardize home pasteurization of flour yet, but it is done commercially and some large companies use it for various applications.
In principle, I don't see why you couldn't take the flour to safe temperatures just like any other food. You'd have to reach temperatures which break down proteins, something like 165 F or 75 C should be sufficient (it's good enough for meat).
This will break down the proteins in the flour too, so I would expect it to behave like standard browned flour (although browned flour is taken to higher temperatures than that). It won't be suitable for making doughs and batters, or at least will perform much worse. You can use it for not-completely-white roux, or for fermenting bosa, or any other standard use of preheated flour.
If the purpose is to make cookie dough to be used "raw" in ice cream, would it taste weird?
@Catija as I said, it is unlikely that you can make any dough with it. It will bind much less.
I had assumed you meant doughs and batters that would be cooked. Most raw doughs seem wet enough I didn't realize it would be an issue.
It's not about cooking, it's about having denatured the proteins in the flour. It would be like trying to make dough with cooked eggs instead of raw.
But people leave eggs out of dough entirely if they aren't intending to bake it. Flour that has been heated doesn't look very different than raw flour... Based on what I've seen when I baked bread. Which is, admittedly not likely the best example.
It is all about changing the proteins. "like using cooked eggs" was an analogy, not an equivalence. It meant taking a recipe which requires raw eggs, putting inside cooked eggs and expecting it to work the same way as if the eggs were raw. This has nothing to do with recipes without eggs. Also, "looks" doesn't matter, powdered sugar looks exactly like corn starch, but it doesn't thicken like corn starch does. Baked AP flour will perform like something between pastry flour and wheat starch, not like AP flour.
@Catija - I think rumtscho may be exaggerating the impact a bit here. Yes, the protein damage will be sufficient to cause problems if you wanted to, say, bake bread. But you should still be able to make cookie dough with it. Nestle has been using pasteurized flour in its pre-made cookie dough recipes for several years, after a previous E. coli outbreak in 2009 traced to people eating raw pre-packaged cookie dough. Pasteurized flour is recommended for people making uncooked dough products like use in ice cream. I don't know standards for home processing, but it's clearly used commercially.
165F if you're in a hurry. You could also heat it in a sealed container to about 135F for several hours.
I recently ran across this interesting article about using a sous vide to make safe-to-eat raw cookie dough.
According to the article, flour needs to be brought to 160 F to make it safe for raw consumption. She uses her sous vide to do this though admits it takes a really long time for the flour to come to temperature (four hours). She links to another article that was able to do the same thing in a 1200 watt microwave in 55 seconds... which gives us another option for home flour pasteurization.
As pointed out in the second article:
Heating flour to this temperature runs the risk of burning the flour, therefore heating must be done carefully to ensure flour does not get too hot and burn. Also, heating the flour to 160 degrees F destroys some of the gluten in the flour and therefore would make the flour no good for baking. However, the flour is still useful for creating treats that will not need to be baked.
So, if you want flour that can be used in unbaked products (cookie dough), both the sous vide and microwave are options.
The microwave option, while convenient, would be very dependent on the microwave. Many would get some patches too hot while others are still cold. Using a thermometer to stir might be a good idea.
Yeah, the full method is explained in the article. And I specifically included the wattage of the test microwave for that reason. I can include more of the article here if it will help.
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.849848
| 2016-07-07T23:04:40 |
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69476
|
Need to replace my "Bean Pot" what should I look for?
I have this 5 quart, aluminum nonstick pot.
It is my go-to pot for candy making (fudge, toffee and brittles), jams and jellies. It also gets used for stews and chili.
The non-stick finish is wearing off so I'm looking to replace it. I really like the nonstick surface for candy and jam making, but don't like that it wears off.
I'm considering an enameled cast iron Dutch oven as a replacement.
Would enameled cast iron work well for candy making, jams and jellies, where controlling the temperature is very critical? (I'm sure there would be a learning curve). I know that one these will be considerably heavier, but also more durable.
Or should I just replace my current pot with the same pot, and plan on replacing it when the finish starts to wear?
(There are also ceramic coated pots. I've never used any of these and don't know if I should be considering one.)
You might also change your utensils used IN the pot - looks like stirring with something too hard, from the wear pattern. I happen to use an enameled 6-quart cast iron pot for the jam/jelly function, but it's certainly not non-stick. Everything I've seen about or with ceramic nonstick appears to be marketing snake-oil on cheap pans, but I haven't been trolling for new pots at high-end stores, either.
@Ecnerwal I never used metal in nonstick, only wood, heat safe plastic/nylon and silicon.
If a product suggestion is allowed here: In case a german reader has the same requirements, the Aldi "Crofton" non stick aluminium pots that seem to be on sale every 1-2 years are a good choice here, except for a little design flaw that makes the handles impossible to use one-sidedly when hot, even if the contents are light and/or you are strong - they have silicone rubber handle pads that are only loosely attached and WILL slide your hand against hot metal.
I've made some wonderful baked beans in my fuzzy logic rice cooker. They come in all sizes and be used for many things besides beans. It's my go to machine for most soups, including onion, and grains.
Ceramic does not quite have the nonstick properties of "true" (based on some kind of PTFE-ish material) nonstick, neither does enamel. Especially not for applications like jam making where charred jam might get stuck to the bottom. Also, from my anecdotal evidence, ceramic coatings hate thermal shock (eg when adding cold liquid into a hot pot to deglaze) and can stain.
The damage shown in the photo does not look like normal wear, but like wear from using tools that aren't inherently nonstick-safe too forcefully - metal-based immersion blenders, metal wire whisks, metal spoons....
But then, wear of "true" nonstick surfaces happens - slower if treated gently, faster if treated rough, so eventually, non-stick cookware that is seeing regular use will need to be replaced.
Also it seems that there are a lot of "cheap knockoff" brands of ceramic, that fail quickly. If you go that route, be sure to check online evaluations of the exact product.
Anything that is hard and can easily develop cracks that are not following a smooth "V" shape is an easy target for any geometrically locking adhesive - and overheated jam fits that definition admirably :)
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.850234
| 2016-06-05T00:18:26 |
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57780
|
Is this soup, stew, or something else?
I ate some East Asian dish recently and it looked something like this:
[image source: http://www.thetabletopcook.com/images/tabletop-cooking-homemade-taiwanese-hot-pot.jpg]
I had never eaten anything that looks like it. I was confused, is it a soup with some solids added to it?
I want to know about nomenclature for this type of food and how they would be classified (not according to taste, but according to how they look/are arranged/are mixed).
Why would it not be some sort of soup?
Can you explain more about the actual food you had? How was it served, how was it prepared, what was in it?
Also, the general question seems way too broad for a single question, so I'm just going to edit it out. Trying to describe all the possible kinds of food is simply too much to cover.
The key thing to note about the picture you found is that the pot is on top of a hot plate - it's being cooked at the table, with people adding the individual pieces of food to the pot then grabbing them when they're ready. It's a cook as you go thing, not a single dish served as is. Is that what you had? Or just something that looked similar?
About the classification: Q: Difference between soup and stew
@Jefromi yes, what you described is correct.
It's a hot pot or steamboat as we call it in Malaysia. It's a clear soup made from stock. Raw ingredients are gradually added to it as it simmers. Soup and the cooked ingredients are fished out when they are done (each time when the pot boils). At the end, you are left with a rich, delicious soup that has flavours of all the ingredients intermingled and it is usually eaten with noodles.
Going by this, it would be classified as a soup or broth. It wouldn't be a stew as flour has not been used to thicken it.
It's definitely a kind of soup or stew.
The image you picked specifically calls it a "hot pot".
http://www.thetabletopcook.com/images/tabletop-cooking-homemade-taiwanese-hot-pot.jpg
Hot Pots are classified as "stews" according to Wikipedia:
Hot pot (also known as steamboat in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and Brunei), refers to several East Asian varieties of stew, consisting of a simmering metal pot of stock at the center of the dining table. While the hot pot is kept simmering, ingredients are placed into the pot and are cooked at the table. Typical hot pot dishes include thinly sliced meat, leaf vegetables, mushrooms, wontons, egg dumplings, and seafood. Vegetables, fish and meat should be fresh. The cooked food is usually eaten with a dipping sauce. In many areas, hot pot meals are often eaten in the winter during supper time.
But I'd argue that they're more soup-like. They remind me a lot of a Mexican dish called "caldo de pollo/res", which is literally "chicken/beef broth".
From the definition of "stew":
Stews are similar to soups, and in some cases there may not be a clear distinction between the two. Generally, stews have less liquid than soups, are much thicker and require longer cooking over low heat. While soups are almost always served in a bowl, stews may be thick enough to be served on a plate with the gravy as a sauce over the solid ingredients.
Your image, and this one of caldo are very broth-y, which is why I think they're more like soup.
But if it's hot pot, you fish the food out of the broth to eat it, right? Maybe you eat the broth when you're done, but you're not eating all that as a bowl of stew, it's more of a method of quickly simmering things at the table.
@Jefromi I've never actually had a hot pot, so I don't know the method. I'm going on what Wikipedia calls it. The OP didn't say anything about the process of the food at the restaurant, so it's possible it wasn't a hot pot at all, it just happened to look like an image of a hot pot. :P
Ah right - if they were served a bowl all prepared like that, maybe not hot pot, but similar!
Based on evidence outside the pot, it is very much a "hot pot". Wouldn't call that a stew though. And in some place you drink the liquid after cooking all the raw food item as soup to finish
@TFD But the image doesn't belong to the OP... he/she found it on the web as an approximation of what was had. At this point, we don't know that the OP had a hot pot or just some sort of soup that had a bunch of stuff in it.
@Catija Since the OP has provided very little information beyond the image, we kind of have to answer about what the image is. If OP has extra info, it might be better to post as a new-but-related question, with either a new question, or stating some specific differences between the dish they had and the dish that they have found a picture of.
That is certainly a stew. I might further refer to that as a hot-pot if the ingredients were raw before added to the broth, particularly if it's cooked at the table.
The image actually labels it as a "hot pot". :D
@Catija LOL, I didn't notice that!
That particular dish looks to me like Chinese hot pot, or a similar Asian hot pot (not to be confused with Lancashire hotpot, which is a kind of stew!).
The main feature of the dish is that you have a pot at your table with a burner underneath, and a number of raw ingredients which you add to the broth and pull out at your own convenience. These may include meat, root vegetables, leaf vegetables, noodles, eggs, seafood or fish.
I would argue that it's not a soup or a stew, because the components are fished out and eaten, and are the main part of the dish. You can optionally drink the broth when you are finished, and I guess you could call that part of the dish a soup (though I would say "broth" to connote the thin-ness), but the dish as a whole is just hot pot. You don't call it a stew when you boil ravioli, right? ;)
From Wikipedia:
Hot pot (also known as steamboat in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and Brunei), refers to several East Asian varieties of stew, consisting of a simmering metal pot of stock at the center of the dining table. While the hot pot is kept simmering, ingredients are placed into the pot and are cooked at the table. Typical hot pot dishes include thinly sliced meat, leaf vegetables, mushrooms, wontons, egg dumplings, and seafood. Vegetables, fish and meat should be fresh. The cooked food is usually eaten with a dipping sauce. In many areas, hot pot meals are often eaten in the winter during supper time.
As far as I concerned it's Tom Yum Soup
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/tomyumsoup_85069
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_yum
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.850620
| 2015-05-26T03:01:32 |
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|
43429
|
Why doesn't my whole wheat dough pass the Poke Test?
http://www.thekitchn.com/bread-baking-tip-how-to-tell-w-156772
The Poke Test - Give that ball of dough a firm poke with your finger. If the indentation fills back quickly, you're good to go. If it stays looking like a deep dimple, continue kneading.
I use the water and the whole wheat flour only. After kneading the dough for 15 minutes I poked it. The hole didn't fill up.
Is there a proper way to knead the dough which I may be missing?
This dough is supposed to be used for making Parathas and Chapatis.
You have to knead dough made with whole-wheat flour for longer than white flours. Keep going!
I have researched several paratha recipes, and they are fairly uniform in not mixing or kneading the dough for very long. They may not require a lot a of glutent development. Why do you think your dough needs to pass this test?
@SAJ14SAJ I want the chapati and parathas (same dough is used for both) to remain very soft til long hours.
Gluten development (or lack of it) is not going to help with that. That is a factor of staling, and flat breads are going to stale quickly, especially if they are lean and not enriched (not loaded with fat, sugar, and so on).
@SAJ14SAJ so, what is gluten development help for w.r.t kneadable doughs?
Chewiness and structure. Ability to hold leavening from yeast.
@SAJ14SAJ so the dough with more gluten will have to be chewed for much longer to swallow it? It won't be soft as cotton? Is that what you indicate?
I don't know about the length of chewing, but it would certainly have a chewier mouth feel.
The "spring back poke test" is a function of gluten content. Whole-wheat doughs have a hard time building gluten networks, because the sharp edges of the bran cut through the gluten strands as you knead. In general, you should never use more than 50% whole-wheat flour in a standard bread dough. Cook's Illustrated successfully increased that to 60% by soaking the whole-wheat flour in milk for at least 8 hours before making the dough, and using bread flour instead of all-purpose for the other 40%.
It's fascinating what happens at the microscopic level in everyday things!
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:55.851101
| 2014-04-11T07:53:57 |
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|
44806
|
How to preserve homemade fresh cream for about a week in a freezer?
I get the full cream milk, boil it, and then let it cool down. I collect the thick layer of cream that gathers on its top and put it in the freezer in a vessel.
Next day if I get more milk I again follow the same process and put the new cream in the already stored cream vessel in the freezer.
What should I do to extend the lives of these creams such that they last for about a week?
Do you mean the fridge or the freezer? Your question body says "freezer", and Elendil's answer assumes it too, but the title says "fridge" and it is likely it will go off there.
Assuming the milk is pasteurised, frozen cream made with it should last for months in a clean, sealed container in the freezer. I would put each batch in a separate container though rather than putting room temperature cream in with already frozen.
why is "sealed" vessel needed? Moreover some link to support your claim would be helpful. no offense intended.
If it isn't sealed then the fat will pick up funky flavors from the air pretty quickly.
@TheIndependentAquarius see here: http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/21068/how-long-can-i-store-a-food-in-the-pantry-refrigerator-or-freezer
You need to keep it sealed for two reasons.
First, everytime you add new cream, you are warming the top layer of the frozen cream, and constant temp changes will damage the consistency of the cream. So freeze separately.
Secondly, by not sealing, you are exposing it to the oxidation and dehydrating elements of a freezer, you'll get 'freezerburn' on your cream...which I gotta think is a not lovely result given the work you are putting into it.
Seal it in containers or plastic bags, whatever, and it will keep for months.
My dad does the exact same thing in India and he keeps it covered with a lid in the freezer if not sealed. And the cream does last for months like @ElendilTheTall suggested.
The only other thing to consider is if electricity is a problem and there are power failures. Then the type of refrigerator comes into picture and whether yours is a frost type or the defrost type. If it indeed builds up enough frost/ice in the freezer that it can sustain the cool in the freezer while the power failure is fixed, you shouldn't have much of a problem with the cream. But, if not, you should try to use the cream in short intervals.
Of course, if you do not have an electricity problem, the cream should last for months without problems.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:55.851344
| 2014-06-12T12:01:43 |
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|
62501
|
How to get rid of raw taste of Extra Virgin Olive oil?
It has been told several times in the past that Olive oil cannot be used for Indian cooking.
So, I want to use Olive oil as a spread on bread. The raw Extra Virgin Olive oil tastes like "oil"! Don't know how to explain it better but previously when I used to cook pasta in the Extra Virgin Olive oil, the oil used to taste good after heating. It didn't taste as if I was drinking oil straight from the bottle.
What can I do to get rid of the raw taste of Extra Virgin Olive oil and make it edible?
Does mixing it with something else does the trick or do I have to heat it for just n seconds without destroying it?
Quite frankly, what you describe as a "raw taste" is generally seen as a good thing for high-quality olive oil. If you want something milder, ditch the Extra Virgin stuff and buy plain old "olive oil". You'll save yourself quite a bit of money.
@logophobe I am looking for healthy food to gain weight. What can be more healthy than this oil for gaining weight?
Several things here. First of all, as long as you aren't trying to deep-fry, you most certainly can cook Indian food with olive oil. It is not traditional, sure, but I know quite a few Indians who do it from time to time, including my mother-in-law.
It is true that I also know some Indians who would never do it (in fact, a Keralan friend's mother who was cooking with us at my house once to demonstrate some recipes was shocked at the lack of coconut oil and refused to consider either canola or olive and instead went with mustard).
It may affect the taste slightly, but if you don't use much, it isn't going to be a dominant flavor. (If you're not sure about it, start small - mix half and half with your regular oil and see if it works for you, then gradually increase the olive oil in the mix.) If you can cook avial with mustard oil, you can cook palak paneer with olive oil. :-)
But yes, you can either heat the olive oil or mix it with something (or both) and mellow it. Mixing with an acid like lemon juice or a good vinegar works well, and/or crushing garlic or herbs in it to make a paste or a dressing. You can cook it or just leave it as is.
A Greek girl who lived with us for a year when I was in high school used to put the olive oil in a frying pan then toast a slice of bread in it, then top it with a sprinkling of sugar. The combination of the heat and the sugar mellows the flavor a bit. (In this case, it was heated long enough to make the bread golden when you put it in, and heated enough before not to simply soak the oil up when the bread goes in.)
It will still taste like olive oil, though. It just won't be quite as dominant and "green" tasting.
EDIT:
As for references for the propriety of cooking onions in olive oil over a moderate heat, looking in Tess Mallos's The Complete Mediterranean Cookbook, pretty much every recipe which starts with the ingredients "2 Tbsp olive oil, 1 large onion" also starts with the instructions, "Heat oil in a pan. Gently cook the onion in the oil until translucent, about 10 minutes." (Here's one of them someone has put online.)
And here is a chart of smoke points of oils, and here is another. You will perhaps note that the smoke point of coconut oil is listed as 350, and one of these links lists the smoke point of extra virgin olive oil as a range between 325-375. If you accept that it is possible to cook onions for Indian food in coconut oil without the oil smoking, which much of southern India would agree with, then it must be possible to cook onions for Indian food in other oils with a similar smoke point.
This method of cooking onions in olive oil will not take the oil to a smoking point. If you reach a smoking point, you should reduce the heat and start again with fresh ingredients, but it is absolutely eminently possible to avoid reaching that point. This method of cooking onions in olive oil is very easily transferable to Indian recipes. Again, it is not traditional to use olive oil in Indian cooking, but it is perfectly possible for most dishes. In my cooking, the only Indian dishes cooked on the stove top that are too hot for this are deep-fried dishes. If you are doing Indian-Chinese and cooking stir-fry then yes, the other link may apply if you are using the stir-fry method.
However, taking that one step further, it is also actually possible to adapt the same recipes normally made as stir-fries to be cooked in a regular frying pan and at lower heat. It is, again, not traditional, and it is an adaptation. But if you prefer to use olive oil you can make other changes to make a dish that is very similar to the original dish, while not being identical.
-1 First of all, as long as you aren't trying to deep-fry, you most certainly can cook Indian food with olive oil. Ye haven't added any references that the extra virgin olive oil can sustain the temperature when stir frying onions. This answer disagrees with you. http://cooking.stackexchange.com/a/17606/6168
Well that's fine, I didn't provide references, only personal experience. I've personally sauteed onions in olive oil and I've personally eaten Indian food cooked by real honest to goodness Indians in India using olive oil and the food was good and no one was arrested for violating this cooking law. But if you insist that it can't be done, clearly, that must be true. Is the delicate flavor of the olive oil affected? Probably. Are you using olive oil to its greatest advantage? Maybe not, but I also don't cook my onions at a temperature where they smoke.
BTW stir-frying is not the same as sautéing.
I am not worried mainly about tasting good here, I am worried about the health benefits of EV olive oil which may get destroyed by sauteing onions. Can EV olive oil stand the temperature of sauteing without any negative health side effects? If yes, then do add references.
The link you are talking about says it is unhealthy to cook with any oil past its smoke point. Normal cooking of onions doesn't need that much heat, and I think if you have it that hot you would have burnt any jeera or mustard already anyway. You do not need to get it to smoke point, you do not want to get it past smoke point. Plenty of Italian and Greek recipes also sauté onions and garlic in olive oil. The key here is to do it at a medium temperature.
@TheIndependentAquarius Health question are not allowed here. EVOO is olive oil that has been cold pressed, if you heat it to sautee/fry temperature it is just plain olive oil (pomace)
@TFD Health question are not allowed here. The question was asked in a comment that too because the answerer here has not put any references to his claim of the first sentence of his post.
her claim, thanks. but I have added the references. Your (@TheIndependentAquarius) link was to a question talking about unrelated cooking methods. Sauteing is not the same as stir-fry, grilling or roasting. (There are certainly Indian recipes which do, indeed, grill or roast, but that is not the entirety of Indian cuisine, nor even the majority.)
Oil preferences are pretty hillariously regional. My mom insists on gingelly oil (we're tamil). I believe coconut oil is a kerala thing, since they're heavily coastal. We wouldn't imagine cooking with mustard oil, but there's parts of india where its the standard.
Personally I actually kind of like the test of olive oil with a touch of salt, but its probably less the heating than that you have other flavours in the pasta. You don't use more than a few tablespoons after all.
So find something else you like on bread, maybe with a stronger flavour, say tomatos, or some rocket. Pepper and salt. Use those things to mellow the flavour a little.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:55.851617
| 2015-10-13T06:15:15 |
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|
30589
|
For peanut butter, do peanuts have to be roasted with their shells or without their shells?
In a local market of India, I asked for roasted peanuts. the shopkeeper handed me a bag containing roasted peanuts with their shells intact.
Are these peanuts supposed to be used for peanut butter or we have to
first shell them and then roast them?
How long should the peanuts be roasted and how to know whether they
have been properly roasted?
The shells are not used in making peanut butter. You would need to shell these peanuts (and remove the papery skins from the individual peanuts) before grinding them to make the peanut butter.
It doesn't matter whether they are roasted in the shell or not--what matters is that they are roasted, to give the deeper, richer flavor.
I have to assume your peanut vendor did not mislead you, and therefore the peanuts you bought are already roasted. You would just shell them and grind them. Note: if they are roasted, they will be somewhat crunchy, with a toasty complex aroma, and light medium beige to brown color, whereas raw (or "green") peanuts will be closer to very pale yellowish beige, like unfinished lumber.
Due to the large number of peanuts that may be used in making a reasonable quality of peanut butter, and the inconvenience of shelling those peanuts, one might choose to purchase already shelled, roasted, preferably unsalted peanuts for the purpose.
Edit: in response to the second question, I defer to the mighty Alton Brown whose recipe indicates to roast peanuts at 350 F for 30-35 minutes. Since he doesn't give us a test or indicator to know when they are done, and a careful and meticulous recipe writer such as Brown would not omit this if one exists, I infer no good test for doneness of the in-shell peanuts exists.
However, since the individual peanuts within the shells are very uniform in size, the time and temperature guideline is likely to be quite effective.
You should almost certainly be smelling roasty peanut aromas as the peanuts close in to being done, but there is no way to describe that. Its like knowing when a cake is done by the aroma--its certainly possible, but you have to have experience with the recipe to know.
Note that the AB recipe you reference in another question starts with referring to a recipe to roast the peanuts in the shell. You have been sold the results of such a recipe. You would not roast again.
Please include an answer for the second question of OP too.
@AnishaKaul You already have an answer, in the peanut roasting recipe from Alton Brown that you linked, who is far more a culinary expert--both practical and scientific--than I will ever be. He indicates a time/temperature, and no test for doneness. Since I cannot imagine that he would leave a doneness test out if there is a good one, I infer that it is very difficult or impossible to discern the doneness of peanuts when roasting in the shell. Since peanuts are fairly uniform in size (inside the shell), this is probably okay.
You can probably get a good idea about doneness from smell, with some trial and error.
