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10977 | Chilling? How can I quantify that?
This question seems slightly ridiculous, but I'm a noob, so bear with me.
In this oft-referred to recipe for making ice cream, what does "chill-completely" mean exactly? Is there a measurable temperature or timeframe I am looking at? Should it just be lukewarm or coldish? Do I stir it to make it cold all the way through?
By the way, the methods described below tell you how to accomplish it, the answer to "how can I quantify that?" is by using a thermometer. If you get your mix to 0C or 32F then it won't be frozen, but it will be on the verge. Thermometers are your friends.
"Completely" definitely isn't a standardized term; however, since we're talking about making ice cream here, the correct answer is going to be "as cold as possible without freezing".
When making ice cream, it's important to get the mixture as cold as possible before you freeze it, especially if you're not using an ice cream machine, so that you give it as little time as possible for ice crystals to form. If large ice crystals form, then you won't have ice cream, you'll have ice.
So get it all the way down to refrigerator temperature and work quickly when you take it back out of the fridge. It'll be quicker and easier if you chill the bowl or receptacle first.
You can even chill it a bit further in the freezer to take it colder than the high 30s F of a good fridge. Ice cream won't freeze until you are below the freezing temperature of water, so you have some leeway. The goal, as stated, is to have the mix be as cold as possible while not beginning to freeze, then to freeze it as rapidly as possible so as to form tiny rather than large ice crystals. And if you chanced to forget it in the freezer and it began to freeze, take it out and stir it until the crystals melt. That would be as cold as you could get it.
The other common approach is an ice-water bath; that'll hold your bowl right at the freezing point, so what's inside can't actually freeze, but will get nice and cold.
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7746 | How to prepare mint for use?
I have mint growing in the garden, and I'd like to use it in cooking and in drinks (like hot chocolate). Are you supposed to dry the mint and then crumble/ground it up?
For something like a drink, I generally bruise the mint and use the whole leaves fresh - rub it between your fingers a bit to release the oils and then just drop it in the drink. The main benefit of this method for me is that a bunch of dry, crumbled mint in a drink is going to make it look very muddled and hard to drink, as you're constantly getting a mouthful of dried leaves (you could get around this by steeping it with the dried herbs and then straining it, but that's too much work!). As a bonus, fresh picked herbs in a nice glass of lemonade, for example, just looks so fresh and tasty!
If I'm cooking with it and I have a supply of fresh on hand, I prefer to use that. Depending on the dish, it might be whole leaves, but more likely chopped - I actually use kitchen scissors for a lot of fresh herb preparation as it can be easier than a knife in many cases.
You certainly can dry it, especially at the end of season when you need to harvest, and use the dried leaves in place of fresh. The main benefit to drying is that it stores really well; dry also seems to be a bit more powerful, at least when first dried. Over time the flavor of dried herbs will degrade. You usually use a 3 to 1 ratio replacement - if a dish calls for 1 tablespoon of fresh mint, you'd use 1 teaspoon of dried, though as the dried herbs age you'll have to increase the amount used over time.
With hot chocolate the easiest way is to use a satchel in the water as it heats or put a whole twig in your cup and then take it out at the end. The leaves get slimy and unappealing when heated.
We boil it to make an infusion, strain the leaves out, and make jelly out of the infusion. It is delicious with crackers or on meat.
You can dry it to during the winter. My favorite fresh applications are in light salads and cilantro-mint chutneys.
Satchels are a great way to go especially with heated drinks like hot chocolate - great advice! If you don't have anything specific on hand to use as a satchel, a piece of cheesecloth with some cooking twine works great.
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99522 | Can I give my friend the sour dough "throw away" as a starter to their sourdough starter?
Many sourdough techniques suggest throwing away half your starter further on in the fermenting process. The reason given (in many YouTube videos I've watched) is that it'd eventually take over your kitchen if you didn't.
I guess rather than throw this away I can give it to a friend (or friends) to bootstrap their own starters?
Both answers are correct - but have a different perspective. One talks about mature starter, the other about a starter in the first (not-yet-stable) stages.
@Stephie given the question, I assume this is a question about an established starter. I don't see how either answer refers to a "not-yet-stable" starter.
I really have to ask: Once you've removed one half of the starter from the other half, what do you think is the difference between those two halves?
@Sneftel - that's why I asked the question. Also of interest, and I hadn't thought about it when I asked the question, was this ok to do with an established starter.
It's not a bootstrap. It's giving them a starter.
Absolutely you can. When you use the starter to make bread you make an arbitrary decision of which part of the starter you use and which to feed, the part you scoop out is just as viable as the part you keep. When you discard some instead of using it the same rule applies, so all you need to do is put some in a container and feed it the same way. You can split the starter as many times as you like, that's the beauty of it.
Sure, you can begin a new sour dough starter with the discard from a feeding. However, the reason for discarding isn't simply to reduce the amount. As your starter matures it also becomes much more acidic. Acidity is problematic for yeast and bacterial activity and, ultimately, the rise and flavor of your final product. So, you discard during feeding time to keep the acidity in check, and ensure that your starter is as hospitable to yeast and bacteria as possible. Your friend can get his or her starter going with your discard, but will then want to get into the habit of discarding when they feed.
TL:DR: dilution of the starter is the necessary thing. The discarding is just because you only want to keep a near-constant amount, not an exponentially-growing amount, and normally you don't have anything better to do with the other part.
@PeterCordes my point is that the purpose of discarding is not simply about keeping a consistent amount.
@moscafj, This depends on how you measure your feeding. If you do it by weight ratios, discarding is simply about keeping a consistent amount. For instance, I feed my starter by mixing 1 part starter, 4 parts flour, 4 parts water by weight. If I never discarded, I would never have a problem with excess acidity--but I would rapidly have more starter than I could possibly handle. If you go by a more traditional method along the lines of "discard 1 cup starter, add half cup flour and half cup water" then you'd be right--because if you didn't discard, the ratios would change.
@rsandler clearly...I think it is safe to assume most people use the more traditional approach, and also don't want excessive amounts of starter on hand.
@rsandler: Can you please explain (or maybe rephrase) your method of "1 part starter, 4 parts flour, 4 parts water by weight"? I always thought a "part" in a recipe referred to volume not weight. Thanks.
@Arlo I just mean that I weigh the ingredients, with four times as much flour as starter and four times as much water as starter. Most often I do 30 grams starter, 120 grams water, 120 grams flour (generally with 25% of the flour weight being whole grain, so 90g white and 30g whole grain). Most things bread related are more reliable done by weight.
Got it, thanks. I was inspired to try your method, much different from my usual method of eyeballing the amount of starter and then weighing equal weights of flour and water, but based on nothing more that instinct. I did three times more rather than four but it doubled in size much faster than usual and really looked great before I tossed it in the fridge. Plus weighing the starter forces me to take a nice, clean jar!
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107169 | Making doughballs (dumplings) with strong brown flour and shredded suet
In Scotland (and other parts of the British Isles) when making "mince and tatties" (cooked ground beef accompanied with boiled potatoes) it's not uncommon to cook doughballs, or dumplings in the mince near the end of the cooking process.
Normally I'd do this with self-raising white flour, shredded suet (using a product branded as Atora), water and a pinch of salt. However due to supply chain problems these days all I could get was strong brown flour and suet. What do I need to add to the mix that would give me the "self-raising" action? I'm thinking baking powder, but I don't know how much to add per 100g of brown flour to create "self-raising brown flour".
Any guidance would be appreciated.
In the UK self-raising flour doesn't have salt in it, SR flour is just fine plain flour with baking powder in it. In the UK to make a substitution you'd use 150g plain flour plus 2 tsp baking powder mixed in, 100g would be 1 1/3 tsp. In the US most SR flour has salt in it for some reason, so for completeness you would use all-purpose flour plus 2 tsp baking powder plus 1/2 tsp of salt.
Strong brown flour (whole wheat bread flour) isn't ideal for your doughballs as it has a lot of gluten, and the flour is courser, but it should work okay as long as you:
Add a small amount of water to help bind the dough if they don't stick well
Work the dough as little as possible. SR flour is generally lower in gluten, strong flour is high in gluten, if you work the gluten in the dough it may make your balls stretchy rather. The fat should help to minimize that, but it still helps to stop as soon as the mix is combined
Cook the doughballs longer. Bread flour is courser so may need more time to cook. They may absorb a bit more water than SR flour as well, so be prepared to top up the moisture if you are cooking them in a stew
Unfortunately strong brown flour is all I can get at the moment. The salt I mentioned in my question is just part of the doughball recipe. Thanks for the answer though, I'm sure the results will be interesting :)
I'm in the same boat, just about everywhere is completely out of flour, the shelves are bare. I've had some luck at smaller shops and greengrocers.
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2613 | What is the best way to pop popcorn on the stove?
I have a kettle-corn popcorn recipe that I have to pop on the stove as I don't have a popcorn maker and I wouldn't want to add the sugar to the popcorn maker. This makes me wonder what the best way to pop popcorn, in a pot with a lid, over the stove is?
Just want to add a suggestion that will work with almost any stove-top method. If you preheat the kernels in the microwave, they will tend to pop a LOT better.
This works really well for me with my Whirley Pop popper, which usually does a good job, but can sometimes turn out bad batches if the kernels are old.
Note you want to pre-heat them just short of any of them actually popping -- 2/3 cup kernels for 35 seconds works in my 1100 w microwave. Experiment.
Use a carbon-steel wok! The shape works very well to keep the unpopped kernels in the hot oil, while the popped kernels end up on the cooler sides. I usually use about 2 T of oil and 1/3 c of popcorn to make enough for two people.
If you want to keep with the Chinese theme, Szechuan peppercorn-salt goes extremely well on popcorn! To make it, grind Szechuan peppercorns and kosher salt in a spice grinder.
Do you use a high temp oil (corn and safflower) like jwleblan said or can you use another oil? I already have canola and extra virgin olive oil.
I've had success with canola oil.
I second the use of a wok, for the reasons laid out. I always end up with no scorched popcorn and fewer than 10 unpopped kernels. Regular vegetable oil will suffice, and heat it before adding your popcorn.
Use a large heavy-bottomed pot (idealy 3-4 quart size) and place it over medium to medium-high heat until you can hold your hand about 6 inches above the bottom surface and feel the heat radiating off it. At that point add about 1-2 tablespoons of vegetable oil to the pan, tilting to coat the bottom evenly. Drop in a kernel or two and cover. When the kernels pop, quickly add in the remaining, cover and shake the pan on the heat to keep the unpopped kernels on the bottom where they'll heat the best. Cook and shake until the popping stops.
In order to have enough volume for the popped corn, you'll need to do it in batches of about 1/2 cup of popcorn kernels at a time if you're doing a large amount.
Should you have a lid on during the popping process?
@Justrightmenus: Yes, I said "cover" in my post but didn't specifically say "cover with a lid". You'll want to keep it covered.
Oops... missed that entirely; I read it a couple times and didn't see "cover" - sorry!
No problem....at first I thought maybe I had neglected to say cover but then realized it was kind of buried in there.
All these answers are basically correct. Something to add. I have found that covering the bottom of whatever pan you are using (except the wok or other round bottoms) with kernels (so that the kernels are evenly distributed and there are no kernels on top of one another) just so it is covered, but no more, the volume of corn, once popped, is close to the top.
Also, a neat change of pace for a topping: nutritional yeast ;--)
That is a very good suggestion...to just cover the bottom of the pan with kernels. I haven't popped popcorn in a pan in ages but now that you mention it that's what I think I did.
1.) I would also suggest using a Whirley Pop Popper on the stove over a standard pot always. The concept of if is exactly the same as what you'd find in a Movie theater. The Whirley Popper gives you the advantage of keeping the kernels moving around so that they can all cook evenly and eliminating the chance of burning them. It takes about 2 minutes from start to finish. Close to the same amount of time for microwave popcorn but better for you and much, much better flavor.
2.) The right kind of kernels are very important. I have found that white popcorn kernels tend to have the most flavor once it has been popped. And the one's I've purchased tend to be larger kernels than most of the yellow kernel corn. Keep in mind, that cheaper is never better when it comes to corn kernels.
3.) The most flavorful and best kind of oil to use is coconut oil, hands down. Why waste your time on vegetable or canola oil when the flavorful essence of the coconut oil truly enhances the flavor of your popped corn? The flavor that it creates even eliminates the need for butter! It actually tastes so good without it.
4.) Last thing is the salt. The right type of salt is paramount to taking your popcorn flavor to the next level. I highly suggest FINE grain popcorn salt, specifically. It will spread more evenly, giving you a higher rate of coverage on your pieces.
Soak the popcorn in water for about 10 minutes, drain, pop - this will help to pop all of the kernels and should make them more fluffy...
Wouldn't all the moisture just boil off right away?
Put the oil and one or two kernels over medium heat and wait for them to pop. Then add the rest of the kernels and shake the pot back and forth until the popcorn popping slows or stops. You can use a wide range of oils to have different tastes.
I use a very large stainless steel bowl, with a flat bottom placed directly on the burner. Add a tablespoon or so (I don't measure) of your favorite high temp oil (corn and safflower come to mind) along with your popping corn (I think I use between 75 and 100 grams).
Cover the lid with a piece of aluminum foil, poke a bunch of vents in it with a knife, and place over medium high heat. You will need to shake it as it pops so make sure you have some high temp gloves or the like.
Warning: My bowl has been difficult to get totally clean after this... treat those burnt looking scuffs as a badge of honor!
I am making popcorn that is better than popcorn at the movie theater.
Buy a Whirly-pop popcorn popper. It cost me about $15 at Bed Bath and beyond with a coupon. It has an arm that you crank to move the kernels around. It also has vent holes in the lid to let the steam out. Steam will cause the popcorn to get tough and chewy.
My oil is from Sam's Club. It is a butter flavored popcorn oil. About $9 for a gallon.
The salt also comes from Sam's Club. You'll get two containers... enough to last a couple of years for $4.
Use regular old yellow popcorn from the grocery.
Need to butter your popcorn? You'll get some butter flavor from the butter flavored oil? Want more? Put in more oil.
Want real butter on your popcorn without it getting soggy? Then you need to clarify your butter before adding it to your popcorn.
To clarify your butter:
1. Melt it.
2. Put it in the fridge. It will solify again, but separated from whatever water was in there.
3. Drain off the water.
4. You now have clarified butter.
Melt the clarified butter and drizzle on your popcorn. Drizzle, mix, drizzle, mix, drizzle, mix.
This question is asking about making popcorn on the stove. Suggesting a popcorn popper is not helpful, and discussion of flavoring is beside the point.
The Whirly-pop popcorn popper is intended to be used on the stove. I found this to be a useful answer and intend to buy one, after reading the glowing reviews. So I up-voted this answer.
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748 | Making my meringues form peaks
Last week I made a meringue icing for my cupcakes and had problems making my meringue form peaks. This makes me ask what are some of your tips/tricks? What do you do or add to your egg white mixture in order to help it form peaks when you are having troubles.
It's important to let your eggs get to room temperature. I use this simple recipe for all meringues:
4 egg whites
2 Tbsp powdered sugar
Pinch of cream of tartar
The cream of tartar is what really makes the egg whites to firm up nicely.
I agree that room temperature egg whites are (all but) essential. Also, make sure your beater is VERY clean. Even a bit of oil/fat in the egg whites will cause them not to firm up as well.
Make sure everything is clean -- the bowl, the beaters, etc. And avoid plastic -- I don't know if it's that it's made from oil, or it's just hard to clean as it attracts oil, but stick with metal or glass mixing bowls when whipping egg whites.
Well, I think that my big mixer has something to do with it. If I put clean (no-yolk) whites in a clean bowl there and turn it on, I don't have any problems getting peaks.
If you are doing this by hand, cream of tartar and a copper bowl are both recommended.
Will the cream of tartar add anything to the taste of the recipe?
Be aware that copper bowls will impart a yellow tinge to your meringue.
@Kyra dunno, never needed to use it. But it's very commonly written up, so I doubt it.
I think you should whip the whites to soft peaks (peaks curl over when you take the whisk out) before adding the sugar, which will help to stiffen up the meringue. The more sugar you use the stiffer the meringue will be (up to a point, obviously). Use very fine sugar, which will dissolve more easily into the egg whites.
You can whip until the peaks stay straight up when you take the whisk out but avoid over whipping as this will cause the meringue to collapse.
This specific recipe had me add the sugar and heat to dissolve the sugar before whipping it.... since I won't be cooking it later as it is icing for cupcakes that have already been cooked. But I will try your method next time I don't have to heat my egg whites before beating them.
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1282 | How to clean an electric kettle?
I have an electric kettle that I clean by scrubbing the insides with plain water. I was wondering if there was a better way to clean it. I remember hearing somewhere that you can clean a coffemaker by running a solution containing vinegar through it and was wondering if there might be a similar solution to clean the kettle?
You can use a solution of vinegar and water to descale your kettle (unless, as hobodave mentioned, the manufacturer advises against using vinegar). Fill your kettle with water until it's half full; add about 1/2 cup of vinegar to the water, and then allow it to boil for about 10 minutes. Allow the water to cool and unplug your kettle. Gently scrub away the scale with a non-metallic pad (don't scrub the heating element if it's exposed; wipe that with a sponge). Rinse your kettle several times after removing the scale, and then boil one or two fillings of water in it to ensure that you remove all traces of the vinegar.
The vinegar solution works fine. My dad uses that on his electric kettle.
I've found that citric acid works best.
You put it in a kettle of boiling water, and just let it do its magic. It cleans up any plaque buildup, and brings it back to a shiny pristine state. Works much better for me than vinegar, for some reason.
And it has little if any odor, much appreciated in the office over boiling vinegar.
Citric acid is a perfect tool for this, really!
I have generally found the vinegar method to be suitable and haven't heard of anything specific as to why it would be harmful. Vinegar is usually only about 5% acid solution so rather weak as far as acids go. A lot of manufacturers will recommend a specific cleaning solution because it's yet another thing that you have to buy from them.
You should be able to find descaling solutions in cleaning aisle of the grocery store or visit your local restaurant supply store for descaling solution.
Follow the manufacturer's directions.
I have heard the vinegar thing for coffee makers too, but it's not a universal thing. Specifically, my coffee maker has very explicit warnings about not using vinegar, or any other acidic solution to clean it. Instead it suggests soap and water for the externals, and a vinegar-free descaling solution for the internals.
I don't own an electric kettle, but I wouldn't be surprised if some models had prohibitions or warnings of their own. I know for sure they will have specific instructions in their manuals though.
For anything electric/electronic that you care about, follow the instructions.
Does your coffee maker's manufacturer sell the special descaling solution, by any chance? I'd love to see their explanation of how vinegar is harmful, considering coffee is more acidic.
No they don't. They have a recommended brand, but you can really use any one designed for coffee machines. I use Durgol. The explanation is unnecessary. Coffee never touches the parts that are sensitive to acid. In any coffee machine I've seen water is pulled through some type of pipe/tubing, heated, and then dripped or forced through ground coffee, then a filter, and finally through a plastic nozzle into your cup. Given that my coffee machine rapidly heats the water, I imagine it passes through a squiggly thin metal tube which is heated.
@ceejayoz In a normal coffee maker the coffee would never come in direct contact with the inner works. Hot water is dripped onto the coffee grounds, filtered, and finally drained into the pot. That said, I am willing to bet it is a scam to get you to buy their cleaning solution as well.
@hobodave an electric kettle is a simple stainless steel pot with a heater built in under the bottom. Unlike a coffee machine, it won't be damaged by acids, the same way a stock pot won't be damaged.
The recommendation against using vinegar might just be because it's hard to get the vinegar taste out of the coffee machine afterwards.
If you don’t want to use white vinegar, you can use apple vinegar.
I have tried it in my kettle with pure apple cider vinegar.
It worked very well too.
Vinegar and baking soda work fine to clean kettle. You can find the formula here
What do carpets have in common with a kettle?
Citric acid, but be careful. Don't let it sit too long.
You can clean easily with some Cola, it works perfectly
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4242 | Should you, and how do you, grease a crockpot?
I know that this may be a silly question but I came across a crockpot recipe that asks for the crockpot to be greased before adding the ingredients into the pot. Do you just grease the pot normally? In my case with a bit of olive oil and paper towel. Are you required to grease a crockpot or is it just simpler. I don't want the food to extra greasy.
Personally, I've never made a dish that required greasing of the crockpot - even if it called for it, I've ignored that step and had no problems. I can only imagine the step is added to ensure nothing sticks - but my crockpot (and all others I've seen) are glazed porcelain or ceramic, and the recipes always include a liquid of some kind, so I don't think that's going to be a problem.
If I were going to grease it, however, I'd do it in the method you described, and use a very light touch.
Depends on what I'm making. When I'm doing a whole chicken, I rub the chicken with olive oil so it doesn't stick to the sides and bottom (and to help the spices adhere to the skin). For a bunch chicken pieces, I might oil the pot instead. Never bothered for chili or soup.
Oiling/greasing the pan should never be enough to make the food greasy. It is a thin layer of oil, rubbed on to help prevent sticking. There shouldn't be enough for puddles to form, or frying to happen.
When you cook chicken in the crock pot, are you just cooking the chicken by itself (the equivalent of spicing and then baking)? Or are you cooking it in some kind of liquid?
I've never tried treating the crockpot as a mini oven, but I'm very curious as to whether this works or not. If your answer is "yes" I might have to open a question about it!
@stephennmcdonald I cook a whole chicken in mine. Just stuff with a bit of butter and sliced apples and season with some seasoning salt (Mrs. Dash). It is so good and falls off the bone it is so tender.
@stephennmcdonald - I like to add a small amount of flavorful liquid, poured inside the chicken after it is in position. What dribbles out is only enough to just barely cover the bottom of the crock pot, so it definitely is more moist steaming than boiling. As the chicken fat starts to melt, it will add to liquid to the bottom of the pot and prevent any from burning there.
Takes about 3-4 hours to cook, and the result is incredibly tender, moist chicken. If you like crispy skin, you can take it out a little earlier and finish in the oven in high heat.
@Kyra & @Tim: I can't wait to try this method, I'm going to buy a whole chicken this weekend just for this purpose - I love my slow cooker and never even considered that I could make a whole chicken in it. Thanks for the info!
@stephennmcdonald Just remembered. I add a little bit of water to the crockpot at the beginning so I end up having more liquid at the end. This makes AMAZING gravy so whenever I make this I have to make mashed potatoes to go with it. :D
I read somewhere that you should lightly grease ceramic crockpot with a small amount of oil after cleaning .
Do you know why?
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2230 | Convert grill recipe to broiler and/or oven
I have a recipe that requires a grill. Its for pizza and specifically I am supposed to:
Set the pizza on the grill and close
the lid. Turn grill to medium high and
cook for 5 to 8 minutes or until
cooked through. Turn to medium for a
thicker crust pizza and cook longer.
Remove onto a cookie sheet with tongs.
I don't have a grill so I was wondering if someone knows how to convert this into a recipe for the oven and/or broiler. This question on the Portable Hibachi Grill site mentions another recipe and someone says to use the same directions (temperature and time) for the broiler. Is this right and if so what temperature should I set the broiler to?
I don't know that it's going to work with a broiler, as you'll likely brown the top too much. You might be able to get away with your oven as hot as it'll go and a pre-heated pizza stone.
As for broiler temperature -- I don't think I've ever set mine to anything less than all the way up when using it. (but then again, I have an electric oven)
I posted this assuming that the poster was American, or at least used the same sense of grill vs. broil as Americans, where heat in grilling comes from the bottom, and broiling comes from the top.
Take a large cast iron skillet, place on a burner, and turn to high.
Prepare your pizza, slide to a peel, turn on the broiler, and wait until the skillet starts to smoke.
Quickly shloop the pizza into the skillet, and shove the skillet under the broiler.
Put the handle to the right, wait 5-7 minutes, open the oven, turn 180*, another 5 minutes, and you have delicious stone-style pizza.
Enjoy.
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4292 | Is it safe to eat a cooked steak that (briefly) touched the plate that was holding the raw meat?
So I just finished preparing a perfect-looking steak, and as per usual, my apartment's hypersensitive smoke detector decided to go off. Not wanting to put the steak back into the pan, in one brilliant flash of boneheadedness, while I was scrambling for a rag to start whipping away the smoke, I dropped the steak in the only other vessel that was on the countertop - the same plate that was holding the meat before I cooked it.
I figured that since the inside has already been cooked, I could probably just sear the outside again on high heat for about 30 seconds to kill any surface bacteria that it might have picked up. Which I did. Doesn't really look any the worse for wear, but I haven't totally convinced myself that this is safe.
Anyone run into this scenario before and survived it? Is there anything else I can do to guarantee safety without totally ruining the steak?
I'd have done the same thing -- just re-sear it. Of course, I'm willing to eat a rare steak, and I'm willing to eat Ethiopian food, so I might not be the best judge of this.
@Joe: I'll eat rare steak too, the bacteria's all on the outside. My main concern was that the bacteria on the plate might have multiplied a lot during the whole process making them more difficult to kill. Food safety is tricky business. I decided to re-sear it one more time and just eat it. I'll be sure to let you all know if I end up with convulsions and violent di... well, if I have any negative side-effects.
What's so daring about ethiopian?
@Ocaasi, a typical Ethiopian dish is kitfo, which is essentially raw ground beef mixed with some spices.
My dad seriously never uses a different plate after cooking steaks or burgers. Drives me up a wall but he will not changes his behavior. I think I need to make Alton Brown record a personal message telling him to 'stop it'.
If you're at all like me, you are reassured by hard numbers and measurables. This should help.
In this situation one of the likely pathogens would be one of the Salmonella species. Salmonella is killed by temperatures in excess of 130 F (55 C). However, it's not an instant death. The time to kill Salmonella decreases exponentially as the temperature increases.
The following table represents all the temperature and duration to kill 99.9999% of the most heat-resistant strain Salmonella senftenberg. This species is as much as 30x more heat resistant than a "normal" S. typhimurium.
Temperature | Time
---------------|------
140 F (60 C) | 60m
150 F (65 C) | 10m
160 F (70 C) | <2m
For any given temperature the proportion of bacteria killed is constant. 1/6th the time kills 90%, 1/3rd kills 99%, 1/2 kills 99.9% etc.
USDA guidelines to kill Salmonella and E. Coli are as follows:
Temperature | Time
---------------|------
135 F (57 C) | 86.4m
140 F (60 C) | 8.6m
145 F (63 C) | 2.7m
150 F (65 C) | 51.9s
160 F (70 C) | < 6s
165 F (74 C) | < 2s
So, needless to say, re-searing your steak at a typically high stove top temperature (at least 300 F [149 C]) for even a fraction of a second will result in utter devastation to whatever beastie population you may have picked up in recontaminating your meat. Chances are, if the steak came hot out of the pan, and you removed it from the plate quickly, the residual heat alone would be enough to kill it. The re-sear certainly doesn't hurt though.
A good rule of thumb is to wash plates as you go. If this is not possible or convenient you should minimally remove the plate from your vicinity by putting it in the sink or dishwasher as soon as you have taken the food off of it.
I thought E.Coli was the most common pathogen on beef, with salmonella being more common in chicken. Either way, the hard numbers are definitely reassuring. I was actually also looking online for the percentage of beef that's actually contaminated in the first, but came up dry. Good work!
@Aaronut: You are correct, E. Coli is the most common pathogen found on beef. I'll revise my answer. I couldn't find similar specificity of data on E. Coli though. All I seem to dig up is that 160 F for any duration kills it.
How good's the meat? How long was it out of the fridge? I ask, because if you're really concerned, you can always consider the tartare extreme. Someone, somewhere is eating raw, red steak. Is your meat anywhere near good enough to think of it in that context?
Practically, it shouldn't take very long to re-sear the outside of a steak. Contact temperature on the pan is probably 300-400 degrees, which is instant death for bacteria. I'd eat it.
Just a regular ribeye, no prime cut. Probably out of the fridge about 45 minutes. It was doused in clarified butter which was still on the plate. That's more hospitable to bacteria than I'd like, but then again, if there's not actual mold growing on it, it's pretty unlikely that it would survive another sear. Figured I'd ask anyway - better to be safe than sorry.
I feel that when clarified butter is involved you've entered beyond the realm of mere safety, and certainly beyond the realm of regret.
I'm not sure how to interpret that reply - are you saying that it would make you worry more, or that it's too important to go to waste?
Way too delicious. If you're going to go down, go down in a hail of clarified butter.
If it were chicken or pork...or even hamburger, I'd worry, but not steak. 99.9% chance you could have eaten the whole thing raw and had no issues of any kind. Good betting odds.
Assuming you weren't using a slow cooking method, the plate wasn't sitting on the counter for very long.
The steak was still probably pushing a small amount of liquid out. So it likely didn't actually absorb any juice into the interior of the steak.
Assuming a relatively small amount of juice and a medium rare steak, I would guess the steak itself already raised any juice that did manage to make it inside to a safe temperature.
Re-searing would definitely finish off any bacteria on the surface.
All in all, I don't see any harm done. To prevent a similar accident in the future, get your serving dish ready before the steak is done. A good time is to put the plate near the stove/grill when you're flipping the steak over.
Thanks - I usually do have a serving dish ready, this was a rare incidence of carelessness.
The following link leads to a podcast where food scientist Dr. Benjamin Chapman discusses
e-coli, listeria, norovirus, and other lovely pathogens.
Some insight into cooking meat and food safety.
http://5by5.tv/dailyedition/7
also:
http://amazingribs.com/tips_and_technique/meat_temperature_guide.html
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723 | What exactly is "Sushi Grade" fish?
What exactly makes some fish "Sushi Grade"?
