id
stringlengths 1
7
| text
stringlengths 59
10.4M
| source
stringclasses 1
value | added
stringdate 2025-03-12 15:57:16
2025-03-21 13:25:00
| created
timestamp[s]date 2008-09-06 22:17:14
2024-12-31 23:58:17
| metadata
dict |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
124732 | tea tastes / smells slightly acidic
I have been drinking some houjicha and I have brewed it today but it seems to smell and taste slightly acidic. Is this normal / healthy?
Storage: foil lined zip lock bag
Brewing: 75C, 1 tbsp for 2 large cups
In addition to the answer below, it's worth noting that hojicha is a fully roasted tea, and sometimes improper roasting can make the resulting tea seem bitter, astringent, and acidic. This sometimes just happens, and if you're struggling with it, I would consider buying hojicha from a different source.
Your water's not hot enough.
It's not a tea I've tried myself, so a little google-fu was employed to find the consensus is boiling water, for one minute steep/brew/mash.
I found similar instructions in many places, but this was the most comprehensive, from letsdrinktea.com - Houjicha Guide
Brewing Instructions
Pour some boiling water into the empty teapot to warm it up. Discard the water and dry the teapot.
Put one heaping teaspoon of tea leaves into the teapot for each cup you plan to make.
Pour the exact amount of boiling water into the teapot that you will need to fill the cups. You do not want to leave any water in the
teapot after the cups are filled.
Let the leaves steep for one minute.
Pour a small amount of tea into the first cup, then pour the same amount into every other cup. Continue filling the cups a little at a
time, making sure that each cup contains the same amount of the weaker
first pours and the stronger last drops. DO NOT fill one cup
completely and then move on to the next cup.
Continue pouring until the teapot is completely empty. You want the leaves to be as dry as possible to ensure a quality second infusion
With most types, you will get two or three good infusions. For the second, repeat the steps above. For the third, double the steeping
time.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.554263 | 2023-07-14T20:22:40 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/124732",
"authors": [
"Slate",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/94759"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
124811 | any advice on my method of marinating pork loin?
i am making pork loin and i want it to be tender and flavorful without losing a lot of moisture, my go to method is to Dice the pork loin into bite sized cube, then chop onions into very small pieces and mix it in well with the pork loin, then i add 40% water, 40% rice vinegar, and 20% soy sauce to the mix (about 2 cups in total liquids), then i throw in some chopped mushrooms on top, compress the cold mixture, and cover it with lettuce to reduce evaporation and prevent oxygen flow. is this a bad way of doing it? i made it up myself so im not sure, can anyone give me some decent advice on how to make it better, i plan to simmer it in the marinate afterwards, along with garlic and parsley
lettuce won't really reduce evaporation or oxygen flow, for that you're better off with plastic wrap or similar.
Is this currently just a theory, or have you actually tested it? I feel sure something with 40% vinegar & 20% soy sauce would be almost inedible. Vinegar is great with pork, but maybe a tablespoon for something like a Goan Vindaloo.
A couple of things to consider:
Pork loin is super lean so the only way you are going to keep it moist and flavorful is to cook it to the correct temperature. Cutting it in cubes increases the potential for overcooking.
Marination is a surface treatment. It flavors the surface of your product only.
It sounds like you are making a brine (though I worry about vinegar, both from a flavor perspective and because it has the potential to impact the texture of your pork). Brine contains salt. Salt penetrates the surface (pretty much the only thing that penetrates the surface) and will both season the product and help keep it moist. You don't need to brine more then a couple of hours.
The mushrooms probably are not adding much.
Evaporation and "oxygen flow" is not something to worry about, so I think the lettuce is unnecessary.
For better advice, you would need to clarify. Do you want to brine (to help prevent drying) or do you want to marinate (to flavor your pork). You've got a brine here.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.554431 | 2023-07-22T22:45:57 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/124811",
"authors": [
"Esther",
"Tetsujin",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/42066",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/80388"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
124817 | How important is material thickness in really large cooking pots?
I need a stainless steel pot of 100 liters or maybe even bigger for cooking. They sell at different wall material strength at the wholesale, varying from 0.8mm to 1.6mm (they all have sandwich bottom of course). The thick-walled ones cost twice as much. This seems like it might be a situation where wall thickness is more than just an aesthetic issue, but they are all made by manufacturers for professional cooking equipment. I don't care about aesthetics, but I don't want to spend several hundred euros on a tin can. Does anyone have experience? If I get the cheaper one and actually cook 100 liters of food in it repeatedly, will it just fall apart or deform or require extreme care to maintain?
I have to ask: what on earth are you making 100 liters of frequently? Are you cooking for a military division?
I use a 40 liter pot for brewing beer (in roughly 20-25 liter batches, since there's a need for headspace to avoid boilover, and typically 8 liters boils off to reach that end volume). Brewing larger batches of beer would be a conceivable use.
Firstly, a pot with thicker walls is, without a doubt, more durable. Thin-walled pots can dent more easily and even warp over time, especially if you're planning to cook large quantities often. You want your culinary equipment to withstand the demands of your kitchen.
Now, onto heat distribution - another key factor that's influenced by your pot's thickness. Thin walls can lead to uneven heating, causing hot spots where your food could stick or even burn. A thicker pot, especially one with a sandwiched bottom made of a heat-conductive material like aluminium or copper, helps to distribute the heat more evenly. You don't want your food to cook unevenly, do you?
Stability is another aspect you need to consider. Imagine this - you're carrying a pot full of delicious stew, but the pot is wobbly and unstable. It's a disaster waiting to happen! A thicker pot is generally more stable, reducing the risk of unfortunate kitchen accidents.
Finally, let's talk about longevity. We all want to get the most out of our kitchen investments, right? A pot with thicker walls may cost more upfront, but it's likely to outlast a thinner one, especially under regular, heavy use.
But remember, this doesn't mean a thinner pot will instantly fall apart or deform. It might serve you well, especially if you're not using it heavily or frequently. However, if the kitchen is your battlefield and you're planning to use this pot as your main weapon, investing in a thicker one could be worthwhile.
If the difference between the two is just the wall thickness, with the bottom thickness being more-or-less the same, then what you're concerned with here is durability, and the ability to move the pot.
A pot that large with < 1mm thick walls is going to be immobile on the stove once filled, and you might even have to worry about it distorting or bloating with the weight. A pot with thicker walls would be theoretically possible to slide around the stove, and for 2-3 strong people to pick it up.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.554928 | 2023-07-23T21:59:37 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/124817",
"authors": [
"Ecnerwal",
"FuzzyChef",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/34242",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/7180"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
124833 | Are there any other millets similar to little millet in taste?
I have seen several types of millets in few ethnic stores in Texas. Few of the names are Proso Millet, Barnyard Millet, Kodo Millet, Pearl Millet, Finger Millet, Little Millet. I tried Little Millet and I liked it since it does not have a strong flavor like Finger Millet. However, Little Millet is not easily available where I live, are there other millets that have a mild taste?
You can use barnyard millet in place of little millet ,
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.555182 | 2023-07-26T19:56:36 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/124833",
"authors": [],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
124903 | Are the white bits on this beef jerky fat or mold?
I can’t tell if this is simply fat or mold. Anyone have an idea?
When in doubt - throw it out
Fat shouldn't be white at room temperature. If you kept it in the fridge and put the meat in an oven at some low temp (200F for like 10 min), and the "white stuff" melts, it's probably fat
I disagree that fat shouldn't be white at room temp; every time I've had a cooled piece of cooked meat, the fats have been white.
@bob1 cooled how?
Any method, particularly obvious on pork, but also beef, chicken.
I don't think it is fat. I think it is sinew. I make jerky pretty often and even fresh jerky tends to have some white streaks from connective tissue; they don't really absorb the marinade and stay white. And the tiny bit of fat that melts out can also be white if you refrigerate your jerky, but that normally looks more like droplets.
That said, I can't tell how it smells or tastes over the Internet, so as stated in most questions of this nature, better safe than sorry.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.555256 | 2023-08-07T00:05:06 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/124903",
"authors": [
"aaaaa says reinstate Monica",
"bob1",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/42159",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/69823"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
125230 | Removing hog taste from pork
My niece married a man from Mexico and he wants her to make her pork chops not taste like hog. I suggested marinating them in lime juice and season with some Mexican seasoning. Do you think this will work?
related: https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/104307/what-is-the-porky-taste-in-certain-types-of-pork and https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/2933/is-there-a-way-to-prep-mutton-in-order-to-ease-its-strong-flavor/2937#2937
Welcome to the site. I'm not sure what you mean by 'taste like hog'.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.555367 | 2023-09-14T18:29:25 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/125230",
"authors": [
"GdD",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/19707",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/4638",
"rumtscho"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
125354 | How to make low-calorie bread?
I live in a part of the world, where you can't buy low calorie bread in the stores. So I'm obsessed with the idea to make my own.
I've noticed that breads as this one https://www.schmidtoldtyme.com/647-bread/ purportedly have less than a 100 calories per 100 grams and their label says they are basically made with wheat flour. But how can you turn wheat four that has energy content well above 350 calories per 100 grams into bread that has less than 100 calories in the same amount of bread?
I thought that the basic idea is to add other flours besides wheat. But if the energy content labels on my local products are correct, then almost any flour (barley, rice, rye, etc.) has energy content that equivalent to wheat. Except the ones that are made from nuts - they have almost twice the energy content.
Is it some clever way to add and hold water ? What is the secret ? Is it only a marketing fad of some kind ?
Can you help?
I've read the label again. What does "modified variety" means as description of weat. Does it mean that the wheat is genetically altered to have less energy content ?
You seem to be misreading the label. The bread you linked has 40 calories per serving of 27 grams, which is about 130 calories per 100 grams. This is still less than typical bread, but not as radical as your question presents it. Also, the calories in bread are not the same as the calories as wheat.
Yes, the bread sure holds some water in it after is backed (I must carefuly weigh the ready product from one of my baking experiments to get an idea how much). But how they managed to get it to 130 calories from say 260 for typical bread?
I suspect that they might be using insoluble fiber (fiber that your body can’t absorb) to bulk it up. They used to use cellulose in the US for ‘diet bran muffins’, but people didn’t like the idea of eating sawdust. (Which had been used in occupied areas in WW2 as well, so people had something to fill their bellies during food shortages)
It's pretty simple really, they all have about 8 grams of fiber per slice which is really really high, you are usually getting 1 or 2 in most breads. So literally 30 percent of the slice is going straight through you.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.555437 | 2023-09-26T08:28:43 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/125354",
"authors": [
"Joe",
"Mr. Proper",
"eps",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/106228",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/4638",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/67",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/79694",
"rumtscho"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
125506 | Brand new capicola lunch meat slimy?
Bought a pack of capicola from the store today and when I went to make a sandwich with it, I noticed a slimy texture on all the slices and in the packaging. The expiration date isn't until January 2024 and it smells completely fine, I even gave a slice a little lick and it tasted fine. Is it safe to eat or should I return it and get a refund?
AFAIK none of these cured meats should ever be slimy... Perhaps it was stored incorrectly at the store, in warm conditions...
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.555727 | 2023-10-09T10:00:02 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/125506",
"authors": [
"Luciano",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/53013"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
125523 | Marinating time for St. Louis Ribs
Can you marinate St Louis Ribs for 48 hours? I’m using a Garlic and Soy marinade for Chinese Sticky Ribs. It’s a mostly dry rub (brown sugar, salt, dry mustard, ginger, clove and grainy Dijon mustard) as the only wet ingredient.
Assuming you're doing it in a refrigerator, you can pretty much marinate as long as the meat would be safe in the fridge while not marinating.
Whether the results suit you, you'll have to test.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.555797 | 2023-10-11T18:37:47 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/125523",
"authors": [],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
125854 | What is growing on my homemade blackberry vinegar?
My vinegar reads 5% acetic acid. There is an unusual layer on the top, not slimy at all. More powdery and granular.
That looks like mold. I would discard it.
You don’t describe the process of how you made it, but if I had to make an educated guess, I would assume that you made your blackberry vinegar by combining blackberries and store-bought vinegar with 5% acetic acid? In that case, the water content of the berries can dilute the vinegar so much, that it doesn’t sufficiently suppress mold spores. Without more details, it’s hard to go into the “why” this happens, but the “what” is rather obvious.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.555859 | 2023-11-19T22:15:09 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/125854",
"authors": [],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
125994 | White Mold on Apple Cider Vinegar, Salvagable?
I have been trying to make homemade vinegar for the past few months. I have successfully made apple cider vinegar, grape vinegar, pomegranate vinegar and so on.
I recently put a new batch of apple cider vinegar 5-6 weeks ago. It was fine, tasted and looked fine. But 3 weeks ago there was a mold on it, I researched and some said to remove and observe, some said to discard (Similar issue 1 similar issue 2). It was a huge batch so I didn't want to discard it. So removed mold and continued. Nothing for a week. Today I checked again and there is a thick layer of mold. The color is fine. But the taste is not acidic at all. There is no sweetness of apples like usual. Nothing special about smell though.
I wanted to ask, is there any way I can salvage it somehow? Strain it completely, add some more apples, sugar, and water and let it ferment? Has anyone tried it? or will it all be a waste? Or do I have to discard it? Please help.
Below is the image for reference.
No, it doesn't. Sorry. I have read that (as mentioned in my links). Their's taste fine. They have a mother too. Mine on the other hand is not normal mold. Someone suggested its kahm yeast.
Certainly looks like Kahm yeast. Which I don't consider a major concern, if you actually have a mother under it making vinegar successfully. But perhaps you don't? See also the old saw about "not putting all your eggs in one basket" with regard to the benefits of not doing one huge batch, but rather multiple smaller ones...
"Mold on vinegar" questions pop up on the site fairly frequently - the OP probably didn't find all the old ones. And the answers seem to never be specific about some kind of mold. I have now created (a Meta discussion)[https://cooking.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/3834/] about how we want to treat these questions. There we can decide whether we as a community have the means and ability to provide custom answers to each such question, or if they should be considered duplicates. There is also my (last answer)[https://cooking.meta.stackexchange.com/a/3827/4638] about mold questions.
@Ecnerwal I don't have a mother unfortunately. That's why the linked answers were not helpful. Since there is no acidity after approximately 2 months now even though all my other vinegars were acidic even slightly at 3 weeks going. What I want to know is if I add fresh ingredients to it, will it work in saving or will it all be a waste? Plus, the eggs in a basket, as mentioned I have been successful in the production of vinegars previously, of different types even. So i felt confident in going for a bigger batch. But it didn't work out.
@rumtscho I checked reddit, youtube, google and here. I was not able to find about kahm yeast (someone on reddit told me). Each time I wrote about white squiggly cotton on my vinegar, I was given mold, but images of mold was different from what I had. One person even had worms in their vinegar. So, I tried from my side, but nothing helpful was found. I am in favour of a post with all the troubleshooting issues. Just please make sure that it has images as well so we can match our stuff with it. Thanks alot.
Rather than adding fresh ingredients to it, I would try your fresh ingredients in a smaller jar by themselves until you get acidity/a mother, and then add the working mother to the difficult batch. Or, ask a fermentation friend for a bit of working mother to get there faster.
However, the yeast will have been eating the sugars in the cider to support their growth, so what you'll get from this batch is unknown. If adding sugar, I'd suggest waiting until after adding a mother.
Hmm. Got it. I will try that. I already have mothers of my own from previous batches. I will try that. But I am now a little scared due to what the other person (Sneftel) said. But lets see how it goes. Thanks
If (as it appears to be in the far-away view) it's Kahm yeast, and your closer examination and removal of it is consistent with it being Kahm yeast, it's not toxic. This stack loves to kneejerk to the most dire remote possibility on any food safety issue, and "you said mold!!!" in your question, so that's an entirely expected sort of answer around here. There are fairly good pictorial and behavior resources on distinguishing Kahm yeast from mold on many fermentation information resources. Use them. From what I can see inthe picture, it's white to yellow white and only on the surface. That fits
Likewise, on what seems to be the sharpest part of the picture when I zoom in, it appears smooth, not fuzzy (of course it's obviously corrugated itself as it's grown, but I don't see fuzz.) I'm unfortunately familiar with it from sauerkraut, where it's a common annoyance if anything escapes the wights and floats to the top. It's notably not black or green or pink as well as not appearing in the picture to be fuzzy.
I have had mold on kimchi which is patch like and tastes weird. This on the other hand is waaay different. I will check and verify from resources as you said that its kahm yeast (possibility is very high). And then move accordingly. Thanks for the clarification and suggestions. Appreciate it.
Honestly, it doesn't look good. If there was ever an active acetic acid bacteria culture there (and I don't see signs of one) the mold has long since outcompeted it, eaten up the sugar, and possibly made it chemically inhospitable to bacterial life. You might be able to strain it, boil it to inactivate antibiotics, and add sugar for fermentation, but I would also genuinely worry about toxins (even heat-stable ones) left behind.
Apple juice isn't valuable enough to engage in heroics here.
Thank you. I had not thought about the extra toxins and stuff. I would upvote but I can't. Thank you once again. Appreciate your input.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.555947 | 2023-12-04T07:53:23 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/125994",
"authors": [
"Ecnerwal",
"Freed",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/107239",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/34242",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/4638",
"rumtscho"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
126201 | Can the large plastic frying oil containers be reused as water storage containers
I am looking for information on if the peanut and vegetable oils that come in plastic jugs that have a handle on them can be reused as water storage containers. If they can what would need to be done to make sure they oil/grease was all out of the container to be able to use it to store water in it.
I find that it’s very difficult to remove every last bit of oil from a container and would not recommend it practically.
Sure. Water storage containers basically just need to be made of food-safe material and not have anything on them that would make the water taste weird, and since these just held oil there wouldn’t be anything to dissolve into the water. Put a few drops of dish soap in, fill halfway with water, cap and shake until sudsy, and drain and rinse a few times (until no longer sudsy) and you’ll be good to go.
I have often done this. Definitely use liquid dish soap. Seems to work better if the water is warm and you fill halfway and shake like hell, and rinse a lot, like fill it up from a running tap to overflowing and leave it like that for 5 minutes. Repeat the whole thing if you aren't sure.
Depending on the type of plastic (thus the point at which it softens, temperature-wise) warm or hot or boiling water and baking soda (sodium bicarbonate, a base, which will turn the oil residue into soap) works for me. Fill it up and give it a nice long soak, with a tablespoon or two (15-30 ml) of baking soda in each jug.
A specific example is that it has worked to get the taste of kalamata olives out of plastic containers that retained their scent after several normal washings.
I have not had to resort to washing soda (sodium carbonate, or baked sodium bicarbonate) or lye to get results.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.556356 | 2023-12-25T22:37:23 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/126201",
"authors": [
"Michael Harvey",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/64319",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/76403",
"suse"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
126230 | Should I wash the rice before making t'beet (Iraqi chicken & rice)?
I have just stumbled upon a recipe for t'beet, which is an Iraqi oven slow-cooked chicken and rice dish.
Most of the recipes I found come from American websites, where they do not indicate that the rice needs to be washed. I live in France, and I know that in the US, most supermarket white rice is already washed.
But I wonder whether not washing the rice has a purpose for this specific dish, or shall I wash it?
Thanks in advance!
Let me give you more specific advice on T'beet/T'bit and rice.
Many Middle Eastern rice dishes require washing rice in multiple changes of water, because that's the Persian tradition that ensures very separate grains of fluffy rice. As such, you can never to wrong with rinsing your rice for any Middle Eastern dish.
However, in dishes were the rice is going to be cooked until wet, soft, and sticky, rinsing it isn't required, since the rice will be sticky anyway. T'bit/T'beet is one such recipe; the rice is slow cooked with beef and/or tomatoes with the chicken until it sticks together in clumps.
As such, rinsing the rice is optional.
Recipes for reference:
Boston Globe
Rozenberg
Gather Table
Amy's
Most rice cultures wash their rice, because white rice may still have a layer of ‘fine bran’. If the rice was stored at higher temperatures or for too long, the little bits of bran can go rancid and spoil the taste of the dish. Even without the rancidity issue, some people think that it spoils the taste of the rice.
If you’re getting rice that’s been stored well, you may not need to rinse it for that reason, but it still may throw off the dish as the rice ends up a little stickier. Many Iranian dishes try to make sure that every grain is separate, and I suspect that would apply to other cuisines of the region.
As such, you probably don’t ‘need’ to wash the rice, but it may get you closer to recreating the original dish.
(Japan now has ‘no-wash’ rice, supposedly selling it as a way to save water for restaurants and in drought stricken areas, but I don’t know how far it has spread, and if it’s only japonica rice or also long grain (which might break during processing), which is more common in middle eastern cuisines)
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.556514 | 2023-12-29T12:35:33 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/126230",
"authors": [],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
126259 | What does layering biryani actually do?
I've recently been experimenting with biryani (mostly chicken hyderabadi) and one thing that sort of puzzles me is making layers of rice (as typically instructed in recipes) as opposed to just having mixed rice over the chicken, even when each layer is topped the same way (ghee, herbs, biryani masala, saffron milk, fried onion). What is actually going on here and why does it make a difference? I would think that a haphazard mix of rice, spices and fried onions would achieve basically the same thing. You might not mix it too thoroughly so that you still get some unevenness like you would with layers. The steam should also still distribute unevenly the same way as it gets more trapped at the bottom, I guess. The final dish that is served is also not really "layered" in the same way as e.g. lasagne, so it's not like it's a textural or structural thing either.
Related: https://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/121623/67
From what I understand, biryani is never stirred except at the end when it is served.
Part of the reasons for not stirring is that traditionally during the second stage of cooking, the partially cooked rice is finally baked and steamed in a sealed pot. Prior to this, the rice is often cooked in stock beforehand to add flavour, but again it is not stirred.
As moscafj has said, part of the appeal of a biryani is the crispy layer of rice at the bottom, which would be lost upon stirring. But layering has a much more important role to play in the biryani.
Part of the inherent problem with the dish is the large volume of bland rice versus meat. It is a difficult balance to season such a dish throughout properly with liquid, whilst maintaining the correct texture. Traditionally, the layers were very different ingredients and each layer was independently seasoned so that sufficient flavour was added to the rice. The difficulty here with the mixing method is if you add sufficient liquid to intensify the flavour, the rice will potentially be soggy and overcooked, which is what would happen if the starch was released from the rice by mixing or too much much liquid added.
By building the biryani in layers, and seasoning each layer as it is assembled, different flavours are absorbed by each layer. Every layer of rice can then maintain the required "Stiffness", as very little liquid is added, just sufficient to either be partially absorbed or steamed off. When assembling the dish the rice is always gently placed on top of the ingredients, and never pushed down, as this again could break the rice.
The ultimate test of a good biryani is separate, cooked pieces of rice that are well seasoned and flavoured independently of any other pieces of meat or vegetable etc. from the dish. With care, you could achieve this with a stirred mixture, but to do so consistently (as the properties of rice varies considerably with age and variety etc.) would be challenging.
Stirring also would mean that you no longer have as much variation in the dish— some cuisines really value there being multiple flavors / textures within a dish rather than it being completely homogeneous.
It’s also probably out of scope for discussion here, but there are cultures where people eat on a set order (male adults before women and children). Layering would give the people eating first the option to select more protein or carbs instead of it being a fixed ratio in the whole dish. Even without the cultural aspect, some people just prefer one more than the other
Also: depending on how you're serving it, the layers may still be separate when served. Yes, it's common to dump everything out on a platter, but sometimes one carefully unmolds the biryani, or even serves it in the original cooking pot, so all the layers are intact.
When I cook a biryani, my goal is to ultimately get a crusty rice layer on the bottom. I use a dutch oven. When ready I flip the biryani onto a serving platter (a tricky maneuver for sure), the crusty rice (with luck) is on top. The layering simply serves to ensure that everything inside is evenly distributed, but that the rice layer is intact. The desired crusty rice layer is the only reason I see to avoid mixing thoroughly in advance. It certainly won't impact the flavor or cooking, but you might not be able to achieve that even crust, which is my personal goal.
Isn't the meat usually "in the way" so that you don't really get a crusty layer by contact with the metal surface? Maybe I am misunderstanding you, but I'm not used to biryani being crusty, at least not like, say, Iranian tahdig. I'm also not really sure how mixing changes that. It is still just rice in the end, or are you avoiding getting onions and herbs in the way of your crusty rice?
@tmph I put a rice layer in the bottom of the dutch oven to start. Then, proceed with layering. I don't know if it is traditional, but I like the crusty rice, and it is the only reason I could think of for NOT mixing everything in advance.
Okay, that makes sense, but I've actually never come across a biryani like that. Sounds a lot like tahdig though, which is another dish I enjoy so worth a shot for sure!
@tmph...yes, I suppose I am really going for an Indian biryani with a tahdig-like crust...it never gets that evenly crusty, but any crunchiness is enjoyable.
Adding a historical note, which supplements the other answers on this question:
Historically, Biryani only had two layers (see video of making a 1500s biryani here). It consisted of a meat stew (usually goat) with parboiled rice on top, cooked in a large pot over hot coals. In order to have the rice steam properly, it had to remain mostly above the stew. The wet stew could handle long, hot cooking. Rice grains which dropped to the bottom of the pot (or were mixed in) would turn to mush or burn.
The many-layered biryanis we see today are descendants of that early version. In some cases, the layering probably is actually an affectation, and doesn't affect the taste/texture much if the biryani is being scooped out onto a platter. But in other cases, it might change the final result.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.556722 | 2024-01-03T07:01:14 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/126259",
"authors": [
"FuzzyChef",
"Joe",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/107657",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/17143",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/67",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/7180",
"moscafj",
"tmph"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
126364 | Bread dough never gets sticky! I want it to be sticky
I am following along diligently to an online course taught by Richard Bertinet. The course deals with a lot of high hydration doughs, and his aim is to teach you how to handle sticky doughs and not be afraid of them.
He is using Wessex Strong Bread Flour from what I have gathered (his recipes all call for strong bread flour). I am using KA bread flour. The Wessex flour is 13% protein, and KA is 12.7% (my thinking is that’s pretty darn close).
Anyway, I measure everything to the exact gram, follow the steps and he ends up with a dough that is almost like goop after mixing, and I end up with a fairly strong dough.
He does all these fun stretch and folds, chases his goopy dough around with a scraper to give it some shape, my dough fights me to stretch even an inch and is far from goopy. I should say this is all mixed by hand. You combine ingredients in a bowl, mix them up with a dough scraper, and turn them out onto an un-floured surface to work with. So it’s not like I’ve kneaded my dough for an hour and am complaining that I can’t stretch it like his, I’ve just mixed it up for the same amount of time he has.
I should also say I tried using Bob’s Red Mill artisan bread flour, same story.
Any idea why my dough never gets sticky, and how I can make it sticky? Is this some kind of obvious thing like, “pshh, this noob doesn’t know you always add 2.678% more water for American bread flours,” or something like that?
Just a thought, my wife bakes bread and finds differences just like you describe. Sometimes it is different time of the season, sometimes it is just a different physical location. But it all boils down to relative humidity and how much moisture the flour has already absorbed. It sounds like your dough is drier than the instructor's dough. If you can ask him about this I would do so.
Related to Steve’s comment, is this the first time you’ve tried this (or first few times all done fairly recently)? If it’s wintertime for you, the air is often noticeably drier, which may affect results. See this article from King Arthur Flour for some related reading. If this is a problem you have regardless of humidity, there may be another cause.
Does he rest his dough? Letting it sit for a while changes how it behaves as the flour has a chance to hydrate and the yeast works. Likewise, the temperature is a huge factor… cold dough is less sticky, and many restaurant kitchens are quite warm
Maybe your scale is the problem?
Ancdotally, I find KA Bread Flour to result in significantly less sticky dough than AP, which can be good when you're starting out. But if you want a softer more sticky dough you might want to just try KA AP. Protein % is important but isn't the only factor; you also don't know how accurate the Wessex nutrition label is and a difference of 1% can be huge. Out of curiosity what is the hydration % in the recipe you're using?
Thatnks for the responses. I really found that KA article helpful. The course was filmed in the summer in England, and I'm baking in the winter in New England, so what I gathered from the responses here is that I really do need to adjust my hydration level (not sure why I was fighting it at first).
The recipe from the course is 70% hydration, I tried 80% and found that looked wetter than the instructors dough, 78% was closer, I'm going to try 75% next and I'm betting that'll be the sweet spot.
Thanks again for the comments.
I bake bread with high hydration doughs. When I first started doing this I was learning from a well-respected blogger. My following of his formulas never resulted in what I was seeing on the screen, and the result certainly was not the same as his. I was following the everything exactly. Over time, I learned that for bread baking small changes in the variables are very impactful. The environment of your kitchen, for starters. Then there are the flours, which (in their dry state) already have differing moisture contents (due to storage environment and type of flour). In addition, different flours absorb different amounts of water. It goes on and on.
Point being, I learned to stop following the blogger's instructions exactly, and I started paying more attention to my environment and how the dough (a living thing!) behaved in my environment.
