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7996 | Sauteed fresh pasta?
I'm making fresh pasta and I'd like to put garlic in it. The problem is that garlic needs to be sauteed to taste good right? Since it doesn't take long to cook fresh pasta, will it work to just saute the pasta instead of boiling it?
You can avoid the problem simply by leaving the pasta very hard (al dente), given that the fresh pasta cooks in about 4 minutes you should drain it at 3 minutes, and finish cooking sautèeing (you should save some of the cooking water to add if it gets too much dry). This technique (mantecatura) is used in a lot of pasta recipes to obtain a deeper flavour or to obtain creamy sauces.
Thanks, that sounds like the best way way to get what I want.
I don't know if that will work, but it certainly isn't the traditional method. The normal way you would do this is to saute the garlic in butter (oil if you want, but generally fresh pasta pairs better with butter), then toss that with the quickly boiled pasta.
You need to boil pasta, not because this cooks it but because it rehydrates it, so sauteeing it would be as effective as baking it in the oven. I do pasta like this with garlic like so: Boil the pasta until it's done then drain it. Leave the hot pasta in the collander while you sautee crushed garlic in olive oil (I add a crushed dried chilli). The best method for the garlic is to heat the oil, remove from the heat then add the garlic, so you don't overcook it. Your pasta will have dried out a but by this time so will be ready to soak up the garlic flavoured oil.
It will "work" in that your pasta will be cooked, but it won't be the same as boiling it.
I would suggest boiling your pasta as normal, and tossing it in the oil afterwards.
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13517 | Can I substitute mint tea for fresh mint?
I've been interested in making tabouli, but the "fresh mint" part is incredibly expensive where I live. Since I have a huge bag of loose leaf mint tea (nothing but mint), I was wondering if I could use that instead. Would that work? I assume adding the boiling water to it will re-hydrate it.
Also, how would I decide how much to use (for example, one recipe I was looking at said "1 cup fresh mint")?
Just curious, how much is a bunch of fresh mint where you are?
@eleven I'm curious too considering mint grows like a weed.
My mind boggles at the idea of mint--at least spearmint--being expensive. It grows like a weed. The main problem is preventing it from taking over!
I have always wondered how in anglosaxon speaking countries, people think that "mint" is always the same as "mint", just because it has the same name. In fact, spearmint tastes as different from peppermint as thymian from oregano. Almost all cooking recipes I know of are meant for spearmint, except for some sweet applications. All mint tea I have encountered is made from peppermint, not from spearmint. So while you can use dried spearmint instead of fresh mint, using mint tea is a bad idea, unless yours happens to be an exception made from spearmint.
You could try finding out if a herbs seller has dried spearmint, but you must remember that it has less aroma than fresh spearmint. Also, dried mint does approximate the aroma of the fresh one when used as a herb, but when used in big quantities (you mention 1 cup) as a vegetable on its own right, the substitution is much more problematic, because juiciness and texture are much more different.
I don't know about the situation where you live, but spearmint isn't used much in Western countries, except maybe England, so it is seldom available at supermarkets and costs a lot there. A better source are Turkish grocery shops, where it is as common as parsley, and the price is comparable. If there are Turkish shops nearby, it is definitely worth trying to find it there.
For a longer term solution, it might be a good idea to grow your own spearmint in pots. The plant is quite unassuming and easy to care for, and a kitchen which smells of fragrant herbs is nicer than one which smells of frying grease or cleaning products.
+1 for growing your own. It ease one of the easiest herbs and can find unexpected usage in even savory dishes.
Most "mint tea" in my area (near Philadelphia, US) is either spearmint alone, or sometimes spearmint mixed with tea. Around here, where it grows as a weed, "mint" in a culinary context almost always refers to spearmint, whereas if peppermint is intended, it would be specified as such. Examples: salad with goat cheese, figs, and mint; leg lamb with mint jelly; peppermint cookies; peppermint mocha.
I've dried homegrown mint, and used it in wintertime for tabouli and suchlike.
It works.
Don't add boiling water to rehydrate; that'll extract the flavor from the leaves, which is not what you want here. Just stir the leaves into enough cool water to make a thick glop, and let it sit for 30 minutes or so. Mix that into your bulgur.
Up the parsley to make up for the less than beautiful mint specks.
It won't be quite as good as in season mint, but this time of year you're probably using greenhouse tomatoes anyway.
Sure, for certain values of 'work'. Seriously though, dried mint is a pretty common addition to middle eastern yogurt dips and such. After the leaves hydrate the taste is fine.
It might work if you tried soaking the dried leaves in a liquid you intend to cook with, like your stock. It could not only reconstitute the texture of the leaves, but could also bring back some of the general freshness, and infuse the stock with the mint flavor you are trying to achieve. Sorry to say I would not know the proportions.
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7887 | Possible Pumpkin Flavors
I am hoping to try out cooking with pumpkin this year and only know a) not to buy jack-o-lantern varieties for cooking, and b) about making it into sweeter things like pies, cakes, cookies et cetera. I have seen recipes for roasting seeds and flavoring them to make them spicy (add red pepper, who'd have thought?), but I don't know what options I have as far as using the flesh/ground pumpkin to head more toward a savory dish. [Please note, I am particularly interested in vegan approaches, though all methods are welcome.]
Are there particular varieties better
for making savory dishes?
What flavor spectrum does the pumpkin
(raw, roasted...) lend itself toward
naturally or without much force? How do you coax those out?
There are terrific Thai pumpkin curries; the flavor profile would be garlic, ginger, lemongrass, coriander seed, cilantro, chiles, Thai basil. Here is one I did with Delicata squash that would work equally well with pumpkin: http://www.herbivoracious.com/2009/10/red-curry-delicata-squash-and-tofu-recipe.html .
Amazing, I wasn't even thinking of going there. I was hoping to pair it with some cranberry beans in a stew of sorts and I think this would be a great way of doing it.
+1- Pumpkin curries are one of my favorite parts of fall.
I like a spiced pumpkin risotto. I take a basic butternut squash risotto recipe substitute pumpkin and add ginger. I bake my pumpkin in 1 inch cubes with rosemary, cardamom, salt and pepper. If I am just cooking for my wife and I as opposed to cooking with my kids in mind, I add chiles to the risotto, it cuts some of the sweet out of the pumpkin.
edit: You could leave the cardamom out, I just really like the flavor so it is more of a personal choice.
I think cutting out a good portion of the sweet is rather essential; how does cardamom (which I do like) fare in the balance of sweet v. savory? Does it pick up more like nutmeg on the palate or like sage?
I would say it tends to balance more to the sweet as it is more commonly found in sweet dishes and picks up like a citrusy nutmeg on the pallette if such a comparison could be made. I really like the flavor with pumpkin and squashes which is really the only reason I include it in the recipe.
I'm definitely intrigued, and the food co-op near my house has quality spices in bulk so i could buy a tablespoon or two of it.
A different option is nuts. Pumpkin works great with walnuts, pecans, hazelnuts, ... There are nice tie-ins with e.g. mushrooms and goat cheese (not vegan, OK).
That's still a great option, especially as a side for the rest of us omnivores.
especially if you use butternut pumpkin!
In addition to what's already been mentioned (although, I admit I didn't watch the Iron Chef videos), if you're looking or savory, pumpkin works in a lot of places where you might use potatoes:
pumpkin gnocchi : use roasted mashed pumpkin in place of the potato; look for recipes online
roasted pumpkin : cube, toss with oil and salt (and maybe herbs & vinegar), roast alone or with other vegetables (eg, carrots, onion, garlic).
pumpkin waffles (or pancakes) : again, look online, there might be vegan versions.
pumpkin croquettes (fritters) : ditto, but I don't know how they'd bind without eggs
And of course:
pumpkin bread (or muffins) : lots of recipes online
... but just about any recipe that calls for acorn squash (unless it's used as a serving dish), or sweet potato might give you ideas.
Are there particular flavors/herbs/spices that incorporate well aside from nutmeg, or other spices that lend themselves toward sweet and away from savory? I.E. the idea of making a tableau of creamy curry
The original Iron Chef did a pumpkin battle, maybe there will be a replay on TV you could search for since we are in that time of year.
Should be some interesting ideas in there, been a long time since I saw that one.
Otherwise, here are some YouTube links for it
Part 1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6LGzJPqjsA
Part 2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xiMI7bk4RE
Part 3 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YI5jDPVDYfM
Part 4 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJCETXOnYU0
Part 5 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqgfhakBWQU
Good to know, I can always use an excuse to watch Iron Chef
massaman curry paste was made for pumpkin. Throw in some cashews for extra richness.
dark mexican mole sauce equally yum. celeriac would be a nice addition.
Guilin chili sauce straight out of the jar and smeared on roast/grilled pumpkin is an easy side-dish
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7894 | Cranberry Beans, probably any beans; medium-term storage options?
I am planning on cleaning out the lady at the farmer's market of her cranberry beans this Friday. I am hoping to use in three different recipes over the course of the next 6 weeks or so. They are sold fresh, in the pod. Obviously if they were dry or frozen I wouldn't be having this question, but since they are an heirloom I am wondering if they are temperamental, and what best practices are for preserving fresh beans medium-term.
How should I preserve them for use 4-6 weeks from now?
...and then Friday she didn't even have any cranberry beans
My recommendation would be to shell and wash the beans, blanch for 3-4 minutes then quickly plunge in an ice bath, drain and pat dry, and seal in a freezer bag (squeezing out as much excess air as possible).
I have done this with fresh green beans by cutting into 1-inch pieces and they lasted 3 months in the freezer with no problem. I realize cranberry beans are quite different, but I think the same method would apply and work well. I would think the cranberry beans would be less temperamental than regular green beans.
As an aside, I have similar plans and this is how I am going to try to store them long-term.
Well good luck to us! It's finally Friday and hopefully that vendor is out there :) . As an aside, I guess I will be making the dishes on Saturday next week so I may not need to worry too much, though I would like to hear how yours do for future reference.
I will keep you posted! Only one vendor was selling cranberry beans last time I went, I am hoping she is not out...but I plan to stock up on whatever I can get my hands on: peppers, beans, eggplant...whatever is left from summer!
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10003 | How do you calculate volume of pasta from its weight after cooking down?
I am hoping to make two 3 quart casserole dishes worth of macaroni and cheese. The recipe I have calls for using two pounds of pasta, but doesn't indicate the volume of food that it will yield after cooking down, or after combining with sauce.
Assuming I will use either small shells or fusilli (haven't bought the pasta yet because I don't know how much I will need), how do i translate poundage of pasta to volume?
Because of the different shapes, different pastas will occupy different volumes of space both before and after cooking.
There are two answers that readily occur to me, one simple one more complex.
The simple solution, of course, is just to make too much. Cook your pasta, put in the casseroles with sauce or adding the sauce after, depending on your recipe, and if you have too much (you should, you planned for it) let it cool, add mayo, mustard, onion, some pickle relish and make pasta salad. Or throw in soup. Or ....
Option two is to measure your pasta by volume when dry, assuming that it approximately doubles in size. So you'll need to fill one of your casseroles with dry pasta, and that should give you enough to make two casseroles worth, once you have cooked the pasta.
Thanks for how you phrased that, I found a site with dry to cooked conversions using 'doubles in size'; 2lbs = 8 cups uncooked = 16 cups cooked = 4 quarts cooked => I need 3 lbs for 6 quarts
@mfg: Keep in mind that whether or not it literally doubles in size depends on how much you cook it. If you really need to fill those dishes then I would err slightly on the side of caution and make a little bit more than you think you need. On the other hand, the cheese will occupy a fair amount of volume in and of itself, so don't make a ridiculous amount either unless you have something you can do with the leftovers.
@Aar @Doug I went with make a little too much, both of the pasta and the sauce. I made 3 pounds pasta (small shells) in a 4 quart pot. This gave me a nice control over size and when I combined the pasta and the cheese sauce to bake for 25 minutes the pasta expanded a bit in the oven (so it didn't have that too dense feel, nor over-cooked).
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1351 | Why isn't it safe to eat raw chicken?
Why is safe to eat some raw or undercooked meats like beef and fish (assuming you're careful), but not chicken? I know that there are bacteria in chicken, but are they in all chicken, or just so many that the only safe thing to do is assume they're all bad? If not, is there any way to get non-dangerous chicken (for say -- chicken sushi)?
Besides the safety aspect ... raw poultry has a rather odd texture that most people find unappetizing (possibly it's just a psychological thing with the link between undercooked poultry and food poisoning)
@Joe - Why not make this an answer?
@paperjam : because the question was about safety. My comment was about squimishness; they might be related (we react psychologically to many things that might be dangerous), but not liking the texture isn't a food safety issue.
@Joe - Ah, good point.
You can have raw chicken in restaurants in Japan - it's delicious. Depending on where you live there may be better or worse food safety standards, but there is nothing poisonous about raw chicken itself.
By the way, sushi is a dish with vinegary rice. The raw-meat dish is Sashimi. A picture of chicken sashimi:
You will note that in this photo the chicken is actually not raw but quite rare. The exterior of the chicken flesh is actually seared and cooked through several millimeters.
An anonymous user pointed out (in an edit I couldn't approve, as it would have been unfair to the original author) that while chicken meat itself is not poisonous, it can be contaminated with salmonella and other nasties.
I would argue that the chicken is cooked through by 1-2 millimeters only. Looks yummy though :)
If it's really really really fresh chicken that's been well-raised and well-handled, sure you can eat it raw. As has been mentioned, chicken sashimi is not unknown. The same applies to pork, another meat we're usually taught to cook thoroughly (historical associations there - pork was long known as a carrier of worms if not properly cooked, but this is less of an issue in modern times with good pork).
You might want to consider long and hard who your guests are before you serve up chicken sashimi at a dinner party though.
Less an issue of "good pork" as much the requirement that garbage fed to pigs has to be cooked, which was not always the case. Obviously better quality raising conditions make a difference, but we have more crowded, industrialized pork farms than we used to, so improvements (to the point of parasitic risk being pretty much eliminated) are probably more to the feed rules.
Yes, that would be one of the things required for "good pork" to be safe to eat raw. I'm not entirely sure how you'd verify it though, I just know that it is possible to source such meat from somewhere. Not sure I'm that keen on trying it though!
In this thread goblinbox makes a disturbing contribution that references a Consumer Reports article stating that 83% of US chickens are contaminated with salmonella and campylobacter.
That's a high enough percentage to scare me away.
Is raw chicken even appetizing to you? The thought of eating chicken sushi makes me queasy, but that just could be because we've been brought up with the knowledge that you don't eat raw chicken.
(+1) The salmonella is hard to avoid in the chicken's digestive system, so contamination of the meat is not uncommon.
@jbrcreix: I suggest reading the article. There's a lot more to it than the simple one sentence summary I gave it. Consumer Reports is a very reputable source.
@jbcreix. That's a very dangerous attitude unless you have a strong immune system. Children, sick, and elderly people, often have much stronger reactions to infection and can't risk it. Good that you can, though; I also don't worry about it and figure over time I've built up some immunity.
It has more to do with the industrial food system. If it's coming out of industrial agriculture, I don't think I'd eat any meat raw. If you can find a good local producer that does its own slaughtering, cleaning and packaging you could ask them about it. Their meat might be safe to eat raw. It just depends on where it comes from.
My rule of thumb is: if I can talk to the produce, slaughter and packager then I take their advice, otherwise I assume not safe until cooked.
Contrary to popular opinion, there's no correlation between organic/free range and lack of salmonella: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/iafp/jfp/2005/00000068/00000011/art00029
Notice, I said local. Not organic or free range. The implication being that you can talk to a producer, visit the farm and make the judgment for yourself. While, on average, organic certified or free range chickens may not be any better than industrially produced chickens, there are still some small farms that are significantly better. And unlike the industrialized food system, you are not at the mercy of chance when making a decision based on locally purchased meat. Second, the statistics don't surprise me, given the ease of receiving "organic" or "free range" certification.
The real issue is the water bath that the chickens go through in an industrial abattoir. Assume that 1 chicken in 1000 has enough bacteria to be dangerous, and that 500 chickens are all washed in the same bath. This would mean that 50% of all chickens have been cross contaminated. Now, whether there is sufficient bacterial transfer to cause problems is something I don't know. (All numbers in the comment were produced using a rectal number generator)
I suspect the average consumer wouldn't have a clue how to judge a farm operation for sanitation. :) I certainly wouldn't.
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37034 | Can I leave the okara in when making tofu?
I've started making tofu recently, and the one thing that bothers me is how much okara I end up throwing away. Since I'm not drinking the soy milk, and just turning it into tofu immediately, what's the problem with just leave the okara? I assume the tofu will be less flavorful, but it's not exactly strongly flavored to begin with. Will it mess up the coagulation process?
Might you like to edit your question to also ask "what can I do with the okara if I can't leave it in the tofu"? It seems like you're interested in that as well. (Or I suppose you could ask separately.)
The okara has some unextracted protein and sugar but it also has a large quantity of fiber. That fiber will prevent the protein from properly coagulating. If you leave in all the okara you get soybean porridge.
I imagine you could leave in a portion of the okara and you would get a fragile but hearty tofu. The problem with this is that, with most tofu recipes, the beans are not cooked long enough for the okara to be palatable. With all that sugar it would also give rise to much more flatulence.
You don't have to throw the okara out. There are many recipes that make use of the okara for its fiber. It is pretty straight forward to use it in baked goods. Toasting it gives it more interesting flavor.
If you want to look into tofu-like products that use the entire bean you could research tempeh. The whole beans are fermented so you get a meaty product with all the nutrition of the whole soy bean.
For those of us who don't know, okara is the the pulp left over after you extract the milk from pureed soybeans: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okara_%28food%29
It looked like tempeh is a lot of work, since you need to hold the temperature content perfectly for a long time :\
@Brendan- It is fermented so I agree it looks trickier than tofu but not worse than yogurt. It's on my list of things I want to try doing.
If you include the actual beans in the curds, it'll be edible, but it won't really be tofu.
(Edited to add: There are a couple of Japanese companies that produce a product called "Tofu with okara", but based on my reading of this article plus the help of awkward machine translation, it appears to be using okara treated with an enzyme in order to reduce the amount of waste product. Probably not the sort of thing you'll be able to replicate at home, but worth noting that you aren't the only one with this concern; okara consumption, and use in animal feed, has been declining in proportion to the level of consumption of tofu itself in Japan.)
Instead of throwing it away, why not use the okara in other dishes instead? I like to mix them with vegetables and seasoning (soy sauce, mirin, salt, or western seasonings if preferred) and deep fry them as "croquettes", which I serve with a tonkatsu sauce or similar. I've also made an okara burger from time to time.
I've also mixed them with some mushrooms, onions, carrots, celery and some vaguely Italian seasonings, deep fried them, then served them in tomato sauce. In my experience, they tasted nice the first day but didn't hold up as leftovers.
Okara can also be simmered with carrots, green vegetables, and perhaps some hijiki along with mirin, soy sauce and sugar and used as a side dish.
You can bake the okara at a low temperature in an oven to dry it out a bit, then use it in things like cookies. (May only appeal to Japanese sensibilities but they were popular in Japan for a few years).
I just mixed my latest batch of okara with an equal amount of diced chicken, some finely minced onion, peppers, and a bunch of spices. It made some very nice "burgers", the leftover ones likely to go into my current, ongoing batch of India style curry.
Been doing this since discovering I have elderly lactose intolerance, and make soymilk regularly.
Tempeh and soygurt are on the list, too.
The other answers explain why you don't leave them inside the tofu. Indeed, if you leave them in, the tofu won't coagulate; however, if you allow the okara to ferment, then you get something resembling fermented tofu.
In China, we often use okara/douzha to feed fish, birds, etc. (if you have one). We also use it to make liangban (cold-stir, "salad") dishes, so you might try adding it to salads.
You can also make "meatballs", or add it to pastry, etc. The opportunities are endless. I've also seen people use it as a crust for deep fried dishes!
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18403 | Counteracting a metallic taste in canned tomatoes?
I used some canned tomatoes to make chili, which normally works fine, but today it has a really strong metallic flavor. From what I can tell, this is just because they're probably low-quality, so I won't be using this brand again.
Anyway, is there anything I can do to save this chili? I didn't notice the flavor until I added everything else.
Agree to Walter, the metallic taste told you something and you should throw it out. I'd try to avoid eating canned things at all. You can boil fresh tomatoes instead, couldn't you?
Metallic taste is due to the tannins in the tomato pomace and skins. A pinch of baking soda will alleviate the problem.
Interesting! Can you link to a source?