"Sushi grade" means that it is safe to prepare and eat raw. In order to do that, it must be frozen to kill any parasites. That means it either has to be:
Frozen at -20° C (-4° F) for 7 days; or
Frozen at -35° C (-31° F - "flash frozen") for 15 hours.
There aren't any official regulations about the fish itself or its quality, and most sushi/sashimi distributors have much more stringent rules of their own beyond the freezing guarantee.
Interestingly (if you'll accept anecdotal evidence), the few sushi chefs that I've gotten a chance to ask this question told me they buy most fish fresh with no freezing involved.
@I.J.Kennedy: That might imply that they freeze it themselves, since it's not always easy to find fish that's been properly flash-frozen. Or, maybe some chefs don't trust the distributors to do it properly. There are definitely sushi chefs who just order fish from distributors though - almost all of the small-time sushi joints (and in this area, there are 5 on every block) do it.
No, they were very clear that there was no freezing involved, by them or anyone else.
The figure quoted are not a global standard, most likely the USA FDA standard. Many countries around the world use fresh, unfrozen fish which has been inspected by hand/eye to confirm it of good quality. Unless you really trust your supplier, or catch it yourself, use the frozen product!
@TFD If that's true then I'd certainly agree with your recommendation. A visual inspection is not going to confirm or deny the presence of parasites.
Again, depends where you live. Out of the tropics, fish parasites and diseases are generally easier to spot, or not so common or dangerous. Salt water low order fish are generally safer than freshwater or high order fish. I live in country with a large culture of eating hand caught fresh fish in various raw states. The fish parasite food poisoning statistic are near nil. Ciguatera from the northern Pacific Islands is more common, and freezing or cooking wont help that one!
There is no real definition of 'sushi grade' fish. It's purely a marketing term to imply a higher quality piece of fish.
There are some actions that should be done for tuna (really for all fish, but especially for tuna) when they are caught, such as bleeding them immediately, destroying the neural canal, reducing the temperature of the fish immediately, etc.
Here's a blog post on the seven different ways to kill/fillet fish and how those ways affect the taste of the meat.
To quote this FAQ:
The only concern any inspectors have is referred to as the parasite destruction
guarantee, which is accomplished by ‘freezing and storing seafood at -4°F (-20°C) or
below for 7 days (total time), or freezing at -31°F (-35°C) or below until solid and
storing at -31°F (-35°C) or below for 15 hours, or freezing at -31°F (-35°C) or below
until solid and storing at -4°F (-20°C) or below for 24 hours’ which is sufficient to
kill parasites. [...]
This means that, aside from the FDA recommendations and local Health Department
requirements, there are no laws or recommendations for "sushi/sashimi grade" fish. It
is no more than a marketing term.
[...] In the U.S. parasite destruction is required for those species where that hazard
is identified but you’ll find that most chefs will claim that they use "fresh" salmon
and other products. [...]
The term "fresh" for sushi fish has been linked to higher quality in the minds of many
consumers and therefore the restaurants use this as a selling point even though the
product may have been previously frozen (usually aboard the fishing vessel) and serving
certain species without proper freezing is against regulations - See more at:
http://www.sushifaq.com/sushi-sashimi-info/sushi-grade-fish/#sthash.rCOSqanN.dpuf
Needs more than just a link - if that site goes away, we're left with just a dead URL.
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125300 | End-of-season tomato chutney
When a recipe such as https://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/vegetable-recipes/easy-tomato-chutney/ refers to "mixed-colour tomatoes", does it mean that it's OK to collect not-quite-ripe ones from the greenhouse or that one is expected to buy some orange etc. tomatoes to go with the red ones?
I would interpret it to be including unripe tomatoes, especially as it’s called ‘end of season’ (when the vines start dying off before all of the tomatoes are ripe)… but I don’t have any proof of that interpretation. If he wanted it multi-color, in the US they probably would have said ‘heirloom tomatoes’ to suggest not necessarily the red common varieties
The "end of season" was my designation, not his :-) However I do believe that Green Tomato Chutney is "a thing" so was inclined to interpret the ingredients list the same way.
Given that geeen tomato chutney jam and marmalade are a thing, (green meaning unripe, as opposed to green zebra, green doctors frosted, etc.) and the end of season name, I'd expect it does mean various degrees of ripeness and unripeness, but it could have been made clearer.
Jamie Oliver is UK-based and the only non-red tomatoes commonly seen in UK supermarkets are yellow and orange cherry tomatoes. On the other hand British gardeners do tend to end up with plenty of tomatoes at various levels of ripeness at the end of the season, as our climate leads to fairly slow ripening. That would tend to suggest that using green tomatoes and ones just starting to ripen along with red ones would be reasonable. But of our celebrity chefs, he's not the most into home-grown stuff.
Oliver appears to be referring to ripe tomatoes of mixed colors, mainly for appearance. He has a separate green tomato chutney recipe for underripe tomatoes.
The mixed colors are somewhat pointless in this recipe, as everything is cooked for 40 minutes with red onions, so any variation in tomato color would be completely lost.
The recipe as written would work with just red tomatoes, and it would work with a mix of red and underripe green tomatoes as well. If you are including unripe green tomatoes, you might need to add more sugar. You would need to make it and taste it.
Thanks for that. I'll just suck it and see :-)
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110641 | Should the lid be closed when boiling masala tea?
I guess with the lid closed, tea boiling is faster, but will it have an adverse impact on the taste of the tea?
AFAIK, it should not impact the taste, but can you share the recipe or technique , maybe there's something we're missing to fully answer the question?
Welcome to SA! We need to know more to help you, though. For example: are you boiling plain water, water with just tea, water with tea, sugar and spices, or even milk? It makes a difference.
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110774 | Reheating whole Brisket w/out drying out
I made brisket last night (to serve tonight) using a recipe I have made several times. I usually cook the night before serving, using a Large Le Creuset pot. Recipe uses carrot/celery/onion, red wine and canned tomatoes. Brown the meat, sauté the veggies, return meat to pot and cook nestled in the veggies, covered 3-4 hours @350. In the Dutch Oven I wind up with a very saucy result. I refrigerate overnight, slice meat cold, return to the liquid and reheat slowly. It’s great.
Last night I decided to use a roasting pan due to the size of the brisket. Followed same steps as above, but used tin foil to cover as tightly as I could. But the veggies reduced down MUCH more than in the past. The result is actually fabulous. The veggies are amazing and hearty, and the meat was unbelievably juicy, reminiscent of really good BBQ.
So I want to serve as such, sliced juicy meat, not in a sauce bath, w/ veggies on side. I’m concerned I will dry out the meat though. I have it wrapped tightly in tin foil. If I reheat in that wrap low and slow, will I maintain that juicy awesome brisket? If not, do you have another suggestion?
Any advice highly appreciated.
Reheating a brisket will generally dry it out a bit more. It will depend on the quality of the brisket whether this will lead it to become too dry.
Moisture in cooked briskets is actually mostly fat. Some BBQ joints will call their point slices "moist" while others call them "fatty", which is probably most accurate. What you will probably want to do is to avoid rendering additional fat as much as possible. I would aim for a maximum internal temperature of about 120-125 F (50 C) and go slow about it. If you have any juices left, leave them in. And when it's finished, rest it for a little while (20-30 minutes should be plenty).
Do you have access to an immersion circulator? Reheating without drying is an excellent application for sous vide.
Unfortunately no - I had seen that this might be a good way to go. Thanks anyway!
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120873 | Handheld pepper grinder for a wet (and therefore sticky) powder?
I am a research scientist trying to find a faster way to feed my animals. Fish food pellets are ground up in a meat grinder. About 99% of the pellets are crushed, and then the animals are handfed the powder by sprinkling it on the water surface. I tried using a pepper grinder, but the moisture in the powder made the powder stick to the grinding mechanism. The 1% of pellets that are uncrushed then clog the mechanism because the grinder becomes too blunt after the powder starts to stick. The new system is slower than handfeeding, but it does work very well until the grinder slows down.
Does anyone know of a handheld grinder that can handle sticky powders? I cannot use an instrument that exceeds the height of a typical household pepper grinder.
What's wrong with the meat grinder method?
coffee grinder?
How big are the pellets, and what consistency are you aiming for in the final product?
I suggest a small mortar & pestle, such as a suribachi. Any rotary grinder is going to have issues with gumming up. But a suribachi is small, portable, unpowered, and you can use a scraper to clean it quickly if it gets gummed up.
That's right - I have a grinder sold containing a spice blend including dried chilli flakes, and even they're too wet - to solution is to tip it into a mortar.
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120990 | Hot liquid reverse spherification
Can i uses a hot liquid such as a sauce for a meat dish, to make spheres and still maintain the heat of the sauce?
Gelled sodium alginate melts at 150F. So, this should be possible. Maybe spherify with cooler liquid, then heat and maintain a warm temperature with a pan floating in a sous vide bath.
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121021 | How long will these vegan muffins last out of the fridge?
I make these muffins with the following ingredient:
Oat flour
Banana
Pea milk
Walnuts
Chia seeds
Sesame seeds
Cinamon
Salt
Baking powder
I am going to travel and want to bring some with me. I was wondering how long they would be good for without refrigeration.
Expiration dates strongly depend on the product itself. What can be stored without a refrigerator will retain its properties for a long time. But it matters whether you go to the Sahara or travel to the South Pole.
Travel how long ? what conditions ?
This is not a firmly answerable question, because shelf life of foods of any kind depends on many factors. Among them is the fact that the muffins can still be non-toxic, but taste terrible by becoming rancid, something that's a real danger with any baked good that includes nut flour.
For a comparison, though, most commercial vegan muffins say that they should only be kept for around 5 days.
You might get more useful information by asking "what can I do to increase the shelf life of these muffins" instead.
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128360 | What is the purpose of the pipe inside the double jar juice dispenser?
Here is the picture:
What is the purpose of the pipe inside the double jar juice dispenser?
That is the spray tube (or, on some imports, "mixing pole.") There's a pump that forces the contents through the tube to ensure drinks are consistent.
The Crathco beverage dispenser has this advice: "Most beverages can be sprayed. It is best not to spray iced tea, iced coffee, natural juices, or beverages that foam (whipped drinks). A special agitator plate is used in place of a pump cover and spray tube to promote circulation."
Pretty sure it's for pumping juice back up to the top so that the product remains mixed, and refrigerated, with the refrigeration being carried out in the base.
The overall design is "eyecatching" (so customers will see it as a juice dispenser) but not too thermally efficient, so presumably all those vents on the side are to support a refrigeration unit to keep the juice sufficiently cold to leave out safely. Without pumping the juice would stratify and the top would be too warm even if the bottom was quite cold. Note that the pipes in both chambers are full, even though the overall level is lower, so product must be getting pumped up there, and it makes thermal sense that it would be.
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128366 | when making fudge with Clover Condensed milk, how do I stop foaming?
I make fudge without any problems when using Nestle condensed milk, but when using Clover condensed milk, the mixture foams excessively and takes 15 minutes longer to reach the desired temperature, and the finished fudge contains small white crunchy pieces, like chalk. Clover CM contains more saturated fat, proteins and calcium than Nestle CM. How do I stop the foaming? I don't mind the extra cooking time, but maybe the extra cooking time causes the crunchy problem with the added calcium in Clover. Thanks, Jon.
The crunchy bits sounds like sugar nucleation crystals. Are the recipes the same for both fudges? See here for a similar problem
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128502 | Does it matter which sheet pan I use for cooking french fries in the oven?
Wondering if my dark circle sheet pan is better for French fries vs 11x7 baking sheet pan.
Maybe, maybe not. All my rectangular pans with edges on them warp rather dramatically when heated, sometimes violently enough to toss small items off (but usually not that hard.) Doesn't seem to happen with the round pan with edges. Not doing that is one point in favor of edgeless sheets, but there are other points against them.
Potatoes are inexpensive. Put some fries on each sheet, try them in your oven, see which makes "baked fries" better or if there's no difference worth caring about, in your opinion. Carry on from there based on your results.
Note that if you put fries on different layers in the oven at once, the lower levels will get less heat and turn out slightly different than they would have with empty layers above them.
It cooks differently, but I don’t know about ‘less heat’. They lower pan will heat up more so the bits in contact with the lower ban will brown more than the upper tray… while the top will get more radiant heat and so the tops will brown more than the lower tray.
Depending on how absurd you want to get on running down small (if any) differences, you can do each sheet individually, swap them halfway through cooking, swap them every 5 minutes. I have a guess as to what the result will be, (or I know what my result was, for my taste) but I'd rather that Jenna carry out the experiment and post the results as an answer, ideally with pictures.
There are three potential considerations:
Total surface area: food will brown faster when it isn’t as densely packed. Also, too large of a pan for your oven will prevent air from flowing around the pan, which can keep food from cooking evenly
Color of the pan: light, shiny pans will reflect more radiant heat than dark, dull pans. This means that darker pans will heat up more and so the food in contact with it will brown a little bit faster
Size of any lip: this both blocks some radiant heat, but can also hold in moisture as it evaporates, which will slow down the browning a bit.
(If you have one of the perforated pans for crisping up pizza or whatever, the evaporation and oversized pan issues shouldn’t be a problem)
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128587 | Why are there few/no traditional japanese dishes made with rice noodles?
I was looking into Japanese dishes that I could cook for a friend with Celiac disease - so, no gluten.
I love making Ramen, and I know of course that Ramen is traditionally made with wheat noodles. But, I was wondering if there was a Japanese style of noodle similar to Ramen, but rice-based instead of wheat-based.
As it turns out, I'm either missing something, or the answer is no! There are plenty of other Japanese styles of noodles: Soba, Udon, and Somen, to name a few. However, each variety I found was either made of wheat flour or usually contains a bit of wheat flour mixed in.
There are also plenty of varieties of Rice noodles, but none of them seem to originate from Japan - Wikipedia doesn't have any rice noodle dishes listed from Japan.
Can anyone that knows more about noodles shed some light on this?
I’m voting to close this question because it's out of scope as defined in the [help].
Hello Will! Our site has a rather narrow scope. Questions like yours are fascinating to ask, but the problem is, they're difficult to answer - and it's even more difficult for non-specialists to distinguish between right and wrong answers. So, we're trying to stick to what we can answer as cooks, as opposed to creating just-so stories about the origins of human food culture.
Hello, I understand. However, @rumtscho you might want to take "The history of food and cooking" bullet point out of the help center if such questions are considered off-topic.
Looking at https://cooking.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1921/are-questions-about-the-history-of-foods-and-cooking-off-topic and the history tag, I'm not confident this question should be considered off topic.
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128643 | Food processor unable to grind bread cubes
My homemade sourdough bread dries so hard the food processor or blender cannot grind into breadcrumbs. What else can I try?
Use different bread, or try to make one that doesn't turn into diamond? Or try a grater, we generally use that...
If the issue is that the bread has gone stale, you might be able to bring it back by putting it in a brown paper bag, wet the outside of the bag, then bake it. Once it’s warmed through, it might grind up better… but it could also turn into a gummy mess if it gets too much moisture in it
It might be helpful if you tell us what's your end goal. Are you just trying to make breadcrumbs or are you repurposing old / stale bread?
A mortar and pestle.
A hammer and a plastic bag. Tightly woven fabric bag should also work, if reducing plastic use.
Not waiting so long before attempting to grind it into crumbs.
If the problem is that the chunks go round and round, occasionally getting crumbs knocked off them, pulsing helps, as does putting more in there to start with. If I only want a few breadcrumbs I use the mini chopper attachment meant for nuts, herbs, and even coffee beans. My food processor also has a grater disc that works on bread. I don't often use it because it works better on very dry bread.
If I want dry crumbs (for storage) I crumb the bread fresh or lightly dried, then dry the crumbs in the oven. That's normally with commercial sandwich bread, such as when I had the crusts left over from 10 loaves, but it works better than drying the bread first. I can estimate my consumption fairly well so rarely end up with it that hard accidentally.
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128764 | Carrot cake substitute's
When substituting 1 cup of my 2 1/2 cups of flour in my carrot cake with organic pancake mix Annie's Brand will I still need to add my 4 eggs?
Looking at the ingredients for Annie's organic pancake mix, it contains flour, sugar, oil, baking powder, and salt. These are the ingredients to consider reducing in your recipe, along with anything that corresponds closely in function (other fats, other sweeteners, baking soda). If we didn't have the ingredients list, we could still rule out eggs because the pancake recipe says to add your own.
There's no way to know what quantities it contains of any of these. You could try to reverse engineer it by looking at one or more similar pancake recipes (containing the same ingredients plus the added milk and egg). Or you could take a wild guess. Don't forget to increase the amount of pancake mix so the amount of flour, not volume, is roughly correct, and reduce everything else accordingly, making up for other losses like moisture.
All things considered though, you should probably just run to the store for flour.
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128825 | Flavored Jello Melting
I used to make gelatin desserts successfully all the time for many years. When I moved to USA, gelatin doesn’t seem to set hard enough despite my following instructions and it melts after being taken out of the refrigerator. Why?
It seems likely that the brand of gelatin you were previously using was stronger than the brand you’re using now.
“Gelatin” is an umbrella term for a class of collagen hydrolysates, and for that matter there are different sources and types of collagen. Different gelatins have different amounts of gelling power per unit mass. Manufacturers routinely measure their gelatin strength and attempt to keep it constant, but it’s rare for them to list the strength on the packaging, so when switching brands you may have to do some adjustments.
Bottom line: use more gelatin next time.
It is also possible that the gelatin was adversely affected by some other ingredient (fresh pineapple, papaya, or kiwi, say) or by changes in your process (overheating the gelatin, say) but I think a difference in strength is most likely.
Combining these thoughts a little, it's possible that following the instructions for one brand overheats another weaker brand. I can find instructions varying between using all boiling water, dissolving in boiling and adding cold, and dissolving in hot-but-not-boiling water before adding cold. One also says to use less water in hot weather
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128911 | Kitchen aid is noisy at medium speeds
My kitchen aid stand mixer is noisy only at speeds 3-6. It sounds normal at low or high speeds. We greased it, but it was still noisy. We read that it may not have enough grease, so we added more, but that did not help.
KitchenAid has a great service program. For a fixed cost they send you a shipping container, which you return with your mixer in. We've done this twice with 2 different KitchenAid mixers. They come back acting (and sounding) new.
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129049 | Adding an egg to “peasant bread” dough
I've been making various variations of peasant (no-kneed) bread for the past several months (see https://alexandracooks.com/2012/11/07/my-mothers-peasant-bread-the-best-easiest-bread-you-will-ever-make/)
I'm generally happy with the results but would like to have my bread turn out a bit softer on the inside.
I've read that adding an egg to bread dough will help with that because of how the fats interact with the bread proteins.
Just wondering if anyone has tried this. How did it work out?
Do I need to have any special considerations about proofing dough with a raw egg in it?
You can also just straight up add fat. I use the ‘Olive oil dough’ from the book ‘artisan bread in 5 minutes a day’
I don’t have that book but I like that idea. I’m going to try a recipe I found with olive oil
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129137 | How to prevent my frozen dessert from going solid?
I’m working for a kitchen in a hospital and I got the go-ahead from my boss to work on a recipe for a dessert we could sell out front to customers. It’s super simple, just lime juice, maple syrup, and watermelon. I freeze the watermelon in chunks and then either in a couple hours or the next day I would blend everything together until it became sort of like a sorbet, more likely an Italian ice type of thing almost. I add Xanthan gum to prevent it from separating which worked wonders, but now I have a new dilemma I need to work on. I need to figure out how to prevent the dessert from freezing into a solid block of fruity, limey, sweet ice so we can sell it to the customers out front. Are there any ingredients, methods, or anything of the sort I could use or make that would help prevent it from becoming solid? Preferably I’d like to keep it naturally made if possible but if I have to use food safe chemicals or additives I could bring it up with my boss to see what she would think.
Do you have a separate freezer to keep it in? (That you could adjust the temperature on)
If you want to make sorbet, you need to agitate the mixture as it freezes. The best tool for this is an ice-cream machine. Follow the instructions for the machine, and cross-reference other recipes for the sugar-to-fruit ratio and use of thickeners. Xanthan should work decently, but there are also frozen dessert-specific thickeners; I've had success with Avacream brand. You might want to play with other sugars as well, they can provide better texture.
There are other frozen desserts you could make with these ingredients, but they have slightly different textures. I'll enumerate some options here:
Granita: spread the mixture in a sheet pan; as it freezes, remove from the freezer every 30 minutes and rake with a fork. The resultant dessert has some icy texture, but the pieces are small enough to enjoy. This requires no special equipment, but is more labor-intensive.
Shaved ice: you need a special, though relatively cheap, machine for this. Freeze the mix solid in the provided container, and put it in the machine. Spinning blades shred the ice into a snow-like texture. This is traditionally done with plain ice and flavored syrups are added after, but there is no reason you couldn't flavor the base instead.
Pacojet or Ninja creami: these are two name-brand machines that follow the same principle as a shaved ice maker, but with a much finer texture approaching a traditional sorbet. They are loud, and much more expensive, but can process a variety of frozen ingredients into nicely-textured desserts.
Some blenders or a food processor might work if you freeze it in ice cube trays, then grind it up on demand. But you could also just grind up the watermelon on demand and save a step
I might try this out first, our blender is pretty heavy-duty. I’ll probably get a couple ice cube trays or a large one and just pre-blend the watermelon and lime juice. Thanks!
Take this with a grain of salt - I'm not a commercial cook at all.
I think this mix sounds a bit like you are trying to make something like a Granita. Granita is a flavoured simple syrup frozen and ground (e.g. in a gelato machine) or scraped/shaved to make a light ice-crystal structure of varying texture, depending on how you like it. It turns out kind of like a mix between slushie and sorbet. It's super easy to make at home with very basic flavourings - lemon/mint is my favourite.
At domestic freezer temperatures (approx -20 C), a simple syrup won't freeze into a really hard mass, you can scrape the crystals quite easily with a fork, and the crystals will retain shape and not fully fuse together with continued freezing in at least the short term (~48 h, it never lasts longer than that in my household for me to test).
I think you would be best to make a big batch and prepare servings of it "on demand" You could probably put it in a gelato machine and have it keep it at the right texture/temperature, so all you need to do is scoop it out.
Making sorbet without an ice cream maker is possible but tedious. I make a batch of 1-2 litres using a freezer, and it needs beating every hour or two (usually in my stand mixer) once it starts to freeze round the edges. This takes quite a few hours, to the extent that next time I'm going to start by chilling the mixture in the fridge overnight and transfer to the freezer in the morning. Otherwise I end up going to bed when it could really do with another beat, and get lumps of ice. This would only be slower in a commercial size batch
I could try this. Saw a suggestion saying I could blend the watermelon and freeze it in ice cube trays and then blitz it in the blender once it’s solidified. I might try that and just mid all the ingredients at once. If it doesn’t work I may try other ideas, but I’m trying to avoid a new machine because my boss both doesn’t really have the space here for another machine—much less one dedicated to basically just my dessert—and that’s another thing we’d have to clean. I might get one just to make this at home but I’ll have to abstain from getting a new device. Hopefully this idea works.
If you freeze a liquid like that, it is going to freeze into a solid block, period. But as an alternative to making a sorbet sort of thing as bob1 suggested, you should consider getting an ice shaver and shaving the blocks on demand, resulting in quite a light and fluffy texture. Electric ice shavers are fairly inexpensive, and might offer higher capacity than ice cream/sorbet machines.
How about a few spoons of wine? Yes, 40% alcohol does not freeze up to -23°C. But addition a couple of sweet wine spoons may slow down freezing or give not so solid product. Another option - to add carbon dioxide gas. However, for carbonated drinks this only reduces the freezing temperature by a couple of degrees.
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129170 | Can cutting board oils dissolve water soluable wood glues?
When I built my carving board I didn't realize I need to use a water resistant wood glue. I used Titebond original which is water soluable. I was recently told that most oils used in carving boards will dissolve water soluable glues in cutting board over time. Has anyone seen any evidence of this? I asked Google and it just says that mineral oils and such can be used to remove glues. Not the same thing. I treated my carving board with 2 coats of fractionated coconut oil. After it had time to dry I used bees wax with a little mineral oil in it to wax it. Will the fractionated coconut oil polamerize or can it remain fluid and dissolve the glue in the joints?
Thanks,
Mikey
I would think that washing your board would be a bigger problem, as that would actually use water. or cutting fruit that gives off a lot of liquid
I've not heard about oils, but I do know that vinegar and other high acidic products like citrus fruits can sometimes cause issues with glue.
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129173 | Is there locally produced bryndza in Britain?
I can order Slovak bryndza in Britain but I am curious if there is locally produced, as there are much sheep in Britain.
Where can I buy locally produced sheep cottage cheese in Britain?
It's not a common product in the UK, and from what I can find there is the odd farmer that makes similar products, but they are highly localised, artisan products, and unlikely to show up in common supermarkets. Your best bet might be to find a sheep farmer and/or cheese maker close to you and see if they can make you some. Either way it could likely be more expensive or worse quality than importing it.
To emphasise what @Plutian says, I’ve never seen sheep cheese at a ‘regular’ supermarket, but if you haven’t I’d check out your local Polish / Eastern European shop - it won’t be locally produced, but it may be cheaper than importing yourself.
I don't know if there's a prejudice against sheep's milk products in the UK. I sometimes used to buy Fage brand sheep's milk yoghurt in my local supermarkets, but I never see it any more - only the cows' milk version.
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129237 | Are those home electric pizza ovens any good?
I am thinking of buying one of those home electric pizza ovens for $200 or so. They go up to 400C. Are they any good, or will I get similar results in the normal oven with a pizza stone?
Many thanks,
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129288 | Why does combining gluten-free and dairy-free substitutions make my Dutch baby recipe fail?
My family uses this recipe to make Dutch babies (we call it Dutch puffs, but my Internet searching found that's not the most common name):
4 eggs
1 cup flour
1 cup milk
Put some butter in a baking dish and preheat the dish in the oven.
Mix all ingredients in a blender until it's frothy with air.
Pour the mix into the preheated dish.
Bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for 25 minutes.
One of us has a bad gluten sensitivity, so we substituted the flour with Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free 1-to-1 Baking Flour. This works great.
I and some close relatives have issues with dairy, so we sometimes substitute the milk with Almond Breeze Unsweetened Original Almond Milk. This substitution, by itself, also works well.
However, we have tried several times to combine both substitutions to accommodate both dietary problems at the same time, and every time the combination resulted in an unappetizing soggy mush.
Why does this happen, and how can we fix it?
I suspect it's the gluten-free more than the dairy-free. When you let a very wet batter sit, it forms gluten without kneeling... and you need it to trap the air when it does its popover thing. This site says that the gums in gluten free flour blends are a problem: https://glutenfreeonashoestring.com/gluten-free-dutch-baby/
@Joe The issue is an interaction between them, somehow. Either substitution on its own works well. It's only the combination of both that causes a problem.
Have you tried different brands of your substitutions? I don't substitute dairy, but many of my gf recipes explicitly state that milk substitutes are possible. Also, anything based on a loose batter (pancakes, crepes, I suppose also Dutch babies) is generally easier to make gf than cakes or bread. So, I would expect the combination to work, and maybe you hit on some rare and unfortunate combination of products.
@Douglas quite a few plant based milks also use gums to try to match consistency. You might try oat milk, which is more likely to have starches instead of gums, or canned coconut milk and thinning it yourself
If the "issues" with dairy are lactose intolerance, you might try substituting a lacose-free milk (eg the lactaid or fairlife brands are generally wide-spread and available where I am.) Of course if it's an allergy or religious restriction, this isn't a solution.
Mystery solved!
While googling about why my gluten-free cookies had a raw flour taste in them, I found several comments that Bob's Red Mill GF flour is not ground very finely, and the larger granules of rice flour in the mix can take a while to properly absorb their portion of moisture in the dough. One of the recommended solutions for that issue was to let the dough "rest" for a while, just leaving the bowl full of dough out on the counter and waiting before actually baking any of it.
I tried that with my Dutch Baby batter, and I just now finished eating a properly formed and tasty dairy-free gluten-free Dutch Baby.
I rested the batter for 2 hours this time, which is probably excessive. Some of the recommendations I found for cookie dough suggest 30 minutes. I'll test some shorter rest times in the future.
I guess normal milk gets absorbed by the rice flour faster for some reason.
Oh yes! Milling grade is indeed a common issue with gluten-free flours. I've even purchased something labelled "flour" which turned out to be coarse-semolina-sized (and because it was also whole grain, completely unusable as flour, only as polenta). So, good find, and thank you for reporting back!
I don't even know if it's solely the grind. America's Test Kitchen had a gluten free baking book that said that non-wheat flours needed extra time to fully hydrate, so I assume it was something about the grains themselves (like how water passes through different types of clay at different rates)
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129294 | Incorporated dough mix into sourdough starter
I was suppose to ferment the sourdough starter for at least 8 hrs. Instead, I added the flour and water to the starter only after an hour. Can I save this dough?
It's not a big deal. The major issue if you lack experience is that you don't know what to look for, perhaps. It will come out bread (of some sort.)
Probably! The culture will happily do its thing even in the full dough. The dough will take longer to develop, of course. The gluten structure may be adversely affected, leading to a slacker loaf. If it's lower hydration (70% or below) it probably won't be a big deal. If it's higher than that, you might want to play it safe and bake in a loaf pan rather than free-form.
Thanks. How long should I let the dough develop?
Honestly, it depends on the recipe and the culture and a million other things. A few extra hours, perhaps. If the recipe includes instructions on what to look for in the dough, then you should continue to follow them as though nothing had changed.
Generally, sourdough works with all kinds of ratios and at most sane temperatures.
In your case, you will have to let your mixture stand and develop, and occasionally check on it.