If your dough is not sticky, there is not enough water. Add more...remember, your environment, your flour...different from his. High hydration doughs will stick to your fingers for the first two (at least) stretch and folds...stick to your fingers so that you actually have to wash them off. By the 3 set of stretch and folds, the dough should begin to smooth out and you should have less sticking. I separate my stretch and folds by 30 minutes and do 4 to 5 sets, depending on feel. The idea here is that you are aligning the gluten strands, so the dough has to be smooth and have the strength to hold its shape.
Keep at it. You will figure our how your ingredients respond in your environment. Don't worry about mistakes...they are almost always edible.
Thanks for this answer. Based on the feedback I've gotten here I've started playing around with adjusting the hydration. I tried 80% and found that a bit too wet, 78% was closer, I'm betting my next attempt at 75% might be the sweet spot.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.557190 | 2024-01-14T18:25:30 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/126364",
"authors": [
"Joe",
"Peter Moore",
"Shane Unger",
"Steve Chambers",
"fyrepenguin",
"hodale",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/102609",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/107832",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/48468",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/66651",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/67",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/85083"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
126366 | Is it feasible to replace the apricot jam in a sacher torte with apricot preserves?
For some reason, none of the local markets or stores have any apricot jam or jelly. Only apricot preserves. They stand there on the shelves, surrounded by the myriad jams and jellies of other fruit/berry categories. Is it ok to use preserves, or is there a way to make preserves more suitable for a sacher torte? All help is appreciated!
The point of the apricot jam is not to be tasted, but to create a kind of barrier between the sponge and the icing. So my first choice would be by texture, not by fruit. I would try getting a jam of very soft and uniform type, from some mild-tasting fruit that would be as unnoticeable as possible in the finished cake.
If you want to use the apricot preserves, make sure that you get some thickened ones, not something that's the "fruit in almost liquid syrup" kind. You may consider running it to a blender. Ideally, you'd also heat it up and cool down once so the pectin can re-bind it into a smooth mass. But that's quite a bit of effort for a small benefit, so you can also skip it.
The technical term for this in German is aprikotieren, which in Enlish appearently is Nappage. Redcurrant jelly, as mentioned on Wikipedia, makes sense, too.
Agreed, better use a different fruit jam than a different apricot product. The jam part is more important then the particular fruit flavor here.
I've only had sacher torte twice, both times in Berlin, and both times it had a very fruity apricot taste - in fact it tasted much more like apricot preserve had been used than apricot jam - is this unusual? Thinking about it, it's possible that both pieces came form the same source (either the Edeka chain store or the deli in Karstadt [we went to both, both times]) so maybe my sample size is really "one" which I admit is less than exhaustive...
@Spratty: as an Austrian, I strongly recommend that when you get the real thing at Café Sacher in Vienna, you do not tell them about getting "Sachertorte" in Berlin. Viennese waiters are experts in delivering excruciating disdain with body language only.
@StephanKolassa - noted with gratitude :-) I don't know why, but I had always assumed it was a German thing; maybe it's the ubiquity of it in Berlin (I'm not widely travelled in Germany an have never been to Austria). I live in fear of committing this sort of gaffe in real life so forewarned is forearmed :-)
In similar situations I've used home made whitecurrant jelly. Whitecurrants are as full of seeds as redcurrants but with a sweeter and much more neutral flavour so whether making jam or sorbet I always sieve them. A smooth plum jam ought to work too. The quantity is small enough that so long as you avoid strong/distinctive fruit flavours and lumps it will be fine. Sometimes in the UK a special smooth apricot jam is seen sold in the home baking section for precisely this sort of thing.
Excellent, thank you. I found some high quality apricot preserves which is nice and thick, not at all runny. I'll be using that, and if I have time, might even use your method making jam out of it. Thanks so much!
@ChrisH not simply plum - I actually thought a jam from Mirabellen might be the closest thing. The catch is that it's likely more difficult to source in most countries than apricot jam.
Yes. Just use the preserves, it'll be fine.
If the preserves have very large pieces of apricot in them, then chop them up.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.557608 | 2024-01-15T00:44:07 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/126366",
"authors": [
"Chris H",
"Rambunctiouslad",
"Spratty",
"Stephan Kolassa",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/107839",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/20413",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/44157",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/4638",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/70117",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/81322",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/91386",
"phipsgabler",
"quarague",
"rumtscho"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
128020 | Slow Cooker Red Beans & Rice
I am preparing to make RB&R in my slow cooker today. It seems easy enough...cut everything up, toss in with beans, broth and spices, turn on, go take a nap. But someone mentioned I might want/need to cook some of the vegetables (onion, green peppers, celery) or brown the sausage (for flavor/texture, I guess) first. I am aware of the chemistry involved in a Maillard reaction so no need to expound on that...
Also, now that I am typing/thinking about it, is there an order/timing involved with adding vegetables? I know that cooking celery (a stem vegetable) too long often leaves it more mushy than other vegetables like carrots and potatoes (e.g. root vegetables).
You can, indeed, throw everything together in a slow cooker and call it a dish; I've had potluck red-beans-and-rice in Storyville (New Orleans) that was made just like this. However, it's not ideal for flavor.
First, the beans take longer to cook than either the rice or the vegetables, so it makes sense to par-cook them before you add anything else, lest the rice get mushy. Also, you're missing a lot of flavor that way. The best RB&R is made by first frying the sausage to render out its fat, and then browning the vegetables in that fat.
I can see that your link refers to a specific recipe on the foodnetwork but for me it just redirects me to the main site.
Oh, they seem to have taken the recipe down. Odd. Replaced it with an inferior recipe, that still demonstrates the named technique.
I wouldn’t recommend doing this, but not because of the vegetables … because of the beans.
You need to boil red beans for a few minutes to denature the lectin in them, which is mildly toxic. (It will make you sick, but probably won’t kill you)
https://www.foodsafetynews.com/2021/05/how-to-avoid-poisoning-from-red-beans/
...and a slow cooker with the lid on boils, so your point is...?
@Ecnerwal it might boil, if you have it set to high, and you haven’t overloaded it. It’s not guaranteed to boil, and it may take an hour or longer to come to a boil if the pot is very full with liquid. Many people use slow cookers on ‘low’ because it will give a better result for many meats, and because it allows them to set everything up in the morning before work, then come home and it’s not over cooked.
Also, cooking the beans below a boil increases the toxicity. See https://cooking.stackexchange.com/a/90850/67
Red beans are not the same as kidney beans. The standard for Red Beans and rice are a small red bean, which has a much lower lectin content than kidney beans and doesn't have the same cooking issues.
@Joe the post you link doesn't support that statement. The main text repeats it from other sites, but cautions that it's unsupported; the comment discussion concludes that it's untrue. Following the sources in the paper linked in the comments leads to https://ift.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-2621.1985.tb13281.x, whose abstract says that cooking beans at 82 C for 160 min deactivates the toxins.
@Ecnerwal a slow cooker with the lid on still shouldn't boil. It will very gently simmer, but most of the liquid should remain well below 100°C even on high
@FuzzyChef true, but what's the most likely substitute if the small ones aren't available?
@ChrisH You're really arguing that a warning to an OP about something they weren't planning to do anyways is a useful answer? Like, really? I mean, Joe just made a common mistake that folks who haven't made the dish often make. Why double down on someone else's error?
@FuzzyChef because kidney beans are very common in recipes even if they're not authentic.
@Fuzzychef And because other beans still have lectins even if not at the level of red kidney beans. People on this site will rake people over the coals suggesting unsafe food handling is okay, but you take issue for me trying to keep people from suffering from food poisoning? WTF?
There's zero evidence that undercooking creates health problems with any other common type of beans.
@FuzzyChef it’s not an issue of ‘undercooking’ (not cooking enough). It’s an issue of cooking at lower temperatures without first denaturing the enzyme increases the toxins in the food. So a bean that might not have a high enough concentration of toxins under stovetop cooking (without the boiling step) could have sufficient levels to affect people (especially children and elderly) if you use a slow cooker
Right, and that's ONLY a problem with kidney beans, because of their unusually high concentrations of lectins. It's not a known problem with any other bean. So your answer should start with "A warning if you're making this with kidney beans instead of red beans ..."
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.558014 | 2024-04-03T17:31:53 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/128020",
"authors": [
"Chris H",
"Ecnerwal",
"FuzzyChef",
"Joe",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/20413",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/34242",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/4638",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/67",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/7180",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/81322",
"quarague",
"rumtscho"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
127910 | How do I can coffee with milk? Basically a canned latte
I've been running my coffee shop for a while now and would like to venture into the world of canning my specialty drinks. my biggest hiccup so far is how to preserve the milk. I've seen that most canned coffees with milk use nonfat milk with either pectin or xanthan gum to make up for the lack of milk texture, but nothing on how they preserve the milk. ive done quite a lot of digging but can't find what these companies use to stabilize their milk products. Please let me know if you have any insight into how I can start this. Thank you.
There is no way you can do this on your own. Home-canning safety regulations explicitly forbid any canning of dairy. That would cover also any sale under cottage-industry licences.
If you want to do this as a part of your business, it might be possible to find an industrial canner who would handle the canning for you. At that point, you're no longer responsible for coming up with the procedure, it will be the canner's food technologists who will take care of it.
How you find that canner, or how feasible it is practically, legally or financially, is out of scope for our site.
sweet thank you. we would definitely be going through a canner for this project, I just trying to learn as much as I can beforehand.
Then I'm not entirely sure what you're asking. If you want to have an idea at what could happen at the canner, here is a random video of a production line for canning coffee, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkSGw4m9enE. They appear to brew it on-site, but I'm sure that a canner who takes outside orders will have worked out logistical solutions.
The first thing to keep in mind is to avoid the typical mistakes that can spoil our coffee, and follow the basic rules so that our drink is top class: use original beans, as fresh as possible, freshly roasted, and freshly ground. , with a clean coffee maker and also using quality water.
I fail to see how this answers the question?
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.558399 | 2024-03-20T15:38:15 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/127910",
"authors": [
"Garrison Foster",
"Stephie",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/109629",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/28879",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/4638",
"rumtscho"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
110092 | What is the best combination of gluten free flours to bake light and fluffy muffins?
I am on a diet that also excludes corn and egg whites
Hi! Welcome to Seasoned Advice! Gluten free baking usually involves more than just flour-swapping. Do you have recipes you're working off of? As is, this reads like something of an opinion question ("the best") or recipe request for gluten free muffins. Both of those would be off-topic for our Q&A format
@AMtwo actually, we consider questions to be opinion based when they ask for "the best" overall, but not when asking for a single measurable criteron, such as "the best for achieving lightness [of the muffin's crumb]". You are right, if somebody would answer with a recipe, we would delete that, but there are ways to answer literally.
First, the good news: the right flours can indeed make a difference. The optimal one I have found for a light texture is corn starch. As you say that you can't have that one either, the second best is non-glutinous rice flour. Try to find a mix with a high proportion of it.
Flours you should avoid for light muffins include:
dark flours, e.g. from teff or buckwheat
whole grain flours
large-particle-size flours
nut flours
Sadly, the third one is not something you can find written on the packaging - so if you want to develop a mix on your own, you will have to buy flours from different producers and see which one is ground more finely, then stick to that provider.
Also, when developing a mix, you should try to have a high ratio of amylose to amylopectin - so use lower amounts of waxy/glutinous starches such as tapioca starch of potato starch.
From there on, there is no single "best mix" for lightness, different mixes will be optimal for different recipes. If you have an existing recipe in mind, you can optimize a mix for it through trial and error - and notice that you will also have to optimize other things like the choice and amount of binders, and tweak the recipe a bit. This is so complicated that dedicated gluten-free recipe designers usually go the other way - they settle on a mix they like, then engineer their recipes until they work well with that mix. If you want to dedicate your time to this process, looking at existing "preferred" mixes and some rounds of testing should let you settle on a mix you like.
If you don't want to spend the time needed to engineer your own combinations of recipes and mixes, you have two options:
Buy a commercial mix. Try to find mixes which are formulated especially for muffins and similar batters, this will be a bit better than trying an "all-around" mix. The resulting texture will never be optimal, but if it is good enough for you, it is the least work.
Stop baking random recipes, find authors who have engineered their recipes to be gluten-free, bake these recipes only and follow them to the letter (this is much more important in gluten-free baking than in standard baking, because you have almost no leeway).
Stop baking muffins, completely. Muffin recipes tend to produce a rather heavy texture when done with wheat flour, and when you make them even more stody by going gluten-free, there may not exist a gluten-free muffin that you enjoy. If you want something this size, orient yourself towards baking cupcakes, which give you many more options to achieve a light texture.
Hi welcome to seasoned advice.
I don't know if this will help but I have been gluten free since birth.
The best combination of flours for muffins are:
3oz polenta
50g quinoa flour
1 1/2 tsp guar gum
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1tsp baking soda
Some of these ingredients are not sold in supermarkets so order at a specialized gluten free flour company online.
I hope this helps :)
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.558588 | 2020-08-08T17:38:03 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/110092",
"authors": [
"AMtwo",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/45339",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/4638",
"rumtscho"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
110143 | New to canning, first attempt Peach Jam
First time canning my ball wide mouth jar may have gone into the water bath with the lid depressed. Must it go in with the lid in a popped up position? Now cooled, it makes a thud sound when tapped with the side of a spoon, but the lid is stuck to the jar. Any opinions on if this is properly sealed?
It sounds like you now have a serendipitous opportunity to crack into some jam!
It should come out of the bath with the button up and as it cools, the button will pull in with a satisfying pop.
If that doesn't happen the jar might be sealed, but there just isn't a good way to know short of forcing the lid.
If the lid is stuck firmly, without jam having leaked out onto the seal, I would be confident in the seal.
If you really want peace of mind, you can clean the rim, replace the lid with a new one, and process the jar again.
Thank you. The jar is clean and lid stuck very well. I will use this jar now and gift the others.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.558873 | 2020-08-12T00:27:27 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/110143",
"authors": [
"Jason",
"Susan Regina",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/83804",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/87115"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
110167 | Water seal vs open crock pickles
I was lent a crock with a water seal lip, which was used for making sauerkraut. I want to use it for making pickles, which I have usually done by placing a cloth over the crock. Searching for information online, I can only find that I'm less likely have foam/scum to skim off. Curious as to what other differences I can expect? Or is the anaerobic environment not make a difference?
Thanks!
As long as your vegetables are submerged, you will be fine and there really is no difference. You will likely need to place something on top to keep the vegetables under the brine. Often a "pickling crock" will come with weights that fit inside, but anything will work. By way of example, I simply use one of these containers for my vegetables and brine. Then I fill a second with water, and place it on top. That keeps the vegetables from floating, and limits the formation of mold on top of the ferment.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.558989 | 2020-08-12T18:56:02 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/110167",
"authors": [],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
110317 | Keep dinner rolls brushed with olive oil overnight
I received dinner rolls brushed with olive oil from take out from an Italian restaurant (part of the brown paper bad they came in became translucent during the 15 minute trip from the restaurant home due to the olive oil). I would like to keep the dinner rolls fresh for the next day. The environment I live in is 80°F and 70% humidity at night. What is the best way to do this? Seal in a plastic bag to keep the oil from oxidizing? Refrigerate, freeze, or leave on counter?
The good thing is that the oil won’t go rancid in a few hours, which allows you to focus more on how to keep the bread part at its best.
Don’t refrigerate and don’t freeze, the former will make them go stale, the latter can dry them out disproportionately, considering the short time. Either keep them in the closed paper bag or transfer them to a plastic bag or container.
For some rolls, overnight on the counter is also fine, but that depends a bit on how they were made.
Tomorrow, you could quickly warm them up before serving, but don’t use a too-hot oven, I would guess something around 150°C/300°F should do.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.559094 | 2020-08-21T01:08:26 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/110317",
"authors": [],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
110407 | How does repeatetly moving food from freezer to fridge and back every day affect it?
My fridge and freezer makes noise to the point that it is hard for me to sleep (even with earplugs) so I have began to shut off the power to the fridge and freezer during the night. My fridge is set to 1 degree celsius and my freezer is set to -18 degrees celsius.
When I go to sleep I move all the fridge items such as milk, cheese, butter, meat, kefir to the freezer and shut the power off for 9-12 hours when I sleep. When I wake up again, I turn the power back on, wait about an hour or so and put my items back in the fridge. The freezer temperature when I turn the power back on is around 3-4 degrees.
I don't feel ill when I eat the food, all I have noticed is ice crystals in the milk and that the cheese is a bit harder to slice. I am wondering about the long term effects of this process, both the food safety aspect and the quality of the foods. Is there any food items that are less safe to do it with?
I assume you have no food that needs to be kept frozen. If you do that's your greatest concern.
If, as suggested by your measurements, the fresh food never gets above the recommended maximum fridge temperature, the quality is going to suffer, possibly quite a lot, but the safety shouldn't, within the use by dates.
You may be able to keep the quality better by leaving the food in the fridge, but transferring a lot of ice from the freezer. I'd freeze several large plastic bottles, about 3/4 full of water, when the freezer is running, and move those into the fridge when you turn it off, leaving the food in there. Refreeze the next day. This is the approach used in many camping coolers, and it sounds like you have the ability to ensure the temperature doesn't get too high.
If it's so noisy that it's keeping you awake through earplugs, even if it's right next to your bed, that is quite likely to mean it's on its way to failing completely. The fact that your freezer is warming so fast is probably partly the unfrozen food going in and partly that it's empty of frozen stuff. It may also be a further sign of imminent failure.
Thank you for your answer. Correct, I have no frozen foods. I have tried the approach you describe but I found that the temperature in the fridge was too great. The fridge/freezer is not even two years old so I feel quite certain that it is not going to fail soon. I think it's the vibrations the fan makes that gets amplified somehow but balancing it is an impossible task. The mechanic told me that there's nothing I can do about the vibration / sound and that they are not really designed for someone to sleep in the same room as, but the kitchen is in the same (only) room as the bedroom sadly.
It could be 2 days old and about to fail, but if you do replace it, get one without a fan. Many models just have a compressor that hums quietly. Also make sure it's level on the floor and perhaps put some carpet or foam mat under the feet
Is it the fan ?
You are stating that the freezer is at about 3-4 C that is within the safe zone for refrigerated food. And the actual food having been colder and warming up may actually be slightly lower than the air temperature in the freezer.
Fans are usually fairly quiet on a recent models of fridge freezer.
If a fridge freezer is loud enough to keep me awake when wearing earplugs it must be fairly noisy, and I would be thinking it is likely to be a gas leak or compressor fault. That may result in a fridge freezer not being able to attain safe operating temperatures.
However you have stated that in a follow up comment that you do not keep frozen food. So there are no concerns about that being affected by the repeated turning off of the freezer.
At present the food is not likely to be detrimental to health, but if it is a progressive leak or compressor failure the may not remain so in future.
A couple of links:
Noisy Compressor
Noise and Other Problems
Sometimes a freezer can get noisy simply because it is not installed on a level surface. Ensure that it is placed on a flat surface before testing for other issues. This noise may also be caused if the Defrost Water Pan is loose or has not been properly installed. Other common issues that lead to this type of problem are malfunctions in the evaporator motor, condenser motor, or the internal compressor.
The tendency to get ice crystals in fresh refrigerated food suggests it is actually below 0 degrees C. That is affecting the texture and quality of the food but not producing a health hazard.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.559217 | 2020-08-25T15:46:48 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/110407",
"authors": [
"Chris H",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/20413",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/87351",
"user810259"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
117746 | Why is meat sometimes tender and sometimes tough when cooked for a long time?
If you overcook a steak it will end up tough and hard to chew. If you cook ox tail for a few hours, however, it will become extremely tender.
What determines whether meat becomes tough or tender when cooking it for a long time? How can I maximize tenderness?
Fat, collagen or connective tissue, and cooking time and temp, all have an impact on tenderness. Steaks with uniform fat marbling are graded higher because, not only does fat add flavor, but when it breaks down it makes the steak more tender. Collagen begins to melt and dissolve to gelatin between 160F and 180F (71C and 82C). Oxtail (in your example) has much more fat and collagen than your steak. When the fat and collagen break down, you get tender and moist meat. Since steak has some fat, but much less collagen, it will overcook, the fat will melt out, and you will be left with an overcooked and dry product. Of course well-cooked steak can be tender (though, depending on the cut, some more tender than others)...and poorly cooked oxtail can be tough, so applying proper cooking technique to the particular cut of meat to maximize tenderness is critical. If you want maximum tenderness, find a high fat, high collagen cut, and cook it with moist consistent heat until the collagen melts out....short rib, or pot roast come to mind as examples, along with your oxtail.
Is there anything else that matters for meat tenderness other than the temperature, moistness and the properties of the cut of meat itself? When cooking pork ribs for example, I've noticed that even after cooking it to the internal temperature that the recipe indicates it ends up drier and tougher than expected
@Hawkings recipes are guides. They are rarely foolproof instructions. The fat/collagen content of yours could be different from the author. You could have cooked that at a higher temperature (are your thermometers calibrated?) for too long a time You may not have controlled the moisture the same way the author did. You may have used a different breed of pig. Was there a specific variable you had in mind?
The answer by @moscafj is spot on - the main contributing factor to this difference is the connective tissue, this is the difference in those slow-cooked pieces of meat that make them fall apart, fork-tender. The connective tissue breaks down into gelatin which provides loads of lovely moisture and lubrication to the meat, and that lovely soft experience we all recognise with slow cooked meat.
What is connective tissue though? It's the part of the muscle that basically holds stuff together (broadly speaking) - so the more strain the muscle is put under, the higher the amount of connective tissue you can expect. This is why you might hear people refer to certain cuts of meat as "hard-working" - this means the muscle gets a lot of use, so it has lots of connective tissue, and will be a good cut to slow cook.
Great examples of this would be beef/ox-cheek (think about how much a cow uses its cheeks to chew all day long! cheek is one of my favourite cuts of beef for this reason), ox tail, brisket (brisket can be responsible for supporting about 60% of the cows weight)
This also isn't limited to beef/pork, but the same factor can be seen in chicken breasts vs thighs/legs - chicken breast muscle doesn't do much day-to-day, so is lean with limited connective tissue, and dries out quickly as you cook higher temps, where as the thighs and legs get constant use, so they can with stand much higher temps of cooking and still be deliciously juicy (also why I prefer cooking thighs!).
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.559602 | 2021-11-06T00:50:02 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/117746",
"authors": [
"Hawkings",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/17143",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/96332",
"moscafj"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
117791 | Can I leave cut (but airtight wrapped) aged pecorino at room temperature for a couple of hours?
I bought it for a friend and want to give it to them but I will have to travel with the aged pecorino cheese for a couple of hours at room temperature before giving it to him. Is it safe to do so?
It is about 150 grams and it is really aged and really airtight, wrapped in a thick plastic wrap (that is how I bought it from the store).
related (but asking about an intact wheel and multiple days, so not a duplicate): https://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/43834/67
Pecorino Romano can be stored at room temperature for weeks, even without vacuum sealing. So you're fine.
I've done it a few times. Still sealed in the plastic packaging that it was sold in.
You're probably shortening the storage lifetime on it, but as it's something that's made near room temperature, I don't think it's quite as much of a big deal as meat, soft cheeses or other high-risk foods.
If you can, you can wrap it in something insulating (clothes, for instance), with an ice pack. Although if you're flying in the US, the ice pack would probably be taken by security unless you check your bag.
Traveling with a block of cheese in your carry-on bag will likely get you a bag search, as they just see a block of organic matter, and can't tell if it's cheese or a block of explosives. This is especially problematic if you have a lot of cables and electronics in your bag with it.
I agree it's safe to do, in the interests of not stinking your mode of transport and making enemies try and seal it up really well.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.559903 | 2021-11-08T17:51:11 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/117791",
"authors": [
"GdD",
"Joe",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/19707",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/67"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
119261 | seasoning meat overnight with crème fraîche?
What does the crème fraîche do?
thanks
The day before you want to serve this dish, season the beef shoulder with salt and ground black pepper, and put the beef in a nonreactive container, such as Pyrex. Pour the 1 cup crème fraîche over it. Roll the beef shoulder to make sure it is completely covered with crème fraîche. Cover and refrigerate overnight.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.560038 | 2021-12-21T03:34:25 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/119261",
"authors": [],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
119425 | Advantage of flexible cutting mat?
For anyone who owns and uses a flexible cutting mat, what do you enjoy about it?
Thanks
Howdy! This question explicitly asks for opinions, which is off-topic per the site guide: https://cooking.stackexchange.com/help/dont-ask Please change the question to make it possible to answer it with facts and citations. Thanks!
I can cut/chop ingredients then curve the mat to transfer them to a pan/container without spillage ...
They also take up less space and I have four colour code mats for meat, fish, vegetables, and fruit.
Yep, those are basically the main advantages of why I use them. And being plastic, they can go through the dishwasher, so I'd pull one out and place it on my wooden cutting board when dealing with meat. (or fish, but I don't cook that very often)
Oh, and some of them have a hole in them -- so I can hang them on the side of a cabinet, so they're easy to grab when I need them. (I use have 3 sets at this point that I rotate through ... the set without holes hardly ever gets used)
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.560199 | 2022-01-06T18:15:33 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/119425",
"authors": [
"FuzzyChef",
"Joe",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/67",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/7180"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
119281 | Is this butter ok to eat?
It was white when I bought it 2 weeks ago.
I didn't open it up yet. I was gonna open it up just now but I saw new yellow stuff and some green/grey stuff on it.
Should I open this up and eat it or return it?
https://i.sstatic.net/B8GWb.jpg
I wouldn't, why risk it?
Ok, I'm mainly asking to learn how butters work
The grey/green discolouration looks like mould to me. I wouldn't risk eating it.
URT: 20/11/2021
SKT: 19/03/2022
URT is an acronym of the Turkish "Üretim Tarihi", meaning "Production Date".
SKT is an acronym of the Turkish "Son Kullanma Tarihi", meaning "Expiration Date".
PN is an acronym of the Turkish "Parti Numarası", meaning "Batch Number".
Since it has mould before the Expiration Date, it has not met its requirement and should, therefore, be returned for refund, and the supplier can then return to the producer to report faults with the batch.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.560318 | 2021-12-23T03:32:58 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/119281",
"authors": [
"Billy Kerr",
"Ron Beyer",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/68613",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/69138",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/97011",
"user97011"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
119392 | Have they done something to onions recently?
Not long ago -- possibly less than a year -- I bought onions from the same store in Sweden, as medicine. I would chew on a segment so that my mouth "burned", and then wash it down with some "sour milk".
Recently, for the last few months at least, I find that they barely taste anything. It puzzles me. It's not in my head. It cannot be. They used to be much stronger in taste. Now, it's like they barely taste anything at all in comparison. It no longer "burns". It doesn't feel like it does much good as medicine.
Have they started doing some kind of "GMO" thing to onions now or what? Or does it have some other explanation?
Well, there is something going around that causes people to lose their sense of smell and/or taste, sometimes for several months....
is it possible that you've had Covid? The EU hasn't authorised any genetically modified onions, seems more likely you've had the extremely prevalent disease that affects your sense of taste...
No, the onions you're buying have not been genetically modified. The EU regulates GMO foods very strictly and hasn't authorised any GM onions.
It's possible that you're buying a different cultivar of onion which may have a different taste. I've never heard of the alternative medicine practice you're describing, but some onions (e.g. vidalias) are easier to eat than others and may not taste as strong to you if you're looking for a cooking onion rather than a sweet onion.
Another explanation might be more likely - you had Covid several months ago and it's still affecting your sense of taste. Even mild cases can have lingering effects.
Edited to add: you say you're going to the same store. Consider going to a different one and comparing the flavour of the onions there.
Other factors could be the amount of Sulphur in the soil and temperature where the onions grew. Lower Sulphur and lower temperature can mean sweeter onions, but not tasteless...
@kitukwfyer good points. It's the sudden loss of flavour that makes me think something has changed about the asker rather than the onions...
@kitukwfyer : ‘tasteless’ might just be a translation mistake if someone is Swedish. (You often see questions from people from India stating they have a ‘doubt’ which is a common mistranslation of ‘question’). But I also suspect it’s equally likely that they got a ‘sweet’ variety of low-sulphur onion to it being Covid related.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.560422 | 2022-01-02T16:59:12 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/119392",
"authors": [
"Joe",
"Rdd",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/31313",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/56913",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/67",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/93981",
"kitukwfyer",
"user141592"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
119454 | Oatmeal Peanut Butter Raisin Chocolate Chip Nut Cookies
I have a large oatmeal cookie recipe. For the oatmeal, choc chips, raisins and nuts they say to stir them in by hand but the recipe is so large that I can't stir them. Due to getting older I no longer have the strength in my arm to do that. Is it possible to mix them in the standing mixer without changing the texture of the cookies. Thanks.
