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35968
|
What is redshell sushi or rødskjell sushi?
This is a rødskjell sushi in Norwegian (where I point with the sticks) and translated as redshell sushi in English. I am trying to find what it is. They have used some green to roll it around, it is probably some sea thing. Is it a fish or is it something else?
Three "green thing" is almost certainly nori, a dried sea weed product.
According to a few sushi websites, red shell sushi is known as arc shell, akaki or akagai sushi. It is a type of clam that gets its red color from lots of hemoglobin in its flesh.
One source
Another source
And the green stuff is definitely nori.
It's also often just called "clam" or "red clam", I think - you'll find a lot more pictures with that particular red+white look if you search for red clam sushi instead.
It's a type of clam (shellfish) the red bit is the "foot". The strip will be nori as @SAJ14SAJ pointed out.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.097609
| 2013-08-12T16:03:14 |
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|
27296
|
Potato parts in the oven
Yesterday I asked advice how to prepare nice potato parts. I was recommended to not remove the peel/skin and cut the potato in parts. I was also said to use the oven, instead of a pan and baking/cooking them in olive oil.
I cut up potatoes... I used the oven... I set it to 200 watt. It had to pre-heat for 5 minutes. Then I put in the potato parts for 25 minutes. When I tried to eat them, they were partially raw, and the outside seemed dry out.
The goal was (picture from the internet):
Given that they came out partially raw, they were obviously undercooked; you can't really expect there to be any browning at that point. (And the blog you got that picture from just doesn't seem terribly trustworthy - I don't see how those pictures could've come from those recipes.)
What temperature is 200 watt? Recipes for roast potatos normally call for at least 425°F/220°C, higher is common.
200 Watts is tiny - I assume you mean 200°C?
That was bad advice. If you're not par-boiling the potatoes they will need at least 40 minutes, but to be honest you are much better off par-boiling.
Pre-heat the oven as before and place a roasting tin in to pre-heat as well.
Cut the potatoes as before, then place them in a large pan of salted water, bring it to the boil, and simmer for 5 minutes. Drain the pan and place it back on the heat for a little while to drive off the moisture in the pan and on the potatoes.
Transfer the potatoes to a bowl and drizzle generously with oil. Season well (you can add spices, smoked paprika is great), mix through, then place in the hot roasting tray and roast for 30-35 minutes.
The boiling process begins to cook and soften the potatoes, and then the dry heat of the oven carries on cooking them while also crisping the outside.
To get ones as close to the second picture as possible...
They look very yellow: I have achieved this in the past by parboiling in saffron infused water.
They look crispy: parboiling will help get some rough edges to crisp up. If you go with roasting you'll need a pre heated thin-ish metal pan with pre heated oil; you could deep fry that would maximise the crispness; I'd probably go with sauteing in a heavy bottomed frying pan though.
They look seasoned: Garlic, thyme, rosemary, salt and black pepper....... maybe. Don't add garlic too early, it will burn. If you deep fry toss in cooked seasoning when they are otherwise cooked.
So if I wanted potatoes that look like that picture. I'd cube potatoes into 3/4 inch pieces. Pop in a pan of boiling salted water with a fair bit of saffron for ~5 mins. Drain and return to the pan. Put the lid back on the pan and shake to rough up the edges.
Pour carefully into a heavy frying pan with hot vegetable oil and herbs, fry turning them over as few times as you can get away with without them burning. Add garlic and season a couple of mins before they are done.
Tumeric provides plenty of color without being so expensive as saffron (especially a "fair bit", plenty of which gets discarded with the water), and if you're seasoning with a bunch of other stuff, the subtle flavor of saffron isn't going to come through very well.
True though roast potatoes with just saffron have a lovely buttery colour and taste.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.097734
| 2012-09-20T13:47:49 |
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|
44635
|
Can sunflower or coconut oil be substituted for vegetable shortening in cake icing?
I was reading this recipe for cake icing and was wondering what would happen if I substituted sunflower oil or coconut oil (which is thicker and may better model the texture of the shortening) for vegetable shortening. I don't eat vegetable shortening/margarine/crisco and am looking for a way to adapt this recipe.
4 lb powdered sugar
1 TB cream of tartar
1 1/4 c. of white shortening (crisco ... the sticks are easy to measure)
a pinch of salt
1 TB extract of your choice
3/4 to 1c. of water (maybe more depending on humidity)
Put all ingredients except the water into a mixer. Add 3/4 c. water,
and slowly add more to make the consistancy of your choice. Mix on low
speed 'til mixed, then on #6 or 8 for 6 to 7 minutes. Consistency
should be "creamy" -- like cream cheese when soft. Stiff icing should
be creamy also.
I've been meaning to try my buttercream with coconut oil, if I give it a shot I'll report back
I don't know for sure, as I've never tried, but I doubt it would whip up into the right texture. Shortening is already a solid, so you're just introducing air. Sunflower oil is a liquid, so you'd want to solidify it somehow to make frosting.
I was just going to edit the question to include coconut oil as another possible substitute - good thinking.
I think coconut oil would be fine.
I'd agree, coconut oil should work. You might want to avoid virgin coconut oil, though. Its melting point is only about 80F, so it could wind up liquid if you're working in a hot kitchen, or if you'll be serving the cake in warm weather.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.098034
| 2014-06-04T17:34:25 |
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|
10280
|
What can I do with frozen eggs?
Although a previous question asks if raw eggs can be frozen, my eggs froze, in the shell, because the chicken coop into which they were delivered was very cold last week.
I thawed the eggs, and they seem fine, except that the yolks are solid / gelatinous. This means that scrambled eggs are out, at least as I know them.
What else can be done with these eggs; this will probably happen again?
The best I can offer you comes from Functionality of Proteins in Food:
The gelation of egg yolk can be partially reversed by heating after thawing. This treatment improves the functional properties of proteins. The stiffness of the gels obtained after frozen storage can be reduced by more than 50% and become pourable at 21° C by heating up to 45° C for 1 h.
Eggs don't actually start to set until you hit 63° C, so if I had previously-frozen eggs, I would heat them as the above paragraph suggests. Just be very careful not to use too much heat.
You won't get perfect eggs, but they'll be edible.
Yes, you can freeze eggs, then make scrambled eggs.
I peeled 4 frozen eggs and put them in a bowl. I zapped them for 1 min in the microwave to thaw, then whipped the eggs and zapped for 1 more minute. I had beautiful delicious scrambled eggs.
I like to freeze whole egg yolks then plop them into hot Asian soups or use as a garnish. They have an amazing mouth-feel this way. They're also good with butter spread on toast.
Interesting. Can you keep the yolks intact that way?
Thaw them out, boil them. Then pickle them.
I was told that it is not necessary to thaw them out, just don't have them on to high of a boil when putting them in.
Peel it then batter in tempura batter. Tada, soft-boiled egg tempura!
The eggs are no longer frozen. How can you peel and batter them if they're not cooked?
Before you freeze the raw eggs (1) add half ts of salt with every cup of raw eggs, poke the yoke mix with the white and put in freezer bag or container and freeze them, for savory or main dishes. (2) add 1Tbs of sugar for each cup of raw eggs mix the yoke with the white and freeze for baking and desserts. They can stay good up to 1 year in the freezer. The salt and sugar is to keep the eggs from becoming gelatinous. I hope I did help
good idea, but the eggs are frozen before I get to them.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.098211
| 2010-12-19T00:51:41 |
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|
10484
|
What causes the black discoloration on this plastic electric teakettle?
In the break room at work, there is a tea kettle that has some unappealing discoloration. I would like to use it, and lots of people do, but I find it terribly unappealing.
I can't remove it with soap, and my fingernail has no effect. I can't even feel it, so it doesn't seem like buildup. What causes this, does it adversely affect health or water taste, and is there a way to remove it or improve this teakettle?
See this previous post that explains how to clean an electric kettle. The suggestions include boiling citric acid, vinegar, or descaling solution in the teapot.
Presumably these are impurities from the water that have solidified on the plastic. It is possible that the lack of texture that you mention is because the impurities have bonded with the plastic.
Please add denture cleaning tablets... They work a treat ... especially when descaling hot water urns... :)
The best way to clean the inside of a kettle is using lemon.
Cut a whole lemon into quarters, fill the kettle with water and place the cut up lemon inside.
Boil the kettle a few times. Empty the water out and remove the lemon. Wipe out the inside of the kettle with a cloth. It will literally wipe clean :)
using purified water will help. distilled or filtered. after you clean it with vinegar. otherwise it might be possible that someone is putting his or her tea bag (or other) in the pot and that can cause discoloration.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.098452
| 2010-12-24T21:13:08 |
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|
129424
|
Combating Inconsistency of dry yeast envelopes
For the last few months, I have repeatedly run into difficulties with ADY in envelopes. Some of the envelopes have worked exactly as I'd anticipated, while others have struggled to come to life, even after an hour of rehydrating. What I imagine is happening is that, somehow, despite keeping my yeast in the refrigerator, it has begun to lose efficacy to varying degrees. Perhaps some envelopes are 80% ok, and others are only 5% ok. Maybe some are 100% and some are wholly dead?
Getting frustrated with this, I am wondering if there is some way to get out in front of it. What I want is to be able to start with yeast in a more or less known "good" state. Or at least some way to get closer to averages that I can work with consistently.
The solution that I am imagining would be to borrow some ideas from the realms of "starters", whether that be like a sourdough, or a poolish, or a biga. If I were to make some kind of "fresh yeast" cake, utilizing all of the yeast in an envelope, with a certain amount of flour and water, it seems I should, eventually, acquire signs of growth, indicating that my yeast has become ready to use in a more consistent manner than the initial envelope.
But, that still leaves a number of open questions.
How do I account for this new yeast variety in calculations? How much "Homemade Fresh Yeast" equates to a certain amount of ADY?
Can I store this yeast for any amount of time? How long?
Does this technique actually get me anything but more work? Maybe I'm just moving the uncertainly somewhere else.
Other questions I've not even thought of, but which you have :D
I have spent a good deal of time researching how this might be done, but I've come up with nothing, unfortunately. Not sure if I'm just searching poorly, or if I am breaking new ground (doubtful).
Edit: Added Context
However, there's a follow-up concern. While my question relates to dough in particular, it's specific focus is that of pizza. The doughs that I am presently experimenting with are 24-hour or longer (sometimes as long as 5 days) ferments. In such efforts, the amount of yeast I am adding is ridiculously small (a few tenths of a gram, or even less).
My main concern is that, with so little yeast being there, to have some of it not really active will really interfere with the plan. My pizza dough is usually timed to an expected dinner time, so, when I'm calculating for the dough to be ready to throw at 5pm on Saturday night, I really want the dough exactly right. There is no real room for fudge factors.
The problem is consistency. I am finding that one bake comes out really well, but the next time, following the same recipe is basically a failure (which is bad, when its supposed to be dinner :D !)
How long are you storing in the fridge? The wrong location in the fridge might also play a part - make sure to not store at the back where the cold air might freeze it. We buy a ~450 g/1 lb sealed bag and then dump into a jar when opened and keep in the fridge for months (at least 6 mo I would guess) and it never fails. Surely the solution is to test the yeast before adding to your dough - ~100 ml water (3.5 fl oz), tsp/5g of sugar, add yeast, mix. Incubate 5-15 min, if no sign of activity get a new packet.
The particular envelopes in question (which have now been tossed out) were on the older side, not yet at their expiration date, but getting close. But, in line with my edit above, the tiny amount of yeast that I'm using, I'm very nervous to botch dinner entirely with yeas thats only partly good.
If using warm water to rehydrate the yeast, yeast is quite picky about the temperature of the water. Don't remember the temps exactly, but 105F is good, over 110F is bad.
My recommendation is to acquire a digital kitchen scale and a large package of yeast. The envelope of yeast contains ¼oz of yeast. That's very easy to measure out by weight on the scale. Once the package is opened, I recommend storing in the freezer.
You're overthinking this. Active dry yeast will keep a certain length of time in the fridge, and longer in the freezer. I buy a small can of easy bake yeast (active dry yeast but smaller grains) and keep it in the freezer. I've found that it's still active up to a year, although after 6 months I have to add more for the same results. If you want to buy packets instead keep them in the freezer, again 6 months should be fine and they may last longer. You may need to add an extra packet as time goes on.
There's no way to estimate the viability of a packet of yeast with any reliability, this is because you cannot account for the variability of what happened to the yeast before you bought it. If it was stored in a hot place before being sold it could reduce the viability of the yeast whereas another packet stored appropriately will have more oomph.
Using active dry yeast from the store in some sort of starter sounds like a winner, but in practice it doesn't work. I tried this in the pandemic when yeast was non-existent, I found that the first couple of replications it worked fine, but then the yeast lost potency. The yeast strain in the packet isn't bred for that, it's bred for performance.
Sourdough is something you should try if you like baking bread, it does give a different consistency and flavor than bread baked with packet yeast, so it's not a solution for yeast potency.
The solution for you would be to buy fewer packets, more often, and keep them in the freezer.
I would say that buying yeast from a large chain supermarket would help with the supply-chain variability, because they will tend to store products in a controlled climate.
I do keep a sourdough, and have reasonably good results with it. Also, the idea to keep the yeast in the freezer, rather than the warmer top of my fridge door (the butter compartment) seems good to me.
There is another concern, however, and I've added that as an edit of the original question, as it should have been part of it in the first place.
@reidLinden That might be the problem - the fridge door undergoes big swings in temperature as you open/close the door. Better to keep on a shelf inside, somewhere in the middle preferably.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.098615
| 2024-10-22T20:21:55 |
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129430
|
I need to cook for a group of around 500 people for a week. I have a rough plan, what am I missing?
I want to preface this with the fact that I have 8 kids, and we enjoy making use of leftovers normally, meaning the meals I cook every day usually either fill up a 2 gallon or 3 gallon pot, and cooking for family get togethers before I've filled up my 8 gallon pot preparing for plenty of food. The point here being I'm used to cooking for large groups, not that I necessarily have the experience for cooking for massive groups. Someone recently asked me if I could cook meals for a large gathering of around 500 people. I have a rough plan to make soups, curries and chilis by expanding the recipes I already make to the 8 gallon pot size. I should also point out I will only have access to 4 double burner propane stoves, so no ovens, and I won't be able to do any pre-cooking necessarily since the group size is so large and the event is a week long, it will all have to be done on the propane stoves. I also have 8 8 gallon pots available. Suggestions for other meal types, and suggestions for ways to make prep much quicker? I already have 3 commercial vegetable choppers, a large capacity scale I use for weighing ingredients, and 8 8 gallon pots.
Edit: Thanks for the feedback, several good points brought up that I'll give some serious thought to. To answer a few questions:
This will be a week long event and will be outside (think tent camping) and isn't so much of a catered event if you will, as it is "Here is food we are providing that you can eat if you wish", so I guess not so much worried about allergies, although my recipes are all diary, gluten and soy free anyways. While some things could be prepped the night before, I'm thinking the easiest things to stick to for this many people is generally going to be soup, chili and curry. For those meals, food could just be kept hot on the stove until it was either put away or finished off. I'll probably have several different shifts for meals to keep things organized and more manageable.
I can feed around 55-65 people from one 8 gallon pot, and I have 8 8 gallon pots, which gets me pretty close. I have 4 propane stoves, enough to fit all 8 pots at the same time.
What help do you have available to chop, stir etc.?
I'll have a group of people to help me, and I can recruit more people if needed. I have a supply of 18" stirring spoons and wood spoons as well as 3 of these: https://www.webstaurantstore.com/choice-3-8-french-fry-cutter-potato-cutter/40747713.html?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&gclid=Cj0KCQjwveK4BhD4ARIsAKy6pMIBu3jZd6Iak-rLKsZG5c4iOJPfIMzMdDs-E9FUXdfBEBBMrInQv2gaAnD5EALw_wcB
You say you can't pre-cook, but is pre-cutting and pre-paring (weighing/measuring ) an option? Or does that have to happen on-site too? How many people do you usually feed from 1 8 gallon pot, and how many is 'a handful', enough to hold 500 servings of anything or will you have to keep cooking while you're serving to be able to have enough food? Do you have information from the person planning this, like wishes with regards to meals, dietary restrictions (vegetarian, vegan, kosher, halal?), allergies, will these 500 people arrive all at once as one hungry horde or in smaller groups?
World Central Kitchen put out a cookbook last year that has some tips on what you should do when scaling recipes, but I was really surprised that all of the recipes in the cookbook only served 4-8 people: https://wck.org/cookbook
Sorry, we don't take "tips and tricks" types of question. This is terribly broad. In this sense, we are no different from Stack Overflow - questions have to be about a concrete problem you're facing, not a "please tell me everything about X" thing.
I should preface this by saying this isn't an answer per se but rather a comment that's too long for a single comment.
I think you should give some serious thought as to whether you're biting off more that you can chew. I think it goes without saying that there's a big difference between cooking for 5 people (5 for the sake of argument), and 500 people but do you really understand how big of a difference?
The things I've come up with on my own are just expanding the recipes
I already make to the 8 gallon pot size.
So X times the amount of ingredients but what about preparation time? Does chopping 100 onions take just 10x longer than chopping 10 or does chopping the last 10 of the 100, take twice as long as the first 10? How much extra physical space will you need for prep? Will you have a great big pile of onions on the chopping board or do you have somewhere safe and hygienic to store ingredients before they're cooked? What about meat?... How long will that chicken be sitting out on the work area, whilst it's being chopped up? Will you have to prep all the ingredients before you start cooking because you won't have time to chop as you go?... Does cooking 10x the normal quantity of one of your recipes mean that it will take twice as long to actually cook? Or will it take 5x as long? How early will you and your crew have to start?
I should also point out I will only have access to several propane stoves, so no ovens, and I
won't be able to do any pre-cooking, it will all have to be done on
the propane stoves.
Are the propane stoves of a high enough capacity to cook for that many people? Do you have enough of the stoves to cook the meals and keep them warm at the same time?
Which highlights perhaps the most important issue... do you know how to safely cook for that many people? If you're serving anything that's not hot, how will you keep it safe to eat? Not to mention allergies. I don't want to be a downer but you really need to think about safety when so many people are placing their well-being in your hands. And that's what they're doing... if you're the one overseeing the operation, then it's your responsibility (not least in a legal sense) that someone doesn't end up getting food poisoning or worse.
The list of questions goes on but my main point is, how much thought have you given the reality of what you're contemplating, given that you've never cooked for that many people? How many of these questions have you asked yourself?
I'm not saying you can't do it, or even that you shouldn't. I'm just saying that you need to know what you're biting off.
yeah... I don't know that I've cooked for more than 200 people at once, and for those it was generally 6-12 people (none of us professionals) doing the prep and cooking. And that still took a LOT of planning (and access to a walk-in-fridge so we could do prep the night before)
These are excellent points you bring up, I'll have to give these points some serious consideration. Thank you!
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.099098
| 2024-10-23T12:47:03 |
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|
129556
|
What's the difference between crema and sour cream?
Are sour cream (from the US) and crema (from Mexico) the same thing? The place I'm at doesn't have sour cream only crema.
The ingredients in sour cream simply says, "Cultured cream".
The ingredients in crema says, "cow milk's cream 25% fat, citric acid, stabilizers (guar gum, cellulose gum, sodium citrate, carrageenan, mono- and diglycerides, sodium alginate, carob gum, tricalcium phosphate), iodized salt, artificial flavoring, natamicina".
The context is following a recipe calling for sour cream where the closest thing I've found is crema. It has been said they are not the same thing.
Update
I found this article that has been helpful. But the article doesn't say what the ingredients are.
https://www.chilipeppermadness.com/recipes/mexican-crema/
Welcome to the Cooking Stack Exchange. If you could post the ingredients lists of both, that might help. I think from the little I can make out on the Crema, that it is likely artificially thickened and therefore acidified by addition of acid rather than fermentation.
The crema's ingredients are pretty standard additives in dairy products. Nearly all of them and their functions are listed here
You say that you don't have access to normal sour cream, but it's not really difficult to ferment your own, if you have access to sweet cream. You can use normal commercial yogurt as the culture (best to try a brand which advertises a "live" culture).
Can you get (or make) plain yogurt? It's a reasonable substitute for sour cream in some dishes.
I can try yogurt as a substitute
@rumtscho I think the Walmart has sweet cream. Do you have a recipe for making sour cream from sweet cream? I just leave it in the car for 2 days?
@1.21gigawatts certainly not just a random time of sitting in the car! Here is a recipe that describes the process relatively well: https://revolutionfermentation.com/en/blogs/yogurt/how-to-make-yogurt/. It says "yogurt" but if you use sweet cream instead of milk, you'll end up with sour cream. You can use store-bought yogurt for the culture.
They're definitely not the same thing.
If you look at the ingredients, you'll see that the sour cream is, well, sour cream. It's a dairy product (milk cream of a certain fat percentage) that has been fermented.
The crema has not been fermented. Instead, it starts out with cream, and they have added a complex mixture of thickeners to achieve the texture, and some citric acid and flavoring to get the flavor to mimick a cultured product, while not being cultured. You could see it as a substitute for the real thing.
As all highly engineered substitutes, it works as long as it's used in the ways the engineers intended - best straight out of the box. If you try cooking with it, it may or may not work as expected. The taste shouldn't change much no matter what, but the texture may get weird.
It's difficult to predict which cases will work and which won't. Heated recipes are riskier than non-heated ones, but they might still work. Recipes where the result isn't expected to change texture (e.g. if you're making a raita) are more likely to work well, or also recipes where it doesn't matter if the cream suddenly liquefies (e.g. in a pancake batter). But these are really very wild guesses. The only place where you can be sure if it's served as-is, without being mixed with anything or heated. In the end, you have to try each recipe individually and find out if it works or not.
I find Mexican crema typically a little sweeter and not as sour or tangy as sour cream. In my experience it is also not as thick as sour cream. How it will work as a substitute probably depends on the specific recipe itself. Consistency could be an issue, but I think it is a reasonable flavor substitute.
I've tried it on cold and hot food and yes it tastes similar. But haven't tried as an ingredient in baked recipes. In my specific case it's in cold food but I have had recipes in hot food.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.099688
| 2024-11-14T19:04:23 |
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|
129780
|
What can I substitute for cream of tartar in mock apple pie?
Basically what the title says.
The recipe is here: https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/9545/mock-apple-pie/
I don’t know enough about food science to know what purpose the cream of tartar is supposed to do in this recipe in particular so I don’t know what to replace it with without making it taste bad.
Also, out of curiosity, what is the cream of tartar doing in this recipe, if not acting as a leavening agent?
I’d appreciate any insight, thank you so much.
Cream of tartar (Postassium bitartrate) is a salt of tartaric acid, so it's presumably providing the acidity to further the illusion that it tastes like apples.
I'd substitute a nice tart apple, myself, but I'm not exactly committed to "mock" when it comes to apple pie. Vinegar or lemon juice or citric acid would probably contribute too much of their own flavor to work, at a guess.
I know someone who dearly loves apples but developed an apple allergy later in life. Mock apple pie (if it tastes anywhere near the real thing) would probably be something they’d be interested in.
I see. In the recipe linked within the post there is lemon juice in addition to the cream of tartar. I can appreciate having real apple pie, this is more an experiment than anything else and I do not have access to cream of tartar. Thank you for the explanation about cream of tartar, I appreciate the information.
@legendaryramen Any substitutions to a recipe like this are likely to wildly change the flavor. As an experiment, this will not yield useful data. If you don't have access to cream of tartar, you should find another recipe.
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|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.099997
| 2024-12-16T02:45:59 |
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|
30506
|
How hot is your oven?
There's also an answer here:
Can I test my oven temperature without an oven thermometer?
I have a big dispute with an electrician if the oven he supposedly fixed works or not. Problem is I think it reaches only about 150 C (300F) degrees when it indicates it has reached 250 C. So at 250 C (480F), I'm still able to hold my hand in the middle of the oven for 1 minute, or probably more.
When you cook next time, may you please try to see if this is possible at such temperature?
I will try to get hand of a thermometer, but have nothing now, so would appreciate someone testing it.
Rephrased: Is it possible to hold a hand in the oven at 250C for 1 minute, or is it too hot?
Does it have a self-cleaning cycle? Try that, you'll know if it's getting hot or not. Also, check your tags.
This question needs modifying before it fits here. It needs to be answerable by one acceptable answer. At the moment it's something of a poll question.
Under the standard that the answer to this question is substantively the same as what you are essentially asking ("Is my oven temperature correct?") I think this is a duplicate. Take note of the fact that opening the oven door, in order to put in your hand (or anything else) releases a great deal of the heat, of course the longer the door is open the more heat escapes...and the longer you can hold your hand in there. While your test is not a 'valid test' the underlying question is, but has been answered elsewhere.
@Cos Callis Of course it's not a duplicate. I'm asking to determine oven temperature WITHOUT a thermometer, which is exactly the opposite of the question you link to.
Your profile says you live in Norway. I would just break down and buy the oven thermometer--surely as a modern developed area of the world, they are readily available. Everyone should have one.
Don't care if this is an exact duplicate or not, whether or not you can hold a bare hand at the oven at 250° C is of precisely zero culinary relevance. The answer to the "real" question is "use a thermometer", that is the only answer, and that is the answer that was previously given.
See also: http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/37470/can-i-test-my-oven-temperature-without-an-oven-thermometer
(Although there was argument here about whether this was a duplicate or not and it was originally closed simply as not constructive, I've re-closed it as a duplicate so that at least there's a pointer to the right place.)
The book "Cooking for Geeks" has a preview available online which explains how to use sugar to check whether your oven's temperature is above or below 186°C (367°F). It won't tell you whether it's getting up to 250°C, but if you're right that it only gets to 150°C then it will be obvious that it's not fixed.
Awesome, I like that one! It's already in the oven. Will report result.
@Piglet, the only person who's likely to see your question is me, because as the author of the answer you're replying to I get notified. If you want someone else from the comment thread to be notified, you should use an @ tag. (And if you want more than one person to be notified you need to leave multiple comments, because only the first @ tag is processed).
@Piglet I think it changed behavior after I sat it at very high temp. After, sugar did melt slowly when set at ~200. I never got to test it with a thermometer. Found out it kicked in when set at ~225. So basically 225 works normal, but 175 I think gives much less than 175.
No - mine reaches up to 255 and if you are a little too close when opening it you'll find yourself quickly moving back - there is NO way I'm sticking my hand in for a minute. ;)
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|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.100163
| 2013-01-29T13:21:25 |
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|
51759
|
Challah rolls open up when baking in the oven
I cook Challah rolls very often.
Sometimes it all goes great. Some other times I encounter an issue I cannot identify where it comes from.
The baked challah roll comes rises in the oven and opens up in a not very nice way. Taste is great, but the look is obviously not very good.
Here is a picture. That crust kind of opening where the roll is folded is the issue I am dealing with.
That just looks like it continued rising after the crust had set. You can try turning down your oven ... I know there's a related question around here somewhere ...
related : http://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/21658/67 ; http://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/40378/67
To me it looks like you have under kneaded OR under proved the bread.
did you substitute any ingredients, I know sometimes honey is used and stuff like that. Honey is pretty sticky and may be harder to get the ingredients to mix whether you add it as a dry or wet ingredient.
This is a very common problem with challah (and any braided bread). As mentioned in comments, it seems likely that the splitting happened in the oven because the bread continued to expand too much after the crust had set. But the braids also complicate the reasons why this may have happened.
Here are a few common things to try:
Be sure not to braid too tightly. The gluten can only stretch so far, and if the braid is too tight, the yeast expansion in the oven will have nowhere to go. When you braid, start with the strands spread apart a bit, and don't stretch and pull excessively to make the braid tight.
Be sure not to braid too loosely. This seems less likely to be your particular problem from the photo, but sometimes if the strands have big gaps between them during the rise, they won't properly join together. When they are put in the oven, they can pull back apart. (Generally, this only is a major issue when there's some other problem on this list.)
Be sure dough is fully proofed. If a large loaf has not risen enough before you place in the oven, the interior will continue to expand for quite a few minutes. If the crust sets before that expansion has slowed, it can result in bursting. Also, don't depend on time to determine when rising is complete. Changes in humidity and kitchen temperature can easily double the necessary rising time on occasion.
Try increasing the humidity in the rising conditions. When a braided loaf's surface dries out, it can develop a dry "skin" before going in the oven. Sometimes this can prevent proper expansion in the oven, and the strands don't bake together properly, leading to bursting. If your kitchen is very dry, you might try to find an enclosed space (or even make one out of a random box), and place the dough in it along with a cup of very hot water. Replace the water with fresh hot water periodically if the rise takes a long time; this will keep the surface moist.
Use egg wash right after braiding. This is related to point (4). Egg wash can help maintain a wetter, softer crust and avoid the "skin" formation I mentioned. You might try applying it both immediately after braiding and then again before putting in the oven (to avoid light gaps of color that are too big). That said, being overly aggressive with egg wash can sometimes lead to the strands becoming too melded together, which leads to a final product with less distinction.
Be sure oven is not too hot. Many ovens have inaccurate thermometers. With a very hot oven, you can often increase oven spring. But it can also cause the crust to set more quickly. For large braided loaves, the interior rise can continue too long after the crust has set. This may also be a particular problem if you tend to refrigerate braided bread to rest it before baking, which means the interior lags even further behind the crust in the oven.
Don't be aggressive in stretching strands. I've read about this being a problem for some folks, though I'm not quite sure whether this is a real problem that could lead to bursting. Basically, if your strands are springing back excessively while rolling, you might have a tendency to try to "force" them and thus tear the gluten. Some people say this can lead to weird things happening on the edges of the strands and thus separation in the oven. In any case, tearing the gluten isn't a good thing in general, so if you are sensing a lot of resistance, let the strand rest for a couple minutes and let the gluten relax before stretching it further.
If all else fails, try a different braiding pattern. In particular, there are some braids (like one six-strand variant) that are quite flat and have more "joints" between strands on the top. When you only have a couple places for the bread to break apart in the oven, it puts a lot of stress on them. With more strands and a flatter braid, the stress can be relieved in more places, making it less likely to get big separation in any particular place.
I second this, it definitely looks under-proofed to me.
It looks as though it baked unequally which could be caused by the dough not being uniformly mixed.
Here are some things that I am sure that you already know.
(please keep in mind I have never made Challah)
Mix your dry ingredients and make sure they are well mixed
Mix your wet ingredients and make sure they are well mixed
add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients
The main reasons for the traditional order of dough assembly are:
As you no doubt realize, it is much easier to incorporate the liquids evenly into loose flour, rather than a partially formed dough
The yeast acts on the ingredients present, so sometimes ingredients which inhibit yeast growth are held back until after a fermentation
phase
You want time for all of the flour to be fully hydrated--normally, in yeast raised doughs, this is hardly an issue.
(Taken from This answer to Effect of adding wet ingredients to dry when making bread?)
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.100532
| 2014-12-19T15:13:06 |
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|
38086
|
How to fix ghee which partly turned white and smells rancidly?
A friend of mine has mistakenly stored his ghee in a bowl which was not quite hermetic hence exposed to oxygen and the sun light. The result is that the ghee turned white and is rancid. See the picture:
Is there any method of fixing it? Or should I just throw it out? Thanks
Weird. I've never seen that before.
There is sadly no way to reverse or undo rancidity, and the potent flavors are very unpleasant. The rancid portion should be discarded.
The photo is unusual in that there is a clear color line, which may or may not correspond to the depth the rancidity reached, or how far into the main product the unpleasant breakdown products permeated. You might try scraping off all of the obviously bad portion (plus a little extra). Retain the remainder only if it smells (and tastes) normal. Fortunately, rancidity is easy to detect by odor and taste.
Ok, I have cut the white part but the rest was unfortunately also spoiled. Then I thought re-boiling could help, but after reheating it did not get any better. Conclusion: it is hardly possible to fix it.
No, reboiling will not help as rancidity is a chemical breakdown in the lipids. Boiling will not cause them to recombine.
Yes, reboiling did not help at all. The yellow mass turned to grey and stinked. Had to put everything down to sewerage.
Cut out the white stuff generously, and all the stinky parts and you'll be good to go. IMHO.
PS: and no, don't boil ghee one more time, there is a possibility it'll be completely ruined.
Why would the second boiling ruin the ghee? I just thought ghee is invincible once it's a ghee
oh, no! it's very fragile in my experience.
you could make an experiment, once you have made fresh ghee. Take small part of it, and heat it up one more time, than wait until it's cooled down. It becomes white and looses taste and flavor.
so was it in mine... i have cut the whites and boiled the visible healthy rests but the smell is still anything else but the divine ghee
You could try using vitamin E, and beta carotene which prevents oxidation, in some cases reverses oxidation. I was told by my mother when I was younger if you burn a stew put peanut butter in it, this will remove the burnt flavor. While years later, after several science classes and several degrees. I had bought some ghee, and I removed the white part, but it kept going. It stopped when I added the vitamins. And rancid oils and fats are bad for your health, they cause free radical damage, hence your mouth saying don't eat it.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.101016
| 2013-11-02T11:17:23 |
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|
38241
|
How to pick ripe plantains for maduros?
I'm trying to make sweet fried plantains (maduros) but I'm not having much success. I've tried frying on low, medium, and high heat and with varying amounts of oil. The plantains never come out soft and sweet but dry (depending on cooking time) and starchy tasting. I suspect it is because the fruit is either not ripe or bad quality.
Compared to a ripe banana, how soft should the plantain be before peeling? Once peeled, how soft should the flesh be? Also, should it be sweet prior to frying? The pic below shows a fruit prior to preparation. Does this look ripe enough? I have also tried letting it ripen until the skin was almost completely black but at that point the fruit seems to have gotten bad.
For fried or oven-roasted maduros you want the plantain to be a bit riper than the one you pictured. I usually wait until they are closer to the following:
The flesh should be yielding and have a slightly sweet flavor, but not be completely mushy or soggy. It's ok if there are a few mushy spots. If your final product is starchy tasting, then they were not ripe enough. If you can't get riper plantains make sure to keep the slices thin enough (<1/2" or 1cm) so that the interior can get fully cooked before the exterior burns.
They should be fried in oil or lard that is around 350˚F (180˚C)
Thank you for the detailed instructions. I'll give that a shot and report how it goes.
Funnily enough I saw Didgeridrew's reply above and thought, "Hey, that looks like a photo that I took ..." and sure enough, it's from my post on The Kitchn in 2009 about how to make plátanos maduros. :)
If you think yours are too starchy then you're not letting them ripen enough, and they don't have enough sugars in them. Try putting them in a paper bag with an apple to speed the ripening process, and when the skin is completely black and the flesh is a bit soft, slice them 1/2 inch thick, and fry in hot oil. Don't turn them too soon, because you want those nice caramelized edges.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.101279
| 2013-11-07T16:42:16 |
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|
66053
|
Is my "non stick" pan kaput?
I have a Circulon frying pan I've been using for a few years. I got it second hand in good condition.
The non stick factor was great when I got it, but when I fry with it now, I find I need to use quite a bit of oil or it sticks.
I've tried hard to clean off what seems to be a kind of oily residue, but I'm wondering if it's the last of the non-stick coating I'm trying to remove!
Other than the stickiness, it's a great pan.
Are this pan's non stick days over? Or otherwise, what can I do to restore it?
If you can strip the non-stick finish off altogether, I imagine you could season the pan the same way you season a cast-iron pan, and use it that way. That worked with some supposedly stainless steel pans that we accidentally put in the oven on clean (which stripped off whatever semblance of stainless steel they once had). So, I seasoned them with oil, and they're excellent pans, now.
Let's just mention that there are health controversies about using a broken nonstick coating and/or bare aluminium surfaces, and see them as controversies that are off topic here.
Non-stick wise, this pan is wrecked.
There is no practical way to fix a modern nonstick coating to original state yourself at home.
It seems that some spray-on products used to exist, but these were not actually teflon based even if they were sold as teflon repair sprays, and did not give an equivalent result to industrially applied coatings.
There are professional refinishing services, but the price of the refinishing plus shipping costs is about the price of a brand new medium quality pan, and even this could only work with a piece where all non-heatproof fittings can be dismantled from the pan itself; the refinishing process will involve baking it at a high temperature.
The only thing that would be possible to do yourself, IF the base material of the pan is either stainless steel or carbon steel/cast iron/wrought iron, would be to completely get the damaged coating off and use the cookware as a stainless steel, or seasoned iron, piece. But with most non-stick cookware, the base is aluminium, which is not useful as an uncoated or seasoned cooking surface.
EDIT: It seems there are seasoning techniques for some types of bare aluminium, they might or might not apply. As I mentioned, there are health controversies about it, so make informed decisions.
I recently cooked eggs sunnyside up in my nonstick pan, for 15 minutes. Once the smoke cleared, I noticed carbon deposits on the pan. They look remarkably like what you have on yours. Boiling a strong solution of baking soda in the pan for 15 minutes, then letting it sit til cool let me get the carbon off with a plastic scrubby. Sadly, although it looked nice, the pan was no longer non-stick.
