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15243
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Frying - Oil foams
I am relatively new to deep-frying. Having seen the questions about oil reuse and conservation, I'm still at a loss about what's going on with my oil...
My sunflower oil foams like crazy. I've been reusing this oil for a while now and was going to discard it, however a friend of mine told me this oil was still looking good. Relatively clean (I filter it regularly), no off smell and it doesn't smoke (in my fryer, that is). I only fry potatoes in this batch of oil to avoid flavor transfer. These are cut into French fries, chips or straw potatoes. Specially the chips and straws retain a lot of water, and I guess that has something to do with it.
Also, I noticed the frying takes longer with the foaming oil.
Edit: I've tried poaching(?) the French fries, but they foam during poaching. Then when frying, they really foam. I have to keep an eye on it or the oil spills over the top. Anything I can do about it, or should I just go ahead and discard the oil altogether?
Edit: Serious Eats has an article about frying oil.
You are right that the moisture in the potatoes are what's causing the oil to 'foam'. If you don't dry your potatoes sufficiently they can quite easily cause the oil to 'boil' explosively out of the frier; this is why you never pour water on a deep-fat pan fire.
There are various ways to dry out your chips/straws, but one of the most effective ways to is to lay them out on a tray or plate and put them, uncovered, in the fridge for a couple of hours, making sure there are no strong odours in there first. Not only will this prevent too much foaming, it will result in really crisp chips!
I'll do that. I've been keeping the potatoes in water right up until I was going to fry them. Then I'd dip them 'dry' with kitchen paper. Not dry enough, it seems.
A salad spinner works wonders drying potatoes, as does a few hours (bare) in a freezer.
Rinse in water, then wrap them in a tea towel (dish drying cloth) to dry them off. Don't use fabric softener when washing your tea towel - it reduces the water absorption!
The foaming is the moisture in your fries boiling off, with the starch in the fries making it foamier. You can solve this problem by blanching them briefly in boiling water to remove some excess starch, then pre-frying them at a much lower temperature to remove some moisture (draining off excess oil).
The pre-frying keeps the fries from getting soggy as fast (less core moisture), lets them fry faster, reduces foaming (less moisture to remove), AND (bonus) helps achieve better browning. It's one of the secret tricks that restaurants use (including the one I work for).
I wasn't aware pre-frying was a secret. I thought it was standard procedure, but mainly for the purpose of cooking the fries through (and then using the hotter oil to quickly brown and crisp the outside).
I have found this question to be one of the most difficult to get an answer to. I share your dilemma. The clue in your question, often ignored, is that you have been using your oil "for some time now". I agree it does not occur with new oil. Replacing it will clearly solve your problem but does not explain... why! The best I can offer is that the molecular structure of the oil must alter with use, perhaps combining with water. Oil is hydrophobic and works by driving water out of the food. This is observed by foaming even with new oil (but to a lesser extent). Why used oil should foam more readily and take longer to cook food remains a mystery to me, But it does! Like you, my much used oil appears clean and odorless as I never use it for frying crumbed, breaded or flour-dredged food. I am not easily persuaded that it may be harmful to use either.
http://www.seriouseats.com/2013/09/ask-the-food-lab-how-many-times-can-i-reuse-fry-oil.html
Regarding Coconut oil: I decided to give this a try in my cheapie fryer, because I had done some research into the "least foaming" oil; the longest lasting oil (for regular draining and reuse), and the supposedly healthiest oil to use anyway. What I discovered was, that Coconut oil does seem more prone to foaming, and I have had a couple of incidents of it spewing out over the top of the fryer - whether lid closed or open. I got lots of kitchen paper ready just as a precaution before I used it, but it is still a lot to clean up, as well as being potentially dangerous - firewise. While other types of oil are noted for not foaming, in my case it was usually when using frozen fries that this occurred. Having said that, I found that if I turned the fryer temperature down to 160c at the beginning, left the lid open, and let it foam if necessary for a bit - the foaming then died down, and I was able then to turn it back up to 170c (190c at the end for the "double frying" if desired.) Remember that this was when using the Coconut oil. I get the impression though, that Coconut oil (even if healthier) is not the best/safest oil to use in a fryer like mine. However, one of the reasons for the choice in the first place is that Coconut oil is supposed to be useable and reusable for a very long time, without going off or "rancid". The problem with using frozen "fries" is that the ice on them is water (albeit frozen) and I think this is why THEY are inclined to cause foaming. It might be different with different fryers/types of fryer, but there's an expirimental aspect to such an exercise. The leaving up of the lid in the first place, and the lower temperature at the start seems to work, but the Coconut oil certainly gets pretty near the rim before it settles to a safer level. Apart from these discoveries in practice, and keeping to the aforementioned experience with frozen fries, I think I will be going back to a more conventional oil in future.
Sorry folks, but I missed out a very important point regarding this story - which is, that my fryer has a minimum and maximum mark for how much oil you put in, and in order to stop my oil going "over the top" (literally) I learned to keep the amount of oil at the minimum mark - but of course not below it, as that poses a different kind of danger. Hope that helps. Vince.
I discovered after lots of experience in deep frying that after using peanut oil a few times for deep fried chicken strips or turkeys, with perfect results, the oil will begin to breakdown and start to foam. Time for new oil.
Thanks for your feedback, Splenda. I haven't had this problem in ages.
It is happening to me as we speak with brand new oil. a mix of about 60 / 40 sunflower and coconut. I figure it must be the starch causing the foam. I dried my french-cut potatoes in the salad spinner beforehand.
Maybe try a higher temperature?
I came here looking for an answer. I have been using pure olive oil for frying potato chips without any problem. It cooked well, left no unpleasant odor or taste, handled the high temperature and never foamed.
But, I had coconut oil and wanted to switch over to it so I added it to the olive oil and got a surprise. It swelled up from a couple inches of oil to over ten inches of foam.
I haven't found any information concerning the foaming of just coconut oil so it must be the mixing of these oils that caused the foaming. I believe the two oils are different enough that their molecular structure won't allow the moisture in the potatoes to purge quickly enough to prevent the retention of bubbles causing the foaming.
I mostly use Sunflower oil for frying, and I will re-use it up to five times before discarding, but only for vegetables or potatoes. The last time I use it I will generally use it for frying some meat dredged in flour because I know it will be the last time.
I only ever get foam when I fry chicken or porkchops, so I'm not sure what causes the foam. With potatoes it will bubble up, but not to the point of foam. Maybe starch?
When I am making Fries or chips, I cut the potatoes and soak them in cold water, rinsing twice to get rid of as much of the starch as I can, then drain and pat dry before dropping them in the oil.
The thing that might make a difference is that I don't use a dedicated fryer, but a 12" pan on an induction surface with oil at about a 1" depth. Temp I keep at 350F to 375F (170 to 190c) and I will fry them twice for 6 minutes with a 6 minute rest in between. It works with minimal mess for me.
Hope this helps!
To reduce and stop foaming buy a Distilling Conditioner on line which is a defoaming agent used in brewing.
Put half a teaspoon into the oil, problem solved.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.688723
| 2011-06-05T08:55:00 |
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76120
|
What is this Tibetan dessert?
Hi, does anyone know how to make this dessert? It is from Tibet originally, and can be found in a French restaurant under the name 'dolma'. (both the name of the desert and the name of the restaurant)
The white component is 'fromage blanc' (fresh cheese) with honey.
I had it years ago. The main square component was rather sweet and tasted like it was made of flour (and delicious) but not too sugary. I can't remember whether it tasted at all salty or not. No fruits or obvious vegetables inside. (no carrots)
Is Dolma the name of the dessert, or the restaurant? The picture looks like it might be a variant of Barfi (really) - http://www.asian-recipe.com/tibet/tibetan-desserts.html. BTW, I'm editing the question to avoid close votes since recipe requests aren't allowed here. Welcome, it's an interesting question.
did it taste of anything besides sweet? For example it looks like carrot barfi (carrot fudge dessert) from http://www.asian-recipe.com/tibet/tibetan-desserts.html but surely that would taste at least a little of carrot.
@KateGregory The sauce seems right with carrot barfi - think carrot cake with cream cheese frosting.
thanks for welcoming my question and for your comments. I've edited m question to add more informations. Barfi (what a terrible name though) looks like a promising direction. (It doesn't explain the color.) At this point I'm guessing maybe this is a family recipe and it isn't well-known.
That recipe is intriguing and simple enough that I might make it in the name of science. I'm not sure that it would actually *taste" of carrots. I don't think most carrot cake tastes of carrot. Plus, the color in the recipe I posted is artificial. That being the case, I wouldn't take it to mean anything.
Dolma is a very common tibetan female name, so maybe they named the dessert after someone (for example someone's grandmother who used to prepare it very good ;) ).
There were a couple outside possibilities that I saw - though its worth noting the differences in description mean that the dish you had would have to be a variation specific to that restaurant, as far as I know.
One possibility was the cream cheese burfi - it is specifically mentioned to be a tibetan dessert, and the major flavors would be cream cheese, sour cream and milk (which would blend into the fromage blanc), but it is also made with flour, salt, baking powder, and of course sugar - which might give the right flavor profile that you mentioned. It is traditionally made with nuts (almond and cashew) and also raisins, but this might be a simplified recipe to suit that particular recipe, as I mentioned.
A bit of an outside possibility, but the description for gtor-ma cakes sounded like a possibility - made with parched barley flour and butter, the flavor profile would indeed be strongly of flour and not too sweet (and the fromage blanc with honey would give the whole a sweeter taste for a dessert dish). Problem is, this cake is usually elaborately decorated as a religious sacrificial offering, mostly in cones (so perhaps not plain squares unless the restaurant was making their own very liberal interpretation of the dish).
Final possibility I saw, was Thue, a traditional dessert that best fits the appearance of the dish, but seems maybe less of a match tastewise. Thue is made with dri, a harder cheese (like parmesan or something) finely grated, brown sugar, and unsalted butter - mixed into a smooth, slightly crumbly paste and pressed into brick form. I look at the picture and think this dessert fits, even with a sprinkle of brown sugar on top, but the taste I imagine would be different from what you described, saltier (but still sweet) and rich, and not much like flour since the main component is sharper, drier cheese. Maybe the flavor profile would be closer to your description if this restaurant also mixed in barley flour, like tsampa or pa, where dri cheese is mixed with barley flour, tea, sugar and butter - but that's a snack and not a dessert.
In the end, I think a better description of what the dish tasted like would help a lot to figure out what's in it - though it can be hard to describe offhand and after the fact, I know - so I though I'd offer up these dishes because maybe one of these descriptions can jog your memory of the tastes enough to guess which it was (or worse comes to worst, make them and find out)?
You posted this almost 6 years ago but if this desert still haunts you, know that it is most certainly a Tsampa. Was this Dolma restaurant situated in Rennes FRANCE ? If so, I've been to this restaurant just 2 days ago and ordered the "Dolma Home Dessert". It looked exactly like your photo except there was less yoghurt. I asked the lady what was it made of and she said "barley and butter". I searched on the internet and I'm almost positive it is a Tsampa. In the restaurant they didn't use tea in it though. It was exquisite.
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Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.689427
| 2016-12-04T12:48:58 |
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|
83526
|
What do you call a steak separated with fork?
I stayed at a place about 20 years ago in Mexico that had this great little restaurant and they served a steak that I haven't seen replicated anywhere else. It was a fairly flat cut but the steak itself had been separated, as if by using two forks to pull it apart somewhat, during the preparation or cooking process, and then thrown back on the grill. Is anyone heard of preparing a steak like this?
Are you sure it was a steak? This is a common way to make shredded beef, but that is typically done to long cooked cuts like shoulder and brisket.
Do you mean anything like pulled pork? https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=pulled+pork
separated is perhaps the wrong word: the meat was pulled and stretched, but was still a unified whole; it was not shredded into pieces.
Shredded is the correct term...maybe ropa vieja? This dish is typically made with flank steak that is shredded with the grain of the meat. The Mexican version is cooked, shredded and then browned, usually in a pan on the stove, but back on the grill does not seem unreasonable. It is typically served in a tortilla, with condiments.
Curious. There is also a Portuguese dish called exactly "Roupa Velha" but it is generally made from leftover codfish, which is mixed with potatoes, cabbage and hard boiled eggs and then stirfried.
Shredded
To answer the title question, meat separated with a fork is typically referred to as shredded. This is usually done with slow-cooked meats like shoulder or brisket. Steak would be difficult to shred this way, and would probably shred with the grain, giving you long tough pieces. However,
Carne Asada
The dish you are describing sounds more like carne asada. This isn't normally put back on the grill after it is cut, but perhaps they were using the grill to keep the meat warm for a few extra minutes, or reheating prior to adding to burritos, tacos, etc. It is typically sliced, though. Here is a good picture:
Shredded is correct, but carne asada is not shredded.
OP said "as if by using two forks to pull it apart somewhat", but it sounds like he's not sure how it was separated. Maybe with a serrated edge that looked a bit rougher? A flat steak made in Mexico fits Carne Asada, but I'm not sure why anyone would put a steak back on the grill after cutting it.
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.689944
| 2017-08-05T17:09:59 |
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|
78323
|
Why does this sourdough recipe call for 2 and 1/3 cups starter? Isn't that too much?
The recipe at this popular site says 2 and 1/3 cups of starter and 3 and 1/3 cups of flour, along with water (1 cup). Is there a printing error? Other recipes are about tablespoons, not cups. http://www.culturesforhealth.com/learn/sourdough/how-to-make-sourdough-bread/
Not the video, recipe below the video.
That is quite a bit of sourdough starter, but not extremely so. In sourdough recipes that also include yeast in the loaf, you might see measurements of a cup or less, but a tablespoon of starter in a loaf would be pretty negligible.
The recipe here does not include yeast other than what's in the starter, so 2 and 1/3 cup is not extreme. I watched the video; there is no reason to think that the recipe is in error.
Reasons for starter-heavy doughs would be first that the starter is not particularly active, so the bread needs a larger quantity of starter (Ken Forkish, "Flour Water Salt Yeast", chapter 11); second, the taste or texture effects are desired in the resulting bread. One way to test this would be to bake two loaves, one starter heavy and one not, and compare the results.
If it causes potentially desirable taste or texture effects... what might they be?
Two primary things happen when you use large quantities of starter.
The Proof time is reduced, because you have a higher ratio of starter to recipe.
It will reduce the Tang. A really healthy Tang takes time to develop. You will often find recipes requiring a long soak in the fridge (called Retarding).
Note... Both of these answers assume all else is the same, and appropriate adjustments have already been made.
Also note... Bread Flour, and flours like that (also go under a few other names) have Baking Powder and Cream of Tarter (allergy alert... Cream of Tarter contains Sulfites)). Point being, this creates an almost magical rise, though be it artificial), and in some circumstances may hamper the development of the Sourdough, which would lessen the production of real high quality Gut Biotics.
A really outstanding book on Sourdough is "The Sourdough School" by Vanessa Kimbell. She is one of the world's leading experts in the field of Sourdough... As well as having a degree in micro gut biology amongst others accolades.
She has more than one book, but this one teaches Sourdough 101 - Sourdough 321 (at least that's how I feel about it).
Learn from it, practice it, then use your knew found knowledge to make your sourdough your way.
Good baking Y'all.
No, bread flour doesn't contain baking powder. It would be listed as an ingredient if it did, as it is on self-raising (self-rising) flour.
also note that in English, capital letters are not generally used in the middle of a sentence except for proper nouns (or if you lived 200 years ago). It makes your writing much more difficult to read, because the reader keeps slowing down at every capital letter to try to understand the significance (even though there isn't any).
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.690154
| 2017-02-11T07:55:04 |
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70783
|
When using puff pastry in the base of a savoury pie, do you need to blind bake it?
I am making a chicken pie. I've made it before with just a pastry shell on top but I'd like to line the dish with pastry this time.
Will I need to blind bake the base of my pastry first? Is it then also necessary to seal the pastry with egg?
A Google search led to Pepperidge Farm's recipe for Chicken Pot Pie. Since they are the big name in the US for puff pastry, I tend to trust them.
They recommend lining the pan with a defrosted, lightly rolled sheet of puff pastry and pricking it with a fork before blind baking covered with aluminum foil for 25 minutes at 400F (~200C). Don't use pie weights, that will interfere with the 'puff'. They don't call for any egg wash or seal, and I can say from experience with the stuff that it isn't necessary.
They fill the baked bottom layer with the chicken filling, add a lattice top of puff pastry, then bake the whole thing (on a sheet pan or cookie sheet) for 45 minutes (or until the filling is bubbly and the lattice top is brown and puffy).
Be ready to put aluminum foil along the edge if it seems to be getting too brown.
I make individual chicken pot pies using fresh puff pastry I made myself. Although it's not absolutely required, I always blind bake the crust bottoms. It makes for a more consistently crispy and flake crust too and bottom, and since I make individual pot pies, the bottom is what people see on their plate when serving.
Additionally, the blind baking assures the bottom crust will be stiff enough for the pie to pop out onto the plate, whereas not blind baking may cause the crust to stick to the pie plate a little bit making a sloppy serving of pot pie.
Do you dock it before baking? I would think that undocked blind baking puff pastry would result in so much rise that it's not really a crust anymore.
I poke it with a fork first to minimize rise, but you want it nice and flaky. Adding the filling and then baking it again with the filling pushes it back down some as well and moistens the top layer leaving a nice crispy bottom.
I blind bake the bottom. In my experience, it's the only way to get that dough to cook-- I suppose because liquid filling right next to raw dough keeps it, the dough, from reaching cooking temperature.
I have a neat trick for the pie weight-- pennies! They're made of copper so the conduct heat well, and help the blind crust cook from the top down as well. I put them in parchment paper I've prepared using Heston Blumenthal's tip: cut a large enough square, ball it up, un-ball it up, and then do this another 4 times. A the little crinkles allow the parchment to take the exact shape of the blind crust.
I usually take the weight off of my crust at the end and give it 5 minutes more minutes. Recently I have taken to applying an egg wash at this point. It makes a good seal.
I don't believe in docking or pricking. This is just my opinion, and I've never conducted a side-by-side test, but I believe it prevents the pastry from puffing during the blind bake because it lets the steam out, and it causes sogginess during the second bake because it lets the liquid in.
I don't use puff pastry though, so maybe that's the difference. I use regular "3-2-1" pie dough, 3 parts flour, 2 parts fat, 1 part liquid. Plus salt.
Welcome theredtomato - Great tip for the parchment paper!
I just baked 2 puff pastry bases. 1 just pricked with a fork the other filled with beans. The 1 I pricked with a fork totally failed. The sides of the base just fell into the center of the dish ending up with a thick flat bottom and no sides. Use beans when you blind bake
I just did a pie with no blind bake and it was fine. Cooked it a little longer, so maybe 30-40 mins in the oven. No pricking, no nothing, just put the packeted puff pastry in the base with some butter to help it not stick. It wasn't soggy or undercooked. Judging by the responses above it sounds like a blind bake is preferable, but I would say far from essential.
I made a savoury tart using bought puff pastry. I didnt blind bake the case and the base was soggy. So next time I will blind bake
No need to blind bake if you put your mixture in at room temp.
This needs more detail. Where did you learn about this? Do you have any links that verify that method?
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.690463
| 2016-06-18T08:49:41 |
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|
123294
|
Does it matter if you don't preheat the oven for frozen French fries?
Whenever I use the oven to prepare frozen French fries, the instructions tell me to pre-heat the oven to X degrees, and then put the fully frozen French fries inside when it's ready.
But it's often a waste of time to stand around and wait for it to slowly get ready, so I tend to put them in before it's shown with the light indicator that it's at the right temperature. Also, I take out the French fries from the freezer at the same time as I start the oven, and spread them out on a thing, so they are ready to go into the oven. Maybe this make them thaw a little bit.
Since the times specified on the package never seem to be accurate at all, it doesn't seem like it matters. But maybe it does?
Why should I wait until the very last minute to take out the frozen French fries from the freezer, and put them into the oven only when it's fully reached the temperature specified on the package?
Is there something about doing it in my "impatient" way which fundamentally ruins the food? Or have they simply timed it "directly out of the freezer, immediately at this degree" at the French fries research lab?
For the general case, we already have this question, https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/10243. Since the OP mentioned French fries, I thought that we may make the question about them specifically, instead of closing outright as a duplicate.
Have you had negative experiences from doing it this way?
@RedSonja Hard to tell. Not really, I suppose...
If your oven has a preheat setting and you use it, don't put food in until that cycle has completed. Don't ask me how I know. OK, spoiler: the oven uses a higher temperature (or uses more elements or the broiler element) to shorten the preheat time.
If you have already tested it works, the question "am I ruining the food" makes no sense. Assuming you know what fries are supposed to be like.
As a Belgian, I'm shocked to learn that there's people baking fries in an oven...
Other answers are more accurate, but I would also like to add that I've had old, bad ovens that would crank out lots of heat during initial warm-up and definitely tend to burn food, especially on the bottom. The "maintain the temperature" heating cycles were shorter, so less likely to burn the food.
@Opifex It shocks me too... and I'm an American. I've had "french bakes" and there is nothing good about them. The relative ease of preparation is solidly offset by the total lack of food quality. Always better to find something else for the menu.
"directly out of the freezer, immediately at this degree" at the French fries research lab is probably closest to the truth.
For fairly forgiving things like french fries, I've never found it makes a difference. Typically I turn the oven on, get the chips (which is what we call them here) out of the freezer, and the baking sheet out of the cupboard, put the chips on the sheet, put the rest away, then put them in the oven. Maybe 2 minutes of preheating. They take maybe 2 minutes longer. This is with a modern electric oven, that reaches the set temperature in about 10 minutes. It may use the grill element to start preheating, but it's not a fan oven.
It saves a little energy, but not much, as for short cooking the majority of the energy is in preheating.
Most cook-from-frozen things are probably OK this way, as they have to defrost and cook, and defrosting will start nicely at lower temperatures. I wouldn't do this for baking, or for anything thick, so not pizza (even pre-made frozen), and even chunky potato wedges are marginal (I'd be cooking those from raw room temperature potatoes).
Something I quite often do is cook oven chios for dinner while preheating the oven thoroughly to bake bread - that's what I did tonight
I don't preheat for frozen pizza. I just put in the maximum time from the box. It comes out right. My oven heats fast.
@Joshua mine is pretty quick, but I generally make my pizza from scratch (occasionally buying a chilled ready-made one). I think I've cooked less than 1 frozen pizza per year for the last 5 years! So I haven't tested enough to be comfortable doing it.
I use a frozen pizza as a base for adding a whole bunch of other toppings, but even then my gas oven doesn't always finish preheating before I've popped in the pizza. I normally add a couple minutes to offset how it's not at full temperature, and I've never had a problem with it coming out "badly" cooked. If one of my pizzas isn't fully cooked, it's because of the amount of extra toppings I've added, rather than not letting it fully preheat. It doesn't seem to matter if it's thin, thick, or rising crust, either.
@ChrisH: I happen to know how to tell if a pizza is done by looking so if I undershoot no biggy. I just set two more minutes on timer.
@Joshua the top is easy. If the base is underdone it's another matter - and when I bought frozen pizzas they tended to be deep pan
The primary reason that instructions on the packaging almost always tell you to pre-heat is that different ovens heat up differently, so both to the people who write the instructions, and those following it, counting from the time the oven has reached a certain heat is much easier - it's always the same time. If you know your oven, you can estimate how fast it'll heat up, and depending on that add a couple minutes to the baking time. (there's also some more complications like how it heats up, with upper and lower heating elements, etc. that depend on your oven type, I'll gloss over those)
There are some foods where putting it into a hot oven is crucial because you want the outer crust to harden quickly, e.g. when baking bread. Most frozen convenience food is forgiving and I've been putting it in while the oven is heating for many years and never noticed a difference.
Bacteria, the main reason why we want to keep our frozen foods frozen, can double in volume in just 20 minutes in an environment between 40°F - 140°F (5°C - 60°C). As such, the theory is that you don't want your products in an apparatus that is still heating up, as that maximizes time in this "danger zone." Also why you don't want to pull out your food and thaw it ahead of time in most cases. Most packages have these kinds of instructions probably as a defense against food poisonings from a legal perspective.
That said, many smaller products go from frozen to fully cooked in under 10 minutes, especially if you have a smaller convection oven or air fryer, which can often reach cooking temperatures in as little as a minute. In fact, in my air fryer, if I leave in French fries for the package's minimum time, they come out burnt and crispy, I have to actually subtract time and not preheat. Knowing how quickly your cooking apparatus heats up and how long it takes to fully cook food is something you'll learn the more you experiment with it.
Consider how long it takes your oven to reach full temperature. If it takes more than 10 minutes, definitely consider some preheating. If your oven reaches temperature quickly, preheating is optional. Also, observe how long it takes for your food to be done over time. Experiment with cooking times and temperatures until you find a comfortable mix. Also, when cooking with someone else's cookware, you should aim on the higher end for food safety reasons. Once you're more familiar with the oven/air fryer, you can adjust as necessary.
Having some sort of temperature probe available can also be handy. I have a portable one that I can stick inside whatever, the main compartment sits outside with a thin wire that goes inside, the needle goes in the food. It works well, and has resulted in much better cooking than I'd ever have without, especially meats. One should definitely take food safety seriously, as bad food can be literally fatal, but the instructions on the packaging are written by lawyers for the manufacturer's legal safety. With some experimentation and measurements, you can find what the minimum safety is for your own cooking, which varies with altitude, temperature, and cooking apparatus.
I'm assuming the the packaged french fries are industry made within a clean environment, so there should not be much bacteria to double to begin with.
@ViktorMellgren Don't know about your part of the world, but here in the States it is not unusual to get food recalls due to Listeria, etc.
I think there are several reasons, but it all comes down to getting a consistent result across different ovens.
For example - my oven uses the broiler element to preheat. Warm up is very quick, which is great, but anything in there during will be burnt to a crisp.
Odd nobody else mentioned this. Most North American ovens use the top element to preheat which will, as you say, destroy any food in the oven. It's been years since I lived in Europe, can't remember if it was the case there.
It mostly depends on how long it takes for your oven to reach the correct temperature. I’ve found that pre-heating isn’t usually necessary, in most cases, with my oven. However, it’s important to remember that, just like with small children, dogs, or even humans, no two ovens are exactly alike.
Some ovens tend to heat up quickly, and others take a very long time to get warm. Some can cook delicious food extremely fast, to perfection, while some can’t make anything edible, no matter how slowly their temperatures rise. Food that can be cooked without being pre-heated in my oven may very well need to be pre-heated, if, instead, it was cooked in your inferior oven.
The importance of pre-heating your oven, before cooking those French fries you have, unfortunately, is simply impossible for me to say, as, sadly, I haven’t yet inserted my ingredients into your smoking hot appliance, or felt the touch of your frozen French fries in my cold, moist hands.
The only real advice I can give you, at this time, is just that you try not to get too discouraged, and continue to show your oven the love and kindness it deserves. Though it may not be as good as other people’s ovens, like mine, try not to think of it as a competition.
No matter how pathetic and stupid of an oven you have, it’s still your oven, and, just like the old song says, “every oven’s beautiful in it’s on way.” Never forget that. God bless
Timing is usually just an indication as it will depend on the amount of food you want to cook at the same time, the size of the oven and other oven characteristics.
For this reason a lot of frozen food that is supposed to be cooked from frozen will usually, in my experience, indicate the timing with "cook X mins or until Y", with Y being a qualitative description like "golden brown" or "crispy".
I also never pre-heat for a significant amount of time, usually turning on the oven at the same time as getting the tray ready, and I add about 5 mins to the time given on the package and then judge the result at the end, adding time if the crispiness isn't enough, it usually only happens with frozen fries.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.690843
| 2023-02-06T08:55:52 |
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|
128671
|
Liquid exited the jar during canning, is this safe to use
I canned tomato sauce, just a combination of store canned products with green pepper and onion and spices. With the last batch, I noticed after cooling that some sauce had come out, a slight streak down the side or some around the band when removed. I had a 1/4 head room and canned in a water bath for 25 minutes. All lids popped, I would think this is sealed. The lid will not remove without force.
Is this common when canning, or did I do something wrong? Is the canned sauce safe to use?
First off, the entire process sounds suspect; commercially canned tomatoes may not be sufficiently acidic to water bath can safely, particularly with added peppers and onions (diluting whatever acidity they do have.) Freezing or refrigerating would be far safer than canning that. The canonical advice to stick with tested recipes is built around those recipes leading to a sufficiently acidic product to be safe when water-bath canned if it's a water-bath recipe.
Second, that was not adequate head space, which is why some of the jars leaked.
Third, despite making an initial seal, food product between the rubber and the glass may lead to eventual seal failure. Which would be noticeable when opening the jar, if paying attention. But the big food safety concern is under "First" and exists for jars with perfect seals.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.691705
| 2024-06-26T07:12:26 |
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125497
|
A blender that cans preserves to jars?
Do blenders exist that can cook and mix food so that it ends up in steamed jars automatically?
We don't answer questions about why companies aren't selling something. I had to roll back your question to its first version, to stay within scope.
There are gadgets for home cooks on the market that can do all steps up to, but not including the final fill-in-jars-and-process. An example that’s been rather successful in Germany: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermomix
High-speed blenders such as Vitamix or Blendtec frequently advertise the ability to cook food that they are blending, e.g. for soups. I don't know if they get hot enough for long enough to safely use for canning (it's generally not advised to run the blenders at full tilt for too long as it can reduce their longevity) but I can confirm that stuff "cooked" with those blenders can be pretty steamy once I take off the lid.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.691863
| 2023-10-08T15:23:33 |
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|
58799
|
How to reseason cast iron skillets using a fire
I was told to put my cast iron skillets in an open fire to clean. We did and now they have a red discoloration and look worse than before. How do I clean the red off and get them shiny again?
Can you post an image? I'm not sure why your skillet would turn red.
After firing, you will need to re-season. See http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/641/whats-the-best-way-to-season-a-cast-iron-skillet
Welcome! As @Catija notes a picture would be a great help. It's possible for a cast iron pan to be ruined if overheated in a fire and then exhibit a red discoloration. But we can't even venture a guess without a picture.
Have they simply rusted? Clean cast iron or steel without oil (having been burned off in the fire) will rust at the least provocation.
Steel wool and oil should clean that off (it also requires "elbow grease") - use whatever oil you intend to re-season them with.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.691987
| 2015-07-05T20:31:40 |
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|
89419
|
Do you need cheesecloth to wrap around a dry aged beef?
If so, how many layers do I need to wrap them and how does it work?
I read from another article, that cheesecloth allows air to pass through while also preventing excessive dehydration since home refrigerators are less humid. But in my case, I control the humidity level at 80%-85% inside the cooler. Do I still need to wrap my beef with cheesecloth even though the environment is controlled?
Also I read from other article, it said that cheesecloth allow air to pass through while also preventing excessive dehydration hence home refrigerators are less humid. But in my case, I control humidity level at 80%-85% inside the cooler. Do I still need to wraps my beef with cheesecloth eventhough the environment is controls.
Cheesecloth is not 'required' for dry aging, but it is helpful. You can substitute a wrapping of paper towels. You want something to absorb the moisture that will be released during the aging process. For a good primer on home dry aging see Alton Brown's "Porterhouse Rules"
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.692117
| 2018-04-26T01:34:23 |
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|
90407
|
Is my dry aged beef spoiled?
I cut out 30 days dry aged prime rib into pieces and then put in a vacuum seal bag and froze them. I found these brownish spots on the inside of each piece. Is this normal or they are spoiled?
I dry aged them by myself. Temperature is around 2-4 degree Celsius and humidity level is around 80%. The outer layer that I trimmed off seemed a little oily, not slimmy, and formed a crust.
Yes, you should dump them out. If you cook that you will right away smell the rotten blood coming out of it. But if you would like to make sure the only way to do it is to cook it and try a piece. Remember always cook your meat to 155 degrees to be safe that there is no bacteria left. 165 if possible.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.692315
| 2018-06-17T14:18:42 |
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|
89048
|
Working principle of a farinograph
I am thinking of building a farinograph, not as accurate as the ones used in lab, for my friend's project. I know that a farinograph measures the torque at the blades and estimates the viscocity of the dough. I have the following questions on the working principle:
What is the relation between torque measured and Barbender units?
I am looking for a more detailed explanation of working of a farinograph, what I know is very crude and does not help me build one. Please can anyone provide me with any literature which explains the working (more on the technical side).
Is it really true that by just measuring the torque, one can understand the quality of the produced dough ?
Hello, and welcome to Stack Exchange. I'm not sure, but I'm guessing this is off-topic.
Whether or not the asker is strictly off-topic, s/he is unlikely to get a useful answer here. Is there another SE site for gadget-builders?
Ther's a Physics SE and an Engineering SE. Perhaps one of them would be a better fit?
I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because construction of a farinograph is not a cooking question.
If you focus instead on just the relationship between torque/Brabender units and gluten, this might be on topic.
OK as Erica suggested I will edit the question or post a new question about relation between barbender and torque. As senschen suggested, i will probably post the question about Farinograph on engineering SE. Thank you all
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.692404
| 2018-04-11T18:49:33 |
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|
20935
|
"Instant" leftover rice? Making leftover-like rice without the wait? (as in for fried rice)
I have a bunch of recipes which use leftover cold rice: rice salads, fried rice, rice cakes, and similar. However, I rarely have large quantities of rice left over in the fridge when I want them, since we don't eat rice with dinner most nights.
I've tried making some of these things with freshly cooked rice, but the recipes don't turn out well. Rice which has been cold for hours has a different texture and reacts differently to seasonings, oil and liquids than warm rice. The starches on the outside of the rice change somehow, and it becomes less absorbent and drier.
Is there any way I can quickly (as in, in less than 2 hours) produce rice which has the texture and starch structure of long-cold rice, at least approximately? Cool it down in an ice bath? Soak minute rice in cold water?