The main things you want to see:
It should rise significantly (easily to double the original height).
If you dive into it with a spoon, you want to see little bubbles.
You may smell for the typical sour smell.
You can taste it, it should taste sour.
When all this has happened, then you have, well, a sourdough.
Thankfully you did not add the salt in yet. So, when you feel like it has risen aplenty, and smells and tastes as strong as you like it, you can finally add the salt and continue baking. (Do take off the portion you need for your next starter before adding salt, if you have no starter left.)
As Sneftel mentioned, you will have to expect that the behaviour during baking changes, and without a lot of experience and access to your kitchen this is impossible to predict. You could play it safe and bake rolls instead of a big loaf of bread - this way you can bake only 1 or 2 and see what happens (whether you need to bake longer or shorter) and then go on from there.
Take it as a happy accident, sourdough is very forgiving, and you'll probably learn something.
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129478 | Can I still cook and eat farro that fermented?
I soaked my farro too long and it started to ferment. Can I still cook and eat it?
Can you provide more information? How long was it soaking and a what temperature? Any other observations, such as unpleasant or sour smells (beyond mild/pleasant fermentation), mold, discoloration, and/or sliminess?
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129552 | How can I prepare tableware properly while maintaining efficiency and cleanliness?
I have to plate 80 small appetizer cups that we used to stack with trays. Now management said to stop stacking trays on top of the cups. (There are other appetizers. I just lowered the number.)
(Per tray: 12 appetizer cups fit.)
I think it's very unreasonable because the stacking saves so much time and space. Is there some way to keep cleanliness and efficiency?
Has your management explained why you should stop the practice? Hygiene, damage, risk of toppling over? Depending on the reason, we can suggest different solutions.
If the issue is concern that the top of the cups come into contact with the bottom of the trays which might have been set on an unclean surface, they might accept your placing the trays upside down on the cups. If not, you might have to consider something like a baker's rack
Your best option is to wrap completed trays of appetisers in cling film (also called saran wrap, plastic wrap, etc.). This would address the issues with hygiene of the potentially unclean bottom of the tray touching the top of the clean cups. It would also help with balance as the film would add a bit of friction preventing the stacked trays from sliding and toppling over. Additionally it would be more hygienic as well as it will prevent any airborne contaminants from getting into the cups as well.
The easiest and quickest way to do this is to roll out some film roughly twice the length of the tray and cutting it, then placing the tray on one side of it, filling it, and wrapping the other side over the top.
Thank you. Sounds brilliant
Only if the relevant heath inspector approves. Which is almost certainly where management got the idea that the old way was bad. Keep the inspector happy with whatever solutions you consider, and management should be happy as well.
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129769 | When you thaw out beef, there is a red fluid that thaws out also. Can you use that fluid for juice in the dish ?you are cooking?
When you thaw out beef, there is a red fluid that thaws out also. Can you use that fluid for juice in the dish you are cooking?
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129829 | How to open a overfilled whipped cream dispenser that is stuck and can’t open lid
The dispenser will not let me open the lid. The dispenser was filled to the top and a cartridge at it. I then realized what it happened but cannot get the lid off.
Your best bet is to find an instruction manual. We'd need the exact make and model to be able to answer anyway. I suspect it'll be something along the lines of depressurize, then open as normal.
What happens when you attempt to dispense whipped cream from the container? That's the (apparently) obvious way to lower the volume of liquid and the pressure. It may well not whip the cream nicely, but if the pressure is reduced sufficiently you should be able to get the lid off (or may not need to, depending how it works out.) Perhaps you've tried and it didn't work, but if so, please tell us. Or try, and tell us the result of that attempt. Given it's a whipped cream dispenser, you should be able to hold it "the wrong way up" for dispensing whipped cream and just bleed off gas pressure.
The 'release all pressure' instructions won't work if you've clogged the nozzle. This once happened when my mom decided to use fresh grated nutmeg (following a recipe that probably assumed you just bought a jar of ground nutmeg from the store).
If you slowly unscrew it VERY slowly, you can scrape some of the whipped cream that will ooze out... right until the point where the top suddenly shoots off and it sprays whipped cream everywhere.
So I would suggest wrapping the whole thing in a large towel and trying to slowly work the lid off (letting it release whatever pressure it can) while it's trapped inside the towel. And you might want to do this outside, and wear eye protection, just in case.
The pressure is going to add friction to unscrewing it, so you might need something to grip it well... if you have large channel-lock (aka slip joint) pliers, those may work, but again... work VERY slowly, so that any pressure that can escape does so before you hit the point of no return
What is the brand of the whipper?
A common brand is iSi. The FAQ on their website states:
First release the pressure. Place the whipper with the head upwards and hold a towel over the outlet. Activate the lever until the iSi Whipper is no longer under pressure. Now the head can be removed from the bottle. If the head still cannot be removed, please contact iSi Customer Service at (973) 227-2426 x6245.
You first want to try to release the pressure. Sometimes working the lever helps.
I see some additional suggestions online about placing it the refrigerator or placing the bottom portion in ice water for a while. If it is an iSi...call the helpline.
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129893 | I over salted my prime rib! Now what?
In my attempt to cook my first prime rib ever, I researched and researched. I somehow got it into my mind that I needed to Pat Kosher salt all over my boneless roast 24 hours in advance. I panicked when I had forgotten what I thought was the salt step and the roast (6.6lbs) only had around 6hrs of this “salt brine” time.
Well needless to say, after coming to room temp, seating at 450 for 20min and then cooking at 275 for 20min x lbs… I rounded up to 7 lbs. So the roast seared for 20 and the cooked for an additional 2hrs…
I was left with an over-salted mess. It was a disaster! No one wanted seconds and could barely eat their initial serving.
Did I go wrong at salting for 6 hrs?
I think I obviously used too much salt. Can the meat be used for something like soups now? I hate to toss it out. But it’s way tooooooo salty to eat now.
I don't follow what you've done. Can you clarify? You patted kosher salt on a 6.6 lb rib roast. How much salt? Did it sit this way for 24 hours? How does the 6 hrs factor in? Did you add salt in addition to the salt you rubbed on...how much? (Cooking time is irrelevant in terms of solving the saltiness.)
What I find interesting here is that the name of "kosher salt" comes from it being used to cover meat in a process designed to remove blood and then the salt is washed off (hopefully together with the blood). This is normally done by kosher butcher shops but in ye olden times people would do this themselves with the raw meat before cooking it. But the result is that kosher meat tends to already have more than enough residual salt - so if I found a recipe calling for adding salt to beef I would skip that step. Obviously with non-kosher meat some added salt could be good for flavor.
You have multiple questions in there, but the two main ones:
The time that it was salted probably isn't the issue. The amount of salt is more likely the issue. In general, you want about 1% salt by weight (some people say 1.5%, but you can always add more later). So if you have a 6.6lb roast, that's 3kg, so 30grams of salt. Kosher salt tends to pack differently by brand, so you'll want to look up the density for your brand.
As for uses, just use it as an ingredient in other dishes. If it's incredibly salty, you might be able to use it like you would salt pork or country ham, so soup as you mentioned (but avoid using salty pre-made broth/stock), but if it's only slightly over salted, you can use it in many ways and just omit the salt:
Fajitas: slice, add lime juice, cook on high heat with onions and bell peppers
Burritos: either cut it into strips or small chunks, mix with rice, vegetables and salsa. (can also use this mix for stuffed bell peppers)
Beef Stroganoff: sliced beef, onions, mushrooms, sour cream, maybe some herbs, served over egg noodles
Salad: make a green salad, add slices of beef.
If it's crazy salty, you might also want to look up recipes that use corned beef.
if the saltiness level is similar to ham , you might be able to use recipes that would call for that. Also consider sandwiches, casseroles, cottage pie, etc
Always, always taste the food you are cooking. Caught early enough, you might have been able to marinade the boneless prime ribs in a bottle of strong red wine for an hour and the salt would have seeped into the wine
Now the prime rib is cooked you could reheat it in a dutch oven, chuck in half a bottle of red, tip in chopped celery, onion, carrots, and later add potatoes–obviously do not season. Potatoes should absorb some of the salt. Taste the stew, still salty? Remove meat and vegetables, reduce the wine to half, add butter, and dissolve a tablespoon of flour. Still salty? So, I would add unsalted tinned tomatoes, sweeten with sugar, and add it all to the stew.
It's difficult to taste a roast as you're seasoning. I also don't recommend sampling chicken before you've actually cooked it.
@Joe You can taste the browned side and also the sauce in the roasting pan. You can also touch and taste the seasoning on your finger. Just a dab, it will be such a small amount you'll be safe but if you are concerned you can always spit it out. If the meat is really salty that's your cue something has gone wrong. :)
To some extent, you can "reverse brine" food: soaking food in initially-saltless-water will result in the water becoming more salty and the food becoming less salty. The two main problems are first, this of course means that you're soaking the food in water, so depending on the food you may just be getting mush, and second, it's not just salt that's going to be leached out; any other seasoning will also be pulled out.
The other main thing to do with any food with too much salt (or is too spicy, etc.) is to dilute it. The drawback with that of course is that if you lightly dilute it, then you just have more overly salty (or overly spicy, or whatever you had too much of) stuff, and if you heavily dilute it, then you have a whole lot of food to find something to do with. Whether this is a viable solution (no pun intended) depends on how salty the meat is, and how salty you like your food. If you like soup with high salt content, or chili, or burritos, etc., you could try putting the meat in that. Jerky also might be an option.
You might want to start small, however. As I said before, diluting food can just mean you have more bad tasting stuff. If you start with 1 kg of meat that's ten times too salty and mix it with 2 kg of beans to make chili, well now you have 3 kg of chili that's three times too salty. So make a small batch to check whether it's reducing it to a good salt level before throwing good food after bad. Also beware of the sunk cost fallacy; you may be tempted to dilute it until it's "good enough" and then proceed to eat food that's still too salty, but is edible, just to avoid "wasting it". If you're eating it only to not "waste" it, it's probably not worth it.
your water comment is true about it leaching out other flavors... but that's why you make soup, not just throw out the water. At a minimum use the water to make rice unless it's unbearably salty (and even then you can use it mixed with water)
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123846 | Can I use a mason jar or an empty tin can as a DIY cooking pot over an open flame stove?
I'm talking about a small gas or alcohol stove, for example like this:
Images from: https://www.rei.com/blog/camp/diy-how-to-make-an-alcohol-stove-from-soda-cans
If I'd use a glass mason jar instead of a cooking pot - would the glass shatter? What about using a tin can? Is that material safe for food? I read about a plastic lining on the inside that might turn out problematic. But I can just "burn it off"?
Any other ideas?
The reason for my question (and subsequently a constraint for any answers) is my very low budget. I do have pots at home, but they are very heavy and... well, I need them at home. Obviously, there are camping cooking pots that would work very well, but they are expensive.
I'd appreciate your insight. Thank you very much.
I’m voting to close this question because chefs are not necessarily qualified to know about metallurgy, or the consqueences of burning off plastics.
On the other hand - glass would shatter, a regular can would be too small to fit your rig. Also, you can buy a really cheap pan for about the price of a can of food.
@Tetsujin people who don’t know the answer should refrain from answering. That doesn’t mean it’s not a good question.
I'm seeing 15-20 piece camping sets starting at around $25. I'm sure they aren't great but compared to a glass that's going to shatter or using a can I know which way I'd go
Perhaps asking this question on [outdoors.se] or [lifehacks.se] would bring better answers.
@mustaccio If you are going to send people to other SE sites, please at least inform them that we will have to close the question on this site. Usually, I don't see the point of such "don't ask here, ask there" suggestions, especially if the person suggesting it is not so well acquainted with both communities as to know exactly what will go wrong with answers in the community where it was originally posted.
Using a Mason jar or a tin can on top of an open flame is a risky proposition. The glass is not designed for direct heat, and the stresses would cause it to potentially shatter or explode.
You have correctly identified that cans have an inert liner sprayed on to prevent corrosion. How exactly this will react to an open flame is difficult to quantify, it may burn off or it may leave a residue that will taint the food. Either way, it will probably give off toxic fumes you would not want to inhale or ingest.
A cheaper and safer option would be reusable/disposable tin foil trays used for takeaway containers or pies. They come in a variety of shapes and sizes, and have the additional benefit that you can bend them if need be to make them more stable on the heat source.
Ideally though, you want to invest in an aluminium mess tin with a lid. This is designed for the task, can be used on multiple fuel sources and can be used to store tea lights etc. for cooking with.
If you can, purchase a cheap copper pan from a car boot sale, for camping pans they're great.
A mason jar is likely to crack and break.
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123976 | Are freezer bags not safe to store alcohol?
I had some wine leftover and wanted to put them in the freezer to use it at a later point for baking or cooking. So I just poured it into a freezer bag.
Today, I noticed that the bag is not frozen solid (that's expected because of the lower melting point of alcohol), but unfortunately also leaking. But not really leaking wine - more like a reddish water?
So I took it out and filled the wine into a hard plastic box container. Afterwards I inspected the bag: it has no holes. I filled it with water and there was no leaking.
What's going on here? Are freezer bags not safe to store alcohol in? The bag is made from polyethylene (PE).
If your freezer is cold enough your wine will freeze into a solid block. Often people use ice cube trays to freeze wine for cooking and then put them in a bag. You may want to adjust your freezer temperature. Generally a home use freezer will be zero degrees farenheit.
That's roughly minus 18 Celsius for the rest of the world.
@SteveChambers many whites freeze in mine, most (slightly stronger) reds don't fully even at about -20°C. That's because as ice crystals form, the remaining liquid becomes more and more alcoholic. The resulting slush can still flow through an imperfect seal. The expansion of watery liquids on freezing can also pop seals
Plastic bags are permeable to certain molecules. For example, iodine (and iirc glucose) can pass through a regular Ziploc bag. I've noticed that greasy things put in a plastic bag can cause the outside to become greasy, even when there are no leaks.
From what I've seen, alcohol shouldn't be able to fit through a PE bag. However, there is another exit from a Ziploc bag: the seal. Even if water can't get through the seal, alcohol, having different chemical properties than water, may be able to do so. That is a possible way that it got out.
Additionally, Cooks Illustrated at one point tried to use plastic wrap to remove the TCA from corked wine, and they concluded that it removed much of the taste as well, so be careful which plastics you use for storing wine specifically.
An ethanol molecule (C2H6O) is several times larger than a water molecule (H2O), not smaller.
@NuclearHoagie I had to look this up, because it appears I had previously gotten some wrong information. The atoms present does not definitively determine the size of a molecule, since they could be bonded differently. However it appears that alcohol molecules are in fact about double the diameter of water molecules. I'm not sure why so many "sciency" places say that alcohol is smaller than water and can fit between water molecules, etc, but I did fix that in the answer.
Another possibility might be that prolonged context with alcohol, which is a good solvent, weakens the plastic in some way that makes it more permeable.
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123961 | Curled, Tender Beef in Noodle Soups (esp. Vietnamese)
I've noticed that both in Europe as well as Vietnam, the beef slices in noodle soups (in particular phở bò) tend to have two salient qualities:
they are absurdly, melt-in-your-mouth tender, and
they are very curled up.
The beef is sliced quite thinly and added to the bowl of boiling hot broth right before serving. In particular, the meat is not stewed or boiled beforehand. While I don't know what cut it was, the prices at the places I've eaten at suggest they most certainly did not use the most expensive, tender cuts, and yet the beef was softer than anything I've ever eaten, but also curled up tightly, even more than e.g. bacon does in a frying pan.
What's the procedure to obtain both properties above (which I assume connected)? I would venture the guess they use some sort of chemical meat tenderizer, but I am not sure when and how exactly.
baking soda is fairly common in chinese cuisine for the purpose of tenderization. might be the same thing in vietnamese cooking
In your case it's probably brisket or flank steak, which are stringier cuts and are therefore more prone to curling. Slicing them very thin lets them cook through after a quick dunk in the hot broth and makes them tender without the long cooking that these cuts would usually require. They might also be frozen to enable them to be sliced thinly or after cutting for general preservation, which could make them even more tender. I doubt there's a chemical tenderizer or marinade involved, but you can always ask the restaurant.
Thanks for your suggestions. Would freezing be typically done before or after cooking, esp when aiming to maximize tenderness (mind you, the meat didn't seem close to falling apart or anything)?
I would just put the steak in the freezer for 15-20 minutes until it's lightly frozen and then slice it with the grain into 2-3mm thick slabs. The quick cooking in the hot broth isn't long enough to break down the connective tissue so the meat will still hold together but when it's sliced that thinly it won't be unpleasantly tough or chewy.
I will have to try this; I am somewhat skeptical if this produces the observed result, because the meat wasn't "not chewy," but impossibly tender. We'll see. I might stop by the place around the corner here again and see if they let me in on their (not so) secret. Thanks in the meanwhile.
I think @vir is the best you can do at home but I suspect the meat in the restaurant is sliced even thinner, maybe 1mm thick slabs which makes it even more tender. You can buy frozen, very thinly sliced meat in Chinese supermarkets for use in hotpot (a Chinese dish were you also throw the raw meat in boiling broth).
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92755 | Caramel fudge pieces into sauce?
I'm wondering if there is a way to turn store-bought caramel fudge pieces into a caramel sauce? Would that be possible?
possibly related: https://cooking.stackexchange.com/a/86471/69382
Fudge is a mixture of sugar, butter and milk/cream, made by slowly crystallising sugar at about 115C. You can make a caramel sauce by heating sugar and water to this temperature, and then adding cream (or maybe evaporated milk), followed by more gentle heating. So I think there is a chance it will work. You might want to add some extra cream for richness and texture.
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6117 | Can you freeze chopped zucchini?
I know that I can easily freeze shredded zucchini for long-term storage if I stored it in a vacuum sealed freezer bag. However there is a recipe that I really want to make over the winter that requires chopped zucchini. So I am wondering if I can use the same method for freezing zucchini when its chopped like I do when it is shredded. So all I have to do is :
chop it
fill freezer bag
extract air and seal it
Would this method work? Am I able to freeze chopped zucchini and have it taste the same when I thaw it? Is there a better method? Is there an ideal size for the chopped zucchini?
The basic idea is that you want to reduce the ice crystals formed while freezing the food. Here is what I would suggest.
Put a metal pan in your freezer for 30 minutes to cool.
Prep your zucchini, trying to get the most surface area possible.
Spread out, trying to not overlap on your pan and place back in the freezer for about an hour.
Place in your freezer bag and seal with as much air out of it as possible.
A completely ideal way to freeze almost all veggies or fruits is to get a cooler and some dry ice, place your cut pieces in a metal bowl inside your cooler and leave it while the dry ice does its magic. You will have minimal ice crystals while giving you the closest taste from the original.
It is generally recommended to "blanch" vegetables before freezing them. Blanching is heating the vegetables (by boiling or steaming) for a specific number of minutes. You typically follow blanching immediately with an ice-water bath, to stop the cooking process.
From The National Center for Home Food Preservation:
Blanching slows or stops the action of
enzymes which cause loss of flavor,
color and texture. Blanching cleanses
the surface of dirt and organisms,
brightens the color and helps retard
loss of vitamins. Blanching also wilts
or softens vegetables and makes them
easier to pack.
For vegetable-specific instructions on blanching, see this list.
This could be why ours turned out bad from last years crop. We didn't blanch them and when we tried to cook them the skin was to hard to deal with.
The taste will be fine, but it will certainly weep water when you go to cook it. So it depends whether that is disastrous for the recipe you have in mind.
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4240 | How long is cooked hamburger able to sit in a crockpot?
I came across a crockpot recipe for burritos. It calls for cooked hamburger (1 lb) as one of its ingredients and specifies that I should cook the mixture on low for 6-10 hours. Is this safe? Whenever I have cooked meat in the crockpot in the past I only use a high temperature and I take it off as soon as it is done so its not kept on 'stay warm'. Since the hamburger is already cooked this is not a question on will this cook it properly but more a question on is this safe and how long (max) can I leave hamburger on low?
food is safe so long as the Crockpot is on, and functioning correctly. The food will maintain a simmer as long as its on, which is too hot for bacteria.
I'm not a food safety expert by any means, but this is my understanding, and personal experience, as well.
I have a version of baked beans I make in a crock pot that cook for 24 hours on low. I've used a thermometer to verify that, once it comes up to temperature, it stays right at a simmer the entire time, which is above the 165F necessary to keep it "safe". I did the verification because of some of the horrified looks I got when I told people that these beans cook for 24 hours and the last 12 is when the changes happen that really make them good.
Basically, the main danger zone is 41F to 140F. If food sits in that range, it's dangerous, and your goal is to get it out of that range as quickly (within reason of course) as you can to maintain safety. If it's colder or warmer than that, you're safe. Unless your crock pot is broken, the low setting is definitely fine.
I would be more leery of the "Keep Warm" setting. That's probably just barely keeping food out of the danger zone, and if it's miscalibrated, it could be holding food right on the edge of the danger zone.
The hamburger meat itself is never going to burn in a crock-pot, and as long as there is a good enough seal and enough liquid, it shouldn't dry out. As long as the meat is in the bacteria-killing temperature range, I don't see why it couldn't stay there for 10 hours.
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1776 | How do I properly freeze and reheat a cooked, marinated steak?
I just grilled up a steak marinated in vinegar, rosemary, and olive oil. Problem is I made too much. What's the proper way to freeze, store, and subsequently reheat this steak to get it as close to as delicious and tender as it now?
I'd recommend letting it cool to near room-temperature, then place it in an airtight sealed plastic freezer bag before it dries out too much. You can spoon some of the juices from cooking into the bag with the steak so that when it defrosts again the juices will be in there working to keep it moist.
When you defrost it, do so in your fridge leaving it overnight so that it defrosts gradually, keeping it in the freezer bag so it doesn't lose any more moisture. It should then be good to reheat, probably best in a shallow pan rather than a microwave to retain moisture.
My favorite way to handle this situation is to allow the steak to defrost in the refrigerator and then slice it thinly for a steak sandwich with provolone cheese.
Thanks for the tip. What is the best way to freeze it, though?
My apologies... wrap tightly in plastic wrap, then put in a freezer bag. This is pretty well my method for freezing any meat, raw or frozen (and I freeze A LOT of meat). It's worked well for me.
In general, you can't (just to back up the other answers). But you can do other things with the steak!
Leftover Steak Recipes has some pretty nice recipes. It's sponsored by Fleming's, so, I'd like to think that's worth something as far as the calibre of the recipes go.
Update: My wife says that while it's not ideal to freeze it after cooking, you can use a vacuum sealer (if you have one) to help reduce the chance of frosting, and keep the moisture in as it thaws. Zip-Loc is also selling a bag that's supposed to do much of the same, but we haven't tried it. But getting as much air out as possible is the key.
Thanks for the tip. What is the best way to freeze it, though? I mean, aside from what I make with it when I finally decide to eat it, how do I best store it for another day?
Seconding the vacuum sealer. My family had some delicious cheesesteak sandwiches for supper last night because of that.
Generally speaking, you don't.
If you really must freeze steak, freeze it before cooking and slowly defrost it in a collander overnight.
Re: your current problem - I would wrap in tinfoil and heat in the oven. A pan may overcook it.
thanks for the answer. How should I freeze it AFTER cooking?
In an air-tight container would be my best guess, although I've never done that. Usually we don't too much leftover steak, and what we do leave, the dog gets :)
First wrap in foil. You don't want plastic anywhere near your steak if you can help it to avoid that plastic frozen dinner taste. Then wrap airtight in plasric wrap - not plastic bag.
So provided the steak got wrapped and frozen - how should OP reheat it? Your answer seems incomplete...
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7191 | What is the fastest/easiest way to prepare potatoes for mashing?
I've always thought that mashed potatoes should be a really simple thing to make. But I find that with all the peeling, quartering, boiling, not to mention the incredibly messy cleanup, it's actually quite an arduous and tedious process.
Assuming I plan to use a ricer to actually do the mashing, is there any faster or at least less messy way to soften the potatoes than boiling them? Any shortcuts I can use?
Don't peel them! That's a great time saver, and also tastes & looks better too, imo.
@hobodave: Is this something you'd recommend for baking potatoes, with the rough brown skins? I know it's common for thinner/softer-skinned potatoes but I've never attempted it with baking potatoes.
I don't mind the thicker skins at all. It gives the mashed potatoes a rustic feel. You could go halfway and only skin half of them. Either way, make sure you give them a thorough scrubbing.
If you're going to be using a ricer, just halve the potatoes -- you can then put them cut side-down into the ricer, and then press -- the skin will be left behind. (I'd still give them a quick scrub before boiling them, though). Of course, this is easier, but not necessarily faster as it'll take longer for the potatoes to cook through.
If you bake them, just clean, bake, then cut in half, and put through the ricer. (Again, not really that much faster).
If you're cooking red potatoes, even if you're not using a ricer, there's no need to peel them beforehand, as you can boil them whole, then rub the skin off with a dry towel. (of course, for red potatoes, they're always going to be lumpy, and have texture, so in that case, I tend to leave the skins on).
To reduce the overall time, if I'm going to be going for a smooth mash:
Only use large potatoes. Save the smaller ones for applications where you don't need to peel potatoes.
Cut the potatoes into slabs. There's no need to get them to cubes. I tend to go to about 2cm (~3/4") thick. Any extra cooking time is made up for by reduced cutting / transfering bits to the pot / dealing with the chunk that fell and rolled under the cabinet / etc.
Start the water warming while you're peeling. You don't want to place the potatoes into boiling water, but you can take some of the chill off it.
Toss a few cloves of garlic (whole, but paper removed, end trimmed off) in with the potatoes, so you don't have to season afterwards.
Use stock rather than milk. I keep boxed vegetable and chicken stocks at room temp, not chilled, so I don't have to heat it up first to deal with the issues of it cooling down the starches too fast.
Decide if the ricer's really worth it -- I get good results just tossing everything back into the same pot after straining, hit 'em with a potato masher, add some liquid, then go through a few more times. It saves a lot of cleanup, but it might not be exactly the texture you're used to,
Good point about ditching the ricer; if I'm preparing for company then I'll usually want them smooth but if I'm just making it for myself, I'm more than willing to trade off some time for a little lumpiness, and the ricer is a pretty significant part of the time and mess. Although not peeling them would also save time and effort, and I'm not sure how well that would work without the ricer. I'll have to think about which part of the process I dread more.
Tools
Those little palm peelers work great for me - your mileage may vary.
If you have an apple peeler/slicer/corer, you can use this for potatoes as well, so long as they're fairly uniform. The spiral-cut potatoes will cook faster too, but may also absorb more water - if you're worried, just move the blade out of the way and use the device only to peel.
Techniques
If you boil the potatoes skin-on the day before and refrigerate overnight, the peels should slip off the cold potatoes easily. Then re-heat by simmering in your liquid, and rice or mash.
If you're really after quick, accept dirty results: as both Eric and Joe suggest, don't bother peeling and just toss everything together in one pot. He suggests a masher, but a stick blender or hand mixer can speed this up even more.
+1 for the apple peeler ... I think I might even have a hand-me down one stashed somewhere; and my mom always used a hand mixer ... and it works, but I've gotten to prefer the thicker consistency of non-whipped potatoes.
I ended up using the bottom of a glass jar, and then whipped it with the cream/butter normally using a fork. That was really quick, and surprisingly, almost no lumps. I think Joe's answer is the most complete but I do want to call you out for the idea of pre-boiling and refrigerating; that sounds brilliant and I'll very likely do that next time I know I'm going to making mashed potatoes.
I almost never peel my potatoes before boiling them for mashing. So it's pretty much into the pot with some salt, cook, drain, and then mash with a standard masher. A ricer does a lovely job but it's a lot of work and mess. That's pretty much a single pot, 30-45 minute solution and I'm not sure it can get much faster or easier than that.
If you really want to use the ricer and loose the skins then try baking them rather tan boiling. If you've already got the oven hot for a turkey, ham, or something else then putting the potatoes directly on the rack for an hour (ish) will get them cooked. Then just scoop out the insides and mash.
I NEVER peel potatoes except when making French fries. What a waste of time! I just scrub and boil 'em for 40 minutes. The skins slip off like a charm. Why on earth would you want to go through all the work of peeling? If you're doing something where the shape is important, like potato salad, shorten the boiling time by about ten minutes.
I was really ticked during a recent visit when I offered to prep potatoes for my hostess and was told to peel about 50 or so of the small spuds; they were not new potatoes, but the same size. So I spent a good hour doing that. Then they took off minor blemishes and boiled them for mashed potatoes. My opinion is that all that could be done when the potatoes are boiled, soft and amenable.
Wash, cut in half, pressure cook 10 to 12 min. Rice, add whatever you like. I use a little butter, milk, garllic, salt, Pepper, whisk with fork.Done in about 20 min.
Microwaving is clearly the fastest and easiest way, no contest. Rinse potato (30 sec). Wrap in wet paper towel and put on plate (30 sec). Put in microwave for about 2-5 minutes and make sure it is nice and soft. Cut into pieces then mash with a fork and mix with whatever you like for flavor (1-2 min). Total time to prepare is about 4-8 minutes, depending on the amount of potato you need. I do this twice every day, works great. Doesn't taste quite as good, but it certainly tastes good enough for me to eat twice every day, and great for those of you who don't feel like taking an hour to prepare your food.
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7951 | Why did my "Turkish Delight" turn into a horrible goopy mess?
I don't normally make a lot of confections but decided recently to try a few new things.
Yesterday I used this recipe for Turkish delight which I originally found on the Hydrocolloid Recipe Collection. It uses agar as the gelling agent and appears relatively easy to prepare (that's why I tried it). Basically you just dissolve some agar in warm water, orange juice, and lemon juice, add sugar, simmer it, then cool and refrigerate to set.