Too much baking soda, though, will likely cause a metallic taste :)
the strong metallic taste is telling you something. This something is don't eat me. I suggest you listen. No, seriously, if it tastes like metal it is probably because some of the can material leached into the tomatoes. Although it might not hurt you, I still would not eat it.
A bit unscientific, but I tend to agree. Listen to your gut, failing that, your nose!
I've tried the baking soda and ruined the entire dish.. I would not suggest that.. I find a bit of brown sugar. and extra spices,, and cooking it like mad will reduce it.. I wont buy canned again as using fresh is the only answer here.. but those of us with cans in the pantry still want to use them up somehow..
The sugar and spices suggestion does sound reasonable. But I wouldn't say this means you should never buy canned - it just means you've probably found a brand to avoid. I've never had any problems with metallic tastes from cans.
Fresh tomatoes will likely be even more acidic since they are rarely as ripe as good quality canned brands. Given that you want acidity in most tomato based dishes, but want it in a balance, sugar (balances) will be better than soda (neutralizes). Watch Alton Brown's episode on tomato sauces and marvel at the boatload of sugar he adds! Btw, if something is BITTER in a dish - and some bitter tastes might be described as "metallic" ... the other "metallics" are alkaline (baking soda will make it worse), or actual metal (use a magnet idk) - SALT is what you want.
I find it hard to believe you could ruin an entire dish with a pinch of baking soda.
A little bit of baking soda will offset the pH of the tomatoes. Check out the relative pH of baking soda versus tomatoes and it should give you an idea of how much to use. Salt may also work. But in my experience, to get canned tomatoes tasting nice, you need to reduce them like crazy to break down the pectins and get the original flavor.
So the metallic taste is due to acid?
I think most people here are well aware of the acidity of tomatoes, but I don't see how that's relevant to this particular issue.
I am quite sure that this is not the issue. A metal is alkalic in itself. Metal taste is actually created when a metal reacts with more complex organic molecules, but no acid is involved at any point.
I was making green chili, I used oregano, onions, garlic, cumin, pork, fresh jalapeno, salt and pepper. I decided to add a little tomato puree (Hunts brand) and that is when the problem appeared, the metallic taste. I added sugar which did not solve the issue, I then added some chili powder which didn't change the taste. I really don't want to toss it. Maybe I will try a little vinegar. Thanks for all the tips.
While this is not a direct answer telling us what to do, I think it does contain valuable information for the readers: the answerer tried two more or less obvious ideas and they did not work. So I think we can leave it undeleted as a partial answer.
I agree with the "don't eat" answers.
But if you still want to save your chili and eat it, you can add some sugar, and cook for at least 20 mins more.
If you are using tomato paste, you absolutely have to let it cook for about 3-5 minutes before or for forever after you add the liquid. Tomato paste will, no matter how fresh, have a tinny/metallic taste to it. You have to cook that taste out before you add broth, tomato sauce, or water to it. At least that is what Rachel Ray says.
Generally accepted lore with tomato paste is that cooking it for about a minute will remove the sharpness. I have no experience of metallic taste myself. Making such bold claims without backing them up will earn peoploe downvotes around here.
Thanks for the answer, but I was asking about (whole) canned tomatoes, not tomato paste. I think the tomato paste flavor is something different than this metallic taste.
If anything, the version of that piece of lore that I am aware of is that you should not just cook, but fry the tomato paste with the aromatics.
I got that "tinney" taste from a pasta sauce that came out of a glass JAR! Usually a pinch of sugar does the trick but not today. After reading some of the above suggestions i decided on a pinch or two of baking soda and it worked like magic. Delicioso!!!
BTW: if canned tomato sauce tastes "tinney" it doesn't mean its gone bad. Canned food has been known to last over a hundred years.
http://www.prepper-resources.com/canned-food-expiration-date-myth/
Canned food has been known to turn bad, too. That canned food can last long, does not mean that a specific can cannot turn bad. Also, this answer does not provide anything new, baking soda was already suggested.
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7149 | Are there any substitutes for Shortening?
I was specifically thinking about the Crisco shortening that is used in baking.
You can use any neutral flavored oil, such as vegetable or canola oil. You can also use butter, but you may have to adjust for the amount of water present in the butter (about 20%), unless you're using clarified butter which is a 1:1 substitution.
Sir I believe you need to clarify your butter!
Butter, yes - vegetable or canola oil, not so much because they are liquid at room temperature, so when used for baked goods they produce a much different texture. (Compare a cake made with oil vs. butter - both can be good but very different.)
Lard. ... and to build on what @bmargulies said:
Other coconut oil, lard is one of the few fats that are solid at room temperature, and the only reason for using shortening in baking that I'm aware of is to get the little lumps of shortening mixed with the flour that don't melt until it's baked, which will result in a tender texture.
You can achieve the same thing with butter, but butter also has water in it, so you'll end up with some extra lift in the pastry, which isn't always desired for recipes that call for shortening. It also melts at a lower temp, so you have to start with it cold and work quickly.
... now, the other use of shortening in baking is for greasing pans -- again, it's because it's solid, so it'll stick to the sides of the pan. For that, you can often use canned cooking sprays, as they have surficants which will keep them from dripping.
Seconding lard. I wouldn't buy it in the store, as that's hydrogenated. you can read some good info on lard, health comparisons to butter, and how to render it yourself at home on Homesick Texan
An excellent substitute is coconut oil, because it is solid at room temperature. If you use vegetable oil, it will give the resulting baked good a much more oily texture.
I bet this isn't the answer you are looking for, but there's always lard.
Whole Foods sells an alternative to Crisco that I've used successfully. I don't have a tub here right now to get the brand.
I recommend clarified butter, especially if you clarify it yourself, or brown butter, especially if you brown it yourself. It takes a few minutes, and you need to let it cool down again before it becomes solid, which can take a few hours, but it lasts much longer than butter once you do these steps.
I've found it a much more flavorful alternative to shortening, and it offers most of the textural advantages.
I also suggest clarified butter which is sold as Ghee. It goes semi solid at room temperature and can be kept on the counter indefinitely.
I usually use applesauce instead of oil for banana bread. I was out one day so I used yogurt instead. It works great. I did an even exchange. One note, if you use Greek yogurt, decrease the amount because it will overpower the rest of your flavors.
That is more of a radical recipe change, changing the way the recipe works rather than what it works with, than a substitution. And it will succeed or fail just as radically dependent on other recipe details. Still undid the -1 someone gave because it CAN be something practical to do.
For me, tallow works well as a substitute in most recipes that call for shortening. I make my own tallow from grass fed beef.
Rendered bacon fat after it hardens. It's a tasty substitute.
Especially for cookies ;)
I always use applesauce in place of shortening in banana bread. Applesauce does not change the texture or flavor. I substitute it for equal measures of shortening.
Shortening gives baked goods the soft effect that butter would not. Some cookie recipes call for both to get the flakiness of a good cookie and the softening for the softening so it won't be to crispy. Lard will give you a stale flavor as it is a meat by product. And coconut oil does not have the same effect as shortening that I am aware of. We need a chemist, ALTON BROWN WHERE ARE YOU!!!!!! Lol.
Lard is generally considered to be a pretty neutral flavor...
There is an organic shortening just so you know...
I recommend coconut oil for the same reasons already posted. Then there is butter. Both of them have the same amount of calories. The same with organic olive oil.
I do not recommend canola oil if you are wanting to be organic. It is made from the rapeseed and the rapeseed is a genetically modified product.
Clarified butter will not spoil if it sits out just like shortening. But olive oil can go "smelly" after a couple of days which will affect the taste of your baked goods.
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22266 | What can I use instead of a tea towel?
I have a recipe for steaming seitan that involves wrapping the vital wheat gluten loaf in a tea towel, tying off the ends, and placing in the steaming basket.
I am good to go but for the tea towel. Unfortunately, I don't have any tea towels, nor do I have any that aren't either microfiber or bath towels with a fuzzy nap. I have one of cotton quilted fabric. What can I use as a surrogate tea towel?
Do you have a cloth napkin? They are pretty similar.
@Jay I don't but if you think that would be a good substitute why don't you put it as an answer
Whatever substitute you use, make sure it is fit for food use. If you go to a fabrics shop and buy a length of gingham, chances are it has been treated to make it more shiny, or less wrinkle-prone, etc. These treatments are made with different chemicals, including formaldehyde. And then there are the dyes - they may be OK for contact in your skin, but nobody tested if they leak nasties in prolonged contact with wet food.
Cheesecloth, canvas, broadcloth, or duck would all work well.
Will try cheesecloth tonight, bought some yesterday; hopefully it doesn't act more like a sieve
Can someone explain to me what's meant with 'duck'? I don't think we're talking about the bird here...
@Mien Duck is a type of canvas
@mfg I think a cheese cloth might be a bit too thin. It'll easily become saturated with water. I think the point of wrapping it is so it doesn't take in too much water.
Tea towels are traditionally made out of linen. It has a delicate weave that is ideal for drying delicate china without the risk of "scratching." A linen napkin although less delicate will most likely still be a very good substitute for the purpose of wrapping the vital wheat gluten loaf.
However, most cloths that have a simple weave without the "loop" weave found on terry clothes and bath towel would work just as well.
I don't own tea towels either. So I generally use extremely clean white t- shirts. They work for proofing dough and wrapping swiss roll cakes.
I tried this once with a tea towel and the slow cooker method of cooking seitan. When the loaf was done, even though the towel had been washed many times over 20 years, when I unrolled the loaf the outside of it had obviously taken on some of the ink from the design on the towel. It looked fine on the inside but I was chicken to try it. I now use cheese clothe doubled to wrap my seitan. YMMV
I once had a blue tea towel seep some dye on the outside edges of some fresh cheese I was letting drip-dry... being either more careless, or less worried, I just ate the cheese. no problems
Pure cotton or cotton/linen baby muslins work very well. They're a similar fabric to tea towels but a little thinner, and often white or even unbleached. They're a little thick to substitute for a cheesecloth though
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13768 | How do I cut bones in preparing a fast brown stock ("fond brun rapide")?
I tried to prepare the bone and skin from a ham shank for use as a kind of brown sauce or stock. The purpose was to fold the reduction into a beef/pork chili. I was very pleased with the flavor that resulted, but want to push it further. However, I had to use them whole and my guess is that the fast process and uncut nature of the bones made them less effective.
First I roasted the (hickory smoked) ham shank (meat and skin on) at 350'F for about 2 hours. Then I removed it and pulled off the meat and skin from the bone. I took an old boning knife and was able to separate the two bones from each other; covered with water (added some onions and salt etc) and boiled vigorously for about 3 1/2 hours (covered in a high-walled frying pan), replacing water as necessary. Shortly after beginning that, I kind of pan steamed the skin from the meat and added the meat to the chili and the skin to the stock pan. What resulted was a good broth.
Basically, I would like to know how I can take it from good broth to a demi-glace or essential oil; one pungent enough to be rendered with a roux or other thickener and incorporated into a chili. (Forgive me, there are better words for what I am asking; I just don't think I know them.) After the process I had about 8 ounces of the oily liquid, and per the scale of 4 quarts of chili the ham stock was just not as pronounced as I would have liked.
Any initial suggestions or red flags that my process may have brought to mind are appreciated.
The process I wanted to follow but couldn't (no cleaver, are they necessary?) involved cutting the bones into 1-2 inch segments and pan-frying those (instead of the two whole bones) then vigorously boiling. What knife is actually suited for this purpose where there is some required accuracy in the portioning?
There was a time constraint on me originally, but does really getting to demi-glace require a minimum of 6-8 hours simmering and reducing?
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6954 | Is it possible to freeze nuts to keep them from going bad?
For convenience, I like to keep a variety of nuts on hand for cooking and baking. Is it possible to freeze nuts to keep them from going bad? Walnuts, Almonds, Pecans in particular.
I have all three kinds in my freezer at this moment. Although all of mine are raw, if you usually use toasted nuts, you can toast them first, then freeze. Saves a step later when cooking.
Yes.
(do I need more of an answer than that?)
Okay -- the issue is the fats going rancid, and cold will help slow the process, but you should also try to get as much air out as possible.
I freeze raw nuts but I put them in an oxygen-impermeable glass jar with a rubber gasket glass lid that clamps shut. I use the same kind of container for raw nuts I keep in the cupboard.
Freezer flavors might otherwise cause problems.
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4067 | How do you make the sauce that is underneath Flan?
My favorite Flan always has that nice light brown sauce underneath, is there a way to prepare that from scratch?
That is simply caramelized sugar that coats the dish before the custard is poured in for baking. As the flan is chilled, the moisture from the custard liquefies the caramelized sugar and results in the sauce.
If you're wanting to make it for other desserts and aren't making flan, then simply caramelize sugar and then add water to it. Be careful as the steam can easily burn you if you're standing over it. The sugar will seize up and then as it continues to cook the crytallized caramelized sugar will liquefy. You will then have caramelized sugar syrup.
I've got a full recipe for flan here: http://www.herbivoracious.com/2009/09/burnt-sugar-flan-recipe.html . You can see from the picture there is plenty of sauce. Adjust the darkness by cooking it longer or shorter; I prefer it just short of burned.
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3387 | How do you prepare Jello with fruit pieces?
I would like to make individual containers of Jello with fruit pieces, but the fruit always sinks to the bottom,is there a way to prevent this?
The only trick I know is to let it start to firm up before mixing in the fruit. You can pour a layer, let it slightly firm up (it'll be kinda a thick goo), add the fruit and the rest of the mix.
... but you don't want to let it set up completely; then you'll just have two layers that haven't bonded well with fruit stuck in there.
Exact time for it to gel depends on what temperature you're resting it, and the size of the container you're chilling it in (mostly it's a matter of surface to mass ratio)
I should mention -- the two layers that aren't bonded isn't an issue if you're making individual portions, so everyone gets a little cup. It's only an issue if you're making a large tray and then cutting it into squares and serving those.
You'll need two boxes of Jello.
Make the first box.
Fill up your glasses half way and put them in the refrigerator to start solidifying
Added bonus: Tilt the glasses in the fridge
Put your fruit in
Make the second box, use it to fill up the glasses to the top
Bonus: Use different colors of Jello!
Ok, I'm good at this, ok all you need is 1 large box of jello , or 2 regular boxes of jello. Now all you do is make the jello like it says on the box, if you use to box's, you will have to use 2 cups of water, and 1 big box of jello is 2 cups of water as well. Boil the 2 cups of water, then add the jello and boil until the jello is completely dissolved. Now in a bowl or whatever your going to put the jello in, you put the canned fruit in the container, drain the canned fruit but keep the juice from the canned fruit. Now after the jello is dissolved ( straight from the oven top) pour the jello into the container with the fruit and stir the fruit with the gelatin. Now add 2 cups of cold water, or some kind of juice (I use the juice from the canned fruit that's why I save it), stir it again, and put it in the refrigerator. The fruit will be throughout the gelatin (the cold liquid is what makes the fruit rise a little so all of the fruit won't sink to the bottom.
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8900 | I would like to hear any techniques involved in making Turducken for Thanksgiving
A Turducken is a de-boned chicken stuffed into a de-boned duck, which then is stuffed into a de-boned turkey. I would like to try this but would first like to hear from anyone else that has made this Thanksgiving bird(s).
Where do I start? Are they cooked separately? How do you stuff them in physically - is there a technique involved? Should I cook covered or uncovered?
A Turducken is not for the faint of heart. It takes a lot of work, but is a very impressive presentation. Everything starts raw, the duck and the chicken are boned completely (which you can ask your local butcher to do for you). The turkey is only partially boned, keeping the leg and wing bones. Make sure to start with a large 25 lbs turkey.
First lay the turkey down and season the inside. Spread a thin layer of whatever dressing you have, and lay down the boneless duck. Season, stuffing, place the chicken. Again with the seasoning and the stuffing. Last but not least, you have to close the birds up. Use a butcher’s twine and sew the turkey up, sealing everything else inside. You’ll need at least two people, one to hold the turkey together, one to do the sewing.
I highly suggest, as with any poultry, brining the meat first. Because you are dealing with a very large and dense loaf of meat, you need to make sure it’s cooked all the way through. It can dry out if you are not careful, but it is roasted uncovered just like a regular turkey. That will help give that nice deep rich color and hide the suprise inside as it will look just like a oversized turkey.
Paula Dean has a pretty good video showing the process.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/turducken/video/index.html
Turducken, lessons learned.
Deboning: I deboned a turkey, chicken and duck. The duck was very hard to do, small and lots of bones. The chicken was also not easy to debone. A lot of time was spent on deboning. I deboned from the breast forward, big mistake. When I removed the skewers, everything fell apart and did not present nicely. Make sure to debone from the back and skewer or sew up the back.
I put different stuffings in between each layer, but with cooking the meats and stuffing tasted very similar. Surprisingly we didn’t notice a big difference between the duck and chicken or turkey.
The best part was that the meat was so tender and tasty. There were no bones, except the wings and legs, so it carved like a dream.
I would do this again, but I would buy a duck breast and a chicken breast. This would cut the prep time down by a lot and would not decrease the flavor. Debone the turkey. Make sure all of your meat is thawed or fresh. Try very different stuffings. For presentation, surround each breast with different stuffing. Stuffing #1; Duck breast; Stuffing #2 around duck breast; chicken breast; Stuffing #3 around chicken, in the cavity of the turkey. Truss the wings and legs.
Cook turkey tented with foil; remove foil last 45 minutes. Baste often. Make sure to use a thermometer to confirm that your meat is cooked. Let the bird stand for 20 minutes before carving.
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6258 | Is it possible to freeze chocolate covered ants?
I have a recipe for chocolate covered ants and wanted to make it a few weeks ahead of time before a party - if I freeze them will they still be good in about two weeks?
You can freeze them, and they will be exactly as good as they were when you started.
You probably don't even need to freeze them. Chocolate has a very long shelf life in your pantry, from 1-2 years depending on fat/milk content.
You can freeze it, but it may affect the texture or appearance.
What, no link to safety standards or shelf life for ants?!?
I had ants in my shelves for months and months. no problem there.
@shabbychef Were they alive?
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27493 | Culinary use for the green parts of lemongrass?
In most recipes/applications I've seen only the white part of lemongrass is used. Is there any culinary use for the upper/outer green parts?
The outer green leaves are a bit tough, and not a lot of flavor, but the upper section of the inner green stalk you can use for infusing in soups, curries, broths, etc.
Rough it up a bit, so to speak, bruise it and make a few slits with a paring knife, then let it sit in your broth or curry until you've zapped the last bit of flavor from it. Just remember to remove it before serving to your guests since it isn't exactly edible on its own.
I dry and use in stocks that I later clarify/filter or in herbal tisane blends or to flavor black tea. A nice evening tisane I make is cinnamon sticks, lemongrass, ginger, and cardamom.
How do you dry it? just in a low temp oven?
I hang it or just leave on a sieve/drying rack.
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24243 | Can any KitchenAid stand mixer attachments be used to make peanut butter?
Can I use any of the various attachments for my Kitchenaid stand mixer to make peanut butter? I was thinking one of the different grinding attachments might work, insofar as the machine at my local merchant looks like a hopper full of peanuts and a grinder.
The only one that could feasibly handle it would be the grinder. However, in the manual http://www.kitchenaid.com/assets/pdfs/product/ZUSECARE/FGA_Use%20and%20Care_EN.pdf on page 5 it states "Note: Very hard, dense foods such as totally dried homemade bread should not be ground in the Food Grinder. Homemade bread should be ground fresh and then oven or air-dried." If dried, dense bread is too much for the grinder then peanuts would definitely be to much as well. My recommendation is to use a food processor.
A blender would also work.
It's quite possible to strip the worm gear in the stand mixer's power train if you don't heed the warning about not working the thing too hard. Fortunately it's a pretty easy fix, and cheap replacement parts are available online.
I dunno, I don't think nuts are harder than totally dry homemade bread-- that stuff is more like a rock than food. I bought the meat grinder attachment for my Kitchenaid specifically to grind walnuts with (for nut rolls at Christmas) and haven't had any issues yet. It'll do two pounds in about five minutes, no problem.
KitchenAid meat grinder
WOO HOO!The answer is yes. Having read a number of homemade peanut butter posts, and coming to the conclusion that no one was brave enough to take a chance ruining their mixer or attachment, I took it on myself to try it with the meat grinder.
I used the small plate. What came out in just seconds, looked like spaghetti. On closer inspection it is just smooth, slightly grainy peanut butter. No strain on the mixer. I ran it through a second time. It came out with a sheen that indicated the nut oils were being pressed out of the nuts in the process.
I have used food processors. The drawback is that even the heavy duty food processors will burn out if you do it too often. It also takes a while to do it this way, and can be a pain to clean up.
