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37499
|
What is this Ceramic Container?
What is this Ceramic Container?
I found this at a goodwill and have no clue what it is ??
Can you add a picture of the inside, or bottom of the "lid." I suspect you may have a butter bell of unusual design, but it is hard to tell.
are there two lids? Does the one shown on the container sit inside the jar, like for stamping the contents down?
need more pictures like what's underneath that chimney thing. Can you take a picture with a quarter next to it for size? Initial guess is it could be a butter crock but it wouldn't need that lid. Dish to make terrines? the lid used for presentation?
Its a butter bell / butter keeper. My parents have one. You put water in the bottom, butter in the bell under the top/lid and that forms an airtight seal allowing you to keep the butter at room temperature.
Here's one for sale showing both parts clearly.
http://www.kitchenandcompany.com/Storage-And-Cleaning/Countertop-Organization/Butter-Dishes/_/Norpro-4-Butter-Keeper?tc=gfs13&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_content=Norpro%204%22%20Butter%20Bell%20Butter%20Keeper&gclid=CM2C1ZSRmroCFSpk7Aodt3kAgw
The link is dead due to bitrot. Can you find something better? Perhaps posting an image would be more durable ?
It's a French butter dish, used for keeping butter fresh without refrigerating it.
This is what others suggested in the comments. But we cannot really tell without seeing what's underneath. And besides, what is the second (flat) lid good for in a butter dish?
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.376344
| 2013-10-11T16:16:32 |
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|
37545
|
Reduce the watering from tomatoes in a dish or sauce
There are many questions asking on how to reduce the watering from (fresh) tomatoes in a dish or a sauce (most likely baked):
How do I prevent tomato making quiche soggy (mentioned in comments by SAJ14SAJ)
How to avoid getting the pizza all watery?
Can I turn my marinara sauce recipe into "pizza sauce"?
how to improve the consistency of my pizza sauce
How to thicken marinara sauce?
My tomato sauce is very watery
etc.
There are several ways to do that, but what are the pros and cons of each technique?
See related: http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/34388/how-do-i-prevent-tomato-making-quiche-soggy
I've converted your five answers into a single answer. You've asked one question - what are the pros and cons of various techniques. It deserves just one answer. (One idea per answer is essentially never a good format, with exceptions mostly on meta. And your question is not community wiki, nor should it be, though your answer is.)
Bake as you would to create a sun dried tomato but don't put it in olive oil.
Cut in half and spoon or squeeze out the pulp.
Look up recipes for sun dried tomatoes but maybe reduce the time to not remove as much moisture.
I merged it in w/ the other long post
Here's another question where I mention salting, which doesn't seem to be included in the links you've mentioned Keeping scrambled eggs with tomatoes from being too watery. I like salting in any application where you want to keep that "fresh" flavor and texture but want less water. Of course it removes juice, but isn't that the point?
EDIT: So the "pros" of salting would primarily be the maximum reduction of moisture without losing the flavor and texture of fresh, raw tomatoes (if that's what you'd like to accomplish). The cons would be the loss of juice (although I find it hard to think of that being a "con" when reduction of moisture is a goal) and of course excessive saltiness if that particular issue is troublesome. The use of kosher or other coarse salt instead of table salt ameliorates that particular issue to a point, coarse salt can be more easily brushed off than table salt. .
Actually that's what I meant by "draining" (one of the draining techniques anyway). Googling again, I figure "draining" is often used for "seeding" — my bad, I'm not native English, +1 for making me notice it. Feel free (or anyone else) to rephrase with a better word. That being said, I would make a difference between juice (which you remove e.g. by seeding) and water (which you remove by simmering).
The question was "There are several ways to do that, but what are the pros and cons of each technique?"; this is not a terribly complete answer.
Simmering
Let tomatoes simmer slowly for hours.
Pros: probably the tastiest solution.
Cons: time consuming, energy (gas/power) consuming, loss of "fresh" tomato flavor, if you want that.
Adding thickener
Add flour/bread/carrots/potatoes/whatever to add consistency.
Pros: quick and easy.
Cons: may change the flavour. May require heating to near-boil to activate the starch.
Seeding
Remove seeds and gel/pulp with fingers or a spoon.
Pros: quick, and removes seeds, which may give a bitter taste.
Cons: removes pulp (which gives most of the 'umami' flavor) and juice.
Filtering
Use a strainer to remove the watery part.
Pros: ?
Cons: removes part of the juice.
Draining
Drain (without seeding) tomatoes before to bake them - a (very) light salting helps to draw out excess liquid.
Pros: Removing liquid before allows for less cooking time and preservation of fresh tomato flavor
Cons: waiting time, and removes part of the juice.
Roasting
Halve and place on a sheet pan, then bake until sufficiently dewatered for your purposes. May have to leave oven door cracked open.
Pros : Easy. Skins are easy to peel after roasting. Adds some caramel/roasted flavors where the sugars burned.
Cons : Not quick. Not good if you want skins on. Loses the 'fresh tomato' flavor.
Dehydrating
Bake as you would to create a sun dried tomato (at low heat) but don't put it in olive oil. Can reduce the time to not remove as much moisture.
Pros : Easy.
Cons : Very slow (we're talking most of the day slow). Loss of the fresh tomato flavor.
Tomato Selection
Use a plum tomato, or other variant that has a higher flesh to gel ratio.
Pros : Extremely easy (if you can get them at your market)
Cons : Often have less flavor than beefsteak, heirloom and other varieties (but may not be noticeable if you're buying from a grocery store)
how is draining different from filtering?
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.376823
| 2013-10-13T12:48:11 |
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|
45889
|
Saved-for-later then reheated potato mixture sparks and catches fire in microwave
I have a bird who gets medicine twice a day. I hide it in a mashed potato fruit mixture. I make enough that the potato mixture lasts several days and add the medicine as I need it. I take a small amount and microwave it for about 8 seconds (just enough to soften it). Then I normally add a couple blueberries to the mixture for a little more moisture and flavor. At that point, if I feel like I've made too much for that "serving" I'll put some back in the container for next time. When I reheat the saved-for-later mixture, it always sparks and catches fire (about the size of a lighter flame) in the microwave (it always goes out as soon as I stop the microwave). Of course, I never use the caught fire serving and always start over. This only happens with the saved-for-later bits and not the original mixture. I read the "Why did my banana catch fire in the microwave?" (Why did my banana catch fire in the microwave?) thread and that might answer it if it were all of the mixtures that caught fire, but it's only the parts that I tried not to waste and save for the next medicine-hiding dose. Any ideas what causes just the left-over bits to catch fire?
Try putting a mug of water next to the food in the microwave.
I've had this same problem with baker's chocolate and that did the trick. I think it's because there isn't enough water to absorb the microwaves so the excess energy causes sparking.
I'm not sure that makes sense. Sparking happens when you have a conductor. Microwaves are just EM waves so you need a conductor to get elections to move and spark. And without water, microwaves will not heat anything up. You need free water molecules (as opposed to ice which won't work). In this case, if there is no high metal content, the mix has dehydrated and surface got hot enough to catch light. You can try this with bread. I used to microwave bread about 1 minute on each side and this would dehydrate the bread enough to be crunchy!
I actually have been added a mug of water and haven't had any problems since. I started doing this after one of the servings that wasn't a "saved-for-later" overage caught fire. There have been no more fires! :)
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.377275
| 2014-07-26T13:10:40 |
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|
47708
|
Wouldn't this cake batter be too runny? Would the coffee affect the texture?
I came across What purpose does coffee serve in a chocolate cake recipe? as a similar question to one I'd just asked about baking.
Looking at the recipe she provided there, wouldn't the amount of liquid (coffee, buttermilk, oil, and eggs) to solid (flour, sugar, and cocoa powder) make it a very runny batter? It's 4 1/3 cups liquid plus 3 eggs to 6 1/2 cups solid (if I count the sugar as a solid). It just seems like a lot of liquid to solid. Maybe the coffee being hot does something?
Compare that recipe to this very similar one from Ina Garten (complete with handy video) Chocolate Buttermilk Cake. Watch her pour. No question, that is a wet batter. Apparently it works fine, Ina's recipe is very highly rated.
Both recipes use volumetric measurements (ugh), so I'll use cups.
Ina's recipe (sugar is wet (sort of), subject for another question) - Wet ingredients (2 + 1 + .5 + 1 + .5 (eggs) = 5 cups wet to 2.5 cups dry (flour plus cocoa) 5/2.5 = 2
Your recipe: Wet ingredients (2.5 + 1.5 + 1.33 + 1.5 + .75 (egg) = 7.58 cups wet to 4 cups dry (flour plus cocoa) 7.58/4 = 1.9
So they're very close, Ina's actually a bit "wetter".
I am not aware of anything special the coffee would do to the baking chemistry here. It's got some acid, but I don't think that is relevant. As far as the "wetness" of the batter, it's the same as water as far as I know. The temperature might help dissolve the sugar, but that would be a minor thing at best.
Any time I've ever added coffee (liquid or crystals), it has imparted flavor.
I've never added more than a bit. It doesn't take much to add coffee flavor.
I don't know of any other reason to add coffee to a recipe.
I did answer this poster's question; the second one. (there are two question marks) My answer indirectly addressed the first question by referencing amounts used in my experience.
It appears that a moderator agrees with you, cause he's been here since I posted my comment, and he didn't say anything. So, I retract. I still think it's the liquid to solid ratio that is the primary question.
No worries.
:) .
@Jolenealaska In fact, I edited from a review queue, so I never saw your comment. I do agree, this answers half of the question, so it's an answer, but it would certainly be a better answer if it answered both halves!
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.377489
| 2014-10-06T16:04:23 |
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|
46827
|
Searing stew meat the night before
I read the question (and all of the answers) Can I Brown Beef For Slow Cooking the Night Before. I can see how it might be conceived as a duplicate, but I'm not meaning for my question to be. It talks about large cuts of meat and I want to ask about small chunks of meat. I wanted to ask the question on the other post, but since it's four years old, I wasn't sure if it would get read or answered.
I have a slow cooker recipe that calls for stew meat to be seared before adding to the slow cooker. I know I can skip that step and have less "beefy" stew, but I'd like to have the beef flavor shine. Since I plan to do this in the morning, can I safely sear the chunks of meat ahead of time and immediately refrigerate? Would the same rules that apply to large chunks of meat apply to smaller stew chunks?
The accepted answer from the linked question is just as accurate in this situation. Assuming you're talking about "stew meat" sized pieces (about 2cm per side or so) by the time smaller pieces brown sufficiently, they should be nearly if not completely cooked through. By similar logic, when you refrigerate them they should cool down more quickly than a larger roast. So there's even less risk here than with larger pieces.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.377738
| 2014-09-02T23:19:32 |
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|
54611
|
How to store a double iced cake
I am entering a baking contest (well, two actually that are two days apart). The first contest I am only baking three items, but the second I am baking (potentially) 15 items. Normally I have a much better head start, but this year seems to have gotten the best of me!
Most of the items will be baked Thursday afternoon or sometime Friday to be as fresh as possible. Two items for Thursday's baking contest are also in Saturday's. One item is in the freezer (pound cake). My question is the second item. It is a chocolate cherry coke cake with two frostings (a marshmallow fluff frosting and a chocolate cherry coke frosting).
The marshmallow fluff needs to be put on the cake as soon as it comes out of the oven to help melt the fluff and make it spreadable. Then the second frosting gets poured over the top of the marshmallow fluff almost immediately. Instead of making a 9X13 cake, I made two smaller cakes. Both have been frosted and are currently in the fridge.
The one for tomorrow should fine (I'll pull it from the fridge tonight and leave it at room temperature over night). My concern is the one for Saturday. I don't think freezing is the answer, but I'm worried that too much time in the fridge will make the cake too hard. But if I leave it at room temperature for the next three days, will it be OK? Is that too long to stay at room temperature? (I live in FL so I'm used to keeping everything in the fridge to avoid humidity's effects.) The first frosting is just the marshmallow fluff. The second is cocoa power, butter, cherry coke, and powered sugar.
This question (How long can a stacked carrot cake be stored) is close as it asks about storing a stacked cake, but I'm looking for the best way to store a double frosted cake to stay as fresh as possible for three and a half more days.
You'll run into another problem when you take the cake out of the fridge -- condensation.
Air will cool when it's near the cake, and the moisture in it will condense on the cake, possibly causing odd dots when you try to blot it dry. (possibly smearing the icing, or the water could cause problems on decorated cakes with any variations in color)
You have a few options:
Chill the cake unfrosted, and then find another way to get the fluff spreadable. You might try warming it up in a double boiler. (note that it might adhere differently to a warm vs. cold cake, though)
Wrap the cake after frosting. If it's a hard frosting, this isn't too much of a problem. With your cake, I'd most likely frost it with the fluff, then let that cool. Before putting it in the fridge, then use a bunch of toothpicks with a blunt end, and put them in every few inches, so you can wrap it in plastic wrap (aka cling film) without the wrap touching the icing. If you can't find the blunt-end toothpicks, use ones with points on both ends, but cover exposed end with a marshmallow. As you'll be putting on a second frosting, that will cover up the toothpick holes. (normally you have to plan the toothpick placement so you can place flowers or other decorations to cover them). On the day of, take the cake out of the fridge but do not unwrap it until the outside has come back up to near room temperature.
As you're making smaller cakes, if you have a suitably sized cake carrier or other storage container (or find a cake supply store to buy cake boxes), that might be easier than wrapping for #2.
I will definitely keep this in mind for next time. Unfortunately the cakes are already made. I thought about waiting to frost the second one (and heating up the marshmallow fluff) but I was concerned about the hot vs room temp cake. And I ended up in "production" mode and forgot to wait on one of the cakes! LOL Sadly I stupidly forgot about the condensation. We'll see what happens now!
@Brooke : you can try wrapping it immediately after it comes out of te fridge, or putting it into a container so that it only has a limited amount of moist air near it while it warms back up.
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Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.377874
| 2015-02-11T13:22:59 |
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|
61652
|
Why doesn't any of the Instant Pot recipes I find use the preset buttons (Rice, Bean/Chili, etc.)?
I bought an Instant Pot pressure cooker recently. One of the features is its "Smart Cooking Programs" that can program the settings with the touch of a button. I haven't seen any recipes the use of these buttons, and even the book that came with the Instant Pot uses "Manual" for everything. Should I use them?
Interesting, I didn't notice that about the Recipe Book. A "User Manual" also came with the pot. My manual has directions for the buttons (albeit, no recipes) starting on page 11. Of course, yours may differ.
For the most part, the buttons just have pre-set cooking times. For other times, then it's best to just use manual modes. A few of the programs are particular, like the bean, multi-grain and porridge programs have a long pre-soak before pressure cooking. And newer models (SMART, DUO-ENW) have the rice program pre-set to cook at "low" pressure.
Instant Pot made nice little charts of these programs and posted them online.
In my personal experience, the extra soaking time of these programs just takes longer - especially if you're already using pre-soaked beans.
That's why I always use manual mode - and the recipes I wrote for their recipe booklet always call for it as well.
The website now redirects to a page that no longer has the charts that you've mentioned. So here's an archive.org link for those interested : https://web.archive.org/web/20160315092318/http://instantpot.com/technology/smart-cooking-programs/
Since the buttons are unique to that model, you won't find common instructions that make use of them.
The booklet it came with was probably not customized for that model.
You'll use them (or not) with your own experience. If you know their meaning, you can try them and continue to use them, or not.
I have automatic stuff on my microwave oven, for example, and I tried using it to reheat a leftover Philadelphia sandwhich. I learned that the automatic cycle is 15 to 20 seconds too much, so I still use the button but stop it early.
And there's the problem: if the preset is not quite right, how do you adjust? With normal settings you can change the values slightly.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.378217
| 2015-09-10T21:03:36 |
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|
56673
|
Raised brown spots on garlic
Occasionally I'll get a clove of garlic that has small brown spots on it. When there are a couple spots, I cut them off and use the rest of the garlic. Sometimes there will be A LOT of spots and clustered together. Those will get thrown away. The garlic will look and feel fine until I remove the white "skin." It really looks like the garlic has eczema or measles. Does anyone know what these spots are? Is this a form of garlic mold?
I think it's where the garlic got bruised during harvest, and that's the plant hardening off the bruise.
Never seen that. I get "withered/dried out" spots on my stored garlic, but never with raised bumps like that. It's always shrunken/shriveled and still has the texture of the garlic, just desiccated. I just cut them away. This is different-looking.
@Escoce- That is an interesting idea. Is this just a theory or did you read it somewhere?
That looks like a strange mold/fungus. Other than rarely seeing a fuzzier mold, I usually only see the sort of brown spots Ecnerwal describes (which seem more like bruises than this).
The brown spots can be a bruise from handling or a bruise caused by heavy soil. We learned the hard way to avoid planting in heavy clay. Loads of brown spots from cloves trying to swell against hard soil, or a rock or buried root etc. The bacteria get into the bruised clove and quickly discolour it.
We added lots of compost and tried to make our garlic patch soil the lightest, fluffiest texture possible. The softest soil produced the cleanest bulbs. Also far less bruising from harvesting since they pull so easily out of the ground.
Most of the websites I found say that the brown spots are a sign of the garlic going bad. The excerpt below from wikihow echoes what most say about it.
Check over the clove for any brown spots. Usually if a small spot you can trim off and the garlic is still good. If two or more spots, just pitch it in the trash can and get another clove.
If the garlic is otherwise firm and not discolored inside, I just cut away and discard those surface brown spots. So far in my long life this has caused no ill either to me (health) or to my cooking (taste/texture).
IMO, its just minor bruising. I rarely discard it unless its really pronounced, or more than, say, 20% of the bulb's surface. The one in the pic? I'd mince it right up with the others.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.378453
| 2015-04-14T13:36:59 |
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|
55159
|
Peanut Butter substitute in baking
I love to bake and have come across several peanut butter recipes (cakes, cookies, even a multi-layered/multi-component [cake & cheesecake layers] cake) that sound really good. My problem is I don't like baking things I can't eat (a little selfish I know :D), and peanut butter HATES me. I love it, but it makes me want to curl up in the fetal position and die.
Is there anything that behaves the same as peanut butter that I can substitute? I know it will change the flavor drastically and for most recipes it won't be a problem. I know I can use other nut butters, but I'm asking if there are other alternatives. I know Nutella (flavor-wise) can be substituted for most peanut butter baking recipes, but the texture is different so I don't think it behaves exactly the same (especially if I'm trying to make cookies where that would matter more than cake).
What about cookie butter? Would that behave the same as peanut butter (assuming I decrease the sugar required)?
I read Is it possible to subsititute nutella for peanut butter?, but it's very vague with its question.
I should add that most of the recipes I find come from food blogs. I do ask the blogger if something can be substituted for peanut butter, but I never get good answers back (if any).
Nutella is a chocolate hazelnut concoction which would defeat the idea of peanut butter cookies, but would work. Here are some subsstitutions, macadamia butter, almond butter, walnut butter, pecan butter also tahini. You buy nuts you can stomach, process them and even add some peanuts, just a bit, to use as your peanut butter flavor. What I have done is used more peanut butter, less butter, less white sugar, my brown sugar and add a lot of honey to my recipe. I make into 1 1/2 inch balls, bake 8-9 min and they usually melt in your mouth, soft, not crunchy. Try Reeces Peanut Butter Cup Candy
Thanks user33210. I never thought about using tahini. That might be interesting. I'm not as worried about changing the flavor of things as I am maintaining the right consistency/texture. Any peanut butter is bad for me. Most nut butters will bother me if I eat too much (more than a sandwich worth), but any peanut butter hurts. :(
My pleasure. Here are some more ideas. Sunflower seed butter, pumpkin seeds, apple butter, date or raisin butter. I still stand by my idea of adding just a little touch of the peanut butter if eating a sandwich worth is ok on your system. Just make half of your receipe so that if you don't like it or get rid of it you don't feel too badly or do as I do, give it to the neighbors and say it's a new idea/experiment. My sons are grown up and their friends and my neighbors were my lab rats, not my sons. To make you laugh, many of the things we did not like, they loved. HA HA
She said any peanut butter hurts. The sandwich worth is in relation to other nut butters.
Apple (or any fruit) butter has a pretty different consistency and sugar level. It's fine for baking (or just eating an entire jar worth, mmmmm) but I don't know if a one-to-one substitution would work -- more like applesauce than peanut butter.
Cookie butter is very similar to peanut butter in texture - though I admit I haven't baked with it, I would assume it would work.
I'm a professional baker and my daughter is allergic to peanuts and peanut anything is my husband's favorite, so we have had to learn to adjust. I use soy nut butter. It doesn't contain any peanuts or tree nuts or even sesame so it's safe for most allergy sufferers (except soy). To me it tastes more like real peanut butter than sunflower seed butter. The brand I like is called Wow butter and comes in crunchy and creamy varieties. It has a slight aftertaste, but you get used to it if you dont eat PB regularly. You can find it at most health food stores. Another great option if you can eat almonds is Barney butter. It's made purely from almonds in a peanut free facility. It's pretty pricey - almost $9 a jar, but it is delicious and works well in baked goods if you don't mind paying for it. I typically just use this one as a straight substitute in pb&j. Nutella is delicious of course, but not PB flavor. if you do bake with it though be sure to undercook just a bit because it burns more quickly and will turn your treats into little bricks.
Sunflower seed butter (also called "sunflower butter") is nut-free, and we use it on sandwiches for a friend with a peanut allergy. Its consistency is essentially identical to peanut butter (it sticks well to bread).
The biggest issue is that the flavor is somewhat different, although that varies somewhat from brand to brand (one brand, which I unfortunately forget the name of so I can't warn you about, had a rather bitter aftertaste). However, if it's mixed in with a bunch of other ingredients for a sweet application, that should be less of a problem (if it's still detectable at all).
I don't mind changing the flavor at all, but I am concerned with it tasting good at the same time. Would something like sunflower butter be good as cookies or a cake? I mean, I know it's hard to know unless you make it, but does it even sound good? Or would it go with chocolate (like a chocolate frosting on a sunflower butter cake)?
I'd say yes, although I'll also point out I've never actually tried it ;) It still tastes "nutty" (whereas something like cookie butter has more of a gingerbread flavor). I think that if you made "peanut butter" cookies and substituted this, it would be apparent something was different, but it would still taste good. And chocolate is always nice -- I'll be happy to taste test for you!
Here's a thought. Use the nutella, tahini or sunflower butter and I would add honey and use less white sugar. Now use Peanut Butter Extract or Peanut Butter Flavoring from King Arthur's Flour or I believe Spice Islands. Look it up on Google and you will find your flavorings. You should get your taste and texture without hopefully hurting your stomach. Good LucK!
@Brooke -- I made sunflower butter cookies this weekend, substituting into a standard peanut butter cookies recipe. The batter is slightly greasier, and the cookies a bit crumblier, and the "peanut" flavor rather muted (but still somehow there, perhaps psychological suggestion from the color shape?). However, they were delicious and popular, and nobody guessed there was a substitute!
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.378707
| 2015-02-26T15:18:23 |
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|
57461
|
Cooking with ground rabbit
A few months ago I bought some ground rabbit. I had sort of forgotten about it until the other day. I've tried looking up recipes for ground rabbit, but all of the rabbit recipes I've found call for cubes or pieces. If I substitute ground rabbit in spaghetti sauce or chili, would it taste gamey (I know that's somewhat subjective but I haven't eaten rabbit since I was very small so I don't remember how gamey it was but it was a wild rabbit not one raised to be food)? Would the spaghetti sauce or chili overpower the rabbit?
According to Rabbit Substitute?, rabbit is a gamier version of chicken. So, theoretically could I substitute ground rabbit where I might use ground chicken? Could I also make rabbit burgers out of the ground rabbit or would that be too gamey (I sometimes make burgers using ground chicken, salsa, and shredded or crumbled cheese)?
This question Substitute rabbit in chicken recipes? sort of asks what I'm looking for, but there's no real answer.
I hope I'm not too off topic or asking a question that's not allowed. I'm not looking for recipes, just options to substitute ground rabbit in recipes I already have.
I've never seen ground rabbit, but I've eaten rabbit many times in Spain grilled in the BBQ or in a Paella. Rabbit can compare to chicken. The meat is a bit tougher than chicken but not gamey at all. At least the farm rabbits I ate.
So I would say that yes, you should be able to use this ground meat as a substitute of chicken in a sauce and I don't even think that you will ever notice the difference.
If you are going to make hamburgers (and I would do just to be able to say that I ate a rabbit hamburger), maybe you could mix the meat with chopped onion, breadcrumbs and egg to make it moister.
Thanks Daniel. I was thinking along the same lines - that it would be cool to say I had a rabbit burger. Is it like poultry where you want to cook it through, or is it more like beef where you can have it a little rarer?
I really don't know about rabbit, but I would definitely stay on the safe side. When I cook chicken hamburgers (usually mixed with chopped onion), after I sear them, I add some water in the pan and I let it cook covered with the steam until the center is done. That way, the hamburgers stay moist even if they are well done. I only eat rare ground beef meat, and only when my butcher grounded it the same day in front of me.
I use both ground and whole rabbit in the same way I use chicken, it also makes an excellent breakfast sausage
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.379285
| 2015-05-13T20:12:12 |
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|
68531
|
What is the difference between milk (simple) and milk drink?
Here in Finland I have come across two types of milk. One is simple milk (maito/mjölk) and the other is milk-drink (maitojuoma/mjölkdryck). They also have variations like fat-free, light, whole (hel/täys) and lactose(-free).
Lactose-free whole milkdrink and whole milk, and light milkdrink and light milk have different tastes.
The difference between their ingredients is milk-based mineral preparations, mineral product or mineral preparations
Swedish:
mjölkbaserat mineralpreparat (Milbona)
mineralpreparat (Valio)
Finnish:
maitopohjainen kivennäisvalmiste (Milbona)
maitovalmiste (Valio)
They have different nutrition values but the same mineral value (only compared Milbona whole milk).
And both are placed in refrigerated compartments.
(I found milkdrink's taste slightly better.)
Question:
What is the differences between (simple) milk and milk-drink?
Have you read the ingredients?
Are both sold refrigerated? UHT milk has the same nutrition as pasteurised but here in the UK is often regarded as having an inferior flavour. That would be more of an issue when drinking it neat.
@Catija and @ ChrisH: question updated.
If the milk is modified by removing the lactose, it is no longer considered milk, and must be sold under a different name, such as milkdrink. The fat content can be modified while still considering it milk however.
The swedish FAQ of Valio (the biggest dairy producer in Finland) is very clear on this.
http://www.valio.se/halsa/laktosintolerans/fragor-och-svar
I couldn't however find the same quote in the Finnish FAQ (Via google translate).
http://www.valio.fi/usein-kysytyt-kysymykset/
While the legislation could in theory be different between the two countries, I believe this is probably regulated on EU level.
Good find. You might also want to add reference and excerpt of Helsingin Kaupunginkirjasto's (Helsinki City Library) answer to this question for completeness. http://www.kysy.fi/kysymys/mita-on-maitopohjainen-kivennaisvalmiste
Wheresas on the other hand milk drink means, it's one kind of mixture which is making by some ingredients like fruits and others. Here I would like to mention that main aim behind making milk drink is provide vitamins and proteins in form of milk so its not too different from milk but its testing quality and other proportions are different from milk.
I've removed the portion of your answer which was a copied description of milk (please make it clear what parts of your answers are quotes, and cite sources).
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.379511
| 2016-04-24T17:52:23 |
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|
74030
|
de buyer mineral b carbon steel seasoning
I bought a mineral b carbon steel pan some time ago and I've cooked with it probably about +-20 times (pretty much use it for steaks). I've been religious about seasoning it after every use using the following method:
Rinse with hot water and wipe dry.
Put back on stove top and reheat and ensure completely dried through.
Wipe on a thin layer of flaxseed oil.
Here is a pic of my pan currently:
Some questions I have:
Are the brown (rusty looking) areas quite normal? I'm certain it's not rust as I've taken a lot of care to prevent that, although if I smell closely it does have a slight rusty/metallic smell.
The only area of the pan that seems to develop some kind of patina is the center as you can see. How do I get that slick black finish over the entire pan? Will that just come from time & use or is my seasoning method incorrect?
The patina seems quite flaky...is this normal?
Thank you for any info/feedback provided.
I have the same pan. Are you following the instructions that come with it?
The center is too burned.
Flaky is not good.
The border is not seasoned.
The border is not rusty.
Is your fire big enough for the pan?
You should clean the pan (thorough scrub with salt) and re-season. See this Q&A
Thanks. I've done the salt scrubbing and re-seasoned it a few times. It's looking a lot better :)
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.379717
| 2016-09-18T10:07:58 |
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|
41658
|
Type of wok and how to go about seasoning it
I've just bought a cheap (+-$15) wok from an asian market and I'm unable to determine the type of material it is (the wok had no informative label/instructions). I was specifically looking for a carbon steel wok without a non-stick coating; I confirmed with the lady at the store that the wok did not have a non-stick coating, however, she was unable to tell me if it was carbon steel. The wok is not very heavy but feels fairly strong.
I've attached 2 photos of the wok. The black colour seems different from the other carbon steel woks I have seen, but I am no expert on the subject. If anyone is able to provide info on the material and how I should go about seasoning the wok I would highly appreciate it.
Thanks.
possible duplicate of Wok preparation and caring
It doesn't appear like a no-stick wok so its a carbon steel one. I'm concerned about the blackish colour. Normally woks don't come that black. Nevertheless, I would take an SOS pad and scrub it well but not too hard. See if some of the black comes off, if some comes off ok. If it doesn't come off with a good scrub then its on there for good.
From your pics you have no wooden handles so no protection is needed. Wipe some vegetable oil all over it at room temp. (preferably peanut oil because of the higher smoke temp) and invert it in a 400 deg F oven for 15-20 mins. Let it cool down gently on its own. When you take it out and it feels dry, repeat the process, up to 3 times.
Now you're ready to cook. But, you will now need a small bamboo brush. When you are finished cooking a meal all you do is rinse the wok under warm water and bamboo brush only!!! This is where the extra seasoning comes to play. Every time you use it the seasoning grows. My wok is seasoned but a black/browish tint.
Good Luck!
I had a very similar coating on the wok I bought recently. The person I bought it from explained that the coating had to be burnt off, and not scrubbed off. I put the wok on a high flame and made sure to flame the entire surface of the wok, including the sides.
The coating smokes and burns, but once it is off you will find yourself with a good carbon steel wok. it does take some time and great heat to burn it off so persevere.
Do this outside!
I can't help with the material, but having seasoned a few woks now I find this video by Tane Chan of The Wok Shop very informative, she talks through many different material and style woks and how to get a great starter seasoning.
Basic instructions are as follows:
Clean wok per manufacturer instructions
Rub oil onto all metal surfaces inside and out
Cover all wooden surfaces with a damp towel and kitchen foil
Cook upside down in an oven at around 200°C (400F) for 20 minutes
Stir-fry some 'pungent vegetables' like Chinese chives until charred to take away any metallic taste
Could the dark color just be from the initial protective coating (generally, you're supposed to scrub new woks with water and soap before first use, to get that coating of).
If the wok is fairly light, it's likely to be carbon steel, especially at this price point. Plus, cast iron, the other possibility, is, well, cast, while this wok looks like it's spun (though a bit tricky to tell for certain from the pictures).
From the look of it, it's not cast iron. Coating as any other iron pot.
Check here http://cooking.stackexchange.com/a/13558/641
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.379863
| 2014-02-01T06:58:21 |
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|
41069
|
Adding vanilla flavor to non-fat plain greek yogurt
Having read the question How to get the flavors to meld when I add fruit and sugar to plain yogurt?, I still have a question. I enjoy vanilla-flavored greek yogurt. I know pure vanilla extract is a very strong flavoring. How much vanilla should I add to a cup of plain greek yogurt? How much Splenda to the same amount of yogurt?
This is a matter of taste. You should experiment and see what you prefer.
Based on these blog entries chosen because they come early in search results for "homemade vanilla yogurt"
Blissfully Content Life
Vintage Mixer
you might want to start your experimentation with the following ratios:
3 tablespoons of vanilla per gallon of yogurt
3/4 cup sugar equivalent per gallon of yogurt
On a per cup basis, this works out to about 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla, and 2 1/4 teaspoons of sugar or equivalent.
Great! Now I have a place to start!
Don't remember where I got it;
32 oz container,
1 teaspoon vanilla
a little less than a 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
3 tablespoons powdered sugar
Good luck,
Ron
32 oz. of Greek yogurt,
2 tsp. vanilla extract,
a scant 1/2 cup of Splenda.
Mix well and enjoy. I prefer my yogurt a little on the sweet side. So experiment.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.380154
| 2014-01-11T19:47:52 |
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|
126067
|
Easy holiday sugar cookies: I can't make these work!
I'm trying to make the "Easy holiday sugar cookies" from America's Test Kitchen website:
1 egg
3/4 teaspoon salt
354g all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
198g granulated sugar
16 tablespoon butter.
The method is shown here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvdVaVTnElc
I'm so disappointed with myself but I just can't make these work. You powder sugar in a food processor, then add chilled butter, one egg, then flour/baking powder/baking soda, all of this mixed in a food processor. My cookies turn out incredibly sticky and difficult to roll, even after chilling in the fridge all night, even after storing the dough in the freezer for half an hour. I've already ruined two batches because either the dough was impossible to work with or next day the cookies were soft and chewy (this recipe specifically says that it produces crisp cookies). These cookies are also impossible to stamp.
My go to sugar cookies recipe is just flour, butter, sugar, egg and mix everything by hand. They turn out great but they're a nightmare to roll, I've had arms day at the gym that left me less sore! This recipe is definitely easier to handle, but so sticky. My guess is that my food processor may not have enough power - I can't get it to powder the sugar, I powder it in my nutribullet. And my cookies were also bubbling and they spread more than the knead everything by hand recipe. I may try to make these in a stand mixer but not this year because I'm making cookies to give as Christmas gifts, Christmas is just around the corner and I've already ruined two batches of these. Also, I skipped the vanilla and almond extract because I like a simple sugar cookie.
What I could be doing wrong?
Could you post the quantities, intended method and exactly what you did? 'Incredibly sticky' suggests not enough flour, but maybe something in your method made the difference too.
Sorry, just edited the post but here it is:
Edit: This recipe is 1 egg, 3/4 teaspoon salt, 354g AP flour, 1/4 teaspoon baking powder + 1/4 teaspoon baking soda, 198g granulated sugar, 16 tablespoon butter. The method is shown here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvdVaVTnElc
Right now my best guess is that my food processor isn't strong enough, since it can't powder the sugar (the first step of the recipe is powdering the sugar), so it may not be handling the butter as well.
"354g" is a suspicious measurement. Are you certain the original recipe didn't say 454g?
I am; quoting from the recipe: "2 ½ cups (12 1/2 ounces; 354 grams) all-purpose flour"
Let me just add I am pretty sure there is nothing wrong with the recipe but there is something wrong with my method.This recipe has raving reviews on ATK's website, with a score of 4.6 with 66 ratings. I scrolled down the comments and couldn't find anyone who is struggling like me, the recipe has glowing reviews all over.
you're supposed to chill the dough after rolling it. And chilled butter should be fairly solid, independent of whatever else you did to it. If you read through the recipe, was the description of the dough "off" at any point while you were making the recipe?
Did you use fridge-cold butter? Was the dough crumbly before you hand-kneaded it? Possibly your food processor heated up the butter too much if it was too weak, but then it should firm up again in the fridge/freezer.
The recipe also has you roll the dough between two sheets of parchment paper because it's supposed to be soft and sticky. Then you chill it so it's firm enough to cut and transfer. Is that what you did?
I've chilled the dough, first I chilled it overnight in the fridge, second time I chilled it about 1 hour in the fridge and then 30 minutes in the freezer. First batch of dough ended up in the trash because it was impossible to roll, second batch had to kept going back in the freezer because it kept turning soft as I was handling the cookies, I was able to bake them, then next day they were horribly soggy (this recipe it's meant to produce crisp cookies).
Adding the flour to the dough was the last step, and when I added the flour the dough seemed a bit too sticky than what I see in their video, it didn't look like wet sand at all. I've used butter that I got straight out of the fridge both times.
It does sound like your food processor might be warming up the butter too much. Possibly the warmer butter hydrates the flour more, which might cause softer cookies as well.