Unfortunately, what I ended up with after refrigerating overnight was closer to the consistency of jam or marmalade than a Turkish delight. It was far, far from delightful.
When I prepared this I didn't actually follow the source URL and noticed a few differences that may account for the problem (but I'm not sure, that's why I'm asking):
The original recipe calls for 1/2 teaspoon of agar; the one in the collection specifies exactly 1.2 g.
The original recipe specifically says to cover with a cloth; the collection recipe is not so specific, it just says to cover (I used plastic wrap).
The original recipe says to refrigerate in an ice-water bath; the collection recipe does not (I just put the dish in the fridge).
Other issues that may have been causes:
It turned out that my scale wasn't precise enough to get exactly 1.2 g. The amount I used could have been anywhere between 1 g and 2 g. In retrospect, I wish I had checked the original recipe and simply used the 1/2 teaspoon that it called for.
I got the agar from an Asian grocery store, and the packaging clearly said "agar agar", but I did notice that it had two ingredients, the second one (after agar) being vanilla. I'm not sure whether this is normal or whether it might have been diluting the agar mix.
I did notice that it did not seem to be gelling at all while it was coming down to room temperature. It was basically a soup until it had been refrigerated.
Can anyone identify the most likely reason why this didn't work out? Did I use too little agar? Too much? Could some of the differences between the two recipe versions be important? Could it be something I haven't thought of yet?
And equally importantly for the purposes of this question, can I fix it or am I going to have to throw it out?
@roux: In general I would agree. In this case (given that I couldn't get the weight completely accurate) I'd probably have been better off using the volume measurement, which the rest of the recipe was evidently built around. In any case, going by mass probably wouldn't have helped me if, as Michael seems to have confirmed, the agar I was using wasn't pure enough to begin with; I would have been wrong no matter what I did.
@roux: They did have these gigantic solid... things that they referred to as "agar" also, and there seemed to be different colours (or maybe flavours?). That was the only other thing I saw. At least I found it; try looking for carrageenan or xanthan gum here. Try even looking for a sub-gram scale! (Everyone says Amazon - too bad they don't ship to Canada.)
@roux: Yeah, one of the salespeople was helpful enough to recommend the Hemp Store. I guess it sorta makes sense (as Michael says - thanks, drug dealers!)
Regardless of whether you can save such a gel or not: this is not a real Turkish Delight. A Turkish Delight, the way it is eaten in Turkey, is always starch-thickened. It will have a very different texture from the candy in this recipe. I leave this comment as a warning to anybody who decides to make "turkish delight" using this and wonders why it doesn't taste like the real thing.
@rumtscho, not that any of the other comments here are really on topic (should probably be cleared), but do you really think yours add significantly to the discussion? The authenticity of the recipe seems pretty irrelevant in the context of this question; how many questions do we already have on the site referencing recipes that are not for the "real thing"? Should we have such comments for all of them?
I added it because somebody made the recipe, was unhappily with the resulting texture, and is trying it again (see deleted answer). My comment is supposed to help people who wonder why their result's texture is not what they expect, not to answer your specific question or to say that you are somehow doing a "wrong" thing by following an unconventional recipe. But if you don't like it, feel free to remove it.
@Aaronut and rumtscho This would have been better in your private mod chat, or at least meta.
I've worked with agar a lot, and made a few things from the HRC. Of all of the things you've identified as possible problems, I think the biggest likely ones are the quantity of agar, and the agar powder itself. Everything else about the cooling issue is normal. Agar powders do vary. You want to find one that is pure, unadulterated agar, not one that is setup to be a pre-prepared dessert as those are weaker.
If just for a laugh you want to try to save this batch, heat it back up until the agar fully melts, shear in a second amount equal to what you did last night, making sure it fully dissolves, then let it set again. I'm pretty sure that will work.
You can also pick up a sub-gram scale on Amazon for around $20. Thanks, drug dealers! They are very helpful when making small batches of "molecular" recipes.
I know I definitely need a better scale; I actually thought that mine was sub-gram as it cost about $30. It also seems harder than I expected to find pure agar; even in the gigantic T&T store I only managed to spy this one at the last minute on one of the "South East Asia" shelves. I hoped that it was similar, but now that I think about it, it did have a distinctly sweet aroma and could easily have been nearly half vanilla. The net weight on the package is 7 g; perhaps I'll just bomb the rest of the package in there and see what comes out.
One other question: The preparation steps include boiling and simmering for 20 minutes, is that necessary to do again in order to activate the agar? In the HRC it lists a 90° C hydration temperature but I assume the 20 minute simmer time is simply to reduce the mixture; can I just bring the melted gel to a boil briefly after adding more agar, and then set it?
I ended up doing exactly this - tossing the entire rest of the package into the mix. It actually came out OK, although the nuts were a little soft after having been boiled. I think the recipe itself needs a few tweaks, but at least I've got the general idea now.
@aaronut sorry, I didn't see your followup question until tonight. I've never boiled agar for anything like 20 minutes. As long as it comes up to the hydration temperature and then gets sheared thoroughly, you should be fine.
Well, from what I know, even though your measurements were not accurate or the agar wasn't a hundred percent pure, it should not affect your mixture in such a way . The reason why your turkish delights turned wrong is more likely that you used fruit juice. When using agar agar to make candy or firmer gel bases, it is not recommended to use fruit juice since it contains acids wich makes the agar unable to set properly.
If you want to make turkish delights with agar, I believe you are better off using flavoring and coloring. I would even say you should use these in any recipe wich involves agar agar,unless otherwise specified. You should also check out agar agar candy,wich is in my belief pretty similar to Turkish delight. Since lokums are more jelly like, you should either not sun dry them or maybe just let them dry a little after they set (that doesn't take a lot of time,only let them cool down and they'll be gel like) to get the consistecy you want.
You might add that Arrowroot is a possible agar stand-in that stands up to acidic environments, or specify an alternative gelling agent.
According to Wikipedia, Turkish delight base is not agar but starch and sugar.
Yes, this recipe is meant to be an analogue, not the traditional recipe.
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24917 | How long is sugar (mixed with minor ingredients) good for?
Over a year ago I made flavored sugars and have recently remembered them. They are basically a sealed container (canning jar) with a cinnamon stick, lemon/orange zest, vanilla bean/pod, or a combination of two of the aforementioned.
They're good pretty much forever. There is not enough available water for things to grow in there. Mind you, the more aromatic and subtle parts of the flavor will dissipate over time.
The sugar absorbs water, giving the combination a very low water activity, meaning there's little water available for microorganisms to use in growth. As long as your flavoring pieces are small and well mixed with sugar they will not spoil.
Sweet. Figured since sugar was used to preserve jams it would be safe, but wanted to the confirmation. Thank you. :)
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73846 | How long does flour and oil last?
I made some cloud dough for my daughter (made of 8 parts all-purpose flour to 1 part olive oil) and I was just wondering how long you think it would last. I am currently storing it in a plastic container with a lid outside with plastic toys in it.
She won't be eating it as it's for playing but I don't want her playing with rancid dough and some might make it's way to her mouth for a taste or because it got onto something else while playing.
Thanks
I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is not about food or cooking.
Oil should last several months before becoming rancid - olive oil specifically is supposed to last minimum 15 months if properly stored. Being played with is not "properly stored", but oil that is expected to be regularly opened for use might be exposed to air a comparable amount to a dough played with for longer but on fewer occasions, and otherwise held in an airtight container. Flour is shelf-stable, especially since it isn't meant to be eaten. Without water in the mix, I don't think there will be enough moisture to spoil badly.
The olive oil may become rancid faster, especially if is is exposed to the open air a lot (I would still expect months). However, olive oil gone rancid from oxidation is not supposed to be dangerous, merely unpleasant.
Obviously you can replace the dough when you notice the difference, if you're worried, better safe and all that. But a taste of rancid oil while playing shouldn't be harmful, maybe not enough to panic over in a small exposure while playing - and may be unpleasant enough discourage the taster from trying to eat any similar playing dough in the future.
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109506 | When to bring eggs whites to room temperature?
I’m looking over a recipe for angel food cake that calls for twelve egg whites at room temperature and it got me wondering about what’s the best way to do it. Is it best to bring the dozen of eggs to room temperature on the counter, crack them, separate them, and then put the yolks back in the fridge for another recipe? Or is it best to crack and separate the eggs while cold, throw the yolks back in the fridge, and let the egg whites warm up in a sealed container on the counter?
Just curious and figured I’d ask in case there’s a good reason for either of these or something else.
Where do you live? In the EU eggs don't need to be refrigerated at all. In the US, they do, because they are washed during production which removes their natural protection.
In the US. Forgot temporarily that it was different in the EU. Thanks
It doesn't make much difference to the end product whether you separate them cold or warm as long as the egg whites are room temperature when you whip them. Cold whites won't get as fluffy and therefore you'll get a denser cake. Oxygen will cause chemical changes in the white as it warms up to temperature, but that's minor.
It is easier to separate eggs that are at room temperature as the whites run much more easily, so if my eggs are refrigerated I would bring them up to room temperature first, then separate and put the yolks in the fridge. You can do this quickly by putting the eggs in a bowl of tepid water.
Once you crack an egg the contact with air will start drying it, also it's safer to keep them for the least amount of time after cracked. Then you'll also use an extra container for the whites while you wait for it to come to room temperature.
I suspect you'd get better results and less work by just leaving the eggs out of the fridge an hour or so before breaking them. The yolks will be fine back in the fridge quickly after cracked in the container.
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10098 | How to remove the rind from Citrus Sugar?
I made citrus sugar a while ago (basically chopped up lemon rinds in a canning jar with sugar) and have now decided to remove the lemon before giving the sugar away.
So far I have tried wrapping the mixture in 2 layers of cheese cloth and scraping/sifting the sugar out from the bundle but this takes a long time and the cheese cloth develops holes that the rind also goes through.
Is there an easier way to accomplish this?
Assuming the rind chunks are fairly large, you could use a colander with fairly large holes or a metal sieve.
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2487 | What is a suitable Low carb rice alternative?
For the first time since i started dieting, I'm making a stir fry dish for dinner. Usually, I include white rice with the finished product to absorb some of the sauce and provide that fluffy texture.
What is a low carb, or even carb free, alternative I can use that provide a similar texture and absorbent quality?
Quinoa. I only recently discovered it as part of doing P90X, and man, it's so, so delicious. It's kind of a nutty flavour that goes really well with sauces. It's also pretty high in protein, which is good.
Note that this isn't "no-carb", though it is lower in carbs than rice.
It's important that you wash quinoa before you prepare it. Otherwise, it's prepared in a very similar way, 2-1 water-to-quinoa, boiled and simmered.
I've had quinoa before. This seems like a good match. Any specific sauces you'd recommend?
Quinoa is the only grain that contains all the amino acids to be considered a complete protein on its own. Native to South America, the Inca's called it the "Mother Grain". Purpose for washing is to remove a natural compound called Saponin which is on the outer layer of the grain. It has a bitter taste to it and effecively acts as a natural pesticide to keep pests from eating the grains. Most quinoa has already had that layer removed, residual dust is what you're washing off to prevent it from tasting bitter. For more flavor, rinse and then toast it in a dry pan before adding your liquid.
Just some information, Quinoa is about 65g carbs per 100g, so for a low carb diet this should probably be avoided.
@MikeSherov: I usually use quinoa in place of rice in dishes like dirty rice, red beans & rice, pilaf, biryani, etc. Another nice thing about it is that it's relatively high in Iron.
Just a minor correction to Darrin's comment above - quinoa is actually a seed, not a grain; that's why it is a complete protein and why it has so much protein in it to begin with.
sorry I had to down vote this as the question asked for low carb alternative and quinoa is not a low carb. Even the Tim who posted the ans admitted it.
Cauliflower rice works.
There are lots of variations, but basically you grate cauliflower and boil it in lightly salted water for 1-2 minutes. Add some butter.
Mine looks something like this: Cauliflower rice with chicken
That is an excellent idea! I'm trying that as soon as possible.
@Iuls, you can also just cook the cauliflower first and then chop it finely with a knife for a similar effect.
I prefer fried rice made this way (to the plain boiled). Stir fried with lots of yummy ingredients and some egg, it's probably better than rice itself.
I actually recommend whole grain rice as a substitute for white rice.
First, a stir-fry is just weird without rice.
Second, whole grain rice tastes and acts almost exactly the same. However, the carb/fibre ratio is adjusted quite well in your favour, and you get all that nice vitamin B-1 as well.
I dare say, rice is never the enemy in a diet. How many fat Chinese people have you seen?
I was taught in a nutrition-related class that the top carbohydrates (in terms of health) were brown rice, oatmeal (by itself), and sweet potatoes. The dietary fiber means they take a while to digest and break down into less sugar.
+1 Brown rice is like rice, but with nutrients! Also, dude, chinaman is not the preferred nomenclature.
Chinamen? Really? I think the weight is probably much more related to socio-economic standing than the intake of rice.
@Kevin Selter: I apologise for causing any offence.
@yossarian: I've spent some time in China, among people of all classes, I only saw one fat person. It turned out that he was a teenager of Chinese descent, who had been born and raised in California.
Aside from that, you'll note that in America and Europe, it is usually the poorest people who are fattest.
@Carmi Statistics show that among men, obesity is not strongly tied to socioeconomic status. However there have been studies that show some correlation in women. You may have misinterpreted cause and effect. It could be that obesity has limited their economic opportunities. Of course, in Western society the food industry has been built on high-fat, sugar and salt in prepackaged foods, often subsidized to make less healthy food cheap and readily available.
This is formally called the fallacy of the undistributed middle. The evidence against this particular conclusion is obvious if you live in a North American city where people of Asian descent eat the same diets, yet gain much more weight and have much higher incidences of heart disease. The real reasons why the Chinese were healthy was low consumption of refined sugar and much higher levels of physical activity. That situation is changing, and so is the overall health.
Worry not, Eastern world. We'll get you. One drop of our sickly sweet corn venom and you'll never go back to real food again.
Whole oat groats make a good replacement for rice when something with more fiber and a lower glycemic index is wanted. Whole oats aren't the most convenient of foods, two cycles of a rice cooker on the brown rice setting, but they more than make up for the effort with flavor, versatility and healthfulness.
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2491 | How to tell when a turkey burger is fully cooked?
I had a BBQ this weekend, and I've come to pride myself on my BBQ'ing skills... except turkey burgers. Cook them too short and you're endangering your guests. Cook them too long and they get really dry.
I can visually tell when to flip a burger (because the juices come to the surface), but are there any visual clues for when to flip a turkey burger, and when to take it off the grill?
I use an instant-read thermometer. It's by far the simplest method.
I use the Taylor 9842 Commercial Waterproof Digital Thermometer. As Darin states, you're shooting for 165℉ for turkey.
My old Taylor died a few weeks ago. After reading rave reviews from Cooks Illustrated, and Alton Brown's recommendation, I splurged and got a Thermoworks Thermapen. It is amazing!
165 degrees is the temperature you'll be aiming for.
by "instant-read," do you simply mean a digital thermometer that you stick into the side of the meat that's wired into a digital display?
@Ben: I updated my answer with the specific one I use. It's not "wired", the display is directly on the probe. Just stick it in and press the button. You can even calibrate it with a glass of ice water using a little screw on the side.
anything else I can do besides a thermometer?
@Mike: Considering we're talking about avoiding salmonella here, I'd just use the thermometer... Also, be careful not to cross-contaminate the beef, which you'll likely not be cooking to 165.
In addition to a thermometer you can use the "touch" method which takes some getting used to and is difficult to explain clearly via text:
Touch the tip of your ring finger to your thumb. Then with the index finger on your other hand touch the fleshy portion between the thumb and index finger on the hand that has the ring finger and thumb touching. The fleshy portion should feel more firm than soft, this is about the way that medium-well should feel in meat. If your turkey burger feels the same way, it should be done.
As for other doneness using this method:
-Hand open loose = rare
-index finger to thumb = medium rare
-middle finger to thumb = medium
-ring finger to thumb = medium well
-little finger to thumb = well done (aka "shoe leather")
Note that for some people there can be very little difference in firmness of the muscle changes as you switch fingers so it's something that really mainly comes with experience for most people using the "touch method".
This is only for individual cuts/burgers etc. Roasts and whole birds require a thermometer.
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3284 | Uses for fondue broth?
I had meat fondue last night: beef, chicken, and shrimp cooked in a simple vegetable broth at the table. When we were finished eating, the broth was thrown away. I could only help but wonder: are there any typical dishes made with the used broth?
I would use this broth to make soups. It would make a great base for a number of soups such as scotch broth, but also for using for the stock for making other soups such as lentil or whatever you fancy.
Good luck!
You could try making Vietnamese Pho, a meal which is basically Noodles, Spring Onion and Meat of some sort (perhaps what you have left over from the Fondue) and Stock.
Ohhh, Pho is much more than that. It is pure happiness in food form. Plus good traditional pho broth uses only beef stock that has been simmering for at least 6 hours. I think the broth would make a cheap knock-off and can be better use as a base for other soups.
You can use it like normal bouillon. For example you could put it in the water for boiling pasta or rice.
What the Princess said! Or Pho. Broth for stew and soup and noodles and ...
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11089 | Why is my soy milk frozen?
I bought a quart of soy milk for the first time ever last week. It has been sitting unopened in the door of my refrigerator since. I pulled it out today to use it in a bowl of cereal and it was frozen solid.
My refrigerator is not particularly frigid; regular milk and juice products stored in the back do not freeze. It's even more shocking to me that it froze in the door of my fridge, since that is the warmest place.
Is this normal for soy milk? If not, what went wrong? How should I store soy milk?
*The expiration date is sometime in March 2011
I have seen one weird fridge that actually had vents letting cool air in in the front from the freezer, through the same assembly as the ice dispenser... you don't have one of those, do you?
@Jefromi: Nope, I have never had anything in my door freeze.
Wow, then I'm as stumped as you are. I've seen it stored next to regular milk all the time, and I've never seen it freeze.
It's only the "warmest" due to opening/closing the door a lot, so the temperature cycles ... in the bottom of the door of a fridge where it hasn't been opened for a day or two can get colder than the top of the fridge. But even with that, I find my eggs freeze before the soy milk will.
Is it actually frozen? I've had soy milk (and coconut milk as well) just go completely solid in the fridge before. Melting it over low heat reconstituted it again, but the texture wasn't quite 'right'
@Kimba: it's definitely frozen, I can hear and feel the ice crystals crunch when I squeeze the container.
Have you ever put a quart-sized container of plain water in the spot where your soymilk froze? Perhaps that spot in your fridge is actually very cold--not cold enough to freeze milk with all its fat content (even skim as some), but enough to freeze soymilk (especially if it's settled and separated a bit).
Yes, if it will freeze soymilk, it will certainly freeze water. Freezing point depression and all.
I have a quart of water sitting in the same spot right now. I have not opened my refrigerator in the past 16 hours. I will check when I get home tonight.
It didn't freeze :-\ The soy milk is literally the only thing that has ever frozen in my refrigerator.
Well, it was worth checking.
I've had the same thing happen - in fact, I've had a brand new soy milk freeze solid, sitting next to the other carton of soy milk that is around half full, which isn't frozen. Both the same brand and type of soy milk - one frozen solid, one not frozen at all. So I suspect that something may go wrong in some batches of soy milk that affects the freezing temp, but I have no idea what. Mine is Silk brand, organic unsweetened.
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8064 | What can I do to thicken the mixture in a meat "cup?"
I've got a pound of ground beef in the refrigerator that I need to use by tonight, and have been eating pasta and hamburgers in unusual abundance lately so my usual standbys of ragù and patties are pretty much off the table.
While searching for recipe ideas I happened upon these barbecue beef cups - a bit heavy on the store-bought ingredients, but very convenient and looks palatable. However, one of the reviewers pointed out that, even with various savoury additions, the final product came out more or less like a sloppy joe, and I'd prefer to have something less... sloppy.
In other words I'd like to make one of these so that the filling holds its shape and doesn't start leaking after the first bite. On the other hand, I also don't want it to come out like a fruit tart with the consistency of jelly. I keep thinking of those Jamaican beef patties you buy in stores and the consistency of the filling; it's relatively moist, but dry/solid enough to stay in the patty.
Can I accomplish this, preferably without the aid of exotic hydrocolloids? I was thinking of mixing in an egg, but I'm not sure how well that would work or if it would be better to use the whole egg or just the yolk. Tomato paste is another "thickener" that would seem to work well with this type of recipe, but might not get it thick enough before ruining the taste. And of course I have various starches and baking ingredients but I worry that too much of those will just turn it into jelly.
Any tips/suggestions?
Looking at the recipe, I would suggest you change it in the following manner:
Take ground beef and add to it 1/2 cup bread crumbs and the yolk of one egg and all spices.
Break beef into balls equal to the number of cups and brown in a skillet until about half cooked.
Place biscuit dough in cups and add a layer of bbq sauce.
Place beef inside cups, top with another layer of sauce and cook in oven for 12 minutes
Top with cheese and bake for another 3 minutes.
This will give you a dense meatball that will remain moist in the center, surrounded by a thickened bbq sauce that should hold it quite nicely against the biscuit. How well it holds will depend on how thick the sauce was to begin with. Also to have the meatball be less dense add less breadcrumbs.
This looks good too and I've upvoted it; for this particular meal I was trying to get away from the meatloaf/meatball/hamburger texture, although I don't doubt that it would be much more stable this way.
What texture are you trying to achieve? If you want to start from a slurry base like the original, just cooking it down longer should let you get to the non-runny stage, especially if you drain the meat between adding the bbq sauce.
Last night was Round Two and I wanted to share what actually worked:
First of all, I hypothesized that part of the "looseness" was actually being caused by fat, so I added dijon mustard at about a 1:3 ratio with the BBQ sauce. Dijon seems to be a more appropriate flavour match for BBQ sauce than regular yellow mustard, which is why I chose it, but what I was really interested in here was its emulsifying properties.
I also added somewhere between 1-2 tbsp (I didn't measure, I tasted) of honey, both to counteract the spiciness of the dijon mustard and to help thicken and bind the other ingredients. Honey is also supposed to be an emulsifier, although I've never used it as such before.
Instead of 1 tsp of corn starch as daniel recommended, I used 2 heaping teaspoons of tapioca starch instead, dissolved in as little water as possible to avoid watering down the sauce. I didn't measure the amount of water, I just gradually incorporated more water until the tapioca was fully dissolved. Then I mixed this slurry into the sauce mixture.
I used the original 1/2 cup of BBQ sauce in the recipe - so after all the additions I ended up with about 3/4 cup of sauce.
I incorporated the sauce in 3 batches, although I probably only needed 2. On the first batch, I added just enough sauce to coat the meat and cheese mix, and noticed that it was actually starting to form a slight crust (great!). The tapioca really pulled its weight here. The second batch was to actually make it into a "filling", and it thickened very quickly.
The entire mixture was simmered at medium-low heat for about 15 minutes. By the end of the simmering, the mixture was quite stiff, and some loose fat was starting to collect in the pan. I wiped off this fat instead of re-incorporating it. There was no need for a sieve this time.
What I ended up with after baking was a thick, stiff, but still moist filling, exactly what I was hoping for the first time around. There was just a hint of "crustiness" to it, which I liked, but if anyone else wants to avoid that texture then just don't add the sauce in batches, add it all at once and mix it thoroughly and then turn it straight down to a simmer.
This doesn't end up mealy and dry like a meatball, it still looks, feels, and tastes like a filling. The only concern here would be finding or making a BBQ sauce that doesn't clash too much with mustard, or possibly using a more flavour-neutral emulsifier like xanthan gum. Personally, I just used one of the "bold" store-bought BBQ sauces with a little bit of tang and kick, and that seemed to marry well enough with the dijon on my palate.
P.S. I'd recommend a non-stick pan for this. I did have to gently "scrape" the pan with a wooden spatula a few times to keep everything incorporated. I suspect that using a steel or cast-iron pan might cause some sticking/burning without constant stirring during the reducing phase.
With something like this I would actually think of adding nutritional yeast. If the cheesy taste doesn't alarm your sensibilities (the cheddar would mask it well), nutritional yeast can be a terrific thickening agent for meat dishes. It wont harden up like egg is sometimes wont to do, and it will soak up excess grease from the ground beef.
A bit of beaten egg and some breadcrumbs might work, if you're willing to go for a meatloaf-ish consistency.
Depending on what type of meal you can also use the last of your chips, when I'm doing Mexican I use my tortilla chip crumbs, but others I have adapted
While this and your other answer seem like reasonable ways to soak up the juice while eating the meal the question is about thickening the dish from the start.
@PeterJ I'm going to give the author the benefit of the doubt and assume they mean mixing them into the meat, which seems like a fair suggestion!
This sounds like a muck-up of a short pastry meat pie? Bad idea
The simple fix is less saucy stuff and use flaky pastry instead of biscuit dough. Put a flaky pastry lid on it too to ensure zero leakage
Put the cheese on top of meat mixture, and lid on top of that
The trick is how you eat it so that the filling doesn't leak out. This isn't a cooking problem :-)
Huh? Where did cookie dough come into this? Anyway, I'm pretty sure I know how to eat it, and if you read the other answers you'll see that it is in fact a cooking problem and one that's solvable.
Biscuit dough! Eating a hot meat pie without it spilling is an art! Good pies are somewhat sloppy
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929 | Storing bread dough before baking
I'm looking to make a start in the world of baking bread, and have a quick question:
Once my dough is kneaded, proved and ready to go in the oven (i.e. in the tin) - does it need to be baked immediately, or can it be stored in the refrigerator overnight for example?
You can absolutely do that and in fact it will enhance the flavors of the baked bread and it is a recommended approach.
The yeast activity is reduced in colder environments, so, your dough will not rise too much after cooling some time. However, it's best to de-gas your dough and let it rise in the fridge (although not as much as doubling) again until you decide to bake it.
It is possible. Maybe not with all kinds of dough, but generally speaking it is possible. I have done it with dough for rolls, popping it into the fridge in the evening and baking them on the next morning for breakfast.
You should just keep in mind, that the dough will be very firm when it comes out of the fridge, making kneading difficult or impossible. Therefore you should let it rest for some time outside on the counter to let it warm up a little before kneading again.
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33932 | How can I attach printed rice paper decorations to cakes / cookies?
I bought some printed rice paper decorations (flat circles of rice paper printed with edible ink) for my son's birthday party. I'm not sure what the best way is to attach them to cakes / cookies and I don't have a lot of spare time to experiement.
The options I can think of are:
make my own cookies and press them in to the cookie - either before
baking or more likely after baking but while still warm and soft
place the rice paper circle on top of a pre-baked cookie or small flat-topped cake and pipe some form of icing or frosting around the
edge to hold it in place
pile butter cream icing on top of a small cake, press the rice paper circle onto the butter cream icing
What I ideally want is to be able to do this the day before they are needed, so as well as being held properly in place, I also would like the rice paper not to go soggy / curl up and the ink not to run or leak out of the rice paper.
Will you use it with both cake and cookies? Depending on what exactly you are making, you can use a drop of water and the rice paper sticks (but it's possible this isn't a good solution for you).
I can do either cake or cookies, whichever is easier to make work or gives a better result.
@Mien, also, would the drop of water be at risk of making the ink run? I don't know what the ink is composed of.
Well, the drop of water method was a spectactular failure. I had a flat cake covered with fondant icing, I put a drop of water and pushed the rice paper down but it didn't stick at all. I tried a bit more water and the rice paper decoration started to go soggy and tear (but still didn't stick). With a new piece of rice paper I tried again, I thought I had got it OK using a very precise amount of water and very very careful handling, but when I came back to the cake 5 mins later the water and rice paper had dried and the rice paper had curled up and was not stuck to the cake at all.
Have you called the support line from the rice paper company, if they have one?
@SAJ14SAJ: N/A - I ordered them from an ebay seller and they came without any branded packaging, just in a plain plastic wallet.
Can you contact the seller and ask for advice? In particular, are you sure he used cake-decorating rice paper? There's more than one type of rice paper, and not all of them play well with frosting.
@Marti, I've just emailed the seller to ask. They are advertised as "cake toppers rice/wafer paper Edible" so I think they ought to stick OK somehow!
I also just found http://cakecentral.com/t/650730/how-do-i-apply-rice-wafer-paper which suggests Crisco, which I think is like Stork in the UK (vegetable shortening).
Isn't Stork margarine? Cookeen is a brand of vegetable shortening in the UK.
@Mien: Oh, I thought margarine == vegetable shortening. Thanks for that!
No, there is certainly a difference, margarine looks like butter, shortening does not (it's white and softer).
The ebay seller's recommendation was to use a little bit of water as well. I already know that doesn't work! I found another reference to suggest using gel icing, which I can imagine could work.
If you use the buttercream option, let the icing dry a bit before putting the rice paper on, as too much moisture will cause it to collapse and the ink to run. Also, I wouldn't recommend pressing the rice paper down, but just patting it onto slightly tacky buttercream. White icing is best as the rice paper is quite translucent.
The other alternative you suggest will work fine - place it on the cake and pipe around the edge to hold in place. I have seen this done many times. Best not to use a vivid colour for the piping as it could leech into the rice paper a bit.
When I've seen them used, they first frosted the cake, smoothed it out, then placeed the rice paper on top.
My understanding is that the moisture in the frosting can end up melting the rice paper, so that it basically disappears into the frosting, with the ink effectively transfering into the frosting.
