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73151	Fastest way to peel petai? Parkia speciosa, Bitter Bean, Stinky Bean, Sator I am looking for a fast way to peal Parkia speciosa, (as known as Petai, Bitter Bean, Stinky Bean, Sator). We are processing thousand rows of petai every day. We need to find more efficient ways to do our job. Our goal is to peel the beans out of it's skin and it's inner skin. The bean should come out clean without cutting it through. The following video shows the current technique we are using. See video: https://youtu.be/3F7TfAdMYiU?list=PLHHnWHMetsOqJArvQK9FjAsnCGCKuWs0h Petai has a thick outer skin with rows of beans within. The petai bean are it's seeds which are coated with an soft inner skin (also known as testa or seed coat) [Picture of] Parkia speciosa (from Wikipedia) - shows the fruit as it was picked from the tree, with some of it's bean has been peeled off clean and some are still intact with it's soft inner skin. Pealed clean Do not cut through I have tried searching for any technique, devices, or machine but could not find any better way than what we are doing now. I wish someone had an answer with the best solution to this. Hello, and welcome to Stack Exchange. Commercial harvesting techniques don't seem to be on-topic here. The fastest way to peel garlic is on-topic http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/895/how-do-you-peel-garlic-easily/ - I see no reason why peeling other foods would be off-topic. The question is about processing the food after harvest, not harvesting it. Nik - for those of us unfamiliar with the bean, pictures of it as it comes in and partially processed might be helpful, as would a description or pictures of the method you use now. Processing in large quantity is for cook in respectively large quantity too. While I don't have a tried answer, I had some speculative thoughts that I hope might be useful. You may have already looked into these possibilities, or they might not work, which case obviously they won't be helpful... but I thought I might offer them because it seems to me like like they might work. Have you tried slicing off the long edges of the pod, as close to the beans as you can? It looks like the pod is attached between the beans, so the pod won't pop open like peas - but if it can be pried or pulled open, it might let you take the whole pod's worth of beans at once. Even if not, it might make pulling the bean from the pod a lot easier if you don't have to pull it free from the sides. The downside is that it would be easy to nip ends of the beans, especially if they don't line up neatly in the pod - you might consider cutting sections at a time, rather than the whole pod at once. This would be much easier if you had a guillotine style cutter, which should let you make straight cuts fairly easily and with minimum effort. I was thinking something like the one below, although you might want one specialized for kitchen use rather than paper. Alternatively, if you can cut both the long sides off the pod - then if you slice off each bean, ideally so the bean shows through on three edges minimum, you might be able to remove the beans from the square of the pod by putting them in a rotating drum. The squares would rub against each other, and over time pry the pod edges apart and let the bean loose, and let the beans rub the inner skin off against each other. You should separate loose beans and chaff periodically, so that the beans aren't damaged by over-grinding them. While this should work for most beans per batch, if there are any leftover beans that really won't shake loose, they can be dealt with manually at nearly the same efficiency you already have. I don't know how long it would take to do a single batch, it might depend on the beans and pods, how closely they're cut, how big and how full the batches are... but it could conceivably do large batches at a time, with minimal supervision - and so be more efficient and easier even if it isn't "fastest". I pulled the idea from the polishing drums used for tumbling rocks, which use grit to wear down the stones - but when researching I found the process is also similar to threshing and winnowing, as is done for grain (like wheat) to lose the inedible husk from the inner grain - the scale is just somewhat different (and dedicated equipment likely to be too specialized, but you can try). Actually, you may get the same effect from commercial mixers (or even regular ones, depending on batch size), since the work is done by the friction between the beans. Your square cut pods should work tumbling by themselves, since they're light, soft (compared to stone), and have plenty of edges to catch on each other. Your beans be relatively unharmed, because they should be tougher than your pod edges. I suspect it will work better with larger batches, because the weight will give the rubbing enough force to pull the pod apart and shake the bean out. Cutting the pod around the bean on all four sides would let the bean be pulled loose much faster, but it would mean cutting the extra pod out from between each bean. Leaving the extra strip of pod on one side, with the bean showing on three, is probably nearly as good, and takes one cut less per bean, which may add up over large amounts. Also, you should consider that both methods may produce more damage to the bean (in nipped of edges from straight cuts, and splits are also a possibility when tumbling). It is also possible that there will be beans that need to be processed manually anyway. How cost-effective the processes will actually be for your people will depend on a lot of factors.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.255812	2016-08-15T01:46:58	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/73151", "authors": [ "Daniel Griscom", "Ecnerwal", "Nik", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/34242", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/36089", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/49768" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
64814	What are these crispy bits on top of rice? What are these crispy bits on top of rice that look something like this, but are perhaps a bit smaller: (Picture taken from this blog post.) Are you asking what they're called, or what they are? — My guess is fried onions. @ElmerCat I don't understand the difference? You might have been asking for a general term, such as "garnish" — Or, in Cuban cooking for example, crispiness on the bottom is called "raspita". It wasn't clear to me that you were asking just what the ingredient was. @ElmerCat someone's always over-complicating my questions, but that was good to know too. :) Those are fried onions. They're pretty recognizable, but for confirmation I did a search by image and found this blog post in Finnish containing that exact image. The caption underneath the picture is: Kun riisi on kuohkeutettu, sipulit lisätään mukaan - n. kolmasosa jätetään koristeeksi. Google Translate translates that to "When the rice is loosened, the onions are added, the -. The third of the leaves for decoration." I think the proper translation is probably something like: After fluffing the rice, the onions are added, one third as garnish. The recipe itself says: Sekoita mukaan 2/3 paahdetusta sipulista. Tarjoa suurelta vadilta lopuilla sipuleilla koristettuna. Which translates to (again with a bit of fixing): Stir 2/3 of the fried onion. Serve on large dishes garnished with the remaining onions. (Google Translate thinks "paahdetusta" means roasted, but earlier in the recipe it's pretty clear that the instructions are to fry them.) You ask about things that look like those but might be smaller. I'd assume they're still onions, just sliced smaller (or possibly shallots) since that's a fairly common garnish. Of course, it's certainly possible you've seen something else; hard to say without a picture of the exact dish you wanted to ask about. Great job on the detective work! :) My first instinct was to ask what the rice dish was. The bits could be anything, e.g. meat, pasta, etc. depending on the dish, but you found the specific for this dish! Thanks for this great answer. I actually am Finnish, and got this from the Finnish site, but wasn't convinced they ever tasted anything like onions. It looks Asian food. (I am Asian) We (burmese) eat this in the morning as a breakfast, to literally translate "si-hta-min" => "Rice with Oil". It was made by fried bean oil and cooked the rice in it. The cooked oil might have already included fried garlic. We simply take it out before putting rice into it. And after the rice is pretty golden and cooked, we place the fried garlic over the rice as decoration. Note : The beans/peas can add either while frying rice or after. My answer to the question is "Fried onions/garlic". Whether it's garlic or onion is based on your meal choice, some people don't like garlic, while some does.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.256240	2015-12-26T19:38:26	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/64814", "authors": [ "Alexandra Weldon", "Amanda Crews", "Christian Schoon", "Cindy", "Cori Dezzi", "Det", "ElmerCat", "John Pratt", "Katrina Panganiban", "Kenneth Peabody", "Reggie Kruger", "Rob Fuhr", "Stephen Hendrix", "Stephen Leach", "Travis Prachar", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/154763", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/154764", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/154765", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/154767", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/154768", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/154769", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/154822", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/154823", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/154843", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/154844", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/154904", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/154911", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/26180", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/41245", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/41964" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
64898	How to clean an induction stove from overheat? After all water in teapot was boiled, an empty teapot was left on the surface and stove was turned on. You can see the spot on the photo. Is there some ways to fix or clean this? Induction hob model BOSCH PIB673F17E. Erm, perhaps it's my screen, but I can't see a stain...? I do, you have to look carefully, it's slightly darker in the center. Yes, it is in the center of the ring. You can see darken color than the hob itself. In the real it looks more contrast. So, the burnt spot is not very big, so I think it could be cleaned if it on the glass surface. Do you have any experience with it? Unless it's a lot worse than the photo makes it appear, I wonder whether it's even worth trying extensive measures to clean this. It's barely noticeable, and if it won't come off with regular cleaning then you could wind up damaging or defacing the hob some other way while trying to get this off. Also something to consider is that potentially this isn't a surface stain, but much deeper rooted by slightly burning the ceramic itself rather than just a stain on the surface. It depends what the 'stain' is. If it's just surface deposits from the bottom of the 'teapot' (kettle?) transferred to the stove top, use a recommended proprietary cleaner (depends what country you are from what is available, ask at a hardware store for ceramic hob cleaner or induction hob cleaner). If it's in the bulk of the stove top caused by heat damage to the thickness of the material, you have two choices... live with it or replace the top. You won't be able to polish out the stain as it goes through the thickness. Side note, that's probably why many induction hobs are black or very dark... harder to spot if there is any discolouration caused by getting a pan way too hot. I've got a black induction hob and left a pan on with nothing in it - hence a huge mark. My husband rubbed it with black T-cut 9Usually used for scratches on cars) and it's completely removed the stain. Phew! If the stain is persistent, do the following: Wash the surface with soap and water and dry it completely. Cover the stained area with baking soda. Saturate a dishcloth with hot water and place over the baking soda. Allow to sit overnight. In the morning, remove and re-dampen the dishcloth with hot water and scrub the stained area using the baking soda as a polishing agent. One time I had to do this twice to get the stain off.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.256639	2015-12-29T11:57:27	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/64898", "authors": [ "Carlos Sousa", "Dean Hully", "Dmitry Yaremenko", "Escoce", "Hue Vang", "Mark and Tammy Turner", "Mary Bode", "Stephie", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/155013", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/155014", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/155015", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/155031", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/155042", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/25059", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/28879", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/33134", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/42028", "logophobe" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
22349	Do German or Japanese knives hold their edge longer? I want to buy a chef's knife, but I can't sharpen, and I don't plan to learn it. I will have to send my knives for sharpening, so I obviously prefer this to happen as rarely as possible. I am leaning towards a Solingen style knife, probably a forged Zwilling. But I read in an answer herethat the Japanese style knives like Global need less frequent sharpening. This surprised me, as I seem to recall reading the opposite somewhere (but don't recall where). Assumed that I hone the knife after use, which type will need less frequent sharpening? Miyabi Knifes made by Zwilling come from Seki japan. Zwilling bought there a factory. Also the BOB Kramer made by Zwilling knifes are produced in Seki. Victorinox is a swiss company which produces in switzerland. Wüsthof has three factorys in Solingen, Germany. There was a deleted comment that suggested retempering a blue steel knife. AFAIK, while such techniques (that would also likely require rehandling) might be used in some locales, I would be very surprised if they are any part of japanese knife craft. ReTEMPERING would give you a SOFTER knife than before, while ReHARDENING - unless done inductively, which seems to be uncommon on kitchen knives and certainly on japanese ones) - would definitely be almost as much work as making a new knife. The reason you're seeing conflicting opinions is because there are a number of factors (including steel composition, grind angle, grind profile, and usage) that contribute to a knife's edge-holding ability. German/European knives are made of a softer steel than Japenese knives - they need sharpening more often but are easier to sharpen because of the softness. Since the steel in Japanese harder, it needs to be sharpened less often. The other factor is the angle of the edge - the German/European angle is flatter than the Japanese knives. This means the German knives take 'abuse' better on the edge and requires less sharpening because of that. You can see below that there are two different angles: As far as which requires sharpening less, I'd say it depends on how general purpose your knife is going to be. If its going to be going through bone and all sorts of things, the German edge will probably stay a bit better and the softer steel will re-hone better. If you're mainly cutting veggies, breads, cheeses, and other soft items - the Japanese knife will last longer because the difference of edge doesn't matter as much as the steel here. Yes, Japanese knives are made with harder steel so they will hold an edge longer. On the other side of the coin, they may require a more expensive honing steel (global ceramic for instance) and may be harder to sharpen when necessary. For the sake of conversation, Zwilling, Wusthof, Shun and Global all make superior quality knives. How do you decide than? Think shoes. Which ones feel the most comfortable? Look at the shape of the blade of the chef knife. The Zwilling has a more severs arc towards the tip of the blade, facilitating a rocking motion. Ask you retailer if you can cut some veggies and se for yourself which fits your cutting style. Any knife in this class should last you a lifetime. Take the time to get it right. If you're not that comfortable with sharpening tools, I recommend that you stick to stainless steel knives and stay away from carbon steel. Henkels, Wusthof, Sabatier, Victrinox, Shun, etc., are going to be about equivalent here. Regardless of what country in which the company is headquartered, most of these knives are actually made in China. Global knives are special; I strongly recommend that you not consider buying them based on sharpening alone. Their steel handles, flexibility and razor sharpness are not for everyone. Make sure you try them and like them first. Global knives will, indeed, require less frequent steeling or sharpening. Most other Japanese knives are carbon steel and single-sided, and require special care. Again, not recommended for someone not interested in home sharpening. If you get a good sharpening steel (Global knives will require a ceramic rod), and "steel" your knives ever other use or so, you won't need to have them sharpened more than once every couple of years unless you're doing a lot of chopping bones. This assumes that you're using a sensible cutting board (wood or soft plastic). So taking them out for sharpening once every couple years isn't a big deal. When you do take your knives out for sharpening, make sure you get someone who knows what they're doing. A lot of knife-sharpening places use low-grit belt grinders or stone wheels which take far too much steel off the knife and ruin them. I certainly wouldn't buy knives which are too expensive if you're going to let someone else sharpen them. Disagree with "actually made in China". I am sure that at least Dick have production in Deizisau and Bayreuth, in Germany. Even though some manufacturers have recently acquired production sites in China (Zwilling seems to have done it in the mid-aughts), it is probable that they left the hand-forged blades at home and only moved stamped-blades production. Also, this is their own factory, not a clothing-shop which sews for all big names changing only logos, so I expect the different brands to be somewhat different. rumtscho, I'll dig up some references. Some "competing" brands are, in fact, made in the exact same factories in China. That's why brands which used to be quite different 20 years ago now seem identical ... they are. There are carbon steel knives that will keep their edge longer than any sub-$100 stainless. Shun use quite different steel types from the other brands you mention... You are correct about "made in China." These are cheaper stamped versions of the original knives are usually stamped versus forged. The production was moved to China for companies like Walmart and Bed Bath and Beyond. These knives do not offer a lifetime warranty like the knives still made in their home country and forged. Japanese knives come in quite a spectrum of steels and tempers nowadays. I'll differentiate by hardness range 56-59 HRC types: Made from relatively soft conventional stainless, usually in a monosteel construction. These are a direct improvement of the stainless knife as we know it in the west, albeit slightly less abuse proof and geared more towards performance when used correctly. Maintenance regimes known for western knives can still be applied to some degree - rarely sharpening but rehoning often with eg aforementioned ceramic rods (some types might even still be compatible honing steels). More edge retention than even softer ones. "old school" western types can be expected - but nowadays, even some German makers make knives that fit this category. 60-64HRC types: Carbon steel, very high grade conventional stainless (like VG10, Gin-3) and so called PM steels (like SG-2) are used here, often in a laminated construction (awase or so called-damascus that is usually still an awase design). Maintenance regime differs. Honing will be done via stropping (on paper, leather, softwood...), never with honing steel, and using ceramic rods is also not well advised here (they are slightly abrasive and can leave a rougher polish on the edge than it had before, and they can create too much punctual stress). So the escalation from stropping will involve an actual fine whetstone, which you might need more often than a "full" sharpening on a western knife. Full sharpening intervals will be longer, though, and the level of sharpness a knife can be kept at for use is quite higher with that type. These knives will not be very abuse proof, but use with board impact, eg chopping, unless done clumsily or with heavy force, is not abuse, that is what these are designed for more than western knives. Actually, using western technique (especially using walking-rocking techniques while applying significant pressure) can be worse for these. 65HRC+: Carbon or PM steel, practically always in laminated OR differentially tempered construction. Edge retention is very dependent on the cutting surface and technique used (either the edge or the board absorbs the damage, there is no more getting out of the way), as well as what "configuration" is chosen during sharpening (microbevels, angles... you need to be MORE conservative than with the category above!) - and can be extremely good or surprisingly poor. Stropping will still work but be somewhat less effective, so maintenance relies on the fine stone even more. (From my experience, with the laminated type - this likely does not apply 1:1 to differentially tempered!), if used right, these can maintain a "very decent" sharpness for an extended time, but if you want "scary sharp as fork for a reasonable time" you are better off with the 60-64HRC group. These are knives that break before they bend, so abuse can be catastrophic. I have found that my cheapo Japanese knives, bought from local Florida Asian markets stay shaper longer and are in fact much sharper than my really expensive Henckel and Wusthof knives. I cook old school and rely a lot on my cutlery. I have also noticed that Wusthof wants to twist to the side when cutting coarse meat. I am assuming that it's all about better steel in the Asian knives. "cheapo Japanese" (unless $40+ is cheap, or you are talking 11cm sizes) are different in materials from true modern or japanese chef knives. Either you got Thai Knives (Kiwi/KomKom), or really low end japanese brands (Sekiryu/Sekizo/TokioKitchenWare etc...) that look like tradititional japanese but are made of a much softer steel. Still, these being sharper than conservative western knives is plausible.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.256908	2012-03-17T15:08:53	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/22349", "authors": [ "Arnon Hadas", "David Ross", "Disha Jha", "FuzzyChef", "Iulius Curt", "Justthefacts Smith", "Lesley's Garden", "Melissa S", "carbo", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/35312", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/4638", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/50183", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/50185", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/50206", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/50217", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/50218", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/50227", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/54166", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/66037", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/7180", "rackandboneman", "rumtscho" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
65629	How do I promade I was following a recipe and it stated: In a mixing bowl add soft butter Make it promade. What does that mean? Can you provide more of the recipe? A link if it's online, a bigger quote or even a scan/photo if not? Typo is my guess. En pomade is a French term used in cooking. It means "the consistency of hair pomade" For your recipe, it means to whip/cream the butter until smooth. Looks like it's pommade in French? http://www.wordreference.com/enfr/pomade It looks like sloppy usage. Pommade in French - Pomade used in English translation and reference to the French term.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.257617	2016-01-20T01:41:39	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/65629", "authors": [ "Cascabel", "Catija", "Debbie M.", "Kim Eastman", "Mary Ragland", "Nina Jeannine Snell", "Simon Bjerg Sørensen", "Stella Lingen", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/156892", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/156893", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/156894", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/156895", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/156896", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/156908", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/1672", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/33128", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/35357", "jorge ramos" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
74188	Is it safe to heat active dry yeast to make a substitute for nutritional yeast? Nutritional Yeast isn't available at my location so i'm looking for alternatives. While searching Seasoned Advice i've found this question How can I make nutritional yeast?. But i don't want exactly to grow nutritional yeast. It's too difficult to it and i need something more practical and less risky in terms of sterelization. So i've came across this page. Basically it says i can use active dry yeast and toast it to make something that tastes like nutritional yeast. In this The Fresh Loaf post this heating the yeast technique is also mentioned. Well, i did tried it at home and the result was very very tasty! First time i made it i've dropped a little yeast in a cup with water and sugar and it didn't started fermenting, but the second time i've tried it was still alive. There is any way to make sure that all the yeast is uniformly dead? Even if manage to kill all the yeast, let's say, by heating in the oven, is it still safe to eat it? I've read a lot of disquieting stuff on the web about yeast and botulism. (but there might be other factors to consider) (I must use Saccharomyces cerevisiae as the main ingredient because i want something similar in terms of protein content (about 45g on 100g of yeast) Right, so, there are basically 2 ways of killing micro-organisms: chemistry and heat, and heat can be divided in moist heat and dry heat. Dry heat is more straightforward, although generally less efficient in killing things than moist heat (and also not appropriate for lots of surfaces, etc.) Now onwards to your questions: 1 - Sterilization efficiency depends mainly on a few parameters: contact surface (meaning that the more your surface is in contact with the heat, the better), contact time x temperature (so, if you use lower temperatures, you need more time to kill everything). For practical applications you should a) spread your yeast on the largest surface available with the thinnest layer possible to maximize your contact surface and b) be patient and let it toast well - I don't know the temperature, but it should stay for at least 5 minutes in order to have everything killed 2 - Botulism is caused by Chlostridium botulinum which is a bacteria that sprouts in low-oxygen moist environments and when it sprouts, it releases the toxin that causes botulism. Dry active yeast is a fungus called Saccharomyces cerevisae and they need medium to high oxygen environment to grow and be viable, and they usually out-compete bacteria, to the point of being used to treat bacterial diarrhea so it is very very improbable that your package of active dry yeast will be contaminated with Chlostridium spp and that it will be able to sprout while you handle it. Bottomline: it is safe. 3 - Yes. And also it is the most viable option if you want to just buy it and kill it later (both for price and reliability).	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.257723	2016-09-23T22:43:17	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/74188", "authors": [], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
73650	Non plastic/glass microwavable plates Its well debated topic whether plastic / glass plates are unhealthy when used to heat food in microwave oven. I was thinking to get rid of them altogether. I think I found such bowls. They have stainless steel from inside and plastic from outside and are microwave safe. They look something like this: However I am failing to find any non plastic/glass microwave safe plates that I can use for reheating food. I have ceramic plates. But they get hot very quickly. Q. Does all ceramic plates get hot in microwave? Also they dont have any microwave-safe label on them. I did a lot of search on amazon.in to find ceramic, porcelain microwavable plates. But I dont find any that are labeled both ceramic (or porcelain) and microwavable. Or is it like all ceramic plates are microwavable, thats why there is no explicit microwavabble label on these webpages. In that case how do I know if these plates wont get hot in microwave. I felt only those plates which dont get hot in microwave are microwave safe. Q. Does such plates exist: ceramic (or porcelain) and microwavable and those which does not get hot in microwave? If yes can anyone point me to any online store web page showcasing them. At least I will get some starting point. I guess we can take it as a given that you don't want glass but... what is it about glass that makes you think it's unsafe, while you think ceramic would be? And do you really mean the dishes shouldn't get hot at all? Generally hot food and steam in contact with the dishes is enough to get any kind of dish at least a bit hot in the microwave. And are you saying that you will trust a microwave safe label on ceramic even though you don't trust the ones on glass? I guess you're also looking for reusable plates, e.g., paper plates don't count? @Jefromi Its just that there are debates about health side effects of plastic and glass . Also that we are using ceramic and metal vessels for ages. So they are proven to be safe after so long usage. I want to stick to them and dont want to switch to debated, non-proven material, taking safest root. @derobert not looking for reusable/disposable plates. Want the permanent ones. "there are debates" about the health effects of glass with food? By whom? Doesn't matter... Health is off topic. That part of your question is irrelevant. A bowl that looks like that with stainless steel is not microwave safe. Did you google "microwave plates with lids ceramic"? @Paparazzi yes I google this. What all I can find is ceramic bowls/cups or plastic plates. Not "ceramic plates" Would you be okay with just editing your question to simply ask about ceramic, without your controversial claims about glass, or do you feel it's necessary for context? Essentially all food-safe glass and ceramic dishes are microwave safe these days - it's possible to make non-microwave-safe things, but there's not a lot of market for non-microwaveable dishes. Paper is too, but it's generally disposable. If you've decided that you don't like glass, you can still use whatever ceramic you want. It won't be any safer than glass, but it won't be less safe either. You do still want to look for some kind of microwave- or at least heat-safe label, though, and test it without food first if it doesn't have the microwave-safe label. From the FDA: Glass, paper, ceramic, or plastic containers are used in microwave cooking because microwaves pass through these materials. Although such containers cannot be heated by microwaves, they can become hot from the heat of the food cooking inside. Some plastic containers should not be used in a microwave oven because they can be melted by the heat of the food inside. Note that this addresses your concern about dishes heating up: some of that is normal. However, dishes that truly heat up in the microwave aren't a good idea. The best way to check is by heating them without food on them, but with a cup of water in the microwave to absorb energy so the microwave isn't totally empty. That will let you see how much, if any, the dish is heating up compared to the water that actually should be heated. If you want the really paranoid version, here's a test from a ceramics store: To test microwave safety, take a piece (such as a mug or bowl) and immerse in a pan of water. Bring the water to a boil, then simmer for a few hours. This will allow the piece to absorb water. Then put the piece in the microwave. (The piece should be empty, and you should also put a separate mug of water in the microwave to protect the microwave.) Heat the microwave on high in 10 second increments. After each 10 seconds, carefully touch the piece to see if it is hot. If it has absorbed water, it will heat up. This tells you the piece is not dishwasher safe. You can stop the test when the water in the second mug is boiling. There are a few other things you might want to watch out for when purchasing: Metal - sometimes you'll see glass or ceramic with metal details, like a gold or silver rim. That's no good in a microwave. Glazes - some glazes used on ceramic aren't food-safe, so make sure you get something labeled for use with food, not something purely decorative. Some glazes also aren't dishwasher-safe. In the US, non-food-safe ceramic glazes are required to have a label ("not for food use" or some such), but that may not be true where you are. Thermal differences - some materials won't hold up well to uneven heating in the microwave caused by hot food in contact with some parts, but not others. Make sure to get things labeled as heat-safe: the ideal case microwave-safe, oven-safe, and dishwasher-safe dishes, but any one of those indicates some amount of heat safety. Finally, for anything breakable, watch out for super-heated water - heating pure water in a clean container can take it past the boiling point, and it'll then violently boil when disturbed. If you add something to water first, the risk is drastically reduced. It's a dangerous surprise with any type of material, but with breakable containers there's the added risk of breaking the dish. +1 but I have had modern ceramic dishes that from new and undamaged got hot. So the test is worth it Actually not all food safe glass and ceramics can be used in the microwave without issues. Ceramics can have conductive minerals, or they can have glaze defects (or no glaze) allowing water absorbtion... In either case these will get hot and could shatter, spall or cause burns. Food safe is one thing, oven and microwave safe is another. Hi Bigtexun, I know the question compels people to discuss whether glass is safe, but that's not what was asked. (I guess it's one of the reasons why the question gets downvotes). The OP has already decided to not use glass, and that for health reasons, which we do not debate. So answers should only focus on recognizing microwave safe ceramics. damn someone understands what I am asking for. Thanks @rumtscho . I am straight about my question I want to keep using what I used traditionally: non plastic/glass simply because its time-tested for being safe. And I failing to find Ceramics which wont get hot in microwave (and hence microwave safe).	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.257969	2016-09-02T19:06:47	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/73650", "authors": [ "Cascabel", "Catija", "Chris H", "Daniel Griscom", "Mahesha999", "derobert", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/160", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/1672", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/20413", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/33128", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/36089", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/45636", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/4638", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/50000", "paparazzo", "rumtscho" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
74205	Seasoning refuses to stick to carbon steel pan. Tried various techniques Please before you mark this as a dupe, I did refer to this stackexchange question. I have a Matfer carbon steel that won't hold seasoning at all. I first attempted the Cooks Illustrated flaxseed oil technique. I was very careful to follow the instructions carefully. I got a nice root-beer colored seasoning that looked tough but food stuck to it like there was no seasoning at all and it came right off. I redid this several times, each time I: made sure each coat was very very very thin, wiped all but the sheen off baked the pan for a full hour each coat at 500F with full hour cool-down ensured each coat was not tacky applied 5 to 10 coats used very fresh pure flaxseed oil Completely cleaned the pan of seasoning between attempts with ovencleaner and scotchbrite All very time consuming and ultimately ended in failure. I also referred to this article and followed the tips there. I additionally followed everything on this stackexchange article. I just can't get this to work. I also tried a traditional seasoning. That doesn't stay either. I use wooden utensils. The food just sticks and pulls the seasoning right off. I don't ever wash the pan. One other thing I've noticed - on subsequent seasonings, no matter how thin I have the flaxseed oil on the pan, at the end of a baking cycle, it appears to pull together into little droplets. Even with the oil practically wiped off the pan with just a nanometer thick coating. I'm wondering if the oven cleaner messed up the pan or something. It didn't do this when I first had the pan (though the seasoning still was a failure) Any ideas? I'm about ready to send this pan to goodwill. Note I have no problem keeping seasoning on a lodge cast iron pan. I saw your first sentence, but nevertheless I have to close as a duplicate, because it is one. You can also use the search terms "season carbon steel" to see more questions about it. The thing you probably didn't recognize: you failed not because the instructions are wrong, but because carbon steel is difficult to season and failures are the norm before you have had enough experience. I realize that you are now probably feeling angry at me closing the question, this is a situation which has happened multiple times here. I now opened a new Meta question on that, hoping to find a way to (cont.) (cont.) better deal with such a situation so the OP doesn't walk away frustrated when a carefully crafted question is closed with "you just have to learn to do it". As a representative of the other side, I would very much appreciate your input on the Meta question, especially If you can think of ways how we can better help posters in your situation. But even if you don't have a nice solution for us, your participation would be valuable: http://meta.cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/3287. Sorry that I had to close, and I hope you find a way to solve your problem with the pan! I'm reopening this, because rumtscho and I don't entirely agree about the duplicate-ness, so we'll leave it to the community. If you want to discuss, hop over to [meta], and if you want to answer, please don't just repeat generic advice, but rather try to address what specifically may have gone wrong for the OP and what could be improved. 500F seems a bit high to me, but I don't muck about with carbon steel pans, so I don't really have any specific tricks for the OP. But my gut reaction would be to go a bit less extreme on the temperature. I actually spent the morning cooking crepes (hundreds, 10 at a time) on a carbon steel commercial flat-top, and that is simply scrubbed (oil and abrasive) and oiled after each use, not even above 300F, and has no visible seasoning layer if cleaned properly. It's used with stainless steel spatulas and if run at appropriate temperatures does not stick. The sign on the wall advises no chemicals. I would try a good soaking and cleaning in lye. Then rough the surface a bit with steel wool. Before you go scouring your pan with steel wool. When you said you followed the instructions, did you follow the manufacturer's instructions, or some other website? Because although random websites might have good advice on building up the seasoning, they don't know how the pan was treated by the manufacturer, and what needs to be done to remove the protective layer that they put on it. As you said this is a Mafter, their instructions are on the warranty page: Black Steel Frypan Seasoning Before the first use – Place the frying pan under hot running water for a few minutes, to remove what remains of the protection layer, with a brush if necessary. Dry the frying pan, then fry in a portion of oil, slices of sprinkled potatoes, and large portion of salt for a few minutes. Discard contents, then briefly reheat frying pan with a little oil, remove from heat and wipe with paper. After use - Wipe with paper or if necessary rinse under hot running water. Clean without dish washing liquid. Dry and re-grease lightly. Pan and Blue steel Preparation Do not use pans or new molds before under going preliminary treatment. Pans and molds must be warmed in a temperature of 230º F to allow a good hot cleaning with a cloth. After they have been cleaned with a cloth, they are put back in the oven, one of two times more, until the cloth has very little soil left. Then the pans or molds are greased with vegetable oil of quality and subjected to a temperature of 390 degrees F for two hours. You have to clean them a second time with a cloth, then grease them. Now they are ready for use. The greasing must be repeated before each use. Reminders The blue steel molds are sensitive to dampness. Do not stock in a humid environment, such as a cold room. You must clean with a dry cloth. DO NOT use an abrasive sponge, it could damage the upper coat of metal, which would lose its properties. Washing is not recommended, however, if a wash is done, you have to dry and grease the molds or pans immediately according to the process described above. And if you think the potato thing is strange ... I agree, but see http://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/12378/67 And now that I think about it -- you're probably going to have to strip the seasoning off before doing the potato thing. I knew the source of your problem the second I saw "flaxseed oil". Been there. Done that. It seems to either work for people or it does not. For me it did not. Tried it on several pans and the result was it formed a coating that flaked off like varnish. I wound up stripping it off said pans and re-seasoning them (successfully) with different oil. Two of the original failures were Matfers, by the way. They are fine now after I seasoned them with something other than flaxseed oil. I did them on top of the burner on a gas stove, by the way, not in the oven. Would you mind describing your stove top seasoning process? I am struggling with a Matfer pan - seasoning easily comes off on food, like when i fry an egg it ends up with black residue on the bottom (even though non-stick) This was posted a long time ago. I hope the OP stuck with it, because they would probably have a nicely seasoned pan by now. I think some people may simply be giving up too soon. I find that carbon steel takes longer to season than cast iron....like months....so, I would not worry too much about it. Just use the pan. It will continue to get better. Just be careful when cleaning, so that you don't clean off any seasoning layer. I mostly just wipe my carbon steel with paper towel. When there are stuck on bits, I use a plastic scraper, or a very gentle scour pad. The best approach is just continued use over time. Be patient.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.258749	2016-09-24T15:47:07	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/74205", "authors": [ "Andrey", "Cascabel", "Ecnerwal", "Joe", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/1672", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/34242", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/45636", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/4638", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/67", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/97789", "paparazzo", "rumtscho" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
67012	What is the role of oil in gluten free baking? (Can I substitute applesauce for oil in gluten free recipes?) I recently read this question: Why can applesauce be used in place of oil? And the accepted answer says: "In baking, the role of oil is to coat the flour, preventing it from combining with the water (or other wet ingredients) and developing gluten." However, all of my gluten free bread recipes call for some amount of oil. If there's no gluten in the recipe, what is the point of oil? Does it inhibit the gum I'm using instead? Relatedly, can I substitute applesauce for oil in gluten free recipes without unexpected side effects? Most gluten-free recipes tend toward the dry and crumbly, because the binding and elasticity of gluten is missing. Oil contributes a certain amount of binding and moisture of a sort to the finished product. As far as I'm concerned, using all oil as a compensation is unwise, as it can greatly increase the fat content of the recipe. Xanthan gum or locust bean gum (my preference) can supply some of the missing elasticity and binding without increasing the fat content, so you may benefit by experimenting with proportions of gums and oils to get the texture you want. I would not advise using apple sauce as a substitute for oil, as the moisture will mostly evaporate during baking, so the apple sauce will not provide moisture or binding. Though most shop bought apple sauce will have a binding agent such as xanthan gum thrown in :) For baking purposes, the amount of xanthan or guar gum in applesauce is negligible, because applesauce does not require much in the way of binding.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.259449	2016-03-02T03:08:07	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/67012", "authors": [ "Doug", "Larry Stroupe", "Michael Faulkner", "Natalie Clark", "Pat Boeka", "Shalryn", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/160696", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/160697", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/160698", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/160709", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/26816", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/43782" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
67382	Where to buy a Scandinavian birch twig whisk? Our old birch twig whisk (from Norway) is getting old, and has lost several twigs. Any idea how we can acquire one mail order or in the UK? It is used in what fashion ? as a regular whisk ? Yes, light stirring. It's good for sauces as the twigs make sure nothing sticks or burns in the pan @MaxMar : it's also useful for whisking in non-stick pans, as it won't mess up the coating as much as metal will. They make silicone whisks now for exactly that purpose @Joe. https://foodsguy.com/silicone-whisks/ I remember my mom used to have one, found this site: https://www.townsends.us/products/birch-twig-whisk-tw338-p-1279	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.259617	2016-03-13T16:44:10	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/67382", "authors": [ "Adrian Guy", "Greg Rhoades", "Joe", "Max", "SnakeDoc", "Vicki Bigelow", "brianlmerritt", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/161668", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/161669", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/161670", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/20118", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/36370", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/44112", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/67" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
73886	What does this chart mean when it says "lbs per round" or "lbs per sqare/rectangle"? From http://howtocakeit.com/blogs/cakes/48185153-how-to-make-ice-and-decorate-yo-yo-s-chocolate-cake-like-a-pro: What do the different columns mean? The general layout of that table is really terrible. "Per round" or "per square/rectangle" - if you want to make two or more layers, it's assumed you'd use the same shaped pan, so that's the amount of a single layer in a single pan. It is a scalable recipe. First, you decide in which pan you want to bake the cake. You take your pan and measure it. Let's say you have a 9" round pan. You go into the column "lbs per round" and find out that your pan takes 3 1/2 lbs of batter. Then you go to the other table with ingredients measurements, multiply the column "6 lbs" by 7/12, and have your ingredient measurements. Alternatively, you can bake a slightly thinner cake, and divide the amounts in the 6 lbs cake by 2. Alternatively, if you want the tall kind of cake shown in the pictures, first decide what amount you want to bake, then use the table to calculate how many pans you will need to get that amount of batter baked. For example, for a 8 lb cake with a square base, you could use 4 6" square pans. When you have made your batter, the last column tells you how much time you should expect, roughly, for the cake to bake through. For the 9" round cake, it would be 1 hour 10 min. Don't forget that this is only an estimate, you should take the cake out when it is done, not when the timer goes off. The weird thing is how the measurements don't add up with basic geometry here. You'd expect the batter for a cake of double the radius to require 4 times the batter not six times. The whole recipe is not about precision. So it's not that strange if it produces layers of different thickness. It's more of a guideline for a cook who wonders how many pans to prep. Just measure across the pan. If the pan is round then use the round column. If the pan is square then use the square column. Baking time is exactly that. If the pan is not square (and not round) then not perfect but use the average. So for a 5 x 7 rectangle then use 6. The question specifically asks what lbs/round or square means. This doesn't address that at all. @Jolenealaska It asks what the columns mean. The title specifically asks about the columns you did not address in the answer. @Jolenealaska Thanks for the feedback. Is it possible to have more than one valid interpretation of a question? Of course it is possible, but I don't think that is the case here. The other columns seem quite obvious, whereas the lbs per seem less so. I don't intend to delete your answer, but I don't think it's a very good one.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.259720	2016-09-11T17:26:10	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/73886", "authors": [ "Federico Poloni", "Jolenealaska", "PoloHoleSet", "Voo", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/14714", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/20183", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/26023", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/45636", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/4638", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/49684", "paparazzo", "rumtscho" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
74049	What kind of nut is this? Nuts are not very popular in my region, this is the first time I have this kind of nut, can you let me know what its name is? Thank you. Can you say something about the size? I imagined them walnut sized, but the one answer which suggests chickpeas could be right shapewise, if they are much smaller. around the size of a m&m chocolate, ~1cm in diameter or less. Could be corn nut. Looks like roasted chickpeas which are actually a legume (related to peas & beans), but you can toast them up and eat like nuts (like you would peanuts/groundnuts which are also legumes).	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.259953	2016-09-19T03:32:28	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/74049", "authors": [ "boh", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/45636", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/4638", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/50653", "paparazzo", "rumtscho" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
