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92508
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Difference between cocoa and cacao
What is the difference between cocoa powder and cacao powder? Can they be used interchangeably (taste and function the same)?
I understand somewhat the processing difference. It's like cold vs hot pressed oils, cocoa is "hot pressed" and cacao is "cold pressed" so I would imagine that you wouldn't get some of the roasted flavors in cacao. I tried eating some plain powder of both. Bitterness was about the same, and the cocoa seemed a little chocolatier but kinda hard to tell from eating dry powder.
I'm not asking from a health perspective, only from a culinary one.
The 2 products I am comparing are standard Hershey's cocoa powder vs nativa cacao powder https://thrivemarket.com/p/navitas-organics-organic-cacao-powder
This is in the eastern USA.
Possible duplicate of Chocolate: difference between "Cocoa Mass" and "Cacao"?
It would help to know from what part of the world you are as cocoa and cacao can mean different things in different parts of the world. As based on my experience I would say cocoa is a powder to make chocolate milk and would contain additives like sugar, milk powder, flavourings, etc. and cacao would be "chocolate" powder without any additives. However depending on where in the world you are this could be an incorrect answer :)
I learned* that before roasting, the (raw) beans are called cacao, after roasting it is cocoa.
And yes, that does noticeably change the smell and taste.
AFAIK, only special kinds of cacao are consumed without roasting.
I recently had some samples of raw cacao and roasted cocoa beans in the lab (same kind of cacao, same region + cooperative doing the fermentation) and they did smell very differently. Only the roasted samples had what I'd call the pleasant cocoa/chocolatey smell - I'd have said the unroasted samples were much different, not just a bit less chocolatey.
Differences in smell and taste can be caused by a variety of influencing factors such as region, cultivar, fermentation + roasting protocols, alkalizing (for the powder), ...
* in the academic context of botany, food and biotechnology
That being said, I'd suspect that cacao vs. cocoa could also be a caused by non-English product naming: In German, it is usually Kakao (before and after roasting), but occasionally Cacao is used, presumably to create an impression of old-fashioned quality produce. Or maybe to refer to the Spanish term.
Edit: about the linked product:
Your example cacao says on the backside that it is actually produced from unroasted beans.
It is degreased (cocoa/cacao butter removed), though: raw cacao beans have roughly 50 % lipids (cocoa/cacao butter) whereas that powder has 10 % lipids.
Degreasing is AFAIK part of the milling/grinding process: the beans or nibs are put through roller mills and the molten cocoa/cacao butter (melting at 34 - 38 °C, so roughly human body temperature) can then be removed by pressing. Thus, a certain amount of heat is involved, but far less than in roasting (e.g. 120 - 140 °C).
Cacao is the actual plant that chocolate products are made from. Cacao powder is the processed powdered cacao plant beans. Cocoa is a product made from that cacao powder. According to Wikipedia:
Cocoa solids are a mixture of many substances remaining after cocoa butter is extracted from cacao beans. When sold as an end product, it may also be called cocoa powder or cocoa. Cocoa solids are a key ingredient of chocolate, chocolate syrup, and chocolate confections.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.391033
| 2018-09-28T01:29:33 |
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|
114525
|
Weird residue left on pan
When I cook this particular sauce in this particular pan it leaves this weird red (slightly purplish) reside that doesn’t wash off with soap but does come out in oil. The ingredients in the sauce are “tomatoes, tomato purée, less than 2% of: salt, basil oregano, parsley, onion powder, garlic powder, citric acid, natural flavors. (Brand is giant foods which is a regional supermarket chain). The pan is a nonstick.
Does anyone know what this residue might be?
Also no idea what the tags should be.
Do other tomato sauces not stain your pan?
Can you expand on "does come out in oil"? Also, is that a special ceramic nonstick pan, or regular teflon?
@Kat correct other tomato sauces do not
@FuzzyChef after cleaning the pan from whatever foods bits I will pour in a bit of oil and finish cleaning it with the oil to clean the red stuff. Yes it’s a ceramic nonstick
Huh. Maybe it's a property of ceramic nonstick? I've never had anything like that happen on any of my pans.
As it is red and oil soluble, it is likely to be lycopene - why it sticks to your pan, and why only that sauce I don't know, though it could be that extra lycopene is added at some point (I think less than 0.05% doesn't need to be declared(?)).
Bob: I've never had an issue scrubbing lycopene off anything with soap though.
I know this will sound disappointing, but I don't that you will ever find a non-trivial answer to the question.
First, what sticks is the sauce. Once it is made into a sauce, it is physically a single entity, no longer separable into tomato, basil, etc. Of course, it is not all of the sauce that sticks, for example the water is no longer there, and as somebody else mentioned, the red pigments like the lycopene are there - but it is practically impossible to sit down with a list and check off, "hemicellulose is present, sucrose is present but much smaller percentages than in the original, the eugenol is completely missing", but if somebody could, and would, do it, there would be no more precise a name for that wild mixture than "sauce residue".
The second part of your answer is the why. The problem is, surface physics is complicated, and the physics of something as wildly complex as sauce much more so. An expert materials scientist with access to enough samples of the pan, the sauce, a well-equipped lab and enough time could probably find out, and have some answer like, "the starch particles in this sauce are not as round as in others" or "this sauce uses powdered tomatoes grow d to the exact size to get stuck to this particular coating after they've been hydrated in sauce, then heated". Or sounding else of that kind. But without the experimentation, it is impossible to find out.
My first thought was something on the line of "particles too small to be removed with water, due to surface tension (etc.) getting stuck in the surface structure of the pan"... Interesting, though, as the stains in my pans usually come in one of two flavors: "Cannot be removed at all" or "easily removed with scrubbing"... - The first kind is then, by definition, a part of the pan and not a stain... ;)
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.391327
| 2021-02-28T01:23:36 |
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|
115099
|
Is pink salmon the same as Alaskan?
I'm new to salmon. I've been trying new dishes but I read online that Alaskan salmon is not the greatest. But is pink salmon the same as Alaskan salmon?
I've been using chicken of the sea pink salmon wild caught, for quick dishes like sandwiches or salad etc..
Just wanted to make sure I'm eating the right kind. Any suggestions for canned/pouched salmon are welcome.
Can you show a picture of the alaskan salmon package? Is there any information, maybe a QR-code, indicating where the fish came from?
I live in the Pacific Northwest, so I know quite a bit about salmon. You have to, or they exile you.
First, I have no idea why you'd think that Alaskan salmon is bad. Given their extensive river networks and vast areas of untouched wilderness, Alaskans catch some of the best salmon in the world. The salmon that is categorically inferior is farmed salmon, or salmon that's raised in a pen. Now, farmed salmon tends to have a lighter, "pink" color to it compared with wild-caught, so I can see how you might get confused between that and Pink Salmon.
Pink Salmon is a specific species of salmon. It's not considered as desireable as Coho, Chinook, King, or Sockeye, mostly because the shorter lifespan of the Pink Salmon means that it has a less well-developed flavor. However, its short lifespan also means that it bounces back quickly from fishing, and as a result is the most sustainable and ecologically responsible salmon to eat. They catch a lot of Pink Salmon in Alaska, but it's also available from Canada, Washington, Oregon, and Russia.
And ... since you're using commercially canned salmon, you're really not going to taste a lot of difference between salmon varieties anyway.
If you want to try a little better quality canned salmon, I'd suggest any of these brands: Wild Planet, Crown Prince Natural, or North Pacific Seafood (although, to be fair, Chicken of the Sea isn't bad). You can also splurge and order from a tiny specialty place like Totem SmokeHouse. You can also try Canned Red Salmon, which is generally Sockeye, and has a different flavor.
Is the OP maybe referring to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_pollock
Maybe? What's wrong with Alaska Pollock, though?
Nothing wrong at all. It would take the question in another direction.
King and chinook are the same fish - you're banished from the land! Seriously though, the fifth PNW salmon is chum. So, all five are chinook/king, coho/silver, sockeye/red, chum/dog, pink/humpback. And we might add steelhead to the list, though I don't remember ever seeing it canned.
I've seen it canned, but only from really small local producers.
Canned pink salmon is often from the Pacific North West. Here is some info on pink salmon. You can also go to the Chicken of the Sea website to see what they say.
That's about as much help as we can provide given your question. We are not a suggestion or recipe sharing site.
Er, where did the OP ask for recipes?
@FuzzyChef how do you interpret the last line of the question?
Looking for advice on brands and types. That's who I answered it, anyway.
@FuzzyChef...fair point, I see that...but clearly not how I interpreted it.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.391724
| 2021-04-03T22:51:56 |
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|
115183
|
Can one create any flavor combination by breaking down the five modalities of taste into their chemical form and adjusting proportions accordingly?
Can one create any flavor combination by breaking down the five modalities of taste into their chemical form and adjusting proportions accordingly?
Namely, if you broke down sweetness, sourness, bitterness, saltiness, and umami into their rawest chemical form, could you combine these chemical to create virtually any taste?
What do you mean by "taste"; only the strict sense as in "somewhat salty", or the broad sense as in "the taste of strawberries"?
Also, the five tastes you list don't have a "rawest chemical form", see https://cooking.stackexchange.com/a/114718/4638
“Rawest chemical form”? I don’t think that exists. What kind of acid would be “the acid”? What sugar “the sweet”? Salt as NaCl perhaps, the rest, not.
The five senses of taste is incredibly outmoded thinking, human sense of taste is far more complex.
@GdD I would argue that the five types of taste are not outmodded - they match five receptors present on the human tongue which are not part of any other category of receptors of the CNS. What is outmodded is the paradigm of "when a receptor is triggered, that information comes in the brain, isolated and unchanged, and that's what we perceive and call a sense". I blame it on highschool textbooks describing the human eye as a camera, but will abstain from ranting more here :)
The taste of food has a massive scent component, in addition to the taste receptors on the tongue. So even if you could create those "raw chemical components" (and I agree with rumtscho & Stephie that you can't), there's also your nose, which needs to be considered. Ie) when you have a cold and a stuffed up nose (or pinch your nose shut) when you eat, flavor is dulled.
While your wording is somewhat ambiguous, the answer is a resounding "no" for both possible senses of the word taste. To avoid confusion, I will use the word taste for only the sensation of sweet/salty/sour/bitter/umami, as in "tastes slightly salty", and the word flavor for what we perceive when we eat a given food, as in "tastes of strawberries".
Starting with the sense I think you meant: flavor.
This is a highly complex sense involving many different types of receptors.
The main ones responsible for flavor are the smell receptors. Every human has receptors for several thousand molecules, and the set of those receptors varies somewhat between individuals. Alone the task of recreating the exact combination of molecules which create the smell of a single food is impossible (usually the full list of molecules is not known anyway).
And if you want a perfect match, you also would need to include
the receptors for taste (the five I mentioned above)
the receptors for temperature. While every given food can be eaten at a different temperature, there are cross-communication effects both on the level of the receptors in the mouth (e.g. sucrose loses a lot of its sweetness if consumed very cold) and on the level of the brain (you might not recognize beer if somebody served it to you piping hot, because you are not accustomed to tasting it in this context)
the receptors for touch - texture is an inseparable part of the flavor experience
the receptors for fat - we don't usually notice their contribution, but they exist in our mouths and participate both in the experience of taste and the feeling of satiety
the receptors for pain - relevant for hot/spicy foods
previous knowledge/priming of what you are going to taste. It may come as a surprise to you, but we are not all that good at recognizing flavors. I have seen manufacturers create a "guessing game" by releasing new flavors short-term and have the customers send their guesses to win a prize. While I have never sent a letter, I have tried such "mystery flavors" and usually had no idea which flavor it is supposed to be. And while these are artificial flavors with a very limited complexity (see below), first they include the most characteristic smell of the real thing, and second, I am pretty certain that if I ask an average person to close their eyes and feed them a small piece of a typical supermarket-issue fruit, most will have difficulty recognizing it.
Of course, you don't have to create an exact match to invoke an association of a given flavor, this is how foods with artificial flavoring "work". They tend to contain 3-4 of the most prominent smell molecules of the given food (a single one in the cheapest case), roughly match the flavor direction of the original (I have never seen somebody put strawberry flavoring in pringles-style chips - but note that you don't want a perfect match, nobody would want a candy that has the sweetness levels of a real strawberry) and the rest - and it is a big rest - is labeling, to give you the knowledge mentioned above.
So, to the second sense of the word: taste in the strict sense.
This is also impossible, simply because there is no "rawest chemical form" of any of the five tastes. See this older question for more background. Each of the taste receptors can be triggered by different molecules, and produces a different taste profile - the bitterness of quinine tastes very different from the bitterness of bitrex, for example. You cannot even use one kind of bitter to imitate another kind of bitter - so you certainly cannot match any possible combination of the five. The best you can do is to do is a very rough imitation, which will lack all nuances.
Thank you for your thorough answer, very much appreciated!
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.392000
| 2021-04-09T18:19:14 |
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|
115495
|
Can I source fat and sugar in a recipe from chocolate?
I've been looking at chocolate flapjack recipes but they seem to contain relatively little chocolate, so I'm wondering if it's possible to replace more fundamental ingredients (butter, sugar) in a more basic recipe. A look at some milk chocolate suggests that it's 36% fat (cocoa butter and milk) and 55% sugar by mass, which is similar to the ratio in the recipe (1:1 by mass) but a little low on fat.
Can I replace most of the butter and sugar in a flapjack recipe with milk chocolate? Will I need to add additional butter? Will the resulting mix still be able to integrate items like dried fruit?
I have consulted this answer about using chocolate to substitute sugar but want to know whether milk chocolate will be an adequate binder for flapjack, particularly if I add additional dried fruit.
I also note that milk chocolate is prone to burning at temperatures as low as <50 degrees C, flapjacks are usually cooked at much higher temperatures around 180 degrees C so perhaps this is a fatal flaw?
That recipe is merely chocolate-topped, so you will find better, probably using cocoa powder.
However that may still not go far enough. I have tried to make chocolate chip flapjack by using dark chocolate chips and stirring into the melted mixture before baking. I did this after the adding the oats and after a bit of cooling, with as little stirring as possible. They still melted into the mixture before I could get it into the tray. Further cooling, and perhaps chilling the chocolate first might get round this. They weren't very chocolatey, but the texture was still good.
If you tried to replace all of the butter and sugar with chocolate, you'd end up with an oat-loaded chocolate bar, rather than flapjack. It would be too hard (unless you like your flapjack rock-solid, in which case the chocolate might burn).
Using your chocolate, you'd still have some butter (to keep the fat:sugar ratio the same), which would help, but the sugar in that particular recipe is all golden syrup. Many recipes use a mixture of olden syrup and brown sugar, both of which bring little flavour.
I see two routes to experiments:
take your favourite recipe, add cocoa powder (perhaps lose the apricots in the recipe you linked, and add 100g cocoa powder to start with). I'd then drizzle with milk and/or white chocolate for the contrast in appearance.
I've just tested this. My batch was smaller, only 150g of oats (and very similar to your more basic recipe), and I added 50g of cocoa powder. That gave it a nice flavour along the lines of dark chocolate truffles. The texture was good: I was aiming for chewy and got it, not crumbly or hard. If I wanted even more of a chocolate flavour, rather than increasing the cocoa powder I'd add some milk chocolate
Substitute. For ease I'll round everything and call your chocolate 50% sugar and 33% fat by mass, your butter 100% fat (it's more like 80% with most of the rest water), and your golden syrup 100% sugar (again, it's nearly 20% water). As a starting point I'd put in 200g of chocolate, taking out 100g of syrup, and 60-70g of butter. I'd still melt the butter and sugar together, then stir in the broken up chocolate with the oats after turning off the heat. Once mixed in the chocolate won't burn easily. You could also add cocoa powder of course. This may be too stiff; adding some water to the melted butter and syrup, then the oats, then the chocolate might help.
Overall, flapjack is fairly forgiving. If it falls apart, that's not ideal, but press it firmly into the tin and it shouldn't. Scoring when hot and cooling in the tin helps too. If it's overcooked and hard, possibly just round the edges, this is nice smashed up and served as a topping for ice cream. So give it a go and see what happens.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.392452
| 2021-05-01T08:08:32 |
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|
115561
|
How many years does canned jelly stay safe to eat?
I have several jars of canned grape jelly that are at least 10 years old. Are they still safe to eat?
Canned food basically never expires. That being said, check to make sure there isn't any rust, dents, or swelling on the can, and make sure the food smells okay and there are no cloudy, mushy, or moldy bits of food. It should be safe if it passes all these checks.
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Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.392750
| 2021-05-07T14:22:50 |
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|
123502
|
Do I need to add citric acid to can tomato sauce if I used tomatoes from a can with citric acid?
Do I need to add citric acid to can tomato sauce if I used tomatoes from a can with citric acid? I want to prevent botulism and such and need higher acidity to can my tomato sauce but I figured my tomatoes would already be acidic enough since they were canned with citric acid in the first place.
I would be boiling my sealed glass jars, not pressure cooking.
To clarify, I will be buying canned tomatoes that have citric acid already added, and I will be cooking these and making a tomato sauce, which I will then can myself.
Hi, I don't understand your question. Are you adding acid to your sauce before consuming it? Or are you opening a dose of canned tomatoes, processing them into sauce, then canning the result again?
And assuming you're canning... something... will you be pressure-canning it?
@rumtscho sorry for the confusion. Yes canning sauce using canned tomatoes.
The only way you can know this for sure is to do a pH test of the resulting sauce. If it's 4.6 or lower, you don't need to add citric acid.
pH tests are fairly affordable and available both online and from any retalier who sells canning supplies. Even if you've already done the canning, you can sacrifice one jar and test it and know if the rest of the jars are OK.
Note that the circumstance you describe is extremely low-risk, so many folks wouldn't even bother to test. However, our official policy on SA is to give advice according to published health codes.
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Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.392814
| 2023-02-27T03:45:46 |
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|
94830
|
Can I liquify/blend caramelized onions?
I will be making sausage and want to include the flavour of caramelized onions. I have caramelized the onions but the pieces seem a bit large to be in sausage.
I intend to add wine to the sausage as well. Can I simply liquify/blend the caramelized onions in a blender with some wine? Would this have any unintended or unwanted effects when introduced to a sausage mixture?
I could also run the caramelized onions through a meat grinder with the meat, but I am concerned the onions will be too "wet" and lead to a strange effect.
The recipe I am using is pretty simple. I am using garlic, salt, pepper, wine, and caramelized onion and I am making fresh sausages. I am worried that blending the caramelized onion will lead to an ugly brown in the sausage, but perhaps it is fine.
Without the recipe for the kind of sausage you're making it's hard to tell... Could you [edit] your question and include the recipe and ping me @Fabby
I'm with @Fabby - seeing the recipe would be useful; though I'd be tempted with just that small amount of information to say, wine & onion, blended, then fried off again to reduce moisture content.
@Tetsujin That's more of an answer than a comment, so I'll come back and upvote if you post that... 0:-)
@Fabby - Done, but it feels a bit short - though I can't really think of much else to add.
Sorry for the delay. I added the recipe.
Seeing your recipe would be useful; though I'd be tempted that with just the small amount of information you provided that wine & onion, blended, then fried off again to reduce moisture content would be a solution to your problem.
Alternatively, bulk with breadcrumb, though I'd prefer the first solution.
While you can certainly work with the carmelized onions, to avoid the issues you suggest I think I would be inclined to grate the onions or run them through a food processor first, and then carmelize them to a nice golden color.
Before adding them to the sausage mixture you may want to drain them on paper towels to avoid adding extra oil or moisture to the sausage mixture.
Thank you! I did end up cutting the onions pretty fine before caramelizing, and then I ground the onions with the meat and it turned out fine I think. I opted against blending the onions to avoid adding a "brown" liquid to the mixture and now instead of nice brown specks.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.392954
| 2018-12-15T00:13:00 |
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|
101012
|
Would blow-torching tomatoes have the desired "oven roasted" effect?
I want to have oven roasted tomatoes that have some black on them for salsa. I have over 100 tomatoes and don't want to use the oven for a full day doing this. I think a blowtorch might blacken the tomatoes in a good way. Would this have the desired effect (i.e., having blackened charred tomatoes)? How would it be different from baking them in an oven?
I know the tomatoes won't lose as much liquid as if they were baked, but that is not an issue since I'll be reducing them in a salsa anyway.
Well - they'll still be almost entirely raw if you just blow-torch them compared to roasting them in the oven ...
...plus, it will take you a lot longer to blow torch 100 tomatoes, than it would to place them on sheet pans and put them in the oven. It certainly wouldn't take a full day.
Hey, we can't really tell you if it will have the "desired effect" since we don't know the effect you desire. Rephrase your question?
And I have heard that some people can taste the propane from food that has been torched. So I would at least try it to see if you like the flavor.
If the tomatoes aren't tiny, 100 is going to make a rather large amount of salsa ... unless you're going to be canning, have a huge family, are planning a large party, or going to be giving it away to friends ... it's probably best not to turn it all into salsa. At the very least, make multiple smaller batches of salsa, so you can decide what you like and refine your recipe as you go.
@SteveChambers that's when temperature is too high and/or the flame is incorrectly adjusted (it should have a blue tip, not yellow)
@Joe yes I am canning, so I had about 40 pounds of tomatoes. TONS. Oven took way too long, so I gave up and didn't roast them.
Does your oven have a fan-grill?
30-ish tomatoes on a tray, 3 trays, set to fan grill & rotate the trays every few mins.
Alternatively, use the regular oven & when the tomatoes are nearly done, switch to the grill. Rotate as above.
It depends on what effect you're going for.
If all you want is some burnt bits? Sure, go for it. Heck, you don't even have to use the tomatoes for that; you can just burn some paper, or grind up some lump charcoal. (I wouldn't suggest using briquettes or self-lighting charcoal for that.)
If you're going for the taste of roasted tomatoes, that won't be there. That develops through a longer cooking time (though not all day. See Tetsujin's answer) and can't really be short-cutted. A kitchen torch doesn't deliver much heat compared to an oven, just very focused heat.
The other thing you might consider, particularly if your oven is low-powered and/or doesn't have a convection mode, is roasting some of the tomatoes and leaving the others raw. I've actually made salsa like this before, because I like the taste of roasted tomatoes and also the tang of fresh ones. It lets you absolutely roast the hell out of the ones you're roasting.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.393170
| 2019-08-28T21:59:00 |
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|
104451
|
What would happen if I dehydrated fresh sausages for a couple hours?
I want to make sausages, likely following a fresh sausage chorizo recipe. I can't dry and cure them in the traditional way since I lack the equipment, so my plan is to make regular fresh sausages using either Spanish or Mexican-style recipes (still undecided, and they'll be fresh/non-cured either way).
I was toying with the idea of putting the fresh sausages in my oven on the dehydration setting, which I think takes many hours. However I've learned that this is a bad idea. Apparently the fat in the sausages wouldn't respond well to dehydration in this way and the product wouldn't resemble the dry cured sausage I would desire.
But what if I put the sausage in the oven on the dehydration setting for maybe 2-3 hours? I would likely use a temperature around 150F, which would cook them thoroughly with enough time. I'm thinking this would have a few advantages:
It would cook the whole batch at once. This means I could freeze them after they've been cooked and simply warm them up in the future to eat them.
It would dry them a bit, which would in my opinion improve the texture and flavour.
What would happen if I dehydrated fresh sausages for a couple hours?
You would potentially grow bacteria that would make you sick. The production of cured sausage has to follow a specific process that makes use of the correct balance of salt, water activity, and acidity (often, along with the addition of nitrates) to create a safe product. You can certainly make fresh sausage and cook fully, or refrigerate for a few days, or freeze for a much longer time. Alternately, you can make beef jerky, and fully dehydrate thin slices of meat. However, I would not recommend playing with the age-old, tried and true, processes that have been proven effective for properly producing cured sausages.
Given your edits, and your focus on fresh sausage, dehydration has no advantage, and as @rumtscho clarifies, poses a safety risk. Either cook fully right away, or chill below 40F (4.5C) immediately. When I make fresh sausage, I vacuum seal in bags and freeze what I am not using immediately. This preserves the quality for several months.
Sorry, I didn't make it clear that most dehydrating functions also cook the food. I did mention that they would be COOKED, but I'll also include more info. So there is no food safety issue here.
I think it would be more helpful if you made clear the type of sausage you are making. In your title you write "fresh". Then in your question you write about "cured". Further, Spanish chorizo is usually a cured product. Mexican chorizo is usually a fresh product. My answer tried to cover all the bases. You might get what you want if you post the actual recipe.
I never said I want to make cured sausage. I specifically said I cannot cure them, so this is an alternative. Nevertheless I will expand.
To clarify, after your comments on Moscafj's answer and your comments: To have your sausages safe, it is not enough to have them in an oven set to 150 F. Rather, you have to ensure that their internal temperature goes from room to over 140 quickly enough (less than 2 hours), and this won't happen in an oven set to 150 F. It can happen either in an oven set to a much higher temperature, or with some other tool like sous vide, or in something like a crock pot (but there you need liquid).
Let's assume that you heated your sausages quickly to 150 F internal and afterwards kept them at that temperature for 2-3 hours. What you will end up with will be roasted sausage. You can certainly freeze it and then eat defrosted without the need to recook it, and people do like the taste of roasted sausage, so it will probably be a good thing to do.
If now you say "OK, you said I need to heat them up in less than 2 hours, what if I put them on the dehydration setting for 90 minutes and then froze them without further manipulation". In that case, you will have slightly warmed sausages, not sausages that in any way start to resemble dried or cooked sausages. After defrosting, you will still have to cook them thoroughly, and the result will be the same as if you hadn't warmed them before freezing. Also, you will have given yourself hard time on the safety front, because the danger zone is about the total time in which the internal temperature spends between 40 and 140 F. This means you have "used up" 90 minutes of the time alotted to your sausages for cooling down in the freezer, and you are starting them from a much higher temperature, so there is quite a risk that they won't be able to cool down sufficiently.
Bottom line: If you want to pre-roast the sausages and then freeze, that's fine. But placing them for 2-3 hours in a 150 F oven is not the same thing, and creates nothing but a safety risk.
Ok I understand the safety concern, but presumably there is a time to temperature ratio that would cook these reasonably. I cook sausages sous vide at 140 in a couple hours fine. The oven will take longer and maybe higher temperature, so lets say 4 hours at 160. I can monitor them in real time for safety if that makes people more comfortable. Once the sausages hit 130 or so internally then bacteria are already on the decline. But the question remains: will the sausages be dried at all? Will they lose much moisture? Or will they be nearly the same as if I cooked them at 300F for 45 minutes?
No, it won't be dried. It will be basically the same as being roasted for shorter time on higher temperature.
How can you say this so authoritatively ? It would dry somewhat, it’s just a question of extent. Presumably a fair bit of water of evaporate over say four hours with moving air.
I just know from experience that meat which loses water during roasting doesn't taste like meat that loses water during drying/curing. What you are propposing is roasting, so I'm pretty certain it will taste like roasted meat. You can of course test it for yourself and see if you have a personal preference, either in a blind test or a nonblind one, whichever is more important to you.
Yes I suspect it would be far more similar to roasted than to dry/cured, no question, but I'm curious to know the % of weight loss in the dehydration process. Maybe I'll try it, maybe not. Thanks for the contribution.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.393445
| 2019-12-30T21:46:52 |
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|
84712
|
Can I melt butter to make compound butter, and subsequently refrigerate?
I want to make compound butter using my powerful blender. I am having trouble doing this with solid or soft butter because the blender cannot create a vortex and mix as well compared to blending with liquids. I was thinking of melting the butter and adding ingredients (e.g., shallots) and blending it into a beautiful liquid, and then refrigerating it. What would this do?
No need to go power tool.
Just use soft butter, a spatula and your herbs and/or spices; mix them all up in a regular bowl.
If you melt butter it will separate the fat from the milk solid and will never solidify after that.
I have done this before, but it requires that I chop up the ingredients first. If I use the blender, I can toss in entire shallots of chunks of garlic or whatever I want! I was hoping that blending the butter would somehow prevent the solidification problems, but I suppose that is not avoidable...
@Behacad You can chop everything in the blender and then add it to the softened butter without ever putting the butter in the blender..
The problem is that you need a certain about of stuff in the blender for it to work, and I can't just drop in a couple cloves....
Do you have a mini food processor? Max's approach is probably the simplest from a cleaning perspective.
A garlic press is ideal for making garlic butter by hand, but for herbs (including spring onions), quickly chopping by hand is easy enough. Unless you're making loads, it's probably less effort than the blender once you take inti account cleaning
You can do this, but it won't have the same texture when it resolidifies. It'll likely be softer and more translucent. See this answer for a bit about why this happens.
I make lazy garlic butter sometimes by melting and gently heating the garlic in it (not enough to fully cook it, just to soften the garlic and mellow and release the flavor). It definitely works, in terms of producing something that tastes like butter and garlic.
I don't know if you necessarily need the blender for this. Mincing is plenty to make the flavors release well, and soft pieces of minced garlic don't bother me. I believe it'd work if you blend while melted if you want. I'd probably try not to overdo it, though, because you're likely going to be breaking the remaining fat globules and disrupting the texture even more.
One compromise might be to blend with as small an amount of melted butter as necessary to get your blender to work well, and leave the rest of the butter soft and unmelted to mix into.
Of course, blenders just aren't that well-suited for this task. A mini food processor is a much, much better way to chop small amounts of solid things, so if you don't mind another smallish purchase, that'd be my first choice.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.394265
| 2017-09-28T16:11:55 |
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|
49036
|
How do I roll or wrap up pasta into a log-like shape for presentation?
How do I roll or wrap up pasta into a log-like shape for presentation?
Example 1, Example 2, Example 3
Do they use some kind of tool to wrap the pasta around?
The answer is in your third picture -- chopsticks.
Grab the bunch with the chopsticks, twirl it around, then slide the chopsticks out.
Thanks! I also realized that my second picture is from a blog post that also talks about how to twirl pasta: http://www.missyblurkit.com/2012/11/chefs-cuisine-experience-2012-chef.html
I mostly see Gordon Ramsay do this with tongs, rather than chopsticks. You might find that easier.
@setek : on cooking shows, normally when I see them spin the pasta with tongs, they're making more of a nest (holding the tongs vertically while spinning), which doees give the pasta shape & height ... but not like what was pictured.
@Joe oh okay cool, I don't really know I haven't tried it, just a thought :)
you could use the chopsticks to twirl your spaghetti like in this video
Twirl Spaghetti with chopsticks
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.394524
| 2014-10-19T14:57:10 |
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|
115764
|
Date bars are too sticky
I am making date bars very similar to nakd bars but keeping running into the same problem when making them.
The bars are way too sticky!
I used the following ingredients
Dates
Freeze dried raspberries
Salt
Vanilla extract
Anyone know what I am doing wrong? the taste is there but the texture is not.
The Nakd bars have a harder feel to them but I'm not sure how to get that. Ingredients and measurements are very similar too.
Welcome to the site, you will need to edit and add the amounts of these ingredients and the detailed method you use to make the bars.
maybe the humidity level of the dates is too high ?
I'm voting to close this as needing detail. This question is the equivalent of saying 'I mixed flour, water, yeast and salt together and my bread isn't coming out right, what am I doing wrong?'
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.394659
| 2021-05-22T18:45:25 |
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|
115899
|
How can I improve the outer texture of my lemon poppy seed bundt cake? It is tender and moist in the inside but dry on the outside
My lemon poppy seed bundt cake ingredients:
Plain flour 450g
Baking powder 1 1/2 tsp
Baking soda 1/2 tsp
Salt 1/2 tsp
Butter 198g
Sugar 440g
Large eggs 4
Vanilla 1 tsp
Lemon juice 85g
Lemon zest 2 tblsp
Buttermilk 250g
Poppy seeds 4 tblsp
I have done many trials by increasing or reducing the weights of some of the ingredients. This is the version that I like the most.
I had tried to making this cake using yogurt, sour cream and buttermilk. My favorite is the one with buttermilk.
Among the things that I have tried while experimenting to improve different aspects of this cake were, reducing and increasing the followings:
Sugar: from 400-500g
Eggs: 3-5
Butter: 170-227g
I like my final version.
However, there are a few things that I’m unsure about. Am I using the right ratio of eggs and liquids to butter or that is unimportant since my other ratios are correct; sugar to flour and eggs to butter?
I am afraid that if I increase the butter then it could collapse.
Am I using a lot of lemon juice? I like the taste but is the lemon juice causing the problem of the cake becoming dry on the outside?
I have read about the effects of using acids on a cake but I am unsure of my lemon juice amount being right or not. I do not wish to use milk either.
I am afraid that my cake will not become sour enough if I eliminate the lemon juice.