It is likely the hand mixing is to avoid breaking the nuts apart and smearing chips and/or raisins. Just use the mixer on a low speed, and only until mixed. You should not have a problem. I always use a mixer for cookies, regardless of add-ins. This step will have minimal impact on cookie texture, whereas, the proper creaming of butter and sugar, as well as emulsifying/whipping in eggs will.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.560629 | 2022-01-10T16:01:45 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/119454",
"authors": [],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
120123 | my german red cabbage does not have much liquid. red german cabbage is dry
Is german red cabbage supposed to be dry and if not What do you do if your german red cabbage is dry.
I’m afraid we need a bit more information - what are you talking about? The plant? A preparation? A dish? Please [edit] your post and clarify.
Are you referring to the German "sweet & sour cabbage" side dish, (known as Blaukraut or Rotkraut or Rotkohl)?
I'm going to assume you have cooked red cabbage and the result is dry. You want to cover the red cabbage (or any other cabbage) as it cooks to prevent moisture loss, if you aren't covering it then that's the first thing to fix.
There really isn't any magic to it, you just add some water to it as you cook it. Red cabbage, and other cabbages for that matter, don't have that much liquid in them. As they break down they release moisture, much of which will escape out of the pot as it cooks, so you just add a splash now and again to keep it wet enough. You can also use other liquids, I've seen people use wine, I've used apple juice/cider. It all depends on the flavor you want.
Or, cook it with a lid on the pot to retain the moisture.
You have a point @gnicko, I am working on the assumption that the poster is covering while cooking as that's the standard method, but you are absolutely right. If the the poster isn't it's one of those 'well thar's yer problem' moments.
Single-sentence questions kind of force you to start at square one in considering the answer...
Sorry I did not explain correctly. I cooked german red cabbage and I did cover it while it cooked but I thought it would have more liquid to it. I have bought red cabbage in a jar once and it had a lot of liquid. Next time I will add some wine or water to it. Thanks for your answers.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.560728 | 2022-03-20T18:46:51 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/120123",
"authors": [
"AMtwo",
"Chris Decastro",
"GdD",
"Stephie",
"gnicko",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/19707",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/28879",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/29838",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/45339",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/97254"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
119473 | Is it safe to eat homemade yogurt after a sugar ant fell in it?
I'm so frustrated right now. I just made a gallon of homemade yogurt, only to find a tiny sugar ant has been marinading in it at the top for 24 hours(it's a 24 hour ferment). Is the whole batch spoiled?
Most ant species are edible. One ant in a gallon of yogurt probably doesn't matter much, aside from you being put off by it. I would scoop it out and proceed as if it was never there.
Nothing to worry about, just extra protein.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.560889 | 2022-01-11T20:30:34 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/119473",
"authors": [
"GdD",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/19707"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
119724 | Minimum time/temp for clove-flavor infusion?
I'm tweaking a recipe for cooked eggnog. The first step is to bring a combination of milk, light cream, and cloves to a scant boil. After that, the cloves are discarded.
I want to see if I can get similar results without having to get that mixture so hot. But I'm concerned that a lower temperature won't extract as much flavor from the cloves.
Is there a good source of information for this?
Maybe this is unrealistic, but ideally I'd like to know, for a given cooking spice, what the trade-off curve is for (cooking time) x (max cooking temperature) x (size of grounds) vs. (amount of flavor extracted).
So far I've only found guides for how to create liquid extracts for various kinds of spices, e.g. here. But they all focus on creating extracts for later use, rather than directly infusing the flavors into something presently being cooked.
There are instructions for making clove oil that don't require heating ... but it's possible that the compounds you want to extract are a combination of oil, alcohol, and water soluble. (and they may extract differently at different temperatures ... so you might get a different mix of flavor compounds depending on the liquid and temperature)
I'm afraid this doesn't sound very answerable. With extractions, less time and temperature don't simply mean quantitatively less flavor, they mean a qualitatively different flavor. Also, if we were to somehow handwave this, you didn't specify some of the important factors for the curve, such as the ratio of milk to cloves, and the amount of flavor compounds in the batch of cloves you have. In the end, it is not impossible to create such curves - people have done such optimizations for tea - but way too costly, and not interesting enough to the average cook.
The formula you are looking for doesn't exist
Speaking in general terms, I don't think you'll find a one-size-fits-all answer for spice-temperature infusion times. Different spices will react differently with water vs fat vs alcohol. Spices (and foods in general) are complex plants where certain compounds give certain attributes, and those attributes will change depending on what you do to the spice.
Cold-infused vs hot-infused can give different flavor profiles. Hot coffee vs cold brew coffee is a good example of how varying time & temperature gives dramatically different flavor results, even given identical ingredients.
About that eggnog though
I always remember something a science teacher told our class when I was very young: "Whether you're making a solution, or dealing with more complex reactions, the three basic ways to speed them up are to shake it, break it, or light it on fire!"
Speed -- This is a key part, in that time is a factor. If you just let cloves sit in milk, eventually they (might) infuse sufficient flavor, even at fridge temp. But given the relatively short shelf life of milk & cream, time is not unlimited, so quicker is better. So time is a factor to consider.
Shake it -- Stirring, swirling, shaking, and agitating all count here. Stirring prevents a build-up of a gradient where the "stuff" saturates the liquid touching it, while the liquid at the other parts of the container are still virgin. I don't think that you can stir your way to extracting flavor from cloves into cold milk, though.
light it on fire -- More generally, this just means heat. This is the thing you're trying to do less of. You could try heating less, but for a longer time.
break it -- This seems like it might be the best choice in your case. Just use ground clove. It'll give off it's flavor much more readily due to the increased surface area. If it is finely ground, you can leave it in the finished product without completely removing it.
A combination of lower heat + using ground clove might get you to your end goal. But keep in mind that heat does more than just infuse flavors. The milk will change by being heated, and that might have downstream effects on the recipe, including the point where the eggs meet the milk. :)
I reckon you might do best starting with whole cloves, broken and bruised using a pestle and mortar. The flavour will be better than buying ready-ground, and straining will be easier - I think you don't want to leave the ground cloves in based on what I've tried with dried ginger. Of course fine grounds will strain out using coffee filter papers, though rather slowly
I want to see if I can get similar results without having to get that mixture so hot.
Most if not all Western cooking systems call the technique of bringing milk or cream just to the precipice of a simmer scalding. It gives uncooked dairy some depth and sweetness (like in cafe au lait) and/or helps infuse aromatics like herbs, spices, onions, garlic, etc. I've never seen anyone recommend boiling for this purpose— dairy colloids are pretty heat sensitive, and anything lighter than heavy cream decoagulates pretty quickly at a boil. To scald, You need only bring it to 180F/185F, or until you'll see tiny foamy bubbles forming at the milk line on the pan wall.
Reasoning about the ratios of time to temperature to mass is the right line of thought, but your most effective tools will be experimentation, good taste, and intuition. You needn't be that precise unless you also know the specific aromatic compounds you want to extract, their solvents and heat volatility, what the temperature delta should be, ambient pressure, humidity, etc. I reckon that's the land of food chemists who have GC-MS equipment and centrifuges at their disposal. For things like this, you've passed the point of diminishing returns once you've spent more than you would have on an extra carton of tester milk.
(That said, a good instant-read thermometer is a very good investment, and Dave Arnold, owner of the now-closed Booker and Dax, recently released a consumer-grade centrifuge for cocktail enthusiasts!)
If I wanted to maximize clove flavor in milk using only real cloves rather than clove oil or something, the first thing I'd consider is whether or not appearance mattered. If not, I'd experiment with clove powder by adding a tiny bit, letting it steep, adding a little more, etc. until you got it in the ballpark, and then use a fresh batch of milk to test your final ratios. If the little specks would throw off the appearance too much and per-recipe cost isn't a huge factor, just double or triple, etc. the number of clove buds you add. IF cost is a significant factor, you can always try infusing with powder and straining through a fine-meshed sieve, cheese cloth, clean kitchen towel, or even coffee filter— though even scalded milk might be tough through a fine coffee filter.
Also, time is a significant factor! If you don't get enough scalding it as the recipe stated, turn off the heat and leave it covered for two or three times the recommended amount. Maybe even turn the heat back on super low and keep it warm. As long as you don't get it too hot or let too much water evaporate, it should be stable hot in the pan. (The FDA prudently says to make sure it's not between 40 and 140 for more than a couple of hours, and not between 70 and 125 for more than an hour.) My gut says covering it and leaving it in the fridge overnight would increase the clove flavor a bit, but I've not tested that at all. It would also increase the "your fridge" flavor a bit in the wrong container.
Of course, now that I've typed all of that out, the first step would be to just try scalding it without boiling it and seeing if your results were satisfactory. TBH they probably will be.
You mention clove powder, but you’re going to risk losing volitile compounds if you buy it already ground. It might be better to crack or grind the cloves yourself just before steeping.
Sure— lots of spots you could really tighten it up if you get down to the nitty gritty. My gut says that would probably affect the character/depth more than the overall strength unless it'd been ground for quite some time, but why not if you've got 5 minutes and a mortar and pestle.
Thanks everyone! Here's my takeaway from the comments so far:
Practically speaking, experimentation with iteration is still my best bet.
Bringing the milk to a boil is probably unnecessary. My next experiment should cap the temperature at 180/185 F.
If that doesn't work, consider some combination of
(a) a longer and lower simmer
(b) grinding / pulverizing the cloves (perhaps filtering them out later)
(c) Or just use a clove extract
Cream and cloves first.
You have milk, cream and cloves. The cream will do fine extracting the clove oil by itself because it is fattier. Boil your cream and cloves until you smell the cloves. Then add the milk.
The milk will cool it down so the whole thing is not so hot. The clove flavor in the cream will mix with the milk. Discard cloves as with the original.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.560967 | 2022-02-02T18:33:18 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/119724",
"authors": [
"ChefAndy",
"Chris H",
"Joe",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/20413",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/4638",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/60392",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/67",
"rumtscho"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
120077 | Sushi Salmon left uncovered overnight in fridge safe to eat?
I thawed raw sushi salmon the day before and then wrapped it in papertowels and put it in the fridge overnight, but I forgot to put a lid on the container.
It the salmon still safe to eat? Since the papertowels were also a lil wet due to the frozen salmon leaking some juices.
There is nothing you've identified that would make it unsafe. As long as you've kept it below 40F (4.5C) you are good. Covering is not a critical issue for safety, temperature is.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.561882 | 2022-03-12T11:26:25 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/120077",
"authors": [],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
120171 | How to reduce the sweetness of a cake recipe without reducing the sugar
I am experimenting with cake recipes for my son's wedding. His fiancé wants a vanilla almond cake, and I have found a recipe that is nearly perfect, but a little too sweet. I have tried simply reducing the sugar, but even reducing it a small amount messes with the texture of the cake. I am trying to find if there is a way to tone down the sweetness without changing the texture or tenderness of the cake. Any suggestions?
Frankly no, you can't make it less sweet without reducing the sugar. However, if you post the complete recipe and method we can help you reduce the sugar and balance the other ingredients.
In some cakes (e.g. lemon, fruit, or even coffee) you can offset the sweetness, but it's hard to see how in that one. The full recipe might give some ideas, but it's not a simple substitution
Consider using a less sweet frosting, or a drizzle of a citrus syrup to offset the perceived sweetness. Also remember that if you are stacking a cake, you do not want it light and fluffy or it might not have the structural integrity for lower layers; you want something more like pound cake
I'm voting to close this as it's been over a day and the poster has not edited with the recipe, it's therefore unanswerable as there's not enough detail.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.561959 | 2022-03-28T02:10:21 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/120171",
"authors": [
"Chris H",
"GdD",
"Joe",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/19707",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/20413",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/67"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
120775 | Can frozen food that absorbed fridge odors still be eaten?
A foil food container wrapped in foil containing a potato casserole molded in my fridge that caused a bad moldy food smell in the fridge that transferred and absorbed into the frozen foods in the attached freezer. Can the frozen food still be eaten and is there a method to neutralize the mold odor from the frozen raw meats that are in airtight heavy freezer plastics to still be cooked for consumption? Specifically raw frozen scallops, frozen raw chicken in ziplock freezer bags, ground beef and also some packaged items still unopened in their original packaging such as cooked frozen meatballs, cooked sausage dogs, fresh frozen ravioli and fresh frozen pastas.
Welcome to the site. I can't see how smells would be transferred from fridge to freezer as there isn't airflow between fridge and freezer - each side is separately cooled with its own sealed air recirculation. I suspect you have gotten that smell stuck in your brain, it's like when you can't get the stench of rotten milk out of your nose. A trick to get rid of that is to smell coffee grounds. It's also possible that your freezer is smelly for other reasons and you're just noticing that now due to the unfortunate situation with your casserole.
To address the smell issue, there's no food safety concerns with odors. The smells won't make you sick, although it could make some food unpalatable.
The best thing you can do is get rid of whatever is causing the smell and then thoroughly clean your fridge and freezer.
Some fridge-freezers do transfer cold air from the freezer to the fridge. The other way round wouldn't make any sense - it would warm the freezer - but the return air from the fridge then passes over the coils and back to the freezer. My old one did this. The fridge was on top of the freezer in that model.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.562083 | 2022-06-07T22:49:58 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/120775",
"authors": [
"Chris H",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/20413"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
121440 | Cross contamination of rotten snake food and cooked food in the freezer
I had a container of cooked chicken pie filling in my freezer and after our son moved back in, he brought his pet snakes and stored their food (dead chickens and rats) in the bottom shelf of our freezer. The trouble is, they had started to defrost in the car while he was moving his belongings. I wasn't happy about them going in the freezer but I relented because of how much it would've cost him to replace it all.
It wouldn't have been so bad except I later found the lid had lifted on the tupperware container the pie filling was in. I resealed it and put the container in a plastic bag as well, but I'm not game to eat it now. It could have been open for a few days or more.
Would the pie filling be edible or would it be contaminated by the rotten dead animal smell in the bottom of the freezer and should I throw it out?
Welcome to the site - the general rule is "If in doubt, throw it out". More details on how the carcasses are contained would be helpful. My experience (with a freezer that thawed out unnoticed) is that the rotten smell will have permeated almost everything in the freezer and make most things inedible anyway, however, I don't know about putting potentially rotten meat into a working freezer.
@bob1 From my reading of the story here there's not likely to be any actually rotting meat in the freezer – the snake food started to defrost but was then put in the freezer. It might well be outside the food safety zone but I wouldn't assume it is already at the stage of smelling bad. (The OP mentions a bad smell but it wasn't clear if it was already present or just a fear.)
Whether or not it's safe to eat, it seems like you'll be worried about it if you eat it, so I would give up on this batch of chicken pie filling because you're unlikely to enjoy it if you're thinking about snake food. Depending on what's in it, maybe the snakes could enjoy it instead.
@dbmag9 it was the "the rotten dead animal smell" part in the last sentence that I was going off.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.562244 | 2022-08-24T01:38:24 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/121440",
"authors": [
"bob1",
"dbmag9",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/36356",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/69823"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
121504 | Cooking rice in bulk and adding to stew for weekday meals
I usually cook a stew of some kind on a Sunday, put it in a container in the fridge, I then eat it for an evening meal during the rest of the week up to Friday or Saturday. Each weekday evening I cook a portion of brown rice and once cooked I add it to the stew.
Would it be safe to cook 5-6 portions of rice on the Sunday, then mix it in with the stew and store in the fridge? My reasoning for doing this is because it would drastically reduce my energy usage. I guess I am paranoid about rice not being safe to store?
In typing this question a previous similar question came up, Cooking and storing rice for a whole week, but it doesn't answer my question because it is about cooking rice and then storing it separately.
Hi, I know that people tend to think that each food is somehow "individual". But in fact, food safety rules are very generic. Cooked meals have a fridge life of 3-5 days, regardless of what you put in them, and so the question you found is actually relevant. I now closed as a duplicate of our canonical storage lifetime question.
Adding rice to the stew in advance will most likely make it absorb a ton of water, which will thicken the stew and turn the rice soggy and mushy. Not sure if you want that.
@rumtscho rice is different to many cooked foods in that it's stricter because bacillus cereus spores can survive cooking and it's higher risk. The UK FSA for example states 24 hours in the fridge (after the usual cooling as quickly as possible). The canonical answer at the question you linked doesn't mention this difference, therefore this isn't a duplicate. You should have checked before using mod powers to close this question. I will vote to reopen but I suggest you edit the answer at the target
As a general rule if it's not obvious why we're closing a Q as a duplicate of that canonical one, we should explain it in a comment, and if we can't, it's not a dupe, is it?
@ChrisH usually, indeed, we would reopen if the question is a very specific exception. In this case, rice is so common, that my preference would be to edit the rules for cooked rice directly into the answer to the canonical question, and keep this one closed.
If it would actually " drastically reduce my energy usage" you are doing something very wrong
@eps if I only have to cook rice once a week instead of six times then that is quite a reduction in energy usage.
@eps microwave reheating of batch-cooked food is a well-known technique for reducing cooking energy usage
I'd freeze it instead; prepare individual portions.
You could use freezer bags or plastic containers.
In my experience, rice starts to go bad (mostly texture and taste) after 2 days.
I second this; for sure freezing brown rice on its own works surprisingly well (I was expecting weird texture, but it tasted absolutely fine!).
I have followed this answer for a year now with brown rice and have lived to tell the tale. You have to slightly overcook the rice, then portion it up and freeze in small bags. Then 2-3 minutes in the microwave and mix into the pan with the stew as you warm it all up. Once its all mixed I'd dont think I could tell the difference with freshly cooked. Although I dont think I'd do this if I was serving the rice separately, it can be clumpy until mixed with stew.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.562437 | 2022-08-30T11:40:00 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/121504",
"authors": [
"Chris H",
"Esther",
"The Footsie",
"eps",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/100637",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/20413",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/4638",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/79694",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/80388",
"rumtscho"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
121536 | What would a hissing sound mean from a pressure canner?
Pressure cooker making a hissing sound Any idea what happened?
It only did this one time, and not sure what I did wrong.
what were you/it doing at the time?
What type, age and model of pressure cooker were you using? The earlier generations of pressure cookers will make a hissing sound when coming up to pressure and intermittently during cooking as well. The newer models are a lot quieter, some will barely hiss at all.
There are two main types of regulators: ‘jiggling’ ones that that will give off steam when they get up to pressure (keeping it from over pressurizing) and ones that seal once they’re at pressure, but have some sort of a fail safe to vent when they’re too far past pressure. So the first one hissing is good. For the second, it’s a sign that it’s not yet to pressure (or significantly over pressure, but that should be more than a slight hiss)
It's normal to hear hissing from a pressure cooker, in fact it's a sign it's working. When you heat a pressure cooker the water inside turns to steam, which is captured by the seals to increase the pressure inside the vessel. Once the pressure reaches a certain point a valve will open to let some of the steam escape so the higher pressure is maintained at a constant level. If this valve didn't work then your pot could rupture if it's a very old one, so it's a very important safety feature for older cookers. Modern pressure cookers have redundant safety features like pressure plugs to ensure safety.
Note that lack of a hiss doesn't always mean you are in imminent danger, usually it's a sign you don't have a good seal rather than a bad valve. I would suggest you track down the hiss, if it's coming from the valve then it's normal operation, if it's coming from around the lid then it's not sealed properly. When tracking the hiss down remember it's steam escaping and be careful not to burn yourself. If you can't see where steam is escaping you can use a big spoon to detect it rather than your ear, or a mechanic's trick is to use a short piece of hose or straw as a stethoscope.
To be clear, on a modern pressure cooker there’s about three separate failsafes to prevent an explosion. There is no need to be afraid of a pressure cooker that is not (yet) hissing.
That's true @Sneftel, I am not assuming this is modern but it's worth an edit.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.562825 | 2022-09-01T18:09:44 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/121536",
"authors": [
"Esther",
"GdD",
"Greybeard",
"Joe",
"Sneftel",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/19707",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/58067",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/67",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/67481",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/80388"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
121558 | Can I substitute sambucca in my pie crust instead of vodka?
I accidentally put sambucca in my pie crust instead of vodka. Will it ruin the taste of my pie crust
Welcome to SA! I need to hear the story of how you accidentally substituted these. Just for my own education.
It will add a taste of sambuca (as opposed to vodka's neutral flavour) and lots of sugar, which might affect the texture of the pastry a little. But if the dough came together and felt normal it should still bake decently. The vodka's role in the recipe is to reduce gluten formation, and the alcohol in the sambucca means it will still achieve that purpose.
Whether it will 'ruin' the taste depends on your preferences and what else you are putting in this pie.
It’s an apple pie. Will that be ok? Thank you for your answer.
@ReneeLennon It will be an apple pie with a crust that probably tastes somewhat of sambuca. I, and other users here, are not the ones eating it, so our opinions are not the relevant ones (and StackExchange doesn't take opinion-based questions anyway).
@ReneeLennon If you found the answer helpful, you can upvote it using the upwards arrow to the left, and if you feel it answered your question you can mark the question as 'answered' using the checkmark (but normally it's good to wait a while before accepting an answer, to give other people time to write).
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.563045 | 2022-09-03T20:26:50 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/121558",
"authors": [
"FuzzyChef",
"Renee Lennon",
"dbmag9",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/100712",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/36356",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/7180"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
121682 | I forgot that I soaked rice , urad , and chana?
Well I soaked uncooked rice , urad dal and chana together at 7 am and now at 5am I completely forgot about it ! What sould I do ? Is it safe , if I do it now ?
Was it refrigerated?
Was it completely submerged in water the whole time ?
@AJN submerged in water or not doesn't mitigate the food safety issue (unless it was completely dry, which is clearly not the case). It is a question of temperature. Refrigerated = this would be safe. Un-refrigerated in this time frame = potential for pathogen growth.
Yes, although presumably the OP is still going to cook them before eating.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.563188 | 2022-09-17T00:36:17 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/121682",
"authors": [
"AJN",
"FuzzyChef",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/17143",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/62059",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/7180",
"moscafj"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
121925 | Pressure canner processing time cut short
Pressure canning dried pinto beans, 7 quarts for 90 minutes. My range top malfunctioned and the 90-minute timer still had 9 minutes to go. After cool down period, all jars sealed. Will it be safe or do I need to pitch it?
I’m not a canner, but my understanding is that there’s a safety margin built into the times, so as you got 90% of the way there, and the jars sealed, you’re probably okay. If you want to be especially careful, let them cool down, refrigerate them, and use them soon. It shouldn’t require disposing of
The functioning of the stove (and heat input) matters less than the pressure and temperature maintained in your canner during those 9 minutes.
If your dial/weight jiggler indicated that it was at correct pressure for your altitude during those 9 minutes, then the 240F steam temperature needed for canning was properly maintained, the beans are safe and properly processed.
The full lethality time at pressure and cooling down is needed to guarantee safety for the products based on the researched and validated product processing tables - for those unfamiliar, refer to USDA's Complete Guide to Home Canning (chapter 4, p. 4-5 for dried beans).
If there was any doubt regarding processing time, as @Joe said there is a safety margin built in to the processing schedules for home use, but safety as validated isn't guaranteed. It's easy enough to fix within 24 hours with reprocessing, there's no need to discard - refer to this answer for more: My jars sealed, cold packed raw chicken quarts, but canner ran dry towards the end. Can I reprocess within 24 hrs when my new canner arrives?
With reprocessing you'll end up with perfectly safe but mushy beans though, so you may want to reprocess with added ingredients as baked beans.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.563271 | 2022-10-11T19:51:45 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/121925",
"authors": [
"Joe",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/67"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
122068 | How do you make orange herbal tea from scratch?
I'm trying to make homemade orange herbal tea bags from scratch.
I have found some recipes that require drying fresh orange peels, and then brewing it on a stovetop with other spices such as cinnamon, cardamon, and cloves.
If I am trying to make tea bags, should I try to crush all the ingredients into powder or should I leave them relatively whole in the tea bag?
I'd like to accomplish 3 goals for the tea bags:
They can be stored for a long time
They will continue to taste good when brewed
They can be brewed relatively quickly by just using the tea bag in boiling water.
Does anyone have any experience on which method would be better, or perhaps suggest an alternate method?
They can be stored for a long time
They will continue to taste good when brewed
They can be brewed relatively quickly by just using the tea bag in
boiling water.
With these goals, I would suggest storing your ingredients in an air-tight container in a cool, dry, and dark place (e.g. inside a sealed tin stored in a kitchen cupboard) rather than dividing them up into tea bags. Then when you're ready to make a cup of tea, take only the amount you need for one cup and spoon it into a reusable tea diffuser like this. This meets all of your goals and will help give fresher, better tasting tea than storing in tea bags.
Whether you use a diffuser or tea bags, I recommend breaking down your ingredients just small enough to fit into your container. You don't need to crush them into a powder (especially with a diffuser where too small of ingredients will flow through the mesh and into your cup, which isn't what you want).
Also, keep note that different teas require different water temperatures and brew times. If you're sticking to purely herbal teas, steeping tea for 5-10 minutes in water that is just off boiling will give you the best results. Green and black teas tend to be more finicky and will begin to taste bitter if steeped in water that is too hot or for too long.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.563435 | 2022-10-21T17:49:09 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/122068",
"authors": [],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
122173 | What is the optimal way to freeze bananas?
This is something i've always had difficulty finding a foolproof method for. Some swear by keeping it unpeeled, but I find that it's harder to unpeel. If cut up, it looks like you need multiple ziploc bags to ensure that it doesn't turn colors, and that a freezer bags aren't 100% effective.
Is there a tried and true foolproof way to freeze bananas?
what do you plan on using them for once frozen? the answer may depend on the intended usage.
Top reason is that they become ripe before I am ready to use/consume. Main planned uses once frozen is usually to make smoothies or banana bread, which the latter I acknowledge requires the banana to be very ripe and mashed.
The best way to freeze bananas so that they don't turn brown and are easy to use, is to peel, slice and flash freeze before you put them in a freezer bag.
Simply peel and slice your bananas. Lay them flat on a piece of parchment paper on a cookie sheet and put in the freezer for 2 hours until they are solid. Transfer them to a freezer bag and remove as much air as possible.
You can freeze these for up to 3 months and they will not turn brown.
Note: this is solely for cases where mushed bananas are acceptable/desired
I often make bananas into banana bread, and what I usually do is peel them into a gallon ziploc bag. Next, I mush them inside the bag, then evacuate all the air and squeeze the mash towards the bottom of the bag (and I like to roll it up to help it stay nice an sealed). You can do this one at a time as you collect overripe bananas, or in a group.
This lets you have relatively little browning and also have pre-mashed bananas on-demand.
Additionally, as you add bananas to the bag, use a Sharpie to tally how many you've put in the bag. Then, for banana bread (for example) once you have however many are in a single/double batch you can set the bag aside and start on a new one. You then have a pre-measured quantity of bananas ready to go, and you can even cut a corner off of the ziploc to make it function like a piping bag for mushed bananas.
This works great if you want mushed bananas to bake with, not so well in any other use-case.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.563593 | 2022-11-01T00:26:44 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/122173",
"authors": [
"Esther",
"T L",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/101462",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/80388"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
122264 | Substituting black beans for ground beef in a meat pie
My wife has recently decided not to eat meat, so we have been substituting black beans for ground beef in some of our favorite dishes. This has worked fine so far, but I am not sure about making this substitution in cheeseburger pie. The recipe calls for browned beef with sauteed pepper and onions, tomato sauce, breadcrumbs, and some spices to be baked in a pie shell with a cheese topping. Simple and delicious.
So far, we have simply done a pound-for-pound replacement of ground beef with beans. But I worry that mashed beans (as we have done in the past for meatball substitutes) will yield a pie that is too dry and dense while un-mashed beans will not be cohesive enough to be served as a pie (like a pie shell filled with bean salad). Should I mash some beans while leaving others whole? Any other suggestions for a vegetarian cheeseburger pie?
Are you open to meat alternatives such as Beyond Meat or Impossible Burger? I find the latter to be a great substitute for ground beef whereas the former is a little too smoky and "fake meat" tasting.
I often use beans instead of meat, and I think you'd get away with it, but your concerns are certainly valid - it might come out a little dry. It partly depends on the proportions, especially of the tomato sauce.
I can offer a few suggestions to tweak your basic recipe:
Mash the beans (some or all - I'd go for all, knowing that some will be merely broken when others are no longer recognisable as beans) with some suitable liquid. That could be more sauce, for example, but something including both water and oil is best.
Increase the amount of onion, softening (some of) it slowly for longer with the lid on, incorporating the resulting tasty liquid into the beans. Even better is to make caramelised onions - I make big batches in the slow cooker and freeze them.
Mix a little grated cheese in with the beans - not necessarily a tasty cheese, but one that melts nicely. This will have a slight binding effect if serving hot, much more if you're planning on allowing it to cool.
The first two suggestions allow you to adjust the feel of the filling, the last less so as the cheese would melt when you bake the pie - but I do only mean a little cheese.
Some more ideas, adapting further from your original:
When making bean burgers, I start from dried beans, and slow-cook roughly chopped onion (plus garlic and chillies) in with the beans. When I drain the beans I reserve the cooking water, and add some back as I roughly puree the beans in a food processor. That could be a viable option here too.