@Jefromi Thinking alike, I actually put that in the answer edit. I can do it with my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe, and chocolate cakes, and my muffins (as my profile says, master of muffinry :-) ... but my nose isn't calibrated for peanuts! I wouldn't know how to describe what done food items smell like, anyway.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.852222
| 2013-02-01T09:49:13 |
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|
44867
|
By `1 tbsp of x` should I assume heaped tablespoon or leveled tablespoon?
When they (recipes) say 1 tbsp of flour (example), do they mean heaped or leveled?
What's the standard guess?
I hope you are aware that it is assuming a measurement scoop of the size "one tablespoon", not a spoon meant for eating. I think this trips everybody outside of the US up when they hear it for the first time.
@rumtscho yes, thanks, I do understand that tbsp means 15ml.
@rumtscho Good point! I forget that.
Unless the recipe specifies "heaping", read spoon measurements as level. That goes for cup measurements as well. Unless the recipe specifies another method to fill your measuring spoon or cup, use yet another implement to fill the spoon or cup, then level it by scraping with a knife. That is the most precisely repeatable way to measure (especially flour) with a cup or spoon.
The one exception to the "spooned and leveled" technique is in the measurement of brown sugar. Recipes will usually call for brown sugar to be "packed", which is just as at sounds. Press the brown sugar into the spoon or cup to squeeze in as much as you can and still have a level top.
It's far more accurate to measure by weight but most non-professional recipes in the US are written with volumetric measurements. For baking especially, consider converting volumetric measurements to weight using sources like this: Master Weight Chart, and measuring with an accurate digital scale. Depending upon the methods used in developing the recipe, measuring by weight the first time you make a recipe may not get you any closer to the measurements the author of the recipe intends, but at least your results will be accurately repeatable and tweakable.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:55.852521
| 2014-06-14T08:34:24 |
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|
18353
|
Is it safe to reuse loose tea leaves the next day? What precautions need to be taken for storing tea for reuse?
I'm a fan of green tea and I find myself reusing the tea leaves 2-3 times a day. Sometimes I'll just store the leaves and reuse them the next day but it got me thinking if what I'm doing is actually "safe", I know that the taste isn't the same.
So my questions are:
What's the best way of storing tea for reuse? Currently I drain the leaves and put them in a small sealed glass jar.
Is it safe to store tea to reuse the next day? Bonus point for an actual reference/research proving that it has bad or no side effects whatsoever.
I generally leave mine in the mesh container inside my (emptied) teapot, but I brew a small pot and then pour into a travel mug. Depending on the tea, we've gotten as much as three or four pots out of one batch of leaves. I have no idea if this is safe, but I do it regularly. I'd be interested to see any actual studies.
Here in China, it is normal to reuse tea again and again. Typically the first cup from the tea is bitter. Chinese people commonly pour one cup and then throw it away and drink the second cup from the same leaves. Workers here can be seen with a large mug or jar of tea. When drunk, they top up the water again with hot (but not boiling) water. This will go on all day.
The next day, however, they will not reuse the tea. My Chinese wife always tells me off if I reuse the previous days tea leaves. She says they are bad for you, though I have never had any problem myself.
that's what I heard too but I haven't found anything saying why they're actually bad for you
I don't think Chinese medical advice needs any references. It's bad for you because your Grandmonther's Grandmother's Great Grandmother, going back 5000 years, said so. And you can argue with her.
hehe I'll give you that
You can reuse the leaves the next day if you only made a single cup. If you made multiple cups you can still reuse them but it's going to be really weak.
As I understand it, the wet leaves are prone to fostering pathogens, so you should discard it because of food safety reasons, not potency reasons
I made this comment on a similar question: Doesn't pouring off the first cup get rid of most of the caffeine? I've read that if you want to reduce caffeine that's the way to do it. Not that green tea has much caffeine, but some of us like the small boost of it.
@Ray do you have a source for that? It seems logical that hot, wet leaves grow microorganisms, but I'd like to know what I'm risking by reusing the leaves up to the next day. It should be safe for a day or so (hot water kills pathogens) but beyond that....?
I actually found a source that says you should store them in a MOIST medium in the refrigerator to inhibit the growth of pathogens. http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/reusing-tea-bags-the-good-the-128466
@Marplesoft It turns out that discarding the first cup of tea is not an effective way to remove the caffeine, though this is a commonly repeated myth. It's been found that a 4min steep removes 60% of the caffeine, but that it takes 10-15min to remove 90-100% of the caffeine. source - http://chadao.blogspot.com/2008/02/caffeine-and-tea-myth-and-reality.html - another source - http://www2.hcmuaf.edu.vn/data/lhquang/file/Tea1/Tea%20preparation%20and%20its%20influence%20on%20methylxanthine.pdf
A lot of times it seems that food safety advice is just something that might look good in theory, but practice shows its faults. I mean, the Chinese has been reusing their leaves like this for ages and I've done it too for quite some time and it has never been a problem.
The question of how safe it is to store wet tea leaves is related to the question of how safe it is to store iced tea; after all, drained or not, the used tea leaves are still bathed in cold liquid tea.*
That being the case:
CDC - Memo on Bacterial Contamination of Iced Tea (1996) (following quotes come from link)
Regular tea is hot brewed, and "studies conducted at T.J. Lipton showed that iced tea brewed at 175°F or higher and stored at room temperature had no detecteble coliform counts during the first 16 hours of storage." So the issue is "primarily one of storage conditions of the tea" (or in this case, wet leaves). CDC claims the "theoretical risk of disease transmission would be minimized if tea is brewed hot, and stored in clean urn and stored for no longer than 8 hours." Also, regularly clean and sanitize your equipment.
An eight hour limit seems too stringent me, but they are trying to eliminate a theoretical risk. Real world risks are often less persnickety.
See also Iced Tea Safety (2010) for a slightly less techy version of the information.
*and the liquid tea always contains bits of tea leaves.
6 years later, the CDC memo link doesn't seem to be working for me and I can't (at least easily) find another link - do you have another link hidden around anywhere?
@Mithrandir24601 I'm not finding it anywhere either. Even Internet Archive/Wayback machine draws a blank. It may come back as government restart trickles into older servers.
According to Golden Moon Teas, the composition of wet tea leaves encourages bacterial growth, and they don't recommend reusing used leaves after three hours.
That said, they also suggest that drying out the tea leaves will dramatically increase their remaining life. They suggest removing as much moisture as possible, and then spreading the leaves out on a platter in a well ventilated room to dry. My intuition tells me that this process could be slightly improved by using a clean towel to press them, and then placing a different towel below them while drying.
Regardless of method, the recommendation is that re-dried tea should be used the next day, and that any delay furthers the chances of dangerous bacterial growth. I would expect that the drying process itself, however, can also encourage said bacterial growth. Using an oven, a dehydrator or just having a fan blowing on the leaves would reduce the drying time, which would therefore reduce the risk of growth.
While I appreciate your answer, the 3 hour rule just can't have any truth to it. If it would be unsafe to drink, all these tea drinking Chinese people Rincewind42 is talking about, user15144 and myself would have gotten sick a lot of times. I've been reusing tea leaves for at least up to 10 hours (without steeping during this time), stored in room temperature in a ceramic tea infuser. I can see the rule apply to areas where you have very bad water though, but not in most developed countries.
I'd certainly agree that 3 hours is very conservative, but current food safety practices usually aim for very conservative risk levels. As a result, I doubt there is research or official documentation covering the extended reuse of tea leaves. For the sake of argument, tea reuse after 10 hours could still entail relatively low risk, but there's almost certainly not enough interest in such reuse to justify any meaningful research to back that up. Also, there's the question of if "low risk" means a 1 in 10 or 1 in 1000 chance. This could be a situation where the only choice is amateur research.
If you are making hot tea, you shouldn't have an issue. Remember, to pasteurize you only have to raise core temperatures up to 155 degrees fahrenheit and hold for a few minutes (a few seconds in the case of flash pasteurization). Assuming you are going to steep your tea in water just under boiling (or you are going to just let the tea leaves sit in the beverage) you should far exceed the amount of time required to thoroughly kill any nasties.
At that point the only concern is that, if nasties have a chance to start growing between uses, they could produce chemicals which are dangerous. This is common with some molds and fungi. If you put your used leaves in the refrigerator after use and keep them there, this shouldn't be an issue at all (the cool temperatures will either kill or highly retard the ability of the bacteria to go about their metabolic business). I wouldn't go using the same leaves every day for a week, but I can't think of a legitimate reason that an item that is being darn near sterilized every time it is being used, or at the very least pasteurized, would be dangerous.
Now, taste is another story. That may get nasty. But hey, one person's nasty flavor is the next person's gourmet so give it a shot.
When pasteurizing you choose temperature and time depending on what pathogens you want to kill, so to categorically say that you only need 155˚F/69˚C for a few minutes is not correct. You will need to know which microorganism are prone to grow in the tea leaves you are using and how to kill them, before choosing time and temperature. And, as you mention, killing spores and killing toxins can require (very) different temperatures. Some pathogens need well above 212˚F/100˚C to be inactivated.
I'm Canadian Chinese; my parents have always reused tea leaves. Supposedly it's fine to reuse tea in the same day. However, my Chinese co-workers told me it becomes poisonous to reuse tea longer than that.
I don't know about "poisonous", but certainly something that's been soaked in hot water then left out at room temperature for longer than several hours is not a good thing food-safety wise.
Without refrigeration, it could be dangerous. All it takes is one mold spore to land on the moist leaves and they've got a great playground. If you refrigerate immediately after finishing, that really shouldn't be an issue (even if spores happen to hit them, the cold temperature should retard any growth). Beyond that, almost no spores will survive near boiling water.
I reuse the leaves the next day as well. As far as the food safety issues go, keep in mind that you are submerging the leaves in boiling water. Contrary to popular belief it doesn't take 15 minutes to purify water. As far as I know brewing the tea would be sufficient kill anything dangerous, forgetting for a moment how unlikely it is that some sort of pathogen would develop in the first place.
In my experience, it can last for up to 24 hours, but it must be stored correctly. I hope this infographic helps.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:55.852831
| 2011-10-13T17:23:31 |
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|
7599
|
How do you stop latkas from sticking to the baking sheet when cooking them in the oven?
I've made latkas and used flour as the binder, no egg. I placed the patties on an oiled baking sheet and cooked them in the oven at 375F for about 30 mins. When I pulled them out, they were quite stuck to the surface (although not burnt).
The latka ingredients (beets and carrots, in this case) had a lot of sugars in them, and I think this may have contributed.
What would help to make them stick less? Cooking for longer time at a lower temperature? Sprinkling some flour directly on the baking sheet in addition to the oil? Using more oil?
Honestly, the best answer to this is don't do it in the oven. They are so much better fried up crispy in a frying pan. I know they are lower fat in the oven. For me personally, I'd rather have them a couple times a year and be great, then more frequently and have them be "meh". Here is my recipe: http://www.herbivoracious.com/2008/12/latkes-crispy-for-hannukah.html
thanks michael. it's not just a health issue it's also a scaling issue; the time to bake 30 latkes is << the time to fry them! probably cheaper in terms of resources, too. (you latkes do look lovely, however!). i feel like there must be some science to minimizing sticking...
You could try using silicone pads such as the Silpat. I've never tried it with latkes, but we've used it to make Parmesean crisps, cookies, etc.
But I agree with Michael that frying them is the best. :)
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:55.853664
| 2010-09-25T02:15:12 |
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|
32734
|
What is the equivelant of 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract in Organic Vanilla Bean Paste, is it teaspoon for teaspoon?
I would like to start using Vanilla bean paste in some of my recipes. I usually use Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla extract and wondered if the measurement was the same i.e. 1 teaspoon vanilla extract = 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste. I thought I heard somewhere that the paste is a lot stronger. Would appreciate any feedback.
1 tbsp pure vanilla bean paste = 1 vanilla bean
1 tbsp pure vanilla bean paste = 1 tbsp vanilla bean extract
From experience I'd say the extract and the paste are equivalent in flavour.
The vanilla bean paste has the added texture of the seeds, which I prefer.
Of course neither of them leave you with a bean case to use as a garnish when your done creating!
We use both the paste and beans a lot!
Thank you so much that is exactly what I wanted to know, pity that information wasn't on my bottle's label.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:55.854110
| 2013-03-16T09:27:47 |
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|
7062
|
Are Turkish Bay Leaves "Normal" Bay leaves?
I recently saw a recipe that called for Turkish Bay Leaves. Is this any different than the kind I would find in a standard spice bottle labeled "Bay Leaves", or is this a form of exotic marketing? Are there even different types of Bay Leaves?
"Normal" Bay leaves... As opposed to "abnormal" bay leaves? j/k... ;-)
There are at least three kinds of leaves sometimes considered bay leaves.
Figured I'd check the site of the brand I use. Turns out they are Turkish:
The bay tree is native to the Mediterranean region and Asia Minor. The bay or laurel tree grows well in the subtropics and is cultivated today as a spice in the Far East as well as the Canary Islands, France, Belgium, Mexico, Central America and Turkey (where McCormick's bay leaves are grown).
Are there even different types of Bay Leaves?
There is the California Bay Laurel Umbellularia californica.
Turkish Bay is Laurus nobilis
(https://nicholsgardennursery.wordpress.com/2008/06/20/laurus-nobilis-the-true-bay/)
We have an California Bay Laurel (AKA Oregon Myrtle) growing in our yard. While looking the same and smelling like normal store bought bay leafs like from Spice Island, it is 10 times more pungent. I used it once and that was the last time.
I consider them "normal"; they're the oval-shaped bay leaves. There's a "California" bay leaf variety that has elongated leaves and a slightly different flavor.
According to The Spice House:
The flavor of these Turkish bay leaves
is far milder and more complex than
that of domestic bay; it adds a subtly
sweet astringency to dishes. Only one
or two are needed to enhance a whole
roast, pot of soup or stew.
So there are two plants which are called "bay leaves"; the Turkish Bay Laurel (Laurus Nobilis) and the California Bay Laurel (Umbellularia californica), as other answers have noted. What's "normal" honestly depends on where you live and what kind of recipe you're making.
European recipes are going to expect bay leaves to be Turkish, because that's the tree that originated bay leaves as a spice in Europe. Mexican recipes, and ones from the American West, are going to expect California Bay. For any other region, it's kind of random.
If you buy dried "bay leaves", what you get is going to depend on sourcing; you're best reading the label. The two species are largely interchangeable in most recipes, which makes life easier, with one exception: if you specifically need fresh bay leaves, go Turkish. California bay leaves are less flavorful when fresh, and have a waxy texture.
There is a third one: Cinnamomum tamala, aka Tejpat. This is what an indian - and there are a lot of them on this planet - is likely to understand if you say "bay leaf".
Huh! That's a new one on me, and I lived in Nepal. I guess they aren't as frequently used there?
Might be more regional that I thought...
Articles say Nepal is one of the places they're eaten. I think it's just that the leaves aren't used that frequently, or they're used in ground-up form.
Technically, whole bay leaves usually aren't eaten :)
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:55.854235
| 2010-09-10T15:40:56 |
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|
13199
|
How to tell the difference between stamped and forged knives
I know the difference between the process of making these knives, but if you saw two knives -- one stamped and one forged -- how do you tell the difference simply by looking at them?
I guess you could also look up the brand and the model, but shouldn't there be a visible difference between the two types?
I read that if the knife has a bolster, it's probably forged, but that doesn't seem to be a very good indicator if you still can't tell for sure using that one criterion.
Any tips?
Stamped knives are stamped from a sheet of steel- therefore the metal is all one thickness (or thinness).
Forged knives will be thicker at the back and taper to the front.
So- a stamped knife will never have a bolster, a forged knife may or may not.
Does it really matter if the the knife is forged or stamped as to how convenience it is to work with it?
@Elazar - absolutely. Forged knives are better balanced, less fragile, hold an edge better and can be sharpened. Stamped knives are inexpensive but are useful because they are more flexible. That said- the label "forged" is not what is valuable. Understand the differences and use what you like.
With current manufacturing processes forged is not necessarily better than stamped: http://cooking.stackexchange.com/a/6161/1330
Such taper will be found on good quality stamped knives too, made by (manual or automated) grinding. A properly made stamped knife can be sharpened too :)
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:55.854517
| 2011-03-16T18:03:53 |
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|
33908
|
How do I avoid dry meat and burned masala and rice in biryana?
I have tried to make Biryani several (3, lol) times using this recipe but never got it right. The meat gets too dry, and the masala and rice often get burned. How can I avoid this?
While recipe requests are indeed off-topic (thanks for noticing!), asking how to fix specific problems with a specific recipe is a great question.
Have you tried just using chicken thighs, not drumsticks? Thighs are remarkably forgiving, you almost can't overcook them, they stay moist and juicy after other pieces have turned to leather.
Most people get burned biryani because of the rice. It must be soaked and the par cooked
before going into the pot. Also the quality of the rice is important. IMO that would always
be Basmati rice. I always soak my rice for an hour for any dish.
The cooking vessel has to be heavy and sealed. This ensures that the cooking happens
in an almost pressure cooker state inside the pot. Some people seal their pot lid with
a flour dough. Cast iron pots are the best.
Yet another user advocating for basmati rice as the correct solution. You can still have awesome biryani that doesn't use basmati rice. It is a myth that biryani cannot taste as good without basmati rice.
I cook biryani regularly using RAW meat.
. Meat and/or rice drying out means there was too little water or that most of it escaped as steam.
. Overcooked rice (and under cooked meat) is a result of too low a heat.
Here are some tips that I find useful
. To tenderise the meat, marinate at least for a day in advance. Not only does that tenderise the meat but a lot of spices are infused into the meat enhancing the taste.
.The cooking vessel should have a really thick bottom. My ones have around 5mm for the smaller diameter ones and 6-8 for the large ones (15 inches internal diameter). I think a heavy cast iron pan will do the trick.
. The meat should be one to one and a half layer thick in the vessel, So depending on the quantity you have to change the vessel size.
. Biryani is cooked in "Dum" that is in steam, so the heat should be just enough to raise the steam and not more. The trick to get the heat perfect is
- Use a heavy "Tawa" under the pot.
- Use kneaded dough to seal the lid. Keep a small opening in the seal.
- Start the biryani at high heat.
- When steam starts escaping lower the heat and wait for the steam to stop escaping - it will take a few minutes. Then increase the heat till the steam starts again. At hat stage lower the heat a bit and seal the hole with dough.
. The rice should be cooked to around 60-70%. It should be firm but not hard.
The cooking time for different meats as available in India are approximately
. Chicken = 1 to 1.5 hours
. Lamb = 1.5 - 2 hours
. Goat = 2 - 2.5 hours
The lower limit is if the batches are large and the meat is tender. The upper limit for batches of upto 1.5 kg meat. The cooking time also depends on the heat source, vessel thickness and the amount of water in the mix. Too little water will dry the meat and rice. Too much will make rice mushy.
The meat gets too dry, and the masala and rice often get burned. How can I avoid this?
If you have failed many times, then my first suggestion would be to use a nonstick vessel to cook Biryani. Good quality nonstick vessels are quite forgiving in case you forget to check whether the meal is done in time.
Second, since you seem to be a beginner, my advise would be to cook your food ONLY on the lowest flame of the gas. This will ensure the food gets cooked properly before it starts burning.
If the meat seems too dry then as Jay says:
burning and overcooking chicken is related but not the same. Overcooking in this case will be cooking the meat to a internal temperature above the recommended tender temperature. While burning means to char the chicken. You can burn the chicken and still have uncooked chicken on the inside. Likewise as in the OP's case, you can overcook chicken but not necessarily burn it.
and,
harsh as it may seem, but if the food is getting burnt repeatedly then IMO you are not paying enough attention.
By now, have you tried to cook the Biryani according to the exact time given by the recipe? If yes, then reduce that time by 10 minutes and cook on a very low flame. After the 'new' timeout lift the lid and check whether it is done. Yes, you will have to lift the lid at least twice for the first time to get an actual idea of much time really is required. Use a real clock/timers.
Thirdly, use a heat resistant glass lid or even better flame proof glass vessel instead of the metal one for cooking the Biryani while it is on gas. That will allow you to peek in and check the condition of the food without repeatedly without picking up the lid.
Meat also seems dry when it's overcooked, and extra liquid won't save it at that point.
@Jefromi Okay, didn't know that. But will it not burn before being overcooked?
@AnishaKaul burning and overcooking chicken is related but not the same. Overcooking in this case will be cooking the meat to a internal temperature above the recommended tender temperature. While burning means to char the chicken. You can burn the chicken and still have uncooked chicken on the inside. Likewise as in the OP's case, you can overcook chicken but not necessarily burn it.
@AnishaKaul I appreciate your help, but I can't really keep checking Biryani? It's sealed with maida(dough). I could add more oil, maybe?
@IshaanSingh Okay, Question: By now, have you tried to cook the Biryani according to the exact time given by the recipe? If yes, then reduce that time by 10 minutes and cook on a very low flame. After the 'new' timeout lift the lid and check on doneness. Yes, you will have to lift the lid at least twice for the first time to get an actual idea of much time really is required.
Secondly, better and expensive idea can be using this glass cookware: http://www.myborosil.com/p/gourmet-cook-serve_2
@AnishaKaul If the Biriyani cooked using the Dum technique, the lid is supposed to be tightly sealed and one is to cut the dough that seals the lid after it is done cooking. Not sure how lifting the lid and checking would work.
I partly agree with user22887, rice should be soaked to a specific time, and should be parboiled. ALSO traditionally biriyani is NOT cooked at direct heat.
Ever heard of Charcoal cooked biriyani? Its called "Dum" cooking (Dum Biriyani). After the charcoal gets hot the biriyani vessel is placed over and also they throw in hot coal over the lid. The process takes time as its slow cooked with heat with Copper vessels. See this video
At home, to prevent direct heat, the vessel should have a heavy bottom or should be placed over a pan, like this.
There are few things you could do
Throughly grease(with Ghee or Butter) the vessel you are using for
Dum. Use a thick bottomed vessel if you can. This prevents burning.
While cooking your chicken, make sure that you leave enough gravy and
don't dry it out completely. That gravy could make your Biriyani
moist. (Take care that you don't leave too much to make it soggy)
You could have a layer of rice at bottom instead of the chicken (as
your recipe says). So bottom chicken layer doesn't dry out.
Par Boil your rice, cause it is also cooks in Dum with the chicken.
Pour some milk after layering the Biriyani and let it seep through.
(Add Saffron to the Milk for color/smell).
And last but not least, make sure that lid is tightly sealed with
dough or foil so the steam doesn't escape and use a low flame.
For your point 3, the recipe says explicitly make sure that top layer is rice and bottom layer is chicken.
I have been experimenting for a long time and this is the perfect biryani:
1kg meat
400g yogurt
1 cup of water
3/4 cups of oil and ghee
Your biryani spice
600 g of basmati rice
Marinate overnight. The following day, boil the rice in two batches 200g for 4 minutes and the remaining rice for 6 minutes. layer your raw meat on the bottom of your cooking vessel, then add your "4 minute" rice, followed by "6 minute" rice. Cook on full flame for 15 minutes, then place the vessel on a tawa (iron skillet or frying pan) and cook it for another 45 minutes on the lowest heat. Then, turn off the heat and leave it standing for 20 minutes, and serve.
Please note that I intentionally didn't go into what constitutes "your biryani spice", as it's a fairly complicated topic.
Place a Tawa below the vessel, and cook it for 45 minutes in low flame. All problem will be solved. TESTED!!!!
Best would be to use the thick bottom vessel if you don't have something like that use a Tawa below the vessel to make it's base thick also cook the biryani at a very low flame for more time than usual meat won't be dry and no burning
I would recommend to always marinate the meat with spices and yoghurt for at least 6 - 8 hrs or overnight in in the fridge. This makes the meat tender and juicy plus to avoid burning never put your biryani directly on the flame. What you can do is put a tawa on the stove then sealed biryani pot on it which will surely help. Usually biryani takes 45 – 50 mins max so ensure you’re not keeping them on too long.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.854695
| 2013-05-02T14:49:31 |
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|
34385
|
How can I make kimchi with everyday ingredients?