74864	UV lamp to disinfect raw sushi fish slices I'm considering exposing raw fish slices to a UV lamp to kill bacteria before making it into sushi. Would this help? Is there a practice of doing this? And what could be the drawbacks, if any? UPDATE Thank you very much for your answers. A couple of points to clarify. I am talking about: Using UV-C light wand Using it on freshly defrosted fish, that is in addition to freezing, not instead of it The goal is to further reduce risk of bacterial infection, not to completely sterilize the fish, as that wouldn't be possible Furthermore, while digging on the Internet I found this: For some types of food this [surface treatment] may well be sufficient, for example, muscle flesh from a healthy animal immediately after slaughter is, for all intents, sterile. Where contamination does occur, it will be as a result of contact with contaminated surfaces or fluids and this will initially manifest itself at the surface. The efficacy of UV surface treatment will be strongly influenced by surface topography. Crevices, and similar features, of dimensions comparable to the size of microorganisms (i.e., a few microns) may shield microorganisms from potentially lethal UV rays and enable them to survive. This was cited in recent work as the reason why the UV treatment of fish fillets from a smooth-fleshed species was more effective than that of a rough-fleshed one. This seems to imply that what I proposed had been tried and even proven somewhat effective. I have not however found any mentions that UV exposure can cause changes in raw fish that would make it harmful to eat. In other words to make fish less safe than before. If anyone saw such effects being mentioned, please let me know (preferably without a pay wall). Thank you again. With raw fish, you also need to worry about parasites (e.g. worms). Which are presumably harder to kill than bacteria - longer exposure times, etc.. Freezing at -20F for 24 hrs should take care of that Assume that UV will do nothing about parasites or parasite eggs unless proven otherwise.... Just buy fresh fish and use it immediately. Just to clarify - there are two possible uses for UV here: Keeping sterile food sterile, or sterilizing already contaminated (but not spoiled) food. The two are fundamentally different: Since sterile food gets infected from its environment, surface treatment can be effective prevention. Sushi is unlikely to get infected from the inside. But once bacteria have gotten in, a surface treatment no longer is sufficient. That is an interesting idea, but I would not recommend it. It is true that UV light is able to kill microorganisms, and it has been used to treat water for quite some time now. It has also been used to treat some types of juices, and is even used in the food industry (factories). It is an alternative to pasteurization, since it provides an alternative way to killing harmful bacteria without altering the food taste. However, the uses of UV light in solid foods (and even liquids) do require extensive study about the food properties. This means that, in order to effectively use UV light to kill bacteria in fish, one would have to seriously study how it interacts with the specific type of fish you plan on using. I am not sure if such study for fishes exists. So, it is best to avoid using this technique, since it could potentially make people sick. A good read about this topic is this academic paper, entitled "Review: Advantages and Limitations on Processing Foods by UV Light". Very interesting. Could you provide more links to evidence of (potential) dangers of UV light processing of solid foods coming from UV exposure itself? Preferably without a paywall. @LeviHaskell The #1 danger is that the light won't penetrate as deep as bacteria do, so you'll think it's disinfected but it won't be. @Guilherme do you not recommend it because it may not be effective enough or because it can make the fish more dangerous to eat? @LeviHaskell hey I didn't notice there was a pay wall, sorry about that. I think you can find similar articles on google scholar. I believe using the UV light in addition to the freezing technique would not make the fish dangerous to eat, but it might be an overkill, since freezing is already good enough. In any case, I think your initiative is very nice, just do a lot of research and be careful with these UV lights. Partial answer, but here are some important facts before someone gets hurt: Germicidal UV (UV-C) lamps are NOT the same as blacklight/anti-counterfeit/tanning (UV-A/UV-B) lamps. Parasites and microbes are two distinct risks with raw fish, and need different measures. Something (the bulk of the food, or packaging around it, or material used to protect skin or eyes) being transparent or opaque to visible light and/or UV-A/UV-B says nothing about it being transparent or opaque to UV-C. Strong UV-C needs careful handling since it can quickly cause eye irritation or even eye injuries. Limitation with the UV wand is that is only kills bacteria on the surface. If bacteria is present on the surface of the fish then it is could also be present inside the fish. If the bacteria requires oxygen then then it would not penetrate far. According to this not all bacteria requires oxygen. It would likely reduce the risk. Wouldn't UV penetrate a thin slice of fish, at least somewhat? @LeviHaskell You think the bacteria has only penetrated somewhat. Isn't the safe center grilling temperature for stake lower (130F) than that for ground meat (160F) because bacteria is likely to be on the surface of a whole cut, while ground meat could be contaminated all the way through due to grinding? Shouldn't the same be true for fish? @LeviHaskell Yes bacteria starts on the surface. If I change likely to could would you be OK? Thank you for your edit. Bacteria also probably require time to penetrate deep, and freezing/refrigeration should slow it down considerably. I was not taking about sterilizing the fish. My question was whether it would reduce the bacterial load to make the food safer to eat. Also we're talking about exposing the fish slices to UV light, not the whole sushi. Yes it would reduce risk but your wording is "disinfect". "Disinfection only reduces the number of microorganisms and does not completely eliminate them" while "Sterilization is a treatment that frees the treated object of all the living organisms" according to: http://www.differencebetween.com/difference-between-sterilization-and-vs-disinfection/ @LeviHaskell I am not trying to argue with you. Do you want me to delete the answer? Not at all. I appreciate it. I'd only suggest you change the word "sushi" to "fish" and maybe add that "it would likely reduce the risk", but only if you agree. Thank you The kind of UV light used for killing bacteria is readily absorbed by tissue and even the atmosphere (after all, that's why it can be used to kill bacteria). UV isn't a magical "kill all life" kind of thing - you need enough energy to break important bonds (like the ones in DNA), and a high absorption. That necessarily decreases the penetration depth - the two go hand in hand. There's little data easily found on this, but it seems that if the UV light doesn't feel warm to your skin, it's not going to penetrate even a millimeter deep (which is why you get skin cancer and not liver cancer). If the goal is to reduce the quantity of bacteria on the surface of the fish, you can achieve the same thing by washing in running water. UV lamps only kill bacteria on the surface of food, not in the food itself. If there are harmful bacteria inside the fish then no amount of UV will make it safe. If there are no harmful bacteria inside the fish then the only concern is harmful bacteria on the outside. If there are harmful bacteria on the outside (ie the surfaces of the prepared fish) after preparation will be there because it was exposed to it during the process of preparation. You can make sure the surfaces of the fish is safe by being clean, if you have clean surfaces, knives and hands then UV won't be needed. If UV is needed to make the fish safe then your preparation is at fault.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.260048	2016-10-19T21:11:50	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/74864", "authors": [ "Agent_L", "Bob", "Guilherme Salome", "Levi Haskell", "Luaan", "MSalters", "OrangeDog", "barbecue", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/26840", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/29537", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/34514", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/35312", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/45636", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/48482", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/50913", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/51323", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/51340", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/5185", "paparazzo", "rackandboneman" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
66927	How to cut the wax from this cheese? (I am new to Europe so please forgive me for being not knowing). I have this cheese I asked here before how to eat it and people answered me, but when it comes to real life I had a problem removing the wax, because it really stuck to the cheese! I like the taste and I want to try it again, but this time I want to ask you how to remove this wax. What I did before is but it rounded, but that removes cheese and obvious my way was wrong. I hope you can show me a video or something to make it easier for me because my English is not so good. Thanks you. I usually cut the wheel of cheese, wax and all. So cut a quarter or a half off, depending on how much you want to eat. Then, you can simply peel the wax off. Clean the knife of wax before using it again to cut cheese you'll be eating. EDIT: Another solution (upon a quick Googling to search for an answer to @Joe's issue in the comment) could be to use a vegetable peeler to peel layers of problematic wax off until getting to cheese goodness: http://nomenu.com/?p=43877 Be warned that this doesn't always go so well for all cheeses. If the wax layer isn't thick enough and the mold the cheese was pressed in has sufficient texture to it, the wax may end up shredding when you try to peel it off. (Manchego & Iberico come to mind, although they don't have the rounded over corners like Gouda & the one in the picture)	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.260670	2016-02-28T13:53:39	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/66927", "authors": [ "Brandi Ellsworth", "Jared Croft", "Joe", "Kimberly Speer", "Laura Appleby", "Sasikumar Thanoyan", "T. Eve", "Tom V", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/160438", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/160439", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/160440", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/160452", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/160453", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/160546", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/160688", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/67" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
66727	How to eat this kind of cheese I have seen so many of these cheeses but I don't know how to cook or eat them. I am new to Europe, and have never seen this in my country of origin before. Could you tell me how to cook the cheeses? Is it just a matter of cutting and eating? By looking around, it sounds like this is called Gouda Cheese (but I am not sure) What makes you think it's Gouda? It looks like it says "portuguese cheese" and "cured cow, goat, and sheep cheese". @Jefromi maybe you are right, I just found a "similar" picture on wikipedia. anyway, i don't care about the name, i need to know how to eat/cook it Most cured wheel cheeses are great on their own--slice and eat. That being said, at least where I'm from we usually slice them, then put them on bread (on Pa amb tomàquet, to be precise), and often pair them with sliced cold-cut/smoked meats. Generally, the "drier" the cheese, the more it needs to be paired with bread/meat, while sweeter/spongier cured cheeses are fine on their own. Here there is no " Pa amb tomàquet", can you suggest other kind of bread to eat this kind of cheese please? and is it just cut and put on break or I have to but it in the oven ? sorry i am a newbaby in these stuff (I will note that there are no strange ingredients in Pa amb tomàquet, they are standard semi-hard bread, medium-sized tomatoes, olive oil, and salt. Very easy to make too!) Any bread that can be sliced and isn't too hard (or too soft) will do. The cheese is usually sliced, the crust/wax removed, and then put on the bread--no other steps. You may want to let the cheese sit for a half hour before eating if it's coming from the fridge, though. Depending on the cheese you may want to try adding salt, butter, and/or oil to the bread. Ok, I got you, I just need to have bread and tomatto and salt and oil, that is good, the only thing still for me is the bread, you said not soft, but not heard, here i can find toast or (see next comment please) or this kind or this one or this or this do you know which one is better? or do you have a picture for the correct one that i should buy please? (I am so sorry for being like a baby, but all this society is new to me including food) Any of those other than the first one should hold well. The idea is for the sliced bread to be "strong" enough to not fall apart when you rub the tomato against it, but to be a little bit "spongy" so it can soak in the tomato and oil. Here's a good video-recipe (you don't need to understand what they're saying, the video is good). Note that the toasting and the garlic are optional (toasting helps if the bread is too soft, garlic is something some people like and others don't): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Fm5G_KbBTM The best thing about pa amb tomàquet is that it's a recipe intended to be prepared with whatever you can get--feel free to experiment with the different types of tomatoes, olive oils, breads, etc. It should never taste bad outright, and you will find a combination that you like the most. the video is really good but definately without garlic :), thank you for your help and understanding No problem! Good luck with your culinary experimentation :D I will prepare it after tomorrow, and I will send you a picture :) Looking forward to it! Whatever you do, don't eat the wax rind. You may think this goes without saying, but the number of times I've seen people unfamiliar with a wax-coated cheese slice and eat with the wax still attached might surprise you. (Source: lived in the Netherlands for 5 years, across the street from an incredible cheese shop.) It's more obvious on red-wax cheeses, but yellow ones can be tricky. And white wax on sheep's milk cheeses. it's also written in the cheese label in the photo: "rind not edible" Where I live, we most often eat it on a slice of bread, use it on top of pasta, and a lot of other uses. (I often find the Gouda cheese abroad lacking taste, so I prefer the 'real' Dutch brands) I like to eat them with some sambal badyak when I eat them with some Dutch table snacks. why you said pasta, do you mean to cook them inside the pasta ? No, I said I used them on top of the pasta, just like you'd use Parmesan cheese for example. Dutch tapas? I that like Spanish bitterballen? If you have a better word ;) @MarcLuxen Fingerfood? Snacks? Although tapa is usualy used in the meaning of small portion of something , as opposed to racion, but outside Spain in seems to mean wel, bar snack	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.260857	2016-02-22T19:58:57	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/66727", "authors": [ "Anthony", "Carla Dumas", "Cascabel", "David Andrews", "Ebony Mcknight", "Gabriel Sirek", "Jamie Kaplan", "Joe", "John", "Julia Rudd", "Lisa Lee", "Luciano", "Marc Luxen", "Margaret M", "Michael Coleman", "Mike Brace", "Patrick Hofman", "Peter Moore", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/159927", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/159928", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/159929", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/159930", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/159932", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/159934", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/159936", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/159937", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/159971", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/159972", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/159973", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/159981", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/159983", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/1672", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/31372", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/42169", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/43521", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/43619", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/53013", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/67", "lene pollock", "mech" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
31906	Why did my roast beef turn out chewy and not tender? Where did I go wrong? I recently made an Oven Round Roast in the oven and I followed directions quite well. I would really like to know where I went wrong. The roast was 1.4kg and relatively round in shape, it was also quite nicely marbled with a big strip of fat on one side. Out from the freezer and into the fridge overnight (to give it some time to cool down) and then left it out in room temperature for a couple of hours. Took out of package and put on a rub. I put the oven on 450 F and put the roast in (fat side up) for 10 minutes for the maillard reaction. Note that when I did this, I put it directly on the oven rack; I put a tray underneath to catch the drippings, but it was uncovered. Turned oven down to 225 for 2 hours and then 200 for 5 hours. Cut the roast into half inch slices and served. The color was a nice pink on the inside and dark on the outside. It was still juicy and the taste was great. The roast's outside is absolutely delicious in fact, the rub turned out so well and the fat was amazingly tasty. However, the roast was so chewy, I am very disappointed. I did a lot of research before I cooked it and found that slow cooking is a good way to tenderize meat. I also found out that certain cuts of meat need to be cooked differently. I.e. Steak should be hot and fast, and roast cuts should be long and slow (after searing it of course... yum yum yum). In this post, 'Marti' answered by quoting a TV chef saying that when beef is being cooked it's collagen breaks down and liquifies and when it cools it turns to gelatine. Could that be what happened to my beef roast? If so, how can I avoid that? In this post, 'Gilead' suggested a few solutions, beating the meat, cutting it against the grain, and choosing the right cooking method. Well, did I do the right cooking method? And do the other ones apply to a roast? I mean if you cut it up, it's basically cheap beef steak and I've never tried mechanically tenderizing the meat. I really appreciate any help; I'm quite distraught over this chewy beef roast. What cut exactly is an "oven round roast"... I know eye of round and (at the huge end) steamship round. how you cut it will make a huge difference in the mouth. Half inch pieces seem to be very large for my tastes, this would be ok for something very tender like a tenderloin cut or prime rib but this wasn't in that category. @SAJ14SAJ Oven Round Roast is what it said on the package. Other than that, I'm not sure??? @Brendan Yes, in retrospect, I could have cut it into thinner slices. The only mistake you made was the choice of cut, and maybe the quality of the beef itself. Round (in the UK/AU/NZ topside and silverside) is from the rear end of the animal, and is a working cut. Working cuts have to exert a force, so the muscle must have lots of collagen to distribute the force from the tendon throughout the muscle. Collagen is a tough material which breaks down in the presence of heat and moisture, not just heat, so working cuts make poor roasts or steaks and are better braised or stewed. The upside to working cuts is that they have a stronger flavor, and the collagen when broken down by moisture turns to gelatin which adds to the flavor and mouth feel. A well-prepared braised piece of beef is as good as a roast any day in my opinion. It's also better value, round and other working cuts are much cheaper than tender cuts. Your technique as described is perfect, and if you'd chosen a rib, short loin, or sirloin roast (US cuts) it would have come out beautifully. Where you erred was at the store when you chose a working cut for roasting. Now some people on the forum are probably preparing a rebuttal at this point saying "you can roast round and have it be tender", and they'd be right up to a point. The best quality beef is reared and slaughtered better, so if you bought US Prime round it has a good chance of coming out relatively tender, however it's hard to find. My assessment would be for what you'd find in the average store in the US, which is Choice grade. Choice encompasses something like 75% of beef produced, so has a huge range of quality. You can tell a lot about meat by touching it. Stick your fingers in it, if they go in easy and the meat springs back then you have a tender cut, if you can't get your fingers in it it's a braising cut. If you stick your fingers in and the meat doesn't spring back its old, so don't buy it. I cannot agree with your conclusion, because cooking for 5 hours at 200 to 250 (assuming F) is also a "low and slow" technique, charactaristic of barbeque (less the smoke, in an oven), and also perfectly suitable for working cuts. While not as fast as braising at converting collagen to gelatin, it is still an effective technique. Yes, moisture is required for the conversion, but there is sufficient water within the meat; the additional liquid in braising just facilitates bringing the internal temperature up more quickly, and produces delicious gravy. It depends on the quality of the meat. As I said in my post if you get really good quality beef it can work out. Sorry, now I am confused. Are you asserting this WAS a high collagen cut, and not cooked right, or a WAS NOT a high collagen cut and and not cooked right? I took your phrase "working cut" to mean high in collagen and connective tissue. The cooking method described should have been fine for any high collagen piece of meat, even older meat, not that utility or canning grade is readily available at retail. I disagree that the cooking method is good for any high collagen cut. Round may have less or more collagen in it depending on the overall quality of the meat. You may get one piece that roasts ok, and others that never get tender when roasted. It's inconsistent. With braising you'll consistently get good tender meat from the round, as long as you're not using really bad quality. Collagen conversion is a function of time at temperature. Braising is more efficient because conduction from the braising liquid raises the interior temperature to effective converting temperatures more quickly due to conduction and higher specific heat than air. However, the dry methods can work quite well if done for long enough, as delicious barbecue demonstrates. I am not an expert on the barbecuing which is the only common technique for doing low and slow without braising, so it is possible it just wasn't long enough even at 5 hours. @SAJ14SAJ If I cook it longer, will it come out well done? When I took this out at 7 hours, (225 for 2 and 200 for 5), it was perfectly pink. Will it keep that inner texture? @GdD Thanks for such a great answer! It was very detailed and gave me a lot to think about. I will try braising a high collagen roast next time to see the difference. @TheWeirdNerd Doneness depends on the highest temperature achieved. 140 F is about medium rare, 160 F is well done. The thing is, collagen conversion to gelatin starts to happen slowly around 160 F and doesn't really kick into gear until 180 F. Again, I don't know exactly what the charactaristics of the cut you had are. But low and slow and pink/rarish meat tend to be opposites.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.261288	2013-02-14T09:12:47	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/31906", "authors": [ "Alex", "Brendan", "Emily Roman", "GdD", "Kiona Simmons", "Klik", "SAJ14SAJ", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/100665", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/14401", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/14601", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/16781", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/19707", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/73342", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/73343", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/73344", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/73351", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/73352", "sien sien", "user35316", "wafyzun" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
45337	Why didn't my pan-fried potato wedges turn out crispy? Here's what I did: I cut up some red potatoes into wedges, tossed them in oil and spice and pan fried them on the heat setting of 7.5 (9 is the max and it is a bare element stove). I put the lid on the pan and after a while I flipped them and removed the lid. I put the lid back on so that they would be cooked all the way through. The weird thing is that the potatoes were browned on both sides, but flimsy and not crispy. I've read that boiling them for a moment first would help, but I'd like to find a way without boiling them, since it will take a while longer to boil the water. Did using the lid cause (or contribute) the potatoes to be flimsy/soggy? Also, I've read this post about using white flour for potato wedges. How would I go about doing that? Is there a way to have crispy wedges without using flour? I also read this post about how to get crispy wedges while cooking with peppers and onions, but it doesn't address my question. So, why didn't my potato wedges turn out crispy? Is there a trick that I've missed or an error I've made? related : http://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/6667/67 (although that one won't help you so long as you have a lid on it) I usually make this dish in the oven, parboil first for a few minutes, then into a really hot convection oven, very easy. That's what I've done before, but the oven seems to heat up the kitchen quite a bit and since it's summer, I'd like to avoid that. You need a lid that lets the steam escape. e.g. a few finger sized holes near the top @TFD well the lid I have does have a hole, but probably not big enough. By frying your potatoes then putting the lid on, you fried your potatoes then steamed them, so it's no wonder they weren't crispy. Although it takes longer, par-boiling the potatoes first is by far the best way to get crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside potatoes. Par-boiling cooks the inside of the potato, so that all you need to do in the pan is crisp the outside. Try this: Cut your potatoes however you like. Place them in a pan of cold, salted water and bring to the boil. Boil for 5-10 minutes depending on how waxy your potato is (floury potatoes don't hold together as well). Drain the potatoes into a colander and let them dry out for 5 minutes. Then give them a shake in the colander to fluff the outside of the potatoes - the fluffy bits will catch and crisp up beautifully. At this stage you can dust your wedges with flour or semolina for extra crispy results. You can also add spices and seasoning. Heat a large frying pan over medium heat and add plenty of oil - about 5mm depth. When the oil is hot, carefully add the potatoes - consider frying in batches if your pan isn't big enough. Fry the potatoes until golden and crispy. Or replace the last two steps with brushing the wedges with oil and baking them in the oven for a similar effect. Is it normal for the floured potato wedges to absorb a lot of the oil? This is what happened to me this time round. I wonder if perhaps the oil was not hot enough before I put them in. @Klik Probably either the oil wasn't hot enough or you put too much potato in too little oil so the potato cooled the oil, resulting in the same thing.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.261948	2014-07-05T08:07:15	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/45337", "authors": [ "David Richerby", "Iman Mohammadi", "JC Guerra", "Joe", "John Arr", "Klik", "Maryam Alhamdani", "Max", "Pina", "Sopia Diaz", "TFD", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/107990", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/107991", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/107992", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/107994", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/108001", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/108002", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/108004", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/16781", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/24117", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/3203", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/3747", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/67", "richardn" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
22698	How to make a lattice pie crust? I just made a lattice pie crust for the first time. The best I can say about it is that it wasn't a total disaster. So I would like to know what is the proper way to make it. How much dough do I actually need for one lattice (let's say for a 26 cm pan)? What crust thickness is optimal for the strips? (I had 3 mm, and it seemed a bit thin, they tore sometimes). How many strips do I need? What length should my strips be? Obviously, they should be longer than the finished lattice's size, because they weave over and under. But how much extra length do I need for that? Is there a good technique for weaving which helps me make an evenly weaved crust? I had lots of trouble managing the strips in the middle (widest) part. Once weaved, how do I keep the strips from moving around while I transfer the lattice to the fridge and to the pie? How do I attach the upper crust to the lower crust? My pinching didn't produce too good a result. (maybe part of the above) How do I make the edge of the pie aesthetically acceptable? Mine is one long lump. How do I prevent the liquid in the filling from squeezing through the crust holes and flooding the crust? (should probably have come first) Are denser or looser lattices easier to make? I made a rather loose lattice, like this one: But I have seen much denser pie crusts too, like this one. I know this is a rather long question, if you people think it is better, I will split it into many small ones. Feedback welcome in the comments here or in chat. There are two keys to this. First, work right on the pie and start in the middle. Second, fold strips back to make it easy to do the over/under. This picture, from http://localfoods.about.com/od/preparationtips/ss/latticepiecrust_8.htm, is kind of the aha! moment for me. Fold half of the vertical strips back, lay a horizontal strip, unfold the folded strips and fold the ones that weren't, repeat. Trim extra length from the strips, and use eggwash to glue them to the bottom part of the pie, where it comes up at the edges. You'll have extra dough what with the trimmings and all - just use it to make a freeform gallete or the like. If you have no extra pie filling, use jam, or butter/brown sugar/raisins. Way less trouble than trying to make exactly the right amount of dough for the lattice. So, I am supposed to weave it on the pie itself? This will sure take care of the wiggling during transfer problem. But don't I risk getting the strips dirty on the upper surface this way? And thank you for the folding idea, it looks like a big improvement. It's a treatment that's best done on a filling that is pretty dry when it's raw. Apples or peaches, for example, as opposed to pumpkin puree or something custardy. Not for what the finished pie is like, but for keeping the strips clean while you weave them. I'll begin by saying that a lot is up to your own personal preferences. It's quite common to just double the amount of dough if you want a lattice. So you can buy two pie crusts in the store, or make the double amount of dough yourself and divide it by two. But you will have left-overs. The amount of dough needed for the lattice depends of course on your type of lattice, and this is up to you. If you use store-bought dough, you can use the dough as it is, thickness-wise. If you use home-made dough, I would make it a bit thinner than your crust, perhaps 0.5 cm (1/5 inch). Too thick won't be nice to eat, too thin will be prone to tearing. This is completely up to you. If you use wider strips, it's common-sense that you'll need less strips. It also depends on how much dough you want on top. I think I use about 12 strips (and I make them quite thin, about 1 cm (a big 1/3 inch)). You don't need a lot of extra length for it. Using store-bought dough is very handy for this, since you can make shorter strips (at the side of the dough) that you can place at the side of your pie. If you use home-made dough, I'd suggest you roll it out till you have a circular shape and you can work like you would've bought it. If you want to have a real lattice (like in your first picture), it will take a bit of time. I think this picture shows it better than I can explain. You have another method (like in your second picture), which is very fast, but I think it doesn't look very good. For the second method, you put all the strips for one direction on top and then all the strips for the other direction. There is however a third method, which I prefer and it's in between. I can't seem to find a good picture for it, but I'll try to describe it: you start with one strip in direction A, you put one strip on top for direction B, then again one for direction A, again one in direction B, but now you hold up the second one for direction A so that this new strip can go under and so one. It's not a 100% pure lattice, but it looks a lot better than the lazy version in my opinion. Another thing you can do for a bit extra is twist the strips so you have something like this. In this case, it's not very noticeable if a strip goes under or over another one. 6., 7. & 8. My trick is to put a bit of beaten egg yolk on top of the end of my strips and fold the remaining pie crust from the bottom over the end of my strips. The egg yolk works as glue and the folded over pie crust makes it better aesthetically, in my opinion. I haven't had this problem. I don't think you can do a lot about that. Doesn't that give it a home-made look? I think the degree of difficulty is more in the width of the strips than if the pie is denser/looser. At least for me, wider strips are more easy to handle.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.262267	2012-04-01T17:18:57	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/22698", "authors": [ "David London", "EGS1991", "John J", "Kate Gregory", "Norma", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/304", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/4638", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/51155", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/51156", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/51157", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/51161", "rumtscho" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
42863	best way to infuse flavour into boiled potatoes My question is very similar to this one here How to best cook potatoes to be used in a curry? I am trying to enhance the potatoes flavour by masking it's own natural flavour with as much spiciness as possible, however, no matter which method of cooking I choose, the flavour of the potatoes always come through better than the flavours of the masala blended around the pan. Is there any known preparation tricks that I may be missing? If you don't like potatoes, don't use them. I do like potatoes and I am not trying to get rid of the flavour of the potatoes, but to change the balance of flavours slightly. Right now, I don't get enough flavour from the masala on the potatoes and I wanted to learn how to change that balance. I know it's possible because restaurants and family can do better than I can. I wondered if it is a method of advanced preparation or technique. After reading Gary's answer, I had a thought. These potatoes you like better than your own - how deep inside does the spice flavor go? Is it possible that restaurants cut the potatoes into cubes, so you regard each piece as one bite and always have spice+potato in the mouth, while your own potatoes are cut larger (maybe sliced?) and you have to bite off pieces, and so have some unflavored center pieces? There's a couple of pieces here: preventing getting the flavour in; and how to flavour them. The structure of a potato is quite dense and contains a lot of dry matter. It's also protected by starch, which in a cooked potato manifests as a gluey layer (I make that sound much more unpleasant than it actually is!). An easy win is to rinse off the excess starch. Place the potatoes under running cold water and keep rinsing until the water runs clear. This literally opens the floodgates to accept more flavour into the spud. That said, the dense texture is still going to block out most flavourings. Order any aloo dish from an Indian restaurant, cut a potato in half and nibble at the interior. It will just taste of potato (no bad thing!). The flavour is all on the exterior. Your best bet to impart flavour is to work on the coating. You should season your cooking water, and coat your potatoes in an oil-based flavouring afterwards whether it's roasted or fried. For example, after parboiling in salted water, you could have a garam masala-rich tomato gravy that they are then simmered in. Thank you Gary. I like your response and I think it is inline with what I have seen before! Soups and other dishes with a lot of liquid tend to infuse the potato with plenty of flavor to 'mask' the natural flavor of the potato. You could also try blanching the potatoes beforehand to get rid of some of the surface extractions that would leech into the food you're putting the potatoes in. Edit: The smaller pieces you cut the potato into, the less you will notice them on your palate. Also, strong spices like paprika, cumin, etc will often overwhelm the potatoes. Mix them with other veggies like Chayote and green/red bell peppers in a stir fry for a quick side dish. Now that's what I call constructive advice! I'll try the blanching suggestion. I have been trying the boiling in water with all the flavours I want in, but not luck.. :) I edited with a little more advice :) Also, don't simply boil them in water with flavours - but rather start treating the potatoes as you would pasta or rice in flavoured dishes. Don't try to flavor the potatoes, but do use them as the 'starch' in a flavourful dish. Sure thing Goncalo I am new to cooking and had the exact same question. I have an idea. Boil the potatoes Mash them. Cook them with spice. Make cubes from mashed potatoes. Now make curry from the reconstructed potatoes. I am pretty sure this will get flavour inside the potatoes. Hope you like it! :-)	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.262732	2014-03-19T11:49:42	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/42863", "authors": [ "Goncalo", "Nick", "NonoG", "Owain Esau", "SAJ14SAJ", "Someone", "Spammer", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/100190", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/100191", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/100192", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/100195", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/100197", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/100230", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/10942", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/14401", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/17047", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/4638", "jsanc623", "rumtscho" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
46935	Why does oil burn when put into a hot pan? I was trying to make the scrambled eggs based on the answer found here. I set my stainless-steel pan on the burner and set the burner about halfway between medium and high. After the panned warmed on quite a bit (probably all the way), I put some ghee in the pan. It immediately burned and smoked up my home. Why does ghee (and probably also other oils) burn when put into a hot pan? What is the remedy for this? According to some of the answers to this question, I should either be putting in the ghee (or oil) into a cold pan or warming it or putting it into the pan once it's slightly warm, but not hot. I found the "Do you heat the pan first?" question somewhat helpful, but the answers don't really give scientific reasons for their responses. If ghee has a smoke point of 485 F, why would it burn just because it heats up rapidly? Update: As noted in Cindy's answer, I didn't follow the instructions in the referenced question because I didn't put the ghee/oil in the pan before the pan got hot. I'm still curious as to whether the ghee burned because the pan temperature was over the ghee's smoke point or because the ghee was heated too quickly by being put into a hot pan. The pan was hotter than the smoke point of the ghee. If it had not been, the ghee would not have burned and smoked like it did. It should be noted that the situation described is quite dangerous. Any oil projection could have been harmful. Yes, your pan was too hot. Because your pan was empty when you heated it, it had minimal heat capacity, and could only lose heat by convection and radiation. Thus, it heated up quickly, and likely reached a much higher temperature than it normally could with food in it. When you heat a pan with food in it, some of the heat is transferred to the food, and much of that heat is, in turn, lost when water in the food evaporates. This slows down the heating rate, and significantly reduces the peak temperature reached. (Evaporating water is an extremely efficient method of heat transfer, especially at high temperatures, and even solid foods like meat and vegetables still contain quite a bit of water. Any time you put something on a hot pan and it steams or sizzles, that's the sign of water evaporating.) Also, because you didn't have any oil or water or food on the pan, you had no easy way to gauge its temperature by eye. Normally, if you heat a pan with oil already in it, you can tell when it's hot enough just by looking at how the oil behaves. If you miss all the subtler signs, like the oil turning more runny and starting to form convection patterns, the point where it starts to change color and smoke is an unmistakable sign that you've definitely heated it too far. With a dry pan, it's quite hard to tell just how hot it is. One trick I sometimes use is to sprinkle a few drops of water onto the pan and seeing how quickly it evaporates. (Don't do this if the pan already has oil in it!) When the drops evaporate all but instantly (but still briefly wet the surface, rather than exploding on contact or hovering over it), it's time to add the oil / butter. Of course, the modern high-tech alternative would be to get an IR thermometer. I actually do have one, but I rarely use it — it's just quicker and easier to dip my fingers in some water and sprinkle it on the pan than to get the thermometer out of the cupboard. I'm not sure your reasoning is correct. I used an IR Thermometer and added the oil at 345F, much lower than the 420F alleged smoke point indicated on the oil bottle. Nonetheless, the oil burned in a heartbeat. I also tested the scenario where the oil is heated gradually. This time (albeit using a different pan), I heated the oil to 370 F, but the oil didn't burn. You must have had your pan screaming hot in order for ghee to immediately burn. As you note, ghee has a pretty high smoke point (as do other clarified butters). Additionally it would appear that you didn't follow the instructions in the link you referenced. It was not indicated to preheat the pan before adding oil, but to add the oil when the pan was placed on the burner and when it began to sizzle to add the eggs. Regarding smoke point, the easy answer is that it is the temperature where oils and fats will start to break down and burn. There are a lot of things occurring when this happens but I won't even attempt to go into that as I'm not as science oriented as many others on the site. Smoke points vary greatly depending on the type of oil, thus the reason that some oils are better suited to certain applications. Why does ghee (and probably also other oils) burn when put into a hot pan? What is the remedy for this? As other people have pointed out, the issue here is the empty pan. To explain further: I set my stainless-steel pan on the burner and set the burner about halfway between medium and high. You did not say whether this is gas or electric. If it is gas, regardless of how high or low the flame is, the flame is the same temperature -- for natural gas this is close to 2000°C. It's unlikely you could actually get the pan that hot, of course, but the point is, the longer you leave it over the flame without anything beyond the pan to absorb it, the hotter the pan will get. If the stove top is electric, a similar principle still applies. Although the elements are switched on and off in relation to the temperature of the element, it is easy to observe that even on low, the surface of contact clearly exceeds the smoke point of any oil, which is why grease that hits the element incinerates almost instantly. If you've ever left a clean, empty pan (e.g, one where water has boiled off...) on an electric stove (even on low) long enough, you'll be familiar with the scorched inner surface which can result. If you poured a small amount of oil into such a pan without letting it cool, I promise you will see a lot of smoke! In short, although some stove top controls do have temperatures on them as rough guides, unlike an oven those do not indicate the maximum temperature of the cooking volume. Since heat conducts and rises, that's an impossible thing to regulate from the stove surface. Almost any cooking ingredient* is organic material, which means that it contains carbon. Any such substance will burn if you make it hot enough and there's oxygen available, which there always is when there's a human cooking in the room. How hot is "hot enough" depends on the particular substance. So, yes, your ghee burnt because it got too hot. And it's just the temperature that matters, not how quickly it was heated to that temperature. * The exceptions that come to mind are water, salt and baking soda. A few other inorganic (= non-carbon-containing) food ingredients that come to mind are ammonium chloride and gold leaf, as well as various acids of sulphur, nitrogen and phosphorus and their salts that are used a food additives. There are probably more.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.263100	2014-09-07T12:38:50	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/46935", "authors": [ "Allan Anderson", "Cindy", "Ilmari Karonen", "John Price", "Judy Dunn", "Kim M", "Martin Green", "Simon Bergot", "Spammer", "angel mullins", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/10646", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/113228", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/113229", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/113230", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/113232", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/113233", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/113237", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/113255", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/113257", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/19796", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/26180", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/61396", "user765195", "wendy effertz" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
69341	Tasty's Cookie Cream Puffs I saw some expert advice for someone's problems with Choux pastry posted here: Choux pastry (Chocolate eclairs) doesn't rise I'm having problems with this 'cheat' recipe here: https://www.buzzfeed.com/alvinzhou/these-cookies-cream-puffs-will-sexually-awaken-your-taste-bu?utm_term=.xlKDknqB4&bffbtasty#.qbNRvWeOl The choux uses: 1 cup water 8 tablespoons butter ½ cup flour ½ cup of crushed Oreo cookie crumbs. 4 eggs (one at a time) Judging by the advice on the other thread, this recipe was very unlikely to work. It there any advice on what needs to change to make it more viable? While I can use the advice on the linked post to make normal Choux, I'm confused if I can just adjust it by dropping the flour for cookie crumbs? Or is it easier to drop the cookie crumb recipe and simply substitute some flour for cocoa to make a chocolate choux case? Dom, you can't adress a question to a single user, having the comunity chime in is the norm here. Take the [tour] and visit our [help] to learn more. This was flagged as "unclear, what you are asking" - please [edit] your post to clarify, more in our help: [ask]. And: welcome to Seasoned Advice!	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.263710	2016-05-29T14:49:10	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/69341", "authors": [ "Stephie", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/28879" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
66989	How to eat Rambutan? I am having trouble separating the pit, or seed like thing, in a Rambutan. It easily comes out, but leaves a sticky layer of "bark" on the white part of the fruit. This bark-like substance is really hard to separate from the fruit without wasting a lot of it. Are there any special techniques I can use? Below is a picture for reference: Wether or not the stone of a rambutan comes out cleanly depends on the specific variety of rambutan: There's freestone and clingstone ones. The stone of the freestone just pops out, the clingstone ones, well, cling to the fruit. The only option for those is to either try to clean it, make a mess, waste fruit, and fail, or to just pop them in your mouth, suck and chew of the flesh, and spit out the stone. In other words: If you want to clean them nicely buy the freestone ones. Problem is: I've never seen rambutans actually labeled as such, at least not where I live, and they're not often available (lychees are more easy to obtain). Maybe it's different in other countries, but over here, it's impossible to tell which variety you have, without trying one. Based on that description (as I'm not familiar with the fruit), it sounds like it has a similar problem as peaches ... and for those I'll use a grapefruit spoon to extract the pit if it's a clingstone. If might not get it perfectly clean, but it's the best that I've found so far. I didn't know serrated spoons were called "grapefruit spoons", they've come and gone nameless through my life up until now, nice :) If you know lychees, you know rambutans, taste and structure wise, they're almost the same (and very nice, ymmv). @WillemvanRumpt this is unfortunately the answer I was expecting. I read about the "freestone" and "clingstone" varieties, and like you, I can't find them labeled as such. I guess in the middle of Iowa that's hard to find. What country is "over here"? "Over here" is The Netherlands (which a glance at my profile would've shown).	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.263945	2016-03-01T08:47:57	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/66989", "authors": [ "Burhan Ali", "Cathy Bui", "Chris Hansen", "Deborah Stokes", "DorisLin", "Joe", "Kevin Connors", "Lerato Nomali", "Nancy Kosonen", "Willem van Rumpt", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/160611", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/160612", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/160613", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/160614", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/160615", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/160655", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/19265", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/26450", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/43836", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/67" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
67342	Fatty Tuna vs. Tuna Why does fatty tuna cost more than lean tuna? Is it because some people think it tastes better? We don't address questions about "health" on this site. Is there a way you can ask this without inquiring about the health benefits? As an example, you should be fine asking something like "Does fatty tuna actually have more fat than regular tuna?" This is quantifiable and doesn't require us to judge whether it's "more healthy". Yes, the fatty part of the tuna is prized for its flavor, especially in Japan. They particularly like 'o-toro' tuna, so that drives the price up there and elsewhere. Otoro represents a most enjoyable part of dining found in Japan, and a large number of bluefin tuna farmed all over the world land in typically the fish marketplaces linked to Japan, exactly where the o-toro will undoubtedly receive a more expensive price tag amongst sushi enthusiasts. From Otoro.com	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.264173	2016-03-11T20:13:32	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/67342", "authors": [ "Bambi Germain", "Catija", "David Coutinho", "Glen R Smith", "Jennifer Petrozzo", "Jeremy Mackley", "Mark Pearce", "Stephen Manning", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/161573", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/161574", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/161575", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/161576", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/161577", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/161578", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/161579", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/161587", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/33128", "mamatha Dilip" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
67855	Are curd and sour cream typical middle-eastern food? I keep going to restaurants around my city (São Paulo) where in certain days of the week, some of them serve middle-eastern food. Curiously, there's always a whitey cream that some of the restaurants call "sour cream" and some of them, call the same cream as "curd". Now I searched through Google and I discovered that both terms seem to describe different dishes, even though these restaurants interchange them as if they were the same thing. Also, when looking on the web, I couldn't find much result on which one is right, some pages of middle-eastern cuisine doesn't even list it as one typical food, but they do list baba ghanoush and hummus, that is also served here. Which led me to think that sour cream isn't really from the middle-eastern cuisine, but just misthought to be, as it's similar to baba ghanoush and hummus. Is sour cream and curd different food, or the same? Is it really from middle-eastern cuisine, or just some restaurants that think it is, when it isn't? And if it is, what is the correct name of it? Can you tell us anything about what it tastes like? There are many yogurt-based sauces/dips in Mediterranean & Middle Eastern cuisine. See Cacik or Toum. It tastes like milk cream, but it's very acidic. It usually won't come with mint or any other herb added to it. Just the cream and sometimes some olive oil "curd" is often used with the meaning of "plain, unsweetened yoghurt" in indian recipes. This looks like it's most likely labneh, a form of yogurt that's strained to remove some of its moisture. The texture can range from a thick sour-cream consistency to something like dense cream cheese, and it's common in the cuisines of the Mediterranean and Levant. Sometimes it takes the form of rolled balls, sometimes it's served as a dip or sandwich ingredient, but it always has the characteristic sour taste of yogurt. Often it's garnished with mint or za'atar, but not always, though it's usually served with olive oil. It's also referred to variously as "strained" or "Greek" yogurt (which can mean something different than the common slightly-thickened "Greek yogurt" that's currently trendy in the United States) so I wouldn't be surprised if there were a slight difference in translation that's causing the confusion. As you've found in your research, "sour cream" in the US usually denotes cream that's cultured in the same way as yogurt. "Curd" is more confusing; in the US it usually refers to cheese formed by treating with acid to produce solid clumps, but it can also refer to similar substances produced from fruit, as in lemon curd. Is sour cream and curd different food, or the same? Is it really from middle-eastern cuisine, or just some restaurants that think it is, when it isn't? And if it is, what is the correct name of it? Curds are the product of of milk that has been coagulated. It is basically the same process that makes your blood turn into scabs when we bleed. When acids like lemon juice or citric acid or rennet is introduced to the milk the process of curdling is initiated. This leads to the milk proteins (Casein) to form solid masses which is what results in curds. Sour Cream on the other hand is cream that has been fermented with the use of certain lactic acid producing bacteria. The lactic acid that the bacteria produces thickens and sours the cream. This answer seems strange. Are you implying that "souring" and "curdling" are different processes? Aah I see that last part is incorrect. I always thought that souring was just the introduction of some bacteria to promote fermentation I see know wikipedia specifically mentions that addition of acid.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.264309	2016-03-29T19:16:16	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/67855", "authors": [ "Catija", "Eileen Smith", "Gustavo Maciel", "Jo Parrott", "Neil Meyer", "Peter Edwards", "Sierra Gardner", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/162965", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/162966", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/162967", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/162968", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/18910", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/33128", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/35312", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/44619", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/4638", "rackandboneman", "rumtscho" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
