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40201
|
Should I bag hard candy or not?
I just made a few candy canes...
If I'm going to transport them tomorrow, can I bag them up after they cool or should I keep them out as long as possible? I'm worried about them getting sticky
Very nice! Impressive even!
I don't know much about candy making but if they're fully cooled, isn't bagging them in plastic exactly what candy manufacturers do? If in doubt, you could always bag them in paper, which would breath better.
In doubt, you could roll them in confectioner's sugar before putting in the bag. Will be a bit detrimental to the appearance later, but prevents sticking really well.
Usually they get sticky because the sugars you've inverted by cooking the syrup will become very hygroscopic and absorb humidity from the air. If you're worried about stickiness, it's better to bag them in something airtight (and with a silica gel packet, if you have one)
If you can shrink wrap them, do that. They will likely get sticky if they are just bagged. Manufactures bag them air-tight to keep the humidity out. Per @sourd'oh pertinent note:
"sugars you've inverted by cooking the syrup will become very hygroscopic and absorb humidity from the air"
Burying them in a bag of rice might protect them from humidity as well as preventing from looking as chalky as they would with confectioners sugar or corn starch. Speculating on the type of rice? I'd say Sushi rice would be least chalky.
p.s. Chef Hats off- they look awesome!
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.172557
| 2013-12-13T03:49:17 |
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|
10841
|
What materials would work for a waffle iron?
I'm somewhat curious if I could make myself something like this (though without the retro enclosure, at least initally):
While cast iron would probably be the best material, I'm not sure if I can easily obtain a billet of the proper size (likely would machine the iron), so I'm curious what other materials would be best.
Is steel ever used? I'm imagining it would rust easily, but what if it was properly seasoned? Can you season aluminum at all, or is it moderately non-stick by itself? All the aluminum cookware I've seen is (cheap, and) Teflon-coated.
Waffle batter to my knowledge is fairly high in fat relative to others (pancake, crepe) so it "fries" more than "bakes", but it's not exactly loaded with it to the point of no-concern.
Aluminum is easy to CNC mill and it can be make non-stick
It needs to be finished to a semi-gloss, and have a slightly undulating (smooth wave pattern) surface to allow for release
It should be hard-anodized to reduce surface pores and future oxidation. Do not scrub hard-anodized surfaces, just soak
Cast aluminum will most likely have too many surface pores to me useful
Per TFD's comment about aluminum - if I were to go with this material and finish it with a semi-gloss with that slightly undulating surface, would it then be possible to not have a non-stick coating like Teflon, but have the waffles easily come off anyway? Thanks
Believe you would be best staying with cast iron, there are machinable cast irons available, found this article, which, while looked at from a production standpoint, gives out standard sizes and verifies machineability:
http://www.productionmachining.com/articles/a-look-at-today39s-cast-iron
In your question there is nothing said about the heat source you intend to use. Believe your implied intentions are to use electric elements.
There isn't any reason not to use mild steel, although as a more finely refined product, it is probably more likely to corrode and pit.
Aluminum would not be my first or second choice for a number of reasons:
The coefficient of expansion is more than double for aluminum (6e-6/13e-6 inches/degree F), leading to the belief that warping would be more likely in the lighter aluminum.
The specific heat ratio of iron to aluminum is .11/.21 (Btu/lb F)
(kcal/kg C), water being 1.0. This measure indicates the amount heat it takes to raise the temperature, iron being almost half for aluminum.
Iron doesn't fair well against aluminum in conduction where the ratio is 8/25, meaning aluminum transfers heat 3 times faster than iron.
I just don't like aluminum, maybe this goes back to the days when we used to make hydrogen balloons by dropping pellets of aluminum foil into a coke bottle with lye and water in it an putting a balloon over the bottle to fill it with gas. There are lots of examples of strong detergents really messing up aluminum cookware. I ruined a motorcycle blackout light I found in a dump one time by immersing it in an industrial lye solution. Another reason I don't like aluminum can be found at this link:
http://alzheimers.org.uk/site/scripts/documents_info.php?documentID=99
Inconclusive doesn't mean safe. I don't own or use any aluminum products which pertain to cooking or consuming food.
There are other non ferrous metallic materials such as copper, ceramic is probably not such a good idea, gold might work for the person who had everything, silver would probably tarnish and need to be polished now and then.
Hope this helps.
The problem I see with cast iron is that you'd almost have to get it cast in the proper shape. Cast iron is very brittle and would be very difficult to shape after casting without breaking, I assume. Haven't done any metalwork with cast iron, so I'm talking off the top of my head. Of course, cast iron would need seasoning as well as it rusts fairly quickly.
Steel shouldn't pose any problem, if it's properly seasoned. I don't know about aluminium, for some reason this is a metal I don't want anywhere near my food ever since I tried to whip cream in an aluminium bowl... It has the advantage of transmitting heat better than steel, but I'd make sure to have it coated with something.
I was planning on machining them (versus forming sheet somehow); which should be do-able with cast-iron. The plates will weigh something awful though.
Casting to the proper shape isn't much of a problem, as you can sand cast it. Aluminum can be annodized to harden the surface, which is used by a lot of cookware companies (Calphalon has a rather large line)
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.172726
| 2011-01-07T22:59:35 |
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|
58109
|
Why might packaged pineapple contain egg, soy, peanut, fish, milk, sulphites, tree nuts, sesame, crustaceans, shellfish, mustard seeds, wheat?
Here is the proof:
I'm a bit scared to eat it. What do they do to it?!
From your question title I thought it was a whole pineapple! I was thinking maybe it's grown on the same tree as chickens, soy beans, peanuts, fish, cows, etc.!
Also spam, spam, spam, and spam.
Even though this question made me laughing a bit, it is after all a low quality question in meaning, that answer to it is so obvious. Also, keep in mind, that you're telling us today, that you're scared to eat a pineapple, that has expiry date of 15 JUN 2007. It is exactly eight years old. I would be very scared to eat eight years old pineapple, even if it wouldn't contain a shellfish, chicken and mustard!
@trejder I think the date is in YY/MMM/DD format, which gives 2015 June 07.
@zovits Well... quite confusing. Never got used to this "short years", especially after Y2K! :>
"contain a shellfish" ... or spongebob :) that said, some delicious pineapple curries have plenty of mustard seeds in them ;)
Although it doesn't explicitly say so, that's allergy information. It's just been processed in a place that also (potentially) processes those things, so it potentially contains a trace amount, which could be bad if you have a really sensitive allergy. It won't contain enough of those things to matter for any other purpose.
Often labels like that are written along the lines of "processed in a facility which also processes..." to make it a little more clear. The lists aren't usually that long, either; most facilities don't process everything. But as pointed out in the comments, a grocery store is a lot more likely to just have a single kitchen that possibly handles all kinds of things.
@ermanen - This is especially common in bulk packaging as a kind of catch-all, especially if packaged at a grocery store that produces/sells a variety of prepared foods. However, this list is far more extensive than I've ever seen!
It might mean they're being extra conscientious! Or it might mean "we don't trust our dishwashers and cleaning staff"
This is common amongst companies that don't want to take on the liability for downstream resellers who demand certain conditions. It's easier and cheaper to deliver product that leaves all risk with the consumer.
The sad part about this is that it essentially undermines the intent of the labeling. If you just put every allergen on the label to prevent liability, you might as well not put any on there at all and just say don't buy our stuff if you have a food allergy.
This specific case isn't really about liability for resellers; the label is from a grocery store. It seems fair for them to say, well, maybe sometimes we're going to have pecan-crusted fish, sesame-soy shrimp, etc at the prepared food bar, let's just make sure. Otherwise they have to keep really careful track of everything they ever prepare.
This looks like it was printed out on a scale. Usually there will be a label template in addition to the fields that update for the item being printed. They probably just put allergens in the template so they don't have to update it for each product as a lazy/CYA move.
If this was processed at the store then there's a pretty good chance they process everything in close quarters where there is a reasonable chance it was packaged alongside some of the other store-packaged products that could contain some of these other things. I definitely would not expect fresh pineapple to include shellfish.
"I definitely would not expect fresh pineapple to include shellfish" just made my day! LOL! :> Thanks! :>
Haha, that's hilarious.
I suspect it's a catch-all legal disclaimer. Put "may spawn bank-robbing zombies" on all your food labels and no one can ever sue you when your zombies rob their bank accounts.
It's really frustrating for people with food allergies: They have to avoid all foods with half-assed legal disclaimers instead of just foods that to actually contain the allergen.
To be fair, if your allergy is that severe, you already have to avoid anything coming out of an unknown kitchen like this grocery store one, right? Most things like this don't even have labels, you just know it was made in the kitchen in the back, pretty much like at a restaurant, and anything else they prepare/serve could potentially have contaminated it.
Mostly true. Those with not-gonna-kill-ya allergies are more relaxed, but would still like good information.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.173170
| 2015-06-09T01:06:14 |
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75807
|
How long to roast a whole goose?
My wife brought a fresh, unfrozen whole 11.71 Lb goose for us to roast for thanksgiving. How long should I roast it for?
I've found conflicting advice online:
BBC/Gordon Ramsay say 10 mins @ 240C/450F then 20 mins/Kg for medium rare and 32 mins/Kg @ 190C/375F for more well done
Food Network says put in 450F oven then turn down to 350F and 20-25 mins/Lb
The temperatures seem to agree more or less, but cooking times/weight are off.
First of all, cooking times are always only guidelines. The rule is always, "Cook it until it's done". The USDA suggests a finished internal temperature of 165 F (74 C).
USDA recommends cooking whole duck or goose to a safe minimum internal temperature of 165 °F as measured using a food thermometer. Check the internal temperature in the innermost part of the thigh and wing and the thickest part of the breast. When cooking pieces, the breast, drumsticks, thighs, and wings should be cooked until they reach a safe minimum internal temperature of 165 °F.
So, the answer to your question is that you cook it until enough time has past that the goose is 165 F...
With the caveat that your target temperature may be lower than the USDA recommendations because we all love eating rare meat. From an episode of The Splendid Table, Hank Shaw mentions his recommended target temperatures for different parts of a goose:
HS: The first thing you need to know is the sweet spot of cooking a goose breast is somewhere around 135 to 145 degrees Fahrenheit internal temperature.
LRK: It's pink?
HS: It's pink, yes -- medium-rare to medium. The sweet spot for the legs is somewhere around 175 to 180 degrees Fahrenheit, give or take, they're pretty forgiving. That's a huge spread in temperature.
He achieves this temperature difference by removing the breasts half-way through cooking and returning the rest of the bird to the oven until the higher temperature is reached. Note, the temperature of the breasts is below the recommended temperature, so there is likely some amount of risk with eating it this cool.
The entire method is explained in the link and it's pretty fascinating. While he gives estimates of time (45 minutes for breasts plus 45 minutes more for the remainder) which are quite a bit lower than your two recipes despite being for a lower oven temperature (325 F) and a larger bird 12-16 lbs, it's possibly due to the target temperature being so low for the breasts and, once they're removed, the remainder of the bird would probably cook more quickly.
To address the methods you're looking at, I'm going to convert the recipes to be in the same units:
Ramsay - 450 F for 10 minutes followed by 9/15 min/lb at 375 F
Food Network - 450 F preheat then 20-25 min/lb at 350.
Now, let's look at your two recipes...
Ramsay:
Stuff the zested fruit and the herb sprigs inside the bird and set aside for at least 15 mins. Can be done up to a day ahead and kept refrigerated.
Food Network:
Rub inside cavity with lemon juice. Place apple, potato, orange and celery inside the body cavity. Truss the bird like a turkey.
I'm going to guess that the apple, potato, orange and celery combo may be more dense than seven lemons/limes. If it is, it's probably going to retard the cooking time a bit. This may explain some of your difference in cooking times, so you should keep that in mind. I don't know how you're planning to prepare your bird but the filling may change the cooking time.
Also, that big 450 F burst for 10 minutes is a big difference over simply raising the oven to that temp and immediately lowering it. When you open the oven, a lot of the air will leave, causing the air temp to drop a bit. If you immediately lower the temperature, it will drop to 350 F pretty quickly.
With Ramsay's method you're actively cooking the bird for 10 minutes at 450 F. This means that the oven will bring itself back up to 450 F and stay there for a few minutes before you drop the temperature to 375 F and it will take longer for the oven temperature to drop (assuming you have a well-insulated oven). The goose will start warming up more quickly with this method, which is reflected in the shorter cooking time.
Plus, when you're talking about 2 hours or more, a 25 F temperature difference does change the cooking time.
So, in the end, I think the methods are quite different but I think that (if you follow the actual method including the filling) both will give acceptable results... but that doesn't matter because you should at least find a recipe that tells you what temperature to aim for rather than what time to cook for and refer to those recipes' internal temperature recommendations and use your meat thermometer to know when you've reached them.
That recipe removing the breasts presumably relies on having some method of keeping them suitably hot until serving time - with decent control so they don't keep cooking.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.173756
| 2016-11-23T22:02:37 |
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|
59168
|
Are these grates okay to cook on?
I'm having trouble with some enamel-coated cast iron grill grates. I've only had this grill for a few years, I don't live on the beach (salt), we don't get much rain, and I store it outside but keep it covered when not in use. However, at this point I strongly suspect that the discoloration is rust, not old grease. It never goes away no matter how much I scrub (before and after every use), and over the last couple weeks I've tried:
bathing them in Simple Green BBQ cleaner,
hosing them off while scrubbing,
running them through the dishwasher, and
putting them in the oven on self-cleaning mode.
Nothing seems to help, and it looks like they're actually crumbling. I've read all sorts of conflicting information about what's considered normal, how to handle cast iron, and so on, and I'm just not sure whether these are in the "a few specks of oxidized iron won't affect you in the slightest" territory, or "you need to throw those away today and stick with stainless steel from now on" territory.
Stainless steel grates are not available for this model of grill (Coleman Roadtrip LXE), and the cast-iron replacements are about half the cost of the entire thing, so if these are no good I'll probably get a new, stainless steel grill.
What do I do about these things?
Update: After getting the answers below, I've been doing regular, minor grilling. After each session, I lightly scrub the grates, put a bit of oil on them, and lightly wipe down the oil with a paper towel. Over time, the rust spots darkened and started to look more like proper cast iron, which I suppose just means properly-seasoned cast iron. I grilled for a get-together a couple days ago, and it all seemed to work out fine. No flakes or other debris from the grates, no problems with sticking or anything, no apparent issues at all. From now on, I'll try to use it more regularly and wipe it down with a thin coating of oil after use.
Get it red hot, brush in oil wipe off and cook :) it'll be fine...
Looks like you finally got your copper brush! ;-)
@Fabby - This was just with regular usage and oiling, scrubbing with the steel-bristled brush. I'm sure these grates will look even better when I get a more appropriate brush!
Not clear to me that you don't have cast iron with a bright shiny chrome or nickel plating that is coming off and allowing rust to form. I don't like flakes of chromium or nickel in my food. Test by seeing if you can pick off a shiny bit from the edge of one of the rust areas with an awl or pointy knife.
"Are they OK to cook on?" can mean:
Will I die within 24 hours after using them?
No!
Will I die within a few years?
No!
Will I get ill within a few years if I use them daily and lick all the juice off them after each use?
Meh, very probably not!
Does it look gross and might the food taste of rust?
Yes!
So, thoroughly clean them before each use with a copper wire brush and after each use, clean them again and then oil them with some nice olive oil¹ and a paintbrush as soon as possible after using them and continue using them regularly. ;-)
Note¹: Don't soak them in olive oil: just some nice clean sweeps with the paintbrush lightly dipped in olive oil to make a thin film everywhere to prevent atmospheric oxygen from rusting it any further...
My concern is that I'm having difficulty cleaning them, i.e., making them clean. No matter how much I scrub at them or wipe them down, there's always more powder/debris.
I have a brush with what looks like steel bristles. Will copper bristles do a better job? I'll have to try that.
Looks like no local places carry them, so I guess I'll buy one online and try this out in a week or so.
+1 for oiling and using it regularly. That's really the most important thing. You'll probably need to strip off as much of the rust as you can first, but don't let it sit even a few minutes after cleaning without applying some oil.
Ehh... I think original poster's problem is with over cleaning the grates. They should be black like a seasoned cast-iron pan, not polished like stainless steel.
@Fabby, I grill directly on the grates.
@JenniferS The smoke point of Olive oil is higher than that of flaxseed oil according to Wikipedia
I am incorrect about smoke point of flaxseed oil, but here is a link to a Cooks Illustrated explanation of why to use flaxseed oil to season your cast iron. I have found that this works. The flaxseed oil bonds better to the cast iron. https://www.cooksillustrated.com/how_tos/5820-the-ultimate-way-to-season-cast-iron
What you have is rust. You'll want to strip the grates down and re-season them
I've had mixed-luck over the years with cast iron grates on gas grills -- yes, they cook things really well, but if you leave the burners on high to burn off any food bits left on the grates after cooking, you'll risk burning off the seasoning ... which then leads to rusting.
I like the fireplace cleaning method!! +1 here and +1 over there too! :-)
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.174455
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58197
|
What's the correct way to garnish with greens?
So a number of dishes I've constructed have called for me to garnish the final dish with a bit of parsley or mint or something similar for color or taste or overall visual appeal. However, it seems my technique in this area is slightly off and it always ends up looking like I just trimmed the hedges over my plate.
How to best do this? Chop them into tiny bits? Whole leaves? Large pile in the center?
Are there specific dishes you're curious about? Honestly, how you treat the herbs will depend on the dish... minced is common for some things but others call for whole sprigs or leaves (like whole sprigs or leaves of cilantro on dishes like Pad Thai).
The key is how you expect the person to eat it.
Some garnishes are not for eating at all - the sprig of mint or entire stalk of rosemary that the eater is expected to just remove and set aside. I don't do this - and plenty of judges on plenty of cooking shows have intoned "never put anything on the plate that I am not supposed to eat" - but if you do, make it as large as possible and just one piece so it's easy to remove.
Assuming I'm supposed to eat it, am I supposed to get a little in each bite? Cut it up small. Am I supposed to get rather a lot in each bite? Leave it bigger. Is it a herb that tastes different chopped than whole? If so, which way do you want it to taste?
If the item is picked up to eat (eg an hors d'oeuvre) then typically you leave the pieces larger so they're less likely to cascade off. Search for images of chive garnish and you'll see tons of teeny little pieces on a tomato salad, and single or double 2" pieces draped across a devilled egg.
Above all, practice and confidence. If you know why you're putting parsley, mint, cilantro or chives on the plate at the last minute, you'll also know what size, how many, and whether they are in one little pile or all over. And when you know all that you'll bring out the plate with confidence.
If you do need a bunch of little pieces, make sure it's dry, so it doesn't clump up - maybe that's part of the OP's "hedge trimmings" problem?
Next time you go to a fine dining establishment, I would pay close attention to when food is served to you or walk near the kitchen where they garnish the food before serving. I realize, like catja's comment, that certain categories have different styles of garnish but this is a start.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.174930
| 2015-06-12T18:42:21 |
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|
17628
|
What could be used as a savoury custard to serve with a savoury jam roly-poly?
I'm not mad, you know.
I have this plan to serve a meal backwards - coffee and brandy, then dessert, then a main, then starters, then champagne. Except that of course each stage will be tailored to work in the actual order, which mostly means making a savoury dessert and a sweet starter.
Honestly, i'm really not mad. I've been tested.
For the savoury dessert, i plan to make that celebrated stodgy English treat, jam roly-poly. To make it savoury, i will use something like red pesto instead of jam. Or it might be a savoury version of some other suet pudding - spotted dick or figgie hobbin with olives instead of currants, perhaps.
Pudding needs custard. What can i use as a savoury custard?
One option is simply to make a savoury custard. Cream, eggs, no sugar, and perhaps black pepper instead of vanilla. Would that work from a purely physico-chemical point of view? Would it be disgusting? Apparently it works on top of moussaka, but that's a baked custard.
How about a Béchamel sauce, or some derivative of it? Perhaps with some cheese, to make it a custardy yellow and give it more interest?
A Hollandaise sauce might be the closest thing to a savoury custard, what with having eggs in. I've never made one, though, and it looks too difficult for me.
Any thoughts?
Why not make a thick cream sauce, like an Alfredo or some such?
It's basically some cream with some white wine and maybe a little flour.
You can add some parmesan to it, if you want it a little thicker and yellower.
I'm not sure what would happen if you beat an egg into it as well, but it might be worth a chance.
I'd also consider using beetroot for the filling. It has a very satisfying red colour, and it's a little sweet in itself, which should go well.
I think perhaps Alfredo is an American term; i can find recipes for it, but no explanation of what it is. I've never come across it here on Airstrip One. It sounds like béchamel with cream cheese instead of roux; does it taste about the same? In the end i just made a really tasteless béchamel and advised my guests it was purely ornamental. They ate it all anyway.
Proper Italian Alfredo isn't so much a sauce as it is a technique. It's also hardly known by that name in Italy, where it's usually called "pasta al burro" (pasta with butter). It's basically just pasta dressed with butter and Parmigiano; the heat of the pasta melts and emulsifies the cheese with the butter. Americanized Alfredo is frequently a basic white sauce flavored with Parmigiano (or shudder American-made Parmesan).
I think a savory cheese spread would be a good complement. Maybe something like Boursin cheese, perhaps blended with sour cream.
In terms of flavour, that would have been a really, really good accompaniment - tomatoes, cheese, herbs, garlic. The only problem is that it doesn't give the visual impression of custard.
You can make a savory custard sauce.
I have made a recipe a few times, a dish of asparagus in a savory custard sauce - the sauce recipe includes egg yolk, cream, pepper, nutmeg, salt. The cream was heated on stovetop, egg yolks tempered, and the sauce heated again till it thickened - the same basic steps as a sweet custard, if I recall correctly. The sugar may well change the sauce, but not to the point of failure without it. This recipe turned out very well, it was well received by everyone who tried it, so the sauce itself is not a problem.
I realize this is a little late for your planned meal, but it might be useful for future plans or other readers.
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.175178
| 2011-09-10T13:05:16 |
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|
55382
|
Mason jar stuck inside another
I need help! I just finished making sauerkraut and was using a mason jar inside of a larger mason jar to weigh down the cabbage. Now, I can't get the inner mason jar out.
I've tried soap around the rim of the jars.
Any suggestions?
Try putting ice in the inner jar and put the outer jar in hot water.
I should have specified that the inner jar is full of water and we can't take off the lid. We tried placing ice on top of the inner jar to no avail.
Can you puncture the lid of the inner jar? Those insets are disposable, right?
Go Red Sox! That is all.
Despite the mention of making sauerkraut, I'm not sure that this is a cookery question...! Anyway, try this. Stand the outer jar upside down in the sink and pour boiling water in to cover the neck of the outer jar. If that fails, get a hammer...
How did you get the sauerkraut out?!
@sourd'oh Getting the sauerkraut out was a challenge, but I kind of just scooped it out with a spoon.
Ok, first you had me wondering "How did he get the small jar inside?", but having kids I quickly realized this is a futile question. (For those w/o children, read Douglas Adams...)
The standard procedure for detaching two jars / glasses that are stuck, would be putting ice cubes in the inner one and then placing the outer one in hot water. But you said you can't open the inner one which is full of water?
Well, ice is frozen water. So freeze the entire contraption until you have one large ice cube in the inner jar. Proceed as usual.
Your inner jar might break due to expanding ice or the outer due to thermal shock, but currently you have two unusuable jars, after this, you might have at least one good one...
Chilling might be enough to avoid the possibility of the middle jar bursting from freezing (as someone who had a water line freeze not 2 weeks ago) ... and then put the whole thing in hot (but not boiling) water.
Whelp - I know you all have been patiently awaiting the outcome of this puzzler.
I ended up freezing the entire thing as suggested by @Stephie. This didn't quite work - the inner jar still wouldn't come out.
So then I tried sticking the cold contraption inside of some warm water (off the boil for 10 minutes), which split the large outer jar in half.
So, I still have the small jar in perfect shape - but the large jar ended up dying a slow death. Don't know if this really constitutes an answer, but it should at least serve as a lesson for the next sauerkrauter using a similar mason jar method...choose your jar size wisely! Thanks everyone.
I'd suggest getting some Pickle Pebbles or something similar, they are much better for weighing down sauerkraut and don't get stuck. I learned as much after I also broke a big jar trying to separate it from a smaller jar that had gotten stuck in the mouth. At least Mason jars are cheap.
Mine got stuck like that too. All i did was pour a mixture of oil and soap around the small jar (inside the big jar) and it slid out. :)
I've had a canning jar stuck inside another jar multiple times, how it happens is beyond me, its almost like I turn my back and the jar jumps inside of the other one. I've tried everything and the trick to getting it out is spray coconut oil, if you love your jars you'll buy it.
If your stuck jar has a lid on it, take a thin dry washcloth, slide it by the side of the stuck jar this will keep it from moving and put your fingers in there and twist the lid off, requires finger muscles. once the lid is off, heavy spray the coconut oil, (maybe any spray oil will work, I don't know), on the inside of the rim of the jar (the one not stuck) also spray the lid, heck just spray it all and pull the lid out, trust me it slips right on out, and then spray a little more if you need to and pull the stuck jar out.
If your scenario happens to be a jar that is lodged in the jar, meaning halfway in halfway out, take a washcloth and lay it down in the bottom of your sink, lay jar down with rim only on the drain part of sink make like a tender toddler with your jar, grab the stuck jar and lightly press down and spray inside of rim, of course, you have to stabilize the other part of the jar, it's tricky work but you can do it, it's not going to be much of a movement but that tiny bit of space will allow the spray to get in there properly so it can do its work; repeat all the way around the jar. Then pull the jar but pull more on one side versus the way you think it should come out, slowly the stuck jar will slide out of the jar.
I hope that makes sense, I'm not good at writing but I'm good at canning! MOST importantly, I hope it works.
I did this same thing, and came across this post, and successfully got it out without damaging either jar.
I did same as OG poster - placed all in freezer so water in inside jar froze (obviously would need to be filled w/ water in first place, which mine was as I was also weighting down sauerkraut...). Removed from freezer, let sit at room temp a while, then placed the large jar upside down in some warm water with small jar pushed up by a spatula so it didn’t sit in the water (too hot water and you’ll bust it like OG, so let whole jar warm to room temp then do, small jar will still be cold w/ frozen water in it). Then after a little tweaking I could pop the small jar out and voila ! Good luck to all who do this in the future :)
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.175496
| 2015-03-04T06:14:59 |
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|
55433
|
What causes the crown of the bread to crack during baking?
What causes the crown of a bread loaf to crack as it bakes? I would like to prevent it.
Disclaimer: I'm not too familiar with the english technical terms, but I'll try and explain what's happening without them.
Watch a shaped bread during the final rise:
Right after shaping, the interior is still dense because the co2 bubbles from the yeast haven't developed yet. The surface is firm and the shape round(-ish), if you poke gently with a finger, the indentation springs back instantly.
If you'd bake the bread now, it would be dense, heavy and probably a bit soggy. This is called "under-proofed". Your top will most likely not crack as the bread won't expand much in the oven, but the results are far from optimal.
After while, your bread will have risen, expanded and the interior texture is filled wit small bubbles. The surface has become a bit softer and the loaf might have flattened a bit in comparison to height. If you poke the loaf, the indentation slowly fills back until almost to the top. The yeast will still be active and could expand the loaf more if the loaf is left to rise.
If you bake the bread now, it has the potential for a maximum of "oven spring", which is an increase in volume during baking. Steam in the oven or baking in a dutch oven will allow your bread to do so even better. Your bread is basically guaranteed to crack unless you direct the expansion via controlled weaknesses in the outer layer, either by slashing the loaf or by having already (during final shaping) folded your loaf with a seam for ripping and then baking with the seam up.
If you continue to proof your bread, it will reach a point from which it will start do deflate again. If poked, the indentation remains. During baking, it will not rise (much) more and will tend to "flow" outwards and collapse. If you puncture or slash your over-proofed loaf, you will make this worse, rather like a punctured balloon.
If your goal is to get a non-cracked bread, you can put the loaf in the oven once it's fully proofed, just before over-proofed. This requires a lot of practise as you will basically have to monitor the bread towards the end of the final rising. You will also need to make sure that the loaf remains humid and pliable, you want as little of a dried skin as possible to allow for expansion without cracking. Poke the loaf all over with a chopstick or a paring knife to catch larger air bubbles that may cause the crown to burst locally and brush the bread with water before placing it in the oven.
Much easier is to bake at the second stage and plan for the expansion. There is a post here that discusses the influence of different cut patterns on the final shape and a bit more on the reasons for slashing here. Rule of thumb: the closer you are to "fully proofed" and the less oven spring you expect, the shallower your cuts should be. For a lot of oven spring, you need deeper cuts, usually made almost horizontally up to an inch in depth.
Should you be talking about a different kind of cracking, namely lots of small cracks that resemble the cracks on some glazed pottery and that appear during cooling: That is considered a sign of quality for some recipes.
Edits that fill in the technical terms would be very welcome if they increase understandability, but please keep in mind that not all readers will know them.
The crown is the first thing that sets when you put the bread in the oven. Then, as the center of the loaf heats up, it rises and cracks the top, which has already set. I don't think you can prevent it completely, unless you change your recipe to a denser kind of bread that doesn't rise very much while baking. Otherwise, I find that you can minimise cracking by baking the bread at a slightly lower temperature, and placing a bowl of water in the over to add some moisture. Be warned though, both of these actions will change the final texture of the bread, making it denser.
What you are describing is the result of 'oven spring'. When a properly proofed piece of dough is placed in a hot oven it will begin to expand or spring. If the the oven is dry or the skin is not sliced it will set rather quickly, resulting in cracks.
There are two things that affect how quickly the skin sets:
Steam
Slicing the skin
Steam allows the crust to remain moist during the first part of baking so that it may stretch and expand.
Boil an inch or two of water on the stove, then place it in the oven when you put the bread in. If there is still water in the pot in the last 15 minutes of baking, remove it.
Spritz your loaf and the inside of the oven with a water spray bottle right when you add the loaf to the oven. Watch out for the steam!!
Slicing the top of the loaf with a razor blade allows the loaf to expand further because it reduces how the crust constrains the loaf. A couple of diagonal slices is popular on long loafs. A cross is popular on round loafs.
Please see my comment under my answer. Please explain how scoring can help in better expansion
If you increase the volume of a closed container which can't expand anymore, it will cause the container to break because there is no more space to expand unless the container gives way. This is what happens with bread. The top becomes fixed in shape as it looses moisture and looses its ability to expand. When the inside part expands, the lack of space will cause increased tension on the surface and at one point the surface will crack i.e. give way.
You can minimize random cracking by intentionally scoring the bread. This will help the gas which evolves to escape without causing expansion of the bread, thus preventing any cracks forming.
However you should be aware that this will decrease the volume of air inside bread thus the bread will be denser.
Actually, scoring the bread won't make the bread denser, it just controls the direction of expansion which would otherwise result in random cracks. If it does, you have over-proofed your loaf.
Agreed. Scoring allows better expansion resulting in a less dense crumb.
@Stephie can you please explain why? If during expansion there is more gas evolving which escapes because of scoring, will it not make the bread denser? I mean, the expansion is reduced as the gas escapes (that's how I understand the process, sorry if it's wrong), is it not?
Just because the loaf is expanding doesn't mean that the bubbles are popping and releasing gas. If that were the case the loaf would fall or collapse. The reason the loaf "springs" in the oven is because the gasses expand and the loaf keeps it contained like a balloon. Another common misconception is that slicing the loaf is done to allow steam to collapse.
During kneading, gluten develops. You can think of the gluten strands as an elastic network that traps the gas even while the loaf is unbaked. During baking, the dough simply firms up and stabilizes his shape around the expanded bubbles. (Physically not totally precise, but close enough.) So when you slash the loaf, you are not letting the gas out, because you are opening only very few gas bubbles compared to the total amount. But as you dough is still flexible, it can "move" due to the expanding gas inside.(cont.)
(cont.) The outer layer or the "crown" recieves most heat and sets first, loosing the flexibility, but the cuts remain soft/weak, allowing the inner parts of the dough to press outward, "opening" the slits. @CRags: Does that answer your question? If you want to see the sponge-like texture, cut your dough in two after the first rise: you should see many small bubbles through and through. And: over-proofing means not only that the yeast is "done", but also that the gluten network has weakened and can't "hold" the gas any more.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.176021
| 2015-03-06T01:06:11 |
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|
59897
|
Which non-stick pan to buy?
Recently, I found a small but deep scratch on my pan. I can see the metalic color on the scratch. I am not sure how much serious it is.
Now, I want to buy a new one. I see different prices with different qualities and I have no idea what to buy. I live alone and I cook for one person but sometimes for several meals (3 meals).
Some people suggest me to buy a thin one not thick one. Expect for thickness what is the difference between pans?
If I look at the pan's surface pattern, does it give me any clue?
I also see some pans with white dots on it. What are these types of pans?
The white speckled pans tend to be enameled steel. I think there used to be multiple companies that made them, but the most common ones in the US are sold under the brand name 'GraniteWare'
Related:
Are Non-Stick Bread Pans Destined to Fail?
http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/21858/are-non-stick-bread-pans-destined-to-fail Throwing money at the problem does not seem to be an effective strategy here.
What kind of "pan" do you mean? The two objects in your image are baking dishes or cake pans and are designed for oven use only. To me, if someone said "non-stick pan" I would assume a stove top pan for cooking.
@Catija, great point. I mean pan. Not baking. For the photo, I appologize. It was misleading. but I could not find a better photo at that time. Now I fixed that.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.176852
| 2015-08-14T06:16:21 |
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|
59990
|
Making Southern style chicken in the oven
I've been trying to make southern style chicken in the oven. I firstly soak my chicken in buttermilk, I then dredge it in flour, leave to stand for half an hour to dry a bit. I then dredge it again in the seasoned flour again. I've tried a egg wash and missing the egg wash out. I then place the chicken on a quality non stick roasting dish and spray it with a butter/oil cooking mist. Every time I make this, the batter sticks to the roasting dish leaving one side of the chicken with no batter. Any ideas what I'm not doing correctly?
I've tried parchment paper and it sticks like crazy. I'm delicate about removing it from the pan. Would using a nonstick spray help?
How are you lifting the chicken from the pan when finished? If you are using something like a fork stuck into the top, then the crust releases from the chiken easier than the pan. Try using a pancake spatula underneath to gently loosen the batter from the pan and lift out.
You can buy oven racks that allow cooking chicken pieces (or potatoes) with no tray contact points
I imagine you could easily make one out of some steel wire too. Or take a spare wire oven rack, and cut ever second or third wire at the edge, and bend it up?
Try raising the chicken above the roasting pan, with something like a grill grate or roasting rack. Having air flow to the bottom of the chicken pieces will help crisp up the batter on that surface, and the surface area of anything that can stick to your chicken will be limited as well. You will also want to use very high heat (~450F) when cooking, so that the batter will get to the proper texture.
Did you put the roasting dish/pan on a low rack in the oven so that the bottom cook properly ?
The heat from the bottom will cook the batter and prevent it from sticking.
You can use parchment paper. Put the chicken on the paper instead on the roasting dish.
You say you have tried an egg wash, but you don't say in what order. This way works for me. After the buttermilk, I dredge in seasoned flour, dip in just beaten egg with no added water, and then back in the seasoned flour. To avoid sticking, line your tray with parchment, or sometimes I put the chicken on a rack placed on the tray so the heat can circulate under the chicken. If you use the rack, give it a spray, as well as your chicken. Don't forget the biscuits!
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.177038
| 2015-08-17T16:04:23 |
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|
60021
|
Accidentally microwaved stainless steel travel coffee mug. Still safe to use?
The image isn't my exact coffee cup, but it is similar. I didn't read the label and microwaved it until I smelled something strange (probably a minute and a half). Luckily, I when I took it out, only a small part of the plastic on the rim of the mouth was melted, but is it still safe to use for future use? I didn't see any damage done inside the mug.
Normally you don't put metal object in a microwave because it can make sparks and ruin the object, the microwave, and be potentially hazardous (though pretty nice, check https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_yg5eKjA4U for example).
Plastic doesn't absorb as much heat when metal does (induction phenomenom), so local heat started melting the plastic. As with any melted plastic, it's not necessarily good, but once cooled and washed I don't remember having thrown away melted bowls or plates, nor do I think it was specially advised in the past.
About this dioxin polemic, it's rather the fact that you shouldn't heat something directly in a plastic that may release dioxin when heated, which is not your case since I think your cup has had time to cool down since yesterday.
Yes, unless the plastic has gone permanently soft and sticky, or doesn't seal anymore, I'd just give the thing a good scrub and remember not to nuke it again.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.177277
| 2015-08-18T13:53:13 |
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|
114752
|
Is panko just pretentious breadcrumbs?
My local grocery store actually currently sells panko crumbs for more money than beef mince, which to me is incredible. Is there any sort of justification for this or is it just expensive because it is foreign?
Maybe there is some culinary justification in using it that I'm unaware of, but to me its inflated price seems rather ridiculous for something that is still in essence breadcrumbs.
One of my favorite bloggers, Adam Raguesea did an excellent video on this. (BTW I have no connection to Adam, except that I am a fan.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-hKc2QhJzc&t=489s
It's only expensive because (in that setting) it's a rarity. Funnily enough, in any Japanese shop, panko would be cheap and "French style!" breadcrumbs would be ridiculously expensive.
I live 10,000km away from Japan and Panko is exactly the same price as any other breadcrumb. I suspect either you're looking at some kind of top-shelf, hand-made-by-an-artisan-master type of product or your local store is just fleecing.
My country also has a generally unfavourable exchange rate which also makes it expensive.
@NeilMeyer I had a look - a bit pricey at Woolworth's in small fancy packs (R30/100g), but if you go to more of a speciality shop it's much more reasonable (R10/100g).
still 100 - 300 rand per kg is many times more than what beef mince cost
Not sure ground beef (beef mince) is a good comparison - it's so dense comparatively that the price per kg is lower versus what you use. One dinner for my family takes a kg or so of beef - while a kg of panko would take months to consume, a 400g box makes something like four or five dozen fried chicken pieces.
The big difference between panko and "regular" breadcrumbs is that panko is more like flakes, so it creates a much different texture when used as a breading.
It's more similar to using cracker or cereal crumbs than regular bread in terms of shape, but the texture is more bread-like.
For a picture comparison, and explanation of how panko is made, see UpperCrustents's how panko is made.
The difference is lost when using it as a binder in something like meatballs ... similar to using flake salt vs. other shapes of salt. So in some cases, using it might be considered pretentious. (or just using whatever's on hand).
Just adding to the top voted here. If I have a fluffy white bread and shave it, it is very similar to panko. If I blitz it in a blender it's a very good compromise between the usability of breadcrumbs and the texture of panko.
Panko is breadcrumb, generally from crust-less bread, and usually a larger, airier crumb than standard bread crumb. It is traditionally Japanese, but it doesn't have to be produced there. I see it as low as 28 cents (US) an ounce on Amazon.
From Wikipedia, answering question 'why might it be better than other breadcrumbs in food': "It has a crisper, airier texture than most types of breading found in Western cuisine and resists absorbing oil or grease when fried,[citation needed] resulting in a lighter coating." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_crumbs#Panko
OK, I see now. In defense of the local grocery store, the panko they sell seems to be from Japan, Has Japanese writing on it. Probably the source of the inflated price.
One of the references on the Wikipedia page there's this video, which was quite interesting, especially the bread cooked using an electric current: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCNU9TrbiRk
@NeilMeyer - again, lots of stuff "from Japan" is perfectly cheap. Notably Toyotas, etc. In the US, Japanese whisky is no more expensive than Scots whisky or US liquors. It's just that it is rare (in that store) - that's all, I'd say.
@Fattie Nothing imported is cheap when you pay 15 rands per dollar, but yes the shop may very well be fleecing a bit as well.
Panko is, in the traditional sense, breadcrumbs made using crustless Japanese bread (actually an evolution of West European bread, as bread came to Japan via Portuguese explorers and merchants) in such a way that you end up with a particular texture.
The primary differences compared to more traditional breadcrumbs are that panko produces a lighter, airier texture when used for breading, and that it tends to absorb much less fat and oil than ‘regular’ breadcrumbs.
That texture is actually really important for some dishes. Tonkatsu is probably the best example of such a dish, authentic tonkatsu has a noticeably different breading than many other methods of preparing breaded pork cutlets due to the texture and other properties of panko.
The second aspect (less absorption of fats and oils) has also made usage of panko increasingly popular in western cuisines because you can get somewhat healthier results when breading and then frying things.
For meatballs and similar things where you are largely just using the crumbs as a binder, such benefits are less clear, though you will end up with a noticeably different texture in the final product depending on whether you use panko or a different type of breadcrumbs. Based on personal experience, the closest you can get is probably with dry breadcrumbs produced using a fine grater.
As an aside, you will notice I have exclusively used ‘panko’ by itself above. This is intentional, because ‘panko’ is actually Japanese for ‘bread crumbs’, and thus saying ‘panko crumbs’ or ‘panko breadcrumbs’ is not only redundant, but linguistically incorrect.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.177425
| 2021-03-12T15:02:16 |
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|
17979
|
Are these beets still edible?
I boiled some beets last weekend but then had to travel unexpectedly. They have been in the fridge in a container. They have some light purple watery droplets on them now. Are they still edible? Here is a photo:
How long have these beets actually been in the fridge? 5 or 7 days?
It wouldn't let me post a pic due to I'm a newbie. They have been in for about 7 days.
As I'm no expert and don't know what the (various) health organizations say about it, I'm not going to answer... But if it smells like beet, I'd taste it, and if it tastes like beet, I'd eat it. I wouldn't serve it to children or elderly people, just for safety. You could wash it with water before anything else.