I've read about kimchi, which is a traditional Korean food made from vegetables. I'm not sure I can find Napa cabbage here in Hungary though - can I make it with regular vegetables?
I use a mixture of Hungarian paprika and cayenne for my kim chi. Typically I'll also use napa cabbage and bok choy, but kim chi is similar enough to hot sauerkrautthat I expect regular cabbage would work too.
To answer your specific scenario, kimchi has myriad variations using any number of vegetables, from perilla leaves to Korean radishes to napa cabbage. There are forms of kimchi that involve no chilies (white kimchi), some involve a lot of water and bear little resemblance to the typical napa cabbage one (mul kimchi). The main constraints for Korean-ness of kimchi will be that you've fermented it (for all of the types that I can think of, anyway), and that it doesn't stray too far from familiar Korean flavor profiles (rules that you can break if you've got a deep enough foundation in Korean culinary traditions).
Napa cabbage isn't particularly hard to find in Europe, however, so I'm not sure why it would need to be substituted. For whatever reason, it was called "Chinese cabbage" in Germany; I'd be surprised if you couldn't find it. If I wanted to make the typical cabbage kimchi, the hardest thing would have been finding the right kind of chili powder, which I was able to obtain without too much trouble when I was a 20 year old student there many years ago. Then, the typical small bits of raw oysters or other kinds of fish or dried shrimp can reasonably be substituted with locally available ingredients (and some regions in Korea don't always use those ingredients anyway).
Napa cabbage is called "Chinese cabbage" in Hungary too - I just didn't know it's English name. =)
@ZoltánSchmidt I think "Napa Cabbage" is the American name. The English name is "Chinese Cabbage". At least that what they say in England and Australia. As far as I can tell, the German name is Chinakohl. I don't know the Hungarian.
@AdrianRatnapala In Hungarian, it means the same as in English.
I made it without nappa. This is my recipe which turned out pretty good!!
Kimchi cabbage:
Cabbage, salt, water
1. Rinse cabbage
2.Cut into strips
3.Rise again and put salt
4.Store in cool area. Wait 5-8hours
Sauce:
Celery, onion, garlic powder, garlic paste, ginger powder, chili powder, Hoi sin sauce
Soy sauce, worchesteshire, stir fry sauce,sugar.
1.Chop Celery(carrots) and onion
2.Mix Garlic, ginger and Chili powder, add water till paste.
3.Mix veggies and paste, add garlic paste(I had found my store bought one.)
4.Add sugar
5.Add liquids and mix.
6.Add sesame seeds(and chilli flakes) Then Mix.
After 8 hours:
1. Rinse cabbage then add a bit of salt.
2. Mix paste with cabbage(make more paste if needed)
3. Enjoy :)
Try white rice with Kimchi.
When mixing things I estimated how much to put since I only had a bit of cabbage, put however much you'd like!
A puréed apple makes a tasty substitute for the sugar. I've also used mango and cherry purée: all good. You need something with sugar in it, but it doesn't have to be sugar.
You can go overboard with the sugar though. I always cook some mochiko flour with a little sugar and use that as my sauce-base. One time I added a pureed apple on top of that because I saw so many other people do something similar, and it ended up super sour! I ended up only being able to use it a little bit in cooked dishes as result. I realise you said as a substitute, but I wanted to emphasize it.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:55.855558
| 2013-05-28T22:43:59 |
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|
35352
|
How oil changes the taste of salads?
Almost every salad recipes I've read needs some oil. What's its effect on vegetables? How does it change the flavor?
If oil is not used for the taste, why is it necessary for salads?
Here are a couple reasons why (for which I know) oil is used on salads:
Oil caries in fat soluble aromas (often we use aromatic oils like olive oil, pumpkin seed oil, walnut oil, and so on, that are all very aromatic) and balances out other components (like vinegar or lime juice or some strong tasting veggies).
it adheres to the surface of many leaves/vegetables better than water/vinegar (cause it breaks into the waxy leaf cuticle), so the dressing coating gets evenly distributed over the salad, you can use another thicker substance that clings to the leafs (like yoghurt) for this purpose instead.
in thicker vinaigrettes/dressings it serves as a thickener, as by mixing with vinegar it builds an emulsion (like in aioli the oil usually represents the continuous phase of the traditional vinaigrette - water-in-oil emulsion, where many modern vinaigrettes reverse the ratio - oil-in-water emulsion, or use some other fats rather than oil).
And as already noted, it is not necessary for salads, you can use just lime juice (like in some thai salads), boiled dressing (that is thickened with starch), stock reduction, fruit/vegetable purees, yoghurt dressings or something else that does not require oil (e.g. I have made slightly pickled japanese salads that only required some vinegar and brine and the main aromas came from the veggies).
Also, I found this to answer "What's its effect on vegetables?":
McGee, on Food&Cooking says:
Oil seeps through the waxy leaf cuticle and spreads into the leaf interior, where it displaces air and causes the leaf to darken and its structure to collapse.
All food needs some presence of fat in order to be have a desirable taste. Meats don't need any added fat but green leafy vegetables have almost no fat. Green vegetables are rich in vitamin A and K which are only soluble in fat. So it stands to reason that the combination of olive oil with lettuce would have a pleasant taste.
But what's the difference in taste if I don't add oil to vegetables? Are they dry or something?
Vegetables tend to be bitter by themselves. Oil and vinegar helps to cut that bitterness. Leaving the vegetables in the oil will cause them to go limp and is undesirable. This is why you want to wait until it is time to serve the salad to dress the lettuce.
It simply is not true that food needs some fat to taste good. Consider for example, lemonade, which most people consider to taste good, yet which is fat free in most recipes (unless there is some traces from the zest, which is not always used). Furthermore, if the vegetables are rich in vitamins that are only fat soluble, it stands to reason that they contain sufficient fat to dissolve the load of such vitamins that they carry. Olive oil may taste pleasant with vegetables, but that has nothing to do with the things you have said.
@ SAJ14SAJ - Lettuce has zero grams of fat. Can you cite me anything that says lettuce contains fat?
I also disagree with the first sentence. Fat always tastes good, but it is a logical fallacy to infer from it that food without fat always tastes bad. As for the "fat soluble vitamins", they are actually not fat soluble but lipophilic, which means that they dissolve in non-polar solvents including, but not limited to, fat. So there is no chemical reason for a plant which contains them to also contain fat.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.855844
| 2013-07-17T14:56:29 |
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|
34577
|
Why does the roux break down in my chicken velouté sauce?
I am trying to make a veloute sauce which involves adding roux to boiling hot water mixed with chicken base (such as Tones or McCormick). This sauce is then mixed with heavy cream at a later stage to create a sauce for potatoes au gratin.
After you have made the roux and cooked it to a blonde stage (3-5 minutes), the chef that taught me this instructed me to cool the roux to room temperature and then add the room temperature roux to the boiling liquid stock. I let the stock boil for a few minutes after the addition of the roux and then reduce it to a softer boil (simmer).
The problem that I have encountered is that when simmering the sauce, the roux eventually breaks down releasing the fat (butter) into the sauce and thickening the "center" portion of the sauce. The fat essentially separates from the flour due to extreme heat (simmering). What causes this, and is there any way around it? Most veloute/supreme sauces call for a 30-50 minute simmering of the sauce to reduce any starchy taste and grainy texture.. but if the roux breaks down in the sauce before this how is this even possible?
If I don't leave the sauce at a boil initially for at least 3 minutes and then don't simmer for at least another 2-3 minutes, whatever remains from the lump of roux that was added settles to the bottom of the pan or forms lumps which eventually settle out. The sauce also has a "grainy" texture and seems to have too much of a starchy or floury taste.
Any advice on this would be appreciated. Thanks.
I have never simmered a roux based sauce for 30 minutes, much less 50, and never had trouble with starchy taste - this gets cooked out during the roux making, even for blondes. And a veloute should not have grains unless it broke during making, after which I doubt that simmering would help in any way. Have you tried just turning off the heat after the sauce has blubberred once?
Yes, if the sauce is taken off the heat too soon the roux will basically settle to the bottom of the pan and not be fully incorporated into the sauce. The sauce needs to be boiling for at least a few minutes. A lot of the veloute sauce recipes that I have seen all call for a simmer of at least 20 minutes. What causes the fat to separate from the roux? Shouldn't a properly made roux be stable during the simmering process?
The way I make it, I mix the liquid with the roux and stir vigorously. It first breaks into grains, but by the time the starch gelates, the sauce is perfectly smooth. I leave it on high heat until I see bubbles, which takes 2-3 minutes (I use the hot/hot method) and then remove immediately. Except for a few early tries where I got clumping, I have never had separation issues.
I will note that when I did have issues with it breaking in the sauce, I was preparing the roux with the wrong proportions, tending to add more flour and making it into an extremely thick, dry paste. I have made it a little thinner now but haven't tested it yet to see how stable it is during a simmering sauce.
McGee, p. 618, on why the long simmer: "The mixture is allowed to simmer for quite a while--two hours for a veloute... During this time [...], the starch granules dissolve and disperse among the gelatin molecules, with a very smooth texture the result." He comments that the long period is to ensure that no vestige of the granular structure remains (and so coagulated proteins can be skimmed). This is for the very finest, smoothest sauces. I imagine most home cooks would be fine bringing it to the simmer for a minute or two, as commented above.
Per SAJ14SAJ's comment, the suspension in a traditional veloute relies on the gelatin to keep everything in place. Stocks are naturally rich in gelatin, due to the bones and connective tissue used to make them. Using a base to make the sauce is probably not providing the gelatin necessary. Other rich liquids frequently do separate when simmered for a long time (think curries and gumbo), so it's to be expected that your emulsion will break down eventually. I think your solution is to either use a real stock instead of the base, or perhaps fortify your liquids with a bit of gelatin before adding the roux (or barring those, cook only until your starch is gelatinized).
The idea of letting the roux come to room temperature is based on the idea that the roux and the liquid should be at the same temperature. Instead, heat the liquid (chicken stock, broth, etc) to about the same temp as the cooked roux, and instead of adding the roux to the liquid, slowly add the hot liquid to the roux, whisking it until smooth.
If your sauce breaks, too much water has been cooked off. Add water in small amounts while stirring until the sauce tightens back up.
Your sauce is breaking. Your basic veloute recipe calls for adding the stock to the roux, not the roux to the stock. If, however, you are dead-set on adding roux to stock, I would suggest slowly incorporating a small amount of the stock into the roux and whisking until it's smooth before adding that mixture to the rest of the stock (as if you were making gravy, for instance).
Also, I would humbly suggest that your stock is probably too hot. When flour-based sauces get too hot (in other words, boiling), they can break. Think like if you've ever tried to make gravy from drippings that were too hot, and your roux ends up all grainy. A liquid that has been boiled then brought down to a simmer will be closer to boiling that a liquid that has been brought from cold to simmer. I'd try the cold-simmer route and see if you have better results.
One last thing: are you using clarified butter for your roux? Sometimes the water in unclarified butter can cause the roux to break at higher temperatures.
It is very, very common to add roux (made ahead of time) to stock. Why would the order matter, exactly? Is there some science here? Same question on at least briefly boiling sauces which are flour based; normally this is required to eliminate the raw starchy taste for slurry/beurre manié thickened sauces--why would roux be different? Lastly, part of making roux is letting the water boil out of the butter. In any case, it is being added to a huge volume of water, so how on earth would using clarified butter make any difference at all?
Working backwards: the classic recipe for roux does call for clarified butter, because it doesn't bind together as well when the water is incorporated at the start. It makes a difference in this case, because it is the roux acting as the thickener, not just the flour and butter separately. Otherwise, you'd just add them to the stock and skip the extra step. On the boiling flour-based sauces bit, I am by no means an expert in every sauce out there, but as far as I know, those recipes call for constant stirring while boiling, thereby reducing the amount of heat concentrated in the sauce
(via heat distribution). You don't generally just let a flour-based sauce boil merrily away, both because they'll scorch and because you run the risk of breaking them. Even gravies that call for a high boil are usually corn starch-based. And lastly, the order matters because by adding the roux, a small amount of a thickened substance, to stock, a large amount of what is essentially water, you run the risk of making dumplings, basically. It takes a lot of patience to add a roux that hasn't been thinned to stock, whereas you can add a thinned roux much quicker, or the stock to the roux.
And how exactly does it not "bind together" with unclarified butter. I am afraid your answer and clarification simply don't make sense. There are three main points to roux: 1) it coats the flour particles so that they are less likely to lump in the sauce; 2) it cooks out the starchy flavor; 3) the heat breaks down some of the starch chains making it easier improving the thickening qualities (more than I can cover in a comment). McGee, On Food and Cooking, p 617. I am sorry, most of your answer and comments simply don't seem to have a basis. Downvoting pending citations.
That's fine if that's your opinion. Frankly, my responses generally come from years of experience combined with my interest in food science. I'm not a chef, I don't have a degree in the subject. What I do have is experience with very similar problems, and I offer the solutions that worked for me as well as what reasoning I could find at the time as to why they worked. For that reason, I couldn't begin to offer citations (which is why I'm not getting up in arms about you downvoting my answer). That said, I generally suggest at least trying an alternative before slamming it into the ground.
I will, however, see if I can't find the sources that gave me the information I offered, in the spirit of fair play and community.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.856139
| 2013-06-08T16:56:29 |
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|
11473
|
How do you make tomato paste?
I have a garden every year and would prefer to use my own tomatoes for all my cooking. I can them and make sauces, but haven't found a good recipe that describes the technique for tomato paste. I need it to be thick like you buy at the store - I use this for sauce dishes, etc that I don't like to be too runny. How would a home cook go about making tomato paste?
tomato paste is made by working tomato puree in the sun until much of the moisture is removed by evaporation, or soaked into the wooden boards that its worked on. pretty hard to make a short-cut.
@boxed-dinners: I suspect that most commercially-produced tomato paste is NOT made this way. But you're spot-on with how the old-fashioned method went.
Isn't this a recipe request?
@Neil, I don't think so. I think this is a basic technique question.
Tomato paste is just tomatoes with the water removed, essentially. I'd slice the tomatoes in half and roast them (cut side up) at 350 degrees F for an hour (this will concentrate the flavour nicely and you can add s&p/olive oil/herbs/garlic if you want). Then mash them through a sieve or food mill to get a smooth consistency. Then put that tomato puree in a pot and just boil them down until it's as thick as you want. As it gets thicker, you'll need to stir it regularly to prevent it sticking to the bottom of the pot and burning.
This is basically the same recipe I use. My first step is to peel off tomatoes, either with boiling water or with a special italian tool: a passapomodoro (see e.g. http://www.pastorinocasa.com/passapomodori-c-27.html).
@mouviciel - The sieve/food mill step will remove the skin and seeds, so that's why I don't bother to peel the tomatoes before roasting (also, if the skin sticks to the roasting pan, it's not a loss since it would be sieved out anyhow).
I worked in a restaurant that made its own tomato paste at the end of every summer. Each week we would purchase 14 cases of vine rippened tomatoes picked in the morning from the farmer at the farmers market. Each day we would process two cases through the William Sonoma Tomato Press, add a couple table spoons olive oil and slowly simmer until the water has evaporated and the tomatoes are now a paste. We would just freeze the result and have homemade tomato paste through the winter.
I haven't tried this, so look at it as a thought experiment.
I'd take a tomato puree and cook it down to thicken somewhat, then spread it in a shallow sheet pan and cook it slowly in the oven at maybe 250-275F. I'd sort of stir/turn/re-spread it every 5 minutes to start, then do it more frequently as things start to thicken up. I'm totally guessing on the times, though.
The idea is to get as much moisture gone as possible without risking browning the tomato paste too much. The sheet pan gives you lots of surface area so you clear off a lot of water quickly, and makes it easy to handle. Low oven temps reduce the risk of burning.
A slow roast like that might give you some pretty good flavor, too.
This is a great idea, I will definitely try this myself. It reminds me of drying membrillo in the oven: http://www.cooklocal.com/?p=2396
I think this is more likely to result in something the texture of fruit leather, rather than a paste. You'd probably need to stir quite frequently to prevent an unpleasant "skin" from forming on top.
@Allison: If you get fruit leather, you're cooking it too long. The skin can be dealt with by stirring frequently (as bikeboy says), and also simply by making the layer thin enough.
As Italian I prepare my Tomatoes sauce every year, here are the steps.
Choose good pear like tomatoes, in Italy we have the San Marzano's tomatoes that have just a little bit of water (are the best IMHO).
You cut them and then you mesh them with vegetable mill or a mixer.
Be aware, here you have the greatest secret ever.
Take an old, clean cotton made cushion cover (or just a cotton bag), fill it with your sauce and hang it on a broom handle between two chairs (keep a container under the bag to avoid to loose water)
Keep it some hours till the sauce will loose all the water (you can help pushing with your hands).
Cook the sauce with just basil (no salt, never!)
Then you can sterilize the jar, but this may be another question ;-)
This is how I usually get a nice thick sauce home :
Blanch the tomatoes and peel off the skin
Mash the tomatoes into a puree (Either squish them using a wooden spoon, or use a blender, depending on the recipe you want to use it in. For eg., I sometimes like a good, smooth, blended sause for a sphagetti dish, but prefer a roughly mashed-up pulpy sauce for some vegetable curries)
Put it on stove-top and bring to boil on a low flame. Stir occasionally to avoid burning.
I also add sugar and salt at this point and continue to boil. (Seasoning is optional of course)
Take cornflour in a small bowl and mix with a bit of water to make a smooth paste.
Add the corn paste slowly to the boiling puree, keep stirring to avoid lumps. Gradually the puree thickens. The quantity of cornpaste depends on how much tomato puree you have, and how thick you want your sauce to get. You can try making a paste with two teaspoons of cornflour, but only add a little of it at a time.Continue adding till you get the right consistency.
Once the paste reaches the desired consistency you can take it off the stove top and use it in recipes.
-1. Sorry, but this is just a sauce thickened with corn flour, not a tomato paste. IMHO, the whole point of tomate paste is the concentration of flavour, not the consistency in itself.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.856864
| 2011-01-25T20:55:48 |
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24733
|
Is it incorrect when someones says you can lower acidity with sweetness?
It is commonly known that if your food is too acidic, you lower the acidity of the food by adding something sweet. Is this correct?
Acidity can me measured by pH. Does the sweet actually raise the pH(less acidic) or does the pH stay the same and the sweet only mask the taste of the acidity.
Yes, it is incorrect. The correct thing to say is that it reduces sourness. Sourness is a taste, and sweetness indeed reduces it, and vice versa. Coca Cola classic has the same pH as vinegar, 2.5, but the cola is sweet and the vinegar is sour, because the sugar in cola is enough to compensate the acidity and push the taste into the sweet range.
Acidity is a chemical quality of a solution, and is given by the amount of hydrogen ions freely available. It is not changed by the amount of sugar (except for very strong acids like sulfuric acid, which would react with the sugar and bind some protons in the reaction). Acidity "creates" sourness in the sense that we taste acidic food as sour, but as you can see in the sweetness example, our tongues aren't a perfect sensor and can be fooled by the presence of sweet substances, or also other things like miracle berries.
Note that sweetness really reduces sourness, and doesn't just "mask" it the way it masks bitterness or saltiness for some people.
It's correct that adding sugar makes a food seem less acidic without actually making it less acidic.
TECHNICALLY, sweetness doesn't reduce acidity or change pH, but for practical cooking use, this is true. Sweetness changes how the food is perceived, reducing the impact of sourness or bitterness. Sourness will also reduce the impact of sweetness.
To quote On Food and Cooking, page 655 "Sweetness helps mask or balance both sourness and bitterness from other ingredients."
Interesting fact: salt will also reduce perceived bitterness. You can add a pinch of salt to reduce the impact of bitter coffee.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.857358
| 2012-06-29T03:49:05 |
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|
42630
|
Can yeast be used as a main ingredient?
Yeast is a fungus. We eat other fungi like mushrooms. I love the taste of bread yeast (although it's a bit expensive to make a full meal out of compared with other ingredients).
I know that live yeast produces CO2 and alcohol, which makes it unsuitable for consumption. But what about cooked yeast? Is it possible to make yeast soup? Yeast stir fry? Yeast stuffing?
Has this been successfully done before (where and how)?
Also, is the yeast which is used for making bread pure yeast? Or is it some type of dissolvable material used to carry the organisms?
Marmite? It's yeast extract. You probably can't make a whole meal of it, but it's good as a central flavour.
I don't know that you'd want to make a full meal of it, but it sounds like you'd enjoy nutritional yeast. You can find it at any "health food store" type of grocery. It is deactivated, so you don't need to worry about it filling you up with CO2. The flavor is somewhat reminiscent of Parmesan cheese. Googling "nutritional yeast recipes" will give you plenty of ideas for what to do with it.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:55.857547
| 2014-03-10T04:54:59 |
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|
30670
|
Are N2O and CO2 chargers interchangeable for culinary purposes?
Cream whippers seem to use N2O chargers.
Soda siphons seem to use CO2 chargers.
But both chargers appear to be physically identical. The MyPressi espresso device, which uses chargers to force water through a coffee puck at 9 bar like a benchtop machine is apparently happy to use either.
So can cream whippers use CO2, and soda N2O?
For example:
Is 'nitrogenated' water as safe as carbonated?
Might one cool more than the other? (cooling being preferable for whipping cream but bad for maintaining espresso water temperature)
Assuming both contain the same liquid volume, would one or the other give greater gas expansion and more usable output?
N2O is more stable than CO2. Mixing N2O with water or cream won't create diffetent molecules. If the liquid you add N2O is not very thick (as water) the gas and liquid will separate in two. If it is thick, as with cream, the gas will get trapped in it. You can see the proccess with more detail in this question.
CO2 reacts with water (H2O) making H2CO3 (carbonic acid). It makes soda water, which has a slight acid taste, and get bubbles of released CO2 if the pressure of the soda water falls. CO2 can be used for whipping cream, but it will give acid taste to it. You can get some more information from the Wikipedia entry.
None of them cools liquids. The chargers get cooled down when opened, as the gas inside them decreases pressure. But that gas goes to the cream whipper or the soda siphon, which theoretically should increase its temperature, but having a much larger volume than the charger makes that increase unnoticeable.
When using pressure gas to make espresso, you arent pouring that gas to a closed recipient: the water escapes thru the coffee puck, so it won't cool the water. MyPressi V1 put the gas in the middle of the water chamber, so it could only be used with N2O. V2 of the device puts the gas in the top part of the chamber, so it is not mixed with the water, making it suitable to be used with CO2.
I don't think I've ever given the green tick so quickly--nobody will top that answer!
I personally wait at least a couple of days before accepting an answer, as this encourages others to answer, and some of the answers can partially or completelly be better than this one. But thank you for the confidence and the green mark.
The gas escaping the charger does get cooled - but its heat capacity per volume is minuscule, the effect totally drowned out by the water/cream temperature.
Nitrogen and probably N2O don't dissolve well in water so that wont work. CO2 dissolves well + forms a weak acid that converts back to CO2 as the CO2 is released from the water. That is why almost all bubbly drinks use CO2. There are some other gasses that would work (aka non toxic and dissolve well but they are too expensive.
So N2O soda no... or not really, you might get some bubbles but not that slightly acidic taste carbonated drinks have.
CO2 cream probably also wont work since the CO2 will dissolve in the water that is in the cream and make it go bad. It might be ok if you eat it as soon as you make it but I doubt it. N2O on the other hand does not dissolve but fluffs out the cream same as whipping it does (except that introduces nitrogen and oxygen and trace amounts of other gasses.
N2O soda would be safe, although probably not fun since you need to breath the N20 for fun.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:55.857779
| 2013-02-04T07:06:05 |
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|
34589
|
What is the typical consistency of a roux?
When making a roux, how would you describe the final consistency that it should be after the butter coats the flour? Should it be a lighter dirt-brown paste with a glistening buttery sheen, or should it be more runny/liquid?