34215	Trouble cooking steak to the standard internal temperature I just cooked a steak following Gordon ramsey's "perfect steak" method found on youtube, I flipped the steak every minute about 4-5 times on medium-medium high heat, but I couldn't get the internal temperature to go higher than 120 degrees F and I've always had this problem regardless of how I cook the meat. I'm including a picture of a cut from about the thicker part of the steak, it seems like it's medium-rare to me but again it only went to 120 degrees according to my thermometer which is a metal rod type thermometer. I should note, I let the steak sit out for about an hour before cooking so it could reach room temperature, after that I put it in a zip-lock bag and let it sit under hot water for a minute or two hoping to further increase the temperature so it would cook quicker, also room temperature in my house is about 70 degrees or so. I don't know what else to do, I don't want to eat completely brown steak, I did eat this steak despite the thermometer saying the internal temp only hit 120 and it was great, but nobody in my house but me would eat it like that. So any suggestions would be great. Thanks. I would first ask: is your thermometer correct? Calibrate it in ice water and boiling water. I'll go test it in boiling water and report back. Tested it in boiling water, the temp didn't quite hit the "boiling point" mark on the dial but it was only off by maybe 4 degrees or so. So you know you have a 4 degree error at 212 F. now I would test ice water. If it is the same 4 degrees in the same direction, you know how to adjust. If the difference varies by temperature, you have a tougher row to hoe. The next question would be technique on how you are measuring, what type of thermometer you have, and how long you give it to stabilize. It's a metal rod with a dial at one end, a bit like the thermometers you put under your tongue I suppose but for meat. I stuck it into the center and let it sit until the temperature seemed to stop moving about a minute or so. This is an analogue thermometer, not a digital one? Typically the analogue ones need a fair bit of probe embedded in the meat, often almost an inch. Meaning they're not too useful for steaks... It seems accurate in ice water the needle hit just above the "freezing point" mark on the dial about 31-32 degrees. Can you suggest a good digital thermometer then and can anyone tell how well done the steak is from the photo? That photo looks about 130-135 F in the middle to me. But that is not an accurate way to take temperatures :-) Thermapens are considered the best of the breed for instant read thermometers, but are expensive; a decent Taylor instant read should do the trick. I'm curious why others in the house wouldn't eat that steak. Did they think it was over- or under-cooked? My mom has it in her head that any pink in any meat is horribly bad for you, whenever we cook steak I have to make it so it's as brown as possible in the center or she and my sister won't bother to eat anything but the brown outer edges. Don't feed steak to these ladies... :-) Seriously, you will never get anything but the outside browned. The inside might turn grey and well done around 165 F, and will be tough and rubbery, but it will never be brown. When you tested your thermometer, did you have just the tip in the water like you would have had just the tip in the steak? No I submersed about 2 inches of the rod. I suggest joining us in chat. Don't mind the resident lunatics. http://chat.stackexchange.com/ Assuming you have enough rep to get in, not sure what the threshold is. Says I need 20 rep. There's a few things that could be going on here: cut: not all steak cooks at the same rate. Really tender cuts cook faster than some of the tougher, more flavorful cuts, increasing cooking time by up to 50%. Cuts like tenderloin, filet, and loin (US) - Sirloin (UK) are more tender and cook faster. Denser cuts like sirloin, top sirloin, and bottom sirloin (US) and rump (UK) cook slower. If you are cooking a denser cut then you simply need to cook it longer. Pan heat: Most chefs have really good stoves that produce load of heat, most mere mortals have average stoves which aren't as powerful. Medium heat on a professional, or very high quality stove is hotter than the medium heat on an average stove, so try cranking it up to full blast. Also, make sure your pan is fully up to temp. I cook my steaks on a cast iron skillet, and I let it heat up for 10 minutes before I start frying steak Heat contact: even though steak is full of fat it takes some time for this to start working, so coating your steak with a bit of vegetable oil (not olive oil, it burns at high temperatures) will make sure it gets good heat contact So my advice would be to get the pan hotter and cook it longer. Try adding one more minute per side. EDIT: @kenny says that he is cooking loin, so assuming it's 3/4", or 2cm thick and looking for medium done-ness I would cook the first side for 5 minutes and then the second side 3 minutes. The uneven times are to make sure it cooks evenly. So you need a total of 8 minutes cooking time. I don't do the flip every minute method because the uneven times work for me, and it lets me do other prep. Alright, well I'm cooking the other two steaks this evening, I just did this one this morning for a practice run. I'll try just cooking them on high heat. I was under the impression though that if you want the inside cooked more thoroughly you should cook on lower heat otherwise the outside burns before the inside reaches temperature? There are many factors, you have how much heat your stove produces, how well the pan conducts it, and how thick your steak is. Your steak doesn't look that thick, if the heat isn't high enough you won't get much browning on the outside. For thick steaks I keep it lower for the reasons you stated. Say @Kenny, what cut are you using, and how thick? I believe it's loin, it was very tender also.	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70826	Cooking pot with lid for saving gas but that doesn't overflow? I care about gas saving and for that I want to cook with the lid covering the pot. This allows me to reduce the fire power of the stove top (then using less gas). I need to cook foods in cooking pots such as rice, noodle, etc. Everyone that cooks these foods know they tend to overflow and (also look at this for the why) if the lid is over, except if the fire is really low, (wich is indeed a possible solution to my problem, but read below). Idea 1: Is there some ingredient (like salt) that reduces a lot the bubbles that overflow and doesn't affect compromise the food? Idea 2 (I want this one): Is there a device that releases the pressure automatically when the pot is trying to overflow? Edit clarification: It's unfortunate that I referred to the pressure associated with the heating boiling food inside the pot (wich is extremely small, but still enought to lift the lid (Is it or I'm wrong?) and pressure cookers in the same post, wich have a HUGE pressure. This realization is important for me! PD: Are we sure that my idea of releasing vapour periodically doesn't save more than just open? To me is not so cutting obvious, it needs a proof (sorry if it's basic thermodinamics, I'm ignorant on that). PD2: This got all really good answers! I hope you don't get put off that Im not accepting right away, but I can tell you the discussion was very good!. Is this device what I'm looking? Pedantic note (sorry): there's not really very significant pressure under the lid of a normal pot, it's mostly just that the lid holds the hot air and steam in. This does kind of matter for your question, since it makes it clear that you're not looking for anything fancy, just for hot air to leave the pot. @Jefromi That hot air and steam I'm calling pressure in the sense more force than the air external pressure, and sufficient to lift the covering lid to overflow. Probably my definition of pressure is a little loose. I know that the pressure is very small! But it's still bigger than the atmosphere one. Sure, it's pressure, just saying it's not significant - for example it would only take 0.0006 atm to lift a 12", 1 lb lid. So you're not talking about controlled release of pressure (you don't need valves or anything), you're just talking about hot gas, which will safely leave the pot if there's an opening. The device which "releases the pressure automatically" is a normal pot. You don't put the lid fully on, you leave a small gap on the side. It is sufficient for practically all cooking. And yes, if it is still overflowing, you should reduce your temperature. Not only don't you win anything by cooking it at such a high flame that it boils over even with a gap, you are also wasting gas - which you said you care about. As for the device you linked, it is a very different thing. It cooks food faster because at higher pressures, it can be heated to over 100 Celsius. Cooking with it is very different from cooking with a normal pot, and it is up to you if you want to get into it - but not having to leave the air gap is not a typical reason for it. Trying to clear this thing up after some discussion with Jefromi: You are pumping more energy into the system than it can hold. You have a few possible solutions: Stop pumping that much energy into it (reduce the heat). It is wasted anyway. Have an open system - one which can't withstand pressure and bleeds it off as soon as it starts rising. This is the "pot with a gap in the lid" method, no matter if you are using a standard lid or one with the gap and catch lip built in like suggested in the other answer. Have a closed system which can keep in the energy (it will produce pressure higher than atmospheric pressure) and release it after you are done cooking. This is what a real pressure cooker is for. It does come with some advantages, I've also seen claims that it is more energy efficient (I don't know if it is, really), but it is really a completely different mode of cooking. What you are proposing is a mixture of 2 and 3. Now, if you make it very close to 2, such that minute amounts of pressure are built up before venting, you are still expelling that same energy from the system, and haven't saved it in any way. You just have created a more complex (and so more expensive less failsafe) device, there is no reason to not stay with solution 2. If you make it very close to 3, in that you hold in a lot of pressure before releasing, you automatically make it almost the same as pressure cooking, only with some useless venting of energy, so there is no reason to not build a real pressure cooker. Basically, anything in between 2 and 3 is going to be worse than both 2 and 3. The most practical solution, used by countless cooks over the world, is a combination of 1 and 2. Hi! This is just a comment to add a quick opinion to this well-written answer. I too find that leaving a gap open in the lid is very effective. In addition, I watch and adjust it as I go along. Usually in the beginning the pot needs a decent-sized "air hole" to keep the liquid from boiling over. As it evaporates, or cooks into your food, there's less liquid left to boil over, so fully covering the pot at that point becomes possible, and can help save gas. But if you leave a small gap constantly open you can cause heat to escape and loose heat. I was thinking of a valve that releases the pressure periodically every minute or so when it tries to overflow, in a covered lid set up. I don't know if my setup doesn't waste more energy than yours. OK, if you want pressure to build up, you are really talking about pressure cooking, and you need the device and the recipes for it. I thought you are just talking about normal cooking without any pressure. @rumtscho Pretty sure not pressure cooking - a pressure cooker can't overflow! The OP is just referring to the teeny pressure of hot air/steam under a lid. (see also comments on the question) @Santropedro I don't really see much difference between continuously venting a little bit of heat/steam and periodically venting a larger amount. The whole goal here is to vent enough heat/steam to prevent overflow; if you're worried about wasting energy, turn the burner down. @Jefromi if the OP wants to first let pressure build up and then release it (and not overflow), they need a device which can hold in the pressure, and that's a pressure cooker. If they don't want to build up pressure, they need to either heat less or leave a way for it to escape, that's exactly what my answer said before the OP contrasted it to "letting pressure build up". @Santropedro For reference, pressure cookers typically have an internal pressure of nearly 1 atm, which is over 1000 times as much pressure as in a pot that's trying to lift the lid and boil over. A lid that does not lock like a pressure cooker does not add appreciable pressure. Our atmosphere is pretty heavy. It is just air but it is miles and miles of air. @Paparazzi That's what the answer says: "can't withstand pressure and bleeds it off as soon as it starts rising." Not sure what point you're trying to make? Then suggest you define gap. Do you mean normally placed lid or one you tilt. As if I am reducing I will tilt and I think a lot of readers will take your 2 as that. Paparazzi, it doesn't matter if you place it normally or if you tilt, as long as there is a gap. Choose the one which feels more stable to you, and wedge a spoon in if you want to be extra sure. There are devices sold for this purpose which use two concentric lids, like https://www.amazon.com/Boil-Over-Safeguard-Silicone-Spillovers/dp/B00BPYTPJC. Mind that some things will boil over even in a wide open pot, you would have to experiment whether such a device will help in these conditions. As stated in the linked question a little oil will help. A taller pot, lower the temperature, and monitor. With a noodle that you are going to drain more water will be less foam. But more water is more water to heat. For rice consider an electric rice cooker. Based on your comments about pressure you don't understand the mechanism. With or without a lid once it starts to boil with the starch it will foam. With a lid you hold in heat so it will boil with less heat. If you remove the lid and it suddenly stops foaming it is because it is no longer boiling - heat escaped. The lid does not have a perfect seal and even if it did even a 1 lb lid on a decent size pot is 0.01 PSI. Atmospheric pressure is 14.7 PSI. The lid has no appreciable effect on pressure. I just holds in heat which raises the temperature. OK I will try the mechanics one more time. This is not really thermodynamics. It is heat transfer. There is no appreciable difference in pressure. With no lid you have the following heat loss: sides conduction radiation top evaporation conduction radiation Evaporation at simmer or even a slow boil is the major heat loss. With a lid you cut the heat loss out the top easily in 1/2. You cut total heat loss by 1/3. If it is simmering with the lid off then you need to reduce the heat by like 1/3 when you put the lid on. Imagine heating your house with the door open or the door closed. Another factor is you don't see it. With the lid off you notice early. With the lid on you don't see it until it is at a full foaming boil. Go with a low heat. You don't have to boil to make noodles or rice. About I don;t understand the pressure, ok I'm sure I don't, but I think the imbalance matters. There is atmospheric pressure inside the pot also, so that should cancel the external and the remaining pressure of the lid should matter a little, fighting against the pressure of the boiling rice? Of course, I admit, I don't know about this things, just wanted to clarify my perspective. I have a degree in chemical engineering. The pressure with a lid is not even 0.1% higher. Not even 1/1000. A pressure cooker is a different beast with a seal and a lock. Read the edited post, and yes It seems you have a degree! A glass lid can help with that last factor - you can see what's happening without opening the pot.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.265403	2016-06-20T02:02:42	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/70826", "authors": [ "Cascabel", "Ecnerwal", "Santropedro", "Sue Saddest Farewell TGO GL", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/1672", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/27321", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/34242", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/45636", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/4638", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/47519", "paparazzo", "rumtscho" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
73714	Advantages of cooking vegetables before or after freezing them I'm putting all vegetables in the same bag in the hopes that a general rule of thumb can answer many individual vegetable questions, but if at the end it depends on the vegetable, please answer what criterion you would use to decide wich order to use. Suppose I have vegetables such as pumpkin, and I want to eat it in a month, suppose it will get bad if unfrozen. I want to eat cooked pumpkin someday. Should i cook today and freeze or freeze now and cook someday? I want to know if cooking a vegetable before freezing it provides advantages or differences with respect to the other order, from a food preservation and vegetable eating quality standpoint, or from a flavor viewpoint. (See this accepted answer's cited block) for a example of cooking before freezing. Some vegetables will need to be blanched (parcooked) for best results before freezing; freezing them raw results in enzymatic decay that affects quality. Freezing a finished dish has the advantage that you can work with the ingredient as a fresh one, eg you can match cut sizes to the dish and it might stay more firm while cooked. Freezing ingredients gives you freedom of what to do with them later, albeit preparing them optimally can be trickier - freeze fine cuts and you can't have large pieces when needed, freeze big pieces and they might freeze slow (affecting quality) and can be difficult to cut smaller (cutting frozen veg is hard, thawing takes time).	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.266212	2016-09-05T04:01:37	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/73714", "authors": [], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
68511	What did I do to make the chocolate bloom like this? I've been trying to create some moulded pralines and have been tempering chocolate using the microwave method. The microwave method was to heat the chocolate in the microwave in small bursts until there are about 30% callets left. Once there are 30% left, you stir until they are all completely melted. I did this, and tested it on some baking paper and the test set before 3 mins. The test ended up perfectly tempered and didn't turn white over time. However my moulded chocolates turned out like this: This looks different to a lot of the images im finding about bloom. What's happening here? My best guess is that the chocolate was too hot. It may have worked on your test because it was small and thin, and therefore cooled quickly. In the larger molds, it stayed too warm and you got the wrong kind of crystals from the cocoa butter. You want the keep the chocolate as close to 88 °F (~ 32 °C) as you can get. What I typically do is microwave 3/4 of the chocolate at 50% power until it's pretty much melted (just a few stubborn bits remaining), then add the other 1/4 of the chocolate and stir to melt. Sometimes it has to go back in the microwave to completely melt the last 1/4, but only about 5 seconds at a time. Very short bursts.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.266359	2016-04-24T02:45:56	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/68511", "authors": [], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
71822	What causes gaps/holes in homemade bread? And how can I avoid them? This happens a lot when I make just regular white bread and almost every time I make cinnamon swirl bread. The top swirl creates a really big gap no matter how tight I roll the dough. Thoughts? related (for the cinnamon swirl) : http://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/21699/67 And possibly related for the non-swirl bread : http://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/54361/67 It looks delicious to me! It's typically a problem with large pockets of air in the dough before you bake it. For the cinnamon swirl bread, try to make sure that you're not getting air trapped when rolling it. For other loaves, you want to make sure to punch it down well after the first rise, and make sure you aren't trapping air in it if you're doing a stretch and fold when shaping it. Interesting question! You probably have seen other ideas on-line: adding starch to your filling, rolling tightly, pulsing the filling finely, painting the dough with egg wash, piercing the dough, and the “Russian braid"—-all useful techniques and ones that I use. There is yet another possible solution, which no one seems to have suggested (as best I can tell). I have just ordered some confectioner’s erythritol, but haven’t conducted any expensive experiments yet. It seems that erythritol is the only non-hygroscopic sweetener out there. As you may know, a big part of gapping is the moisture-content of the filling. The wetter the filling, the more water-expansion occurs during baking—-often resulting in those those horrible holes (even if the taste is great). Unlike sugar, which sucks moisture out of the dough and results in steam, erythritol does not work this way. I make a lot of Romanian-style filled brioche: “cozonac.” I want to try to make my dough with regular sugar in the dough itself and make a filling with less “water-attracting” erythritol. I suspect that this would eliminate/lessen the steam build-up during baking and, thus, get rid-of the holes. Erythritol is only 70 percent as sweet as sugar, so the filling will need proportionately more sweetener. It may just be the fix you need! Sugar does not “suck moisture out of the dough”, and the bubbles in bread are not caused by steam (the interior does not reach boiling temperature during baking). If you've ever baked cinnamon bread and seen gaps on the inside, this IS the result of steam from the filling and the extraction of sugar from the dough, proper. "Bubbles in the bread" are quite another matter.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.266608	2016-08-02T01:04:44	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/71822", "authors": [ "Hutchette", "Jim", "Joe", "Sneftel", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/101905", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/19141", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/58067", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/67" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
68744	Can one always cook food faster in a pan with water in it with the lid on and/or high heat? In other words: Does water boil faster with the lid on? Yes. But folks often don't consider food looks cooked 'till it's browned, and will find that takes a really long time to look cooked if they don't take the lid off. How can these both be true? While answering your own question is absolutely encouraged, you do also need to make sure your question is specific and easy for others to answer too. This one seems like a jumble of ideas (cooking speed, browning, time to heat water to a boil) which makes it difficult for others who don't have your pre-written answer already in mind. Maybe you should focus on cooking speed specifically for simmering/boiling, and leave browning out of it? Wow, given the link in the question, you really think it shows no research effort, @Jefromi? The question is very simple and clear: "Can I cook food faster in a pan with the lid on and/or high heat?" You seem to be angry that I provided additional information in the form of a restatement of the question in different words. Browning is often part of cooking, not an unrelated thing. I said it was unclear, not lacking research effort, and I explained why I think so. Two people agreed. Do as you wish based on that. Whether the lid will speed or slow the cooking, depends on the situation. High heat will only sometimes speed the cooking! The crucial knowledge to understand and apply is that boiling water doesn't get any hotter than 100˚C. Because of this, high heat won't cook already-boiling-hot food faster! Typically, the fastest way to cook something is to start cooking it with the lid on, but finish it with the lid off. Why? At first the food is cold. It will take a while for heat from the pan to travel into the food. We speed this up by putting on a lid, and using high heat, so that all the food surfaces not touching the pan will soon be in contact with hot air or steam, which will help quickly transport heat energy from the surface of the pan to the food. Any liquid in the pan can't pass 100˚C since it cannot exist as a liquid and be any hotter. Once the food reaches 100˚C, what we do next depends on if we want to brown the food, and how much water the food is in. If we want to brown the food, the pan has to get well above 100˚C, and any liquid water remaining the pan would prevent that. So if there is a little liquid, we take the lid off, so it can quickly boil off: soon there's no more liquid water in the pan, and additional heat travels directly into the food from the pan, raising its temperature enough to let it brown. If there's a lot of liquid, a high boil isn't going to change the temperature of the liquid, or the food in contact with the liquid, significantly. So you might as well use a low simmer* and put he lid on to save energy. The lid won't change the cooking speed significantly though. Or, if you really want to brown the food, pour off the liquid. -- SE (Stack Exchange) encourages folks to answer their own question – share their knowledge, Q&A-style and I was particularly motivated to do so because the reality is that things do NOT cook significantly faster at a rolling boil, and it addresses a pet peeve of mine: folks who leave food at a rolling boil, uncovered, for a long time. The rolling will stir food, which would tend to very slightly increase cooking speed, and the stirring could keep pasta from sticking, for example, but generally, it's wasteful. except in extraordinary situations - like in a pressure cooker or minor exceptions, like the slightly different temperatures very salted or super-critical water boil at or other abnormal pressure situations. Since cold water sinks, any water below 100˚C will sink to the bottom of the pan where it will heat up. ***Note: by simmer, I mean keep at the boiling point, in other words, at a very low boil. I think that's a meaning most people consider reasonable. However, there's no unanimity on the meaning of simmer! Some folks define it as a temperature in a range significantly below the boiling point There's a bit of oversimplification going on here. A low simmer could be 10-20F/5-10C below boiling, which can make a difference for some foods. (Maybe by low simmer you meant low boil?) And when you cook food, it's not just water. It can actually be quite difficult for a whole pot of stew to be in thermal equilibrium; convection doesn't work very well and the top can remain much cooler than the bottom. In cases like that, using enough heat to get a decent boil makes a huge difference to cooking speed. OKay, well, I think you're simplifying in a way that makes your answer a little misleading: a lot of situations which people would regard as boiling (or a low boil, or a simmer) result in temperatures significantly below 100C at the top surface if uncovered. This is true regardless of how you define "simmer". Only at a boil strong enough to thoroughly mix everything will it all be at 100C. And most of the time when we simmer or boil (pretty much anything besides plain water with stuff in it, e.g. pasta or vegetables) we don't use that strong a boil. Completely by chance, I came across something today that really strongly backs up what I said here: this article, specifically this image - there are plenty of bubbles by 195F/90C. That picture really looks like something people might call a low boil or simmer, but it's definitely not 212F/100C. According to google, the definition of a simmer is: "a state or temperature just below the boiling point." In a kitchen at STP, water at 140ºF, 170ºF, 195ºF, or any other temperature other than around 211ºF is, BY DEFINITION, not at a simmer. It doesn't matter if it LOOKS LIKE it's a simmer. It's about temperature, not visual appearance. Your source, J. Kenji López-Alt, may be Managing Culinary Director etc, but google's answer is based on dictionary.com's. When it comes to defintions, the latter is more authoritative, IMO. Likewise, google says a boil is defined as "the temperature at which a liquid bubbles and turns to vapor." For water, normally, "the temperature" is 212F. It's not the temperature at which dissolved gas comes out. And as you think that a photo of water purportedly at 195ºF and yet boiling is good evidence to the contrary, let me point out that the water near the surface may be 195ºF, but it's the water that's at the bottom that's turning into vapor. It's THAT water that is boiling. And if the kitchen is at STP, I'm quite sure THAT water is at 212ºF. You are right - a lot of people think a simmer is something else. That doesn't make them right. Most of the time when I see something boiling, it's water with stuff in it, at a rolling boil. On high heat. Often unattended. I hear that your experience is different. Doesn't make me wrong for providing an answer that speaks largely to that situation. Your question is a little odd: you first ask about two things to do with cooking in water, then you ask about browning, which never happens when cooking in water no matter how hard you try. You need higher temperatures than the 100C you can reach in boiling water. There's sort of an exception: if food sticks to the bottom of the pot when boiling, or if the liquid is pretty thick (like a thick sauce), it can burn on the bottom. This is pretty easy to do if you're not stirring - the bottom of the pot gets well over 100C without water directly in contact with it - but that's usually more of a way to ruin your food. So I don't really know what to say about the "how can both be true" question - boiling faster with the lid on has nothing to do with browning. The former is about the speed of adding heat, and the latter is about the actual temperature. They're just two completely different things. As for the question in the title, the answer is... sort of. High heat and putting the lid on both will let you reach a boil faster, which means a shorter total cooking time since you're spending less time at lower temperatures. And they also both make it easier to make sure the whole pot is boiling. But once you reach that point, no, adding extra heat or putting the lid on won't make things go any faster. But you might be down in that "not quite all boiling" range more often than you think. This Food Lab article on boiling has a great photo: Remember, heat is only being added at the bottom. So the water boils, turning into steam, only at the bottom of the pot. That part is definitely at 100C. For the whole pot to also be at 100C, that heat has to be transferred to the rest of the liquid. With a full, rolling boil, that happens: the water and steam are mixed around, coming to the same temperature throughout. With a simmer or low boil, especially in a deeper pot with more food and less water, or with thicker liquids, it's very easy for that not to be the case. If you have a pot of a thick sauce at a low boil, or a pot with more food than water, with some small bubbles coming up, you might see temperatures perhaps down in the 80-90C range at the top. That does mean somewhat slower cooking! Turning up the heat to get a stronger boil will bring that temperature back up, as will putting on a lid to hold in heat. To address the second aspect: When the lid is on, there is just too much steam trapped in the vessel, which will interfere with frying/sauteeing, just as it is harder to saute in a really high vessel (say, a stockpot) even without a lid on... Also, depending on the lid material and shape, the steam can condense on the inside and result on water going back either down the vessel walls or straight into the pan.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.266862	2016-05-02T23:48:26	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/68744", "authors": [ "Cascabel", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/1672", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/45455", "user1521620" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
69062	Can I use short rib bones alone to make beef stock? I have almost 2 pounds of uncooked short rib bones (I cut them off short ribs then froze them). There is very little meat, if any, on the bones. Am I able to make beef stock using just these bones? Should I add one of the small marrow bones I have in the freezer (I don't want it greasy) or buy different bones? Or do I also need to add meat to have a tasty stock that will 'gelatinize'? In other words, are short rib bones enough? I've made chicken and turkey stock countless times, but never beef, so I am truly clueless. I generally don't add meat to a chicken stock, just whatever little I haven't cleaned off the carcass, and wonder if I would get the same good outcome with just beef bones. I have read this question, but it doesn't address my question of short rib bones. What bones for beef stock. This question Making Beef Stock, while telling me HOW to make the stock, doesn't tell me if short rib bones work. Thank you. Yes, you absolutely can make stock from the bones. In fact, I used to be a bit mystified at people using "meaty" bones, since I first read about making stock from the bones. The method for making this kind of stock calls for "bare rendering" bones - with almost all the meat removed. The marrow and any connective tissue supply most of the flavor. To strengthen the flavor to offset the lack of meat, you roast them in the oven first (which is a good idea, even for meatier bones). In any case, your accumulation of the short rib bones with almost no meat on them would be a perfect fit for this recipe. I was able to locate that first recipe for making beef stock that I referred to - from the Frugal Gourmet: Frugal Gourmet - Basic Brown Soup Stock A lot of the flavor comes from the marrow of the bone. Rib bones will need companion soup bones to help them. Alone, the flavor will seem weak or watered down. Now, if you are willing to put in the time.... Bake them first at 325f for an hour, let them cool and hit them with a hammer to crack them. you might want to cover them with a towel as not to send splinters about. This will allow the flavor to come out more during the reduction phase of the stock. Yes, you may most certainly make stock from the short ribs...I always use a pressure cooker to build my stocks (beef or otherwise) and find that this does an equally good job if the bones have been previously cooked and/or broken. About 45-60 minutes under pressure should extract all the bones have to offer. For a 'good' stock you should prepare a 2:3 ratio of bones (lbs) to water. 2 lbs of bones to 3 lbs of water (1pint = 1lb => 3 pints)(from Ratio) I've always just dumped water in my PC to cover the bones by a couple inches. Thanks for the ratio.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.267663	2016-05-17T23:23:24	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/69062", "authors": [ "ShirleyInNJ", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/45823" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
37041	Holes in baked cake I baked a chocolate and pear cake whose batter is made with yolks, sugar, butter, melted chocolate and amaretti, flour and baking powder and whisked whites. It was (not very evenly) divided in two layers, sandwiching a layer of pear pieces pre-cooked in rum. It turned out like in the picture, after 40 mins in the oven at 180 celsius. My question is: what are the holes due to? Uneven division of batter? Uneven rising? How can they be prevented? I have seen this happening more than once. While I don't know the whole theory behind it, each time it happened, there was something just below the hole, let's call it "the lump". What I think happens is that the lump is too heavy. When the batter below it tries to rise, it doesn't have the strength to push up the lump. This could be combined with differences in heat transfer throughout the batter vs. on the batter-lump transition in preventing rising (I am certain they exist, but I don't know whether they have an effect at all). The result is a hole where the batter didn't rise, surrounded by nicely risen batter. As to where the lump comes from: you say "chocolate and pear cake". If you have pear pieces in the batter, right under the surface, they can do this. I have certainly seen it happen when the recipe includes fruit pieces in the batter. If there are no pear pieces, my second guess is badly dissolved flour. The directions for this type of cake normally include folding the whites very gently, and generally erring on the side of too little whisking. This could contribute to uneven batter texture, resulting in lumps. In the second case, the cake may have some less-than-pleasant pieces, but will still be mostly good. If it is fruit, the holes are purely a cosmetic problem. So not much harm done either way, unless you are shooting for a prize at a baking competition. Yeah there are pear pieces inside, see my other comment. Would it make a difference to use raw pieces of fruit (marinated in rum) instead of pre-cooked pieces? I don't think this will make a difference. What is more important is that you have an even layer of batter over the pieces, it will happen where it is too thin. You can cut your pears in flat slices and make an even layer of them, then pour the batter on that. There are many reasons why Holes in my Cake and the common reasons are The cake batter was mixed too much or not enough to incorporate all the ingredients evenly. The temperature in the oven was too high. The flour is too strong The mixture is too stiff – add a little milk to soften slightly Over mixing the ingredients The egg content is too high Eggs – always use fresh eggs and beat them before adding The batter may have curdled thanks, but kinda hard to tell how much mixing is too much :)	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.267905	2013-09-24T08:04:20	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/37041", "authors": [ "Ben Burns", "Crystal", "David P", "Destiny A. Gottfried", "Florian Weimer", "GioMott", "Nau", "Pavel Polivka", "Sapana Behl", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/19364", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/4638", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/86992", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/86993", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/86994", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/86997", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/87006", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/87008", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/87010", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/87017", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/87049", "joe from nc", "rumtscho" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
35822	meal planning software with collaboration and sharing Me and my wife are technophiles. We've had a fair amount of success organizing aspects of our life using RememberTheMilk for lists and google calendar for a shared calendar. Recently we've wanted to up our cooking game (cooking more at home and trying out Primal Blueprint). What I'm looking for is software that allows us to build a database of recopies (that we share) and meal plans we can collaborate on. So far I've tried Pepper Plate and I've glanced at all the option in this question. It looks like there are lots of nice options for collecting recipes, a couple that let you share your library with others (not just individual recipes), some (like PepperPlate) have tools to build a meal plan, but what I really want to be able to do is collaborate on meal plans with other people. Does anyone know of any software that makes this easy? I'd accept "non-meal plan" specific software as long as it works well. As a bonus the software would be able to put grocery list items in an RTM list and display the meal plan in other calendar software, abut that might be hoping for too much. Ziplist doesn't work for this, it advertises a bunch of sharing options but ends up only sharing grocery lists, not meal plans or recipes. We were very disappointed. I use Paprika for recipe database, meal planning, and creating shopping lists. You could both log in as the same user and so your recipes, plans and lists would sync between any instances of the application you use. The software also categorizes your grocery items into 'isles' so hopefully it'll be in a logical order when you get to the supermarket. I have found the software to be very reliable and the developer is very approachable if you do have any issues or feature requests. Give a try to HipRecipes.com: You can create your own recipes, or use the ones created by others It is a web app, completely free To create your weekly meals only takes a few clicks: add the recipes to your basket And the app assemble a grocery list for you, organised by categories to make shopping easy! Out of curiosity, do you own the site? We appreciate the disclosure if there's an affiliation.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.268199	2013-08-05T18:48:19	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/35822", "authors": [ "Ayla Beuck", "Kelly Feng", "Sion C", "Spammy Spam SPAM", "Yamikuronue", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/107281", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/231", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/6317", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/83925", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/83926", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/83927", "talon8" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
73656	What cooking gadget is that? I was watching youtube vids about cooking and I saw this Gordon Ramsay one about broccoli soup. Around the 56 second mark to the right of the broccoli on the table is an elevated piece of metal with holes in it. What is it? So far I'm thinking some kind of weird large grater or a popcorn sifter. Can anyone help? (plus one for "popcorn sifter") It's simply a built-in vent for the built-in appliances integrated within his commercial kitchen table. I believe that is the ventilation for the range, rather than a kitchen utensil.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.268416	2016-09-02T22:25:09	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/73656", "authors": [ "Lorel C.", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/47201" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
71642	Propane grill leaking from valve stem I can't find this problem anywhere via google. It's not solved by resetting the regulator (and I'll argue that it shouldn't be below), and doesn't seem to be related to this cooking.se question. Of my last four propane tanks, I've had this problem with two: I turn off all (five) burners on my grill and (obviously) leave the tanks valve closed, but as soon as I screw the regulator onto the tank valve, there's a hissing sound of gas and the accompanying smell. This lasts a few seconds, then stops. Note that this is before any valves are open. Then, as soon as I turn on the tank valve (still leaving the burners off), there's more gushing gas sound. This doesn't seem to stop, even if I let it go for a good few seconds (maybe thirty in total). I've used soapy water to track the source of this leak, and found it to come from the back of the tank valve — the side opposite the threads, which I gather is the pressure relief valve. In each case, I've attached a different tank with no trouble, then tried the bad tanks again and had the problem. So I assume that this is not a problem with my equipment. Maybe it is, and only turns up with some tanks, but I doubt it. My main point of evidence is that the gas is actually exiting the propane tank valve itself, not my regulator, hoses, etc. Last time, I just exchanged the tank and ate the loss of money because I was in a big hurry. But now I'm wondering, is this a known problem? Should the store I bought it from agree to just replace my tank for free? Is there some reason this might actually be a problem with my equipment? EDIT: I took the tank back to where I got it, told them the problem, and they just replaced it for free, no hassle. Is the hissing happening mostly on really hot days? If so, it's likely just the pressure release valve doing what it's supposed to. Well, today is a very hot day, so for my second tank that could be the problem. But the first tank was back in April, when the days were not very hot (I'm in upstate New York). So I'm skeptical... was the day hotter than the previous period? If it was filled on a colder day, and you move it out into the sun and let it warm up, it's going to vent some if it was full. I'm no expert on flammables, but I've grilled a ton in my day on various equipment, and feel I've learned a couple things that may help here. However, your mileage may vary, and take this all with a grain of salt. Is this a known problem? Depends on what this is. I agree with your read that this likely isn't your equipment, and is likely something on the tank. If so, it is not known to me, but I have a different approach on tanks than you. More below. Should the store I bought it from agree to just replace my tank for free? Yes, I think they should do so happily; it leaks gas after all. If they don't, you should insist (say something about how you were hoping to grill some steaks, not start a house fire). Is there some reason this might actually be a problem with my equipment? The only thing I could fathom is if your equipment had some significant downstream pressure, but even if it did, I believe that would cause propane to flow more slowly to your burners, not leak out the back of the tank valve. Is this a pressure release value? This doesn't sound like a pressure release valve issue to me. If it were, the valve would open when the pressure increased inside the tank (usually a function of tank temperature increase), completely unrelated to when you opened the tank valve. So then what is it? If I had to guess, I'd say that the bleed screw is not tightened down well. This screw is opened when they fill the tank (allowing the air to escape while LPG is pumped into the tank). When they are done filling the tank, the bleed screw should be tightened, and perhaps that wasn't done when these tanks were filled. With the tank valve closed, check the bleed valve on the back of the tank valve to ensure it is closed. So what should I do? For what it is worth, I've never been a fan of those tank exchanges for a handful of reasons: Partial Fills. Most all of the tank exchanges only put in about 15# (~3.6 gallons) of propane. Even in warm weather climates you should be able to get 20# (4.7 gallons) of propane into a 20# tank. Beat-up Tanks. The tanks I see at the exchanges are usually pretty beat-up. This could be part of what you are seeing, tanks with faulty valves (however, I have to believe they do some level of checking before they ship full tanks back to the retail stores, right?). Ugly Tanks. I hate seeing the tank exchange company's brand plastered all over the side of the tank. I have had excellent luck in buying several new, empty tanks (from Home Depot or the like) and having them filled myself (usually at either a U-Haul, AirGas, or gas station). It's slightly less convenient, but I get a longer effective tank life (usually 33% more gas in my fill vs. exchanged tanks), better value (the gas is cheaper!), and my tanks don't look nor operate poorly. Same thing just happened to me. The tank was missing the o-ring seal. I took it back for exchange no problem.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.268506	2016-07-24T21:21:39	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/71642", "authors": [ "Joe", "Mike", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/48263", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/67" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
68502	Garlic clove has turned to a firm jelly texture I keep my garlic on my kitchen shelf by the window. Out of the whole garlic bulb one the cloves has changed to a yellow/orange colour and its texture is like hard jelly. Its slightly squidgy but firm. How has this happened? Is it edible? Not an expert, but my search results came up with this. This is called waxy breakdown. It's a defect rather than a disease, so you don't have to worry about a microbe or parasite. My neighbors have used affected cloves and they're still alive, though I've never been able to make myself use them because of the texture.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.268945	2016-04-23T18:35:47	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/68502", "authors": [ "Maroon", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/25295" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
36588	Are chestnut mushrooms and baby portabella mushrooms the same thing? Based on the information in Wikipedia - Chestnut Mushrooms and the answer located here at What are the mushrooms used in this (video) recipe? I would take an educated guess that since the chestnut mushroom is brown and not as fully matured (or big) as the portabella mushroom that it must be a baby portabella mushrooom, or the mushroom between a white mushroom and a portabella mushroom. I am not entirely sure myself since there seems to be numerous aliases to these mushrooms and I can't seem to find a website that lists all the aliases to these mushrooms. Agaricus bisporus is commonly found in two varieties a brown and a white variety both of them have a variety of aliases as you have already found out ... and the name portobella is used for mature fruiting bodies of both varieties. So you can find the brown variety in all sizes from tiny "button" mushrooms over closed and open small and big non-mature fruiting bodies to the big open mature portobellos. The brown-capped variety will be (at least somewhat) brown through all stages and the white-capped one will have a white cap through all stages. While maturing the gills will turn from white to brown in all varieties, as brown is the color of mature spores in this mushroom species. Anyway, your assumption is correct - that the chestnut mushroom is in fact a baby (=immature fruiting body) brown-capped portobello mushroom. According to the wbsite, Australian Mushrooms, https://australianmushrooms.com.au/tips-tricks-facts/ ,the Portobello is just an aged Agaricus bisporus, whereas the Chestnut mushroom is an Agrocybe aergerita One of the oldest species in the world, first cultivated by the Ancient Greeks. Light brown cap that sits open on the end of a slender, long, creamy-coloured stalk. Firm texture and strong, nutty flavour. I am given to understand that white or brown buttons will grow into brown cremini and further into brown adult Portobello's I’m afraid that this isn’t entirely correct - white caps will stay white through all stages and brown ones stay brown. So white buttons won’t mature into brown Portobellos.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.269127	2013-09-07T02:02:52	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/36588", "authors": [ "7kMike", "Alessandro Power", "Sachin Pardeshi", "Stephie", "Wossname", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/28879", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/85876", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/85877", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/85878", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/85881" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
73711	What are the names of these food dishes? There is pizza on the bottom, but what are the names of the remaining dishes like the one with the asparagus on top of what looks like bread and then the one to the left of it with a bunch of thin sheets? Ah, that's much better. I have to say that the photo (without magnification) piqued my sense of the ridiculous. I thought those things on the top were baby bunnies being roasted whole! Thinking of it again, the question is not answerable. 1) there is not enough info to go on - all we get is wild guesses. 2) if somebody does, by chance, find the correct answer, the community can't judge that. 3) They may not even be real dishes. This is a promo picture for an oven. Maybe they had prepared it with focaccia and then the photographer cried "not enough contrast here, find me something green for the picture" and the assistant spread asparagus on top. In any case, we cannot say anything more than what everybody can see. @rumtscho With respect, I don't agree that this should be "put on hold" for the reasons stated. Yes, I concede that OP would benefit from light editing but even aspiring gastronomes and commis-chefs would be able to fathom what's going on from the photo even if the OP's terminology falls short of professional or informed standards. And I'd like to think that those of our community who have already posted answers and comments have more or less rumbled what's on the menu with the exception of the stuffed thingies on the top. Nuff said. How can I vote to rescind its current "put on hold" status? @rumtscho And another thing, there's plenty to go on in the photo, especially when enlarged; I don't consider my comment to be a "wild guess" [sic] (If only you knew, but I am keeping stumn about my own professional background); they are most certainly "real" dishes, it's just questionable that they have any gastronomic merit; what is your evidence that its a promo pix?; the rest of your "observations" are unhelpful and wild conjecture: yes, not everyone has the ability to see what's going on in this picture. However, I think those who have made constructive comments have excellent eyesight. Yes, my observations are conjectures - just like the answers posted. The statements which can be made based on the picture are not sufficient to name the dish. The OP already recognized that this is something bread-like with asparagus on top, merely noticing that there is some kind of yellow sauce does not define the food. At the same time, guesses like "spinach casserole" are very specific, but not at all confirmable. If the next answerer guesses that it is chicken pot pie with phyllo topping instead of biscuit, and a third says a baklava, nobody but the photog can tell who is right. It can be any of dozens of dishes, or it could be not intended for serving (my evidence comes from knowing that in product photography, looks count more than edibility, and in appliance photography even more so). I can't say for sure that this is the case here, but neither can I dismiss the option. It is exactly this "anything is possible" situation which makes the question fun to muse about, but a bad fit for a stackexchange site. Yes, those are spears of green asparagus resting on some kind of dough, pastry or bread and, crucially, there is a hint of a yellow sauce that has been drizzled over the asparagus and come to rest between the asparagus and the underlying pastry/dough/bread. I am hazarding an informed guess that the sauce is a classic hollandaise sauce which is one of two or three ways of serving asparagus as a dish in itself. It maybe termed asparagus Benedict as in eggs Benedict. *The sauce is not made in an oven so I remain cautious. The layers on the left look like filo pastry. Larousse Gastronomique is the "bible" for these sort of things. Oh, deary me! I have forgotten to mention that the yellow sauce on and under the asparagus maybe butter or clarified butter. Melted butter is another classic "sauce" served with asparagus as a dish, usually a starter. You will need to magnify the picture to see the yellow sauce. I don't know what each dish actually is, but I'm willing to make some educated guesses from what I can see. The thin sheets look like phyllo dough - some kind of casserole or pie topped with sheets of dough. It might be a spinach casserole, they're fairly popular, but I can't see beneath the layers of dough. It's topped with green leaves as a garnish, maybe basil or something - though they look very pale, maybe one of the lettuce mix greens instead? Which makes me think it's a vegetable-based filling. The asparagus thing, just looks like asparagus laid over sets of bread sticks (I can see they look separated on the side), with a layer of cheese and herbs, maybe some kind of oil or butter in between. It vaguely reminds me of some pics of asparagus tarts, but that's not a great fit - the asparagus is too thickly laid and doesn't look like there's enough binding it to the bread (the cheese and herbs layer looks pretty thin), the bread sticks are too fluffy, and the bread sticks and asparagus are laid cross grain - if separated by bread stick the asparagus would be chopped into little bits and probably fall right off everywhere. Probably tasty, but it looks messy. In any case, you could probably layer something like that up and try it. The top things look like bread rolls - hollowed out and stuffed with something (maybe a hot dip or filling), with strips of red and orange bell peppers used for garnish. I would probably go with a creamy veggie dip, to go with the bell peppers - especially as I can see what looks like bits of green and tan and pale yellow in the mix, and browned on top, but you could fit anything in there and not much change the looks - even something like sandwich fillings, chicken salad or the like. And, yeah, that's definitely pizza on the bottom, with two kinds of olives, tomatoes, and pepperoni. What has me scratching my head is the oven situation for the asparagus. If that hint of a yellow drizzle or sauce are either of the two classic accompaniments to asparagus, then hollandaise (as in eggs Benedict) or butter sauces won't be best made in an oven unless the dishes are being finished or kept "warm" [sic] in the oven. Those things on the top looked like roasted baby bunnies until I saw otherwise on the enlarged photo! I am now fairly certain that this is not an hollandaise sauce (the texture is too runny) but more likely to be melted butter, perhaps with flecks of something green. Herb butter? @PeterPoint - I'm pretty sure it would have to be a keep-warm situation, since I don't think they would have baked well together - too much mass of food and not enough air circulation would slow everything while it heated, not to mention no top browning on the lower dishes. The asparagus looks tasty but also so awkward to serve and eat, though, like it won't stick to the bread. And yeah, it looks thin so I was thinking herb or garlic butter and cheese with the asparagus, Yes, you are quite correct. Furthermore, that space age kitchen appliance looks more likely to be found in a high-end restaurant than a domestic kitchen of the rank and file out there.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.269329	2016-09-05T01:54:44	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/73711", "authors": [ "Megha", "Peter Point", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/4638", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/47365", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/49585", "rumtscho" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