I have been baking this cake in a 10” (25cm) Nordic Ware bundt pan, in a conventional oven and setting the oven temperature at 325F (165ºC) but placing the oven rack in the centre height of the oven, which I have come to discover to be too high given the height of my bundt pan which measures 10.5 cm from the inside. So, now, I am planning to lower the oven rack by only one level. The oven that I am using is Kelvinator. It is an electric oven and does not have a fan.
I have baked this cake around twenty times, in the same pan with all the above details, preparing it very well by using Baker’s Joy spray, allowing the pan to cool on the cooling rack for exactly ten minutes before turning the cake out.
Hi Laleh, welcome to this site. I think you are asking multiple questions in one. You might want to split the question into separate ones.
I attempted to edit your post to limit it to the one question in your title. However, I'm not exactly sure about the texture you are looking for. Many cakes are dry on the outside and tender on the inside. What sort of outside texture do you want to achieve?
Have you tried adding a glaze?
To answer the question about the outer texture, my guess is that you oven is too hot.
Oftentimes, it's a good idea to reduce the heat and increase the oven time. This is just a guess, mind. You can also put the cake on a lower shelve.
What you can do is bake it low and slow. If you want to brown the cake, you can turn up the heat to 180ºC for a few minutes at the end.
Seems like you will need to continue your experiments.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.394775
| 2021-06-01T06:56:12 |
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|
97004
|
Are there disadvantages to storing bread in a vacuum box?
I love fresh bread, and when I buy it I store it at home in a plastic bag. After 2-3 days it has probably lost about 60% of its overall quality. I've been using some vacuum storage bags and found that the bread can be great up to a week later!
This made me think about how I'd love to have a box or chamber on the counter that I can just dump my bread in and vacuum most of the air out. It would be stationary and much more practical than bags, which require cutting and subsequent disposal.
What are some of the primary barriers to this being a practical tool? I'd imagine many households would want this!
You mean why not such a household appliance exist in the market?
Hi Behacad, taken literally, your original question requires us to explain why, from all decisions that cooks, manufacturers, sellers and regulators could have made, they didn't made the ones which would have led to vacuum boxes being commonplace. This is not a cooking question, and even if it were, it would be way too broad. The only aspect we can answer are whether there are obvious cooking-related obstacles for it to happen, and I reduced the question to that part, instead of closing.
You can remove most of the air from a plastic bag without a vacuum, and no tools...a vaccum would probably compress your bread in the process, no?
@moscafj That requires a bag, which is not great for environment and is also typically not reusable.
@Alchimista Yes I am wondering what the drawbacks of something might be, which I think might explain why there isn't such an appliance in the market. Maybe it's a great idea I'm having, or perhaps it is bad for X reasons (which is what my question is asking).
The answer already provided should be the answer. In short we cannot equate a tight seal under vacuum to a vacuum chamber. What one would need will be kind a cigars cave. But each items requires its condition, and cooling turn to be superior though in many cases has some cons.
More of an aside than anything... if you love fresh bread, why do you go to great lengths to keep it for a long time?
I love fresh bread but why would I buy a 6$ loaf every day to eat two slices?
@Behacad Ah, I tend to eat rather more bread than that in a day, especially when it’s fresh and delicious.
@Spagirl I get your meaning, but the question still stands! A good solution to keeping bread fresh that does not involve freezing and thawing and disposing of bags repeatedly would be nice!
@Behacad if the vacuum level matches the one used in chemistry (≥1Pascal), the bread would be as dried as passing into a toaster.
Bread gets dried out and stale through retrogradation which requires moisture. Your vacuum bags are not keeping the bread fresh because of the vacuum, they are keeping it fresh by providing a very tight seal that prevents the bread from absorbing moisture from the atmosphere. A larger vacuum box would provide the same protection from moisture but it might dry the bread out since the moisture in the bread would easily evaporate at the lower pressure. Also keep in mind that neither a vacuum bag nor a vacuum box will prevent mold from eventually growing on the bread.
The biggest competition to a vacuum bread box is the freezer that most people already have in their kitchen. Frozen bread can go for many weeks or even months without going stale and without any mold growing on it. The only real risk to the bread is freezer burn if it is not sealed tightly. Use vacuum bags to seal your bread tight and it can last a very long time in your freezer.
This makes sense, but it is also not practical to defrost bread and use bags constantly to have fresh bread. I'm also not convinced about your argument that vacuuming won't work, since I know it does work with vacuuming in bags and I don't see how a chamber would affect pressure differently.
In a bag humidity and eventually fragrances cannot leave the bread. If you put a glass of water in a vacuum chamber either it boils or evaporates fast. The fragrances aromas etc is actually another drawback of using vacuum chambers for food.
@behacad Freezer bags can be used again and again for bread, and it's easy to defrost it by toasting it (slice before freezing) or leaving it out for a few hours.
@behacad Regarding the difference between the vacuum bag and vacuum box, it's helpful to think of the volume of vacuum rather than just the pressure. The bag's volume reduces when you vacuum it so that there's almost no space for moisture to go that's not inside the bread. The box has plenty of space for moisture to go, and the low pressure means it leaves the bread quicker.
Vacuum bread bins were manufactured some years ago as I owned one. I’m single and was looking for a solution to keep my bread \fresher for longer without freezing it. The bread bin I purchased was a simple design, it was large enough to hold a full size loaf. The lid slid back over the bin on hinges, after you put your bread in it was a simple case of closing the lid and making the seal via a simple lock at the front. It was mains powered so after locking I just pressed the button and all the air was pumped out. It was very efficient and there were no problems you have with bags like the bread being squashed. Another button released the vacuum, I took how ever many slices I needed and just repeated the process.
This was around 12 years ago and I’ve been looking for the same, or similar design bread bin in the past few months but cannot find one anywhere from any country on the internet. I’ve no idea why they didn’t become very popular, maybe the bakers thought they would take a hit if families weren’t buying as much bread because it was keeping longer and blocked production and development.
At this moment in time I have to use a large vacuum container with a separate pump to achieve the vacuum but it works just as well. The only drawback is the container size. It’s not as large as I would like.
As long as the container/bread bin is keepedits clean and free from old crumbs to prevent mould it’s ideal. I can’t see why some large manufacturer wouldn’t mass produce this.
Holy crap! What a surprise to hear about this two years later. Do you know the product name of the older bin?
Unfortunately not, I’m also still looking for it. If I find it I’ll let you know
This is what I’ve bought as a replacement. It’s a vacuum bread box
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005002028491521.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.0.0.58bad49eLAKZja&algo_pvid=d30d904f-4148-4330-a150-ed76813fd885&algo_exp_id=d30d904f-4148-4330-a150-ed76813fd885-16&pdp_ext_f=%7B%22sku_id%22%3A%2212000018467826129%22%7D
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.395054
| 2019-03-20T13:15:27 |
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|
84181
|
Can we make peanut butter with 500W mixer?
I tried making peanut butter with 500w mixer but peanut is not secreating oil, is there any way to make peanut butter?
There seems to be a language problem here, because mixers (as the word is used in American and British english) cannot make peanut butter at all. You are probably trying to use a blender or a food processor. Can you link to the device you are using? Usually if you search for the brand and model on the internet, you find good pictures.
While "500 watt mixer" doesn't really tell us any specifics about your setup, considering that right now you've got yourself a nice batch of crushed, or maybe stirred peanuts rather than peanut butter, I'm going to say "no."
To make peanut butter, you either need a grinder in which the grinding surfaces are close enough to make butter, or you need something which has blades that move fast enough while still having enough torque to move through peanut butter.
If the mixer you have is a stand mixer (like a kitchen aid) then there's a good chance you can purchase some sort of attachment which will suit your purposes.
A food processor would do the trick but really low-end models would probably leave a few chunks.
A higher-quality blender would be able to make you a nice smooth peanut butter, but more affordable blenders probably won't have the muscle.
You can also get a hand-crank peanut mill online for less than 50 bucks.
Good luck!
Stirred peanuts lmao
Yes. I have been making peanut butter regularly with my mixer grinder rated at 550W. Grind until it the peanut stops moving, use a spoon/spatula to push the peanut away from the wall of the jar and continue. Repeat the cycle until you get the peanut butter texture. There is no need to add any oil. It will not be as smooth as supermarket peanut butter, but it is more than good enough for me. I make 500grams each time.
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Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.395592
| 2017-09-06T11:06:26 |
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|
129245
|
Can you eat the skins of whole soybeans?
I soaked in hot water and when hydrated I boiled for about 3 hours.
There is a translucent skin around every beans, Do I need to peel that or can I eat it if I don't mind the texture?
Soybean skins are edible, though the texture isn’t the best. Peeling them is something of a pain, so if you don’t mind the texture then eat them as is. (For tempeh, it’s important to remove many or all of the skins for the structure to develop properly.)
If you microwave edamame (i.e. soybeans), the peels sometimes come off. Not a guarantee but a pleasant sometimes surprise:)
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.395760
| 2024-09-21T09:20:13 |
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|
108836
|
Converting a stovetop to a griddle
I want to use a full stovetop griddle in my regular stovetop. I have this https://www.webstaurantstore.com/vigor-23-x-23-portable-steel-griddle/247PG2222FH.html My issue is that the heating ends up being uneven hot in the spots where the burners are and cold elsewhere. Is there someway I could get even heating across my entire stovetop? I have a regular residential gas stove. I’m trying to cook large amounts of scrambled eggs and hash browns at once.
Well, you'll never get the entire griddle evenly heated. But this griddle is pretty thick (3/16") so the results will not be too bad if you allow the griddle to preheat for a long time (at least 30 minutes). You'll still have hot spots and less-hot spots, but there won't be any 'cold' spots.
You're going to have to learn how the griddle performs and how to move the food to different zones to cook it the way that you want.
As a side note, even in commercial kitchens parts of the griddle are hotter than others. This is quite useful to cook two things at different temperatures, or to move something that is already cooked to a less-hot spot while another component of the dish finishes cooking in a hot spot.
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Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.395846
| 2020-06-04T01:34:40 |
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|
120259
|
Why is this spoon bent sideways
Can anyone ID this spoon? I took over a small kitchen and they have this thing. You can ignore the meat sticker, it’s a kosher thing.
I really think it's just a spoon that was bent
It's the spoon from The Matrix, bent by the one himself. Worth a fortune
There is no spoon @DuarteFarrajotaRamos, there is only yourself.
@DevelopingDeveloper not in that axis. The metal would be far too stiff to do that outside a factory. I suspect the extra-blunt tip is deliberate too
For stirring around corners?
If it is normal table spoon or dessert spoon sized, it is a spoon adjusted for people with limited mobility.
When adjusting for an individual, you would usually adjust the plastic as that is easier, but this is likely been factory adjusted, being a common enough adjustment that it is made in decent numbers.
I have considered training in the field but did not. Such a spoon was an example the school did show in the introduction material.
As a lefty I would struggle with such a spoon ...
Your definition of "adjusted" must be different than mine. The spoon was quite obviously manufactured to that shape.
@DavidPostill But not if it came in a set https://www.caregiverproducts.com/melaware-cutlery.html
@MarkRansom "adapted" might be better - but it could be said the design was adjusted.
Some leeway please, English is not my first language. An edit for the right word is acceptable @MarkRansom
@MarkRansom I see nothing wrong with the word "adjusted" here, I just read it as "the spoon's design was adjusted" rather than "the spoon itself was adjusted".
The same kind of spoon is also sold as “learning spoon” for small children that start feeding themselves.
The key is that these angled spoons can be held by grabbing the handle with the fist, which needs fewer fine motor skills than the three-finger grip more customarily used by adults.
Also 'limited mobility' in a way. But for a different reason.
It looks like a spoon for the elderly. I have seen them in nursing homes. If that logo was always there, it's probably a promotional item.
The logo/sticker is for kosher purposes. No mixing of milk and meat; people who observe strictly have separate utensils for each.
@Damila Though the thought of eating any kind of meat with a spoon is thoroughly unappetizing. Adds credence to the theory of it being made for young children, since their food is often pureed. Though I suppose that's true of some elderly people as well...
@DarrelHoffman It's not really the point here, but for example chicken soup would use a spoon and require the 'meaty' cutlery for strict kosher purposes
@dbmag9 Ah, soup, good call, didn't think about that. Though this looks a little small for a soup spoon, but whatever.
@DarrelHoffman Something as simple as serving cranberry sauce with meat might need a 'meaty' spoon if the owner was sufficiently observant and wanted to wash the spoon together with the rest of the meat dishes. The rules concern a religious definition of 'cross-contamination' so are more stringent than simply whether the item comes into contact with meat.
Such spoons have been around for a long time. Initially, most of them were tea-spoon size and bent this way primarily to make it easier for mothers to feed their babies and toddlers. In the olden times (when high chairs were even more expensive and considered a luxury and just for the privileged), mothers, nannies or baby sitters used to feed infants by sitting at the table and holding infants in their lap. Therefore, a bent spoon came in handy. Later on, as society progressed, they started manufacturing everyday utensils and products specifically designed for the disabled, for the left handed and so on.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.395987
| 2022-04-07T03:31:24 |
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|
84538
|
What went wrong with my bread?
I made challah earlier today and the texture is a bit off- it's slightly too dense and not as fluffy as it should be. The recipe I used calls for only yeast, not baking soda. Any idea what I should do differently next time?
Edit:
The recipe I used was this, but without the apple filling https://toriavey.com/toris-kitchen/apple-honey-challah/
I let it rise for 2 hours (punching it down at the halfway mark). I baked it at 350° for 20 minutes, turned it 180, baked another 20, covered with foil, then baked it at 10 minute intervals for another 30 minutes until it sounded more hollow and the internal temp was about 190°.
After shaping I let it rest for about 40 minutes.
It tastes good but the texture seems slightly off, so I’m hoping to get some insight for my next attempt
It doesn't look that bad to me. Enriched breads typically have a tighter crumb. But you're going to need to tell us what you did (recipe, how long you let it rise, if you let it rise again after shaping, what temp/how long you baked it, etc.) so we can recommend how to change things.
"Simply" removing apples and honey takes a lot of liquid out of the recipe. Might do better to start with a basic recipe if making the basic bread , rather than starting with an embellished recipe and removing the embellishments.
Yeah, that was a last minute change of plans. I did use the 3/4c honey though!
I think you got very close, just a couple of tweaks are necessary.
Generally the reasons for a dense loaf are that the dough is too dry and/or inadequate gluten development. If you have reduced the liquid in the recipe by adding less honey and not replacing it with something then you will have less gluten development because gluten needs water to unwind and yeast needs water to function. It's also possible you added too much flour when kneading, don't add any more flour than the recipe calls for, even if it is sticky, it will incorporate and become less sticky as the gluten develops. A dry dough will also get less oven spring from the expansion of air and water vapor. Leaving out the apples in this case shouldn't make the bread dense as they are a filling and not the actual dough.
It's also possible you didn't let it proof enough. Recipes often give timings for proofing, but what you should be looking for a result. Challah is an enriched dough, the honey, eggs, oil, and sugar will all retard the yeast action, making it slower to rise. It can take awhile for an enriched dough to get working, so it helps to budget extra time. I like to let a challah more than double in size before I move on to the next step.
Another problem could be you didn't knead enough. Kneading unwinds gluten strands and lets them entangle, giving your dough elasticity and allowing it to trap the air created by yeas action. If you don't knead enough there will be less gluten development, and less elasticity. It doesn't look like this was the case for you, but it is a consideration.
Now, when it comes to braided breads there's a few gotchas. Your goal when braiding and shaping your bread should be to preserve as much as the air in the dough.
Rolling: You have to work challah dough a lot when you roll out the braids, the tendency can be to really press down when elongating the individual braids. This has the effect of squishing the air out them, meaning all that hard work the yeast did gets undone. Instead of squishing and pressing the dough down in order to get it to go out try using the rolling motion to stretch the dough out, you'll retain more of your nice air.
Handling: Try to treat your braids a bit gently and rough handling will knock out air. You don't need to knock back the dough during rising as you'll be doing enough rolling and braiding to get rid of any large air bubbles.
Braiding: One common reason for dense braided breads is that the braiding was done too tightly, leaving no room for expansion during the last rise. Bread dough is alive, when you rolls the braids out you'll lose some of your rise, but a healthy and active dough is going to spring back. You need to leave some space to allow for this, or the dough in the middle will have nowhere to go
Looking at your picture the edges of the bread have bigger air holes than the center, which leads me to think you braided it too tight and/or were too rough with it when braiding it up. The edges still look a little dense though, probably it was a bit too dry as well.
I think I probably made several of the mistakes you identified, so I'll be sure to not overwork or over-flour my dough. Thank you so much for your advice!
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.396351
| 2017-09-22T00:31:07 |
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|
31963
|
Which parts of a spring onion should I use in a pasta salad?
The recipe I've got (Commonsense cooking, page 211) for a pasta salad lists spring onion (green onion/scallions) as an ingredient, but doesn't say which part to use. Should I be using the long, slender green tops, or the small white bulb, or both?
Using both is fine. I would reserve some of the green end to sprinkle on top for presentation. The white part is stronger so you may want to add it a little at a time.
Well if i was you i would taste both parts of the spring onion and decide what will work best with your other flavors, you will find they have a notable difference in taste and texture..i would go with the green part 99% of the time
You could also use Chives instead of spring onions. Green leaves of spring onions are mostly used for garnishing the pasta salads.
I use Chives mostly for the following reasons.
Chives are less stronger in onion aroma
Chive is tendor and has less pronounced onion flavor
Less amount is required
Ofcourse both has their distinctive flavours and if you desire your dish should have the spring onion flavour then forget about Chives. Here what I mentioned is more for a garnishing/presentation point of view.
The whole springonion can be used, except for the roots.
The white parts are usually stronger in flavor, but have a more tender texture.
The green parts have a more subdued flavor, but are a bit crisper.
In older springonions the tip of the green part can become either limp, or dry and bitter, but the rest will usually still be usable.
The whole onion can be used, but I like the "spring" taste in the greens, so I use three parts finely-cut greens to one part whites.
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Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.396830
| 2013-02-16T08:40:46 |
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|
47027
|
How can I prevent my honey cake from splitting open?
I've made honey cake pretty often, and it almost always splits open in the middle. Why does that happen and how can I prevent it?
Edit: attaching a picture of the cakes I just made
Basic recipe (not so exact):
Ingredients
6 eggs
1 glass oil
2 glasses sugar
Pinch of salt
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup coffee (glass of water + some instant coffee)
4 cups flour
4 Tablespoons brandy
Pour in cinnamon - teaspoon+
1 pound honey
Directions
Mix first 3 ingredients. Add rest of ingredients besides honey and mix. Put in honey last – pour slowly as it mixes Bake for 1 hour at 350. Cover towards the end
What size and shape are we talking here?
small rectangular pan. not sure of the exact dimensions. but it's happened in different sizes that I've made, all loaf pans
Ok. This is more or less exactly the same issue as another, very well answered question. I'll VTC and link to to it. Short answer: the oven is a little too hot.
Could you post the recipe?
@ElendilTheTall - Great link. But I don't mind the doming as much as the splitting open.
@GdD - it's not such an exact recipe, but I'll add it to the question
@clueless it is splitting open because of the doming. "Doming" means your cake is building something like a mini volcano inside. Splitting means it had so much pressure inside that the dome burst. (Not as explosively as a real volcano, of course). In your case, beyond the other doming problems, it could be also a side effect of your recipe, besides the huge amount of baking powder, it could be just some kind of recipe which crusts very early without baking well inside.
Effectively what's happening is that the outer crust is forming before the inside has finished rising. This is the exact reason with a yeast bread that you would slice the loaf before baking, so that we can control how the crust breaks. (as it wouldn't break on its own, it's too strong).
In the case of a cake or quick bread, you don't have gluten, so although the crust doesn't have a lot of tensile strength. As such, if you have sufficient internal pressure, the top will split as the inside continues to expand.
The solution is the same as the problem with too much doming -- you have to find a way to get the outside to not set before the inside has finished setting.
... but in this case, I don't know that I'd turn down the temperature. If the cake is going to be stacked and decorated, sure, as it makes a more dense cake that's actually more condusive to stacking.
If it were to be served sliced, like you might with a poundcake for strawberry shortcake, I'd be more likely to turn up the temperature to try to get the characteristic split that you get our of a poundcake or banana bread, as it'll give you a lighter internal crumb.
If you wanted to try to avoid the cracking, as that shape of pan isn't really conducive to cooling strips, I'd place the pan on the bottom 1/3 of the oven, and place a sheet of aluminum foil or a sheet pan on the rack above it to reduce radiant cooking from above.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.397003
| 2014-09-10T09:19:13 |
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|
13414
|
How do I get rid of burn marks in my pots?
Possible Duplicates:
How can brown stains be removed from pots and pans?
How to keep my stainless steel skillet clean?
A couple of times I've left things cooking a drop too long - and all the water evaporated and the food started to burn. Once it was potatoes; once apples. Both times I caught it pretty quickly and most of it came off, but now I'm left with slight scorch marks on the bottom and one of the sides of my pot - small burnt-looking black patches. Is there anything to do to get rid of them? (The pot is made of stainless steel.) I've tried cooking water and dishwashing soap in the pot, but it didn't really help. Any other ideas?
Make a paste of baking soda and scrub with a green scrubby pad. Also The Pampered Chef sells a stainless cleaner that works great on all stainless pans. (In the interest of full disclosure, I am a Pampered Chef Consultant and use it on my pans all the time)
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.397277
| 2011-03-24T17:10:17 |
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|
35585
|
I have a jar of Hannah's Pickled Sausages. What now?
Having never eaten a Pickled Sausage and yet I now have a jar of Hannah's Pickled Sausages. What now?
I have never been severed any in my neighborhood but I had no qualms about picking it up in some store when I was out of state. Is it intended to be eaten like a quarter pickle on the side of a sandwich? OR maybe as sliced pickles simple as a condiment? Is it used on a bun like a hot dog as the meat item? Is it used in a casserole recipe with onions and sauerkraut? If the answer to any of these is yes, I will note that I have not found recipes listing them.
Eat them? Is there something serious you are trying to ask?
I have no pickled sausages. What now? ;-)
@SAJ14SAJ, yes. Added a bit to question.
I think it is just bar food. You just eat them.
It's sausage. Is there some reason to believe that it's different from any other sausage? This reads a lot like a recipe request to me - see the culinary uses guidelines.
@Aaronut, the reference to recipes was just an example of what might be useful. "they are just like any other sausage" could be the answer. Pickled and not pickled cucumbers have different uses.
@Aaronut from culinary uses guidelines: "When the ingredient in question is rare or unusual ... will probably be more informative to people"
@C.W.HolemanII I am closing this question. The ingredient is not unusual in many cultures, and it is used just as any other sausage. So the possible pool of answers is endless, and not especially interesting - exactly what the culinary uses guidelines guard against.
@rumtscho pickled and un-pickled cucumbers are in general treated differently. If in fact is "is used just like any other sausage" that would be a reasonable answer that could compete for up votes and the check mark. Are there any guidelines for "not unusual in many cultures"? I did not just head to this stackexchange before using google. If there were easily accessible then typically someone would have jumped on it and posted answers.
I have had this exact brand many times at parties ... we just snacked on the whole sausages, but you could also cut it and eat it as a quarter pickle. But I can imagine it also working in a sandwich or on a bun if you don't like them straight, but we mostly just ate them as they are. A nice little refreshing snack, especially great after some drinking.
Dishes that I had with pickled sausages:
I have had pickled sausage as a salad, cut in slices mixed with sliced onion and drizzled with a little bit of oil. Served just with a little bit of rye bread on the side.
Diced very small they can give mashed potatoes an extra twist ... when I had them in mashed potatoes we also added some fresh dill and diced boiled carrots. It was delicious. But in the same way, adding a little bit of sourness, I can imagine it being also nice in a hearty potato casserole.
I hope this gives you some ideas. I think the best is to taste it, now that you know you can just eat it straight, and then you will maybe think of something you would like it with most.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.397386
| 2013-07-25T19:37:33 |
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|
51694
|
What is the history of the standard sheet (bun) pan?
What is the history of the standard sheet (bun) pan? Who came out with the sizing? Why that size? When did it occur?
There are full size(26x18 Inch), half(18x13) and quarter(13x9).
image from
I imagine standard bun/sheet pan sizes were made to match standard oven sizes. Full size for commerical kitchens, 3/4 and half for home kitchens? Also, Apparently a bun pan is a sheet pan with edges. http://www.foodservicewarehouse.com/education/home-kitchen/how-to-choose-the-right-sheet-pan/c31557.aspx
Just to note -- I sent e-mail to the Bundy Baking Museum, asking if they had any info. Food Timeline had a good suggestion about doing a patent search. There's a 1921 patent for a sheet pan without corners, a 1934 patent for adjustable size sheet pans and a 1955 patent for stackable sheet pans (which look to have similar proportions to modern ones)
Most of the 'bun pan' patents are for making specific shaped buns ... except for this one from 1935 with indents to line up the doughballs, which also has similar proportions to modern pans ... most of the earlier patents had square or 2:1 aspect pans.
@joe you are correct about the cruft. I deleted all the comments referring to the initial misunderstanding. You can always flag a question with an "other" reason, suggesting a comment cleanup in the free text field.
Good question! I can't find any references online. Also, Alan Davidson and some other offline references were useless. Based on my personal experience as a professional baker (former), I'd guess that sheet pan sizes were determined by the rack sizes of the earliest popular commercial ovens with rotating racks. I can't find a reference for that though.
I don't have a definitive answer. But I can at least narrow down the time period a bit and likely manufacturing source with the help of Google Books. Unfortunately, there's only so much one can do here online, given copyright restrictions mean that almost everything from the 1920s-1950s or so is only available in "snippet view."
But here are a few observations:
This source from 1941 references a "standard bun pan (18 x 26 in.)" and elsewhere has another reference to "Use 18x26 in. sheet pans..." I see other books references around the same era to a "standard bun pan" or similar phrases; these may suggest that the size was considered at least one possible "standard" by that point.
There are multiple references to "Wear-Ever Seamless Bun Pans" as early as 1932 with the 18"x26" dimensions. (And possibly fractional sizes, though I can't seem to tell through Google Books.)
Earlier references (e.g., from the 1920s) don't seem to indicate a standardization of pan sizes yet. For example, this book (which is before the magical copyright date and has full-text available) has references in various recipes to pans with sizes 18x25x1, 18x24x1, 17.5x11.5x1.5, 18x25x1.25, 18x11, 15.5x26, etc. There does seem to be a preference already for sheet/bun pan sizes in a particular range, though, which (if I had to speculate) might be related to some standard oven sizes of the time.
By the 1950s, there are multiple references to cabinet racks and other large food racks on wheels which were built specifically to accommodate the sizes of "Wear-Ever bun pans."
The brand history of Wear-Ever includes the following information about its popularity: "By [1941], four out of five homemakers preferred WearEver cookware and it accounted for more than 40 percent of the aluminum cookware business in the United States."
I don't see references to 9x13 pans showing up commonly in recipes until the 1950s, when they seem to become standard. There are a few mentions of a "9x13 inch pan" in the late 1930s and 1940s, but very few in Google Books, so I don't know if this was a standard size by that point or if these are just random pans.
I would note that cake mixes were first marketed in the mid-1930s, and they became very popular following World War II. So it's not surprising to me that standardized mixes (with a specific batter volume) and standardized pan sizes might happen to become popular together. Mixes could have been related to widespread adoption of already existing size standards, particularly in the adoption of some commercial standard full-size pan and its equal divisions into home cooking. (I'm not saying I have proof of a connection here, only that the historical periods of popularization roughly correspond.)
To respond to speculation in comments, if this page is to be believed, the first ovens with rotary racks were invented in 1964, which is probably a couple decades after standard full-size sheet pans became 18x26.
In sum, it seems that Wear-Ever standard full-size pans started to become common in the 1930s, and since they were one of the most dominant manufacturers of aluminum cookware, their sizes apparently became adopted as standard in the 1940s and 1950s.
As to the question of why the precise 18x26 size was first chosen by Wear-Ever, I haven't yet been able to sort that out. I haven't found evidence of standardized commercial deck oven sizes in the 1920s and 1930s, though their widths do seem to fall in the right range that would make a 26" width a good large size to accommodate.
Since Wear-Ever was tied closely to ALCOA and early aluminum production in the U.S., I could also imagine there might be a connection to standard aluminum sheet manufacturing sizes, which could then be stamped out into these pans, though skimming through some aluminum processing manuals from the early 1900s so far hasn't given me any clues. I would also note the ratio of length and width is close to "ideal" rectangular ratios that were common in paper manufacturing, etc.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.397684
| 2014-12-17T16:44:45 |
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|
55318
|
How to prevent brillant pink raw bread dough from cooking up to yellow?
I added some cooked beets to a bread recipe. The result was a lovely pink dough:
After cooking, the rolls were yellow on the inside with some of the pink still visible in the crust:
Why? Any way to over come the color change?
It appears that the pH of your bread changed during baking. Beets are red because of their anthocyanins. According to Wikipedia:
Anthocyanins can be used as pH indicators because their color changes with pH; they are pink in acidic solutions (pH < 7), purple in neutral solutions (pH ~ 7), greenish-yellow in alkaline solutions (pH > 7), and colourless in very alkaline solutions, where the pigment is completely reduced.[5]
You would have to post your recipe or analyze it yourself to determine what is alkalizing your dough, perhaps baking soda? Changing your recipe to make it more acidic may change the texture
of your bread. You could look for another recipe that uses acidic ingredients, such as butter milk that might off set the color change. The pink looks very pretty though.
Sugar is acidic, and if this is a yeast-dough (looks like it from the pictures, but can't be sure), then the yeast convert the sugar into alcohol, which is alkaline.
Adding a small amount (0.2% of dough) of ascorbic or citric acid to the dough will help stabilize the red/pink color. MiMintzer's answer explains why.
You will have to use food coloring if you want colored dough.
There are multiple problems with using fruit to color other food. First, the concentration is seldom high enough to get a noticeable color without using large amounts of the fruit, which would change the recipe texture if simply added. In this case, you were lucky to want the fruit there in the first place.
But the other problem is that these colors are not chemically stable. They can be destroyed by temperature, or by pH changes, as MiMintzer pointed out. But I wouldn't go messing with the pH of your dough. If you change it sufficiently to get the color to change, you will 1) change the leavening totally (probably get no leavening), and 2) change the taste a lot, so you end up with either sour bread or soap tasting bread. If what you are making is a yeast bread and not a quickbread, you'll still mess up with the yeast and therefore get bad leavening.
Beside the pH changes, you'll also get some change due to the different texture. The small amounts of dye sufficient to color a piece of solid dough will seem lighter after baking, when you're seeing a foam instead of a solid block. This won't account for the large difference in your pictures, but could contribute.
Bottom line: if you want pink bread, you have to color it with a real dye. Accidental colorations from berries are practically impossible to control.
As beetroot juice is often used as a natural food colouring would concentrating the juice possibly have the right effect?
@doug if you can predict how it will react to any possible temperature and pH and manage to find a recipe which will be within the admissible range, it will work. But how do you intend to concentrate it? Cooking it will dull the color. So you are looking at somehow removing 99% of the juice (its water content) and none of the dye dissolved in the juice, and simultaneously manage to remove the beet taste, and that without using heat. It is probably possible if you have a chemistry lab and the required knowledge, but for the average cook, why not just buy food coloring?
I wasn't suggesting he tried it. I was just wondering if he could. Personally I can't see the appeal of pink bread. If reducing over heat would somehow change the colour, you could either attempt using room temp evaporation or instead of concentrating the fluid, you could increase the amount used. Maybe by replacing all the water content with beetroot juice, which as you noted is 99% water anyway. Thereby "concentrating" the amount used.
You could try concentrating the juice using the freeze-thaw method: http://cooking.stackexchange.com/a/46411/25059
This makes me want to experiment with changing the colour of small buns next time I make bread. I can take some dough out before I finish adding al the flour (main batch to continue as bread) and adding different juices to individual buns to see the results. Going to see if I can make a rainbow collection of buns!
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.398189
| 2015-03-02T22:56:37 |
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|
116040
|
How long does homemade yogurt take to waste
I have been making yogurt this last weeks with a yogurt maker. Just heat milk and add ferment or a previous yogurt (not sure if this is the correct word in English)
Easy and delightful. I store the yogurt in the fridge.
How long it takes to this homemade yogurt to go bad? Also, how long it takes until I shouldn't use a previous yogurt to make new ones?
Most information I see says that homemade yogurt is good for two weeks when kept under refrigeration.
How long it takes to this homemade yogurt to go bad?
(Where I am, the recommendation for consumers to determine whether milk products are still OK is to check by eye, nose, and taste and if they all agree it's good to eat, go ahead.
I'm aware of the fact that official recommendations in other regions of the world differ. You may be better off checking your local recommendations.)
Also, how long it takes until i shouldn't use a previous yogurt to make new ones?
