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90491
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Salvaging a cheesecake that's oozing butter
I just made a White Chocolate Raspberry cheesecake, and it ended up being a failure appearance-wise.
For some reason, it cracked a lot, and the batter ended up super lumpy, so the cheesecake is all heterogenous looking:
The main problem though can be seen in the large crack at the bottom of the image. For some reason, when I took it out, there was liquid pooling in the cracks. I tried wicking it with some paper towel, and it came out yellow. I felt it, and it was greasy. The only thing I can think that it might be is butter.
I've never had this happen before. It must have been because to make a chocolate layer in the middle, I added some butter to the chocolate to thin it a bit (~1 tsp/oz of chocolate), and I must have overdone it. I was BS'ing this recipe as I went, so I don't really have a recipe book to blame here.
Now, I can't taste it because it was made for someone else. I have no idea what the "damage" is in the inside. My problem now is deciding if it's salvageable, and how to go about fixing it if it is.
I've been wicking the butter out with a paper towel, but that doesn't get much, and I don't want to risk widening the crack further.
Does anyone have experience with cheesecakes that have had too much fat added to them? Is there a way to get rid of the butter on the top? Is there a way to tell if it'll be edible?
Update:
So, after chilling it overnight, the butter on top seemed to have receded back into the cake. At that point, I was worried less about the appearance (because that was already out the window), and more about it being a butter-sponge when bitten into. I guess after the fact though, there's likely nothing that can be done about that.
And I've already given it to the ""customer"" (a coworker). I offered to refund it if it's inedible. She's convinced that it will be fine, but we'll see.
From this point, I'd like to know how, in the future, a situation like this can be dealt with should it happen again.
Here's the recipe that I had put together by the end:
Crust:
3 cups Ginger Cookie Crumbs
⅓ cup butter
Filling:
500g Cream Cheese
½ cup sugar
½ tsp vanilla
¼ Cup Raspberry Jam (+ a little to compensate for moisture loss from heating)
2 eggs
Chocolate Layer:
6-8 oz White Chocolate
6-8 tsp butter (~1 tsp/oz of chocolate)
Preheat to 325F
Crust:
Combine ingredients
Pack into 9-10” springform
Bake at 375F for 5-7 minutes
Set aside
Filling:
Mix cream cheese, sugar and vanilla
Heat jam just until warm and runny, and mix in to batter
Mix in eggs carefully, mixing just enough to combine
Layer:
Melt butter, and add chocolate on very low heat
Pour a thin layer of about half the melted chocolate over the crust
Spread half the batter over chocolate covered crust
Pour the rest of the chocolate over the first layer of batter
Pour in the rest of the batter
Bake for 50-60 minutes, or until centre is almost set.
Allow to cool, then chill overnight.
Edit: I asked the buyer how it was. She said it tasted fine, but that the chocolate layer had an odd consistency and crunchiness. Apparently the oozing butter was non-consequential.
I'm afraid I can't help you much with the yellow liquid, and I don't think you can successfully bake a chocolate layer in the middle. It's going to break apart and float around. Also, make sure you cream the sugar and cream cheese together really well to avoid lumps. Do you have time to start over? Maybe use chocolate cookie crumbs in the crust instead of a chocolate layer.
@mrog Ya, I realized that the chocolate would likely just melt about half way through cooking. I'm not sure why that didn't occur to me before. And I had near-room temperature cream cheese that I creamed with the sugar. It looked well mixed before I added the liquid ingredients, but it was immediately clear that it wasn't after I added the jam. The white-on-white is hard to differentiate. And no, this was it. I have to be up in 11 hours to go to work, which is where it's for.
The cracking comes from cooking it too much (too high of a temp or too quickly). Can't help with the liquid, though.
"Now, I can't taste it because it was made for someone else" ... errr, sneak a small piece out of one of the cracks. Or if you're going to top it, say with some raspberries, you can hide where you took a small piece under one of them. And if it's getting any frosting/whipped cream/etc., that'll hide anything.
Unfortunately, at this point, it's already changed hands. I offered to refund it if it's inedible. I was assured that "it will be edible", but, we'll see. It's a learning experience at this point now.
First thought that comes to mind: Bury under layers of powdered sugar (do not press on the sugar) and SERVE IT CHILLED :)
@rackandboneman To suck up the butter? I should have added a note that after chilling it over night, the butter seemed to have receded back into the cake. I'm more worried about the cake being a sponge of butter now though. I'll update my question.
@Carcigenicate Please let us know what feedback you receive about the cake. I'm curious to know how it turned out.
@mrog Ya, I'm going to post an answer when I hear back. It'll probably be Monday because that when I'm in next.
@mrog Actually, on second thought, not an answer, since the turnout doesn't really answer the question. I'll just add an update.
@Carcigenicate I guess if you decide to make it again, and it works better, then you'll have your answer. :-)
I would suggest using a bit of simple syrup or maple syrup instead to melt the chocolate, if you want the taste of butter, add a little bit of flour to the butter first when melting it to make a little bit of a light roux.
The problem is the chocolate and butter for sure will separate at the temp that a cheesecake bakes at, there's nothing for the butter to cling to.
Firstly, cheesecakes should always be baked in a water bath to prevent cracking. So if you place your springform pan into a larger pan, of any size, and fill that large pan with ~1" of boiling water, then put it into the oven to bake, you shouldn't see those large cracks. The steam from the water will keep the top of the cheesecake hydrated so that it won't crack.
Secondly, this is exactly the instance where a ganache would have worked better than chocolate plus butter. The heavy cream in a ganache would prevent the chocolate from hardening in the fridge, as butter also hardens in the fridge it isn't the best way to counteract that textural "crunchiness" your colleague mentioned. A good ganache for this would be 8oz chocolate, 6oz cream - bring cream to boil, pour over chopped chocolate (aim for chocolate chip sized chunks), let the cream sit over the chocolate for 30-60 seconds and then use a whisk to combine from the center outwards. This will leave you with a silky smooth ganache that won't harden in the fridge.
Best of luck on future cheesecake endeavors!
Thanks for the ganache suggestion. It was in a water bath though.
Ah. Perhaps as mentioned before the temp was a touch high. Boiling water makes a big difference to ensure lots of steam right from the get go!
I usually bake my cheesecake,1st at 175 celsius for 10-12 minutes,than at 100 celsius for 30 minutes.I use a tray with water ..inside the oven,the steam from it hepls the cake to bake uniformly.After the time ended,I leave them in the oven to chill down.I would try something else instead of that chocolate with butter,maybe a white chocolate ganache or dark. In your case I would have covered the cracks with a layer of raspberry or wild berry jelly..Problem solved ;)
Ya, I really need to learn to garnish cakes well. I've always left them plain on top as an aesthetic preference, but that certainly makes my life more difficult.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.973611
| 2018-06-21T21:37:30 |
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|
53932
|
Why does some cookie recipes both put sugar and brown sugar? Also can we use sweetener like stevia instead of sugar in recipes?
Why does some cookie recipes both put sugar and brown sugar? What is sweeter regular sugar or brown sugar? Also can we use sweetener like stevia instead of sugar in recipes? Will it give a sweeter taste? If it works what amount would you put in if the recipe calls for 1 cup of sugar?
Thank you :)
You are asking a surprisingly lot of questions.
First, to deal with this question, you need to understand "creaming".
So look here and here.
Nothing "creams" as dramatically as granulated sugar with room temperature butter. Those particular ingredients are special for that. Brown sugar doesn't accomplish nearly the creaming effect of granulated sugar, but combined with granulated sugar the combination is greater than the sum of its parts. In other words, a 50/50 mix of brown and granulated sugar can achieve nearly the leavening effect of granulated sugar only with room temperature butter.
The sweetness of brown and regular sugar are pretty much equal. In the US and I think almost everywhere else, brown sugar is just granulated sugar with molasses added. Brown sugar adds the molasses flavor, and not surprisingly, some browning.
To use non-sugar sweeteners, choose recipes that don't call for The Creaming Method, they simply won't work right. If you want to use a sweetener other than sugar, pick a recipe with a fat that is unsaturated (liquid at room temperature), or melted butter. Also, be sure that your sweetener of choice will maintain its sweetness if baked.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.974189
| 2015-01-24T16:51:53 |
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|
53964
|
Baking in gas oven does not brown the top
I need advice from those who bake in gas oven without fan. I bake on the middle rack and have an oven thermometer(my oven is -20 deg off). My cakes get baked darker on bottom and paler on top. Cookies can get burnt at bottom if I wait for them to change color on top. The result is that the cookies, puff pastry are not crisp, the sheet cakes are sticky on touch when they cool down.
Really need advice from those who had faced and overcome this. Many thanks!
Edit: What I really want to know is how to increase the top heat? The cake or pastry is getting baked faster at bottom but since top heat is less though the cake rises fine it does not get browned on top. If I wait longer for it to brown it starts getting burned at bottom.
Do you have top heat at all? In another question, I doubted advice given for an oven with no top heating elements, until somebody explained that has ovens (which I have never used) frequently don't have an upper heating element.
@rumtscho you are one of the lucky ones :-) you have to change your whole cooking style to accommodate such an oven. Sometimes I think I'd be better off with a wood powered range from the Victorian days...
@Doug poor you, I would never have thought that such bad tools are installed in pro kitchens. I live in Germany, where gas cooking is almost unheard of. So I get to use good electric ovens, but also no gas stove. At least current resistive technology with Ceran is decent, and induction is just great, but years ago it was a cramp to cook on stovetop.
@rumtscho they are rare, it generally happens when the boss has never had to work in a kitchen before and thinks an oven is an oven why pay £12k for a rationale oven when you can get an oven + stove top for £1-2k. Everywhere else I've worked we've had these ovens but only for the stove tops and and oven itself would be used for storing cloths and pans or for drying out meringue and cooking creme brulee. You can imagine my bosses face on my first day here when I couldn't find the oven...
@rumtscho I have a grill on top. There is no top heating element like there is in electric ovens.
This is an issue I've had to come to terms with myself. I spent most of my catering life spoilt by having a massive fan assisted electric ovens with space for 24 trays at once. Then one day I left it all behind to work in a tiny 2 chef kitchen where all we had was a bottom heated gas oven. The first 6 months was a nightmare. It's still not easy even to this day but I'll share a couple of tricks me and my colleague have found.
Its all about the airflow:
Forget about the middle shelf for baking it's useless. It's there for roast joints and ... Stuff. Get your baked goods on the top shelf. The reason you are not getting browned tops is all the heat is hitting the bottom of your tray, by the time it reaches the top of your oven and bounces back down to your food it's nowhere near the temperature required.
In order to help cushion the bottoms of your food and direct the heat towards the top, you need to put a tray slightly larger than the tray you are cooking on, on the shelf below. You can add water to this tray for bread and Yorkshire puddings as the steam helps regulate the heat also, but when cooking pastries I find it makes the pastry more likely to split and crack.
Locate the thermostat in your oven. In ours, it's at the top right, in the middle. Always ensure there is sufficient space around it for the heat to hit it. If it's blocked in any way you'll find the oven just keeps pumping heat out. It'll be 300c at the bottom but the thermostat will still think it 100c.
Sometimes you will find the tops are now cooking perfectly but the bottoms are a little less done. At that point, you will be safe to either move the food down a shelf to help crisp the bottoms or if making scones you can safely flip them over just to finish off.
Good luck.
Does this means even if I bake on the top shelf I place a pan on the shelf below or is this for only when I bake in the middle? What if I am using a bundt pan then that won't fit in the top shelf?
Depends on your oven to be honest. It's worth experimenting. Personally in our oven I always have a tray beneath any baked goods. Usually a pan or something else I'm cooking (roast beef etc) to be honest. Also its worth noting we don't have a middle just a top and bottom shelf plus the oven base which is used for toasting tea cakes...
Thanks! when the advice comes from someone who faced the same issues it registers faster. Puff pastry on the upper rack baked awesome. Baking cake had a problem as my pan height was more and I could not view through glass door how it baked. I then tried baking on the middle rack. A black tray which came along this oven was lying pretty useless. I placed this below the middle rack and this time the cake browned evenly. I am now confused about 2 things. 1. Why is placing a pan below has such a effect? 2. Where should I place my oven thermometer, dangle from the rack or on top of it?
Sorry for the slow reply I hadn't received a notification to say you had. The tray helps by 1. Absorbing some of the heat. 2. Directing the heat to the top of your oven instead of directly at the bottom of your food. Try and imagine how the air flows around a car in a wind tunnel. As far as your thermometer goes I'm not sure, I don't have the benefit of being able to move mine, as its welded to the oven. For a guess the ideal place would be on the base of your cooking tray (Bottom of your food). If you have the patience I'd suggest moving it around until you get perfect results.
It sounds like your oven may be miss-calibrated. I would get an oven thermometer and check to be sure it's heating properly.
A couple of things to check;
1.Make sure you're using the middle rack in your oven so that the heat can circulate.
2.Make sure you're using a pan that doesn't take up the ENTIRE rack. Space around the sides will allow for better circulation.
Possible Solutions:
Try setting your oven temperature 25 degrees less than what your recipes call for. A lower temp will aid in even heating.
Place a pan of water on the rack below the product you are baking. The steam created will help even out the oven's temperature all around. (This is good for cookies and cakes but if you're attempting bread, macaroons, or more delicate pastries the added moisture could affect your end product.
A baking stone placed on the bottom rack and preheated with the oven will allow for a bit of a buffer in heat fluctuations. (A pizza stone works great, or any Unglazed quarry tile from the hardware store)
Sorry, I failed to mention that I already bake on the middle rack.
If I bake at a lower temperature how will it help in browning the top?
It will help to let the whole thing bake evenly, thus improve browning on top.
As for the baking stone, I now find myself wondering if putting it on the top rack might help, if well preheated (extra time since it's further from the heating element). It will absorb the heat and radiate it back, and once the food is placed in the middle rack, it could serve as a lesser heat source above the food as well as keeping the temperature even.
I'd agree with @Athanasius that this seems like a bad example of the gas oven, as I also have rarely had troubles of this sort with the vast majority of gas ovens.
I have however had similar troubles with what I'd characterize as a probable bad gas oven (from design through construction) and compensated for them pretty successfully.
Being on vacation in a rural area, there was not a lot of fancy stuff available, but there was aluminum (or aluminium for those that prefer) foil, which was all it took. I just folded a sheet onto the shelf, shiny side down, hanging slightly below the shelf, to reflect away some of the bottom heat. I left space at the sides for air to circulate. No more burned bottoms.
I think I have similar gas oven as you have.What I do is bake for some time from bottom till I see slight brownish bottom of bread/ bun then I switch to top gas burners( broiler) and bake. This is risky as the bun becomes brown very fast. Problem is the browning is not even and get some dark patches here and there.
I will try keeping the bottom tray with holes on side ( which I received with the oven) and try to bake.
Perhaps it's because I grew up in a house with a gas oven and have had gas ovens in most of the apartments I lived in for years, but I've never had problems baking with them. But I've also never had the kinds of experiences discussed in this question, even in multiple apartments with cheap old stoves. (The only place I ever had problems cooking things was with a cheap electric stove/oven that would burn the tops of everything.)
If things like this ever happened to me, I would seriously consider having the oven checked or serviced. It sounds like the air is simply not circulating properly and/or may be vented (or have the vent partly obstructed) in a way that is not allowing the oven to heat uniformly. Or perhaps the thermostat is really off. You could start by checking with an oven thermometer on various shelves while baking and see if you're seeing vastly different temperatures at the top and bottom. Maybe those who grew up with electric ovens or convection ovens just bake differently in ways that I'd never think of, but I currently have an electric oven, and I don't do much differently from when I baked in gas ovens, and everything pretty much works the same. (The only differences I've noticed usually come from venting issues: gas ovens are built with more venting due to combustion and gases, so electric ovens generally act more tightly sealed -- which can be an issue for steam venting occasionally, but can be an advantage for steaming bread or something.)
Anyhow, I agree with other answers' advice to bake on a higher rack and use a larger pan/stone/cookie sheet on a lower rack to deflect some of the heat from the bottom if the bottoms of food are getting done too fast. (I needed to do that above just about everything I baked in my miscalibrated cheap electric oven I had years ago that would burn tops.)
I also agree with the idea of trying to lower temperature slightly on some recipes. This may cause rising problems in some food that depend on rapid "oven spring" in the beginning of a bake. But if you don't need that hot heat in an initial burst, a lower temperature may allow the top of the food to dry out over a longer bake and then begin to brown.
Similarly, you might consider different pans or cookie sheets, particularly if they are dark-colored. Dark pans will brown baked goods more quickly due to heat radiating from them more strongly.
Basically: browning reactions don't start to happen quickly until the outer layer of the food dries out (and can thus increase in temperature above boiling). The top of food starts to turn brown once it dries out from the air circulation (i.e., a "crust" forms), and the bottom of food starts to turn brown when the radiant heat from the pan dries the "crust" out. You want to speed up the former (e.g., by placing the food higher in the oven) while slowing down the latter (e.g., by blocking any direct heat on the bottom, using light-colored pans, and perhaps lowering the overall temperature to allow time for the top to dry out and catch up with the radiant heat from the bottom).
This was not cheap for me. I paid 41K(INR) when the same size electric version was 29K(INR). The reason for my choice was that in India we have frequent power cuts but I was not prepared for the challenges. Its 2 years since I bought and the first year was spent in complaining to the company as it has other issues too like, you have to keep the start button pressed till it reaches 100 deg C or it switches off. :(
Well, I'm sorry to hear that. As I said, to me it sounds like something is malfunctioning (or perhaps poorly designed). I've spent many years baking in gas ovens and never had such extreme issues, so I hope you figure out how to work with it.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.974374
| 2015-01-25T04:25:36 |
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|
62176
|
What is the "Chili sauce" ingredient in this recipe?
I want to make this Copy Cat A1 Steak Sauce but I'm not exactly sure what one ingredient is.
What is it calling for when it says Chili sauce?
Also, if it turns out I don't have the chili sauce they are referring to, are there good substitutions for it?
Might be Tabasco. The recipe being for A1, I wouldn't expect anything hot like Habaneros or even Sriracha sauce.
Heinz and some other companies sell a product that they call 'chili sauce', which might be what you're looking for.
It's a tomato-based sauce, with some spices and seasoning, but it's not particularly spicy.
If you have access to Dutch & German ingredients, you might replace it with one of the thicker shashlik sauces (aka 'curry ketchup'). If you have access to UK ingredients, you might try brown sauce.
If you wanted to make it yourself from scratch, see http://www.food.com/recipe/heinz-chili-sauce-copycat-457947
Great answer, Joe. Prepared Heinz "chili sauce" product is my best guess too.
That recipe will make a Heinz 57 clone.
A1 is essentially thickened Worcestershire sauce.
However if you want to make Heinz 57, the. Use Heinz chili sauce.
I looked and saw that A1 had garlic and this recipe didn't have any. I figured it would be a bit different but I didn't think it would be closer to Heinz57.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.975496
| 2015-09-30T14:08:12 |
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|
59116
|
How do I best grill an artichoke?
I have always boiled artichokes. Lately I've heard people talking about how good grilled artichokes are. There's some variation in recipes: some say to boil, some say to steam; some say to cut in half before that and some say after. I don't need a recipe for dipping sauce or anything like that. I'm simply looking for the basic technique on how to grill them. What is the best way to do it? Is there anything else I need to know to make sure they come out well?
Have you tried Google? We don't give out recipes here, but if you have tried to grill an artichoke and then ask for help on how to improve the result, you would probably get helpful answers.
It's generally fair to ask about techniques for things, though - except I'm not sure what there really is to ask here since recipes seem to all say to steam (or maybe boil) then grill, with them cut in half.
I've gone ahead and edited to push it away from being a recipe request. If there's anything else you wanted to know, please add it in; if you just want a recipe you can just use Google, but hopefully answers to this will still be helpful to you and others.
I am not looking for a recipe and I have googled it. Many different results. Just looking here to see if anyone has done this and the basic technique they were successful with. I'll be more clear on that next time. Thanks
@MatthewD "I googled and found a ton of different techniques" is a very good pointer that the answer is "use whichever technique you like most, there is no best one". We can leave the question open, but the answers will be a subset of whatever you already found. Maybe with the addition of a rare idea not found elsewhere, but "X is the one and only right way to do it" is unlikely to be the result.
I went ahead and closed this as opinion-based, because the two answers it managed to attract are just two of the possibilities, without really anything about why any one method would be better, so it seems like indeed there is no best one, as rumtscho said.
I trim the stem and remove the outer leaves till they snap to get to the fresh inner core and steam them the night or morning before grilling so they are cold and moist. I prefer steaming because I want all of the nutrients to remain in the artichoke. I cut them in half for the grill, remove the choke and brush them with grapeseed oil where they come into contact with the grill. First, facing down grill them till they feel hot on top then; flip them over to keep the yummy inner side tender. fill the cavity with garlic butter and... lemon if you wish. I prefer the brown color to the lemon flavor. I cook them till the butter melts. I like mine barely smokey because artichokes take on the smoke too easily and will taste burned. You can't taste the flavor of the artichoke if it gets too smokey.
I will try this in the nest few days. Thank you PeggySue2u2
Here is what I tried from a combination of google results. They turned out great.
Rinse the artichokes.
Remove any leaves from the stem of the artichoke and any that may fall off during cooking.
With kitchen shears, or sharp scissors, remove the thorny tips from the leaves.
Cut about an inch off of the top of the artichoke.
Rub lemon on the exposed areas so that they don’t turn brown.
Cut an inch off of the stem.
Peel the outer skin from the remaining stem.
Cut the artichoke in half from top to bottom.
Rub lemon on cut sides.
With a spoon scrape out the choke from the center.
Boil or steam until tender. About 30 minutes.
Grill artichokes on medium heat cut side down for about 10 minutes.
I see - you were also looking for detailed instructions about how to prepare an artichoke for cooking? (Most of this is the same as if you weren't grilling them.) Also... you don't seem to really have addressed any of the variation - you just say "boil or steam", and so on. Seems like this doesn't narrow things down much beyond what you'd get from Google, even from just one good result?
@Jefromi I am new here and I see your points. Will be more specific in the future.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.975668
| 2015-07-17T00:40:04 |
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|
62183
|
When should I use lemon zest and not just juice?
If you want to add lemon flavor, why not just add lemon juice?
For what type of dishes would you recommend using each one?
Having read the comments and answer's here, I just had to share the famous "Penn and Teller's Swedish Lemon Angels" recipe. This is a case where zest would not produce the mess that the juice would. Either way is is a wonderful joke; and one would be tempted to add it to an April Fool Days joke at baking school.
Lemon juice and lemon zest have a different taste. Lemon juice has obviously more water, is tart (adds fruitiness and freshness to the dish) and the aroma is not as intense as in the zest. If you bake a cake or cookies it's often more desirable to use lemon zest because it doesn't mess up the water-solids-ratio and what you often want is a rather sweet cake/cookie than a tart one. In contrast often the cookie glaze should be somewhat tart - you can use both zest and juice. I have the impression that the zest has a bitter component.
So you have to decide if you want to have a tart component in your dish and whether the dish tolerates additional liquid. Acid is not only important in taste but also in the further "food chemistry". As Jay pointed out, acid can make milk curdle. Also, cooking with acid in aluminium isn't good taste-wise (and probably health-wise, too, but that's another topic).
Someone else asked a question in the opposite direction: Are there any reasons not to include the zest when citrus juice is an ingredient?
It's also worth pointing out that lemon zest has a much more "lemony" flavor due to the lemon oil in the skin. If you look at the outside of a lemon rind up close while squeezing it, you can actually see the lemon oil squirting out of the tiny pores.
Lemon juice adds both lemon flavor and sourness whereas the zest only adds the lemon flavor.
There are instances in which you only want the freshness of the lemon flavor but not the sourness. One example would be when you are working with dairy. The acidity can curdle milk. You would use zest in this case.
The flavor in the juice isn't really exactly the same lemon flavor as the zest, either.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.976062
| 2015-09-30T20:06:51 |
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122504
|
Figuring out Spanish/Basque savory flan
I'm trying to recreate a dish I had in the Orio restaurant in Valencia, Spain.
For lunch, Orio serves a vast buffet of Basque-style open sandwiches (pinchos), including our favorite, which was topped with a small piece of some kind of savory flan or custard. It was thin (about 1cm high), had some kind of cheese in it (possibly even a blue cheese) and herbs, and had a soft, custard/flan consistency.
In the photo, it's the one in the center, with a tomato jam and pistachios on top (not the one on the lower left, which is a regular Spanish Tortilla. This is something different).
Is this a generally known Spanish or Basque dish? Or is it something particular to a few Pinchos bars? I know it's not unique to Orio because I've found it in stock images.
I own multiple Spanish and Basque cookbooks and haven't been able to find anything quite like it, possibly because I don't know what it's called. So mainly looking for a name here.
You know you're in trouble when you ask a question on SA and within hours it becomes the #1 result for your related search terms.
Spanish here! Never seen it... Was it sweet or salty? Did it taste like cheese (strong I assume?) or did it have cheese in it (like something filled with cheese)? Idiazabal cheese is used in the Basque Country. Also, it looks like a flan but it might be some kind of egg-white omelette with cheese? Try calling them up (that specific restaurant) and asking them! I'm sure it won't be a problem!
More sweet than salty. It tasted like cheese, but muted enough that it was hard to tell what kind of cheese; it could have been cream cheese, or some very mild blue cheese. Is "egg-white omelette with cheese" a common thing? Got any links, including in Spanish?
I tried contacting the restaurant, but both time zones and my very weak Spanish are an obstacle.
BTW, "that is not any common recipe and is probably particular to that restaurant" is a valid possible Answer.
@M.K updated question. The pinchos in question is not unique to Orio; I've found it in stock images.
Nice research! I found more pictures but no description, sadly. I just called (Valencia), describing more or less what you said and what I see, and they told me they have 2: smoked cheese with an onion sauce (the person told me that there's no tomato sauce), and some other with creamy cheese and blueberry sauce. No eggs. I called to one in Madrid and they told me they don't have any with pistachios nor nuts. Sounds weird to me. Will do more research and I'll let you know, but don't have any faith... They both also mentioned "cheesecake" but I am not sure if it was a pincho or a dessert...
Wow, thanks! The sauce might not have been tomato. It was tart. It definitely wasn't blueberry, though. This could have been a "semi-savory cheesecake", particularly if said cheesecake had gelatin in it to give it more structure.
Did they say what the creamy cheese was? Which cheese?
I've had similar ones at places in Barcelona. This is likely not a flan and just a soft creamy blue cheese with pepper or quince jelly topped with different nuts - it looks like yours may have pine nuts and pistachios.
Here is a link to some pictures of Irati's pinchos that look similar to what you're looking for: https://www.tripadvisor.com/LocationPhotoDirectLink-g187497-d717425-i148225979-Irati_Taverna_Basca-Barcelona_Catalonia.html
Can you tell me which cheese?
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.976315
| 2022-11-29T18:57:18 |
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127838
|
How to clean burned residue off of a stainless steel stovetop
I have a GE Profile gas stove with a non-enameled stainless steel stovetop. While mostly the design prevents burned-on gunk, occasionally I get some burned oil or sugar on the steel. And I haven't figured out how to clean it off.
I've tried several cleaning techniques I use with stainless steel cookware, but apparently the stovetop steel is softer than steel cookware, so these techniques don't work:
Barkeeper's Friend and a plastic scrubby: scratches the steel
Stainless steel wool and soap: scratches the steel
Dawn Powerwash and a sponge: does not clean
Magic Erasers: does not clean
Ideas? What do you all do that doesn't scratch your stovetop, but does remove the burned-on bits?
note: there are a couple dozen answers on SA for how to clean stainless steel cookware. Those answers do not apply here, because it's different steel, and immersing it in boiling water or similar isn't an option
If you want to avoid scratches (which I frankly don't - for me, it's normal for kitchen equipment to have them) you're pretty much constrained to chemical-only methods, with a sponge to apply and wash off the chemicals.
The first thing I'd try is something strongly alkaline. This is what tends to work with burned-on grease. It would be difficult to work with lye on a stove, so I'd try sodium carbonate. Pure sodium carbonate will go up to pH of 11 - if that's too much for you, you can also try a carbonate-bicarbonate solution, which is usually formulated to a pH of 9 or 10.
The second option would be ammonia. Alternatively, you can try "oven grease spray", which has nitrous compounds that are less harsh on the environment and on your body. For me, I've never succeeded removing truly recalcitrant burned-on fats with this kind of spray.
You'll probably have to buy sodium carbonate or ammonia on purpose. If you want something more common, you can try the harshest chemical cleaner you're likely to have at home - dishwasher detergent. Make a thick paste with it (if you use tabs, break them up into powder first) and smear that onto the stove.
In recent years, I have seen "degreaser" products turn up in the drugstores. I don't know what's in them - due to labelling laws, they don't list anything other than a regular all-purpose-cleaner - but I can attest that they do work well on especially sticky grime, where other products don't manage. I don't know if they're good enough when the grime is burnt-on, though.
For any of these, make sure that you apply a thick coat and leave it for a long time to work - several hours, maybe even overnight. And if it doesn't work the first time, try it 3-4 times in a row.
A really good supplement to the chemical methods is a handheld steam cleaner. You can pre-treat the burned-on spots with it, but it's also especially effective after the treatment, when the chemicals have loosened the grime a little, but not to the point where it can be swiped away with a sponge only.
In the end, it might turn out that none of these work. Then, you'd be left with either a lye treatment (probably by physically lifting the top off the stove and soaking it in a large plastic vessel) or physical removal options only, which do leave scratches. You can buff the surface with powertools afterwards, to improve the appearance of your stove.
Are any of these methods things that you personally have tried?
I don't have a stainless stovetop, but I've used almost all of them on the same kind of burnt-on gunk on ss pans, oven pans, oven cavities, and enameled (electric) stovetop. And what doesn't damage enamel, it doesn't damage stainless steel either. The one thing I haven't tried personally is carbonate or bicarbonate - but I know from many sources that this kind of stuff goes away with bases (much better than acid!), and have used lye successfully on smaller items. None of the methods is certain to work, but in my experience, this is the palette of best shots you have.
BTW, the scratches aren't just a cosmetic matter; if the steel surface is scratched up, more things stick to it.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.976839
| 2024-03-08T17:52:20 |
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126254
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What accounts for different colors of fat in steamed Dungeness crabs?
During crab season, we buy Dungeness crabs that are steamed our boiled and then stored on ice, for eating cold or for using in recipes. One of the culinarily valuable parts of the crab, used for flavoring soups and sauces, is the "crab fat"* which is attached to the base of the leg clusters and to the inside of the main shell.
Thing is, sometimes this fat is good and sometimes it isn't. Just this week, I got two crabs from the same fishmarket, and one had beautiful golden-yellow crab fat, and the other had horrible grey-green fat I couldn't use. The meat on the crab with the repulsive fat was fine.
What causes the crab fat to sometimes have a hideous appearance? Is it cooking time, time held on ice, gender, stage in life of the crab, an infection, or something else? Is the awful grey-green fat OK to eat even though it looks horrible?
(* the "crab fat" is actually some kind of crab organ, rather than fat as we think of it)
The organ you're referring to is the hepatopancreas (an organ similar to the liver and pancreas (combined) in humans). It is the primary site for digestion and nutrient storage.
Many things could affect its color and taste, including species, age and diet of crab, health of crab, and age and storage of the crab after it's caught and killed.
Are the crabs you're getting alive (and kept alive until cooking)? Once the crab is killed, autolysis sets in, and the enzymes in the organ can start to break down the phospholipids, fats, and proteins in the organ. This will definitely affect its taste and consistency.
More info:
If you are boiling the crabs right after killing them then autolysis wouldn't be a factor (as the enzymes should be denatured/deactivated in cooking). The color and taste can definitely be affected by autolysis, but they are also affected by the crab's diet. For example, if the crab eats foods with a lot of carotenoids or astaxanthins (common food pigments — the name astaxanthins comes from the Greek for lobster, where this pigment was first isolated), then it is likely to be more yellow/orange.
Sometimes when enzymes act on molecules, they release nutrients or antinutrients (e.g. many, many plants create cyanogenic glycosides along with enzymes that break the cyanide portion free when the plant is damaged, e.g. by an insect or human eating it). Crustaceans turn a bright red color during cooking because the astaxanthins that you see are bound to protein molecules that appear gray/green until the pigment molecules are separated (to be clear, it is one larger molecule that becomes two or more smaller molecules).
Autolysis is particularly important for shrimp, and it sets in very shortly after their death (from enzymes in their brain), which is why you should either purchase live shrimp or they should be de-headed immediately after killing (as they often are before freezing). I can't answer the specifics for your particular crabs, but if I were to guess based on what you've said I would say the color is likely from diet and/or where it was at in its molting cycle.
Thanks for naming the organ, but this doesn't answer my question. If "many things can affect its color and taste" my question is "what are those many things and how do they affect it exactly"?
The crabs in question are killed, boiled, and and put on ice.
Also, is autolysis why the crab fat is green instead of yellow? Got a reference?
I did list the major factors that can affect the color and taste in my answer, but I have just updated my answer with more information. Since I am not referencing any sources, I don't have one to give you, but this is all pretty easily found information in the scientific literature.
This is all very interesting background, but it's not an answer to my specific question, which is why some dungeness crabs -- crabs from the same cooking batch -- have very different qualities of "fat".
I think it answers the question the best it can be without more information. If you are certain the crabs were pulled from the same immediate area (same diet) and were the same place in their molting cycle, it could point to other factors, but what you're asking is like why some lemons taste sweeter than others. Even from the same tree picked at the same time some will have a lower pH and some will have a higher sugar content (and these are not correlated). It's possible there's another factor that I haven't mentioned, but these are the factors I think are most likely.
P.S. You mention that some are "hideous." If these were from fresh, live crab then I wouldn't expect any to be hideous unless the crab was diseased. I'm a food scientist but not a crab expert, so perhaps someone else with more experience in the biology of crabs can shed more light on this question.
To be clear, I don't think it's possible for anyone to answer this question who is not very familiar with dungeness crabs. It's not a general question, it's a question about a specific ingredient. I've also sent it to the Dungeness Crab Commission, but they're not very responsive to the public.
Also, "why are some lemons from the same tree sweeter than others" would be an excellent question for someone else to ask ;-) Likely to also be unanswered, though.
@FuzzyChef — please do post any additional information you find here.
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.977178
| 2024-01-02T00:48:23 |
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|
126087
|
What composition changes did Karo corn syrup make in 2023?
Every year, my family makes peanut brittle using an old family recipe (example recipe, slightly different from ours in quantities). A large portion of this recipe is Karo brand light corn syrup. The brittle is very popular with friends and family because of its foamy, crunchy texture. We achieve this texture by adding a bunch of baking soda at peak temperature, watching the brittle foam up, and dumping it on a tray to cool while it's still really foamy.
This year, we've made two batches, one using a bottle of corn syrup left over from last year, and one using a new bottle we just bought. And there's a difference. The one with the old bottle was properly foamy and held its air bubbles while hardening. The one from the new bottle foamed up, and then went flat before hardening, losing all its air and spreading out more than it usually does.
We'd assume that we made a mistake in our cooking process, except that my mother-in-law, using the exact same family recipe, had the exact same experience. Last year's syrup worked; this year's didn't.
This makes me conclude that something changed about Karo Light Corn Syrup. Maybe the moisture content, maybe the sugar chemistry, maybe something else. There's no published news, and Karo has not responded to our requests for information.
Does anyone know what might have changed about the syrup this year, preferably with citations?
If there are no citations, does anyone have a method by which we could determine how the syrup changed that doesn't require a full chemistry lab?
To forstall questions: no, we don't have both bottles. Also, we cook the sugar+corn syrup to dark amber.
Answering one more question: it was the exact same box of baking soda. And we're talking about batches less than a week apart. Further, my mother-in-law has had the same experience, so we've reproduced the change in behavior in two different kitchens. Absolutely every other variable is accounted for other than the change in corn syrup years.
Update: one more A/B test: we found a bottle of 3-year-old Karo, did a batch of peanut brittle, and it turned out fine.
Do you still have the bottles from the 2 different years? That may hold a clue
Sadly, I don't, since we didn't expect the change, we'd already thrown out the old bottle.
if you have the new bottle, look for images of the old bottle online (dates are usually discernable in image searches) and compare the nutrition facts. As you likely know, the ingredients could somewhat change in proportion without changing the label so long as they are sorted greatest>least, but if the calories go down/up, there's your sign.
@dandavis, oh, great recommendation! Sadly, all of the images I can find have the same exact nutritional breakdown.
Hmm. If the density is also still the same (weight/volume), then perhaps you just got a bad batch.
Not a very helpful ingredients list. If you try again, check the temp on the solution when you add the bicarb, it might be critical. pH might affect it too; low pH should enhance the reaction. Might be worth checking pH on the old bottle vs new.
Just to check a few things: Was it the same pack of baking powder? Tightly sealed in between? If not, same brand? How similar is your baking soda packaging to your baking powder? The last question is because 2 supermarkets I buy from use the same size/shape container. One has a pink label on the soda and a blue label on the powder. The other swaps the colours. They're not the same shades but close enough to be an issue except for the font and size.
See update to question. There is no baking powder. And we've now reproduced the exact same change in two different kitchens, using two different cooks, with the same recipe.
@bob1 huh, that's a thought. Now lemme see if I have any pH strips left ...
I use light karo to make sesame cookies at Christmas time. They are usually crisp and brittle (like a very thin peanut brittle would be). My cookies were all soft and gummy. I agree that karo has changed something.
Something about dark Karo syrup has definitely changed. I, too, came here looking for answers. I use a lot of it and my last 2 bottles were very thin and runny--more like pancake syrup than the beloved old Karo! Definitely not the same. I'm sorry about your family recipe.:( Very disappointing change.
If Karo has added more water to their syrup, that might account for the problem - it'd mean that you were basically making the recipe with less syrup than the recipe calls for. But in that case, the nutritional information should have changed.
They haven't added water. It's something more subtle.
I've asked the same question and emailed the company. My pecan pies no longer set up. They are runny like soup after baking. I've not changed the recipe that i've used for years either. My family members said they had same thing happen in their recipes calling for Karo syrup. All said it's 'runny.' They definitely changed the formulation.
Out of curiosity, are you already aware of the dextrose equivalent/manufacturing processes and the differences they can lead to? I got lucky in that I still had a stash of last year's syrup, but I wonder if the new batch is higher in maltose, but not enough to warrant a change in category? In my experience rice syrup (which is high maltose) will lead to a hard, flat, shiny brittle as well. That's just a thought, but might be a lead?
I cannot possibly see how Karo could have changed its formulation in a way which caused you this problem.
Corn syrup is a pretty straightforward substance to manufacture and there’s no significant decisions to be made. I could see a world in which Karo decided to water down its corn syrup a little to save money, but that wouldn’t matter for your recipe because the extra water would’ve boiled off by the time you were done.
Instead, I would wonder about your baking powder. There’s a number of formulations; old baking powder can get “used up”; overall it is way more important to the process than corn syrup, which is basically just there to mess with crystallisation.
I know you had a natural A/B test with the old and new bottle, and I can’t explain your experience there. But I simply cannot see a reasonable way to blame the difference on corn syrup.
The only way I can see a problem is during the caramelization of the sugars in the corn syrup, which might come down to exact proportions of glucose, starch and fructose in the syrup. I have to say the baking powder was what sprung to mind for me too. I wonder if both families live in a climate that has been particularly damp this year?
Blaming the baking powder (soda, actually, per the question) ignores that (presumably the same baking powder/soda, unless there was a new can/box of that for the second bottle of syrup) it worked for the "old" syrup and not for the new syrup.
@Ecnerwal yes, I’m aware. See my note about the “natural A/B test”.
What @bob1 says. Notably, the exact proportions of glucose, fructose, sucrose, and maltose in Karo is a trade secret, and one they've gone to court to protect. There's no baking powder, just soda.
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.977737
| 2023-12-13T21:11:46 |
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59424
|
Is great gluten-free extruded pasta possible?
I'm gluten intolerant and tempted to have a go at producing my own pasta. Does it make sense to use an extruder attachment for a kitchen machine to produce e.g. rigatoni or fusilli, or will this never match the quality of store-bought dry pasta?
I remember with horror the first commercially available packs of gluten-free pasta, which were brittle and slimy when cooked. Luckily most manufacturers have now improved their recipe. Can I recreate - or even improve - their result at home, or would one need the high pressures and precise temperature control of commercial machines for this?
I would be extremely grateful for some honest opinions of people who've actually eaten home-made extruded gf pasta before I invest in a dedicated attachment. (Possibilities are Kenwood AT936 or AT910 - any shared experience with those would also be very welcome, along with good recipes).