90466	Heating part baked baguettes in lid-covered pyrex Short question (TL;DR) Is it possible to heat part baked baguettes (or part baked bread in general) in the oven, but keeping it inside a pyrex container with a lid? If yes, is there any change in baking time? (without the lid it would be 8-10 minutes) Would the baguette taste differently or would it be less crispy if baked like this? I provide details and also motivation below (just to anticipate questions like "why don't you bake it normally?"). Details and motivation Because of hygienic and health reasons I would prefer to put only containers with a lid in the oven, as the previous flatmates misused it and now even after professional cleaning there are still traces of potentially toxic black dust and I don't want it to fly over my food when heating it. But regarding part baked baguettes, there is no information on the web about whether it is possible to bake them in a lid-covered pyrex container. I also looked for more general information about baking bread in pyrex, but the existing recipes usually say to use a lid for some time and then to remove the lid and put back bread in the oven for some other time, which would not work for me. What a part baked baguette is @Max A part baked baguette, also known as bake-at-home baguette, is a baguette which is already partially baked but still needs further 8-10 minutes baking at home in order to taste like freshly-baked bread. It is usually very long-lasting if its package is not opened (it may last for months) and it does not need to be refrigerated. This is an example of part baked baguettes. what's a baked baguette ? @Max A part baked baguette, also known as bake-at-home baguette, is a baguette which is already partially baked but still needs further 8-10 minutes baking at home in order to taste like freshly-baked bread. It is usually very long-lasting if its package is not opened, it may last for months and it does not need to be refrigerated. I will also add the above description in the question. I'd use aluminum foil instead of a lid, so that the humidity escape. Many thanks @Max , do you think humidity would create problems in a big pyrex container? Or perhaps you mean it would just prevent it from drying correctly and being crispy? yep, it might create a more humid bread. I would expect the cooking time to increase significantly, and the texture to be very different (probably not very baguette-like. To mitigate this, you could preheat the pyrex container (put it in the cold oven, turn the oven on, and leave a few minutes after the oven claims to have heated up). I would also look for a way to ventilate the lid, like a wooden spoon sticking out.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.269905	2018-06-20T12:48:39	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/90466", "authors": [ "GeekInDisguise", "Max", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/20118", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/67211" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
89935	How long can coconut liquid/cream last (open) in the fridge? I'm usually left with an unfinished can of coconut cream or liquid when cooking, and I store them in a closed plastic box in the fridge. How long can they last? It says 3 (for the cream) and 4 (for the liquid), but I already checked it after a week and a half and it smelled and tasted just fine. Both of the items have shelf life of around 2 years, and doesn't need to be in the fridge before opening, if this information might matter. Are there any visual differences when it's no good anymore? Is it possible to save them in the freezer after opening? Extra details: Coconut liquid: The coconut liquid ingredients as written on the box are: coconut extract (60%), water. The brand is AROY-D Looks like that Coconut cream: 17-19% fat Edit: I checked out this question about coconut milk, but it's not the same - I'm asking about the two other types - liquid and cream (it might be that the answer is similar, but the question is different). Possible duplicate of How long can coconut milk last in the fridge? @Luciano Thanks, but it's not the same (the linked question is about coconut milk, and mine is about liquid and cream, which are different - although the answer might be similar). I don't think the advice in the referenced question would be different from your question. Smell and taste are not reliable indicators of safety. Once you open a shelf stable item, you create the opportunity for the introduction of pathogens. Freezing (as in the linked question) is an option. @moscafj Basically you're correct, but I didn't knew if there are changes I'm not aware of, since it has different components and different fat/water level that I thought can affect Coconut cream, being generally oily, will give out rancidity in taste and smell once it rots. When extracted fresh as done in asia, coconut cream typically expires in a matter of hours. Since yours is canned, it's likely to have been reconstituted from coconut powder, ridding it from the spoiling enzymes in fresh coconut. As long as you open your cans cold and keep its leftovers cold thereafter, it's easy to beat the printed expiry. The thing with coconut cream and liquid, it rots so suddenly, as soon as you turn your back. So its manufacturers are wary of users who aren't familiar with how sudden these things rot, which is why asians press and cook them within the same few hours.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.270126	2018-05-22T08:13:39	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/89935", "authors": [ "Luciano", "arieljannai", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/17143", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/53013", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/66800", "moscafj" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
78197	Do tomato-based sauces change/enhance flavour when left in the fridge? I cooked some green beans in a tomato-based sauce then ate some and left the rest in the fridge 3 days ago. I tasted it today, and it was better than I remember: is this a known phenomenon or am I not remembering right? Most sauces, tomato based or not, will improve in flavour after being left overnight. This is also true of stews and casseroles. The received wisdom is that it gives the flavours a chance to 'marry' and blend, though I'm not sure of the science behind it. Minor nitpick: "...will absorb/accumulate/strengthen(1) in flavor...". I've ended up with way too strong flavors in the past, with a large range of ingredients, to call everything an improvement. @(1) Not a native speaker, and not sure how to correctly phrase what I want to say, hope you'll get the drift. @WillemvanRumpt I have also had this happen, but only with dishes/sauces with whole spices in - especially cinnamon @canardgras: Try minced/sliced/squeezed garlic next time, you'll be amazed overnight :) Not bad necessarily, but not what you intended. Cinnamon is powerful too, even when applied directly but actually most herbs/spices are, especially when you really give them time to soak in. @WillemvanRumpt As someone who likes garlic, that sounds fine to me. I would back @WillemvanRumpt that it does not always improve, I would say most sauces tend to deepen in flavor when given time. If dried spices or large items such as chunks of garlic rather than a fine mince this may be more pronounced. It is both the melding of flavors, and with some items more of the essence being released. Some items with their essence more in their volatile oils on the other hand might suffer in comparison. @JAB: I eat garlic like candy, no problem there. Doesn't imply everything containing garlic should first and foremost taste like garlic ;) It's not just about tomatoes. This is a well-known phenomenon. I used to be a professional chef, and the recipes for the soups in one particular restaurant I worked in called for resting overnight. One night, a particular soup ran out. A server took an order for it anyway even though he had been told it was 86'd (gone), because he knew there had been a pot of it cooking in the prep kitchen just before opening time. Imagine the drama when he was told that he'd have to go tell his diner "Sorry" because the soup wouldn't be done till tomorrow. It is a well known phenomenon. Many sauces, stews, casseroles, etc. improve as flavours develop over time due to chemistry. Breads also can improve if left to proof slowly before baking. I do most of the cooking in our house, and I'd have to say it's true. When I'm making a jumbalaya, spaghetti sauce or goulash, all of which have tomato-based sauce, my wife always comments that leftovers the next day taste better than the night I made it. The same for my pulled pork, where I use a tomato and BBQ based sauce. I can't notice the difference myself, chiefly because I eat like a pig, but I trust my wife's judgement. I'm not sure of the mechanism involved, whether it's some kind of "marrying" or settling process one of the other contributors posited, or whether it's simple placebo or expectation... but it works.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.270353	2017-02-07T13:40:49	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/78197", "authors": [ "JAB", "Willem van Rumpt", "canardgras", "dlb", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/26450", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/43623", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/48330", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/50888" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
71808	Brown spots in purple sweet potato I've noticed that some of the Hawaiian/Okinawan purple sweet potatoes I boil will have brown spots inside the flesh, while others do not. What causes these brown spots? Are these safe to eat? I've tried to be careful when selecting the ones I get from the store, insuring there is no visible mold, discoloration, abrasions, or soft spots, yet I keep getting potatoes like this. Brown spotted potato on left, normal color potato on right in the image. Those dark spot could be either due to physical damage. For instance like banana or potato, if you hit them too hard, they will "bruise". That could be one of the cause. The other cause you see dark spot in potato means it is starting to show sign of rotting. Usually potato that are about to spoil tend to have this dark spot. If you leave this potato uncooked with the dark spot for another few days, you would realize root will start growing and by then the potato is not recommended to be eaten. This happens in both normal, purple or sweet potato. So either you can choose to cut off the dark part away from the potato before eating or you can throw it away ( if you're very particular about things like that. P.S : If you always pick potato like that, i recommend you giving suggestions to the shop where you are buying them from. Fresh potato will look like the one on the right. To be honest, some shop may buy "poorer quality of potato" at a cheaper price and pass it off as "fresh" potato, so do be careful about that too. Just my two cents, not generalizing shops that sell such potatos. It may be moisture rot, but it may also be dry rot. It happened to the tip of my purple potato too. Purple potato was the label in the organic grocer where I bought it it, for anyone thinking it was a yam.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.270629	2016-08-01T15:33:25	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/71808", "authors": [], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
71339	Why does my bread rise unevenly or from the bottom in the oven? I recently started baking loafs from a sourdough starter for the first time. I fed and maintained the starter for 8 days before using it the first time. On the first bake my loafs rose unevenly and didn't form a bottom crust, it just stayed moist like the crumb. The second time I got a weird rise from the bottom. This album has additional pictures. I baked these at 475 on a bread stone. Any idea what is going on here? Thanks for any advice! Obligatory advice when unexpected things happen in your oven: check the temperature with a thermometer. jason, welcome! Did you use steam and how much? Did you bake at 475 F the entire time? For the first bake, that didn't form a bottom crust - it sounds like the bread stone might not have been heated enough. An oven with a baking stone needs a lot more preheating, since the reason the stone is useful is that retains heat; it's as slow to cool down as it is to heat up. If the stone was still absorbing heat when you put the dough on, it would keep the bottom from baking properly, since the temperature would be cooler. Try preheating your oven about a half hour more before baking, next time. For the uneven rising, I'm not sure - it seems like your dough wasn't finished rising before the top of the loaf had already started setting, and it expanded wherever it could. If the top surface of your loaf got a little dried out in your last rising before baking, that stiffness might encourage the rising dough to expand where the dough was softer and still moist. You might brushing the dough lightly with oil during the last rise, or with water just before baking, to keep it flexible enough to rise evenly. If your dough has a moist surface, the problem might be that it is under proofed (mentioned in the comments here), and needs to rise a little longer before being baked - It will rise in the oven a little bit anyway, but if it has extra rising potential because the yeast wasn't finished, it keeps trying to rise during the baking time, and once the top starts setting it will expand wherever it can. There are ways to test the proofing, one I saw was to poke the bread, and if it springs back quickly it is under proofed, slowly and it is ready to bake, and if it doesn't spring back it's over proofed.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.270800	2016-07-11T04:26:03	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/71339", "authors": [ "Cascabel", "Stephie", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/1672", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/28879" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
44525	What is this kitchen tool - a handle, and coil of metal around a metal plate? I'm at a loss for what these things are for - they came in a bag with some other things I bought at a thrift store. They're cocktail strainers, and they do what they sound like! More precisely, you use it to strain the cocktail on the way out of the shaker. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocktail_strainer Specifically, this is the variety known as a "Hawthorne strainer" per its inventor, typically used when straining from a mixing tin. There is also a variety known as a "Julep strainer" used for cocktails stirred in a mixing glass: http://www.worldwidedrinks.com/julep.html @logophobe The presence in the page you linked of the word olive's repeated several times is highly offensive to mine eyes!!! Thank you! Question about etiquette here: should I change the title to somehow include the words "Hawthorne strainer"? @ErikE I won't argue with you there - I was looking mostly at the pictures of the strainers. But now I have to keep the link so that your comment makes sense in context. One important thing to know is that these are made to fit a specific size of glass or metal shaker. You can use them on any glass as long as it's rim is the right size. @GdD Yes and no. That's the purpose of the metal coil, to ensure straining across a range of glass sizes. The purpose of the protruding tabs is to keep the strainer from falling into larger containers. So there's a lot of variability in that "specific size".	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.271008	2014-05-29T20:17:57	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/44525", "authors": [ "Cindi Blanchard", "ErikE", "GdD", "Gene", "Secret squirrel", "Spammer", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/104695", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/104696", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/104697", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/104698", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/104706", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/19707", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/20534", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/25059", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/4386", "jpadvo", "logophobe" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
74223	Will pizza dough stick on steel platform in conventional oven? I'm trying to avoid cornmeal, although it used to be the ideal choice since the dough tasted too much like flour when I used corn flour. But now I've moved on to using a steel surface to bake. Should I worry about adding semolina, flour, or cornmeal to the steel in the oven? Or will the pizza not stick to the steel platform? I saw this thread, any reason to put cornmeal/semolina on hot pizza stone or steel?, but it sounded like it depends on the dough hydration, and I'm clueless as to how to determine that. Would putting the dough on parchment paper, then sliding it in work? I put semolina on my peel. Build the pizza on that. Then slide it onto the baking steel. No sticking. I ended up skipping the parchment paper. I had 6 small-medium pizza worth of dough, and padded all pizza-dough with semolina, as well as padded peel with semolina prior to each slide-in-to-oven. Prior to first pizza I put some semolina on the steel in the oven (though it might've been unnecessary... yet to confirm) All 6 pizzas turned out great, with quality crust. It wasn't really messy, might've been two three burnt spots, simply before the steel cooled off, I grabbed a wooden cooking spoon, lightly scratch, and pushed it out onto another plate. Update Confirmed you don't have to add anysemolina flour or anything to the steel, pizza won't stick. No, you don't need to put anything on a steel in your oven prior to launching a pizza on it. Even with 75%+ hydration(quite high dough), I've never had a problem myself. The reason to use semolina or flour is to prevent sticking to your pizza peel and a failed launch into the oven. If you can get away without any additions to your peel, you likely have a low hydration dough which is just fine. Now what will stick to a steel is sauce, cheese, and toppings that slide off of the pizza and melt/burn long after your pizza is done. For those, try a grill cleaning stone to scrub off the surface once it's cooled down. As for calculating your own hydration percentage, check out: https://www.kingarthurflour.com/professional/bakers-percentage.html I would put the dough on parchment paper. The dough probably won't stick, but parchment paper makes there be much less mess taking it in and out of the oven, and pizza on parchment cooks just the same. If you're using a pizza peel (the large wood spatula for sliding the pizza in), you should definitely use parchment if you aren't using cornmeal. Otherwise your dough will stick to the peel, and you will end up making what I call a "plalzone"— a pizza that you scrape off the peel into the oven out of frustration and fold it over on itself in a terrible mess. Most people who use a steel for pizza cook at quite high temps. Either macing out a home oven or even using the broiler. Most/all parchment can't handle those temps. I've tried it in my steel, didn't work so well. dpollitt: I have baked pizza at 550º F, and the parchment holds up fine. The paper was a bit burnt but it didn't harm the pizza @margalo : I suspect it charred around the edges, but didn't under the pizza. (which helped to keep that area cool, so long as you don't let it dry out too far). It may stick to the stone/steel initially, but as it cooks it will de-stick itself. What this means is that you may have difficulty sliding it onto the stone/steel without the dough catching and you accidentally folding or scrunching the pizza which is a pain. It can also be difficult to reposition or turn the pizza until it's developed much of a crust on the bottom. If you find these aren't issues for you then flour or cornmeal isn't needed.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.271198	2016-09-25T16:38:14	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/74223", "authors": [ "Joe", "dpollitt", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/17143", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/50786", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/67", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/7243", "margalo", "moscafj" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
73382	Getting crispy banana chips My pan fried banana chips are crisp at the beginning.But later it looses crispines.This happens evenafter storing in air tight containers.What is the mistake i am making? PS:I am asking about kerala(indian state) style famous banana chips.It is made from only a certain variety of banana available here. Usually made after chopping raw bananas in thin round slices,adding turmeric powder with salt and then deep frying. The raw chips should be sliced directly into the hot oil for deep frying. The frying oil should not be too hot. Further the deep frying should be done on medium heat till all the moisture in the banana chips are completely evaporated. The oil should be pure coconut oil. After removal from the pan the deep fried chips should be stored in air tight plastic covers to prevent moisture regain.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.271592	2016-08-24T07:06:08	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/73382", "authors": [], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
46624	When making Eetch, is it necessary to sauté the onions and simmer the tomato products? Are there differences if using quinoa rather than bulghur? When I make Eetch, the recipe I use calls for sautéing the onions and then adding the tomato products and simmering for a short time before adding to the bulghur. A woman my husband works with told him that she also makes it but that she does not heat any of the ingredients. She just prepares and mixes everything together. All of the recipes I've seen call for pretty much the same method I use which does include the sautéing and simmering steps. (Note that I am not saying that there aren't any that are different, just that I have not seen them.) It seems like it would be a time saver to skip the sautéing and simmering steps. That is unless it would take additional time for the bulghur to absorb the liquid. Are there really any time or other benefits to either method? I'm also wondering if anyone has tried using quinoa instead of the bulghur and, if so, what were the results? We're any adjustments needed to the recipe, e.g. more or less liquid or seasonings, etc.? I'm not familiar with the dish, but if you don't cook onions before you add acidic ingredients (like the tomatos), they won't soften ... or will take considerably longer to soften. So the simmering might not be needed, but the sauté will affect the final exture. @Joe If you like tabouleh or other bulghur dishes you may want to try Eetch. It has become my favorite of such dishes. I actually stumbled upon it by accident when ordering other items from a bakery in Massachusetts. So glad I tried it! Here is a link to the recipe I use. You can adjust to your liking. I do use fine or extra fine bulghur. Okay. I tried this two different ways. First I tried just combining the ingredients without the simmering and sautéing step. The flavors didn't seem to come together as well and it did take longer for the liquid to absorb into the bulghur. So then I tried just adding the chopped onion without sautéing first but I did simmer the tomato products. This worked equally as well as when I sautéed the onion, added the tomato products and simmered. The onion is finely diced so the residual heat from the simmered tomato products was enough to very slightly soften it. I haven't had a chance to try it using quinoa rather than bulghur but when I do I will update the answer.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.271686	2014-08-24T12:08:10	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/46624", "authors": [ "Alysia Butler", "Candice Dinkins", "Charles", "Cindy", "Dana Huck", "Joe", "Sally Happel", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/112399", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/112400", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/112401", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/112592", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/112727", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/26180", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/67" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
34915	Couldn't snap the bones in my chicken stock I followed Alton Brown's recipe for stock in which he gave a rough estimate of 8-9 hours at a low simmer to extract maximum flavor. At one point, he said, paraphrased, "How will you know you've extracted the maximum amount of nutrients from your bird? Well..." at which point he fetches a rather large leg bone from the discarded remains and easily snaps it in half. Alas I couldn't do that. I'm wondering if I did something wrong or if my results are typical. I had a half carcass including wings, neck, back, gizzards, skin, and bones. They were raw and I froze them. For the stock, I gathered 3 carrots, 3 ribs celery half a bulb of garlic, and some thyme. I skipped on any salt or acids. I threw these with the frozen chicken into cold water, brought it up to a low simmer, and left it as such for 9 hours. The flavor was tremendous. Certain smaller bones became mushy toward the ends. However, I couldn't snap my bigger bones. With all respect to Alton Brown, "snapping" the bones is not a test I have ever heard of. He does not mention that in the official recipe on the Food Network site. I just watched the entire episode on youtube, and he does show the snapping thing with a very frangible bone. I think this result will depend on the age of your chicken and the size of the bone. In general, the thinner bones and younger chickens may be somewhat rubbery when a chicken stock is done. 8-9 hours also seems excessive for poultry stock, although that is actually in his recipe. You should get the vast majority of the flavor (and nutrition) in 3-4 hours (plus maybe a little bit to thaw, if you are starting from frozen), especially if you have chopped your carcass up into pieces or chunks (which he did not discuss in the episode). Interesting. Makes me wonder whether this is why veal stock is so preferred by the experts, given younger bones could conceivably be more rubbery and saturated in a matrix of gelatin. Veal stick is preferred because when highly reduced, it has a huge amount of gelatin, and a very deep unctuous meaty richness without screaming of veal--so it can be used as a basis in a lot of classic French dishes. Age of the chicken is definitely a significant factor. Most chickens are sold relatively young, since at a certain point, there are diminishing returns with respect to additional muscle mass in response to additional feed. Some markets do sell "old" chickens, which are supposed to be more flavorful when making stock. These chickens have very hard bones. I'm not entirely sure if it is related to the breed or the age. I wouldn't hold too much stock (pun intended) in the snap the bones thing. Chicken breeds vary, some bones may be stronger depending on breed, size of the chicken, and whether it was frozen or not. The important thing is you liked the result. If smaller bones were getting mushy that's a pretty good indication that they'd been cooked plenty. Very good point. However, I'm trying to nutritionally soup up my diet (pun also intended), and getting additional protein through gelatin seemed like a good reason to pursue the fuss. Because I don't have a proteomic lab, I was curious whether there's a way to determine that you've sucked all the life giving force you can out of the leftovers. Question about freezing: how does this affect stock making? Freezing in general makes chicken tougher, when I've frozen bones to make stock they have seemed harder when I've made stock out of them later. That's my personal experience, I don't know of any corroborating sources. In any case if you haven't gotten all the goodness out in 8 hours of simmering you're never going to get it! If you can't snap the bones, you may simply have a good chicken! I've certainly noticed a big difference in bone strength between cheap battery-farmed and more expensive free-range chickens, when breaking up chicken carcasses to make stock; I've had to get the cleaver out to fully break down a good strong well-fed chicken skeleton. Would hacking the bones up help the carcass stew done more efficiently? Yes, it helps release the collagen from the bone marrow. It also makes it easier to get the bones into my stock pot. Plus... sounds fun!	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.271931	2013-06-24T18:05:00	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/34915", "authors": [ "AdamO", "EldritchWarlord", "GdD", "JoePC", "Matt 785", "SAJ14SAJ", "Semnodime", "Sofia", "Vince Bowdren", "erichui", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/1092", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/11407", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/14401", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/14817", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/19707", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/81447", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/81448", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/81449", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/81451", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/81452", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/81464", "user81449" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
129344	Reheating a rice dish in a slowcooker I am (not professionally) trying to provide a luncheon for 8 people at a location that has no cooking facilities. The dish is a rice pilaf. Normally, I would set out a little buffet with trays nested in a water bath and beneath it one of those tins of chafing fuel. Unfortunately, the location is small and poorly ventilated, so I believe the fumes would be unpleasant. Can I just dump the rice into a slow cooker to reheat it? For how long should I plan to reheat the rice if there are about 8 portions? (about 3 cups of cooked rice, along with meat and veg). How far in advance are you cooking the food? When I bring fried rice to pot lucks or similar, I put my rice cooker on warm then load it with the freshly fried rice (cooked in batches), so it only has to maintain heat, not reheat it. @Joe it would have been a 4 hours' lead time. Interestingly thought to "hold" the dish at temperature. There's a possibility that cooking right before leaving, (so temp is ~350 when pulled out of oven), then putting to stay hot in the plate could avoid the danger zone without necessarily drying it out. In general, slow cookers are poor for reheating, especially large quantities. They simply don't deliver heat fast enough to get back up to a safe temperature quickly. For similar reasons, slow cooker recipes usually call for adding at least some ingredients (such as stock) hot. I certainly wouldn't risk it for a group - even preheating for longer than normal and adding a little boiling water (to stop it sticking to the bottom and provide some steam to distribute heat) it's going to take at least an hour, and you've already used up a lot of safety margin during cooling. Rice is a high risk food. They can be very good for serving from, if you need to serve over a long period. But some drying out is to be expected with something like a pilaf that's fairly dry to start with. An electric hotplate that's suitable for cooking would be far more suitable for reheating	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.272603	2024-10-09T20:26:22	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/129344", "authors": [ "AdamO", "Joe", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/11407", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/67" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
117483	What is salt baking? I have seen in cooking competition videos many approaches to salt baking vegetables and fish. the vegetable is placed atop a pile of salt the salt is mixed with egg white to make a casing that is hard packed around the object and baked egg whites are whipped into a meringue and the salt is mixed as a sugar would be with french meringue. The object is "frosted" with the meringue like a baked alaska. Are all of these valid approaches to "salt baking"? yes. Usually the food is places in a "coffin" of wet salt (water or most of time egg whites). The food is sometimes wrapped in leaves to protect it from the salt; or in the case of whole fish, the skin will protect it from the salt. There's also another technique to cook the food on a slab of rock salt; you slowly heat the salt slab in the oven and when it's hot enough, you can "grill" the food on it. (as far as I know, it's mostly useless). You can also just use dry salt if the food itself is fairly wet. This works with fish.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.272796	2021-10-11T19:53:08	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/117483", "authors": [ "FuzzyChef", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/7180" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
73155	What is the purpose of a spaced cross-hatch of grooves on the inside of a cast iron pan? I have been on a tenacious pan hunt, lately, looking for something that won't leach, degrade, or require me to look up the meaning of any 3 or 4 letter acronyms. Iron seemed like a safe bet, here. In my search, I found a pan that has a strange cross-hatching to it, like this: Why would someoen intentionally make their pan harder to clean? I thought it might be to change the appearance of browned food, but I don't think something so thin would be the only reason for the grooves. Is this to store seasoning or something? Several clues that that is steel, not cast-iron. @Ecnerwal how did you come up with steel? This is not a steel pan. It's thin, the handle is welded on - it's blatantly not cast-iron, as it quite clearly has not been cast. Whether it's sheet iron or sheet steel is not going to be evident from a picture, of course. Just FYI, the pan pictured is from the German company named Albert Turk. It is a carbon steel pan. They make several styles of pans, Their claim to fame is an all one piece piece of carbon steel pan (handle and cooking surface are forged out of just one piece). Which costs a lot. But they do make this type which is a two piece pan, handle welded on later. This pan is not cast iron, it is forged iron. As far as I am aware, the grooves are simply a side effect of the manufacturing process in which the iron is "stamped", not intended to have an effect on cooking. update This site (in German) claims that they are intended to reduce warping when heated, so cooking related after all. For me, they were not effective, as my pan did warp quickly and badly despite having them. I have such a pan and must say I'm not too happy about it. It is more difficult to season, and the seasoning may wear out unevenly. Also, due to its thinness, it doesn't work as well as standard cast iron. But enumerating all its problems would take us way too far from grooves. These pans come with a strict warning to only use them on a hob that is as large or larger as the pan bottom, maybe there is your warping problem? PS if you look at a pan like that with a thermal imager you will see where the coils in your hob are, so sideways thermal conductivity/equalization seems to be very low. @rackandboneman the producer of my pan must have forgotten to place this in the booklet. Also, the pan's bottom is much larger than any electric hob I have seen around. I have induction (with a rather small coil), I wonder how it would look differently from a resistive coil in a thermal imager. (Sadly, I don't have the imager to check). Got one from Gräwe, and it definitely comes with that kind of warning ... if they had found a way to use blinking letters on paper, they would have used it. And heeding that, it stays dead flat. This kind of pattern seems to be added to a pan to increase its cooking capabilities. This advertisement here suggests that the pattern itself is useful for making "crispy potatoes or a juicy steak", though it doesn't happen to say why the scoring helps, it does mean some people believe it will improve the food cooked in the pan. It is possible that the lines give some texture to the sides of the pan, letting pieces of food be pushed up on the sides for a while without sliding back down, and so spreading the food out and giving better control over access to direct heat for browning, or letting pieces rest away from direct heat after they're done or until there's room for them. Sort of similar to the theory of cooking in a wok, only not because woks depended on quick hot cooking, so smooth sides and falling back to the center were positives. It is possible that when dealing with single larger pieces of food, the scoring gives a kind of access to the underside, letting oil or other liquids run underneath (and be wicked up by or rendered off of the food as needed) without disturbing the food before it is finished cooking - especially if there are reasons lifting or flipping shouldn't be done too often, if it needs the uninterrupted cooking time to hold something delicate together or form a crispy crust. It is also possible that one of the reasons might be the pattern of grill marks or patterns of the scores left on food cooked in it (aesthetics does matter to some people), or that somebody had a theory as to why the score marks let the pan cook better, and so the pan is made whether or not it actually does cook better. It is possible it had to do with visible effort - that this kind of pan was intended as art or display as much as cooking pan, and the extra difficulty cleaning it was secondary to that. // , Good answer, but these are all possibilities, not facts.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.272915	2016-08-15T03:22:28	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/73155", "authors": [ "Ecnerwal", "JG sd", "Nathan Basanese", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/34242", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/35312", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/43997", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/4638", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/49769", "rackandboneman", "rumtscho" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
73705	What are these utensils? A friend of mine is on vacation and found these in their condo. I love to cook and now I have to know what kind of utensils these are. Please Help.[ To be completely honest, I'll bet they are just salad tongs. Are they toothpick sized or salad tong sized? I don't think they are for salads. Maybe some kind of scooper for melons or fruit, with ability to "carve" at other end?	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.273321	2016-09-04T23:29:46	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/73705", "authors": [ "Captain Giraffe", "Catija", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/19673", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/33128" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
68253	What features should I look for in a vessel for making Indian curd (yogurt / Dahi)? What is the most suitable vessel to make perfect curd without any liquid in it? If that true that a clay vessel will be good for it because clay will absorb liquid and the remaining thing you get will be curd? PS: this image is just for reference. As there were some misunderstanding regarding for what curd i was asking. And the clay vessel i am talking about look like this(In india we call it "Kulhad") : By "curd" are you referring to a soft, drained, cheese like paneer or cottage cheese? Curds for harder cheeses are handled differently. Alternatively- lemon curd is a custard but doesn't match your description. I've edited assuming you mean yogurt. (Curd is basically just a variety of yogurt, and yogurt is the more widely understood term.) If I'm mistaken, please feel free to roll back and explain what you really meant! @Sobachatina see the milk tag, not lemon curd. But yes different curds are handled differently. My marscapone never goes into a vessel, once the cream has been cooked and curdled with lemon juice, it hangs in a handkerchief and gets used the next day. "what is curd?": http://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/35823/1672 Hey sorry for late.. But yes its not cheese or lemon curd, It's what we indian say Dahi which is Yogurt as @Jefromi mentioned The slight ability of clay to soak up whey doesn't matter, you won't really notice much difference with it. Just use any vessel that is convenient - glass, metal, plastic, glazed or unglazed clay, other ceramics will all work. If you want curd without whey, you have to use a method which produces less whey (usually, that needs slower fermentation at lower temperatures) and/or strain the curd. Do it in a cheesecloth overnight under its own weight, don't press it like paneer. The vessel is not important. In principle, better isolation can give you more stable temperatures and thus ensure better fermantation, possibly giving you curd with less whey. In this sense, the thicker the walls and the less heat-conductive your vessel, the better for curd. This would be a reason to use clay, ceramics or glass. But it can be easily offset by using more isolation for your fermenting environment. If you're going to use a clay dish to absorb the liquid, it has to be unglazed clay. The dish in your picture won't absorb anything. I would also wonder about how you get a clay (terracotta) dish clean if it has liquid (presumably whey) soaked in. It may be a traditional approach that works well for daily use but not occasional use. The image is just to show what curd it.. As there were misunderstanding about the curd. Its just to show what curd i am talking about We can put that dish under direct sun light to make it dry.. And the Dish i am talking about is called "Kulhad" in India That looks like the sort of thing I was thinking of - unglazed in a google image search. But the right-hand kulhad in the second picture has liquid in it (and looks glazed inside). Direct sunlight is perhaps more of an option for you than me (in the UK), I'd have to dry it in the oven. Even so that would only remove the water, not the protein etc in the whey. You can use it again though.. And in UK you have to use oven.. lol	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.273406	2016-04-13T18:20:58	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/68253", "authors": [ "Cascabel", "Chris H", "Escoce", "Sobachatina", "The Hungry Dictator", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/1672", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/2001", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/20413", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/22295", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/33134" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
74197	Cayenne stripes inside fried chicken strips how is it made? We've all been to KFC and had those spicy chicken strips.. and also fried chicken legs wings etc.. my questions is how does the cayenne powder or sauce get inside the chicken strips ? By needle ? Everytime u take a bit u find red stripes inside. I'd like to remind everybody that we have a policy against answering in comments. I'm deleting the existing ones, please if you have an idea, post it as an answer. Good luck pinning them down on that trade secret! ;-) KFC claims their chicken strips are in fact strips of whole chicken, not ground and formed meat. If there are stripes inside, they are almost certainly injected into the meat. If you wanted to make them at home, you can buy meat injectors pretty cheaply. Remember, it's not just cayenne in there– there are other spices like smoked paprika, black pepper, and other things to buffer the spice so you don't just burn your face off without a whole lot of flavor. I'm sure you could fry up a delicious approximation of the real thing at home. One of the things you can do is take a thin blade and cut a small pocket and then you can insert anything.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.273679	2016-09-24T09:57:00	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/74197", "authors": [ "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/4638", "rumtscho" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
40741	Flambe, alcohol percentage and water residue In Norway, the strongest liquor allowed to buy is 60% (120proof?). I try to flambé my Crème Brûlée as suggested in Can I make Crème Brûlée using a flambé?. Problem is that my tests on a pre-made chocolate pudding with the 60% alcohol still leaves too much water. So for a newbie in flambé, is there a way to prevent all this water? Do I use too much alcohol ? Or might the access water come from seeping from the pudding in addition to what is coming from the alcohol residues, meaning it wont be a problem when doing it with a properly made Crème Brûlée? The accepted answer in the question you linked says "No "standard" alcohol burns hot enough to caramelize the sugar using a reasonable small amount". So, what are you doing exactly? Are you nevertheless trying to caramelize the caramel by flambeing? Or are you having trouble with the route suggested there, which is to pre-caramelize the sugar and then flambe only for show? I have caremelized the sugar first and ground it to dust. Then I wanted to use the heat from the burning alcohol to fuse the powder again, just as suggested in the accepted answer. Problem is that in my test on a premade chocolate pudding the caremelized sugar powder didn't bond properly because of a residue of water from the burning alcohol. So I am wondering how to do this trick…Sadly I have not enough reputation to ask directly in the linked questions so I am trying to formulate this as a separate question. 60%=120 proof = 40% water :-) It's been a long time since I actually did this, but my recollection is that the result will leave some residual water. It's not an ideal environment for a flambé, but that's OK because you're not actually trying to cook with it, it's more of a show technique that generates just enough heat to produce a caramel-like texture from ground-up caramelized sugar. Some pointers that might help you here: Don't overdo it with the alcohol. You want to use a very small amount - just a splash. Make sure the alcohol is hot enough before you try to ignite it. Make sure that it is a uniform temperature, and that you're not just igniting the surface. Work quickly. If too much of the alcohol burns up while you're working, then you are essentially dumping water in, and there might not be enough heat to melt the sugar powder. Consider serving the crème brûlée closer to room temperature, or at least not as cold as fridge temperature. The colder it is, the quicker the fire will get doused and the more liquid will (probably) remain behind. Custards are firmer than pudding to begin with, so "watering it down" shouldn't be a huge concern. It's a bit of a cop-out, but I want to say, don't worry. If it's good alcohol then nobody's going to mind a bit of a film on the surface - it's part of the attraction! I remember this taking me several tries to get right, and probably wouldn't use the technique at all if I were serving to a particularly critical audience. It's more about getting a passable crème brûlée with some cool visual effects than getting a perfect crème brûlée with an impossible technique. Thank you for your descriptive answer. Yes, I was trying to do it for show. I ended up with too much water, using to much alcohol - luckily on a test pudding. Ended up pre-caramelising the sugar, ground it and then doing the blowtorch (also a bit show in that). The pre-handling of the sugar actually made for a really good crust. I think you may be confusing the flambe method with the traditional method of making Creme Brulee, which is done using a blow torch, not alcohol. Have you considered using a propane torch? These can usually be purchased at hardware stores, with a small tank of propane, for not much money. Then you can melt and caramelize the sugar on top of your custards without alcohol. The OP specifically requested explanation for using a flambe technique, and your answer got flagged as not addressing the question. I am converting it to a comment. I think this is the most debatable one; the OP's intent was a bit confusing. But it definitely seems like as rumtscho said the OP was trying to not use a torch, so asking "do you actually mean this other thing?" is more of a request for clarification on the question than an answer to the question. Keep in mind that this does not mean it's not helpful - comments are helpful too. That said, I think there's room for an answer here that says "I don't think you can do what you're trying to do, I think you need to use a torch." I don't want to put words in your mouth, so I'm not going to edit it for you - but if that's what you were trying to say, please feel free to edit and I'll gladly undelete this.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.273810	2013-12-31T14:59:47	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/40741", "authors": [ "Ang", "Cascabel", "Gus Penning", "Mark Mucha", "Matthew Cosgrove", "Megan Conroy", "Muyun Benjamin Li", "Stefan", "Sylvia Waxler", "david smith", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/102966", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/109880", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/1672", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/22206", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/4638", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/94826", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/94827", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/94828", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/94830", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/94906", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/96392", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/96398", "polve", "rumtscho" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
74648	Brown pods from tree like Carob okay to eat raw? Trees near my house have these pods covering the ground, by the side of the street. They look like Carob to me. I took a few of them. Searching Google, I don't see other trees that grow long brown pods matching these. Are these Carob pods and can I eat them as is? Are there other factors to consider? Maybe they're contaminated from being next to the street or infected with pathogens from lying on the ground? Or perhaps they're too old to eat? I don't know if these are potential issues. I already bit a small piece and it did taste like chocolate. I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is attempting to ascertain that whether a plant is edible or not, which is off topic. We are not plant specialists. For more info on this topic, see this meta discussion. Yes, please delete this question. You don't show a picture of the tree but those appear to be pods from a honey locust tree. The tree usually has thorns growing on its trunk. I've never heard of them being edible but I did find some info here: maybe but probably not best idea.Young fruits may be more edible. It's not honey locust. It's carob and I've been eating it.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.274308	2016-10-10T20:03:45	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/74648", "authors": [ "Catija", "Isaiah", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/33128", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/51128" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
63421	Are reddish egg whites safe to eat? 5 minutes ago I cracked an egg and was surprised with an orange, reddish egg white. It has the color of light fish sauce. The chalazae is red. I would assume that the reddish color comes from the blood. The egg smells fine, no sulfurous smell. Before cracking the egg, the shell was intact. Is this egg safe to eat? I know the rule "in doubt, throw it out" but I'm interested if the egg is still edible. That looks like a fertilized chicken egg: https://www.google.com/search?q=fertilized+chicken+egg&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0CBwQsARqFQoTCMuYnuW2jckCFQR4Jgodz2ENrw&biw=921&bih=525 Despite being pretty rare from the grocery store nowadays, they're generally regarded as safe to eat. @WayfaringStranger, I disagree. Looks like a blood clot, which can happen during the formation of the egg. @WayfaringStranger The little white disk doesn't look like a donut as the internet suggest in case of a fertilized egg. I've eaten eggs like that and I'm still here. Anecdotal evidence only and no safety is implied, but it wouldn't have even crossed my mind not to eat them like that @JanDoggen The egg whites from the other eggs in the egg carton were normal-colored. I can't imagine that the coloring was intentional. The eggs were bought in Germany. They're meat spots, and safe (though unpleasant) to eat. Intact and good-looking eggs are generally safe to eat -- any spoilage very quickly results in horrible smell. The thing you're seeing might actually be a very tiny remain of something related with embryo (there's a tiny red piece of embryo in all eggs, you just have to search a bit) or a colored piece of internal egg-white structure (I heard that grass- and mineral-rich food may cause coloring like that), just bigger for some reason. Anyway, I'm regularly eating eggs like that since childhood and I'm still here. It's safe. (PS. I never tried to drink anything like this uncooked, but there are many other reasons not to try that. :D) Pinkish egg whites are a sign of spoilage. You may not die from it, but it could make you mildly or severely ill depending on what is causing the spoilage (just age/deterioration, or how much bacteria is growing in it and what type of bacteria).	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.274451	2015-11-13T10:34:45	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/63421", "authors": [ "Ching Chong", "Ijlal Chaudhry", "Nathaniel Dauphine", "Ria Rose Martinez", "Sam Holder", "Stephie", "Tatiana Popova", "Wayfaring Stranger", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/150926", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/150927", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/150928", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/152639", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/152721", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/210", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/23376", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/28879", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/5455", "mickael phirmis" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