I bought two different models of Nostalgia peanut butter machines. Both work but not optimally.
The KitchenAid mixer with the meat grinder attachment is a very simple and fast way to make peanut butter with no additives (just peanuts). I'm ready to sell my other attempts on craigslist.
Note: peanuts are actually very oily beans. They are not hard, and as the oils are extruded, the knife is lubricated. As I stated, no strain on the mixer at all.
As a plus one, I regularly use the meat grinder in the manner you describe—except that I only run the peanuts through once—to make peanut butter. Depending on how dry the peanuts are I may add peanut oil afterward, and depending on how salty they are I may add salt. I’ve been doing this for over a decade; there’s been no indication of stress on the KitchenAid; purely observationally this is probably less stressful than using the meat grinder to grind meat.
Here's a video of someone making peanut butter with a KitchenAid stand mixer using the meat grinder attachment https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQOR06Ne5vg
About the question if Kitchen Aid has an attachment that will make peanut butter and watching the video on the Food Processor Attachment Slicer, I would safely say that Kitchen Aid does not at this time have an attachment that will make peanut butter.
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17811 | What differences, practical and aesthetic, are there between egg washes?
An egg wash can be done in six major variations: [with | out egg white] mixed with [water | milk | cream].
My first hit when searching 'egg wash ratio' My Persian Kitchen where the use was for pastries. He advocated a ratio of 1 egg : 1-1.5 tbsp water for the purpose of browning.
He also mentioned the variations above. In my case I will be baking and frying (browning top of loaf in oven, then washing and flouring before frying), however use cases are not restricted to just those two.
What are the principal differences between washes, and what practical import do the six main ones have?
What chemical causes underpin these differences? (e.g. "...the higher ratio of protein to blah, blah...", "water promotes browning more than...")
What interactions do these chemical causes have between use on meat, vegetable, pastry, and bread?
Are there any other special washes/ratios for more particular uses? (i.e. egg white only, egg:vinegar,bourbon,etc)
Wow, nice question. Now I wanna know the answer.
Good question @mfg. I hope I can help a little bit. The basics behind the egg wash are to provide for a couple different thing. These being shine, crispness, and color.
Shine
The shine is primarily provided by the egg yolk. The higher concentration of yolk the more shine.
Crispness
This come from the egg whites. The whites make things a little crispy and sometimes can crackle a little bit (mainly when usually by themselves).
Color
This comes from the fat and protein. Leaving the yoke in along with the shine will add color. You can add water to lighten the color a bit. I find that using the white also dilutes the color a bit but not as much (but the white also makes it crisp). Add cream or milk to get it a little bit darker.
Salt
I often find people adding salt to an egg wash. I does provide some flavor to the crust, but I have noticed that for some reason (when using a whole egg) it does allow it to get a little darker than it would normally.
Sugar
Like salt it adds flavor (sweetness) to the crust. And it will also add some color. Especially if baking at a higher temp and using a raw or brown type sugar.
Alcohol
I have seen the use of alcohol quite a number of times. From the results I have seen it behaves like water. Although not the the same degree. My guess is that it has to do with how fast the alcohol evaporates. As far as flavor, I can't say that it added much at the levels used. I did once definitely get a hint of a bourbon being used in the wash on a pretty plain white loaf. But they did mix in quite a good amount of bourbon to just an egg yolk.
That is all I have really used myself or seen. I am sure that you can use other liquids although I don't know what vinegar would do. Just keep in mind if they are high in fat, protein, or sugar they will add color. Otherwise they will lighten the color.
I have also seen melted butter just used as a wash. It adds a nice color and buttery flavor. I haven't seen it added to egg wash but I would assume you could add to egg yolk to get a shine and probably darker color than cream/milk.
Another important thing to remember is to beat your wash well when using for a bread coating. Unlike if your just using the was was to seal say a ravioli. If your egg was is spotty not one nice fully incorporated mixture your crust can also be spotty.
The answer surely is partly correct, but there are also details which are not true (e.g. shine: proteins don't give shine to anything. Coagulated proteins are dull.) It also does not answer the question very well - it describes what a wash does, but not where the differences between different washes are, and that's what was asked in the question.
Hmm, I didn't think I said that it was exactly the protein of the yolk that maid the shine. But is overall makeup, which included protein. But I can edit it to make it clearer.
I am not sure how else to answer the question then. I read the question to basically be asking How do the different parts of different egg washes alter the end result. I thought I was answer that well. What part of the egg wash add color/shine/etc. I will try to think of other way to edit and answer the question better. Maybe the original poster can elaborate more what is missing from the answer. Thanks for the feedback.
feel free to find citations to improve your answer. the grouping is effective, I like that you went by purpose instead of mixture. it might help if you sort out any loose ends (or the coagulated protein, etc)
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7108 | What is Fondant?
I read about candies that have "fondant" in the middle used as filling - what is it? Are there other uses for it?
There are two types of fondant: poured and rolled.
Poured fondant is sugar and water that has been cooked to the soft-ball stage and then beaten until creamy and opaque. If you've ever had a Cadbury Creme Egg, the filling is fondant.
Rolled fondant is the icing commonly used on wedding cakes. It is also used prominently in cake baking TV shows, such as Ace of Cakes. It too is primarily sugar and water, but it also has gelatin, glycerin, and glucose to thicken the sugar but keep it pliable.
See also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fondant
Fondant recipe
Interesting, I've never heard of poured fondant, only rolled. Ya learn something new every day.
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2821 | Are Chives and Green Onions the same thing?
Is it OK to substitute one for the other?
In chinese dishes, I have never used chives where I should be using green onion. It would be nuts to use chives where green onion should be used
@Huangism Aren't chives and green onions interchangeable for most Jiaozi recipes?
@Ambo100 I highly doubt it, if you used green onion inside of the dumpling instead of chives it would taste a lot different. Same thing goes for the green onion taste, a lot chinese dishes requires green onions to be lightly cooked before putting in other stuff, you can't just swap chives in
Chives are an herb, green onions are part of...well an onion. They are often used in similar ways and in similar dishes. You can substitute one for the others in most cases, but I could not say they are interchangeable. They have distinct flavors and it will change the dish to change the ingredient.
Also do not attempt to replace green onion with dried chives 1-to-1 (or fresh chives for that matter). Dried chives, not uncommonly found in pre-packaged spice racks, have about as much flavor as straw and will not deliver the desired result (unless you like straw).
They're not the same thing, as they're a different plant, but they're part of the same family. You might be able to substitute the tops of green onions (scallion, spring onion) in place of chives in small quanities.
Chives tend to be smaller and more tender, typically used raw, and only the green portion is used. Green onions often use both the whites and the green part, has a more pronounced flavor, and is used both cooked and raw.
So, if you're going to substitute chives for green onion -- use the greens only, and reduce the amount.
If you're going to go the other way, you'll want to look to see what parts are being used. If it's the whites of the green onion you need, use regular white onion, if it's the greens, then you can try chives, but add them as late as you can in the cooking process, and if it was to be used raw, you might need to increase the amount.
No and Yes. They are different plants, but they are very substitutable (am I making up words?). A quick google of chives vs green onions will provide you with more info than you ever needed.
@JustRightMenus If a fancy word is sought, it's "fungible". :)
Green onions (bunching onions, scallions, and spring onions) are Allium fistulosum (or in uncommon cases Allium cepa), and chives are Allium schoenoprasum. So, they're different species. Chives are smaller, thinner, softer, and in my opinion, milder (although they can have some heat to them, when raw; I meant milder as in flavor—not as in less hot; green onions can have heat, too, but the ones I've tried have been mostly not very hot at all, but with very rich flavor). Chives seem to have a grassier flavor.
Not every kind of green onion, even of the same species, tastes the same. For instance, Crimson Forest and He Shi Ko have pretty different flavors, but they're both excellent. I like Crimson Forest in raw salsa and He Shi Ko in frittatas. I've had ones from the grocery store (in salads and stuff) which have more of a generic onion taste than those I just mentioned (which I've been growing, and which are definitely different). We grow our own chives, too; they taste similar to the grocery store kind.
People often use chives to top things like sour cream on baked potatoes. I personally like them in much greater quantities, but it's rare for people to do that. Green onions aren't quite as delicate for topping dishes, but you could do it, if you like the way it looks, and don't mind the added texture.
If you want green onions to have a milder flavor, you can feeze them, or cook them a little before using. Cooking them more than a little dilutes the flavor a lot (although this may depend on the variety; I think He Shi Ko may retain more flavor when cooked than Crimson Forest). Green onions, in my experience, produce a strong, pleasant smell when you first start to cook them. I'm not sure if chives do that (I usually cook them in sauces), but chives can retain some flavor when fully cooked, if you use enough of them (that's my experience; fully cooked Crimson Forest green onions don't have much flavor, in my experience). In my limited experience, green onions are better partially cooked, cooked not for very long, or raw. Chives are great raw, too. These are my opinions, which may change as I try new varieties (I just planted a bunch; so, ask me in a couple years if I don't update this). I recommend experimenting. It's pretty fun and easy to experiment with these, IMO.
There are multiple varieties of chives, too (e.g. Nelly, ProEasy, and the standard type)—I don't know if they all taste exactly the same; I've only tried regular chives when it comes to that species.
Garlic chives, which taste like garlic (and I really like them), also exist, but they're a different species (Allium tuberosum). They're a lot like regular chives, other than the taste and how they flower more intensely (and are probably more invasive).
Chives produce a lot of flowers, which are also edible. Green onions will produce taller scapes, and probably one flower per plant. People eat flowers of chives, sometimes, but they're a lot hotter than the leaves. You could cook with them if you don't mind the look of the petals in your dish.
In short, both chives and green onions have onion tastes (but there are different kinds of onion tastes). Chives are more decorative. Green onions seem to me to provide more flavor, except when fully cooked (at least for Crimson Forest; some are designed for cooking and probably retain more flavor). All of them are great, and I think if you use them interchangeably, it won't harm the flavor in many recipes—although it may taste different, and may look different.
Whether they're interchangeable depends a lot on what you're doing, and how picky you are. It's kind of like the difference between the red, white, and gold potatoes they have in the grocery store. They can be used similarly, but they look and taste different.
Chives and green onions are different plants, with different flavors. They are both interesting. But they are different. I prefer chives and remember having chive sandwiches, when growing up, spreading butter on a piece of bread and the sprinkling thoroughly with chives. It was wonderful and relied entirely on the special flavor of chives.
Furthermore, chives vary somewhat. The chives typically grown in the East and Midwest are darker and somewhat more distinct in flavor. The chives available in California are very mild and much closer to a weak green onion in flavor. It is not clear whether that is origin related or simply the flavor that the buyers for the supermarkets are pursuing.
They can be interchanged, but the flavor is NOT really the same.
Chives and green onions are not the same thing.
This statement is technically correct but it doesn't answer the question 'Is it OK to substitute one for the other?'
Simple they are coming from same plant. one of It's call spring onion(onion leaves) the others(chives) are call their flowers !.
Maybe you could add some sort of reference to back this up? But in my opinion it's plainly wrong and the chives in my backyard look nothing like green onions. Although as others have mentioned under some circumstances they may be a viable substitute.
There are 4 correct answers here. Unless there is a language issue of which I am unaware, this is simply wrong.
Seriously, you're wrong. Not the same at all!
Green Shallots/Spring Onions/Scallions are the same thing ( http://catalpafarmnj.com/cfnj/_zumu_user_image_cache/scallions.jpg ) , chives are completely different things, although they do taste like onion they are more like a grass. Chives have their own flower which is purple... http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/Allium_schoenoprasum_in_NH_01.jpg
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2957 | Is it safe to eat raw eggs?
I have a friend that is training for a marathon and he drinks 6 raw eggs before running (Yes, like Rocky) - is this safe?
Thw white part is more digestible when cooked. The yellow part is more disgestible when it's raw.
I'd also be curious if it's helpful.
That makes no sense. He should eat them after running instead of before. Eggs contain a lot of protein (i.e. the whites contain a lot of protein) which the body need for rebuilding, which it will commence after strenuous exercise. It is a good idea to eat protein rich food no later than one hour after exercise. Eating them before training just makes the stomach full.
Also, since some people are allergic to raw egg whites, an allergy common in kids, better to avoid it.
Your friend should quit getting exercise advice from movies. Eating a bunch of protein before a run simply causes his digestive system to compete with his legs for blood flow. He needs to begin his run with easily digested carbohydrates a couple hours before, and then consume protein within an hour after the run when the body can use it to repair muscle.
Food safety experts and government organizations target their recommendations to what's safest for everyone, and would recommend against this. However, "safe" is a subjective term. It's all about managing risk levels. The odds of a given egg containing salmonella or other food-borne illness are pretty low. A healthy adult with a normal immune system can probably fend off any nasties, or at least recover from illness.
The source of the eggs has an effect on the risk levels as well, I believe. Organic free-range eggs are probably less risky than supermarket brands.
Last time I looked at the numbers, I was as likely to get Salmonella from eggs as I was from fruits. So I continue making my mousse and tiramisu with raw eggs. There are in shell pasteurized eggs.
There are different figures available but to quote one example: "Salmonella contamination in eggs doesn't happen much - one or two eggs out of every 40,000, according to the CDC and FDA. On average, that means one egg every day for 100 years before you got sick."
Your stats are a bit wrong.
at one raw egg a day, you have a 25% chance of getting sick in 25 years, a 50% chance of getting sick in 50 years...
@chris: Well, no, actually. Neither calculation is right. If we make the assumption that 1/40,000 eggs is salmonella-positive, and that consuming a raw salmonella-positive egg always results in getting sick, the chance of getting sick (at least once) after n eggs is 1-(39999/40000)^n. So, 20% after 25 years, 37% after 50, 60% after 100, etc. The chance exceeds 50% around the 76th year. The calculations using n/40000 are clearly wrong, as you can get absurd results of over 100%.
According to the Food Safety and Inspection Service of the USDA, there is no scientific proof that organic or free-range eggs are less risky than the others. Actually, I may even be prone to think of the opposite...
Shouldn't there be some caveat here? I thought that stackexchange was an international site - from what I know it's certainly not globally accurate that 'raw eggs are safe to eat'.
@nico - I agree, and that should be an important caveat to this answer. The "organic" label says nothing about food safety, which in this case will depend in a significant part on the living conditions of the chicken. "Free-range" is relatively meaningless, since all that is required by law is "access" to some small open area, not that chickens actually go there (they usually don't). If you actually know the farmer and living conditions of the chicken, that's one thing, but the labels don't guarantee greater safety.
If you're worried, you can dip the eggs into boiling water for, say, 10 seconds to sterilise the outside of the shell. As Robert Cartaino points out above, though, there might still be bacteria inside.
FWIW I've made mayonnaise many times without any ill effects.
I'd say it's as safe as eating any other food generally consumed rare or raw (beef, fish, oysters). It's certainly edible. I use raw egg whites in many things, but I buy them in bulk, ultra-pasteurized. I also prefer my eggs very runny. Yes there's an increased probability of food-borne illnesses but so does a rare steak or a medium hamburger.
A medium hamburger hey? lol. Most people throw out or send their hamburgers back if it is even slightly pink where I'm from!
I used to. A medium/medium-well burger is so much better though.
ic ic. not sure if you can ask for that in restaurants where I live.. I think they would look at you as if you were crazy.. lol.
This has so much to do with what kind of ground beef we are talking about. If it's ground mixed beef (what you get in the store) then it should be well cooked to be safe. E. Coli can cause paralysis!! If it's ground sirloin from a good butcher then pink in the middle should be fine.
@iheartgreek: and the restaurant could get a health code violation for serving it
It is relativly safe as long as you pay attention to some points:
Eggs should be as fresh as possible, so a possible salmonella contamination has no time to spread. Also organic or free range eggs should be preferred. In some egg-producing farms using battery cages up to 30% of the chickens are contaminated with salmonella and so the eggs.
Although other people here mention the improbability to get salmonella from eggs it is still possible. I myself got them from scrambled eggs hat I had not cooked properly (I think the eggs were about a week old, stored in the fridge and free range). I had the worst diarrhea in my life, fever up to 41°C/106°F and was in hospital for a week (read: not fun).
Salmonella contamination occurs on the outside of the egg, not the inside: doesn't really help, since it's nearly impossible to get the inside out without having the inside touch some part of the outside. And there is certainly no guarantee that your organic eggs are going to have any lower incidence of bacterial contamination (often it's actually a bit higher, due to lower use of antibiotics).
@Santanicpuppy: That is no longer true: "The inside of an egg was once considered almost sterile. But, over recent years, the bacterium Salmonella enteritidis (Se) has been found inside a small number of eggs." (source: http://www.incredibleegg.org/egg-facts/egg-safety/eggs-and-food-safety)
@Santanicpuppy I propably expressed myself incorrectly, but I did not meant that necessarily the inside of the egg has to be contaminated. But when the egg gets older bacteria are able to invade.
I read somewhere a while ago, that chickens in battery cages are more likely to be infected because they come into contact with the feces of already infected chickens because of the narrowness in the cages. You're probably right though, that missing antibiotics can lead to a similar percentage of infected chickens. So in terms of salmonella, maybe non-organic free-range eggs are the way to go?
@Diskoking - "free-range," according to the U.S. government, just means that chickens have access to some small outside area (generally gravel or dirt, not pasture). The vast majority of the time, the chickens choose not to visit it. "Free-range" says nothing about the average living conditions that the chickens spend most time in. Unless you've seen the farm, there's little guarantee that the eggs will be any better or safer.
In the UK it is safe from a salmonella standpoint (assuming the eggs are lion branded).
The lion branch mark (applied to each individual egg) means that the chickens they come from are salmonella free (I assume they have been fed the antibiotic or anti viral or whatever it is)
I agree with the others that other things will have a bearing - age of egg in particular
There are pasteurized raw eggs that are safe to eat. One brand is http://www.safeeggs.com/
Or egg beaters I think
Egg beaters? Can you expand on that please?
Egg Beaters is a brand of egg white based egg substitute in the available in the US.
No egg is safer when it’s raw. It will give you SALMONELLA POISONING AND THE INFECTION which is in the ENTEROBACTERIACEAE family and in the GAMMAPROTEOBACTERIA class
Your friend may have gotten it but he just did not know because it does not affect you right away after you consume it. Please be safe: he runs the risk of contracting it while drinking it raw. Please be aware not to eat RAW MEAT/POULTRY, AND **RAW EGGS** DO NOT HESITATE AT ALL TO SEND YOUR FOOD BACK TO THE CHEF WHEN YOU FIND THAT YOUR MEAT IS PINK ON THE INSIDE. That is dangerous food that you don't want to be eating. Cut into it to make sure it is not pink before hungrily devouring it.
I have seen patients that have this and families who have all been affected by this. Despite what my username may say, I am a family doctor. I have seen too many cases too count where children and their families were effected. It has become ridiculously paining to watch and it needs to end. Please do not encourage this because it affects 1.2 million Americans each year and it continues to encourage the number of people affected in American. This number alone of people in America affected by salmonella will quickly increase. Your kids can be affected by this. They will miss going to school for weeks and continue to not get educated. Also you will have to take off of work for sick days if your children fall ill or if you do so, too.
Please protect your friends and family and everybody else around the world by not doing this and finding different ways to get the maximum protein you need for running and training for that marathon.
All I wish for is that you and everybody stay safe. You cannot be safe when you are consuming six raw eggs every time you run, which runs the risk of containing this horrendous bacterium that could give you severe diarrhea, vomiting, and eventually kill you. Look up above at the person who has experienced this, and had an absolute miserable time after contracting this from eggs that were not worth the one week in the hospital. I have seen patients that have this and families who have all been affected by this. Despite what my username may say, I am a family doctor. I have seen too many cases too count where children and their families were effected. It has become ridiculously paining to watch and it needs to end. This is dangerous and threatening to people’s lives. If you were to contract this bacterium and infection, it would be at least a week less of training time for your marathon. Think about how others will be affected by this if they get into the habit that you are in and how you will be effected. This can be spread to other people and you for sure do not want to harm anybody that you may have seen, may have touched, or may talked too. Please think about what’s at risk here.
Please limit yourself to one answer. You have two copies of this, and an additional one about pasteurized eggs. Since this is the one you edited most recently, and it does address the question, I'm going to leave it and delete the others.
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3185 | When a recipe calls for Wine, does it make a difference what wine to use?
In other words does it make a difference in the event that a recipe calls for a Red wine you use a Merlot, Cabernet, Shiraz ect..?
Yes. If you wouldn't drink it, don't cook with it.
Whatever it tastes like out of the bottle, it will add that to the dish. Cook with a wine you might pair with the dish (light wines for seafood, chicken; heavier wines for meats and stews).