Thank you, my guess is that the food processor is messing up the recipe too. I'm willing to try this recipe a third time using my stand mixer, it would be nice to have a cookie dough that doesn't require sailor arms to handle it, and I've seen other recipes that similar to this one but use a stand mixer. But if the stand mixer doesn't work I am done, back to kneading sugar cookie dough by hand.
16 tablespoons is a horrible measure too, even worse with a solid rather than free-flowing powder or liquid. 16 times the inaccuracy. I'd look for recipes that use weights right the way through.
Regarding the tablespoons I thought so too, but apparently in the US it's common to see packs of butter that have the tablespoon measurements on the package.
@Tetsujin yes, 16 Tbsp in the US is just 2 sticks of butter (1/2 pound). No measuring needed. And sticks of butter are marked with lines for tablespoons, so you can just cut off a piece the correct size.
Maaaan… that's just weeiirrdd ;)))
If the dough is sticky there's too much moisture in the recipe. Looking at the recipe it calls for 16tbsp of butter, which is half a pound or 225g (226 is you are being really precise). If you look at your typical shortbread recipe it's a 1:2:3 ratio of sugar, butter and flour by weight. Taking the egg out of it you have 198g sugar, 225g butter and 354g flour, which would probably work as the flour and butter have been reduced.
However, you're adding an egg which is where I think things have gotten out of whack. US egg sizes are smaller than EU/UK, if the recipe calls for 1 us large that would equate to a EU/UK medium. It may not sound like much but it's enough to mean the difference between a workable dough and a sticky mess.
The solution is add a bit less egg, or add a bit more flour, and maybe a tad more sugar as well. Just spoon more in and blitz it until the consistency is right.
I didn't know that egg sizes were different across countries, but I am in Portugal and the eggs I am using say they're a size M/L, just because it's what I have at home. Anyway I am back to my knead by hand recipe. I made this recipe yesterday using the stand mixer and although it turned out alright and I could roll the dough easily and it wasn't impossibly sticky, these cookies are impossible to stamp. Even after dipping the stamps in flour the dough stuck to the stamp. Reading the comments I didn't see anyone stamping the cookies, so maybe they're just meant for decorating not stamping.
Add more flour, that's really the trick. You can try and add a bit of cornflour (cornstarch) as well, that will help make them crisper.
Do you think I will be able to stamp them if I add the cornflour? I've seen a recipe that used cornflour together with the AP flour.
Cornflour is finer than most all-purpose plain flour, so it will help a bit. Don't go overboard though, use a small proportion.
Here's an update: I just made this recipe using my stand mixer, and it was alright. The dough was softer than my knead by hand recipe but definitely handable. Much easier to roll than my knead by hand recipe. Still, I prefer my knead by hand recipe. First and foremost, I couldn't stamp these cookies even after I dipped the stamp in flour. I have some lovely cookie stamps that look like gingerbread men and a gingerbread girl and I think those are super cute but I just couldn't stamp the cookies. The cookies also came out of the oven soft, which kinda messed up with me because my other cookies come out of the oven already hard. Some of the cookies also puffed up and there was a bit of bubbling. So, all things considered I don't think I will make this recipe again.
. The cookies also came out of the oven soft, which kinda messed up with me because my other cookies come out of the oven already hard. Some of the cookies also puffed up and there was a bit of bubbling. So, all things considered I don't think I will make this recipe again.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.380298
| 2023-12-11T08:52:01 |
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|
83501
|
How much vinegar should I use when making Salsa?
My wife's boss makes some absolutely great salsa, so we got the recipe from her so that we could try our hand at it with our fresh garden veggies. The recipe is below:
Salsa
16 cup tomatoes, peeled and quartered
4 cups onions, chopped
2 cup jalapenos, chopped (with without seeds) -- adjust this (1 1/4 cup, 1/2 of seeds used)
2 1/2 cup white vinegar
1 cup sugar
1/2 c pickling salt
3 tsp garlic powder
1 1/2 T chili powder
2 tsp black pepper
2 T cumin seed
1 tsp alum
2 (6oz) cans tomato paste
Blend together and cook for 1 1/2 - 2 hours, uncovered. Put into hot sterilized jars; seal and process in a hot water bath for 15 minutes. Makes 8 pints
WARNING: When slicing jalapenos use rubber gloves and don't touch your eyes
(original recipe)
Last summer I made 16 pints with this recipe, and it was basically inedible due to the overwhelming vinegar bitterness. We ran this back by her boss who gave us the recipe, and she said she really just wings it on the vinegar.
So my question is, for this recipe how much white vinegar should actually be used? We have our garden veggies ready for salsa making this weekend, and I really don't want to waste all of them again this year! Hope I can get some help on the vinegar part!
If you're canning this you either need high acidity or you need to use a pressure canner. If you drop the acid you need to consider how to process it for safe consumption later.
We don't have a pressure canner, but we do boil the full jars to help with the sealing process. How can we reduce the overwhelming acidity bitterness of the vinegar without dropping the amount added?
Are you concerned about the acidity or the bitterness. Do you have one, the other or both? If both, which one do you want to get rid of more?
One important thing to note is that winging it with acid levels for non-pressure canned foods is unwise.
To be honest, I guess I assumed the acidity caused the bitterness. The 16 pints we made last year had such a strong vinegar flavor you could barely stand to eat it. We ended up pitching 14 jars of it. I don't really want to wing it, I want to get it right, and not have it taste like straight vinegar.
What do you mean by "get it right"? If your goal is to taste like the boss does it, then you also should add vinegar to taste, and make the informed decision of eating unsafe food. If your goal is to eat safe food, then you will have to use the exact recipe without any changes (presuming that the original recipe has been tested for safety with the canning method you use). There is no "do it right", it is your decision which one you prefer.
I just mean I want it to taste good, and be done correctly so that it does not spoil during storage. Canning is new to my wife and I, and its a learning process for us. We feel like the recipe calls for too much vinegar due to it having such a bitter taste when we made it last year, but with making salsa and canning being new to us I came here for advice on the recipe and what to do to "get it right" in terms of taste and safety.
Rule 1: never make two gallons of anything before making a small batch to make sure it's good.
The guideline for the safe canning of tomatoes is for 2 tbsp of 5% vinegar per pint of tomatoes. If you made 16 pints then you'd need 32 tbsp of vinegar, and that is almost 2.5 cups. This isn't to prevent spoiling, the processing will do that, it's to prevent the growth of botulism, which boiling does not do.
However, the recipe above calls for 16 cups of tomatoes, 4 cups of onions and 2 cups of jalapenos, for a total of 22 cups of vegetables. That's 11 pints, not 16, so if you added 2.5 cups to that you've gone almost 50% over the amount you need, which could account for the strong acid flavor. For that volume 22 tbsp or 1.65 cups would be sufficient.
It's possible your wife's boss is adding vinegar until it tastes good, then canning the result. This isn't safe because it means there could be far less acidity than would be wise (I'm assuming that the boss is using a water bath method because that's what the recipe says, if she's using a pressure canner then it's a different story). If this is the case then this recipe will never really work as is because to make it taste right you'll have to compromise on food safety.
You have a couple of options here:
Buy a pressure canner: you can probably ebay one for not much money, and it means you can get the flavor you want. Processing time is much shorter as well, giving you superior product (the guidelines for a water bath are 40-50 minutes, in a pressure canner it's just over 10)
Try a different acid: citric acid powder adds acidity without much flavor. The guideline is 1/4 tsp per pint. Canning supply shops will carry it, it's easy to find on the internet. Lemon juice (commercially bottled for consistency) is also a favorite for salsas, 1 tbsp per pint is the guideline.
If you decide to change acids or acid levels then I suggest you do a small test batch to make sure it's good before going full scale.
A good page on canning tomato products is here.
Sorry, I guess I should have mentioned that we doubled the recipe, that's how we ended up with 16 pints. So in total we used 5 cups of white vinegar.
Gawd almighty! That's far too much, no wonder it came out too sour!
Thank you for the excellent information! I was unaware there was a standard amount of 2 tbsp of vinegar per pint of tomatoes! Glad I came here for help before trying this recipe again!
Just a note - the pressure canning directions for tomatoes mimic the waterbath process and do not actually get the heat up to the proper "pressure canning" temp and indeed the added acid is still required. To pressure can a recipe involving tomatoes and other veggies, you should process for the time of the longest ingredient which would probably be onions or peppers.
also, @AndyWarren - you can use the salsa recipes found on the NCHFP website as references for ratios of low acid ingredients (peppers, onion), tomato and acid (vinegar, lemon juice, etc): http://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can_salsa.html
Additionally, I believe that the 2 tbsp of vinegar/pint of tomatoes is for PURE tomatoes. I do NOT think that would sufficiently acidify low acid ingredients in there such as peppers and onion (but I could be wrong).
Well, after this making this question and getting all this excellent information I spent several hours researching online and reading various things. I ended up leaving the vinegar and lemon juice out entirely, and used citric acid dosed by the label. The salsa turned out excellent! Its probably in my top 5 salsas, and I've eaten 2 pints of it since Saturday!
That's gotta be good salsa @AndyWarren, glad it's worked out for you.
The 2 tbs vinegar per pint guide lines are for tomatoes. You are adding other ingredients that would change the PH of the tomatoes which is 4.9 to 5.2 so it would take more vinegar to get the PH level to the safe 4.0 PH level.
Maintaining a PH below 4.6 is considered safe when canning salsa. Buy some test strips or litmus paper and be sure to taste test salsa before canning. My homegrown tomatoes already test at 4.3 to 4.4 PH without adding anything. Good luck!
https://nchfp.uga.edu/publications/nchfp/factsheets/salsa.html
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.380895
| 2017-08-04T13:23:08 |
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|
42799
|
How should I store homemade salad dressing?
I have a recipe for a homemade salad dressing, with the following ingredients:
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1 tablespoon dry mustard
2 teaspoons celery seed
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup oil
1/2 cup vinegar
Mix/blend and let sit for a couple of hours. Be sure and shake before applying to your salad.
Should I refrigerate this after making it, or is it safe to leave in the cupboard?
Yes, you should refrigerate. Shelf life of foods which can be stored warm is determined by the fact that they are missing something which bacteria need to survive. For example, flour is missing water.
When you mix up several ingredients which can be kept in the pantry separately, you never know when you will be adding back into the mixture whatever was missing into the first place. Actually, you have a high chance of doing just that, because bacteria and humans find the same stuff tasty. When you make it more palatable for you, you are probably making it more palatable for them.
Bottom line: unless you know very well what you are doing, always refrigerate mixtures. They have a shelf life of 3-5 days in the fridge. It doesn't matter what the shelf life of the individual components was.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.381543
| 2014-03-16T17:51:52 |
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|
64542
|
Refinishing Griswold No. 8 waffle iron handles
I'm in the process of restoring a badly neglected Griswold No. 8 waffle iron (885 886 if it makes any difference). I've got all of the cast iron parts stripped down and re-seasoned and just started working on the badly rusted Alaskan coil handles. I got the majority of the rust off with a long carbonic acid bath and some light sanding with 600 grit sandpaper, but found some unexpected bright areas that almost look like the remains of hot galvanization:
I'd like to give them an authentic finish, but I can't find any information as to what the factory finish (if any) was on the handles. Does anyone know if they were galvanized, or if not, how they were finished?
FYI, we generally handle equipment questions more about the actual cooking aspects of the equipment, so there might not be a lot of knowledge about things like this around here. There's some discussion on meta: http://meta.cooking.stackexchange.com/q/2141/1672
@Jefromi - responded on meta.
If you are trying to obtain an even color, you can paint them with 'Stove Black' which is great for unpainted cast iron and raw metal that will get a lot of heat. It will give you a dull matt finish and can develop a nice patina. I would not put any on the waffle iron part where food will touch.
They were probably originally galvanized, and you might find somewhere locally that will dip them for you for a few bucks.
As an alternative you might oil them up and season them like the rest of the waffle iron. You're not looking for a "perfect" coating like the cooking surface, but just enough of a coating to prevent rust. If it doesn't work out you could easily strip them down and have them galvanized.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.381674
| 2015-12-18T02:32:20 |
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|
43972
|
What are the grey-black specks that appear when whipping cream in stainless steel bowl?
When we whip cream by hand in a stainless steel bowl, with a metal whisk, small grey specks, ~0.5-1mm in size, appear in the cream. The specks are squishy and can easily be smeared out. See attached photos:
Googling does not turn up much except similar question at: http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/508107
The specks appear in different stainless steel bowls ("Stainless steel" imprinted on all bowls - no aluminium or other metals involved as far as we can tell).
The same whisk used in a plastic bowl does not produce specks.
The cream is organic, 40% fat (Swedish "Arla EKO"). We cannot detect any strange taste.
It seems probable that the specks come from mechanical wear. But what is it? What could be the cause? Is there something we should know about Stainless steel bowls?
Those look like air pockets - you're using an unusual whisk, perhaps it can't get enough "bite" on the stainless steel bowl to pop them, whereas the plastic bowl's texture offers enough resistance. I'd try it with a balloon whisk rather than a spiral whisk, and see if that helps. Here's a breakdown on whisks and their uses from Craftsy.
Agreed. They're just bubbles.
Interesting, we'll try more, look closer, and get back.
We just experienced the same phenomenon, and we were able to confirm that the specks were NOT bubbles - if we were careful enough, we could isolate the flecks. They came in different shapes - some were specks, but some were almost filaments.
We have a stainless steel bowl, but we suspect the whisk was aluminum.
Since aluminum is Mohs hardness 2-2.9 and stainless steel is 5.5-6.3, it's quite likely that the aluminum whisk was leaving residue on the side of the bowl that was ending up in the whipped cream.
We are avoiding aluminum utensils anyway, so now we will purchase a stainless steel whisk and see if the flecks still occur.
Update, October 26, 2015...
We've upgraded the whisk to stainless steel, and it still occurs when whipping cream in the stainless steel bowl.
I think the way to avoid flecks is to not use metal with metal, but instead use the whisk in a bamboo/plastic bowl.
I agree with your update. I tend not to use metal on metal because 2 similar objects can "beat" each other up and leave behind some residue, or flakes of fallen off material.
I think this is silly. You cook in metal. You put hot acids IN metal pans. You constantly eat metal off of your pan, and stainless steel is malleable enough to not "flake" off, if you were getting small portions of metal in your food its highly unlikely that it would be large enough to be harmful. Cooking in steel or iron leaves trace amounts of iron in food inevitably, and this is simply digested, as metals are highly reactive with acids(your stomach).
In the case of whipped cream, it's objectionable largely because it's distracting.
@tsturzl: I hope you do not put hot acids in aluminium pans, because that will dissolve an unhealthy amount of aluminium. Iron/steel will also dissolve, but iron is an essential nutrient and only becomes toxic at very high concentrations.
@MSalters That's out of context. The OP stated that the bowl is stainless steel which in itself isn't very reactive. Also aluminum may be reactive but it forms an oxide coating when exposed to heat and oxygen. Still probably not a good idea to heat acidic foods in an aluminum pan, but I think that your statement is misplaced especially when the context of the question revolves around the bowl being stainless steel.
Might it be some kind of oxidation or residue that the whisk is scraping off?
It is from the wisk. If you do careful inspection at the top of the wisk you will see rust and black when you move the wires around. I just had to throw out my entire pie. I used two separate metal whips one was used in glass the other was used in a metal bowl. Both had flakes. Buy a coated whisk
What my wife and I have worked out is that it appears to be a result of the beaters causing too much friction against the metallic bowl and either burning the cream or causing the metal of the beaters to wear off.
We noticed that the flecks are slightly metallic in nature - they give off a slight shine in the light.
Furthermore, the volume of flecks appear to increase over time. When we poured the cream into the bowl we didn't see anything at first, and there was nothing in the cream container. It was only after mixing it for a while with an electric mixer that it would start showing up.
We also noticed that it only happened when we would tilt the bowl to one side and let the beaters move the cream, rather than moving the beaters around the bowl.
We also noticed that the beaters we have with this mixer (which we bought in the summer of 2021) have tiny studs at the point where the wings(?) meet rather that being flat; it might be these studs that are causing the friction against the metal bowl.
We're going to see if we can find better beaters for our mixer, and in future will make sure we move the beaters around the bowl to avoid too much friction in one area.
I believe the whipped cream is collecting dust particles from the fridge, my first concern was that it was mold, but I know my cream was fresh. It sat in my fridge for an hour while we ate. It's odd that the sizes of these flecks are different. Maybe I'll try a silicone wisk next time :(
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I read on my container of whipping cream that it has an ingredient in there that is sea weed based so im thinking that its bits of sea weed. I actually took some of the specks out and they are actually a dark green and smooshie
It sounds like you’re thinking of carrageenan, which is commonly used as a stabiliser. But it’s used in a processed, purified form; it wouldn’t look like this.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.381866
| 2014-05-07T13:50:27 |
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|
47670
|
What cut of beef can I use to make "sukiyaki beef"?
I want to try a recipe for Gyudon (shown below) that calls for thin-sliced "Sukiyaki Beef". My local grocery store doesn't carry anything by that name. I'm comfortable with thin-slicing beef myself (possibly partially freezing it first), but I'm unsure what cut to start with.
What types or cuts of beef should I start with for Sukiyaki, Gyudon, Shabu Shabu, or other "Sukiyaki Beef" dishes?
I happen to have a rump roast in my freezer. Will that work?
Conclusion: Made it with rump roast. It sliced easily, cooked perfectly, and was tender and delicious.
Your best choices would be top sirloin (#1 choice), tenderloin, or one of the other (less expensive) sirloin cuts. Those cuts will be tender, flavorful, and without pockets of fat or gristle to mar the appearance of your dish.
I don't recommend round because I simply don't like its flavor. Using round in this application might be one of the best applications to use up round, but for the best possible beef bowl, I'd go with the sirloin or tenderloin.
TIP: To thinly slice meat, put it in the freezer first until it just starts to get hard (not even close to fully frozen), or start with meat that is only partially defrosted. Partially frozen meat is much easier to neatly and thinly slice. For this application, thin even slices really are important, they make for a much nicer presentation.
I wouldn't recommend tenderloin -- it doesn't have enough fat. You'd want something well marbled.
@Joe To me tenderloin is a distant second to sirloin, but really OK. You definitely don't want anything with more fat than sirloin.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.382382
| 2014-10-05T03:55:48 |
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|
54669
|
How to get uniform bubbles in simple dutch oven bread?
I'm using the "Saturday White Bread" recipe from Ken Forkish's Flour Water Salt Yeast. I'm very happy with the results so far, except for the irregularity of the bubbles. Here's my loaf:
For contrast, here's a photo of the same recipe from Forkish's book:
His bubbles are not perfectly uniform, but they are a lot more uniform than mine. The dense areas are not as dense, and the largest bubbles are not nearly as large.
The recipe I followed:
1000 grams all-purpose unbleached flour
720 grams water, 95°f
21 grams salt
4 grams “active dry” yeast
Complete procedure here.
Some areas are very dense with small bubbles, while others are large and cavernous. An average 1/2" thick slice has two or three large holes going clean through.
Is there any way to even out the bubble size without reducing the overall airiness?
Looks like pretty good hearth bread! Some seek that kind of crumb, with its custardy goodness. It looks squat, so hydration and gluten content/development are probably in play. Would you share hydration percentage and type of flour (e.g., general type, protein content or milling coarseness if available)? I make something like this; is yours similar?
Similar yes, except the dough is folded a couple of times and it doesn't rest as long. I've updated the question with a link to my version of the recipe. The hydration is (if I'm doing it right) 72%.
Would lowering the hydration help?
To clarify my comment more. To me, those bubbles indicate you are doing everything correctly. If this reference is accurate http://www.artisanbakers.com/crumb.html I wonder if your hydration is accidentally higher than 72% and I wonder if lowering your hydration would help?
@Rick Interesting link! It does look like my hydration might be high, although I measured the ingredients carefully according to the recipe. I'll try it with a little less water next time.
Maybe it was a humid day!
This is just me, but your bread looks better. Look at the pictures here! YUM! http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/47667/should-ciabatta-sandwich-rolls-be-dry-and-dense/47674#47674
Given that the second picture is what you desire, your bread is over proofed. The large irregular bubbles and flat or sunken overall shape is indicative of such. There are a couple of things you can try:
Make sure to form the loaf such that it has a nice taught skin on the outside prior to final proofing. You will notice in the second picture, the bubble structure is obviously interrupted from where the loaf was folded inward onto itself to stretch the outer skin tight. (Note the concentration of large bubbles towards the lower mid-left of the loaf)
Don't let your bread proof for so long. Typically the longer the proofing period, the bigger the bubbles.
Punch the bread down more vigorously between proofings. This helps to pop the bubbles that have gotten too large.
That said, I would much rather eat the first loaf of bread, as that open structure and sturdy crust is what a lot of us home bakers enjoy most.
Extra Credit:
If you want your loaf to be tall instead of flat there are a few other things to try.
Develop a stronger gluten structure by kneading or stretching.
Make sure to form a taught skin around the outside of the dough when shaping the final loaf. This will help to constrict the outward spread of the dough.
Use a structured vessel to support the dough during the final rise. If you try to make a loaf like the one pictured on a flat surface, it will inevitably spread out and droop. Cheers!
I almost closed this as a duplicate of other "small bubbles" questions, when I realized that you may not be aware that it is connected. Especially, you say
even out the bubble size without reducing the overall airiness
which is different than wanting dense bread.
What you ask for is impossible. Yeast builds lively colonies, and they grow, well, organically. What is a bad word in the tech sector is perfect in bread. But of course, the resulting bubbles are not uniform.
The only way to make uniform bubbles is to make a crumb which is so unconductive to bubble growth that all of them stay tiny. This results in a dense bread resembling a dish sponge in texture. As soon as you follow a method geared towards "as much air as the dough will hold", you get large bubbles with lots of air, and in the space between them, small bubbles, and between, smaller ones, and so on.
By the way, this picture shows that everything has been done right. Your recipe is geared towards this result, and you got it. Again, if you want other types of bread which are known for small bubbles, such as American toast bread, you will have to use a completely different method.
Thanks for your answer! I added to my question a photo from Ken Forkish's book, showing the expected result of the recipe. To my eye it looks like it is just as light and airy as my loaf, but with a more uniform bubble size. There appear to be more medium-sized bubbles, and the largest bubbles are not nearly so large as in my loaf. That's all I'm trying to achieve.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.382563
| 2015-02-13T00:06:42 |
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|
44440
|
Why do my macarons come out looking weird?
Recipe I use:
100g grade AA brown large egg white
50g sugar
200g confectioners sugar
110g almond flour (I grind my almond flour using nutribullet)
5g egg white powder
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
I use a kitchen aid to beat the egg white gradually, starting at speed 4, after about 3 mins I added the sugar and egg white powder mixture slowly. I increase the speed to six, beat for another 3 mins, then increase to 8 for another 2 mins, and speed 10 for 1mins. So the total beating time is about 9 mins.
Then I fold in the almond flour and confectioners sugar mixture(sifted) gradually. When it's ready, I pipe them in a size about 1.25 inch space in-between 3 quarters to 1 inch. Then I let them rest for about 30 mins until the surface is not sticky. I baked them in a whirlpool conventional oven for about 11 mins at temperature 285 Fahrenheit. They came out looking like the picture below. Please help! What did I do wrong?
I've seen worse macarons than that! Just to be clear, are you unhappy with them because they are a little uneven?
Agreed. They look great to me. I too assume the OP is looking for perfectly level macaroons.
Ah, macarons. If it's not one thing, it's another. Uneven pied usually indicate that the oven was too hot. You should use an oven thermometer to determine the exact temperature of your oven, because oven dials themselves straight up lie. I once had an oven that was always 20C over the temperature on the dial.
If you get a thermometer (or have one) and this still happens, try positioning the tray at different heights in the oven.
Unfortunately, making macarons is a process of trial, error and experience, getting to know your oven and the texture of the batter. Good luck.
Couldn't it be air bubbles? Isn't there advice to drop the tray onto a surface from 6-9 inches up?
Possibly, but you'd normally see more pitting on the top in that situation.
That's good to know. I've never made them myself although I plan to try, so all information is helpful.
They are tricky because there are so many variables. Treat it like a scientific experiment and you will eventually prevail!
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.383262
| 2014-05-27T06:40:00 |
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|
119459
|
Is adding butter to caramel sauce essential?
I doubt that omitting butter in caramel sauce will have a significant effect on the texture or the taste of the caramel sauce. May I know about the reasons of adding butter inside? The aim of the caramel sauce is to act as the chocolate ganache drip on a cake.
Do you have a particular recipe in mind? Is it one that uses lots of butter, or just a little in addition to something like cream?
Emm, I have seen some recipe that some require using lots of butter with cream, some require using a little butter with cream and some recipes only require to use the cream only, that's why i am a bit confused about whether adding butter is essential or not.
If you look at the ratios of (cream+butter) to sugar, for recipes that only use those ingredients it's probably reasonably similar. You might need to include any water in with the fats; as butter has less water than cream does, the water will make up the difference.
Yes, you can make a caramel sauce without butter, but you have to add either water or... something else.
If you use water, you'll get a pure caramel syrup that looks like honey. Personally, this is what I'd recommend because it's versatile on it's own, and can be repurposed into a different caramel sauce if you add another liquid, and patiently cook the mixture back to the proper temperature.
In order to make a pure caramel syrup: Cook your sugar up to the desired temperature in a very large pot. Then, remove the syrup from the heat (I usually move to the sink to be safe), stand back, and using a towel or oven mitt to protect your hand, pour water into the pot. There will be lots of steam and bubbling, so please be careful. Then return the caramelized sugar and water to the heat, stir to dissolve the solid bits of caramel, and continue to cook until you've reached the consistency you desire. For a drip/glaze, you'll want to cook it to between 225 and 235 F, I'd think. It would be best to keep a cool plate to the side so you can drip a little of your caramel syrup at a time and judge its thickness as you go along.
Keep in mind this will be a syrup by itself, so it will drip... and keep dripping. It will not set up, unless you cook it to the point where it's chewy/tough like @rumtscho warns. However, an easy workaround is to make a piping gel, either with gelatin or cooked starch using your caramel syrup in place of corn syrup or sugar.
If you want an opaque syrup that has a more complex or creamy flavor, you'll need to use a dairy product instead of water. Butter is a go-to because it lends the most richness with the least amount of steam, and least dulce de leche/cooked milk flavor, and accordingly the least risk of curdling. Heavy cream is also a go-to because it's a very stable emulsion, which will help prevent any greasiness from separation, is still unlikely to curdle, and doesn't produce a lot of steam. Some of us really enjoy the tart dulce de leche flavor as part of a caramel as well.
You can use lower-fat dairy products like half and half, or even whole milk. I can't tell you if 2% milk, skim milk, or non-dairy options will work, but if they can handle being boiled without curdling, then they'll probably work. I just can't promise it. The lower fat and higher protein your liquid has, however, the more danger you'll have of curdling. This danger is exacerbated by the high temperatures, and by the darkness of the caramel. The darker the caramel, the higher the acidity. So, if you use a lower-fat liquid (other than water, obviously), I would recommend letting the caramel syrup cool down significantly before adding the liquid. That will be more time-consuming, but will hopefully prevent curdling.
Regardless of the substance you add, the basic procedure remains the same: Cook sugar in a big pot until it's the right temperature/color for your needs. Then, (allow the molten sugar to cool down if adding a low-fat liquid, or else take measures to protect yourself from the steam, and) add the butter or liquid. Return to the heat, stirring to re-melt and combine. Continue stirring and heating until it reaches a good temperature/consistency for your application. Consider using it to make a piping gel if you need more stability.
Also, in case it's relevant-- I've tried making caramel using coconut oil, but that did not work. It totally separated. Adding heavy cream managed to emulsify it, but it still had a distinctly oily taste and feel to it, which I did not enjoy. I did not test using coconut milk or coconut cream, but considering that those tend to separate in the can, I'm skeptical that they would work well either.
If you don't add the butter, it won't be a sauce, it will be pure caramel. Caramel is not a sauce, and is not suited as a cake glaze - it will stick more to your teeth than to the cake if soft, or be an uncuttable brittle plate if hard. If you need a sauce, follow the recipe for a sauce.
It is possible to make caramel sauce without butter, but you'll need something instead, and that's likely to be another fat.
For example here's one that uses lots of cream.
Vegan recipes of course do without butter. Some use a butter substitute but many seem to use coconut oil, coconut cream, and/or coconut milk.
You may need to adjust the proportions to get the thickness right for pouring over a cake
|
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.383493
| 2022-01-10T19:01:49 |
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|
46472
|
What does natural vanilla extract smell like?
I bought a natural vanilla extract, but it had a strong aroma somewhat like spirit or what you get in almond essence? Is that normal? I've only used artificial vanilla so far and they smell really pleasant and warm and wonderful.
"Pure vanilla extract is made by macerating and percolating vanilla beans in a solution of ethyl alcohol and water."
[Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanilla_extract]
There is alcohol in it, that's why it smells like it has alcohol in it :)
So it is perfectly normal.
Personally, I find extracts and essences of vanilla to be a complete waste. To get that lovely vanilla smell and vanilla taste, add vanilla beans. To combat the relative high cost of vanilla beans, buy in bulk and store correctly, your vanilla beans can last for ages.
Thanks. Yes I would consider buying vanilla beans in bulk!
I disagree with the vanilla bean > vanilla extract part, but this is not the place for an extended discussion. Just wanted to mention that this is not the only way to view the matter.
@rumtscho if you have a minute, I'd like to hear about it? Now that I think about it, ease of even distribution is an area I think extract/essences > beans, but I'd like to hear what your views are :) Chat?
@setek yes, I'm in chat
If it's a problem for you, alcohol-free (e.g. halal) vanilla extracts are available but you have to look for them (amazon for example). There are also recipes for making your own. I have never used either, but have tasted the results and they're indistinguishable to me (but I'm no expert and vanilla tends to be used in fairly small quantities.
Another angle is that artificial vanilla extract is often just a solution containing vanillin, the primary compound which lends vanilla its distinct flavor (as you might have guessed from the name). Natural vanilla extracts contain hundreds of other compounds as well, which give it a much more complex flavor and aroma.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.383897
| 2014-08-18T03:39:01 |
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|
58583
|
Can I use an enameled trivet on the stove top?
I noticed a trivet at Aldi going for quite cheap and picked one up. My understanding of a trivet is that it's something you use to diffuse the power of a burner however, the one I got seems to be made to put hot pans and pots on. There are no instructions on the packaging however, so I'm not sure.
The trivet I purchased can be seen in the picture below, it's the round one. It's cast iron, enameled all around. I was wondering if something like that could be used on a gas stove?
Edit: Assuming I removed the thin layer of rubber coating on the feet of course.
I'm trying to imagine a scenario where this could really be useful in the way you think it could on anything resembling a modern stove. It is going to diffuse the heat too much to be useful, not to mention the fact that stoves generally have controls if you want to lower the heat. If you put the burner on full and use this, you might get the equivalent of the burner on low in the pan, with massive amounts of wasted heat energy diffusing into the environment.
A data point: manufacturers tend to rate enamel as heat stable up to somewhere between 250 and 300 Celsius. While it won't melt at such a low temperature, I guess it could crack, separate from the metal, or simply discolor if overheated. I don't know how close it needs to be to the center of a flame for this temperature to occur (enameled pots can certainly be licked by the flame of a gas burner), but placing it too close to the center of the flame might be a problem.
@goldilocks, if I were to use it, it would be in cases where the lowest heat on my lowest burner is too high for what I'm doing. I ended up taking the trivet outside and burning it over hot coals. The enamel darkened slightly at first, then black and blistered, then became a light green (guessing it was an undercoat as the top layer burnt away) that way easy to scrape off with the tongs. So yeah, now I'm left with bare cast iron. I have another one so I might see how that fares on the stove
I would not recommend using this trivet on any heat source. First, because that is not what it is designed to be used for. Secondly the description says that they have rubber feet, not a good match for a heat source. And while I suppose you could remove them, I couldn't recommend that in good conscience.
EDIT
As per @Jefromi's comment below and as evidenced on Dictionary.com , there are two types of trivets.
noun
1.a small metal plate with short legs, especially one put under a hot platter or dish to protect a table.
2.a three-footed or three-legged stand or support, especially one of iron placed over a fire to support cooking vessels or the like.
The type shown in the ad/picture in the question is designed to be used to protect table tops and counter tops from the heat of a hot pot or pan.
Let's suppose I did remove the rubber coating, the question is, is enamel safe to use on a direct heat source?
I think you might want to explicitly say what it is meant to be used for, since it sounds like that's the root of the misunderstanding. Nowadays the common meaning of "trivet" is something to set a hot dish on top of on the table, to protect the table from that heat. There's no reason to expect they'll be usable for the older sense of the word (holding something over a fire).
I would use it when the lowest heat of my weakest burner is too strong for my needs. The most common personal use-case would be making Arabic coffee on the stove (the trivet is also useful because it helps to stabilize the base of the pot which doesn't always sit well on a stove). Another example would be keeping a small pot at a bare simmer for some time.
@NRaf You may have a very good idea. But because the trivet is not designed for this use, there is no way to know if it will work or not and it would not be responsible to recommend it. But because you are talking about lower temperature usage, personally I think I would try it and see how it does. If you do, please let us know your results.
If it's the same as the enamel on the pans, it's capable of standing a fair amount of heat (besides the conduction in the pot, gas burners also waste heat up the sides of the pots too), so that's a fairly good sign. If you have a pot/pan with the same material that mentions a temperature it's oven-safe to a given temperature, and you also have a thermometer to test your stove, you might be able to get a slightly better idea before you try it.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.384190
| 2015-06-27T12:56:48 |
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54913
|
Bread dough doesn't keep its shape
I've just made some 50/50 loaves using a biga. The taste is quite good but I'd like the crumb to be more open.
The biggest issue is that while raising the dough tends to "spread" rather than rise. What did I do wrong?
Here is my recipe:
For the biga:
500g manitoba flour (extra strong)
300ml water
8g active dry yeast
After 24h I add:
500g wholemeal flour
300ml water
1tbsp vanilla paste
1tsp sugar
I've shaped the loaves straight away as I know wholemeal bread doesn't like long proofing. I've let the dough raise 1 hour at room temperature and 10 hours in the fridge.
This morning I found the dough slightly raised and evenly spread in the pan (more like a focaccia than 3 loaves :-) ). I've reshaped a bit, just separating the three loaves.
In the oven the size hasn't changed much (180 C, with a bit of water to keep humidity right).
I'm trying to get soft, open crumb loaves, like this one http://www.thefreshloaf.com/files/u5218/proth5_baguette_crumb.JPG
Edit: by mistake, as often happens in the kitchen, I've found the right recipe:
For the biga:
500g manitoba flour (extra strong)
300ml water
8g active dry yeast
After 24h I add:
500g wholemeal flour
**600ml** water
1tbsp vanilla paste
1tsp honey
And that is the result
How long did you knead for?
I kneaded with a stand mixer for about 5 minutes the biga, then another 5-6 minutes the final dough.
By hand? This could be your problem. I've always kneaded for around 20min total when making "strong" breads. I know side ways proving is inevitable. However making bread rolls you still get more upward motion than sideways. However if you think about a ciabatta dough, with almost no kneading it goes sideways instead of up. You can tell a novice attempt because it raises instead of staying flat.
"I kneaded with a stand mixer". I used to knead for longer but then the dough come out too elastic.
There is no "too elastic" when it comes to bread dough. The problem with too long kneading in the stand mixer is when it breaks down completely and is no longer elastic, but it seems that you were far from that point. Also, you cannot expect whole flours to make a loaf as high as fine flours.
Thanks @rumtscho. I found that kneading for too long then I am not able to shape the dough, it will keep going back to a ball
@algiogia then you are doing something wrong with the shaping. The dough is not kneaded enough if it lies limp there without pulling itself back. Shaping a bread includes pulling it in a way such that it will have the desired shape after it has sprung back a bit.
The baguette in your picture doesn't seem to have a high proportion of whole wheat flour, or else the flour is not very whole, maybe an 800er. I haven't seen such crumb from 50% really-whole-grain flour, the bran cuts up the gluten too much.
The bread in the picture is probably just white flour. How close to this structure can I get with a 50/50 mix?
If your crumb is not open you likely either underproofed, your dough is too dry, or you have not opened the dough up by cutting across the top. There are many very good questions about crumb on this site already so I won't go more into that in detail, instead I'll move onto shaping.