32161	Sousvide seafood for sushi I'm curious whether the store-labeled "sushi grade" fish, like some salmon and scallops, can be made by cooking the fish sousvide and chilling it in the refrigerator afterwards. Seafood for sushi is typically not cooked before being used, with the exception of a few things like shrimp. What's the outcome you're looking for from sous-vide? I aim to remove any bacteria from the food so it's safe to eat but still has the "raw" flavor that sashimi is known for. If it's actually sushi-grade, it's safe to eat raw anyway, assuming it's from a reliable source. If it's full of bacteria despite being labelled for sushi I'd not trust that vendor for any application. Eating raw fish, as per sashimi or sushi, is an inherently risky behavior. Unfortunately, there is no technique suitable for the home that would remove the risk and leave the dish in anything like its original state. I can only think of one potential method at all, even with industrial equipment, and that would be irradiation processing. Thanks. This does clear it up for me. I love sashimi immensely. I had heard several myths about what sushi grade entailed. I had been told it was in fact cooked a little bit without over cooking it. Sounded like sousvide to me. This clears it up for me. Thanks! Sous vide is a method to bring the interior of a meat to a safe temperature before applying a quick sear to the outside. The sear is purely for flavor and texture, not food safety. Sushi grade fish is certified to have been processed (i.e. frozen, cut) in such a way that it's edible raw. The interior of a sushi grade salmon steak should have minimal bacteria if properly handled after purchase and isn't left to sit unrefrigerated. So, to answer your question, yes, you can sous vide the fish, but I see no benefit, not even destroy meaningful amounts of bacteria (because there shouldn't be much there to begin with). "Sushi grade" in most countries is not legally regulated (or certified) but a marketing term. Even in the regulation happy US there isn't anything more than recommendations from the FDA to hold fish at specific subzero temps for an extended time to kill any parasites, but its not law to do so. Having a reliable source and using a critical eye is still the best way to buy fish for sushi. I am familiar with the usual tips of selecting seafood, no fishy smell, no cloudy goo in shellfish, clear dark and hydrated eyes in some fish. Are there other tips for selecting sashimi? @ashkan this would be a separate question, so you should ask it in its own thread. But please make sure that it isn't already asked, else it will be closed as duplicate. The simple answer is yes, you can cook fish labeled as "sushi-grade"...and you can use the technique of a low temperature water bath (sous vide) to do the cooking. You can cook and chill. The folks at ChefSteps (http://www.chefsteps.com/) have quite a bit of instruction on the topic of low-temp cooking. You can find specific examples for fish, particularly salmon, on their site. You can make it that way, but then comes the question as to whether you are making real sushi. If it tastes good go for it. On youtube there's a fella who uses a brine before sous viding it. He soaks it for 24 hours, and this is supposed to keep the fish translucent while sous viding. I am going to attempt a modified version of this. I'm using non sushi grade salmon, and I am going to prepare it like normal sushi. I'm going to take the mostly finished roll and wrap it tightly in cellophane and sous vide at 135. There will be some white albumin visible I'm sure. I'm not going to do the full day brine, just a simple brine for an hour or two. Then I'll take the finished roll and sprinkle on some sesame seeds and we shall see what we shall see. If you have sushi grade I suppose their is no point in sous viding unless you want to be really safe. But in that case you could just buy regular salmon if you are going to sous vide it.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.274676	2013-02-23T21:48:43	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/32161", "authors": [ "AdamO", "Cam.Davidson.Pilon", "Emily Anne", "Lorraine Collins", "Munmun Bose", "SAJ14SAJ", "Set of your monkey", "Yamikuronue", "Yuri Schimke", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/11407", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/117806", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/117807", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/14401", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/14467", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/4638", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/6317", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/74038", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/74039", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/74040", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/74049", "rumtscho", "sgtFloyd" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
42683	Salt-crust bass tasted really bitter I'm trying to figure out why a fish I cooked tasted pretty nasty. I bought a whole farm raised striped bass from the Asian seafood market. It was US farm raised. The eyes were bright and not cloudy or desiccated. It didn't have much fishy-smell, so I assumed it was good. My first mistake is that I didn't put it on ice when I brought it home. It just went straight into the fridge inside its package, bottom shelf. It smelled fine when I brought it out. I cleaned the fish by scissoring around the anus up to the gills, drawing out the viscera and discarding, then I cut out the gills by snipping wherever I could until they came out. Head stayed on. I cut out the fins. I did not descale it. Another possible problem. I rinsed it copiously, getting all the blood off. I laid spring onions, garlic, and lemon slices into the cavity as aromatics. I then built a salt crust around it and baked 450F/225C for 30 mins. The center temp was well over 130 (came up to like 180-190 actually) which was overcooked. That might have been my third mistake. My question to you: Was it possibly a crappy fish? Can fish just taste bad even though it's fresh because it was fed a bad diet and/or improperly handled? Was the storage/cleaning process wrong? Was the cooking process wrong? So it wasn't gutted before you bought it? Hmmm. How long did you have it before you gutted it? Was it the flesh that tasted bitter, the skin, or both? @Jolenealaska No, if I could go back in time, I would have asked to defin and get the gills and guts out. The fish was in the fridge for a couple days before I finally did the deed myself. It was a "hack job", so to speak, as the last fish I cleaned was 20 years ago with my grandfather. @GdD I didn't taste the skin since it wasn't descaled. The flesh was particularly bitter. It was like a minerally flavor that reminded me of licking a nickel. That's it then. Fish should never be stored for any length of time still with its "guts". So you've got it. Next time you won't even bring the guts home. As a matter of fact, if I saw fish "at the counter" still with its guts I would be concerned that it had already been too long. If the fish is left with guts inside for a long time, the biliary fluids may seep from the gall bladder into the meat, causing a bitter taste, this can also happen if you break the gall bladder while cleaning the fish.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.275003	2014-03-11T23:52:51	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/42683", "authors": [ "AdamO", "Fran", "GdD", "Jolenealaska", "Kimberly Baker", "Spammer", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/102348", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/11407", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/19707", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/20183", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/99742", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/99743", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/99744" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
36730	Is aluminum pressure cooker reactive? Will it give "off" flavors? I have an aluminum (not stainless steel) 5 qt pressure cooker that I bought fairly cheaply at a kitchen ware outlet store. It seems the traditional pressure cooker application for canning doesn't matter much what the material is: as long as it doesn't explode under pressure. I'm interested in using mine to cook stocks, beans, etc. The instructions I received with mine indicate several models of several materials and sizes. Does the aluminum composition risk giving off, tinny flavors when cooking stocks and stews? Is there any other reason to believe I may have purchased the wrong "kind" of pressure cooker? Is the aluminum anodized or plain? I'm AFK (K is for kitchen) and will check this out and update in a few hours. It is a presto 8 qt the info seems to be dumbed down, but nowhere does it claim to be adonized. Provided the surface is bare aluminum, it can create off flavors primarily when cooking acidic foods. To avoid this, many aluminum pans are either coated with stainless steel or anodized for a less reactive outer coating. If your pan is bare aluminum, it should be fine for most cooking applications, but you may not want to use it to cook lower pH foods. Cooking with Aluminum	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.275226	2013-09-11T21:37:21	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/36730", "authors": [ "AdamO", "SourDoh", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/11407", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/16863" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
35282	Safe to make liqueur from tomato vines? I was thinking about all my favorite tomato dishes and wondering if there were a way to infuse more tomato flavor into my chili, spagbol, and bloody mary. I've heard that the tomato vine contains a lot of the aromatic compounds we associate with delicious tomato flavor, but the vines themselves are not safe to eat. However, many inedible things can be used in infusions to carry the aroma only from something, such as how wormwood is made into absinthe. My goal is not to discover the next psychedelic. But can I infuse tomato vines in vodka as an additive for sauces and drinks? This would be a really, really bad idea. The alkaloid compounds that make nightshades toxic can be toxic even at low levels, and a few of them are specifically alcohol soluble. This means that while chomping down on a tomato leaf might not hurt you, the toxins are readily extracted in alcohol, so you'd be maximizing your exposure to them by making a liqueur. Further, most of the aromatic compounds in the tomato leaves and stems are going to be very bitter anyway, so even if this weren't dangerous, it would be of dubious culinary use. Tomato Toxicity from WikiPedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomato#Plant_toxicity Source: http://www.anaturalway.com/NightShade%20Alkaloid%20Toxins.html I don't see anything in the source you cited that says there are dangerous toxins in tomatoes as cultivated (it says solanine is present in all tomatoes, and in all parts of the plant, but obviously tomatoes aren't poisonous). People used to just assume that tomatoes were poisonous - it seems like you're doing the same thing for the vines. I added another source and edited to clarify. The toxins are more concentrated in unripe fruit and the green parts of the plant rather than the ripe fruit (see second source). Since there has been one reported case of toxicity from a tea made from leaves, it seems unwise to soak them in an even more efficient solvent of the alkaloids if the solvent is then intended for consumption. I don't think the OP is talking about drinking this liqueur - just using it as a flavoring. Wikipedia (your additional source) does say "levels of tomatine in foliage and green fruit are generally too small to be dangerous unless large amounts are consumed ... Small amounts of tomato foliage are sometimes used for flavoring without ill effect..." so I'd imagine using small amounts of liqueur derived from foliage for flavoring would similarly be safe. According to Harold McGee writing in the Curious Cook column of the New York times, despite widespread belief that tomato vines are poisonous, there is little actual supporting evidence that they are in fact poisonous: [T]here’s scant evidence for tomato toxicity in the medical and veterinary literature. I found just one medical case, an undocumented reference to children having been made sick by tomato-leaf tea, in a 1974 book on poisonous plants. In contrast to the few anecdotal accounts of livestock poisoning, a controlled study in Israel in 1996 showed no ill effects when cattle ate tomato vines for 42 days. That is not to say that infusing vodka with tomato vines will taste good. In my opinion, if you want concentrated tomato flavor, use concentrated tomato (paste, or sun dried, for example). It seems highly likely that this going to be far more effective than trying to create a tomato extract from the green plant parts. You can also take a pointer from the dish "penne a la vodka" which, while trendy, shows that some flavors are more easily carried in alcohol than in water or fat, and so having some alcohol in your recipe (from wine, vodka or whatever) can help intensify the flavor. To be fair, the nice aromatics that you smell on tomato stems and leaves aren't as strong in the tomatoes themselves, and they quickly go away with cooking, so the flavor of tomato paste or sun-dried tomatoes isn't exactly the same flavor the OP is talking about here.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.275357	2013-07-13T19:41:32	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/35282", "authors": [ "Cascabel", "SourDoh", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/1672", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/16863" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
90467	Adjusting yeast and rise times in recipes Is it possible to reduce the amount of yeast and increase the rise times for leavened doughs? If so, is there a simple method to calculate the changes? Does 1/2 the yeast mean twice the rise-time? It is definitely possible. However, there are many, many factors that are going to guide yeast activity: sugar levels, water temperature, gluten development, etc. If I can, I normally cut back the yeast and just keep an eye on my dough, the less yeast, the more the flavor can develop. In optimal conditions, the yeast cells in bread dough can double their number in about 100 minutes to 2 hours. And by optimal, I mean like in a lab with perfect ventilation and temperature control @ 86°F/30°C . In a kitchen there are many other factors that can influence this (e.g. temperature of room, salt and sugar levels of the dough, presence of other yeasts in the air, etc...) so that 2 hour number will only go higher depending on your setup. But if you use that 2 hour number as a guide, each halving of the yeast in the recipe will add 2 hours or more to your rise time. Note that this rule of thumb won't work if you are looking to do a refrigerated or lower temperature rise.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.275665	2018-06-20T12:57:00	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/90467", "authors": [], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
89043	Can spanikopita (or other phyllo foods) be prepped in advance? I offered to cook for an event for a friend. Later, the request came that the food should be "finger food". Grumbling aside (I hate tedium), most the finger food recipes I know have substantial prep and I don't have a lot of time beforehand to cook. I'd like to have as much "oven ready" things made the night before. One recipe I have and like is for spanakopita. In this one, the filling is wrapped in little parcels of phyllo and can be baked. Is there a risk in chilling the filling, doing the wraps, and putting them in the fridge? If not, how should they be stored and how far in advance can this be done? Yes you can. Anecdotal, Mom makes batches of small spanakopita in advance and freeze them up for later use. The filling should be cold when you are assembling the spanakopita. (edit)You need to bake them before freezing them. I would store them in the fridge in a plastic container in a single layer. If freezing, put them on a baking sheet and freeze them in single portions, put them in a freezer bag. Freeze, is good. Fridge, will go soggy over a few days. One day before and you do not need any refrigerator.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.275790	2018-04-11T15:54:09	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/89043", "authors": [ "Alchimista", "Wayfaring Stranger", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/5455", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/59209" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
56301	How to extend holding time for poached eggs? I would like to bring eggs Florentine for a potluck. I usually make them for myself Sunday mornings, but usually I strain the egg fresh from the pot to the muffin. Is there any way to do this for a potluck with, say, a dozen eggs or more, where I won't have access to goodies to do this live? You can "overcook" the eggs. This will at least make them hold together until service. Another way would be the beer cooler method: bring a small cooler and an electric kettle, pour boiling water into the cooler, wait for it to cool enough and drop your eggs in. Some data: Egg whites start coagulating at 150F. Egg yolks start thickening at 150F and become solid at 158F or so. The danger zone for bacteria is between 40F and 130F. What this means is that your perfect poaching temperature is going to be somewhere around 150F to 155F depending on how firm you like your eggs. At these temperatures bacteria can't grow and if held at this temperature the eggs will never overcook. Over time the yolks will become thicker but it takes many hours. The serious way to do this is with a sous vide setup that electronically controls the temperature of a water bath. A cheaper method is what jbarker2160 referred to as the beer cooler method. Pour 155F water into a cooler (or hotter and let it cool with the lid off) Add the eggs in their shells. Put the lid on and let them cook forever. They won't overcook. They can be served out of their shells. The shape is different than poached but IMO better. You do need to make sure your cooler doesn't ever dip below 130F very long before serving or you risk bacteria growth. This is an Egg-cellent answer. I also seem to remember and episode of Good Eats where Alton alternatively poaches then shocks the eggs in an icebath ahead of time, then gently reheats/rewarms the eggs in a fresh pot immediately before serving. Again, be cautious of what temperatures your eggs see and for how long. Good luck! Sous vide would be difficult to move, as you'd need to deal with how to power it while in transit ... you either need a power inverter that can run off your car's alternator, or lug around a UPS (battery backup system). If I were to try something like this, I'd poach the eggs (with vinegar in the water) 'til they were set and I felt that I could safely move them, but cooked a little bit shorter than I would have otherwise. I'd then shock them in ice water, and keep them cooled down for transit. Before serving the eggs, I'd use the 'beer cooler method' mentioned earlier to warm back up the eggs. You might also be able to individually dunk them in hotter water (above 160°F) for a couple of seconds to remove the chill from them. ... ... and then, as I was going to check to see if eggs florentine had a hot sauce like eggs benedict, which could be used to heat the eggs back up, I see a similar suggestion on Food Network's website. They recommend holding the poached eggs in water : Cook's Note: The poached eggs can be made ahead of time if stored in water and refrigerated. Reheat by placing in simmering water for 30 seconds. Good answer but not nearly as cool. You won't impress anyone if you're always do everything the easy way. :)	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.275935	2015-04-02T17:20:44	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/56301", "authors": [ "BrownRedHawk", "Faizatul Syazana Binti Mohd Os", "G0ddess Kelly", "Giulia Basevi", "Mr. Mascaro", "Sobachatina", "Stephen Lawless", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/133828", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/133829", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/133830", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/133846", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/133907", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/2001", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/27287", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/33356", "tsj" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
63587	How to parcook a casserole? I have a wonderful mousaka recipe which involves layers of baked potato, eggplant, and beef. It is topped with a cheesy bachamel and cooked until golden brown on top. It is very similar to a lasagna. I would like to cook this dish for a party for 20 people. Unfortunately I cannot prepare everything immediate beforehand. So I would like to complete as much as possible a day in advance. I could cook this dish completely and then reheat it in the oven before the party, but I'm afraid the bachamel top will over crisp and the bottom will burn. Can I instead parcook this dish? I believe I could cool all the ingredients up until the point the bachamel is added, then chill it, and then simply bake as is for 1.5 hours until warmed through and the topping browns nicely. Or should I worry about the sauce clumping or other concerns? My family does this with lasagne every year for Christmas. It works with most casseroles that are prepared in advance: Make the casserole in advance, then either chill (if night before) or freeze (if a week before). Place the cold dish in a cold oven, covered in aluminum foil, then turn it to medium-low heat (about 300°F/150°C). Heat until the center of the casserole is sufficiently warmed through. Turn the heat on the oven down to 'warm' Just before guests arrive, make the bechamel. Keep it on low heat on the stovetop, stirring every 10-15 minutes or so. (20-30 mins before service) uncover the casseroles Top with some of the bechamel (reserving the rest so people can add extra as they wish) Crank the oven to 'broil' or 'grill' or whatever they call the 'top only heat' setting in your country, and cook the top to desired brown-ness. If you don't have a broil/grill setting, move the casserole as close to the top element as you can without the food actually touching it, and turn the heat as high as the oven will go. Remove the casserole and let rest to firm back up. (take notes on how long this time, as that'll affect the exact time when you start broiling the next time you do this). Place the reserved bechamel in a gravy boat. Slice & serve Note that there's also bechamel in the lassagne we make -- so you just make a little bit less when making the casserole initially, if it's needed for middle layers as well. I think your idea is a good one. You can cook the whole thing thoroughly through, but without the topping. Then when you are ready, cook it at a higher than normal temp so the topping can brown properly while the inside just needs to get warmed up to serving temp. What I would do is in advance prepare the potato, eggplant and beef in the pan (fully cooked). Make your bechamel sauce. Assemble everything in the baking dish and put it in the fridge. When your guests arrive, put it in the oven for a bit longer than usual (as it is cold), perhaps on a lower temperature, or with some foil on top to prevent it from drying out.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.276267	2015-11-18T15:50:37	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/63587", "authors": [ "Anthony Waller", "Dawn Cascio", "Elizabeth Mills", "Karen Ward", "Trey Turner", "billy sheehan", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/151348", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/151349", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/151350", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/151351", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/151356", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/151364" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
43545	How efficient is stock for protein extraction? Proteins from collagen and tissues thicken stock. Fat is rendered too. Since fat settles to the surface after refrigeration, I assume that you can extract most or all of the fat through skimming chilled stock or with a gravy separator. That means that stock can be mostly a liquid protein, like a low calorie protein shake substitute. My question is how efficient this extraction should be. If I made stock from 2kg of chicken thighs which have Xg protein and Xg fat, what fraction of that protein actually winds up in the stock if cooked in an optimal fashion? (and what is such an optimal fashion?) Are certain fats emulsified in the stock which cannot be skimmed? I have consulted online guides to stock nutrition facts and looked at supermarket varieties, but as we all know, those are thin soupy broths that don't congeal. "My question is how efficient this extraction should be. ". That should be the original question. Protein vs. ? From Harlod McGee's "On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen": The muscles that make up meat are mainly water and the protein fibers that do the work of contraction, which are not dispersable in water. The soluble and dispersable materials in muscle include about 1% by weight of collagen, 5% other cell proteins, 2% amino acids and other savory molecules, 1% sugars and other carbohydates, and 1% minerals, mainly phosphorus and potassium. Bones are around 20% collagen, pig skin around 30%, and cartilaginous veal knuckles up to 40%. Bones and skin are thus much better sources of gelatin and thickening power than meat. However, they carry only a small fraction of the other soluble molecules that provide flavor. (pg 598) Accordingly, that 7% (5% + 2%) may be considered the upper bound for protein extraction, which will obviously depend on the specifics of the meat and cooking process. McGee then goes on to discuss the proper process for extraction, starting with cold water gradually heated: The cold start and slow heating allow the soluble proteins to escape the solids and coagulate slowly, forming large aggregates that either rise to the surface and are easily skimmed off, or settle onto the sides and bottom. A hot start produces many separate and tiny protein particles that reamin suspended and cloud the stock; and a boil churns particles and fat droplets into a cloudy suspension and emulsion. (pg 599) This also indicates that the the amount of emulsified fat will depend greatly on on the cooking process in addition to the fat content of the original ingredients. (I haven't been able to find much on differences in the extraction process for different animal fats.) Soup, stocks etc. do contain surprising large amounts of fat trapped within the collagen and other dissolved products Boned chicken at best is 25% protein (15% for chicken with bone). At the very best case, by the time you have added water etc. to make a stock, you will be down to about 5% protein. For pure stocks this will unlikely to be even 1% Good quality milk is 5% protein I'm a little confused - is this meant to be an upper bound? You're not going to dissolve the chicken into the stock; a lot of protein (most?) is going to stay within the chicken. Home made soup/stock with long slow cooking results in all meat falling apart and "dissolving" into solution. A fancy clear stock might be less than 1% protein "large amounts of fat trapped within the collagen and other dissolved products": I understand collagen has a matrix of fat and protein, and that heat will unmesh most of their contents. However, unless there is an emulsifier, why would the fat remain dispersed in the liquid? No idea, it just does. Have read that before. Check the amount of fat you skim from expected amount of fat in nutritional data	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.276665	2014-04-16T17:20:25	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/43545", "authors": [ "AdamO", "Bharat Anand", "Cascabel", "Danish Javed", "Jennifer", "John Ralston", "Michael E.", "Spammer", "TFD", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/102053", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/102054", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/102055", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/102061", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/102062", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/11407", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/1672", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/25221", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/3203" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
47012	What is the real difference in lo mein, chow mein, mei fun, and chop suey? Prompted by the question How to cook Lo Mein? and some of the answers regarding types of noodles, I started wondering what the real differences are in the 4 named dishes. I know what the differences are in American Chinese restaurants and I understand that there are variations. (E.g., lo mein is usually wheat noodles while mei fun is usually fine rice noodles.) So, that is not what I'm looking for. I would like to know, if I was in China and ordered each one of those dishes, what would I expect and what would be the difference between them? I understand that there may be variations based on region but I'm just asking for the fundamentals. Also, did chop suey really originate in China? Edited to clarify: I'm just asking a basic question, not for ingredients, per se. For example - Dish "X" is stir-fried vegetables (with or without meat) in sauce served with soft rice noodles. I understand that much of the difference is in the type of noodles used and how they are prepared. However, I've always heard that much of the American-Chinese cuisine was loosely adapted and not really the same thing or possibly didn't originate in China. So, I'm just trying to find out what is authentic. This might not help w/ the final dishes, but Serious Eats recently had a post on shopping for different types of asian noodles : http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/08/asian-noodle-shopping-guide.html Chop Suey: tsap seui (杂碎, “miscellaneous leftovers”) was probably invented by Chinese in Taishan (Toisan), a county in Guangdong Province (Canton), the home of many early Chinese immigrants to the U.S. It might be worth reading "On the Noodle Road: From Beijing to Rome, with Love and Pasta", as the first part of the book covers differences in noodle preparations in China (although she mentions that rice sticks aren't noodles to the Chinese) The problem with your question is that you're kind of asking something akin to "what is the universally accepted traditional preparation for Spaghetti". While conventionally in much of the English speaking world, that refers to spaghetti and meat sauce. The word/dish itself refers to a specific style/type of noodle and could be topped with anything. Lo Mein and Chow Mein refer to the method of preparation and not the contents ("Stirred Noodle" and "Fried Noodle" respectively). They are both often wheat based egg noodles. Lo Mein is typically cooked in a broth, whereas Chow mein, by definition will be cooked in oil. Sometimes it'll be cooked till crispy, sometimes not. If you happen to be in some location that serves authentic Chinese food, you could order dozens of different preparations for each of the above; It could include various combinations of proteins, vegetables. There are also different types of specific noodles used (eg: the small flat ones usually called "chow mein" in north american restaurants, larger round noodles often referred to as Shanghai Style Chow Mein, etc...). If I walked into a chinese restaurant in Hong Kong and asked for "Chow Mein" in Chinese, I imagine the response would most likely be, "what would you like on it?" Generally speaking there would be some protein and one or more vegetables. This is highly dependent on what is available locally. This varies greatly in China. Hong Kong will have access to more ingredients having been an international westernized port for a long time. The rest of China is more subject to local farming/fishing. That said, Seafood is very common in Hong Kong Cuisine given that it's a port. My friend from the north grew up with a lot more pork. But now my answer is becoming less about the dishes themselves. Mei Fun means "Rice Noodle". Again, there is no accepted universal rule for what goes into it. My mom who comes from Hong Hong cooks those noodles half a dozen different ways depending on her mood. Chop Suey like @Ching Chong said, just means "miscellaneous leftovers" or "assorted pieces". The origin is heavily debated and full of myth (see the wiki page). It is most commonly found these days from my understanding in Americanized Chinese restaurants in the US. I don't remember seeing it in Canada for example. Wherever it started, what makes it difficult to answer as it depends on what the cook wants to put in it. Anecdotally, I'm Canadian Chinese and have eaten at Chinese restaurants all over the world since I was born and have never actually ordered this dish, so take my answer for what it's worth. :-) Not. I am simply asking for the fundamental differences, not each idea or variation. I simply want to know what is conventional/authentic in Chinese cuisine and if it is authentic rather than adapted from American culture. Not that hard or detailed. I'll try and add a bit more detail. But what I'm suggesting is that the concept of each of those being a "dish" is in itself a westernized concept. Just like in authentic East Indian Cuisine "curry" is a very general concept and "pasta" is in Italian cuisine. Thank you. I added an edit to the question to clarify a bit more what I'm asking. Chop Suey can be found in restaurants in Canada. The nearby Toronto restaurant has a small Chop Suey section on the menu. I do find it to be less common though. @rich-johns: I'm not sure I understand your question? Lo mein stands for "tossed noodles," and the texture remains soft and it tends to soak up sauces pretty well. Chow mein stands for "fried noodles," and is either deep fried or stir fried for a longer period of time than lo mein, offering a crisper texture than lo mein. Mei fun refers to rice noodles, instead of the wheat-based noodles for lo mein or chow mein, so you can get just about any kind of style of dish or flavor, but with noodles made from rice starch (probably good to know for someone with gluten issues). "Chop Suey" is not authentic traditional Chinese. It's basically a stir-fried hodgepodge of ingredients, so results will vary pretty widely. It actually originated in the USA, but it was created by Chinese immigrants using their cooking techniques on what was handy. There is no answer to your question. China is a country larger and more varied than the United States. Asking what is "authentic" for something like Mei Fun is like asking what is the "authentic" way to cook chicken, beef stew, or a hot dog. I have eaten in Chinese restaurants all over the world, from California to Maine and from Germany to Chile. Even dishes with the same name vary tremendously depending on what region of China the cook happens to come from. Their preparation starts with egg noodles made from a mixture of wheat flour and eggs as they proceed to different methods. Chow noodles are either round or flattened. The fresh or dry noodles are boiled to gain softness. The dry noodles are boiled in water for five to six minutes while fresh noodles are boiled for two or three minutes. These are added to a stir fry mixture and then cooked until they are crispy. Most authentic versions of chow mein in Chinese take-out restaurants have soft noodles. The difference is due to frying time and amount of oil used. Chow mein results in varied texture within the dish. The other method of preparing chow mein noodles is to fry them separately on a pancake. The stir fry meat and vegetables are then poured on top. There are two types of chow mein namely; steamed chow mein and crispy chow mein. The steamed version has a softer texture while the other one is crispier and drier. Lo mein preparation starts with fresh noodles only, preferably 0.25 inch thick. They are also boiled and added to a stir fry mixture with a lot of sauce. They are tossed long enough for them to soak the sauce.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.277032	2014-09-09T20:26:10	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/47012", "authors": [ "Carol Malpass", "Ching Chong", "Cindy", "Elango Samiappan", "Joe", "Mike Duffy", "Priscilla Payne", "Seema Datta", "SweeSiong Wong", "amcintosh", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/113432", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/113433", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/113434", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/113439", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/113452", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/113466", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/113469", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/113471", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/22558", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/231", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/23376", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/26180", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/67", "jim brown", "rujuta joshi", "talon8" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
43216	Hard boiled eggs outside the fridge I saw the question How long can boiled eggs be stored in the fridge? and it reminded me that as easter approaches here in Austria, my girlfriend's family will decorate a lot of hard boiled eggs. They store these eggs on the counter and eat them well over 2 weeks later. I was wondering what exactly is the risks involved here. Shouldn't they go bad before that, or am I too instanced in the american everything should be refrigerated culture? Are they just accepting a higher risk here? This is kind of a holy war question, oddly. The official party line is "Two hours, just like any other food" but there has been an informal and impromptu Easter-driven experiment in progress for the last two-thousand years or so which most people have participated in and which argues strongly against the hard two hour rule. This doesn't mean the two hour rule is wrong: it's just really conservative. In a nutshell, cooked solid protein tends to be quite resistant to bacterial contamination. Historically, cooked meat was stored for days with a low (but non-zero) chance of significant contamination. Even today, raw meat is "aged" for several weeks in some circumstances without ill effects. So yea, it's probably not going to kill you, but if you want to be 100% safe, you should stick to two hours. If you're willing to take some risk, use your senses. Eggs stink when they start to go off, and the human nose is very sensitive to spoilage.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.277635	2014-04-02T09:46:54	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/43216", "authors": [ "Flion", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/101121", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/101122", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/101123", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/101131", "spammer", "stephanie cruz", "yhelothar" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
69392	How to remove alcohol taste from vanilla extract? I bought Kirkland pure vanilla extract from Costco and it has a very strong taste of alcohol. I'd like to mix it into drinks, but it is really overpowering. Would boiling out the alcohol remove some of the vanilla flavour? I assume the alcohol is there to amplify the vanilla flavours in the first place. Do the drinks you're making contain alcohol? Hmm. I wonder if there's a way to make vanilla sugar from extract (I've done the beans in sugar for a LONG time method - I'm wondering if there's any way to mix extract and sugar and then dry it out, without losing the flavor. I guess the typical extract approach is 1 teaspoon (5 ml) to 1-2 cups (250-500 ml) sugar, so it' not really needing to "dry" much once mixed. The alcohol is there to "extract" the flavors from the bean - that's what an extract IS. @Ecnerwal: I've made vanilla sugar that way in the proportion you posted. It some time for the alcohol smell to evaporate but the end result was pretty good. Not quite as good as using a bean, but still nice. If you have not tried mixing it into drinks yet then I'd encourage you give it a shot. Although the alcohol smell is strong in the bottle the vanilla flavor is much more concentrated, once you dilute it in something else the alcohol should be unnoticeable. There's no way to get the alcohol out of the extract without destroying the vanilla itself, heating is just going to evaporate the vanilla with the alcohol. If you still have a problem with the alcohol your alternatives are to use artificial vanilla flavor (a poor substitute IMO) or real vanilla from vanilla pods. You can open a vanilla pod and scrape off a bit of the inside into a drink, then mix. One option would be to put some sugar and a whole vanilla pod into a food processor and whiz it all together, you could then add the vanilla sugar. You could try vanilla paste as well if it's available in your area. It's more expensive than extract and doesn't mix as quickly, but it's less alcohol-y and has great flavor. Scraping the inside into a drink is a waste of expensive vanilla, it gives so little flavor with so little complexity that the artificial vanilla flavor is the better option there. I agree with you @rumtscho, it's much more work using a pod and expensive as well. It's an option though, so I listed it. Yup, listing it is OK, I just felt it important to point out for future readers that it is a much worse option that it might appear at a first glance. The list of major components of vanilla extract in this document compared with their characteristics from wikipedia, suggests that most would still be solid at the boiling point of ethanol (78°C), so you might be able to reduce it after all. It still wouldn't be easy. Real vanilla extract is made by dissolving the important compounds in alcohol. Thus alcohol is inherent to the extract. In fact in the US a minimum alcohol content is required (presumably for preservation). It's normally used in quantities small enough that you wouldn't taste the alcohol, and often cooked for some time (e.g. in a cake). Your best bet is to get hold of alcohol-free-vanilla flavouring. Dr Oetker is widely available in the UK. It will be sweeter than the one you've got. Or there are recipes to make your own, which could be made closer to the time of use and refrigerated avoiding the need for sugar/alcohol to keep it from spoiling. You may be able to reduce the one you've got by gentle heating if you want to use it up, but there are several downsides: Making a reduction of a few ml at a time is awkward. And without the alcohol you can't assume it will keep. Diluting it in water then reducing won't work too well - you'll mostly boil off the water you just added, only reducing the alcohol slightly. The flavour will probably deteriorate. You're unlikely to lose much vanillin (the main component) as it doesn't even melt until >80°C (alcohol boils at 78). But presumably you bought the good stuff because you wanted the more complex flavours that may well evaporate (artificial vanilla flavouring is vanillin, and is cheap). Other major components according to this document also have high metling and boiling points, however their contribution to the composition may be different to the contribution to the flavour I wouldn't do a reduction of vanilla extract. Many of the vanilla aromatics will evaporate away. @rumtscho I wouldn't either, and I emphasised "gentle". But maybe not enough - edited. Water has a higher boiling point than alcohol. You would not be reducing more water than alcohol, especially not if you kept the temp below 212f or 100C. Distilled alcohol is made by catching the boiled off alcohol fumes and recondensing the alcohol in a radiator (usually a coil) while the water stays behind because it is not boiling away into steam. @Escoce : although you're right about how alcohol is distilled, you don't get pure alcohol in the condensate, as not all of the water stays behind. See http://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/659/67 @Escoce if you can hold a small quantity at a temp between 80 and 100C you will get some benefit, effectively replacing some of the alcohol with water. That's not easy with kitchen hardware hence why I dismissed the idea. You actually evaporate water fairly quickly at the boiling point of alcohol anyway. I never said you'd get pure alcohol. This wasn't an instruction on distilling, it was a comment of exception that it would be ineffective to add water then boil away the alcohol. It most certainly would work if you have tools suited for the quantity. @Escoce no mention of pure alcohol here. You'd evaporate the alcohol preferentially though you'd never get rid of it. If you had lab grade hardware. A typical kitchen thermometer would require you to insert it to a reasonable depth. Let's say 1cm. If you had 30ml to work on that would mean a diameter of around 6cm. A small lab beaker. Much larger quantities would end up being thrown away as the alcohol is what preserves it. I admit my "mostly boil off the water" could have been clearer. I'll try to think of something better. Vapour pressures also matter but that would be way too much detail. Well - not a chef here, but... I often put the costco vanilla into plain yogurt with honey. But, unless I burn off the alcohol it just tastes bitter and is no good. I take a tablespoon of the extract and put it in a tablespoon, then put it directly on top of the flame of my gas burner. I let it boil up and it eventually flames. I let it burn off a while. Ok ok - I see everyone gasping... but the result is actually quite flavorful and works very will in yogurt with honey. No alcohol, no bitterness, lots of vanilla flavor and very pleasing!	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51709	Is there a reason to not add salt when making a soup? On several occasions I have had friends make soup without salt and then tell me that salt should be added only when the soup is served. I've read Why is it important to add salt during cooking? But what is the reason, if any, for withholding salt during cooking? I have only heard this advice in context of Chinese soup/broth, namely a Chinese-style chicken soup and a brothy oxtail soup. I've asked a friend about the reason, but didn't quite understand the response (something about damaging the proteins). Because as you are cooking your soup, water in your soup is evaporating away as steam. You might salt a soup perfectly halfway through, but after evaporation, your now thicker soup is too salty. When adding salt, wait until the end of the cooking process, as soups will reduce and concentrate the flavors as the liquid evaporates. [ Source: http://allrecipes.com/howto/cooking-questions-soup/ ] Normally one would salt a soup or sauce to taste before serving, not early in the cooking process. When a soup boils, it's flavors concentrate as water is evaporated off. It is easy for it to become too salty if you add salt to taste before concentrating the broth, and it's much easier to add a little salt than try to remove it.... Also, the amount of salt that tastes good to individuals is highly variable. Your friends might be sensitive to salt or know that someone else in the group doesn't like food salty so they opt to just have everyone salt their own.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.278326	2014-12-18T04:16:18	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/51709", "authors": [ "JVR Industries Inc.", "Keila Stack", "Wendy Dunbar", "cindy Eberly", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/122531", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/122532", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/122533", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/122536", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/122537", "user122533" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
77821	How easily can table salt be contaminated? In Alton Brown and The Food Lab Play With Chicken, Alton Brown (jokingly?) chides J. Kenji Lopez-Alt for touching raw chicken right before pinching salt from a tub. AB: So it's okay to put your hands on the chicken and then stick em back in the salt. Okay, also noted. Good sanitation procedures. JKLA: What's going to live in the salt? AB: Nothing's going to live in the salt at all. I'm just giving you crap. Is it true that nothing is going to live in the salt? Practically, how likely is it for salt to become unsafe for consumption through unsafe sanitation procedures? As far as I know, there are organisms which can thrive in saline environments, but extreme halophiles are found in solutions of 20 to 25% salinity, not crystalline NaCl. Would mold be a concern? Perhaps the amount of time between contamination and use would make a difference? Does it matter if the salt is granular or in a solid block? What about contaminating the container? What about if it's not just salt (herbs, spices etc. now damp with raw chicken juices)? Haven't seen the video so can't address this directly. It would have to be an exception to usual good practice. Unless it's used for one session only and thrown away very close to http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/69230/is-it-contaminating-the-spice-to-touch-it-after-touching-raw-meat No foodborne illness is going to be able to live in pure salt, in fact even low concentrations of salt will kill most foodborne illness organisms - which is why salt is used as a preservative. However, that does not mean that it's a good idea to touch the salt with contaminated hands because: You could contaminate the container the salt is in, anyone touching the container could pick up the illness and transfer it to themselves or the food If there was a significant piece of food stuck to your hands when you touch the salt the piece could fall off into the salt, and any part of it which does not come in direct contact with the salt could remain contaminated. If you came into contact with that piece you could pick up the contamination From a non-safety perspective, getting chicken juice in your salt is going to make it stick together and get nasty because of the moisture When I prepare a chicken for baking I do the same thing - I pour salt and spices in a bowl and then pinch it out of that bowl before rubbing it on the skin. When I'm done I throw out any remaining mix and wash the bowl. When filming a show like the food lab they do the same thing - everything is going to get cleaned afterwards, so if the bowl got contaminated it doesn't really matter and the salt is not going to be re-used. The takeaway from this is that it was fine in the food lab, but it would not be fine at home if your were using your main salt container. As stated, you are not going to contaminate the salt with foodborne biological pathogens, just not going to happen. We value salt as a flavor and flavor enhancer, but for ages it has been valued as a curing and preserving agent. That does not make it OK to fail to practice safe food handling procedures with it in my mind. Safe procedures are a regime and failure in one area promotes lax behavior in all areas. Next, a person is using soiled rags, reusing utensils, etc. Alton is sometimes also an odd bird in the messages he sends at times. On one show or in one interview he will state things with a ultra conservative message such as being especially strict with hygiene, insisting on pasteurized eggs, etc. Then he will do shows like Cutthroat kitchen which involves stunts which many times promote poor food hygiene during preparations like limiting a contestants utensils forcing cross-contamination. His point of view tends to change according to whatever point he is trying to convey at that moment. AB is a TV cook who often rails against serving under cooked chicken, however I recall years ago an interview with him and a panel of chefs in which all of them stated in culinary school, they had all been ordered to eat raw chicken as a lesson that in a restaurant, if any item was not high enough quality for them to eat a small amount raw without killing themselves, it was not high enough quality for them to be cooking it and serving it to guests.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.278484	2017-01-27T05:53:26	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/77821", "authors": [ "Chris H", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/20413", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/4638", "rumtscho" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