The title was a bit misleading to me. I thought you were talking about the instant 5 minute rice you microwave. It wasn't until I was almost done reading your question did I realize you weren't talking about that.
I'd prefer an answer from someone who's actually tried what they're suggesting. While the first answer below seems fairly logical, it's based on conjecture.
@FuzzyChef You've got one now. It worked for me, I hope it works for you.
It’s a funny thing, I’ve written 2 answers this week saying you should never refrigerate leftover rice, that refrigerating rice ruins it and that you should freeze it instead. Of course there is an exception to every rule, in this case that exception would be when you want leftover, refrigerated rice.
I do have a method to get that leftover refrigerated effect and have been using it to make fried rice for years, but I hadn’t answered this question because I couldn’t get it in under the 2 hour time limit, I’ve always kept it refrigerated on a cold sheet pan for at least 4 hours, 2 just isn’t long enough. Then I saw an answer to another question, and tried it: Rice gets burnt and watery Cooking the rice in the microwave as the poster suggested yielded rice that kind of felt like refrigerated, leftover rice to begin with. That gave me the idea to revisit this question. Several batches of rice (the ravens thank you) and a lot of tweaking later, I’ve got it. To buy an extra 20 minutes, I am choosing to interpret your question as reading “within 2 hours after the rice is cooked”.
I used American, plain, long grain white rice.
Before you start with the rice, place a sheet pan in the freezer. Thoroughly rinse 1 cup of rice in several batches of water. Rinse until the water runs completely clear. I don’t normally rinse American harvested rice, but here eliminating the outside starch helps achieve the effect we’re looking for. In a large microwave safe bowl mix the rice with 1.5 cups plus 2 Tbs water. Add salt if desired, I don't add salt to rice I plan to use for fried rice with soy sauce. Butter is also optional, I did not use it when I developed this method. Microwave on high for 14 minutes (YMMV*, my microwave is 1000 watts), don’t open the microwave, let the rice sit in there for 3 minutes.
--Time starts now!—
Pour 1 Tbs of neutral oil into a small bowl. Lightly dip the tip of a soft rubber spatula into the oil and spread the oil over the spatula head with your fingers. Using that spatula, gently fold the rice a few times. The object here is to rapidly cool the rice by folding, to not break up any individual grains, and to very lightly coat the rice in the oil. Repeat every minute for 5 minutes. Retrieve your now ice cold sheet pan from the freezer and dump the rice in it. Dip your fingertips into the remaining oil and using your lightly oiled fingertips, spread the rice over the sheetpan as thinly as possible, breaking up any clumps.
Put the sheetpan in the refrigerator. 1 hour and 55 minutes later, you’re ready to make fried rice!
I used the above method (complete with timer and no cheating) to make this fried rice:
As you can see from the path I cleared with the spatula, the rice didn’t stick at all and you can see the individual grains on the spatula. Unfortunately, you can’t taste it, but I can tell you that it is as good as any fried rice I have ever made, and fried rice was on the menu at my restaurant/lodge – I’ve made a lot of it. At the lodge I would refrigerate fresh rice on a cold sheet pan for at least 4, preferably 6 hours and then freeze it in individual baggies until fried rice was ordered. That worked well too, but no better than this method.
*YMMV is a common internet abbreviation, Your Mileage May Vary. It's shorthand for noting anything that might be a bit different for the reader, in this case microwave time or power level depending upon the power of the reader's microwave.
Very good experiment! I was going to say that it isn't possible to do this, because the reversal of the starch gelation just takes time; but I forgot what terrible things a microwave can do to starch. And you even found a good reason to do it.
What an impressive answer. Well thought out. And while I understand your reasoning here, I always cook rice with salt, as it makes a difference to how it cooks (I don't know the science, but you can see the difference between rice cooked with and without salt).
@NBenatar I always cook rice with salt too, except for the specific application of rice to be refrigerated especially for making fried rice. As I used to make batches of "rice to be refrigerated for fried rice" I've made it both ways and compared the final result (fried rice). The final result is better if the rice is cooked unsalted.
Thanks! Sorry it took me so long to ack this; I've not been on cooking.stackexchange in a while. I'm gonna try it without the refrigeration and see how it works, too.
Would be interesting to know if cooking longer under a lower power level in the microwave would be beneficial for reducing time further. I would love to experiment myself, but the fact I have a 5 yo, 2 toddlers, and another baby on the way... and I'm hardly a connoisseur of good fried rice to begin with, I don't expect I will be producing any "scientific" results until my kids are grown a bit more and/or I've developed my cooking skills further.
I've just done a bit of research and apparently the point of cooling it (as partly explained by you above) is to let the grains of rice separate from each other and the whole mixture isn't so glutinous and flavours react differently to it.
The best way I can think of doing is by laying the hot rice on a lined baking tray that's been put in the freezer, then put it (with the rice on) in the freezer for just 5 minutes say as not to freeze the rice and ruin the texture. This seems the most logical way as it means the rice has the largest surface area to cool down.
Another way if the first is not possible (although not as good) is by putting the hot rice in a thin metal bowl above some ice water but of course you cant stir it or the gluten will come out and you'll end up with a sticky ricey mess!
Remember to use the rice up quickly and not to leave it at room temperature for long as this website shows, as it can cause food poisoning.
Hope this helps!
Putting a steamy hot pan of anything in the refridgerator/freezer should probably come with a caveat that it might detrimentally affect the other foods around it.
I think that link may be a bit too conservative- you can only keep rice for no more than 1 day in the fridge?! I want to see some actual data on this.
@sobachatina, I agree. I've definitely eaten rice that has been in the fridge after three days. And I've definitely left rice on the table for more than 1 hour at room temperature. In fact, in most asian cultures, a huge bowl of rice sit in the middle of the table throughout the meal which can last longer than 1 hour. And even then, sometimes the rice is left on the table if it is not finish(but covered) and is reheated later for the next meal.
@Jay: Let's be really careful about using anecdotes to make food safety claims. That said, from what I've read elsewhere, the risk from leaving rice at room temperature for a few hours is much higher than from leaving it in the fridge for a few days.
This is a pretty good idea. Not awarding the answer yet though; I'd like to see an answer from someone who's actually tried what they're suggesting.
@Jay This used to be the case with old fridges/freezers, but modern devices can cool things much better so this is rarely a problem.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.692577
| 2012-01-31T06:17:37 |
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29957
|
Can I unwarp my cutting board?
I should have paid more attention but after regular washing of top surface, my half-inch-thick board is rocking like a cradle.
It is not practical to use flipped over as it has a counter lip.
I tried keeping the backside moist over 24hrs with no noticeable affect.
Wet grass and sunshine was suggested here but it doesn't sound very practical for me. What indoor solutions can I try?
I assume the board is solid wood, and not bamboo? Have you tried weights on the sides overnight?
no grass that's not dog soiled from neighbors nor any decent sunshine for above method. no dishwasher for steaming. will try pot steaming and weights
Not much you can do about a warped wooden cutting board to be honest apart from either chuck it out or live with its warpedness! I do sympathise, I have a warped one too!
In future (I'm going to heed my own advice) use food grade wood oil on the wooden cutting board, this goes a long way to stopping it from warping, protecting the surface and making it easy to clean.
It might not be worth the work and the steam method won't always work but you can always sand it flat. I totally agree about oiling your cutting board though. I re-oil mine whenever they stop looking wet.
@Sobachatina You can certainly sand minor and small warping, but the thinner ones can warp quite a lot - beyond any sanding redemption! Prevention is better than cure they say, far better off oiling it from the beginning!
I always use food-grade mineral oil from the pharmacy for this, and oil monthly. It's the same stuff that kitchen supply companies try to sell you for 10x the price.
I love the mineral oil idea. I use linseed oil, but put my meat board through the dishwasher, and the dishwasher stinks fishy afterwards. Will try to find mineral oil.
Impractical? I think the wet grass + sun idea sounds fantastic!
I see two options here-
Wood is shaped with the application of moisture and heat. Run it through some steam in the dishwasher and while it is still piping hot clamp it tightly between rigid boards to dry. This method works with all kind of wood shaping but you should know that there is always the risk that the stress will cause the board to crack while it dries.
For descriptions of this technique google "wood steam bending". Most results will describe using a specialized steaming chamber rather than a dishwasher but the technique is the same.
The other method is mechanical: use a belt sander or planer to remove the convex material. Less risk but more work.
Chances are good that the wood was not properly seasoned before it was turned into a cutting board. The 2nd option is probably more realistic.
guilty as charged. next time I'll know better.
good info above but after a couple pot steams and weighting, improvement not noticeable, rats. An ounce of prevention...
That is a shame. Sorry to hear it.
Wet grass and sunshine seems like something that could be simulated with wet towels and an oven....
I had the same problem with a new board. Once warped, I saturated it on both sides with mineral oil, convex side was facing my counter, placed wax paper over that to give a semi-porous barrier, then plastic wrap on the top, and layered books on it. Then left it on a flat surface and it amazingly flattened out. I now store it completely flat and it has been fine.
Find a friend who has a wood shop, and have them plane it down. If you love the board, it's about the only way I personally can think of to getting it perfectly flat again.
Or, if you have a handplane, plane it down yourself. Then optionally sand it with sandpaper and make sure to clean it off well once you're happy with the flatness.
I have accidentally warped many of my own cutting boards. I put the cutting board over a steaming pot, with the bent out part sticking in towards the pot. It reheats the board and the board starts warping in the opposite direction. I take it off when it's straight. Works every time.
We buy bamboo chopping boards and having a little kid means don't have the time to properly wash them by hand or oil them with food grade mineral oil. Our boards just go into the dishwasher like all the other dishes. This causes them to curve in the direction of the spray.
What I found is that if you reverse the board (back face to the dishwasher spray), the next time around it goes into the dishwasher it would curve the other way and straighten out. This is probably terrible for the board, but it does fix the curving problem.
Might want to give it a try, if all other options here fail.
I had one that was warped pretty bad. It eventually righted itself by laying it 'flat' with the convex side up over a pot after soaking/washing it thoroughly, this allowed it to dry more evenly with air flowing underneath and it knew what to do.
I did not use direct heat, but it was there for a couple days next to the other 3 burners
I did not use any weights
I did not steam
the pot was completely empty the whole time, with nothing in it but cycling air.
The board did not cover the pot completely, allowing air to circulate around it.
I repeated this process a couple times to get it ~96.2% back to it's original 'flatness'
If you have electric burners (coils) (probably easier/safer than gas for this purpose) then there are many less than safe, supervision required, ways to accelerate the process mine went through. Of course you could also rig something in the oven. Note that accelerating the process could also cause it to warp more. Clearly this phenomenon was not well documented, but I wanted to let people know it's possible.
What do you mean "flat over a pot". Did you put weights on the board and turn on heat under a pot full of water so that the board was steamed? Or did you just weight a wet board? Or did you use no weights at all? I can imagine that you struck a method which works, but your explanation makes it hard to understand what it was that you did.
@rumtscho Updated, thanks for pointing out its weakness to begin with, hope it's a good reference now! Lemme know what you think!
Continued use of this cutting board, and experimentation, I believe I have identified that the convex side should be facing up (the top side that is), I have updated my answer appropriately.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.693313
| 2013-01-10T18:51:52 |
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|
113094
|
Can I substitute just yolks in a recipe that calls for a whole egg?
I have a cookie recipe that only needs one whole egg. Since I have lots of yolks from other baking, can I use 1 yolk with something else (like a Tbsp. of water) or can I use 2 egg yolks?
related : https://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/32511/67 ; https://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/24096/67
There are recipes which specifically call for egg yolks, in particular custards and certain cakes. Probably better to make one of those.
Does this answer your question? Can you use just egg yolks when recipe asks for eggs?
Welcome to SA! Please take a look at the questions that Joe links, above. The answers there have a complete answer to your question (summary: it depends).
From Cook's Thesaurus Eggs:
Substitute 2 egg yolks for each whole egg. This is higher in fat, but works wonders in sauces, custards, and cream fillings.
I suggest you use two egg yolks, and perhaps slightly, almost unnoticeably, lower the amount of fat you put in the dough.
It depends on what your goal is. It will work chemically, per the other answer. But you will definitely get a much stronger egg flavor in the dish. In some dishes, this is acceptable or even desirable. In others, it could be distracting.
My preference is to use the yolks in recipes that actually call for extra yolks. For example, ice cream. :)
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.694190
| 2020-12-11T20:00:30 |
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|
114124
|
Yeast in sausage
Apparently people (esp the British) use rusk in making fresh sausage rather than breadcrumbs because it's a "yeastless bread". The yeast is meant to be bad for the sausage. However:
When I make bread, I cook it to an internal temp of at least 190F. Doesn't that kill all the yeast?
Adding (alcoholic) cider, wine etc to sausages seems common. Doesn't that have yeast in it too?
Is yeast actually detrimental to a sausage in any way?
I'm not sure quite what you are asking here. Yes, baking bread kills the yeast. Yes, alcohol has yeast, though it should have been removed before sale. Breadcrumbs, being from baked bread, also has dead yeast… so what's your actual question?
Interesting, I had not heard of this before. Is the reason for using rusk because of the yeast, or because of some other characteristic (drier, e.g.)?
I don't see a question here, and I don't think the premise is right. I've never heard anyone say that yeast is bad for the sausage. Rusk is a flavorless bread that's quick and cheap to make, with good absorbing properties.
The question is really "is yeast OK in sausage?" I've read in some places that its bad. Rusk can absorb more water per weight, but I think that's just because it's drier - ultimately they're both wheat-based breads.
None of those things have significant amounts of live or sporulated yeast. All flour-based baked goods are cooked to a temperature that will kill yeast; wine and cider are filtered and have preservatives added. Moreover, bread yeast is essentially inactive at refrigerator temperature.
Biscuit rusk is quicker and more efficient to make than bread rusk, and is more economical as a filler because it absorbs more water. Yeast is not a factor in the quality or longevity of fresh sausages.
I think I'd agree on the bread yeast - quite possibly the comments I've seen saying breadcrumbs are bad are misinformed. I don't think all wine and cider are filtered, but I take your point.
|
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|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.694335
| 2021-02-06T02:54:19 |
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|
6704
|
Is there a single source for the basics of cooking (sauces, herbs, oil usage, etc)?
I'm a decent cook but I know that there are huge gaps in my knowledge of the fundamentals of cooking. I assume that aspiring chefs learn a great deal of this in culinary school but I was hoping that there might be a book or resource for explaining not only the "hows" of making things like a good mayonnaise but also the "whys".
So is there a book or cookbook thats considered best in class for the basics of cooking?
Should be a community wiki since everyone might have a different opinion on which book is the 'best' book.
@Kyra: Please flag for Mod Attn instead of commenting. (new approach) Thanks. :)
I find that anything Cooks Illustrated puts out usually has a decent list of "whys" and have been garnering them up over the years. Unfortunately this can leave you something of a specialist with deep knowledge on whatever their articles cover, but if you want to learn the why of something, they are a great source.
For baking in particular Ratio is an excellent book.
Cooks illustrated is great. The Best Recipe is the book that really taught me how to cook with all their discussion of why and not just how.
Harold McGee - "On Food and Cooking"
While this is a wonderful book, I worry that it may confuse or intimidate the novice cook who isn't ready for the details that McGee gives.
@Martha - I originally bought the book 10 years ago as a "novice". And Brett said that he is already a decent cook. So, I think it fits his question well.
@wdypdx22 Okay. I withdraw my reservation. (I wasn't sure, so I didn't down-vote -- just comment.)
This book is fascinating, but I think it's a bit too sciencey and abstract to directly apply to the kitchen in most cases. I recently heard an interview with McGhee where he admitted this, which is why he's got a new book coming out. The new book looks like it would probably answer this question. http://www.amazon.com/Keys-Good-Cooking-Making-Recipes/dp/1594202680/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_2
Phenomenal book, and I think everyone who has an interest in a deep understanding of how cooking works should have it, but I also agree it isn't necessarily the technique book that @justkt might have in mind. Looking forward to his new book.
Very good book. As you say, not very hands-on.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.694523
| 2010-09-03T16:51:07 |
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|
64307
|
How does choosing good induction cookware differ from choosing cookware for other types of stove?
Let me just clarify I'm not asking for specific brands, but features.
We just got an induction stove and I want to pick up some new pots/pans etc. I know that I have to pick induction-safe materials. But beyond that, is there anything to consider different from the considerations when buying pans and pots for a gas or resistive stove?
Hello Merk, I am afraid I had to edit your question severely. The alternative would have been to close it outright. "Which sizes and types pans and pots do I need" is not something we can answer, it is both opinion based and too broad. If you already know what exactly you need, we could tell you which features to look for, but for pans etc. it's very likely a duplicate. So the only thing left from your question is the induction angle. I know it's disappointing, but the other question is really not answerable on a Stack Exchange site.
Sorry I thought something general like that would be an OK question. Do you want to delete this question and I'll try to ask a more specific one or should I just edit this? I was deliberately being broad before since I was curious what would be considered a good all purpose starter set of cookware. But I can be more specific if I need to.
Now that there are good answers to the question as it is, please don't delete or edit it. It is interesting information and additional reputation for you and for the people who took time to answer. If you have a different wording in mind which will go away from the unanswerable "what pans do I need", you are welcome to ask a new question separately from this one.
Actually, I think Lars gave me enough good info that I don't really need to ask another question :) Thanks
I will skip everything that does not work on an induction range, as it is pretty obvious when you purchase cookware whether it is marked as suitable for induction or not.
The benefit of induction is an immediate start and stop of energy transfer, from the point of view of the cook. There are other benefits, like safety, but we focus on cooking here. For a two-hour stew, it really doesn't matter whether you use induction or anything else.
Material-independent
Your cookware should really, really match the size of the induction plates, as all induction stoves check the flow of current and disable the induction plate, if there is something wrong. You can use larger cookware, but this increases the uneven heating.
So, buying a full set of cookware is often a bad idea, you will always end up with something that doesn't quite fit. So triple-check the diameter of your induction plates with the cookware. (Also, you always end up with something that you never use in such a set and with one particular pan that you always use and that is always dirty when you need it. Match the cookware with your cooking habits and servings.)
Stainless steel
For stainless steel, there are three available bottoms. The least expensive stainless steel products will be usually made out of type 3xx series with nickel, have no core at all and will not work on induction anyway. Cookware out of 4xx series stainless steel will work on induction, but this cookware is not as resistant to corrosion. I do not recommend either cookware.
The mid-range items will have a noticeable disk attached to the bottom of the cookware. This is a layer of magnetic steel and a slice of aluminium. Some manufacturers put a thin-layer of copper in there too. This is just marketing and has no noticeable effect. If it's a noticeable disk on the bottom, avoid it - it will work, maybe you won't even notice anything bad, but you will lose the benefits of the induction.
Then you have the standard sandwich bottoms. The inner layer is full 18/10 stainless steel, while the outermost layer is 18/0 magnetizable stainless steel and the middle layers are made out of aluminium, to distribute the heat. This is a sandwich bottom with an aluminium core. Again, some manufacturers will declare their core as being made out of 5 or more layers of aluminium, but this is again just marketing. Aluminium core is okay. This is the choice if you don't want to waste money, but do need to be price-conscious.
Finally, you have sandwich bottoms with a copper core. They are like the standard sandwich bottoms, but with a copper core between two aluminium layers. The mean thing is though now - manufacturers are smart, so they often make a standard sandwich bottom with a tiny layer of copper. This is not the same as a real copper core though.
If you want to reap most of the benefits of an induction stove and want stainless steel products, you need to get something with a copper core. Again, it is completely fine to get other stainless steel products that are suitable for induction cooking.
Cast-iron
Most cast-iron cookware producers will warn about scratching, because cast-iron will never be as flat as a steel/aluminium bottom. If you are worried and must slide the cast-iron cookware on an induction stove, there is a simple solution: parchment paper between the stove and the pan.
Otherwise, there is nothing special about cast-iron on induction.
Thanks for all that info. In regards to getting something with a copper core - is there some specific verbiage i should look for that will tell me a 'real' copper core versus a cheap/thin one?
@merk Not really, that's the tricky part. Also all manufacturers have "cheap" basic product lines with thin layer. But... the price tells you. The rip-off happens more in the bottom disk area though, where they sell you a stainless steel product with attached disk for the price of a sandwich bottom. This is where money/value is questionable. For sandwich bottoms with copper core, your budget will limit the thickness, any major price difference will be due to the material, so you can safely get what your budget allows.
Considerations that apply to glass-ceramic cooktops also apply with induction:
-Bottom should be relatively smooth so it does not scratch or break the cooktop
-Bottom should be relatively flat (more important compared to gas, but less important compared to cast-iron electric)
-Bottom should have a heat capacity suitable to the task (since the cooktop does not provide its own thermal mass)
Induction-specific:
-Check WHICH parts of the cooking vessel will actually be heated - an aluminium pan with a steel disc embedded in the bottom will behave differently (probably slower) than an all-iron pan...
-Induction-SAFE is a misnomer... an induction cooktop is unlikely to damage the cookware, but it might not work or work well. Some pessimal combinations might stress the induction stovetop a lot...
-Metal handles that are near the actual cooktop surface might unexpectedly get strongly heated.
Side note to clarify the "pessimal" combinations: I had the impression that cheap induction plates often throw odd error codes when you use, say, a wrought-iron turk griddle or heavy cast wok on them, even when they heat fantastically (longevity of the induction plate is unimportant there since it tends to be cheaper than the cookware itself)...
When you say 'induction plate' - you are talking about what's on the bottom of the pan? Or is this a part of the stovetop?
What I meant was the common, plug-into-wall standalone type of induction device... the ones that you permanently mount into a counter will hopefully be designed a bit more robustly..
The things you need in a good induction pan are:
The metal must be iron/steel, because induction stoves work using magetic fields
they need a good sized flat section on the bottom, this is so that the material of the pan is as close to the field generator in the stove
When shopping for induction pans bring a magnet, if it sticks to the bottom of the pan it should work on your induction stove.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.694767
| 2015-12-11T09:53:30 |
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27597
|
Is it worth making Thai red curry paste from scratch
I noticed that many Thai curry recipes start with a foundation of red curry paste.
My local grocery store has one, small, overpriced jar of the stuff. The Asian grocery store, located at a very inconvenient distance, has several varieties as you would expect.
I found very straight forward recipes for making the paste myself. However, they use ingredients that I would have to get from the asian grocery store anyway.
Is the quality and cost of bottled products comparable to what I can make myself?
You should definitely have a go at it, but I am afraid your time and effort would be better spent on finding a quality source of pre-made paste. This applies to most Asian cooking pastes and sauces.
In most non-Asian countries you cannot get the fresh ingredients required to make them. If they are available, they generally are not the same variety and quality to make a suitable analogue of the Asian masterpieces.
I live in a country with a sub-tropical climate; we have soil that can grow anything, including really good Ceylon tea leaves, and even Chinese Gooseberries (Kiwi Fruit). 10% of the population is Asian. However, for that recipe, alone, I would be faced with these problems:
Cilantro (coriander) roots - most growers trim the roots for presentation and because they tend to rot quickly. You can get bottled roots but they are't very nice
Chillies - There is a reasonable range of chillies available, but which one. Asian chillies have totally diffident taste profiles than our local ones for some reason
Galangal - you can substitute local ginger which is excellent, but not the same as Galangal. I can get seeds to grow my own but that is even more work, and may still not taste right
Garlic - local stuff is English style, imported Asian Garlic has been fumigated and stored for too long to be any good. It loses its pungency very fast!
Lemon Grass - the local stuff is VERY expensive and not quite as pungent as Asian grown variety.
Shrimp paste - imported from Thailand anyway, hmmmm.
Kaffir Lime - you can get the leaves, but the fruit doesn't really grow here.
The difference if flavours from herbs and spices growing in Asia and growing in your own local climate is similar to why same varieties of wines taste different too. The soil and weather "makes" the flavours
In general I have found pastes vacuum packed in plastic pouches to be of better quality and freshness than the large jar varieties.
Good luck
Worth mentioning this old question with regards to coriander roots http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/2610/what-is-coriander-root-and-where-can-you-get-it
Homemade curry pastes, red Thai or otherwise, are always in my experience far superior to those in a jar. They are fresher, tastier and allow you to tweak the spice blends to your liking.
They might cost a little more to put together, but good food is always worth paying a little more for.
I expect you could make extra and freeze it, since the increased time in the kitchen can be a big deal too.
Homemade will most likely not achieve the quality of the Asian store-bought pastes but could be better than what is on offer at the local supermarket: water or preservatives should not be in a Thai paste, for example.
If going the homemade route, then a few ingredients can be bought frozen in good quantities to last and most others are either dry spice or locally procured. Coriander green (cilantro) chillies and shallots at supermarket?
A nice little cheat is to buy Thai yellow paste and to doctor that as required to become Red Green or Mussamam. Red chillies for the first, Coriander the second and spices for the third of star anise cinnamon cardamom. Needn't be ground into the paste, merely added to curry pot. A browse thru paste recipes will put you in the right direction.
Other way around - plain red paste ("gaeng kua", not "gaeng phed" style preferrably) can be turned into most anything else (except green and khaoi soi). Yellow (gaeng karee) is already "specialized"-
As long as you can get the key ingredients in an asian supermarket, home made curry paste will ALWAYS taste vastly superior to any store brought paste, I've never been able to find a curry paste that can match the one i make at home. Usually the ingredients will make a huge patch of curry paste than you can freeze and then use later, basically as long as you can get galangal, lemon grass and shrimp paste and maybe little asain shallots, you're good to go !
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.695487
| 2012-10-04T15:51:25 |
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|
27596
|
Ratios in traditional Thai peanut curry recipes
I tried to make a Thai peanut curry and used a highly rated recipe:
I have no experience making Thai food and have only eaten it in restaurants.
It did occur to me that the peanut butter content seemed very high in that recipe. The resulting dish was in fact far too sweet and fatty and not nearly spicy enough. My first inclination would be to eliminate the sugar, reduce the peanut butter. The spiciness was easily remedied by the liberal application of sriracha. My goal is not just to make a tasty dish but to also be as authentic as possible.
What should I look for in an authentic Thai curry recipe? About what ratio of peanut butter should I expect? Should they add sugar as this one did?
When copying restaurant dishes keep in mind that most Thai, Chinesse, Japonesse, Indian (etc.) restaurants use modified versions of the recipies that satisfy common tastes in the country they are found, with just an etnic flavor; otherwise they would not have as many clients. So if you find authentic recipies they would differ those in restaurants, may even be to exotic or etnic for your taste. And it's not only for exotic restaurants. You may be even surprized by differences between Italian cuisine in America and Italian cuisine in Italy.
Note that not all peanut butter has added sugar. (I prefer one with only peanuts and no other ingredients at all.)
Many Asian recipes, especially from the Thailand have large amounts of sugar in them.
Traditionally this would have been a more raw form of sugar, or just some sweet fruit paste
I would suggest first trying the original Asian dishes (i.e. go bush in Thailand, or find some recent Thai immigrants to hang with!), and then make you own sauces based on those experiences, but adjust ingredients to taste and sensibility
The dish in that recipe is a non-authentic panang curry (แกงพะแนง in Thai). If you have a good quality curry paste you only need the following ingredients (according to David Thompson):
panang curry paste
coconut cream (yes, cream and not milk because it takes less time and less cans)
fish sauce
palm sugar
For panang curry you can also add some coarsely ground roasted peanuts as garnish as well as finely sliced kaffir lime leaves.
There is definitely no peanut butter in authentic Thai cuisine. They didn't have peanut butter when the recipes were created.
Palm sugar may be difficult for some people to obtain. I suggest you buy it online and have it shipped. You can buy it in a thick liquid or hard form. The hard form is more effort to use but has a longer shelf life. A mortar/pestle, blender, food processor or spice grinder does make it easier.
Buy the coconut cream/milk with the highest percentage of coconut that you can find. Buying this online will also give you a better selection though shipping will be expensive. Buy a crate hehe.
Please take a look at my universal Thai curry method based on Thompson's technique.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.695862
| 2012-10-04T15:47:16 |
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|
93263
|
Can we preserve garlic and ginger paste?
Its mostly said that we should use fresh garlic and ginger paste as after some time the paste loses its taste? So what’s the best way to preserve it, so that its taste is not lost?
Madiha sabir, welcome to Seasoned Advice! Please note that questions about health and explicitly excluded here. You may ask about preserving the taste. The [tour] and our [help] explain more about how the site works.
I've had success freezing it in an ice cube tray. The tray should then be sealed in a bag or box, and you won't want to use it for anything else afterwards - I've never found a way of getting rid of the smell.
If you always use it in larger quantities than one or two ice cubes, by all means freeze it in larger containers, but expect to defrost and use the entire container.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.696118
| 2018-10-26T19:09:06 |
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|
104517
|
How to cook oatmeal?
I bought a pack of oatmeal and it didn't have any instructions on how to cook it and I have no clue what I am doing and I don't want to disappoint mom.
What kind of oatmeal do you have?
It says soft oatflakes on the box
If it is instant oatmeal, just add boiling water (ratio water to oats 2/1) and let it sit for 5 minutes. If it not instant, same ratio of water to oats, boil for 5 minutes while stirring, remove from heat, cover and let sit for 5 minutes.
I googled "how to cook oatmeal" and found several similiar ways.
Salt! You forgot the salt.
You don't need the salt, I was just being as basic as possible. I DO use salt, though.
I would use milk - or part milk, part water (unless it’s an “all in one” instant package. And without fruit or something sweet, at least served on the side, Mom may get a nice texture, but a rather bland taste.
Common "rolled" oats are flattened into fat disc-shaped units; "quick" oats are rolled and then further sliced thin to cook faster. "Steel cut" oats are just cut into small hard pieces like short rice grains.
For quick oats, add about 2:1 water to oats, and cook until done to desired softness, which should be a few minutes. For rolled oats, cook longer and maybe add a little more water to account to evaporation. For steel cut oats, go up to 3:1 or even 4:1 on the water, and cook for 30 minutes or more (or let soak overnight and cook for 10 minutes). They'll need some salt, but not much.
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.696218
| 2020-01-03T19:04:10 |
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|
59148
|
licking spoon and putting back in the food
Recently had some guest at my house - while I was in another room one of the guest was sampling the food repeatedly and put the spoon from mouth back in the food. Is this a health concern? Does the food spoil faster?
You mean apart from the Eeeewwwwww!!! -factor?
But on a more serious note: Sampling while still cooking, while on the table, from the fridge... what kind of food etc. More details make for better answers. Welcome to the site!
And in case of starchy foods: http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/49766/who-added-water-to-my-chowder/49770#49770
I wonder if this has similar connection to the recent study that found that double dipping is no worse than single dipping.
@Catija Do you have a link to that study?
@eirikdaude I'm looking. Here is one but it isn't as recent as the one I saw.
@Catija Here is some information which seems to somewhat disagree with the Mythbusters' findings: http://bit.ly/1CP2kAr I doubt it was what you found though :P
possible duplicate of Food safety when tasting from dish
Safety-wise: If the food is heated at least to 180° F/ 80°C, I'd like to cite Jefromi
But if you're just cooking for yourself I personally wouldn't really
worry about it, because in general you'll be cooking the food at a
safe temperature, not just above the danger zone (140F/60C) but
something safe for all meat (180F/80C) so whatever bacteria you put in
with your spoon is just going to get killed. We routinely put
potentially contaminated things like raw meat into our food while
cooking, and let the heat take care of it; whatever you might be
carrying isn't any more dangerous.
and logophobe
Double-dipping isn't a big concern unless
you're ill [...]
You're probably introducing your friends and family to just as much
contamination in the form of dust and such simply by having them in
your home.
Quality-wise, as Stephie already pointed out: Liquids thickened with starch will liquidify if these come in contact with saliva (the enzyme amylase in particular). It breaks down starch to sugar.
Since I got cited here, I'd like to emphasize that I was only talking about cooking for yourself, and that the rest of that answer pointed out that this is really easy to avoid. Sure, it probably wasn't actually dangerous in this case, but there's also no need to gross anyone or risk contamination of something that's not going to get fully cooked.
There are many health concerns with sampling food with a spoon and putting it back in the food. Saliva contains microorganisms/bacteria that may be harmful to us especially high risk individuals(pregnant persons,the elderly,those who are Ill)
Pathogens can cause food borne illnesses or infections. Therefore it is better to practise safe food handling methods.
Not true. See upvoted answers.
Yes I would say there is a problem with sampling food and then putting the spoon back in the food. The food would now be contaminated with any bacteria this person was carrying around in their mouth. Not to mention the germ factor. As to spoiling faster I don't think that would make a difference. Maybe you should talk to your guest about doing this.
Not true. See other upvoted answers.
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.696376
| 2015-07-18T15:48:13 |
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|
60363
|
Can frozen peaches be made into jam or other things?
I have over ripe peaches. I have scaled them and pitted them and they are in lemon water.
Can I freeze them to make jam later?
Can I put them in the refrigerator to make jam later?
You absolutely can make jam from frozen fruit.
Freezing is like "stopping time" (or at least slowing it down almost to a stop) for the frozen food. Freezing water breaks cell walls, that's why thawed fruit is mushy, but so does boiling when making jam, so no problem at all here. You can also freeze leftover fruit before it spoils and combine various fruits in your jam or make flavour pairings with fruits that are in season at different times.
You can either puree your fruit and freeze it in a ziplock bag or flat container or freeze chunks on a tray, then transfer to bags. Good wrapping is essential, as with all frozen foods.
Personally, I often freeze puree because a) it needs less freezer space and b) we prefer smooth jam. I pre-meassure one batch and cook the jam when I have time.
Freezing individual pieces, on the other hand, has the benefit that you can choose later how much fruit you need for a recipe. This is also good if you haven't decided about your recipe yet or love to combine flavours. These pieces are also usable for other dishes.