Try the bicarbonate treatment on the pan, but don't expect it to work. Most organic compounds carbonize at around 500°F, and your pan is likely rated for only 450°.
I had (actually still have) the same problem. I have a non-stick teflon frying pan. Scrubbing with the rough side of the sponge didn't help and I could scratch the oily residue with my nails off the pan. The solution I had is to rub very gently the polymerized oil with steel wool off the pan. It was easier if the pan is absolutely dry.
There is a chance that you'll ruin your pan - but I think the stickiness of your pan can't be worse than now.
If you can see the bare metal peeking through the teflon coating, then your frying pan is already at its end of life. Then there are two options: Either buy a new pan or sandblast the whole coating off and then season the pan on a kettle grill (the latter only if the metal is suitable for this) :)
Are you sure you are recognizing the same problem? The residue in the photo looks like carbon or ash that is stuck to the pan, which wouldnt be stuck to a nonstick coating that is in working order. Here it seems that it is bonded to either bare metal with no nonstick properties, or to a roughed up non stick coating that has enough cracks and irregularities to allow residue to mechanically lock into it.
@rackandboneman Yip, because my pan looks almost like aaaidan's pan. (How do I upload images in comments?) Of course the pan isn't as smooth as a new pan but I have the impression removing the residue makes the pan smoother than not removing it at all.
Yes, it is "kaput". Non-stick pans are meant to be used until they no longer work and then discarded. You cannot reapply a nonstick coating yourself and the coating is generally toxic.
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Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.101502
| 2016-01-31T05:35:17 |
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|
42641
|
If I put peanuts in a coffee grinder, will I get peanut butter or peanut powder?
I know there a thousand different products you can make with peanuts. But, my local supermarket has one of these,
I'm wondering if the effect will be similar if I use my mini coffee-bean hand grinder.. You can find a picture of it here,
I suspect what you will get is a mess. Peanuts are both softer and far more oily than coffee, but the grinder still will not break them down any finer than it would coffee.
It can make a turkish blend in about 3 minutes of grinding. That's finer grit than any peanut butter I've eaten.
Then despite your profile saying Houston, you must never have had Jif or Skippy or a comparable commercial brand.
related : http://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/15549/67 ; http://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/41427/67
I see from comments below that gluten is an issue. Since peanut butter is naturally gluten-free and there are a gazillion brands that swear upon pain of class-action lawsuit that they are gluten-free, why waste your efforts on the peanut butter? Or the jelly for that matter? If you want to actually do something that might be of actual benefit, why not make the bread? Or make pasta? Or pizza?
I'm just waiting for you to pass an apple so you can say "Look, Ma, it's vegan!"
Food processor, with a whirling cutting bade, makes decent butter out of many nuts. I expect a burr grinder, unless specifically designed for the task, would make a mess out of most nuts.
While the grinding of peanuts produces a paste we call peanut butter, a food processor may be slightly better equipped to handle them then a coffee grinder, especially if you want to blend coffee with it again.
Peppercorns are harder and they can be done in a coffee grinder, but peanuts would likely result in a mess that would not easily be cleaned, and somewhat chunky peanut butter.
edit:
As stated in the comments below you may get some good headway with a blender. I had a crappy blender at home, but peanuts may be easier to grind than thick smoothies. But again, cleaning may take some time afterwords. But blender would probably be more effective than a coffee grinder.
Peanut powder can be made by freezing the peanuts I believe, very cold. A part of the modern cuisine. I think you would need liquid nitrogen for it. Source from Tech stuff podcast, title of the podcast was Molecularly Gastronomical.
In fact, this can be done well in a blender, with additional peanut oil. My grandfather used to do it in an old Oster.
I don't know what type of coffee grinder you have, but if there's the remotest chance of your efforts resulting in "Peanut Butter", you should ask yourself... "How in the world am I gonna clean this mess out of there"?
Yuk!
I linked to the coffee grinder.
I'd be leary of attempting it unless the grinder is completely washable in Hot sudsy water. Is it your intent to actually make peanut butter?
Yes. Because then I only have to find out how to make jelly and I can tell gluten-free people I cooked from scratch.
Well, I wish you luck in your endeavor. Jellies are easy enough without resorting to fancy equipment, but I'm not too sure the peanut butter side of the equation is worth pursuing! If you do succeed, I'd be quite interested to hear about how you did it. If on the other hand, your experiment fails in a Spectacularly Dismal (yes, that's an oxymoron) fashion, I'd prefer to Not hear your screams of anguish! Lol !!!
Interesting, most people line up to hear my screams of anguish. They sound kind of like this except ever slightly more luberjackish.
If the idea is just "to make it from scratch", as a comment above says, a blender or food processor would be much better suited to this. Unless the burrs are completely removable, I don't think you'd ever get it clean.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.102053
| 2014-03-10T20:01:20 |
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|
41141
|
How long is coffee with creamer added safe in a thermos?
I'm not sure if this or this questions' answers satisfactorily cover my question but I am seeing a lot of answers that talk about the shelf-life of coffee and say things just "change" when adding sugar or dairy.
I make about 20oz. of coffee each morning and put it in a thermos. I then add my creamer to this at home and take it to work. Most days I get through it within a couple hours of being there, but some days I don't go through the whole container and the coffee is still pretty hot by the time I get home (go thermos!). I understand that if it was plain this should be fine, but does the dairy creamer break down over the day to the point I shouldn't be consuming it by the time I get home (about 9 hours after brew time) given it has been kept pretty hot most of the day ?
If I should be tossing this sooner by a certain time when is that? Does keeping it hot prolong life beyond the 2-4 hours in the danger zone I am seeing on other posts?
My personal inclination would be that if it's still hot when you get home, and it tastes normal, it's probably reasonably safe. I don't know what the official answer would be, though (and I tend to drink my coffee black).
I've definitely had some after that 9 hour mark in the past and it seemed ok. I am generally more than willing to eat/drink anything that doesn't make me spit it back up, but as I continue on through my 20s I feel I should start being a bit more responsible.
The clock on the danger zone starts when the food temperature drops below 60 celsius. It should be 4 hours for coffee - two hours are for meat, where it is assumed that bacteria in it have had some chance to grow while it was being butchered, transported, and stored in a supermarket. In coffee and creamer, there will be no bacteria growth at all in the ingredients, it will start after you have brewed the drink and mixed in the creamer, and the temperature has fallen below 60.
If you want to go by the book, measure the temperature of the coffee inside the thermos 5 hours after brewing. If it is above 60 Celsius, then it is still safe up to 9 hours after brewing. Do it on several days to have a significant result.
(For those of us on my side of the pond, that's 140 degrees Fahrenheit. )
The thing about dairy is that it comes with a huge bacterial load, but it's all stuff that's relatively benign to humans (assuming it was originally pasteurized). When it goes bad it gets chunky or stinky or both, and that's usually gross (sour cream, yoghurt, buttermilk, etc, being the exceptions), but not terribly harmful.
That naturally occurring bacteria also does a good job of suppressing the growth of other, more hostile, bacteria. It just out-competes it. Nearly all dairy products are based on this. Cheese, yoghurt, sour cream...they would be impossible to eat safely if it were not true.
All that being the case, I'd say that as long as your beverage still tastes and smells good, it's not going to hurt you: the bacteria that's going to blow up first will definitely change the flavour. My original answer to that first question was based more on long term storage.
The whole "Danger Zone" thing is based around uncertainty over your bacterial contamination. After a couple of hours warm, something will have established a sizable colony. In this case, it's probably going to be streptococcus lacti, and it's not bad for you.
The OP said "creamer". In my experience, this word is not used for pasteurized milk from a carton, but for powdered dairy products, or condensed milk, or UHT cream in single-use packages, and for non-dairy fat-based powders. None of these comes with the benign culture load capable of outgrowing the baddies.
And actually, even pasteurized milk is a hit and miss when it comes to different lactobacilii, depending on the pasteurization process. If the original flora was killed during the pasteuization, you can have recolonization by many different species. Your logic is generally applicable to raw milk, not to the products widely available today.
I had originally had pre-dairy'd in the question title and have changed it to be more clear.
I usually don't answers questions but since I'm a coffee junkie I felt inspired. As I write this at 9:30 Sunday morning I'm sipping on a cup of coffee that I brewed at 10:am on Saturday morning but have kept in a thermal carafe since. I poured a cup, (which was still a little warm after almost 24 hours), and nuked it in the microwave for 2 minutes to reheat it, then added my usual splenda and powered creamer and other than a slight stale taste, (which I always get when I reheat lukewarm coffee in a microwave), it is fine. I wouldn't reheat coffee that has been left out uncovered overnight, but I've never had a problem when I've reheated coffee that's been stored in a carafe even on the rare times when it was from a pot of coffee that I brewed but wasn't able to drink even up to 24 hours later. Finally I will apologize to the true coffee connoisseurs out there who are cringing while reading this.
Hi Dan, the question asked about storing the coffee with creamer already added, not about just storing the coffee, then adding creamer afterwards.
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.102389
| 2014-01-13T23:39:17 |
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|
28120
|
Pulled noodle dough: how can you realign the gluten after a failed attempt to pull?
I've seen many videos regarding how to knead the pulled noodle dough. The one recipe I used for this is:
For hand pulled noodles you need:
Bread flour (wet gluten 29-30%, protein 11%-12%)
45% added water 1%
sodium carbonate (soda ash)
0.2% sodium chloride (salt)
sourced from here.
I believe I've done the kneading right because the dough is smooth and elastic. I can pull & twist it a few times. Then I made a mistake and the dough broke and then it failed. After a few attempts to re-knead the dough using fold and knead techniques, it seems the gluten structure is messy. I can see the dough is rough. Seems like it's too alkaline or something.
Anyway, the question is can I fix the dough? because no matter how long I kneaded it, it seems not to realign (the dough is coarse and lacks the plasticity and flexibility, and tears easily if you tried to pull it, revealing the gluten mess).
Can anyone make any suggestion or recommendation from experience?
This sounds like overkneaded dough, but I have never had it happen with hand kneading. If it is really overkneading, there is no way to save it. I am still not sure this is the case, as you would have to work it a lot, maybe more than an hour in total, if you are doing all your kneading and pulling by hand.
@rumtscho, according to the site I link to in my original answer, overkneading is impossible.
@BaffledCook according to Corriher, overkneading is very possible. If you remind me, I'll post you a scan in chat sometime.
I'm new to the site and I wish I could make this a comment, not an answer, but I don't know how.
Hand pulled noodles use cake flour with less gluten and baking soda to reduce the gluten even further.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ze2SphqrWyg&feature=g-hist
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBSTSKY_DQs&feature=g-hist
If you are hand kneading, it's unlikely you are over-kneading because the dough will become very hard. The issue is very likely the soda ash overreacting with the wheat. But if you did over-knead, there is nothing you can do to save it
If you did break, there is no way of fixing it. Maybe to save the dough, change the strategy: Add eggs and more flour and make egg pasta. I have over-kneaded egg pasta many times in my KitchenAid mixer and it still turns out alright.
You need reputation to add a comment, after you have it you will see a link below each question and answer. But what you wrote is good enough as an answer by itself, no need to turn it into a comment.
Interesting. My first attempt at hand-pulled noodles also used low-gluten flour. However here at the Tiny Urban Kitchen blog she posts a recipe from a class she took, which calls for only high-gluten flour, water and salt.
In fact, it was the recipe from another of her posts here that I used. One of the comments on the other link noted all the recipes I see on the internet written by people outside of China say to use low gluten flour, however all Chinese sources say to use high gluten flour
That is funny. Did you see my videos? One of them if from the tiny urban kitchen. I wonder what came first.
There is no cake flour ( low protein ) in my country. I did some research and talked to an agronomist friend and he believes that cake flour must be soft wheat without the semolina. He explained that gluten has 2 proteins glutenin and gliadin. He thinks that cake flour must have a lower content of gliadin which gives firmness. Glutenin on the other half is elastic. Semolina which is part of the endosperm of the wheat contains gliadin ( that's why it used in pasta and pudims where firmness is more important ). But he said he is working that assumption and still needs to research. It makes sense
Another point is that one of the 2 proteins is reactive to alkaline and acids but he does not know thee outcome. As soon as I get my scale in action ill toy with pulled noodle with high and low protein acid and alkaline. This might take a while but I'll think it's worth the understanding of wheat and protein.
The recipe you have is for ramen, not hand pulled noodles. Your gluten levels are way too high and the carbonate is not helping. If you are adding sodium carbonate, your noodles should be turning yellow. Look at examples of professionals pulling dough, all the dough is white, therefore no sodium carbonate was used. I have been working on hand pulled noodles recently, with success, but I have not nailed down all the parameters. A gluten content of 7.2% seems to be a requirement. Yes, the decimal place is important.
If you use softasilk and all-purpose flour you will get close enough to be able to make noodles for dinner. www.lukerymarz.com has a recipe to follow.
No personal experience, but
Dough Wetness
The wetter the dough, the easier it is to pull. If you are having trouble getting the dough to be stretchy, add some water. You'll want the dough to be wet enough such that it will stick to the counter or your hand if you let it sit for 10 seconds or so. After that, if you add more water, it will make it too difficult to handle and it will stick to everything.
Warmth
Warmer dough is stretchier. The warmer you keep the dough as you're trying to pull it, the better off you'll be. It isn't necessary to pull proper noodles, but it can make the difference if you're just getting the hang of it.
Practicing
You can practice with the same piece of dough for hours. If it gets too dry, just wet your hands or dip the dough in some water to rewet it.
Source: www.lukerymarz.com
He also had some other comments about tearing : "The dough will resist long stretches. To get around this, it needs a rest here and there. You can provide this by stretching the dough like you're playing an accordion; many short, quick pulls. The dough also gets a rest when you fold it."; "Your first pull should be a full arms length. Pulls after that should be less than a full arms length. Otherwise you will end up with tears, especially with a smaller amount of dough"
That recipe is gaslighting you. It cannot possibly work. Hydration is way too low. Adding alkali alone will not help pull. In practical restaurant applications penghui is added which is a mix of salt, alkali, and IMPORTANTLY dough relaxers. Without penghui, you need to tweak hydration very precisely to have any chance at success. Then you have to acquire the skills to actually pull. It's a fun but long journey.
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.102850
| 2012-10-30T18:23:26 |
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28164
|
Can I substitute baking soda for kansui powder?
Related: What does kansui do to dough in noodle making?
I'm looking to make my own 拉面-style noodles. I've read up a lot about kansui and making your own kansui with a powder mix of sodium and potassium carbonates. I've also seen some recipes that substitute kansui powder with baking soda.
Can I use baking soda to substitute for kansui? If so, in what proportions? If not, what other common ingredients can I use to substitute?
(Taking random guesses here) You could try McGee's baked baking soda. That'll actually get you sodium carbonate. Or alternatively calcium hydroxide ("lime"), which is sold with home-canning supplies; I've found it at the local Walmart before. Be careful with these, of course.
It looks like it should be OK to substitute. See NY times and Chowhound, no idea on proportings
@derobert you should make that an answer as an alternative to the traditional kansui
Harold McGee tackled alkaline noodles a while back. He found that baking baking soda actually changes it from sodium bicarbonate to sodium carbonate. This is a reasonable substitute for the kansui called for in alkaline noodles and can be substituted 1:1 in recipes. The noodles may not get AS yellow as they would with both alkalines present in kansui but it's a small price to pay for not having to hunt down that ingredient.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/15/dining/15curious.html?_r=0
The key part:
Just spread a layer of soda on a foil-covered baking sheet and bake it at 250 to 300 degrees for an hour. You’ll lose about a third of the soda’s weight in water and carbon dioxide, but you gain a stronger alkali. Keep baked soda in a tightly sealed jar to prevent it from absorbing moisture from the air. And avoid touching or spilling it. It’s not lye, but it’s strong enough to irritate.
I "baked" baking soda for about one hour, low oven. It changes its chemical structure to sodium carbonate which is simply more alkali.
Suggestion, kansui makes fabulous spaghetti and noodles (even some Italians add baking soda to their pasta mixture). I use 1/4 teaspoon per cup of regular all purpose flour, or 1 teaspoon per three cups, and the results are outstanding.
@marietan I suspect that the sun might not be hot enough. The first answer links to a nytimes article with much more detail - the key bit is 250 to 300 degrees Fahrenheit. I've edited that into the answer so it's easier to find! :)
No. Sodium bicarbonate isn't alkaline enough. You won't have traditional ramen unless you were to use sodium carbonate. You will end up with a noodle with less bite if you were to use baking soda.
Just bake the sodium bicarbonate at 400-425F (not in a low oven like another poster is claiming) for 30 mins to an hour till its all become grainy rather than fluffy. Stir this into the water you will use for the noodles and you will have a mock kansui.
This is much easier a faster. I've been making sodium carbonate for years to cleaning uses. It is pretty clear when it has converted as the texture is completely different. No need to wait the hour like others are suggesting.
I'm not sure about the exact proportions, but nearly every recipe I've seen written in English just uses baking soda. This page seems to have a good looking recipe for ramen that uses baking soda, so maybe base your proportions off of it. 拉面 recipe
I too have tried several "recipes" all different.
But I have found adding Bicarbonate of Soda to pasts and ramen does firm the bite up noticeably.
Hi Nick, welcome to Seasoned Advice! How much Bicarbonate of Soda did you use for best results?
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.103650
| 2012-11-02T03:44:22 |
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|
29126
|
how to seal a pizza stone
Possible Duplicate:
How do I season my new pizza stone?
I have a ceramic pizza stone, but ive heard it needs to be "sealed" with a coat of oil before I can use it. Any thoughts on how to do this? So far I've coated the stone with a thin layer of vegetable oil and added some garlic and rosemary. I feel like I should bake it in the oven now, but for how long? Any help would be great.
The stone is too add thermal mass to the oven (often insuficient), you do not need to put the pizza directly on it
http://www.ehow.com/how_5760691_use-pizza-stone-oil.html
thought it was to absorb some dough moisture leaving a crisper crust. I would never seal it... but eventually it does anyway with oil/cheese drips
I recently seasoned my new stone by lightly oiling it and heating it at 450 degrees for about 20 minutes. The biggest thing to remember is placing the stone in a cold oven, and removing it from the oven only after its cooled back down. Taking the stone in or out of the oven while the oven is hot can cause the stone to thermal shock and break.
Ceramic pizza stones do not need to be "sealed". I've had several ceramic stones, as well as unglazed quarry tiles. All can simply be used as-is.
I can be a good idea to run it through a hot oven once to burn off any chemical residue from its manufacture or handling in the factory.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.103974
| 2012-12-13T01:41:35 |
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|
33690
|
Is it possible to make breads using cake techniques?
Is it possible to make bread using similar batters/techniques as cakes? Or why isn't is possible to make breads using similar techniques or batters as a cake?
To extend what GdD said, the reason why yeast raised breads and quick breads are so different comes down to gluten development.
Yeast raised breads have structure based on gluten, which is a protein created in wheat flours (due to enzymatic action on other proteins in the flour) over time in a moist environment, or when physically agitated. Gluten has a strong, elastic structure providing the toothsome bite typical of yeast raised breads. The techniques, which typically involve one or more of:
Long, slow fermentation by yeast--the physical raising of the dough not only leavens it, but also helps gluten development
Kneading, to enhance quicker gluten formation
So called autolysis, or allowing to set in cool conditions as a moist dough for slow gluten development without extra work from kneading
The result is a strong gluten structure, trapping gas bubbles, giving the charactaristic texture of breads.
Quick breads are the polar opposite. As a general class, they are intended to be tender and soft, not chewy and resilient. The "muffin method" used to create them intentionally minimizes gluten development by:
Not using yeast to raise the dough
Mixing a minimal amount to discourage gluten formation
Baking immediately (in most cases) after the batter is combined, in order to mininize gluten development from sitting time in moist conditions.
The result of course is a tender cake, bread, or muffin.
Typical cake techniques such as the creaming method also control gluten development by:
Pre-creaming the butter with sugar, and then adding the eggs prior to combining with flour. The fat/sugar phase then coats the flour particles minimizing their interaction, and discouraging gluten formation.
Cake batters, like quick bread batters, are not usually held, minimizing time for passive gluten formation
Each of these methods is tuned for the outcome desired, and they cannot easily be swapped.
That being said, there are quick breads which are less like the sweet cake like banana bread for example--the most iconic is probably Irish soda bread, but this does not change the general fact that yeast raised breads are a very different beast due to the gluten development. Still, they are their own beast, and not like a yeast raised bread.
I'm assuming you mean yeast breads, not quick breads like cornbread and banana bread which are actually types of cakes. Cakes and yeast breads are fundamentally different, which is why the techniques are so different. Breads are supposed to be somewhat stretchy and denser then cakes, which is why they are a dough rather than a batter, and why they are kneaded by hand or dough hook. Cakes are supposed to be light and crumbly requiring them to be thinner and have air beaten into them (for some cakes). The recipes and techniques are very different for the two.
There are a few exceptions, for example brioche is typically made in a mixer with a paddle blade, and is closer to a batter than a dough, this is only possible because it has so much butter in it and the texture is supposed to be more crumbly. There are also some no-knead bread recipes out there which are mixed more like cake batters.
So on the whole no, you cannot use the same techniques.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.104240
| 2013-04-23T14:28:22 |
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|
14664
|
Keep fettuccine from sticking/clumping while cooking?
This question addresses how to keep pasta from sticking after it has been cooked. This question is what I want, but was wrongly closed. All the answers from the first address the sticking post-boiling, and my problem is the sticking during boiling. How can I prevent this from happening?
Simply put, you have to stir them the first three/four minutes of cooking. Be sure to boil them in enough water (at least 1 liter per 100 grams). In addition to that be sure to buy some good quality pasta. From my knowledge pasta tends to stick when the wheat used is of poor quality. A good pasta should not be transparent when seen in direct sunlight, but it should be of a nice pale yellow color and opaque. Good Italian pasta brands that you can find outside of Italy are De Cecco (which I fear might be quite expensive, and probably not so easy to find), or Barilla (easier to find). Both of them has cooking instructions printed on the package. You might want to cook them for 2-3 minutes less than what's printed, then eventually cook them the remaining couple of minutes together with your sauce.
I find it's most important to make sure that it's moving well at the beginning; a quick stir after adding the pasta does wonders, and sometimes a second stir after the water comes back to a boil.
I also try to make sure the pasta goes in with a little bit of separation. Strand type pasta are the most difficult, but if you hold it in both hands, and give one a twist, it'll cause it to fan out, so you can get it to disperse better when it first hits the water. For most others (shells, penne, orzo, etc.), I pour it in over a few seconds rather than just completely upending the box.
Sufficient water for boiling so there's space for the pasta to move also helps.
You can also try adding olive oil to the pot of water before it boils. the olive oil and occasional stir will help the noodles from sticking.
This is my method too. I also add a little salt.
This answer to your referenced question should address your issues.
The important part is step 3:
Stir pasta for a couple of minutes after pouring it in the hot water
Stirring frequently in the first few minutes, as well as using plenty of water will address your sticking issues.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.104508
| 2011-05-10T23:19:42 |
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|
53943
|
What's wrong with my iSi soda siphon, and how do I fix it?
I am the happy owner of a soda siphon which I've used for the last three years on a near-daily basis to make sparkling water for sundry use at home. It appears to be this model, though I've lost the manual and there isn't a model number on the device that I can find.
The only problems I've had with it up to now have been due to operator error. However, the last time I tried to fill and charge with a CO2 canister, the siphon immediately released a short blast of carbonated water from the dispensing nozzle. When I squeezed the trigger, the water was poorly carbonated and trickled out much more slowly than normal; presumably that initial blast vented a lot of the gas as well.
I figured something was misaligned, so I emptied, disassembled, carefully reassembled to ensure there were no gaps, and refilled. Upon charging: same result, an initial blast without me squeezing the trigger, but this time contained in the sink. I tried to compensate by adding a second CO2 charger, then I placed the device in the refrigerator (letting it chill for at least a couple hours always seems to help with good carbonation).
A few hours later, I opened the fridge to find a puddle of tan, disgusting-looking water. It seemed to have leaked out of the siphon, and when I removed the charging nozzle cap I could see small bubbles and a trickle of water venting from the charging nozzle. The charging nozzle itself appears to be discolored (in truth, I noticed this before but figured it was just mineral buildup and cleaned it as best I could) and the interior of the plastic cap is corroded too.
As you can see, the majority of the discoloration is around a small vent hole on the side of the charging nozzle, and where the charger meets with the actual nozzle intake. The state of the nozzle cap interior leads me to believe that some venting and liquid seeping may have been occurring for a while, but this is the first I've noticed it and definitely the first time that it created a puddle in my fridge.
I've searched around for recommendations, but all I can find online are some not-very-helpful general tips on cleaning, and admonishments to only use iSi-brand CO2 chargers. I don't; I buy mine in bulk instead, but they're rated for the same gas purity as the iSi versions and are the same design. Out of 200+, I've only had one that wasn't pressurized enough and didn't fully discharge, so I trust them.
Any idea what might be causing the immediate venting when I charge the siphon? Would a thorough deep-clean fix the issue, and if so how would I go about doing that? Is there some maintenance that I could perform, and should be performing to prevent this in future? Or, am I completely hosed and in need of new parts, or worse, a whole new siphon?
I'm fairly sure that you should be able to get a "rebuild kit" with all the rubber parts (and perhaps a few others.) Due to the wonders of modern commerce, it's anybody's guess as to whether you might well be able to find a complete new siphon for less cost. If you have a second-hand store or frequent tag sales you can almost certainly find one barely used for less cost - lots of people get them and don't actually use them.
It certainly appears that the main gas seal at the charging port is toast, at least.
The instructions on mine included complete tear down diagrams as far as I recall - many things unthread to expose innards (such as the big slot on the white plastic part.) I have not actively used it in a few years, but I don't recall the process being all that difficult (but it was a bit off-putting to find the accumulated bits of metal seals that had blown into the mechanism over time.)
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.104728
| 2015-01-24T18:36:14 |
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|
33959
|
Should flour be thrown out past its expiry date?
As the title says, is it safe to consume flour once its past its expiry date or should it be thrown away?
The main things that can go bad with flour, assuming it is properly stored are:
Rancidity
Insect infestation
If you don't see any insects, and it still smells good, you should feel free to use it. If it smells off or nasty—trust me, your nose will tell you—then you will want to discard it.
The actual date on the bag is only a guideline.
Look VERY VERY closely for the insects, they can be very small! Best to hold it still and see if anything moves. The fact that it is unlikely you will be eating it raw means a good cooking will kill bugs and so on (but you will end up eating them). Also if you do have bugs in there they are probably in ALL your flour based products and any "cupboard dust", etc so you will need a good clean.
Normally no problem. But check if there is flour worms in the flour. To do so, follow these steps:
Fill up a plain glass with flour.
Press together the flour, so you
get a flat / hard surface, slightly below the rim of the glass.
Let the jar stand in a bright and warm spot for about 1-2 hours.
If you have flour worms, some very small larvae (less than 1 mm) will break the smooth surface of the flour, and get visible.
If you have these larvae, you should throw everything you have of flour products in your closet and wash your closet thoroughly.
Otherwise, the expiration date is not all the world to care about when it comes to dry goods.
While some people do consider flour worms gross, what danger do they pose?
They are totally harmless to your body, but they populate quite quickly. When they are old enough they pupate, and eventually they reappear as small moths, which in turn lay eggs in other open flour containers. You could put your flour in the freezer over the night, and I will guess that they are all dead in the next morning. That would possible be the best way of getting rid of them.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.105055
| 2013-05-05T00:49:34 |
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|
44715
|
Filling vs Frosting
What's the difference between filling and frosting? Does filling mean filling inside layers of a cake and frosting is covering the outside of the cake?
Pretty much. A "filling" is any substance inside of a pastry or pastry-like food item (a filling inside a sandwich, a filling inside a cinnamon roll, a filling inside a pie, a filling inside a calzone). So when you're talking about cake, anything between layers is a filling: more frosting, a layer of jam, maybe some ganache.
Frosting is a specific type of thing that's used to cover the outside of a cake. There are many kinds (contrast buttercream to whipped), but is generally more substantial than an icing, which also can be used to cover the outside of a cake. In general, things on the top of a cake are called toppings, in the same way that things on the top of a pizza are called toppings, but that usually doesn't count the frosting or icing or glaze.
You can therefore have a filling made of frosting, but you cannot have a frosting made of filling.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.105265
| 2014-06-08T12:28:40 |
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|
52068
|
Can semifreddo be used in fried ice cream recipe?
As the title says, can I use semifreddo instead of ice cream in a fried ice cream recipe?
Well, yes and no. A lot of recipes for semifreddo aren't truly semifreddo because they are hard frozen. Recipes like that can be fried just like ice cream. The key to fried ice cream is to hard freeze the scoops of ice cream. By definition, that isn't semifreddo, but definitions don't seem to matter much to writers of recipes. So, if the "stuff" is hard frozen, it can be coated and fried like fried ice cream. Perhaps after being deep fried, the name "semifreddo" is more apropos.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.105374
| 2014-12-29T08:02:56 |
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|
40574
|
How to add pistachios in a white chocolate mudcake
I am planning to make a white chocolate mud cake with pistachios, white chocolate chips and dark chocolate chips. I know that there are several methods to prevent the chocolate chips sinking to the bottom. But do I have to take any precautions with the pistachios too? Should I dust them with flour or what things should I keep in mind to add pistachios to my cake? I would also like the pistachios to be a good size so that people can bite into them and taste them in the cake.
Dust all three inclusions (the chips and nuts) and then place half of the plain batter (that has no inclusions added) in the pan(s), add the inclusions to the remaining batter and mix lightly. Pour that batter evenly over the batter already in the pan(s) and bake. Don't cut the pistachios in more than half or they will be too small.
+1, thanks, that's very helpful. Just one more question, won't the pistachios sink to the bottom if they are only halved?
Its a balance; the smaller you chop or grind them, the less likely they are to sink, but the less textural contrast you will have.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.105459
| 2013-12-25T04:42:06 |
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|
54025
|
What were the primary reasons for different livestock consumption habits of countries and cultures?
Whilst visiting a friend in Germany recently he told me that the prevalence of pork in the German diet was because the winters often killed cattle and beef was not readily available.
I began to think about the issue on a much deeper (but uniformed level) and wondered what the primary reasons were for particular meat consumption in regions.
Examples
Beef in the UK/USA
Pork in Germanic Countries
Herring in Scandinavia
Goat in Arabic countries
Lamb in South East Asia
Tofu or Soy based products in Far Asia
Mixed chicken and seafood in Romance-speaking countries
Is there a deep historical reasoning for the prevalence of one product over another?
Japan has a lot of seafood. It's most likely prevalence: Japan is surrounded by water, there's lots of seafood, so they eat lots of seafood. In comparison, land is sparse and raising livestock takes up a fair amount of that land. Coastal areas in China also have a lot of seafood (local specialties in Xiamen, for example,) but you can see as you head more inland, the cuisine tends to favour more land-based meats (like Sichuan: beef, duck, pork, more pork, chicken, and a whole lot of chilli.) The other reason would be religious (like beef in India, or pork in Malaysia ...)
I'm not entirely sure that this is an on-topic cooking question for our site... there's a culinary component, but this strikes me as more about anthropology and the history of domestic animal husbandry.
Beef wasn't the go-to meat in the US, historically. My understanding is that it was the railroads that made beef viable to a larger portion of the population. (as it could be raised far from the cities, then transported for slaughter). Before that time, you had to rely on cattle drives in the midwest, but east coast would've had more sheep, goat, chickens, rabbits, etc. Especially closer to the cities and in more mountainous regions. Pork was also raised near cities, as pigs would eat the garbage produced there.
Meta regarding this type of question - http://meta.cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/1701/anthropology-versus-culinary-questions
Id'say availability, like others have commented on.
If you have access to sea, seafood is an easy choice.
You cannot keep cattle high up in the mountains, that's why goats and sheep are more popular in e.g., Greece, where there are no plains for cattle to graze on.
Chickens and doves are easy to keep and were cheaper than pigs or cows.
Pigs are omnivores. On the one hand, they are happy in forest regions eating acorns (which cows wouldn't like). Pigs also eat kitchen trash like potato peel and leftovers. On the other hand pigs compete with humans for food (potatos, fruit).
Other animals were primarily work animals (dogs to guard, cats to catch mice, horses to pull carts and ploughs) and were hence not eaten (there are exemptions to this rule like Sauerbraten which was made from horse meat of horses that were too old to be used as work animals).
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.105598
| 2015-01-27T00:17:50 |
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|
55348
|
General Principles of making risotto
I made risotto for the first time last sunday - thanks to the advice I got from the posts here and here. I came to know about risotto from this site (probably not the correct way to learn about the recipe, as the questions in this site deal with particular aspect of the recipe of a food item thus expecting you to know the recipe ahead).
It was good (well, I have never eaten risotto before, so can't really compare) to my taste. There were so many recipies for risotto. Some call for wine, some do not have wine. Some call for juice, others for vinegar, some say no need to add anything beyond stock, etc...
I basically made vegetable stock, then fried rice in olive oil and added this stock to it slowly, ladle by ladle, over 30 minutes. At the end I added a mixture of fried vegetables to this cooked rice. The recipe tasted good. However I don't know what I am missing.
So my question what are the general principles when making a risotto? For what purpose is each ingredient (not the individual ones but generalised like stock, wine, juice etc...) added and when is it added?
The only thing I am sure about is that I can fry any variety of vegetables and add them to the rice at the end.
I do not understand what you are asking. You seem to have made a risotto just fine, what are your actual problems?
As I said, this is the first time I have eaten risotto. So I was not sure if I am missing anything. Also there are many opposing recipes for risotto. So I want to know the general principles, after knowing which I can make my own substitutions for ingredients I lack. @GdD
The important part of making risotto is that you're moving it around in a little bit of liquid, so you end up scraping of the outside of the rice, causing the loose starch to thicken the remaining liquid to a creamy consistency. The overall dish should be creamy but not mushy, with the individual grains of rice still having some firmness to them.
As for your specific questions :
For details on preparation, see https://cooking.stackexchange.com/a/137/67 .
Most ingredients are simply for flavor. The acids (wine or vinegar) change how starch cooks and can keep it from getting too mushy, and add some brightness to the dish, but aren't absolutely necessary.
So we can add the veggies any time?
One thing I'd like to add that I recently leaned (and experimentation bears it out), is that you want to do it in a saucepan, not a skillet. ElendilTheTall taught me that. Before I had done it both ways without a thought. When I actually compared the two, the difference is big.
@CRags : I generally cook the vegetables before adding the rice (mushrooms, onions, etc.), but there are some that I'll add pretty late (eg, fresh peas). Much of it has to do with what you want the final texture to be ... you have better control of that by cooking them separately and adding them in, but if you do that , deglaze the pan and add the result back into the risotto so you don't lose any of their flavor.
There is only one general principle for risotto:
Cook short grain rice long enough for the starches to be liberated and gelatinize. This results in the distinctive, pudding-like, creaminess.
Everything else is variable and for flavor. In particular boosting the umami to heartbreaking levels.
Stock and wine have more flavor than water. The alcohol in wine also dissolves interesting flavors in other ingredients
Mushrooms are packed with umami and are very traditional. The risotto I like best is basically just stock and a ton of mushrooms.
Stirring constantly is traditional but no one can figure out why because it isn't required.
Kenji at serious eats did a great article on risotto recently that I recommend. He cooks his in a pressure cooker and it is fast and easy. I tried it and it worked very well. Indistinguishable from the slow method.
The one time I can think when you might need the stirring constantly (or close to it) is if somehow you can't get your stove to a low enough simmer and it's going to stick/burn otherwise. But that'd be a pretty bad stove.
It's possible that it's 'traditional' because it had to be done before they bred varities of rice that don't need it. It's actually possible to make something risotto-like using long or medium grain rice, or even broken up bits of pasta.
Minor typo: imami -> umami
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.105874
| 2015-03-03T14:41:08 |
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|
54589
|
Can you help me identify these cookies?
Can you help me identify all the cookies in this picture?
General name is fine, like 2 is Gingerbread. Sorry if it is unclear from the picture, but this is all the info I have.
I'm guessing this isn't homework (if so, I might be willing to go back to class)... so some sort of treasure hunt or puzzle contest?
Google image search didn't find this image - where did it come from?
To elaborate on Max's answer and provide missing items/detail:
Oatmeal raisin cookies
Gingerbread cookies
Milano cookies (Pepperidge Farm)
Peanut butter cookies
Macarons
Snowballs (or Mexican wedding cookies, or German pfeffernüsse, or Russian Tea Cakes...)
Chinese fortune cookie (Actually an American bastardization of a Japanese cookie)
either Chinese almond cookie or oatmeal almond cookie
Sugar cookies
Chocolate mint cookies (similar to Girl Scout Thin Mints or Keebler Grasshoppers)
Chocolate chip cookies
Biscotti
snowballs or Mexican wedding cookies?