62964	Why does a (vodka) martini often come with an olive on a stick? With Spectre being released in cinemas around the world soon, I've been looking for some James Bond montages on youtube. One of them that I came across was the classic "Vodka Martini. Shaken, not stirred". We already have a question about why Bond asks for this special preparation, but one thing that I always found weird was that this drink usually comes with an olive. I understand that cocktails more often than not have some garnish, but why an olive? Olives are often a garnish for martinis, whether they are gin or vodka, shaken or stirred. A dirty martini is one which adds olive juice as well as an olive. Olives (and onions) are a very traditional garnish used by bartenders to add a slightly savory flavor to a drink. As with many things behind the bar, they're used nowadays largely because they're iconic, but they do have a subtle effect on flavor. It's not really known where traditional garnishes such as citrus peels, cherries, olives/onions, and mint sprigs originated, but they're found in the earliest known published bartender's manual. (This was Jerry Thomas' How to Mix Drinks or the Bon-Vivant's Companion; cocktail historian David Wondrich's book Imbibe!, which reorganizes and provides context for the original, is required reading for the modern cocktail nerd.) These garnishes may have started with early drink families called cobblers and juleps which feature fresh berries and mint, respectively. Over time, drinks got more elaborate and drinkers came to expect something added to their drinks to give them more visual appeal. Here's a great, brief article that breaks down some of the history and usage of these. At first, as seen in other early bartending guides, bartenders just tossed whatever they had (usually preserved or pickled items that kept well including nuts, olives, and cherries) into the drink on hand. Eventually they sorted themselves out and figured out that olives or onions went best with savory drinks such as the Martini, and cherries went best with sweeter drinks such as the Manhattan. The tradition solidified a few years before Prohibition in the US, and was one of the practices that survived the resulting upheaval in drinking traditions. In the 1950s, Martini practices grew more variable; when ordering, you'd be quizzed about whether you wanted vodka or gin, shaken or stirred, an olive or a twist, without any particular standard. The olive may have become even more tightly associated with the Martini later on, when drinks began skewing to sweet and fruity in the late 1960s and 1970s, and fresh citrus started disappearing behind the bar. For whatever reason, bartenders also seem to have forgotten how to store vermouth (which, since it's a wine, will go off if stored at room temperature and allowed to oxidize) and the olives may have been the only thing preventing Martinis from being unpleasantly bitter. By the 1980s, the "dirty" Martini (which adds a dash or more of olive brine) emerged as one of the few options for drinkers who wanted a non-sweet cocktail at a bar. Fortunately, we've now come full circle, and a Martini closer to the original pre-Prohibition version can be found at many cocktail bars (usually with a twist of lemon peel). But the olive has now been firmly established as the traditional Martini garnish for multiple generations. One of the main reasons that the briny olive works as a garnish is because a small amount of salt is a flavor enhancer, which is why just about every savory dish that we eat (and some sweet ones, ala salted caramel) contain at least some salt. There aren't many drinks where salt is added directly, but there are certain drinks (such as the Margarita) where it's an important part of the flavor, and some modern bartenders with a culinary background use a couple drops of salt solution in almost all of their drinks. Some people particularly like this in a Martini, especially if that's what they're used to. So, the tl;dr: It's now seen as traditional, some people really like the salty flavor it adds, and it works pretty well in a largely savory drink like the Martini. I'm extremely glad to see this answer! This type of question is usually a breeding ground for unsubstantiated speculations, to the point where I was considering leaving a warning comment. I mean, it's fun to make assumptions, but when they're wrong, we're left with a ton of misinformation everybody upvotes. Your answer is the way it should be, with an actual explanation of how it came to be this way, instead of finding a possible reason and insisting that it must be the true one. "The earliest known published bartender's manual" sounds very interesting. Any more detail on that? @miken32 I've edited a couple of references in and hope you find them useful. I can't recommend Wondrich's book enough - it started me down my research into the history of classic cocktails.	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46851	preserving leftover cooked rice from Chinese takeaway for processing in a cold salad afterwards When getting Chinese takeaway, We never eat much of the normal cooked rice that goes with it, always opting for an extra dish of fried rice and/or noodles. My mother usually makes a cold salad the day after with some Cocktail sauce (with ketchup as the tomato sauce), a few varieties of canned fish (mackerel, sardines and anchovy) and some boiled eggs. The problem is that this rice always turns out somewhat dry, somewhat detracting from the overal quality of the product. It's still edible and tastes good, but the textures are somewhat lacking in my opinion. I have read "Instant" leftover rice? Making leftover-like rice without the wait? (as in for fried rice), but that's not what I need: I don't have control over the cooking process, and it's not for reheating afterwards. I also don't think this falls under the generic shelf live question, because this isn't about how long it will last, but how to store it short-term so certain negative effects don't occur, for which I cannot find a question (nor a tag). I'm looking for a method to cool the rice without it turning dry that doesn't involve special attention immediately afterwards or changing the cooking process. With "doesn't involve special attention", I'm talking about something someone can do while unpacking the rest of the food and maybe putting a bit of the rice aside for those that don't like the fried kind. So I understand that you have no control over the initial cooking and holding conditions at the restaurant. I get the impression from your final statement that you are disinterested in applying "special attention immediately afterwards"...which feels nebulously limiting, and does not provide an indication of what you are able to do/willing to do. I am not sure what type of process to suggest if you are unwilling to do anything special after getting the rice... I am not certain that anyone here can do that sort of magic. Please clarify? @LittleWhiteLithe Maybe "immediately afterwards" means you can get the takeout and eat it without worrying about it, but then maybe do something afterwards to preserve it? @Jefromi I would love a bit of clarification on what the OP is willing to do(timewise/effortwise), and when he is able to do it. He seems to need a method that reduces water loss of the rice, but once he has obtained the restaurant rice, it is beginning to cool off and loose water. In my mind (...and I could be wrong) the most effective intervention would begin to mitigate the water loss earlier rather than later, because it would offer the most control over the rice's final dryness. However, the OP states he doesn't want to do anything special for the short term storage. Thoughts? The only thing that comes to mind is adding water back to the storage vessel....which doesn't seem like a great option...and may likely produce wet, gooey gelatinized mess in the bottom of the container, especially if he is working with white short-grain rice. What I am willing to do is something someone can do while unpacking the rest of the food and maybe putting a bit of the rice aside for those that don't like the fried kind. The question I linked mentioned first freezing a tray, then mixing the rice with oil for 5 minutes and spreading it. I don't want to do something that complicated. Cindy's answer is something I really could see myself doing while my mother unpacks the rest of the chinese food. @NateKerkhofs The question you linked to asks for a quick way to get rice that is dried out like rice gets if left in the refrigerator overnight. That dried out rice is good for making fried rice. It's the opposite of what you want here. We often do the same thing, saving the rice for another use the next day. Or sometimes I will ask my husband to pick up takeout that I can heat up for lunch the next day. Here's what I recommend. Immediately upon returning home with your takeout, remove the rice from the take out container, placing in an equal size airtight container. E.g., if you have one pint of rice, place in a pint container. Don't break the rice apart any more than necessary. Press the rice so that it holds tight together in the container just as it was when you removed it from the takeout container. Put the lid on right away. Refrigerate to store. By placing in an airtight container right away, you are shortening the amount of time that moisture can evaporate. By using the same size container there shouldn't be an excessive amount of airspace in the container. I follow this procedure and the rice comes out the next day just like it went in, still moist. Plus it doesn't really require any excessive time or effort. This is close to what I prefer to do as well. However the OP clearly states that he doesn't want to do anything special immediately afterwards...which is key for optimum water retention. I may be wrong but I think that OP is looking for an easy solution and something that is not an involved process. LOL, goes to show what sort of people I work with regularly. Some of my lazier friends wouldn't make it through anything with more than 1 step(lasting 25 sec or more), especially if it needed to precede consuming food. I want to have something a person can do while another person is opening all the packaging of the rest of the dishes. This seems about right for that effort. If I'm understanding you right (please let me know if I'm not), you're wanting to hold on to rice for a day or two and have it still seem fresh (not all dried out like it gets in the fridge), right? If that's the case, all you need to do is put the rice in a Ziploc baggie (as much as you'll use at one time) and put it in the freezer. The fridge dries out rice, the freezer does not. If you have a microwave you can heat (or just defrost) the rice right in the bag when you're ready to use it. It will seem just like it did when you brought it home. if you don't have a microwave, you can just drop the sealed bag right into a pan of simmering water until it's defrosted. If you want the rice cold, you can quickly defrost it, still sealed in the bag, under cold running water. Even completely sealed, the rice will dry out after a few hours in the fridge,	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.279606	2014-09-03T15:20:18	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/46851", "authors": [ "Cascabel", "Cindy", "Dan Hansen", "Fred Opper", "Gus Mc Cormick", "Irene morales", "Jolenealaska", "Little White Lithe", "Mary Clark", "Nzall", "Sarah Ashipala", "Tammy Auclair", "Teri Kniffin Bambam", "dhaupert", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/112992", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/112993", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/112994", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/112996", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/112998", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/112999", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/113000", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/113001", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/113002", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/1672", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/20183", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/24278", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/25745", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/26180" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
46750	What kind of chili peppers are these? Having a long weekend, we have some new recipes we want to try. I found this recipe for Fried Green Chili Stuffed With Pork Stuffing . Unfortunately, the recipe doesn't say what type of chilies these are. They appear to be longer but more slender than a jalapeño, and just a little lighter in color. Per the recipe, each chili would hold roughly 62g of the stuffing. I'm sure that I have seen these but can't remember what kind they are. I've been looking online, as well, but haven't found any that really look like they are these chilies. We're going on the hunt. If anyone can tell me the name of this chili pepper it would be most appreciated. There is a chart about halfway down this page: http://www.mommiecooks.com/2010/08/17/chile-peppers/ I'm not sure it helps. My guess: Poblano. It's hard to tell with the sauce, but they look like they could be Korean chilis. I'm not sure if they have a more specific name, as I have only seen them sold as "Korean chili". They are fairly similar in flavor to North American green chilis, but maybe a bit hotter. They are usually a bit longer, and quite a bit more slender than something like an Anaheim chili. Thanks! These definitely could be an option and if we're lucky we may be able to find them when we visit the international market later today. Those are "standard" green chilies. They might be Anaheim, California, New Mexico or Hatch. It's hard to tell from the picture, but the varieties are interchangeable. Just know that the New Mexico or Hatch varieties are hotter. It may be a Chinese recipe, but I'm guessing that the chili is New World. I looked up the varieties you listed and you are correct that they are interchangeable. However, the chilies we can get locally, such as Anaheim, are grown much larger than these. (They are large enough that they look like a lighter colored Poblano.) They would be much larger than what I would want to use in this recipe. Also, I'm not sure the ones in the recipe are 'New World'. I've looked through many recipes on the site and they do seem to be quite authentic. @CindyAskew The fact (or not) that the chilies are of the New World wouldn't make the recipes less authentically Chinese. Chili peppers weren't introduced to Asia until the 15th or 16th centuries. If it's a chili, we (New World) grew it first. Those particular chilies look to me like Anaheim, California, New Mexico or Hatch. They're definitely not Anaheim, based on the texture. I suspect that might rule out the others too, but I've only seen hatch roasted, and the others dried, I think. More than likely Shishito Pepper This would be a much better answer if you explained why it's more than likely shishito.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.280142	2014-08-30T12:29:17	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/46750", "authors": [ "Anne Dekker", "Bob Brown", "Cascabel", "Cindy", "Jeremy Hopkins", "Jolenealaska", "Melanie Garza", "Peter Taylor", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/112750", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/112751", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/112752", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/112754", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/112756", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/1672", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/20183", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/26180", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/26703", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/4590", "tina pearce", "user112752" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
46281	Turkish coffee foam Hello Turkish coffee lovers, Could anyone tell me how I can have a lot of good coffee foam? When I boil it 3 times, all the foam is gone. I want to make a coffee similar to this: I'm not sure I understand the question. Can you describe what kind of foam are you expecting on your coffee? Can you find a picture of the type of coffee you are trying to achieve? I've never heard of coffee with foam, except that espresso crema can be mistaken for foam, but it is not doable with anything but an espresso preparation method anyway. Thanks for question, here is an example http://www.wittistanbul.com/magazine/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Turkish-Coffee-Istanbul1.jpg thank you for the clarification. With some reputation, you will be able to add pictures to your posts. Now I inserted it for you. My father always made his coffee turkish style, and he never had any foam. But now I looked around and maybe he has been doing it wrong :) See this link, they say that you need "fresh" coffee (I wonder if they mean freshly ground too, it's generallly better) and perfect temperature control, bringing it to 70 Celsius but not above. http://www.turkishcoffeeworld.com/How_to_make_Turkish_Coffee_s/54.htm There are various techniques, however here's how I do, and I usually get enough foam by making like this. Sometimes really much, sometimes just decent but never too little. First of all, put the water before the coffee to the cezve (or pot, however you call it). Then add the coffee without mixing it with the water. Do not mix it, just let it get into the water by itself as the water gets hotter. To let that happen, you have to keep its flame in medium, and even a little bit less than medium. Like... 3/7 of full flame. This will take time. There are people who cook the coffee on the hot sand in Turkey, it takes perhaps half an hour, maybe even more. You don't need that but don't make it too quick. As the water gets hot and the coffee begins to mix with the water completely, the foam will begin to appear. Now you can use a teaspoon to collect this foam and share it to the cups equally. Since the cooking takes time, it will continue producing more foam and you should keep collecting those. Just like the previous answer, do not let it boil. It messes all the thing. The secret of the Turkish coffee is that since it doesn't melt in the water, it needs to remain calm so that the coffee collapses at the bottom. If it boils, the coffee will spread and you'll drink that as well, which feels quite unpleasant. I've never tried salt, I don't use sugar either. However, I suggest you to put one sugar cube into your coffee jar, it keeps the coffee dry. Other than that, I can suggest using cool, fresh water. Also, it's ideal to cook for like 2-3 cups, not just one or not 4-5. Thank you. So many sources online tell you that the "proper" way to make Turkish coffee is to bring it to the "boil" over and over again. I knew deep down that was definitely wrong, because when it comes to filter coffee or espresso, the highest temperature the water can reach is 96 Celsius, and it should ideally be 94 Celsius. And these temperatures are for hot water that passes through ground coffee for about 30 seconds. If ground coffee is submerged [in] the hot water, always in contact with it, as is the case with Turkish coffee, it makes perfect sense to use much lower temperatures! Have you actually boiled it three times? Boiling coffee makes it smell like old floor rags, don't do that! What the Turkish method essentially is, you bring your coffee pot thrice up to, but not actually reaching, the boiling temperature, and you must never ever stir it. My favourite temperature is 70°C near bottom (measured with an electronic meat thermometer), in my experience anything hotter yields more caffeine but less aroma. The foamy substance on top is actually where the smallest particles from a proper cezve grind aggregate with help of sugar to form a soft layer. If your grind is not specifically made for cezve, it may not have small enough particles. Proper grind for cezve must be very fine. And I cannot stress it enough, do not boil the coffee. In addition to completely and irrevocably ruining its taste and aroma, it destroys the desired foamy layer with large bubbles of steam. Other notes: you may want to try to add a pinch of salt to offset the sweetness and expose coffee-ish taste. At beginning I some Turkish friend told me how to do it + YouTube :) you are first one who told me to not boil it all. Best would be if u give me link for video tutorial. Don't be afraid to create one by yourself :) To correct myself, I don't boil it but I am trying to "grow" foam 3 times. First two are fine but the third isn't possible for me. +1 for the pinch of salt! An old Macedonian man told me this trick some years ago. However simple it may sound, it really affects the taste :) At what point do we add the pinch of salt? The beginning? Just before serving? Into the individual cups? @abbyhairboat I am not aware of any interaction between other components of coffee and salt, so I just add it at the very beginning. This also helps it to be distributed evenly. You don't really have to taste the salt, it just has to be there in small amounts. The main point is: do not let the coffee boil. When foam starts to form, remove it with a spoon and pour into your coffee cup. It’s easy.... bring water to boil and when it’s boiling set aside. Add coffee (I use two teaspoons for each coffee cup- cups are similar to what you’re showing in your picture, about same size as espresso cups or slightly larger). Stir gently, but only couple of time, so coffee grounds come in contact with boiled water. By now, you should notice a dark foam on top of your coffee maker. Let it rest for about 30 seconds. What I usually do, for an equal distribution of cream on every cup, I scoop the foam from the top and add to each cup. Then I pour the coffee in each cup. I hope it works for you! Enjoy!	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.280404	2014-08-10T14:04:40	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/46281", "authors": [ "Aplus Restore", "FullStackOverflowDev", "Humbert Suarez", "Jack Baily", "Kansas nana to 5", "Liam author", "Luxqs", "Mischa Arefiev", "Monica Horvath", "Rok", "Scott Hardman", "Simrita Sahu", "Willem van Rumpt", "hairboat", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/110476", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/110477", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/110478", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/110485", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/110493", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/110494", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/110525", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/110526", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/110567", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/110568", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/26447", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/26450", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/4638", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/6728", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/68031", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/8486", "muntoo", "rumtscho" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
76195	Why is it so rare in the US to get kidney bean poisoning? Background: Do canned kidney beans contain Toxins? BBB - Phytohaemagglutinin Question: From my searching around the Internet I've found that there's a lot of warnings about poisoning but hardly anyone (or in some cases no one) having been effected by the toxin in those that comment.* This seems odd. Assuming each person in the US ate beans at least once a year and 98% effectiveness in the warnings I'd expect ~6 million cases in the US (roughly equivalent to car accidents) which should get some news I would think. I saw on Reddit once (I don't know where and they had no supporting links) that beans in the US are mandated to be cooked before they get to consumers to remove toxins, so it's only raw beans (like from a garden) that would put people at risk. Which would make a lot more sense, with how safe they are to eat. Can anyone substantiate this? *I'm aware this is sampling bias, but still strikes me as odd that there isn't someone with a compelling story about it. rare, compared to what ? Maybe because it's easy to just vaguely warn about something? Did you read the first thing you linked? It only takes 10 minutes of boiling to deactivate the toxin. As the question you linked to says, canned beans are cooked thoroughly, so there's no issue. Pretty much the point of canned food is that it's ready to eat; if something required further cooking it would absolutely say on the label. (And given that people eat canned kidney beans without thorough extra cooking all the time, including in salads, clearly they're safe.) Ready-to-eat canned goods are presumably far more popular than anything else, so, most people aren't at risk at all. It's also not a terribly likely issue with dried beans; it takes ten minutes at boiling to make them safe. Most people end up boiling when they cook beans, since it's usually easier to boil than it is to manage to hold a temperature below boiling that's still sufficient to cook. You have to deliberately get your stove to the right setting to hold below boiling, while if you err on the high side it'll boil. And seeing boiling liquid is a natural indicator of "this is cooking" that a lot of people will naively look for. The main source of issues is slow cookers; warnings say not to use them at all, because they don't get hot enough, but in fact a lot of slow cookers do end up at a low boil anyway, so a slow cooker isn't actually a guarantee of poisoning even for someone unaware. (This isn't a guarantee, please don't try it!) So kidney bean poisoning is a combination of several unlikely things: someone has to decide to cook dry beans themselves, they have to pick kidney beans over more popular varieties, they have to have not been warned, they have to have a slow cooker, it has to be one that doesn't end up boiling, and they have to decide to use it. Estimate what you like for the odds, but it's going to come out a lot lower than the 1/50 you guessed in your question. As for how likely it is, the Bad Bug Book doesn't actually have specifics: Reports of this syndrome in the United States are anecdotal and have not been formally published. Several outbreaks have been associated with beans cooked in slow cookers (i.e., countertop appliances that cook foods at low temperatures for several hours) or in casseroles that had not reached an internal temperature high enough to destroy the glycoprotein lectin. So it does happen, just not terribly frequently, and it may be underreported since the symptoms are pretty generic. Slow cookers (and recipe books for them) sold here in the UK tend to warn about boiling dried beans for several minutes in addition to the slow cooking. This isn't much trouble (just a few minutes extra prep) if you're browning meat and bringing everything up to boiling point at the start. Our you can just use tinned beans - I do. As you say, slow cookers can be a bit fierce. As Jefromi said, canned beans -- whether in the US or UK or probably just about anywhere -- are NOT going to contain this toxin, which will be destroyed with about 10 minutes of temperatures at a full boil (or up to 30 minutes near boiling, like the kind of "simmering" people tend to do with beans on the stovetop). The standard commercial canning process for almost all foods will require temperatures in that range for enough time to destroy the toxin. In addition to the anecdotal stuff, you may want to check out this report, which is one of the few published papers on incidents like this. It mentions 50 reported incidents in the UK between 1976 and 1989, 32 of which it concludes are likely to have been actually caused by the beans. (A number of these also have confirmed laboratory tests for the beans, in addition to reports of symptoms that seem to point toward the beans as the source.) This linked report recommends (as Jefromi says) at least 10 minutes of boiling, though it also recommends at least 5 hours of soaking for this specific type of beans. As to why the US doesn't have more than anecdotal reports, again I agree with Jefromi that the symptoms are pretty generic (vomiting and diarrhea for several hours after consumption), generally followed by rapid recovery. It's not like a significant life-threatening illness. And unless people end up in the hospital, they're pretty unlikely to go and report incidents of random food poisoning to the CDC. That's part of the issue in trying to estimate incidents of Salmonella poisoning or whatever too: epidemiologists tend to estimate that only about 1 in 50 cases of Salmonella poisoning is reported. And Salmonella is a common food safety issue that could come from lots of different foods. With the present issue, there's only one food and specifically one variety, and it only concerns a less common product version (dry rather than canned), and it only happens in a small minority of recipe situations (mostly older or cheaper slow cookers). One last observation: cheap, small slow cookers are much less likely to be used in commercial situations than they are at home. This is likely another reason for sporadic reports -- the kind of food poisoning that tends to make the news tends to come from improper commercial preparation, which then will lead to an outbreak with dozens (or more) cases, which then tend to be investigated more thoroughly. That kind of mass event is quite unlikely to happen with this toxin. I'd also speculate that the only reason they even got that many reports in the UK in the first place is due to publicity after an outbreak was reported in 1976, followed by a BBC report warning about these beans in 1981 (which asked for people to file reports of suspected incidents). You'll note that 2/3 of the reported incidents for that linked study come from the period 1976-1982. Bottom line is that it's very likely this does happen to people, but if it's not serious enough to put them in the hospital and only happens to a couple people at home, they don't tend to file reports.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.280932	2016-12-07T02:47:52	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/76195", "authors": [ "Chris H", "John Feltz", "Max", "Robert", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/20118", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/20413", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/20624", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/51358" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
70679	What exact temperature allows me to store frozen products really long? For as long as I remember, I was always told (and I was always so sure), that minus 18 degrees Celsius is an optimal temperature for storing frozen products for really, really long. Months usually and in case of certain types of meat and fish, even up to one year. Some other sources, that I recall, but can't cite right now, said that in minus 18 degrees Celsius most (if not all) products can be kept until at least "best before" date. Some time ago I went to a one of Polish shops around me and I was shocked to find this infobox: It basically says, that in minus 18 degrees Celsius I can store all products up to one month (so not "many months" and not "really long"), with exception of ice cream (which even at this temperature can't be stored for longer than a week+). And minus 24 degrees Celsius* I can store most frozen products "many weeks". Which leads me to a conclusion that under no home-applicable* circumstances I'm not allowed to store frozen food for "many months" or "really long". What am I missing? Is above presented table correct? * not mentioning, that none of fridges / freezers, that I use is able to run at minus 24 degrees Celsius temperature and to be honest -- I have never heard about any home-targeted device, that is able to achieve this temperature. Are you concerned with food safety or food quality? Also, related question: http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/41104/what-temperature-to-freeze-meat-at-to-preserve-quality/41106#41106 Also, this should pretty much answer your question... if you're interested in food quality, however, that's an entirely different story. -24°C will usually be chest freezers, not uprights. -18°C seems to be generally considered to be cold enough that even new-old-stock mammoth would still be safe, albeit a little dry. The only caveat is auto-defrosting systems in some freezers, they raise the temperature periodically (check the documentation for your model of freezer). There is not one magical temperature that is optimal for all frozen foods. Even after manufacturing and before the product ends up in your shopping cart, the products have all been stored at a minimum of 3 different temperatures of cold warehouse storage. Not today, you probably will not find a freezer that will achieve -25 C. Most all freezers now are self defrosting which means they go thru a thaw cycle several times a month that raises the temperature above freezing for a short period of time to defrost the refrigeration coils. This process warms the air inside the freezer and increases temperatures of the outside of frozen product enough to cause deterioration or freezer burn after the product refreezes. You are right in saying there are not any modern home freezers that can do this. Probably because most all of them are self defrosting except some chest type. I have a RCA Whirlpool chest type freezer that is over 40 years old and has been freezing at -20 below zero Fahrenheit which is about - 30 Celsius since it was new and is still working great. They do not make things like they used to. Bottom line is if you want to keep food for long periods of time, the colder the temp and not using a self defrost unit is the best way. Putting it in vacuum seal bags also keeps it better and fresher even longer.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.281556	2016-06-13T21:18:23	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/70679", "authors": [ "Catija", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/33128" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
77441	What do you call it and where to buy some What do you call these in English, before the frying process, and where can they be purchased? They look like hula hoops to me... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hula_Hoops @Doug the bottom of the chips are folded in, I think. The picture is small so it's hard to tell. Check out the link in my answer for Round Chips, someone is selling this exact item with the same picture. Look like wood shavings from a hand planer. I don't think there is an English word for these. It seems as though we just call them by their Indian name, of which there are several. Pappadam and Appalam seem to be the most common names, although in different regions of India the name can vary slightly. In the picture you posted these are referred to as Round Chips, at least according to one merchant. A recipe can be found at Awesome Cuisine: Ingredients: Black Urad Dal (black lentil flour) – 1 cup Salt as per taste Cumin Seeds – 1/2 tblsp Cooking Soda (baking soda) – a pinch Oil – 1/2 cup Asafoetida Powder – a pinch Method: Clean and spread out the urad dal under the sun for a few hours. Then grind to a smooth powder. Add asafoetida powder, cooking soda and salt. Add enough water and knead well to a thick dough. Add oil and cumin seeds. Knead again to a chapati dough consistency. When the dough starts to turn pale yellow, pinch small balls of the dough and roll them out into thin circles. Keep them under the sun (or under the fan) for 30 to 45 minutes or until the moisture has evaporated. Store them in a clean, dry container. Fry them in hot oil and serve with rice or as desired.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.281816	2017-01-14T06:14:09	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/77441", "authors": [ "Caleb", "Doug", "Sobachatina", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/2001", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/26816", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/52528" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
79339	Why does this entire carton of eggs have 2 yolks each? I got chills this morning making breakfast as I cracked open 6 eggs in a row, all having 2 yolks each. I've read this is caused by an anomaly that is considered normal in an egg here and there. I guess the question is, is a whole crate of double-yolk eggs a "bad" thing or a "good" thing? I'm inclined to go with "good" because it seems there's a heck of a lot more protein and nutrients in a double-yoked egg. And yes, that omelette did end up tasting like a 12-egg omelette with half the whites discarded. Yet, having no good evidence whatsoever I'm suspicious these hens were dosed with some fertility drug. Thoughts? Note: Yes all 12 eggs ended up having 2 yolks each. Well normally I'd say "good luck". But the odds of all the eggs having two yolks? I'd say someone at the farm is playing a prank on you. That has happened to me too. I liked it! The eggs were my normal brand but of a larger size than I normally buy. Just for fun: One of the most common superstitions is that double yolks mean a baby on the way. All 12 of my dozen eggs from the mega-mart had double yolks. Jackpot! I would love a carton of those! Huh. What brand was this? I'd be curious to see what their customer support has to say. (I'd find double-yolked eggs kind of off-putting, personally.) I read an article about a Latin American chef who went to Japan and became a sushi master ... and there was mention that his mentor knew a farm that would sell him only double-yolked eggs, and that was considered good luck. (I can't remember names, what country he was from (or even central vs. south american), but I do remember that his trademark became ramen w/ jalapeño) @JoshuaEngel I believe my eggs were Safeway/Lucerne Jumbo. @charneykaye, what about you? That looks like a smaller boutique brand, but I can't read it.Nature-something... @JoshuaEngel Nature's Yoke. If you enlarge the pic, note the first line of type on the left. Twins! ` Not really an answer, but if you consider that there are a few million dozens of eggs sold each day worldwide, even at a million to 1 odds, it's likely someone, somewhere got a carton of all doubles today. Today it was you. ...Did you pay double? Joking but also kind of serous. They seemed to have packaged those together deliberately (as the answers below mention) so I'm just curious. I grew up on a chicken farm so I know. At peak laying phase some chickens in every flock will lay double-yolkers. The experienced egg-picker will notice them at once, because they are bigger and have a different heft. We used to put them in a different tray and sell them separately to people who were prepared to pay more for these special eggs. If your egg producer sells extra-large eggs, there will be more double-yolkers in there. In the Netherlands they package these as 'double-yolk' eggs (dubbeldooier) and charge more for them. At least they did 10 years ago when I lived there. @pickarooney seems like AH.nl still sells them! Two egg yolks are common with younger hens. They are usually identified in the farm and sold separately. Double yolking tends to happen more often in spring and with young or very old birds. As commercial egg producers do not tend to let their birds get old, unless you are getting farm eggs, they are likely young birds. Automatic candles may be set up to separate these as suspect so they had to be re-run to verify they were not bad, which will result in them being grouped. When I raised birds, it seemed like brown egg varieties have this occur more often than white eggs, but that is just my experience. Some people actually try to breed for this and it is more common in some birds. It also makes young birds a bit more profitable as the eggs are large than they would normally be for new layers. There are considerable downsides as well for the birds though. The eggs are not viable, almost always if incubated the egg will fail as if both are fertile, the egg cannot support twins, and one failing in the shell will lead to the demise of the other. Also, the eggs are larger, so a young bird is laying eggs larger than it is physically ready to lay, and for an old bird the eggs can become monstrous. This causes a much higher mortality rate in birds. I have very seldom had double yolks in commercial eggs, but there seems to be something in the water this year. Just last week I had a dozen also that 10 of the 12 were double. Just my luck, I was trying to make angel food cake and did not want them. lol Are you saying birds are dying from laying too big eggs? That sounds like a terrible death! This is a clear best-answer. Still, I do find myself wondering about a combination of candling and practical joking! You'd think if they grouped them then they would mark the box or something. I mean, "All double yolks!" sounds like a marketing idea waiting to be done. @njzk2 Yes, we have selectively bred birds for higher production in numbers and size of eggs, and that does make them more susceptible to some things. Larger eggs from smaller birds are more productive, but harder on the bird, so results in higher mortality. Not making moral judgement, just a fact of selective breeding. Intentional breeding for high rates of double eggs is actually difficult and discouraged, but is still sometimes done. High mortality rates tends to make it uneconomical. It is easiest on birds in spring though, which is also when it most often occurs. PS. I raised a lot of waterfowl, and if you ever want to see something scary, a double yolk goose egg. The geese i had, their eggs were about 8 oz. each to begin with. The occasional double yolker would be more like 12 oz, or about the weight of 6 large chicken eggs. Eggs are 'candled', visually inspected against a light source to check viability. It seems to be standard practice for double yolked eggs to be grouped together, though I can't find a source as to why that might be. I have heard of it several times anecdotally though. In a hotel I once worked in, we would get through thousands of eggs a week. Obviously at that scale these eggs were the cheap commercial ones. Every week or so we'd get a full 30 egg tray of double yolkers. I think this backs up your answer. If your eggs are from a commercial egg company like those common in the US, there are a couple of related factors that could have contributed to your all-double-yolks carton of eggs.1 First, commercial egg farms tend to raise hens in staggered flocks, with special growing conditions applied to have all the hens in a single flock reach peak productivity and "retirement" age at approximately the same time. This has some advantages of efficiency, but it also means that hens in a given flock will tend to be in double-yolk phases of their lifecycles at the same time.2 If the eggs of a single flock are processed together, it increases the odds that individual cartons of eggs will have multiple multi-yolk eggs during these phases. This is not necessarily a drawback from the point of view of the egg packager. One side effect of double yolks is that the eggs are larger than normal.3 Luckily, there is a market for larger-than-normal eggs. This brings us to the second possible factor: you will tend to find more double-yolk eggs in cartons of extra-large and jumbo-size eggs. Anecdotally, I've found double-yolk eggs in almost every carton of jumbo eggs I've ever bought, and have had cartons with as many as eight-out-of-twelve eggs doubled. Your twelve-out-of-twelve is still impressive, though—and if they were regular-sized eggs, doubly so. 1 Some brands also actually specifically package and market cartons of double yolkers, but I assume you would have noticed that! 2 As mentioned in other answers and comments, hens who are not in the prime of their reproductive lifespan are more prone to ovulation "misfires" such as double-yolk eggs. 3 However, the individual yolks are usually smaller than the yolk from a regular egg. (Similarly, a human woman's abdomen gets bigger with a twin pregnancy than with a singleton pregnancy, even though twins tend to be a bit smaller at birth than the average singleton.) Jumbo egg cartons will often mention the possibility of double yolks in the small print. If you need egg whites and it's spring, don't buy jumbo eggs. (It's very hard to separate double-yolk eggs; the yolks love to break.) I love double yolker and I find it is indeed more common at certain times of year. I have one brand that I use and it consistently has double yolks almost year round. Sometimes though I will go a couple months without a single, double, yolker, bummer. I generally end up with an entire carton of doubles when I find one in the batch. I know that there used to be a brand at one store that offered cartons of only double yolks. For some reason, they no longer carry them.	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79222	Can I use this reversable griddle on a glass top? A local bargain store has a few of these for sale, and I'd like to pick one up because 1.) It's thick so it's unlikely to warp (A problem I'm having with my current griddle) 2.) It's flat without a handle so it will store pretty easy. Unfortunately, I'm not sure if I can use it on my stove because it only makes direct contact with the stove around the perimeter. Is it possible to use a skillet like this on a glasstop? I think it would work better than you would guess. Would still get all the radiant heat transfer. Be careful with it not to scratch the glass. Because of the perimeter it would not sit on the surface of the cook top but hover above it with smooth side down only ribs would touch with the grill side down. It would be in efficient heat transfer but may work for low temp applications. Maybe for pancakes but not steaks. ? try it. let us know. you can always use it as a heat-sink in the oven.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.282712	2017-03-17T15:03:06	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/79222", "authors": [ "Alaska Man", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/45428", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/45636", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/54906", "paparazzo", "senschen" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
108976	How can I substitute dutch chocolate cocoa for flour and maintain proper recipe PH in this cookie recipe? I have an old family recipe for Chocolate chip cookies 2 ¼ cups flour 1 cup white sugar ½ cup brown sugar 1 tsp salt 1 tsp baking soda 2 eggs 1 cup shortening 1 tsp vanilla Chocolate Chips as desired. Add dry ingredients then wet ingredients to a large bowl, mix until well incorporated, seperate into golf ball sized dough balls, bake at 375°F for 8m15s I want to make it into a chocolate chocolate chip cookie. I've followed advice from several online sources and just replaced about 1/4 of the flour with cocoa (so it's 1.5 cups flour , .75 cups cocoa). I've tried with both regular cocoa and dutch process and I really like the darker look of cookies that come out with the dutch process, however their texture isn't right. I have used this recipe and the flavors seem good, but I also want to get the texture right; the original recipe is very chewy, soft and moist, but the chocolate modification wound up much drier than I wanted. After some research I found that the basic issue is that I've screwed up the PH of the recipe. I believe the fix involves substituting some or all baking soda for baking powder, but can't find a clear rule for how much. My guess would be since I'm effectively removing 1/4 of the acidic ingredients (flour, ph 6-6.8) and swapping them for ph neutral ingredients (dutch process cocoa), I should replace 1/4 of the baking soda with baking powder as well, but can't really find any information on how to go about replacing baking soda with baking powder or what ratio. Edit: Upon more research I've also found that instead of modifying the baking soda I could just add some volume of cream of tartar, but I'm still not sure how to calculate this cost. I tried the recipe again before any answers, this is largely for my own logs (and anyone who wants to try a really good cookie recipe) -- When making the above flour/cocoa substitution, adding 1/2 as much cream of tartar really helps keep it soft and moist, but it still has a crispy shell. I'll try adding water/milk (butter?) to the next batch per GdD's suggestion to see what happens. I believe tar tar helps by 1.) Fixing the PH imbalance, or 2.) keeps the sugar from crystallizing (giving the impression of a dry cookie) I doubt this is an acidity issue. Most flour is pretty neutral, the reason your cookies seem dry is that they are dryer. Cocoa powder is about 7% moisture, source doc here, whereas flour is about 14% moisture, see this site for details. Add to that cocoa powder is very fine, and likely more absorbent than the flour, and the fact that the dutching process makes the powder more absorbent. So the cocoa you add is dryer, and absorbs more moisture from the rest of the ingredients and you will need to add some in to replace it. Looking at the math .75 cups of flour is about 85 grams, 14% of 85g is 11.9, rounded up is 12g. Cocoa has about half the moisture, so you have lost about 6g of moisture in your recipe, which is just over a teaspoon, under ideal conditions. However, often when flour is stored it absorbs more moisture from the air as it is not kept airtight, so you could be losing more. A dry cookie dough will sometimes have trouble coming together, and be crumbly, which is something I would look for in your case. I would try adding a teaspoon of milk or water to your recipe and see if that creates the right consistency, and then add another if it still wants more.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.282823	2020-06-10T16:18:23	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/108976", "authors": [ "Sidney", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/25539" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
55548	What does "until fork tender and the juices run clear" mean and how do I tell? Many texts I see say that chicken is done when it is "fork tender and the juices run clear". What does that actually mean and how do I tell? I found Is "until juices run clear" a valid test for poultry doneness? Why or why not?, but this discusses the validity of "juices running clear" as related to doneness, it doesn't really deal with how to figure out if the juices are running clear. I am very inexperienced in the kitchen, and maybe this is a silly question, but I don't really understand this, because: When I poke the chicken with a fork, it's not like enough juice comes flying out to tell what it looks like. Poking from the top doesn't lead to juices coming out due to the laws of physics, primarily the ones dealing with gravity. Poking from the side doesn't help much either. I suppose I could pierce the side and then try to squeeze some juices out, but in some cases this damages the appearance and in any case: The juices are never clear when I'm actually cooking chicken, because I don't generally cook bare pieces of meat. All juice I see is inevitably clouded by whatever else the chicken is cooking in; oils, batter, etc., often browned due to cooking. How do I check the juices of a chicken in the oven? Also, I also don't really understand what "fork tender" means. Pretty much any meat can be pierced with a fork at any stage in its cooking cycle. Even trying to focus on a more subtle "feel", the feel of the fork is about the same to me throughout the majority of the cooking except in the very beginning. I end up just using a thermometer to check internal temperature, or pick temperatures and times that I know worked in the past for similar cuts of meat. Still, it would be nice to have another metric that I can use. Using a thermometer is acutally the better and more precise approach... Nah, the best approach is ... cut it in half and see if its cooked. Eventually after enough experience you'll know its cooked and how well done, by poking it. Squidgy = Rare, Firm = Well. Amen to this question. "Cook until the juices run clear" is one of the most frustrating cooking instructions. It is a "metric" which requires experience to recognize. First, juices "running" clear doesn't mean that they will flow freely. You have to cut into the meat and look at the juice inside it. Is it clear or not? Second, there is a difference between the feel of meat at different stages of doneness, when you poke it with a fork. If you cannot notice it, this means you haven't trained yourself sufficiently. Noticing the difference is a skill which has to be learned. As you can see from the other question and the comments, the thermometer is the recommended way to do it. The old thermometerless way is both inaccurate and has a learning curve, making it hard for people to learn cooking. In fact, it is not really a metric. Experienced cooks recognize meat which is done by look and feel, including a look on the inside (cooking) and feeling with a fork instead of burning their fingers. What the recipe really says is "stop cooking when it's done". But because this sounds like a tautology to inexperienced cooks, the experienced ones try to describe in words what they should be looking for. And so this rough description is created, and the inexperienced ones use it as a guideline while learning to recognize doneness by trial and error. Of course, it is always good to pay attention to your meat when you are cooking it. Do look at the state of the juices and the feel when poked with a fork, and you'll learn to recognize it with time. But before you have become comfortable with your knowledge that the meat is done, rely on the thermometer instead of the feeling. Also, if you want to comply with food safety rules, you have to use the thermometer every time, as meat cooked by feel is not guaranteed to have reached the recommended temperature and will be sometimes unsafe. I recall a quick method for determining doneness from Gordon Ramsay: Forehead, Nose, Chin. Rare is soft and fleshy like your nose. Medium is fleshy with some resistance like your chin. And well done is firmer to the touch with more resistance, like your forehead. It provides a good baseline in addition to timing and visual observation to determine doneness in a pinch or if you don't have a thermometer at hand. I have been in the kitchen for 30 years and still use a meat thermometer! I can tell when it's done through experience but I want to make sure as sometimes some thicker pieces take longer etc. I would rather be safe when it comes to meat and serving my family.	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76451	Avoiding carbon on cast-iron when cooking hotter than usual I don't fully understand the chemistry of "seasoning" cast-iron but I have the basic understanding that fats polymerize when they're past their smoke point, that this is the coating, and that various oils and fats polymerize at different temperatures. One part of the chemistry I do not understand is when things burn into carbon vs. polymerizing and forming a good coating, and this is the nature of this question. I've had cast-iron pans for about 5 years now and there's a problem I consistently have: If I cook for a long time (say a few weeks) at relatively low temperatures (say, frying eggs, veggies, bacon), then one day I cook something at an extremely high temperature (say, searing a steak), I end up with a lot of carbon deposits when I go to that high temperature, and it noticeably affects the taste of the food. I'm not seeing huge flakes of burnt stuff, I can just taste it on the food, and if I wipe the pan the rag ends up black. Now, if I cook for a few days at extremely high temperatures eventually this stops happening. If I go back to lower temperatures for a long time, though, it kind of "resets" the pan, so when I switch to a high temperature once again I end up with black powder and an ashy, burnt taste for a while. It's the transition from low to high temperature cooking that does this. I want to find ways to avoid this. I'm pretty sure I understand why this happens, and it makes sense: At "normal" cooking temperatures there's a bit of natural selection. The fats that polymerize do, the ones that burn get worn off, the ones that do nothing get washed off when I clean. So one day if I go to a higher temperature, some of those polymers that were happy to be hanging out suddenly find themselves above some critical temperature where they burn off and leave carbon. I'd like to solve this problem through better care of my pans. My goal is to have a cast iron pan where I can cook at "normal" temperatures to my heart's content, but not have a period of burntness when switching to higher temperatures. Any advice? For what it's worth, fatty things I often cook with at "normal" temperatures include butter, light olive oil, canola oil, sesame oil, various pork and cheese fats, etc. I do already have some ideas. Here is my normal cleaning routine: Cook. Scrape off debris with metal spatula, rinse out with soap (usually) and water, scrub only if it's really gooey. Put back on high heat, let water dry. Spray with canola oil, wipe. Let it just start to smoke, heat off, wipe, then put it away. I do that like clockwork. Every time the wipe is carbon-less, just clean canola oil, so I felt good about it. Now I just found and read this great article about cast-iron seasoning and flaxseed oil. It seems to me like my use of canola oil might be one of the problems. It also made me question a few things, in particular: I use spray canola oil. I think this is a mistake now. Canola oil doesn't have nearly as much omega-3 as flaxseed. Canola oil smoke point is high, 400F, and so during my cleaning process when I get it to just start to smoke, I kinda doubt its at 400F at that point, based on the behavior of water on the surface (although I've never tested), which says to me that it's not the canola oil smoking, it's either additives (possibly from the spray formula) or something else. I might be wrong on this though. But I don't know enough to be able to develop a better technique. Is my understanding mostly correct? Is any of this my problem? What can I adjust? Another idea I thought of is to perhaps just use two cast-iron pans. One for "normal" cooking and one for "high heat" cooking. That seems like a waste, though. Yet another thought is maybe I should do a full "re-seasoning" in the oven with flaxseed oil every once in a while to burn off some of the lower-temperature stuff, perhaps this happens because I'm letting things build up over time (my pan does not have visible "caked" layers on it, though). I hope this question is clear, sorry if it was a bit long-winded, I'm sort of researching and typing at the same time. It's definitely long winded! If I get a few extra days of free time I'll give this a read and see if I can help out :) One comment for you after skimming: Be careful spraying canola oil on the scorching hot cast iron pan. This is how I started my first and only grease fire. Which reminds me: always know have and know where your open box of baking soda near the stove is! @Caleb "Oh look at me, I'm sooo awesome, I've only had one grease fire." :D @JasonC : and it probably didn't even get into the inner workings of the stove (splashed oil from deep frying), that burned up the inside of the stove (and some major scorch marks on the wall) and risked burning the whole house down. Interesting question here. I'll preface my answer by saying that I am also not a chemist. Short Answer: During the post-cooking clean-heat-spray-heat-wipe cycle, you need to get the pan much hotter. Longer answer: Canola Oil has a smoke point of around 400F. As you mentioned in the question, the oil needs to be just hotter than it's smoke point so it begins to polymerize. When cooking at lower temperatures, the canola oil likely never reaches it's smoke point, and therefore does not polymerize during the cooking process. When you wash your cast iron after cooking, you are then cleaning most or all of that canola oil off of the pan as it has not been polymerized. When you spray canola on during the cleaning cycle, and don't let it get above 400F, this oil is also not polymerizing and the seasoning on the pan is not being improved. Have you found the oil left on the pan is often somewhat sticky? This is a common sign of the oil not actually polymerizing. So, you can absolutely use the pan to cook with canola oil at less than 400F and you can still avoid the carbon issue. The solution is just to make sure you let the oil go past its smoke point when you heat the pan after cooking. That way you are essentially "always cooking with high temperatures" and you avoid the transition from cooking at low temperatures to high temperatures, and therefore you will avoid the bits of carbon on your food. This makes perfect sense. And yes, after cleaning, the pan is mildly sticky. Not a lot, just a little bit, but there is definitely still wet oil left on it. I never really thought about it. It's 3AM here right now but tomorrow I'm going to do a few experiments. I'll post back. Thanks! All right. So first, I figured I'd burn off any remaining fats. I just baked the pan at 550 for about an hour or so, let it cool, and gave it a good scrubbing and wiping until the wipes were clean. Just to get myself to a good state. Since then, when cleaning, when I normally would have just let it start to smoke, I keep the heat on for about a minute longer, but otherwise do the same routine. And that's it. That's all there is to it. I used it at medium heats extensively for a few days then did some high heat stuff, no problem. We'll see how it holds up but I think you nailed it. Thanks! So glad to hear that! Enjoy the nicely seasoned pan. I wasn't having the carbon problem you were but I think this is the same reason it's been difficult for me to build a nice seasoning. Looking forward to improving my pan too!	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.283532	2016-12-14T05:07:32	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/76451", "authors": [ "Caleb", "Jason C", "Joe", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/28937", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/52528", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/67" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