Also, when melting the butter, is it best to melt it at extremely low heat and then increase the heat to medium after the flour has completely been incorporated into the flour, or can the butter be "rapidly melted" on medium heat while incorporating the flour?
Roux is very forgiving, and can be made a variety of consistencies, or ratios of butter to flour. It should only be brown if you are intentionally making a brown roux, for the flavor. Otherwise, it should be fairly yellow, closer to the color of the butter.
At the canonical ratio of 1:1 butter to flour (by volume), the consistency will be thick enough not to flow, but certainly not as thick as wet sand. (When refrigerator cold, if you store it, it will be quite firm and thick, scoopable with a spoon with some effort.)
You can heat the butter at any speed you like consistent with not burning it. You can heat it at fairly high heat until the foaming begins to subside, which indicates that the water has been boiled out.
I generally recommend adding the flour after the butter is melted, and stopped bubbling (which indicates the water is gone.)
When I add the flour to the butter it actually turns like a light dirty-brown color. I am using gold metal all-purpose flour. Could this be caused by the butter being too hot?
It sounds like you may be burning your butter prior to adding the flour, making the butter itself brown. While you can melt the butter as rapidly as you want, you do have to watch it. You don't want to brown it or burn it.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.858101
| 2013-06-08T21:34:43 |
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|
35788
|
Does "the canned spinach taste" have a name? Other than "the canned spinach taste"?
The taste (which is nasty in my opinion) that is specific to spinach or many leafy greens and sometimes asparagus which is cooked in water, does this taste have a name?
What causes that flavor to emerge? I suspect its something to do with chlorophyll since dried basil added to sauce doesn't produce the flavor, yet fresh basil does. I added fresh basil to sauce to which it gave the flavor of canned spinach.
Most likely, the taste you are referring to is oxalic acid, which has a bitter/astringent taste and is found in many green vegetables including spinach, Brussels sprouts, green beans, collard greens, etc.
Herbs such as basil don't contain a lot of oxalic acid, and I can't say I've ever noticed it there, but they do have some.
One important thing to note is, cooking green vegetables and herbs in water (i.e. boiling them) is a very effective way of removing the oxalic acid - but the most important part of that process is removing the vegetables afterward. If they're canned, or added raw to a sauce, then the oxalic acid is just going to stew.
Dried herbs likely contain lower oxalic acid content because it's been evaporated away along with the water.
If you're only finding this taste in leafy greens (and not green beans, green peppers, broccoli, etc.) then it's also possible that you're tasting iron. It tastes like... well, metal. Some of the foods highest in iron include shellfish and seeds (pumpkin, sesame, etc.). So if you're finding a similar taste in those, even just a hint of it, it may be the high iron that you find "nasty".
No, not metallic in taste, nothing like blood. I could maybe describe the taste as bitter/astringent, but is more complex than merely bitter. I've never noticed the taste with green beans, green peppers, or broccoli. I would think oxalic acid, being acid, would taste sour, no?
@randy try raw rhubarb. Just chew a small piece. Its main taste component is oxalic acid. Then you'll know if the taste in your spinach is the same.
@rumtscho: I Googled that and it's linking to a bunch of German pages. Is that the same as rhubarb?
@Aaronut yes, sorry. I mix up the languages in my head when I am tired.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.858278
| 2013-08-04T01:44:37 |
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|
35597
|
how long do you have to cook lemon curd for?
How long does lemon curd have to be cooked in order to ensure a good set? if pectin is being used, what type of pectin is suitable?
Lemon curd is not cooked so much for a time—in general times are only guidelines to help cooks not yet familiar with a recipe do planning—as they are to a specific outcome.
The traditional test for lemon curd (and all custards, really) is the nappe, or coating the back of a spoon. If you dip a spoon into the curd, and then run your finger through it, the little "mound" or "ridge" of curd that builds up on either side should not immediately flow back into the path of your finger. The clear path should remain. This tells you the curd is thickened.
(Image credit: Baking Vintage)
A more modern method would be to take the temperature with a high quality instant read thermometer (the curd should be well stirred, so the temperature is a good representation). It should be approximately 180 F / 82 C when fully thickened.
The amount of time it takes to get to this stage depends on your volume and your heating method.
I have never heard of a lemon curd being supplemented with additional pectin (there may be some natural pectin from lemon zest already in the recipe); the thickening agent is the proteins in the eggs, which is why it is a custard variant.
Since most curds have eggs, how does the cooking time or the setting correlate with the eggs being "cooked enough" to remove salmonella?
@ashes999 The 99.9 kill time at 165 F is seconds; since you are heating the curd to about 180 F, the practice is very safe.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.858495
| 2013-07-26T14:07:24 |
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|
35701
|
What is a lean cut of beef (steak) to use in low calorie recipes?
What is a lean cut of beef (steak) to use in low calorie recipes? I am interested in creating some low calorie recipes using steak but am unsure which are the best cuts to start with.
According to the Mayo Clinic, the leanest cuts are:
Eye of round roast or steak
Sirloin tip side steak
Top round roast and steak
Bottom round roast and steak
Top sirloin steak
However, grain/corn fed beef may have more marbling (more fat embedded) so if you're going for low-cal, you might want to consider buying naturally raised/grass fed beef.
Personally, I prefer to find a meat source that has leaner beef in general and buy Skirt Steak or Clodhammer (rotator cuff) for their taste, tenderness, and reasonable price.
The easiest way to go low calorie is just to use less. Most Americans think 1/4lb (4oz, 113g) is a serving, but you can get away with 1/2 that pretty easily if you think of it more as a flavoring than a main item.
That being said, meat selection depends entirely on how you're planning to cook it, or how many people you're cooking for. You mentioned steak, but serving a large chunk of meat isn't particularly low calorie. GdD's suggestion of slicing it thin and stir-frying it is quite good, as you can easily vary the amount that way.
If you prefer rare meat, such as in a thai-style beef salad, then I'll look for a more 'london broil' cut (1.5" to 2" steaks), in something like a bottom or top round (what's more important is to look for the grain running in one direction). Trim any major fat, cook over high heat for 4-6 minutes per side (less if it's thinner), then rest, slice across the grain, and serve.
I think the question you need to ask first is whether lean cuts are good for what you want to do. If you want a steak or a roast then don't bother, lean cuts will come out dry and flavorless, and probably be tough as old leather as well. You need to choose recipes which suit the cuts.
If you want something really quick then some lean steak like flank, skirt, or maybe round can be sliced thin and then stir fried. Marinate it with a reasonable amount of acidity for at least 2 hours as that will help tenderize it, then flash fry it as hot as you can on a cast iron pan or a wok for 2-3 minutes at most.
To me the best possible way to cook lean beef is to braise it in the oven, and my favorite cut for this is shin (leg meat). It's very lean, and has loads of connective tissue which all turns to gelatine in the presence of heat and moisture. It's also one of the cheapest cuts you can buy. I coat the meat in flour then fry in a bit of oil before adding a couple cups of water, a glass or red wine, and a couple of bay leaves before covering it and baking it in the oven for 2-3 hours on maybe 250F (120C).
Round (top round, bottom round, eye of round) are among the lowest fat cuts of beef, as MandoMando stated. When I'm dieting, I like to stew round cuts on the weekend, discard the liquid, and save the beef for salads and recipes during the week. Stewing is great because it does not add additional fat since you are cooking in water (adding the spices of your choice). Enameled cast iron is best for stewing and braising. I put the meat in the dutch oven, add enough water to cover it, add the lid and roast in the oven at 325 for roughly 4-5 hours depending on the size of the meat. I add more water during the process as necessary. If there is a layer of fat on the beef, I pull it off after stewing (I just find it easier that way), then put the meat in the fridge for later use.
This is different from making a beef stew. For that I add tomato paste, pinot noir, stock/broth, and vegetables to the stew. I just use the method of stewing in water to get a low fat yet tender piece of beef that I can use later in steak salad.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.858685
| 2013-07-31T01:39:42 |
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|
35250
|
Oil in steamed cake
I realized that for steamed cake, the recipe calls for little or no oil. Why is this so?
What will happen if I add more oil to the recipe?
The ingredients are:
5 eggs
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 cup cake flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
Pinch salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Please provide the full recipe to help get a quality answer.
I have moved the ingredients into the question, where people are more likely to see them. You can always edit your own question to clarify or correct.
There are many different types of "cake" in the narrow sense out there (sponge cake, angel cake and so on), and in the farther sense (including steamed cake) even more so. They rely on different techniques, some of them require oil, others will fail with oil. It is not strange at all to find a recipe without oil, and if you do, I would recommend sticking to it. Baking recipes are very sensitive to ingredients and techniques.
Most steamed cakes straddle the line between puddings or custards and cakes. In traditional cakes, oil would serve to tenderize and moisten the crumb of the cake. In a steamed cake, however, the moisture and tenderness are both addressed by the moist cooking method, lower temperature, and additional fats from the extra eggs. If you added more oil to the recipe than originally intended, it would most likely give the cakes a gummy or greasy texture.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.859013
| 2013-07-12T10:35:02 |
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|
35904
|
Can pressed cookies be made without creaming butter and sugar?
Is it possible to make a cookie dough for pressing without having to cream butter and sugar (my pet hate)?
Get a cheap electric beater and let that do the creaming for you...
I have only ever run across one recipe which didn't call for creaming the butter and sugar; instead I melted the butter and whisked the sugar in. The resulting cookies were greasy flat disasters.
Also, see this: http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/3168/is-it-possible-to-make-cookies-without-creaming-the-butter
It depends on exactly what mean by pressed cookies.
If you mean the kind of butter cookie traditionally made in the US using a cookie press:
I surveyed the top dozen or so recipes on the web. They all use the creaming method.
If you think about it, this makes sense. The dough that will be used in a cookie press needs to be sufficiently stiff to work in the device, and yet have enough leavening to make a nicely textured cookie. It also needs to set in the oven before it spreads, to retain the pressed shape. As the creaming method leaves the fat as a solid, it meets these criteria well.
Prior to the advent of the cookie press (and still, in professional pastry kitchens), similar cookies were made using a piping bag. Not all of the types of cookies that are piped require the creaming method, although they tend to be very different types of cookie. Some of these include:
Simple meringues
French style macarons (which are meringues enhanced with nut flour usually, similar to a dacquoise)
While not usually called cookies, small petit fours made from choux paste are usually piped, as are their big brothers the eclair or profiterole
as a general FYI - chill the dough, then once you press, put the whole pan in the freezer for about 10 minutes, usually while the an before is cooking... and the cookies will be perfect - creaming the butter and sugar is typically a must.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.859154
| 2013-08-10T04:39:57 |
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|
35963
|
Butter separation in english toffee candy
I've read recently some articles about English toffee candy and the issue of butter separation was mentioned there.
I am looking for further information abut this phenomenon (what causes this separation of butter from the candy during cooking) and how can one prevent the separation
besides using an emulsifier (like lecithin).
Someone has mentioned that salt has a stabilizing effect on the emulsion, is it true?
Can you link one or more of these articles? Was this in home scale toffee baking, or commercial scale toffee? And what style of toffee, hard or soft?
See also, at least for preventive advise: http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/9371/what-is-causing-my-butter-toffee-to-separate
I don't see why this has close votes. If you disbelieve that it happens, it has happened to me too, trying to stir the butter into the sugar syrup and not succeeding, ending up with caramel swimming in molten butter.
Butter separation doesn't only refer to the butter separating from the toffee (sugar), butter is make of milk fat rendered and the milk solids, when butter separates this is due to these parts separating. This is the fat that you see on the toffee, this usually comes from the components cooling at different speeds.
As with anything that you are making using melted butter, like a hollandaise sauce, adding a spoon or two of very hot water and agitating helps with the dispersion of both the fats and the heat. Stirring is an important component to ensure the heat is equally distributed throughout the mixture.
Thanks to @Aaronut for correcting the language!
I'm pretty sure the fat separating from everything else is pretty much the problem. The milk solids are a pretty minor component.
Why the down vote? This answers the question...
@Jefromi perhaps I should clarify the answer with: butter is made of 2 parts, the fat (oil) you see is one of the parts of the butter. When it separates this means the sugar and milk solids mixed, and the oil in the butter didn't.
What is more likely to separate from the butter emulsion is the approximately 18% water phase, not the milk solids which are mostly either casein, or sugars (dissolved in the water). The downvote is probably because the science is questionable. For example, water is not an emulsifier.
@SAJ14SAJ although the science might seem questionable to you, for almost everything where you are mixing oil and water: mayonnaise, hollandaise, toffee, fudge, and more adding water - very cold for some or very hot for others - and whisking works as a stabilizer to bring the components back together.
As for what separates: butter is an emulsion. The milk solids in this emulsion easily bind to the sugars and water in the mixture where the oil does not, when the oil separates from the mixture it is usually due to the butter not remaining emulsified. Usually this is because the solids (milk/sugar/etc.) are cooling faster and clumping together while the oil remains liquid so the emulsion can't hold.
Like I said, the separation is fat from everything else, and the everything else does include the milk solids, but it's almost entirely sugar. As for the emulsification... when you start cooling the toffee (the point at which it's prone to separation), there is no water in it. You've boiled it all off, and are cooking it at a temperature well over the boiling point of water. There's no way water is going to help you.
@Jefromi perhaps you should write an answer, you seem to know more than I do and I could benefit from you experience.
@DaniëlW.Crompton Unfortunately I don't have a lot of experience here; I don't know whether salt helps or how to easily fix it without an actual emulsifier, as the question says.
I do have quite a bit of experience making toffee and fudge, but apparently I'm not able to put it down in a manner that will be accepted.
I think the problem is your classification of water as "acting as an emulsifier". What you probably meant to say was just that adding water and agitating helps with the dispersion of both the fats and the heat. You're just trying to get everything to a more-or-less uniform consistency and the water facilitates stirring. It doesn't emulsify and you don't need an emulsifier, that's what the butter's already doing.
Pertaining to salt acting as a "stabilizer", I have this experience to offer - I never had a significant issue dissolving the sugar into the butter (first step), until I switched from salted butter to unsalted - suddenly I had water that could not be eliminated. Some advise that adding 1/8 to 1/4 tsp salt per 4oz will rectify this, but I found this not to be true in two attempts. When I switched back to salted butter, this frustrating problem went away.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:55.859373
| 2013-08-12T14:10:08 |
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|
36090
|
Is there an official comprehensive list of E-numbers?
Does an official comprehensive list of the E-numbers exists?
I'm thinking of something along what the Wikipedia page provides:
Number
Role
Name
Description
Approval
Notes
An example of an entry could be:
E110
Colour
Sunset Yellow FCF
Used to grand a yellow-orange colour
Approved in the European Union, approved in the United States of America, banned in Norway
Products in the European Union require warnings and its use is being phased-out
These informations can be found scattered around the internet, but I've not yet been able to find a single page containing all of them besides the Wikipedia article (not that I've anything against Wikipedia, but I'd like an official source instead of a page anyone can edit and whose accuracy can't be guaranteed), lLooking up the informations through 4/5 documents every time is impractical.
At the moment I've been able to find these official documents:
Class names and the international numbering system for food additives
Codex general standard for food additives
Current EU approved additives and their E Numbers
I don't know that such a single compendium exists, but it seems like it would be a worthy addition to Wikipedia if you were willing to compile it from the disparate sources.
I'm guessing the really unlikely thing here is to find an official source with information for both the EU and the US. Something published by the US government is a lot less likely to also have the EU information. (And if it does, it's not "official" information for the EU.)
As Jefromi says, docs are official in different juristictions, I suggest to look at the wikipedia pages notes, a quick check gave me this that looks quite good and comprehencive (but to many for me to check..), but if you want US official you might have to find another link.
There is a book called food additives which contains many of them. They may have other references that'd be useful.
I'm not sure if the US even uses them normally. (we have 'yellow dye #5' and names like that over here). Another place that you might try asking is on OpenData.SE
http://www.ukfoodguide.net/enumeric.htm
The E numbers are standardized across all EU nations. I'm not even aware if non EU nations use them?
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:55.859792
| 2013-08-18T14:17:18 |
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|
36268
|
What ingredients can be used to prevent rapid ice cream melting?
I added Guar gum and xanthane gum when I made ice cream, but 15% of it still melted before I put the ice cream in the fridge.
What ingredients can I use to prevent my ice cream from melting this fast?
What type of container do you have the ice cream in?
Hydrocolloids like Guar and Xanthan gum don't prevent the ice cream from melting, rather they change the texture (more like jello). There are other ice cream additives. Instead, I'd recommend optimizing the physics before enlisting chemical help.
What happens is that the ice cream batter mixture warms up during the churning process and loses consistency (melts). The best defence against melting ice cream is working in lower temperatures:
Make sure the ice cream maker bowl/machine is properly cold (-16°C, or 0°F minimum). Get it as cold as you can get it.
Put your ice cream batter in the freezer for half an hour to an hour before making the ice cream to keep it just above the freezing point.
Working in a colder room helps as well.
You should be able to get great results using these simple steps, however, if it still looks like a losing battle, you can also try pre-cooling your churing bowl with dry ice. (if you throw the dry ice in the ice cream batter, you may get a tangy ice cream).
Afterwards, put the remainder of the dry ice in a container next to your machine and cover them both loosely with a tarp (keep the place ventilated) to keep the air around the ice cream batter and machine cold.
One other common mistake: don't use a heavy (glass) storage container at room temperature. I'll melt a lot right when you transfer it. Use something lighter, or pre-chill the container.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:55.860110
| 2013-08-24T08:32:46 |
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|
6306
|
How does the taste of Bird Eye Chillies differ at different stages of maturity (green vs red)?
What's the difference in taste between green and red Bird's Eye Chillies?
Great first question. Welcome to the site.
This is pretty much the same throughout the pepper family. The green chilis have "green" flavors - underripe, metallic, grassy. The ripe, red chilis develop more rounded, fruity flavors. You can just think of the difference between green and red bell peppers as a basic guide.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:55.860298
| 2010-08-29T19:17:40 |
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|
6326
|
How to make eggplant less oily?
I like to make this recipe with thin spaghetti, Eggplant, fresh tomatoes, and mozzarella. 1 pound of eggplant is sauteed in 1/4 inch deep vegetable oil.
When the meal is done it's too oily for my taste. How can I make the eggplant less greasy/oily tasting?
Another option is to simply lightly oil the eggplant with a pastry brush and bake or grill it, then add it to the rest of the dish as usual. It isn't the exact same dish, but it will still be good and substantially less oily. You could also bake the eggplant whole (poke a few holes and bake at say 375 until completely tender), then slice when done.
Eggplant will absorb oil, making the dish heavy. I agree baking or roasting the eggplant is a better option. It is also delicious grilled.
I usually steam the eggplant first, either in a basket or a dedicated electric steamer. If you are in a hurry, you can first microwave (eegads) sliced eggplant, then sautee it. Use less oil overall in the dish, as the pre-cooked eggplant will need less.
Several authorities claim that salting helps. Here's one method you can use to do that,
Cut the aubergine into length-wise slices about half an inch thick;
Place them on a kitchen-towel covered baking tray;
Salt well using coarse grained salt (it will be easier to wipe off than table salt);
Leave for 30 minutes;
Wipe off excess salt (rinse off if you used table salt) and dry with a kitchen towels.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:55.860374
| 2010-08-30T03:03:15 |
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|
9581
|
What to do with broccoli stalk?
It is kind of annoying to buy broccoli and pay per weight when there's this huge and heavy stem, so I was wondering what I could do with it?
I know that it can be cut and steamed/cooked like the rest of the sprouts, but are there any specialities for it?
Many places also sell just the crowns (florets). It's a little more, I haven't tried to do the math to see which is more economical if you don't use the stalks. That could be an option if you usually just through the stalks out.
If you are so inclined, broccoli stalks make create chew treats for dogs.
Same thing I do with all brassicas, dispose of them safely and redouble efforts to have them banned. ;-)
Just slice it into thin discs (a mandoline is quick) and the kids use it as chips'n'dip. Try some natural or Greek style yoghurt and whole seed mustard as a dip. Very crunchy and tasty
If the skin is dry or blotchy I quickly run the potato peeler over it first
Otherwise, just grating it into soups or stews is a nice vegetable filler
EDIT Doh, forgot the best thing to use it for Coleslaw, it replaces cabbage perfectly. Or you can mix cabbage and broccoli. Just coarse grate it with some carrot, onion. Blend it up with a little mayo and yoghurt, or lemon juice and olive oil. Add some ground fennel and cumin seeds or some chopped mint for extra zing
In the winter I use it to make broccoli cheese soup. I actually think the heavy stem makes for a better texture than the tops (they get very mushy).
the stalks also last a while, so I can save a few and make a big batch of soup. I put a bit of the floret in too, mostly just for visual appeal.
Shave the stalk with a vegetable peeler and quarter it lengthwise. I then use the quartered stalk pieces as a platform on which to set the florets for steaming. The stalk pieces are immersed in the boiling water while the boiling water steams the florets, resulting in perfectly done florets and stalks after about 5 minutes or so.
The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook suggests this method as well.
When cooking the stalk, you should peel the outside first (just use a swivel peeler and take the outer skin off) before slicing it up. The outer layer can be a bit tough. Also, be sure to cut it fairly thin so it will cook at the same time as the florets.
An alternative peeling method that works well is to use a paring knife, cut into the base with the knife, and holding the little flap of broccoli "skin", peel it back until it breaks off. Do again with the next part around the base, continuing until you've removed one full outside layer. You'll be removing the woodiest part of the outside stem, leaving the tender heart. Chop and cook with the florets, or, if the pieces are thick, start them a little ahead of the florets so they are all done at once. By the way, this is way easier to do than to describe.
Agreed on the peeling (I use the same technique as Doug), but rather than cut it thin, I saute the stalk first, then add florets, throw some water in the pan and lid it to steam the florets; when doing stir fry, I add the stem w/ the carrots and harder veg. then the florets and leaves towards the end.
If I have a few of them knocking about I'll stickem into stock, either vegetable (along with carrot peelings, onions scraps and anything else that would go to waste (except potato skins which make your stock very cloudy), or chicken if I've got a carcass going spare.
Won't this make your stock bitter?
I've not had any issues really.
I have to confess, I tend to cut them into chunks and eat them raw, while cooking the rest of the dinner. If you cut them into strips, I'm sure they'd make a good crunchy alternative to carrot/celery etc for dips.
Or, leave the broc whole, and stand it up in a narrow pan with enough water to cover most of the stem, and the lid on. The florets steam, the stem boils, and you can eat the whole thing.
You can peel them, dip in egg wash and then breadcrumbs and fry: really good vegetable chips
For a broccoli and cheese soup, I use Gordon Ramsey's recipe + 1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese, peel the stems first, and chop very finely, it helps the stalks cook faster. I reserve a few florets for garnish.
You can also use the stalks in place of asparagus. Slice stalks asparagus shape, roast on high heat with a little olive oil/garlic powder. Serve with hollandaise sauce.
Or you can use it like peas: peel the stalks, blanch until just tender but still a little crisp. Drain and mix with a little butter and LOTS of parmesan cheese and black pepper.
Also use in place of cabbage in a quick cole slaw, i use a vinaigrette rather than mayo and pair with bbq chicken sandwiches
Once peeled and sliced, they can be steamed, stir fried, or used in salads. I've heard broccoli stems called the poor man's asparagus.
I like to peel them, cut them in cubes and fry them together with carrot cubes. Once they're done, I flavor with a little pepper and salt (not much).
The real kicker is mixing some apple vinegar with sugar and pour that in the frying pan once the stuff is done. Don't continue to heat now, that will make it loose it's sourness.
Very delicious imho.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:55.860800
| 2010-11-29T21:02:57 |
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|
8289
|
(Why) do onions taste sweeter when cooked at lower temperature?
I use onions to add a sweeter taste to some dishes, for example in tomato sauce for pasta. I cook them in oil, with some salt, before adding the other ingredients. It seems to me that when I turn the temperature too hot, the onions don't become sweet at all, but rather retain some of their spiciness. They also look less "glassy". Why is this?
Wikipedia: "Caramelization is a complex, poorly understood process that produces hundreds of chemical products, and includes the following types of reaction: ". Uh oh. +1, though!