I can understand why you are asking, that picture is kind of making me sick to my stomach to look at.
It's a vegetable. When you cooked it you damaged the cell walls and the juice is leaking out.
I think this picture only seems unusual because of the beets' color. If these were carrots there wouldn't be a question because, of course, the juice would be less startling.
If these beets haven't started to mold or ferment- and you'd know it from the smell- then they are fine.
I've eaten beats that had a similar appearance with no ill effects. Let your nose tell you, as BaffledCook mentions, "if it smells like a beet", eat it.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.177865
| 2011-09-24T19:01:03 |
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|
45277
|
Why does a pizza stone make my pizza dough bread-like?
I have an aluminum pizza pan with a perforated bottom. It looks like this:
Not long ago I purchased a pizza stone, which I got mainly because everyone raves about them. However, the results have been quite disappointing. The aluminum pizza pan consistently produces a thin, crispy crust. But the pizza stone produces a much thicker crust with a bread-like consistency -- not at all what I'm looking for. It's not soggy or anything, just thicker and more bread-like.
The dough recipe is straightforward: flour, water, salt, yeast, and a slow overnight rise. I make two pizzas from the recipe and do one on the stone and the other on the pan. The oven and stone are preheated to 550F/288C for 45 minutes before cooking. I do one pizza at a time, both on the top rack. So all the factors are exactly the same except the stone vs. pan.
Why does the stone produce this thicker, bread-like texture? Is there any way to counteract that or do I now own a heat sink and I should stick to using the pan?
A few things: (1) Are you preheating the stone? Most stones are meant to be preheated in the oven before cooking; if you don't do this, you may be less likely to get a crispy/firm bottom on crust. (2) If you are preheating, the main point of a stone is to get a better rise out of your crust. If it's too thick and bready for your taste, you'll either need to stretch the dough thinner or alter the recipe. (3) If the main issue is lack of crispness, you can also pull the stone out of the oven with the pizza on and leave it for a few minutes, which can firm the crust without burning the toppings.
@Athanasius (1) Yes, 45 minutes in the oven at 550/288. (2) How would I alter the recipe to get a thinner crust? (3) Not the issue.
Possible modifications: lower hydration (more flour, less water), maybe less yeast, put stone on lowest oven rack, thoroughly deflate dough before stretching (and/or roll out), stretch as thin as possible (my thin-crust is translucent before baking), consider baking blind at start (as user150153 suggests). Frankly, if I were you, I'd just invest in a second pan; the main benefit of a stone is creating a better rise. It's not really the ideal tool for thin, crispy pizza, which is often grilled or made on a pan (and sometimes moved once it has partially cooked onto a rack or even oven floor).
I have never seen one of those perforated trays. HOWEVER, I have a stone and get results similar to what you describe. I have mostly given up. If you pan works for you, go for it!
@Megasaur You can buy pans like that on amazon. You might want to give it a try.
Your aluminum pan is allowing moisture to escape from the bottom and the top, whereas the stone does not, so the stone will have more rise. To use a stone, after much trial and error, I have to roll that dough out super thin, like 3-4 mm, prebake in the hot oven for 4-5 minutes, pull it out, add the toppings, then finish for another 6-7 minutes.
Also, different flours will bring a different gluten content, which are the sticky bonds that will allow you to roll it thinner without it contracting at every roll. I use 1/2 semolina flour and 1/2 plain flour, I can roll it thinner that way.
Be not dismayed, a breadier crust can be fantastic, you can load more stuff on it.
I don't want to load more stuff on it. I've found that less is more with pizza. I use 00 flour. Using a mix of semolina is something I've considered, but since the results I achieve in the perforated pan are exactly what I'm looking for, I'm reluctant to mess with the recipe.
@Carey - stones are (partly) used because they give better oven-spring, which is desirable in bread, but not what you're looking for in your pizza. You've got answers for "why" and "how to avoid", and a recommendation for "keep using the pan", but the question is now back to you! You say that the perforated pan produces exactly what you're looking for; what were you looking to improve in the first place?
@hoc_age Good question. I guess I was looking for an improvement over the pan, but I know now that's not going to happen. I don't bake much bread so maybe I'll buy a second pan and relegate the stone to being a heat sink in the bottom of the oven.
@Carey - just a flash in the metaphorical aluminum pan, eh? You could perhaps get thin and crispy with insane temperature - 700F ish - probably way more than a home oven. The stone might also be a good opportunity to try some recipes for other flatbreads -- pita, focaccia, ciabatta, naan, ...
@hoc_age Can't achieve 700F in the oven. The best I can do is maybe 600F by (ab)using the self-cleaning feature.
Just thought of a couple other wacky thoughts that exceeded comment status...
ATK also had a recommendation to preheat the stone and bake pizza on a higher rack near the top of the oven. Probably marginally hotter there. They went one extra step in preheating: just before applying the pizza, they turned the oven to broil for an additional shot of intense heat for a few minutes of additional preheat; this might help your stone get hotter than the oven can go for a short time. Might be worth investigating. Note well! -- Be sure to switch back to bake before putting the pizza in!
Another ATK says thinner crust could be achieved by retarding the fermentation by proofing in the fridge for a few days, but you don't seem keen on changing the recipe/technique.
If you really don't want to use the stone, you could break it into a few pieces and use the resulting bricks to simulate a hearth. Place them on end (vertically) surrounding (same rack) what you're trying to bake. By preheating they will retain and radiate heat on the sides, more than you'll get out of your average oven. Books by Daniel Leader and Peter Reinhart discuss this home "hearth" baking.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.178027
| 2014-07-02T23:18:55 |
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|
20368
|
Sponge That Keeps Vegetables Fresh?
This sponge is meant to be put into refridgerator's vegetables compartment at the bottom and said to keep vegetables fresh:
Sorry, the package is in hebrew, but is this true? How can it keep vegetables fresh?
Do the instructions say that you have to keep it wet? Because it may be trying to act as a primitive humidifier.
Wet sponge = lots of bacteria = bad vegetables?
@Jay: Well, of course, it'll need to be a clean sponge, not made from cellulose or natural sponge. But wet plastic won't breed bacteria, as there's nothing for the bacteria to eat. (Of course, keeping it clean when its in the vegetable drawer, is an interesting exercise)
@derobert: The sponge would probably be sitting in the vegetable compartment which will have residual vegetable elements on its surface. The bottom of the wet sponge would be bacteria heaven. Most people only clean their refrigerator once a year(IF that).
@Jay: I'd be much more worried about the top of it, which would often come in direct contact with vegetables. The residual vegetable material stuck on the plastic (at least if it still looks clean) isn't going to provide much food.
Translated into English: the top says "Platform for vegetables and fruit". Below says "For maintaining the freshness of fruit and vegetables in a refrigerator drawer, size 1 X 30 X 47 mm". There's no mention of the word "sponge", nor what the "platform" is made of. Maybe there's some information on the other side.
I have seen two sorts: a polymer felt-type pad and a natural clay version sandwiched between synthetic fabric. Both are meant to regulate humidity. Soak up excess moisture and expire it back as needed.
Both claim to be anti-microbial in design.
The clay, I suspect, is near in structure to montmorillonite which is micro-crystalline; actually bursts bacteria! The synthetic would be engineered to discourage growth of mold such as some sport socks do.
Neither need to touch veggies directly to function. Potatoes, I would place directly as I peel them anyway. Bamboo washcloth can be dampened and used as a cover over delicate greens similarly -bamboo is naturally anti-microbial.
Without a translation of the Hebrew text, I cannot be sure what this particular product is intended to do -- but, as certain vegetables will last longer in the fridge if they are kept in a low-humidity environment, I would expect that a dry sponge would be used to absorb excess moisture to keep it away from the vegetables. How effective it is, well, I can't find any scientific articles one way or another.
Assuming typical sponges were good at dehumidifying, however, I would be worried about it becoming a bacterial reservoir touching the food. In response to some of the comments, bacteria does not need much food to survive, just water. Legionella sp., for example, is a bacteria that does very well in air conditioning units and public fountains, causing repeated outbreaks of legionellosis until the source of the contaminating bacteria is remediated. Vibrio cholera is another that can survive well in water, and can be transmitted purely through exposure to contaminated water, even if the water does not contain any significant concentrations of "food".
And, of course, there's the simple "yuck" factor of an old, soggy, and eventually mildewed sponge. Yet one more reason to eat your veggies while they are fresh.
Given that the packaging is Hebrew, and most of Israel is very low humidity indeed, I expect that you're correct.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.178522
| 2012-01-11T17:49:21 |
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|
44676
|
How do you prolong buns/rolls/scone/crumpet softness?
I thought this community is appropriate for this question so I want to know how to keep buns/rolls/scone/crumpet softness longer. In English I see several translations for subject but I feel this picture sums up what I am asking about:
Is this method different for white bread? If yes, I will appreciate advice regarding keeping white bread lasting longer as well.
Thanks.
I considered closing it as a duplicate of http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/61/what-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-storing-bread-in-various-locations, but I think we can leave it open in case somebody has specific advice about storage of bread which is small and sweet. But to my best knowledge, there is no such advice: you have to eat them quickly, period.
That's the problem @rumtscho
People mostly look for deals and when buy many of those small and sweet breads, they know they get stale soon so they try to consume them while they are still fresh which leads to weight gain as I am aware of.
You said there's no such advice, however if I put regular bread to freezer for long storage. I can defrost it anytime if I need it. Regarding small sweet bread, rolls and all such baked dough, I wonder if storing them in refridgerator will work too.
The best way to find out if freezing works is to try it yourself and let us know your results. If it does, then this is probably a duplicate per @rumtscho.
@logophobe freezing will work with the rolls, I am sure of that. I was more hoping that there can be answers which work for rolls and sweet stuff but not for large loaves of lean yeast or sourdough bread. I don't know anything of such methods, but this doesn't mean they don't exist :) As for the fridge, it won't work for rolls for the same reason it doesn't work for bread loaves: starches crystalize fastest at fridge temperatures.
I am living in a new location and must buy onion rolls from the local supermarket. No matter how fresh the date stamp, the rolls are dry and to my taste, taste stale.
I discovered that if I pop them in the microwave for 5 - 10 seconds the moisture is somehow redistributed and they soft, and moist, and almost taste like bakery rolls (ahem).
If they are too hot to handle you have microwaved them too long. If they are soggy, you have microwaved them too long.
With the sugar topping, I don't know if it would work without also melting the sugar. Give it a shot for 2 or 3 seconds.
Good luck.
I have recently popped dark bread from kitchen that got stale after 3 days into microwave. 10 seconds heating was not enough and it usually works for white bread. After taking it out and letting it sit for 1 minute, it got not just stale again but started chipping.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.178922
| 2014-06-06T10:59:29 |
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|
47507
|
Quick flavour for fresh popcorn
I'm a great fan of popcorn, and I recently acquired a popcorn maker. It's the sort that spins the kernels in a drum and heats the metal until they pop.
However, I've had difficulty flavouring them. When I used to make popcorn years ago if I wanted a quick flavour I'd just sprinkle on salt of sugar liberally. But I'm a little more health-conscious nowadays, and I don't really want to use too much of either.
I found this question about flavouring corn:
How do I coat popcorn with flavor?
But the answers are a little culinary - I want to flavour my popcorn quickly and easily. Are there any good off the shelf flavourings for this? Or any mixtures I can make in advance and keep for quick sprinkles? Suggestions for both adults and kids would be much appreciated.
The answers there do mention that without using oil when popping, it's difficult to get seasoning to adhere.
@Jefromi : I use my pump oil sprayer to give a light coating of oil, then I can toss in the popcorn salt, then toss the whole bowl to coat. It's actually difficult to over-salt this way, as the extra salt will just fall to the bottom of the bowl. related : http://cooking.stackexchange.com/a/27924/67
@Joe Yup, write an answer!
Our favourite is melted (salted) butter or unflavoured coconut oil, spread it over, and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. Not sure that constitutes an answer though.
Kelp powder will stick. It makes a good, tasty salt substitute.
I worked at a movie theater for a few years in high school. We cooked popcorn in coconut oil and applied Popcorn Salt (the kind that includes artificial flavorings in addition to the salt) during cooking and at time of serving per customer's request.
For application after cooking we stocked many flavors of a brand of popcorn seasoning known as "Kernel Seasons." Those flavorings range from the expected cheddar and french onion to the stranger marshmallow and caramel.
These flavorings were fun every once in a while but most of them had strong chemical aftertastes. It's quick and easy to apply. Kids have a blast with it. People who object to artificial flavors will not enjoy it though.
You could try something like a powdered ranch dressing mix or some other spice mix for similar results.
The key is adding some salt during the cooking process. It sticks much better that way. Any additional seasoning should be added as quickly as possible after popping while the corn is still "wet" with oil on the surface, again for stickiness.
I have no idea if I can get these in the UK. But my word, am I going to look and see.
@MattThrower - I love the White Cheddar version of this seasoning, but I live in Australia where it is unavailable. I was able to order it via Amazon. I also recommend trying a bit of flavored oil on your popcorn - I love it with chili oil.
Yes, there are popcorn flavorings available in most grocery stores. In the US, those can usually be found with the popcorn. The thing that makes popcorn salt different from table salt is that it is very fine, that's why it sticks better. You can turn table salt into popcorn salt in the food processor, or buy popcorn salt. Another fun thing for popcorn is cheese powder
You have to have some oil or butter, salt or powdered flavorings won't stick to dry, air-popped popcorn. Even just a very quick spray of butter flavored non-stick spray (Pam) will help salt and/or flavorings adhere.
Aha. So icing or caster sugar are likely to be a better bet than standard granulated?
@MattThrower For just tossing with popcorn? Absolutely. Icing sugar might get clumpy, I'd go with caster.
I've used a mortar and pestle to reduce table salt to popcorn salt -- absolutely necessary to make it adhere, since I use a hot-air popper.
@keshlam do you use any kind of spray or anything?
Nope. If it's ground finely enough, it sticks well enough. I don't know whether that's due to static electricity, or moisture in the popcorn, or something else. (Actually, I can't eat as much popcorn as I used to; my gums really aren't happy with it.)
My two favorites:
Salt and freshly ground black pepper - just grind right onto the bowl.
Nori seaweed, sugar, salt, and dried chiles, powdered. The powdered mix can be stored for quite a while. Original source: http://www.plantoeat.com/blog/2010/12/fusion-popcorn/
My wife's suggestion:
Brewer's/nutritional yeast (somewhat cheesy, can be an acquired taste)
I like to use pre-blended seasonings for similar reasons to you. They come in little jars that can be shaken over your popcorn. For example.
Thai Seasoning:
http://www.masterfoods.com.au/herbs-spices/seasoning-blends/thai-seasoning/
Tuscan Seasoning:
http://www.masterfoods.com.au/herbs-spices/seasoning-blends/tuscan-seasoning/
I've also used things like curry power and paprika powder.
You still need to throw in some oil or butter in there to make it stick to the popcorn better. And I think some mixes don't taste as good without a little bit of salt.
smoked paprika would give you a smoky 'bacon' flavour which would be quite good for pop corn
A very healthy and believe it or not, an addicting popcorn enhancer is Nutritional Yeast. I eat meat and am not a health food nut. It's very like a powdered cheese flavoring but it's not dairy, just yeast.
Favorite at our house is a spice blend (nutritional yeast, garlic powder, cumin, salt, sugar, paprika) called Shane Lyons's "Magic Dust" -- grind everything to a fine powder in a bullet blender.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.179183
| 2014-09-28T15:46:34 |
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|
45025
|
White Stains on stainless steel
So these are stains that I tried to get off with everything this board has adviced. Still no end in sight. I tried baking soda, citric acid, white vinegar, bar keeper's friend etc.
Does anyone know what these are? First time I'm getting these in 5 years of cooking, hard as hell to get off. I even tried to scratch it off but it doesn't work.
I also have stains like this on my stainless pans.
Did they slowly build up over time, or was that something in particular that caused it?
I live with two other people in this house and I know my pan was moved while I was asleep - could it be a chemical reaction of some sort? I had it sit out overnight with some Bar Keeper's Friend because I had cooked sausage in it.
@JackCheff Pretty sure Bar Keeper's Friend says on the label to rinse thoroughly within a minute (or maybe a few) - leaving it overnight might not be a good idea.
@Jefromi whoops. Funny how it hasn't ever happened until now? Is there a way to get rid of it? Or can I still cook with the pan without fearing to get poisoned?
@JackCheff I don't think the issue is getting poisoned, just that the active ingredient is oxalic acid and leaving it long term could maybe start to corrode metal a bit.
@JackCheff I don't know what the spots are, but if they refuse to get removed by your chemical and physical attacks, it is highly unlikely that they will come off in the food. So, the chance that they will poison you goes towards zero. They seem to be a cosmetic problem only.
@talon8 I tried what was suggested in that thread. Nothing helped. You guys raised good points, I doubt it will leech into the food if it didn't get off at 300F+ anyway. I guess I'll just use the pan until it dies and corrosion happens.
However, unfortunately just because there aren't any valid answers, that doesn't make this question any less of a duplicate...
These are probably mineral deposits. Boiling water or washing with hard(er) water can leave them.
You can scrub with a plastic pad, use vinegar, etc. I have found that denture cleaner works well for this. Drop one or two tablets in a pan full of cold water, let it sit for 20 mintues, and then rinse it well. A sponge or plastic abrasive pad should remove any remanents easily.
The film will probably reappear in a few months, so regular treatment is recommended. As for the denture cleaner, a generic brand with a hundred or so tablets will cost you a couple bucks. Also good for cleaning stains off porcelain.
That said, it shouldn't affect the flavor or healthfulness of your food.
Denture cleaner is a novel idea. I'd love to hear if that works for the OP. +1
More uses for denture cleaner (google is your friend) link
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.179632
| 2014-06-20T21:13:27 |
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69252
|
How to Harvest and Prepare Prickly Pear Pads Without Getting Poked
I enjoy eating Prickly Pear Cactus pads, but I can't figure out how to harvest and prepare them without filling my fingers with tiny hairs. I have asked around and looked online and found sites such as this, among which, the common theme seems to be to burn the spines off.
I do not really have fire available to me very much, so does anyone know any other good ways to get out the flesh of the pad without getting pricked?
Please note: This question is about Prickly Pear Fruits I am asking about the Pads.
Doesn't help if you're harvesting them but it's sometimes possible to buy them precleaned.
At grocery stores in our area they prepare cactus pads for sale in-house. I haven't sat and watched them for hours but it seems that the process involves a pair of gloves and a knife. The gloves are generally the cloth gloves with rubberized palms/fingers and the knife is a chef's knife.
This image shows the process I usually see them following, though they're using a much larger knife in the store... admittedly, they do it on a daily basis, so it might be good to start with a smaller knife:
click for source
This image is from what looks like a nice guide on preparing cactus pads.
The steps are pretty simple:
VERY IMPORTANT TIP: Use kitchen tongs to hold the nopales or, better yet, wear gloves to protect your hands from the thorns. Once you are familiar working with cactus paddles then you can try to clean them without gloves.
Place the cactus paddle on your cutting board and, using a sharp knife, trim off the edge. Scrape the spines, thorns or eyes, running your knife from back to front until completely clean. Turn the cactus paddles and do the same on the other side.
Other sites seem to echo this process, so it seems pretty universal. One site even recommends replacing the knife with a spoon, which is less likely to dig into the cactus pad, particularly if it's convex.
I agree you can probably get away with a smaller knife. It is really important for it to be sharp, though. If it's dull it'll be more work (and there are a lot of little cuts to make!) and more prone to cutting/tearing out divots instead of cleanly taking off the part you want.
First, choose young tender paddles that have only green nubs -prickles not yet poking through.
The OP did ask about ways besides burning.
"I do not have fire available to me very much" pointed out that a lighter does suffice
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.179893
| 2016-05-25T19:38:47 |
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|
67673
|
Our oven consistently undercooks food
Our home oven consistently undercooks food when we follow the recommended cooking directions.
Case and point: We just bought some chicken skewers from Costco. The directions say to cook them at 350F for 25-35 minutes. I just took them out after 35 minutes, and our digital probe thermometer read ~45C; well below the required 76C.
To measure, I found the thickest piece of meat I could find, and pushed the probe in, taking care not to go all the way through and touch the metal container that they're being cooked in.
I know it's likely not the oven not getting to temperature. It's a fairly new oven with a digital display that shows the current oven temperature (it was at 350F when I put them in). We also have a little bi-metal thermometer that goes in the oven itself. Last time we tested it, it agreed with the reading on the front of the oven.
It's also not likely the probe thermometers. We had 2 old bi-metal probes. I didn't trust them though (since apparently they can lose accuracy as the metal ages), so I went out and bought a new digital probe (mentioned above). After calibrating the 2 old ones one via the ice-water method and testing them on some chicken, all 3 probes agreed with each other within 2C.
We do live at a fairly high altitude (Calgary, Alberta, Canada [1,045 m, according to Google]), which if I recall, can mess with cooking times. I can't see that having this much of an effect though.
What are the possible problems here?
The oven:
Checking the temperature after it had been in for 45 minutes (10 minutes extra). Note it's only at 47.9C:
I just took them out again after 55 minutes, and it was only at 56C. I put them in for another 10 (which in total will have been an extra half an hour).
Are you pre-heating the oven fully before you put any food into it? Are you putting the exact same quantity into the oven as specified in the recipes (I.E. not a double batch)?
Another question: was the food or any ingredients frozen prior to preparation? If so, is it fully thawed before you start cooking?
@user132278 The oven was fully preheated prior to putting the food in. The cooking directions were for the entire "tray". And it was frozen to - 18C, but had been left out to thaw since 8 this morning (around 9 hours at room temperature).
Leaving food out at room temp for extended periods of time is extremely unsafe. I would not eat this food, regardless of it being fully cooked.
Anyway, 600 meters is the lower cutoff for "high altitude cooking", so I think it's definitely a factor. See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-altitude_cooking
I don't think the altitude will make any difference when baking, as it's mostly affecting the boiling point of water. Furthermore, I've lived at an altitude of 1500 m and never noticed any difference when it comes to baking times or temperatures.
@Catija, you may not. Many would. Don't forget that in a closed packet, starting from -18C, even the outermost surfaces will take quite a few hours to even reach 0C, let alone exceed 6C where you need to start worrying. This is especially true in an unheated (during the day at least) room. The guidelines ignore both the starting temperature and the room temperature, so are effectively based around a worst case.
What's your room temperature during the day at the moment? If it's cool, the middle pieces may not have been fully defrosted especially if on an insulating surface such as wooden worktop.
Also check your oven seal, if it is damaged, you may have a constant current of hot air flowing out (and cool air being pulled in).
@Catija How would it be unsafe if it was fully cooked. As far as I know, bacteria don't become more resistant to heat the longer they're allowed to reproduce. That's how we've thawed food for the past 20 years, and the only food poisoning I've ever gotten were from fast food places.
@ChriH We keep our room temperature slightly above average. I can't quote what the exact temperature is. And there is noticeable heat around the oven door, so it may be a leak.
It is a grave misconception that cooking after leaving something out gets rid of all the bad stuff that may have reproduced in the interim. Just because you've been lucky for the past 20 years doesn't make it "safe". See related questions here and here.
Especially with a fan oven, opening the door can let a lot of heat out, so checking repeatedly can slow things down further. I assume you didn't test the meat with the door still open, that would make things much worse.
When you do check (at nearly the cooking time) anything tightly packed into the container like the skewers in your picture should probably be rearranged, so that those in the middle end up on the outside.
If you put a foil dish on a baking sheet to make it easier to lift out, preheating the baking sheet might help, especially if it starts quite cold. It can also take a while for an oven to come back up to temperature after adding something like frozen chips.
I also suspect that the middle of the inner skewers may have been very cold still, maybe even icy. I know defrosting in our utility room (not directly heated, probably around 12C in what passes for winter here) can take longer than you think. (BTW defrosting at the back of a fridge or in the meat drawer can take a very long time). This wouldn't be enough to explain the whole delay in cooking. As has been noted in comments, defrosting for hours at room temperature isn't recommended by some guidelines, but I and many others wouldn't think twice about it when the room is cool and the container closed.
I suggest that in this specific case a few factors combined to slow things down: the oven a touch under, the food colder than expected, and a lot of heat let out of both the oven and the food with repeated testing.
Oven temperatures are conventions and really mean little. Plus, typical home ovens vary widely, so that when you set the dial to 350, the interior can easily fluctuate between 330 and 370, and that is when your oven is correctly calibrated, which few are! So, it is probably not getting to the temperature that the readout says. An oven thermometer can help get you in the ball park...but...no big deal...You are on the right track using a thermometer to measure the internal temperature of your food. Be sure to calibrate your probe thermometer to make sure it is accurate. Then, you are just going to have to get a feel for your particular oven, by setting the temperature a little higher and/or leaving food in a bit longer. Take note, and you should soon recognize a pattern that you can work with.
They have an oven thermometer.
..yup, they do!
Whenever you cook something, best to keep the times just as guidelines, and use a meat thermometer to measure what you are cooking. Also remember to take the meat out of the fridge to room temperature well before cooking it, to let it heat up. This will let the internal temperature of the meat reach the required temperature faster, with less oven/pan time and it will get you a better cooking result. If you also use a thermometer to measure the internal temperature of the meat before putting it in the oven, it will allow you to remove one variable from the equation.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.180135
| 2016-03-23T00:16:11 |
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|
19777
|
Can cold-brew coffee be heated? Why?
Apparently keeping coffee hot and reheating it both lead to bad flavors:
How can I reheat coffee without imparting bad flavor?
Why does coffee taste awful after reheating it in a microwave oven?
However, can you cold-brew coffee and then heat it (microwave or other) without ruining the flavors? If so, why?
Yes, you can.
In fact, this is a specific technique known as a "coffee toddy" which is a good way to take liquid coffee camping with you if you don't want to take brewing equipment. Some people even prefer coffee made this way to other methods of brewing.
@FuzzyChef how is this toddy thing better than leaving my grind in a glass of water overnight?
Yes.
Coffee gets its flavor from a number of compounds such as oils, which can break down at high temperatures. But this takes time. As long as you drink the coffee before it gets stale, heating it should be fine.
Also, caffeine is quite stable at hot-coffee temperatures.
Can you clarify 'stale' at all? What happens to the oils? Is it exposure to air or just mixing with water that makes it go stale?
@keflavich I'm not 100% sure of this myself, but I've read of 2 different reasons coffee gets stale:
Increased acidity over time.
Oxidation of the oils.
@keflavich Forgot to mention that oxidation is a result of contact with air. However I'm not sure what would cause an increase in acidity, or whether that's really a cause of staleness. Even if coffee is stored away in a container and not exposed to air it will still oxidize by the oxygen and other compounds dissolved in the water (albeit a little bit slower than if exposed to air).
Heating didnt work for me.
I tried this today. Yesterday I soaked a tsp of illy in water for 24 hrs. It came up quite good. Not very bitter. I filtered it and heated it on very low heat, (a setting of 3 out of 6 on my hot plate) until it started to give off a little steam. Now it felt quite bitter on tasting.
I always make my hot coffee in a moka on this temprature and its doesnt burn, So I dont think I burnt my cold brew
My experience of heating coffee in a microwave is very negative, although I cannot explain the mechanism for it turning out so awful. It may be the effect of the hot coffee cooling down, rather than the effect of the reheating.
We've all experienced coffee that's been sat on the hotplate for too long; bitter and acrid. You risk this "burning" effect if you heat cold coffee on a hotplate.
Cold press coffee is generally brewed very strong indeed; about twice as strong as espresso. Hence you can add boiling water at a ratio of, say, 3:1 and have an acceptably warm cup of coffee - and this is what people usually do.
If you want to microwave for extra heat, just microwave the full-strength cold-brew for 10 seconds or so, before adding water from the kettle.
Cold brewing and storing in the fridge can be done with an Aeropress without loosing flavor.
This thread talks about both cold brewing and keeping it in the fridge: http://coffeegeek.com/forums/coffee/machines/432108
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.180956
| 2011-12-19T20:06:33 |
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27647
|
Why put cinnamon in chili?
We had an office chili cook-off recently (I didn't enter). Two of the chili recipes presented used cinnamon predominately, perhaps even overpoweringly (IMO). Given that they also heavily sweetened their chili with honey and sugar, both had a cinnamon dessert flavor profile mixed with a bland tomato/beef profile. In a word, "yuck!"
In searching today, I've seen several recipes around calling for the use of cinnamon in chili. I could see it maybe being a background flavoring to add a mild spicy bite and a touch of earthiness. But, some recipes seem to be pretty heavy in it's use.
I'm assuming the office cooks didn't develop the right flavor (unless going for a dessert chili was their objective). What kind of flavor profile would be the right one to develop when using cinnamon in chili?
In many cultures (think Indian, for instance) cinnamon is used for salty dishes rather than sweets. I cannot comment on the dishes you had, but definitely I would not say cinnamon equals dessert
@nico - It was the heavy use of sugar/honey and cinnamon together that gave them a partially dessert like taste. It might have worked better without the sweetness.
@Blessed Geek: how do you define a taste as "wrong"? Do you mean you do not like it?
@nico - Honey and sugar, and then cinnamon in chili? Sure sounds wrong to me.
@AndrewMattson you probably are used to those in desserts so they sound and taste like desserts to you... for instance cinnamon, honey, and sugar are common ingredients in Moroccan tajine dishes...
@nico - And chili is not a Moroccan dish. I'm not talking about being opposed to the flavors, in general, but it's not chili.
@AndrewMattson I'm just saying that it's not unusual to put those ingredients in a meat dish. Not saying that it's the original recipe or anything but, hey, if you put it in the right amount it can taste good and not "desserty" at all! Then as for any recipe it's down to personal taste...
@nico - and I'm just saying, specifically, IN CHILI. You add sugar and honey to chili it's not going to taste like chili. Add those and cinnamon, it's not chili. That makes it "wrong" when talking about chili. Look at my original comment. I'm telling you why the answer says it's "wrong," because the question is very specific to chili, not "general stewed meat dishes that have some spices added."
@AndrewMattson people put chicken on pizza, it's disgusting but it's still pizza... and if you google "honey chili" or "cinnamon chili" you do find plenty of recipes... so here you go! http://www.food.com/recipe/1-spicy-sweet-honey-chili-78123 http://suebee.com/10-chili-recipes-with-honey/ http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/chilliconcarne_67875
@nico - there's nothing about what makes a pizza a pizza the would preclude chicken. Koreans, for example, love Spam, and sometimes roll in up in rice and seaweed just like sushi. They even call it "Spam sushi." It's not sushi. If I were to ask the best way to incorporate Buffalo chicken wing hot sauce into Beef Bourguignon, someone may like the flavors, there may be Internet recipes calling it that, but that doesn't mean it's still Beef Bourguignon. The flavor profile you are talking about is not one of chili. Just because you like the flavors doesn't change that.
Ok, let's agree to disagree on this one.
Well, it would be difficult to dispute that we don't agree, at this point. :P
Cinnamon adds a different spice profile than chili powder or red or cayenne pepper would. It is a common savory spice in Indian food and I believe it's also used in savory dishes in Chinese cooking. It's a very versatile spice :).
We also use cocoa powder in our chili as it provides a real depth of flavor (dark bitter flavors which are quite good in chili).
Both of these add some curiosity and difference to the chili without themselves adding sweetness. Usually they get added as a fairly safe way to add something "different" to standard chili.
+1 The cinnamon and cocoa make the chili reminiscent of a mole sauce.
Cinnamon adds a warm spiciness that compliments the raw heat of chilli.
Cinnamon is traditional in Cincinnati style chili.
Half a cup of strong coffee will add a nice darkness too. I can't find any refs to cardamom in chili, but surely someone's tried it.
@WayfaringStranger strong coffee is a common way to make a quick mole sauce and would be a fantastic addition to chili (my wife doesn't do any caf though so it's out for me :().
I often put some of a cinnamon stick in my chilli, along with cardamon and bay leaf. (probably not traditional at all). It adds to the flavor without it becoming desert like. I guess it is because the flavor is infused making it more subtle.
I haven't tried using ground cinnamon in a chilli, I should imagine that it would taste as you are describing.
I find cardamon makes a great sometimes addition to change up my chili recipe(s).
cinnamon is a basis flavor of Cincinnati style chili, it has some inherent heat as well as sweetness to it. Chili benefits from both, but I don't like Cincinnati style chili where you can "taste" the cinnamon.
Lots of chili recipes have seemingly odd and unusual ingredients including, jams and jellies, as well as chocolate.
Chocolate is almost always cocoa powder or bitter chocolate, not sweet, though.
It's important to distinguish between Cincinnati chili (which has a sauce based on a Greek recipe served on top of spaghetti noodles, often topped with kidney beans, raw onion, and cheese) and chili served in most of the rest of the US. Although, the fact that they're totally different dishes doesn't stop some people from combining the recipes into a hybrid disaster.
@mrog - well, there was an award-winning chili cook who had a little stand in Pike Place Market (Seattle) who made a terrific "Cincinnati chili" along with 3 other (more traditional varieties). He thought they could all be sold together at a chili stand. (Though he did serve it on those tiny little "shell" pastas ...)
@davidbak I wouldn't call it Cincinnati chili unless it's served on spaghetti noodles like they do in Cincinnati. But, maybe he found a way to make it better. That wouldn't be hard to do, in my opinion. Every time I've ordered chili in Cincinnati, I've always been disappointed.
I read online that cinnamon cuts the acid in tomatoes using 1/4 tsp for a batch of sauce or chili. This was a great tip for me as I didn't like the acidic tomatoe flavour of my chili.
I agree this is a good use of cinnamon in Chili and such, in such a small amount as to not be consciously noticeable yet adding character to the flavor. Especially good for American palates that may not be used to heavier usage with savory dishes as seen in Indian, Chinese, or other cultures.
If you look way back to the original chili con carne recipes from the early 19th century, you'll often find that cinnamon was a common ingredient in chili because it was indigenous to Tejas region. Also, tomato was not a typical ingredient. With pasta sauce, sugar is often used to help tone down the acidity of the tomato. So as people use sugar to help tone down the acidity of their chili, any recipe that also incorporates cinnamon will likely evoke a dessert-ish flavor. For this reason, if your recipe uses tomato, it may be a good idea to skip out on the cinnamon altogether!
I use both sugar and cinnamon to my chili if I had made it too spicy. It does not taste like a dessert at all... I think the faint taste of the cinnamon gives you a warm, cozy feeling. Just a little is all it takes.
Cincinnati chili and Greek chili use cinnamon. Cinnamon adds a sweet flavor to chili.
A family recipe for spaghetti uses cinnamon. It's a traditional recipe from Mikinos, Greece.
The extreme end of that spectrum would be the indian dish "Rajma Masala", which is a bean dish with a tomato/onion sauce that has most of the spices (cumin, coriander seed, the whole set of "baking" spices .. no cocoa/coffee though :) ) considered optional in a chili by default.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.181346
| 2012-10-06T22:24:19 |
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|
19583
|
How do I "save" my Christmas Cookies (Venetians)?
I am making my favorite Christmas cookie. They are called Venetians. They are a layered marzipan bar cookie.
Here is a recipe.
So, I just took them out of the oven -- and while the tops are perfectly cooked -- the bottoms got too toasty. I have taken them out of the pan and put they on cooling racks. I expect to let them cool well before putting on the jam and layering. I will then let them set overnight before putting on the chocolate top and cutting.
But darn-it -- the bottoms are too toasty. In fact they are just this side of being burned. I am not sure why. The oven must have gotten way too hot, or the greasing pan before I put the wax paper on must have gotten too hot too fast. Whatever -- now I need to figure out what to do. And they are suppose to be delicate -- not have a crunchy layer!
I would "cut the layer of burn off" -- but there isn't a layer to do this. The layers are less than 1/4 of inch think as it is. I honestly don't think I can without wrecking it. I could try to "scrape it" -- but they are so delicate. I could add some sweetened whipped cream to the toasty side. I could . . .
Ideas? What should I do to save these delicate "masterpieces" so that I can still enjoy the results (even if I don't give them away anymore).
Can we get a picture of your actual problem cookies?
Sorry, the description will have to do! I am sorry. It is currently three pans with a cool pattern of dark brown sitting on cooling racks.
I hope when you say "wax paper" you mean parchment paper - wax paper is not meant for oven use!
I've never tried this, but if you have one, it strikes me that a microplane zester/grater might work for that. Much more delicate touch than even the finest holes in a cheese grater.
Sorry, but you can't save overcrisped pastry. Bake a new bottom layer properly, make cookie masterpieces with it, and snack the crispy one as it is, eventually adding something moist (ice cream, yogurt, etc.)
Well, here is what I did to "save the cookies" --
With one batch I put them together with the jam, pressed them overnight, cut them in squares, put them in a pan with EggNog, let them soak overnight,turned them over and soaked them a little more.
With a second batch I did the same as above-- but I also added some Amaretto during the soaking process.
I served them with a sprig of mint. and a drizzle of dark chocolate.
They were a hit. The overcooking created a biscotti-ness prior to the soaking-- and left the final desert, yummy, and of a firm enough texture to still hold together as a dessert!
So, that is how I ended up saving the over-cooked Venetians.
As the commentators have mentioned, you can't really save overcooked cookies. It is as impossible to cook something less as it is to unburn something. But of course any sort of filling between the cookies with moisture(namely the jam that you mentioned) can help ameliorate the problem. Make sure to have the overdone side be where the jam is layered.
What you should now focus on is how to fix the problem for future baking. Is this the first time you have baked this type of cookies?
Generally a lighter colored or shiny cookie sheet heat up slower than a darker cookie sheet. This can help in more even baking a cookie that is very thin as you have explained. On top of that lowering the temperature and baking slightly longer will also help with uneven baking.
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Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.181982
| 2011-12-12T01:03:28 |
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20561
|
Cooking with Ornamental Cabbage (Kale)?
Is it safe to cook Ornamental Cabbage such as this
Should I just pretend its your average cabbage when cooking with it?
Ornamental cabbage is often actually a kale.
See this link with pictures very similar to yours:
http://www.arhomeandgarden.org/plantoftheweek/articles/ornamental_kale.htm
Kale is edible and nutritious but it is tough and very strongly flavored compared to cabbage.
Kale recipes usually involve long braises in flavorful liquid to break down the toughness. Cabbage recipes, which require less cooking lest you release the dreaded sulfur demons, would almost certainly not be sufficient.
Do you know if ornamental kale differs significantly from normal kale, in texture or flavor?
I do not know. I have seen and read about it but I haven't actually eaten the ornamental variety.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.182288
| 2012-01-18T13:58:09 |
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29443
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How to cut beef tenderloin into Filet Mignon
I bought a chunk of tenderloin and made several Filet Mignon out of it. I had a hard time cutting the filet into parallel shape with relatively smooth surface, like those we found in fine restaurant.
Because the tenderloin is just so tender and soft, the meat deformed as I applied the knife pressure, and even further as I cut through it.
Are there some techniques, or specific tools to cut steak out of tenderloin or tender piece of meant in general?
You should apply as little knife pressure as possible in order to keep the meat from moving as you slice. I can offer a few suggestions towards that end.
First you need to take the translucent white stuff off. That silverskin is much tougher than muscle and is probably making you use too much force as you cut through it. You also don't want it on your medallions, and it's much easier to take it off the whole tenderloin than the smaller portions.
Get your filet/boning knife and use its tip to get under one end of the silverskin, then lift up the flap and slice just under it, keeping your knife more or less flat and parallel to the table. The silverskin will tend to come off in strips -- it's made up of long lengthwise fibers. It is fairly strongly attached to the meat, so don't try to tear it off; use your knife to separate them.
At one end, it'll dive into/merge with the muscle -- you can see this in the large piece to the left in your photo. You'll probably end up with a little divot there; don't worry about it. The silverskin is waste -- it doesn't have any flavor and is impossible to chew -- so just toss it.
Next, you should use the sharpest, narrowest, and longest blade that you have (those are in order of importance, so if your chef's knife is way sharper than your slicer, use it). Your knife should be sharp enough that you don't really have to press down at all in order to cut the meat -- the weight of the blade should be providing enough force. The cuts you make will be the same as if you were slicing a roast. Use the longest possible stroke, smoothly moving the entire length of your blade through the cut. Generally, cutting by starting at the base of the blade and pulling towards you will allow the smoothest movement. If you don't make it all the way through in one stroke, restart the cut from the base of the blade as many times as you need to, rather than following with a push cut. (On the last little bit, to completely separate the portion, you can get away with it, though.)
Finally, there are two possibilities for the position of the tenderloin and your hands relative to each other. You should try them both to see which produces better results for you. You can portion either from the right or left end of the meat. (Assuming a right-handed knife wielder,) portioning from the left involves pressing your free hand against the cut face of the meat (where you separated the last medallion), supporting it. This is the way that sashimi is cut, and I find that it makes it easier to get evenly-thick and consistently-sized slices.
If that doesn't work for you, and you're still having trouble getting smooth faces to the medallions, you can cut from the right end, and use your free hand to squeeze or compress the meat (not too hard, though -- you don't want to damage it) to hold it still while you cut. In this case, grab the tenderloin just past where you're going to make the cut.
Ultimately, though, don't worry too much about the face of the cuts. Any unevenness less than about 3/16 of an inch won't even be noticeable once you've put a nice sear on it.
Nice answer. Long, sharp blade, taking long, smooth strokes. That's the recipe.
Put it in the freezer for 30-45 minutes before you cut it. That will solve the problem!
While this will give you better-looking slices, the meat will have to freeze enough that its texture will be noticeably changed after cooking. And I think that tasty meat is more important than neatly cut meat.