I always went for (bought) new "starter yoghurt" when the result turned bitter (I forget which of the cultures wins, but yoghurt [at least over here] is usually a mixture of two different cultures, and one of them will slowly win over)
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.398563
| 2021-06-11T20:06:30 |
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|
116138
|
Best way to prepare multiple pans of lasagna
I need to prepare ingredients to make three pans of lasagna. Should I prepare one batch at a time, or mix ingredients for the three batches at one time and divide among three pans?
That’s a very clear “it depends”.
Theoretically you can just triple all ingredients, cook the sauces and assemble factory line style. One big batch cooked, one round of washing up.
However, there are a few details to consider:
Are your pots and pans large enough? Also consider the ratio of surface area to volume, this can affect evaporation and change how long a sauce needs to reduce or reach the desired thickness.
Can you handle the amounts comfortably? For example, making a large quantity of roux needs quite a bit of strength and quick action or you may end up with uneven texture and lumps.
Does it matter if the cooking times are different because of the difference in volume? For a regular bologna it’s probably not an issue (the mirepoix would fall into the upper category again), if you are working with vegetables that are supposed to keep a bit of a bite, it may. You need to cook to the desired doneness, not going by the time in your recipe.
If the caveats above are not a problem for you and your recipe, go ahead and do a large batch.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.398777
| 2021-06-19T14:35:45 |
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|
116058
|
What determines if something is easy to chew? A lot of liquid or totally dehydrated?
On one hand, we have foods like jelly or melted cheese which are primarily liquid and seem very easy to eat and swallow. On the other hand, we have astronaut food or some pastries (or cotton candy?) which have no liquid at all. They essentially crumble and turn into dust in your mouth, and are easy to eat as well.
Recently I've had some dried mango and beef jerky, and my understanding is these aren't perfectly liquid-free, and these are really hard to chew!
So why is it that something that's mostly liquid is easy to eat, something that's not liquid at all is easy to eat, but somewhere in the middle we have to put in a lot of effort to chew food? What determines how "chewy" or difficult a food is to eat?
You seem to have latched onto one aspect of a food - its water content - without considering anything else.
@Tetsujin My question is exactly that: What exactly are the factors? The liquid content is the observation I made. I don't think that invalidates my question.
Chocolate and coconut oil, for example have no liquid or very little at room temperature, but melt at body temperature. Most things that seem dusty aren't easy to eat as they absorb so much saliva. The exceptions tend to be very sugary as sugar dissolves very well in water, perhaps well enough to keep up with saliva production, which is stimulated by eating - and that's how jerky and the drier dried fruit soften.
One hint is physical structure: more fibrous means harder to chew (I may be able to turn that into an answer at some point)
It depends on how well the "building blocks" of the food stick to each other. The "building blocks" can be different things, whatever you have in the food you are considering: small molecules, polymers, cells, tissue formations, globules, bubbles, films, and probably some more.
If they are not soluble in your saliva and they hold onto each other tightly, you won't be able to separate them well by crushing and shearing with your teeth. If they are loosely held, the food will be easy to chew.
The effects of moisture will be varied, depending on how it contributes to the structure of a given food. You cannot make a general statement based on water content only.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.398913
| 2021-06-13T06:42:12 |
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|
122723
|
DIY Alphabet and Number-shaped Cereal
Out of curiosity, is there a way to recreate alpha-bits cereal and number-shaped cereal from scratch at home? I want to make the cereal in these flavors: Plain, Frosted, Cocoa, Cinnamon-Brown Sugar and Fruity.
What research have you done so far? Why weren't the results satisfactory?
It's not possible to make these 2 cereals but I refuse to give up. There has to be a way to make alpha-bits and number-shaped cereal from scratch at home. I don't find the results satisfactory because I believe we're not over the limits on home cereal making yet.
What is it that you are trying to recreate? I suspect that it is puffed cereal, and then the answer is indeed that no, you can't do it at home. If that's unsatisfactory to you, you can look into patents for machines for cereal expansion and consider what would take you to build a functioning one.
I'm trying to recreate alpha-bits cereal and number-shaped cereal from scratch at home. Should I treat alphabet and number cookies as alpha-bits & number-shaped cereal?
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.399101
| 2022-12-20T15:32:51 |
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|
119477
|
Why does spatzle dissolve in water?
We've made spatzle a bunch of times with great success. Tonight, we put it in the boiling water like many times before, and it completely dissolved, resulting in cloudy water rather than anything resembling spatzle. We followed the recipe exactly. It's the first time making this at our new location, at a higher altitude, with colder and drier conditions and well water. What happened?
What is your altitude now?
We're at 930m or 3050ft
That's only 1deg lower in boiling temp, so I doubt altitude is making a difference. My working hypothesis would be that you mismeasured something.
Are you sure you didn't forget the eggs or something? Because túrógombóc can absolutely dissolve in water, but I've never had it happen to nokedli.
(The problem with @FuzzyChef's hypothesis is, of course, that I have never in my life measured anything when making spaetzle/nokedli/galuska.)
Did you buy your ingredients at your new location, or at your old one? It might be worth looking for ways they're different - older/newer items, different brands, etc.
A strong boil will break up the spaetzle batter. Keep it at a simmer.
Stronger bread flour works well for nokedli, to keep them firmer. I’d guess spätzle would be similar.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.399210
| 2022-01-12T02:53:12 |
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|
86400
|
Can I substitute bread flour with all purpose for hot water crusts?
Many recipe for a hot water crust I have seen calls for something like 15%-20% of the flour to be bread flour? Is going AP flour fine, or do I need to do more/something else to make the substitute?
I've seen tons of recipes with only all-purpose flour. To confirm just now, I searched for "hot water crust recipe" on Google and in the top ten results, there were seven unique recipes (two pages were article/recipe versions of the same thing, two were general articles), of which six used only all-purpose flour, and only one used a combination like you describe. I think you still have a really good question - what does the bread flour do, what happens if you replace it? - but the assertion about "basically every recipe" is an awkward starting place.
Adjusted, so far I've seen about 5 different recipes, all were using bread flour in varying amounts
The hot water method is all about making gluten (flour strength) ineffective, so using bread flour has very doubtful merit. A recipe insisting on its use might have other problems (baking too hot or too long, having too high or too uneven thickness (use a rolling pin, period), or using too little fat) that it tries to compensate by using strong flour. Note that fat content is essential - medieval style hot water crusts that used little or no fat were intended as a food preserving shell, not as an edible part of the dish.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.399340
| 2017-12-14T23:44:07 |
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|
85140
|
Safe to leave eggs in water overnight?
I want to have boiled eggs in the morning when I wake up. For this I want to use a standard rice cooker.
My plan is to add the eggs and water before going to bed, set a timer and go sleep.
Is it possible and safe to leave the eggs and water in my rice cooker until a timer starts the cooking? Will soaking the eggs overnight change their consistency or flavor?
Note: This question asks something very similar for rice.
This and this questions are also related
Hello, and welcome to Stack Exchange. Where are you located? This matters, because different countries treat their eggs differently, with the result that some must be refrigerated and some don't need it.
Hello, I am living in Brazil. Here, eggs are usually kept at ambient temperature, outside the fridge.
Go for it. Eggs in their shell are pretty sturdy. Technically, a very small amount of water will be absorbed by the eggs, but unless you weighed them, you probably won’t notice.
I do have a small caveat, though: eggs are susceptible to smells, the chalky shell is pretty permeable. So if your tap water has a lot of chlorine or other strong tasting stuff, it’s probably not a wise idea to let the eggs absorb that. The same is true if you live in an area of the world where tap water may be contaminated by bacteria. In such a case, you need to boil the water first before adding the eggs.
In short: if the water is good, no problem.
If you absolutely can not wait to boil the eggs in the morning and prepare your breakfast like the proper ritual it really is, you have to take these in mind.
Eggs are electively permeable. This means some molecules, like water, can enter through their membrane and thusly inflate it which will make it possible for them to break in boiling, or even before.
Can you really control the way they will be cooked in the rice cooker? Sure it's okay if you want the yolk solid, but if you want it liquid you'll have a problem.
Perhaps some taste or smell will seep through the membrane. For example metallic taste, chlorine used to clean water or worse anything health damaging.
If you pre-boil the water, leave it to cool, salt it to make the mixtures somewhat of the same concentration (where mixtures are the water and the inside of the egg) and don't care about cooking time you can have a safe go to try it. Look for weird tastes or odors.
If they are permeable the water should able to get in and out.
Yes, but not the way you think it does. It goes in if the outside mixture is of a smaller concentration than the inside one and thusly the egg inflates nad breaks, if you dilute a kg of salt in an amount of water so that the new concentration is greater than the egg's, the the egg will suck on itself. It's a procedure called osmosis that depends on mixture concentrations, you can look it up in wikipedia since it's basic enough. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osmosis
So if no salt was in the water then water would not penetrate? That is contrary to posted experiments. https://www.exploratorium.edu/cooking/eggs/activity-nakedexperiment.html Not buying. And not going to argue with you.
No, I am saying that if no diluted substance => egg inflates and breaks.If too much diluted substance => egg deflates and maybe breaks. Only way for no water penetration is equal concentrations. Try to focus on my words this time.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.399485
| 2017-10-21T15:49:00 |
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|
29717
|
Would using milk powder better than fresh milk when poaching?
I read this question - What is the effect of poaching fish in milk? and was surprise that one can poach fish using milk.
However, I was wondering if the milk will be spoil if it is continuous being cooked? And also would it be better if milk powder is used instead of just fresh milk?
Poaching is a gentle process - the milk isn't boiling so there is no risk of it burning or the like. It will of course not spoil in the sense of it going off, that's a totally different process.
Fresh milk is better because, well, it's fresh. Powdered milk would probably work, but if you have fresh, use that.
Depending on how you look at it powdered milk is fresher than "fresh milk". Powdered milk is powdered within 12 to 24 hours after milking and then vacuum packed which makes it last a year or so. While "fresh milk" will most likely be at least 24 to 48 hours old depending where you live, and will only last a week. While powdered milk tastes odd when served as a plain drink, it works very well in cooking
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.399765
| 2013-01-04T09:29:45 |
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|
27818
|
How do I know if my salmon fish is cooked properly?
I intend to cook some salmon fish over this weekend so that I can treat my friends and relatives. However, I saw this article - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/22/the-hidden-dangers-of-unc_n_120584.html, it mention about the hidden danger of uncooked salmon.
So, my question is how should I cook my salmon such that it is cooked properly? (in other words, how can I identify that my salmon fish is not cooked well. Of course, I don't want my salmon fish to become so cooked that it turn into a black ash.)
Would appreciate if there are pictures showing a well-cooked salmon fish and pictures showing salmon fish that is not cooked properly and showing sign of rawness inside the cooked fish when cut into half.
Just some illustrations as follows:
I don't want my salmon fish to be somewhere like this cause it look un-cook inside:
Also, I don't want my salmon fish to be somewhere like this cause it look over-cooked outside:
Also, I ask a article - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medium_rare (honestly, I do not know if it can apply to fishes)
==========================================================================================
Term (French) | Description | Temperature range[1]
==========================================================================================
Extra-rare or Blue (bleu) | very red and cold | 46–49 °C (115–120 °F)
==========================================================================================
Rare (saignant) | cold red center; soft | 52–55 °C (125–130 °F)
==========================================================================================
Medium rare (à point) | warm red center; firmer | 55–60 °C (130–140 °F)
==========================================================================================
Medium (demi-anglais) | pink and firm | 60–65 °C (140–150 °F)
==========================================================================================
Medium well (cuit) | small amount of pink in the center | 65–69 °C (150–155 °F)
==========================================================================================
Well done (bien cuit) | gray-brown throughout; firm | 71–100 °C (160–212 °F)
==========================================================================================
So, I was wondering if I really need to cut those salmon fish into tiny slices so that when I cooked them, the fish will be between "Medium well" to "Well done" throughout. (Notice that I did not want a "Well Done" because I don't want to have "black ash" on the outside of the salmon fish)
duplicate question? http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/14233/how-to-determine-the-doneness-of-salmon
@talon8, if I have not mis-understand the question that you have refer, it is more about how to cook the salmon fish to medium rare. My question is more of a "full" rare (or in other words, the salmon fish starting from the outside to the inside is cooked properly and does not shows any sign of rawness.) My objective is to have the outside and inside of salmon fish to have a cooked balance. (I hope that my explanation is clear)
Cooked through and cooked properly are two separate things. Salmon like many other fish is much better to eat when cooked a little rare. You'll note in that article that certain frozen salmon is safe, so consider buying that and cooking it so that it's potential is achieved. Otherwise what's the point?
By "full" I assume you mean "well done" (Rare means raw). Either way though, the easiest way if you're unsure is to look at the colour inside, the colour will be even throughout. Alton Brown suggests 131, but I suspect that might be too raw for your target. I've read suggestions as high as 150F for the target temp. This might be closer to what you're looking for.
@talon8 Thanks for telling me that Rare means raw :) I have added extra information to my question and I hope that it is much clearer.
@ElendilTheTall I agree with your point but I want to be extra safe cause this is my first time that I cook salmon fish as a treat to my friends and relatives. I want my salmon to look "clean, almost well done rare" so that they can eat without any concern.
Jack, how are you intending on cooking it?
I want my salmon to look like the 2nd picture - perfect and beautiful.
you can't apply the Wikipedia table to fish. Fish lives at a much colder temperature than land animals, so their proteins undergo the same changes at lower temperatures than land animals. The table you have looks like it is made for beef and can be applied to pork, mutton and other red meat.
@BlessedGeek Oh, so you prefer some black ash outside your salmon fish? Personally, I would prefer the same picture but without the black ashes outside the salmon fish.
I have seen worse ketonization of beef steaks. This piece of salmon is beautiful - slightly charred/browned, firmly made. The chef who did it is good.
The most reliable way to test any meat is with a thermometer. Be careful to insert it all the way into the center (since the outside will be hotter). As has been mentioned in the comments, the 130-135F range is cooked, but very soft. It's more likely that you want something in the 140F-150F range.
This is where the second method comes in - just test it. When fish is cooked, it should easily flake apart, and you can see the inside and verify that it's cooked how you want it. Remember, you can always cook it a bit longer, but you can't go backwards, so don't be too shy about checking it. There's no shame in having to check it a couple times before you decide it's done; within a try or two you'll know exactly what you're looking for. And you can do this along with a thermometer, since it's hard to tell exactly what temperature would be best for you.
Whatever you do, be careful not to overcook it - remove it from the heat as soon as you think it's done. It'll still cook a little bit more, as heat transfers from the outside to the inside.
You still haven't mentioned how you plan to cook it. The picture you think looks bad might actually be really good - if it was cooked on high heat, it may be done perfectly on the inside, with a bit of browning and charring on the outside. If you're cooking it more slowly, that's obviously not what you want it to look like on the outside - then inside would be totally overcooked.
All that said, the easiest way to cook fish (especially if you don't have a lot of experience) is baking it, wrapped in foil (or in a foil-covered dish). It's a slow heat, so it's a lot harder to accidentally overcook it, and it cooks more evenly than a hot pan or a grill. There are a lot of other great ways, but this might be good to start with. You could look for recipes for baked salmon to get some ideas here, if you don't just want a plain piece of fish.
So, if baking the salmon fish in a slow heat, then, I think the time to take to bake it will be critical. So, how long would it take to make my baked salmon appear to what I wish for?
@Jack I really meant it when I said to use a thermometer, or to at least check it a couple times during. There is absolutely no way anyone can tell you how long it'll take - wildly guessing, it could be anywhere from 20 minutes for a thin filet to perhaps 40-50 minutes for a thick piece.
yeah, it good to know the range of time to bake it. I think I will cut the salmon to thin fillet since it will take shorter time.
Do as the link suggest and freeze it to get rid of potential Larva, to pasteurise you need to over cook the salmon. Alton is right on the money for pasteurising, but need to keep it at 131 for a while, and it will be overcooked. I would suggest to eat it below 131 and be happy, I do mine at 104!
I'm not sure how you expect OP to perform that freezing process. I suspect its unlikely he has access to a capable of holding -31°F (-35°C) for 15 hours. -40 freezers go for several thousand for a tiny chest freezer. Instead, OP should buy fish that has already been so treated.
|
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.399901
| 2012-10-15T02:17:09 |
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|
67632
|
Are there any drawbacks to cooking with limp celery?
Crisp celery is important for salads and other recipes calling for raw celery, but what about when the celery is to be cooked, such as in a soup or stew? Celery loses its crispness when cooked so it doesn't seem to matter, but would I be missing something if I cook with limp celery?
I'm aware of how to revive limp celery to crispness from this question (How to keep celery crisp?) but it takes a few hours, and that question only addresses how to crispify it for raw uses, not whether it's necessary for cooking.
I'm not sure, but it seems to me that limp celery is more bitter. Perhaps it just seems that way because the bitterness is less diluted by water?
There's limp and then there's limp. As the celery ages, it will get more and more limp (and more bitter), and eventually neither delicious nor safe. If you're sweating the celery and it's a little less than crudité crisp it should be fine. Just sample it first to make sure it's not too bitter.
Is there a reason old (but not rotten) celery would be unsafe?
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.400708
| 2016-03-21T01:24:22 |
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|
115359
|
How do I make my blended soup a more appealing colour?
I was following this recipe for minestrone soup. This recipe includes a red tomato base, as well as some green vegetables.
I like to blend my soups up after to make them smoother. However, when I do this I end up with an unappealing brown colour to my soup, since the green veggies and red from the tomato combine to be brown (at least this is what I assume is the reason).
I've seen this with other soups I've made before; anytime I have tomato + greens in a soup it happens.
How do I improve the colour of the soup to make it more appealing? Or am I overthinking this?
(I know brown soup exists and can be appealing (e.g. Windsor soup), but in this case when I blend it the colour just comes out like a mossy brown colour that looks kinda gross).
At the risk of sounding trite, the answer is to not make minestrone soup. The whole point of minestrone is the bursts of flavour and colour you get from the vegetables. By putting everything in a blender you are making something other than minestrone.
@miken32 I used minestrone as a (clearly bad), example. I happen to make a lot of vegetable soups and tomato+greens happens to be a favourite of mine. This happens a lot for me (hence the question).
Can I assume you don't want Answers such as "try adding food coloring"?
@trlkly: What color would you add? I had the idea of adding red beet juice.
@trlkly I wouldn't mind, I would be interested to know if it is a common practise. Michael's idea of beet juice is definitely one to try.
@stanri The reason I brought it up is that I know that processed food products often use coloring agents to try and make food look more appealing. I don't know how much it is actually used in the kitchen.
@Michael I would probably try red as well. A somewhat brownish red looks decently appetizing. A somewhat brownish green can look bad. I don't think yellow would help, and blue is an uncommon food color.
Of course “appealing” is quite opinion-based, so let’s look at the problem in a slightly more neutral “how can I avoid the colors mixing when I blend the soup”.
In short, you can’t.
If you have a significant amount of green and red veggies, that is.
One of the appeals and key features of a classic minestrone are the colorful ingredients that give you a bright and versatile palette, almost a mosaic in a bowl. But let’s not argue with the question’s premise.
If you want to blend the whole soup, you need to stay in a limited range of the color wheel, which means for your soup everything that’s between red (as dictated by the tomato base) and yellow will be fine, as is white or translucent. Stay away from green. Blueish ingredients are quite rare and not part of a minestrone, so we can ignore that. In your example recipe, the spinach is out.
Alternatively you can blend everything except “the green”. That means you need to either fish out all the green vegetables or cook them separately. That said, the spinach in your recipe will cook so quickly that you could even add it after the blending step. And of course you still get chunks in the purée.
If your desire to blend is not motivated by the desire for a chunk-free result but about thickening the soup, you could use alternative ways to thicken the soup. An easy way would be to scoop out a few of the starchy ingredients (e.g. the potatoes), mash them up and put them back. Or introduce an additional thickener, e.g. a starch slurry.
Thanks! I actually really like the idea of leaving the greens out until post-blending, and then adding them in. Spinach cooks quickly and is added toward the end anyway, and isn't that chunky. I think that red soup + pops of green colour can look quite interesting.
This is one of those things that is "opinion based" but actually not really, there are deep physiological roots for our food preferences, color in particular. Food advertising is well aware of this. I mean I'm sure there will be some people who claim to like rotting garbage, but there are clear reasons for why people avoid it.
Just to follow up on the range of the color wheel that can be mixed: Don't blend complementary colors like red-green, blue-orange, or violet-yellow. The result always looks brownish. But they do look particularly nice and colorful together if kept separate.
I'm not a tomato person, but I wonder if making the base with green tomatoes would work as well.
The Turquoise Room (at the La Posada Hotel in Winslow, Arizona) has a "signature soup", which is actually two soups ladled into a single bowl: a bright yellow corn soup, and a darker brown bean soup.
While I kind of feel like this defeats the purpose of a minestrone (which, as far as I am concerned, is meant to show off the lovely vegetables), I wonder if a similar strategy might work here? Split the recipe into two soups: one which contains the red ingredients, and one with the green ingredients. Blend the soups separately, and them ladle them side-by-side into a shallow bowl to serve.
My guess is that you will need to reduce the amount of liquid in the soup to make this work—the goal is to end up with products at the end which are thick enough to remain separate after being served. The starch in the potatoes should also help (e.g. make sure that you are using potatoes in your recipe).
if you mix both soups, it'll still turn brown
@Max Yes, but the point is that you don't mix them. You serve them separately (in the same bowl). There is no obligation to mix them (except right at the boundary).
If you end up trying this, I would be exceedingly interested to see the images added to the answer. It sounds very cool.
I sometimes use a sweet, mild paprika to redden tomato-based soups which have turned out too brown. It doesn't go with every flavour, of course, but it works very well to liven up the appearance.
A couple suggestions:
Blend only part of the soup: When you're done cooking it, remove half of the soup from the pot and blend it, then combine the blended portion with the unblended. The texture will be smoother than it would have been, but you'll still have recognizable whole pieces of veg and greens (which you should have in a minestrone).
Cover it up with toppings. Fresh green herbs like parsley add color without changing the flavor too much. Green pesto. Croutons, while they're still probably a shade of brown, will at least break up the visual of an expanse of brown soup. Thinly sliced cherry tomatoes, pomegranate arils, toasted tortilla strips, avocado chunks, diced red onion or cabbage, brightly-colored pickles, oil infused with turmeric or paprika, all make great soup toppings depending on the soup you're making.
Would blending part of the soup not still give the OP murky soup, just with different chunks in it?
@Stephie According to the question, OP is currently (for whatever reason) making a completely smooth blended soup from a recipe that calls for zero blending. Blending part of the soup is a compromise between the two. The blended portion will still be "murky", but the unblended portion will provide some visual and textural contrast.
The color of the finished product can be altered by using yellow or green tomatoes in the ingredients instead of red.
Maybe you could expand your answer? Just throwing out one sentence is not very helpful...
You didnt said what is used in those soups.
Anyway, does the tomato base need to be cooked so long ?
maybe you could cook the hard to cook veggies(like beet ,potatoes, carrots) on water first and only add the tomato in the end, that way the tomato will be fresher, more red, and more healthy too.
If you are using broccoli, leafes, greens vegetables and thats turning brown too you could try to add sodium bicarbonate in the water that cooks it. it helps to keep the green color. people use it for that and works well. I, particularly, dont like to add unnecessary chemicals to my foods. I prefer to time the cooking of the the veggies just in time to cook and avoid leaving too much longer for not overly cook the foods that would make colors fade, vitamins to decrease and cause the veggies to became too humid(in that thing, for being a soup, if you wait too long to eat it will be very humid/soft/"watery" anyway).
And just to resume and clarify,
i see most answers are agreeing in your teory of the green veggies be the ones turning your soup brown but it is not the case. when you use green veggies in a white soup it doesnt turn green, because most of then do not color the food like that, like a beet or the tomato itself.
what turn tomato bases brown is overcooking or the tomatoes being too old
This does not actually answer the question. The soup doesn't turn brown from the green vegetables cooking, it turns brown when the soup is pureed and the red and green mix.
No, this is actually a good answer. — Sodium hydrogen carbonate is hardly an “unnecessary chemical”, any more than ordinary salt is; perfectly sensible to use it for buffering down acidity when that's a problem. (In the case of this soup, the tomatoes would be the main source of acid.)
Did you miss that the OP is blending the soup? There are not pieces of vegetable going brown within the soup, the whole soup is pureed, and the mixture of a red puree and a green puree is an ugly brown.
@rumtscho . oh "to blend" that she says is to put in the "blender / mixer" literally. only now i noticed (English not my 1st langue). i was not considering that, maybe thats why people are negativating
@leftaroundabout. i hardly never use salt too. but thats interesting i will read more about that and maybe become less reluctant in using chemicals.
i see that people are still negativizing. so let me explain when i read to blend / blended i think it was like "joining" 2 different soups like coffee blend. and smoother by being not too spicy or salty. and the info added are certainly useful for people that will arrive here
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.400867
| 2021-04-21T15:50:11 |
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115054
|
How do I store untempered chocolate?
My chocolate tempering was a flop! I am left with half-tempered Easter chocolates for my daughter.
Since this is my first time and she doesn't really care, and another question said it's OK to leave these as-is for home consumption, I'm going to just give them to her like this and try again another time once I buy a thermometer.
I know they are more likely to melt in this state, so how do I store them so that they remain solid? I am concerned about putting them in the fridge due to picking up moisture.
They are not that much meltable. Also, there is some chance they will become actually more pleasant, since the unstable crystals tend to turn into the next higher type over time.
So, I would just keep them at room temperature and not worry much. If milk chocolate (or worse, bad quality milk chocolate) doesn't spontaneously bloom in your place, your untempered chocolate shouldn't melt either. And it does melt slightly and then re-sets, it won't be that much worse for eating than plain untempered chocolate, maybe it will just have some added fat bloom. I have eaten many advent calendars in that state.
The fridge is also best avoided for great quality chocolates into which you invested lots of money or effort, but if they are already in the "I'll eat it so I don't have to throw it away" state, it doesn't matter that much. You can therefore use the fridge, if you prefer it over the room storage. They won't actively soak up any kind of moisture while they are cooled. What will likely happen is that you will see some condensation when you get them out for consumption and they warm up again. They are perfectly edible in that state too.
Bottom line, people tend to pay great care to perfectly-tasting chocolate, but once it is less than perfect, it is unlikely that you can make it significantly worse by storing it in the wrong place.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.401751
| 2021-03-31T19:06:33 |
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|
113309
|
How to crack walnuts?
I got a large batch of walnuts and started cracking them using a standard hinged lever nutcracker (ostkaka from IKEA). It is pretty messy and either the whole thing gets squashed to pieces and it's hard to pick out the nut pieces from shell pieces.
Or it can be split in two, but than the nut is still stuck in the shell and it's a long process to carefully get it out of there (even if I don't care to keep the nut intact)
Does it just take more practice or is there a technique or better tool to crack walnuts?
What do you think a "standard" nutcracker is? I can picture at least three different styles of nutcracker, all of which are fairly common.
Not sure if it is the walnut quality itself, but unripe, greener or when not properly dried, walnuts can be particularly hard to crack, the shell is stronger and wont crack easily to the point where, as you describe, you either get a incomplete crack hard to pick the contents from, or a mush.
@csk I added information about the nutcracker. it's from ikea and called "ostkaka". is it common to add an image too?
I added the image for you. tbh, those are the worst type of nutcracker as you have absolutely no control over them.
Gosh, before the clarification, I only pictured the soldier nutcracker for Christmas!
At my house we use a butter knife. At the bottom of a walnut, there's always a small crack that we can slip the tip of the knife through, then twist the knife by the handle and the shells come apart. The little separator in the shell can also be easily removed with the butter knife.
But other than that, we sometimes opt to simply grab two walnuts, and with our two hands, crush the shells against each others, and one of the two walnut shells will Crack and give way. Disclaimer: this method can get messy.
I've never seen anyone capable of doing the two nuts in hand technique other than on TV. I certainly can't do it. Either the nuts are different ages/strengths, or I've the grip of a 10-year-old boy…
@Tetsujin It certainly is possible. We have the same technique at home and it works perfectly, but as the answerer notes it does get really messy sometimes when more force is required to crack the walnut. We do this with the walnuts out of the backyard or from the grocery store.
After the nutcracker type was added to the question…
Those are frankly the worst type of nutcracker. You have no control over how far the jaws close & not much leverage - so you tend to try get each nut as far into the jaws as you can to get enough force, then squeeze two-handed with all the force you can - risking nut, knuckles & any nearby glassware in the process;) Once the nut gives, the jaws slam shut, smashing the whole nut to smithereens.
Short of buying some expensive specialist cracker (that in most houses will get used once a year at xmas) then Willeke's idea of a pipe wrench is perfect. You have essentially an adjustable gap so you don't crush them & lots more leverage. You can get a really cheap & cheerful version for maybe $£€ 5 if you don't ever need to tug on pipe nuts, only walnuts.
If you're in the UK you need to search "water pump pliers" to get the correct type. Searching actually 'pipe wrench' or adjustable spanner/wrench won't find the right thing. A search on a 'proper' toolshop like B&Q, Screwfix etc will cost you 20 - 40 quid, but you can get cheapo on eBay for under £4. Perhaps also a supermarket or general tool stockist of the type you find at cheap indoor/outdoor markets (those stores that sell a 40-piece screwdriver set for 2.50 that will last until you need to actually undo a screw;) if there's anything like that open where you live & you need one for xmas day.
As these all have a click (or twist) adjust, you size it to close to slightly smaller than the nut, then fire away. Loads of leverage, loads of control & a measured gap that won't smash them.
Once you own one of these tools, you'll be amazed at how many other uses you can find for it - even if you never go anywhere near a pipe ;) Tight lids (be careful on glass jars of course), reluctant screw tops on anything, from food to glue tubes… Mine get far more use than the actual nut crackers buried at the back of the cutlery drawer.
In both my house that pipe wrench lives near the main shutoff for the water, and it get used to close that if I have forgotten to close it regularly.
In our family we use a screwdriver in the same way as the first answer uses a butter knife, (and I think that butter knife is more likely to be the safe choice.)
But for those nuts that resist and for most other nuts, we use a 'waterpomptang', which is translated to pipe wrench or tongue-and-groove pliers, you need the kind with the two legs and the adjustable jaws.
You need to set the jaws to the size of the nut, slightly smaller is the best. Adjust the power you put on the legs to the force the nut needs.
I cracked a lot of walnuts when I was a child, as bowls of mixed, unshelled nuts including almonds, pecans, hazelnuts, Brazil nuts, and of course, walnuts, were our primary treats.
This is the technique for your nutcracker. I never had anything better, and I did it alot
Align the "split" in the walnut with the arms/jaws of the nutcracker. Apply just enough pressure to crack it into two halves. This will probably only crack one "end"...so rotate nut 180 degrees to work on other end. Once split (you may need to pry them apart with fingers or tool), take 1 half, rotate 90 degrees and crush very gently, enough to crack the half-shell but not crush the precious insides. With a good crack, you can remove a large part of the half-shell, if not the entire thing, as well as the internal inedible pieces that separate the walnut into four quarters.
With practice, you will not even have to split the nut before rotating 90 degrees to deliver the final crack whereupon you can remove big chunks of outer shell, leaving the internal nut ready to remove and eat by quarters (or halves if you also get good at removing that internal quartering support structure at the same time).
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.401944
| 2020-12-23T10:42:01 |
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|
115983
|
What are the safety and warranty implications of steaming bread in a domestic oven?
There are lots of recipes online that suggest mimicking commercial bread ovens by using a water bath and or ice cubes to create a hot, steamy baking environment. I have always been very wary of doing this with my domestic electric oven for a number of reasons, and only spray my french loaves on top with a very fine water mist. The risks, as I see them, are as follows:
Potentially, any cooler water splashing on the hot glass oven door could cause it to shatter
Any steam penetration could have an adverse affect on the live circuit boards or controls causing them to malfunction e.g. a partial or full short circuit
The enamel coating and other parts of the oven itself etc. could be more liable to corrosion
Am I being too conservative here? I would think that if a domestic oven failed due to such usage, the manufacturer would refuse to repair it under a regular domestic warranty as the oven was not used according to the manual.
Not helpful directly, For anyone with this problem in the process of getting a new oven anyway: there are affordable oven-steamer combinations out there. My parents recently got one and it works just as expected.
You should try out Jim Lahey's "cook the bread in a cast iron pot" method. You get an oven within an oven, and the steam from the cooking bread gives the crust a great texture. https://www.amazon.com/My-Bread-Revolutionary-No-Work-No-Knead/dp/0393066304
I think you are being too conservative. The oven door and glass in there is built to handle some temperature differences. When someone opens an oven door and sets a room temperature pan or cooking container on it while moving racks or other food around, I can't think it would be THAT different that water splashing around. If this were an issue, we'd probably hear about it, a lot.