Bread will spread out and not up unless it's restrained, it's natural for it to do so as it's the path of least resistance. If you want it to prove in a certain shape you need to use a tin or a basket in the shape you want. Bread can be baked in a tin, however if you use a basket you'll need to turn it out onto a sheet before baking.
I don't think it's a hydration problem. There is 600ml water per 1kg flour. The dough was "almost" sticky. I've cut it before the final proofing.
@algiogia 600 ml water is on the dryish side when you are using high gluten flour. And if you are kneading with more flour, the real hydration you get is lower.
@rumtscho is right, that's not a wet dough at all. Sticky is ok, try kneading with oil.
I've kept it to 600 because of the wholemeal flour, that shouldn't have much gluten. How much water should I use then?
Wholemeal has way more protein than fine flour. The protein is in the hull, the middle of the grain is much more starchy. You can use any amount of water you like, you'll have to see if you like the end result or not.
@algiogia, we need more detail on the results you want and the ingredients. Are you using strong (ie gluten-enriched) flours? What is the texture you want?
I thought it was clear from the ingredients list. Manitoba flour is among the strongest, generally used for brioches and croissants. Are you saying that wholemeal calls for even more water?
I wouldn't say it as "calls for more" water. It soaks up more water, and builds more gluten. But the texture of high-hydration whole bread is different from the texture of high-hydration fine flour bread. And personally, I prefer high hydration fine over low hydration fine, but low hydration whole over high hydration whole. So I use less water in whole wheat flours than in fine flours, even though they soak up more. You'll have to experiment and find out which taste you prefer.
@GdD I've backed all-white bread with the same proportions and method and the dough didn't lose it's shape. Is this a problem specific to the whole-grain flour?
I've baked my bread again. I wanted to try the stretch and fold. Luckily I took the measurements wrong and added 600ml water to the second dough instead of 300. Never had a better bread!
The short:
The stretch and fold method is my favorite technique for building big bubbles and strong gluten structure to support a taller loaf of bread. This does require more time and doesn't really work with the stand mixer method.
The long:
I've found that a loaf spreading rather than "springing" is a function of a number of things. It took me about 6 months of constant baking to finally be able to identify the factors and how they affect the final product:
Loaf size. Some loaves are just too big and collapse under their own weight. I make loaves half the size of the recipe I started with because they spring much better.
Improper loaf formation. If a loaf is not formed correctly to develop a taught skin around the outside, it will fail to constrain the dough during final proofing. I reference the Good Eats "No knead sourdough" episode for an demonstration of this.
Insufficient gluten development. If you allow your dough to rest for 45 minutes at room temp, then pick it up. How many times will it stretch under its own weight, then be folded over itself. If the answer is more than once, then it is probably not developed enough too spring correctly. This is also a function of too much moisture in the dough.
Excess moisture. Anything much over 70% hydration usually tends to fall for me unless the gluten is really well developed.
Proofing vessel size. If the final proofing vessel is not small enough to give structure to the rising dough, it will just spread out. See "Bakers Couche" for how the French get their baguettes to stay round instead of flat.
Scoring. You may notice that all great tall loafs of bread have been scored (sliced gently with a knife just prior to baking) to allow expansion of the bread as it cooks.
Oven humidity or steam. Bread really needs humidity in the first phase of baking because it allows the skin constraining the bread to stretch upwards as the bread expands during cooking. I usually use a spray bottle to coat the oven and the loaf directly just before I pop the loaf in the oven.
Thanks Tobin. These are really good advices and I'll try. Just I don't get point 3.
@algiogia The intent of point 3 was to demonstrate one method for gauging the level of gluten development. When using the stretch and fold method, you usually allow your dough to rest for 30-45 minutes then you pick the dough up by one end and allow gravity to stretch it downward. Once it has stretched, you fold the dough in half and grab it by one end again. Usually a well developed dough will only stretch then fold once.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.384586
| 2015-02-19T08:59:25 |
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22553
|
Substituting maple syrup for maple extract
I found a recipe for maple scones I might try, but it calls for both 1/4 cup maple syrup and 1/4 tsp maple extract, and I only have syrup. I don't have any idea how strongly flavored the extract is compared to the syrup, but it seems like I should be able to reduce some syrup, take out some of the sugar, and be just fine. How much maple syrup would it take to get the flavor contained in 1/4 tsp of extract? I can balance the recipe from there.
(I've seen this question, which does have a comment saying it wouldn't work in frosting, but this is a bit different.)
I would take some of the maple syrup that you have and cook it down in to granulated Maple Sugar. A tutorial is here. Then, as maple sugar is about twice as sweet as regular sugar, substitute it into your recipe accordingly. That should help infuse your scones with additional maple goodness.
"Pure" maple extract is made by concentrating the alcohol soluble aroma molecules, although artificial or natural maple extract may use barks or other ingredients entirely, potentially using oil, heat, chemical isolation processes, or alcohol to create an aroma compound that smells like maple.
You may be able to make your own maple extract by infusing maple syrup in alcohol, but I'm not sure how effective that will be; my own fruit infused liqueurs can take anywhere from a week to a year to mature. Just reducing the syrup by boiling it is unlikely to produce the result of the recipe you're working with, although there's a good chance it would taste just fine.
If I just wanted to avoid spending the 8 bucks on the extract, I might try making my own extract with a high-proof rum or vodka (100-150 proof considering you're just mixing with a mild-smelling sugar), but I'm not sure it would be worth the effort, considering I'd be buying maple syrup and liquor at retail prices for that purpose, and the odds are pretty good that the result won't actually be superior to a commercial product. Food producers can buy neutral grain spirits at something on the order of $1/liter, and it's unlikely that you can. They also have various techniques and equipment at their disposal that you probably won't be able to replicate.
Concentrated maple syrup is not very intense in flavor, and you're further diluting it with the flour and butter when you make scones. The function of the extract is to heighten the perception of flavor that's lost in the process of mixing with other ingredients. You may get very good results without the extract, but I'm sure the flavor will be fairly subtle and almost unnoticeable if you aren't looking for it.
With your reworded question, realistically, you're going to need more than just a quantity of maple syrup to simulate the extract, because you're most likely going to cause caramelization if you reduce maple syrup to the point where the intended flavor is achieved, and then you'll have "maple caramel", most likely, a pleasant but distinctly different flavor than the alcohol soluble aroma compounds in an extract would add.
Are you suggesting that 1/4 tsp of maple extract contains the aromatics from an enormous amount of maple syrup, more than I could possibly get into any recipe? And what if I displace other liquid in a recipe and just add syrup, to avoid potential loss of flavor in the syrup during reduction?
I've added emphasis and reworded slightly in my question to clarify what I'm asking. I'm aware of where maple extract comes from, and I'm not trying to make my own.
Real pure maple syrup can be very flavourful. Depending on the type of syrup you have and the type the recipe's cook had, you might not need the extract to get the maple flavour you're looking for. And if the extract is made out of maple syrup, surely reduced, and therefore concentrated, syrup should be flavourful enough?
Because some aroma compounds are alcohol soluble, an extract concentrates flavors differently than just boiling would. While I'm not particularly enamored of the flavor industry, I'm not so naive to think that there's no substantive difference between an extract and a reduction. Most maple syrups, including the darker "Grade B" types, are still rather subtle in comparison to an extract. Maybe that's what you want, but I can't how simple reduction would have the same flavor impact as an extract.
I assure you, the flavor of the maple syrup I have is anything but subtle. And unless I lose a lot of aroma during reduction, the flavor will include everything the extract possibly could - plus anything else that isn't alcohol-soluble (though I'd be surprised if anything significant isn't).
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.385184
| 2012-03-25T17:19:36 |
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34474
|
Food mills versus food strainer/sauce makers
I'm looking for a new food mill, likely for everything from berry jam to apple butter to tomato sauce. There seem to be two primary choices.
There are traditional food mills, with the rotating bent plate forcing the food through discs:
and there are food strainers/sauce makers, with a spiral conveyor forcing the food through a frustum-shaped screen:
Why might I choose one type over the other?
Both types force food through a perforated screen and what makes a difference (for the food) is the size of the holes.
The conical version (bottom picture) can process more food before the screen is fully clogged (more screen surface), and usually you can just pop out the cone and empty the skins and seed. Whereas with the traditional food mill you have to disassemble. With some foods (whole tomatoes) you may have to pass them a couple of times through the mill to get everything.
Why you might choose one over the other:
If you are processing bushels of stuff, I wouldn't even think of the traditional food mill. We use a 1/2 horse power belt driven spiral sauce maker and it already takes us hours to make ~200 jars. I'd become a zenist if someone handed me a traditional mill with bushels of tomato.
For home use and cooking for under 20 people the traditional mill is great since you can just place it over the pot, go, and throw in the DW. No mounting fuss, and fits into a normal cupboard. You CAN find decent Italian made ones for $20 in North America.
You can create headers with ###, and it looks better than using the monotype preformatted markup of four spaces.
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.385536
| 2013-06-03T03:19:12 |
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32121
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How do I know if a food or recipe can be made in a microwave oven?
We've got a lot of questions about specific microwave cooking here - for example, "can I cook hamburgers in the microwave oven?" But rather than asking about specific foods, I would like to see some more general guidelines or widely applicable advice.
If I want to prepare a recipe or just cook a single item, how can I predict how it will turn out if I nuke it in the microwave instead of doing what the original recipe calls for (steaming, grilling, etc.)? Do some cooking methods work better than others in a microwave? And if some ingredients cook better than others in a microwave, why is that the case?
I'm looking for answers that don't rely on complicated techniques or specialized equipment. Making a cake using compressed gas, for instance, might be interesting or cool to watch, but is really not what I'm after in this question. I'm talking about being able to just pop something in, maybe adjust the power level, and go.
Assumptions:
A normal microwave - no convection or other exotic features.
Home use, not professional cooking - "good enough" rather than "the best possible tool for the job." For example, some food might be best if reheated in an oven, but still just fine in the microwave.
Basic tasks, not replacing a kitchen - generally, "I want to cook X, and I have a stove, an oven, and a microwave. Could I just as easily do it in the microwave as anything else?"
The possibilities are endless! http://jetcitygastrophysics.com/2013/02/01/modernist-cuisine-at-home-microwaved-tilapia-with-scallions-and-ginger/
@Brendan Setting aside the pouring hot oil over it at the end (not exactly a microwave-only task), that appears to fall generally under the category of "steaming (covered)", which is the kind of generalized answer I'm looking for here!
Since this is accumulating close votes... if you want to close this, please consider editing to improve. This is a really common thing for people to want to know, and the list of basic cooking techniques is really not that broad. All of us with decent kitchen experience have a good sense: "I'm doing X. Can I do that in the microwave?" This is specific, helpful knowledge to pass along, as Brandon's answer shows.
The question would be more answerable in "what kind of cooking can't be done in microwave". There are a few specific processes that can't be done, all the rest is possible.
Aside from the fact that I answered the question, I think it still fits as an answerable question for this site. It's not a mechanical question, it's about technique and possibility with a common household machine and knowing the basics of it can be helpful for a lot of folks who may be confined to a microwave as a primary means of cooking (i.e. dorms)
@SF. That's completely untrue. You can't really do anything that requires high, concentrated heat - roasting, broiling, grilling - or anything that requires frequent stirring. It's a very specific kind of heat that you can't really change at all, and that means it matches up to a limited number of non-microwave cooking techniques, without going to a lot of effort, which I explicitly excluded.
@Brendan This is about basic things that are straightforward to do, not how to use a microwave to replace normal cooking appliances for everything.
@Jefromi Sadly, I think this comment discussion just reinforces the point that this question remains top broad and unstructured for this site; it is essentially unanswerable within our guidelines. I don't think this question can be saved, although it was a valiant effort.
I'm confused, @Jefromi aren't you the one who posed the question? It seems like you are campaigning against your own question here?
@Brendan Not at all. I'm explaining why it's a suitable question, because it's specific, and doesn't include all the broad things people are worrying about.
@SAJ14SAJ I completely disagree, because all of the comment discussion is ignoring things that are explicitly stated in the question. The answer I've posted is the kind of thing I have in mind, and I hope it demonstrates that the question is not in fact broad or unstructured. If you feel that it's not clear enough about it, please feel free to edit the question (or the answer, even).
In any case, while people can certainly edit or cast further close votes, if you want to discuss, please visit meta: http://meta.cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/1638/should-this-general-microwave-cooking-questions-technique-question-be-closed
Microwaves in general provide all-around, not too powerful heat. Very roughly, this means it's kinda like cooking on a low-powered stove, except the heat comes from all directions, not just below. (And depending on the microwave, it might heat a good bit less from below.) The things that work are therefore the things that work with relatively gentle, constant, extended heating. This translates approximately into the following traditional cooking methods:
Steaming. If there's not a whole lot of liquid, and there's some empty space for steam to move around in, this is what you'll get. For example, a covered bowl of vegetables (maybe with a little extra water), or even fish on a plate covered with plastic wrap, will come out about like if you steamed it.
Heating, simmering, boiling. If you've got a more substantial mass of food, you'll get something on the continuum between these three, depending on how much of it there is, what power you set your microwave to, and how long you cook it. This means you can do anything from melting butter (carefully) to cooking oatmeal to boiling noodles. (And along with that, you get the canonical use: reheating food.)
Dehydrating. This is a bit of a corner case, but if there's relatively little water in something to begin with, and it can escape easily, the heating will dry the food out substantially - this allows things like dehydrating herbs or even microwave jerky.
And the things you can't do? Anything that requires high heat, especially dry heat, anything where you'd expect the food to brown or get crispy. Roasting, broiling, pan-frying, and so on - the heat from the microwave just isn't going to accomplish it. And on top of this, anything where the cooking time really matters is a bad idea. Even if the microwave might eventually get it hot enough, it's going to take a bit to get there, so if you're looking to quickly cook something in an already hot pan then take it out, it's not going to work. Yes, there are complex ways to work around some of this (for example the herb-frying Brendan mentioned) but as far as what's straightforward to do, you'll want to avoid all these things; they're easier to do the normal way.
this also depends on the type of microwave you have. A basic lunchroom microwave is going to perform like you state but some of the new microwaves have features like convection that can expand on it's capabilities. I understand that is specific but worth pointing out nonetheless.
@Brendan Fair; I edited the question to specify it's just a microwave.
This answer might benefit from a layman-oriented explanation of what microwaves actually do. For example, things with low moisture aren't going to cook well because microwaves essentially work on the water...
@Aaronut The thing is, I don't think it's quite that simple - I know we commonly say they're good at water, but I think they're reasonably effective with oil too, and apparently some of my dishes, so I'm hesitant to complicate things.
Are you saying your microwave will heat up a dish by itself? That's unusual; dishes tend to get hot in the microwave simply because of contact with the food.
@Aaronut Well, I've never actually put a dish all by itself in, but some of my plates heat up all the way across, even with food only in the middle. Anyway, I'll sneak in something brief about the heating, and maybe ask another question for more details!
Generally the categories go something like this:
steaming - covered for most things (for example fish) or uncovered for naturally cased products like potatoes
boiling - good old ramen noodles is a good example.
crisping/frying - for example, microwave fried herbs
dehydrating - for example, microwave jerky
You can even make a cake!
It seems like the crisping/frying and cake are kind of special cases, requiring a very specific technique and only working on certain things.
well i think you can apply that technique to a lot of things that you would want to fry that are also delicate but yes i agree the cake is pretty specific.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.385718
| 2013-02-21T22:49:29 |
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54883
|
If I can't find baking soda or baking powder, what should I do?
Suppose I'm somewhere where stores don't seem to stock baking soda or baking powder. Are there other names either of those might be sold under? Or are there things I could substitute?
Related:
How to make baking soda (but apparently you can't really do it)
Substitution for baking soda (but mostly just suggests baking powder)
Making baking powder substitute with baking soda and powdered citric acid (but then you need baking soda)
Go online, buy a few boxes and have them shipped to you? Maybe a few boxes at a time, since they should last a fairly long time in storage, to minimize shipping cost per box.
1. Chemical leaveners
There are two "oldfashioned" chemical leaveners, both still used today in traditional German and Scandinavian gingerbread recipes:
Potassium carbonate (potash or pearl ash) and
Ammonium bicarbonate (salt of heartshorn)
They do have their own quirks and pitfalls, but if nothing else is available...
If you can get baking soda, mix with cream of tartar to make baking powder.
If your store does not stock it, you pharmacy most likely will carry "sodium hydrogen carbonate" (which is another name for baking soda) either as treatment for heartburn, it's an antacid (because it reacts with acid, neutralzing it and making these nice bubbles, as we know from baking...) or as topical treatment for allergic reactions of the skin (poison ivy and others).
2. Biological leaveners
This boils down to Saccharomyces cerevisiae, aka. baker's yeast or brewer's yeast. Of course you get very different results and have to follow a different procedure. But here are some recipes where they are used somewhat interchangeably, e.g. some types of pancakes or waffles and, obviously, bread (vs. sodabread).
The charming thing about yeast is, that if your are really, really far from a store, you can still get your hands on yeast: Start a sourdough using the yeasts naturally occuring on fruits or the air around you.
Probably not the kind of substitution you had in mind, though.
3. No leaveners
With good technique, you can incorporate a lot of air (because that's what all leaveners are supposed to do) in your baking goods by whipping your eggs well. There are various approaches:
You can whip the whole eggs.
Whip the yolks (with hot water or over a water bath to stabilize them) to Zabaione-like consistency.
Whip the whites and fold into your batter.
You will want to bake these batters right away before the bubbles get a chance to burst. The air will expand during baking and the hardening egg/flour-mixture will trap them in the baked goods. Contrary to many recipes out there there is no real need to bake a pound cake or even sponge cake with baking powder if it's done right.
Other recipes without leavener (or rather with the egg trapping steam generated by a rather high water content) are the members of the popover family (Yorkshire pudding in the UK, Pfitzauf in Swabia, some dutch pancakes) and pâté a choux.
Puff pastry relies on thin layers of butter separating the layers of floury dough and trapping steam between them.
Having tasted Swedish "salty licorice" with ammonium chloride, I was a bit worried about what the ammonium bicarbonate might taste like. Wikipedia says if the gas can escape, it's totally fine, but if you use it in normal bread or cake you end up with ammonia smell trapped inside :(
There are a few traditional christmas cookies where I live (Germany/Swabia) that use ammonium chloride. Smells really funky while baking, but there is no aftertaste in them. Works only for flat cookies, not for cakes, though.
@Lilienthal http://www.d.umn.edu/~jfitzake/Lectures/DMED/Antiulcer/Treatment/ReducePain/BufferAcid/Comparison.html see the "sodium bicarbonate" part.
@Lilienthal: Baking soda is an old-fashioned treatment. Especially for long-term use there are modern and better recipes in use today. In a pinch and if nothing else is available, you can take a small dose of baking soda. The baking soda package here in Germany still lists it's use as antacid or (quote:) "in mild cases of indigestion".
For baking, you may be able to find flour with leaveners already mixed in. Look for self-rising or self-raising flour. Note that in the US at least, self-rising flour also has salt added.
There are also 'biscuit mixes' (eg, 'Bisquick') that are like self-raising flour, but also contain a bit of fat in them.
depending on the recipe, you could try using beer instead of baking powder.
Depending on your cookies, cake or funnel cake, you could use self rising flour.
Baking soda is just sodium bicarbonate, you may find it under that name everywhere. European Union encoded this food additive as E500. Sodium bicarbonate is widely available in any pharmacy or drugstore. pubchem open chemistry database - sodium bicarbonate drugs.com sodium bicarbonate. Anywhere you can buy aspirin, you can but sodium bicarbonate.
Baking powder is baking soda plus an acidic compound, maybe cream of tartar or citric acid, and the addition of cornstarch for stability.
You may substitute baking powder with backing soda and add the acidic agent (buttermilk, yoghourt, lemon juice, vinegar, etc) wikihow - How to Make Substitute Baking Powder
And here are a list of common denominations for sodium bicarbonate:
commonchemistry.org - Sodium Bicarbonate
The whole point was, what if you can't find it (and that's not just hypothetical - look at the first related question I linked to). It's not everywhere. So I'm not sure I see how this answers the question - you're just saying "if you can't find baking soda or powder, go find baking soda or powder, it's easy."
Sodium bicarbonate is available everywhere. Any pharmacy will have it, even in the most remote places. Any chemistry place will have it. It's not used just for food purposes.
And baking powder is just sodium bicarbonate plus acidic agent that may be almost anything, from lemon or lime juice, yoghourt, vinegar, etc etc.
Yes, I'm aware - there's even a link in the question about making that kind of substitution. It doesn't help if you're having trouble finding baking soda (whether labeled that or sodium bicarbonate).
If the OP at least said where....
Downvoting is childish. Sodium bicarbonate is so common you can find it anywhare, even in Antartica base.
@Jefromi in the first related question the OP said: I eventually found some. So it wasn't impossible at all even for him.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.386509
| 2015-02-18T19:02:37 |
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|
42496
|
Can I use granulated sugar instead of demerara sugar
I need demerera sugar for the outside layer of my shortbread cookies. I have none. Will regular granulated sugar work? Will it burn?
Note: not actually my question, was posted as a now-deleted answer to another question.
Yes, it will work just fine, but it won't have the same color or the slightly molasses flavor of demerarra. It also has a finer crystal size, usually, so the texture will be a little less distinctive.
The closest substitute for this purpose, if you happen to have it, is sanding sugar--but I imagine that not everyone keeps that on hand. It has a large crystal size, and so presents a nice crunchy topping on muffins or shortbread or similar.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.387020
| 2014-03-04T03:20:09 |
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|
36625
|
Is acid required when pressure canning?
I saw in the answers to this question that acid (like vinegar) is necessary to properly preserve hot sauce, and many other answers here similarly say that a low pH is necessary for safe canning of other things. But what if I'm pressure canning hot sauce, or anything else? Do I still need acid? Are there any pH requirements, or is proper pressure canning simply always safe?
Related question: how can I determine canning processing times?
No, additional acid is not absolutely required for pressure canning, as is demonstrated by this recipe from the National Center for Home Food Preserving for green beans. Similarly, the existence of low acid commercial canned products such as chicken broth demonstrates that acid is not absolutely required when pressure-canning.
Processing for a sufficient time at a high enough temperature/pressure will render the food safe for storage.
However, as a practical matter for home canning, I re-iterate the standard advise to only use trusted recipes from highly reputable sources.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.387112
| 2013-09-09T02:46:22 |
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|
39655
|
Can I turn coarse coarnmeal into fine with a blender?
I wonder if running your cornmeal (dry) through a blender for a couple of minutes might break it down a little? Like when you want finer sugar.
Note: taken from a deleted answer to How do I eliminate cornmeal grittiness?
There are many instructions on the internet for grinding dent corn (field corn) in a blender, so it is likely to work. I have not tried it, though, so I am not making this an actual answer.
In theory it's possible. However, not all blenders are created equal. This link mentions doing it, but in my experience to blend something into a super fine powder (a flour-like consistency) you need a really powerful machine like a Vita-mix. Also you may get inconsistencies in texture with a blender. This is one reason professional coffee bars use burr grinders instead of blade grinders: to achieve a consistent grind.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.387214
| 2013-11-22T20:49:19 |
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|
5227
|
Can whole chilli peppers be frozen?
I have some Dorset Naga chilli peppers bought from the local supermarket.
Aren't they lovely? :)
Well, unfortunately, my local supermarket (I think the only one in the UK that stocks them) doesn't always have them in stock, so when they do appear on the shelves, I quickly stock-up on them.
Storing them in the fridge, they'll last maybe a week or so before starting to deteriorate.
My question is, can these chili peppers be frozen and, if so, will freezing them have any "negative" effects ?
I buy these particular peppers for their heat (and also their great smoky flavour), so I'd hate for either the heat or the flavour to be negatively impacted if they were frozen.
How do you plan to use this pepper? Would it be for something fresh like a salsa or cooked in something?
Yes, they can be, but you'll want to prick each one with a sharp knife once or twice to prevent them from bursting. Once that is done, put them into a small freezer-safe storage bag, remove as much air as possible from the bag, and seal it. They keep reasonably well for about six months without tasting "burnt," but they tend to be a tad mushy upon defrosting.
I always thought the mushiness factor had to do with length of freezing time, but since you asked, I did a bit of research. Apparently, what makes chilies turn to mush actually has to do with how quickly they initially freeze:
The undesirable mushy end product that comes from freezing fruits and vegetables isn't from the act of freezing itself, but from how you freeze. Your ordinary freezer, or even deep freezer, freezes food slowly. Chilies have water in their membranes, and as they slowly freeze, it forms jagged ice crystals that pierce and puncture the membrane, so that when you defrost it, you're left with a leaky and "tenderized" result. The solution to this problem is easy … faster freezing. If the water doesn't have time to form jagged ice, you won't have a mushy membrane.
Happy Living (from which I pulled the above quotation) has an article about how to safely use dry ice to freeze chilies quickly. (I'll probably keep going the way I always have and accept the mushiness, but if you want to freeze a lot of chilies for a variety of applications, the dry-ice method looks promising.)
Great answer. I think I will also accept a little mushyness after defrosting (they're probably going into a curry anyway!). My main concern was loosing heat and/or flavour after freezing but that doesn't seem to be the case!
See the answers on freezing blueberries for advice on quick freezing : http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/1192/whats-a-good-technique-for-freezing-blueberries
Quick freezing is the secret to non-mushy anything. Thats was the great Birdseye breakthrough - using very cold brine to flash freeze quickly enough that you don't get crystals.
Tried cold alcohol (vodka) once, works too. Just do not attempt to drink it afterwards.
@rackandboneman Do you recommend not drinking because of the hot pepper flavor of the vodka? if so, that sounds like it'd make an awesome bloody mary!
I freeze whole chillis without any trouble at all. They seem to work much the same afterwards, but I wouldn't want to use frozen ones for anything in which they appear substantially raw, because the texture's seriously compromised. The heat and flavour seem to be more or less unharmed though.
Yeah, this is my experience too. I freeze fresh chilies bought from an oriental store ( http://imgur.com/Xtd18.jpg ) because there are so many of them in the package that they'd go bad in the fridge before I've used all.
Since I don't make salsa everyday I hate to discard chilis that are given to me. I run them through a "Ninja" and then freeze them in small freezer bags. When I need to make salsa I take out a bag and with a sharp knife cut a slice off and added to my other ingredients to make a tasty salsa in the middle of winter or anytime. They never loose their flavor or heat.
We have a variety of whole chillies which we have frozen over 2 years ago. I read that 6 months is top to freeze them, however they still have all their colour and flavour. We cut them with scissors into tiny pieces whilst still frozen and pop them into quite a few of our dishes. The chillies we have are scotch bonnet and jalapeño, and a few different ones in all the different colours. I’m sure they will (go off) at some point but whilst still full of flavour we may as well keep them
I've never tried it, but the Encyclopedia of Country Living notes the following:
Freezing Food That Contains Chili Peppers : Remove the chilies before freezing, or the stuff will get hotter and hotter! To freeze chilies by themselves, chop them up first. The thick and fleshy varieties are best preserved by freezing rather than drying.
And then under the section on sweet peppers:
Freezing Sweets. Cut in half, remove seeds and pulp. Freeze your nicest ones in halves for later stuffing. Dice or slice the others. No need to blanch. Package in small plastic bags, since you make want only a little at a time. ... Never thaw peppers before using. ...
(I removed the bits about serving suggestions or specifically about pimentos, as it wasn't relevent)
You can also dry peppers by placing them on a cookie sheet and putting them in a closed car for about 3 days in the summer. It gets about 120-140 degrees in a closed car. I've dried peppers repeatedly this way. No ovens, no labor at all. Just remove stems and slice in half, place on cookie sheet, pop in car and forget it for a few days.
JMP
I've got a pretty strong feeling that your results will vary with this, especially if you live in a humid climate. Probably effective in hot, dry places but I think I'd rather do this in a more controlled environment.
I sometimes wonder if the chillies become slightly milder after being frozen, but I don't think the difference in heat is substantial.
If I'm not cooking with the chilli, but as a garnish, I usually put them in a soy sauce to help defrost them without making them taste mushy. (I agree that you should "never defrost the chillies", but at the same time, it's freaking weird to have cold lumps on your food!)
I freeze habaneros whole and jalapeños diced - never had a problem with either variety noticeably losing heat for up to 6 months.
Large peppers do seem to get milder on freezing, about the same effect as blanching. There is some other change because frozen peppers don't 'repeat' like fresh ones - at least for me.
If anything, we've found freezing whole "calcutta" chillies in freezer bags has resulted in something strange. They seem to be getting hotter as we work our way through the last bag we froze, using one chili chopped finely in a pasta sauce for two has become sufficient for a heat level between mild and medium whereas we would use two or three of the same type of chili in the past.
Although not specific to that type of chilli, I freeze whole chillis I grow "as is".
They can be then cut and added to whatever dish you're preparing straight from the freezer (be it a curry, chilli con carne or even salsa)
Of course you can also home dry all your chillies (just on a string with air circulating all round) then use same as for all dried chilli. I now have an amazing variety of dried chillies to call on.
I will definitely be freezing some now, i always feel guilty going into my local indian supermarket and buying just the one or 2 i need, so constantly have extra!
Freeze chillies for cooking. But if you want whole chillies to serve with a meal, store them in a glass jar with white vinegar and a tablespoon of salt. You get the taste of vinegar but the heat and flavor are as they should be. In both cases remove the stalks first.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.387338
| 2010-08-15T12:49:47 |
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|
62519
|
Is Foul Fair? (Or what is this mystery bean)
I came across this at my local hypermarket, and I'm wondering what it is, and what one can do with it.
If it isn't obvious from the picture (Bigger version here https://i.sstatic.net/M4TKG.jpg) Its a dark brown bean, roughly the size of a coffee bean, and a medium dark brown colour. The specific manufacturer typically sells iranian/middle eastern herbs, so its likely to be from that area.
What is it, and how generally does one use this?
These are fava beans, the term "foul" (uncommon transliteration) on the pack hinting at a dish that these beans are typically used for:
A ful, a stew-like dish of cooked and spiced beans from the Middle East.
Fava beans are known as broad beans in the UK. They go well with liver and nice Chianti ;)
@GdD Yeah - we discussed this over in chat...
I pity the ful?
Foul/fool/pol is not only the dish but also the name of the bean in some languages
As an aside, these fava beans are not exactly the same as the broad bean favas. These are sometimes called "field beans" and have a stronger flavor than the flat, broad favas. And they are great in Ethiopian food such as shiro wot or the Ethiopian version of ful medames.
I'm pretty sure that's fava beans. It's usually transliterated as ful, but seems close enough. See for example ful medames - the first word in Arabic on your package is the same as the first one there.
They also certainly look like fava beans, though it's a little hard to see clearly in that photo. See the Google image search results for fava beans.
Foul is an alternate spelling of ful, an Egyptian dish made of fava beans. Fava beans are therefor known to some as foul beans, dried foul or ful/foul Medammes.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.387967
| 2015-10-14T06:26:53 |
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|
36751
|
What is the best way to store ground coffee?
I know it's better to use freshly ground beans and not store it ground at all, but if I have no other choice, how can I best preserve ground coffee?
This question sort of asks the same thing, but the answers focus on storing whole beans, and the answers addressing ground coffee make it pretty unclear whether a cool cabinet, the fridge, or the freezer is the best place.
The two main issues with ground coffee are:
The coffee losing its aroma. The aroma/flavor of coffee is quite volatile, and will evaporate very easily. The solution to this is an airtight container, with as little head room in it as possible.
The coffee soaking up moisture from the air. This makes the coffee... unpleasant. The best solution I've found (in a hot humid climate) is to put it in the freezer. It is the nature of refrigeration to leech all of the moisture from the freezer compartment.
In summary, the best I've found is a small airtight box in the freezer.
Note that a freezer is good for longer-term storage, but it isn't advisable to scoop it from the freezer for day-to-day use. The frost and condensation from constantly opening a frozen container each day will be way more detrimental than just storing it at room temperature. Remove, say, a week's worth at a time for your daily consumption.
Both airtight and little headroom, for a changing amount of contents - I guess just a zipper freezer bag?
Following on @RobertCartaino: divide into batches of one week's worth of coffee and store in the freezer in small air tight containers.
Zipper freezer bag is my choice. It was a good re-use of breast-milk freezer bags, of all things. @Robert Cartaino is right, of course. Depending on how much coffee you drink, you should take out a few days worth at a time. Or you could pre-package a week's worth per bag and just take that out each time.
Would some kind of desiccant in a sealed container aid in keeping the coffee fresh, or is it just not going to do enough to stop the problem of moisture?
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.388168
| 2013-09-12T19:15:42 |
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|
20327
|
How are mozzarella cheese sticks (string cheese) formed?
I love string cheese.
I have had some success making homemade mozzarella but I am not particularly skilled yet at kneading the curd. My mozzarella balls sometimes end up with an uneven texture.
How can I knead the curd to end up with sticks where the cheese grain is all parallel along the length of the stick?
** First image hit on Google **
Nice one! I love a good cheese stick.
Notice the last 8 question(with the exlusion of my apple pie question) all refer to cheeses. Haha Cheese overload!
@Jay this is why: http://meta.cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/1296/its-cheese-week-ask-great-questions-enter-to-win-a-prize
@Mien: Ohh! Thanks! I am still relatively new to StackExchange so I did not know about this. They really should have a easier way for people to see this sort of thing. Time to get into cheese mode.
Commonly called string cheese! I thought from your title you were talking about the kind people bread and fry - I see two of those images before this one on Google image search, and the rest of the first page is all fried too.
@Jefromi- you're absolutely right. I corrected the title.
That's called String Cheese, and it's actually quite traditional to a number of cultures ... Italian, Armenian, Mexican, Slovak ... as well as Wisconsin. It's popular around the world because the technique for making it is easily learned and adaptable. You can even make it from store-bought cheese, as well as your own cheese.
Make or buy a stretchy high-temperature (thermophilic) cheese, such as mozzarella.
Heat the cheese in very hot water (traditional method) or the microwave (modern method) until soft, pliable, and stretchy.
Pull the cheese out into a long strand, then double it over. Wear gloves, the cheese will be hot.
Repeat steps 2-3 as many times as necessary.
As the strands start getting thin, twist the cheese into a braid.
This is the sort of thing it's better to see than to describe, but I haven't been able to find a good video showing you how.
A bit like making hand drawn noodles for steps 2-3. Maybe search for handdrawn noodle video and see if it's a similar technique.
Oh you mean cheesesticks not the fried mozzeralla sticks.
I would imagine you would knead it by using the folding method in which you flatten the cheese and fold one end of the cheese over to the other end and continue folding it in that fashion(and the same direction).
Also note that the mozzeralla sticks you buy at grocery stores are machine processed and you can't really hope to achieve that same results/texture.
The stretch and fold method, over and over. If your cheese is stretching with no curd chunks left, then this stretch fold method makes better string cheese than any I could buy. After the repeated method done, role it into a long snake, then cut to size.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.388450
| 2012-01-10T19:08:15 |
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|
21690
|
Can I make my own malt?
The malt that I found in the store is barley malt.
I have a bread recipe that calls for rye malt.
I have whole rye grain. What do I have to do to make rye malt? Would it be the same with any malted grain?
** edit **
Related to this answer:
https://cooking.stackexchange.com/a/21691/2001
I have sprouted and then dried wheat to use as a sweetener in bread. What process should I use to produce diastatic malt at home? What temperatures should be used?
For a very rough info on malting, see http://drinks.seriouseats.com/2012/02/what-is-single-malt-scotch-whisky-speyside-lowlands-highlands-islay-cocktail-101.html
http://homebrew.stackexchange.com/questions/4480/how-do-you-malt-your-own-barley
I don't see why not, it's the same process
Many commercial brewers make a barley and rye malt for beer (< 10% rye). A good brewers supply shop should have rye malt too
Rye is around ~40% carbohydrate, while barley is ~45% carbohydrate, so rye is not as sweet, but has a more interesting taste (IMHO)
The differences for making malt rye over malt barley, assuming you have hulled rye:
Rye absorbs water faster, so steep for less time (~30% less)
Do not let it go mushy or it will not germinate
Rye is more fragile with no hull and a thin "skin". So must be handled more carefully once steeped. If it is damaged it wont germinate
Lower germination rate (due to above), so less conversion, so less sugars and flavour
Otherwise just follow the normal malt barley process, which is well documented
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.388698
| 2012-02-24T16:02:57 |
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|
46098
|
How is "nacho sliced" jalapeño different from regular sliced?