@Jefromi: This isn't caramelization. Caramelization involves browning while the question evidently refers to short pan-frying or sautéing (which is what gives them the translucent appearance described in the question).
@Aaronut: Hm, my bad. I thought this was referring to cooking long and slow, so that they brown (but not dark) evenly all the way through, instead of browning rapidly just at the surface on high heat - and get very very sweet. I grew up with my mom calling that "caramelized onions" - is that not right?
@Jefromi: If they're fully-browned then they are indeed caramelized. Caramelization doesn't actually require a low temperature though, it's just easy to burn them first at high heat. In either case, this question appears to be about the taste of regular, non-caramelized onions cooked at low heat vs. high heat.
I'm keen to know the answer to this because I want to avoid sweet onions (the opposite of what you want, but the answer will work for us both).
Well, you're definitely right. Onions cooked at a high temperature act differently than ones cooked at a low temperature, per "the bible" aka On Food and Cooking. However, it doesn't go in to much of an explanation as to why. Probably the most relevant aspects of what is in there are:
When onions and their relatives are heated, the various sulfur compounds react with each other and with other substances to produce a range of characteristic flavor molecules. The cooking method, temperature and medium strongly affect the flavor balance. Baking, drying, and microwaving tend to generate trisulfides, the characteristic notes of overcooked cabbage. Cooking at high temperatures in fat produces more volatiles and a stronger flavor than do other techniques. (p.311)
Since a low temperature produces less volatiles, I assume that the natural sugars of the onion shine through instead.
It's probably also important to understand where the oniony flavor comes from. The spice, as you describe it, is the onions natural defense mechanism. However, it doesn't exist defacto in the onion, but is rather the result of a chemical reaction. The onion stores very reactive sulfur in the cell fluid, and a seperate trigger mechanism in a storage vacuole. When you cut / crush / cook/ peel the onion, you break the vacuole and the enzyme and sulfur cause a chemical reaction giving off the spice. (p272 & 310)
I need to sit down and read that book cover to cover some day.
Then maybe I could answer EVERY question on the site. muahahaha
@hobodave, I tried to do that, but it's like going back to high school biology class. It is some serious, technical science reading. It was a bit much for me to "read". Instead, I reference it whenever I'm interested in a particular thing. I'm excited about his new book, which is supposed to largely be a response to people telling him OFAC is awesome, but it's not very approachable.
And by no means do you need to INCREASE the number of questions you answer. Leave something for the rest of us. Jeez.
User TXCraig1 gave the following explanation on The Naked Scientists forum: "Onions contain a lot of fructans (fructans are fructose polymers - as opposed to starch which is a glucose polymer). Cooking them hydrolizes the polymers, breaking them down into fructose and fructooligosaccharides." http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=9846.0
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:55.861302
| 2010-10-19T12:57:10 |
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|
8803
|
Why and when does a skin form on heated milk and how can I prevent it?
When I heat milk, sometimes a skin forms on it, which I'd like to avoid. I originally thought that this happens above some specific temperature, but after paying attention more closely, it seems to me that the skin forms while the milk is already cooling down again. Also, it does not happen every time, though I don't know what I do differently.
Note other than aesthetics, there's nothing wrong about the skin on milk. It's perfectly edible, and when e.g. combined with cocoa, quite tasty. If you insist on removing it (e.g. your recipe depends on strictly liquid milk, or you make a milk-based liqueur, where it would adversely affect aesthetics) you may simply skim it with a spoon instead of preventing it from forming.
We call it 'Malai' a Hindi word in India. It is liked by one and all. It is added to every Special Malai Tea at extra cost. People insist to add a bit at least to every glass of milk they drink. Some items are made just adding sugar to it. The skin is made to form again and again to make that dish. Yes... Only people who need to avoid fats altogether or as much as possible used to keep away from it. I mean to say, it is not unwanted or not undesirable...
I think I found the exact answer somewhere on the net. From my experience, I know frequent stirring and also adding cold milk when it cools down will prevent it.
Also, I notice this also happens for soy milk and the layer from soy milk is used to create lots of different soy products
http://www.wisegeek.com/why-does-milk-form-a-skin-when-it-is-heated.htm
After you’ve heated a glass of milk or hot chocolate, sometimes the milk forms a skin on top of the liquid. The skin is comprised of solid proteins that combine with the milk’s fat molecules, which begin to evaporate as the milk is heated. These proteins, casein and beta, clump together when the liquid reaches a temperature of around 113 to 122 degrees Fahrenheit (45 to 50 Celsius). As the heating continues, the soft protein layer begins to dry out, which is why the milk forms a skin on the liquid’s surface. This layer of skin forms a hard barrier, causing steam to build up beneath it and increase the liquid’s temperature. When left alone, this often causes the milk to boil over.
Though milk forms a skin when heated in most cases, there are several ways to prevent this skin from forming. If you plan to heat the milk over the stovetop, frequent stirring will break up the protein and fat molecules, so that the membrane will not develop. If you are heating milk in a microwave, you can place a wax paper lid known as a “cartouche” on top of the container, which will slow the evaporation process and maintain the milk’s liquid form.
The milk forms a skin only on heated milk that contains fat. If you are heating skim milk, there is no danger of a skin forming on top. Because skim milk contains no fat, the protein molecules have nothing to bond with, and are unable to coagulate.
When made with full-fat, unpasteurized milk, the milk forms a skin that is thicker than the skin on top of low fat milk. The layer of film that develops after heating whole milk can result in a traditional English delicacy called “clotted cream,” which is spread on scones for afternoon tea. To make your own version of clotted cream at home, you can combine two parts whole milk with one part heavy cream, warming the mixture on low heat until the milk forms a skin. Leave the mixture alone overnight, and in the morning, the milk combination will be covered with a rich, creamy layer that can be spooned onto scones or muffins.
The cartouche idea reminds me of the standard trick to keep a skin from forming on pudding or milk-based sauces: just cover with plastic wrap while cooling. (You need to make sure that there's no air in between the wrap and the sauce or pudding.) But I guess that might be a slightly different mechanism, since the skin really only develops while cooling down in that case.
I'm not too sure if the fat molecules really evaporate, but overall, that explanation seems to make sense, especially the stirring part. Will try.
When I heat up milk for butter cake frosting, I've never had a skin form when using skim milk. Interesting that it did in the microwave.
Putting a clean damp cloth over the pan can also help, by preventing the surface from drying out.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.861686
| 2010-11-03T11:06:53 |
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|
8263
|
How to make a sauce based on tea
I have some pu-erh tea, and I love the smokiness of it. I was thinking about trying to incorporate it into a dish somehow. Specifically, I was thinking about using something like pacific cod. Then I could potentially create a sauce or a rub for it.
Any suggestions for how to incorporate the tea into a dish without losing it's smoky flavor?
Interesting question. My first thought would be to try just poaching the fish in the tea. That should transfer more of the flavour than, say, steaming it. Google finds this recipe where they use an unnamed green tea.
Saved page, courtesy of Web.archive.org
You could brew a very strong batch of the tea, and reduce that to the desired level. You can use that as a base for a sauce to accompany the fish.
Good pu-erh tea is now often paired with chocolate, so a ganache might work nicely; simmer some cream with the tea leaves, strain into bittersweet chocolate while the cream is still near boiling, stir aggressively until smooth. A pu-erh and chocolate custard would likely work fairly nicely, or something along the lines of
Marbled tea eggs would probably also work well; this involves simmering pu-erh tea, soy sauce, sugar, and water together, often with star anise; cracking gently hard-boiled eggs all over, without breaking the shells off. Soak overnight in the solution and you should get a pretty nice aromatic and pre-seasoned boiled egg.
I suspect that pu-erh brewed with orange peels, then integrated into minced shallots cooked with butter, would work nicely together, though I'm not sure what the best candidate for the sauce would be; perhaps roasted pork or maybe some boiled udon.
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.862075
| 2010-10-18T17:27:41 |
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|
20267
|
What's a good molasses-based glaze for pork tenderloin?
My wife and I cooked a pork tenderloin with a molasses-based glaze/sauce this evening. However, we didn't care for it, not because of the molasses but because the recipe called for ground cumin—turns out, we don't care for cumin.
How could I make something similar without cumin. The original ingredients were:
2 tbsp molasses
1 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp salt
1 lb pork tenderloin
leave the cumin out?
All excellent answers and comments! Hard to pick one chosen answer.
That's not a bad idea. I've had mustard based pork recipes before that are quite tasty.
To expand upon baka's comment: this would taste good without the cumin too; it'd just be a simpler flavor. You can then replace it with any other spice that appeals to you, since pork's flavor isn't going to strongly clash with many spices. ElendilTheTall's answer suggests one option; I'm sure you can come up with others. This gives you a chance to make your pork fit well with whatever other dishes are in your meal.
You might try giving it an Asian twist by replacing the cumin with a tablespoon of Chinese Five Spice powder (a mix of star anise, cloves, szechuan peppercorns, fennel and cinnamon), and the salt with a splash or two of soy sauce. I'd also add some freshly grated ginger and crushed garlic. You should then have a tasty, sticky Chinese-style glaze.
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.862252
| 2012-01-09T04:39:09 |
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|
9418
|
Advice for adding pumpkin to pancakes?
free pancake recipe (see below) that requires applesauce and would like to know how I could best incorporate canned pumpkin, to make some really yummy pancakes for the holidays. Can I just replace the applesauce and add water until it is the right consistency?
1 cup wheat flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup soy milk or applejuice
1 beaten egg (or substitute)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/4 cups applesauce
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Alternative formulations also appreciated.
Thanks!
as you can see in our FAQ (http://cooking.stackexchange.com/faq), recipe requests are off topic and this question will likely be closed. What you can do is provide us your recipe for pancakes that you usually use and ask for seasoned suggestions on incorporating pancakes. You could also try finding a pumpkin pancake recipe and asking us for suggestions on how to make it over-the-top good. It'd be great if you edit your question to one of these on-topic questions.
Thanks for the heads up @justkt, I have edited the question; please let me know if you have any further suggestions.
these are dairy free buttermilk pancakes? I don't see buttermilk in the recipe.
@justkt Thanks for the pointing this out. I have removed the buttermilk from the title as I did from the recipe.
The excellent answer to the question Why can applesauce be used in place of oil? points out that one of the key reasons for using applesauce in quick bread type recipes such as pancakes is the pectin. Pumpkin also contains pectin. Therefore pumpkin should provide a similar effect on your recipe as the applesauce.
What the pumpkin puree won't provide is the sugar that applesauce provides. You will likely want to up the sugar provided by your recipe to account for this, unless you routinely use unsweetened applesauce. The water content between pumpkin puree and applesauce will also be different, as will the exact proteins.
I would suggest starting with a one to one replacement of pumpkin for applesauce for a very pumpkin-y taste, but you will have to experiment. You will also want to add sugar to taste. If you want a more subtle flavor, consider substituting only part of the applesauce with pumpkin.
thanks! I replaced the applesauce with pumpkin, added some extra water, and they were delicious
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.862399
| 2010-11-24T19:19:00 |
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|
21614
|
How do you get 'ears' when baking bread?
When slashing bread, how can I produce crusty 'ears' on the places where the slash opens up? Most of the time they open up, but just end up flush with the rest of the crust.
I spent 15 minutes last night trying to think of bread questions, how do you do it? :)
@jontyc - I bake...a lot. Most of these I know the answer to and I'm asking them because they were struggles for me in the past, a few not so much.
In my somewhat limited experience you have two things that affect growth of the crispy ears. As Caleb mentions using a lame to score your bread means you can cut with a bit of an angle that will promote a little flap.
The second is ensuring a rapid oven spring, which will cause the flap to open as much as possible before the starches on the surface set. The key to good oven spring is having a hot enough oven (preheat longer than you think you need to if you are using a stone or other heat-storing vessel in the oven), and a source of steam injection. A few ways to do get some steam:
When you put the dough in, pour a 1/2 cup of boiling water into a small cast iron skillet pre-heated in the oven.
Spritz the walls of the oven with water when you put the dough in.
My favorite - preheat a large dutch oven, and put the dough inside the dutch oven (lid on) to bake. For the last 10 minutes of the bake, remove the lid. The dutch oven stores some of the initial steam release and makes for much nicer spring and crusts. Of course, only round bread fits.
Dutch oven works, but all you really need is to trap the moisture near the bread. Try a large bowl upside down or for long things, an upside down hotel pan
Try slashing with a lame, which has a blade like a razor but is curved a bit so that you tend to cut under the loaf's skin rather than deeply into the loaf. Sometimes this ends up making a bit of a flap, which I suppose resembles an 'ear'.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.862709
| 2012-02-22T20:06:36 |
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|
474
|
Did I store these potatoes incorrectly (found a bug inside)?
I have a 3 pound bag of 'Idaho' brand potatoes that I bought a few weeks ago. They all looked good (firm and no sprouts) when I went to get them the other day except for one. This one had a white patch on it about 2 centimeters in diameter, and then a small red insect just crawled out of it! It was about a centimeter in length and was very dark red in color.
So my questions were:
Have I been storing these incorrectly? I have them in a kitchen cabinet since that is the darkest place I have and left them in their original bag.
Is it safe to eat the other potatoes? I threw the one in question out, but I am wondering if it's a good idea to throw the others out as well.
Actually, this is very much on-topic :-)
Potatoes and the plants foliage are a feast for a lot of insects, some good some not so good, but as far as I'm aware none that will do you any harm. As bmargulies said, don't worry overly about it.
If you're 'really' interested, you can take a look at this site, see if you can spot your 'badguy' :)
Potato Homepage
Thanks for the link! At least I know that these critters aren't harmful!
Potatoes are bug-food. The bug may have wandered into your storage area, or it might have hitched a ride on the spuds. Consider it a vote of confidence that the potatoes were in fact edible. I wouldn't have tossed the one with the insect; I would have 'debugged' it and cooked the rest.
+1 Thanks, that's an interesting way to think about it : )
"Consider it a vote of confidence that the potatoes were in fact edible" - I wouldn't count on other animals' votes... our dog eats anything from tissue paper to other dogs' excretions...
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.862896
| 2010-07-10T13:07:29 |
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|
21157
|
What can I substitute for Rice flour in a gluten-free pizza?
I am going to try to make gluten-free pizza for my wife, and I'm going to start with this Serious Eats recipe.
The recipe calls for white rice flour, but my wife has just about everything EXCEPT that. She has: corn, oat, potato, rye, sorghum, soy, and tapioca flours.
Which of these (if any) can I substitute for white rice flour? Or should I just go out and buy some?
For posterity, the recipe is:
1 (7.5 ounce) package Chebe Original Bread Mix (not Pizza Mix)
1 cup white rice flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup water plus an additional tablespoon or two, if needed
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons olive oil
I would go out an buy some.
Dough textures for gluten-free breads are fragile and the result of extensive testing with various non-wheat flours (at least, good ones like Serious Eats are). None of the other flours you have available will have the same water absorbsion or starch content which rice flour does. If you substitute, you'd have to make the recipe several times in order to recalibrate it.
Besides, rice flour is generally pretty useful if cooking for someone who can't eat gluten. So you'll use the rest of it. And if you can find it in a bulk foods store, it's quite cheap.
Yup, I already went out and bought some. Thank you!
potato starch or corn starch should work but I am not sure on the exact quantity when substituting. I would try the recipe with 1 cup and then adjust to get the required result. It is used for texture, not flavour.
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Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:55.863078
| 2012-02-08T04:40:06 |
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|
11000
|
Should a [Ceramic] mug be left covered or uncovered during the tea bag steeping process?
I make tea by submerging a tea-bag in a ceramic mug, covering the mug for about 5 minutes, and then removing the tea bag.
My question is: Is it advantageous to cover the mug during the steeping process, or should I leave the mug uncovered while it is steeping?
5 minutes is way too long. Use more tea leaves if you have too, but after a minute or two you will get so much tannins out of the leave is will go bitter. Not many people like that bitter taste, hence the popularity of adding a splash of milk, as it reduces the bitterness
Can you clarify your question? Advantageous in what way? Flavor? Heat retention? Steeping time?
This seems like a case where a very simple A/B comparison will give you the answer for your own personal preference. Just use two identical mugs and do everything else the same except cover one and not the other. If you really want to make it official, put a mark on the bottom of one mug and then have someone else randomize them while you look away. (p.s. not sure why this question is getting negative votes, it seems fine to me).
I'm sure the downvotes are because this is a trick question, as there is no proper way to steep bag tea in any drinking or serving vessel. Fannings... blech!!! (BTdubs, my tongue's in my cheek here.) :-)
It turns out there is really no difference for me. Thanks for the comments.
Your randomized trial doesn't work. The uncovered mug will be cooler, so I'm pretty sure it'll be obvious which was which.
@DavidRicherby I guess you are right in terms of knowing which is which, but if you are just trying to establish your own preference, temperature is part of that preference.
Covering the mug may help insulate the tea/water, keeping it hotter. If you believe that a more consistent temperature produces a better cuppa, then covering would help (though how much is debatable). I'll leave it to someone else to provide arguments about the ideal steeping time and temperature.
Someone might also make a case that covering the mug keeps aromas trapped in too, but I doubt that does anything to improve the tea flavor, and your concentrated aromas are going to escape as soon as you take the cover off anyway.
So I'd say the insulation/heat conservation argument is where it's at.
I've had tea cool off quickly enough for this to matter (camping, or when I'm trying not to turn on the heater in my apartment). Even if it steeps all right, it's no fun to have your tea cold before you can drink it all.
Given that tea is 'properly' made in teapots, which always have lids that are put in place after the addition of water, I'd say you are wise to cover your mug. Insulation is probably the only advantage though, as bikeboy says.
Tea is better brewed in a cup. Test it yourself. Heat loss and aeration from pouring from tea pot do not add to flavour. Use an insulated tea cup (like a travel mug)
I had a very fussy colleague train me in making him tea in a mug. It takes nowhere near 5 minutes.
Put the teabag in the mug while the kettle is boiling
Use the hottest water you can; it should go into the mug immediately after boiling
Fill the mug almost to the brim; when you remove the teabag it will make room for milk
It doesn't take long to get the best of the flavour out. 20 seconds or so; long enough to get the milk from the fridge and find a teaspoon.
Fish the bag out with a teaspoon; maybe give it a squeeze against the inside wall of the mug
add sugar (if wanted) then milk (if wanted)
With this method, the tea is still piping hot when it's ready.
If you prefer tea that's been steeped for ages, of course I won't stop you :). Please don't do it if you're making tea for me though!
You would steep for longer in a teapot, but that's because one normal teabag is enough for at least two mugs of tea -- unless you've bought special one-cup teabags, such as you get in hotel rooms.
This applies to ordinary tea and Earl Grey -- things could be different for fruit teas and green tea.
Not all teas should be brewed near boiling -- black tea, yes, but it's too hot for oolong, white or green teas . (although, white or green teas in tea bags? there's something even more wrong with that)
You should never brew anything at above 95°C
Why not? The rooibos tea I have here says to brew it with still boiling water. It also has to brew for 5 to 6 minutes. Black, green, white, yellow or oolong tea is not all there is to the tea world :)
I think this is purely one for personal preference. Try it and see.
If you have access to ISO (or I guess BSI or Indian national standards) there is an ISO standard for brewing tea for taste tests, which is moderately interesting.
ISO standard is not for pleasure of drinking, just for taste comparison. Not recommended for actual use!
@TFD It's for use by merchants who are ultimately going to sell their goods to consumers who want to drink tea for pleasure. I see absolutely no reason why the industry would adopt and promote a standard which produces an experience substantially worse than methods used in the home.
I think covering it only keeps it a little warmer and does nothing to change the flavor (that I've noticed), but in regards to the above comment about using boiling water to make your tea, I must, wholeheartedly, disagree. Black Tea should be brewed at 200°F and Green Tea at anywhere from 170°F-180°F (Although I prefer it at 190°F). I don't know of any tea that should be boiled unless you prefer your tea quite bitter.
You should never brew anything at above 95°C
So the only thing the lid does is keep the heat in and allows it to steep. I really won't steep much below 180 degree temperature. If it gets to room temperature it will stop the "steeping process".
Welcome! This is a Q&A site, not a discussion forum, so we expect people to actually answer the question. To that end, I've removed the parts of your answer that didn't really address the question (they came across as a bit ranty, too).
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.863233
| 2011-01-13T17:35:33 |
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|
24216
|
What precautions should be taken while cooking a thin steak?
I went to the Halal butcher the other day and asked for steak, except what I received was more like thinly sliced beef.
What can I do with this on a barbeque? Will it cook the same? How can rescue the situation?
What do you call "thin"? Here, "minutensteaks" are popular - they are around 1 cm. If it is much less, you might have to think of making rouladen instead.
If it is really thin, you could marinade it, skewer it and make it kind of like kabobs. Do you know what cut of meat it is?
You can definitely still cook it on the barbecue, just don't' cook it as long because the heat has less distance to penetrate. You can also try flipping the pieces more often so each side isn't exposed to the heat for too long, it can't penetrate too far into the meat before it is flipped over and begins cooling. This should allow you to get some nice crusting on the outside and keeping it juicy in the middle.
Get that bbq SUPER hot.
This worked perfectly (except I did it on a griddle)!
Sounds like it's time for a steak sandwich. Grill it up in a frying pan, add some cheese and top with sauteed onions, mushrooms and peppers and serve it on a toasted baguette. You said the steak was thin, so make sure not to overcook it. Cook up the veggies first, then the steak.
No idea if its halal or not, but it sure will taste amazing.
Yup that'll be halal, ended up doing it inside instead on my griddle. Just as tasty!
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:55.863737
| 2012-06-05T09:16:41 |
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|
16175
|
How to thicken a Yoghurt based cold sauce?
I have a yoghurt-based sauce, e.g. yoghurt with garlic, pepper and salt, and I want to thicken it. Basically I don't want to change the taste, although minor changes are fine but I'd like to adjust its consistency.
How can I achieve that? What should I add to thicken cold sauce?
Potato flour is not an option as I don't want to warm the sauce.
The usual way is to use a thickener. Some of them require warming, but others do not. Guar or xanthan gum will work if used in the cold sauce. It is the easiest way. If you don't have them, yuo can use gelatine, but you'll have to dissolve it in warm liquid first and then add to the cold sauce, then wait to thicken. None of these will change the taste.
If you are from the "no additives" fraction, you can just use a thicker dairy product. I don't think the heavy whipping cream would be a particularly good fit to yogurt. The best choice would be a fermented product thicker than yogurt, e.g. sour cream or creme fraiche. But you can also use a cheese, although this will change the taste (without making it bad or too different from the original). Good choices would be cream cheese, ricotta, quark, tvorog or mascarpone.
+1 for xanthum gum, it is an all natural additive. and should do the trick. And I think rumtscho is correct you are going to need something thicker than whipping cream. I would suggest draining the yogurt and making a yogurt cheese (like cream cheese). If you want it to be really thick you can actually just buy yogurt cheese at specialty stores. Or else make it yourself and take it as thick as you want.
When I make yogurt based sauces, cold (tzatziki) or hot (curries etcetera), I strain the yogurt to remove some of the liquid (whey), which thickens it. Greek yogurt is strained yogurt.
It isn't necessary to use additives for thickening.
I now use cheese cloth to do the straining. Stockings, towels and jelly bags are strainers I have used in the past, before I invested in a roll of cheese cloth.
It is simple to make thickened yogurt, half hour in the straining cloth gives good results.
Note: I always save the whey, and use it for something - add it to a pot of beans if nothing else.
If the yogurt doesn’t contain modified food starch, gelatin, or gums, you could put the sauce in a coffee filter or cheesecloth lined strainer for a few hours to let some water release from the yogurt.
Mixing in Heavy whipping cream and whipping the mixture should give you a thicker consistency while maintaining cold temperatures and should not dilute the flavor, though you might want to adjust your yogurt/whipping cream proportions.