If pasta rollers are sooo much better, I can of course make do with tagliatelle...
Many thanks in advance!
Edit in response to Joe (thank you!):
Extruders appeal to me, because I suspect that the real value of pasta rollers is to develop the gluten - and that's obviously superfluous in gf pasta. The difference between wheat or no-wheat dough should be less obvious when using extruders - unless you really need the high pressure of commercial machines.
I suspect that there are reasons that so many of the gluten free pastas are extruded is become there's some benefit to it over strands (eg, it holds up better in sauce). Also see http://www.cakeandcommerce.com/cake_and_commerce/2011/05/gluten-free-pasta-doesnt-have-to-suck-a-simple-kitchen-trick-that-will-blow-you-away.html
Clearly it's not impossible... it's how most commercial GF pasta is made.
I have never used extruders, but I make a lot of tagliatelle using my pasta roller. I expect extruders to not be as easy to use with gluten free pasta (please correct me if I'm wrong), as the gluten free dough is shorter than normal pasta dough.
The pasta roller doesn't really change the dough too much with gluten free pasta, as you say a big thing is to develop the gluten, so it's mainly to get the correct shape. One thing with gluten free pasta is that the resting period is really important, if it doesn't rest long enough you will end up with a dough that is impossible to work with.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.978304
| 2015-07-28T10:02:19 |
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|
126507
|
How has Bisquick's “original” recipe changed over time?
I noticed that the “original recipe” Bisquick in my mother's fridge a) contains sugar, b) does not list hydrogenated oils, and c) does not say to keep refrigerated. This is not consistent with our collective memories. I did some googling and found some information on various changes over time, such as replacing lard with hydrogenated oils, but nothing like a definitive timeline, and no reliable-looking sources or citations.
I am also aware that there have been other Bisquick products, such as a “Heart Smart” version with no trans fats, but I'm mostly interested in how the composition of the “original”-branded version has changed.
Does anyone know of any authoritative sources on this?
Good luck. There really aren't authoritative sources for changes to a product over time if the manufacturer doesn't share them.
@FuzzyChef Not that it's necessarily an easy route, but I wonder if manufacturers' catalogues or such have to go to a library of record, in countries that have them.
@FuzzyChef in the good(?) old days of the internet there would have been a GeoCities page where someone collected vintage Bisquick labels. For every subject there's a useful nerd.
@dbmag9 I suppose that theoretically you could file a request with the FDA.
@ChrisH I expect that there still is, it's just that Google doesn't index it anymore.
As I love Bisquick, you question made me do a little search and ended up on generalmills https://www.generalmills.com/news/stories/how-bisquick-got-its-start page.
There is a mention of the original recipe there and some old newspaper scan (too small for me to read, dont wear the glasses:-)
Hope it helps
That’s an ad for the product. It doesn’t include a recipe.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.978523
| 2024-01-28T23:59:57 |
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|
5751
|
a manual meat slicer
My household really likes things like turkey and ham sandwiches for lunch.
One thing I've searched around for is a 'manual' meat slicer. I'm thinking of something like a miter box like one might find for woodworking. Basically it would be a device that holds a serrated knife in a frame, and allows the meat to slide along in increments in order to achieve consistent slices. Does anyone know if there is something similar for slicing meat? (I know that electric meat slicers are available; but do I need yet another electric appliance?)
Personally, I don't have any problems with just using a knife. But others in the household lack slicing proficiency.
Addendum
For those who have suggested that I get knives...I have great knives and have no problems in using them; and like I said above, it's for others in the household who are not proficient.
Anyway, it looks like there is nothing like what I visualized even on google searches. I added a picture of a woodworking miterbox in case people don't know what that is. Of course a knife would replace the saw and you probably wouldn't have the angle cuts; and it would be tailored so that you could slide the food item along incrementally for even slices.
Sure, here ya go:
http://cheeseboutique.blogspot.com/2009/09/enzo-its-gorgeous-its-red-and-its-here.html
Might set you back a couple grand though :).
I think a knife is a manual meat slicer. ;)
I'm going with an electric slicer. The item I envisioned does not exist.
Update: The housemates are happy now. They're computer geeks and love gadgets. They can now slice up their own ham and turkey to their hearts' content.
The slicer takes up space, but will pay for itself in a few months. We were getting deli slices for $8 - $10 per pound. Now I can get frozen turkey breast for ~ $3 - $4 per pound, roast, slice, and freeze the excess for future weeks.
;~)
There are knives that have a built in distance measure (sorry, non-native speaker - don't know the correct word for it)
See here for an example
I know it's for vegetables but you should be able to trim the meat into a size that you can slice with a mandolin. I haven't tried it myself but if you get on that has no blade guard it should work great.
I was thinking a mandolin as well, but might be not be a good solution for those not proficient in using a knife. I feel like a mandolin is like the table-saw of the culinary world - can be dangerous.
It has guides and it slices consistently, any appliance can be dangerous in the wrong hands. I am assuming normal adult cation while dealing with it, however :)
Get a miter box like the one in your picture. Using a knife set the black cam clamp in the holes to make a slice of the required thickness.
Slice. Remove slice, slide the stuff up until it hits the clamp. Repeat.
If you have a local deli, it's at least worth asking to see if they'd cut your meat for you. The worst they can do is say "no," right? You may also want to ask around to see if someone in your neighborhood already owns a home deli slicer, whether manual or electric. Maybe you could just borrow theirs now and then?
The idea is to get say, 3 - 5 lbs of turkey breast. Roast, slice, pull out 1 week's worth, and freeze weekly packets for the next 2 - 3 weeks. So, a regular trip to the deli for a slicing favor is not in the cards. Like I said in the original question, I was trying to avoid the purchase of a new electric appliance and wanted to go low tech.
Sure - I just figured if you could find someone with a slicer then you could slice a lot all at once, and freeze it in single-week portions. No purchase of an item required. I wish you best of luck in your search! I'm hunting a similar solution for bread.
For an occasional use I would have gone with your suggestion. Thing is, the housemates want their sliced deli meats on a pretty much weekly basis.
Unless the people who aren't proficient with knives are children who you don't want using them in the first place, I don't think you're going to find something for a reasonable price that takes up reasonable space, etc...
If their knife skills are really so terrible that they can't cut a slice of meat, why don't you just spend a few minutes with them and help them improve?
If they are kids, then maybe you should just cut some meat for them in advance - like twice a week just slice up a bunch of meat for sandwiches.
By the way, I don't know if it would work, but maybe a standing box grater's largest holes would do the trick for medium sizes pieces of meat.
It can be quite hard to cut lunchmeat-thinness slices of meat manually, particularly if the meat is tender.
@ceejayoz - Exactly. The housemates are not into cooking and prep; they just want their deli style sliced lunch meats.
@ceejayoz - if the meat is cold, it will be easier. Yes, it's not very easy. However, it's more than doable.
@Chad - Not my housemates. They are set in their ways. It has to be easy for them and take the load off of me.
@Chad "Doable" and "convenient for a busy parent" are very different things. Anything that reduces time needed and frustration is helpful.
@Chad - I did give my box grater a shot, but alas, didn't really do the job.
@Chad - "If they are kids..." Oh, they're way worse than kids. :)
I don't think I've ever head of a kitchen tool like that.
Home slicers have really come down in price, but there's still the storage issue.
I'd suggest investing in a good knife and practice making consistent slices. Knives store better than most gadgets and good knife technique is well worth the investment.
You'd want a 10-12" knife so that you can make long smooth strokes.
There are also special knives just for slicing tasks. Like this Wusthof Roast Beef Slicer
Manual meat slicers exist, but they look nothing like what you've pictured.
Like the electric motor slicers with the big spinning disk of a blade that you see in the delis, there are also hand-crank versions. (never used one, but saw one at an auction house yet, but couldn't bid on it, as the auctioneer said she was going to keep it for herself)
They're not very common, and searching for 'hand crank meat slicer' yielded most pages that also included 'vintage' or 'antique'. They also show up on eBay or etsy for $50-150. (there's one eBay right now, and some electric models, including one that folds up for storage)
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.978713
| 2010-08-22T04:31:31 |
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|
89208
|
How to address this burnt sugar conundrum
Some Caribbean recipes, such as this Jamaican oxtail stew, ask for browning sauce, which is essentially burnt sugar:
Heat a large Dutch oven or a heavy-bottomed pot over high heat. Add brown sugar to pot and melt, stirring with a wooden spoon, until it darkens and starts to smoke — about six minutes. When sugar is nearly black, add 2 tablespoons boiling water. (It will splatter.) Stir to mix.
This does add a lot of smokey-sweet flavour, nice bitterness, and rich dark brown colour to the stew, which I'd like to keep. However, this also results, after a couple of hours on the stove, in the bottom of the pan being covered by what amounts to charcoal that's almost impossible to clean by non-abrasive means.
Since the recipes also often include acidy ingredients, I'd prefer to use enamel pots instead of stainless steel, which makes cleaning the burnt sugar residue without damaging enamel a multi-day challenge.
Is there a trick for removing burnt sugar from enamel surfaces? Alternatively, how can I achieve the browning sauce effect without it sticking to the pot?
I would do this in a non-stick pan, then throw this into the stew/pot, usually with some meat or something else first in the pot you are stewing in. The reason it sticks, is b/c sugar tends to stay together, so if sugar is at the bottom of a pan it draws more sugar to the bottom, along with all the browned meat bits. I also like to de-glaze the pot you brown the meat in for more flavor and less cleaning.
Thanks, this makes sense. I'll give it a shot next time.
Once you've caramelized the sugar, remove it from the pan and add some water (carefully and slowly! Trust me, you do NOT want to spatter yourself with hot caramel!), then keep stirring it until all the caramel is re-dissolved. Even if the water gets quite dark, you'll generally be able to feel undissolved caramel on the bottom with your spoon.
Once I tried making caramel from muscovado sugar and got it badly burnt, coating the bottom of the (steel) pot with black residue that seemed impossible to remove. I guess this is the same you're describing.
I tried putting some water and drain cleaner on it and leave it for the night. In the morning, the black layer had become unstuck and was floating on the surface. The pot looked just like new.
I don't remember how much drain cleaner I used... so if I had to do it again, I'd try starting with a small quantity and adding more if still needed in the morning.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.979270
| 2018-04-18T02:37:35 |
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|
84310
|
Why would boiling milk in an electric kettle break the kettle?
Or: is it safe for the electric kettle's integrity and overall functionality to be used to boil non-water liquids such as milk?
*note: I know milk may burn onto the element and be difficult to clean out after, or it may foam up and out of the spout and make a mess. For the purpose of this question, please ignore any mess that may be left behind by these kettle-adventures.
I read this question on the Workplace SE which states:
I needed hot milk, so I boiled it in the nearest kettle to me, but I
think I broke it, as water won't boil any more. I know this, because I
tried it myself.
This has me wondering WHY boiling milk in a kettle would break it. Logically I think it should simply make a mess, not cause the kettle to cease functioning.
It should be noted that "kettle" refers to this and not to this
Good question, Thanks for putting this one as I am the author of who broke the kettle. It is good information here.
Out of curiosity. You didn't just "clean" the kettle afterwards did you? Immersing the base in any volume of water will usually short it if it's used again before it's dry. As you said "it will probably make a mess", and also seeing as you were unaware that you shouldn't use milk, maybe you just also washed it?
When I tried to boil milk, it created a burnt layer of milk on the bottom, which prevented the heating element from being able to boil milk or water. After cleaning off the burnt layer it could boil water again.
Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.
Curious...I would have thought that the title and content edits by mustaccio would have changed the nature of the question. (Since I was wondering the same thing, and only understood the answer once I discovered the existence of an "electric kettle".) Maybe OP could chime in, since I think it affects the appropriateness of the answers.
wow, Kettlegate has spread to multiple sites now!
@dn3s: Yeah...
The electric kettle is (clearly) not designed for this. The main issue is that milk doesn't evaporate, whereas water (obviously) does. The secondary reason is that milk will burn.
Milk is a complex mixture of water, fats, and proteins. The fats and proteins will separate out from the water when heated, and form a layer on top. Unfortunately, this layer prevents the water from evaporating - it traps it. This is what causes milk to boil over. Incidentally, the reason potato or pasta water boils over is due to the starch.
The way kettles turn off is by steam reaching the top of the kettle, rushing down a tube and causing a bi-metallic plate to expand unevenly, tripping the switch.
No steam means the kettle will never turn off. Because the kettle doesn't turn off, the element continues to heat the milk next to it. With water, the hot water will rise, rather than stick to the element. This means leaving the lid open won't cause a fire - at least not until all your water has boiled away. Unfortunately, milk will burn, and this layer of burnt milk will prevent effective heat dissipation - the milk in contact with the element is not moving throughout the remainder of the liquid. This causes the element to get hotter than it is meant to.
However, kettle manufacturers have thought this through - they don't want their products to catch on fire (well, most don't) - even when they are misused like this. They will have included a small (one time) temperature switch, like this one. This acts a little like a fuse, but for heat, not current. They are often called "thermal fuses" for this reason. When the element reaches a temperature which has been deemed "too hot" (probably around 190ºC, perhaps a little hotter) this switch is tripped, and electricity can no longer reach the element.
This is normally a permanent state. You could open the kettle, find the temperature, voltage and current rating for the thermal fuse, buy one on eBay or Amazon and replace it (you would have to crimp, not solder, for obvious reasons), and be confident it was installed safely, in good thermal contact with the element. But if I'm honest, it's sensible to just buy a new kettle.
From a physicist's point of view, this answer makes a great deal more sense than the one by @Tezi Konj
Even if you can replace the thermal fuse properly, everything made with water from that kettle from now until the end of time will taste like burnt and/or sour milk.
Quite a lot of kettles (older and/or more expensive ones) do have a self-resetting overheat sensor, such as a second bimetallic strip near the element. Most newer ones behave as described in thi answer. There appeasr (and for good reason) to be a correlation with whether they turn off when you take them off the base, which most new ones do: if they don't, it's easy to put them back on the base empty and on, causing overheating -- too easy for this to be a permanent failure mode. +1
@ChrisH The self-resetting component is much (10x) as expensive - hence it mostly appears in more expensive kettles! Perhaps a consideration when buying a kettle, but the solution is to not let it boil dry!
@Tim that's mainly because the price of the others has come down
Most kettles switch off when the temperature no longer rises. Having a sensor calibrated to 100°C is expensive and will also not detect boiling water at a different temperature due to high altitude (water boils at around 95°C in Denver). But water temperature will no longer rise once the water is boiling, regardless of what that temperature is.
@SQB Tim described that the bi-metallic switch is operated by steam going from top of the kettle through a tube. Such an arrangement eliminates the need for calibration of the heat switch.
@SQB That sensor is not for the detection of water temperature, this is a fail safe for when the element gets too hot - due to boiling dry or similar. The bimetallic switch is a separate mechanism, for turning the kettle off (not a failsafe, just part of the design). As @pabouk says, this bi metallic strip probably triggers somewhere around 70ºC (with a big margin of error), which is why it is triggered by the steam, not the water - this ensures the water is boiling, if not 100ºC`
One-shot thermal fuses are safer than self-resetting ones: you can simply make the fuse element out of an alloy that melts at the trigger temperature with enough room to ensure the metal flows away from the contacts. A resettable fuse needs a mechanical or semiconductor component that could fail in the "closed" position.
Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.
It has been established in other answers that the kettle will likely burn the milk around the heating element. The reason why this might break the kettle is because it would lead to rapid overheating: the maximum temperature of water before it starts turning into steam is 100 C. The maximum temperature of char before it starts to sublimate is in the thousands of C.
Kettles are designed to heat up water, under the assumption that water only goes up to 100 C, and that a heat sensor is immersed in the water that will trigger when 100 C is reached. Furthermore, since water cannot go over 100 C, it serves as a coolant for the heating element, virtually guaranteeing it won't go much over 100 C.
When you attempt to boil milk in a kettle, the milk will form a layer of char around the heating element, partially insulating it from the rest of the (liquid) milk. This will allow the heating element to go well above 100 C, while the heat sensor is happily measuring the temperature of the liquid milk and allowing the heating to continue.
At this point, the kettle could break due to its electronic components overheating, the heating element bending out of shape to the point it doesn't connect to the electronics properly, or even melting the kettle itself in the case of plastic kettles.
In essence, this is a similar situation to breaking a kettle by running it empty. The heating element can get extremely hot and damage the kettle without the heat sensor noticing.
I don't think the physics makes sense here. There is no reason for an element in a 'normal' kettle not to get much much hotter than the water around it. Conversely, there is no reason why water would be able to keep a bare element cool, but not a charred one. The point about sublimation temperatures isn't relevant either. Also, the only major difference between the heating element material and the char material would be conductivity. Explaining how an extra layer of char affects an element compared to e.g. an extra layer of metal would be helpful, if you believe this is the important factor
@canardgras: The physics works out. If the element is hotter than the water the heat will transfer to the water so that the water is the same temperature. In reality the element may get slightly hotter than the water due to imperfect conductivity but water absorbs heat so fast that the difference is never significant. The boiling temperature for a given pressure is constant - therefore the temperature will never go too high above boiling until the water is completely evaporated. In reality the temperature will climb a little bit since the concentration of impurities increase
For some reason, the cutout is put at around 190°C - which is hotter than I expected. I haven’t measured but I expect the element could easily reach 150°C in standard operation. Also, a small point - the thermistor which turns off the kettle is not immersed, it’s actually triggered by the steam (for a number of reasons - one being that the water doesn’t reach 100°C; the steam is the proof it’s reached its maximum temperature). The lack of steam from milk is (imo) the main issue - the burning of milk being a secondary cause that’s the final nail in the coffin.
Actually, most kettles detect that the water is boiling by the steam heating a bimetallic strip. That's why they boil dry if you run them with the lid open.
@slebetman No, the physics is completely wrong. If the element was only slightly above 100C, the kettle would take a huge time to boil.
@slebetman so why is the same not true for the 'char' - if the physics was correct then this would not get much hotter than 100 degress either. as David says, the element must be signficantly hotter than the water, unless you want to wait over an hour for your kettle to boil. A thin coating of burnt milk will have some effect on heat conduction, but nowhere near enough to break the kettle. The issue with steam is by far the more significant
@canardgras well if the char was not there, the kettle would just boil dry. Instead, the element gets too hot and cuts out.
I had a go a measuring the temperature of the element - my K-type thermometer could not get good enough contact with the element to get an accurate temperature of the element, so it just read as 99°C. I don’t want to break the kettle by boiling it dry (perhaps if I ever get a new one and this old one still works I will), but I am confident the kettle element will be reaching temperatures of 150°C plus.
The char is an insulator which allows the temperature of the element to be disconnected from the liquid. Therefore heat won't be transferred to the liquid and this will cause the element to overheat. The char itself has a much higher "sublimation point (it's a solid so it won't boil)" similar to the case of water the element won't exceed the char's sublimation point until all the char burns away and turns to gas. But the electronics will burn way before the char gets red-hot enough to vaporize.
Also, steam in atmospheric pressure will never exceed 100 degrees C. Steam and boiling water has exactly the same temperature (indeed, this is known as the boiling point). In reality the steam steaming out of the kettle will have lower temperature than steam on the surface or the boiling water due to expansion and dispersion into the surrounding air.
There is however one exception to this - superheated water. Water that never has the chance to produce steam will be superheated beyond boiling point. It turns out that in order for steam to form it is not enough that water is hot but that there are imperfections in the container or impurities in the water for the bubble of steam to form around (this is similar to how rain forms around dust). In a perfectly smooth container (metal surfaces are almost never perfectly smooth due to oxidation) with very pure water you can superheat water. But kettles can't do this - you generally need a microwave
@canardgras it would not get significantly hotter because water has good thermal conductivity; as the element's temperature rises the water conducts the heat away. Since water >100˚C evaporates to steam, all liquid water must therefore be <100˚C and therefore "cools" the element as its temperature rises above 100˚C. The char, on the other hand, does not have good thermal conductivity and does not evaporate (at reasonable temperatures), so the fluid is no longer able to cool the element as effectively and its internal temperature climbs higher until it burns out or pops the thermal fuse.
Remember, when water evaporates it takes the heat with it -- so as water near the element is brought above 100˚C it turns to steam and boils off, taking heat away from the element. The char never evaporates (for practical purposes) so you lose that method of heat dissipation, on top of the reduced thermal conductivity.
@DoktorJ what you are saying would be true if the element did not have a constant and huge supply of electrical energy. The element is heated by electricity at a far far greater rate than heat is conducted away by the water, otherwise a 1kW kettle would boil a litre of water in less than 5 seconds.
@canardgras: At its equilibrium temperature (which, being rather thin and highly conductive, the heating element should quickly attain) the element is heated by the electric current at exactly the same rate as it's cooled by the surrounding water. The only real question here is what that equilibrium temperature is, for any given heating element and water temperature. It obviously must be higher than the temperature of the water, but it's hard to say a priori how much higher. (Of course, it also won't be uniform; the core of the heating element will necessarily be hotter than the surface.)
@canardgras I think that your calculations are wrong. The specific heat capacity of water is 4.2 J/g/K. So to heat 1 kg of water from 20 C to 100 C you need to supply 4.2 * 1000 * 80 J = 336 kJ = 93.3 Wh. So supplying 93.3 W during one hour (of course without losses) will heat the water to 100 C. To boil the water away you will need to additionally supply the heat of vaporization which is much higher than just heating by 80 C. ... With about 1 kW of heat supply and some small losses it will take about 6 minutes to heat 1 kg of water from 20 C to 100 C.
Short answers
"Is it safe for the electric kettle's integrity and overall functionality to be used to boil non-water liquids such as milk?"
It depends from the model and the way in which you do it (see below).
Why would boiling milk in an electric kettle break the kettle?"
It doesn't happens always. There are even kettles sold with the feature to boil the milk too [1]...
When it happens that "boiling milk in an electric kettle break the kettle" it depends on the way in which the kettle is built, essentially because it is not able to stop itself after the liquid boiling point overcoming or to detect that is without liquid inside.
Long one(s)
Your question depends on the model of the electric kettle you are going to use, on the way it was projected, on the liquid you want to make boil (or just warm), and the way in which you do it.
Let's start with some initial remarks:
When you wonder saying "Logically I think it should simply make a mess, not cause the kettle to cease functioning", you are right... you are so right that, nowadays, it exists a wide number of kettle models that are able to safely boil milk. It's enough to search for "electric kettles that boil milk" on some selling site to see it [1].
Moreover not all the models rely on the vapour to detect the temperature (think for example to some kettles that warm the water at 80 C degree for the green tea or 85 C degree for the white one...), so they should be safe especially if the warming coil is below the plate and the thermal sensor is not in direct contact with the liquid. (Note "should be" not "are", even if reasonable to expect).
People do it. Look the video on youtube, e.g. [2] in which some cold liquid is added to the milk to avoid its overflow while the foam grows up; there's another method too (see below).
(Note: people do wrong and unsafe things too... but in principle is possible to do it).
As other users stressed out the liquid you are using as example is not a good behaving liquid :-).
Milk is an emulsion or colloid of butterfat globules within a water-based fluid that contains dissolved carbohydrates and protein aggregates with minerals
(Rolf Jost "Milk and Dairy Products" Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry, Wiley-VCH, Weinheim, 2002) [*]
Let we point out some characteristics:
It is composed on average for 87% of water (almost all).
The boiling point it is almost the same (100 C vs 100.16 C so less the 2 part per thousand).
The acidity (pH) is 6.4 - 6.8 well into the range of the drinking water one(6-8.4).
It's clear that those physico-chemical parameters are really close.
So what can go wrong?
... the milk doesn't boil as the water and leaves residuals!
When the milk temperature increases over 100 C the water changes state from liquid to vapour, but the substance in the remaining 13% prevent this micro-bubbles to evaporate, trapping them into a foam. The grow of the foam can be too fast to be detected in time before its overflow.
This can create some failures:
It can lead to a missed detection of the temperature level from the thermal sensor (if projected to detect temperature from the water vapour), and eventually...
Hazard: in case the cover is without opening you should experience a little steamer without pressure valve...
It can leave the the kettle operating with few or no liquid inside.
Hazard: you can burn/melt the body and overheat any electronic component
(fire, short-circuit...)
The deposits from the milk on the sensor can inhibit its correct functioning (or inhibit in the future).
Risk: one of the others of this list.
The overflow of liquid can short-circuit the electric component of the base.
Hazard: short-circuit aka electrocution: at risk the electrical system too.
Each of the previous points can occur and causing problems to the kettles or not depending on the way in which the kettle is built.
Problems to the kettles, you, your furniture, the electrical system, or simply to the relationship with the people around...
Milk Watcher
We said that there are other ways to prevent the boiling problems of the milk, that it depends on how you make it boil. It's possible to add some colder liquid when the foam grows up as in the previous video or use this grandma's life hack: the "Milk Watcher"[3]...
Note: image from Klaus Schaedler [4]
Since its working principle [3]
A milk watcher disrupts this process by collecting small bubbles of steam into one large bubble and releasing it in a manner which may puncture the surface film. The device also rattles when boiling occurs, alerting the cook who may then lower the heat setting of the stove.
it may hit, scratch or damage the coil or other parts (if not below the plate).
Electric kettles put out as much power as they can into the water, so if you put foods that can burn, theres a good chance they will burn.
If you try to boil milk, you'll get a bunch of burnt milk on the bottom, which won't be very nice to clean or taste. Milk will probably overflow too, which will make a mess. If you have some kettle like a Bonavita gooseneck, you'll never get the gooseneck clean. If you have a cheap kettle where the heating element is a bunch of coils in the water, good luck cleaning those too.
Also, if you have to make a warranty claim on your kettle, they could reasonably deny it.
I'll edit the question to clarify, but in this case milk burning onto the element or the kettle being difficult to clean after falls into the category of "mess made" and does not address the kettle ceasing to function.
@SnyperBunny The burnt milk is actually part of the problem - my answer expands on this comment.
You'll also get milk in the water gauge, which will never get clean again.
In addition to burnt milk on the heating element, there's a second mechanism that can destroy the kettle: when the milk boils over, milk (froth) can get into the tube leading to the bimetallic switch (boil sensor), coating that in milk and rendering it inoperable.
You can boil milk in a kettle, but NOT with the lid on.
1) Boiling milk in ANY kettle:
Boiling milk expands more then faster then boiling water. So the kettle needs to NOT have a lid on, if the lid is off you can boil milk in a kettle, just take the kettle off of the heat right before the milk tries to expand. It is not sure that it would burn the milk, it depends what material the kettle is made of, how thick it is and most important what temperature you use. The higher the temperature is, the higher the risk is that you burn the milk and the thinner the kettle is the higher the risk is that you get high temperature too fast.
NOTE: That you need to guard the milk so you are prepared to take it off the heat right before it expands. The expansion of boiling milk happens very fast and sudden without any warning, you need to be prepared.
REMEMBER to not burn your milk, boil it slowly with not too much heat and not too fast.
2) Boiling milk in ELECTRIC kettle:
If you use an electric kettle you should note that it depends how the electric kettle is made. Example if the kettle is a classic electric kettle with an electric steel bar in it, that will burn the milk for sure and break the kettle, because such kettles heat up to fast and uneven. But if the kettle has an electric heated bottom like some more modern electric castles, then it should work as such a kettle works exactly the same as a normal kettle on a stove. But remember it depends on the temperature itself too.
Here is EXACTLY how you can boil milk on a stove.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55PlWbcT3Yg
And here how to boil milk electric on kettle:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZwEIPRSSn8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cq6T3_lKq7c
WARNING: If you do NOT know what you are doing, do NOT do it, because it could break the kettle or making it hard to clean up if done wrongly, how ever with that said it does not mean it is impossible to boil milk in an electric kettle without making a big mess or breaking it. The best advice is probably "to not let the milk boil unsupervised" because once it boils over, it will be very fast.
The meaning of "boil" for milk
Although scientifically the word "boil" means "transition from the liquid state to the gas state", milk does no transition from the liquid state to the gas state like water does, but it does it very fast by separating the water from the milk fat, so you need to take it off the heat right before it expands too much and burns. Because the transaction from liquid to gas is not made by the milk, but by the water in the milk and leaving behind the fat on the top of the milk once the milk colds down, there for leaving a thin layer of milk fat on the top of the milk. No worry, that milk fat is perfectly healthy to eat or drink, but you can throw that fat away (that looks like milk skin) if you do not like it.
How you can break the kettle: You can break the kettle if milk gets in the electric parts it will make a short circuit. Also if you burn the milk too hard it will make a smell and a burn mark very hard to wash off. But most dangerous is a "classic electric kettle with an electric steel bar in it" for heating, and that is because hose will burn the milk around the steel bar and break the steel bar contacts because of a circuit that the burned milk will cause. And that without reaching to boil the milk because the steel bar will have more temperature then the kettle itself and that will heat up the milk too much near the steel bar and not enough further way from the hot steel bar. That is why never to use a "classic electric kettle with an electric steel bar in it" to boil milk.
Are you suggesting you can use an electric kettle to boil milk?
This may be useful information, but it should not be posted here because it isn't an answer to the question which was asked.
I think this answer is talking about stove kettles - I can’t imagine a family using an electric kettle for milk their whole lives...
Will the milk expand even more faster if you are on the toilet? Please elaborate.
It depends how the electric cattle is made. Example if it has an electric steal bar in it, then it is useless to boil milk, it will burn it for sure. But if the cattle has an electric heated bottom, then it could work, but it depends on the temperature itself too.
Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.
It's hard to tell what happened in the question you linked – if it was an electric kettle, it might have boiled over and shorted the thing.
I realize that. I just couldn't think of a single way in which simply boiling a non-water liquid would destroy such a simple device. Its literally just a big metal jug with a giant resistor in the bottom to provide heat.
I know! I've been wracking by brain, and a short is all I can think of.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.979557
| 2017-09-11T20:28:48 |
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109646
|
What is the difference between cream cheese and sour cream?
Let me be clear: I am not asking about their applications. I know some really good recipes where you use one or the other. I know you can replace them with each other in some recipes, not in others. That is not what I am asking about.
My question is about how they are different in their constitution. I have read that to get sour cream you ferment cream with a few different subspecies of Lactococcus lactis. Sometimes rennet or acid (lemon juice or vinegar) is used, but authentic sour cream requires the fermentation with bacteria (which converts cream's lactose to lactic acid). When I look up recipes to make cream cheese, I get the same instructions. You take cream, again you ferment it with a couple subspecies of Lactococcus lactis, you strain it to get rid of the water, and you get cream cheese. The only difference I see is that in the US, sour cream usually has a 20% fat content, whereas cream cheese has a fat content of 33% or higher. The other different thing is when making the cheese, "sometimes" some milk is added.
But this cannot be the only difference. Otherwise we would not call one of them cheese, and another of them cream (considering the fat content, even those names seem ironic). I would appreciate if someone can shed some light and give some insight.
There are differences in base ingredients, as well as in the method used for production. The production of cream cheese starts with milk (or a mixture of milk and cream), which is curdled after which the whey is removed. Typically, rennet or acid are used to curdle the milk, so that one can separate the whey from the curds. Cream cheese can be fermented before curdling, but I do not believe this is common.
Sour cream is cream that has been fermented with lactic acid bacteria.
The difference in names is thus also explained: sour cream is cream that has gone sour, while cream cheese has undergone a fairly typical cheese-making process.
Thanks. The description of manufacturing process in Wikipedia has a surprising lack of references (other than the one about fermentation temperature). The process still kind of seems the same (what with the use of Lactic acid bacteria). But I think I get the difference. Basically they use more milk in it, which contributes proteins, which in turn make this a cheese. Whereas sour cream is just cream. I wonder though why don't all cheeses taste sour? Is it because they wash it? Do they wash cream cheese?
@NurShomik The processes are the same only in the fermentation step. Ingredients and method (the cheese is strained, the cream is not) are different. Regarding the acidity of cheese: presumably, this has something to do with the ripening process most cheeses undergo, although lots of cheeses have a slight tang. I also just found this page on lactic acid fermentation which might help clear things up even more.
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.981720
| 2020-07-13T21:42:40 |
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105261
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Why does adding lemon juice before baking cause a thick layer of dense cake to form?
I am trying to adapt a recipe for lemon cake. I want to add actual lemon juice to the batter and omit the lemon zest. The recipe I have goes as follows:
250g butter
250g sugar, half and half powdered and granular
4 separated eggs
250g flour
baking powder for 250g flour
zest of 2 1/2 lemons
I experimented with several ratios of lemon juice to the other ingredients. However, each time I tried it, when I took the cake out of the oven and looked at the cross section there was a dense, slightly darker layer at the bottom which disrupts the otherwise fluffy nature of the cake.
How can I get rid of this layer, while still adding lemon juice to the cake?
You should edit your question to include the procedure of the recipe as well as the ingredients (including how you incorporated the lemon juice, and how much you used).
I expect speed is very important after adding the lemon juice. It is going to set off CO2 production in whatever chemical leavening agent you are using. Wait too long before the oven gels things, and the lowest bubbles will rise towards the top, giving a dense layer as you describe.
@Sneftel Actually, the original recipe does not include instructions... I always add the ingredients in the given order (but I mix the zest with the butte first)
So you don't beat the egg whites into a meringue?
The original recipe is leavened with baking powder, which these days is a mixture of baking soda, an acid, and a special acid which activates at high temperatures.
Lemon juice is strongly acidic, and will react with all the baking soda in the baking powder. This means you won't get as strong a leavening effect during baking. (Some people also feel that the un-reacted acid from the baking powder results in a metallic taste.)
To compensate for this, you can try adding baking soda (in addition to the baking powder) to the recipe; I've heard 1/2 tsp baking soda to 1 tbsp lemon juice, but I don't have any direct experience with that. I don't know what this will do to the overall leavening or taste of the cake.
It is unusual to see lemon cake recipes which use much lemon juice in the batter. Drizzling lemony syrup in afterwards is more common. You might want to try that instead.
Most of the lemon sponge recipes I’ve used do say use just the zest in the batter then add the juice in a syrup when you take the cake out of the oven. However, Delia does have a lemon sponge recipe where she suggests 1 tablespoon of lemon juice in the batter and 1.5 teaspoons of baking powder. If the eggs are separated I’m assuming you have to beat the whites to a soft peak to add lightness? But any recipe that uses acid and bicarbonate of soda( in baking powder) will fizz and needs to go into the hot oven ASAP so the extra lift can be produced in the batter before the fizzing stops. You’ll see this in any Soda bread recipe. I hope this helps
Ina Garten has an amazing lemon loaf cake recipe that calls for lemon juice. I've made it several times and loved it and have never had an issue. It does bake for an hour at 350 F.
That doesn’t explain what’s happening or how the asker can modify their cake, it simply says “use Ina Garten’s recipe”. Please take the [tour] and browse through the [help], especially [answer] to understand the site’s rules and mechanisms bet. You can always [edit] your post and improve it.
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.982035
| 2020-02-11T16:58:17 |
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91434
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What is the coating of this spring roll called, and how is it made?
I had these spring rolls at a restraunt, but as you can see the outside was quite different to the 'normal' spring rolls I usually see.
The texture is light and crispy and looks 'stringy (but doesn't taste or feel that way).
I think it was quite interesting and would like to give them a shot but aren't sure what they're called to search for a recipe.
@Spagirl even if you are not sure that your answer is correct, please don't add it as a comment, since that breaks the quality mechanisms of the site. You can either bite the bullet and write an answer, or leave it out altogether.
It's regular roll made with net rice wrapper
It's common wrapper in Vietnam.
Here's site when you can see the package and rolls made with it bearnakedfood
The dish you ate is called Chả giò rế.
The coating is called Bánh tráng rế.
"Rế" is hisitorically a rattan or bamboo net to rest hot pans and pots after cooking.
Bánh tráng rế is made mainly from rice powder. But there are also variations which are made from a mixture of rice powder, corn powder and cassava powder. Some salt and sugar are added too.
Making Bánh tráng rế is a crossover of making rice papers and noodles. Traditionally, you have a fryer with a flat and wide surface. Soggy rice liquid will be poured into that hot surface to get steamed through tiny holes drilled from a container.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nv70xZ5sJHw
In London from a Vietnamese restaurant, I have received this variant of the spring roll.
It is called Chả Giò Rế Chiên Giòn (the "nest" variant of Chả Giò spring roll)
Beautiful Google images here :)
https://www.google.com/search?q=Ch%E1%BA%A3+Gi%C3%B2+R%E1%BA%BF+Chi%C3%AAn+Gi%C3%B2n&tbm=isch
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.982391
| 2018-08-05T05:39:31 |
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61861
|
How to boil sushi rice for yakimeshi?
I want to use some chicken bouillon cubes I have to flavor the sushi rice I have, which I'm going to use to make yakimeshi (Japanese fried rice) in accordance with this video.
I'm not sure if I'm going about this the right way, but this is what I've gathered after googling/reading some answers:
I should keep rinsing the rice until the water is clear
The ratio for
short-grain Japanese rice is supposed to be 1 cup of rice:1 cup of
water (or liquid?)
I should use 50% broth and 50% water for boiling the rice
The cubes say that 2 cubes make 1 quart (4 cups) of broth, so if I wanted to make 2 cups of broth, I would use 1 cube. Thus, I would use 1 cube to boil 4 cups of rice (in 2 cups water and 2 cups broth).
Am I doing everything right?
Also, do I need to add salt if I'm using broth?
Typically bouillon cubes include a pretty hefty dose of salt, so you're probably fine without adding more. You can always salt the finished fried rice if it needs more seasoning.
All your calculations look fine to me, but one thing you might need to consider is that the salt would raise the boiling point of the broth and potentially affect how the rice cooks. Probably not a big deal, but if the recipes you've found are particularly insistent that the rice be cooked only with water, that might be why. Just hedge any cooking times a little and check the rice as it cooks, and you'll be fine.
The amount of salt you would need to make the broth notably affect how the rice cook would also make the rice inedibly salty. It really is a nonissue in most cooking applications(in boiling liquid).
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.982680
| 2015-09-19T21:24:18 |
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5174
|
Blender Buying - Square vs. Round Container
After looking at this blender question, I had a follow-up question.
I've seen both square and round containers/lids for blenders. Is either better?
I tend to see square blenders at smoothie shops - leading me to assume square ones are better. By better I mean, you don't have to do as much scraping and maybe they have more settings and automated features. I see mostly round blenders in your typical kitchen appliance aisle at your typical big box store.
I can think of two reasons to prefer square containers :
They store in less space for the same volume, when you're dealing with dozens of them (as the smoothie shops likely are)
The key to a good blending is that the inside is not round -- you need baffles and such to keep the blender from forming a single, smooth vortex. The square containers would help to make baffles more effective by providing larger areas with slower moving liquid away from the center of the vortex.
Exactly. Gotta have those baffles to keep the flow from staying stuck to the outer edge of the container.
The baffles in my blender had always irritated me, because they make it hard to clean -- I hadn't realised they were required. If a square blender allows a smooth interior, then that's a plus.
@tdavies : there will still be baffles, they just might not need to be as significant in a square carafe.
Look for one that has a tapered base so the food has better and more complete contact with the blades. Whether round or square as long as the container is tapered at the bottom it should do fine.
I wouldn't put a lot of weight or concern into having multiple settings. In my experience a machine that has a lot of settings has very little difference between each. I'd stick with something that has a high/med/low or even high/low. Most of the time you want the mixture to be smooth so you're likely to be using the higher setting most anyway.
I do disagree about the settings. I have found most settings to blend equally well, but the higher settings tend to aerate much more, which is sometimes good and sometimes bad depending on the dish.
@Ocassi : I agree on the multiple speeds. I like my hand-my-down 30+ year old blender ... rather than buttons, there's a slide adjustment for speed, so it's easy to slowly ease up the speed, so you don't run into the sudden explosion when you kick it straight from a stop to high speed.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.982879
| 2010-08-14T03:04:51 |
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|
43200
|
What is this powder served with fried dango?
While in Japan, my husband got some dango from a street vendor. It was dipped in some kind of sesame-based sauce, and served with a little powder to dip it in on the side:
What is that powder?
There are all kinds of powders served with dango to give them different flavors. The image you have included looks like kinako (roasted soybean flour) which is traditional, but it could also be peanut butter powder which is a more modern addition to dango.
It did not taste like peanut butter, so it's probably Kinako then
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.983111
| 2014-04-01T02:07:42 |
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|
21880
|
What's the secret to soft cookies?
Possible Duplicate:
How can I get chewy chocolate chip cookies?
I've become basically addicted to these cookies at work; I believe they're Otis Spunkmeyer, based on the branded bags we're given to put them in. They're chocolate chip cookies with candy-coated chocolate (ala MnMs), but they're soft and have that "slightly underbaked cookie" taste to them despite having been stored at room temperature for god knows how long. Even the chocolate is still soft and gooey! What causes that? Is this quality replicable for the home cook?