I noticed that my grocery store sells jalapeño that is "nacho sliced". How is this different (if at all) than just normal "sliced"?
I do understand that the product on the right is labeled "no heat", and that is a significant difference between these products. I am not asking what the difference between these products is in general: I am asking specifically about nacho-sliced-ness. How is a "nacho sliced jalapeño" different from an ordinary "sliced jalapeño"?
Bonus question: why are nachos pictured on the jalapeño that is not "nacho sliced"?
I think more relevant are the words NO HEAT on the other ones
@KateGregory Relevant how? Does "nacho sliced" somehow imply no heat?
It could be that they removed most of the seeds and ribs to reduce the heat but I am not sure I would call that no heat.
@PhilFrost : because you typically think of jalapeños as having heat. It's either a strange breed, or they've done some non-typical processing to it to remove the heat.
and I've seen jalapeños that were sliced into long strips, rather than rounds ... I would consider the rounds to be 'nacho sliced', but not the strips ... but I have no idea if that's what the difference is in this case.
@PhilFrost Do you have an ingredient list for each of these jars? I have worked in the CPG industry for almost 30 years and my guess is that it is a case of semantics. Or it's possible that you happened to notice this during the sell through of product undergoing a label change.
@Joe Concerning the "no heat": Mezzetta (great brand out of the Napa Valley) has a product called Tamed Jalapenos "Our Tamed™ Jalapeños—a hybrid of a jalapeño and a bell pepper—were developed for us by Texas A&M University to provide all the flavor and texture of a regular jalapeño but with less heat." The specific hybrid is trademarked, but I'm sure there are other similar ones. The Mezzetta peppers are awesome BTW, and a far cry from "no heat", the heat reduction is pretty mild. (so to speak)
I'm certainly aware that "no heat" is a significant attribute of the product on the right, but I'm specifically asking about what it means for a jalapeño to be "nacho sliced" rather than just "sliced". Unless "nacho sliced" has something to do with heat, the "no heat"-ness is irrelevant to my question.
@CindyAskew I didn't look at the ingredients, but I'll take a peek next time I go shopping.
@PhilFrost We know you didn't ask about the "no-heat", that's why none of the comments referring to it are answers. BTW, My guess is that Cindy is correct that the product is just going through a label change. The slices look the same to me.
Or they use the word "nacho" to further differentiate the two products, since they look the same.
In Japan I once spotted "dengaku eggplant sauce" right next to "dengaku tofu sauce." (sweet miso sauce for eggplant/tofu). Two products, two skus. Same manufacturer, same ingredient proportions, same nutritional info, same color. The difference? Marketing message on the label. Without direct comparison, I don't know that you'll be able to figure out the difference, but then you'll have bought one of each. #marketingSuccess
As near as I can determine, "nacho sliced" is simply a marketing term for such pre-sliced, pickled jalapeno peppers. A quick Google for the term brings up several brands which appear identical to one another. There are also similar combinations of the words such as "nacho jalapenos, sliced". The bottle on the right is the only one labelled as such, but they're basically the exact same thing.
So, the only difference? The "no heat" on the right-hand bottle, and some other subtle changes to the packaging. It's marketing fluff, not a real distinction.
Bonus answer: they probably decided that the picture on the right bottle looked healthier, or lighter, or more colorful, or some dang thing.
I guess for nachos it's nice to be able to have the look of the jalapenos without having to worry about whether people can handle having one in every single bite, so maybe there at least was a reason for the name.
It might be a case of changing packaging; I've often seen two identical products from the same brand labelled differently, and by a few weeks later one of them has vanished due to a phased release of a new branding. Notice how the pattern on the label is brighter, and the whole label is slightly taller, giving more room for the photo of food on the top. The copyright mark has also changed location slightly.
If you peruse ethnic supermarkets, you'll often find pickled jalapeños that are cut into slabs (cut from stem to tip, often jarred with carrots and onions in the brine, too. It's also possible that the skin might be removed). It's often labeled as 'jalapeños en escabeche'
I suspect that 'nacho sliced' is simply those cut into little circular sections before pickling.
They were two different items (one had heat and one didn't), but they discontinued the no heat one.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.388863
| 2014-08-04T15:36:47 |
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|
68633
|
Clarified butter: what happens if the foam isn't skimmed off?
I know that most recipes for making clarified butter discard this foam. But I've also seen some recipes, like this one for ghee, which do not skim the foam.
The butter will form a foam which will disappear. Ghee is done when a second foam forms on top of butter
Instead, the butter is left to simmer until the foam goes away. In my experience this happens around the same time the solids in the bottom begin to brown, which I'm guessing coincides with most of the water having boiled off.
Apparently, this foam is whey protein. Where does this protein go and what happens to it when the foam subsides after extended simmering? I've heard it suggested that it makes the resulting clarified butter grainy. Is that true?
The recipe you linked says that you have to strain the ghee. The solids will be left behind in the cloth. Ghee is a bit more cooked than other forms of clarified butter, I'm not sure if you could use this method without browning the milk solids.
It says it should be strained, and the solids in the bottom pan should be removed. But I don't think it says anything about skimming the foam off the top. To me it reads like it should just continue simmering until the foam goes away.
The foam is made of bits of protein. Some might sink, others will cease to be foam but remain in suspension to be filtered.
The milk solids are supposed to brown when making Ghee--that's the main difference between Ghee and ordinary clarified butter. The solids themselves are strained out, but some of the nutty-toasty flavor remains.
When I make ghee I always skim the foam as taught to me by a friend from India. I was never given an explanation of why but if I leave the foam cook back into the ghee, it becomes grainy. Each time I make it, I always skim the foam and use it in stir fry the same day. No waste. If I leave the foam in the pan of ghee while it cooks down, my ghee is always grainy. It doesn't effect the flavor, but the texture is different.
I use ghee quickly, leave it covered on the counter, and never have had it spoil. If it gets moldy in or out of the fridge if you don't use it fast (like several weeks), then all of the moisture has not been cooked out of it while making it.
The sounds you hear when it is cooking is the water content cooking out. When it stops making those sounds and the bottom begins to brown, it is done. You have to watch it if your stove is hot or it will burn quickly once it reaches a certain temperature. Like making popcorn, you take it off of the heat BEFORE it completely stops popping so it doesn't burn. Therefore, once it begins to brown and it makes no more sound, it is done. If you go beyond this, it will burn. For this reason, I make ghee on a medium heat with organic, grass fed, unsalted butter only. It takes roughly 1/2 hour to 45 minutes. Some prefer to make it fast, like 20 minutes, but you really have to be vigilant and not leave the kitchen while it is cooking.
Strain and store in a sterile glass jar after it has cooled down a bit. Don't forget to sterilize the lid as well. You can strain the completed ghee while it is warm, not hot, through a fine strainer or cheesecloth into a glass jar, not plastic.
NB: Ghee is great used in bullet-proof coffee. I use one teaspoon ghee, one teaspoon coconut oil, and one teaspoon cocoa powder (unsweetened) per cup of brewed coffee. Use an immersion blender to blend in a tall sided bowl until frothy and you will be amazed at how the 4 flavors blend. They blend into a sumptuous flavor where you can not pick out either of the oils or the cocoa. Some recipes on line call for more oils, but this is my happy medium. Experiment with quantities of oils, up to one full tablespoon of each oil with or without cocoa. It will be the only coffee you will need during the day, unless you are a caffeine junky.
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.389285
| 2016-04-28T17:11:52 |
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54600
|
What is "Less Sodium Soy Sauce"?
I have here a bottle of Kikkoman "Less Sodium Soy Sauce". According to the label, it contains 37% less sodium than regular soy sauce (575 mg per 15 ml serving, versus 920 mg). How is this stuff made, and how will it compare to regular soy sauce in flavor?
An optimist would hope that it's made just like regular soy sauce, but less salt is added, so that it would still have the same soy/umami flavor but be less salty.
A pessimist would suspect that they just take 1 part regular soy sauce and dilute with 0.58 parts of water.
What is the truth?
These questions are related, but don't answer my question:
What are the differences between types of soy sauce?
Less salty sauce based on soy
Also note it is harder to store: Normal soy sauces are pretty resilient about room temperature storage, very salty types (regular Kikkoman isn't very salty compared to, say, Thai/Chinese light soy sauce or Korean soup soy sauce :) even more, some officially even do NOT have a "store refrigerated after opening" recommendation despite of being free of modern preservatives. Low sodium soy sauce always takes fridge space...
Well, this is what Kikkoman has to say about it:
Kikkoman Less Sodium Soy Sauce is brewed exactly the same way as all-purpose Kikkoman Soy Sauce. However, after the fermentation process is completed, approximately 40% of the salt is removed. Although there is less sodium in Less Sodium Soy Sauce, all the flavor and quality characteristics remain because it is aged before extracting the salt. However, to maintain this full flavor, we recommend using it during the latter stage of cooking in braising sauces, soups and stews, vegetables or stir-frys.
Huffington Post claims otherwise:
Another category of soy sauce is low-sodium, which is made with extra chemicals. Cooking instructor and author of "The Chinese Takeout Cookbook" Diana Kuan recommends diluting regular soy sauce if you want less sodium instead of buying the low-sodium stuff.
The ingredient list on my Kikkoman Less Sodium Soy Sauce includes lactic acid, which is not on the ingredient list of Kikkoman Original Soy Sauce, but as it is a by-product of fermentation, I'm not sure that it means anything.
Thanks, I should have thought to look on Kikkoman's website. This brings up the question of how they extract the sodium.
@NateEldredge I wonder that too.
Both your sources are correct. Kikkoman removes the salt, and other brands may use additives in place of salt. The bottom line is, something is needed to control the speed and progress of the fermentation process, be it salt, lactic acid, or whatever.
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.389859
| 2015-02-11T04:00:46 |
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65666
|
Chicken broth without gelatin (storebought and homemade)
When I make chicken stock at home by cooking meat and bones, the resulting fluid contains a considerable amount of gelatin, as observed in Why did my Turkey Stock turn into gelatin?; it solidifies when chilled.
When I buy commercial chicken broth/stock in a can or box, it doesn't seem to contain a significant amount of gelatin. Why not? How do they avoid / remove the gelatin?
If I wanted to make homemade chicken stock with much less gelatin, so that it wouldn't gel when cooled, how could I do it?
The gelatin is a good thing, it's a sign that you have a good stock. You're likely to dilute it some when you use it, so it should not be a problem unless you are going to serve it cold.
I've never done a side-by-side comparison, but I've seen advice saying that you need to start your stock in cold water to extract the gelatin from the bones. So if you wanted to use the bones, but not get the gelatin, you could try adding the bones to already simmering water.
Your question has "chicken broth", without gelatin, which is correct. But in your post you are mentioning "chicken stock", which does have much more gelatin.
There is a difference in what you are asking between stock and broth. Stock is technically made with the bones, therefore leading to the gelatin that you don't want. Broth on the other hand is usually made with just the meat, which will have very little gelatin at all. The gelatin and collagen (connective tissue parts) are both released when they are slowly simmered, the longer the simmer time the more time there is to extract.
I think if you don't want the gelatin then you should just boil down the chicken meat instead of the bones. This will give you some chicken flavour but will not give you that fullness and richness with stock.
The gelatin has come out of the bones; I find a good chicken stock is often a bit gelatinous when cooled.
As a general rule, when you cook stock for a really long time/on a higher heat, then it's likely to have a higher gelatin content (as it will reduce more and there is also more time for the gelatin to transfer from the bones to the stock liquid).
Generally, when I make chicken stock I put a whole chicken, a couple of carrots, a couple of sticks of celery, and a few brown onions chopped in half in a big pot and fill it with water. I'd simmer it for 1.5-2 hours and then chuck the veggies, and strip the meat from the chicken. The stock I get from that needs to be skimmed of fat, but is usually fairly light and not overly gelatinous when it cools (although it always is a little bit).
I hope that helps!
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.390097
| 2016-01-21T03:42:59 |
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47684
|
Worm in dry bread, what is it?
I was picking up some bread and I noticed something moving in the box. After some searching I found the thing and it turned out to be a worm or a larva. Any idea what it is and should I start throwing everything out of the food closet?
Picture: (The worm is in two pieces in the middle)
-You can right click and select "View Image" for a bigger picture.
(Sorry if this is a wrong place to ask, this seems food related so I posted it here)
----- UPDATE -----
I found another one:
-You can right click and select "View Image" for a bigger picture.
For size comparison that stuff is the residue from the back of this bread.
related : http://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/47522/67 ; http://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/5258/67 ; http://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/16849/67
Seems a bit small for a mealworm. Can you give any size relation? How long has the bag been there?
@johannes_B I added a new picture for clarification. The bag has been there for a long time. For three or four months at the least.
Thanks @Joe! But those questions did not tell me what it is. But they did give me good info on how to store dry food in the future.
I really cannot tell what this is, but a little tip: Place a ruler next to it and show the thing in more detail. Somebody else may tell you something more helpful.
And as suggested in one if @Joe's links, have a close look at all dry stuff you have there and follow the rule: When in doubt, through it out.
Your second picture is probably a beetle larvae http://en.allexperts.com/q/Entomology-Study-Bugs-665/2010/10/worm-9.htm
"when in doubt, through it out" applies to spoiled food. Although gross in our culture there's nothing dangerous about eating bugs. They even turn some of that starch into useful protein!
Those are larvae of the Larder beetle, related to carpet beetles. Vacuum up all the crumbs and keep the area clean. They infest many dry foods and areas where food debris collects.
Thanks, I googled the things and it looks like a 100% match! I threw everything out and cleaned the cabinet. No sightings of them anymore and let's hope it keeps that way :).
Oh man that looks eerily similar to carpet beetle larvae. I've had a bad run-in with them before where they had infested one of our bedrooms at one point.
Here's an image of the larvae:
source
Are these larvae still alive? I would suggest checking your home to ensure they haven't infested it, as I have a feeling they would do poorly in a factory or even in a store.
Here's some more information:
They all eat the same class of things – organic materials such as natural fibers (cotton, wool), fur, hair, skin, food, et cetera. Their eating habits often explain some of the confusion – because their larvae consume our dead skin, we often find them in or around our mattresses.
source
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.390342
| 2014-10-05T15:24:17 |
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|
65785
|
How can I improve the shape/appearance of this bread?
I've been making bread from this recipe:
550g flour
370 water
12g kosher salt
4g yeast
Knead in the stand mixer, shape into an ovoid bâtard kind of deal,
slash diagonally, and bake 45 min. at 450F/230C.
Taste & texture are good, but instead of a nice-looking loaf with open slash marks, I get the misshapen broken-backed loaf in the photos below. How can I produce a more normal-looking loaf?
EDIT: I've made this recipe a bunch of times and the results are very consistent.
The slashes don't look very deep other than the one that might've been in the middle. How did you make them? You actually don't slash down if you want it to expand in that direction ... you slash at a diagonal, so there's a flap that can open up.
I made them with an X-Acto knife (haven't committed to a lame just yet), trying to cut at a shallow angle as you suggest. How deep should the slashes be, optimally?
Related: http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/56221/bread-doesnt-split-at-the-score?rq=1
X-Acto makes a few sizes / shapes of blades, but I'll assume you're using the tiny triangular one ... and for that, even if you went the full depth, it's still a pretty shallow gash. I've never sprung for a lame either ... but I can make do with a really sharp paring knife, or a single-edged razor blade. (I would use my favorite sharp knife ... a Stanley 10-481 (snap-blade, w/ self-replacing reserve), but I use it for crafts, like cutting fiberglass, so it stays away from the food)
Before we start on what might have gone wrong, let me assure you that you obviously are doing a lot of things right:
You have surface tension in your loaf and good oven spring, meaning you got the shaping right and seem to put your bread in the oven at a good time during the final rise - my guess would be "slightly underproofed", which is exactly what you want for a wheat bread like this one.
With your slashes I suggest that you dump the X-acto, because the blade is too short. The classic lamé is one possible route (and can be easily substituted by an oldfashioned razor blade on a chopstick), but you probably need a few more loaves to get the hang of using it - you need to work fast and the bent blade and thin handle is different from what you are used from kitchen knives. A serrated knife is a viable alternative, provided it is quite sharp. Whatever you use, you don't want to use a "sawing" or "zig-zaging" motion, but just one quick swiping movement per slash.
The higher the hydration the more likely is your slash to seal itself again, simply by the weight of the dough. Therefore an almost horizontal slash is recommended. The idea is to create a "flap", not a "valley". The thin flap will become the "ear" as the two overlapping parts drift apart due to oven spring. For a loaf like yours, I personally aim for a cut of almost an inch. This is no hard and fast rule, every dough and bread type is different. Once you get the basic technique right, you can experiment.
Note that the bread will expand perpendicular to the cut, so diagonal cuts should be always oriented mostly along the long axis and multiple cuts should be running parallel for quite a bit. More crosswise cuts will create the "bulge" that can be seen on your loaf, almost as if the loaf "arches its back".
Good steaming will keep the crust pliable, so that oven spring can open the slashes well.
I'm not much of an expert, but it looks to me like you should be changing the direction of your scorin as this guide recommends; for batards, you want to slash more top-to-bottom instead of across the loaf. Also, angle the cut at about 30 degrees, so you're cutting more of a flap than a gash.
Also, I don't know how you're shaping it before the prove, but here is a guide that might help?
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.390632
| 2016-01-24T16:09:22 |
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|
83370
|
How can I approximate a deli kaiser roll?
I want to approximate kaiser rolls, as you would buy in a deli or bodega. I tried this recipe, and the results were tasty, but not really a kaiser roll. Specifically, they were:
Too dense
Not crusty enough
How can I get closer to the target?
Update
Some photos of what I'm trying to achieve are here, here, and here.
@JanDoggen Done. I've never been to Germany and have never eaten a Kaiser Brötchen, but the photos I found on Google look similar.
Density
A high-protein bread flour will give strength to the roll, and allow it to rise higher. While it should still have some chew to it, this may be what your perceiving when you refer to density. Think of the difference between a pizza (typically high-protein, or "bread" flour) and a muffin or pastry (often uses lower protein flour). Bread flour can be substituted 1:1 with AP flour.
Crustiness
Instead of milk, try using an egg wash. This can be done by mixing a lightly beaten egg with 1 tbsp of water and a pinch of salt. Brush the rolls just before sprinkling on the poppy seeds.
Some more sugar might also improve browning. You could try increasing the sugar content by about 50% and see what effect it has on your rolls.
If you're interested in learning more about bread baking, this answer is based on a recipe from Bread Illustrated from America's Test Kitchen. I am not affiliated with them, but I feel like I should give the credit where it's due.
The techniques for making bread can get very complicated and precise, so there may be other ways to improve your rolls. I would also recommend a recipe that uses weight instead of volume for measuring flour/water ratios. Hydration levels in your dough can cause a significant difference in your final product.
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Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.391061
| 2017-07-30T00:50:23 |
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|
49684
|
Buying first cast iron pan size/depth/shape
I am planing to buy my first cast Iron pan and I would like to get advice on which size/shape/depth should I should choose.
For example I am looking at this:
size: 25.4cm depth: 4.45cm
size: 25cm depth: 5.08cm
Also what shape/width/depth would be best in your opinion, not necessary from these two pans, but in general?
Mainly I want to get new pan for cooking steaks, hamburger meat. Or maybe I should consider gettig one like this:
Do those lines add addiotional taste or just marks?
edit:
Thank you all for answers, I decided to go with Lodge cast iron L10SK3 size: 30 cm looks like #2 but bigger :) Next step cooking...
Hello Pigeon. Welcome to Seasoned Advice!
Hello, I hope to become regular guest here :)
Great! We'll look forward to seeing you!
I think you're over-thinking this. You're quibbling over fractions of a centimetre. Get the biggest one that will fit on your stove/in your oven and that's within your budget. Avoid one with raised bars as this reduces the amount of flavourful crust that will develop on steak and burgers.
Hi @Pigeon, what do you want to cook with it?
@GdD Mainly I am looking at cast iron to cook steak :), but I am considering other dishes too (I dont know what now), so I am going with simple bottom, now I want to know what size would be best 20cm 25cm 30cm... also what differance between different edges (slope).
where possible @Pigeon please post pictures rather than links
Your third example, since it's a griddle, is indeed very different from the first two. By no means does it meet the definition of an all-purpose frying pan. However, it must be acknowledged that your emphasis is on the preparation of steaks and burgers. For that specialized purpose, if you're quite keen on having grill marks on the meat, I would suggest that there are better options out there than this one. I'll discuss that for a moment and then get back to considering the first two pans.
Please note the handle of the griddle. It is made of several different parts which are crimped or cobbled together. That itself is a bad idea. The griddle may last virtually forever, but the handle certainly will not. As the griddle heats up, the small cast iron extension which rises into the handle will also heat up to approximately the same temperature as the lip of the griddle. This will cause it to expand. So the inside of the handle, which isn't as good a conductor of heat as cast iron, will expand at a slower rate. Do you see the problem? Yes, over time the handle will no longer fit snugly onto the pan. Yet there are even further concerns about the handle.
To prevent your being burned, (apparently), the handle includes some manner of a rubber-like composite material. If we can assume that the handle is not designed to be removed, (which is a fair assumption), this presents a problem for seasoning the pan. The high oven temperatures required for seasoning a cast iron pan may be greater than this composite material is rated for (may cause it to burn). The same goes for the chrome or polished aluminum parts, which would probably discolor at high oven temps. If you're unable to resist the appeal of a cast iron griddle, you may at least consider going with the kind that have a cast iron handle or no handle at all.
Mainly though I think cooks would argue against the indoor use of a griddle for steaks and burgers because of the cost in flavor. If you're grilling outside over an open flame, there's an argument to be made for at least a "trade-off", where what you lose in the way of juices you make up for with the flavor of smoke. But indoors, on a stove top, it's more like a smoky, greasy mess.
Many people agree that the best steaks and burgers involve first pan searing the meat, because this forms a kind of artificial skin over the meat which prevents its juices from quickly bleeding out during the remainder of the cook cycle. If you agree with this, a traditional iron skillet is among the kinds of pans which can help you achieve that. That brings you back to the first pair of pans you showcased. Let's go back to considering them.
They're both a tad on the small side in terms of lip-to-lip diameter. So they're generally also a bit lighter than a 12" cast iron skillet. For some people that can really matter. And only you can know if that matters to you. If it does not, go with an even larger skillet. That will give you the option to prepare larger portions when it's more than yourself you're looking to feed. Whether 10" or 12" though, for the purposes you describe there's no need for a deep pan. In this respect, the first pan you showcased is preferable to the second one ...which again equals a little less weight, yes?
Finally, as you were keen to observe, there's the pitch (angle) of the bevel (side of the pan). In addition to being more shallow, the first pan you showcased has a bevel less steep than that of the second pan. Especially for a small pan (small lip-to-lip diameter), this can really matter in very practical terms. The less steep the bevel is, the easier it is to get a spatula or other utensil into and out of the pan. If you can imagine trying to flip a burger in a pot, the importance of this principle bears itself out.
In conclusion, if you're able to work with the additional weight and expense, I am of the view that your first best bet for an iron skillet is something more along the lines of the Lodge Pro-Logic P12S3, as seen below. For a close-up view, follow the link and make sure you select view mode number three.
+1 I guess nomenclature might vary from place to place, but I'd call choice #3 a grill pan rather than a griddle. To my mind a griddle is a flat surface with little or no sides, something suitable for frying eggs and cooking pancakes.
I'd offer the following recommendations if someone hasn't worked with cast iron before:
Cast iron is heavy. If you're not used to them, and used to flipping things in your pan by just lifting and shaking ... it will not go well until you've gotten used to it. You'd likely be better off with a smaller pan, provided that it's of sufficient size for the amount you're cooking. If you're only cooking for 1 or 2 people, a 10" (25cm) pan is likely better than a 12" (30cm) one.
If you're going to be grilling things, but not making sauces or sautéing, go with a griddle. Round griddles heat up much more evenly (less issues w/ cold spots near the walls), are easier to clean, and are significantly lighter than cast iron pans. Grill pans are really only needed for things that are going to drip significant amounts of fat, or if you really like grill lines.
If you buy a larger pan (14"/ 36cm) or larger, make sure it has a second handle. I've seen some that just have a little nub and not much else, which makes it very difficult to lift when it's loaded down with food, as you don't always have good grip with the potholders.
Pour spouts are nice to have, as you don't want to hold the pan for a long time trying to be careful when pouring. (heavy pan + liquid weight is not a good combination). The only disadvantage to the spouts are that you can't lid it as tightly, which may be an issue for pots, but is generally not a problem for pans.
Learn how to hold the pan when transfering food out of it. You'll notice in some cooking shows that the chefs use a strange grip : with your non-dominant hand, reach across the pan and grab the handle so that your palm is under the handle. Grip tightly and lift over your serving dish, and then scrape things out with your dominant hand. You will tire out much more quickly if you try to hold it with the handle to the side.
You only need a high-sided pan if you're going to be really loading up the pan (eg, trying to wilt down a bunch of greens), braising, or shallow frying. (it's most important when frying). Higher sides add extra weight, and less even heating.
Figure out where you're going to store it. As they're heavy, you likely don't want to be storing them up high (hazardous) or down low (back problems) if you can avoid it. You also can't stack them all on top of each other on a flimsy shelf. I wouldn't hang them from a pot-rack if it was overhead. (maybe on a wall-mounted one, where I knew it had good lags into studs) If you just have one, you can clean it and leave it on your stovetop ... once you start getting a few different sizes, you have to figure out where to put them.
Invest in a handle cover. You can get ones that are padded cloth, leather, or silicone that slip over the handle, and just stay on while you're cooking. You don't want pans where the handle is a separate part from the cast iron.
Enameled cast iron is easier to clean, but it will start to stain and craze after years of use. I like enamed for pots, but generally prefer seasoned for pans.
Make sure to read the manufacturer's directions for cleaning and seasoning your pan before the first use. Seasoned pans may come 'pre-seasoned', and just need a touch up before you start using it, but bare metal pans generally need to be stripped down of whatever protective coating they shipped with, and then seasoned, which can take a couple of hours to build up some layers. (it's easier to do in the oven, but slower ... I still recommend the oven so you can make sure to season the underside and handles of the pan, which frequently get forgotten)
... and whatever you do, do not start collecting cast iron because it's decorative. I have less than a dozen, and 3 of them get heavy use (14" skillet, 12" round griddle, 7qt enameled pot). I had to work up to the 14" skillet ... starting out, it was a 10" until I got used to working with it, which is still a great size for cornbread and such. ... but my mom has well over 100 pieces, because she's collecting Griswold and Wagner. (and she's got at lot of it on an antique wooden baking rack that I'm amazed hasn't broken / collapsed considering that it's significantly sagging)
Other answers have addressed the comparison in the first two pans. I would just add one more voice to the chorus against grill pans, unless you absolutely need grill marks and/or are trying to drain all possible fat out of what you're cooking. (A balanced perspective on the benefits and drawbacks of grill pans was given in another question.)
Outdoor grills work through the use of radiant heat coming from glowing sources of fire that can often be over 1000 degrees Fahrenheit. Meanwhile, a grill pan on a typical stove on high or medium-high will usually be about 400-500 degrees during cooking. Many stoves can get an empty pan even hotter, but as someone who has attempted to simulate a grilling experience by waiting for grill pan to get to 750 degrees before putting the steak in, let me just say you end up with charred meat on everything in contact with the pan, and it still doesn't taste like actual grilled meat. (The smoke flavor is not there; you do get a lot of smoke, but it's not from burning wood or charcoal, but rather only the burning fat and oil that drips into the pan, whose smoke is not always a flavor enhancer.)
So, if you don't raise the temperature so high that you instantly burn your food, the grill pan simply doesn't get hot enough to induce good browning reactions (i.e., flavor) on the parts of the meat not in contact with the pan. Meanwhile, a standard preheated skillet can produce good browning over the entire surface of a steak or burger through direct contact. The trade-off is if you have fatty meat, which can end up rendering into the pan while cooking and producing a "fried" taste and texture. While it's different from grilling, I personally prefer the taste of the well-browned steak or burger (with a little frying) to the pattern of charred and gray meat I've almost always produced with a grill pan.
Another option: if you want to cook via radiant heat indoors, skip the grill pan and cook under a broiler. You can also elevate the food to allow drainage of fat under a broiler, so it's a closer approximation to grill cooking. If you really want the grill marks, you can heat up the grill pan while broiling and move the food into the grill pan for just the final couple minutes to make the marks before serving. (Personally, I wouldn't bother, because the charred lines still don't give it a "grilled" taste, but appearance is often important for food enjoyment.)
All of that said, grill pans can do a decent job of approximating a "low grill" cooking experience (without the smokiness). The only time I pull out my cast iron grill pan anymore is if I want to "grill" some fancy sausages indoors at a slow pace, as one might do over a low grill outdoors. Any excess fat can drain, the poor heat conduction of the grill pan works well for this purpose, and you get light grill marks that don't taste charred. It works well, but I would have never bought a pan originally only for this purpose.
In any case, even if you like the results from a grill pan, I still wouldn't recommend it as the first purchase of cast iron. You can just try out so many more things in a standard skillet, which will allow you to decide whether you want to purchase more cast iron in the future.
Both of the skillets by "Lodge" are well reviewed. If you choose a skillet, I would recommend going to the next larger diameter (which would be roughly 30 cm - or 12 inches) so that you have more options for cooking meat, especially if you ever want to fry food for more than 1 person. If you think you will ever want to make a pan-sauce or gravy, this type of skillet is the way to go. Personally, the only cast-iron pan I own is a 12 inch skillet - it can handle quite a bit of food - the smaller 10 inch (25 cm) pan/skillet would be too small for me to do much with.
I could not find the larger skillet on the site you linked to - here it is at Amazon for reference:
http://www.amazon.com/Lodge-L10SK3-Pre-Seasoned-Skillet-12-Inch/dp/B00006JSUB
The other type of pan you asked about is usually called a grill pan. If you don't plan to do any frying, that might be a better option for just steaks and hamburgers and chicken. It won't add any additional taste but it can help remove some of the fat from fatty meats (especially hamburger). If you opt for this type of grill pan, I would recommend going for one that is more square than round - here is one made by "Lodge" at Amazon for reference:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0000CF66W/ref=twister_B00NHXQP2O
The only negative thing I have to say about the grill pan you linked to is that the pouring spouts on the sides look like they would be too close to the bottom and could create a mess when you cook - spouts are nice, but I think you'd do better to have them higher up on the sides of the pan.
Of the three you list, I personally would go with the 1st or 2nd option you listed. If your primary use will be for steaks, burgers, etc, either of them will work fine. Plus you will have the versatility to use them for other things. (As an example, I baked cornbread in a cast iron skillet last evening.)
The 3rd option will work but is not as versatile as the other two and will be harder to clean. It will also be harder to season if you choose to go that route. Since this will be your first pan, I would only choose that one if "grill" marks are of particular importance to you. (I have a couple and I can't tell any difference in taste.)
Hope this helps! :)
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.391230
| 2014-11-11T09:37:14 |
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|
51590
|
Mold on Vinegar Batch?
About 2-3 months ago I decided to start my own batch of vinegar. I started with some Braggs apple cider vinegar which contains the mother, and I added some old wine and some fruit juice to the mix. I kept it in a dark and warm place, as per instructions online. A few layers of cheesecloth were placed on top to allow it to air, without letting anything else get into it.
When I recently opened it, I found a layer of what appears to be a yellow-orange mold on top. There are also some small worms or maggots living on the top, but that doesn't seem as problematic to me.
As you can (sort of) see in this picture above, there is definitely a mother at the bottom. The mother has grown since I last saw it. I am not sure what to think about that top layer though. Is the vinegar batch completely spoiled?
Picture #2 (a closer look at the top)
I don't know enough about making vinegar to say one way or another whether the mold is OK, but I find it odd that you're concerned about about the mold, but you're OK with worms and/or maggots. From a food safety perspective, you're right, the mold is more of a concern...but still?? Interesting...
Oh my goodness, have you seen how many views this post has already? (6760)
I had mold on a vinegar I was making from a mother and apple juice. I got the mother from an all natural, unpasteurized apple cider vinegar. I added all natural apple juice. A scoby formed on top but after two weeks mold grew on top of my scoby. I couldn't scrape the mold off the scoby and threw the batch out.
Great question.
First off, the mold. This is nothing to worry about, you should be skimming it off but as far as Vinegar creation it's normal and to be expected.
These "worms" have a name :-) Turbatrix Aceti (a.k.a Vinegar Worm) you can read more about them here -> wiki/Turbatrix_aceti
Why is that mold there? Well if you think about the fermentation process. It's just thousands of bacteria 'eating' your 'mother' now they have to produce something as a byproduct which is the mold you see on the top. Get rid of it and leave it to carry on.
If you see a scum forming on top, don’t disturb it; this is the
mother. Eventually the mother will sink toward the bottom and continue
its work. However if you see mold forming on top, by all means skim
that off. Mother isn’t moldy; it’s scummy.
Source: http://www.rural-revolution.com/2013/07/making-fruit-scrap-vinegar.html <- Well worth a read since you're making vinegar :-)
Mold = Bad (Clean it off)
Froth = Good (Leave it alone til' it turns to mold.
Question: Is the vinegar batch completely spoiled?
Answer: No.
Interesting stuff. Should he filter the worms from the vinegar now as he skims off the mold? Is it possible to filter, yet keep the mother?
From what I can tell the worms are harmless, by all means when scraping off the mold you could try and fish our the worm's. You'll probably find they will return. I wouldn't recommend filtering the liquid as doing so will disrupt and probably destroy the mother. The OP states the vinegar is 2-3 months old. It is possible he/it is actually now ready for the next step where a complete filter would be necessary anyway?
"It's just thousands of bacteria 'eating' your 'mother' now they have to produce something as a byproduct which is the mold you see on the top." - I'm a little confused. Mold isn't a bacterial byproduct, it's fungus.
@Jefromi +1 I'm confused about that statement too. Mold & Bacteria are different organisms entirely. One cannot be a byproduct of the other.
Sorry, it's not mould at all. It's all by product.
Other parts of your answer mention mold though, including the thing you quoted, saying it's safe to skim it off. Is that not true?
I have salvaged both vinegar and kombucha from mild mold by removing what I could, increasing stirring to twice daily and watching it more carefully and removing the very first signs of opaque, white , blue green or furry. I also spray the top with straight vinegar. Once the mixture gets acidic enough the mold won't grow. If it's kombucha you need more starter from your last batch to get the ph down enuf to prevent mold.
I wound beware of stirring when there is mold as it would cause the mold to become integrated into your product and impact the flavor
I have made several batches of vinegar and have also noticed mold - usually light colored - most dramatically on the raspberry vinegar that I made. If i just leave the mold alone it appears to be consumed or disappears after a little bit. It may just have been the scum that precedes the mother but it always disappears.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.392410
| 2014-12-14T22:00:27 |
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|
76187
|
How do I keep a custard from breaking?
I have a recipe for a steamed egg and ginger pudding. It can be eaten hot or cold, and I prefer it cold. The problem is that it starts to separate in the fridge (liquid accumulating where I've scooped pudding out, or sometimes around the edge of the bowl). How do I prevent that?
I did look at this discussion, but I can't tell whether it's relevant.
Recipe, in case it's relevant
2 C water
4 oz. ginger root
4 oz. Chinese rock sugar
4 large eggs, beaten
2/3 C milk
a few drops vegetable oil
Set up a stovetop steamer.
Slice ginger.
Bring water to a boil; boil ginger 2 min. Discard ginger slices.
Dissolve rock sugar in boiling water.
Remove pot from heat.
Add milk to the pot; whisk in eggs and vegetable oil.
Pour into bowl or bowls and steam 12 min.
Individual custard cups or ramekins will help with the "where you scooped it out" parts.
You can force a lot of things to not separate by adding cornstarch and/or agar... but then you could have done away with the eggs in the first place :)
A weeping custard is practically always an overheated custard. First wait that your pot has cooled down sufficiently before adding the eggs (somewhere below 70 C is good), temper them instead of throwing them into the pot, and steam using a thermometer, not a clock. Try 85 C as the first goal and see if it works well or needs adjustment.
|
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.392815
| 2016-12-06T23:07:00 |
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|
125933
|
What is the main additive that makes spices stick to potato chips?