When I make a bean chilli, it has sweet potato, pumpkin, or squash in it. Adding some diced, roasted veg of that sort would be good for the texture. I suggest quite finely diced, and not a huge amount.
+1 This sounds like great advice. We will make it tomorrow, and I will let you know how it goes.
As you suggested, I used more onion and added finely chopped sweet potato. I did not mash too much to retain some texture. Then I added a couple tablespoons of water, a tablespoon of vegetable oil and about a quarter cup of fontina. The result was pretty good. The taste was excellent. While warm, it was a bit softer than the meat version, but when it cooled, it held its shape quite well. Thanks for the help.
Beans make for a good pie, but not one that tastes or feels much like beef. From your question, particularly the last line, it sounds as if you might actually be looking to imitate the flavor and texture of a cheeseburger pie, so you might try something other than beans:
There are sophisticated meat substitutes made by companies such as Beyond and Impossible that are a much closer match to ground beef in flavor and texture, and can be prepared in much the same way.
Diced mushrooms can have a texture not so dissimilar to ground beef, and they have an umami flavor that is reminiscent of it (or so I am told), more so than beans. You could try frying them a little first, then stewing them.
Textured vegetable protein and seitan can be used to produce a meaty texture, although their flavor can be bland.
Any of these could be used in combination with beans as well, of course.
Our experience so far is that beans are not equivalent to ground beef, but substitutions result in a dish that is just as good but in a different way. We will definitely try Beyond or Impossible sometime though.
@Plutoro that's a good way of thinking of it - inherently but differently good beats fake meat for me
+1 for mushrooms (fresh would also work here added with the onion and pepper, finely chopped)
Use green lentils and minced sauteed mushrooms. Add an umami element such as Vegan Worchest, T paste, MSG, Parm or Kombu powder to replace the missing savory from the meat.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.563795 | 2022-11-07T15:33:34 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/122264",
"authors": [
"Chris H",
"Plutoro",
"coblr",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/101562",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/20413",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/45587"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
122354 | Drying sweet potatoes sticks
I am trying to dry sweet potatoe sticks (look like French fries). I’m drying them in a food dehydrator. When they are finished drying they come out looking like they have mold on them even though they are thoroughly dry. I use them for dog treats. Are they moldy or just discoloured? At what temperature should I use? Thanks for any tips.
Probably oxidation, but depending on what you are doing mold is not impossible. Pictures might help - please [edit] those in. What sort of dryer and what temperature are you using now?
If the discolouration is white, it's most likely sugar crystallising on the outside, so nothing to worry about. For the dehydrator, you can go fairly hot for sweet potatoes - I would use 80-90 °C for a few hours, and also cook (steam) the potatoes before drying. See this wikipedia page for reference.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.564170 | 2022-11-15T22:03:05 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/122354",
"authors": [
"Ecnerwal",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/34242"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
122642 | What is a good substitute for cheddar powder?
I’m making cheddar popcorn and most, if not all, call for cheddar powder that has to be ordered online. This is more of a project/curiosity, so I’d like to try with something I have on hand first.
I have packets of powder that come with Kraft Mac and Cheese and I also have the ubiquitous Kernel Seasons nacho cheddar sprinkling.
Will either of these work or should I try the internet?
This seems on-topic to me, substitutes are a common question. @MichaelN, welcome to the site. Is it just popcorn you want it to be a substitute for, or other applications as well?
Why cheddar specifically? Which taste do you expect in an outcome? Cheddar can be of different maturity, and is usually replaced with Maasdam or Gouda cheese.
Substitutions are absolutely on topic for SA. I don't get why folks are voting to close.
If you need an explanation...I voted to close because this is less of a substitution question, and more of a "I have these two things in my pantry, will they work" - question. To me, that sounds much more opinion based. Popcorn is cheap and it is easy to make a small amount. Both options could simply be tried, and if the OP likes one...move forward. Otherwise, this moves into a question about all the possible cheese-like things that can be sprinkled on popcorn.
Both of those options could certainly work. Both are dehydrated powders that consist primarily of dehydrated cheese. Which one is better is going to be a matter of taste. The Kernel Seasons is specifically designed to go on popcorn, so it's more promising. However, it also adds a bunch of extra spices, so if you just wanted "cheddar" flavor, it's not your best friend.
The Mac and Cheese packet is also primarily dried cheese. However, it includes starch and emulsifiers, which might give the popcorn an unpleasantly gummy mouthfeel. You'd need to try it to see.
Other things I would personally try if I was substituting here include:
Cheddar low-carb cheese crisps, powdered in a blender
A mixture of dry "grated parmesan" and brewer's yeast (if you live near a natural foods store)
Good luck, and have fun with it.
I like the parmesan and yeast combo but would use the parmesan on the popcorn and keep the yeast in its native environment.
I've used yeast extract flakes before as a vegan substitute, it wasn't bad but you don't want to overdo it. Also, you want to powder it first as the flakes were too big.
I've had Kernel Seasons and aside from a slight sugar flavor, it's nice enough. I'd use it again.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.564273 | 2022-12-12T16:46:06 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/122642",
"authors": [
"FuzzyChef",
"GdD",
"Rusurano",
"Willk",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/102011",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/17143",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/19707",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/53826",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/7180",
"moscafj"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
122659 | What is the kashrut status of Maldon Sea Salt Flakes?
Does anyone know about the kashrut status of Maldon Salt? I have heard that salt does not need a kosher certification, but I am not sure if this is true for finishing salts because of the extra process to turn the salts into crystal flakes.
I am aware that "kosher" has dual meaning in the context of salt. I am trying to ascertain the status of Maldon Salt flakes with regard to Jewish ritual law, not it's classification as a type of coarse salt that may be used to remove blood from meat (i.e. Kosher[ing] Salt).
Bonus question: what is the kashrut status Maldon's Smoky Sea Salt Flakes?
https://www.koshertoday.com/news/maldon-salt-company-receives-kosher-certification
Welcome!
As @Max wrote, Maldon sea salt flakes are kosher!
https://www.koshertoday.com/news/maldon-salt-company-receives-kosher-certification
However, no mention was made of smoky sea salt flakes, so I would add the "smoky" with a different kosher product, depending on your taste.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.564483 | 2022-12-14T18:41:40 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/122659",
"authors": [
"Max",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/20118"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
122727 | Can my copper bottom pot be fixed?
My favorite copper bottom pot is finally losing it's bottom. In fact, everyone uses this pot. However, I've hidden it so no one can use it until I find a solution. I hate the thought of tossing it and hope someone can help.
Kinda desperate, Angela
it would help if we had pictures of what exactly is going wrong with the pot.
if you mean the copper is wearing off, I have never seen a service that will re-plate the copper on the bottom. I have some Revereware pans that my parents bought in the late 50s and the copper on them is showing no signs of wearing off. Newer pots may have thinner copper coating that is more prone to wearing off.
The name for people who repair pots is ‘tinker’ but the term has come to mean people who make things, so I have no idea how to figure out if people still do it professionally. You might see if there are any metal smiths (tin smith, blacksmith, etc) who also work in copper. Jewelers work in metal, so might be able to do it, too.
I'm not sure how copper wears off, unless you are rubbing it.
I'm new, therefore not sure how to add a picture.. yet. The copper bottom is not wearing off, it's separating. Like it's been soldered to the stainless steel pot and now it's becoming unsoldered (is that even a term?)
Angela: is the copper in the form of a round, flat plate, on the bottom of the pot?
Yes it is round and flat. I would add a picture but apparently I'm not doing it right
Is there another community where my question would be better received and possibly resolved?
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.564578 | 2022-12-20T18:28:32 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/122727",
"authors": [
"Angela",
"Esther",
"FuzzyChef",
"GdD",
"Joe",
"Steve Chambers",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/102198",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/19707",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/66651",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/67",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/7180",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/80388"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
122730 | Cheesecake without eggs
Can a delicious cheesecake be made without eggs? Without aquafava or seeds? Eggs are becoming more and more expensive but I'd rather not give up cheesecake, if I can help it.
Most ‘no-bake cheesecake’ recipes don’t require eggs. (Hopefully all, unless they’re using pasteurized eggs)
@Joe, or if you're somewhere that has essentially eliminated salmonella in eggs, like much of Europe
@ChrisH: except raw eggs don't provide much of anything useful to a cheesecake. In other words, the reason a no-bake cheesecake doesn't include eggs is the same reason it doesn't include frozen peas or a can of sardines.
@Marti, possibly true, though I could imagine some sort of cheesecake/mousse hybrid working quite nicely, unlike your other examples
I'm sorry. I should have included; I'm not looking for a no-bake cheesecake. Forgive me for not being more sure about my question. I'm definitely looking to cook/bake/steam my cheesecake but looking for something that omits eggs, aquafava or swelled seeds. Thank you.
A Hungarian proverb comes to mind, "if it's a goose, it should be a fat one": if you're going to splurge on something, might as well go all-out. If you want to make a cheesecake, make a proper cheesecake with eggs and sour cream and all the good stuff, and if eggs are expensive, maybe don't make it as often. (Or have oatmeal for breakfast instead of eggs.)
I'm pretty sure that an eggless cheesecake is by definition going to be a no-bake cheesecake, because without the eggs or a substitute, heating cream cheese will just liquefy it.
I found an eggless recipe I'm willing to try. I'll update everyone with a link, IF it's worth the trouble. Thanks everyone. I've already got my 2 pounds of cream cheese.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.564739 | 2022-12-20T19:55:53 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/122730",
"authors": [
"Angela",
"Chris H",
"JPmiaou",
"Joe",
"Marti",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/102198",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/20413",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/2569",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/39087",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/67"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
122784 | Urgent help for cheesecake
I just baked a chocolate chip cheesecake in the oven for 65 minutes and forgot to put a water bath in there! what do I do to make sure that it's done okay? I don't have a thermometer. Did I ruin the whole thing?
Can you use the tooth pick test ?, it should be dry-ish.
or the jiggly test ? it should not be too jiggly.
https://www.bhg.com/recipes/how-to/bake/what-is-the-best-way-to-check-if-a-baked-cheesecake-is-done
(I have no experience with cheesecakes)
If the recipe called for 65 minutes with a water bath and you baked it for 65 minutes without one, it will certainly be done and almost certainly taste good.
The texture might be different than the recipe intended because you've effectively let it get a bit hotter, and the surface might have cracks (which is only an issue if you care a lot what it looks like). I'd be very surprised if it's ruined!
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.564980 | 2022-12-24T22:13:47 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/122784",
"authors": [],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
122883 | Why not use alcohol ice?
I don't really drink alcohol so it's more of a theoretical question.
I know that some people don't like ice because it dilutes the drink, so they prefer to use metal or stone cubes instead.
However they have smaller thermal capacity and thermal conductivity than water ice.
So my question is - why not use ice made from the very drink you are trying to cool?
Granted, some cocktails may be ruined by freezing but something like whiskey or bourbon or gin should be fine, I think.
Sure, freezing alcohol requires much lower temperatures then water but the whole glass shouldn't be too cold; such ice won't dilute the drink and should have reasonable thermal capacity/conductivity.
Sure, it may require a specialized freezer (in a bar or a restaurant) but a simple dry ice box should also work.
You could just add the dry ice. It cools the drink down and makes your whiskey fizzy.
"However they have smaller thermal capacity and thermal conductivity than water ice." - As an owner of metal cubes, they do have liquid (likely water) on the inside.
@user3819867: Thanks for the interesting comment! It helped me to find a Physics.SE question about these cubes: Why do my "steel ice cubes" have water in them?
@user3819867 AFAIK not all of them have water inside; there are also solid stone cubes
fairly obvious and easily researchable answer: ethanol freezing point under atmospheric pressure
@njzk2 obvious in hindsight :) I thought that ethanol freezing point is something like -40 and that water-ethanol mixtures won't freeze as a mixture
Frozen ethanol is extremely cold - around -114°C. Some years ago a teenager in the UK had her stomach removed after drinking a cocktail containing liquid nitrogen (BBC News article). I'd expect ethanol close to it's freezing point could have a similar effect
Amomum, the basic error is that frozen alcohol is incredibly colder than you think.
@CatchAsCatchCan oh dear, that's horrible!
"why not use ice made from the very drink you are trying to cool?" You could potentially have to keep half-a-dozen (or more) different flavours of ice-cubes depending on what you or your friends wanted to drink.
Ethanol has a much lower freezing temperature than water: -114°C. This is considerably colder than dry ice and would require expensive specialised equipment to make and store. It would also be dangerous if it made contact with skin or was swallowed.
Freezing an alcoholic drink, which is mostly water, mostly freezes the water while mostly alcohol stays liquid, so it wouldn't be feasible to have a solid that was the same mixture as the drink itself.
Using frozen alcohol would be dangerously cold and would immediately melt anyway. What is commonly done if someone wants a very cold drink without ice is to store the ingredients and glassware in the freezer so that they start very cold (but still liquid).
I am not sure whether the asker would really freeze pure ethanol. That's not exactly a common cocktail ingredient.
Just beat me to it, whilst I was looking up the exact figures ;) CO2 -78°C, Ethanol -114°C, Nitrogen -210°C & yes, whisky a mere -27°C… still below your domestic freezer's capability.
Technically disagree with the second paragraph - you can freeze alcoholic drinks until solid. But not in a common household freezer.
-1. It is not true that two dissolved liquids somehow freeze "separately" from each other (although under some conditions, this can happen, as in fractional freezing). Normally, the mixture has its own freezing and evaporation points, which are not (!) a linear combination of the freezing points of the components.
@rumtscho No, the answer is correct. When freezing ethanol-water mixtures, the water will freeze sooner, and the ethanol will become enriched. This is specifically done with alcoholic beverages, called freeze distillation.
My god, you are right! I completely forgot that water-alcohol mixtures separate when freezing, it is even used as a method of alcohol extraction!
And using solid ethanol ice does sounds dangerous and very impractical. Thank you!
@rumtscho Just think about the ice crystals floating in Ouzo when it comes out of the freezer ;)
@arne those are not ice crystals. They are anise crystals, which precipitate out of solution - a completely different mechanism from freezing.
@rumtscho, it may not be true for any arbitrary combination of liquids, but freezing is a highly effective way of purifying water. The ice that forms on the arctic coastline, for example, can be melted down for drinking.
Not to understate the danger: People have actually died from drinking vodka and other hard liquors that have been left outside in the snow to chill. You might be able to freeze weaker alcohols like beer, but it probably won't taste very good.
@rumtscho When you have a water based solution, the presence of alcohol and other impurities helps lower the freezing point of the water, but not that of the alcohol. The issue being, once you hit the freezing point of alcohol, it wouldn't be a water-alcohol solution, but water-ice sitting in pure alcohol. An analogy for a similar process is the way liquefied gas are produced from air. As a container cools, dry ice/solid CO2 forms first (-109F) and is removed, liquid oxygen forms next (~ -300F), and then liquid nitrogen (-320F). Only one liquefies at each temperature.
The eutectic point of water and ethanol is about 92.4% ethanol. So rumtscho is right, and everyone saying only the water freezes is approximately right. dbmag9, I've slightly updated your answer to reflect this; please feel free to edit further but I think it's a good correction that helps avoid spreading a common misunderstanding that many people in the comments here are agreeing with.
You could - provided you have a specific custom freezer that can reach as low as -17° F / -27°C - produce whiskey ice cubes.
The question is, should you?
If you are cooling your drink, you are significantly reducing the amount of volatile compounds that you can smell and taste. A purist would probably scoff at the suggestion to drop an ice cube or two into their prized single malt and the Cognac aficionado would lean back, gently cradling their sifter in the warm hand and shaking their head. But seriously, you would be dulling the taste of your cocktail and likely touching said whiskey ice cubes wouldn't be nice either.
@Willeke the question was "why don't people use whiskey / bourbon / gin ice cubes" and my answer was "because the drink would probably be too cold, so parts of the flavor would be dulled".
"likely touching said whiskey ice cubes wouldn't be nice either" (LOL!) Worse than the unpleasant prank that children play on others, encouraging them to toch their tongues to a metal gate in winter.
you'd probably need a much colder freezer than that. If you don't flash freeze it, you'll end up with pure water freezing out first and the remaining liquor being concentrated and possibly not freezing at all.
You're not reducing what you can taste, only what you can smell. For many people (such as myself), the only recognisable characteristic of room-temperature whiskey is ethanol. If I want my nose to not be overwhelmed by the smell of gasoline so that I can identify other characteristics in the drink, cooling is essential. I submit that if you don't need that, then possibly your nose is too dull already!
@DanIsFiddlingByFirelight this leaves me wondering how that freezing point was determined in the first place.
@Graham Interesting, for me it's the opposite: I mostly smell ethanol and not much else in whiskeys on the rocks, but have little issue identifying other components when it's neat. Come to think of it, being completely overwhelmed by any sensation is basically unknown to me: it may be well past comfortable levels, but I would still pick up other, less intense components, be it smell, sound or taste.
@DanIsFiddlingByFirelight No, you wouldn't. You'd get a solid that's a much higher fraction water than the original liquor, and a liquid that's a much higher fraction ethanol. But both would still be mixtures.
Many cocktails are shaken with ice, this isn't to mix it - you could do that with a spoon - it's to dilute the drink with water. This seems counterintuitive, but that's usually desired. The idea of having a martini (essentially gin with some value-adds) without some dilution isn't appealing, they are already very strong. A typical martini is about 28% alcohol after shaking or stirring, using alcohol cubes would bring that up to almost 40%, which is a 42% increase in alcohol!
Cask strength whiskey is between 60-65% alcohol, water is added in the bottling process to bring it down to 40% typically, this is partly due to laws but mostly because over 40% the flavor is too strong. In fact, some single malt aficionados recommend adding a small amount of water to some whiskeys to 'open them up'.
So, alcohol cubes aren't widely used because you don't want them.
The question is based on the assumption that “ some people don't like ice because it dilutes the drink”, but I have heard that usually from soft drink consumers. I think your arguments are valid.
" A typical martini is about 28% alcohol after shaking or stirring, using alcohol cubes would bring that up to almost 40%, which is a 42% increase in alcohol!" OP doesn't suggest ethanol cubes but cubes of the frozen drink, which will not change the concentration
After my tour of a scottish distillery I saw that their shop sold bottles of the same spring water used to manufacture their whiskey, precisely to "open it up". When you are a purist you don't want water from other places to contaminate your single malt! :-)
Freezing a mixture of two liquids solid is quite a complex process.
Contrary to most of the other answers, whiskey/vodka/gin/whatever 40% hard drink starts to freeze at ~ -30°C, but it is only the water freezing at first. It then proceeds towards lower temperatures to deplete the mixture of water until you have almost pure ethanol. This happens at ~ -110°C where the ethanol freezes as well.
(This is also how some wines are concentrated - the wine is frozen, the ice is removed. Ice takes away some acid as well, so the wine is generally improved. The whole thing is done at -20°C or -25°C and not lower.)
Thawing will proceed in the reverse order, releasing pure ethanol first and water next.
Believe me, a lot of things will go wrong.
Cryo gear working at -120°C is not cheap. What's worse, it is not trivial to work with.
You will need to stockpile different ice cubes separately.
A lot of substances will precipitate from the drink in the process. A lot of it will not dissolve afterwards. Instead of whiskey the ice will convert into a discolored liquid with solid residue.
The whole thing will become undrinkably cold, undrinkably strong and even dangerous to touch. Food/drink and health regulators will not be happy.
OP, select this as the best answer, pls.
This is one of the rare "why not" questions which happen to have a technical reason behind them, rather than a random "it could have been done, but nobody cared enough to do it".
It would be way too cold. Hard alcohol seems to freeze somewhere between -25 and -30 C (I found different numbers when trying to look it up). You would need to get it even colder so it doesn't melt right away - these are "ultra low temperature" freezers, which go between -50 and -86 unless you want the fancy stuff (but luckily for you, alcohol has no DNA you need to preserve). Altogether, it would cool down your drink to the wrong temperature.
Here, we also have the point that Stephie mentions - there are also people who think that nobody should cool their drink even with 0°C ice cubes, and frequently the people who say that are the ones who are willing to invest the most in their drinking experience. But there are lots of people who like their drinks cooled with normal ice, and I think that even these people would prefer not to do it with ultra-cold alcoholic-drink-ice.
The logistics of it would be a nightmare. Getting dry ice and the required paraphernalia is not all an everyday task, and once you have it, you have to handle the stuff. It isn't impossible, but it is way more trouble than most people tolerate when they want a drink.
And if you would use an ULT freezer instead (ultra low temperature) - well, there are all kinds of issues around that too. There's the cost (lab equipment range!), the electricity consumption - and when you have it set up, you can't just go around throwing the door open every five minutes and sticking an ice cube tray of room temperature liquid into it, or grabbing one to get out (hopefully not with your bare hands!). A bar could probably build some kind of setup with blast chillers and a temp -18 storage for the daily batch of cubes, but that's an awfully expensive investment for a novelty gimmick, needs expertise and motivation more commonly found in engineers than in bar owners, and a financial gamble without a clear payoff.
In the end, it is expensive, complicated, and without real advantages.
Too cold is correct, I was in a lab with a -86 C fridge, and we froze some whiskey to try it. I seem to recall I set it to -60. Just trying a little burned your tongue like hot soup. Logistics isn't an issue for a restaurant, it's just an expensive chest freezer you plug into the wall, it's easier than a soda fountain, and certainly easier than those liquid nitrogen ice cream stores.
No need for ice cubes
If you happen to store the (~40% ABV) drink in the freezer it won't freeze but will stay cold, I personally have one of the cheaper whiskeys in my freezer that I use for mixing. If you do freeze it that may not be comfortable for humans as it will hit -27 °C (-16 °F) or less.
Why people don't have whiskey cubes
Altered taste - As described by Stephie the low temperature alters the smell and thus taste of the drink, I think approximately to the same extent as the stones cooling the drink down.
Choice - People who drink whiskey for fun tend to have a variety of whiskey, in order to have the whole assortment in the freezer they would need to label and store all kinds of whiskey separately.
Taste change - Air humidity condenses on all surfaces inside the freezer, including ice cubes, it dilutes the drink just as much as if it were a metal, stone or porcelain cube. In addition if there is any smell in the fridge that penetrates frozen stuff it will stick to the expensive whiskey cubes as well. The same could happen to metal or stone coolers but one can simply wash the smell off them.
Freezer temp - The difference between recommended freezer temperature of 0 °F (-18 °C) and the freezing point of alcohol increases the operating costs of the freezer, may cause freezer burn of other items and increase the amount of frost in the freezer.
Taste of other frozen items and general quality of life - given that whiskey has a lower melting point than likely any other item in the freezer it will thaw first. This means that one would need special containers in order to prevent it from seeping out and/or evaporating and ruining frozen food.
What you can do instead of having whiskey ice cubes
Store stones/metal/porcelain cubes in the freezer - this is a general good advice, no real downsides as long as you let guests decide whether they want them or not, make sure you store the stones in their boxes to reduce frost
Store the whiskey in the freezer - this reduces visibility of whiskey, alters the taste, minimal frost
Store glasses in the freezer - not convenient but works, make sure you store the glasses in at least a plastic bag to reduce frost
Regarding the bar/restaurant setting: bars would rather invest in the variety of whiskey than the volume. Sorting through the matching ice would lose them time which would lead to annoyed customers. Having the bartender sift through the ~-35°C freezer introduces a workplace hazard. If they are seasonal they have to thaw litres of whiskey and throw it away. Even if they are not seasonal they have to add a high energy PSU just to make sure the whiskey never thaws.
Storing glasses in the freezer is common practice in Germany, at least for serving shots of "Korn" and a variety of digestives.
@markgraf I didn't know. I tried that on my own and the way I did it was inconvenient. Makes sense to use it for ~20% ABV as those would freeze in the freezer.
With tumbler glasses and the like it certainly is inconvenient, but for those tiny 2cl-glasses it's easy enough. Gives a nice frozen-over look as well as the illusion of being coooooolder than it really is.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.565112 | 2023-01-01T14:56:57 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/122883",
"authors": [
"Amomum",
"Cascabel",
"CatchAsCatchCan",
"CrimsonDark",
"Dan Is Fiddling By Firelight",
"Darrel Hoffman",
"Fattie",
"Graham",
"Karl Knechtel",
"Lodinn",
"Mark",
"Miss Understands",
"Scott",
"Stephie",
"Tetsujin",
"TripeHound",
"Vorbis",
"arne",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/100681",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/100975",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/101125",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/102010",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/102398",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/102404",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/102454",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/111911",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/1672",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/17504",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/28879",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/29045",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/38062",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/41686",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/42066",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/43196",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/43471",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/4638",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/55598",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/78581",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/84167",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/9036",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/91650",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/96553",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/97688",
"infinitezero",
"markgraf",
"njzk2",
"rumtscho",
"sumelic",
"user3819867",
"user71659"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
122945 | Substitute peanut butter instead of peanut butter chips?
Can I use creamy peanut butter instead of peanut butter chips for easy microwave peanut butter fudge with sweetened condensed milk?
Possibly, but probably not. Peanut butter chips are made from partially defatted peanut powder (the stuff that’s left behind after squeezing out peanut oil from peanuts) combined with hydrogenated oils which are solid at room temperature. If you substituted peanut butter (without the hydrogenated oils), the result might not thicken properly when cooled.
If you try this out, also keep in mind that peanut butter is denser than a pile of peanut butter chips. Measure by weight, or just eyeball it and use 2/3 or so as much.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.566328 | 2023-01-08T03:53:45 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/122945",
"authors": [],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
126378 | Appropriate Thickness and Consistency for Quality Restaurant Stock
One thing about making meat stock that I find consistently challenging is how to gauge the correct thickness and consistency of the stock after its initial simmer. As expected, I find this varies widely depending on the type of meat and bones I use and how long I simmer and of course how much water is used.
I don't have a problem experimenting to find the "right" result, but what I'm struggling with a little is knowing when I've achieved the right result. Sometimes after I refrigerate and skim it seems like heavy broth; other times it seems like jello. They usually both taste fine and sure I can just do "what I like", but what I want to know is what the professionals would aim for.
So if I were working in an upscale restaurant making stock, on a scale from "heavy soup" to "jello", with maybe "slush" in between, what kind of consistency would the chef expect the stock be after full refrigeration? To make sure to compare apples to apples, this is assuming the fat has been skimmed but there's been no further reduction after simmer; it's sitting in the fridge ready to be used in a sauce, soup, base for Italian beef sandwiches, etc.
What would be ideal is an objective test, like "it can hold the weight of an egg" or "it stays in the bowl when turned upside down" or "it has the consistency of heavy cream", etc., though I've not come across anything like this.
There are all sorts of stocks and they are used for all sorts of purposes. So, this is difficult to answer. Then there are reductions of stocks used for still other purposes, like sauces. There is not really a singular consistency outcome to shoot for or an objective test.
One can have a very flavorful chicken stock that is thin in consistency, but throw a handful of chicken feet in the pot and, once chilled, it will set up like jello. The gelatin you are extracting adds to mouthfeel, it isn't necessarily a sign of a better tasting stock, but it adds to the texture...the luxuriousness?...of the stock. The variance you are experiencing is related to the products you are making your stock from. If the bones are high in gelatin (or you have a high ration of bones to water), you will extract enough gelatin to impact consistency. But, there are plenty of times that I don't want or need that.
From a culinary school perspective, stock is evaluated on flavor, clarity, body, aroma, and color. In terms of body, it will have a slight thickness and coat the back of a spoon. But there is no single standard in a restaurant setting. The cooking tradition or style needs to be taken into consideration, as does the specific requirements of a recipe, and the preference of the chef.
I make all of my own stocks regularly. In general, I am more concerned with building flavor and don't worry about the consistency all that much. When I want that rich feeling (In ramen, for example...tonight's dinner), I prepare a super rich, high in gelatin stock.
Are you speaking from a restaurant or professional kitchen perspective though? I do understand the variance and the reasons for it and understand that one can always reduce or dilute as required for the dish. But my question is more about what the professional chef wants the generic stock in his or her kitchen to be like at the start of each day.. What consistency does the culinary school instructor look for in an "A+" stock? Etc. Trying to keep it as objective as possible.
@PeterMoore answer updated.
"it will have a slight thickness and coat the back of a spoon" cool yeah that's the sort of thing I'm looking for thanks. Would this be when warm or after being fully chilled? Would you expect it to gelatinize when cold or just be viscous but still pourable?
@PeterMoore when warm. In my experience, that does not guarantee it will fully gelatinize when cold.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.566417 | 2024-01-15T21:31:33 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/126378",
"authors": [
"Peter Moore",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/102609",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/17143",
"moscafj"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
123029 | Kitchen utensil identification - small delicate chopper
Recently, we were cleaning out my grandparents house and found a couple of tools in the kitchen that were odd. One is this small tool that looks like a chopper, but it's very lightweight. The blade is only a couple inches long (toothpick shown in photo for scale) and quite thin, so it wouldn't cut anything hard or tough. Does anyone know if there's a specific task this might have been intended for?