Are they soft when they're room temperature, or only when warm?
@KatieK Room temperature. These are purchased and consumed at room temperature without my ever heating them, though it's possible they've been heated behind the scenes (after the initial bake) and have cooled off by the time I purchased them
There are a few ways to achieve this technique.
1) Make the dough by creaming the fat (I always use butter for flavour) with the sugar then mixing in flour, not rubbing the flour into the fat which creates a crisp with a short texture. This is because when you rubbing the flour into the fat it traps the flour and coats the gluten preventing a tough texture, when you cream the fat and sugar this does not a occur and a softer texture results. Additionally adding more fat creates a softer dough although chill the dough first to prevent the cookies spreading too much.
2) This sounds a bit obvious but just bake the cookies less. Try baking them until only the outside is golden brown, leaving the centre soft. If you do want them to be golden all over before they bake give them an egg wash (an egg beaten with some milk) or milk and sugar wash if that's preferable. Remember don't over bake!
3) After you've made the cookies, put them in an airtight container with a slice of bread. The moisture from the bread keeps the cookies moist although change the bread every few days to prevent mould.
4) Finally if all else fails warm the cookies up in the ovens for a few minutes or even, if they're really tough, sprinkle a few drops of water on the cookies before warming up.
On a side note don't increase the proportion of sugar as this creates a crisp cookie. Have a look at this website for cookie troubleshooting: http://baking911.com/learn/baked-goods/cookies/problems-and-solutions.
@Mien Thanks, I found it when I myself had a problem with cookies (spread way too much).
I would add that the sugars you use are important. Use fudgy, soft brown sugars (and in a high ratio to the flour) and you will have a fudgy, chewy cookie.
Actually, adding more sugar (even brown) generally makes the cookie crisper although it does all depend on the cooking time
Sebiddychef has an excellent set of tips on how to make soft cookies at home. I thought I'd answer the other part of your question, which is "How to big companies like Otis Spunkmeier and Mrs. Fields make perpetually soft cookies?"
One word: chemicals
I don't have production experience with Otis Spunkmeier, but I used to bake cookies for Mrs. Fields, and we added a witches' brew of laboratory chemicals (bag #3, as I recall) to every batch of cookie dough. These chemicals allowed the cookies to be perpetually soft, unnaturally aromatic, and sturdy and long-lasting despite large quantities of butter and oil.
So, not necessarily something you'd want to reproduce at home.
Well, I used to like Mrs. Fields....
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.983199
| 2012-03-01T17:12:27 |
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|
45476
|
Will soymilk keep well in the freezer?
Since I found out that I can't use soymilk faster than it expires, I'm looking for a better solution. If I were to portion out the soymilk into containers, could I freeze all but a week's worth in advance to use later? Or would that not help?
As a reminder, I use it solely in tea, not to cook with or drink plain.
The container of "my" soy-milk specifically says not to freeze it, though I don't know exactly why. I use a brand of "shelf-stable" soy-milk with no other additives (i.e., only ingredients are water and beans), so that's where the following comments are coming from.
I go through about a quart a week, so I buy quart-size containers and go through it before it goes bad. This is probably obvious, but probably your best bet.
As for freezing, I tried to make soy-milk-based frozen popsicles a couple of times, and the results were undesirably grainy; I think the soy milk didn't freeze evenly (there were other ingredients, but it "felt" like particulates from the milk). Even after thawing, the texture and consistency wasn't quite right. YMMV; freezing behavior likely depends on the brand -- for instance, how the milk is made, how it's processed, and how any additives (emulsifiers, thickeners, or stabilisers, such as carrageenan or xanthan gum) happen to respond to freezing/thawing.
For practical concerns:
expansion when freezing -- make sure your containers won't explode!
separation -- shake well before and after freezing! Some soy-milks have additives (like above), so this might be less of a concern for those.
texture -- I found that after a freeze-thaw cycle "my" soy-milk changed in consistency. It was "off" in some way that I can't really qualify. It may be less of an issue when the milk is used "in" something else.
Some additional thoughts can be found at can you freeze this, but sounds to me not much more than speculation.
Have you tried it? I'd be interested to hear what your results from "your" milk are like.
Soy milk without additives is not even an emulsion, it is just a suspension. I can imagine that this is exactly why they say not to freeze - crystalizing during freezing and then getting liquid again will certainly mess up the texture.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.983814
| 2014-07-11T12:20:37 |
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|
55808
|
Why aren't my potatoes cooked?
I had a 3lb roast on a bed of baby potatoes (smaller than a ping-pong ball but larger than a grape) and onions at 375F for almost 3 hours. The roast came out great (cooked to 150F internally), but the potatoes are still raw in the middle. Shouldn't they have cooked by then? And what can I do in the future to prevent this?
As per comments: There was also a pizza stone in the oven. Could that have played a factor? It was preheated with the oven, as suggested in Storing Pizza Stone in Oven. The oven was preheated about an hour (my oven doesn't beep, just has a change in light color, so sometimes we forget we were preheating and wander off).
If they were under the roast, it would appear to have insulated them from most of the heat of the oven. Still admittedly surprising.
I'm surprised your roast wasn't very overdone after 3 hours of 375... Did it start frozen? Have you checked your oven temperature?
@derobert It wasn't frozen. My husband did the cooking, he's relayed all this info to me, but I verified yet again and he said it's the right time and temp
aha, but I did get the size wrong. Edited
@Yamikuronue is this a pot roast, i.e., a braise?
He put it on the bed of potatoes and onions and poured some wine and vinegar over top, but it wasn't like, braised per se. In the oven, not a crockpot
@Yamikuronue I'm at a loss then as to how your roast isn't overcooked. I mean, normally it'd be well under half an hour per pound, especially at that temperature. At least for a roast of a tender cut (a braise of a tough cut would of course be longer). All I can think of is it wasn't really 375, or it wasn't really ~3h. I'd verify the oven temperature with an oven thermometer...
hmm, that's a good point. He brought it to 150 internal temp (was a beef roast), maybe our oven is running low.
@Yamikuronue BTW: In order for that setup to work, the potatoes have to be soaking up some nice heat from the bottom of the pan—they need to get much hotter than the meat (you're probably going for at least 200°F, maybe even 210, depending on the texture you want). So maybe the roaster needed to be lower in the oven, too.
@derobert Could the pizza stone he left in the oven have been to blame?
@Yamikuronue Yeah, that could definitely have blocked heat from getting to the bottom of the pan. Especially if it was close to the pan (or the pan was sitting on it).
I rolled in some of the comments and more info into the question
Put the roast on the bottom and the potatoes around the edges. Cover everything with red wine (or whatever fluid you are using)
This doesn't even begin to start to initiate creation of an answer to the question.
The reason I answered thusly is because that is how I make a roast, and I don't have raw potato issues. My roast is also a 3 he recipe so I thought it appropriate
The pizza stone would definitely impede heat transfer
Doesn't this answer the "what can I do in the future to prevent this?" part of the question? But yes, it doesn't really address the "what went wrong this time" part.
And if the pizza stone is the fundamental problem, this won't prevent the problem.
Well, heat transfered in from the side would cook the potatoes were on the sides and the meat would be less cooked, which may be desireable depending on what the chef wants to accomplish.
Two things. First, @Escoce, if you would please edit your answer to say that this can prevent a future issue it would clearly show that it is related to the 2nd part of the question. Second, please see this question, http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/4012/storing-pizza-stone-in-oven. If the oven was preheated with the pizza stone already inside, the stone should not have been part of the problem.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.984018
| 2015-03-17T22:27:18 |
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|
119752
|
How do you make veggie chips tender?
I recently discovered how quick and easy it is to make thin slices of veggies on the mandolin if you use safety gloves.
Now I'm considering using my newfound power to make veggie chips, except I've never in my life has a veggie chip that wasn't way too hard and way too crunchy. They always cut up the roof of my mouth and feel like I'm eating a piece of tree bark.
I'm looking to find a way to cook mandolinned veggies in my convection oven that aren't going to destroy my palate, but all I can find in Google is "USE THIS RECIPE TO MAKE THE CRISPIEST VEGGIE CHIPS EVER!"
That's...the opposite of what I want? How can I make chips that are more like Lays potato chip consistency, without veering into "too crunchy" territory? Do I just need to slice them thin enough? Use a higher oven temp, like making soft cookies? Do I have to fry them, or can I air-fry? Do some veggies come out more tender than others?
I'm confused; you say you don't want your veggie slices to be crispy, but then you say you want them to be like potato chips. What exactly are you trying to achieve?
I don't know how to describe it succinctly. Not difficult to chew, without being soft? Crispy, but not so crispy it carves up my palette (and every experience I've had has erred on the "too crunchy" side). Maybe "crunchy" is a better description of what I'm trying to avoid... I tried to make some edits, is it more clear?
"Crispy" doesn't mean "hard", it means "brittle". A potato chip is crispy. A dinner plate is not. Have you tried those recipes?
Would the difference between regular and 'kettle cooked' potato chips be similar to your crispy distinctions?
@wumpusD'00m Yes! 'Kettle cooked' chips also have the "slice up the roof of my mouth" problem, but the only way I can think to describe the texture is "crispier than normal potato chips, to the point of being unpleasant." Any time I've had others' home-cooked veggie chips or bought them in bulk it's the same deal.
I don't eat them very often but the crispiest veg chips I've had have been the thinnest - on a par with thick potato crisps. A lot of veg chips are thicker and I reckon that's why they seem so hard. I think you need to go really really thin, but then they'll burn easily
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.984361
| 2022-02-05T20:19:37 |
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|
112597
|
Can you store frozen dinners in the refrigerator for up to a week before eating them?
Given that this is "Seasoned Advice", my question may be considered blasphemy, but I'm going to take a chance anyways as the good people here are likely best suited to know the answer. ;)
Is there any harm in storing store-bought frozen dinners in the refrigerator (not freezer) for up to a week before eating them?
Many frozen dinners are labelled with "do not thaw", implying there is a problem with doing this, and I am hoping people here can shed some light on the topic.
Update: In the comments, I was asked why I would like to do this, and what I am trying to achieve. Good questions!
The reason I would like to do this is because the freezer is completely filled, and a bunch of frozen dinners are being delivered (as a result of mistakes outside of my control).
Also, I know people will be eating several of the frozen dinners within a week, so it will conserve energy to place them in the refrigerator before cooking them in a microwave oven.
I'd be interested in knowing why you wish to store them in the fridge. What do you hope to achieve by doing so? Or what prevents you from storing them in the freezer?
This was nearly a comment under Joe's answer (+1), but applies more to the question. Practically I'd say as a rule of thumb a couple of days should be fine in the coldest part of the fridge - that's around 24 hours to defrost (based on my home made ready meals) and 24 hours to not degrade in quality too much - actual spoilage should take considerably longer. This assumes a meal that won't suffer too much from bits getting prematurely wet, so not everything. But if the you have no (or a too-small) freezer this may be some help.
@MonkeyZeus Good questions! I updated the original question to answer your questions. Thank you for your interest and inquisitive mind!
There are bacteria that are dormant while frozen and die while cokking in high temp. They are on the packages and in the meals. Keeping food in refrigerator give them chance to multiply and survive cooking process. And to move in into the refrigerator and live there on other foods.
Instead of your original plan, I'd look for bulky items in your freezer that either are intended to be thawed before cooking, or are capable of being cooked now and reheated for dinner over the next few days; and pull those from your freezer to make room for the frozen meals and eat what you just removed over the next few days instead.
I wouldn't recommend it for a couple of reasons:
Food in general degrades much faster in the fridge than in the freezer, so you risk spoilage during that time. Most prepared foods are not recommended to be stored that long in the fridge.
Most "do not thaw" meals are designed to be cooked from frozen. So you're not only left guessing what the correct cooking times are, but there may be elements such as a sauce that placed in the container as a puck that's intended to no interact with the other item in that compartment, but that would now have a week to get soggy from the sauce and dramatically change how it cooks up.
If I'm not mistaken, a food that was previously frozen degrades even faster than the same food that hasn't been frozen.
@LaurentS.: The ice crystals destroy cell walls which makes food more soggy. Notice how bananas and other fruit loose all firmness once they’ve been frozen. I don’t think it increases the growth of harmful bacteria or mold.
@Michael : it might. It changes the availability of water, as it's now outside cell walls, giving places for mold and bacteria to grow. Although frozen dinners would be sent through a blast chiller for quick freezing, so it's possible that there's not as much cellular damage.
It is a fine answer but the truth is he could probably put them in a freezer bag and keep them in the fridge for a month and be fine. These things have so many preservatives that they go bad slightly faster than honey.
@Joe In all my years, I have yet to find a moldy, frozen object in my freezer - even ones from the way way back of the freezer which have been there before time existed for all I know.
@blankip That's untrue of a lot of frozen meals. The freezing itself is the preservative in many cases.
@SnakeDoc - yea maybe but I have personally left frozen dinners in the fridge by accident, find them in the back after weeks, throw them in the microwave... noticed no difference. Yea I'm a badass.
@blankip lol, living life on the edge I guess? Don't get me wrong, there are definitely low-quality frozen meals. These days though, with the average consumer having a heightened idea of nutrition and conscious of what they are eating - there's a lot more higher quality frozen meals available vs. even 5 years ago. They do cost more, but are more akin to real unfinished food - frozen before the final step of cooking. Amy's, Evol, etc.
@SnakeDoc : I wasn't talking about things in the freezer. I'm talking about things that have been in the freezer and then thawed, as the main question was about. Water isn't available if it's locked up in ice. And I personally take a lot of food risks, but that doesn't mean I recommend other people take risks.
@Joe Fair enough, I didn't see you were referring to post-thawing.
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Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.984577
| 2020-11-11T18:42:15 |
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|
125089
|
Are high-starch potatoes hard (low-starch soft)?
As the season progresses a potato changes e.g. an Ilam Hardy early in the season (October) is quite waxy. A mid season Ilam Hardy is a good general purpose potato, while towards the end of the season a lot more of the natural sugars have converted to starch, so it tends to be floury.
Source: https://potatoesnz.co.nz/updates/education-comms-and-mktg-updates/seasonal-changes-and-potato-varieties/
I like my potatoes really starchy (fluffy). I've found that soft potatoes are always very waxy. So I'm wanting to know whether the hardness-softness of a potato can tell you anything about starch levels?
If anything, the relationship will go in the other direction. But it's not significant in practice anyway - as Moscafj said, you should simply buy mealy potatoes, instead of trying to divine which ones could be probably mealy.
The hardness of a potato is mostly related to age, both in the sense of the plant's maturity, and in the sense of length of storage. Young plants have firmer parts with more turgor. So, according to the text you cited, the early-in-the-season potato will be waxier, but it will also be firmer. The other factor is storage time after the tuber has been separated from the plant. The longer it's stored, the more moisture it loses and becomes softer. So, you could touch the potato and feel its firmness, but it won't tell you much about how it cooks up.
This is not to be confused with the language matter where other languages divide potatoes into "hard-boiling" for waxy and "soft-boiling" for mealy. The words there refer to the state of the potato after it has been cooked, and logically, the fluffy cooked potatoes are named "soft". This is a straightforward description of the quality you're looking for, but it's not especially well correlated with a hardness or softness you might feel before cooking.
"starchy" is a more attractive term than "mealy".
@FuzzyChef I can't comment on the attractiveness, as I'm not a native speaker. "Mealy" is the established term used in the literature. I understand that the terms aren't printed on potato bags in the UK or the US, so there probably isn't that much awareness of them among AE and BE speakers.
"Young plants have firmer parts with more turgor" I don't know where you got this idea from, I've certainly never come across it in the potato scientific literature. AFAIK, turgor is completely unrelated to maturity and tuber turgor is important to manage at harvest as it can influence susceptibility to bruising https://horticulture.ahdb.org.uk/management-of-tuber-water-status-to-reduce-bruising also per that " tuber turgor ... changes approximately equivalent to the range encountered across the season can occur within one day if the evapotranspiration demand is high."
@smartse it's a personal observation gained from harvesting potatoes of different maturity, and also many other edible plants. For me it's as commonsense as saying that the day is usually colder in the morning than at noon. I've never encountered a potato that would wilt while still in the earth.
It's sad nothing is printed on potato bags. Fluffy vs waxy are almost two different vegetables.
Do you mean whether it feels hard when you touch it? I've never felt much of a difference between a fresh Idaho (starchy) and Red Bliss (waxy) potato. Potatoes shouldn't really be soft, so I am perhaps not clear what you are asking. It's probably more effective to just learn the varieties available to you in your area, and choose on that basis.
IME storage conditions/time determine hard/soft. Keeping a potato for a while at room temperature makes it softer (and sprouty).
I've found that it's the size of the potatoes you should look for.
Large Moonlight potatoes can be really starchy. Small moonlight are usually very waxy. This is because large=late-season, small=early-season
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.985016
| 2023-08-28T07:25:28 |
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|
125593
|
Nutella nougat very oily
I’m making a Nutella-based nougat and noticed that it’s very oily. Does anyone have any ideas as to why and how to mitigate this?
Thank you!
Welcome to the site! In order to get an answer you will need to edit and add your recipe and method.
First, I assume you are referring to the hazelnut based nougat more common in Northern Europe, not the Southern European version which is an entirely different confection also called nougat. Second, hazelnuts already do contain a lot of oil, nutella contains hazelnuts plus a lot of extra oil (and sugar). Please provide a recipe but I suspect your ingredients just have a very high fat content.
Try stirring cocoa powder to the Nutella. That might bind to some of the palm oil.
Using a confectionery emulsifier, which reduces oil separation might help.
Failing that, instead of using Nutella, add hazelnut butter into the ganache. If the nut-butter has no emulsifiers, it will separate on its own - so some of the (delicious) excess oil could be removed before use.
It's also possible to buy nut powders, but these may cause textural issues.
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.985436
| 2023-10-19T14:16:30 |
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129273
|
How to fix bottom of stainless steel pot that has been separated from its main body?
I have used my stainless steel pot for more than 25 years. The brand is Meyer and it was bought in the United Kingdom. Now, its bottom is separated from the main body. Since the pot is good, I considered sticking the bottom to its main body. How to do it? Is there any glue can be used?
You could try contacting the brand, maybe they could try to help you even though the pan is old.
Do you know what the bottom piece that fell off is made of? Is it also stainless steel?
a potential problem with fixing one of these is that there will exist some chance that moisture can be trapped in between the layers. I had a failure of one of these type of pots (about 2-3 years after acquiring it) where water somehow managed to get in and then when it was on the stove the pressure was enough to blow out a hole about the circumference of a pencil, deforming the copper into a sort of shape like the mouth of a ewer. very dangerous. (I actually am unsure if it was a copper disc or other type of metal disc)
It may be worth considering why the bottom detached in the first place. (For example, if it deformed, then that'll also prevent you reattaching it.)
What does your stove run on? If gas, you may be able to do without the heat spreading sandwich base at least for boiling.
I would not consider repairing this pan. I would say that it's reached the end of its useful life and get another one.
Let it go......
Miss Ida - it's impossible to do this.
@Yorik .. "some chance" ... 99% ? :)
Not a hope in Hell. It's probably a high-melting-point solder: bear in mind that that's not just a weld around the edge, the entire base is bonded to maximise conductivity. The effort of truing the two surfaces and bonding them together will be prohibitively expensive even if you could find somebody prepared to do it (but it /might/ be worth asking the original manufacturer).
I though about this as well. The high melting point (electrical) solders I know about, which should be meltable on a gas stove with the pan empty, are lead-based. I wouldn't want them in my washing up water. And unless you get a perfect layer, trapped (or almost trapped) volumes of air or worse water will cause expansion and contraction leading to further damage. And I doubt you could remove the old layer, add a new layer and melt it to fuse together, all evenly enough to work
@ChrisH the tiny amount of lead involved in what could possibly come out in the washwater is probably less than what you'll find in the dirt outside in some places. If the bottom is polished up properly and resoldered the layer of solder will be less than paper thin and exposed only at the very edge. Plus lead quickly forms an oxide layer, especially when heated, that's not water soluble and is fairly durable except in acidic environments. Which there probably won't be much of on the outside of the pot.
@ChrisH Also, the really high temperature solders these days are made with silver instead of lead. And the go-to for this kind of work for the last several hundred years would be brass.
@Perkins silver solder is a possibility though rather expensive in the volumes needed here. It was a few months ago that I was surprised to find so much lead when looking for solders an electrical experimental over 300°C. As for brass, its melting point gets rather close to the melting point of the copper in the base, and melting it evenly over a large flat area without melting the copper would be too hard to do at home.
... You're probably right about the lead getting out (especially as washing up should be alkaline), it's more that it feels wrong to deliberately introduce lead to cooking stuff
@ChrisH Copper's melting point is around 1900F depending on purity. Brass alloys go as low as 840F. The stainless part is the tricky part. Need to find an alloy that will stick to it that has a high enough melting point to stand up to the cooking process.
@Perkins I looked up the melting points. They're different enough that a factory could do it. There's no way you could get it hot enough, even enough, over the entire area at home. Even normal brazing kit is designed for lines or rings, not for flat sheets . If you think it's possible, rather thinking too hard about melting points, think about heat delivery and even coatings
@ChrisH Structural joining of stainless would have been done using silver solder for tens of years, far longer than the demise of electrical 60:40 in favour of "lead-free" (i.e. tin-copper-silver or similar). However I've seen a delaminated pan and the joining compound was definitely "solder-like". There's basically two things we know about it: it doesn't melt at normal cooking temperatures (not that far above 100C) and an ordinary cooker /can/ melt it even with the substantial heatsink of an empty pan attached. I'd bet in pure tin, which Wp tells us melts at 232C.
@ChrisH We can assume that the solder is not standard 60:40, that aggressive fluxes are used to prepare the stainless surface, and that a factory has heating equipment /rather/ better than the average soldering iron. Also I'd remind you that stainless cookware is relatively recent, stainless+copper (etc.) bottom even more so. Even if there were lead in the alloy, lead pipes were protected by a layer of insoluble salts unless disturbed by maintenance etc., and this type of cookware does encabsulate the join: it's not just two slabs of metal.
@ChrisH It depends a lot on where the person lives and what they have for hobbies. Hobbyists these days have better equipment than some manufacturing plants when this pan was made. Depending on the size of the pan, I can think of a couple ways to do it with equipment that might be in somebody's kitchen and/or garage. Especially if there's a suitable self-fluxing solder paste available that will stick to both metals. The hardest part is likely going to be keeping it clamped together with sufficient pressure. It'll be a lot of work regardless to make the tooling for it, even if it's all simple.
@Perkins A hobbyist might be better equipped than a toolroom or maintenance shop, but would be unlikely to have the sort of specialist kit that a production line would use. I don't believe there are self-fluxing solders for stainless, you normally get the flux in powder form and apply as a paste to both surfaces first. You'd probably then apply a preform of solder (a thin disc, or a spiral), clamp the parts, bring them up to temperature then apply and sustain several tonnes of pressure while they cooled. There's a /lot/ of stuff in there that a hobbyist could (but probably wouldn't) make.
@Perkins a well-equipped hobby (hot) metalworker would be asking a different question and probably in a different forum. Once you've got that kind of workshop it's not really doing it at home any more.
@ChrisH Granted. But there's a lot of overlap. And a lot of household items will do a lot more than you'd think. An oven's self-clean feature goes to 900F. Small-time silver and copper smiths often melt their metal in an old microwave. If the pan fits entirely on an electric stove burner, those heat evenly up to as much as 1100F. (Probably how the pan delaminated in the first place) It's the clamping mechanism that I expect would be the challenging part to construct without either a decent workshop, or a lot of time with hand tools.
Pan layers are generally welded on, or in some other way attached by heat, the metal is supposed to be fused together. You could take it to a metal shop and they may be able to get it permanently fixed on, it would probably cost more than to replace the pan, unless it's an expensive make.
You could try an adhesive of some kind, and it may work. You need the right kind though, as most cannot tolerate the levels of heat a pan will be exposed to. High temperature epoxies really only go up to 500°F (~250°C) which is too low. I've used high temperature silicone for engine gasket repair, however that's only up to 650°F (340°C) which is still too low.
My money would be on extreme high temperature metal repair paste. Products like JB-Weld ExtremeHeat can tolerate up to 1000°F (540°C) continuously, and occasional exposure to far higher than that. I've never used them myself, but they seem straightforward and are cheap enough that if they don't work you haven't spent much. Make sure to follow the instructions, and make sure both surfaces are clean and dry.
Note: I'm not saying this is going to work, it's still a long shot for a variety of reasons: it may not have the mechanical strength and so the bottom may fall off, you may also lose conduction between the bottom and the pan so it doesn't heat well. It's just the only product I can think of that may work that you could do at home.
My money is in this kind of repair not being DIY-able at home, possibly doable if the metal shop has a welding expert.
I agree with you @Luciano, it's just the only think I can think of that may work as a DIY job. I've edited for clarity.
I would be very wary of testing out a possible solution in a circumstance where boiling water or hot oil might unexpectedly spill all over you
I don't see that as a problem @dbmag9, if the bottom separates it will very likely just stay on the stovetop. It's not going to cause a hole in the bottom of the pan.
These products have a fairly low thermal conductivity (compared to the metals involved, but much higher than air) so you'd want the thinnest and most even layer possible. Even then you'll probably find heating is less efficient and less even.
My version of @dbmag9's worry is that it separates but remains partially stuck and doesn't fall off until you lift the pan, at which point the hot base falls onto the floor or your foot
The problem is the flatness. The pot and bottom will have peaks and valleys from the previous join, and will no longer mate closely. You'd have to grind them both flat for any hope of a mechanically secure, let alone thermally conductive, join. Not something a DIY toolchest can realistically accomplish.
I've done research years ago on the temperatures achieved inside natural gas burners, and indeed even the 500C or so of the most heat resistant adhesive you mention isn't going to be nearly enough!
@jwenting it's an interesting problem in thermal physics, with the inside capped at the boiling point of water (or the smoke point of oil) and a gas flame hitting the outside of a thick metal heat spreader, how hot does the interface get? Given that a wrong answer leads to burnt epoxy, I don't propose to test it, and I'm an experimentalist. You can trivially demonstrate that the flame gets hotter than that - poke a steel wire into it and it will glow quite nicely - somewhere between 600 and 750 °C.
@GdD If the base stays stuck on the stovetop, and the walls and handle come off, a pan fill of boiling water or hot oil will spill everywhere, potentially including on the user, no?
@dbmag9 as pictured, the pan is still watertight, it's the external sandwich base that's come off. I don't think I've ever seen a saucepan in which there was a join between the walls and the watertight base (i.e. one visible from the inside) except some ultralight aluminium camping stuff
While it's super-admirable to have thought of JB-Weld while batting this puzzle around .... (1) this utterly won't work and (2) as a bonus, it is WILDLY dangerous.
@ChrisH - awesome You Scienced It facts there !
@ChrisH I placed thermocouples at various distances from the burner head on the bottom of top plate of a gas burning stove. The temperatures were well over 1000C at a few centimeters. Heck, we burned quite a few thermocouples because we'd initially underestimated the temperatures that would be reached and tries lower spec (thus cheaper) ones, gradually using higher and higher spec ones until we got readings.
I think this is practical, though perhaps not economical, provided the two pieces fit together without a gap (little warping).
The two parts need to be cleaned so that bare shiny metal is all you see on the mating faces. With a wire wheel, Scotchbrite, sandpaper etc. Then slathered with flux and silver-soldered. I would use an NSF approved cadmium-free silver solder such as Harris Safety-Silv. A fairly powerful gas torch is needed, the melting point is around 1200 degrees F, which is a dull red heat.
Maybe you know a ‘Model Engineer’ or other person who does metalworking locally who could help.
Interesting. Do you think you can torch the bottom without it warping!? Perhaps it would be better to heat (and cool) it slowly and evenly in a pottery kiln!
@Peter-ReinstateMonica Interesting idea- yes think a pottery kiln would work, but part of the process with a one-off is to poke at it with a pick and see and encourage when and where the hard solder has flowed. Once there is a smooth flow around the outside rim it can be cooled, but that’s hard to estimate if you’ve never done one. Also slow heating all the fire bricks probably means more cleanup of the whole pan unless you have access to a controlled atmosphere furnace. It gets heated pretty unevenly in normal uses after all.
The fact that it's a stainless pot makes this tricky. Stainless steel works by forming a layer of chromium oxide on the surface of the metal that doesn't like to react with or bond to anything. That makes it devilishly hard to weld, solder, or anything like that.
But, it can be done. You'll need somebody with a setup for handling metal in inert gas. Argon is probably required in this case. If it weren't stainless then you could get away with CO2 since messing up the metal hardness likely isn't a concern in this case, but I'm not certain that the heat wouldn't be sufficient to make the O2 split off and bond with the chromium and ruin the bond in this case. Someone who works with stainless more often than I do might have a better idea of the requirements.
Probably the way to do it for a repair would be to polish the surfaces up as much as possible, make sure they'll still mate up perfectly with no weird gaps, then put it in an Argon environment, polish the oxide off the stainless pieces, and either solder or braze it back together again. Arc welding it would, unfortunately, be tricky because that really only gets things near the electrode path and in this case you want the bond to cover the entire bottom of the pan. So it needs to be heated slowly and evenly with the bonding agent in between the two layers, and then pressed together tightly while it cools.
The local metal shop might have the equipment to do this. If not, check if there are any modern blacksmiths in the area since it's definitely more similar to a forging process than any of the more typical machining or welding processes.
If it's a really cheap stainless that's just a coating on the surface instead of being stainless all the way through, you might be able to do it yourself at home without needing the inert gas, but I'd definitely recommend consulting with a smith on your setup since metals at these temperatures will cheerfully give you third and fourth degree burns if you mishandle them. Not to mention burning holes right through your floor and into the basement/crawlspace...
In terms of glue... JB Weld or similar that's specifically designed for repair of high-temperature metal parts might work. But if the thermal conductivity isn't really high then the parts are going to expand at different rates as it's heated and that will eventually pop them apart again.
You can try to send it to the manufacturer; I know of an instances where a high-end brand replaced a pan that had clearly been destroyed by the customer's abuse, as a gesture of goodwill. (Actually, since the manufacturer is in Great Britain this is not a viable option in your case, if you are indeed in Malaysia, because of the prohibitive shipping cost. It may be an option for domestic products though, so I'll let the suggestion stand for other readers.) After all, this is probably a failure mode that simply should never happen. Perhaps they'll do it out of sheer respect for your chuzpe to contact them with a product failure after 25 years.
But in all reality, it's time to buy a new pot. Say a short thank-you prayer for this one that has served you so diligently for a third of your life, and buy your ultimate or penultimate pot.
As an aside, this is a reminder that no composite item is as long-lived as a single-piece-item made of cast iron which you can pass on through the generations.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.985599
| 2024-09-26T09:12:27 |
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96205
|
Why are sourdough crusts thicker?
I'm used to the crust on sourdough bread being thick and chewy, but had always attributed that to the longer rise, and baking with steam, that one normally does with sourdough. However, this week I made a hybrid sourdough* in my bread machine, and its crust was thicker, browner, and chewier than non-sourdough breads made in the same machine. Since the baking cycle and atmosphere are the exact same as, say, last week's whole wheat loaf, it's not how it was baked.
So my question is: what is the physical or chemical property of sourdough starters that results in a heavier crust?
Note that while there are a number of questions on the board about sourdough crusts, all of them focus on manipulating the baking environment, and not on properties of the dough itself.
(* hybrid sourdough: some sourdough starter plus a little commercial yeast)
I think it's possible the effect has something to do with the bread machine and how it mixes the sourdough. I.e. it's not just a property of the starter in itself.
The bread machine mixes sourdough the same way it mixes every other dough. There's no "sourdough" setting.
Fair enough. But sourdough is often higher hydration than normal dough and this will affect the bread machine's action. Are you comparing doughs with the same hydration?
Don't know, wanna try that out as an answer?
I've personally never noticed your experience of sourdough breads as being particularly crusty compared to non-sourdough versions. That's not to say there isn't a difference, but I'd imagine dough composition in general is a significant factor. Hence my question: was your sourdough dough in the bread machine exactly the same composition in terms of other ingredients/proportions to your comparison non-sourdough bread in the bread machine (aside from leavener)? Because a whole wheat loaf (maybe even with other ingredients) will not have the same crust as a lean-dough white sourdough.
Athanasuis: yeah, and that's hard to answer because I never make this particular recipe without starter; for that matter, I don't even have a written version of it that doesn't have starter. So it's certainly possible that it's some other part of the recipe composition.
Here's a scientific breakdown:
Sourdough starter is the primary leavening agent in any sourdough, including your hybrid here. Technically, it's just water and flour. The flour already has all the yeasts and bacterial spores it needs to ferment, and the water activates the fermentation process via an enzyme called amylase.
The amylase breaks down the starch in the flour into sugars, which the yeast will metabolize, producing carbon dioxide gas. Anything in the sugars that the yeast can't eat will be fermented over time by the bacteria, producing more amylase and breaking down the sugars further so that the yeast can eat it. The bacteria creates lactic acid as a byproduct of this process, giving sourdough its unique "sour" flavor.
However, the same process that breaks down the sugars in sourdough starter can also break down the proteins in the dough. This gives you weaker gluten - or, a denser, chewier bread than what you'd obtain with only baker's yeast. On top of that, your bread is a hybrid, which means there's even more yeast in it than usual and even more leavening. More leavening, more enzyme production by the bacteria, more potential for protein breakdown.
So, you do realize that with your last comment, you made it impossible for me to select your answer, yes?
I removed it. Sorry!
So why does the breakdown of proteins make the bread chewier? I'd think it would be the opposite -- baked goods made with low-protein flour are generally speaking tender and soft.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.986933
| 2019-02-07T17:25:31 |
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|
61901
|
Browning beef for beef stew?
I'm following this recipe.
When they say "brown it," are they saying to just brown the edges....or all the way through? Assuming I just sorta brown the outside (but it's not cooked all the way though), is this safe?
Like the inside of my stew meat won't be cooked, is simmering it for 2 hours or so enough to cook it all the way through? I'm concerned about E. coli and all that nasty stuff.
Thanks!
Worth noting it is the surface of meat that can become contaminated with E. coli, not the interior of whole muscles. Ground beef is another matter of course.
The idea is to brown the outside of the meat in order to develop the flavour via the Maillard Reaction. This flavour will add to the richness and meatiness of the stew as a whole. Go ahead and give it a good crust. Don't overcrowd the pan or you will just end up steaming the meat in its own juices and it will never brown up: fry it in small batches instead.
Two hours braising in the stewing liquid will easily be enough to cook one-inch cubes of beef all the way through and will easily see off most nasty stuff.
How long per side typically? or just until it's a nice brown on at least most of the sides?
Take your time, it's a stew not a stir fry. The better the crust, the better the flavour. Obviously don't cremate it. Here's a pretty good example: http://www.dizzypigbbq.com/images/RecipeImages/Stroganoff/3BrownedBeef.jpg
for home cooking; a cast iron skillet is typically the best way to maximize the browning. Heat the pan up red hot and add beef; most home stoves do not have the BTU's necessary to do this in normal pans. Should be quick; 1-2 mins at most.
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.987262
| 2015-09-21T15:03:52 |
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79026
|
Why does my home-made bread go mouldy?
I've been using a Panasonic bread-maker for about 20 years; in fact, I'm on my second machine. I use stone-ground wholemeal flours from different mills and, as I can't easily find Stone-ground Strong White in London, use Organic Duchy White.
For a 300 gm loaf, I vary the amount of different flours, usually 100gm of white and the remainder wholemeal, with 270 ml good water, 1 tablespoon demerara sugar, 1.5 to 2 tablespoons light oil, and 3/4 tablespoon of dry quick-yeast.
For storage, I've been using a good wooden bread-bin with lift-off lid for years, but find that the bread now goes mouldy in about 3 days.
Should I try using less oil? Is there something else that would prevent the loaf moulding so quickly?
I'm not sure, but it could be that your bread bin is harbouring mould spores. This would explain why it has only started happening recently, and can often happen with wooden bread bins. Clean out the bin well, disinfect it with something non-toxic (maybe alcohol), let it air and dry thoroughly before using it again
That's useful, thank you - and exactly what I thought; I contacted the makers and they had 'never heard of this problem'; so I cleaned the bin thoroughly, sanded bits and re-varnished with their own special varnish; result: more mouldy bread! So I've lived with that for 4 years but 3 weeks ago got fed up, moved the wooden bin to the 'ready to throw away' area and started to use a Tupperware type container, with the lid PLACED on top - not locked: result - more mouldy bread that feels sticky inside after 2 days. I reckon it's something I'm doing.... HELP! Aaaargh!
I would not throw out the bin as it may not be the cause
related : http://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/7804/67 ; http://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/10758/67 ; http://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/5071/67 ; http://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/62280/67 ; http://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/45000/67 ; http://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/61/67
You might want to see if it's the bread machine -- either make a loaf without it can even be wold mold, livithe machine (same recipe), and see how it reacts ... or figure out how to disassemble it to make sure that everything is scrubbed clean with no chance of it holding onto a little bit of mold. (and it can even be wild mold somewhere in your kitchen, but the bread box should help protect against that)
Perhaps it's moldy old dough?
Workaround: place the portion you are not going to eat in 2–3 days in the freezer. Bread usually keeps well frozen and thaws out well.
It's kind of scary that we live at a time when bread getting moldy is considered somehow wrong. No, that's what should happen. When it doesn't happen, that's when you should be wondering what the heck is going on...
if you check out electrical superstores, they have some heavy white cubes called called fridge that can keep a bread cold for 10 days time. ,,, oil .1/2 percent doesnt affect fungal proliferation. they need sugar and oxygen and humidity and rhyzome space. funghi go practically dormant at low temps. they are 3 times more prolific at 20 degrees than at 10 degrees. http://www.thefreshloaf.com//files/u14703/YeastvsTemp.jpg
@Mehrdad I agree that bread going mouldy is just what happens, but 3 days is REALLY fast. I would expect a freshly baked loaf to last at least a week, and if you store really well and/or have a resistant bread (good sour dough... it escapes me until now... sighs), to dry out before any mould has a chance!
A random thought -- are you letting the bread fully cool before putting it in the bread box? If you don't, it's going to steam in there and increase humidity.
Well, I don't think you're doing anything wrong -- I think it's because you aren't using any preservatives in your bread (and that's a good thing, right?). I find my homemade bread has to be eaten in about a week, but I live in a dry climate. A more humid climate might result in it lasting 3-4 days.
This is absolutely the right answer. Preservative-free bread both molds faster, but also goes stale faster. Note that even bread from neighborhood bakeries often uses pre-mixed commercial ingredients that contain preservatives. Consider moldy bread a feature, not a bug -- it just means you get to enjoy fresher bread more frequently!
Google reveals this: In the baking industry, the most commonly used chemical preservatives to prevent mold spoilage are the following: propionates (calcium or sodium propionate), sorbates (sorbic acid and potassium sorbate), benzoates, parabens (methyl and propyl) and acetic acid (Pyler and Gorton, 2008).
For what it's worth, if you -really- want to do it, potassium sorbate is relatively easy to acquire, and I believe, is safe(ish). But I can't imagine why anyone who goes through the trouble of making bread at home would want to do this.
@Lonboder Potassium sorbate isn't really suitable for use in breads because it interferes with the growth of the yeast.
The rate at which your bread will develop mold is mostly dependent on two factors — humidity and the acidity of the bread. A well baked sour dough loaf ( a boule ) will scoff at your garden variety bread mold for at least a week, usually longer. A softer sandwich loaf made from an enriched dough ( e.g. with added sugar ), is much more fragile.
Try cooking your bread a bit longer, and then let it cool completely on a rack before it goes into your bread box. Also, I'd suggest opening the lid to the breadbox while you let the bread cool to let it dry out completely. This should add a few days to your shelf life.
Changing the acidity may be harder to do. I make bread every other day, but I've never used a bread machine, so I can't give you exact instructions. However, to raise the acidity of your dough, you need a longer bulk ferment at a lower temperature. This will increase the amount of lactic and acetic acid your commercial yeast produces. If you can let the mixed dough sit in the fridge for 24 hours, your bread will taste better and last longer. If that simply doesn't work for you, try a "dough enhancer" as these often contain acetic acid and can help keep your bread fresher for longer. You may want to try experimenting with adding a small amount of cider vinegar. But for taste reasons, using the fridge as a "fermentation retarder" is the way to go.
More factors: temperature; the humidity of the bread surface proper; presence of spores; other ingredients (sugar and fat are preservatives in high concentrations; not sure about lower ones); light (light is more theoretical: sunlight is a disinfectant, and mold grows better in the shade; but storing the bread in sunlight is probably not advisable. But one could nuke the mold with a germicidal lamp regularly ;-) ).