Pretty much nothing you put into the over starts out as completely dry. Steam gets released from food all the time. Ovens are built to handle steam.
I've used water baths for stuff like cheesecakes. It's very common and if an oven failed because of this, it would be a defect in the oven, and covered under warranty.
I'd still avoid splashing cold water on the door just in case, but I splash near-boiling water on the door every time I bake bread, when I pour it into the tray on the oven floor
"Steam gets released from food all the time." This. Could be much more prominent. Many dishes release just as much water as a tray filled with water, like lasagna with lots of sauce on top, or any pie which has a filling that is liquid before it's baked and many more.
Regarding steam, there are plenty of recipes for things such as cheesecakes which are baked in water baths, as well as for braising meat in big pots of liquid in the oven. I'd be surprised if a reputable tv cooking program or cookbook would include something that would destroy your oven.
Turns out my self-cleaning gas oven is designed to have water in the bottom so as to use the steam generated to clean the oven. I cannot think of why this would cause a problem in your oven. The electrical elements are very protected from water or steam, no worries there. The meaningful electronics are all in the top back where you hit the buttons, completely isolated from the oven. Nope. Can't think of a single reason why you shouldn't be A-OK with adding water. Personally, I'm glad you put the idea into my head as I foresee some steamy bread baking in my future.
Regarding the safety of the door specifically:
Oven door glass is made of tempered glass. This does have a maximum temperature differential that is near reasonable cooking temperatures, so it is possible to exceed. This can cause the glass to shatter and/or explode impressively. That being said, tempered glass shatters into less dangerous pieces than regular glass. (Which is one reason it's used so commonly.) The worst injuries I'd expect would be burns and small cuts where the pieces hit exposed skin. Not great, but not life-threatening.
If you are worried about safety here, my suggestion would be to stick to almost-boiling water instead of cold water when adding water to a preheated oven. That would basically be 200 F water instead of 40 F water, which gives you 160 F fewer degrees of difference between the water and the oven door.
(The things you actually need to watch out for are self-clean oven cycles (these will cause marginal oven door glass to fail) and pushing pans or racks into the oven by closing the door. If they touch the glass, that could scratch the glass, which weakens the glass over time.)
I have seen an oven door fail. It went with quite a bang but not into shards, as you say. That was warming something with the wrong mode selected (grill instead of oven) and it ignited, so we also had flames to contend with
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.402457
| 2021-06-09T16:04:55 |
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|
116292
|
Bourboning up a ganache
I'm making this bete noire for tomorrow: La Bete Noire I have yet to screw up this recipe. It's easy, and will satisfy most hedonists.
It is a little one-note though. I'd like to add some bourbon to the ganache, which is just 1 cup heavy whipping cream and
8 ounces bittersweet (not unsweetened) or semisweet chocolate, chopped, in the original recipe.
How much bourbon would be safe to add, and do I need to alter the recipe in any other way? It would be bad if it failed to set.
The rule of thumb when spiking a ganache is to
either reduce the cream by the same amount or
add double the amount of chocolate (by weight).
So for one ounce of alcohol you either leave out one ounce of cream or add another two ounces of chocolate.
That said, yours is a slightly lighter ganache than the usual 1 part cream / 2 parts chocolate and a slight variation in texture probably won’t be much of an issue as long as it doesn’t flow down, so I wouldn’t worry too much. Aim for an adjustment roughly as given above and you should be fine - start with one shot, see how that turns out. Too much alcohol is probably overwhelming rather than interesting, but there’s no absolute scale for taste.
Thanks. Worked just fine. I started with the original recipe, to get the feel, added the bourbon, and then added more chocolate until the fell was about the same. It was about 1.5 to 1, chocolate to bourbon
Thanks for the feedback, always happy to hear how well a method works! The more professional literature often gives a range of 1-3 times chocolate and I slightly simplified to the numbers given to novices or hobby bakers. The lower ratio is probably due to the 1:1 ganache ratio in your recipe.
And totally off-topic: now I am itching to make a ganache, your recipe or this lavender ganache.
I'm always amazed by how matter-of-fact and instantly usable your answers are. Well done yet again.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.402854
| 2021-07-03T15:02:52 |
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|
116799
|
Why do we remove the foam from soymilk while it boils while preparing it?
Why is the foam removed? Here is the recipe I am following, from Chinese Cooking Demystified.
How to Make Soy Milk, from Scratch (豆浆)
Ingredients:
Soybeans, 200g
Water, 2.4L
Sugar, to taste (we used 3 tbsp)
Process:
Pick out any bad soybeans, rinse.
Put your water ~2 inches above your soybeans, soak overnight.
Blend on high for ~4 minutes. We used the smoothie setting on our blender.
Transfer to a wok or stockpot. Medium high flame.
Stir and get the soymilk up to 100C.
Boil at 100C for 15 minutes, removing the foam.
Taste, make sure it's not bitter.
Strain through a tofu or cheesecloth. Twist and squeeze out what's left, ~3-5 minutes. Get as much as you can!
Season with sugar, to taste. We used ~3 tbsp.
could it be some excess starch?
It's common to skim froth with a lot of pulses/legumes, but advice I see says froth is harmless and the main reason for skimming is that it doesn't look nice - and possibly because it makes it harder to see how they're cooking. Not sure if this exactly applies to soy, hence not making it an answer.
My guess is that it is to prevent the milk from boiling over. Other recipes like this one explicitly call out skimming the foam while watching out for it boiling over. Another guess is taste. The foam could effect the taste of the soy milk. From personal experience, the foam doesn't taste as sweet as the rest of the milk so, it could be a mechanism to preserve the natural sweetness.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.403032
| 2021-08-11T11:25:12 |
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|
107849
|
Help! I poured the syrup over my Baklava before I baked it. Is it ruined?
I accidentally poured the syrup over my Baklava before I baked it. Did I ruin it? Is there anything I can do to salvage it?
Hopefully you just went ahead and put it in the oven by now. It'll be a bit sticky and mushy, but should still be edible.
You can try straining the syrup as much as you can and bake like that.
Can you edit your question and finish it please? It looks like you submitted it halfway through a sentence
Cooked sugary goodness always tastes nice - as long as the sugar doesn't burn. When in doubt, disguise with icecream :)
can you add another layer of dough?
You have ruined it as baklava, pouring the syrup on before baking means it won't crisp up, you can't pour the syrup out and get the same result. However, you may as well just bake it and see what comes out, it won't be baklava but it may taste good. Feel free to post an answer if you do and tell us what it was like.
While I agree fully, a lot of baklava is sodden with syrup and oversweet anyway, so with any luck you'll still make something as good as you'd buy in a shop.
Unlikely @MarkWildon, decent baklava is still crispy, even if it is covered in syrup. This makes me want baklava now!
Everyone that has access to good baklava, take a moment to be grateful lol. A lot of people only ever get lumps of soggy phyllo and pecans held together with honey flavored corn syrup and the tenuous dream of something better.
@kitukwfyer +1, I think that's the most poetic thing I've read all day.
I suggest baking at 50ºF lower if you have not commenced baking, for a longer time. Just check visually.
I can't see this helping. Could you add a rationale?
It would help by making sure it cooks through without burning or drying the outside.
No, my friend, definitely not.
Sugar is a great moisture retainer, so trying to get rid of the water without heat won't work. Water seeps through the filo dough, so pop it in the oven quickly.
Since water boils at 100oC, try baking your baklava in a convection oven at this temperature until all the water has evaporated, and then you can bake at the normal baklava temperature.
Right after your baklava is out of the oven, see if it's crispy. Even if not, it's not over yet as sugar will harden when cooled, so just let your baklava cool nice and slowly, and it can still be crunchy (from crystalized sugar). This won't work if it's a brown sugar syrup, though:(
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.403205
| 2020-04-24T04:41:58 |
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|
114756
|
Why does this custard say to boil milk cool and boil again
I have this recipe (from a really great book that has never failed me) for a custard and it says to
Bring the milk to the boil.
Put to the side for 10 mins.
Whisk the yolks and sugar.
Return the milk to the boil.
Add milk to eggs.
Heat till thick.
But why the double boil step?
It has made a lovely thick custard, my best recipe yet.
Edit: I have eaten it now and it was the most scrummy custard I have ever eaten. but that may be the 4 egg yolks and double cream :)
I can't say about this particular recipe, but 'scalding' milk was a commonly used to change the milk (cooking proteins, deactivating enzymes, etc) in the days before pasteurization ... but that was normally done when the milk was to be used at a non-boiling temperature.
It's possible that this 10 minute cool down gives it sufficient time for the desired changes to the milk to happen, without the problems of boil-over and evaporation that might happen if you tried to hold the milk at a boil for an extended period.
It's also possible that this is related to another question on here in which someone noticed that re-boiling milk was less likely to foam up. (but then couldn't re-create it, so there might be something else going on)
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.403429
| 2021-03-12T15:50:25 |
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|
114839
|
Add sugar to Taco Seasoning?
Do I add sugar? So many people have told me they put sugar in their seasoning and I don't understand why. What does sugar provide to this recipe and how much should I experiment with?
This is the recipe in progress.
4 Tbsp smoked paprika
4 Tbsp sweet paprika
2 Tbsp dried oregano
1 Tbsp cornstarch
1 Tbsp finely ground kosher salt
1 Tbsp freshly ground cumin seed
1 Tsp freshly ground coriander seed
1 Tsp freshly ground pepper
1 Bulb garlic
1 Red onion
1/4 lb cayenne peppers
Garlic Powder, Onion Powder, and Cayenne Powder
Prepare Garlic
Break apart garlic bulb into cloves
Remove all Garlic sheaths from cloves
Finely slice all garlic cloves
Lay sliced garlic cloves in a single layer on a baking sheet
Prepare Onion
Remove the outer skin of the onion until you have a nice looking skin all the way around
Remove the top 1/4" and bottom 1/4" of onion
Slice the entire onion very thin
Place the onion in a single layer across a baking sheet.
Prepare Cayenne Peppers
Cut the ends off the peppers
Dice them finely
Arrange the diced cayenne peppers in a single layer on a baking sheet
Dehydrator
If you have a dehydrator, that's much quicker and faster.
140° F for about 5 hours should do it all
Oven Dehydration
Place baking sheets into the oven and turn to 150° F
Release vapor every 1/2 hour by opening the oven for 1 minute
Process should take about 6 hours
When the dehydration process is complete, then grind each of the spices into their own bowls and measure out 1 Tbsp of each.
Place all ingredients together in a medium bowl and then seal in an air-tight container.
I use 3 Tbsp of the mix per lb of anything I want to mix it in with.
If there's anything that I'm missing, please let me know. It tastes great to me, but if I can make the ritual better, I'm all about it. I just typed this out from my memory as most of my recipes come from imagination.
It sounds like you've done a lot of work, I hope you enjoy the results. Your question isn't on topic as you're asking for opinions, which are subjective and depend on your taste. Also, you don't have an actual question, 'suggestions' is very broad.
I disagree about it being entirely off-topic. Why sugar is added to a recipe surely isn't subjective - it adds sweetness, enhances other flavours, encourages maillard reaction etc.
Thanks, @bob1 but I adjusted the post after GdD posted it.
You will find that adding sugar to some recipes is controversial and highly subjective.
Me, I almost never add sugar in situations like yours. But sugar can do something valuable: decrease bitterness.
I knew an Italian woman many years ago that made the best "gravy" (tomato sauce) and her secret? A pinch or two of sugar, she claimed it made her sauce less bitter. Whatever her secret I tried the sugar thing and found no discernible difference between the gravy with sugar and the same recipe without.
But again that is subjective, EG literally "a matter of taste."
Try your recipe both with and without sugar, and decide for yourself.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.403673
| 2021-03-16T17:46:20 |
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|
113768
|
Cookies end up with a wavy bottom
My baking papers seem to absorb water a lot. Whenever I bake cookies with a bit wet batter such as lady fingers or cat's tongue, my cookies end up with a not flat but wavy bottom. Is that because of the type of baking papers I used or I did something wrong?
How long does it take you to pipe out a full tray of cookies? Is the paper wrinkled all over, or only under the cookies you piped first?
What kind of paper do you use?
I used this one https://images.app.goo.gl/QKAwSxenoMKEqBnR8
I notice the paper wrinkled under all cookies
Yes, I would say this is completely normal. It is how paper acts when in contact with liquids.
If you don't like the effect, don't use baking paper under the cookies.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.403926
| 2021-01-16T02:32:46 |
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|
100191
|
What is this old "lemon-squeezer" shaped pan
We found this odd pan at the family's summer cottage. The cottage is in Central Finland, and used to be a croft before my grandfather bought it. This thing has been on the edge of the stove for a while, and nobody seems to know what it is.
By the way the handle is pointing, the pan is supposed to be used convex side up. The convexity is about ten centimeters high, and has chevron-shaped ridges forming channels down the mound. It looks a bit like a lemon-squeezer from the side, but with a shallower slope. There's also a channel around the base of the mound, and a beak for pouring. The pan is about the size of my outstretched fingers, or a small frying pan. Here's a side view:
I tried a reverse image search and came up empty. The one guess anyone made is that it's a pan for melting fat, but I couldn't find an image of one of those on Google.
What you have appears to be a vintage or possibly antique cast iron grill pan.
The pan would be used on the stovetop and could be used for steaks, chops, burgers, bacon, certain vegetables, etc. The ridges can provide grill marks, and the channels allow grease to drain away. The shape allows the grease to drain to the outside channel where the pour spout will allow the grease to be poured out of the pan.
As with the grill pans of today, the pan would be pre-heated and the meats or veggies would be cooked at a medium high or high heat, much like outdoor grilling in the US. Also, it would be good for camp-type cooking over an open flame.
Re rendering fat, I suppose it could work but with a low or slow heat.
Update: As per @Sneftel's comment, these grills can have many different uses. @Falken's answer addresses one of these, but certainly not all. In addition to the uses mentioned previously, see this snippet from WebstaurantStore:
An all-around convenient stovetop grilling solution, this 10 1/4" round heavy-duty cast iron barbecue plate is perfect for making a variety of delicious items including Korean barbecue, pita bread, naan, grilled tortillas, and roasted vegetables.
Similar pans can easily be found online by searching for Mongolian bbq grills.
I just noticed that I had said "concave" where I meant to say convex in the question body. That photo wasn't from a very good angle, but the pan is shaped like an upside-down bowl, almost like a lemon squeezer.
Nevermind, I found a very similar domed grill pan on pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/537124693051027376/
George Foreman is the first think I thought of when seeing the picture... :)
"much like outdoor grilling in the US" - what does this mean?
@RaphaelSchmitz In the US, grilling refers to a high heat cooking method with the food over an open flame or charcoal/wood embers. However, in other countries such as the UK and Australia, grilling refers to what we call broiling, which is cooking food under the top heating element of an oven.
@Cindy That's a good intention, but I believe it's almost the other way around; it's "grilling" everywhere, and only the US calls it broiling when the heat comes from a certain direction.
so, grilling (USA) = barbecuing (Rest of World) and broiling (USA) = grilling (Rest of World)? Do you use the verb to barbecue in the USA? Or is the barbecue (noun) the thing you grill on?
I found similar ones immediately by searching for "Genghis Khan Grill Pan" - now MUST HAVE ONE!
@AaronF To clarify, in the US, grilling is direct heat with the food over an open flame or coals/ embers. Broiling is direct heat also, but under the top element or flame in an oven. Barbecuing is indirect heat, usually done on a grill or in a smoker at low, slow temperatures for a long cooking time.
@RaphaelSchmitz See my last comment. In the US, we broil in the oven. If we are using a grill, we are either grilling or barbecuing.
For what it's worth, this particular grill pan is commonly used to cook "Genghis Khan" (lamb barbeque), a soul food popular in Hokkaido, Japan.
Genghis Khan consists of slices of lamb with an assortment of vegetables, typically bean sprouts, green peppers, and onions. The thickness of the lamb can vary wildly, with some restaurants or supermarkets providing cuts as thin as only a millimeter thick. The vegetables are placed either around or underneath the meat, allowing the juices from the lamb to flow into the vegetables to give them added flavor, while the shape of the grill allows any excess fat to accumulate in the rim at the edge.
Hokkaido’s Soul Food 1: Jingisukan (the Lamb Barbecue)
I'd like to know how did that travel all the way to Finland...
@Luciano By boat, probably, unless it was made in Finland. :-) You shouldn't take this answer to mean that people were using it to cook Japanese food. Often, a piece of cookware will be used all over the world, for different dishes. Compare an "aebelskiver pan", a "takoyaki pan", and a "paniyaram pan".
@Sneftel I know, it was a joke. Without any context my first guess would have been the same as the accepted answer, simply an antique grill pan.
"soul food" is a Southern African-American cuisine, how did it get to Hokkaido?
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.404032
| 2019-07-14T11:40:48 |
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98750
|
How to pasteurize lacto-fermented hot sauce?
So, I've got a 2-3dl batch of lacto-fermented hot sauce in the works. Approximately half the vegetables in the ferment are large brown habaneros and the other half is sweet pepper, ginger and some slices of carrot to get the ferment going. So, I expect the sauce to last me quite some time.
Therefore, I'm planning on pasteurizing the sauce to extend its shelf-life. My main goal in the pasteurization is to stop the fermentation already going on. For equipment, I have a thermometer from the brewing supplies aisle, various different sizes of pots and pans, some of which can be nested for a double boiler, and an electric stove. Is there a reasonable process to pasteurize a batch of fermented hot sauce with these?
Just checking, you're trying to pastuerize them, not pressure can, them, correct?
@FuzzyChef yes, pasteurize.
Pasteurization does not kill botulism spores, and from your listed ingredients it does not appear you'd have enough acidity or salt to keep it safe long term. You'd need to pressure can it.
@GdD I am lacto-fermenting it, will it still not reach enough acidity?
Maybe, maybe not @HAEM, there are many variables at work. Do you have a food safety rated acidity tester? Is it calibrated? If you don't then you can't rely on fermentation for safety.
According to the US FDA, normal pastuerization for fruit juice would be 160F for 6 seconds. This should be easily accomplished in a hot water bath; just heat up the water to 160f, and dip the bottles.
However, a fermented sauce made with chopped peppers has poor circulation compared to fruit juice, and you are heating bottles rather than passing the liquid through a narrow, heated pipe. So more time would be required for the heat to penetrate, possibly as much as 5 minutes. I can't find specific guidance for something like a chopped pepper sauce.
This would pastuerize the hot sauce, but not make it shelf-stable.
The criteria to bottle it, as mentioned in the comments, is how acidic the sauce is after fermentation, so you should add some form of Ph tester to your list of equipment. If the acidity is 4.6 or below, then a slightly hotter hot water bath (say, 180F) for a few minutes you could not only pastuerize it, but make it shelf-stable.
Pasteurization to make it shelf stable is simple. Just heat the mixture stirring constantly at 180F for 10 minutes, then immediately bottle in sterilized containers. This stops the fermentation and minimizes any chance that your sauce could ever make anyone sick, assuming you fermented it long enough to get down to something like 4.0 acidity on your ph tester. You can always add some vinegar before pasteurization and re test to get it to a safe level.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.404482
| 2019-04-30T18:44:11 |
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116344
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Can I eat kidney bean leaves?
Are kidney bean leaves safe to eat? Are there limits as to what stage they become unsafe? Like, I can eat them young but not old? Can I eat them raw or must I cook them?
As far as I can tell, the majority of bean leaves are edible raw or cooked. They don't become unsafe, but likely become more fibrous as they mature. In this case, cooking would make eating them more pleasurable. Here are some possible uses.
Here is an edit based on the comment of @FuzzyChef, below. I had not considered the potential impact of phytohemagglutinin specifically in kidney beans. As he points out, and I agree, there does not seem to be anything definitive about the toxin in leaves. Here is a paper that discusses potential toxicity in the beans themselves. Given this information, if it were me, I would cook the leaves of the kidney bean plant.
Do we know that kidney bean leaves don't have large amounts of phytohemagglutinin, same as the beans, and are thus dangerous to eat unless thoroughly cooked? I can't really find documentation either way.
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.404709
| 2021-07-08T16:45:15 |
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116399
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Is lactic acid a vinegar?
'Saccharomyces' gives us 'ethanol' (i.e. alcohol).
Then
'acetobacter' makes 'acetic acid' (i.e. vinegar)
On the other hand,
'lactobacillus' gives us 'lactic acid' (i.e. pickle brine)
My question is :
Can that lactic acid be used as vinegar?
What do you mean "used as vinegar?" You can drink pickle brine if you like the taste.
@Juhasz, so it's consumable but since you said "drink" I assume it cannot be used as vinegar? I meant that to use it in cooking or dressing the salads or as a substitute to vinegar in general.
In what preparation or what role that vinegar ordinarily takes do you want to use it as a vinegar? For dressing, obviously if you can drink it you can toss it with slaw.
@Damila, sure I "can" toss it. but will the result be the same if the source (plant) for fermentation is the same? How will the taste be, the intensity, the chemical properties that might affect cooking, etc etc. I don't have a specific case or a particular question for the matter. But I thought that people would tell me "no you can't use it as a sub for vinegar because of this or that".
Whether or not you can sub depends on what you want the item to do. You mentioned salad dressing. The salad will taste like pickles. To me that would be ambrosia. To many it would be vile. To a professional it would either be genius or blasphemous.
@Damila, I see. That makes sense. Thanks for your take on this unfamiliar question :)
@Damila For a moment, I thought you were suggesting putting pickle brine on ambrosia salad... which would be nasty.
@AndrewRay LOL. Metaphorical ambrosia. I'm not pregnant! (not even a woman)
The answer to this depends on the brine in question. Both vinegar and a lactic brine solution are obviously acidic, but vinegar is sold at different concentrations. If you have a lot of leftover lactic brine, you don't know its concentration. So you'd have to take your best guess at that aspect.
The main thing however, is taste. Vinegars are generally made from fruit or grains, which have lots of sugar. Lacto fermentation usually uses vegetables or dairy... And salt. The flavor profile is going to be completely different, even if you don't care about saltiness.... Which saltiness would become more pronounced when cooking.
That difference in flavor is the only real problem I perceive.
This answer satisfies my not well-articulated question. Thanks again, @Kitukwfyer :)
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.404825
| 2021-07-12T16:04:54 |
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112894
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What are these brown lines in my apple?
Any ideas on what’s going on in this apple?
I cut into this apple and it had these small brown streaks. The apple itself was firm and looked good on the outside with no obvious spots or bruises. I accidentally ate a small piece and it tasted normal and sweet.
It doesn’t look like a typical maggot nor rot.
Could be oxidation due to scratch different than the straightly cut surface
That's a really interesting idea, but I don't think so. That picture was taken less than a minute after the cut, and I used a really sharp knife
I observed something like that but the answer below seems what you were looking for
From Ask An Expert:
These symptoms are characteristic of a physiological disorder called bitter pit, which is the result of a calcium deficiency. This may be the result of inadequate calcium in the soil.
Bitter pit does not necessarily indicate low soil calcium, although consistent bitter pit for several years certainly points in that direction. Anything that results in excessive foliar growth can cause bitter pit, because calicum gets diverted to the foliar growth. Heavy pruning, excessive nitrogen fertilizer, and excessive irrigation all can lead to bitter pit.
We have this from time to time on our cooking apples. The tree has a compose heap at the bottom of it. An old gardener advised we put lime at the bottom of the tree and that worked for some years
This would correlate to the answer above. Lime has a lot of calcium, and therefore can be used to counteract the calcium deficiency that causes bitter pit.
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.405023
| 2020-11-29T21:56:55 |
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114175
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Small Hard White Thing In Whole Wheat Bread - Mold Or Grain?
I just bought a loaf of bread yesterday, and went to use some to make a sandwich. I found a tiny white spot on it that is about the size of a rice grain, but it doesn't look like normal mold. And when I touch it, it is hard.
Is this some type of mold? Or is it just a bit of grain that got stuck in the bread?
Hard to see from the picture... but it could also be some flour that didn't get mixed in?
@talon8 That was my suspicion too - sorry I couldn't get a better picture. That's pretty much the best picture I could get.
I'd go with grain or more likely flour/unmixed dough
It's very unlikely to be mould in between slices like that, even if pre-sliced, and essentially impossible if you just cut it.
Bread is also generally made and shipped pretty quickly, so if it's got a few days left on its date (or was bought loose, meaning it should have been freshly baked) it shouldn't have had time for mould to form.
As you say, it doesn't look (or feel) like any of the mould found on bread, which is usually fluffy, hairy, or even scaly. It does look like inclusions I've sometimes seen on home made bread when barely cooled enough to cut - no chance for mould.
So I'd eat it without worrying. It does look a little like a grain, but if I see that in my home made bread, it's flour that's got wet but not mixed in properly (often near the top as it was stuck to the pan while the loaf was rising).
Plus I’d be surprised to find hard mould.
Brings be back to the time I gave my first answer: What are these white spots in my bread dough?
The logic is pretty similar. If it's hard, it mostly like is a case of grain stuck or a lump of dry dough in the bread. If it's soft, mold is possibly the reason. But even if you didn't tell us it's hard, simply by judging from the image, it appears to be some grains that got stuck in the dough and sliced down the middle.
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.405175
| 2021-02-08T17:40:11 |
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46370
|
Why does my rice smell?
I don't understand why my rice smells like eggs.. We have a new rice cooker that we used for two months now. I wash it, but should I deep clean it? Also, I put my rice in a big plastic bin so I won't have to keep going into the bag and have the rice spill all over. Would anyone know the reason why the rice smells?
Note that sticky rice has a particular smell, not like egg but indicative of the consistency of steamed glue.
Have you considered your water source? Where we live it is a normal for our city-supplied water to smell like swamp water (nasty) or like sulphur (strong egg smell). We never drink or cook with this water. We found out early on after moving to this area (10+ years ago) that the water affected the taste of everything we cooked, including brewed coffee and tea.
We constantly hear on the news for our area and surrounding areas to not pay attention to the color or smell of the water, that is safe to consume. Safe or not, I can't get past the smell or taste. All said and done, the quality of your water can greatly affect how your foods taste.
I have not, but once I get home and check, I will post an update. Thanks!
It wasn't the water. The water is perfectly clear, smells fine, and tastes normal. I'm going to deep clean it to see if that works. Thanks for your response!
@SustenanceCouture Did you heat the water? I had water once where my shower smelled like eggs but the cold tap didn't. I'm not sure if it was the water heater or just that it smelled more when it was warm.
@Yamikuronue That's not surprising if the smell is from hydrogen sulfide (H2S) gas; unlike solids, gases become less soluble in water as it is heated. So it comes out in the shower.
Well, you're using water, rice and a rice cooker. Any one of those things could be causing the problem. Eggy smells come from sulphur compounds.
You say your tap water doesn't smell. It's possible that there are sulphur compounds in the water but they're only released when it's heated. Does heating a pan of water to boiling on the stove cause the smell? If not, your water is innocent.
Does cooking rice on in a pan of water on the stove give the smell? If it does, your rice is at fault.
If your rice is innocent, does rice cooked in the rice cooker smell as soon as it is done? If so, the problem is the cooker.
If the rice only smells after its been left in the cooker for a while, the problem is that it's spoiled. People mostly worry about food poisoning from meat but rice can be a significant cause, especially if its kept warm for a long time: bacteria love warm, moist conditions and rice is easy for them to eat, too.
If your rice doesn't smell and your water doesn't smell, I'd be inclined to believe your new rice cooker sucks. Does your rice cooker smell, even when there's no rice in there? I would sniff the steam vent (not while it's on ...) and anywhere else really to check.
I found this:
You need to clean the rice cooker. Over time the inside builds up a sort of 'coating' of the 'starch' in rice, and that turns sulfurous after awhile. Get a small can of Cream of Tartar and a small bottle of CLEAR (white) vinegar. Pour the WHOLE CAN of Cream of Tartar in and add two cups of vinegar. Fill with COLD water and then run the rice cooker through the cycle as if you were making rice. When that is done, pour the 'cleaner' out, wipe every surface you can inside, and fill it again with pure cold water and do it again. After this your rice should be 'perfect' again ... but to keep the rice cooker 'clean' you should do this 'cream of tartar-vinegar-water, then plain water' cleaning AT LEAST ONCE A MONTH ...
[Source: https://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080628150847AAO7ibx]
I personally have never had a problem with a rice cooker, we clean the bowl and wipe the removable 'ceiling', and anywhere there is steam-turned-water, but other than that, all of them have always been fine.
This makes me think you have a poor rice cooker; some starches have become stuck somewhere and have rotten. Or if it's not the rice cooker's fault, perhaps you filled it up past the max point, and so some rice has bubbled up into where it's not meant to go?
I will use the cleaning method and see how it works. The water and rice doesn't smell, so I may have to deep clean the rice cooker. My rice cooker is great! It cost me $200 and it's a hig pressure cooker. http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/111235904672?lpid=82 <--- It's exactly this but in black.
I am going to deep clean it and see how it turns out! Thanks!
@SustenanceCouture "My rice cooker is great!" Except that, um, it seems to produce rice that smells.
@DavidRicherby : I actually found the reason why it was smelling. It wasn't the rice cooker. It was because I didn't unplug the rice cooker after 24 hours. So, my rice cooker is great and I'm glad it wasn't the rice cooker. But thanks (:
@setek Thank you for your response. My rice cooker has an auto clean at the rice is MUCH better! Plus, I don't leave the rice in there for more than two days. I believe that was also the problem. Now I just reheat the rice if I need any for the day. Thanks again.
I'm sorry, what? You leave rice in there after it's cooked? No, I can't abide by this. Once you've cooked rice and had your dinner, take the rice out and immediately put it in the fridge. Look up rice and bacillus cereus. Don't leave rice in the "keep warm" stage for long! One hour keep warm is probably max. It's not designed to be a buffet warming tray. Besides which, food left in warmers is pretty disgusting anyway. It's bacterial heaven.
So I did some research and I have found that the reason why the rice was smelly was because I left it in for more than 24 hours without turning off the rice cooker. According to Sue, (http://mykoreankitchen.com/2006/09/06/this-is-the-rice-cooker/), with the rice cooker I have, I could keep it in for more than 24 hours but if I do, it will turn into a yellow color and have a odor to it even if it won't cause any harm. But, I do not want to eat the rice with that smell.
Thank you to everyone who helped because I know a couple of you did say it may be from the rice being stored in the cooker for too long. I appreciate you all for taking the time to respond. Have a great weekend! (:
Cooked rice should be kept in the fridge. Warm rice is bacteria heaven and room-temperature cooked rice is a great place for them to grow, too. (Uncooked rice is fine at room temperature, since it's too dry for anything to grow quickly.) Don't keep food warm for a long time.
Yes, I found that out and now my rice doesn't have that foul smell to it. I read your previous comment and I thought I replied to it, but I did thank you for your response because it was what was causing the scent. @DavidRicherby
Yeah, I left essentially the same comment in three different places but I deleted the other two. Here seemed to be the best place for it, in the end.
The rice is most likely to blame. Is the rice normal, parboiled, brown or basmati? While basmati and normal rice smell pretty good depending on the seasoning and spices used in their preparation, parboiled and brown rice may have awful smells especially if they are poorly processed, packaged or stored. Parboiled rice has a brown tint to it and the grains are larger and very few are broken. The odor is detectable even before cooking. The odor comes from the processing since the rice is boiled with the husks still on before it is dried and dehusked.This process makes the rice acquire its odor because sulphides are transfered from the husk to the germ. Therefore, the type of rice is most likely the cause of the odor.
Totally Agree with what John has said. The Sri Lankan Samba rice smells really bad. I called up my Mom in India and she said the reason why that Rotten eggish smell comes is because the rice was not processed properly and is of low quality. one of the traditional processes used to de-husk rice is by steaming it a little and then it is put though a mortar and pestle type of machine which will separate the rice kernel from the husk easily. Some places do not use fresh water but instead use the same water over and over again which practically ferments the rice and it seeps into the kernel. Hence it is usually sold as cheap rice in India and Sri Lanka where it is distributed at low cost ration centers. I guess some Sri Lankan importer is making a killing selling this smelly stuff and getting away with it (Needs to be reported). True Samba Rice from Andhra and Tamil Nadu is the next best thing to Basmati and is a healthier option but I can't find the Indian Import and am still looking. I guess I will go back to Basmati and Ponni Boiled rice, they are just as good.
That makes sense: in boiling water the rice smell something between rotten grass, manure and burned plastic. But in our case it comes from a good quality (expensive) Basmati organic rice (from Golden Sun Brand sold by lidl in Europe)
I have used rice cooker to cook rice for more than 30 years. I have had no problem with Indian Basmathi Rice or similar rice. But, the Samba rice bought at Sri Lankan grocery stores h ave a strong stink when it is cooked in the rice cooker. The same stik occurs when cooked on stove top. The Samba rice cooked in Sri Lanka either on stove top or rice cooker does not have the stink. I conclude that the stink is due to pacaging in plastic bags in Sri Lanka . THIS DOES NOT OCCUR RICE PACAGED IN iNDIA.