I think it's a simple herb chopper.
Google brought up several sorts when searched for 'antique', some of which are similar in design. Of course, the ones making it to the antiques market are not going to be the simpler designs from the post-war austerity years, but I think there's sufficient similarity of form.
It might be a vegetable chopper for cutting soft vegetables. Here is a contemporary Kitchen Craft model, although it has a wider blade for scooping.
It looks a bit like a mezzaluna for chopping herbs, but they tend to have curved blades allowing you to easily go back and forth over the herbs. A straight blade is better for making a single, downward cut.
It's amazing what they'll invent next to try to part you from your hard-earned cash. That Kitchen Craft monstrosity has got to be far harder to use than a veg knife ;) [plus, chopping peppers like that is going to leave you faffing about cutting all the placenta & seeds out afterwards. Terrible device.]
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.566729 | 2023-01-14T21:14:54 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/123029",
"authors": [
"Tetsujin",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/42066"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
123092 | Why do potatoes in soup/stew taste stale the next day?
I notice that when I prepare stews or soups with potatoes (e.g. beef stew, Japanese curry, etc.), they have a tendency to have a somewhat-off "stale" taste when reheated the next day, after taking it out of the refrigerator. The other vegetables in the same dish (e.g. carrots, onions, etc.) are usually still good.
Does anyone what the reason for this could be, or how to prevent this?
I have never experienced this, and I have made many stews with potatoes. What variety are you using?
@FuzzyChef Standard yellow potatoes, in Canada.
There's just one dish I used to make, nothing exceptional in itself [spanish-style, pork, chorizo, tomatoes, cannellini beans, onions, garlic, Canarian mojo, long cook] to which I would add potatoes, small whites in skins, halved. I honestly don't know why but they weren't good the next day, so I now leave them out. Everything else I ever make, from english, mexican, italian, even bombay potatoes… is absolutely fine.
I suspect that the issue is that starches change when cooked and then chilled. (Called retrogradation)
This is why long grain rice is always a bit dry and hard when refrigerated (but makes for better fried rice as it’s less sticky, and it’s lower glycemic index as it’s now resistant starch)
Bread also undergoes retrogradation when chilled, which is what we refer to as ‘stale’ when it happens.
Most people don’t find chilled and reheated potatoes objectionable like you do, but they might notice the changes. For instance, you can’t easily mash a refrigerated potato, even after warming it back up.
I’m not aware of any way to prevent it.
Thank you. I've gained greater sympathy for my friend who tastes soap in cilantro.
You can try using vinegar to revive and liven up an old stew or soup. A little goes a long way, so try reheating a small amount and slowly add it to see how the flavor changes. Depending on what you made a particular flavor (apple cider, balsamic, etc) might work better than others but regular white vinegar is a good place to start.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.566877 | 2023-01-21T23:07:23 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/123092",
"authors": [
"FuzzyChef",
"Tetsujin",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/102716",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/42066",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/7180",
"potato-enthusiast"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
121742 | Could overfrying and/or undersimmering the Spanish rice have caused it to develop a cardboard-like taste and a pungent odour?
Growing up, my mother always made me one of my favourite treats, which was arroz Guizado, or Spanish fried rice. It was the only kind I had ever tasted up until I was around eleven or twelve. When I went to visit my friends' houses, and if they had Mexican food that I didn't like, they offered to give me whatever leftover Spanish rice they had. I immediately noticed the difference: it was rich and flavourful and perfectly balanced, plus it was a little bit creamy.
I recently got enrolled in my state's independent skills-training programme because of my blindness and other disabilities, and my skills coach and I found a basic Spanish rice recipe that had the following:
2 US cups of rice
1/8 cup of vegetable oil
6 stems of cilantro (optional)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp minced garlic
4 cups water with 1 cube chicken bouillon or 4 cups chicken broth and no bouillon
a dash of cumin to taste
a dash of garlic pepper to taste
We started by browning the rice before adding the minced garlic, letting it saute for about a minute. Here's where things get a little weird. I will differentiate the different method that my mother did it versus how my skills coach taught me to do it using A for my mother and B for my trainer. I told my mother exactly how to follow the directions, but being blind, she could've done something that I couldn't see.
A. Let the rice fry (with onion) for about five to ten minutes until they are really dark before adding the tomatoes.
B. Let the rice and garlic fry for about a minute or two before adding in the tomatoes.
A. Since we didn't have any tomato sauce, we blended the tomatoes thoroughly and poured them into the rice.
B. Boil the tomatoes until they are soft and mushy, and then mash them up thoroughly before pouring it into the rice since we didn't have any tomato sauce.
A and B. Add the bouillon cube and spices.
A. Pour four cups of plain water.
B. Add four cups of the water used to boil the tomatoes so as to add more tomato flavour.
A. Cover the pan and simmer for about fifteen to twenty minutes (this is where it starts to smell strong).
B. Cover the lid and let simmer for about forty-five minutes (doesn't smell as strong).
The result is that the rice my mother made has almost no flavour, tastes like cardboard, and has a weird smokey-like aroma to it, whereas the one my direct support provider and I tastes much more palatable, has a creamy texture, and feels much more fluffier in general. When I asked my mother why it had that strong aroma, she simply claimed that it was the onion, but I don't think that is the case.
could overfrying and/or undersimmering the rice caused this to happen?
If not, what else could've gone wrong to cause such a thing to occur?
So why can't you buy tomato sauce?
The simple explanation is that your mother regularly burned the rice. That would cause all of the off flavors you mentioned. The fact that she says it should be "really dark" would indicate that it was. She may have burned the onions as well.
Mexican tomato rice is often heavily fried before boiling. However, it doesn't change color much -- maybe a tiny bit of tan in spots. You mostly have to judge whether it's ready by smell; the rice starts smelling "nuttier" and then you know it's time to add the tomatoes.
For example, here's the instruction from Mexican-American chef Pati Jinich's recipe for red rice:
Heat the oil in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat until hot but
not smoking. Add the rice and cook, stirring often, until the rice
becomes milky white, 3 to 4 minutes.
She's frying it for longer than your instructor did, but you'll notice it's still not "dark".
Arroz guisado does not mean fried rice, it means stewed rice!
I don't know if in Mexico is different, but we don't usually fry the rice in Spain. You usually fry lightly the garlic, pepper, chicken... or whatever you put in your rice, then, when everything is cooked, you add the water, wait for it to be hot, add the rice and let it simmer gently. Rice is usually the last ingredient to be added, and I would say we always put it in hot water, not fried with oil.
Also, the 45 minutes from the instructor seems to me way too much. Usually after 20 minutes should be okay.
Some people like it a bit crunchy and let it rest a few more minutes after the water is evaporated. In Valencia that is called "socarrat".
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.567060 | 2022-09-22T02:14:23 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/121742",
"authors": [
"FuzzyChef",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/7180"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
117137 | How does adding vanilla extract help make a milkshake if the ice cream is already vanilla?
I recently purchased a professional-style milkshake mixer, and some recipes I've researched say that adding ice cream is a must for making shakes, along with adding a few drops of milk. But some of them also say to add vanilla extract as well, usually a drop or two.
What's the purpose of adding more vanilla to the shake if the ice cream is already vanilla? Wouldn't it just make sense to skip that and add any other flavour, or keep the ice cream and milk flavour intact?
Try it. -- Fred Picker
You ever seen a kid add sugar to a sugar-laden cereal?
@MonkeyZeus No, have you?
@AzorAhai-him- Yes.
@AzorAhai-him- Except once when it was accidentally the salt bowl instead of the sugar bowl....apparently it was quite traumatic because my mom still tells the story.
@user3067860 a good friend of mine had a grandmother who was Italian and did not speak any English. She was helping with dinner by making breadsticks, but ran out of flour. She finished the recipe with what she thought was more flour, but it turned out to be powdered sugar instead.
@MarkRansom So you're saying she made the most amazing and diabeetus-inducing pizza fritte ever?
@MonkeyZeus sadly no. She didn't notice until they came out of the oven, they were rock-hard and totally inedible.
@MarkRansom Dang =(
Fundamentally the answer is just 'it is added for flavour; you can skip it if you want'. A few suggestions as to why it might be a good decision to add it:
Vanilla flavour can be stronger or weaker, and it might be that the recipe writer prefers their milkshake to have a stronger vanilla flavour than the ice cream they buy.
Depending on how much milk is being added, this will dilute the ice cream flavour a little, so more vanilla could be added to compensate.
The flavour profile of the ice cream changes as it melts, because some flavours are subdued in a very cold product (in particular, the sweetness is reduced a little, which is why melted ice-cream or ice lollies are often surprisingly sweet; more sugar is needed so that the frozen product still tastes sweet). It might be that when the ice cream is no longer solid the balance is 'off', so more vanilla is needed.
I think the 2nd point is most significant. Milkshake recipes seem to vary from flavoured milk, flavoured and slightly thickened, to ice cream that's been slightly melted in a blender. Close to the former case you wouldn't taste the vanilla from the little ice cream added - and that can be a good thing if making other flavours
If the ice cream is vanilla already, I don't see any reason to add more vanilla. But sometimes vanilla can be a type of flavor enhancer for other flavors of ice cream, like chocolate. So they may be suggesting you add a bit of vanilla to enhance some other non-vanilla flavors. But that's all just personal preference for what you think tastes good, so go with what you like.
Vanilla sometimes means plain flavoured
In Ireland and England the vanilla ice cream in the supermarket is usually unflavoured rather than vanilla.
**
This stuff is pure white and tastes of milk and sugar. If this is the vanilla you are using, your milkshake will also be plain flavour unless you add some extract.
You don't need extract if you have a real vanilla ice cream. This stuff is off yellow and sometimes has tiny black vanilla seeds in it. For a vanilla milkshake, this stuff is much nicer and more flavourful than the plain ice-cream.
Over here it is marketed as French Vanilla or Madagascan Vanilla. For a vanilla milkshake I'd recommend not adding extract, as you might get an artificial chemical taste.
Plain ice-cream is good for milkshakes if you want to add flavour separately. For example a raspberry milkshake made of fresh raspberries and plain ice cream
"usually unflavoured" is simply wrong
@ChrisH I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this one.
doesn't the "unvflavored" vanilla contain at the very least vanillin? sounds like a dishonest product
In fact the yellowish color of comercially sold vanilla ice cream usually is a result of added carotenes, while the little black spots are not seeds from the vanilla mark, but pods that have been ground after the mark was extracted. Flavouring industrial ice cream with pure, real vanilla would be too expensive for the usual price tag. Home made vanilla ice cream will usually look plain white as well (or also yellowish when using yolk as an emulsifier) and have very little spots in it but reward you with a much more differentiated taste than that of artificial vanillin used in the industry.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.567527 | 2021-09-08T21:48:25 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/117137",
"authors": [
"Agos",
"Azor Ahai -him-",
"Chris H",
"Daron",
"J. Mueller",
"Mark Ransom",
"MonkeyZeus",
"Pete Becker",
"SiHa",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/15579",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/1766",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/20413",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/2926",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/34973",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/41669",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/52367",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/70766",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/85345",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/85619",
"user3067860"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
113040 | Problems deep frying on induction stove
I recently bought an Aga Rangemaster 90cm range cooker with induction cook top. The oven and hob are great except when attempting deep frying, which seems not to work. I have nothing but induction compatible cookware.
The pans initially heat up fine, but refuse to come up to anything above approximately 150C (300F). Monitoring the temperature with a remote thermometer I can see the temperature cycling as the element comes on and off, but I am never able to get the pan up to say 180C.
I have reviewed the operating instructions and no mention is made of it not being possible to deep fry, so I wondered if this is something that others have experienced, or if there is some workaround.
Not an answer but a data point. My induction stove holds fry oil at temperature just beautifully. I fear it might be temp control of your unit rather than the fact that it is induction.
How hot can you get the pan without any oil in it? And does this hold true across all burners (or whatever you'd call them on an induction cooker)?
It seems like we had a similar report of a problem with frying on an induction cooker many years ago: https://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/32561/67
While I can't say exactly what the issue is there are some possibilities:
Induction compatible doesn't mean ideal for induction. I've had pans which are compatible, as in they work, but they don't heat up well. Only ferrous metals will get heated by induction, many pans are a sandwich of metals with a ferrous base, how well the pans heat up depends in part how thick the base is, if it's too thin it won't be able to convert all the energy. You want something with a nice thick ferrous base, or even better cast iron
Your induction top may not be powerful enough. In the same way gas ranges are limited by the size of their burners induction is limited by the underlying electronics. A big pot full of oil is a lot of mass, the cooktop's electronics need to be able to create a large enough magnetic field to heat it
I have this same issue with a Tefal IH2108.
I have opened the cook top and removed the thermal paste between the sensors and the glass. Now the sensor is colder, the stove no longer throttles and deep frying is possible.
(Obviously when you apply this hack any temperature-dependent setting no longer works).
Another possibility: even if it has the power to heat a pan > 180C it could start throttling once the internal stove temp hits 150 to prevent circuit damage.
So one way to work around this is to start from a cold stove, then quickly heat a smaller amount of oil to your desired temp and cook the food before the internal temp gets too high.
Another workaround that might work is putting a ceramic tile beneath the pan.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.567901 | 2020-12-07T17:10:06 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/113040",
"authors": [
"Joe",
"Sobachatina",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/2001",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/67"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
113065 | Can I hang cast iron pots and pans to air dry?
I normally use chain mail and warm water to clean my cast iron pan, then dry with a paper towel before stashing away in a cupboard. If the pans are well seasoned, is there any potential rusting issues with simply hanging them up to air dry?
The way you have worded it, the risk can never be reduced to absolute zero, so there is some potential risk. But the probability of rust happening is very, very low, so in practice, you can do this for ages and not experience any problems. Also, if you do, you can just strip and reseason.
Also there is an option you didn't mention: usually you still have a hot hob when you have just finished cooking, so you can wash immediately and place the slightly wet pan on the hot hob, where it will air dry in seconds. It doesn't work every time (e.g. if you served your food in the cast iron vessel in which it was prepared), but when it is available, it is best practice to make use of it.
At my house, we wash our pans with warm water, and leave them all facing downwards in a large colander, without using anything to dry them off. After like an hour or so, we stack them right-side-up in the cupboard.
Been doing that for years, no rust yet,
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.568411 | 2020-12-09T13:32:32 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/113065",
"authors": [],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
113107 | Cooking and keeping food warm while traveling?
Can somebody keep food warm by using heat from inside of an electric vehicle or do these vehicles waste less thermal energy, meaning more efficient in traveling then warming?
I'm not exactly sure what you mean by using heat from inside the vehicle. You will want to clarify. Your primary concern should be food safety. You have two hours or less (depending of a variety of other variables, like how the food was stored and prepared beforehand) for food to be in the "danger zone'; that is, between 40F (5C) and 140F (60C). That means if your food is going to be in this range, you have a limited window of time to safely transport, store, and/or make use of your food. This time in the danger zone is cumulative. The clock does not reset after your trip.
You can keep food warm by using any heat source. If the vehicle provides sufficient heat, you can use it. If not… you can't. I'd refer this the the vehicle manufacturer as it's not really within the purview of your average cook.
Because electric vehicles don't rely on combustion to create energy, there is no waste heat generated that can be diverted to the passenger compartment.
I've never driven a modern electric vehicle (although I did help build one that took first place in the 1995 World Solar-Car Rally and 4th in the 1995 GM Sunrayce), but my understanding is that they use electric heating, which will decrease your maximum distance.
In addition, battery packs can be discharged deeper when warmed, and so you'll lose range from that, as well. Consumer Reports recommends pre-heating your vehicle while it's still plugged into wall power if your vehicle can do that.
I would instead recommend looking at other questions about keping food warm while traveling:
How can I keep hot food hot when transporting it?
Low tech strategies for keeping food warm
How to keep fried fish warm and crispy during transport to venue?
How to keep my pizza hot and crispy during transport
I had a V8 car with a fridge, but it had no food warmer. A petroleum-powered car can heat a car with minimal extra fuel usage, due to the large excess heat. However this is likely to be limited to around 30C, which is largely useless, though some very crude vehicles have engines mounted underneath the floor, which can get hotter than this.
There are a bunch of gadgets that can be used in a car to heat food, and they will rely on the cigarette lighter socket. This is 12V, which you could step up to 110/220V/whatever your local power is using an inverter which plugs in there. Of course it would be better to use a dedicated 12V device, since the inverter is inefficient.
12V stoves or what have you will vary but you are generally looking 100-150W, which is not much. Good insulation and a longer reheating time (like a slow cooker) could be more efficient when the engine is running, since the alternator is producing power, so a steady drain in this context does not need to drain the battery.
A typical car battery is likely to be around 60Ah. This is x 12V, so 720W. Connecting directly to the battery will be the most efficient option. You would not be able to draw 720W from the battery, generally DoD for car batteries is going to be down to around 50% if you don't want to cause damage, so you are looking at pulling maybe 300W out of there. If your battery is already depleted by many short journeys or age, then things will be worse than that. Keeping the engine running while drawing battery from the battery will stop it depleting - a car alternator can go up to 100 Amps or so, but that depends on heat, which may reduce the current. However this is massively inefficient.
An electric car is going to have huge advantages for running appliances. Whereas you might be lucky to pull 0.3 kW out of the puny starter battery on a car, a 2020 Nissan Leaf has a 40 or 62 kWh battery. A very hot stove is around 4 kW, and if you wanted to cook something there at that speed it might take just a few minutes (so perhaps 200W used). An oven might cook with something in the range of 1.5 kW, but that's not going to be going at that speed all the time.
If you consider an oven like this one:
which is 1.2 kW, then that element is going to be turning on and off so actual consumption to bake a cake, for example, is going to be a good deal lower.
This is a pretty small % of the capacity of an electric car battery, so at least in theory if you were to go around with a mixer, oven, induction cooker, and so on, then you could pretty much cook a bunch of stuff with little impact on the car's range. The fastest car chargers are up to 250 kW, so again taking out a few kW cooking even an elaborate meal is not really a big deal.
Note that electric car batteries are lithium and can be completely discharged without damage (though you'll need a charge to get the car moving), whereas a lead acid starter battery in a petroleum car cannot be, so this gives a bigger advantage to the electric vehicle.
The biggest point is that a car is not designed to heat food, so while there's waste heat aplenty when running, you can't easily harness that in a targeted way, so you are better off with a source of stored power which can be directly used at nearly 100% efficiency, i.e. a battery.
A commercial heated van such as this one:
uses the car's alternator. This is effectively the same thing as a generator. A car is probably more efficient than a cheap gasoline generator (which will be at 3000 rpm all the time), but likely less efficient than a more sophisticated inverter type, which can spin down under smaller loads.
Effectively consider that the van must idle at perhaps 600rpm, and at that this speed it is burning maybe 0.5l of fuel an hour, which is around 6.5kW of energy, and with 50% efficiency, can therefore produce 3.25kW. My rice cooker uses around 30W to keep 1kg of rice warm. So the true efficiency here is something like 0.5%. In this case it's much better to heat from a large battery with no engine running.
Since the car engine already produces electricity, there's little incentive to harvest the waste heat as well, over and beyond the heat pulled out of the engine coolant by the car's passenger heating circuits, since the amount of electricity you can get out of a running engine is much larger than you would need to keep food warm anyway.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.568548 | 2020-12-12T10:49:29 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/113107",
"authors": [
"Tetsujin",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/17143",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/42066",
"moscafj"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
113148 | Globe 725L Meat Slicer Gearbox Grease
I have an old Globe 725L meat slicer. The gearbox between the motor and the blade had hardened gross grease in it, and I cleaned it out. I'm putting food grade white grease back in it. Just wanted to confirm that kind of grease is correct, as the other gearbox (on the table motor) had oil in it...like 30W motor oil.
Sounds right: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=food+grade+grease&t=fpas&ia=web
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.569009 | 2020-12-14T00:50:35 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/113148",
"authors": [
"Wayfaring Stranger",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/5455"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
113244 | After few day of plastick bag packing of Tomato sauce increase the size of it and produce gas in plastic bag
I am one small manufacturer of tomato sauce and dates sauce . And my question is regarding preservative i.e we make tomato sauce and paking it in plastic bag after few day this paket size increasing and produce gas in plastic bag ,so I want to know about proper method of manufacturing . Our preservatives are sodium benzoate, acitic acid and suger.
You need to use a method approved by your country's food safety regulations.
And you do realize that a bloated package means that you have a spoiled product that must be discarded, right?
Are you refrigerating the bags of sauce? Regardless of what preservatives you use, I don't see how your bagged product could possibly be shelf stable.
@csk : "tomato sauce" means different things by country. I assume by the name he's Indian, which would be British English, and so what the Americans call Ketchup. So there'd also be vinegar, salt, and reduced moisture.
@Joe That's fair. Still, I'm concerned by the idea of home-packaging a sauce in plastic bags. And if it's not home-packaged, but rather packaged using similar equipment to what ketchup factories use, I think that would be off topic for this site.
@csk They said "small manufacturer". That might not be home-packaging, as we occassionally get a few people asking questions on here that aren't really home cooking. (there was someone asking about bulk purchasing of popcorn for import to their country just a few days ago)
relevant: https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/69424/can-canning-be-achieved-with-vacuum-sealed-bags
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.569077 | 2020-12-20T09:39:38 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/113244",
"authors": [
"Joe",
"Stephie",
"Willk",
"csk",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/28879",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/31313",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/53826",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/67",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/85773",
"user141592"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
113303 | Detergent fragrance tasting bread
A friend of a friend gave me some bread for a thank you present. But it tastes like detergent fragrance! Why does this happen? Is it safe to eat? I only use unscented products in my home. And in my opinion the bread is ruined.
If you don’t want to eat it, why does it matter if it’s safe to eat?
While I agree with the other answer that it's flavoured with something you don't expect, the other possibility is that the bread was wrapped in a freshly laundered, strongly scented cloth. You may be particularly sensitive given that they prefer unscented products. That would affect the crust much more than the inside.
I've occasionally had homemade bread pick up a bit of laundry scent from the cotton towels I wrap them in (I get detergents as unscented as possible, but sometimes a new brand catches me out). I still ate them and I'm still alive.
One time I was making a focaccia and instead of spraying a water mist in the oven I accidentally sprayed kitchen cleaner in the very hot oven! This did not go well. I got a face full of super-heated kitchen cleaner and the bread smelled and tasted of chemicals so I had to throw it away.
I doubt very much that this is the case with your friend's bread though. Most likely the taste is from an ingredient in the bread that has a strong flavor. Spices like aniseed, fennel, cardamom, or herbs like lavender are very aromatic and add strong flavors as well which some would say are very chemical-like. Some people like this, some people do not and it's fair to say you are one of the latter. Those ingredients are safe to eat, just not to your taste.
A test of whether it is an ingredient or an actual cleaning product causing the smell and taste would be to pull a bit of the bread from the center and taste it in isolation. Take your sample to a different room away from the other bread to test it. If your sample tastes like detergent it's in the ingredients, if the smell and taste is only on the outside of the bread or close to the surface then it's likely actual chemicals.
I suspect this is right. Lavender in particular is not always expected in food (though it can be very good), and associated with cleaning products.
I think often people knead dough by hand, without ensuring their hands have no fragrance on them from hand soap. My tip is to give hands a good scrub, rinse, and a rigorous dry on a towel to rub any remaining fragrance off before kneading dough. Also, bread covered for hours by a tea towel washed with a strongly scented detergent might taint things too
You make a good point about hand soap. This is particurlaly likely to be an issue with stretch-and-fold techniques if you want your hands wet so the dough doesn't stick.
In fact, bearing this in ind, I now wash with soap, rinse well, dry, and re-wet before stretch-and fold (I've currently got a much more scented soap in the kitchen than I'd ideally choose)
Rubbing alcohol removes soap remnants if you rub and rinse your hands with it, but leaves the fragrance on. Citrusy disinfectant (with citral and limonene, main components of citrus oils) does better but leaves its own remnant, though that may be less objectionable and is volatile under heat. Rubbing hands with cooking oil works if you have unscented soap available but used another one before.
A plausible reason is the oven being cleaned with a product not intended for that purpose. I once had somebody help me clean and using an all-purpose cleaner on the oven, and after that, for about 10 baking sessions, i could smell the fragrance during baking. I suspect that the smell may have stuck to the food too, although i didn't notice it after spending hours in the kitchen that was permeated by the same smell.
Another possibility is the bread being wrapped in a freshly washed towel right after baking.
The third, some cheaper cosmetics are perfumed with the same aldehydes used in detergents (chemically, you cannot make smells last without this kind of base, and the few ones that are cheap and safe are reused on different product families). If somebody kneaded the bread by hand after using hand cream, some traces can have gone in. I doubt that many people will notice such small amounts given how well it noises are adapted to these events, but you said you're not using them in your household, so you'll detect it easier.
No matter how it came there, if it is indeed detergent, it is not going to hurt you. Household products are intentionally formulated such that even a child chugging down a bottle doesn't get poisoned. Any adverse effects should be minimal, if they happen at all. Of course, this isn't an invitation to eat detergent on purpose, but if the bread had some traces of it, there isn't any reason to panic.
Not all household cleaning products are that benign - bleach has bittering agents added but can still be harmful. Large quantities of detergents (which I don't believe the OP has) can cause vomiting without lasting harm, but trace quantities are of course possible after washing up, and don't cause problems
Possibly contaminated
I live on an island where all wheat flour is imported by cargo ship containers and fumigated as it enters the country.
This makes all flour, crackers, and similar items that are packaged in somewhat gas permeable packages taste perfume-like.
If the bread was imported, or the flour used to bake the bread was imported, then it could have absorbed some of the fumigation products.
If food items are stored close to scented items such as detergents and air fresheners, the perfume from them can permeate the plastic wrappers and cardboard of food items. Think about it, trash bags that are made from recycled plastics smell strongly of perfume so the fragrance must permeate the plastic of the containers that eventually end up recycled.
Also, if people handling the products have used a soap of lotion that has fragrance in it the fragrance can transfer to packaging.
Laundry products are formulated so the scent lasts for months. The scent must get into the air in order for it to be detected. If it is in the air it can settle on other objects. Just like the odor from cigarettes (which in addition to tobacco contains many fragrance chemicals as additives) it contaminates everything that it comes in contact with.
I have researched scientific information on fragrance for over twenty years reading hundreds of scientific articles.
Fragrance emerging health and environmental concerns https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ffj.1106
I find this issue in A LOT of breads or cookies given to me from other people, EVEN if they're not homemade! I don't know if I just have a very good-sensing palate or what, but others don't seem to mind eating the same thing that smells like some kind of fragrance (most usually smell like the fragrant inside of that person's house). I cannot. I agree that it is ruined for me.
Anyway, all that to say I believe it to be that the bread has simply absorbed the smells of the environment it was in. Especially if that environment has a particularly strong smell.
I remember receiving a lunch from someone whose house smelled really good -- they used either wall plug-ins, sachets, or some kind of potpourri-type thing for rooms. The sliced bread (from the grocery store) smelled like her house. This has happened very often with different people and bread items, but I can detect it right away and can't finish it -- no matter how tasty it would have been.
We've found this to be true more and more often in flour. I bake all the time. It is the flour, itself, not the home or the baker, etc. It smells like that Fabreeze stuff. Yuck. One thing I found is that large food machines are often cleaned with a cleaner that boasts in its sales materials to factories that it doesn't have to be rinsed off. I'm beginning to think that it is impossible to get flour untainted by some horrible smell. Whole Foods flour usually smells like cinnamon, which is OK if you are making cinnamon buns, but you don't want that in bread, pizza dough, etc.
The OP’s questions were “Why does this happen? Is it safe to eat?” This doesn’t address either of those.
@Sneftel beg to differ: poster claims that it’s caused by detergent residue from commercial cleaners that don’t require rinsing (which would imply that it’s considered safe enough or it wouldn’t be permitted in a food production environment) taint the flour. That’s an answer. Whether it’s a correct answer is another issue.
It’s definitely absorbing scents from the home. My in-laws regularly give us food and baked goods and everything tastes like their laundry/dryer sheets. I can’t eat it. My kids don’t mind. I notice it from other people who give us food too. Baked goods especially but also meat and other dishes. It’s so hard to not just tell them their food tastes bad. Feels like a waste when it goes uneaten.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.569250 | 2020-12-23T04:22:42 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/113303",
"authors": [
"Chris H",
"Sneftel",
"Spagirl",
"Stephie",
"ariola",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/105422",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/20413",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/28879",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/58067",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/64479"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
113381 | What's the kind of cake that have liquid frosting that drips when you open the package?
I've seem videos of such cakes where the frosting is in molten/semi-liquid form sitting on top of the cake, and held up by packaging (usually a piece of hard plastic wrap around the cake). Upon lifting the wrap the frosting flows down and covers the cake, which is beautiful to watch.
I was searching hard on the internet but couldn't find the right keyword. What are these kind of cakes called?