Don't use a fruity wine unless you want your dish to have some fruit notes. Don't use a very dry wine if you're making a sweeter dish.
Actually, a good rule for this is: cook with the wine that you're going to drink with the dish.
As a corollary to the excellent advice from Aaronut, there is an important rule of thumb when selecting a wine to cook with:
If you wouldn't drink it, don't cook with it.
As a corollary to this corollary: If you regularly drink Two-Buck Chuck, ignore this rule of thumb. ;)
Additional correlary : mad dog and thunderbird don't count as wine, nor does Boones Farm or wine coolers. (they make the two buck chuck look good by comparison)
The reason for this is important. When you cook with wine, the alcohol cooks off, but the flavor notes remain, and in fact, are intensified. So if the wine isn't great out of the bottle, those things which make it not great will only get stronger when you cook it down.
@Nick - Alcohol doesn't necessarily cook off, it depends on how you cook the food and for how long. Have a look at this article: Does Alcohol Really Boil Away in Cooking?
It absolutely does matter, as all of the different varietals have their own very distinctive tastes. However, there's not really any "correct" wine to use when you see a recipe requesting it.
Probably the most common ones (where I'm from) are Cabernet Sauvignon for red and Chardonnay for white, but those are definitely not the only kinds you can use, and it depends entirely on the recipe and your personal preferences.
If it's going into a strong/spicy sauce where the taste of the wine will be overshadowed by the other ingredients anyway, then I'll often use any inexpensive wine I have lying around. But if it's something like a wine sauce, or a reduction, then you should essentially treat it as a wine pairing; look up what varietal pairs well with the food you're making and use that in your sauce.
I'd suggest a Sauvignon Blanc for any seafood cooking.
I tend to disagree a little bit on this. Cooking removes almost all of the subtlety from a wine, especially long cooking like in a reduction-based sauce. I'd like to see a double-blind taste of several reduced red varietals to see if you could tell much of a difference.
Agreed -- I wouldn't use a foul wine as you risk intensifying bad flavors), but I wouldn't go with anything expensive, either.
@Joe and OP: Certainly I wouldn't start worrying about vintages, but the difference between Merlot and Cabernet is more than just a subtlety. I also don't think a typical double-blind taste test, assuming the subject "fails", necessarily proves that it makes no difference; simply not knowing which wine was used to make the sauce doesn't mean that they taste the same. An ABX test perhaps, where a subject tries two otherwise identical samples and then attempts to identify which one is the "mystery" sample, would be more interesting.
@Aaronut -- good point ... the original question was about varietals, for which there would be a distinction ... dry white wine is going to be different from a fruity red, etc.
Yes, for sure the red vs. white distinction is essential. I agree, the ABX test would be more relevant. Or on a more aesthetic level, just pick a dish that has a wine based sauce and make it with say a Pinot Noir vs. a Cabernet, reducing both to an appropriate level of intensity, and see if they taste substantially different and if so, if one is clearly a better match to the rest of the dish than the other.
I drink a LOT of wine. I buy quite a few $10 bottles just for fun - to taste something different. When I taste one that is sub-par, it goes into my "red wine for cooking" stash. If the wine is really nasty, then it goes down the sink instead.
Avoid excessive oakiness.
Other than that, find a decent, cheap somewhat drinkable blend (one white, one red), and buy a couple 1.5 litre bottles of each. and keep them on hand for cooking.
I'm wiki-ing this answer so feel free to add any brands you've found good for this purpose.
I am not a wine connoisseur. I actively dislike most red wines; I'm not a fan of tannins. So if a recipe calls for red wine as an important ingredient (Beef Bourguignon, for example), I simply won't make the recipe. Sometimes though, like in a risotto or a Chinese sauce, a bit of wine is a lovely touch. Sauvignon Blanc is a common white wine for cooking, but unless I use the whole bottle in the recipe, I end up throwing most of it away. Even vacuum sealed, non-fortified wines have a short life-span once opened.
So, I keep two fortified wines in my fridge. They serve me well, I never find the need to buy any wines other than Dry Sherry and Dry Vermouth. If a recipe called for it, I might buy a Marsala. In the fridge, fortified wines like these last for months after being opened.
For what it's worth, Gallo topped America's Test Kitchen taste testing of Dry Vermouth.
Yes, use wine that you would happily drink.
But there's usually no need to empty a bottle of fine Barolo, or Gevrey Chambertin, into the pan. A good young red wine is usually good enough and all the wines you use should be bought for drinking, rather than for cooking.
What wine colour you use should tip you off about the wine colour to serve with it, so helpfully you have whats left in the bottle after culinary use, to drink while cooking or afterwards.
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4656 | Any suggestions for cracking "black walnuts"?
These nuts have a very tough outer shell, any tips on cracking them?
Nut Picks can sometimes help (after cracked): http://www.antiquesandteacups.com/Nutcracker-With-Nut-Picks-HMQ-Cobbled-Nickel-Steel_p_770.html
I just use my bare hands, but for those less awesome, the answers below seem adequate. :P
When I was a kid, we used to run over them with the car. Put a bunch in the driveway and drive over them so they got a single pass from a tire. That usually crushed a few beyond help, but just split the majority open nicely. They were still a lot of trouble to pick from the hulls, and ultimately not very nice to eat, IMO.
You did a lot of driving as a kid?
A nutcracker won't work. I've used a hammer with success. Place the pointed end up on a hard surface and whack with the hammer. Practice will teach you how hard you need to swing.
Yea, you can also use a vise if you have it. Soaking them in hot water for a day prior to cracking helps too. Wrap them in a towel if you're using a hammer so you don't get shrapnel everywhere.
@hobodave - and wear safety goggles... B-)
A hydraulic press also works nicely.
@knives: we used an old jack and some iron to make a platform to crack a few dozen at a time.
We had a black walnut tree at one of the homes where I grew up. Hopefully, you're not working from this state, or you'll have to remove the husk as well, which will stain your hands for months. (wear gloves, and don't take them off, until you've cleaned everything). We'd collect them up, and let them sit for a few weeks in the garage (warning : they stink when they're in the husk; my mom tended to deal with the husks, and it was years ago, so I'm not sure what technique she used.
For cracking, I preferred using a bench-mounted screw-drive vice. I've also used a heavy-duty C-clamp in the early days, but you almost need three hands to deal with things. They do make special screw drive nutcrackers for macadamia nuts, which are easier to use (the screw comes through the middle) but they don't tend to be large (or heavy) enough to deal with black walnuts. You might be able to get away with large vice-clamps. (size it to the nut, remove it, give it a few twists to constrict it, then clamp again on the nut)
There are also nut crackers specifically built/rated for black walnuts, but I've never used them. If you're going to use a hammer, it might be worth investing in an engineers hammer, aka a hand sledge, which are heavier, and have a larger face.
Catching a finger in that nutcracker would not be fun.
To remove the husks growing up, we'd just pour the nuts on the gravel driveway. Driving over them for a while would tend to remove the husk without hurting the nuts.
Yup, cars were the tool of choice for husking black walnuts in my youth, also.
My brother-in-law always has a giant bowl of assorted nuts on the table, he uses a grip wrench like the one below. It is easy to adjust the wrench for all sorts of nuts and it isn't that difficult to use. Also, it doesn't make the shell pieces fly when the nut is cracked if you do it correctly.
I crack and retrieve the nutmeat from black walnuts and shagbark hickory nuts in the following way:
I place the nut, point up, on a piece of railroad rail. I hit it with a hammer just hard enough for the nut to break in half and sometimes into quarters. I then use a pair of sidecutters (smaller ones for the hickory nuts) to cut the pieces of nutmeat out of the shell.
Using this method may take a little longer, but you get larger pieces of nutmeat and fewer pieces of shell in with the nutmeat. Using a nutpick mashes and tares up the nutmeat. This is the best method I have found for me. Try it you may like it.
I am not sure railroad rails are a common household item. I would stay away from recommending anvils as well. Its there a commonly available item that would serve this purpose?
Yes Katie, you might try a concrete block. I have used them myself and they work very well. Just stand it on end and go to cracking. I know the railroad rail may be hard to find but i happen to have a piece, so thats what I use. About how many nuts will you open this year? I will open around 2500. Three yrs ago I opened around 5000. Needless to say my wife uses a lot of black walnuts.
For those looking for sections of old railroad rail ... talk to local metal workers. I know a few people who have anvils made from cut down rails ... with the going value of recycling, it's less likely that people are just going to trash them, though. (but I know where a lot of the ties got dumped in my area)
The best way to crack black walnuts to extract the nut in the largest pieces is to use a workbench vise and a short well 17mm or 19mm socket (5/8's or 3/4" S.A.E.) from a socket and ratchet tool set. A 12 point socket is better because it's more "open" inside than a 6 point socket. The key is to use the socket to break the "crown" of the nut on either end. The best way to do this is to put one of the pointed ends of the nut in the open end of the socket where the bolt would go. Hold the walnut and the socket together with your hand and put it in your opened vice. Hold your hand around the nut and the socket while you crank the vice down on your nut socket combination so you can feel the socket break the crown of the nut. (Hopefully you're not one of those who need someone to tell you not to crank the vice down so far that you destroy the nut and hurt your hand. This method is only good for people who haven't left all their common sense behind in college.) With the crown of the nut broken, you can now pick out most of the big pieces of walnut. If a quadrant of the nut didn't get cracked in the process, my preferred method is to use a a good pair of side cutters to get at it. Works better than any method I've tried.
when I was young , I found that an old iron-iron upside down between your legs work quite well,
when you say 'old iron' ... do you mean one of the cast iron clothes irons? I could see using that as an anvil, but what did you use to hit the nut?
I found that a G-CLAMP is also a good tool for opening walnuts and macadamia nuts, the slow and steady addition of pressure makes a neat crack rather than the whoomp force of a blow from a hammer.
Growing up we had 5 huge black walnut trees. My grandmother used a hammer and an ice pick. I don't recommend this method though. So far for me its pretty much a toss up between a vice out in the barn or driving over them all with a car. The car is much faster and generally only pulverizes a minute few.
After extracting the 'meat'(kernel) from the shell of the Black Walnut, there is alot of debris(from the shell) mixed in with the precious 'meat'.
Previously, visually. . .I carefully removed 3-5 small slivers of shell from about 1/2 cup of Black Walnut 'meat'.
An old Cherokee trick is to place the 1/2 cup of Black Walnut 'meat' in a pot of warm water and the lighter 'meat' will rise to the surface while the heavier shell-slivers will sink. Works!
True, the shell-slivers were accompanied by the huge pieces of 'meat'. However, that was fine since we are looking at 2-3 really-really large kernels. Using a strainer I can easily remove all the light 'meat'(kernels).
This answer doesn't answer the question of how to crack the walnuts, but it's an interesting technique for separating the kernels. Also, nut meat is a thing, so you don't have to put "meat" in quotes.
A pair of diagonal wire cutters will quickly open a black walnut. Just cut along either end parallel to the seam. This easily splits the nut in half. Then, use the wirecutters to divide the shell edge about halfway down. This often splits it completely letting you pull the two halves apart and remove the nutmeat. If not, a few more clips will do the trick. Once youve done
a few, it becomes pretty obvious where to cut the shell.
After you cut it in half, put your hand over the piece you're cutting. This prevents fragments from scattering.
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4193 | How can I Saute Liver & Onions and keep the liver moist?
What I'm looking for specifically is a way to keep the liver from getting chewy or rock hard (yes those have been the outcomes of the the first two attempts). I'm not doing much with the liver (except salt) before cooking and only using olive oil in a copper pan - Any ideas?
Salt after frying only.
Liver is very sensitive to over cooking, Fry the onions first and then throw in the liver for just long enough to cook it through
I usually let the livers soak overnight in milk. Then i pat dry and fry with onions. even if i cook them for longer they will still stay moist.
You can flavour the milk if you want. I usually put thyme and garlic.
I flour and pan frie my liver first about 2mns on each side on med to high heat then remove, fro pan. add onions along with some of my flour sautee until light brown add water, stir then re-add liver cook on low for 10mns. Moist and delicious.
I only use calf liver and it's sliced thin. I soak it in milk (overnight, usually).I put a light coating of corn starch (flour) each side.I fry it in butter with a dab of coconut oil(it helps keep the butter from burning). It's only a couple of minutes med-hi heat to get each side fully browned on the bottom. When i flip it, i put all the onions on top of it and cover it 2-3 minutes. I take it off pink as it'll keep cooking and pale pink inside is fine to eat. Never tough.
After cooking liver & onion in bacon grease, add 1/4 cup water, cover and steam liver for about 5 minutes. this adds moisture back to the liver. of course, don't overcook liver to begin with, but this works for me.
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4238 | I would like to know how to thicken sauces with blood and is it safe?
I saw a recipe (French) that involved thickening with blood (they also said puréed liver would work) - is this safe? I've eaten blood sausage and black pudding, but still am curious about a sauce?
It should be safe, you would want to follow the same precautions you would when preparing meat. I personally like thickening my stews with bone marrow.
Mmm, bone marrow!
Why not just thicken them with the animal's soul itself...Bone marrow sounds absolutely fantastic.
@if you like bone marrow you'll absolutely looove spinal cord consumme!
@mfg Depending on what animal's spine you're slurping that could be risky. If I remember correctly, eating brain and spine tissue greatly increases the risk of prion based diseases. See Transmissible spongiform encephalopathy and Bovine spongiform encephalopathy. The important thing to note is that cooking does not prevent transmission.
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17312 | Is there a web site indexing cooking competitions, or an effective aggregator?
Most sites that list cooking competitions are unfortunately holed up in one groups' pages and not easily searched.
I am looking for a site that indexes cooking competitions across various formats (i.e. chili, bbq, chowder, whatever), can provide event information, filter geographically and by event type.
A great site would index the events themselves as its sole function, but might also provide guidance/community elements.
What sites are currently out there that fit this bill?
I don't know about that specifically (the event-based such), but there's a "Google Recipe Search" : http://www.google.com/landing/recipes/
@Joe on googling I have only found listings for either specific types, or calendars that are not organized into a searchable index. This question is focused particularly on competitive cooking sites though, not sites for recipes.
I was going through old question and saw this one -- There seems to be one now (http://www.contestcook.com/), but I'm getting 'missing plugin' all of the place, so I don't know if they actually have anything. Their facebook page seems to have recent posts, though.
The site that has the best information I've found in regards to competitive cooking is Contest Cook. They don't quite meet all your criteria in terms of searchability, but they do some levels of sorting and provide a wealth of information on the contests they list (which are quite numerous).
That's actually the site that spurred the question
ah, sure - I didn't notice that it was in your comment up there.
The ironic thing about that site is they are leveraging both Google Ads and a custom Google site search, yet have not organized their own site to be easily searched in the way mfg (and I would bet others...) would like.
The art of SEO (search engine optimization) is somewhere between elusive and completely ignored by a good number of people out there building websites. As a result even the best search engines often can not aggregate all of the "cooking competitions" in Columbus any more than they could find all the heavy metal being played in Cleveland on any given weekend.
So, I am afraid the short answer to your question is "No, There isn't".
The 'trick' is to find a way to get all of the hosts of cooking competitions to be willing to go to one place and list their competition. You have no doubt heard of Craig's List and Angie's List, well you can start mfg's list and see if you can't get some traction. Maybe Kraft or Ben E Keith will sponsor you? It is a good idea, but somebody has to make it happen.
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17551 | What does 6% acidity taste like?
A friend and I have been doing research on a recipe and he encountered a statement to the effect that the result should be around "6% acidity." I am not familiar with what this would mean in the context of food, and need help parsing what this phrase means and how to tell when a resource is using the taste sensation, as opposed to the pH, sense of the word.
To my understanding, acidity in coffee (as an example) is not actual acidity; "acidity" refers to [the] flavor note, not to the actual acid content; coffee is relatively low in acid. Its pH averages around 5.0 - 5.1(src).
That said, pH:dilution of vinegar is directly regulated based on it's percent acidity.
If a cooking resource refers to a percent of acidity, is this a measure somehow related to the pH of the food? Or is it possible the resource is making the same "flavor note" comparison (i.e. where coffee turns between having a bright tongue, or not)
Either way, how would I go about trying to prepare some solution that would replicate the taste/sensation of "6% acidity"?
I am roughly imagining some quantity x of [consumable acid, e.g. vinegar] and y of water; would that approximate the taste/sensation?
I am pretty sure we'll need to know what the recipe was for in order to get some answerable context, although I agree that is unusual phrasing.
@Katey Will do, it wasn't in a recipe though, it was in some kind of discussion of typical recipes and benchmarks in them.
I think acids in food are general weak acids, so if that percentage is a percent by mass (or pre-mixing volume or anything else) it still won't have a clean relationship to pH.
"It tastes like burning"
@Jefromi: you can calculate the pH from %mass also for a weak acid. The question is: which particular acid was in the recipe?
@nico: but you have to know what acid it is, yes? Which was my point; if you've got a couple acidic vegetables you're going to have a tough time knowing.
@Jefromi: sure, although if there is lemon and/or vinegar they probably will predominate...
In brewing, fruit flavorings are ranked by acidity, with citric acid in lime or lemon contributing the most at 5-7%. So the reference could be interpreted to mean about as tart as a lemon.
Well, vinegar—straight, undiluted—is often 5% acidity (i.e., 5% acetic acid), so if its comparable, what are you making? Atomic warheads?
Unfortunately my team mate was unable to find the source of the recommendation for 5% acidity. However, once we had completed cooking, and it needed vinegar for some perk (per our note and a judges), we realized that the recommendation likely was referring to it in the sense of vinegar's acidity.
In wine-making, at least, acidity is a function of three different types of acid. Because those types of acid matter to the final product, wine making supply stores and websites provide several inexpensive ways of determining acidity. Two described here are an acid titration kit and a pH meter. When making wine last year I used an acid titration kit and it couldn't have been simpler. You take a sample of your liquid, the indicator solution, and a reactor solution. Based on how much of the reactor you have to add to change the color of the original sample you can get your acidity in a percent.
In my experience with the wine we noticed the acidity in our grape juice (that was on its way to becoming wine) more by the burning sensation on our hands where we touched the grapes as we crushed them or in our mouths when we drank - our solution started out seriously acidic. It was hard to taste a difference between too acidic and just right.
If you have a liquid recipe and want to get the acidity exactly right, consider using acid titration.
Not sure what 6% acid would taste like, probably fairly, well, acidic.
Am sure that the type of acid used would be the determining factor though.
It seems that the acid percentage is the molar weights of the acid and the dilutant, say 6 grams of pure acid to 100 grams of water; 6/100 = 6%. Am not a chemist but seem to remember that the same proportions of dilutant to acid results in varying Ph, depending on the type of acid.
The apple cider vinegar I use as a baste on my smoked joints of pork is shown on the label as being 5% acid - it's actually quite pleasant & makes tasty dressings and slaw.
Can't imagine what recipe is being looked at, have made saurbrauten which, in the recipe I used, called for quite a lot of vinegar; am sure though that the final acidity was substantially less than 6%.
An easy way to find out would be to prepare the recipe and taste it, you can buy Ph indication strips easily enough, which should give you (with a bit of calculation) an idea as to whether or not you are in the 6% acid range.
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24902 | How do beets bake up in flour?
I am thinking about incorporating some raw shredded beets in a vegan chocolate sheet cake. Since it is vegan, I will be substituting with Ener-G, chia, or flax egg substitutes and earth balance margarine, and can add more if a solution so dictates. In other baking, I have not found any need to make drastic accomodations to accommodate for moisture or texture.
However, I am wondering if incorporating beets will alter the moisture levels. I will be balancing the earthy flavor with a lemon and lavender shortening-based frosting, so I am just basically looking for any confirmation that beets will not drastically add or leech moisture from the cake as I anticipate that they will function like carrots in carrot cake.
If using them will change the baking process, on the other hand, I would like to know so that I can adjust the recipe accordingly. If so please include any tips to balance it out, bearing in mind that extra egg substitute or margarine is doable, but not if it entails one of the specific properties of actual eggs (feel free to include those too, bearing in mind that I am looking for a vegan solution).
I haven't tried baking with beets yet, but, as you said, it must be a bit like carrot cake.
To keep my carrot cake from going soggy while baking (carrots giving off steam), I mix them first with the recipe's sugar to weep them. This also pulls out flavour from the carrot to the cake batter.
With beets, the procedure could be called bleeding rather than weeping, ha ha.
Use a carrot cake recipe, which will be adapted for the moisture, but reduce the sugar a little because beets are sweeter than carrots. You get a fantastic purple colour. A lavender icing would be really interesting with it, I think.