It's easy to get rid of any smell in your rice cooker, especially after cooking with seasonings. Just washing the inner lid and inner pan will NOT get rid of the smell. This is what you do:
Fill the Inner Cooking Pan with water up to water level 1 for white/mixed rice.
Close the Outer Lid and press the "MENU" button to select QUICK Cooking.
Press the "START" button.
When the Rice Cooker completes cooking and switches to Keep Warm mode, press the "Cancel" button or just turn off your rice cooker.
Wait until the Main Body of your rice cooker cools down, then discard the water and clean the inner lid and inner pan.
Note: You may have to repeat this process twice if the smell doesn't go away the first time.
Do not add any cleaning detergents when doing this. Just use plain water and nothing else!
Yes I conclude that the reason my sushi rice just came out sulphurous is that it had been in the cupboard in its opened bag a few months - the best before isn't till 2020 - but the quality must be low. What a waste as I added seasoning already!
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.405371
| 2014-08-13T21:04:15 |
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|
45900
|
Crystallization of sugar solution, and oddly crunchy candy with fudge-like texture after eating
I've been trying to recreate the results from:
http://cookingsciencetradition.blogspot.com/2010/12/crystallization-of-sugar.html
to very little success.
My process:
1: Add 1 + 1/2 cups white refined sugar, and an arbitrary amount of water to a pot.
2: Add some heat, and stir until sugar fully dissolved
3: Allow sugar to boil (without stirring) on high heat until 240F is reached
4: Turn off heat, and allow to cool until 100F is reached
5: Pour into mixer, and beat.
What goes wrong:
While the sugar is cooling, it seems to crystallize on the surface.
Then, during the beating process, it beats without turning into crumble, going from a clear syrup to a white almost crystalline looking substance (with visible strands within the substance resembling the etching seen in ribbon candy), but after only 40 seconds of beating, it starts to give the electric mixer trouble -- first starting to spew strands of candy at the sides of the mixing bowl, and then turning to crumble (identical, visually, to the crumble which is shown in the link I gave above) if left mixing too long. If I stop the mixing right when it starts spewing strands of candy, then it quickly hardens into a strange mass, almost identical to a very hard icing -- Hard, and visibly rough, fragile and crumbling when pressure is applied (though not turning to dust!), quickly melting/dissolving in the mouth into a very smooth, creamy feeling substance (not dissimilar to what fudge does in the mouth!) when consumed.
To be honest, I have no idea what is going on, or why my candy is behaving this way. Is there something obvious here that I am doing wrong? Is it possible that what is happening is actually exactly what should be happening? The reason I doubt this, is that the website I linked shows a picture of the result when the sugar syrup is cooled and beaten properly -- though my product has exactly the same color, it does not have the glossy shine which is showcased in the link's photo.
Now, it is possible that my thermometer is not calibrated correctly -- for the sake of faster problem solving, let's assume that my thermometer is of godly quality (though, I am still open to human error being the cause -- IE, maybe I misread the temperature during the cool-down process, and this is why it turned to crumble?)
Miscellaneous facts:
I live at 96.343 m above sea level.
Indoor humidity is typically around 53%. Outdoor humidity can be as high as 70%-80%.
I use filtered water
Questions summarized:
Am I making any obvious mistakes?
Does the ratio of water to sugar matter? I would think not, since the ratio between sugar and water is dependent upon the boiling point, and hence temperature of the mixture.
Is my altitude screwing things up? Could that cause problems with my (momentarily ungodly) thermometer?
Does humidity have anything at all to do with this?
Is anything even going wrong to begin with -- could it be that I am crazy, and what I describe is exactly what ought to happen?
Thank you very much for your time, and potential answers! I hope I can eventually get this right.
Note: Water boils at 100°C, sugar "melts" (actually chemical breakdown) above 100°C. So by the time your sugar has melted, a significant amount of the water will have boiled away. Water is just there to aid in getting an even melt, and isn't actually required
How cold is your mixer when you put the sugar syrup into it? Do you live in a cold place? It's possible that it's cooling too quickly before it has a chance to temper. Have you tried doing a small batch by hand on a double boiler and seeing if you get the same result.
It looks like you are trying to make sugar fondant. I often make a batch to use as seed crystals in my holiday fudge preparation.
Sugar Fondant
Sugar fondant is a crystalline sugar confection where the crystals are microscopic and suspended in a saturated solution of sugar. Its texture is very short, and the mouth-feel is creamy.
Creating sugar fondant is relatively easy. In brief, boil a syrup to softball stage and cool it undisturbed until around 50C followed by rapid agitation until the fondant is too difficult to work.
Now for some specifics.
Multiphase Solutions
One of the interesting features of boiling syrups is the temperature is intrinsically linked to the composition of the syrup. Unlike how boiling water transitions to steam at a constant temperature of 100C, syrups boil at a range of 110C to well over 200C. As water evaporates from the boiling syrup, the composition changes to contain a higher concentration of sugar and the boiling temperature rises.
Be warned. You are boiling a super-saturated solution. Any crystallized sugar introduced to the solution will not dissolve and it will seed crystallization during the cooling stages.
Avoid stirring once the sugar has fully dissolved prior to boiling. Use a brush moistened with hot water to wipe away any crystallized sugar on the side of the pot during cooking.
If you are adding any glucose to the syrup, add it after the syrup has come to boil to ensure that the other sugars have fully dissolved.
Candy Stages
The desired properties of a candy are principally derived from the candy stage to which you cook your syrup. The sugars remain mostly unchanged chemically (though disaccharides may break down into glucose and fructose) regardless of the candy stage or temperature.
When making sugar fondant, you are aiming for the softball stage which is 110C to 120C. You can take a dollop of hot syrup and drop it into cold water to check the stage in absence of a good thermometer or if altitude / humidity are affecting your candy. So long as you do not scorch the sugar, you can add water and lower the temperature to restore the syrup to the desired candy stage.
Crystallization
The most important part of a sugar fondant is the formation of microscopic crystals. The syrup must cool to 50C before agitation to create the desired crystal size and distribution.
One difficulty that I have found is that I cannot let the syrup cool within the bowl of my stand mixer - the syrup cools unevenly which typically induces crystal growth. This is especially difficult for fondant, as it must be worked for a significant amount of time to crystallize.
Depending on your desired purpose for the fondant, you may let the syrup cool to a lower temperature or agitate less to keep the texture longer or more pliable. If you agitate at a higher temperature, the syrup will form crystals that grow tremendously during agitation and make the fondant grainy or crunchy.
But Why Is It Crunchy?
Chances are, you have undissolved sugar in the syrup.
Be sure all of the sugar dissolves before you add any glucose to your syrup.
Don't stir once it begins to boil.
Your syrup might be at a higher candy stage. If you somehow managed to reach soft crack or hard crack, this might prevent the syrup from forming any crystals and resulting in an amorphous sugar glass.
This is a damn good answer! I had no idea that adding glucose before the water comes to a boil could create problems. I always add my ingredients all at once before even applying heat. I had no idea that this could be leading to some of my sugars not dissolving.
A few questions: Does the 50C temperature vary with altitude and humidity? I shouldn't think so, since it's a crystallization temp, not a boiling point, but perhaps I am wrong.
Why does adding glucose prevent sugar crystals from dissolving? Does it form some kind of a water barrier? Does the glucose itself not dissolve?
@Goerge Oates Larsen - The glucose syrup is already fully dissolved. I'm not sure how much water is in the syrup but it probably isn't much more than a few percent. Think of it this way, you want to dissolve the fully refined sugar which is 80% of the mass and 20% is water. That will result in a fully saturated solution. If you add the glucose before that, the proportions go to 70% refined, 15% glucose, 15% water. That tips the scales and prevents the refined sugar from being able to dissolve. Perhaps it will melt instead, which is fine as it destroys the crystal structure.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.406304
| 2014-07-27T02:39:34 |
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|
22512
|
What adjustments are needed to change a pie recipe to a turnover recipe?
I want to make turnovers (e.g. a similar product is popular at McDonalds), instead of pie in a pan. Is this simply a matter of making a dumpling-shape with the dough, and then putting the fruit inside, or are there other adjustments I need to make to ensure that the crust and ingredients inside will be baked nicely? With respect to preparation and baking, what is the difference between pie in a pan and a turnover, if any?
If I remember correctly (been a long time since I had one), the pie found at McDonalds is deep fried. See http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/14830/how-to-make-an-apple-pie-like-kfc-mcdonalds
I do not want to duplicate McDonalds pies. I just want to bake the pies in a dumpling-shape, rather than in a pan. Some grocery stores also carry a pie which has this kind of shape.
@Village I edited your question a bit as I wasn't sure if mean dumpling in a different sense than I presume (a ball of dough hollowed out, rather than a pie crust turned into a pocket for the filling); you can roll back the question if I have altered incorrectly
The picture you added matches my meaning.
You may want to scale up the thickening agent, if present, should the filling be too runny. Adjustments are not typically necessary to the dough itself. From my experience with turn over or pocket pies in Vegan Pie in the Sky, they rely on the same dough recipe as the other pies (pastry crust style dough), they just get cut into a different format.
Basically speaking it is just a different format but the dough will hold together and brown appropriately. I would recommend baking on a pizza stone, but baking on a cookie sheet (with/out parchment paper) would be equally effective depending on your preference for the bottom.
You will likely follow the same baking instructions depending on the filling. Some recipes may call for a longer cooking time that extends beyond the crusts ability to bake without shielding (probably once you pass the forty minute mark). In this case, although standard pie shields won't work, you can cover the pie with aluminum foil once it has browned lightly.
No, you don't need any changes. Others have done it before and it works. Just be aware that your ratio of crust to filling will change a lot (much more crust than in a big pie). And take care to seal the seams well.
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.407256
| 2012-03-23T01:52:13 |
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|
24382
|
How to wash vegetables without running water?
I live in a subtropical climate where most people cook vegetables, rather than eat them raw, so when making green salads, I must be careful to ensure that everything is clean. I have seen recommendations in How to wash lettuce to wash lettuce under running water or in a salad spinner, but I do not have access to either. I have tried adding bottled water to a bowl, then putting the lettuce, onions, and tomatoes in this bowl to soak, but do I not know if this will clean the vegetables sufficiently, especially as the onions and tomatoes seem to already contains some water trapped inside, which is likely not safe to consume. How can I clean these vegetables?
Wow, just curious. Where do you live that you've got access to a computer and internet but not to running water?
I should have been more specific. I have running water, but it is not safe to drink and is not always even clear. I do not know if it is a good idea to clean vegetables with it.
Fascinating question :)
Interesting. When I was in Indonesia, I was told to make sure that the restaurants I ate at all had the sign that said "We wash our food in boiled water." I didn't get sick, so it is possible.
Village, you'll probably want to buy a good household water filter & disinfectant. I did the bottled-water thing in a similar situation, but if you're spending a long time there, it's better to be able to just filter and disinfect your water. Makes cooking a heck of a lot easier, and you don't have to worry about weird off flavors.
It might be worth rewording the question slightly, as that same question could have been asked by someone camping, where the correct answer would have been significantly different if the vegetables weren't suspected to have been grown with tainted water.
you may want to add salt to the soaking water
Let's call a spade a spade: if you're in one of many areas where people don't eat vegetables raw, it's because nightsoil or unsterilized animal manure is used to fertilize the fields. A quick rinse won't render these vegetables safe to eat, because you need to kill the pathogens.
To start out, you should wash all dirt and sand off produce; for this wash it is okay to use tap water as long as it is well-filtered, because you will be following it with a sanitizing step. From here you have two ways to render the vegetables safe.
Blanching is probably the best solution to keep most of the flavor and texture, while still avoiding illness. To do this, briefly immerse the vegetables in boiling water, and then transfer them to a (boiled) ice water bath. The exposure to very hot water should kill most pathogens, but by only briefly exposing them to hot water you won't cook them much.
An alternate, but not as effective approach is to soak in sanitizing solution for 15-20 minutes. According to this source, there are a couple good options. One is a ionized silver suspension; in Mexico this is sold as Microdyn or Bacdyn. Another option is bleach, prepared at roughly 1 1/2 tsp bleach (5.25% hypochlorite solution) per gallon (4 liters) water. After immersion, bleach should not be rinsed off until just before use, and final rinse should be food-safe water. Note that rinses will not kill all bacteria, but will significantly reduce their counts.
Use caution if you use an alternate sanitizing procedure: a lot of vegetable washes are just intended to remove waxes and pesticide residue, not kill pathogens. Even ones with mild antibacterial properties won't cut it, since you need to kill a wide range of pathogens AND parasites: Ascaris worms in particular are common in developing areas and potentially lethal.
Finally, be extra cautious about cross-contamination. Any fresh produce should be handled as if it's raw meat, because it can carry almost any food-borne illness. Cleaning should be done before cutting produce, so as to avoid introducing pathogens into the interior. You'll probably also want to take anti-parasite medications bi-annually to supplement this, since they harder to eliminate from food and may slip through.
Oh, and if you're ever tempted to skip the cleaning steps, remember: there's a good chance your vegetables have poop on them.
Final footnote: there is an EXCELLENT resource on food safety in the Yucatan, by a PhD who worked in public health and for the EPA. The advice is broadly applicable to anyone living in developing countries.
The sanitizer solution is the best idea. When I don't have it I wash the vegetables with dishwashing liquid.
If you live where the vegetables are grown, you will generally become immune to local bacterial bugs. Plenty of modern research is showing we shouldn't be over-cleaning our vegetables, we actually need local soil based bacteria
@TFD: I'm not a fan of food safety paranoia and over-cleaning, but this is totally different. If even hungry locals won't risk eating it raw, you'd be stupid to do it yourself. Yes, you can survive eating feces-contaminated food, but you also get a high and unnecessary risk of hepatitis, tapeworms, cholera, askaris worms, dysentary, and other fun. Some of these are potentially deadly, and all are avoidable by not being a bloody idiot.
@TFD: While your area may not use night soil, parts of Asia do. Here's a link documenting use of human manure in Chinese agriculture. It's fairly common in both tropical and subtropical areas where other fertilizers are too expensive. Further, even if night soil isn't used for fertilization, tainted water may be used in irrigation. It's less direct but arrives at the same problem. Why should you be willing to run risks that the local population considers unsafe?
I don't like censoring, so I won't delete @TFD 's comment despite flags. But please note that there have been outbreaks of deadly disease caused by eating contaminated produce. http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/fs/irradiation/news/dec0503mangoes.html and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Germany_E._coli_O104:H4_outbreak are just two examples I can cite off the top of my head. Also, the people who are paid to know these things (USDA and their analogues in other countries) insist that produce must be washed. Whatever opinions are stated here, the facts speak: not washing is dangerous.
@rumtscho Washing would not have solved either of the links you have provided. Washing removes most of the surface contamination, for visual and basic health reasons. Only cooking would have fixed those problems
@BobMcGee Rural china, is not the majority of China or Asia. We don't know where 'Village' lives, but my limited experiences of subtropical Asia show a modern grocery system, where raw fruit and salads are commonly available
Can you use vinegar for a rinsing solution? What concentration? Straight? (Standard 5%) @rumtscho Yeah for not censoring, unlike Workplace or Parenting!
@Chloe Vinegar might sanitize to some extent -- but as noted above, really you need to cook things to kill pathogens or use something specifically for that purpose.
@TFD A some-years-later reply: I think the point here is obviously not applicable to Beijing grocery stores, etc -- the original question explicitly says that in their area, produce is NOT eaten raw. The question isn't based on a specific country or region or anything besides that fact.
my father says he used to wash veggies with Hydrogen peroxide. He's pretty healthy. I didn't believe him so I googled it.
http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/h/hydrogen-peroxide.htm
Scroll down to number 16. It says It's fine to use it with vegetables AND fruit. :)
Welcome to this site. Nice answer. A bit more expensive then household bleach, I guess.
Buy a water filter to take the dirt out of the water, it will look clean.
Dilute a drop of food-safe bleach in the filtered water.
Let treated water stand covered for 30 minutes. If water is still cloudy after filtering, double the amount of bleach used.
After ensuring the water is correctly treated, use it to wash your vegetables.
Or go with BobMcGee's advise.
Take a look at this and a more complicated version..
It seems baking soda or vinegar can be used to clean vegetables.
That wash looks great for removing wax and pesticide residue, but I don't think it will solve the food safety problem posed in the question.
@BobMcGee, baking soda is effective at killing bacteria, as it's a base. Vinegar is good for conserving food, but I don't think it's any good for sanitation (but I'm not an expert).
@BaffledCook: In this case, I'm most concerned about worms... Ascaris, tapeworms, flukes, etc. While baking soda may mitigate bacterial risks, I'd really like to see a reputable source to indicate it's strong enough for this use. Otherwise I think it would be widely used to render produce safe in the regions in questions.
@BobMcGee, that's why I didn't upvote this answer.
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.407521
| 2012-06-12T08:54:05 |
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|
33439
|
What is this sandwich-salad dish?
I found this open-faced sandwich-like creation in several French-style bakeries in East Asia.
The bottom is a narrow piece of toast.
On top of this toast the dish is a bit like a salad. This salad mostly consists of cabbage and lots of mayonnaise with various square bits of sliced ham and what might be bread crumbs mixed in.
It seems that at some thin layers of bread were baked right into the salad part and this forms a light crust on the top.
Several stores are calling it "凯撒", which means "Caesar, but I could find nothing about this dish anywhere on-line.Is this dish common in European bakeries? What is it called?
Why not just ask them in one of the bakeries where you have seen it?
A take on Croque Monsieur? Cheese is not a staple in east asia, they may have tried to substitute it with mayo?
I am not familiar with Croque Monsieur, but pictures I found on-line look entirely different. Everything on top of the toast slice is thoroughly mixed to have the qualities of a salad, a bit like coleslaw. The cabbage mixed in mayonnaise is piled quite high.
The topping on the bread looks cooked--we would not normally call that a salad, at least in the US. In fact, putting something like that on top of bread is not common in any cuisine I am personally familiar with. It might be a local dish named for something Western, much the same way pasta prima vera seems italian, but was invented in New York.
@SAJ14SAJ : spinich salad can be cooked. But this in some ways reminds me more of a tuna melt without the melt part ... but you'd take tuna salad, put with some cheddar cheese on bread and slide it under the broiler for a few minutes ... but in this case, it sounds more like a ham salad / coleslaw type concoction.
@joe I have never heard of that, but I certainly believe you--still, the exception rather than the rule.
do they have it on their menu or just for the day? if it is for a day only it is a left over from something, The chef think of new dish out of left overs to lessen the costing.
It does certainly look like a bunch of leftovers, but I saw it many times at many different bakeries. Is it possible every bakery is using this recipe to get rid of leftovers and they always have the same leftover ingredients?
I'm not sure if there's a specific name for this particular combination, but as you mention it's specifically from a French restaurant, I'd call it a tartine, which is can refer to most anything served on a piece of bread or toast, cold or hot. If it were small enough to eaten in one bite, it'd be a canapé.
Growing up, we'd call a similar dish made with tuna salad (a mix of cooked tuna, mayo, onions, pickles) on bread and broiled 'til it developed a similar crust as a 'tuna boat' (to differentiate between a 'tuna melt' which had cheese on top), but I don't know that 'boat' in this context is generic enough to really convey any meaning to the typical person.
Because you mention cabbage, the topping in its uncooked form might be considered to be a cole slaw, which translates to cold salad but in the US generally means a cabbage salad dressed with vinaigrette or mayonnaise. Because of the ham and mayo, you might also call it a ham salad.
I'm not familiar with mayo-based cold salad recipes that use bread in them, but it's frequently used as a binder in crab cakes, which has some similarities as it's mayo-based and then broiled.
I would be tempted to call those things "croquets" when they are bound with mayonnaise and broiled which it looks like the topping on the bread was....
@SAJ14SAJ : I'm not familiar with mayo-based croquettes. Most that I'm familiar with are starch bound (potato for the most part, except for the ones that use flour (either a roux-based white sauce for Dutch krokete and Spanish croquetas, and I've seen a beurre manié used in some Brazilian recipes). All of them will hold their shape when picked up and eaten, which can't necessarily be said for mayo-based stuff unless you add something else, like the breadcrumbs in crab cakes.
The closest would be your crab cake example, but it makes more sense to me to call cooked items croquets than salads or cole slaws. I suspect this food item just doesn't have a common name in English.
In pictures I found of croquettes, it appears that the salad part is entirely encapsulated by bread. In this dish, the bread is partially mixed in, partially drizzled on the top, and cannot be picked up by hand without breaking apart.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.408238
| 2013-04-13T12:36:50 |
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|
47794
|
How to a prevent spoon from falling into soup?
When preparing a soup, the spoon which I use to stir the soup with, often falls in. Is there any way to prevent the spoon from falling into the soup?
Hold it tight there!!!
Do you mean once you've finished stirring and you set the spoon aside, it falls in? Because the simple solution is to just take the spoon out of the pan completely...
Make your soup so thick the spoon won't move. Search the web for cement-based recipes, or make a triple-strength split pea soup. Another option is to cut a deep groove in the pan which will keep the spoon from sliding. Of course, you could also just use a longer spoon, but that's too simple!
They also make spoons that have a little hook on them (so they catch before falling in), and there are 'pot clips' that attach to the pot w/out taking up space of a traditional spoon rest. (I like the clips, but not all utensils work in it, so I still use a spoon rest, too. A small plate also works.
The obvious solution is to not let the spoon in the pot. While you may just let it rest on the pot, you can also use a spoon rest, as I do.
Spoon rests
I always let one of those on the oven so that I can avoid making a mess of my kitchen when I am finished using my ustensils.
+1 for spoon rests. This is the most practical, reliable answer.
Use a longer spoon? Stir, then set on spoon rack next to pan?
A few ways exist to keep your spoon from falling into your soup. The first of which is to not keep your spoon in your soup. How to do that however, is quite varied:
Purchase a spoon rest.
Use a clean and empty plate to rest your spoon on by laying the spoon head on the plate.
I, being a bit of a frugal cook, don't own a spoon rest. I use a plate - oftentimes the same plate where I used to arrange the mise en place veggies.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.408715
| 2014-10-09T11:58:00 |
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|
23038
|
Help roaster oven quit in the night!
Possible Duplicate:
How long can cooked food be safely stored at room/warm temperature?
I put 2 large pork roasts into my roaster oven to cook overnight for pulled pork today. I started it around 8:30 p.m. and cooked it for an hour and a half at 350 then turned it down to 250 to cook all night. Sometime in the night my roaster oven bit the dust and when I awoke at 7:00 a.m. this morning and went to check on it, the oven wasn't working, and the meat was not completely cooked and had cooled to an internal temp of 80 degrees. I quickly put it in the regular oven to finish cooking, but will it be safe to eat? I just don't know how long it had been off. This was over $30.00 of meat and I hate to waste it. I can cook it all day today, would you risk eating it?
I wouldn't eat it.
The usual guideline is that food shouldn't spend more than 2 hours in the "danger zone," i.e. the temperature range in which bacteria can grow -- 40-140°F. It sounds like your pork may have spent a lot more than 2 hours in this range, so you should toss it.
It may hurt to toss $30 worth of meat, and it's possible that nobody will get sick from eating this pork. But if someone does get sick, you (and they) will certainly wish that you had thrown the pork away. And if they get very sick, they may require a trip to the doctor or even the hospital, and that'll cost a whole lot more than $30.
Agree - and I would add that recooking does not mean that the meat gets safe to eat, because every cooking process reduces the bacteria, it doesn't kill them. If you have 10 000 bacteria in you meat before your cooking and one in 1000 survives, you are left with 10 bacteria, which your immune system can kill. If you have 10 000 000 000 bacteria due to improper storage and one in a thousand survives, you are left with 10 million bacteria, which will overwhelm your immune system and make you sick.
@rumtscho Certainly there's some temperature at which all bacteria will be killed. I think the important point here is that food that has spoiled won't be "unspoiled" by cooking. Cooking can make food safer by killing bacteria (which is one reason that we do it), but if the food has spent a long time in the danger zone, the bacteria may have produced toxins which are not destroyed by heat.
OK, this is also a good point. But "some temperature at which all bacteria will be killed" is probably high enough to render the food inedible.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.408920
| 2012-04-15T13:54:06 |
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|
85191
|
Temperature gradients in boiled/baked eggs?
In my Science of Cooking class, we were asked to do a lab involving hard-cooked eggs using two forms of convection heat, dry (in the oven at 450 degrees) and wet (boiling water). For both the boiling water and oven, we were told to use three eggs. Take 1 egg out of the water (and oven) after 5 minutes, then again at 10, then again at 15.. shocking each in an ice water bath.
We found that, as a rule, the boiling water was a more efficient way of cooking the egg.
One of the questions in the assignment is: "Compare the temperature gradients you observed in the two methods. Which of the methods produces the most pronounced gradient?"
Can someone please explain this question to me?
With a steeper temperature gradient the egg would cook more unevenly, e.g. the outer is more deeper cooked than the core. I did remember egg white cooks at higher temperature than yolk so this might be the result you want. Theoretically you need stronger heat to heat the outer before heat penetrates to the center, dry heat doesn't do it well because air can not bring heat to the egg quickly enough. Water and steam both can. Steam might be a bad idea since the egg might explode.
It would probably help inform answers if you described what you meant by "better". I took a stab at it, but I had to make a couple small guesses based on my own experience boiling eggs and baking in-shell without convection, plus some quick searching about baking in-shell with convection.
By "efficient" do you just mean done after a shorter time? (Also, if you cut it in half after shocking at multiple time intervals, I imagine you got a very clear indication of temperature gradient based on doneness inside as a function of time!)
Presumably the question is referring to temperature gradients within the egg, i.e. the difference in temperature between the outside and inside. That is actually pretty relevant cooking-wise, because it tells you how the yolk and white will be cooked.
tl;dr I'd expect to see a steeper gradient from boiling than from the convection oven, but the actual results from your lab will let you tell much more confidently.
This depends on how fast the heat transfer is, which is made most obvious by the temperature the shell is held at. You can also see it from total cooking time. If one method takes longer, then it's transferring heat more slowly, and thus you can expect a flatter temperature gradient inside the egg (there's time for the heat to propagate inward), while the faster one will have a steeper gradient (the outside heats much faster than the heat propagates in).
With boiling, there's really only one possibility: the water holds the shell at very close to 100C. You have very efficient heat transfer, the water is well-mixed, and it has a very high heat capacity, so it can easily do this. Hard-boiling eggs generally takes less than ten minutes.
With an oven, it's less clear. Without any convection, the shell will actually remain well below the oven's air temperature for quite a long time, because the air can't transfer heat rapidly enough. This is likely true even with a realistic convection oven: if you put the egg in, wait a minute, and then check the shell temperature, I highly doubt it will be at the oven air temperature. Baking without convection in the 350F ballpark generally takes around half an hour, and I believe convection only reduces that to 20-25 minutes. So I'm pretty sure the oven has less efficient heat transfer, longer cooking time, and flatter gradient, but if you had a powerful, hot enough oven with really good convection, that could flip around.
So overall, it's hard to say for sure just from your description. If you actually did an experiment, though, you can tell from the results. Egg whites are soft but solid at 155F, and totally set at 180F, while egg yolks are firm at 158F and dry/crumbly at 180F. A steeper temperature gradient within the egg means that the yolk will be less cooked compared to the white, while a flatter temperature gradient means that they'll be cooked more similarly.
If you noticed differences in cooking time, or differences in yolk vs white doneness, there you are.
All this said, dry vs wet heat does have other significant effects. Dry heat will dry out the membrane and even some of the white underneath. Given enough time, the white will shrink away from the shell and end up noticeably drier and tougher, and it can even brown. So the differences you notice in the resulting egg may not be only about temperature gradient.
Heat transfer is from hot to cold. That is the 2nd law of thermodynamics. If the shell is at 100C and the water is at 100C there will be no heat transfer. Not going to argue the point with you.
@Paparazzi Amended to "very close to 100C." I'm aware of the laws of thermodynamics, thank you. I'd be careful with theoretical arguments like that, though: in a lot of real-world situations you end up with very cliff-y gradients, with near-constant temperature up to an interface, and then a steep drop from there. So the water right at the outside of the shell is at 100C, and the very outside of the shell is at very close to 100C, and it drops from there. If you were actually going to try to solve the heat equation here, your boundary condition would be that the exterior of the shell is 100C.
Not-particularly-helpful comments have been moved to chat.
Serious Eats has some great articles, including this one on the perfect to peel hard boiled egg which has a lot of good pictures in it that show some of what Jefromi discusses here.
A temperature gradient is the variation of temperature along some distance. Maybe I took one too many semesters of thermodynamics in college, but on first blush, this is a tricky question. There are 3 big pieces to the puzzle to consider. Heat transfer between the egg and the “medium” and the gradients across the different regions.
I can think of two gradients that are worth considering. First is the gradient across the radius of the egg. Since the egg is the same between condition A (water) and B (oven) we don’t really have to think about this because any gradient difference are solely a function of the differences outside the egg. The second is the gradient throughout the “heat transfer medium” (boiling water, or oven air). Since the water is in a rolling boil, it is well mixed and there is no temperature gradient. If the oven is a convection oven, we can also say there is no gradient, but if it is a standard oven, there will be a gradient from the surface of the egg, out into the air.
The next thing to consider is the heat transfer between the medium and the surface of the egg. Since air is less dense than water, there are fewer atoms bouncing around in a given volume. This means there are fewer collisions between the medium and the egg shell...meaning fewer opportunities to transport energy from the medium to the eggshell.
Once heat does enter the eggshell, it will conduct through the egg the same in both cases.
What does this all mean? Since the heat transfer in air is less efficient than in water, the air has to be much hotter than water in order to heat the middle to a certain temperature in the same amount of time. However, since the air is hotter, the outside shell will be much higher than 100 degrees when the middle is done, meaning there is a larger temperature gradient.
The tricky part is, without knowing what the oven temperature is I can’t say for sure that the gradient is higher.
Don't agree on skin temp in oven will be higher for same core and other points.
I’ll have to pull out my text and reread my dynamic heat transfer. My intuition is that the hot water will almost immediately bring the skin up to 100 and start heat flux into the center. In the oven, the skin will more slowly increase, and will get over 100 by the time the middle hits “done”.
No there will be a fairly linear temperature gradient from center to surface. Heat is sucked off. If the surface is the 100 then there would be no heat transfer - 2nd law of thermodynamics.
This got discussed on my answer too, but basically, "shell is 100C" is a good-enough approximation. The water just outside the shell is 100C, and the exterior heats up to very close to 100C very quickly. Even the approximate linear gradient Paparazzi suggested makes that clear; an egg shell is on the order of 1/100 of the thickness of the egg. (And of course, in reality, it's not linear: heat transfer takes time, so the outside heats up faster while the interior lags behind.) Yeah, technically it's below 100C, but.. not a terribly important distinction.
Oh, and for the oven thing, the other thing you have to worry about is that the egg has water in it, so it's not going to want to go above 100C too easily, even if the shell does.
Good point about the water content in the white. In the real world, I’m guessing the water will boil, expand, and break the shell if one tried to bake an egg as quickly as boiling.
Let us continue this discussion in chat.
I will answer from a chemical engineering perspective.
The oven is also a good deal of radiant heat transfer.
In a moving liquid yes it is convection but you can model it as conduction.
Once you get a surface temperature on the egg how that got there makes not difference. The inside of the egg is not aware of how the shell was heated and thermal gradient will be the same. Believe it or not the slope of the thermal gradient remains very constant as the egg is cooked.
If you start with the egg in cold water versus waiting for the water to boil is a big difference.
Start with a cold oven would be a very bad plan. A hot oven will take a little bit of time to get the skin warm.
The water in the water is the main difference. It will hydrate between the shell and membrane for a more even heat transfer. Oven will dry out the egg and create pockets.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.409166
| 2017-10-23T22:18:13 |
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|
85428
|
Small baskets for fries
Are small baskets for french fries actually used to cook them or just to serve?
They just look like gimmick frying basket used for serving.
When you fry things, you need to have "space" in the fryer to have a good consistent frying so that you have as much surface of the ingredients touch the hot oil as possible.
If the ingredients get clustered together, they will stick and probably not cook evenly.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.409919
| 2017-11-03T19:08:27 |
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|
85633
|
How do choose apple type in store?
It's hard for me to decide what apple I want to buy from all the different choices in a store. I can look at the colour, the size and maybe carefully feel if it's hard or soft, but that's it.
This page (archive) gives quite some information about apple types, but it's difficult to search (for example a Google search for "sour site:orangepippin.com/apples" results in nothing useful) and it's more about apple identification than about apple choice.