I usually don't use it myself, but adding some salt (3-6 grams would be typical) can somewhat reduce the propensity to mold. Citric acid or a sourdough starter might also help, but will obviously change the flavor quite a bit (salt will also change it somewhat.)
It's also possible that your bread is starting particularly wet, and either should be cooked longer, or needs to be stored (at least initially) in a more-ventilated manner. I generally leave a loaf out overnight the first night, transfer to a paper bag for a few days depending on humidity, and only move to (unsealed) plastic after a few days in paper.
And finally, once there are mold spores around, they are hard to get rid of. A moldy bread box seemed like a good bet, but evidently was not the core of the problem. General and repeated kitchen cleaning may be called for to make a dent in the spores.
Thank you everybody for some very useful pointers. To clarify, I NEVER put a loaf in any bin until it's complete cold, and very often leave overnight. I accept the possibility that the bread is starting too wet and I have this morning made a loaf with less water (270ml for 350gm loaf), no oil - just a small amount of butter, very small amount of Dem sugar; it's cooking on the quick programme, which is what I usually use; BUT reading some of your replies (for which MANY THANKS again) maybe the machine's quick programme is not working so well...
If today's loaf has sticky dough in the middle, then it's undercooked and I'll try the normal programme. I use the Quick programme (3 hrs) as nearly all the small UK Mills recommend it over the 'normal (5hrs).
If you do add more salt, it will inhibit mold, but it will also slow down the commercial yeast, and your proofing time will need to be extended as a result. Your loaf should definitely not be sticky in the middle — so yes, I think trying the normal programme would be a very good idea.
I reckon I've solved the problem and, as stated in my original question, it is something I've been doing: my solution is to reduce the amount of water and also oil. I was putting in more water than the recipe suggested, in order to make a 'lighter' loaf - the stone-ground flour I'm using is pretty 'heavy'. I'd also got in the habit of using 2 to 3 tbsp of light Olive oil. All of this worked for several years and my bread was wonderful (according to guests etc) but went mouldy very quickly.The first loaf I've made with less water and much less fat has NOT gone mouldy after five days (my wife has stopped eating any, yes any bread!) but has made a smaller loaf with much denser texture. Tastes good 'tho. So a HUGE thank-you to all of you who posted replies to my plea, while I have placed myself upon the naughty step. BTW the information about mold spores and wooden bins has been very helpful, so I'm still going to try different containers. For me, putting bread in the fridge or freezing it, absolutely ruins it. I like my bread FRESH!
Depending on the adjustability of your robot (breadmaker) increasing the cooking time might let you have both "more liquid/lighter" and "not mould so fast".
Tx - yes, I'd thought of that and will try it!
White bread (without preservatives) goes mouldy faster than some types of wholegrain breads. (White flour makes a better breeding ground—the simpler the structure, the easier to "digest" for a simple organism such as moulds. More sugar, less salt, less minerals, more humidity, less acidity, etc. all work in favour of the mould.)
Mould is present everywhere. I have found that it's easier to make good bread or other types of fermented products in the countryside. In a big city such as London, the air quality will have an impact on the shelf life of your bread. In particular, in a constantly changing environment it might not be anything you did differently.
One way of slowing down the moulding process is to keep the bread in the fridge (or even freezer) and "toast" it before eating. (Toasting will usually revive even stale bread, driving the last bits of humidity into the middle of the bread, the way it was when it came fresh out of the oven.)
I agree with @franko that a lack of preservatives combined with humidity causes mold spores to grow. Just a thought, but because bread boxes are meant to "regulate" the enviroment by restricting airflow, could it be that the bread is too warm when you put it in the breadbox? My thinking is the humidity would be effectively trapped in there resulting in the perfect conditions for mold. Maybe try leaving it on the cooling rack a bit longer?
Tx @DanTemkin; as stated in my reply above, I've always ensured the bread is STONE cold before putting it in the bin. Tx again.
Is there something else that would prevent the loaf moulding so
quickly?
You could either install or replace your bread-bin with one that has a UV light. This will kill mold and allow your bread to keep longer.
http://inventgeek.com/uv-mold-free-bread-box/
This probably isn't the type of answer you were looking for but I felt it appropriate for anyone who might not be aware of the benefits of a UV-lit bread box.
Homemade bread will mold fast because of lack of dough conditioners and other unhealthy additives. You can always slice and freeze, unused portion of first day and toast slices as you need them.
Thank you but see my answer at head of page; my homemade bread doesn't have "dough conditioners and other unhealthy additives."! And I never freeze or put bread in the fridge; in my experience, they ruin a fresh loaf. Rgds - Mike L
Try wrap your bread in clingfilm or store your bread in a new location. I suspect it might also be the temperature in the room, so it might be worth while moving this to a cupboard.
A recipe with less sugar and some salt might help. I follow the Panasonic recipe, and use a bare teaspoon of sugar and the same of salt, and a tablespoon of oil. The bread lasts 3 to 4 days in a bread crock.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.987510
| 2017-03-10T13:43:12 |
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|
74415
|
Brown rice syrup availability in India
I want to buy Lundberg Brown Rice Syrup for my baking needs. Is it available in India or, if not, from an online vendor without exorbitant delivery charges?
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.988624
| 2016-09-30T19:21:22 |
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75291
|
My German Apple Cake sank in the middle and I don't know how to fix it
I baked a German Apple Cake with a basic streusel on top.
It rose on the edges and fell in the center. I'm wondering if it was because the streusel did not reach the edges of the cake, or possibly because I put it on too early.
I followed the recipe I found on this website:
2 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups white sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
4 cups apples - peeled, cored and diced
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour one 9x13 inch cake pan.
In a mixing bowl; beat oil and eggs with an electric mixer until creamy. Add the sugar and vanilla and beat well.
Combine the flour, salt, baking soda, and ground cinnamon together in a bowl. Slowly add this mixture to the egg mixture and mix until combined. The batter will be very thick. Fold in the apples by hand using a wooden spoon. Spread batter into the prepared pan.
Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 45 minutes or until cake tests done. Let cake cool on a wire rack. Once cake is cool serve with a dusting of confectioners' sugar or with a Cream Cheese Frosting.
Strudel? Or streusel?
Also, it may help to include how much you added - the actual amount (and also the strudel vs streusel) may make a difference if you used enough to be a physical weight on the batter.
And did the cake test done before you removed it from the oven?
I don't see anything in the recipe about a streusel, as @Stephie comments. All of the ingredients are combined. Did you create a streusel out of the dry ingredients and top the cake? That could account for the problem.
Streusel, sorry. I did test that it was done before taking it out and the streusel covered the middle of the cake evenly. It didn't quite reach the edges, it was a basic recipe for it.
There are a few reasons a cake might sink. First, you may have added too much baking soda or the baking soda may have been old. Or, you may have allowed your batter to sit for too long. Both of these would contribute to your cake over rising and then collapsing.
Otherwise, most cake-sink cases have a lot to do with temperature. It's possible your oven doesn't reach the temperature it's set at (can be solved with handy thermometer) or you opened the oven too many times to check on your cake.
If you're concerned about the streusel, try to apply it in a thin even layer, although I've never had a problem with it being so heavy the cake won't rise. Hope this helps!
I think I understand the problem now, I have no idea how old the baking soda was. Thanks
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.988681
| 2016-11-05T19:02:38 |
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128872
|
Canola oil and dishwasher interaction
I have a sprayer that has a small glass bottle that holds oil for spraying pans etc. It has a very narrow neck.
I poured out most of the vegetable (100% canola) oil and put the glass part in the dishwasher, and after washing, a white-ish material appeared inside the bottle that was very, very close to glue- very sticky and very viscous, and a real hassle to clean out of the bottle.
What went on here, chemically, if anyone knows?
More relevantly to this SE, I've switched to olive oil now, could the same thing happen?
If it's sticky, the oil has polymerized. This can be speeded up with exposure to oxygen, sunlight, heat, and contamination with certain metals. The process may have started before you dumped the oil, and may have been accelerated in the dishwasher.
Canola oil is a semi-drying oil--as opposed to linseed oil or varnish, which will polymerize into a hard surface, or mineral oil which will never thicken due to oxidation. This is the process that creates sticky gunk on your range hood or other places near the stove that may not get cleaned promptly. It's also how cast iron is seasoned to develop a nonstick surface--in that case we do things to make it firmer and less sticky, such as polymerizing it in thin layers (and obviously exposing it to iron, which is a catalyst when it gets hot enough).
Also, it's not saponification as another answer claims. If you've made soap, you'll know the process is difficult. The lye (a much stronger base than what you'll find in detergents) needs intimate contact with the oil and lots of time. Little to no saponification would occur in a dishwasher.
Thanks- are all cooking oils pretty much the same in this regard?
@SpehroPefhany Technically they are not the same (in particular non-drying oils), but I think once you have enough heat and oxygen, they will all start to turn sticky and polymerize a little bit. With the possible exception of those that have antioxidant components, such as olive oil.
Sorry, this can't be right. Oil polymers aren't white. They also don't happen in a dishwasher - the conditions simply aren't right. I don't know for sure what that stuff is, but it's not oil suddenly polymerizing with itself during washing.
@rumtscho They turn milky/chalky when they absorb water. And I don't think the OP has given enough details for you to determine that that bottle wouldn't have contained gunky oil.
Something with a narrow neck can’t be effectively cleaned by a dishwasher. The jets of water simply can’t get to where they’re needed. Clean it by hand, with a bottle brush if needed.
Some of the detergent got in and partially saponified the oil, but the dishwasher was not able to rinse it out. This would have happened with any type of cooking oil.
Or use a bottle washer, which might be in your closet if you've ever made beer or wine; or might not. They are a very handy specialized tool if you have one.
Thanks! "Saponify" is the term. Nothing like soap though. more like if you scraped all the adhesive off a stack of post-it notes.
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.988950
| 2024-07-26T18:32:10 |
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129521
|
Glass and ceramic bakeware that dropped. Is it safe to use?
I had a cabinet that held glass and ceramic bakeware that fell off the wall.
Some dishes broke and are garbage. Some did not break or have no cracks.
Are the unbroken dishes safe to use as bakeware? Or should they be used only for leftover storage, like tupperware?
If a flake has broken off from an edge and left it sharp, but the vessel is otherwise usable, you can use carborundum (silicon carbide) or a ruby or diamond abrasive to smooth it.
If they are not broken/cracked/chipped, they are fine. Glass/Ceramics either break, or don't.
If you're feeling paranoid about missing a crack, put them in the oven and bake at 350°F/175°C for an hour. Anything you missed should be revealed by the stresses associated with thermal cycling. If you do that once without food in them you won't lose any food you happened to be cooking if one fails from a flaw you didn't notice at first.
If you do this, let them cool in the oven. Other ways of cooling them may crack them even if they were fine before.
And make sure you put them into a cold oven to let them heat up slowly. Although, if the goal is specifically to try to see how they handle thermal shock, I guess you could put them into a pre-heated oven, but I would put a sheet pan on the rack below (not in direct context with the glass or ceramic vessel) to catch some of the potential breakage. (one of these years, I will finish cleaning out the bits of glass from an exploded new pyrex dish that I heated to make yorkshire pudding before I knew they were no longer using borosilicate glass)
I would treat them largely the same as if cooking in them. Not trying to stress them any more, nor any less. So I'm not suggesting whipping them out of a hot oven and dumping ice or cold water in them, but I expect a casserole dish to be able to be removed from a hot oven and placed on an insulated pad on the countertop, for instance, as I'd do when removing a cooked dish from the oven to serve it.
Was just worried if the shock of dropping could have damage them in unseen ways. I know the shock from going hot to cold/cold to hot can cause them to break.
@crip659 It’s unlikely that the impact would have damaged them meaningfully, but in the very unlikely case that it has done so in a truly non-visible way, thermal cycling will usually cause enough stress to make that damage obvious. And it is indeed much better to find it out before you try cooking food in them instead of while cooking food in them.
How hot does a glass pan actually get in an oven when there's food in it? Presumably not far above 100 C, since water in the food will boil off instead of going above that temperature. But dry-ish foods could maybe let the pan get a bit hotter. So anyway, the point here is if it reaches the air temp of 175 C, that's significantly above where you'd normally get bakeware in cooking. Thus @Sneftel's point about being extra careful how you cool it this time.
@PeterCordes For anything other than particularly wet stuff (like lasagna) it will usually be more than just ‘a bit hotter’. If this wasn’t the case, then there would be no issue using standard glass in the oven, and you also would not get any appreciable degree of browning for the parts of the food in contact with the cookware (because you don’t get carmelization or the Maillard reaction to any useful degree below about 120 C).
@crip659 If you tap the vessels with a fingernail and they make a dull sound then there could be a crack. You should be able to locate the general area of the crack by tapping in different places.
@Ecnerwal When you're cooking with it though, the food can act as thermal ballast to slow the temperature changes when you take it out of the oven. So heating it up to standard cooking temperatures and taking it out empty is very much a "worst case" scenario. Of course, if it can stand that then it's probably still fine.
@Ecnerwal: The difference with having food is that the hot food acts as a heat reservoir and will keep the cook-wear hot longer than if you just whip an empty pan out of the oven and put it on the pad. Leaving it in the oven to cool will use the heat the oven picked up as a replacement heat source for the food that is not prsent.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.989216
| 2024-11-09T12:02:21 |
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80891
|
Beans soaking times, flavor vs flatulence
It is known that beans contain certain oligosaccharides that cause bloating and intestinal discomfort in some people, myself included. Some of these oligosaccharides are water soluble and will be leached out by soaking and discarding the soaking water before cooking.
I feel, however, that some of the flavor and color of the beans is also lost when soaking for a long time (eg overnight). Is there some table showing oligosaccharide leaching rates, so that I could try to figure out a sweet spot between flavor and proper soaking?
Note that I'm not wondering whether I should soak. I'm interested in oligosaccharide leaching rates.
Possible duplicate of Why should I soak beans before cooking?
I don't think it's a duplicate; my question accepts the premise that soaking improves cooking beans. I'm asking about optimal soaking times
Note that long, slow cooking also works (per this answer) just as well, if not better, so you may often not even need to know this.
Jefromi, if this is the case, and, for example, most of the oligosaccharide content is leached out after eg two hours, I think I'll still be better off with a short soak and then a long cook.
@nitzanms Hm, I guess it kinda depends - if the long cook suffices, you wouldn't actually need the short soak (if you really don't like soaking) but if you figure out that soaking in salt water works for you (I do think it's great) then you might as well have the short soak, or even a longer one. I did finally go search for some actual numbers to add to my answer, not quite the nice clean tables you want, but gives some idea.
Boil the beans in plenty of water for 5 minutes, let them rest for one hour, discard the water and then cook as usual. That way you get rid of bloating and flatulence. In addition, use this herbs: savory, bay leaf, cumin, fennel or clove. They help to avoid "gases" with cooked legumes.
@roetnig , this way pretty much guarantees flavor loss.
@nitzanms not at all, because the 5 minute boil is done with non-rehydrated beans. Anyway, you may test yourself and tell us afterwards.
For the actual numbers you asked for, I found rather a large variety, even from a small number of papers. All I really feel like I can say is that something like 12 hours probably gets you a substantial reduction (25-50%), and it depends on the bean.
Based on this paper which soaked for 3 and 12 hours, it looks like for many beans, including lentils and chickpeas, 3 hours did about as much as 12 hours, but for soybeans, it took the 12 hour soak to remove most (56%) of the oligosaccharides. (See figure 3, on page 430, and some actual numbers under "total oligosaccharide content" on the same page. The point of that study was to look at other industrial techniques, so it looks like the complete tables are only for those.)
But then this paper reports 25-42% reduction in various oligosaccharides from soaking the common bean for 16 hours, this paper reports 20-35% reduction in soybeans and groundbeans from soaking for 12-14 hours (or 17-24% for cowpeas), and from 1% for red beans to 28% for common white beans in this paper (don't have access beyond the abstract to get soaking times). A clear outlier, this paper reports insignificant reduction from soaking below 50C.
Note that the actual numbers were never far above 50%, which suggests that if soaking sufficiently long does indeed work for you, you're probably okay with a decent amount remaining after soaking. Presumably that's because the cooking will get rid of more, and some low level is tolerable.
On that note, I'm not sure this is a tradeoff you actually have to make. Many people actually think soaking specifically in salt water results in better beans with a softer, creamier texture (see for example this answer). If that works for you, there's no reason not to soak thoroughly, perhaps 8-24 hours.
If you disagree, and are okay with the texture when unsoaked, then good news: long, slow cooking also reduces flatulence, so soak as little as you like, then cook long and slow, and you should be okay. Note that "slow" really just means a simmer, as opposed to a vigorous boil that'll tend to tear the beans up a bit. As mentioned in the comments, some beans (including kidney beans, notably) do need an initial boil, but you don't need a full boil for the whole cooking time.
If somehow you're in the middle - you want some soaking for texture, but don't like the flavor after long soaks, and you don't want long, slow cooking - then yeah, I guess you would have that tradeoff. Based on the above numbers, you'd probably need 12 hours to get a solid reduction in larger beans.
Of course, basing things on those numbers is a little fuzzy anyway. What reduction do you actually need to be okay? And when it's borderline, what's your personal tradeoff between flavor and gas? And it depends on the type of beans too. So, it's your personal preferences that'll set the balance, and you'll have to take a stab at it to find out.
If you were really interested a more substantial table and want a qualitative idea how to fill in the gaps...
As a very rough approximation, you can assume that the rate of diffusion out of the beans will be roughly proportional to the concentration remaining in the beans. This is probably a really bad approximation for short times, because things in dry, contracted beans will not diffuse as easily as in wet, expanded beans - in reality, the first hour or maybe two might not be removing much, then this approximation would be better afterwards. There may also be some amount that's bound up in the beans and can't really be extracted like this, so when we say 50% has diffused out, we mean 50% of what was available.
So then you'd have (where x is concentration, t is time, k is a constant), x'(t) = -k * x(t), for which the solution is x(t) = x_0 * e^(-k*t).
(It's actually proportional to the difference in concentrations between beans and water, but since that concentration is just the removed concentration scaled by the ratio of volumes, all that ends up doing is adding a constant; you still get the same e^-kt behavior, trending toward equilibrium. And you always soak in plenty of water, so to first order, you can just ignore that.)
That is, each additional unit of time gives the same proportional reduction in concentration: if hypothetically two hours gets you down to 0.8 of the initial concentration, then four hours will get you down to 0.8 * 0.8 = 0.64 of the initial concentration, and so on. At that rate, it'd take 10 hours to get to 0.1 of the initial concentration. But the actual rate, the value of that constant, depends on the bean, and as you can see from the numbers, it probably varies wildly.
This rough relation would also apply to anything diffusing out - undesirable or not. So in the end it might not do much for you, beyond suggesting that if for example things are awful with a 2 hour soak and nearly okay with a 4 hour soak, then you should definitely be okay with another couple hours.
Is there a minimum cooking temperature to achieve that effect? I often roast meats at, say, 150F for many hours, but I suspect that would just leave me with hot raw beans.
@JoshuaEngel I've never heard of cooking beans at something below a simmer, and I don't think any of the papers I looked at did anything unusual in that regard. But I don't think a lower temperature is something to worry about; you can cook plenty long at a simmer, no need to try to go lower and slower.
Some beans contain serious amount of lectins, which can be toxic, with as few as five beans for some cultivars. Cooking at low temperatures makes them more bioavailable and therefore more dangerous. For this reason, beans should be brought to a boil and sustained at this temperature for a while (I think 5 minutes at 100C or more if boiling temps are lower).
@nitzanms Right, but that doesn't mean you can't simmer gently for a long time afterwards. The recommendation is 10 minutes for kidney beans, but that's nowhere near enough to actually cook them as soft as you want to eat them.
Agreed, @jefromi
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.989615
| 2017-04-13T17:56:15 |
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|
63649
|
Uncarved Pumpkin - is it still okay to cook with?
Is there a way to tell if the insides of my pumpkins are still okay to cook with? Assuming the innards smell okay, is it fine to eat? Is it possible for the pumpkin to smell fine but not actually be fine?
How does it sound?
Any soft spots or traces of mold? How does the stem look like and how did you store it?
Cut it open? ...sniffy sniff.
Not a duplicate -- the other one was about selection of pumpkins -- this one's about storage issues for one that you already have (which might not be all that great to cook with).
If anything, it's more closely related to http://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/20084/67
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.990571
| 2015-11-19T14:50:53 |
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|
63393
|
Difference between baking a cake in cooking range and microwave oven
I don't know much about the difference between cooking range and oven. But I just want to know what difference must be made to bake a cake using a cooking range.
I used to bake cakes in a microwave oven in micro+convection mode at 200 degree celsius. For that I preheat the oven at 200 degree for 15 minutes and then place the cake batter in the oven for another 15 minutes. And that cake used to come out really good.
But now I am using an electric cooking range that uses a gas cylinder. It has a knob to adjust the temperature and an option to grill. And inside it has holders at three different heights to place the tray. I don't know the exact word to describe my cooking system. Anyway all I want to know is what should be done to make the exact cake recipe which I tried in micro+convection mode at 200 degree?For what duration should I bake and at which height should I place the tray?
A range (also knows as cooker in some places) is a free-standing kitchen appliance with a cooktop (hob) on the top and an oven below. The oven sounds like a conventional gas oven and not a fan assisted (convection) oven. An oven will give you much better cakes than a microwave, you just need to get used to how your oven cooks.
Most recipes are written to be used in an oven and not a microwave convection oven, so for cooking times and temperatures you should simply go back to the recipe temperature and time for a guide. If the recipe is not available then you will need to do some trial and error. 200C seems a bit high to me, you could end up burning the outside and having the inside overdone. Many cakes are baked between 160 to 180C depending on the type and thickness, so for a conventional (non-fan) oven I would split that down the middle and go for 170C, (155 for a fan oven) and up the cooking time to 20-30 minutes. Try the middle rack your first time cooking in the oven.
One thing I would recommend is getting an oven thermometer. Many ovens, especially older ones, do not cook at the temperature you set, and can be much hotter or colder than you want leading to bad results. An oven thermometer will tell you how hot your oven actually is inside so you can set it properly.
Ok thank you so much.. My cake batter is ready now and let me try this out at a temperature of 170C as you mentioned. Thank you so much @GdD :)
It took about 1 hour and 10 minutes to get cooked. Anyway I am glad that it's cooked really well without any burning. :)
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.990691
| 2015-11-12T06:31:14 |
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|
79662
|
Does pasta continue cooking after being drained if left in the pot?
After a pasta is boiled to a desired texture, my friend and I agreed that, if we leave it in the water without adding heat, it would cook longer. We could not agree on what would happen if we drain the water but leave the pasta in the hot pot whether the cooking process would continue.
Is it a good idea to leave pasta in the hot pot to keep it hot while preparing other parts of the meal?
Does the pasta texture change significantly when exposed to low heat without water to absorb?
Not without some oil and mixing unless you want to risk a bunch of clumpy stuck pasta at the bottom of a pot.
Many people consider the "extra" steps overkill, but the classic method is to boil the pasta to al dente, not fully done, then quench it in cold water as you would with blanched vegetables to stop the cooking process and wash off any excess starch. Then add the pasta back to sauce or other heating parts for the dish and let it heat back up to temperature. This gets to the desired temp without over-cooking and much less clumping more easily.
Using the hot pan, which I have done before, without the quenching will typically result in either not enough heat retained, or some areas over cooked, others allowed to cool, and sticky, starchy pasta all possible to likely. I have done the finish heating when doing as simple of a "sauce" as a small amount of reserved starch water with salt, pepper and herbs and a touch of olive oil. Just enough to keep the pasta lubricated and moving in a hot pan as it heats and evenly distributes the spices. You get your warm pasta without it being overcooked or uneven, sticky and clumped.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.990931
| 2017-04-05T13:46:34 |
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|
75954
|
Storing chocolate
I bought some Mars Celebration and Cadbury chocolates and toffees yesterday in my local store in Australia. I'll take them as gifts for my friends when I return to my country, Bangladesh, in 6 weeks.
How should I store them. Is it okay to leave them at room temperature?
What is room temp? Are you in an air conditioned building or is it sweltering days where it's 90 F in the shade?
Your gifts can certainly be stored at room temperature, if the range is not much higher than 21-34 Celsius/70-75 Fahrenheit. They won't be harmed by placing them in the frig, either. However, you will want to take them in your carry on baggage, since end-of-year temperatures in Australia and Bangladesh can be quite warm. Should they become softened in transit, refrigerate them after you arrive. They might not look quite the same, but they're wrapped, and will firm up and taste the same.
My mother stored candy in a brown paper grocery sackin the freeer. It keeps for months this way. I have no idea WHY this works but I know it does!
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Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.991099
| 2016-11-28T17:45:14 |
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|
79652
|
Will my food continue to cook on the warm setting?
I want to start a meal in my crock pot and the recipe only calls for about 4 hours of cooking. However, no one will be home for another 3 hours to turn it off, but it will shut down and go to the warm setting. Once it sets itself to warm, will it still be cooking? I don't want the chicken to be overcooked.
It is hard to overcook chicken in a crock. I have gone a day on warm with chicken and other meats.
Note that you should also double-check that your crock pot's warm setting keeps the food above 140F - there's a good chance it is, but if it's not, it's not safe to hold food there indefinitely. (See for example http://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/59764/1672)
It's still going to be heated, so yes it's going to carry on cooking.
However, the temperature on the "warm" setting is going to be lower, so it will cook more slowly, and therefore you might be okay.
It's difficult to say for sure, because it depends on what exactly the temperatures involved are.
Yes, the "low" vs "high" settings on slow cookers are for different cooking times - really slow, or if you don't have that much time, the high setting.
If you look at the owner's manual, and the recipes in there, you can see that the dishes can be cooked on the low setting.
However, this assumes that you're talking about the low cook setting, and not an entirely different setting at altogether. The brand of slow-cooker might be helpful in this regard. Even in that case, if it's adding heat to keep it warm, it would still be cooking it to some degree.
Some models (I've never seen one in the UK but apparently they're common in the US) have a "warm" setting that's lower than "low". A maximum hold time is often stated as this mode can't be relied on to provide enough heat to maintain a safe temperature indefinitely
@ChrisH - This is where reliable appliances work against us. My slow-cooker dates back to the early 1990s. "Off," "Low," and "High." My mom sent me a newer model about two years ago, the box has yet to be opened. Maybe I should not answer unless the question specifically references "vintage" kitchen gadgets.
Our new one has "Medium" (and in the order "high, low, medium" at that). Medium cooks about as fast as high on the old one, high tends to overcook unless the pot is very full. They're not really standardised, but the recipes tend to be forgiving enough that it doesn't matter
@ChrisH - so the new high setting is really " 'slow' cooking for people too impatient for slow cooking"? lol
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.991213
| 2017-04-05T02:21:55 |
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|
61776
|
Frozen chicken vs thawed chicken in the crockpot
I was wondering- if the recipe calls for frozen chicken and to took for 6-7 hours but I use thawed chicken instead do I cook it for less time? Thanks!
You could cook it for less time, but it equally wouldn't make much difference if you just went for the full 6-7 hours, especially if you are using a forgiving cut like thigh.
I would, incidentally, be very wary about putting frozen chicken in a slow cooker. At the low temperatures a slow cooker uses, there is a good chance the chicken will be sitting in the 'danger zone' for longer than 2 hours, increasing the chances of food poisoning drastically.
+1 for food safety. See USDA FSIS Recs. for slow cookers for additional information.
Agree. Also there can be impact on taste. If the dish stays at a cool/luke warm temp then some enzymes in either the meat or the accompanying veg get to work efficiently and can significantly alter the taste and texture of the dish, not always for the better.
The only time I would consider cooking frozen food in a slow cooker directly is if it is cooked in a liquid bath - i.e., a soup, stew, or similar food where the frozen foods are fully immersed. Additionally, the food would have to be reasonably thin; a chicken thigh would be fine, for example, but a full chicken is likely too thick, and might take too much time even immersed. I would also only cook on high - so that there is at least a bit of simmering/bubbling to help the liquid move around a bit. See the USDA FSIS's opinion on the matter for more details.
However, if that were the case (that it were pieces of chicken, not a whole chicken, and fully immersed in a liquid), I would expect it to not add a whole lot of time to the cook time to be frozen. Thawing chicken pieces in boiling water takes a matter of minutes - maybe a half hour, at most - and so would not significantly effect the time you are talking about. If you've ever used even 'cold water' defrost, you know that moving water defrosts food very quickly. Moving hot water is even faster.
This is similar to cooking sous-vide, by the way. That is considered a safe way to cook frozen food, subject to certain size restrictions similar to above, because it is immersed in moving liquid. Most sous-vide recipes suggest adding about 20-30 minutes for frozen product, depending on the precise details. In my personal experience, it's even less; cooking frozen chicken thighs bone-in, for example, took only 15 minutes more to reach temp than raw unfrozen. That's cooking at 145°F, significantly lower than your slow cooker likely cooks at. Modernist Cooking Made Easy recommends 15 to 30 minutes extra for steaks, which I agree with as well.
But, again, I would not trust a recipe that asked for a frozen whole chicken or chicken parts and wasn't cooking it in liquid: I would go find another recipe.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.991442
| 2015-09-16T14:41:29 |
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|
62240
|
Home made popsicles sticking to mold
We had some great organic popsicles made from pineapple. They were a bit pricey so we decided to make some ourselves. The problem is that we can't get them to release from the plastic molds very well. Other than running them under hot water, is there a trick we can use to get these things to release a little easier?
Can't you just twist the container like you do with an ice tray
I think the hot water should be enough; dip quickly in a bath of very hot water and quickly release from the mold and put back in the freezer ASAP.
Try cleaning the plastic molds with a magic eraser. There could be very fine surface damage to the plastic that could be smoothed out.
Try silicone molds, I use them for ice cubes and they are much easier to release ice from than plastic trays.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.991710
| 2015-10-03T11:40:06 |
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|
66404
|
Mushy homemade dill pickle chips
We made about 13 gallons of homemade dill pickles last summer. These are made with vinegar, not the fermented type. Water bathed for 15 minutes in quart jars.
We kept the whole cucumbers on ice over night to chill them down. The next day we made spears and processed those. With the after bits, we cut them up into chips and processed the same way. The spears came out great but the chips were mushy and we wont eat them.
How can I fix this next time? Should I use less time in the water bath or should I have placed the left over bits in the fridge until I get to them or both? Maybe another trick I'm not thinking of?
Are you trying to fix the current batch or prevent it from occurring again?
Prevent it from happening again. We obviously did something wrong just not sure what to do next time. Will edit to make more clear.
Great! We get a lot of people hoping we can "fix" something after it's already messed up. The clarification is helpful. :)
I've seen Calcium Chloride used to make pickles crisper by adding the calcium to firm up pectin. I don't know when it might be necessary. I'm interested to hear what experiences people have had.
Hmm, we actually have a huge amount of food grade calcium chloride at our restoration shop to clean up old glass on historic windows. That would be neat if it would work. Will have to wait and see.
Leaves of the cherry tree, one of which I happen to have, are recommended in the settlement cookbook (1920's ed). They worked for me when I tossed them into my pickle jars.
Keeping vegetables directly on ice tends to create damage on a cellular level, leading to softness once the vegetables are processed. Next time, instead of using ice, consider a cold brine bath, with or without added vinegar, for your cucumbers and/or slices. If you have room in the fridge, you can store them there overnight. If not, put them in a non-aluminum pot, wrap it twice with bubble wrap to prevent direct contact with ice, and store the pot in a bucket or a larger pot filled with ice.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.991835
| 2016-02-10T20:15:42 |
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|
66250
|
Making white vinegar, question about rice wine
I'm going to start a batch of rice wine that will eventually be turned into vinegar. Is it important to age the wine for a long period for this use or can it be used after it has fermented for a few months?
Also, should I pasteurize the wine before the vinegar process or just leave that part out?
I'm making the wine only because it doesn't seem cost effective to buy it to turn it into vinegar. Store bought rice wine is twice as expensive as the vinegar itself. Is there a more cost effective way of doing this that I might be missing?
You should ask this in home brewing as well.
@Escoce please don't tell people to ask on another SE site "as well". Cross posting within the network is not allowed even when topics overlap. If this is on topic for Homebrew, we'll have to migrate, because brewing is not in our scope (see http://cooking.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic). I contacted the moderators from there first, because I am not sure if this falls in their scope. If it does not, I won't migrate.
Understood, I am a member there too, it's in scope or at least likely to be to
I know how to make the wine. I'm only unsure if it matters to age it for the purpose of making vinegar. I'm not sure a home brew group is best for practical advice on how to make vinegar but I haven't seen that group. I will check it out and join in case this gets moved.
Edited to show this is more about making vinegar than it is about making wine.
@JasonWhipple a lot of home brew goes into making vinegar which is just another stage along the life of a brew.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.992044
| 2016-02-06T15:02:21 |
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66217
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Brewing Hibiscus tea
I'm about to start a batch of Kombucha using 100% Hibiscus flowers as the tea. Just received a 1 pound bag of organic Hibiscus flowers. Can anyone give me some recomendations on amounts to use in a gallon of water and possibly some brewing methods for this type of tea? I know what to do for the Kombucha but I've never brewed Hibiscus flower for tea before and want to do it as nicely as possible before adding to the Kombucha first ferment.
There seem to be plenty of recipes for how to do it on the web. Is there something we can tell you that the recipes can not?
If I had to guess... answers might discuss pros and cons of hot vs cold brewing (probably the biggest categories of brewing methods) and reasonable range of ratios, in particular can you make it more concentrated then dilute? The question could be more explicit, though.
Yes, concentrate is what I usually do with green tea in my Kombucha so that I can add cold water to help it cool down quicker. The tea has to be room temperature when adding to the Scoby and starter tea otherwise it kills the beneficial bacteria that helps it ferment.
Catija, I'm looking for methods from people who are really into tea's. I've seen many posts here about tea brewing and the online searches just lead to a broad variety of directions that counter inform each other. I know we have some tea snobs here. ;) Would rather get their advice.
Have you asked this question at a specialty tea store. The ones out here will occasionally brew teas on site and give you good tips to follow.
I use 1 rounded teaspoon for 12 to 16 ounces (depends on the mug I'm using), so about 8 teaspoons (or about 2 1/2 tbsp) for a gallon of water. Hot water, just under boiling, is best. Ideally, the water is heated and poured onto the tea at just under boiling. Because I don't think you want to boil a gallon of water, I'd use the amount of hibiscus for a gallon of tea, but only use about a quart of hot water to start, let the tea steep in that (at least 5 minutes, longer will give a stronger flavor) then add the remaining 3 quarts of water.
I believe for kombucha you want something that's twice as concentrated, compared when you brew it for direct drinking. The fermentation process tends to dilute the flavour and aroma quite much.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.992220
| 2016-02-04T22:44:50 |
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125901
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Why did my twice-baked potatoes turn to goo?
I made twice-baked potatoes, using the NYT recipe*, but without measuring it precisely. The potato filling was creamy and mounded up to twice each potato half's height when I put it in the oven. By the time they were in the oven for 20 minutes, though (less than half the cooking time), the filling had liquified and was starting to ooze out of the potatoes onto the baking sheet.
Any idea why the filling didn't hold together, and became a gooey ooze at 400F? Like I said, I didn't measure the ingredients precisely, what did I maybe add too much or too little of? If I added too much sour cream or milk, it was only 20-50% too much, not triple.
* since it's paywalled, the recipe has:
baked russet potatoes
sour cream
butter
milk
cheese
It's pretty similar to most standard recipes, only without the bacon.
don't know what kind of cheese you were using for the filling, but bluee cheese melts (i usually use goat cheese, which does not melt). you had probably too much cheese+sour cream compared to the non-melting ingridients (or too much filling)
Fontina cheese.
Your potato filling had too little potato, the filling had too much liquid and fat in it, so it couldn't hold its shape. The recipe calls for russet potatoes, which are a dry potato, if you substitute a different potato with a higher water content it effects the balance. The recipe didn't specify the amount of potato, it just says '4 large russet potatoes'. American russets are usually pretty big, a different variety is likely to be smaller.
I haven't found an authoritative answer to the weight of a large russet potato is, however this answer to a previous question defined a large potato as being 300g, which is good enough for our purposes, so the recipe calls for approximately 1.2kg of russet potatoes before baking. Using that baseline if you use less potato you should scale the ingredients accordingly.
I suggest starting with less cream, butter, milk and cheese than the recipe suggests, testing by putting small amounts in the microwave on medium-low until you get the right consistency. That way you can adapt the recipe to different potato varieties.
Oh! Good analysis. One of my longstanding complaints about russet potatoes in the PNW is how they're smaller than the ones sold elsewhere in the country.
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.992431
| 2023-11-23T06:22:49 |
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75664
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Why use a kettle to heat water?
Whenever I need to heat up water for a French press or hot chocolate, I do it in the microwave. Is there a good reason to use a kettle instead of the microwave to heat water?
Cleaned up the very long discussion. If you know of an argument for kettles, please add it as an answer, not as a comment!
Bear in mind that I'm using an electric kettle, rather than a stove-top one.
First, the advantage of a kettle is that it is quite efficient, and turns itself off once the water is boiling.
This as opposed to the microwave, which only stops after a set time, rather than relying on the condition of the water.
Second, a microwave can cause water to superheat, particularly in a ceramic or glass container. This means that there is a certain risk that the water will "jump out" at you once you add something to it or put a spoon in.
Additionally, most kettles have more power than the average microwave, so the kettle is probably faster to boil water.
I thought the standard fix for #2 was microwaving the cup with a spoon already in.
I would stress the efficiency part. 'quite efficient' is... quite an understatement.
@FedericoPoloni I really hope this is a joke, and that everyone will get it...
@Quentin It's not a joke. It is safe to microwave a cup of water with a spoon in, and apparently it prevents it from heating over the boiling point. See for instance https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/234042/should-i-place-a-spoon-in-a-cup-of-liquid-before-heating-it-in-a-mircowave, or do some more research yourself if you don't trust it. Metal without anything else to absorb the microwaves is dangerous, and metal objects with different shapes can cause sparks. But water with a spoon is perfectly fine. I have done it many times.
@FedericoPoloni alright, well I've learned something, thank you. I have been raised to the "NO metal whatsoever in the microwave rule" and never really questioned it, especially since the time I forgot a spoon and made my own fireworks show inside :p
@Quentin More learning for you: Is it wise to use an aluminum foil in the microwave? Is there a substitute for the aluminum foil?
Also: Is it safe to boil water in a microwave?
Whether it arcs or not, it's potentially bad for the magnetron (or the microelectronics), for the same reason you shouldn't run them empty, except in this case they'd be actively reflected instead of just not being absorbed.
Whether a microwave oven can deal with a metal object at all is at best make and model dependent. It is unlikely to be universally safe.
In the manual of (at least) my first microwave oven it said should always put a spoon into a cup of liquid to prevent accidents. I always do that for more than 15 years now and never destroyed anything with this.
@Mazura: The link you give only claims it's dangerous when there are arcs (and even that's unsourced). Reflections in a microwave over are entirely normal - that is how the walls and the door work! They're not harmful in themselves. Running empty is dangerous because the waves are not absorbed at all, which means the magnetron source keeps putting more energy in the microwave field without that energy turning into heat. But that's not the question here.
@rackandboneman Why do you expect so? The physics behind microwave ovens is essentially the same regardless of make and model. Actually the make and model of the spoon may be a bigger factor (in case they have 'unsafe' decorations -- something with this shape is quite likely to cause sparks).
Different magnetrons and also different power supply designs for these could differ widely in resilience to fault conditions like this.
I think the primary considerations are convenience (how much effort is it to set up and use the system?) and time spent (how long does the system take to heat the water?).
A standard electric stove can have 2500W elements, and most of this energy will go into a kettle sitting on the element and thus heat the water. Even a big built-in microwave won't be rated at much more than 1000W, and a fair percentage of that is wasted in heating the magnetron (I've found citations of 30% to 50% wasted power). So, all else being equal, a kettle on a stove will heat a body of water 2-4 times as fast as a microwave oven.
If you're instead talking about electric kettles, then in the US (120VAC) they're 1000W to 1750W with very high efficiency, so they'll still be faster than anything but a stove or a commercial microwave. In the lands with 220VAC power, electric kettles can be up to 3000W, which would be even faster than a stove-top kettle.
With a mug of water the convenience of a microwave may outweigh the lost time, but if you're heating a liter or more of water then you probably want to pull out that kettle.
Electric kettles have heating coils that are designed around convection currents to increase the rate of water heating. It is surprising how fast a smaller amount of water boils in those things. Definitely much faster than what is possible in a microwave.
This answer is incorrect (in the first part, anyway). Electric stove is far lower efficiency than microwave. See this article for example.