It could honestly be either, but I'd have to see the inside. Snowballs are usually a little rounder than that picture now that I think about it, so go with the Mexican wedding cookies.
@Jolenealaska you're right! Edited
6 is really not conclusive from the picture. Russian tea cakes can look like that too, if rolled in enough sugar.
@rumtscho True, but we can only infer so much from a picture.
5 is a "French Macaroon" either lemon or lime, chocolate, vanilla and strawberry. Also 6 is either a Mexican Wedding Cookie or Russian Tea Cake. Technically they are both called
"Snowballs" in the US. It depends on how small the nut is chopped, whether pecan or walnut is used, and how the ball is rolled and if the ball is rolled after it is cooked, once or twice. Also, the bigger the ball, the flatter the botton because it is heavier cookie.
1- raisin cookies
2- ginger bread cookies
3-
4- peanut butter cookies
5- macarons
6-
7- fortune cookies
8- chinese almond cookies
9- birthday/Christmas cookies :-)
10-
11- chocolate chips cookies
12- biscotti
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.106253
| 2015-02-10T18:52:48 |
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|
76857
|
What main course Indian cuisine I can make out of potato with sweetness in nature?
In continuation to my previous post. What main course Indian cuisine I can make out of potato with sweetness in nature?
As pulao and dry vegetable taste terrible with this kind of potato.
Use them with sago to make microwave sabudana khichadi. The dish is a nice blend of flavors and one of the ingredients is sugar. Just reduce the amount of sugar to 1 teaspoon or less, depending on how sweet the potatoes are, instead of the stated 1 tablespoon.
My experience with that particular recipe, by the way, is that the given 2 minutes total of microwave time is too little. I have a recent model microwave with 1100 watts of power but it still takes three minutes microwaving on high power + five minutes standing time for the sago to be cooked. I also prefer to use dalia (roasted chana dal / bengal gram) rather than peanuts, although peanuts are traditional.
As an aside, sabudana is sometimes erroneously called "tapioca". The Wikipedia page on sabudana notwithstanding, sago and tapioca are not the same thing. Sago is made from the pith of the stems of sago palms, tapioca from cassava root. They're both starches and the pearls look more or less identical, but they behave differently. For one thing, sago takes about an hour of soaking; tapioca, about four or five at minimum. Soak sago that long and it will fall apart.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.106575
| 2016-12-27T07:22:03 |
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|
70546
|
Bake frozen pizza without a tray - will it melt and drip?
How can frozen pizza be baked in an oven without a tray, without running the risk of melting like in the picture below (found on teh internets)? Or does that just not happen?
Probably depends on whether the dough is cooked first or whether it's just raw dough... But considering that the main way you get a nice, crisp dough is by putting the pizza on a very hot surface... You're really going to have quality issues if you try to do this.
I have baked many a frozen pizza without a tray and never had a pizza lose structural integrity like that.
The oven should be quite hot (usually the box will specify at least 400°F).
Usually the difficulty arises when it's time to get the pizza out of the oven. I suggest a baking tray with no sides.
Indeed. Just baked it for 10 minutes at 425F and nothing leaked.
All of the frozen pizzas I've ever purchased actually tell you to put it right on the rack in the instructions! What I've found works very nicely is a baking stone or a rimmed baking sheet turned upside down, with parchment between the stone and the pizza. The parchment will not be hot, and you can pull the pizza out by the edge of the parchment.
Remember that parchment starts to crisp up and be very brittle at temperatures over 450°F. (Even if it doesn't spontaneously burst into flame as Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 would have you believe.)
In the UK the instructions generally tell you to put the pizza directly on the shelf. This is what I always do and have never had problems. I can only see the above happening where someone has gotten used to doing this and then tried it with fresh dough.
That was my first thought too. Also, we had a similar problem, though not quite that bad, when I let the pizza thaw first, which is the same basic principle.
Most commercially produced frozen (or indeed chilled) pizza seems to be part-cooked already to have a fairly rigid base. Raw dough will behave slightly differently, or if the pizza is caked in ice it may get waterlogged and lose its rigidity, but I agree that the possibility is remote of it falling apart like that.
Mine did completely that last night where it never did it before. What a shock and a mess! It was completely frozen so something must have been messed up with the ingredients. I won’t get that brand again!
Did you preheat the oven? I have a suspicion that this is more likely to happen when the pizza thaws without cooking quickly.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.106723
| 2016-06-08T18:47:04 |
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|
51670
|
Can someone identify this food?
I saw my friend eating this Asian snack, either Japanese or Chinese, which I've seen before in those Asian markets. It is hard to describe, but it looks like a ball of dough, with a clearish color. It is not cooked, and it is not a dumpling. Inside the ball, there is some jelly substance with nuts. It's quite a strange food.
Can someone identify it?
Is it like one of these?
No. Actually I think found what it is. I think its called a red bean cake and it looks like one of these https://photos.travelblog.org/Photos/26298/302099/f/2599072-Rice-cake-with-red-bean-paste-0.jpg
Oh OK. Those are common, and pretty tasty IMO.
@Jolenealaska : I've had the Korean version ... and they're ... interesting. Might be a bit of an aquired taste / texture. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't what I was expecting. (sort of like when you're expecting cola, and you get root beer ... even if you like root beer, it just seems wrong)
This would be a better question without "looks disgusting". (And now I'm craving red bean cake!)
Based on your photo, this is most likely a wagashi (Japanese sweet) called daifuku in Japanese. It's got an outer layer made from cooked glutinous rice that has been pounded and kneaded aggressively until smooth, which is called mochi. The inside is often a red bean paste made from a bean called azuki in Japanese (or adzuki in an odd English-language spelling from circa the 1970s) and sugar. The bean paste is called anko (or sometimes just an), pronounced ahn-ko.
Variations in the exterior include flavoring with yomogi (mugwort), which turns the color greenish, or the addition of other colorants. The filling may be made from other beans such as white beans (shiro-an), green peas (uguisu-an), edamame (zunda), and so on.
There are variations made in Korea and China as well.
Wagashi is much more varied than these - that is one wagashi, but there are many others.
@Trish yes, that's why I said it's a wagashi called daifuku. There are other wagashi that are not called daifuku.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.106952
| 2014-12-17T01:19:03 |
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|
59979
|
Why is it recommended to blanch onions before pickling them?
I was recently looking for a recipe to pickle onions, and among several others I found this one. Skimming through the comments I came across the same question as I'm asking now, but without any other answer than the musings of the author of the recipe:
Pouring water over the onions is something I've always done without quite knowing why. A quick internet research shows that most picked onion recipes call for this, but without explanation.
Hot water is often pour over onions (that aren't going to be pickled or cooked) in order to tame their sharpness and soften them a little. But a pickling brine is so intense and sharp itself, perhaps it isn't necessary.
So I started wondering myself whether or not the latter part of the quote is true; is it necessary to blanch the onions before pickling them, as the pickling solution is so sharp in taste anyway?
The recipe in question mixes:
1 medium red onion, about 5 ounces
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup rice vinegar, white wine vinegar, or apple cider vinegar
And then let it all rest in a jar for 30 min-2hrs before it is ready. It is supposed to keep for a couple of weeks in the refrigerator. The blanching of the onions happens before it is all put in the jar.
What method of pickling do we talk about here? I think there is a major difference whether we are talking about refrigerator pickles vs. serious canning, at least with regard to food safety.
@Stephie in what way would pouring hot water over onions matter for food safety? Refrigerator pickles would be refrigerated and used short term, plus are typically acidic (that appears to be the recipe quoted). By "serious canning" I assume you mean the jars will be pasteurized...so no safety issue. Finally, a lacto-fermented pickle, would also be rendered safe, from salt and acid. I can't see how this is a safety concern, but I am happy to be corrected if I am wrong.
@moscafj There is always botulism to consider - Which we can ignore if sufficient heat and acidity are involved. But I have seen people do really weird things (ok, and live to tell...) with veggies and a refrigerator and wanted to be sure. I agree that most methods are fine, but wanted to narrow down the question a bit. (Party because I didn't want to write a long "covers all bases" answer ^_^) And some blanch by submerging in boiling water, the term is not fixed for "pouring hot water over the onions".
Added a condensed version of the recipe to the question, for a more comprehensive version there is a link to the website it's somewhere towards the start @Stephie
@Stephie We can cover the botulism risk with sufficient acid or heating to 85C for 5 minutes. In the recipe provided a rinse of onion is clearly not for safety reasons.
From indiacurry.com :
Blanching Vegetables for freezing or pickling
Vegetables have a natural enzyme that continues to effect texture, color and flavor. Blanching stops the enzyme action
The natural enzymes help vegetable to grow and mature until they are harvested. After the vegetables have been harvested, they continue to remain active even when frozen or pickled making the pickles to be tough, effect the color and flavor. Blanching stops the action of the enzymes.
The purpose of blanching is not to sterilize or pasteurize vegetables. It may kill some but not all the surface micro-organisms
Blanching is done by either scalding vegetables in rapidly boiling water, or in a steamer for a short time period. The vegetables must be scalded just long enough to stop the enzyme reaction, but not too long to make them soft and mushy by breaking up the cell-walls.
Under-blanching stimulates enzyme activity and is worse than not blanching
Over-blanching causes loss of texture, color, flavor and vitamins.
Vegetables are blanched for freezing or making Indian pickles.
Nice! Texture...good point.
Blanching stops the enzymes by denaturing them (mangling the 3D structure of the proteins). But shouldn't pickling do exactly the same thing?
@DavidRicherby, enzymes are globular proteins and are unlikely to be affected by the pickling process.
Blanching is a common technique for making firmer vegetables and fruits that will be later go through other preparation steps, such as being placed in a stew or pickled. But it is a tricky process, because you want to be in the temperature range where an enzyme turns on (opposite of what the quote from indiacurry in another answer states). The reason is intricate and has to do with tangling up pectins.
Pectins are longish molecules with some side branches. They are from the same family as cellulose (the woody part of plants), but unlike cellulose they are water soluble. (You may have used it in making jams.) Pectins are present in the wall of cells and in the glue that bind cells togethers. Most edible plants also produce some member of the pectinase family of enzymes (PME for onions), which help break down the pectins making the fruit of vegetable softer.
The reason to blanch is to activate the PME so that it will start breaking the pectins in the onion. When this is done in a solution containing calcium (which can come from inside the cells), the calcium gets tangled up with the pectin creating a mesh that is not as soluble. This will help prevent the onions from becoming mushy in the pickling solution. If the temperature is too high the enzyme will be deactivated, so it needs to be done at the right temperature. Work by Gonzalez et al. suggests that 70C is the best temperature and 90C is too high and 50C too low. The time will depend on the size of the onions, but of the order of half an hour.
While the book is a good find, I think you quoted the wrong part of it - having a look at the section about onions (p. 311), I found this quote, which seems to line up with the accepted answer. The section you refer to seems to deal mainly with root vegetables. Otherwise great answer and an interesting read :) +1!
@eirikdaude you are been very kind. I just ignored the flavor modifying role of heat and maybe I shouldn't. I often eat freshly sliced red onions soaked in lime juice with my Indian food, so wanting to make the flavor milder did not occur to me. I was thinking more of pearl onions rather than the particular example given by the OP. This may require some experimentation, as in the OP's recipe the blanching seems too fast.
It's likely a matter of taste. Why not do a little experiment? Blanch half, pickle all, keep track of which is which, taste, report back.
So you believe there will be a difference in taste even when the onions are mixed with a "sharp pickling solution"? I actually don't think I'll bother doing it with mine, since they are fresh and shouldn't have developed too many sulfurous compounds yet, anyway. The question was mostly out of curiosity, to see what people here thought / had experienced, especially considering that it didn't seem the commments-section of the other webpage had managed to get to a definite answer through googling.
@eirikdaude I don't know, but since it appears to be a common practice for pickled onion I thought it would be worthy of an experiment. Sometimes practices develop over time as "tradition" but have no real impact...other times, there is a reason for the practice. Sounds like an interesting test to me.
This looks more than a common than an answer.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.107184
| 2015-08-17T05:47:27 |
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|
65633
|
Can fish stock be left simmering for a long time without damaging the flavor?
After reading this question regarding how to make a Cantonese fish soup I was considering adding an answer expounding on the fact that fish stock shouldn't be left simmering for too long, or you'll get a "glue flavor" in your soup because of bad tasting compounds being released from the fish trimmings.
However, upon googling for some sources to validate my claim I came upon this article, which among other things claims that
If no flat-fish bones are used, the stock can cook for four to six hours; this slow cooking extracts all the gelatin from the bones and makes a wonderful, rich broth.
Is it correct that it is only certain kinds of fish / fish trimmings which will create a bad tasting stock if left to simmer for too long? If so, are there any other kinds of fish than flat-fish which can create this bad taste?
From experience I cannot say because I never simmer stock beyond 20 minutes.
I follow this rule because nearly every master chef(no not the television show) I've read says so. Michel Roux states that in his book Sauces. And James Peterson, a former chemist, states it in his book Sauces, and he teaches at the French Culinary Institute.
Michel Roux makes the statement that for certain bones, less time is better.
Jennifer McLagan, in her book Bones, only states that flat fish bones are preferable because of their higher level of gelatin. As regards to time, she only states that fish bones "yield their essence quickly."
One would think that James Peterson would have commented on the chemistry of this, but he doesn't, despite talking at length of the various chemicals released when making veal and beef broth.
If Jennifer's comment on the issue gives us any clue, it would lead us to hypothesize that because fish bones yield their essence rather quickly, they must be delicate and probably burn or change after those 30 to 40 minutes of continuous heat.
We do know that stocks expire, so we might conclude that fish stocks are more susceptible to time and also to heat.
I am a European trained chef. This is a very interesting question and there are quite a few answers. In my opinion and experience, the simmer time of a good fish stock is 100% based on the type of fish bones that you are developing the stock with. I remember asking the question many times on my travels through Europe and North Africa. I will share my preferred methods for a few species of fish.
Turbot, 20 minutes after it comes to the boil, bay leaf only in the stock.
Dover Sole, a full mirapoix, simmer for 30 minutes.
Salmon, bring to boil and shut off, a full mirapoix is needed
Northern Hake, 45 minutes full mirapoix
John Dory, 45 minutes full mirapoix, white wine may be added if desired.
I hope that helps you out. Regards.
Michael
Thanks - I don't suppose you can provide a source for any of those recommendations, besides your own experience?
Michael, being a classically trained chef perhaps you could also add to your answer what effects the longer period of simmering will have on the fish stocks. Should you pull the bones out after the 20-30-45 minutes and continue to reduce? Also what is a full mirapoix? I never heard of a partial one, so what makes one a full one, just have the complete set of chopped/diced veg?
I always try to simmer my stock for a long period of time and have never gotten a bad taste. I have never heard about the "glue" taste but the broth that is extracted from the bones is a very tasty broth just like bone broth from meat.
Carol, welcome! Please note that we explicitly don't discuss health here, so I had to edit your answer a bit. Let me point you to our [tour] and [help] for more info on how this site works. Again: Welcome!
I'm not sure about a glue flavor (I kicked the habit in kindergarten ), but I made a stock with king mackerel bits, including the head and tail fin and it made an amazing base for gumbo. Be prepared for the smell to linger a bit though.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.107769
| 2016-01-20T08:34:10 |
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|
65765
|
What is the "honey stick" called?
I often see this utensil used in pictures of honey:
I've never seen this stick-like utensil used in other contexts, just for honey. But what is this "honey stick" called exactly? And is it used only for honey or for other things?
It's also used for stroop ... but that's even harder to find than the sticks in the U.S.
The most common term is "honey dipper".
It goes by several different names, though... largely because people usually can't remember what it's actually called:
Steven of The Sneeze takes a look at the widespread use of "the honey thing"—also known as a honey dipper, honey wand, or honey drizzler—on cereal boxes despite that few people seem to actually use these honey things
So, "honey stick" would probably get people to think of this tool, too.
For more information see the related question:
How to use a honey dipper?
"Honey drizzler" is what I've always known it as.
"The honey thing, you know like the bee on the cereal box uses" for me.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.108107
| 2016-01-24T00:56:34 |
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|
63129
|
How do companies find out how many calories are in their food?
In the United States, virtually every food that I buy from a grocery store has Nutrition Facts on it that contain the calorie count on it. For instance, the label on a granola bar might say that it has 150 Calories.
According to Wikipedia, a Calorie (with a capital C, also called a kilocalorie) is the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of one kilogram of water by one degree. However, it's not clear to me how companies would figure out how this translates to the Calorie count of their granola bar. I presume they don't just incinerate the food. Also, I'm guessing that they could ship off packaged foods somewhere to have it measured, but that wouldn't work for restaurant prepared foods.
There was a similar question titled How to calculate the calorie content of cooked food?, but it was focused on home food and relied on estimation. I presume that companies need to be much more precise in order to meet regulations.
So how do companies find out how many calories are in their food?
Possible duplicate of Calculating Nutrition Information for Commercial Food Labeling
@TFD I don't think this is a duplicate. I'm more interested in how they figure out how calories are determined in the first place, not how it can be plugged into Wolfram Alpha to create a nutrition label.
Sorry, you may have misunderstood. That is one of the valid resource companies use. Wolfram sells expensive but accurate data sets sourced from scientific and government researchers around the world. wolframalpha being free to basic users is his giveback to humanity :-)
@TFD It's helpful to know that Wolfram Alpha is a helpful repository, but I am also interested in how those numbers are determined in the first place. Fortunately, the answers in this question seem to answer that.
These days, mostly software. In the good/bad old days, by actually burning it (or having a laboratory do that for them). Software is much simpler (unless you are writing it, though it is probably more tedious than complex.)
Input ingredients and quantities, out comes calories. For a restaurant that assumes that the recipe used for calculation matches the actual recipe used.
Here is a USDA database, for instance. Tedious to use, but gives the idea.
http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/nutrients/index
So does the software get its numbers? By recording data from the old days of burning? And does the software need to take into account changes in composition due to cooking and other things?
AIUI, using standard data from calorimetery, and changes in composition have no effect on calories. i.e., short of burning the food beyond the point where anyone's going to eat it, cooking does not alter the caloric content of ingredients.
That's one reason why the whole idea of calories counting is totally flawed: a bag of coals gives a great nutritional value in a caloriemeter, but not when people eat the coals. People are not ovens.
Initially this was done through experimentation, a substance of an exact mass will always produce the same amount of heat when burned.
This was upgraded through chemistry to get this as accurate as at the molecular level. Then all you need to know is how much of this stuff so I have? to get an answer.
So when you have a recipe, you can add up all the calories you have and subtract anything that removes or burns calories in the processing (endothermic reactions for example consume material and transform some of that into heat which is calories burned).
Then also there is dietary science. Some stuff simply isn't digested. For loose example, a calorie of dietary fiber does not contribute to your caloric intake because it simply passes through the body untransformed and unabsorbed.
Nowadays, most of this information is kept in public ally accessible databases.
Dietary science doesn't matter. The labels denote what's in the food, not what your body is going to use out of it.
is that true? Cellulose is just a polysaccharide and as such has energy similar to starches but are inaccessible to humans - you can burn a log of wood but you shit any wood you eat.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.108255
| 2015-11-04T02:40:36 |
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|
34579
|
Why do most sandwich makers have a triangular shape?
I've seen many hundreds of sandwich making machines in my life, and I noticed that in the vast majority of them, there is a diagonal protrusion that makes sandwiches come up in triangular shapes.
This makes no sense to me, for the following reasons:
Most packaged sliced bread is square, not triangular.
Most grilled sandwich recipes don't call for triangular shapes
You're forced to a triangular shape
Non-square bread slices are difficult to use with this triangular shape
The protrusion itself is much more difficult to clean than a simple flat iron.
Yet for some reason these sandwich makers are extremely common, to the point that flat makers are somewhat of a specialty item, therefore costing more.
I think I'm missing something here. Why do most sandwich makers use this triangular shape? What are the advantages of such a shape?
Triangular shape makes sandwichs easier to eat with one hand.
I strongly suspect but cannot prove that there are very few actual manufacturers of this niche appliance—perhaps even only one major one.
In particular, Konwin is a Chinese OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) that makes a series of sandwich makers for re-badging and resale.
You will note that their line of sandwich makers has the exact detailed design prevalent in almost every model for sale, right down to the little design in the center of the triangles. The various models in their line probably share many parts.
It is likely that many brands of sandwich maker are actually re-badged OEM versions, and so their similarity is because they really are the same machines, perhaps with minor aesthetic treatments or customization.
As to why the OEM chose the triangle design, I can only guess that it is for aesthetic reasons—to make the sandwiches look nice.
Typically with these sandwiches you have some cheese inside along with some other ingredients such as tomatoes that get quite hot (325° F sometimes).
From what I've seen, if you have a square only shape, you don't necessarily get a good seal, plus you get a massive pocket of hot lava. The fat from the cheese or butter concentrates in the center, soaks and can break through the bread releasing hot lava on shirts, pants, open toes, etc.
Even if it doesn't suffer a total failure, you don't get a consistent sandwich. Center will end up much soggier than the crusty rim and eating it can get difficult and messy. Certainly no longer hors d'oeuvres stuff.
The triangular shape essentially makes it bite-sized, so the stuffing doesn't run away after the first bite and becomes more manageable.
You can try using a grill or a panini press, but if you've noticed, those ones allow the oozing lava to escape and run away. A calzone is similar to what you'd get, and a badly crafted calzone can be quite messy and again, not really an hors d'oeuvre.
I think that there are several reasons.
It just looks nice
As explained by MandoMando, to prevent too toasty edges and a hot liquid volcano in the middle
More edges means more crunchy slightly burned cheese, which is delicious.
Nowadays it's the shape people are looking for when buying a toaster, even though it may be very impractical. If manufacturers use a different shape, people might not recognize is at a sandwich toaster.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.108610
| 2013-06-08T17:24:41 |
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|
14683
|
Are these coffee beans unroasted?
I bought these coffee beans in Bali. I tried to grind them up to make a cup of coffee this morning, but they didn't grind properly, leaving lots of big chunks. It was more like grinding peanuts than coffee. The coffee didn't taste or smell anything like coffee either, and it was a really weak brown colour.
I'm assuming that I've gone and bought unroasted beans (although it didn't say anything about that on the pack). Is this the case?
Yes, they are not roasted. I think you can do this in a normal oven, but I have never done it myself so I cannot advice you on temperatures etc.
The Basics of Home Roasting: http://www.breworganic.com/coffee/howtoroast.htm
Thanks, that's what I figured. I've thrown a few in a pan to cook for a while and I'll see how it comes out.
you can also roast them in a hot-air popcorn popper, which you can easily pick up at a thrift store or garage sale for a few bucks. more info is here: http://www.sweetmarias.com/airpop/airpopmethod.php
i have roasted coffee this way for years, and it is indeed easy, and much cheaper! it's a bit messy, though, because the chaff from the roasting process blows around, so i do it outside in the summer. in the winter, i take a vacation from home-roasting and buy from a local roaster, and i count my pennies for a small roasting machine. ; )
Due to the ridiculously long winter we've had this year, I couldn't take the wait and decided to find a way to roast with my popper even while cold outside. I found a way to do it: put your popper in a cardboard box and, if necessary, close one or more of the flaps. Since the popper pulls in air from the bottom (at least, mine does) it will get warm air and be able to roast the coffee just like when doing it in the summer.
that's a great tip, Michael! i have resorted to roasting in my garage, but it takes a long time when it's cold for my poppers (yes, i have two i use, actually) to warm up to the roasting temperature. this might help, though -- i'll have to remember to try it.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.109005
| 2011-05-11T09:24:10 |
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|
19594
|
Where can I find (plain) Ramen noodles?
I recently thought about trying to make the Chicken Ramen recipe from Wagamama, however I will need to know how to get the correct ingredients from the best sources. I don't know any good sources to get the right noodles for making the Ramen.
Where should I look to acquire good-quality Ramen noodles for a recipe such as this?
Here's the recipe in the book I took a snapshot of.
EDIT: I found a website where you can purchase them from
http://www.theasiancookshop.co.uk/fresh-ramen-noodles-400g-3570-p.asp
Second paragraph rewritten because this isn't a shopping/polling/pricing site; we can help inform you where to look for something but that is the hard limit for shopping questions.
It helps to let us know what country you live in when asking where to find products.
I live in the UK.
Plain wheat noodles would be normal spaghett(i/ini) u can get from the supermarket
But Ramen noodles and Spaghetti noodles are much different
Buy a few packages of Top Ramen, and just throw out the seasoning packet. http://www.target.com/p/maruchan-174-ramen-noodle-soup-chicken-flavor-3oz/-/A-14767986
"Ramen noodles" are a predominantly North American term for what the Japanese call "Chinese Noodles" (Chukamen, which I've also seen spelled Yuukamen).
In practice, you can use any wheat noodle that's made with eggs or kansui, including lamian or mee pok, or even buckwheat noodles (notably soba). Noodles made without either of those are not recommended.
It does not matter which of the above you use, although the Chukamen varieties are the more traditional. Much like pasta, it's largely a matter of personal preferences and how you want it to come out in terms of texture and appearance.
You'll find a wide variety of all of these noodles in dried or fresh form at any Asian supermarket or grocery store. Across Canada there's a chain called T&T. You should have no trouble finding some Asian grocery stores in your region with a phone book or maybe Google or Yelp.
But I live in the UK, is there any locals where I can get them?
@lolwut: We aren't a directory service. Look up "Asian grocery" in your phone book or Google.
@MacMac - you can make your own, esp. if you have a pasta roller, as well. To replicate the kansui effect, you can bake baking soda (that's not an error), which converts sodium bicarbonate to sodium carbonate, which is a stronger alkaline. This replicates the chemistry of the local water that gives ramen its distinctive characteristics. A Google search on "homemade ramen" will help with recipes and instructions.
Buy yourself a few packages of cheap Ramen Noodle Soup. They can be found at most grocery stores for between $0.10 and $0.50 USD per package.
Boil them in a little bit of water, but don't add the seasoning packet. Rinse and drain, then you have your noodles!
Here's an example: http://www.target.com/p/maruchan-174-ramen-noodle-soup-chicken-flavor-3oz/-/A-14767986
The "plain" ramen instant noodles sold ten or so in a package at asian grocery stores are of a much better quality than the ones that come as "instant soup" with the flavor packets. So much better in fact that once I discovered them I never again purchased the normal instant ramen soup packets.
A larger asian grocer will carry a few varieties of dried/fresh noodles labelled "Ramen" - some will be plain wheat noodles, some will be alkali processed (which is what you want). The ingredient list on the package will tell you what kind actually is in the package - if it is alkali processed, the alkali will either be plainly named, or listed as E number 500 and/or 501.
There are many Asian supermarkets in the UK, and if you live in London there are markets in Brewer Street and The Japan centre on Shaftesbury Avenue.
There is also an on-line Japanese site...
http://www.japanesekitchen.co.uk/
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.109205
| 2011-12-12T12:51:12 |
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|
24609
|
When can artificial vanilla extract be used in place of real vanilla extract?
There's another question about the difference between artificial and real vanilla extract, saying people can tell the difference, but perhaps not in baked goods. The labeling can also be confusing.
So I am curious, I would like to know when to save some money and use imitation;
What are use cases for using imitation vanilla without it being apparent to the taster, especially in restaurants and the food industry?
What type of use cases will imitation vanilla be apparent?
Are there specific types of applications where the quality of real vanilla is utterly necessary?
I think this is a NARQ, any close votes or improvement suggestions?
Maybe it would be a better question with the first three paragraphs removed?
@jefromi it is certainly better. I am still not sure if it is answerable, but let's see how it fares.
@rum hows that? @Gun; if I or Jefromi have gutted too much of your question, or twisted its original intent, please feel free to roll back.
Note that there is no such thing as artificial vanilla extract.You either have vanilla extract or you have [artificial] vanilla aroma (i.e. synthetic vanillin). Synthetic vanillin is EXACTLY THE SAME as the vanillin in vanilla extract, but the latter contains other compounds that are extracted from the vanilla seeds.
@nico: That's true, sort of, but imitation vanilla is definitely sometimes labeled "imitation vanilla extract", because it's an imitation of vanilla extract. (They're not saying it's an extract from imitation vanilla.)
@Jefromi: OK, I never saw that type of mention, but I guess that really goes down to country-specific legislation.
I've never seen anything sold here in Canada as an aroma. Here, an aroma is used purely for smell. It's artificial extract, or artificial flavour.
@Chris Cudmore: sure, my point was that you cannot really have an "artificial extract"... as the word extract implies that you are extracting the molecule from the plant, not synthesizing it from scratch!
@nico it's Artificial (Vanilla Extract) not (Artificial Vanilla) Extract.
Wikipedia has a nice link explaining a study in which real and artificial vanilla are compared:
It explains why and where it is possible to substitute one for another without losing flavor.
The gist of it is that real vanilla has a lot of flavor notes apart from vanillin, but these begin to bake off at around 280-300 degrees. So cookies with artificial vanilla tasted better than with real vanilla whereas cakes (which rarely exceed 210 degrees) ranked better with real vanilla, as did other uncooked or cold items.
The article also deals with the amount of alcohol present in pure vanilla extract and in artificial vanilla, and explains how that affects flavor.
Based on that, I would suggest artificial vanilla for baking/cooking at high temperatures and real vanilla otherwise.
I'd assume those are Fahrenheit temperatures in the link, not Celsius (though it doesn't specify one way or another). 280 degrees Celsius is a ridiculously hot temperature to bake a cookie at.
@Micah: Oh ya, I didn't convert and check..I just assumed celcius, I'll remove it..Thanks
You need to use the real thing in creamy preparations like creme brulee, puddings, ice cream and sauces. Use the artificial stuff for baking. As noted above, there may be a difference between cakes and cookies, but I can't detect it.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.109804
| 2012-06-21T09:40:02 |
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|
24557
|
Should I crush the spice for Chai Tea Latte?
After having a cup of Chai Tea Latte from Starbuck,I decided to make a cup of Chai Tea Latte by myself.
I've bought the spice from India store, however, they are not in powder simply because they don't have label on the powder so I can't identify them. However, I recognized their original shape so I bought them in the raw shape.
I don't have a grinder or mortar/pestle. I really don't want to buy them for occasional drink.
Is it common way to put the spice directly into the boiling water without grinding them into powder?
Below is the recipe:
I got cinnamon stick, cardamom pods (green cardamom) and cloves in raw shape.
1 1/2 cups of water
1 1/2 inch stick of cinnamon
8 cardamom pods
8 whole cloves
1/4 inch fresh ginger root (sliced thin)
2/3 cup of milk
6 teaspoons sugar
3 teaspoons of Darjeeling Tea leaves
I don't know how you plan to brew it, but may I suggest after brewing the tea, you add milk and let it boil for a bit before straining? (if that's not what you plan to do already). That will taste infinitely better than adding cold milk to the brew.
I thought you should add the milk, then add the tea leave and let the tea boil within them? You seems to suggesting adding the milk after brewing the tea.
What you say is one way to do it (I like that method, it makes for a much thicker chai than Starbucks) but what lots of people do is boil the tea leaves in water and then add milk. In the latter case, it would be better if the milk boiled with the tea as well.
@DhariniChandrasekaran It seems the "add tea leaves after milk" method is not good......it just got very milky but not enough tea favour.
Depends on how strong you like the tea. If you want more concentrated tea flavor, boil the tea leaves in water and then add milk per above. Also, you can try adding more tea leaves and/or boiling it for longer.
Darjeeling tea is too mild for a proper "masala chai" (spiced tea). You need a strong black tea like orange pekoe. Also, the sheer quantity of the spices you're using seems overwhelming. The cinnamon and ginger are fine, but halve the amount of cloves and cardamom. I would leave the cloves out entirely, but YMMV.
The way we make Chai in India ( there are lots of variants of the spice mix) is to use the spices whole while brewing the tea and to strain the tea before drinking.
Though for cardomom you should crush it to release the flavor. I would suggest using your hand or the broad side of your knife blade.
If you decide to use ginger, it might be a good idea to grate it to increase the surface area so that the flavor is absorbed quicker. (Ginger chai is really good in winter :))
I can't speak for science, or the "right" way to do this, but I've always just thrown whole spices right into my tea. You should probably strain it before you drink it, though.
I used to do it by throwing handfuls of whole spices into the mix, but I've tried it by grinding it all to powder first in a coffee mill, and the taste is A LOT stronger if you grind everything before steeping it. It also tastes a lot better if you use half and half rather than milk, although that's less healthy. Whole milk would probably also serve that purpose. Grinding also allows you to use less spices, in case convenience or cost are considerations.
My recipe calls for using allspice, anise, a bay leaf, peppercorns, and nutmeg (along with the spices your recipe uses). I've never had Starbucks version, or any other company's version, so I have no idea what it's "supposed" to taste like. I do know that all of these spices are antioxidants. I also sweeten mine with either liquid or powdered honey. Since Walmart sells giant tins of the powdered stuff, that's usually what I'll use.
I also know that I've never come across any tea bags that come anywhere near the flavor you get from making this from scratch. All of the so-called chai teabags I've ever used basically just taste like weakly flavored black tea.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.110084
| 2012-06-19T14:01:16 |
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|
67149
|
What are certified synthetic colors?
At Aldi where I shop (in the United States), there are many foods that have the label "No Certified Synthetic Colors":
What exactly are certified synthetic colors? And why would a company advertise that their products do not contain them?
It certainly doesn't match the "no artificial colours" language on Aldi's site: https://www.aldi.com.au/en/about-aldi/aldi-initiatives/no-artificial-colours/
Could this be a case of poor translation, and they were attempting to say 'certified : No synthetic colors'? (although, I have no idea who would be certifying that)
The FDA recognizes 9. Here's how they put it on their official website:
Certified colors are synthetically produced (or human-made) and used widely because they impart an intense, uniform color, are less expensive, and blend more easily to create a variety of hues. There are nine certified color additives approved for use in the United States... Certified food colors generally do not add undesirable flavors to foods.
Clicking deeper, the FDA reveals the ingredients that are officially allowed to be called "coloring" on food labels.
FD&C Blue Nos. 1 and 2, FD&C Green No. 3, FD&C Red Nos. 3 and 40, FD&C Yellow Nos. 5 and 6, Orange B, Citrus Red No. 2, annatto extract, beta-carotene, grape skin extract, cochineal extract or carmine* paprika oleoresin, caramel color, fruit and vegetable juices, saffron (Note: Exempt color additives are not required to be declared by name on labels but may be declared simply as colorings or color added)
So these must be the actual 9 ingredients that are "Certified Synthetic Colors":
FD&C Blue Nos. 1 and 2, FD&C Green No. 3, FD&C Red Nos. 3 and 40, FD&C Yellow Nos. 5 and 6, Orange B, Citrus Red No. 2.
The rest:
annatto extract, beta-carotene, grape skin extract, cochineal extract or carmine* paprika oleoresin, caramel color, fruit and vegetable juices, saffron
are not synthetic, but they can still be called "coloring" on the ingredient list. BTW, cochineal extract and carmine are made from powdered bugs.
Definitely, artificial colors like Red 40 are high on the list of "scary because we don't know what they are" things. I do find that particular labeling odd because "Certified Synthetic Color" is not exactly a household term.
*EDIT March 24, 2017
As of 2009, cochineal extract and carmine are off the "natural colors" list:
Until 2009, cochineal was one of many dyes that fell under the umbrella term "natural color" on ingredients lists. But because cochineal provokes severe allergic reactions in some people, the Food and Drug Administration requires carmine and cochineal extract to be explicitly identified in ingredients lists.
Aside from its role as an allergen, cochineal has no known health risks, although those who keep kosher or choose not to eat animal products will want to keep their distance. In addition to food, cochineal is used as a dye in cosmetics products, including lipstick, and at least one person has reported a severe allergic reaction to a cochineal dye used in a pill coating.
-LiveScience.com
Of course we all know that the proper chemical name for Red 40 is
6-hydroxy-5-[(2-methoxy-5-methyl-4-sulfophenyl)azo]-2-naphthalenesulfonic acid :)
It’s to intentionally mislead. It means: “we use artificial colors, but they aren’t certified, and we cannot guarantee their origin.”
They also dope their foods at Aldi with hydrogenated soybean oils, microcrystalline cellulose, and heaps of cheap fillers to lower costs.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.110407
| 2016-03-06T15:40:40 |
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|
17633
|
Can I replace pine nuts with other nuts in a pesto sauce recipe?
Possible Duplicate:
What is a good pine nut substitute for pesto?
Pine nuts are very expensive here. I'm wondering if I can substitute any of the following:
Walnuts
Sunflower seeds
Almonds
Would any of these be appropriate in a pesto sauce?
try cashew/lemon zest/raisons
I commonly see walnuts used instead of pinenuts in commercial pesto.