I had the left over meat frozen and they are frozen deformed as it lay flat against the surface. Doesn't help.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.182395
| 2012-12-25T04:43:03 |
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21231
|
Can I ferment black garlic intermittently?
Following this black garlic tutorial and in reference to this SA question, I would like to try making myself black garlic, and to try fermenting the garlic to different time to test out difference in flavor
The tutorial suggest that garlic has to be fermented for 40 days continuously to become black garlic. It would be difficult to leave my oven, slow cooker, or a rice cooker unused for other cooking for a month. So my question is: can I ferment it intermittently - take out the garlic, use the cooker for something else, then restore the garlic and resume the heating.
Would that still give me black garlic?
If you have two of the appliances in question, and you don't need to use both at the same time for a month, you might be set!
YES. Yes, you can. I just did.
My first attempt in my rice cooker had uncovered garlic heads in it for 10 continuous days-- the result was black but dried hard as rocks (and the process stank up the entire house the whole time).
My second attempt involved wrapping each head in two layers of foil, then putting the garlic in a much lower temperature warming oven (no thermostat at all, just a light bulb) for 10 days, which resulted in beige garlic. I then switched it over to the rice cooker for 2 days, turned it off, checked them, then another 2 days, turned it off, forgot about it for a day, checked them... another 2 days, turned it off, checked them... and found DELICIOUSNESS.
It needs more time, I think, it's not as sweet as I'd like yet and could be a little darker. I've seen some Koreans mention finishing the batch by just hanging the garlic in a bag for a week, so that's what I'm going to do.
Simply put: No.
Step 3 on eHow:
Just be sure that the temperature remains at about 130 to 150 degrees
Thinking of beer fermenting, specific temperature ranges are required because that's what keeps the yeast happy. Not sure about the function in this case, but it follows that it's probably temperature-sensitive as well. A food dehydrator would probably be a better bet than the oven.
Please be careful about linking to eHow - the information there can on the whole be very unreliable. This article looks reasonable, as does the bit you quote, but I'm not an authority. Do you have other knowledge supporting this claim?
I was hesitant, so point taken. However, as you note, a) that particular one looks legit b) it is scientifically sound. I have been looking around, but don't yet have anything on the precise subject of black garlic.
Okay, cool. I wanted to be extra careful since it's potentially a safety concern, but since the answer is "no", I suppose it can't actually add risk!
can I, for example, move the garlic from the slow cooker to a rice cooker (very short time in between) to continue the heating? Or, is it, straightly, a NO? I have not fermented anything - but in the middle of fermented some vegetables (not garlic) it's ok to open the jar, have a check before closing it to continue. Also for black garlic?
@KMC: I'm fairly certain that'd be fine. If you have the second one warm before you do, it's just like moving something between pans on the stove. It stays at the right temperature, and it was never in a completely sealed environment, so I don't see what could go wrong.
Short answer: yes, you can take as long as you'd like.
The "fermentation" of black garlic is a misnomer, as the process has nothing to do with bacteria or yeast. Rather, what transforms garlic into black garlic is a very long and slow caramelization - the Maillard reaction. While I haven't personally tried "fermenting" garlic intermittently, there is nothing about the process that couldn't be suspended for a little while so you can use the appliance in question. It will certainly slow the already long process, but that all depends on how often it is interrupted.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.182757
| 2012-02-10T05:54:11 |
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|
6569
|
Deep frying - caloric-intake difference in saturated vs. unsaturated oil
In one of my previous questions, it was indicated that animal oils (saturated) would have a longer lifetime than unsaturated oils.
However, given good hygiene and properly fresh oil use, what would the difference in caloric intake be, when choosing between these two oils?
The calorie intake is the same; a gram of fat has 9 calories.
Like Bob pointed out, there is no caloric difference in the fats thyself.
Regardless, differences may arise from the different cooking times.
The main thing that needs to be avoided with any fat, especially when deep-frying is under no circumstance to overheat it. If you do that, you and up with a part of the fat burned and a good portion of that burned compounds dissolved in the oil.
Not overheating oils may be a bit tricky.
If you heat you have to watch it carefully, especially before you put in the things that you want to deep-fry
Avoid "preheating" the cookware before you put the fat / oil into it. When you put oil or solid fats into a hot pan / pot you inevitably burn a part of it. Unless for some reason this is exactly what you want to do, like for example if you are cooking with a wok , just DO NOT DO IT.
If you neglected the point above for some reason (I sometimes try to "save time" and do that), do not be afraid to discard the the burned oil, clean the pan / pot, and start over again with fresh oil / fat.
If you deep-fry with a lot of oil, getting a cooking thermometer might be a good idea. Oils may be heated safely up to temperatures ~200C (392F ) , but they do start to burn around 230-240 C (446-464 F). As this is impossible to "see" what temperate an oil has above ~100C I suggest getting a thermometer.
The above point is very important, especially when you consider that a lot of deep-fry techniques require you to fry the things in the end for a short time at a very high temperature (usually 220C). One such example is the when you make french fries :P
Get accurate information about what temperature is OK for what oil.
Strain through a fine sieve the used oil after EVERY use or DAILY. This will ensure that there are almost no food parts still left in the oil that may bun in the oil in the subsequent uses of it. This point is very hard to do in practice, as the operation is time consuming, requires you to wait for the oil to cool down and is also messy as several things will get in contact with the oil. It is no wounder that so very few people actually do it :P
When you deep-fry you should be generally be less concerned bout how to make it "health" as more about how to avoid to make it unnecessarily more unhealthy without adding a ton of flavor to your food.
If health / caloric intake is your concern, you may find it more useful to learn alternative techniques that deliver similar results with adding less fat.
You do fries at 220? I usually do them at 190. And my deep-frier is thermo-regulated, so overheating's not a problem.
I finish the frying at temperatures above 200C ... but first I fry them at ~135-140C. (They stay out of the oil during the time the oil heats up to the higher temperature ) That way they do not dry out during the actual cooking time, and get a thin, hard crunchy crust at the end.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.183083
| 2010-09-02T10:15:47 |
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6023
|
Why add salt to the water when cooking rice?
Given the great answer to the question on adding salt to water when cooking pasta, I am curious whether the same explanation holds for rice as it does for pasta (flavor and starch gelation)? Is there more at work?
Flavor is true in my experience, but what else?
For rice it depends. Cooking any starch in water will first cause the starch granules to swell and eventually tangle up with each other (the gelatinization). Dissolving sugars or salts in the water slows down the process by raising the temperature the swelling starts. While few prefer pasta as a stuck blob of strands, the same is not the case for rice. I like my Basmati loose, but my risotto and sushi sticky, so salt may be required for Basmati and optional for Arborio.
There are many techniques for controlling the starch for rice. To control the starch gelatinization of rice:
cook it like pasta with lots of water, then drain; or
par cook it
Method 1 won't avoid the grain surface starch gelatinization, but it will help with stickiness (you may oil coat it after draining). Method 2 delays the starch release allowing you to finish a risotto in seven minutes. Cool for parties or for restaurants.
If you're worried about the starch on the surface of the grain, you can also rinse the rice in cold water before cooking it. This is commonly mentioned in recipes with basmati rice from middle eastern or indian cookbooks. Rinse until the water runs clear or almost clear -- the first few rinses will leave very cloudy water.
@MarthaF. I've never been able to rinse rice until the water is almost clear. By the time that the water beings to clarify, the rice has absorbed too much, is too soft, and some grains start to break and release more starch. How do you do it?
Salt is not necessary when cooking rice, but can be added. Unless you add a ridiculous amount of salt it will not significantly change the boiling temperature or time.
Agreed that it's not necessary (and, when our child was small, we didn't, as salt intake is something to watch). But what about additional matters, such as the starch aspect?
i think the point of adding is to evenly salt the rice, not to expediate the process
Rice without salt, is like cooking pasta without salt. You need to season the rice, so YES you need to add salt to the water when cooking rice.
I read somewhere that adding salt to rice changes the osmotic balance, and this can prevent the elongation of basmati rice, and reduce its fluffy consistency. However I confess I have tried it with salt!
I am Asian and perfectionist with rice. I find by using salt to wash the rice and allowing some of the salt to remain in the final rice water, you get overall a better quality of rice in the finished product.
But why would you use it when washing the rice? That wastes salt. I'd just throw the salt in when you're cooking it.
So my dog is on a special diet from the vet. Lucky girl gets chicken and rice for some tummy issues. I buy her the pulled rotisserie chicken from the store then make her white rice.. she won’t eat instant of course.
First couple weeks I didn’t add salt, and about 2/3rd through it would start spoiling even though it was in the fridge. I had a moment where I remembered way back when people would salt raw meat and could travel with it in sweltering heat and the salt killed bacteria. On a hunch, I figured a tiny tiny amount would 1.) make her want it more and 2.) possibly let it ‘keep’ a little longer.
It seems to have worked. Her rice doesn’t spoil in 3-4 days anymore, more like a week. But I use a nice sea salt grinder and to one quick 1/4 turn.. I’d say way less than a teaspoon even. I counteract any Ill affect it may have on her by putting down a fresh bowl of cold water with her lunch and dinner, she loves cold water.
So, salting up your rice if you cook 1-2 cups at a time and save it in the fridge does seem to help it stay fresh longer. This is anecdotal and my googling lead me to this thread lol.
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.183377
| 2010-08-26T09:13:10 |
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|
6419
|
How to keep my (deep frying) oil usable as long as possible?
I have a new deep fryer. I am pleased with its results so far. I am not a 'heavy user' though - say once every 2-3 weeks. I want to re-use the oil a couple of times. The deep fryer is covered but not airtight, however.
The new deep fryer has a cold zone, which means the oil won't become dirty due to particles over-frying. I don't overheat the oil either. So, in principle, I'm frying correctly, I think.
So, how long can my oil safely sit in the deep fryer, if I ensure it's thouroughly heated next time I fry? Should I be allowing the oil to cool and store the fat in (sealed) containers instead, if there's going to be this long a gap between uses?
Edit: yes, I've seen this question and answers: Frying Oil Reuse
My family has always reused the oil until it either looks wrong (too viscous or a funny colour) or smells wrong (burnt, of food, or rancid). We keep the oil in the fryer and take it out to filer it after it's cool. I'm not sure if this is wrong but it doesn't appear to have done any damage so far. I'd say we use the fryer once a month and change the oil a couple of times a year.
I would not reuse that oil. The frying-oil reuse that occurs in fast food chains is reuse for the same day or over just a few days. They also store it properly and not just sitting exposed in the fryer.
justkt is correct that more saturated fats are less sensitive to breakdown, this is why bacon grease can be kept for a rather long time.
Three factors play a significant role in oil degradation:
Oxidation
Any contact with air causes oxidation in oil. High temperatures, metal alloys, surface exposure, and even UV light act as catalysts to this reaction.
Hydrolysis
When water interacts with oil it causes it to taste tainted or acidic. This is exacerbated by high temperatures, heating/cooling cycles, and oxidation products.
Polymerizaton
When frying oil deteriorates, the resulting products form both volatile (or reactive) and non-volatile compounds. Non-volatile compounds remain within the frying oil, and can produce polymerization at frying oil temperatures above 200°C (390 F) or in isolated hot spots within the frying system. These molecules bond together to form large, different-sized clusters that accumulate on the oil’s surface. Since they don’t dissolve, they cause foaming; trapping air under the oil, and increase the possibility of hydrolysis.
Given all these, the best environment for any oil is an cold, dark, airtight place. Cold temperatures may cause clouding, but this is not a cause for worry.
Source:
http://www.heatandcontrol.com/technical%20articles/Maximizing%20Cooking%20Oil%20Life.pdf
Actually, almost all oil is left in the fryers exposed to air and whatever else comes along in fast food restuarants. You'd be lucky if they even throw a pan over the top. Also, ruse is a matter of days to weeks rather than hours to days, but that is because the industry has filters that run at least twice daily and filter powder that removes the harmfull stuff out.
@sarge: Really? I don't have any fast food experience. I assumed they at least covered it.
naw, why cover something that absolutly nothing can live in once its at temp? but like I said, there is an entire sub industry devoted to extending the life of your oil in the fast food world. I wish I could post some of the oil management training materials, they are pretty brilliant.
@sarge: has nothing to do with what can live there, but the quality of the oil
I know, but for fast food, oil quality is destroyed through use long before it can degrade any other way. Its a special case, unlike anything else that normal restuarants have to do to mantain quality.
First thing, a cold zone doesn't prevent particulate build up, it just cuts down on the amount that will remain suspended in the oil. You should still filter if you want to keep your oil as long as possible. You can detect bad oil (meaning rancid) by a few ways, like smoke point or smell.
You should store your oil someplace dark and cool, which could be the inside of your fryer as long as you filter and clean the sides before you stick the oil back in. Another thing you can do to extend the life of your oil is switch to tallow (beef fat) or rended pigs fat (lard) as saturated fats do last a lot longer than the poly-unsaturated.
Once again, you should lose the oil when the smoke point drops, or if it is to dark, or if it develops any foul odor. And as I said before, once you use the oil once, you should NOT use it past six months under any circumstances, if you do, you are taking your gastro-intestinal tract into your own hands.
Could you share references for the "6 months old oil gastro risk" fact that you stated please?
One important note is to use a more saturated oil to avoid breakdowns that form the toxic compound HNE. See Science Daily for a summary of the research. One of the authors of the quoted research has written many more papers on the issue. If you use a highly unsaturated oil you can only use it for half an hour at frying temperature before HNE begins to form.
This seems to run counter to common practise (as also mentioned in the other linked question) in both fast-food joints / restaurants with fries. Is it common to be able to buy the 'wrong' type of oil (in a Western European country)?
@Tobiasopdenbrouw - are you sure that they use vegetable or another highly unsaturated oil for at least 30 minutes at a frying temperature? There appears to be a growing body of research on HNE and oil out there - http://www.springerlink.com/content/l016112242257293/.
no, I'm not sure about this.
FROM
http://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/wcm/connect/65f762d0-e4d0-4278-b5cb-2836854a3eda/Deep_Fat_Frying.pdf?MOD=AJPERES
If you are planning to reuse the oil, strain it through
a cheese cloth or sieve. Store the used oil in a sealed
and light-proof container for up to 3 months. For best
quality, refrigerate used frying oil that you want to use
again.
If the oil is clouded or if the oil starts to foam or has
a foul odor, taste, or smell, discard it.
I keep my old plastic coffee cans for storing the oil in after use. They are large enough and seal tight. I also store it in the refrigerator. It does get a little cloudy but once heated it clears up. Probably use 4 or 5 times in 3 to 4 months unless I fry fish and then it gets thrown away. It tends to get a slight odor after that even if it isn't dark. I always strain it before putting back into the fryer.
I use my oil about ten times and never have I taken it out of the deep fryer. It usually sit between uses about 2-3 weeks every time and it is always ok.
First let me say that I RARELY deep-fry anything. When I do, I use a large deep saucepan to fry in. When finished, I let it cool down then put the lid on the pan and cool overnight. I then pour through a fine mesh sieve into a large mason jar, seal and put in upper cabinet. It is in the dark most of the time, and away from heat, not over the stove or oven, and this seems to work out just fine for me. I usually discard after about 5 or 6 uses, depending on what I'm frying.
I would think that fresh oil would be best used, as even though the oil may be strained and cooled in fridge, it will still contain some of the cooked substance, and recooking stuff over and over is not healthy.
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.183859
| 2010-08-31T13:35:04 |
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4623
|
Fruit/nut allergy - cooking for
In this thread about cooking for people with allergies the first commenter (rightly, IMHO) suggests splitting up that general effort into more allergy-specific tips. The overall effort might still be worthwile, but as I suffer from the 'fruit/nut' allergy myself, I would like to start this question & answer.
My question: which foods trigger the fruit/nut allergy, rated by severity, and what techniques can you use to reduce the effect? I will be answering my own question as well (in the hope of offering some help), but would prefer answers that I don't know already.
For those that aren't aware of the allergy for nuts and fruits and wondering whether they may have it, here are links to wikipedia on oral allergy syndrome and the Calgary Allergy network (as I find their site useful and will be using it, and my own experience, as a departure point. Note that the allergy may start later in life.
Are we talking just mainly entrees or are you just generally curious (appetizers, soups, desserts, snacks, drinks)? Also, what about home cooking versus more common ingredients/dishes at restaurants?
On another note, I think it's going to be hard for non-doctors and people without some or all of these allergies to help out. I hope you'll cross-check anything that anyone recommends just in case their medical knowledge isn't up to snuff - I certainly want to help but also don't want to hurt at all. The bounty reflects these worries.
From the source (CAN)
Fruit, Vegetable & Nut Allergies
Associated with Spring Allergies (due
to tree pollen) FRUITS: APPLE family
(apple, pear) PLUM family (plum,
peach, prune, nectarine, apricot,
cherry) KIWI
VEGETABLES: PARSLEY family (carrot,
celery, dill, anise, cumin, coriander,
caraway) POTATO family (potato,
tomato, green pepper)
NUTS: Hazelnut, walnut, almond
LEGUMES: Peas, beans, peanut
SEEDS: Sunflower
Ragweed allergy (which causes hayfever
in August and September) can be
associated with allergies to raw
bananas, and the members of the gourd
family (melon, watermelon, honeydew,
cantaloupe, zucchini and cucumber).
Grass allergy can be associated with
allergies to orange, melon,
watermelon, tomato, kiwi, peanut.
Explaining about the allergy and ways of combatting it:
These allergic reactions usually occur
only when the food is raw. People who
are allergic to the raw food can eat
it cooked, canned, microwaved,
processed or baked. For example,
someone allergic to raw apples can eat
apple sauce, apple jelly, apple juice,
apple pie and dried apples. However,
nuts may cause allergic reactions
whether raw or cooked. This problem is
usually life long. Allergy tests to
these foods may sometimes be negative
unless a fresh fruit is used for the
test (instead of a commercial allergy
extract). The allergic reaction to
these foods can occur anytime of the
year when eating the foods but can be
worse during the pollen season and
especially if hayfever is very
troublesome that year.
The allergic reaction is not due to
pesticides, chemicals or wax on the
fruit. Howeve,r because the more
allergic part of the fruit may be in
the skin, some people allergic to
fruits, e.g., peaches, can eat the
flesh without reaction if the skin is
peeled away. Similarly for apples,
some brands of apples cause more
allergic reactions than others.
Freshly picked apple, e.g., straight
from the tree or an unripe apple, may
cause fewer allergic reactions than
one which is very ripe or one which
has been stored for weeks after
picking.
To this, I'd like to add that, in The Netherlands at least, the Santana apple is available as a special anti-allergy apple, and, for me at least, it works!
Also, as a technique, (deep)freezing the food may also offer benefits, or cooking the food in acid(ic) substances.
Other alternatives:
Substitute Raw Fruits Berries*
(strawberry, blueberry, raspberries,
etc.), citrus* (orange, mandarins,
etc.), grapes, currants, gooseberries,
guava, mango, figs, pineapple, papaya,
avocado, persimmon, pomegranates,
watermelon*.
Substitute Raw Vegetables MUSTARD
family (cabbage, cauliflower,
broccoli, watercress, radish GOOSEFOOT
family (spinach, swiss chard)
COMPOSITE family (green onions)
Substitute Nuts Peanut*, cashew,
pistachio, brazil, macadamia, pine
nut.
*May occasionally cause Oral Allergy Syndrome.
For me, this list indeed works, as I have a milder version of OAS. The substitue nuts work for me as well (walnut and almonds are terrible to me: the above are fine). When using pine nuts, try to use the European version, as the Chinese one can be horrible (which is a general problem with Chinese pine nuts)
There are different types of soybeans: white and black for example. White soybeans belong probably to nuts -section.
I have a number of allergies and have found that certain preparations decrease or increase my reaction - as you mentioned cooking can sometimes decrease the reaction, with the exception of foods cooked with alcohol as the alcohol tends to enhance allergens and release volatile compounds. This problem with especially severe for me as many alcoholic beverages use sulfates as preservatives which also triggers more allergic reactions. I have found that many fresh fruits (especially berries) sold in my local market have been treated with an anti-mold/fungal gas to increase shelf life - this requires a thorough washing or peeling to remove even from the "pre-washed" produce.
Thanks@ I find your alcohol comment especially interesting. In my experience, during summer (when hayfever hurts), I take allergy medicine. My previous thought always was that alcohol supresses the effect of the allergy medicine, this making my allergies play up - but perhaps what you say is correct: alcohol may be a stimulant independently of taking medicine or not. Is your answer based on personal experience alone, or do you have any backing documentation as well?
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.184466
| 2010-08-09T09:36:02 |
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46088
|
How does a Miracle Thaw work?
Miracle Thaws are utensils for rapidly thawing foods. Put an ice cube on one and it melts before your eyes, yet the whole thing stays cool to the touch. How do they work?
(Inspired by this question: Utensil to thaw meat)
You can always save some money and just thaw in cold tap water, provided your items are in plastic bags
reference: http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/conductive-heat-transfer-d_428.html
Let's take a moment to look at the heat transfer equation. Looking at it, we can see the ways to get more efficient heat transfer
q / A = k dT / s
q / A = heat transfer per unit area (W/m²)
k = thermal conductivity (W/(m·K))
dT = temperature difference (°C)
s = wall thickness (m)
use a material with a high thermal conductivity constant (like copper)
thinner (!) material
maintain a higher difference in temperature
The way these thawers work should now be easy to understand. (1) They are made of a material that has a very high thermal conductivity constant, like copper. The higher a material's thermal conductivity, the faster it can equalize it's temperature with that of the surrounding material.
Things that touch each other want to be the same temperature. When you put an ice cube on a sheet of room temperature copper, they are very different temperatures. But as soon as they touch, they want to be the same temperature, so heat transfer begins. Heat "flows" from the copper to the ice, increasing the temperature of the ice (melting it), and decreasing the temperature of the copper. Heat also flows throughout the copper itself, meaning that even the parts of the copper that are far away from the ice are losing heat.
With the copper losing heat, it quickly falls out of temperature equilibrium with the surrounding air. But the air and copper also want to be the same temperature, and so heat from the air "flows" into the copper, bringing it back closer to room temperature, which in turn allows the copper to heat up the ice some more.... But of course there aren't distinct steps to this process: all of these heat transfers happen simultaneously and continuously. And as long as the air has some circulation, you can consider it to be an unlimited supply of room temperature heat.
The top of the copper plate is probably flat, to increase the amount of surface area in contact with the ice. The bottom of the copper plate, however, is probably ribbed or finned, to increase the surface area with the surrounding air, but without (2) creating more thickness!
We could also address (3) and heat the copper electrically, above room temperature, but then we run the risk of heating part of the food to that temperature as well. The benefit of using a passive copper heatsink is that the temperature will never rise above room temperature!
The only thing I would say to improve (as far as SA expectations) is to word it more like a question in the question section. So instead of "I will explain", ask "How does?" You're totally allowed a bit of goofiness, but only questions are allowed in the question section; only answers to that question are allowed in the answer section.
Well done. +1 to both the question and answer.
Interesting! I suppose this also explains how those copper spherical ice makers work so quickly.
If you wanted even more heat conduction than copper gives you, you could always embed some heat pipes in it.
I'd suggest adding that a device like this works great for an ice cube because as the ice melts, it makes water which makes excellent contact with the tray, and spreads over a larger area. A piece of meat, on the other hand, doesn't melt, doesn't spread out, and makes less than perfect contact with the tray (because it's not a liquid), and the frozen part of the meat will have a thawed piece of meat between it and the tray, thus significantly increasing the thermal resistance, and thus decreasing the thawing rate.
I find using the underside of an extremely heavy pan just as effective as thawing plates. The same physics apply.
Adding to this; essentially it's a heat sink for food; although with the opposite effect since the food is cooler than the environment (an odd way to think of it is it's a heat sink for the environment that dissipates the heat into your food). If you were to put hot food on it, the food would cool more quickly. Decent pans are designed for good thermal conductivity as well, which is why Chuu's use of pans in the above comment is also effective.
Miracle thaws, also known as defrosting trays, are simply chunks of metal with a high coefficient of heat transfer. Materials that have a high thermal conductivity transfer heat more efficiently than those with a low conductivity. Aluminum is cheap and has a high thermal conductivity relative to other materials, so most are made of that material.
However, defrosting trays don't really work as well as the commercials would have you believe. The same reason that your food thaws slowly without a defrosting tray limits how quickly it will thaw with one, and that is because air is a poor conductor of heat. When you thaw something what is happening is that heat is being transferred from the environment (air, the counter surface, etc) to the object until the environment and the object are in equilibrium, that is the temperatures of both are the same. A thawing tray still has to get heat from the environment to transfer, and how quickly it can do this is limited by the fact it still has to get heat from the air. When you put a cold object on a thawing tray the tray will quickly transfer it's heat to the object, but once the tray gets as cold as the object the rapid thawing stops and it's all down to how quickly the environment can transfer heat, which isn't that fast.
So thawing trays are great at making ice cubes melt quickly, and they will speed up thawing a bit, just not that much.
Am I correct in assuming that you'll get a similar, but less potent effect from putting your frozen food in the fridge for a few hours?
A refrigerator would slow down thawing as there's less of a heat differential between the environment (the inside of the fridge) and the food. Maybe I don't understand your question.
The Miracle Thaw speeds up your thawing a little bit, because it helps heat conductivity between the thing you're thawing and the air. A refridgerator does have colder air, but it's still warmer than the freezer. And because it's usually colder than 4 degrees in the fridge, your food still thaws (albeit it slower, thus less potent), but it will be safer than a Miracle Thaw for food safety (thawing aids are not FDA approved).
How would a freezer have a more potent effect than a thawing tray?
I never said it would be more potent, on the contrary. I said it would be LESS potent. you'll get a similar, but less potent effect from putting your frozen food in the fridge for a few hours. My wording might be abit confusing, I should have said "when putting..." instead of "from putting".
If you are asking whether food will thaw in the refrigerator then the answer is yes.
I think the risk of these isn't so much their exaggerated claims, but the fact that they are thawing at room temperature and may cause people to ignore the food safety guidelines (i.e. thawing in the refrigerator or under cold running water). I've never bought one of these, but I just seriously doubt that it could thaw a whole chicken in less than 2 hours, and maybe not even a thick cut of meat.
"but once the tray gets as cold as the object the rapid thawing stops" isn't strictly speaking true. As the cooling tray has a massively larger surface area (as so can transfer heat faster) that the object being thawed the thawing will remain faster than it otherwise would. Cooling fins work by the same principle
To add to @RichardTingle 's comment, even though air is a poor conductor, the greatly increased surface area of the tray has contact with a much larger volume of air... so the increased volume can collectively transfer heat faster than the small volume that is in direct contact with the (meat/ice cube/etc).
@DoktorJ, that depends on how much surface area is left after you put something on it. If the entire plate is covered there isn't much extra area to contact air.
@GdD you'd have to work hard to cover 100% of the surface area of the plate with meat. Even if you take the six steaks shown in the picture and squeeze two more on the plate, there is still more surface area of the plate in contact with air than in contact with the steak via the underside of the plate (assuming the underside is ribbed), the edges of the plate, and the small gaps on the plate between the steaks. Granted, it greatly reduces efficiency, but you still have conductive surface area you wouldn't have had with a steak sitting on a nonconductive surface (countertop, cutting board, etc)
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|
46237
|
How to prevent fat splashes when I fry a burger?
The question How do you grill a perfect burger? tells me the best solution is to fry not grill, but I find frying makes such a mess I spend ages cleaning up afterwards.
So I grill burgers using my oven grill, but I think the temperature of my oven grill isn't high enough even at full gas. If I cook burgers long enough to get the outsides nice and caramelised then they are too cooked inside and have gone a bit dry. Even preheating the grill for an extended period doesn't help much. Grilling outside on a barbeque works and doesn't mess up my kitchen but it isn't a practical everyday solution.
So my question is how to cook a perfect burger in my kitchen without making a mess? I'm open to all suggestions, though obviously I already have some ideas and top of the list is to use a George Foreman grill or something similar. Do George Foreman grills get hot enough to cook burgers nice and brown without them going dry?
George Foremans can cook a descent burger as long as its not too thick.
@NBenatar: thanks. A GF grill doesn't cost much more than a good quality skillet, so I think I might buy one and give it a try.
@JohnRennie Want mine?
@Jolenealaska: you're not a fan of GF grills then?
I don't care for them for beef, and I haven't pulled mine out of the closet for over a year. They are good for one thing though. It's something I picked up from Alton Brown, and it works great. You can do a whole spatchcocked Cornish Hen in one! :) http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/cornish-game-hen-spatchcock-hen-recipe.html (panini press = GF Grill)
To make a perfect burger in the kitchen, a hot cast-iron skillet is your best friend.
To keep from making a mess, use one of these:
That's a splatter screen. It allows air to move freely, but keeps grease in the pan and off of your walls.
EDIT: In comments, Cindy Askew recommended the above plus using the cheapest available aluminum foil to protect surrounding areas from the grease and noted that the aluminum foil used in that way can continue to be useful as a disposable spoon/utensil rest. In a sense, this answer being accepted encompasses that comment as a part of this answer.
Hi Jolene, thanks for the suggestion. I have tried using a splatter screen, but I think you get most spitting when you're putting the burgers into the pan or when you're turning them over, and of course those are the times when you have to take the screen off. A splatter screen certainly helps, but there's still a lot of cleaning up to do.
. I have to agree with @Jolenealaska. A hot cast iron skillet is your best bet. The splatter screen will help but, to your point, will not eliminate clean-up.
I keep a roll of the cheapest aluminum foil (both price-wise and quality-wise) on hand just for this. Whenever I am going to cook something that I know will splatter and make a mess I cover the surrounding areas with the foil. Makes the clean up a breeze.
@CindyAskew That should be its own answer, along with the cast iron recommendation. Perhaps all three (cast-iron, splatter screen & aluminum foil) will do the trick for him.:)
Bonus uses for the foil. If I get really lucky and the foil is pretty much clean I sometimes leave it in place to use for the next meal. Helps with clean up twice. Otherwise I take a piece of the foil and fold it, splatter side in of course, and use it for a disposable spoon/utensil rest.
Dutch ovens are great at reducing the splatter from frying. The high vertical sides really cut down on the mess. Chicken fryer pans are quite similar, basically a skillet with comparatively high and vertical sides (or like a shallow dutch oven depending on ones perspective) and are designed to reduce splatter and provide a deeper pool of fat. A chicken fryer pan may still benefit from a splatter guard but the dutch oven can generally be used without one. Keep in mind that the dutch oven must be large enough for cooking implements to reach and manipulate the burgers and, for the same reason, very deep versions should be avoided.
Microwave the patty for about 2 minutes. Heat your cast iron pan (wiped with cooking oil) and stick in the patty. Lid on if you want it "smoked" watch and turn as desired.
Being doing this for YEARS .......
Cast iron (well-seasoned) and a lid (any lid), plus your kitchen fan to catch the fatty steam. Splatter screens don't work in my experience. A lid is really the only way that works for me to minimize splatter. Use tongs instead of a spatula to flip to further reduce splatter.
Get the pan hot with a little oil that is starting to smoke. Gently add the burger. Cover and cook for a minute or so to brown, flip with tongs and cook for another minute to brown.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.185677
| 2014-08-09T10:45:11 |
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|
46630
|
Edible lollipop sticks for a complicated birthday cake
I'm baking a cake for my sister. Though the cake will be simple. I decided to make chocolate cupcake lollipops. The cupcakes will read out her traits like nice, awesome etc. I need some advice on how to make edible sticks which will be connecting the base cake and the cupcakes.
I want them to be edible because long story short she always wondered why is there the point of the stick if its not eatable when she was young.
I also want to know how to prevent the cupcakes from sagging down and dropping on the base cake.
Can you get pocki where you are?
If you can't find pocki, there's rolled cookie that you can get in a can ... I just can't think of the name of it. (it's kinda straw-like, with chocolate on the inside). And there's also peppermint sticks (candy canes without the bend ... although those might be too slick).
Isn't the sister of your sister also your sister?? Also, concerning Joe's idea: If you use full sized peppermint sticks (candy canes) you can soak off the red, and be left with just white.
@Jolenealaska e.g. same mother for first two sisters, but different fathers, other sister is of different mother, but same father as your sister. Often called half-sister. More common than you think!
Pepperidge Farm's pirouettes!
How will this question be helpful to future users? It seems like a brainstorming exercise to me, with dozens of answers that can't be objectively ranked.
@LittleWhiteLithe : thanks, that was the cookie I was thinking of.
@AirThomas : this could also be useful to entriants in gingerbread house contests (where all items used must be edible). eg. http://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/7928/67
I think a good idea would be candy cigarettes. The sticks would be a fair bit thicker than your average lollipop stick, but it could look way more convincing than other options.
@AirThomas The fact that there's more than one answer doesn't mean it's a bad question. And it will be helpful to future users because future users may want to do something similar; wanting to avoid inedible components is pretty common. The suggestions in the comments need to be in an answer, not comments, but that's not the OP's fault.
Everyone- I've written up your brainstorms into a Community Wiki, feel free to add any more you can think of.
@Jefromi I never said it was a bad question. I just don't think it was posed in a way that's very suitable for the format.
@AirThomas Okay, then more specifically, I don't think it's an unsuitable question, I think the fact that there's more than one possible answer is fine (there are specific criteria and the list won't be that long), and I think it can be helpful to future readers. If you want to improve it (without changing the intent), go for it, but I certainly don't think that it needs to be closed if it's unchanged.
The brainstorming in the comments has provided numerous examples:
Candy cigarettes
These are likely the most realistic sticks you will find, as they're usually completely white, but fairly soft so use care when attaching the muffin to the top:
Pocky / Mikado
These are chocolate covered biscuit sticks, they're much more sturdy but not the right colour:
There is also a Cookies & Cream flavoured Pocky, marketed as Pocky Panda, which is white and the closest resemblance they make. This may require being purchased from the internet though as I'd never heard of them before:
Rolled Chocolate Wafer Biscuits
These are simply tubes of wafer biscuits, typically filled with chocolate, such as DeBeukelaer Pirouline and Pepperidge Farm Pirouette:
Stick Candy and Rock
Quite simply sticks made out of candy, I suspect Rock will be less common outside the United Kingdom, but Stick Candy should be simple to find.
Rock is a hard candy tube up to an inch thick which could support a table, nevermind a cupcake:
Stick Candy is basically un-bent candy canes and less thick than rock, though very similar:
Wow! I thought candy cigarettes had gone the way of the dodo! :) Nice summary, +1, welcome to Seasoned Advice!
I have had white Mikado (in France). In many places candy cigarettes are no longer sold, whether actually banned or just withdrawn.
Old question, but an answer not in the wiki or comments or other answer: pretzel sticks dipped in white chocolate.
The white chocolate will be an off-white but if you prefer there are candy melts that are bright white.
Sugarcane sticks would be an idea! They’re edible and sturdy. Sugar cane is sold as accessories for stirring drinks too, I think it’s a company called Hula Girl.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.186222
| 2014-08-24T21:32:02 |
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|
58532
|
How to keep Indian curry made with condensed milk from separating
The Chicken Korma recipe that I've been making always seems to separate near the end of preparation. This ranges from small lumps forming too yellow water raising to the surface.
I read through the advice at How do I prevent coconut milk from separating in Thai curry? and was careful to keep a low simmer.
The recipe is basically:
Fry butter, onions & spices in stages
Add cubed chicken breasts and let fry
Add 1 cup tap water (perhaps the culprit?) and plain yogurt (not low fat) let fry
Add 1 can 2% Condensed Milk reduce heat and simmer
I'm using a coated steel wok on a large element. For steps 1-3 I use just over medium heat and switch to medium-low, low for 4. After 2-3 minutes, the sauce starts to break.
I discovered that 2% Evaporated Milk isn't the default (this is all that my local store stocks most of the time). When I made the curry with regular fat (not skimmed?) Evaporated Milk, almost no separation occurred.
I really the dont think its milk or yogurt more like its the butter separating out. When you've added all the spices it should look more like a thick paste. Then once your done searing the chicken you add the liquids to make the sauce.
Every time I get lil heavy handed with the oil I'll notice towards the end it'll separate out some. Not a big deal you can always skim it off the top?
Try
1. adding the milk after the curry cools down or
2. Adding milk before adding salt
The first I can understand, but why would adding before salt help, if you're going to cook it long enough to break anyway?
I am not sure how it works, but when I make another dish with milk and salt (hot pongal), I have noticed that adding salt in the end after adding milk and other ingredients prevents the milk from curdling.
You can also try adding a teaspoon of any starchy substance like corn flour or rice flour. It won't change the flavour or consistency, and the milk/yogurt is less likely to curdle.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.186658
| 2015-06-25T15:59:18 |
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|
57938
|
How to tell if my fig is ripe
For the past couple years I can't ever seem to pick my figs when they're ripe. Not sure if it's the breed of fig or if I'm missing something else. I just picked one of the darker green ones today and cut it open. Did I wait too long or about how much longer should I wait... any other tips on what to look for before picking.
That fig doesn't look ripe to me... but I'm not seeing it in person. Based on the info on the site mentioned below, it's likely the fig is not ripe as the neck is very straight.
Eating unripe figs won't hurt you, though... they just won't taste very good.
Regardless, they should be slightly soft, not firm. According to this site, they will droop on their stems with the weight of their fruit. Here are two of the several photos showing an unripe and very ripe fig:
Fig 1. (above) Not ripe: the fig is too firm and still perpendicular to the stem.
Fig 4. Gravity wins and the fig is ripe and ready, no longer able to support its weight. Note the dewy skin and slight tear in the fruit; it can barely hold its sugary contents at this point. (Time to grab the snips and go crazy!)
Here's another site with even more info, similar to the previous one. They list three methods to knowing when a fig is ripe: sight, touch, and taste.
Sight:
Go by the color. One of the first signs your figs are becoming ripe is their change in color. Young, immature and unripe figs tend to be small and green in hue. For varieties like Brown Turkey, Chicago Hardy, Celeste, and LSU Purple, the color will change from green to brown or purple as the fruit ripens. In the case of certain fig varieties, like Kadota and LSU Gold, the fruit’s mature color is still greenish — so how do you rely on sight if the fig’s color doesn’t noticeably change? Read on!
Go by the appearance. The fruit itself will droop on the tree as it ripens. This is true for figs regardless of mature color. Young, firm figs tend to stand out perpendicular to the tree. As they ripen and soften, the fruit will bend at the stalk where it is attached to the tree.
Go by the size. As the fruit matures on the tree, it will also grow in size*. The mature size depends on the variety you are growing, but the figs will all increase in size as they begin to mature and ripen on the tree.
Touch:
A ripe fig will be soft to the touch when gently squeezed. Unripe figs are still firm. This is because the ripening process has not yet taken place, and the juices and sugars that are produced as the fruit ripens are not fully present.
Taste:
Ripe figs are delightfully rich and sweet with a soft, smooth texture when they are fresh from the tree. Unripe figs can be rubbery, dry, and lack sweetness. The most effective way to tell your figs are unripe is to eat one before its peak. Most people only eat an unripe fig once before deciding to wait and allow figs to fully ripen before harvesting.
Nice - thanks so much for finding that. I shall give a report when I taste them all as well :)
having a few trees of different varieties on my backyard I learnt that the "A ripe fig will be soft to the touch when gently squeezed. Unripe figs are still firm" rule is flawless. All others fail depending on the variety.
Good follow-up comment. In the past I waited a bit too long and they went black on me. This time I'll wait until they bow and are softer.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.186889
| 2015-06-02T04:00:24 |
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|
46994
|
I bought Mainland's vintage cheddar, it tastes... stale?
Normally I bought a cheddar slice, which I've been eaten since child. It has a smooth and milky taste. This time I wanted to try something premium so I bought the pricier, but same kind of cheese. (cheddar)
However, when I taste it the texture was very crumbly, the edge of cheese is riddled with white spots (is that germ/fungis?) and the taste is considerably "sour" and with bitter aftertaste. I can't believe this is the same "cheddar" cheese I have eaten!
The expiry date is next year.
So is this what they called vintage, crumbly texture and "with real/sharp bite"? What is "bite" anyway? When I searched for it all returned was cheese bites (the snack). Do vintage cheddar cheese normally taste like this? What kind of cheese I have to buy if I want a flavour more closer to sliced cheddar?
Those Kraft slices are not cheddar - they say American on them. Have you been buying something else, or are you really comparing cheddar to American?
Also, mold should be really obvious. Are the white spots just where it's crumbled a bit along the edge, or does it actually look like something growing on the surface?
You have accurately described eating ages cheddar cheese :-) Not everyone likes that, try a young cheese and work you way from there
Methinks you may need to widen your palate a bit. People who eat a nothing but processed, salty, fatty foods get habituated to it - food that isn't smooth, fatty, and salty doesn't seem right. Stick with it and get used to it, then never go back.
Pasteurized process cheese food: http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/CFRSearch.cfm?fr=133.173 Sounds like your Mainland cheddar had been sitting in the store to long, and developed mold spots. That'll give an off flavor. Crumbliness can be normal in aged cheddar.
Yuck, I got confused by the similarity of packaging. That is indeed American cheese and I have update the post with the correct picture of cheddar slices I have bought now.
I remember reading the package of those kind of slices and I believe it said that it containt like only 10% cheddar
Just be grateful that it's illegal to sell proper full-flavoured cheddar (made from unpasteurised milk) in the US.
Bite would be those sour/bitter notes you mention. Specifically bite, or sometimes edge, is the presence of flavor notes that can easily be unpleasant (sour, bitter, sharp, spicy), but which become quite interesting in smaller quantities and within a well-balanced flavor profile. The term itself is sort of joking, that this food bites back - "it's got a bite to it".