As I've never done it myself, I have no idea if there are any special tricks to it, or if you need to use a particular frosting / icing recipe so that the paper will melt away.
update: after a little research, I have reason to believe that normal rice paper won't disolve into the cake but there are special 'frosting sheets' that will. another recomendation was to leave enough white space around the image so that you can cover the edge of the sheet with a border if it starts to curl up.
Thanks for your answer - I wavered back and forth on whether to award the bounty to your answer or Phil M Jones' answer, in the end I picked his simply because his seemed to be more based on experience. I did appreciate your answer too, though!
@Vicky : not a problem. When you first asked, I assumed that you needed it soon ... I typically prefer not to answer unless I have experience. (my only knowledge of it was asking the bakery at Kroger questions when they first started offering it back in ~1998 or so, and then some internet searching)
I did need it soon, you were quite right! I ended up going with a completely different cake option and not using the toppers at all when it became clear that the "drop of water" idea wasn't going to work. I still have the toppers so I am planning to use them another time.
I saw a decorating demo in "Everyday Living with Cheryl ???(can't remember her last name)" with potato starch paper printed. The lady used dried royal icing on her cookies and applied corn syrup to back of design as paste and pressed onto decorated item. Some piped decoration around edges helped hold down edges or press down as drying to adhere...She also had a printer with edible ink so she could print her own and used scrapbooking cutters for shapes
I see you got no response about the fondant discs - use ready to roll fondant/ sugarpaste (different names depending where you live)and roll it out to about 3mm thick. Using a round cutter, cut out some circles a fraction larger than your rice paper circles (or whatever shape they happen to be?). Place them on baking parchment or kitchen towel to dry out (pref overnight. White fondant is best. Then apply the prints to the icing using methods already discussed. I've never used rice paper images as I prefer images printed to icing sheets as they're far superior but a bit more expensive. They don't curl and the colours and print is more vibrant/clearer. Icing images stick to fondant with a tiny amount of water. Then pipe a swirl of buttercream on top of the cupcake, leave a few minutes to crust then pop the icing disc/image on top of the buttercream with a little pressure. Hope that helps. Debs x
A cake teacher taught me this method and it works beautifully.
Trace your image onto the rice paper (bumpy side up) with edible ink.
Cut the image out with about an 1/4 inch border left on. Place picture on cake. Use a toothpick to outline the image. Remove image and spread piping gel (get at Michaels, Hobby Lobby etc.) inside the traced toothpick lines. Place the rice paper image on top of the piping gel. Spread another layer of piping gel over the image. Dilute your gel colors with water and paint the image with food grade paint brushes (so you don't get bristles on the cake!) Use a fine tip brush with black to outline. I remove the image before slicing the cake.
You could try rolling out very thin gumpaste or fondant and attaching the rice paper on it when its moist but not wet. I haven't tried it myself but royal icing might be a good option to attach the paper to the surface. Once attached to the gumpaste, you can cut it out using a small knife and let it dry. Then it should be easier to attach the gumpaste cutout to the actual cake.
I use rice paper discs a lot. I cut out rolled fondant circles, put edible glue on the fondant discs, then put the rice paper disc on top. Works a treat - just let them dry for a few days then use.
Maybe it's just because I don't do decorative baking much, but I'm confused - you're attaching the rice paper to fondant, not cakes and cookies.
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28098 | Are mushy plums OK to use in cooking?
I have some plums that have started to go soft and squishy. Would they be OK in crumble / crisp / cobbler type recipes?
(I can't taste them before cooking because I am allergic to raw fruit).
At last, someone else allergic to raw fruit. We are a rare species. Any raw fruit and some nuts and seeds make my mouth itch like blazes.
@ElendilTheTall: It's called oral allergy syndrome / OAS and it's due to cross-reaction from pollens. When I was diagnosed with it about 10 years ago the internet hadn't heard of it and I knew nobody else with it. Now there's quite a bit of info out there (including lists of which fruits/veg/nuts are problematic depending on which pollens you are allergic to) and I know a handful of people who are fellow sufferers. Welcome to the club!
Interesting. I get hay fever too so pollen makes sense.
As long as they aren't spoiled they'll be fine for a crumble/crisp/cobbler. You'll want to have someone else taste them to make sure first. They may need less sugar and less or no precooking. If they are really, really mushy then you might want to add some firmer plums or other fruit to give some texture.
is there no way to tell if they are spoiled without tasting them?
(by the way, I am planning to mix them with some firmer plums and some nectarines, so I'm not worried about the texture - just whether they will spoil the taste)
Well, there's smell and appearance. If they smell rotten and are really gooey and brown then that's a good indication they are spoiled.
OK, they smell fine. They're a bit soft and mushy but not gooey. I'm going to risk it I think!
Sounds like they're just really ripe, now's the time to use them!
I agree with smell & appearance, but if you are really unsure after smelling them, you could throw them in a pan for a few minutes and taste them afterwards. Recipes which cook the fruit should work with pre-cooked fruit too.
@rumtscho is right, the only concern with that is if the fruit is already mushy it could lose all texture with pre-cooking. That won't stop you from cooking a small amount and tasting it.
I've now made it and am eating it as I type. Delicious and the mushy plums were not a problem at all :-)
Now I want a crumble, but it's 8am! Life is so unfair!
@GdD, is there a rule you're not allowed crumble at 8am? I'm screwed if so - cold crumble is the breakfast of champions! I've still got half of yesterday's left if you want to pop over :-)
Having them mushy is fine, but check them for worms - they might be mushy for a reason, and plums get infested with really small, hard to see worms sometimes.
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7634 | How to distinguish between different types of squash?
Last spring I planted two seedlings that claimed to be pumpkin. They've grown long tendrils and lots of leaves, and have made several flowers, and I thought that was that (I subsequently found out you're supposed to pollinate pumpkin manually).
Having now cleared some of the weeds from around them, I've discovered that they have in fact fruited.
One plant has two fruits - both very dark green, spherical, one about 3" or 4" diameter and the other one about 6" diameter.
The other plant has two fruits - both yellow, spherical, about 1" in diameter.
Are these in fact pumpkins or maybe some other sort of squash (presumably it's possible the two seedlings are not the same variety)? How can I tell? How can I tell when they're ready to eat? Will the mini ones continue to grow now the weather has turned cold and wet?
This should probably be on Gardening.SE, they could tell you more
If you want to post a picture somewhere I can probably tell you.
You could do a cursory google image search and see if visually you can tell what they are. I have grown pumpkins most of my life and I have never manually pollinated them, I have never grown the "big ones" though so maybe that could be different.
Pumpkins in the southern US generally ripen closer to late september-to-mid-october and can hang on the vines for a bit. It sounds like you have some veriety of squash. If you do have pumpkins unless they are an off shoot hybrid they should be taking on their orange color by now, especially if you planted them in spring. Having said that if they did not get enough water or enough heat then their growth would be stunted. It could be your yellows have stunted and are shriveling but I would assume they look healthy.
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61807 | Does vegetable soup made with chicken stock last longer if the stock was made fresh vs from a stock cube?
My son made some vegetable soup at school this morning and it's been sitting unrefrigerated in a sealed container all day (~10 hours).
The soup used chicken stock as a base. In trying to determine whether it's safe to eat at this point, would the origin of the stock (freshly made from chicken bones, versus from an instant stock cube or stock granules) make any difference?
Clearly the soup was in the danger zone way too long (8 hours too long)...but it is an interesting question. What else is in the soup? Let's say you dissolved stock cubes in water, do the same food safety rules apply? Interesting.
i have a gut feeling anything is safe to be unrefrigerated up to 48 hrs -- REALISTICALLY, not theoretically. i am sure safety perfectionists will disagree
@amphibient Not true! You can't say "anything is safe unrefrigerated up to 48 hours." We know that bacteria multiply far more efficiently than that! (and gut feelings can get you killed)
@amphibient I think that gut feeling could lead to some different (and highly unpleasant) feelings in your gut...
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64647 | Can I freeze (raw) Brussels Sprouts to mimic the effects of frost?
This year has been a very mild winter and all the Brussels Sprouts in the shops are quite bitter as they have not undergone any overnight frosts.
Can I mimic the effects of an overnight frost by leaving raw Brussels Sprouts in the freezer for some time? How long should I do this for?
I have access to both individual sprouts that have already been picked from their "tree" and also some "sprout trees" that are still intact but have just been sliced off above the ground.
All the answers that Google can find relate to freezing already-cooked Brussels Sprouts for later consumption, but I assume that once cooked it is too late to reduce the bitterness in this way - although I could be wrong about this.
I tried this recently. Washed & dried them and put them in a plastic bag in freezer for 30 mins only. It worked well for me - they were much tastier and a better texture.
That's really helpful, thanks. I ended up putting mine in the coldest part of the fridge for a couple of days, but it did not make any difference.
There is a difference between frosting and freezing. When you get frost outside, the temps just hit freezing or a little below. A hard freeze is when everything above ground gets frozen solid.
That's what your freezer does. If you want to mimic a frost, then put your veg in the back of the fridge where the cold air falls down from the freezer.
I don't think it's going to help so much though, because those frosts affect how the plant as a whole behaves biologically. It however can't hurt, and I'd like to find out your results.
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7173 | How to make apple chunks in apple pie stay intact?
I made an extremely delicious apple pie yesterday, with a puff pastry crust. The only problem was that by the time the pastry was cooked, the apple filling had turned to mush - the texture of apple butter or apple sauce.
I used fresh Bramley cooking apples from the tree in our garden, and cut them into what I thought were reasonable sized chunks... I added sugar and spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves) but nothing else - no water or anything.
Should I have cut them into bigger chunks, or is there some other technique for ending up with solid chunks of apple in the pie rather than mush?
The only trick I know of is to use a different variety of apple-- some will turn to complete mush, while others stay firm. Unfortunately, unlike potatoes, they don't tend to be marked at the super market as to which variety they are.
Now, I'm not familiar with Bramley, but from what I've found, it's compared to Granny Smith, which tends to hold up well in pies.
I'd recommend blind baking your crust, if you aren't already, so the filling isn't in there as long, and possibly going with a thicker slice of apple when you're cooking, in hopes they won't break down as quickly.
update : in checking CookWise, there's a comment in the apple pie recipe that "briefly sautéing and poaching apples softens them slighly before the sugar, which prevents cells falling apart and preserves texture, is added"
Bramley is a cooking apple and so it's no surprise it turned to mush. Granny Smith will hold up much better in a pie, as will any crisp eating apple.
Just recalled a pie I made a few years back that may help you out...
It was the end of the season, and I didn't have enough fresh apples left for both a pie and sauce. The pork roast in the oven cried out for sauce, but the ice cream in the freezer pleaded for pie... So I cooked up the sauce, and rolled out the dough, lining the bottom of the pie with dried apple slices, covering them with sauce and a solid top crust. The dried apples softened as they cooked, and by the time the crust was done I had a thick, intensely-flavored filling.
So if you have apples to spare, slice and dry a few, then mix those into your next pie.
The first technique that comes to mind would be to bake the crust "blind" first. That is, you put it in the oven with a weight on it (so that it doesn't bubble up). Once the crust is mostly baked, add the filling and put in the oven for a second session. That way, the filling doesn't need to wait for the crust to be done.
In all honesty, I actually like the apples mushy in my pie.
However, that's a matter of personal taste.
I thought of suggesting this as well, but apple pies generally have a top crust or lattice and that still needs to bake.
You could blind-bake the top crust as well, and cut it into a lattice when assembling the pie before the second session in the oven.
Blind-baking is great for fillings that would make the crust soggy otherwise... But if you just want to speed up crust baking time, increase the temperature. Preheat the oven with a stone in it to 400F (~200C), and set the pie pan directly on the stone. Should cook nicely in 20-30 minutes.
See What is the enzyme that makes apples's pectin heat resistant? And can it be added to other fruits to achieve similar results? ... pre-baking the apple pieces separately for a couple ten minutes at ~60°C can indeed make them hold up better in fillings.
My understanding is that this is mostly to do with the apple variety. Here is a chart of which apples will behave well in pie. I see from Wikipedia that Bramley's are considered a definitive baking apple. Is it possible that your tree isn't really Bramley's?
Funny thing about "cooking apples" - different people like apples to cook in different ways. I suspect Bramley's are considered cooking apples because they cook down so well... For a baked apple (cooked with the skin on), a tart, or for sauce, this would be ideal. For a pie, I guess it depends on whether you like soft pie filling.
I think Knives is on to it. While Bramleys and Granny Smiths are both cooking apples, the Bramleys cook to a mush and the Granny Smiths remain firm. To get firm pieces you will need another variety.
Try mixing your apples with the sugar and letting them drain in a colander over a bowl for 15-20 minutes. Put the juices in a pan over low heat and reduce by at least half. Assemble your pie and pour the reduction over the apples.
And check your oven's temperature with a good oven thermometer. You may be cooking the pie too long if it's under temperature.
I usually pre-cook the apples in a saucepan, and then assemble the pie.
Then I can cook the crust at ridiculously high temperatures to do the crust in about 10-15 minutes, which doesn't allow enough time for the apples to continue cooking.
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24864 | How do I make a frappuccino less watery?
I'm trying to recreate a Starbucks caramel coffee frappuccino, but it's coming out awfully watery. I've watched them make it and here is what they do, as far as I can tell:
half fill the blender container with ice
pour milk on up to half the level of the ice
add some (hard to see how much exactly) coffee from a tank labelled "frap", which I assume is just regular cooled coffee
add some squirts of caramel syrup
blend.
Yum, delicious. But when I do this, I get a very watery result which is not thick and creamy like theirs. How can I improve it?
Is your blender and ice the same size? You might be putting a higher ratio of ice if you're going by eyeball measurements on a different machine
The tank labeled "frap" likely does not contain typical coffee, but something closer to a coffee syrup. It is probably more viscous than actual water. May I suggest ice cubes made of coffee?
@Yamikuronue, my blender is a different shape / size so it is possible I'm eyeballing it wrong. Do you think if I'm putting more ice in than they do, it would give the more watery result, even though the ice hasn't had time to melt yet?
@AdeleC, ah, I could be wrong in my assumption about the "frap" tank, yes. Coffee ice cubes is a good idea, thanks.
@Vicky Some of the ice will melt due to friction in the blender, so that might very well do it. It's probably a combination of both assumptions (weaker coffee and more ice)
Wife is a starbucks manager -- You're missing frap base! It's a powder base that goes into most drinks.
Aside from ingredients, you should also consider the blender. I don't know what brand of blenders Starbucks uses, but they're clearly something that's a) heavy duty and b) high speed. Blending the drink at very high speed may result in much smaller bits of ice and a drink that seems smoother than what you can produce with a consumer blender.
Good point - my ice was not quite as well "ground" as theirs, although it was close.
Having just bought a new blender, I would agree that the biggest difference is the power of the blender. The slower powered blenders move the stuff around too much without breaking it up, giving it more time to melt. I've made a bunch of slush type drinks since getting my new blender and already have a bunch better (less watery) texture.
Aha, the article and comments on this site:
http://www.squawkfox.com/2011/06/16/frappuccino-recipe/
suggest using double-strength coffee and (the secret ingredient) adding a pinch of xanthan gum. I might have to see if I can get that anywhere!
I agree that they probably use a thickener. Xanthan is a thickener which is commonly used in processed food, and you can try it. (Don't bother searching for it in supermarkets, I get it over Amazon marketplace). But for a better mouthfeel and aroma performance, I would explore a starch-thickened variant first. Adding a very small amount of starch slurry to the just-brewed coffee and waiting for it to blubb should do the trick, but you have to see if the coffee doesn't get bitter due to the prolonged heating; if it does, you will probably need a two-step process.
Thanks for the hint! When you say "starch slurry", do you mean like cornflour mixed with a little water, or something else?
Yes, that's exactly what I mean. Use small amounts only, maybe 1% to 3% (pudding uses 10%).
@rumtscho Although you may be on to something...Puddaccino?
@JoeFish I haven't tried coffee using starch or other thickeners, but hot cocoa with starch added is good. And it shouldn't be made as thick as pudding.
Xanthan gum gives good results.
Here is a recipe from Squawkfox
> Frappuccino ingredients: makes 2.5 cups (590 mL)
>
> 1 cup double-strength Starbucks coffee
> OR 3/4 cup fresh espresso (cold)
> 3/4 cup milk (low fat, 2%, whole or whatever)
> 3 tablespoons granulated sugar (or to taste)
> 2 cups ice
> Pinch of xanthan gum OR 1 teaspoon dry pectin (keeps Frapp from separating)
Put all in a blender and blend.
2 tablespoons of a non-flavored pudding powder works fantastically. I actually think that Starbucks might use that (a friend who works at Starbucks told me to try using the pudding powder).
What do you mean by 'non-flavored'? Vanilla?
I was able to recreate pretty closely a coffee frappacino light by making strong coffee ice cubes and blending in my lowly Oster using Land O Lakes nonfat half and half. It just took a lot longer than their 10 seconds in their Belndtec blender but it tastes pretty close and is delicious.
Starbucks actually uses a coffee/cream base for their frappes to make them blend smoothly. It tastes really sweet though.
Hi, welcome to SA and thank you for your contribution! Check out the tour and Help center if you get a chance. I think this answer could be greatly improved by giving some source for your info about Starbucks, as well as perhaps a way to replicate this at home.
I have made good frappes using vanilla ice cream for half of the milk. I add 3 tablespoons of Hershey's Dark Cocoa for the chocolate. A little maple syrup adds sweetness. Add coffee and ice and blend away! Chocolate ice cream might work as well. I use a Ninja 900 for the blender.
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33594 | Telling if small pieces of meat are cooked - blind or colour blind chef
When I am cooking small pieces of meat (so a meat thermometer is not an appropriate tool - I'm thinking of things like shredded chicken being stir-fried, frying or grilling slices of bacon, or minced beef being browned in a pan) I tell whether it is cooked yet by the change in colour in the meat. Chicken goes pink -> creamy white, bacon goes pink -> a different shade of pink, beef goes reddish pink -> brown, etc.
How does a blind, or colour-blind, chef manage? If going purely by time of cooking you will surely either end up with some pieces undercooked or the whole lot overcooked to compensate for that. Also it depends so much on the exact size of the pieces of meat, in the case of a grill how close the meat is to the heat, etc.
This is not a purely theoretical question - my husband is colour blind and really struggles with this. He cannot see the relevant colour differences at all, and although there are some texture changes on the outside of the meat, that doesn't tell you that the pieces are cooked all the way through.
(Carefully not tagging this "blind baking" :-))
Texture. Although I can see perfectly, I use texture to tell me if pasta is done, for example. It's obvious for spaghetti but I do it for macaroni too, or any shapes. Just stirring a pot full of boiling water with raw macaroni, then stirring a pot full of boiling water and cooked macaroni, is a very different experience. Stir frying raw meat, partly cooked meat, and cooked meat will also feel different. Grilling meat is definitely a time for everyone to use texture, probably some variant of the press-the-ball-of-your-thumb rule.
To a lesser extent, smell. This is what I rely on to evaluate baked and roasted things, long before I open the oven to look at them or touch them. It won't help you grill a steak though.
FYI, I asked Christine Ha on Twitter, and she replied
By feeling the texture of the meat… And also not being afraid to taste
Which is as close to "from the horse's mouth" as it seems we will get in this thread.
And along with this: you can probably use a thermometer with bigger pieces of meat to help learn the right texture. (Experience from eating is good too, of course, but if you're looking to learn to tell when it's just cooked, not overcooked, thermometers are pretty cool.)
You should edit that into your answer! It's great to know that someone with actual experience thinks this works, and it's not just us sighted chefs convincing ourselves that we can tell just from the texture, while we're actually just looking at it.
For meat, get a piece with a fork and put it on a plate. Cut it in half and you will see the point of cooking inside (mor soft and juicy). With experience you will learn to calculate how much time is left.
For fish, the meat should come off easily, a piece from each other piece. Here, too, you should not go over with the cooking because it becomes hard noon.
For boiled or rosted potatoes, take a potato or a piece of potato on a fork and hold it over the pot, so that the potato is downwards. If the potato slides off fork by itself and tend to fall down in the pot. it means that it is cooked.
The peas are cooked in the pan when they are "wrinkled." But just in this moment, otherwise they become hard.
A cake is cooked when inserting a toothpick in the dough, this comes out clean. If it is moist, the cake is not yet cooked.
For most of the other foods, you can observe the shape and texture, you can calculate the time, or taste the flavor directly.
The question is really just about meat - your answer would be best if it focused on that. All the tests for other foods are certainly good things to know, but answers should focus first on answering the question at hand. With respect to your suggestion for meat... I'm not entirely sure how it helps? The question is about people who can't see how cooked it is.
In my opinion, the quest started from meat, but is principally about a person who cant distinguish colours. So i gave some suggests. But thanks for reducing the image :)
I think it's safe to assume that Vicky would've asked about other things if she wanted to - but she just asked about meat. And my point stands: if the person can't see the color, telling them to cut it in half and look doesn't help much.
@KateGregory Indeed, though it'd work for colorblind people as well as the rest of us, and you can actually feel it if you very carefully bite through the noodle.
I'm very sorry - I imagined that was not only a question of colour, but the withe into spaghetti is not transparent. If that distintion isn't impossible for a colour blind (transparent from not transparet) logically is unusefull. So ill delete it. :-)
Anyway = "Colour blindness occurs when someone is born with only two (or rarely one or none) different types of cones, instead of the usual three. This causes an inability to detect one of the thee sub-spectra."
http://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/7977/what-gives-observable-light-its-colors
That means, as i knew, that colorblind not always are blind to any colour.
Right, colorblindness is not generally all colors. But again, Vicky explicitly said that her husband couldn't easily see the color change in meat. The point I've really been trying to make is that the part of your answer which attempts to address the actual question is exactly what she already said doesn't work. And the most common type of colorblindness makes it hard to see red, which is exactly what you need to be able to see to tell for sure about meat doneness.
let us continue this discussion in chat
Here are some suggestions. You will need to tune this method, but it's better than no method.
Provided that you have the heat set correctly (see below), when the meat gets closer to being cooked (and as some of the water in the meat evaporates), the sound of the sizzle changes and you hear less sizzling and kind of quiet.
There is something to this. Often times when I'm away from the frying pan, I can hear the pan is ready or requires a stir since the sizzling characteristics change.
For strips of meat like stir fry and chicken strips, the pieces get less floppy as they cook. A piece of raw chicken dangles right off the cooking tongs whereas a properly cooked one holds firmer.
Finally, you can use time to cook to perfection every time. 3-4 minutes usually for minced meat, as long as you follow the same process. Here's an example from Cooks Illustrated:
Heat 12- or 14-inch nonstick skillet over high heat, 4 minutes (pan should be so hot,
you can hold your outstretched hand 1 inch above its surface for no more than 3
seconds); add 1 tablespoon oil (add 2 tablespoons for tofu or fish) and rotate pan so
that bottom is evenly coated. Let oil heat until it just starts to shimmer and smoke.
Check heat with hand. Drain meat, seafood, or tofu, then add to pan and stir-fry until
seared and about three-quarters cooked (about 20 seconds for fish, 60 seconds for meat,
2 minutes for tofu, 2 1/2 to 3 minutes for chicken). Spoon cooked meat or seafood into
serving dish. Cover and keep warm.
What you're looking for in the pan, is temperatures of about 350F. For your set up, I would highly recommend a quality infrared thermometer. This not to measure the meat (the surface won't say much), it does however tell you how hot the pan is, and you can easily establish how long it takes to properly cook 6 ounces of a meat. This does not require any visual inspection as long as the contents of the pan is moved around and a frying time table is follow.
I did hear (either Jack Bishop Cooks Illustrated, or Nathan Myhrvold) saying that it takes about 4 minutes to pan fry 1/2 inch depth of meat. I can't find the exact reference and values in my notes, but the point is that there is a deterministic solution to time to fry in a pan.
I think in reality, the deterministic time will take a bit of calibration. It's definitely quite possible, but there's going to be some variation in stove power (and measuring temperature can't entirely compensate for that), and unless you do a lot of trials, you'll be stuck making the same amount of meat. Learning to tell by sizzling and floppiness and texture sounds better; it'll give you flexibility, and some reassurance you're actually getting it right.
If you're only colour blind then for red meat (especially steak) you can see the blood come out on the surface when it is ready to turn. When the blood/juice comes out the other side it is cooked to about medium.
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33716 | Subsitutions for Monterey Jack cheese in the UK
At one point in the US I had some Monterey Jack cheese which was tangy and yummy and delicious.
Here in the UK they also sell cheese labelled "Monterey Jack" but it is bland and tasteless and horrid. Are there any other similar cheeses that I could use (for eg melting onto nachos, grating into burritos etc.) that would have that same tang and flavour?
Or any UK-based suppliers of Monterey Jack that is not bland and tasteless? (I tried Sainsburys and Tescos and they are both the same).
What kind of Monterey Jack did you have? Do you remember the brand? MJ's are cheddars with peppers and onions added by melting the cheese and adding the spices into the mix. Like below, they can vary widely... if your MJ was tangy and smooth it was probably a soft, full fat cheddar base. The savory flavor comes form the pepper mix themselves.
@endowdly, I've no idea what brand it was I had - it was a) in a restaurant so I didn't see the packaging and b) about 15 years ago :-)
Ah! A lot of restaurants here use velveeta and other oil based cheeses to 'enhance' a block of real cheese. It's a cost saving measure.
@endowdly, Monterey Jack is not cheddar with peppers added -- it's simply a different kind of cheese. You can often find MJ with peppers added in (called "pepper jack"), but it's MJ whether you add peppers or not.
Monterey Jack is in no way cheddar. The advice to use Gouda was about as good as you can get. (make sure it is neither smoked nor aged). Sainsbury has a four cheese pre-shred mix with MJ, Aged Cheddar, Edam and mozz that will approximate those four cheese mixes found in most US grocery stores and the finer 7-Elevens but MJ itself is near impossible find.
Try Gouda (the pre-grated kind). Melts well and is a decent approximation.
Anyone who cares about quality will want to avoid pre-grated cheese.
@DavidRicherby Perhaps in this case, the pre-grated recommendation was a way of making sure that it was a meltable kind of gouda, instead of something too firm/aged? In any case, I certainly agree that there's no need to avoid grating it yourself, but at least in the US, basic types of cheese are often sold pre-grated directly alongside the exact same cheese in whole blocks for the same price per pound, so there's no reason to avoid it.
@Jefromi No reason except that the pre-grated stuff is busily going stale and is covered in some sort of anti-all-the-bits-sticking-back-together agent.
Monterey Jack, like most cheeses, can be consumed young or aged. The aged will have the strong flavors while the youngest will be very bland. It sounds like you had aged Jack in the restaurant, while you found young Jack in the store.
Its not much like Cheddar. The closest cheeses are Muenster (the American cheese, not the French Munster or anything from around the German city of Muenster), Halvarti, or Gouda.
I'm not an expert but you could try buying some more young Jack locally and seeing what happens to it after several months... it might get more flavorful...
Many cheeses in the US have that melty-gooy property due to some amount of processing that keeps the oils and proteins together in a uniform way after heat has been applied. This may be why you're having trouble finding cheese in the UK that has that same kind of 'melty'-ness, most go through little to no processing. I tend to stick to some kind of cheddar placed under the broiler to get it good and melted. You may have some oil separation, and the texture many not be what you'd expect of, say, nacho cheese, but I find the knowledge that I'm not eating processed food enough of a consolation to forgive it.
Davidstow cheddar (made in Cornwall) is really tasty, tangy cheddar and melts really well when added to/used in hot dishes - great 'meltability' :)
Semi-hard, made from cow's milk, aged for a few months -- it's essentially cheddar.
There are a wide variety of cheddars in British shops, varying in sharpness, tanginess, nuttiness and creaminess. Try a few and see which one is most like the Monterey Jack in your mind.
Cheddar has the same melting properties as Monterey Jack, so is a good fit for Tex-Mex dishes of the kind you describe.
Oh, that's a bit disappointing - I should have said, it's cheddar I'm using at the moment. It doesn't have the same melty gooeyness as Monterey Jack, though. Maybe a mixture of cheddar and mozzarella would be better?
Try different cheddars. They vary hugely.
Oh, I have tried lots of different ones (I love cheddar!). Some are definitely better than others but none of them are the same as the Monterey Jack I had in the US.
@Vicky You'd probably want to find a higher fat, less aged one. But cheddar cheese is, well, cheddared, so it'll probably always be a bit different.
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42036 | How to skewer a baked potato without leaving bits of foil
My preferred method of cooking baked potatoes is to lightly coat them in olive oil, then wrap them in foil and skewer them before baking for a couple of hours.
The purpose of the skewer is mainly to help the heat conduct through to the centre of the potato, but also to stabilise the potatoes in the baking tray (I balance the skewers across the corners and it lifts the potatoes up out of the tray a little way). The purpose of the foil is to stop the skins drying out and mean you can leave them in the oven for as long as you like without worrying about scorching the skin.
The problem I have is that it's very hard to wrap foil around an already-skewered potato, and if you stab the skewer through the foil-wrapped potato you sometimes end up with "flakes" of foil where the foil tore at the entry and exit points.
Is there a trick I am missing here?
Why not simply poke the skewer through the foil, then into the potato, then wrap? That should prevent any fragments from being driven into the potato.
@SAJ14SAJ That's a great answer. Why post it as a comment?
While I have not tried doing this myself, I would imagine cutting an x into one side of the potato should give you an opening through which to skewer the potato, without dragging foil into the potato itself.
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7010 | What's the best/easiest way to de-vein king prawns?
I often buy raw king prawns (maybe they're called shrimp where you are, they're about 3-4 inches long) - they are already shelled and beheaded, but they've still got the blue vein running down the middle of them. My current technique is to put the point of a sharp knife just under parts of the vein and then pull it out, kind of like unpicking a thread of cotton. This takes quite a while, there must be a better way..? Is butterflying a way to achieve this?