Ok found it. they're called pull-me-up cakes or tsunami cakes or in my opinion quite ambiguously, doll cakes.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.570037 | 2020-12-25T23:09:25 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/113381",
"authors": [],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
113494 | lasagna sauce ahead of time
I know it is possible to make lasagna a day or so ahead of time but I would like to make only the sauce ahead of time, let it cool and then refrigerate. Then bake the lasagna the next day. Any thought on this?
if you want to anticipate the assembly as well, you can and here's an old discussion about it https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/6034/can-you-assemble-lasagna-one-day-and-then-bake-it-about-24-hrs-later?rq=1
Yes, you can make the tomato (or meat) sauce in advance and keep it a few days in the fridge.
You can also make the bechamel in advance and keep it in the fridge.
It also freezes well. There is always at least one quart container of basic tomato sauce in my freezer.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.570119 | 2020-12-31T12:08:11 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/113494",
"authors": [
"David P",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/17143",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/19364",
"moscafj"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
117931 | Parcooking Root Vegetables for Roasting the Day Before
Every Thanksgiving a family favorite is roasted root vegetables. Specifically:
Rutabagas
Parsnips
(Heirloom) Carrots
Beets
I cut the vegetables into 0.5x0.5in (1.25x1.25 cm) strips of approximately equal size. Then, I coat them with olive oil, ground black pepper, and rosemary and roast them in the oven at 450ºF (230ºC).
The problem is that they take 60-90 minutes and take up substantial space in the oven.
My proposed solution this year is to parcook the vegetables the day before so they are done much faster but still develop the delicious caramelization that makes them so popular.
My question is what is best method (boiling, roasting, etc) and level of doneness to take them?
If you can’t tie up the oven space because you’ll be roasting a bird in there, my solution is to roast the bird on top of the vegetables. If you spatchcock it, you could put half on top of each pan
@Joe that's a reasonable approach - if you don't have vegetarian guests who would miss out on the veg that's been cooked in meat juices
Indeed, @ChrisH, we won't be serving any meat. Unless I get any more feedback I'll try roasting them about 70% of the way and report back.
@IanCampbell that's ne thing that won't et in the way then. No time for an answer now but I've reheated (fully but lightly) roasted veg in the oven, well drained, no oil added
My approach is to rest the bird for an hour, during which time I roast the vegetables. Any pre-cooking approach just consumes even more of my extremely limited fridge space. So I take the bird out, turn the oven up, and put the veggies in.
If I were to do this, I'd be inclined to take cues from double cooked fries --
Cook them (parboil, in the oven, or even frying) at a lower temperature until they're cooked through (so a knife or skewer inserted comes out easily), but not browned.
Let them cool, bag them up, and refrigerate them.
On the day that you're going to be serving them -- preheat your pans in the oven as hot as it will go. While this is happening, toss the veggies in a little bit of oil.
Spread the veggies on the pre-heated trays, and then put them into the oven. If it has convection, turn the fan on.
After a few minutes (maybe 10 minutes?) pull out one tray and do your best to flip the veggies over. Then swap it with the other tray (so if it was on top, it's now on the bottom), and flip over the veggies on the second tray, and put it back in the oven (on the empty shelf)
Repeat the last bullet until they're sufficiently browned to your liking.
As for your specific question -- I'm not sure of the "best" way. Boiling (or simmering) is a pretty traditional way of doing this. It can end up washing away a bit of the starches, but it also tends to make the surface just a little sticky from geletanized starch, which can be a good thing -- as you can then toss them around to rough them up, giving just a little more surface area for crisping in that final roasting.
But it's also easier to overcook them to where they're falling apart if you cook them in water. You can reduce this problem slightly by boiling slabs, and then cutting them into sticks after they've cooled down, but you'll also reduce that extra crispiness that you get from the starchy coating.
You can also par-bake in slabs, so it's easier to turn things over as they're cooking, and then cut them up. Par-baking has the advantage that it's easier to judge how it fits on the trays you're going to use, so you know how much you need to prepare.
I'd also consider par-cooking each type of vegetable individually, as it's possible that one might be cooked through before the other ones. And if you do the beets last, it'll be less mess to deal with. (I might even bag them separately, so they don't color everything else)
As for the doneness to take them -- cooked through (so no one gets an undercooked bite), but before it starts changing color significantly
If you par-roast to just barely browned, you can fit more in a dish when reheating, though you'll need to rearrange them a couple of times during the reheating process
I'd roast them up a day before, put them in the freezer and reheat on thanksgiving.
Why freeze and not fridge if it's only for a day? As soon as they're frozen you'll need to get them out and defrost them. Also how do you recommend reheating?
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.570207 | 2021-11-20T19:30:32 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/117931",
"authors": [
"Chris H",
"Ian Campbell",
"Joe",
"Kate Gregory",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/20413",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/304",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/67",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/90559"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
113588 | Can any bones (but specifically Beef Shortribs) be used to make bone broth AFTER they've done a stint in the crockpot?
Today, I have beef shortribs in the crockpot for Caribbean Beef Ribs for hubby's birthday. After we're done feasting, are the bones still usable for making bone broth?
You can do it, but you likely won't get what you'd consider to be "bone broth". It's called "remouillage". See https://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/61918/67
Yes and no... You can certainly toss them in a pot and let it simmer for a few hours, you'll extract some flavor and there's no danger. But broth usually uses bones that have only been roasted, not cooked low and slow in liquid as I'm guessing you did in the crock pot. Depending on how long you cooked the previous dish, some or most of the flavor and even the gelatin could already have been extracted. Speaking of that previous dish, any spices used will most likely have imparted some flavor to the bones while cooking, which will then end up in the broth.
Personally, a lightly flavored Caribbean broth doesn't sound particularly appealing to me; I would just toss the bones. But there shouldn't be any danger to trying it if it does appeal to you.
I agree with you, one of the benefits low and slow submerged cooking is that it extracts flavor from the bones, there won't be much left.
I'm not a bone expert, but I took the habit of making stock whenever I have bones left, whether it was chicken, beef or mutton so far, and I don't see why it wouldn't work with beef shortribs!
I have never heard of some kinds of bones being dangerous, or simply bad for stocks, but maybe just that some might be tastier than the others.
I watch a lot of French cooking shows and these guys make broth out of any type of bone you can imagine! More seriously, that's an interesting question and I can't find anywhere that some types of bones are bad, it seems that you can really use them all...
Let us know what the result will be!
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.570587 | 2021-01-04T15:53:21 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/113588",
"authors": [
"GdD",
"Joe",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/19707",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/67"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
113830 | Timing Stock/Broth Perfectly
I have been experimenting with different methods and I am trying to find the perfect extraction time for each of the elements of my stock. I first noticed this when one time I added celery leaves and parsley in the last hour of the cook, and it had such a nice fresh aroma to compliment the deep stock flavour and thought maybe it would make sense to add in every element of a stock at different times?
It's been my experience that Chicken Carcass and Feet are about done at around 4-6 hours, Veal and Beef Bone around 10-12. But vegetables are good after about 2 hours (carrots, celery, leek), is there any reason why I should not cook my veal stock for 8 hours and then right towards the end pop in the vegetable? It seems so intuitive for me but I have literally NEVER seen it done. Maybe I'm missing something?
I do this sometimes if I want to really be fussy with a soup. But usually I just want soup and can’t be bothered.
Is there any reason why I should not cook my veal stock for 8 hours and then right towards the end pop in the vegetable?
No, and there are many reasons why what you are doing is what you should be doing!
It seems so intuitive for me but I have literally NEVER seen it done.
Well, I can find many sources that advise you to add the vegetables towards the end of the cooking time. For example, from The Kitchn:
Adding the vegetables too soon.
Vegetables cook a lot quicker than beef, so there’s no reason to add them to the pot at the same time. Add them too soon, and you’ll be left with mushy (and unappetizing) veggies.
And it makes total sense. At my household, we make bone & vegetable soup about once a week, and are pretty familiar with the timing of each ingredient. We usually just put in the "soupable" vegetables that are lying around in the house, so the recipe is always changing.
Here is our rule of thumb as to which sort of ingredients go into the pot before others, though other household may vary:
Bone and meat.
Medicinal aromatic ingredients *(like dried shiitake mushrooms) and salt.
Root vegetables (like carrots) and vegetable stalks (like cauliflower stems).
Leafy greens (like lettuce) and herbs.
Thanks for the link!! I had seen so many videos of people throwing everything in at once; I was beginning to doubt myself
@BertrandEinsteinIV Glad this answers your question! Don't forget, you can mark this answer as accepted by clicking on the checkmark.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.570757 | 2021-01-19T19:13:17 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/113830",
"authors": [
"Anastasia Zendaya",
"Bertrand Einstein IV",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/61534",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/89857",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/90916",
"mroll"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
114125 | What happens when you reduce stock all the way?
If you have fully filtered stock or broth, and you boil it until all of the liquid evaporates; what would you be left with. If you boiled only until a bit before that point would you have super compact flavor?
A stock cube? :)
What is stock? When I search online, the only thing I find is stock market.
@Clockwork Sign o' the times, isn't it :-).
@Peter-ReinstateMonica Pretty much like how a buddy was looking for python documentation on "abs" function but simply searched "abs" on the search engine, actually. Thanks, you indirectly hinted me into searching "stock cooking".
@Clockwork But if you want to cook the books you are in the wrong place as well! ;-)
@Clockwork As someone who works with documents the LaTeX processing language, I have had documentation web searches go horribly wrong...
If you make stock out of game and reduce it all the way, does it become GameStock?
If you reduce filtered broth all the way, you get portable soup. It dries down into a solid that looks a bit like leather. Because of the gelatin from the bones, portable soup is bendy and flexible. It was used in the 18th century as a portable food item, eg by soldiers and people traveling through the American wilderness. There's an excellent video by historical reinactor J. Townsend: Easiest Way to Make Portable Soup. I summarized the method below.
(images is from the same video)
Put about 5 pounds of bone-in meat in a slow cooker and cover it with water; don't add any seasonings. Cook until falling-off-the-bone tender. For beef, that's about 8-10 hours on low. Townsend recommends beef shank, neck or brisket, but says poultry will also work. Choose a cut with lots of collagen, so you end up with plenty of gelatin in the broth.
Remove the meat and bones; you can use the meat for another purpose. Let the broth cool until the fat solidifies on the top. Skim off the fat. Strain the remaining broth through a cloth. Now you have clarified broth.
Rinse out the slow cooker and put the clarified broth back in it. Turn the slow cooker on low and let it cook for 18-24 hours with the lid off, until it's reduced to a "medium brow, gluey substance." (Yum!) Don't overcook it, or it will burn and ruin the flavor. You'll probably want to time your cooking so that the end of the 18 hours happens in the morning, so you can spend all day checking on it and don't have to stay up all night waiting for it to finish.
Turn off the slow cooker and let it cool. Remove the portable soup from the crock. At this point, it's still pretty wobbly and gelatinous, like Jello cubes. Put it on a cloth or cooling rack to finish drying. The final drying has to be done with just air, without heat. You can use a food dehydrator on a "no heat" setting, or put the rack in front of a fan, or just let it air dry for a week or so, flipping it at least once a day.
Once the portable soup is dried to the texture of leather (solid, but still somewhat flexible), cut it into convenient portions. Store them wrapped in brown paper or cloth. They will continue to dry and harden over time.
You can also make portable soup on the stove or over a fire, but apparently it's really difficult to do without burning. The slow cooker provides a much lower heat, so it's less likely to burn. You can actually speed up step 3 by starting on a higher heat - either simmering on the stove or using the slow cooker on high. The final stage of cooking should be done on low to minimize the chance of burning. Have a look at Townsends' follow up video, Troubleshooting Portable Soup.
To use the portable soup, rehydrate it in hot water and use it as you would broth.
Is this the video you meant to link? Because yours just spits up an error.
@candied_orange Thanks for pointing that out. I fixed the broken link.
I just love how the question appears to be a random crazy idea and the answer is "oh, there is a recipe from centuries ago"!
A stock reduced to a syrup is known as a glace. Glace is French for "glaze". The glace is used to flavor sauces. If you stop the cooking before it becomes a syrup, you have what is known as a demi-glace. If you cook it beyond the syrup phase it will probably burn. These are intended to be highly flavorful preparations.
Removing all the liquid out of stock is essentially how bouillon is made. If you managed to dehydrate the stock without burning it, you'll be left with a big disk of bouillon at the bottom of your pot, similar to the cubes you buy at the grocery.
If you leave it with just a little water, you'll have a gooey bouillon paste.
...not sure I would agree. Stock is generally not seasoned. Bullion is mainly salt and, in many cases added msg. I don't think reduced stock = bullion.
What moscajf said. Originally, "bouillon" is simply the French word for stock, and is used in older cookbooks as a loanword. Nowadays, what you can buy as "bouillon cubes" has nothing to do with stock, the hard one are just pressed salt, msg and dehydrated vegetables, and the gooey stuff is the same, but with a bit of water and thickening agent.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.570999 | 2021-02-06T06:25:25 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/114125",
"authors": [
"Andreas",
"Caius Jard",
"Clockwork",
"Federico Poloni",
"Mołot",
"Peter - Reinstate Monica",
"candied_orange",
"csk",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/14714",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/17143",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/35669",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/36704",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/45785",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/4638",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/50040",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/69408",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/69573",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/85773",
"moscafj",
"rumtscho"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
114141 | Why so many fruits/veg fall into these color categories?
Disclaimer: This question is not about cooking per se, rather about food itself; please let me know if this is not appropriate for this SE.
I have noticed that there are many fruits and vegetables which seem unrelated that come in two color varieties, red and yellowish-green. What I mean by this is that we have red onions and yellowish-green onions, we have red apples and yellowish-green apples. I will put a list of all such foods I have thought of; but I can't seem to find a reason why? Does this have to do with the chemistry, or the environmental conditions that cause different varieties to have different colors. I've tried looking online for this, but I cannot seem to formalize my question in a succinct and clear way to obtain results.
Here is a list of fruits and vegetables which have red varieties and yellowish-green varietes.
Apples
Onions
Raddish
Bell Peppers
Potatoes
Figs
Dragon Fruit (Yellow Dragon fruit are called Kirin)
Peaches (Green Peaches are common in the middle-east)
There are a few more which I cannot remember; I will add in edits.
I am of course open to the possibility that this is all random correlation and for every instance I've found here there are more instances in some other arbitrary pattern. But there seems to be something happening here.
Whether the question is on topic for us depends on what kind of answer you want. If you want a list of the red and yellow pigments present in plants, with the statement "these are the pigments which evolved, so that's the color", we can answer it. If you want hypotheses why these colors of pigment evolved, we can migrate to biology, although they might consider it a duplicate because they have a question on why there is, allegedly, no blue food.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.571420 | 2021-02-07T03:43:27 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/114141",
"authors": [
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/4638",
"rumtscho"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
117639 | Maillard Reaction at Higher Pressures
The Maillard Reaction requires temperatures of 140 to 165 Degrees Celsius; hence "browning" cannot be achieved with water when cooking under normal conditions since the boiling point of water is 100 Degrees Celsius, therefore to brown food we use oil, or direct heat.
However at 10 atmospheres of pressure the boiling point of water is 180 Degrees Celsius, which means it can reach the necessary temperature for "browning" to occur.
Can I sear a steak in water at 10 atmospheres of pressure?
While you can create browning reactions in a pressure cooker, especially playing with pH, I don't think you can "sear" in water, since the technique requires a dry or oiled surface.
Does this answer your question? Maillard in a Pressure Cooker
Interesting question.
It seems that the short answer is yes and no, there is some Maillard reaction that goes on at high pressure (400 MPa or more; normal air pressure is 0.1 MPa). However, this has only been studied in model systems using glucose and lysine in buffered reactions, so by default this is in a liquid system, not a solid-liquid system like you describe. It seems this is also largely studied at fairly low temperatures, around 60 C or 140 F.
I found a fairly recent (2003) study here, with the full article here (likely paywalled) that indicates there is a strong pH dependency to this. At pH 7 (neutral) there is an inhibition from pressure, but as you become more alkaline (up to pH 10) there is some promotion of Maillard reaction, even at standard air pressure. A similar study (also paywalled probably) in 1991 found similar results up to 500 MPa.
The study also looked at browning and found a strong inhibition of browning by pressure, with almost no browning of the solutions taking place at high pressure.
However, in your system you are only looking at 1 MPa, not the very high pressures described in the articles. There is not really any precise way to extrapolate from the data in the papers to your system (liquid-liquid vs solid-liquid), but it looks like you could undergo the Maillard reaction, and probably brown too, but I can't say for sure.
Moreno et al J. Agric. Food Chem. 2003, 51, 2, 394–400.
Tamaoka et al Agric. BioI. Cherm., 55 (8), 2071-2074, 1991
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.571588 | 2021-10-27T01:36:05 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/117639",
"authors": [
"Sneftel",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/17143",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/58067",
"moscafj"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
114342 | What accounts for Dutch Oven price variation?
I have recently been looking to buy a good Dutch Oven that will last a while, and I am a little lost since there is so many options at many different price points.
I recall a few years ago I bought a cheap cast iron skillet and it was terrible, the season wouldn't last, the finish was very rough, and the edges of the pan to the bottom were not smooth which made washing very difficult; all of that was solved when I just bought a more expensive, brand name skillet.
Is the same true for dutch ovens? I find many options on Amazon for under $100, but there are also ones by Staub and Le Creuset up to $700; and ofcourse there are options at every price in between. They all seem to have the same weight in the specifications so I would assume the classic heavy lid is not a factor, would appreciate any insight into what accounts for this price variation, and if it is a notable factor.
I see you're in the UK from your profile. Periodically Lidl & Aldi do no-brand cast iron that is almost indistinguishable from premium brand… except for the price & iron handles not wood. Recent example, Le C frying pan 160, Aldi 20. Guess which I got;)
In my city staub/zwilling have a store where they sell cocottes with some slight manufacturing defects (e.g. a tiny piece of dust got caught by the paint on the outside). These pots are sold for about 50% off. I have not checked if this exists online or in other cities.
you got lucky if a cheap one does as well as a high quality one long term. Especially the enamel can start cracking quickly on cheaply made stuff. And often the handles aren't heat insulated on them, making handling more difficult when hot.
I have owned many brands of cast iron and ceramic coated pans, here's the factors I've seen that effect the price:
Quality of materials: better quality coatings last longer and give better results
Refinement: some brands are more aesthetically pleasing, better designed, and have better finish than others. Some of these refinements may improve the cooking experience, some may just be looks
Name: This is a huge factor these days, some brands like Le Creuset have hiked up their prices enormously in the past decade to the point they are absolutely eye watering, yet their products haven't changed in design or quality
Of all these it's name that seems to have the biggest effect on price. I have some Le Creuset that I bought or got as gifts some time back, and I have since bought some department store branded ones (Linea, House of Frasier's own brand) which are 1/3 of the price. The department store ones look good, deliver good results and wear just as well as the Le Creuset ones. There are many brands to choose from, it's worth doing some research on what's available around you before you spend money.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.571779 | 2021-02-16T23:18:44 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/114342",
"authors": [
"Tetsujin",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/42066",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/5770",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/91409",
"jwenting",
"sev"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
114001 | How to make a meringue cake layer that is not cracked?
I have been trying for some time to make a meringue cake layer (like for Pavlova, but flatter, thinner) and I have not had any luck.
The recipe I use is 50 grams of sugar per one medium egg white, and 1/4 or 1/2 teaspoon of cream of tartar if using 3 egg whites.
So I use 150 grams of sugar, 3 medium egg whites, and 1/4 teaspoon of cream of tartar. (I stopped adding flavourings because I think they might contribute to my failure.)
I use glass or metal bowl that has been washed, dried, and lightly wiped down with a lemon sliced in half. The mixer beaters are also washed and wiped with lemon juice. The egg whites are at room temperature when I start mixing.
How I make it - I use a hand-held electric mixer and beat the egg whites (oh high speed) until somewhat stiff peaks form, and then I start adding in the sugar, a spoonful at a time, beating well between each addition (15-20 seconds on high speed) until it becomes almost shiny.
I draw four circles on the baking paper (15 cm in diametre), divide and spread out the egg whites with a spoon, and put it immediately in the oven at 100C (212F), for 60 minutes, then I turn off the oven, leave them in for 15 minutes more, and take out.
I have tried baking (drying, essentially) them at 90C, at 120C, all with varying results, but they almost always come out cracked and not white.
I know I am doing something wrong, but I do not know what... If anyone can help, I will be greatly thankful.
I am not entirely sure that what you intend is doable. A pure French meringue, when baked enough to get hard, will generally go brown on the outside. Also, I don't think the idea is very functional - first, most fillings and icings will likely wet your layers through, and second, if you can keep them dry, eating the cake will not be especially pleasant, getting worse with every layer you add.
You may instead look into existing recipes for cake layers designed around a meringue. These are usually dacquoise cakes, but I recently also found out that there is a popular cake in Serbia made with what was called orehovka in eastern bloc countries, essentially a merengue-and-walnut cookie, which gets blown up to cake layer size for that recipe.
If you absolutely insist on using pure meringue, you will get better behavior from Italian meringue. Be very precise in measuring the temperature of the eggs and the syrup correctly, in getting it to the right stage without overwhipping, pop it in the oven (your 90 to 120 C range sounds right) and keep your fingers crossed.
In case you continue trying the pure-meringue-route, there are two more things to try. One, you can also add a vessel full of water on the bottom of the oven to reduce the probability of cracking. Two, if you use a silicone or fiber mat instead of the baking paper, you will have more insulation from below, and also less risk for cracking after the baking, during peeling off the mat.
The discs are in the oven with a silicone mat instead of the paper, and I used icing sugar instead of granulated sugar. Fingers crossed! Thank you!!!! x
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.572041 | 2021-01-28T16:49:02 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/114001",
"authors": [
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/91084",
"zofia"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
115480 | Prevent sticky residue from oiling seasoned pan before storage
I have a variety of carbon steel pans and after I use them I dry them using a paper towel and then warm them up to make sure they are completely dry. Once I'm sure the pan is dry I spread a little bit of sun flower oil over the pan to make sure it does not rust. Sometimes the pan is hot, warm and sometimes cooled back down when I put the oil.
When I go to use the pan again (about 1 week later) sometimes the oil has become this gummy, rubbery residue.
Getting rid of it through cleaning is very difficult without damaging the seasoning. My best experience is by either heating it to the point where the residue melts and can be wiped off, or put it in the oven to bake at 250°C and basically create a layer of seasoning with it.
Why is this happening and how can I prevent this?
You really have to combine all those stages in one.
If you have to wet it at all, rather than just wipe it out after use, then dry it on the heat, wipe round some oil [the smallest amount you can manage] then heat it until it smokes off.
Cool & store.
The only way to truly avoid gummy oil is not to have any oil left, only seasoning.
I took me a while to figure out, way back when, that seasoning is done with tiny amounts of oil, repeatedly, at intervals.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.572394 | 2021-04-30T16:14:38 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/115480",
"authors": [
"Robin Betts",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/59328"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
114611 | Hersey Cookies and Creame Treat
I am planning on making a cute little desert for my family that involves steam melting (putting the bars in a glass bowl under steam) hersheys Cookies and Cream chocolate bars and then pouring them in a ice tray as a mold. However I want to coat the White Chocolate in the Milk Chocolate upon pouring them into the mold. Any ideas of how i could do that due to it seeming quite impossible in my mind?
Basically, you have to either pour the hot one over the cold one, or dip cold in hot.
Freeze the first solid section in the moulds, then set on a wire baking tray & pour over your second layer. This method will bind to the wire if you're not careful.
Alternatively, dip the cold in the hot & lay on a non-stick surface. This method tends to spread out a bit, so leave plenty of room around each chunk. Alternatively, don't dip to full-depth to allow for some run-off.
DaringGourmet has a recipe showing both methods, though over a different substrate - Marzipan Truffles
Option 3 (options 1 and 2 in answer by Tetaujun)
Melt milk chocolate and paint into the molds. Freeze 20 minutes, then pour the melted C&C bar. Back into freezer.
You will have one side uncoated, so serve wth that side down
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.572536 | 2021-03-05T16:31:41 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/114611",
"authors": [],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
115937 | Extracting Menthol using chemistry?
I know this might be an answered question, but how can i extract menthol powder from fresh mint peppermint doesnt really answer my question. I am wondering if i were to get a chemistry set, could i boil the menthol right out of the leaves in the form of vapor, and then condensate it for further use? This might be a question for the chemistry SE, but it kind of fits here as well.
Do you mean 'it doesn't answer your question' or do you mean, 'it looks a bit difficult'? If you could just boil some leaves & collect the steam, what makes you think that wouldn't have been the first answer?
My answer on the older question addresses exactly that: how to extract menthol from the leaves using chemistry. Maybe you read only Megha's answer there? I fail to see how this is not a duplicate. Especially since I also describe there exactly the path you are suggesting here (extraction that starts with a distillation step).
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.572662 | 2021-06-04T17:54:26 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/115937",
"authors": [
"Tetsujin",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/42066",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/4638",
"rumtscho"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
114975 | How can I prevent my sponge cake(genoise) from sinking after baking?
I have made a genoise sponge cake three times now. Every time when I take the cake out of the oven, it always sinks a lot. Like, as soon as I flip it onto the wire rack, the bottom falls about halfway. I know it won't really affect the taste or anything, but is there a method for preventing this? I know some bakers let their cakes cool in the oven, but won't that dry out the cake?
Welcome to the site! We will need your full recipe and method in order to help you figure out what's going on. How are you checking that it is done?
Hi, I know you said genoise, but in fact the mechanism is the same in pretty much all egg-leavened cakes, so I closed as a duplicate. If you want, you can post the full recipe as the other comment suggests, so we can see if you are doing something unusual, and then we could reopen and give you advice. Please do read GdD's answer on the chiffon cake question carefully, collapse is part of the game.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.572760 | 2021-03-25T23:44:32 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/114975",
"authors": [
"GdD",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/19707",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/4638",
"rumtscho"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
116257 | What was Country Herb Chicken Sauce Blend?
An old hand-written recipe calls for one package of "Country Herb Chicken Sauce Blend", a presumably retired McCormick product. The recipe is quite similar to this one:
https://www.cookingindex.com/recipes/38300/country-pot-pie.htm
Whatever was in this packet, it seems it was designed to be mixed with water and milk and brought to a boil to make a sauce.
We'd love to re-create the recipe. Does anyone know what was in that packet?
The McCormick website has a recipe for "Country Herb Chicken and Dumplings." That might be a good starting point.
Here is someone else's recipe for the spice mix.
It looks like you can still get the McCormick spice blend, here, for example.
These products are not a "just add water" solution, but you can probably get reasonably close between the recipe and spice mixes.
Nice! I'll bet it was the spice blend plus some amount of flour. Thanks!
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.572871 | 2021-06-29T21:07:36 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/116257",
"authors": [
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/93342",
"hunter"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
115251 | What kind of dish/pastry consists of white bread with ice-cream or some sort of mousse inside?
I found this randomly:
To me, it distinctively looks like non-sugary bread. It looks like the kind of bun you normally use for making sandwiches, for example put butter and/or cheese inside. It doesn't look like it's "sugary" and intended for being a pastry.
Is this a famous/known "dish"/product/concept?
This is almost certainly Brioche con Gelato, which is Brioche, a sweet and rich bread with gelato a rich ice-cream made with whole milk and sugar.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.572966 | 2021-04-13T01:08:21 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/115251",
"authors": [],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
115692 | Why should entrecôte meat apparently be cut into slices before served?
Recently, I went crazy and bought an entrecôte -- a very premium cut of beef to me. Over $11 USD for one. It was heavenly. I nearly cried when it was all gone from the plate.
The instructions said to put it out from the fridge for 30 minutes before frying it, which I did. While in the grill pan, it caused so much fat to melt into it that it quickly started "boiling" in its own fat rather than frying, so I had to repeatedly take the meat out from the pan and put it on a plate while pouring away all the liquid fat from the pan into a container. I repeated this many, many times before it finally looked done. The instructions said nothing about this, but maybe they consider it "obvious". If I had just left it in the pan, it would've been "caramelized" rather than fried/grilled. A lump of coal!
Anyway, once done, the instructions said to let it rest on the plate for two minutes before slicing it up into slices and then serving.
My question is: while I understand the need to wait for it to cool down, and possibly "set" (not sure if that's the right term) outside of the frying pan before serving, why do they tell you to slice the whole thing into slices? I actually didn't follow that last advice, but instead just kept cutting pieces from it as I ate. (As I've always eaten meat of any kind, including in any restaurant I've ever been to.)
This time (yes, I couldn't help myself from buying another one!), I'm going to try to cut it into slices as instructed, before eating, after waiting the two minutes. Unless you all can tell me a good reason not to, that is. Does it make the meat taste better? If so, why?