How can I find out how sweet/sour an apple is, how hard/soft, how durable it is, maybe even how much of which vitamin is in it, just by conducting non-destructive tests on apples in a store? A website that's easier to search would also be acceptable, although that wouldn't work if I'm offline.
Do you have some comparisons what it should smell like for certain factors?
While it doesn't help your attribute-specific questions, I've heard that apples bred for appearance usually end up lacking in flavor - so apples from bins with more variations, different sizes - especially smaller, (cosmetic) imperfections, duller color, should be tastier than apples which look very similar, larger, shiny and, well, pretty. It has seemed to work when I've used it as a guideline.
This website has a search bar and seems pretty reasonable: https://rittmanorchards.com/apple-chart/
Tl;dr: If you know what kind of apple you're looking at, you don't need to test the apple.
I don't think you can tell any of those things about an unidentified apple without destroying it somehow. You can tell how hard/soft it is by pressing firmly, but this will leave a dent in the apple, so that may or may not count as destroyed for you.
However, if you know what variety of apple you're looking at, you can know these types of things without even touching the apple, as each variety has its own characteristics regarding sweetness, crispness, juiciness, and other qualities. For instance, Honeycrisp apples are typically very sweet and crisp (as the name implies) and are excellent for eating out of hand. You can find more information about different varieties of apples here. Grocery stores (at least in the USA) typically label their apples by variety. If you shop at a farmers market and the varieties aren't labeled, the farmer/seller can usually tell you (if he can't, I probably wouldn't buy from him anyways, but that's just me).
As far as durability goes, that is largely dependent on how you store your apples. Refrigerated apples last longest, as they do not continue to ripen in the cooler temperatures of the fridge. They will if left on the counter, though, leading to mushy, rotting apples in just a week or two. (I have successfully kept apples in my refrigerator for several months, though those were fresh-from-the-orchard apples, so your results may vary.)
Nutritional content varies by variety as well, though I was only able to find a single source focusing on vitamin C. However, as vitamin C and potassium the main nutrients in apples, that may be sufficient as far as varietal differences go. You can find some more general nutritional information for apples here.
Your first link is pretty similar to the page I found. There a search for "sour" also finds nothing. This source "Changes in Vitamin C Content and Acidity of Apples during Cool Storage" sounds interesting, but sadly it's not available anymore.
Basically I want to know a few types (so that I always find one) that are quite a bit sour, but not extremely, not very sweet and have a pretty hard consistency.
@Fabian That source may not be available as linked from my link, but the relevant data is reproduced in the table on the page I linked to. If that's not sufficient for you, there is an email link at the bottom of the page, you may be able to request the full study from the author of that page.
@Fabian People don't typically talk about apples in terms of "sourness." They usually use terms like "tart" or "less sweet" because almost by definition an apple that we would want to eat is sweet, not sour. If you want sour you would want to try for something like a crab apple, but I don't know if/where you can buy those, as they aren't something typically considered fit for eating (at least not without a lot of sugar added). They are usually quite hard, though, so they do sound like what you're aiming for. Failing that, you would want a tart variety like Granny Smith, Baldwin, or Idared.
Never heard the term "tart" before. Thanks, that gave me some good hints then!
Choose the apple you like to eat! we cannot tell you to like one type because it is more or less sweet or more or less acidic ..
You cannot choose an apple only on its physical appearance; you have to eat it.
Apples of the same kind will usually have the same characteristics, but might be different if they come from different orchards.
The only thing you need to look at is what you intend to do with the apples.
Are you eating them fresh and raw? are you cooking them for pies or purée or sauce ?
Some variety are best for pies because they hold their "shape" (do not get mushy) some others are better in salads because they do not turn brown (oxydize).
I don't think the OP is asking us which apples he should prefer. To me, the question is quite clear that for each purchase, he knows which qualities he wants in an apple and is aksing if he can empirically find out these qualities when holding an apple in the supermarket.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.410003
| 2017-11-14T10:44:28 |
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|
108236
|
From regular fresh yeast to sourdough
I know that there are formulas for switching from and to sourdough and or preferments, but even though my library grows I haven't found such a formula.
I have a general idea of the fact that a sourdough bread usually requires around 40% of sourdough and a regular yeasted bread requires something from .1% to a stunning value of 2% of yeast.
Other that this general idea I have not found anything in the literature I have at home since most of the books usually treat these subjects separately.
Is there a formula that transforms a recipe from fresh yeast to sourdough and vice versa?
What about preferments?
EDIT: The question is under the assumption that a started is intended as a 100% hytration one, if you know of a conversion for a 50% hydration starter or pasta madre feel free to pitch in.
I've seen a factor of nearly 3 difference in the amount of sourdough starter for the same size loaf, so I doubt you'll find a direct conversion. You would of course have to take into account the water in the starter. It will be interesting to see whether more experienced bakers can point to a rule of some sort, even if it's not a simple one
I've seen numbers ranging between 3x to 20x for going between Madre or starter to yeast.
That said, as @Chris H noted, there are multiple other variables and factors involved here that would make such a formula completely moot. Here are some of the factors:
The actual strain of yeast in the starter
Relative age of the starter and last feed time
Temperature of the starter
Length of desired rise/fermentation time
Percentage of yeast
In either case of yeast or starter, what you are trying to do is give an environment to the yeast to digest the sugars and produce CO2 to lift the dough for a given time span.
A starting point:
Have a look at the sour dough's recipe's timeline and try to match that with a yeast based recipe of similar time-line.
If it's a few (8-10) hour rise type of bread, then you'll need a good amount of starter (e.g. 80-125g for 600g flour). See other factors above.
If it's a multi-day yeast based recipe, it'll call for 1/10th or 1/20th of the yeast by comparison (.1% to 2%), but if you go with 1/20th of the starter (e.g. 4g), you may not get much activity in the dough. So you're probably better off erring on the high side in those cases.
make sure you adjust for the hydration present in the starter (count the water in it as a part of the water you need for your hydration percentage)
I am not sure if you will find a formula that simply translates between the two. Store bought yeast (fresh or dry) is nearly 100% yeast but sourdough starter is mostly flour and water. The timelines for sourdough are almost always much longer than with store-bought yeast.
The sourdough recipe I have been using calls for 500g flour and 75g of starter. The starter itself is half flour and half water. I ferment my dough for 12-24 hours at room temp which I would never do with fresh yeast or it would be crawling out of the bowl.
How much fresh yeast do you use in percentage for those loaves?
I have recipes that call for 2-3 cups of flour which is probably around 250-400g and 2 tsp of yeast. The quantity of yeast is relatively forgiving because it grows so fast, and adding too much or too little, even half as much or twice as much, probably doesn't have much impact on the recipe. The sourdough yeast is much harder to manage and is generally a lot less active.
I'm sorry, I thought we were talking about fresh yeast and not dry yeast. The conversion from dry to fresh is 1 tsp dry=10g fresh. Thus 2 tsp will be 20g thus giving us 20/400=1/20=5% which is more than double the already very high 2% I was talking about. Of course the dough would explode, but it's not the yeast's fault. P.S. I suggest you to get a scale to help you in the kitchen.
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.410421
| 2020-05-09T13:44:14 |
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|
116554
|
What are the layers in this cake?
I want to make this cake (image below), but I can’t figure out the third layer.
Obviously it is 2 layers of chocolate cake and 1 of chocolate mousse, but what is the caramel-like layer?
Can anyone identify it, please?
What makes you think mousse? It could easily be a whipped and non-whipped layer of buttercream - especially given the #tags on the IG post.
@bob1 Unfortunately, you can't rely on tags to identify the foods on accounts like that one. It exists to get tons of engagement by sharing stolen and/or user submitted pictures of "food porn". The tags are chosen by someone who likely wasn't there eating the cake with the purpose of maximising engagement. If they think #buttercream leads to more engagement than #mousse, they use the first.
I didn't go by the tags and I think it's mousse because it looks like mousse, to me, but that's not the question posed.
Looking at the way it is cut, teared and smeared by the spoon in the video my best guess would be that it is some kind of custard or pudding that gets its consistency most probably from yolk and/or starch.
Please be aware that a definitive identification only from a picture will remain an impossible task as no one will be able to see if this mass contains maybe some coffee, rum or orange blossom water to add a different taste to it. So in the end you will have to fill up these gaps with your creativity and imagination.
Thanks - yes, I'm getting that I probably should have asked "how would you make something which looks like this" instead.
Caramel wouldn't be solid enough to become such a thick layer in a cake. If you try to make it thick, you will get it to the consistency of chewy caramel candy - both too sticky and too sweet to use as part of a cake.
My best guess is that you are looking at a layer of gianduja, thinned with something else - or maybe even pure Nutella. The second guess is that it can be dulce de leche based. I saw J. Mueller's post about it being a custard, but I have rarely seen a custard in this color. Maybe if it is a yolk-thickened custard without any milk products, it could produce that slightly translucent shade. But I fully agree with him that it is impossible to identify it for certain just by looking.
... If I had to guess? Jello chocolate pudding made with less milk for the dark layer, and then a whippy chocolate buttercream or mousse for the lighter layer.
It could really be anything, but I felt the need to answer because I 1000% think that is Jello instant pudding. My only evidence is a profound feeling of nostalgia.
If you get chocolate Gnash or chocolate-cream compound, and heat it up a bit it would look like that. Don't try to recreate it exactly, try putting some cheese cream in instead, like the Costco chocolate mousse cakes.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.410744
| 2021-07-24T08:24:47 |
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|
116019
|
Safe bottles for fermented liquids
I have some kombucha scoby that I let go way too long (had to leave town for a bit, new job…) and it has gone to vinegar. I would hate to just throw it out as it’s delicious vinegar. I’d like to give out small jars to friends and family. Can I use any regular bottle or even after this long will it keep producing co2? If it’s still pumping gas it needs to be bottled in bottles that can handle it. How can I know if a bottle is safe for bubbly liquids?
You can test whether it's still producing gas by putting an un-inflated balloon over the top of the jar. (If it's in a wide-mouthed container, put some of it in a bottle with a narrow neck that the balloon will fit over.) If it's still making gas, the balloon will inflate and possibly pop off the bottle.
I would suggest, for the combination of "possible pressure" and also "easy dispensing and resealing" flip-top bottles (ceramic stopper and rubber washer on a wire bail arrangement) which were (or are intended if you are not re-using) used for a carbonated beverage (examples common in my area are Grolsch beer in green, or sparking lemonade in clear bottles. Brown beer bottles are also seen occasionally.)
I do, in point of fact, use one of these for balsamic vinegar (but that's not actively fermenting, from what I see.)
It is difficult to do it visually, even though there is some correlation between glass thickness and suitability for bubbly liquids. The practically useful way is to go by just knowing what the bottle was intended for.
If you are going to purchase bottles, you might get some that are intended for canning. Weck has some, but the shape is probably not perfect for vinegar, they are rather wide-mouthed. Alternatively, you can reuse bottles which contained a fizzy liquid - fizzy water, soft drink or beer bottles will all be able to withstand some pressure.
The bigger question is, how do you plan to store the liquid? You can cap it for shipping, but once it goes into a cupboard for use, people will want their vinegar to be well-behaved. Having a shower of vinegar every time they open the bottle, and then having to use some complex mechanism to close the bottle, is not pleasant. It is more common to store actively fermenting liquids in a vessel with an escape lock, which removes the danger of spray-on-opening (or the cap shooting out some night), but also has a rather strong smell.
If it were me, I would try to find ways to prevent active fermentation, rather than choosing a strong bottle.
If you are using recycled bottles, I would say you should make sure they are relatively thick, and were originally used to bottle carbonated beverages.
Also, to be on the safe side, when you decide to open the bottle after your kombucha has fermented, place it in the refrigerator overnight to reduce some pressure first; from Fermentation, over-carbonation, and explosions are real:
This particular growler of kombucha was only half full, so I assumed there could only be so much pressure built up and it would be safe to open at room temp (but still done so over the sink).
I couldn't have been more wrong.
I recommend reading the article in the link.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.411096
| 2021-06-11T01:24:54 |
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|
116411
|
How to clean aluminum with lye "stains"
I got careless and used a lye solution to clean an aluminum moka pot. The end result was that the whole thing was covered in sodium aluminate with some stains standing out from the rest.
Here's what the bottom looks like after a whole lot of scrubbing:
Can I get it any cleaner than that, or is this just the corrosion? Is there, in general, a good way to get the aluminates off with a minimum of effort?
Last time I did something like that to a moka pot [more heartbreaking… two at the same time] they ended up in the bin :\
scrub with salt and baking soda and a bit of vinegar to erode off the corrosion and dissolve it before it re-coats.
A weak acid solution should do it - you could use a dilute (white) vinegar solution for some time. How dilute, I don't know, but I would start with a 1:100 dilution, then incubate for an hour and see how it goes. If, after a few (3-4) hours there's no change, go for a more concentrated solution.
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.411369
| 2021-07-13T12:02:11 |
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|
115527
|
How to maximize shelf-life of freeze-dried food beyond 25 years? How far can this be exceeded?
Many manufacturers will sell and advertise emergency preparedness food packs to still taste "great" 25-30 years into the future (or at least maintain a consistent taste over this period).
For instance, they will cook eggs, lasagna or vegetables (anything really), then place it into a freeze-drier unit, which eliminates the water via sublimation. They then place the food product into a mylar or aluminum pouch (sometimes polyurethane), insert an oxygen dissector pouch in it, then instruct the customer to store it in a cool (less than 16 degrees Celsius or 60 Fahrenheit) and dry environment for long term storage.
What process happens after 25-30 years which limits its shelf life? It is the accumulation of oxygen diffusing within the bag over time? It is the oxygen pouch that reaches it absorption limit? Is moisture sneaking in? Is the organic structure of the food break down due to normal thermodynamic forces over time (increase in entropy)?
What if one wanted to increase the shelf-life to say 50 years, maybe even 100 years? What food break down processes will be encountered as the limiting factor, that would need to be countered?
Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.
The question is rather difficult to answer since it is based on false assumptions. I will try addressing those.
What process happens after 25-30 years which limits its shelf life?
There is no reason to assume that there is such a process. Imagine that I tell you "tomorrow at 2 PM, I will be at home". This contains no information about whether I will be at home tomorrow until 2:15, or until 6, or any other chosen time after 2 PM. Similarly, a "best by" date of 25 years makes absolutely no claims for the food quality at any time point after 25 years have passed. The existing foods may still taste good enough after 50 or 100 years.
if one wanted to increase the shelf-life to say 50 years, maybe even 100 years. What food break down processes will be encountered as the limiting factor
The assumption here is more subtle: it equates "food break down processes" with "the limiting factor". But it is also quite certainly false. It is not clear if there are any food break down processes that prevent longer shelf life. But if there are some, it is highly unlikely that they are also limiting factors. The hardest limiting factors you are likely to face are:
Developing a testing process that can prove that the food keeps its quality for 100 years with reasonable certainty, without actually waiting 100 years. This could be possible, but it will be quite hard. It will certainly not be as easy as creating such a process for something with a much better describable behaviour, such as electronics.
Convincing the FDA or other relevant regulators that your test results are correct
Establishing yourself in an already filled small niche market, despite having higher production costs than the incumbents (due to points 1 and 2).
I don't have answers to the other subquestions, but as I said, they are most likely based on a false assumption and thus unanswerable. If it turns out that they do have an answer in principle, the points above still render them pretty much irrelevant for practical purposes (which in itself is difficult enough).
I agree with rumtscho's answer, believing the logic behind it.
There is however one factor that could possibly have an effect, hinted at in the question: gas permeability of the package. They assume it's stored clean and dry, so we'll neglect water vapour. Nitrogen and CO2 are inert for our purposes, which leaves oxygen. Oxygen causes flavour molecules to degrade; it doesn't magically make food dangerous, so we're talking about quality not safety here.
The question says there's an oxygen scavenger in there. A common type is mainly iron, which rusts, capturing oxygen, and using up the iron. There are other types, but all have a finite ability to absorb O2. A large part of the purpose may well be to remove residual oxygen that gets in during packing - oxygen will be absorbed into even vacuum-dried food, and will work its way out, though that won't take decades. The packaging, despite being sealed, is slightly porous to gas molecules - not as porous as a rubber balloon which goes flat in a few days, but some will leak (this is why better helium balloons are foiled - He atoms are smaller than O2 molecules and get through more easily).
It is possible that they've run the numbers on the porosity of the packaging materials compared with the capacity of the oxygen scavenger, and decided that in 25 years it won't saturate.
As with other degradation processes, this doesn't mean that in 26 years it will spoil, just that if you and the manufacturer are still around in 25 years and it tastes worse than it did to start with, tough luck.
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.411482
| 2021-05-04T15:52:13 |
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115689
|
Using manual egg beater to cream eggs and sugar
So I don’t have a whisk or an electric whisk and a lot of baking recipes say to cream eggs and sugar and I used to do it with those tools.
Can I cream eggs and sugar with a manual egg beater (in picture below) or using a stick/immersion blender?
You have a whisk; the object in your picture is a whisk and you can use it to cream ingredients for your recipe. The gearing system makes it easier to get a high speed but you could even use a fork or a (totally manual) balloon whisk once the mixture is soft enough.
I would avoid using an immersion blender as it will be hard to get air into the mixture without careful technique; see this related question for more.
Technically the pictured object is not a whisk...but the difference between beaters and whisks is small enough not to matter in this case (and beaters may be superior if you forget to pre-soften your butter).
And a damp tea-towel will help to keep the bowl in place.
You sure can use it, you will have to adjust your expectations on timeframes though.
Creaming cakes was done long before the existence of electric mixers. I have read (but never been courageous or masochistic enough to try it myself) that, by using a simple whisk moved by one's arm only, it took upwards of one hour of energetic whipping to achieve adequate creaming.
Your whip offers you a mechanical advantage over the simple whisk, so you should need some time between the time needed for manual creaming (1-2 hours) and the time needed by a modern mixer at highest speed (5-10 minutes). I cannot predict where in this interval it will fall, because I've only tried this mechanized type of whisk once, back when I wasn't experienced enough to notice how well it performs in comparison to other methods. Based on my experience with hand-whisking egg whites (with a simple nonmechanized whisk): before you start, ensure you have a backup whisker so you can change every 5-10 minutes, or however long it takes for your arm to get very tired.
It's even more important to pre-soften the butter (to room temperature) and pre-chop it into smallish chunks when doing this manually (unless you're really in it for the arm workout).
I'm not masochistic, nor a professional long distance whisker, but I'm always impressed with how a quick hand-whisk is. Under ]normal,ideal] circumstances I can beat 3-4 egg-whites faster with my favourite hand-whisk, than with a regular electric one. In this instance I would probably not bet on myself, maybe with a +3 handicap.
@CaptainGiraffe then I must be doing something differently (either in whisking technique or in the amount of training I alot to my biceps) - with a hand whisk, if I want a nice French meringue and not just barely-formed-foam with no peaks yet, I need at least 15 to 20 minutes of vigorous whisking that gets me out of breath.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.411872
| 2021-05-17T06:57:09 |
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|
50381
|
Raw Kale - Korean side dish
I'm trying to get more raw veggies in my diet in general and Kale is such a good one. I recently had a raw kale side dish at a Korean restaurant that may or may not have been fermented. It's flavor was very subtle and lightly sweet.
I'm trying to find how to make this, though I'm imagining the restaurant may have simply innovated something on the fly (likely not a traditional recipe). I don't care to copy it exactly either - just looking for something similar to it on any level.
I've put this on hold since you seem to be pretty clearly asking for recipes involving raw kale. If you mean to be asking what that Korean thing was and can describe it, that's a reasonable question. And if you're trying to ask how to deal with a specific problem with preparing it raw (it's too tough, maybe?), that's a good question too. So feel free to edit and we'll be happy to reopen
Got it - I'll re-word the question. Thanks for the pointing all that out :)
Thanks! If you can remember any more details about the dish it might help people answer more confidently, but I'll go ahead and reopen now.
Not sure if this is what you are looking for, but thought I'd post that in researching, I found that Korean side dishes are called banchan, and the specific dish that you are speaking of might be kale namul:
Kale namul 케일나물 (Korean Seasoned Kale)
Makes 2 cups
1 pound kale
1 green onion
1 clove garlic, finely minced
1 tsp. soy sauce
1 tsp. roasted sesame oil
½ tsp. roasted sesame seeds
salt, to taste
http://www.apricosa.com/2011/03/different-sort-of-namul.html
The sweetness you refer to might just come from the kale itself, depending on the varietal.
Looks good - I'll give this a try
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.412135
| 2014-12-06T21:03:03 |
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|
71314
|
What is the cons of using high temperature/low water to cook curry?
I cook curry with curry power. (This kind.) They said pour it in water under medium heat. Sure enough after some time it starts thickening. When it is thick enough I considered this ready to eat.
However what is contributed to make the curry from "raw" state to the ready to eat state? I think the thickening is because of something in the powder is "cooked" so wouldn't increasing the temperature hasten this process? And another things that contributes to the thickening is the water evaporation, so if I add very low amount of water from the start is that means I don't have to wait as long as the higher amount of water?
What I am guessing from my many tries is that, after certain amount of time where the powder is "cooked" from this point onwards you only wait for the water to reduce enough to get thick. If this is true perfectly calculated curry should aims the water amount for when the powder is cooked, water is at the right amount so it is thick enough.
Curry powder is nothing than a specific blend of spices
I thought some kind of thickening (starch?) might play an important role in there?
It may thicken a sauce but I'm not sure if it does that more or less than a spoonful of barbecue spice would.
There's a concept of 'dry curry', which have little moisture in them (that from vegetables and such, but not specific liquid added). You generally still fry the spices in the oil first to cook out the 'raw' qualities and/or crack open seeds.
Is this really a curry powder or a curry roux (as is common with japanese style curry)? - @Joe that sounds like an old school indian curry, which uses neither of the two ;)
@rackandboneman - I'd never considered it to be a 'roux' but I guess that's kind of what it is. It's certainly not a powder, it's a very thick paste, with oil & flour. I've added an answer based on actually having used these pastes for many years [spent a lot of time in Japan in the 90s]
One con of cooking this way, high temp and less water, is that your curry is much more likely to burn. Both lower temperatures and more water slow the cooking, making it easier to find the right spot where everything's cooked through and done, instead of overreaching the time or not stirring quite enough and finding the bottom burned. It maybe can be done, if you're very attentive and keep stirring and measured everything just right - but it is riskier.
Another con is that longer cooking often affects dishes differently. Cooking longer at lower temperatures gives flavors more time to meld, with ingredients reacting to each other or breaking down differently. Depending on your ingredients or the dish's texture the spices may distribute unevenly if they don't have enough time to equalize (one reason stew, for example, does very well with longer cooking times). Cooking at higher temperature for less time may also give you a very different effect - think garlic sauteed in oil versus garlic roasted with oil, very different flavors.
Likewise, using less water may mean your ingredients cannot mix as freely, so they interact with each other less and it takes more time for the dish to reach the same melded flavor effect. It is also a safer limiting factor - if the powder is cooked before enough water is evaporated to make it thick, the extra water can be simmered off. If the water simmers down first, then the powder will not be finished cooking - which might be a bigger problem. It will also be harder to correct, and will take more time since any water added at that point will have to heat before the powder can finish cooking.
There is also the possibility of the thickening happening due to a chemical reaction that only happens at a high or low enough temperature. The link you posted is not specific enough to make out an ingredients list so I can't know for sure.
However, if you play around with the water you should be able to get the evaporation process to take less time but I wouldn't screw around with the temperature if I were you.
The linked images are not curry powders, but curry pastes - a very specific Japanese style which is so dense it's actually a solid, more the consistency of a bar of milk chocolate than a recognisable paste.
For anyone not used to this type of curry, look up 'katsu curry' for one common recipe style.
A little like a Chinese curry paste, it's a blend of spices, oils & starches - like cornflour.
You aren't meant to cook these for more than couple of minutes.
You pre-fry all ingredients then 5 mins from serving mix the paste into hot [but nowhere near boiling] water until it dissolves. You then mix this into your dry ingredients & stir until it thickens, which it does within seconds of coming to the boil.
You drop the heat down to the lowest simmer for just a few minutes, then stir & serve.
The thickness of the sauce is directly related to the amount of water you mix it into plus any extra liquid in your pan, surrounding your pre-cooked ingredients.
I generally find it's 'safer' to start a bit too thick & add water if needed.
This is one of many types available. They all tend to be this type of 'bar of chocolate' size & you can break off chunks of the 'paste' just like chocolate pieces.
This is an open pack, showing the 'bar'
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.412329
| 2016-07-10T14:56:11 |
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94737
|
Does power give a like-for-like comparison between different brands of stand mixer?
I've noticed that the KitchenAid stand mixers (which are supposed to be one of the best, if not the best, brand out there) have significantly lower power rating than their counterparts from other brands. For example the popular KitchenAid Classic has a power rating of 250W and the KitchenAid Artisan has a power rating of 300W. Even the top-of-the-range KitchenAid Professional stand mixer has a power rating of 325W. Meanwhile, other entry-level stand mixers from Kenwood or other manufacturers have power up to 1000W or 1200W. Is this a true like-for-like comparison (i.e. a 1200W stand mixer from another brand is 4 times better at cutting through a thick mixture than a 300W KitchenAid stand mixer) or is it just one factor among several that could impact the true performance of the stand mixer? Simply put, I was rather surprised at the comparatively low power rating of the KitchenAid products, and thought I must be missing something.
related : https://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/17497/67
This is power drawn from outlet, right? I don't know if any of these tools give you power that's actually transferred on the tool and used for mechanical work.
@Molot yes, that number is power consumed, not really a promise of what power it delivers. I think torque delivered to the blades would be a far more revealing number than power consumed. That would be a number that likely is not as easy to track down, and that does not tell you if the gears are well enough made to handle the strain.
@dlb or even output power, which is equal to torque times rate of rotation times number of rotors.
No, the power your mixer consumes is rather meaningless, and I would never use it in a buying decision. Maybe it is in principle possible to construct a bad mixer whose main problem is being underpowered, but since mixer wattage has long fallen victim to Goodheart's law, you can safely assume that everything on the market has sufficient wattage, and if a given model performs badly, it is not due to lack of wattage. Remember, high power consumption is no compensation for shoddy engineering.
I won't go deep into what you can use for your buying decision instead, since we have a special question for that (linked in the comments). But to hint at it, there is no number available to the customer which would allow for 1:1 comparisons. In fact, not even the numbers known to the producers would allow for such simple comparisons. So don't chase phantoms looking for a number - any kind of number - that tells you how "good" the mixer is.
If the mechanics are not sound, a high power rating can be a bad thing in fact. If can mean that the motor is inefficient, or could well be providing too much power and break down the gearing much faster. I actually would question a higher power rating unless I saw a good history from the brand. Well built, higher power might be good to a point, but honestly, how often do you need that from a mixer? A well engineered machine with a good warranty and reports of durability.
In my opinion, the best way to compare mixers is to compare their customer reviews on Amazon. Even allowing for the flaws in that approach, where there are many reviews for each brand the flaws average out, and it will reflect a wide range of use/abuse by a wide range of people.
Consumer Reports (paywall) reviewed mixers in the past (last update Sept 2016). FWIW, they liked the KitchenAid Pro 6500 (list $550) the best, but of course they can't review everything.
https://www.consumerreports.org/products/stand-mixer/ratings-overview/
Again, FWIW, I have read that old-school KitchenAids (like mine from 1995) were made under contract by Hobart - which was the leading brand for restaurants. Apparently the KitchenAid brand was sold and it's now manufactured elsewhere. Some people feel the quality has declined significantly since the good old days, as with everything else ;)
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.412762
| 2018-12-12T01:16:51 |
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|
85942
|
How to make wafer balls
I would like to make a homemade ferrero balls, but I am struggling with figuring out how to bake the wafer balls. I was looking on some wafer makers or even if I could directly buy the wafer balls without any success. Any ideas ?
It might be a good idea to post your recipe as there's a fair bit of variation and it may give some clues as to how it can be adjusted
I believe they're made as half-balls and sandwiched together with the filling.
If your recipe comes out of the oven pliable they could be baked in a similar way to brandy baskets and moulded before they cool. Otherwise you'd need to bake the half shells over or in a mould. That's a matter of finding a food- and oven-safe item of the right shape and size. Cake pop moulds are available; you'd probably need to fill the wafer with something like rice as in blind baking pastry.
It will take some trial and error, and after you've done that you're still left with the task of assembly.
Some recipes can be moulded after baking, others don't seem like they can. You could use the same tools after baking to mould the former sort (or over the end of a large test tube).
For my own personal consumption I could also be tempted to try baking over large clear glass marbles, having put them through the dishwasher and then the oven (to make reasonably sure thermal stresses won't crack them) beforehand. Even better if I coudl get the relative size right, use the marbles to blind bake in the cake pop mould. I wouldn't use coloured (even internally-coloured) marbles.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.413073
| 2017-11-26T12:56:54 |
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|
86152
|
What is this one-handed tool with five dull steel "blades" called?
I've been using it to break down clumpy powders, it's the best thing I have for the job by far, and I need to buy more for people helping me.
Have you tried using a sifter instead? Breaking down clumpy powders is the purpose of that tool.
I have a large mesh "bowl" for sifting. With a high fat coconut milk powder, the clumps are too solid to sift apart. They really need mashing. After mashing I sift, then mash the remaining clumps, then sift and mash one or two more times until it's all smooth :)
It's a pastry blender, less commonly also called a pastry cutter or dough blender. The primary use is cutting (mixing) solid fat into flour to make pastry dough.
Another common variety has stiff wires instead of the metal strips yours has.
That kind also works fine for pastry dough, but likely won't work as well for your alternative use on clumpy powders; it'll tend to flex out of the way a bit, especially if the clumps are hard.
I use the above pictured tool for smashing up avacados and mixing in the tomatoes, onions and lime juice when making guacamole. Works like a charm.
I always used wire pastry cutters (that's the term I learned), until one day one broke and burst apart like a spring, causing a mess and some cuts in the process. I don't know if it was faulty or just poorly constructed (it was a new one with a plastic handle, which replaced a wooden-handled one whose wires had gotten too deformed/floppy), but just something to keep in mind if deciding between wire and bladed.
@MichaelKaras I use a potato masher to mix guacamole.
@Chloe -That works too!!
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.413229
| 2017-12-06T01:02:52 |
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|
86220
|
Is there a water kettle or dispenser that can keep the water lukewarm?
I'm looking for a kettle or a dispenser that can keep or warm up the water around 100 F. The hope is to drink the warm water directly. All the devices I've found so far are made for boiling the water for making Tea, etc. I could get a dispenser, mix hot and cold water. However, I'd need to be careful every single time to mix them in the right proportion; just hoping to avoid any risk.
Update
I was hoping to find a make-human-lazy sort of tool for this but didn't succeed. Thanks for all the answers. I'm going to use the good old stove for warming up and a vacuum flask to store them. I might consider something like this in the future - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N4WYPDX?ref_=pe_623860_70668690 .
Luke warm water is a very good source for bacteria to develop. Legionnaires disease is a primary example. I suspect that is why they don't sell them. Thus if you have a solution make sure you regularly refresh the water and disinfectant whatever-it-is-keeping-it-lukewarm
The easiest tool I can think of is a thermos - fill it with water at or slightly above your desired temperature and enjoy your supply for a few hours.
On a larger scale, a tankless heater can give you a basically unlimited supply of water, but is almost certainly overkill.
Please be careful with all devices that keep water at around 100F / 37C, this lukewarm water will encourage the growth of microorganisms, aka a biofilm. This is also an issue with all water dispensers / coolers, which should also be cleaned regularly.
Why don't you grab a bottle warmer for baby food? Smaller quantities, but you can set the temperature just fine.
There are kettles on the market which have an adjustable electronic thermostat, some of them allowing very low temperature settings. Example (review article of some such kettles, some of them appropriate for the task): http://www.independent.co.uk/extras/indybest/food-drink/best-variable-temperature-kettles-adjustable-electric-glass-no-plastic-2016-tea-a7179216.html.
Mixing boiling and cold water is very feasible. Two parts cold to one part boiling will give about the temperature you want. I use this method for the rapid bake program in the breadmaker, which expects water at an optimal temperature for yeast (actually slightly higher as the flour is at room temperature). For breadmaking I measure by volume, but for drinking you can do it by eye in a glass. There's no risk in this method: if it turns out too cold, at a drop more hot, and if it turns out too warm, wait a moment or add a drop of cold.
An alternative is to work out how long you need to heat a glass of water in a microwave from cold. Try 30s to start with. It will need a stir afterwards.
I have a hot water dispenser (for tea, so it's kept at less than boiling) and I've found half and half or up to two parts hot to one cold, works for me. The point being that one can take advantage of whatever's easiest to hand. Additionally, if you use the same/similar cup or mug, it's pretty easy to figure out the exact proportions by eyeballing the measurements after a few times, so it isn't that much extra effort - just dispense hot, one step to the sink, top with cold. Quite possibly less than finding and adjusting some other solution to keep the water at your preferred temp.