I usually slit the prawn flesh just above and along the line of the vein to expose it and to make it easier to then pull out.
This is different from butterflying a prawn, which involves a deeper cut (but not all the way through) of the prawn along most of its length along the same line as the de-veining cut, but also leaving the tail on usually.
This video shows the de-veining technique and the butterflying.
Have you tried the basic cheapo shrimp deveiner? A little practice, and it's actually quite effective.
Score across the back as you mention and then scrape out the vein under cold running water using either a knife or your thumb.
If you score on the side rather than directly over the vein, you won't cut the vein. They are usually easy to pull out and will come out in one piece unless you nick it. The water is just to keep it from sticking to your fingers.
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8897 | How can I roast chicken bones (without meat)?
I plan to make a sizable quantity of chicken stock this weekend. Since I can't actually eat that much chicken, I just bought several pounds of bones, figuring I'd save the effort and expense of cleaning and butchering entire chickens.
But now I'm wondering: Can I roast the bones by themselves?
Most resources seem to agree that stock made from roasted bones is richer than stock made from bones that were boiled raw. However, every "recipe" I've looked at assumes that whole chickens are being used. I've never been taught or seen instructions on how to roast just the bones.
So I have a few questions related to roasting the bones:
First, is it actually practical? Is there any reason I shouldn't consider this?
What would be the recommended oven temperature and cooking time for about 5 pounds of bones?
Assuming I use butter as the base, how much would I likely need?
Does it make any sense to brine the bones, or to season them at all before roasting?
Should I bother including vegetables or other flavours in the roast, knowing that it's just going into a stock afterward that will have its own separate flavours?
My intuition is that any special preparation, seasoning or additives would be pointless, but I'd prefer to go by facts rather than intuition. And even if I'm correct I'd still like to get some rough guidelines as to the oven settings, because if I accidentally burn them then the whole endeavour is a bust.
Roasting the bones will give you a darker brown stock than using the raw bones. To roast the bones, just stick them in an oven on high heat, around 450 for about 45 minutes, or until they are a nice golden caramelized color. Though you will want to make sure to keep an eye on them the first time, I'd check every 5 minutes after half an hour. Roasting the veggies with the bones will also add a slightly sweeter roasted flavor. It's like the difference of putting slices of raw onions on a burger compared to caramelized onions. You get a slightly sweeter, richer roasted flavor. Though it does turn down some of the other flavor notes, it's up to you which you'd rather have. Without roasting, you'd have a clearer "white" stock.
If you are using the butter as a base to roast the bones, I would set it aside and go with a higher smoke point oil like a peanut or corn oil. The low smoke point of the butter could leave a bitter, slightly burned flavor, especially with the longer roasting times.
I would leave the seasoning for the stock. Most spices will burn at a lower temperature, and salting the bones before you make your stock, could make your stock overly salty. It's easier to add more toward the end, than try to figure out what to do with salty stock.
I hope that helps!
Just to confirm: my reference says 45-60 minutes at 425 Fahrenheit, a little shorter for the mirepoix, and even shorter for the leeks in the mirepoix.
Seems to have worked pretty well. The chicken "bones" I bought actually had a fair bit of meat, so I had to increase the cooking time to almost an hour, but aside from that, I'd say that this was the right advice.
I bake my chicken bones, fat & skin 45 min to 1 hr. @ 425. Remove from oven & place in a stock pot, making sure to get all the drippings ( I usually place hot water enought to loosen the rich drippings) pour in with bones, just cover with water ans simmer for about 1 hr. Drain through a sieve. Results , a wonderful rich broth. I either use right away or freeze in a qt. jar for later use!
I would go along with the 45 minute roast at 425, keeping a close eye as the 45 minutes approaches to see if these particular bones might need less or more time.
The bones I use are organic backs (with meat), feet, & wings. I get EVERYTHING in the pan into my 22 qt stock pot, add a healthy glug of Apple Cider Vinegar to draw out the minerals, and cover with filtered water.I bring everything to a simmer and then lower the temperature to my lowest setting and let the bone broth slowly simmer (a bubble every 3-4 minutes is perfect) for 24-36 hours.
After the simmering time, I remove the bones to a large pot for a second use (I usually get 2 batches, sometimes 3 out of chicken bones and merely add some more feet and/or necks to subsequent batches).
Cool Bone Broth a bit and then double separate the fat (run through the separator twice). The fat (if organic pastured bones are used) can be frozen in muffin tins for future use).
I keep some bone broth in the refrigerator at all times. The rest I freeze in large (1/3 - 1/2 C) cubes for future use. While bone broth can be canned, it loses some of its benefits due to the high heat.
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20210 | Is deep-frying silicone oil safe for home use?
Perhaps it is due to confusion surrounding silicone, but what studies exist that document the safety and best practices of using silicone oil? I understand it is used for as an anti-foaming agent in deep-frying, and also has medicinal purposes (as an anti-flatulant); but in a high temperature evironment, does it remain inert and safe?
I don't have a definitive answer for you, but Waffle House fries their food on the flattop grill with a product called Flavor Fry. I can't find the ingredients online, but I know it contains either Silicone or Silicone Oil (can't recall which) from having read the label many many years ago.
Just curious, what is your reason to want to use silicone oil over say regular veg oil in a deep fryer? Or it is just a general curiousity of how silicone oil holds up in high temperature.
Silicone based chemicals, overall, are more stable than the carbon based homologs. Dimethylpolysiloxane (silicone oil) is often used for calibrating instruments because of its heat stability. With that said, I believe that normal usage of dimethylpolysiloxane in food preparation is as an additive of around 2 parts per million into more familiar carbon oils.
Not much is out there.
Food-grade silicone oil (dimethylpolysiloxane, for the chemists out there) is routinely used in medical and food-prep devices, and it has been approved by the US FDA Office of Food Additive Safety for use as a direct additive in diverse foods, like milk, dry gelatin dessert mix, canned pineapple juice, and even salt. Of course, we're talking about minuscule amounts, in the range of 100 ppm; at high concentrations, it is a skin and eye irritant. So what level is safe? We can't assume that the FDA ever tested it, as the Office of Food Additive Safety is woefully underfunded.
An informal literature search yielded me only a handful of scientific articles looking at silicone oil in frying. The most promising was by Bertrand Matthaus, Norbert Haase, and Klaus Vossman, "Factors affecting the concentration of acrylamide during deep fat frying of potatoes," Eur. J. Of Lipid Sci. & Tech., V.106(11), pp. 793-801 (Nov 2004) (fig. 3 specifically measures acrylamide concentration as a function of the amount of silicone oil). Unfortunately, I don't have a subscription, so I can't tell what the bottom line was.
Myself, I don't see the benefit of using it at home.
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21797 | What is the most practical pan for a deep-dish pizza
So over the weekend I wanted to make a deep-dish pizza and ended up with a thick crust as the pan I have is only about half as deep as I would need and two inches wider than the recipe called for. For deep-dish should I bother with spending forty dollars on a black steel 2-inch high 12" pan (that would only be used for pizza basically), or would I be better served to pay half as much for a two-inch high cast iron Lodge skillet (which would be much more versatile)?
I really like the crust you get from a heavy aluminum baking pan (thick-crust must be some kind of nostalgia thing), and already have a large stone (so good to go on thin crust), so I am looking to round out my options. Is there an alternate material or pan combination that works as well as cast-iron but might be lighter or even less expensive?
Am I traveling the total wrong route to a great deep-dish, or do I just need some fine adjustment?
A 2" or 3" deep round cake pan (i.e., fairly thin aluminum, but nowhere near as thin as the disposable things) actually works pretty well. These cost under $10 each. For example, Walmart sells one for $9
That's a 9" wide pan, but 12" cake pans are available too—and only a little more expensive. Maybe expect to pay $15 for one.
So just to ask, as I recall them being frequently used, will a cake pan like this be able to deliver browned crusts like cast-iron, or is the lighter weight a trade-off?
@mfg Yes, you can get browned crusts in a cake pan. E.g., the Cooks Illustrated recipe actually calls for a cake pan, and it browns. (They have a picture there, which I think you can see even if you're not a member). The link you gave is using a weird procedure to make a cold cast iron skillet work; with an aluminum cake pan its just 20–30 min in a preheated 425 oven.
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25306 | Why is my Bunn overflowing?
We recently upgraded at the office from an old and cold Mr. Coffee 12-cup at work to an old but hot Bunn coffee maker. It is a 10-cup BX-B, and appears to have no damaged parts. However, when I brew coffee, it starts gurgling out of the top after the first thirty seconds of brewing.
After a taking-apart and cleaning of the basket and spray nozzle, the grind of the coffee was the first thing I tweaked. Initially it was slightly fine due to having been purchased for the colder pot. I got an appropriate auto-drip grind and it continued to overflow. I also tried a larger style of coffee filter to ensure it wasn't overflowing with grounds getting down into the spout.
After about thirty seconds of a weak stream through the basket, water backs up to the point where it starts spilling, along with grounds, from the top of the brewing basket (where it meets the head of the base).
What should I do to counteract this behavior?
I can ask for a coarser grind from the local coffee shop if that would make a difference.
If it is a matter for concern, we are on the ninth floor of a building.
The taps in the building typically have signs of hard water.
I really would prefer to not go back to the colder pot since it brews less flavorful coffee, requires an excess of grounds to keep it from being watery, and takes 12-15 minutes to brew.
Can you tell us what model Bunn you have?
@CosCallis its a 10-cup BX-B
That model doesn't have one of those spring loaded check valves on the bottom of the brewing basket so you can pull the pot out before brew cycle is complete does it? Those DO go bad, and can cause the prioblem you describe. Sometimes they just need cleaning. Sometimes they need replacement. If you're not using the original pot that came with the unit, it may not be engaging the check valve properly.
If I understand your description, it sounds as if water is flowing into the basket more quickly than it is flowing out. This could require adjusting the nozzle feeding the basket or the dispenser on the basket; probably the former, from your description of how soon after brewing the problem starts. Is there any way to slow down the inflow?
According to the Bunn troubleshooting guide, it is also possible that the coffee is too finely ground, or that the filter is not as permeable as it should be - naturally, Bunn recommends you use their brand of filters, and if you aren't, that's an easy thing to try. They also suggest that the sprayhead may be missing (it could also just be loose), and that you avoid finely ground coffee, decaffeinated coffee, and soft water.
of course, avoiding decaffeinated coffee is good practice in all situations :)
True, but who'd a thunk it would lead to a mechanical failure?
to eliminate the variables of coffee grind/filters, you could try running the coffeemaker with just water, sans coffee and filter, and see what happens.
Have you cleaned out the coffee maker's piping with vinegar or citric acid? Mineral buildup can interfere with the geyser-like process by which drip pots work. Usually buildup slows things down, but it might also work to speed up water flow.
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24248 | What is the difference between a wilted salad and a massaged salad?
What is the general difference between preparations and use cases of a wilted salad compared to a massaged salad? As many wilted salad recipes call for warm dressing, does this mean the wilted salad will lend itself better toward cooked ingredients compared to massaged or raw greens? Does wilting the greens in the salad have any particular impact on the profile of the flavor and texture of the end result that gears it toward pairing with flavors that massaged greens, or raw, would not?
I've only heard of massaging kale. If you rub the greens together they get softer, darker and more tender and useable in a salad. Never done it with anything else. Wilted is steamed or blanched greens. Wilting definitely changes the texture and can make the greens more palatable and less bitter. I won't eat raw collards. I also always salt and squeeze my cooked spinach before using as it knocks out the bitterness.
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22619 | What method for advance prep of seitan prevents deterioration of texture and preserves flavor while protecting from spoilage?
Tonight, I am hoping to cook up three to four loaves of seitan for final prep three days from now. My intent is to form the dough, simmer in stock or steam, and then refrigerate. In three days I hope to use the seitan to make sandwiches after bringing up to temp while smoking on the grill and then slicing.
I have seen storage options including freezing, refrigerating wrapped in cling wrap, refrigerating while submersed in the simmering liquid, and a few variations in between. Three days is long enough that I would be concerned about spoilage, as well as picking up stray odors (I will be doing a bunch of bulk cooking of different foods). It is at once short enough that I don't think the texture would necessarily be compromised, but definitely see it as possible if stored in liquid. Likewise, flavor will last fine, but if it is in a simmering liquid, that is soy based, I am concerned it would leech every drop of saltiness and end up as some decaying, more-spongiform-than-usual, briny bread.
So I am looking for three possible things and the benefits/drawbacks of any methods;
What advance cooking method will work for a batch that will be reheated by smoking (low heat for about an hour or two)?
What storage method will preserve texture, maintain flavor, and lock out nasties?
What steps can I take when re-heating to preserve all of the above effort?
Essentially, what is the prep/storage/plate combo that will save me from turning a few pounds of simmered vital wheat gluten into cloudy clods?
hmm....
my thoughts:
1) biologists use stock as a medium for growing bacteria. therefore, anything stored in stock; I generally like to boil/heat up a lot first before eating
2)the seitan should stay just fine; kept dry in the fridge in an airtight container
3) have you tried making steamed seitan, ala seitan of greatness from lachesis?
4) have you tried making "dry" seitan in a water bath (bain marie) in the oven: this is how it is done in the rfd (real food daily) cookbook. I make this a lot; both the "chicken" and "basic" (which reminds me of turkey)
And cooks use stock as a medium for making soup - which is usually considered an ordinary perishable food that belongs in the fridge and shouldn't be left there for weeks, or in the freezer.
In case anyone's still interested, I make seitan at least once a week, usually more. It's extremely sturdy and storing it isn't nearly the headache the op seemed to think. As a matter of fact, cooked seitan "ages" very well, to the point where I won't serve it until it's been in the fridge for a few days. The texture and flavor generally improve during the aging. However, I of course cook it again usually on the grill, before serving.
btw jill, the broth used in lab cultures is just a little different than veggie broth. 200% more salt for a start, which greatly hampers biotic growth. in any event, anything one keeps in the fridge, pantry, or cupboard could be used as a sample culture. pretty sure rotting meat is at the top of that list.
From my experience, seitan is not more perishable than other perishable food, so 3 days in a 4°C fridge should be unproblematic.
Salt does not tend to attack gluten chemically (in fact, it helps form it), so salty storage liquids will not cause the trouble you describe.
Also, if too much salty liquid is absorbed, you can squeeze it out unless your seitan is on the very firm side (think dry-baked, or slow cooked, or oil-poached styles... which keep pretty well in briny liquids in the fridgen anyway).
Mind that saltiness usually strives for an equilibrium (everything equally salty) in a wet preparation. Osmotic effects that can counteract that (and cause mushiness/disintegration along with it) tend to be about cell membranes in whole meats and vegetable pieces, and subsequent bursting of cells. These are of no concern with seitan since it does not consist of whole cells.
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5951 | Storage of Sweet Potato Pie
I want to make Sweet Potato Pie for the first time for Monday yet I'm going to be busy on the weekend. This got me wondering what are proper storage ideas for Sweet Potato Pie. For instance if I make the pie tomorrow would it taste just as good for Monday if I freeze it after it cools and defrost it Sunday night? Or are there other methods I should utilize?
I've frozen custard pies and they keep well. Be a bit careful when defrosting: if you leave it out in a humid environment, condensation will soak into the crust and make it soggy. Some tips: wrap some foil around the crust on the edges, freeze in a bag,and defrost in the fridge (still in bag). After it is defrosted (at least mostly), keep the foil in place and put it into a hot oven for 5-10 minutes to crisp up the crust and dry out any condensation that has formed.
I've kept pies for a week, and there were no issues. I imagine they will keep for something between 1 and 3 weeks if refrigerated, so there is no reason to freeze if you plan to eat them within a week.
The liquid weeping out is called synerisis. Xanthan gum is generally useful in reducing it, but I can't tell you what amount would be right to add to pumpkin pie. Too much would make the pumpkin custard gummy.
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6795 | Can you freeze apples?
What is the best way to freeze apples? I am planning on cooking with them when they defrost.
Depending on what you're going to cook, there are a few ways you can freeze them.
For most uses, I find the simplest method is just to peel, core, and slice them. First, you want to keep the slices from browning using one of the following methods:
Dip them in lemon juice.
Dip in a salt water dip (2 tbsp salt to 1 gallon water)
Quickly steam/blanch (1-2 minutes) to stop the enzymes that cause browning,
Pack them in a sugar syrup (usually used when you plan to serve the apples as-is after defrosting, see link referenced below). A good ratio is 2 cups sugar to 3 cups of water, plus 1/2 tsp of ascorbic acid to prevent browning. You'll want to make about 1 cup syrup per quart of apples.
Personally, I prefer the lemon juice method, it's proven to be quite effective for me and I always have lemons in hand in the house.
Freeze apple slices on a single layer on a cookie sheet (in the bottom of the freezer) then transfer to a Ziploc bag when solid. The sheet method allows them to freeze as fast as possible in the typical home freezer, and prevents them from sticking together so you can portion them as you need them. If you're going to be storing for a long time, wrap them in plastic wrap and then foil before putting in the bag.
Some people just wash and freeze them whole, though I prefer do to the prep before freezing so I can just pull them out of the freezer and use them. They will freeze well whole, however I find that the ruptured cell walls cause them to be harder to peel/core after defrosting using this method.
If you're going to make a pie, you can also freeze them with sugars and spices etc (prepared just as you would make a pie filling) in a pie pan. You can then take them out of the freezer like that, drop the prepared, shaped mixture right into a pie crust, and bake your pie with a slight increase in baking time.
As far as how long they'll last, they'll be safe indefinitely, but will lose flavor after a few months, I wouldn't recommend going past 6. Stilltasty says 2-4 but I've pushed it further than that and there wasn't a ton of flavor loss. Might depend on variety of apple as well.
The suggestions on this page are in line with my personal experience (and expand upon them!)
Cooked apples freeze with no special consideration; so you are almost certainly better off cooking them first then freezing.
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24799 | How can I prevent cross-contamination when applying a dry or wet rub to meat?
In either wet or dry rub prep, if you use both hands, you will have likely contaminated the rub by the end. How can I prevent this from occurring?
You can save yourself the waste of making double, while preventing cross-contamination, by using one hand (clean) to scoop and sprinkle, and one hand (dirty) to direct the spice falling, pat/tamp, and rub the spices.
Typically I begin by applying a "glue" (previously I have used honey and mustard, once I was vegan I went with just mustard; both worked well on smoker) to the cut of meat or vegetable before smoking or bbq.
I follow applying the glue by washing my hands, then proceed with whatever rub I am using after the glue has had a chance to adhere (typically thirty minutes medium, but I have followed instructions to let set and congeal for up to eight hours).
Then, you can apply the rub following the method above: keep one hand clean to pick up handfuls of rub and sprinkle the rub down, use the other hand to press that rub you are sprinkling down against the cut.
This sequence minimizes the number of steps, the times where you need to wash your hands, and makes for great bark. Hopefully you can rotate the cut with one hand, if not it adds one hand-wash. I started doing it this way because I hated having the spice turn into clumps from the moisture. Now I not only have no clumps in the spice after, and sanitary spices for further usage, but also a clean left hand for turning on the sink to wash my right hand.
Use two containers for your rub. One is your main container, and you pour from it, into the contain in which you will put your soiled hands to apply the rub.
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10034 | How can I make a carob coating?
I want to make Italian Three color Christmas Cookies (like these: http://www.food.com/recipe/italian-tri-color-cookies-rainbow-cookies-147882 ). This kind of cookie is traditionally are covered in melted chocolate, but my husband and son are both allergic to chocolate. The last time I tried to melt carob chips, I discovered that carob doesn't melt (it was awful...). So... how can I make a carob coating for these cookies?
Carob chips should melt just fine. Can you elaborate on what you tried and what happened? (Sorry if it's a painful memory, but it might help you get better answers)
I've tried it more than once, melting over a double boiler, and each time, the carob clumped, solidified, and made what my husband called very good toffee. It was odd, to say the least. Nothing like the smooth melt I get with chocolate.
Melting carob is a bit different from chocolate. The sugar crystal formation is not the same for tempering chocolate. One suggestion is to add paramount crystals (which is a combination of palm kernel oil and soy lecithin) to help start/control the process. I would also recommend not keeping the double boiler actually on the double boiler for the entire time.
Heat it up until some of the carob melts. Remove from heat and stir. Add it back to the heat and continue removing to stir as each bit melts a little more. It takes longer but it allows you to control the heating and crystallization process.
End the end, you should have a smoother and more even end result.
Where would I find paramount crystals???
Most baking, cooking, or health food type stores will have them. I think I even saw some in the craft stores like Michael's or JoAnn Fabric that have candy making stuff. Of you can order online. They are made up of palm kernel oil and soy lecithin.
I will have to try and find these! Thanks so much!
double boiler not necessary if you have a microwave, just work on 10 second rotations (micro, stir, micro, stir, etc.)
If the OP is having trouble even with a double boiler, this sounds even less likely to work.
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19950 | By what method, other than heat, can I cause the alcohol in a liquid to evaporate?
If boiling and other heat methods cause a deterioration of flavor, What is the fastest way of accelerating the evaporation rate of alcohol in a liquid like beer?
You could try ice distillation: Stick it in the freezer, and skim off the ice. Keep the ice, discard the liquid and melt the ice.
If you had a freezer that you could precisely control the temperature, I believe there are certain preferred target temperatures, but simply checking on it frequently in a standard freezer should do the trick.
The vacuum based suggestions also sound good, if you have appropriate equipment for that.
Basically, you're asking about distillation in reverse. Traditional distillation is primarily boiling, but there's also a few traditions (applejack, eisbock) involving ice distillation. In ice distillation they're after a higher alcohol product and keeping the liquid (discarding the ice), but I believe if you switch which part you keep you'll get the same results.
Much like any other distillation, you may need to run through the process multiple times to get the desired result.
With beer, the primary flavoring is from compounds extracted from hops, which react with oxygen to produce unpleasant flavors. By "unpleasant" I mean turning the bitter and tangy flavors into something more like wet cardboard. So depending on what you're doing you may also need to protect your beer from exposure to oxygen. I believe with beer the real enemy is oxygen, with heat or light accelerating the undesirable reactions.
Depending on the style of beer, esters and phenols may also be important to the flavor. In styles where those flavors are desired, it's typically a wide mix, and it's quite possible some of them will evaporate easier than alcohol or be harder to freeze.
Note that no distillation method is "perfect", with all distillation methods you'll have water and alcohol in both outputs of the process, you'll just have a greater amount of alcohol in the evaporated or unfrozen part and a lesser amount in the unevaporated or frozen part.
Note also that in the US any process for separating alcohol from something else is illegal at home.
Ice distillation works because only the water is frozen. All the other chemicals, including the alcohol stay. Thus, you'll be concentrating the alcohol, not getting rid of it.
@RonJohn I guess you missed the "keep the ice" part of this answer? Fundamentally, all forms of distillation (partially) separate, and what you're concentrating depends on which part you keep: keep the ice when freezing or the water when boiling and you get less alcohol.
"Keep the ice", but it leaves the alcohol, which is the opposite of what OP wanted.
@RonJohn Uhm... What? I don't understand what part you're not understanding.
Using your applejack example: there is of course more to apple cider than water and alcohol: lots of "apply bits" and flavor compounds. When you freeze that cider, only the water freezes. Not only the alcohol, but most of the "apply bits" and flavor compounds stay behind as liquid. That is the opposite of what OP asked for.
@freiheit I'm mostly just rephrasing what RonJohn said, but, I think the point here is that ice distillation separates something into two parts: mostly water/ice, and higher-concentration alcohol and flavors. If you keep the ice, you'll be removing the alcohol and discarding the flavor and the alcohol. The OP presumably wants to keep the flavor and the water, so this doesn't seem to meet their needs. I don't see any trolling here.
The only thing I can think of: lower the air pressure in the container it's in. Probably not practical.
I believe this is how non-alcoholic beer is made.
Am correct in assuming surface area contact to moving air accelerates evaporation, and if so, would a closed environment inhibit this aspect of the reaction?
Surface area, temperature, air pressure, and air movement all affect evaporation. Put a fan on your beer, and it will evaporate faster, too. (But of course, the water also evaporates)
@Jefromi: I believe you're right. Another method is filtering down to water+alcohol+a few other volatiles, boiling to remove alcohol, then mixing the water back in with what was filtered out. Or simply formulating the recipe to be very low in alcohol to start with (less fermentable sugar).
What you're describing is called vacuum distillation. It's possible that it might be sped up by stirring (or otherwise introducing fresh liquid to the surface), but mostly because the stuff below the surface is at increased pressure (due to the weight of the liquid above it).
Evaporation would work in theory, but unless you have expensive vacuum equipment, it isn't practical. I would look to using non-alcoholic beer, rather than try to remove alcohol by a means other than heating.
Let it sit in an open container and let it evaporate. Of course, the water in the liquid will also evaporate. Heat speeds this process.
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21502 | Does oxidation inhibit caramelization?
Getting ready to make some fried plantains, but I wanted to get a jump on prep before caramelizing in place (approximately 2 hours from prep). If I cut them now, and they oxidize, will this inhibit their caramelization? Would oxidation promote caramelization?
It is possible to prevent oxidation of bananas and plantains with use of an acidulated water soak for three to five minutes, then pat dry. However, the plantains are a bit too ripe and soft to be able to pat dry without either leaving behind paper bits or mussing the surface of the fruit.
How does oxidation impact caramelization, if at all, and if the plantains oxidize, what would be the best method for caramelization?
I wasn't aware that plantains oxidized visibly at all. At least, the green ones don't. I'd imagine that this would have zero effect on caramelization, but I've never tested that, so I won't post an answer.
@FuzzyChef It appears (both in google and on my countertop from leftovers) that the oxidation isn't as pronounced as it would be with a banana, avocado, or potato (my main fear). If you can find any information confirming zero effect on caramelization I'd be happy to mark answered
If the plantains were on the greener side, they would take longer to fry than riper plantains like you have. The more ripe plantains are, the higher their sugar content, and the faster they will caramelize. The only effect of oxidation is an increased speed of caramelization. They will be done when they are soft and brown, but be careful not to let them burn since the sugar content will make them brown in less than 10 minutes.
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3440 | What is the purpose of dry aging a steak?
I picked up some Porterhouse steaks this weekend and intend to cook them up steakhouse style, dry-aged and broiled(US) under high heat. What does dry-aging do to the steaks, and why is this one of the steps to cooking a truly excellent steak?
Dry-aging isn't a cooking process. You typically buy the meat dry-aged. It's usually a 20+ day process to dry age beef.
I go into a lot of detail regarding steakhouse quality steaks in my answer here.
Excerpt:
Any steak you buy in the grocery store is minimally wet aged. The finest steakhouses dry age their beef. The difference? Wet aging consists of simply vacuum packing the meat (as in a whole side of cow) and refrigerating it for about a week. After that, it's cut smaller and sold to stores. Dry aging is a more complicated and expensive process. Dry aged beef is hung for at least two weeks in a refrigerator. Moisture in the meat is allowed to escape and evaporate, which concentrates the beef flavor of the beef. The beef also grows a moldy rind which is cut off and thrown away. After the aging is complete you're left with 75-80% of the meat you started with. This commands a premium price.
Please note that the dry aging happens long before you purchase the steak. The entire cow is dry aged before it is even cut. You cannot truly, safely dry-age steaks in your home. There are refrigerator aging approximations, but they are just that, approximations.
Generally, any kind of aging helps the natural breakdown process. Moisture evaporates from the meat, leaving behind more flavor. The connective tissue in the meat breaks down and makes the meat more tender. Aging the meat past 10 days or so doesn't make it more tender, but it does increase the flavor.
Dry-aging is typically something done 'before' you purchase the meat. Unless you have proper machinery (sanitary, temperature and humidity controlled, room).
I think the dry-aging process allows some moisture to escape from the meat, leaving more concentrated flavors behind.
Basically, it's concentrating the flavor of the meat by removing water, and tenderizing the meat by allow it's own enzymes to break down some of the connective tissue.
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1112 | How do you make pork rinds?
The little bit I currently know is that they're fried pig skins. However, beyond that it's just a bunch of hand-waving on my part.
Do you buy pig skin from a butcher?
Is there a special type you need?
How do you judge pig skin quality?
I'm assuming they're deep fried, does the oil matter?
Are they a difficult thing to make in your home?
I assume this is pork scratchings, the bar snack, as opposed to pork crackling which is the crispy skin eaten with a main meal?
@Sam: Hmm. I have heard neither of those terms before. Must be regional. In the USA pork rinds are dry crispy things sold in bags. They are typically grouped with potato chips and pretzels.
Wikipedia: Pork rind (known in the United Kingdom as pork scratchings (as a room-temperature snack) or crackling (served hot as part of a meal) and pork crackle in Australia and New Zealand) is the fried or roasted skin (rind) of a pig.
So apparently everyone has a different term.
if they are grouped with potato chips and pretzels then they are pork scratchings here in the uk.
Funnily enough I made some of these just a week ago. They're not at all difficult to make and you can use any rind, which your butcher should be able to supply.
Depending on your health considerations, you can oven cook them or you can part oven cook part fry.
Oven cook method:
Cut the rinds into 4 by 4cm pieces
Place in a pan of boiling water for 10 minutes
allow to cool, then place in the fridge until the skins feel 'dry' approx 2 hours
Preheat the oven to 220c(425f) and place the rinds on a baking sheet. Season and place in the oven
Turn the oven down to 180c(350f) and cook for about an hour. You will need to drain the fat a couple of times.
Let them cool and add more seasoning, if needed.