My instinct would be that the instructions don't mean 'you should slice this after letting it rest' but rather 'if you're going to slice it, let it rest first' (i.e. instead of slicing it immediately). Slicing a steak can be the norm if it might be tough to cut at the table, or if it's going to be shared (especially if it's fairly large), or indeed just for a particular presentation.
You said that your meat would have caramelised if you hadn’t stopped ever so often to pour off the fat. But that’s what you want: caramelisation — or rather, predominantly the Maillard reaction between the sugars and the proteins in your meat — causes both the browning and the distinct flavour we’re seeking in our entrecôte. I’m not saying that you’d never pour off excess fat (nor that it’s impossible to accidentally burn the meat), but in general you’d use the fat of an entrecôte to baste it, you wouldn’t drain it off.
Another reason for cutting is that in the kitchen you have the sharpest possible knifes and can cut against the grain, i.e. cutting the muscle fibres and giving the tenderest serving. All this is mainly presentational but important for restaurants and commercial cooking.
It looks great for presentation (and for sharing photos of your dinner on instagram...) but it cools down much faster! When I cook steak for myself I don't care about the former but I do about the latter. I don't like eating my meat cold. And I don't like to rush dinner.
Also, while the "leave your steak out at room temp before cooking" instructions are repeated everywhere it may be a myth and not worth it. https://www.seriouseats.com/old-wives-tales-about-cooking-steak
To directly answer your question - you slice it for presentation.
Entrecôte should be cooked at as high a temperature as you can achieve. This will tend towards charring the outside before the inside is cooked. As you should serve it towards medium rather than rare because of the fat content, you want to avoid over-cooking by doing it too slowly.
You are correct in allowing it to rise to room temperature before cooking. Some people would also salt it 30 - 45 minutes before cooking [others would object to that - your call, experiment]. If it was vac-packed, definitely allow it to come to room temperature between towels to help dry it out.
Once it hits your pan or grill, it should really only need a couple of minutes each side; this should be fast enough that it doesn't swamp your pan before each side is done.
After that, you either leave it to rest for at least 10 minutes, or place in a slow oven, depending on thickness. This is to allow the temperature to equalise & finish cooking the inside.
Because it is heavily charred on the outside, for presentation you slice to present the tender inside as it's served.
Image is waygu, but best I could find royalty-free. - https://www.dreamstime.com/modern-style-barbecue-dry-aged-wagyu-entrecote-beef-steak-lettuce-tomatoes-offered-as-close-up-design-plate-image194816166
Re: resting the meat for at least ten minutes - it serves another purpose, as well as the two you mentioned: cooking the meat causes the juices to become unevenly distributed and the fibres to toughen slightly; resting allows the juices to even out through the meat and also lets the fibres relax, allowing for better, easier slicing and a better mouth-feel (and taste for particularly juicy cuts). The difference between rested and unrested isn't huge , but it is significant and by taking easy steps to improve things, a good meal can become a great one.
I'm in the salt 45 minutes before cooking camp. It improves the surface texture greatly IMO. Penetration is minimal. But as mentioned, it's a personal preference.
One point is presentation as has already been covered by another answer.
Another is to cut the muscle fibers shorter if possible. Muscle fibers are generally tough, and so if you cut them into shorter parts the meat will feel more tender to chew. A premium piece of steak will already have the fibers short, ie. along the shortest dimension like so |||||||||||||| (sideview) or maybe slightly slanted like so ////////// (sideview), but you can still cut them even shorter by cutting at an angle like so \ \ \ \ (sideview). Search for "how to cut meat against the grain" for more information or look here for an example using flank steak where it is pretty much essential to cut against the grain: https://www.thekitchn.com/heres-exactly-how-to-slice-meat-against-the-grain-and-why-you-should-be-doing-it-meat-basics-215798
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.573043 | 2021-05-17T10:30:47 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/115692",
"authors": [
"Captain Giraffe",
"Konrad Rudolph",
"Mark Wildon",
"Spratty",
"dbmag9",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/1297",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/19673",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/36356",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/55714",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/69341",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/70117",
"user2705196"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
115969 | In which cases is it best to cook in either a regular non-stick pan or a wok?
In my home, we use 2 types of pans most of the time when cooking, apart from our rice pot and some other equipment, I don't know what to call it. These pans are a big wok, and 3 non-stick pans, small to large. We usually use the large pan since we're family.
I'm asking this question since this is something that came to my mind in case I have to cook for myself when I grow up. If I have to chose any of the 2 types, in which cases do I have to use one of them?
By the time you're cooking for yourself, you'll probably own more than two pans. Personally, I own 45.
@FuzzyChef does this count ones you no longer use?
Nope. Those are in boxes waiting to go to charity. I mean, that includes a lot of specialized cookware; I have two crepe pans, for example. But there's also some basics. Like I have two 3qt pots because that's actually a really useful size, and sometimes I need more than one at the same time.
@FuzzyChef then 3 or 4 pans might do in my college life.
Yes. I had around 7 when I was in college, and as a strict vegetarian I cooked more than most college students. Keep the wok, though! Stir-fries are cheap, and scale easily for eating with 3 friends.
The wok is a single-purpose tool. Use it for stir frying. You may find some creative ways to repurpose it on case-by-case basis, although it won't be what it was designed for.
The non-stick pans are versatile, use them for anything that requires low- bis middle temperatures. The size choice is related to the size of the batch you are making. Some foods are more sensitive to the total thickness of the layer in the pan than others, but it is impossible to list them all, learning about them is a part of learning to cook.
what's wokking? I can't seem to search it.
@DerrickWilliams thanks for catching that. It appears that English doesn't use "to wok" as a verb, the proper term for the technique to use with a wok is "stir frying". I corrected the answer.
A wok is also very useful for deep frying, as the tapered sides contribute to greater safety for home cooking....so, maybe dual-purpose.
@moscafj OK, I added that it can be repurposed, there probably are more such cases than one can count. I am a bit surprised by the deep frying suggestion, why do the tapered walls give greater safety? And the shape seems rather unsuited when it comes to optimal heat transfer - for a fixed volume of oil, we should get better results in a straight-sided vessel than in a wok.
that's good enough. :)
@rumtscho tapered sides allow for oil expansion, without bubble-over.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.573530 | 2021-06-08T06:00:20 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/115969",
"authors": [
"Derrick Williams",
"FuzzyChef",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/17143",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/4638",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/7180",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/94053",
"moscafj",
"rumtscho"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
115804 | How to properly use alcohol when cooking something?
I remember one time where our father decided to use some liquor on the food we/he was cooking, and he says it gives more flavor. Yes, it does work, but I fear getting drunk or even having that strange feeling when tasting alcohol.
Since I'm still a freshman high schooler, or specifically a minor, I would prefer to stay away from alcohol, even for cooking, but just to be safe, I need to know more about cooking with alcohol.
I found this site upon searching answers and saw this quote:
You know why you drink alcohol. But why cook with it? When used properly, alcohol improves your food. It bonds with both fat and water molecules, which allows it to carry aromas and flavor. In a marinade, alcohol helps the season the meat and carry flavor (not tenderize). It functions similarly in cooked sauces, making your food smell and taste better.
This does seem to answer the question I had in mind ("What does alcohol do to the food?"), but this brings another question. The "When used properly" part could be identified further, but all I really have in mind is the "Don't put too much or you get drunk when eating." type of thinking.
How to properly use alcohol when cooking something? It seems obvious that I shouldn't use undrinkable alcohols for it.
Sorry, there is no single clear meaning of "properly use alcohol when cooking". One could even argue that the usage in your citation is tautological.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxqAGbJ3bSA
This is borderline too broad as there's many ways alcohol can be used in cooking, but in reality preparation method doesn't actually make much difference, alcohol doesn't cook off nearly as quickly as people seem to think so it's good practice to expect there will be almost as much alcohol in the end dish as you put in. Some techniques like flambe will burn off some, but there will still be plenty left.
I think the way to go is to understand how much alcohol goes into different foods so you understand you may end up eating, you can then steer away from things that may have too much. It would be unusual for you to ever feel the effects of alcohol when it's used in food because the generally the quantities are very low compared to the bulk of the food. A good example of this is using red wine in a tomato sauce, you may add 250ml of wine to say 1.5 liters of sauce overall. At 17% alcohol that's around 43ml of actual alcohol in that wine, if you have 1/6th of that sauce in your meal you're having about 7ml of alcohol in that sauce, which isn't enough for you to notice any effects.
That's not true across the board though, looking at the other end of the scale you have something like Rum Babas, where you have alcohol at about 8x the concentration of the tomato sauce. If you ate one of those you'd be having about 20-25ml of alcohol, depending on the serving. That's about the equivalent of 1/2 a glass of wine. That's not really that much, even for a teen, but you might notice an effect.
An extreme example would be vodka marinated tomatoes, this involves soaking peeled cherry tomatoes in 500ml (2 US cups) of pure vodka for hours. I served this at a party and a vegetarian guest ate a ton of them and got completely lit!
The upshot of this is that it's about the quantity of alcohol you will end up eating or drinking, preparation only makes a bit of difference in that.
at least I wouldn't be putting too much if I have to use some liquor to make some meat dish if I would.
You don't need to use alcohol when cooking food, there are multiple alternatives that you can use to replace it for most recipes.
There are recipes that need alcohol (for example baba au rhum) and would be different when using substitutes.
If you want to use alcohol when cooking, use good quality alcohol (that you would drink) it does not need to be expensive, but it should be drinkable.
Alcohol adds some flavors (in combination with other ingredients).
Alcohol adds some acidity, especially white wine.
Alcohol can be used to flamber in some recipes.
Alcohol can add some sweetness to same sauces (for example when using Vermouth in pan sauces)
Anecdotally, I rarely use alcohol in food; I find that in most instances it does not add to the end product (yeah, even in stews, but that's just me).
this made me say "Yes, no alcohol for me."
Another major use of alcohol not specifically mentioned here is to deglaze a pan, where other liquids can substitute but might have a different effect in terms of carrying flavour.
Alcohol adds some flavors, it is not necessary to the "deglazing" technique.
@Max As I said, you can deglaze with other liquids but alcohol does do something beyond bring its own flavour: there are flavour compounds more readily soluble in alcohol than in water.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.573766 | 2021-05-25T12:19:03 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/115804",
"authors": [
"Derrick Williams",
"Lee Daniel Crocker",
"Max",
"dbmag9",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/18599",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/20118",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/36356",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/4638",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/94053",
"rumtscho"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
116568 | Why do my falafels taste so boring?
I've been making falafels from scratch for a few times now and I've started to get the hang of it. I've got the texture of the falafels pretty great but the flavour of them isn't really... anything?
I've been following this recipe as a guide, so I've been putting in tons of garlic, onion, coriander and parsely but the final product doesn't really taste like much, compared to the falafels at local restaurants.
I'm wondering if I need to up my salt game or maybe if the quality of the dried chickpeas has a big impact? I'm scared of oversalting but I am pretty generous with my salt and cumin. What makes a falafel taste good?
Are you frying or baking them?
Remember fat carries flavour. A restaurant will have everything needed to deep fry food safely (well safely for them: you take the responsibility for your arteries).
You say "as a guide". What changes are you making exactly? Because I look at that recipe and it looks fine to me. For that matter, how much salt are you adding?
I've been shallowing frying them in sesame oil. I haven't been deviating from the recipe at all really, but I just do a few cracks of the salt shaker.
Sorry, we get the question of "X is too bland" every now and then, and it is not answerable from afar. People start throwing out random suggestions, until the sum of advice ends up saying to increase every spice, herb and seasoning you are already using.
max: I'd suggest adding more salt then. Chickpeas are very starchy.
If you're shallow frying them, it helps to flatten them to a small fat burger shape. They make better contact with the pan and oil that way. You still need some depth to the oil though
From a different answer:
When you're looking at a recipe and it's too bland, the first thing to ask yourself is "what more". What flavor isn't coming through that you'd like to come through? Is some ingredient overpowering everything else? Are the flavors too simple, or too subtle?
In the case of falafels, I would especially wonder whether you've used enough fresh herbs (note: dried parsley and dried cilantro leaf are useless non-entities), and whether your ground coriander and ground cumin have been sitting in the cupboard for a year and have lost their potency. Salt and garlic you can play with to taste. Keep in mind that nobody eats just a bowl of unadorned falafel. They need to have amped up flavors to serve the whole dish. It's okay if they're too strong when eaten by themselves.
cheers! I think I've been using good herbs but maybe the spices are lacking.
Salt is always one of the key aspect to flavourful food.
Also, how fresh are your spices ?
Also, also, adding too much garlic and onion (tons!!) might completely make the recipe unbalanced.
Spices are super fresh, I might try upping salt and maybe less onions then haha
Maybe the restaurant where you eat uses hulled fava beans(broad beans), like most Egyptians, and that is accounting for the flavor difference. Other than that I would say experiment with increasing the salt amount
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.574135 | 2021-07-25T05:17:10 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/116568",
"authors": [
"Chris H",
"FuzzyChef",
"Mark Wildon",
"dbmag9",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/20413",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/36356",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/4638",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/69341",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/7180",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/94871",
"maxresdefault",
"rumtscho"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
116575 | Help making cotton candy - clumps and is wet?
I have a mid-grade cotton candy machine (paragon classic 5) and I am having a lot of trouble getting it right. I am following the minimal instructions it comes with. Turn on the motor, full the hopper, turn on the heat to high, and turn down the heat when it starts to produce. I turn it down just to the point that it is still producing, but it's still flinging clumps quite regularly, which stick to the pan and are picked up with the next stick.
The resulting cotton candy also seems very heavy and wet. It looks fine at first, but after a few minutes it starts to look very wet and melty, even developing a blackish-brownish wetness.
I have less than a week to learn to use this right before I need it for an event. =(
What kind of sugar are you using and how are you storing it? From your description, it seems to have too much moisture in it
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.574396 | 2021-07-25T23:16:56 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/116575",
"authors": [
"Juliana Karasawa Souza",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/51551"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
116640 | Overnight smoker seemed to go out. Meat at 168
Smoker was at 250-260 when I went to bed. 9lb pork shoulder. I woke up the temp on the egg said 200, but looked like it was off. Internal meat probe said 168. Fired it back up to 275. Fired up quickly.
Put it on around 7 last night, it’s 7:45 now.
Safe to eat??
While I realize your pork is not at room-temp, the question is whether (and how long) your product spent in the "danger zone". The linked Q&A has all of the appropriate information for you to make a decision. From your question, it looks like you are probably alright, but you don't supply enough detail for me to definitively say if your food is safe.
Let me see if I have this right. You are pretty clear that everything was good when you went to bed. Next morning, you get up. You check on the smoker. The smoker has gone out - it is not providing heat. You check the meat with a probe and the meat temp is still 168, right?
Now, all I've done is repeat back to you what I understand you said. If that is how everything happened, then yes, your meat is just fine. If your meat had been 30 degrees cooler, there might have been some reason to doubt, but 168 F is fine.
Also, I am assuming you didn't leave it out cooling (for more than an hour or so) after cooking. The rule-of-thumb for the danger zone is 40F - 140F. There is a very similar question, with an answer, in this question.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.574598 | 2021-07-31T11:53:05 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/116640",
"authors": [
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/17143",
"moscafj"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
120858 | Does dish soap exhibit effects when washing non-fatty dishes?
I know that a soap's main effect is to bind fats to water, i.e., to make fatty substances water-soluble. When washing fat-free dishes, e.g., a bowl that was only used to temporarily hold a can of tomato sauce, I wonder whether there is any point in using dish soap, or whether rinsing with water is just as good?
Assumptions:
Only fat-free foods were used in the dish, such as many vegetables or fruit.
No relevant skin fats from mouth or fingers, i.e., I am not asking about glasses that someone drank from, cutlery, or items that where touched/handled a lot.
Ignore pure optical effects of dish soap, e.g., substances to make glass shinier.
Does dish soap (detergent) have relevant effects in such cases?
It might be helpful to clarify. What do you mean by "exhibit effects." Your question already eliminates main effect of soap (creating an emulsion)....so I'm not sure what you want to know? It is certainly possible to clean dishes and kitchen items without soap.
I think my question boils down to whether without soap there is a higher risk of food remains being left on the dishes, providing grounds for, e.g., bacterial growth.
These are two different questions. 1. Does soap facilitate the removal of food from dishes...and 2. Is soap necessary to sanitize dishes? I would still suggest rewording your question.
What's the practical application of this information - are you going to leave one dish on the side to just give a quick rinse later, whilst ensuring the rest get a good soapy wash?
@moscafj One partially implies the other, does it not? My question is about daily household use, so I am not sure I see the point in getting scientific (I suppose we can sanitize dishes but leave food on the dishes, e.g., by heating it to high temperatures, etc.)?
@unlisted For example, I might quickly rinse a bowl (partial cleanup while still cooking). Other dishes are placed in the dishwasher later.
Just put the whole lot in the dishwasher. It's hugely uneconomical [both in financial & "green" terms] to be hand-washing bit by bit. Once everything that will go in the dishwasher has gone in it, everything that must be hand washed can be done in one go.
This question is not about economics. Do you think it is better suited for https://chemistry.stackexchange.com/?
I for sure only rinse out bowls that held cut vegetables, or a knife I used to slice a tomato, for example, if nothing is stuck. I don't know if I am missing anything, though.
While not all foods have visible fat, anything that came from plant or animal cells will have trace amounts of lipids (building blocks of fat) and lipid-soluble/non-polar (like to bind with oils & fats) compounds. These include:
lycopene, the pigment that gives tomatoes their red colour
capsaicin, the spice in peppers
various other volatile compounds that contribute to tastes and smells
Since plastics have a non-polar composition, these compounds easily adhere to plastic food containers and can bind strongly enough to resist being rinsed off with plain water. Length of contact time between food and container, and the specific type of plastic used, affect this. These compounds can also form thin films on glass with the trace amounts of lipids present. Surfactant ingredients in soaps help remove these as you described in conjunction with agitation from scrubbing.
One way you can test this is rubbing the skin of a tomato, rind of a cucumber, some tumeric, or ghost peppers on a clear bowl and see/smell the residue from rinsing vs soap washing.
Additionally, as noted by @Tristan Beckwith above, some soaps will have bactericidal additives. Most surfactant ingredients will have some capacity to kill microorganisms, but for consistently achievable results - i.e. in a commercial food service setting - the application of heat or use of chemical sanitizers are needed.
Interesting. Is this (the lycopene adherance) the reason why, e.g., tomato sauce stains plastics?
Yes, that's the reason. To build on that, difficult lipid-soluble pigment stains can be removed by using non-polar solvents like isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol, maybe with an extended soak for older stains. Very, very old stains may completely resist removal if the pigments have migrated past the surface layer of plastic.
The dish soap Dawn's active ingredient is "chloroxylenol" and it is a disinfectant that kills bacteria. This means that there is a difference between washing with soap and washing with water.
Chloroxylenol is not the (only) active ingredient in soaps containing it; listing it as such is done to conform with FDA regulations for pharmaceutical labeling. The actual active ingredients (detergents) are generally more effective than disinfectants at actually disinfecting.
Is this an US-specific ingredient? I checked a couple products here (Europe) and did not come across this.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.574992 | 2022-06-19T18:05:45 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/120858",
"authors": [
"Esther",
"Simon",
"Sneftel",
"Tetsujin",
"borkymcfood",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/17143",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/42066",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/58067",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/80388",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/94946",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/99917",
"moscafj"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
123048 | Does flour have yeast?
This feels like it should be an easy question to find an answer to, but all I'm finding are unreliable sources saying both yes and no.
I'm referring specifically to any kind of store-bought flour used for cooking or baking.
Thanks!
Welcome to SA! Can you clarify what you're asking? Are you asking if store-bought wheat flour has naturally occuring yeast, or if flour has yeast added to it?
Also, it would help if you explained what you're trying to accomplish.
Suggestion to responders: include additives to 'self-raising' flour in your answers. I'd expect this to be the biggest source of confusion. (PS: No, it has baking powder and salt added, not yeast)
Flour “contains yeast” in the sense that it is not a sterilised product and contains impurities such as wild yeast cells. The yeast and bacteria contained in flour, in fact, are the genesis of “sourdough starters“.
Flour does not “contain yeast”, in the sense it has nowhere near enough yeast cells to use to make a risen dough. Yeast (or an established sourdough starter) must be added to make dough rise.
… and the amount of viable wild yeasts can vary depending on a lot of factors. (May be worth keeping in mind when starting a sourdough.)
I gather there are many wild yeasts of interest to the sourdough community. They are biologically different species, which explains why German sourdough is not the same as English.
@RedSonja basically just saccharomyces cerevisiae, actually. Sourdough starters are distinguished potentially by the particular yeast strain, but primarily by the bacteria.
Might add that flour under normal circumstances (in the bag you bought it in) is very dry, so that yeast cells and bacteria in the flour can not really grow. Of course this changes if there is a source for water, wet flour will grow mold quickly.
Wild yeast is common enough in flour that humans were able to make bread for 5000 years or so before inventing the microscope and learning that yeast is a thing.
@dan04
This is true, but a thing to remember. Humans doing so also didn't expect their bread to rise in an hour.. Hence unleavened bread was a thing. Without concentrated yeast cultures it takes time for the flour to properly leaven and begin to rise.
This may surprise you, but there are arguments for both a "yes" and a "no" answer, and both are right. My personal preference is on the "no" side.
The arguments for "flour does not contain yeast" are:
yeast is not an ingredient that goes into the making of flour
functionally, if you want to make a yeast dough, you have to add yeast to the flour
The argument for "flour does contain yeast" is that technically, there are yeast spores in flour. So, in a very literal sense, flour contains yeast. But if choose to use this to say "flour contains yeast", then you have to concede that everything contains yeast - flour, sugar, the meadow outside, your own hair, and the very air you breathe in. The statement would be irrelevant, which is a very damning thing to say about a statement!
Possible sources of confusion
The first one is unlikely, but I'd like to get it out of the way: Bread mix. These mixes work analogously to cake box mixes - the producer put in everything needed to bake bread, beside the stuff that would make it wet, perishable dough. This includes both flour and yeast, and the package can look deceptively similar to flour.
The second is much more interesting. When you make a sourdough starter, you put a mixture of flour and water at room temperature, and soon you have a thriving colony with lots of yeast inside. Where did that yeast come from? There is a lot of lore among bakers that it (= the yeast that won the "race" and became dominant in the starter) came from the grains of wheat, and stayed on in the flour.
Personally, I prefer to believe the second theory - that the dominant strain more likely came from the air. The air certainly carries a lot of yeast spores, which seems to not be widely known among non-biologists. Also, I remember reading somewhere in the nerdier books on baking that the fact that you tend to get different types of sourdough in different locales is not due to the local yeast strains (as claimed in bakers' lore) but due to the exact starter recipe, including proportions, add-ins and feeding schedule (which, traditionally, were just as regional as recipes) plus the environmental conditions, mostly the circadian temperature cycle in the kitchen.
This does not exclude the presence of yeast within the flour. When you have yeast in the air, you have it sticking to everything that comes in contact with it, including the wheat-grains pre-milling, and the flour post-milling. But when your starter colony has equal chances to stem from your open window as from the wheat (or larger, because nowadays wheat gets fumigated with all kinds of stuff), and when the final taste of the bread turns out to not be dependent on the terroir of your favorite wheat grower, but on what selection pressure you apply during the starter process, then the discussions and fretting about breeding your starter from a flour with the perfect yeast pedigree start looking rather unnecessary.
So, in the end: If you want to be technically right, you can say that "flour contains yeast". If you want to bake something tasty, disregard it and follow a good recipe.
you can create a sourdough starter in an airtight container, so either the yeasts are in the flour, or the small amount of air it gets exposed to each time you open it to feed is enough to populate the sample with yeasts. Also, there are many strains of yeasts and bacteria in flour, and which ones live and become dominant depends on environmental factors (temp/humidity, feeding schedule, etc). See this article by a microbiologist who researched sourdough and the follow-up articles linked
"Flour contains yeast" is the same type of statement as "tomatoes are botanically a fruit": while these things are true, they are also culinarily completely and utterly useless.
@Marti tomatoes being fruit helps one understand how they ripen and how to handle them. Flour containing yeast helps one understand sourdough starters.
I think the (incorrect?) assumption/lore that sourdough yeast comes from the wheat grains is probably extrapolated from the (correct) knowledge that wine yeast does naturally grow on grape skins. It's also possible that historical methods of processing wheat were more likely to carry yeast spores through from the unprocessed grain to the finished product.
The bread mixes I use do not contain the yeast. I have to add that seperately.
based on does-flour-contain-yeast - it does, but it can be without too (there are alternatives) .
Based on a simple google search
it does contain it. So yes, fluor contains yeast.
sources
google
duckduckgo
https://testfoodkitchen.com/does-flour-contain-yeast/
please this is the first day I am here, so I try to be short. Is there anything I can edit to make it more clear?
Welcome! For all new users we recommend to take the [tour] and browse through the [help]. Especially [answer] would be helpful for you. In short, you are technically answering the question, but you are not saying more than “flour contains yeast”. Compared to the other answers, you see that yours is lacking the “why” and the “context” - and the community tends to disapprove of parroting google results without explaining why these sources are particularly helpful. As a matter of fact, we strive to be the result when people are googling a question, not a collection of search results.
And on a more content-oriented note: the information in both of your blog links is pretty low quality - they are phrased quite confusingly, contain technical errors and even contradict themselves within the article. If you really want to learn about flour and baking, I would not recommend them.
Generally, Google and DuckDuckGo aren't sources; they're ways of finding sources. If you do a Google search, and that search leads you to the LEAFtv website, and you get information off that website, then Google isn't your source; the LEAFtv website is your source.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.575387 | 2023-01-16T18:49:11 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/123048",
"authors": [
"Esther",
"FuzzyChef",
"Marti",
"Martin Bonner supports Monica",
"Questor",
"RedSonja",
"Sneftel",
"Sophie Swett",
"Stephie",
"dan04",
"eagle275",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/101479",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/102661",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/23488",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/2569",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/26513",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/28879",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/41675",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/56980",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/58067",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/6369",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/68357",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/7180",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/79641",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/80388",
"mcalex",
"nnihadana",
"shadowtalker"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
116715 | Should jalapeno slices go on the pizza pre or post oven?
I have bought a jar of sliced jalapenos, in an attempt to make a pizza simulating the ones I used to eat as a kid. This is the first time ever I see this product for sale to normal consumers.
Now I wonder if I should put the slices on the pizza BEFORE or AFTER it's gone into the oven. I fear that they might turn into disgusting, dry lumps of coal if I put them on before, but I'm not entirely sure that it's correct to put them on when the pizza is already done (has been in the oven).
I have a feeling that the right answer is that they go on after the oven, but I want to make sure before I ruin my pizza tomorrow.
I can't recall what they used to do in the pizzeria, but from what I can remember (which is quite foggy), the jalapeno slices on the pizzas I used to buy after my "paper boy" route was done seemed very "preserved", as in, most likely not cooked inside the oven. I suspect that they simply sprinkled them on after the pizza has come out of the oven.
I think you'll get two different results, try both 1/2 while cooking 1/2 after
I agree I would definitely put them on before, I don’t know of any place that puts them on after. They would just fall of the slice and be annoying. I don’t think the baking would ruin the jalapeños at all they’re pickled so they’re pretty moist, but I guess it’s possible you might prefer them slightly more “raw” but I would be pretty surprised if you did especially since you chose canned which is already very cooked. I say give it a shot putting them on before they will very likely not turn into charcoal they’re not a super thin herb.
I worked in pizza shops since 1999. They always put on before cooking. Theres something about hot jaleps that i just dont like. I always put nice cold crispy jalepenos on my hot pizza afterwards. Its just the way i like it. I am talking about the pre packaged sliced ones pickled in a juice. Everyone is different, try it both ways and see what you like.
Ooooooh, one of my favorite toppings.
I often order pizza with Jalapenos (assuming you are talking about jarred/canned pickled Jalapenos) and like any vegetable you put it put on before you pop it in the oven. That will meld the Jalapeno with the cheese and any other toppings. I have done this when making my own pizza as well.
Heck you even put basil on before cooking and that comes out fine.
However, as with most food. it is all a matter of taste. No reason you can't try Jalapenos added after the pie is cooked. But I would be willing to bet you'll like it better if you cook the pizza with the jalapenos (and, ummm..., maybe some Italian sausage and mushrooms...) before you put it in the oven.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.576068 | 2021-08-06T19:44:01 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/116715",
"authors": [
"Max",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/20118"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
116806 | Why can't I keep chicken in the refrigerator for more than 2 days when the supermarkets can
So I have this raw chicken breast that I haven't opened (sealed shut in the original plastic container) in my refrigerator for 5 days now and there is still 2 days until the expiry date printed on the label. Also note that, when I bought it from the supermarket they were keeping it in a normal refrigerator, not a freezer.
So my question is, if we're not supposed to keep chicken in the refrigerator for more than 2 days, how can supermarkets keep it in a refrigerator and sell it until the expiry date?