Storing your prepared fruit in the refrigerator is not without risk. Overripe fruit spoils quickly, even in the refrigerator and "later" quickly can become "too late". So unless you are absolutely sure that you will cook them tomorrow and they have no "dubious" (e.g. mushy, about to get moldy) spots, just freeze them.
I don't know about jam specifically, but yes to other things. The standard thing would be to freeze them, and then use them for smoothies, but you can also use them for instant sorbet if you have a food processor:
2 cups of frozen fruit
1/4 tsp of xanthan gum
a cup or two of fruit juice
maybe some syrup or extra sugar
Put the fruit into the food processor, and pulse until you've gotten it all down to small bits. (everything under about 1cm (3/8")). Add the xanthan, pulse to mix a couple of times, then turn it on and pour in the fruit juice. Add more 'til you get to the consistency you like. Taste it. If it's not sweet enough, add some sugar (heavy syrup works best, but I've tossed in powdered sugar or superfine sugar ... regular granulated might work) and then blend again.
If you take it past what you'd like in consistency, just set it in the freezer for an hour or two.
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.696682
| 2015-08-30T02:56:58 |
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|
61623
|
If uncooked rice is soaked for 2 days, is it still safe to eat (after it's cooked)?
I completely forgot I soaked the rice on Monday night. It was completely submerged in water. Left at room temperature. If I cook it now, would it be safe to eat?
No, certainly not.
Food is generally not safe to leave at room temperature for more than 2 hours. Foods which are shelf-stable (can be left out, it doesn't matter how long) are the ones which have had some of the necessary bacteria growth factors removed.
Rice is a food which doesn't grow bacteria because it doesn't have enough water to sustain a colony. Once you add the water back in, you remove the exact circumstance which protects it from spoiling. It is certainly not safe.
Besides, "after cooking" doesn't matter, as you can't turn unsafe food back to safe, not by cooking or by anything else.
Hmm, well, I've soaked rice for two days, though that was in a 3% - 5% salt solution and in a sealed (rubber gasket) container. No idea in your case whether the good microbes (those would be the lactic acid bacteria) won, or whether the rice has just spoiled.
Why would you soak rice for two days in a salt solution?
@JackM why not?
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.696921
| 2015-09-09T21:51:32 |
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|
108212
|
Matcha cheesecake can't keep the bright green color
I made a no-bake matcha cheesecake with cream cheese, yogurt, whipping cream, matcha powder and gelatin. The type of matcha powder I used was not very green but it was ok. However, the next day, the green color turned grey, not completely grey but not attractive anymore. How can I prevent this?
Grey outside only or thru and thru?
It's grey outside only
Lemon juice / exclude air.
If gray outside only but inside is good I conclude the matcha oxidized from the air. I am not sure why, but if it stayed green inside it must not have been any ingredient - they are all inside too.
Ideas to prevent oxidation are either preventing air from coming into contact with the cake, or adding antioxidant.
Some apples (not all types; not sure why) turn brown in the air. Lemon juice prevents this. I think it is the vitamin C in it acting as an antioxidant. You could squeeze lemon juice over the top. Lemon juice brings that flavor to a thing. It seems to me like it might be OK on this.
You could cover it tightly with plastic wrap such that air is excluded.
Best of all, if you have any cake left, would be if you would do an experiment with both methods and post images. Take out a slice of cake, cut it in half, treat 1 side with lemon juice, then new pic next day. Also take a slice of cake, cut it in half, cover 1 half tightly with plastic wrap and other half leave out. New pic next day.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.697061
| 2020-05-08T14:07:30 |
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|
108437
|
Is this okay or moldy? Sourdough starter question
This was modestly active starter that I put in the fridge last week since I slowed my baking routine. Took it out today, a week later, to feed and saw this. Is it mold or normal variant? It’s ap flour fed 1x per week in the fridge. Stored in a dedicated starter crock I got from KAF.
Update:
Looks like this died but in any case I re-fed and looks great. So I baked a loaf which turned out perfect. Now...should I eat it? Anyway thanks guys.
What does it smell like? I'll say that sure doesn't look good.
looks like hooch starting to form - if you're worried, discard the top layer (from where the grey starts) and feed the remainder. Leave the fed starter out to watch if its active/healthy. If it doesn't rise after a couple of feeds, discard the lot and restart starter process.
Smells like vinegar
Denis: maybe post that as an answer?
Brought it up to room temp after mixing it up and now quite bubbly and without any signs of mold. Does this mean it’s okay or should I watch it for more time?
It sure looks weird - but with just a blurry photo we’re mostly in the guessing territory. In the other hand, sourdough can look strange after a while in the fridge.
Activity means that you have at least a good amount of active yeast and the vinegary smell indicates lactobacillae, both indicators of a good starter. In a stable sourdough, the combination of the two will keep mold at bay by outgrowing any unwelcome bacteria or fungi and by creating an inhospitable environment due to the acidity.
Whether a sourdough starter that has developed mold spots needs to be discarded is a widely discussed topic - some count on the desired microorganisms’ power to outcompete the mold, especially if the obviously moldy parts are scooped off, others assume that the mold may grow alongside them.
In short:
We can’t say whether your started had mold or just some hooch (the latter perfectly harmless) and so can only give you the general ideas and concepts to help you make an informed decision.
On a very personal note (and this is by no means a recommendation or statement about food safety!), I would interpret the pattern as hooch and the grey patches as the beginning discoloration that often happens with a starter that has been stored for a while in the fridge. I see no fuzziness and no “weird” discoloration apart from the brown-grey of dark dough. But on the other hand, creating a new starter takes only a short while. Hint: Many bakers have a “backup” of their favorite starter for cases like this.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.697309
| 2020-05-16T22:29:27 |
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|
110036
|
How do you safely defrost a whole lamb?
Some supermarkets sell a whole lamb.
The food safety rules for meat dictate defrosting in the fridge, never at room temperature.
The next-size down, a turkey, doesn't even take 24 hours to defrost. It takes either 48 or, if very large, 72 hours to defrost.
How do you reconcile these two rules? In other words, how do you defrost a whole lamb before cooking it?
Is this meant for chefs who have a fridge that will fit a lamb?
Are folks meant to start roasting it while it's frozen? I doubt it would cook through, no matter how gentle the fire.
Do birds (turkey, ..) require special attention because they spoil particularly rapidly, and for a lamb one would get away with defrosting at room temperature? Would 24 hours do it? Would that be actually safe?
I suppose if it's October or March, then defrosting outside in some regions at +5C might work, except that the temperature outside is never constant, which doesn't help much (with either defrosting or with food safety), and that you'd have to stand guard overnight to make sure no other wild animal discovers what feast is ready for them.
I'm voting to close this as it has been modified to have many questions in one.
You ask: how does a pro defrost a whole lamb, how does one cut a frozen lamb to defrost part of it, and how does one cook a whole lamb. Each of those is a question @Sam.
@GdD The question is "how does a cook [any cook, so long as they can do it] defrost a whole lamb [for the purpose of cooking]?" The avenues to an answer (any answer will do) are: 1- cut it frozen, thaw, then cook 2- thaw whole, cook, then cut, or 3- cook, thaw while cooking. The OP and the accepted answer agree that there is no way for 3 to succeed. Now we're left with 1 or 2. Which one is it?
As the answer is already accepted, editing the scope of the question seems odd. I suggest you ask a new question referencing this one.
I suspect these are sold to people who are going to have a large gathering of family/friends where the whole lamb can be eaten over a couple of days. (Otherwise leftovers would be a problem). Perhaps the supermarked doesn't care about the convenience of defrosting such a large item safely, or is catering toward a wholesale market who has large enough fridges, or maybe just has extra lambs to get rid of.
As the accepted answer indicates, there is no easy answer to (1) or (2). It's probably a combination of both. Cut off the parts you can beforehand that are 'easy' to separate and defrost the rest in a large enough fridge. A professional cook would evaluate their ability to safely defrost (and the availability of such a fridge) before buying.
There are two main problems with this question and I am afraid it may be related to a misunderstanding of how the site works. First, edits for clarification are fine, edits that substantially change the scope of the question after it has been answered (and accepted!) are not. Second, questions that cover so many different specific sub-questions are to be closed as missing focus. Instead of closing the question, I have done a rollback to the first version, which is fine as is.
There is another food safe option to thaw meat quickly, and it has saved the Thanksgiving meal of many cooks: In cold water. To ensure that the meat stays in a safe temperature range, frequently changing the water is required, ideally by running the cold water tap just a bit. The meat itself will act like a huge ice cube, contributing to keeping the surrounding water cool.
Facing the task of defrosting the lamb in question, I would probably resort to my bathtub, because it is like an oversized kitchen sink, complete with faucet and drain and can be sanitized easily afterwards.
Cold water thawing is messier and needs more attention than just thawing in the refrigerator, but will on the other hand be significantly faster and needs no hacking up of a frozen slab of meat.
The rule of thumb is thirty minutes per pound of meat, but that’s really just a rough estimate, geometry, water temperature and movement and ratio of water to food will be factors.
Food safety rules are written around the ways bacteria reproduce, not around the chefs' convenience. There is no difference in the speed of getting unsafe between different types of meat (or any other type of non-shelf-stable food). Yes, the lamb is also meant to be defrosted in the fridge. And cooking from frozen is indeed not an option.
So yes, you are meant to defrost it in the fridge. You could do it whole, or you could remove parts of it while still frozen and defrost these, then cook, while the rest stays in the freezer. If you don't have the equipment to do either of that, then your kitchen is simply not ready to deal with buying a whole lamb.
I don't doubt that there are many people who buy it and defrost it outside of the fridge, they just either don't know the food safety rules or make the decision to not follow them.
"And cooking from frozen is indeed not an option." Why? You'd just need to make sure it cooks all the way through and has an appropriate internal temperature.
@nick012000 OK, theoretically it is an option - in practice, pretty much any way of doing it will have you end up with parts of the lamb being hopelessly overcooked, and that's if the lamb was cleaned before selling (I have never seen these whole lambs, so I don't know if they don't still have all intestines inside). I guess you could try to get inventive and e.g. put the whole lamb onto a döner machine, but there are quite a few practical obstacles to getting it to work.
@rumtscho I cook whole fish from frozen, and I don't see why a whole lamb won't work, if you control the temperature. Actually I have an electric oven the size that would fit a lamb, I actually haven't tried it yet, but I imagine that putting a temperature probe inside the meat and setting the electric temperature controller of the oven for the meat temperature to stay somewhere between 60°C and 70°C (140°F to 158°F) would let it cook and not over cook. Several temperature probes in different parts of the lamb would probably be needed, I have a temperature controller which can take 3 probes.
If the restaurant in question has a walk-in cooler (an insulated room that is cooled to fridge temperatures), the lamb could be defrosted there.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.697556
| 2020-08-05T02:53:29 |
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|
110516
|
What is the difference between using nibs or liquor for making chocolate bars?
For making chocolate bars. Nibs or liquor, why use one over the other?
Mostly because nibs are less processed so you add less processed product.
Chocolate liquor is the result of grinding and heating cocoa nibs. It's then mixed with other ingredients to form the final chocolate. So it's not really one or the other: nibs are produced in one stage of the process, and chocolate liquor is produced at a later stage.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.698056
| 2020-09-01T19:58:17 |
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|
64599
|
Is there an easy way to tell if a pan/pot is oven-safe?
I have a couple of old pots and pans laying around in the house and unfortunately I don't have the original box. Is there an easy way to tell if they are safe to use in the oven? Like for stainless steel or non-stick pans are they generally safe to use in the oven? Maybe only for certain temperatures?
With no idea what any of the pots and pans are made of, or what they look like it is impossible to say. In general I'd say that metal pans are ok. For the pots look to see that they have only metal handles or knobs.
@MaxW I guess I was looking for if there were tips for non-stick pans, etc. Do some non-stick pans work or is there a material that makes it so you cannot put them in the oven? I also read in some places a lot of cookware might be okay at certain temperatures (350* or less) whereas higher temperatures they would not be.
Coaxing out more information - Do you want to go above 350 Fahrenheit? // see this at WebMD - http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/nervous-about-nonstick
Many "plastic" handles are thermosetting palstics that are fine for typical domestic oven temperatures. Unfortunately even with the original packaging you may never know.
Speaking in generalizations, without knowing the details of content:
Anything with a non-stick coating- I wouldn't put it in the oven. If you don't know what the non-stick coating is made of, you can't be sure if it will melt. Additionally high temperatures and non-stick coating make for off-gassing.
Anything with plastic handles, knobs or any other plastic parts- don't put it in the oven at any temperature. No way to know how it will react.
Cast iron- always oven safe to almost any temp that a non-commercial oven would reach
Enameled cast iron (like Le Crueset)- oven safe to 500°F (260°C)
Uncoated stainless steel- oven safe to 500°F (260°C)
Uncoated anodized aluminum- I would say no more than 450°F (230°C), to be safe
Copper- 500°F (260°C)
Glass- 450°F (230°C)
Units please... This is an International site and 450 F vs. 450 C is a huge difference! Welcome to Seasoned Advice!
As an addition to Tisha's answer, if you have a soldering iron with adjustable temperature and are willing to find out if a handle is likely to melt, you can always try to apply heat to a barely visible part of the handle to gauge how high of a temperature it can withstand. Obviously if you end up doing this, do it in a well ventilated area. (This would have been a comment but I cannot post those yet)
Great idea, but has one caveat: Not melting is not the same as not embrittling long term and not giving off fumes.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.698148
| 2015-12-20T06:15:06 |
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|
36955
|
Ma Po Doufu without Pork
In China there is a famous dish called Ma Po Doufu 麻婆豆腐 and most of the recipes I find online have pork. I was wondering if anyone knew if pork was an essential part of the dish (in terms of flavoring) or if there was something you could do to make it a vegetarian option? Would the dish work with chicken/beef?
A number of Chinese restaurants are happy to prepare it without pork or beef. I've seen it with pork (most common) or beef (sometimes).
A vegetarian Chinese place that I occasionally visit uses a "vegetarian ham" along with some vegetables like peas to augment the custardy texture of the soft tofu. I like to add some ja tsai (zasai, depending on romanization preferences) pickles in there, though I'd guess that's not that common.
Pork is not absolutely essential to the identity of the dish, but it's certainly the most likely version to be served.
Kenji Lopez-Alt at SeriousEats.com has a very nice article about coming up with this recipe for a vegan Mapo Tofu that he (otherwise a happy meat eater) claims is even better than the pork one.
The main replacement for the pork is mushrooms (he recommends a mix of wood ear, morel, and porcini), because of the good match in flavour. To get the texture he uses the Chinese technique of "dry frying", typically used for meat. I'll leave it to Mr. Lopez-Alt to explain the details - he does it better than I!
Using a combination of mushrooms as Kenji suggests (reconstituted shiitake plus plenty "normal" mushrooms), combined with finely crumbled (squeeze in your hand until you disintegrate the block, then drive the back of a fork through it) and well sauteed firm tofu (yes, adding tofu twice) yields an excellent texture here.
Dicing the mushrooms finely (brunoise-like size is best, but doing that to a pound of mushrooms is more work than you think :). DO NOT attempt to use a food processor, that tends to leave you with much mush and little room.) helps, as does sauteeing the tofu separately and adding some of your salt/sugar budget for the dish at that stage (it helps drive out the water).
Small TVP flakes also work reasonably well, as a substitute for the crumbled tofu or as an addition.
If one wants to avoid having soy tofu twice in the dish, burmese tofu (which you make from chickpeas) can be used as the topping too, but caution not to overcook it is advisable.
For some extra umami, adding some finely cut/broken douchi (salted black beans) in with the aromatics works great.
There a a lot of variants of Mapo Doufu.
I know of a vegetarian/vegan version that replaces the minced pork with fermented black beans (Douchi). Works very well. There is a recipe in the book Every Grain of Rice by Fuchsia Dunlop. An online version can be found here
Another version i know is with minced beef. I don't know the source.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.698395
| 2013-09-20T02:08:41 |
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|
59767
|
Food that is high in protein and is not solid for people with wisdom teeth removed?
I recently got some of my wisdom teeth out and I'm trying to cook food that is not solid due to my oral surgeon's instructions. I have found a bunch of food I can make including pasta, mashed potatoes, ice cream (to cool the swelling), variety of soups, rice porridge, etc.
However, I am having trouble finding/preparing food that is high in protein that isn't solid. I know there are things like hummus, but it's really high in fat. I'm trying to avoid too many carbs specifically because I have so many options already. I was also suggested protein shakes but I would rather cook something rather than just throw powder into a smoothie.
Any suggestions on how I can prepare certain foods high in protein to fit my agenda? I believe the only requirements include that the food has to be soft and non solid. I think pasta is an exception because of how soft it is and it won't have issues getting into the holes of where the teeth were.
If you make your own hummus, it's not high in fat at all... commercial hummus is made with a lot of oil and tahini (sesame butter), which are high in fat - healthy fats, but still fat. If you make it yourself, you can control them and keep them at a level you're ok with.
When I had my wisdom teeth removed and when I first had braces put on, I would puree foods. I would puree meats so they were fine, but still meat (not a paste or liquid) and mix them into runny-ish mashed potatoes. You could also puree the meat with a starch or veggie to make it a little thinner (sort of a paste) if texture isn't an issue for you. You'll still get the flavors of the food and the nutrients, just not the consistency you're used to.
Your common 'non-solid' high-protein items are:
peanut butter, or other nut butters
eggs
yogurt
cheese (cream cheese or served melted)
tofu
Depending on how strict you're being with the fat intake, you can go even further ... low fat or non-fat yogurts and cheese (eg. neufchâtel instead of cream cheese); whites only for the eggs, etc. Be warned that if you try to go too low-fat during this time, your body might actually crave more feed, making the problem worse. If it's not a problem with your body being unable to process fats, you might want to reduce protein but increase fats during this time.
The good news is that unless you're a body builder, having a lower protein diet for a week or two while things heal won't cause your body to start eating itself -- in fact, most American diets have more protein in it than our bodies need -- about 3-5oz of meat per day (not per meal) is enough; exact amount depends on your size and build.
As you can get away with soft foods, and not just non-solid:
Scrambled eggs (leave out a few yolks if you're really sensitive to the fat).
Pulled pork, roja vieja, pot roast cooked 'ragout', or similar (you might need to also chop it up if the bits of meat are long).
Pasta with an egg sauce (like carbonara, but might have to avoid the black pepper and/or crispy meat ... might be able to use a soft ham and/or add extra salt or worcestershire) or a cheese sauce (eg, macaroni and cheese, alfredo)
Tuna fish (canned in water; can either make into a tuna salad (avoid celery. Use a grater to extract onion juice for flavor without solid bits of onion. Pickle brine can help brighten it up while being non-solid)
Refried beans (make your own, and you can cut down the fat significantly)
Many soups. (either make a strong stock, cook the meat 'til it's soft, or put it through a blender ... or egg drop soup)
Cheesecake (use neufchâtel cheese, or find a recipe that uses soft tofu)
Flan, custards, or ice cream (made with a custard base, but low-fat milk)
You can also work some extra protein into other dishes ... thin your mashed potatoes with (pre-heated) stock a bit more than you typically would, then while still hot, blend in a egg or two. Or add neufchâtel cheese instead of milk or butter (add stock if you still need to thin it further for your tastes)
@aug - Consider also vegetarian proteins, such as tofu and tempeh, which can be steamed, braised, or poached for softer texture. Small-grain couscous ("Middle Eastern") is a good pasta alternative (though it is basically pasta) and whole wheat varieties are available and softer than other pasta.
@hoc_age : good point on the tofu -- I mentioned it under cheesecake, but didn't mention it seperately. Also, there are some high protein pastas out there (typically made with soy, lentils or chickpea flour ... some are gluten free, others (eg, Barilla ProteinPlus) also have wheat in them))
When I had my wisdom teeth out and 2 dental implants (6 weeks without solid food) I drank a lot of smoothies with 2-3 raw eggs dropped in. So long as you drink it all right away (almost rocky style) I don't think you'd have any problems. Lots of highly acid fruits covered the weird taste for me.
@BrownRedHawk : Growing up, my mom would make egg nog for breakfasts (about a cup of milk, one egg, either a splash of vanilla or chocolate syrup). With all of the fear of eggs these days, it might be better to get pasteurized eggs (or pasteurize your own, if you have a sous vide setup), or just get the 'instant breakfast' powder.
@Joe Aren't most (if not all) US Eggs Pasteurized?
@BrownRedHawk : If it's sold as a liquid in cartons, then yes. But not eggs still in their shell -- they'll be away from the standard eggs and charge more for 'em. They also don't inoculate egg-laying chickens against salmonella as is done in other countries.
I totally forgot about tofu. That is a great option. Thanks for the detailed answer :)
For the cheescake I use greek style yougurt, which you can also find fat-free
I had all four wisdom teeth removed at the same time when was younger. The easiest things I found to eat that were satisfying and reasonable in calories:
Mashed potatoes
Scrambled eggs
Cream of mushroom soup
Tomato soup
Mashed cauliflower
Pureed garbanzo beans/chick peas
Lite yogurt
Cottage cheese
Note: (besides dairy, eggs and beans) These foods are not high in protein, as the OP requested.
And the poster also talked about fats and then carbs in a way that indicated they didn't know the difference. I simply posted what might be helpful. Since there was no bar for what is considered a "high protein" food, I included things that made me feel satisfied like protein supposedly does.
Disagree re: OP not seeming to know the difference.
One option would be "Magerquark", which seems to most closely translate to low fat curd cheese.
Quark on Wikipedia
Is is high in protein, low in fat, and you can add fruit of all kinds both for taste and nutrition.
That would admittedly not be a warm meal, but can always be served after the actual warm meal as a dessert.
Mung Dal Khichdi is the easiest to chew & digest for any condition and as per Ayurveda Mung Dal (protein) the easiest to digest, absorb & balance the body.
Boiled milk with Elaichi (Cardamom), Turmeric and Ginger is a great option as well.
Oh right ... I hadn't even thought about lentils. There are a few varieties that can stay a little bit al dente, but most of them cook up nice and soft in well under an hour.
@Joe - As vegetarian, and follower of Yoga & Ayurveda that's the first thing that hit my mind :)
If you still want soft protein-rich food, liver (chicken liver, lambs liver) can be mashed to a soft, spreadable consistency. Don't over cook it - that's usually why people don't like the taste and texture. If you have a butcher's nearby, get them to put a piece of steak through the mincer several times. That way, you control how much fat is in the piece you choose, and it's almost to a non-chew texture.
For liver, there's also liverwurst (the Amish Market near me has an excellent one), but it's not necessarily the leanest preparation (although likely better than pâté). There are other preparations of ground meats that might not require much chewing (eg, chilli con carne ... but I'd probably favor a white chicken chilli over beef if softness was the main issue)
Have you tried beef consommé ?
Composition per 124g serving:
Calories: 20 kcal
Carbohydrate: 1 g
Protein: 4.01 g
Sodium: 809.72 mg
Sugars: 1 g
Cholesterol: 0 mg
Calcium: 0 mg
Saturated fat: 0 g
Fat: 0 g
Fiber: 0 g
Iron: 0 mg
Trans fat: 0 g
This dish is easily prepared, being heated up from the can, is almost all liquid, and the salt content would be good for healing of the mouth.
Quinoa
Oat
Rice
Cook thoroughly with a bit of extra water to ensure softness. Toss in a blender with yogurt, coconut cream, nut-milk, or soy-milk if you tolerate that. Whirl, and drink (slowly).
Similar to commercial drinks like Odwalla Protein products.
Before long bike rides, my choice breakfast is "protein porridge". It's porridge with a scoop of protein powder. If you made the porridge quite milky, I think this would meet your needs.
Eggs are a great source of protein. I what I used to do is hard boil some eggs, and then get a Fork and mash them all up. They'll become that soft that you won't need to chew.
Proteinshakes can atleast help you with your protein intake. About 50 grams of whey protein a serving give and take between brands. There are even other options with purely vegetable based protein powders do some research and pick whichever one you like.
Just make sure you dont substitute your entire protein intake with this.
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Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.698679
| 2015-08-10T04:25:15 |
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60277
|
Does kimchi always have live cultures?
A lot of the kimchi I see in stores doesn't say "live and active cultures" like yogurts and kefir. I'm trying to up my probiotic intake, but I'm not sure if all the kimchi I get is helping me towards this end. If a kimchi doesn't list "live culture", does it mean that the culture has been killed by heat or other means?
@rumtscho I disagree with the hold here because the question is mostly about whether kimchi sold commercially contains live cultures. That seems to be a valid question about food and doesn't touch on the health or nutrition effects of bacterial intake.
@logophobe the way I read it it needs the answer to decide when some nutrient (in this case the bacteria) is in an "active" state, which goes into the territory of bioavailability.
Reading through it again, I agree that we can probably give an answer on the "alive" vs "killed by pasteurization" question. What we can't do is to discuss when a live culture has probiotic advantages and when it doesn't. I edited the question to be more focused on the "live culture" part and reopened.
@rumtscho Looks good to me!
At least in the U.S., there is no legal requirement to list "live cultures" or whatever on food labels. Short of contacting the manufacturer, there's no way to know for certain whether or not it may contain live cultures.
Kimchi, like sauerkraut and similar cultured foods, will continue to ferment and change flavor and texture if it has live cultures. Thus, if a manufacturer wants to ensure a more stable product and longer shelf life, they may heat treat (or otherwise process) the food to destroy active bacteria before shipping the product to consumers.
On the other hand, since many people have become interested in "live culture" fermented foods in recent years, manufacturers usually go out of their way to point out when they do maintain live cultures. I'd therefore say it's likely that at least large manufacturers will advertise their "live cultures" if present. If there's no such description on the product or on the manufacturer's website, it's more likely (though not certain) that the product has been treated in some way to extend shelf life and does not contain live bacteria. For smaller and/or local producers, you probably will need to ask directly about their processing.
Around here, there is stuff shipped up from Texas labeled Kimchi, with the word faux - in tiny letters. It may have been packed and sterilized, but once home in a fridge, it certainly starts to bubble and ferment again. Give it a week or two, and it tastes like the home made stuff, but without the bok choy.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.699407
| 2015-08-27T03:43:06 |
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|
13527
|
How to reduce the sourness of homemade frozen yogurt?
I like to make homemade yogurt and I am experimenting with timing to get my yogurt to be not so sour but still completely set. Yogurt is, by definition, quite acidic since that is what sets the protein in the first place.
Commercial frozen yogurts seem to be much milder than I can achieve at home. I assume this is because they are using thickeners rather than 100% yogurt. Because they aren't as sour you can find frozen yogurts of almost any flavor.
Since my yogurt is so sour I am more limited in what flavors work well with it. A sour chocolate frozen yogurt does not make my tongue happy. I have in the past made a variety of citrus flavors with and without ginger. These are tasty but I'm getting tired of them.
How can I make my frozen yogurt less sour so that more flavors work well with it?
I'm not sure about this, but I assume that in commercial yoghurt, there is a lot of sugar added. Did you add any?
@Mien - I did. Quite a bit in fact.
Overly sour yogurt is a sign of inconsistent inoculation
Check the type of culture you are using, and ensure you are keeping the yogurt above 37C for more than six hours. The yogurt should finish as a solid lump that resists pouring, not a thick liquid, or a lumpy paste
Pouring off the whey and straining the yogurt makes it more creamy and taste sweeter
Thickeners are not required, just complete inoculation
For sweet yogurt dishes I mostly use sour berries (blackberry, raspberry etc) so it is expected to be somewhat sour anyway
This was perfect. I used my sous-vide controller to make my yogurt instead of the old yogurt maker and it turned out thicker and much less sour. I made blueberry frozen yogurt and it is fantastic.
Instead of refined sugar which can be very strong try other sources of sweetness. For example, very ripe natural canteloupe and honey. Adding a spice or herb (e.g. cinnamon) creates a nice finish.
Thanks for the ideas- I'll try the melons in the summer when they are in season.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.699758
| 2011-03-28T16:41:47 |
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|
34338
|
Alternative to cream for fried chicken recipe
I've recently gotten a fried chicken recipe that I really enjoy. However, the coating (seasoned flour) is held on with egg and cream (mix 1 egg and 1/4 cup heavy cream, dip the chicken in the flour and then in the flour, fry). One of my family members is allergic to milk so cream is not an option for a family meal.
What can I use instead of cream to ensure a nice thick coating? I have tried soy milk instead, which tasted fine, but the breading was thin...
Buttermilk would be extremely common in breading fried chicken. To get a better answer, please provide the recipe you are asking about, and what reasons or restrictions you have on substituting for the cream. See http://meta.cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/1584/how-can-we-make-substitution-questions-more-helpful
One of my family members is allergic to milk is the reason?
And I tagged it dairy-free :\
I'm sorry, I tend not to notice the tags... its always better to have full information in the question. With context, I could provide one hopefully helpful answer; perhaps other folks will as well.
In the case of the breading recipe that you have mentioned, I believe that you can continue to use soy milk (or almond milk, or even water) mixed with the egg in your breading. Instead, a small change to technique should give you a thicker and crunchier coating.
You may need to increase the amount of egg/soy milk mixture you create.
Try adapting the breading method as follows:
Dip the chicken in the egg/soy milk mixture.
Sprinkle your flour mixture with droplets of the egg mixture, and mix so that begins to form small clumps, as if you had already been using it for many chicken pieces.
Dredge the chicken pieces in the flour mixture again, creating a second layer with bits and clumps sticking to the chicken pieces.
This should provide a crunchier, more satisfying crust than a simple single dredge in pristine flour due to the lumps and clumps which will fry up and be crunchy and toothsome.
This advise is based on a the method described by Cooks Illustrated and Kenji Alt of Serious Eats Food lab among others. This picture is from the Food Lab article on replicating Chic-Fil-A chicken sandwiches at home:
My grandma in Louisiana used to use mayonnaise & beaten egg to "double dredge" the fried chicken.
She also insisted on 'unsweetened' mayonnaise, like Duke's Mayo (a regional southern brand).
This is an interesting alternative (and I imagine the mayo would lend a nice tang to the result!)... thank you for the idea!
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.700216
| 2013-05-26T13:10:42 |
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|
46369
|
Is "medium white sauce" a usefully distinct term?
I am familiar with a basic white sauce, or béchamel, and know how to make it. I recently came across a recipe (circa 1950's) that calls for 1 cup medium white sauce.
Is this the same as a béchamel? (What other white sauces [light/heavy? thin/thick? color?] was medium distinguishing from?) If not, do I need to adjust the "standard" white sauce recipe in some way to make it thinner or thicker?
Thin/thick adjustment :http://www.food.com/recipe/bechamel-basic-white-sauce-61333
Ah. I clearly should have Googled for "medium bechamel" instead of "medium white sauce" :)
I spent a moment pondering medium white as something between a paler white and darker white, or if a medium thickness of white referred to something between opaque and translucent white (and how one could possibly tell)... And then I looked at the answer and realized it made much more sense for the medium to refer to the sauce, not the white. All kinds of ridiculousness from me.
After spending more time on search engines and thanks to the comment from belisarius...
Medium refers to the thickness level of the final sauce, and is controlled by the ratio of roux (butter/flour) to milk. For 1 cup of milk:
thin = 1 tablespoon each flour/butter
medium = 2 tablespoons each flour/butter (a "standard" bechamel)
thick = 3 tablespoons each flour/butter
Sources: 1, 2
I have many cookbooks dating back to the 1940's & 1950's. As far as I have been able to tell over the years, a medium white sauce would be the same as your standard recipe. If thick, thin, flavored, colored, or anything else were designated, I would delve further into it. But for all intents and purposes medium should be interchangeable with standard or regular.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.700459
| 2014-08-13T20:27:39 |
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|
83928
|
Optimal type of wine bottle opener?
The type of opener I typical use for wine bottles is the winged lever corkscrew type:
The main problem I have with these is that they don't actually pull the cork all the way out. You have to lever out the last quarter of an inch. Also, there is the chance that you could crumble the cork into the wine.
The other main types seem to be the prong type, the hinged corkscrew, and the gas injection needle. I have not experimented with those. Theoretically the needle would seem to be best because there is no risk of crumble and it will force the cork out in one movement, assuming a big enough pumping handle, but not having actually tried one, I don't know if there are any hidden gotchas.
If we ignore cost and size as criteria, and consider only speed and convenience, what is the best type?
How do different types of wine bottle openers compare for speed and convenience (ignoring cost and size as criteria)?
That "winged" type is made to do that, leave the cork in the bottle a bit. It's so that you can par-open bottles, do them ahead of time without breaking the air seal. After pulling up, dip or run some water over the cork to let it firm up. When you're ready to serve it'll twist/pull out better.
Best, IMO, is always opinion only and not definitively answerable. Even if opinion based answers or polling for opinions was OK, cost cannot be ignored as it is a valid criteria. Then, with the varieties of corking materials in use today, I would not even say I have a favorite myself, as I have been known to use push-in with corks I think may be prone to crumpling, wing for firmer natural cork and "wiggle blades" for synthetic.
Simply look at what the vast majority of waiters at restaurants use. Speed and convenience is their top priority. They mainly use the hinged, "waiter's corkscrew". It is also the choice of most wine "geeks" I know. It's what I use. That, and an "ah so" cork puller for very old vintages/potentially damaged corks....With any corkscrew, some care has to be taken, depending on the bottle being opened.
(While I think this answers your question, the question may be flagged as opinion based.)
But what if they use it because it's easy to carry around without ever accidentally stabbing themselves, and because they open so much wine that they get a lot of practice to be good with it? What's convenient for them might not be as convenient for the OP.
Fair point. Maybe that speaks to the opinion based nature of this question.
Perhaps, though I would say we should also generally be prepared to imagine what would work for a home cook rather than someone who does something 100x a day in a restaurant; we do it all the time mostly without realizing it on other questions.