You have been lied to. I wouldn't call those things at the top of the page cheese, let alone cheddar. I'm not trying to be dismissive of your situation or culture, merely dismaying that British heritage has been misappropriated so poorly.
You are not the first person I've met who's had a strong first reaction to real cheese.
Kraft slices might technically be cheese but they're a hyper-processed abstraction of what traditional cheddar cheese really is. Like a cheap burger to a well matured steak, or a Lada Riva to a Porsche 911, the two cheeses are made from similar stuff, but they clearly aren't the same.
Real cheddar has been allowed to mature. It's sharp and strong and sour and a little crumbly. It is available in a wide selection of strengths, traditionally defined by the length of time it sits maturing (up to 24, even 36 months). It sounds like you've gone straight to most mature end of the scale!
Hard cheeses sweat and dry out and crystallise and that could explain the spots you're seeing:
Paler spots are more likely to be salt or protein crystals, but
Coloured spots, and fur could easily be mould and fungus.
If in doubt, just cut it off. A hard cheese is quite a resilient substance so unlike soft cheeses and yoghurts, you don't have to chuck them at the first sign of contamination. The sweating also means you need to look after your cheese properly. A paper layer before an air barrier is usually a good idea to wick away any surface seepage.
But cheese is amazing. I'd really, strongly suggest you stick with it though. Cheeses have amazing variety and have something for everybody (except the lactose intolerant, I guess). Visit a cheese shop, hand them a bunch of money and ask them to show you what you've been missing out on. You think I'm enthusiastic about cheese? You haven't seen anything yet!
Oh and if you've got a big block of mature cheese you can't bear to eat raw, try grating it and having it grilled (toasted sandwich, on pizza, etc). It loses a lot of its harshness but it's still delicious.
Terms like "bite" and "tang" are probably a regional variant on the strength scale I've been using: mild, medium, mature, extra mature and vintage. In short, it gives people a better idea of what they're buying.
-1 Kraft cheese like most proceed cheese is very much cheese, it is just "proceed". As a very small amount of sodium citrate is use to emulsify the cheese), the net effect is a raised sodium level not much else. It is still 100% cheese
Mainland cheddar vintage or mild taste fine, it is a mass market cheese made in very large batches, but is still essentially quality cheddar cheese
Meh, they share ingredients but in my book they're not cheese, rather just an amalgamation of highly processed rubbish. The tone of my answer is fuelled by the incredulity that somebody could think something squirted into a plastic pouch would have any relation to something that can take up to 24 months to mature.
Don't know Kraft brand explicitly, but check the ingredients, usually just cheese, other milk products and sodium citrate. That's it. "incredulity" doesn't carry well on a written forum due to different cultures and different experiences. OP from Thailand, cheese may not be a traditional product?
Just a tip, if you find real cheddar unpalatable, acclimatise yourself before trying something like Stilton.
Stilton is likely to make you go vegan if you can't handle cheddar ☺
@TFD there are very many different food products that are made from cheese - and that makes them 'not cheese'; in most places they can't even be labelled as cheese as that would be misleading consumers, you have to call it 'cheese product' or 'pasteurized process cheese food' to emphasize that it's related to cheese but not it.
@TFD From my point of view the ingredients are only part of the "experience". It's completely different to have a pile of parts and finished car. Yes both have the same ingredients, but the experience really differ. Same with cheese. The process is more important than the ingredients, that's why you cannot compare mass market and "artisan" cheese or any other product.
@TFD The reason Kraft Singles say "processed cheese product" on the label instead of just "cheese" is that the FDA (which is really loose in it's definitions of a food product are vs eg Europe's regulators) considers it too different from real cheese to use the same name.
There's some truth to what both sides are saying here. I think your answer is unnecessarily dismissive of the OP and snobby (for example, you seem to be saying that a really good mild cheddar is not good cheese). But it's also certainly true that Kraft Singles aren't much like good cheddar, even mild cheddar.
@Jefromi I'm not trying to be dismissive of the OP, I'll see what I can do about that... But regarding mild cheddar, I honestly can't remember a time when I've had really good mild cheddar. It has either been flavourless or too rubbery to abide. I would just pick another cheese if I wanted creamy. But that's just my opinion of my experiences. I'll make a point to ask for recommendations next time I'm cheese shopping, to see what the fuss is about :)
@Oli Thanks! I definitely like more she's cheddar too, but I know it's not a universal preference.
@TFD, Kraft singles (American) are not cheese slices, they are processed cheese product. They share some ingredients with cheddar cheese, but they are not cheddar. (However, I believe Kraft does produce actual sliced/block cheddar cheese as a different product.) While I much prefer actual cheddar, I grew up on such "cheese product" and don't mind eating it even now. I just choose the better stuff when given the choice! :)
Thanks everyone, I came to learn what is PROCESSED cheddar cheese now. (which is an actual cheddar mixed with emulsifier, salt and stuff then can be made to slices.) The name of processed cheese includes : singles, processed cheddar, cheddar spread (despite it's obviously a slice), etc. to differentiate itself from actual cheddar.
Also can someone explain "bite", "bitey", "sharp bite", "real bite" as advertised by some packaging?
+1 for the suggestion on storage. What I generally do is wrap the cheese in a paper towel, then put it in a plastic bag which I loosely seal. Also works for other hard cheeses (e.g. Parmigiano Reggiano and Pecorino Romano)
up to 24, even 36 months -- that's the low end for good aged cheddar! Great answer though.
According to reasonably reliable sources there are cheese options even for the lactose intolerant!
I'd like to add that after I read this answer I tried eating grilled hot dogs with cheddar cheese (sliced out of the block, no further preparation) and man, it's awesome all of the sudden! (The impression of that sour and bitter taste change from "Yuck" to "Ooh.." now. Weird!) Maybe I have developed the taste or maybe wording of this answer is just so convincing to me. Haha
@5argon - It is pretty common, actually, that with some foods the taste is too sharp (or too something) by itself but put it in a larger whole and the flavors can shine. A lot of condiments are like that, few would eat them by the spoonful but they add a lot to other foods.
If you bought a good cheddar, the white spots are most likely tyrosine crystals. They build up in the cheese during the aging process, and they are a very desirable feature which gives the cheese much more taste and character.
Well aged cheese has some acid and bitter notes, but mostly umami. It also has lots of cheesy aroma, which smells distinctly like proteins and fermentation, I don't know how to describe it else. It is distantly related to budding yeast.
The slices at the top are not cheddar, they are processed cheese. It probably started out with cheese made with a cheddaring process (but not taken to maturity), but frankly, all commercially processed cheeses taste the same, it doesn't matter what you started with.
There is unaged cheddar on the market. It is real cheddar, and has a very different texture from the processed cheese, but it is much milder in taste, having not yet developed its aroma. You can buy this one. As a pleasant side effect, it is much cheaper than the aged cheddar.
On the unaged cheddar note, surprisingly, the "Tasty Mainland Cheddar Cheese" is labeled as aged 18 months (vs. Vintage's 24 months) but actually pricier in Thailand!
@5argon Perhaps demand for the very sharp cheeses is low in Thailand
@5argon there are many factors involved in price setting. But the production costs of aged cheeses are much higher than those of young cheeses, so the overall trend is that aged ones are more expensive. But yes, specific examples can go against the trend.
Cheddar in England is the original home of cheddar cheese and the maturer the better. Some of the ‘plastic’ stuff that’s marketed as Cheddar in no way resembles the real thing. The more mature it is, the crumblier and sharper it is and it should have the whitish deposits running through it. It isn’t mould. It’s the only hard cheese I buy because most English cheeses are not on sale in New Zealand.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.187515
| 2014-09-09T05:25:09 |
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|
46808
|
Quail dries out when cooked
What can be done with quail to ensure that it doesn't dry out when cooked?
(note: the other question about tender quail, AFAICT, is specific to braising....my question is more about roasting, though advice about other cooking methods is also welcome!)
Inspired by How to prevent the chicken breasts from drying out
First post -- help with tagging and format appreciated!
How long are you cooking it for? Quail is small and lean, hot and fast is the way to go.
@ElendilTheTall Haven't done it in a while, for fear of messing up again....probably too long. About how long do you think it should be done for?
Quail is small and lean, so fast and hot is the way to go. 200C/400F in the oven for about 20 minutes is about right, but trying to cook meat properly by time and temperature is a mug's game. Get an instant read digital thermometer from Amazon and get it right first time, every time.
You are probably looking at an internal temperature of 70-75C for quail, though if it's wild it should be slightly more forgiving than chicken in terms of food safety.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.188469
| 2014-09-02T12:32:50 |
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|
6568
|
Deep frying - taste difference in saturated vs. unsaturated oil
In one of my questions I received answers that indicated using more saturated (Animal) fats would extend the life of my deep frying oil.
However - given proper maintenance / cleaning / good oil - how can the taste difference between fries made in saturated vs unsaturated oil be described?
(I use fries in the question as they are fairly neutral in flavor).
Fries cooked in animal fat will taste distinctly different than those fried in a neutral vegetable oil. They will be much richer in flavor and may make you weep with joy.
If you haven't had them, you must stop what you're doing and make some duck fat fries.
Here is a good recipe: http://hecooksshecooks.net/2009/03/duck-fat-french-fries/
Yessir. Will do.
It really depends on the fats and the oils used. Vegetable and canola oil are mostly neutral in flavor, but you can just as easily cook in olive oil which would add flavor to your fries. Animal fats can certainly add flavor to the food you're cooking as well, usually for the best (mmmm . . . pork lard)!
Typical (virgin) olive oil is far below the smoke point required for deep-frying. You could use the refined stuff - but that won't actually add much flavour.
@Aaronut I don't think it's that far below, but would probably not work well for deep frying . . . anyway, sesame oil has a higher smoke point, and would certainly add flavor (overpowering, really). My point was that all oils that you could fry in aren't flavorless.
You're right, it's not that far below, but when you're talking about smoke points, small differences matter a great deal (the oil either smokes or it doesn't). Unrefined sesame oil is also too low (refined is high enough, but again, isn't as flavourful as pure sesame oil). See this list of common smoke points. I certainly don't disagree with the gist of your answer, I just felt it necessary to point out in case somebody saw this and decided to attempt a deep-fry in extra-virgin olive oil.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.188711
| 2010-09-02T10:13:43 |
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73251
|
Choricitos a la sidra -- raw or cured?
I was shown this recipe for choricitos a la sidra -- small chorizo sausages cooked in cider. From the pictures it's not obvious if the sausage used is fresh (raw) or cured (ready to eat).
(Image courtesy of https://cookpad.com)
I'm thinking that there's not much sense in boiling cured choricitos (if such thing even exists) and the recipe implies raw sausage. However, I'm hoping to learn from those more familiar with Spanish/Portuguese cuisine: what's the usual way of making choricitos a la sidra -- from raw or cured chorizo?
There are a few recipes that cook cured chorizo so don't rule it out. This may not be completely authentic (though I've seen recipes in Spanish that imply it is) but it's common in countries where only cured chorizo is available.
The pciture most certainly appears to resemble small cured sausages to me - the texture and color of the casing is the giveaway. Presumably this version is made that way, and the boiling step softens and sweetens the sausages. (I'm not posting this as an answer because I'm not familiar with the dish and I don't know what's strictly traditional.)
The typical recipe from Asturias uses slightly cured (3-4 days) chorizos. But that's just the traditional recipe, you may want to try different chorizos (there are basically endless different kind of chorizos through Spain) and see what suits you.
Personally, I don't think a completely raw chorizo will withstand the cooking without coming apart, and a more cured one will probably end up being a flavourless dry bunch of meat.
Thanks. I'll try to get my hands on this slightly cured variety. I'm in North America, so this may not be easy. By the way, I tried this with raw chorizo and it turned out all right.
@mustaccio with raw I really meant "straight from the pig"... it's common to have raw chorizos on "matanzas" here (where they kill the pig and make the chorizos immediately). If you got the chorizo from a store in North America, it's already "slightly cured" :-)
@mustaccio btw, the spanish word for cider is "sidra" (with an "s"), not "cidra" :-)
Just to close off this argument, I finally tried this with fully cured chorizos and the result was not as good as with "raw" (store-prepared, so probably 1-2 days cured) sausages -- the apple flavour infused meat to a much lesser extent, and the sauce/sirup at the end of cooking was not so rich in flavours either, so from my limited experience it appears that the fresher (raw-er) the sausage, the better the result will be.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.188891
| 2016-08-19T01:45:43 |
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|
62108
|
Can I use chestnut roaster clay pot to roast coffee at home?
I got the attached clay pot chestnut roaster. Can I use it to roast coffee at home?
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.189103
| 2015-09-28T03:06:21 |
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|
59764
|
Can crumbled feta cheese last almost a year?
This question talks about feta cheese in a brine or milk bath lasting up to three months. What about crumbled feta?
I was looking through the fridge, and found a 1/2 pound open container of crumbled feta. I have only used about an ounce of it. There is no sign of mold on it, and it smells like feta cheese. A small sample tasted okay. The amazing thing is that I bought it in October or November: 8-10 months ago!
I have a recipe that calls for almost a 1/2 pound of feta, and I will be the only one eating it (so I'm not trying to impress anybody!).
I dislike wasting food, but I dislike being sick even more!
Is it safe to use dry crumbled feta that is so old?
Did you end up eating it? How did it turn out?
I go through a vast amount of feta. It is the queen cheese on my table, always present, and also my main one with my savory baking or salads. Feta is traditional cheese for my country, so I grew up with it, many types of it. My mom would buy many months worth feta and keep it in a brine in a huge pot, without putting it in a refrigerator. With high salt, feta is preserved perfectly. It really will not go bad for even an year if kept in the right salt concentration and if the cheese is fully immersed in the brine.
Here in the US, though, feta cheese many times has very little or no brine. Without brine, feta will go bad in a few weeks, even in a fridge. That was my first mistake I made when I moved to the US. I had to throw away tasteless softened feta after a few weeks. But I learned. I now buy feta either in brine in cans (Bulgarian made, for example), or only a smaller amount if it is in a plastic sealed pack. I don't spend time to make my own brine.
I use a lot of crumbled feta as well - for salads and baking. I do like ease of readiness to use crumbled feta.
Crumbled feta is sold with no brine at all in any store (which makes sense; it would just disintegrate and sediment at the bottom would become useless); so without brine it will go bad, get moldy - I've gone through that learning curve too.
I buy my crumbled feta from Costco, which is more than I need for my one use. My solution to that is just putting the cheese in the freezer. That way, I don't have to worry about it getting moldy or wasting it in case I don't use it soon enough. The freezer will preserve crumbled feta in its original condition, and it will thaw perfectly. I usually don't even thaw the whole pack; I just take what I need and quickly put the rest back in the freezer to avoid thawing the unused portion. If the cheese did not go through freeze-thaw cycle and is dry enough (no liquid added), it will not become single block of ice that will be hard to handle; it will stay as separate curdles if kept frozen all the time making it easy to scoop what you need.
You also can divide cheese in portions and freeze in Ziploc bags. Freezing works perfect for me. Hope this helps.
Incredibly useful answer from a true Feta expert. Thank you so much!
I wouldn't claim to be an expert, nor would I want to give bad health advice. But generally, it's easy to tell if a cheese is still safe to eat - if, as you said, it doesn't have mold that isn't supposed to be there, and doesn't smell. If it were me, I'd eat it as long as it still has the same texture, color, and smell as it started with.
I have eaten feta cheese for years after the expiration date. The feta is refrigerated tightly closed in the same container purchase and it’s crumbled feta. I have never seen signs of mold, as a matter of fact the older the feta the better it tastes. I purchased it from Sam’s wholesale and feta lasts for years. I haven’t had a problem but I don’t recommend it. However, it's my method and it works for me.
Thank you Rosetta. If you have a moment, can you edit your post for clarity? I'm having a little trouble understanding the part that states "I have never seen signs of mold matter of fact the older the feta the better it taste". Since you are a new user, I don't know if you have sufficient rep to edit even your own post. I upvoted your helpful post to get you started with a little rep to hopefully resolve that possible issue.
No, feta does not last that long. Once it is out of the brine, you have to treat it as a perishable food.
But crumbled feta is often sold without the brine to start with...
@Robert I have never seen feta without brine sold without refrigeration, crumbled or not
Right, but the OP said it was in the fridge.
And perishable food lasts a few days to weeks in the fridge depending on what kind it is, but never a year. Feta tends to get maybe 10 days in the fridge when open and brineless.
The crumbled non-brined feta in my fridge is good till July 19, so about a month to go. We bought it about 3 or 4 weeks ago, and I doubt it came fresh from the factory at that point.
Expiration dates on food apply to unopened food. Many milk products are packaged under sterilized conditions. It is like milk - the expiration date can be weeks in the future, but once you open it, it is only safe for 3-4 days.
Let us continue this discussion in chat.
According to eatbydate.com Feta Cheese should last a week past its printed date in the refrigerator unopened. The site suggests that soft cheeses do not have a long shelf life.
Should be fine. You have seen no sign of change in the cheese. Remember, making cheese is a way of preserving milk. And feta is cured in brine -- salt is a further preservative.
Surely there's a difference between feta that's still in brine and feta that's sitting in a tub of air?
I have been eating crumbled and block feta cheese at least two weeks after opening for years. We have never gotten sick although I have thrown it out if it became mushy or got a yellowish tint to it. I am just learning about getting listeria (scarey). I don't like wet feta; I like it dry on my salads, unless of course I put it in an omelet or extra inside spinach pie. In any case I am not saying you should do what I do but I do not agree that it only lasts 5-7 days after opening. Now as far as deli counter feta that's in brine I always ask for a certain size chunk and this kind does get dry and tinted after about 10 days so I throw it out. It's a rough judgement but good luck everyone and stay safe and healthy.
Soft cheeses are the #1 cause listeria if not handled properly. Feta typically has a 5-7 day shelf life, once opened, no matter what the expire date says. I would not risk eating any soft cheese that has expired shelf life.
Feta is not a soft cheese, and its salt content increases its shelf life whether opened or not.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.189178
| 2015-08-10T02:26:46 |
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|
64766
|
Storage options for Oyster mushrooms
Found about 5 pounds of Oyster mushrooms today in southern Ohio. First time for me. What is the best method of cleaning and storing for long term? Do these dehydrate well or should they be sauted and frozen? I know some mushroom are ruined with a water bath.
It's worth noting that collecting wild mushrooms can be extremely hazardous. Since you say this was your first time, unless you were with someone certified in mushroom identification, you may want to reconsider eating these. Mushrooms can be highly toxic and it can be difficult distinguishing the edible versions.
I showed a friend who hunts. Took pictures of the way they were growing on the tree, and did a spore print. I've been at it for a few years but these are a first time find for me. I was very sure what they were and had it verified a few ways. I'm confident these are Oyster mushrooms.
I haven't tried this myself but upon researching on the web, there are several ways that you can preserve mushrooms: (please click the sub headings for reference)
Freezing mushrooms -
Freezing your mushrooms will allow them to keep their great flavour,
but freezing leaves you with a soggier looking mushroom. Frozen
mushrooms are ideal for soups, stews and casseroles.
Using the method below your mushrooms should keep for about a year.
Bring 1 l of water to the boil with ½ a teaspoon of salt.
Add mushrooms and bring to the boil again.
Boil for another 3 minutes.
Rinse with cold water.
Drain thoroughly.
Seal in freezer bags.
Freeze.
Dehydrating mushrooms
Stored properly, dried mushrooms have a more potent flavour than fresh
ones, so you will use less dried mushrooms vs. fresh.
Directions for Drying
Pre-heat your oven to 150°.
Slice your mushrooms into slices about ½ cm. The thicker the slices, the longer they take to dry out.
Arrange your sliced mushrooms on baking trays in a single layer.
Bake your mushrooms for 1 hour and remove from oven.
Use some paper towel to gently dab any moisture that sweated out from your mushrooms.
Turn your mushrooms over and cook for another hour.
By now your mushrooms should be completely dry. If not, repeat Steps 4 and 5 until they are dry.
Allow them to cool, and then store them in an air-tight container in a cool, dark place.
Your mushrooms are ready to store when they feel dry when you touch
them. They should still be flexible A good idea is to add a wad of
paper towel at the bottom of the jar - just to absorb any moisture
that might still be lurking around.
To Rehydrate Put your mushrooms in a bowl of warm water for 30 minute
or if you are in a hurry, bring a pot of water to the boil and simmer
your mushrooms for 10 minutes Keep this liquid for stocks, soups and
sauces by pouring the liquid into an ice tray and freezing. When you
need it, just pop the frozen stock into the pot.
And these will both work well for oyster mushrooms specifically?
@Jefromi: The websites that I researched and included in my answer have these methods specifically for oyster mushrooms.
They can also be cut into pieces, and sautéed in salted butter until they are almost completely done....remove from the heat and let them cool down to room temperature....place meal sized portions in a freezer bag and place in the freezer...this process won't leave you with soggy frozen mushrooms.....a vacuum seal bag will let the mushrooms keep longer because you're removing the air from the bag.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.189696
| 2015-12-24T21:51:56 |
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|
60145
|
Storing chicken of the woods mushrooms
How can I store stored chicken of the woods?
Last year I tried dehydrating but it really doesn't bounce back too well. Could these be sauteed and then frozen for later use in sauces? They only come around once a year so I don't want to screw them up this time.
No first-hand experience with COW (but 20+ years of mushroom picking & cooking), hence as comment: According to my sources and personal experience with other mushrooms, freezing sautéed COW appears to be the best choice. COW needs sufficient cooking time to destroy components that cause indigestion in some people, yet get tough when cooked too long. So being stuck between a rock and a hard place, freezing seems better than pickling. And: not too many mushrooms dehydrate well, boletes & relatives and morels do, and as these are quite well-known, many people try drying all mushrooms.
Off topic, but those are some damn good-looking mushrooms.
@Stephie, I think your comment is enough to constitute a good answer.
You should freeze it. Sauté your mushroom in small chunks, (I would do it with onions and olive oil, but you don't have to), let it cool, and then put it in the freezer in an ice cube tray. Once it's fully frozen, pop the cubes out of the ice cube tray and put them in a plastic bag in the freezer. Whenever you want some chicken-of-the-woods, you can just take out some cubes and add it to a soup.
Sheephead (or Hen of the woods) have done well.....
I clean and then coat in a seasoned flour mix.
Lay out on baking sheet and freeze. Then put in freezer bag. When ready to use, heat oil in pan, take from freezer and put straight into hot oil. (Do NOT THAW FIRST)
They cook and crisp up, and taste like you just picked them.
I will do my COW the same way.
Cut in strips and fried taste just like chicken fingers.
Enjoy
As a mushroom variety that is associated with allergic reactions to some, I don't think it is advisable to dehydrate it. This would only serve to increase the concentration of toxins that likely cause the allergies in the first place.
As Stephie mentions in her comment the safest solution would be to pick and sauté only fresh young brackets, then separate and freeze them in portions as needed.
As a side note, most of the brackets you have there are quite large and mature. If you haven't eaten this particular mushroom before or are not sure of its origin, I wouldn't recommend eating them as they may cause the allergic reaction I mentioned or even vomiting and diarrhoea.
As another side note, try sautéing the fresh ones with butter a hint of Chardonnay and some teriyaki sauce.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.190062
| 2015-08-22T18:20:19 |
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|
22998
|
substuting cottage cheese for cream cheese in a cheesecake
Possible Duplicate:
Can I use cottage cheese instead of cream cheese when making a cheesecake?
Can I use cottage cheese and ricotta cheese together for a cheesecake which needs to be baked. I bought cottage cheese instead of cream cheese for a recipe, can I substitute?
How attached are you to your existing recipe? Do you have enough ricotta to simply make a ricotta cheesecake? There are also cottage cheese cheesecakes, though I've not personally tried them.
I'll note that if what you really like about cheesecake is the smooth, dense texture, then nothing other than cream cheese will do. You can make a cake out of all sorts of other types of cheese, but they won't be cheesecake. (If all I had was cottage cheese and ricotta, I'd acquire or make some egg noodles and make kugel. Much better use of the ingredients.)
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.190328
| 2012-04-13T05:24:14 |
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|
61808
|
How can I prevent the cocoa in my hot chocolate from solidifying over time?
I make my own hot chocolate by making a slurry of cocoa powder and warm milk being sure that the chocolate is nicely melted and smooth. Then I add the rest of the milk and heat it the rest of the way. I just use the microwave for single-servings. No chocolate clumps -- everything's GREAT.
However, by the time I start to get to the bottom of my cup, the chocolate has started to "fall out" of the milk clumping on the bottom. I can re-heat and re-incorporate it, but I'd rather avoid the problem altogether. Any ideas?
Related questions -- These address the initial creation of a smooth mixture and not the longevity.
Dissolving cocoa powder in milk
How can I make milk cocoa powder so it does not stick to the top and bottom?
A mug warmer? I'm not actually sure this would do what you want, but it couldn't hurt.
Apply heat.
It's not quite what you were looking for, but it's probably the only solution that won't involve adding chemicals.
Basically, a set amount of milk can hold a specific amount of chocolate in suspension. The hotter it is (below boiling), the more it can hold. That's why as the milk cools, the chocolate it can no longer hold falls to the bottom of the cup.
The three options are:
Keep it warm, by using a mug warmer (like Catija suggested). If it doesn't cool, it won't lose the ability to hold the chocolate.
Start with less chocolate, that way, it won't be too much for the milk when it's cooling. Obviously, this will affect the flavour.
Add chemical additives, like emulsifiers, which will allow the milk to hold more chocolate.
As I said at the beginning, I think the best option is the first one. Apply heat.
Thanks -- good and informative. It sounds like I'll just have more excuses to take breaks :)
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.190451
| 2015-09-17T19:16:36 |
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|
65575
|
What is this part of the mushroom? Is it safe to eat?
Is the part I indicated in the picture safe to eat? It looks like mold? Sometimes the mushrooms I buy have it, sometimes they don't. I wonder what it is!
And what about this one?
This part of the mushroom is perfectly edible. It's a structure called a partial veil which protects the spore-producing gills on the underside of the mushroom cap, usually while the mushroom is still immature. They open as the cap grows larger, exposing the gills and releasing the spores which produce new mushrooms.
It's pretty common to see these on white and brown common mushrooms (which have a huge number of other names) since they are actually an immature form of the "portobello". Since it's a delicate structure, it's a pretty good indicator for how well the mushrooms have been handled and transported; intact veils will usually indicate a recently-harvested mushroom that has been kept well hydrated. If the veil is a little ragged or partially open, that's fine too.
Note that this applies only to the common mushroom; other varieties may or may not have veils.
Cool! So if I get it right, the mushroom in the 2nd picture is younger than the mushroom in the 1st picture?
@KevinVanRyckegem Perhaps, but not necessarily. The first one could have been exposed to air and dried out a little more, which can cause the veil to shrink and retract. Mushrooms also don't grow at an exact rate, so it's a little hard to tell based on pictures alone.
That is the "Ring" left by the "Veil" of the mushroom.
The veil is a thin piece of tissue that covers the gills of some species of mushrooms when they are young, before the mushroom has matured.
When the mushroom nears maturity, the veil separates from the cap to reveal the gills, allowing them to spread their spores & sometimes leaves a ring of tissue attached to the stem.
In short, yes it is safe to eat. If any part of the mushroom has become overly slimy or obviously moldy, you should think twice about eating it.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.190648
| 2016-01-18T19:19:45 |
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|
63941
|
Is it ok to use an enamelled Dutch oven on an electric stove top with the older ring burners?
I bought my first enameled Dutch oven and I've been trying to do some research on whether or not I can use it on the older electric ring burner stove tops without it cracking on me.
If anyone could give advice it would be much appreciated.
Is it enameled on the OUTSIDE of the bottom? My rather ancient Le Cru... has a large hole in the enamel job (from the factory) corresponding to the bottom exterior of the pot, which just happens to be the part that contacts the burner. Probably also where the pot sat while the enamel was being baked on in the first place. It has held up to that type of burner just fine. I don't use it for frying/searing (I use a plain cast iron frying pan for that) but it cooks on the stovetop (or in the oven) just fine.
Oh sure, you can use an enameled Dutch oven on that type of stove. That type of burner (hob) is still the most common in the US; I haven't had anything but that type (in my home) in my adult life. An enameled cast iron Dutch oven will discolor when used on any stove, but it wont crack unless allowed to burn "dry" or if the pan was defective to begin with.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.190966
| 2015-11-29T06:18:29 |
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|
64055
|
Where can I find this exact spatula, with a short handle and asymmetric head?
What kind of spatula is this? My boyfriend's father has this and I want to get him a new one for Christmas but cannot find it. It does not have a brand on it and he does not know where the spatula came from.
Are there any markings on it at all? Also, some measurements might be useful -- it looks to be to be really, really, short handled, but that might be an issue w/ shortening due to the angle the picture was taken at.
It is a very short handle. I am not sure on the exact measurements, but it may not even be 12 inches long.
This looks like an "adaptive utensil" meant for those with arthritis or other difficulties in grasping and fine motor control - the handle is unusually thick and contoured, and the head is much closer in. Amazon has a number of these, notably the OXO Good Grips, but nothing that matches this one exactly. You may want to check out the local pharmacies.
I have what looks like that exact spatula and I know I got it as a set and I think from Sam's Club.
Oh my good gouda I have been looking for this EXACT kind of spatula for months now! Did you ever find out where you can get this or even what its proper name is?
Sarah, do you have any more clues to the infamous spatula? (eg, do you remember there being any markings on it? Also, was it completely straight like the rice paddles, or was there a bend between the head & handle?
I too have been looking. We used to get them at Fred Meyers, but they haven't had them for ten years.
I broke my tool several months ago and I'm looking for exactly the same one that was pictured above! This is the first time I have ever seen the identical one in my search, Sad, but Glad that I am not alone in my search! Mine came in a Set of 5 utensils as shown in this picture. The only mark on the hand grip is "China" but for some reason I'm thinking this may have been a Costco purchase, just not sure!
I couldn't find an exact match but the short, squat shape with a straight top edge suggests that it's for stirring and/or scraping. The flat shape (ie. that although the head is angled at the top, the whole head isn't angled) and thick, inflexible design suggest that it isn't supposed to be used for flipping; this would be very difficult as rim of the pan would get in the way - even if it weren't a problem, you would still have the problem of your knuckles being too close to the pan to avoid burning.
The nearest equivalents I could find are:
A Saute paddle:
This is probably the best match. The tool that OP pictures seems good for scraping a pan and will take some force being applied. The angle at the top will also make this easier on the wrist. Slots are also common.
Or, failing that
A Rice spoon/spatula:
The overall size and shape are close to a traditional rice spatula/spoon. The angled head is a common design, though less common than round heads. Slots however, are unusual.
That looks like something made for Walmart or target or the like, however that style of spatula looks like a "slotted nylon broad fish turner" google that and variations of that as a search term to find a good match.
I don't know why fish turners aren't more popular in the average home, but they are great tools. Since I don't use Teflon coated pans I prefer stainless, but even so they are great flipping tools.
I will definitely look on google for that! Thank you so much for your help!
Good point ... the asymmetric head + short handle would be rather similar to a fish spatula. (I'm used to them having less coverage (more gaps / large slots) than other styles, so that didn't come to mind right away)
That's not a fish-slice. The short, squat shape, thick blade and flat angle to the pan (if that makes sense?) would make it very, very difficult to use for that. To me it looks more like a variation on a sushi rice spatula.
example of rice spatula - https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSVj8AOb608uhpxpAVgmjlwE4SgBCz5wjMJRCT-n8-5l-sYaWWr
@Niall Try digging out rice with that plastic spatula. It ain't gonna work. Honestly the closest traditional tool to this spatula is the fish turner. I looked thoroughly.
@Escoce Keep in mind that it's for sticky, starchy rice that will come up in clumps, not Uncle Ben's. It's a traditional tool used for this purpose, not something I just made up. Whether or not the tool OP shows is a rice spatula, I don't know, but they're certainly similar.
Exact shape as the spatula that come with my rice cooker.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.191119
| 2015-12-02T21:14:37 |
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|
72984
|
What is the white residue on pots after cooking beans or lentils?
One of the most important maintenance items around the house is to keep the cooking pans in perfectly clean condition. I consider this to be by far the most important DIY item to stay healthy at home.
On occasion I find there is some particularly resilient residue.
The white layer you see in the picture has the habit of showing up after cooking beans or lentils. While boiling anything else, it's enough to make sure there is a reasonable amount of water left in the pot for it to remain easily cleanable, but beans and lentils leave this particular residue. This suggests that it is not caused by water hardness.
What is this residue and what is an effective way to get rid of it?
Do you rinse the beans/lentils before cooking them? Also are the scrape marks in the pot itself?
That white stuff is usually starch residue. If you put some hot water in the pot and some baking soda in it and let it soak overnight , it should be easier to clean, failng that,you could try cider vinegar and hot water
Vinegar and hot water usually does the trick. I may follow up with a little cleanser I use on my glass top stove. Bright and shinny, with no scratch marks!
Welcome to Seasoned Advice! Good answer on how to clean up the residue.
If it's stainless steel or porcelain-finished, spray it with lime-away, let it sit for a few seconds and then wash it with soap and water. No scrubbing needed.
I didn't believe it until I tried it.
I use a bit of white vinegar brought to a light boil, then let it sit for a bit. Anything left after that Bar Keepers Friend I use it on the inside of the pot with a scotch brite pad (if necessary), and then a bit on my damp wash cloth for the outside as well. Cleans and polishes the shiny stainless or aluminum.
P.S. it works on stains on my chrome and aluminum car rims too.
Bar Keeper's friend cleaned them up in snap for me.
Welcome to [cooking.se]! Not everybody (including me) knows what Bar Keeper's Friend is, can you please elaborate?
After washing I slash a touch of white vinegar in the pan and give it a good wipe. Works every time.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.191543
| 2016-08-09T01:46:14 |
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|
78301
|
How much fat can be removed after cooking medium ground beef into sauce?
I bought medium ground beef when I intended to buy lean beef. I don't want to consume that amount of fat.
Suppose I fry the meat then add tomatoes (on the way to a Bolognese sauce), cool the result overnight in the fridge, and then discard the fat on top (which would be 100% saturated, I presume). Would I have discarded the majority of the fat?
Update
Relevant ideas can be found here and there.
Try frying it off as normal and then removing any unwanted fat by either straining or tipping (whilst hot/warm).
Is straining or tipping more effective than cooling overnight? Now that I think of it, perhaps straining followed by leaving on a paper towel is best. But then we'd worry about the chemicals in the paper towels. I asked: http://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/78303/41295
Hello Calaf, we prefer to have straight questions here. Your reasons to not want eating the fat, or self-castigation about buying what you did not want to buy, is distracting from the real question, and in this specific case, may even invite health debates (which are off topic). I removed that part, and left the question itself.
Also, don't forget to take a look at the "Related" panel on the right hand, the system there tries to find questions which might interest you and usually does a good job of it. In this case, the top related question is http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/10283/how-do-you-properly-drain-the-grease-after-browning-ground-beef?rq=1, which is what you asked in the comment.
I can only comment as to what I would do in this case. I would strain it and, if needed there after use kitchen towel to blot away anything else I didn't want - however, careful you don't 'blot' away juices etc that you do want. If kitchen towels are a no no for you, how about using a clean (and I mean clean clean) t towel. I know, a bit of serious washing of it afterwards, but what the heck! Perhaps you could look for a kitchen towel that is sort of chemical free - hypoallergenic? Your thoughts?
@rumtscho I see your point. But I would have loved to hear feedback about the kinds of lighting in a store that merchants could have used (unscrupulously, but legally) to confuse the fat content. Should I take my own flashlight, with an intact blue/green spectrum, to be certain? That's for sure an altogether different question.
We discourage asking two questions in one. You could try asking such a question about lighting separately, I don't know how the community will react. We have a rule to not ask "rants disguised as questions" and this can encroach that territory - it may work if you word it neutrally, though.
Mixing with sauce is problematic as the fat will mix with the sauce.
Fry just the meat slowing and break it up very fine. While hot strain it in a metal colander. You can even pat dry with paper towels.
Then mix with cooked sauce. It will not be as good but you saved the meat.
Even if you buy lean fat will drain.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.191737
| 2017-02-10T16:31:25 |
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|
73326
|
Do flavors remain on an enameled skillet?
A simple test to determine whether particles from cooking remain in the skillet and get absorbed by a subsequent meal is to cook fish (or something particularly spicy) and then wash the pan carefully. If you can detect that flavor in the next dish, some kind of leaching is going on.
After many years of using tri-ply, I can confirm that I've never detected this pan-to-dish flavor exchange to occur. I've burnt food on stainless steel many times, and when that happens it takes a lot of scrubbing with Bar Keepers Friend to get the carbonized food out, but the pot comes out as good as new. The trouble with tri-ply is that the bottom of pots remain perfectly flat, but skillets warp, making them tiresome to use on ceramic stoves.
I'm contemplating a new type of cookware. Given the uncertainty of whether a cast-iron skillet's seasoning makes it into the food, I'm skipping this type of cookware. Instead, I am looking into enameled cast iron.
I'd like to focus on just the flavor. If we assume that the cook cares for the enamel so it doesn't chip or similar, will there be flavor transfer between dishes?
Hello Calaf! Outright requests for personal observation are not welcome. They fall under the "primarily opinion based" close reason. Instead of closing, I changed the formulation of your question to be more neutral. People are still free to mention their personal experience, but they are not limited to it.
Enamel is a very hard-wearing, non-porous surface. It's very similar to the glaze on porcelain. A well-washed mug doesn't make your tea taste of coffee.
As a more personal example, we've got a couple of enameled cast iron dishes. While we mostly use them for quite strongly flavoured foods we don't hesitate to use them for more delicate foods as well. They go through the dishwasher in between. Here's what one well-known manufacturer says (among other things): "vitreous enamel surface is impermeable and therefore ideal for raw or cooked food storage, and for marinating with acidic ingredients such as wine."
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.191993
| 2016-08-22T14:08:48 |
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73306
|
How do you know that the cast iron seasoning does not leach into your food?
It is well established in the scientific literature that those cooking on stainless steel cookware get a portion of their daily iron intake from the iron in the pan that makes it into the food:
Geerligs, Brabin, and Omari, Food prepared in iron cooking pots as an intervention for reducing iron deficiency anaemia in developing countries: a systematic review, J Hum Nutr Diet. Aug 2003, Vol. 16, Num. 4, pp. 275-81.
Kollipara and Brittin, Increased iron content of some Indian foods due to cookware, American Dietetic Association. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, Vol. 96, Num. 5 (May 1996)
Kuligowski and Halperin,
Stainless steel cookware as a significant source of nickel, chromium, and iron, Arch. Environ. Contam. Toxicol. (1992) Vol. 23, Num. 211.
For most people that's not a bad additional nutrient, and those who saw family use a stainless steel pan surviving a lifetime know that the lost steel will not wear a pan out, not even after decades of use.
I'm now giving up on finding a tri-ply skillet whose bottom will remain perfectly flat. Since I cook on ceramic, a cast iron skillet is a good option. I'm hoping this would lead to steaks cooked perfectly evenly.
Suppose I'll use the cast iron skillet for literally just steaks, I'm concerned about the burned fat from the skillet's seasoning that will leach out to the steaks—in analogy with what happens when cooking in stainless steel cookware.
When you cook with cast iron, how do you know that some of the fat from the food you're cooking makes it to the skillet, but never the other way around. How do you know that the burnt pan "seasoning" does not make it into your food? Without some kind of confirmation that the burnt pan seasoning is safe, it would be nice to confirm that this does not occur in even trace amounts?
I'm guessing that deglazing the pan after cooking steaks would only increase the chance of this leaching in the undesirable direction. Hints for safe deglazing are also welcome.
update: A possible litmus test to determine potential leaching is to wipe with a paper towel.
I'd just note that if your primary reason for switching to cast iron is because of fear of warping, just know that cast iron can warp too, though it's rare. But if you do a lot of searing at high temperatures, etc. with cast iron, some pans will warp. I've seen it personally with a thick vintage cast iron skillet I own (and which is now practically useless on flat-top stoves). On the other hand, over the years I've owned quite a few cheap tri-ply pans, and I've only had one warp significantly on me. YMMV.
Fat turning into slimy bloodsuckers and invading the food, hmmm. What horror movie are you posting from? I don't want to watch it by accident. Hint - look up leach and leech, they are not the same. I also seriously doubt the validity of your "I read it somewhere" presupposition that stainless steel is a significant source of dietary iron.
I don't get the paper towel thing - as answers there say, you can easily get a thin layer of burned food on the pan, and that will turn a paper towel black, without any seasoning coming off. Are you thinking of seasoning as being burned food?
@Jefromi seasoning is burned food. A rather specific kind, if you manage it well, but still. There are people who don't season a new pan at all and simply cook with fat daily, waiting to build up by itself.
@rumtscho Should've been clearer: burned food besides polymerized oil. If the oil's fully polymerized, it won't rub off, so if something black is rubbing off on a paper towel, it's something else burned on there besides the seasoning, or something you've not bothered to clean off. (Might be deliberate, as you say, but it's still not the seasoning rubbing off.)
I'm not sure I want to get involved in this question, since I think any answer I attempt will skirt too close to "health effects" issues and thus be off-topic. Suffice it to say that--in my opinion--you're probably looking in the wrong place if you're worried about cast iron seasoning flakes. The concentration of hazardous compounds is going to be much greater in seasoning fumes/smoke than in the large polymerized chains in finished seasoning. For that matter, the amount of nasty compounds in browned/charred pan-fried steak itself is likely to be higher than from the seasoning oil.
@Athanasius The leaching concern I assume is originating from a concern about the health implications? (at least it is for me) If so, then in that case a 'health effects' reply would not be off topic?