@michael You add lemon/raison to pesto? What is zest?
@gunbusters363 "lemon zest" is the rind of the lemon. It has a lemon flavor that endures longer than the juice. cashews + lemon zest + raisons + olive oil makes a delicious sweet pesto.I particularly like it with chicken.
I thought lemon skin is very bitter?
@gunbusters363 It's important to just use the yellow part and avoid the white part, which is bitter. Try it!
First, I'm assuming by "pesto" you mean "Pesto alla Genovese", given your question about pine nuts. Basil, pine nuts, garlic, olive oil, and cheese is a delicious combination, but it's only one of many "pestos" (peste, actually), since pesto refers in general to any sauce which is made from crushed or pureed ingredients. Mix and match to your heart's content.
Walnuts are actually a traditional alternative to pine nuts for Pesto alla Genovese; pine nuts have always been scarce, even in early-20th-century Italy. As a caution, though, you need to get good, fresh walnuts and make sure to get all of the skin off the nuts, or the pesto will taste bitter and rancid.
Almonds could also work, although I'd think they'd be rather bland. The herb pastes which traditionally have crushed almonds -- such as Romanesco sauce -- include some hot pepper. Again, freshness and getting the skin off is important.
I'd think sunflower seeds would be kind of odd and oily, but you don't know until you try. If you do, post a comment to let us know!
(Just as an anecdote) I've used almonds many many times in basil pesto; as long as you toast them properly first, they are delicious (though not the same as pine nuts, of course -- not nearly as fatty, for one thing).
Well said. Cashews are a common alternative in commercial pesto
Of course they would be appropriate, the taste wouldn't be the same though.
Have done a bit of experimenting with pesto. Have used pistachios instead of pine nuts. Parsley instead of basil is good too. Expect that many of the green fresh herbs would make interesting pesto.
From Wikipedia:
The name is the contracted past participle of the Genoese word pestâ (Italian: pestare), which means to pound, to crush, in reference to the original method of preparation, with marble mortar and wooden pestle.
I vary the proportions of herb/olive oil/garlic/nuts to taste as I make it. Fun to mess around with when the new herbs are in.
Have always wanted to make pesto with tarragon, haven't though.
Have fun.
this question has also been asked here What is a good pine nut substitute for pesto? although with a different focus (his problem is not money but allergy).
Walnuts would probably taste good, but it is not Pesto alla Genovese if there are no pine nuts.
To my personal taste, you could even go without nuts completely and still have a great sauce.
Walnuts and almonds are absolutely ok: there are many forms of pesto (the most famous being of course the Genovese), and they employ a variety of herbs and nuts.
Pesto alla trapanese (named after the city of Trapani, in Sicily), for instance, uses almonds and includes tomatoes.
Pesto alle noci (noci means walnuts), another great sauce, is made with walnuts and celery.
A quick check on google tells me that pesto with sunflower seeds or pumpkin seeds is not unheard of, lots of recipes are available. Others I know of: pesto with arugula, pesto with green beans and potatoes and probably many other obscure variants.
Another option, but it depends greatly on your physical location, is to just collect pinecones by yourself - time consuming, but could make for a nice sunday activity (it certainly did for me when I was a kid)
Agos, you know, I've never seen how to identify and open the right pine cones for pine nuts. If I posted that as a question, could you answer it?
@FuzzyChef I'd be glad to!
@FuzzyChef, did you ever post that question? I was not able to find it
Cashews are the simplest replacement, many people don't even notice the difference
Commercially Cashews are used in many packaged products sold as Pesto or Pesto + something (roasted peppers, olives, sun-dried tomatoes etc.). It is usually a filler to make up for a low pine nut percentage
For home made pesto it is a bit more obvious unless your really processes it down to a smooth paste. I personally like my pesto very chunky so don't like using cashews
cashew is also expensive~
@gunbuster363 They are a third the price of pine nuts though
No cheap here in Hong Kong though
by all means use walnuts in pesto sauce. As earlier posts have recommended, choose walnuts that are fresh, in other words, very pale in colour. Darker walnuts are bitter. If you can shell them, so much the better. I also use lemon juice in my pesto. And use a hand blender so that the sauce is grainy rather than pureed. Walnuts are great in any sauce, try roasted egg-plant, tomato paste, garlic and walnuts, all blended. Mmmm.
There are many Pesto variants out there. It's basically a matter of taste. See, for example, recipe and suggested variations here:
A common change to the recipe is to replace some or all of the pine
nuts with sunflower seeds, walnuts, pistachios or almonds.
The pine nuts can be replaced with an equal quantity of sun-dried
tomatoes.
You may change the taste by changing the base of the pesto from
basil to other easily obtained herbs/vegetables. Some variations
include using cilantro (coriander, for a more aromatic taste) or
spinach (more "bang for your buck", as spinach is much cheaper than
basil, yet still has its own distinct flavor).
I use almonds frequently as my husband detests the taste of pine nuts (and can detect them in things at 40 paces). I prefer to use raw ones; make sure to blanch them so you don't have the skins in there. While Walnuts are common, they have a stronger flavor. I've converted several friends to "almond pesto".
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.110713
| 2011-09-10T16:08:19 |
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|
56153
|
Lime substitute for nixtamalizing corn
I want to have a go at nixtamalizing some corn. Upon doing some research I figured I could find the lime (calcium hydroxide) that's traditionally used for the process at the local international food market. Turns out all they sold was something called 'carbonato', which I'm pretty sure is just calcium carbonate. The lady at the store did tell me that people often buy it for boiling/processing corn, but I know enough food chemistry to know they wont' do the same thing. A similar search of the three big grocery stores in town for the lime turned up nothing.
So I thought I might be able to devise a substitution based on things I have on hand. I read you can make something similar to nixtamal with food-grade sodium hydroxide, (which I happen to have in abundance) but according to that recipe, when made with sodium hydroxide in place of calcium hydroxide, the flavor "has the bite of soda, and it lacks the rich corn chip fragrance of corn steeped in slacked [sic] lime".
My question is: before I go ahead and order some lime online, is there a possibility that a mixture of sodium hydroxide and some form of soluble calcium could give me the same or similar results (alkalinity and the right flavor) as lime? I have calcium sulfate and calcium chloride on hand, which will readily supply calcium in solution, and could easily pick up calcium carbonate.
My (very basic) chemical understanding is that, in solution, sodium hydroxide + calcium chloride would be roughly analogous to calcium hydroxide + sodium chloride, since they provide the same ions and are all soluble.
Could anyone weight in on this? Could this possibly be better aimed at the Chemistry SE?
What you want is Picking Lime, which is just food grade calcium hydroxide. You should be able to buy this at any regular grocery store. Look in the canning section.
Thanks but I already know I'm looking for calcium hydroxide, and have not found it at any of my three local grocery stores. My real interest here is finding out if the substitution I suggested might work.
@Rick : Pickling lime. Some stores don't sell it outside cucumber season. Mexican groceries almost always have it, as "Cal" in with their other spices. You can also use sodium hydroxide (lye). I've not been forced to that extreme, but there are protocols for using it to nixtamalize on the internet.
At least in theory what you're proposing should work, however I wouldn't mix sodium hydroxide, calcium chloride, water and corn all in one pot as you seem to be suggesting. I'm not chemistry expert, but as I understand it sodium hydroxide and calcium chloride react easily when dissolved in water to form calcium hydroxide and sodium chloride. Having corn in the mix won't help the process so you'd be better off doing it as a separate step. Since calcium hydroxide doesn't dissolve in water very well, most of it will precipitate out making it fairly easy to separate out. Doing it this way you can make sure the sodium hydroxide doesn't end up reacting with the corn instead of the calcium chloride.
However making calcium chloride a home is something I've never tried myself, and I doubt anyone else here has either. There could easily be important considerations that I'm not aware of.
So it probably would be a good idea to ask on Chemistry Stack Exchange about how to best go about producing calcium hydroxide from sodium hydroxide and calcium chloride. That is, assuming such a question is on-topic there, though from a quick check it looks like it should be.
There is however one important consideration that I can mention, one that I'm sure you already aware of, and that's the fact sodium hydroxide (aka caustic soda) is a pretty dangerous chemical. For that reason alone, I think Rick's answer is the correct one. Just buy food grade calcium hydroxide. When sold as pickling lime it's not at all hard to find online. During the fall you might be able it in local stores sold along with other seasonal canning-related goods. Another possible local source might be an aquarium store or club, as food grade calcium hydroxide is apparently used by aquarium owners as a cheaper substitute for aquarium specific products.
Thanks for the answer. Luckily I'm well aware of the dangers of sodium hydroxide (I use it at home for making soap and pretzels, and used it as a cleaning agent when I brewed commercially). I'll be sure to seek out any local aquarium stores and see if they stock CaOH.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.111310
| 2015-03-28T14:56:27 |
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|
19014
|
Converting upright charcoal smoker to electric
I bought an upright charcoal grill/smoker years ago because it was cheap and I was interested in doing both grilling and smoking. However, I didn't find it to be a great grill (too small, and the airflow to the charcoal pan was lousy) and my one attempt to use it as a smoker didn't end well, either (keeping a constant, low temperature with the charcoal + wood was really tough). I've since bought a larger kettle grill and love it, but I would love to try to smoke again with the old upright...but this time, using an electric hot plate instead of charcoal (Alton Brown-style).
My plan is this:
Put the hot plate on the bottom rack (of three), running the cord out the bottom.
Put wood chips/chunks in a heavy pie pan and place directly on the hot plate's heating element.
Put the water pan on the middle rack.
Put the meat on the top rack.
Use one probe-style thermometer to monitor the air temp around the meat, and another thermometer to keep an eye on the internal temperature of the meat.
Add additional wood to the pan as needed through the access door.
Questions:
Do I need the water pan if using this method? I'm reading conflicting information about the purpose of the water. Most sources say it is to maintain moist air in the closed cooking space, but others say this isn't really true, and that it is used as a "thermal buffer" to absorb heat and/or smooth out temperature changes.
What is the best way to adjust the temperature up or down? My hot plate does have an adjustment knob, but should I also drill some holes in the smoker's lid (it doesn't currently have any) that can be opened/plugged as needed?
Is this going to work at all? :)
You'd be better off just using your kettle grill for smoking. Using a couple of fire bricks, you can sequester quite a bit of fuel in a small area of your grill. Using the minion method, I've been able to get a good 7-8 hours without replenishing fuel, and I've found the kettle maintains temps pretty well. I think the electric conversion will just be a non-starter from the start.
1- The meat drying out is a very real problem when cooking for so long. When I have smoked with water it has seemed to be less of a problem. I'm sure it also gives a nice thermal buffer but I haven't conducted experiments on this.
2 and 3-
When I built the AB style smoker mine was smaller and earthenware so it would retain heat better. My cheap little hot plate was not able to get the temperature up to even 200F.
With a bigger smoker and one made out of metal I don't think a normal little hot plate will be able to get hot enough. You can experiment of course. It may be that my cheap hot plate was just under powered.
In my smoker I adjusted the hot plate temp knob as necessary. Eventually of course it stayed at full on.
If you are interested in more of a project- there are many hobbyist projects for making temperature controlled smokers. They would be more work but for an excellent reward. I was just looking at this one today that uses a wireless router for a web interface and an Arduino for control. Kind of like a homemade sous vide setup but for a smoker:
http://tvwbb.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/9270072103/m/5721075126
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.111638
| 2011-11-18T22:47:15 |
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|
53477
|
Oiling wood handles
I'm new to the cooking industry - yay for new pads - and I have a question about oiling wooden utensils (or wooden handles on pots, for that matter).
The instructions state these should be oiled and I found this handy link here: Olive wood cooking utensils: Seasoning, care, and maintenance?, but sadly, I'd already oiled them with olive oil. Oops.
My questions so far are;
1) Is this going to be an issue in the future or can I just apply mineral oil when I have it and blissfully ignore my previous mistake?
2) The instructions (that came with the pots) also state that I should oil the wood, let it sit for 24 hours and then oil it again. The time between my oiling sessions exceeds 24 hours. Is this an issue?
Use "Food Grade" mineral oil. Many cooking oils will go rancid. Answer to (1)ignore previous mistake. (2)seasoning exceeding 24 hours is not an issue. Seasoning a pot or pan cooking surface uses cooking oils, wood handles should not need seasoning.
If you have any kinds of insects in your home, they will be very attracted to your "oiled" items. If you do at times, be sure to store them in those tall, impact-resistant, air-tight, see-through canisters like they sell at Walmart; or at Least, store them in Ziploc type bags.
@WestieJ I don't think that's really an issue with mineral oil. While it's food-safe, it's not food.
Olive oil tends to go rancid; as do most other "food oils" - [walnut oil is a "drying" oil" (and as such won't go rancid) but if you are "in the industry" it's one more possible source of an allergen (tree nuts) that you don't want in a professional kitchen (where you'd think - no tree nuts in this dish) - does work fine at home if that's not a concern.]
Scrubbing the handles down with a baking soda paste should tend to saponify (turn to soap) most of the olive oil. Or send them though the dish machine a few times, and otherwise scrub, soap, degrease; then rinse well, dry and re-oil.
Even if the oil turns rancid with time, I don't see a problem with that. People tolerate well and even enjoy rancid smell in miniscule amounts, especially butyric acid smell, that's how "butter" toast and other foods are made. After you wash the board, the amount of oil left on it is not enough to produce the concentration of rancid smell which would be unpleasant.
I have used "rancid oil wooden utensils" - I did not enjoy the experience, the smell of being near them or on my hands after handling them, or the flavor brought to things blessed by their contact - YMMV. "No salad oil on wood" has worked for me ever since.
Thanks, Ecnerwal! I've tried this, and while my wood handles are still a darker colour than when I first purchased them - and a little burnt, I may have had them too close to the fire a few times.. - I've treated them and I am now in the process of keeping my fingers crossed, especially with the warmer weather ahead. :)
I think the only mistake you've made is to use a more expensive oil than required!
The 24 hours is a minimum, so the answer to 2) is "no".
...and that olive oil could change the colour of the wood.
... or that olive oil could go rancid.
That is what worries me specifically, Joe. If it can go rancid, will simply 'painting over it' prevent this from happening or have I possibly ruined the material now?
I would imagine if you washed the handle a few dozen times with a mild soap, it would remove most of the oil. Basically simulate a month or two of cleaning in a day or two. Once it feels dry again, re-oil it with something that doesn't go rancid.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.111918
| 2015-01-10T12:42:18 |
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|
59125
|
how to whip UHT cream?
Today I was making a cake for which I needed whipped cream.
The local store did not have fresh cream so I bought UHT cream, I am not sure that's the correct term in English, you basically treat it with high temperatures so that it lasts longer. Said cream is specifically meant to be whipped, or at least so the packaging states.
I used a plastic bowl and 400ml of UHT cream, straight from the fridge. As usual, I used an electric mixer, something like:
Unfortunately after 20+ minutes of mixing the cream was not starting to whip at all. I somehow managed to finish the cake thanks to a food processor that can somewhat whip cream, but the question stands. What did go wrong? Is there something about UHT cream or was I generally careless?
What's the fat content? You have to make sure that the cream has at least 30% fat to whip it.
I am sorry, I forgot to mention that the cream packaging had "TO BE WHIPPED CREAM" written on it, so I did not even check that... I do not think that's the culript.
I recently had similar trouble with a package of UHT shelf-stable cream (which in the US I've only ever found at Trader Joe's). I attributed it to the fact that my cream was a bit [read: almost a year] past its expiration date. It still tasted fine, but it refused to whip. In my case, another contributing factor might have been temperature: I only remembered to put the box in the fridge about 30 minutes before trying to whip it. Neither of these seem to apply to you. I've successfully whipped similar boxes of cream before, so it's not in inherent problem with UHT cream.
Here's the Trader Joe's box of whipping cream: http://www.traderjoes.com/images/fearless-flyer/uploads/article-826/whipping-cream.jpg Is this similar to what you got?
Well I live in italy but yes, I got two packs of 200ml each and they looked like it.
UHT and ultra-pasteurized creams can be whipped, but it can be more difficult than pasteurized cream. From The Cultured Cook :
The key to lush whipped cream is choosing lush cream to begin with. Ideally, you want cream from grass-fed cows — it has a richer, fuller taste and a lighter, fluffier texture — and cream that has not been UHT pasteurized. UHT means “ultra-high temperature,” which in turn means that the cream will be difficult to whip since it’s been thoroughly cooked and in the process has lost a great deal of its natural thickness and ability to hold that thickness when whipped. (Whipping simply incorporates air into the cream. The fat in the cream stiffens around the air pockets and holds itself up to create the fluff effect. Cold fat is stiffer than room-temp fat, which is why using chilled equipment and chilled cream is so important.) Take a look at the ingredient list on UHT whipping cream — you’ll see that it’s been thickened with carrageenan, gums, and other stabilizers to recreate the thick texture the cream has lost through having been overheated. Not exactly an ideal scenario.
Some pointers mentioned in comments above that may make a difference in how much success you have when whipping any cream, but especially UHT cream:
You need a fat content of at least 30%.
The cream should be cold. Some people also refrigerate their bowl and utensils also.
You can purchase stabilizers to add to UHT cream to help ensure proper results. Cream of tartar is one option.
Bonus #1 - Issues can occur with other heat treated products. E.g., pasteurized egg whites are more difficult to whip into peaks. While I have read that it can be done, I have never succeeded. I have also been told that cream of tartar (a stabilizer) can make it work.
Bonus #2 - The difference between UHT and ultra-pasteurization is not the process, but the container. They both use ultra high temperature pasteurization.
With UHT milk products, the sterile products are put into sterilized (aseptic) containers and hermetically sealed using a heat process. Now they are shelf stable and have a shelf life of 6 to 9 months (until opened).
Ultra-pasteurized milk products go through the same process but are put into regular milk containers (like pasteurized milk products) and must be kept refrigerated. It has an extended shelf life and should keep 2 to 4 weeks longer than pasteurized milk products (until opened).
I am starting to suspect temperature was the issue. In the store the cream was not refrigerated, being UHT, and it stayed in the fridge for some four hours.
I looked on another website and it said to add 1 tablespoon of skim milk powder for each 250 mls( cup of cream) and if you are going to add sugar to sweeten then whip the cream first, then stir in sweetner last. Haven't tried it yet, so not sure if it will work, but it came from the site that produces the UHT milk in Australia. Hope this helps.
I have not tried this yet but I just watched a video on you tube where the man used about 10 grams of unflavored gelatin in the mix. Lo and behold it worked using uht milk. I have been researching this to figure out a way to make cake frosting that is light. Here is the link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C63dz2JlA9g.
Melt enough butter in a cup in the microwave to raise the fat content of your cream to above 40%.
It will only take a few seconds to melt, so don't go too long.
Whisk ii in quickly - problem solved!
Have you tried this out yourself?
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.112266
| 2015-07-17T15:12:43 |
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|
54093
|
How do I make sugar-free ice cream without a machine?
I want to make ice cream at home for diabetics without a machine. I'd want it to be sugar-free. What kind of base ingredients should I use? Will the any of the no machine methods here be better or worse, or require modification, since I'm not using sugar?
Can you clarify: are you trying to make it low sugar? Sugar free? We can help with the cooking side, but we're not doctors or nutritionists, so we'd rather not try to guys precisely what's okay for the diabetics you know.
Sugar free is my first choice, next is sugar substitutes. But I don't know if it works. How about Carnation Milk? If I use it, do I need to add sugar substitutes? Cheers.
By Carnation Milk, do you mean evaporated or sweetened condensed milk? (The latter is not sugar free.)
For making ice cream without a machine, see http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/1214/how-to-make-ice-cream-without-a-machine - though one answer does say "use more sugar", most of them will work just fine for you. I've edited a link to that into your question to help people advise you about using those techniques without sugar.
Also, using sugar substitutes is still sugar-free; unless you're trying to make ice cream that isn't sweet at all, you're going to need the substitutes.
See my old answer here. Whatever you do, there is a proportion of solids to fats to liquid you have to stay within. If you remove the sugar, you need some other nonfat solids.
@Erica So no need to add sugar substitutes if using evaporated. Is it right?
@Siena Evaporated milk is not sweetened, aside from naturally occuring milk sugars (lactose). Sweetened condensed milk (SCM) is sweetened (I believe with sugar, but possibly with corn syrup etc. depending on brand). The reason I was asking was in part to note that SCM isn't sugar-free, important for diabetics to be aware of :) If you don't add sugar or sugar substitutes, evaporated milk will not taste sweet (it's generally used in savory applications, in my experience) so you'd have to taste it to see if that meets your approval.
@Siena The things that make ice cream soft are essentially the fat (from cream and possibly egg yolks) and the sugar. Evaporated milk has no sugar and not much fat. You can't use it as an ice cream base; you'd get hard unsweetened frozen milk, not ice cream. If a recipe actually calls for some milk along with the cream, you could use evaporated milk for that milk, but it wouldn't let you remove sugar (or cream), it'd just be a different kind of milk.
You could use sugar substitutes but you should take care to use one that is heat stable.
Sugar Substitute with Stevia as main ingredient can be used but you need to inquire to what ratios you would need to use your specific brand with.
Acesulfame Potassium is heat stable but is 200 times sweeter than regular sugar. The general rule of thumb I was taught is 1 gram per quarter cup of sugar.
Sucralose: Granulated sucralose can be used as an equal-volume substitute for sugar. (Raw sucralose is 600 times sweeter than sugar, so you'd use less, but the granulated form contains fillers to bring it up to the normal volume.) There may be some considerations in making ice cream with this as when using this for baking the baking process is accelerated to a certain degree. Be careful with this one.
Saccharin and Aspartame should be avoided because they are heat sensitive.
Other more natural sugar substitutes include honey, fruit juice concentrates and refined fructose.
Given that the sugar substitutes are a few hundred times sweeter, don't you have to worry about the fact that you're basically taking out the entire volume of sugar, particularly since the sugar is part of what makes the ice cream soft? (Also I'm confused, if sucralose is 600x as sweet as sugar, why do you say you can use equal amounts of sugar?)
granulated sucralose provides volume-for-volume sweetness
I'm sure the texture of the ice cream will be different. You may easily just get frozen condense milk but I just thought I'd weigh in on the issues regarding sugar substitutes as I'm familiar with.
@NeilMeyer what are the fillers you are talking about? I've frequently heard of brands using glucose as the "filler", which is totally counterproductive in a diabetic.
Acesulfame Potassium and Sucrolose combined make an incredibly tasty sweetener. They're much better combined than either product alone.
@Jefromi It is sweeter when using sugar substitutes but it has less effect on blood sugar level. Will ice cream get worse if sugar is taken out of? As I am feeling that sugar substitutes are like artificial sugar which is not healthy.
@Siena Many sugar substitutes are artificial, yes. Whether or not they're healthy is off topic for here - you'll have to do your own research (or ask a doctor). I'm not sure why you mention blood sugar level; I didn't say anything about that, just about the fact that (as you now say) taking the sugar (which helps make it soft) out of the ice cream is likely a problem.
It's not the same as ice-cream, but plain whipped cream can be frozen, and tastes fine without extra sugar or sweeteners
Freeze it in shallow glass baking dishes for more even freezing, and easier serving
Use a "standard cream" or "whipping cream" depending on where you live (with a 30%+ fat content, preferably above 35% fat)
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.112705
| 2015-01-28T14:59:57 |
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|
123244
|
How to fix cake mix after adding too much water
I added 1/2 cup too much water and was supposed to add 1/2 cup oil instead. I added 1/4 cup oil and the mix is still too runny Do I add a tablespoon baking soda or baking powder I do not have cake flour or pancake mix Help
Unless you have a second box of cake mix sitting around, I don’t know if you can easily save this. It might bake up into something edible, but likely with a different texture than expected. I don’t know if cupcakes would be better than a larger cake (as they have more surface area) in this case, as it might turn them into popovers.
You would need to add extra cake ingredients to fix this - how much would depend on what the original recipe was. Doesn't have to be cake flour, any wheat flour should work without too much difficulty +/- texture..
Check the answers in this question: https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/24256/too-much-water-in-box-cake-mix-batter-can-it-be-fixed?rq=1
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.113111
| 2023-02-02T06:29:11 |
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|
127931
|
Is there an olive oil brand named "Orci" in Spain?
Is there an olive oil brand named "Orci" in Spain? How is its extra virgin olive oil? I can't find anything related on the "Internet" in China. Some products near their bbds or expires are being sold inexpensively on PDD. Thanks.
If you look at the 3rd image you can read
packed by Aceites del Sur
a quick internet search returns a Spanish company with that name
Our Group has been active for more than 150 years producing, packing and marketing olive oil and other vegetable oils, as well as olive pates and vinegar products. This accumulated experience reinforces as a leading group within the national olive oil sector in Spain, also exporting its products to more than 90 countries around the world.
Founded in 1840 our group has always been related to tradition, dedication, innovation and love of olive oil. Nowadays, we have a very professional workforce with more than 1000 people and many worldwide consolidated brands.
We produce Spanish Olive Oil on these modalities: Extra Virgin, Olive and Pomace Olive Oil. Also we produce other oils as grape seed oil, sunflower oil, etc…
Formats: Glass, Plastic and Tins
References: 0.25 L, 0.50 L, 0.75 L, 1 L, 3 L, 5 L, 1000 L and 23.000 L.
Our olive oil is produced according to national and international quality standards and all this confirmed by quality certificates.
Quality is the main goal of Acesur. Our production process complies with the highest quality standard regulations and all our facilities are certified and environmentally compatible.
Production processes are controlled by more than 20 analysts. We count on the most advanced managing techniques such as the revolutionary two milling phases for olive oil crushing. All our facilities are audited and certified by institutions like AENOR, AENOR Environmental Management, BRC and IFS.
The decently made site, the absence of typos and other obvious "autotranslate" feature seems to put them above the average Chinese internet shop level.
About the brand itself, "orci" is Italian, plural of "orcio", name used to indicate a pottery jar with a hole at the bottom, used to store liquid, usually oil or wine.
It's probably used because it sounds Spanish enough for the ears of the Chinese market.
Thanks. https://www.ecplaza.net/orci--product?listType=list returns nothing about orci
Is orci evoo sold in Spain?
@Tim - https://www.ecplaza.net/products/oem-service-spanish-olive-oil-3298549 - that looks like your orci bottle, doesn't it? You can order a 20-foot container of olive oil with whatever brand name you want stuck on the label.
@KelvinSherlock Thanks. Is the quality of OEM EVOO worse, compared to that of branded by the same packing company?
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.113208
| 2024-03-24T11:27:56 |
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|
36180
|
How can I prepare dried minced garlic?
I have a container of minced garlic similar to this:
My question is can I mince fresh garlic, then allow it to dry on a plate and add it to the container? Or is there a special way of preparing this for reasons of taste or safety (molds, bacteria, etc)?
Quick answer: NO. I'm sure those with much more knowledge of food safety than I will be along shortly to explain why that's a very bad idea.
@CareyGregory I believe you are thinking of the risks in preserving garlic in a moist state, as in canned, or submerged in oil, where as a low acid food it is at risk for botulism (especially since the cloves are from underground, where the spores are likely). I cannot find any documentation of risk for dried garlic.
You probably do not want to simply dry it on a plate, as it may mold or spoil prior to drying.
When I checked the National Center for Home Food Preservation, I was unable to find any information on drying garlic. I was also unable to find a single University Extension that provided instructions on safe methods for drying garlic.
If you google homemade dried garlic, you will find multiple recipes and methods, although powdering is more common than mincing. None of these recipes or methods come from the most reputable sources, so use them at your own risk.
Your first sentence is what I had in mind. Simply leaving it to dry on a plate seems like a very bad idea.
Surely just drying it in a dehydrator is safe as drying anything else!
@Jefromi Probably so but I was unable to find positive documentation of safety specifically regarding garlic.
I find that garlic, left whole and kept out of the refrigerator, keeps for months. I keep mine in a cookie tin once it is dry. Mince it when you need it, and use the freshly minced garlic in the same way you're using the dry. Don't try to dry minced garlic yourself. There's no benefit for you, and plenty of risk.
Instructions for oil-preserved garlic go on and on about botulism, which can be in anything that had ground contact, and which we cannot detect by smell or sight, unlike mould or other forms of spoiling. Risking that just so you can do all the mincing at once instead of as you need the garlic does not seem like a good idea.
How long will it keep IN the refrigerator? I like the jug of minced garlic because its easy to add several spoons, for instance, to a pickle jar for visual appeal (similar to mustard seeds). I have powdered, granulated, minced and I use them about equally. Fresh garlic is often too strong (even after cooked), its not fun to peel, and leaves my fingers sticky.
it lasts less time in the refrigerator.
@Randy Add a few drops of water when you're mincing garlic. It eliminates the stickiness on the knife and cutting board and also on your fingers.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.113527
| 2013-08-21T03:54:53 |
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|
42365
|
Substituting white flour for maida in making Indian samosas
Indian recipes call for using Maida or All-purpose flour in making samosa. Disregarding for a second the difference between the two (as discussed in here - Difference between Maida and All purpose flour), is it possible to use "regular" white refined flour instead of all-purpose one?
To clarify - I live in a country (Israel) where it's not possible to get Maida. Until now I have bought what is called all-purpose flour for samosas, but actually what is sold here as "white flour" seems to have similar nutritional content (All purpose flour has 10.4% protein, while white flour has 10.5% protein, similar calories and fat values). The reason I would like to use white flour is because it is 30% of the price of all-purpose flour.
Isn't white flour the same as all-purpose flour?
@Mein It's confusing. In India (and therefore also on its exports) maida is sometimes labeled "all-purpose", but it is more like what Americans call cake flour. Israel has its all-purpose, which is less processed than the all-purpose in the US. What is called cake flour in Isreal would be called self-rising flour in the US. What Isreal has that is the closest to what Americans call all-purpose is called white flour.
There has been quite a bit of confusion here concerning maida (which can be labeled all-purpose, especially in India). The top answer on the question that you linked to was actually incorrect. It has been fixed. Maida is actually a very low protein flour, much like what would be called cake flour in the US. I suspect and would appreciate if you can confirm that your use of the term "all-purpose flour" stems from the Indian use of the term, not that your recipes call for what Americans would call "all-purpose flour".
In answer to your question, yes, you can substitute what you know as white flour and what I know as all-purpose flour (`10.5% protein) for maida by replacing some of the white flour with cornstarch or potato starch. The best reference I could could find for the percentage of protein in maida was The Fresh Loaf, they say that, on average, maida contains 7.5% protein. To get from 10.5% protein to 7.5% protein, you would need to "lose" 3 grams of protein per every 100 grams of flour. By replacing 28.6 grams of white flour with potato starch or cornstarch, your mixture would have the the 7.5% protein content of maida. That looks good on paper, but my gut says to split the difference. I'd first try a mixture of 15 grams of potato or corn starch and 85 grams of white flour as a substitute for 100 grams of maida. The use of cornstarch in that way is commonly done in the US with our all purpose flour to emulate our low protein cake flour. cake flour with corn starch
In case the international flour terms aren't complicated enough, I understand that in Israel what is generally called cake flour has added leavening agents, it's like what I would call self-rising flour. Confused yet? I'll repeat here what I said in comments above:
"It's confusing. In India (and therefore also on its exports) maida is sometimes labeled "all-purpose", but it is more like what Americans call cake flour. Israel has its all-purpose, which is less processed than the all-purpose in the US. What is called cake flour in Isreal would be called self-rising flour in the US. What Isreal has that is the closest to what Americans call all-purpose is called white flour."
Great comment, thanks! I will try both adding cornstarch, or simply looking for a low protein percentage flour.
@dan12345 After the hours of research I put into understanding maida, it galls me no end to say this, but follow this question: http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/45167/can-an-all-wheat-flour-be-high-in-protein-yet-low-in-gluten Something strange is afoot.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.113784
| 2014-02-27T12:26:39 |
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|
44803
|
Orange spots on dry chickpea
I have had some dry chickpeas for quite some time (~6-12 months) in my pantry and now I'm looking to cook them.
Most of them have some orange spots, which I'm not sure are normal (See picture below). Are they safe to eat?
Are these spots all in the same place on the chickpeas, or are they sort of mottled? Can you try cracking one in half to see what it looks like on the inside?
The only orange spot I see on your chickpea is on the embryo, it is normal for it to be differently colored than the rest of the seed, at least in some varieties of bean-related plants. Are there any other spots? can you make a picture with different lighting?
Sorry, I already cooked them so I couldn't take more pictures. They seemed alright.
Good grief but that photo looks very, um, explicit.
I ended up cooking the chickpeas and eating them, without any discernible stomach problems
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.114078
| 2014-06-12T07:10:21 |
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|
121624
|
Garlic paste vs whole garlic for long braise
I have fresh garlic paste on hand I'd like to substitute for whole garlic in a braise (chicken adobo). The estimated braising time is 30 - 40 minutes.
My concern is that due to the insane amount of surface area exposed in the garlic paste, the garlicky flavor will all but have been cooked off by the time the braise is finished.
Any thoughts?
What type of 'paste'? Jarred [or squeezy tube], frozen? I can't imagine anyone selling an actual literally 'fresh' garlic paste, that's asking for trouble. If frozen, which type, there's 'chunky' European style & 'almost a true paste' Indian style [in cubes]. Euro will be fine after 40 mins, Indian I always double up the quantities, which as it come in pretty big cubes, is not difficult. The stuff in a tube or jar the flavour's no longer 'garlic' even straight from the tube [though the smell can be for a couple of minutes, until you heat it a bit]. I avoid that type.
You're right to be concerned. Garlic paste does generally cook off a lot faster than whole, minced, or sliced garlic, and could become bland after 40 minutes of cooking. Given the long braise, my suggestion would be to figure out a way to introduce the garlic paste later in the cooking ... say, 15 minutes before the chicken is done.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.114209
| 2022-09-11T16:36:24 |
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|
115861
|
Yellow color from brand new Pre-Seasoned Lodge Cast Iron griddle (before seasoning or even heating). Is this normal?
I received my Lodge 10.5 inch pre-seasoned cast iron griddle today (and I'm very new to the world of Cast Iron). I washed it with water and soap and used the soft side of the sponge and on second wash I used the rough side. While waiting for the pan to dry (before I was going to start seasoning), I tried dabbing the sides with a paper towel to remove some of the moisture and I noticed a yellow stain of sorts coming off of the pan. I washed the pan again a couple of times but there still seems to be a yellow stain. Is this normal? I haven't seasoned the pan with oil or anything.
Also, I know cast iron pans aren't perfectly smooth like a nonstick Teflon pan but there's a very small grey bump on my pan. Is this acceptable?
Edit: The pan upon drying looks rusty and it appears yellow-orange like on kitchen towels if I try it rub it.
Edit 2: Thank you everyone for your comments, feedback and advice. I'm a complete newbie and I've been reading and watching as much info about cast iron usage and I, really, appreciate them. I don't own a oven so I've been using a stovetop to season the pan. After about 3 rounds of seasoning, I attempted a fried egg test with cooking canola oil(I think my pan was too hot/medium flame) but failed twice. Today (24 hours later), I attempted the fried egg test using a teaspoon of butter (preheated the pan and used a low flame) and it came off quite cleanly except for when I tried to flip it over and a bit of it got stuck. (check images 4 and 5). However, I've noticed a dark brown color tone around the pan (image 6) except at the periphery. I don't know if this is because I've seasoned it incorrectly.
https://www.lodgecastiron.com/discover/cleaning-and-care/cast-iron/all-about-seasoning
There really should not be rust like that on a new, pre-seasoned Lodge pan. Honestly, between that and the bump, depending on where you got it i might suspect it of being a counterfeit.
@Sneftel - sounds much more like it was given a serious thrashing in soapy water & then not stove-dried & re-oiled immediately. Those pre-seasoned pans are only given enough of a coating to get you started, not enough to prevent you scrubbing it off if you scour it. And as no-one bothers smoothing out pans like they used to, any dings in the sand mould become lumps in the pan.
@Sneftel Agreed with Tetsu - it's iron and the first thing OP did was to scratch it up with soap and get it wet, ruining the seasoning that it shipped with. Of course it's going to rust - real iron rusts, no fakery needed. In fact, if you thought the pan wasn't real iron, this is about as good a test as you could come up with to prove otherwise. Unseasoned iron needs to be dried and oiled immediately. The bump is just a bump. You can grind it off and season. The rust isn't harmful - we need iron to make blood, so our body is happy to have a bit of rust with breakfast.
related : https://cooking.stackexchange.com/a/102790/67 ; https://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/91173/67 ; seasoning pans in general : https://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/641/67 ; and if you decide you need to strip it completely : https://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/11592/67
If it’s kinda powdery, it’s likely rust.
Not quite fully polymerized oil tends to be orangeish, but you usually can’t see it unless it’s your first layer over shiny bare metal, and I wouldn’t expect it to rub off on a paper towel like that
I suspect that you’re going to need to strip and re-season your pan. You only do that first deep scrub with pans that are waxed for shipment, not for pre-seasoned pans
A little red/brown rust looks yellow on white.