The Oven/Fry method
Cut the rinds into pieces that will fit on a rack over a baking tray (not small pieces)
Half fill a baking tray with water and place the seasoned rinds on a rack over they tray
Roast these in the oven at 220 to 230c(350 to 450f) for 10 to 15 minutes. When they've changed colour and start to bubble they're done.
Remove form the oven and cut into 4 by 4cm strips
In a pan half filled with very hot veggie oil or a deep fat fryer, cook in batches until they 'puff' up around 2 to 3 minutes.
Remove and let the oil be taken-up by paper towel. Season and you're good to go.
I tried both methods and I preferred the second, something about frying them just 'felt' right :)
I can't imagine them coming out 'right' if they are just done ion the oven...
They were ok but just lacked that 'something' ...
Any seasoning suggestions?
I found that a little sea salt and some cracked black pepper worked, I also tried adding ground dried chillies, for some heat and spice, they also worked.
Typically the "raw" rind is referred to as a "pellet", so you need to Google "pork rind pellets" to find sellers.
Warning: they tend to come in huge bags, so unless you want to experience death by 65lb bag of pork-rind-pellets, go in with some friends.
You can buy the pig skin from a butcher, any kind will do, even if they still have some fat or meat attached. The way we make them is you buy pork lard from the store and you heat it up, add a lot of salt, or to taste. Fry the pork skin until they look like the ones in the potato chip isle, pretty much just eyeball it. Also, you can add water to the fat, together with some onions and garlic too. Then, add the skins and ears, snout, what ever you got, throw some pork meat in there too, and boil them till they're soft and fully cooked. Add a can of coke to caramelize it, and strain it and it's done . Both ways are good, just take some practice to get them how you like them. Oh, and stir them a lot so they don't stick to the pan. We make them in a large cazo on a burner outside. Cook on high flame
boil, scrape the fat..dry it for 0ne week then fry it
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7717 | Is there a faster/less messy way to stuff manicotti/canneloni?
I've had all the ingredients for stuffed manicotti sitting around in my kitchen for the past 2 days but keep putting it off because I absolutely dread the whole stuffing process.
I usually start off using a spoon but quickly give up on that and resort to my hands instead. It usually makes a mess of my hands and the counter top, and every so often I have to throw one out because it broke.
I keep thinking that surely a fancy Italian restaurant is not going to have a cook sitting there stuffing individual tubes. I actually thought of using a piping bag but I'm pretty sure that the stuffing is just too thick and heterogeneous (it's usually a cold mixture of ricotta, shredded cheeses, onions, herbs, and an egg). That's about the limit of my imagination with respect to stuffing techniques.
So, does anyone know one or more ways to reduce the tedium or mess?
My husband makes crepes for his manicotti and not only are they easier to fill, they soak up the sauce. It's what I always demand for my Birthday dinner ; )
@ColleenV Crepes are an interesting twist! Now I need to learn how to make crepes too...
As roux said, and you alluded to, you want a piping bag of some kind.
Where I find a piping bag doesn't always work the best, I've been able to steal the concept and slightly modify it by "making my own at home". Put all the filling into a large ziploc bag (I use gallon sized cause I make manicotti in bulk, but quart sized works just as well). Edit: as noted in Aaronut's comment, regular ziplocs may become too soggy; I recommend freezer ziplocs, as they're significantly thicker.
Cut off one corner, a little smaller than the size of the manicotti opening, and you have your own piping bag on the cheap! Once you get used to using this, you'll be amazed how fast you can fill them.
Patting the manicotti dry with a paper towel after cooking but before stuffing also seems to really help keep them in my hand, because trying to fill a slippery manicotti shell is the WORST.
Also, if you can, let the manicotti shells cool completely after cooking - that really helps keep it from tearing.
good point about drying them -- slippery noodles suck. (well, for this purpose ... overcooked and sticky noodles suck in a different way)
I always immerse them in cold water after cooking but I think some of them are either already cracked or tear slightly during boiling - it seems unavoidable that some of them tear. The plastic bag is a clever idea - going to try that out tonight.
I really expected this to be the best answer, but when I tried it, the bag got too soggy and the filling stuck to the sides pretty stubbornly. It did sort of work but it was rather difficult and messy. Surprisingly, it turns out that an actual piping bag (a proper sturdy one) does the job much better; as the filling gets compressed in the bag, it liquefies more and pipes quite easily. Still, this was a creative answer and a great solution for people who don't own piping bags. Thanks again!
Darn! I guess I should edit my answer to address the fact that I use the freezer ziplocs in our house exclusively, since they're significantly thicker than the regular ziplocs - may have helped with the bag getting too soggy. As for the sticking to the sides, I have noticed that as well - lightly oiling the inside of the bag helped, but if you have a piping bag that works that sounds like the way to go. I definitely have noticed that at least some tear when they boil pretty much every time - how annoying! I think I'm going to try the ones you stuff dry and bake in the sauce next time.
You can use lasagna noodles too and just spread the filling and roll them up. I've done that and gave up trying to stuff manicotti noodles.
America's Test Kitchen does exactly that. I guess it all comes down to, "Just how fussy do you want to be?"
There are shells available that can be stuffed before cooking, then are baked in the sauce.
Your mileage may vary. Haven't tried it myself.
A friend of mine swears by these and says he can't tell the difference between these and "normal" manicotti. I haven't tried them yet, but plan to very soon.
What I found works great for me is partially boiling the manicotti until they get semi flexible. I also use the ziplock bag method for stuffing, but here's the thing. Rather than holding the tube as I stuff it, I put it inside a tall shot glass and THEN fill it. The glass I use is just a tiny bit bigger than the manicotti which means I can stuff it as full as I want, without the pasta splitting down the side. Enough of the pasta hangs outside the glass that it's easy to pull it back out.
I cut a soft drink bottle in half, fill with the mixture, and use it to funnel the mixture into a sleeping cannelloni forcing the mixture with gloved hands.
As both roux and stephenmcdonald mentioned, a piping bag is the way to go, as you assumed, but you often need to fill from each side, rather than just one side. (it depends on your filling ... also, it'll give you a prettier canneloni)
... but for manicotti, many places don't use tubes. They use crepes, so you don't have the trouble filling them. I've also seen recipes that call for using the 'no bake' lasagne noodles, softening them up first, and using them.
My only other idea for dealing with tubes would be to use some sort of a narrow syringe with no end, where it's durable enough to pack well, then can use that to inject the filling. You might need to keep a finger over the opposite end and intentionally pack it in to fill any extra air space between the syringe diameter and tube diameter.
For shells and cannoli, I just use a good zip lock bag.
Place the filling in the quart size bag with the zipper up.
Close the bag enough to get as much air you can out.
Place the filling in the refrigerator in a tall cup or mug with the zipper
up as you are getting the shells ready. The filling will stiffen some, which
is good.
Using good scissor, cut a tiny hole, then place the small hole into the
shell and squeeze just enough to the end of the shell, switch the other
side. For cannoli, just make the hole slightly bigger the chocolate chip.
Store the leftover in a gallon bag in the freezer for next time, but the
filling is best fresh. I wouldn't fill the shells anymore the four hours
ahead; they just taste better that way.
Place the cannoli in the freezer, so it won't let the shell soft before
serving.
I sometimes use Egg Roll wrappers to make my 'manicotti'. I use 2 wrappers for each. They can be found in the produce section of your grocery store. I also saw a picture where someone cooks the shells, cuts them open, puts on the filling and roll up. GREAT IDEA!!
This is easy. Get plastic a water, soda or pop bottle of about 500ml 3/4 pint having a neck of the same diameter or smaller than the canneloni. Cut the bottle it in half and use it to scoop out the filling from the bowl or pan and hold it upright to let the excess liquid drain back to the pan or bowl. Then get a wooden spoon handle or some other thing that fits through the neck. Stand the canneloni vertically on a baking tray, place the bottle on top then push the filling down into the canneloni with your implement. You can put a fish slice under the canneloni when transferring it to the baking dish to stop the filling falling out. You can do this procedure single handedly if the filling is cold but if hot get one person to hold the bottle and canneloni whilst the other pushes. Decent canneloni rather than supermarket own brand is much better because the tubes are rounder, thicker and less susceptible to cracking.
Ii just finished making cannelloni & have made it lots of times.
What I do for filling is once the filling is ready to fill, throw it in a food processor and pulse a little and I use the freezer bag method. Simple to fill, less mess.
I can do about 30 in 15 min.
Very good advice, must try.
Regarding soggy/wet pasta, I use the same procedure for both mani's and lasagna-Cook the noodles just enough so that they are pliable, but not fully cooked (you can cut the lasagna noodles with a knife, but they are stiff enough to build). I don't bring my pasta water to a boil, I just heat it enough so that the pasta will cook in it. The water temp is low enough that I can reach in and pluck the pasta out with my bare hands. For manicotti, cook just enough so that they are pliable, but not so that they will split.
Regarding the filling; I have found that if you add a little whole milk or cream to the filling, it is more workable, it will flow more easily, whether you are spreading it between the lasagna layers, or filling manicotti.
Another option would be to simply switch to giant shells instead of manicotti. Then you can just open them right up and spoon the filling in easily.
Haha, I figured somebody would point this out. True, shells are a lot easier to stuff, but they're not as pleasant to eat. ;)
good point -- my great aunt makes over a hundred stuffed shells for easter dinner each year (in the past, it was closer to 200, but the family hadn't spread out as much) ... I don't think she'd be doing the same if it were manicotti, even if she were using crepes.
Cook the Manicotti until done. Remove from water and cool Then CUT THE NOODLES UP ONE SIDE, all the way along the length of the cooked noodle.
There is still a fold in the noodle on the non-cut side, but it is open and almost a flat sheet, and you can easily put all the filling into the noodle. Then with the filling in it, you can press it "sealed" and put in baking dish, and the Manicotti will stay whole and protect the filling during baking.
I made cannelloni for the first time last night. What a mess. I cooked the pasta as instructed, but when it came time to fill them, I had great difficulty. First I used a spoon while holding the tube in one hand -- no go. Then I had the idea of putting the tube in a glass to steady it. Still no success. Then I put the filling in a zip-lock bag. Still a big mess and some of the tubes started to split. Eventually, I just split all the tubes, flattened them out and lay them on top of the sauce, spread the filling on top, spread more sauce over, and voila. It looked more like a lasagna than cannelloni, but it tasted great. Next time I make this I will use rolled up lasagna or just put the filling on top of the lasagna. I certainly won't try to fill the tubes again.
Hello, and welcome to Stack Exchange. Although interesting, this doesn't answer the original question.
@DanielGriscom I'm not sure. "It isn't worth it" is kind of an answer, isn't it? I'm going to leave it for now. For what it is worth, I think Rita has a great cheater solution.
Well, plenty of people feel it's worth it to stuff cannelloni. At best, this is a personal opinion, which also is off-topic.
Read this thread as my wife and I are using manicotti shells for the first time. Used a pastry bag, sprayed with Pam. Boiled shells for four minutes, then removed from water. Let cool. Mixed ingredients in mixer. Got shells filled in about fifteen minutes. Stuck them in freezer until we’re ready to bake them. Easier than we thought.
I am not a cook. My husband needed a dish to take to a function, and I suggested stuffed shells. I had the shells,and could whip up the stuffing, or so I thought.
The shells were actually manicotti. I made the filling and then realized I had no idea how to stuff them.
I cooked the noodles as per packing directions, 7 minutes in boiling water. They were a bit stiff, but that turned out to be beneficial.
I drained them well and laid them on aluminum foil while they cooled. Then I searched Internet on how to stuff them.
My solution was a combination of all the suggestions. I do not own a pastry bag, but I did have GALLON ZIP-LOCK STORAGE BAGS. I SPRAYED THE INSIDE WITH COOKING SPRAY, PUT A COUPLE SPOONSFUL OF FILLING in the bag, Cut a small corner off the bag.
I took a narrow CHAMPAGNE FLUTE, PUT a noodle in the glass, and Squeezed the filling into the noodle. I could have used an extra hand to hold each noodle open until I got the squeezing started, but Hubby was contentedly watching "Wheel of Fortune" and didn't answer my 14 summons.
I didn't tear any of the noodles.
It's less messy to just use your hands. With careful technique, of course. Especially if you start out using your hands, instead of trying a spoon first - somehow it always ends up way messier if your start with a spoon and switch to hands, than if you start out intending to use your hands.
The easy way to stuff manicotti to grab a little chunk of filling - somewhere between a rounded tsp and tbs, the maximum is the diameter of your manicotti - maybe roughly tap it into a ball, hold the manicotti in your other hand (maybe rest against the filling-bowl), and tuck the filling down one side of the manicotti. If the filling is a bit more sticky, you will have it scooped on your fingertips, and can use your thumb to push the filling down from your finger-fronts. Repeat until your manicotti is filled,maybe tucking the last few bits on the other side of your manicotti if the filling didn't stuff down quite evenly.
You should not be making a mess of your counter-tops, or getting filling anywhere other than the bowl and manicotti. Once you've got a bit of practice, you might not even be making a big mess of your hands - you're just using your fingertips, on little blobs of filling at a time, you palm should stay clean and dry for quite some time.
The stuffing goes very quickly, since even though you're grabbing only a bit of filling at a time, it's really quick to scoop a tiny bit out. It's easier to control the filling when you're only dealing with a bit at at time, it doesn't drop bits off or smear around like when you're trying to fit a handful in at once. And using your hands is much more intuitive than a spoon or even gloved hands - yeah, it feels messy when you first dip your fingers in, but actually the mess always ends up less because the filling is easier to control with your fingertips. And, I'm not sure why - but starting with a spoon and moving to fingers is always messier than starting with fingers. Not even just when using the spoon, too - maybe something about being impatient or a less careful mindset that starts with the choice of spoon and spills over?
I found that a simple beef jerky gun works well with the round tip of course.
Buy plastic sausage stuffers on Ebay. 3 Tubes for a little over a dollar and free shipping. Although they come from China and shipping time is lengthy.
I found a Caulking gun at my local Hardware, it is like an aluminium bodied syringe you fully disassemble and wash has replaceable tip and plunger. it’s designed for caulk that comes in a sausage shaped bag.
A caulking gun may not use food-safe materials. If you're going to go this route, I would suggest finding a cookie gun that also has an appropriate tip for filling
When making large batches(several dozens) I use my sausage stuffer with a tube size slightly smaller than the manicotti tube opening. For smaller batches I use the ziplock bag method
Isn’t this the same thing that earlier answers said?
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9536 | Why did my "goat cheese espuma" flop?
I recently got myself an iSi Creative Whip and have been having a lot of fun playing around with it. Tonight I tried one of iSi's recipes, which uses the following ingredients:
250 g goat cheese
125 g sour cream
125 mL cream
1-2 tbsp olive oil
Preparation is basically to purée the goat cheese, sour cream, and oil, mix in the cream, strain it through a sieve, load it into the whipper, then charge and cool it.
At the denouement, I was greeted with a brief but ominous fizzle followed by an even briefer splatter of yogurt-like liquid, very much like the explosion of snot one witnesses after somebody sneezes a little too hard. After clearing the cheese blobs from my shirt and hair, I proceeded to scrape the remains (which was in fact the majority of what went in there to begin with) with a rubber spatula and spread it on some crisp toast; it was delicious in spite of not even being remotely close to an espuma.
I'm well aware, as the manual makes sure to mention about half a dozen times, that the whipper will fail to perform any actual whipping if the fluid inside is too thick or viscous. I was quite skeptical myself, before charging it in the first place, but until now I haven't really tested the limits of this thing, and I figured, if I was able to strain it through the sieve (with much mashing, I might add) then it would be whippable.
So I already know, superficially, why this failed, but that only leads me to a deeper why which I have been unable to answer myself: Why did this happen with one of iSi's own recipes, found in the very recipe book that is included in the same box as the whipper itself? I have to assume that iSi knows what they're doing and it was me that screwed up; but how? What did I do wrong and how could I have fixed it?
Some possible avenues of investigation:
There are a great many different types of goat cheese available; I used the standard soft/unripened type, but there are also goat cheese "spreads" that are probably less rich. Perhaps the recipe was actually referring to one of these?
I used ordinary (14%) sour cream; perhaps the fat content was too high and the recipe intended for light or even fat-free sour cream?
I had a lot of trouble actually puréeing the mixture; using a blender, I found that the mixture didn't really move around much, so I had to keep scraping it back into the center so that it would hit the blade. The recipe actually says to use a blender or food processor but I assumed that a blender would be better. Should I have used a food processor instead, or maybe even a stick blender? Would any of this have actually made any difference, given that the consistency of the final mixture was very smooth (albeit thick)?
Are any of these likely to be the root cause? Is there anything else I might be overlooking?
I've done a goat cheese recipe. I used heavy cream 40% (light cream is not recommended), a little bit of milk and the goat cheese. I would stay away from oil which can make it fail too.
It was perfect.Good luck!
This question is not about making goat cheese, it's about making an espuma out of goat cheese. Could you explain how this answers the question?
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8099 | Defrosting frozen soup
I am planning on defrosting some leftover turkey soup for supper tonight. To make it go farther I am planning on adding noodles to the soup in addition to some vegetables (ie. carrots). In this case I think the soup needs more liquid in it but I don't want the soup to become to bland.
Should I add water to the soup and if so should I just add bouillon crystals (I have chicken and beef) or something else? Also should I defrost the soup then add the noodles/vegetables and cook it in the soup or cook it separately and then add it to the soup?
Well, you can always add some broth -- chicken would be good. That would allow you to control the salt more so than using boullion crystals.
As far as cooking the vegetables, it depends on whether there are already pieces of vegetables in the frozen soup. If yes, then you may want to cook your add-ins first so that the stuff that's already in the soup doesn't get mushy. If no, you could cook them in the soup.
(However, I have a caveat as far as cooking noodles in broth. When you cook noodles, some of the starch from the pasta transfers into the cooking liquid. This is why pasta water is often used to help with the texture of pasta sauce. If you don't mind having the starch in your soup, you can go ahead and cook the noodles there. If you are bothered by that, cook the noodles separately, drain, and then add them.)
A good way to extend the soup you already have (a chunk of) is to begin a base/stock (using something like some celery hearts, or thinly sliced celery, shredded carrots, a bay leaf, a stalk of parsley, etc) and then defrosting the chunk in the base once it has a nice savory flavor of its own established. To minimize over-cooking of existing components of your soup I would recommend breaking it up with a wooden spoon and cooking very low as you will also likely end up with an excess of useless moisture (from freezing the soup) that you'll need to cook off.
As for the noodles, since they will require less time relative to cooking off the moisture my personal take would be to cook them on their own and add them in the last 5 minutes of simmering. Whether they will stand up to cooking in the soup itself is determined by the noodle type, and the added starch wouldn't hurt the soup.
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6276 | Can you freeze gravy?
I made gravy for supper today and I have more than we can eat. So I was wondering if it was possible to freeze gravy after it has cooled down in the fridge. If it is possible than what would be the best method to approach it?
If you freeze it, the gravy may separate or curdle after thawing. Stir well, though, and it should be fine.
Cooked meat will be less dry if frozen in a bit of gravy... so if you have any leftover meat, that would be a great way to save both.
I don't think that should give you any problem. I've seen plenty of frozen pot pies, for example, and those have what is essentially gravy as part of the sauce. I'd say just put it in a freezer bag, squeeze out the air, and freeze away.
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6056 | Method of canning without pressure canner?
I'm debating canning but I don't have a pressure canner. I was just wondering what the best method to can would be since I don't want to get botulism and I want the canned food to last for a long time.
Read reliable sources like the NCHFP, the Ball Blue Book, and "Putting Food By", and don't improvise. Freezing is a good alternative--chest freezers are reasonably priced and efficient. The best long-term storage method of all is freeze-drying, but a home freeze-dryer runs upwards of $3000. You can get a decent pressure canner for around $75.
Without a canner you are limited to canning high-acid foods.
Botulism spores don't die at 212F, the boiling point of water. A pressure canner boiling water at 15PSI raises the boiling point to 250F or so which will kill the spores.
The bacterium cannot grow in a high acid environment and so high-acid foods such as fruit and pickles do not need to be processed in a pressure canner. Look for recipes for such foods. As use2199 said they will involve boiling the jars for a while to kill things.
An excellent resource is the Ball Blue Book that can often be found near the canning supplies in grocery stores. It always calls for Ball products of course but it has a ton of good canning recipes and instructions.
Don't experiment. Botulism is not a fun thing. Your lips get tingly and then you die shortly aftwards.
The best online resource is the National Center for Home Food Preservation. They give clear instructions on how to can many, many types of food safely. http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/how/can_home.html
Do acid really kill the spores? Doesn't it merely stop/slow the growth?
@citizen- oops- yes. That should be that the bacterium can't survive not that it kills the spores. Fixed.
Salsa, tomato sauce, and various pickled vegetables are typically all you can do if you want to have a shelf stable product using a boiling water bath. Nowadays, many recipes add extra acid (vinegar or lemon juice typically) to tomato products to make sure that botulism spores can not grow because tomatoes today have been breed to be sweeter than in days past.
Freeze the food or spring for the pressure canner if you want to do low acid vegetables, meat, soups or stews.
Here are the things I'd have liked to know before I tried hot water canning:
It's not as straightforward as it sounds. In addition to a large pot of boiling water and canning jars, you'll need a special rack. You can buy a pot + rack combo, or just a rack that'll fit in a standard stockpot.
You'll also need special tongs; as I discovered, you can jury-rig something with thick rubber gloves and bbq tongs, but you'll get boiling water everywhere and be very frustrated. Just buy a kit online, they're cheap enough.
You'll be instructed to use the oven to sterilize the jars. You'll be instructed to use boiling water to sterilize the lids. Don't sterilize the rings that hold the lid in place; they don't touch the inside of the jar anyway, and sterilization will make them very hot when you try to screw them in.
Everything -- EVERYTHING -- involved in the canning process NEEDS to be kept hot at all times. Crack open a window; my kitchen got very uncomfortable once there were several pots of boiling water plus the stove all going at the same time.
I am working on a related question and I have discovered that there is an industrial process for canning at atmospheric pressure called "Flame Sterilization."
Flame Sterilization works using very high temperatures directed from one side, where the can is rotated rapidly to prevent one side of the internal contents from getting too hot. This is achieved, apparently, by rolling the cans through the sterilization chamber. The process is for low or high acid foods.
Because of the lack of pressurization, smaller, more robust cans are used that can withstand the high internal pressure generated.
However, should there be some kind of failure, for example a blockage preventing the cans from running through the chamber, the batch is at risk. This means that over the years in the USA at least the Flame Sterilization process is now little used.
Apparently it used to be popular with small tinned preserved mushrooms.
What it does mean is that if this process is still being used somewhere in the world, then there is a supplier of cans intended for flame sterilization and resistant to explosion from internal pressures of 120C steam.
If you can find a supplier of cans for flame sterilization I would like to know, as this means that canning will be possible in an oil bath regulated at 120 or 130C.
The "Hot Water Bath" method involves completely submerging and heating jars in boiling water for 5 to 85 minutes, depending on the type and amount of food.
Be aware that this method, unlike pressurised canning, will not kill Clostridium botulinum, so it may only be used for highly acidic food (with a pH of 4.6 or less) unless the jars will be stored at low temperature (below 3 degrees C or 38 degrees F).
I don't have a pressure canner either, so whatever I have that's not safe to can, I freeze in freezer jars. (which I got on sale for less than three bucks for three last month)
With chili I have never had to use a pressure canner. I have always filled jar to the rim made sure there were no air bubbles tightened the lid and refrigerated after it cooled slightly
That you never had problems does not make skipping propper and tested canning methods safe, it makes you lucky. And this unfortunately does not answer the question. Storing filled jars in the refrigerator for a few days is perfectly safe, yet not "canning".
I grew when there was NO pressure canners AT ALL. My Mother did EVERYTHING in huge kettle boiling water. Vegies, fruits, berries, compotes, soups,fish, meats, mushrooms. Fish, mushrooms, meats were cooked before to desire recipes, then then placed into jars and boiled inside kettle for amount of time.
We never got sick, and it all can be done.
You were fine, and probably quite a lot of people were, but people also used to die of botulism before canning practices became safer. That doesn't make what you did safe; it makes you lucky.
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7823 | Does polenta freeze well?
Does freezing polenta substantially change its consistency? I like polenta but would prefer to make it in batches instead of every time I want to eat it. After I make it, I usually let it cool, cut it into shapes, and then pan-fry it.
Looking forward to other people's answers on this one. I've had some negative results, but I also think I've left it in the freezer too long, like many months.
Sounds like you want to pop frozen slices into a frying pan? That should work just fine. The slicing allows for quick freezing, which decreases the size of water crystals and the effect they have on food. And quick frying keeps the disturbance of the polenta to a minimum.
In general, basic polenta should be fine, since starch, the many component to consider, responds alright to freezing. Recipes with cream make things more complicated. Freezing and reheating cream can lead to separation, so reheating a big block in a pan could leave you with pools of oil.
Sounds like polenta freezes very well for up to 3 months. It sounds like you need to make sure it cools to room temperature first, and as with everything you put in the freezer, make sure it's tightly wrapped.
Askville, Yahoo! Answers, and their ilk are of questionable quality and reliability.
I normally agree, but the first answers I found were from ChowHound, so I tend to think the answers are fairly accurate. http://goo.gl/0oxP
I'm thinking the Polenta with Braised Meatballs sold under the Top Chef name by Schwan's is also probably a good indication.
http://www.homecookingmemories.com/2010/02/top-chef-frozen-meal-polenta-with.html
In my student days I used to buy frozen polenta.
Yes the tube polenta says not to freeze but thy mean do not freeze while still in the package. I have frozen slices before and they are fine.
Scarpone Brand Polenta roll says specifically not to freeze
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120823 | What temperature should fruit pies be cooked to?
What's a good target internal temperature for fruit pies, for the fruit to be cooked? Most recommendations seem to be to have the filling bubbling, plus 5 minutes, but is there a more precise way to know when the pie is done?
Our family tradition is to always make fruit pies with the fruit still hot from cooking. It goes into the "raw" pastry hot, lid-on, then into the oven. Supposedly this keeps your pie-bottom firm.
I think there are three variables in fruit pies:
Amount of water
Amount of sugar
Amount of starch or pectin
Pectin will be activated by sugar and acid at below boiling temperatures, so seeing bubbling should indicate that the thickening caused by pectin has happened well beforehand. Therefore, the mix of water and sugar will modulate the boiling point to indicate done-ness. Since pie filling is less sweet than jam, take a look at this:
https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can_07/jam_without_pectin.html
So 220F seems like a high upper bound.
Therefore, I would expect a done fruit pie to be slightly above boiling, so maybe 215 F or 102 C?
Let me know how it goes!
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22549 | What is the most effective method for cooking a massive amount of sweet brown sushi rice
I have about 8 quarts of dry brown sushi rice and am looking to cook all or most of it to incorporate into a handful of dishes on the same day. What is the most effective way of cooking that much rice, minus a pressure cooker, that would allow me to prepare the rice Friday and make the dishes that night and Saturday during the day to serve at night?
Please include not only ideal kitchen hardware solutions (in case I can track it down), but more importantly likely stuff (i.e. I have a multi-gallon stock pot with lid).
If there are any additives that would give the rice better staying power (e.g. would adding oil/butter improve or diminish integrity) to make it 24 hours without turning to crap please include this.
Between Friday night and incorporation into dishes, as well for the sake of those dishes, I would like to know the best storage method for both the prepared rice, unmixed, as well as any peculiar caveats for mixing, if any.
If there are any not-so-common-sense problems that come screaming to mind that I might otherwise have thought to include please let me know as I have not done this before but am relying on multiple pounds of rice for the food I am making.
I'd cook it in a regular sauce pan, I guess you'll need a big one for your solution. Then add whatever additives you want (rice vinegar, Mirin ect). Then wrap the rice you're not going to use in cling film like onigiri and place in the fridge for the next day. This is a standard method for Japanese people who take lunch to work.
There are big rice cookers but unless you can rent one somehow (Japanese caterers perhaps?) then it'll cost you a couple hundred at least and you have potential problems with voltages and the language difference.
Definitely do not add oil or butter, I tried a similar thing once and it ruined the rice. Fat and Japanese rice do not go together.
The bigger issue are the dishes you are preparing the night before. Unless you wrap it in cling film it'll dry out also for sushi/sashimi you really should make sure it's fresh off the boat the morning it is served and never warms up.
Baking! I learned this on Good Eats and have used it to cook for a dozen people and it's as easy as working with a rice cooker. The recipe linked is for brown rice, but I've used it for sushi rice as well which would just call for different proportion of water and shorter cook time. Also, skip the butter, of course.
The recipe also mentions a glass dish, but I've used metal hotel pans and they work great as well.
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1109 | What fish have deliciously edible skins?
I love salmon skins, especially when fried or oven roasted. I also always eat the skin when I have a filet.
What other fish have deliciously yummy skins that can stand on their own like a salmon skin can?
Are there fish whose skins are generally avoided? Examples?
Trout - fried in butter with almond chips. Simple, quick, utterly sublime...
The skin of all the small fish I have tried is delicious. I have never tried, e.g. tuna skin, and I imagine that it is too tough and I also wouldn't eat shark skin. Back when I used to eat fish, I always ate the skin, and found it to be the best part. Beware, though, as while the skin concentrates the deliciousness, it also concentrates the mercury and other contaminants, so you may consider limiting your intake.
Salmon skin is also really delicious crisped up and mixed into sushi rolls, if you're into making that kind of stuff at home. I usually just put in the salmon skin, rice, and a little bit of avocado.