@JoeM Um, what? Your article clearly states the electric kettle is the most efficient... From the article: "The clear winner is the electric kettle, at 81% efficient, followed by the microwave, at 47% efficient, with the stove being the Hummer H2 of the bunch at 30.5% efficient. "
Your first paragraph seems to imply that an electric stove is highly efficient. "Most of that energy..." Electric stoves are 30% or so efficient. 30% is not "most" by any effect. The electric kettle is clearly the superior choice, but your answer sort of tacks that on the end. You also misunderstand how a microwave's power is measured (or, advertised).
Much of the heat from a stove goes into the room, they're horribly inefficient.
I don't agree that stoves are that inefficient (see my comment below), but in any case my answer is mostly about speed, and the energy lost in inefficiently heating a cup of water is just about nil.
I think the correct answer to this question is solely focused around electric kettles and not stovetops, and if you want to go into more details on the stove side of things you're going to need to cite more sources (some of the ones from your comment would be a good start). Either way, I think you're going to find a lot of people disbelieving your argument that a stove is faster; I know that when I want to quickly boil pasta water, if I put equal portions into a microwave, the stove, and my kettle, my stove is about the same as my microwave - and I have a high powered gas stove.
@JoeM ... why? The original poster asked about a kettle, and hasn't posted since.
I've considered getting a standalone induction burner because they supposedly are great for boiling water. This one is claimed to be able to boil 2 quarts in around 7 minutes and the article goes on to claim it takes 16 minutes on an electric range.
@JimmyJames Why not just use a full induction range? And yes, they have a ridiculously fast boil speed.
@Deleted I've got a gas range and I'm pretty happy with it. It's not one of those giant 6-burner things though so having an extra burner (that doesn't stay hot) on the island would be nice when making a big/complex meal.
Also, you need to take into account steeping temperatures for tea and coffee, as well as the brand of hot chocolate your using, as in its melting point and solubility. TLDR How hot do you need the water to be and how much water do you need to heat.
Convenience
Using an standalone electric kettle device provides for a convenient and safe way to boil water without minding.
Because of automatic power-off feature, you know the water will be at the correct temperature, not too cool and not too hot.
No danger of boiling dry in devices with a safety Off feature.
If you are delayed in using the water, just hit the button for a quick re-boil. Some devices can even maintain a desired temperature automatically.
Also, you might have all 2, 4 or 6 stove tops occupied (or some unusable due to overhanging large pans) ; you might not have a microwave oven or not have it in convenient reach. And a kettle can simply be emptied and shelved after use, so you are not taking permanent counter space.
The kettle is more efficient. Nearly 100% of the energy is converted by Joule's law into heat into the water (the kettle is also heated and it makes some noise so it's never 100%, but near). Microwave ovens at the other hand usually have a 60-65% power efficiency just for microwave generation. So if both electrical appliances have a same power, the kettle will be faster and cheaper in energy. Kettles and also cheaper, but microwave ovens can be used for more things that just boiling water. Having a more specific purpose appliance, a more generic one, or both, will be interesting according to your needs, just like bikes, cars, running shoes, tools or whatever you imagine: how often will you use it, can a more generic and less specific solution be enough, what's the price, etc.
Where I live, natural gas is far cheaper than electricity. So, using a kettle on the stove is “best” from this point of view. I happen to have solar power, so in the daytime it’s cheaper to use my own electricity instead.
I used to have another item not discussed on this thread: an instant boiling water tap. That was certainly the handiest, until it broke.
Plus kettle lives on stove, where I always know where to find it. No need to dig up the Pyrex measuring cup for the microwave. Besides, when I'm boiling for tea, I'm using the micorwave and another burner for other stuff.
Measuring cup? Why not just heat in the serving mug?
An electric kettle is about 80% efficient, for around 1200W of power, and takes around 2 minutes to boil 12oz of water.
An electric stove is about 30% efficient. A 1250W burner would take about 5 minutes to boil 12oz of water; even a 2500W burner (the highest I've seen) would take 2.5 to 3 minutes (you would lose some efficiency as the heat increases).
A microwave oven shows the efficiency directly: a 1100W microwave is not using 1100W but is outputting 1100W (using something higher, probably 1500W for example). A 1100W microwave would take 2.5 or so minutes to boil the water, a 900W microwave would take a bit over 3 minutes.
As such, the electric kettle is clearly the superior choice, but it's not necessarily that much faster for a small amount of water. The microwave may be better when you consider the amount of time it takes to get out the kettle, fill it, etc. compared to directly heating a cup of water.
Numbers largely come from this article.
Only if you put your kettle away! It usually has pride of place on a worktop near an electric socket in British kitchens because we use them so much.
Electric stoves are far more than 30% efficient. According to the California Energy Commission, induction stoves are 90% efficient, standard electric ranges are 65% efficient, and gas stoves are 55% efficient. And here is a source which says an electric burner uses 25% less energy than a microwave to boil a cup of water.
Where does the other 20% go? I expect inefficiency to lose energy as heat, but when heat is what’s wanted how can you be inefficient?
Any electric resistive heater is 100% efficient by definition.
Some of the heat doesn't go into the water, though.
There are a couple reasons why people might heat water on the stove instead of in the microwave - not all of them are strong reasons, but they can influence people nonetheless.
One point is, there is a perception that the method of heating changes the water. I've heard that the flavor is affected, if water is heated by microwave or on stovetop. I've heard that there may be deeper changes in the water - there was an anecdote floating around about how plants watered with previously-microwaved and cooled water vs never-microwaved water did not thrive, implying possible health issues with microwaved water (generally issues assumed to be long term and long scale use of microwaved water, not casual use).
I am not saying there is a difference in flavor or in health benefits, but there is some kind of anecdotal, hand-wavish perception there that people may be drawing from.
On the more practical side, it can be difficult to figure out how much the water needs to heat. On a stove top, the water will simmer then boil in visible markers, in the microwave, it just sits still and can vary in temperature (random example, it took a minute and a half longer to heat my mugful of water in the winter as opposed to summer, in my old microwave. Haven't sussed out my new microwave yet). If you're not familiar with the microwave's quirks (or compensating for the conditions), water can easily come out a little cool, or superheated, which is kind of annoying - especially if you're using it for something where water temp actually matters, like brewing tea.
I suppose part of the difference is the microwave takes less time and is supposed to be more reliable, which is why the small differences between times with different models or conditions seems so much more annoying than stoves, which everyone knows will take more time.
Also on the practical side, it's usually easier to heat larger amounts on the stovetop. An occasional mugful is quick in the microwave, but if you're having several cupfuls in in a row (or for several people) it's easier to keep a big pot warm on the stove than heat several mugs in succession.
As for the difference between a pot on the stove and a kettle - well, you've got me there. I suppose there are benefits to having a pot dedicated to just boiling water (much easier to clean, I guess?), and the kettle is specialized for the task - but I've always just used a when heating water and never missed the difference.
"As for the difference between a pot on the stove and a kettle - well, you've got me there." The kettle has a spout!
Of course, knowing the quirks of your stove is also rather important. I moved recently and got an induction stove, which is ridiculously fast—and that’s dangerous! Step out of the room for a moment and come back to absolute mayhem. Oops. On the plus side, it’ll bring a pot with about 2.5 litres of water to boiling in less than three minutes, which is far better than a microwave or kettle (if I could find a kettle that big) could ever hope to accomplish.
I should note that the thing about microwaved water killing plants/being less good for plants has been thoroughly debunked. However, I'm pretty sure there's a flavour difference between boiling water in an electric kettle and in the microwave. I suspect this might have something to do with the kettle's metal base/element and the microwave using plastic or ceramic containers. It's subtle, though. And as a Brit, we understand that microwaves are too slow when you want a cup of tea!
@DavidRicherby - I am shocked! This is genuinely new information! I did not know this! (actually the specialization tradeoff of easier to pour and harder to clean just balances out for me. shrug.)
@MatthewWalton - Yeah, I make no claim on the health thing, I just noted that people have heard of it (both the original and the debunking), and it may color their actions. The flavour difference might also depend on the circumstances, some people notice is, and some don't, possibly some materials cause it and some don't - so I'm just sticking with the truth that for some people, these perceptions are a factor.
The flavour difference might also depend from the fact that kettles are not usually washed often, and limescale tends to accumulate.
«but I've always just used a when heating water» a what?
@JDługosz - a...regular pot. instead of a specialized kettle. I'll fix it another time.
The other answers so far have made it clear that energy efficiency is the main advantage of using an electric kettle. What nobody has mentioned, however, is the fact that most modern kettles have a "minimum fill" line which usually corresponds to several cups' worth of water. I live alone, so if I want a cup of tea I always microwave it, because it's still going to be more efficient than heating twice as much water as I need in a kettle. When people visit, I put the kettle on.
Again in the context of tea and coffee, microwaves have another slight efficiency advantage over what the numbers show, because you don't have to heat the water all the way to boiling. Remember that you can't actually drink boiling water - even after the time it takes to prepare your beverage, the cooldown from adding milk, etc., you may need to let it stand a while before you can drink it. After a bit of practice, a microwave user can hit the exact water temperature for instant enjoyment, and no more. (Plus, I'm convinced the tea tastes better when the water is microwaved - probably because of the slightly lower temperature; pouring water straight from the kettle onto the teabag gives it a weird flavour sometimes.)
I don't know if I've answered your question or the inverse of it, but those are my reasons for favouring the microwave for small volumes of water. (FWIW, I come from a family of mug-microwavers - everybody I know thinks we are weird - and in several decades of experience I've never witnessed the superheating problem that so many people associate with water in the microwave. Just use sensible heating times and it's not at all dangerous.)
The minimum line can often be ignored especially if you're standing right there. With the water just about covering the element the kettle will work just fine (though in some cases it appears to be a little slow to switch off. If you're waiting to make a drink you don't have to let it boil either
most modern kettles have a "minimum fill" line - I find that false. Most modern kettles I've seen have flat heating element and no minimum fill. Obviously the same for kettles you use on the stove. Oh, and increasing numbers of electric kettles have temperature setting, so you do not need to heat your water all the way to boiling.
@ChrisH True. But for those of us with short attention spans who like to walk away... there plenty of things you can get done in 2m 20s :)
I'm sort of skeptical that practice will make your water temp consistent - I know the time it took to heat my mugful varied quite a bit from winter to summer (by a minute and a half at the most), between the temp variations in the tap water and the apartment, and even if I already figured that out after lots of experimentation - that's just the most extreme difference, the actual temp and conditions keep changing over time. it would be very easy to overheat the water on a warm day or have it come out lukewarm on a cold one, or consistently over- or under-heat all of a season.
If you're making tea, the water does actually need to be very close to the boiling point for the infusion process to work properly.
Automatic Temperature Control
This is the main reason I use an electric kettle instead of any of the other options, and has yet to be mentioned in any of the other (admittedly very good) answers.
I primarily boil water for steeping tea, and as tea aficionados will tell you, many types of tea taste better when steeped with hot but not boiling water.
Traditionally you would either have to wait for the water to reach the desired temperature (say 180 degrees Fahrenheit for example), or boil the water and then wait for it to cool to the desired temperature, either by guessing the temperature or using a thermometer. With my electric kettle I can simply select what temperature I want to produce and my kettle will heat the water until it reaches the desired state. Of course with the microwave you can't leave a thermometer in the water while heating (at least I would be wary of doing so), so you would have to either frequently pull the water out to test it, or boil the water and then wait for it to cool back to the desired temperature.
This has the following advantages over the microwave or stovetop:
You can't forget about it and either overheat the water or wait too long and have it cool off too much (great for forgetful people like me)
It is much lower effort since it handles the process automatically
When you want to do another batch it is easy to heat back to the same point repeatedly or increase the temperature by small amounts as desired.
You don't need an external thermometer since the kettle has one built in
My microwave has a load sensor, so adjusts to the size of the bowl or plate I’m heating, automatically. “reheat soup” gives consistent results.
@JDługosz That's interesting, does it let you pick the temperature you want to heat it to?
No, it’s not configurable.
No-one mentioned that you are supposed to pour the hot water onto the target (tea-bag, usually, these days).
In addition to being easier to control the temperature, easy to know when the temperature is correct, and not heating the drinking receptacle, a kettle is also easier to pour out of.
If you heat the water in a microwave in the cup, do you then try to dip your teabag into the hot cup and hot water, or do you pour the water carefully from that cup into another one with the teabag in it? In which case, why not just use a kettle?
Interesting, but the original question mentioned coffee and hot chocolate, not tea.
Hah - touché. However, I think the first part of my answer still stands.
1. Efficiency
A microwave first converts the electric energy to microwaves, then send those waves into the chamber and there they are absorbed by an item inside. All of those processes are lossy, that is some of the energy is wasted as heat not in the food. You can hear a microwave fan that cools the electronics inside. That is the heat that's blown out into surrounding air and not into your water.
An electric kettle on the other hand, is a simple resistive heater. It means that all the energy going in gets converted into heat where you need it, that is on the heating element submerged in water.
This means that microwave will use more electricity to heat same amount of water to same temperature:
The magazine’s researchers discovered that an electric burner uses about 25 percent less electricity than a microwave in boiling a cup of water.
2. Power
Microwaves usually top at 800W range, while for a kettle, 800W is rather small one, a 1500W is common. This means that safe to assume that typical kettle will heat same amount of water in half the time.
Those are 2 biggest reasons why kettle is obviously better. There are many others, some mentioned here, although they are less prominent and often depend on your personal style or beliefs.
But - there are also reasons why sometimes it's better to use microwave:
People tend to overfill the kettle. Even when they need just a cup, they tend to fill it to the max (let's say 4 cups). This means that heating of remaining 3 cups is wasted, as this water will be left standing and cool down. That drops the efficiency to abyssal 25%! If you can't judge the amount of water before pouring it into kettle, then microwave can be more energy efficient after all.
Need of a certain temperature below boiling point. If you need water eg for melting chocolate, and you need it at certain temperature, then it's much easier to do it in a microwave. You can learn that eg 1 cup at 800W and 25 seconds yields the exact temperature you need. This is repeatable. Trying to do it in a kettle would require you watching it with a stopwatch, much less convenient and prone to errors.
Take into account steeping temperatures for tea and coffee, as well as the brand of hot chocolate you're using, as in its melting point and solubility in water/milk/cream. (TLDR How hot do you need the water to be and how much water do you need to heat). Electronic kettles and a pot on the stove give you temperature control but 1-2 minutes in a microwave will get you boiling point water temps (212 Fahrenheit/100 centigrade), this is mainly because microwaves are built to heat water molecules in food, to heat/thaw the food. So your microwave will heat the water faster than the stovetop and electric kettle.
The electric kettle is specially used for boiling water, and his existence must have his own reason, and the speed of heating the electric kettle water is very fast, which can improve efficiency.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.992698
| 2016-11-20T02:13:01 |
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|
78613
|
My hot sauce pops
I am a hot sauce producer and I'm dealing with some problems that I think have to do with the hot weather.
When I finish my sauce (processed with a fruit-based paste and put in plastic bottles to funnel it into the sterilized glass jars) sometimes, in about 2 weeks, when I turn the lid, it pops and looks like it's fermented. The smell is bad.
Sometimes, I leave the sauces in the plastic bottles and even in there, they pop and ferment. I really don't know if it's fermenting but it looks like it.
Anyone has had a similar experience in making hot sauces?
Sometimes I process with balsamic vinegar.
Can you help me?
Is the plastic also sterilized? Are you properly sealing the glass jars? How do you close the glass jars?
The plastics are not sterilized. I do that with boiled water?
I probably wouldn't do that. The plastic could melt. Could you try a metal canning funnel and a metal ladle that you sanitize with the jars? All of this is moot if the jars aren't being properly sealed after being filled. The sealing process is most likely where the problem lies.
Additionally, how is your sauce cooked and processed? Is cooking the final step in your process? If it's not, there's also another issue.
"I am a hot sauce producer" ... so you are selling a commercial bottled product while still having issues with uncontrolled spoilage ....?
No. This kind of Spoilage is 2% of my production. But I still wanna make it 0%.
With a failure rate that low, I'd imagine it's just a couple cans that aren't properly sealing when you go through the canning process, which is pretty normal. I would very carefully check each can to make sure it has sealed properly after the canning process before putting it away. If you find some improperly sealed, just do the canning process again. Also make sure you're using new lids. Without industrial tools it'll be very hard to get a near 0% failure rate. Good luck.
Yeah I know that. The process is all homemade. But I will buy industrial equipments to legalize the production. My intentions is to export these beauties.
i just takes one bad bottle to cause severe illness leading to pain, vomiting, huge health care bills and possibly DEATH.
@Alaskaman Really helpful information. Noted
If you are using sterilised containers and equipment, I expect the problem with fermentation lies with your fruit based paste. Is this a home made, or bought product, does this get heated, and if so what temperature does it get to? As it may suggest an issue with killing/controlling the level of yeast in the mixture. Note: I expect you do not have any added yeast into your recipe, but may not have accounted for the amount of yeast/bacteria in the air and other sources.
Have you considered the use of a food preservative, natural or artificial?
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.994591
| 2017-02-21T20:53:40 |
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|
16286
|
Frothing Milk: Variations by Milk Type?
I froth my milk using the steam wand on my espresso machine. With a national-brand organic whole milk, I am able to get a perfect micro foam nearly 100% of the time. However, when I instead use a local, grass-fed, organic whole milk (whose flavor I prefer to the national brand), I am only able to produce a perfect micro foam about 20% of the time. What could be causing this? Could it be differences in the fat content? (They are both labeled "whole".) Does it have something to do with the fact that the national brand was likely from grain/corn-fed cows, whereas the local brand is grass-fed?
Update: The local milk is homogenized and pasteurized. It does not say anything about ultra-pasteurization (i.e., HTST vs. ESL). The "national brand" milk is homogenized and apparently comes in both "pasteurized" and "ultra-pasteurized" forms. I'm not sure which one I usually get, but if I had to guess I'd say it's ultra-pasteurized (i.e., ultra-heat treated) because the national brand usually has a sell-by date at least a week after the local milk's expiration. According to their nutrition labels, both have the exact same nutritional content except:
Sugar (per cup)National: 11gLocal: 12g
Cholesterol (per cup)National: 30mgLocal: 35mg
Vitamin C (% of Daily Value per cup)National: 0%Local: 4%
Vitamin A (% of Daily Value per cup)National: 4%Local: 6%
Protein content is reported as identical.
Update #2: As I mentioned in a comment to TFD's answer, I let the local milk age for several days and now I seem to be getting better results (although I am now at the cusp of its sell-by date). Perhaps there is some psychological effect going on and I am paying more attention to my technique now, though. If in fact this success is due to the aging, can anyone explain why? What happens over time that allows the milk to froth better?
Are both homogenized, or only one of them? And what about pasteurization temperature? (Homogenized should form a more stable foam. ESL will break down more proteins as compared to classic pasteurization).
Both are homogenized. I'll check the pasteurization temperature once I get home today.
Let your milk age a bit; a day or two extra in the fridge should fix the problem.
Your local milk is too fresh.
Perhaps there is some psychological effect going on and I am paying more attention to my technique now, but I let the local milk age for several days and now I seem to be getting better results (although I am now at the cusp of its sell-by date). If in fact this success is due to the aging, can you explain why? What happens over time that allows the milk to froth better?
Despite the fact that I am still not 100% sure why this happens, I am marking this as correct because it basically solved my problem. My working theory is that the milk's proteins denature over time, which allows for better foaming (much in the same way that egg whites foam better when acidic cream of tartar is added to denature some of the proteins).
@ESultanik in NZ we have milk products designed just for latte's (microfoam). When cafe's order it they can get it pre-aged. It works because...um err, I don't think anyone really knows why, it just does :-)
Check how much protein your milk contains, that makes the main difference in the behaviour of the milk during frothing. See CoffeeGeek for a more detailed explanation.
This is a great link. But our guideline is to summarize the relevant info in the answer, as a precaution against linkrot. Do it, and I'll be very happy to upvote you.
If you want to make milk froth/foam for using with espresso, you should put 0% fat milk in a blender/mixer; this produces a very thick foam.
From what I understand (perhaps I am misinformed), that procedure will produce a "dry macrofoam." I am trying to produce a "wet microfoam."
I find that milk from grass-fed cow does not froth. Don't know why, but that is the case with several brands. Very disappointing.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.994868
| 2011-07-20T12:11:26 |
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|
60084
|
Other ways to preserve red cabbage
We have 3 nice heads of red cabbage to pick soon. We are most likely going to can it all as sweet and sour cabbage but before we do that I was wondering if there are other ways to preserve it using the canning method.
We most commonly braise it under some confit duck legs. That recipe is altogether more complicated than the method we use (usually just a bunch of herbs, an onion or two and some red wine, not red wine vinegar) but I'd start with theirs and simplify.
Like a lot of fresh veg, it can be frozen if you blanch it first. Essentially cut it up, boil a portion for 90 seconds, cool it rapidly, dry it and then seal each portion in a vac-pack bag before freezing it. This is great if you have unlimited freezer space... And you really like cabbage.
If you're desperate to can something —per the question tags— I'd either confit some duck thighs in duck fat in some cans (what the French do, seriously though you need to try duck and cabbage together), or do some pickled cabbage. It needs quite a sweet pickle and it's not as nice as pickled beetroot (that'll probably attract a downvote) but it's still a worthy sandwich stuffer.
If you get really bored of pickled cabbage, you could throw the rest of the allotment in, and make a piccalilli. Great way to hide some cauliflower and it keeps forever.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.995286
| 2015-08-20T15:01:46 |
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|
78353
|
Is there a substitute for cheese salt?
I've started to learn how to make cheese and all the recipes call for cheese salt. What is it about this particular salt that makes it different than others? Some of the reading I've done have a few comments that suggest there is no difference between cheese salt and fine table salt. Is there another substitute for cheese salt if for some reason in the future I can't get my hands on any? I'm mostly interested in making hard cheeses that will need to age for 3 to 6 months.
When I saw this in the HNQ, I assumed that "cheese salt" was some kind of cheese-flavoured salt, like garlic salt only cheesy.
Cheese salt is just non-iodized salt, generally in flake form; the iodine would interfere with the cultures, and flakes are good for salting surfaces. So kosher salt and flaky sea salt are both essentially the same thing and viable substitutes.
Sea salt naturally contains iodine. If iodine interferes with cheese cultures, why is sea salt a viable substitute? Is it a question of the iodine concentration, or different kind of iodides?
It's the concentration, I believe. Iodized salt has enough added to be a nutritional supplement, effectively.
Also, from Wikipedia on iodized salt: "An opened package of table salt with iodide may rapidly lose its iodine content through the process of oxidation and iodine sublimation." I suspect that sea salt might lose a fair bit of iodine the same way during production? I'll try to see if I can find actual numbers though.
Cheese salt basically is kosher salt. Look at this Curd Nerd page about salt to check out what others say. Yes, it will make a difference; just buy non-iodized salt - which you should be able to get almost anywhere, methinks.
My first attempt was a bit of a wreck. I didn't know about Ultra pasteurized milk but I was able to rescue it and came out with a nice ricotta.
@JasonWhipple you might try connecting with the Ohio Cheese Guild for resources, and lots more
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.995447
| 2017-02-12T14:55:41 |
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|
13738
|
How do I get good results with marinaded venison?
I had some deer ragout and let it marinade one day in wine, brandy and with some spices. Then I added some fresh vegetables, cold water and put the heat on. Let it simmer for a couple of hours.
The result was OK, but not great (and don't we all aspire for greatness?). How can I improve on this technique? Should I have pan fried the meat first?
What cut of venison was it? This makes a big difference on how 'best' to treat it. What was only 'OK' about it?
See my reply below.
It sounds like the problem might be that the meat might have been a bit dry rather than tough as such. Paradoxically cut of meat which are tender when cooked quickly because they have little fat or connective tissue (esp loin) can end up bland and dry after slow cooking. If you fry off the meat and vegetables in a bit of butter and add a bit of venison or beef stock during cooking they will add some extra succulence to the meat and give a richer sauce. Frying off something like pork belly or streaky bacon in the pan before you add the marinated meat can also help.
Generally if the meat has distinct chewy bits in it it needs more marinating, if lean chunks of meat are hard to chew it's because it's dry/overcooked. Note that dryness in meat is to do with the fat/stock content and isn't really affected by it just being cooked in liquid or not ie cooking in wine or water won't make meat any less dry.
Also for a really tasty dish you want to build up several layers of flavour, game can take quite robust seasoning and tends to work well with a balance of bitter and sweet flavours so combinations like blackberry and juniper are commonly used with venison.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.995631
| 2011-04-04T22:06:28 |
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|
60205
|
Is eating uncooked spaghetti dangerous?
Sometimes I like to eat some (15 to 20 pieces) uncooked and dry spaghetti from the store as a snack.
Still, I am worried a little about salmonella and other such things, so my question:
How safe is eating uncooked spaghetti?
Thank you
Are you talking about dried or fresh pasta? Dried pasta does not need to contain eggs but can be added for flavor. Amazon lists the ingredients to Barilla pasta as "Semolina, Durum Flour, Niacin, Iron (Ferrous Sulfate), Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid."
@clcto Edited the question to be clearer. Yes, dry spaghetti from the store and any reason not to eat them. Thanks
You might poke yourself in the eye with dry spaghetti. It should hydrate enough in your stomach so as not to poke holes in your intestines or anything horrific like that. No way you'll get a watermelon or squash growing out of you with spaghetti.
Yes and no; in smaller quantities; no problem. If you sit down in the morning and eat bowl daily; you will cause some serious long term issues.
Raw flour is full of lectins and phytates; which can pose a danger in higher amounts; damage the lower GI and cause IBS; other issues
Nutrient problems can develop from the raw flour intake at higher amounts
Bacteria standpoint; no problem; eat away.
As the comment mentioned; some fresh pasta could be harmful because of the raw egg.
Dried pasta is also pretty tough on your teeth.
Well, except for flour mites...
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.995830
| 2015-08-24T15:08:53 |
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|
123552
|
Does oven polenta actually work?
Several sources give recipes for making polenta (cornmeal porridge) in the oven instead of on the stovetop. Among them are: America's Test Kitchen, Epicurious, NYT, and Martha Stewart. I got the recipe I tried from Deb Perlman's Smitten Kitchen Keepers, which went:
put 4.5 cups room-temperature water and 1 cup polenta in a casserole dish and stir
cover tightly
bake at 375F for 40 minutes
What I ended up with was 3 cups of water on top of a layer of hot, wet, but undercooked polenta. I had to finish it on the stovetop.
My hypothesis is that doing polenta in the oven doesn't actually work. This is upheld by those recipes, which each have different temperatures, proportions, steps, and cooking times, and that those sources mostly never mention oven polenta again.
Am I wrong? If I am, why did it fail so dramatically for me?
(just to eliminate some of the obvious: my oven is calibrated, and the polenta was fine once I cooked it on the stovetop, so it wasn't "too old")
Silly question, did you mix it before you baked it?
Yes. Let me add that to the steps.
I've never baked polenta, so I am not putting this down as an answer. I have noticed that different brands have different coarseness, and that does effect cooking time on the stove, so baking it longer may be the answer. Also, if you start with cold water it will take half the 1 hour baking time to get it hot. I see no reason it wouldn't work try baking it longer.
GdD: yeah, it was pretty clear that it was going to require at least another hour, assuming it worked at all, so I didn't wait.
It is only truly polenta if it is made from fine yellow maize meal. If you make it with coarse white maize meal then it is what is known in Southern Africa as Pap. A staple food in much of Africa. If you make stif pap then it is stywe-pap. If you make it with a crumb texture then it is krimmel-pap. That is the Afrikaans words for it.
I have cooked polenta in the oven several times. I found the most success by starting with hot water so that I when I stirred the water and polenta it thickened up a bit. I think this helps it hold together instead of separating. I like to make a very firm polenta, so I used 2:1 water to grains and that worked well. Because it was so thick I found an immersion blender was helpful to stir it all before baking. I have also tried 1:1, but that came out more like a thick cornbread so I don't recommend that.
One of the linked recipes says to stir half way through cooking. Maybe yours failed because it wasn't mixed enough, and it separated too much before it got hot enough to stay mixed together? If you try again I suggest any or all of:
Making sure it is mixed enough initially.
starting with hot water so it soaks up more water right away and stays mixed
stirring halfway through
The more water you use, the more effort it make take to keep it homogenized. If you are using close to or over 4:1, then you might need to pay closer attention to mixing it thoroughly initially or part way through. For all the old mythology about cooking polenta, it is a very flexible grain to cook.
My preferred recipe for a extra firm polenta:
Boil 2 cups water
Mix 1 cup polenta and 3/4 t salt thoroughly with water in a bowl (immersion blender makes this easy)
Add to a greased cooking vessel and bake at 350 for 40 minutes to an hour.
Put in the refrigerator to firm up. If you leave it uncovered then it will create a dry "cracked" surface that crisps up really well if you fry in the pan.
Slice and fry in butter/serve as desired.
Yeah -- the recipe I was following started with room-temperature water, and it's quite possible that that was a bad instruction.
The mixing suggestion is my guess, too. I regularly use the linked Martha Stewart recipe and have for years—but I stir immediately before putting it in the oven and stir halfway through.
Hodale, #2, stacks mixed? or stays mixed?
So what I'm getting from these is (a) the water has to be hot before it goes in (2) it's not actually hands-free, you have to mix halfway through (3) 4.5:1 ratio is kinda high on the water
@FuzzyChef I think starting with hot water should help minimize the need to stir during the cooking, but the amount of water being used will impact that.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.996005
| 2023-03-06T18:22:16 |
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|
124383
|
Is there science-based information on long-term white rice storage?
I have some special white rice I picked up while traveling, and am conserving for the right dish because I can't buy it where I live. However, that got me wondering how long rice actually keeps. when stored reasonably, before quality starts to suffer.
After some searches, I am now even more unsure, because every source I look at seems to have a different answer:
USA Rice: "Indefinitely"
Minnetonka Orchards: 5 years, or 30 years with an oxygen absorber
Utah State Univ. Extension: 10 years with an oxygen absorber, otherwise undefined
Eat By Date: 4-5 years in jar, undefined "longer" when vacuum-sealed, supposedly based on the USU publication, except they have different numbers somehow?
Numerous "prepper" sites, each of which offers slightly different numbers
The variance here suggests to me that the information available on the internet about long-term rice storage is largely based on hearsay, and not on scientific studies. The USU page has a bibilography that shows there have been several actual studies, but I cannot find any of the studies cited there in the science paper search engines I have access to (they may be only offline).
So, does anyone on SA have science-based information on how long one can store dry white rice at stable room temperature in normal consumer packaging before its quality starts to decline? And how rapid the decline is?
For bonus points:
does vaccum-packing make a difference, without other oxygen-removal steps?
does the type of white rice make a difference?
Footnote: I have found two questions on SA about rice storage, but neither one backs up their answers with science.
The PDF for L. Coons, et al. "Quality of regular and parboiled rice in long-term storage", 2004 can be found here
The PDF for M.B. Halling, et al., "Quality of white rice retail packaged in No. 10 cans for long-term storage", 2003 can be found here. In case you are wondering: Both this and the publication by Coons et al. are linked directly from Google Scholar, which is an excellent starting point for finding scientific publications most of the time.
Thanks, @njuffa. Sadly, that study doesn't report the performance of the control samples, which would tell us what we could expect under normal circumstances (both links are based on the same original study)
Did you find Lloyd et al.? I can access if you need.
@FuzzyChef This is way outside my area of expertise, but from reading some of the numerous papers on the quality of white rice with increasing storage duration indexed by Google Scholar, I gather that the quality starts to degrade within a few months, due to changes to both starch and protein. Unsurprisingly (because these are chemical processes), the effect is significantly reduced by using cool storage (4 to 8 degrees Celsius). None of the studies I perused seemed to extend past 20 months of storage.
@bob1 yes, but it (and several related papers) are all about storing rice in cans, which really isn't relevant to my home situation. I want to know about storing rice in bags or jars, vac-packed or no.
@njuffa this is why I really would have liked to see Halling etal actually publish their control stats. I think they have the only study that goes more than 2 years.
If you are more interested in the quality degradation rather than long-term storage safety, take a look at this paper on red rice.
It concludes that to maintain desirable quality, the best method is to store it vacuum-packed or at <15° C, but oxidation still begins to occur after 6 months in these conditions.
Important to note that brown and red rice degrade faster in these conditions compared to white rice due to the higher oil content, so these types of rice will begin to develop an off flavor.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jsfa.3976
Even though white rice will last longer before developing an off flavor, 2-acetylpyrroline, a compound that contributes greatly to the favourable character of fragrant rices, will begin to degrade regardless of storage conditions.
"It is thus concluded that, while it was found possible to inhibit the development of off-flavours to some extent, no way was found to assist the preservation of the desirable flavour compound, 2-acetylpyrroline."
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/%28SICI%291097-0010%28199606%2971%3A2%3C218%3A%3AAID-JSFA570%3E3.0.CO%3B2-5
Oooh, that's much closer to my actual question! I want to leave this open for a few more days, just in case there's a study that matches closer, but very very helpful.
Accepting this as "probably as close as I'm gonna get". Thanks!
USDA states 2 years shelf stable for rice and pasta.
https://www.fsis.usda.gov/food-safety/safe-food-handling-and-preparation/food-safety-basics/shelf-stable-food
thanks for the link! Not picking this as the answer because there's no evidence of the USDA's recommendation being science-based. The fact that they classify all types of rice and pasta as one thing argues against it.
which is an extremely conservative value. pasta keeps for way longer than that.
Here are some additional resources I've found.
Of Interest
Storing White Rice
Additional Resources
Food Storage Guidelines for Consumers
A review on nutritional properties, shelf life, health aspects, and
consumption of brown rice in comparison with white rice
Pantry Food Storage
Additional Thoughts
It should be noted that various factors can impact the declared shelf-life of any dry commodity, even for the same exact good between different food processing establishments. It comes down to the decision-making process of the facility QA team's hazard analysis and mitigation planning, the nature of the intended usage (NRTE vs RTE, etc), subsequent processing flow (e.g., CP's or CCP's in place, lethality or not, etc.), processing technology (e.g., high pressure pasteurization, IQF spiral freezing, etc.), local, regulatory, or retailer standards, and many other factors considered, covering the entirety of the supply chain. Then there's also the fact that the declared shelf-life of each product is determined by the senior management or QA; of course, there has to be evidence-based validation for the declared shelf-life, which is typically backed by a shelf-life study conducted by an accredited laboratory, and results may vary based upon many different factors (such as facility SSOP efficacy validation and responsiveness, or employee cGMP / hygiene practices, etc); however, even then, the establishment has some flexibility in what date they actually end up choosing to declare, based upon tolerance for risk, strategic factors, or other such influences. FYI, a commonly applied strategy is to declare a product shelf life that is one half of the actual shelf life as determined from the study. Additional considerations would be qualitative factors, which I won't be getting into; my point is that there is some subjectivity to contend with when speaking about declared shelf-life. The most objective way to determine an accurate, quantitative answer would be to take out representative sampling lots and have a lab conduct a shelf-life study while emulating the same storage conditions as the actual commodity. It would be up to you to define the critical parameters, but here is an example just for a very rough, general reference:
I appreciate the effort, but it's not really an answer to my question. Thanks anyway!
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.996362
| 2023-06-05T18:18:12 |
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|
76122
|
Why are my cookies crumbling after I bake them?
I make the Tollhouse chocolate chip cookies recipe and swap out the flour for gluten free flour. I'm trying to figure out why the cookies crumbled after I made them. The butter was very soft; could that be the reason, or do I need an additional egg in the recipe because of the flour substitution?
What's in your gluten free flour?
@Jolenealaska is right, you need to specify exactly what substitutions you have made.
Other than the type of flour, you followed this recipe? https://www.verybestbaking.com/recipes/18476/original-nestle-toll-house-chocolate-chip-cookies/ I'm leaning towards an answer that invoves letting the dough rest to fully hydrate the flour, but to do that I need to know about your flour. Gluten free flour can be made out of lots of different things, and each type behaves differently.
Another possibility is xanthan gum. See: https://www.google.com/search?q=nestle+toll+house+gluten+free+chocolate+chip+cookie+recipe&oq=nestle+toll+house+gluten+free+chocolate+chip+cookie+recipe&aqs=chrome..69i57.2945j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
Hydration tends to be a problem with gluten-free flours. You typically want the dough to rest for 30 min or so for the flour to fully hydrate so it doesn't end up gritty ... but this also means that it absorbs more moisture, so it's possible that's the issue. I don't know how much to adjust it ... I assume it's based on amount of gluten-free flour used, not the amount of moisture in the recipe, and it may be affected by what the mix is (bean, potato, rice, etc.)
Gluten-free flour is not a perfect substitute for wheat flour. Each mixture out there is designed to mostly work in certain kinds of recipe, but not in all of them. And yes, it is perfectly normal for a gluten-free cookie to be crumbly, since it is the gluten itself that holds wheat cookes together.
I suppose the prepared flour mixture you have is just no good for cookies. Instead of making substitutions in an existing recipe and hoping for a miracle fit, just find a gluten-free cookie recipe (which is likely to use correct proportions of starches and binders, not the unknown mixture you get in the supermarket) and bake that. Troubleshooting substitutions is rarely worth the amount of work you have to invest, and the end result is not the same as without the substitution anyway.
You can't just substitute gluten-free for regular flour. You just can't. Do you have to use gluten-free? If you don't have to use gluten-free, it is best to use regular flour.
It sounds like the OP has made more than one batch of these cookies, which indicates that this isn't a case of gluten-free flour being used just because that's what was handy. The flour is probably being swapped out for a reason.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:56.997121
| 2016-12-04T14:29:56 |
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|
13888
|
How do store bought bread keep so soft?
Possible Duplicate:
How does commercial whole grain bread stay fresh for so long?
Does anyone know what store bread's secret is to making certain loaves of bread super soft for more than a day? Is it generally some preservative that you normally would not add yourself? Whenever I try to make a loaf of bread, it is best right out of the oven. The next day, it does not taste as great unless I toast it. I am trying to find the world's most softest resilient bread to keep. Thanks. :-)
Gah, did not see the duplicate post.
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.997333
| 2011-04-08T19:36:34 |
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|
15497
|
Chocolate baking bars vs. chocolate chips?
Possible Duplicate:
Can I use Chocolate Chips in place of Semi-sweet baking chocolate?
Can I substitute chocolate baking bars for chocolate chips? Usually the baking bars are so much more expensive. I am going to be melting the chocolate, so I'd figure chocolate is chocolate, right? However, I am worried about if when letting the chocolate set, if the results are going to be different or not (texture, shine, smoothness, etc). Thanks!
What do you mean by chocolate baking bars? Proper stuff like Valrhona?
http://www.amazon.com/Hersheys-Baking-Pieces-Semi-Sweet-12-Ounce/dp/B000IN0EV4/ref=sr_1_6?s=grocery&ie=UTF8&qid=1308172656&sr=1-6 vs. http://www.amazon.com/Hersheys-Unsweetened-Baking-Chocolate-12CT/dp/B000P0MOIG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=grocery&qid=1308172724&sr=1-1 ?
See the linked question - assuming you buy the same quality of each, they're pretty much the same, but a lot of the cheap chocolate chips may have other ingredients.
I would say that if you're melting chocolate, it's fine to substitute chocolate bars - maybe even preferred. Chocolate chips are a much lower quality chocolate than real chocolate bars. (I've read that chocolate chips contain less cocoa butter, so that they hold their shape better in cookies - which also makes them harder to melt.) In general, I've found that when baking with chocolate, the higher the quality of the chocolate, the better the end product.
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.997418
| 2011-06-15T20:41:47 |
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|
61517
|
Why is my bread not mixing and cooking properly
When I add my ingredients like my bread machine manual says I'm getting this tangled ugly mass of bread. It rises some but when it mixes it breaks apart and doesn't join together again like my previous loaves. This has happened to me twice now, does anyone have any suggestions?
Welcome to the site! We need a lot more information to answer this: Could you give us your recipe please and what exactly your are doing. And of course what is the difference to your previous loaves that were ok - other recipe, other machine, other preparation...?. And if you had pictures... that would be perfect! You can simply edit your question to fill in as much information as you can give us, thanks!
Are you using the same kind of flour as you were previously? This sounds rather like you might be using a low-gluten or gluten-free flour in a recipe intended for a high gluten flour.
I have figured out my problem, my bread flour was old and expired
Zach, it is allowed and even encouraged here to post the solution to your problem as an answer, not a comment, if you find it after writing the question.
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.997661
| 2015-09-05T13:32:17 |
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|
108245
|
What is the benefit of a pasta pot with an inset?