If you want an even more thick consistency, you might try butter. I would whip the butter first and then add your yoghurt sauce to mix it in.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.863932
| 2011-07-15T18:38:15 |
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|
20889
|
Why did my eggless cup cake prepared with condensed milk get charred in a convection microwave?
We have prepared the eggless cupcake with condensed milk. We have used convection mode in microwave.
Preheated to 200C and then baked the cake for 10 mins. It started off nicely, but at 10th min, we got the charred cake.
What could be the problem with this?
Could you possibly post the exact recipe that you are using? I've never seen a cupcake recipe with condensed milk before.
It's probably best to make this cake in an actual oven (even if the recipe specified a microwave oven) as the heat will be more even. Anyway, ovens can be remarkably inaccurate in temperature so perhaps although you set your oven at 200 C it may have been actually at 225 C say. The batter may have also been quite thick and so have a higher tendency to burn unlike a thinner, wetter batter, if you pair this with the inaccuracy of the oven temperature then it's not surprising that it burnt.
Hope this helps for next time!
@Sebiddyhef, Thanks for the nice answer. I will try this and let u know the result in due course. I will try these possibilities. 1. Reduce the temp to 175C and thinner batter. 2. 200C and thinner batter. What i have observed in the previous case, is it has raised as expected and came down in seconds. May be stuff was not sufficient??
Perhaps you could just try a different recipe if all else fails, there are plenty of other eggless cakes using condensed milk as a quick google search: (http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=eggless+condensed+milk+cake) reveals.
I have been making black forest cakes in the microwave for over 6 years without any errors.
The time you used was way too long! For 600g it takes a maximum of 8 mins and 30 seconds to bake.
I make walnut and banana muffins based on which, I am giving you the following advice,
Next time make sure:
The batter flows slightly but is not too liquid;
Set your oven on combination mode if you can, or convection mode is fine;
Temperature 600ºC and time: first 2 mins, then a 30 second wait followed by another minute;
Test with a clean needle or toothpick after a minute of it cooling inside the oven.
I suggest you mistyped the temperature on step three.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.864187
| 2012-01-29T17:37:41 |
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|
112766
|
Non toxic glowing food or drink
Is there a way to make a chemiluminescencent reaction that is safe for consumption by humans?
That is to say is it possible to make an item of food or drink that glows and is at worst non toxic? There are quite a few references available for general reactions of this kind (e.g. Wikipedia) but none of them are obviously safe to consume. It seems if I could find a way to make such things safe to consume then it would open the door to awesome punch and/or cake recipes.
Have you seen this Q/A?
No, I didn't see that one when searching at all
It's possible that there are more things available now, but if you're willing to use blacklight, see https://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/28495/67
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.864426
| 2020-11-21T18:17:56 |
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|
14184
|
Good breads for evening cooking?
Are there good bread styles or techniques for baking bread in the evening after a day at work?
Specifically, there's a couple of us who have taken to bringing food for a meeting every couple of weeks, and I tend to do the breads while someone else makes soup or a casserole.
I know I can whip up a quick bread, like Irish Soda, cornbread or most muffins fairly quickly, but they're not as conducive to eating at a meeting (they crumble, and then I have to spend more time cleaning up after the meeting), or I could make something like naan or tortillas, but it's quite time consuming towards the end if you have roll out and grill up enough for 18+ people.
I guess I'm hoping for something where it's either slow-rising enough where I can prep it the night before or morning of, then return to it 8 to 20hrs later, punch down and shape, then have a short rise before baking. (right now, I do a refrigerated rise of the dough, which requires giving it more time to come back up to room temp so I can shape it and let it proof in the pan before baking).
Another option would be to know the techniques to make something like the par-cooked breads that you used to be able to find in the stores. (if it can be done at home, and doesn't require blast chillers or other specialized equipment)
Seems like the breads of Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day and the no-knead technique might be the right place to look if you are willing to start a day in advance.
yep -- came here to say that very same thing. the AB5 book changed my bread-bakin' life, lol. you can make enough dough for 4 loaves at a time. you just lop off a hunk when you need it, shape it, let it rise for about 20 mins, and bake. you can keep the dough in your refrigerator for up to 2 weeks, i think. it's awesome.
@franko, @justkt : okay, I've ordered the book, but could one of you two summarize the technique in an answer, so I can upvote it?
sure - you mix together the flour, salt, yeast and water in a large container, and let it sit for a couple hours on your counter until it's risen to about double its original size. then, you can either use some dough right away, or (since it's easier to handle when its cold), put it in your fridge for at a day. then, on baking day, you cut off a grapefruit sized hunk, dust it with flour, quickly shape it, and let it sit while the oven preheats. then, you slash the top & bake! easy as pie. or, uh, bread.
How about malt loaf? Has a very long rising time.
I make a modified version of the no-knead for these occasions. Combine water/flour at 70-75% ratio (400g flour/300g water, for example), add 1% yeast and 2% salt. Mix in stand mixer for about 6-10 min. (the dough should start to pull away from the walls (though might stick to bottom, if hydration is close to 75%) of the bowl. Cover, put in fridge, for up to a week or so. On baking day, just let it rise outside fridge for about 2 hours. Bake at 450, 30ish minutes. I tend to throw ice cubes into a dish in the oven to add moisture; all oven electronics/moisture caveats apply.
As I couldn't get Orbling to actually put the technique in an answer, and it's been ~2 years since I asked this, here's an update:
Yes, the no-knead bread recipes work great. I even did some (leavened) flatbreads with it, and the Artisan Breads in 5 Minutes a Day brioche recipe, but it just lacked ... something. I think it was the texture was just a little off for rolls. (Although it's become my go-to recipe for pizzas and flatbreads).
The best technique with the best result I've found so far to get up early and use a slightly modified recipe food-processer brioche recipe from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything. To make it easier to work, I actually use 1cup more flour than it calls for. (which doesn't fit in my food processor, so I have to transfer it to my stand mixer ... but I also double the recipe).
I then let it sit to rise while getting ready in the morning, then just before leaving, form it into balls for rolls, and put 'em on a sheet tray. (a double batch fills a 1/2 sheet perfectly). I then cover it loosely and stash it in the fridge. When I get home, I immediately start the oven preheating and pull the tray out of the fridge. I give it 30 min, then toss it in the oven, and it's done 30-40 min later. I've done it a good 1/2 dozen times, but haven't yet decided if I like it better with or without the eggwash. (it's less effort in the evening without, so it gets dropped when I'm in a rush prepping for our meeting).
The no-knead recipes in Peter Reinhart's Artisan Breads Every Day are also solid. You can leave the dough anywhere from overnight to four days or so, and when you want to bake, just shape and rise an hour while the oven heats.
One thing you can make which is very fast is unleavened flatbread. For example, chapati and roti are two Indian flatbreads made without yeast. If you try one of these though, I'd recommend getting a special flour to get the authentic flavor. They come out kind of bitter with regular whole wheat flour. Chapati or Atta flour can be found at Indian grocers, or order online. King Arthur Flour makes a version which I haven't tried, but generally their products are very good - http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop/items/chakki-atta-indian-flour-3-lb
Chapati and roti are pretty similar to wheat tortillas, although tortillas are usually a bit thinner. These can also be considered a flatbread and can be made quickly.
If you want to try no-knead bread you don't need a book. Mark Bittman of the NY Times has posted some no-knead recipes online (from Jim Lahey of Sullivan St Bakery in NY, who now has his own book of no-knead recipes).
Overnight rise recipe: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/dining/081mrex.html
Newer "quick" version, 4-5 hour rise: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/08/dining/08mini.html
You can also make pita bread with an hour and a half rise.
Yes! Here are two methods:
An excellent technique is to allow the bread to do its initial rise, its proofing, or both in the refrigerator. You could allow the initial rise to take place overnight; rest and shape it on the countertop in the morning, proof it in the fridge during the day, allow it to sit on the countertop while you preheat the oven, and then bake it in time for dinner.
However, if you really need bread to adhere to a timetable, I suggest you bake it in advance, at your leisure. Once it is utterly and completely at stone cold room temperature, wrap it tightly and heavily in plastic, then in foil. Freeze it for anywhere from a day to a few weeks. When you want to serve it, let it come to room temperature without unwrapping it. Then unwrap it, re-wrap it in foil only, and bake it in a 400-degree oven for 10 minutes. It will be indistinguishable from a fresh loaf.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.864536
| 2011-04-20T17:46:07 |
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11075
|
How do I cook for just one person? any good cookbooks?
Being single again, I'm thinking it's time I learned how to cook for myself, problem is knowing how to cook, and buy, buying being a significant part of the problem, in quantities that will be just enough for me, and having it be healthy and not all premade. Are there any good cookbooks that lend themselves to this? I should note that I really don't want to eat the same things for a couple of days.
Also do any of the Absolute Beginner Books lend themselves to this? as I'm not very experienced
My solution is simple, quantities just for me, to last me 3 days.
So, my other answer was more general techniques and advise ... but for the actual cookbook question ... the whole 'cooking for one' has been a pet peeve of mine for some time (I missed getting my entry together for the first Food Network Star competition, and they have a restriction in the application form that's kept me from entering ever since)
But, a couple cookbooks that seem to still be in print:
Going Solo in the Kitchen : Mostly cookbook with lots of simple recipes, but lots of advice and tips in the beginning and scattered throughout. And brings up a good point:
Actually, cooking for yourself isn't difficult--like anything else, it just sounds difficult if you haven't mastered the basics. Solo cooking is really much easier than cooking for others: It takes far less time, is less costly, and is less emotionally charged (if your food doesn't come out well, you're the only one who knows it.) It's probably one of the arenas of your life where you are totally in control. You can eat when and what you like every night.
Serves One: Simple Meals to Savor When You're on Your Own : a little more complex recipes ... also includes pictures of the food on some plates in the middle, so if you prefer cookbooks with pictures for inspiration, this one might be a better choice.
... also look for the 'low number of ingredient' type cookbooks. (the concept's been around for longer than Five Ingredient Fix ... I have plenty of this sort of cookbook, but most are out of print. (and I don't actually have that one))
... and if you're not looking for the fine dining type cooking for one, some of the 'college cookbooks' and other introductory cookbooks tend to be more suited for low effort (or low skill), and fewer people, but most still insist on making 4-8 servings, even for the college ones, so take NBenatar's advice.
The College Cookbook
The Healthy College Cookbook
Help! My Apartment has a Kitchen
Cooking Outside the Pizza Box
Your Shirt is NOT an Oven Mitt
The "I Don't Know How to Cook" Book
Also, not exactly cookbooks ... more food writing, plus recipes, but specifically of the 'cooking alone' variety:
What we eat when we eat alone (about 1/2 cookbook, half stories)
Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant (mostly stories, a few recipes)
... I have some other ones, eg, "The Bachelor's Dinner: Good Food for Single People", by David Jones which strives to be more fine dining (a little too much in that direction for my opinion), but they're out of print, and that one doesn't even show up when I search by ISBN.
Also, if you follow any of the links, Amazon makes recommendations of similar books, as there's lots of books on the topic (just they're ones I haven't read)
One of the problems with using regular cookbooks to cook for yourself is after doing it for long enough, it's hard to get motivated to cook anything too complicated; no one else is going to know if you have a peanut butter sandwich for dinner.
I contributed a few of my lazy ideas to Neurotic Physiology's "Grad Student Cooking in Style", but a large part of it didn't make it in time for the deadline (she didn't accept my 'you didn't say which timezone' excuse) ... here are the various comments I hade typed up, minus the recipes:
The problem with grad school cooking -- unless you're also supporting a family (in which case, hopefully they'll share in the cooking duties), except for the pre-packaged foods, most of it's not sold to serve one person, and the price breaks seem to be when you buy 3 to 5 lb of meat at a time.
So, my suggestion is to buy the unreasonably sized package of meat, but then prepare it so it can be used in sizes you want.
For instance, when that 'family sized' pack of ground beef goes on sale -- I make most of it into burgers, wrap them individually in wax paper, pop eight of 'em into a gallon sized zip-top bag, and freeze 'em. If you want, add some italian seasoning or steak seasoning as you're forming the burgers for some extra variety. (although, they're more versatile if you leave 'em plain. You can toss 'em onto a George Foreman grill still frozen, and they'll come out fine. (although, you'll want to take the wax paper off first). Or, you can thaw 'em, and turn it into a meat sauce for pasta, a quick-cook chili, or anything else that uses ground beef.
During my undergrad, as I didn't have freezer space, I'd get a package in the 1lb range (maybe a little larger), and cook it together with a diced large onion (maybe softball sized), a few cloves of garlic, crushed, and maybe a bell pepper if they were reasonably priced that week. Tightly sealed, the mixture would keep in the fridge for a week, and I just had to heat some up with either :
tomato sauce & pasta : meat sauce
rice & seasonings : dirty rice
can of diced or crushed tomatoes, chili powder : chili (beans are optional ... but it's great over a baked potato)
... the dirty rice would often find itself with a tortilla, cheese and hot sauce in burrito form. If bell peppers are on sale, cut one in half, vertically, then take out the stem, seeds and membrane. Place it cut-side down in a baking dish and roast at 350F 'til it's softened some (maybe 10-15 min), then remove from the oven, stuff with a mix of dirty rice and cheese, then put back into the oven to bake 'til the cheese melts. (f it's leftover dirty rice, you'll cook the bell pepper less on its own, so that it doesn't completely soften up before the rice is heated through ... or microwave the rice first so it's warm before stuffing)
...
If you don't have the freezer space, you can also make meatloaf. I don't have a set recipe ... vegetables (carrots, onions, bell pepper, I've even thrown in a thawed package of frozen spinach), ground beef, a couple of eggs, some bread crumbs (or, if it's not stale enough to break into crumbs, tear it up, soak in milk or water, then squeeze it out, and add the damp bread), italian spices, lay on a sheet pan, then bake. If it starts getting too dark before the center's cooked, add some type of sauce to the top (ketchup, tomato sauce, barbeque sauce, whatever).
If you don't have a microwave to reheat it, just cut it into slices, and then pan fry to warm through. You can also crumble leftovers into tomato sauce and serve over pasta.
...
If you have freezer space, and a large pot (not worth it otherwise), buy chicken when it' on sale, poach it, then freeze it. If you're even more adventurous, make chicken stock, too.
The normal problem with poaching chicken is you have to remember to take it out, or it gets rubbery -- but there's a trick:
bring a pot of water that'll still fit the chicken to a boil (lid on will boil faster)
add the chicken to the pot
put the lid back on, and bring the water back to a boil.
Wait two to three minutes.
Turn the heat down to low.
After an hour, the chicken will be cooked ... but it won't be overcooked, even if you leave it in there for three hours. Because we boiled the outside of it, we've disinfected it in case it had surface contamination.
If it's boneless, you can just let it cool, and then cut into chunks later. If there's bones, I take 'em out, and then shread the meat, bag it up, and freeze it in reasonably sized bits. (which for me means filling a quart sized freezer bag part way, then sort of squishing it into two chunks, so it doesn't freeze as one giant lump, and I can take out only half of it at a time.)
If you have some sad vegetables (past their prime, but not rotted, moldy, or mushy ... but we're talking about grad students, you'd have eaten it way before it go to that stage), cut into chunks and toss after you've let the water boil. If you're like my mom, and cut up and freeze stuff for that later batch of stock (along with parmesan rinds, stems from some herbs, etc.), toss it in while boiling, so you don't cool the water down too fast after the boil. Add some salt and pepper, then leave like normal. After deboning the chicken, throw the bones back in, and left simmer for another hour or two ... then strain and cool ... and then after it's spent a night in the fridge, freeze (in ice cube trays or muffin tins, then pop into a zip-top bag, and stash in the freezer for when you need it.
Uses for chopped up chicken:
While still a little warm, make chicken salad
chicken noodle casserole -- any left-overs can go into a casserole dish, so you can just bake it the next day. (if you want to top it w/ bread crumbs and extra cheese, feel free)
chicken pot pie
Uses for shredded chicken:
Thaw in a pan with a little bit of water; add taco seasonings; serve as a burrito, with beans & rice, roll into enchiladas, or however you like.
shredded chicken also works great in casseroles.
...
I'ver never been much of a steak eater, but when either top or bottom round goes on sale as a 'london broil' cut (sale for me is ~$4/lb, sometimes less), I'll splurge, and make it into a variety of things: (note -- not all 'london broil' is the same .... they sometimes try to pass off chuck as london broil).
... so, with the leftovers of the london broil, we can then turn it into other completely different meals for the rest of the week:
Fajitas
Cheesesteak
Stir fry
Salad w/ steak
Beef Stroganoff
When I was single I used to enjoy going to the grocery store and choosing what I would make for dinner that night. I would walk through produce and be inspired by whatever looked fresh and colorful and go from there. The meat department often had single portions of fish or steak, and upon enquiry it turned out that they would break up a pack of meat into single portions for customers. Buying for one person meant being able to splurge a little on certain items.
Something else that came in handy was a very small pot and frying pan for cooking single portions.
And on occasions where I made too much food, I would bring the rest to work and share with coworkers. Best wishes!
I still prefer grocery shopping that way ... and an excellent point on the pot sizing ... no sense heating up 2 gal of water just to cook a portion or two of pasta. (and even if you don't fill it, the increased surface area changes how things cook, and you have to deal with faster evaporation and stir more often)
Yup, stick me in the kitchen with a cookbook trying to write a shopping list, I'm hopeless. But in the shop checking out whatever takes my fancy, really gets the creative juices going!
You dont need a special cook book for this. Simply make meals that are for 2 people and either put one portion in the freezer or eat it for lunch the next day.
You'll have to experiment with how much to buy yourself - or simply buy what you need for that evenings meal on that day. Do this for a couple of weeks keep track of it, you can then figure out how much to buy weekly and start doing single shops.
A friend of mine has a blog called "Closet Cooking" which is dedicated to cooking in a small kitchen. Thus, the batch sizes tend to be smaller than some other recipes you might find.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.865219
| 2011-01-15T10:29:02 |
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|
66092
|
Devil's food cake turned out dry and dense
I tried this recipe:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/devils-food-cake-recipe.html
However, when I did it, the cake came out dry and dense and not very tasty. According to many other comments, it should not be this way.
Now, perhaps, there is a problem with the recipe...but Alton Brown's recipes (while not 100%) are usually pretty good.
What are the probable causes for dry and dense in this case? What can I improve next time?
Are you asking about this cake specifically or random techniques for various cakes (which would be too broad, imho)?
Are you using an oven thermometer?
@Stephie Let's stick with this specific cake.
@Jolenealaska yes, I am using an oven thermometer. I believe I was baking at the right temperature. However, I was also using a thermometer to measure the internal temp of the cake as suggested and think this may have led to over baking. Is there any reason, according to the recipe, why the cake should not be moist?
Hi ericgorr, your post was indeed too broad in its original state. People can improve their technique in dozens of different ways. Instead of closing, I reworded your question so it now fits. I hope your cake turns out better next time!
For this recipe, the most likely issues are:
overbaking and wrong oven temperature
Simply put, removing too much humidity during the baking process. Wrong oven temperature can aggravate this problem, especially if it is too low (to hot = burned edges and wet center).
over-mixing
This recipe is very sensitive to overmixing, which means forming gluten strands that make your cake dense. Alton Brown specifies the mixing time in seconds for a reason. As a beginner, you could use a whisk instead of a mixer and stir just until the "just combined" or "no more lumps" stage, not more.
Technically it uses the same technique as muffins, not the beat eggs / butter / sugar until fluffy technique known from cupcakes
waiting before baking
This recipe gets its "lift" almost exclusively from baking powder. It is activated the moment it gets wet and then even more when heated. So if you don't bake the batter right away, it may "fizz out" somewhat, leaving you with a dense cake. This will take longer to fully bake and again be dry.
wrong measurements
The recipe states "ounces", which is a weight unit. I other words, you need a scale to measure your flour and cocoa. While a (US) fluid ounce is two tablespoons or 30 ml, an ounce is 28.3 grams. So for water, you can roughly exchange one for the other, but never, ever for other materials, especially light and dry stuff like flour.
(Yes, I have seen this happen.)
From your comments, overbaking might be the main problem here, possibly combined with overmixing.
I am using a scale to measure the ingredients by weight. I didn't wait before baking. I am pretty sure the oven temp is accurate, but I will pay closer attention to this. I almost certainly over-mixed by quite a bit. I really had no idea this was possible. It seems likely I overbaked as well. Is measure the internal temp really important or can I just use the toothpick method to determine when it is done? Or should I just learn to press down and look for the bounce back to determine when it is done?
@ericgorr, I personally rarely use a thermometer for cakes - amongst the reasons I don't is that many recipes don't state a core temperature. Note that desired toothpick results (clean, with a few crumbs, ...) differ between recipes or recipe types, so read the instructions carefully. For the steepest learning curve I suggest making one recipe multiple times and measure by all three methods.
Yeah, I was thinking mixing too much might be the problem. Flour contains gluten, and mixing activates the gluten to make the flour elastic and firmer. That's what happens when you knead bread. So if the cake is bready, that might be it.
I had an opportunity to try again and it worked much better. I am guessing the primary cause was over mixing.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.866154
| 2016-02-01T11:47:25 |
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|
19808
|
What caused my blueberry muffins to come out flat?
I made blueberry muffins two times.
The first time I used unbleached flour. I don't remember if I used salted or unsalted butter then. They came out looking like from a bakery.
The second time, I used bleached flour and salted butter. They came out flat and didn't look nice. Was it the flour or the butter which made the difference?
Welcome to Seasoned Advice. It is normal here to edit other people's posts if we think it helps. I edited your post to make it easier to read, but reserved the original meaning. You can revert it to your old version if you disagree.
The difference was definitely not caused by the salted or unsalted butter. It is also very unlikely that the problem was the flour.
Some of the usual reasons for muffins to come out flat are:
you forgot the baking powder (but then they are a complete failure, I guess you would have noticed if that had happened)
you measured by volume instead of by weight. This is very imprecise and can easily result in too little baking powder for the amount of other ingredients. You should use a recipe given in grams and a kitchen scale, if you want consistent results.
you let the prepared batter sit for too long before putting it into the oven, and the baking powder spent itself before the baking began
you baked at a wrong temperature, so the batter hardened either too early or too late.
you used ingredients at the wrong temperature (your eggs came from the fridge, your butter wasn't softened or you tried to soften it in a warm place and it melted, etc.) Always start with room temperature ingredients for baking.
You don't give us enough information to know which happened, but if you want to have good muffins every time, avoid these common mistakes and your muffins have a good chance of looking good in every batch.
+1 for measuring by weight. This is probably the single greatest improvement the home baker can make to his/her technique.
I'd say either baking powder or you opened the oven's door while it was baking. I've experienced that both of them could be the reason of the flat muffins.
Also, the oven should be hot enough when you want to put the batter in it. Sift the flour and mix baking powder with it before adding it to the batter.
I'd bet you stirred the batter to much. When adding the dry ingredients, you should fold them in, not stir, and don't over fold either. Once the dry ingredients are incorporated, stop.
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.866505
| 2011-12-20T12:11:46 |
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|
24993
|
Grapefruit recipe substitute to avoid medicine interaction?
A good friend just underwent a kidney transplant and the anti-rejection drugs are known to interact with grapefruit, so while he is of course incredibly grateful for his new kidney, he is a little sad that he will literally never have grapefruit again.
I know this is a weird one but I'm curious if anyone knows of good flavor extracts that contain absolutely no grapefruit but provide a credible grapefruit flavor so I can make him something grapefruity, yet medication-safe.
Do you know what part of the grapefruit interacts with the drugs? It'd be easier to isolate something safe if you did...
My understanding is that it is furanocoumarin compounds that cause the drug interactions. Also found in the pomelo.
It is the furanocoumarin - it makes the drugs enter the body too quickly.
One day soon maybe? http://scienceblog.com/48576/grapefruit-hybrid-won%E2%80%99t-interfere-with-medicine/
General health warning: anyone taking statins (which lower cholesterol) should not eat grapefruit. Statins are amongst the most prescribed drugs in the western world so this warning is fairly general. It's not just people who have had kidney transplants that have to be careful.