I agree that it is rust. The OP likely removed some seasoning with the rough side of the sponge (assuming that's some sort of Scotch-Brite material). That caused the iron to rust. I don't see a need to strip the pan, though. Just get some good layers of seasoning on there.
@aswine : Thank you for the feedback. I seasoned the pan a couple of times (I don't have an oven so I use a stove top). I failed the egg test twice but I think it was because the pan was too hot and the flame was too large. On the first two attempts I used cooking canola oil. On third attempt, after preheating on the pan on a low flame and using a teaspoon of butter, I managed to fry the egg without it sticking..yay. I noticed though that there's a kind of brown-ish tone on my pan in the center (Image 6). Do you think its because of uneven heating at the center, not edges?
@aswine : maybe not a full strip, but you want to remove any areas near the rust to make sure you’re down to bare metal and not just sealing the rust in. Unfortunately I’m posting from a phone right now or is link to the questions about dealing with rusty cast iron
@Dezvyn, yes, I'd guess that the color difference is because of uneven heating. But if you're getting the results you want, I wouldn't worry about it.
@Dezvyn : I don't know. I'm not sure what rust under the seasoning would look like, which is what I'd be concerned about. It might also be over-cooking the seasoning (which I'd expect right under where the flames are), which is when the seasoning starts to break down -- you actually want to avoid really high heat when using cast iron (seasoned or enameled)
@Joe: I think you're absolutely right about me overcooking the seasoning. I've figured out that a low flame/ medium flame is pretty much all I need to get my cooking done. The seasoning seems to be working (nothing sticks). I did scrub the pan gently (after I posted the "rust" pics above and then dried it quickly and heated and started the seasoning route (but used too high a flame which is why I've got the weird color). The outer circle though has a nice black patina. Very lightly oiling the pan after each use to ensure moisture doesn't play spoil sport. Thank you for the feedback :)
We never season our pan in the oven; always in the stove. Ours has so much “seasoning, the “dimples” are pretty much gone. We don’t necessarily season our after every use anymore, just when it looks dull. We heat it up very hot over a high heat, remove it from the heat and rub, liberally, with a high smoke point vegetable oil. Let it cool and put it away. No one’s told us it’s wrong, but no one else I’ve heard of does it this way and it works.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.114343
| 2021-05-28T10:05:55 |
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|
116048
|
How to distinguish correctly if a long stored coconut oil is still usable?
I have just discovered there is a passed BBD (best before date) purified coconut in the storage.
This is also the first time for me to know what is a purified coconut because of the search/research of the captioned matter.
It appeared to be pale yellowish with white precipitation (photo is 99% matching the actual situation).
It is never opened before. I did try to smell and taste, because it is purified from aroma, no odour is smelled. It tastes neutral, tasteless, no bad taste or odour particularly.
I wonder if it is still safe to consume.
Why does it become more yellowish even if it doesn't open?
And since it is summer here, it is supposed to be in full liquid form, I wonder what is the precipitate?
Here is the photo for reference.
Oddly [at least to me] the shelf life of refined coconut oil is much shorter than that of virgin.
The 5 signs of it going off are:-
Yellow colour
Blotchy or chunky
Black oil spots
Bitter or sour smell
Sour flavour.
Now, to me that looks a tad yellow - but as I live in the UK where coconut oil is generally a solid except for a week in July, it's not something I'm used to seeing. Melt point is about 24℃
I've had jars of virgin coconut oil that are still good three years past their sell-by, opened from new & just left in the pantry, but I don't really have any experience with refined. I buy it for the huge coconutty flavour-boost so refined doesn't suit my use-case.
The sediment doesn't really bother me, though again it's something I almost never see in liquid form in the jar. Personally, I'd call it OK if it doesn't smell or taste - perhaps try gently heating some just to see if any odour is being masked by it being cooler. It's unlikely to have gone mouldy if unopened, so there's only the slightly yellow colour that bothers me at all. Maybe shake it up & put it in the fridge for a day to see what it looks like as a solid. It should look like a jar of fresh snow.
I agree with heating some and seeing what it smells like. Sometimes a fat that has gone just a little bit "off" will smell fine at room temp, but start to smell not good when heated. Better to notice that before you add other ingredients and ruin a whole dish. If it smells fine when heated, perhaps spread some of the heated oil on a piece of bread and see what it tastes like (let it cool before eating it, of course).
specific to these solid vegetable fats, a subtle soapy taste will give you warning
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.114800
| 2021-06-12T07:33:46 |
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|
123102
|
How can I easily separate onion layers in diced chunks?
I often want a small portion of onion in the form of short pieces, one layer thick. I start by cutting a slice from the onion that is about the total amount needed.
While it's a slice, the rings can be easily separated, but that makes it more difficult to cut it up. So I keep the slice intact, and cut it into horizontal and vertical strips, creating rectangular chunks. The chunks typically contain several layers, and those are difficult to separate.
Is there any trick to easily separate the layers in the diced pieces (or a better cutting method to reach the same result)?
I'm just working with a sharp knife. There are probably cutters or choppers designed to make this easy, but I'd rather not buy another kitchen tool.
Addendum: I appreciate all the suggestions, and tested them all. I'll add comments under the answers with the results so people can compare them.
As an alternative: consider green onions (aka scallions), as they’re much easier to portion for small amounts
Why worry about it? The layers will separate in the pan.
@FuzzyChef, these are used fresh, not cooked.
@Joe, it's a specific flavor (sweet onions), scallions aren't the right taste. Also, it isn't just a matter of portion. It involves uniform piece size, texture, presentation, etc.
When cutting the onion, after you’ve halved it and cut along one dimension, smoosh it down a bit with the palm of your hand. This will cause the layers to shear against each other, loosening them. Then finish chopping them.
If there are still big chunks, put the pieces in a closed, hard-sided food storage container and give it a few good shakes. (Don’t overdo this, as overly bruising onions will lead to that unpleasant stored-raw-onion smell.)
I use the flat of the knife rather than my palm but otherwise same.
Test Result: I expected this to separate the layers, making it harder to cut up and was pleasantly surprised that it didn't. It improved ease of separation but some pieces still needed coaxing afterward (used Tetsujin's method for that). Pro: didn't affect cutting and improved ease of separation, no extra drain step, no affect on taste. No cons.
Put the chopped onion into a bowl of cold water to soak for a few minutes. This will loosen the sticky membranes between the layers, and they should come apart easily with just a little stirring and rubbing with your fingers.
Soaking raw onion is also commonly practiced to reduce the sharp flavor of the onion by diluting and halting the enzymatic reaction that produces the sulfur-rich compounds. The sweet and complex flavors of the onion remain, but with less "hotness", and the texture is not significantly changed.
Test Result: I honestly didn't expect this one to do anything and was pleasantly surprised that it helped. Some pieces still needed coaxing afterwards (used Tetsujin's method for that). Pro: no change in cutting. Con: a bit messy to drain and dry, and it diluted the flavor a little.
Rub them between your palms. It's imperfect, as it won't get every single one, but it will get the majority.
I can't think of a better method to work on a single slice. There's a good method to work on a whole or even half onion, but it still doesn't necessarily separate each individual layer; it relies on cooking to complete that.
Test Result: This was essentially the method I was using originally that left a lot of pieces stuck together. It's also what I used to break up residual stuck pieces in testing the other methods. It's useful by itself or as a supplementary method, but I was looking for something better. None of the other suggestions was perfect by itself, either. A combination of another method plus this took care of everything.
There are plenty of 'hacks' for cutting even, diced onions
Don't chop off the root
Follow the lines of the onion
Keep your fingers tucked under
Check this video https://youtu.be/v17DxxrETAQ?t=42
But if you can afford it I would highly recommend getting a Cuisinart food processor
https://www.cuisinart.com/shopping/appliances/food_processors/dfp-14bcny/
This has been an absolute game changer, it can knead dough, blend vegetables in to ultra smooth soup and dice onions in seconds. It takes a bit of getting used to, the first time I tried dicing an onion it turned into liquid. But once you're used to it, it is incredible.
I just remove the onion peel and roots, chop the onion into quarters and the cuisinart does the rest. Onions come out perfectly diced, all equal sizes.
An interesting thing I've noticed is that when I fry onions processed this way they will caramelize almost instantly. Perhaps due to how evenly sliced they are.
Thanks for weighing in. This doesn't really help for the specific thing I'm trying to do, but there's a lot of good info here for future reference.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.115022
| 2023-01-23T02:37:54 |
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123348
|
Supplement for those who with lactose intolerance?
Many people have lactose intolerance.
Is there a food or supplement that can be consumed with milk that can prevent diarrhea?
Suppose lactose-free milk or soy milk, etc is not an available option.
Edit
I learned that there is something like Lactaid.
But I wonder if it can be done by food rather than drug.
Suppose I invite guests and serve food including milk.
Some guests might have lactose intolerance.
The guest might not notice that the food contains milk.
I can tell them that the food contains milk and you may or may not have lactose intolerance, so if you do, please take the Lactaid. --> This sounds really funny.
That is the reason I'm looking for food that can substitute Lactaid.
Welcome to SA! Unfortunately, as a request for medical advice, your question is off-topic for our board. That said ... look up "Lactaid".
@FuzzyChef Thank you for your helpful comment. I edit my question and added explanation about the situation.
...you inquire (at the time of inviting, or on arrival if a more spontaneous event) if guests have any food allergies. To do otherwise is to be a poor host, since some allergies can kill your guests, if you serve them food with an allergen they are sensitized to without informing them.
@user67275 Feeding people food without asking about their dietary restrictions isn't really terribly consistent with "kindness, collaboration, and mutual respect" or "inclusive and respectful". I'm going to wipe the comments, but please be open to the feedback that it may be your approach here that warrants adjusting, not your ingredients.
@Cascabel having an answer on there that’s “don’t poison your guests” is useful to be able to point to. Most people with dairy issues will ask about the meal, and either bring lactaid or decline to eat. The problem is when someone who knows your issues and has for more than a decade decides ‘oh, but it was cooked, I didn’t think that counted’ or ‘but it was only a little bit of cheese’ as your mom keeps asking why you don’t visit more often
@Joe Feel free to ask and self-answer a question. I'm happy to have info about how to handle dietary restrictions on the site, but I'd rather it'd be attached to a question that's asking for that, rather than asking how to feed your guests things that are harmful to them.
There are many replacements for milk, so if you know that you will have guests that can’t consume milk, you can avoid it.
There are many plant based mills, typically made from either nuts (almond, coconut, cashew), beans (soy), or grains (rice, oat). Beware that canned coconut milk has existed since before the fad existed. You’ll want to use ‘coconut milk beverage’ as a direct replacement.
Canned coconut milk (not coconut cream) makes a decent substitute for cream in baking and cooking, except for making whipped cream.
Dairy-free cheese is getting better, and nutritional yeast often works as a replacement for grated cheeses like Parmesan. I’d recommend looking for opinions online, as some may make good sandwiches but not melt well and visa-versa.
I haven’t tried any of the yogurt or sour cream alternatives, but I know they exist.
But I’d really recommend that unless you have a family recipe that you’re trying to adapt, that you just look online for a dairy-free variant of whatever you’re trying to make.
Also note that people who have issues with milk might not be lactose intolerant. There are other substances (such as casein) in milk that people can have issues with. That’s why I’m recommending avoiding dairy entirely, as some yogurts and hard cheeses have been fermented enough that lactose (a sugar) is greatly reduced.
Does the OP want to rush a guest to the ER for a shot of epinephrine or end the evening with somebody puking there guts out? If not make a vegan meal.
@NeilMeyer Lactose intolerance isn’t an allergy. Intolerance may result in major gastrointestinal issues (gas and cramping in mild cases, spending the next two days in the bathroom in a bad case). And it might not trigger until your next meal, making it a pain in the ass to try to figure out what triggered it. (And I’m speaking from experience; doctors misdiagnosed me, and told me to eat more fiber, so I had high fiber cereal every morning… with milk)
@Joe Did he say lactose intolerance? Milk allergies do exist.
@Edward he asked about prevention of diarrhea and mentioned Lactaid. That’s intolerance. Allergies would be throat constricting from anaphylaxis. That being said, I’m intolerant to milk, but it’s casein, so lactaid doesn’t do anything,
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.115411
| 2023-02-11T00:17:59 |
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|
123263
|
Wok slides around in ring
I have a round bottom wok with a metal handle. When placed in the wok ring, the wok slides down to the handle side due to the weight. The ring is reversible, however it slides on either side. This is so annoying. Is there a fix for this?
Did the ring come with the wok?
No. they were not. The wok was given to me from a closing restaurant. The ring was from another wok set.
I'm not a wok expert so I won't put this as an answer. My instinct would be to modify the inside of the ring so that there are small protrusions that stick out and grip the sides. The problem with that is if it doesn't work you've ruined your wok ring. However, there may be better answers. It could be that the wok is designed to work with a specific ring.
Yes I agree. I am hoping that there may be someone with some experience in solving this issue. In an Asian kitchen, this wok would mostly likely sit lower in the a ring or the stove itself accepts the wok in its top. With our traditional stoves, we need a ring or some custom devise. If all else fails, I will have to give up this wok for a new flat bottom wok.
The wok ring that came with my stove does that. It's better to just do without in my case, as my wok has a slightly flattened bottom (but the big burner is also pretty rubbish with a wok as the flame ring is too wide).
yes there is a fix…just add food to the wok. In most cases the added weight of the food will balance the weight of the handle. I don’t really find the position an issue, it just means that the handle gets a bit hotter than the other side. I always have a dry towel to handle the metal wok handle while cooking.
It doesn’t affect the food, as when you start to use the wok you will lift the handle and it will be level. Another option is just to use a Cantonese style wok with the double ears, they don’t have the lopsided handle on one side, so it doesn’t have the problem.
Alternatively, if it really bothers you, you can rest the wok handle on another pan or pot so that it sits properly in the wok ring. The other pot or pan will be off to the left side if you use that hand for the wok, or vise versa if you are using your right hand. But usually just adding your food will be enough to correct it.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.116196
| 2023-02-03T15:17:00 |
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|
123401
|
10" induction pans don't work with my GE induction cooktop but 8" and 12" pans work?
I'm happy with my GE portable induction cooktop (single burner). I have two 8" pans (one cast iron, one induction-certified Oxo) and one induction-certified 12" pan (Nuwave) that work great. I've tried three induction-certified 10" pans and none work! Oxo, Sensarte, and Green Pan brands. Is it possible that my induction cooktop is incompatible with 10" pans???
Have you confirmed the 10" pans are actually induction ready?
Only ferrous metals will work on induction, have you tested these pans using a magnet?
What are your 10" pans made of? Brand does not matter, materials and construction very much does.
I checked the Sensarte and Green Pan skillets. Magnets stick to the bottoms of both. All of the pans are induction certified.
Induction cookers are tricky. They heat with a donut-shaped antenna under the glass top. You have likely noticed a circular "hot spot" in your pans. This is the size and shape of the underlying antenna. Consumer induction cooktops all have single-donut antennae. Commercial units, which can cost more than 10X as much, usually have two concentric "donuts" for better coverage.
The circular graphic on the stovetop is not necessarily centered over the donut antenna. My Frigidaire induction has one graphic a full inch off-axis. You can tell by putting 1/8" of water in a large cast iron frying pan and putting the burner on "hi". The circle of bubbles will identify the center of the antenna. Center your pot there, not over the graphic.
The burners have sensors to determine if a magnetic pot is correctly located above the antenna. That's why they "know" to turn off if you lift the pot. And why burners will sometimes refuse to heat small pans, especially cheapies.
Your misbehaving pans may be "induction compatible", not "induction optimal". Laminated pans which are optimized for induction are more expensive to manufacture.
I suspect it is this "safety" sensor which is causing mischief. If a cheapie pan is off-center from the antenna, the cooktop may interpret that as "no pot present".
The magnet test is helpful, but not foolproof. Trust in cast iron. All other pots must prove themselves.
I'm sure it is the pan sensor failing to detect the pan, as otherwise it would try to heat and you'd see some effect. But it does seem odd that the sensor can pick up 8" pans and not 12". Of course the sensor may be off-centre too, so systematically offsetting a 10" pan might be of some use.
Looking at the bubbles boiling water in the 8" cast iron skillet, It looks like the indiction ring is about 5" in diameter. When I checked the 10" skillets with a magnet I didn't check all over to see if the bottoms were all ferrous or if there was just a ferrous ring. Maybe the non-compatible pans had a ferrous ring more than 6" in diameter? My compatible 12" saute pan has a full ferrous bottom, as do my 8" Oxo skillet and my 8" cast iron skillet.
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Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.116443
| 2023-02-14T20:19:42 |
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|
127747
|
Ask for help to identifying unknown seeds
My family member have left these seeds behind.
I am not sure what is it, any one could help in identifying?
I have compared to Sesame, Chia. These seeds seed have no smell and completely black if using magnifying glass to see. Chia have some white and cracks alike while sesame have its special smell. So I am not sure what it is.
Edited on 2024/3/24
I have tried taking another shot by wearing a white glove with a spotlight on the palm. It seems to look much better.
I have taken two shots, one with a large quantity of the same type of seeds grouped together to compare sizes, and another with fewer seeds. Providing both images from different perspectives for a better understanding of the seeds' morphology.
How big are the seeds - the photo makes them look about the size of beans, but I suspect that they are more on the size of chia and sesame as you mention those in comments. Also - where are you in the world (Hong Kong from profile)? What seeds might be available depend heavily on where you are.
The photo is very close up, and blurry. Folks are going to need better photos to identify. Also, are you certain that they are edible seeds?
@bob1 it is about the size of a sesame, I am residing in Hong Kong. As far as I can remember, the most common black seed is sesame, chia. While other kind of seeds are also available such as Flax seed which is small but in brown color and in case for long storage, the bad oil smell come out due to oxidation which I have experienced before.
@FuzzyChef It is being put into Kitchen shelf. Since food are usually grouped together so I am quite certain that it is editable. It is somewhat hard to take clear photo, I use iPhone and magnifying glass to take the photo. Do you have better suggestion or technique which I could try?
Could be Kalonji/Nigella/Black Cumin - What does it taste like? Probably not Black Sesame as those look like White Sesame, only dark coloured. Have your family been making any Indian style dishes (curry or naan/roti?)
Don't use a magnifying glass, that won't work. Give us one picture on maximum zoom (but still clear), and maybe another one with the seeds next to your finger so that we can see size.
@bob1 the shape looks kind of triangular, which would also indicate nigella.
@Esther Is nigella also known as Black Cumin?
@西門正CodeGuy yes, it is
It is sometimes, but so is Elwendia. Though, these definitely aren't elwendia seeds.
@FuzzyChef
I have tried another kind of technique and setup to take the photo. It seems much better now. Hopefully, this could help in identifying the seed.
I've found a stock photo of what are supposedly Chia seeds. They look closer to what's in your photos than Sesame, Nigella, or the various seeds that are all known as "black cumin". The surfaces is smooth and shiny, unlike pretty much everything other than Sesame seeds. The shapes vary with some seeds showing a similar flattened, pinched end as your seeds do.
https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/healthy-black-chia-seeds-healthy-black-chia-seeds-benefits-chia-seeds-179483492.jpg
Perhaps I've missed something but... why not just ask your family what they are?
My family member who left this jar of seeds has already passed away...
My condolences. One thing that might help to identify mystery seeds is if you were to crack open or crush a few. Seeing what colour the interior is could help to narrow down the list of possibilities.
It's hard to be absolutely certain, but with the new photos those appear to be black sesame seeds. They don't look like nigella seeds, since they lack the ridges those seeds have.
Taste them; if they taste slightly bitter with a sesame flavor, that's what you have.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.116710
| 2024-02-25T16:04:47 |
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|
116169
|
Why do I need to use the oven to make crème brûlée? Or do I?
I really don't get it. Yolk must coagulate at 83 °C (181 °F), so why doesn't any recipe tell to simply put it into a water bath on a stove? Or are there any such recipes?
My intuition tells me to simply put it in a water bath, low heat, no cover, and the thermometer into the custard set to 83 °C (181 °F).
Edit:
I did it. I was doing several other things, so it took several hours. It was very good on the top, but on the bottom it was like cottage cheese with whey and something crumbly. Did I start to make a cheese?
You can certainly use the stove, it is just that using the oven works better.
on the stove, you will have to babysit the water bath so it doesn't get too hot. In the oven, it is less likely that this happens, because the oven heats up slower, and if it starts getting too hot, you will have more time to notice and react.
the oven will heat your custard slower, resulting in better custard.
the oven heats from the top too, resulting in more even temperature throughout the custard.
if you are cooking with other people, somebody could accidentally stir your custard on the stove, maybe mistaking it for a creme patissiere or another type of stirred custard.
And in general, even if it there were no technical reasons, it is just normal to use the oven for the "stick it in and forget it for several hours" dishes and the stovetop for the dishes which need a concentrated blast of heat. So it would be natural to see this kind of recipe to be written for the oven, instead of trying to find workarounds to make the stove do the job which the oven was invented for.
To address your update, you didn't make cheese, your creme brulee curdled on the bottom. This means that you didn't manage to make a setup that heats low enough (point one) or evenly enough (point three). You will have to fuss more until it starts going right.
*creme patissiere :-)
@Jeffrey OK, I'll edit. Interesting: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=creme+patissiere%2C+creme+patisserie&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3&direct_url=t1%3B%2Ccreme%20patissiere%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Ccreme%20patisserie%3B%2Cc0#t1%3B%2Ccreme%20patissiere%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Ccreme%20patisserie%3B%2Cc0.
*crème pâtissière ;-)
There is no magic about the oven here. It is really for convenience. There is no reason your method will not work. I've made custards using a water bath and an immersion circulator (sous vide) many times...no stove or oven.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.117030
| 2021-06-22T19:06:19 |
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|
117556
|
Adding dairy to non-perishable sauce
I am making cocktail sauce from mayo ketchup and pickle juice. I store it in room temp for months. Now I have an idea of adding some yogurt to it.
Can I still consider it non-perishable?
[Edit]
Current comment consensus is - No[citation needed]
How can I check it? Count pH? Measure pH?
Was this good idea in a first place even without the yogurt?
I’m afraid your current version and storage habits are already unsafe.
Each of the parts of your current recipe can be kept for months in a closed container, but once the container has been opened, you run a risk of spoilage.
Mixing two or more ingredients increases the risk of something going wrong, as with the ingredients you mix air and possible contaminations into the sauce.
You can mix a sauce like this for use that same day, maybe the next but should not store it for longer.
Adding a 'non shelf stable' ingredient will increase the risk for something going wrong by a lot. When you mix the yogurt into the mix you should use it within a few hours, even when you store it in the fridge. (It is not guarantied things do go wrong but the risk goes up again against the mix without yogurt.) Likely it will be alright for a few days but you better mix just before use and not store for later.
The pH value does help keeping bad things from happening but it can only go so far. When mold spores get in, they can develop into full scale molds. And that is just one thing going wrong.
Do you have a source backing up that adding yogurt means it must be used within hours, even if refrigerated? Official guidelines say that something like a tuna salad can be stored in the fridge for 3 days, so instinctively I'd say the same time frame applies here (cold perishable things mixed together).
I could have said a 'short time' but with someone who mixes things and stores them for months, I feel impressing the short term is important.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.117248
| 2021-10-18T23:21:58 |
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|
116957
|
Why not stir the french press using a metal spoon?
I have a small French Press (roughly 220ml) that has the following written on it:
Always stir before pressing down, using a plastic or wooden spoon, not metal.
A metal spoon does not really damage the glass, so I assume there are other phsyics related reasons.
Symbolic picture demonstrating the stirring:
(Source: https://nmpinoncoffee.com/brew-guides/french-press)
Note:
The carafe is made of non-stain, heat-resistant borosilicate glass
The brew is to be stirred after at least 4 minutes
Why no metal spoon?
Is the metal having an effect on the coffe brew, like silver is having effects on some materials (like on sulfur)?
Perhaps you should rethink if a metal spoon could damage glass - it only takes a small defect to dramatically increase the possibility of brittle failure, particularly when subjecting glass to large temperature swings (i.e. room temperature to boiling in a moment).
Can you elaborate on what is being stirred? Given that most of the press' parts are metal, it's clearly not a "taste" issue. I would be shocked if the glass used in any reputable press were not annealed, Pyrex-style, to avoid the risk of accidental fracture.
I've had 2 of those glass models where the glass has spontaneously cracked. I now have a double skin metal press - not only is it larger than the standard size, it keeps my coffee warm and is unbreakable :)
@JonCuster - not just temperature swings, but also pressure from the plunger; sometimes considerable if overloaded with coffee grounds.
@bob1 - absolutely true, although the surface chip will often do the job unaided, particularly with the type of glass (thin, unannealed, un-ion-exchanged) commonly seen on French presses.
To expand on a couple of the comments:
A french press is a coffee system used to filter a suspension of coffee grounds out of (very hot) water and contain them at the bottom of the canister. In many cases the canister is made of glass. As the linked article says:
French presses with a glass carafe are an extremely fragile type of coffee maker, quicker to chip or break than most. In fact, brand instructions typically advise against using metal spoons when stirring so as not to damage the glass.
A metal spoon used without caution could easily cause minor chipping or scratching in the glass canister. While this might not seem like a problem, a french press is subjected to large temperature swings when the water is poured in. Temperature increases on glass cause thermal expansion of the glass, which subjects it to stresses, particularly where there is a temperature differential between different parts of the pot (e.g. hot bottom, cool top). These can cause minor chips and scratches to catastrophically fail.
In addition to this, during normal usage, the filter part of the press is plunged to collect and remove the coffee grounds from suspension. This results in some pressure being applied to the filter, especially if too much grounds are in the canister to be easily filtered out. The pressure on the filter is transferred to the liquid component. Liquids, are incompressible, which means that any pressure applied to them is directly transmitted to anything containing them. Under such pressures the chips/scratches could also cause failure of the glass.
I stir after a minute of steeping. CO2 released from the grounds has raised them to the surface snd stirring gets them down in the water. I stir with a wooden chopstick because I’ve cracked a number of the glass cylinders when using metal… early morning clumsiness.
Your last sentence pretty much sums up why the manufacturer says not to use metal.
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.117442
| 2021-08-25T12:43:51 |
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|
39940
|
Making tea - milk first or tea first
For those who take tea with milk, opinion seems very much divided about whether to add milk to the cup before the tea or vice versa. I have seen some suggestions relating to the milk protecting the fine china when the hot tea was poured, and even suggestions relating to killing bacteria in suspect milk.
My personal preference is to pour the milk in after the tea, and I do believe there is a difference in taste but I wonder whether this is simply a case of being able to more accurately gauge the quantity of milk being added, as the colour of the the tea serves as a guide.
Is there a measurable (ie scientific) difference between the processes of (i) adding milk to the tea, and (ii) adding tea to the milk that will lead to a different flavour outcome?
This question touches on the issue, but doesn't quite give the answer I am looking for.
of interest: http://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2014/oct/03/how-to-make-tea-science-milk-first (also links to a few older studies)
I had the chance to ask a tea scientist this very question about 25 years ago, and he said:
if you put the tea in first, over decades your cups will be more stained than if you put the milk in first
if you put the milk in first, you cannot add less milk on discovering that the tea is weak or there is less of it than you thought
He further reported that the Royal Family always put the tea in first. So, despite being raised milk-first, I am a tea-first person (the milkiness of my tea being more important than possible stains to my cups) and my mother tolerates this when she visits.
Killing bacteria in the milk is really not an issue now and probably never was; even if it were the temperature difference is not important between the two approaches. A little cold milk in a room temperature cup probably won't prevent thermal shock either: many people claim leaving the spoon in serves this purpose, but I think it's just to avoid putting the spoon down on the counter and leaving a dribble.
And may your teacups be pleasantly stained, but appropriately milky.
I've never met a tea stain that a combination of green scrubby and brother-in-law can't take care of. (If the former can't clean it, the latter is likely to drop it and thus obviate the need for any further cleaning efforts.)
exactly. A teacup is an inaminate object I owe nothing to. If it gets stained I will clean it, replace it, or drink from a stained cup. In the meantime I don't want to drink overmilked tea.
And yet icream my coffee first, being an old NY deli guy. Sugar and cream to the bottom of the cup, add coffee. less stirring required!
There may be a difference:
Some milk sugars are very sensitive to heat and will burn at near boiling temperatures.
If you are adding tea to the milk, it is possible that you lose some of milk sugars as the boiling tea (~95°C) makes direct contact with the milk.
If you are adding milk to the tea, the tea is no longer near boiling since the cup + time has absorbed a fair bit of the heat (~95°C -> ~70°C) and you are adding milk to a 70°C cup that will not burn the milk sugars.
If you can taste the difference (not many people do), experiment with adding milk at various stages of pouring tea and see if there is a clear crossover.
When it comes to cleaning the tea stain, just use something like an URNEX Cafiza or Tabz Tea Clean. I don't think Tea stain chemically bonds to porcelain and have always been able to bring original look (minus the metal spoon scratches) back.
Finally, you may also want to not use milk altogether per this article.
I do believe I can taste a difference, but clearly need to do this as a controlled experiment adding the same volumes at the same temperature, varying the moment of mixing. Very interesting final link... I hope it's not true!
I think that people adding tea to milk are probably pouring from a teapot, so it's going to have cooled and certainly won't be near 95C. Making tea by pouring boiling water into a mug containing milk and a teabag is yet another scenario, which conventional wisdom holds will produce weak tea because the milk clogs the pores of the teabag.
I always assummed something a bit the oppsite of MandoMando;
When pouring tea into milk, when only a bit of tea has entered the cup, the milk/tea ratio are similar, so the tea can only heat the milk up a bit, then more tea being added brings the temperature up.
Dumping the milk in hot tea moves the milk immediately into a large vessel of hot tea, heating it up faster, perhaps giving it a boiled taste.
I do like the theory of not being able to subtract milk if put in first though!
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.117752
| 2013-12-03T12:06:58 |
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|
39973
|
Which kind of basil should I use?
I'm new to cooking and I was planning to make a recipe I saw on TV with pasta. One ingredient is basil. The chef on the show advised always to use fresh herbs; he used a kind of vasiliko with large leaves I think it's called holy basil.
I tried to find one those species but they only grow in spring time. During winter we have a different kind with smaller leaves, it's the second from left to right in the picture.
Does it make any difference? Should I use this one or skip it and use dry basil?
Penne with prosciutto and mozzarella:
300 gr. pence
10 cherry tomatoes
100 gr. fresh mozzarella
1 onion
basil leaves
10 slices prosciutto
olive oil
Salt and pepper
The different herbs labelled basil do have different flavors. Can you tell us more about your recipe and what cuisine it is from?
Holy basil (tulsi) would be very odd to use in that recipe. It's one of the least "basily" basils. For Italian dishes, something like Genovese basil would be a lot more common.
You can watch the recipe http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvTg-429KTo. It's the first, at the second minute. It's in Greek.
The Platyfylos one looks closest to what I have seen in Italian supermarkets. But I haven't visited many of them, so maybe it is a regional observation only.
For this type of Italian recipe, you want a Mediteranian style basil, often called simply "basil" or "sweet basil".
Ones called holy basil or thai basil have a much more aggressive and extremely perfumed flavor which would be jarring in this dish.
Should I always skip dry herbs?
That is a complicated question. In general, the heartier woodier herbs like oregano do well dried; the delicate herbs like bail or taragon really should e used fresh. On the other hand, if dry is all you have, it can be better than none.
In the picture I've add, yours is in the middle. The one I found it's on the left. You can see the difference on the size. Does it makes any difference in taste or am I too peculiar?
Sorry, I cannot read greek and the picture is a little too small for my eyes. I imagine any one in your market should be able to guide you to regular basil.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.118155
| 2013-12-04T20:59:49 |
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|
123582
|
Do tea filter bags filter out vitamins and minerals?
I'm talking about the classic paper tea bags (sold empty) that you can buy and then put whatever you want in; sometimes different sizes are available for cups vs teapots, etc. Yes, I do realise most "pre-filled" tea bags like Lipton have bags made from roughly the same material, but I don't know if those don't filter out nutrients too.
Hi Valikojan, there is no worldwide consent on what is an "important nutrient". To make your question answerable, you would have to identify the exact nutrient in which you are interested (or more than one, but the list should be short enough to be answerable). Else your question would have to be closed. We have a bit more info on which questions about nutrition we accept - https://cooking.stackexchange.com/tags/nutrient-composition/info.
Well, tea is not food. You don't drink it for his nutritional value.
I think the word important is incidental to the question and answers.
Many people drink tea for some sort of health benefit @CandidMoe, antioxidants, etc. Food is defined as any liquid or solid that's consumed for taste or nutritional value, so tea is food.
There's some sort of cultural barrier here, because (from a UK perspective) I have no idea what " the classic paper tea bags (sold empty) " are
@rumtscho: Do we really want a separate question like this for every possible nutrient in tea, when all(?) of them can be covered by a single answer? As GdD says, they're all microscopic, unless there's some kind of tea where you want bits of stuff floating in it, not just what can infuse into the liquid.
@PeterCordes behind your statement "all of them" must exist an assumption of what is a nutrient and what is not. With all opinions on nutrition out there, there are likely to be people who define "a nutrient" to be something which is macroscopic. Also there probably people who feel nourished by tea because it transfers the energy vibration of the grower's aura, which is also not something covered by GdD's answer. And if you want to say "these definitions are ridiculous, so we don't have to take them into account" - our rules were very carefully crafted around us never having to judge ...
... which opinion on nutrition should be considered true, or untrue, or ridiculous. So, in the very restricted cases where we do take nutrition-related questions, we require the OP to commit to a strict definition of what they consider "healthy" or "nutritious" or "a nutrient". This may have the side effect of lots of questions, if they want the info on many chemical species - but I consider it more likely that they don't even know which chemical species they mean, which means that we don't want the question at all.
@rumtscho I like and am thankful for GdD's answer, but to comply with the rules, I've edited the wording; hope it's OK now
@rumtscho Peter Cordes is right: "Typical" (for Westerners) teas, e.g. black, peppermint, camomile etc., are clear: Everything that is in the infusion is solved. The question which of the solved substances we call nutrients, if any, is therefore irrelevant to the statement that all nutrients in tea are "microscopic", which implies that they permeate paper together with the water they are solved in.
@Valikojan Thanks for updating. Vitamins are a relatively well-defined group. Minerals are hugely diverse though - which ones are do you care about?
@Peter-ReinstateMonica 1. The statement that "everything in the infusion is solved" is not really true. With many tea making methods that don't involve a paper bag, there is plant matter suspended in the infusion, which gets consumed. 2. Staying with the infused-only stuff: How do you know that, on the microscopic level, paper bag fibres don't have a higher affinity for some type of molecules over others, "catching" them out of the solution? 3. The question is not restricted to typical supermarket teas, and filling one's bags is an argument against it.
@rumtscho Any and all... Like I said - GdD's answer covers everything I wanted to know, just about. But thanks.
@Valikojan the point is, we don't allow questions where the interest is in "any and all" - for us this constitutes a so-called "too broad" question. The problem with GdD's answer is that its truth content is basically impossible to determine. If there are a thousand minerals, do you think GdD checked the solubility of all thousand of them? (In reality, there may be more than a thousand that come in question, depending on your definition). Even if GdD is an expert chemist and is certain that there can never exist a mineral that gets held back by a teabag, do you think that the people...
... reading the question have a similar high expertise in chemistry (despite being mostly interested in cooking) that they can correctly decide whether it's true or false, and downvote accordingly? The answer GdD gave is one of the worst kind we can get - very comforting, but actually unverifiable.
Nutrients are microscopic, the pores in tea bags are far too large to act as a filter. However, tea bags will absorb a very small amount of liquid, and in that liquid there will nutrients, sugars, colors, volatile compounds and other things in suspension. So, the bag is going to absorb some of the tea, but the amount is negligible.
That doesn't mean that everything will get out of the bag, though. Even though the pores in the material are too big to trap nutrients the material is going to impede water circulation. Also, when the leaves expand they tend to get constricted by the bag, which further reduces flow. If you stir the bag around or squeeze it you'll often see darker water coming out of it, which demonstrates this effect. The upshot is that the material isn't filtering vitamins and minerals, but the slower circulation means some tea is going to be left inside the bag, and therefore nutrients along with it. Stirring the bag around a bit helps to a certain extent.
Well, some substances like active coal can absorb "microscopic" substances, e.g. toxins. The pore size is a different category than the chemical properties of a filter. A correlation exists because filter materials work best if the fluid to be filtered passes by a lot of surface area on the way through, which is helped by small pores. But the pores can, I think, be much larger than the molecules a chemical filter, e.g. made of charcoal, absorbs.