Google or Amazon "lever wine opener" and sort by best reviews. There is a "rabbit" type and other animal shape references that are quite good and have 2 different screws for natural and synthetic corks. They take the guess work out and cost around $30. Not cheap but good looking and effective.
The other types take practice and knowledge of cork type. For half that price a really good "waiter" style with a hinged double fulcrum can be excellent (and easier to store, portable). Use the shorter fulcrum ledge to get it started and the other for final pull.
The "rabbit" type corkscrews are also known as "automatic" cork pullers in table-mounted versions. They are found often in wine tasting rooms. The lever is longer and a swift down-stroke and up-stroke quickly removes the cork from the bottle held beneath. There are dozens of different corkscrew designs, including tined ones that do not penetrate the cork and CO2-cartridge injecter needles, so "best" is definitely an opinion.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.700643
| 2017-08-26T23:38:22 |
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|
17797
|
What is maggiorana and how can I use it
Someone left me a jar of maggiorana and I have no clue what to do with it (other than pass it on to someone). Wikipedia says "marjoram is synonymous with oregano", but the stuff I have tastes and smells nothing like oregano. smells almost like tea and is almost tasteless.
What purpose does it serve and where can I use it?
also feel free to retag
Marjoram is botanically an oregano subspecies, but it does taste entirely different (a situation very common in herbs, think spearmint and peppermint). The description "smells almost like tea and is almost tasteless" indicates that you got mass-produced stuff where the good aromas have long left the dried plant matter. Fresh marjoram is a rather mild herb, but it still has a distinct aroma, and not a generally "grassy" one.
The aroma of majoran isn't very intrusive, so it can easily be combined with many flavors. It is very often used with potato dishes of any kind, but a big herb producer recommends it for practically everything:
Potato soup and salad, potato dumplings and fried potatoes, meat and sausage salad, all salty cheese dishes, meat loaf, chicken fillings, and especially to homemade lard, duck and goose, rabbit and pork fat. Marjoram is good also for dark mushrooms, cucumbers, all bean dishes and feed legumes, stuffed tomatoes and tomato soup, carrots, peas, sour cream sauce, herb mayonnaise and herb cheese, all heart, liver, kidney, lung dishes, tripe, fish soups and fish stews, fish baked in fat, pie fillings, soups and wild game stew.
It would have been perfect if you had the fresh stuff, but even the dried herb is better than nothing. Just add it to some dish (you can use big amounts, because it is already weak) and decide if you like it.
which is the site you quoted from. I have this question for several other herbs and spices. I searched google and only found content farms copying this question
This isn't from a site, I copied (actually translated) the text the manufacturer put on the jar of dried marjoram in my pantry. The manufacturer in question is Ostmann, a popular herbs brand here.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.700960
| 2011-09-16T20:28:22 |
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|
127921
|
Leaving cooking equipment dirty
In my household, there are a few items don't get washed right away after use. These include a few all-clad non-stick pans (stated as dishwasher safe), kitchen knives, misc pots/pans, a few grill items that have wooden handles. They can stay uncleaned several days to weeks.
We could get these items cleaned quickly in the dishwasher, but so far, the potential of dishwasher-related damage has stopped us from doing so.
I assume that staying covered in food residue and grease can damage the equipment. So, how does that damage compare to the damage of washing the same items in a dishwasher?
Okay, and what is your question about this situation?
Please clarify - are you looking for advice on what can go into a dishwasher, guidance whether leaving dishes out for a certain time is harmful or simply ammunition for a roommate squabble on housekeeping rules?
If food is left for too long it can become more difficult to remove without soaking. This might increase the risk of damaging those dishes,
I'm voting to reopen, although this might be better as two questions: 'what harm does leaving dishes dirty do?' and 'how can a dishwasher harm dishes/utensils?'.
I've removed the extra question.
Hello Tain, we have the same limitations as other SE sites, see also https://cooking.stackexchange.com/help/dont-ask. We don't answer rants, and we don't solve domestic arguments. That's why the backstory had to go. Also, your question was formulated as "how harmful is it" but in food safety, it's impossible to quantify harm. I recognize that the question is now severely edited, and probably even useless to you, because I suspect already know the answer. I don't see how we can get closer to what you want to hear without making the question badly off-topic though.
Fair enough, I wanted to provide context but I can certainly see how it came out as a rant. My original question was regarding harm to the equipment, not potential food safety harm.
@Tain I'm so sorry, it seems that I completely misunderstood your question. That was my mistake, thank you for bringing it up. I have now re-worded again, hopefully it is now more aligned with your original intent. Does it now cover what you wanted to know?
Items that are left unwashed are a vector for cross contamination. The greater the unsanitary conditions, the greater the presence of contaminants. That means the longer they sit around, the more likely that they are to be hospitable to pathogens, and the more pathogens they are likely to contain. So, while you can certainly thoroughly clean and then use these items days later, you don't want them sitting around the place where you are preparing your meals. While you may not make yourself, your family, and your guests sick every time you do this, you are dramatically increasing the likelihood that you do. Take the few extra minutes to clean as you go. It will become a habit. You will be safer and happier.
The original question appears to have been heavily edited by a moderator. It doesn't change my response much. Dirty kitchen utensils, plates, pots and pans don't necessarily harm the equipment, but they become a safety problem as described above. That is the greatest risk, and the most important one to be aware of. Yes, the dishwasher is not good for some of these tools. Just hand wash them.
In a practical home kitchen, most of these items can just be put in the dishwasher, or you can use something slightly different. I run my dishwasher roughly every other day, and wash up by hand less than once a week*, without dirty stuff sitting out.
non-stick pans (stated as dishwasher safe) - believe the manufacturer, but make sure the inside and particularly the rim can't rub against other things. I have a set of non-stick aluminium saucepans that regularly get the dishwasher treatment, as do my frying pans, and I'm not even sure they claim to be dishwasher safe. The problem comes if the coating is chipped (e.g. from someone using metal on them); the dishwasher will extend the chips.
kitchen knives - a divisive topic. They may need slightly more frequent sharpening, but ordinary everyday kitchen knives can go in a dishwasher, just ensure the blades can touch anything (tip down, in the cutlery basket, with nothing else metal in the same section of the basket)
misc pots/pans - stainless, and enamelled pans are fine. I have a copper-plated (on the outside) pan that has slightly discoloured, though less so than from splashes of acidic food. It still works just as well.
a few grill items that have wooden handles - trickier. It depends on the wood. I have wooden spoons that have been washed at least once a week for the 18 years I've had a dishwasher and haven't suffered. Other things have suffered at least cosmetically.
Until the dishwasher runs, it's where I keep the dirty stuff, so it's not in a likely place to contaminate other things. The only problem is when I think it will take one more meal, and there's actually room for only half.
* the run of pipe from my hot water tank to the kitchen sink is long enough to make filling a washing up bowl a tedious and wasteful process, plus I can't be bothered. If I do hand wash for some special things, I do as much as I can get clean and dry with the bowl of water.
Stainless steel knives can get rust spots if there's anything else iron-based in the dishwasher [including the dishwasher racks themselves if the coating is imperfect, which happens as they age]. You can get them off, but it's more effort than just washing them by hand. I'm a convert to hand washing these days, once I figured out why it was happening.
@Tetsujin with stainless, only if they're in contact with mild steel racks etc., otherwise normal table cutlery would suffer too. Carbon steel does get cosmetic marks, which you may want to avoid. My carbon steel knives are nice but not my first choice, partly because of the dishwasher (they also have lacquered wooden handles, and the lacquer isn't as shiny as it was)
non-stick pans: I've had some with exposed aluminium (by design) on the outside bottom and that got etched by the dishwasher. So I'd avoid anything with exposed/polished aluminium.
@Luciano if you're concerned about how the bottom of your pan looks, maybe. Mine are also uncoated where they contact the heat source, and have gone slightly dull, though till shinier than catering aluminium pans. If they've got uncoated shiny aluminium handles the manufacturer probably says don't put them in a dishwasher so I've covered this already
If you find yourself leaving dirty silverware in your dishwasher for more than a couple days, I'd suggest intermittently running the "rinse" cycle.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.701158
| 2024-03-23T05:41:28 |
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|
124750
|
Hard navy beans - will blending soften them?
ok i've soaked my rather old navy beans for around 10 hours, then cooked them on stove top without any salt or other things. Boiled and simmered for an hour or more, added a can of carrots, chopped celery and some onion, cooked another hour, no salt yet ( might be some in the carrots) and still hard. I read that the skins are the culprit. well, what if i put them in the blender briefly to chop them up? if the skin is the problem, maybe that will help? yes it would make them no longer whole, but might be better than hard beans. Anyone ever do this? How did you soften hard beans that didn't soften easily?
Does this answer your question? Why won't my beans soften?
I don't see this as a duplicate. Repurposing non-softening beans into a puree is something different from asking why they don't soften.
I have in the past had some success with slow cooked beans that had barely softened, just enough to be edible. This was a mixed bean chilli, with onion, spices etc., but I hadn't added tomato. It was when I went to do so that I realised they hadn't softened.
I drained off the liquid and put the beans in the food processor for long enough that they were largely pureed with some part bean lumps and used them to make bean burgers (adding some flour of some sort to make them stickier).
You might also be able to continue cooking them in the ground up state until they’re fully soft, then turn them into refried beans… but that would also require regular stirring to keep it from sticking and getting scorched.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.701663
| 2023-07-17T09:11:29 |
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|
6776
|
What does "contains 2% or less of" mean?
In the US, food labels are required to provide an ingredients list. One common phrase on labels is "contains 2% or less of." For example: "Pork, water, contains 2% or less of: salt, spices, sodium phosphates, dextrose, autolyzed yeast extract, caramel color." (Bonus points for identifying what that ingredient list is for.) Does the 2% apply to each item in the list individually, or do all the items sum up to being less than 2%?
This is sort of academic, I suppose, but I like to know what goes into the ingredients I use.
(ǝƃɐsnɐs :ɹǝʍsuɐ)
The US Code of Federal Regulations (21 CFR 101.4) states that ingredients must be listed in descending order of predominance based on weight. The following exception is made in 21 CFR 101.4(2):
The descending order of predominance requirements of paragraph (a)(1) of this section do not apply to ingredients present in amounts of 2 percent or less by weight when a listing of these ingredients is placed at the end of the ingredient statement following an appropriate quantifying statement, e.g., "Contains __ percent or less of _" or "Less than _ percent of __." The blank percentage within the quantifying statement shall be filled in with a threshold level of 2 percent, or, if desired, 1.5 percent, 1.0 percent, or 0.5 percent, as appropriate. No ingredient to which the quantifying phrase applies may be present in an amount greater than the stated threshold.
Thus, each ingredient is 2% or less of the total weight. They are also exempt from the order by weight requirement. The manufacturer is free to order the subset of < 2% ingredients however they please.
Source: 21 CFR 101.4
+1, could not have asked for a better answer. Not sure why I didn't find this myself when I Googled.
knowing all those food regulations must make you a hoot at parties ;)
And if the front of the package has a big drawing of strawberries on the front, but no strawberries in the ingredient list before the "Contains less than 2%" of "natural fruit flavoring" then those cookies/cereal/fruit drink won't qualify for a serving of fruit!
It applies to each item individually. Here is the relevant FDA rule:
(2) The descending order of predominance requirements of paragraph
(a)(1) of this section do not apply to ingredients present in amounts of
2 percent or less by weight when a listing of these ingredients is
placed at the end of the ingredient statement following an appropriate
quantifying statement, e.g., Contains -- percent or less of ------''
orLess than -- percent of ------.'' The blank percentage within the
quantifying statement shall be filled in with a threshold level of 2
percent, or, if desired, 1.5 percent, 1.0 percent, or 0.5 percent, as
appropriate. No ingredient to which the quantifying phrase applies may
be present in an amount greater than the stated threshold.
It pretty much means what is says: the food may contain detectable amounts of the stuff lists, but that they are present in small quantities from a nutrition perspective.
Those labels exist in the form they do because of FDA regulations (in the US, other agencies elsewhere), and the regulators set the rules in a way that is meant to be responsive to the various "stakeholders" (I loath that word, BTW), which often means they are full of arbitrary limits and goofy conditions.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.701835
| 2010-09-05T16:55:37 |
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|
121114
|
How do I cook chicken skins on the grill – but only the skin?
I want to cook chicken skins on the grill – but only the skin, no meat. My kids like the seasoning and crunch of the skin and always leave a skinless drumstick behind, so I want to just cook the skins so I don't have to eat a bunch of chicken meat by itself. Is this even possible, and if it is, does anyone have a good recipe or idea?
Edit for details - thanks moscafj
Yakitori - Japanese grilled chicken skewers - may be a good option for you if you want to stick with grilling. It's generally seasoned with just salt and white pepper, or a sweet soy sauce/teriyaki style glaze.
Yakitori comes in many varieties based on the parts of chicken used, and chicken skin-only skewers are known as 'kawa yakitori'. You can separate the skin from muscle on thighs, breasts, etc., skewer and season them separately, and grill them together for a variety of skewers in the same meal. Serious Eats has a recipe for chicken thigh and green onion yakitori, as well as a more detailed article on yakitori culture.
The texture will vary with how you prepare the skin for skewering. Tightly rolling the skin into cylinders would keep the centre from rendering too much and remain soft as the outside crisps, while a looser roll or sheet will crisp up more.
These look a lot like german "Grillfackeln" which is thin pork belly on a stick
My personal experience is to avoid the grill. The fat runs down and the flares may consume it very quickly if you are not babysitting it.
I recommend that you use an air fryer. It will look golden brown and with a nice crisp taste. You will need to turn it over at least once.
+1 Though maybe not so "absolutism". My Trager wood grill wouldn't likely suffer from many flareups due to it's drip tray design; I'd trust it to not overkill. Similarly, the recommendation about flipping in the air fryer only applies to those with baskets. My PowerXL air fryer has racks that you place things on, and a tray on the bottom with these fins that help direct air flow back up. Most things I put in there cook fairly evenly as a result.
Reasonable, and even better if you have an air fryer....but the OP specifically asked for advice about cooking on the grill.
I would avoid the grill as you may get some severe flare-ups as the fat renders out of the skin. Unless you are using a broiler like grill, it will be difficult to control the temperature as well.
A better solution would be to get a heavy bottomed pan e.g. cast iron, and heat until blistering hot. Add the chicken skins, and use a chefs press or a large spatula to press the skin evenly against the heat, turning as required. The chicken fat will render out and can be poured away for reuse or disposal, depending on the heat applied you may need to remove this part way through and clean the pan if it starts smoking.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.702200
| 2022-07-23T02:51:25 |
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|
122359
|
Can I recognize insecticides in tea?
I am a tea fan (especially Chinese teas but Japanese as well)
I found many places on the Internet to buy teas. Good quality and natural tasting.
What is important to me is the quality in term of taste (natural, without any aromatic addition) but also in term of ecology (I would like to avoid as much as possible insecticides and other endocrine disruptors).
So far, might be a bit surprising, but I found very good quality longjin (green tea) and some da hong pao (black tea) on Aliexpress for excellent rate regarding other more "premium" platform...but I am not sure how to know if what they call "bio" is a "real" control in term of insecticide.
So my question is : is there any method - achievable at home- to know the "percentage" or any trace of insecticide in a tea that I bought from the internet ? Like something that I would put in my brew that tells me if any kind of chemicals is present ?
Hi, tea is indeed fascinating. I had some trouble understanding what you are asking. Note that we don't take shopping questions in the sense of recommending which store to buy from. Also, we don't take price-building questions (how come that food X costs Y). Maybe you could clarify what exact problem you are trying to solve, besides deciding where to buy your tea, so we can understand better how we can help? Objectively answerable subquestions that lead you to your buying decisions would also be OK, such as the meaning of tea-specific terms, for example.
Hi, Thank you, I edited my question to be more clear
@rumtscho : is it more clear now ?
If you have quite a lot of money to spare you could have a gas chromatograph. Somewhat more affordable but still not cheap would be hiring the use of someone else's gas chromatograph. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_chromatography
Disclaimer - I don't know for sure.
However, I doubt there is a dipstick or any other "do at home" test that would allow you to quickly identify if insecticides are present. This is because insecticides have quite a large range of chemical types, with differing amounts/concentrations for their effective range and different stabilities once applied, making it more or less impossible to test for them all quickly and easily. There are labs around that can test for types of insecticidal residues, particularly the organophosphate ones, as these are particularly nasty to life in general; but I can't see any quick tests that don't cost a small fortune and require a set up lab to run them.
Many of the commonly used ones are derived from natural sources (e.g. pyrethrins - you will probably find these in your home bug spray canister), but are now made synthetically, and I think are considered "organic" (as in organic farming; they are certainly chemically organic [carbon based]). These are effective at very low concentrations and don't last long outside.
In general (in the Western world at least), farms that produce things for consumption have mandated stand-down periods after spraying, which lower effective concentrations of insecticides and other applied chemicals to levels that are deemed safe by the local authorities. What these levels are depend on the country and are often tested for in the supply chain to ensure that consumers are protected. I can't say whether your sources adhere to any such rules however.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.702451
| 2022-11-16T12:39:09 |
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|
112304
|
Keto replacement for flour
I would like to know what to use and how much, in place of flour to thicken the sauce in the following recipe and make it keto.
This is the full recipe:
2 Tbsp butter
1 small yellow onion, diced
4 large garlic cloves, minced
1/2 cup chicken broth
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp salt
8 oz sliced mushrooms (optional)
1 1/2 lbs boneless skinless breasts sliced into 1/2 inch filets
1 cup half and half
2 Tbsp flour
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
3 oz coarsely chopped spinach
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Turn your Instant Pot to the saute setting (more). When the display reads HOT add in the butter. Once the butter is melted add in the onions and saute for about 3-4 minutes. Add in the garlic and saute for 30 seconds. Add in the chicken broth, garlic powder, pepper and salt. Stir. Add in the mushrooms (if using) and chicken.
Cover the pot and secure the lid. Make sure valve is set to sealing. Set the manual/pressure cook button to 6 minutes (this is the cooking time for the 1/2 inch pieces of chicken breast, if they are thicker than that you may need more time). Let the pressure release naturally for 10 minutes and then move the valve to “venting.”
Remove the lid. Use tongs to place the chicken on a platter. Loosely cover with foil. Turn the Instant Pot to the saute setting. Warm the half and half up in a pyrex measuring cup for 45 seconds in the microwave. Whisk the flour into the half and half until it’s smooth. Whisk the mixture into the Instant Pot. This will thicken up the sauce in a few minutes. Add in the parmesan cheese. Add in the spinach. Salt and pepper to taste. If using pasta, drain any water off of the pasta and stir into the pot.
Practically speaking, I would not recommend mixing flour (or other thickener) into warm milk or cream. The risk of lumps is far less with cold liquid.
One option is foregoing thickener entirely. I regularly make sauces with those proportions and no thickener and find them perfectly fine, texture wise.
Another option is substituting the half and half with full cream or even switch 1/3-1/2 of it for cream cheese. Or, similarly, add more parmesan or another cheese to thicken the sauce. All of those substitutes will make for a thicker sauce without any further additions.
Otherwise, xantham gum is keto friendly. You want to add about 0.2% xantham gum by weight to slightly thicken a sauce, so about 1.5 grams for your recipe (I recommend weighing your sauce on a kitchen scale and calculating the amount precisely). I would mix it well with a small amount of cream like for a cornstarch slurry, before mixing that into the rest of the liquid. Like Stephie pointed out in the comments, mixing any powder into a hot liquid is very difficult.
Egg yolk is a possible alternative. One or two per cup of liquid works for gravy, so I would suggest two to four in your recipe.
An out of fashion thickener is blood (totally keto!). It once was commonly used. You may be able to find it in an Asian market near you. I haven't tried it, so can't suggest an amount.
Blood is a good thickener, but probably not a good choice for this recipe - especially considering the expected color >.<
I'd recommend resistant wheat starch or resistant corn starch, if you're able to get your hands on them. They both look and function quite similar to regular starch. Resistant Wheat Starch 75 has about 1 g net carbs per 1 Tbsp (unfortunately, it looks like it's been out of stock for months). Resistant Corn Starch 260 has around 3 g of net carbs per 1 Tbsp.
I've successfully used resistant wheat starch to make a roux which I used to thicken a tomato soup. I used 2 Tbsp of RWS + 2 Tbsp of butter heated separately in a pan till it thickened, then added gradually to the soup base.
The result was amazing. The texture was right on: the soup resisted stirring, and the faster you stirred, the more it would resist. The mouthfeel was also close to the real thing as far as I can remember.
Alternatively, you might try making a roux out of fine psyllium husk powder and a fat or cream. I'd probably start at 1 Tbsp and adjust from there.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.702737
| 2020-10-26T02:38:12 |
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|
93432
|
What emulsifier can be used for an Egg-free mayonnaise?
What emulsifier can be used for an egg-free mayonnaise?
Lecithin would be typical.
Aquafaba! (also known as chickpea water) Here's a good recipe from Serious Eats:
https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2016/03/easy-vegan-mayo-aquafaba-recipe-vegan-experience.html
That's a good tip, thanks. The recipe mentions a shelf life of one week, do you think it is reliable?
I've made successful batches of mayo with milk instead of eggs as per this question:
What are the correct ratios for eggless mayonnaise?
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.703056
| 2018-10-30T23:15:52 |
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|
93441
|
What’s the definition of “cultured butter”?
In my search for cultured butter I found butter that lists
culture distillate or lactic acid
as ingredients. Should these butters be considered cultured, even though the package nowhere actually says “cultured”?
Although in this case, it's likely shortcuts because of mass production (eg, adding vinegar to get a sour quality to make 'sourdough bread' vs. long, slow fermentation), for other cases of where meanings don't always perfectly align, see https://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/91691/67
We're not all going to agree on a definition of cultured butter, so these answers are going to be subjective.
Culture distillate (https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/CFRSearch.cfm?fr=184.1848) and lactic acid are both used for flavoring. Is cultured butter butter that tastes a certain way, or butter that's been prepared a certain way?
How about a more common food: would you call it smoked salmon if it hadn't really been smoked, but only flavored with liquid smoke? There are reasonable arguments on both sides. Perhaps you consider smoked salmon to be a dish made with salmon that tastes smokey, regardless of how it's prepared. Perhaps you consider smoked salmon to be salmon that has been smoked, and you aren't really concerned with how it tastes.
Personally, I like to know what I'm eating (not just the flavor of what I'm eating). Calling something cultured butter suggests something about how it was made (fermented with live bacteria cultures), so calling cultured-flavored-butter "cultured" seems a bit dishonest for my taste.
clover sonoma, the maker of this butter, has yet to respond to my question. i have been led to believe that cultured butter results in a taste difference, therefore i am looking for them to claim their preparation method has produced a different product than just regular butter. they are not labeling this unsalted butter as cultured, or cultured-flavored, just listing it in the ingredients. it comes in a blue box. interestingly their salted butter (yellow box) in the same "line" has none of these ingredients.
now i notice all the boxes of butter from clover sonoma say SWEET CREAM butter, which would be a conflict in labeling if the butter was actually cultured. so i guess those added ingredients are flavoring agents rather than indications of method. i will just go buy butter that is clearly labeled cultured to satisfy my quest.
clover sonoma did answer me:"Our butters do not have added cultures. Adding the lactic acid (which itself is a product of fermentation) mimics the fermented flavors that culturing does. So it is closer to a cultured butter in flavor (as opposed to a sweet cream unsalted butter) but is not an authentic 'cultured butter." although they didnt address the "culture distillate" ingredient that is on the label its safe to just assume it doesnt make it cultured.
no wonder i liked the kerrygold unsweetened butter wrapped in gold foil! its only ingredient is "CULTURED PASTEURIZED CREAM".
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.703136
| 2018-10-31T06:08:39 |
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|
94040
|
Can I make a cake with finely ground coffee instead of cocoa powder?
I used all my cocoa powder. Will it taste good if I use coffee instead? If anyone has done this before, please share your experiences and hints.
I would brew strong coffee and use that instead of powered coffee.
Coffee cake is good, but it's better to start from a recipe for coffee cake than try to adapt a chocolate cake. Cocoa powder brings an appreciable amount of fat and bulk to the recipe.
You need to be very careful about terminology. Coffee powder in many places refers to powdered instant (soluble) coffee, which isn't the best coffee drink but is very suiatable as a flvouring. It should be dissolved in liquid before adding tot he cake mix (following the recipe). I have seen coffee powder used to refer to finely ground coffee beans. It's not unknown to add these to food, but it's not common. We discussed this recently.
Potentially, but using ground coffee as an ingredient often doesn't work that well as it can add a gritty texture and excessive bitterness.
Bear in in mind that when you make coffee to drink the process generally involves a carefully controlled brewing time and separating the ground from the liquor and even if you make 'cowboy coffee' you avoid drinking the grounds.
Instant coffee is better direct substitute for cocoa powder or alternatively you can brew some coffee and add it as a liquid ingredient, although this may require adjusting the recipe a bit so you don't end up with too much liquid in the mixture.
Yes you can.But dont expect it to be a chocolate cake.
Also the quantity of coffee must be 1/6 th the amount of cocoa powder you would have used for chocolate cake.
Otherwise your cake will definitely turn bitter.
Cocoa and Coffee are altogether different material. These are not substitutes. You can try with cocoa powder, Coffee powder(try with instant ) and mix cocoa powder and coffee. You will get three different flavor profile.
Hope that helps :)
Note: the asker is talking about ground coffee, not instant coffee.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.703363
| 2018-11-19T14:22:49 |
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|
63892
|
How to judge temperature and time for deep-fried turkeys?
I'm using an electric fryer. After pre heating the fryer to 375 F and putting the thawed bird in, the temp will drop to 275 F and stay there.
So my question is: At a constant temperature of, say, 275 deg F, what is the formula to figure out how long to deep fry a turkey?
If there is one statement that you will read here over and over again it is:
Use a thermometer to determine the doneness of your meat.
There are many "formulas" depending on bird weight, cooking method and - frankly - gut feeling of many cooks, but for a formula to reliably work you would have to factor not only the weight of the bird, but also starting temperature of the bird, build (lean? chubby?) of the bird, temperature of your oven or frying oil, the heating ability of your oven or fryer or, beware, the coals you are roasting the bird over and almost everything else except the lunar phase.
Is this possible? Sure, and I guess some weird physicist1 has developed and possibly even posted it somewhere. Do you want to do the calculation when you are preparing side dishes or isn't it easier to poke a thermometer in the bird's breast and thigh and be done with it?
The formulas serve to give you an estimate of how much time you should need for a bird - give and take a bit.
So to get a ballpark number according to Paula Deen:
Three minutes per pound plus five minutes per bird.
Start meassuring a bit before that and remove your turkey when it has reached 150-155 F, carry-over cooking during the subsequent thirty minutes resting time should let the bird comfortably reach the target temperature of 165 F.
1 No offense to hard-working physicists - I picked just the first cliché that seemed to fit.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.703541
| 2015-11-26T20:32:28 |
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|
43321
|
How would you use a single lemon?
Related to How would you use a lot of lemons?, but at the opposite scale:
I have a recipe that needs 1 Tbsp. lemon zest, so I've zested several areas of skin off this lemon and I'm not sure what I can usefully do with the rest.
Put it in the fridge and use it next time you require lemon juice. Since you have removed part of the zest, it is only going to last a couple of days. Unfortunately "how do I use" common ingredients are off topic as there are a myriad answers.
The question of how to save it for later is reasonable though. (The answers are pretty obvious but that doesn't stop us.)
Zest, lemon, lime or orange freezes nicely, so do the whole lemon, and put the excess in a spice jar in your freezer, for next time. If you immediately juice the lemon, that'll last for some weeks in your fridge before going bad. The juice has a low enough pH to be unfriendly to most agents of spoilage.
If you try to save naked lemons (ie, those without zest) in the fridge, you can put them in a plastic bag so they don't dry out, but you still only have a few days, as it can go moldy on you.
@Jefromi I'm afraid I really only care about ways to use the leftover lemon here.
Then this is a great example of the kind of ingredient use/recipe request question that we don't take - try [chat] if you like, but there are just way too many equally good ideas for it to be a good specific question. (For example, there are dozens and dozens of dishes that you can make that are good with lemon squeezed over the top at the end.)
I'll try asking this in chat next time it comes up. I was hoping to find something relatively simple that "starred" the lemon, since (I assume) people don't tend to eat lemons like they're oranges.
I typically juice it and put it in a drink. You can make a simple Lemon Drop Martini with lemon juice, vodka and simple syrup. Whenever I bake a Dominican cake, I always have leftover lemons (and lemon zest).
Recipe:
2oz fresh lemon juice
2oz vodka (Stolichnaya preferred. Smirnoff is too plain tasting)
2oz simple syrup (2 parts sugar to 1 part water)
Cool down the simple syrup to about room temperature, mix all three ingredients and stir until mixed.
To serve, make a paste with kosher salt, simple syrup and lemon juice, then line the rim of the serving glass (a martini/cocktail glass) with the paste. Pour in the drink either plain or on the rocks / over ice.
EDIT:
If you have leftover lemon zest, you can make lemon pepper, which goes great with chicken or fish. To make homemade lemon pepper, put equal parts of lemon zest and ground black pepper, mix and bake flat for a few minutes. I tend to do:
1 tsp coarse ground black pepper
1/2 tsp finely ground black pepper
2 tsp lemon zest
1/4 tsp sea salt
Mix in a small bowl, then lay flat on a baking sheet and bake at 350 (preheated) for 10 to 15 minutes. When done, let it air cool and save in an airtight container. To use, rub it into chicken or fish.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.703752
| 2014-04-06T22:16:38 |
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|
57792
|
Solid honey in dragon's beard candy?
I saw a video of a street vendor making dragon's beard candy in Korea and at the beginning he started with what he described as a block of "fermented honey two weeks" and a bowl of corn starch:
The honey is quite solid, like a lump of plastic (he knocked it against the walls of the display stand).
How is it that he obtained solid honey?
I have read that honey will rapidly crystallize if it is unpasteurized. Is that what this is? Raw, unpasteurized honey, that has been allowed to sit for two weeks?
I've imported a dragon beard candy product from Hong Kong in the increasingly-distant past. The company I worked with used a maltose-based solution that had been boiled (wheat germ sugar). They'd typically heat the puck in a microwave or hot water bath before shaping the dragon beard candy so that it would be soft enough to work, but still have the tensile strength to hold together while stretching and pulling.
I would seriously doubt that uncooked honey, even fermented, would be sufficient to obtain the structure required for dragon beard candy. What honey does provide, though, assuming this is 100% honey, is a good mix of fructose, maltose and glucose to help control crystallization as it cools. It's not clear to me whether that vendor (I presume you're referring to the one in Insadong) "ferments" the honey before or after boiling, but I expect they would have fermented it beforehand. This is likely to affect the ratio of sugars present and maybe result in a bit of alcohol, but there are several mechanisms possible to ferment honey, including raw honey.
I'm not sure how critical the fermentation step is for a honey-based dragon beard candy; for a wheat germ based or barley-based sugar, the amylase reaction is essentially what yields the maltose (since otherwise you're just eating the grain germ).
In any event, ultimately the boiling step is what controls the crystallization needed to produce dragon beard candy. Thanks to some combination of trade secrets and language issues, I never learned with absolute certainty whether traditional dragon beard candy is boiled to soft crack to hard crack stage, though I'm inclined to believe the versions for which storage is possible reach something very close to hard crack stage and therefore need the softening step.
For what it's worth, I've done the hand-stretching process with the guidance of the master confectioner of the dragon beard candy company and it's quite stiff. Attempts at duplicating it at home with my own sugar solution had mixed results; it does take some experimentation (or training) to get it right.
Freeze it. I thought I heard him say "very cold" in his dialogue. Im making it in the morning, and letting it freeze over night tonight. I will let you know how it goes.
Most recipes you find for dragons beard candy call for granulated sugar, corn syrup, and vinegar to be boiled in water. It could be that fermented honey has everything nessecary to replace the sugar, corn syrup, and vinegar.
Note that fermented honey is not crystallized honey. You can buy it, or I'm sure there are recipes somewhere online. Also fermented honey is a non alcoholic fermentation, like vinegar, which is probably why it has whatever vinegar adds to the recipe. Futher I already know plain honey can be used to replace sugar and/or corn syrup in baking. That's why I conclude that fermented can replace 3 of the 4 ingredients in dragon's beard candy.
One last thing rather you follow the online recipe, use fermented honey, or use plain honey and vinegar you need the temperature to reach soft crack. If you go to hard crack it won't work.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.704019
| 2015-05-26T15:36:31 |
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116383
|
What defines the type of the fermentation (alcohol/lacto)?
What defines the outcome of the fermentation?
You put the veggie, fruit in an anaerobic environment and you either get "Alcohol fermentation" (ethanol) or "Lacto fermentation" (lactic acid). What is the different input to make the different output?
I know the key difference is the saccharomyces and lactobacillus. But what decides which of them start the party?
Welcome! One question per post, please - while the two are about the same substance, they are independent and should be discussed independently. Please take the [tour], browse through the [help], especially [ask], then decide how to best [edit] your post. You may post two questions (but the system might insist on a short wait period).
Hello @Stephie, thank you for the instructions. I will make sure to read the details.
The factors that decide what starts the party as you say are the starter and the environment.
The yeast and bacteria are already present. If one of them is in the majority, then they'll get a head start without any intervention. It's just survival of the fittest.
But for the most part, fermenters intervene. We add starter cultures for one, and we control the sugar, salinity, and oxygen for another.
Yeast are everywhere. They love sugar and oxygen, but don't need oxygen. Yeast ferments typically start with sugar and oxygen. Lactobacilli are strictly anaerobic, and can thrive at higher salinity and acidity than yeast, so a ferment that calls for salt is often lactobacillic. Acetobacter feed on the alcohol produced by yeast but require oxygen.