@No'amNewman It's not even necessarily all kidney transplant patients, it's the specific medicine my friend will be on. But it's good to ask your doctor about any new medicine if you eat grapefruit.
I appreciate the feedback so far, and the hybrid mentioned by @talon8 sounds very promising, but does anyone know of any extracts or combination of non-grapefruit/pomelo flavors that can do the job today?
Two ideas come to mind:
Artificial grapefruit flavor. Clearly not the most desirable ingredient, but they make it and you can buy it online if you look for it.
Hoppy beer (IPAs) for aroma. Certain hop varieties have a strong grapefruit aroma. You can seek out West Coast-style IPAs for this (Lagunitas IPA or Lil' Sumpin and Ballast Point Sculpin are some that come to mind). Or homebrew your own beer with hops like Cascade, Amarillo, Centennial, Citra, and there are several others. You can google for grapefruit hops.
Otherwise, you might try meyer lemon. It's sweeter than a lemon, but still has some sourness, though not the same as grapefruit.
Most of our sense of taste is in fact smell.
How about mild lemon/orange recipes but surround the serving with grapefruit scent?
Worth a try on a glass of pink lemonade to start.
Also, Bergamot reminds me of the missing bitter note in grapefruit, is that going to have furanocoumarin too?
Good idea but the question of finding a good grapefruit scent remains. As for Bergamot, turns out bergamottin was one of the first furanocoumarins they found. And guess where they first found it?
in Earl Gray? Real grapefruit essential oil would be allowed as a scent.
Again, real grapefruit is the thing he needs to avoid. I don't know how much furanocoumarin would be in a drop of grapefruit essential oil, but there isn't a chance in the world he's willing to risk his kidney on it being non-zero.
not in, rather around the dish.
Ah, now I see. I do appreciate the creative thinking but I think it's probably not worth the effort & fear of accidental inhalation/contamination for that slight grapefruit hit.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.866748
| 2012-07-11T15:31:52 |
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|
27889
|
What is albumin?
Is there albumin in milk, really? I did not realise that until I read about it recently.
Then, how come I can drink fresh milk but not have hard-boiled egg whites?
Obviously albumin is a collective class of proteins (I believe that is what wikipedia says), so that the albumin in egg white is different from that in milk, am I right?
Is it possible that people can be sensitive to one implementation of albumin but not sensitive to another?
Is it possible for people to be lactose tolerant but intolerant to milk albumin? Could there be people who think they are lactose intolerant, but are actually milk-albumin intolerant?
Therefore, the actual question is:
Is albumin intolerance differentiable by the albumin type or implementation? Do different people have intolerance to different albumin implementations?
P.S. I am using the term "implementation" because it is Java speak, and do not have the expertise to know a better or actual term to use.
I typically see the term 'variant' or just 'type' rather than 'implementation' when people talk about A1 vs. A2 beta-casein in milk. (occassionaly they talk of 'mutation', but that's generally in the cows vs. what they're producing).
I think this question would be more suited for Biology beta, but since it's here, I'll try to keep the answer as lay as possible.
Albumin, like you read on Wikipedia, is a large group of proteins, which are present in all kinds of organisms, including your own blood. (Actually, albumin in your blood has a very important function - it binds small molecules, such as ions or medicines, making them harmless to the body.) Albumin from one organism is not just one kind of polypeptide, each species produces many kinds of albumins. Therefore, albumins are present in your blood, in egg-white and in milk, but they are somewhat different proteins.
About lactose and albumin intolerance. There are two kinds of resposne - intolerance and allergy. Intolerance baisically means, that your body lacks mechanisms to break down a certain particle (e.g. humans are all celulose-intolerant), so eating intolerable food usually doesn't hurt more than some belly pains or a day of diarrhea. Generally, all proteins can be digested, but not all carbohydrates, so it's common to be lactose-intolerant but have an allergy towards egg-white.
Allergy on the other hand means, that your body is trying to "kill" the intruder, even if it's as harmless as a molecule of foreign albumin. Every molecule that triggers this immunologic response has haptens. These are in fact small parts of the molecule, that are "visible" from the outside. Since all organisms produce different kinds of albumins, the haptens of those albumins are different. That's why albumins from one organism may trigger allergic response and from other are tolerated.
Now, given all this basic information:
yes, people can be sensitive to one implementation of albumin but not sensitive to another;
yes, people may be lactose tolerant but intolerant to milk albumin, though "tolerance" is probably not the right word here;
and yes, there might be people who think they are lactose intolerant, but are actually milk-albumin intolerant, but it's not very likely.
You can be tolerant to lactose but have a sensitivity or intolerance to milk albumin. My son is not lactose intolerant, but he does have a severe sensitivity to milk proteins (whey, casein and albumin) so we just avoid dairy all together.
How does his milk sensitivity relate to eggs? Can he tolerate egg albumin?
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.867355
| 2012-10-19T08:07:44 |
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|
44417
|
Eating mangoes with skin intact
I grew up in a family where we had mangoes with the skin intact in fruit salad.
After I got married, I was exposed to the "fact" that "nobody" eats the skin of mangoes.
It is true that I have never seen anyone else besides my childhood family eat mangoes, which would explain why I have no idea that you would not eat the skin of mangoes.
Perhaps, my childhood was too impoverished that we even ate the skin of mangoes. Perhaps, eating skin of mangoes is not an unusual practice, I don't know.
A reason that seems valid is that there is too much chemicals on the skin. But then we would have to say that about strawberries, peaches, apples, wouldn't we?
And what about people in India, China, Japan, Germany, Indonesia or Brazil? Do they eat mangoes with the skin?
It seems such a waste not eating the skin.
Q1. Is it unusual to eat the skin of mangoes, unusual to include mango skin in fruit salads?
Q2. Does mango skin have more chemicals than the skin of other fruits, which we have to eat with their skin intact.
A data point: The only time I have heard of eating mango skin is in recipes for Indian mango pickle.
I'd never known anyone to eat mango skin either, and then just about a week ago I saw a friend at work doing it. So you aren't totally alone :). To me, the main reason not to eat the skin is it doesn't taste good or have a pleasant texture.
I didn't realize people are the skin. I'll have to try it. Is it not bitter?
It's actually tart for green and unripe mangoes, but tastes sweet and like raw celery for red and ripened mangoes.
@Sobachatina is right. Indians often use mango skin in pickles and dry mango powder or even chutney. But When i got married my husband told me people in his state are used to eating Mango along with Skin all the time.
I'm Brazilian and no, we don't eat the mango skin. When eating it off the tree and we don't have a knife to peel it with, some people sort of bruise the mango and bite a little hole in the skin to suck the pulp out of it. It only works with certain varieties of mango and when they're ripe
It's not about chemicals on the outside of the fruit; washing the fruit well should take care of that. Whether we eat the skin of any given fruit basically boils down to whether it a) tastes good and b) has a pleasant texture. For example, some people eat the skin of the kiwi, despite it having a hairy texture that many people find unpleasant. Many people do not eat the skins of mango because it tastes bitter and has a tough, fibrous texture, but if you don't mind the texture and enjoy that taste, go ahead, enjoy :)
Note: I'm seeing sources that say if you're particularly sensitive to poison oak, you should not eat mango skins, as they contain one of the chemicals in poison oak but in a much lesser quantity, so it might cause an allergic reaction. You'll probably also break out from touching the mango skin to peel it, so take that as a warning sign. This doesn't apply to the OP, since if you've been eating them all your life you're obviously not allergic, but might apply to other people googling this question.
I can confirm, from personal experience, that one can break out in a rash consistent with poison oak after working with mango skin. This happened after I cut up an Alphonso (?Ataulfo?) mango, but never happened when I cut up Haden/Tommy Atkins mangos. I am pretty sensitive to Poison Oak, and I now leave the mango cutting to my wife.
I have a huge doubt about human allergy/sensitivity to mangoes or mango skin. I have never encountered anyone who had such allergy. There is so far only one single research on this subject, and the same "research" has been referenced by every page attempting to document the subject, all over the internet. I'm afraid it could be simply like the doctor who fraudulently attributed autism to vaccination, which then everyone virally referenced his unverified "research" until some common-sensed people decided to verify his claims.
I think its more that people are not using fruit/veggie detergent or baking soda to wipe the pesticides and whatever-cides before they ate the mango skins. Especially the ones you bought straight from the orchard. Mango skin has a layer of sticky oil that retains such chemicals well. A lady who had eaten mangoes all her life blogged that when she ate the mango with its skin intact from an orchard in FL, her lips started swell, and attributed it to the mythical presence of urushiol, she had just read. Wouldn't the "urushiol" could simply have easily merged into the cutting board too? Illogical!
@BlessedGeek I'm seeing several sources, including http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1838873 and http://dx.doi.org/10.1111%2Fj.0105-1873.2005.00454.x if you want to do research.
There is only one research. The one in Israel is referring to that one research. It could be the mango tree beetle-cide that is used on the orchard. That particular "research" needs to be repeated. People should stop the circular referencing based on one "research", even if it was done with the NIH.
The thing about the urushiol is if you spent your life in an area where there is poison ivy or oak or sumac, you will have a much higher likelihood of having a reaction to the urushiol in mango skin. It has to do with repeated exposure & development of hypersensitivity. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urushiol-induced_contact_dermatitis. Which would explain why some never see this reaction in anyone they know: because you're from a region of the World where there's not poison ivy, oak or sumac thus no chance of repeat exposure. The same is not true for exposure to the smaller amounts contained
Mango skin has an oil (natural, not an artificial pesticide) that commonly causes a reaction similar to poison oak or poison ivy. Not everyone is affected - your family probably has the good luck to be immune.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mango#Potential_for_contact_dermatitis
My personal experience with the skin on a mango is one from both sides of the fence. As a child my father would occasionally get mangoes in the summer months and my sisters and I would devour them fighting over who took the most. As I got older and started buying and cutting them myself I tried eating the skin because of how highly valued mangoes are in my family and it was just another way to get that much more mango out of each mango! Only so often do I run across a mango with a bitter skin. For the most part it’s just a bit chewier but has a bit of meat on it to give it good flavor. Eat your mango skins, it’s good for you and prevents waste of such a wonderful fruit.
I see this question a lot but what people always mistake is they think of a mango as just a mango, but there are thousands of varieties that taste different. some skins of mango hold on to fibers of the flesh and may have a different taste, others have a distinct taste on their own so it’s really the fact that the normal person in America doesn’t really know or think much of the fact that there are wildly different mangos. Across the world people have different experiences and people from other countries may have a more diverse knowledge of a common thing we have here, so eat it if you like it.
I have found some answers online.
Eating mango skin is good for you:
http://www.dirtdoctor.com/organic/garden/view_org_research/id/105/
Only eat the skin if the mango is organic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4L3FJk9LNLI
Let me repeat the comments I made to Yamikuronue's answer:
I have never encountered anyone who had such allergy.
There is so far only one single research on this subject, and the same "research" has been referenced by every page attempting to document the subject, all over the internet.
I'm afraid it could be simply like the doctor who fraudulently attributed autism to vaccination, which then everyone virally referenced his unverified "research" until some common-sensed people decided to verify his claims.
Some people prefer calling it a peel. No, it's banana peel but mango skin.
Wash the mango skin using fruit/veggie detergent or baking soda to wipe the pesticides and whatever-cides before they cutting the mango.
Especially the ones you bought straight from the orchard.
Mango skin has a layer of sticky oil that retains such chemicals well. Some people are hyper-sensitive to the pesticides and chemicals retained on the mango skin.
A lady who had eaten mangoes all her life blogged that when she ate the mango with its skin intact from an orchard in FL, her lips started swell, and attributed it to the mythical presence of urushiol, she had just read.
Wouldn't the "urushiol" could simply have easily merged into the cutting board too?
I am not saying that the presence of urushiol on mango skin is not a possibility. I am saying there is only one single "research" which so far has not been verified by any other, and therefore the presence of urushiol on mango skin should be considered mythical, or otherwise anecdotal.
How is it possible that of so many people around me who are sensitive to poison ivy, there is not a single incidence of sensitivity to touching mango skin ???
How is it possible that people could eat mangoes and that the urushiol could not have slipped and absorbed into the flesh, while slicing the mango ???
Cynthia, your statement "I have never encountered anyone who had such allergy." is not proof such allergies do not exist. I've never encountered a Nile Crocodile but I'm almost certain, they exist.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.867763
| 2014-05-26T07:24:18 |
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|
37795
|
Goat cheese royale definition?
I have come across a few recipes that envolve a mix of goat cheese, cream and other hard cheeses. They're called 'royale' for some reason. Can anyone define the term 'royale' in this context.
What makes a royale and if you use any other soft cheese aside from goat, is it still called a royale?
Can you give an example or pointer? This does not match the only two culinary definitions of this term that I am able to find.
http://www.thestaffcanteen.com/image/goats-cheese-royale-beets-celery-watercress-and-caramelised-walnuts/ here is a dish that uses the term. and one more here; http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/goatscheeseroyalandp_88196
It could be a liberal interpretation of Eierstich (Royale): http://germanfood.about.com/od/soupsandstews/r/eierstich-recipe.htm The goats cheese recipes seem to produce pudding like textures which may be similar to the texture of a proper royale.
It appears that a "cheese royale" is a fancy name for a custard made with combinations of soft cheeses, cream, eggs and seasoning. From this recipe:
Whisk together the cream and eggs and season with salt and pepper.
Fill the potatoes with the custard mix and sprinkle chives on top.
As for using other cheeses, I really don't see why not, or why it would be called something different. I would be curious to try it with a sharper cheese for a stronger taste, perhaps make a Spanish/Mexican version (kind of like cheese salsa) or with some finely minced onion and garlic. Use your imagination!
From looking on Google Images for "goat cheese royale" it appears it is most often used in two ways:
As filling for something like potatoes:
As topping for burgers and such:
I looked without the "goat" but all I got was pictures of cheese burgers and references from Pulp Fiction!
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.868463
| 2013-10-21T14:04:20 |
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|
36687
|
Name of an Indian dish with stuffed whole potatoes
I had a lovely Indian meal which I would like to find the name of. There were small whole potatoes with a little hole cut into them and filled with spices and (I think) some lamb mince. They were served in a spicy tomato sauce. Any idea what this dish is, or how I could figure out how to make it?
Welcome to Seasoned Advice! This is a great question - I've just tweaked it slightly to remove the explicit recipe request. We try to avoid those, because they usually turn into popularity contests with everyone posting their favorite recipe. I'm sure people will still provide examples if they have them though!
@Carla Dolfing: Check whether its Potato Cutlet???
I think what you are referring to is the Kashmiri Dum Aloo, it's a vegetarian dish where potatoes are stuffed with a mix of paneer (cottage cheese) & cashew, and then cooked in a thick gravy. It's best enjoyed with any kind of Indian bread like roti, naan, paratha, etc.
The Indian term for potato is aloo. I have seen this called stuffed aloo in the indian places around Oslo.
From what I understand, it has many variants, however most seem to involve hollowing out a potato, and adding a lamb mince curry sauce to the hole.
Is Bharawan Aloo perhaps what you had in mind? The recipe I found doesn't contain lamb, but I would imagine a dish like that probably comes in many variations.
Bharawan Aloo
Arent you referring to Dum aloo,look below the picture comment it if the dish is which you searching for,
Aloo gujiya may be the dish you have in mind.Gujiyas have many categories like sweet gujiya having coconut and sugar as filling,veg gujjiya with green peas carrots and beetroot spicy fillings ,aloo gujiya with predominantly whole potato made spicy with pepper and chillies as a filling. Chicken gujiya, meat gujiya are also there.Made in a semicircular shape sealing the open ends after filling is done.
potatoes are mostly used with meat in stews in Indian cuisine it must me Dum Aloo it doesn't contain any meat though.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.868645
| 2013-09-10T18:40:25 |
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29170
|
Do I need to boil kidneys?
I was just speaking to someone in the sci-fi chat today when the subject of kidneys came up:
Kidneys aren't "bad" in that they have the consistency and taste of muscle/meat... but they're very bitter even after having been prepared. I think you're supposed to boil them.
I've never had boiled kidneys before, nor do I intend to. But the poster of that comment also mentioned that I should Think about what's in kidneys for a moment.
So here I am to ask, should I be boiling them to get rid of their previous contents or are they safe to fry etc?
ps: Shouldn't the posted question be titled as something other than "my kidneys" as if it's your own remains being cooked?
@zanlok I understood that so, But some of the urine is still in the kidneys before reaching the urethers. And that makes kidneys have a huge urine smelling.
It's perfectly safe to eat kidneys unwashed. But almost nobody enjoys smelling ammonia, urea or nitrogenous wastes in general when eating food.
You can boil them to remove that taste.
But a better alternative is to leave them covered with salt in a colander (so what everybody thinks there's in kidneys for a moment will fall off). Leave there for about two hours, and then rinse them with water with vinegar.
Source: I asked a nephrologyst who prepares one of the best Riñones al Jerez (in English kidneys in Sherry) I've ever tasted.
And here I thought you had to put them in pie together with steak....
@SAJ14SAJ Yeah steak and kidney pie or pudding, can't beat it!
Well, Riñones al Jerez is a typical dish where I am from. I've also eaten just fried when I was a kid (with liver: supposedly for being healthy). I'm sure there are many tasty recipes for kidneys.
You don't need to boil them.
Skin them, split them lengthways without separating them in two halves and remove the cores. Soak in cold water for 5 or 10 mins.
Fry, grill or sauté them or braise/steam them with Steak in a pie or suet pudding.
Just to add, it's sheep's kidneys that generally get used.
Why the soaking?
@Pureferret You should generally soak most offal (liver, kidneys etc.) in water or milk before cooking to remove some of the strong flavour from them.
I've seen recipes calling for pork, beef, lamb or poultry kidneys, besides sheep ones. It depends on the recipe (or on what you can get, I guess). I really don't know why ones would be preferred ver others (except that poultry ones fit whole in your mouth).
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.868835
| 2012-12-14T20:47:23 |
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|
29341
|
How to make/preserve popcorn so that its taste and texture doesn't deteriorate within a day or two?
I really love popcorn and usually pop it on the stove and eat it right away. However I'd like to make it ahead to save for snacks at work. I tried this once before and the kernels got a bit stale tasting, not very crisp. Are there any techniques for making popcorn that can hold up for a day or two, and how long would it last?
Air, moisture, and time are not friends to popcorn once it is popped.
If you own a vacuum packing tool that supports jars, you might try putting it in a jar under vacuum. If you try to do it in a bag, the popcorn will certainly be crushed :-)
Unless you coat the popcorn (with caramel, etc), I know of no way, other than SAJ's vacuuming idea, which is quite a good one, imo.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.869078
| 2012-12-20T13:10:04 |
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|
67726
|
Temperature range for seasoning a carbon steel pan
I have this pan, but the seasoning that I created with flaxseed oven method is very brittle and flakes off easily into my food. I have not been using anything acidic in the pan, so I think I just need to start from scratch.
Most information on seasoning is geared towards cast iron. I want to know what temperatures can I use with the carbon steel pan without it warping. Can I strip the old seasoning with a self-cleaning cycle or is that too hot? What temperature should I use during the reseasoning?
Hi, all of your questions are duplicates. We also have http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/13555/what-oil-is-best-for-seasoning-a-cast-iron-skillet and http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/641/whats-the-best-way-to-season-a-cast-iron-skillet to answer your points 2 and 3, and you can look through the rest of the tag as well. Carbon steel and cast iron use the same process.
@rumtscho Is the process for carbon steel the same as cast iron? The answer here seems to disagree with that statement.
@Catija I have never known of any differences, and can't think of a reason for them to exist. But see also http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/56998, one says there is no difference and the other suggests a method which is typically used for iron too.
@rumtscho I don't have any personal knowledge of either process. All of my pans are stainless or non-stick, so I've never seasoned a pan in my life... I was mostly curious because it seemed like your comment and the answer disagreed.
I think they have a bit of a difference at how easy they are to season properly, but the methods are the same, you just have to be persistent until you have learned to do it right. We have a number of questions specifically about carbon steel too, and this answer is the first I've seen to suggest that a method cannot be applied to both.
Ah, I found another one about CS specifically. Answers there seem to be the same http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/60037/carbon-steel-seasoning
@rumtscho I've spend some time with those questions before posting. Respectfully, I think cast iron is much more robust that carbon steel. I have warped a CS pan, and I have never done that to cast iron. Moreover, none of the other answers seem to give exact CS temperatures, which is what I am after.
OK, I see what you have in mind. The choice of oil still seems to be a duplicate, but the temperature is probably worth its own question. Although the existing questions already give hints for the temperature: http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/54642 says 500 (F?), http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/24520 "until the oil smokes". You can further fine tune my edit, of course, it's your question.
This probably won't help much, but I season all my pans (cast iron, steel, carbon steel and ceramic) pretty much the same way. Heat on the low end of high heat until a drop of water bounces when applied to the pan's surface. Remove from heat. Use a pastry brush to brush all parts of the pan interior with oil that has a high smoke level (I use grapeseed or avocado). Heat until any little droplets of oil skitter across the pan when disturbed. Remove from heat. Polish the interior with paper towel or a microfiber cloth, oil and all. Allow to sit open until any wet-looking gleam dulls/dries.
For Carbon Steel seasoning I would rather use a gas burner until all of the cooking surface has changed color. Then apply a high oleic oil either pour directly or using a rag/paper towel before allowing to cool. This process could be repeated if desired.
If you need specific answers to the question you raised, it would be better directed to the vendor or manufacturer.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.869199
| 2016-03-24T19:01:40 |
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|
65640
|
Non-flaky non-crumble pie crust
For some reason everone seems to love the standard pie crusts and want to get it either flaky or crumbly.
For me, both are equivalent to "dry and floury, and give me the same shills down my spine as nails on a black board".
Thus, I've rarely eaten any pie crust that I like, and neither know what to search for or how to proceed.
I could pretty much go with any kind of crust; chewy like flapjacks, hard like thin crispbread, or soft without being crumbly.
Are any of the above choices actually used, and if so, in sweet or savory pies?
And in that case, what are they called?
Crumbly definitely sounds reasonable to describe as dry and floury, but that's an odd way to describe flaky - I do wonder if the flaky crusts you've had were good flaky crusts or if they'd dried out or something. Good question either way, though!
Making bad pastry is easy - let your lard/shortening melt and stir it into the flour until it completely homogenizes. Add some warm water, knead it to death, roll it out, make your pie, enjoy (if you can).
This is a comment to all replies below: Thank you for all suggestions! I realize I'll have to try them out until I actually can give any feedback, and by the sheer numbers, it seems it will take a few months...
I know I've worked with both flaky pie crusts, for pot pies, and less flaky crusts for hand pies, like pastys. It comes down to a different water/flour/shortening ratio. I'll post back with which ratios get which results when I get a chance to check.
Normally, pies are done with pie crusts, and they do have the crust types you describe.
But you can certainly add pie filling to some other type of crust and enjoy the result, if that's what you prefer. Typical doughs used for crusts would be:
millefeuille dough is the most common variant, sometimes also seen as direct substitution for people who don't want to spend the time making a pie crust.
different types of cracker crust. If yours is not moist enough, try adding a fruit puree - my mother has the greatest no-bake cheesecake recipe with pumpkin puree in the crust. I've only encountered them in sweet applications, but if you choose a salty cracker or even a blandish cookie with a bit of sweetness, you'll probably be able to make a good savory crust too
a very thin yeast dough can also give you surprisingly good results, this moves into the direction of deep pizza for savory pies
I have also had a wet chemically leavened batter in some cases (pot pie) which worked well. You cannot clothe a pan with it, you put a layer on the bottom, then the filling, and then a layer on top.
in countries where there is no formal difference between "cake" and "pie", I've eaten things similar to a fruit pie or a cheesecake, layered on a very thin (0.5 - 0.8cm) sponge cake layer or genoise.
Terrines are also "clothed" in dough. It is less crumbly than a shortbread crust, and together with the "weepy" filling, they are not dry at all.