Peter makes a very important point here. For a visual demonstration of why your assumption does not hold: Make some hibiscus tea, steeping for maybe two minutes. It will be pink, due to natural dyestuff from the hibiscus that gets dissolved in the water. Now take the teabag out and press it with your fingers (or if you prefer, lay it in a second vessel and cut it, not squeezing out anything extra from the plant). The liquid coming out will be a deep red-pink, much darker than the tea in your mug. The teabag holds back a lot of dye molecules that are dissolved in the water inside it.
That effect is due to the leaves being compacted in the bag, which restricts water flow @rumtscho. The bag material isn't filtering the dyes, it's just slowing the extraction process. I take your point though, it's worth calling that out, so I'll edit.
Paper filters such as tea bags, exclude at a size of 1 to 1000 microns, nutrient vitamins and minerals in foods and drink are measured in nano sizes for consumptions. Unless you are dealing with a unique or bulk formulation a paper filter should not limit the vitamin and mineral passage from one location to another.
Or, put in other words, filters remove suspended particles. Nutrients, however, are dissolved compounds that cannot be removed mechanically.
@cmaster-reinstatemonica As I mentioned in the comments to the question, the reasoning about all nutrients being dissolved is faulty. When you make tea without a teabag, you also consume plant matter that is suspended, not dissolved, in the water. And the teabag surface has its own chemical properties on a microscopic level. A credible answer would have to consider whether there exists a vitamin that is likely to adhere to paper instead of staying in solution.
@rumtscho The answer has been rebranded to ask about "vitamins and minerals", and none of these fall into the category of suspended particles. And when you ask the wikipedia for nutrients, you find that it says: "Essential nutrients for animals are the energy sources, some of the amino acids that are combined to create proteins, a subset of fatty acids, vitamins and certain minerals." Again, none of these classify as suspended particles. Finally, teabag fibers are generally cellulose, a polymerized sugar. If that did bind to a nutrient, the nutrient would already be bound within the plant.
The nutrients themselves aren’t suspended particles — but they may well be (partly or entirely) carried in suspended particles, rather than fully dissolved in the water. So filtering particles can absolutely have the effect of capturing nutrients.
@cmaster-reinstatemonica PLL wrote a great explanation why suspended particles matter. To the second point: the microstructure of cellulose in paper bags is entirely different than the microstructure of cellulose in cells, which changes a lot what stays where. And, imagine a water-soluble molecule X which has a strong affinity for cellulose, but does not form indestructible bonds with it. Some X gets out from the plant matter and is dissolved in the tea. Out of this dissolved X, a lot now clings to the bag, and only very little gets into the tea that is consumed.
@cmaster-reinstatemonica to be clear, I'm not saying that such scenarios are likely. What I'm saying is that it is the responsibility of the answerer to consider whether they are possible, before making sweeping statements. And, if they are possible, it is the answerer's responsibility to demonstrate that they do not occur. Anything else makes the answer useless, due to the danger of faulty premises.
@rumtscho Yet, there is also the possible mistake of not being clear enough out of fear of not being 100% precise. As long as I do not have any reason to believe that something may be relevant, my working hypothesis must assume that it is not. There is no reason to believe that cellulose from tea bags interacts any different with the compounds in the tea than the cellulose within the tea leaves themselves. And I shave with Occam's Razor.
@cmaster-reinstatemonica It's pretty much certain that cellulose from tea bags interacts differently with the compounds than cellulose from the plant cells, for pretty much the same reason that cellulose in bramble thorns through which I run interacts differently with my sweater than cellulose from the papers on my desk on which I lean my elbows. Only it happens on the microscopic level. When we talk about physical effects, structure is the major factor, and should always be considered.
@rumtscho Now, that's quite a different vibe from "to be clear, I'm not saying that such scenarios are likely". When I drink a tea, it's a clear liquid, i.e. by and large a solution. Irrespective of whether I use a tea bag or not. As such, there are no considerable amounts of particles present that could contain nutritients. (Since particles would contain nutritients in similar ratios as the original leaves, you'd need to ingest substantial amounts for the nutritients to be relevant.) What gets into the tea, gets into solution. And to this the physical cellulose structure is irrelevant.
@cmaster-reinstatemonica your explanation contains assumptions without any solid evidence ."You'd need to ingest substantial amounts for the nutrients to be relevant" and "the physical structure of cellulose is irrelevant" are both strong claims, for which you would have to show empirical evidence before they become believable.
@rumtscho The statement about ingesting substantial amounts was immediately followed by parentheses containing it's justification. Likewise, my earlier comments already established that all nutrients are chemical compounds, not particles. As such, those nutrients are either in solution, or still within the tea leaves. Now, compounds in solution are molecules or ions swimming in water, way too small to be impressed by the mechanical structure of cellulose fibers. These are not assumptions without evidence.
@rumtscho By the way, where is evidence that there actually is a nutrient binding effect that is to be considered? May I remind you, that it is your responsibility of providing evidence if you claim an effect to exist, not my responsibility to disprove it? If you want to assert an effect, you have to supply the evidence to get past Occam's Razor. Until you do, I shave with it.
@cmaster-reinstatemonica we live in a world where, when two items touch each other, they interact. Your theory requires them to interact in a certain way - such that the concentration of vitamins remains unchanged - which is more specific than stating that they can interact in either this specific way, or in other possible ways. So, by Occam's Razor, it is your theory that is more complex than an agnostic theory, and thus should provide evidence. And by that I mean empirical evidence. What you wrote in the parentheses is reasoning that starts from unproven claims.
@rumtscho I'm claiming nothing that is not basic school knowledge about chemistry. Please stop suggesting I am. And that is the last thing I'm going to say here.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.118494
| 2023-03-09T16:51:44 |
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|
123609
|
Why my pizza dough turned out so filling and heavy on the stomach?
This is the recipe:
1 kg pizza flour
680 gr water
4 teaspoons dry yeast
12 tablespoons olive oil (and even more for handling the sticky dough)
2 tablespoons salt & 2 teaspoons sugar
kneaded for 15 minutes on a stand mixer with a dough hook , than rest for 3 hours.
The pizza turned out beautiful and delicious with a lot of air pockets in the crust, but was just awful to digest, everyone in my family said that, so its not a personal problem. what should i change to make it more lightweight? Maybe its the ridiculous amount of olive oil that i used? Thank you ;)
Rolled out how thick, to serve how many? Cooked for how long and at what temperature?
250c turbo with an oven stone. Cooked for about 8 minutes until golden brown. thin in the middle and thick crust, about 24cm in diameter.
How many pizzas did you make from the recipe?
2 tablespoons of salt for 1kg of flour? Are you sure that's right, or did you get sugar and salt backwards in your question? 2 tbsp of salt would make it inedible.
@GdD: That seems like a bit of an overreaction. A quick Google search turns up plenty of recipes for pizza dough that use 3% salt by weight, which would equal 30 g in OP's case. Depending on the coarseness of the salt, that could be more or less than 2 tbsp.
Too much salt could be the reason for stomach discomfort @RubenvanBergen.
I don't understand the downvote on this, it's a perfectly reasonable and well formulated question, especially from a first time user.
@GdD: Ruben is right, for a pizza dough you usually use 2-3% (bakers percentages) of salt. This seems to be very much, even excessive, when you compare this to the amount you would use e.g. for a soup. But in fact it does not taste as salty as you would expect when it is incorporated in the dough.
Both the amount of salt and the amount of olive oil in that recipe are on the very high side for a standard pizza dough recipe, so if you found it disagreeable I'd suggest reducing both. With that amount of olive oil, I'd say that you were making more of a focaccia than a pizza dough (although focaccia with pizza toppings is generally quite tasty).
Too much salt can result in a slow to rise dough that can seem heavy. I sometimes prefer it for empanadas or similar. And type of salt is significant as table salt packs more densely than flake (kosher) salt
... which is why it's better to always measure ingredients by weight. Easier to reproduce and tweak the recipe as needed.
If you have the time and can plan ahead, I've found that leaving pizza dough to ferment in the fridge overnight, around 12 hours or more, makes for a more pleasant and tastier pizza. You may have to cut down on the yeast a little so it doesn't over prove.
Some observations: I'm not sure why you are adding sugar. I really don't think pizza dough needs sugar. Also the olive oil does seem to be excessive. Personally I only use a little to oil to grease the bowl so I can get it out of the bowl easily. A little olive oil in your dough mix can help if you are cooking pizza in a home oven, but I wouldn't go crazy with it. It can help retain a little moisture as you generally need to cook a pizza longer in a home oven (at a lower temperature) than a traditional pizza oven which is much hotter.
If you can, perhaps try to find a traditional Italian pizza dough recipe from a real Italian. They are definitely the experts when it comes to pizza. If you need to search on youtube "pizza fatta in casa" should get you some authentic recipes.
Dominoes. They put sugar in their dough, turning what looks like a beautiful crust into something nigh-on inedible [unless you like your food sweet, I guess]. Only ever eaten there twice, second time because I couldn't quite believe what I'd had the first time.
There is no evidence that supports the claim that longer fermentation = better digestion. If you have any data on this, please share.
@mosacafj I was using that in a colloquial sense, not making a scientific claim. But I've deleted it in case it causes confusion, and replaced it with "more pleasant" - although this is a subjective opinion.
A 2019 study says the sourdough bread digestion is faster when long-time fermented:
First, we showed a prolonged transit time for the baker’s yeast bread
and a faster passage of sourdough breads, especially when made with
traditional and long-time fermentation.
Unfortunately, only 3 fermentations have been studied:
Baker's yeast only dough: 2 hours of fermentation at 30°C
20% of sourdough (4 hours fermented) + 1.5% baker's yeast: 1.5 hours of fermentation at 30°C
20% of sourdough (24 hours fermented) and no baker's yeast: 4 hours of fermentation at 30°C
The sourdough was made with Saccharomyces Cerevisiae, like baker's yeast, and with 2 Lactobacilli (Lb. plantarum and Lb. rossiae).
Link to the study: Sourdough Fermented Breads are More Digestible than Those Started with Baker’s Yeast Alone: An In Vivo Challenge Dissecting Distinct Gastrointestinal Responses
About baker's yeast fermentation, my theory is that a longer fermentation with less baker's yeast lets more chances to sour bacteria and sour yeasts to devellop themselves. Because wheat flour is rich in lactobacilli (according to french wikipedia: lactobacille). So the long-time fermented dough with only baker's yeast, could have properties that may be closer to those of sourdough long-time fermented dough, and so, long-time baker's yeast fermented dough may also be more digestible.
If 1kg of flour, is 8cups and 680 grams of water, is 2.8 cups, it seems to me you do not have enough water to make a correct dough. When I make my rustic bread recipe and use 6 cups of flour I have to use at least 3cups of water. Your recipe is using 8 cups of flour. Another suggestion would be to use unbleached and unbromated flour, like King Arthur, a flour I always use.
Welcome! Can you explain why unbleached and unbromated flour does as it relates to the question? It's a bit difficult to understand as written :)
680 g of water per kg of flour is a normal proportion, quite in the middle of the workable range. Nothing unusual about it. Also, if bleached flour was a reason for inedible bread, nobody would bake with it.
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.119516
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124313
|
When should I reduce tomato purée to brick red or stop midway?
In order to make tomato purée from scratch, tomatoes are boiled and then ground in a grinder to make a paste.
As mentioned here, usually as I have been taught, one must always reduce the tomato paste till it is brick red in colour. No spices or flavours added yet. It is only tomato.
Example: For making a watery gravy, the tomato is reduced to brick red and then a great deal of water is added to make it almost as thin as water.
However I have a doubt whether it is always necessary to do so.
Question
The question is, when should one reduce it to brick red and when should one stop midway? (To obtain what results one should reduce to brick red and to obtain what results must one stop midway)
(Please give one or two examples - For example, while making Spaghetti Arabiatta, should the tomato paste be reduced to brick red and add a little water later on OR should one stop mid way when the desired consistency is obtained? What will happen in either case? What is the logic to do either?
Honestly it seems an awful waste of energy to reduce then add back water. Traditional methods can often be wasteful.
I'd also imagine reducing by colour would be very hit & miss… I've also never seen a brick-red tomato sauce. Maybe the bricks where you come from are different.
So do you recommend adding flavours before and reducing only to the required consistency? And what about the watery gravy thing what should one do there? @ChrisH
@Tetsujin Yes which is why I’m asking this question. What would you recommend?
@Adiyarkku I do, whether in pasta sauces, chilli, or tomato-based curries. If I want it thinner I add water (or stock), I just don't simmer out water only to add it back. If I want a well-cooked tomato flavour I start with a small amount of double-concentrated puree (bought like that, in a jar, tin, on squeezy tube) and add it to ingredients I'd just fried (spices, onions, garlic etc.).
@ChrisH cool thanks. And after you have the well cooked tomato flavour, would you be adding more tomato paste cooked normally? Or then what? To increase amount of sauce?
It depends what I'm cooking, but in general, if I want that flavour, I'll be adding chopped tomatoes and/or passata (sieved tomatoes). When I cooked with meat on a regular basis, some dishes had tomato puree added after browning seasoned meat, but no more tonato. But this is all opinion
Your question and the included link appear to be referring to different issues. I’ll attempt to answer, and you can clarify.
Tomato paste is used to add umami or savoriness to a dish. It is vey high in glutamates. Your link suggests that deeply caramelizing the paste is an important step, and one with which I agree. Caramelization will add significantly to the umami of the tomato paste, and thus the flavor of your final product. …even if you add other liquid back to the dish.
My confusion comes in two places. Are you making your own paste, or using prepared paste in another dish? If you are using the paste in another dish, how much you caramelize might depend on the dish, and how deeply you want it to be flavored.
Second, not all tomato-based sauces or stews contain or need tomato paste. Again, it depends on your final product. For example, I would not use paste at all in spaghetti arabiatta (although you certainly can), but I would use it in bolognese.
I’m making my own purée by grinding boiled tomatoes from the grocery. No canned tinned stuff.
So basically you are saying that caramelising tomato paste depends on the depth of the flavour I want in a particular dish. Spaghetti Arabiatta need not be caramelised to that extent.
Your link suggests that for the deepest flavor, one should caramelize well. However, I am aware of recipes that add paste without cooking, just cook lightly, and cook very well. So, it depends on the flavor profile you want. I don't use paste in by basic Italian tomato sauce (that becomes the basis of Arabiatta, if I choose to make it). So, it is a personal preference. You should do what you like, but realize what flavors paste imparts, and how manipulating the ingredient changes its impact. Some practice will tell you a lot.
Even I’m using the thing as the base itself for the Arabiatta. It’s not an addition to the main sauce. So basically I don’t need to caramelise the base that much?
It's really personal preference. You may like it carmelized a little...carmelized a lot...not carmelized at all...or without paste...As you can see here. This recipe contains no paste: https://ciaoflorentina.com/arrabiata-sauce/ This is more along the lines of how I would make it. ...but don't be constrained by recipes. Make what you like.
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.120009
| 2023-05-27T17:13:33 |
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124452
|
Why is my avocado hard in some parts but fully ripe in some others?
I am fairly familiar with avocados. I buy and consume them regularly. But recently I encountered one that was quite the head scratcher. I normally buy green ones and leave them on my kitchen counter to ripen. This one too turned from green to dark green/blackish in a few days-everything went according to plan just like every other avocado I had. But when I opened it today it was soft and smushy in some parts but rubbery in some other parts. And it's uneven: although most parts near the pit were solid, some parts attached to the skin were also hard/unripe. So it wasn't layered. The flesh had a very healthy, normal green so it puzzled me even further since it didn't seem to have gone bad.
I don't think there'd been physical trauma. I don't remember dropping it. And it was certainly a solid happy green avocado all around when I bought it.
Update:
I put the avocado, already halved and peeled, in an airtight container with some mango peel and mango chucks, as I expect them to release ethylene. Doesn't mango peel turn black? My understanding is that is the result of itself releasing ethylene after being peeled off the fruit. So I put it in a container together with the cut-open avocado and some lime juice for anti oxidation. It's been two days and a good part of the avocado is still rubbery. I don't even know if my idea has worked...
I've had this happen, too, especially with the cheapest avocados. I have no idea how it works.
Avocados are naturally hard/rubbery/soapy when picked. They only ripen once they have been picked. Picking them damages the fruit near the stem, which signals the avocado to release ethylene, which is the fruit's cue to ripen. (similar to how bananas ripen.) The self-produced ethylene near the stem and environmental ethylene in the air enter the fruit through the exterior peel.
The peel is bumpy, with natural valleys for ethylene to gather. The fruit therefore ripens in a radial pattern from these points. You can see that sometimes in an overripe avocado, where the brown/mushy spots pull away from the fruit, leaving it somewhat like a golf ball with divots. The pit area is generally last to ripen.
Many commercial avocados are treated with wax to slow ripening. If that waxy coating is abraded in some places but intact in others, there will only be a few places where the ethylene cues the fruit to ripen. So there will be a streaky/uneven ripening, with the same general color inside, but some areas remaining hard and soapy.
Isn't packing the avocado at the sides of the box a more likely culprit, then? That would mean that it's exposed to ethylene from the other avocados on one side but not the other.
It's not uncommon to encounter avocados with uneven ripening or texture variations. Avocados can sometimes exhibit different textures and consistencies, even within a single fruit. Several factors could contribute to the unusual texture you observed in the avocado:
Ripeness at the time of purchase: Avocados continue to ripen after being harvested. If the avocado was already quite ripe when you purchased it, it's possible that the variations in texture were a result of uneven ripening.
Internal factors: The texture variations you observed could be due to natural variations in the fruit's structure, such as differences in the thickness of the fruit's walls or the presence of different avocado tissue types.
Fruit maturity: Avocados are typically picked before they are fully mature to prevent damage during transportation. If the avocado was not fully mature when harvested, it might have had variations in texture during the ripening process.
While it can be puzzling to encounter an avocado with such variations in texture, it's generally not a cause for concern unless there are signs of spoilage or off odors.
Hope this helps.
Hi, I don't know who downvoted your answer. It wasn't me. So you shouldn't have taken it out on me and downvoted my question.
@desmo Just as you don't know who downvoted this answer, you don't know who downvoted your question. Let's not let the fact that one or more people cast downvotes turn into anything adversarial between you and someone who tried to help you out!
@Cascabel Sure. I was going out on a limb, venturing a guess based solely on my observation and experience. However much several indicators make my guess highly likely it could still be off the mark, I admit. But revenge downvoting is a serious problem and I don't believe there's a way to address that yet on the part of moderators or community members. In the event that had been the case (which has happened to me before on other sites) I thought my comment could serve as a remind for the answerer.
Revenge downvoting can be a problem, but it's not that big of a scale, and the reputation losses are easily outweighed by upvotes. Getting adversarial in comments is a bigger problem.
This answer talks without saying anything. The question is literally asking about uneven ripeness and your first point says it might be caused by uneven ripeness! Do you have any support for the 2nd point? What even is the "fruit wall" of an avocado, the peel? On the 3rd point you say it could be caused by picking fruit that was not mature, but also state that is the typical practice!
Sorry in advance if I'm off the mark, but this answer feels like it was AI-generated or copied from an SEO content farm page. https://growhackscale.com/glossary/content-farming
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.120393
| 2023-06-13T21:20:31 |
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|
117145
|
Carbon steel wok --- is this seasoning "good enough"?
I recently bought a carbon steel wok, and I've been trying to season it. I removed the protective coating (or at least, I hope I did) by getting it super hot on the hob, then scrubbing it with soap and steel wool. I dried it, then applied vegetable oil with some kitchen roll, buffed it in, and heated it all over until the smoking stopped --- I repeated this twice.
Now, I'm wondering if I've done it correctly --- the colour isn't uniform on the inside or outside, and there are definite streaks on the metal. My guess is that I've applied oil too liberally, and should maybe strip it and start again, but thought I'd check here.
Pictures
Questions
Have I seasoned the pan correctly? If not, what have I done wrong?
Even if it's not seasoned perfectly, is it ok to use? Can I go ahead and start using it with the hope that future cooking will provide additional seasoning? Or should I strip it and start from scratch?
Thank you in advance.
Seasoning improves with use. The more you use it the better it gets.
What you're seeing is the bare metal being exposed where the black coating has worn away.
That black coating is the factory's "pre-applied seasoning" - which is universally not a very good seasoning. The pre-applied seasoning is supposed to be a value-add, so a home chef can begin using the pan immediately. In my experience, this coating comes off easily and doesn't have much anti-stick properties - so you'll nearly always re-season the pan anyway. The pre-applied coating mostly serves as an anti-rust coating while sitting on the store shelf, in my opinion.
The lines you're seeing develop are likely from how you "buffed" in the oil during your seasoning - they look like streak and drip marks. The darker areas are thicker seasoning.
I season by pouring in my oil, rubbing it with a paper towel until the entire pan (inside and out) is coated lightly and the oil doesn't drip or run, then put it into the oven for an hour upside down (with a baking sheet on the floor of the oven to catch any drips). After an hour, turn off the oven and let the pan cool inside the oven. Repeat a couple times, then get cooking! If your wok has a wooden handle, you'll need to do it on the stove top instead, but the process is pretty similar.
Over repeated use (cooking, cleaning, re-oiling), the rest of the coating will come off and be replaced by your own developed seasoning. So, start cooking!
Just be careful how you clean it to not destroy your seasoning!
I've heard that many commercial woks just come dipped in wax (or other non-food-safe rust preventer), so that it's easy to strip off and should never be used to try to cook with.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.120921
| 2021-09-09T16:13:26 |
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|
122047
|
Why won't my pizza cheese brown?
I'm trying to make pizza that's comparable to ones you get at restaurants. It's pretty good, but it's lacking those classic brown spots on the cheese.
I'm using pre-shredded mozzarella cheese, so I thought that the rice flower anti-caking agent added to it makes it harder to brown? I am not using a pizza stone either, and am cooking my pizza at 425F for 15 min
I get melted cheese, but it's completely white, with splotches of red sauce. It looks like I poured Elmer's glue all over my pizza.
What can I do to get my pizza cheese to brown right?
Does it really say cellulose on the ingredient list of your pre-shredded mozzarella ?
@Mołot Probably
It might be hard to get good answers, if you aren't sure what ingredients you are using.
@Mołot Ok I checked again, and the anti-caking agent is actually rice flour, not cellulose
How much time do you bake the pizza for? Is the oven fully preheated first? Are you confident that your oven’s thermostat is accurate?
@Sneftel 15 min, and my oven cooks other things fine
The answers talking about temperature are a red herring, you can absolutely get great browning at home oven temps, even at 425 (though you should aim for closer to 500). It's the cheese. You need freshly grated cheese that is predominately low moisture high fat mozzarella. Pre grated package cheese is garbage
Consider that traditional Neapolitan pizza does not aim to have any browning on the cheese https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Punch_Neapolitan_Pizza_Margherita.jpg . Enjoy your pizza how you like it but maybe not having the browning might not be such a bad thing.
It isn't browning because the top of your pizza is not getting hot enough to brown the cheese. One solution for baking pizza in a home oven is to use the broiler near the end of your bake time. You can also place your rack as high as possible, cooking as close to the top as you can. Just keep an eye on the broiler situation if you do this, and also use the broiler step I suggested.
And this would be because... real pizza ovens get upwards of 800F+ where your home oven probably isn't even really at the 425F it says it's at.
@SnakeDoc clearly, the premise of the question is that the OP is using a home oven...no?
Well yes, but it is probably not common knowledge that Pizza Ovens are specialist equipment, and are used to cook pizzas at extreme temperatures unobtainable by home ovens. After all, every frozen pizza box, and every grocery store pizza dough says cook somewhere between 425F and 450F. A home oven cannot replicate much of anything a real pizza oven can, including browning of the cheese without turning the crust into a brick... which leads us into work-arounds such as using a broiler as you have suggested.
@moscafj By the way, should I use the convection setting on my oven when baking pizza? I don't use that setting
@SomeGuy yes! ...that would also help, but you may also need to rotate the pizza part way through.
@SnakeDoc the very high temperatures of a pizza oven are required for oven spring and to produce the typical cornicione (egg shell crust), but not for browning cheese. In fact there are next to pizza, lots of dishes like gratins, casseroles and the like with browned cheese on top you actually can do in a home oven. Also remember that you usually dont want ultra high temperatures when producing a browned crust with a Maillard reaction e.g. in shallow frying, but moderate high heat.
@J.Mueller While this is true, leaving a pizza in your home oven at 425F long enough to brown the cheese will often lead to an overcooked crust. The extreme heats, coupled with the short duration exposed to the heat, is the magic behind a real pizza oven. That's not to say it's impossible to brown cheese at home, you just risk an overcooked crust when you do so. Using the broiler is a way to "cheat" this by using directed, close heat for a short duration.
@SnakeDoc I agree, 425°F/15min is too much on the cold/long side and the broiler a good advice. But still, don´t assume a direct connection between extreme heat and browned cheese. I´m doing Neapolitan pizza regularly at 900°F/500°C for ~60s and the mozarella is anything than browned but just slightly molten. If I want browned cheese like on a typical pizza from a delivery service I need to go down to 650°f/350°C, ~5 min and a different type of cheese. And from my experience you can get at least very close to this with a home oven and broiler and still gain a reasonably good result.
@J.Mueller I'm not disputing what you said, just thought you might be interested in a very very deep dive into pizza - http://www.varasanos.com/pizzarecipe.htm
I suspect that the cheese you are using is just not ideal for browning. If you want to stick with mozzarella try to get an aged, low-moisture and also low-fat or skim variety. Otherwise Emmental cheese or a young Gouda, could help to gain more browning. In the US Brick Cheese is widely-used for pizza; this also might be worth a try to get results that are close to what the typical pizza parlours serve.
As others pointed out you need the heat. Also, I would suggest a stone. For a stone, I would use a thick Cordierite stone. Like 1" think if you can get it. If you want to kick it up a notch, get two and put one above the pizza to give it that extra boost of heat on top.
Also, make sure you pre-heat the oven if using the stones. I would preheat for about an hour. But given energy costs now that might be a bit much.
If you can swing get the Dough-joe steel pizza plate. I have the 1/2" model and it works really well.
This is because you cannot bake your pizza at hot enough temperatures.
Certified Napoletan pizza is baked at 550 or 600 Celsius (1100 F) in a wood-fired oven. Most restaurants don't have that, so they use 12 kW electric ovens, which go to 450 C (840 F). You are baking in a home oven, at 220 C (425 F).
A pizza stone will certainly give you improvements in the dough texture, but not in the cheese color.
If you insist on browned cheese, you can go over the pizza with a gas torch after it has been removed from the oven. Alternatively (as pointed out in comments), if your oven has a "grill" setting of the top element, you can finish the pizza by turning on this setting and placing the pizza close to the top.
Some ovens have a top grill feature which can help with getting nice brown cheese crusts. (the heat transfer doesn't work by conduction or convection but by radiation, so looking at temperature is misleading in this case).
You can get nice patchy browning at 240°C in a home oven, which is an OK temperature for thicker styles. I bake my pizza in a fan oven with no top element. It goes to 270°C but that's too hot for either of the doughs I make to cook through (one is really quite fluffy, from the bread machine, the other is sourdough and can be made much thinner but not Neapolitan thin)
@Philipp oh yes, thank you for pointing that out. Indeed, such a setting will brown the pizza.
BTW regarding my comment above, I use mozzarella balls torn up, rather than thr bags of ready grated
A Neapoletan pizza with browned cheese would fail to met AVPN criteria, it explicitly states the cheese should be just melted, not exceeding 70°, which is possible due to the very short baking time. Most restaurants serving other pizza styles are using afaik temperatures round about 350° for pizza, as higher temperatures would shorten the baking time too much to cook the toppings thoroughly.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.121194
| 2022-10-21T01:37:45 |
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|
119625
|
Is parsley root with pink spots safe to eat?
Today I peeled a parsley root for soup and discovered it has red/pink spots all over it.
It did not look unusual before peeling. I bought it in a supermarket about a week ago, five pieces packaged in plastic together, and kept it in fridge since.
I know that parsley root is rarely spotless, but the amount of spots on this one surprised me. Otherwise it smells and feels just like parsley root.
Is it safe to eat? Is it some kind of mold or other disease that's better to throw away?
EDIT
Today (one day later) I peeled another parsley root from the same package (the unpeeled one in the picture above) and it seems fine, with no signs of pink whatsoever.
One more thing: According to the text on the packaging the parsley was grown in Czechia, which is where I am.
This is an abstract of a paper called Erwinia persicina associated with a pink rot of parsley root in Germany
This contains the following text fragment:
may be latently contaminated with both E. persicina and Pectobacterium
carotovorum subsp. carotovorum. The latter in particular might be part
of a complex of factors leading to the distinctively severe symptoms
observed.
(Bolding added by me.)
I don't think I'd eat it myself; I might even report it to the place I bought it - they should know that they have been supplied bad food so that they can do something about it, hopefully.
Added: I'n not actually sure whether the 'severe symptoms' apply to the root itself, or to possible consumers of it. Take a bet?)
+1 for finding it, and posting here. But you don't have to take a bet on the "severe symptoms" sentence - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erwinia, this is a plant pathogen.
@rumtscho - sure, but that WP page includes Salmonella as one of the family. Salmonella may be a plant pathogen, but it's also a human pathogen! The rest of the family may actually be innocent, but it's still a bet, I'm afraid.....
nice find, thanks! the mentioned paper includes pictures of the infected roots and rather than pink dots it shows a continuous pink discoloration of about half of the root. but it might be a related disease.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.121775
| 2022-01-25T11:33:33 |
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|
123372
|
Ginger without heat
I want to know how to create a product that was common some decades ago. Ginger bread/cake with preserved ginger and no heat. Not just low, but none at all. And with a strong ginger flavour. Ginger flavour as entirely distinct from ginger heat. So, how can I make ginger cake with strong ginger taste and ginger pieces, but no heat?
I have tried going back to old recipe books, but nothing in there seems to make a difference - suggesting that it might even be the kind of ginger available. I did hear tell of soaking the ginger to remove the heat. But, when I tried it - it removed the flavor as well.
I give some context below - that is not strictly required for the question.
Some decades back, I liked gingerbread, chocolate ginger, and preserved ginger. Gingerbread had zero heat. My mother could bake it, her mother could bake it, I bought it frequently in the shops after I left home. I am thinking that, given the "weird suggestion" comments that it is a lost art. But, I hope that someone out there has the technique in their head.
Chocolate ginger and preserved ginger had a little heat. But over time I found that everything with ginger got hotter and hotter. Even ginger cake that I purchase today has heat. Ginger biscuits (the hard kind) have heat. And so on. I wonder how this can be avoided. I would like to bake ginger bread with strong ginger taste and no heat.
Yes, I did consider the possibility that my taste had changed. The totality of my experience on this precludes that conclusion. For example, I know that for some time I could hunt down preserved ginger without heat and I could tell the difference by looking at it.
Did you maybe consider that your own perception of taste has changed, rather than the ginger?
@Esther Yes, I considered that and expected this response as well. This is why I mentioned that during the transition I found that I could tell two different kinds of ginger reliably apart. One hot one not. Also, one usually becomes more rather than less able to tolerate foods of this type, but that is a side issue. Recently my sister unexpectedly bought some expensive stuff that was very nice. While my wife bought some that was so hot as to be inedible. She liked it, though - and thinks I have the wrong idea about ginger.
Welcome to SA! If you want a question that folks might actually answer, I strongly suggest removing the whole "in the old days" narrative, and instead focusing on just asking about how to control "heat" in ginger baked goods. You'll also need to include a sample recipe or link, because putting preserved ginger into gingerbread isn't common, and if you're making something very specific folks need to know what.
@FuzzyChef Okay, I can remove the narrative - but because of my expectation of getting that first comment - I tried to offset it. But putting preserved ginger in ginger bread was quite common decade ago - and I am not coming up with some new weird idea. I just want to know how it was done commonly in the past so that I can duplicate that. A particular recipe is entirely beside the point.
I'm presuming Hex gave an "out of cheese error"? They key could be age - let the ginger sit in your cupboard for 6 months or a year, so that the volatiles evaporate/oxidize to some extent.
@bob1 Indeed, re Hex - but your suggestion is plausible. I will look into it. At least it is something to try. And anyone who groks Pratchett can't be all wrong.
Do you ever check the ingredients of these things? Your mention of hard ginger biscuits reminded me that many ginger baked goods also feature other spices such as pepper, cayenne or cloves, which may account for some of the heat.
@Spagirl Bottom line - yes I did. No, that is not it.
The core problem here is that the pungency of ginger comes from the gingerol. If ginger is dried or mildly heated, then the gingerol is partially converted to shogaol, which is even more pungent. If it is heated to about 150 degrees Celsius, then the zingerone starts to dominate. Zingerone is not in fresh ginger (young or old) but is produced by cooking. It tastes more fruity and has no heat. Various sources suggest 150 degrees for several hours for the desired effect.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.121971
| 2023-02-13T07:26:43 |
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|
119862
|
What does this function symbol on my Cylinda convection oven mean?
On the right hand knob, there are eight options including 0 (off):
#2 has always been puzzling me and I've assumed the rest mean something like the list below. Please tell me if I'm wrong about these
too as I remember hearing some ovens have a "back element" for use
with the fan.
Light only
Fan with ???
Fan with only the exposed grill/broil element. (AKA "Pizza mode")
Fan with only the bottom element.
Fan with top and bottom elements without the exposed grill/broil element? (I'm not actually sure about this one. I guess
this could mean something like "back element only", if
there is a back element in this)
Only the exposed grill/broil element.
Top and bottom elements without the exposed grill/broil element.
My best guess for #2 has been that it's similar to the the S
(super?) function on some ovens (all heating elements including the
broiler at the same time, for rapid preheating of the oven itself) but
I'm not sure as I don't know where the oven's user manual is and can't
find a model name or number in order to find it online. (No Cylinda
oven manual I've found online feature symbol #2 or anything similar to
it)
In my experience, option #5 heats the oven up faster than #7 so I
have used #5 for preheating, but I haven't actually tested whether
this is actually true or not. It would be nice to know whether #2 is
the function specifically for this use.
EDIT: I found the model number, it's A46010003. This only led me to a spare parts website, but that site had the name CYLINDA IB 30 beside the number. With this name, I was able to find a Swedish-only user manual (pdf) with the exact symbols.
The functions according to that manual (and some quick maths) get us to:
Symbol
Name
kW
Top
Grill
Bottom
Fan
Back
#7
över/undervärme
2.1
[series-
-series]
ON
#6
grill
2.1
ON
#5
varmluft
2.35
ON
ON
#4
pizza
3.35
ON
ON
ON
#3
varmluftsgrill
2.1
ON
ON
#2
upptining/torkning
0.515
[series-
-series-
-series]
ON
With limited Swedish proficiency I gathered that #2 is for drying stuff with the door left slightly ajar, and that #5 is True Convection in its strictest sense, using just the back heating element.
Well done for answering your own question. The only other answer seems to be quite wrong.
TL;DR
The other symbols are fairly industry-standard, even though specific names will change based on where you live & who manufactured the oven.
I believe symbol #2 is similar to #4, with the distinction that #2 is designed to be used when cooking multiple things on multiple racks of the oven, where #4 is designed to bake a single item in the center of your oven.
Longer version
I thought this was interesting, so I did some flipping through some manuals I found online (mostly this Cylinda and this miele). I still didn't see anything that looks exactly like #2 in your question, but I have some guesses.
I think those seven settings equate to:
Oven Light
Forced Air
Convection/Fan Broil/Grill
"Intensive"
Convection/Fan Bake
Broil/Grill
Conventional Oven
Some of these are brand-specific mode names, so digging a little deeper into the manuals:
Difference between "Forced Air" vs "Convection Bake" (Cylinda manual, Page 38)
Forced Air - For cooking different foods that require the same cooking temperature on several shelves (maximum three) at the same time. This function can be used to cook different foods without odours being transferred from one food to another.
Convection Bake - For cooking meat or baking cakes with liquid centre on a single shelf.
Intensive Mode - This mode gently circulates heated air from the lower heating element using the fan to create a brick oven environment. Ideal for baking pizza, focaccia, pies and tarts that require a crisp base and moist toppings. (miele manual, Page 56)
Was about to answer the same as you.
This leads me to believe it has three heating elements in total: Bottom, top (same physical element as the broiler, but when broiling it gets much hotter) and back (around the fan, can only be used with the fan running). In terms of what heating elements might be active #2 probably only uses the back element to avoid making the bottom and the top hotter than the middle ("True Convection"), while #5 uses them all ("Convection Bake") and #4 probably only uses the bottom while running the fan cold. ...and it makes sense that #5 would preheat the oven the fastest!
Or is #2 the ONLY mode that has the back element on at all? I'm finding conflicting information on what these modes are. Some manufacturers say that "True Convection" is only the back element, and others say it's all three, and vice versa some manufacturers say that "Convection Bake" is just "Bake" (top and bottom) with a the fan added ("American" or "Traditional" convection) and others say and the back element. Come to think of the symbols #2 and #5, they are just ambiguous on which means which; the squiggles on the sides could be either "more heat" or vertical interchangeability.