So if you want alcohol, add yeast starter, sugar, and let air in at first. Then cut the air off before acetobacter start taking off.
If you want vinegar, leave your alcohol ferment open to the air.
If you want a lacto-ferment, add a starter (or not. These are easy.), salt, and no air.
That's basically it.
That's an awesome thorough answer. Thank you so much!
Alcohols exhibit rapid broad-spectrum antimicrobial activity against vegetative bacteria, fermentation is the chemical breakdown of a substance by bacteria, yeasts, or other microorganisms, typically involving effervescence and the giving off of heat.
You are not fermenting with vinegar or alcohol, you are pickling and preserving though, but you need to allow microbial activity to happen for fermentation to happen. That is in essence what fermentation is, it is allowing microbial activity to happen for some purpose.
The issue is confused because they are both done to food to preserve and prepare food.
This is an important distinction to make
Oh right!!!! That's answers why I always got confused. Thanks for making that distinction. It helps a lot.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.704433
| 2021-07-11T11:06:30 |
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|
118144
|
How to make your own maple extract?
Does anyone have any experience with making your own maple extract?
I am on a low carb diet, so real maple syrup is not an option for me. Again, the solution is of course maple extract, but I am not sure if making maple extract is possible at all since it would be made from a syrup.
Ideas on how to make maple extract or an other type of maple flavoring substance are welcome as well.
Up till now, I only managed to make an imitation maple extract from toasted fenugreek seeds (https://www.leaf.tv/articles/how-to-make-maple-extract/). The taste was not bad, but not as close to maple as I would have liked and it turned out ever so slightly bitter.
Hey, thank you for editing the question, but it still doesn't explain what you want to know. Are you trying to make butter flavor, or maple flavor? Those are two different questions.
Thank you for clearing up what the question is about, I reopened the question. It seems that you are using two accounts, or maybe posting twice as an unregistered person. If you wish to register at least one of the accounts, you can also request a merger down the line.
Laura / Bake to. be different, thank you for your cooperation and clarification. However, we have one rule here that basically says „one question per post“. If you were asking about making flavor extracts in general, we might be able to see butter and maple as two variants of the same principle. However, you are asking about refining the two, which makes them two distinct issues, so those should go in different questions. I am making an unilateral decision here and take out the butter part. You are more than welcome to ask a second question - you can use the question history to copy-paste.
If you need any help in posting the second question (about butter flavor), feel free to ping me - you can reach users by typing ‘@‘ and the user name, which should also auto-complete.
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.704665
| 2021-12-08T15:39:25 |
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|
128177
|
Improving my approach for plain water boiled brown lentils
I don't know if I am doing things right. How can I improve my recipe?
The recipe. Only 2 ingedients water and lentils.
I buy 1 plastic package of lentils from the supermarket. Around 500g.
I open the package and toss them into a sieve.
I hold the sieve under running water.
I tip the sieve into a boiling pan and add some water.
I turn on the stove - for some time.
I drain the excess water.
I don't know how much water to use, I don't know at what level (3 being the highest) should I set the stove, I don't know how long should I boil them (I want them very well done).
I have my grandmother telling me to change the water mid cooking to get rid of the sludge, but I often spill it and burn/scald myself. Trying to hold the sieve with one hand and turn the boiling pan into the sieve.
The kitchen sometimes smells like popcorn (I burned the lentils they absorbed all the water and) some times there I barely make it (I put just enough water but there is no water to drain) some times I am too bored to drain the excess water and spoon the lentils into the plate trying not to get too much water.
If you’re burning yourself trying to pour with one hand and holding the strainer with the other, I’d suggest either using a colander (which can stand by itself) or one of those long-handled mesh strainers that you place across the top of the sink (don’t know if there’s a specific term for them, but like this one). That way you’ve got both hands free for handling the hot pot and can pour the water away from yourself.
@JanusBahsJacquet I am parsimonious on the cookware I use. I have to clean it and don't like it at all.
It’s of course your decision, but I’d rather scrub some cooking equipment that scald myself.
Respecting that OP doesn't want to add any other ingredients... but also... salt?!
@BenjaminKuykendall I love my salt but not on legumes, pulses, vegetables or fruit (baring potatoes).
@GeorgeNtoulos I don’t understand your comment at all. Why would using a different strainer have any effect on cleaning? It’s still just one pot and one strainer to clean.
@JanusBahsJacquet Because it is bulkier and has a different shape.
A cold pre-soak and rinse will remove much of what your grandmother removes in the middle of cooking, without danger of scalding.
@GeorgeNtoulos 1) If your sieve does not have a handle, then you should get one with a handle. 2) You can practise the weight transfer by putting the lentils and enough cold tap water to cover the lentils plus 2cm into the pot and pouring them into the sieve. Do it a couple of times and you will have rinsed the lentils and be ready to begin the cooking stage.
@AndrewMorton It does have a handle. How do you hold one without a handle? But one with a handle is miles away form one that stands on its own.
For lentils, there are a few rules of thumb, but not necessarily a hard and fast set of values (like cooking time), because of the natural variability and changes during storage.
But with some minor tweaks, you should be able to significantly improve your results.
First, ratios:
The minimum amount of water you should add is double the amount of lentils. If you plan to drain (and possibly rinse, if the starcy residue puts you off) the lentils, don’t hesitate to go higher, e.g. triple. Especially if you don’t soak the lentils first. If you notice at some point that you underestimated the required amount of water (water level running low but the lentils are clearly not soft enough yet), just top up with more water. You may need a few more minutes in total, but that’s better than burning your food.
Second, stove settings:
Both the starch and the protein can cause the pot to develop foam, spill over and generally make a mess. Therefore choose a pot that’s so large that it’s only half full, perhaps two thirds. Then as soon as the water & lentils have come to a boil, reduce the stove so that the pot just barely simmers. I’m not giving you a number, just observe how the content of the pot behaves. These visual clues will help more than a specific setting, which will get you confused as soon as you use another amount, another pot or another stove.
The foaming is also the reason why I suggest you don’t cover the pot with a closed lid.
Third, cooking time:
This depends on the type of lentils, please check the package, which will often have some sort of information. If not, there are various websites that will provide recommendations. (“Brown” is not precise enough that I would dare to answer here.) a few minutes before the planned cooking time, start tasting a few lentils every minute or so, until they have reached the desired doneness, which is entirely up to your personal preference. Note that value for the next batch, so that you can over time find out which cooking times will give you your preferred results - it’s called “experience” and a good way to learn. You may also find that older lentils (and beans and other legumes) need more time to soften, but that’s perfectly normal.
For the draining in between, I would probably skip that, instead use more water right from the start and strain just at the end, if “sludge” really bothers you, rinse with fresh water (cold to stop cooking e.g. for salads or hot from the kettle to keep them warm). And consider another type of lentil, some will tend to disintegrate! Others hold their shape much better.
If you struggle with maneuvering a hot pot and a sieve, think about either smaller portions (500g lentils it a lot) or a sieve that you don’t have to hold. Sometimes you just need the right tools for the job.
A general bit of advice from someone with four decades of experience: You should monitor your cooking processes carefully while you still develop your cooking skills and instincts. So when you cook your food, stay with it, watch, learn and adjust accordingly.
The problem with a sieve which I don't have to hold is that they tend to be bulkier and harder to clean. Guess that is better than burning myself but I am lazy (my laziness often has comed back to bite me). As for 500g being a lot the lentils are supposed to be my main meal (often 2 of them Lunch and Diner). Some times those 500g are the only thing I eat the entire day. And I am worried about how clean the tap water actually is (I avoid drinking from the tap and even consider using bottled water for cooking). Can I really rinse my lentils with water I wouldn't cook with?
For clarification: When I write “a lot”, I simply mean the volume and weight you need to handle. Purely practicality.
@GeorgeNtoulos The rinsing depends on the water quality in your locale. In Europe and North America tap water is drinking water quality so using it to rinse is fine. In some places it is almost drinking quality so rinsing is probably fine. In some places tap water is not safe to drink so shouldn't be used for rinsing either.
@quarague Athens Greece. People often drink from the tap. I feel reluctant to even cook with it (especially when the food absorbs the water like rice).
@GeorgeNtoulos I've never had a problem with Athens water, and have drunk plenty of it (although I don't live there). The public water supply is generally good, unlike in some more remote places. A lot of water taste issues are about what you're familiar with (ie the minerals in the water) rather than water safety. If you're rinsing, the food is unlikely to absorb many minerals because it's already absorbed as much water as it can during cooking.
Stephie has given you a great answer and you should follow every word of it. (You should also click the grey check mark next to it to indicate that it’s answered your question.) Here’s a more general answer: when you don’t know how to cook something, find a recipe (ideally one in a cookbook) and follow it exactly.
Your grandmother doesn’t cook lentils using a recipe, because she’s been cooking for decades and doesn’t need a recipe. You’re not there yet, and that’s okay. And what will make you better at cooking lentils without a recipe is cooking lentils with a recipe. Measuring “some” water is something you do when you’re proficient and confident in your proficiency, but it is not how you build proficiency, at least not at first.
And I should mention that that even holds for things like lentils which don’t always cook exactly the same way and where the recipe you choose may not quite work for the particular lentils you’re working with. Even in this case, the recipe gives you a good starting point such that you can (as Stephie explained) test things and refine them.
If only I had a recipe I would follow it to a t. I don't want a stew or a soup. I don't want any ingredients other than lentils and water.
Pick any recipe that has some form of “cook the lentils until done” step. It doesn’t matter much, but I would probably choose a salad recipe, because here cooks want to keep the lentils whole and not as mushy as e.g. for a dal. Then omit all ingredients except lentils and water and all steps that deal with these ingredients. You may find that the instructions will likely boil down to “cook in for until done”.
I just added a temporary answer to showcase what I wrote in my comment above. There are literally hundreds out there, because the variations come from what you do with the cooked lentils, not the lentil-cooking per se.
I'm a moderately experienced cook and I find a great deal of value in READING many recipes before I begin to cook.
For the sake of the exercise, taking your comments under @Sneftel’s answer into account, here are three random recipes for lentil salad (I chose salad because the authors here aim for lentils that keep their shape, which is easier to handle that very mushy kinds that you can’t strain well.).
If we filter these just for the lentil cooking step (and omit any aromatics in the water, if mentioned), we see the following:
Lentil type
Amount
Water
Time
Instructions
Puy (green)
1 cup / 200g
a medium saucepan full
20-23 min.
Add lentils to boiling water, reduce heat to a simmer until lentils are al dente. Drain them over a colander.
brown lentils
1 cup
enough to cover lentils in a medium saucepan by 1 inch
16-20 minutes
Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until lentils age tender but not mushy. Drain lentils.
brown or green
1 cup
4 cups
20-30 min
In a medium pot, combine lentils and water. Bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until lentils are tender. Drain any excess water.
(Sources: 1, 2, 3)
You may note that each of them can serve as starting point for your own work.
Frame challenge:
If you often find it so difficult to keep an eye on your lentils as they cook that you burn them, you may want to consider using a rice cooker, pressure cooker, or Instant Pot to make your lentils. This page suggests a 2:1 ratio of water to lentils in a rice cooker: https://homecookedroots.com/how-to-cook-lentils-in-rice-cooker/
You can also bake lentils, rice, and similar foods in a covered dish in the oven; while you do need to remember to take them out of the oven, they are less likely to burn or boil dry. This page suggests 325°F (163°C) for 30 to 60 minutes: https://www.jessicagavin.com/how-to-cook-lentils/
(Me: I regularly mix brown rice, lentils, and other grains in my rice cooker, and used to make baked chicken on a bed of lentils in the oven, but I have never used either method to make plain cooked lentils.)
However, as other people have said, the best way to learn to cook is to follow recipes EXACTLY for unfamiliar foods and then slowly modify them as you gain experience with the process.
No need to supervise is one reason we like our rice cooker so much. The downside of that is that you cannot try it during the process; you may need a few tries until the outcome is exactly what you like. The second reason is that it pressurizes and cooks faster, even obviating the need for an overnight soak for legumes.
Upvote here specifically because "rice cooker" fits the OP's criteria of inexpensive and easy to clean, cooks similarly to a regular pot, but also makes it impossible to burn the lentils. And the frequent use makes it worth sacrificing the bit of counterspace. Though an Instant Pot is an excellent investment for anyone who eats a diet heavy on beans, whole grains, and/or stews/braises.
You don't 'need' to pour out the water halfway to get rid of the scum/sludge. You can skim it off the top and just dump that away, topping up the water if needed.
The 'sludge'/scum is just 'excess' proteins and starch. The reasons might differ with grandmothers, but I was told the scum causes gas and joint pains by older folks.
Also 500g is a lot, unless you're cooking for the week or lots of people, it might be worth trying cooking it in smaller batches.
Brown Lentils or as they are also known Raj lentils take a long time to prepare. I soak my brown lentils for two days. Refreshing the water three times per day.
You are going to have to cook it after soaking it for several hours. I make Dhal Makhni with them but it takes almost three days to make.
Make sure not to use any acids when cooking them. No salt and lemon juice or tomatoes. The flavouring only goes on at the very end when the lentils have been properly cooked.
Be careful for spice blends that often have salt added and do not add bouillon powder/cubes.
Cook them in just water and finally when they have been cooked until soft then make a gravy/sauce to eat them with..
That seems overly complicated and tedious? And the question is explicitly only about the cooking step which is where you don’t go into detail. OP very much emphasized that they don’t want any extras and no preparation beyond the pure cooking the lentils part.
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Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.704867
| 2024-04-21T09:25:14 |
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|
122472
|
Muffins are different
We use the exact same recipe for banana muffins at two different locations (1 1/2 hours apart). One turns out with flecks, and one does not. Every part of the mixing and cooking process is exactly the same and we can not explain why this is happening. They otherwise taste the same.
——
Addressing the questions in the comments:
Two different ovens at two different locations.
Two different mixes but the same ingredients, made at different times.
Fleck refers to the dark specks of a banana.
Flour, sugar, two eggs, margarine, milk, vanilla, baking powder, baking soda. Water is NOT an ingredient.
One batch has the black specks of old bananas and is moist and the other has no specks and is drier.
And:
The flex we are referring to is the black specs of bananas that show up when you are finished cooking. We even took the mixture from site 1 and baked it at site 2 and still no “flecks”. Believe me we have tried everything. Muffins taste ok just not the same finish. Guess it could be the oven but they were baked at the same temp and for the same time. I think we have flogged this long enough and I am just going to give up on figuring it out. Thanks everyone for your input and suggestions.
Did you use the same oven? Were the mixes made at the same time & split in two, or did you have 2 mixes?
Please define "flex." Any chance to post pictures as well? Complete list of ingredients?
Unless you are transporting your oven, there is at least one obvious variable.
If you left the mixture to stand for 1 1/2 hours this will effect the gluten formation in the mixture and the resulting texture.
Same ingredients? Water included?
Did you put any bananas into the muffins, or was that part of the mix?
I can drive 1.5 hours and end up several thousand feet of elevation higher. Just because two spots are some travel time apart doesn't mean much if they have significantly different climates, etc.
to confirm: "two different mixes" is *two boxes of the same brand/type of mix" or "two different brands/types of mix"? Aka two identical boxes, or are the mixes different in any way?
Where do bananas enter into this? You didn't list them as an ingredient. If that was an accidental omission, the obvious thing to check is, how ripe are the bananas you are using? Brown spots are a symptom of ripeness, not an artifact of a particular recipe or cooking process. Using unripe bananas in a recipe that calls for (over-) ripe bananas would, indeed, result in drier muffins.
Assuming everything else is the same, it's almost certainly the oven. You say that "they were baked at the same temp and for the same time," but this is not as accurate of an indicator as you may think that it is.
As far as I know, the majority of ovens are slightly inaccurate. If these ovens are each slightly inaccurate in opposite directions, it's completely possible that the difference in temperature could be as much as 50 degrees.
I would test the ovens using an accurate thermometer to determine how much of a delta you're working with here.
Good luck.
I've experienced a some differences in cooking and boiling time in places closer to the sea (lower altitude) than in cities 300-600km away. Can this also affect the baking process?
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.705951
| 2022-11-27T13:50:50 |
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|
60361
|
Oven temperature vs time adjustments
My cake recipe calls for baking at 350°F for 55 minutes.
I had to bake it for 15-20 minutes longer for inside to be done.
Can I adjust the temperature to 360°F to bake for 55 minutes without burning the cake?
What does your oven thermometer (not the dial, not the control panel, the thermometer you put in the oven) say when the oven is set to 350?
Also, what is your elevation?
Also, are you using the same size/type of pans that the recipe specifies? A larger cake will take longer to cook in the middle than a smaller one.
If you used a reputable recipe, followed it without variation, including using the same size pan as was specified, and adjusted for altitude, if appropriate, then:
The problem was likely with the thermostat calibration on your oven. The best thing to do is get an oven thermometer and use it to find out how much you need to adjust your temperature control. This answer to a question similar to yours may help with that.
If you can't do that right now - adjusting the temperature up in small increments (10-25 degrees F) and noting what happens, until you get the desired results, is a good plan. Remember that there will always be variables that can affect the cooking time and that most times given are approximate.
|
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|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.706260
| 2015-08-30T02:20:15 |
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|
102639
|
bread maker vs conventional oven vs countertop oven vs fan force oven?
I am planning to bake bread often. So I am wondering about the various types of ovens or whether I should get a bread machine instead. What are the characteristics of the various types so that I can decide what is best for me?
It depends on what you want.
A bread maker is great if you want to measure out the ingredients, press go, and come back later to a predictable fresh loaf. Mine also makes good pizza dough. I have quite a cool house much of the year (and no good warm spots), so proving bread is slow without it.
If you want to experiment, or to make sourdough or unusual bread, an oven of some form is more useful. There are advantages and disadvantages of different types of oven, but basically you need one that's got a reliable thermostat and is big enough for anything you want to cook in it.
If you've already got an oven, a breadmaker can be used to make dough, then you can bake rolls or loaves in the oven. Any given breadmaker will have a small range of sizes it can do, so if you occasionally want a lot of bread in one go, but normally only a little, you'll end up making it by hand after all. Another option is a stand mixer combined with an oven - that's flexible and saves effort, but you have to be there at the right time, just as if you're kneading by hand
I’ve used all three rather extensively. And a regular (non convection) oven.
Bread machine pros:
Throw in the ingredients, push the “go” button, come back in a few hours and there’s bread.
You can make some really delicious bread with very little effort.
You can make just the dough, then bake it in a regular oven.
Bread machine cons:
You can only make one shape of bread – the shape of the machine’s pan.
There’s a hole in the bottom of your loaf from the machine’s paddle.
It takes up a fair amount of real estate on your countertop and only does one thing – make bread.
I have a rather large, good quality countertop oven.
Countertop oven pros:
It does way more than bake bread. The wife and I live in a tiny one bedroom apartment. Even though our kitchen has a full sized convection oven, we still dedicate fully half of our countertop to the oven. It easily gets as much or more use than the full sized oven. If you do a lot of cooking, or there’s just one or two of you, I highly recommend a countertop oven even if not baking bread.
You can make some really delicious bread.
Countertop oven cons:
It takes up a lot of real estate.
Even if it’s a big one, it’s still pretty small. One of my go tos is a no knead pain de boule in a standard cast iron Dutch oven. It won’t fit. I have to make a smaller recipe and bake it in a ceramic, lidded casserole dish. Many, if not most, regular loaf pan recipes are for two loaves of bread. I don’t think I can fit two loaf pans in mine. My larger pain de mie pan will not fit. I don’t think my baguette pan would fit. I don’t think a full sized muffin tin would fit.
Regular, full sized oven – convection or not pros:
You probably already have one.
You can make pretty much whatever shape and size loaves you want.
You can cook other things in it – not just bread.
Regular, full sized oven – convection or not cons:
Can’t think of any.
Conclusion: If you already have a full sized oven, use it unless you dislike kneading bread and don’t have a stand mixer. Otherwise, use a bread machine.
I would only use a countertop oven if no other options were available.
Your fan forced oven is likely best, but no doubt there are bread makers out there that are better than some ovens. Baking/pizza steel can help a lot with the challenges of bread in a consumer oven, and cast iron combination cooker or dutch oven can give you something similar while additionally mcgyvering some steam.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.706674
| 2019-09-30T19:12:15 |
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|
121271
|
Are pig testicles edible?
I’m just asking a question about a part of the animals anatomy. I’m watching something on the discovery channel and where they are located they stated that, people in this part of the village eat every part of the pig . Every part!!! They worship the animal and to waste any of the animal is frowned upon. That’s why I was asking if you can cook and eat the pig’s testes?
For those that haven't seen it: the parts of a pig that are delicious
No-one complains about Chicken Nuggets do they?
Every pig that I have every asked about this has warned me that they are completely inedible and will make you get sick and die.
Sometimes the bull wins
c.f. Rocky Mountain Oysters. (Which aren't pig testicles... but are bull testicles.)
The only part of the you cannot eat is the brain. Although unless you raised the hog yourself and have exact knowledge on what iy ate I would stay away from pig offal.
Yes, testicles are just a part of the animal that is perfectly edible like many others. This includes mammals like the pig in your question, but also birds. They are usually served as special dish because like other organs they need certain preparation steps for best results.
The (modern) western everyday cooking culture tends to ignore parts of animals that are not nice steak-like cuts, but apart from certain exceptions like a few organs (think gall bladder), most animals are pretty much edible completely - and were used that way for human consumption because it's valuable protein and calories (so a basic necessity). Just consider the British steak and kidney pie or the German liverwurst, even "inedible" bones can be used for bone broth. Recent trends like nose-to-tail cooking go back to these roots even in a fine dining setting.
In animal husbandry, keeping multiple intact males in a herd can be problematic, so removing the testicles in young males has been a long-standing practice for centuries, making lamb/beef/goat/… testicles even a seasonal ingredient.
other common (or at least, relatively well-known) organ meats in Western cooking: intestines (traditional sausage casings), stomach (either the lining chopped as tripe, or stuffed like haggis), thymus & pancreas (sweetbreads), heart & lungs "lights" (together with liver they form the filling of haggis), liver (either on its own, or pureed in things like liverwurst and pates), heart & gizzard (often sold with fancier poultry for making gravy)
You cannot eat pork brains.
It is a good food in Chinese inhabited areas. It is edible.
With that much chile in the dish (as in your first photo), just about anything is edible (for people who can take the heat)/
Organ meat is not only useful as a source of calories but they are also very nutrient dense. Becuase each type organ in the body is highly specialised, it will contain specialised amounts of vitamins and nutrients. e.g. Collagen in bone broth is good for our own connective tissue, liver and eyes are a very rich source of Vitamin A, etc. Arguably not eating offal today is making us all mildly/somewhat malnourished, e.g. Weston Price (1930s survey of nutrition and dental health around the world) seems like strong evidence that all orthodontics (crooked teeth) is due to malnutrition.
Note milts are fish testicles but they may be called roe (eggs) in the shop (UK).
Embrace eating those pig testicles.
Congrats on your first answer in SA! Note, though, that per https://cooking.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic we try to avoid making claims about nutritional value here. Your answer is mostly about that, rather than answering the OP's question; that's why it's been downvoted.
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.707115
| 2022-08-07T04:31:51 |
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|
78326
|
What is this Austrian dish? It resembles potato croquettes?
I'm searching for a recipe or just anyone who knows this dish, I think it sounds like 'rostitachen' but I can't find any recipes online or anything about it!
They are like potato croquettes filled with cheese and veg or mushrooms.
The term you are looking for is "Rösti-Taschen". Alternatives could be for example "Rösti Tascherl" (Austrian diminuitive) or "(gefüllte) Kartoffeltaschen" (denoting the ingredient).
They are sold as convenience food by various suppliers (1, 2), recipes to make them from scratch seem rather scarce (and typically in German).
The base principle is making a dough from starchy potatoes, egg, flour butter etc., wrap it round the desired filling and deep (or shallow) -fry them in fat. Breading them is optional, but can help them keep their shape. I suggest starting with a recipe for croquettes and a recipe for the desired type of filling, then combine them. Tweak as necessary.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.707452
| 2017-02-11T10:10:56 |
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|
73849
|
Choux pastry recipe spreading and deflating
I tried this recipe for choux pastry, but it turned out too thin and the scooped dough spread on the tray before I could put them in the oven. They started to rise well, but deflated at the end. I read the answers about the deflating part.
Is the recipe bad? What can I do to get better results?
We have a question whose answer covers the typical mistakes in choux pastry. I won't close as a duplicate, because your symptoms are somewhat different, but it's worth going through it: http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/9901/choux-pastry-chocolate-eclairs-doesnt-cook-properly
A successful pâte à choux / choux pastry depends on a combination of
Gluten development
Water content
Baking environment
Let me show you how they work together:
The gluten, which helps to trap steam during baking and create the large holes, is developed during the phase where the water-fat-flour mixture is stirred in the pot on the stove. (There is a reason it is called "burned dough" in German, for example.) It needs to be cooked until it forms a smooth ball and a white layer is visible on the bottom of the pot. During that roasting step, some water evaporates as well.
The eggs add protein and liquid to the flour ball. It is essential that you add them to the slightly cooled flour mix slowly, one by one (or a bit at a time), always stirring well, until the dough is completely smooth before adding the next. Do not add the last bit of egg without checking the dough first. For your recipe, add the beaten eggs in about four portions. There will be a stage when the dough becomes stretchy and gets a glossy sheen, that's when you have reached the right spot. It can be piped or spooned easily, but won't be runny. Depending on how much water evaporated in step 1 and the size of the eggs, you might have to leave out the last bit of egg or use all of it.
The consistency of an eclair or cream puff depends on a balance of steam "blowing up" the batter and the flour-egg mix solidifying in the oven heat. With choux pastry, steam is an important factor. You need good heat to generate steam quickly, yet not too hot or the outer crust solidifies before the steam does its job. Some swear by generating extra steam by adding a bowl of water or spritzing the oven walls. And that is the reason why opening the oven door is so fatal. Piercing or cutting the baked puffs to release excess steam helps preventing sogginess.
So to improve your flat puffs:
Meassure your ingredients, especially the liquid carefully.
Bring the water-butter mix to a rolling boil, cook the dough ball well.
Add only eggs until the right consistency.
Choose the right baking temperature.
Do not open the door before the baking time is (almost) over.
And finally: Don't use sugar in the dough, even for sweet fillings. The sugar could influence the texture negatively. Choux pastry is neutral and can be used with sweet or savoury fillings.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.707559
| 2016-09-09T23:21:52 |
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|
113525
|
Can I swap out butter and milk for heavy cream in a ganache recipe?
I want to make a ganache today, but the heavy cream I expected to use has gone bad and the local stores are all closed right now. My normal recipe is 1:1 ratio of cream to chocolate.
I know that I can't substitute butter and milk for whipped cream (e.g.) because it's not emulsified or anything and won't whip. However, will the melting and stirring involved let me get away with it for a ganache? Since cream is ~35% fat, am I right that 35% butter plus 65% milk would end up with a reasonable consistency?
I came to this question thinking you wanted to swap out buttermilk for cream in a ganache. Your actual question (swapping butter and milk for cream) is much more reasonable, and I look forward to finding out the answer.
Seems someone has claimed it is possible. https://www.itsyummi.com/making-chocolate-ganache-without-heavy-cream/
@csk yeah I see it now, whoops :) edited... although buttermilk would be interesting!
I agree, buttermilk ganache would be interesting, and possibly delicious. I wonder if the acidity would be a problem.
Yes you can, some Portuguese/Brazilian ganache recipes actually don't use cream at all.
Cream (creme de leite) can be prepared this home-made way:
500 ml of fresh milk
1 egg yolk passed through the sieve
200 g butter
200 g hydrogenated vegetable fat (margarine)
In a pan, mix the sieved yolk and the milk, heat it slow so that the yolk does not cook and the mixture does not boil.
Turn off the heat and add the other two ingredients. As soon as the fat and butter have completely melted, beat it still hot for three minutes in the blender.
now you have your cream, continue finishing your ganache as usual...
good luck, don't stop stirring, in case you don't have a blender :)
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.707839
| 2021-01-01T17:19:44 |
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|
84884
|
What can I substitute for lady cream peas without noticeable flavor change?
I was emailed a recipe by a friend -- she'd like me to cook a Strawberry and Lemon White Bean Bundt Cake. One of the ingredients is going to be a problem, though:
1/2 pound Camellia Brand Lady Cream Peas, cooked and drained
The cooked peas are pureed and then mixed with other, more conventional cake ingredients; presumably the strawberry and lemon flavors predominate, rather than the peas.
But for my question: I'd never heard of lady cream peas! According to the manufacturer's website (from whence the recipe comes), it's a type of cowpea.
They have a sweet flavor and creamy texture and are featured in Southern dishes
I've looked in a couple of stores and can't find lady cream peas -- would I be able to substitute black-eyed peas (another strain of cowpea) with little risk of changing the flavor, or are they stronger (beanier?) than lady cream peas? What other bean/pea options are available? My lack of cowpea experience is showing :)
Camellia brand has a store locator for it's products and the OP was able to find the lady cream peas at a location close to her.
For anyone who isn't able to find them, butter peas are a good option. I've seen them fresh, frozen, and canned. Other acceptable substitutes could be cannellini (white kidney) beans or great northern beans, although great northerns are not quite as sweet. Both of these should be available dried or canned. However, if you are to prepare them without salt, I would stay away from canned.
I can't really recommend using just any white bean. There is a flavor difference. Lady creams are unusual in that they have a rather mild and inoffensive, slightly sweet flavor and comparatively creamy texture. This differentiates both this particular strain and the cream peas more generally from other cowpeas, which have a much earthier and brainier flavor. The big deal is that like other cowpeas, they still have around twice the protein of regular beans. Small Lima / butter beans are probably creamy and mild enough, but slightly bitter unless cooked with a couple changes of water (which removes some nutrition and the funny taste that comes from a truly harmless level of of natural cyanide compounds). Great Northern or Navy beans would probably be ok flavor wise, but have a less than ideal consistency. I don't know much about white kidney beans.
I am sure you could use any type of white beans.
What about white beans make them a good match for the characteristics of lady cream peas?
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.708013
| 2017-10-08T18:23:21 |
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|
122451
|
Does this flour dish exist in other countries, and what is its name?
I found a very interesting old dish in Ukrainian cuisine. In this video a woman cooks it https://youtu.be/-eq9ggNSWjg
It is a variation of pasta soup, for which the most salient feature is that the pasta is quickly formed into irregular pieces by a rubbing motion between the two flat hands. It is then boiled in milk thinned with water, and the whole result (pasta and cooking liquid) is served together as a soup.
I am interested in where people cook this dish, what different cooking processes are used, and what related dishes are called. In Ukrainian cuisine this is called "Zatirka", "Styranka", or "Sukanytsia".
There is more information (in text rather than video form) in this Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zatiruha You may wish to edit some quote from the article into your question so that people can more easily answer.
I would guess that it probably has other names in areas adjacent to Ukraine, but does not seem to be popular anywhere else.
America has "dumpling soup" in which soft dough I dropped into the soup to cook. This does tend to cause some of the dough to break up and thicken the soup. But it's usually made with chicken soup rather than plain milk and water.
While it is really hard to prove a negative, I would say that no, this exact dish seems to only have arisen once, and is only common among East Slavic people - which is a better way to describe its origin area than by modern country borders.
Starch-based soups do exist around the world as a poor people food, although they are not as popular as various types of gruel (which is the cheaper preparation, since milling is an expensive process in low-energy societies). But on most continents, wheat is not the dominant cereal. So for example in Japan, people traditionally eat a gen-mai soup (rice based), and similar is true for other continents. So it should be sufficient to look at the most similar dishes in Europe and see if they are virtually the same.
European countries do have traditions which are highly similar to this soup, but they happen to have developed slightly different in their detail. None seems to combine all the central features of this specific dish.
Having a soup made from barely-shaped dough. This positions the zatyrka in the middle between a noodle soup, a flour soup and maybe a bread soup. In noodle soups, the noodles tend to be elaborately formed, for example in a ravioli soup. Also, when talking of "noodle soup", most people imagine a soup that is broth-based and has vegetables added. Standard flour soups don't have any shaped lumps at all, and are anyway rare outside of the same Eastern Slavic culinary region, except for a few exots like the Basel flour soup, which is more of a drinkable gravy. The closest geographically separated relative of the zatyrka in this sense is probably the trahana, which is made in ex-ottoman regions. There, sourdough is cooked into a soup, but without shaping, just dissolving it in water. The zatyrka process is halfway between these two ideas, and doesn't seem to be practiced in other regions.
making noodles by rubbing. Examples of this exist, e.g. Schnupfnudeln and Spätzle, but they are not the same process, don't produce the same shape, and aren't traditionally made into a soup.
making a soup with a milk base. This is quite common in dairy producing areas. The less similar examples are chowder-like, but you can find dishes like Kappeler Milchsuppe (Switzerland) spread throughout the European continent, which involve cooking up bread, grains or noodles in milk. There are also sweet variations.
I must admit that I am not very familiar with the cuisines of the countries around the Caspian sea, which would be a good candidate to have similar foods, maybe they have similar dishes which I have missed.
I kind of struggle to follow your “make by rubbing” logic for Schupfnudeln and Spätzle, but may be culturally biased.
There are similarities with Spätzle or Hungarian Nokedli… just without the soup; though they're not 'rubbed' so much as 'squeezed'. I don't really know Schnupfnudeln except through Google, but though they're rubbed, they seem to be more akin to Gnocchi. There is a British dish, barely remembered from 'long ago' called pobs. It's not really a soup, nor is it noodles - it's bits of stale bread heated in milk until it all goes soggy & soup-like; sweet or savoury. [No, it's not my idea of gourmet either;)
@Stephie it is a more extended meaning of "by rubbing", as I didn't mean that they are rubbed between two hands. I still chose to include them because Schupfnudeln are rubbed by one hand against a board, and there is one variation of Spätzle (or is it Knöpfle?) which is made with a tool that rubs the mass over a holed piece of metal (not the levered press, the other kind that looks like a mandoline). It is certainly not the same process - I was pointing to the closest related product, with the intent to show that it is far enough to not count as "the same".