You don't know it. In fact, I think that trace amounts of it end up in the food. With very new seasoning or also badly made seasoning, I have seen some "wear out" on pebbly pans. Not outright flaking, simply the hills of the pebbles looking a different, unseasoned color after dryish cooking on higher temperatures.
The sources you read are a further hint. The one you linked is the only one I've ever seen claiming that stainless steel provides dietary iron, and it is written confusingly, starting to talk about SS but later saying that it is iron pans which contribute to dietary iron. There is some exchange in matter between the pan itself (beneath the seasoning) and your food, and as far as I am aware, also between the seasoning and your food.
Third, the above is about standard, well made seasoning, which still gets somewhat abraded and repaired in microscopic amounts with each cooking. If you manage to burn stuff onto seasoning (carbohydrates in combination with high temperature are the worst there), it won't clean completely with scrubbing, but will continue coming of with use. No visible residue in the food, but months later, the rough charcoal structure will be gradually gone.
I don't have any firm sources from somebody who measured this in a lab. But from everything I have observed while using and misusing seasoned pans, there is some transfer happening in both directions, in trace amounts.
Have you ever had the experience, when cooking in stainless steel, of the oils browning onto the edges of the pan? You know, the brown gunk that is really tough to clean off...it usually takes a scrub pad, some elbow grease and some abrasive cleaner. That is polymerized oil. The idea behind seasoning a cast iron pan is to create a surface of polymerized oil. It's not burnt oils. It is really a pretty tough surface when done correctly. On top of that you would typically add some fat (for example when searing), though that might not be necessary depending on your cooking method. The idea that the seasoning would somehow contaminate your food is hard to imagine. A well seasoned cast iron pan will generally hold up to deglazing...and even a light washing with soap and water. This is how I think about it as an informed cook. I would welcome a more informed response from any one with expertise in the actual science.
The only time that I can think of when the seasoning would get into your food is when you scrape the bottom w/ a metal spatula or similar. But you actually want to use metal utensils to knock down any high points that might form to get a smooth surface. So it's possible that I'm eating it ... but it's just going to pass through you, like sawdust in diet 'high fiber' muffins. (okay, technically, cellulose, but it comes from wood)
@Joe The assumption you state (passing through you) is quite a steep one. It would be nice if that's the case. If the seasoning on the pan is a result of the Maillard Reaction (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maillard_reaction), then perhaps it's not too bad, but given that the recipe for (re-)seasoning involves burning oil at somewhere between 350F and 400F, the compound may be a bit more sinister.
@Calaf : well, cast iron pans have been used for centuries ... if they're killing us, it's very likely that we'd know it by now. And no, it's not maillard -- that's for proteins, like caramelization is for sugars. This is polymerization (cooking oil to become a type of plastic). If you're burning it, you're doing something wrong.
@Joe We're on to something. With any new stove, I find it's essential to experiment until I nail down the temperature at which I get the perfect omelette (and steaks, etc..). It turns out this is the Maillard temperature. Now you seem to be suggesting that there is a similar temperature I should be seeking when seasoning a cast iron skillet. It should be higher than the one I'd be using for cooking, but not so high to cause burning of the fat. Does this temperature have a name? I seek Maillard with butter. How do I seek that polymerization temperature?
You seek that polymerization temperature by finding a good seasoning guide and seasoning at the temperature it tells you to use. It will either give you a surface temperature to measure, or an oven thermostat setting to use (oven seasoning is easier), or tell you what to look for when seasoning to recognize that you are doing it right.
@rumtscho, so that sounds great, and exactly what I (and others) probably need. Can you therefore point us in the direction of such a seasoning guide, as this would help more than just saying we need a good guide, cos thats why we're here reading this question.
@redfox05 I don't have a specific guide in mind, you have to search around until you find one that works for you. Also, if "how do I season a pan" is what you need, then this question is irrelevant for you anyway. You could start with http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/641.
Yes some of the seasoning as in polymerized fat and oil will dissolve into the food. It is just oil - I find no indication it is toxic. If it was toxic should not be using it for seasoning in the first place. It is a very small quantity.
And I don't agree with the word leach here. Part or (maybe even all) of the surface coating is dissolved. Maybe even a little will ware off. Leach is to exact a component from a solid such as an acid will leech some iron from a cast iron pot.
leach WIKI
@JonTakagi You can create a new room yourself if you like. Actually moving requires either discussing long enough for the site to automatically suggest it, or a mod's help. Since I happen to be here... moved to chat.
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.192190
| 2016-08-21T20:03:18 |
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54156
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Clarification needed on pots and pans in the dishwasher
So I know from a previous question that you are ok putting glass, glazed ceramics, silicone and stainless steel in the dishwasher, and that you should avoid putting non-stick coated, aluminium, copper, cast-iron, tin, wood, unglazed ceramics, etc in the dishwasher.
However, I'm in the market for a new set of pots and pans, and would like to know what I should be aiming for. At the moment, I have a skillet set:
4 inch non-stick - ruined
6 inch non-stick - ruined
8 inch non-stick - ruined
12 inch non-stick - not ruined
12 inch cast iron skillet - babied
During previous bouts of laziness, I've put them in the dishwasher and thus ruined the non-stick coating on most of them (the cast iron skillet is babied and never goes into the dishwasher). I also have a 14 quart pot, which is showing its age, and an 8 quart pot which had its bottom corroded to the point where a hole appeared (thus, leaky pot).
As an avid (and lazy when it comes to washing dishes) home cook, what should I be looking for in a set of pots and pans? At a minimum, what should I have in terms of sizes and types. I'd prefer to purchase them separately rather than buying a set (budget is not a limiting factor). Additionally, I'd love for them to be dishwasher safe, but I can add a few more 'hand wash only' items like my cast iron skillet.
EDIT
Per a comment below, this question pretty much answers my question.
So you say you want a new set of pots and pans but then you talk about your set of skillets. Since you're looking to buy individual pieces, could you be more specific about what pieces you'd like to have? Also, have you looked at ScanPan? I have one of their 12 inch skillets and it's awesome. You can use metal tools on it but NOTHING sticks to it. They are also generally DW safe, though they recommend wiping clean and only DWing every 3-4th use.
Sorry, new commenting because I clearly can't read but I don't want to delete the previous comment to hide my shame. Maybe what would really help is knowing the number of people you're cooking for and what types of cooking you like to do.
@Catija - sorry, pots and pans includes skillets in my vocabulary :) I have not heard of ScanPan, but will look into it. As for number of people, typically my wife, my daughter and I. However, we do hold dinner parties that can balloon to 15 to 20 people. As to the type of cooking, everything would be putting it lightly (american, french, italian, hispanic, asian, mediterranean). We're very adventurous when it comes to food and what we cook every day (for instance, I baked a from-scratch mocha cake and cake-biscuits at 2am last night.)
@logophobe I saw that question when I was searching for questions similar to mine. While I did keep in mind that this question might raise the opinion-based flag, I hope it doesn't, as I'm not looking for specific "this is what you should get because I love it", rather "you might find skillets in x,y,z size, an x quart pot, and this other pan useful in your kitchen".
I think my advice still stands from an earlier, highly similar question : http://cooking.stackexchange.com/a/18272/67
@jsanc623 The killer words there are "might" and "useful". Might in how many cases, and useful how? You've added some helpful details by noting that you cook a lot of different cuisines, and sometimes for larger groups. But this ultimately reduces down to "What cookware is flexible and easy to clean?" which sounds like it might devolve into a list of opinions. Keep in mind - this is just my perspective. Others may feel differently. You can always ask in meta if you're not sure whether this would be on-topic.
@logophobe I totally understand now that you've pointed out 'might' and 'useful' amongst others. Perhaps I should simplify/reword my question. Though, the link that Joe posted pretty much answers my question to a T.
@jsanc623 I've closed this as a duplicate since you seem to be pretty happy with the old question. But if there are pieces you feel it doesn't answer, please please ask them! Notably your title makes it seem you're interested in knowing about putting pans in the dishwasher, which the other question definitely doesn't really answer.
Thank you @Jefromi. No further items left unanswered thankfully :)
Aha, there's also already a question about putting pots and pans in the dishwasher: http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/44807/pots-and-pans-in-the-dishwasher
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.192947
| 2015-01-29T18:38:04 |
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95725
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What is the historical origin of the sauté cooking technique?
Although the term sauté is used colloquially in the US to refer to other types of frying, it is a specific cooking technique that involves high heat and constant movement of the ingredients in the pan.
According to Wiktionary's entry for the word sauté:
Definition: To cook (food) using a small amount of fat in an open pan over a relatively high heat, allowing the food to brown and form a crust stopping it from sticking to the pan as it cooks.
Etymology: Borrowed from French sauté, past participle of sauter, to jump, in cooking, diced onions jump in the pan from the hot oil, resembling a ballet dancer performing a "saute".
Sauté - Wiktionary
So the word sauté comes from the French verb "to jump".
Did this high-heat, constant-movement cooking technique actually originate in France, or did the English language just borrow the word because it was popular there? Do we have any records of where and when this cooking technique originated historically?
It's used much more in American than British English (we use "fry" more for shallow frying). I wonder if this gives some hints.
Maximillian: i've expanded my answer, please check if it answers your question.
According to The Oxford Companion To Food (1999 ed.):
Originally, in France, a sauté was a dish of meat of poultry cut
into pieces and cooked only in fat, but the French now also use the
term for dishes which simply involve browning a food before adding a
liquid.
It also says:
The word ... has succeeded in migrating to English in both [noun and verb], with
the same accent.
So, the answer is that it did come from French, because it was a word in French for a cooking technique, and crossed over to English for the same technique.
The Oxford doesn't give a year for when this crossover supposedly occurred, but my guess is sometime in the mid-19th century. This is because the word originated in French supposedly in the early 1800's, so it couldn't be older than that. And the English version is likely to be younger than the popularity of the dish
Sauté d’agneau, because that dish uses the later French meaning of the word, to fry and then cook in liquid, which is "braising" in English and definitely not sauteing.
But we can narrow it down further. The first mention of the word I can find in an English-language cookbook is in the 1827 edition of The Art of French Cookery. It does not appear in the 1822 edition of The Cook's Oracle, nor in the 1823 edition of Domestic Cookery. So it seems to have appeared as a French term in British & American recipes the 1820's and been appropriated as an English term sometime later.
ADDED TO ANSWER:
There's good reason to believe that the sauté technique, at least as a widespread practice, did not exist for more than a few decades earlier than the word in French did.
The reason for this has to do with cooking technology. Through most of the 18th century, a majority of cooking was still done on open hearths, using a spider pan rather than a frying pan on a stove. Moving the pan to make ingredients "jump" -- an essential element of sauteing -- is very difficult with a spider.
So sauté as a common cooking technique would not have preceded iron stoves as common cooking surfaces, which didn't happen until the end of the 18th Century.
Of course you can't rule out that Sauté d’agneau has evolved in parallel, but more importantly the noun for the dish and the verb (usually) for the technique used as a step in making that dish don't have to carry the same meaning. But these are minor doubts, +1
... Sauté potatoes (probably the most common use of the word in Britain) use the original meaning of rapidly frying (par-cooked) ingredients, which is an example that runs counter to yours (I'm trying to think of something specific that I've had in France that omits the liquid, as that's optional in your Oxford quote)
Chris: I'm not a French speaker, so I'm going entirely off of Oxford here which claims that both the frying and the braising usage are concurrent in France, but not England.
I don't disbelieve Oxford, but I think, from visiting France with only tourist-grade French, that the frying usage is much more common than the braising. I must admit, these quibbles would be more appropriate on English.se - and that's where I thought this question was at first
Updated my answer based on some research about cooking technology.
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.193408
| 2019-01-17T01:14:10 |
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78261
|
What is the name of this Czech bread?
I recently went to a Czech restaurant and ordered the meal pictured below. It was well made and is one of my favorite meals at that restaurant. I want to try and make the "bread" (if that's what it's called) that was on the dish, but I can't figure out what it is. Here's a photo of it:
My best guess is that it's some kind of potato bread.
It might help if you would include the name of dish you ordered and, perhaps, the restaurant.
Did it taste baked? I have a vague memory that Czech cuisine has a kind of Serviettenknödel, that would be old bread shaped into lumps, packed in cheesecloth, and steamed or cooked. The picture looks more like that than like baked bread. Another possibility is a pancake-like item.
@rumtscho may have hit on it; google image Serviettenknödel (and +1 for that recall).
@rumtscho I think it was baked, and your description sounds right- I'll look it up to see. Thanks!
I can't tell for 100% certain from that photo, but I believe it may be Houskove Knedliky, a sort of unstuffed dumpling common to many Czech dishes. The variety in your image looks similar to Houskove Knedliky v Ubrousku, literally "Bread Dumplings [cooked] in a Napkin":
http://www.trixicooks.com/2015/10/houskove-knedliky-v-ubrousku.html
You can find several recipes for that variety of houskove knedliky, though when I lived in the Czech Republic ordinary houskove knedliky (i.e. not the "in napkin" style) were far more common as sides to dishes like Svickova, Gulas, etc.:
http://recepty.vareni.cz/kynute-houskove-knedliky/
If you want to find recipes for ones made from potatoes, add the word "bramborove" to your searches. Here's one example I found:
http://www.mimibazar.cz/recept/94046/bramborove-knedliky-v-ubrousku
Are there also some which are both in a napkin and with potatoes?
This one appears to be: http://www.mimibazar.cz/recept/94046/bramborove-knedliky-v-ubrousku
Unfortunately I'm not too much of an expert on Czech cuisine despite living there for two years
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.194104
| 2017-02-09T17:31:57 |
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67958
|
Pasta edges break when being rolled in pasta machine
When I make pasta, and roll it through my pasta machine, the edges always end up cracking up a little. It becomes quite difficult to pass it through the machine without it tearing and dividing my pasta in half.
The resulting pasta is not bad per se, but it feels like I may be doing something wrong in the pasta-making process.
I follow recipe quantities - usually 3 whole eggs and two yolks to 500g "00" flour. Bring together on the work surface. Knead for a while and wrap in a damp cloth, leaving it to rest for 30 mins or more.
I then roll through the machine on the largest setting, folding over a couple of times before reducing the settings down to the smallest one.
Here is an example of the cracked edges I see.
As you can see, it's also hard to maintain a good direction as it goes through the machine.
Alas, my pasta rarely looks like the stretchy, silky pasta that you see being thrown around by professional chefs. What might I be doing wrong?
Do you dial it down gradually, or do you go from the largest setting to the smallest in one go?
@BaffledCook gradually
I'm guessing the pasta is too moist. I'm not an expert, but the recipes I've seen are probably dryer.
@BaffledCook It seems strange that moisture would be a hindrance. Conventional wisdom might suggest that moisture helps to bind things. Do you have any example evidence or science to back this up? Thanks.
When you fold it over to run it through again, are you rotating it 90deg?
@Dalton Not sure how strict I am about turning it after folding. For example, I can't remember how many degrees I turned the one pictured. Will this make a difference? If so, why?
I take a small section of the dough and run it through the largest setting, then fold it in 3rds, turn it 90deg and run it back through. I repeat this process till I have a fairly square rectangle of dough. I'm not sure what it actually does to the pasta, but I know it moves the drier or cracked edges to the inside of the dough. Mine typically looks like yours till I do this process a few times. I start thinning once it's smooth. You should also cover the other dough you aren't using yet as it will dry out and crack if you leave it uncovered while working with the other dough.
I'll added this as a comment, but it's probably close enough to a full answer, so I'll post it as one. My homemade pasta recipe is a little different. I initially got it from America's Test Kitchen TV show. I think they have a couple of different ones, but if I remember correctly off the top of my head, it's 2 cups of flour and 3 whole eggs. It's always a little on the dry side and I usually need to add a touch of water or oil to get it a little softer than theirs appears to be.
I knead it as you do and let it rest in the fridge for 15-30 minutes. This allows gluten to develop and the dough to relax some. If you put the fresh dough through the machine, it's going to be tight and won't run through properly. You seed this effect in pretty much every kneaded dough.
Once its set, my recipe calls for dividing it into 6 equal sections. It seems like a small amount of dough, but gets long once you start thinning it. This is where I run into issues like you're having. I take a ball of dough and cover the others. They demonstrate on the pasta episode by leaving one uncovered and it cracks horribly by the time she's rolled out the others. Anyway, I smoosh it down a little with my hand so it'll get started in the machine and run it through a couple of times to get a rough sheet.
At this point, it looks a lot like yours. The edges are all cracked up. Whether this is do to a lack of liquid or something else, I don't know. What they call for on the show to fix this is to roll it though, then fold it in 3rds. Then rotate it 90 degrees and run it back through the machine a couple of times. Because you folded it over and turned it, you have the smooth sides. The cracked sides are now at the ends of the pasta. If you repeat the process, the cracked ends are then folded into the pasta. Again, I don't know if it's doing anything scientific or just pressing the drier parts into the moister areas and normalizing the hydration levels, but it leaves me with a square of pasta that has smooth sides. It usually only takes 3-4 repetitions to get this.
At this point I begin thinning it a click at a time. One other trick I saw on a different video, that works for me, is once you get enough length to the pasta, roll it through till the end is a couple of inches from going through the rollers, then take the beginning and press it firmly onto the end, creating a loop. You can roll it through, sealing it and use your other hand to flip the pasta enough to give it slack. It takes a little dexterity, but I find that once I get the motion down, it's much easier than making sure the pasta doesn't wad up and stick to itself under the machine and then getting the end started again. Once it's the thickness you desire, simply run a butter knife or plastic spatula across the pasta before the rollers, then roll the end through.
Give this a try with your recipe and see if it helps your cracked edges. Good luck.
Thanks for the advice. I will give it a try and report back.
I don't think there's anything wrong with your pasta dough. It's on the dry side of the spectrum, which makes it go through the roller easily without sticking, but it won't work well in an extruder. The edge cracking is normal, and you can always cut it off if desired. You can reduce cracking by working it to the full width of the machine at the beginning. But if you're using a cutter attachment to make noodles you're always going to get a weird one on each side, so I never bother.
If you want it a bit smoother, work in a tiny amount of water (no more than a few drops). If I'm rolling out sheets and find it a tad too dry, I'll wet a finger and rub it on one side of the sheet, then fold over and run through the machine again.
I don't bother with precise measurements when making the dough, because eggs always vary in size, and I suspect the humidity can make a significant difference. I go by feel, adding flour until it reaches a state where it's still slightly tacky, but won't readily stick to anything any more.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.194301
| 2016-04-02T14:53:39 |
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|
56202
|
Au poivre without green pepper, is it good?
So I am trying to learn different recipes. One I'd like to do soon is the steak au poivre, it's a quite simple one but all the recipes I found say you need green pepper (peppercorn, not bell) and I can't find it in the local market.
I'd like to know what other kind(s) of pepper would be a good alternative (here I can find easily black, white and pink pepper), or if any of them would. I have never tasted green pepper so I don't really know what to expect from it. The dish should look like this:
http://www.cavemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Steak-au-Poivre-KF-1024x682.jpg
Thanks, I tried to use the peppercorn tag but I couldn't do it before
recipes for pepper steak with black peppercorns are easy to find. Since you don't know what green peppercorns taste like and can't find them, I suggest just changing recipes to one that uses black peppercorns.
Technically, green peppercorns are from the same plant as black or white peppercorns. Green peppercorns are unripe black peppercorns, and white peppercorns are black peppercorns with the outer coat removed.
Green peppercorns are true peppercorns of the Piper nigrium flowering
vine plant.... Green peppercorns are really unripe black
peppercorns. These are often preserved in brine or vinegar and served
in pickled form. In dried form, they don't last very long and have to
be used quickly. They're commonly found in Thai and other Southeast
Asian recipes and have a fresher flavor than their black counterparts. (via Kitchn.com)
Most steak au poivre that I have had (never made it myself) had visibly black peppercorns, coarsely cracked and liberally coating the outside. I would suggest using that while you're perfecting cooking technique, and then try using pink (or if you can ever find them, perhaps in an Asian market, green) to see whether and how much it impacts the flavor of the dish.
One potential substitute is capers, which are also preserved in brine (and if I didn't know better, I'd think the dish in your Question's picture had capers in the sauce), but the flavor is likely to be fairly different.
Many recipes call for either all black peppercorns or a mixture. So as Erica says you can start with all black and then experiment with different mixtures later. Also wanted to note that capers in brine could be used as a substitute for green peppercorns in brine but I don't think that it is a flavor you would want for this dish. If you find green peppercorns for steak au poivre you would want dried.
There may be (brined) green peppercorns in a sauce maybe, but any cracked peppercorn of whatever color would presumably need to be dried.
Agreed. I was making the comment in regard to your reference to using capers in brine as a substitute and just pointing out that the OP would want dried green peppercorns.
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.194811
| 2015-03-30T15:14:20 |
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85418
|
Interpreting a recipe from Mrs Beeton: "rather a brisk oven"
Old recipes are well-known for being imprecise, especially about temperature, but when they call for a "hot" or "cool" oven we can get a decent idea of what they're talking about. This one:
SODA BISCUITS.
INGREDIENTS.—1 lb. of flour, 1/2 lb. of pounded loaf sugar, 1/4 lb. of fresh butter, 2 eggs, 1 small teaspoonful of carbonate of soda.
Mode.—Put the flour (which should be perfectly dry) into a basin; rub
in the butter, add the sugar, and mix these ingredients well together.
Whisk the eggs, stir them into the mixture, and beat it well, until
everything is well incorporated. Quickly stir in the soda, roll the
paste out until it is about 1/2 inch thick, cut it into small round
cakes with a tin cutter, and bake them from 12 to 18 minutes in rather
a brisk oven. After the soda is added, great expedition is necessary
in rolling and cutting out the paste, and in putting the biscuits
immediately into the oven, or they will be heavy.
Time.—12 to 18 minutes. Average cost, 1s.
Sufficient to make about 3 dozen cakes. Seasonable at any time.
[italics mine] is less clear. Presumably brisk=quick cooking=fairly hot, but that could still be anywhere from say 180°C to 250°C. As I'm considering baking it to see how they turn out, finding a similar modern recipe to copy isn't really possible, because I don't know what constitutes similar: a biscuit (UK)? a scone?
I've asked about another aspect of the same recipe, and the idea of baking it was prmpted by a discussion about the meanings of biscuit at english.se.
To give oven temperatures in degrees is a fairly modern invention:
In our (great...) grandmothers' time, ovens didn't have thermostats and dials, but were heated with wood or other fuel and adjusting the temperature depended on the skill of the cook (more or less wood, more or less air..) and hence recipes gave "classes" of temperature, e.g. high heat or low heat. I even have a German cookbook from the 1930 that still gives verbal descriptions ("bake at moderate heat") instead of temperatures.
Another verbal scale used "speed terms", refering to how fast the food cooked. A fast oven for bread, a brisk oven for cookies, a slow oven for delicate confectionary or long braising and so on.
There are many conversion tables for the cool-to-hot phrases, but I couldn't find one explicitly including "brisk".
But if you note that brisk is slower/cooler than fast and fast = hot, this places brisk in the moderately hot category, or, plainly put, around 200C. A few degrees more or less will be your choice and depend on your preference for lighter or darker biscuits and also a bit on your oven. Look for visual clues like browning or rising.
This fits modern recipes, that suggest a similar range for cookies. So I suggest you give it a try and adjust according to your preference and test batch.
Most stovetop cooking still uses classes, too (high heat, medium-high, low, etc.)
It was hard choosing which answer to accept as all were helpful. I went with this one because it was the first to give reasoning based on the language in the recipe. I backed it off a little to about 190C and they took towards the long end of the stated time, even in the faster of the two shelves I was using.
Taking a comparative approach, other mentions of a brisk oven in the same source are:
Baked beef-steak pudding: 90 minutes in a brisk but not fierce oven.
Broiled ox-tail may be more easily prepared by putting the tails in a brisk oven.
Toad-in-the-hole should be baked in a tolerably brisk oven for 90 minutes.
Fricandeau of veal should be simmered very gently for about 150 minutes, then a short time before serving put into a brisk oven to firm up the bacon so that it doesn't break when glazed.
Giblet pie should be baked for rather more than 90 minutes in a brisk oven.
Cherry tart is baked in a brisk oven from 30 to 40 minutes.
Dampfnudeln, or German puddings, are baked for 10 minutes in a brisk oven to acquire a nice brown colour.
Somersetshire puddings: in a brisk oven for about 30 minutes.
Charlotte-aux-pommes: in a brisk oven, of a light colour. Time unspecified, but the prep looks quite quick so I'm guessing most of the 40-50 minutes is for the baking.
Simple apple charlotte: in a brisk oven for rather more than 45 minutes.
Cheese sandwiches (nowadays we'd call these cheese toasties): 10 minutes in a brisk oven.
Plain buns: in a good brisk oven; from 15 to 20 minutes will be required to bake them nicely.
Good plain buns: in a brisk oven from 20 to 30 minutes.
Rusks: in a brisk oven for about 20 minutes, and then a further 5 minutes having broken them in half.
Yeast-cake: in a brisk oven for about 90 minutes, covering with brown paper if the top browns too much before they're cooked through.
And I need a whole separate section on puff pastry:
Puff-paste requires a brisk oven, but not too hot, or it would blacken the crust; on the other hand, if the oven be too slack, the paste will be soddened, and will not rise, nor will it have any colour
When making chicken patties, puff paste wrapped around bread and glazed with egg is baked in a brisk oven for about 15 minutes.
Fruit turnovers, also using puff pastry, are baked in a brisk oven for about 20 minutes.
Lemon cheesecakes (in puff pastry) for about 15 minutes in a good brisk oven.
Mince pies in a brisk oven for 25 minutes, or longer, should the pies be very large.
Open tarts of puff pastry and jam: in a brisk oven from 10 to 15 minutes.
Tartlets, which seem to be the same thing (?), in a brisk oven for about 10 minutes, or rather longer.
Vol-au-vents, although here it's more complicated, so I'll skip this in the analysis.
Ramakins of puff pastry and cheese: brisk oven from 10 to 15 minutes.
Analysis
Some of these times look rather long. I can't find a single modern puff pastry mince pie recipe which takes longer than 20 minutes, even at 180C. Toad-in-the-hole recipes seem to be about 25 minutes at 220C and then 10 minutes at 180C, so 90 minutes must be at a low temperature. That 90 minute yeast cake surely can't be at more than 160C.
On the other hand, the apple charlotte takes only slightly longer than Delia Smith's at 200C, and most of the puff pastry times seem plausible for 200C or slightly higher.
My tentative conclusion would be that brisk could mean anything from 160C to 220C, which possibly accounts for the 50% margin of error (12 to 18 minutes) in the cooking time of the soda biscuits. I would be inclined to try 200C and check on them after 12 minutes.
This is an interesting problem as it looks like it's halfway between a shortbread cookie and a scone. Shortbread should be baked at 190C and scones at 220C, so I'd aim for the middle on this and go for 205C.
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.195074
| 2017-11-03T13:08:23 |
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|
40713
|
Ceramic cup seems to be cracked internally, is it safe to use?
I have a large ceramic soup cup which appears to be internally damaged after being rinsed with cold water while hot:
Is this cup still safe to use, or is it likely to shatter or otherwise fail during use?
How to clean interior crazing if you're interested: fill or submerge with hydrogen peroxide (the 3% topical solution is fine.) Cover with a plate, leave in a fairly cool place for several days. If the crazing was stained due to bacterial growth, mildew, or food residue, it should clear up. Oil stains not so much.
That is called crazing. It is a crack or fissure in the enamel coating on the cup, not indicative of deep structural flaws.
Your cup is unlikely to fail in the sense of completely breaking due to the craze in the glaze.
On the other hand, they will stain over time, and be unsightly, and hard to wash out.
If the piece is old enough, the glaze may contain lead, which can leach due to the crazing. In that case, the piece should definitely be discarded.
Technically, most health codes require crazed dishware to be discarded, although you can assess your tolerance for risk.
The cup is certainly not so old so as to have lead-containing glaze. I wasn't sure if the damage was in the glaze or the underlying ceramic.
That's not an enamel coating, it's a glaze.
A cup doesn't have to be old to contain lead glaze. Handmade pottery can still have lead in the glaze. Less than ten years ago, I took a pottery class and was warned that the black glaze we were using had lead in it, so we shouldn't use it on the inside of anything that would be used for food or drink.
potter of 28 years experience here. What you are seeing is called crazing. It's caused by a slightly poor "fit" between glaze and clay body of the ceramics, usually because of too much silica in the glaze. With some glazes, it's intentional; celedons craze, as do white raku glazes.
What you're seeing there is unintentional crazing. It's fairly common for this to appear at the first time you use it with a hot liquid, or microwave it. What's happened is that the glaze is 1% smaller than the clay body, so the first time it heats and cools, it crackles.
Whether or not eating off of crazed glazes is a health hazard is a matter of some debate. It's prohibited for most restaurants in countries with strong sanitary regulations, although rarely enforced. For home use, I personally wouldn't worry about it; you pick up more bacteria off your kitchen counter than you will from the cracks. There's one exception to this though: if the dish is low-fire earthenware, or made from a clay that was not fully vitrified, then the cracks can allow the underlying clay to absorb liquid. In addition to being a bacteria hazard, such absorbed liquid could cause (for example) the dish to explode in the microwave.
Looks crazed. Sometimes that's a death sentence for a cup, more often it means that dark colored liquids can seep into the cracks, and make things look interesting. Sometimes not even that happens, and you just have a cup with an interesting pattern in the glaze.
It is safe to use. I have seen lots of cups with similar cracks. I think that they are only in the glaze, not in the ceramic below. But even if the ceramic is slightly damaged too, I have never had one of these break in my hands despite using them for years.
Cracks in any dishes hold bacteria so they are always unsafe. Never use dishes with any cracks in them for food. Chips on edges of plates or serving dishes do not really present a problem, but all tiny cracks present a health problem and the poster is also exactly right about leaching into the cracks and molds and staining resulting. If dishes have any cracks, even tiny crazing, you should think of them as unsafe for foods and eating, any kind of foods, even dry foods. And what is unsafe for humans is also unsafe for your pets. Bacteria that you do not know about can be deadly. That is why it is important for human animals and pet animals to eat cooked foods.
[citation needed]
Many pet animals would disagree, both herbivores and carnivores.
As anybody who has ever made something from ceramic and has tried to paint it knows, ceramic is a very porous material, which will soak up some of whatever touches it's surface. That is the very reason why a glazing is needed to seal it, in order to make it food safe, if we want to make something, such as a cup, from it. If that ceramic cup were to be left unglazed, it would soak up some of whatever is put into it and we would never be able to clean it all out. Whatever is soaked into the ceramic, would then grow mold, trap bacteria and so become a health hazard.
That is the reason why most health codes require any ceramics used to serve food or drink, to people, to discard crazed ceramics. The crazing (cracks in the glass sealing the ceramic) in a cup, does not give us cause for concern that the cup might break and spill hot liquid onto a person, because that will not happen, due to crazing alone. Crazing is simply cracks in the glazing that seals the ceramic beneath it, thus rendering it a health hazard to anybody drinking from it.
We should be careful to never discount a health code, as rediculous, simply because we may not understand the reason(s) behind it. Those rules haven't been arbitrarily thought up to create a hassle, or hardship, for people serving food. They have been created to protect us, for a verifiable reason, from a danger to our health.
Most of what you say is correct. But I disagree with the "unglazed ceramic would be a health hazard" idea. Unglazed ceramic is used for food purposes. It does develop a seasoning over time from stuff it soaks up, but it doesn't seem to cause food poisoning. Sure, many older practices are not up to today's standards, but I am not aware of any rules which forbid unglazed ceramics nowadays, and they are not sold with some strange "for decorative purposes" warding-off-lawyers label.
"ceramic" is not a "very porous material". Fired clay only absorbs liquid if it is low-fire; high-fire stoneware is as impermiable as glass.
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.195594
| 2013-12-30T22:34:38 |
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27551
|
How to keep vegetables and herbs fresh for longer?
Possible Duplicate:
How to Store Fresh Herbs
How long can I store a food in the pantry, refrigerator, or freezer?
Due to my lifestyle it's hard to tell in advance whether I will be cooking during some weeks. I love food though, and when I get back home after being away (or some weeks I just don't have the time), the food is not as fresh (we're talking about 3-7 days).
What are the best tips for prolonging freshness of vegetables and herbs? I'm not asking about meat or fish, because I presume the only way to store those is to freeze them, which I don't do, though refrigerators – I tolerate.
Can ingredients be grouped according to how it should be stored?
Edit: I live in Eastern Europe. Continental climate, mild. For most of the year humidity isn't a concern.
Where do you live? In Indonesia humidity will be the biggest problem.
Please take a look at this Q&A. Tell us if there's something specific you'd like to know.
@BaffledCook I don't read this question as "how long can I store the vegetables for", but as "what storage conditions help keeping vegetables fresh", without reference to food safety.
Huge number of answers in the linked question. "Vegetables" are a little generic here, if you have a question about storing specific vegetables that hasn't been answered yes, please feel free to narrow it down for us.
The [closed] message means just that, you can edit the question and it may be reopened. Or you could just ask another, more specific, question.
Plants continue living after they have been picked. They respirate, but without the moisture and nutrients they used to get from the soil, their metabolism goes awry and they wilt.
The only way to stop this process is to blanch and then freeze them. This works well, but needs lots of freezer space. Also, they aren't exactly like fresh, with their texture changing a lot (they get soft, as the ice crystals produced by freezing rip their cell walls to pieces). A few of them change their flavor too.
If you don't want to freeze, you can prolong their life a bit by slowing their metabolism.
Keep them at 10 to 15°C below the temperature in which they live/ripen. The lower the temperature, the slower a plant's metabolism is. But you don't want to go too low, as it destroys some flavor components and in general triggers unwanted change in your food. In the fridge, tomatoes get woody and lose aroma, bananas go brown, mangoes lose flavor, and so on. You want to keep these at above 10°C. Fruit and vegetables like apples and potatoes which don't require too much warmth for growth can be kept at lower temperatures, including fridge, without taste loss.
Keep them away from light. Light is an important environmental factor for plants, and promotes growth. You don't want anything growth-related to happen in your picked plants, it hastens their wilting.
Give them some humidity, but not too much. You want just enough to keep their slow metabolism going. Give them too much, and you will get faster metabolism, which will make them look better at the beginning (like the salad constantly sprayed in the market), but exhaust the available nutrients sooner, leading to quicker wilting. You also risk mold in high humidity. On the other hand, if they are completely dry, the wilting will occur not because of missing nutrients, but because of missing water. I can't give you a rule of thumb for the water requirements of each plant, as they are very different. They are somewhat related to the plant part: fruits (in the botanical sense, so including eggplants, tomatoes, etc.) don't need much, they are mostly self-contained. The tighter their outer membrane, the less they need; a banana will practically never wilt for lack of humidity. Leaves need more humidity, for example salad or herbs. Other parts fall in between.
Limit oxygen exposure. As I said above, they respire. Unlike the photosynthesis process which some people confuse with plant respiration, respiration uses up oxygen and produce CO2. Less oxygen means less respiration, so they keep longer. Still, storing them in an airtight humid space is a recipe for mold and rot, so you have to be careful about just how much you can limit the oxygen.
Buy them as whole as possible. The more damaged the plant, the sooner it will wilt. Pre-cut salad goes bad quickly. Hulled corn doesn't stay fresh as long as corn in the husks. Herbs and salads sold with their roots packed in earth (in pots or just plastic bags) hold much longer than the cut leaves.
Don't wash them. Many plant parts, especially fruits, have a protective coating. Some of them get wax applied by the producer. Washing this coating off speeds up moisture loss and wilting. Store all your fruit, vegetables and herbs unwashed. Clean them immediately before preparation.
Isolate them from each other. Some fruit produce ethylene, which promotes growth in other fruit. This brings a special problem: the fruit which produces ethylene is better off when not kept airtight, because the overripening effect of ethylene will be stronger than the preserving effect of low oxygen.
Carefully remove any rotten exemplars. "One bad apple spoils the barrel" is not just a metapher; very ripe (already going soft) fruit produces more ethylene (see above), and bacterial and mold colonies have it easier to jump to the neighbouring fruit if they start from a "strong base" (a fruit they have already taken over).
Learn which fruit can ripen off-plant, and buy this type slightly unripe, letting it ripen at your home. But be careful to not get other types of fruit unripe, because it will never taste good. (Applies to botanical fruits, e.g. tomatoes taste better when vine-ripened).
The perfect solution is a special fridge or cellar with the right conditions (which happen to also be good for cheese and wine). Most of us can't afford that, so you may have to create an environment which creates everything but the correct temperature range for warmth-loving fruit (you can keep apples, etc. in the normal fridge). Some people feel that the better compromise is to keep them at room temperature and have them wilt quicker but preserve flavor, others keep tomatoes etc. in the fridge wher they stay fresh but lose aroma. It is up to your personal preference.
This is exactly what I was looking for. Too bad I don't have enough reputation to vote up.
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.196216
| 2012-10-03T09:11:55 |
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|
50096
|
What are the chunks of connective tissue on soup bones? (And can I use them?)
I just finished making a beef broth stew with a big ol' soup bone. I left the random scraps of muscle and stuff attached to the bone while it cooked, and now I've fished out the non-muscle bits. They were white (or pale) and stretchy, and now that they're stewed they're more grey and gloppy.
So, what are they? I assume they're not fat (they would have melted) so they must be... tendons? Ligaments?
Are they edible? Palatable? Useful in some other cooking project?
Edit: Adding an "after" photo.
We can't know exactly you're asking about without seeing it or without a better description. As a rule, non-muscle "stuff" is full of collagen, so long simmering it adds unctuousness to broth.
OK, I got off my butt and took a photo. :-) There's not much to see, especially since it's an "after" photo, but there it is.
Ok, yep, looks like pretty random stuff :) It looks like that little chunk did have some fat, some cartilage and some muscle. That being the case, I would say that my comment is correct and the answer you have accepted is correct. It did some good, but it's not worth anything now.
What ever it is, sounds like sinew or other hard tissue, it's done it's purpose now the flavour, sugars, geletine etc is now in your broth and you should probably discard them. I don't imagine they will taste of anything now and the texture is likely to be vile.
By all means taste a bit to see what I mean. It won't make you ill though you may possibly gag...
Thanks! To the squirrels and birds it goes. (I did end up tasting some -- no flavor beyond the stew itself, and gooey texture.)
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.196745
| 2014-11-26T18:03:44 |
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|
102641
|
Test if two foods are the same
I'm Italian, now living in the US for some months.
As you may know we like pasta. I tried Barilla here, our best known pasta brand. Well.. the taste seems a little bit different to me.
It is actually produced here and not imported, so it could be different.
Looking at the Italian/US versions of the package there doesn't seem to be a big difference, except for the fact that the US version is enriched with vitamins (which shouldn't change the taste).
To dig deeper into the question and avoid any other factor (cooking water, sauce, subjectivity) I want to bring a box back to Italy and run a test with a panel (10 friends basically).
I would cook the same quantity of the same pasta shape of Barilla (ITA/USA) in the same pan (keeping them separated of course), so same water and same salt amount. Then same sauce (same quantity) for both.
Suppose A is the Italian pasta and B is the US pasta.
Now.. how should I give it to the participants? Same amount of A and B in a blind test and ask whether they are different or not? Maybe give to some participants A-A or B-B (always blind test). Or maybe give A first (which they already know, so not blind) and then give someone (blind this time) A or B again and ask which one they think it is..
Looking for suggestions. I want to be as scientific as possible.
I also contacted Barilla, who claim the pasta is exactly the same.
Thanks
The difference in flavor most likely is because of the grain used. Considering the pasta is produced locally, it's probably produced with locally sourced grain, and the USA has different rules concerning agricultural things like pesticides and how many "defects" a batch of grain may contain.
Instead of in the same pan (where, as you note in a comment, there may be mixing of starch), simply salt enough water in one large pan, then divide it between two smaller pans to cook the two samples in (both pans should probably be as close to the same size/shape as possible). Perhaps even bring the water to the boil in the large pan before (carefully) dividing between the two pans and adding the pasta.
As a person with professional history in Quality Management and Sensory testing, I want to point out that not even the individual strings of pasta are exactly the same. The formal wording would be "the difference is indetectable by the majority of the population with 99% confidence provided that the instructions on the package are followed"
Adding to what @Nzall says, even ignoring "defects" and pesticides, grain grown in different soil, exposed to different amount of sun and rain, would taste differently. That's why we talk of the "terroir" of wine, for instance.
@Galastel and before we get to terroir, the cultivars used are different between Europe and North America. That being said, agriculture is quite global now, and it is entirely possible that the grain used in the pasta was not grown on the same continent.
The more northernly, the lower the protein content in grain (overall); "pasta al'uovo" has low-protein wheat and eggs because the egg white is almost pure protein -- the word for "protein" is literally "eggwhite" in e.g. German and Polish. So different climate has definitely an effect even if they'd use the 100% same variety (optimal for another climate/region/soil).
Have you already excluded water as a factor? Back in Italy you cooked the pasta in Italian water, and now in US water. Your proposed test correctly uses the same water to focus on pasta differences, but why presume that that's the cause?
Maybe it's overkill and perhaps it's not really what you are asking about but making sure the test is double-blind* in addition to your serving strategy will also prevent anyone from influencing the participants inadvertently. (*: where nobody know who got what because person A only knows that is Italian pasta and is American pasta, while person B only knows who got one (or more) portions of and who got one (or more) portions of (possibly having more letters if that makes sense) and the information is only combined to see who had what after the experiment.)
I wouldn't add salt or sauce, so it's just boiled pasta. I know this is boring for your friends, but should give better data.