Very closely related, possibly a duplicate: https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/110045/how-does-my-pre-cooked-costco-chicken-breast-not-expire-for-another-5-weeks?rq=1
@Stephie I would say the linked question is unrelated, as it is about a cooked product, and the qualifier is "best before" as opposed to "expiry."
As I read your question, expiry date was 7 days after you bought it, right? So where did you establish "we're not supposed to keep chicken in the refrigerator for more than 2 days"?
But I think the reality is that you have no idea how long it was in the supermarket refrigerator. The expiry date on the label only covers a time limit based on time in the market display, or unknown handling by the customer.
Never heard of this before. It'd be a useful addition to the question if you could quote/link to whoever told you not to keep chicken for longer than two days.
If your chicken remained below 40F (4.5C), and in its sealed package, the expiry is valid, regardless of whose refrigerator it is in. Any time in the danger zone (between 40 and 140F or 4.5 and 60C) reduces your window, and could reduce it dramatically depending on the temperature and time. If you have 2 days left, and you have kept it refrigerated, I would use it or freeze it.
Good point. The journey from supermarket to home is a likely temperature danger zone.
The key is packaging gas - the sealed plastic packaging is filled with an inert gas that prevents spoilage.
In your home environment, you will usually not be able to mimic that, so you don’t get the benefit of an extended time window for food safety.
Is fresh chicken packed with packaging gas? ...not here in the NE US.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.576309 | 2021-08-11T19:56:10 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/116806",
"authors": [
"Lawrence",
"Stephie",
"anotherdave",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/17143",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/28879",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/32752",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/35070",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/85456",
"moscafj",
"user3169"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
116821 | Why does peanutbutter become dry when mixed with orange zest and juice?
Last night I mixed some peanut butter (consisting only of peanut and peanut oil) with some orange zest and raisins. After adding the orange zest the peanut butter became too dry to my liking so I gave the orange a good squeeze. Much to my surprise the peanut butter became even dryer!
I tried searching this online but failed, I presume because I don't have the slightest clue which attributes of the peanut butter and the orange are at play here.
Why does peanut butter become dry when mixed with orange?
PS Adding a couple of tbs's of extra oil fixed it and thankfully the raisins caused no extra surprises. I have some yummy but slightly dry peanut butter in the cupboard.
I've noticed the same thing when making tahini sauce. If you add the water slowly, you'll see the paste appear to get drier and thicker, and then thin out again, as you add more water. You can see this happening in this video, after the water is added at 1:52: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgxxqSPa4Fs&t=131s
Peanut butter is a suspension of ground peanuts meal in oil. Adding water (juice is a water based solution...) to that would cause a phase separation of the oil and water. I suspect that during this process, the oil will generate a bunch of fine droplets that can no longer hold the peanut meal in suspension, and result in it crashing out and becoming a dry mass.
One way to prevent this would be to stir small amounts of the water into the oil to create an emulsion. This is similar to the process for making mayonnaise, where the emulsion is between oil/egg yolk and an acidic water based solution, often vinegar or lemon juice.
Like water for chocolate
@Willk exactly like that.
the term for this is 'seizing', if anyone wants to do further research
In my lingo we say the peanut flour gets hydrated. When dry peanut flour suspended in oil meets water, the flour hydrates and forms a thick peanut dough. Add more water and you'll get peanut batter. That's why peanut butter will suck the moisture out of your mouth if you eat it off a spoon. Same idea as this answer- just a different form of expression. :)
Peanut butter behaves like tahini (sesame "butter"). Adding water is the way to go.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.576504 | 2021-08-12T14:57:31 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/116821",
"authors": [
"Blargant",
"Juhasz",
"Morts",
"Willk",
"bob1",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/53826",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/56913",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/64007",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/69823",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/70120",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/7793",
"kitukwfyer"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
116854 | Q: How long should Bolognese sauce be stored in the fridge?
We made a big batch of Bolognese sauce (ground beef, tomatoes, veggies) and are wondering if we should store part of it in the freezer and eat the other part over the next week.
What is the optimal time to store cooked Bolognese in the fridge?
@moscafj: I would’ve recommended https://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/12010/67. …. But there’s the ‘optimal’ aspect of the question, as many dishes are better the next day
You might see some improvement with the flavors melding if it spends a day in the fridge.
But after more than a couple of days, you start to get into the questionable food safety / food poisoning risk territory.
You also risk getting burned out on it, and wanting some more variety in your diet if you have it day after day.
If it were me, I’d try to keep at most 2-3 days worth in the fridge, and freeze the rest. If it gets to day three, and you haven’t finished it off by then, I would use it in a lasagne or some other casserole, rather than trying to add what’s in the freezer.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.576713 | 2021-08-14T16:41:07 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/116854",
"authors": [
"Joe",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/67"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
117159 | Flavor slow cooked ragu
There is this ragu I make, it consists of minced meat in a tomato sauce with lots of red bell pepper. The ingredients are mirepoix, cubed tomatoes, lots of red bell pepper, garlic, bouquet garni, veal fond, minced meat, water and milk.
There are two ways of making it: adding water and reducing for over 4 hours or just cook it for an hour and be done with it.
Why I would like to know is why there is such a big difference in flavor between both ways. Why does a slow cooked tomato sauce result in such a deeper flavor while the consistency of it and the ingredients are the same.
Finally, is there a chemical reaction like maillard doing something to these ingredients?
In what way are they different ? which one is better ?
@Max it says the slow cooked one has deeper flavors.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.576829 | 2021-09-11T12:49:58 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/117159",
"authors": [
"Kat",
"Max",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/20118",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/51763"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
117177 | Does Chipotle make salsas hotter in some states?
I've lived in several midwest states (Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan), and while the midwest isn't known for spicy food, in these states I've always ordered the hot salsa for my burrito bowl when I go to Chipotle.
I'm in California now and just grabbed my first Chipotle here, getting the hot salsa as usual. However, the hot salsa feels significantly hotter than the hot salsa from the midwest - I've already downed my 16 oz water and I'm only half-way through my burrito bowl. Normally I can eat my whole burrito bowl without water (and yes, I know eating any food without water is unusual).
I know California has a higher proportion of Mexican restaurants than the midwest, and therefore it has spicier food on average. So I'm wondering if anyone knows -
Does Chipotle make the hot salsa hotter in states that have spicier food, like California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas?
That seems like it would make sense since the people in these states would have a higher threshold for spicy foods and might want some extra kick compared to midwestern people.
For what it's worth, water isn't the best thing to drink if your goal is to minimize the felt heat of capsaicin. The Youtube channel Food Theory did an experiment where they determined that sour, sugary drinks like lemonade work best: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0So51Q6GLg
I don't know but it wouldn't surprise me, midwesterners have little tolerance for heat compared to other areas.
@GdD when I lived in Kentucky, I went to an Indian restaurant and told them I wanted it hot. They asked me “Indian hot or American hot?” I didn’t think I was read for Indian hot, so I said American hot. It was quite disappointing. Best curry I ever had was from that place, when my boss said ‘Try to kill him’. Unfortunately, they’re gone now. (Kashmir, Lexington, KY)
@Joe, I've had different experiences with 'American hot'. Usually it means slightly spicier then normal but still pretty mild, but at a few places it lit me on fire! I live in London now, and you don't ask for it to be extra spicy unless you really mean it. Some dishes are naturally very hot to begin with, like a Jalfrezi which has a load of birds-eye chilis in it, then there's a Phall, which is code word for pain.
I was surprised at the complete absence of heat by default when I got a burrito in LA. Luckily there was some hot salsa available to add though re-wrapping made for a bit of a mess. Here in the UK you'd be asked as it was being made.
@GdD were you using ‘American hot’ at a place actually in America to differentiate with an immigrant cuisine? Because then I’d expect it to mean ‘to local taste’. In a place that’s not tied to a specific place in America, it could mean anything from Boson bland to New Mexico hot
It wasn't my term, it was the restaurant's @Joe. You're completely right about it being adjusted to local taste, which was why I was surprised by the tonsil-dissolving nature of the food I got in a Thai place in Wisconsin.
How sure can you be that it wasn't a matter of quantity? A drizzle of hot salsa vs a ladleful of the same stuff could make a big difference.
Chipotle uses about 20% locally-purchased produce. This can certainly introduce some variations in their finished product, so if you're asking if it's intentional, I can't say. But it seems entirely plausible that it might be reality, regardless of intent.
@ChrisH The issue of unwrapping and rewrapping is why the Mission burrito is king. Hold the burrito in one hand, and a container of hot sauce in the other. Bite the burrito, sip the sauce. No need to take everything apart. :D
@XanderHenderson : I think the preferred technique is to shake a little on the burrito for each bite, rather than taking a swig directly from the bottle
Btw a few years back, chipotle stopped making the salsas in store due to health concerns (outbreaks of norovirus) -- that said they might still be regionally made
What does this question have to do with cooking?
I am not joking when I say that Chipotle has 100% made a change to their hot salsa and it is now much hotter.
I don't have any specific information to answer "yes" or "no", but with no other answers, I would at least address the default: it should be "yes".
Restaurant chains and packaged food manufacturers fit their recipes to the local preferences. This is widespread practice, and there is nothing unusual or rare about it. They usually keep the same label, but produce it by a different recipe.
So when you combine the three points:
different recipes are common
heat preference clearly varies between cultures
you noticed a difference in taste, which is in line with what local heat preferences
then for me, it is overwhelmingly likely that in this case, the recipes are different.
The 4 major factors to why salsa is never the same on the perceived hotness (scolville level)
Maturity and type of the pepper when used. If jalapeño peppers are allowed to mature on the vine they will lose some moisture and their capsaicin will be more concentrated. Scoville hotness will go up. If you use a different variety due to availability, it will be hard to match the batch every week.
When water is used in pepper irrigation, and then it’s reduced due to rationing, the peppers will be smaller but capsaicin concentrated as well.
Food Prep. As they follow a recipe, cooks will add (x) number of peppers. On average, this is a ballpark scolville hotness best guess. If you use 12 concentrated jalapeños as described above… it’s gonna be hotter than 12 med regular. Or because they were smaller you add 16 instead of 12. Same same.
But as you know, if the chef has a higher tolerance then it may not seem hot enough to them and they add more. Meanwhile, the average Joe and Sally gets the fire… try milk.
All valid points, but with a restaurant chain like Chipotle I'd be surprised if they couldn't tune in their sauce no matter what all these parameters are. Consistency over quality, after all, people may want exactly what they're used to.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.576937 | 2021-09-14T02:22:11 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/117177",
"authors": [
"AMtwo",
"Chris H",
"CobaltHex",
"GdD",
"Joe",
"Robert",
"Ryan",
"Xander Henderson",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/19707",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/20413",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/20624",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/23198",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/26117",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/45339",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/63870",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/67",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/89259",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/98412",
"nick012000",
"pacoverflow"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
117421 | Does Challah bread need to be braided?
I need to bake Challah bread for sandwiches for a large number of people. Can I avoid the braiding? is it important to the final taste?
The most common form of Ashkenazi (Central and Eastern European) challah is braided. However, other shapes are not unknown.
For the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, Ashkenazi Jews eat a round challah. These are sometimes still braided, but often they are not. To make a round (unbraided) challah, we follow the same exact recipe, but after bulk fermentation, instead of divding the dough into 3/6/8 strands and braiding them, we form a log, or tubular shape, like a French batârd, then twist this log into a short spiral.
And, of course, we must remember that Ashkenazis are not the only Jews in the world. Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews do not typically make braided challah. They make round challah all year: https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1017858-sephardic-challah-with-whole-spices
Note: it's not "challah bread" - it's just "challah". Just like we don't say "baguette bread" or "ciabatta bread" or "brioche bread" or "focaccia bread"
I know lots of people who say "brioche bread" and "foccacia bread", sadly.
@FuzzyChef, yes, I thought that pronouncement might have been too optimistic. Still, not as bad as "chai tea" (tea tea).
Wait, it's not called "ciabatta bread"?
@OldBunny2800 Formally, no, it’s just ‘ciabatta’, just like spagetti isn’t called ‘spagetti pasta’. The practice of appending ‘bread’ to that (or any of the other examples in the answer) is an English thing, just like ‘chai tea’, ‘panko bread crumbs’, or any number of sauces (tzatziki and sririacha come to mind immediately as common examples that do not need ‘sauce’ appended but usually do have it in English, but there are a lot of sauces that native Anglophones like to append ‘sauce’ to the proper name of).
@AustinHemmelgarn: Maybe we Anglos should start calling it "ketchup sauce" or "mustard sauce" or "mayonnaise sauce" for the sake of fairness.
@AustinHemmelgarn - How do you feel about the phrase: "Pumpernickel Bread" as differentiation from pumpernickel dinner rolls or bagels?
@GregNickoloff Not exactly fond of it, but it’s established enough that there’s not much chance of convincing people it’s redundant.
@AustinHemmelgarn - Agree. I found brioche hotdog (and hamburger) buns at the grocery the other day... so I feel less "funny" about the phrase "brioche bread" now. Incidentally, they were tasty, but I didn't let people see me eating them. We must continue to stand strong against "queso cheese" though.
languages evolve, Prescriptivism is dumb.
And let's not get started on "tuna fish"...
@LaconicDroid I was just about to mention that! As a BrE speaker (we don't say it) it baffles me every time I hear it. Why for tuna, and not other fish? I don't get it. At least if it were consistent - salmon fish, bass fish, and so on... 'Naan bread' & 'pitta bread' are fairly common here though (equally proscribed - just somehow slightly more excusable if it's a loanword imported from wherever the food's from I think).
I bake ciabatta bread. I bake focaccia bread. I bake the loaves that remind me of the good times, I bake the loaves that remind me of the better times.
@Juhasz ‘Chai tea’ makes some sense, because in English ‘chai’ is is coming to mean ‘masala chai’ (i.e. black tea with a blend of aromatic spices), or even just the spice blend alone. Hence drinks such as ‘chai latte’ and ‘vanilla chai’ with little or no black tea in them. So ‘chai tea’ distinguishes it from those.
@MichaelSeifert In UK (and) AU English, it's called "tomato sauce", not "ketchup". ;)
A challah recipe does not require braiding for its flavour or to bake properly – but it does usually require braiding in order to be called challah. Feel free to leave it out, but (if your audience are familiar with challah) you might get questions about why it isn't braided. You could also just call it 'enriched bread' which is a more general term.
It's not important for the flavor, but it is important for the shape, and for making sure that the challah is done all the way through. First, if you just put a round mass of challah dough on a baking sheet it's going to tend to spread out rather than rising up, and you'll end up with a very flat, wide loaf (which might be OK, but might not). Second, as an enriched bread, challah tends to have a problem with being undercooked in the center.
So if you want one big loaf for slicing for sandwiches, I'd suggest putting it in some kind of loaf pan or cloche to make sure it keeps a round shape, and give it lots of time to finish cooking and check it with the tap test.
Alternately, you could make challah rolls, which are just the same dough rolled into small balls. The linked recipe makes small knots with them, but you don't have to do that; rolling them into balls and making small "slider bun" rolls works fine.
One traditional, simpler approach to shaping a challah is to make a "section challah", where the dough is divided, but not braided, and then placed in a row in a loaf pan.
Thank you everyone for your advice and suggestions. I made Challah rolls, which came out lovely and looking good. I had to hand knead the dough (which I did for 15 minutes) but the rolls were a bit too dense/thick. No good to be use as a sandwich roll. Any suggestions on how to make them more 'fluffy'
@HEBW5 post that as a new question, it's not going to get answered in comments.. There might also be an existing question with an answer that'll help you, so check for that first, of course.
What Kat said. Post a new question, I'll look for it.
I have made challah by rolling bits of dough into small balls and piling them up to form a loaf shape. This leads to a loaf with a similar level of irregularity as braided challah, but is easier to construct (e.g., when baking with small children). So far as I can tell, it tastes exactly the same as braided challah.
The shape won't dramatically affect the flavor. I worked at a bakery many years ago where we made Challah braids for the weekend but for our day-to-day sandwich needs we made Pullman loaves for slicing with this interesting technique:
Divide a loaf's weight of dough into 8 pieces
Shape them into balls as though you were making rolls
Tuck the balls into a buttered Pullman in a 4x2 grid
Rise and bake as normal
The individual balls all merge into a single loaf with a pleasing bumpy top and an overall rectangular cross-section that is perfect for sandwiches.
If you don't have a Pullman, a regular loaf pan should do fine, but try 6 balls in a 3x2 arrangement.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.577548 | 2021-10-06T12:01:59 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/117421",
"authors": [
"AAM111",
"Austin Hemmelgarn",
"Doug Warren",
"FuzzyChef",
"HEBW5",
"Juhasz",
"Kat",
"Laconic Droid",
"Michael Seifert",
"OJFord",
"eps",
"gidds",
"gnicko",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/29838",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/36418",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/42319",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/49675",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/51763",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/63169",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/63870",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/68458",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/70120",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/7180",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/79694",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/79735",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/83713",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/95796",
"nick012000"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
93048 | How to make mayonnaise at home?
I want to make sandwich with home maded mayonnaise. But I have no idea to make mayonnaise.How I can make mayonnaise at home?
Not for nothing but if you type that into your favorite search engine there are quite a number of recipes.
Not to be rude, but @steve is right, a better answer in this forum would be something like this: "I am trying to make mayo at home using this recipe (link to recipe) but I do feel that the result is too thin. what can I do to to fix it?"
Just a reminder: Recipe requests are off-topic here. Discussing methods or analyzing given recipes is ok.
Hint: If you have a food processor with an emulsion disk, use that for experimenting - these things can even make eggless mayonnaise easily :)
mayo is easy to make at home, and I guess that videos would be more instructive than my humble explications, anyway: mix egg yolk, then add a neutral oil (lige sunflower) little at a time, and I really mean just a
trickle, very slowly, continue to mix with a whip. For an egg yolk (medium) you can add up to 250ml of oil. When it has a dense creamy texture, you can add salt, and lemon juice at your taste.
Some add mustard, vinegar, or pepper, but in my opinion the simpler the better.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.578085 | 2018-10-19T12:00:00 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/93048",
"authors": [
"Andrea Shaitan",
"Stephie",
"Steve Chambers",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/28879",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/35312",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/62260",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/66651",
"rackandboneman"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
1331 | Are Green Potatoes OK?
Sometimes when peeling a potato, I find that areas of it are a bright shade of green. Does this mean that:
A) The potato is OK to eat?
B) The potato is OK to eat, as long as the green parts are removed and discarded?
C) The potato is not OK to eat (and if so, why not)?
This just means the potato has been exposed to light and has produced chlorophyll (the green color). It is most likely safe to eat, minus the green areas.
Producing the chlorophyll also produces solanine, which is toxic in large quantities. Remove the green parts and don't eat more than 4lbs.
For detailed information, see this link.
http://www.wisegeek.com/are-green-potatoes-poisonous.htm
I question the "perfectly" in "perfectly safe".
The 4lbs is for a healthy adult. Different values apply to small children, pregnant women and people with existing health problems.
The potato is OK to eat as long as the green parts are removed. They contain a toxin called solanine.
See this related question: Is it safe to eat potatoes that have sprouted?
As long as the core of the potato is "hard" I usually just remove the green part and cook as intended.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.578215 | 2010-07-17T04:14:42 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/1331",
"authors": [
"Christopher Parker",
"Honk",
"Pointy",
"Sagar Varpe",
"Todd Friedlich",
"Wooble",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/2215",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/2422",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/2423",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/2424",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/2430",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/2432",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/557",
"user2215"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/",
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
37363 | Why isn't a Sourdough starter unsanitary?
Letting a bowl of flour and water go bad in a warm corner seems problematic at best.
I'm willing to believe there is some process that goes on to limit pathogens, but reading around this doesn't seem to even be considered.
Sourdough isn't the only "spoiled" product: yeasts turn milk into cheese, sweet malt water into beer, grape juice into wine, soy and water into soy sauce, and cabbage into sauerkraut.
Note: I assure you that you don't want to eat raw starter, ever, or even get trace amounts in your eyes, mouth, ears, etc. I have had several bouts of stomach problems and two eye infections from making that mistake.
The hint is in the name, sourdough. Per the University of Wisconsin Extension:
Properly prepared starters are safe because they become acidic due to
the fermentation action of lactic acid-forming bacteria present in
the mixture. These bacteria and the acid environment formed inhibit
the growth of other bacteria, but do allow yeast, if added, to grow
and help leaven bread products.
Still, they point out care must be taken to get a good result. There have been food safety incidents related to home made starters, and using starters that can be stored in the refrigerator is recommended.
Please see the linked article for more detail.
Additionally, organisms that have evolved to live off of starches and simple sugars, at temperatures in the 70-90˚F range, don't do well as pathogens in humans. As the article points out contamination can happen, I see this is one more reason to NEVER put milk in a starter. Milk is a broth of animal proteins and sugars that can easily harbor pathogens that can affect humans. There are ways to start your starter out on a better foot, some of which can be read at: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/10901/pineapple-juice-solution-part-2
For making a starter, this might also be helpful: http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/29963/techniques-for-making-sourdough-starter-in-cold-altitude/36313#36313
Also you're about to bake it often in a 200C+ oven that's going to kill a lot of nasties
But it doesn't necessarily destroy the toxic waste products of bacteria/fungi if the food was spoiled.
There is a difference between letting something "go bad" and fermenting it. Fermenting is an intentional process by which certain (desirable) bacteria / fungi "eat" the food. The "waste" products of those microbes can be very valuable for humans, be it because it adds flavor, nutrients such as vitamins or because of other properties (such as the leavening of bread). Usually it's a combination of the above. If something spoils, however, the food is contaminated with undesired or even dangerous bacteria.
Sourdough in particular isn't that different from bread that's leavened with only yeast. Yeast is a fungus. The only difference is that sourdough also contains lactic acid bacteria (which are also in your intestines, the air and on most veggies. It's probably one of the most common bacteria there is). Those bacteria are the reason sourdough doesn't spoil easily, by the way.
For millennia, fermentation was one of the most important ways to preserve food (sauerkraut for instance) or bake bread (sourdough, Ancient Egyptian times). Even salami is fermented. Combined with refrigeration, such food can last even longer. Sauerkraut doesn't spoil for 6 months, easily.
Long story short: there are a great many microbes that are very important and beneficial to humans. Fermented food is as safe as any other food, given that it was fermented properly. As for sourdough: it maintains a very stable culture of lactic acid bacteria and yeast, effectively preserving the dough for as long as they don't die (and even then, the lactic acid slows the growth of pathogens considerably).
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.578361 | 2013-10-06T13:37:23 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/37363",
"authors": [
"Anpan",
"Barry Witt",
"Bradley Buesing",
"David Hayes",
"Didgeridrew",
"Robert",
"Roger Creasy",
"Wad Cheber",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/10685",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/19867",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/20624",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/35982",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/7172",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/87852",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/87853",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/87854"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
42390 | How can I clean my stainless steel teapot?
I have a rather nice stainless steel teapot that I use every day. I've started to get some black buildup due to using it on a gas range. What method would work well for restoring my teapot back to its original condition?
There's a cleanser product called Barkeeper's Friend that is great for stuff like this. http://www.barkeepersfriend.com/
If you are not in the US, the active ingredient in BKF is oxalic acid IIRC, so any product based on it should perform similarly.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.578663 | 2014-02-27T19:41:36 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/42390",
"authors": [
"Armadillo",
"Jean",
"SAJ14SAJ",
"devpa",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/14401",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/98978",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/98979",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/98980",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/98985",
"thisishct"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
6877 | Fat contents from different types of ground beef when drained
At the grocery store, they've got different types of ground beef: ground round, ground chuck, ground sirloin, etc. They each have different fat percentages. Anything from 70/30 (30% fat content) to the extra lean 90/10. The less fat content, the more expensive per pound.
I have heard that you can get the fattiest type, drain the grease as normal, and then rinse the meat with water in a colander to make it equivalent to the extra lean fat content. I'm not sure I buy that, and it seems this would rinse off any seasonings used also.
From a health perspective, the extra lean would be best, however, it can be double the price per pound compared to the cheapest / most fat content. If I am going to be using the meat crumbled in a casserole or for tacos, and drain the grease after browning the meat in a skillet, how much does the fat content matter? Is getting the cheapest and then rinsing it with water truly equivalent? Is there a better method that would enable me to save money with the cheapest or perhaps 80/20 but still get the low fat content of the meat I actually eat?
I have heard that you can get the fattiest type, drain the grease as normal, and then rinse the meat with water in a colander to make it equivalent to the extra lean fat content. I'm not sure I buy that, and it seems this would rinse off any seasonings used also.
That sounds terrible. Cooked ground beef should be drained if necessary, but not rinsed. It will rinse away a lot of flavor, and I doubt it makes it the equivalent of having bought lean meat in the first place. There is still plenty of fat present in the meat itself.
If you want low fat get extra lean. If you want flavor get 80/20 or 70/30 and drain thoroughly for as little fat as possible. Do yourself a favor though and don't rinse it with water.
That's gotta be right.
you might be able to get more fat out if you pressed it out with the meat in a sieve and some pressure applied to the top, but like hobodave says, don't rinse.
I agree - I always drain my ground beef after cooking but only tried rinsing it when I was young. I quickly stopped because it didn't help whatsoever. Just drain and, if necessary, push against the strainer with large spoon to remove extra fat.
Yeah, rinsing it probably won't help unless you use a strong detergent ;-)
To know for sure how much fat you're eliminating by draining (and pressing, per Sam Holder's suggestion with which I concur), weigh the drained fat. It will have some water, so it wont be exact, but it will be close.
Regarding rinsing, using water will remove water soluble flavors (as hobodave mentions) so this is not advised. Use good beef for recipes where the flavor of the meat comes through more and use more fatty, lower quality meat when the meat is less to the forefront in the dish.
For example, a casserole with lots of other flavors could use a lower quality, higher fat meat (with draining), but for burgers, I would use a lower fat meat of the highest quality.
90/10 burgers are quite dry and unappetizing. Alton Brown has stated that the "ideal" burger is 70/30, an I quite agree. In fact I would say I think the opposite of your suggestion is true. Use a lean meat in a casserole because there are lots of other flavors and fats. Yet when the beef is on proud display, use a nice fatty cut for maximum flavor and juiciness.
Depends on what you like... I personally don't like 70/30 for burgers. But nor do I like a fatty rib eye. I prefer a leaner cut. And, also, for my answer above, I meant a fattier ground beef but drained... Edit added.
Draining fat from browned hamburger is good, but rinsing it under hot running water removes an incredible amount of fat you would not expect to be in it after just draining it. If you don't believe that, drain the meat as usual, then, fill the pan with hot water to cover the meat and see what floats to the surface. It does not take away flavor unless you've seasoned it while cooking it. Draining the fat also removes some of that same flavor if it's seasoned before cooking or while cooking. You can brown the meat, drain and rinse it, then add your seasonings, even if it's sauteing onion, peppers or other vegetables in the meat. Rinse the meat, put in your vegetables to saute, and add a little beef broth (canned) to saute the vegetables in the meat. The flavor is still there. You'll soon know how much broth you need to adequately saute the vegetables. Add your seasonings and spices to the drained, rinsed meat as well.
I actually concur for someone who is dead-dog-serious about reducing fat, those people should also start with lean meat.
Compare 93% to 80% lean beef. My experience is anything under 93% does not have enough fat to cook nicely. If you need to add oil to cook it then why buy low fat in the first place.
A hamburger patty will retain more fat than compared to minced up beef for a spaghetti sauce. The finer you mince while cooking the more fat you can drain.
I usually buy 93% lean but 80% was on sale for 1/2 the price of 93%. When I fry and mince the 93% for spaghetti sauce some fat still drains so my though was 80% will drain off so it come out the same. I do not rinse with water.
If the 93% is $5/lb then the cost of the meat is $5.38/lb. If 80% is $4.30 the cost of the meat is the same.
The 80% clearly drains a lot more fat after cooking. By touch the 80% drained still has more fat than the 93% drained. My gut feel is the drained 80% is like 90% lean and the drained 93% is like 95% lean. The 93% has more flavor (for my taste). I suspect some of the flavor leaves with the fat or maybe the the 93% meat is just more favorable.
Cannot not just weigh the drained meat as water content is part of the weight. I guess you could weigh the drained fat but I am not that curious.
Drain hot out of the pan. If you let it cool even 5 minutes not as much fat will drain. Have a large drain surface so the meat is not more than 1" high. Cover while draining so it can hold some heat. After 20 minutes you have pretty much drained all the fat that is going to drain.
Short of rinse with water you could steam but I suspect that would reduce some flavor.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:24:59.578761 | 2010-09-07T01:41:28 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/",
"site": "cooking.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/6877",
"authors": [
"ESmith",
"Jay",
"John",
"Jolenealaska",
"Marie",
"Michael Natkin",
"Sam Holder",
"hobodave",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/1393",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/13943",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/13945",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/14072",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/20183",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/210",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/215",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/2299",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/60",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/68668",
"johnny",
"nicorellius"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/",
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.