Striped Bass and Red Snapper have great skin which you can leave on when preparing fish, and then let crisp up and eat with the fillet.
What about eaten without the fish? Can they stand on their own?
Halibut skin is great by itself. I had it out here where my brother cooks, and it was fantastic. The skin is thick enough that, when baked for a while, it can stand on its own like a cracker. That's how they served it at The Willows: baked until crisp, then topped with dollops of a clam puree and a dusting of powdered wakame. It probably wouldn't be too difficult to make something similar in a home kitchen.
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1844 | What methods are there of getting fresh local meat & produce?
I often go to Whole Foods, but I feel like I'm getting ripped off there. I can walk out having spent $120 on a single bag of groceries. I try to get to a Farmer's Market occasionally, but not often enough I guess.
Are there other ways to buy as close to the farm as possible?
You can look for a CSA in your area, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community-supported_agriculture:
CSAs consist of a system of weekly delivery
or pick-up of vegetables and fruit in
a vegetable box scheme, sometimes
including dairy products and meat.
You can use http://www.localharvest.org/csa/ to try to find one in your area.
Oh wow. This seems right up my alley.
Have you done this before Nick? How is the cost compared to a grocery store?
I haven't, but a lot of my friends and coworkers do it. Cost is my area (Philadelphia) is around $30/week, but you typically pay for the season, so several weeks in advance. So, definitely comparable if not cheaper than the store. Only problem is that you don't get to choose what you get, so you might wind up with a weeks worth of eggplant.
I receive produce from a CSA (http://www.theproducebox.com/), and think it's WELL worth it. In a recent blog post, I compared the cost to the grocery store, and it's very close. If you're interested, I also blog my menu each week, since as Nick mentioned you don't get to choose what you get & have to get a bit creative.
Additional benefit: since you don't know what you get, you'll have to learn and improvise - which will lead you to new recipes for food you've never cooked before!
I've had friends and family go in on "buying a cow" from a farm.
You order a whole cow from them, they will get it butchered and you get all the various cuts from it, ground beef, etc.
You can do it yourself and fill up a big chest freezer and thaw as you go.
If you have other people in your area interested, you could always buy together, divide up the goods and that way be able to order more frequently with less freezer usage.
Here is an article about it hitting on some good points
http://www.culinate.com/articles/culinate8/cow_sharing
What if you can get the milk for free?
Well, most farmers don't give their milk for free, and I think would really have issue with you taking various parts off their cows to eat :).
Most of the places I know will sell a half cow, if they have two interested parties. The problem is when you get to smaller lots than that, it's not as easy to divvy evenly. Some farmers use butchers that will cryovac, but not all will.
Similar to @Nick's CSA suggestion, I've got friends who formed a (sort of) food conglomerate.
It needs to be a decent size (4 - 8 families). Once a week, one family goes to the wholesale markets and buys the fruit & veg for all families.
Its one of those things where it is financially cheaper, but time and resource expensive. (8 families of fruit is a lot of apples and wont fit on your backseat)
Once you have your routine down, it is very effective!
Just taking the "produce" part of your question, what about growing your own? Even if you don't have a lot of garden most sources of advice for novice gardeners will talk about how to make the most of even limited space.
Foodies & cooks will want to focus on:
a) produce which tastes substantially better homegrown e.g.:
tomatoes (especially)
strawberries
cucumbers
peas
b) produce which is expensive and/or stores badly, so that having a fresh and abundant supply outside the kitchen door is really a cook's delight e.g.:
herbs
lettuce
rocket
beans
For these reasons I tend not to bother too much with cabbage, leeks, potatoes, onions, courgettes (arguably) etc all of which are cheap and store well and taste decent from the shops. But I got into an argument the other day with someone who reckoned I had onions completely wrong and didn't I know homegrown onions were divine. So I could be wrong.
I live in a tiny apartment in Chicago. I wish I could grow my own.
too bad. hope some of the other answers have helped.
Really, a Farmer's Market is your best choice. You need to start going there more than "occasionally" :)
You have full control on what you are getting (unlike a CSA), you can taste the same produce (e.g. a Peach) sold by different vendors and decide who has the best tasting one, etc. etc.
@hobodave, your profile says "Chicago, IL" -- here is a website I found with a list of Farmer's markets in Chicago:
http://www.explorechicago.org/city/en/things_see_do/event_landing/special_events/mose/chicago_farmers_market.html
Yea I've actually been to a handful of those. The problem with the occasional bit is I have a hard time waking up before noon on a weekend. :-\
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1901 | Shredded Coconut as a Substitute for...?
I had a recipe that called for unsweetened shredded coconut and the only package I could find brought a TON of it. I ended up not caring for the recipe so now I have all this extra shredded coconut. Since it is unsweetened, it isn't what most dessert recipes call for. What, if anything, can I use this product as a substitute for? I have tried using it in place of bread crumbs but other ideas would be appreciated.
This is a super old question and there has already been an accepted answer, but a lot of south Indian dishes use shredded coconut, maybe you could look into that?
My wife loves it toasted. Toast shredded coconut in a dry pan or oven and put on ice cream and other deserts. It's really tasty. Like toasting other nuts be careful as if you blink it may burn.
TOASTED COCONUT CREAM PIE! I hate shredded coconut, but toasted... and in pie... it ain't so bad. I toast it in a bit of butter and then just finish making the cream filling in the same pan.
It's not a substitution, but if you're a fan of coconut, you can make coconut ice cream, or coconut sorbet for those who can't do dairy.
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8599 | Substituting with Bacon and Bacon Fat in a Recipe
I've been thinking about throwing cooked bacon into various recipes like candy and bread. Are there any general guidelines for adjusting the recipes for handling this addition? For example, should I lessen the amount of fat or salt to adjust for the same coming from the bacon?
On the same note, what fats can I substitute bacon fat for? I know it is a liquid when heated up but solid in the fridge. Does it work in place of butter, oil, etc?
I used bacon in cookies with great success. I started by putting the bacon in a roasting tray and covering with brown sugar. Throw it in the oven. Half way through, flip the bacon and add more brown sugar. Dice it small and then throw it in cookies with chocolate chips. Delicious.
+1 on the question for something I've never considered doing, +1 for yossarian because that sounds delicious and crazy at the same time. I hope I am adventurous enough to try this...!
Bacon fat is a liquid and salty, adjust both in your recipes (unless you want moist or salty)
Baking is pickier about fat ratios (so swap other fats out), and cooking is less picky (more fat is usually just tastier)
Bacon fat does solidify at room temperature, but in small quantities can be used to replace any oil (I often use it to sweat onions)
You can use the creamier texture of bacon fat in soups and sauces for a super mouth feel
For what it's worth, I save and add bacon fat to many dishes. Soup (as mentioned), starting stocks, savoury pancakes, meat balls/hamburger patties/meatloaf, dips.
In terms of chemistry, I don't think there is much special about bacon grease as opposed to any other animal-derived fat product (melted fatback, lard, whatever). It's purely about that salty smoky taste.
Not much that has that flavor except bacon, but the flavor itself isn't critical (though it is damn tasty). I'd just accent some other flavor in the dish, and add more salt than the recipe calls for. Won't be the same, but it shouldn't be too bad either.
I know this is over 3 years later, but since you're still around... I think you misread the question. He wants to add bacon, not remove it! :)
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15238 | Serving a Whole Pig
I ordered a roast whole pig from a local meat market. They've told me that when I pick it up, it'll be fully cooked and in a foil lined box. My concern is what do I do from there? Is there going to be a lot of butchering involved to get portions off for each guest or is it easy enough to grab a hunk of meat and slap it on your plate?
It really depends on your audience and setting.
With a Filipino Lechon, it's served communally and eaten as pulled pork, so it's expected that you'll just plunk it down on a side table, and people will crack through the crisp, almost hard, skin and pull servings for themselves with tongs or forks. And they'll go for the whole thing, skin, ears, jowls and all (most people I know don't eat the ears, but they may crunch the crispy skin off them).
A similar thing is done with a country-style hog roast. Those may be skinned before serving, but generally you're responsible for pulling or slicing what you want right off the hog (and usually throwing it on a cheapo burger bun).
In both of these settings there are almost always some people who don't want to dig right into the pig out of squeamishness or out of fear of getting some part that's not nice to eat. The good host will periodically pull some of the good stuff onto a platter for those folks.
If you're doing something more formal, I guess you'd want to section it like Foodrules suggests.
The market where we bought it from had us cut through the skin on one side, open it and then leave it for people to pull out what they wanted with tongs. Once that half was done, we opened the other side.
Your question is fairly difficult to answer via this forum, but I will try
Cut the head off
Cut the legs off and try to cut near the joint, so it will come off nicely (I must admit it's hard to describe how to do it here). The end result should be two nice pork knuckles.
Cut the middle of the big where the spine is
Once you cut the pig in two big parts, you would see some bones (where the ribs are) attached it. You should see some space there where you can cut the ribs off, so you will get some nice ribs with a bit of meat and fat there.
After that, it's a matter of your choice how you divide up the rest of the pork.
I hope I have given you some ideas, but may not be very detailed descriptions.
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24244 | What is the cellular activity behind massaged greens?
Most recipes I have seen and used call for greens (kale, chard, collard, turnip, beet, etc) to be massaged in salt and/or lemon juice (or other acidic liquid) for 3-5 minutes, resulting in a dense leafy salad. The preparation is fantastic as it takes away the sharpness of raw greens while keeping them raw, and in a fraction of the time.
As the textural and taste characteristics are more akin to cooked greens (less strong in flavor, crisp but not tough to the tooth) than eating them raw, I would like to know how massaging greens works at a cellular level to achieve these results.
What happens to the greens to affect this change?
Is the physical manipulation what causes the change?
Does the addition of salt or vinegar or lemon juice actually have a chemical or physical effect, or are these elements to benefit the flavor?
The physical massaging of the greens starts to break down the cell walls (made of mainly cellulose in plants), rendering the greens more tender. The addition of salt could be to help draw our more moisture from the greens, or it could just be for seasoning like vinegar or lemon juice.
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9671 | How to substitute flour with nutritional yeast
I am planning on making a pretty standard (read: whichever pops up first in Google) recipe for Broccoli Cheddar soup; i.e. brocolli, cheddar, chicken stock, and about 1/2 cup flour per 4 bowls of soup.
To try to reduce using that much bleached flour, I would like to substitute nutritional yeast. Obviously the flavor will be sufficiently similar without taking away from the flavor of broccoli and cheddar (and the stock is pretty potent so I'm also not worried about that) so I am not worried about using too much nutritional yeast.
To achieve the effect of 1/2 cup flour thickening, what is an approximate ratio for the same effect with nutritional yeast? Also, I have noticed with other dishes that, unlikely the grainy/clotty results of flour, nutritional yeast can be added after the fact without whisking. But in a case like this, am I still better off whisking it in at the beginning?
Don't have an answer for your main question, just the last part- if you cook the NY at too high a temperature for too long, you'll lose nutritional value. Just something to take into account.
You can avoid grainy/clotty flour by making it into a roux before adding it to whatever you want to thicken. I wouldn't expect sprinkling plain flour into a soup to work very well. (I have no idea what to do with yeast, though)
@Bob Right, I was still planning on making a roux for whatever flour I still end up using (I want some for the starchiness texture NY doesn't quite match) at the outset of the base rather than just dumping it in the broth.
@mfg I've never used NY before, but I think your best option is to just start with about 1/4 cup and mix more in a little bit at a time until you get the consistency you want. Assuming nobody comes up with a real answer, that is.
To be honest my comment is predicated by the fact that I think NY is possibly the nastiest tasting stuff on the planet. My wife made me drink it for awhile in protein shakes. Why not just use unbleached organic flour?
@Var wow, sorry to hear about that. It's not so bad blended in with other stuff; but after awhile of drinking it straight I'm sure you could spot it if you were drinking bleach.
Incidently, vegans use nutritional yeast as a cheese substitute with a bit of modification, similar in ingredient terms to using dried parmesan.
I don't see a whole lot out there about using NY as a thickening agent, but I often use potato flakes in soups to help give a slightly thickened texture, or I will puree other ingredients (broccoli stems for instance)
@foo I wish I would have considered that prior; do you cook the broccoli stems first then puree?
@mfg, yep, just either steam or boil, they don't have to be completely cooked all the way, but it helps to tenderize them a bit first so that you get a good puree. Still want to make sure to clean up the outside and get rid of some of the tougher fiberous parts though.
I think this is not such a good idea. It is going to take a lot of nutritional yeast to get anything like the thickening power of flour. If you really want to thicken this with less flour, there are plenty of other things that will do the trick, like xanthan gum, potato starch, corn starch, ultra-tex, some formulations of methylcellulose, etc. Just add however much nutritional yeast you want for flavor or health reasons, and get your thickening elsewhere.
Found it out last night; I hadn't relied on it for any thickening and I used the recipe's flour measurements. Not only did it not do much to thicken the soup, the concentrated flavor caused me to need to double the almond milk by starting a second flour roux (thus adding more flour, not replacing) and then whisking what soup I had made into the second base. Wow does my wrist hurt today.
Sorry, I should have answered you sooner! I thought off and on all day about how to say it nicely :).
agreed. but be aware that starches don't have much flavor (I love corn starch or rice flour for this), but does still require cooking and can be harder to mix in without causing clumping.
np, I appreciate the reply; and @zan I also used some corn starch towards the end for that finer level of thickening
Oh, some varieties of NY are quite an absorptive thickener (pulling water from what they are mixed with), but they do not create a gel like starches do...
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10873 | How to make my pasta less brown?
I really like making pasta, but I've found that most of my recipes have these sorts of ingredients:
Pale yellow pasta
Brown mushrooms
Brown tempeh or tofu (or ground beef if you prefer)
Spices that make things even more brown (generally allspice, garlic, oregano, and thyme)
What I noticed is that it always ends up all brown. It tastes great, but I'd like to make things more exciting looking. Obviously I could add tomato sauce, but I'm not always in the mood for that. The other ideas I have a spinach or basil. I'll probably start adding some spinach, but basil is pretty expensive here.
Is there anything else I can add to my pasta to add different colors? Cheap is definitely a plus in this case, but any ideas would be interesting (there's always special occasions).
In response to the expensive basil: You might consider buying a small basil plant. I bought one from a grocery store for $4 and it probably provided close to $20 or $30 worth of basil. Plus, I didn't have to use it all at once since it stayed alive on the plant. You just need to water it every other day depending on the weather. I just kept mine in a window sil.
I don't even spend $4 for basil ... I buy a packet of seeds each spring, sprout some, and then give lots away to friends & co-workers. Last year, it even came back in the container where I grow it, so I didn't even buy seeds.
My parents used to grow insane amounts of basil for me in their garden, but all of my attempts to grow it myself have failed miserably :(
I just wanted to comment that I've been adding asparagus recently.
For cooking in with the pasta, consider red or yellow bell peppers, carrots, cauliflower or other vegetables that hold their color well when heated. Also, you can help this problem a lot with good, flavorful, beautiful garnishes. Even a simple shower of minced parsley goes a long way. Lemon or orange zest is nice too.
Check out this peppery red-wine capellini from my blog, you'll see how the quick, fresh garnish of cherry tomatoes and parsley turns a brown pasta bright (and maybe learn a new way to cook pasta too).
That dish does look nice. Garnishes are definitely a great idea that I somehow didn't think of.
I think Michael already covered a lot of good ideas if you're sticking with wheat/egg pasta. If you want to change the color of the pasta itself - to give yourself a new canvas to paint on - you could:
Try squid ink pasta. Though, I'm not sure the best ways to find it.
Try thin rice noodles or glass noodles that I assume you can get at big grocery stores or Asian grocery stores.
Besides vegetables, which have already been mentioned (I'm partial to brocolli myself, and peas in primavera, or even some julienned raw bell pepper at the end for extra crunch, not all spices are brown --
A dusting of paprika when serving could add some extra color. I'd go with a sweet paprika if you're not a fan of heat, but I typically use hot, as not everyone I cook for likes heat, so it's something I can add on at the end.
If you don't mind bursts of heat, a sprinkle of crushed red pepper could add some interest.
For a completely non-brown sauce, you can make pesto with other nuts or herbs. Look online for either a flat-leaf parsley pesto or spinich pesto recipe, and consider walnuts or pistachios rather than pine nuts.
Also, vegetables don't have to hold up then cooked, if you add them at the end -- halve some cherry or grape tomatoes, or as cheap's an issue, diced roma or other tomato.
...
And, if you have the time and patience (lot of time, if you don't have a pasta roller or extruder), you can also make your own pasta in different colors.
I recently found a great way to deal with this. For each pound of pasta, I add a full bowl of frozen vegetables (brocolli, peas, asparagus, etc.). That way I get something delicious and filled with bright green color. It looks and tastes much better.
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9014 | Why let dough rise twice?
I'm just wondering, what's the point of letting dough rise twice? I've seen a bunch of recipes in the form:
Mix dough together and knead
Let it rise
Knead again
Let it rise again
Why do they do this? Doesn't kneading just push the air bubbles out?
why do these recipes have you knead again? Most recipes in the Bread Baker's Apprentice for the more rustic breads (Italian, French, etc. as opposed to sandwich bread) say to degass the dough as little as possible before the second rise.
This sounds like an easy/cheap experiment away from first-hand learning! Mix up a dough, divide in half, change one variable, see what happens. :)
Allowing dough to rise twice results in a finer gluten structure than allowing it to rise once. It results in a smaller crumb and prevents huge gaping airholes in your bread. The reason that you have to let it re-rise is that you just pushed all the air out with the kneading you did developing that gluten structure.
Wouldn't kneading it once, hard, create that gluten structure? I always find the bread will taste much more "yeasty" if you let it rise twice, so I only let it rise once.
@bobobobo - I only knead bread once as well, but I let it rise twice and usually also use a pre-ferment to help get even more of the rustic bread taste (that "yeasty" taste). On top of that, the gluten structure can be developed soley by allowing a long (18 hours or so) rise as propounded by the no-knead bread crowd.
I've tried the no-knead method a number of times and I don't like the sourbread taste it develops. I'll be trying ordinary kneading shortly.
Yup, stretches gluten more. Give less crumbly bread, unless you do something wrong.
One reason to do a second knead (and I'd do a real short, gentle one if required) is to redistribute the yeast a little, giving it fresh food to work on.
But I'm not sure I'd actually knead twice even if I wanted to do that--I'd lightly punch down and fold the bread in thirds and call it done.
As already said, the second rise does nice things for texture, and it also allows the yeast to grow longer, giving you more yeast flavor and converting more sugars from the flour giving you a nice flavor complexity. In my opinion, you can get the same effect by having a much longer (like overnight) cool rise in the first place.
Leavened bread just seems to taste and bake much better with two or more knead & rise cycles.
The knead process layers and stretches out the gluten to make a smooth, consistent texture which will hold together when baked; it also traps the yeast gas (CO2) as fine bubbles in the dough.
After the last knead you should transfer the dough to the pre-warmed container you are going to cook it in/on and let it rise in that.
With doughs that are slightly more oily or wet than standard bread dough you can cheat at use a standard food processor with its horizontal chop blade to knead. Just put all the pre-warmed ingredients into the processor and let it rip until it forms a smooth ball. This is great for pizza dough (100% whole meal flour and lots of olive oil). You have to hang onto the machine though, because as the dough starts to ball, the machine will walk off the bench!
I think you meant gluten as that is what gives bread it's structure not the starch.
Traditional Neopolitan pizza dough does not contain oil. Other area pizza dough does, though.
@sarge_smith yes gluten not starch! Starch is the hardner?
It's more along the lines of the flesh while gluten is the bones. Starch can be a thickener and is often used that way. It is what creates the flavor and the second half of the structure.
I think letting the dough rise twice is based on the days of using only active dry yeast. With the instant yeast, it is just not necessary. I find that the second rise is never as high or as symmetrical, so I just quit doing it. I notice no difference in taste or texture at all. My bread does not have gaping holes unless I plan it that way.
I do use my bread machine for the kneading because I have tendonitis in my hands. (Maybe if you knead by hand, you need the second rise. I wouldn't know since I can't do that any more.) After the machine kneads the dough but before rising, I take out the dough and put it in a pan to rise over my smooth cooktop stove. I turn the heat on the stove up to 185° and cover the pan with the top of my cake storage container. The gentle heat from the bottom helps it to rise faster.
I just don't have the time or patience to spend all day making bread. I do like to bake it in the oven instead of the bread machine as the loaf is a much better shape, not so tall. Bread machines also start baking on a time schedule instead of when the dough is properly proofed, which can result in disaster.
Things have certainly changed these past 30 years. Just go try to find a 5 Lb sack of dark Rye flour,
I have read a lot of theories on this and only one makes sense to me.
You knead your dough again to redistribute the yeast in the bread
Commercial yeast is very concentrated, and if you don't allow for a second rise, you will have areas with very little yeast development and areas with high concentration of yeast (hence the air bubbles)
I should note that in Spain, the professional bakers learn to bake with what is called the "masa madre", which is an aged, well fermented bread dough. Since the yeast in this form can be knead evenly into the dough during the original kneading process, a second rise is not necessary.
In English bread made this way is called "sourdough" (the small bit of aged dough is called a sourdough starter) and is considered a distinct type of bread.
Here's a thought. I found this forum by asking that very question and then something popped into my head. The long the bread is allowed to rise (as in number of times) the more yeast is produced. The punch down does remove the air pockets so the bread isn't full of gaping holes.
Does this make sense?
Rising too fast will leaving gapiong holes as you see in baguettes. Sometimes that's not what you wan.
I have been baking homemade bread since my friend gave me a kitchen aid in November of last year, and I tried the experiment of proofing 1/2 the dough once and the other 1/2 twice. My experience was that the loaf that was proofed twice did, indeed, have a finer texture, but it was not noticeable enough for me to ever proof twice again!
A lot of the reasons for the second rise is the texture. The reason for a long fermentation is to not only enhance the flavor but develop the gluten structure. There are recipes that do not do anything but let the dough ferment and the longer the better.
I purchased a Bosch mixer and having this machine, the second rise the thing of the past for me. The developed gluten structure with a Bosch is amazing.
I have been making bread in every imaginable way possible for over forty years. With no help mixing and kneading other than the muscle that one has in his or her biceps and forearms.
I purchased Kitchen-aid mixer some thirty years ago and have been through three of them until I purchased a Bosch. I was grateful for the help the machine gave me. I always did the two proofing method and was satisfied I was getting the best product. Then the Bosch was the lasting decision breaker for me. I knead for 10 min with the machine and rolled the dough into loaves and let them rise. the bread is unbelievably supple and delicious. This is even after I freeze all my loaves before eating.
I guess what ever your process is, either by hand or machine do a thorough job on of kneading and developing the elasticity in the dough. If you have a Kitchen-aid knead for at least 10 min and continue the kneading process for 5 extra min after you take it from the bow and you will be able to skip the second knead. If this seems to much, do two raises.
I make challah -- A LOT! I found that letting it rise twice killed the nice puffy cord appearance that is the trademark of this bread. I mean, it tasted fine but it lost its distinct bursting at the seams look, making it less inviting. So, I started going with one rise, punch down and braid, then straight in the oven. The fact is bread keeps rising a bit even in the oven, until it is fully baked. So, by letting that last rise action happen during baking instead of before, the loaf benefits from very distinct and appealing ropes. I do not believe any of the people on this thread who say they knead and rise three times. Dough can be overworked and turn into a rock. Not just pie dough, either.
I will, as usual, suggest experimentation.
At times, I make bread, knead it, form it, drop in in a pan, let it rise once, and bake it. It's expedient. It's bread, and usually quite decent bread at that.
Other times I rise and punch down/re-knead a bit 1, 2 or even 3 times.
Other days I make a wet sloppy mess I can't really knead and pour/scape it into the pan.
It's all bread. Some of it is not as different as you might expect; some is.
For a "more controlled than is often the case" experiment, make dough to support 2-3 loaves and:
put one in the pan directly
rise the remainder, punch down (if you made enough for 3, divide again) and put in pan
give the third another rise before panning it.
Somewhat inefficient of time and oven fuel but it lets you see what differences there are (and are not) starting from exactly the same dough.
In regards to one rise or 2 rises this is my opinion based on personal experimentation:
A- if you want to make French baguette, knead once by hand or in a mixer, allow the dough to rest for half hour, fold it in thirds and then shape it into baguettes and place each in the cooking tray. Allow to rise and double in size then bake in the oven. This will give you a large gaping holes which is a holemark for real authentic French baguettes: the lighter the better.
B- if you want to make bread, for example, French bread or Italian bread that you are going to slice it and make sandwiches from, then you don't want to have large gaping holes so you would need to let it rise twice. This will also create crumb that is not very elastic and easier to chew. For that you don't need to knead the dough because the second rise will allow the gluten to develop.
So in summary, one rise is enough if you want a large gaping holes and you would need to knead the dough first in order to develop the gluten which is important to support the risen dough. If you want small holes and easy to chew crumb you would need 2 rises and you don't need to knead.
Any comments are welcome.
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9090 | What makes white chili white?
What makes white chili white; is it just the lack of tomatoes, substitution of broth for tomato base? I am working on a vegan mushroom based chili and am wondering if it would technically be a (chili) or more accurately a soup/stew.
Uses white meat (white meat of chicken or turkey)?
Probably also common to use white beans or maybe black-eyed peas instead of pinto or kidney. (Of course, purist Texans say real chili doesn't have beans at all, but talking about vegan white chili puts us pretty far from that.)
Good point that white chili wouldn't have red meat, which will color the stew. It could, though, have pork instead of poultry and still come out white. Of course in this case there's no meat at all.
My understanding is that what many people call white chili would be considered a green chile stew in a place like New Mexico. It's not red in color because it doesn't have any significant amount of dried red chile in it--it gets whatever heat and chile flavor it has from green chile, which doesn't color the stew significantly.
As to defining chili, I think you could work on a definition forever. Apart from the notion that a chile is the pepper, which is the main ingredient, and chili is the dish, I don't like to define it too carefully (of course, New Mexicans think the dish is chile too, but what they have is different from Texas chili, even when they use red chiles).
I think chili is a stew, though. Most stew isn't chili, but all chili is stew. And I believe that for most people to accept what you're making as chili, it would have to include a significant dose of dried red chile powder.
So if you can accept the validity of white chili at all, and what you're making has almost all green chiles and very little red chile, then I'd say you're making a white chili. Or a green chile stew--which would be my preferential term in this case.
Btw @ bike I do like your answer, but I am giving the question a little more time to see if anyone else has maybe a good explanation on what white chili is, as opposed to what it isn't. I am not sure about the [red due to red chiles] definition of chili generally, but I think youre spot on about it being a New Mexico related type thing.
In my experience there are two key differences between "regular chili" and "white chili":
white chili is basically a collection of good bits in a spicy and, often, creamy sauce.
All of those bits are light colored, or at least don't leech any color to the sauce.
White chili typically also seems to have a different style of heat... cumin, cilantro, fresh green chiles, etc.
And while I wouldn't disagree about pork based chili being able to be white... I don't think I've ever seen one... they're almost always poultry or seafood (rare, but I have seen it a couple times during lent) if they aren't vegetarian.
Green chile stew (again, a New Mexico thing) often has pork in it, and apart from the pieces of green chile it's pretty much all white. One could argue forever that it's not actually white chili, I suppose, but it has all the hallmarks in my book.
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8588 | How to Pair for Beer Tastings
I am no sommelier, however I understand that while drinking or tasting wines a suitable matching food-stuff (be it a cheese, herb, etc) should be paired to fully engage the drink.
Is there a similar practice to observe with respect to beers? If so, are there any informational resources for the various beers and beer styles? One brewery in particular has some amazing flavor profiles for their beers; but what do you couple with coriander, grains of paradise, and leather?
Beer pairing dinners in my area seem to be on the rise as more craft beer-centric establishments show up. This may not be true across the world, but I see this practice becoming increasingly common.
BeerAdvocate, a noted resource amongst all the beer fanatics I know, has a guide to pairing and another specific guide for pairing with cheese.
Epicurious, home of magazine content from Gourmet, Bon Appetite, and others, has a guide to how to pair that relates beer to wine.
Brewers Association, a group of craft brewers and organization to advocate for craft breweries, has a guide to pairings with information from a published cookbook. Their online store has several titles that may provide interesting resources.
The Epicurious link is interesting. It goes more for matching beer to your food but it's an interesting read nonetheless. The beer advocate guide on cheese though is fantastic. I am intrigued by the one suggestion "Gorgonzola and Creamy Blues meld well with Barleywines." I thought the only thing that goes with Barleywine was spinning headaches.
May I suggest experimenting with beer & chocolate pairings? You can look for obvious overlap between darkness, fruitiness, bitterness and so on - or attempt opposites for more radical comparisons.
I hear this suggestion often but I've always found beer and chocolate to be a detestable pairing despite the flavour characteristics they have in common. There's probably some amount of personal taste factoring into this, but nevertheless, I've always thought of this pairing as an example of where the theoretical model doesn't seem to accurately predict reality...
There are a few--very smooth--dark ales and stouts that I like with chocolate, but for the most part, no.
I'll try and remember to mention it here next time I find a felicitous combination. I've found some that I thought were knockouts, but unfortunately lack the discipline to write them down :(. @dmckee, I agree that the darkest beers are the place to look.
I would expect almost any Russian Imperial would go well with chocolate. What would be repulsive would be something that is heavily hopped (esp. with Cascade hops). For roastier malts I suspect they would blend like coffee. I used Rasputin and Dark Bitter Chocolate as the base for a vegan chili recently and the built off each other very well. Granted, stewing the two flavors together is very different from adding both to the palate; but I did enjoy munching on them together with the peppers as I prepped.
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