There are devices for keeping coffee or tea warm at your desk called mug warmer. If you only want to keep a single mug worth of water warm, I think it will work well. I have linked one that has a temp you can set.
An alternative is to put a thermostatic mixing valve below your sink and add a warm water tap.
A thermostatic mixing valve accepts cold and hot water inputs, and can be set to output a set temperature. It automatically adjusts the ratio so the output is the set temperature.
The valve is inexpensive, and combined with a single valve faucet above the sink would fulfill your needs without requiring cords and appliances on the counter.
https://www.amazon.com/Fyeer-3-Way-Thermostatic-Mixing-Connections/dp/B01MS3X57O/
Not recommended!: "Never Drink Hot Water From the Tap (or hot mixed with cold). The claim has the ring of a myth. But environmental scientists say it is real. The reason is that hot water dissolves contaminants more quickly than cold water". http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/29/health/29real.html -- From the CDC: "In all situations, drink or cook only with water that comes out of the tap cold ..." https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/lead/tips/water.htm, -- From the EPA: "Only Use Cold Water for Consumption ...". https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/21471/is-hot-tap-water-safe-for-cooking
In addition, where I live, the tap water is decent but it's better to filter. The majority of filters don't handle hot water.
Be aware of legionnaire's disease risks when building any such contraption - potentially standing warm water and hard to clean inside spaces, bad combination.
@rackandboneman Yes, if this is done it must be with pipes as short as possible, which is why I suggested it right under the sink. Just like with hot water you're going to run it for a bit to get the warm water out, ejecting any cold water and providing only freshly mixed water.
There are three things come to mind. Point of use water heaters. For a shower or tap. Set the temp. turn on the switch, turn on the tap. electric. Or water heaters for pets. Set the temp. hold water at a high of about 100f. Found in pet stores. For 2 1/2 gal. or 5 gal. Set on counter. Building supply stores or the pet shop. I see them in Asia under baby needs. Were women want warm water for a child on hand. But look on line there for one. May not be in America. Most of Asia is 220v so may not work in America.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.413512
| 2017-12-09T18:43:44 |
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|
86482
|
How to tell the difference between sugar crystals and mold in dried fruit?
I am making dried pears and I noticed that there are some white lumps on the surface of the fruit:
This resource says that this phenomenon may occur in figs and that it is sugar crystallizing. However, pears are much less sugary than figs and therefore I am not sure whether this is the same phenomenon.
There is no bad smell and they still taste good. Is there some method that I can use to test whether this is indeed sugar?
The pears were pre-dried in hot-vent oven, then placed into a dedicated fruit dryer for a couple of hours, then placed on a clean sheet of paper on the radiator.
If you are talking about the cut surface of the pears, especially near the core cut-out, those little white dots may be not sugar, but a normal occurrence in pears, little gritty cells in the fruit. They are what crunch between your teeth when you eat a pear, aren't harmful, and are not mold. Mold would be in irregular patches likely with a greenish/bluish/grayish tint, and the larger patches would probably look a little furry, or at least have a matte finish, not shiny. This very uniform array of tiny dots (at least what I see) don't look like mold.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.414194
| 2017-12-17T19:55:18 |
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|
86552
|
What's an effective way to remove this stubborn burnt-on oil from a saucepan?
I have a stainless steel saucepan that has dark burnt on oil around the sides. I'm assuming it's from cooking oil since I use oil in this saucepan a lot.
It seems to just keep building up and up and I can't get rid of it.
This morning I tried boiling 1cup water with 1cup distilled vinegar for 5 minutes, then adding baking soda. I emptied the water, then tried to scour it clean but it made very little difference.
Is there some industrial strength stuff I can buy to help me out here?
Here's a pic: https://i.sstatic.net/A0LhK.jpg
If your pan is not aluminum then try some hot soda solution or some kind of stronger alkali. Vinegar doesn't help much and even less when boiled because it evaporates very quickly. Boiling with soda may work better. But again don't use hot alkali on aluminum.
I know your looks darker than the one in the duplicate target, but I it is basically the same thing, only yours is burnt more. And you won't get any answers other than those on the other questions anyway, based on my observation of 6 years of cleaning advice on this site.
If your pan is truly stainless steel, you can get burned on brown and sticky oil off the sides with oven cleaner (US brand "EZ-off" or other brand). This product is definitely not recommended for other metals such as copper, aluminum, etc.. But true stainless steel, I have used it no prob. If you are in doubt, you can test a small amount out on an inconspicuous tiny spot at first.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.414320
| 2017-12-19T16:49:36 |
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|
85599
|
Can I save peanut oil from turkey fryer after rain?
I just fried my first turkey and left the oil outside to cool. While we were inside enjoying the turkey we realized it had been raining for a while. I didn't have a lid on the pot. I was planning on filtering the oil and storing for later use. How bad will it be to reheat the oil with a bit of water in it?
UPDATE: I should have given more information about how much water may have entered the pot. It was probably raining anywhere from 2-4 minutes by the time I went out and covered the pot. The oil was still over 200 F at this point. I wouldn't think that much water really made its way in. Also, wouldn't any rain water that hit the oil have immediately evaporated?
I think it's going to depend on how much "a bit of water" really is.
Really, really bad. You'd want to decant the oil off the top, then heat it really slowly in a very tall container with a splatter screen. If any water is in it, it'll bubble and throw oil ... potentially starting a fire. (Which is why we want a tall container, and the splatter screen as a backup)
You need to get the water out. Also, frying other things may taste turkey-ish; you may want to try some other filtering. A little water is OK (it'll splatter a bit, just like when you put something a bit wet in hot oil). But this doesn't sound like a little water. Remember that oil fires are pretty easy to create and can be tricky to put out.
Heating it slowly could give water even more opportunity to pool at the bottom and go for your neck...
Generic, short answer, just to make sure a potentially dangerous state of things is not left uncommented.
Certainly unsafe for deep frying at that scale unless you can guarantee you got all the water out - any water separating out tends to collect at the bottom of the vessel, where it can boil suddenly when the setup is heated again, propelling hot oil out of the vessel. Hot oil being propelled in any way is usually very unsafe.
I do not consider my own answer all there is to say on it. All I said is "if you get water beneath the oil, bad news". Which needed to be said, quick. I think an answer that describes a process to avoid that deserves the green, not this one.
I ended up going to urgent care because of a little water in the bottom of the pot when frying falafel. It was boiling off rapidly, and the pot exploded when I turned the heat down. It jumped off the stove, and there was oil on the ceiling. I think I wasn't blinded because of the lid.
What happened was the Leidenfrost effect. You know when you put drops of water on a heated pan and instead of immediately turning to steam, the water skips around on a layer of steam. That's what set up the conditions for the explosion.
The water at the bottom of the pot was steaming enough that the oil didn't come in contact with it. When I turned the heat down, the oil contacted the water and all the water immediately turned to steam. I'd guess there was 2-3 tablespoons of water.
Boiling the water off may be dangerous. I'm not sure how you can prevent the water from boiling suddenly - perhaps by using a low heat with very little boiling over time. It's more dangerous than you'd think.
Ouch. I never thought of the leidenfrost effect in that regard. I'll still suggest decanting ... letting it separate, then pouring the top off ... before you try heating it.
Unless you had a deluge you're not going to to have a lot of water in there, even if you do it's no big deal as long as you are thorough in getting rid of it. Oil and water do not mix and oil floats on water, so any water will pool on the bottom at the lowest part of the fryer. You can use a turkey baster to remove and water from the bottom, just squeeze the baster out, stick it down to the bottom, then suck whatever is there up and squeeze it out into a different container. Keep the process up until you are consistently sucking up only oil. Let everything settle for a couple of hours, then repeat the process. Do this until you consistently get only oil.
it might be worth putting something under the pot so it's not on flat ground ... so there's a corner for the water to collect, rather than a thin layer across the bottom of the pot.
"any water will pool on the bottom at the lowest part of the fryer" - "don't worry about all the black powder, we protected it by putting a bullet in front of it" :)
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.414477
| 2017-11-13T00:56:43 |
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|
85788
|
Can Soda Lime glass handle hot liquid? (Like tea, soup, etc.)
Can Soda Lime glass handle storage of hot liquid?
Like tea, soup, hot chocolate, etc.
Yes and No. Soda lime glass is not resistant enough to thermal shock to withstand quick changes in temperature, if you pour boiling liquid into cool soda lime glass it is likely to shatter. If hot glass is suddenly exposed to cold it is also likely to shatter. This means to use soda lime glass with hot liquids you need to gradually warm them close to the temperature if the liquid you are about to put in. Many big temperature changes is likely to weaken the glass, making it less resistant over time.
So can you? Yes, if you are cautious and cushion any large temperature changes, but it is not recommended.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.414840
| 2017-11-21T07:28:13 |
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|
91849
|
Unpleasant crust on bread
I'm baking ~67% hydration bread, following this recipe Kvali food dutch oven bread.
The bread is baked using a covered cast iron casserole dish heated to 250'c, and following the cooking times suggested in the recipe.
However, the bread is developing a crust that is "sucky" rather than either chewy or crunchy. It pulls moisture from the mouth and ends up unpleasant to eat - despite having blisters.
This effect gets worse the longer wait to eat the bread - it's bearable straight out of the oven but after an hour or so is a major detractor from the bread experience.
The link didn't work for me. And I assume the question would be how to fix the recipe, as there wasn't one specifically stated. (but I can't see the recipe). If you could edit the question to add the recipe, they're not considered copyrightable in the US. (so long as you just stick to the ingredients & steps, and avoid the 'flavor text')
Thanks Joe,
The link was very slightly off - so this should work now.
Assuming you did remember to take the lid off for the last stage, @Mark Wildon's answer sounds good - it could well be overproofed.
The recipe specifies a two hour proof after the twelve hour fermentation. Depending on the activity of the yeast and the ambient temperature this might be too long. In overproofed bread the gluten network is fragile and unable to support the loaf through baking. The result is a soggy or dense loaf and crust, consistent with your observation that the crust isn't chewy or crunchy.
Also there are no instructions to slash the loaf before baking. Slashing helps the loaf expand and gives more variety to the crust since some parts are more exposed to the heat of the oven then others.
Finally you mention that the crust is best straight out of the oven. After baking the loaf is still slightly moist: cutting into it immediately will prevent it from drying fully. Again I suspect this leads to a soggy crust.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.414922
| 2018-08-22T23:16:48 |
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|
30676
|
How to reduce the eggs from over burnt at the sides in a wok?
I usually throw 3 eggs in a bowl and stir (also known as scrambled eggs) until it become a mixture, then I throw into a wok and fry it. However, I always get the sides (the perimeter or the edges) burnt.
So, how do I prevent the sides from getting over cooked?
I want to cook like the picture below:
I don't want to over fried the edge (or the sides or the perimeter or the outer circle) as shown in the following picture:
You might want to describe what kind of eggs you are making... is it scrambled eggs? An egg "crepe" to roll up other foods in? Also, diameter is the length of a line across a circle at the widest part, through the center; do you mean the perimeter, the edge?
@SAJ14SAJ I have added illustrations. Hope it helps.
My best guess from your pictures is: 1) Add a small amount of water, milk, or cream, perhaps 1 tsp per egg; 2) make sure to thoroughly beat the eggs, until they are fairly uniform in color--the white and yolk should be well mixed; 3) cook quite gently on a low flame. This application might also work better in a flat-bottomed non-stick skillet, rather than a rounded wok--I cannot tell from the pictures due to the dark color what kind of pan you are using.
Is there any particular reason you feel you must use a wok for this? I've got a big carbon-steel wok proudly on display on my kitchen wall but I still reach into my cupboard for the tiny Teflon pan when I make scrambled eggs. Woks aren't meant for even or non-stick cooking.
@Aaronut, Oh I see - I never thought that Woks are not meant for even or non-stick cooking. Looks like I have to go shopping for a Teflon pan. By the way, can any flat pan perform the same task as Taflon. I got a silver flat pan which I use to use it.
Yes, any flat pan is fine. Teflon just makes things easier.
You can fry an egg in a wok. Is it the easiest pan to use? Maybe not. But it is doable. I do it occasionally in mine. Check out this video.
A couple things.... play with your heat. It is possibly too high. You'll also want to make sure your Wok is well seasoned prior to using (I can't tell by your picture, but I'll assume it's carbon steel or cast iron). If it's well seasoned (as in the video)you simply have a round non-stick pan. If you set your heat right, you should be able to cook an egg like that in there. Also in your two pictures, the first egg looks scrambled quite a bit smoother before putting on the heat.
I would probably not pick anything like stainless steel though (most pans that are silver coloured), as they definitely won't be non-stick and will require a lot more oil to keep your egg from sticking.
Carbon steel doesn't really season the way cast iron does; seasoned cast iron works as well as a non-stick pan but a seasoned wok isn't that much better than lightly-greased stainless steel... it still sticks.
shrug I have a carbon steel wok and it seems to work a whole lot better than my stainless steel wok. Possibly not AS well, but still more than well enough to fry an egg.
That said, I have teflon pans too, and the large majority of the time I use them to fry eggs. I'm just saying it's entirely possible.
You didnt mention what temperature the flame is under your wok. Low, Medium or High. Also Powerburner on some cooktops. Maybe turn the flame down some.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.415116
| 2013-02-04T10:13:38 |
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|
23634
|
Can I use an induction cooker to restore silica gel's water absorbency?
It was mentioned in an answer to my previous question that silica gel can be heated in the oven to restore its water absorbent properties. I only have access to an induction cooker, so it possible to use that instead?
If you heat silica gel, you will drive out the water from it. What actually happens depends on how you heat it, and how hot it gets.
If you have a thick layer, you may not be able to effectively dehydrate the crystals in a reasonable time.
If you try to use a gas oven, you're on a loser because burning gas makes water and carbon dioxide - it takes ages trying to do the job with moist heat.
You might be able to do a thin layer in the bottom of a pan on an induction cooker, but remember that you cannot achieve temperature control very easily. The optimum range to regenerate the silica gel is 120 degC to 140 degC, and you really want a gradual temperature rise to do the job effectively - better to hold the stuff at 80 to 90 deg C for half an hour before you go to 120 deg C.
If you try to dehydrate too quickly, the crystals will crack and break up, so you may end up with a fine powder, rather than crystals.
Are there better ways beside putting in a oven or on a induction cooker. (cause the comments made here make me scare that the silica gel powder can kill or injure people badly) Can I put it under the sun and wait for it to change from pink to blue colour? (I would appreciate if someone can suggest a method that is simple & safe. Thanks)
Wow that's a tricky one! If I had to, not saying that you should (had to CYA) I would use a cast iron pot. Cast iron is the only material that I know, that can heat empty without any ill effects. I would make a rack from crumpled foil (aluminum) since it doesn’t conduct the heat from the induction cooker and will prevent contact with the bottom. Also keep the lid slightly cracked for venting and to prevent the heat from building to high. There are different melting points to various plastics, so I would keep the temperate under 200 degrees since plastic food wrap melts at approx. 220 deg. An oven thermometer would be a wise investment. This may take longer to dry out the Silica Gel but if an induction cooker is the only method available to me, this would be the safer choice.
If you look at the advice he received earlier you'll see that the target temperature for drying silica gel is 250 °F (around 120 °C, I think). Not sure what the highest temperature is can tolerate is.
Yes, but he did not specify whether the silica gel was in a little plastic container, pouch or loose. I didn't want to take a chance.
stainless steel can also be heated empty to high temps. It may discolor slightly if you go really high, but not around 220°F.
To say "crumpled foil (aluminum) since it doesn’t conduct the heat from the induction cooker" is not the truth - you meant that aluminium doesn't heat up from the induction coil. Aluminium conducts heat very efficiently - or you wouldn't be using it!
This answer seems entirely speculative, and in the context of a potentially dangerous substance, I don't think we want speculation.
Aluminum is a good conductor of regular heat, but the question was about Induction Electromagnetic Heat which alum cannot conduct. The transfer heat from cast iron to foil is not significant enough to be a concern. My point was to avoid contact with the Cast Iron, due to the quick heating of electromagnet energy. The foil would be a protective layer and SG properties can degrade if heated too high, absorb any oils on the bottom of the pot (seasoning) or just pick up the iron color making it more difficult to determine when the SG is dried out. But I appreciate you telling me what I meant.
Lastly, It seems you speculated on my knowledge of the subject. It's no more dangerous than baking a cake in a cast iron pot that is on top of a burner. Even baking cakes needs safety precautions. Sources, on the internet, craft stores or even companies who sell SG. Did you know the cheapest form of SG is Kitty Litter. Works great to control humidity in closets, vitamin & prescription bottles, crispness in food, chips, cookies, Japanese wasabi chips, I use it for camping, you can put in your silver or jewelry cases to slow down tarnishing. I could go on, but I digress.
If you didn't mean what @klypos suggests, you are wrong. Aluminium can conduct heat from any source equally well, this is basic physics. But I still suspect that you two mean the same thing, only you are using the term "conducting" wrong, and klypos corrected your usage.
@Onepotmeals - you wrote a faux pas - forget it. Don't compound the error by talking about cat litter, which is NOT silica gel - it is usually some kind of absorbent material, and the important factor is that it absorbs odors. Y the info is useful, but it is off subject. I suspect you have the Paligorskite variety.
@Aaronaut - the health concerns for silica gel are mainly to do with the very fine small particle size forms that are produced industrially to help tablets disintegrate in the stomach. If you meet that stuff, it is usually mixed into something, and you get problems if you INHALE the powder and it gets in your lung during manufacturing processes. As a foodstuff it is mostly harmless, it is a problem for those working with it - not in the end product, not a problem for end users - an inert excipient.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.415421
| 2012-05-08T01:44:39 |
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|
23111
|
How can I make melted chocolate set faster?
I am going to be operating a stand selling frozen bananas (just like in Arrested Development), and we dip the bananas in chocolate. I bought some milk and dark chocolate wafers that can be used in fondu fountains, however we have no fountain. We will just be dipping the bananas in the warm chocolate.
My question is, how can I decrease the setting time of the chocolate? That is, I want the chocolate to solidify into a shell around the banana as quickly as possible so that the chocolate doesn't drip off the banana. Is there something that I can add to the melted chocolate wafers to decrease the set speed?
Edit: Just found this question, thanks to rumtscho's comment.
No-melt chocolate coating on ice cream bars
Why do you want to use chocolate? Real chocolate doesn't make a hard shell, especially dark chocolate. And there is no way to set real chocolate well so quickly - you can cool it quickly, but then you deal with unpleasant side effects like bad texture and sweating. I would say that you will have it easier to use "cocoa-containing fat glaze", this is the stuff in which Magnum-style ice cream is coated. And keep the milk away, it has no place in chocolate and even less in a cocoa glaze.
Real chocolate (cocoa solids, cocoa powder, and sugar) is not the best thing for what you want. If properly handled, it can give you a great tasting glaze - but you don't have the conditions to handle it properly (slow cooling), so you will run into problems with it (bad texture, sweating, bad looks/dull). Also, it won't be a really snappy shell. And at this temperature, the good flavor is not very noticeable anyway.
What you want to use is cocoa-containing fat glaze. This is the stuff which commercial "chocolate" coated ice cream like the Magnum brand uses. It is sold in supermarkets as "chocolate cake glaze" and similar names, but check the ingredient list to be sure. It should consist of cocoa solids and vegetable fat, possibly some emulsifiers too.
You should only melt your glaze, preferably have a low-temperature water bath at your booth (not full boil), and hold the glaze there for dipping. Don't add milk at all. Milk is a bad choice for chocolate covering anyway. Cream is used for making cake icings called ganache (mixed with real chocolate, not this glaze stuff), but it makes a soft, smeary icing, not a hard, snappy shell. Use the glaze the way it is, without adding anything.
This glaze is quite hard at room temperature already. A thin layer of it on a frozen banana should go to below room temperature almost instantly. I think you will have your shell without any special preparation. But I have never done it this way, so I would advise you to experiment. If my hunch is wrong, there still isn't anything you can add - this stuff doesn't harden because of anything added, it hardens because at room temperature, it is a hard solid. So your only way to speed hardening is to return the banana to the freezer for a short time. But then you are likely to get a condensation problem, so keep it as short as possible.
Modifying the chocolate mixture will be more delicate and time consuming than just keeping the bananas cool. If it were me, I would just look into that. Not too cool, mind you, or that would obviously affect the banana, but certainly cooler than the ambient outside temperature. In Arrested Development, it was a FROZEN banana stand. The chocolate would set very quickly in that case.
Yes, they are frozen. We did this last year as well, and we had chocolate that had corn oil in it, I believe, which was from Dairy Queen and was made to solidify quickly around frozen things. So, basically, the only way to decrease set time is through complicated modifications to the chocolate?
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.415965
| 2012-04-17T04:42:39 |
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|
16054
|
Place oil on cold or hot skillet?
Possible Duplicate:
Do you heat the pan first, then add oil? Or put the oil in and heat up with the pan?
When sauteing food with oil, how do the following two sequences differ in the final taste of the food?
A
Place oil in skillet.
Turn on stove and wait for oil to heat up.
Place food in skillet.
B
Turn on stove and wait until it's hot.
Place oil in skillet. Oil should heat up in a few seconds.
Place food in skillet.
Although the earlier question doesn't really go into the taste difference between the two methods.
I think that the taste difference is exactly what is meant by "degrading the oil" which a number of the answers referenced.
While the question may be subtly different, I think that the answers in the linked question already suitably answer this one.
Version B runs the risk of overheating the pan and damaging the coatings on it. I've always been told to put oil in the pan before heating for that reason - nothing to do with taste. I'd seriously doubt you could detect any difference in taste.
A Sauté doesn't have a coating. I always use method two as the oil will not burn if you leave the pan unattended. I don't think, as you do, that there will be any difference in taste.
A Saute might have a coating. However, people would have read "saute" as a verb and in that case it's a process done in whatever pan is to hand in your normal house - meaning a normal frying pan which probably does have a coating.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.416298
| 2011-07-09T18:22:30 |
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|
14830
|
How to make an apple pie like KFC/McDonalds?
I'm trying to figure out to make an apple pie like KFC/McDonalds, something crispy and delicious, such as one of these:
(above - McDonald's Apple Pie)
(above - KFC Apple Pie)
I do not want the consistency of a typical homemade or store-bought apple pie, such as the one below:
What is the difference between the first two pies and the last? What do I need to know in order to make the crisp, gooey pies in the first two photos?
Sorry, recipe requests aren't acceptable questions here on Seasoned Advice. Try Googling 'fried apple pies' - there should be lots of recipes online.
@ElendilTheTall Thanks! I was trying to google it, but I failed. I didn't know it's "fried". Thanks again ^_^;
There isn't much at a fast-food joint that isn't fried! Fried apple pies are actually an old Southern-US thing.
@ElendilTheTall I've searched a lot but couldn't find "crispy" fried apple pie recipe :(
Try: http://southernfood.about.com/od/apples/r/bl90416c.htm
@ElendilTheTall The link you provided seems like what I'm looking for! Can't thank you enough :D
Hey, it's what we do ;)
I don't know @Elendil, I think the basic question was answerable as something other than a recipe request, and the answer is simply that he's looking for a southern-style deep-fried apple pie (he didn't know what to look for). I'd upvote that as an answer if you want to submit it.
Alrighty then...
Edited to include the photos inline and removed the "recipe" wording; this should be good to stay now.
@Aaronut Thank you very much, you're a good moderator! ^_^
McDonald's' et al pies are essentially fried pies, a feature of Southern US cooking, adapted for cooking in fast food facilities. A Google search for 'fried apple pie recipes' turns up plenty of results. Try this:
http://southernfood.about.com/od/apples/r/bl90416c.htm
I completely stopped buying McPies when they stopped frying them.
Ah, the southern US - we fry everything. :)
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.416479
| 2011-05-16T08:32:17 |
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|
115533
|
Why should rice be cooked uncovered?
The recipe on rice packs I buy says rice should be boiled uncovered. Why is that? I tend to cover it while cooking as it lets me use much less power. Do I miss something taste-wise?
what kind of rice ? is the rice par-cooked ? or 5-minutes rice packs ?
@Max Basmati rice, not parboiled, cooking time 10 minutes.
10 minutes is short for non-parboiled rice. Is there a long sitting time after that?
This is strange because apparently all rice cookers are covered, and 10 minutes seem way too short... I would choose to trust my experience rather than the recipe on the packs.
You can cook rice covered or uncovered, it will not impact the flavor. The amount of liquid you begin with, and your cooking time, could certainly be impacted. There are several methods for cooking rice (covered, uncovered, and both). If you are using pre- or par-cooked rice, the directions are likely just a finishing step, formulated so that you don't over-cook the product. You could still use a cover, but would likely need to keep a close eye on it or experiment a bit to get a result you like.
There are a lot of different methods for cooking rice. If you use a method that is intended for uncovered cooking and cover the rice, the rice will turn out waterlogged.
If you want to cook your rice covered, you have to follow a method that is intended for covered cooking.
What do you mean by "waterlogged"? There's water remaining at the end of the cooking which I drain, so it hardly seems to be a problem. I get the point though: the suggested amount of rice/water is stated for uncovered cooking, if I put the cover on I should use more rice or less water, right?
There are methods intended for draining the water, this is not in itself a sign of a problem. I mean that the rice kernels themselves are waterlogged.
If the recipe did not require you to wash the rice, then it would explain a lot. Without washing the rice, you'll be getting a lot of excess starch in the grains, and boiling with a lid on would likely result in it foaming-over (usually making a mess).
Did the recipe specify to cover it after the water is absorbed, or not cover it al all? Typical instructions for cooking rice on the stove include covering the rice after it boils.
Apart from the other answers given, certain types of rice and lentils when being boiled, create a lot of froth and bubbles. When the vessel is closed, these bubbles do not break up easily, and they build up and spill over the vessel. They also sputter quite a lot and leave a mess over the stove top.
Sure, but for me the the whole point of covering is to reduce the power to the minimum, at which the water barely boils at all. Covering without reducing the power results in exactly the result you have described.
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.416678
| 2021-05-05T10:21:42 |
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|
116214
|
Getting even heat on a gas stove
I am cooking on gas stoves very seldomly, mostly in some hotel/airbnb's with a small personal kitchen. I often have this problem: the gas comes out in a ring of blue flames. I think more expensive stoves may have more than one concentric ring, but the ones I encountered always had only one circle of small flames.
If I put a large pot or pan on a large circle, then it seems to me that the outside portions of the pot are heated much more strongly than the center due to the direct contact with the flames.
If I put a large pot on a small circle, it seems more even as the gas hits the center first but then flows outwards more or less uniformly. But the small stove then usually does not have enough oomph to heat a big pot efficiently.
How do you do this? Is it just as I noticed, and there is no real solutions? Would a really good gas stove always have concentric rings and thus a more even heat distribution? Or is there some other technique to work around it?
a good stove has different burner sizes, and also good pots and pans are good at distributing heat naturally .
As these are rented places, I suspect part of the problem is cheap thin-based pans, especially very thin steel.
I have similar gas rings at home and mostly don't have an issue - but I have a choice including cast iron and sandwich base if I need even heat. I'm currently using a fairly thin aluminium pan for omelettes, and even that is OK.
The exception on my stove is the only concentric one, the biggest, because the inner burner is pathetic. It's meant to be for woks (which of course are thin) but the hottest bit by far is halfway up the sides.
Note that your small burner towards the middle heats the pan more efficiently but less effectively, i.e. more of the heat from the flame gets into the pan, but there's not a huge amount of heat to start with. This is good for saving energy when heating up or simmering, but useless if you want high heat.
As for what you can do - not always very much unless you carry your own cooking gear. Sometimes there's a sweet spot using a fairly large burner turned down (as the circle gets smaller but the power is still greater than a little burner). Sometimes extra preheating of the pan and any oil is helpful. Stirring more than you might expect works for some things, but if that's not an option, sliding the whole pan around might be, so moving the hotspots every few seconds.
True. The effect of thin pans is especially noticeable with camping gear which is thin to save weight. Sometimes the hot spots are bad enough that you can see where the individual flames are once you inevitably burn something.
@Michael yes, I camp as well, sometimes backpacking, and backpacking stoves make things worse. In that case I try to cook fairly forgiving foods, i.e. mostly boiling or similar
I have recently been at such a place again, and have brought a good, heavy carbon-steel pan with me. Problem solved.
@AnoE I often have decent stuff with me when staying in rental properties, but it's still fairly light (my only vehicle is a campervan, with a kitchen of its own)
You could get one of these:
It's called a heat diffuser, and they come in many different shapes, sizes, and price ranges. A cheap one will probably do the job well enough, though might break over time. The general purpose is to reduce the heat applied to the pot, but it also causes it to be more evenly distributed. You might want one with larger holes so you're not reducing the heat too much, just distributing it.
You can get cast iron ones that are designed to sit on top of the burner grate, they're useful if you need a really low amount of heat and have a powerful range.
@Crazymoomin Yeah, though those are likely to be on the more expensive end of the price range, and also they're quite heavy if you're going to be travelling with it as the OP seems to be planning. The cheapo ones like what I pictured will only run you a couple bucks, and not add much weight to carry around. The handles do tend to break after several years if you're not careful. I would indeed go for cast iron if you're planning to stay in one place for a long time.
I think for something like caramelizing onions, the thin steel diffusers probably aren't going to cut it on gas. Probably okay for everything else.
Move the pan continuously
At least in my cooking experience, the part where you would care about even heat mostly is some kind of browning process and tends to not lasts very long. If you move the pan around on the stove continuously, everything gets heated evenly. As a bonus, exactly that crappy type of sheet metal cookware that causes this problems is also the lightest, and thus very easy to handle.
Cook liquid dishes
Soups, currys, stews, pasta sauces... everything that is liquid-based during the cooking process doesn't care one bit about even heat distribution, since the convection inside the liquid is taking care of it automatically. Frankly, if I were only encountering this problem occasionally during traveling, this is what I'd do. Also it's a great opportunity to explore new types of dishes.
One technique I found useful when I cooked on gas was to more extensively pre-heat the pan. This doesn't work perfectly on thin metal pans, as you probably will see in a lot of short-term rentals, but it's better than not doing it. This allows you to cook at slightly lower temperatures while achieving more even heat.
If that doesn't help sufficiently, consider modifying how you cook (or, what you cook). Don't cook an omelet, cook scrambled eggs or over-easy or cook with a small amount of water, or one of the numerous other options that aren't as sensitive to heat evenness. Cook a stir-fry where you're moving things around the pan anyway. Fry in oil, which will handle the heat transfer. Lots of options for cooking methods that don't rely on perfectly even heat - just need to find the ones that work for you.
I can cook omelettes all day long on a gas cooktop. The issue isn't really the beat source, it's more the quality of the pan and the skills of the cook.
One needs to use the appropriate size burner for the pan size being used. On a gas stove , the flames should never come up the sides of a pot. If you notice the water is only boiling near the edges the burner is probably turned up to high for the pot size. This is the reason the better stoves come with multiple sized burners where as the low end one usually come with 4 burners of which 3 are usually identical and one may be a higher BTU output burner for large pots of water or 12 inch frying pan's . Your only choice is to pick the right size pan. On my six burner range, one burner is an 7500 BTU, two are 9500 BTU, one is 13000 BTU and one is 15000 BTU. The sixth burner is a concentric burner but both rings are nit in play at the same time. If you set the gas control between high and medium it uses the outer ring a 21000 BTU burner for boiling large amounts of water in a large pot. Between medium and low. it uses the inner ring which gives you a 5000 BTU burner delicate simmering. The other thing and this applies to nearly any stove, the quality of the cookware is paramount. This doesn't mean you need to go invest in 600 dollar All-Clad set of stainless cookware, but that 19.99 dollar pan at the discount store is probably not going to conduct heat very well and will have hot spots and be uneven. In the US I find off-price stores (like Marshall's, HomeGoods etc) to be an excellent place to get really good cookware at great savings.
This is really a rambling answer. Can you clean it up a bit by editing?
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.416961
| 2021-06-25T10:00:55 |
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|
115039
|
Is cured meat broth edible?
We bought a chunk of raw beef in brine in the store. I was marked "fully cured,... boiling will develop pink color". After adding some water and slow cooking it overnight it turned into delicious corned beef with beautiful color and texture.
I tried the broth, it tastes very salty but also delicious. Wanted to keep it for a beef soup but not sure if the chemicals used to cure the beef may have deposited in the broth in unsafe concentration. Anyone has an experience and/or knowledge of that? Is the broth edible?