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26097 | By what reactions do moisture and light steal away my coffee's freshness?
Typically, the standard advice for prolonging your coffee is to store it in an air-tight, light-tight, dry container. At a chemical level, what happens when coffee is left in humid or sunny conditions that causes it to lose "freshness?"
Specifically;
What compounds and characteristics do people identify as "freshness?"
How do light and moisture compromise these components?
Sorry to just link bomb this, but this page has all the details you need: https://blackbearcoffee.com/resources/81
@ElendilTheTall nice link, and with all due respect to the content, that font is awful and hurts my eyes; any chance you'd like to do a takeaway summary for an answer?
I'll see what I can do. You could always copy and paste it into a word processor to change the font :P
There's a really nice write-up on this topic on Black Bear Coffee's website (which Aaronut linked above).
Though it's not mentioned in your question, oxygen is actually the first culprit in loss of freshness:
Separation from oxygen has been the primary strategy, with good
reason. Oxidation obviously contributes significantly to flavor
degradation and loss. Ambient air contains 19-21% oxygen and only 14
cubic centimeters of oxygen (or 70 cc of ambient air) are enough to
render a pound of coffee dead stale....A common myth is that coffee is not able to take on oxygen immediately after roasting due to carbon dioxide degassing. However, Michael Sivetz estimates that instead of 21%, about 10% oxygen surrounds degassing coffee –certainly enough to initiate oxidation.
The article doesn't specifically mention the effects of light on the freshness of coffee, so I would assume that light's role is mostly related to increasing thermal energy.
The common thread in all deterioration processes is thermal energy.
The rate of staling will be a function of the thermal energy applied
to the coffee and how it is distributed. An important mechanism of
thermal energy distribution is moisture. Roasted coffee will also
absorb water at any time it is exposed to humid conditions, especially
in the presence of high temperatures. Water quenching can add
additional water and some of the deterioration processes themselves
create water as a by-product. Within whole bean or ground coffee,
water will take one of two forms: free or bound.
"Free" water is mobile and can increase staling processes by retaining
and delivering thermal energy and oxygen to the aromatics, acids, and
oils, or bringing together sugars and protein to initiate
non-enzymatic browning. "Bound" water (bound to surfaces) is not as
mobile or available to solvate reactants. The ratio between free and
bound water is called "water activity." It is increased any time the
coffee comes into contact with humidity or high temperatures ("bound"
water often becomes "free" water upon heating). A relatively low
ambient humidity of 25% can cause roasted coffee to increase its
moisture content to 5%, with water activity also increasing. Lipid
oxidation is accelerated at heightened water activities, but is not
usually measured in coffee, despite its effect on freshness. Studies
show that a water activity ratio of above 0.5 contributes
significantly to increased rates of non-enzymatic browning and lipid
oxidation. More studies on water activity and its relation to coffee
freshness are currently being conducted.
"Freshness" does indeed appear to be a subjective term, so I'm not sure there's a canonical definition about the chemical components of freshness. The Black Bear does provide an example, though: "Coffees known for their delicate and sweet aromas (such as certain East African coffees) depend on aldehydes for their unique flavor and are not good candidates for open bins or ground sales."
Other sources allude to the chemical components of coffee's taste but do not always enumerate them or distinguish "freshness" from the overall "coffee"ness. Here's one such statement from a reprinting of an article that appeared in Chemical & Engineering News:
A thousand volatile compounds have been identified in coffee, though
just 40 or so of these substances "have been demonstrated to
contribute to the alluring smell," Hofmann noted. They include
β-damascenone (which has an aroma like cooked apples), 2-furfurylthiol
(sulfury, roasty), 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy), guaiacol
(spicy), 2,3-butanedione (buttery), and
4-hydroxy-2,5-dimethyl-3(2H)-furanone (caramel-like).
The flavor and aroma compounds derive from multiple chemical
reactions, including the Maillard reaction, caramelization, polyphenol
degradation, polymerization of carbohydrates, and pyrolysis.
The closest I could find to someone identifying the chemical compound responsible for "freshness" is further along in that article:
"Unfortunately, the pleasant fresh-coffee aroma cannot be simply
preserved," Müller said. Once again, it's the sulfury-roasty aroma
quality that suffers during storage of coffee beverages. "This is
mainly due to the decrease of the coffeelike-smelling compound
2-furfurylthiol (FFT)." [said senior scientist Christoph Müller.]
The findings of this article reiterate Black Bear's claim that water activity is responsible for loss of freshness, and these processes are actually determined at the time of roasting as much as the storage conditions you have after you purchase your beans.
Once beans reach the desired degree of roast, they are cooled rapidly
with air or water. Air-cooled coffee beans contain just 1–2% water,
while water-cooled coffee beans contain as much as 5% water.
Baggenstoss studied the effect of the beans' water content on the
stability of flavor compounds during storage. He found that aldehydes,
pyrazines, and diketones such as 2,3-butanedione were unaffected by
bean water content.
On the other hand, compounds such as dimethyl trisulfide formed faster
and reached higher levels in beans with higher water contents.
Dimethyl trisulfide is formed by the oxidation of methanethiol, which
is broadly related to the perception of coffee freshness. "Therefore,
the coffee with higher water content seemed to lose fresh attributes
faster than air-quenched coffee," Baggenstoss said. Furthermore, "some
of the impact compounds are more rapidly degraded during storage of
coffees with higher moisture content."
Freshness is subjective. Likely it is the state immediately after the beans are roasted to bring about maximum desired flavor. Roasting adjusts the aromatics and enhances some flavors while sending others to the background. It also removes moisture from the beans.
I'm not a coffee drinker but I would suppose that it's freshness is affected in similar ways to other shelf-stable foods.
Humidity greatly affects spoilage by providing an environment favorable to bacteria and enzymes that break down food. Desiccants are often found in long term packaging to keep the environment as dry as possible, thus inhibiting spoilage due to bacteria and enzymes.
Sunlight also can damage in various ways. The ultraviolet spectrum is particularly a problem, as surely you know from the last sunburn you got. We know it damages DNA. Vitamins A and D are particularly vulnerable as the sunlight breaks their compounds apart into simpler substances. Likely some of the more flavorful compounds found in coffee are susceptible to it and are broken down into substances that diminish or detract from the taste you consider desirable.
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13773 | Some recipies call for beer to be added, but why?
I've seen some recipies that call for a can of beer to be added, but never have I seen them specify a specific kind or brand. That leads me to believe its less for flavor and more for chemical reaction.
My question: why is no type or brand specified? Is it left to the cook to decide what type/flavor beer would be best, or is it simply a chemical process that any beer can facilitate? If the latter, are there other ingredients which could be safely substituted?
Honestly, if it says add beer it's not something I'd generally question. :)
@Simon, I've never not put it it! Just curious what purpose it serves. From a programming background, I don't like cargo culting!
"In Heaven there is no beer, that's why we drink it here"
BTW, semi-related: JustKT had a good list of links on a question I had about food/beer pairings
Beer, like wine or coffee, is often used when a reduction over a long cooking time is called for but water would be sub-optimal. I make chili a lot. Water is not your friend there, especially if you incorporate a lot of elements that have water in them to begin with (undried/roasted tomatoes in particular). Beer doesn't add the acidity that coffee does, but it is great for adding sugars and the maltier flavors. The sugars aren't precisely 'sweeter' but rather add depth of flavor.
I'd be interested in the effect of carbonation on the cooking process, however since carbonation is supposedly lost faster at higher temperatures I'd imagine it's less than expected.
Beer can be used to de-glaze and so on; its lower alcohol makes it much less reactive (than marsala or liquor) and the sugars make it as likely to glaze over. Still it imparts some flavor depending on the context.
The type of beer you should use is largely up to you. They differ greatly in flavor and composition. For some suggestions on pairings check out this question. Another consideration is to look into Cicerones; it's a certification people get where (more for large scale operations than restaurants or personal use), in addition to knowledge of processing and manufacturing, they are sommeliers of beer.
An additional consideration is how long the beer will be cooking down. The longer the cook down, the more the flavors will be less distinct. However, there are flavors that are frequently only found in beer; hoppiness, roasted malt, and (the effects of open fermentation with) wild yeast can do amazing things in a dish. Creating a side reduction minimizes the cook down and can preserve the flavors.
Can you elaborate a bit on what you mean by cooking down? take your chili for example. I'm familiar with reduction sauces... Are you suggesting that in a chili dish, you would add the beer at the end so that it cooks less or would you cook it separately?
@Nate by 'cooking down' I mean adding it in the beginning of the chili to purposely reduce it, typically while it's onions and spices and peppers to better mix those flavors and allow them to be cooked at a high heat earlier (w/o add'l oil); but cooking it down at the end you maximize throughput of flavors, but minimizing reduction. Although for less thick soups adding beer at the end might be useful (i.e. a drunken chicken recipe, tortilla soup; the florals of beer would match well to more piquant dishes), for a stew/chili it would be inconsistent (since many chilis live/die by mouth feel).
BTW, some beer with cooking muscle: Old Rasputin & Night Tripper (stouts), Negra Modelo & Fat Tire (ambers), Baltika #9 Extra Lager & Dos Equis (lagers), Jolly Pumpkin ESB/Farmhouse Ale, Bell's Two Hearted IPA. Darker ones for tomatoes/roasted flavors, lagers and ales for whiter/piquant sauces/comps.
When a recipe includes wine as an ingredient, it's often also only specified whether the wine should be red or white, or occasionally what region the wine should be from, but seldom a particular wine from a particular winery. This allows for as much variation in flavour as just saying "add beer".
On the other hand, I have seen quite a few Belgian recipes that specify a particular Kriek or Trappist. So I think the flavour is definitely an important component.
As for chemical properties: the most obvious ones come from alcohol and acid, which @mfg talks about in this answer. Carbonation is relevant mostly for baking I think, but I'll leave that for someone else to answer as I'm not really sure.
Carbonation should play a part in beer batters. An easy way to make perfect tempura is to use sparkling water, so I would think beer could also have a similar effect.
Many of the recipes that I've seen using beer have relied on leavening properties (yeast), especially in the case of beer bread which is made without yeast or baking powder/soda. I suspect that you could use alcohol-free beer in baking, although Erik P. makes the valid point that alcohol could have an effect on the outcome of the product (because of evaporation time/temperature, etc.). In looking for substitutions, you need to consider why you're substituting. If you want to avoid alcohol but still want to maintain the flavor, you could try an alcohol-free beer. If you are okay with alcohol but not with the flavor, I would either go for a "watery, terrible, cheap domestic beer" or look for a recipe without beer. With the former, odds are you won't taste it anyway (not that you would want to), but you'll get the chemical reaction that you rightly suspect is at play. Many sites have recommended pale ales and brown ales for cooking.
From http://www.globalgourmet.com/food/egg/egg0397/beertips.html#ixzz1OQxJr7dR (I couldn't get the blockquote to work with the bullets):
Beer is by nature bitter. It comes
from the hops. Malt adds a sweet
flavor that counteracts and
harmonizes with the bitterness.
Likewise, sweet foods profit from the
marriage with the hops' bitter taste.
Use sugary vegetables like onions,
carrots, corn, etc., and even add
some honey, molasses or sugar itself.
Caramelized onions are a classic
example of a sweet vegetable ideal with beer.
The bitter hop flavor also helps
counteract the richness of creamy,
oil-based or cheese dishes, but
flavor-wise, use it as sparingly as
you would a squeeze of lime or touch
of vinegar.
Acidic foods like tomatoes, citrus fruits, vinegar and mustard can
compliment the sweet flavors, adding
balance and depth to the dish.
The yeast is perfectly suited to baking and battering. Breads, fritters and pancakes profit from being made with very yeasty brews, which lighten the texture and make for tender, tasty crusts.
Beer tenderizes meats, making for good marinades. Game marries well with beer, but so does chicken and fish. For the newbie, robust dishes are a good way to start before experimenting with the subtleties beer can have on more refined flavorings.
The more the beer is cooked and reduced, the stronger its flavor will be. If the dish requires long cooking and reduction, avoid using too strong a brew, lest you end up overdoing it.
Finally, sample some beers to understand the range of flavors. If you can imagine a beer going well with a particular dish as a beverage, then it would likely make a good ingredient as well.
Note that, unless you're using a bottle-conditioned craft beer with a noticeable sediment in it, there's no actual yeast in beer. It's all filtered out before bottling or canning.
Yeast, sugar, flavor...What's not to like?
You do need to keep flavor in mind, however, especially when making beer bread.
Pizza dough (by eliminating the need for yeast); I would say that the fact college students typically have some watery, terrible, cheap domestic beer in the fridge, and can afford flour, but not the brainspan on yeast, is reason enough to start experimenting with cooking with beer.
@mfg But the watery, terrible, cheap domestic beer in the fridge contains no yeast as that was all filtered out. Unless you're drinking bottle-conditioned craft beer with a visible sediment, there's no yeast in the final product.
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1143 | What's the best way to cook fall-off-the-bone baby-back ribs
What's the best way to cook fall-off-the-bone baby-back ribs?
I rarely ever recommend boiling the heck out of meat. You are washing away all of the flavor. Remember water is a solvent and remove everything from the meat if it is left to boil long enough. For the most tender ribs I would recommend a braise. The slow, low, moist cooking of a braise is perfect for breaking down connective tissue in the ribs without drying them out or washing away natural flavor. Even in smokers I haven't had great luck with baby back ribs as they have a tendency to dry out.
Here is a easy to follow braise for ribs by Alton Brown video, 1, 2. It's a decent place to start and work on your preferred methods from there.
Please avoid boiling your meats, you will be so happy with other methods, even if they do take a bit longer.
I'm a little confused by the comments regarding 'not boiling meats' since some of the very same comments mention adding liquid/cider/etc into the foil packet. Is that not considered 'boilng'? I made ribs once by adding water to the bottom of the pan and coveirng with foil and they were amazing tender and got rave reviews. Is that the method that is being warned against using?
It's more of a braise when liquid is added to the cooking vessel. I don't know all the science behind it, there is much on Google. The big difference is that boiling meat basically washes it out (so to speak) removing fats and flavor. Braising, I think, more steams the meat, adding heat, which is also > 100C, which is the highest for boiling water. Braising is GOOD, Boiling is BAD.
The key is to slow-cook them on low heat, and keep the lid/door closed for at least two hours. Here's my fool-proof method for fall-off-the-bone baby back ribs that anyone can do...
Make sure you know where to get good fresh pork (pay the cost to be the boss)
Cut membrane off the bone-side of the slab (optional, I don't like its chewiness)
Use your favorite rib rub on both sides (or just pick one in the store)
Wrap the slabs in aluminum foil tightly (shiny side outward)
Refrigerate overnight or for a few hours (if you have the time)
Preheat oven to 275 degrees (rack in the middle)
Put ribs on a cookie sheet (bones down, meat up)
Leave the door shut for at least 2 hours and 15 minutes (very important)
Take ribs out and let sit for about five minutes (and savor the aroma)
Remove the tin foil and put your favorite sauce on the ribs (I like whiskey in mine)
Broil/grill the ribs for an additional 10-15 minutes (makes the sauce stick, restaurant style)
This works every time, and the meat really falls off the bone! The key is really to get good meat, though. If you are cooking ribs that have been frozen for many months, they obviously aren't going to be as good.
The secret is simple: Cook them slowly, at lower temperatures.
For ribs or for that matter most anything you need to go to "the source" for food related questions: Harold McGee
He did an excellent post in the New York Times about cooking ribs:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/30/dining/30curious.html?scp=1&sq=Curious%20Cook&st=cse
Here is his recipe for Smoky Oven Spare ribs:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/30/dining/30curiousrex.html?ref=dining
The basic idea is slow taking about 6 hours.
Start initially at 200 for the first 4 hours then reduce to 175 for the final 2 hours.
Thanks for posting the link to Harold McGee's article. His directions are great!
Since you specified the 'bbq' tag, I'm assuming you're asking about barbecue. I use what's called a 3-2-1 method, and it produces amazing results, every time.
Apply dry rub to the ribs 4-6 hours before smoking.
Prepare smoker for ~225*, and place ribs in smoker with water pan (ribs do not go IN the water pan), and add water-soaked wood to firebox.
Every hour, apply mop and water-soaked wood to firebox.
After 3 hours, wrap ribs in foil, and leave foil packets vented. Pour a little mop into the foil packets.
After 2 hours, remove the foil. Apply mop.
After 1 hour, perform bend test. When ribs are done, remove from the smoker and apply thin layer of sauce.
Place the ribs in a broiler until sauces starts to bubble and caramelize.
If you are only concerned with tenderness, boil the heck out of them, then sauce them and put them on the grill. They don't get smoky that way, though.
My dad's first experiment with his smoker was a pile of baby back ribs. Here is what to do:
Obtain baby back ribs. Rinse and pat dry with paper towels.
Remove membrane from the bony side of the ribs. A paring knife or straight-blade screwdriver helps get you started, and then grab the loose corner of the membrane with a paper towel
You may wish to sprinkle seasonings on all surfaces. I use either a simple combo of salt, pepper, and garlic; or Magic Dust.
You may wish to prepare a mop sauce. This will help keep the ribs tender, especially if you don't have the equipment to smoke at 200°F. You will take a BBQ mop or basting brush, soaked in mop sauce, plop it all over the ribs every 15 minutes. This sauce should be acidic without any sugar.
Get your grill or smoker somewhere between 200-350°F. If you can use wood or charcoal for your heat you are better off in terms of flavor. Higher heat requires more moisture.
Grill or smoke your ribs until the internal temp is 160. You may baste the ribs in BBQ sauce for the last half hour to an hour of cooking for a nice glaze.
Specific decisions on anything general in the above instructions may be controversial. I am just a Yankee who loves BBQ, FWIW. I have no horse in any regional BBQ argument. It is all delicious.
Yea, it's very rarely a good idea to boil meat.
Try this method:
Trim the silver skin connective
tissue, that stuff will never break
down into gelatin unlike the other
soft tissue around the bones.
Rub with your favorite BBQ rub.
Smoke heavily with unsoaked fruit wood
(apple, cherry, etc.) for 1 hour on
indirect heat.
Wrap tightly in foil, and pour mix of your rub &
cider vinegar inside package.
Bake in 250 oven for 3-4 hours.
Take out of wrap and glaze with BBQ sauce and
finish over direct heat for 5-10
minutes until it looks fabulous.
When you boil ribs, the terrorists win.
Couldn't agree more. Boiling ribs is not only unnecessary, it is a sure way to remove most of the taste. Baking them in an oven is almost as preposterous. To be done correctly, that's right I said correctly, they need to go into an indirect smoker for an afternoon.
I generally cook ribs with the same idea in mind but there are a couple of ways to achieve the tenderness and smoke grilled flavor.
Rinse meat
Season with rub or marinade of your choice (I use a vinegar base marinade, Wicker Sauce)
Wrap them in foil and bake at 350 degrees or slow cooker if time allows
Grill/broil until desired
Brush with sauce (optional)
or
Grill seasoned/marinated ribs until done or mostly done
Wrap grilled/broiled ribs in foil or place in slow cooker until tender
Take out of oven or cooker and brush with sauce (optional)
What I do is peel of the skin, then boil in a mix of 75% Pepsi / 25% water until almost cooked. Let rest for a couple of minutes and smother them in sauce and under the grill they go.
Awesome every time!
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6265 | What seasonings give ranch dressing its distinctive flavor?
I've always wondered this. Is there a collective set of seasonings that equal "ranch"?
I always thought it was the combination of mayonnaise and sour cream (or something like buttermilk) that gives ranch dressing that ever so slightly tang to it.
Then add in the seasonings like dill, pepper, and garlic and onion and you've got yourself something delicious.
actually, that may be the entire recipe for a good ranch dressing right there! :) i think it's all about the buttermilk and dill for sure.
and maybe add just a bit of thyme.
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4442 | How can I smoke a large chicken on an outdoor grill and still keep the skin edible?
I smoked a large chicken in an off-set barbecue pit using burning wood only (no charcoal). The meat turned out great, but the skin was saturated with smoke, bitter, and inedible. I would love to be able to keep the skin edible, any ideas?
I was using cherry wood
You need to first let the wood burn down to coals before adding your smoking chips and the bird. The excessive smoke from the burning wood is what made it too bitter. What type of wood were you burning?
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61 | What are the pros and cons of storing bread in various locations?
Why should/shouldn't I store my bread in the fridge/freezer/breadbox/plastic bag/etc?
Storing bread in the freezer you can store for several days and keep it soft.
To eat, remove from the freezer and put in the oven.
I completely forgot about keeping bread in the freezer. I'm such a sandwich nut that I rarely have to do that anymore. Good answer.