Take a look at closed pastries from Eastern European origin, especially pierogi (Polish style is probably better than Russian) and kulebyaki
You can also forget the pie shape and look into baniza/börek/strudel type pastries. But be sure to use sufficient fat on them, or your dough will again feel very dry.
And then, you can always be creative and make up something on your own. For example, an overly broad crepe or American style pancake (use a broad paella pan on a sufficiently wide burner) for clothing a tin for a no-bake pie. Or make a strata instead of a pie, which uses bread slices. In the end, you can combine practically any dough with a filling, just be creative and see where it takes it.
Fruit pies based on a "Biskuitboden" ( =/= biscuit ! This is a simple spongecake baked in what seems to be called a Maryann pan in english-speaking countries...) would be a german classic.
@rackandboneman I did think of this when I wrote that bullet point. The version I've most commonly seen (simplest Erdbeerkuchen, for example) uses a rather thick sponge layer, more similar to a cake, but there are thinner variations. It is of course hard to define a border between "pie" and "cake" in this case. Also, who cares what thickness it is, if the OP likes it!
Another possibility is the sort of dough used for Hungarian apple pie: flour, baking powder, sugar, butter, but also egg yolks and sour cream, lightly kneaded together (so no "cut the butter into the flour" flakiness here). Granted, Hungarian apple pie (almás lepény) is not usually round, and the ratio of dough to filling is much higher than an American-style apple pie, but that doesn't mean you can't steal some ideas from it. :)
@Marti looks good enough to be an answer of its own!
@rumtscho: I thought of that, but I think a good answer should list all the various possibilities, and you've already listed most of them (including some that I wouldn't have thought of).
@Marti It should definitely be in an answer one way or another so that it's visible, so I'd still suggest posting one of your own (partial answers are still useful). If you really really don't want to do that, I suppose editing it into rumtscho's answer would be okay too (if she's cool with it).
@Jefromi: OK, OK, you've convinced me. Happy now? :)
What you are looking for is typically considered a kitchen mistake:
Overkneading.
Not-so gentle handling of the dough and some kneading plus a bit more eggs or a dash of milk will add density.
There is actually one special use case where bakers go for that more elastic and less crumbly dough: Cornish Pasties
Straight from the Cornish Pasty Association, comes this recipe.
As others have mentioned, for savory pastries, there are various types of crusts that are meant to be held in the hand, and are thus not likely to be either flaky or crumbly. Examples are pasties, calzones, or even pizza.
For sweet pastries, you could look into the sort of pastry used for, e.g. Hungarian-style apple pie (almás lepény).
Granted, this isn't what most English-speakers think of when they hear "pie", but there's no reason you can't, uh, "borrow" some ideas from it.
The pastry is made with the usual flour, baking powder, butter, and sugar, but also eggs (either whole or just the yolks) and sour cream, and the whole thing is lightly kneaded together - there's no cutting the butter into the flour1, so you're not likely to end up with anything flaky. And since sour cream makes everything better2, the pastry will be moist and tender, not dry and crumbly. Here's one English-language recipe and instructions, and there are many others out there. (Though if you find one that calls for milk instead of sour cream, run far, far away.)
1 Well, OK, so some recipes do overcomplicate matters, using cold butter and a pastry blender and whatnot, but it's really not necessary.
2 Really, it does. I know this honor is usually accorded to bacon, but I ask you, would bacon really improve a nice sour cherry pie? I thought not. Whereas sour cream can really do anything - use it in place of whipped cream in a pinch, slather it over your chicken paprikás, use it in both sweet and savory pastry doughs... but I digress.
The non-flaky, non-crumbly crust is hot water pastry. This king of pastry is used extensively in Scotland both for savoury pies like Scotch (mutton) pies or for sweet pies like rhubarb. It is a lard-based crust.
You should be able to get a recipe by searching for "scotch pie recipe"
I don't know if there's a particular name for the crust, but most hand pies would have something closer to what you're looking for. They have to be a bit more elastic, as they need to hold up to being stretched over the pie without the support of a pie pan.
You can find things by searching for 'hand pie crust' or 'pocket pie crust' on the internet, as Americans don't have a specific name for them (maybe 'turnover' when they're filled with fruit), but they also go by pasty, empanada, calzone, stromboli, etc.
If a firm, finely textured, somewhat cookie-ish texture is acceptable (compare hand-sized, storebought mince pies), try hot water shortcrust. Just do not overbake it or make it too thick, it can turn hard as hardtack that way.
I make my pie crust by following my basic biscuit recipe minus any baking soda or powder. It makes a beautiful flaky crust.
I can't tell from your question if that's what you are looking for or looking to avoid, but that's what I do.
My mother's pies featured a pastry that was thicker than usual, had some heft to it and was definitely not flaky. She used a normal recipe but always used room temperature shortening and water and always over worked the dough. I loved it.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:55.869516
| 2016-01-20T13:08:49 |
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35986
|
What can be done with Norwegian brown cheese Brunost other than a sandwich?
Some years ago I tried Norwegian brown cheese Brunost. I am aware that technically it is not cheese and it is brown and very sweet due to caramelized milk sugar.
I was wondering - is there any other use of this cheese other than a sandwich with some butter and possibly jam/marmalade?
Congratulations, you seem to have found a good use case for our disputed culinary-uses tag! Normally we would close such a question if the ingredient is unknown to the asker, but recipes abound in its home cuisine (especially when there are translations freely available). I checked this and it seems that not even the Norwegians have much recipes with Brunost.
Dunno if I've ever met brunost, but my standard answer to "how do you eat gjetost?" is "with a knife, thank you". (Similar to "what do you like to eat Nutella with?" "A spoon.")
Based on the wikipedia entry, it might make a good fire starter. (re: a truckload of it burning for 5 days)
Brunost is often used in Norwegian cooking, especially in brown sauces.
E.g. like this.
I have personly used brunost for such a recipe, and it does add a very nice flavor to the sauce.
Here is a link to several recepies using brunost, from Tine the biggest maker of brunost in Norway)
Hope this helps,
Best wishes from Norway!
I usually eat it with my (homemade) hamburgers - I use it instead of cheddar cheese. Also, I've seen Swedes eat it on rye crispbread (Knäckebröd).
Never tried it with jam! I am experimenting making homemade brunost with walnuts in it... Maybe next time I will try adding pistachios. Bon apetit! Be creative and share the results :)
I make a pizza with it!
ingredients:
fig spread
mozzarella cheese, shredded
gjetost, shredded
pancetta (diced, or thin slices)
scallions (chopped)
directions:
Spread a thin layer of fig spread on pizza crust
sprinkle with mozzarella and gjetost (2:1 ratio, or to taste)
pancetta goes on next
top with scallions
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.870289
| 2013-08-12T22:27:47 |
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36948
|
Why does Mexican food taste dissonant with balsamic vinegar?
I assayed an attempt at hot sauce the other day by cooking 3 pounds of peppers (jalapeno and hungarian wax) in olive oil and balsamic vinegar for about three hours, then throwing them in a blender. The result is thick in consistency and tastes like very mild balsamic vinegar with added heat (as you might expect). It's not super hot, and the bitter "cooked-pepper" taste has all but vanished.
The original plan was to use it for tacos, but now that I've finished, the flavor just doesn't seem appropriate for use in Mexican food.
What are the flavor bases of Mexican/Tex-Mex cuisine, and why do they seem so dissonant when paired with balsamic vinegar?
As a follow-up, are there such things as known consonant flavor-pairs (bell peppers and onions?), and if so, does balsamic vinegar have any?
For reference, when I say "known", I mean widely accepted and agreed upon among the professional (or at least experienced) cooking community.
Updated in an attempt to make it less subjective.
The follow-up has already been asked and answered.
Hello DruidGreeneys, and welcome to Seasoned advice! We appreciate very much that you took the time to correct your question according to our guidelines. So I am reopening it now. I also edited your title to make it more clear that you have focused the question to be less broad.
My guess would be cumin. Try mixing some with balsamic and olive oil, and putting it on a salad.
Light vinegar with chili, cumin or even cilantro is a known combination, so are dark flavourful vinegars with chili heat - but you probably do not expect mexican food to taste like a vindaloo or a szichuan dish :)
This is the same question, in essence as why any of these combinations are dissonant or unexpected:
Marina sauce on soba noodles
Cheese on Chinese stir fry
Haggis jambalaya
Every cuisine is a part of a culture, and there are cultural expectations for what is normal or not normal.
A deeper question would be how and why such cultural expectations develop.
Note that this is a speculation, but an informed anthropological speculation:
Every cuisine is associated with a geographic region, where certain agricultural products are prominent. The people in the area, quite naturally, learned to cook with the resources they had available. So it would be odd for a mountainous culture like Tibetans to have seafood dishes, just as it would be odd for the inhabitants of modern day Shanghai to have Yakk milk dishes.
Over time, the culture adapts and finds flavor combinations and techniques that are applicable to its resources (stir frying in china, for minimal fuel use, for example). These traditions form the backbone of the cuisine, and are how we recognize what is or is not part of that cuisine.
This allows us to make an educated guess as to why balsamic vingegar seems odd in Mexican food.
Mexico has not historically been a land of the grape, so they do not have a wine making or vinegar making tradition. Therefore, a product like balsamic vinegar is not a part of their tradition.
Balsamic is also well identified with the part of Italy now called Modena, where it would have evolved because grapes were available, and there was a wine making industry already.
Putting the two together confounds cultural expectations.
Nonetheless, there are many chef's who enjoy and practice combining foods and technique across cultural and cuisine boundaries, and thus we have the modern practice of fusion cuisine.
I would imagine that the sweetness of balsamic vinegar might seem out of place in traditional Mexican fare, which in my experience, is seldom sweet. (Well, except for dessert, of course).
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.870490
| 2013-09-19T17:19:20 |
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|
37405
|
What are sugar-free sweets actually made from?
I was eating a sugar-free "Polo mint" the other day and the question popped into my mind "So, if this isn't sugar.... what is it??"
I understand they use an artificial sweetener (Sorbitol), and Magnesium Stearate as a lubricant, but these don't explain what is the BULK of the sweet actually made from?
A Google session came up with a lot of people asking this question (about sugar free sweets in general) but no solid (!) answers.
It appears that he main ingredients of sugar free Polo Mints are:
Sorbitol - a non-sugar (technically a sugar alcohol) sweetener with less calories per gram than sucrose, about 2.6 kilo-calories per gram compared to sugar's 3.9. E420 in Europe.
Magnesium stearate - this appears to not be metabolizable. E470b in Europe.
Mint oils
I did a quick check of UK labeling laws, and it appears all ingredients must be listed.
So the answer is: the sugar substitute itself, sorbitol provides some of the bulk of the candy, with most of the rest being the magnesium stearate.
I got similar information to yourself - however i get the impression that the Magnesium Stearate is not there to provide bulk, as the Wikipedia article states: "Magnesium stearate is often used as a anti-adherent[3] in the manufacture of medical tablets, capsules and powders.[4] In this regard, the substance is also useful, because it has lubricating properties, preventing ingredients from sticking to manufacturing equipment during the compression of chemical powders into solid tablets; magnesium stearate is the most commonly used lubricant for tablets."
I didn't run nutritional analysis numbers, but since the only calorific ingredient in them is the sorbitol, you could get a rough estimate. It is likely to be the main ingredient by volume. However, UK labeling, like US labelling, only requires that ingredients be listed in decreasing order of weight, so an absolute ratio was not available easily. Note that normal hard candy is essentially just sugar; there is little reason to suspect these sugar free ones are not primarily sorbitol.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:55.870766
| 2013-10-07T14:48:01 |
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|
38054
|
How do cooking utensils remain safe for use?
Say I were to be cooking chicken in a pan, and I'm using tongs to flip the chicken periodically. By the time the chicken is done, how can it still be safe to use the tongs I started with to handle the chicken? Obviously it's come into contact with raw chicken, so why would I want to handle my food with it. Should I be switching utensils or washing them mid cook?
Good question. I usually leave the tongs in the pan so they'll be "cooked" too until the exterior of the food has been cooked enough to be safe.
Better to be safe than gamble on possible or degree of contamination. Wash the tongs after using them on raw meat.
There are several aspects to this:
first, consider the meat. Chicken from the supermarket, ground beef, or a piece of steak? Chicken is more likely to be contaminated - I treat anything that has touched raw chicken as contaminated and do not reuse it. A steak I am a little less worried about, partly because I like my steaks well seared on the outside so they are hotter on the outside towards the end of cooking than other meats.
second, do you have to use tongs to put it in the pan? I often use my hands and then wash them, and only start using the tongs once I'm dealing with hot (cooked on the outside) meat. Same for burgers: I don't put them in the pan with the flipper, it gets involved when they're ready to turn for the first time
third, consider that if some bacteria did get onto the tongs, after 10 or so minutes on the counter while the meat cooks, that bacteria would not have grown considerably, not all of it would then get on the meat when you reused the tongs, of those that did reach the meat, some would be killed in the remainder of the cook time or just from contact with the hot meat surface, and after 5 or 10 minutes of resting whatever remained would not have a significant growth. Compare to picking up yesterday's raw-chicken tongs from the counter where they've sat for 23 hours and using them to handle today's rare steak. That would be nasty.
My rule is to minimize reuse of utensils, but I don't have 10 pairs of tongs and someone to wash them for me, so for some meals it happens, and as long as it's not chicken, I don't worry about it.
The simple answer is that they don't remain safe: this is a risk factor for cross contamination.
It is not appropriate to use, for example, the same tongs to put raw chicken on the grill as to flip that chicken later.
In practice, the risk may be low, because even if the utensil is contaminated, the main food is at temperature and renders it safe within seconds. Also, the volume of food on the utensils is small, and the length of time is short, so there is not a huge risk.
Still, it is best to remove fully cooked food which will not stay at safe temperatures with fresh, clean utensils.
Can you quote something more scientific on "It is not appropriate to use, for example, the same tongs to put raw chicken on the grill as to flip that chicken later.", or explain your reasonings? It's progressive transferal, the tong get "contaminated" with cooked meat juices over time. That's how most of the worlds population cooks meat, have you ever been to a BBQ?
+1 Temperature is much much more effective at killing bacteria and parasites than soap which does not actually kill anything, but merely helps to wash most of the contaminants down the drain; you cannot sterilize with soap. So, leave them in the pan like @CareyGregory suggested.
In professional kitchens you aren't supposed to handle the same piece of meat once it has been cooked with the same tongs. Though in practice this very rarely happens. Some kitchens even have colour coded boards and utensils so that people know which ones to use. Red = uncooked meat, yellow = cooked meat and blue = fish. Again though if the boards of the right colour were not available for use most chefs will just use the nearest one rather than wash the right one.
While I don't find any specific references to utensils (other than to cutting boards) in most of the industry documentation, this is a well understood risk and I guarantee any health inspector would flag a restaurant for doing it, at least in the US. See for example: http://www.health.qld.gov.au/foodsafety/documents/fs-12-cross-con.pdf http://tle.tafevc.com.au/toolbox/file/24bdaba0-9c59-5aa9-6b19-1445dd49df96/1/food_spoilage_contamination.zip/page_04.htm deom two different countries. Downvote all you want, this is still true.
@TFD the tongs would also contaminate the cooked meat with uncooked meat juices over time. Just because something is commonly done doesn't make it safe. Tons of people eat raw cookie dough, but that doesn't mean it's risk free.
@SAJ14SAJ It's a myth, just like double dipping. A simple test will show how none or extremely small amounts of contamination survive on tongs with repeated use on a hot grill. The issue with contamination is not just contamination, but contamination + temp + time. A splash of contaminated chicken juices into a salad that sits around for a few hours before being used is very dangerous. Raw chicken juice left on a pair of tongs on a hot grill on a piece of properly cooked chicken about to be served in a few minutes is not going to allow the bacteria to multiply to dangerous levels
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.870967
| 2013-11-01T00:39:09 |
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40361
|
Turkish Coffee necessities
I was in Turkey this summer and I drank Turkish Coffee every day, I like it very much. I had some conversations with the coffee house owners and I tried to learn how to do it best, how to grind coffee, how to make it and even how to serve it. I really enjoyed the traditional methods that they used so I came to home, Florida, and now searching to find the all necessities for making and serving Turkish Coffee. Does anyone knows about where can I buy and any details about Turkish Coffee?
You will need to have a Turkish coffee pot, a spoon, sugar and coffee that has been ground to a fine powder. Although most people use the Arabica beans, it really doesn't matter what kind of coffee you use. However, it should be a medium roast, because you will actually roast it again while making it. You can get the Turkish coffee in several different ways:
A. Purchase a special Turkish Grinder (regular electric grinders with blades spinning at a high speed will NOT do the job) and grind the coffee yourself. We do have these available at our store if you are interested.
B. Grind it at your local grocery store! Yes, that's right. You may not have noticed, but most grinders (99.9%) at your local grocery store in the U.S. have a Turkish coffee setting! Just select the "Turkish Coffee" setting and grind your beans.
C. Buy it ready made from Turkish Coffee World. We sell it in our store but you can also find it at most Mediterranean stores if you live in a big city.
Preparation
Measure the amount of cold water you will need.
Place your pot of water on the stove and turn the heat to medium-high (just until the water heats up).
Add about 1-2 heaping tea spoons (or 1 tablespoon) of coffee per demitasse cup (3 oz). Do not stir it yet. Just let the coffee "float" on the surface because if you stir it now you might cause it to clump up.
Add sugar to taste. Do not stir it yet, Let the water warm up little bit as above.
When the coffee starts to sink into the water and the water is warm enough to dissolve your sugar, stir it several times and then turn down the heat to low. You should stir it several times, up until it your brew starts to foam (you can also vigorously move your spoon side to side to encourage to start the foaming).
When you see the bubble "ring" forming on the surface, turn down the heat a little bit more or move your pot away from the heat source. Pay attention to the bubbles that are forming at this stage. Bubbles should be very small in size.
From this point on watch your coffee carefully. Do not let the temperature get hot enough to start boiling. (NEVER LET IT BOIL - many instructions on how to make Turkish coffee use the term "boiling" but this is totally inaccurate) The key idea here is to let the coffee build a thick froth and that occurs approximately around 158 F or 70 C (i.e., much cooler than the boiling point of water which is 212 F or 100 C at standard pressure. If your brew comes to a boil, you will not have any foam because it will simply evaporate!).
Keep it at the "foaming" stage as long as you can without letting it come to a boil. You might even gently stir your brew a little bit at this stage. The more froth, the better it will taste. Also your coffee must be fresh or it will not foam as well. If your brew gets too hot and begins to "rise", then move it away from the heat or just turn it down. You are almost done. Repeat this process until your foam has "raised" and "cooled" at the most couple of times (NOT 3-4 times like some instructions. Even once is enough). Then pour in to your cups (quickly at first to get out the foam, then slowly) while making sure that each cup has equal amount of foam! If you are serving several cups then you might be better off spooning the foam into each cup.
Well, all you really need to make turkish coffee is the pot (ibrik or cezve), coffee, sugar, and water. The coffee should be very finely ground and is usually spiced.
Most Middle Eastern grocery stores will carry Turkish coffee, but sometimes it is also called Arabic coffee or Greek coffee. The only difference I've noticed was that, at least in the brands I bought, the Turkish was spiced with cardamom, the Greek with cinnamon, and the Arabic didn't have any noticeable seasoning. If you want to add the spices yourself, most coffee shops that sell whole beans should be able to grind coffee to a Turkish grind for you.
As for the coffee pot, your best bet would be either the Middle Eastern grocery stores again, or to look online.
Well, first you need the coffee Turkish Coffee on Amazon. Then you need the pot Turkish Coffee Pots on Amazon. Ideally, you might want to serve the coffee in traditional cups Turkish Coffee Cups on Amazon. If you want to grind your own, a Turkish grinder might be of use Turkish Coffee Grinder on Amazon. Finally, more info might help: Coffee Geek article, Turkish Coffee World article
From the Coffee Geek article: "
It's also surprisingly easy to do. Your biggest expense is a good grinder - a decent electric burr grinder that can grind extra fine (finer than espresso even) is needed; alternatively, there are "turkish mills" around, including an excellent model by Zassenhaus can be had, sometimes for much less.
Besides the grinder, you need good quality water, good quality, fresh roasted coffee, a stirring spoon made of metal, and a device called an ibrik also called a cezve. This is the brewer. It is usually made of copper, with a long wooden handle, though sometimes it is made out of steel or other metals. The pot has a wide base and a narrow top, with a spout on one or two sides for pouring. Ibriks can be found in a variety of sizes from 2 cup on up to 6 or 8 cups. Note, a "cup" is the size of a large espresso cup - about 3ounces, or 90mls per serving, or less.
And it's important to note the "cup size" of the pot is not matched to how much is brewed if full - in fact, there needs to be a good amount of airspace in the pot while brewing, but not too much. The process involves foaming up the liquid in stages, and if you use a pot that's too big, too much of the foam sticks to the sides and can contribute to many bitters in the cup.
Oh, and you need a heat source. For our visuals, we're using a butane powered heating element - very suited for brewing an ibrik, though an electric or gas stove will do fine as well.
When done right, (and it's not hard to do right), the coffee is very intense, but very pleasing to the tongue. It also breaks one of the cardinal rules we usually have for coffee - don't boil (and reboil) the brew. But as you'll see, it's all good!
This is extremely important advice: never take your eye off the process when brewing turkish coffee. Things can happen in a blink of the eye - and you'll create a big mess on your stove if you lose attion. But it is very easy to do.
If you really want to go authentic, or want to tone down the strength and intensity of the brew, adding spices such as cardamom, anise, or a sweetener such as an easily dissolvable sugar can be added. In fact, sugar is almost considered part of the process. The famous old proverb, "Coffee should be as black as hell, as strong as death, and as sweet as love" refers to turkish coffee, and you'll note the sweet part ;)"
I will give you my cheap-o turkish coffee answer as it was taught to me by several people from Turkey. First, make sure your coffee is super-finely ground. An espresso grind would work, but even finer would be great if you have access to a grinder.
The pot is not optional.
The ratio I was taught to use is 1 tsp of sugar (preferably demerera or some other non-processed sugar) for every 2 heaping tsp of coffee and every 2 oz of water.
Put it in the ibrik (the pot), and put it on your burner. Toss in a few caradmom pods if you'd like. Bring it to a boil but DO NOT walk away and leave it unattended or it could make a mess that's nigh impossible to clean. Once it boils it will quickly rise to the top of the ibrik, remove it from the burner and wait about 1 minute. Then put it back on the burner and return to a boil. Repeat 1 more time (a total of 3 times it comes to a boil). Then pour into espresso cups.
This does several things "wrong" (like exceeding the max temp for coffee, etc) but the high volume of sugar offsets any acidity that would normally be in place for a very balanced cup.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:55.871385
| 2013-12-18T09:40:46 |
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|
40551
|
Can polenta be baked?
I've heard that good polenta can be made in the oven, without the stirring. Has anyone else heard of this? Does anyone know how to?
Rice cooker also makes excellent no-stir polenta.
The technique is very basic: stir together the all of the ingredients in a buttered baking dish, and bake in a moderate oven for about an hour, with one or two stirs near the end. The water ratio is slightly reduced from the stove top method, as there is less evaporation.
See, for example, this version from Shockingly Delicious adapting the recipe from the back of the Golden Pheasant polenta bag.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:55.872100
| 2013-12-24T12:57:03 |
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|
41738
|
Reducing spice in sauce
How do you make already prepared sauce less spicy? I must have used too many hot chili peppers or cooked them too long. Is there something to off set it from being so hot? The sauce is for General Tso's Chicken
There is no robust way to do this in the general case, other than to create second batch with no additional hot peppers (or a reduced quantity), and combine them. Of course, then you will have twice as much product.
In some cases, adding a masking agent like sour cream or cheese, which tame the effect of the spiciness may help, but those methods would be very odd with a Chinese dish.
Depending on the degree to which you have over-spiced your sauce, simply using it more sparingly may help. Traditionally, Chinese food is not swimming in sauce in any case.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:55.872200
| 2014-02-03T19:10:19 |
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