All the ingredients used in curing are safe to eat, otherwise they would not be able to be used in a commercial sense. Typically cured meats of the sort that you describe are called something like "corned beef". These are produced using a curing salt that is composed of sodium nitrate and sodium nitrite along with regular table salt (sodium chloride). The sodium nitrate is the component responsible for the pink colour as it converts myoglobin in the muscle into the pink nitrosomyoglobin.
Corned meats can be cooked and eaten without boiling them, often by roasting. As roasting without boiling would result in you consuming all the salts in the meat without those lost in the boiling process, you can, by inference, assume that the broth is also safe to consume as it contains only a portion of the salts from the meat.
In addition, bacon and ham make excellent and delicious stocks, and these are often cured in a similar manner to corned beef, so your stock should be safe to eat.
It is both off-topic here and potentially controversial, but readers may want to consult medical references on potential risks associated with the consumption of nitrates and nitrites.
@njuffa, indeed, but as medical/health related topics other than food safety are off-topic here, I didn't include any information about that in the answer.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.417574
| 2021-03-31T04:05:15 |
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|
94508
|
Can I make a sweet hot water crust pastry?
I’ve been making lots of Hand raised pies recently and I’m wondering if it’s possible to do a sweet hot water crust pastry. What I’m wanting to attempt is a Christmassy Hand raised mince pie.
My usual savoury pie pastry recipe for one pie with lid is 150g of plain flour, 33g lard, 50ml water, 1tsp milk and a pinch of salt. I find this amount fits my pie dolly perfectly with no waste.
I’m hoping it will just be as simple as adding some sugar but wonder about the effect of other substitutions? Lard swapped for coconut oil? Adding butter?
Has anyone tried a sweet hot water crust before as I haven't found much online?
Just a guess, but you probably can't add much sugar without changing the consistency. Dropping the salt may help with the sweetness and can't hurt the amount of sugar you can add. I'm not a fan of artificial sweeteners but a tiny amount can add a lot of sweetness (if you get the neat stuff rather than sugar substitute, which is mixed with a bulking agent). I believe the type of fat is critical, but don't trust me on that, wait for an expert
You can easily add sugar to pie crust dough. In Germany, the formula "3-2-1" doesn't mean "flour-fat-water", it means "flour-fat-sugar". And I believe that I have seen shortbread cookies with even higher sugar ratios. To clarify, you are supposed to use sifted confectioner's sugar, since any larger crystals will have a hard time dissolving.
These doughs are generally made as shortbread (= simple mixing), not as a pate brisee (which is hot water). But I think the French do make sweet pate brisee. Couldn't find a source though, since it seems modern French websites don't care much for the traditional distinction of pate sablee (cold method) and pate brisee (hot water method). Still, I would just go ahead and try it - mix the confectioner's sugar into the dough and see how it works out.
Also, I wouldn't substitute the lard. I love the texture it gives, and I am personally not at all put off by its taste in sweet recipes. I know some people may react to it as weird, simply because they have never encountered the combination, but if you give it a chance, you may be pleasantly surprised.
I agree with this answer. Generally hot water pastries are easier for the cook and tolerate minor changes much better than shortcrust pastries.
I was thinking of adding sugar to the hot water/lard to help it dissolve. I didn't think of icing sugar! if your saying 3 flour to 1 sugar would that be 50g icing sugar to try?
Yes, try it with 50 g. You also have "space" to increase the fat, if you want to play around and see which texture fits you best, right now you are somewhere in the middle between pate brisee and a dumpling.
when I make HWC I tend to leave it for 24 hours in fridge, then shape in, then leave another 24 hours as thats what the pork pie recipes I've had most success with do. will try 50g icing sugar and add some butter with the lard then and see what happens in few days.
tried this today adding 50g Icing Sugar and 25g Butter and omitted salt. The dough ended up much stiffer than usual after chilling (probably the butter) but tasted exactly what I was after once baked so answer accepted and thanks for help.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.417749
| 2018-12-05T07:47:48 |
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|
115063
|
Plant-based lamb?
How could plant-based lamb be made? I'm looking not only to imitate the flavor* but also the texture of slow-cooked lamb.
*cf. "How can I imitate the flavor of lamb?"
Please explain - you linked to another Q/A. Why isn’t your question a duplicate? To me it looks suspiciously so?
Does this answer your question? How can I imitate the flavor of lamb?
@Stephie I'm primarily looking to imitate the texture of slow-cooked lamb.
This is one of those challenges that the food industry has been trying to crack for decades. I'm sure once they do it will be popular. At the moment 'meat-free meat' just isn't there yet.
Use a seitan recipe:
SEITAN This versatile vegan meat replacement can be seared, grilled or
fried!
1¾ cups Vital Wheat Gluten (seitan)
⅓ cup Nutritional Yeast
2 tsp Garlic Granules
1 tsp Onion Powder
2 tsp Crushed Fennel
½ tsp Turmeric
3 Tbsp Soy Sauce
1 tsp Molasses
1 tsp Tahini
1½ Tbsp Oil
1½ cups Mushroom or Vegetable Broth
In a medium bowl, whisk wheat gluten, nutritional yeast and dry
spices. In a separate bowl, combine remaining ingredients and stir
until smooth. Make a well in the dry ingredients and pour in the wet
mixture, using a fork to bring dough together (it will be lumpy and
springy).
Pour dough onto an 18-inch-long sheet of aluminum foil or parchment
paper and wrap like a burrito, forming log.
Bring 4-6 cups water to a rolling boil in a medium pot and place a
tight-fitting steamer basket inside. Add seitan, wrapped in foil or
parchment, cover with the pot lid and steam for 80 minutes.
Do not remove lid. Let seitan cool for 30 minutes before cutting into
slices or chunks. Enjoy as is or sear on the stovetop.
Makes 1 large loaf.
Instead of nutritional yeast, add cooked TVP to modify texture. Instead of the spices suggested above, use a lamb marinade or seasoning.
See this video (or this similar one using cooked pasta and tofu).
Happy Easter!
From the OED for "seitan":Etymology: < Japanese seitan (apparently a1966 (see note); usually written in katakana; not listed in dictionaries of Japanese), probably < sei- raw, unprocessed, bio- (originally ‘life, birth’; < Middle Chinese) + tan- (in tanpaku, tanpakushitsu protein; < Middle Chinese), or perhaps < Japanese sei- to be, become ( < Middle Chinese) + tan-.The word is said to have been coined in the early 1960s by the Japanese founder of macrobiotics, Nyoichi (or Nyoiti) Sakurazawa, known in the West as George (or Georges) Ohsawa (1893–1966).
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.418016
| 2021-04-01T17:12:35 |
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|
78763
|
Why is water added to the egg wash of challah bread?
This recipe for challah bread calls for an egg wash composed of 1 egg and 1 tsp of water (see the final item in the ingredient list).
What is the effect of this small amount of water? It seems like most other challah recipes use egg alone.
Egg white is very gloopy, unless you cut it with some water or milk it's hard to get a good, even layer. With challah this can mean you get a blob of egg white running down into a seam between braids which doesn't look good. A bit of water loosens it up and makes it much more spreadable.
If anything, for egg washes in general, it might be more common to add water (or milk or cream) than not.
Thinning the wash makes it easier to brush on an even, not-too-thick layer. It also tends to get you a more golden color, less dark brown.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.418331
| 2017-02-28T00:13:14 |
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|
25420
|
Is Casu Marzu illegal in the United States?
I am having difficulty determining whether Casu Marzu is illegal in the United States. There are reports of it being available, albeit briefly, in New York last year. Also, I have heard that it is illegal because it is unpasteurized.
Wikipedia's description:
Casu Marzu....is a traditional Sardinian sheep milk cheese, notable for containing
live insect larvae (maggots). Although found mostly in the island of
Sardinia, the cheese is also found in the nearby Corsica, where it
goes by the name of casgiu merzu.
Are all unpasteurized cheeses & dairy products illegal in the United States? Is Casu Marzu illegal because it is unpasteurized? Or might it have something to do with those maggots...
You just posted this question to gross us out, didn't you? Mission accomlished, then ...
Something tells me that cutting into a cheese and having maggots leap out in a 6-inch radius around the cheese would make for a pretty good scene in a horror movie. (If you can call a scene in a horror movie "good")
WooHoo! Klingon food!
The cheese is only toxic if the larvae aren't alive. ☺
You ain't going to get anything like that into the states legally - not with the chance of livestock still being viable in there. It doesn't need pasteurising,it needs paralyzing before it will get past US customs.
You might get some included as a component of a cooked product, if the paperwork assures customs it doesn't actually cause death.
If you want a strong tasting cheese, try looking for Vieux Lille.
Not THE answer, but: A state-by-state map of raw milk laws in the United States
Nice to know you can still buy raw milk somewhere - you can't buy it retail in UK. I was brought up on the stuff, and my opinion is that pasteurising everything is an excuse for sloppy hygiene and extending shelf life at the expense of taste.
I was under the impression based on what I saw on Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern that it is not available outside the area where it is produced, let alone outside of the EU.
It's currently "illegal" according to EU reguations. There is an ongoing process to legalize it as "heritage", but - to my knowledge - there is no decision yet.
I think there is export laws over the European Union. For a while you could get mimolette and make it but then it was banned. Anything that has mites gets banned by the FDA.
I haven't heard of export laws, but in 2013 the FDA had banned Mimolette for a while based on the mites (after admitting it for 25 years, go figure). But the legal status of Casu Marzu is still somewhat questionable in the EU because a) the fly larvae might cause a myiasis (probably a rather theoretical that practical danger) and b) the flies are considered unhygienic. Producers are curently developing procedures to ensure the flies are "clean" by keeping them captive.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.418435
| 2012-08-01T23:29:04 |
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|
122330
|
Can aquafaba be used in place of flax egg as a binding agent?
I'm interested in following a recipe for lentil wellington. The recipe uses "flax egg", a mixture of ground flax and water, as a binding agent for the lentil and vegetable loaf.
My preferred "egg substitute" is aquafaba (the water chickpeas are cooked in) since it is already a by-product of making chickpeas, and it has a pleasant flavor which makes it a useful ingredient on its own. I already have 3 jars of it of different concentrations sitting in my fridge. Ground flax is not something I have and might not be able find at a normal grocery store.
I'd just prefer to go with the thing I have.
But I'm not sure if I can make this substitution. Aquafaba is by no means a perfect all around egg substitute. I've used it to make meringues, in pancakes and as an egg wash but this is using it as a binding agent. And this specific recipe uses canned chickpeas drained meaning that the instructions basically tell you to just throw out aquafaba. If it were a viable substitute here I might expect them to use it.
How does aquafaba compare to flax egg when used as a binding agent for making a loaf? If making this substitution should one use a high concentration (very viscous) or low concentration (less viscous) aquafaba?
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.418702
| 2022-11-12T14:20:56 |
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|
24447
|
Substitute rabbit in chicken recipes?
After reading through the cookbook thread from front to back, I bought a couple of the recommended works, including How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman. I went straight to the index to look up what it says about rabbit which came as a surprise to me (p. 653 in the 2008 print):
But you can substitute rabbit---which really does taste like chicken---for virtually
any recipe for braised chicken.
This wasn’t at all what I expected. Just to give you some background: due to relatives who live in the country, my family always had a decent supply of rabbit meat. Until say five years ago we had rabbit once every other month, or more often; definitely more frequently than chicken. That said, I don’t recall rabbit to taste anything like chicken up to the point that apart from soup I don’t value the latter very much, while I absolutely love the former.
What I want to know: How does this substitution work? How far does it go (is it limited to braised food)? Is it reversible? What chicken recipe should I try with rabbit meat? Am I prejudiced against chicken ;-)?
References: some threads mention this substitution, but they don’t exactly answer my question.
i found rabbit to taste like frog meat..
I would say he is referring to farmed rabbit which does have a very mild flavour akin to chicken especially compared to the wild stuff.
Let me clarify that I wasn’t talking about game either. Afair all my rabbits up to date enjoyed an idyllic life on a farm.
Interesting, the farmed rabbit I get definitely resembles chicken in taste but the wild rabbit I get may as well be a completely different species. Thing is, if the rabbits you were getting were allowed run around free then maybe the ones I've getting have been confined in cages.
@phg I suspect age and diet could have substantial effects on flavor too, and in fact might be a big part of the reason wild game tends to taste different?
@Jefromi I guess so. My preferred hypothesis is that it might largely depend on how both kinds of meats are prepared, which afair used to be quite different. I’m already planning an empirical test: same recipe, different meat. (Biggest problem turns out to be the acquisition: the places where I looked so far sell rabbit only without the head, which takes much of the fun out of eating it :-/ )
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.418824
| 2012-06-14T08:03:18 |
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|
73437
|
Have I ruined my chicken by marinating it in milk and lemon?
So I wanted to make Gordon Ramsay's buttermilk fried chicken Recipe. Although I didn't have any buttermilk so I found online you can use milk with lemon as a replacement for buttermilk. Sounded perfect. Gordon recommends in the video that you marinade it over night. So I try that. I have come back the next day and the milk has separated. Have I ruined the chicken?
Thank you in advance.
EDIT: Yes its been in the fridge. very little lemon juice was included, so it doesn't appear to have cooked.
EDIT 2: OK, I will try it and then answer my own question with the result.
Does the chicken appear to have 'cooked' a bit?
Was it in the fridge? If so should be safe to cook.
@Dorothy very little lemon juice was included, so it doesn't appear to have cooked
@Paparazzi Yes it was in the fridge.
Then it should be fine (too much lemon/acid without oil can toughen meat).
I would be surprised if your milk didn't curdle. The entire point of adding the lemon is to induce this to at least a certain extent. Buttermilk is already somewhat curdled so as long as it wasn't so acidic that the chicken was chemically cooked, everything should turn out fine.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.419040
| 2016-08-25T19:50:01 |
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|
67783
|
Water turned brown
I put water in a stainless steel pot and a strainer on top and put spinach in the strainer to steam it all for a delicious quiche, but the water turned brown.
Why does this happen?
I know someone had a similar issue with simmering peas, but my case is slightly different; the spinach didn't touch the water.
I think the boiling water did turn green. Maybe some spinach broke and dripped spinachy goodness into the boiling water and burned?
It's possible that your water supply could be high in iron, either from a well, or older city pipes. When you steam spinach, some of the iron in the spinach leeches out with the circulating steam, and this may be enough to turn normally clear high iron water into disturbing looking muddy water.
If this is the case, the water is safe, it's just not that nice to look at.
If this only happens with spinach and other high iron foods, it's probably nothing to worry about, but it probably wouldn't hurt to have your water tested, if this is a new phenomenon.
Ferrous iron is soluable in water , ferric is not ( red/ brown precipitate ) . Heating the water oxidizes the ferrous iron to ferric .
Just to add to this post - there are a lot of companies that do water testing locally. Use one of them, they tend to know better about trends in the area (maintenance, typical consequences of renos, etc.) as opposed to doing one of the mail away companies. The only reason I say this, is I work for one, and in the past used a mail away, and never again since working where I work.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.419161
| 2016-03-27T03:29:02 |
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|
115775
|
How can I assess how sweet the water of a young coconut in husk will be before buying/opening the coconut?
How can I assess how sweet the water of a young coconut in husk will be before buying/opening the coconut?
Example of a young coconut in husk:
you probably can't, other than checking for freshness and the quality of the store you buy it from.
@Max thanks, how does freshness correlate with sweetness?
As mentioned in the comment and also based on some personal discussions, there is no way to assess how sweet the water of a young coconut in husk will be before opening the coconut. It's a hit and miss, unless one can track its age and provenance (which may be rather challenging when buying the coconut far from its tree, e.g. in my case buying in the US).
From https://eatdelights.com/coconut-water-taste/:
Generally, it is sweet, but in most cases, the taste differs depending on where the palm tree is grown, the saline content in the soil, the climate, and proximity to the sea.
From https://coconuthandbook.tetrapak.com/chapter/chemistry-coconut-water:
Between 7-9 months, the sweetness of coconut water increases to its maximum when sugar content increases. From 10-13 months, the sugar levels decrease and coconut water tastes less sweet. This is represented by total soluble solids (°Brix).
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.419328
| 2021-05-23T19:56:42 |
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95538
|
What kind of cooking knife is this?
In a show (One Piece), the character uses the following kitchen knife. I've never seen anything like it before; what is it?
Here it is in action:
It looks like a variation of a one-handled mezzaluna ... but I want to say that I've seen something similar to it being used for asian cut noodles. (I just can't recall if it was Japanese, Chinese, Korean or something else)
I'm not convinced that knife is a traditional knife of any kind. I suspect that the artist made it up to look wierd & cool.
@FuzzyChef : you're rather dismissive. Are you familiar with cleavers for soba noodles? The blade often extends to the end of the handle (although it's not attached). The overall blade shape reminds me more of a chinese butcher's knife, though. I suspect it'd be for repetitive slicing more than chopping (better control by having your hand in the middle, but you don't get the leverage)
@LanguagesNamedAfterCofee : what's the show? And what type of kitchen does the character work in?
Joe: it looks kind of like someone combined a Thai cleaver with a Korean noodle cutter. But, like I said, I've never seen such a knife (and I've been in cookware stores in several Asian countries) and I can't find images of any matching knife on the internet. Given that it's animation, the most likely conclusion is that the artist made up the knife to look exotic and/or old-fashioned.
Here's the two knives I'm talking about: https://www.japanny.com/collections/all/soba-knife https://shopthailandonline.com/product/12-7-1-4-circle-blade-thailand-knives/ You could combine them and get that knife, but it wouldn't be useful for anything.
Are you sure it is a knife? Could it be a dough scraper instead? This shape is not very functional for cutting. Because of the super straight edge for most of the length, it is unsuited for the rocking style of cutting, which is usually the reason for placing the handle there. The slicing style should work, but after mimicking the motion with a piece of cardboard I cut out, I can say it is awkward, and seems that even after getting accustomed, it will still be less precise than a standard chef knife.
Rumtscho: why would a dough scraper have a sharpened edge, though?
Somewhat related: https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/73443/what-is-the-name-of-this-style-of-knife
@Joe Kind of looks like Avatar: The Last Airbender to me
@Joe It's from the show One Piece
@FuzzyChef For context, I've added a gif of the knife in action (https://gph.to/2CfZSFH)
@rumtscho Right, it's not used with a rocking style. Here is a gif for context: https://gph.to/2CfZSFH
It looks like it sort of resembles a trench knife (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trench_knife#/media/File:M1918_Trench_Knife.jpg), to me, especially since it's got the katana-style wavy grain pattern. It's possible that it's primarily intended as a combat knife, and they're just pressing it into use in a kitchen. Does the character in question ever use it to fight with?
An ulu knife
That looks like a variant on an ulu knife, a knife whose blade is below the handle.
I've always seen ulu with a curved blade. (much like a mezzaluna) Even the asymetrical ones that I managed to find tended to be more rounded than the "kitchen axe" type blade in the image
This seems to be used very similar to the animation in the question: https://youtu.be/8dF5pz43dGE?t=34 (34 seconds into the video)
After seeing that GIF, I am 99% sure the animator thought up the design by themselves, probably to add some element of interest to the show, but without thinking about the practical side at all.
The animation shows the knife being used in a chopping motion, like a cleaver. But here is what a cleaver looks like
And this video can be used as a reference for proper use of a cleaver. We see slicing, chopping and rocking motions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wvt5-iC3xos
The knife in the anime is inferior to the cleaver shown above.
It is more difficult to produce. Instead of producing a single continuous piece of steel, you have to punch a hole in it, without cutting through the side.
A cleaver needs some weight. And much of its weight comes not from the thin blade, but from the back, which is thicker than on a Western knife. Making a cutout in that place is counterproductive.
A cleaver profits from the lever effect. This is especially noticeable in other tools which are used with the same motion, such as axes. But it plays some role in knife cleavers, too. This effect is completely lost in the design shown here.
A cleaver is held with the ulna and radius at relatively small angle to the handle, upper arm hanging in its natural position, the lower arm almost parallel to the table. This allows for smooth, precise movement. The design of this knife means that the upper arm is held parallel to the table, and the lower arm goes orthogonal to the table's plane, creating a very awkward position, which is probably also very tiring if you do lots of cutting. You can even see this terrible position in the GIF. This doesn't matter much in mezzalunas and other similar tools which are used with a rocking motion from the wrist, but this kind of chopping looks like a repetetive strain injury waiting to happen.
Considering these design problems, I hope nobody has had the idea of actually produce such a knife and use it in a real kitchen.
Also, what the heck is the point on the knife supposed to be for? Try to imagine any motion you could conceivably make that would bring that point to bear. You can't do it, not with a human arm.
Great explanation! The motion did seem awkward to me, but I didn't realize just how impractical such a knife would be. However, the Ulu knife that @greenstone-walker mentioned seems to be used very similar to the animation: https://youtu.be/8dF5pz43dGE?t=34 (see 34 seconds into the video).
@fuzzychef I guess I didn't think of that because I don't use the point of a chef's knife either, but you are right that if somebody wants to use it - and apparently it is used in a cleaver - it is difficult to impossible.
@languagesnamedaftercoffee interesting, I had never seen an ulu knife before. I imagined it to be intended for rocking due to the shape. But it is smaller than I thought, and your video shows clearly that it can be gripped conveniently.
I agree, this knife in it's present shape looks like a cross between a ulu and cleaver. The only way to use this particular knife would be as an ulu, which is meant to have the object being cut much lower than you. In most cases it would be meat, and it would be on the ground and the user would be kneeling over the meat. This would give the user the proper mechanical advantage and maximize hand positioning on the knife.
Your image is an artist's rendition, but it's close to a knife my father used to have, very similar to these images:
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/464926361542917833/
The one we have was made in Seki, Japan. It's described as a Delphic knife, but googling that name pulls multiple images and history, so I suspect that's the maker, not the type of knife.
I've never seen one with a point on the end, only with a flat tip like these images. This one below is narrower than the one I grew up with, but it shares the Delphic brand name and general shape.
Thank you! So the shape and the motion was drawn completely wrong in the cartoon. This all makes sense now.
It looks a bit like a stylized menkiri knife, used for cutting udon noodles. Here is a picture:
Jeffrey Thompson's blog has a picture of the knife in action. Thompson explains:
The menkiri bocho, also known as the udon kiri, is a knife for slicing handmade noodles – note the inset and the sharpened front edge. Simply squishing the blade down will not make proper noodles, so the very sharp knife is drawn across to ensure a clean cut.
A Google Images for "menkiri knife" brings up several photographs that look similar to the knife in the clip. None look exactly like that knife, though.
This is way too long for a comment, but not exactly an answer as I don't know the name for the knife.
...
Unlike what rumtscho has suggested, the general shape of the knife is well known. It's goes by a few names, but you can find pictures looking for a "Chinese pork knife" or "Chinese slaughter knife" on english language search engines. It's rather reminiscent of a "straight back" hunting/skinning knife, but deeper.
It's basically a meat cleaver with a front tip that's more like a skinning knife. Foodal describes the shape of the Dalstrong Ravager as:
The Ravager’s 9-inch blade is engineered with a pointed tip, designed to assist with skin removal and to access tight, deep spots that a square tip can’t.
Although the proportions are different, the combination of a long straight section and an upswept tip aren't all that different from some western butcher's knives, particularly the "scimitar" style ones. The asian knives depth would make them more "cleaver" than "knife" by western standards.
But none of those knives have the handle placement of the knife in the image. That would be more similar to a Japanese noodle knife (sobakiri, udonkiri, menkiri) in which the blade extends back under the handle, possibly even past the end of the handle. But those want a long cutting edge, and so aren't curved at the front.
And none of those connect back to the handle at the end. That would be more like an Inuit ulu, but those don't have the flattened section for slicing on a board. (although you can get them in a set with a board that's dished out) But it's often sold on hunting sites as a 'skinning' knife, which is a similar function to what the front of the pork knife is for.
And there's a now-deleted answer from Nova_Super that showed a picture of a knife being used to cut ice cream on an anti-griddle that has that connected handle, but doesn't have the rounded tip like a knife for skinning / butchering:
From my experience from trying to recreate costumes and props from animated shows for cosplay -- I suspect that although I can't find the exact same blade, that it is not an invention of the animator. Modern animators often get real people to dress up and perform actions that are filmed so they have reference material. The coloration and shape of the blade looks similar to the Chan Chi Kee butcher's knife and 'scraping' knives (dark on the flat / above the grind line, light on bevil), and it's possible that someone used a similar shape blade and modified it to move the handle ... but it's more likely that a prop buyer went looking for the most unusual knife they could find, and found what looks to be a blend of a pork knife and the ice cream knife.
The knives you list aren't the same shape. Take for example the ravager, the whole blade is clearly in front of the handle. A chef would use the ravager with a chopping motion, swinging your underarm from the elbow while the upper arm stays motionless. The animated knife has the handle in the middle of the blade's back. That has to be used with an up-and-down motion starting from the shoulder, like operating a bicycle pumps with a crossbar handle one-handed. It would be not only exhausting, but also a very awkward angle for the arm, losing a lot of fine motor control.
Now that userLTK posted a new answer, I think the anime artist must have tried to draw the knife from their picture. So for me, the mystery is solved.
@rumtscho : you really think it’s just confusion over some other slightly similar knife? It’s way more likely that there is an exact match that we just haven’t found yet
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.419482
| 2019-01-11T00:03:54 |
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|
115848
|
Storing cast iron in the oven
We store a few cast iron pans in the oven, on the bottom rack. We leave the pans in there while cooking other things. Occasionally, I worry that this might affect oven performance, by interfering with radiation or convection in the oven. While investigating the subject today, I found several guides to cast iron guide that mention oven storage, but none of them answered that question. However, a few of them did advise against the practice for a different reason: cooking with empty cast iron might ruin the seasoning.
If you store cast iron in your oven, do you need to remove the empty pans before cooking? Will empty cast iron pans affect the oven performance? Will it harm the pans or ruin the seasoning?
Will this effect how the oven heats up/cooks food?
The greater thermal mass means the oven will take longer to heat up, which is undesirable if you want to cook quickly, but it will also lessen temperature fluctuations from opening the oven door or the heating element cycling, which can be desirable. The block of metal is performing one of the roles of a pizza stone in this regard.
Depending on where the heating elements in the oven are situated, the size of the oven and the size and positioning of your cast iron, it may impact how heat distributes, for example by 'shielding' food from a lower heating element, and blocking the flow of air. Each situation is likely to be different so it is hard to say whether this will be a serious impact in your case.
Will it harm the pans?
Very unlikely; your cast iron is designed to be happy at oven temperatures. If there is food residue on the pan you may find that repeatedly heating/burning it and letting it cool can make it very hard to clean off without a tough abrasive, so make sure you clean your pans thoroughly before storing them.
Similarly, the whole point of seasoning on a pan is that it is formed in high oven temperatures, so it should not be damaged by exposure to similarly high temperatures. As discussed in the answer here, seasoning can be damaged by high temperatures, with the temperature necessary varying depending on the seasoning itself. If your pans' seasoning has survived so far, I would not expect this to change with further time stored in the oven, but if you season a new pan and store it in the oven you should not be surprised if the seasoning is at times damaged as described in that question. (This is the point I am least confident about, so would be open to correction in the comments if it is from a reliable source.)
Thanks, this was helpful, and I had arrived at some of the same conclusions regarding thermal mass and heat distribution. One note on your final bullet point: some of my initial research suggested that very high oven temperatures will break seasoning, but there didn't seem to be a consensus on what's too high.
@BraddSzonye I added a little more based on a related question. If your pans have survived so far and you haven't noticed the seasoning get damaged, I wouldn't worry about anything different happening in the future. My instinct is there is a 'survival of the fittest' situation, where the sturdiest polymers survive, so if seasoning is damaged in the oven you can reapply it and eventually you'll get oven-resistant seasoning, as it were.
Cool, thanks for the added detail! I'm mostly interested in the performance aspect of the question, because our oven seems a bit slow. Like, if a recipe recommends a range of cooking times, our oven always needs the high end of the range or beyond to get everything fully cooked and browned. I don't think the cast iron should have that effect, but I'd like to rule it out!
@BraddSzonye If it's a temperature issue caused by the pans, then it should work when given a long time to warm up; if it's a temperature issue caused by the oven you should get the same problem with the cast iron removed; if it's an air circulation issue, you should notice a difference with the pans removed. I'd test it out and see.
Er ... that depends on how hot they're cooking in the oven. At 350F the seasoning won't be damaged, but at 500F it will be. So they should take the pans out whenever doing high-heat broiling.
@dbmag9 Exactly! We just tried a quick test, but we don't have an oven thermometer, just a meat thermometer that doesn't have the necessary range. I'll try again later after we get one & maybe post my own answer if I get good data.
@FuzzyChef I had in mind typical baking/roasting temperatures so didn't think of that. I'll edit something in later when I have more time.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.420571
| 2021-05-27T02:34:11 |
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114093
|
Can you make a burger from pepperoni?
I was just thinking and I love pepperoni. Could you make a whole burger out of pepperoni? I wonder what this would taste like? It wouldn't be cheap of course.
It might be near to incorporate shredded pepperoni in a beef burger using ground beef, but I wonder if you can make a full burger out of pepperoni?
Would that just be a patty-shaped pepperoni instead of being in a link shape? It seems that would be a rather difficult-to-eat sandwich
You certainly could do it, but I'm not sure you should, or that it would taste as good as you hope it would.
Pepperoni slices mixed into the hamburger before cooking, then topped with a slice of mozzarella and a small dab of pizza/pasta sauce would be quite tasty. I've had philly cheesesteaks like this.
to answer the primary question, yes you could, but pepperoni is already cooked and processed and is hard (dried),it's easy to eat in small thin slices, but not in big chucks.
You could try grinding it down again and find a way to bind it in a patty (egg?breadcrumbs?) but the final texture might be weird,
pepperoni is also usually quite strong in taste and making a whole burger out of it would be overwhelming flavour (IMO).
As someone (SnakeDoc) wrote in the comment, you could finely chop pepperoni and mix it with your burger meat.
pepperoni is more or less ground pork (or beef or mix of both) with spices and smoked.
As a substitute,
You could make a patty of ground pork and beef, add some pepperoni spices, including smoked paprika (or some liquid smoke) and use that as a burger meat.
Pepperoni is usually higher in salt content. Just compare the salt content of typical burger patty meat with the salt content of a typical pepperoni meat:
Burger patty (100g) - 74 mg
Pepperoni (100g) - 1,761 mg
As you can see, pepperoni has about 20 times the amount of salt in burger patties, so if you decided to make a burger patty out of pepperoni, the "patty" should be extra thin to balance out the salt.
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Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:57.421034
| 2021-02-03T22:36:19 |
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114090
|
How to use frozen patties in recipes asking for ground beef like chili, meat sauce, and meatballs?
I have 40 pounds of decent quality beef patties (75/25) which came from the store as patties and I want to use it for something other than merely burgers.
How can I take a frozen beef patty and turn it into meatballs, meat sauce for pasta, chili, or other recipes which call for ground beef?
Thaw and use in alternate application? Not sure what you are asking, really.
@moscafj Can that be done though? Can I simply thaw and tear apart like ground beef? For store-bought frozen patties? I haven't done it before, that's why I'm wondering if I can get a similar result as ground beef.
Why not? If it is just ground beef formed into a patty, you can thaw it and do anything you want with it.
@moscafj will it come to a similar result? How should I take it apart? Tear it by hand?
How would you normally handle ground beef? I'm not trying to be flippant....it's ground beef, just formed into a patty. Once thawed, it should come apart fairly easily.
@moscafj store bought patties are like hockey pucks. It's not patties like you make from ground beef. These patties are one solid piece. It was probably never ground beef, as the original beef was probably pulverized and extruded into a hockey puck shape using industrial machines.
Since you have 40 pounds, maybe you can move one from the freezer to the refrigerator, allow it to thaw, trying breaking it apart and using it for an other application, and then answering your own question. We do encourage questioners to answer their own questions here. It seems like a simple experiment worth trying.
If the patties are just ground beef, then use them the same way you'd use any other ground beef; pull it apart with your hands or break it up with a spoon or spatula in the pot.
It may be that your burgers include other ingredients for flavour, in which case those other ingredients will also be in whatever you make, but they shouldn't significantly affect the cooking.
Some burger patties could include things like egg or breadcrumbs for binding and to bulk up the mixture, but it doesn't sound like that's the case from your description. If that is the case, then they will still work fine for things like meatballs but might make something like chilli have an odd texture.
They're not ground beef. These are store bought patties.
That explanation isn't very specific; in a UK supermarket 'decent quality beef burgers' would mean primarily beef mince (ground beef) with a few ingredients for flavour. Look at the ingredients list to see which of the three parts of my answer apply; I'm fairly sure at least one will.
In the US, it basically means a hockey puck made out of meat with no additional added flavoring. Looks factory made and one piece, not like ground beef made into a patty. More like a machine pulverized and liquified it and poured it into a form to make a hockey puck shape.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:57.421214
| 2021-02-03T22:16:42 |
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