While experimenting with homemade potato chips, I found a lot of recipes that suggest using lime or oil as a coating for applying spices. But I noticed that many supermarket chips seem to have a distinct seasoning adherence. Could there be specific additives in these chips that make lime and oil less effective for achieving a similar outcome? I want to understand if there are certain properties or chemical components in those chips that provide really strong spice adhesion.
The biggest problem you are going to run into trying to recreate bagged chips is that it's hard to replicate an industrial process in a home kitchen. They are (often) using special potatoes treated in a specific way, giant oil amounts that don't suffer from temp drop and spacing etc. And despite what the existing answer says, once you go beyond basic unflavored chips into things like "bbq" and so on there will be other additives (eg starches and maltodextrine).
There is no such additive, and no need for it.
For both types of chips, all you need to do is transfer them from the deep fryer directly to the tossing station. Everything (salt, spice powders, etc.) will adhere on its own.
For reference, see the ingredients list of Lay's potato chips:
Potatoes, Vegetable Oil (Canola, Corn, Soybean, and/or Sunflower Oil), and Salt.
and take a look at how they are produced industrially. The relevant part is somewhere from 3:11 to 3:28.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6IYy95ODDU&t=191
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.392959
| 2023-11-26T11:30:11 |
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|
51713
|
What's this odd stuff coming out of my meringue?
I used this (http://m.allrecipes.com/recipe/58871/authentic-french-meringues/) recipe, but added some vanilla, probably a bit extra sugar, and baked them at 185 instead of 200 with the door open.
That is odd and extreme for this, but I'm still going to bet on "weeping", http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/37486/my-meringue-forms-syrup-beads-on-top/37488#37488 or a very related phenomenon.
Hi keroro, and welcome! Our users need some reputation before they can put an image inline in a post. I edited the question for you so the image is visible, after a few upvotes you'll get the ability to do it yourself for the next time you need it.
Run. Just run...
Definitely egg white seepage, by the looks of the shape of it you've either over whipped the egg whites OR let them sit for too long before cooking which meant they spilt slightly before going in the oven.
Another possibility is the oven wasn't hot enough to begin with OR the environment (kitchen) was too warm.
When ever I've cooked meringue I've had the oven on 180 for 10min then turned it off and left the meringue in undisturbed over night. Never had any issue's that way. The only time I've had seepage is when I've beaten my eggs then got disturbed by a check coming on and having to leave the whites for 5-10min before shaping and cooking...
180c or 180f ? I assume celsius, but whenever I've tried that it overcooked/burnt the meringue. Did you use a fan oven?
Yep, 180c and a fan oven. It would possibly depend on how many and how large your meringues were. In my answer, I was talking about meringues around 3 inch across and around 2 inch high. With ~24 in the oven at one time. Hope that helps.
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.393127
| 2014-12-18T06:25:03 |
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73069
|
What is this green cake with plastic-y texture, found at an Asian store?
While shopping at the local Asian store, I found a funny, green cake that looked interesting, so I bought a piece. It looks like this:
I discovered that it has a very strange texture (as seen in this video). Can anyone help identifying it? The store advertised itself as "Thai", though I'm not convinced that that actually means anything, since I'm living in Germany.
Without an idea of how it tastes, I could only speculate, but a two traditional Asian cakes that are often green would be made with Mung Beans, Green Tea. Mooncake also, but that is normally filled. It is also just not unusual to simply use heavy food coloring.
It looks very much like some kind of steamed bread/cake made with sticky rice flour, but I don't know anything specific. Things like that are usually much softer and stretchier fresh, then get harder and more crumbly over time. Might be the plastic-like texture you mentioned in chat?
Looks like Vietnamese Honeycomb Cake made with pandan and tapioca:
http://danangcuisine.com/recipes/recipe-28-banh-bo-nuong-vietnamese-honeycomb-cake/
That's exactly it. I immediately recognized the picture in your link.
That looks like a steamed corn bun/bread coloured green. I think the corn flour has been mixed with tapioca starch giving it a sticky elastic texture.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wotou
http://nasilemaklover.blogspot.com/2015/07/sweet-corn-mantou-steamed-buns.html
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.393422
| 2016-08-11T20:34:29 |
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|
68781
|
Why does ice form mostly on one side of frozen sliced bread?
I keep my store-bought bread in the freezer and I've noticed that after it's frozen, every slice has a lot of small ice crystals on one side, but almost none on the other. I was wondering if it had to do with the opening of the bag or the direction it faces in the freezer so the last time I bought a loaf I put it with the sealed opening facing the back of the freezer, when normally I put it facing the front of the freezer. In both cases the crystals formed on the side facing the back of the freezer with almost none on the side facing the door. What causes the ice formation to be uneven?
EDIT
I have experimented further and discovered that the ice crystals form after the bread is already frozen. The longer the bread is left in the freezer, the larger and more numerous the visible ice crystals get. Turning the bread around after a few days causes the ice crystals to form on the other side of each slice without noticeably reducing the ice that's already formed.
Your freezer causes this, as your experiment has shown.
Freezers don't magically cool down their contents, like ovens have a heat source, freezers have a "cold source", so in your case the back cools / freezes first, encouraging condensation and subsequently the formation of ice crystals on the colder parts. If your freezer has an auto-defrost cycle, this may contribute as well.
This doesn't explain why the sides facing the back, which are further from the source of "cold" form the crystals. You would think being closer to the back would make it colder.
@CJDennis I would expect the back being the coldest part in your freezer? So sides facing the back cool down faster. Humidity collects (condenses) there, causing a build-up of ice.
What is interesting is that turning the bread around after a few days causes ice crystals to form on the other side of each slice. The bread is already frozen, so it's not cooling down anymore. The frozen water in the bread is obviously subliming, but I can't see a reason for it to only be deposited on one side of each slice, especially when having all the slices together insulates the bread from any minor temperature differences that might exist in the freezer.
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.393564
| 2016-05-04T08:43:59 |
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|
56083
|
Is safe to eat jerky with white mold?
I recently ate a jerky with white mold on it (see below), I donot know if I should be okay with that? The mold grew on jerky because I placed it in a moist environment days before.
If you haven't noticed any I'll effects after a few days, you probably got away with it, but don't eat any more! Throw it out.
It is fine to eat, just cut it off if you are unsure. Same rules apply here as moldy cheese, cut that part off and move on. White mold is common in charcuterie, and preyed for by artisan charcuterie and cheese craftsman. The white bloom is a sign to the craftsman that fermentation has started properly. This is purposefully done by spraying a little moisture on the outside of the sausage casing. You most likely had condensation build up that seeded this occurrence.
Unofficially, I tend to agree with Chef_Code. Who's momma didn't scrape mold of off food and tell you to eat it. That said, my official answer would be ask the government (see Jefromi below)
@Chee'sBurgers Thank you guys, I am functioning well till now, my best guess is that the white mold is not the evilest one, eat a little bit of it may not dysfunction me, but not too much.
@Chef_Code Thank you guys, I am functioning well till now, my best guess is that the white mold is not the evilest one, eat a little bit of it may not dysfunction me, but not too much.
There are some kinds of mold which are safe to consume (blue cheese is a common example) but in general they are not. While you might often be fine eating a bit, there's no guarantee, so to be safe you should throw out moldy food like your jerky.
See the FDA's advice, for example.
Note that mold is okay on some kinds of cured meats:
Hard salami and dry-cured country hams: Use. Scrub mold off surface. It is normal for these shelf-stable products to have surface mold.
But I'm not sure it's normal for jerky. For those examples it's normal and even common to have mold, but for jerky it's not common, so I wouldn't be confident it's normal. (Indeed, it grew there when you left it somewhere moist, so it's not part of the normal production and storage of jerky.) Additionally, jerky is generally more fibrous and less solid than those things, so there's more potential for mold to grow inside it, where you wouldn't be able to scrub it off.
Your example does look like it's mostly on the surface though, so if you want to take a small chance, you could see if you can really scrub it all off.
The FDA page you linked doesn't mention jerky, but it does say for "Hard salami and dry-cured country hams - Use. Scrub mold off surface. - It is normal for these shelf-stable products to have surface mold." I would think that would apply to jerky as well.
@RichardVenable I don't know if it's normal for jerky (I've never seen it on anything storebought anyway) but more importantly, jerky doesn't have a smooth surface to scrub off. It's very fibrous, with a lot of surface inside that mold could grow on and not be reachable to scrub. Maybe the OP's example is still okay, since it does look mostly on the actual surface. In general though I'd be pretty nervous.
@RichardVenable There are specific types of mold which grow on hard aged sausages (in fact, they're often deliberately inoculated with them). Their ability to grow, and their dominance over other microorganisms, is a function of things like humidity and preservatives involved in the sausage making process. The FDA is not saying it's okay to eat moldy meat in general.
Blue cheese mold Penicillium roqueforti actually produces some neurotoxins. Not at very high levels in the cheese though: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/penicillium-roqueforti
It is OK to remove the outside moulin from Jerky (Biltong, as it is called in South Africa). I have been eating it for 60 years.
However if it smells real bad (as in a cheese), throw it away.
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.393779
| 2015-03-26T05:11:50 |
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69027
|
Identifying a white crispy garnish to a pork dish
We went to an excellent restaurant last night and one of us was served pork with an unfamiliar, edible garnish;
It was a crispy, long, white item which may have been a little salty and a little meaty, although I'm not sure.
Can anyone identify the White item on this plate?
Meaty?? Hmm, my first thought was a fried noodle of some kind. Did it taste of the sea at all?
Apparently salty, but it wasn't me eating it, so I don't know too much. I get the impression it was an alternative to pork crackling.
But sooo white! What ethnicity was the specialty of the restaurant?
It was a British restaurant, entirely modern European. There's a menu on their website but it doesn't include this particular dish -- http://www.middlethorpe.com/static/hhh_middlethorpe/uploads/documents/menus/dinner-menus-gourmet-a-la-carte-seasonal.doc
A version of krupuk perhaps? The prawn crackers im most asian places here are very white.
Hmmmm! I was about to go to sleep! Now I'm in a Google vortex! :)
Was it a bit like splinter-ish dried foam? It certainly looks like the prawn crackers here, only in another shape.
It was certainly very crispy, but with maybe a little bit of flexibility. I think it may be something like the prawn crackers / krupuk mentioned, actually!
As OP said little meaty, I would say it might be fried pork skin, also called pork rind. It looks similarly textured, the only difference is that pork rind is usually light brown in color, but this is white.
If this is a fancy restaurant, I can totally imgine them bleaching the skin somehow to create a white color and be a nice color contrast for the dish.
here is a stock photo:
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-crispy-pork-pork-rind-white-background-isolate-image59494022
Definitely pork skin. Had it on our menu once. Massive hassle to make mind you.
@Doug why is it so white? Like Ron, I would expect it to be coloured with cooking?
I haven't got time to make a real answer but here's a recipe http://m.cookingchanneltv.com/recipes/pork-rinds-chicharron.html
The reason it's white is all to-do with light diffusion and the fact the brown 1mm thick crisp pork skin has just been stretched to over 1cm thick.
Think... blowing up a balloon, it get lighter in colour as it gets bigger.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.394089
| 2016-05-16T09:33:02 |
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56617
|
Help identifying Turkish dessert
Anyone familiar with Turkish cuisine know what this is? I had this in Istanbul. All I could gather from the owner was that it is made of milk.
The texture was like a very moist cake. The taste was milky and sweet (but not very sweet). That is definitely raspberry jelly on top.
It looks like a piece of tres leche cake. Are you familiar with this? Do you know if it is Turkish, or ifthey just happen to serve it in Turkey (too)?
This looks like Trileçe which is indeed a Turkish take on tres leches:
Trileçe’s heritage is a lot more complicated than that of the éclair. Chasing down the elusive origins of this cake – a Balkan cousin of the Latin American classic tres leches – leads to a deep, dark, global rabbit hole.
And it's certainly got milk in it!
At Köfteci Arnavut they claim to mix kaymak, the heavy cream of water buffalo milk, and cow’s milk together for the characteristic soak given to the cake. At Baltepe Pastanesi, İdris Beğiroğlu called his recipe a secret but admitted that there was plenty of krem şanti, whipping cream, in there. Tuğra’s menu lists it as a cake of three milks – cow’s, goat’s and sheep’s.
Just read about tres leches, looks like you got it!
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.394287
| 2015-04-12T15:29:08 |
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|
66552
|
Sauce made from butter and cream flakes/curdles
My sauce recipe (Laurent Tourondel, BLT p 140) called for heavy cream and butter to be set on high heat:
Put the cream and butter over high heat. cook until the butter is
melted and browned, about 5 minutes. Stir in the shallot and garlic
and cook for another 3 to 4 minutes, until tender.
Everything went well for the first 5 minutes but after adding shallot and garlic and keeping it over high heat for another 2-3 minutes, the sauce started to flake/curdle.
I replaced heavy cream with sour cream.
I had a look at this answer that only gives »alcohol and acidity« as causes for curdling and this one which advises not to overheat crème fraîche lest it will curdle.
Did heat cause my flaking/curdling? If not, what did?
And What means »tender« in this context?
Tender means soft and not brown. Sour cream will curdle if the fat content is not high enough (if it is high, it is called creme fraiche, techniquelly) and if you cook it down too much on too hot heat. Next time, use higher fat content and cook on lower heat. Cream, sour cream and creme freche are not really substitutions, not techniquelly and not taste-wise.Mixing butter and sour cream will work, if you take your time and boil down with hardly any or no bubbles.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.394431
| 2016-02-16T12:36:22 |
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|
58654
|
Is it possible to use Coffee Mill for other grain?
I'm in Argentina here I cannot fing buckwheat flour so I bought instead buckwheat grain and I want to
mill it to get flour....
but I don't arrive to find a tradicional Mill (at a cheap price)
I want to know if with a machine like this cofee mill I could get good flour?
The problem you're going to have with that is volume. You'll only be able to do a small amount at a time. I'd suggest you search for another option.
you're right I will continu to look for another solution maybe a DIY mill. Thx
Buckwheat flour is known as trigo sarraceno in Argentina. Find it in health food stores, and now very common through online shopping websites.
That's a nice picture of a spinning blade type spice grinder you have there. The good ones will even do whole nutmegs. You can also use it to make limited quantities of powdered sugar, oat flour, wheat flour, buckwheat flour etc. About any non-oily seed may be turned into a powder with that grinder.
Trying to make peanut butter is a mistake. It goos up the blades something awful.
all sellers advised me that, but as they are seller I had to be sure :-) , I putted this picture to avoid linking to any marketplace.
so mill almond with that will be a bad Idea, don't you think?
You can do nuts and the like if you're quick about it. Only pulse a few times and you'll get small pieces. More, and it turns to sticky paste. There may well be nuts that don't work well at all.
ok thx, I will try it
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.394564
| 2015-06-29T14:36:58 |
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|
62130
|
How to bake ground beef
I have 3.5 pounds of 93% lean ground beef. I want to easily cook it like this:
Put tinfoil on a pan.
Put all of the ground beef on it.
Put it in the oven preheated to 450F for 30 minutes.
Is this safe?
Any remaining questions:
Why should it be covered? When is it necessary to cover food with aluminum foil during baking/roasting?
Is there a problem with letting it cook in the fat?
You will probably burn it at that temperature.
Make sure you use a pan with high enough sides so that fat doesn't overflow. If it's a thin baking sheet with only short edges, especially one that tends to curve/warp in the oven, you could easily dump fat all over the bottom of the oven. But as long as it's a sturdy pan, the fat isn't going to get any higher than the beef itself started out (except for splattering), so if the beef itself all fits in with a bit of space at the top, you'll be fine. If it seems like you're cutting it close, split it into two batches.
Make sure also not to cover too tightly; you want steam to be able to escape. You want it to be covered well enough to keep fat from splattering everywhere, and to keep it from drying out fast and burning on the top or bottom, but you also don't want all the water to get stuck in there until it boils over.
Letting it cook in the fat is really just a personal preference. If you want the final result to be super lean and maybe a bit dry, don't do it; if you want to keep it moist and juicy and don't mind some fat, cooking it in the fat is good for it.
For food safety issues...
All that matters is what temperature the beef reaches. The FDA recommends that it reach 160F. You don't really need a thermometer to check in this case, though: if it's all obviously brown it's fine.
So, yes, that general idea is probably safe, but I wouldn't try to pin the time down now. Just put it in the oven and check periodically until it's done. Exactly how long it takes will depend on how thick the beef is in the pan (i.e. how big the pan is).
Can you include the link to "why cover food" from my question, into your answer?
@user193661 I just addressed that part of your question here, since the general answers on that question didn't quite cover everything.
and if all you have is a thin baking sheet, you can use an extra large piece of foil, extending the edges of the pan. Be sure to fold the excess foil over a few times so they create sturdy enough walls. I have done this several times in the toaster oven.
OPs experience:
I evenly distributed it in the pan, which could easily fit it.
I baked it for 25 minutes at 450F. It was brown all the way through, moderately crisped on top. Juicy and not overdone.
There was only a few millimeters of fat in the pan.
Considering how lean the meat is, there is gonna very little fat coming out of it. Actually its probably gonna end up pretty dry and if you don't put anything else in it its gonna taste fairly bland.
Covering helps stops the top from getting burned and reduces moisture lose, also reduce splatter. Makes for easy cleaning.
No issue at all leaving the fat
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.394732
| 2015-09-28T20:00:19 |
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|
74351
|
How to eat raw brown rice, yellow peas, black beans
The USDA nutrition data says these foods have much better nutrition raw than cooked.
Can I make them safe to eat without cooking?
Expand them and soften with water so they don't grow after being eaten
Remove anti-nutrients and indigestible parts.
Can they be sprouted? Or soaked with lemon juice?
Or if I boil them, does the water contain the removed nutrients and can I eat that?
Do you have reference to much better nutrition raw. Yes some nutrition is lost cooking but not much. In something like a crock pot you don't need to remove any water.
I added nutrition data example. 80g carbs, 40g protein difference
That difference in nutrition amazes me. I have no answer. I suggest you move those tables to the bottom.
"Expand them and soften with water" - what do you think this process does to the weight of the product? What does cooking do?
Please, please, please don't eat raw beans
Assuming you don't cook in excess water then drain it away, there's not a difference in nutritional value here, you're just not comparing the same amount of rice.
Raw, uncooked rice and beans are dry. When you cook them you add water. So if say you start with 100g of raw brown rice, you might end up with 330g of cooked brown rice. If you then take just 100g of it, it'll have less than 1/3 of the original nutritional value - you're basically eating 30g of rice and 70g of water. But if you eat all of it, it'll have the same nutritional value it started with.
Same idea applies if you start with one cup. It expands when you cook it, to perhaps a bit over 3 cups of rice, so if you take one cup to eat, it's just less rice.
The ratios of cooked weight to raw weight, and cooked volume to raw volume, depend a bit on exactly how you cook the rice. The nutrition facts are based on some average of "properly" cooked rice.
If you do cook things in excess water, then yes, there is some very small amount of nutrients in the water (it's still water, not a protein shake), hard to say exactly how much, and if you're determined to get every last bit of nutrition you can eat it. For rice it's generally a non-issue, since you don't need excess water - just use the right amount and it'll all boil away or be absorbed. Beans are generally cooked with a bit of excess water, but they don't need an insane amount, so it's not hard to turn that into a soup/sauce for the beans, and so there's still nothing to throw out.
While i agree with the point you're making, this doesn't answer the question at all... it gives unwanted nutritional advice.
@Niall on the contrary, this addresses the flawed assumption underlying the question. The little bit of nutritional advice is almost a footnote to this explanation
@ChrisH I agreed that the question is inspired by a maths error, but this would be better dealt with by pointing it out in a comment or edit. The question they've actually asked though is about making edible without cooking, which can be done either by soaking for a few days or by sprouting - thus the actual question wasn't addressed in the answer.
@Niall not my answer
@Niall this is classic XY problem territory. The very first line of the question indicates that the reason the asker is interested in 'eating them raw' is because of nutritional values. The question is how to achieve those nutritional values, not actually how to eat them raw.
@ChrisH whoops, sorry.
Good catch! The OP is comparing apples and oranges.
@Niall Unwanted nutritional advice? The OP asked if the liquid could contain nutrients and if they could eat it, and I told them that if they care about it they can. I didn't say they should. And if I pointed the core issue out with a comment, there would be no question left. The OP is asking how to get all the nutritional value, and I've told them they can do so with no effort. They didn't actually want to eat raw food.
(That said, if you really think something isn't an answer, you can flag it, and a mod will decide - and we don't handle flags on our own answers, it'll be an independent decision.)
Perhaps the uncooked nutritional facts are dried split peas, and the cooked nutritional facts refer to these same peas cooked and reconstituted(re-hydrated). In this case the difference in nutrition could simply be the fact that the cooked peas in this case have the same serving size in both volume and weight, but the cooked variant has water added to it. So in this case the cooked peas simply just have less peas and more water. So if you cooked 1 cup of raw split peas you'd still have about the same nutritional content, but more mass and volume from added water. Taking into consideration what Jefromi said, and the fact that some nutrients degrade in heat, I'd say you're barely denting the nutritional content by cooking and rehydrating it, you're just creating more volume and mass to eat,but all that added mass/volume is simply water.
Its also worth noting some nutrients don't get absorbed as much when you don't cook the food. This is mostly just for carbs and proteins, which neither degrade with heat, but rather break down into more digestible components.
Still vitamins C, A, B6, and many more degrade from excess heat and water(and even light and oxygen exposure). One way I can think of to prepare these foods without heat is to crush or mill them to a powder to reduce the surface area and then add just enough water to get them to digestible paste. But that doesn't sound very pleasant.
You can certainly buy flour from some pulses (e.g. gram flour is from chickpeas). Then some sort of lightly-cooked flatbread might be the best approach
@Yeah, just making the case for the least nutrient loss. Really cooking them as usual probably doesn't have much effect and probably isn't worth going to the lengths to obtain that small portion of extra nutrients that degrade with heat.
|
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|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.395033
| 2016-09-28T22:48:02 |
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|
59238
|
What kind of paste do I use to form shapes to decorate a cake?
What do I use to create forms and decorate a cake? Like the minions seen here:
Hello limalimolina, welcome to Seasoned Advice. Recipe request are strictly off-topic here. As well as asking to make something "healthier." We deal primarily with the culinary aspect of food and not with nutritions.
@Jay I think the question is really asking what kind of paste to make; the OP can't look for a fondant recipe without knowing it's called fondant.
The health issue is indeed off-topic, though, so I edited it out. If there's a specific restriction you're trying to satisfy (less sugar?) feel free to add it back in!
Not really healthy, but you should use "Fondant" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fondant_icing)
It is used for most/all cake decoration; it shapes well, and is stable at room temperature; and you can color it.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.395654
| 2015-07-21T16:36:01 |
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|
60256
|
How should I pre-cook a burger to be micrwaveable?
Start with a generic 1/3rd lb patty of ground beef, either frozen or fresh.
Normally I follow the advice from How do you grill a perfect burger?, however, I want to make many. How can I cook and store the extra patties for lunch the next day or more? Given that at work, I only have a microwave to reheat the meaty goodness.
Step 1. Cook beef patty
Step 2. ???
Step 3. Profit
Form the patties and place in a nonstick pan. Once you have got all your patties in the pan (make sure they are thin) cook all the way them at 250F in the oven (make sure you watch them). Let them cool then place them in Ziploc bags. Freeze them.
The night before work place them in bottom fridge to start thawing. On your way to work it will be still frozen (pack your lunch with ice packs). At lunchtime, place them in microwave for about a minute, then turn, cook another minute, and they'll be done:-)
I think a microwaved, reheated burger is probably not going to compare favorably to a freshly-cooked burger. With that said, I think the main thing for the pre-cooking is that it would need to be start off a little undercooked, otherwise the heating process is going to result in it being overcooked (since you're saying you're looking for some pink in the middle).
Other than that, I think the key is more in how you microwave it. Obviously, you want it to cook evenly. I'm assuming you're starting from refrigerator-cold. If you start from frozen it is going to have a lot more trouble heating evenly. Also, it might go without saying, but I'd cook the meat on its own (no bun or condiments).
Most microwaves tend to have hot spots in certain areas. There is a pretty interesting (IMO) blog post that demonstrates this using papadam (those crispy lentil crackers you get at many Indian restaurants). The ones tested in that experiment, seemed to mostly be good directly in the center of the tray, so that might be the best placement. If you want to be really super-scientific about it, you can try to replicate that method and figure out how to arrange your food in your microwave.
But if you don't have any papadam handy and you don't know what your office microwave is doing, you may want to find a supposedly-microwave-safe plate that still tends to get hot in the microwave and heat your burger on that. I think the plate is going to transfer heat more evenly to the burger than the microwave would. (On the other hand, I sometimes question whether dishes that get really super hot in the microwave are, indeed, as microwave-safe as they claim to be, so use caution....) Using a real plate, though, instead of a paper plate should help with the evenness of the heating.
I'd also suggest cooking it in short bursts (15s at a time) and letting it rest in between, or cooking it on low if your microwave has power settings (which just does the same intermittent power thing anyway).
I don't actually need them to be pink in the middle. In my experience, it usually gets dried out in the microwave, which I'm guessing is due to the way a microwave actually "cooks".
Drying out is mostly a function of over cooking. 15s bursts should avoid that, checking in between
|
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.396091
| 2015-08-26T06:59:42 |
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|
66242
|
How do I keep rice based noodles from sticking together?
I've already read a related question: How can I keep pasta from sticking to itself?
However, I've found that rice noodles behave very differently than wheat noodles.
I've tried:
Adding oil to the water
Rinse with cold water
Leave in small amount of water while stirring until required
Move noodles immediately from pot to strainer to pan with oil and stuff (ala scampi)
Undercook the noodles, expecting the final "cooking" to be in the resting or sauté
However, every time, I end up with a blob of noodley stuff that doesn't want to separate and have a nice even coating of sauce and other bits.
What needs to be done differently for rice pasta vs wheat?
Note: This is for ramen/pasta made from rice and/or rice flour. The pho/vermicelli noodles are a completely different food with different prep.
Are you boiling the rice noodles, or just soaking them in hot water? — See this other question: Boiling vs soaking rice noodles
Ooops, I saw your edit too late :-\
I have only experience with pho noodles. I don't know if the pasta you are referring to behaves fundamentally different to the noodles that I'm familiar with. The ingredients seem to be almost the same: rice flour. Some kinds of rice pasta are made with brown rice flour but this is basically white rice flour with the bran layer and the germ. I guess rice starch in pasta and pho noodles should behave quite similar.
Regarding the pho noodles which are also very prone to sticking to a noodley blob you have two options:
Soak the rice noodles for about one hour (I don't know the exact time) in (luke)warm water until the noodles are soft. They will not be as soft / chewy as cooked but rather can be bent to a certain extent until they break. When soft, remove the noodles from the water (optional: and store them in a closed container in a cool place until you need the noodles). Reheat your sauce and put the desired amount of noodles in the same pan. The noodles will cook very quickly. Instead of this you can sautée the noodles first and then add the sauce (very tricky, I always end with a ball of noodles; my parents do better). It is almost rather reheating the noodles than cooking.
Cook the noodles and rinse them thoroughly (!) to remove the starch. (Sometimes the noodles did stick after rinsing. Then oiling helps.)
If this doesn't apply to the OP's question you could always just post another "how do I deal with pho noodles" question and self-answer. This seems like pretty useful information.
@Jefromi I'll post my answer in a new question. Tomorrow. It's 3 am here :D *yawn*
Soaking in room temperature water for 10-20 minutes reduces the cooking time of for various 'gluten free' pastas, but it makes an incredible difference in texture. (you can get to al-dente without it turning to mush ... and the leftovers aren't a giant blob like what was described) But you have to test it as you cook, because it'll cook faster than what the package says. If you don't do the cold water soak, you'll want to put the pasta in ice water after you drain it to keep it from over cooking.
|
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.396421
| 2016-02-06T00:29:04 |
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|
59307
|
Individually wrapped frozen steaks have thawed over 18 hours - are they safe?
I bought individually wrapped steaks from Walmart, and I accidentally left them out of the freezer for about 18 hours. I don't know if they had completely thawed or not. I didn't
open the box to look.
I didn't have time to cook them, so I put them into the freezer.
They are frozen now... but are they safe to eat?
EDIT:
I recieved a response from Black River themselves asking the same question. Their official response was:
Thank you for your email I received regarding a recent purchase you
made. I have spoken to my product and development team and they
suggest for you not to consume that product. Having the product out
for 16 hours not refrigerated isn’t a good thing so we wouldn’t
recommend for you to consume it.
Having said that you also stated that you re froze the product which
isn’t a good thing to do since the product thawed.
We believe 8
hours would be sufficient enough to thaw this product so we don’t
recommend you consuming this product.
I hope I was able to answer your question. If for any reason you have any further
questions/concerns please feel free to contact me as I am willing to
assist you with any information you may need.
Black River Angus Ltd
1-888-422-9656
MY questions is more about whether the individual vacuum packaging would keep them safe from bacteria.
The bacteria that can spoil the food are already in the package. What only matters is the amount of the bacteria which is determined by time and temperature.
Yup, that proposed duplicate applies just as well to your steaks.
Just to back what has already been said by @Jefromi and Ching Chong, I received an official response by the Black River company themselves which agrees to toss them. I added it to the question above.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.396744
| 2015-07-23T23:14:59 |
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|
67483
|
How to successfully make candied ginger?
I tried to make candied ginger from fresh roots, but the result didn't turn out like I was expecting.
The recipe I followed had me simmer the slices of ginger in a saucepan with 1 1/2 cups of brown sugar melted in water, for 35 minutes.
Then I leaved the slices to dry on a drying rack overnight. Then I rolled the pieces in sugar to coat them (I found the recipe online).
The result I was expecting to get is something very candied, almost transparent, like this piece (bought in a store):
what I actually ended up getting was much darker and the sugar didn't stick to the pieces at all:
It still tastes quite good, but it isn't as sweet as the one from the store, and didn't look quite as good.
I would love to know how to salvage this batch, or have more tips on successfully candying ginger to a perfect result next time.
Boiling the ginger will help to make the ginger less spicy - the longer,the less spicy. I like my ginger with more of a bite, so I boil it for only 10 minutes. Then strain it through a collander, the way you would a pot of boiled pasta. Put the ginger back into the pot with equal portions of sugar and water - enough to fully cover the ginger - and boil to 225F. Lift the ginger out of the syrup with a slotted spoon and place it on a cooling rack. Coat in sugar. For greater detail, see this link: http://www.makeitlikeaman.com/2013/12/07/candied-ginger-2/
35 min simmer in sugar sounds a bit long. You should try and simmer the ginger slices in water first for 35min and then remove the water that is left from the pan. Then add the sugar and boil until 225 degrees F, using a candy thermo. Remove the ginger from the pan. The ginger should be sticky enough then for the sugar coating to stick.
Thank you! But I don't understand "remove the water / add the sugar" add the sugar to what?
Just edited the awnser now.
So in step 2 I just have sugar in the pan, but no water?
No. Sugar and ginger, there should be enough moisture left to go around to get the mix to a nice boil.
here is a similar way of how I explained http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Crystallized-Ginger
I found a recipe that peels and slice the ginger. Coat it with a liberal amount of sugar overnight or at minimum 4 hours. Cook the ginger and sugar (with the syrup developed) over medium heat until the sugar begins to crystalize. This is the best outcome I have ever had. I don't bother to boil and drain. I like it very spicy.
Phyllis
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.396962
| 2016-03-17T06:27:27 |
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|
59524
|
Lots of water coming out of chicken breasts when cooking in pan. Why?
When I cook chicken breasts in a pan, a lot of water comes out of them.
I've seen this answer: My chicken breasts release a lot of fluid when cooked. How do I prevent this?
where some people suggest that this has to do with the quality of the chicken and that certain producers/supermarkets will actually "pump" their chickens full of water.
However, what i don't understand is that I'm buying those from Whole Foods and that they are supposedly air chilled (which someone in the above-quoted answer suggests getting), so shouldn't they be high quality?
Is the reality that even WF is scamming its customers by pumping chickens full of water? Is their chicken just not that high quality?
If that's the case, where can you possibly get good chicken? (Serious question if you know a place, I live in Cambridge MA, US)
If an excessive amount of water has been added to the meat then it should appear on the ingredients list. In the UK a manufacturer has to declare anything over 10% added water. But the chemicals -- phosphates -- that are used to get the meat to retain so much water must be listed if any non-negligible amount is used. What does the ingredients list say?
@Borodin, thanks for the info. There is unfortunately no ingredient list in this case, because I'm buying directly from a meat counter within the market and not in a package, so it just says "chicken breasts, air chilled". This is in the US.
Are they boneless/skinless? I have noticed these are "plumper" than those with bone and skin (or cut from a whole chicken).
@user3169, yes they are both boneless and skinless but I'm not sure why there would be more water in these...
hey I was looking actually for this. funny enough I live in cambridge nd bought my chicken breast at WFM (air chilled, organic, etc)
The point is that in Europe cooked in the same way the don't release water... which is why I am concerned
@raffaele, yeah I grew up in Europe too (France) and never saw that before. Food in the US is for sure very weird in a lot of ways (growth hormones, antibiotics, etc...). Even at WFM, fruit and vegetables have almost no taste and the meat...tastes very different. Still, it's unfortunately probably the best we can get here.
Liquid naturally comes out of all meats as they cook. If you're using high heat and a frying pan, you don't really notice it because it evaporates quickly. That brown stuff you see in a frying pan after cooking meat on high heat are the evaporated juices.
If you're baking them at around 350 F, you'll also notice water being released. This is amplified if you overcrowd the cooking vessel. You don't see it in a whole roasted chicken or roast beef for example because the liquid coming out caramelizes and creates those lovely browned bits to make a sauce or gravy.
I doubt that WF is selling water and phosphate tumbled chicken breasts.
There is no way to completely prevent the chicken breasts from releasing water. However, you can minimize it by the way you cook. Not crowding the number of pieces in the pan is the most effective, followed by searing the meat when you first put it into the pan, then turning down the heat to complete the cooking. Searing to lock in a lot of the water will result in a cooked meat that is moister and retains more taste than one in which the water is allowed to stew itself out during cooking. Finally, cook with the lid on the pan only for five minutes at most. After that, cook the chicken in an open pan to encourage evaporation or water and to help prevent over-cooking.
Searing locking in moisture is a thoroughly debunked myth.
Yes, Whole Foods (much like other supermarkets) is now selling chicken loaded with water. It did not used to be this way. One result -- beyond the overcharging -- is that it has become impossible to sauté chicken in the United States. When you think you're sauté-ing, you're actually steaming.
Welcome. Can you add a source?
all meats contain water. but it is not in the best interest of supermarkets to advertise dud meat. most meats are sold per kg and if the phosphate/water content is say 7% in a $10 chicken then there is a "healthy" profit to be made. most chicken in the western world is high volume poor care chicken where the consumer is of low to middle income, on the run, barely meeting bills and an easy target for businesses to make massive profits. I will not start with injected pork, beef and mutton.
the price of meat is inversely proportional to the amount of contaminants.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.397242
| 2015-08-01T21:39:03 |
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|
62192
|
How do you eat this type of Gingko nut?
I've looked online but found no clear explanation... I had bought these Gingko nuts because I'm curious to try new flavors, but could never find how to eat them
An article online said that the outside shell could be poisonous, so I ended up getting rid of them.
I'm still wondering how these are cooked, when sold as seen on the picture (dry, white outer shell).
You can roast them, or shell them and then put them into soups/congees.
This article seems to have pretty clear instructions:
http://www.thekitchn.com/ingredient-spotlight-ginkgo-nu-105591
Thanks! Even with instructions they still sound very dangerous! I tried the roasting method, but they started exploding in a very violent, noisy and scary way! Do you think the link means you to boil them then roast them?
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.397659
| 2015-10-01T06:19:26 |
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|
60187
|
Discolored ring in squash
Our yellow squash has some brownish discoloration inside in a ring down that extends length-wise. Is this normal variation and safe to eat, or is this an indicator that the squash has gone bad?
.....So this is probably bad advice, but does it smell okay? Does the brown stuff feel the same as the white stuff? Have you fried a slice and tasted it? If the internet fails you, sometimes you've gotta test things the caveman way. Given that I suffer from a yearly squashpocalypse, I'd probably toss it. But if I really hated to waste it, I'd see if I could cut away the white/good looking bits and puree them for a pie, maybe... I'd like to know for sure too though.