All my life I’ve cooked pasta in regular pots. The most fancy thing I had in regards to pasta cooking was a pot with little holes in the lid and a locking mechanism, so that you could use that to drain the pasta:
Said pot now broke, and as I am looking for a new pasta pot, I see a lot of large pots with some strainer-ish inset:
What is the benefit of such a strainer inset pot over a regular pot?
These strainer pots seem more expensive, taking up more space, and I'd have to clean more.
I can see that the strainer may be useful for other things like steaming vegetables.
Anything else, especially when it comes to cooking pasta?
I use the inset pot for steaming and deep frying (not pasta). I takes more oil with the deep fry, but the temperature is a lot more uniform.
The pot at the top with the holes in the lid allows you to drain the pasta without a colander or second container, so you have one less thing to clean. In my experience it's sometimes hard to get the pasta fully drained with one of these depending on the pasta because the holes are too small.
The perforated inserts are somewhat similar, you can cook the pasta and then drain it by just lifting the insert out. You can prop the insert over the open pot to let it drain which will both allow the water to drain back into the pot and keep the pasta warm while it's drained.
Another big advantage is that you can cook several batches of pasta in a row with the same water. This is often how restaurants do it, you often don't need this at home unless you are cooking several different kinds of pasta for some reason. I do this sometimes if one person is gluten free and others are not, or if I am cooking 3 different kinds of ravioli that have different cooking times, or if I am not sure how much pasta I need like for a big party, and want to be able to make more quickly if needed.
You get the best results with most pastas using a lot of water, as much as 4-6 quarts (1.0 - 1.5 gallons, 4–6 litre) of water per pound (450 g) of pasta. The pasta is better able to expand and absorb water evenly and won't stick together. The larger pots with an insert provide an easy way to do this.
Seems like the same amount of things to clean (pot + colander or pot + insert) but with the insert you don't have the extra step of setting aside some of the cooking water if you are going to mix it back in (maybe with a sauce)
He meant in the case of the strainer lid, there is one less thing to wash (just the pot, assuming you'd otherwise use a lid anyway) compared to pot + strainer. In the case of the strainer inset, the same amount of things have to be washed, but you can reuse the pasta water instead of dumping the water on a sink (or worse, another pot!).
Wouldn't cooking Gluten free pasta in water that was used for normal pasta defeat the point of the Gluten free ?
@GamerGypps Can be easily solved by cooking the gluten-free pasta first!
@Maurycy Thats a very good point that for some reason i had not considered. Thanks!
When I see restaurants do it they have these neat 'inserts' that are quarter-circles - you fit four of them in the same big pot - each with a single serving of whatever it is they're cooking ... here's one I'm not recommending it just came up via a search
Another advantage of insert, at least for me, is that pasta has a way less chance to stick to the bottom - cause it never touches the same metal piece that's heated by fire.
I find these gadgets inconvenient, so, I would say no real advantage. I cook pasta in a large stock pot, and remove with a spider to the pan with the condiments. I can even cook several batches in a row this way. I don't really find inserts helpful, and don't need the extra "stuff" in my cabinets. Your point about extra expense, space, and clean up is accurate. I will also add that the insert takes up significant volume in the pot, so you actually lose usable space. They are just not necessary. Spend your money on a good, solid, multi-purpose stock pot.
That kind of pasta pot has many uses in the kitchen. I use the pot by itself to cook stocks, process smaller batches of cans, make soups and chili, etc. Besides cooking pasta in the insert is very useful for steaming large vegetables or large quantities of vegetables - I used mine last week for steaming artichokes and today for corn.
Pasta-wise the insert is handy because it lets you cook more than one kind of pasta, and it also lets you keep the pasta water rather than pouring it out. Pasta water is very useful for thickening sauces as it is full of starch, I stick a ladle in once the pasta is done and use it as necessary. You can also dip the pasta back in and lift it out if the pasta starts to stick.
Using the inset for steaming makes sense, and is something I wouldn't have considered otherwise. I wonder if all insets are setup for this, so a buyer of one should consider the amount of clearance the inset has from the bottom of the pot (i.e., allowing enough space to boil water without the inset being submerged).
These things are all about production! When we need to get lots of pasta out fast and fresh and have limited stove space, we can't afford to throw perfectly good boiling water down the drain (it takes a lot of time and energy to boil water). As others have said, you can also just use a hand strainer to scoop out the pasta, but this is slower and occupies a person who could be doing something else.
All that said, at home, I just use a regular pot, like you.
This strainer means that you don't have to lift a heavy pot full off hot water and take it over to the sink to drain. You simply lift the pasta out and leave the water behind on the stove. Later when the water has cooled down and safer to move, you pour it down the sink. I have one of these and I find it very useful for the reason explained above.
If your pasta touches the bottom or sides, the temperature can get higher since the heat would be conducted directly to the pasta from the metal surface. Having the barrier prevents pasta from touching the sides and it should be cooked evenly at the temperature of the boiling water. You can also put water in the bottom and use it as a steamer.
I just use a pot with water. I have never experienced unevenly cooked pasta.
Wouldn't the water prevent this anyway? Of course I need to stir the pasta, to prevent it from sticking to itself, and that also makes sure it doesn't stick to the pot.
It's not going to cook unevenly, especially if you stir it a few times and put a little olive oil in, and it's not going to ruin your dish by any means. I also like to leave the hot water in the bottom and leave it covered to make the second helping as warm as the first.
@JasonGoemaat Adding oil has been debunked for many years now.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.997819
| 2020-05-09T21:30:15 |
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|
105941
|
Why does industrially produced tagliatelle come in nests?
I can buy industrially produced tagliatelle only in nests¹.
Why is it delivered in this form?
Some considerations I made myself or found in a dissatisfying Reddit on the subject are:
It might be somehow possible to exploit or preserve this form during preparation, yet I failed to do this.
A package of nest tagliatelle has more than six times the volume than a package of the same amount of spaghetti, so I doubt that it’s logistically advantageous.
Self-made pasta may be easier to produce this way, as it is easier to dry them, but I doubt that this translates to industrial scales. Also, if it did, why not deliver spaghetti in nests?
The price is the same as for other pasta of comparable quality, thus I doubt it’s a marketing gag.
It may help measuring the pasta, but then people are not that stupid.
¹ Currently this is the only pasta available at all, because it’s not very famous with hoarders, but that’s another story.
To prevent it from adhering together in undercooked bundles when boiling.
For long pasta noodles, the wider the noodle, the more issues one has with them sticking together on the "flat" sides. Pasta that sticks together doesn't cook all the way through (because it's thicker), and at a certain stage of cooking becomes impractical to separate. Even linguine is annoying this way, and if you ever tried to cook fettucine that's sold as straight noodles, you'll find that you need to stand over the pot with a pasta fork to separate the strands.
When wide, flat noodles are sold as a nest or an uneven bundle (wide rice noodles are sold this way) they go into the pot already separated, and adherence between strands is minimal.
So, the stickiness ceases before the nest structure collapses?
Not completely, but since the noodles aren't arranged in long parallel groups, even where the stick together its in small spots, instead of along 5cm of length. Much easier to separate just by stirring.
When making egg pasta at home if it's not used right away it's common to flour slightly and wrap into nests to dry. This is a simple and effective way to do dry your pasta without it hanging over every cupboard door, door knob, your dog, etc. I suspect that manufacturers package this way for marketing reasons to make it feel more authentic.
When I make pasta I generally dry it in batches by hanging for just long enough to not stick then I create nests on parchment paper until more dry. These are also easy to store and pop into a pot of not as much water as previously taught by everyone.
My kitchen used to look like Shelob's lair when I made pasta ;)
So, the essence of your answer is: “because it’s authentic”? Also, what do you mean by “not as much water as previously taught by everyone”?
Yes, I believe that manufacturers sometime package things to make them look less industrial. Italian food is all about home and hearth, so packaging pasta in nests make people feel like it's made by hand by an old Italian grandmother who is trapped in a tower like Rapunzel with her only hope of escape to braid long strands of pasta. The water comment is because we were always taught to use a ton of water, but it turns out that not only is that not necessary (and a waste of salt and water and energy), if you're using the water for sauce you're better off using much less so there's more starch.
I agree “for marketing reasons” is essentially right, but I feel it comes out sounding more cynical than is necessarily fair. A more sympathetic description would be that manufacturers do it because it’s traditional: it’s always been done that way, and so consumers expect it, and would avoid brands that do something else.
I didn't mean to sound cynical, but I like your approach. "Traditional" is an optimistic attribute.
@myklbykl: Don’t forget that you can [edit] your answer to include clarifications and other improvements.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.998380
| 2020-03-22T11:23:49 |
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|
119818
|
Is there any point in blanching kale directly before cooking?
I have just stumbled upon various recipes (in German, example) that instruct to blanch kale and immediately afterwards cook it at a high temperature for at least an hour, starting with an interval of boiling.
My understanding is that the only purpose for blanching vegetables is to deactivate enzymes and germs. This makes sense before storing or using the vegetables without further comparable heating. However in the recipes in question, this would happen during the subsequent cooking anyway.
Is there any point to this step or is it just a waste of time and resources?
Some vegetables can have a certain amount of bitter components naturally occurring in the plants. Cooks and gardeners have found ways to mitigate what is sometimes perceived as unpleasant.
For kale, harvesting after the first frost is common when higher sugar content counteracts the perceived bitterness (not the absolute content). Adding sugar or sweet fruit to the dish is a traditional method to achieve the same.
Breeding has reduced bitterness, but of course in stores you usually don’t get detailed information on what cultivars are on offer.
And finally blanching leaches the bitter components into the water, which then can be poured off.
So no, the blanching step is not futile for kale, even if a lengthy cooking phase follows.
Interesting. I've never done anything with kale other than de-vein the heavier parts, then steam it a few mins, same as cabbage.
A trick used (or used to be used) in the Netherlands is to freeze kale before cooking, in the old days by not harvesting till after the first frost, now by putting it in the freezer for a night or longer. That will get the kale convert some of its taste into sweeter versions.
I would not blanch kale for a recipe like that.
Generally, one blanches kale for recipes where the kale is going to be cooked for a very short time, like pasta dishes. In this case, you need the blanching in order to prevent bitter or raw flavors because the kale is not cooked enough.
In slow-cooked recipes, however, this step is wholly unnecessary; most do not include blanching. You don't need the blanching to ensure full cooking, since the kale will cook for an hour, and you don't need it to preserve color because nothing will preserve color through cooking it that long.
As to why the recipe recommends it, I can think of two possible reasons:
Some cooks, particularly in restaurants, prefer to follow simple rules for vegetable prep. Thus "first step is always to blanch the kale", regardless of how it's going to be cooked later.
It's possible that kale was more bitter in the past, and needed to be blanched even if being slow-cooked. Brussels sprouts have been engineered to be less bitter, kale may have been too. So blanching first might have been good advice in 1970.
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.998711
| 2022-02-11T20:33:16 |
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78516
|
Brown sugar + Bread =?
So I always put bread in my brown sugar just because that what my mom always did, but I never understood why? I think it's supposed to make the brown sugar not clump. How does it work?
We'd use half an apple, but only after the brown sugar had hardened. (not all the time) Same idea. With a tightly sealed container, not often needed.
The moisture from the bread is absorbed by the brown sugar. After a while, the bread will be like a withered old mummified piece of white toast. Get rid of it, and put a new piece of bread in there.
... which keeps the brown sugar from turning into a bunch of rocks that you have to crush up, but has no moisture, so behaves more like granulated sugar when you try to use it.
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.998953
| 2017-02-19T00:39:35 |
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79646
|
Why does my cupcake texture end up with a watery-scrambled egg texture, with a sulfurish smell
I've gotten a batter recipe, but I fear that it might have something wrong with it.
Mix together 250 grams butter and 200 grams sugar
Add 4 eggs, one at a time
Add 2 tbs baking soda, 2 tbs Sodium bicarbonate, 300 grams flour
Stir; add food coloring and extract flavor, to taste
I did add some titanium dioxyde to make the butter whiter before adding the coloring. Then, I added a few drops of red, and a few drops of strawberry taste for the fun of it.
They were baked at 180c-(350F) for about 12 minutes. When I opened the oven, the front row of cupcakes fell together. I then closed it, and let them bake for another 5-7 minutes
I have tried it twice now: some of the cupcakes fell, those that didn't ended up smelling funky, and the texture resembled finely scrambled eggs.
Are there some ingredients that don't really mix together well?
I did taste the batter, and the batter did taste delicious; that's why I wonder why the cupcakes won't cook correctly and be tasty.
For future refferences, it might actiually be that i have added more butter than needed. i see now when the cupcakes have cooled, that there is an overlfow of butter left on the bottom of the forms. the sulfurish smell might therefor just be cooked eggs,
2 tbs baking soda and 2 tbs Sodium bicarbonate? I guess a typing error? Or was one of those supposed to be baking powder?
I wonder if perhaps you've made a typo in regards to the proportions of this formulation. Try to source a reliable and tested recipe and compare ingredient components to modify what you're trying to achieve.
Please note, baking soda and sodium bicarbonate are identical ingredients.
Also, it is good advice to not open the oven until the cake(s) are close to completion.
I'd love to inquire as to the reason you are adding titanium dioxide to butter/trying to "whiten" it.
As for the off-aroma, ensure the eggs you use are fresh.
I hope this is more PC of an answer.
Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.
StevenXavier, if you need advice, join the chat linked above.
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.999040
| 2017-04-04T21:15:09 |
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|
61906
|
Why does my apple crumble develop a bitter aftertaste?
I tend to make Apple Crumble in a very basic way, using Bramley apples cooked down with plenty of sugar ( enough to leave a little tartness to balance out the sweet crumble mix ) and a bit of cinnamon.
The outcome is delicious but if I go back for a second helping, which has been known, that seems to develop a really strong sour or bitter aftertaste in the back of my mouth.
Now I acknowledge that modest portions are probably a virtue, but this seems to be a standard pattern over several years- that first portion is so good and the second one is so bad and I'm sure there must be something wrong with the way I'm preparing the dish. What do I need to change?
The crumble recipe I use is a typical flour/sugar/butter with a few oats and sometimes crunched up nuts too. Any variance in the crumble doesn't seem to change the aftertaste.
Do you peel and core the apples? Peel sometimes adds bitterness.
Yes, everything is peeled and cored.
Have you checked: Is it the apples or the crumble that leaves the aftertaste? And how do you make your crumble?
I've noticed this with stewed apples as well. The texture changes as it cools but also an aftertaste develops. I assumed it was something to do with pectin. It's usually better when reheating in the oven though?
I changed how I do crumbles in the last few years. I now make a compote with apples and say blackberries and initially cook he crumble separately. I then combine the two when the compote is cool and then bake for a very short time. This keeps the fruit tasting fresh because its not baked to death.
So pectin has a bitter taste? I wasn't aware of that. That could well be it.
I think this put me onto the right track - this time when I made the crumble I added a tiny bit of bicarbonate of soda to balance out the acidity and it seems as though the sourness is limited by it.
im not sure that it's pectin per-se rather the resultant texture changes the mouth taste
It may be that the specific flavour has a compounding effect, in the same way that spciy heat (capsaicin) does. The first bite is great, the second one is more sour, and by the second portion it is the only thing you can taste.
It happens because of the way the mouth's flavour sensors react to certain flavour compounds, but I don't know enough to explain how it works exactly.
One way to check this would be to take a twice as large portion initially and see if the same thing happens.
@Erik I think if I was to just chain eat it, the effect would happen at roughly the same rate.
interesting; must have a better / more refined palette then I. :) Have you tried using different based sugars? ie: Sucanat Brown Sugar or natural cane? Wonder if the heat has anything to do with increase sour; as the temperature drops. The easiest answer; slap some ice cream or sweetened mascarpone to second serving. :)
What sort of dish are you using to bake the apples/crumble in? Is it possible that the bitterness is caused by metallic or other leaching from the baking dish into the fruit? This might explain why it gets a little stronger for the second serving, because it has had a little more time in contact with the fruit in particular. Just a thought.
Usually a small glass oven dish, sometimes a ceramic one. The container doesn't appear to change the bitterness.
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.999259
| 2015-09-21T19:39:29 |
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|
61977
|
Measurement of ingredients for baking 400g of brown bread
I am not a professional baker, these days I have found love in baking brown breads at home.
I want to bake a loaf of 400g, for that I take below measurements
300g of wheat flour
100g of water
2 table spoon of Fresh Instant Yeast
2 table spoon of sugar
2 table spoon of Oil
1 tea spoon of Salt
0.5 tea spoon of bread improver
But some how when I finish making the dough the end weight is around 600g.
What should be a measurement of ingredients if I want to make 400g of bread loaf?
If out of 600g dough I pluk out only 400g and keep it to rise, it do not rise the way I want like the bread loaf of 400g which we get in stores.
Ingredients 3 through 7 have mass, too. So if you start with 400g of flour and water and add other things to it, more than 400g mass is not surprising at all. Mind you, I have baked for 30+ years without caring in that much detail about my finished loaf weight, but do what makes you happy...
@Ecnerwal : if i not care about the end result weight, and for example i have got a 600g of dough. Out of it if i take out 400g and keep for a rise in a standard moulder, will there be any effect on how much dough rises? I wanted to bake exact copy of loaf which we get in store i.e. 400g, fluffy and a perfect shape. A somewhat saleable product.
BTW: 100g water into 300g flour is very dry. Especially for whole wheat flour. Where did you get this recipe?
@derobert : yes i agree the dough gets a bit dry, since learning wasnt sure how the perfect dough should be..
@AsadRefai unless you're making bagels (which use a drier dough), dough should be tacky. Outright sticky before you start kneading it. My first inclination would be between 180g and 200g of water for 300g flour (it depends on the amount exact flour used and the result you want). But I'd suggest finding a better recipe.
How are you kneading your bread? If you're kneading by hand, and doing so on a well-floured surface to prevent sticking, the flour you pick up during kneading will contribute to the weight.
@R.M. That's true, but that'd be a small amount of flour, not 125g. At least, it should be. Especially with dough that dry.
I am not an expert, either -- I'm still learning -- but what you need to read up on is called "baker's percentages."
The Serious Eats blog has a great explanation. This will help you figure out the recipe you're looking for to achieve a 400g loaf.
SCALING RECIPES USING BAKER'S PERCENTAGES
Bakers' percentages are very handy if you want to scale recipes up, down, and sideways. If you know the percentages, you can start with any amount of flour you want and figure out the rest of the ingredients by doing a little bit of math.
Let's try this with a real recipe.
My standard, everyday white bread recipe breaks down to the following percentages:
Bread flour: 100%
Water: 67%
Sugar: 4%
Yeast: 2%
Salt: 2%
Olive oil: 4%
So let's say I start with 12 ounces of flour on my scale. To calculate the rest of my ingredients, I first divide the amount of flour I have by 100, giving me 0.12 ounces. Now all I have to do to figure out the rest of my ingredients is to multiply them by their various percentages. So, for example, the water recipe is 67% water. Multiply 67 by 0.12, and I get 8 ounces (rounded from 8.04 ounces).
Do the same math across the board (rounding to the nearest 0.05 ounce), and you get the following weights:
Bread flour: 12 ounces
Water: 8 ounces1
Sugar: 0.5 ounces
Yeast: 0.25 ounces
Salt: 0.25 ounces
Olive oil: 0.5 ounces
ARRIVING AT A SPECIFIC DOUGH WEIGHT
What if you want to go the other way? Say you know that you want a pound of finished dough. How would bakers' percentages help you figure out how much of each ingredients to use? First, you'd start by adding up all of your percentages. For the white bread, that's 179. Next, divide the weight of the final dough you are trying to achieve by that number to give you the weight of a single unit.
So four a 16-ounce (1 pound) ball of dough, each unit of weight should be equal to 16 ounces/179, or 0.089 ounces.
Now all you have to do is multiply that unit by each of your percentages. So flour, for example, is 100% of the recipe. 100 x 0.089 = 8.9 ounces total. Using the same math for every ingredient, you get the following measurements for a one pound ball of dough:
Bread flour: 8.9 ounces
Water: 6 ounces
Sugar: 0.35 ounces
Yeast: 0.175 ounces
Salt: 0.175 ounces
Olive oil: 0.35 ounces
This is a great beginning of an answer, but can you add the information from the link into it?
I would have, but I wasn't sure if that was allowed. As I said, I'm learning still myself, and I didn't want to just copy and paste from another site because of strict posting rules here and also copyright issues in general.
You shouldn't copy paste; you should summarize.
@franko following steps and understanding the baker's percentage, helped me in making the perfect white bread with perfect weight. Cheers to you.
2T instant yeast is ~17g, 2T of sugar and oil are both around 25g, 1t salt ~6g. ½t bread improver is going to be a gram or two.
So you've added together 300g flour + 100g water + ≈75g other stuff. By a pretty fundamental law of physics, mixed together that weighs 475g. Since you got 600g instead, there are two possibilities:
You've measured wrong (e.g., you added an ingredient twice, your scale is broken, you made a mistake when taring the scale, you accidentally included the bread pan weight, etc.)
You've got a Nobel prize coming.
As exciting as ② would be, I'm afraid ① is far more likely.
The bread rising probably has some effect on the weight—the yeast is performing a number of chemical reactions, using oxygen from the air and carbohydrates, water, etc. from the dough, and releasing CO₂—I'd guess it loses a little weight here, but I'm not sure—either way, pretty sure it's not a significant change.
When you bake the dough, of course, some of the dough (mainly the water) is going to evaporate. Not entirely sure how much. But of course you can find out by weighing the dough before it goes into the oven (remember to subtract the bread pan weight) and then after it comes out and cools. Then you can use that to scale your recipe to get reasonably close to 400g.
Personally, I'd make my first stab at it with a dough weighing about 450g. Scale down everything proportionally—and if you convert everything to weight, and use an accurate scale, that's much easier than taking 6% out of 2T (which is about ⅜t).
Good ballpark figure. 10% is a typical estimate for free-form wheat loaves. So 450g dough for a 400g loaf should be excellent.
@derobert: nice answer and good sarcasm on noble price. cheers to you
@derobert : Yes while kneading or may be while mixing the dough, I have added some extra flour and water. Which resulted in the increase of dough weight. The baker's percentage is very nice measurement which has helped me bake perfect bread.
Approximate calculations tell about 270g of whole wheat flour produces 400g of finished baked bread. Whereas you only need 250 g or less for a white bread. And for a whole wheat bread minimum water content should be around 40%.
Welcome! Please familiarize yourself with the workings of the site - the [tour] and the [help] should get you started. This is not a forum and if you want to comment (once you have gained the privilege), we expect you to do so respectfully.
There is only a smidgen of an answer in this post (after removing the non-answer parts) and that’s incorrect - 40% water in whole wheat doesn’t make a bread as most of the user ms here would define it.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:56.999585
| 2015-09-23T14:42:27 |
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|
62129
|
Why won't my butter and milk mix when trying to make cream?
I wanted to make a heavy cream substitute.
Here's what I tried:
Melted butter and stored it in a cup.
The pot I melted it in was not washed.
Used the same pot to boil milk.
Afterward, the milk looked yellowish with bubbles on it.
Strained the milk and put it in the refrigerator until it's cool.
Added the melted butter to the milk.
They wouldn't mix. They stayed separate like oil and water.
My questions:
Why wouldn't they mix? And how do I get them to mix?
Why did the milk look that way? Was it because of the remaining butter in the pot?
How can I make use out of this milk and butter?
Two questions. 1. Is it curdling or simply not mixing? 2. What are you trying to use the heavy cream for? If you are cooking with it (adding to a sauce or cake recipe) you can probably use this as long as it is only separated and not curdled, but you may need to add something else to get it to blend. If it is curdled you can make fresh cheese like paneer, but the butter may be wasted. (maybe if you chill it, the butter may float to the top and solidify and you could skim it off.)
No,it's not curdling....just the butter wouldn't mix....yesterday I threw it away and started over again with the same milk and butter...this time I used separate pots for melting butter and boiling milk....but even then they could see the bubbles...so I stirred for so long and kept it in the fridge...today morning I saw it thickened up and curdled only a bit...and the butter totally separated from the milk.....now I'm confused what's my fault this time!!
And I was trying to use it To prepare hot chocolate!!
The reason it looks like oil and water is that it, essentially is... Milk is largely water and butter is mostly fat... you can't make them mix. Regardless, most hot chocolate that I've run into is made with milk, not cream.
For hot chocolate, as noted already, plain milk is usually eminently acceptable. If you really want to increase the fat content for the hot chocolate, melt some butter or coconut oil (probably very very little -- a small spoon of it only, maybe half a teaspoon) and mix it into the chocolate, then mix the milk in gradually over heat. Don't boil it at this point. If you are boiling it for safety, do that first and mix it off of the heat. In my experience, boiling high fat milk products tends to encourage them to separate and sometimes curdle, depending on whatever else is in there.
@NadjaCS thanks dude!! I'll give it a try!!After all these disasters Making heavy cream substitute at home is impossible now!!
@catija that's what I know too!! But in most tutorials they prepare homemade heavy cream with these two (butter and milk)... 3/4cup of milk and 1/4cup of melted butter is used in this recipe.....and as they said in the tutorials (even showed) that the milk and butter mix together and when refrigerated forms a creamy texture,which is not too thick or fluffy like whipped cream....but a bit liquidy like normal heavy cream..... And yes, using heavy cream in the hot chocolate makes it thicker and rich.....that's why I tried it.... :)
I was thinking that this is a duplicate, but I can't find an original, and somebody edited it to be readable, so I will answer.
They didn't mix, because they can't mix. You can't get them to mix. There is no way to make whipping cream out of milk and butter.
The milk looked that way because there were bubbles of melted butter swimming in it.
Use it in any recipe which requires some milk and some butter without caring about the order. Pancake batter, casserole topping, etc.
I was not trying to make whipping cream....I wanted to make heavy cream to use it in making hot chocolate .....and I learnt it from YouTube that mixing melted butter and milk would be enough for a substitute....in the tutorial they mixed perfectly!!
Only if I could show u a picture of it?? Isn't there any option to send pictures??
@NoorESiddikaSwapnil Heavy cream and whipping cream are basically the same thing. They might be slightly different fat contents, but the exact numbers probably depend on where you live, and it's not worth worrying about. The answer is the same for both: you can't mix that much oil into milk.
It's not exactly a duplicate. The one your are thinking of I also participated in. That question was really about making double cream (48%). Took me a while to find it, but it's not a dupe. Good news is you aren't crazy :-)
@Jefromi that's what I know too!! But in most tutorials they prepare homemade heavy cream out of these two (butter and milk)... 3/4cup of milk and 1/4cup of melted butter is used in this recipe.....and as they said in the tutorials (even showed) that the milk and butter mix together and when refrigerated forms a creamy texture,which is not too thick or fluffy like whipped cream....but a bit liquidy like normal heavy cream..... And yes, using heavy cream in the hot chocolate makes it thicker and rich.....that's why I tried it.... :)
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.000292
| 2015-09-28T19:56:51 |
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|
62535
|
Does using Electric stove vs Gas stove have any difference in food taste?
Does it make any difference in taste when you use Gas stove and Electric Stove?
AFAIK, it doesn't but some people I know (amateur cooks) say that it does make a difference in taste.
Enlighten me on this one please?
This question (What do I need to know when moving from an electric hob to a gas hob) doesn't mention anything about taste, just performance. Were they more specific about the difference (e.g. one tastes better, etc)?
they say gas stove cooked food tastes better
It will taste different if the gas flame touches the ingredients and come back in the pan( when tossing ingredients in the pan). but this is highly anecdotal.
The simple answer is: no, heat is heat, it should taste the same.
Reality is slightly more complicated than that. In reality, a cook learns how to cook well by instinct with his stove. When he changes to a stove with a different behavior, his instinct is suddenly wrong, but he probably does not know it. So he cooks as usual. But because the stove works differently, he should have changed the setting and time he uses. So, a stove change alone can cause food to taste worse - not because the stove is worse, but because the cook's skill is lacking.
Also, an electric stove (especially an old fashioned one with iron hobs) cannot do some things a gas stove can, such as a very quick change in temperature. If the food absolutely requires this, it can turn out worse on the electric stove. But a good cook should be able to work around that.
So, the more complete statement should be: There is no difference in taste between cooking on electric or gas stove, if the cook knows how to compensate for the difference in heating speed.
Many electric stoves now achieve "simmer" etc. by varying the time period during which the burner is on its only setting "high". With thin pans, this can really mess up flavor and texture.
ah thank you so much for explaining to me why it all feels so "wrong" when I move to an electric stove... the more constructive thing is to try to adjust and relearn your instincts but it is by no means easy and it's so much simpler to just complain. the quick change in temperature thing seems to be a pretty fatal lack though
There is no difference in food taste when cooking using gas or electric. Gas burns pretty cleanly so is not going to leave a flavor residue you could detect.
Cooking over flame as in a barbecue or a pot over a campfire does change the flavor because of the smoke, that's the only case I can think of where the heat source can change the flavor of the food.
No Only when smokes is added by the cooking method does it effect the taste. The only real reason why gas is preferred over conventional stoves is that you can control the temperature of a gas stove much more accurately.
Gas mark 1, 2 and are a much more universally accepted temperature gauge then what is the case with conventional stoves that may all be different in the temperatures they give at there various marks.
I think there might be a maybe? I find that there is of course differences in responsiveness between gas and electric. Gas is much quicker to respond in temperature, either raising it or lowering it. Electric is much less responsive. I'll take a gas range over an electric one any day of the week.
But here is my maybe...if you were to actually cook food directly with the actual heat of a gas or electric stove, there might be a difference. I would say that the heat from gas has more water vapor. If you put a clear heat proof glass container a little above a gas flame you will see some vapor on it. I would say this is lacking in electric, it is a dry heat.
I will frequently cook/reheat both corn and flour tortillas or charring veggies, directly on the gas hob and also directly on those old fashioned electric coils. I would say that there is a difference, as the electric coil heated tortilla has less moisture and a bit more crispy. And ones heated on gas is warm, but not as crispy. With the coils, you can place food directly on the coiled surface, which will cook differently. The gas flame needs that little bit of space between it and foods you cooking, or else it is extinguished. Or perhaps it's just me, but this difference only exists when you cook food directly with the heat from either gas or electric.
If you compare a high quality electrical stove vs. a gas stove - from my personal experience, there is no difference.
But, if you're talking about cheap electrical stoves, those heat and cool very slowly and might cause food to over\under cook.
Personally, I always prefer the good old gas stove.
It actually does for specific dishes but only because with a gas burner you can achieve higher temperatures which allow for a faster Maillard reaction. This is especially true when cooking in a wok. The higher temperature will allow for a faster charring and less loss of water making for tastier and more tender food.
Of course it's better with gas, it cooks quicker therefore retaining moisture in the food, which aids taste...try cooking a full breakfast to prove my point.
Why do you think that gas "cooks quicker"? This simply isn't true. It completely depends on the strength of the burners. A high-powered electric stove can easily outperform a low-powered gas one. Also, cooking quicker is not always better. There's a reason we slow-cook stuff like chili and roasts.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.000700
| 2015-10-15T07:40:20 |
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33824
|
Does black tea have the highest level of caffeine? If so, why?
It's said that tea, in general, has lower levels of caffeine than coffee, and that black tea has more caffeine than green tea (which has more caffeine than white tea).
This suggests that the higher degree of fermentation of the tea, the higher the caffeine level. Is that correct? Does fermentation concentrate caffeine?
How is it that these teas, all coming from the same plant, have different levels of caffeine?
Rate Tea tells us this is a myth:
Many tea companies, and even some reputable entities such as the U.S.
Department of Agriculture, have made misleading generalizations about
the caffeine content of broad classes of tea. It is a widespread myth
that black tea contains more caffeine than green tea, and another myth
that white tea contains the least caffeine of all teas.
They indicate that brewing method is the main determiner of caffeine levels in the brewed tea.
The source article goes on to cite various credible scientific sources, which raise the credibility of this assertion. Unfortunately, most of their links have gone bad, which makes it harder to check the background science.
This caffeine level table from Mayo Clinic does indicate slightly different levels, but that is likely to be a result of different brewing details across tea types rather than fundamental to the tea plant itself.
There are two factors that matter: the duration of steeping, and to a lesser extent, which portions of the tea plant are used.
In Japan, most people brew Japanese green tea for a matter of seconds, unless they are brewing a tea like gyokuro that has better results with a low-temperature steeping. Oolongs also tend to have a shorter infusion time than black teas if prepared by oolong enthusiasts, though generally longer than green tea. In contrast, most Americans and Europeans steep black teas for on the order of 1-5 minutes, depending on whether they are using a typical dusty teabag or a tea with mostly unbroken leaves. In practice, these brewing differences make up the largest difference in caffeine content.
However, there are certain varieties of teas which have a lower content mostly because they use different parts of the tea plant. Kukicha, for example, tends to have a lower caffeine content even with a longer infusion time because it consists mainly of leaf stems and twigs, which apparently have lower caffeine content than the leaves.
There seems to be no well-understood correlation between the level of caffeine in tea and the type, processing, or brewing. Actual data seems hard to get hold of, because measuring the caffeine content of a cup of tea requires expensive laboratory equipment.
Tea: history, terroirs, varieties by Gascoyne, Marchand, Desharnais and Americi (Firefly Books, 2011, translated from the 2009 French original) reports on the caffeine concentration of 35 different teas, measured by liquid chromatography. 5g of tea was brewed using temperature appropriate for the type of tea. The brewing times all seem quite long (3.5 to 6 minutes). The results are all over the place: 58mg of caffeine per cup for a First Flush Darjeeling (nominally black), 50mg for the (green) Xue Ya and Tai Ping Hou Kui, 49mg for a Bai Hao wulong, 48mg for a (green) Sencha, down to 12mg for a Tie Guan Yin wulong and another Sencha, with Yerba mate (not a tea) at 18mg, an Assam (black) at 22mg, and a white "Bai Mu Dan Wang" at 39mg.
The top caffeine content reported was actually an outlier. This was 126mg, using only 1.5g of Matcha that had been infused for only 30 seconds at 75°C (167°F). Perhaps this indicates that powdered tea has more caffeine than other types, but I would hesitate to draw any other conclusions without a lot of further study.
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.001154
| 2013-04-29T06:19:47 |
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|
66601
|
How can 100% peanut butter have more protein than 100% peanuts
I am looking at:
100% peanut butter (no added salt, sugar, oils or anything else)
100% roasted peanuts (no added salt, sugar, oils or anything else)
When looking thought different sources, I can always notice the following:
Peanut butter has more protein (as % of calories) than peanuts
example sources (I've looked through a dozen more, but please check others, maybe mine are not representative?):
http://www.waitrose.com/shop/ProductView-10317-10001-5588-Waitrose+LOVE+life+roasted+peanuts
http://shop.wholeearthfoods.com/collections/award-winning-peanut-butter/products/whole-earth-100-nuts-crunchy-peanut-butte-227-g
Why is this? If no ingredients are added, how is it possible for the macronutrients to change (as % of the calories). Different levels of roasting cannot be the reason because they should not change macronutrients disproportionally.
The only explanation I can think of is if in the process of making peanut butter, some part of the peanut is removed and that part contains a low protein amount. Some sources say that when peanut butter is made, the 'bitter heart of the peanut' is removed. Could that explain it?
If anyone has some insight I would be very interested to learn.
It might be related to the article referenced in http://cooking.stackexchange.com/a/500/67 ; "Wrangham and his colleagues have since shown that cooking unlaces microscopic structures that bind energy in foods, reducing the work our gut would otherwise have to do. It effectively outsources digestion to ovens and frying pans. Wrangham found that mice fed raw peanuts, for instance, lost significantly more weight than mice fed the equivalent amount of roasted peanut butter."
@Joe: except he isn't comparing raw peanuts to roasted peanut butter; he's comparing roasted peanuts to roasted peanut butter.
@Marti : see the answer I linked to -- there's other factors besides the roasting -- eg, grinding means our bodies can more fully absorb the nutrients without needing to spend energy chewing. How much of this change is fat vs. protein, though, I have no clue.
A cynical look at the claims on the peanut butter packaging : "No added sugar or salt - contains naturally occurring sugars", "100% peanuts". Adding peanut oil might still keep those true, although I'd then expect it to be in the ingredients list.
@Joe I didn't think nutrition facts took that into account - they're just the weight of components, right?
When peanut butter is made, excess peanut oil is removed.
@Joe I suspect that, similar to Orange Juice (which is "100% Orange Juice" but actually has stuff added to it), Peanut Butter is allowed to have the fat removed and then returned - "Defatted peanut flour" is sometimes an ingredient, though not very common any more.
There is also a chance they use different peanuts. Larger or smaller ones, with a different composition. Most likely the kind that don't look pretty or taste good enough to sell roasted.
A critical issue to understand is that food nutrient "measurements" are basically very rough. Completely setting aside the arcane question you ask, quite simply, you can find dozens of different "measurements!" for how much protein in peanuts.
There's definitely some rounding going on because the peanut butter has 100.1g of nutrients per 100g of product. This isn't enough to explain the discrepancy. Adding up the nutrients on the roasted peanuts gives 95.4g. I think we can assume the other 4.6% is water. So perhaps more water has been driven off the peanut butter.
What I think is more likely (though could be additional) is that there's significantly less fat in the peanut butter (48.1% vs 51.7%). While this could be down to different varieties of peanut, I suspect some fat is removed in the processing, perhaps to avoid an oil slick on the surface.
Most likely of all is just different source data. Different peanuts may have been used in the calculations -- whether that is consistent with the actual ingredients used is another matter. In fact if you look at nutrition information for raw peanuts online, you'll get a range of values. There's nothing special about peanuts, the same is true for bananas. I'm sure if you look at the scientific literature on any foodstuff, you'll find a range of values published, reflecting natural variation as well as measurement variabilility -- this will then propagate to the values published to the consumer.
This was my first thought too. If it's 100% peanuts, then there's going to be a lot of oil otherwise, so it makes sense to remove some in this case.
@Jefromi running the numbers in my head, something else has to contribute as well, as the additional protein is more than the loss of fat -- but I reckon it's a significant contribution among the others I mention.
This is spot on. Peanut butter is not an analogy to say ground beef which would contain everything it came from.
I think water doesn't contribute, because the questioner is looking at the ratio of protein to calories. Adding or removing water to a bucket of peanuts doesn't change the total calorie content or the amount of protein in the bucket. So although it changes both numbers per 100g of product, it doesn't change the ratio of the two.
@SteveJessop as a % of total calories yes. I looked at the g/100g figure as there are fewer assumptions involved in that and the problem is still apparent. It's worth noting the effect of water as the peanut butter apparently has none at all. I don't think there's any foodstuff with no water.
@Jefromi: One can visit many grocery stores that offer on-site nut butter grinders. There's a hopper full of nuts, you flip a switch, out comes nut butter. I have noticed no capacity of these grinders to redirect extra oil, nor any difference in oil ratio after separation when comparing site-ground and prefab "100% nut" butters.
@Timbo I think we're talking about a few percent difference; I'm not sure you'd really notice a difference in oil ratio unless you weighed things. I'm not saying it's guaranteed to be this, but it's a good guess and at least plausible.
@Jefromi: Fair point.
My guess is that the peanut butter is 100% peanuts but not 100% of the peanuts are being used in it.
That's like sea salt that is 100% from the Atlantic Ocean. It still contains a smaller amount of water (and consequently a larger amount of sodium) than the Atlantic Ocean does.
Or 100% pure orange juice which fortunately omits the orange peels.
I'm not sure that quite works. What part of the peanut do you think was removed, analogous to the peel of the orange or the water of the Atlantic? The skin of a peanut is a tiny fraction of the whole nut, and the shell is inedible so wouldn't be included in the nutrition figures for either the nut or the butter.
Part to remove: the grease that builds up on the rollers.
+1 for chuckle at 100% sea salt containing a smaller amount of water than the Atlantic ocean. However I think you mean smaller/larger percentage rather than amount.
There are at least a dozen varieties of peanuts. Some are better for whole peanuts and others for peanut butter. Possibly there are some nutritional differences between varieties. Also the preparation could come into play, dry roasting vs oil roasting.
Presuming that the nutrient labels are accurate (for some value of "accurate"), I can think of two reasons for the difference.
Nutrient labels are rounded very aggressively (as in, to the nearest multiple of 10). Thus, doing math on the numbers is likely to result in so much error propagation that any differences are meaningless.
Peanut butter generally does not include the paper skins, whereas roasted peanuts generally do include them. It doesn't seem like a large difference, until you try peanut butter that didn't remove the skins. (Hint: it was awful.)
The differences you see are probably mostly due to reason #1, with maybe a little bit of reason #2 showing through the inherent inaccuracies.
Great points. Some counterpoints:
About point 1 (rounding): Assuming rounding errors, we would still need to explain why the rounding occurs consistently in a way that makes peanut butter 'seem' to contain more protein. If rounding is 'random', then the difference should swing both ways.