Are you generally eating the pasta with sauce? I suspect Barilla in the US uses nylon dies; if Barilla in Italy uses copper dies, the surface of the pasta (and therefore how it interacts with the sauce) could be the difference.
Just because the ingredients are the same except for the vitamins doesn't rule out the chance that the entire product is produced in a different plant, at a different location, with a different process, on different equipment, with ingredients from a different supplier. There is often more to a product than just the ingredients themselves. That's why many packages are printed with special lot codes to determine their date of manufacture and origin.
I would almost be surprised to find they were the same. Not only are the wheats probably different, but the normal use is different: in Italy, you probably cook the noodles, then drain mostly, then add sauce in with some pasta water? In the US we would not usually do that; the "american home" standard is to fully drain, then serve separately from sauce. (Yes, we know this is inferior, but it's how we learned from our parents. Hopefully in a few generations we'll learn better.)
The best approach is to use a triangle test. This would be the standard used in sensory sciences. It is easy, and it will be a fun thing to do with friends. Basically, each friend (panelist) is provided with three blind samples. Two are the same, and one is different. The objective is for them to tell you which one is different. The validity is enhanced if you randomize the possible combinations across your participants. The linked site provides all the necessary information, but the practice is quite common and further detail can be found from multiple sources. I would be curious to hear the results!
thanks! I'll post the results..I'll do the same for Nutella (US Nutella is produced in Canada) which also tastes little different for me..
I like this idea.+1 - but though not mentioned, I would avoid cooking both simultaneously in the same pan, to avoid potential cross-contamination.
Could you please quote some of the content in here? This is to avoid that your answer doesn't stand on it's own in case the link changes. If you read https://cooking.stackexchange.com/help/how-to-answer you will find the "Provide context for links" section, which states: "Always quote the most relevant part of an important link, in case the target site is unreachable or goes permanently offline."
@IsmaelMiguel it's always a balance, right? I think I clearly described what a triangle test is, even including the best practice of randomizing across participants. Yes, it is concise, but the process is not that complicated. Plus, this information is very easily accessible across multiple sources and sites, as it is common best practice in sensory science. This information will not suddenly be lost.
@moscafj Good point, good point. Could then "All the necessary info is in the link." be rephared into "More indepth info is available in the link."? Just so it doesn't sound that something is missing? If it makes sense to your answer, that is.
To speak to the point @Tetsujin is making. I would do this with plain pasta, ideally cooked side by side (different pans of the same parameters) under the same conditions. Further, they would need to be served at the same temperature. Obviously, the more variables you control, the better the test.
In addition to using the "triangle" approach, I will suggest having the testers provide subjective assessments as to quality as well. Both a comparison of which is better, as well as notes as to what factors led to that conclusions. Then you'll not only get feedback as to whether the two can in fact be distinguished but also, assuming they can be, information as to what testers liked better and why. I find this sort of test result helps me understand the results as it applies to my own cooking, because different people have different goals/preferences for their food.
@rok: Nutella actually is different even across countries in Europe. In France it is more fluid than e.g. in Germany, due to the fact that French bread is usually a bit softer.
This reminds me of a story I heard in statistics involving a claim by a woman that she could tell the difference between the difference between adding milk to tea vs adding tea to milk. A statistician overheard this boost and decided to design an experiment to determine whether her claim was accurate. If you use just two cups, one with milk added and one with tea added, well, even I have a 50% chance of choosing correctly just by picking one at random. It doesn't really tell us anything if she picks out the one with milk added.
It is possible to use statistics to estimate the probability that the observed results could be explained by someone just randomly choosing cups of tea. If that probability is low*, there is a statistically significant chance that there is something else to explain the results (i.e. that the tester can taster can tell the difference). Ideally, the scientist will design experiments before hand so that they know what significance level they can expect at the conclusion of the experiment. Using 2 cups of tea gives us a 50% probability that random chance explains the solution, so is not very meaningful. It turns out that an 8 cup experiment, 4 with milk added and 4 with tea added, makes it much more difficult to correctly identify the 4 cups with milk added if you just select them at random. Indeed, there's only a 1.4% that someone will correctly select the 4 cups. If the lady is successful, there is a high probability that she can actually discern the difference. If she got even one incorrect, however, that claim would not be statistically sound (there's an almost 1 in 4 chance of getting three of four cups correct if you just randomly select them--not terribly impressive).
Your pasta question is almost exactly the same as the question involving tea: can a person tell the difference between food A and food B. Only instead of whether tea is added to milk or milk is added to tea, you examine US pasta versus Italian pasta. The tea experiment required the drinker to correctly pick which ones had milk added. If you are only interested in whether your guests can tell the difference in the, but not necessarily whether they can correctly identify which is US and which is Italian, a similar experiment would only achieve a 2*1.4%=2.8% significance level. Still pretty good.
Of course, preparing 8 dishes per guest may be a bit of work. If you do 6 dishes, with 3 American and 3 Italian, you'd be right at 5% significance if a guest correctly chooses the pastas. Using 4 dishes would give you a 1/6 (16.7%) significance, and 3 dishes would just give a 1/3 (33.3%) significance. Up to you to determine how much confidence you want, and how much work you want to put into it ;).
Note that these numbers are for a single individual testing the dishes. Presuming you have a number of guests, the analysis gets more complicated, since you're adding in an additional variable (each individual is different). Generally, having more guests would help with you confidence that there is a difference in the pastas...if they are all able to pass whatever test you set up. If only a handful are, it's much harder to draw conclusions.
* The choice of the target probability that random chance can explain the observations (the null hypothesis) is arbitrary. A lower probability means you have more confidence in your observations, but requires more work. In many scientific fields, a level of 5% is considered "statistically significant", but there is push-back that a much smaller level should be used, as alluded to by @doneal24 in the comments.
Just a comment on your statistics. There has been a lot of scrutiny on using a p-value of 0.05 to justify the validity of results and a large number of scientists are pushing for a p-value of 0.005 instead. Even then, the statistics would be used to indicate a likelyhood of validity and therefore worth following up on. The statistician who proposed the p-value standard of 0.05 has been quoted as saying that was the worst mistake of his life.
@doneal24 I generally agree with you, and often even the 0.05 p-value isn't applied rigorously so the results are sometimes even more suspect than that value would imply. That said, felt it would be better to try to help give a basic insight into a statistical way of looking at this problem by estimating the probability that the null hypothesis explains the observations. I was less concerned with with the specific p-value than the overall thought process.
You don't need 8 dished per guest. You just need N total dishes and a serving spoon per dish. Have each guest compile their own answers for each dish. (Which you should label). With 10 guests, 10 dishes makes sense. Then everyone passes their dish to the left after taking some and tasting it.
The Barilla website says that different areas use different wheat at different times:
"Where is Barilla pasta made — in the United States or Italy?
Barilla Pasta that is sold in the United States is made in our plants in Ames, IA and Avon, NY, with a few exceptions. Barilla Tortellini and Barilla Oven Ready Lasagne are made in Italy. Our Barilla Italy products state "Product of Italy, Distributed by Barilla America, Inc." on the packaging. We also have product that is made in Canada. Barilla opened the Ames plant in 1998 and our Avon plant in 2007. The Barilla family was very concerned about maintaining Barilla's high quality standards in the new plant. Consequently, the machines used in our Ames and Avon plants are the same as used in our plant in Parma, Italy. The recipe and the wheat blend are the same as that used in Parma, Italy. Barilla purchases its wheat from around the world, ending up with the best wheat available.".
Wikipedia: Barilla:
"... The company markets pasta in the US as being Italian ("An Italian Favorite" marketing) in flavor, but most of the product in the United States is actually made in Iowa or New York and not Italy. The wheat used is mainly local.
Barilla Group has several production plants all over the world: in Italy, Greece, France, Germany, Norway, Russia, Sweden, Turkey, the United States (in Ames, Iowa and Avon, New York), and Mexico. The company also operates mills in Italy, Greece, Sweden, Turkey, and the US. While its central office is in Parma, it has corporate offices in several other countries as well, such as Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the US, Mexico, Brazil, Australia, and Japan. Barilla's Italian production facilities are located at Parma, Foggia, Marcianise, Castiglione delle Stiviere, Cremona, Melfi, Rubbiano, Novara, and Ascoli Piceno. Its plant in Greece (near Thiva) is the third largest in Europe. The plant where the pasta was made is noted on the packaging by a code letter, whereas products made in Italy are explicitly labeled as such. The wheat used to make the final product is purchased from around the world.
The recipe was changed in 2016, and is occasionally updated:
"The company continues to improve the nutritional profile of its products, replacing palm oil in its bakery portfolio and expanding the range of whole grain products.
The new Bio/Organic Pasta is launched on the European and US markets: 100% selected durum wheat from organic farms.".
Grain grown in different fields is transported via various routes to different markets by different train and trucking companies; all wheat isn't identical.
Click to zoom in on central USA
Different countries have different regulations concerning the production of pasta, and there are different species of cultivated wheat. Durum wheat is usually used for pasta, it is ground for its wheat middlings and used to make semolina.
Barilla also changed its source of wheat due to concerns over glyphosate pesticides and contamination from Bayer Monsanto's RoundUp wheat.
That provides a few sources explaining why it tastes different depending on time and place.
Rob, I am sure you noticed that technically this doesn’t answer the question? I will not mod-hammer this post as I think it still supplies valuable information to the asker about the original issue (a perceived difference in taste), possibly being an alternative suggestion to running an actual experiment. And our Help Center explicitly permits “try X instead” answers if well explained.
Yes, I am a native English speaker; and I focused on this part of the question: "Well.. the taste seems a little bit different to me. It is actually produced here and not imported, so it could be different. ... I also contacted Barilla, who claim the pasta is exactly the same.". --- I am agreeing with user rok, the taste would be different; and have explained why. If you want to be technical no two pieces are identical, that goes without saying. Thanks for reading, I wouldn't have imagined one could earn +8/0 and draw an NAA flag. I could offer a generic test procedure if that was asked.
I would suggest rather than testing it on other people who may not be able to tell the difference to have someone do a blind taste test on you. I would try the pasta without a sauce, or have a very simple sauce so you can really taste the pasta. Cooking it in the same pan at the same time sounds tricky, but if you can figure a way to keep them separated it would eliminate some variables.
If you want to test on a group of people it's best to keep it simple. An A-A and B-B test is never a bad idea, but you'd need to double your sample size in order to get decent results. If you have 8 or 10 guests split them in half and give half A first and the other half B first, that way you have 4 or 5 people trying each.
By the way, De Cecco pasta is available in the states and I'm pretty certain it's only made in Italy. I way prefer it to Barilla, if you can find it that might be the way to go.
Yes, De Cecco here in US is imported and is definitively better (in Italy we have other less commercial brands even better than these), I'm just curious about Barilla.. Why do you say cooking in the same pan is tricky? I'm thinking about using something like this https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/obIAAOSw2~Zb0nUn/s-l1600.png .. but now I'm thinking that pasta release substances like starch during cooking, so it might be not a good idea..
Not sure if you get it in the US, but here in Canada it's usually pretty easy to find La Molisana and Delverde, which are also both very good pastas.
And yesterday there was a report that some varieties of De Cecco aren't enriched enough to be imported into the US, which means that at least going forward it won't be the same as what's currently sold in Italy : https://www.grubstreet.com/2020/12/2020-bucatini-shortage-investigation.html
I actually think vitamins can change the taste a little.
If you try the Nequik cacao in the 1Kg bag vs the 600g plastic case you will taste a difference and the only real difference in the ingredients are vitamins.
If it's true for cacao I think it should be true for pasta too
I fail to see the point. I said "the only difference in the ingredients", not "the only difference". Also Nesquik cacao is a industrial product... it taste the same in the 600g, 1200g and 300g product with the same ingredients, but it taste different with the 1000g product without vitamins. It is obviously only a hypothesis (as is that of anyone else), but it seems to me to be based on facts.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.196975
| 2019-09-30T20:22:58 |
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|
44873
|
How to save hardened fondant?
I make cakes with fondant decorations and figurines. To harden the fondant for these figurines, I add tylose or CMC powder. Sometimes, I just color the white fondant to get the desired color without tylose. Once done, I store this fondant by rolling into balls and wrapping in cling wrap before storing in an air tight container, so that air does not get to the fondant and harden it. However, after a few months, when I open the box, I find that the fondant has harden and I can't use it anymore and end up throwing all that fondant.
Can someone please suggest:
How to store fondant better?
How to soften the hardened fondant?
I often soften Fondant by microwaving it for between 5-20 seconds. This does work on fondant that hasn't been left for more than 2 months. Once fondant has been left for this long, albeit in an airtight container, it isn't likely to be salvageable.
Most manufacturers of fondant quote 2 months as the lifetime of fondant stored in an airtight container.
I tried that with some of the fondant and even though it looks like it might soften up, it gets hard and dry and "unkneadable" very quickly. I would hate to throw away all that fondant :(
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.198635
| 2014-06-14T11:31:37 |
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|
45314
|
Why is it called spit roast?
Why is a spit called a spit? I can't imagine it, but historically, was it spat on?
Only for flavor ;)
@GdD: I hope they ate mint before :)
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotisserie:
Rotisserie is a style of roasting where meat is skewered on a spit – a long solid rod used to hold food while it is being cooked over a fire in a fireplace or over a campfire, or roasted in an oven.
A spit is a long solid rod :) (as confirmed by http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/spit#Noun)
And to fully clear up the linguistic question, the spit that you roast meat on comes from a root meaning "sharp point", whereas spit in the sense of saliva comes from a root which is probably onomatopoeic.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.198784
| 2014-07-04T01:30:26 |
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|
92566
|
Super tiny bugs in store bought raspberries
For a while now, I've been seeing incredibly tiny bugs in store bought raspberries. They survive refrigeration and I can rinse them off (I think, can't be sure due to their size). They are really really small so I can't take a picture. They look like a little dot and do not fly.
I'm a bit concerned if they may be damaging to health. Does anyone know what they are and is rinsing the raspberries enough?
How tiny? Do they have wings or not? What color?
Fresh organic berries will have a number of harmless insects, but it really depends on what bugs those are.
Its probably pretty natural for there to be tiny little bugs in the fruit. One thing you can do is soak them in a bath of cold water, lemon juice and maybe a splash of white vinegar, but not too much as you don't want them to take on that vinegar taste. You can spray them down with baking soda and lemon mixed with water as well. This will help draw the bugs out.
I was looking for this link. This blog has some great information about how to make home made veggie/fruit washes. Its really cheap too!! https://wellnessmama.com/28/diy-fruit-and-vegetable-wash/
Probably harmless.
I'd go back to the store and tell them about it.
If unsure, do not eat them and find another store.
Those bugs you see occur in berries of all sorts. They're the larvae of fruit flies. Although they are not harmful, you can soak them in salt water if you want to rid of them.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.198899
| 2018-10-01T12:26:58 |
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|
74216
|
How to make Cafe Gram bouncy pancakes? (Fluffiest pancakes in the world)
I have read this question on making thick and fluffy pancakes but I think that the Japanese Cafe Gram goes beyond the normal "fluffy pancake". See video of the pancake here
Cafe Gram Pancakes
Are there any additional steps or substitutions that this cafe has taken to create these insanely fluffy and bouncy pancakes that have been dubbed the fluffiest pancakes in the world?
Rather than simply poured onto a griddle, Japanese pancakes are molded using a paper collar, almost like a soufflé.
The batter needs to be very tender to keep it from becoming tough. The easiest way to do this is to make a well in the dry ingredients, then add the liquid.
Buttermilk is key to the flavor of pancakes - lemon juice or vinegar doesn't taste right.
To blend the egg and oil with minimum stirring, one recipe I saw called for a small (1 Tbsp) of Japanese style mayo, which they claimed helped emulsify the ingredients, leading to a smooth texture with less stirring. Kewpie brand is the most popular, and has a distinct taste from American Mayo that helps it blend into a pancake more easily.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.199054
| 2016-09-25T01:10:14 |
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|
64244
|
restaurants terms
Our company makes software for restaurants but we are facing a problem. we dont know the correct words in English for two things
The message that goes to the kitchen, this is printed on a receipt printer in the kitchen and contains what the kitchen will start cooking.
our best guess is KOT, Kitchen order ticket.
what do you call these extra messages that can be on the KOT or what its called.
This can be on meat for example, "Rare", "medium" or maybe "extra fries"
or "No onions". these messages modify the things the customer has ordered.
we do not agree on this one. the guesses are.
"KitchenNotification", "KitchenMessage" or "CookingMessage"
Do anyone that maybe works or have worked in restaurants tell us the correct terms for this,
thank you :)
The message received by the kitchen (which used to be torn from the wait staff's notebook of course) is usually referred to as a check or ticket. I'm not sure there's a specific term for 2. I would refer to them as notes, literally something the chef should taken note of/notice.
Not having worked in a kitchen, I'd have called it an 'order' if it's given to the kitchen staff to cook. I would associate 'check' with the bill given to the customer. As for the second one, I doubt there's an official term for it, unless there's some other software that has a large portion of the market and help to standardize the language. Anything like 'Notes', 'Info', 'Extra', or similar would probably work.
yea i agree, i think ticket or order is best for the first one.
we use check or bill to describe what the customers gets as you say :)
You might even want to survey existing software in the niche you're working on ... and see what terms they've assigned for those concepts. If nothing else, it'll make it easier on restaurant staff to convert to your software if you can help standardize. (especially if you call the ticket for the kitchen staff what other software calls the bill for the customer, or something else that would require people to need to un-learn the old software).
Yea i have been trying to see other pos software, the things i learned are that most use "Tickets" or "Orders" and i see alot of buttons called "Notes" or "Messages" but i dont know if those buttons do the same that we do.
"KOT" or "KOTs" would have unfortunate alternate meanings in some languages ;)
Ticket is the piece of paper the kitchen gets. The order is what is printed on the ticket. I would just call #2, notes. Are you writing a user's manual for English speakers?
Also, are you Swedish?
@Escoce Yes i am swedish
This is a rather long answer, as terms need to be applied correctly and it is unclear what your software actually can do.
In a professional setting, the customer makes an order and the wait staff creates tickets which are handed to the expediter. The expediter receives the tickets from the wait staff (or the printer) and sets the pace and flow in the kitchen and communicates which menu items need to be cooked. The expediter is also responsible for verifying that the wait staff receives the correct plates with the correct items from the ticket. The wait staff again verifies the plate with the order (not the ticket!).
"Orders" and "tickets" are therefore two different things. Your kitchen printer generates "tickets" for the kitchen, but your wait staff enters "orders" into the system. When this is tightly coupled, "one order - one ticket", it is therefore often combined as "Kitchen Order Ticket". This tight coupling is a bad habit though, invented by software developers who couldn't imagine a n:m relationship. A smart system is able to generate multiple kitchen tickets per table or order, taking f.e. preparation times and courses into account.
The item you print is therefore either a Kitchen Ticket or Kitchen Order Ticket, depending on whether you can print multiple tickets per order or not.
Any deviation from the default menu is usually a "Special Order". Let's assume all people ordered their menu "without onions" for a week, then the inventory management needs to know that there is no need to buy onions, because there weren't any used. If you merely checkout the default menu, someone will buy new onions and you end up with pounds of onions discarded.
The ticket should therefore generate a "Special Order" with descriptive text what is special about it, so this menu can be treated differently by the expediter, cashier and inventory manager. Cooks are busy cooking, tickets are the problem of other people.
If it is not a deviation from the item, but a necessary detail, for example the doneness of a steak - it is an "Item note" or "Order note", which is printed right by the ordered item. If it is a steak restaurant though, it would be more correct to have multiple entries in the system. While the customer would order the menu "#64 rare", the wait staff would enter f.e. "#641", while "#642" would be #64 medium-rare - as I said, advanced systems usually know the preparation times of dishes and a note can't be used to tell the system to calculate this. If your wait staff has to enter a note manually for every order, you have done something wrong as restaurant manager.
An "Expediter message" is an additional information for the expediter from the wait staff. This message is not about the items, but about everything that affects the work of the expediter - for example:"Customer is a Michelin restaurant tester!" This is printed apart from the menu items and you wouldn't want them to appear on the customer receipt. As your target group might be more mundane restaurants, "Expediter message" would confuse Aunt Annie's diner, so "message" would be sufficient. A message is text for someone else the customer should not see.
A note is something you write down to not forget it. The wait staff would write a note for themselves, f.e.:"Customer does not drink alcohol." when an alcoholic appetizer was offered. This way the wait staff can make appropriate suggestions later. As you can see, this information would be useless for the expediter.
Thank you very intressting reading. i think we have enough to make our decision, thank you!
I have generally heard the OP's #2 (what you call a "Special Order" or "Order Note" here) referred to as a modifier or simply mod. That could be a local thing, but it was consistent at the places I worked (including the one where I worked as expo).
i think that sounds good. and its good to know that you have worked in different places where they used this.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.199202
| 2015-12-09T09:23:26 |
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|
65098
|
How to what is left behind when I have Removed the Melted Aluminum Foil from the Oven bottom
I used Twizttid' protocol successfully (BELOW)
BUT...
You’ll need some Plasticine, Drano, water, GLOVES!!, a lot of paper towels and wood skewers and GOOD VENTILATION.
Start the ventilation and open a window or door.
Put on your gloves.
Use the Plasticine to create a dam about .25″-.5″ high around the area in the oven you’re looking to remove the aluminum from. The areas you’re working in should be about 2.5″ in diameter.
Pour some of the Drano into the dam and add enough water to touch all the sides of the dam. If the chemical reaction hasn’t started (should be almost instant), keep adding the Drano bit by bit until it does. The dam contents will start to boil and ammonia fumes and a little hydrogen gas will form, hence the need for some good ventilation!!
Once the reaction is done, poke around with the wood skewer to see if the oven bottom is clear. If you’re satisfied with the results, add some some vinegar to help neutralize the solution a bit, then use the wood skewer to remove the Plasticine dam to a dish to be rinsed off ASAP.
Use paper towels to wipe up the mess on the bottom of the oven. See your results! The area of the oven bottom you treated should be free of aluminum and just be discolored instead. Not from the Drano, but from where the Teflon bonded.
Repeat the process until the oven bottom is clean.
To get a ‘feel’ for the chemical reaction and what to expect, experiment first! Take a square of aluminum foil, go to the backyard with the foil shaped into a little bowl, place it on a dish or pan, add some Drano crystals to it then add a little water. Step back from the dish and try not to breath the fumes! The dish will be hot!!
It took me about six hours to clean the bottom of my oven when this happened to me.
AND HERE IS THE BUT...
There is a mark that is identical to the aluminium shape left after the aluminium has gone. It is raised to touch and a dull black colour (looks silver in the image because of the camera flash). I do not know what it is composed of but I want to remove it. Does anybody know how? (P.s. This is a new oven and I'm not going to scrape it off even if it will come - not my oven).
Another vote for duplicate.
Where is "Twizttid's protocol" from?
Reading through the comments following that procedure you cited, the original author of that article suggested an application of naval jelly (from the paint department at your local hardware store) as the solution that actually worked. Naval jelly is pink goop containing phosphoric acid that is used to remove rust from iron or steel, leaving a clean surface.
Essentially, you spread aluminum jelly over the aluminum, smear it around every few hours, leave it overnight, wipe clean and repeat process until the residue is gone. It takes days, but it is gentle with no fumes. The solution was was verified by several users in that conversation. You can read about the process starting here:
BK says: Back in November, I searched for a way to fix our new oven …
Bonus solution: The original article also claims that the entire bottom plate can be replaced usually for less than US$30.00. Contact your manufacturer for a replacement part and guidance on installing it.
That is still aluminum, evidenced because it's still raised some. It's dark because it is somewhat anodized. You'll have to keep trying UNTIL the process stops causing a reaction each repeated step.
This is a lesson I had to learn, never use aluminum foil to catch drips. Use a cookie sheet instead.
According to the original article, the residue was not aluminum foil, but a Teflon residue left behind after the aluminum was removed. I can't corroborate those claims, but that was what lead to the procedure recommended above — Incidentally, a solution that didn't apparently work too well. See my answer.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.199751
| 2016-01-06T03:25:18 |
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|
71688
|
How to salvage a totally nuked cast iron dutch oven?
Please note: I don't believe this question is a dupe. There is this question, which has some excellent answers, but they are suggestions that don't apply to my situation because I have ruined my cast iron oven differently than the user who asked that question.
So last month I got a massive 16" cast iron dutch oven from Cabelas. I seasoned it by cooking it in a campfire for a few hours (w/ lid on), letting it cool, and then rubbing a little bit of olive oil into it. Last week I took it for a test drive and cooked some peach cobbler on it (again over campfire), and it was perfect. I cleaned it by boiling water in it for an hour, scraping off the crust with a wooden spoon, and then reapplying the olive oil to it.
Last night I decided to cook a pork shoulder roast inside of it. The instructions said to let it cook at 325°F for 3 hours. Since I'm still so new to campfire dutch oven cooking, I got a roaring fire going, and unloaded like 30 charcoal brickets into it and let them heat up. Definitely was blazing too hot, but I didn't know any better. (Subsequently since last night I discovered that there are actually formulas that correlate specific numbers of brickets and their locations with specific temperatures. In hindsight I think my oven was soewhere around 450°F.)
I put the oven on the fire (with the pork inside of it, and about 1/4" of apple cider vinegar resting underneath it). 90 minutes later I went to check on it and the pork was totally charred black and overcooked. So it was pizza for dinner! But, to my horror, the apple cider vinegar-herb-seasoning liquid had now turned into black carbonic rock in the bottom of the oven:
Under the lid was a buildup of a super thick tarry sludge that has the consistency of superglue.
I tried washing both the oven and lid with salt water (course grained). Very little came off. I tried boiling the oven over the same campfire for a few hours, and again, practically nothing came off. I went to the Google gods, and the best idea I was able to find was to soak both the lid and the oven in a 50/50 mixture of water + vinegar overnight. So I did that.
The oven remains unchanged, even after soaking in a vinegar solution for nearly 10 hours:
As for the lid, all of the surficial tar/sludge came off, but it is still super sticky to the touch, unlike it was before. And now there is almost a 'metal vapor' that its giving off.
What the heck happened here? Did I just cook at too high a temperature? Are you not supposed to cook apple cider vinegar in a dutch oven over the campfire? Much, much more importantly, how can I fix this and restore the oven to its full glory again?
Sorry, I didn't understand why you are saying you ruined it differently. You got food burnt on, just like the other question. What are you saying is the difference?
Looks identical to me - that one was "totally burnt" and so is this one; giving details of what you burnt does not change the basic question, or applicable answers, and the answers there look applicable. Burn it off is my preferred solution.
Make sure it hasn't become heavily irradiated with neutrons, otherwise it will probably be too radioactive to use....
Simply put you nuked your food. The temperature got too high too quickly and the moisture in the pot boiled off faster than it could be replaced by the meat, and then all the fat and juice plus the meat in contact with the pot's surface got charred on. Fat from the meat got stuck all around the pot and adhered, and the heat was intense enough to blacken the surface of the meat. It sounds like temperatures were far higher than 450F.
The good news is that there's probably nothing wrong with your dutch oven that you can't fix with some steel wool and good old fashioned elbow grease. The blackened stuff at the bottom is simply charred meat, I don't imagine the metal underneath is damaged, so scour it clean and re-season it. The lid got covered with lots of fat which has yet to come off which is why it's sticky, lots of dishwashing liquid and more scouring should fix that too. Personally I've never had any luck with boiling or baking char off pots and pans.
My own experience with dutch ovens is that they work better if you have heat coming from all around rather than just at the bottom. If you only have bottom heat it has to be more intense to heat the whole thing, and as campfires are not an exact science it's easy to accidentally char the bottom. Having less intense heat on the bottom and putting a shovelful of coals on the lid gives a nice even heat.
Awesome, thanks for the reassurance @GdD (+1)! I'll give it a try today and post back the results. BTW, do you have any recommendations for controlling temperature? For instance, if a recipe calls for 3 hrs at 325 degrees (F), what might you do to hit this temperature? Thanks again!
It's hard to be exact with a campfire over 3 hours, often you'll start warmer than target and end cooler, which is why it's important to choose recipes which are forgiving of that. You have the pot to one side of the fire, and on the other side you keep building up coals. When the coals around the pot start to get weak you shovel some fresh ones around and on top. An infrared thermometer can come in handy to measure pot temperature.
I appreciate the insight! Good idea about the infrared thermometer!
Also @GdD, per using the infrared thermometer, would you suggest opening up the lid and firing the thermometer at the center of the oven, or just leaving the lid on and checking for the oven's external temperature?
If you are putting coals on the top of the oven I'd just check the outside.
As far as using steel wool on the charred material at bottom of dutch oven: if it overwhelms the steel wool, don't forget about sandpaper. And dishwashing soap on the sticky-greasy lid: if you need more power, try ammonia (straight)
That's good points @LorelC. I've heard of people using media blasters commonly used for cleaning car parts as well, but that's only if you have a mechanic friend handy.
A cheap power tool that might help is a wire brush in a drill. I suggest a brass brush and and a drill that isn't too powerful - a steel brush is too much. Then finish with wire wool or very fine sandpaper.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.200357
| 2016-07-27T10:52:07 |
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|
71736
|
How did rust appear on my cast iron in a matter of minutes?
So this has been an on-going saga the last few days, and I've already posted several related questions here, and I am feeling quite defeated.
I have/had a beautiful 16" cast iron dutch oven from Cabelas. I took it out for a test spin the other night (I had completed all seasoning steps that the Google Gods recommended). Then:
I tried (and failed spectacularly) to cook a pork roast in it, but cooked it at way too hot a temperature and burned/charred/fused the animal fats/juices into the oven, whereby it basically baked into the cast iron (related question here)
I tried cleaning/scrubbing it with coarse-grained salt -> did nothing
Then I tried cleaning it with dishwashing liquid + salt -> did nothing
Then I let the whole thing soak in a vat of a 50/50 mixture of water + white vinegar -> took all the tarry slude off, stripped some seasoning off (revealing bare iron), but in 80% of the burned/charred areas, still did nothing
Then I went to town on it with a steel wool and salt and dishwashing liquid and was left with some smooth, properly seasoned surfaces, and some more areas stripped down to bare metal
I decided to just re-season it. So I scrubbed it one last time (about 1 hour ago) with a steel wool and some water, got all the rust and remaining crud off (finally), and built a fire.
I placed it on the hot coals of the fire and let it sit there for 15 mins. My intention (whether misled or not) was to burn off all the remaining water from when I had previously washed/scrubbed it, then let it cool off, then season it with oil, and then bake it for a few hours.
So I just took the oven off the fire and opened the lid...and the entire inside is covered in rust. An hour ago there was none. When I put the oven into the fire 15 mins prior, there had been none (yes, I checked) This just came out of nowhere.
I'm ready to give up, unless anyone can offer some concrete set of steps for me that will salvage this $100 rust bucket. How can I get rid of the rust and then re-season this before more rust sets in? Meh...
Heat speeds up chemical reactions. Rusting is a chemical reaction.
You might want to see http://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/11592/67 ; also note that in one question, you mentioned you seasoned with olive oil. That's not a normal fat for seasoning cast iron.
Thanks @Joe (+1 for both) - any idea as to why olive oil is "bad" for cast iron? I figured since olive oil is generally accepted to be a high quality oil, it would be better than some cheapo veggie oil...
Not enough iodine for a really hard coating. See http://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/13555/67 . Linseed oil is also known as flaxseed (and typically called that when cooking with it), but soy's easier to come by.
The problem with your last step was the lid, I think.
If you had placed it on the hot coals, open, the heat should have driven the water off as you intended, drying the pot before it rusted. With the lid on, the moisture was trapped inside, and had opportunity to cover every inch of the metal - and, as Joe mentioned, heat speeds up the reaction. Sitting on the heat with a coating of water, and you have a layer of rust. Not functionally different that if you'd tried boiling a pot of water before seasoning it. The seasoning is, after all, supposed to protect the bare metal from water so it doesn't react like this when being cooked in.
How to fix it - go back two steps. Scrub off the rust, or as much as will come off easily. I agree with paparazzi, here, if it won't come off while scrubbing it will probably not come off while cooking - especially under the seasoning. Once it's well scrubbed, dry it off. You might use a towel or something first, but if you're going to put it on the fire, leave the lid off so the moisture can escape the pot.
You might have the lid drying to the side, leaning against the outside of the pot, or partially on (generously offset) if you want to dry the lid as well. You probably don't need to heat it for long, either, just until it looks dry - and it will be evaporating water all the way until it cools down, too. When I'm re-seasoning my frying pan, I heat it only 10min or so, and by the time it cools it is usually dry (disclaimer, I use the stove rather than coals, so your timing may vary).
After that, you can smear it with a layer of oil and re-season. wipe it down with oil, and heat to re-create the layer of seasoning that got scrubbed away in the first place.
Beyond that, it will probably help to calm down a bit. In the future, just remember to keep the lid off when drying, and that you don't need to panic quite as much. Cast iron is pretty sturdy, and scrubbing down to the metal and re-seasoning is always an option until the pot is worn away to holes.
A very good answer. I'd suggest in the future drying it with a towel as much as possible before using heat drying.
Thanks and +1, but it's hard to calm down when you just spent $100 (and had to jump through hoops to convince your wife to agree to spending that $100) on a utensil that breaks right out of the starting gate!
@smeeb - yeah, it kinda is nasty when we invest a lot in something, and it tries to fall apart so quickly. On the other hand, one of the plusses of cast iron is the ability to scour it down and just start over. Just imagine, if it had been non-stick or finished in some different way, it might really be gone by now without the ability to fix the finish by re-seasoning and starting over. That's how the good ones last so long, by surviving all the mess ups we manage (and I've had my share!).
I realize that I am a year late to respond, but I just found a solution to your exact problem. Perhaps it can help someone else.
1) When you scrub off the rust (my cast iron was totally stripped of seasoning, so I used warm soapy water and steel wool), you must IMMEDIATELY towel-dry it. This is critical! If you put it in the oven to dry it, the heat causes it to rust much more quickly than it dries. (Note: I stripped mine by putting it in the oven and using self-cleaning mode. It totally destroyed all built-up gunk and most of the rust, and I just used soapy water to rinse and get a little remaining rust)
2) Once it is dried off, check and make sure it is a dark grayish color all over with minimal red. Large spots of rust should be scrubbed again, but some faint red coloring has never hurt my cast iron and disappears once they are seasoned.
3) As soon as you towel-dry it and checked that all rust is gone, apply the first thin layer of oil for seasoning (don't wait - this invites rust) and pop in the oven (I do an hour at 250 degrees F). Most sites I used suggested applying about three good layers of seasoning before storing the cast iron.
It sounds like your problem was trying to dry the cast iron with heat instead of a towel. I hope you were able to save your dutch oven!
Oh, I'm sorry to hear about this latest frustrating development!
If this dutch oven is truly cast iron, I don't believe there was a factory applied "protective coating" on it. The only protective coating a cast iron pot needs is the seasoning of baked-on oil which you will be applying to it. Even if there had been some kind of NASA-inspired teflon coating that you removed with the steel wool, then, yes, it is now gone, and you are left with a wonderful old-fashioned cast iron dutch oven like the ones that people have been using for forever (with no space age coating on it).
It is true that rust can form on cast iron very quickly, especially if it is hot. Even though it is seasoned ok (at least I am happy with it), my cast iron frying pan gets a little rust on it if I wash it with water & don't bake it dry right away. But I just wipe the rust away, put some oil in the pan, and fry away.
It sounds like maybe you have more than just a couple thin smears of rust on this thing. Did you possibly put it on the fire with a little water in it and the lid on? Making steam? (which would really rust up the place)
In any event, without wasting too much more work on this project, how about removing as much rust as comes off easily, and if the surface is still smooth without a lot of deep pits and holes, then just go ahead & try seasoning it & see what happens. Follow the seasoning directions that probably came with it.... They didn't really tell you to season on a roaring campfire did they? Even if they did, I would try a more moderate temp. Does the dutch oven fit inside the oven of your kitchen stove? The instructions that Lodge sent with my frying pan specified baking with oil inside the oven at a temp that sorry I forgot, but pretty easy to look up on line I'd bet.
If the inside surface is so rusted out that it is deeply pitted and raggedy, then, hmmm, my advice is the same as paparazzi (look in thrift store)
I think most of the cast-iron manufacturers do put on a factory-applied seasoning coating, simply because they'd develop a layer of rust before getting to anyone's eventual kitchen, otherwise. So, for cosmetic shelf appeal, they'd rather have whatever their cheap seasoning on it than a layer of rust, even if the rust would be easier to deal with. I've seen a lot of recommendations on how to get that off and apply a proper seasoning, yourself, but the recommendations are always to make sure to remove the coating that came with the new cast iron skillet or pot.
A mechanical stripping is rarely good enough when it comes to cast iron. If you need to strip everything, you have to either burn it off or strip chemically, preferably with lye because it is food safe.
Also, never use salt for cleaning unseasoned iron. You can use it for seasoned pans, although you risk corrosion if your seasoning layer is not perfectly sealing everywhere.
It is absolutely normal for iron to rust quickly under the right conditions, so heat and the presence of acid or salt. The solution is to strip the rust just like seasoning, with lye (maybe the heat of a self-cleaning cycle works too, I've never tried). You can mechanically separate some of the rust first, but that won't spare you the lye bath.
After that, simply reseason. We have quite a few questions on how to do it.
I am having the same thing happen to a frying pan I am taking down to bare cast iron to re-season. I ran it through the self-cleaning cycle on my oven. After washing and drying on the stove burner, it was covered with a thin coat of rust.
I just found out that it is called "Flash Rust." I just found this YouTube video that makes sense and I am going to use these instructions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wW2iJizDVsA
It shows scrubbing it down to bare (gun metal colored cast iron) with white vinegar first, washing the vinegar off with soap and water, then drying it immediately and quickly applying a coat of oil or Crisco to prevent the Oxidation/Flash Rust from recurring. Then you can proceed to replace the seasoning a layer at a time at your convenience. I would use an oven to control the temperature for re-seasoning. There are many YouTube videos on how to restore seasoning on cast iron. I hope that helps.
**I just finished adding 4 layers of seasoning to my skillet, and it is turning out perfectly. No residual rust. When I added that first coat of seasoning after the vinegar wash, I did have some brownish/rust color on my cloth that I was using to oil the pan - it didn't seem to have any negative effect or remaining rust after the first seasoning in the oven. Just wanted to update.
I never use any chemicals in my cast iron equipment. When the cooking is done, I just boil water for a minute or two in it and wipe it with a clean dish brush and then I let it self dry.
Never experienced any rust
Evidently there was a protective coating on the dutch oven you scrubbed off. I don't think you are going to get it back.
In hind site you were worried too much about getting the crud off. If it will not come off with a good regular cleaning then it is not going to come off and contaminate the next food you cook. You should have tried just cooking with it.
Rust is not poisonous. You could try cooking with rust and see if it taints the food.
Thanks @Paparazzi (+1) - a few followup questions. (1) When you say "Evidently there was a protective coating...", I'm intrigued by your use of the word "evidently". Are you implying that some cast iron dutch ovens have protective coatings, while others don't? If so, what is this protective coating, and how can I tell if a dutch oven has one before I go to purchase it? This is important because, obviously, seasoning & maintenancing ovens w/ the coating differ from those that don't have it.
(2) I guess I'm just astonished that I ruined a $100 cast iron oven after its 2nd use. Is this typical? Are they really this difficult to work with? And (3) any recommendations for getting the rust out and keeping it out (which is why I asked this question in the first place!)?
They are not difficult to work with. It took dedicated focused effort from you to break it. Just lightly scrub off the surface rust and cook. See if it taste OK. Check thrift shops - you can find stuff close for a couple $. That is what I use for my camping oven. You gave it way too much heat.
While it's true that if there was a protective coating you can't get that specific coating back, that seems a little overly defeatist. The whole point of cast iron is seasoning: a protective coating of polymerized oil. You can still re-season the pan, and then it won't rust.
Thanks Pap but I would disagree with your statements that they aren't difficult to work with and that it took 'dedicated' effort for me to break it. I followed the instructions that everyone on these forums (and elsewhere on the internet) suggested. And I did this basically right out of the starting gate. If cast iron was so resilient, I'd have a beautiful black shiny oven sitting downstairs right now.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.200889
| 2016-07-29T01:38:06 |
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|
71734
|
Have I over- or under-cleaned my cast iron dutch oven?
There are several questions on this site addressing how to fix a cast iron pan or dutch oven when it collects rust or gets rock hard black food melted into it, including this question that I posted yesterday.
The TL;DR version of that question was that I cooked a pork roast in my dutch oven at way too high a temperature, and the animal fat and other juices (apple cider vinegar, etc.) essentially fused with the cast iron (just kidding! but not really, take a look at the photos in that question above).
However, after following the suggestions of scrubbing with steel wool, what I have been left with is a situation where I can't quite tell how clean (or not) my cast iron dutch oven is:
So you can see in the pic above, after scrubbing this thing hard for about 20 minutes w/ a steel wool (to the point where it started to break apart and send nice little metal slivers into my hands), there are some portions that are now smooth and black, and other parts that are a dull, shiny gray. I can't tell which is the case, either:
The smooth black areas are still areas where animal fat/juices are burnt/charred/fused into the cast iron, and the shinier gray areas are the parts that I've actually managed to clean; or
The smooth black areas are the places where I have correctly sandblasted the burnt/charred/fused animal fat away, leaving behind the original surface/coating of my dutch oven, but the gray shinier areas are places where I've gone too far and worn away the outer "layer" of my oven
So my first question is: which is it? Did I take the scrubbing too far, or do I still need to put in more sweat equity to get the whole thing gray & shiny? And if it's the latter and I've taken scrubbing too far, then what are my remedies here (if any)?