This can be one of two things:
1) If you bought this from a store the squash is a bit old. It own't hurt you as mentioned in one of the comments above it just isn't pretty.
2) If this is a fresh squash, if you had a heavy rain storm or a higher than normal concentration of smoke in the area (like forest fires) then it is possible for excess minerals to be deposited in the meat of some veggies (squash is among that list).
Either way it won't hurt you.
Hi there I came across this post looking for something else and thought I would add my two cents as a farmer: the brown ring is a result of irregular watering as explained above, we have seen a lot of it this year in the South with our drought! The plants draws water up quickly after a period of dry weather and deposits minerals from the soil in the growth layer. Perfectly fine to eat!
Thanks for confirming the answer I wrote. I was basing my answer from experience in Northern Alberta (Canada). Glad to see that this is applicable elsewhere as well.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.397781
| 2015-08-24T01:55:17 |
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|
74764
|
Pickled/preserved lemons/limes - grams of salt per kilogram of fruit?
[
I think this question here was originally too unclear.
because I was still researching and figuring out exactly what I wanted to ask when I posted it.
I edited it a few times,
but I think my editing has changed the question enough that it's no longer clearly the same question as when I first posted it,
so I decided I should probably post a new, separate one.
]
I make sauerkraut with 20 grams of salt per kilogram of cabbage.
Is the proportion different for pickling lemons/limes?
I would guess maybe lower because of the citric acid already there...?
I found one site saying 5~10% for "North-African style",
which is what I think I'm going for.
(I used to get them at Morrocan stores,
but the city I live in now doesn't have any.)
But if that "5~10%" is really by weight in the same way,
then that's a lot more than the 2% for sauerkraut,
which is surprising and confusing.
Also, I don't add any water to my sauerkraut,
but maybe that's necessary for lemons/limes?
In which case I would just salt the water at the same salt/water ratio as the salt/fruit, I assume?
The ones I used to get, I'm not sure, but I think they used nigella.
It's really better to just keep on editing to clarify than to post a new question. I think everything here is also asked in the other version of the question, and you seem to prefer it, so I'm closing this as a duplicate of the other. (If they're really distinct questions, you could clarify and I'll be happy to reopen. But we really want specific, clearly answerable questions, not just a thought process that invites discussion.)
I have experience with Indian lemon pickle, not north African.
The recipes I use don't give exact ratios for the salt. Salt is added to taste. A couple tablespoons per quart of packed lemon is normal.
Lemon pickle is very salty which besides regulating the fermentation also helps with the bitterness from the peels.
You don't need to really worry about the exact ratio. It is so acidic and salty there is little that can grow. I've not yet had a batch spoil- even after months in the fridge.
Don't add water. The lemons need to be covered, of course, but use the juice from a couple extra fruit instead. No sense in diluting the flavor and acid.
Yeah, I didn't ask this question very clearly (kinda figuring out exactly what I wanted to ask as I wrote it)... thing is, I'm not worried about harmful microbes growing; I'm worried about the fermentation microbes not being able to grow. Like I said, I do cabbage at 2% salt (in the closet, never in the fridge. and higher salt concentrations with cabbage seem to slow down fermentation, and actually encourage surface mold growth), so lemons taking much more salt (5 to 10%) is surprising and confusing. But I couldn't find any other explicit mention of a ratio besides that one site...
|
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.397977
| 2016-10-15T21:45:08 |
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|
74776
|
Do Morrocan-stye pickled lemons really need 5 to 10% salt?
I want to make Morrocan-stye pickled lemons, but I was only able to find one site with an explicit ratio, and it says:
In On Food and Cooking, Harold McGee suggests that a solution of five to 10% salt is needed to achieve a good North African-style preserved lemon
I make sauerkraut with 20 grams of salt per kilogram of cabbage,
so 2%. So lemons taking much more salt than cabbage is surprising and confusing; since they start out acidic, I would expect them if anything to require less salt.
I'm not worried about harmful microbes growing; I'm worried about the fermentation microbes not being able to grow. It's my understanding that higher salt concentrations with cabbage not only slow down fermentation, but actually seem to encourage surface mold growth.
One commenter on that site had the same issues:
I've never quite understood the need for such excessive salting when making preserved lemons. They still ferment great at normal levels of salt, and you then need to worry less about them being overly salty to use in future recipes. As far as I can tell it's solely from tradition.
Also, from checking out On Food and Cooking, it seems that McGee only points out that originally they are done with 5 to 10% salt content. I'm curious where you read/saw that he recommended such?
Does anyone have any text- and/or experience-based opinion agreeing or disagreeing with the "5 to 10%" figure?
Could you try to edit this down a bit? With all the thought process, it's hard to tell what you're actually asking. I took a stab at it, but I was trying not to change too much; perhaps there's more that can be done.
As I understand it, you may be seeing some confusion between two very different processes. When making sauerkraut, you are fermenting cabbage in brine, and the fermentation gives sauerkraut its characteristics. I believe this means you need to have or introduce the right microbes, and give them time and space and the right environment to work, and prevent oxidation (keep it submerged), especially since you need access to the air to vent the gasses being produced, things like that?
Pickling, at least these kinds of (brine?) pickles, are not the same thing. To make this sort of pickle, you are steeping the food in a sterilizing brine, one high in acid (usually vinegar) and salt and sometimes other preservatives, and all sorts of things that microbes don't like. The changes that happen are nothing more than the food steeping in the brine, and osmoisis-ing the brine and food into equilibrium. The food doesn't even have to age much in pickling - it gets the most flavor into the food, but there are shortcuts (like chopping smaller or making various "quick-pickle" recipes) which is simply not possible with fermented recipes.
The point is, fermentation preserves, it keeps food from spoiling, by using friendly microbes to out-compete the microbes that spoil the food. Brine pickling intends not to let any microbes grow, because the pH is too low, the salt is too high, the environment is generally not microbe-friendly. Fermentation is fussier (needs lots of variables right), but it is also transformative. Brine pickling is easier, but also tends to produce much stronger flavors (especially at preservation strength).
At some point, I think, "fermented pickles" became a term, or the results of fermentation were also referred to as being pickled and the terms overlapped, or something - and certainly you can ferment lemons, if using much less salt (especially given your commenters' mention). But judging by the recipes I saw, it looks like the Moroccan preserved lemons your source quoted at 5-10% salt are simply preserved, not fermented - left in a brine with salt and acid, which were intended to keep the food unspoiled. So the problem may be that you're mixing up two very different preserving methods, that happen to be a little bit similar and are for some confusing reason called by identical names.
Hmm... well, Wikipedia says "Preserved lemon or lemon pickle .... is allowed to ferment at room temperature for weeks or months before it is used.", so definitely people are using the term "pickle" for fermented products. And the site I linked to says several times it "ferments". In any case, fermentation is definitely what I want to get, because I really like the flavours that develop. I ended up quartering them, adding between 2 and 3% salt, packing them in a jar, and adding a little lemon juice from a bottle to get them fully submerged.
But yeah, if the "5 to 10%" number meant for a non-fermented variety, that would resolve the confusion... if nothing else turns up, I think I'll accept this answer as resolving the question.
@Owen_R - yeah, I'm not saying fermented lemon isn't a thing, or even that it isn't being called a pickle, clearly the same name is being used here for different preservation methods (fermented pickle vs brine pickle, might be useful terms?). I saw both kinds of recipes on a simple search for lemon pickles, confusion all around. Probably there's no better answer than to find a specifically fermentation based recipe, or dig in and use your sauerkraut experience to experiment away. I hope your pickles turn out well, both varieties look interesting!
A bit late to the conversation but there may be another source of confusion going on here. Traditionally in the UK and the US brine strengths are NOT ratios of weight to volume.
In other words a 5% brine is NOT 5g of salt in 100ml of water.
Traditionally, brine strengths are percentages of the amount of salt that can be dissolved in a given volume of water. 1L of water will absorb only about 350ml of salt before it becomes saturated and can absorb no more. Therefore 1L of 100% brine contains 350ml salt.
Using this principle, 1L of 5% brine contains only about 12g of salt. This is perhaps not obvious unless you imagine making an 80% brine (many older ) by dissolving 800g of salt in a litre of water, which you will find is not possible.
Hi jodaki, welcome to Seasoned Advice! This is interesting, I've never heard of brine concentrations defined this way (I'm not from US or UK).
Actually, in chemistry a 5% brine is not 5 g of salt in 100 ml of water, but 5 g of salt in 100 g of final solution, i.e. 5 g salt in 95 ml water, so the 80% solution is even less plausible, because it means 80 g salt mixed with 20 ml water.
This answer is just incorrect. See https://myfermentedfoods.com/tools/brine-calculator/ . And note that solubility changes dramatically with temperature; if recipes involving brine stated a particular percentage relative to a saturated solution, wouldn't they also need to give a temperature (particularly as one often boils the brine)?
@Sneftel - it is not incorrect at all. In the traditional world of meat curers (as opposed to the world of a chemist), a brine of 100% strength contains slightly over 26% salt. See the link here for more info: https://www.meatsandsausages.com/sausage-making/curing/making-brine
@Tinuviel, I beg your pardon you are of course right, I think I had been reading a bread recipe before writing this answer where bakers use yet another method of percentages (more properly they are ratios), which are different to both the chemist's method and the meat curer's methods so that a 70% hydrated dough contains 700g water to 1000g flour! Confusion abounds and I think we are at the mercy of multiple sources of definition and traditions that vary country to country and time to time. Ironically in my day job as a cosmetic formulator I make solutions daily using w/w
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.398315
| 2016-10-16T15:16:27 |
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|
63885
|
Can a disposable aluminium pan be used to bake a cake?
I want to know if an aluminium lasagna pan can be used in an oven for baking a cake?
What dangers are you worried about?
If you're asking if you can bake a cake in that aluminum tin because you're wondering if it's safe, then the answer is yes. It says Lasagna Pan on the label, as in you're meant to bake a lasagna in it. No reason why a cake would be dangerous. I imagine you'd be baking the cake at a lower temp than a lasagna.
You'd want to worry about the cake sticking to the sides maybe. You'd also want to account for the fact that the pan is thinner and heat transfer would be different (cooking times and temperatures might need to be adjusted).
Got it. No I'm not worrying about cake sticking on it.
And you might want to lower the temperature a bit because the heat transfer is faster, but that's just a side note...
Yes, you can use an aluminum pan for lasagna, but you should add one or two Wilton cake "heating cores" or a Wilton cake "nails" in the middle. Google these items at Wilton. Prepare them by applying shortening and flour. Adjust oven temperature down 15-25° and add 15-30 min to your cook time. Begin monitoring it after the regular cook time approaches.
Good point on it being a larger cake than most instructions are intended for. If it's a relatively thin cake, the cores might not be needed, but you might want to go with some sort of cake strip instead to slow down the outer edge. https://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/10387/67
Given that they sell pans that are identical in all respects except for being smaller for the specific purpose of baking cakes in them, I'm not sure what possible trouble you're anticipating.
Because of the large size of the lasagna pan, you might end up with a thinner layer of batter than you'd get in a cake pan; if so, reduce the baking time accordingly.
As mentioned by others, the thin aluminum will transfer heat faster than a thicker and/or non-aluminum pan would, so you may need to reduce the oven temperature a bit.
The non-smooth sides seem like they ought to cause sticking, but in actual practice, as long as you prepare the pans appropriately for your cake recipe (butter & flour vs. butter only), you shouldn't have any problem.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.398862
| 2015-11-26T18:55:16 |
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|
64316
|
What are these sweets from 16th century?
I keep seeing them in old European paintings from 16th - 17th century. I think they still must exist present days.
White irregular shaped sweets on the left hand side.
The choice is limited, they are obviously not wafers, marzipan or candied fruit. I think they might be comfits - sugared spices or herbs such as aniseed - used to sweeten the breath.
The 'P' shaped bit kinda reminds be of speculaas or maybe bastogne cookies, but it could really be anything. If that's the case, it's likely from the Netherlands or Belgium ... and the Dutch do like salty licorice. (but it's not table salt ... it's ammonium chloride)
It'd probably help if you provided context about the paintings. For example, that one is by Clara Peeters, so it's definitely Dutch.
Also the painting is from 1607, not the 16th century, in case that matters - it looks like it was probably toward the beginning of the period where sugar and spices were available there, so fancy desserts like this were relatively new and a kind of big deal.
Those look silver to me, not white. 2. I want those glasses. 3. Does something similar appear in another painting? More points of view might help with the identification.
I think user23614's comment is correct. They're ragged comfits, sugar coated seeds or spices.
These two paintings by the German painter Georg Flegel, have similar objects depicted, and are described by two different sources (Sugar-Plums and Comfits, Sugar Plums Demystified) as being ragged comfits:
They're apparently not very common these days, surviving in the form Pistoia confetti, also known as birignoccoluto. They're apparently primarily given out as treats at weddings. Coincidentally the Clara Peeters painting you're asking about may be, according to one interpretation, depicting the ragged comfits as a treat at a wedding.
Yep, they do sure look like birignoccoluto or comfits! One more mystery solved lol
They are still made in the Azores, with sugar and fennel seeds.
The Portuguese name of the contemporary candy is Confeitos de Funcho.
they look nothing like the ones in the question, are you sure it's the same?
@Luciano to me they do look the same, but under a very different lighting. Just irregular "balls" of hard white sugar crust around a filling.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.399108
| 2015-12-11T18:44:07 |
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65399
|
How can vegans alleviate the effects of spicy food?
It's well-known that if you eat spicy food, you can neutralize the flavor (and thus stop your mouth from burning like a forest fire) by drinking milk. This is due to casein. Simply drinking water or something cold does not achieve the same effect.
But I'm vegan, so I don't drink milk. So what else can I consume (that's vegan) to quickly neutralize spicy flavors?
This is not a duplicate of How can I wash down spicy food?, as the advice there concentrates on dairy products.
Hi JesseTG, I know why you thought this might run afoul of the "what to put in my dish" rule. In general, we don't take "what to put in my mouth" questions either, because they are based on taste. But I think this one makes a good exception. Cleaned up the wording; the question is not in danger of being closed.
capsein is fat soluble which is the 'real' trick here. Water makes it worse since it dosen't actually bind with the chemicals
Why do you feel you need to do anything? Just enjoy the wonderful taste of the spice.
In asian countries (Thai) they use coconut flakes or salty peanuts to avoid the hot spicy flavour.
I have done no testing of this at all but I was surprised to find on this site that they recommend trying a spoon full (or cube of) sugar.
Perhaps the easiest way of calming down a flaming mouth is by sucking on a sugar cube or holding a teaspoon of sugar in your mouth. This helps by absorbing the spicy oil that is coating your mouth, as well as giving you a different, strong taste to concentrate on. A bit of mind-trickery and science combined!
Other things I've eaten in the past include starches, like bread or rice.
Here's a fun infographic and most of the items on it are vegan:
from here
Coconut milk works brilliantly IN food to balance spicyness, and does not have casein (apart from a few brands that add some!), so dairy products aren't just about the casein when it comes to that ability.
Peanut butter is certainly very effective.
Peanut (butter) is another example of something that often goes into food to balance spice (Panang Curry, Anything Ka Salan) ... and there is a common theme with the coconut milk: Easily emulsified, good tasting FAT.
Beer works great but I would avoid a really hoppy one like a IPA because that can add to the discomfort. A good tripel or something sweet works great. Of course you probably want to do some research on whether a given beer is vegan. It's really the sugar in milk that counteracts the hotness. The commonly used Scoville scale tells you how much spice is needed to overcome a standard concentration of sugar water.
FWIW, in my country is is not at all well known that drinking milk reduces heat from spicy foods. But it is well known, and perhaps has always been well known, that eating sugar helps a lot. Unlike milk, there is no scientific explanation for sugar. Just hundreds of years of experience passed down from grandmothers to their grandchildren. This is why a lot of south-east-asian savoury food contain sugar. Take for example the peanut sauce. Nobody here thinks that the peanut reduces the heat, instead everyone believes it's the sugar added to the sauce.
@Darkhogg this is localized by the way... in some countries sugar is considered vegan by most by default unless there is reason to assume it is imported, in some it isn't ... has to do with what processes the local sugar industry is known to use.
Sugar is the best counteraction to spice in recipes, both because sugar generates a pleasure response in the brain that overrides the sensation of discomfort from spicy foods and because it produces a mild cooling sensation as it dissolves on the tongue.
What I doubt is that acidic foods help - from experience, vinegar or lemon can make too-spicy food even more unpleasant....
Avocado would be the classic answer IME (often in the form of guacamole, but not required to be in that form.) AFAIK it's the fat effectively diluting the hot pepper oil in either case, (where it's unaffected by water since it won't mix) rather than any enzyme.
...and then there's not making the food so spicy it's uncomfortable (horribly unfashionable, I know, but I care less and less about fashionable as time passes.)
Let's not have a discussion about whether spicy food is good here. The question is how to cool down if you overdo it, not why you eat spicy food.
You might not be the one making the food, thus you are not in control of the exact level of spicyness. 2. Making food slightly uncomfortably spicy is how you get used to spicy food, and as someone who went from completely unable to eat spicy food to loving spicy food, let me tell you, it's definitely worth a few uncomfortably spicy meals to get to that point.
You might be making the food, but the recipe or method calls for adding the chili very early in the process (applies to a lot of south-east asian cooking). The chili you use is either fresh produce subject to variation, or you might be using an unfamiliar brand of dried chili, or use it in a matter you are inexperienced with. There are reasons not to taste them straight. And interestingly, it seems the hotter you can eat, the less margin you have for error - 10 of given brand of chili in given dish, its almost on the mild side, 20 of them ... holy hashtag raincloud skull and crossbones!
"Avocado would be the classic answer" Well, it's certainly a classic answer; suggesting that it's the classic answer seems rather Mexican-centric.
There's a great answer to this from Vietnam, where super-spicy food is popular and dairy generally isn't. It combines many of the other suggestions into something wonderfully smooth and soothing:
Avocado and coconut milk smoothie
Here's one example recipe and pic. Note that in Vietnam, they love (non-vegan) condensed milk and tend to add it to everything - just skip the condensed milk, and in its place add more coconut milk and a little more sugar.
It has everything you'd want to cool chillies: creamyness, crushed ice, liquid, fats, sugars, along with a very mild non-clashing flavour and lots of nutritional value.
I've seen various variants on this which are even more cooling and soothing by adding aloe vera or blended cucumber - or give it a slight kick with some lemon juice.
I want one of these regardless of whether I've eaten spicy food :O
Try a nut milk (almond comes to mind), soy milk or coconut milk. Here's a highly rated recipe for vegan "Sour Cream".
I'd recommend coconut milk -- the reason that cow's milk works is a combination of fat (capsaicin is fat soluble) and sugar (which soothes your taste buds) -- and if I recall correctly, coconut milk is the fattiest of the bunch. (and most nut milks are watered down, anyway)
Soy/coconut yoghurt might be a good choice too.
As a slight variation on nut milk: horchata is very good for this (at least the Spanish kind, horchata de chufas; I’m not sure about the Latin American variants, which are quite different in composition but I’m told fairly comparable in taste).
Almond milk! I think it tastes better than dairy milk anyway.
I've always liked the bread solution more than the dairy solution. It somehow feels to me that bread "mops up" the spicy stuff from my mucosa, while dairy dissolves it, but also spreads it around in my mouth. Maybe it's just a matter of personal preference, but when you can't have dairy, and even when you can, bread is worth to try. Just a piece of fresh white wheat bread without anything on it, no butter etc. Fluffier is better.
I generally eat yeast bread, but if your dietary restrictions don't permit it, I think chemically leavened bread should work sufficiently well.
Im surprised not to see raw cucumber here - I thought it was a standard go-to. Sliced, or just munch on one raw, depending on how much of your mouth is on fire :-)
Obvious answer is strong alcohol like vodka. It doesn't contain any animal products so I suppose vegan can use it.
"Why are you drunk, it's 9 in the morning!" "Well, I had this really spicy burrito for breakfast..." Could work really well as a sort of mouthwash, though.
Alcohol can do the opposite, depending on circumstances - dissolve all the capsaicin around and deliver it straight to your mouth membranes. Vodka that had a bunch of Thai chilies in it is hard to drink. And unlike oil, alcohols are usually thin liquids that fasten rather than slow absorption... BTW, milk filtered vodka is not vegan :)
I am an omnivore but even better than milk I HIGHLY recommend a starch to correct a mouth burn from capacasain. The ideal being Wonderbread type of bread.
If at a restaurant you should be able to be able to order 1 of these depending if its Asian (rice, add coconut), Latin American (flour tortillas, sweet potatoes, add avacado) African (injera), Euro or euro-american (pasta, bread, potato) or middle eastern, (couscous, lemon).
At home most people in English language countries have either bread or cooked rice.
Soft white sliced commercial bread (i.e. Wonderbread etc.) is ideal but even pita bread can work. Tear off crust, pop in mouth, can use additional slices to rub on lips etc if it's a child or very sensitive adult. Make sure child washes hands with lathery soap!
When I was 6 I opened a butter tub but it was being used as Tupperware and filled with jalapeno liquid w the peppers. I didn't eat it, but it got on my hands and I only washed it off with water. of course my hands got in my mouth eventually.
I thought I was dying as I had only been exposed to Irish-American cooking, (mostly boiled veggies, meats, only spices like salt, peppercorn or paprika).
The wonder bread helped immensely.
Tofu works amazingly well, especially fresh and cold from the fridge. I just tried it for the worst mouth on fire, and it worked immediately!
You could also eat spicy food more often, that way you'll get used to it and won't need to wash away the spice.
Your tolerance will get higher pretty quickly.
This works long-term, but not for the current mouthful. Also, even once you've built up a tolerance, there will be dishes that exceed your current level of comfort.
@Erica though for some of us, that's the point ;)
This is a totally legitimate thing to do, but it's not what I was asking for.
If you are preparing the spicy food yourself, the easiest way to mitigate the Capsaicin "burn" is the well tried Szechuan method of adding some sugar to the cooking.
If you are dining out, the way I have mitigated the "burn" after more than a decade living in South East Asia and Sri Lanka, is to eat a spoonful of plain steamed rice. Rather than drinking anything which will just wash the Capsaicin further down your digestive tract, the rice will quickly absorb the enzyme in your mouth, thus reducing any further ill effects.
Both these methods will work for vegans and non-vegans.
One possibility is to take a small amount of coconut oil in your mouth and let it melt, then swish it around and swallow. It should absorb the capsaicin oil and take it along out of your mouth.
Trader Joe's organic virgin coconut oil would be my particular recommendation; it has a well-rounded, sweet coconut flavor and good texture. It's not explicitly marked as vegan as far as I can tell, but I'd think it would be fine.
My Family are usually Water Drinkers at a restaurant since soft drinks are pricy. However, one time my Dad was eating out as part of a Business Luncheon and out of the blue he decided to order Cranberry Juice. A little while into the meal he had something spicy and when he took a drink of his Cranberry Juice, the spiciness seemed to leave. I think he tried it again by eating the spicy food & then drinking Cranberry Juice right afterwards.
I think you could try having Cranberry Juice and luckily it's a popular enough drink that you won't have trouble finding it in your Grocery Store! :)
I've also seen online that sucking on a citrus fruit could help with this!
You don't have to drink it for it to work; it just has to be in your mouth. Is that against the rules? I'm not vegan nor am I lactose intolerant, I also don't drink milk but I'll ask for a glass if this needs doing (and then spit it out).
It depends on the vegan; however, many will also not wear leather or use animal-based body products (e.g. goat's milk soap or lotion with lanolin), so using a mouthful of dairy milk in such a way that it can't be drunk by somebody else can also count as "consuming" it.
You're missing the point of veganism (at least as I see it). If I were to buy dairy milk to do so in the first place, I'm giving a large corporation money to torture cows.
@Erica - Right, consume or use - I should've looked it up first. I thought it was they just don't eat X.
Vegans can be vegan for all sorts of reasons. Some because of animal rights, some because of health reasons. Still, even a vegan who was so for health reasons is unlikely to have dairy milk around the house, no?
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.399393
| 2016-01-14T02:16:57 |
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64343
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Hard to find spatula
Just curious if you ever found where to buy those spatulas? (Re: Where did the thin, smooth plastic spatulas go? The dark blue one on the left)
Where did the thin, smooth plastic spatulas go?
My wife would like to get some too but I can't find that type either.
Thanks for any help.
Have you looked on Amazon? Something like this seems to be exactly what you're looking for, but there are many others to choose from:
http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000VLUDK
@ElmerCat thats not even remotely close.
Hello John, we are not a discussion forum, and our questions are not just the transcript of a conversation somebody has had long ago, they are meant to be a permanent information record. If the answers from the other question are not sufficient, then asking a new question about them won't make anything better.
Those spatulas came in many colors, mine were white, I've seen them in pink, green and black. I don't believe they are being made anymore (and I have looked. It's my favorite spatula by far). They were made by Foley. This answer was the last answer to the original question, and eBay is the only place I have seen them other than secondhand thrift shops.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.400556
| 2015-12-12T22:29:57 |
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64789
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Why is Himalayan Salt Pink?
I have heard it is from an ancient ocean floor's deposits that have since been uplifted by the Himalayan orogeny, but what in that ocean water made the salt pink. I've been to the Bonneville Salt Flats and the salt there is a normal white color.
Other questions, for example Pink salt vs regular salt just concern the taste in dishes. I am concerned with the actual difference in chemical composition.
Possible duplicate of Pink salt vs regular salt
The Wikipedia article about Himalayan salt explains why it's pink... it's due to iron content.
Hm. Unlike other sites we don't have "lacks own effort" as closing reason - but this question would be a prime example.
@Stephie I believe "lacks effort" is a down vote reason, not a close reason.
@Catija I VTC as duplicate, just stating other sites' rules. Like: why should you have to paraphrase Wikipedia when OP couldn't be bothered to do it himself. (And yes I did +1 you.)
As stated in the Wikipedia article about the salt, the pink color that sometimes occurs is due to iron oxide:
Himalayan salt is predominantly sodium chloride (95-98%), contaminated with 2–3% polyhalite and small amounts of ten other minerals. The pink color is due to the presence of iron oxide.
As a source, the article references this page on HowStuffWorks.com. It gives a slightly broader list of chemicals that cause the color differences:
Some pink salts, such as the salt harvested in the Himalayas, get their color from calcium, magnesium, potassium, copper and iron, Others contain carotene from salt-tolerant algae and are more peach-colored.
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.400702
| 2015-12-25T17:42:36 |
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66661
|
Substitution for hagelslag (chocolate sprinkles for bread)
I live in Spain but I am Dutch. Does anyone know a substitution for "hagelslag" (chocolate sprinkles to put on bread) for making boterhammen (open-faced sandwiches)?
Hagelslag is fideos de chocolate in Spanish, the coloured sprinkles are fideos de colores.
You should find it with the cake decorating stuff in at least the larger stores or online. (e.g. here or here)
An expensive option. Another option is Appie Hein
@BaffledCook just a random search result, not a recommendation. I trust OP shop wisely.
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.400877
| 2016-02-19T08:16:22 |
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73299
|
How long can I keep shrub syrup in the refrigerator
I just made shrub syrup, by cooking fruit in sugar water (~0.5-1 cup of water and ~0.5-1 cup of sugar), sieving it, and mixing vinegar into it (~3 tablespoons of 10% vinegar on 1 cup) and I'd like to know how long I can roughly keep it when storing it in the refrigerator after I filled it into clean (but used) screw cap bottles.
What I maybe should add is, that I don't intend to store the syrup for a very long duration without using it. I will open the bottles now and then to take some of it out.
I am aware of this canonical question, but since it is a mixture of various things and since I'm not that well-versed in the intricacies of food storage (or cooking in general actually), I wasn't too sure what to take from it and maybe there might be a more detailed question possible applying to this type of food.
Did you sterilize the bottles? While, in general, vinegars retard the growth of certain bacteria (botulism), some allow the growth of others that are harmful. You can avoid by sterilizing the bottles (boiling clean jars for 10 minutes and scalding the caps in boiling water) and your shrub should last about 6 months, tightly sealed, in the refrigerator.
@Dorothy Oh, I didn't consider this. You might want to flesh this out into a proper answer.
Though, what I might should have added, I don't particularly look for a long-term no-use storage situation. I inted to use the syrup now and then from the bottles.
I'd still recommend that you sterilize as a safer method, particularly when re-using containers. Once opened, I would think they'd keep for 6-8 weeks.
While, in general, vinegar retards the growth of certain bacteria (botulism), some allow the growth of others that are harmful. You should sterilize the glass containers by first washing them in hot water and soap, and then boiling for about 10 minutes and scalding the caps in boiling water. Filled and tightly sealed, your shrub should last about 6 months in the refrigerator. Opened and used occasionally, they should last 6-8 weeks, not unlike similar condiments that are kept refrigerated. Keep in mind that, should you include fruit in your original batch, it will age and, eventually, become a fruit vinegar.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.401004
| 2016-08-21T17:15:57 |
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|
66255
|
How to get rid of foam on shaken cocktails
Here's a picture of a Jack Rose I made last night. It tasted great, but I think the white foam is ugly. I want it to be clear and jewel-like with no foam.
All my shaken drinks have this foam. I have not observed similar foam on drinks I order in bars. What are techniques for avoiding or getting rid of the foam?
Maybe I could scoop it off with a spoon, but I think I would lose too much of the drink that way, and anyway that's not what the bartender does, so I think there must be a better way.
[ The recipe I am using is: four parts homemade applejack; two parts lime juice, one part homemade grenadine, shaken with ice cubes in a metal shaker, then poured into a chilled glass. The shaker has a perforated top, but I am not otherwise using a strainer. ]
An unorthodox suggestion: a quick pass with a blowtorch will get rid of the foam. If you are quick, it won't really heat up the drink.
@DietrichEpp That's really cool! I made a couple cocktails tonight (purely for research, of course...) and that method works amazingly well. I'm adding that into my answer!
Foam in shaken cocktails is often actually considered a desirable quality. This is the reason why you'll sometimes see egg white included in recipes like the whiskey sour - the proteins in the egg white help to maintain a long-lasting froth on top of the cocktail, which many drinkers find appealing. It adds a slightly different mouthfeel too and can make a nice change in some cocktails.
So, while I encourage you not to discount the foam completely, understanding what helps produce foam can also help you to avoid it. Scientifically-minded bartenders have conducted experiments on foam and how to produce it which we can learn from.
Basically, the foam is a collection of tiny air bubbles dispersed in the liquid, which is mediated by emulsifiers and proteins in the citrus juice. This is commonly lemon juice or lime juice (both of which do actually contain a small amount of protein) and could be either depending on the Jack Rose recipe that you're using. The more viscous the liquid mixture, the more stable the bubbles will be. Forming the foam in the first place takes a fair amount of force, which you provide with turbulence when you shake the drink with ice.
This suggests a few possible approaches: change how much turbulence you produce, change the viscosity, or try to eliminate the proteins.
Changing your method
Let's start with the approach that's easiest and most practical for the home bartender. This involves building the drink differently to generate less turbulence.
Don't shake. This has already been suggested by another answer, and it's certainly effective; it eliminates the turbulence almost completely. There are two problems with this: it takes much longer to chill a drink when stirring (it takes easily 45-50 seconds of continuous stirring to produce the chilling effect of 10 seconds of shaking), and the drink can taste "flat" as compared to a shaken drink. It's generally thought that shaking better integrates citrus juice and somehow "wakes up" the flavor of the citrus; I haven't seen a detailed scientific explanation for this phenomenon, but I'd guess that it's somehow related to oxidation of the juice, which can also change the flavor of citrus juice as it ages after being squeezed.
Shake more gently. Something of a middle way. Oddly enough, how hard you shake doesn't appear to be much related to how quickly the drink chills, but many Japanese bartenders in particular use a method called the "hard shake" to produce more foam in the final drink. Perhaps not surprisingly, the idea is to produce more turbulence. You can go the opposite route: shake gently, almost lazily, and only for as long as the drink needs to chill (10 seconds at most).
Use smaller ice. This is an interesting one! Dave Arnold, a well-regarded molecular mixologist, shares an intriguing finding in his wide-ranging book Liquid Intelligence. He's observed that using a single large ice cube (about 2 inches in diameter) seems to produce more froth in his shaken drinks. So you can go the opposite direction: use smaller, cracked cubes when shaking.
Let the drink stand before pouring. These foams aren't particularly stable, and they'll break down pretty quickly. If you let the drink settle in the shaker before you pour it into the glass, some of the foam will naturally break down. As an adjunct to this, pour carefully; the foam will rise to the top of the shaker and will pour out last, so you can keep it from making it into the drink if you pour slowly and are willing to discard a bit of liquid.
Use a blowtorch. This is a really cool suggestion from @DietrichEpp in comments, and works amazingly well! If you have a gas blowtorch available, you can pass the flame very quickly over the surface of the cocktail and eliminate nearly all of the foam. My guess is that this works by heating up the air within the foam bubbles and popping them, without appreciably heating up the drink itself. The only problem, of course, is that you need to have a blowtorch.
Change the viscosity
This gets a little more difficult, because the main element affecting viscosity in cocktails is sugar, which also balances the flavor of the drink. If you simply make the drink less sweet, you might wind up with less foam, but it'll also taste different. Still, there are a couple things you can try for the Jack Rose in particular.
Make your own grenadine. If you're not doing this already, I encourage you to try. It's really quite easy. Rather than using a pre-bottled version like Rose's, this allows you to adjust the ratio of sugar to water in the syrup and reduce the sugar content somewhat while maintaining a nice pomegranate flavor.
Use a higher-proof liquor. Alcohol is less viscous than water, so a spirit that's higher in alcohol content will reduce viscosity somewhat. If you're using an 80-proof (40% ABV) applejack in your Jack Rose, try seeking out a 100-proof (50% ABV) version like Laird's Straight Apple Brandy instead. This idea can apply to other cocktails as well; a lot of whiskeys in particular can be found in overproof versions where less water is added to bring down the proof.
Reduce the protein
The idea here is to eliminate some of the proteins from the citrus juice that mediate the formation of foam. That sounds promising, but it's also fairly advanced and perhaps too much work to make yourself a drink or two. Still, experimentation can be fun and worth exploring.
Note that for the Jack Rose in particular, pomegranate juice also contains proteins; if you're making your own grenadine as suggested above, you can do this with all the juices that you use.
Run your juices through a fine filter before use. Strictly speaking, this won't eliminate a lot of proteins, but it will reduce some of the particulates in the citrus juice that give gas bubbles a place to start forming. This needs to be a very fine filter: a coffee filter is a good start. Note that this takes a while, and you may need to change out the filters several times. A device such an an AeroPress can help you force the juice through the filter more easily for this approach.
Clarify your juices. If you really want to get serious, you can use methods otherwise applied to clarify stocks to clarify juices as well. This takes a lot of work and special materials, so be warned. However, it's a very effective filtration method that will eliminate almost all of the proteins and particles that cause foaming. Be warned that it does strip out some flavor as well, but it will produce a very clear final product.
It probably goes without saying, but you can combine as many of these ideas as you want. Start with changing up your method and move down the list if you're still not satisfied with the results.
While egg white helps with foaming, it has a secondary purpose of "washing" the booze, softening the tannins and oak, particularly in whiskey based cocktails.
To shorten this post up a little, since you are making homemade apple jack. Fine the applejack with either isinglass or egg white after that is done filter it with a gravity filter to get the last of the protein and fiber out of the liquor before bottling.
If you really want to get rid of the foam, try a coffee filter or use something like a spoon to dam the top part as you pour.
Stir rather than shake.
Note also that the amount of visible foam will depend on factors like the amount of sugar in the drink (compare shaking a sugary drink with its diet version to see how sugar helps hold the bubbles), so it may be that part of the reason you don't see foam in the drinks you order at the bar is that you're ordering different drinks.
But if I stir, it won't get cold enough.
@MJD This sounds facetious, but have you tried stirring for longer? If you're stirring in a metal shaker you should still be waiting for frost to form on the outside just as you would when shaking.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.401190
| 2016-02-06T16:52:28 |
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|
67351
|
Sushi rice should be transparent when cooked?
How in the following picture the sushi rice is transparent, and when I made home sushi rice, it would white as snow ?
I soak rice in water for 2 hours.