I don't think this indicates a third heating element. I believe it's just a matter of how the two elements and fan are used. My guess (without knowing your specific oven model) is that it would use more, shorter cycles of the heating elements, and more consistent or stronger fan cycles.
The symbol in #5 is a standard symbol to mean "convection oven" or "bake with fan". The added S symbols are non standard, hence deciding that they belong to the non-standard oven mode.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.122570
| 2022-02-15T18:34:17 |
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|
124477
|
Making dairy free using coconut cream with low fat white chocolate Ganache
I am trying to make white chocolate ganache dairy free using coconut cream. Dont know fat %. I cant get it to thicken. I am using Callebaut white chocolate for the first time. I have made dairy free dark choc ganache using coconut cream and bakers chocolate and it sets always. But I cannot get my white choc ganache to set. it has been in the fridge 5 - 6 hours.
Do Callebaut make a dairy-free white? I haven't seen it (they make dairy-free dark and have recently launched a dairy-free milk-like product). If so what are it's ingredients?
Hello CharH, at a first glance, there is no reason for a coconut ganache to behave differently from a dairy ganache, while using dark ganache proportions with white ganache is a very common mistake. So I'm closing it as a duplicate of a question for standard white ganache. If you really used a white ganache recipe with the proper tiny ratio of cream, please edit this into the question (including the exact ratio) and we can reopen.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.123016
| 2023-06-16T22:18:47 |
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|
124587
|
Mineral oil as a zero calorie alternative to cooking oil
I was thinking about that one Youtube video where the guy adds increasing amounts of sawdust to rice krispie treats. Sawdust is non-poisonous and indigestible, and can't be meaningfully metabolized.
Something else that (to my knowledge) shares these properties is mineral oil. Mineral oil is commonly used on cutting boards and knives, so food-grade mineral oil is easy to find and acquire. However, I don't know much about the other specifics.
Overall I have three questions.
Is it possible to cook with mineral oil? (Ignoring any matters of food safety, does it have the same properties as other cooking oils?)
Could someone confirm that mineral oil cannot be metabolized into energy?
Besides acting as a laxative*, are there any other interactions with the body that would make mineral oil undesirable to have in food?
*It's a lubricant laxative, not a stimulant, so this isn't as horrible. When taken intentionally for this, a single dose is between one and three tablespoons.
Welcome to SA! Most of your question has already been answered here: https://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/88648/7180. If that doesn't address your question, please modify your ask to emphasize the new things you want to know.
Does this answer your question? Is it safe to cook with food grade mineral oil?
Also, while eating sawdust is non-toxic (depending on the origin of the sawdust), it's not exactly easy on your digestive system.
@FuzzyChef Unfortunately not. I am already aware that it is used as a laxative. I mentioned that in the question, even, and specifically excluded it from the answers I was searching for. I was searching for other information.
And 2) and 3) are off topic here, as they are about health and nutrition.
First, food-grade mineral oil is a petroleum product, so while it may be Generally Regarded As Safe, that doesn't make it healthful to consume. Also, GRAS testing is based on expected consumption quantities, which is a couple of tablespoons, and not continuing usage for more than a couple of days. Using it as a cooking oil regularly would exceed that exposure, which means that you could be exposed to cancer risks or other problems that have not been studied.
Olestra, another non-digestible fat, caused chronic bowel issues and blocked some vitamins. It's very possible that using mineral oil would cause a lot of the same problems, but it hasn't been studied.
There's also the problem that standard food-grade mineral oil, as you would buy in the pharmacy or the cutting board shop, has a very low flash point, as low as 335F, which means that it would likely catch fire if you tried to fry anything in it*. There are food-grade mineral oils with higher flash points, but I suspect that they are much more expensive.
(* this is also why mineral oil is not recommended for seasoning cast iron)
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.123222
| 2023-06-27T15:15:55 |
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|
125952
|
Cocoa vs cacao pâte vs 100% dark chocolate
Background
I've been reading Pierre Hermé's Macaron cookbook, and his recipe for bitter chocolate macarons calls for "cacao pâte (or dark chocolate 100% cocoa)". I (naiively) thought that the only thing which was 100% cocoa was cocoa powder, so this was quite confusing to me. I told my friend about the recipe, and she told me to substitute the chocolate with cocoa powder, which seems like it might end badly!
Question
What is the difference between cocoa, cacao pâte, and 100% dark chocolate?
Research I've done
I've been reading about this for the past couple of hours, without finding any resources describing how they are different, though I've found many sites which describe each thing, though often using the exact same language, frustratingly!
At the moment, my guess is it's related to the amount of the different cocoa bean derivatives in each thing (from this comment on another question), but I'd like to be able to grok it, understand more deeply how they are different (especially if it goes beyond the proportions to the way they are processed or cooked for example). Any help you could provide in this would be greatly appreciated!
First, let's get the English terms straight. What Pierre Hermé meant is chocolate liquor, and the translator should have researched the term, instead of simply using a French word where an unambguous term exists in English.
From there, it's simply a matter of knowing how chocolate is made. First, the cocoa nibs are fermented. Then, they're ground into a paste. This paste is the cocoa liquor, an intermediate step in the production of chocolate. It can be alkalinized or left as-is.
From there, the producer can decide to produce either chocolate, or cocoa powder and cocoa butter. For producing cocoa powder, the fat (cocoa butter) is separated out of the liquor, leaving a dry-ish mass. This dryish mass is ground into powder, creating the cocoa powder you can buy in the baking aisle.
For chocolate, some cocoa butter and other ingredients are added to the cocoa liquor. Then the mass undergoes different steps (conching, tempering) until it's poured into flat shapes, packaged and sold. If no products other than chocolate liquor and cocoa butter are used, this is sold as 100% chocolate. Typically you only get up to 99%, because they also add vanilla and other minor additives. If sugar is added, you get dark chocolate. If there is both sugar and milk solids, it's milk chocolate. If no chocolate liquor is used, but only cocoa butter, sugar and milk solids, that's white chocolate.
So, they are simply three different products created from cocoa beans. They have different taste, and different applications in the kitchen. They all were created without adding anything to the beans, but the processing steps are different, so the product itself is different.
And if vegetable fats are used instead of cocoa butter, then that's "compound chocolate". For example, Hershey's. AKA, "not chocolate" in most of the world ;)
@Mark 1. no, cocoa liquor has not been conched or tempered. Both of those processes are only relevant when you have a combination of chocolate liquor and cocoa butter (and possibly other ingredients) 2. 100% chocolate would be chocolate liquor and cocoa butter. This is not the same thing as chocolate liquor.
@Esther thanks for your reply! How would you explain this description on a cacao pate product page: ..."Very finely conched"...
@Mark further research shows that these terms are a bit fuzzy and interchangeable. Apparently "unsweetened chocolate" can mean either chocolate liquor or 100% chocolate. "cocoa mass" is another name for chocolate liquor, as well. Apparently 100% chocolate can also be made with conched chocolate liquor only. It seems likely that either of these things (chocolate liquor/cocoa mass/cacao pate or 100% dark chocolate) would work for this recipe.
there's a lot of 'apparently' in there... would be good to get the view of a knowledgeable authority on the subject!
@Mark human language isn't perfectly strict. The definitions are as I described it above: when cocoa nibs are ground into a paste, that's "cocoa liquor". When the non-fat solids are extracted from the liquor and ground, that's "cocoa powder". When a manufacturer creates a final edible bar from the liquor, that's "chocolate", and if everything in that bar came from the cocoa plant only, that's "100% chocolate". You found an example where a manufacturer did some processing to cocoa liquor, and started selling it (probably to chocolatiers rather than consumers) under the French term...
... for "cocoa liquor" (cacao pâte). We can't know why their marketing department made that decision, or how this one specific product is processed in comparison to other products labelled "100% chocolate". In any case, there are no firm boundaries between categories (for chocolate or anything else), so it's not possible to fit this one unusual product perfectly into one of the typical, preexisting categories. This doesn't make the category definitions any less correct.
Cocoa beans are processed into two different products. Cocoa powder and cocoa butter. As the names suggest, the first is a powder and the second one has a consistency similar to regular cow milk butter.
A 100% dark chocolate is a mixture of these two, proportions calibrated so that you actually get a solid bar. If you look at the ingredient list, it may give you the proportions.
I'm not sure whether cocoa pâte refers to pure cocoa butter or is also a mixture of cocoa butter and cocoa powder. As the recipe suggests replacing it with 100% chocoloate I would guess for a mixture. Either way, in your recipe you can't replace it with pure cocoa powder. That will fail. If you can't get cocoa pâte or 100% dark chocolate a high percentage dark chocolate should also work. It will additionally contain some sugar which shouldn't be a problem for macarons and could also be compensated if you want.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.123458
| 2023-11-29T03:32:12 |
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|
120155
|
Why do my doughnuts always deflate while frying?
I've had this problem for a while. My doughnuts never puff up well in the oil. They sink while frying, they don't have the white line around the edge, feel hard, taste hard, and look crumbly like hard bread. They taste cooked, not doughy. The thing is, I properly proofed the doughnuts and always followed the recipe correctly, so I don't understand why they turn out this way.
Welcome! Have you checked your oil temperature? What’s your recipe? How do you determine that they are properly proofed? Do you have a photo of the failed ones? If you say that you had the problem for a while, have you ever made donuts that turned out well? If so, were there any major changes since then? Brand of flour, yeast or oil, a move to a different altitude? You can always [edit] your post to add more details.
Please clarify your specific problem or provide additional details to highlight exactly what you need. As it's currently written, it's hard to tell exactly what you're asking.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.123902
| 2022-03-25T15:17:44 |
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|
40316
|
How long can I refrigerate cookie dough?
I made the mistake of making my neighbors these cookies peanut-butter-oatmeal-chocolate-chip-cookies. Every time I see either neighbor they thank me again for the wonderful cookies, "Oh they were So Good!" hint hint
I'm breaking down and making them another batch tonight, but it got me thinking of a fun Christmas present for them. I'd like to give each of them a baking sheet, a cookie scoop, a roll of parchment paper, and a big batch of the cookie dough. Assuming the freshest possible eggs and butter, how long can I expect this dough to make tasty cookies if kept in the refrigerator? Freezing is an option too, but they're less likely to actually use it if they have to think ahead far enough to defrost it. (BTW, it is a great recipe.)
The recipe is in the link, but just in case the link dies, the ingredients are:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
1 stick (½ cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature
½ cup creamy peanut butter
½ cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup light brown sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg
½ cup rolled oats
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
Substitution ideas that might lengthen refrigerator life are more than welcome.
Since those are drop cookies, the best approach is to portion them into individual cookie portions, and freeze them on a sheet tray. Once solidly frozen, they can be moved into a zip back or other more convenient storage container.
They do not need to be thawed in order to bake, so they still are very convenient. Simply lay them out frozen on a tray, and bake.
It will take a minute or two longer than the regular non-frozen time. It might be helpful to drop the temperature by 25 F or so, but it shouldn't really be necessary.
The real issue with holding the dough is not just food safety (you should get 2-3 days given raw eggs as the most perishable ingredient); this doesn't give you a very large window. Eat By Date suggests 3-5 days.
It is also the loss of leavening power as the baking powder may slowly react, although the dough should be thick enough that most gets retained.
Hmm, I didn't even think about the egg shortening the refrigerator life that much, 'cause of course I'd keep it much longer than that as long it it smelled and tasted good. Maybe I'll consider putting together a mix.
@Jolenealaska : maybe try substituting a vegan egg replacer, and see how that affects the cookies ... if it's still okay, you'd have a dough that you can hold for longer. Also make sure you have double-acting baking powder so you get the second reaction when it gets heated.
@Joe the vegan egg substitute is a fabulous idea!! (put it in an answer, I'd love to "accept" it if it works) There is no baking powder in the recipe, just baking soda...??
If you are worried about the freshness of the cookie dough, why not just place the dry ingredients layered into a mason jar with a card on the side with instructions on what wet ingredients to add and how to complete the recipe. That way, you have a cute presentation, and you won't have to worry about when they are going to make the cookies.
That's a pretty good idea especially if I buy powdered vanilla. I could vacuum pack peanut butter in 1/2 cup aliquots, so all they need to add is an egg and a stick of butter.
As egg is your most perishable item in the recipe, you might try various vegan egg replacements to see how that affects the dough.
As there's already both things nutty and slightly gritty (the oatmeal) in there and it's a drop cookie (so workability isn't an issue), I'd suggest ground flax + water.
What about some kind of pasteurized product in a carton like Egg-Beaters?
@Jolenealaska : I assume it'd be safer than regular eggs (free range or other small batch eggs are also less likely to be contaminated than factory-raised eggs, as are eggs are eggs from innoculated chickens), so you'd be starting with less bacteria in there ... but much of the issue is that (1) how quickly eggs spoil out of their shell and (2) eggs are hospitable to microbes. Flax seed is less a problem in those regards.
Cookie dough can keep for a week in the fridge as long as it doesn't start to dry out. Be sure to wrap it tightly in plastic wrap. You can also freeze cookie dough for up to three months, which may be your best option if you are trying to get ahead on time.
I make cookies as an occupation and own a small licensed bakery. Our state law requires disposal of all prepared foods after 7 days. Raw cookie dough falls into that category. Baked, cookies are shelf stable and there is no disposal date required on those. Your area food codes should be available online. I would and do go by the law. Hasn't let me down yet.
Most of the answers suggest that it's the eggs you need to worry about. There's no need to look for vegan replacements, just use powdered eggs (and remember to add the extra water). The eggs are already cooked, so now the only real concern is the dough drying out or the leavening losing its potency over time. My family almost always replaces raw eggs in cookie dough with powdered eggs and it never affects the resulting texture.
You could either freeze the cookie dough or substitute the eggs for a non-perishable item such as water + ground flax. Their are plenty of other options for seasonings if you are looking to make a variety of different cookies!! http://www.carolinaingredients.com/search/dist/3
-1. The durability of a food is not the minimum of the durability of the ingredients! Replacing the egg does not mean that it will last longer than if it had an egg.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.124027
| 2013-12-17T00:12:55 |
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|
120963
|
Are ripe tomatoes that much better for making catsup vs red but not as ripe
Cooking a “less ripe” tomato increases the sugar taste of the tomato so do I need very ripe tomatoes for the best homemade catsup?
I'm not sure I understand your question. Unripe tomatoes are less sweet and generally more tart than ripe ones.
That’s my answer then. I thought heat improved the sugar enough to compensate. Thank you!
I don't know what you mean that the heat improves sugar.
Most ketchup/catsup recipes I see call for "ripe" tomatoes, so be sure they are fully ripe. More importantly, these recipes tend to call for paste tomatoes (Roma, for example), which thed to be meatier and have fewer seeds. So, if you are looking to make the best quality product, the suggestion appears to be ripe, paste-variety tomatoes.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.124500
| 2022-07-03T14:18:44 |
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|
120993
|
Safety of Tomato Sauce that pops
my tomato sauce that I keep in the fridge has been getting pressurized and will pop when I open it. It is so forceful that it splurts a little. The air inside is white but dissipates quickly after I open the jar. It just happened a second time.
Is it still safe to eat? What is going on?
More info:
I'm not sure what the fridge temperature is but I have bought the exact same brand and had it be fine the entire lifespan of the product. It is entirely possible I accidentally used a spoon to pull out some sauce that was used for something else.
Is there any metal in contact with the sauce?
This should not happen, and sounds like you have some fermentation happening in the jar. I would suggest discarding. In the future, use only clean utensils to reach into the freshly opened jar. Refrigerate immediately after use, and use within about a week.
The dissipating white gas from the jar may be carbon dioxide undergoing a rapid pressure decrease, similar to opening cans/bottles of soda/beer.
If it is carbon dioxide gas build-up, your tomato sauce might be undergoing fermentation in your fridge. Can we get more context?
-Is the sauce home-made? If so, ingredients and heating steps? Added acid?
-If it's a store-bought sauce, was there any accidental contamination, i.e. bread crumbs falling in? Double-dipping utensils?
-What is your fridge air temperature?
Welcome to the site. If you have questions you should put them as comments to the question, not in an answer.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.124601
| 2022-07-07T03:02:47 |
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|
121149
|
Why did my pizza toppings slide off while baking?
I made a New York-style pizza using recipes from the Elements of Pizza book by Ken Forkish, and some of the cheese and pepperoni slid off in the oven while baking. This was my first time using these recipes and a baking steel.
I believe I followed the recipes pretty faithfully, measured everything by weight, etc. The steel preheated in my home oven at 500°F for about 45 minutes to an hour as the manufacturer recommended.
The book says to cook the pizza for nine to ten minutes. About five minutes in, I could hear something sizzling. When I peeked into the oven I could see the dough had puffed up, and some of the pepperoni and cheese appeared to have flowed over the edges in a couple places and was burning up on the steel.
My pizza went in the oven looking like this:
It came out looking like this:
Why did this happen and how can I avoid it?
Edit: added photos of second attempt with a smaller overflow.
Top edge where overflow occurred:
Close-up of top edge:
I don't bother to edit in this case because temperature is not that important here. But: please don't write just “degrees” when you mean Fahrenheit. Write °F or simply F or literally Fahrenheit, and if temperature is important to the question please consider also showing the Celsius translation.
Is your baking surface level? Perhaps as the cheese becomes a "liquid" it spills over the "container", just as glass full of ice tilted at an angle might melt and spill over
It likely comes down to how you've formed the crust. The "normal" method involves pushing the gas out of the middle of the crust, ideally shifting it to the outer edge. So the middle of the crust ends up fairly thin and dense, and the outer edge has more remaining bubbles. If you pull out the crust more gently, and don't squeeze the gas out, then it'll rise like a loaf of bread rather than like a pizza.
The other possibility is that the crust somehow sealed to your baking surface around the edges, and vapor puffed it up and away from the baking surface in the middle. That would be indicated by the underside of the crust having a dark rim and a very pale middle. I've never seen this happen, and I'm not sure it actually could, but I thought I'd mention it for completeness.
If you want to be a bit lazier and not manually work the air to the edge, you can dock the dough. Tapping the tines of a fork, the blunter the better, into the dough with good coverage will eliminate the majority of the bubbles that are going to cause serious rise. You of course do not dock the edge of the crust.
Yep, good point. I don’t think the advantage of dining is necessarily laziness — seems like more work than just shoving on the crust — but it can give you a thick, airy crust which doesn’t go crazy on you.
I re-read the section where Forkish instructs "leaving about a 1/2 inch (12.7mm) of the outer rim un-deflated", and I think I pushed it too far. I added photos of a second attempt where I tried to leave that intact but still screwed up one part. You can see a kind of "high-cheese mark" around the top of the second crust, except on the edge at the top of the photo which is clean and under-baked. Peeking during the second one, I think what I originally thought was the dough puffing up was actually all of the cheese puffing up.
FWIW, it definitely wasn’t the cheese puffing up. Cheese doesn’t do that. (Well, except American cheese but that’s a different situation.) It’s pretty easy to leave the rim intact as long as you’re not using a rolling pin. If you’re f flattening the crust enough and still seeing puffing in the middle, docking is perhaps the way to go. Though I’d happily eat either of those pizzas.
Just to add to this: the purpose of docking is not to poke holes in the dough that go all the way through. Rather, docking compresses and "cements" together the docked spots. During baking, if there are any air bubbles in the middle, when they expand, they can only grow as large as the area between 2 docked spots. This prevents the bubbles from being able to grow large enough to force toppings away and poof up.
I think it's probably bubbles, as mentioned in other answers. Since you have a relatively thin crust you can try docking your dough. Docking means pressing dots into the dough so that small bubbles form instead of large ones (like crackers that have a pattern of dots). They make special tools to do this quickly but you can also do it with a fork, just remember that the goal is to press the dough together to break up bubbles, not actually go all the way through.
I see two possibilities, the first is that the toppings slid off when you slid the pie off the peel, the other is that the pizza puffed up when baking and the toppings slid off then.
If the pizza base sticks to the peel the tendency is to tip it up and try and shove it off, which can send your toppings flying. The trick is to use plenty of semolina or coarse corn meal between the base and the peel so it slides off. Keep the pizza flat while you do this, with enough semolina you'll find the pizza comes off the peel with just a bit of forward push.
It's also possible that the base was thicker in the middle than the sides, and it puffed up when it was in the oven and your toppings slid off. To remedy this make a lip at the edge of the crust, so the edge is just a bit thicker than the rest, that way when the crust expands the edge rises more and forms a barrier. A slightly raised edge will also help keep your toppings from coming off when you slide it off the peel. Also make sure that the middle of the pizza base isn't thicker than the rest.
Additionally, here are some useful tips:
Pepperoni sometimes curls before cooking, when topping the pizza put the edge of the curls downward so there's more contact to keep it in place
Press the pepperoni into the pizza a little bit
It's a great looking pizza despite the topping sliding, a couple of tweaks and you're home free.
What makes you think the OP is having issues with the crust sticking to the peel?
Because that happened to me when I first started making pizzas @Sneftel , it wasn't coming off the peel cleanly so I had to use force and toppings slid off.
Sure, me too, but the OP didn’t mention anything about that. It sounds like the pizza went in fine, and then when they checked later it had gone wrong during cooking.
The crust didn't stick to the peel going in the oven; I was a bit surprised it in went smoothly. @GdD point taken about the lip, I could've done that better.
My approach to answers is to make it applicable to others who may have had the same issue. In this case the pizza may have gone in fine - although that wasn't apparent in the question - but for others it could be the cause.
If you can’t find semolina in your store, and can’t eat cornmeal, check near the cream of wheat and oatmeal for ‘farina’. (It’s a another coarse grind of wheat; it’s what’s on the bottom of Thomas’ English muffins)
It doesn't look like dough/crust bubbles to me, because those usually don't deflate without obvious signs. Cheese usually falls off of crust bubbles.
The pepperonis aren't the only thing that moved; the cheese also spread. It looks to me like the cheese just carried the pepperonis with it.
Examples of crust bubbles: https://www.reddit.com/r/food/comments/16znwv/you_know_those_little_air_bubbles_you_sometimes/
The shape of the base is why the cheese moves how it does.
Maybe a bit of folded newspaper under one of the legs of the oven might help.
Most large appliances have leveling legs. If you take the bottom decorative panel off (or open the lower drawer of the oven), the legs are actually screws that you can turn with a wrench to raise or lower that corner until it’s level. This is really important for clothes washers and things with spinning bits.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.124770
| 2022-07-25T21:56:26 |
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|
125310
|
Pressure canning issue with weight and timing
I pressure canned 33 litres of applesauce at 5 lbs for 10 minutes but didn't know the timer doesn't start until the weight begins jiggling. Is this necessary for Apple sauce?
What's difficult about this is the weight would eventually jiggle ( a lot!! Several times a second) on some bathes but not others. The temp was set the same - max. I dropped it as suggested to 9 once I put the weight on but didn't hear the click of the burner register the drop so it possibly remained on full.
There was also a fair bit of steam escaping the gasket seal from start to finish.
I'm past the 24 hour mark now and would be sad to throw it away.
Because of the High temp and eventual high pressure ( say half way thru) are they safe to eat
What recipe were you following? What size jars? 1 litre or half-litre jars makes a big difference in timing.
I loosely used a recipe because I found they varied and I needed more water because my pot has tendency to burn on the bottom - just cooked, reduced, hand blended apples with water in 1 litre jars
I only filled the canner 1-3 inches. Is the pressure, steam, and partially covered boiling with the 10 mins venting and 10 mins processing time combined enough
According to https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can_02/applesauce.html
Pressure canning applesauce requires 5 minutes at pressure for pints (half-litres) and 10 minutes at pressure for quarts (litres)
It can also be canned in a boiling water bath for 15/20 minutes (half-litre/litre)
If the weight of a pressure canner is not rocking or jiggling, the pressure canner is not at pressure. There's also a 10-minute venting period to remove trapped air in the canner specified at https://nchfp.uga.edu/publications/uga/using_press_canners.html#gsc.tab=0 before placing the weight on.
IF you actually vented before placing the weight (which seems less than likely if you didn't know to wait until the weight was rocking to start timing) you might have gotten to the 20 minute boiling water processing time. If not, you may have had trapped air in the canner which would lower the temperature, and your processing time would be too short anyway, unless it was half-litre jars.
Incidentally, for a product like applesauce that has been long-boiled before canning, my personal choice is to take the published times as merely a lower limit. More processing time won't damage the product, the way it will something like pickles that can be overcooked. I've already put hours of time into making the sauce, I'll give it an extra 5 or 10 minutes just to make sure when processing.
Thank you. I'll explore the link. I let it vent for the full 10 minutes before adding the weight then processed the 1 litres for another 10 mins.
It sounds like your pressure canning is incomplete. I would not depend on it to stay shelf stable without processing it correctly. However, you can run the batch of applesauce again with no harm. Also, you can water bath can it if that is simpler for you. I use a steam bath canner and love the simplicity.
https://www.healthycanning.com/canning-applesauce
Have you had this, or something similar happen before and reprocessed with no ill effects? It was underprocessed a week ago and while apples are acidic, mine is 3-3.5 ph, botulism is under its favorable conditions now and only pressure canning at 15 psi for 30 minutes is capable of destroying it. This article states after destroying the botulism the bacterial waste is still dangerous, and unfortunately I cannot find any other literature covering this
http://scienceline.ucsb.edu/getkey.php?key=1307 If botulism has formed the only way to eliminate it from what I've read is an auto clave
Reprocessing works if you do it immediately. Most canning instructions include the last step as something like, allow jars to cool on the counter and recheck for seal in 24 hours. Reprocess immediately if any seals failed. —- If your jars have been sitting for a week and were not properly processed, I’d recommend throwing them out, or consider consuming immediately if they’ve been refrigerated during that time.
I didn’t answer your follow-up directly. Yes, I’ve reprocessed immediately with no ill effects. No, I’ve not had your situation, exactly.
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.125416
| 2023-09-24T12:12:19 |
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|
125336
|
How *exactly* does the Scoville scale work?
I've only ever found vague instructions, e.g. failing to mention how much chili (dry or fresh?) should be extracted in how much ethanol. How about a soxhlet extraction? Then dilute the extract with sugar water till it's no longer spicy. I think it's crucial to let the panel of tasters start with the highest dilution instead of burning their mouths at first and then expect them to tell if a high dilution is a little hot.
It's dried chiles. The only mystery here is how exactly they do the alcohol extraction, which appears to be a trade secret of the ASTA.
The problem is it doesn't work exactly at all - it's a whole lot of guesswork & subjective impression. It also gets less accurate at higher reaches.
From Wikipedia - Scoville scale
A weakness of the Scoville organoleptic test is its imprecision due to human subjectivity, depending on the taster's palate and number of mouth heat receptors, which vary widely among subjects. Another shortcoming is sensory fatigue; the palate is quickly desensitized to capsaicinoids after tasting a few samples within a short time period. Results vary widely (up to ± 50%) between laboratories.
That's why these days it's done far more scientifically, using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC)
Since the 1980s, spice heat has been assessed quantitatively by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), which measures the concentration of heat-producing capsaicinoids, typically with capsaicin content as the main measure.[9][5] As stated in one review "the most reliable, rapid, and efficient method to identify and quantify capsaicinoids is HPLC; the results of which can be converted to Scoville heat units by multiplying the parts-per-million by 16.
The Scoville scale these days is just a 'comfortable' scale for chilli buyers. Note any commercial pack that displays it will give a broad range of potential, sometimes just as 1 - 5 chilli icons.
Thank you for answering. I'm after the exact procedure, not asking how accurate or precise it is.
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.125870
| 2023-09-25T17:12:38 |
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36001
|
choux pastry, keep mixing while waiting for the roux to cool?
I made some choux pastry last night, however it didn't come out quite right for what could be various reasons.
After making the recipe, I came on here loking for some tips and came across this:
Choux pastry (Chocolate eclairs) doesn't rise
In here @Aaronut suggests waiting for the roux to cool to below 65° C. One of the issues with my choux pastry was that it tasted rather eggy and salty, so while the mixture didn't look like it scrambled (though i'm not sure how that might look), the taste suggests it might have.
While waiting for the temperature to come down, should I continue mixing the roux in my stand mixer or let it sit?
I don't mix my pre-egg mass (not sure that roux is the right word here), but I don't have a stand mixer. Leaving it alone works just fine as long as it is uniformly cooled. If you don't mix (or even if you do) make sure to check the temperature in the middle of the lump of dough, not on the outside.
As SAJ14SAJ mentioned, mixing it will expose all parts to the cooling air, letting it cool quicker. If this matters for you, there is nothing wrong with mixing. It may change the texture slightly in the direction of slightly chewier end product due to some gluten creation, but the difference won't be very pronounced and may not be noticeable at all, because the flour is well coated in fat.
So, the conclusion: you don't have to mix, but you can if you want to. No harm done either way, and it can go quicker with mixing.
Yes, before incorporating the eggs, you would let the mixer continue to run on low until the dough is sufficiently cooled. The main reason for this is that it will help speed the cooling, and to ensure that the entire volume of dough is cooled.
If the eggs were to curdle or scramble when you incorporate them, it is due to at least some part of the dough not being sufficiently cooled.
However, this doesn't sound like the core of your issue. I am not sure why you think tasting "eggy and salty" would be related to this. Egginess is from... the number of eggs. Saltiness is from the amount of salt.
Yes, after incorporating the eggs do you mean before. @Aaronut suggests to let it cool before incorporating the eggs. also I got a whole bunch of issues last night, possibly due to using the wrong flour, and not enough sugar. so many mismatching recipes on the web.
Oops, sorry, I should have said before.
Choux paste is one of the cannonical recipes. You should easily be able to find a good one. I would look for Jacque Pepin's if I didn't feel I had a trustworthy one. Or Julia's.
i don't know who Julia is.
I haven't watched the whole video, but: http://blogs.kqed.org/essentialpepin/2011/09/10/episode-115-all-puffed-up/ Choux paste in latter half of video, after puff pastry And Julia is Julia Child.
@SAJ14SAJ many people say "eggy" taste when they mean "(over-)cooked egg taste", which is much stronger than raw egg taste and only happens after the eggs have curdled. If the OP says that it tasted too eggy, together with the information that the dough failed, it does sound indeed like a problem with overcooking, not with the egg ratio.
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.126068
| 2013-08-13T11:22:32 |
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|
58926
|
Are cooking thermometers essential?
I've been watching some cooking shows, and they seem very keen on there thermometers.
They have prob thermometers, oven thermometers, meat thermometers, confectionery thermometers, oil thermometers...
(Possibly these are all the same device, I don't know anything about kitchen thermometers).
Only thermometers I ever saw in real life, was my mother's roast thermometer (and I've made plenty of roasts without owning one), and her confectionery one that I broke as a child (and I've made plenty of toffee, with just the cold water test.)
So I've got on for quiet a while without owning one, and I've never seen one (out side of TV) used to check the oven temperature, or the oil temperature.
I'm wondering what the big deal is?
Will using the right temperature change my cooking? Am I perhaps doing something unsafe in using any of the many methods for estimating temperature?
related : http://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/12263/67
Dropping water into hot oil is unsafe: especially if you have a gas cook top. If you must check temp in this way, it's better to test on a small piece of food.
@Mr.Mascaro bad example, I was thinking dropping (an single drop) of water into a very shallowly oiled pan (Which I see no danger in, beyond a minor burn for the oil spit). I have replaced with the link to all the examples that Joe provided.
Thermometers are really practical when you do not have a lot of experience cooking things; it let you keep track of the proper food temperature.
For example, I do not cook beef roasts often, so I will use a thermometer to not mess up my cooking and waste a good amount of money on a good cut of meat.
Thermometers are essential for confectioneries where exact temperature are needed, mostly for sugar caramel stages.
Thermometers are also essential if you decide to try "molecular" cooking techniques with different chemicals; where temperature needs to be precise for certain reaction to happen (I do not have examples for that).
Even with experience thermometers are still important.
Even if you do have plenty of experience, meat can be tricky. I suspect you'll have a hard time doing things like judging exactly when grilled chicken is done. Sure, you can poke it and get some idea, but you'll probably end up with 5-10 degrees of variance in your guesses, enough that sometimes it'll be a bit less tender and juicy than other times.
Example for reaction at temperature is mashing malt - you do it between 70 and 85 Celsius degrees, and temperature changes proportions between glucose & maltose vs dextrin. There are recipes for young mothers that call for mashed malt, it's useful outside brewery sometimes.
+1 for "essential for confectioneries." When making fudge, for example, if you don't get the temperature just right, it will not set properly once it cools, and the consistency will be all wrong.
Cooking thermometers aren't essential, but they sure are damn useful. They simply take the guesswork out of temperature, which is of course critical to cooking. Why guess when that expensive steak is done to your liking when you can stick a $10 digital doohicky in there and be certain? Why do something incredibly dangerous like drop water in hot oil when you can use a thermometer?
I've never even seen one in a store. I guess some of the larger kitchen stores would have them. Prob most of the smaller ones to, but I've never seen them.
@Oxinabox, every grocery store within 20 miles of my house has them near the pots/pans, knives, etc.
Mr Mascaro: Neither the grocery stores in my suburb, nor in two adjacent suburbs the suburb over have pots/pans, if I go two suburbs over, there is one. Having check online, the two large supermarket chains in my country only stock meat thermometers. Not suitable for checking oven or oil temperature, I think.
@Oxinabox It's worth checking the package on meat thermometers to see what temperature range they work on; sometimes they actually cover enough of a range to be good for much more than meat and are just being packaged as meat thermometers. (And a thermometer that can't just be left in the oven is still incredibly useful!)
@oxinabox Amazon has plenty to choose from
@ElendilTheTall Amazon doesn't operate (directly) in my country, and the postage from the US or Europe would be more than the thermometer. Ebay does and has plenty, though. and having looked at the local kitchen store websites, they do have them (and also offer online).
@Oxinabox The cheap $10 ones work well enough but if you like nice things, a high end digital one is so much nicer. I've been using the thermapen from thermoworks for a bit now and it's great. Bit pricey, though. Check what's available to you on ebay and then look at some professional reviews.
Before a thermometer in my low-price oven, I didn't know if it was well calibrated or not. My mom's was way off, explaining some burns. I also adjusted the pre-heat oven time, sometimes completely unnecessary. I also found out that steps of 30 C/50 F are enough to adjust up or down, ignoring smaller 10 C/25 F intermediate steps.
Before a thermometer in my low-price refrigerator, I didn't realize I needed to adjust thermostat dial - and how much - depending on season in order to maintain the same temp. I also learned the various spots to organize what food goes where inside, sometimes contrary to what usual people say.
Before an infrared gun thermometer, I couldn't figure how high of a setting I could push my various non-stick pans on the stove top. I learned about checking frying oil temp in a flash, without immersion, if the bottom of the pan is dark as reflecting surfaces are not reliable for this type of reading.
Before a probe thermometer with wire, I had to rely on time per pounds, confused with what type of meat and which cut it was. With a stand-alone probe, I can double check the final results, or find out if I need more rotation time on my rotisserie.
Many more, but you got the point.
However, a probe in a one inch thick steak on the pan on the stove is a bit of overkill.
This largely depends on what you cook, and how picky you are about the results.
If you cook steak and eggs type dishes, and aren't too picky about steak done-ness, then sure, skip the thermometer. Although I would definitely use one for steaks. But I'm very picky about how done my steak is.
Larger meats, such as roasts, I would consider a thermometer essential for. Time per pound is just too inaccurate, particularly given the different shapes of different cuts (or just different roasts). You want it even close to done correctly, your best bet is a thermometer.
As for baking, candying, etc.; it's certainly possible to manage without a thermometer, particularly if you're reasonably experienced, and again, if you're not too picky about exact results and/or not doing anything too cutting edge.
But I'd say it's similar to saying, can I cook without a measuring spoon? Sure, you can estimate the amount of flour in a loaf of bread, and if you're good at it you can probably get something that works and is decently tasty. But, will it turn out exactly right every time? Probably not. Even a loaf of bread is better with a thermometer, in fact!
You can do candying without a thermometer?
In theory, yes. The OP says they can, in fact. I wouldn't do it, but...
Exothermic reactions without a thermometer... I can't even imagine.
I think the 'hard ball' / 'soft ball' method (drop a bit of the sugar-solution in water, see what happens) is how people candy without thermometers (and how they candied back in the day).
+1 -- I really appreciate this answer. As someone who owns quite a few different types of thermometers for my kitchen (as well as a number of different scales, a pH meter, etc.), I also appreciate the fact cooking is often not as precise as we imagine it to be, and temperature is often a more imprecise indicator that we think. A temperature measurement cannot substitute for significant experience. Other than to maintain food safety, I agree that thermometers are NOT "essential." They are just one tool among many, and they don't have all the answers.