Perhaps Riebele (also Swabian)? Which is a firm pasta dough, scratched over the pointy side of a box grater? That gives crumbles that get cooked in soup and exude more starch than other kinds?
@Stephie I'm not that deep into the terminology. I meant the ones you make with a Spätzlehobel (https://spaetzlewunder.de/media/image/2a/74/1d/spaetzlehobel.jpg). It does use a rubbing motion to produce them. I have only used it for a quite liquid dough though, more liquid than for hangeschabbt. The Riebele might be a closer match, but I didn't know about them.
There are other "noodles" produced by rubbing between hands; the most popular example is couscous. However, it looks quite different and is cooked differently.
Also, that is NOT a good description of trahana. It's not "sourdough cooked without shaping". Trahana are granules made form dried dairy with a kernel of barley or wheat. Not providing a different answer, though, because your main thesis (nobody else does this) seems to be correct.
@FuzzyChef re:trahana, maybe it is one more of these words that have different regional meanings. On the Balkans, the traditional way to make trahana is to prepare a wet dough from flour, sourdough starter and dairy, then let it a few days to ferment. When fermented, it can be cooked right away (the variant I described) or shaped into granules and dried in the sun, then stored. The granules tend to dissolve when cooked.
Ah, it's made differently in Greece: https://www.foodnetwork.com/fn-dish/shows/2012/04/what-is-sour-trahana
Yes, this is a quite antique dish similar to "Halusky"
https://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%93%D0%B0%D0%BB%D1%83%D1%88%D0%BA%D0%B8
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halu%C5%A1ky
Welcome to the Cooking Stack Exchange, please take a [tour] and visit the [help] for more information on this site and how we work. This looks like the beginnings of a good answer; if you fleshed it out with some more information on why you think it is similar to the question(it certainly looks like it from your links), it would make a very good answer.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.708245
| 2022-11-24T06:31:57 |
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122850
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Can I use lemongrass instead of lemons?
I haven't really worked with lemongrass before so I just wanted to know if lemongrass essence tastes quite similar to lemon, and if I can make tea with it.
Lemongrass essence? Can you explain what that is? Do you know that it's edible?
Lemongrass is quite a common ingredient in herbal teas. But it has a different taste to lemons.
It is milder than lemon.
Lemongrass essence should be food quality and as such you can also use that in drinks, but it will require even more testing how much you want to add. It might be a good option for people who can for some reason not use lemons, but it will not be the most natural choice for everybody.
So yes, you can use it but it will result in a subtly different drink.
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.708792
| 2022-12-30T14:41:52 |
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122852
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Can i reheat soup I left out for 4hrs
I keep hearing people say stuff like "throw it away after 2 hrs if it was left out in the open bla bla"
In reality, a lot of persons can't afford to throw food away, like me.
So what if I reheat it thoroughly, won't it kill the microbes and make it safe to eat?
Just for clarification: the time threshold means that after that the food is no longer safe. It does not mean that it’s going to make you sick, just that you can’t be sure it won’t. You can always decide which level of risk you are willing to take. But while reheating may kill the pathogens (not true for example for Clostridium botulinum), it may not destroy the poisonous substances they produced. OTOH, boiling well for ten minutes will destroy botulinum toxin. Find more details in the generic posts about food safety.
Yes, you can, provided - 1. It doesn't smell bad. 2. It doesn't taste different or weird. 3. It doesn't have any fungal growth on it. Another factor to keep in mind is the weather. Food rots slower in cold weather. So if it has been kept out on a hot day, be more careful. Also, meat products tend to rot faster. You have to experiment, and observe your bodies reaction and learn.
The answer to the duplicate question is 'no', spoiled food won't become unspoiled from heating. The answer to your question is a clear yes. After 4 hours at room temperature soup is still perfectly save to eat. It is usually more tasty when heated (depending on the kind of soup) but that has nothing to do with food safety.
I routinely let my big pots of soup (and etc.) sit on stove and cool off overnight before stashing in the fridge, or putting in containers for freezing. Four hours is nuthin'. I imagine some things could be questionable if sitting "lukewarm" and uncovered for 4 hours. Staphylococcal food poisoning is not removed by reheating, and it can cause severe pain.
There is a lot of discussion regarding food safety and spoilage. Bottom line from the FDA and USDA is this. You need to use your common sense, and your physical senses to determine whether something is safe to eat. The health department rules and regs are for commercial entities, to help prevent a restaurant from making the public sick. They do not apply at home.
@sfxedit C. Botulinum spoilage can be odorless, and have no detectable presence.
@Stephie C. Botulinum also can only be killed at 240F, boiling is not enough to guarantee C.b. is eliminated. It only takes one survivor! This can be evidences by canning meat in a low acid environment using the water bath method. After water bath canning say, chicken and waiting 5 or 6 weeks, your vacuum sealed canned chicken, will no longer be evacuated will grow cloudy and when you open it....God help your nose!!!
@Escoce I wasn't aware about C.B. So as a precautionary measure it would be advisable to always reheat such food at high temperature before eating it.
@sfxedit only with unspoiled food. Once the food has been spoiled, it can't be unspoiled. Reheating food does not detoxify it even though it may kill living bacteria.
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.708883
| 2022-12-30T15:47:15 |
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123363
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What exactly are American recipes containing "smoked sausage" or "smoked Italian sausage" referring to?
I have recently come across several American recipes that call for an ingredient described as 'Smoked Sausage' or 'Smoked Italian Sausage'. Here in Australia, we try to be a little more specific, so is it a longer, skinny item like Cabanossi (Popular on pizza) or Kabanos, or one of a plethora of sausage products that are either smoked or cooked in a brine tank, or even both? Are they short or long? Are they relatively unspiced etc, or garlicky, peppery etc?
Hello Paull, and welcome to the site. I am not really sure what you are asking. Smoked sausages can come in all shapes, sizes, and flavors. It could be helpful if you share a recipe.
@moscafj I've certainly seen American recipes/cooks refer to 'Italian sausage' as in ingredient with what is clearly a relatively well-defined flavour profile, so I think asking what this corresponds to outside the US is a good question.
@dbmag9...fair...but the OP asks about "smoked sausage" or "smoked Italian Sausage" in the context of "several American recipes." My point is simply that this has the potential to mean many things. An example or two of recipes, would help the OP get a more precise answer.
I used to live in Austin, TX. There was a local BBQ place that sold their sausages in local supermarkets. They are generally beef but also available in pork, as you can see here: https://southsidemarket.com/collections/sausage . Would that be what you are looking for?
@SteveChambers I suspect sausage smoked at a BBQ place is different from what the asker is looking for. But it would probably substitute all right.
I find it pretty easy to understand what OP is asking. He is cooking a recipe he got from somewhere US based, and the recipe states "smoked sausage". Either that's too generic even for US cooks, or there is some 80% probability that it's some kind of sausage that most US citizens would understand. He needs a translation to some probably equally fuzzy class of ingredient in Australia. The fact that it can "mean many things" is the point. @moscafj
@AnoE I think it is pretty easy to see the issue I was pointing out given the answers thus far. With a one or two examples of recipes, the OP would have had a higher chance of finding the kind of sausages those recipes might be suggesting. On Seasoned Advice, it doesn't work so well when something can "mean many things". Suggesting a couple of recipes (or providing the links) narrows the options.
This question is difficult to answer without knowing what region of the US the recipe came from, and how old it is.
Sausage making in the US for a long time was highly regionalized, with the sausage style based on where the people of that area primarily emigrated from, so they might be in a Germanic, Polish, or Italian tradition.
These days, however, and for the past 20-30 years, there are major national distributors (e.g., Hillshire Farms) who simply sell products labeled ‘beef smoked sausage’ and ‘smoked sausage’.
Unless you have any other information, assume that you can get away with any pre-cooked, moist (not dried/cured), lightly smoked but otherwise non-assertive sausage, as it’s more about protein and texture than anything else. It would likely be a medium grind (not a coarse sausage like soppressata, but not homogeneous like a frankfurter, either). It’s probably pork, or a blend of pork, chicken, and beef, as that would have been otherwise specified.
Update: I forgot to mention the size aspects. Smoked sausage is usually sold as a loop, which were 16oz until a few years ago. Due to shrinkflation, they’re now usually 14oz. It’s a single sausage, no casing, about 3cm in diameter. “Italian” typically means that there’s fennel seed, but it’s usually sold as a raw sausage (in links maybe 2.5 to 4oz each).
Italian sausage (mild or hot) is also often found in bulk, no casing.
In my experience, the national brands of "smoked sausage" and "polska kielbasa" are almost indistinguishable, and at least interchangeable on my table. I don't know any Polish people to ask if it's real kielbasa.
In countries like Spain, the word sausage ( salchicha ) refers to a more "not as industrialised and processed" product, whereas a generic smoked sausage would be refered to as a frankfurt (be it german or not, we use it as a generic term). Salchichas usually come in the same containers as chicken breast, beef, pork, lamb in the butchery section, whereas frankfurts come in plastic vacumed sealed packages
I can’t comment what those specific recipes mean, but based on experience here in the US, ‘smoked sausage’ is pretty generic, albeit with some relatively consistent properties. In particular, ‘American’ smoked sausage usually:
Has pork as the primary meat, and if not is usually a blend of multiple meats.
Has the meat medium to finely ground.
Has a ‘medium’ casing (not super soft, but still pretty easy to cut with a decent knife, and still holds together reasonably well).
Is pre-cooked, not dried, and not cured.
Has a rather mild flavor with little in the way of spices or herbs involved.
In theory, any sausage you can source locally that meets all those points should work fine in most American recipes that call for ‘smoked sausage’. There are two special exceptions to this:
Louisiana Cajun and Creole dishes may assume Cajun Andouille sausage due to the extremely heavy French influence on that area’s cuisine. This is similar to French Andouille sausage, though typically double-smoked and often with a heavy helping of cayenne pepper as part of the seasoning. This will usually be called out explicitly, but is not always.
Some Hawaiian dishes may assume something closer to Portuguese linguiça. Portuguese cuisine had a major influence on modern Hawaiian cuisine, and this is one big way it still shows. Again, this will usually be called out explicitly, but is not always.
‘Italian sausage’ is trickier. What most Americans think of as Italian sausage is a fresh, coarse-ground, pork sausage seasoned primarily with fennel, typically with some black pepper and occasionally with sweet basil or cayenne pepper flakes (I believe it’s mostly based on Italian luganega, but I’m not certain about that). It’s almost never smoked though, so I’m not sure if it is what these recipes are calling for or not. In theory, Bologna sausage would fit the description of ‘smoked Italian sausage’, and it’s readily available in the US, but that’s probably not it since most Americans don’t even know it’s sausage (we largely just use it as a cold-cut for sandwiches under the name ‘baloney’).
After digging a bit further, I’ve learned that apparently some places in the US that make smoked meats actually smoke American-style Italian sausage and sell the result as ‘Smoked Italian Sausage’, and some people go about making these themselves as well. I’ve never had these myself (let alone seen them sold anywhere), but my guess is that they are what the recipe is calling for when it says ‘Smoked Italian Sausage’. From what I can tell, these sausages are usually hickory-smoked like many other smoked meats in American cuisine that don’t call out a specific wood used for the smoking.
If there’s significant cayenne or crushed red pepper in Italian sausage, it’s usually called out as ‘hot Italian sausage’. Without it, it’s either sold as ‘Italian sausage’, ‘sweet Italian sausage’, or sometimes ‘fennel sausage’. Also, although the standard American ‘baloney’ is like mortadella without the pistachios and chunks of fat, there’s also regional variations of balogna. In Pennsylvania, there’s “Lebanon Balogna” and “sweet Balogna” which are a coarse ground beef sausage of similar thickness which is lactofermented (and then smoked?) also ‘ring balogna’
This must be where those regional differences/preferences come in. In my experience, most recently in Texas smoked sausage is beef and if you want pork sausage you have to ask/look for it. I'm in RVA now and there is about an equal split between beef and pork when it comes to sausage, at least from what I have seen...
This is what most of us think of as "smoked sausage": https://www.hillshirefarm.com/products/smoked-sausage/smoked-sausage/ (Though personally, if I encountered a recipe calling for that, I'd substitute Kielbasa, from the same manufacturer.)
@Marti Which fits all the points I listed (even with pork being the primary meat). Quoting specific products like that is less than useful for people internationally (the OP explicitly mentions they are in Australia), as they are often not reliably available internationally (which is, ironically, part of why American perceptions of ‘Italian sausage’ are what they are).
It's not so much quoting a specific product as "a picture is worth a thousand words".
The "smoked Italian sausage" also puzzled me. I grew up in the Midwest where sausage is a huge part of the diet, and "smoked" is an entirely different thing from "Italian." The most common smoked sausages back home are kielbasa and the Hillshire Farms stuff, so perhaps "Italian" is just supposed to suggest "not Polish"?
The catch on any American sausage like that is the marketing terms vary wildly, even in the US. Sausage, in general, can encompass
Uncased or small cased (0.5" diameter) spiced pork (uncooked, usually served with breakfast)
Cased luncheon meat (refrigerated and commonly 3-4" in diameter)
Cased 2-3" shelf-stable meat (short tubes, names vary, but sometimes called "summer sausage")
Cased 0.5-1.5" diameter cooked refrigerated meat. Usually sold in longer length
It's that last one that "smoked sausage" usually falls into. Hillshire Farms (US brand) has an entire section of their website devoted to the category, but you'll note that they all fall into that range of 1-1.5" in diameter
If you can't find "smoked sausage", you can find variants that fit the size requirements. This can include sausages like
Kielbasa (common in the US)
Kranski/Kransky
Polish Sausage (as in it's labeled this)
Polish Wiejska
Polish Staropolska
I made sure all of the above are available in Australia.
The one catch here is I would avoid poultry-based "smoked sausage". In most cases, the recipe is expecting a fatty meat like pork or beef. They're generally not as concerned with the smoke flavor. My wife likes to use sausages like this to "fatten" up bean soups and add a meat flavor.
Not sure I'd go for the Polish sausages in a recipe specifically calling for "Italian" sausage. Unfortunately, the only places I typically see anything described as "Italian sausage" is as a pizza topping, where it's already crumbled into little pieces, so it's hard to say what it looked like when it was still in full-sausage form. So-called "Polish" sausage tends to hold its shape more and not crumble to pieces. (I'm sure none of it is actually either Polish or Italian, we just call it that.)
@DarrelHoffman Most US recipes asking for "Italian sausage" are not going to specify "smoked", because such a thing would be hard to find (I can't see I've ever seen a supermarket carry such a thing). Most US Italian sausage falls into my first category of uncooked sausage
In typical "southern style" American cooking a smoked sausage can mean anything between a Kielbasa and a Bratwurst. I normally lean more toward the Keilbasa.
We don't know, either. A bit tongue in cheek, but, I think, that's the literal truth, and the actual intention of the recipe author, too, with an American audience. There really is no coast-to-coast "American sausage" preference. Another answer stated smoked sausage is usually pork but for my whole life I have always bought the ones that are "100% beef". (The ones that don't say "100% beef" are often a mix of beef and pork, but could be 100% pork, or any kind of pork-chicken-beef mix. I will just throw it out there that Americans do not have anything like a standard concept of what a sausage is, beyond the most vague generalities.)
With that in mind, I believe recipes like this are intentionally being vague because you are meant to "insert your own personal favorite smokey sausage here". They know that New Yorkers may use something very different than Texans, but it's meant to work out fine provided it brings some variety of smokey meat flavor to the dish.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.709180
| 2023-02-12T11:33:11 |
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124415
|
What bread dough is quick to prepare and requires no kneading or much skill?
A few years ago, I worked in a bread factory for a very short time (two weeks). My work in the bread factory was depressing, repetitive, and boring.
I would like to make my own bread at home at least once a week, and not purchase factory made bread anymore. This is provided that I only have to mix things in a bowl and bake, fry, or somehow cook the bread.
Hopefully, no skill or practice is required to make the bread correctly.
If we exclude baking time and proofing (waiting for the yeast), I hope it take us less than 20 minutes to mix the ingredients.
we do not have to knead and shape the dough using special techniques.
I have other tasks which require attending to. I want a recipe for bread which requires no skill.
The bread recipe should be so simple that it the bread is likely to:
not be raw and sticky inside.
not be dry or crunchy as a cracker, or hard as a rock.
I do not care whether there is a leavening agent, such as baking soda or yeast.
The bread could look like a tortilla so long as the bread is flexible, pliable, and not sticky.
Was ‘repair’ supposed to be ‘prepare’ in the title? The question doesn’t seem to have anything to do with repairing dough…
I would like to remind everybody that we don't do recipe requests here, or "reference-only" answers (be it books or links). If you want to answer, please explain what kind of bread fits the requirements, and where to find recipes for it - but do not give a complete recipe, or just mention a book or other recipe source.
Samuel, don't worry about "doesn't require much skill" part. Skill comes with repeated practice. If you make it once a week or more frequently, soon you'll be quite good at it.
The "quick" is debatable here, but this recipe requires very little actual work. It does need several hours to rise. https://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifehack/kitchen-hack-one-minute-ciabatta-bread.html
Sounds like you mean 'damper'?
Buy a bread machine.
Bread machine bread meets all of your requirements, including not learning any new skills. And it's still much better than supermarket bread in most places. I'm a former professional baker, I enjoy making bread, and I use a bread machine whenever I'm running short on time.
No fully handmade bread recipe is going to meet your requirements.
This. You can dump in what you need - or even a packet mix, pick the right setting and just let it run. No skill needed, and there's fairly cheap breadmakers. I think we run about 3-4 loaves a week, and get 5-10 years out of a breadmaker so its... really worth it
And if you want to improve the quality of the results, you can just use it for the dough making process and make rolls or loaves to bake in the oven yourself. The bonus here is that with most bread makers you can mix double quantities of dough if you don't plan to bake it in the bread maker. And my experience is that bread makers aren't so good at baking, so the results are better IMO.
Yeah, super easy to do variety too - find a couple of base recipes you like and add things to it and you can have pretty good (well, much better than supermarket) loaves always. Seeds (try quinoa and linseed) of many sorts make for great texture and flavour additions; spices/flavourings (garlic powder etc.) . Takes me 5 min to set up a mix in the evening and on timer for a nice loaf in the morning.
I came to the answers to post exactly this. I have used a bread machine and it is incredibly easy, pretty much foolproof, and very tasty. Plus your home gets to smell like fresh bread :)
There are multiple categories of bread that would likely meet your requirements:
There is a category called ‘quick breads’ that use baking soda or carbonated beverages for lift, so you don’t need to knead them or wait for gluten or yeast. (They’re actually worse if you develop gluten). This includes beer bread, muffins and bannock.
For yeast breads, anything high-hydration will form gluten if you just let it sit long enough. There are many baking books that cover the topic of ‘no knead bread’, including ‘Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day’. High hydration sourdough should also meet your requirements, and many flatbreads are of such high hydration that they require very little kneading.
In fact 5 minutes a day is an overestimate for how long that bread takes me. Give it a try!
@KateGregory if you use a scale and convert the measurements to weight, it’s even faster and you don’t risk losing count how much flour you’ve put in
This also would include the American meaning of the word "biscuits".
@ToddWilcox possibly ‘drop biscuits’, but regular biscuits require a bit of time to cut the fat in correctly, even if it’s technically not kneading.
Check out soda bread recipes. These are typically very quick to prepare, using baking soda (bicarbonate of soda) or baking powder and an acidic liquid component, such as buttermilk or plain yogurt, and require minimal if any kneading.
They produce a great crusty loaf that keeps reasonably well and is excellent re-heated.
The other answers here are good, but you could also consider a "no-knead" recipe. You basically have to mix the ingredients, rest overnight, and then form and bake the loaf the next day. There is a little bit of technique in the forming step, but it is very straightforward, and I had good results the first time I tried it, despite not being an accomplished baker.
For recipes, see, for example, the New York Times.
A tortilla or other flatbread can also be easy to make, but, assuming you want more than one tortilla, because each one must be handled individually, it will probably take you more than 20 minutes active time to prepare and cook a batch of them.
I make a loaf of no-knead bread based on Jim Leahey's recipe nearly every work day (I bought his "My Bread" book, but you can find the recipe on line). You bake the bread in a cast iron or ceramic-coated cast iron pot.
I've got the routine down pat, so the time I spend will be less than your initial attempts, but:
I spend < 5 min after lunch the previous day mixing the dough (4 ingredients, mixed in a bowl with a fork)
I spend < 10 min early the next morning scraping the bowl out onto a floured surface, forming a loaf, setting it aside, and setting up the oven (with the pot in it) to start (on a timer) and having it alert me when it's time to put the loaf in (and doing a little cleanup)
Three times over the next 2.5 hours I spent about a minute doing things (putting the loaf in the very hot pot, removing the pot lid and taking the pot out (putting the loaf on a rack to cool))
It's about 22 hours-ish, start to finish, but I have it integrated into my routine. I work from home, so doing some of this on a Zoom/Teams call regularly happens (those last few, very quick steps)
If you have a decent stand mixer you should be good in 20 minutes or so for most of the non sour dough or non overnight bread receipts, including cleaning. To be extra efficient you can prepare pre-measured packages of flour and yeast and buy a convenient measuring and use dry yeast that doesn't require activation.
Kneading is usually 5 minutes, adding and measuring all the ingredient another 5, and that's it more or less.
A good bread really is very simple and easy to make; it does require some kneading and it isn't quick, but the actual amount of work is minimal - the time it takes is waiting time, at least the way I do it. You will notice I don't provide measures - only a method. I usually start the dough in the evening:
Start with lukewarm water, add a little sugar (~1 teaspon), then yeast. Leave it until it foams up - perhaps 10 - 30 min.
Add some salt (I only use a small amount), then flour until it is a sticky, but rather firm dough. You should be able to assemble and stir it with a wooden spoon, but not too easily; it isn't all that important at this point. Leave it to rise - I usually leave it overnight.
Next morning put flour on the table, add the dough on top and more flour; knead until it feels 'right' - not too sticky, you need to be able handle it. Put it in a bread-tin, let it rise until you feel it is enough. If you don't have time to wait for it, wrap it in cling-film and put it in the fridge, that way it shouldn't climb out all over things and you can leave it until evening.
Bake in the middle of the oven at 170 deg centigrade for about an hour. Alternatively, fry the dough on a dry non-stick pan at a low fire - turn from time to time until it is noce and golden-brown.
A final remark: I have deliberately avoided being precise. Breadmaking (and indeed all cookery) is an interactive process. Flour and other ingredients are not precise chemicals - sometimes flour will contain more water, other times less, and the weight you need will vary. The same goes for yeast, let alone the temperature in your kitchen etc etc - so you need to observe and make judgements: does the yeast foam up, has the dough grown to the size you want, has it got the right colour? Recipes can so easily get in the way of what is essential.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.710191
| 2023-06-08T22:00:19 |
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|
124416
|
Are there baked goods with highly spongey texture, to the point where they can recover their shape after folding in half?
Does a type of baked good exist so full or air bubbles and spongey that if you folded a slice of the baked good in half, it returns to its original shape? If so what was it?
Many breads will do this - but not typically the mass-produced supermarket varieties.
Hi Samuel, the basic question is an interesting one. The wording you chose was a bit unfortunate, as it made it eligible for closure (e.g. we explicitly forbid asking for recipes), so I changed the formulation of your question body somewhat, allowing it to stay open.
Some flatbreads will do this (so long as you don't crease them too hard) - but they're not spongy. Do you require both sponginess and foldability?
I'd try doing a sponge cake with a lot of egg whites, but I haven't actually tested this.
Injera (the Ethiopian bread usually made from teff) is quite spongy and will definitely recover its shape from folding, at least if the folding is gentle.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.710897
| 2023-06-08T22:16:42 |
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|
70728
|
How does the meat in Weisswurst get so white?
I have looked for the answer online, but no luck so far.
Does the ice "burn" the meat and it gets white?
How does it work?
The real question should be "what makes sausages pink" - but more later.
All meat turns greyish-white or brown when cooked. This is due to the myoglobin, which makes raw meat look pink or red, being not heat stable. When cooked it denaturates to metmyoglobin, which is grey-brown.
For pinkish sausages, curing salts are used. They contain sodium nitrite, which transforms the myoglobin to a more stable form nitrosomyoglobin, that becomes Nitrosomyochromogen when heated - and is red.
For Weisswurst, simple table salt is used in a sausage mixture that contains light coloured meats (veal, sometimes pork), fat and water, hence the whiteish-grey colour. Curing salts have a preserving effect that simple table salt does not have. Traditionally, Weisswurst was therefore supposed to eaten before noon. Modern refrigerators have made this former necessity obsolete, yet the custom remains.
Very detailed answer and very interesting. The photos from Weisswurst I have seen online, however, seem whiter than the whitest meats I know, almost as white as milk.
@tarball, they aren't that white. Speaking from experience.
So, in real life they're not as white as in the pictures of the english Wikipedia article link ?
@tarball compare to the white plate: about the same colour as poached veal or chicken breast. Whiteish, but not milk-white.
According to Wikipedia, it's because of the lack of preservatives and the low cooking temperature. Veal is a light coloured meat if the calf is slaughtered at an early age and milk fed.
I don't know why you think ice is involved.
He thinks there is ice involved, because that's how weisswurst is made, with ice.
Yes, exactly :) As soon as someone described a white sausage to me and showed me the pictures, I looked into recipes online to try and find something unusual. The only thing that seemed unusual was the ice, hence my sypposition.
The ice has to do with texture, not colour - hot dog / frankfurter type sausages are made with ice, too.
White sausages such as these contain milk powder to enhance the white color
Do you have a source for that claim? At least for the German/Bavarian version, milk or milk powder is not used.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.711035
| 2016-06-15T10:46:09 |
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|
93906
|
Olives in French Beef Stew
What is the use of the olives in this recipe: https://www.diningandcooking.com/38945/french-beef-stew-with-red-wine-garlic-mashed-potatoes/
In the stew, the meat gets marinated in wine and herbs, then simmered for two to three hours. Fifteen minutes before serving, pitted olives get added.
I cannot stand olives on their own so I wonder if there's a chance I will like them in here or whether I should simply leave them out.
If the recipe said to simmer them slowly with the meat, you might be pleasantly surprised as they could blend in with the other flavors. (Or not, but it might be worth a try with a smaller amount.)
But in the given recipe, a not-so-small amount gets added shortly before the end of the cooking time, which seems intended to keep the original olive flavor (a bit like adding fresh herbs at the end). The flavor of the stew has developed without the olives, a few minutes won’t make a real difference. If you dislike olives on pizza, salad or as appetizer - leave them out.
Since you use the expression, "can't stand", rather than "don't care for much", I recommend leaving them out.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.711238
| 2018-11-14T18:10:56 |
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|
75845
|
Suitable alternative to cast iron pan for sweet potato cornbread
I'm making sweet potato cornbread and the recipe calls for a cast iron pan to be use. What is a good alternative to it? Could I use a thin metal pan?
Hi Lisa and welcome to Seasoned Advice! What you don't want is a thin pan. You will run the risk of burning, especially on the bottom. But it's not all bad news.
Cast iron is thick and while it will take longer to heat up than a thin pan, it will provide a more even heat.
Another thing to consider is that a dark pan usually cooks a little quicker (sometimes compensated with a slightly lower temperature) and helps with browning.
One alternative would be a thick aluminum pan. I have a couple and use them interchangeably with cast iron for baking. If you have one, you might need to slightly raise your temperature as this is not a dark pan.
If all you have is a thin pan, I would suggest moving the oven rack up one notch and slightly lowering your temperature, perhaps 25° (F). With the other factors in consideration you will need to check it more often and watch your time, but you can make it work.
A recipe calling for a cast iron pan is likely going to rely on the properties of that pan, to make the recipe work as it should. That doesn't mean you can't make it without the proper pan - if thin metal is all you have, you can work around it - it just means it will take some other shenanigans to make the recipe work instead.
So, first - if you don't have a cast iron pan, I would roughly guess a ceramic one is probably the next closest alternative, followed by sturdy glass (like a casserole dish) especially if it's dark in color, and then a sturdy metal pan (especially a dark one) and then a thin metal pan is last in the similarity chain. Cast iron is slow to heat up, and slow to cool down - so one similarity would be the amount of thermal mass the pan has (thick sturdy pans at the top of the list, thinner at the bottom), another would be how well it absorbs and transmits heat (darker pans absorb heat better), and another layer of similarity is how the pan is treated in the recipe (things like preheating).
Anyway, given one of the major properties of cast iron is its slow to heat and cool I would compensate for that, when using a thin metal pan, primarily by playing around with the oven heat. Since you don't have the recipe added, I'm going to be offering a couple options based on possibilities - up to you which fits your situation best.
If the cast iron was supposed to be preheated, then the real difference would be that the bread would continue to cook after being taken out of the oven. I would turn off the heat at the time the recipe cites, and let it sit in the still hot but off oven for a few minutes (about as long as it would be expected to sit between finishing baking and being served). If the pan is already hot, there's very little difference in the process of heating up the bread while baking - a thin pan will heat nearly as quickly as the dough plopped into a hot pan, although that "nearly' should be covered by letting it rest in the hot oven after it's off.
If the pan wasn't preheated, then you have an additional effect where the pan would end up keep the bread slightly cooler while the pan was absorbing heat, then have it continue cooking longer after it has been pulled out of the oven. In this case, you should probably bake your bread at a slightly cooler temperature (like 300F instead of 350F, or something like that), for just a little bit longer (maybe ten or fifteen minutes) - though you will want to be checking very carefully. You should still turn off the oven and let it finish in the residual heat, this will also help prevent the outside being overly browned while the inside is underdone and simulate the bread finishing its cooking in the heat from the cast iron.
With all of this tweaking and adjusting the temp and conditions, don't rely on the recipe's timing - check for doneness with a toothpick test, or poking to test resilience, or whatever test the recipe uses (or other cornbread recipes use) to know when it's fully cooked. And keep a close eye on the browning - turn down the heating element sharply, or if nearly done turn it off and let it coast the rest of the way, if it's browning too quickly, or turn it on broil for a few minutes if it isn't browning enough but the inside's done. I will admit my time adjustments are just guesstimates, it will depend on how high the temperature is in the recipe, and how long the baking is supposed to be - but the point is a slight but noticeable change, so the inside bakes a bit more and the outside a bit less, to "undo" the recipe's adjusting for cast iron. If the baking time was very long, then perhaps you should raise the temperature to the recipe's amount after fifteen minutes or so (as I'd guess the cast iron would have begun to heat by then).
Also, you might want to use a baking stone or other thermal mass in the oven to help the heat to stay even, If you have them. It isn't required, ovens do maintain temperature on their own, but it might help the bread cook evenly. If you happen to have a small mass (like pan-sized, maybe some tiles or so), you can pop it in the oven with your bread to accurately mimic the effect of the cast iron on the oven's heat - but otherwise you should be putting it into the oven from the beginning, and giving extra time to preheat (half hour or more extra) to bring it up to heat.
If you have a thick carbon steel pan, this can be a good substitute for cast iron. They are nearly as non-stick when properly seasoned and they are a lot less heavy and less prone to thermal shock as well. You will still need to preheat them before using and also use a bit of oil or other lubricant, just like the cast iron. Hope this helps.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.711369
| 2016-11-24T21:21:27 |
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|
93956
|
How does the quantity of salt change after the steaming stage when cooking pulao?
When making pulao1, I taste the salt in the broth before the steaming stage (also called dum). At this time, the saltiness is just right. But after the rice has finished steaming, it is less salty than before.
Why does this happen? What is the effect of steaming on the saltiness of cooked rice?
—————
1 Pulao is a very popular rice dish on the Indian subcontinent and Middle Eastern countries in which rice is cooked in a seasoned broth. The broth may contain cooked onion, garlic, ginger along with spices. It may also contain meat, fish or vegetables. It is sometimes also called rice pilaf.
Jazba, please look at your re-written question. There are details that help us understand better what your question is about. We can help with the language, but it’s important that the community can at least understand what you are talking about.
Dum is the steaming stage of the cooking. This is the stage where rice absorb water and the flavor. From my experience and what all our generations have been told on how to cook pulao/rice, you taste the water/broth just after adding rice. It should be a bit saltier than what you would normally like. This way the saltiness in rice will be just right when you finish the cooking.
EDIT (with the comments from Stephie):
Rice absorbs water and with the water, some of the salt.
In the beginning, you are tasting the water : salt ratio. After cooking, you are tasting the (water + rice) : salt ratio which means you are getting something that tastes less salty.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.711929
| 2018-11-15T19:07:28 |
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|
108423
|
Can fermented dosa batter cause bacillus cereus poisoning?
Dosa batter is made by allowing urad dal and rice to ferment for upwards of 24 hours, letting natural yeasts develop in the batter. I've read that bacillus cereus poisoning is a concern with rice left at room temperature for a long time, and that bacillus cereus can survive even when the rice is cooked.
Since the batter for dosas sits out for so long, is bacillus cereus poisoning a concern? And are there ways to prevent it?
I started to write an answer but didn't have time to deal with all the complexities. Maybe tonight if no one gets there first. It's important to diffferentiate between conditions for bacillus survival, toxin survival, and toxin production
I don't have a completely definitive answer. However generally, fermentation produces lactic acid which inhibits the growth of harmful bacteria, which is why it is a successful food preservation method. The yeast and bacteria that are responsible for the fermentation are often naturally occurring on many raw foods. For example with lacto-fermented vegetables often all you have to do is submerge them in a salt solution and the naturally occurring yeast and beneficial bacteria will usually just do their thing and begin the fermentation process, which inhibits the growth of bacteria.