About point 2, (peanut skin): When looking at peanuts I am only looking at peeled ones. Now there is a point to be made, that food companies are allowed some flexibility, so they might be allowed to put the data for unpeeled peanuts on packaging of peeled peanuts. That might play a role in such a case.
@NikolaySuvandzhiev-sovata Are you really that sure it's consistent? Generic USDA nutrition facts for peanut butter say 22.2g protein per 100g and for [roasted peanuts] say 24.5g protein per 100g.
@Nikolay, the rounding isn't random, it's just... rounded. It's like one of my favorite T-shirt messages: "2+2=5...for large values of 2". (It works like this: you have a scale that only shows one significant digit. You weigh two things, and each shows 2 on your scale. Now you weigh them together, and your scale shows 5. No, it's not "new math": your two things each actually weighed 2.3, which your scale rounded down to 2. But together, they add up to 4.6, which your scale rounded up to 5.)
@Jefromi , I am not sure that the sources I checked (the two I mentioned + a dozen more in other places) are representative, and I would be happy to see other sources that contradict what I found. As dor the USDA source you provided - I am pretty sure it refers to peanut butter that's not just 100% peanuts. The reason I think this is the very high amount of sucrose, which indicates added sugars. So this USDA link probably refers to 'classic' peanut butter, where sugar (and oils, and salt) are added
@NikolaySuvandzhiev-sovata Ah, you're right, I did look at the wrong one. Thanks for confirming that you looked at a lot; I thought from the question that you'd just looked at one pair.
@Marti indeed - in fact you can get the situation where a product made entirely of sugar (tictacs IIRC) is labelled as 'sugar free' because the labelling refers to each individual sweet, and the rounding of such a small quantity can be 0% sugar. Gotta love the food industry's creativity.
@gbjbaanb also Splenda (sugar substitute) apparently. It's mostly sugar with a tiny bit of sucralose, but one packet has so little product that it's considered "zero calories" and sugar-free.
Different roasting techniques result in different protein amounts(as per this chart).
https://www.healthaliciousness.com/nutritionfacts/nutrition-facts-compare.php
I would also guess that this is a result of the many different types of peanuts> Certain varieties are more likely to be peanut butter and others roasted and eaten by the handful,while other varieties are grown solely to be put into candy bars. However as the chart leads you to believe most of the data for different varieties may be averaged together. Thus, the difference is probably due to specific data for the specific varieties used plus the specific techniques in preparing them.
Also fun fact: oil roasted peanut butter tastes better as Alton Brown has explained in Good Eats and on his blog with youtube videos.
The reason is this;
It was shown on an episode of Food Unwrapped. Peanuts are very high in fat but because of how we chew them and swallow we do not break down the structure enough to release all of the fat in them. So when testing fat content for peanut butter the fat content is higher because the nuts are broken down more thus releasing more fat from them. so in fact when people say nuts are fatty and bad for you they aren't actually that bad because you only get about a 3rd of the fat out of them
While this is interesting, I'm not sure it reflects the way nutrients are actually measured on nutritional labels. Usually the total content is listed from chemical analysis, not based on "how much a human body might be able to absorb in typical digestion." The grinding process doesn't actually change the chemical structure of the peanut butter, so the total fat content listed on the label should be the same. (Also, the cited numbers in the question actually claim LESS fat for peanut butter and more protein.)
They might be skimming peanut oil off the top after making peanut butter. That'd leave a higher protein/fat ratio in the product. Long ago you'd have to stir your peanut butter to get the peanut oil off the surface and back into the butter, but the big manufacturers have found some way around that problem.
@WayfaringStranger - You still have to stir the peanut butter for 100% peanut butter (which is what the question is asking about). The way "around the problem" is to add some fats that are solid or semisolid at room temperature (since peanut oil isn't). Often some of the peanut oil is removed in the process as well. Up until the past decade, this tended to be done with hydrogenated oils, but "natural" peanut butters in recent years tend to use palm oil or some other fat that's closer to solid at room temperature.
In addition to the other answers, different brands of 100% peanut butter contain rather different amounts of protein, fat etc per 100g.
Aldi's has 26g protein, 47g fat, of which 6g saturated, 9g carbohydrate, of which 4.8g sugars, 8g fibre, 6mg sodium and 650mg potassium.
Sanitarium's has
Per 100g
Energy
(Cal)
612
Protein (g)
30.2,
Fat (g)
49.4,
of which saturated 4.8,
trans, 0.0
polyunsaturated 3.9
monounsaturated 41
Cholesterol (mg)
0.0
Carbohydrate (g) 9.4, of which
Sugars (g)
5.6
Dietary Fibre (g)
7.1
Sodium (mg)
5.0
Potassium (mg)
720.
Link to Sanitarium 100% peanut butter ingredients
Sanitarium's no sugar, no salt peanut butter (but oil is added) somehow has more protein per 100g than their 100% peanut butter. enter link description here
Speculating about the causes, could be different sorts of peanuts, different ripeness, different roasting (makes more or less nutrients absorbable by the digestive tract) or just plain errors/lying about the ingredients.
It could be contamination. The lab tech who measured the peanuts surely would notice an insect or mouse tossed in with his peanuts. Unfortunately, the lab tech who received the peanut butter does not have that luxury. I know that is extremely common with grapes vs raisins. Nearly all commercial raisins have a non-trivial portion of insect matter. Ever thought about how raisins could be "sun-dried" inside?
Admittedly, however, I think it is more likely that some oil is either lost or skimmed off during the process to produce a thicker, less oily product. It also looks like they discard some fiber, probably when it jams the machine.
I am not 100% sure. But as the link you provided for wholefoods states "No... Palm oil" this does not exclude additional peanut oil. Almost every recipe for Peanut Butter I can recall, calls for additional peanut oil.
In the general case you're not wrong, but that would add fat not protein, and the peanut butter has less fat than the roast peanuts.
The link also says, "Ingredients: Roasted organic peanuts (100%)", with no other ingredients listed and that does exclude the addition of peanut oil.
@DavidRicherby, it does not, if the peanut oil was got from Roasted organic peanuts.
@Ian Perhaps if the oil was made on-site. I'm pretty sure it would have to be listed from an ingredient, otherwise. For example, yoghurt often lists milk and cream as separate ingredients, despite the fact that cream is "made" by skimming it off the top of milk.
@DavidRicherby - I think I agree with you that if peanut oil is added, a reasonable person would expect it to be listed as an ingredient. However, it seems likely that what's happening here is the opposite-- that is, more of the non-oil part of the peanut got added (which would explain the higher protein per weight). And since I don't think there's a common word for that part, I'm not surprised if they just blow it off and call it "peanuts".
@DonHatch The lack of a common name for something is not a reason to not correctly list it on the ingredients! Again, I'm pretty sure "crushed de-oiled peanut residue" or whatever it would be called would have to be listed in the ingredients, unless the processing was done on-site as part of the peanut butter manufacture.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.001524
| 2016-02-17T15:40:19 |
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|
62730
|
Can I make a hot mayonnaise?
I would like to serve a hot garlic mayonnaise (not spicy) ? Is it possible to do that and how ?
Edit : I do not want to make a Hollandaise sauce but a real hot mayonnaise. I had seen that served on the top of a steam fish filet.
.... Just because it was on top of a hot fish filet doesn't mean the mayo was hot. Where did you "see" this?
which begs the question -- is hot mayonnaise still mayonnaise, or is it now something else? I'm pretty sure the definition of mayonnaise, like hollandaise, is fairly strictly defined in the official terms of French cuisine. (which is not to say that it isn't a valid sauce to use. just wondering about what it should be called.)
See my answer it is still a mayonnaise (see ingredients) but hot
I think you may be a little confused about what you're asking and the answers you are getting. NadjaCS and @Elendil are pointing out that all of these sauces have strict definitions. One of the original sources of mayo as an emulsified sauce explicitly says that it is cold. Therefore, you are not asking for mayo. You are asking for something mayo-like that is hot. If it is hotter than 150F the yolks are definitely cooked and what you get is closer to Hollandaise, as Elendil said. You can find many faster and more foolproof methods for emulsified sauces if you aren't hung up on the word "mayo".
You are basically talking about a Hollandaise sauce, which is similar to mayonnaise in that it is an emulsion of egg yolk and fat. The main difference is that in mayonnaise the fat is oil, whereas in Hollandaise it is butter. The main flavours in mayonnaise come from an acid (lemon juice or vinegar) and mustard - Hollandaise likewise uses lemon juice, and mustard can be easily added.
Recipes abound for Hollandaise, so you will have no problem finding one on Google.
Thank you but Hollandaise has egg yok cooked. Mayonnaise it's based on raw egg yok.
I want to serve real hot mayonnaise (with garlic and safron).
OK. When you work out how to make egg yolk hot without cooking it, I'm all ears.
I posted an answer
Make mayo the usual way, and then heat it up. Mayonnaise is an ingredient in many cooked dishes - it makes a wonderful, flavorful substitute for butter on grilled cheese sandwiches and for oil and eggs in cake mixes, and there's a recipe on the back of my store-bought mayo jar (Gasp! Heresy!) for a chicken dish where you coat chicken breasts in mayo and breadcrumbs and bake them at 425º.
The texture and flavor of the condiment may change to lesser or greater extents during cooking, depending on temperature and the time it's held there: experiment a bit to see what works best for your dish.
So I got the recipe which is done by a master chef from The culinary academy of cuisine.
Do a standard mayonnaise with raw egg yolk :
Add a teaspoon of mustard and beat with the whip
Add a mix of olive oil (50%) and soya oil (50%) so you have a basic mayonnaise
Crush a garlic add it to your mayonnaise with a dash of saffron (now you have a garlic/saffron mayonnaise)
Reserve at room temperature
In a pan, put two spoons of water. Put the heat on the pan. When arriving before boiling, reduce the gas and add the mayonnaise slowly in the pan with the water while beating it.
If you get the perfect temperature, emulsion will come. If it's too cold or too hot, the mayonnaise will break in through. Eggs and oil will separate.
So mastering the temperature is very important. Unfortunately, this
kind of sauce has to be done every time you serve a fish. But it's
very unusual sauce but when you succeed and you master it, you're a
good cook.
I also found a recipe from a chef of El Bulli here but there he uses a siphon which is a different approach and easier.
It sure sounds like the eggs are going to end up cooked...
The whole heating process of that recipe seems completely unnecessary. You're starting with a basic aïoli that's already emulsified, then heating it with water, which risks breaking it, and then cooking that water out anyway. Why not just make it easy on yourself and spoon the room temp mayonnaise over the hot dish, or throwing it under a salamander for a second?
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.002900
| 2015-10-22T15:32:14 |
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|
64046
|
How to store organic cold press sunflower oil for long term usage?
I have opened the bottle and I will be using very little amount daily.
It is not going to be finished soon.
What are the storage instructions? Should be stored in fridge?
Keep it sealed and in the dark. It will last for a long time so long as it doesn't get contaminated.
Do NOT put in the fridge, it will get ruined overnight.
Why no fridge? Details, please...
Well I looked it up and some oils "can" be stores in the fridge, but I have over and over again seen oil put in the fridge and bloom a cloud. Even when you take it out, it just keeps growing until it fills the whole bottle. In the winter I have seen it on the shelves at the grocery store too. Whole Isles of oil gone bad cause it was in the cold too long. I never put oil in the fridge, and keep it in my cabinets.
Oils can become hazy upon refrigeration; once they are allowed to reach normal room temperature, the haze will dissipate. It does not harm oil to keep it in the refrigerator, if anything the shelf life is extended by refrigeration.
Sorry not what I've seen, and have seen whole isles gone bad in the winter. I wish I took a picture now that we're talking about it
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.003543
| 2015-12-02T17:43:44 |
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|
63449
|
How to make a strong cup of milk tea without boiling it much?
As it is known that boiling the tea for a quite some time extracts tannins. But, that is the only way I know of making strong tea.
Cup size: 150 ml.
I put 3/4 cup of milk and 1/4 cup of water in a vessel with 1/2 tbsp of tea and 1/2 tbsp of jaggery on a slow flame, and let it boil for some time.
What is other way to get a strong cup of milk tea?
Is there a way to get a strong cup of tea without boiling tea at all?
This is the tea I use:
http://www.tataglobalbeverages.com/brands/tea/tata-tea/premium
These leaves are totally crumbled.
Is using more tea (1 or 2 tbsp) but not boiling it long (3 to 5 minutes) an unacceptable solution?
I found the solution which suits me:
I first boil the milk, water, and jaggery together in quantity mentioned in the question. After the mixture reaches boiling point, I switch off the gas stove and throw in 2 table spoons of tea. I close the lid of the vessel and let the it sit on the gas itself for 6 minutes.
After 6 minutes, I strain the tea and the result is a non woody strong hot tea.
I think it is important to let the covered vessel sit on the gas because otherwise the tea will cool off in 6 minutes.
As a general rule for tea, milk tea or otherwise... You can make it "stronger" a few ways. Increase the amount of tea, increase the steep time, increase amount of tea or raise the temp.
I would suggest trying it in that order.
Increase the amount of tea. More leaves, means more stuff extracted.
Increase the steep time. This should work, as essentially you're allowing more time for the water/milk to extract the flavours from the leaves. However the potential downside is over-steeping, which could result in more of the bitter tannins tastes coming out of the leaves. Since Milk Tea has a large quantity of milk and usually is a stronger tea to balance, this might be what you're looking for.
Raise the temperature. This might result in more "flavours" coming out, but generally, they're not the flavours you want. Most of the pleasant flavours of tea dissolve at a lower temperature than the tannins. Again, as milk tea is generally a stronger drink, that may be what you want. But I'd try this last, as you could also lose the other flavours in the tea.
Also, not entirely clear from your question, but it appears that you're adding the tea to the cold liquid? I'd probably heat the milk/water to about 80-90C before adding the tea. If for no other reason, than making it more predictable/repeatable as to how long to steep for.
Point number three is not actually relevant to the question - since the tea is boiled, and water doesn't actually get hotter than boiling (or at least, you can't steep tea in it at that point). The first two points are good, though :)
Not entirely true.... If you're talking about the actual "boiling point" of water that is technically true. The original question referenced a slow flame. Which depending on your stove can range anywhere from 85C to 95C (185°F – 205°F). Also with most most teas you typically steep it at a lower temperature 70C-90C. If you raise the temperature of the water.... light simmer to a light or medium boil or a rolling boil, you will in fact get a different flavour. I certainly wouldn't steep milk tea on a high rolling boil, if for no other reason than the fact the milk would explode all over.
Ah? I saw it a bit ago in an answer - water temp shouldn't change from the lightest simmer to the deepest boil, the whole pot hovers at evaporating (difference is agitation, since extra heat -> steam) - just like ice-water is the same temp regardless of the ratio. OP's slow flame could mean less agitation...and the water/milk combo might boil at a different temp, but that temp is consistent. Also, boiled tea or milk tea has a standard cultural assumption that is maxed in time and temp, brewed to death - it is both rare and odd for a cooler temp to be used, not "typically".
The entire reason that you get a rolling boil is that more of the water is at the evaporating temperature.... Have you measured the temperature of a simmering pot? It's not at the boiling point.
you can make tea at very low temperatures but it will take more time there is something i learned froma homeless man in california, he put a tea bag, or other herbal leaves, into a glass bottle of water which he carried in his backpack, throughout the day the teas flavour was imparted into the water which became warm though the day. in the evening he had a strong tea which was luke warm, to drink.
so you could try steeping the tea overnight in just the water and then warming it over a low heat for as long as it takes to get to the strength you like. then add the milk at the end. warm milk obviously wouldnt be advisable becuase it may sour, so you would have to leave out the milk.
also i notice when making chai tea that if i put the tea and water in before the milk the tea seems stronger, i think the milk impedes the tea tannins from coming out, so you could try leaving the milk till the end. hope this helps.
You could make a reduced syrup then use that as a base for milk tea drinks: place a large amount of tea in a pot on the stove, add water till covered and heat gently until it has reduced down to a strong syrup. Store this syrup in the fridge. When you make tea, heat the milk to the temp you wish to drink at and pour in the syrup, sugar to taste, enjoy.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.003708
| 2015-11-14T08:50:25 |
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|
63342
|
What is the way to make golgappe/pani puri at home?
This is what I am talking about: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panipuri
I want to know what is the way to make the puris that fluffy and that crispy such that they remain fluffy and crispy forever.
I do make bigger puris at home by deep frying them in hot oil, but nor I neither anyone who is known to me has made puris that fluffy.
Sometimes by chance they get fluffy, but within 5 minutes all the air escapes from them and they flatten and usually become soft.
What is the way to make golgappe/pani puri at home?
I think this question might be considered borderline as a recipe request. It may be good to reframe it to include your current method for regular poori and ask how to adjust it to make them puff up more and stay crispy. But I think I have an answer anyway...
There are several differences between regular poori and pani poori. When you cook regular poori, you want it to be soft, not crispy, and it doesn't need to puff up as much, and it doesn't really matter if it collapses a little after you cook it.
These differences translate out to some different methods of working with the dough.
First, you need to have a quite elastic dough for pani poori so that they will be able to puff up a lot without bursting. This means you need a lot of gluten and you need a lot of kneading.
For regular poori you are probably using maida (wheat flour), for pani poori it is common to use fine sooji/semolina flour and only a small amount or maida. (Replace all the maida you normally use with fine sooji, then add an extra spoon of maida.)
For regular poori you also probably use a dough that is about the same as for chapatti, maybe just a little bit stiffer. For pani poori you need to knead this quite a long time, then allow it to rest for 15-20 minutes before forming them so that it makes an elastic dough that will stretch a lot without tearing.
The next difference is soft vs crispy and this is mostly relating to the thickness of the dough. You need to make the dough very thin for the crispy pani poori. It probably needs to be about half the thickness of a regular poori. For a whole batch of them, it is easier to roll out the whole piece of dough at one time to an even thickness and cut little round pieces with a cookie cutter or a small katori instead of making a lot of little balls to roll out, but when you are practicing, maybe it is better to roll out small pieces and test frying so that you know if it is the right thickness. It should be quite, quite thin.
When you cook them, the oil should be hot enough that they immediately float and start to puff up. If they are the right thickness, they will become crispy when they look golden.
The next key to keeping them crispy is to cool them completely before covering them. When they come out of the oil, they will still be steaming. If you cover them when they are still at all warm, that steam will be trapped and will make them soft.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.004187
| 2015-11-10T17:35:24 |
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|
64284
|
What is the right temperature for deep-frying?
I want to know what is the right temperature for deep-frying, for:
Schnitzels
French-fries
Crockets
and Onions.
I want to know the lowest temp for the right frying, because I want to keep the oil as much as I can.
What do you mean "keep the oil as much as you can"? I don't know much about frying but I'd always heard that higher temps are better because the outside seals more quickly, so less oil is absorbed... why do you think a lower temperature would make the oil absorb less?
I think he means the longevity of the oil so he/she can reuse it.
325 to 375 for fries...
Most recipes shallow-fry their schnitzel, if you want to boldly chucks them in the deep-fryer instead, it presents two problems; it makes them super crisp, which is usually not what we're after, and it excludes the possibility of using butter, which, I think, is a must. I find the richness of butter unbeatable. Obviously frying it in just butter would present practical problems, as the schnitzel requires more fat than a mere splash, and butter burns easily. You could use a great dollop of clarified butter, but a mixture of that and neutral oil imparts flavour at less expense. The secret to great schnitzel is to "trap air in the crust when you cook the meat by moving and shaking the pan". It works – the coating is noticeably lighter.
For fries, a common recommendation is cook them at 284-325, let them cool a bit, and re-fry at 375-392. Be aware there are health controversies about frying starches at such high temperatures.
For onions - if you want bare onions pieces brown and crispy, I found working in rising temperature (start at 284 and let get hotter) works well... do not start in the 375 range, you will make scorched shoestrings :)
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.004462
| 2015-12-10T16:33:22 |
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|
63295
|
What is the difference between sour cream & butter in baked goods?
I'm a little unsure what the difference is between the two. I found a banana bread recipe that specifically called for the use of sour cream for the batter as opposed to butter; the same applied when I looked for other recipes for banana bread.
Is there a difference between the two? How does sour cream affect the baked good as opposed to butter? Is there a difference or is it simply just to make the flavor richer, which is what I'm guessing the reason for adding it is in for.
The difference is that they're two completely different ingredients and serve different purposes.
Butter is 81 grams fat per 100 grams - or about 80% fat.
Sour cream is only 20 grams fat per 100 grams - about 20%.
In a quick bread like banana bread, recipes often call for fat in the form of oil, not butter, which is almost pure fat. Either way, these recipes need to add moisture (much like a cake batter) and sour cream has lots of moisture and, additionally, adds a slight tang. So, recipes usually call for a combination of butter or oil and some sort of wet ingredient like sour cream, milk, yogurt or buttermilk.
The more appropriate substitution comparisons would be either:
Why butter vs oil?
Why sour cream vs yogurt vs milk vs buttermilk?
From Baking Illustrated Banana Bread, page 23:
We still wanted more moisture in the bread, so we tried mixing in milk, buttermilk, sour cream, and plain yogurt. Sour cream added richness to our bread, but it also made for a heavy texture and an unattractive, pebbly crust. Milk added little flavor and created a slick crust. Buttermilk added a delightful tang, but yogurt let the banana flavor stand out. And because yogurt has more solids than buttermilk, it made for a somewhat more solid loaf, which we preferred.
As a note, their final recipe uses both melted butter and yogurt.
and some recipes use only oil and no extra water or milk products, relying on the moisture in the bananas themselves.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.004663
| 2015-11-09T06:52:57 |
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|
64035
|
How was the usage of yeast for bread discovered?
From where did people get the yeast for their bread??
From thin air. Literally. There are still recipes in use that just expose the dough (or part of it) to ambient conditions until, hopefully, yeast gets to it before spoilage organisms do.
However, there is a large step involved from an empirical observation that dough changes when it is left be for some time, to actively adding organisms that do the job.
@PascalEngeler, like from a spoiled petri dish to antibiotics. Accident -> observation -> conclusion -> use.
The first yeast was "just there" - in the environment, everywhere. People discovered very early on that leaving the dough (or just a flour-water slurry) out would lead to it getting "sour" and "bubbly", thus leavening the bread: What we today call sourdough is in fact a mixture of yeasts and bacteria (lactobacillae).
The origins of bread-making are so ancient that everything said about them must be pure speculation. (M.G. Gaenzle: Encyclopedia of Food Microbiology)
Early sources are the Bible (-> the explicit demand for of "unleavened" or "unsoured" bread during Passover suggesting that otherwise was the norm) and sources from Ancient Egypt.
The "modern" yeast that was explicitly added was mentioned by Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis historia as a foam skimmed from beer:
In Gaul and Spain, where they make a drink by steeping corn in the way
that has been already described - they employ the foam which
thickens upon the surface as a leaven: hence it is that the bread in
those countries is lighter than that made elsewhere.
Source: The Natural History, Chapter 12: Wheat. Pliny the Elder.
John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S. H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A. London. Taylor and
Francis, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street. 1855.
Sources from the 18th century describe how the yeast from the brewing process (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) was used for baking, leading to the "specialized strains" of bakers' yeast cultivated separately when the brewers switched to bottom-fermenting yeast (S. pastorianus) in the 19th century, which preferred cooler temperatures and was not as easy to harvest as the top-fermenting types.
The use of separately cultivated yeast allowed to bake "milder" breads than the sourdough types with their typical acidic undertones but is restricted to certain flour types.
It's from before history.
Cool fact I read in a brewing book: Brewers used to keep a "magic wand" that was used to stir the wort (sugary water). This wand had the brewer's yeast on it and inoculated the wort with yeast to ferment it into beer. This is part of the origin of the magic wand.
Bakers, brewers, krauts, and yogurts would have had similar experiences with their tools (mixers, vessels, etc) harboring the yeast needed to make the fermentations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_beer#Early_beers
"krauts" as in "Germans"? And who are "yogurts"?
Think he means those that made Sauerkraut and Yoghurt, though technically these arent made by yeasts... but IIRC (If I could be bothered my sources I'd make an answer not a comment :) people hundreds of years ago understood yeast as a substance that you could extract from the brewing process, but assumed it was chemical, not live in nature.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.004960
| 2015-12-02T11:17:01 |
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|
63568
|
How to reduce the flavour of orange zest in chicken?
I recently tried to make orange chicken and the recipe required the zest of one orange. Well I added too much zest and the orange peel flavor is overpowering. How can I reduce that flavor?
Can we assume the question is about fixing the leftovers? You could try building a new sauce around the protein (keeping what is on it as marinade), or turning the whole affair into a soup (often a way to salvage stir fried dishes), or maybe adding a lot of neutral vegetable filler (shredded napa cabbage, beansprouts,potatoes...from experience with similar over-oranged dishes: no shiitake or other sharp tasting ingredients!)... no guarantees there, depends on how overpowering the current condition is...
rackandboneman has excellent suggestions. If I may add one more, I would suggest adding some fairly strong tastes to reduce the prominence of the orange. Some soy, garlic and honey would go a long way toward turning the orange into a passable teriyaki.
jist found this.. as I am working on sams issues. I am using leftover orange marmalade in place of orange juice (nobody liked the marmalade so I needed to use it somehow). It has a very strong tangy zest taste. I have included ginger root and garlic, salt, coconut aminos or soy sauce, rice vinegar, brown sugar and diluted with water. While it still has tang.. I think it is definitely much more palatable and hoping it will be even more so once used with the chicken or veggies added to it.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.005262
| 2015-11-18T00:51:05 |
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|
11828
|
Why do "saute pans" have straight sides?
I've read numerous times that when sauteing, the pan used usually has curved sides to allow one to toss the food. However, whenever I look at pans on shopping websites and such, the pan labeled "saute pan" has straight vertical sides and a lid. The lid is even more confusing when one thinks about it, since a lid would cause steaming--the exact opposite of the goal of sauteing. So what's up with this confusing naming?
edit:
As requested, here's a "link" to many pans labeled "saute"... Google shopping
Can you share a link to one of these saute pans?
You're right - this doesn't make sense, they should have sloped sides so you can easily toss (or jump as daniel said below) the sauteeing things
I find by far the most essential use of a large lidded saute pan, straight sided, is for cooking pilau/pilaf. As a result, I consider it essential equipment.
North American cookware companies seem to use the terms "saute" and "sauteuse" interchangeably, but technically, the saute pan is the straight-sided one, and the sauteuse or "fry pan" is the slope-sided one.
In French cooking equipment terms, the straight-sided one is called a "sautoir", and the sauteuse has higher sides and while angled out, they are not curved. The curved, shorter sided one is called a poele (and probably what most North Americans would identify as a "frying pan"). So the issue is really that there are a lot of different names floating around for just 3 types of pans.
When you saute, you want to maximize cooking surface area, so that things don't steam. Sloped sides will reduce the cooking surface, so that's why a saute pan will have straight sides. Regarding the lid, it would be used in the case that you want to cover the pan after a sear, to braise or steam. It also makes your pan more versatile.
Regardless of the etymology of "saute", according to La Cuisine de Reference, the definition of saute is to cook quickly in a small amount of oil, and any of the aforementioned pans can be used for this cooking technique.
"Sauter - Cuire rapidement des petites pièces de viande, de poisson ou de légumes dans un sautoir, une sauteuse ou une poêle, avec un peu de matière grasse."
One site I found said the following very confusing thing: "A fry pan offers advantages for sautéing, and a sauté pan offers advantages for shallow-frying or braising". Is this like how parkways are where we drive and driveways are where we park or was this site wrong? https://www.tigerchef.com/blog/cookware-all-about-different-types-of-commercial-cookware/2065
The straight sides are helpful when you are deglazing the pan for a sauce. Otherwise, the sauce might stick to the sloping sides of the pan, vaporize and burn as it reduces. For me, sautéing is basically browning the meat, but catching the juices to make a saucy meal. The lid is used if the pan is too big for the amount of meat you use, if you don't use the lid, the juices will vaporize and there will be no sauce.
For more information about cookware see: http://www.vegetable-recipes-by-cooking-method.com/cookware-review.html
For me sauce pans are the ones with high sides (as high as their diameter), sauté pans have low sides, fry pans have curved sides. You are right about the high heat, but I don't call it frying, because for me frying is done without moving the meat around, just turning it from time to time
yeah, that's why I say "for me" :) thanks for making that clear to me. I'm not professionally trained, just a cooking enthusiast, as you may have realized by now :)
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.005437
| 2011-02-05T05:20:54 |
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|
11961
|
What is the the best coffee-water ratio?
Possible Duplicate:
What's the Ideal Coffee to Water Ratio for a French Press?
In terms of weight, what is a recommended relation between coffee and the water, when I'm making coffee in a French-press?
I think this also depends on the size of the grind, but let's suppose a standard one.
Which do you use and what's the strength? Thanks!
It is a duplicate indeed. I've searched before asking but I couldn't find that question. A merge would be appreciated.
|
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|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.005779
| 2011-02-09T03:42:37 |
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|
63439
|
Molasses cookies - Do I need to start over?
I am making molasses cookies. I accidentally put a cup of sugar in the dry ingredients, when I was only supposed to have a cup of sugar creamed with shortening. Should I throw out my dry ingredients and start over or can I keep it and maybe my cookies will just be extra sweet?
Here is the recipe:
Ingredients:
1 cup shortening
1 egg
3/4 tsp vinegar
3 cups sifted flour
1 tsp salt
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup molasses
3/4 cup evaporated milk
3 tsp soda powder
1 tsp cinnamon
Cream shortening and sugar. Add egg and molasses, beat well. Stir in vinegar and milk. Mix and sift dry ingredients. Add to mixture. Drop from teaspoon on greased baking sheet. Bake at 350F for about 15 minutes.
Welcome Kayley, if you share the recipe, it will give us a better chance for a good answer. Just click the grey "edit" below your post to add information.
I have now added the recipe
why not test bake a few and check if the result is acceptable, or unsalvageable, or needs adjustments (like doubling the recipe around the existing mix)...
You don't want too much sugar. The point of creaming the shortening and sugar is to get the shortening "emulsified" a bit. You can't really mix milk and shortening. Think of vinegar and oil as opposed to just water and oil. If you have an electric mixer for all of this you should be able to overcome the problem. Just follow the rest of the sequence. You'll be able to use the mixer to brute force what you could have finessed by hand.
You do not need to start over. The texture will be a little different than the original recipe but mixing the dry ingredients is not a huge mistake. Go ahead and bake the cookies according to the remaining recipe.
Sugar is not a "dry" ingredient. And adding it twice will definitely affect the outcome.
|
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.005873
| 2015-11-13T21:38:36 |
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|
81997
|
Differences between rice/pressure/multi/slow cooker?
I'm really confused about what these products are supposed to do, and if some products can do the same as others in the following list.
What are the differences between the following devices?
Rice cooker with keep warm/cook button only
Rice cooker with multi function/programs
Slow cooker
Pressure cooker
Multicooker
Does a multi cooker do all of the above? Or only some multi-cookers in the market? How can i tell if a pressure cooker can be used also as a rice cooker, etc? It's very confusing.
There are several different categories of these devices, but they do all tend to look quite similar. Prices can vary by a very significant amount, though. So.
Rice Cooker
The simplest kind of rice cooker is the kind with just a switch on the front to turn it on. Mine is like this - when plugged in, it's in "warm" mode, press the switch and it goes to "cook" mode. Rice cookers are designed to boil their contents, then wait until the water's all absorbed/evaporated and switch back to a keep-warm mode. That's all you need in order to cook rice, so it's all a basic rice cooker will do. You can cook other things with it, if you bear this in mind.
Rice Cooker with other functions
Depends what the other functions are. I've most commonly seen rice cookers which can also be slow cookers, in which case they heat more gently and disable the automatic shutoff used when cooking rice.
Slow Cooker
A slow cooker, commonly also called a crockpot after a popular brand, is a device that looks quite a lot like a rice cooker but usually has a fairly chunky ceramic cooking pot instead of a thin metal one. Slow cookers are designed to heat up to a moderate temperature and stay there for long periods of time, allowing you to gently cook something like a stew or a shoulder of pork for hours upon hours without having to use the oven or dance attendance on a saucepan. Slow cookers often have two or more temperature settings - mine has "high", "low" and "warm", but they can come with more. A common extra feature is an even lower temperature setting designed for making yoghurt.
As mentioned above, a common combination is a rice cooker which can also be a slow cooker.
Pressure Cooker
A pressure cooker is a very different beast. Pressure cookers have a sealed chamber (typically with a big, heavy lid which you put on and twist to lock it into position) and a pressure valve. They heat up and form a high pressure environment, which raises the boiling point of water. Because the water stays liquid at higher temperatures inside the pressure cooker, food cooks a lot faster. A lot faster. This also has impacts on flavour and texture of food, sometimes positive, sometimes negative.
To answer one specific point in your question, you can cook rice in all pressure cookers, in much the same way as you can cook rice in all saucepans and all microwaves, regardless of if they have a "rice" button.
You can get stovetop pressure cookers, which require careful control of the heat from the burner to maintain the right pressure inside. People tend to be wary of these as we worry about them exploding, although modern cookers have excellent safety valves which will vent long before there's a risk to the integrity of the pot.
The easier kind to use is the electric pressure cooker, which heats itself up and takes care of maintaining pressure automatically. These come in a variety of models with more or less sophisticated features including multiple pressure levels, automatic venting/keep warm/cooling at the end of the cooking time, and various other cooking functions, which leads us to...
Multicooker
Any one of a number of devices which aims to combine one or more of the above categories, plus more, into one device. A rice cooker with a slow cooker mode is technically a multicooker. Some multicookers claim to do techniques usually done on the hob and be able to roast things and deep fry things. Whether this is successful or not is something you should really check the reviews about.
The popular multicookers these days are usually electric pressure cookers with more modes. They may have a hotter heat setting to use for frying and searing with the lid off, or a slow cooker mode which lets you put the lid on but won't build up pressure as it would in pressure cooking mode. Some have a rice cooking function, although typically they will pressure cook the rice rather than simply boil it as a standalone rice cooker does.
How to choose one
First, decide what you want.
Then, decide how much you can afford.
Then, read the feature lists. If a rice cooker can be used as a slow cooker it will tell you, because this is more expensive so they need to advertise that capability. Electric pressure cookers seldom come without some claims of being at least 6-in-1 devices. Mine's one of the most basic on the market and claims 6-in-1, in reality it's only capable of sauteing things (with the lid off) or pressure cooking them (with the lid on). So check carefully. Read reviews. There's no substitute for some research work in choosing a device for your kitchen.
You may wish to have multiple objects so you can use them all simultaneously - which means you can gradually acquire a very affordable slow cooker, rice cooker, pressure cooker, whatever, one by one. But that takes up lots of space as well, which maybe you don't have, so you might want to spend more money and get something which has many modes for different ways of cooking.
A rice cooker is a device specifically designed for rice, and rice only. These devices often proclaim features like "fuzzy logic", which really only means that they are programmed to reach a specific temperature without going over it, so you don't wind up with overcooked rice. They're generally not much use for other foods, though you might find some that you could cook successfully.
A slow cooker is designed, more generically, to cook foods at relatively low temperatures for a relatively long time. They typically can't reach temperatures needed for searing or browning, but can be useful for stews, braises, and other preparations that rely on time but aren't too picky about exact temperature.
A pressure cooker is a vessel designed to seal in pressure, and thereby increase the boiling point of water inside the vessel. They can frequently be used for many of the same purposes as slow cookers, but can achieve similar results in a shorter time. Some more delicate foods aren't suitable for this treatment due to the higher temperature.
Note that while rice/slow cookers are generally electric, there are many old-style pressure cookers that are designed to be heated on a stove. They're typically fairly heavy and durable and can be used for purposes similar to other stovetop cookware, but I assume from the context of your question that you're mostly interested in an electric model.
Multicookers are exactly what they sound like: multi-function electric devices that are designed to replace some or all of the above. They're a more recent introduction - at least in the American market I've only seen them within about the last decade. They usually have pressure seals and can be used as a standalone pressure cooker, but can also be used in non-pressurized modes to duplicate the function of a slow cooker.
As far as how to know which functions any given multicooker can perform - look at the box. How well they perform all these functions varies, but I can personally vouch for the "Instant Pot" brand. Their devices are advertised as being able to replace all of the above, and they do a reliable job even with rice. Some of the newer/higher-end models also have specialty modes, such as maintaining a low temperature for inoculating homemade yogurt. You'll have to decide which functions are important to you if you're interested in purchasing one.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.006071
| 2017-05-26T11:35:24 |
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|
81270
|
How can I obtain perfectly peeled boiled eggs?
Let me put some context to this question.
Sometime ago I checked into this hotel (it no longer exists). It used to be some mansion, and a chain converted it to a routine hotel. Lousy sound insulation, but I'm digressing.
The breakfast was included, and said breakfast consisted, among other things, of a huge bowl filled with boiled and peeled eggs.
I didn't pay much attention to it at the time, but looking back at it now, I marvel that anyone can boil and peel a huge number of eggs and get everyone of them this perfectly peeled. My own talent, which includes pouring a generous amount of salt in the boiling water and plunging the eggs into cold water promptly 3-5 minutes after boiling, produces the rather unapetizing result you see below.
This answer seems to suggest that freshness is incompatible with ease of peeling. I hope that hotel, and workers, didn't merely rely on archeologic eggs to obtain this perfect peeling. I don't recall an unusual taste.
How can I obtain nicely peeled boiled eggs, every time?
To make the question a wee-bit harder, I'm often aiming for a soft core, removing from the heat about 2-3 minutes after the start of boiling.
Thanks for including a photo. I have experienced the frustration illustrated many times, it's so annoying when you are trying to make deviled eggs and this happens.
There are a lot of other answers on that question you linked with suggestions besides older eggs. Have you tried any of those suggestions? I'm not wild about a second question where people can just provide the same answers they did on that one (and someone already has).
@Jefromi The two other ideas say "be patient", "go slowly", "crack gently", etc. I have certainly used up all the patience I can possibly have to get a nice egg. Which leaves the "use older eggs" idea. I like the "wait till older" idea for yogurt, but it's a pretty lousy idea for any other food, especially when feeding a child.
It's not clear to me how this question is any different than the old one except that you don't like the answers.
There are a ton more suggestions than the three you listed, including specific things in multiple answers like shocking in cold water (possibly after cracking slightly) and making sure they're still moist when peeling. On top of that, people are posting the same suggestions here as there.
Very slightly crack the egg with a spoon, stack with crack up, add salt, bring to boil slowly, and cool with cold water and ice. Roll in your hand to crack the shell and keep rolling until the shell comes off. Or kind of compress from side to top. I worked as cook - I could just squeeze and open.
I see how your idea would work. Give an incentive for the boiling water to stream—ever so microscopically—between the egg and the thin layer adjacent to an egg's shell. The trouble is that (as we've all experienced) an egg that has the the most minuscule crack in its shell will let the white of the egg stream out of the water. How might one "crack with a spoon" such that the water would stream in, but the higher-viscosity egg white does not stream out?
more specify, maybe I think to crack it very slight that couldnt break the membrane between the egg shell and the white, so that the egg is still intact
@Ryan Making waaay to much of it. I worked as a prep cook and it worked. I could do 24 dozen and lose 1 at most.
@Calaf Maybe you (and all others) experienced white out of the shell because you failed to crack. "Very slight" should be clear enough.
This is a duplicate of a question I answered but I forgot about it.
The possible reason for making the egg as in the picture, is that the eggshell membrane is still with the egg white. Eggshell membrane is a translucent sheet between the eggwhite and the eggshell.
Add some salt to the boiling water. (When? Does it matter?)
It is because salt and acids (like vinegar) can also denature proteins in the same way heat does. Adding these substances speeds up the process by which the egg whites solidify. Reference from here.
Promptly remove from the stove and pour cold water.
Eggshell membrane is primarily composed of fibrous proteins such as collagen type I, also some glycosaminoglycans,and sulfated glycoproteins. Whereas egg white consists primarily of about 90% water into which is dissolved about 10% proteins (including albumins, mucoproteins, and globulins).
When you boil the egg, the heat coming from your stove denatures the protein by disrupting some of its bonds that held the molecule into shape. In the case of hard-boiled eggs, the proteins clump together and solidify. A more complete explanation could be found here.
So, when you promptly remove from the stove and pour cold water, it quenches the boiling process, and the structural changes inside the eggwhite/yolk and the eggshell membrane. As well as shrinking the eggwhite (remember eggwhite contains more water, and has capacity to shrink), while the eggshell membrane contains less water and more fibrous protein. The difference in shrink will let the eggwhite be able to separate from the eggshell membrane.