We keep bread in an airtight box in the freezer and defrost it in the microwave wrapped in a clean cloth. This absorbs all moisture released in the defrosting process and keeps the bread from becoming spongy.
Every week I buy 1 sliced bread and put it in the freezer. Every morning I prepare my sandwhiches with cheese, using the still frozen slices of bread, and take them to work. During lunch, the bread has thawed and tastes really fresh.
You can also defrost bread at room temperature overnight — but keep it in a sealed bag to avoid it drying out.
Bread in the freezer will stay edible for a long time. Freezing doesn’t much affect the texture of the bread either. The downside is that you have to thaw or toast the bread before you can eat it.
Bread in the refrigerator will keep longer without going stale or moldy. The downside is that the texture of the bread changes when it is refrigerated. I notice it quite a bit, but my wife doesn’t seem to.
Plastic is a good way to keep bread on the counter, but you want to make sure that it is completely cool before wrapping it. If the bread is still warm, the plastic will trap the escaping water vapor and the bread will get soggy.
Warm fresh bread should be allowed to (at least mostly) cool either on the counter or in an open bag. Once it is mostly cool, a paper bag is a good way to keep it if you need to put it in something. Any remaining water that is going to come out of the bread won’t pool up on the bread’s surface like it would while stored in a plastic bag.
For artisan bread, I usually wrap it in aluminum foil and keep it on the counter. I don’t have any reason to believe that this is somehow better than other methods. It goes stale after a couple of days, but if it’s not eaten by then we will toast it or make French toast for breakfast.
The best way to store bread I have found is in a good stone container that is keeps airtight. The stone container keeps the bread away from light and keeps the bread in normal temperature. It also keeps mold away very good, especially when washed every now and then with diluted lemon juice or vinegar.
Bread goes stale in the fridge as you are storing it at the quickest stealing temperature. The moisture migrates in the starch from alpha to beta cells. You should never store bread in the fridge. Trust me I used to be a baker and it was one of the first things we learned at college in baking technology. The fridge will inhibit mould but pointless if it is stale. You can pop the bread in the oven for short while which will temporarily migrate the moisture back restoring freshness.
What's "stealing temperature"? Is it a typo for "staling"?
The freezer is absolutely the best place to store bread you want to keep for more than a day or two (depending on the bread - baguettes keep fresh for only hours, multi-grain sourdough for much longer). Suck the air out of the bag so it doesn't get frosty, and slice before freezing if you want to use it by the slice. A few seconds in the microwave and the previously-frozen slice will be in very good shape. This won't work as well for something really crusty - the crust will lose it's crunch - but you really can't keep crusty bread long no matter what you do.
Don't keep bread in the refrigerator. It will go stale and get moldy quickly.
I disagree about the refrigerator. Bread will get moldy more quickly at room termperature. The refrigerator does change the texture of bread quickly though, even if it hasn't had time to get stale yet.
I also thought that was weird, why would it get moldy quickly in the refrigerator. Surely it must last longer there than in room temperature ?
If you take the danish "rugbrød" (I think the closest english version is rye bread)...it gets really hard, dry and dull tasting if you put it in the fridge, though it'll be able to keep of the mold for a while longer.
Best way to store bread, including baguettes, is in the freezer where it can keep for months. Reheat by placing straight into a hot oven from the freezer. The bread will crisp up and be just as if you had just baked it.
Bread that has gone a little bit stale can be lightly moistened with water all the way round, then placed in a hot oven to crisp up.
Never store in plastic if possible. A thick brown paper bag will keep it pretty fresh on the counter for a couple of days. If you don't get through a loaf that quickly, it's worth freezing half.
Bread with a crispy or hard crust, like most European breads, will lose its texture when stored in plastic, which you’ll never see done in Europe. Dense breads do well standing the cut end on a board or plate. Others are best in a paper or cloth bag—Italians often have a special cloth bread bag on the counter or in a cabinet.
Freezing is the only long-term storage that preserves bread’s qualities. As noted here, refrigerator temperatures cause staleness faster than room temp.
My favorite place to store bread is in my mouth/tummy :P
On a serious note: we've tried storing it in various places and each seemed to have enough downsides (coupled with how much we enjoy good, fresh bread) that we decided it was worthwhile to just buy and make it more frequently then it was to try to preserve it longer.
I've always stored my bread in a dry, dark cupboard or drawer. I would assume that a bread box would accomplish the same thing. Bread stored this way has generally lasted me 2 weeks before mold even begins to start growing.
Another thing to keep in mind is to keep your bread stored in an airtight fashion. If you don't, you risk your bread drying out quicker.
My experience with keeping bread in the fridge results in faster molding, and dryer bread.
I've never found bread to get mouldier in the fridge. Definitely becomes stale more quickly.
The primary considerations for bread storage vessels are as follows:
Humidity/dryness. For example, bread in a sealed plastic bag usually stays wet and rots with fuzzy white, black, and green mold.
Preventing the incursion of rodents, cockroaches, flies, insects, and other small animals. For example bread stored inside of an electric refrigerator will not usually get eaten by mice.
I bake bread frequently and store it upright on the cut end on my breadboard. It's a crusty loaf and the crust will get soft if wrapped. It doesn't last long in our house so long term storage isn't a problem. There is a way to restore the crisp exterior if you must wrap it in plastic. Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Sprinkle a little water on the loaf or pat it with a wet hand. Place on the middle oven rack for a few minutes. It will crisp up almost as much as when it was fresh but it must have had a crisp crust to begin with. This doesn't work on the fluff from the supermarket.
Bread lasts longer out of the refrigerator.
In warm and humid environments, store-bought bread will commonly develop mold after just one or two days at room temperature.
Bread frequently stales faster at refrigerated temperatures, perhaps that's what is being referred to?
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38029 | What is the purpose of papillote on lamb bones?
Is it just for decoration, or does it serve a purpose?
If you mean the little paper frills on the ends of the bones on a Frenched rack of lamb, those are purely decorative.
...and ridiculously fussy.
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32225 | Making cream cheese from raw, non-homogenized milk, what to do with the cream?
Of all the recipes I've seen for cream cheese from raw milk, I haven't seen any mention of whether to skim some of the cream, shake it in or something else.
My initial guess is to leave the cream and let the milk continue to separate further, but that is just my educated guess so hoping for an actual answer.
In all cheese making and especially with young cheeses like cream cheese, fat adds a lot to the flavor and texture.
You can skim off extra fat but your cheese will be thinner and less richly flavored.
Shaking the cream in won't help if you are using a fermented method (as opposed to using boiling and acid to curdle the milk) because it will separate out again during the fermentation.
Your thickened, fermented milk will be richer on top where the cream rose. It will mix back in when you drain the cheese and form it.
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7753 | Where can I find left-handed serrated knives?
I recently discovered that the reason I hate cheese knives (but love cheese) is because they are made to work for right-handed people.
So where can I buy a (reasonably priced) cheese knife, or other serrated knives?
What, so we are allowing left handed people to use the site now? What next?
We have been selling left handed products now for 50 years this year - supplying the vast majority of specialist left handed stores around the world.
I can confirm that Left handers do indeed need knives that are sharpened / scalloped / serrated on the opposite side to a right handed blade. So, holding the knife in your left hand - pointing it away from your body - the scallop / serration / etc should be on the right (nearest your body). This will dramatically improve the way that you cut meat / veg / etc - and be safer for you as well.
You should be able to find Paring / Vegetable / Cook's / Bread / Cheese knives - and many more at any good left handed specialist store.
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23844 | Can I bring sausages on a plane?
I'd like to bring some raw Italian sausages with me when I fly from NYC to Seattle.
Is it legal to pack sausages and/or ice in a carry-on?
Will the sausages keep during the 6-hour flight?
Legality isn't really a cooking question; you could ask on the travel stackexchange. That said... food is fine. And I'm pretty sure you can check coolers. Bringing them as a carry-on would be harder. I'm sure the cooler itself would be fine if it's within the size limits, but since you can't bring liquids through security, you'd have to get the ice from somewhere past security.
Sorry, legal advice is off topic. If you remove that part, the question "will it keep" will be closed as a duplicate: Any non-refrigerated food item which usually requires refrigeration is considered safe for 2 hours at temperatures between 4 and 60°C, and we have answered lots of questions about that.
@rumtscho: "Will it keep" can admittedly be transformed into "what's necessary to keep something cold for 6 hours", which is what I optimistically assumed the OP meant to ask.
I imagine using dry ice would be enough to bypass the "no liquids" rule, but there might be other regulations pertaining to food products or raw meat.
@user5561, dry ice is sufficiently hazardous that there's good reason to ban it on planes, unlike water ice.
"Will they keep" is mostly a matter of how well you pack them. With sufficient ice, of course they'll keep. And if you freeze the sausage first, it won't take nearly as much ice to keep them cold - they probably wouldn't even thaw all the way through if left out at room temperature for 6 hours.
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5592 | Is there a way to bring a loaf of bread that's gone dry, back to life?
It seems that some of the whole grain loafs seem to dry out very quickly, even stored in a plastic bag - if it hasn't started to turn green, is there a way to restore some of the life back into them?
I live in a very humid climate. The idea of a loaf that is capable of going dry without growing mold makes me really jealous!
That's one of downsides of NYC - It can happen in 1 day :>)
It depends. If you need it to soften up for just a little while you can throw it in the mircowave for about 10-15 seconds. And by a little while, I mean the time it takes to make and eat a sandwich. Other than that, you can use the bread for breadcrumbs or croutons. Also, dry bread makes the best french toast you will ever have. Basically, you can't turn back time on a loaf but you can make it last longer by freezing it and thawing a slice at a time.
Microwave is not ideal because it heats the water faster than the starch, tending to cause the bread to steam and actually lose moisture. It will make it seem less stale for a minute, but as soon as it cools down it may actually be worse.
thus the little while caveat :)
Yes. Throw it in the oven on about 200 F for 20 minutes or so. The staling process is called retrogradation, and reheating can reverse it to some degree.
How much of a degree? And does it work if you reheat for shorter amounts of time?
You basically want to warm it through, so the time will depend on the thickness. You can also cut slices and very lightly toast them for faster action.
nice... i'll be using that next time
I do this on a higher heat, say 300-350, and also wet the outside of the bread with water until lightly damp but not soggy. On that heat it only takes 5-10 minutes and gets pretty good results.
Adding a stick of celery inside the plastic container with the bread - has anyone tried that?
I have to disagree with the simple reheating method. Bread goes stale through a loss of moisture. Applying dry heat simply doesn't do much beneficial besides toast your stale bread.
Put the bread in a brown paper bag, dampen the top of the bag with water, and then microwave for a few seconds.
That's not accurate. Yes, some moisture is lost to the outside world, but most of the staling is the starch degelatinization, and reheating above the gelatinization temperature allows it to soften. You can read a ton about it in McGee, or here is a summary on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staling
@Michael, @hobodave - I find that this technique works extremely well. I haven't checked up on how bread goes stale lately (but thanks for the link), but it does seem to help to add moisture.
Cut it up and toast to make croûtons, or crumble into bread crumbs. Your bread will enjoy new life in a salad or other dish.
If your bread is coming pre-sliced and drying out quickly, try buying unsliced loaves and slicing it as you need it. It's a bit more work, but your bread will taste fresher longer (and as a bonus, you get to decide on the thickness you want).
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7055 | What method can I use to cook pumpkin seeds so that they turn out crunchy?
I've always enjoyed eating the pumpkin seeds when I buy them at vendor, but whenever I try to make them at home in the oven, they always seem to turn out either still soggy, or deflated and not crunchy. What am I missing in the technique - I've just simply washed them off, laid on aluminum foil and placed in the oven at 350.
Be sure not to crowd them on the pan when roasting.
I let mine dry after washing, then toss them in oil, sprinkle with salt, and then roast on a sheet pan
I also make sure to get in there and stir them a few times during roasting, to be sure that they all get exposed to the heat, and on both sides.
+1 I think the dry and then oil is the answer. It's fun to play with the oil too (like butter or bacon grease) and then experiment with spices (garam masala, chili powder, brown sugar).
+1, though I usually actively dry mine first (paper towel, usually) rather than just letting them sit out to dry. I'm not that patient.
@Bob : I never said I was patient ... I dry 'em in the oven while it's pre-heating.
Be sure and roast them in a single layer, and keep going until they are golden brown, tossing occasionally. If they are soggy, you probably just aren't cooking them long enough to drive off all of the water.
I soak mine in salt water for about an hour or two (i've left them overnight at times and they're fine, but more salty) Then I lay spread them on a parchment lined cookie sheet, making sure they are single layer (not bunched up) and bake for about 30-40 minutes on 300 checking at 10 minute intervals and turning or moving them around. Before baking, I also sprinkle with salt, salt and pepper, chili powder or onion, garlic or season salt. Anything you like will work. You could even add lime to the salt water and then sprinkly with chili powder just before baking. I've been making them every Halloween for 30 years and have never run into a problem with them not being crunchy. But as others have said, sometimes, depending on your oven, you just have to leave them in and turn them until they're done.
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3146 | How do you prepare Soft Shell Crabs?
I purchased "Live" Soft Shell Crabs and wanted to make a recipe that calls for frying them - what are the steps involved?
Should they be boiled first?
@AtillaNYC: No. You cut the live crab.
First, clean them. You basically just remove the stuff that you don't (normally) eat from a hard shell crab.
Using some kitchen shears just remove the following:
Their face. Just one snip should take off their mouth and eyes. You have to cut it at an angle.
Their gills. Peel back their shells and cut the gills off. There is a set per side.
The apron. This is the triangular tail like thing under the crab. Just turn it over and cut it off.
Then you can just dredge them in seasoned flour and fry in hot oil (375 F).
Update
I found a video showing how: http://www.chow.com/stories/11245 He uses his hands for the apron and gills.
As far as "putting it out of it's misery", I'd go with the face cut first. It still twitches afterwards, but that's as good as it gets. If it really bothers you, I suggest eating something else, or having someone else prepare it for you.
at which point do they die? Any way to put them out of their misery quickly before commencing with the rest of the prep?
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2965 | How long will Duck Fat last before going bad
I've drained the fat from a roasted duck, placed it in a closed container, saved it in the 'fridge, not quite sure how long it will last??
Protip: If you're storing it in a recycled mayonnaise jar, don't put it beside the actual mayonnaise.
The main concern is keeping it from going rancid which is due to oxidation and heat. If you keep it at the back of the fridge in a container that minimizes the amount of open space on top it will keep a long time.
You can also freeze it if you don't intend to use in the near future and don't want it taking up space in the refrigerator.
+1 I normally freeze it and use it directly from the freezer. Even frozen it's so soft that I can easily slice off the amount I need with a sharp knife and put the rest back in the freezer again.
+1 for freezer, we froze out last duck fat and used it some months later for roast potatoes. yum
Should last ages as the other posters have said. However make sure it's pure and doesn't have anything else from the duck in as that can go off earlier meaning you have to throw out the fat with it.
At least 6 months, easily a year. You'll use it all up well before then or you don't deserve to own duck fat.
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4043 | Should I boil red potatoes before roasting them?
I would like to try roasting red potatoes instead of regular idaho potatoes-should I boil and then roast or roast them raw? Also, covered in a ceramic container or uncovered--any tips?
In my opinion, it's a matter of how much time you have and what temperature your oven is set on already. I make these a lot, with a variety of dishes, so I've used multiple cooking methods.
Ideal: They roast best, I think, being boiled just for a few minutes then roasted at 475 F for 30 minutes.
Oven's already on low: If I have a more slow-cooking item already in the oven at 350 F, then I'll go ahead and put the potatoes in raw and leave them to roast for 60-90 minutes.
Need them quickly: When in a time crunch, I've also had success boiling them until softened completely then broiling until browned (maybe 5-10 minutes).
You can go one of two ways with this and it's all going to depend on your preferences.
They can be done as Tim said by simply tossing with butter or oil, seasoning and roasting until tender.
Benefit: Easy to prep and be done with.
Drawback: They'll need to roast for about an hour (test by inserting a paring knife, if it inserts easily they're done) and they'll be more brown and shriveled.
They can also be first par-boiled until a paring knife can be easily inserted and then tossed with butter/oil and seasoning before roasting.
Benefit: Less shrinkage, they'll retain more of the red color of their skin, and will only take about 15-20 minutes to crisp up the exterior. They can be par-cooked, seasoned and refrigerated until ready to roast so are great for advance prep/entertaining.
Drawback: A two-step process and the need to wash the pan used for first par-cooking them.
I think reds are actually better for roasting. Cut the potatoes into quarters, toss them in melted butter and spices, put them in an open baking pan, and roast away.
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3916 | Are there any guidelines for converting cooking recipes from Regular Ovens to Convection?
I was looking to buy a Convection Oven and wanted to know if there are any general differences in baking methods between the two.
Conversions aside, you (that should read: everybody!) should purchase an oven thermometer. The variance in domestic ovens is shocking.
The forced movement (convection) of the hot air by fans is what improves the cooking in a convection oven. The beautiful part is that it allows you to cook on ANY or EVERY single rack in your oven. Here are the adjustments you'll need to make:
For baked goods you typically drop the temperature by 25°F (10°C). If the recipe says to bake at 350°F then you'd bake at 325°F in a convection oven. This is most important in baked goods so that the interior has a chance to cook through before the exterior is overcooked or burnt.
You also need to decrease the baking time by 10-15 PERCENT. To make it easier to determine when to check, I usually suggest checking the item about 5-10 minutes earlier than the shorter time indicated in the recipe. If a recipe says bake 25-30 minutes, then check it at about 20 minutes. It may need a bit more time but you'll be pretty close.
When roasting meats and vegetables you can use the above method OR you can leave it at the regular temperature and then cook for 25-30 PERCENT less time.
In the instance of method #1 for meat you'll get less shrinkage and less chance of possibly drying it out.
In the instance of method #2 for meat, it will cook quicker and get better browning and therefore a bit more flavor.
A third option to take advantage of both methods is to cook it at the reduced temperature for most of the time but then turn it up 25-50°F for the last 20-30 minutes of cooking to improve the browning.
I was surprised that my guineafowl was ready 30 minutes before the time suggested by the recipe. Now I know my meat thermometer is working OK!
Because of the improved heat transfer, you typically need to decrease both the time and temperature when converting from conventional to convection ovens.
Some convection ovens will do the conversion for you -- you enter the time & temp for the recipe, and it'll adjust it to the time and temp for convection cooking.
Any specific amounts of time/temp in either direction if the oven won't do it for you?
Your best guide would be the manual for the convection oven, as I have no idea if there are other factors involved.
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5179 | I was going to try a recipe for Ceviche - are there any fish varieties not recommended?
Ceviche is basically using just lemon juice to "cook" the fish, so I was wondering if there are any fish varieties that wouldn't be recommended using this method?
In general, you want to avoid "oily" fish, because it will tend to go rancid rather than curing properly. By oily fish I'm referring to sardines, mackerel, bluefish, and similar "fishy" fish. Farmed salmon is also generally a bad idea because it's so fatty; in general, you would only make salmon ceviche if you had a specific recipe for it. Farmed trout and true sole also don't work very well, as they're too delicate and tend to fall apart into a fish mush while marinating. Finally, cartiligenous fish, such as shark, skates, and chilean sea bass will be horribly gristly and difficult to chew as ceviche -- and you shouldn't be eating them anyway, they're endangered!
Pretty much, you're looking for a lean mild-flavored white-fleshed fish: tilapia, flounder, rockfish, cod, John Dory, mahi-mahi, and similar fish will work in any "generic" ceviche recipe. There are specific recipes for tuna, swordfish, shrimp, squid and octopus which are also excellent, but only if your recipe calls for it.
My initial reaction was "stay away from meaty fish like tuna or swordfish" but a quick Google shows those as common variants. That said I like white fish, squid, scallops, and shrimp. But I don't think anything is strictly off limits.
There are also variations on ceviche that use gently poached fish instead of raw. If you're at all worried about the quality of your fish, you could try poaching it first.
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7054 | Is there a way to tell if a pumpkin is going to be good for cooking?
It's the season for pumpkins and I was wondering if there is a way to tell if a pumpkin was going to taste good enough to cook with. I guess this is a similar situation as with a watermelon - you can't really cut it open to check if it will taste good.
Many of the varieties of pumpkin sold in US stores in the fall are decorative -- they're grown for their appearance and size, not for cooking with.
Ask for 'sugar pumpkins' or 'pie pumpkins' at your grocery store, farm stand, or farmer's market, and you should be able to find them -- they tend to be smaller, more squat than round (although, some farmers markets might have other varieties of "pie" pumpkins).