This is similar to how sourdough starter works, you simply add water to flour and the naturally occurring yeasts are activated. As the starter ferments, lactic acid is produced, which reduces the pH of the solution, which inhibits the growth of bacteria. This is why you end up with sourdough starter rather than something spoiled. This is also why fermented foods (pickles, sourdough bread, etc) are generally sour in flavor.
Incidentally this same thing is true of wine grapes, if you harvest ripe wine grapes and just leave them somewhere, fermentation will begin because of the naturally occurring yeasts on the fruit, which will eventually produce wine. These yeasts are variable and can be mixed with various bacteria and produce uneven results, so wine makers generally do not roll the dice and add their own preferred yeast instead. But I suspect that this is how wine was made for thousands of years before that technology was developed.
Back to dosa, the dosa batter is usually prepared by combining dal and rice and sometimes salt with water. The dal especially typically has a significant amount of lactic acid bacteria, and the salt, if used, inhibits the growth of harmful bacteria. Many recipes call for fenugreek seeds (not ground fenugreek), which usually contain naturally occurring yeast which helps kick off the fermentation. The rice is usually raw (soaked) before it is ground, and so has not had a chance to sit cooked at room temperature to develop harmful bacteria. The goal of the recipe is to ensure the beneficial fermentation happens instead of the growth of harmful bacteria. The recipe is pretty foolproof which is why dosa have become a dietary staple in such large parts of the world.
I don’t think this makes sense. Finished idli/dosa batter, while generally having a detectable sourness, has nowhere near enough lactic acid or salt to actually inhibit bacterial growth.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.712083
| 2020-05-16T02:04:30 |
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|
92457
|
Is water on the outside of an electric kettle dangerous?
When filling our electric kettle with tap water, I’m carefully avoiding any water trickling down the side. Others in our household are less careful.
If we let water run down the side, will it damage the kettle and reduce its life? Is there any other reason it could be harmful?
What material is your kettle made of, and what happens when you want to wash or clean it?
Welcome to Seasoned Advice! I have edited your post and removed the non-technical parts: we will happily accept questions about equipment. A photo or two of your kettle would be useful, as there are many different models on the market, and you can simply [edit] your post with more details.
I'm an electronic engineer who often was involved in mechanical design of products.
Such problems are thought of by engineers during design and manufacture. Any electronic and electrical situation, such as this, is thought of ahead of time and, if wishing to be UL listed, is tested for such situations. Electrical connections should be protected and sealed against water overflow and pouring since it's an expected problem. The consumer must be protected from electric shock.
Look for a UL sticker on the device somewhere; perhaps the bottom.
Complete submersion is a different issue, though, and more severe protection from that should not be expected and I'm sure the instructions warn against it.
Kettles often drip a bit when they pour, and that runs down the outside. So a kettle has to be designed for a little water on the outside (though clearly not for a complete soaking).
If you have a shiny kettle and like to keep it that way, limescale will be increased by getting it wet more often, but that's the only real harm, and anyway is easily fixed.
I prefer to turn the tap off before removing the kettle though, because it's convenient the way my kitchen is laid out. Otherwise I get a bit of splashing near the sink that I might not want.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.712335
| 2018-09-25T00:32:25 |
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|
119983
|
How a liquid chamoy will affect proportions in ice cream making
I'm looking for a rule of thumb so I don't mess up the base custard. So for example, let's take this NYTimes recipe: https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1016605-the-only-ice-cream-recipe-youll-ever-need
I plan to use chamoy (liquid sauce, it's acidic, but not alcoholic, and isn't very sweet) as a flavor compound (NOT a mix-in for later)
How does that affect the amount of milk or cream I need to use (since I've introduced a new liquid)? I recognize this may vary by taste (if I decide, by taste, that 1 teaspoon of chamoy is enough vs like... 3 tablespoons, I dunno), so looking for rules of thumb, just like the NYTimes recipe. Thanks!
there is no single "rule of thumb" that will work for every recipe because the final ice-cream product will be determined by fat, sugar, alcohol, stabilisers, and a host of other factors, and that is before taking into consideration the qualities expected of the end product such as hard/softness, texture, mouthfeel, etc.
thanks! i updated question with what i specificaly want to try to use
I know that your plan wasn’t to do it as a mix-in, but if you have trouble getting things to work, you might be able to make a pudding out of the chamoy using cornstarch or similar, then mix that in when it’s starting to set up as it churns
The best starting point to use is a simple 1:1 substitution.
You can use different liquids to make a custard; a zabayon, for example, is a custard made completely with fruit juice. Dairy is not the defining component of a custard.
There will be differences in texture when you do it that way. The custard itself already will act differently - the acid itself will influence the custard and its thickening, especially if you add the chamoy before cooking the custard. If you add it afterwards, I expect less curdling, but the base itself will now be more liquid. And overall, you will have different ratios of liquid to fat to nonfat solids, but also some pectins from the fruit-based sauce.
Even though you cannot predict the exact effects and a "perfect" ratio, the overall effect won't be clearly in a direction where you know you should make adjustments. You will need a starting point before starting to tweak, and in the case you have, 1:1 is good enough for that, and it is also the best guess you can make. And with the tiny amounts you are planning to use (which surprise me a bit - did you only want to use an additional note of the flavor?), you may not even notice much of a difference.
Even if you start using more, you will still likely have to go for 1:1 with the total liquid amount, but add enough sugar to the chamoy (before measuring it for the 1:1 substitution) to prevent crystalization. Or just use a recipe for a good custard-based fruit ice cream, and instead of the fruit puree, add your chamoy. Or, if that is too intense for you, substitute some part of the fruit puree for the chamoy, again 1:1.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.712519
| 2022-02-27T20:25:16 |
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|
54097
|
Tips for cooked chicken to stay juicy half a day
A little background: I'm going to build a chicken congee business.
In my country, generally, it's a coconut rice congee poured with turmeric chicken broth. (The chicken breast from the broth will be taken, shredded and placed in a different container and will be used as topping for the congee. If you want to know, the name of the dish is Bubur Ayam.)
My main differentiation will be additional spices for the broth, like star anise and oregano and another things (might be a fusion, but that's too fancy).
My main question is: After being cooked in broth, generally the chicken will be put in a small container, just sitting there for half a day or until sold out (the opening hours will be 6 in the morning to 11.).
(Without the broth, it's in different container, and the white plain congee is in a third container, on a stove that always has a small fire so the congee is always warm.)
Any tips so the texture and taste won't deteriorate during that time? Should I fry the chicken beforehand?
Oh yeah, the general recipe for the broth: coriander seeds, ginger, lemongrass, shallot, garlic, salt and soysauce. Any other tips will be appreciated .
Chicken held at room temperature for 2 hours or more will be unsafe to eat. It must be kept hotter than 60C(or 140F) or lower than 4C(or 40F) to remain free of harmful pathogens.
@jbarker2160 It's apparent from the question that OP isn't dealing with the notoriously overly-conservative FDA or USDA. Considering that even those bureaucracies occasionally let a 4 hour rule slip, it's a bit hasty to slam dunk the OP at 2 hours.
As you can already see from comments, there is a safety issue here. You've mentioned keeping the congee warm. Will it it stay over 60C? That's important. Can you keep the chicken portion refrigerated or on ice until you warm it to add to the congee at service? That's important too (or keep it over 60C instead, but I'm afraid quality will suffer). I'm not going to shove USDA rules down your throat, but if you're going to sell to the public, you have a responsibility to do it safely.
@Jolenealaska those rules aren't conservative in the slightest for a street vendor. Some of my European colleagues suggest that their rules for street vendors are even more strict than that due to the less-controlled nature of the environment and more possibilities of contamination by macroscopic pathogens as well if the food is too cold.
@jbarker2160 will you meet me in chat?
Brining the chicken in salt will help it maintain it's moisture as well as making it less bio-friendly. It has the side effect of making the chicken taste really good when just plain chicken. If you do this, remove your other salt components from you recipe.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.712767
| 2015-01-28T16:40:34 |
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|
76753
|
Cooking ham in an oven with oven cleaner
If a ham was cooked for 20 mins in an oven before realising that there was a layer of oven cleaner in the oven, is the meat safe to eat?
I'm not sure what kind of cleaner you used, but either way, the heat changes the molecular structure of the cleaner used and 'gases' it, allowing it to permeate into your food. It is a shame, but throw it away.
first off, what type of oven cleaner? If you are using a natural cleaning remedy such as baking soda, then yes, if using a commercial caustic soda based product I would say no. This is besides the fact that the ham will taste of cleaning product. Imagine using flavored 'chips' on your BBQ, that is in effect what you are doing with your oven cleaner. By stating that baking soda is natural I appear to have caused offense, no baking soda is not natural, however it is far less harmful than caustic soda, I have yet to find a recipe that calls for caustic soda (save olives from the tree - but that is off topic). There really is only one short answer here and that is, throw the Ham away, thoroughly clean your oven, turn the oven on afterwards to ensure that any traces of cleaner are burnt off, then start again...
Baking soda is no more "natural" than caustic soda. It could even have been made in the same factory. But a paste of baking soda and water is much less likely to taint the food or do you any harm than caustic soda plus detergents plus...
Pretzels sometimes call for boiling in lye, a more caustic base than baking soda...
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.713290
| 2016-12-23T07:30:54 |
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|
77740
|
What differences will happen if you use a rectangular baker to bake cookies instead of a tray?
Hey so I have these rectangular bakers that I use to make lasagna. Unfortunately I don't bake cookies that often so I don't have a standard cookie tray. I decided to bake some cookies though so I opted for using those since those are what I have in my disposal. See below
I just popped them into the oven but I actually didn't consider if this would affect how long they need to cook for since they have that lip that surround the cookies. Will they turn out okay? If I don't get an answer in the next 8 or so minutes I can post what will happen for science.
I agree with @Megha's answer. If you don't get results that you like, you could try turning the pans upside down, and baking the cookies on the bottom of the pan.
They should be fine.
It's possible that they'll be a bit gooey, or just a touch underdone. The high sides of the pan may shield the cookies from the heat, just a little bit. The glass pans will absorb a little more heat, and so take just a tad longer to heat up - partially balanced by the fact they take a tad longer to cool down, and so might carry over a bit of residual cooking. Both effects should be pretty minimal, but cookies do bake for a very short amount of time, so the difference may be noticeable in a way that longer-cooking dishes would never notice.
If you look at your cookies, instead of just pulling them out when the time is up, you should notice if they need a touch more baking (I would guess maybe a minute of extra time, if any)... of course, you should probably be doing this anyway, especially if you want to cook them to your desired style (if you prefer a bit softer or a bit crisper, for example). Light browning on edges or ridges should be a very good cue for done-ness.
You can also play with placement in the oven to see if higher or lower makes a difference -- higher would get more radiant heat from the top, so they set up faster ... but if the bottoms are still too gooey, it might be better to keep them lower so the pan heats up faster. (and it might be different for glass / metal / ceramic)
I almost upvoted the answer but didn't want to spoil the lovely rep of 6,666.
Thanks for the answer! Yeah they came out okay and I believe your conclusions were correct. Interestingly the white pans which were made of porcelain took way longer because they were thicker I think? So I think it took a lot longer for them to get hot. The gray one was fairly thin so it actually cooked pretty well.
I figured I'd post an answer anyways in case people were curious. It seems that the bigger factor was the factor that the white porcelain bakers were a lot thicker and didn't really get hot fast enough. They ended up pretty gooey and I had to put them back into the oven for double the time. Sometimes I just scooped them out and reused the grey pan :/
I saw your comment and was going to ask you to post an answer, then I saw the answer! Thanks for the question and for teaching us from your experience!
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.713460
| 2017-01-24T06:33:47 |
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|
61918
|
How many times can you reuse bones to make broth?
I recently cooked a chicken and made chicken broth from the bones. I also kept a few pieces of meat to add to the broth to give it more flavor.
I know you can freeze the broth and use it for later but specifically how many times can I reuse the bones to make broth? Is there a time when it loses flavor or is not good for you? Does it differ depending on the animal/meat?
There's a specific term for reusing ingredients for stock twice: remouillage (which literally means a "rewetting"). Usually this "second stock" is not used directly for broth, as it has significantly less flavor than the primary stock. That said, depending on the type of bones, the amount of meat used in making the stock, etc., it may still have a very pleasant (if lighter) flavor.
In traditional French cuisine it tends to be used as a cooking liquid to make a new stock with (that is, you might cook chicken #1 twice, and use the second stock from chicken #1 to make a richer stock using the bones from chicken #2). It can also be reduced for a glace, in which case the significant concentration will make it taste a bit more flavorful.
I personally tend to do this frequently when I'm making stock and save the "second stock" for miscellaneous uses, like a cooking liquid for rice or vegetables, or as the basis for a future broth.
Generally, doing a third (or more) use of the bones for broth will extract very little flavor, mostly only giving you a bit of the remaining gelatin. Any flavor that does still exist will also become increasingly unbalanced.
Beef bones can be used multiple times, but less flavor and gelatin will be extracted from each additional use. Harold McGee's "On Food and Cooking" describes this.
Because a standard kitchen extraction of eight hours releases only about 20% of the gelatin in beef bones, the bones may be extracted for a second time, for a total of up to 24 hours. The resulting liquid can then be used to start the next fresh extraction of meat and bones.
I would imagine chicken bones would be similar, although, since they are smaller, the first batch may be more effective than 20%.
@KevinNowacsyk can you specify the page or the quote where he mentions that? I found a PDF and I can't seem to find that. Because you actually have a source I'm more inclined to accept your answer but I just want to make sure there is an actual quote stating that.He does mentioned that in long cooked "stocks, soups, and stews" the gelatin "dissolves out of bones or skin to provide large quantities of gelatin and a substantial body." (p.168 "Skin, Cartilage, and Bones") so it makes me think depending how long you cook it, you can end up dissolving all the gelatin out.
Page 600, "Because a standard kitchen extraction of eight hours releases only about 20% of the gelatin in beef bones, the bones may be extracted for a second time, for a total of up to 24 hours. The resulting liquid can then be used to start the next fresh extraction of meat and bones."
Thanks! updated the quote into the answer too. Nice find :)
You can use chicken bones to make broth only once, all the goodness gets cooked out of them the first use. You could re-cook them for hours and get nothing from them.
Furthermore, the more bones are cooked the more they will break down and sully the broth. Over-cooked bones are decidedly un-delicious.
I just pressure cooked a turkey, with roasting in the boiler just prior to the initial pressure cooking session, then afterwards, pressure cooking the carcass (bones and remaining skin and unused meat) two more times.
After the second pressure cooking session of the turkey carcass and remains, the turkey bones were easily broken apart, either broken in the middle or the ends of the larger bones could be somewhat broken open. I pressure cooked one more time, for a third time. I cannot recall the condition of the bones afterwards, but everything fit nicely within a sieve afterwards.
I'm starting to look at this question from a different angle, if you were held within a prison camp, how many times are you going to cook the carcass for nutrients? I think we can cook the carcass as many times as we want, the bones will likely just liquefy at some extent, but is this material (calcium) desirable or pleasant on the pallet? Likely not. I think performing enough cycles for the bones to start showing weakening, and upon weakening, break them open and process them one more time might be best?
interesting discussion but it doesn't objectively answer how many times the bones can be reused. Also let's focus on normal cooking situations, not prison camp recipes - and nutritional advice is off-topic.
With bigger, thicker beef and pork bones, if they have been cut into smaller lengths, the extraction process, after, roasting, and boiling/slower long extraction of 8 + hours...there is not much flavor in the second batch. However, if they were cooked at longer physical lengths, the second extraction still yields flavor and some gelatin. I often freeze the second extraction to make the next batch of fresh bones. This is a perpetual method of extraction. Repeat.
The flavor of a good broth is gained by the liquid extracting the flavors and substances from the bones over a period of time. If your stock/broth has decent flavor, then, naturally, the bones should have little to none left to give any subsequent attempts at extraction.
Ideally, the answer should be "none" if you've made a great broth or stock on the first try.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.713749
| 2015-09-22T03:27:41 |
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|
123814
|
What can remove extremely baked on grease?
I have a high-temperature home electric Pizza oven.
Despite my best efforts to keep it spotless, There are places (stainless and glass surfaces) where spatters of oil/grease have become hard baked on, to the point where they are shiny and hard.
I am struggling to find a product that will remove this stuff, it's so hard that it could be scraped off with a blade but I don't want to damage the surfaces.
I've tried general oven cleaner, which did have a cleaning effect but won't touch this stuff. Tried some harsher stuff like acetone, thinners etc; no effect, baking soda; nothing.
Even tried "Pyrolytic" cleaning (i.e full temperature: 400C) but that's angered it and made it harder!
EDIT: This appears to be "oil polymerization"
What's the surface? Raw metal or is it coated?
@GdD Raw metal (and glass) - Both polished and brushed.
In general, we have had this topic repeatedly, but I didn't find a question with the exact combination of grease and oven. I found some possible duplicates, whose answers taken together probably cover the total of answers you'll get here: https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/55262, https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/15382, https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/105611, https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/55915, https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/22855. I'll leave it to the community to decide whether to VTC as a dupe, or to answer.
As you discovered, pyrolytic cleaning only works if you have a pyrolytic surface… otherwise you just bake it harder. You need something specifically made for the job, see https://cooking.stackexchange.com/a/113877/42066
Pyrolytic cleaning works on all surfaces actually, except on the ones which melt before the grease burns off :) but 400 C are not nearly enough for this stuff to burn off, if you ever had them (400 on the dial doesn't mean that you actually get the oven wall heated to 400 C).
Also, it doesn't seem that you tried "harsh" stuff. Acetone and thinners are solvents which are only good for a limited class of substances. For this kind of dirt, you need something alkaline (or specialized solvents), and the only thing you tried in that direction is baking soda, which is very slightly alkaline, and in general a very mild cleaner that's not suited for difficult-to-clean things.
@rumtscho - my oven only goes to about 270°C on the dial - the pyrolytic surfaces burn off just nicely at that, everything just turns to ash. But… it's only half-coated, which means the un-coated surfaces merely burn on harder.
Raw metal and glass are extremely durable at least partly because you can clean them with harsh chemicals if needs be. I had a similar situation, my oven got extremely dirty with baked on grease, the strongest cleaner I could find in the store barely made a dent in it. I tried applying a paste of baking soda and dish soap, which also barely made a dent in it.
In the end what worked for me was to use a razor blade window scraper on the glass and metal parts, and repeated applications of the strongest oven cleaner I could find in the areas I couldn't scrape. There's no magic answer, it just takes elbow grease as my grandfather used to say.
As has been mentioned in comments if you glass is coated then you should think twice before using a razor on it. My ovens don't have a coating, but if you don't know don't do it!
Cleaners aren't just about strength, but about what's appropriate - can we assume you used a strongly alkaline oven cleaner (sodium or potassium hydroxide)? In gel form is better than the runnier versions
Yes, I used a gel @ChrisH, the spray liquids did absolutely nothing.
Somebody once used a razor blade 'safety scraper' on the glass door of my oven. I have never forgiven them. It was coated glass, now badly scratched. I would really not recommend this. As an added 'hurt', the scratches now gum up far more than the areas that survived intact.
@Tetsujin : they now make ‘plastic razor blades’ that shouldn’t scratch glass, but I suspect that the softer ones might not work to scrape something too hard. (I’ve gotten them twice, and the yellow ones from Ace Hardware were better than the black ones that I got in a bag at another place)
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.714229
| 2023-04-04T07:28:42 |
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|
43407
|
Food safety when tasting from dish
When making a dish, I of course taste it through out the process of cooking until its done. I have been extra careful - Each time I taste from the dish I use a new spoon - This means that I have to have ALOT of spoons ready all the time, and have to spend a significant amount of effort to keep them clean.
Is this common practice? Or is this too harsh compared to the norm (in restaurants). Are there any "tricks" that people use to get around the possibility of introducing your own germs into the dish, or minimizing this risk?
EDIT: I'm interested in the common practice in commercial settings (I have a small home-cooking business, and I want to align myself with the norm in restaurants etc..)
alot of care?
@TRiG no, alot of spoons.
I'm interested in the common practice in commercial settings (I have a small home-cooking business, and I want to align myself with the norm in restaurants etc..)
Since this hasn't specifically been addressed yet, I'll throw in my experience in industrial kitchens/restaurants.
Plastic spoons. Hundreds of them. Thousands of them. Literally.
We had a bain marie at every station. At the beginning of every shift, it was re-filled with plastic spoons. Each station had their own box of spoons to refill throughout the shift. Every single dish was tasted at every single stage with a plastic spoon, which was then thrown out. I would say that I went through ~150 spoons on an average shift, god only knows how many when we were busy.
Purchased in bulk, the cost wasn't prohibitive. I would hazard a guess that a box of 2500 plastic spoons cost us about 30 USD.
While it might seem wasteful, the cleanliness/health payoff was worth it. I don't want to name names, but this was a multi-national, multi-billion dollar hotel chain (4 star/4 Diamond) and we had a third party come in and audit us 1-2 times a year, in addition to the Health Department. Both the third party and the Health Department had the authority to shut everything down at a moments notice if they didn't like what they saw. I don't know the statistics for the Health Department, but the third party rated our kitchens (we had three) in the top 10 cleanest operations in North America (within our company) more than once.
We also recycled the spoons, so there's that as well.
I had a Sous Chef that would make daily Baskin-Robbins raids. Pink spoons were everywhere in that kitchen. Everywhere.
Yeah, I kind of suspected this was the real practical answer. I'm sure they're incredibly cheap in bulk, and you could probably recycle if you were concerned about the waste.
@Jefromi I was thinking about adding in some more info anyway. Edit incoming.
This is a stupid waste. Just pour some into a tasting spoon
@TFD no time. When we were busy, we'd do 500+ covers a shift, with three cooks (2 hot, 1 cold). Besides, what do you do with your one tasting spoon after you stick it in your mouth? Anything that it touches after that fact is contaminated. Getting shut down once would cost more than tasting spoons for the year. That's like saying it's wasteful to change your gloves between dishes (which we did as well).
Mikes answer seems like the most relevant as it is backed up by hands on restaurant experience. I'm not completely sure if this is really what I'll do at home - As its a small home-cooking business, buying plastic spoons in bulk of that amount would probably not be relevant, and in smaller amounts it would cost too much. I would also feel bad if I didn't recycle them, and I don't have near me a place that recycles plastic...
I guess I'll continue to do what I was doing - I have alot of regular spoons which at the end of the day I put in the dishwasher.
@dan FWIW, that's what we would do if we ran out of spoons - move on to the silverware. Still single-use only, we had a dirty spoon bin off the edge of the line.
You don't really need a lot of tasting spoons, just one. Use your stirring spoon to pour some into your tasting spoon without touching. Or if that's too tricky, serve a bit onto a small plate/bowl.
But if you're just cooking for yourself I personally wouldn't really worry about it, because in general you'll be cooking the food at a safe temperature, not just above the danger zone (140F/60C) but something safe for all meat (180F/80C) so whatever bacteria you put in with your spoon is just going to get killed. We routinely put potentially contaminated things like raw meat into our food while cooking, and let the heat take care of it; whatever you might be carrying isn't any more dangerous.
I have a small home-cooking business - So no, I'm not only cooking for myself. When I AM cooking for myself\family I use the same spoon multiple times
@dan12345 Well, then the first part is the part that's useful to you. I haven't worked in a restaurant, though; I'm sure common practices (and regulations) vary, but I don't know what they are for sure. (But I'd imagine that as TFD says, in most restaurants, they don't really need to taste-test for regular dishes, and beyond that, adding a few more spoons to the massive amount going through the dishwashers already can't be a huge deal.)
I have seen many restaurant chefs re-use a spoon, usually it has been rinsed under a tap and wiped with a cloth, but not properly washed. I have also seen restaurant chefs dip their finger in sauces to taste it. When you consider restaurant chefs (I'm talking about high-end restaurants too, not just some casual eatery) plating your food with their fingers, ungloved, this is just a "get used to it" kind of thing.
@setek not in the kitchens that I worked in. You'd be hauled into the office so fast your head would spin.
@setek : if they have clean hands, plating might not be that big of an issue ... but once a finger goes into a mouth or touches the face, doorknob, etc., it's a huge problem.
Yeah, what? Even if that's common practice, I can't imagine it's recommended practice.
I'm not condoning it, or making excuses for it, I'm simply stating that I've seen it. I wouldn't imagine such a thing would ever be considered recommended practise, either.
In my commercial kitchen we keep cases of plastic spoons and keep a bunch in quart containers near all cooking areas.
@setek Most restaurant chefs, even high end, do this in my experience, just like bartenders and servers put fruit on your drinks with their hands. And, yeah, you just get used to it.
When cooking at home use the same spoon or follow Jefromi's advice. When reusing a spoon, there is very little chance of cross contamination if you just re-dip the spoon, and don't actual stir it around
When cooking commercially; practice on family and friends and record the exact recipe. When the recipe is passable or perfect, follow it exactly for your commercial batches. You should then not need to taste very often
A commercial business wont be very successful if your dishes are hit or miss. They need to be all very good, and well practised. Unless you are some famous celebrity chef of course :-)
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.714685
| 2014-04-10T06:08:35 |
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123899
|
Is toasted flour a good idea for bread?
Some time ago, I had the ridiculous idea of baking flour on it's own. I then found out that it turns yellowish and that the proteins inside might get destroyed. Can baked flour be used to make bread, and if so, will it be gold-coloured? Does this have any effects on the quality of the bread?
As you mentioned in your own post, the toasting process will deactivate the flour's proteins. They won't actually be destroyed, but they will lose their binding capacity.
This means that bread is the worst application for toasted flour. If you tried to make a bread out of toasted flour only, you'd run basically into the same problems as in using a gluten-free flour. To get around the problem, you could either use a not-completely-toasted flour, or a mixture of toasted and untoasted, or a mixture of toasted flour and vital wheat gluten, or follow a recipe for gluten-free bread. In all cases, you'll get an inferior texture when compared to normal bread.
The taste can be expected to be nuttier than when made with normal flour. The color will be darker, but I doubt that it will be "golden", it's more likely it will be on the beige-brown spectrum. If all you want is a different color, you should use a food coloring substance, not manipulate the flour.
If you want to experiment with toasted flour, there are many other products which will be a much better choice. The traditional ones are dark roux and flour-based drinks, but you could in principle make anything that works well with gluten-free flour and where you'd appreciate the toasted aroma.
Yes! The heating denatures the proteins in the flour. You can also see this effect if you get flour that gets too hot in the milling process. This is one of the reasons you shouldn't use Indian (the subcontinent) chakki flours for western bread making, even though they work fine for Indian breads.
In Brazil we love farofa, which is toasted cassava flour. It's possible to do it with other kinds of flours, although I'm not sure if regular wheat flour would be appropriate because it's too finely ground.
I thought that farofa is used as a kind of spice to add on top of other food. Is it really an ingredient for bread baking? Does it get mixed with wheat flour for making bread?
Indeed, it's not meant for bread.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.715251
| 2023-04-12T11:00:50 |
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|
128629
|
Do I have to scald home made soy milk when making yoghurt with a machine
I have been successfully making yoghurt using store-bought soy milk from long-life cartons. Now I have purchased a soy milk making machine and want to make yoghurt from my home made soy milk.
Yoghurt making sites say that home made milks have to be cooked at almost boiling for 10 minutes before using to make yoghurt, to heat treat the proteins. However, I think these sites generally assume that people are making soy milk without a machine.
That is, just blending soaked beans with water and straining. Made this way, it needs to be cooked before consuming (or turning into yoghurt). But my machine boils and cooks the beans in water and grinds them, and all I have to do is strain the milk. So I am hoping that I can use this as-is to make yoghurt, without needing to cook the milk as an additional step. Does anyone know if this is the case? Guess I can just try it and see!
There are reasons besides heat-treatment of the proteins for heating of the milk - it's to at least partially Pasteurize (heat kill bacteria) it too, so that when you add your starter culture, you are adding it in a vast abundance over any bacteria that might be there already.
In your case it seems to me that the machine does the Pasteurizing step during the cooking of the beans, which will be boiled until soft. The straining step and grinding steps could add bacteria, but if you do these while still hot (>65 C/150 F), it should be fine to then take this into your yogurt without additional heating.
You would need to be sure that the grinding mechanism is cleaned thoroughly and dried each time you use it to ensure that it isn't a site for contamination to get in.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.715456
| 2024-06-22T05:31:28 |
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|
104537
|
If I burn my food, will I consume less calories as I have already burnt them?
I was wondering, why do we say that we ‘burn’ calories. And then I came to this question.
Tangential to the question you're asking, but "burning" calories in your body is a completely different process from literally burning food. "Burn calories" is a figure of speech.
It's important to remember that cooked food takes less energy for the stomach to digest.
@JLRishe not as different a process as you might imagine. Indeed one way to measure calories is by literally burning the food in a fire.
Yes, if you were burning food that provided you exactly the caloric intake you need to maintain your weight, and if you ate only that and didn't replace the lost calories by adding additional food. To carry it to extremes, you could oxidize your food to an inorganic ash. Metabolic (food) calories are ultimately identical to the energy found in any non-food fuel. They're just found in molecules that are digestible. But you'd also be destroying vitamins, fiber, etc., as well as flavor. Slightly singeing it would destroy a few calories, maybe, of properly cooked food.
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.715628
| 2020-01-04T19:16:34 |
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|
104540
|
Calculating Salt/Sugar additions for Mushroom based Jerky
I'm working on a mushroom based jerky recipe and there are a couple questions about water activity that I am having trouble finding answers to.
What salt and sugar content should I be aiming for to maximize moisture (avoiding a rock hard mushroom cracker) and stay under the .85 water activity level?
My understanding is that salt and sugar both lower water activity but I have not been able to pin down a specific formula or method of determining how much of either is sufficient outside of sending it off to a lab.
Thanks in advance.
Even if you have a formula, you'll have to send it to a lab afterwards, unless you give it so much margin that you end up with that rock hard result. Food preservation is a rather complex problem, and recipes need empirical verification. Formulas are useful, but their role is to reduce the number of attempts you need until you get something that tests right, not to replace the need for testing.
@rumtscho yes that's what I'm aiming for here. How can I dial this in to avoid paying the $100 lab fee for each submission. Is there not an ideal material formula that at least serves as a guideline?
I hope there is one, I don't know it though. I hope someone else will be able to write a good answer.
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.715756
| 2020-01-04T20:11:07 |
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|
104782
|
Special twist to make pasta noodles like the ones at Take Aways / Kebap Huts
You people out there are my last hope for finding my holy grail.
I have tried dozens and dozens of recipes - none of them came even close to what I am searching.
I look for a way to make noodles like they sell on Kebap Huts, Asia Take Aways and many
other shops. Not the slimy spongy likes - I have lots of recipes for them and can cook them
to perfection. Even the hand pulled ones.
No.
I look for the classic noodles, squared, about 2 x 2mm to 3 x 3 mm. Color like normal
classic italian pasta - but taste much softer and the surface will absorb sauces very nicely - which is important as they are fried in pans or on grills.
Squared seems to be important as they are done with a classic pasta machine where you roll the dough
and not press it through a hole - or even pull them.
I even thought it might be potatoe starch in there, cause the noodles have that fleshy soft kind
of touch. But at least the way I tried it was definitely the wrong one.
Lye water, baked baking soda - all kinds of flour. I tried so many things, I even can't remember all
I tried.
And yes, I looked on Google and not only there - does not bring me a milimeter closer to my goal.
There are no recipes except for the classic Asian Noodles - which are NOT what I am looking for.
I think it must be a special twist with the flour, or an ingredient I have not even thought of.
Welcome and +1. Not an answer but I have had the noodles you're referring to from a local (VA, US) Chinese takeout. I absolutely love them! I have had no luck finding a name, recipe, or pre-made (dried or fresh) to buy. Searching for any type of square noodles has proved unsuccessful. I do think they are a wheat noodle but, other than that, I have no info. Hope we see some good answers to your question.
I hope so too. I agree with wheat - and always thought that it has to be the classic flour . But lately I saw a book about food textures , and there was a small indication that maybe part of my missing recipe or ingredient could be full grain flour. As with color and a strange feeling in my belly I also thought it could be spelt . But I tried it once and it did not come close. And all the chinese in my region by it from one company , which is not talking about how to do them.
Have you asked any of the restaurant where you ate these noodles about the name?
the Kebap selling people dont have any name for it but noodles . And the asian restaurants also dont have special names for it . One chinese once said to me that these are Hokkien Noodles - but they also only buy it premade . Even if they are Hokkien Noodles - there is NO recipe around the world wide web that I could find. Not even in asian cookbooks , of which I have plenty . I own 5 books only about asian noodles and their recipes - but nowhere the thick square frying noodles that you can buy everywhere around.
It would be good to have a picture of the noodles, I'm not sure what's being asked.
Picture of the noodles
Hope the link works :-)
Picture is firewalled for me, but is what you are looking for a hand pulled noodle, namely a Shaanxi style, sometimes called a Hong Kong noodle. Normally thin, roundish and often is twisted bundles? If so, the key is a base in the noodle which causes slightly different texture. There is also a Beijing style which does not use a base, but uses a high gluten flour instead to also make an hand pulled noodle.
https://pasteboard.co/IQxVBPo.jpg - maybe this links works for you
I haven't found a specific recipe, but after reading a few other discussion boards, lots of people say it's an egg noodle. You might want to try a few recipes for chinese egg noodles, and see if any of them come close to what you're looking for: https://gingerandscotch.com/homemade-chinese-egg-noodles-from-scratch/ https://www.elmundoeats.com/how-to-make-chinese-egg-noodles/ https://www.diversivore.com/homemade-chinese-egg-noodles/
The picture looks like the 'Hokkien Noodles' you can buy at the supermarket here in Australia. The pack I have is made by Fantastic Snacks. The ingredients are wheat flour, water, wheat gluten, salt, colours (carotene, annnatto, turmeric), and canola oil. They have 6.5g of protein per 100g, 33g carbohydrates (of which 1.8g is dietary fibre), 1.5g fat and 160mg sodium. Maybe that can help you reverse engineer the recipe.