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.126362
| 2015-07-09T13:34:11 |
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43473
|
Tasty vs Mild vs Mature Cheddar Cheese
I expect Cheddar to come in Semi-matured, Matured and Vintage.
Each indicating increasing amount of time maturing, and increased sharpness.
The term Mild also makes sense.
However, alot of cheese, in Australia at least, come in what is called Tasty.
On one brand (shown below), both Tasty and Mild claim to be "Full Flavoured".
What is the difference between them?
Other brands sell both Matured and Tasty and market both as a mature cheese
To me, they all taste, much the same as the Matured.
Further, there is also Extra Tasty in some brands.
One brand I found says its Extra Tasty is matured for 18 months and its Vintage is matured for 24 months.
Is it just that Tasty is used instead of Matured, for Marketing Reasons?
Is it that there are special requirements to be able to label your cheese Matured,
so cheeses that have failed to meet the technical requirements,
but taste much the same hare labelled Tasty instead?
According to Dairy Australia, an Australian industry association (emphasis added):
Cheddar Classifications
Mild Cheddar - matures for one to three months.
Semi-matured - matures
for three to six months.
Matured or tasty - matures for six to 12
months.
Vintage - matures for 12 to 24 months.
Typical standards are:
Edam and Colby – up to 6 months
Mild – up to 9 months
Tasty – up to 18 months
Vintage – up to 24 months
Epicure – up to 36 months
In our modern processed and bar-coded product world, cheese is auctioned/sold by the ton as either "frozen" for future ageing, or "young cheese" for ageing or processing
See http://www.globaldairytrade.info/en/product-results/cheddar/
Young cheese is either; aged and the packaged for sale, or shredded, flavoured, and reconstituted as some fancy cheese you pay way too much for
Buy your cheese from some hand made cheese boutique if you want the real stuff
Disclosure: I have worked on the above pretty reporting systems, but have no fiscal interest in the cheese auctions
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.127043
| 2014-04-13T03:07:29 |
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|
121267
|
Portable Induction Hob Makes Small Ring Hot Spot: Is This Normal?
I just bought a Duxtop Pro portable induction hob and tested it out with an oversized pan with a little water in it. I expected it to not be totally efficient considering it was hanging over the sides a little bit but what I didn't expect was for the hot spot to be one single ring in the center about 4" in diameter. Not a disk but literally a ring. Is that possibly a defect or is this normal?
EDIT: I uploaded a better picture with a cast iron pan that fits perfectly within the larger ring for max pan size. Since it's black it's easier to see the ring of bubbles where it's heating up. I've written the manufacturer but just figured maybe this is a normal thing experienced people would recognize immediately. Or, conversely, that it's not at all normal.
…other than it's too small for the pan? This sound like something you should be asking the manufacturer.
I did send it to them too but am expecting slow response. I wasn't sure if this fell into the category of something that is completely obviously wrong (or normal!) for people that had seen lots of induction burners in use. I expected a disk of bubbles rather than a ring. Tried using one that fit correctly and it's the same ring effect.
Yes, it is absolutely normal. The makers of these cooktops are constrained by two important points:
Cost. The smaller the induction coil they use, the cheaper the production
Safety. They have to restrict the minimum size of the vessel to completely cover the coil. If they were to use a, say, 20 cm coil, you wouldn't be able to use pans with <20 cm bottom diameter (which is not the same number as the pan size in the store!)
So, if you want to know what size the spot will be, you can read it up in the documentation as the minimum size of pan bottom that is compatible with the cooktop. The last time I looked these things up, 12 cm was pretty much universal.
It is also common to see a ring of bubbles rather than a disc; I am not entirely sure why, but I suspect that it is again technically easier and cheaper to make a ring-shaped coil than a dense spiral-shaped one.
There is no plausible way I know of for an induction cooktop to accidentally heat only a small area. Given the physics of the thing, it’s all or nothing. What you’re looking at there is a low-quality induction cooktop, from a manufacturer who decided to not make a high-quality induction cooktop.
.....Buuuuut, just to set the right expectations, an iron pan is going to show a cooktop at its worst. Cast iron has low thermal conductivity. It’ll make hotspots their most hot-spotty, compared to an aluminum or copper pan. If you’d put an aluminum-core pan on that burner, you’d see a convex disc of boiling.
You put an aluminum or copper pan on an induction burner and it's going to refuse to start because aluminum or copper is non-magnetic...so you need a fancy induction sandwich base, minimum, to make that an option.
@Ecnerwal Aluminum core. See, e.g. All-Clad.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.127248
| 2022-08-06T20:47:55 |
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|
121527
|
Can you make extracts faster by heating the alcohol?
I tried making cherry extract recently by storing cherries and vodka in a jar, but after 2 weeks, it was more like cherry flavored vodka than extract. Some extract recipes I've seen suggest letting the extract sit for 5 weeks to a year. I don't have the patience to wait that long for something I'd like to bake with in the next couple of weeks or so.
I've seen articles and videos that suggest using an Instant Pot to make (vanilla) extract within an hour. Since I don't have a pressure cooker, I was wondering if it was possible to jumpstart the process of extracting the cherry flavors by simply heating the vodka, like you would with coffee or tea.
Can you speed up the process of creating extract by heating vodka? I would most likely bring it to a simmer on the stove, pour it into a jar with the cherries, and let it come to room temperature before closing the jar. Could this work, or would I just inhale vodka vapors and accidentally get drunk?
Update
This has kind of turned into a science experiment. I grabbed 2 (2oz) bottles and added pureed cherries to one and a mixed of pureed and dried cherries to the other. Then, I filled each one with about an ounce of heated vodka. I'm operating on the premise that heat will jumpstart the extraction process and not expecting it to extract more flavor. I may add a third bottle with just dried cherries. It may never be as intense as an actual extract, but I want to get as close as I can.
Just btw alcohol evaporates at 172°F (78°C),
Vanilla (a spice) is different to fruit in that it's a very concentrated flavour to start with. Cherries aren't that concentrated. Eating a handful of cherries is normal, but eating a vanilla pod would be overpowering in its flavour.
The strength of flavour you get out is (very approximately) proportional to the strength in what you're starting with. In the case of cherries, of course they're full of water to start with, which further dilutes the flavour. But even drying them (which helps) doesn't get a strong enough source.
If you want a strong extract, you'll probably have to concentrate it after extracting, though
You just might be able to get something strong enough for your needs by using a lot of dried cherries in just enough liquid to cover them. Heat would speed up that process, but wouldn't really extract more flavour. You can simmer alcohol safely, but you'll also evaporate some of the flavours you want (even with a lid, which you shoudl use anyway. If simmering spirits in large quantities you might want to ventilate, but the amount of alcohol vapour you'd breathe in from simmering a little vodka is a tiny fraction of what you'd get from drinking the same amount. Don't forget that if you eat something made with alcohol-based extract you're consuming the alcohol too - little of it boils off in baking - but the total quantity is usually small enough that it doesn;t matter.
The alcohol in the vodka may or may not help in the extraction process with cherries, but it will certainly act as a preservative.
BTW I've flavoured vodka with a lot of fresh blackcurrants (and some sugar) to make crème de cassis. After quite a few weeks, it was a nicely flavoured liqueur as expected, not an extract.
I probably should have asked this here from the beginning, because this answer is way more thorough than anything I was getting on google. I'll try adding dried cherries to see if I can get a stronger cherry flavor. How do you concentrate an extract, though?
If the flavour compounds you want aren't too volatile, you could simmer it gently. But I suspect some of them are and you'll alter the flavour by doing so. It may still be acceptable. Commercial methods use equipment we can't access at home, so some extracts can be made in factories and not domestic kitchens
I wonder if you might be better juicing the cherries and reducing the juice with gentle heat. Again it will depend on how much of the cherry flavour comes from volatile compounds. When I say gentle heat, I've been known to initially warm on the stove to 70 or 80 C, then sit the pan over 1-3 tea light candles (depending on how big it is) with a flame diffuser. I have a gas stove and an electric hotplate; both are too fierce to avoid boiling when there's not much liquid to start with. It should steam with only a few small bubbles forming
Sorry, it won't work
You are not making an extract, at least not in the sense in which you are using the word. You seem to expect to use it as a flavoring for other foods, while what you are making is simply a liqueur.
It is not possible to make that kind of concentrated flavoring in home conditions. It doesn't matter what you do - heat, time, or whatever. You neither have much flavor in the cherries to start with, nor do you have any efficient methods to get it out of the cherries, nor can you later concentrate the result.
Why do sources speak of "extraction"
The word "extract" has a much broader meaning in the kitchen than simply "concentrated flavoring agent". When you find sources which suggest that longer time will give you better extraction, they mean that you will get a nicer, rounder-tasting liqueur with more subtle notes. If you try heat, you will get quicker to a cherry-tasting liquid, but it won't have a more intense taste, just a different (and harsher) cherry taste. There is a reason people pay more for longer-stored wines and vinegars, you cannot replace time by anything. Also, even if you start out with more cherries (or with dried cherries as suggested in other answers, which amounts to the same thing, more cherry mass per unit of alcohol), the results will be slightly more intense, but nowhere near the expectation you described.
How can you get cherry flavor instead
When you add liqueur to something like whipped cream, you do get a nice flavor note - but it will always be subtle, not a strong "wow, I am eating cherry cream now" feeling. If you want to get that, you have to use commercial flavoring - or better yet, do the main part with commercial flavoring, and also add a teaspoon of your liqueur, to round it out with more complexity from the actual cherry.
A second option is to purchase freeze-dried cherry powder. It does have drawbacks, such as being very expensive, adding some slight grittiness to your cream, the need to use relatively large amounts (but at least it is dry, so it won't ruin whipped cream or ice cream bases) and not being as flavorful as an actual flavoring. But it is still popular with some bakers, and it does tick the "there are real cherries in it" psychological box. Again, you can combine it with a bit of liqueur for best results.
If you really want a homemade route, the best thing to do is not to extract anything, but to use a dehydrator. You will have to puree or juice the cherries and start with a fruit leather recipe, but interrupt it before it has gone hard. You also have to stir every couple of hours, to prevent a skin from forming. The result will still not be as concentrated as a commercial flavoring, but you can create a variety of desserts if you use enough of it. For example, if you have access to double cream (48%) you can dilute it with the concentrated cherry puree down to 33% and whip that. Or, more doable, whip the cream separately, then fold the puree and a thickener to create a cherry mousse. If you have your own cherry tree, this is a great way to use up a large amount of cherries without producing a lot of dessert.
I will mention briefly another option, because other answers talked so much about heat and volatility. If you feel playful and want to continue using alcohol and heat, your best option is to do a hot distillation. You don't even have to make cherry wine or cherry mash (although you could); redistilling your liqueur should work too. A small scale apparatus won't be too expensive, but you may have difficulty getting it locally if you live in a place with strong anti-moonshine laws. The downside is that the result will be not a flavoring, but a cherry brandy - which will have similar flavoring uses as the liqueur, but with a different flavor profile.
Out of curiosity, are other common homemade extracts (vanilla, mint, almond, etc.) also flavored liqueurs, or is there something about cherries that makes it hard to extract flavors in a home setting?
It's as @Chris H started in his answer above - stronger starting flavours affect strength of the product. I'd add that common homemade extracts made of vanilla, mint, and almond have key flavour compounds that are easily soluble in alcohol - vanillin, menthol, and benzaldehyde respectively. Years ago, in discussion with a flavour extract vendor, I was told that accurate cherry flavour was extremely difficult to reproduce due to the very wide range of alcohol- and water-soluble compounds that contribute to its taste.
@NikkiBdraws borkymcfood is right. To state it another way, there is nothing special about cherries, but there is something special about vanilla and mint. Their taste is both dominated by a single compound to which humans are extremely sensitive, so even the concentration you get with a simple cold extraction are sufficient to flavor a dish, even when used in small amounts. And they taste "like the real thing", because you don't perceive much complexity when you eat the original plant. For almost any other plant, it is impossible to create alcohol-extracted flavoring at home.
The taste you're trying to extract is a combination of volatile and non-volatile compounds in the cherries. A longer extraction time is needed for the water fraction in the vodka to extract the non-volatile compounds for a balanced profile.
Heating the extraction mix in an open/non-pressurized environment will cause the volatile compounds to evaporate instead of going into solution in the vodka. Similarly, dried cherries lose these volatile compounds in the dehydration process, but may be added in afterwards as 'natural flavour'.
If it's specifically the 'vodka' taste that causes issues with your cherry flavouring, it's from harsher-tasting non-ethanol fermentation products. They're characteristic for traditional vodkas, and prized for certain brands. You can try heating a small amount of your cherry vodka to simulate the heating from baking to see if these harsher compounds evaporate while leaving an acceptable amount of cherry flavour.
Another technique to mask harsher vodka notes for cold applications would be to add sweetness and fruit acid. These are the non-volatile compounds that generally aren't extracted by alcohol and will remain in the cherry pulp. You may find that adding a bit of lemon juice (without zest!) and sugar syrup will balance out the profile in the cherry vodka you have now; or, if you have a test batch of your baking product, see if the flavour profile masks the harsh tastes.
For future batches, you'll want to use a 'smoother' tasting vodka like Grey Goose, Belvedere, or Everclear where any taste will be easily masked by the cherries. Even better, use grain neutral spirit if you can source it to have nearly pure ethanol for extraction. Commercially available cherry extracts will use this as the carrier fluid for extraction or with synthesized cherry volatile compounds.
From comments below:
NikkiBdraws: It's more that the cherry flavor isn't intense enough. Adding 1 or 2 teaspoons to whipped cream doesn't impart a noticeable taste like you would get with other extracts. But, you're saying that heating the vodka may help get rid of the harshness of the vodka so the cherry flavor stands out?
Answer: Yes - that relies on the cherry volatiles evaporating later than the vodka compounds, and having enough cherry taste already extracted that losses are acceptable.
Since the cherry intensity is lacking in the current batch, to improve cold extraction you could try re-extracting with the same cherries and vodka, add more cherries if available, and increase surface area - finely mash the cherries, or better finely blend the pitted cherries, then let settle and decant.
It's more that the cherry flavor isn't intense enough. Adding 1 or 2 teaspoons to whipped cream doesn't impart a noticeable taste like you would get with other extracts. But, you're saying that heating the vodka may help get rid of the harshness of the vodka so the cherry flavor stands out?
Yes - that relies on the cherry volatiles evaporating later than the vodka compounds, though. Since the cherry intensity is lacking, you could try re-extracting with the same cherries and vodka, add more cherries if available, and increase surface area - finely mash the cherries, or better finely blend the pitted cherries, then let settle and decant.
If heating was going to work, a sealed jar in a hot water bath would be best. Cool before opening. You'd also slowly be cooking the fruit which will give you juice
This use of heating is intended to modify the already-extracted liquid and have evaporative losses, hopefully more of the vodka than cherry volatiles. Sealing would defeat the purpose. For clarification, try the increased surface area extraction separate from the heating.
@borkymcfood the heating in the question was about speeding up extraction, not about concentrating the result afterwards. Obviously if you were concentrating it you'd need to boil off water and alcohol.
@ChrisH please carefully read NikkiBdraws' comment from Sep 2 above. It was in response to the suggestion in my answer to heat the current product to remove non-ethanol volatiles causing harsh tastes, completely separate from heating during extraction.
@borkymcfood I read that and don't see it as relevant to what I wrote. If I made a mistake it was in reading your comment from 2nd Sept 1613 as addressing my comment immediately above it. Apparently it wasn't
@ChrisH "It's more that the cherry flavor isn't intense enough. Adding 1 or 2 teaspoons to whipped cream doesn't impart a noticeable taste like you would get with other extracts. But, you're saying that heating the vodka may help get rid of the harshness of the vodka so the cherry flavor stands out?" - NikkiBdraws, 04:40. Your comment incorrectly assumed we were discussing extraction while we were discussing post-extraction heating, as written in my answer.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.127554
| 2022-09-01T05:40:43 |
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|
121577
|
Cooking marinade with chicken to use as sauce?
I marinated some chicken and transferred the entire thing (pieces of chicken and all marinade) to a pan for cooking. I cooked on medium heat until the chicken was completely cooked and noticed the marinade at the center of the pan bubbling/boiling for several minutes. I poured all the marinade on the completed dish as a sauce. Some of the marinade caramelized though not all. On the other hand some of the marinade never boiled.
Could some of the marinade in the pan have been contaminated from the raw chicken and will I get food poisoning?
My reasoning is that if the pan was hot enough to cook the chicken through it should have been hot enough to cook off all the bacteria in the marinade. But I’m now reading you need to bring all of the marinade to a boil for at least 5 min in order to reuse as a sauce. What do you think?
First of all welcome to Seasoned Advice.
From what I understood, you've boiled the marinade. That essentially means ~100C which is already above the instant pasteurization temperature. But as you must have observed some parts of the pan could have been colder and it never boiled. So without knowing the specifics about that it's hard to tell if pasteurization also happened there or not.
I would advise stirring the sauce/marinade from time to time in order to ensure even cooking/pasteurization.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.128618
| 2022-09-06T00:18:15 |
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|
122059
|
What is the benefit of overnight oats compared to traditional oatmeal cooking methods?
The primary advantage I hear people talk about is that overnight oats take "little prep time", but isn't that true of oatmeal anyway? Is it just a fad because it's something different and you can use a mason jar? Or is there a true reason or benefit to overnight oats compared to traditional cooking methods, particularly quick oats?
Not using quick oats is a big plus, flavorwise, but that's opinion.
Using the overnight method for oats is more beneficial for oats that aren't quick oats. For example, steel cut oats can take ~20 minutes in a pressure cooker, then there is still the prep time to add all of your ingredients.
Using the overnight method, you can just dump everything and let it soak overnight. The total amount of work is lower.
The bigger benefit, though, is that you can prepare a breakfast meal the night before or even days in advance, and have a ready to grab meal.
"days in advance" - how many days in advance could you make overnight oats?
They taste different. Some people like the taste of "overnight oats" better than regular oats, and some people absolutely hate them.
"Put a bunch of stuff in a jar and leave it" is simpler, for some, than cooking oats on a stove (or even a microwave).
Overnight oats prep happens at night, at which time many people are less rushed than in the morning, when oatmeal is typically eaten. I, for one, would not have time to cook oatmeal in the morning, but I definitely have time to prepare overnight oats the night before and throw it in my bag before leaving to work.
Not everyone has a way of cooking oats at the place where they usually eat breakfast. I suppose you can eat traditional oatmeal cold, but likely many people would prefer overnight oats to traditional oats for eating cold.
To add on to the answers above, for folks who work in an office, having something that can be easily taken to the office to be eaten at one's desk is a benefit, and that's easier if there's absolutely no morning prep time and you don't have to worry about cooling it in order to transport. You can make a big batch and break it up into small servings, whereas if you did that with normal oatmeal you'd still have to have a way to reheat it to eat. And if you do that and make the oatmeal in the jar or whatever it will be stored in, there's only one thing to clean instead of two (bowl + pot you made it in).
Plus, if you live in a place where it's hot outside at least part of the year, cold breakfast can be nice. At least in the US, the classic cereal + milk breakfast is cold, too, so this can be a nice replacement for that, temp-wise.
Another benefit of soaking is the reduction in phytic acid.
Soaking helps reduce the phytic acid present in oatmeal, which can help make oats easier to digest for some people. Phytic acid in larger quantities can blocks the absorption of certain minerals into the body.
This is partly why people soak beans overnight as well.
Here's some more background:
https://www.bobsredmill.com/blog/healthy-living/5-reasons-try-overnight-oats/ (general benefits of soaking oats, including phytic acid reduction)
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/phytic-acid-101#in-food (background on phytic acid)
It is best to add the information contained linked resources because if (when) the links change the information becomes unavailable here.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.128773
| 2022-10-21T14:48:27 |
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|
46090
|
Bamboo Steamer VS Normal Steamer
I have heard that using a Bamboo Steamer provides/preserves the nutrients/elements that are good for, or at least more so than a normal plastic/metal steamer.
Is this true? Or only for certain types of food/dishes? Or perhaps not at all?
Also, does either of these produce a higher quality result (in taste or texture) than the other?
Bamboo Steamer:
VS
Normal Steamer:
I have used a "mesh strainer" in a covered pan of boiling water. It seemed to work as good as a bamboo.
The only difference between a bamboo steamer and a metal/plastic steamer is that a bamboo steamer will absorb (some of the) moisture from the steam, rather than allowing it to recondense and drop into the food.
It's possible that recondensed moisture could take a small amount of water-soluble nutrients with it, but between the limited ability of bamboo to absorb water and the limited amount of time that water would be in contact with the food, I don't imagine it adds up to much.
What it may add up to is a slightly different cooking process in total. A metal steamer gets a bit hotter than a bamboo one, meaning the bottom of the food might be a bit crisper. That can be useful, or not - making dumplings or other bread products, lower heat means less sticking to the wrapper/steamer. A bamboo steamer will absorb some of the flavor of what you're cooking (and keep it), meaning it can add some interesting flavors to other things you cook (which can be good or bad), although that's controversial and appears to be only a minimal effect.
I tend to stay away from plastic steamers, as even if they are BPA-free, who knows what the next BPA will be.
Commercial bamboo steamers might be treated with whatever obscure wood preservative was at hand .... so I guess it is a draw :)
No, it's not true. Bamboo steamers have no special qualities as opposed to regular steamers. Steaming some food as opposed to boiling preserves some nutrients, how you steam won't make a difference as long as your equipment and process are up to the job.
Only reason I could see is if you have things sticking to a metal steamer, or getting bamboo one for environmental reasons. Bamboo is a plant. And its very sustainable.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.129307
| 2014-08-04T11:04:20 |
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36161
|
How to grill portabello mushrooms properly
Recently my girlfriend and I tried grilling (over an open flame, like BBQ) some portabello mushrooms for burgers.
We failed miserably :( The mushrooms were soggy and raw at first. After grilling them for a while, they were dry on the outside and a bit raw inside. How can I grill them so that they are cooked evenly throughout, without being too soggy or too dry?
I read this post, but I am particularly interested in grilling of mushrooms.
I have found marinating in some sort of olive oil/vinegar type of liquid for about an hour ahead works well. They feel a little soggy/slippery when you put them on the grill but firm up right away and taste pretty good.
Key is to make sure your fire is hot and direct (don't "smoke" them) - I'd say 350 degrees or so - and pause a moment to ensure the grate is hot as well. Then I would take them off as soon as you start seeing the grill marks on both sides. Like 1 minute per side. I personally use equal parts Olive Oil and Red Balsamic. Sometimes I have also used Worcestershire and it makes them taste even more like a "burger".
I guess most people interested in grilling portabello mushrooms are at least vegetarians, so Worcestershire isn't an option as it contains anchovy.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.129521
| 2013-08-20T14:03:04 |
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49418
|
Crock-pot/slow-cooker basmati sushi/ketupat
I have successfully made sushi rice or ketupat cakes with long grain basmati using the slow cooker. I see the advantage that I could use fragrant or any usual household rice rather than sticky rice.
It takes about 3 hours to get sticky basmati sushi rice, and about 4 hours to get ketupat rice. I have even made biryani ketupat embedded with shiitake slices.
The ketupat rice would need to stand for a couple of hours to fuse into a rice cake. Right now, I need to use a knife to cut up the single big block of ketupat rice cake. I am racking my brains what type of dividers, and how, I could put in to produce small blocks of ketupat. Because cutting and digging out the rice cake causes it to break apart.
I have been scouring the WWW to find if there are people of similar adventure to mine in using the slow cooker and non-sticky rice to make sushi rice or ketupat rice. They must be so extremely rare that I am unable to find them to learn from their experiences.
The incidence of burning the rice is very low since the slow cooker cooks very slowly. It did get burnt once when I had forgotten all about the pot for 24 hours.
As far as I could judge, the basmatic rice is just as sticky. In fact more sticky, while still retaining its individual rice granule shape.
Question:
I am asking these questions because I am concerned that the rarity of the practice might be due to the resultant quality.
Are there disadvantages in quality of resulting rice when using the slow cooker versus using a rice cooker, that I need to know? Otherwise, why aren't people using the slow cooker for this wonderful purpose?
Besides training myself for the right amount of water and avoiding burning of rice, what are the pitfalls I would need to avoid in my continuing this route.
Would slow-cooking destroy taste or scent quality of the rice.
Traditional sushi rice ("meshi") is defined by both the stickiness of its rice but also its lack of gumminess. Each grain of rice is supposed to remain distinct. The final component of sushi-meshi is of course the application of vinegar, which is supposed to evenly coat the outside of every grain. Proper application of vinegar is not possible unless the grains remain distinct. Therefore, if the rice is overcooked or cooked too slowly, water will have more time to penetrate and the starches will have too much time to swell, causing it will turn into a sticky mess with indistinct rice grains. Furthermore, basmati rice can't be used for traditional sushi-meshi because it doesn't have enough amylopectin (the starch in rice that makes it sticky/"glutinous"). Glutinous rice (which has 100% amylopectin and virtually no amylose) is used for ketupat but isn't used for sushi-meshi, since it is too sticky.
There is nothing culinarily wrong with using a slow cooker to make rice; if it tastes good, eat it! In fact, a quick web search reveals many recipes. Here is also an answer to a relevant question. But I don't see a way of making sushi (for which there are relatively strict traditions and definitions) using a slow cooker.
Edit: To answer your specific question…
Would slow-cooking destroy taste or scent quality of the rice?
The distinct aromatic scent of basmati rice comes from 2-Acetyl-1-pyrroline, which is also formed from the Maillard reactions. Since the Maillard reactions happen at a much higher temperature than that at which your rice cooks, I would guess that those flavor compounds would not be harmed by using a slow cooker.
Edit #2: According to this study, 2-Acetyl-1-pyrroline is highly volatile and absorption in rice can be hindered by excess water and/or long cooking times. This suggests that using a slow cooker to prepare basmati may produce less aromatic rice than using a quicker, dryer method like steaming. As an interesting side note, the study also suggests that this aroma can be intensified by adding pandan leaves while cooking the rice.
A rice cooker uses higher heat and much more quickly....it uses high pressure as well, so steams AND boils at the same time. You DO know that the proper rice is a VERY short grained rice grown especially for sushi, right? having said that, I recently learned that it can be best to soak rice a half hour or so before cooking.
I no longer own a rice cooker, but use a regular pot. I cook it quickly, then when it is or 2/3s done, I turn the burner off and leave the pot on the electric burner - some times, if 3/4s done, i simply remove the pot from the burner and let it steam in the pot for a while. this is esp. easy now that i use a ceramic pot that retains heat better than metal.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.129668
| 2014-10-31T20:52:31 |
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|
25310
|
What is the name of the Chinese dish from the movie "Girl with a Pearl Earring"?
In the movie "Girl with a Pearl Earring" there's a Chinese piece of tableware, presented on the image below (center of the image, blurred):
What's the name of this dish?
What has it been used for?
It's a screen shot taken from a DVD release, hence the quality.
I'm pretty sure that it is a tulip vase. The movie takes place in the Dutch Republic (today known as The Netherlands) which has been known for centuries for tulips, even suffering a "tulip mania" craze a few years before Vermeer's birth. The lidded design allows the water for the flowers to be freshened easily while the multiple spouts support the flowers' stems. This blue on white china is called Delftware, named for the city of Delft where both it and Vermeer came from.
Delft Vases
Vases & Delft Marks
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.130041
| 2012-07-28T12:51:21 |
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122081
|
Are my home canned dill pickles safe to eat?
I followed the instructions from my canning book in making the pickles approximately a year ago. I opened them today and could pull the lid off with my fingers. They had seal marks in the rubber lining of the lid, but I should have needed a bottle opener to get them off. There is no obvious signs of spoilage or mold. Do dill pickles with a high vinegar content have to be hot water processed?
Addendum: I hot water bathed the quart jars for 20". The jars sat undisturbed for 24hrs. All jars sealed, meaning the lids had depressed centers. When I went to open them, the centers were still depressed. It just concerned me that I did not need a bottle opener to pop the lids off. The jars were stored in a rack in a spare room at room temperature.
Welcome Erin, we need more information to give good answers. How did you process your jar(s) and where were they stored?
Please edit the question to limit it to a specific problem with enough detail to identify an adequate answer.
I can open sealed lids with my fingers, no opener required. The important question is whether the lid (assuming standard safety lid that does this) was down, and popped up in the center when opened, or was already popped up before you opened it. The former is good, the latter is "discard contents carefully.."
Thank you for the responses. I edited my entry to best answer these questions.
When I went to open them, the centers were still depressed.
Then they were still sealed, and should be safe to eat.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.130160
| 2022-10-22T20:52:10 |
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122239
|
Do I have to add an ingredient to compensate for removing about 100g of sugar from zucchini bread?
I want to adapt a zucchini-bread recipe so that it's not at all sweet (I want to toast slices and top them with savory stuff). The recipe is vegan and gluten-free, so I can't use a well-beaten egg to help compensate for the omitted sweeteners -- 50g sugar and 56g of maple syrup. To help you devise a reply: The recipe also calls for 2 cups (about 270g) of oat flour, about 70g of coconut oil, 1.5 flax eggs (11g ground flax + 33g [ml] water), and 1 cup of grated zucchini (not sure how much that would weigh).
If my budget weren't so tight, I'd add a little almond flour. I assume that I could add about 50g of gluten-free flour and another tsp of coconut oil, but I'm not sure whether that would work. (I don't want to add more oat flour bc I think, based on trying a lot of oat-flour recipes, that would create a gummy loaf.) Any ideas? Thank you v much.
find another recipe that doesn't have sugar. This is unlikely to work out properly as-is.
Try adding sweetened or unsweetened applesauce to your liking. It should also help keep the loaf moist.
I appreciate your taking time to answer, but even unsweetened applesauce is sweet, so it won't work. As noted, my goal is to make a loaf that can be used with savory toppings.
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.130320
| 2022-11-05T01:38:59 |
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122245
|
Can salt and sugar be used simultaenously to preserve food?
For example, Amla (Indian gooseberries) can be preserved by candying them in sugar, or preserving them in brine and vinegar.
However, the candying makes them too sweet and preserving in salt makes them too salty. Not just taste-wise, but also health-wise.
Instead, can we use a combination of sugar and salt to preserve them? That would avoid the overload of either sugar or salt.
If yes, then how? When applying sugar, they usually advice not to add water. So would that necessitate dry application of sugar and salt?
It’s used for salmon (gravlax), so it might work, but preserving is ones of those things where you want to use well tested recipes so you don’t risk poisoning yourself
Various pickles and (cooked) chutneys use sugar and vinegar in combination, with some salt, though I think not enough to contribute to the preservation. That may give you a direction to look in
Technically yes, it is possible to create a recipe which is preserved by both salt and sugar. But this doesn't mean that you can get any significant reduction in the total amount used (or, controversially, even in the amount of each).
That would avoid the overload of either sugar or salt.
No, it won't avoid it. You absolutely need such an overload to preserve the food. If you reduce the amounts to the point where you can eat it without it being too much for you, it won't be too much for the bacteria either, and the food won't be preserved.
Instead, the result would be a food where you get an "overload" of sugar and salt at the same time (which, to me personally, tastes worse than a high amount of either one on its own).
Remember that sugar is not really a strong preservative, so it always has to be combined with other methods. Simple syrup on its own is not shelf-stable; when you use sugar for preservation, you have to either combine it with drying (=candied fruit) or canning (=jam). So, in typical salt-based methods, you can forget adding a little bit of sugar; it may even make a pickle unsafe by providing more food for bacteria. You would have to achieve a really high concentration of sugar for the whole to work.
So you could try the opposite, adding some salt to the sugar-based preservation methods. But how are you going to go about it? When candying fruit, what you do is to saturate everything with a sugar syrup, then let the extra liquid evaporate. How do you suggest to reduce the sugar? If you make the syrup more diluted (because you now have the salt), this only means that you would have to wait longer for the extra water to evaporate in the drying phase, after which you will still have the same high concentration of sugar.
You could make jam with less sugar and add salt, but in fact, you can also make jam with less sugar and not add salt. Basically, what jam requires is a proper acidity level and a proper sterilization procedure, independently of sugar levels, that's why you can can vegetables in water just as well as fruit in syrup. So, by adding salt to jam, the only thing you have gained would be a changed taste, probably for the worse.
The commenters mentioned a few cases of real-world recipes combining salt and sugar. They were all recipes for cured meat or fish, which is a very different process from your plant-based example. I cannot tell you to what extent both ingredients are contributing to the preservation in these recipes, and to what extent the sugar is there for taste only (they are all salt-and-nitrate driven preservation methods, you cannot preserve meat with sugar alone). If you try them, you will note what I said at the beginning of the answer: they still use a substantial amount of salt and sugar, and the taste is very intense.
Yes, it is called a soft cure. I cure my bacon with both salt, sugar and nitrates. Great way to cure pork.
What's the point of preserving naturally if you're going to use nitrates? So much colon cancer
Nitrates is just as natural as salt. Nitrates is the active chemical isolated from saltpeter. It is just a more potent and reliable version of a natural occuring mineral.
Oh yeah, also I mistook what you wrote for nitrites, that's the cancer causing one not nitrates.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.130549
| 2022-11-05T05:59:12 |
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|
127961
|
Different kinds of pita?
I my family doesn't make pita at home. My dad always had soft fluffy pita. Now I grocery shop for myself I noticed some pita is thin. I googled different kinds of pita. I'm only fluent in English so I think maybe I'm bad at Google because of the language barrier.I don't really know how to eat it. I eat pita like a utensil to pick up food. So if it's not soft and like a sponge, what do you do with it and does it have a name?
Can you add a photo of the Pita that you buy from your grocery store? I am not sure what kind you are buying - for example, kubooz is softer variety often used to make rolls like the popular shwarma.
okay, I added the picture. The last time I ate out they gave me the shawarma in thin pita and I was confused lol. I think this is the name of the pita though: kubooz. looks like what I eat.
The thin pita you find a lot in stores is called just that: "thin pita". I tend to call it "Egyptian pita" because it's a style that's very common there, due partly to the price controls on bread. It's very popular in other countries, including the US where I live, because it's very dry and lasts on the shelf for considerably longer that other, "fluffier" styles of pita.
I've found two good ways to eat other foods with it. One is to treat it like a tortilla, tearing pieces of the pita and folding them between my fingers and thumb to pick stuff up. The other is cutting it up, frying it, and using it as pita chips.
Cool! Now I know
"Pita" is simply a name for the shape. It's a loaf of bread which is approximately round, and the diameter is much larger than the height. Any consistency of bread could be baked in that shape, and would be called a pita.
So, the supermarket is not wrong in selling you a bread of different consistency than what you're accustomed to - it's the shape that makes a pita, not the texture or recipe.
does it have a name?
No, there wouldn't be a special name. There are no special, recognized subtypes of pita. Of course, people who bake more than one kind will differentiate them in some ways, for example you can come across a grandma's hand-written recipe collection which contains a recipe for "pita with milk", another one for "holiday pita" and a third for just "pita". But it will likely be a different recipe from the next grandma's holiday pita.
what do you do with it
Just eat it, in any of the dozens ways you'd eat any other bread. I suppose you don't eat other types of bread differently based on shape (except maybe for a few obvious situations like not making a hamburger out of a pretzel*) - there is no need to eat pita bread differently from any other bread just because it's shaped like a pita and not like a boule, a pullman loaf, a roll or a fougasse.
* here I mean the original German meaning of the word "pretzel", so defined by the shape, not by the presence of a lye crust
That's kind of like saying you can eat pita however and you can't. Or you can Chinese with a fork. It's like immoral. If I go to middle eastern restaurant now a days in America they have a wrap and I'm like what is that. I feel like this a very western view and therefore not accurate.
You might be seeing ‘pocket pita’ which is the first type that I was familiar with.
It tends to be dryer and firmer than non-pocket pita bread. As it’s cooked, it is allowed to puff up so that when you cut into it, the two sides separate easily (it may require a little bit of prying).
As such, you can cut the whole round in half into two half-circles and then fill each side with whatever sandwich-type fillings you like.
It’s also possible to cut this type of pita into quarters, optionally separate the two sides, and then bake into crackers so it can be used to scoop up dips.
Pocket pita can be fluffy too. There's both a fluffy style ("Israeli") and a thin style ("Syrian/Egyptian").
If you want to use the thin harder kind of pita (might work with the fluffy kind as well) you cut it open part way along its edge and slip you food in, making it a filled pocket which you can hold in your hand as if it was a sandwich.
Where I live the fluffy kind is not common, filled pocket breads were introduced with what is known as Donner, but was called shoarma when it reached us. Grilled sliced meat, served in small strips with sauces to be added into the pocket between bites.
Fillings with sauce do work but tend to spill out of the bottom.
How do you like to eat the thin pita?
It is useful if you want to eat thing that would escape from a sandwich.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.130889
| 2024-03-26T22:37:48 |
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