If you can't find them -- I'd go with acorn squash, instead of using one of the decorative pumpkins.
I think you're right that they're similar to a watermelon in that there's truly no definitive way to tell if they're ripe and good to cook with. There are a few signs you can look for though.
Like a watermelon, thump it. It should make a hollow sound.
Check the skin out. It should be hard like a shell. Press your thumbnail into it; it should resist puncture.
Make sure the vine that is attached to the pumpkin has died and turned brown and woody. This is a good indicator that it is ripe and ready to be used.
Good luck!
An all-the-way orange pumpkin is a good indicator of ripeness, although with some brands of pumpkin the pumpkin can be ripe before being orange. Things to really look for are:
The pumpkin sounds hollow when thumped (like watermelon)
The skin dents but does not puncture when you push your fingernail into it
The stem is hard
There is a long stem (for eating this slows any rotting of the pumpkin)
If you are harvesting the pumpkin yourself, disinfecting the skin on picking will kill any bacteria that might cause rot. This is usually done with a 10% bleach solution. Curing a pumpkin for 10 days at 80 degrees F or so in a dark place will extend the shelf life as well.
Once you have purchased your pumpkin, store it out of direct sunlight at room temperature for maximum shelf life.
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4179 | Bread used for containing soup
So when I was away on holiday we had a lovely lovely meal which was basically soup. But the soup was served in bread which you could then eat aswell. It was so tasty, the bread was essentially hollow with only the crust but there was a little bit of the dough stuff left which became lovely and gooey from the liquid of the soup.
So as I am a great soup eater (and my boyfriend even more so) this is something that we are really looking to try and do...
Can anyone suggest the best way to do this - do I just bake a loaf of bread and then scoop out the insides, or is the some kind of clever way of making the bread hollow so that essentially I am making the crust?
Hope that someone can help as this is something that I would love to serve at a dinner party!
Thanks :)
I love the idea of making 'hollow' bread that is all crust.
bread bowls are so yummy! on the wharf in san francisco there are about 20 place that have chowder in a bowl.
Bread bowls are also a decorative way of serving dip at parties, and you don't have to worry about forgetting to bring it home afterwards.
King Arthur Flour has some great bread bowl recipes on their site:
When we were kids my mum used to do this for us, but always with bought rolls. Basically she would buy crusty rolls from the bakery. Usually these would have been cooked in batches and so where they were joined to another roll there would be a bit which was not crusty. she would scoop out the bread from these points and then just pour soup into the roll. We would drink the soup from the roll, then at the end eat the whole thing. Delicious.
On the idea of making bread which was all crust, I wonder if you could do this by rolling your bread out flat, like a small pizza, then getting a potato and cutting one end flat, so it can stand on the flat end. Then wrap the bread around the potato, leaving the cut end uncovered. put it in the oven stood on the flat end and when it cooks you should get a bowl shaped bread roll that you could fill with soup.
The potato might affect the cooking of the bread though, so might not be appropriate, but a stone (hard to stand up) or half brick (square, but might work) might work better.
Not sure if having the bread around the stone will affect its cooking too much, it might be a case of try it and see. You also might not get the desired effect if the inside has a crust as well as the soup might not soak into the bread as well.
This answer will help getting the rolls to be nice and crusty I think.
You don't need to worry about trying to bake hollow bread.
The typical way of doing this is to bake a stout, crusty French bread into a boule. You can use commercial yeast, but I recommend sourdough if you can.
Once baked, and cooled, you just cut a circular hole in the top of the boule and remove a big chunk. The larger the hole, the larger the portion of soup. If you were to actually hollow this out, you'd end up with a rather huge portion of soup. The finished product should end up looking exactly like those shown in this blog post.
I like bread much more than the next guy, but I think I might struggle with the portions in that blog post. Although if the soup was good...
@Sam: Yea they are rather huge. I don't think there's any expectation that you eat all of that bread though. There's a great franchise in the US called Panera which serves soup in smaller sourdough ones I never understood the additional portion of french bread though.
This is very similar to the South African dish Bunny Chow which I believe is just made in a normal loaf of bread, hollowed out. The Bread that is taken out is served as well for dunking into the curry.
It's typically a round loaf of bread, with a firm crust, a hole cut in the top and hollowed out. (save the insides for bread crumbs ... you can freeze them if you're not going to use them right away).
You can find recipies online by searching for the term "bread bowl recipe".
We had bread bowls at the coffee shop I used to work at for the stew as the soup was too runny. I never tried it but we always ran out of bread bowls. :) We just had a giant 'bun' that you cut the top off and then scooped the inside out. If you were hungry enough you could always dip that inside bread in the soup.
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9111 | Jam Rolly-polly
Today I made for the first time a jam rolly-polly. It is very tasty (if I do say so myself) and perfectly edible, however while it was cooking, the top layer split and did not rise.
Can anyone suggest what I did wrong - how do I ensure that it does not fall part slightly when I am cooking and rise so that it is similar to the pictures you see and the texture that I have eaten before.
Many thanks
Fiona
when you ask recipe fixing questions, it is best if you provide the recipe in your question, as well as any deviations from it that you made.
Try baking it in a loaf pan instead of flat on a sheet. You can put a U shaped sheet of parchment under it to lift it out with. The side of the pan will give some resistance to it spreading out, which will hopefully keep the top from splitting. I've also seen folks crush up aluminum foil to pack the sides of the pan with to try to force it into a more rounded bottom.
Another trick I've heard, but not sure how well it works in practice, is to chill the rolled up product before you bake it, so that the dough won't "slouch" on the pan like a D shape on it's back, but will stay more round.
Most rolled items I've seen wouldn't fit in a regular loaf pan (too long), but it's possible that a "french bread pan" might work.
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3593 | What is the shelf-life for Homemade Jams?
If I'm making Homemade Jams/Preserves, how long will they last?
"Use within a year" is a good guideline. There are exceptions. Lingonberry jam done right is easily good for a couple of years.
All home-canned food should be used within a year. This assumes you follow the strict sterilization regimen required by jarring/canning at home. You should also store them in a cool, dark, dry place between 50-70°F.
Over time changes in color, flavor, and texture is inevitable. This will result in a degradation of quality in the product, but as long as the seal is in tact and there are no visible signs of mold or yeast the jam should be safe to eat.
Another thing to note is that lighter colored jams tend to darken faster than others and thus may not look appealing over the course of a full year. They are still "safe" though.
Source:
http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/questions/FAQ_jellied.html#7
I just wanted to clarify that the year is the expected shelf life. As you said- if the seal is intact then the food is safe regardless of the age. I've had home bottled (high acid) jellies stay good for 3-4 years. They might have gone longer but they were finally eaten.
The Good Eats jam episode suggests 2-3 weeks if you don't actually preserve the jam in a home-canning kind of way and about a year if you do.
Yes good point for the non-canned shelf life. I assumed they would be canned.
That episode also recommended that after canning, to remove the ring on the jar, so you'd have a more obvious sign if something had gone wrong with the canning process.
@Joe So that's why to remove the ring. I've really wondered what that was all about. Tx.
There's also freezer jams, which can easily last a few years in a deep-freeze without losing much quality. They're well sealed, so there's little moisture loss / freezer burn, there's little loss of quality aside from the initial freezing, and you don't have to worry about mold or other organism growing in the freezer.
Home made Jam made with half Fruit and half Sugar will last almost indefinitely... it's additives that spoil food, placed into in a sterile jam jar it could be there many years and still as good as the one eaten in the first week, Ask your granny not a jobsworth! 50/50 nothing else!
Additives don't cause food spoilage, molds and bacteria do. Additives are often used to prevent spoilage. In the case of the jams it is the ph and sugar content that make for an environment that it not suitable for support bacteria and mold.
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3900 | Are there any natural preservatives that can be used in Soups or Stews?
I make a lot soups and various stews and they don't seem to last more than a few days - are there any natural preservatives that can be added to them that will increase their refrigerator life?
If cooled and stored properly (minimize air space in the container), most soups will should last in the refrigerator up to 5 days. Do you really want to be eating the same soup that long? I would suggest dividing your soups into smaller sized containers and freezing it so you have a wide selection available at any given time.
Depending on the ingredients most soups can be succesfully frozen for long term storage.
Dairy based items are more likely to curdle/separate after thawing so you'd be better to add the cream/milk when you're reheating it.
Chunks of potato or pasta are likely to break up a bit and have a more mealy consistency so it would also be better to leave the potato out and add to it and cook when reheating.
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1015 | How can I measure the performance of my stovetop pots and pans?
Am I looking for the ratio of burnt dishes to fine dishes? Well-cooked to not? My general happiness? When should I replace a pot or pan? I am unsure where to begin.
I second Joe's advice.
Your pans may be too thin, that would make your dishes burn easily. You can test your pans with a simple experiment. Place a thin layer of water in your pan (an eighth of an inch, or just enough to cover the bottom). Turn on your burner to high. If you have an electric stovetop let the burner glow before placing the pan on the burner. Watch how the bubbles form in the pan. If they are uneven over the bottom, you have hot spots.
This photo is actually uneven heating from the burner, not from a bad pan, but it shows the idea:
you have hot spots.
If your pans have hot spots you need to stir more often and maybe lower the heat from what the recipe calls. Pans with thicker bottoms and made with good electric conductors (copper or aluminum) have fewer hot spots.
Then there is what I call the Remick Maxim. Three years ago when I decided I would learn to cook better, I went through many cookbooks and asked a lot of people for advice. A great friend (a French restaurant level cook) told me the best advice he ever got was from the actress Lee Remick, a good cook herself. She said: “the secret to great food is to cook it in low heat.” Best advice I got on cooking.
I like the Remick Maxim. A+.
Cook something in a relatively thin layer on the bottom. See if it is obviously hotter in some places than others. Or see if you're constantly cleaning burned food off of some places and not others.
The major selling points of pricey pots are heat distribution and nonstick. You already know if you want more nonstick, so what you want to look for is heat distribution.
Nonstick may not be an advantage for all applications, but it definitely adds cost! To test heat distribution, you can dust flour across the bottom and see how evenly it browns. Or better yet, if you have an infrared thermometer, put a thin layer of oil on the bottom of the pan, heat it up, and see how much variation you get across the pan. More than 20 or 30 degrees will affect your ability to get an even sear or saute...
This seems like it would be a difficult thing to objectively measure. I personally have never done that. However, I will offer some nerdy ideas and suggestions. These are approaches I would actually try myself if I ever had the time or inclination.
First, I think bmargulies suggestion to try cooking things is a good approach. The intent is to see if there are hotspots. However, I think you might be better off with objective measureable results.
I'd suggest getting a hand-held infrared thermometer (e.g. Fluke 62 Mini Infrared Thermometer [I haven't personally used this]) and measuring different things.
Some ideas:
Measure heat distribution and try to find hot spots. A good pan will have an even distribution, and should have no strong hot spots.
If there are hot spots, how much hotter are they?
Timing how long it takes the pan to reach a specific temperature, given a specific flame setting.
Turn off the heat source once the pot is at temperature and measure how well it retains heat. Does it cool evenly? I surmise this is likely to be related to the previous ideas.
+1. IMHO every cooks needs measuring cups and spoons, a digital scale (so one can zero repeatedly), and a fast infrared thermometer. I use my Fluke all the time.
@Harlans's flour trick works, but the problem is in looking at it afterwards, as it might get stirred up too much to give a good picture.
I would think a crepe would be a good test -- you'd be able to flip it out and get a good picture of how the heat was across the bottom of the pan. An omelet might work well, as well, but they both sometimes have problems with sticking.
You could also try a thin layer of water (maybe 2cm or 3/4"), and put it over high or medium high heat, and watch to see which areas are bubbling.
+1 to the flour trick. An IR thermometer would be nice to test the temp of your pans, but for evenness the flour trick is best. Although I am curious about how hot they actually get--just not $85-curious.
Here are my results with the flour test:
My cast Iron pan has a huge hot spot right in the center. I tested 3 different levels, high (9), medium (5), and low heat (3) on an electric range. The high heat had the greatest hotspot and the coolest edges. The lowest setting heated more evenly but took a long time to heat up, 25+ min. Cast iron conducts heat poorly and unevenly but retains it. I also believe the hot spots occur because the high sides sap heat away from bottom's outer edge. It would be interesting to compare a the pan to a griddle.
My stainless steel pan with the aluminum sandwich core heated very evenly on medium (5). I only tried one setting. Yes, there were minor variances, but nothing compared to the cast iron pan. Also, it heated much faster. Overall I was really impressed by the pan's ability to heat quickly and evenly.
The photos speak for themselves.
This is the cast iron on 3, 25+ min vs. stainless w/alu core, ~8 min.
Edit: I tried to post images but I can't because I'm a "new user". I wish SE would let me carry my Stack Overflow credits into other forums. I'll try to post images once I have the 10 points. :(
perhaps instead of thinking of it as a huge hot spot, you could think of it as "cold edges" and, since it's a large pan, cook things in the middle of it?
New answer to an old thread since commercial conditions have changed:
The actual heat distribution in a cooking vessel (in combination with heat source) can be well examined with a thermal imager - technology which was hardly commercially viable ($1000+) to the curious enthusiast in 2010, but has gotten more affordable looking at it from a 2017 standpoint (especially devices using existing smartphones as platforms, available below $200).
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9543 | What's the correct way to store fats?
What are the decision parameters, when you have rendered fat to store? Glass or plastic? Refrigerated or not? I'm not looking for long-term storage; just what's the best-practice way to store it for use over a month or two?
To store fats, you should always use glass as plastics react to fats by absorbing some and perhaps discoloring or transferring flavors to your fat. Depending on use, I prefer to work with cold fat at the start as it has a much broader possible use and I don't like to wait when I make biscuits, so I keep mine in the fridge. However, you gain very little extra life out of keeping it in the fridge and if you don't keep it in a sealed container you run a very real risk of flavor transference there to. If you don't make pastry dough or other such, your counter top is a perfectly acceptable place to store, as long as you use it up before it goes rancid. One thing to keep in mind is that fats can sometimes have very different shelf lives, so make sure you taste or smell before use, regardless of storage method.
What sort of plastic is that? Most people use metal, glass, or ceramic because they are pouring off hot fat from a cooking dish, and the plastic could melt
Plastic is made from oil, and the oils in your food can bond to it. All plastics are susceptible to this to a smaller or larger degree depending on manufacture. Under normal circumstances it merely makes it harder to clean, but it can, as stated in the answer, result in flavor transference, especially over long term storage. This is why you could store things in Tupperware over and over again, but put tomato sauce in it just once and it will be stained for ever.
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669 | Preparing eggplant with less oil
I love cooking with eggplant (or aubergine/brinjal in your specific English flavor).
However to get rid of the bitter taste and slightly spongy texture, I end up using huge amounts of olive oil, which tends to make the dish heavy overall. I've had some success with grilling the eggplant, but for sauté or oven baking I always grab my oil and apply liberally.
Are there any tips/preparations I can use to reduce the bitterness and sponginess of eggplant using less oil?
I had this problem for the longest time. What type of oil are you using? Switching to grapeseed oil, and getting is very hot helped me.
I agree with @jmoeller. Since you have tried that, do you like steaming? If you do, I will provide you a different method.
I think of eggplant as a relatively flavorless, somewhat bitter, and spongy vegetable. I don't mean to be coy or sarcastic, but just try another vegetable altogether.
Put salt on the eggplant and let it sit for an hour to drain out the bitter fluids. Rinse with water afterwards to remove the salt.
I regularly already do this. However I find it only reduces the bitterness, but doesn't remove it. It also doesn't help much with the sponginess. Is there a more of a technique to this, or can this method only get me so far?
Yeah... this does not actually help reduce the amount of oil.
One old trick is to cook the aubergine in a pan without adding any fat or water. Just put them in a covered pan on moderate heat. After a while the aubergines will start "sweating". Uncover and continue cooking and stirring until they have lost about half of their volume. Then add oil and proceed as directed by your recipe. You will notice that, since the spongy structure of the aubergine has collapsed, they will absorb much less oil.
Very interesting.
As @jmoeller says, slice and salt the eggplant.
Preferably wait for an hour, but even 15 minutes takes out some.
I usually just use a papertowel to remove bitter fluids and most of the water.
If you then desire them fried, but not too much oil. Frying in the oven requires much less oil.
Grill them. Slice, salt, wait, rinse as per previous answers. Lightly brush them with oil, garlic, and herbs provencal.
Put on a grill until you get zebra stripes on both sides. Move to top rack, and let them bake while you do your steaks.
If you want to make eggplant Parmesan without frying the eggplant at all, you can slice, dip in egg and breadcrumbs, then place on a baking sheet in the oven at 350F for 5-7 minutes on each side. Then use to prepare Parmesan as usual.
In this dish, it never tastes bitter to me.
You're half right, after slicing (I do 1 to 2 cm slices; 1/2 to 3/4 inch) and salting, stack the slices and put a towel or plate at the bottom of your stack(s) of slices and a weight at the top. Have come up with some interesting weights, rocks from the stream, large cans of vegies, gallon jug full of water, etc. After the stack has shrunk by half, remove the eggplant and rinse and dry it; the texture will be more like a very tender meat slice than the mushyness you are talking about.
Oh yeah, the condensed eggplant will require less oil too.
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109374 | How to improve contact between non-flat pan and stovetop
I have a slightly concave steel paella pan, but I want it to get a nice even heat from my flat glass top stove. Has anyone had and solved this problem? First thought is to try to use some aluminum foil to take up the space and (hopefully) conduct the heat well to the pan.
Once I have my solution, what is a good and easy way to test it? Thinking of testing with a sprinkling of flour and see that it browns evenly
DO NOT USE THE ALUMINUM FOIL! It is not designed to be conductive, and will most likely catch fire.
Perhaps some gas ring reducers
Aluminum foil did not catch fire-- maybe the stove is not hot enough, but also there is no flame (electric stove under glass)
I have one of those pans, and I also have a glass top electric stove, and the answer is that you can't use the pan on the stove. Not only does it not make good contact, an electric stove is incapable of the rapid temperature changes you need for proper paella, particularly the blast of heat at the end to make the proper socarrat (brown crust).
I recommend that you instead get a portable butane stove, like the one I use, and use that for your paella-making.
That burner looks great! I suspected that this project would end with me simply buying a burner, thanks for the recommendation
You're welcome! And yeah, I really recommend that burner, it's probably the best portable butane burner you can buy.
I did some experiments testing how badly uneven the heat would be without interventions using flour. Answer: bad.
I ended up raising the pan up using a metal grill, and inserting pieces of aluminum foil to reflect and reduce the heat in the areas with too much browning. It is not perfect--the hotspot was still there, but much more spread out, and the result is that you also lose a lot of the heat of the stove, but it was still enough to sauté and rapidly boil broth.
Here are some photos showing the process.
Nice test. You'd still need to worry about setting the foil on fire if you actually cooked with it that way.
@FuzzyChef I cooked two paellas this way, no burning foil (I even re-used the foil for both times). I think it did not bun because there is no flame, and the element is hidden away by the glass, but who knows. I would not recommend anyone to try this, since it's true that it could be dangerous, but it worked for me at least.
So why didn't you create a concave "dish" out of the foil? that seems like it would fit the pan better.
@FuzzyChef That was my first thought. But I quickly realized that the aluminum, rather than conducting the heat, was actually blocking/reflecting the heat. So a matching shaped dish of aluminum would have actually exacerbated the problem, since it would require more aluminum exactly where the pan is farthest from the heat source. So I did ta few iterations of the flour burning experiment and applied the foil tactically where the hotspot was.
There's no way to fully rescue it, but you may gain some performance by placing it on a carpeted floor & standing in it. Some judgement/guesswork/experiment will be required, else you will have to turn it over & repeat.
Put a towel or similar inside it so you don't get it dirty, of course & something on the floor.
It's not a perfect solution because once the pan base has bowed, it's always going to be too big for the rest of the pan surrounding it, but if you're lucky you can get a rough approximation.
Personally, I've been doing this with cheap pans for decades, usually to fix oil pooling badly, but I've never needed 100% accuracy because I'm on gas.
BTW, screwed-up aluminium foil is going to be a lousy heat-exchanger, probably worse than just the air gap.
Actually the Paella pan is brand new--not bent with time. It is designed to be used with a propane burner, which is why the concave nature of it is not normally a problem.
That just makes me think you bought the wrong one. Why not exchange it for the right one?
It's actually a high quality pan. I can't exchange it, but, as far as I know, it's not "the wrong" pan, it's that paella is not cooked on a stove. I don't think I would get better mileage on my stove with another paella pan. The answer is quite likely that I can't cook anything evenly with this pan on this stove, but I was curious if people had ideas anyway.