Another tangential question worth asking here is: does this even matter? My understanding of cast iron cooking (which is very little, obviously) is that its good to let some residue cake on to the metal, for adding flavor in subsequent cooks. And that as long as you coat it with oil to prevent rust, you're good to go. So, either way, am I good to go? Why/why not?!? Thanks in advance!
The black areas look like seasoning, which is essentially burnt-on oil/fat. You want that (though probably you don't want proteins or sugars so much, but I'd guess you've removed them now). Seasoning is somewhere between a dull matte black and semi-gloss black, depending. Wet with the tiniest bit of oil (e.g., wiped on with a paper towel), it should turn semi-gloss to fully shiny.
The metallic gray is bare iron; you need to season that promptly, before it rusts (apply oil, heat, repeat a few times); we have questions on how to season a pan already.
Personally... I'd just attempt to season the whole thing at this point. If the seasoning fails to adhere to some of those black areas, then I guess they need more sanding. But I doubt it.
PS: A good pair of gloves should protect your hands from steel wool.
The way cast iron works you want (what I think of) as a layer of funk between your food and the actual metal. You scraped away that layer of funk. Now you need to put it back. The "proper" way to clean cast iron is "not to". Instead use plain salt (or sand) and maybe some water to "scrape" out the food stuffs and leave the rest behind. If you have stuck on food stuff then boil water in in till it's not stuck, or burn it on till it ashes off. In your case you have ruined the "pot" But it can be repaired with a proper seasoning. Never use steal wool or soap. Don't scrape with a spoon or such.
OH and what ever you do, DO NOT COOK IN THAT PAN AS IT IS in the photo. It will likely make you sick. Repair the seasoning first.
IMPE, you are better to strip the thing all the way before re-seasoning - I have had poor luck with trying to re-season over damaged seasoning. The resulting surface is never smooth.
I'm unclear why you chose to do it the hard way, when the duplicate question you claimed was not a duplicate of yesterday's question had the easy ways in the answers. The material is burnt on to the cast iron surface, not "fused" with it, and the easy, quick solution is to burn it off.
If you have an oven with a self-clean cycle, there you go.
If you have your overly enthusiastic fire, that will do as well.
And if you have a long time, there's the lye approach. None of those require enthusiastic scrubbing.
Once stripped, re-season (tons of existing answers on that subject.)
Other existing questions/answers point out that it is important to heat the iron after applying oil - if you apply oil and put the pan away, you will find a rancid pan when you pull it out to use some time later. If the oil is heated and polymerized it will not then go rancid in storage.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.202072
| 2016-07-28T21:05:31 |
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55237
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What's the difference between fresh and frozen blueberries for baking?
A recipe I have has a review that states that frozen blueberries in a blueberry muffin are absolute garbage and only fresh ones will give you that desired taste. I have also seen this answer that notes that frozen blueberries that are thawed will give a better taste and composition in a blueberry muffin.
My wife insists that fresh blueberries are the only real way to make blueberry muffins, and that frozen blueberries are usually rotten, and aren't as real (she cites the fact that when baked, frozen thawed blueberries come out blue, but fresh ones come out purple.
Is there any real life merit to her claims? From a baking standpoint, what's the difference between frozen and non-frozen?
Not sure I want to pick sides in a domestic dispute, but I do agree that out of season fruits are usually watery and lacking in flavor. This also means that there is no definite answer to your question, as it asks for a subjective opinion and the "correct" answer will vary according to the seasons.
@RichardtenBrink Let's not get too worked up over the use of the word "better". It might be a good idea to edit the question, but I'm not going to put this on hold over it, especially since the question asks about specific properties. (And if things do depend on the season, that's fine, answers can say that.)
I agree, the question needs to be rephrased but it is a real question, specifically one that seems to be trying to address a fundamental misunderstanding about what frozen fruits (or veggies) are.
I just want to understand whether from a cooking perspective, whether or not non-frozen plays out better than frozen are not
I would say that likely depends on the item that is frozen and the final use of that item. Frozen is actually great because the fruit is often much more ripe when picked and then quickly frozen and whereas fresh may sit around for a week or two before it arrives at the store.
@Catija There's a reason I added the "blueberry" tag
When you are making blueberry muffins, frozen and fresh blueberries will give different end results. Frozen blueberries will almost "melt" when you bake the muffins, because the skin becomes more fragile after freezing. If you use fresh blueberries, they will be more intact after baking and will sometimes still "burst" when you bite into them. Which of these outcomes you prefer is entirely subjective (though obviously frozen are better).
As for the taste, some blueberries will have more taste than others. If they are grown out of season, they will most likely be flavourless. This goes for both fresh and frozen blueberries. I've found a brand of frozen blueberries that I use for muffins that give a have a nice taste year around: others may be terrible.
For the remark your wife made about frozen blueberries being rotten: I don't know where you live, but that is most certainly forbidden in the US and Europe, and probably most places where frozen blueberries are available. That is the only part of her argument that was most definitely wrong. Everything else is subjective or depends on the specific brand of blueberries or even the time of year.
The reason she claims frozen blueberries are rotten are due to the color. She says that since Fresh blueberries take on the appearance of a light navy blue color, that since frozen ones have a much darker appearance that they are certainly rotten; a claim I was very skeptical of
@thinlyveiledquestionmark Are you using the word rotten literally? Because frozen blueberries are never rotten.
Not me, my wife uses rotten, at least I think, in the literal sense
@thinlyveiledquestionmark Frozen blueberries are in no way rotten. As Johanna pointed out, freezing them breaks down the cell walls of the berries, releasing the juices and making the berries squishier and more likely to bleed their color into the surrounding batter.
@Catja I don't understand why you are attacking me. It was not me who did this, but my wife. I already did my homework and looked up the other question I cited in my original question, so you don't need to tell me something I already know
I think as far as colour goes a good example is grapes and wine. If you think about a red grape the inside is green. If you then squish them up and strain them you get rose wine (only a little of the pigment has infused with the juice) however leave the skins in and leave it a little longer (which is happening in the freezer with your blueberries) you get deep purple red wine.( I know that's a very over simplified example of making wine.) If you were to squish your fresh blueberries up and leave them a day you would get the same colour effect as using frozen.
A really big difference for muffins is that if you use frozen blueberries, many, if not most, of the berries will have burst. Even if you strain them (which you will pretty much have to do), you will have purple muffins. Personally, that doesn't bother me at all. Blueberry season is very short, I'd rather use frozen (or canned) blueberries than out-of-season ones.
Save the juice for drinking, or syrup making.
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.202466
| 2015-03-01T02:20:54 |
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65341
|
Seasoning a wok, have I burned on the factory oil?
I have recently purchased a new wok, it is a standard carbon steel one (Hancock/LondonWoks). I cleaned it in the sink using soap and water and then heated some water in the middle and coating started coming off, all good so far. I realised that it would be difficult to boil the whole thing in water as it is so large so thought I'd do something else I read, which was to use salt, heat the wok and toss around a large amount of salt to clean of the coating, this however didn't seem to work., the middle of the wok is silver but the rest more an orange. I have since tried water, scrubbing with a plastic scourer and cream cleaner, but it is still orange round the sides and silver in the middle. Right near the top it feels very smooth.
I am wondering if I have burned the factory coating on, an if so what should I do, I don't want to make anyone ill with my food!
EDIT: Photos
More photos
Thanks
James
I would say the opposite and you have actually burned "off" the coating. When those woks come off the factory floor, they are dipped or sprayed with that anti-rust sealant you are talking about. Most if not all instructions want you to get rid of this coating before use. When using carbon steel/cast iron cookware, one must season the metal first.
Here is how I season all my carbon/cast iron cookware.
Very thoroughly wash the wok in hot soapy water. This will get rid of that layer of rust prevention coating from the factory. Some manufacturers say to even use some cleanser and really scrub the wok clean. We want the seasoning to stick to the wok's bare metal not the factory's anti-rust sealant.
Now thoroughly dry the wok off. You don't want any water on the wok, depending on your water, you can leave mineral deposits on the woks surface.
Turn on your exhaust fan/blower, close the doors to the rest of the house and open the windows in your kitchen. Better yet, do this part outside if you can. It will get smokey and smell badly.
Heat up the wok on low-medium heat. We want to slowly burn off any residual coating. This can take a while, and on an induction you most likely cannot get the sides of the wok. I recommend that this be done with a gas burner, just so you can get the entire pan seasoned, sides and all.
Let the wok cool off to where you can handle it again. Perhaps 1-4 minutes, unless you have a thick cast iron wok, where it will be a bit longer. More mass, longer it takes to cool down.
Repeat steps: 1,2 and 4. When the wok is heated up this time, there should be less or no smoke at all. It should be a bare metal pan, no rust protection coating. Now that the wok is warmed up, we can safely turn up the heat to the highest heat setting. We are looking for the wok's metal to actually change color. The wok might be a shiny metallic color at first, but we want it to discolour, to a brown or even blue or black color. This is the start of the seasoning layer. Move the wok to get the heat up the sides of the pan and even heat up the handle area as well.
After the whole cooking surface of the wok has changed color, we cool it down again. This is where you want to oil season the wok. You want to use an oil that has a high smoking point. Canola, Crisco or best would be a grape seed oil. Do NOT use a low smoking point oil or fat, this will just burn and will not lead to a good coat. Do NOT use: olive oil, butter or lard.
Use a paper towel with just a drop or two of your oil, rub down both the inside and outside of the wok. The thinner the coat the faster and more even the seasoning. Too thick a coat and the oil will pool up burn and get sticky. Thinner is better. Now place the wok over medium heat to burn the oil into the wok, all the way up the sides.
Repeat as many times as you want. The thinner the layers of seasoning the better they stick to the wok. Too thick, and the layer will be sticky and will come off easier. I think the key is to really burn the wok without oil to open up the pores so to speak. This makes for that nice dark patina in the wok itself.
Tips on cleaning the wok: After cooking, you want the wok to cool down before you wash it. There are some people that say never let soap touch the wok again. I would say as a hard and fast rule, probably ok. But if you really feel the need for soap, by all means do it. Wash throughly and dry thoroughly, you don't want to store a damp wok, this will lead to rust. Heat the cleaned wok on the burner and then wipe down with the oiled paper towel. Let cool and then store. Protective oil coating is good. If you plan on not using the wok for a while, season it and wrap it in an oiled paper bag.
Tips on cooking with a wok: 1. Preheat the wok first. Medium fire at first, to where it's just barely smoking. 30-45 seconds 2. Adjust heat for recipe. Add oil to the wok, swirl it around to coat most of the woks inside.
3. Discard oil into a heat proof container, ceramic/metal bowl/cup.
4. Add new oil and wait just a second or four to heat up and collects in the center of the wok. I prefer to swirl the new oil around the edges of the wok. 5. Now you are ready to cook. If you need more oil use that initial oil again.
I find that this method works very well. I have like 6 woks now. My wife is getting a bit peeved. But she doesn't cook that much so too bad.
Sorry I left it so long to accept your answer, had a baby in the meantime, so been a bit busy, however heard from the manufacturer who concurs with your response, just needed heating until the lacquer went black, and then more until it burnt off, even with a 'wok burner' on my hob, not an easy job!
"I am wondering if I have burned the factory coating on, an if so what should I do, I don't want to make anyone ill with my food!"
~Try the steps below. I believe that the residues will burn off. Let us know if it works.
firstly, carbon steel wok is not the same as cast iron wok. metallurgically, they are 2 different levels in working with iron and carbon. So, carbon steel woks are seasoned in a different manner than cast iron iron woks.
put the carbon steel wok on a gas fired stove. turn the heat all the way up to heat up the wok until it turns black and back to a shinier blue tinged steel color again. this requires a lot of heat, so in a home kitchen stove, it will take some time.
Watch this video posted on youtube, this is how it is done.
IF you are sure you have burned in the coating and have nothing to lose:
-If the damaged coating still has some plastic-ish properties, try aggressive solvents (acetone, nitro thinner, THF... familiarize yourself first with how to handle them safely, and make sure none remains before using the wok for food).
-If it is carbonized or does not take to solvents: Emery paper.
Thanks, any thoughts on how I can tell if it is burned in?
photographs would help....
Hard to say still... and in the interest of seasoning it evenly, it might indeed be better to get all of it off now anyway :) Be careful when using salt, it is corrosive as hell when remaining near metal...
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Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.202933
| 2016-01-12T23:22:05 |
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91201
|
Why is my Aji Gallina not yellow?
After a recent trip to Peru, once back home, I have tried to make one of their typical dishes, Aji Gallina.
I have compared about a dozen recipes from various sources, and the one I used is quite typical. The result tasted great, and everything worked well, except - it was not as yellow as we got it everywhere in Peru. The color of the sauce was more grayish with a slight yellow touch, not very appetizing really - it looked more like melting snow/slush.
Edit: I did have original aji amarillo peppers in it, and they were quite yellow.
What am I doing wrong?
Do they use food coloring in the tourist restaurants in Peru (or maybe all the time, also for home cooking)?
After some googling I found that some people recommend to add turmeric. I'll try that (I like turmeric) but I doubt this that will make that yellow.
The picture shows the typical yellow/orange coloring as seen in Peru.
Turmeric is definitely a good idea to get that yellow colour. The other thing is perhaps if you browned your onions, it would change the colour of the end product. Just sweating the onions will help them remain translucent and then in combination with the yellow peppers and the turmeric you should have a nice yellow coloured sauce.
I've only made Aji de Gallina a couple of times and this was several years back. So, I searched through several recipes to get an idea of what some of the variations may be.
Across the board, I couldn't see how the peppers alone could impart that much color, given the total volume of the recipe. Especially the lighter yellow peppers.
As your dish tasted great, I don't think you are doing anything wrong.
So, here are a few ideas:
As you noted in your question, turmeric is an option. Most recipes call for such a small amount that it probably wouldn't affect the taste too much.
You may get more color by substituting Aji Amarillo paste for part of all of the peppers. Most that I've seen have a very nice color. I used this when I made Aji de Gallina as the peppers were not available at that time. Here's one example:
Annatto (achiote) paste, powder, or seeds may be incorporated as it also gives a nice color. I haven't tried it with this dish but, as with other things, I would only use a small amount so as to not alter the flavor too much.
Last, but not least, is my go to. I've kept a bottle of Amarillo yellow coloring in my pantry for years. Any time I have the flavor on point, but need the color, that's where it comes from. It takes a very small amount (think pinch) and does not change the flavor of your dish. Works great for rice, paella, sauces, etc. And, because it's also sold to foodservice, it's quite feasible that restaurants use it.
I found exactly that 'Amarillo Yellow Coloring', and used it. I added a pinch, and the overall color turned out ok - not really bright yellow, but good enough. I'll try a bit more of it next time.
Hi Aganju! Thanks for the follow up. I emphasized using a small amount because it's easy to get too much. But as you said, you can always add more if the color isn't vibrant enough.
Don't doubt that turmeric will turn anything yellow. It doesn't take much T. for an extremely bright, fluorescent yellow.
I'll try that next time.
As I had never heard of aji de gallina before, I Googled it to find out just what it is. This site was the first at top of the screen - https://www.thespruceeats.com/spicy-creamed-chicken-aji-de-gallina-3029517
It says it "is a delicious Peruvian classic—slightly spicy and bright yellow from the famous aji amarillo peppers..."
There is this link to the famous??? aji amarillo peppers -https://www.thespruceeats.com/aji-amarillo-peruvian-yellow-chile-pepper-3029288
The first site above states you can buy the peppers in a Latin food store and that they are available frozen and jarred. Another Google search to buy them shows they are available dried and canned too.
Good luck
I did have original aji amarillo peppers in it - that's why I am surprised it did not get yellow.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.203676
| 2018-07-22T02:51:54 |
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|
94902
|
How to get uniform sized biscotti?
I follow this recipe to make biscotti and replace 1 egg with 50 gms of butter. So I end up adding 2 eggs and 50 gms of butter.It is always incredibly yummy but I have 2 issues and would be great if I could get some tips or help:
I never get uniform sized/shaped slices like in the picture on the website. They are very small on the ends and very long in the middle even though I try to make a very uniform looking logs before baking.
Some of the biscotti slices are very crumbly and break when I slice them. I do use a very good serrated knife to slice the log.
Can you post a picture of what yours look like as it's hard to solve the problem if we don't know what it is...
Follow the recipe and don't add butter.
Chill this or any cookie dough once finished mixing and before baking. Make your biscotti dough into perfect rectangle logs right to the edge of your pan, with even height and width right across. Use a ruler if you have to. I suspect you have a higher height in the middle - that dough will need to go somewhere when heated, and that's sideways (creating your longer middle baked width).
Once you have these perfectly formed rectangles of dough, chill in the fridge for an hour at least. This will really help keep it's shape and reduce any uneven spreading during bake. You could also try slightly increasing your first-bake temp 10-15 degrees as this will help quick set the exterior of the biscotti logs. The only other thing I may mention is the recipe - perhaps you can just slightly scale back the baking powder to help reduce the spread of the dough during baking.
Once baked just to set (depends on size), pull from the oven and let cool just slightly. While still warm to the touch, start slicing your cookies to a consistent, even desired width - I really recommend using an electric knife if you have one to make the work a lot easier for yourself. If you don't have one, just work quickly with your best serrated knife. Doing this while still warm will definitely help with reducing breakage and crumbs.
You're right, that's exactly what they end up looking like. I'll try to chill the dough and post my results.
The log should look like a 2x4 cut of wood basically, completely even throughout (length x width x height). Then give a solid chill, can even be a few hours. If it's longer than an hour or two, throw some plastic wrap on top.
The ones in the picture look like they were cooked in a tin with sides (maybe in the bottom of a loaf tin, or maybe a narrow baking tray). They've got a suspiciously straight and symmetrical bit below the domed top. Mine have always been pointier at the ends than that, and I use a baking sheet (AKA cookie sheet). The loaf slumps a little in the first cooking. This affects the shape of the ends as well, leading to variable slices. Yours may slump a little more as the butter melts.
Some crumbling is to be expected but if you're reducing the egg, you're reducing a very effective binding agent. Allowing the loaf to cool before slicing makes it crumble less, which was particularly important when I made a gluten-free batch - after cutting one crumbly slice I left it for a bit longer before doing the rest.
Having clicked through to the recipe on a big screen they certainly show some pictures that weren't cooked in a tin. The ends are fairly squared-off even after baking, but there are probably a couple of slices off each end to be used for testing purposes (in addition to the very end piece) and not shown in the photos.
There are a lot of recipes online with and without butter and I chose to tweek this one with a bit of both. I'll try to use 3 eggs and see if it makes any difference with some chilling before the firs bake.
@Divi, I think the ones I've made have butter, but the ratio of other wet/melty ingredients to dry ingredients also varies
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.204029
| 2018-12-16T21:36:28 |
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|
40466
|
Raspberries too wet in muffin
I made white chocolate raspberry muffins the other day after being inspired by these muffins at a cafe near work. They were absolutely delicious (warmed up in a microwave for 5 seconds), however, the only problem was that the raspberries were a little bit too wet inside of the muffins that I made. I used fresh raspberries for it. Should I be using frozen raspberries or what other things can I try?
I’ve made muffins with fresh raspberries.
Increase the amount of flour you’re using, to help absorb the extra moisture. (I add somewhere in the range of 20-30g for 12 normal-size muffins.)
Cut the berries up into smaller pieces, put the pieces on paper towels, and cover with more paper towels. This soaks up some of the juice, and distributes it better throughout the batter.
Be as gentle as possible when mxing them in.
Frozen berries are going to be leakier than fresh.
Raspberries are going to leak a little and stain the batter of any muffin they are put into. Muffins with whole berries are going to have reduced shelf life due to this.
Frozen raspberries would be even more leaky, as the freezing and thawing will soften them.
To make a raspberry muffin, you have to accept that raspberry is very moist, so you cannot overload the muffin; the have to be used with a moderate amount of restraint.
Dusting the raspberries with flour (from the main quantity of flour in the recipe) before mixing them into the batter may help form a barrier, although I wouldn't count on a dramatic change in outcome. I have not personally tried this, though.
If you don't mind a completely reddish muffin, you can puree some or all of the berries, and use them as a substitute for some or all of the water or milk in the recipe, as they are about 87% water to start with. This will allow you to balance the liquid level.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.204372
| 2013-12-22T00:32:23 |
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|
40766
|
Egg substitution in Indian meatball recipe
I am cooking for a dinner party in a couple of days and one of the friends is allergic to egg but the 2 recipes I found and like ask for eggs. The recipe that mum uses also asks for eggs to bind the meat so the meatballs do not lose shape and breakdown when boiling in the curry.
http://cooks.ndtv.com/recipe/show/mutton-kofta-100384
http://allrecipes.co.in/recipe/144/hyderabadi-nargisi-kofta.aspx
Can someone please help and suggest something that will still bind the meatballs without losing too much of an Indian touch to the flavours?
If you add salt to your meat and leave for a few hours this will break down some proteins in the muscle (myosin), which cross-link / bind with each other. Hopefully you wouldn't need the egg to bind. I have done this with burgers and meatballs before, so no reason this wouldn't work OK for kofte
This is true, but it will also create a more rubbery, sausage-like texture which is usually not desired in a meatball.
Having done a side by side comparison before, given good quality mince and binder the difference in texture is negligible. OP wants to avoid eggs, so I think my answer covers this off. Nobody has ever complained about my kofta ;)
In basic a meatball recipe, the egg whites do help bind the meatballs together, but they are not essential.
If you use somewhat fatty ground beef (which will more naturally stick to itself when raw compared to very lean meat) and a starchy binder, you should get them to hold together sufficiently even without any eggs at all.
Omitting the egg also has the advantage that you don't have to adjust the other seasonings or flavors in your meatballs, as its lack will simply let the other flavors shine through more directly.
You will want to handle the meatballs gently as they will be somewhat more fragile when raw.
Baking them to develop color and flavor, rather than frying will help with this, and it is much easier as well.
Your second recipe linked is actually a meatball mixture around a hard boiled egg. In this kind of recipe, the egg is a featured ingredient, and substituting for it is kind of impossible without radically changing the dish. I would suggest either having plenty of alternatives which are dietary acceptable to your guests, or not preparing this dish.
If you're really set on no eggs, and the possibility of rubbery meat excludes salt; an alternative starch binder or a convoluted cooking method is in order. Someone else has already adeptly handled starch binding so, if you have some time and extra cheesecloth...
Form your meatballs and suspend them individually from long oven/grill safe skewers by wrapping them in a bit of cheesecloth--like a small pocket. **style points for pretty skewers
Impale the cheesecloth restraint with skewers that exceed the span of your intended curry cooking vessel. They will look like a series of strange kinetic office paperweights from the 90's, and will dangle into the curry when you are ready to add the meat(if the skewers are too short they will fall in). If the worst happens and they wind up falling apart, it will be on individual plates rather than mucking up the whole curry base. Happy eating!
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.204565
| 2014-01-01T04:39:04 |
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|
60221
|
Why are store bought paninis only par baked?
I bought some mini paninis from the super market and the packet had instructions to bake them again for another 5-6 minutes before serving. Why are paninis sold par baked and not completely baked like other bread?
Wikipedia does a nice job of explaining it.
Convenience and longer term storage, plus a closer to freshly baked result compared to a pre baked item that has or is going stale to some degree,
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.204866
| 2015-08-24T22:43:23 |
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|
56321
|
Coffee flavored melted chocolate for drizzling over cookies?
I am making coffee flavored biscottis that I want to drizzle with coffee flavored melted chocolate, which should harden after. I have searched but without much luck. I was thinking of mixing a bit of instant coffee powder with some water to make a thick paste and then added to melted chocolate. Does this method sound ok and do I have to keep anything in mind when mixing the 2 ingredients together? I am a bit worried about adding liquid to melted chocolate. Maybe I should just mix instant coffee powder directly with melted chocolate?
If you can get instant espresso powder (most big grocery stores in the US have it) that's what you want to use. NO WATER, small amounts of water will ruin chocolate, cause it to seize.
Just sprinkle some powder in while the chocolate is melting. It will blend right in.
If you can't get espresso powder, you can use instant coffee, just be sure that it's a fine powder, or powder it yourself in a spice or coffee grinder.
To be sure that the instant coffee is fine enough, you might consider sifting it. Either powdered regular instant coffee or even the instant espresso might benefit from that.
Thanks, I'll powder instant coffee and maybe sift it before using it. I'll let you know how it goes.
@Divi It's a great idea to sift it. As a matter of fact, I'm going to add that to the answer.
Good point about seizing. You could also mix it with melted butter or warmed milk, if you need to dissolve it in something before mixing it with the chocolate. These are fat-based so won't cause the chocolate to seize in the way that water would.
Another thing you could do (depending on what texture you're going for) is just to use finely ground coffee beans instead of instant coffee.
@starsplusplus 4% fat cow's milk is nearly 90% water. Are you sure there's any real difference between adding milk and adding water?
I am not sure, no. I'm neither a chemist nor have I tried it personally, I've just seen it recommended. The fact that it functions as an emulsion, may render the "90% water" fact less relevant (or it may not); perhaps someone more qualified can step in and educate us. Using cream would undoubtedly be better than milk, in any case.
@Jolenealaska: Thanks, it worked wonderfully. I melted the chocolate first before adding and frequently tasting small amounts of ground sifted instant coffee
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.204949
| 2015-04-03T11:12:20 |
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|
28592
|
What are some of the best ways to shell an egg?
Possible Duplicate:
How to peel hard boiled eggs easily?
I just came back from the kitchen where I was preparing a dozen hard boiled eggs for a recipe. Part of this preparation is removing each of the egg's shell. The best tip I've heard yet is to shock the eggs in ice water directly after pulling them off a boil, cracking each end and pealing across the hemisphere. This works about 50/50 for me. That's to say half of my eggs are unpresentable. I've been told also only to hard/soft-boil old eggs, which for obvious reasons isn't always practical.
What's the best way to shell a hard/soft-boil chicken egg?
This is what we do where I work: dump them into a bucket full of cold water with the tap still running. We crack the side of the shell against the side of the sink & roll it til it's cracked all around, then peel. I am sure there are other ways though.
I think shocking them helps them shell easily, but also cools them down for foodsafe reasons.
The best advice I can give is to use older eggs if you're not eating them from the shell. As they get older, they get easier to peel and the yolk is easier to remove (if you remove the yolk).
I found this blog:
http://thestonesoup.com/blog/2012/01/the-new-secret-to-easy-to-peel-boiled-eggs/
http://thestonesoup.com/blog/2010/03/the-secret-to-easy-to-peel-boiled-eggs/
So, her secret is older eggs, and increase ph of boiling water using baking soda.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.205181
| 2012-11-22T21:25:13 |
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|
66280
|
Efficient method to peel raw potatoes
I know already how I can peel cooked potatoes, e.g. by throwing into ice water. According to a german helpster entry, the shell will be easily removable just by "rubbing". But is there another "instant" method for peeling raw potatoes? Instant means, I don't want to just peel faster, as suggested in this question.
EDIT This German helpster entry I described above mentioned some efficient industry methods - which are unfortunately not very usable in a private sector. E.g. putting the potatoes in a natron solution/leach or putting them into a high steam/pressure environment.
EDIT2 Sorry for the confusion. I don't want them to boil/cook first; so i want just a raw peeled potato afterwards.
Most industrial methods use abrasion. I've seen video out there of people using brushes & power tools to get the same effect : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uo7K6CUCudU . Most cite ~60 seconds to peel a whole bag, but they videos tend to be jumpy enough that I suspect there are cuts / editing so I don't know if it's accurate.
This has actually been asked and answered over on [lifehacks.SE]. For other "tricks" like this, you might find their site interesting here's the exact question.
Household priced peeling machines are available, eg http://www.amazon.de/Melissa-646120-Kartoffelsch%C3%A4lmaschine/dp/B0079X0EQ6 :) Btw, it is not a solution of "Natron" (baking soda) but "Natronlauge" which is made from "Ätznatron" (caustic soda).
@rackandboneman this machine seems like an actual answer, please write it in the answer field instead in a comment.
@Catija no, it's not the same question. I ask specifically about methods which are not using boiling as their first step.
@toogley the highest voted answer there uses raw potatoes and a toilet brush...
@rumtscho I assumed suggesting appliances (especially one I do not own myself, not eating much potatoes), not methods was out of scope. But then I guess "use a machine, they're cheap" is a method ;)
On a tangent: Would a wiki-style question about certain appliances and tools being regionally common/uncommon/unknown be a headache or useful? Opinions wanted since I am divided about starting one...
@rackandboneman That'd be a good question for Meta! :D
@Catija yes, that's true. but i'm not fully satisfied with this method, so i'll wait a few days, maybe another solution will be suggested.
I used to serve in temple where i saw that to peel potato they were having machine. All you need it to pour potatoes in machine and also need to add normal water. And you will get peeled potatoes in very quick time.
There are electrical devices using a tumbler:
http://www.amazon.de/Melissa-646120-Kartoffelsch%C3%A4lmaschine/dp/B0079X0EQ6
(The German name is "Kartoffelschälmaschine" for anyone who wants to research it and doesn't like to read encoded URIs ;)
Interestingly, they are uncommon in the US judging by the amazon offers there- instead, the US knows a lot of electric versions of the "apple peeler/corer/slicer" design (which could probably peel a potato too if it was reasonably round, or a certain amount of waste is accepted).
It basically looks like a food processor and I am guessing it has an abrasive disc on the bottom instead of a grater on top. Seems perfectly reasonable to me. I bet cuisineart could make a few more dollars if they just made the attachment for their line of food processors.
Given that there is a known "Karborundverfahren" (seems to be exactly what it sounds like :) ) ....
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.205371
| 2016-02-07T11:38:07 |
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|
66662
|
Is eating rice well after its use-by date a bad idea?
I got a "Paella kit" for my birthday recently. It consists of a pan, some rice, some spices, and some instructions.
Unfortunately, upon inspecting the rice packet I see that its "best before" date is June 2015 (ie. about 8 months ago).
Rice isn't particularly expensive, so should I just replace it? (Rather than possibly dying a horrible death?).
The rice is "Spanish Rice special for Paella".
If it is not OK to eat, what sort of rice should I substitute for "Paella rice"?
More details on risotto vs. paella rice here.
"Best before" dates aren't there to stop you dying a horrible death - they're there to stop you having a meal that isn't one of the best. "Use by" dates may stop you dying a horrible death.
In Australia we generally have "Use by" dates rather than "Best before". I used to think the difference was mainly semantic. I mean, I would read it as "Best to use by ...". If there is a difference, why don't they print two dates?
Rice is one of those dry staples that last a looooong time if stored properly, which in this case means cool and dry and safe from insects.
The more critical part is the seasoning. Ground spices tend to loose aroma quickly. This does not mean they will necessarily turn bad, but possibly a bit bland. Mold is only a problem when humidity comes into the equation, like with the rice.
Even more critical is fats. Some spice mixes contain fats, they can go rancid after a while. I suggest you check the label.
So:
check the rice for "critters" and their traces
sniff at your seaoning mix in case something smells off
And if everything seems ok, enjoy your paella.
Edit as your question focuses on the rice:
White rice stays safe "indefinetively", brown rice has a limited shelf life of a few months as its fats can turn rancid. See Still Tasty for more.
In the unlikely case that your rice is off (or for future paella dishes), use the so-called bomba or Calasparra rice. A Spanish short grain rice with a lower starch content than the Arborio used for a ceamy risotto.
For substitutes, sources are at odds:
some say use arborio for the most similar grains, but you'll get more sticky results
others favour long grain rices because the rice is less sticky.
In the event that the rice looks dodgy, what should I substitute? Arborio rice?
Rice is one of those dry staples that last a looooong time if stored properly - I can believe that. I bet that in the olden days rice was used on sailing ships, and expected to last for years.
If it says best by rather than expiration, then it's safe. In many cases they just want you to consume the product so you'll buy more
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.205688
| 2016-02-19T08:28:02 |
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|
53631
|
How do you make meringues?
I've scoured the internet to find the recipe for one of my favorite childhood sweets, and since I'm away from home, I can't buy it by weight and I definitely can't afford to buy a tiny piece for $3 or $4 all the time.
I came across a recipe and I did everything exactly as the recipe said, but I ended up with this.
Now THIS is what I actually want to eat, I bought it at a Venezuelan place a while back, but they only sell singles.
Any ideas on how to end up with the fluffy sweet white one?
You'll want to post the recipe you used so people can help you. It's definitely not normal for meringue cookies to come out like that.
There are so many possibilities that we need to know what you did before we can tell you, what you did wrong.
Well here's the kicker that I forgot to mention, that was how it's supposed to be according to that recipe... I don't exactly remember which site I opened since it was on my phone but the end result had a picture with brownish ones like mine... I put them in the oven too, is that how it's usually done?
As you have not posted a recipe I can't tell you how to fix it for next time. I can't tell you what is wrong with them though.
Brown, because the oven was too hot. I do mine by blasting in oven at 135c for 15min then turning it off and going home. Then when I get back to work in the morning they are perfect.
Flat, because... Many possibilities
Over/undrr whisked eggs
Too much/little sugar
Too much moisture
Time between whisking eggs and getting them in the oven was too long (5min maximum)
Fat has got into the mix. Possibly from a dirty bowl/whisk/bit of egg yolk or even your hands.
To help control the whisking of eggs I mix about 1 part corn flour with my sugar. And an equal amount of white wine vinegar. So whisk your eggs up to stiff peaks, tip in your sugar/cornflour mix whisk a little till it starts to dissolve then add the vinegar. Keep whisking until all the sugar has dissolved and the mixture is really shiney (rub a little between your fingers if it feels grainy keep whisking).
As soon as it's whisked (use the old trick of holding the bowl upside down if it stays you should be fine) get it straight on a baking tray however you want and into the oven. This part is critical the longer it sits UN cooked the more likely you'll have a disaster.
Thanks alot for sharing this. I definitely had my oven on at around 350F, and I think a large reason was also the whisking, as my uncle doesn't have one of those automatic ones and I had to do it by hand... Needless to say, it was exhausting and I still don't think I got to the correct texture... One last question though, can I use egg whites in cartons? Instead of getting regular eggs and separating them, which still seems like a difficult task for me, I just got a small egg white liquid carton last time, would that work?
Personal experience with egg white cartons hasn't been great to be honest. I don't know why. Maybe because they are pasteurized.
Hmmm... Guess I'll have to get a big carton of eggs and have a whack at it! I'm accepting this and I'll let you know how it turns out later with pictures! Thanks :)
I also do the 'shut off the oven and leave overnight' cooking for meringues. And for the issues of fat -- do not use a plastic bowl for whipping egg whites. Oil clings to plastic (as it's made from oil), and will never give you the same volume that you'll get from a metal or glass mixing bowl.
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.206058
| 2015-01-15T06:19:30 |
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71535
|
How to tell if shrimp is already cooked and what to do with it?
I have some shrimp. Not sure if this is raw, and what to do with it to make it safe for eating. I'm not looking for a recipe, but a method of preparing these shrimp. I know how to peel shrimp, am I to boil them? Fry them? Do they look raw to you? Can I eat raw shrimp? If not, do I boil them? Thanks!
Related: http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/30156/are-cooked-frozen-shrimp-safe?rq=1
If you look at the label, you see "CKD SHRIMP..." which I read as "cooked shrimp".
Even without the label, you have two indicators for cooked:
the colour: raw shrimp are greyish-green, they turn pink when cooked
the body shape: raw shrimp have a more "stretched" body, they curl up during cooking.
Wow! Thank you :) this helped. Would it be okay to eat if I peeled, and rinsed it? (Or should I boil the peeled shrimp a bit, too?) How was this shrimp cooked? Can you tell by looking?
Are they frozen? Then thaw (gently, not in a microwave), rinse, peel. Then either just eat or use as ingredient in a dish. These were either boiled or steamed. As far as boiling them again is concerned, I'd be very careful, lest they get rubbery.
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.206348
| 2016-07-20T04:20:27 |
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67054
|
Jamon Serrano smells awful
I don't know a thing about cured ham, but I just opened this ham, and while I realize a cured ham probably has a peculiar smell, I can't imagine this horrific stench being intended. My entire apartment smells like a trashcan on a hot day, and the ham has both black and green spots on it. Seven meters away, the smell is still strong enough that it just about makes me gag, and every instinct I have is telling me this is not edible.
tl;dr: are jamon serrano hams supposed to smell overpoweringly like old mouldy food, or did I just blow $80 and a perfectly good towel on a worthless chunk of rot?
This is what it looks like:
Follow-up: I've been in contact with the store, and I'm going to go get a refund. I showed the ham to some knowledgeable people in real life as well, and they agreed that it's spoiled. Thanks a huge lot for all your helpful answers!
I am truly sorry to hear about your jamon.
I'm not aware of any time you should eat something that makes you gag.
@Lilienthal but gagging? Bitter, spicy, sour, sure...
The part that surprises me most is the fact that you had to open it. (and that there was a plastic film, as you mentioned in a comment). There shouldn't be, as the curing process is enough to protect the ham without the need for extra packaging (on the contrary, the plastic keeps the humidity on the inside, favoring the development of molds and other bad stuff)
Brick and mortar store. It was in a plastic bag in a cardboard box. I have no idea how long it had been kept in the store. I opened the plastic one day after buying the ham.
The green from the picture looks.. strange. I'd expect a brand/tattoo, but not a green spot like that.
It should also not be dry and flaky. It has been cured with salt, so that may be what you're seeing.
Some hams will smell weird right out of the packaging. I don't think I've experienced one as bad as you're describing, though, but it could be the mold. I suggest cleaning off the mold and slicing it to see how the fat looks. Yellow fat is rancid and will stink. The fat should be white.
You might see yellow on the outside and white on the inside. In any case, the yellow shouldn't be more than a couple of millimeters wide in a slice. Just to be clear: DON'T EAT THE YELLOW FAT.
--answering your comment on another answer - the "outside" part of the ham will have skin or just fat, but the "inside" part will have exposed meat, and bone. Sometimes that will be covered with plastic or fabric, but you should take that off and clean the ham since it smells.
Also, cut and discard a vertical slice from the exposed side before you get ready to cut slices so you don't have to cut it off the individual slices. You can do the same for the yellow fat, but be careful not to cut all the fat off. A smaller knife makes this easier.
http://i.imgur.com/Tl2qMQz.jpg
So I removed the plastic, and found this black substance - the smell was god-awful. Rancid fat is probably a possibility too, now that you mention it. Jeez, the trouble one has to go through for a piece of meat. I'll stick to porridge from now on.
The yellow is pretty thin when sliced, and the meat inside is nice and red. I painstakingly cut a piece of it out of the ham - on its own, it didn't smell like anything at all. Tasted almost as rancid as the outside smelled, though - sour, and generally not very comforting.
@Guy I added some more details. Which part tasted rancid? If there is any brown fat in the middle of that ham... then yea, it's very rancid. You may have to scrape or cut away parts of it, assuming it's just the mold and fat that caught under the plastic that is causing the nasty smell.
The red, good-looking meat inside the actual ham tasted sour and rancid. I'll try cutting away a larger part of the meat-side to see if the smell and look improves. If not, I'll have to go get a refund. Thanks a lot for the help, by the way!
Sounds like a lost cause, though it if was just from the first slice, it could be that it had the taste of the fat near it... I'm trying really hard to be hopeful, Serrano and Iberico hams are my absolute favorite thing.
Nope, Jamon Serrano should not smell bad. It can be normal for it to have mold on the very outer surface, which is generally harmless and can just be scrubbed off, but a foul smell means that there is something wrong. I'm afraid your ham is trash.
The black stuff comes off with a good scrubbing, but the bright green stuff looks almost like a deep discolouration of the fat. The smell got a lot less potent once I got rid of the plastic wrapping, so I'm starting to wonder.
@Guy it's a hole leg and not just slices I take? Either way posting a picture will most definetly help.
Yes, I only just realized I could post a picture. Here it is: http://i.imgur.com/yOYf6gC.jpg
Is the plastic film only supposed to cover part of the meaty bit? The exposed meat looks dry, flaky and generally awful - hell, I had the impression there wasn't supposed to be any exposed meat.
@Guy it is a leg. when you cut a leg, there is some exposed flesh.
@Guy also, there shouldn't be any plastic film. The ham is cured, and can be kept for quite some time in a cool and dry place. (Of course the exposed meat, and later the part where you started cutting it, dry faster than the rest of the ham, protected by the skin and fat)
Microbiologist here. That meat is clearly spoiled, please don't eat it. While you could clean the mold off the outside, the discoloration and smell suggests that other microbes are at work too. Save yourself the intestinal pain and just toss it out.
As others have said, your jamon is almost certainly spoiled.However, I wouldn't throw it out just yet.
I assume you bought this jamon recently, or at least close enough to this moment that it hasn't turned spoiled while in your possession. If this is the case, it was likely already spoiled while in the store, which means the store essentially sold you a defective product. In many western countries, this means you are entitled for a full refund, provided you kept your receipt of course. From comments I've seen that you're already planning on this route, but I just wanted to reiterate it for any other people who have this issue.
Note: the above statement is void from any warranty for accuracy as legal advice. I am not a lawyer and do not pretend to be one. If you are not sure about the laws in your own country, first get the advice of an official lawyer.