And by the way, why sometimes even with a good knife, when I cut a sushi roll, the inside ingredients start to fall off and got a bad shape sushi pieces ?
And why sometimes ingredients on top of rice do not stick to it (like mangos or avocado ) ? Is it the rice ? Or some ingredients are making the nori wet.
Sushi rice traditionally is short grain rice. It should be "new rice" or shinmai "新米", for the best rice. As for looks it should have a sheen but I don't think it should be transparent. When cooking sushi rice, you should wash it well. When washing, put the uncooked rice into a bowl with enough water to cover the rice. Then rub the wet grains together to wash them, this removes any dust or powder from the grains. Then rinse the rice out with fresh water and repeat, till the water is mostly clear.
Then strain the rice out in a colander or some other net or wire basket for at least 30 minutes to an hour, but it should not be soaking in water. You want it to rest and absorb the water, but not too much. Then cook according to your recipe, used bottled or spring water depending on your local water. I will pre soak for just another 10 minutes before cooking. In sushi restaurants they place the uncooked rice in a tightly woven netting. This is used to keep the rice from sticking to the pot while cooking, and to get the rice out all at once.
After the rice is cooked it's taken out and emptied into the traditional wooden (japanese cedar) bowl, hangiri. Where it is seasoned with rice vinegar/mirin/sugar mixture, stirred with a flat spatula (shamoji) and cooled with a fan (uchiwa) till just warm. Ok, now they still use the bowl and spatula, but they use an electric fan to cool the rice. It is then either put back into the rice cooker or it is placed in a wooden lidded tub to keep till it needs to be used.
The sushi rice should be sticky but not wet and it should have good texture, not soft or hard.
If rice is too wet:
*soaked too long or washed too much.
*too much water when cooking.
*wrong heat levels if cooking on stove, too low for too long.
*too much sushi rice seasoning if wet type. Helpful to use the wooden bowl as it absorbs excess water/moisture from rice.
Ingredients not sticking, will depend on the rice texture and stickiness. But sometimes it is also the wetness or slickness of the ingredients. Then it might also depend on what type of sushi you are preparing...rolls (maki), hand rolls (ice cream cone looking), or nigiri sushi. I would suggest that you use the first two if things are moving around too much, as they form a container for the ingredients. If doing nigiri or the little blocks of rice with ingredients on top then it might slip off.
So I should let the rice rest for 30 minutes after washing it without water ????? Why most chefs let it rest for 30 minutes inside water ? I am now confused.
I would say yes, it's the resting part that makes the texture of the rice "al dente" so to speak. After the grains have rested they look a different color, this is probably the only time they are kind of transparent. I would answer that, other chefs have not washed their rice enough to remove the powder coating or they are using a medium grain rice which is not as sticky as a short grain rice. By soaking the longer grain rice, it is absorbing more water to become more sticky, at the expense of rice texture. But I'm just guessing here.
Many questions here!!!
Sushi is simple but very difficult to do properly.
The rice is not transparent; it is only "shiny" (probably doctored for the picture). (well, maybe it is transparent and I have not seen it! :-) )
When you prepare you rice, do you add sugar and rice vinegar ? this will make the rice sticky and lump together so that the rolls do not crumble away.
When you roll the rolls, do you apply enough pressure to make a solid roll ?
Also, use a sharp and wet/humid knife to cut the rolls and do it in a single stroke (no see-saw movements).
Damp nori gets a little bit sticky; by applying a thin slice of mange or avocado, it should be enough to stick to the nori; also you can use the rolling mat to help "squeeze" the mango or avocado to the nori.
I add a little bit of rice vinegar, I usually make 2 cups of rice, and add 1/4 cup of rice vinegar salt and sugar
With the nori being to wet, it is probably rice and ingredients making it that way. Or your hands are too wet when forming the rolls. Moisten hands with the sushi rice liquid, or use a combo of water, mirin and sake to keep the grains from sticking to you. I might also add that you should slightly dry out the nori before using it on an low open flame or even on an electric coil. This will make the nori more crispy and keep it from getting too soggy.
too much moisture, not rolled tight enough, your rice is still hot or warm which kind of goes back to moisture... or your "good knife" is not sharp enough are the 4 reasons I can think of your rolls get messed up when you cut them or a combination of any of the three. Don't worry about your rice being snow white and not matching that picture. Don't soak your rice wash it clear then let it dry... maybe you are adding too much moisture back into the rice with your shari-zu if you are not doing that step you should be but look up maybe how much you should add to the amount of rice you use i'm only use to making a busy restaurant amount of rice so not sure how much to add for a home use amount of rice or I would give some ratios, also don't "stir" the liquid you add back in cut and fold it in...cut and fold it in a lot... it'll cool off a bit while you do this, you want it to cool down may be fan it before and after you add liquid especially if you need it quick. we use to use a cutting board to fan the rice in the hangiri when we were in a hurry. rolling tight hmmm??? use a mat if your aren't you can go with other techniques but a mat will help you make a tight roll.. give it some pressure squeezing but you aren't trying to kill it just give it some squeeze..hands should be dry nori should be dry other then a wet finger drag across the end when you are closing the roll to help it stay closed usually for me it stays closed but when I first started I did the wet end. anyway your knife has to be sharp no sawing just a heel to tip pull of the knife. You need a sharp knife 'good" or not when I was a sushi chef I used a low end cheap yanagi but it was razor sharp all the time sharp knife cuts well, not so sharp and dull knives squish the roll when you start the cut.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.401867
| 2016-03-12T06:29:00 |
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|
67621
|
What happened to my steak?
I have trouble cooking a steak 'medium', and to be honest, cooking it at all.
These were my steps:
Bought a steak (hip) that was about 1cm to 1.5cm in height. I let it reach room temperature (1 to 2 hours outside the fridge) and dried it.
heated a metal pan and added some oil when it was already quite hot
put in the meat. It was 'glued' to the pan slightly (not hot enough?) but that was only a minor problem
fried from both sides on high heat for about 1 minute until sides had a light brown (see picture)
reduced heat and kept cooking
However, after about 10 minutes, the outside color had not changed much, and the inside was still raw after cutting it in two pieces to have a look.
The picture shows that, clearly, something is totally wrong here. In addition, the steak doubled in height while cooking (Is that a sign of cheap meat with too much water?).
What mistakes did I make so that it went as it did?
After quite some cooking time:
Possible duplicate of How do you properly cook a steak?
Thank you for reading. I don't think it's a duplicate since I followed the steps in your referenced question and still got strange results. What do you think?
Was your pan a cast iron skillet? 'Glued to the pan' normally indicates either not hot enough, or the steak was not dry when you put it in the pan. I normally find oiling the steak more useful than oiling the pan but YMMV.
How much are you turning down the temp?
My pan was a pure steel pan, nothing non-sticky. Maybe it was not hot enough, but should that affect the growing in size? I don't know exactly how much I turned down the temp, but I made sure the oil would stop 'bursting' and rather cook more silently.
There are many variables here that may or may not caused OP's problem.
The Pan sounds as it might not have been hot enough. How hot was quite hot, how long could you hover your hand above the pan?
Did you notice any change to the oil once you added it to the pan, did it streak, did it start to smoke?
[Personally I tend to oil the meat before placing into the pan.]
I think the main flaw is the frying for a minute on each side, at the temperature you had, that cooking time was too low. Maybe 2-4 minutes on each side. A medium should have a lot more heat penetrate the edges and allow that heat to transfer and cook the steak off the heat.
That's an acceptable blue/rare steak though.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.402758
| 2016-03-20T18:07:29 |
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|
66995
|
Pink salt for cooking steak
I've been curious about pink salt for a while now and I was wondering if it would be ok to use it for cooking steak? Or should i just stick to the regular table salt?
sorry for the confusion, guys. My mom's friend gave her himalayan pink salt and I'm supposed to prepare steak for them so i was just wondering if I could use the himalayan pink salt that she has. I normally cook with iodized salt and have zero idea about other salts. Hope my question makes sense this time. Thanks!!
Hello Xtine, your quesiton is ambiguous. There are different ingredients known as "pink salt", as Stephie pointed out. You already started getting answers where the person who wrote it assumed a certain kind, but did not say which kind - that's a recipe for confusion! You can use the small grey "edit" link to tell us which kind you mean, and we can then reopen the question.
Yes, Himalayan Pink Salt is perfectly fine to use. I have a grinder of it at home too, great stuff.
Do not use pink salt unless you are following specific guidelines for food preservation. You could easily end up poisoning yourself or others if your are not careful.
Edit: I should add that I am referring to pink curing salt. The Himalayan pink salt is a different story and can generally be substituted for table salt. However if you are not 100% positive whether it is curing salt, don't use it as a seasoning.
Careful: "Pink salt" may be curing salt or salt with traces of iron oxide or similar.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.403005
| 2016-03-01T14:37:16 |
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|
69094
|
Freezing Indian chicken curry---how to retain texture and flavor?
I am planning to cook an oil-rich, Indian style Chicken curry that will look something like this: or this:
I am planning to cook a week ahead and freeze them, and my target is to keep the texture and flavor as close to the original as possible. Any freezing technique I should follow to achieve that?
My plan till now:
individually freeze the cooked chicken pieces in a tray, and maybe freeze the gravy separately.
Reheat in an oven in one layer(What temperature?), and sprinkle with garam masala to shore up flavor.
Any more ideas? Thanks!
When freezing meat (or anything really), one of the main places where the texture will change is with freezer burn. This can be minimized by double wrapping and preventing exposure to air. An extra really great way to minimize freezer burn especially given that your dish has sauce, is to cover the food with the sauce and then freeze the whole thing as a giant block. I'd just reheat it in a saucepan.
Yes, in general cooked meats freeze and reheat better in sauce. It's best to divide into portions before freezing.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.403271
| 2016-05-19T01:40:14 |
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|
69442
|
Cooking pizza in tiny gas oven with pizza stone
I currently have a tiny gas oven to cook with this summer and I like to cook a lot of pizzas, but I have always cooked them in standard electric home ovens.
I have been doing some reading here and here, but I don't think I have enough information yet.
Typically, I cook the pizzas on a 15" stone with store bought fresh dough and follow these steps:
Preheat oven with stone for at least 30 min at 425 F
Put dough in for about 2 min by itself
Layer on toppings
Push back into oven for 10-15 minutes (depends on the oven)
My current oven will fit my 13" pizza stone, has a single flame rod (whatever that's called) on the bottom that starts in the back and extends towards the front. I cannot see into the oven as I normally would to watch the browning of the crust.
So a couple questions:
How long will the pizza take to cook at some temperature? (<= 500 F)
Do I need to let the dough sit by itself in the oven?
Concerns:
Opening the door too much to check the pizza (I know gas fluctuates more)
Burning (one the SO references said 90 seconds to cook)
I realize this is an old question, but here goes. FWIW, I used to bake pizza w/gas, but for the last 15 yrs, it's been electric. Lots of variables, such as thickness of dough and baking stone, etc. but experiment with some of these tips:
Make sure baking stone is hot enough (I use an inexpensive laser remote thermometer).
Place stone on top rack. Heat rises and the roof of the oven will then emit enough heat to thoroughly cook the sauce and cheese. This will emulate a pizza oven. (And no need to par-bake crust.)
I usually crank up the temperature to 550F.
Slide the prepared pizza from a peel onto the stone (I use rice flour or parchment paper to prevent sticking). A peel could be an upside down cookie sheet, thin plywood, or even cardboard if you don't have a real peel.
Baking time should be around 5 min., and a little char on the bottom adds taste.
The above is based on NY-style pizza, but thicker crusts may need longer times--possibly at a lower temperature.
Good luck. The doorbell may be me. I'll bring the beer or wine.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.403384
| 2016-06-03T16:59:14 |
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|
68466
|
What is "Buttered Sugar"?
What is "Buttered Sugar"? Is it something specific?
I got the term from this image floating around the net. I'm trying to understand what specifically the different sugars are.
About a third of those aren't sugar, they're things that happen to contain a high concentration of one or more sugars -- or in at least one case, is a flavoring that happens to taste somewhat like sugar
Do you know if this is supposed to be a list of ingredients (e.g. off the side of a package)?
@Erica Yes. These are all supposed to be the sugar content listed in packaged food as ingredients.
A search of the internet for "buttered sugar" comes up exclusively with variations of the this list on various websites that list alternative names for sugar.
Of these only one "Returning to nature" lists it as a synonymy for buttercream.
It is possible that site is correct and "buttered sugar" is a possibly rarely used alternate name for buttercream. I would suspect that it is more likely that there has been an error at some point in the past that has been copied between these sites.
That site says "found in cookies, icing, frosting, etc" when buttercream really is an icing/frosting. I guess you might still see it listed on ingredient labels, as one of the components of baked goods, but surely it would have a parenthetical list of the actual component ingredients, which would then include some kind of sugar.
Basically melted butter mixed with sugar. I've think of this two ways: 1) spread butter over the toast and then sprinkle sugar over. 2) in baking context we usually mix the soft butter with sugar into this mixture before adding other ingredients. This is also called creaming.
I have never heard of the result of creaming being called "buttered sugar"
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.403572
| 2016-04-22T02:57:09 |
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|
68674
|
Effecient way to dab grease from dehydrating meat without paper towels
I have read the question here but that question doesn't help me, since the options available in that situation, are not applicable in this situation (see "Limiting factors").
Problem
I love to make jerky with my dehydrator. The instructions for making jerky with any type of meat specify to dab off excess oil from the meat several times during the drying process.
The problem is that there can be a lot of excess oil on the meat, especially with fattier meats like beef. If I use paper towels to collect the oil, then I will soak at least 5 of them every time I dab off the drying meat.
Limiting factors
I must collect the excess oil during the drying process, and several times.
The meat must stay in the dehydrator during the drying process with the exception of being removed for a few minutes at a time for this de-oiling process.
There is no way to make the meat de-oil itself in the dehydrator. It is in an enclosed environment (as it must be for the dehydrator to work), and the meat is on racks with plenty of space for oil to drip off.
There is so much oil!
Possible solutions
A dishrag?
For some reason, I thought it was bad to wash things with lots of grease in the washing machine. Is that true?
I'm not sure if one dishrag would be enough for a batch of jerky, since there is so much oil. If I needed to use two or more rags per batch, it wouldn't be worth it to me.
Paper bags?
I've heard someone mention this, but they used it to place under their food to catch grease. I'm not sure the material is pliable enough for me to use it to dab the jerky.
I probably do it all wrong or completely unprofessionally, but here it is: I use microfiber cloths (silk before microfiber became available), so they don't leave any filaments or lint on the food. Then I rinse my microfiber cloths in an ice cream bucket full of hot, soapy water with Dawn antibacterial dish soap (the kind they use to take oil off of animals), then rinse the cloths with purified water. I dump the used dishwater and rinsewater in my grey water cistern, or I water my lawn with it once it's cooled off. That way I have no contamination of the meat or cheese, but I'm not wasting a pile of resources, either. It has always worked well for me, so I don't see any problems for anyone else using the method.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.403758
| 2016-04-30T06:45:48 |
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|
72944
|
Does it make sense for a cake icing recipe to call for vinegar but not baking soda?
See the making of icing in this video.
"cream cheese" frosting ingredients:
1/2 C coconut oil (solid but soft at room temperature)
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar
2 C powdered sugar
1 tbsp + 1 tsp unsweetened soy milk
Using a hand mixer beat the coconut oil, lemon juice, apple cider vinegar, vanilla extract and 1 cup of powdered sugar to start. Once it's mostly combined add in another cup of powdered sugar and beat together. Then add in soy milk and beat until smooth and fluffy. Then ice the cake!
I'm worried that there's some kind of mistake and this will impact the flavour for no reason. Should I leave out the vinegar? Add baking soda? Leave the recipe as is?
How much vinegar & lemon juice are we talking about? A couple tablespoons might be more for flavor / brightness. Baking soda would get it to foam, which would likely make a mess.
@Joe updated with the amounts
@Joe I have to admit that my first thought was "check that it is not a variant of the Swedish Lemon Angels recipe being discussed" :)
@rackandboneman : nah, it'd have been a thin batter for that. Not something thick that'd contain it.
It's fine as written.
Combining vinegar with baking soda (or any acid with any base) is usually done in baking to produce gas, which can lighten the finished product. This is an icing, which is applied after the baking process; it's not set to capture air bubbles, so any effect would be largely temporary and more easily produced through beating.
The vinegar here is intended to mimic the tangy flavor of real cream cheese. The lemon juice has the same effect, but apple cider vinegar adds a different mix of acids, better matching the flavor of the real thing.
Thanks for the explanation regarding the cheese flavour, that's very interesting.
Vinegar also changes the consistency of a substrate. For example, it makes toffee malleable, or can be used in a pastry to make it stretchy. It potentially affects the texture of the icing too.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.403969
| 2016-08-07T20:10:07 |
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|
68680
|
How well does it work to just throw in all the ingredients and boil?
I'm wondering about this recipe.
It tempts me because I'm really lazy. But I'm skeptical because I've always been taught to sauté onions first, then progressively add other ingredients, starting with those that take longer to cook, and saving water for the end. For example when I cook lentil curry, it's onions, garlic, carrots, wait a bit, tomatoes, wait a bit, and finally lentils, water, and perhaps potatoes. This way the onions (and to varying degrees carrots and tomatoes) get a nice 'roasted' flavour which they wouldn't get just being boiled from raw. Is my intuition correct? Does the linked recipe work anyway because of a specific combination of ingredients?
Ah, One Pot Pasta....
As loads of bloggers, authors and cooks - possibly inspired by Martha Stewart and her team - have confirmed: dumping the pasta, sauce ingredients and a carefully meassured amount of liquid in one pot or pan will give you a "pasta and sauce" dish in ten to fifteen minutes.
And it works. Sort of.
Your instinct matches my experience: when you omit the sautéing or slow roasting of ingredients you are missing the flavour compounds that this step creates, likewise if your recipe stews the sauce for a long time. So while all ingredients in one pot pasta will be cooked, due to cutting everything to the appropriate size, the flavour will be different from what your traditional method creates.
If you expect one pot pasta to taste like your traditional recipe, you will probably be disappointed. If you are simply aiming for a creative, hassle-free quick dish, go for it.
Yes, it works but is definitely not the same. It should be noted that there are also various traditional recipes where onions are deliberately boiled raw to avoid getting the sweet-smoky flavour of sauted onions. I know several thai soups that do this. So it's not an invalid technique. Just different.
The gif surely is of a "creative" dish, but hassle free?
Cleaning and cutting four types of vegetables instead of just putting that pesto on the pasta seems like more hassle to me.
@Agos - Well, OP is asking for cooking method and there "dump everything in at the same time" beats "add ingredients and sauté step by step". Of course Spaghetti aglio e olio or Spaghetti al pesto are simpler - unless you make the pesto yourself.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.404161
| 2016-04-30T10:23:59 |
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|
70492
|
How to achieve a flexible consistency on ice cream? (photos attached)
I'm an amateur ice cream maker. I've tried to emulate this ice cream without success: it is thick and flexible; the texture reminds me of melted marshmallows yet it´s not overly sweet. It's so flexible it hangs from the spoon without dripping even when it was already soft. I bought it from a small shop downtown.
It is a dairy based ice cream. I've done ice creams with milk, cream and cream cheese but the resulting flavour is overly milky and barely creamy.
I don´t know what should I add/do to achieve this kind of consistency: more animal fat, vegetable fats, sugar, whipped egg whites, some special chemical?
I add photos for visual proof.
First thing I thought when seeing the first photo: gums. http://www.chowhound.com/post/stabilizers-homemade-ice-cream-887246 Guar gum in particular.
Ice cream is smooth because churning breaks up ice crystals, and sugar, fat and egg yolks prevent the ice crystals from re-forming. Pure ice cream can be relatively elastic when frozen just by having lots of sugar, fat, and egg yolks in it. However, you cannot achieve this sort of elasticity in ice cream when it's above freezing without stabilizers like Xanthan Gum and Guar Gum. These are more effective emulsifiers/stabilizers than eggs and work at a higher temperature than eggs do.
Many stabilizers are natural products, Xanthan gum is the product of bacterial formation and Guar gum is processed bean paste, so I personally have no problem with them and use them in my ice cream sometimes to improve the texture. Mostly I just use more egg yolks - my ice cream rarely last long enough to melt anyway.
I think in this case the creaminess you describe is more of a mouth feel thing rather than a flavor, if you want to replicate it I'd suggest getting more eggs in your recipe and consider adding some guar gum.
There are a few places that make 'ice cream' that is really frozen pudding -- especially the places that 'mix in' other stuff in front of you. It keeps it from turning into a complete liquid as they're working. Although many assume the trick is from American industrialization, it's possible that it's derived from techniques used in warmer climates.
Dondurma (Turkish ice cream) uses salep (an orcid root) flour, which is similar to guar gum and mastic gum. As you can't get salep outside of Turkey, there are alternate recipes that use other gums.
I remember seeing a tv show that was talking about 'stretchy' ice cream, and I thought they mentioned that it was a South American style. It's possible that I'm mis-remembering, but I wouldn't be surprised if another hot climate found a way to make ice cream using stabilizers.
You might also want to consider how much air you're whipping into the ice cream. Both gelato and what Serious Eats calls 'New England Ice Cream' have a bit more body to them than other ice creams.
What you’re describing indeed looks like Turkish Dondurma.
As it was mentioned, Dondurma uses Salep, a root extract from some species orchards, unfortunately it’s very low in supply (it’s wildly grown); and can not be exported from Turkey.
Salep owes its texture to Glucomannan, and Konjac also has the same molecules. So it can be substituted with Konjac.
Simple custard based ice cream with 1% Konjac is what you need to get that consistency.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.404391
| 2016-06-05T23:36:28 |
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|
71187
|
Question about chiffon cake
My wife has been working on making a chiffon cake. The picture below is attempt number 10. She has varied the temperature of the oven, used a metal tray or no metal tray in the oven, and other factors. The cake rises and looks ok from the top, but it always has this weird form on the bottom. To me, it seems that a steam / gas pocket is forming possibly because the heat is too hot on the bottom. She says she has lowered the bottom temperature and the results are similar.
My question is what causes this to happen and what are some solutions?
Just to be sure: would you mind sharing the recipe and method with us? Welcome to Seasoned Advice!
@Stephie Thank you. Let me add that in the morning
Did you ever figure out how to prevent this from happening? I had the same thing happen even though I baked the chiffon cake in a regular round pan instead of a tube pan! It might mean that it wasn't baked long enough. I baked mine at 325F degrees, and am thinking about baking it at 300 degrees next time for a longer period of time. But you say your wife already tried that.
I was just looking into trying this myself (after a disastrous attempt at bundt cake - tasted fine but broke in half coming out of the pan) anyway, I found a great site with lots of tips https://www.justonecookbook.com/how_to/perfect-chiffon-cake/ but what I also found, were other chiffon cakes where this had happened, and rather than it being a failure, people would decorate the groove with fresh fruit and icing sugar. So as long as it tastes good, just embellish it.
I have tried making chiffon cakes a few times in the past, and I always had problems with the bottom of the cake looking either like a crater or the ring formation in your photo. I don't even use a tube pan, but strangely that ring formation can still happen in my round pan, as you can see with one of my attempts:
All of those attempts used cake flour (actually a substitute made by removing 2 tbsp flour and adding 2 tbsp cornstarch for each cup of AP flour), as I saw lots of websites say that you should always use cake flour if you want your cake to be as soft and tender as possible.
However, I recently saw an article that said:
“Subbing cake flour 1:1 into a recipe that was developed for all-purpose flour might result in sunken cake or bars, or cookies that are too delicate or simply fall apart.” That’s because the lower protein content in cake flour may not develop enough gluten or structure to support a baked good meant to be made with all-purpose flour.
Now I just tried making another chiffon cake, except that I used 100% AP flour instead of my cake flour substitute. Finally, the cake turned out with a perfectly flat bottom.
So it seems the ring formation was caused by using cake flour, and using all-purpose flour solved the problem for me.
your substitution ratio doesn't look right - you should probably be swapping out about 7 tbsp of the flour, not only 2
There are so many sites that say to use 14 tbsp AP flour + 2 tbsp cornstarch as a substitute for 1 cup cake flour. Example1, Example2, Example3, Example4
If the cake comes out of the oven looking fine, but then collapses as it cools, you may want to consider using an angel food pan. They have metal ‘feet’ along the lip of the pan so that you can cool the cake upside-down.
This allows gravity to pull down on the cake as it cools, to help counteract the shrinkage from bubbles cooling.
If the tube of your tube pan extends past the outside edge of the pan, you might be able to cool it upside-down if you can balance it. Or you can try to find a heavy bottle or similar than you can fit the tube around so it can stay upright when upside-down.
(If you have access to the Good Eats episode ‘Let Them Eat Foam’, I think this was what he did, but Food Network has only posted an abridged version)
From the OP's photo, they did use an angel food pan.
@pacoverflow not all tube pans are angel food pans. And I’ve seen companies label tube pans without the feet as angel food pans, too.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.404682
| 2016-07-03T16:37:41 |
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|
73915
|
Strange bacteria-like substances in honey
We bought honey from the store today. I just realized there are strange bacteria-like substances inside it. What are they? Is it safe to eat?
How do you know it's bacteria? I think it is just the sugar in the honey crystallizing out. If you heat it gently it should disappear.
@MiMintzer I don't know if it's bacteria. I just said "bacteria-like" because it looks that way.
From the pictures, it looks like it's just the beginnings of crystallization, so it's perfectly natural and safe. You can reduce the speed of the crystallization by keeping it in a relatively warm place (25C/77F) if possible.
Beyond that, I'd just ignore it for now, but once it spreads through a lot of the honey, you may want to heat it gently to melt the crystals. That's not a permanent fix though. It'll tend to recrystallize some after cooling.
If you haven't seen this before, it could be due to buying different kinds of honey (the more filtered, the slower the crystallization), different storage conditions, or just eating it before it has time to crystallize.
I don't think you have to worry about it being bacteria. There is only one food item on the planet that will never go bad, and that's HONEY!
Note that heating beyond a certain temperature threshold (have to look up the exact number) prevents crystallization permanently.
Actually I have seen crystalized honey before, but I never saw the initial stage where tiny spots are formed (or probably didn't pay attention). I thought this was something different.
@Stephie Does the taste change when you heat it?
@Eeciyes - not much, if at all (iirc). But of course there will be those who tell you that it's bad to heat it due to vague health claims which a) I won't go into and b) is off-topic here anyway. Do as you please! I personally like crystallized honey better, but that is probably because it reminds me of my childhood.
The way the sugar crystals are growing is often referred to as crystal seeding. If it common for all crystals, once one crystal forms, even a small minute one, the additional crystals will grow around it. One reason why heat often will only provide temporary relief and then the crystals will grow back faster the 2nd time is that some seed crystals are missed so the process starts more quickly unless you get all of them. I always learned to melt them using a double boiler method to try to prevent dehydration of the honey, which will also speed the crystallization.
|
Stack Exchange
|
2025-03-21T13:24:58.405018
| 2016-09-12T23:15:25 |
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|
76078
|
Freezing Peanut Butter Balls
Something I have been making recently is brownie cupcakes (much the same as the molten cakes without the fudge). Using a standard box of dark chocolate brownies, I pour the ingredients, post-whisk, in a cupcake pan.
I came up with an idea to have frozen peanut butter balls inside of these cakes.
The typical peanut butter ball calls for peanut butter, sugar, and butter then refrigeration.
Now the issue arises: Would freezing the peanut butter and allowing it to melt in the oven, while the cupcakes cook, cause any issues (peanut butter through the bottom)?
This is part 2 of a question asked previously.
If you can't get this to work, stores around here used to carry 'peanut butter chips' which were the shape of chocolate chips, but made from peanut butter. I haven't seen them in a while though. Looking online shows a few, but the top hit is for Reeces brand, which is a blend of chocolate chips & peanut better chips
The cold temperature of the peanut butter will completely change the cooking process of the brownie, as it will be cooled from the inside while heated from the outside. I don't think this is a good thing. You could try room temperature peanut butter, but PB has a melting point around 150F (depending on the emulsifiers), and would probably melt before your brownie was fully cooked.
Unfortunately I do not think this will work.
My thought, too ... the cold peanut butter would keep the brownie batter nearby from cooking ... but as it's in cupcakes, you don't have to worry about slicing it, so it might come up like a chocolate lava cake w/ a chocolate & peanut butter center. You just need it to hold together 'til the outside sets. This might be one of those 'try it and see what happens' situations.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.405226
| 2016-12-02T15:12:12 |
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|
1214
|
How to make ice cream without a machine?
I recently made a poor-man's ice cream by making an egg custard and freezing it in the freezer in a metal bowl, stiring about every half hour. I was expecting it to freeze it 2 hours, but three hours later, it was too late, still not frozen solid and I went to bed.
The resulting ice cream was edible, but had more crystals than one might want.
What other techniques are there for freezing the ice cream short of buying an ice cream machine? Or can this recipe be improved?
This was the general recipe I was using.
Faster freezing == smaller crystals. So use liquid nitrogen...
I still think the hand crank wooden freezer from the garage sale works best...harder to come by these days though.
This is what we figured out at Serious Eats: How to Make Ice Cream without an Ice Cream Maker
In sum, use more sugar, whip the cream, freeze in icecube trays and run through a Cuisinart at the end.
In sum, use more sugar, whip the cream, freeze in icecube trays and run through a Cuisinart at the end, thanks for the research!
My cub scouts love to make camp out ice cream. You will need two cans, one significantly larger than the other both with lids (we use a #10 coffee can and a small coffee can). Make sure the small, inner can is clean and fill 2/3 of the way with an ice cream or custard mix (it will expand with churning as air is added). Place small can inside of larger can and surround with ice and a sprinkle of rock salt (or kosher salt). Roll cans back and forth for 30 minutes or so to get to soft serve consistency (more ice may need to be added half way through) you can place small can in freezer after it has reached soft serve for more solid consistency without the crystals.
Also look at McGee.
The basic method is to put sweetened cream and milk, or any other ice cream mix, into a plastic freezer bag, and the bag into another bag containing salted ice.
Thirty minutes and a few vigorous shakes later, the mixes were firm enough to serve.
Similar to the technique Janelle outlines you can do the same thing with zip-loc bags.
Fill a smaller one with the ice cream mixture and a larger one with ice and rock salt. Put the smaller inside the larger and then 'massage' the bags until ice cream is made. you can do this with your feet whilst you watch TV.
This raspberry "gelato" is excellent if you have a food processor, cream, and some frozen raspberries. You can also use other fruit.
I saw the Cub Scout method mentioned in this question written up in at least two publications this summer, so it's apparently the hot cooking trend.
If you can get hold of enough dry ice to surround a metal mixing bowl, it should be possible to make ice cream by whipping whole milk in the bowl. This wouldn't work with dry ice blocks. With chips or shavings it ought to.
Do not forget a bit of elbow grease!
I make ice cream without a machine all the time at my restaurant.
The base is 300 ml whipping cream + 1 can sweetened condensed milk (14 oz) + whatever fruits, nuts or flavor I want.
Here is my recipe for Cherry-Lime Ice cream-
300 ml whipping cream, chilled
1 Can sweetened condensed milk
1 jar maraschino cherries, 10 oz
3 tablespoons lime juice
pinch of salt
Slice maraschino cherries into 1/4's.
Combine 1/4'd cherries, juice from the cherries, lime juice, salt & sweetened condensed milk in bowl, set aside.
Beat whipping cream to stiff peaks.
Fold cherry mixture into whipped cream.
Pour mixture into 9 x 5 loaf pan, cover with cling film & place in freezer.
It usually takes about 12 hours to freeze solid, no stirring required.
This ice cream is smooth, scoop able, does not melt fast & is delicious!
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.405492
| 2010-07-16T20:41:19 |
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|
6262
|
Smell Something Burning. Course of action?
What do I do when I smell something burning in my pot of mutton in gravy? Stirring is the best way to prevent this but what if some charring has already taken place? Wouldn't it be better not to stir to avoid mixing in the charred portion? What is the best way to handle this emergency?
PS: What I'm asking here is quite different from: How do I get the burnt aroma off burnt food?
Are you sure the burning is coming from the gravy? I sometimes get something under one of the burners (old electric stove, with open elements), and that burns, not the food.
It was the gravy. I could feel the charred bits sticking to the bottom when stirring.
So with gravy, you are talking about a scorched taste. Once you smell it, it is probably too late to salvage it. If you want to try, the best course of action is to remove it from the heat (obviously) and carefully ladle off as much of the top of the pan as you can, leaving the scorched part on the bottom. Then taste what you ladled off and see if it is really edible. In my experience, people try to convince themselves that the scorched flavor isn't really there, but it is, and once it is, all is lost.
If anyone else is in the house but not in the kitchen, have them be your taste-tester. Once you've smelled the burning scent for a while, you may not be as sensitive to the taste.
@Just: This happened today at a friend's, my friend's wife left a pan on too high and her caramel browned just a little too much - the two of us in the kitchen couldn't really notice how bad it was and thought it was salvageable but the first person to come in a few minutes later commented right away. We had to start over.
Once it's burnt there's nothing much you can do to salvage the dish. Pray and hope it doesn't affect the taste too much. Next time though, make sure the flame is on low - medium. And since I know it's mutton you've cooked, when you pressure cook it, make sure you add some water to it.
Pressure cooked with enough water to cover all meat. Charring took place while the gravy was thickening.
|
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.405832
| 2010-08-28T20:52:37 |
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|
76062
|
Best Practice at cutting butter and sugar in Peanut Butter balls
Something I have been making recently is brownie cupcakes (much the same as the molten cakes without the fudge). Using a standard box of dark chocolate brownies, I pour the ingredients, post-whisk, in a cupcake pan.
I came up with an idea to have peanut butter balls inside of these cakes.
The typical peanut butter ball calls for peanut butter, sugar, and butter then refrigeration.
Now the issue arises:
How do I roll these butter balls while cutting down on sugar and butter (are there substitutes)?
There is a part 2 to this question, here.
The third question is actually outside our scope. Recommendations like that are too opinion based - everyone has their own taste and there's no "right" answer. I also think you really have two different questions here. 1. reducing sugar in butter balls. 2. Will freezing be a problem. Because of how our system works, it may be difficult for one person to answer both questions, and since you can only accept one answer, it's often better to ask them separately.
Hi Liam! I agree with Catija that the first and second questions would be better asked separately. If you could do it soon, before getting partial answers, that would be great. If you do that, writing a detailed title for each is especially helpful. Also, each question gets its own votes, so you can get more rep and be able to do more things on the site!
I like peanut butter, but the thing with using neat peanut butter in recipes is that it can be very cloying and weld your mouth shut. Mixing peanut butter with butter helps loosen it up a bit, the sugar is there to add flavor back and keep it sweet as butter is a savory, and not a sweet flavor. Peanut butter will roll in balls just fine without any extras, they are just there to improve the eating experience.
Having a big ball of peanut butter in the center of a cupcake is problematic because cupcake batter is fairly slack, however brownie batter is thicker so I it's less likely to run out the bottom.
Freezing the peanut butter is a good thought, however it is likely to keep the center from cooking - the outside of the brownie will be done but the center will be very underdone which is probably not what you are looking for. I'd suggest trying the balls at refrigerator temperature first.
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.406027
| 2016-12-01T21:34:31 |
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|
78275
|
My overnight sour dough went slack, could my 'starter' have eaten too much gluten?
Was reading this question and reply, and wondering if it may pertain to my last night's effort for a good 'artisan' style sourdough loaf today: How does a sourdough sponge work?
At the end of the question, and answer, it was said that too much gluten could have been used- dough too weak, to round into a good loaf. I am completely new to sourdough, but have a good, strong starter going, and now, have been trying to learn how to use it.
I mixed it last night per a recipe that called for: 300 g. starter, 570-600g cold water, mixed into starter, then, 1 kilogram bread flour and 18g. salt., and I converted all measurements, if I did it correctly, to: -1c. starter, 2 1/3 c. ice water, 4 1/4 c. bread flour, and I used less salt, because we do not like salt much. there were explicit directions, plus pictures, at Fig Jam and Lime Cordial...(if I'm allowed to let you see the recipe I used), but mine appeared wrong from the start.