65338	Is it possible for a potato to catch fire after 10 minutes in the microwave? Yesterday on reddit a user posted this picture of a potato: He said that he followed an online recipe. He put it in the microwave for 5 minutes, turned the potato, and put it back in for 5 more minutes. When he came back to check on it, the potato was on fire. But the picture looks so surreal, it is even possible for a potato to start to glow red? Especially after only 10 minutes in the microwave? That would mean that this video recipe is actually quite unsafe. Or could it be a microwave malfunction? Microwaved potatoes sound like a good idea, but now I don't think I would dare try. Additional pictures: Second potato angle The glowing insides of the potato The potato still in the microwave, just after he put out the fire Burnt microwave plate The brand of potato used I wonder what Skeptics would think of this question. Yes, yes it is. It's happened to me. http://cooking.stackexchange.com/a/5358/67 Is it possible there were traces of foil on your potato??? I can tell you that when it happened to me, there was absolutely no foil. @Catija, Skeptics would think it was not a question for them. Try it. It's on reddit... treat it with as such... How many watt Microwave? I've an 800 watt job, and it'll cook a medium potato in 5 minutes. After you boil all the water out in a microwave, things will catch fire. I've overheated damp books, only to see them burn, even smelted aluminum: https://www.instructables.com/id/microwave-smelter/ Never, EVER take anything from reddit as even remotely truth. The same is true for most platforms where anyone can post anything. We don't know the true circumstances but, more importantly, when you overdo anything then anything is possible. I felt this needed a physics answer. tl;dr: It's unlikely but not impossible - we have to make some unrealistic assumptions to make it work for a sensible size of potato Consider a homogeneous spherical potato in a vacuum: According to Wikipedia potatoes are 79% water, 17% carbohydrate (mostly starch), 2% protein and 2% fibre. Figures I've seen elsewhere vary by a few percent, so we can simplify to 80% water and 20% starch (the thermal properties of protein-and fibre-rich foods are close to those of pure starch so we can treat them as the same). Water has a specific heat capacity of 4.3 kJ/kg/°C, and starch 1.75 kJ/kg/°C. That means that our model potato has a specific heat capacity of 3.7 kJ/kg/°C (a real measured value is a little lower at 3.43 kJ/kg/°C, but as we will see, water dominates the results). First we consider the heat energy required to get the potato up to the boiling point of water (100°C), assuming a starting temperature of 20°C (room temperature), and a potato weighing 0.2 kg (just under half a pound, so a small jacket potato). 0.2×80×3.7 = 59.2 kJ. 1 kJ is 1 kW for 1 s, so a 1 kW microwave, 100% efficient, would heat this potato to boiling point in about 1 minute. This is considerably quicker than realistic for several reasons, and this is something we're familiar with: The microwaves don't penetrate to the centre so much of the potato is heated only by conduction. While this is going on the hot surface is losing heat to its surroundings by convection, conduction, and radiation. Microwave ovens aren't 100% efficient at delivering their stated power into food, though it's surprisingly hard to get figures on losses. Once the temperature of the potato is 100°C, it won't keep on rising; instead the heat will go into evaporating the water in it. The latent heat of vapourisation of water is 2300 kJ/kg or 460 kJ for our potato. This is near enough another 8 minutes (total 9 so far) at 1 kW, before we can start to get above 100°C by boiling off all the water (I assume the potato is isothermal, which of course isn't true, but thew timescales are long enough for significant heat flow). Once we've boiled off all the water we can start heating the remaining dried potato (starch). We only have 20% of the mass left (i.e. 0.04 kg of starch, the specific heat capacity of which is 1.75 kJ/kg/°C). Red heat is at least around 700°C (for steel, but the potato would char to carbon at lower temperatures and carbon should be close enough to steel). The extra 600°C rise would take another 600×0.04×1.75 = 42 kJ of energy, or 42 seconds. So it's just about possible to get a 200 g potato red hot in a microwave in 10 minutes, but only if we: neglect all heat losses (except those due to driving off water), which would be significant. I won't go into detail but the potato would have a surface area of 154 cm2 and would radiate only 12 W net at 100°C but 168 W at 400°C (just below the autoignition temperature, and a significant fraction of the input power). The plate/turntable takes away some heat by conduction, and we can;t really neglect convection (but it's hard, hence the assumption of a vacuum). assume 100% microwave efficiency. On the other hand we assume no energy is released by combustion, and if we can get the dry starch to its autoignition temperature of 410°C (Wikipedia) it will burn, releasing quite a lot of heat (the heat of combustion of starch is 17.5 mJ/kg, but much of this is lost to the potato). Another point that makes burning more likely is that we don't actually need to get to zero water in the whole potato before some of it can start burning. This would mean that more of the heat of burning some potato is useful in heating the rest, and would be of particular interest if the turntable of the microwave was jammed or there was a hotspot that received considerably more power than the rest. A similar effect would be caused by conductive (e.g. metal) particles on the potato, as they'd cause a small region to get very hot. These don't really fit with the even burning shown in the photo. Those who are interested in the physics may wish to look at The Thermal Properties of Potato, T. Yamada 1970. It's in Japanese with an English abstract but the figures give clear results for the specific heat capacity and thermal conductivity. A 1-dimensional thermal model would be an interesting undergrad physics problem. not strictly required but for once a sensible simplification - and we physicists so rarely get the chance to follow this stereotype. I am very split on whether to upvote the answer. I am pretty sure that food can catch fire before it has 0% water left - firewood is considered "dry" if it has less than 18% water, but it can burn (with some effort and smoke) at more than that. So the idea of a spherical homogenous potato in vacuum getting to be a lump of starch is entertaining (and probably doesn't even need too much heat, since you can dehydrate food in vacuum at low temperatures just fine), but not all that well related to the actual burnability of potatoes. At the same time, I just enjoyed reading! @rumtscho the firewood comparison is a good one, but driving off ~80% of the water doesn't change the conclusion given the error margins. I ignore how the water binds, because that's chemistry not physics, but that may have an effect. Given that I've listed most of my other assumptions that one should be in there too; there may be more that I've missed. ... on second thoughts I suspect you get the firewood locally dry, and the combustion provides the heat to dry neighbouring regions. That means burning can contribute more to the heating than I assumed as it can start before the whole thing is up to temperature. The rather well-distributed red heat in the photo suggests we're not simply creating a very hot spot. I wonder about the effect of a stuck turntable. OK, including a link to a source titled "The thermal properties of potato" did it for me, here is your +1 :) @rumtscho that certainly beats the titles of the papers I'm supposed to be reading! Also, consider our old favorite https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/7740/. I tend to agree with Aaronut's scepticism (the 43-upvote comment), but if true, maybe there is something in the potato that easily catches fire under some conditions, no matter how much water is left. @rumstcho something localised (conductive dirt perhaps?) - could certainly have an effect (another point to add to my penultimate para). I'd forgotten that Q but the accepted answer is nonsense , directly equivalent to saying salt would ignite because it's made from sodium (and plenty of foods have more sodium per unit mass than a banana has potassium). You don't understand -- BURNED FROM THE INSIDE. It wasn't just dirt. I don't know if it's the little black spots you sometimes see in potatoes, but whatever it was, I had a glowing husk of potato. Something to concentrate / localize the radiation, and all of your math formulas are meaningless "Should be fine" is like saying 'well, there's really low odds of something going wrong'. I have no idea what the odds are, but yes, it's possible. I had microwaved potatoes many times, and then had a rather strange incident that I described in another question about microwaving potatoes, and included links to other incidents of people mentioned it happened to them. I've since had a few years to think about what happened, and there's a few possibilities besides what I originally mentioned: I don't know how old the potatoes were. They might've been older and a little bit dry. I was half asleep, and it's possible that I didn't poke them a few times. I don't know if that could've led to the skin separating from the meat of the potato and that drying out & catching fire. And I should mention that people didn't seem to believe me when I posted that other answer, as it got a couple of down votes. That's very interesting, you even mentioned in the answer you linked that one of the potatoes was glowing ! @Sarumanatee : mine was glowing too ... like it had burned away from the inside ... which makes me wonder if there might've been something inside the potato (like how you occasionally find a black spot in there) that absorbed a higher percentage of the microwaves and superheated 'til it caught fire. Cooked a potato, medium sized one in my Samsung microwave last night on the "Potato" smart setting .. thing caught fire , was on fire and burnt the inside roof of microwave, melted it .. Doesnt work at all now it's for the best. If it hadn't broken it, you'd have a microwave that smelled like insects trapped in a halogen lamp every time you opened it for the next 6 months 10 minutes on high should be just fine for a medium to large potato. I suppose it's possible it could burn if it's a very small potato, or if the potato is severely dehydrated. I would expect it to produce a lot of smelly smoke before it actually catches on fire, so you'll likely notice that it's gone wrong before you need a fire extinguisher. Some microwaves are well sealed -- I had a glowing husk similar to what was pictured, and barely smelled anything until I opened it ... and then it took me a month to get the stench out of my microwave ... it smelled like when I had one of those floor-standing halogen lamps, and a bug got into it. (so much worse than a bug zapper, as you more roast it than burn it to a crisp quickly). It was rather similar to burning hair. @Joe, that sounds like a terrible stink. What were you cooking? the potatoes that caught fire. Yes! It is absolutely plausible! I just microwaved a potato and it was glowing red inside it looked like a charcoal briquet!!!	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46263	Fiber Drink that are homogenous solutions I have come to know fiber as either insoluble fiber, which doesn't disolve completely in water, and therefore doesn't make a homogenous solution, or soluble fiber, which does dissolve but also gels up. I have known for a while a drink that considers itself to be a fiber drink; however, it's completely homogenous and liquid (not a gel). So my question is, can this actually be a fiber drink? from the definitions I mentioned above! I am curious because there is a recipe that asks for this specific type of drink, and I am wondering if I could use a different kind of fiber drink. I am wondering how this type of fiber drink is different than others. If you are wondering what the drink is, the name is called Miero Fiber (미에로화이바). It is a Korean drink. Here's an ad in English (sortof), including nutritional info (sortof). That is why I am trying to figure out if it actual does have fiber in it. I don't care about the weight-loss claim. This is Korea, and I don't know about their "FDA". Sorry they don't have V8 here. Hello Christopher, I'm afraid that nutrition, healthiness and the physiological effects of food on your body are completely off topic on our site. So I had to remove the parts of your question which referenced this. I know that it makes potential answers much less useful to you, but we do not handle questions of how food "works" for losing weight or similar, because this is terrible flamewar fodder, and answers to such questions are rarely reliable. @rumtscho I was not asking anything about how foods work for losing weight? What are you talking about? @ChristopherRucinski your original question talked about fiber "working" to reduce your appetite by gelling water. I assumed that you mean that the purpose is weight loss because this is the context in which I have heard this theory, but maybe this was too quick an assumption. Anyway, whatever happens to fibre after you ate it (swelling or anything else) is off topic, so I removed that part. You can see in the edit history what is missing from the question. No that is not what I was talking about at all. (2) should not have been removed at all. That is the definition of soluble fiber - not what I think. That is well known. I did not know at the time of writing that it was called that (soluble); however, I did know that was considered fiber. Both parts in the question and answer should be reinstated because they were moved based on a false assumption of weight loss I actually found a recipe that uses Miero fiber in particular, so I was also interested in how it works, because understanding how it works can lead to understanding of where else to use it. http://www.healthyoligo.co.kr/recipe/recipe_Edge_step2.jsp?chasu=21 @ChristopherRucinski sorry, but maybe you misunderstood the rules. It is not about what is known and what isn't. If it concerns what effect the food has on you, it has to be removed. I know that it sounds harsh, but this is how we handle nutrition questions here - only a very small subset of them is tolerated at all, and your point (2) is not part of that subset. If it is not a statement which would be true of the food whether a human ate it or not, it is off topic. I am not concerned how the food effects me. I am concerned at how it effects the food that is being made in the recipe. Is that not what this place is for? I asked if it was fiber, because the drink seemed to go against what I knew about fiber. Then my second question was how this will effect this recipe. Is there something special about this drinks fiber vs another drinks. Because to me this type of fiber I have not seen before. Think soluble fiber. The following excerpt from WebMD explains very well the difference between soluble and insoluble fiber and lists foods where each can be found. Soluble vs. Insoluble Fiber Soluble fiber dissolves in water. Insoluble fiber does not. [...] Soluble fibers attract water and form a gel. [...] Just to add: According to the PFD I linked to above, the fiber in Miero is polydextrose, which is synthesized from glucose and sorbitol. Here's another interesting little article about polydextrose, from Slate @Jolenealaska Very good info. And thanks for the edit. @Jolenealaska Where is the source that Miero Fiber uses polydextrose? I also looked at the Wikipedia page you listed, and it states that polydextrose is frequently used to increase the non-dietary fiber content of food. In all the English ads I have seen for Miero Fiber, it specifically states it uses dietary fiber. Contrary to what you said?? @ChristopherRucinski It's in their brochure, which I linked to in the comment to the OP. 2nd ingredient "Polydextrose (dietary fiber 70%)" I don't understand the "3.551%" immediately following. @ChristopherRucinski Read the Slate article. I they're saying it pretty well. @CindyAskew we do not handle health related questions here. I understand that you answered the question as it was stated in good faith, but it did not fit our guidelines, and so neither did your answer. The measurable nutrition content of food is considered a grey area, and we allow such questions, but moderate both the questions and answers heavily to remove any references of what is supposed to happen to your body after you eat them. You cited a medical source, so I had to remove most of the text. I know most of the info disappeared, but this is really the most I can leave. @rumtscho Thank you. I appreciate the guidance. I will learn to spot these things as I become more familiar with using the site. After some research into this, I think I have found an answer that is more satisfactory than the answer in comments that were made before. Going Over the Questions Can Miero Fiber actually be a fiber drink? Yes, it can be considered a fiber drink. It does contain dietary fiber called Polydextrose. This is a soluble fiber - which is why it is a homogenous solution - all the fiber has been dissolved in the water. Original View (1) a substance that is, at the very least, hard for the human digestive system to digest This type of fiber is Insoluble fiber. It does not dissolve in water, and it can be inert metabolically - meaning it passes through your body almost un-phased. These also tend to accelerate the movement of food in the digestive system. 3rd View It does not gel because it is a synthetic fiber called polydextrose; keyword - synthetic. It is actually a multi-purpose ingredient synthesized from glucose which is also called dextrose. It is an ingredient that mimics properties of fiber, is used to replace sugar, and reduces calorie and other fats. Since it mimics soluble fiber, it can be called fiber, but it does not gel up because it is synthetic - not natural. It's not entirely clear to me that this is actually a third type of fiber. Natural soluble fiber isn't really strong gelling agent; I think it'll gel up in sufficiently high concentrations, but if you just have a bit of soluble oat fiber in water, it'll be quite liquid. So while it's possible polydextrose has different properties, I don't really see any evidence of it here. It may just not be being used in the really high concentrations it'd take to thicken the liquid. The fact that it's synthetic doesn't necessarily mean different physical properties from natural soluble fiber. (And based on the breakdown in the PDF Jolenealaska linked to, this drink only has at most a gram of fiber per 100mL, really not that much, so I wouldn't expect it to produce a noticeable physical effect on the liquid.)	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43229	Does freezing sap freshness? Will acids bring the flavor back? I just dethawed a frozen lentil soup which was poorly seasoned before it went into the freezer. I added salt to the other half which I ate fresh and made a mental note of seasoning the frozen batch once thawed. Once I thawed it, I corrected the seasoning and observed there was this unpleasant metallic flavor to the soup. I can't put a point on it, but it tasted "off". I considered for a moment: what if extreme temperatures sap the freshness out of food by reducing the acidity of the fresh product? Lo, when I gave it a slight splash of sherry vinegar, all was right again. However, I love sherry vinegar and use it often in any salad or soup to sour it up to my taste. My question is: does freezing reduce acidity in products? Is acidity what we perceive to be the "fresh" flavor of things not previously frozen or boiled to oblivion? Freezing will not reduce acid. Chemical reactions tend to slow down when at freezer temperatures, not speed up. Fresh flavor is a complex amalgam of many factors: texture, aromatics, color, and so forth. While acid is perceived as lending a brightness, it is not the only factor in freshness. After all, your sherry vinegar is far from fresh, but quite acidic. While there may have been something off in your stored portion that was masked by adding additional vinegar, it is almost certainly not related to having frozen a portion of the soup. I think I see what you're saying. Perhaps it was a different state of mind, but I don't recall having tasted anything as "off" in the fresh batch of soup. Maybe my taste buds are more sensitive today.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.286038	2014-04-02T21:13:38	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/43229", "authors": [ "AdamO", "Ashish Jain", "Soozie", "Tiv", "azvampyre", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/101160", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/101161", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/101162", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/101163", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/11407" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
34103	Green rhubarb safe and tasty for use like red? My mom in her earnest harvested her rhubarb early and sent me stalks that are indiscernible from celery. It tastes very tart which I like but has very faint "rhubarby" flavors. A couple applications I have in mind are a standard cobbler and making bitters by infusing them in vodka. Is it safe to eat (i.e. does red stalk indicate that oxalic acids are no longer present in the stalks?) and how can I intensify the rhubarby flavors without overwhelming anything with the acids? I doubt very much she harvested it early. My rhubarb is coming up now - some stalks are thinner than a pencil, some are full on normal rhubarb thickness, and the length varies wildly, but every single one is bright red. I suspect she just has a greener variety than mine. There are many cultivars of rhubarb, just like there are for most other vegetables. Surprisingly, it seems some cultivars with the best flavor have less of the prized pink color. The color of any particular rhubarb stalk will depend on both the cultivar, and how it was grown. You should treat it the same way, regardless of the color. So yes, green rhubarb is safe to eat, with the same caveats as apply to any rhubarb. Especially, don't eat the leaves. In On Food and Cooking (2004 edition), Harold McGee indicates that rhubarb tends to be about 1.5-2.0% acid by weight (mostly oxalic acid), which makes it quite tart. This is an inherent aspect of the vegetable. The only way you really will reduce it is to use proportionately less of it in your recipe, by either reducing the absolute quantity of rhubarb, or increasing the quantity of other ingredients. In pies and coblers, this is usually done by combining the the rhubarb with another fruit like strawberries, as well as a great deal of sugar. Oxalic acid is soluble in water at about 14 grams / 100 mL, and even more soluble in ethanol at about 24 g / 100 mL, per Wikipedia. This means that anything you infuse into vodka is likely to be extremely tart, perhaps unpleasantly so. You will want to carefully control steeping times and or ratios. While I have never tried this, I would imagine the tartness would overwhelm whatever rhubarb flavor you might pick up. There might be a reason there are so few famous rhubarb cocktails. Still, there are a number of rhubarb cocktail recipes that you can find by googling "rhubarb cocktail". They tend to start with a cooked down puree of rhubarb, rather than an infusion, however, and it seems to often be used in the sour role. Very helpful, thank you! I will try a small subsample for the infusion, macerate the rhubarb with sugar and then cover with vodka. If sweet/sour balance well, then it'll be a great mixer. If it's a success, I'll edit the post. don't edit your question with the results; instead add an answer when the time comes. Indeed, the green stalks were delicious in cobbler and the infusion is coming along nicely. The flavors and textures were perfect and the color remained greenish. No kidney stones to speak of... yet.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.286250	2013-05-13T16:58:23	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/34103", "authors": [ "AdamO", "Kate Gregory", "Pamela Plowden", "Petrus Gerhardus Labuschagne", "Sal", "SomethingSomething", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/11407", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/304", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/79331", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/79332", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/79333", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/79335", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/79558", "ufoxDan" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
117568	Alternative to fish stock My wife has a strange variation of the common seafood allergy; rather than being allergic to shellfish, she can only eat shellfish but reacts badly to finfish (trout, salmon, cod, etc.). I love seafood and would love to make some variations of common fish dishes I love, such as seafood soup. I'm fine with squid, clams, and such, but the poaching stock comes out way too thin. Is there a quality stock alternative from shellfish? I've tried canned clam juice from the grocery store, but the taste isn't as strong as I would like, and it's a lot of money for very little juice. I've considered picking up the dried shrimp from the Asian market and making a paste, although that won't have much clarity. Any suggestions? Welcome to SA! Is your question specifically about how you add more "body" to shellfish stock? Clam juice is commonly available in US markets. Some more upscale ones will carry crustacean stock. As a thought -- does it have to be a clear soup? You could make a cioppino, which uses a garlic & tomato broth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cioppino @FuzzyChef I suppose the answer to your question is yes, because, for instance, my seafood pasta recipe starts with a sautee of some nice shellfish (shrimp, scallop, etc.) which naturally render some juice that form the basis of the finishing sauce for the pasta. But I need to add some liquid, water washes everything out, chicken stock is too chickeny, and reducing three to four jars of clam juice costs almost $20. - I don't think the clam juice produce I have is as strong as it should be, so I am looking for alternatives. @AdamO Thanks for clairifying. I was going to suggest dried scallop stock, which is one of my own shortcuts, but that doesn't solve your "body" problem. I don’t know if there are commercially available products, but you can always make your own. My mom would regularly make shrimp stock from the heads and shells of shrimp. You can use the shells of crabs, lobster, or other crustaceans. I recommend steaming them, remove the meat, then put thr shells into a pot to simmer. You’ll want to just barely cover the shells with water, so you’re not diluting the stock with too much water. If you want to further concentrate it, I would recommend straining it first, then reducing it. If you wanted to use dried shrimp, it would probably work just as well. Just don’t make it into a paste, so you can strain them out easily. Absolutely. Also; if you're using large shells (e.g. crab, lobster) then smashing them up first may help. Miso / clam puree. I would start by making stock with miso paste, carrots, shallot and kombu. Also a parsnip because I have some. Miso is fantastic and versatile stuff. Take the carrots etc out of the stock once you make it. Then I would get out the blender and blend some canned clams. Put them thru the blender then add it to the stock. Canned clams are nothing fancy but they have good flavor in soups and sauce. I have some frozen shrimp that might want to attend that blender party. You will get a good strong flavor because all the clam meat is in there still. The clams will give a good clammy kick. I would add the blended clams last after you poach your squid or fresh clams so the clam puree doesn't overcook when you use the miso stock to poach your big pieces. A squirt of lemon after cooking will make the thing. Ok I am going to make that. An interesting proposal -- but you might want to add the miso towards the end. From watching Japanese cooking shows (mostly "Dining with the Chef"), I've never seen them add the miso while it was still on the heat -- it's stirred in at the last minute. @Joe that's because miso is a cultured food. By heating it too much you kill the active bacteria and eliminate some of the health benefits.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.286699	2021-10-20T16:32:34	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/117568", "authors": [ "AdamO", "FuzzyChef", "Joe", "Lee Daniel Crocker", "Luciano", "Vince Bowdren", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/11407", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/14817", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/18599", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/53013", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/67", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/7180" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
51515	Ingredient selection for Canadian Poutine dish Poutine is a simple dish from Québec, Canada. It is traditionally made with French fries, topped with fresh mild white cheddar curds (quite unlike American white cheddar which is quite sharp) and with a tangy and salty brown gravy poured on top of it all. It looks something like this: It's easy to make when you like up in Québec, as the gravy can be purchased in any grocery store. But I live in the USA now, and there is no such thing as poutine gravy here. For the cheese I use Monterey Jack cheese, which is close enough. I've tried to whip up my own gravy multiple times, but it's never been quite right. Here is how I usually go about it: Start with chicken stock. Thicken with flour or starch. Add some pepper, salt (if needed, usually it's pretty salty already). Add something for tang, like a bit of barbecue sauce or ketchup. Maybe throw in a few spices, like garlic or onion powder. I was just wondering if anyone has ideas to make this more palatable, e.g., other ingredients, or any cooking suggestion. And all this time I thought you can just use any gravy. You can always order gravy from Canada online I had not, that's a good idea! The squeak is not "quite there" with refrigerated Monterey Jack, I must admit! Refrigerators tend to ruin cheese lol. Hello @Phrancis and welcome to Seasoned Advice! Poutine gravy is a beef gravy made with beef or veal stock. Here is a link to a recipe . There are many other recipes online, as well. You can buy the prepared sauce online here or a gravy mix on Amazon . By the way, you were on the right track, just not quite there yet! :) Ah, I did not think of using beef or veal broth. Great idea, can't wait to try it next time I fix that! I also was suggested to try this one I may give it a whirl :) Ricardo has a very good, authentic tasting and even smelling recipe for poutine gravy: Ingredients 2 tablespoons (30 ml) cornstarch 2 tablespoons (30 ml) water 6 tablespoons (90 ml) unsalted butter 1/4 cup (60 ml) unbleached all-purpose flour 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped 2 cans 10 oz (284 ml) beef broth, undiluted 1 can 10 ounces (284 ml) chicken broth, undiluted Pepper Preparation In a small bowl, dissolve the cornstarch in the water. Set aside. In a saucepan, melt the butter. Add the flour and cook for about 5 minutes, stirring until the mixture turns golden brown. Add the garlic and cook for about 30 seconds. Add the broth and bring to a boil, stirring with a whisk. Stir in the cornstarch and simmer for 3 to 5 minutes or until the sauce thickens. Season with pepper. As an aside, I can't imagine Monterey Jack being good enough. Scour your specialty stores and find those curds! Sprouts carries them in Southern California for example. Because this preparation is made with a cornstarch "slurry", be careful not to overcook it. It's possible to overdo the heat and pop the starch granules, leaving you back where you started, if you don't follow the instructions and simmer. I total agree on the necessity of proper cheese curds, sourced from my neighbor state of Wisconsin if you can find them. There's not a better curd to be had in the lower 48. I had poutine once in Canada when I was driving through. I had dinner in a diner and poutine was the advertised special. The waitress looked at me like I was from Mars when I asked what poutine was. So I only have that one experience to draw from, but the gravy tasted to me exactly like this stuff: You can buy exactly that in any grocery store in envelopes, or at Sam's Club in canisters like that. Costco probably has a version too, if not exactly that brand. Incidentally, a lot of grocery stores carry cheese curds with the "gourmet" cheese. Diners often don't make the best poutine, I've found. But some restaurants in big cities like Montréal serve nothing but poutine, with anything from vegetables to bacon to smoked meat. Thanks for the suggestion! One possible reason for a strange look is if you mispronounced it as putain.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.287058	2014-12-11T18:02:10	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/51515", "authors": [ "Anna Werchadlo", "Beth Kimmerling-Dumler", "Chuck Pollak", "Huangism", "Kim Foster", "Kimberly DeSmidt", "Macke Nånting", "Nate Eldredge", "Phrancis", "Robbie Null", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/121910", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/121911", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/121912", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/121913", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/121914", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/121932", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/131230", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/25059", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/27125", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/29841", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/30873", "logophobe" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
22367	How long after baking do American chewy cookies get their normal texture? I just baked my first ever batch of American-style cookies (chewy chocolate chip cookies). I used the correct ingredients, including actual wet brown sugar, except for the chocolate - I had no chocolate chips, so I used chopped milk chocolate (I know, I know...). I have experienced this type of cookies as a light, but not soft baked good. When I have had them, they have been slightly airy, but more tough than brittle. I suppose that this is the desired texture, as they are called "chewy". I took my first batch out of the oven, and it seems that I reached too deep with the glove and touched a cookie. It was squished. All the cookies turned out to be puffy and prone to deflating. Also, they have a cracked surface, unlike the pictures in the recipe illustrations. Is this normal? Will they get their expected texture later? How much will I have to wait for them to get the desired texture? Or did I make a mistake? I didn't cool the dough, although I have read often that cookie dough should be kept cold. The reason is that this recipe directed me to melt the butter, and didn't include cooling steps, so I assumed that a warm dough is normal for the recipe. Hm. The difference between your cookies and the ones from the illustration seems to be the same as the difference between my mother-in-law's cookies (in the USA) and my cookies (not in the USA). But I always use oil + water + extra bit of flour rather than her mix of oil and margarine. Mmm! Those look perfect! Don't let them cool too much before eating at least one, because they may be squishy, but they're good. The cookies will set (take on their final texture) about by 20 - 30 minutes out of the oven. Coming directly out of the oven, cookies will absolutely be soft and squishable; which is why you should wait a few minutes before moving them off the baking sheet and onto a cooling rack (you can cheat this time if your cookies are all on a sheet of parchment paper, and you move the parchment paper as a whole). Those look absolutely perfect and it is normal for them to be very soft straight out of the oven. They will get chewy as they cool and dry out a little.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.287448	2012-03-18T15:07:41	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/22367", "authors": [ "EKons", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/50259", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/50306", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/6512", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/9199", "js63mustang", "sq33G", "thursdaysgeek" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
78451	Why avoid olive oil in Gotham Steel pans? Background Gotham Steel is a ceramic coated titanium pan. It's the brand with the commercials where they put a mixer in the pan, supposedly to show that it doesn't scratch if you use metal utensils. The coating makes the pan non-stick, slippery even. It comes with the following instructions: FOR BEST PERFORMANCE Gotham Steel™ Ti-Cerama™ Cookware with Titanium Ceramic Coating is designed for cooking without oil or butter. If you choose to use oil or butter, always use it at the proper heat setting. For example, extra virgin olive oil and butter should only be used over low heat. NEVER USE NON STICK SPRAYS. No sharp objects of any type should be used on the inside or outside of Ti-Cerama™ cookware. (Emphasis in original.) I take the last sentence to mean that the mixer ad is exaggerated, but that's not my question. Olive Oil and coated pans It says to only use extra virgin olive oil with "low" heat. Since that's not exactly precise, I searched around for more information. Some reviews said that Le Creuset (which makes a similar, enamel coated iron pan) says not to use olive oil at all. So some people that had both recommended the same thing for the Gotham Steel pans. No olive oil at all. I found this question and this question that suggest that the issue might be extra virgin olive oil's low smoke point. I.e. that the olive oil might simply be susceptible to burning. Not sure why the coating would make that worse, but it's a hypothesis. What actually happens when using olive oil on these kinds of pans? Preferably Gotham Steel, but I'd take information on Le Creuset or similar brands of enamel/ceramic coated cookware. What's "low" heat in this context? Example I sometimes cook sandwich eggs in a Teflon pan with a little olive oil. This basically involves turning the Kenmore stove to 7, letting the oil heat as I scramble an egg in a cup. I turn the head down to 4 and pour the egg into the pan. I wait until the egg is almost cooked through and then flip it. I turn off the heat and wait a bit longer, then I eat it in a sandwich. My experience is that if I do it right, the egg is fully cooked without fry marks. The stovetop is a Kenmore electric with the flat glass on top. Non-induction, a regular heating element. The heat goes Lo-2-3-4-Med-6-7-8-Hi. The obvious thing would be for "low" heat to be Lo on the stovetop. However, that's not a heat that I would normally use for anything other than simmering for a long period of time. E.g. making rice. Does 4 count as "low" heat since I don't keep it there long? Anyway, if I did that same process with the Gotham Steel pan, what would happen? Would it ruin the pan? Burn the egg? Burn the oil? Note that if I don't use the oil, it cooks the egg fine and it slides right out of the pan. That's satisfactory, but I would prefer to understand why I should or should not use olive oil. Ideally someone would have a scientific answer with testing using a Gotham Steel pan. However, I would take an anecdotal answer involving a Le Creuset or other brand if it was explanatory. E.g. I tried that with a ____ and boy did it ruin the pan by ... Other oils What happens with other greases and oils? For example, we tried cooking a meatloaf in the dutch oven sized pan. The ceramic container that we normally use is getting old and could be bigger. So we were curious if this would work. We normally use a fatty ground beef and pour off the grease before eating. This leaves the bottom rather soft. However, with this pan, the result was that the bottom charred into a black crunchiness. Is this related to the problem with olive oil? Or something entirely different and worthy of its own question? Same thing with the passage about non stick sprays. The instructions say that the oven is safe to 500 degrees Fahrenheit. We cooked at 350. That's about 175-180 in metric/Celsius. We also tried a couple roasts in water with sliced onions underneath and they baked fine. And we tried a casserole that has lentils, rice, and Swiss cheese. That's rather greasy, but it didn't have the same behavior as the meatloaf. I.e. the edges touching the pan didn't scorch or char. How do I know which oils will be problematic and which won't? I've never seen that advice for le creuset enamel and I've got two of them. I've linked to the care advice here quite recently and re-read it then so should remember. I've never heard that advice about Le Creuset pans either, can you link to the source? @GdD Here's an Amazon review saying that Le Creuset has a similar instruction. I found this by searching "Gotham Steel olive oil". Random person on amazon was wrong Le Creuset themselves say "Your choice of liquid, oil, fat or butter should completely cover the base before heating begins." and their instructions are quite cautious in practice (dry or minimal oil frying is perfectly possible if you're gentle). I tend to use olive oil and/or butter for the things I cook in mine. (also @GdD) A guess, but I would think the issue is likely with the possibility of creating an oil patina on the pan, desirable for cast iron, but not in this case. Olive oil has a low flash point so overheating can easily create this glaze. Many of the spray-ons I have seen have a similar, but worse habit of not only creating a glaze, but it being a sticky, hard to remove one. This would defeat the original non-stick nature, and since I believe the Gotham Steel may have a guarantee, if they know this will be prone to cause returns they don't want you doing it. @dlb you may be on to something there. I stopped using spray oil for potato wedges because of the gummy stuff it left on the baking sheet. Brushing with sunflower (or refined olive) oil seems much better. @ChrisH Yes, baking sheets is an item that has gotten me to almost completely quit using the spay oils. I don't like the goo it often creates, and don't like getting yelled at for getting her baking sheets that way. It seems like on the ceramic with its micro pores it would clog the surface and simply defeat the non-stick intent. You can fry in olive oil as long as you exercise some care. Some olive oils have smoke points of 400 F. If you know how to cook, you can even do it by eye (anyone that lets oil go past its smoke point once or twice can control it so that doesn't happen again). Anyway, I cook with olive oil in my Gotham Steel pan and dutch oven all the time, no problem. I also have a degree in chemical engineering and I understand what happens with polymerization - yes Virginia, you can avoid the gunky mess. By the way, if it does happen, don't try to muscle away polymerized gunky oil. A little hot/steamy water and rubbing alcohol does wonders. The instructions aren't telling you that there's something about their pans that makes them especially incompatible with butter or olive oil. They're saying that, since they are made to be non-stick specifically so people don't need to use ANY oil, they don't generally recommend using it, at all. Their warning to use lower heats for butter and olive oil also isn't specific to their products, but is more a general guideline. It's pointless to use extra virgin olive oil, because the heat destroys all the distinctive flavor profiles that sets extra-virgin apart from regular olive oil. It's more a general warning that olive oils and other low-smoke/flash temperature oils aren't really made for frying or stir frying purposes. Those warnings would be true with any cookware. Extra virgin, yes. Refined olive oils are considered quite good for high temp apps! It's also a typical confusion between virgin vs. unfiltered. Typical virgin olive oil in the use is filtered and refined, and has a fine high smoke point, although (as PHS says) you will destroy any distinctive flavor it has. Unfiltered olive oil, like other unfiltered oils, has a lot smoke point. I did some research a few months ago. Any oil and particularly non-stick sprays when heated to extreme temperatures polymerize into a nasty stick mess that is near impossible to remove (steel wool and sand paper didn't work. This has ruined several cookie sheets, andthe cheaper non-stick sprays are the worst. I have had to throw out those effected cookie sheets. The problem is with having a slight amount of oil, and high heat. (this is why the sprays are so bad). I have a few cookie sheets that are used for savory items these days ... roasting vegetables and the like, as there are orange splotches (which later darken) because of oil polymerizing. "Any oil and particularly non-stick sprays when heated to extreme temperatures polymerize into a nasty stick mess that is near impossible to remove." Of course, if you're using cast iron cookware, that's exactly what you want for seasoning. You just have to "cook" the oil enough to make it not sticky. The issue is less about the oil being incompatible with the cookware and more about using oil that will not exceed its flashpoint and thus turn into a mess that may not be easily cleaned or will not result in optimum food flavor and results. Low flashpoint oils like olive oil are OK for lower temperatures, but higher flashpoint oils such as peanut oil, have more utilitarian uses and are more suitable for frying applications. Olive oil has a very low flash point, and should never by used for cooking. When an oil is exposed to a temperature at which it flashes, it begins to undergo a chemical change, called polymerization. This property is what you need for seasoning a pan. But if the temperature goes higher, the seasoning burns off, and becomes a dangerous cancerous substance. The problem with olive oil is that it has such a low flash point that typical cooking uses would ruin it's seasoning properties. That's why olive oil is best consumed raw, as in salad oil. You can certainly cook with it in sauces, or add it to how water for cooking pasta to prevent sticking, if you don't mind the flavor. But using it for searing a steak, or pancakes or french toast, or for seasoning a pan? Don't do it. Peanut oil has a very high flash point, and is suitable for deep frying and for seasoning cast iron pans (although, I prefer to use flax seed oil for seasoning). Chemistry of Cast Iron Seasoning: A Science-Based How-To In any kind of cooking, it is always desireable to balance flavor and temperatures used to determine the kind of oil to use. Avoid peanut oil if you allergy issues; avoid sesame oil if you don't like its strong nutty flavor. Avocado oil has an extremely high flash point, but is very expensive. What about the countless mediterranean cultures that have used olive for cooking for hundreds of years? Surely you're not referring to the same cultures who for centuries believed in geocentricity? And the same ones who believed in humorism? And the same ones who believed in vitalism? What about the cultures who for centuries believed the world was flat? I don't know how to answer "What about them", since I don't know whom you ask of; so I don't even know their cooking methods. But I can say this: modern science has delved in to many practices we once held dear, only to show them as wrong, misguided, or even dangerous. ...geocentricity/flat earth etc. is not something easily proved without a (relatively) advanced understanding of science. Polymerisation of oil in a pan is visible and obvious to the naked eye. Spanish, French, Italian, Balkan, Turkish, North African and middle eastern cuisine frequently uses olive oil for cooking, with no adverse affects whatsoever. If your answer said it shouldn't be used for frying or high temperature cooking, that would be different. In it's current wording, I think you could easily find tens of millions of people who would disagree I'm not sure I agree: That millions would disagree is example of a post hoc ergo propter hoc argument. Just because they live happily doesn't mean then won't get cancer. That they died, we don't know the manner of death. That they lived well beyond their life expectancy doesn't mean the discovery of free radicals released into their food wasn't harmful. Does their overall lifestyle inhibit the dangers of free radicals in their food? Maybe - I don't know. What I do know is what science tells me, which currently states that cooking with low-smoke oils at high temps is generally a bad idea. I also wouldn't say that polymerisation is visible and obvious: sure, it smokes - but that isn't exactly nature's way of saying "don't do it". Such didn't stop people from smoking cigarettes or avoid camp fires, and yet we are aware of the deleterious effects of these, too. Yes, it does require advanced science to understand. There are 90-somethings running around now who drink and smoke, and generally flout recommendations not to smoke. And, we do find cultures - like the Amish - who are generally resistant to cancer. Then again, they're not known for doing all the cancer-inducing things that the rest of us do, either. And we ought to be careful about this post hoc ergo propter hoc argument, too: just because 90-somethings and Amish aren't affected by that which affects the rest of us, doesn't mean we should be doing what they're doing, either - no matter how enlightened our lives may seem by doing :-) 'cooking with low-smoke oils at high temps is generally a bad idea' is what should have gone in your answer, IMO, rather than the blanket 'should never by used for cooking'. On your other points, lets agree to disagree...	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.287676	2017-02-16T04:50:23	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/78451", "authors": [ "Andrew Jay", "Brythan", "Chris H", "FuzzyChef", "GdD", "JAB", "Joe", "canardgras", "dlb", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/19707", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/20413", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/35312", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/43623", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/48330", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/50888", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/52029", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/54664", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/67", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/7180", "rackandboneman" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
13493	What is the best way to fry rice cake? I have some white rice cake. The instructions say to soak it in water overnight, then either fry it or simmer it. I tried part of it simmered some time ago, and didn't like the bland taste. So today I shallow fried some of it. I had soaked enough for two batches. The first batch went in when the oil was at about 190°C. They took a lot time to get ready, and soaked up too much oil in the process, coming out greasy (despite the fact that I packed them in paper as soon as they came out of the pan). For the second batch, the oil had gotten at above 250°C, actually above the smoke point. These cakes puffed up, forming air pockets between the cake body and some kind of thin "skin" on the upper side. The underside fried quickly and well, but when I turned them, the puffed bubbles kept the cakes from contact with the fat, so this side stayed almost unfried. Is my frying technique wrong? Should I drain the cakes for longer time before frying (they had about 10 minutes of draining now)? Is there an optimal temperature for frying them so they neither get greasy nor puff up? Edit: I didn't know that there are many kinds of rice cake. Mine are dried. The first one is raw, non-soaked. The second one is from the first batch (greasy, pale). The third one is from the second batch (with the bubble). Those are Shanghai Rice Cakes - Nian Gao If you google, you'll find a bunch of recipes for what I think of as the "standard" rice cake dish, with shredded pork and cabbage. In most of them, the soaked/softened rice cakes are added at the end, after all the other ingredients, so they only get lightly fried. Assuming you mean soft, fresh rice cakes, they just need a quick stir frying. They are too flat and too long for efficient stir-frying. And just shallow frying and turning them once didn't give satisfactory results. Try slicing them up then, into strips, and stir frying with some vegetables. Add the usual soy sauce, rice wine (or dry sherry) and sesame oil for flavour.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.288618	2011-03-27T18:03:20	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/13493", "authors": [ "ElendilTheTall", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/4194", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/4638", "rumtscho" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