Serrano ham has a much "milder" and nuttier taste than regular prosciutto. That is the beauty of the Serrano - made from a heritage breed of a specific type of hog, fed delicious nuts - the ham is mild, delicious, and should literally melt on your mouth - Anthony Bourdain likes to smear it across his lips too before devouring each piece, so you could do it that way too. It should definitely NOT have any mold on it. The type of ham that is sold in a sealed package is usually trimmed and cleaned of any naturally occuring mold prior to packaging. The best way I can describe the delectable smell of Serrano ham is: a tang of spicy musk, followed by an overall sweet nuttiness, as well as earthiness, a sharp yet pleasant overall sensation - you can tell this will have a lot of umami prior to tasting.
tl:dr; - It should not smell like death itself covered in the tar of the swamps from hell.
I fear you are mistaken. What you describe is Iberico, not Serrano. (Iberico is made from acorn-fed Iberico pig)
@njzk2 Not just that, but only jamón Ibérico de bellota is made from free-range acorn-fed pigs.
Iberico can be partially acorn-fed, but if it doesn't have the 'de bellota' specification, it will have been fed grain to make weight. Iberico hams are made from pigs that are at least 75% Iberico breed, while Serrano is made from white pigs. http://www.jamon.com/pigbreeds.html
Jamon serrano smell should not smell badly. In fact, jamon lovers tend to love the smell. But this is an acquired taste that may take a few interactions to be acquired.
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.206509
| 2016-03-03T13:07:52 |
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|
85417
|
Interpreting a recipe from Mrs Beeton: "carbonate of soda"
Prompted by a discussion at English.se I may be going to make Mrs Beeton's soda biscuits recipe:
SODA BISCUITS.
INGREDIENTS.—1 lb. of flour, 1/2 lb. of pounded loaf sugar, 1/4 lb. of fresh butter, 2 eggs, 1 small teaspoonful of carbonate of soda.
Mode.—Put the flour (which should be perfectly dry) into a basin; rub
in the butter, add the sugar, and mix these ingredients well together.
Whisk the eggs, stir them into the mixture, and beat it well, until
everything is well incorporated. Quickly stir in the soda, roll the
paste out until it is about 1/2 inch thick, cut it into small round
cakes with a tin cutter, and bake them from 12 to 18 minutes in rather
a brisk oven. After the soda is added, great expedition is necessary
in rolling and cutting out the paste, and in putting the biscuits
immediately into the oven, or they will be heavy.
Time.—12 to 18 minutes. Average cost, 1s.
Sufficient to make about 3 dozen cakes. Seasonable at any time.
[italics mine]
Does she really use sodium carbonate and not sodium bicarbonate? I know I can bake the latter to make the former but the carbonate is reputed to leave a soapy flavour. Can we tell from the need for haste after adding it (a quicker reaction?) Does the era give us a clue (mid-C19th)?
The era would be important, sodium bicarbonate first became widely available in the late 1850s in America
@GdD it's right on the cusp then, assuming availability was the same over here. The book was published in 1861 but much of it had appeared in serial form over about a decade before that. I'm considering making half a batch with each.
People moved away from sodium carbonate for good reason @ChrisH, the stuff is unpleasant. Personally I would use some baking soda or powder instead, but if you do want to experiment please handle it with care as it is an irritant.
@GdD I've come across it as washing soda, but in this case I'd make about the right amount from baking soda to ensure food-grade ingredients, so only around a teaspoonful.
Sodium bicarbonate acts a leavening agent, normally by reacting with an acid, but just heating it will prove some leavening. I don't think sodium carbonate will be able provide any leavening in this recipe, and just alter the taste and colour of the biscuits. You should get that too with sodium bicarbonate since it decomposes into sodium carbonate when heated.
@RossRidge I doubt it will get hot enough to form the carbonate unless completely dry - kick it won't be because of the egg. I've read that sodium carbonate does have some raising properties as implied by the recipe
@ChrisH In the absence of acid, sodium bicarbonate provides some leaving by decomposing into sodium carbonate, carbon dioxide and water, which it does at ordinary baking temperatures (80 C).
@RossRidge my reading tells me that the reaction takes place at 160+C.T anyway that's starting from the bicarbonate. My previous comment was that I get the impression the carbonate gives some rise
There are many mentions of carbonate of soda in the Book of Household Management, and also two mentions of bicarbonate of soda (to preserve milk, and in a recipe for light buns). It has a specific section on the carbonate:
CARBONATE OF SODA — Soda was called the mineral alkali, because it was originally dug up out of the ground in Africa and other countries: this state of carbonate of soda is called natron. But carbonate of soda is likewise procured from the combustion of marine plants, or such as grow on the sea-shore. Pure carbonate of soda is employed for making effervescing draughts, with lemon-juice, citric acid, or tartaric acid. The chief constituent of soda, the alkali, has been used in France from time immemorial in the manufacture of soap and glass, two chemical productions which employ and keep in circulation an immense amount of capital. A small pinch of carbonate of soda will give an extraordinary lightness to puff pastes; and, introduced into the teapot, will extract the full strength of the tea. But its qualities have a powerful effect upon delicate constitutions, and it is not to be used incautiously in any preparation.
It therefore seems likely that the recipe is intended to use carbonate rather than bicarbonate.
Further evidence it refers to carbonate and not bicarbonate: I made the the recipe using both (a half quantity of each, with the sodium carbonate made by baking sodium bicarbonate).
A different edition of the book says the carbonate of soda should be dissolved in a small amount of water, and some additional milk may be needed to form a rather soft paste. I used enough to dissolve the bicarbonate, and instead of a soft paste ended up with a soggy mess, needing about another 25% flour before I could roll it out on a heavily floured surface. Bicarbonate of soda is about 5x less soluble in water at room temperature than carbonate of soda, meaning I had to use more water than intended.
The bicarbonate also gave a little more of a rise but a very similar end result. The taste was the same.
Here's how they came out (the carbonate version):
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.207429
| 2017-11-03T12:58:27 |
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65768
|
What is the function of this shallow, 19-divoted, eared cast iron piece?
This piece was given to me a few years back by someone who picked it up at an estate sale. At the time I cleaned it up, re-seasoned it, and promptly forgot about it.
At first blush I thought maybe it was an escargot pan, but on further attention the divots seemed too shallow; each of the 19 holds approximately 1/2 t to 3/4 tbs (7-11 ml). There are no discernible markings on the reverse nor the ears to give me anything to work with.
Someone said it might be an Æbleskiver pan, or a drop muffin pan, but in comparison with the samples I have on hand I don't believe it to be so. The divots on this pan are shallower and the bottoms are relatively flat (disc-shaped rather than hemispherical).
Does anyone one know what the purpose of this cast iron piece? Is it even a piece of cookware?
I've been trying to find a cast iron one for years. (I have a thin aluminum one, which I can't use with my induction burner). My brother thought he found one, and gave it to me for Christmas, but the holes were actually half-spherical (like the one Catija linked to ... which is closer to a takoyaki pan ... the holes were smaller than an aebleskiver pan)
Oh ...and if you're going to try making them ... I highly recommend that you get a large squeeze bottle. You might have to cut the tip to make the nozzle wider.
If you need a recipe, I've had good luck with http://dutchfood.about.com/od/pancakes/r/ClassicPoffertjes.htm
That picture is devious. I first thoughts those were bumps, not moulds.
They look like the Dutch "mini pancake" pans... they're used to make poffertjes.
There are nearly identical pans on sale here.
The Wikipedia article talks about them more specifically:
Poffertjes are a traditional Dutch batter treat. Resembling small, fluffy pancakes, they are made with yeast and buckwheat flour. Unlike American pancakes, they have a light, spongy texture. Typically, poffertjes are served with powdered sugar and butter, and sometimes syrup or advocaat.
And an image from a recipe page:
That pan is identical to the one used to make a Thai dessert that is made out of a coconut mixture. I live in Thailand and see them almost every day. It is called Kanom Krok and is very popular throughout Thailand.
Beyond making poffertjes as outlined in another answer it looks like, from reading up on the web, that Kanom Krok is another valid use for the pan.
To me it looks like your picture has half-sphere shaped holes, while the picture in the question has flat bottoms and much shallower depressions.
This kind of pan seems to be used in many cuisines. In addition to the Dutch
poffertjes, and the thai desert mentioned in another answer, an identical pan is used to make a south Indian dish called Puddu or Paniyaram. From the Wikipedia article:
Paddu or Kuzhi paniyaram is an Indian dish made by steaming batter
using a mould. The batter is made of black lentils and rice and is
similar in composition to the batter used to make idli and dosa.2
The dish can be made sweet or spicy depending on the ingredients
jaggery and chillies respectively.
There is also a Japanese dish made in a similar pan. Again, from Wikipedia:
Takoyaki is a ball-shaped Japanese snack made of a wheat flour-based
batter and cooked in a special takoyaki pan. It is typically filled
with minced or diced octopus (tako), tempura scraps (tenkasu), pickled
ginger, and green onion
The examples linked aren't as convincing as the others, since the cavities are more semi-spherical instead of being flat.
In Norway this would be used to make munker, although a smaller 7 hole variant is vastly more common.
The pan you pictured for minker looks more in line with what I know as a Danish Æbleskiver. The cavities are much larger and half spherical unlike the pan in the original question. See my comparison photo between the two.
@rheone Until I saw your side by side comparison I couldn't really tell the difference either.
Although the others answers do look convincing, I suppose it could also be used to produce a varient of Blinis, which I just learned is a bad translation from Russian for other markets. But they look like
But what evidence do you have that small blinis are produced in a special pan, as opposed to a wide griddle?
Not much indeed. I barely mentioned that it could be used for that. Like, for example that pan.
Being from the Netherlands I'd say a poffertjes pan (mini pancakes indeed).
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.207826
| 2016-01-24T03:02:13 |
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|
57068
|
Sous vide octopus for maximum tenderness
A few years ago I had a delicious 15-hour slow-cooked (then charred) octopus at a japanese restaurant in New York. The flesh was moist and tender without being gelatinous, and I could sense the layers in the tissue as I bit through it.
I've been trying to replicate the process using a sous-vide cooker, with very limited success as my results have invariably produced rubbery octopus.
As even food mega-nerd Harold McGee noted in a New York Times column, the recipes for tender octopus vary tremendously, and even his quest continues.
My instinct is that sous-vide is a good approach here. The sous vide recipes vary, but generally recommend ranges of 170-185F for 3 to 7 hours.
I've tried variants of these (with medium, fresh octopus, bought whole, cleaned and done one leg per bag), but with invariably rubbery results.
Question:
Is it possible to get reasonably consistent, moist/tender, medium sized octopus legs using sous-vide cooking?
If so, what preparation/setting is recommended?
If not, what are the factors which make this so damn hard?
My understanding of the spanish way to cook octopus is a two step process -- boil it for hours (or a short boil, then bake in oven for hours), dry it, then grill it. For larger ones, there might also be a 'tenderizing' step which involves beating it with a mallet or similar. It's possible that the stuff that you're trying to break down requires higher heat to break down than what you'd get from sous vide.
Are you doing a charring step as well that could be contributing? Also FWIW, I worked at a restaurant that also cooked octopus sous-vide, and total time there was about 12 hours. Time may simply be the missing factor for the best results.
The way I saw someone preparing octopus in the med was they sent their kid out to beat it against the sidewalk for 5 minutes to tenderize it. Do you have children?
@GdD A decent quantity of repressed anger would do fine too.
A cooking life hack right there @logophobe: get someone really, really mad and hand them a tentacle.
Are you using fresh octopus, or frozen? You don't say.
Fresh octopus! Or at least, caught within 24 hours and transported to the fishmongers. I've edited the question
@logophobe that's a good suggestion. I'll try a 12 hour cycle at 171F and see if that produces better results. Will report back!
My child is only 18mo old.. how long until she's old enough to beat an octopus on a rock?
@KevinDavis, that depends on the size of the octopus. I think you should give her a small octopus in about a year and see how she does. Repeat the test at least every 6 months until she's 18 years old. Make sure you keep a video record to ensure scientific accuracy, or at least some entertainment value.
Keller does octopus sous vide. I believe there is a recipe in his Under Pressure cookbook, but I don't have it at this location. I did a search on the web and came up with 77C (170.6 F) for 5 hours.
Personally, I have had the best results with the oven method in your McGee Link.
Thanks! I do want to attempt to do it sous vide per the question, so will try cooking it for a few more hours
@tohster please post your results. By the way, I did confirm that Keller uses 77C for 5 hours.
will do....ok that Keller data point is fantastic, thanks for following up! I'm basically going to place the legs in separate bags and cook them at 5, 7 and 12 hours to see what happens. Will report back
@tohster You didn't report back! What were the results?
It'll sound a bit dramatic but it works because of some basic biology.
Cut off the body of the occy so then you have a "fan" of legs.
Cut through between the legs making pairs of legs still conjoined.
Cut vegie peeler strips from a cut, still green, papaya ( or paw paw) one thin strip for each pair of legs.
Place the cut pairs of legs in the sous vide bag and intersperse the pairs with the strips of papaya (or pawpaw).
Seal the bag and sous vide at 72 degrees C for 3 hours.
Finally remove the pairs of legs and wash them to remove traces of the fruit.
Now grill, slice, saute, whatever you might wish and there you are.
Biology? The fruit has a natural enzyme - papain which partially breaks down some of the protein tissues of the occy.
Method also works for large squid which can also be quite tough.
Don't overdo the time/temp though as the papain can, over time turn the whole occy to mush.
Also, take care with storage as there is a bacterium on the surface of such animals - vibrio which can cause both rotting and stomach upsets in quantity.
If you wish to keep the occy longer term either freeze in fresh bags without the fruit or before sous vide drop the occy legs into rolling boil water for a minute with stirring to ensure full surface exposure before sous vide.
I also tried different sous vide strategies. I get the best results with 4 hours at 82celcius. Remember to leave the octopus in the warm water to cool down slowly. The octopus seems to take in extracted moist in this process.
If really like to create a Thai flavoured marinade that in this cooling process creates an intense flavour.
I found this recipe.
75ºC (167ºF), 8 hours.
Marinating is optional.
I haven't tried it myself.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.208265
| 2015-04-29T15:06:29 |
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|
66721
|
Gluten free bread in breadmaker looks weird and doesn't rise
I have been trying to make gluten-free bread in my bread maker for a few times now. It always fails. It doesn't rise how a funny shape (still the shape from kneading) and doesn't cook very well inside (very dense).
I know there are lots of posts about this, but I have already made sure:
the yeast doesn't touch the water or the salt
the last yeast I tried was Hovis fast action yeast
should I use one rising cycle (this is the setting for gluten free bread)
I've put xantan gum as required
Anything else I can check?
From this otherwise great recipe book. (I did leave out the onion and pepper and replaced the sugar with agave)
[] 1
Hi Dorien - Could you please edit your answer to include the full recipe (or a link to it) that you are using? It will help people troubleshoot it with you.
Yes, the recipe would help. Gluten free bread is handled a lot differently than regular bread, so unless the recipe was specifically formulated to work in a breadmaker, I'm not surprised that it wouldn't turn out right.
Hi! What a lovely way to present a recipe. Thanks!
Is that the booklet that came with the bread machine? If so... are you sure your yeast is good? Have you tried proofing it?
This book Didn't come with the bread maker. The yeast is brand new (actually tried with different yeast brands on different (also failed) breads.
Maybe I'm missing something elementary, like water temperature or so
@dorien that looks like it failed to mix—I think I see unmixed flour on top...
True it does look a bit unmixed
@dorien you need to open up the bread machine after it finishes its mix/knead (or watch it while its kneading) and see if its actually working. Might be that the machine is unable to knead this dough.
Could that Also be due to not enough water?
@dorien it could be, observing the bread machine as it attempts to mix/knead should make it clear. Is its mixing paddle spinning around doing nothing, while a pool of water sits by vs. is it mixing everything, and its just not hydrating because all the water is already mixed in.
@dorien also, if you want to see how the bread machine normally works—make a "normal" white bread loaf (with gluten) recipe from its manual. If you can't eat the gluten, give the loaf away or toss it (should be fairly cheap).
When you say you left out the yoghurt - I don't see that in the recipe. Did you mean something else?
Oh, you are right about the yogurt, I've edited the question. I must have been thinking of another recipe.
There shouldn't be much different between dough rising on your counter vs. in your bread machine, unless your bread machine heats the dough slightly during rise (in which case the bread machine will be quicker).
There are two things likely to cause what you're seeing:
The dough hasn't achieved enough elasticity to rise. Normally this elasticity is provided by gluten, so it can be hard to obtain in gluten-free recipes. Easy enough to test: take your dough out of the bread machine after it finishes kneading, and let it rise on the counter (without any additional kneading). If it rises on the counter, then the dough had enough elasticity (and the yeast was alive, etc.). If it doesn't, you'll need to adjust the recipe and/or the amount of time the machine kneads for (if possible). Or possibly something like pre-mixing the xanthan with the water before pouring it into the machine. If it does rise on the counter, that leaves...
The bread machine didn't wait long enough. Time how long it takes to rise on the counter. Hopefully your bread machine allows you to adjust the rise time and use that as a basis; it may be shorter if it elevates the temperature. You could also attempt to speed up the rise with a bit more yeast, switching to quicker yeast (rapid rise vs. instant), or adding a little sugar.
The not really cooked denseness you're getting is a side-effect of the lack of rise. Get it to rise properly, and that should go away.
Try baking the bread in the oven instead, and compare/contrast results there. My friends (who have a gluten free household) gave up on their "hassle-free" breadmaker. They still use it to mix the dough, but they remove it after that step and rise/bake it following ordinary gluten-free bread recipes. They've found the results to be much more consistent, and it fixed the big issue (for them) with the bread being too dense.
I do this with my breadmaker all the time, for traditional recipes (gluten-full). The breadmaker is convenient for mixing and kneading, but it's not great for baking.
I tried this with my first gluten free bread. Tried multiple riding cycles but it just never rose...
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.208836
| 2016-02-22T18:26:49 |
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|
66716
|
How to perfectly separate hemp hearts from hemp seeds
I often buy shelled hemp seeds, but there is still a lot of hull in the bought
product. No manufacturer sell hemp seeds perfectly shelled (only hemp hearts).
You can see the typical product on the picture.
Could you recommend some home-made easy method how to filter (or separate) the hemp hearts (white on the picture) from the hemp hulls (green and black on the picture)?
It looks like there's at least one manufacturer that sells hearts only : http://smile.amazon.com/dp/B00AR82UNA/
Dry? If so, rolling down an inclined plane, such as a big handheld cutting board into a washing tub should work. The rounder seeds will roll, while the husks remain stuck. Pour in a thin steady stream. Broken seeds will likely still roll, as they've still got bounce to them, while the hulls do not.
Wet? Stirred flotation is likely your best option. Hulls have a larger surface area to mass ratio, so you can stir them right over the sides of a pot with water running into it.
Neither method will give you 100%. To approach that, you need to repeat the process.
This is easy to say, but can you post pictures of videos about your success?
Nope. I haven't done it with hemp seed. However one or the other technique works for oats, sunflowers, garbanzos, Bok choy seeds, etc. etc. They're fairly standard separation processes in the food industry in cases where sieving won't do the job. They work fine at home for moderate sized batches, but if you're talking 50Lbs or something, it's time to search the old patent literature to find out how they did these things in say 1883. Many of those old techniques are easily adaptable to medium scale in the modern day.
@WayfaringStranger : some of them used 'shake tables' with groves in them to catch one of the items, so you could separate things out. There's also winnowing by wind : a tarp is spread out on the floor of a barn, and doors opened on either end to allow air flow. Grain is then poured from the upper level onto the tarp, with the less dense items being blown further from the heavier items. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnowing
@Joe I actually tried making one of those shake tables with grooves for separating oat groats vs oat groats with hull attached. No joy at a scale you can reasonably expect to build in your basement. I've got a bigger variable speed fan now, and may try the wind method on oats to better success soon. A fan and a sheet for winnowing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnowing might work nicely for hemp seed. That's best done outdoors.
We can easily remove the skin of black gram.
Soak it for long hrs like 5 to 8hrs.
6 hrs is enough.
wash them no of times like we wash rice.
Mix them with hands & just rub them while mixing
same as rice washing.
do it no of times, then it will go
u can find just 5, 6 black skins.
That u can remove by hand.
Thank your for the answer. Do you think like this? http://youtu.be/cUmHQtiaaoQ I will give it a try, but wonder if only hemp hearts will remain.
yes.. south indian food idly. liquid preparation method. so many times try this same way.
This does not work at all.
I am doing a study on the effects of supplementing quail feed with hemp seed, looking at the nutritional and behavioral benefits on the meat, eggs, and social interaction of the covey.
Quail are a gamebird with small sharp bills suitable for foraging for seed and bugs in the wild. Natural hemp seed has little if any THC as that is a product of the plant found in high concentration of the oily buds to promote fertilization. Although the husk is not the source of the hemp nutrients, some husk adds dietary fiber. On small gamebirds such as quail, chukkar, dove, offering natural whole hemp seed is not harmful. Cracked hemp seed is a solution that allows the quail a choice of what parts of the seed to enjoy. Quail hearts, while offering the most nutritional part of the hemp seed are more costly and therefore may not be the ultimate solution to add hemp seed to a commercial product.
To separate a large portion (%25+/_) of hemp shell a combination of a shake table and variable speed fan to remove the obvious husk as well as to identify uncracked seed from the mixture.
For our study, we use an electric vibration table from a 1970's football game (NFL Monday Night) that move the game pieces (team players) when the vibration mechanism is switched on. With a properly placed vortex desk fan (of hand held personal propeller fan) we can easily remove %75 of the husk pieces from hemp seed we crack in a morter/pestle. This allows the quail to chose his treat. Who knows better what the shell nutrients are that the quail?
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.209272
| 2016-02-22T14:10:44 |
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|
28696
|
Alcohol evaporation
It's fairly well known that alcohol in liquids used for cooking evaporates pretty well, at a lower temperature than the water it's in, so the end result doesn't contain much alcohol. It doesn't all evaporate out, but almost all of it does.
This makes sense for things like reductions. However, let's say I am doing some braising. I do my thing, pour in my alcohol (wine, beer, whatever) and slap on a very tight fitting lid.
Does this mean that most of the alcohol stays in the braising liquid? Obviously it will evaporate out but then will it condense on the lid and then drip back into the liquid? If so, should all braises done with an alcoholic liquid be boiled either before or after the braise?
I'm not sure your introduction is a good summary of the answers on the question you linked to - it takes a long time to get rid of the alcohol, and a good amount of water goes with it. The liquid as a whole is boiling; it's not just the alcohol.
This should make the answer fairly obvious too. If you're braising in a way that will leave most of the liquid in the pot, whether the liquid is just water or contains alcohol, the liquid is staying. The alcohol and water will both recondense on the lid and drip back in. If the lid isn't completely tight, with a little bit of vapor escaping, you'll lose a bit more alcohol than water (the vapor will contain more alcohol than water), but unless you're really letting out vapor, you naturally won't be getting rid of anything.
As for whether you should boil before braising, well, if you're trying to get rid of alcohol, sure, boil the alcohol first. But most dishes don't contain huge amounts of alcohol, so leaving it in is usually fine - and that's why most recipes get away with not simmering for the hour or two it takes to get rid of most of the alcohol.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.209664
| 2012-11-27T03:45:35 |
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|
28708
|
What is this pan called, and what is it used for?
This pan was given to me recently, apparently it was with the other baking items we got from my Grandmother. It is very shallow and appears to have a no-stick coating. As you can see there's a ring around the outside as well as a depression in the center, with slanted sides.
What is this pan called, and what is it used for?
Does it separate into two parts? If so, it's probably a pie dish with a drip catcher
Are you sure this is a pan and not a cover for a pan or pot?
It doesn't separate. It's one pan. There were, however, two of them in the box.
It doesn't seem to be a lid for anything else that I already had or that also came in the box of goodies. I also don't think it'd be a lid because it's no-stick and I've never seen a lid that had a no-stick coating. Not that it couldn't exist..
That is a Holzit pie pan, used for making berry pies, where the filling may expand and run over the side of the pie during baking.
The picture from the OP is now on that link :).
It could be used for something like cheesecake which some recipes call for a water bath around the baking pan. So this allows you to put water around the inner pan for a water bath!
But the inside looks like it is shaped like a pie pan, not a cake pan. Plus the water bath should the cheese cake instead of just around the perimeter.
Ouch...I can't believe I got down voted. :) I've actually seen cheesecake made in a pie tin.
this looks like something you might put on top of your stove, some pre made pancake only pan that you buy on tv late at night.
I couldn't make sense of your answer. Are you suggesting it is used for reheating pre-made pancakes, or keeping them warm? Have you seen these for sale via TV shopping?
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.209841
| 2012-11-27T23:50:46 |
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|
28856
|
How do I add healthy fats to my daughter's diet?
My daughter is going through a growth spurt right now and having trouble sleeping through the night. I asked this question on ParentingSE and based on what I wrote, the advice I have gotten is that a little more fat in her diet might help.
Can you suggest some ways to add healthy fats to the cooking I already do so my daughter can get what she needs?
@GdD here you go.
Hey hey, @balanced-mama just you wait for the deluge! There's nothing cooks like hearing better than "I want to add more fat!"
Looking at your parenting.SE question, stir-fries offer plenty of opportunity for adding oil (indeed, you normally stir-fry in oil). You can add oil when cooking rice and beans (into both). Broccoli can be tossed in olive oil, salt, a few pinches of sugar (helps with browning), and pepper and roasted. (We're not a health site, BTW).
It's not just the increase in fat, which is useful, but reducing the carbohydrates that will reduce hunger. Eliminate the high carb foods and low fat dairy one evening (especially the grains and beans), and see if that takes care of the problem.
The reason I suggested @balancedmama post the question here was because she was looking for ingredient and recipe ideas, not really for health advice.
This question needs a major rewrite to focus on "What fats can I add to my normal cooking". You've provided too much context - it's easy to interpret this question as "What fats are healthy?" or "Can I have some fatty recipes?"; both of which would be off topic here.
I see two major problems with this question. KatieK mentioned the first one: it can be mistaken for a health question. The second: it is asking for a list of "what could I eat", which makes it a poll question. I don't see how the second problem can be overcome, so I am closing. If you think you can edit it such that you avoid both problems, we can reopen.
Between KatieK's comment and the closing of the question I did make some changes that I thought would help. Perhaps a suggestion would be nice - especially for a first time user that is trying to take your comments seriously. I have made one further effort in hopes of fixing the problem. Since some have answered (with non-polling, or health answers - such as coconut oil in smooties and capitalizing on fats in meat in sauces - like spaghetti) I was getting some answers that were related to what I am after here.
Smoothies would be a great breakfast, snack, or dessert! You can put in a lot of healthy things that would add different nutrients. The nice thing about smoothies is that the other ingredients can mask certain tastes, too.
For adding fats, try adding coconut oil or coconut milk, peanut butter or other nut butter, avocado, or even some other oil that you think is healthy.
OK, so breakfast first. Breakfast for kids should have protein and fats, so foods like cheese, eggs, and yogurt are the way to go. Sour cream is good. Beans are also good. It sounds like you're in the southwest maybe, in which case something like huevos rancheros would be a great combination! A ham and cheese omelette with a dollop of sour cream would be a great start to the morning. Oatmeal made with whole milk, while carbs, is slow release, so combined with some protein it's a good breakfast option. Full fat yogurt has lots of calcium so is a good thing as well.
There are plenty of high-fat snacks out there, but they are usually junk food and therefore full of salt and artificial ingredients so I'd steer clear if you can. Cheese is a good snack, but avoid processed cheese and just put slices of the real thing in a small container. Unsalted nuts and seeds are great healthy snacks, and you can add some dried fruit and maybe a few m&ms to make a tasty trail mix. Yogurt pots are quick and easy to deploy, but watch out for sugar levels as some have ridiculous amounts in them.
I also feel hungry at night if I don't get enough fat in my carbohydrate containing meals. I believe the suggestions below are also healthier (though many people will disagree):
An easy way to fix a dish like rice is to cook it in coconut milk.
If I eat pasta, I make sure the sauce has plenty of fat and meat; for example, I would make macaroni and cheese with hamburger rather than spaghetti with tomato sauce.
Vegetables can be cooked in bacon fat or with cream.
Nuts have a high fraction of monounsaturated fat. 100 grams (3.5 oz) of almonds, for example,
contains just under 50 grams of fat, and just under 4 grams of that is saturated fat. See this wikipedia entry, citing data from the National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference
Nuts are generally high in fibre, vitamins and other nutrients. If you were looking for a healthy way to introduce more fat into a diet, then perhaps a handful of almonds, walnuts, brazil nuts etc. is a possibility.
NOTE: Of course I'm assuming here that nut allergies are not a problem!
Thanks so much. I've been working on getting her to like nuts more. She only likes Almonds and peanuts, but that is something.
I would certainly focuson foods higher in healthy fats naturally than add additional fats to other foods, in order to get additional fat soluble nutrients into your daughter's diet as well. Some good sources of healthy fats are of course nuts, whole dairy, avocados, olives and beans. Try to add as many different sources of healthy fats into her diet as she'll accept to keep a balance of all the other nutrients.
I personally would also make sure to introduce the additional fats slowly, a little should go a long way and overdoing it could cause more trouble than it will help.
I use a lot of black beans, pinto beans, garbanzo beans, white beans and lentils in a number of lunch and dinner recipes. I didn't realize beans had fats. Are there any that are known for being particularly fatty?
Beans have a nice little bit of fat; just more than grains. Beans can hold a good amount of fat -think refried. Hummous is a sesame garbanzo spread/dip that can be very fatty as desired without feeling greasy/heavy.
I think there is some grammatical ambiguity here, but to be clear, beans by themselves are not a significant source of fat. A serving of black beans has 1g of fat vs 41g carbohydrate. Due to the carbohydrate load, eating beans will likely make you hungrier rather than satiated.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.210063
| 2012-12-03T17:16:06 |
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|
95445
|
How to mask/reduce stevia's metallic after taste?
I use SugarLess stevia and erythritol blend when I'm baking or making home made ice creams. But in almost all of the things I bake or cook using this product, there is a metallic after taste that lingers for 3-4 minutes. The finished food items taste great but I was wondering if there was a way to somehow mask or reduce this after taste.
Stevia is a tight binder with significant genetic variation in how people respond to it: https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/74334/can-one-be-taste-blind-to-the-sweetness-of-stevia/74340#74340 I've never met a metallic after taste. With the effects being so variable, you may be on your own here.
Have you tried using pure stevia? I'm wondering if it's the other ingredients in the blend producing the aftertaste.
@FuzzyChef: No, I haven't tried just stevia and it might be my misunderstanding but I thought that it's Stevia that is a tight binder and leaves an after taste.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.210588
| 2019-01-07T20:35:02 |
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|
53954
|
Starters vs Entree
I've been watching Hell's Kitchen USA and they have Starters/Appetisers, Entrees and Desserts. In Australia, we have Entree, Mains and Desserts, so its very confusing what Starters and Entrees are and what is the difference.
I found this on Taste.com.au, which makes it only more confusing:
Whether you call them appetisers or entrees, starter recipes are
incredibly important as they set the tone for the meal to come. Find a
starter to suit all occasions in this mouthwatering collection.
Can someone please explain their difference?
Entree in American English means main course, despite the original French meaning.
This name is a sort of historical accident. Originally there were far more courses than just starters/appetizers, main course, and dessert. There have been a large variety of traditions, but a reasonably common meal structure was to have small appetizers (hors d'oeuvres), more substantial ones bordering on things you'd see as side dishes or half a main course now (entrées), then a large meat dish (plat principal, possibly). In North America the separate large meat dish disappeared from tradition over time, and effectively was folded into the entrées, and that name was retained for the main course.
Similar things happened elsewhere, of course - most people don't have four course meals all the time - but the resulting name is essentially unique to American English. In the rest of the English speaking world, the original terms largely remained.
This is mentioned in the first part of the Entrée article on Wikipedia.
Entrée was originally a course served between the fish course and the main roast course of a meal when the menus had up to 21 courses. Today outside of the USA entrée is used to mean a first course, that is a salad or soup (now augmented by small portions of pasta or other dishes). Appetizers is another term in use by the USA on many menus for starter. When outside of the USA an appetizer is a small sample of food that is eaten before the starter (first course of a meal). Appetizers are also known as hors d'oeuvres, canapes, or amuse bouche when used at cocktail parties or events.
Appetizer isn't just on many menus in the US, it's the standard word for that.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.210810
| 2015-01-25T01:22:21 |
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|
40731
|
Why is it easier to separate a cold egg?
A lot of recipes that call for separating an egg, suggest that the egg be separated when cold rather than at room temperature even if it has to be brought to room temperature afterwards. I was just wondering what makes it easier to separate eggs when cold and if there is a chemical reason or the cells of the egg change under different temperatures? What's the science behind it?
It's a simple matter of viscosity, when eggs are cold the white is less runny. When eggs are warm the white is much more runny.
As for whether it is easier to separate eggs when cold or warm it depends on your method. If you use the shells to separate the white, by cracking them in half and then transferring the yolk back and forth between the halves, then I'd say cold is a bit better because once the white starts to drip out it tends to go as a whole. With warm eggs more white will stay in the shell with the yolk.
However, if you use your hands to separate the eggs, by letting the white drip between your fingers (or using an egg separator which does the same thing), warm eggs work much better because the runniness allows them to flow easier. This method works fine for cold eggs too, but warm is faster.
Of the two methods I prefer using my hands rather than the shell for a few reasons:
Less broken yolks: It's easier to break a yolk when using shells
It's faster: especially if your eggs are room temperature you can separate eggs twice as fast this way
You can whip the whites right away: Most of the time the reason you are separating the egg whites is to whip them into peaks, and warm whites whip better than cold whites. If your eggs are warm already then you can whip them right away, if they are cold you have to wait for them to warm up
A handy trick if you are separating a lot of eggs is to separate each white into a separate bowl, then putting the white into a larger bowl with the rest of them. This is so if you get a bad egg, or a yolk breaks into the white you can discard the egg and keep the rest of them.
There's another reason for not using the shells, which is that it reduces the risk of salmonella (see e.g. NSW Food Authority recommendations).
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.211037
| 2013-12-31T08:41:50 |
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|
53535
|
How thick should be the sponge for a swiss roll?
How thick should be the sponge for a swiss roll to roll easily without breaking and hold its shape?
I saw some pictures that look perfect and then some where the sponge looks too thick.
How do I figure out the perfect thickness of the sponge?
What sponge recipe are you using?
Personally when ever I do Swiss rolls or anything requiring me to roll or manipulate the sponge in any way I'll use a Genoise sponge recipe. It's a bit more effort to make than a bog standard pound cake recipe but worth it.
While still warm I've managed to roll it anywhere between 2mm thick and 3cm with little or no cracks or splits.
In my opinion the optimum thickness for a full sized Swiss roll is around 1cm thick, but obviously if making canape sized versions you'll be looking more towards the 2mm thickness.
I was thinking of using Victoria sponge which is what I find in many swiss roll recipes
@Doug: Yes I did but it took a few tries. Didn't get exact 1 cm but close to it :)
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.211236
| 2015-01-12T09:22:43 |
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|
32065
|
Can fondant be frozen before covering the cake?
I am making a shoe box cake for a birthday and am freaking out a bit about the sharp edges on the cake. So, I was thinking about cutting out fondant to exact sizes for the sides of the shoebox and freeing them before sticking them on the cake to get a perfect finish. But I am scared a bit of freezing the fondant because my friend refrigerated her fondant covered cake once and it started sweating. Has anyone ever tried freezing fondant and has any tips?
I wouldn't use fondant, I'd use royal icing, which is harder.
here is the recipe of the fondant cakes http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/25046/foolproof-chocolate-fondant-cake.aspx
and
http://www.ehow.com/how_5580425_freeze-cake-fondant.html
I'm writing this so it helps someone else. I decided to freeze my fondant because I didn't have time to air dry the fondant like @Sunishtha Singh suggested. I didn't want the fondant to become too dry either by adding the tylose/CMC powder or use the gum paste/satin ice because personally, I prefer the flavour of fondant better than gumpaste.
So, I found this link and this one and decided to follow the instructions. But I did add a bit of guess work and common sense and instead of freezing the fondant panels for 15-20 minutes, I only froze for 10 minutes and didn't open the fridge/freezer until the 10 minutes were finished. I also put the panels in the freezer at the same time and worked very quickly to attach the panels once the 10 minutes were finished. Once I attached the panels, I switched on the aircon but not for more than 15-20 minutes and it seemed to be fine, even considering that it had been raining all day.
I don't know what role does the fridge play in this but I have a frost free fridge. I also used black fondant for the panels and even though I personally find it much more moist than the white fondant, the panels attached nicely and the shoebox looked very smooth, at least from the sides.
I hope this helps someone and I give the fondant freezing a thumbs up :)
There's really no point to freezing them, because once you take them out of the freezer, they start to accumulate moisture, which will cause the fondant to melt, or at least get all goopy, as you said. The only way to avoid this when you freeze them is to wrap them airtight, but you have to leave them totally wrapped until they thaw, so why bother? I would just air dry them for a few days and apply them to the sides of the cake. Better yet, why don't you do this with gumpaste instead of fondant? That will dry a lot faster and better and won't lose its stiffness when you apply it to the cake, so you'll get a more box-like effect.
I just used this method for a wood crate and found this tutorial : http://sugarsweetcakesandtreats.blogspot.com/2010/04/wine-bottle-in-crate-cake.html
I would to ensure it dries firm and is strong enough to stand on end. I can't remember the exact amount - I just added a little bit at a time until I noticed the color start to lighten, slightly. Once dry, I attached the panels to a fondant covered cake with a little buttercream. The panels stayed in place and remained firm. When it was time to serve, we just removed the panels and then began cutting.
the precolored fondants are so saturated with color, you can also add a little gumpaste to your black fondant without it affecting the color. Not sure what brand you're using, I'd used Satin Ice for this purpose as it will dry firm. I did for the panals on my shoebox cake and my Alamo cake - both times they were ready to use within 24 hours (flipping a few times during drying time).then measured the crumb coated cake and cut out the fondant panels with those measurements adding about 1/3" on both the front and back panels (cut the two sides exactly as measured).The panels dried for 48 hours (they were still a little flexible, but stiff enough to work with). then cut out four strips of black fondant and put them on the four corners of the cake (wrapped around the edge). it helped because any small gaps between the sides of the panels were largely disguised by the black underneath instead of white BC showing through.
I didnt have to re-cut/re-size the panels once appllied to the cake. I found that with the black fondant underneath and by simply applying or scraping off BC where needed to make it fit, it all worked out. Oh ya, I applied gumpaste/tylose glue to the fondant corners so that the panels fit nice and tighltly.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.211362
| 2013-02-20T10:30:10 |
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|
30804
|
How will less flour affect molten lava cakes?
I made some molten cakes the other day, using this recipe from Betty Crocker. However, it is very "cakey." The molten cakes I've had before in restaurants have had more of a "truffle" consistency. Much denser, and smoother in consistency (I'm unsure if this is what is meant by "fudge like" or not). The molten part of the restaurant cake also seems thicker. I'm assuming this is related to the relative densities of the cakes.
Is this a simple instance of just needing to reduce the flour? Or is there more to it?
Here is a list of the ingredients the recipe calls for:
Unsweetened baking cocoa
6 oz semisweet baking chocolate, chopped
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons butter or margarine
3 whole eggs
3
egg yolks
1 1/2
cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup Gold Medal® all-purpose flour*
Additional powdered sugar, if desired
Sugared kumquats, if desired
Here is a picture of the desired molten cake:
versus the Betty Crocker one:
It's more likely an overcooking issue. A) whet time and temperature does the recipe call for and B) how accurate is your oven dial?
450 F for 12-14 minutes. Unsure of how accurate my oven is. however, the result did look like their example of a correct cake, which is why I wondered if it was the recipe.
It may have looked correct externally, but if it was more cakey inside it could be overcooked and thus dried out.
why am I so hungry now...
Because the molten lava cake you have pictured from any restaurant isn't made up of cake. It's really a BROWNIE! That is why the different density and the difference in richness. I know. I make them in a high end restaurant in Wisconsin.
This is very useful information. To make it fit better on the site, it could be improved by changing the wording a bit to directly answer the question. Edits like that are best when done by the original poster. Welcome to Seasoned Advice! I hope you stick around.
several key elements:
the shape of the mold changes the surface area, more area = more cooked cake.
those two chocolates were different.
sugar will make the chocolate more sticky (changes viscosity)
fat will make the chocolate more rich (and hold better)
some tips:
you can freeze the chocolate "truffle" part so that it doesn't bake as fast.
you can also try to substitute with an actual truffle.
you can make the center part bigger, by changing proportions, this is very similar to your idea of reducing the flour.
There is no separate "truffle part" in that recipe. Like most molten cake recipes, it is a single homogeneous batter.
I see, my friend uses frozen chocolate square in the middle.
If you're not getting the exact results you want, I suggest you experiment with a few things and expect a few learning experiences along the way. Look at three or four other recipes and look for ideas of things to try.
As noted in the comments you might want to adjust cooking time and/or temperature. If you're oven is too cool you might have cooked the inside more to get the same external look than if it had been at full temperature. So try more heat or less time. If you think it was too soft inside do the reverse.
That said, it sounds like you don't really like the intended results from the recipe, so you'll probably want to make other variations.
Depending on how things are combined in the preparation process you can try experiment with flour and fat levels. Remember that if you liked the outer layers adjusting the flour will effect those too. Some recipes include unmelted chocolate pieces put into the cake as you pour it into the dish. That will give you more of the texture you see in the first picture (the heavier chocolate will depress into the weak structures below it). You might also want to try adjusting the overall chocolate amount and how much butter you melt into it.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.211749
| 2013-02-10T07:39:06 |
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"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/14984",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/158948",
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"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/20183",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/4194",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/72078",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/72079",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/72080",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/72112",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/73519",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/73534",
"kinolaus",
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],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
}
|
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