For the japanese soft boiled eggs:
I think this video is good:
Place the boiled egg for around 5 minutes to ensure eggwhite are completely separated from the eggshell membrane
There is also a method here suggest for easier peeling (page 10):
As soon as eggs are cooked, place them in ice water for at least 1 minute. Then return eggs, one at a time, to the boiling water for exactly 10 seconds. The cold water shrinks the egg body away from the shell and the hot water causes the shell to expand away from the egg.
It's best to use older eggs, fresher ones will be harder to peel. After your done boiling your eggs crack them gently all over and put them back in some ice water. This will let the water get under the shells and make it easier to peel.
Another method is to put an egg into a clean empty jar and shake the jar until the shell come off.
A third method is to roll them on the counter gently as in this video near the end - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOoDEZd4a4A
I use the rolling method, after rolling the egg on the counter top I then run it under the tap whilst peeling. I had never noticed difference between old or fresher eggs, however I have noticed that if the egg comes out of the fridge then boiled it peels easier than if it is an egg that has been left at room temperature then boiled. No doubt there is some fiendish science behind this!
@dougal3.0.0 It's easy to hypothesize: Perhaps the hot water expands the shell? I'll try your method. Question: I already always take the eggs out of the fridge just before boiling them, but are you saying that one should also drop them in water that has been preheated? I found that it's a lot easier to control getting a soft yolk with a hard(er) egg white if I heat the egg along with the water.
@Calaf. If I am aiming for a soft yolk (runny), then drop egg into boiling water and boil for 2-3mins depending upon size of egg. Roll carefully, then peel under tap (cold). If I'm after a hard yolk, then simply put in pan of water bring to boil for 5-7mins, rolling is easier this time, but still peel under cold tap. (forgot to mention cooling them in a pan of cold water before rolling - else you'll burn your fingers!)
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.006632
| 2017-04-27T23:23:23 |
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|
87199
|
Are berries acidic enough they must be on top, not within, panna cotta?
Item 1 Panna cotta (cream, gelatin, perhaps sugar)
Item 2 berries (blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries)
Stores usually sell panna cotta with the berries on top. Is this just because it is more presentable, or is there a technical reason?
In particular, would the cream go sour if the panna cotta is poured over the berries so that the berries are fully buried inside? Are berries acidic enough for this to happen?
Reasons for putting the berries inside? There are at least two:
Nudge kids to eat the fruits. "You want the nice cream; you've got to have the berries along with it."
The two flavors mix better, and (imagining) the berries will last a day or two in the fridge without the skin "wilting".
Can you make a small test? Drop a couple berries in a small cup and then compare. In my opinion they will water the pannacotta but kids might not care about .
Berries are quite acidic (thus, we can make jam and process it with the boiling water process safely) but I don't think that really comes into play here, at least with fresh berries (frozen will leak when thawed.) I believe they are typically put on top to make the dish attractive and advertise that it has fruit. But I'd second the "try it and report" approach. On the third hand, I don't recall any issues with trifle going off due to the embedded fruit (even sliced) in a custard cream.
Reporting experimental results.
I hypothesized that frozen berries will fare better than fresh. The reasoning? It will take them a while to thaw if the cream is poured at room temperature and put in the fridge right after. By the time they thaw, the cream would have set.
In practice, it's more complicated. Alchimista's hunch is accurate. The skin of the berries is not as impermeable as one would think (I skipped strawberries, since they're inherently porous).
Perhaps the berries will keep just as well inside as outside; that is not entirely clear. But the cream will not set as well near the surface of the berries as it sets farther away, and soggy panna cotta seems like a candidate for going bad sooner.
All in all, I'd say keeping the berries on top is a better option. Besides, an enhanced presentation is a good attribute for homemade desserts as well.
Right what I wanted to say by " water the pannacotta....". :) nice tough negative experiment . A chemist here.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.007313
| 2018-01-21T01:01:07 |
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|
67763
|
Why did the skin of my tomatoes fracture after a few days in a refrigerator?
I purchased a bunch of red tomatoes on a twig a few days ago, and put them in a plastic bag in my refrigerator.
When I opened the plastic bag five–six days later, all the bottoms of the tomatoes (bottom tertiles) had wide fractures in their skin. They had basically started to split.
They were a bit soft, but not that soft – my first rection was that maybe my fridge is a bit too cool.
The temperature in the fridge is around 5-6° C, and I kept the tomatoes close to the bottom shelf where vegetables go.
Is my refrigerator too cold, or was five-six days in a fridge too long to store tomatoes?
Note: I'm partially aware of the fact that tomatoes shouldn't really be stored in a fridge – but in room temperature – if I'm not mistaken!
You're right - tomatoes retain their flavor best at room temperature. Refrigerated tomatoes end up tasting a bit flabby.
Tomato Gardening Tips
This site's gardening tip says that tomatoes splitting on the vine is due to a lack of water - the plant gets dried out and the skin doesn't retain the elasticity to contain new growth.
The refrigerator is typically a dehydrating environment. Could be that's your culprit.
But for pity's sake, store them on the counter where they stay their most delicious and you can see them and remember to eat them!
But I don't see how the splitting on the vine (caused by rain after a drought or inconsistent watering) is connected to this question. Tomatoes don't "grow" after being harvested.
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Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.007539
| 2016-03-26T10:35:41 |
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|
64124
|
Are there any differences in large or small pieces of root ginger?
I find the bigger ones easier to peel, but I've heard that, for example, in potatoes all the vitamins are just below the skin, so I wonder if by a similar effect, smaller rhizomes of root ginger would be more potent in flavour or aroma or different in some way?
Ben, welcome! One hint: Health questions are off topic, so I read your comparison to potatoes as "the aroma might be under the skin". If you would like to edit to clarify, this would perhaps even improve your question.
Stephie, Your interpretation of the question is correct, I am not specifically interested in vitamins, that was just used as an example. I am specifically interested in any flavour differences, but I can't think of a better example than the potato.
would "how to maximize the content of (incidentally health related) compound X from ingredient Y when included in a dish" not be a technique rather than a health question?
Quite the opposite, large ginger rhizomes are more potent both in flavour and aroma, because those compounds take time in the ground to develop and accumulate...
There's a Chinese proverb: "It's the older ginger that's got the punch /heat", referring to wisdom of the elders / the experienced...
The younger rhizomes have a milder flavour, and a smoother texture (the older ones are more fibrous) so are used for pickling in both Chinese and Japanese cuisines...
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.007713
| 2015-12-05T12:47:45 |
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|
93901
|
Mint vs Peppermint
Are mint and peppermint the same thing?
Can we substitute one for the other.
How can we differentiate between mint and peppermint?
Peppermint is a hybrid breed of two plants belonging to the mint genus, spearmint and watermint. In my experience, when 'mint' is referred to by itself without any other descriptors, it usually refers to the spearmint flavour people are used to (from things like green restaurant mint candies, toothpaste, etc). Peppermint will be denoted as peppermint. However, as mentioned in the comments, this may vary based on region.
There is a significant difference in taste between peppermint and spearmint; I find peppermint to have a much more intense flavour. Scientifically, peppermint gets its flavour from its high menthol content, whereas as spearmint owes its flavour to the compound L-carvone. Substitution will not replicate the same flavour as the original.
Source for science related parts:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mentha
"it usually refers to the spearmint flavour people are used to" - this must be a regional thing. For me, peppermint is the most common mint flavor. For years, I even didn't know that spearmint is related to mint (it has a linguistically unrelated name in my mother tongue). So just saying "mint" will certainly refer to the flavor people are most used to, but which one it is will vary with culture.
Well what does watermint taste like then? I've never heard of it. Basil is a mint plant too, right? What is the mint they use in mojitos?
@Chloe Basil is in the same family (Lamiaceae) mint is in, but is not in the Mentha branch, so is not mint. Other herbs in lamiaceae include rosemary, sage, marjoram etc. Mojito mint (mentha x villosa), apparently is the mint used in mojitos (called yerba buena in Cuba).
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.007892
| 2018-11-14T17:16:04 |
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|
14671
|
Improvising Self-rising cornmeal
This is basically the cornmeal equivalent of making your own self rising flour.
I have a cornbread recipe here and I have non-self rising corn bread. Do I do the same ratio of baking powwderand salt to make it self rising?
yes. That is the basic different between self-rising cornmeal and regular cornmeal.
From Food.com:
http://www.food.com/library/cornmeal-59
Self-rising cornmeal is a white or yellow cornmeal with leavening agents and salt added.
Substitutions: 1 cup plain cornmeal + 1 1/2 tsp baking powder + 1/2 tsp salt = 1 cup self-rising cornmeal
The questioner said baking soda and the answer says baking powder. They are not the same thing! You use baking POWDER, and not baking soda. 1 cup plain cornmeal + 1 1/2 tsp baking powder + 1/2 tsp salt = 1 cup self-rising cornmeal
Good catch! Baking soda will function if the recipe also includes acidic ingredients, but the ratio will be different.
@barbara Thanks for pointing that out. For future reference, please comment on the question if the question needs to be edited, or you can propose an edit yourself.
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.008052
| 2011-05-11T02:50:26 |
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|
83705
|
Composition/safety of cherry pits
I'd like to prepare cherry preserves (/marmalade), but I'd like to save on the time it takes to remove the pits. I'm considering cooking them whole, with gentle mashing, then removing the pits once at the end.
The only problem is the analogy with apple seeds. Apple seeds contain a small amount of "amygdalin, a cyanogenic glycoside composed of cyanide and sugar" (reference) that makes them dangerous for humans (and also for dogs) when eaten in large quantities.
Is it safe to cook cherries with the pits? Ideally I'd like a reference to be sure. Is there any harmful substance? Do factories remove pits beforehand?
I'd take the time to pit the cherries before cooking them it will be easier to remove them instead of digging in the preserve to fish out the pits.
Split pits are likely to effect the taste of the product, and cooking them is likely to cause more to split. Commercially they are almost certain to use cherry pitters. Home pitters are a pain to use, but are much easier than hand pitting and should be available through places like mail order seed and tree companies and other sources.
Can you give a reference for arsenic in apple pits? That's the first time I hear of it, and a (quick) search did not lead to any such information. Or do you mean amygdalin as the accepted answer assumes?
@cbeleitesunhappywithSX You're probably right. It may well be (as a quick search suggests) that amygdalin is present, and that it releases cyanide. I was likely confusing arsenic and cyanide. They're quite distinct: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-arsenic-and-cyanide
http://www.bonappetit.com/test-kitchen/ingredients/slideshow/foods-that-can-kill-you Which I think may be overstating the danger, but, their claim is:
After some quick Googling, we found that hydrogen cyanide is lethal at about 1.52 milligrams per kilogram, meaning that it takes little more than 0.1 grams (a dime weighs about one gram) of the toxin to dispatch a 150-pound human. A single cherry yields roughly 0.17 grams of lethal cyanide per gram of seed, so depending on the size of the kernel, ingesting just one or two freshly crushed pits can lead to death.
Again, I think that may be overstated, but should still give you cause to avoid the risk. The pits do not actually contain cyanide, but do contain a related compound that digests in the body into cyanide. Incidental swallowing of a pit is not an issue. It is the kernel that has the compounds.
The earlier comment regarding flavor: These chemicals tend to be a very bitter flavor, one that people tend to dislike. This tends to act as a warning "not good" causing us not to eat such things because we do not like the flavor and thus not poisoning ourselves. Not foolproof, but it helps. A few in a batch may not actually hurt you unless you ate entire jars in one sitting, but that does not mean it will be good for you, and the bitterness may well affect the flavor. My experience, though anecdotal, with stone fruits is that more pits will split and crack after heating than before so the risks of off flavor or even tainting may increase.
If this is something you wish to make in quantity or more than once, I would look into investing in of of the small pitters available for home use.
I couldn't have hoped for a more pertinent or perfect answer. I have a nice pitter, but sitting with a pound or two of cherries is hardly a pleasant pastime. Perhaps I'll experiment with removing sooner from the heat to increase the yield.
@Calaf there is a reason such tedious and repetitive tasks were done in groups in our (great-...) grandmothers' time. Chatting while working makes the time fly. Today, and for those without helpers, listening to the radio, TV, audio books or podcasts can be distracting enough to get the job done without "suffering" too much.
@Stephie Good call. It is a pain to do, especially if you have a single cheery pitter (though those are nice if you want stem on). I had a 5 hole one that I wish I knew how my ex ended up with it. She never used it. It was faster, but still a pain. Jammed constantly and seem to take as long to clean as it took to actually use.
Cooking the pits will destroy the amygdalin making the pits safe to eat. Cook away without any fear.
https://www.seriouseats.com/how-to-make-cherry-pit-syrup
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.008178
| 2017-08-15T14:36:55 |
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|
84120
|
Safety of raspberry seeds in smoothies
It would be a bad idea to crush apple or cherry seeds while making smoothies or marmalades (due, apparently, to the presence of hydrogen cyanide).
If a raspberry smoothie is made in a 550W blender, the seeds survive unscathed (pictured below). They can be strained and discarded.
Does a super-blender (1300W-1500W) grind them? Does it become unsafe to ingest them?
Update
Normally an opinion, perhaps one that can be ascertained, is fine. But to confirm that there is no cyanide etc in some product, a reference would be nice. Or else a disclaimer for an empirical experiment you've been running (great teeth, powerful jaws) for years and have survived.
You may be interested in my answer to another question: https://cooking.stackexchange.com/a/109168/52931 it contains a link to a paper by the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment about acceptable cyanide intake (cyanide poisoning is about exceeding our body's ability to detoxify cyanide). (If you crush cherry pits, the sharp edges may be the more dangerous aspect, btw)
Pits from stone fruits trees from the Prunus genus such as cherries, apricots and peaches can pose a risk of cyanide poisoning if crushed and ingested in significant amounts.
From foodsafety.govt.nz
CYANOGENIC GLYCOSIDES - INFORMATION SHEET THE COMPOUNDS
Cyanogenic glycosides or cyanoglycosides account for approximately 90% of the wider group of plant toxins known as cyanogens. The key characteristic of these toxins is cyanogenesis, the formation of free hydrogen cyanide, and is associated with cyanohydrins that have been stabilised by glycosylation (attachment of sugars) to form the cyanogenic glycosides.
Examples of cyanogenic glycosides include linamarin from cassava and amygdalin from the seeds of stone fruit. The amount of cyanogenic glycosides in plants is usually reported as the level of releasable hydrogen cyanide.
SOURCES
The major edible plants in which cyanogenic glycosides occur are almonds, sorghum, cassava, lima beans, stone fruits and bamboo shoots.
Raspberries are from a different classification of plants that do not have elevated amounts of cyanogenic glycosides.
From wikipedia.org/wiki/Raspberry
The raspberry (/ˈræzˌbɛri/) is the edible fruit of a multitude of plant species in the genus Rubus of the rose family, most of which are in the subgenus Idaeobatus; the name also applies to these plants themselves.
Apples aren't stone fruits and do apparently have a little too, but not nearly enough to cause problems in any realistic situation. I think the main proof here is just that there isn't anything saying there's amygdalin in raspberries. (And also the total volume of the seeds you eat is really really tiny.)
@Cascabel: anecdotally, someone I know of ate a cupful of roasted apple seeds and said he had some neurological effects. I would argue that if a plant "bothers" to produce the compound, it is probably not complete safe to eat the interior of the seeds although intact seeds are not dangerous in this respect since the apple "wants" its seeds spread by animals.
I mean, yeah, it's not completely safe, that wasn't the point of my comment. "Reasonable situation" there is meant to indicate that you're not in a situation like, well, eating a whole cup of roasted apple seeds, just incidentally getting some.
You can eat raspberries. You can chew them as much as you like, without dying. Your teeth (unless yours are suffering great defects) are perfectly capable of crushing the seeds.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.008553
| 2017-09-04T00:58:14 |
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|
83979
|
Does a 1500W blender produce a less viscous smoothie than a 400W blender?
A less-viscous smoothie is more drinkable, by adults and kids alike. (We assume we add minimal to no water.)
1300W-blenders are touted by sales-folks as Formidable Juice Machines.
Is this marketing hype to justify the significantly higher price tags, or do they actually serve a better purpose than 400W blenders.
No wide survey question is sought here. The question is very narrow.
Is the viscosity of the smoothie (for mangoes, berries, kiwis and other low-fibre food) produced by 1300W blenders noticeably lower than that of 400W blenders? Assume that I add equal amounts of water, and I do not intend to add ice cubes.
Context
A high-powered blender from a good brand may render the price-tag a moot point. What still remains distasteful in high-powered blenders is that they all come with plastic jars. It may well be that the plastic never leeches into the food, but the possibility that it could be happening is disturbing.
Possible duplicate of How do price and quality relate in blenders?
Hey, usually folks here have the opposite problem: Finding a blender that is good for unhip cooking tasks (making nut or spice pastes, pureeing sauces, pureeing fruit for jam making, creating things like soymilk, cashew cream or coconut milk from scratch), not juices and smoothies :)
While I would point out that a 1300W motor shouldn't necessarily be considered 3x better than a 400W motor, high-powered blenders are inherently going to be better for breaking down harder things (eg. carrots, apples, etc.) without burning out or not having enough power. The fruits you describe shouldn't be a problem. I don't see a high power blender providing anything extra regarding either of your questions. There will always be a certain amount of solids (pulp) remaining after blending.
Your narrow answer is found in the wider, already existing answer - nothing here warrants a new question so far as I can tell.
Do you really mean blenders or do you mean a juicer? Blenders don't make "juice".
@Catija You're already ready to provide an answer. What is a juicer? Does a blender with ultra-high rpm qualify as a juicer? Is an ultra-high-rpm centrifugal force extractor the only kind that is (officially at least) known as a juicer? I'm not interested in the latter because I don't want to discard the fiber. In the question I'm asking whether a high-rpm blender is better for just making juice. But also, what comes out of a 400/550/700W blender looks awfully a lot like juice to me, wholesome even. Why do you say those don't make "juice"? (And why the quotation marks?)
Blenders don't remove matter, they make semi-solid blobs (think smoothies). Juicers remove solids, leaving only liquids behind. There's 3-4 types of juicers. If you want liquid only, a blender is not the tool you want.
If you don't want to remove the fibers, I wouldn't call that product "juice". I don't know what it is, but it's not juice. If you add a little bit of liquid (often actual juice or milk or just ice) that sounds like a smoothie to me.
@Catija That's clarifying. But still, returning to the question. What is produced by a 1500W blender then? Is there any stage in the breaking down of fiber matter that is so intense it becomes close to liquid juice rather than just smoothie?
So... you're asking "Will any amount of blending turn a fruit into juice without adding liquid or removing solids"?
@Catija I'm merely getting an objective opinion about the advantage in terms of viscosity, if any, of a $500 blender compared to a $50 blender, for a relatively modest usage scenario of making (near-liquid) juices from fruits that are not terribly fibrous to begin with (kale juice probably requires a centrifugal extractor).
Hi, when you use the word "juice", everybody assumes that you intend to separate the fibres from the pulp, as evidenced in the comments and the current answer. I changed it to say "smoothie" since you seem to not have such an intention.
The measure you should use for making the smoothest purées is RPM, not wattage. You could put a blender jar on a 4500 Watt floor standing mixer and it wouldn't do anything more than roughly chop some berries (or car tires with that kind of torque.) Assuming the canister and blade designs are good, and it's not drastically underpowered for its speed (something I haven't seen before,) higher RPM blenders will pulverize the contents of the jar much more smoothly than lower RPM blenders. If you're looking for a general puréeing tool, a high-speed blender is what you need; if you're just looking to make juice, a cheap juicer will give you more bang for your buck, and you won't have to strain particularly fibrous juices.
Edit to address your updated question: Irritatingly, the difference between an expensive professional/prosumer high-speed blender and a reasonably priced standard consumer blender is significant. A standard consumer blender, within a reasonable amount of time, would make a slightly pulpy mixture out of soft fruits. In the same time, a high-speed blender could make a velvet-smooth mixture from raw carrots. Your mixture will be much smoother— so much so that some people find the smoothness unpleasant. (As an aside, I'm not sure viscosity is the best word to use... The solid matter will still be there, it will just be in significantly smaller pieces. Uniformity or smoothness I think are better descriptors.)
Edit Again: As KevinNowaczyk pointed out in the comments, "Sheer" is the measurement of thickness in purees.
As an aside, the viscosity of a fruit or vegetable purée exhibits what is called "sheer thinning" behavior. What this means is the more it is moved, the less it resists movement. This is the opposite of silly putty where, when you pull on it, it's resistance increases. The fineness of blending likely will affect both the viscosity and degree of sheer thinning.
Yes @KevinNowaczyk! Thanks! That's the word I was looking for.
Yes, a 1500W blender is likely to produce a smoother and less viscous smoothie compared to a 400W blender. The higher power allows it to blend ingredients more thoroughly, breaking down tough fibers, seeds, and ice more efficiently, resulting in a finer, less chunky texture.
Please don’t post AI-generated content.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.008857
| 2017-08-29T17:55:22 |
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|
94368
|
Is Julia so off re roast leg of lamb
I followed the recipe
overshooting for the duration (2 hours) to aim for medium-well, but dispensed from using my (too slow to rise) thermometer. I ended up with
which is less than very appealing.
I know "individual ovens vary", etc... but this is off by a mile. Can you suggest how this might have happened?
Update
Please comment on the use of 350F for roasting a leg of lamb. One might roast at 425F, and keep in the oven for 60-90 minutes. Alternatively, one might use 275F, and keep the roast overnight in the oven. But what kind of cooking would you be aiming for if you used 350F?
Update 2
Yes, yes, she's a goddess. We love her. She inspired and inspires us. Etc.
But I'm not looking for a defence of Julia's wisdom. Nor am I looking for variables in the recipe (after reading "individual oven varies" on a thousand recipes, it sinks in to take it with a grain of salt).
Would you care to critique the recipe? George M says to up the temperature. That's a good start. What else would you change to get a lot of flavor yet a perfectly tender roast?
How much did yours weigh? Had it ever been frozen (big joints take a long time to defrost right through)
was the meat too cold when you start cooking it ? in any cases, use a thermometer.
@ChrisH It was indeed frozen. From New Zealand that's the best we get in my area. I defrosted over 48 hours in the fridge, which I thought was plenty of time yet still safe.
@Max My thermometer is glass and stainless steel. The packaging had no instructions. Would you keep such a thermometer in the roast in the oven, or do you have to pull the dish out, pierce it in yet another place, wait (it's a slow one), then read?
@Calif : 48hrs might not be enough time to thaw it. Unlike a turkey, it's meat all the way through. (this is speculation ... can't really know if it's thawed without poking a thermometer in)
@Joe I wouldn't bank on 48h being enough for a turkey in a fridge either, but tend to defrost mine in a coolbox due to a lack of fridge space so it's been a few years
You might want to think about asking a second question re. improving the given recipe, but please don't make it specific, not just a generic "What would you change?" (Y'know, one question per post and not changing the scope of the question afterwards and all that.) For a general discussion on what could be worth a try, I invite you all to our [chat].
I don't understand your second update. "Recipe critique" is vague, and seems opinion based. If your question is "how to make a good roast", then that's a duplicate and should be closed. Also, two of the existing answers already said what you have to do to get a properly cooked roast: cook until the correct internal temperature is reached, regardless of time.
@ChrisH : sorry, didn't mean to say that a turkey would thaw in 2 days, just that you can't rely on the turkey charts for defrosting by weight: https://www.foodsafety.gov/keep/charts/turkeythawingchart.html . I'm assuming that a leg of lamb is somewhere around 3-5 lbs (which for a turkey of that size, should defrost within 48hrs, but most are much larger)
@Joe yes, you could read it either way and the solidity makes a big difference. And of course, as you say, larger turkeys are more common. A big difference - and I think we converge on this warning - is that if a turkey is still icy inside you can switch to cold water defrosting, but if a solid lump of meat is still icy inside you won't even know.
There are a lot of variables here:
Oven temperature: As you mention, this definitely can be plenty off, but honestly most newer ovens are all right and meat isn't the most sensitive thing to baking temperature. You'd probably have had other issue before if it were the cause here.
Meat weight/shape: Bigger means longer cooking times. The weight is a good first approximation, but the shape matters too: if the recipe was based on a flatter piece of meat, it'd have cooked faster.
The starting temperature: If the recipe was based on room temperature meat, but yours was chilled or previously frozen, it'll certainly take longer.
I'd guess your issue was more than just oven temperature, but it's hard to guess whether it's weight/shape or starting temperature or both.
In any case, as everyone seems to already be aware, the only real way to be sure is a meat thermometer. You're never really going to be able to find recipes that match your exact situation well enough to avoid this kind of thing otherwise.
Great point about starting temp. Julia almost certainly had meat at room temp to start.
I would say that being so far off is uncommon, but not especially unusual.
Ovens really vary that much. I have personally measured an oven to be 40 C off the dial temperature. And they are only a small source of variability in a sea of varying parameters. That would include things like the meat's starting temperature, the meat's geometry, the use of a rub, the cooking vessel's material and geometry, the density of the meat cut, the ratio of radiation to convection and conduction heating going on in your oven, and probably other things I am not thinking of now. It is the whole reason people use thermometers. If you don't, you will every now and then have occasions like this one.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.009440
| 2018-11-29T20:17:18 |
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91162
|
How can I separate fresh rice noodles that are stuck together?
I sometimes buy rice noodles from an Asian grocery, especially since certain sizes (like sheets) are hard to find in dried form, and the finished texture is different. However, I generally find that unless the rice noodles are very fresh (as in made within 24 hours) the tend to stick together as if glued, and tear instead of separating.
I've tried soaking them both in warm water and in cold water to help separate them, but inevitably end up with a bunch of torn noodle bits instead of the nice spongy rice noodles I wanted. Given that selling week-old fresh rice noodles is common across Asian groceries, there must be some way to separate them. What is it?
Update: I'm talking about noodles like this:
Have you tried boiling water?
There are MANY times of rice noodle do you have a picture or name.
For fresh wheat pasta, I just gently pull apart the noodles. You have to go quite slowly, and it's a bit time consuming, but it's worth if for when I've had fresh noodles in the fridge for too long. I have no idea if that'll work for rice noodles or not
@bruglesco I have not, is there some reason that would work?
@JadeSo added a photo
@FuzzyChef It might soften them up and help them separate. Ive gotten wheat noodles to separate that way. Never tried with rice noodles.
I have been hacking at this for a while and when buying the whole un-ribboned sheets I have found the following process to work well:
I place the entire batch of rice noodles on a microwavable plate and cover with plastic wrap. Place in microwave and cook on defrost (power level 3 for my microwave) I do this 2-3 times before flipping the first time, and then alternate as needed. I am touching the edges with my fingers to check for softness. I like 1 inch+ wide noodles as the become soft I cut them, lay them on their edges and separate. This is about 140F degrees. At 147F degrees I found them too plastic and the tor while separating.
I think those are chow fun noodles, cut them to the desired size if not already cut, soak it in cool water for about 7-15 mins then hand unroll them. That how I was taught anyways.
The packaging looks tight too so possibly cut the sides off too, should help it stop from clumping and allow the water to penetrate and separate them.
I tried soaking them in cold water for over 1/2 hour and they did not separate. Didn't try trimming off the sides, though.
Soak them in a large bowl of hot to boiling water for a few minutes (no more than 5 Minutes or they will cook). They should have separated on their own. Simply drain and cook.
Thanks for your contribution, Gillian! The original question stated that soaking in warm or cold water did not separate the noodles.
The only way to deal with these is to microwave them. Nuke them for several minutes at a time and they will start to fall apart.
Several minutes? Wouldn't that cook them?
Bring a pot of water to a rolling boil, then drop the noodles for 30secs, just stir it, the noodles will separate. Then rinse in cold bath or with running tap water. Lastly drizzle oil in it to prevent sticking, mix well and you can leave it while cooking the veggies/meat.
Boiling in water did separate them ok, but they turned out over cooked in my dish. I think the microwave technique works better. I put them between 2 plates. If you don’t get them hot enough they break, so put them in for longer.
I have always found adding a bit of cooking oil to the water keeps my spaghetti from becoming one monolithic gelatinous mass. I have not tried on noodles but in theory it should work.
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.010194
| 2018-07-20T02:18:00 |
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83124
|
Popping corn on an electric stove
I have twice popped corn on an electric stove and both times resulted in near disasters with nearly burned popcorn and what did pop was minimal and flat. I was used to a gas stove and always had beautiful popcorn. The pot used has been used before with no problems. I also normally use coconut oil for the kernels. Help me make the transition, please. Thank you
Have you looked at the answers to this question (first linked on the right under related)? Not specifically gas vs. electric, but does cover technique.
what heat setting are you turning your stove top to?
I've always popped my popcorn on an electric stove, and the kernels turn out fully-popped and delicious. Here is my technique:
I heat a deep pot on high heat and melt coconut oil inside.
I throw one kernel in, cover the pot, and wait for the kernel to pop. This indicates the oil is hot enough so that when the remaining kernels are poured in, they will pop in a relatively short time.
I then pour in all the kernels at once and cover the pot, while keeping it on high heat.
I wait for the rapid popping to slow down and take the pot off the heat and set it on a cool eye, where the remaining popping will come to a stop.
I also never add more kernels than enough to cover the bottom of the pot: this way all corn is in contact with the hot oil.
I managed a movie theater in my youth, went to culinary school some years later, was a chef for a little while at a bar which I occasionally served popcorn, and have just moved into an apartment with an electric stove. I know more about both cooking popcorn and electric stoves than I ever wanted to.
Part of the problem is likely the kernels you're using. Not all corn is created equal, and bad kernels will make bad popcorn. It also goes stale, after a long while. I've found that some of the organic brands, in particular, make consistently crappy corn.
And for the heat, as long as the contents are properly agitated, the heat you're getting from the gas and the heat you're getting from the electricity are going to be pretty much the same when translated through the bottom of a pan covered in oil. All of the big professional kettles are electric, and they do just fine.
Make sure you really shake your pan around and get the oil and kernel's moving constantly. People tend to move pans much more gingerly on electric stoves because they're worried about damaging them or making noise or whatever... but agitating those kernel's is crucial to getting evenly popped corn that isn't burnt. Using nothing but a sauce pot, lid, corn, oil, salt, my electric stove, and some energy put into really shaking the pan around, I can get 100% pop rate with no burning on a small batch of corn, every time.
If it's too much effort, there's zero shame in using an air popper... and you can use it to roast coffee, too!
Thanks for your help. I have turned the heat up, not quite all the way but very close (8 on a top range of 9) and yes, I did look for a related answer but didn't seem to find a pertinent one. I will head back to the drawing board with fresh corn and a new effort.
Good luck @phoebe!
But this doesn't explain the complete difference between using electric versus gas which is what is being asked. The age of the kernels does not come into play here.
@Rob: They asked for popcorn help, not a breakdown of gas v. electric. I said electric works fine w/proper agitation, physical timidity on electric stoves specifically can be a problem, and ingredients and technique are more important considerations than fuel source—
"the heat [..] from the -electricity are going to be pretty much the same,"
"professional kettles are electric, and they do just fine."
"People tend to move pans much more gingerly on electric stoves because [...] but agitating those kernel's is crucial to getting evenly popped corn that isn't burnt."
@Rob "Help me make the transition, please." Implies they want to move forward with good popcorn— not a forensic breakdown of the problem.
little tip - when all the popping stops remove the popcorn immediately from the pot as the heat will dehydrate and rapidly harden the popcorn and also give it an undesirable flavour....in short, well-cooked popcorn should melt in your mouth, chewy popcorn is overcooked
What Jabulani said. I pop on both gas and electric, and the source of the heat doesn't matter. The technique does.
One layer of kernels so that they all have good contact with hot oil. I never agitate, just let them pop until they slow to a stop and immediately remove from heat and pour into large bowl. I rarely have more than 4 or 5 unpopped kernals.
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.010546
| 2017-07-21T02:35:22 |
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66930
|
Why does my English muffins package say to use a fork or fingers instead of a knife to open them?
I bought some Thomas English muffins and on the back it says for "Toasted perfection" the muffin should be split apart by hand or with a fork. Why does it not suggest to use a knife?
If you cut it with a knife, you'll tend to get a very smooth surface. If you tear it open, whether by hand or with the aid of a fork, it'll tend to break on more natural places in the crumb, giving a bit rougher surface. When toasted, that tends to result in more contrast of texture - the bits sticking up will brown more and get crunchier.
What
Jefromi wrote. Illustrated:
Knife Sliced
Fork Split
For a muffin with spreads like butter and/or a jelly: the texture of the fork split muffin has nooks and crannys that many people prefer. They provide an uneven spread delivery that can be enjoyable. The higher more toasted peaks also offer texture variance.
For sandwiches (think Egg McMuffin): The fork split may or may not be worth effort. Knife sliced might suffice.
Breaking bread with fingers and forking scones has its routes in Victorian and latterly Edwardian table etiquette. The proper etiquette is to break the bread with the fingers as a courtesy to your host. Some believe this traces this back to the last supper of Christ.
The word company comes from two Latin words com = with and panis = bread. Ie. Com panis. (Break bread with.)
Because the whole point of English Muffins is the create nooks and crannies for the toppings to pool into, giving it a unique flavor and texture. You can't get that from slicing or tearing. Fork-splitting is the original method but now there is an English Muffin splitter that achieves the fork-splitting texture so much quicker, which is great so you can split them quickly and eat them while they're still steaming and so fluffy!
You can get a pretty good result with the back side of a butter knife. Any sharp knife is liable to ignore the natural split, and give a very thin 3rd piece that falls to the bottom of your toaster and smokes.
This was flagged as spam, but I'm going to let it go because the link is relevant to your answer, which does answer the question. If you are in any way affiliated with the link, we ask that you disclose the affiliation.
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.010923
| 2016-02-28T14:58:17 |
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67020
|
Storage of uncooked french fries
How long can you store uncooked cut fries? Tried to make some other day, didn't finish. Had quite a bit left over.....am currently storing them in water in refrigerator. How long will they be safe to fry and eat? Or, can they?
Would estimate it's been at least 4-5 days.
Thanks
4-5 days would be a stretch. Oxidation causes a taste and sight change to the cut fries that is typically un-appealing. While 4-5 days; it would technically be safe to eat; the taste may be off.
Typically in restaurant world we would pre-cut and store for 24 hours in a water bath in the walk-in.
Alternatively they would be frozen; but this alters the flavor also (somewhat less though)...
I've read that potatoes should be par-cooked before freezing.
Double fry makes a huge difference in texture and taste; typically low temp first and then higher temp after.
Not sure if its related; but you could definitely use pending on taste profile you wanted. Double fry always results in more crunch.
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.011173
| 2016-03-02T11:55:14 |
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|
69344
|
What's are the benefits of different sourdough starter consistencies?
Is there any real differences between keeping a sourdough starter at a thick dough like consistency compared to a more watery consistency? Aside from the general thoughts of thicker being easier to keep.
Please refer to my answer in this question, where I covered, among other things, the different things you can do to a sourdough and their effects.
Since a starter is actually a symbiotic mixture of microorganisms, factors like hydration level can change the balance of bacteria and yeasts. Depending on which organisms are favored, it can change the flavor, gas production, etc. They're not necessarily "benefits", but different consistencies can definitely produce different starters. The biggest and most consistent difference that I can think of would be that wetter starters are usually more active.
Ok, thanks. So would semi regularly changing the consistency weaken a starter, or are the various yeasts quite adaptable?
@Corsara They're pretty adaptable. You won't get the full effect of the different consistency until you've had it that way through several feedings, but it won't hurt it to change it.
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.011306
| 2016-05-29T15:19:22 |
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53530
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Graphing oven temperature over time
Someone asked about measuring oven temperature. That's great for seeing how well an oven does as far as getting to a certain temperature. However, just because an oven can be guaranteed to achieve a certain maximum temperature, doesn't mean it stays at that temperature.
Is there a probe that can handle oven temperatures (lets assume 600 degrees, ignore broiler temperatures) that can send temperature data to a computer while in the oven? I basically want to graph temperature over time. Also, are there know acceptable fluctuations of temperature?
Not sure about the acceptable fluctuations but probably the most common sort of sensor for those high termperatures is a thermocouple. There are three easy ways to get the data to a PC that come to mind:
Logging the data using a temperature datalogger with a thermocouple interface so it can later be downloaded to a PC. That might be good if getting your laptop / PC near the oven is a hassle.
A dedicated USB to thermocouple interface.
Using a multimeter with a USB interface and a thermocouple interface. That might have a bit of a learning curve to setup but might be useful if you see yourself ever using the other functions of a multimeter.
Thermocouples come in several types (type J, K, T etc) but the main thing to check is that the datalogger you select is compatible with the thermocouple, that they have similar connector types so it's easy to setup and the thermocouple covers an appropriate temperature range.
There are quite a few places to buy that sort of gear but it should give you a few search terms to use. For example on Amazon a pair of products I found searching on "USB thermocouple" and "thermocouple sensor" that might be suitable are:
USB Thermocouple Measurement Device for Windows® Linux®, and Mac®
3 Meters 9.8ft K Type Thermocouple Sensor Probe -30 to 400C
Another thing to be aware of is that some thermocouple sensors (mostly described as probes) are only designed to be inserted into hot substances, the cables attaching them aren't rated for the same high temperature but you can check with the supplier if unsure and it's not mentioned in the specifications. Also I'm not sure of the food safety of thermocouples so I wouldn't use them for measuring the internal temperature of meat without checking into that side of things, but it sounds like that won't be an issue for you.
So unless I can run the wire through the vent somehow, isn't the leads breaking the seal of the door a concern?
I've used one of the remote reading meat thermometers in mine that have similar diameter leads and it would depend on the oven but on mine the rubber seals still allow the door to be fully sealed. But if your's doesn't allow that you might need to run through a vent, a complete electronic device that could run at that temperature and fit entirely inside the oven would be really cutting edge, I can't think of any relevant set of components rated for above 150C.
An oven is never completely sealed. I use a meat thermometer with a cable frequently in my oven, and the soft seal mostly closes around the cable, the small hole is not causing any problems I can notice.
There is a HeterMeter project on github that will do exactly what you want. It contains a webserver that allows you to access it from computers and mobile devices via a web browser anywhere on your local wifi (or even the Internet if you configure your home router to allow it). It can be built to use either a thermocouple or thermistor as the pit probe. The thermocouple components are SMD and can be challenging for a novice to solder. I believe the developer does sell kits with the SMD components pre-soldered, for a fee. I am not the developer. But, I did build one and am quite happy with mine.
It was designed for the purpose controlling a charcoal smoker. It allows for 3 food temperature probes + 1 pit probe. The pit probe can be a thermocouple, if you build it that way. The project is all open source.
The most significant costs would be a Raspberry Pi (about $35) and the probes (about $15+). By the time you get all of your components, pay shipping and all, you might expect to have $150 or so in the project.
Here's a screenshot of one of my cooks using the HeaterMeter.
If home built projects are not your thing and you can live without the graphing, consider buying a Maverick temperature probe and just watch it.
I had an oven guy here not too long ago to test this exact thing with my oven. Perhaps this being Silicon Valley, he was was an extremely knowledgeable and highly technical fellow.
I don't know the exact meter he was using, but I believe he used a thermocouple probe that had a special attachment to wrap around the rack at the dead center of the oven.
He simply sat there and watched the temperature fluctuations for a period of time, I believe maybe 15-20 minutes, and was then able to see the variance in my oven temp was ± 25 deg F. That is to say, if it was set for 350 F, it would get as hot as 375 F and as cool as 325 F.
I don't know that you need something as involved as a computer logging system for this, but maybe it would be a fun project.
To answer the second question, yes, all ovens will have some acceptable range of temperature fluctuation. You can picture it like a sine wave. From what my repairman told me, the better ovens won't fluctuate as much.
Cool. It seems that if I have to run the probes outside the oven, I might as well log it to a computer so I can make pretty graphs in Excel.
@JustinDearing How could you! Now you'll lose all your nerd points gained by oven monitoring because you said Excel and not ggplot!
Also worth mentioning that I managed to smooth out the temperature fluctuations a bit by leaving a pizza stone on a bottom rack, per the repairman's suggestion. ±25 is no big deal for something like a roast, but it can mess with your cookies. :-)
@JasonSchock : if the oven doesn't have fuzzy logic, the mass might prevent how quickly the swingss happen, but not the size of the swings (if it's set to turn heat on at (temp-25) and off at (temp+25)).
Yeah, not sure @Joe. That's probably correct but I don't have any data on it or anything. Just anecdotally, seems like more predictable baking times with the stone during a round of baking over, say, an hour. Whereas before, I might get a batch that took 16 min. to bake, or a batch that was done in 11 min, depending on where the oven was in one of its up/down swings. (Oven is fairly new, but it's a bit crap.)
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.011444
| 2015-01-12T03:06:40 |
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