17779	How to take care of glazed earthenware? I got a traditional gyveche (гювече) as a gift, and since it would be hard to replace here, I intend to take good care of it. For those who don't know it, a gyuveche is an earthenware pot intended for baking a single portion of casserole-like mediterannean dishes. There are unglazed and glazed ones; mine is glazed both on the outside and the inside. That's a picture of one similar to mine. I have some trouble cleaning it. I'm not yet used to it, and sometimes bake the dish too long, which means that I get overbaked egg caked on the inside. My usual strategies against overbaked egg are a stainless steel wire pad and soaking. But I'm afraid that the wire pad will hurt the glaze and that soaking will seep into the clay. Is this really a concern? If I can't use wire pad or soaking, what is my best option? The rough side of the sponge isn't enough by itself. Also, if anybody has general tips about the care, I'll be glad to hear them. I'd be wary of the wire pad. I tend to use 3M's 'Scotch Brite' pads rather than metal scouring pads (which might be the 'rough side of the sponge' that you mentioned), but I know they're also used in woodworking for smoothing between coats of some finishes, so I don't know how well it might treat this. Speaking as a potter, do not use the wire pad. The pot you have is a very low-fire ceramic, and the glaze is most likely softer than steel, so a wire pad could scratch the inside of the pot irreparably. Note that this is not true of high-fire ceramic, which is harder than steel (as is glass). There is no issue with soaking the pot, really. Water will not hurt it. It is possible, even likely, that the clay will soak up water through its bottom or tiny cracks in the glaze. In this case, you just need to make sure the pot is dry before exposing it to sudden heat, or it could crack. Dry it on a dishrack, or even in a low-temperature (less than 200F) oven. Also, don't use very much soap while soaking it, as the pot may soak up some of the soap and affect the flavor of the food. Additionally, several companies make plastic or even copper scrub pads. I've found, in particular, that the red-and-yellow plastic scrub pads made by Tuffy are particularly effective for scrubbing delicate surfaces. I don't know if the copper scrub pads are pure copper, so I don't know if they will scratch your pot or not. Finally, let me also recommend against putting your gyveche through the dishwasher. Not only will this expose the pot to almost certain chipping, but the porous earthenware may soak up bleach which can both ruin your food and cause the clay to break down and chip or crack. By the way, that's a beautiful pot. I can see why you like using it. Really nice answer. Thank you very much. I don't use the plastic scrub pads because they clog after a single use and I can't get them clean, but maybe I'll get some just for this "pot" (the proper designation is probably "oven", because it is used much like a dutch oven). Look at the Tuffy one, it's different from the plastic scrub pads you're probably used to -- it looks like stainless steel wool, only plastic. You can run it through the dishwasher to clean it. I anticipate someone being able to answer this better than me, but my guess is that the glaze totally protects the ceramic of the pot, as long as there are no cracks or chips in it. You should be able to soak and scrub (but I would avoid scouring) the pot with impunity. A rough edged sponge is almost always a better choice than a metal scouring pad when cleaning ceramic / most dishes. Pampered Chef gives its customers that purchase its "stone" baking pans a plastic scraper. My friend hasn't had any trouble with it damaging any of her cookware, and neither have I. You could see about finding a similar product and trying it.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.288926	2011-09-15T21:23:25	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/17779", "authors": [ "FuzzyChef", "Joe", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/4638", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/67", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/7180", "rumtscho" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
12378	What is the purpose of using potato peels for seasoning a cast iron pan? My first ever cast iron pan just arrived. The package contains following seasoning directions. Wash with clothes detergent (not soap or dish detergent) to remove the rust protection coating. Wash thoroughly with warm water to remove detergent. Dry pan. Fill the pan with fresh potato peels. Pour sunflower oil or rape oil on them, until it is almost full with oil. Leave the pan with the potato peels and oil for an hour on the next-to-highest setting on the stove top. Throw away the potato peels and oil, dry the pan with kitchen paper Coat the pan with a thin layer of sunflower or rape oil. Not only don't I want to spend the afternoon peeling potatoes and then throw away most of them (I cannot eat the amount of potatoes needed for these peels), but even the positive amazon reviews for the pan all warn before the stench the charring peels produce during the seasoning: It lingered for about three days although I changed the fume hood filters, but it is a small price to pay for such a great pan. For me, it is a big price, because I have no fume hood, and there is no door between the kitchenette and the living room/bedroom. I looked up advise on seasoning pans, hoping for some trick, and found this question where the accepted answer doesn't include potato peels (in fact, no answer mentions them). Now I am unsure whether to use them. On the one hand, I don't want to deal with the side effects. On the other hand, a producer is supposed to know what is best for his products. I don't want to get poisoned by an anti-rust coating residue that would have been rendered harmless in a chemical reaction with potato peels. Besides, I can't use the seasoning process outlined in the question I linked, because my pan doesn't fit in my oven. I guess it would be easier to decide if I knew of their purpose. Does any of you know of using potato peels for seasoning pans, and can you tell me why they are needed? Or is it just an urban legend the ignorant manufacturer printed in the manual (the pan is not a well-known brand, maybe some hardware manufacturer decided it will be easy to add pans to their product line and made them without gathering enough know-how). Can you tell us which brand? Cast iron usually comes pre-seasoned rather that rust protected, are you sure you got cast iron? I personally had never heard of it, but after doing some research online, I found another set of instructions that called for boiling potatoes in the pan before seasoning: After boiling potato peelings for 15 minutes, the skillet had a nasty slurry of grey looking sand in the bottom Once the skillet was heated, the pores were opened, and the starchy/water mixture was able to draw out oils and dirt that I was not capable of getting to through normal washing. I fully do not understand the science behind why the starch/water mixture did this, but the experience was enough to convince me of the need to do this. So much in fact, that I did this process twice on each skillet. I read a few too many web pages while researching this, and didn't save all of the links, but I did notice a few things: Some of the posts kept switching between saying cast iron and carbon steel; both are typically seasoned, but they're different materials, so I don't know if it's recommended for both, or if people were mixing things up. (I only have one carbon steel item, a wok, which I got second hand, so had already had its first seasoning). Some of the posts mentioned boiling potatoes for 15 minutes, other mentioned frying potatoes as the first thing to be cooked in the pan (in oil), some mentioned cooking them 'til they burn. The boiling potatoes ones also mentioned it works for cleaning stainless steel pans. Some mentioned peels specifically, others say that you can use any part of the potato ... if it's the starch that's of interest, I'd think the middle would actually be better, but I'm guessing that the peels were considered waste, and so considered a less valuable item; I'd be inclined to just use one potato, dispatched with a peeler, if you were trying to avoid wasting potatoes you weren't going to eat. Thank you very much! After reading your link, I decided to try boiling first and frying second. Instead of peels, I sliced whole unpeeled potatoes on the mandoline. I can confirm that a greyish sludge develops during boiling potatoes in the unseasoned pan, so I guess it was a good idea to do it. Frying didn't produce a visible effect except for the smoke (and that was violently visible despite of open windows and doors on all sides). Conclusion: I will always do the boiling from now on, just to be sure. I wonder, was they gray stuff... iron? @derobert : I've seen grey sludge when cleaning grease off of a cast iron pan that had sat out of a day or two. (the grease had climbed up the sides of the pan, but wasn't really obvious 'til I started cleaning it, and it just got kinda strange and sticky and was PITA to get off ... but it made me think of this question) I've never heard of such a thing. As one who has seasoned a few cast iron pans, I can tell you that you don't need the potato peals. Just coat it with oil and bake it. Here's one of the first hits I got on Google. That's all you need to do. or call in a favour from a friend to borrow their oven for a while if it doesn't fit inside yours? @raven It could be that the producer knows something Google doesn't - at least, boiling (instead of frying) the potatoes definitely provoked some kind of material leeching into the potatoes, turning them grey. @KimbaF It is true that I only have a small toast oven. But my purchase is a 28 cm pan with a 27 cm handle, thus needing an oven which is either 55 cm wide or has a 67 cm diagonal. I don't think any of my friends has such a monster. Anyway, I somehow succeeded seasoning it on the stovetop, despite the fact that the pan surface got 95°C at setting "3" and 220°C at setting "4". After that, I just ordered an induction cooking unit which can heat in steps of 20°C o.0 @rumtscho: Wait, a half-sheet is something like 35×50cm, an oven that fits that is hardly a monster... And 220°C is a little lower than I'd use to season cast iron in the oven, but it'll probably work if left long enough. @derobert Oh, I didn't know that the "stuff is bigger in America" rule extended to ovens. A standard oven here is 44x37 cm, with a ~57.5 cm diagonal. I admit I made a mistake in calculating the diagonal needed above, it is actually ~62.2 cm (including a 2cm width of the handle end) so still not enough. A 35x50 cm oven is also too small if we want to lay the pan horizontally. We'd get it in if we wedged it in at an angle to the bottom, but I doubt that an oven's owner would appreciate the resulting burned oil marks from where the pan touched the sides of the oven. @rumtscho: Yeah, I measured mine, and it's something like 55×60cm (which is a little on the small side here), so it surprised me to hear of some cast iron that wouldn't fit in an oven ("does it require a team to lift?") We have counter-top "toaster" ovens which are much smaller, too (but its not weird to have both) Check this out from Americas Test Kitchen. Instruction for season are about 2/3's into the youtube. They recommend using oil, salt and potato peels at the same time over medium heat. Once the peels have browned you throw it all out and wipe it down. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-suTmUX4Vbk Santos Murillo, welcome to Seasoned Advice! Please don't post answers where the information is hidden in an outside link. The Internet is ever changing and what works today may be a broken link tomorrow, rendering your answer basically useless. Linking to the video is fine, but the essential information should always be right in the answer. So please [edit] your post with the important facts from the ATC video, thanks. Let me suggest you also take the [tour] and visit our [help] to learn more about how this site works. I'm looking foreward to more contributions from you! Actually, the instructions were at roughly the 2 minute mark (of a 5min 51sec video). They used a mix of salt, oil & potato peals to both strip the coating that it was shipped with, and give it its first seasoning. Also worth mentioning -- they were specifically discussing carbon steel pans, but I would suspect that the grease used for shipping is similar. This is an old post, not willing to read every line, but first off, the coating is beeswax, so it should not kill you, at least it was on my pan. We used very hot tap water and a rough sponge. I have read others have boiled water and poured it over the pan. Yes the salt, oil, two tater skins does smoke up a kitchen. We got no lingering smell after an hour, did have to get a fan to blow out the smoke. I don’t know why but the oil, salt, potato skins actually worked, yes the skins turn to “carbon” black.The skins seem to help move the salt up on the sides, I’m not sure if any chemical or catalyst reaction is going on. It does simulate cooking something. It worked out well, other then getting fussed at by the wife. My advice too, get a small outdoor grill and do the initial seasoning. It’s not carbon,”The seasoning on cast iron is formed by fat polymerization, fat polymerization is maximized with a drying oil, and flaxseed oil is the only drying oil that’s edible. From that I deduced that flaxseed oil would be the ideal oil for seasoning cast iron.” Source http://sherylcanter.com/wordpress/2010/01/a-science-based-technique-for-seasoning-cast-iron/comment-page-9/ Just wanted to confirm that in times past, such as when I was a newlywed 50yrs ago, simmering potato peelings in water and then put on a thin layer of shortening was how my mother told me to season my new cast iron skillets and it seemed to work. One thing I know from experience is that a well-seasoned cast iron skillet is as good as "non-stick" pans until you cook something that has a tendency to strip it back down (like stewed tomatoes). I am the same, in that I have never heard of seasoning with potato skins. As a process I use on my omelete pans that are cast iron which will prevent sticking , is that I cover the bottom with table salt. Bring up to heat then reduce temperature not to create to much smoke. Keep moving the salt and you will find that it starts getting darker which is the impurities being drawn out. Salt for about 5 mins, pour salt into a heat resistant container as the heat will melt and scold. Wipe clean, drizzle with oil , bring to heat and wipe over the entire inside of the pan so the oil soaks in and it is seasoned. Do process regularly to maintain quality. Dry salt on a dry surface doesn't draw anything out. If you put salt in a dry pan and heat it, the only thing that could cause the salt to darken is organic material on the surface of the pan burning to leave carbon deposits on the surface of the salt, and the smoke that you see. If you heated dry salt on perfectly clean iron to any temperature you can achieve in a kitchen, absolutely nothing would happen. I had took my dog outside and forgot my skillet on a hot burner, I use oil, kosher salt, and slice the end off a potato, scrubbing with the potato then reseason in the oven upside down over a baking sheet 3 times with a layer of oil on 300 DEGREES, always works perfectly. Welcome to SA! I'm afraid your answer doesn't really address the question, though, which is also 10 years old and has an accepted answer. Try reading carefully what the question is asking in the future and address that directly. My experience has been strictly with cast iron (not carbon steel - there seems to be some intermixing of the terms here). I had also not heard of the potato seasoning method (again, there is a mix of using the potato to clean and/or season here). I noticed that no-one actually answered the question regarding the purpose of the potato (chemical reaction to pan for seasoning) and I suspect the potato and or starch is merely a cleaning agent and NOT a seasoning agent. I personally have tried many types of oil at different temps - what I have found best: is use an outdoor grill get the pan to 400+ degrees (this will also burn off any wax or shipping coating) THEN apply the oil (flaxseed or other high smoke point) and let season for an hour at 400+ (I like 500). Please be careful the pan is HOT when you apply the oil and will smoke during seasoning. Think about how you will apply before hand - I use a 100% white cotton towel, dip in oil, spread on pan using long tongs. wear long fireplace gives or long oven mitts). Allow to cool and you will have a shiny black 1st seasoning. This seasoning does not flake off which happens when seasoning at too low of a temp for too short a time - ironically Lodge's instructions have not resulted in good seasoning for me. Then cook with pan using coconut, peanut, grapeseed or another high smoke point oil or animal fat (think bacon, butter, steaks etc) and the pan will continue to season. FYI never fry with olive oil - this is best used as a base in dressings or drizzled on the cooked food. No need to "wash" your seasoned cast-iron pan after cooking - just wipe out immediately after cooking.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.289304	2011-02-19T15:31:52	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/12378", "authors": [ "Bonnie Robeson", "David Richerby", "Escoce", "FuzzyChef", "Gavin42", "Joe", "KimbaF", "Stephie", "derobert", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/160", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/24117", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/25483", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/25485", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/25486", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/25488", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/25606", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/28879", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/2939", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/33134", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/4638", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/67", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/7180", "rational", "rumtscho", "sturdy", "user25483" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/", "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
115157	Dairy-free bechamel? My toddler recently developed a bit of intolerance to lactose. However, some of his favorite meals are moussaka and lasagna, not the least because the bubbly intensely flavored bechamel topping that roasts up in the oven. Typically for these recipes, I make a traditional white sauce or bechamel by melting butter and mixing in flour and cooking it out with very little color, then progressively whisk in milk until the sauce coats a spoon, then the final result is tempered with 3 eggs and shredded parm so that the baked product solidifies. I can't find any suggestions on the internet for replacing the milk, butter, and cheese. Would olive oil in lieu of butter, and water or a nut milk (walnut or pine nut) instead of cow's milk, and omitting cheese suffice as a replacement? Is there any reason to believe the ratios would be out-of-balance using these substitutes? You could also browse https://vegetarianism.stackexchange.com/ Lactose gets destroyed by heat. Lactose intolerant people are often fine eating melted cheese and other cooked milk products. You may be reluctant to experiment, of course. Mixing flour with butter, be it marge or actual butter is actually a roux, when you add the milk it becomes a beschamel. If you add cheese then it becomes mornay, if we are going to use french cooking terms we should use them correctly. Can you trust your toddler to swallow pills safely? There are pills to allow lactose intolerant people to digest lactose, and with a quick Google search, it appears that there are chewable versions for children. @KonradRudolph is this true? Can you provide a source? Destroyed 100% or destroyed mostly depending duration/heat like alcohol? @AdamO not really the answer to your question, but Akis Petretzikis' recipe for Lenten/Vegan Moussaka is incredible. https://akispetretzikis.com/categories/lachanika/nhstisimos-moysakas And since your objective is not lent/veganism per se, you could probably back-substitute the meat-substitute parts with meat if you prefer :p @TasosPapastylianou Funny, I follow his recipe for the "normal" beefy, creamy moussaka. Colorful guy! He's to be credited for my toddler having moussaka as one of his favorite dishes, hence the dillema. @AdamO The breakdown is only partial but lactose intolerance is very dose-dependent: most sufferers are entirely fine with small concentrations of lactose, and only develop symptoms for larger amounts (personally, I have zero symptoms from cooked food containing milk products). However, people differ in their sensitivity, and I can’t provide you with general medical advice. — See also https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/boiled-milk Butter: Butter is an emulsion of fat and water (more or less)—it is typically around 80-82% fat (European butters tend to have a little more fat, American butters tend to have a bit less)—and this fat is solid at room temperature. This suggests that a good substitute for butter would be another solid-at-room temperature fat (such as coconut oil, lard, bacon grease, etc), plus a little bit of water. Personally, I have had luck with coconut oil and a splash of coconut milk when cooking for vegan friends, but this leaves the sauce tasting a little coconutty. Lard or bacon grease will similarly flavour the sauce, but this may not be a negative—macaroni and cheese with bacon, for example, is a great combination. Olive, canola, and peanut oils have also worked for me in the past, but result in a slightly different texture at the end of the day (which you likely wouldn't even notice in a casserole like moussaka or lasagne). That being said, butter has very little lactose in it. A lot of people who are lactose intolerant do not have difficulty with butter. It might be worth experimenting with your child to determine whether or not butter is a problem (e.g. go through the process of an elimination diet, and add butter back into the diet in a controlled manner to see if is tolerated). Milk: As noted above, I have had good luck with coconut milk. Because the phrase "coconut milk" can be ambiguous, I specifically mean something like Thai Kitchen's unsweetened coconut milk. It should be noted that this has a much higher fat content than dairy milk, so you may want to water it down a bit. Nut milks, soy milk, or oat milk should also work well—you are really just looking to get something that is mostly water with a bit of fat in it. You could also consider lactose-free milk. There are a number of commercially available brands of lactose-free dairy milk, which are made by treating milk with with the lactase enzyme (this is an enzyme which breaks down lactose, and is produced naturally by most people—lactose intolerance is generally the result of a person's inability to produce lactase). Another alternative would be to consider the milk of another animal—my understanding is that there is some anecdotal evidence that goat's milk is often better tolerated by people with mild lactose intolerance. Goat's milk has about as much lactose as cow's milk, but is apparently otherwise easier to digest. Again, experimentation with an elimination diet might prove fruitful. On the other hand, goat's milk has a rather distinctive flavor which many people find off-putting, so maybe not. Cheese: I have never found a non-dairy cheese which I thought was any good. There do exist vegan cheeses, some of which even seem to melt like dairy cheese, but I (personally) find them all to be quite bland and unappealing. They compare favorably to Kraft singles, but that seems to be damning with faint praise. That being said, taste is personal, and your milage may vary. Vegan cheeses are meant to replace dairy cheese in a one-to-one manner, so if you find a vegan cheese you like, it should On the other hand, cheese often has far less lactose than milk, and the longer a cheese has fermented and aged, the less lactose it is likely to contain. I am not sure what to do about the ricotta in a lasagne (assuming that you use ricotta in your lasagne), but the parmesan should be well-tolerated as it typically contains almost no lactose. For other cheeses, as a rough rule of thumb, the older and harder a cheese is, the more likely it is that it will be well-tolerated by a person with lactose intolerance. Again, an elimination diet might be in order. About coconut oil: there is a variant which is scent and flavor-free (which I mistakenly bought thinking it was the regular version... nothing I cook with it tastes like coconut!) @Luciano Awesome! I live in a super rural part of the US (on a good day, there is one jar of coconut oil to be found---ya takes what ya can gets), but it is good to know that there is flavorless coconut oil. I'll have to see what I can find on the interwebs. Every non-dairy faux-cheese I've ever seen seems to be aiming to replace either cheddar or mozzarella type cheeses. I've never seen one that would be a replacement parmesan or ricotta. If goat's milk works though, goat cheese might be a possible substitute for ricotta? @DarrelHoffman I would think that if goat's milk is tolerated, then something like chevre would, I think, be a great replacement for the ricotta. That first "if" is quite important, though. @XanderHenderson It's just refined coconut oil, which is common. Refining it gets rid of the coconut flavor/scent. Mixing it 90% oil with 10% water makes it functionally equivalent to butter in cooking, so I use it in vegan baking. The only downside is that it might not be as good for some dishes where the flavor of butter is more prominently on display If we are talking about lactose intolerance (as opposed to some other issues like a genuine allergy), note that all the dairy products for your Béchamel are available as lactose-free version in most supermarkets. Other (non-dairy) substitutions would work - any combination of flour heated in fat and then used to bind a liquid will give you some kind of Béchamel-like sauce - but need more effort to come close to the original flavor-wise, and so the easiest opinion for me would be to pick the lactose-free dairy product. I might be biased by having raised the poster child of a picky eater, but with a toddler, I would go the easiest route before experimenting with milk alternatives like plant milks when the milk is a main ingredient in a dish. My daughter is Lactose intolerant and also likes lasagne and Yorkshire puddings. Replacing the milk and cheese with lactose free versions and using sunflower margarine instead of the butter has worked well. Dealing with lactose intolerance has been much easier than catering for the vegetarian in the family! @uɐɪ that’s what I based this answer on - as parents we have enough going on that this simple approach can save a lot of time, energy and experimentation. I have made bechamel many times using oil (olive or something more neutral tasting) in the roux, and then using an unsweetened 'coconut milk beverage' (the stuff sold in cartons that's thinned to the consistency of cow's milk and may have gums or other thickeners in it). I typically use Trader Joe's brand. It might be the exact same flavor, but you can get the creamy texture that you're looking for. I'm not making a cheese sauce, so I can't comment on that aspect of it, but I have had some rather good vegan cheeses when a friend picked it up for us to make pizza with. Is vegan cheese not just tofu, melted tofu resembles melted cheese in some ways to me? @NeilMeyer : I've had some pretty foul soy-based "cheese", so I typically avoid the stuff. (as I can usually safely eat sheep's cheese). There are a lot of recipes for homemade vegan cheese that use soaked & ground cashews or almonds with nutritional yeast for flavor. I've even seen a recipe for nachos that used potatoes and carrots for the base. Lactose free milk is available almost everywhere. Butter contains only small amounts of lactose (just look at the carbohydrate content) and you don’t need that much. In some places you can nonetheless buy lactose free butter. Aged cheese contains very little to no lactose (again, just look at the carbohydrate content, lactose is a carbohydrate, if the cheese has close to zero carbs it can’t have lactose). A nutritional yeast "cheese" sauce is fairly similar to a bechamel. This one from Bob's Red Mill is basically a vegan bechamel with nutritional yeast flakes added. For more flavor, you could use a nondairy milk or broth instead of water. You could definitely just add some yeast flakes with the flour in your regular sauce recipe. You can get a thicker, creamier sauce by adding pureed raw cashews. If your recipe usually has ricotta cheese, adding cashew puree to the sauce will help cover for the missing ricotta. Here's a recipe. Soak the cashews in water overnight, then puree them and add them to the sauce. You'll want a good quality blender or food processor to get the sauce nice and smooth. If you have only a mediocre quality blender, put the cashew puree through a sieve to get rid of any remaining chunks. Omitting the dairy from a cheese sauce makes it rather bland, so vegan cheese sauce recipes usually include mustard and/or white miso paste for more flavor and umami. A bit of garlic powder helps, too. In making bechamel sauce with bacon fat or oil, I find the roux tends to split and seem greasy. I compensate for that by using a slightly lower proportion of fat than I would use of butter. I haven't experimented with coconut oil. I prefer almond milk when I need a nondairy milk to cook with. It's a fairly neutral taste, unlike coconut milk. Soy milk gets an unpleasantly strong, "beany" taste when warmed. Frankly, I don't know how people can eat that yeast-stuff like in your first link. I have experimented with it a lot and there is no way to get a good flavour. I like it in some combinations (some yeast flakes in a tomato sauce, for example), but as a cheese replacement, it's just disgusting. The cashews-suggestion is much better, but you would need to ferment it to get a proper cheesy taste. If you don't have a good blender, it also helps to soak the cashews first, and possibly blend them multiple times with more soak time in between. @Nobody The trick is to use it in small quantities, in combination with other savory flavors. Hence the miso, mustard, and/or garlic powder. But you're right, as a stand-alone cheese substitute it's not great. Still, I think it might be good in a lasagna, especially if there are also tomatoes. From personal experiences I highly recommend replacing the milk and butter with the vegan substitute for cream, I use the the soy milk one and add a pinch of salt. I don't know how sensitive your toddler is to lactose, but Parmesan is almost completely lactose free due to its long ageing process, so it should be safe to use. Generally, no hard cheese should be problematic to digest, because of the cheese making process. A good amount of the lactose is being removed in the process. The remaining amount of lactose depends then on how long the cheese ages, because the bacteria slowly destroys parts of it. That lactose is destroyed by heat is a myth, as lactose is just another word for milk sugar and sugar can't be destroyed by heat. I have made vegan beschamel before, using margarine instead of butter in the roux. I used soy milk instead of actual dairy. Although I considered it a success it really wasnt a beschamel. I would rather call it a vegan cream sauce. Beschamel is a specific type of sauce that is considered a base sauce and has a fundamental part in traditional French cooking, calling what I made a beschamel is being more loose with the term than what I would consider proper. This offcourse does not make this sauce bad in any way. We should give it an accurate title. Some tips, get as raw a soy milk as you can. I did not like this sauce when I used sweet soy milk. The flavour just came of too artificial for my tastes. I have also found that a higher fat margarine also does well to substitute some of the fats that you would get from the dairy. If you want to make a lactose free moray you can consider grated goats cheese, goats cheese is naturally lactose free. Although I have no experience with this. Just be warned goats cheese can be pretty wild, really strong flavours. How appropriate this would be for baby food is also something I'm unsure of. Basically, you can just replace butter with any other kind of fat, replace milk with water and leave out the eggs and cheese. It's really that easy. It won't taste the same, but come reasonably close in many aspects. Personally I like to add some nuts (like ground almonds for a relatively strong taste, blended soaked cashews for something more mild) and spices (mostly those which would traditionally go in Béchamel, but use slightly more and maybe add some others which you are familiar with and know how to dose), you can't do much wrong like that. If you want to use it for a crust, use some heat-resistant fat like coconut (refined so it has no coconut flavour) or rapeseed (not any rapeseed, but there are high-temperature cultivations). It's possible to go for a cheesy flavour using yeast flakes and a sour ingredient (lemon juice, vinegar, ...), but for easy, good results I wouldn't recommend it - it's too easy to completely ruin the taste if you get the amounts just slightly wrong. If you really want the cheesy taste without cheese, the only thing that I've found to work is cultured vegan cheese (for example based on fermented cashews, not the un-cultured vegan cheeses your super market likely has) or possibly soy-cashew-yoghurt (self-made, store bought won't have a strong taste), but that's a huge amount of work for just some Béchamel.	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114681	Are cardamom husks edible? I have a recipe for a South Indian "allspice" mixture that includes cardamom among other spices. One begins with whole spices, toasted, and in the end they are ground in a coffee or spice grinder. Does one have to extract the black seeds within the pod and discard the husks before roasting and grinding? Or does one roast within the seedpod and grind the whole thing, husk and all? My mum (and I, now) remove all the seeds before grinding. To be fair, in biryanis, we do not - we fry/use the whole pod. I think when the recipe calls for ground cardamom, you use only the seeds. In such cases, we put the husk in the tea container, to impart additional (although mild) flavour. The entire seed pod is edible. With a coffee grinder, you may not be able to reduce the husks to powder (that’s more of a job for a burr grinder), which may affect the mouth feel of the final dish slightly but should be fine. The cardamom taste comes from the seeds, so you can remove the husks if you want, but I wouldn’t bother. If you do decide to remove the husks, the easiest approach is to squeeze each pod along its longest axis (so, trying to make it shorter). This will tear the sides of the pod and expose the seeds. For fresh cardamom they may be in the form of a slightly sticky cluster. Either push the seeds out with your fingers, or scrape them out with the tip of a knife. I typically sieve out the unground husk fibers. As an alternative to removing the husks, you can buy "decorticated cardamom" How do you squeeze the pods along their long axis without getting stabbed? The end of the pod opposite the stem is usually a pretty sharp point in my experience. It’s never been a problem for me. Perhaps my thumb is callused from grabbing hot pans, or perhaps the cardamom I get is softer? I suspect that a slightly diagonal pinch would work as well, and avoid impalement. (Though, what a way to go.) I usually use a sharp knife to cut off a little part where the "stem" is, then I use the finder nails to open the husk, letting the seeds fall out. I crack the husks with the pestle, which splits them, then open them and remove the seeds by hand before grinding - but if I'm opening them I'm always using a pestle and mortar anyway I’ve seen different kinds of cardamom husks and some are pointy at the ends. Personally I use a short, dull, paring knife to get into a crack on the side of the husk and get the seeds out. Every Christmas we use fresh cardamom in cookies and the husks would not work well even ground finely, so we de-husk a lot of cardamom. As you've probably noticed, English is not spoken in the countries I mentioned in my answer, so by Googling some English terms you could barely find out what people in those South Asian countries do traditionally. If the goal is to follow a South Indian recipe, then dehusking the cardamom and grinding just the seeds would be more authentic than grinding the pod whole. I spent much of my life in India. I studied among South Indians and ate at their homes regularly, and continue to cook Indian food by default even though I haven’t been there in a very long time. When Indian recipes call for ground cardamom, it is invariably the seeds. The husk is never eaten. Even in rice dishes where a pod or two may be cracked open and added entire, the cardamom is expected to be discarded by the diner in whose portion the pod gets served; it would be considered unusual to eat the whole pod. And I have never seen green-tinged cardamom powder in any Indian grocery store or kitchen; cardamom powder is grey-black, indicating it has been dehusked before grinding. The husk is also flavorless and has a stringy mouthfeel; it’s like eating straw. Grinding would mitigate that, of course, but why would you want to eat the husk at all? Besides, grinding up the tasteless husk along with the seeds would alter the strength of the cardamom powder, and your measurements would be off as a result. You will not replicate the flavor profile of the mixture correctly if you include the husks. Edit. This answer gave me pause, since the poster says the tradition is that pods are used whole in South Asia. My experience does not match hers. But to check, I looked up recipes for garam masala (a common spice mixture, though prepared differently in different households) and looked through the first page of Google results. At least one of the recipes does in fact use the whole pod, though most specify using the seeds: These sites specify using just the seeds: Feasting at Home Two Sleevers Epicurious The Spruce Eats Cooking Classy But the recipe on this site uses the entire pod: Ministry of Curry The Ministry of Curry recipe seems like an outlier, but provides additional evidence that the entire pod can be used. I have not met anybody who does this IRL. "why would you want to eat the husk at all?" Well, it's probably a decent source of fiber . As 'ground cardamon' is in fact light green, it clearly contains husk, so one would imagine the husk is edible, if not directly digestible. That when you encounter them [for some reason always in the very last mouthful] of a biryani, you just politely place them on the side of your plate is probably more of a 'chewability' issue than toxicity. As this seems to be queried as 'inauthentic' in some way, let me add that I buy this from a British Indian supplier, not from a supermarket's generic spice shelf. I can only conclude that this supplier would be aware of precisely what is in it & its 'authenticity'. If you chew them very gently you get the flavour but don't get the husk stuck in your teeth - only recomended if it's they've been cooked, but handy if you don't find it until it's already in and are too polite to take it back out. If the ground cardamom you're getting is green, then I sure hope it's inexpensive. The stuff I buy is dark grey, and includes only seeds, not pods. @FuzzyChef there are two main kinds of cardamom; green and black. Southern Indian cuisine is much more likely to use green. Not the point. The ground cardamom I buy is just ground seeds, which makes it dark grey, regardless of the color of the pods. Because the pods aren't included. I'm not sure I understand the first sentence. Is there a rule that green stuff is edible? No. You're misreading my intent. That it is green means it contains husk. The seeds are black. @FuzzyChef I believe that is considered off-topic here because the OP would like to do the grinding themselves and are not asking about buying ground cardamom. @Gigili I believe FuzzyChef's point is that the color of store-bought ground cardamom indicates the presence (or absence) of husks in the powder: green indicates the husk is included, gray/black indicates it's seeds only. To OP's question, the fact that a green variant of ground cardamom exists commercially indicates that it is (more or less) not unsafe to include the husk. Cardamom is a major spice in south Asian countries such as India, Iran and Pakistan. I always have ground cardamom handy in my kitchen and grinding as a whole is the tradition in the aforementioned countries. The husk might not be as flavorful as the seeds, but I believe the aroma comes partly from the husk, it doesn't hurt to grind the whole pod. The point is, you wouldn't end up with a very finely ground cardamom because it will lose aroma if not used in a day or two. Sometimes you can add the husk to your teapot for a nice mellow flavor. The point is, please do not throw the husk away, it makes me sad thinking about someone doing that. It is edible, aromatic, flavorful and fun to chew. You can add a tsp of coarse sugar / granulated sugar to have a finer ground cardamom, the same applies for grinding saffron. This is what you get grinding the whole pod + sugar (in my experience, the small amount of sugar doesn't affect the taste noticeably): When making ground spice mixtures as you describe, whole cardamom pods are used and ground up. This is usually clear from the recipe (see for example recipes for garam masala). Cardamom is sometimes used whole, particularly in rice dishes, and then most people do not eat the pods (because their flavour is too strong and they are very fibrous). (Exactly the same applies to Indian bay leaves, cloves, cinnamon stick, etc: they can be eaten if ground up in a spice mixture that is to be distributed throughout a dish, but otherwise they are discarded as eating them whole is uncomfortable.) Cardamom powder is added to sweet dishes. I don't keep cardamom powder as it loses its flavour quickly, so I make it as needed with a pestle and mortar. For this I use only the seeds, and use the husks to add a little fragrance to tea. But I am not sure whether commercially available cardamom powders typically use the husks. Given the high cost of cardamom, I would guess that they do. I cooked my first chicken korma today. The recipe called for "crushed cardamon seeds." I whacked the cardamon seeds with various implements and tools, but the husk was quite tough. I essentially fractured the hull flat, but most of the component pieces hung together (in other words, it didn't disintegrate like a clove of garlic when you smack it). At that point I decided to just fry them in the oil (to infuse the oil with cardamon flavor), cook them in the curry, and pick out before eating. Turns out that the husks softened considerably during the cooking. I did pick one up with my fork, thinking it was a small piece of chicken. It certainly wasn't something that I would have eaten, but I could chew on it. It wasn't a tooth-breaking thing - just something you wouldn't necessarily want to chew and swallow.	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20615	Do I need hard or soft brown sugar for brownies? I found a recipe for brownies I want to try. It calls for 1 1/2 cups packed light brown sugar How can I recognize if they mean hard or soft brown sugar? And how much of a difference does it make for the completed brownies if I use the wrong type? Should I just adjust the amount of sugar or other ingredients (and if yes, by how much)? Or do I have to try to make a substitution? I found a question which explains how to make soft sugar, but it requires a food processor, and I don't have one. Edit Here is a picture of sugars, as Jay suggested per comment: In Germany, the only type found under the name "brown sugar" (brauner Zucker) is the one in the upper right corner. But I have heard that American recipes might need the kind in the lower right corner, which is not normally available here. If a recipe from the US calls for brown sugar, it means what I believe you're calling "soft" brown sugar - the kind that clumps and sticks to itself a bit, and can be scooped and packed. (That is what you mean, right?) I don't know about substitutions/adjustments, though. Yea in the US there is only a distinction between light brown sugar and dark brown sugar(each with differing amount of molassess). I haven't come across "hard" brown sugar though. For curiousity's sake can you provide a url to a picture of what you are refering to as "hard" brown sugar. The upper right one will usually be called "raw sugar" or "evaporated cane juice sugar" here; I think in France it's called blonde sugar, though that might be slightly different. I used to find brown sugar in the "American" section of the expensive supermarket in our town's department store, but in a pinch, I'd just mix a little bit of Zuckerrübensirup (sugar beet syrup, essentially molasses) with refined sugar until I got the desired color. @JasonTrue surely you mean "sucre roux" The in the US, light brown sugar always means the one in the bottom left. The bottom right is dark brown sugar and has a higher molasses content. In the US, I typically see the 'brown sugar' in the upper right referred to as 'raw sugar' or the brand 'sugar in the raw'. If you're using a US recipe, it needs the bottom left. If you don't have any and its an ingredient like in brownies, try adding the molasses and sugar as separate ingredients. 1 Cup of sugar + 1 tablespoon of molasses is about the right ratio for light brown sugar. If you can't get molasses...try dark corn syrup, honey, or depending on the flavor your want, maple syrup. (A comment from @JasonTrue above mentions that beet syrup is an option as well, althought I haven't tried it.) Just for the search engines, I'll note that the "raw sugar" pictured is actually named "turbinado". I've never seen it mentioned in a recipe, except for rimming a few rum-based mixed drinks or coffees. Even if you don't know the origin of the recipe, the fact that it says "packed" indicates that it's packable, so it has to be the soft kind. As Jefromi suggested, brownie recipes call for the sugar found on the bottom of the picture you have added. Probably the lower left one since it's a lighter brown. However if you are unable to get the brown sugar you are able to easily make it using granulated white sugar and molasses by mixing about 1 cup granulated white sugar with 1 table spoon molasses using a fork. Just to add in the Australian terms. Top - white sugar, raw sugar. Bottom - light brown sugar, dark brown sugar	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.292884	2012-01-19T17:54:26	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/20615", "authors": [ "Ahmed Nuaman", "Aleks-Daniel Jakimenko-A.", "Cascabel", "Dave Griffith", "JasonTrue", "Jay", "Kepler", "NotThatPatrickStewart", "TheBoro", "ajay tanikonda", "david devonport", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/118589", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/118701", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/1672", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/2909", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/3819", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/41686", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/45286", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/45287", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/45290", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/45307", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/46107", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/46162", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/8305", "karina", "njzk2" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
14570	Does meat need to be washed before preparation? I don't even remember where I have learned that, but I've always thought it common knowledge: Before a piece of meat gets seasoned, or malleted for tenderizing (sorry, don't know the English word for that), or marinated, or thrown into the pan, or ground, it should be first washed under the faucet, and then patted dry. When I think of it, it also makes sense to me, because the bacteria are always on the meat surface, never inside. So I don't think it is a vestige of the time one got bloodied cuts from the village butcher, but that it applies to the modern meat pieces sold on absorbent pads too. And then I read this question, which presumes patting (but doesn't mention washing). Most of the answers and comments seem to indicate that patting isn't always considered necessary, and there is no mention of washing the meat or of the dripping water from the washing. In fact, the answers and comments wouldn't make much sense if one assumes that the meat has been just washed. So is washing compulsory, is it optional but a good idea, is it plain useless, or does it even have disadvantages for the meat? Most meat is cooked on high heat, which kills surface bacteria in seconds It's neither necessary nor a particularly good idea; it does little to remove bacteria from the surface of the meat (which you're about to cook, remember) and runs the risk of spraying/dripping bacteria all over the kitchen. The FSIS has an article on it here: Washing raw poultry, beef, pork, lamb, or veal before cooking it is not recommended. Bacteria in raw meat and poultry juices can be spread to other foods, utensils, and surfaces. The only exception would be something like vac-packed, wet-aged meat where you need to remove the salt, but that's a matter of preference. I have never washed a piece of meat in my life and I'm still here! I'll often do it to remove the salt/seasoning that comes with most packaged meats, particularly frozen chicken. You should not forget the water from the faucet is not free of germs either (no holy water). Nor are your hands. So if you get good clean meat, and sniff it before you prepare it, chances are you introduce as many germs as there were on the meat in the first place. If the meat is slimey, smelly, or just plain untrustworthy, the water is not going to make it safe anyway. Meat is somewhat porous. "I have never done this and I'm still alive" is not a valid argument. I always pat my meat dry but never wash it with water. I believe the rinsing would cause a lot of the blood and meat juices to wash away,leaving less flavorful and less juicy meat. I had a friend who did not like "bloody" meat and she washed it so much it looked pale pink. Needless to say it did not taste very good and had a weird texture. I've never washed meat, but I agree with the odd texture comment. Any water which is absorbed by the meat is going to turn into steam during cooking. Meaning the area around that water is going to be boiled, rather than whatever cooking method you intended. Boiled meat is typically NOT the result you want... @scivitri, if "any water which is absorbed by the meat is going to turn into steam during cooking" was true, I don't think marinading and basting would be so widespread. @rumtscho marinades (and things used for basting) don't use water, they use oil. @Scivitri Meat is already mostly water. (I was also going to talk about brining, but that topic is more complicated than I initially realized.) I wash the blood off the cryo-vacted scotchies and porterhouse when portioning bulk meats. I also thoroughly rinse the chest cavity of whole chicken and fish frames to remove organs and blood clots. There is no need to wash meats and seafood you buy ready from a supermarket or butcher (with a possible exception of live Mussels). Chickens we always wash in Egypt , first by rubbing with flour and salt then rinsing with water and/or soaking in water with some vinegar added . Beef if prepackaged , I cook directly, no washing . Chicken livers , etc.,... soak in water with some vinegar , drain thoroughly before cooking . Any slimy or smelly meats / fish of any kind , even slightly , I throw away / compost immediately . Careful with re-freezing , not recommended . Thaw in fridge overnight . But I do have friends who insist that all meats must be washed before cooking . Sorry, there is no way I would NOT wash chicken before. We have been washing chicken since the beginning of time and all of a sudden chicken juice is spreading everywhere. If you are careful, it is fine. I have been doing this all of my married life and none of us have EVER been sick from cross contamination. What is the benefit of washing? Have any of you ever been sick, period? And if the answer is yes, as it undoubtedly must be, then how are you so sure it wasn't from cross contamination? Even if you've truly been fine, it's pretty much rule #2 of food safety that just because something hasn't made you sick before, doesn't mean it's safe (rule #1 being "when in doubt, throw it out"). And you've neglected to point out what you think the benefit of this practice is, which makes this answer not only somewhat dangerous but also unhelpful. You think that washing your meat is a clean habit, for hygiene purpose, but in reality, washing the meat is a way to spread dangerous and dirty bacteriae all over you. It's like going to the toilet, and defecate, and flushing the toilet while you let the toilet lid open: it is dirty and spread a great quantity of bacteria. It's the best mean to spread the contamination you think to avoid. Washing meat with water kills NO bacteriae. Bacteriae can't be killed with water.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.293197	2011-05-08T09:19:25	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/14570", "authors": [ "Aaronut", "Bob Steiner", "MJ713", "Philip", "Posipiet", "Quidam", "Scivitri", "TFD", "crazy2be", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/114198", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/24971", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/295", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/3203", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/40206", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/41", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/4638", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/5484", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/5500", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/6034", "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/65187", "rumtscho", "styrofoam fly" ], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
80749	Pressure Cooker vs. Slow Cooker for Moist Meat This question: Why does meat in the crockpot always end up dry? discusses challenges and potential solutions to getting moist meat while cooking with a slow cooker. If I were to switch to a pressure cooker, would that be another method to keep meat moister? Or, if I'm not following the suggestions in the above post (in particular, using the right kind of meat), would a pressure cooker not really help me much? If you are using the wrong kind of meat (= tender meat low in connective tissue), the pressure cooker will make it much worse. With this meat, the more energy goes into it (and the pressure cooker gives it more over the same amount of time), the worse it gets. You really have to prepare it as a steak or roast. It would be an interesting thing to try out on the right kind of meat though, since there you want to break down the connective tissue, and the pressure cooker could be better at it.	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.293662	2017-04-08T21:11:53	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/80749", "authors": [], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }
78708	Sous Vide at 165F - Air formed in the bag, is this natural? Bad? I am cooking a pork butt roast sous vide. I am following this recipe. https://recipes.anovaculinary.com/recipe/sous-vide-bbq-pork-shoulder My bag had no or very little air in it after sealing and when the cooking started. Since cooking for a few hours the meat has shrunk considerably in size within the bag. But the bag also has new air in it. Enough to make it float. I am worried I could have bad bacteria and make my guests sick. Here is more of my thoughts: 1) According to some articles I have read this could simply be vapor. At 165F the meat is hot enough to release some water to vapor. 2) Maybe while coming to temperature some bacteria did grow, but at 165F, that bacteria is now dead. Even though the air remains, the meat is safe to eat. The dead bacteria and/or their waste are not harmful. 3) I grew a bunch of bacteria and this is not safe to eat. Here are some pictures: https://i.sstatic.net/mLHSi.jpg FYI, This was the only other SO post I found: Ziploc vacuumed bags expand in sous vide	Stack Exchange	2025-03-21T13:24:58.293765	2017-02-25T15:14:27	{ "license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/", "site": "cooking.stackexchange.com", "url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/78708", "authors": [], "all_licenses": [ "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" ], "sort": "votes", "include_comments": true }

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