Questions are: 1. Did I convert the recipe correctly? 2. Was recipe too 'weak' to begin with? 3. Could I have over-proofed it, to where there was no structure left? (too long, too much eaten by starter action?) FYI: I mixed it at 9:30 PM, and attempted to make it into loaves at 10:30 AM. 4. Could I have just not known how to create a 'skin', a tight skin, for making this artisan type loaf? 5.I began emergency procedures to bake SOMETHING out of this...(I made 2 separate batches), and I did salvage it into bread and pizza dough, but after much folding and some flour being worked in. So, question 5: What would be a good 'emergency' procedure if dough is just too slack to hold any shape?
I have images, but will wait to post any, since I am new here, until I am or if I am asked. Totally appreciate any feedback, advice!!! Thank You.
Not sure if I worded this correctly, as I am new here, but if anyone can answer any part of the above questions, that would sure be helpful!! Maybe I should have put each question into a separate post? Thanks!
Woha! Just a few general comments: 1. Yes, we want pictures! But there might be a limit to how many you can post. 2. Yes, you may link to a recipe or type it here - just give the source. 3. Yes, please break this down into multiple questions. Each one could help other users independently. You can still link to the other questions, if you want to connect them. (And you could get more upvotes ^_^)
The best solution is to bake by weight rather than volume. It's easier and more accurate.
There is no way to answer all you questions definitively.
I can say your conversion most probably off because cups are not a precise way to measure flour by weight.
First and foremost if you want to bake bread on a regular basis learn to use the bakers percentages and the metric system. Buy a quality kitchen scale.
bakers percentages (BP) are what professional bakers use and for good reason. Dependable, repeatable results. You can scale up or down a formula with precision.
Basically the BP system is based on the amount flour always being 100% in the formula and all other ingredients are a percentage of that. For example a bread dough that has a hydration level ( amount of liquid in the dough ) of 70%
1000g. of flour so a hydration level of 70% would be
700g. of water - 1000 x .70 = 700
Every ingredients percentage is multiplied into the amount of flour.
Salt is generally around 2%
1000 x .02 = 20g
Once you learn this system you can change the amount of flour and calculate all the other ingredients with precision. double it, triple it, cut by 67% whatever you want.
Once you understand it you can develop your own formulas, you can backward engineer recipes in cups with the help of some conversion charts and math and/or your scale.
if you go crazy like me you can make an excel spread sheet so all you have to do is enter a number of loaves you want and it will calculate the whole formula for you.
WE DO NOT KNOW THE HYDRATION OF YOUR STARTER.
lets say it was 100% -
150g flour to 150g of water =300g
your formula called for
flour 100%-- 1 kilogram (1000g) of flour
water 60%-- 600g water 60%
salt 18%-- 18g salt (1000 x .018 = 18g ) 18%
starter 30%-- 300g starter (1000 x .30 = 300g ) 30%
Adding the starter changes things but because we assumed it 50% it is not much.
starter and preferment's complicate the BP system but its all math it can be figured out, i will not go into here.
your formula shows a overall hydration level with starter at 65.2% that should be a rather firm dough not wet and slack as you described. thus my saying your conversion was off. Also changing the salt % as you did will have effects on the leavening time. ( salt is an inhibitor, slows down yeast or starters )
Sourdoughs or starters or yeast do not "eat gluten" they feed on the sugars and enzymes in the flour. I will let you do your homework on that. Gluten is developed partly by this process and partly by kneading.
Learning to do a "window pane" test will help you to know when gluten is developed enough. I suspect that is what you meant by "create a 'skin', a tight skin, for making this artisan type loaf". Learn what the autolyze process is.
You "mixed it at 9:30 PM, and attempted to make it into loaves at 10:30 AM" That is long time to proof at room temps and would allow the leavening agents to exhaust themselves. did you proof in the fridge? Sourdough breads are more temperamental and finicky then commercial yeast breads and you have to be able to recognize when to bake them, it is easy to let them to far.
A sourdough mother can be any hydration you want and it will behave and taste differently depending that hydration level. You have feed it on a regular basis, you pull some of it make a starter, sponge, preferment, always feed/replenish it. NEVER feed it more than 50% of its total weight. lets say it is a 100% hydration mother and you have 1000 grams after pulling some to build a sponge, you would then feed it 250g water and 250g flour = 500g which is 50% of its weight.
A healthy mother will be forgiving, you let it go for a while and bring back to life with a few feedings, you freeze it for a while.
Have fun and enjoy a fresh loaf of bread soon.
I am currently learning to make sourdough bread. This is the most useful thing I have ever read about making bread. I want to give you +10.
'NEVER feed it more than 50% of its total weight' When did this become a rule? I keep approx 250g starter and I'll regularly use 180g of it at a time (one loaf, 2 pizzas) and replenish it back to 250g. What terrible thing is happening as a result of this that I have failed to notice fore years?
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.406206
| 2017-02-10T04:10:40 |
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|
85386
|
How to interpret this recipe for walnuts harvested at a given time?
I have the recipe for a liqueur which requires using
walnuts harvested around the 21st of June.
(Yes, the walnuts have to be far from ripe. The recipe call for green walnuts having no hardened shell yet)
The recipe came from the South of Europe (40°N), but now I want to use it with walnuts grown in northern Europe (51°N).
How can I adapt the harvesting time to keep a fairly similar development stage of the walnut?
Does the recipe call for green walnuts specifically?
This actually sounds more like a botany question (when do walnuts ripen at a different latitude) :)
As asked it's a bit more gardening/botany, but the underlying question is presumably what to look for to get the recipe to work right, which brings it back to cooking, so I think we're ok keeping it here.
I wouldn't get too hung up on such a specific date. The date given is likely because of it's proximity to Midsummer's Day celebrations. In Italy and France the harvesting of green walnuts was traditionally tied with St. John's Day.
The keys for harvesting green walnuts are:
Bright green exterior as walnuts will turn yellow-ish as they ripen.
Before the hard wooden shell develops, the nut should cut in half easily. I've seen some recipes suggest putting a pin thru the nut to test if it's still soft enough.
When the size is between a large olive and small egg
The only issue I could see with harvesting too early was that the size of the nut may be too small. Harvest too late and the wooden shell will start to form.
You'll probably have a window of about 6 weeks to find green walnuts that fit the conditions above. If you have your own tree you have the benefit of being able to see the nuts as they grow and mature. Otherwise you could try asking your produce provider when they usually have green walnuts to get a good idea of what dates are common in your area. I'm guessing to closely match the recipe you'll want to be on the early side of that 6 week period.
Six weeks is probably too wide, in my experience. The rest is definitely very good information!
@JoshCaswell - I do not think the OP meant 6 weeks where it is the correct ripeness, but rather a 6 week window where you will need to watch the seeds to be at the correct point to harvest IE between 7 may and 21 june
I am afraid that you cannot do such a calculation in general. Degrees northern latitude is responsible for only a fraction of climate variation and walnut growing conditions. The author of the recipe didn't realize that his recipe relied on localized knowledge which other people will not have, and did not think to make it followable outside of his context. Really, you can have two villages 20 km apart and the walnuts in one will ripe a week earlier than the other.
The best guess you can do is to say that this is probably about using unripe walnuts. I have a hard time imagining a place in Europe at 40°N where the walnuts are ripe in the end of June. But the exactitude of the recipe means that the author is probably aiming at a specific stage of the walnut fruit growth. If you just go for any green walnut, it may turn out that it has too hard a shell already, or still too much of the sponge tissue around the kernel, or any number of other things which are not right.
You are left with three options here. One is, just try the recipe with whatever walnuts you can find (it will probably be difficult to get any unripe walnuts in Northern Europe anyway, unless you have access to a tree) and see if you like it enough to eat it. Second, start systematic experimentation. Repeat the recipe many times with walnuts picked on different days in your vicinity, record the results and see which one corresponds best to your expectations (or memories). Third, travel to the original location around 21st June and pick walnuts there, to see for yourself what the proper stage of walnut development looks like.
All of this is lots of work, with a tradeoff between effort and probability of success. But I am afraid it will fall on you. Nobody else can give you a good estimate based only on generic information.
Interesting concept. Since I never ever heard of using green walnuts for anything, I looked this up on the inter-webs, and lo & behold:
https://www.lifeinabruzzo.com/magical-nocino-italian-green-walnut-liqueur/
I have no idea if this is anything close to what you are talking about, but on that page, there is a picture showing in pretty clear detail the exact state of development of the walnuts for this particular drink:
Quite green.
If you use the name of your liqueur, and/or its country of origin, maybe you can find similar info for your exact recipe.
Interestingly, that recipe also mentions that you're supposed to harvest exactly 21 or 23 walnuts, that brewing should start on St John the Baptist Day (June 24), and that it should not be drunk before Nov 3rd. So the dates seem to be more about tradition, not culinary qualities.
I've been making nocino, the infusion you're talking about, nearly every year for the last decade. Being at around 42˚N, I've wondered the same thing with regard to ripeness and location.
After some experimentation, I continue to pick them in the night of the 23rd of June or morning of the 24th. (In my understanding that is the traditional time -- it's the feast of Saint John. I've also decided to stick with the traditional 40 days of steeping.)
I have tried picking them at various later times, between a week and three, and been disappointed. (Unfortunately I've never been quite organized enough to get several batches in one year, so this isn't completely "scientific" data collection -- there's obviously confounding factors.) The flavor of nocino, when it's good, has tannins and bitterness balanced by woody flavor and some very bright, spicy and citrusy notes. Walnuts harvested too late are notably lacking the latter, and the result is flat and medicinal in an unpleasant way.
The best thing to do would be to observe the state of the walnuts yourself, if you have ready access to a walnut tree. It's easy to tell that they are going to be flavorful when steeped. Pulled right off the tree, the nuts will have a large amount of aromatic oil in their skins. Scratching the surface should release a burst of a lovely piney and citrusy smell. If that's lacking, it's too late. Cutting one open (be aware -- the juice from black walnuts will stain your hands and cutting surface), it should be around the hardness of balsa wood, with a consistent creamy color throughout, and a barely-visible "embryo" of the nutmeat in the middle (usually with some indentations in the very center). If the inner nut is clearly formed and distinguished from the rest of the interior, you're going to end up with a very bitter drink indeed.
I imagine that, wherever you are, you'll find that the walnuts meet the criteria right around the same June date, and so ultimately I'd recommend planning on harvesting sometime that week.
One other strong recommendation I should make is to get the walnuts into their steeping liquid as soon as possible after harvest. Ideally immediately. That spicy oil disappears very quickly, even tightly covered in the fridge.*
Two other tips: I've found that putting the jar out in strong, direct sunshine (if available) for the first two or three days makes a substantial positive difference in the extraction of the bright flavors that you want. Additionally, even though you take it off the walnuts after 40 days, letting it continue to mellow in a cool place for a few months does good things to the tannic element.
As a final fun addendum, if you have other nuts native to your area, you might try them when they're in a similar ripeness. I once tried hickory, with fairly good results.
*My batch two years ago was a disappointment because of the picked nuts spending a day in the fridge, despite using a tree that I knew produced very flavorful nuts.
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.406709
| 2017-11-02T11:54:11 |
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|
19338
|
How to get very smooth, flat cooked potato pieces
For an upcoming party, my girlfriend and I have been discussing trying to create "potato jenga." The idea is to cook smooth, flat pieces of potato and stack them in a tower, so that everybody has to play a game of Jenga with the potato pieces. If anybody has tried any similar structural potato projects, I'm keen to learn how best to pull it off. (I'll also accept references to other fun ways to get party guests to play with their food, if this project proves impossible.)
So, what method of cooking will make the most suitable potato pieces? I need to avoid warping or a rough texture. Is baking better than frying? Any particular oil I should use if I fry them? High heat or lower heat for more time? I'm at a bit of a loss with where to start because everything I know about cooking relates to the eating, rather than use as a building material!
For Potato Jenga you are going to want to use a French Fry slicer like this one from Amazon. The larger slicing grate will produce potato of about the right square size. You will want to exclude the edges and end pieces.
Some additional tips: several hours to a day before you are going to serve them slice and blanch the potatoes in sweet water (boil water, add sugar, and potatoes boil for about 5 minutes, remove potatoes to and ice bath and store in the fridge.) Just before frying, dry the potatoes on paper towels to remove surface moisture. Once they are golden brown remove the fries to bowl and toss them with a light coat of olive oil.
[Edit added on 12/8/11]
Crispy Pototoey Goodness: Success
Jenga: FAIL
I love questions here that cause me to experiment with food. So after answering this question I decided to try this myself. Well, the potatoes came out nice and crispy and tasty, but I am afraid that @shujaa is correct, no matter how you cook them, you aren't going to get a good game of Jenga out of them...
You can get a good "Jenga Like Tower" this way, but you wont be able to play with your food...
Might I suggest carrot sticks sliced to the right size?
Giving this a vote for definitively demonstrating why this just can't work. Potato != wood.
+1 for the carrot alternative. Another approach: a way to link the desserts at the end of the meal with the games (usually playd after eating): Mango Jenga!
I think you'd be best doing something along the lines of 'confit potatoes'. you cut the potatoes into the desired shapes. If you want something similar to 'Jenga' then I don't think you'll be able to use a mandoline as it won't cut them thick enough, or at least mine won't. Waxy potatoes are a must for this as they'll hold their shape much better.
Then you can optionally fry the potatoes to give them some colour. (I'd skip this step in your case as this will also give them a rough edge, no good for Jenga)
Then immerse the potatoes in a pan of goose or duck fat (plus any other flavourings you want) and bring the temperature of the fat up to a simmer. Cook until the potatoes are tender, the amount of time will depend on the thickness of your 'Jenga pieces', but make sure you are not frying them in the fat, as this will ruin the texture.
A similar technique is described in this recipe
Depending on the equipment available, you might also want to consider a sous-vide potatoe confit
A Bron can easily cut as thick as 1/2" - while that's obviously not the thickness of a real Jenga block, you'd need to have extremely steady hands to cut potatoes so as to not only be perfectly flat, but also perfectly level, which would be necessary for "building" with them. Use elongated potatoes and cut the sides off and they'd also be more or less rectangular.
yeah, if you can cut them with a mandolin then this would be better, I leave the cutting of the shapes as an exercise for the student, I was mainly offering a technique for cooking them so they would remain smooth.
I'm afraid that however you cook them, your potatoes will be rough or will stick to each other. Perhaps you could play jenga with raw potatoes (cut into appropriate shapes) and have a pot of hot oil standing by to make fries as you draw pieces out. You could thoroughly rinse the cut potatoes to get off extra starch, and then coat them in oil so they don't stick to each other. That way you won't have to worry about roughness or warped shapes due to cooking.
Instead of Jenga, why not Blockhead? With Jenga, you start with a structured tower of identical pieces, pull out a piece and restack it on top. With Blockhead, you start with irregular pieces, and begin a tower, with each person adding to it (and only the bottom piece can touch the table). In both cases, the person knocking down the tower loses. But with Blockhead, you could use various shapes of potatoes, carrots, and other hard veggies.
Google "blockhead game" images for pictures of some of the shapes, although that is not required.
You're pretty much talking about potato chips here.
If you want really smooth, "stackable" chips then use a mandoline to prepare them. There is no faster or more reliable way to get perfectly uniform slices of even thickness. Throw out the end pieces, obviously, since they won't be flat.
Just get a good coating of oil around the potato slices - you can either use a brush or do it shake-n-bake style as in the above link - and bake it. It's possible to do in the microwave, but you'll have much better control over the crispness with a single layer of chips on a cookie sheet in the oven, especially because it sounds like you don't want yours to be quite as crisp as traditional potato chips.
Note: use a silicone mat or parchment paper so that they don't stick. They shouldn't warp much; not for the amount of time you'll be baking them, especially not if you slice them very thinly.
If you want something much softer/tastier but still in keeping with the thin/decorative theme then you might try a slightly modified scalloped potatoes recipe - just go easy on the sauce and toppings so that you end up with relatively plain cooked potatoes. If you want to crisp them up, you can always separate the sauce and crisp them chip-style as above. You could even serve the leftover sauce on the side for dipping, or keep it warm for recombining with the potatoes after your "event" is over.
Whichever way you go, keep a close eye on them while they're baking, and take them out if they seem done; start checking once you see them turning golden-brown.
What Jenga looks like, and I truly don't think this method will accomplish what you are shooting for... although it will make some delicious party potatoes.
@sarge_smith: I know what Jenga looks like; why don't you think it will accomplish this? Is it the thickness that's the issue (as Sam alludes to), or is the aim to actually turn these into perfect rectangles? I kind of assumed that there was no chance of either of those things happening and that the OP was going to design the "game" around what's actually feasible with potatoes.
Sorry @aaronut, I wasn't trying to imply that didn't know Jenga, Should have edited that link out. I was trying to reconcile the chips as a stack with the idea that he would be trying to play a game with them. Chips are going to have too much surface area to slid out with out collapsing the pile. maybe something with more structural integrity, like carrots or rutabagas or parsnips? even beets would work better than soft potatoes like described in the second method. Again, sorry for the less than constructive wording of the first post.
@sarge_smith: Not to worry, I wasn't offended, just honestly wasn't sure of your reasoning - it's a good point about the stability of the structure as a whole, as opposed to that of an individual chip. I'm starting to question the whole idea, TBH - even if you could get the perfect surface area/volume ratio, I don't see how you could ever make the surface smooth enough to slide out without a collapse. It won't be stiff enough to handle unless you bake or fry it, but as soon as it starts to crisp, you'll end up with a rough surface. Those Jenga blocks are buffed to the Nth degree.
|
Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.407344
| 2011-12-03T05:26:05 |
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2743
|
How to rest meat but not let it get too cold?
Having read this question I am persuaded that resting meat is good for its flavour. But if the meat has a good temperature straight after it's been cooked, it seems as though it will be too cold after resting it for a few minutes.
How do you rest meat in such a way that it is not too cold for eating?
Thanks to carry over cooking, meat is actually rising in internal temperature (getting hotter on the inside) during the resting period if it's come right off a grill or out of a pan.
If I let a steak rest I would be fired immediately for serving cold food. The bloke below with his "hot sauce" that "warm the meat" has no action in the bedroom. How do you like your food? HOT. When do you want it? NOW.... Ah damn I thought I should let the meat rest so you can eat it stone cold.
Straight after it comes out of the pan it will usually be too hot to eat. Regardless of resting or not, you can't fully taste things which are too hot, they need to come down to a comfortable temperature before you eat them.
Some things you can do to stop the meat being too cold when you serve it:
You can rest the meat wrapped in foil, this will stop it from getting too cool too quickly if you are not ready to serve once its had the time to rest.
you can rest it and then warm it again before you eat it, either under a hot grill for a little, or in an oven.
serve it with a hot sauce which will warm the meat
serve it on a warmed plate which will stop it cooling more too quickly on the table
Although I think you are worrying too much about nothing IMHO. Even once rested the meat will still be at a good temperature, especially as you have not cut it yet and most of the heat will be retained in the middle of the meat.
wrapping with foil can result in it steaming and mess up a good sear -- this isn't so bad for slow-cooked things like barbeque, but might not be ideal for steaks.
@joe, thats very true. Something to bear in mind.
You cover just about everything, one addition I would add to the list is don't rest the meat where there is a breeze. I have rested meat near and open window and it has cooled too much.
Any cut thicker than an inch-and-a-half or so will actually increase in temp for the first 5-10 minutes due to carry-over cooking. Resting for 5-10 min will not cause meat to become cold; big roasts can sit for as much as 30 minutes without significant loss of heat.
Minor quibble- don't wrap anything in foil, loosely tent it.
Ideally, you want something that will absorb the heat from the too hot meat until the meat cools down enough, then re-emits it to help hold the meat near serving temperature until it is time to cut.
You won't get that with something that conducts all the heat away (metal table), or absorbs it never to return (stone countertop).
That means a ceramic/earthenware dish of appropriate size, isolated from other thermal conductors. The larger the piece of meat, the heavier the ideal dish. For thin steaks, I use a thin table plate set on a hot pad. For roasts, a heavy serving platter.
The meat will lose some of it's energy to the air through radiation and convection (sped up if the skin is moist). A loose piece of aluminum foil over it will help slow the rate of both.
You don't have to leave it out for an hour or anything. 5-10 minutes does the trick for a steak, and it'll still be nice and warm.
Interesting. I had never believed in this “let the meat rest afterwards” trick, but this post convinced me to try it more
Resting meat is essential, especially for steaks such as rib-eye or fillet. Around 5-10 minutes is ideal, this will give you a more tender, juicy steak. It will also prevent the juice from gushing onto the plate when cut into.
One choice is to simply rest in a warm oven, no more than 50c though (60c is roughly medium-rare).
Another choice (which requires a little more work) which provides the best results in my opinion is resting in a beurre monte (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beurre_monte). This is essentially a melted butter solution which you can warm to ~40c and rest the meat in for a good 10 minutes.
Unless you're cooking single servings, the temperature will actually continue to rise after you pull it off the heat. This is why you remove it from the heat before it reaches the desired "done" temperature.
You're only letting it rest for a short time: 5-10 minutes for a steak, longer for larger cuts of meat or entire birds. This is not long enough to significantly affect the meat's internal temperature. Consult your recipe for details on resting times.
You can loosely tent it with foil to keep heat in. The idea here is just what it sounds like - take a sheet of foil, bend it into a bowl shape, and place it over the meat. Try to keep the foil at least an inch or two above the surface of the meat so condensation doesn't run down into the food.
Another good idea is to put the meat on a wooden cutting board while resting. Wood is a terrible heat conductor, so the heat should stay in the meat.
I wouldn't normally say this, but if you're still skeptical after reading the above, just trust us. I'm a professional chef. All my colleagues know about resting, and we all do it. We have warming lamps in our restaurant kitchens, but not at home. We wouldn't send meat straight from the broiler or pan to the table - it ruins the meat. As soon as someone cuts into the meat, all the juices run out onto the plate where they are totally useless. The meat itself looks grey and overcooked. We would be embarrassed to serve such a mediocre meal to our loved ones, let alone our customers.
Is there not a suitable alternative to a warming lamp at home? I was wondering, for just a couple servings, would letting it rest in a toaster oven set to a low temp be a good idea? I really love steak but sometimes with little toddlers running around timing doesn't always work out just right. So sometimes you plan to let it rest for 5 minutes but then something happens and you don't get to it for 15 minutes you know. And while it tastes just as good, I definitely prefer it to be on the warmer side.
I don't think most people cook an entire lump of steak then cut it after resting. Typically steaks are sold maybe 6-12oz in the butcher at least in the UK. Most of us don't cook like chefs at home :)
For me the secret to resting is all about core temperature. Let's take a beef fillet steak for an example. There is no way the meat can dry out under 55 C due to the structure of the fibers and you can also not overcook a steak when the core temperature does not rise above 50/55 C according to personal tastes.
For this reason I let steaks rest in an oven pre heated to 50 C myself. This reduces the loss of temperature from the product while ensuring that the steak will not overcook during the resting period. Simply turn them over after half of the resting time (I tend to rest mine for about 6 minutes) and enjoy!
If you've cooked the meat in the oven, then turn off the heat and leave the door open ajar.
many large joints and cuts can actually rise in temperature by between about 5 and ten degrees centigrade after being removed from the oven. use a probe.
Pull the meat off the grill about 5 to 10 degrees below the desired tem because the meat wil continue to "cook" and rise in temp....so after 5 to 10 minutes your meat will be ready to carve and serve....
Just like the earth was flat some things persist long after science says otherwise. Certainly eminent food scientist Harold McGee said various large pieces such as roasts should rest for 20 to 30 minutes before slicing. Partially to redistribute heat and fluids and partially for ease of slicing. He never said anything about thinner cuts like steak.
But science says meat is like a ballon. Fluids do not 'gush' out if sliced immediately. Tests done by food scientist Dr Greg Blonder for Amazing Ribs showed a minuscule difference in fluids lost in a steak. Fluids that are then reabsorbed in the act of slicing cutting and eating the steak. "Mopping" as it were. Like this dry aged porterhouse at Peter Luger's Steakhouse in Brooklyn.https://peterluger.com/ Check out all the juice on the plate and the spoons to ladle it on your slices.
Just leave it on a cutting board for a few minutes. See importance-of-resting-grilling
Slice to serve, and transfer to heated serving plate
Resting your meat, contrary to many of the answers here, has nothing to do with allowing it to cool to a more palatable temperature before enjoying. This may happen a litte during the process but it in no way exists as the basis for employing the method of (tenting &) resting.
Simply put, as the term itself implies, 'resting' allows the meat to relax. As it does so its juices are evenly reabsorbed through-out the whole of the meat.
As meat cooks its juices are forced toward the middle of the pc. If you cut into meat, steak for example, immediately after cooking the potential for juicy goodness is lost as the majority of these juices escape and pool upon your plate. However, on the other hand, as the meat relaxes while resting the juices are reabsorbed through out the whole of the meat so that they may be savored in each and every bite.
I suggest you do a little research, on the internet perhaps, to familiarize yourself with the technique and steps involved. It is relatively simple but there are a few things you'll want to keep in mind. You'll want to 'tent' the meat when 'resting' however its important to do so in a manner which allows some movement of air and avoids excess condensation gathering on the meat. There will also be a certain amount of 'carry over' cooking that will take place after the meat is removed from the heat source as residual heat continues to radiate through out. On avg', depending on its size, the meat may cook an additional 3°-15°. Therefore it's important to remove the meat from the oven, stove, bbq etc' ahead of the desired temperature to prevent over cooking. Ultimately, like most things, a little education and some hands-on experience are key ingredients here for that perfect dish.
You might be interested in reading this: https://amazingribs.com/more-technique-and-science/more-cooking-science/science-juiciness-why-resting-and-holding-meat-are
Just dont worry too much about it. Let it sit for a few minutes on a room temp plate then eat. How hard is that? You can leave in the oven set to the desired temp also as long as its not still "cooking". Meat cooks a little after taking off the heat. I always stop cooking it about 5 degrees under what im aiming for. Ive made so many steaks and I know for sure most people dont even know what doneness they want,. You cant go wrong by undercooking, but an overdone steak just gets tossed.
When you are talking about a roast then I tent for at least 10 minutes and sometimes as long as 20 minutes, the meat is hot and juicy. But I have the same problem with cut meat such as a breast of duck. The answer seems to be to add a hot sauce over what is now room temperature meat. The larger the pieces you cut the warmer the meat will stay, cut it thin and it cools instantly. So I have started to create gravies, etc to bring the meat back to temp. If its beef tenderloin I have used hot butter, with some shallots. Gordon Ramsey has some excellent sauces on youtube.
Heat your plate in microwave then put steak on it to rest, with door closed, lovely and juicy.
Unfortunately, the way microwaves work means that a dry plate won't heat up much inside.
Christine, unless you are using non-microwave-suitable plates, they should remain cold. Please clarify how the plate may be heated in a microwave or this answer might be deleted.
What happens when you leave any food out? It gets cold. None of the suggestions furnished are helpful. For crying out aloud, foil! Reheating, foil, hot ceramic plates all have the same problem when it comes to steak - they extend the cooking process which is NOT what you want. Rest by all means if it's a cold cut you're after. Resting meat seems to be a fancy excuse to cover for serving cold food which is meant to be eaten hot.
Resting meat makes it juicier. See for example this America's Test Kitchen post. And it can still be warm; it just needs to not be cooking.
This is the wrongest thing I've seen today.
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.408135
| 2010-07-22T09:11:10 |
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24909
|
What temperature should milk be when adding to roux?
Possible Duplicate:
Right way to defrost roux
I've always heard that it's best to add roux to liquids that are at or near a boil, however I ran across this video recently where the chef says specifically "add cold milk to the roux. Cold milk, hot roux, no lumps."
Is there a standard rule for adding roux to sauces? Do things change if you're using milk vs. stock or other liquids? And can anyone explain the chemistry as to why cold or hot liquid would be better?
@BobMcGee, I agree that the same answer applies, but it's not the same question.
This is definitely not a duplicate question. It just happens that the answer to a different question has some overlap with the answer to this one...
I've heard a few different answers (theories) as to why you should use different temperature liquids to the roux, most of it's related to starch gelatinization. I'm also not a fan of scalding milk when I don't have to, as it can bubble over if you don't pay attention and/or taken on a bit of a scorched taste.
I've always added cold milk when making a bechamel in part because that's the way I learned growing up, but if I'm thickening a gravy I'm generally using warmer liquid (drippings, let to sit so you can separate out the fat). I rarely use a roux to thicken something near a boil ... for that, I'll use a slurry.
There are differences when dealing with adding cold liquid to a roux -- you need to add the liquid slowly, and stir it well before each addition, which also gives it a chance to come back up to temperature. Of course, I recommend always adding the liquid slowly, as I find it easier than trying to work out lumps afterwards.
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.409460
| 2012-07-07T23:51:23 |
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87290
|
Yogurt not turning out since relocation
When I started making Greek yogurt, I lived in western Washington state and never, ever had an issue. Now that I've relocated to SoCal for work, every batch of my yogurt turns out awful (barely any effect from the starter, just runny) and I am making it the exact same way with the same materials. It's not been hot here so I can't figure out what the difference is. The climate here is definitely different than in Washington state.
Has anyone else had or heard of such a thing?
Method:
My yogurt making process is to heat the milk to 180, heat water for the cooler, bring temps of milk and water in cooler back down to about 115, then let the jars sit for 6 hours in cooler, then 6 hours in fridge and drain.
I am using the same brand of store bought starter (Fage Greek yogurt). Everything is the same except the pot I'm heating the milk in. I used to have a non-stick Calphalon pot I'd use, but now I use a stainless steel Calphalon pot. I have always done 6 hours at least in the cooler and never had an issue. This past time I let it go longer as I like to let it sit in the cooler overnight, but it still failed. I have not tried checking the temp of the water at the end of the procedure.
The tap water is incredibly harsh here (smells like chlorine even after being filtered so I buy water to drink) and leaves white residue behind on dishes after going through the dish washer. I boil my jars in this water but have never noticed the residue. Could the water be part of the problem?
I've removed a lot of back-and-forth clarification and working toward answers in the comments. It seems like the question is clear and complete enough now that folks can write answers if they like.
I don't know if it was included in the removed comments- but the question doesn't indicated how the yogurt failed. Did it not acidify enough? Not thicken? Get grainy? Spoil? I assumed from the question that it simply failed to acidify at all.
@Sobachatina It didn't thicken, it was pretty much like I just heated milk then let it sit there.
Harsh tap water could definitely cause problems. It doesn't take much chlorine to kill bacteria- that's why we use it, of course. An easy experiment is would be to rinse your jars in filtered water after washing them in your chlorinated water.
Another likely culprit is the new source of your starter. From what I was able to find, Fage yogurt is imported from Greece. There is going to be a lot of variability in its freshness shipping to different states and stores in the US. The cultures in Yogurt, even refrigerated, will eventually consume the available lactose and die.
You should try using some other brand as a starter- preferably something produced closer to you so you can have more confidence that it is still viable.
You should also double check your thermometer. If your thermometer was made somehow inaccurate after the move- if your milk doesn't cool below 130F your starter will die. If your milk cools to below 100F or so you starter will be too slow.
Additional Notes
The change in pan is certainly not the problem. Stainless steel will work just fine for yogurt making.
The climate shouldn't make that big of a difference. The relative humidity won't matter as the whole thing is liquid. The local bacteria shouldn't play a major role if your equipment is clean (and you'd notice spoiled milk if competition was a problem.) Altitude wouldn't even matter very much as it would affect boiling temps but not incubation rates AFAIK.
In your process, you mention that you bring your milk to 180 and then immediately cool it. This won't affect your incubation and so I don't think it's your problem but the description, as written, is inadequate. It takes time at a certain temperature for the change in the proteins to happen. See my other answer. The short story is, at only 180F you have to hold the milk at that temperature for 30 minutes to see the intended benefit.
** EDIT **
You added the comment above that the milk didn't change and was like you had just warmed it.
This means that your bacteria were entirely inactive.
Chlorine residue on the bottles might inhibit some bacteria growth but I wouldn't expect it to be able to completely stop it. Likewise, if your thermometer was off and your mix was too cool the bacteria would still do something, just slower.
Your bacteria was dead. It's possible the milk was too hot when you mixed in the starter and killed it but in my experience it's more likely that you had a bad starter.
Thank you so much for responding @Sobachatina. My kefir has been doing fine in the same jars so it never even entered my mind that there would be a problem. I will definitely be rinsing my jars in the store bought water. I am willing to try another brand of starter for sure. Local and organic is preferable, I had just gone with what I always had. The thermometer is brand new, I didn't move with it so maybe it's malfunctioning? I've always heated to 180 then started cooling and I've never had an issue. I didn't realize, thanks for letting me know. I'll making some adjustments the next time!
@Shellie- It might not be any of those things- those are just the variables I would test. As for holding at 180 longer. The heating makes more of the water soluble protein denature so it improves the texture of your yogurt. You wouldn't have trouble without it but you may notice an improvement with it.
Ok wonderful thank you! I'll try holding it at that temp for longer, much appreciated. Also, I understand these things are variables to test, but boy am I excited to clear the issue up! Thank you for your input!
@Shellie have you tried a starter from a lab? I use Genesis labs starter, which gives an authentic Balkan yogurt. With good temperature control, you can re-inoculate dozens of times from a single sachet. Don't know if it is available in the USA, but other brands will be available, or other styles of yogurt (e.g. bifidus) if you prefer them.
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.409637
| 2018-01-25T23:49:46 |
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6561
|
How do I pick the best potatoes at the supermarket?
I was picking potatoes randomly from the supermarket without much thinking, and some potatoes take more time to bake properly.
So on what basis should I pick potatoes, potatoes for baking?
I'm not referring to the baking/roasting question, which discusses what type of potatoes to use.
There are two basic kinds of potatoes: starchy and waxy.
The difference is actually in the amount of starch in them. Starchy potatoes, such as Russet or Idaho potatoes are best for baking, since the starch will allow it to be nice and fluffy after it's baked. They don't hold their shape particularly well when cooked. If you cut into a baked potato, it should be crumbly and dry.
Waxy potatoes include most fingerling potatoes, and most red potatoes. They hold their shape better when cooked, so they are good for soups and stews and potato salads.
Yellow-fleshed potatoes such as Yukon Gold or Yellow Finn are in between, and so can be used for either purpose. Purple potatoes also seem to have medium starch, and so can be used for both.
According to one cookbook I have (Moosewood Restaurant New Classics), there are two ways to determine which is which. If you cut the potato in half, the blade will have a film or a foamy residue on the knife. These potatoes may also stick to the knife because of the starch.
The rules for the brine is to make it of 11 parts water to 1 part salt. A high-starch potato will sink (it's denser) and a low-starch one will float.
Here's a good overview.
Now as to choosing ones that will bake well, it really depends on size. You want potatoes that will bake evenly, so try to choose ones of similar size. I bake my potatoes directly on the oven rack so that the hot air can move freely around them. Try to give them lots of room for that. Also, if you wrap them in aluminum foil, they'll steam and won't give you the nice crunchy skin. (And I'd avoid any potatoes with irregular shapes -- the smaller diameter ones may cook before the larger ones.)
Large potatoes take about an hour to bake at 350F. Lots of small ones may take a bit less time -- experiment with your oven and your potatoes. I'd start squeezing slightly after about 40-45 minutes. If they yield when squeezed, they're probably done.
You need to use larger potatoes with a high dry matter content to get fluffy baked potatoes. Large King Edwards are sold here in Sweden as baking potatoes.
To assess the dry matter content of other potato varieties, I believe you have to weigh the potatoes using a spring scale both in and out of water (to get a ratio). I also believe there is a method that involves putting a potato in a salt water solution to see if it floats. I'll post an update with the details, provided I can find them.
Here is the weight-in-water method, it calculates the potato's SC which I guess is highly correlated with dry matter content. For the salt water method see the bold paragraph at the end of this page. The idea is to make a brine solution of a known target SC then whether the potatoes float or not tell you if they are higher or lower -- this method doesn't tell you the potato SC, it only gives a threshold.
Also as for the brine mixture, Wikipedia lists densities of various concentrations of salt in water at various temperatures. It also provides an equation that can be used to approximate it. To convert density to specific gravity, divide the calculated density of the solution by the density of water at some temperature. Or just convert it to g/cm^3 and drop the units (equiv to water at 4C).
(Or if you just want to go nuts in a potato field / make the grocery store employees really angry, these guys make a slightly destructive dry matter field test kit).
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Stack Exchange
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2025-03-21T13:24:58.410134
| 2010-09-02T04:20:08 |
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