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.715901
| 2020-01-16T18:42:38 |
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|
86252
|
Do I need to remove clove stems before grinding?
I have whole cloves and need to crush/grind them. Should I break the berry parts off the much-harder stem and just grind that, or is the whole thing meant to be used?
(I'm using a mortar and pestle, not a spice grinder, so non-mechanized manipulation may make a difference!)
One clove is "the berry part", as you describe it, and the "stem". Use the whole thing.
But the stems are so hard to crush up! ;)
@Erica, they are (and even worse than star anise, a question you've inspired btw). I was hoping for some more insight how to improve that.
Its probably less work than removing the berries one by one ;p
I crush the whole thing with a pestle and mortar. Not trying to do too many at a time helps a lot. You also don't need it to be as fine as you might think, at least when there's long slow cooking in liquid, as they soften significantly. An old family recipe for apple pie had whole cloves in (known as "nails" when we were children). Normally they'd be left (like cardamom pods in pilau rice) but they were chewy rather than hard by the time the apples were cooked.
Ground cloves is supposed to be just the dried bud and not the nail. A mortar and pestile won't work well for this. A spice grinder that is all metal is preferable to plastic because the clove oil will pit and cloud the plastic. I usually buy cloves in both - whole for hams and ground for 5 spice, pumpkin pie and warm apple cider.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.716250
| 2017-12-10T19:23:20 |
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|
86481
|
Reasonable to store loaves and pound cake in garage during winter? (25-35 F max?)
I receive a large package of baked goods from family every Christmas. I do NOT have enough freezer space to keep them frozen until we get to them. They usually arrive about 10 days prior to when we'll eat them (family gathering). We get whole loaves of rye bread, buns with bacon cooked inside and a Šakotis (Lithuanian cake).
Is it reasonable to wrap them as air tight as we can and store any/all in the garage? The garage temperature might be as high as 35F (but often much colder as temperatures drop into the tens).
Is this a ridiculous idea?
There will be no problem from a food safety perspective, as long as your garage stays within refrigerator temperatures, or within freezer temperatures. However, if you fluctuate between freezing and thawing, the quality of your baked goods will degrade rapidly.
So you might want to keep them in an insulated container to reduce the fluctations.
It depends, if you can keep those foods normally in your fridge for 10 days then they should be fine also in your garage (considering it is even colder than a normal fridge), but other things are to be considered to keep the desired qualities of the food:
bread will be probably better inside the house, wrapped in a cotton or linen kitchen towel (cleaned without bleach or strongly perfumed detergents, and without softeners) and then in plastic, because if it freezes and thaws that's not good for its texture.
I do not know Šakotis cake, but from photos on google it seems quite sugary and crisp, so the main problem I guess it is to prevent sogginess; you should prevent humidity. If the cake is store bought and packaged in plastic it will be fine, if homemade you can wrap it well in paper.
for the buns (I guess they should be soft) I would wrap them well in plastic (to prevent them drying out) and store them in the garage.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.716419
| 2017-12-17T19:52:55 |
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|
83170
|
I am looking for a substitution for milk in risotto
I have Knorr four cheese risotto mix. It calls for 1/2 cup of milk. I dont have any. Can I use fat free sour cream instead?
So the milk does 3 things: 1 adds dairy flavor, 2 adds liquid, and 3 adds fat. Maybe if you mixed 2/3 fat free sour cream with water until it was a consistent texture, you might have a kinda-approximation. It'll be thicker, perhaps granier, and tangier. Personally I'd just add 3/4 that amount of water and 1/4 that amount of butter.
Welcome! Why those percentages? What about the dairy flavor you mention?
The sour cream thing is a shot in the dark, but I'm pretty confident that what you'd end up with wouldn't be 'terrible.' The butter/water thing just approximates the amount of fat and liquid you'd get with a slightly richer half and half, or a slightly lighter light cream. You'd lose some flavor by using water instead of milk, but you'd make up for some by using the butter. Mostly, it's just gut instinct from my time troubleshooting in professional kitchens and culinary schoool.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.716594
| 2017-07-22T21:07:26 |
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|
59267
|
Three ingredient peanut butter cookies - how to improve texture
I am Gluten free and I thought these looked good for peanut butter cookies:
peanut butter,
maple syrup
salt.
They really do bake up beautifully. However, they crumble on the way to your mouth.
I added egg.
Now the batter has become gummy and pasty.
I added baking soda.
While stirring in the baking soda the peanut oil separated from the peanut butter based cookie dough. I baked them and they are an interesting texture of tough and chewy.
What can be done to the original three ingredient cookie recipe that will make them not crumble so much, and not alter the entire texture to a totally different cookie. I think I have run out of options.
There are 'no bake' peanut butter cookies that use oats as a binder -- but they have a lot more ingredients (you start w/ sugar, butter or margarine + some liquid on the stovetop, then add the oats to hydrate, then mix in the peanut butter & drop by the spoonful onto waxed paper or similar.
I use a recipe that is similar and have good results. I believe that I use 1 cup of peanut butter, 1 cup of sugar, and 1 egg.
These turn out a very nice texture. If I were you I would sub some or all of the syrup for regular sugar to make it a bit dryer and make sure to add an egg.
I suggest adding a little coconut flour, but very little -- it absorbs an enormous amount of moisture.
You could also try adding a blend of coconut flour and oat flour (make your own by grinding rolled oats in your blender or food processor, and sifting the flour to remove the bigger bits, which can be added to soup, stew, spaghetti sauce, smoothies, etc.).
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.716809
| 2015-07-22T23:06:38 |
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|
109034
|
Does white wine have an expiry date?
A few weeks ago, in a local Tesco store, I bought two carton packs of 2,25 litre white and red dry wine (Lion's Gate).
I noticed that the white dry wine package has an expiry date:
While red one doesn't have it:
Is this just a print error? Or is it true that white dry wine can expire while red one does not have an expiration process / date at all? If it’s the latter, can anyone explain what causes this difference?
The question is important for me especially, because - as you can see - just a few weeks ago, I purchased a wine that has a supposed expiry date that was 6+ months before today. So I am unsure if I can drink it safely or rather should return it to the shop.
I don't know, if that plays any role here, but both products were packed in plastic bags in carton packages (bag-in-box). The inner bag has only a production date printed on it and no expiry date in both cases.
I have had the good fortune to speak with a few wine producers, and one thing that was universally agreed among them is that 'consumer-grade' white wine doesn't age well. Good quality whites with higher acidity (often Chardonnay or Semillon but even some more acidic Rieslings) can improve with age or at last not deteriorate as quickly, up to a point, generally 10-13 years is the limit for whites.
Red wine is red because it is fermented with the skins, which oxidize and leach tannins into the wine. Tannins give an astringent 'dry' quality, and also act as a preservative. White wines have far less tannins, often sulfites are added instead but white wine still has a more limited shelf life. Mass produced wines are in general not going to improve with age, but white wines will lose their qualities faster than reds. All the best by date means that the producer thinks after that date there may be an appreciable drop in the quality, but it will still be drinkable well past that, often it will be drinkable for years.
Another thing wine makers agreed on when I spoke to them is that boxes with foil packets are actually a really good way to store wine long term, but they don't use them because there market has the perception that box means cheap and low quality (sorry, I'm sure you're a good person deep down @trejder ;) ) . Box wine also has the advantage in that when poured the bag collapses, you don't get appreciable amounts of air in it, so you don't have to drink it within a few days as you do with bottles.
Regarding safety you have nothing to worry about. Alcohol is a preservative that kills pathogens, so even if your wine has gone bad and tastes awful it will still be safe to drink.
I think a similar prejudice applies to the 'real cork/plastic foam cork/screw-top' debate too. Personally I always buy screw-top wine for cooking, just because it's easier to re-cap it & put it back in the rack for the next time I need it.
I think there are many wine producers around the world who would disagree with your opening sentence. There are plenty of examples of age-worthy white wines....not the ones pictured in the OP, but there are whites that are built for cellaring. Burgundy comes to mind, as does the Alsace region of France...heck, I have 8 year old California chardonnay in my basement that is outstanding.
@Tetsujin, absolutely true, cork isn't good compared to alternatives.
@moscafj is right - I think that sentence should be modified somewhat, or just made a little less universal. The rest of the post seems to be about right though.
I was talking about consumer whites @moscafj, I've edited to make that distinction
Please re-read the text - it says:
BEST BEFORE: ...
This doesn’t refer to any food safety issues, merely quality. The manufacturer states that until that date, no significant or perceptible deterioration of the sensory quality will happen (provided its stored appropriately). After that date, the quality may (or may not) suffer. It’s not a statement about food safety.
That said, from a food safety perspective you can keep the wine for a very long time, probably indefinitely. Why the manufacturer chose to state a best before date for the white wine only is unclear, probably because whites tend to be more susceptible to flavor changes than red. Note that today most modern wines, especially those that go to supermarkets, are not made for long-term storage, rather for consumption within just a few months after sale. Only some vineyards will still produce wine for future generations. Bag-in-box packed wines are usually intended to be consumed within six months or so after bagging and four to six weeks after opening. But neither of these time frames is set in stone or related to food safety.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.716991
| 2020-06-14T08:09:27 |
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|
53466
|
Coffee Biscuit doesn't come out in Knock Box
We have a Breville Dual Boiler Coffee Machine, my husband even made a barista course to learn all about it.
But when we try to knock the coffee biscuit into a knock box, it doesn't work. It never comes out and if you use more force, the filter pops out before the biscuit (hope it's clear what I mean). So you need to get a spoon and scrape the coffee out of the filter (and avoid doing a big mess).
Does someone knows a trick or has an idea why it happens? I though, I use to much pressure to compact the coffee at the beginning, but according to my husband it's okay.
How long are you waiting between pulling the shot and knocking the portafilter?
I didn't try different time, sometimes straight away, sometimes it can be a few minutes up to 10
A couple of other questions - are you grinding your own beans or buying a commercial grind? Also, how much coffee are adding to the basket? You might be over-dosing your filter. You can use the nickel test (place a nickel on top of the tamped coffee, put the portafilter on the machine, then remove and view - if the nickel is pushed way down into the coffee you have too many grounds and not enough headspace) to see.
IF this is the machine you have, we're using the same.
Overdosing is the most likely cause. Please try to adjust the weight of your coffee dose.
We've found that 20-21 grams is still OK for the double-shot.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.717343
| 2015-01-09T23:15:54 |
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|
42176
|
Adding spiciness to indian curry at the end of cooking
When making Indian curries, I usually lightly fry the spices (cumin, coriander, turmeric, and kashmiri chili powder), as most recipes state that this is needed to get rid of the "raw" taste. Sometimes though, towards the end of cooking after I added salt, I want to make the dish more spicy. Is it OK to simply add chili powder? Two possible objections to this are
1) The chili powder won't lose its raw taste since its not fried.
2) The chili powder won't dissolve in the curry, as this takes more time.
Is any of these true? And if so, is there any other way to make the dish more spicy without continued cooking? How does adding chili powder compare to adding green chili paste? And is it possible to add other spices besides chili powder (for example to add cumin powder to get a stronger cumin taste)?
What exactly do you mean with "chilly powder"? The blend of spices/blends, cayenne powder, hot chili flakes, ...?
I mean Kashmiri Chilli Powder, but the same question would apply to paprika, and not limited to Indian dishes
@dan12345 at the end of the cooking, we shall taste and eat...not add anything any longer... Spices found in South Asian Cuisine is best when it's cooked with food so the food absorbed the spices well. You wouldn't get the same flavours if you add them afterwards...
It's not Indian, but my go-to for adding heat to an already cooked dish is sambal instead of using dry spices.
You probably can't fix the sauce, but the common ways to add heat/spice/flavor to a S. Asian dish after it's cooked are to mix in a tempering oil and to use spicy pickles. The former's easy -- heat up oil and spices in a pan until fragrant, then stir into the dish. You're cooking the spices at the temperature of the hot oil, which is much higher than the temperature a water-based sauce can attain. The latter's easy too -- buy some nice spicy lime pickle at the Indian grocery store!
Interesting, @Nav! In most of the United States, "gravy" refers to a thickened savory sauce made from roasted meat drippings, usually chicken or turkey. And "sauce" is a generic. (See Patterson's classic text, Sauces.) In some Italian-American areas, "gravy" refers to a slow-cooked tomato sauce served with pasta or meat. Language is funny. :)
I'm very late to this…
… but yes, you can drop extra cayenne [or similar] any time before serving. That's how they do it at any BIR restaurant or take-away if you ask for 'hot' & that's how I do it at home if I need more 'punch'.
Cayenne adds almost no flavour, only heat. It takes very little time for the capsaicins to infuse, so long as you have a decent amount of oil/ghee in your sauce. A BIR would do it within seconds of serving it to you.
Generally speaking, it is not a good idea to add red chilly powder at the end for a couple of reasons:
1) The trick of spices are they season and coat the vegetables or meat in the food. Usually once spices like coriander, turmeric, and red chilli powder are added, you want to cover you food and simmer for the required time or saute on high heat. Also, in the intial stages, the oil from the seasoning is still slightly coated on the veggies. The heat acts well on a mix of oil and spices to ensure even seasoning of your veggies.
2) If you have a liquid(y) gravy, adding red chilli powder in the end will result in floating and separation of the powder. Stirring will not help at this point and prolonged boiling or heating will over cook your veggies.
Some Indian spices are deliberately added in minor quantities towards end of the cooking:
a) Garam Masala powder (b) Mango powder
Garam masala's raw flavour is an intentional taste in Indian cooking. Raw Mango powder is pure tanginess and no sharp flavors. So there's no risk of uncooked spices with it.
The overarching principle is to cook your spices well in Indian cooking.
It is possible to adjust nearly any Indian dish at the end of the cooking process. If you only want to make it spicier then heat oil with fresh chili's (or chili powder) in a separate pan. Once fragrant you can incorporate into your dish.
The next level is to go beyond just chili's. You can heat oil and then add ginger/garlic paste in addition to a variety of spices (garam masala, cumin, coriander, etc) and then incorporate it into your dish once fragrant. This will massively elevate the flavor if it's lacking. This is an old Indian mom/grandma trick that is used regularly.
is this something that will keep well? Too often when I go to restaurants their curries are not spicy enough.
Yes it will. Just give it a try.
just posted a similar question.
:) https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/128501/indian-restaurants-curries-not-spicy-enough
Green chilli to spice it up towards the end works really well. Put in a few and simmer for a few minutes...it doesn't seem to conflict with the other spices.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.717514
| 2014-02-19T23:13:22 |
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|
37993
|
Some batter falls off during deep fry
I have been trying to replicate a bloomin' onion, but it seems that I can never keep the batter on the onion during the frying process. It doesn't completely fall off, but it is definitely not the same as what I see in restaurants.
I usually do a mixture of 2 eggs and a cup of milk for the wet and flour with spices for the dry. I dip in the wet first, then dry, wet again, then dry again. I fry it at 350, but when the time suggested (6 minutes) is up, I pull it out and it just seems to crumble off half the time.
Could it be that my oil is not the correct temperature? Am I leaving it in for the incorrect amount of time?
I am trying to follow the recipe found on food network's site.
Edit: As suggested by @Satanicpuppy I will try coating it in the flour mixture first, giving it a total of five dredgings. I will update this once I try it again if that is the solution.
My first thought was that the onion should have been shaken in some dry ingredients before the first dunk in the wet batter, and that's also what I see in the recipe. That could definitely be the culprit.
related : http://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/954/67 ; http://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/13721/67
Yeah, I hate that. Why does my batter keep falling off? Why doesn't it stick to the onion or the fish?!!! What is the secret to having a sticky batter???
@Satanicpuppy : I will try doing an extra dry step at the beginning. Thanks for the tip.
Try using a tempura recipe, it holds better on vegetables than regular batter (which is usually formulated for meat)
From Alton Brown's I'm Just Here for the Food (p. 99): "The number one reason breadings fail (fall off) is too much primer coat (flour). There is nothing to hold the layers together so they unzip from each other and your breading is floating free in the fryer..."
If you're going to use a three-stage breading process, which is what you've described, you need to make sure to shake off as much of the initial flour layer as possible. Dry flour doesn't stick to itself very well, so if a too-thick initial dredging creates clump-like layers of flour that aren't well moistened, in the relative violence of the fryer the dry interior of those clump-like layers will separate from each other and your breading will flake off.
For "bloomin' onions," the process I've seen wasn't a three-stage one like you describe. Rather, the onions were stored/soaked in milk (because soaking in a slightly acidic liquid mellows the onions -- water should be as effective, and soaking may not be necessary at all), and, as needed, pulled out, shaken free of excess liquid, and generously dredged in seasoned flour.
Try using Methylcellulose F50, it works very well to help a batter cling. You can see one way to do it using a pre-soak in this Fish & Chips Recipe - a 2% solution of F50 in water used as a dip before battering. I haven't tried it with onions, but I expect it would work well. Note that the methocel has to be well hydrated first.
Most places use a wet batter for an onion:
Outback Steakhouse Bloomin Onion
4 Vidalia or Texas Sweet Onions
Batter:
1/3 Cup Cornstarch
1 1/2 Cup Flour
2 tsp. Garlic −− minced 2 tsp. Paprika
1 tsp. Salt
1 tsp. Pepper
24 oz. Beer
Seasoned Flour:
2 Cup Flour
4 tsp. Paprika
2 tsp. Garlic powder 1/2 tsp. Pepper
1/4 tsp. Cayenne pepper
Mix cornstarch, flour, and seasonings until well blended. Add beer,
mix well. Cut about 3/4" off top of onion and peel. Cut into onion
12 to 16 vertical wedges, but do not cut through bottom root end. Remove about 1" of petals from center of onion. Dip onion in seasoned flour and remove excess by shaking. Separate petals and dip in batter to coat thoroughly. Gently place in fryer basket and deep−fry at
375 to 400 1 1/2 minutes. Turn over, and fry an additional 1 1/2 minutes. Drain on paper towels.
Place onion upright in shallow bowl and remove center core with circular cutter or apple corer. Serve hot with Creamy Chili Sauce.
Creamy Chili Sauce:
1 pint Mayonnaise
1 pint Sour cream
1/2 Cup Chili sauce
1/2 tsp. Cayenne pepper
Actually what I learned was after coating the onion with batter place the onion in the refrigerator for approximately 30 mins. Then take out and fry it. I tried it & it worked like a charm; the batter stuck very well
Fry the batter on a sausage to get the batter crispy, then slide the batter to the thing you want to put it on.
You can cook the onion in a pan before putting in the batter, after this, you can cook the thing as a whole for about 5-10 mins. If you fry the onion as a whole, it should keep together as a whole, if this is what you want.
Not sure how to understand this. Are you suggesting that the OP can fry the batter on some other stuff, then put the onion into the prepared batter shell? This has the problem of leaving the onion raw.
Although I am still skeptical it will turn out good, I have no proof that it won't work, maybe you have more experience there :) for the record, you can edit you own posts (and suggest edits to others', will be accepted if you don't change their meaning). I all edited the info into this answer now and will delete the second one.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.717934
| 2013-10-29T19:57:05 |
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|
105276
|
Burned pan health issue
I cooked my eggs with my pan and forgot to turn the stove off after removing the eggs. Later on, my pan got a huge burn mark and so I threw the pan away. Should I replace the electric stove as well? I'm worried that the chemical might leak from the pan to my stove.
what kind of pan was it? nonstick? you can't really ruin a cast iron pan by burning it, so the pan matters to the answer.
It is unlikely that the burned residue from eggs warrants either tossing the pan or the stove.
In fact, depending on what the pan is made of, you could likely clean it and continue to use it and the likely worse thing that would happen would be the next thing you cook in the pan might have a burned flavor.
If stoves had to be thrown away every time something on them got burned stove manufacturers would sell a lot more stoves.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.718379
| 2020-02-11T23:26:27 |
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|
109580
|
How to keep sausage cases from splitting?
I make the sausage mix and put it in the casing. Although, when I twist them to make them into individual sausages it splits and I have wasted the casing and sausage meat.
The sausages split literally as I twist them. I use 'Single dry beef collagen casing 28mm' cases. I store them in a dark safe cupboard where they cannot get damaged. Before filling them I wash the to make sure they are no snags
Any help would be appreciated,
Domford
Collagen casings are quite fragile, unfortunately, and can’t easily be twisted off. You can try filling them less and pinching the meat away in the area you’ll twist, or tying them off with kitchen twine, or use natural casings instead.
Hi @Sneftel, thank you so much! Would you be able to recommend any brands of natural casings. Thanks, Domford
Afraid not, it’s been many years since I did any sausage-making. Ask your local butcher.
Ok thank you so much! I hope you stay well in these unpredictable times :)
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.718483
| 2020-07-10T10:44:25 |
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|
115329
|
Can any liquid food be beaten into a mousse?
Hervé This discovered that one can make chocolate mousse with chocolate and water only.
This recipe is shown in this MasterChef video, and also detailed here.
Essentially, one melts chocolate with water, then whisks it over an ice bath to incorporate air bubbles, and after a while the mousse is formed.
Is this property unique to chocolate? Would this be possible, with, say, a strawberry purée?
This outcome of this technique is called a 'Water Ganache'. When I helped run a small chocolate company this was how we made our vegan/dairy-free truffles.
Probably depends on how patient the moose is
Well, I'm pretty sure any moose can be beaten into liquid food, if that helps.
@ToddWilcox when the lawmakers forbade foie gras because it is too cruel to beat food into geese, I don't think they intended you to switch to beating food into meese!
Chocolate is a solid at room temperature, strawberry puree is not, so I strongly doubt that the strawberry would result in a foam.
The reason chocolate would form a solid foam is that it is largely composed of a two substances - sugar and fat. Together with the air these can form a solid of fats (similar to whipped cream) with microscopic sugar crystals helping keep it in place.
The only thing a strawberry puree would have that might reach similar consistency is the sugars. If you were to heat to a high enough heat that the sugars polymerize crystallise (like in candy), and whisk, you might get a structure like a mousse, but it would be crunchy.
And I'd wager you loose a lot of the strawberry flavor before the sugar becomes fixed
Sugars do not polymerize during candy making - they crystallize, or otherwise solidify in an amorphous or glassy phase. The consistency is dictated by the fraction of water remaining - the heat is used to adjust the quantity of residual water in the mix, as indicated by its boiling point which increases as the water fraction goes down.
Bonus: to achieve a crunchy foam candy, you mix in baking soda. That's the only method I know anyway.
@J... good point, I couldn't think of the term at the time. I'll edit that in.
I think that you could beat strawberry puree in a mousse using the technique for Italian meringue. You beat the (filtered) puree with a whisk, and then slowly pour hot sugar in the mix, while beating. You might need gelatin to stabilize the compound.
@VladimirCravero possibly, but the OP question was more about being able to make a foam from things other than chocolate in a chocolate/water mix. My point was that you couldn't, not without adding extra things.
Fair enough. I interpreted OP question more like "what ways are there to make everything into a foam" rather than "can I make this into a foam without adding anything", hence my comment.
@VladimirCravero, you got me thinking. I am sure someone has tried it but it might be possible with a high pectin fruit, like making a setting jam into a foam. The only problem might be that the foaming process destroys the pectin protein somehow.
When I made the comment, I just saw this video: https://youtu.be/tfn-LC254Hk?t=264 I just checked back and I was remembering wrong, you also need egg, fruit+sugar is not quite enough at least for raspberry puree.
The beating of a liquid to a foam is not unique to a chocolate-and-water mixture. Neither is it something that works with any random liquid. What you need is an emulsion or a colloid which contains something that can hold the bubbles of the foam, and
has the right proportion of that "something" to the liquid part
has the right particle/droplet size
is being processed at the right temperature (or change of temperatures, for example a sponge cake is a foam that has to start at room temperature and then get heated to first expand and then set into a stabilized state).
Ferran Adria has created this very simplified diagram:
Translated from the "base" column, the diagram states that you need the proper amount of gelatin, fat, egg white or starch for a foam. The not-so simple version is that
binders other than gelatin will also work
protein suspensions other than egg whites will work (e.g. the notorious aquafaba)
when you have a liquid which has more than one of these, all bets are off. It might be helpful for making the foam (e.g. in chocolate, you have both starch and fat), or be detrimental (e.g. if you get fat in your egg whites), or show different behavior depending on ratios (you can make hot protein-based foams with milk, but if you remove its water to make cream, it is only suited for cold fat-based foams).
The way you foam your food also matters, some liquids will foam with beating, others will require a siphon. Also, some foams are stable for a long time, others have to be served immediately before they liquefy again.
All in all, foams are a very complex topic, and for any given liquid that comes across your way, it is unlikely that you can just pick it and make it into a mousse. If you want to create foams, use a recipe, these are tested to work.
That's a great diagram; trust a great chef to come up with something so simple, yet so great.
I don't understand the diagram. It seems to be saying that gelatina (gelatin) and grasa (fat) are both appropriate for a foam which is fría (cold), fécula (starch) is appropriate for one which is caliente (hot), and clara (egg whites) is appropriate for either fría or caliente. But then where do dulce (sweet) and salado (salty) come in? Presumably dulce and salado aren't just there for decoration, so the diagram must be saying something about them, but I have no idea what.
Initially, I thought that maybe the intention was that you look at circles that are arranged in straight lines: for dulce and fría, use grasa, and for salado and fría, use gelatina. But that's inconsistent with the fact that fría is connected to clara. (Not to mention that I'm pretty sure there's nothing wrong with a sweet, cold, gelatin-based foam.)
@TannerSwett I read the diagram as simply descriptive, stating which foam kinds are possible (or maybe which ones are being made by Ferran Adria). So, if you choose one circle per column and there is no line connecting the three, that kind of foam is not recommended. There are only three lines missing for the pairings (three-tuplings?) to be complete: no hot gelatin (check: would melt), no hot fat (check: melts too) and no cold starch (unsure why, maybe it is simply not considered tasty).
@TannerSwett In addition to rumtscho's excellent comment: Yes, dulce and salado are just there for decoration. They're connected to both hot and cold, so either can be either; it's redundant information, although perhaps useful if one is starting from a place of "I want to make something sweet" and making other decisions from there. sweet-cold-gelatin is connected, and thus there is indeed nothing wrong with it.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.718621
| 2021-04-19T20:51:27 |
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110241
|
Pressure cooking vacuum sealed meat
Can a meat that is vacuum sealed for sousvide cooking be cooked instead in a pressure cooker and appropriate results be achieved?
What do you mean by "appropriate results" and what meat?
What kind of packaging? Can it withstand the elevated temperature of the pressure cooker?
Bags will handle up to 250°F. appropr0aite results = tenderized without being overdone.
This probably isn't safe, and there's no reason to do it in the first place
The purpose of sous vide cooking is to get your food to a very specific and even temperature throughout, in order to guarantee a certain degree of doneness and minimise the possibility of overcooking. It achieves this by holding the food in a water bath at that appropriate temperature until the food has equalised with the water in temperature.
Pressure cookers, on the other hand, work by preventing steam from escaping from a boiling liquid, thereby raising the pressure in the vessel and hence raising the boiling temperature, which will allow certain reactions in the food to proceed more quickly than they would at a regular boil. This means that a pressure cooker is held at a much, much higher temperature than a sous vide water bath - indeed, if i wanted to overcook food without burning it, an extended stay in a pressure cooker is the most effective method I can think of.
If your sous vide bags can handle the elevated temperatures of a pressure cooker (and I don't think that's true for you; a quick Google suggests that pressure cookers are generally capable of hitting 250 degrees Fahrenheit, which is the number you provided for your specific bags) there may still be a danger in putting them in your pressure cooker; when you release the pressure, the liquid inside your pressure cooker boils rapidly to come back down to a temperature that makes sense at its new pressure; the liquid sealed inside your sous vide bags, however, can't vent to the atmosphere, meaning that your sous vide bags are suddenly themselves tiny pressure cookers, except they're not built to withstand internal pressure like that and will likely burst, spraying boiling liquid out of the pot.
In summary, cooking food sous vide inside a pressure cooker will generally drastically overcook it, and then, if you're not careful, spray boiling liquid around your kitchen. Personally, I wouldn't try it.
Thanks for your advice. I have a sous vide oven that I use frequently. I was just seeking a quick way to prepare a beef stew, so I simply put the beef out of the vacuum pack into a Bain Marie configuration in the instant pot and achieved the results that i wanted.
As long as your bag can handle the temperature you should be fine. The bag exploding is not an issue because there is no way for it to expand under the pressure. Once you release the pressure, the liquid starts to boil, reducing the temperature to a maximum of the boiling point of water (212˚). Since there is no air in the bag, only liquid, and because it's under vaccum, it will not over expand. Also do a natural release as to prevent a potential problem just to be sure. (important). I have found it to be completely safe. Simple thermodynamics.
For example, Sous Vide pork ribs @ 145˚ can take as much as 36 hours. On the other hand, pressure-cooked ribs take less than an hour but the seasonings and juices end up in the bottom of the pot due to the steam created from the water in the bottom which is needed to generate pressure. Would I pressure cook a filet? No. but there is an application for other meats.
Instead, by pressure cooking in a vaccum sealed bag you infuse the meat with seasoning and retain moisture while dramatically reducing cooking time. Finish in the oven or smoker/grill.
If you think it through, there is no fuss/muss, drastic reduction of time and the meat turns out brilliantly. A 2 day job is cut down to a few hours. It's a winner for me!
Sous Vide bags are NOT little pressure cookers. They are under internal vaccum and external pressure and liquids don't expand like air. To close the point, if you do a natural release, the pressure in the pressure cooker will prevent the liquid in the bag from expanding. A natural release reduces temperature and presure in a controlled manner at the same time. QED.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.719274
| 2020-08-16T20:10:27 |
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|
110647
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cooling a hot pan while cooking
My question is about cooling a pan while cooking. I come to the issue when I'm making a dish and it tells me to have a pan at medium-high to sear meat. Then it tells me to remove the item and saute garlic. When I do that the garlic always burns, so obviously it's asking me to cool the pan down. How do I do that without splashing water or something else? Do I just leave it off the burner for a minute or 2 while it cools down and then go for the garlic?
Please add some punctuation to your question. It's very difficult to read as it is.
Remove the pan from the heat to a cool burner.
Lower your burner temperature.
Remove your protein.
Pop a knob of butter and/or a drizzle of cooking olive oil, etc and toss in your garlic.
Sautee in the residual pan heat for a few seconds or a minute until it calms down and return to the burner.
Then what I like to do, when the garlic is ready, is to deglaze with a splash or two of stock or wine and scrape up all the fond and reduce the liquid by at least half and maybe wisk in a little pat of butter at the end for an amazing garlicy pan sauce you can drizzle over your meat.
Yes, just remove the pan from the heat for a couple of minutes.
Don't forget to lower the burner heat.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.719621
| 2020-09-11T22:23:14 |
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109148
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Should I stir my sourdough starter before measuring?
I'm new to using sourdough starter and some directions aren't very clear. I'm not sure if it needs to be stirred down before I measure for cooking and for feeding it. I've been stirring down the starter before measuring both when feeding and when cooking with it. Is that the right way?
Also, I've only been keeping 1/2 cup of starter to feed, adding 1/2 cup water and 1 cup flour. If I keep more, do I need to increase the amount of flour and water I add?
Rather than worrying about whether you 'stir down' the starter before measuring by volume, you should really be measuring by weight. Kitchen scales are cheap and incredibly helpful, especially for any kind of baking.
Regarding feeding: there are almost as many different feeding ratios as there are sourdough starters. None of these are set in stone. A common ratio is 1:1:1 starter:flour:water, again by weight. Thus, if you keep more starter, you feed it more.
A 2:1 flour:water ratio is quite interesting, btw. It’s a riff on Lievito Madre (LM is sometimes wrapped in cloth and tied up etc.) and gets me a great rise with only very mild acidity, quite different from a 1:1 sourdough.
I can't agree more with this! Weighing is more accurate, faster and less mess.
@Stephie Interesting point. I suggested 1:1:1 mostly because OP's 2:1 flour:water by volume will be roughly 1:1 by weight.
@GdD the three wise words of baking: Use A Scale ^_^
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.720082
| 2020-06-18T23:38:48 |
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86112
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Is 3 days too long to soak dried fruit for my fruitcake?
My fruitcake recipe calls for soaking dried fruit in molasses and wine overnight. I mixed that up and it's macerating in the fridge, but a surprise schedule change means I won't get it into a cake for another two days (a total of 72 hours of soaking, rather than the expected 24).
Is this going to negatively impact the consistency of the fruit bits in the fruitcake? I like them somewhat chewy, not extremely soft. (The "dried fruit" in question is this mix of peel, pineapple, and cherries, plus raisins.)
The Christmas cake recipe I use (from Mary Berry's Fast Cakes) soaks the fruit in sherry for 3 days (and doesn't call for refrigeration). It comes to no harm at all. I have tried less time, and that's OK but either way it needs a couple of stirs to ensure even soaking (this is more important for shorter soaks).
Regular stirring is one of my favorite parts, because it allows for regular tasting ;)
I once macerated dried fruit in rum for a fruitcake. I forgot about the bowl in the back of the fridge and it must have been at least several months before I made the cake, which turned out great. I wouldn't expect wine and molasses to preserve as well as a distilled spirit, but several days is not a problem.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.720247
| 2017-12-04T15:06:26 |
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