Well, the 'fix' is to flatten the base - but if it was intentionally manufactured bowed, then you've got little to no hope of beating it flat. I'm not sure why "paella is not cooked on a stove"… I'm pretty sure that's how every housewife is going to cook it at home. If you Google Image 'paella pan' 95% of them are flat-based.
Tetsujin: the cheaper enameled steel ones are generally flat, and that's what one would use on an electric stove, although frankly I'd suggest using a standard frying pan if that's what you have. The carbon steel ones, like kevins has, are slightly bowed on the bottom; it's not apparent from a picture, but it's pretty clear if you had one in your hands. Those are intended to only ever be used over a wood fire or gas flame.
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85593 | Cutting sugar in savory butternut squash dishes
In making savory dishes--specifically ravioli or soups, I find the sweetness of the butternut squash to be a little much. I typically roast the squash with onions, and this only concentrates the sugars.
What are my options for adding something to reduce the (for me) overpowering sweetness of these dishes?
Ruth Lively at Fine Cooking has a similar problem and suggests:
Orange or lemon juice (or zest) adds brightness and zing. A splash of vinegar helps, too.
Tomatoes, which are both sweet and acidic, make a bridge for full-flavored squash dishes.
Sharp cheeses like Asiago, Parmesan, feta, and goat cheese lend a salty note and highlight the nutty side of squash’s flavor.
Robust herbs, such as sage, rosemary, and thyme, work with the earthy qualities of the squash, yet still offer an assertive
contrast to its sweet side, too.
Bold spices like cumin, coriander, nutmeg, mace, cinnamon, ginger, and curry have a natural affinity to squash, making the perfect
bridge from earthy to intriguing.
You may also consider substituting a differing squash; Royal Oak Farm Orchardhas a nice guide (pdf) to many squashes and includes sweetness among the descriptions.
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86027 | Substituting sugar with a liquid stevia concentrate in a cake
I have a cake recipe that consists of a dry part, a liquid oil part and eggs. Around half of the dry part consists of sugar. I would like to replace that sugar with liquid stevia concentrate at a very small fraction of the original sugar. If I do that though, then around half of the dry ingredients would be removed from the recipe.
How would I adjust such a recipe? Would I reduce the eggs and liquid oil part proportionally to how much of the dry part has been removed? Anything else that I would need to take into consideration? For example, since the sugar is not soluble in the liquid part, I'm thinking it must also bring certain physical properties to the cake.
I noticed that if I replace the sugar with an erythritol / xylitol blend, then the end result is very similar to the sugar product, so maybe there's a similar bulking agent I could use instead of the sugar? Polyols add sweetness as well, so they wouldn't work in conjunction with the stevia concentrate, it would ideally have to be something neutral.
what is the "concentrate" you are talking about ?
@Max, it's liquid stevia concentrate, but it would be used in extremely small quantities (a few drops in a kilogram of batter), so it will likely not contribute anything to the physical properties of the cake.
Does the recipes call for water? If so this can help the calculation.
@Alchimista, no, there's no water in the recipe.
Ok but I see that your concentrate is so concentrated that it does not add water in fact....So here the problem is to take away a good psrt of the solid mass. ... is at least flour the rest of the dry solid? If so try to skip sugar . Eggs and flour should bound and render a cake. You cannot really solve this without a bit of experimenting. :)
@Alchimista, yes, the rest of the dry solid is flour. That is indeed the problem - if I remove the sugar, what do I replace it with? I'm not sure if I can just remove it completely, since it's such a big part of the cake. I'll likely have to perform a series of experiments (for now I'm thinking of trying: nothing, more flour, apple sauce, a small amount of chia flour + some neutral, non-absorbent filler (maybe inulin and bamboo fiber), since chia is very absorbent and binding, which I don't really want).
Aren't you pretty much depriving your batter of one of the substances for the Maillard reaction and other reactions that lead to characteristic flavors from sugar? I've halved the amount of sugar in an NY Cheesecake recipe from a book without much trouble (I got there with multiple tests/iterations), but I'd never remove sugar completely. Besides flour and sugar are both carbohydrates and have a similar calorie density.
Use dextrin.
On the theory that dextrin (insoluble fiber) is molecularly similar to sucrose, I made chocolate chip cookies and substituted dextrin 1:1 for all the sugar, sweetening the dough with erythritol (and regular chocolate chips). I used the CVS brand dextrin which is sold with fiber supplements like Metamucil. A brand name for dextrin is Benefiber. It is very much a bulking agent exactly as you request. It has no flavor.
The dough was the right consistency and the end product was more the consistency of shortbread than a toll house cookie, but they were good. No GI issues either.
(depending on the cake)
You can fill in the loss of "sugar" bulk with apple sauce, apple juice, egg whites, plain unsweetened yogurt.
From what I can see on the internets, most of the time, recipes use apple sauce.
I suggest looking/searching for a stevia cake recipe on the webs to get the proper replacement ratios.
Wouldn't all of these options significantly alter the taste of the cake though?
it depends on the cake (and frosting) Me think you can't have it both ways, substitution will always have side effects, change taste, change texture...
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17020 | What is blind baking?
I am making a quiche. The recipe tells me to "blind bake" the crust at 375 degrees for 7-9 minutes. What is "blind baking"? Is it anything more complicated than baking something partially?
To avoid making this a general reference question: why is it necessary to blind bake things? And, why is it called "blind" baking?
For anyone who's interested, here's the best explanation we could come up with on English.se for the reason why it's called "blind baking", but please if anyone knows better, come and tell us!
Some new etymological leads here.
Some research I did for this question at EL&U pointed to a possible mention in the 1943 edition of The Joy of Cooking. Anyone here have a copy?
Blind baking is indeed just baking without a filling — it can be fully or partially. Typically you do this because your filling will either need to bake for a shorter time than your crust (a quiche for example) or not at all (a pie filled with some kind of pre cooked/set custard). It can also be done to help 'set' a crust against a filling that will make it rather soggy.
Oftentimes you will want something neutral in the shell to keep it from becoming a big bubbly, puffed up crust. This may be in the form of formal 'pie weights' or just a piece of parchment paper and some dry beans will suffice.
I have no idea why it's called blind baking, but the English.SE site is notoriously good at word origins.
I've seen suggestions that you fill the crust with dried peas to stop the sides from collapsing. I've never tried it though.
The peas/beans are more to stop the centre puffing up than the sides collapsing since the sides usually stick to the pie dish ok. I always put a big pile of beans in the centre of my pastry.
I did notice that the bottoms of my crusts became quite puffy after 7 minutes at 375, but they settled right down when I added the eggy filling. Thanks for this great answer!
@Abby - A 7 minutes, the puff up may not be a problem, but if it fully cooks like that you'll be up a creek. You can always poke it lightly with a fork to help as well. I'm sure the quiche turned out great!
@johnny: You have to watch out. You don't want to bake peas or beans INTO your crust, or you'll be sitting there for an hour prying them out with a knife.
@Rincewind42, I've always thought that poking with a fork took care of the puffing up. @ SatanicPuppy, ok, as I said, I've never tried. Are you speaking from experience? ;)
@johnny - poking with a fork is a method of taking care of the puffing up. I find it less effective than just some weight on top.
If anyone wants to weigh in, I asked the etymology question on English just now.
@johnny - First pie I did I poked with a fork but since the pastry was short, it expanded and blocked the wholes, puffing up horibly. Second pie I made bigger cuts in the bottom but that meant the filling could run out. Third pie I did, I saw the cookbook mention beans so I did that. The beans got glued into the pastry and there weren't enough so it still puffed up. Fourth pie I learned to put parchment paper or similar to stop the beans sticking.
@Rincewind42, I just go nuts with a fork. My children gladly helps...
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18059 | Why is my espresso salty?
We've got a fancy espresso machine in our office kitchen. (It's apparently the kind they used to use at Starbucks stores before they switched over to a more automated "point-and-click" type system.) I was trained on how to use the machine by an old pro, and have been successfully making delicious cups of espresso for a few months.
Lately, my espresso tastes distinctly salty.
I haven't changed the process at all. It has happened on a few separate days, with many other people using the machine, so I doubt it is an issue related to the substance used for cleaning the machine (since I believe that would have been flushed out between my attempts). I haven't heard any other complaints from the 50 (or so) other people who use the same beans, grinder, and espresso machine.
It's a mystery to me, but salty coffee is gross, so it's a mystery that needs solving. (My theory is that I've unwittingly altered my method in some tiny way that I haven't noticed, and that has changed the taste of my espresso. I just don't know what that alteration was!)
Edit: I had a thought: This morning, I made a cup that was salty enough that I didn't want to drink it at all. I poured it out and made another from the other basket on the same machine. It was salty, but drinkable. Potential clue?
'nother edit: Yesterday, my coffee was less salty. The only difference in my method was that I rinsed the basket for way longer than I usually do. It still tasted a little bit off (in the salty direction), but not nearly as bad as previous cups.
Have you taken any antibiotics recently? Sounds stupid, but some can affect your tastebuds in weird ways. It can also be a problem with Indonesian coffee beans. The other users of the machine may have noticed it but not mentioned it.
@Elendil I haven't taken any antibiotics or meds at all lately. It is entirely possible that others haven't mentioned it - but the machine is so heavily used, and so many people here are huge coffee nerds, that I have trouble believing it.
Some slow-roasted bean blends can produce a salty taste - try a different blend and see if the problem is resolved.
If you add sugar...are you sure its sugar? ;)
@AbbyΨ Have you changed what you are snacking on with the coffee? Something that might leave a lingering salt taste that is magnified when chased with coffee?
@rfusca I did check that! Unless somebody is hiding salt in packets that say SUGAR on them... I should be okay!
@Cos I usually drink the coffee without any snacks, after drinking water all morning...
@AbbyΨ Sorry if this seems like a dumb question... Have you asked people directly?
@talon I haven't! I work for SE, so I like to turn here before I have to (shudder) actually talk to people...
Is it a company purchased blend? Did they change the blend on you?
@rfusca the company purchases the beans - seems to be the same stuff.
@Elendil, see my above response to rfusca - I don't have power over the blend.
@rfusca it's possible someone refilled it with the WRONG BLEND. (it has a sign dictating the only blend allowed in that grinder, but it's kind of small). this calls for some detective work. or a doctor's appointment for abby. :P
I assume you are still able to buy a pack of coffee for experimental purposes though?
Who cleans the machine, and how / when do they do it? A cleaning product containing copious amounts of sodium compounds, and a "scrub-free" process could easily result in residue that affects the flavor.
@AbbyΨ: It'll require talking to people, but I suggest asking someone else to taste the cup you've made, and inquire if its salty. Carry a clipboard labeled "research", and write down the answer. Repeat with several randomly-selected coworkers. It'll be OK talking to people in this case, because they're not people, they're "research subjects"—barely above lab rats, really. :-P
Years later: was this mystery solved? have you actually asked somebody to taste from your salty cup?
Other solution: Tell yourself, in a convincing tone of voice "Really good espresso is a bit saltier than what you get from a coffee shop." It's the same concept that allows yuppies to convince themselves to pay $100 USD/pound for post-pooped coffee beans.
It could simply be that it's a gustatory illusion! See my answer to this related question for more explanation.
Edit:
Here is a summary of the relevant information (if you don't want to follow the links):
Human taste receptors don't simply react to how much actual salt there is in a food or drink; our perceived tastes are a fusion of both our gustatory and olfactory senses. In other words, the smell of a food or drink can affect how it tastes!
There are numerous studies that suggest foods with certain odors can be perceived as much saltier than they actually are. Coffee has a good amount of oil, there's even more fat if you add cream, and other studies suggest that high fat foods can also increase perceived saltiness.
It's an interesting thought, but I'm wondering how it applies given that I've had plenty of good cups of coffee via the same process before. Wouldn't my brain and taste receptors tell me that all of them were salty?
Good point. I guess it could be that some small difference (e.g., inconsistencies on the part of the roaster or minor changes in the water hardness) that could compound to affect the senses?
@AbbyΨ: Could be that at this point you're so accustomed to the expectation of saltiness that you perceive it even when it's not there. Have you tried a blind taste test with a similar espresso machine/blend?
What kind of water are you making the coffee with? Tap? Mineral? It dramatically affects the taste of coffee. Drink the water that you make the coffee with (if possible) to see if you get any salty taste.
Also, did anyone else tried the coffee from the same cup you are drinking?
I imagine it's tap water. I've had tea made with the hot water the espresso machine makes before, and it tastes fine (and not salty). I will make a cup this morning and make somebody try it, to make sure I'm not going crazy!
@AbbyΨ: Just don't ask them point-blank if it's salty, otherwise you'll get a biased answer...
It's possible that someone has tampered with the coffee by adding salt. Some people prefer to add salt to strong coffee (like espresso) in order to cut the bitterness. If this hypothetical coffee salter accidentally added too much to some batches but not all, it could explain why no one else has complained and why the other basket wasn't as salty.
Are you suggesting that salt might have been added to the beans/grounds or that salt was added to the brewed coffee? I ask because it sounds like Abby Ψ is using a "super automatic" espresso machine (the kind that automatically grinds the coffee and brews an individual serving on demand), so the only way someone could have salted the batch is if they salted the whole beans in the machine.
@ESultanik is mostly right. The beans are ground in a separate machine, but it is one of those gadgets that automatically meters out and grinds the right number of beans, and then the machine has buttons for "I WANT THIS MUCH".
@ESultanik I'm making no claims as to which point in the process salt may have been added. The only criteria for salt cutting the bitterness of the coffee is that the salt be present in the coffee. It could be on the beans, in the grounds, or added in the water (assuming there's a water tank and not a water line feeding the machine). The fact that extra rinsing of the basket possibly made the coffee less salty makes me think someone adds salt to the basket when they brew.
This question was asked more than 1 year ago, so I don't know if you have found the cause of the salty taste.
I'm answering because I always get salty taste espresso if the extraction time is too long; usually when I grind my beans too fine.
You asserted you hadn't changed the process at all. Could it have been due to differences in weather those days? Is it possible your machine always brews the same amount of espresso in the same time because it automatically adjusts the pressure? (mine's doesn't do it, so I perfectly see differences in extraction time if I change the tampering pressure or grinding fineness)
Edit
I was reading my machine's instructions manual, and found this in the F.A.Q.s:
Q: The extraction seems too slow, somewhat drippy and doesn’t provide a steady pour. It may even taste salty.
A: This is a slow extraction and it may be caused by several factors:
You may have dosed in too much coffee.
The grind setting may be too fine requiring a coarser grind of coffee to allow water flow.
The cartridge may be near or st the end of its pressure. (Try the shot counter feature!)
In rare cases, tamp pressure will change the flow rate. Be careful you are not tamping too hard. Use a bathroom scale and a tamper to test how hard you are pushing down the coffee bed.
(note: the last 2 factors are not in the web version, but in my printed one).
I never did get to the bottom of this mystery. The salty flavor comes and goes. Reading your answer, it seems like the grinding might have something to do with it: our grinder is calibrated assuming there is a certain amount of weight (of the whole beans) left in the hopper, which I suppose can lead to inconsistencies in the grind if I don't check the level in the hopper first.
I calibrate my grinder (change the fineness) whenever I see the extraction time goes ("too") far from the orthodox 30 seconds.
@AbbyT.Miller: You could also check (this page)[http://www.home-barista.com/espresso-guide-diagnose-extraction-problems.html] (where it talks about "Taste Flaws"). It points to Indonesian beans, but I've had salty beans from all over the world (when lasting more than 1 minute to brew the espresso).
The cleaning process for many coffee machines has a step of running salt water through it. It could be that someone forgot to run clearwater after to remove the saltiness of that they let it sit at this stage too long and some salt is crystallized inside. Another possibility is that salt could be added to help with the bitterness of coffee as Fambida said. My final thoughts would be the beans changed you're method or that because you're so sure its salty now that you're noticing it more than before.
I don't know if this has been answered but you might want to flush your machine with descaler. It needs to be done every so often.
I have noticed that my latest batch of coffee seems to taste salty, particularly on the left side of my mouth! Weirdly the salty taste seems to come from one particular tooth! There's no way salt has got into the coffee or the grinder, in fact it has tasted salty from the electric grinder and the hand grinder, so I don't think that's an issue. I have been taking eye drops containing antibiotics this week in my left eye - that could be a cause, but I'm fairly sure the salty taste started before the eye infection! Hoping I haven't damaged my tastebuds in some way. Maybe the next batch of coffee will not be as bad.
I've been making pour-over coffee at home for many, many years. I never vary the method. For some reason, every now and then, I detect a salty taste in my morning coffee, and it really messes up a good thing! It's as bad as McDonald's coffee, which always tastes salty to me. I consider the salty McDonald's coffee to be a quality issue because I've experienced it every time...perhaps it's underextracted as discussed above; but when my at-home over-pour is occasionally salty, I think it is body chemistry...perhaps what I ate the night before, sort of like how brushing your teeth before you drink a cup of coffee can really ruin the taste. So I'm experiencing saltiness this morning in my home-brew (maybe because I ate potato chips before going to sleep last night?), so i tried licking a lemon mid-cup to see if it changes the way my coffee tastes. Wow! It worked! My morning meditation is back on track! Another testament to citrus magic!
Had you taken any decongestants? If I take a Lemsip (contains phenylephrine hydrochloride) it makes my coffee taste very salty. Taken me years to figure it out!
Sinus issues can cause a salty taste. Early in the day it would be worse than after you’ve been vertical awhile
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46188 | How did egg-centric dishes become "breakfast only" food in American cuisine?
Eggs are great.
You see eggs in lots of dishes in American cuisine. Egg salad made from hard-boiled eggs is an American cookout standard. Fried eggs often go on burgers; poached eggs frequently find themselves atop sandwiches and salads. Scotch eggs are a frequent side dish or appetizer. But in American cuisine, eggs are almost never the focal point of a dish.
Except at breakfast.
Omelettes, scrambled eggs, and quiches abound at breakfast and brunch.
At what point in history did eggs become a "breakfast-only" main dish?
Where are you drawing the line between eggs as an ingredient and eggs as a focal point? Is quiche an egg-focused dish while egg-thickened casseroles are not?
@Shog9: Yes. You can't have a quiche without eggs. You can easily have a casserole without eggs.
When you say "Western", do you mean "US American"? From my European perspective, quiche is for lunch (not breakfast) and omelette is for dinner. The bar where I will probably have lunch today will almost certainly have scrambled eggs with something (often jamón serrano, but not always) as a main course; eggs are also the protagonist of a number of tapas; I've had dinner in a restaurant in Paris which pretty much only sold omelettes.
@PeterTaylor, I guess I do mean the U.S., then. I didn't know that, but I'm certainly jealous of your lunch.
There's a similar thing with bacon and sausage. American cuisine has a fairly distinct division between breakfast foods and non-breakfast foods.
As an American, I wouldn't consider quiche to be a breakfast/brunch food, but a lunch/dinner food. Similarly for egg-based casseroles in general. Egg salad is a main dish where egg is the focus, and it's a lunch/dinner dish. Deviled eggs are not for breakfast, but they're just eggs. Basically, omelettes and fried/scrambled eggs are about the only preparation I can think of that's consumed predominantly at breakfast. Maybe re-examine your premise?
@john3103 I would argue it's less the foods and more the preparations. Maybe that's where the disconnect is occurring; sausage is a normal thing to cut into rounds and fry for breakfast, for instance, but it's also perfectly natural to grill it and throw it on a bun for lunch, or boil it and serve it with mashed potatoes for dinner. Eggs are fried or scrambled for breakfast, made into salad or deviled for lunch, and maybe baked into a casserole or quiche for dinner. Oatmeal and other cereals might be more of a breakfast phenomenon.
More generally, I'd suggest that simple preparation is what defines what we think of as breakfast foods... not combining things into complicated dishes. This is why quiche and egg salad are for lunch and fried/scrambled eggs are for breakfast, IMHO.
@Patrick87 I disagree with you about quiche. Maybe that's a regional thing, but to me it's a breakfast food. Deviled eggs are an appetizer or a side, and rarely if ever a main course unto themselves. Likewise egg salad: it's mashed up with other stuff and served in a sandwich or salad or as a side. The egg is not a main course unto itself.
@abbyhairboat Interesting about regional differences... I can only speak for the Southeast and the Pacific Northwest. I've never heard of quiche as a breakfast food, frankly. You might improve the question by clarifying what you mean by "course unto itself"; would you not consider the hot dog to be the "main course" in the bun-mustard-relish-sausage foodstuff of fair fame? What about steak, if - and I don't have real numbers, just guessing here - > 80% of restaurants will, by default, serve steak with some kind of potato?
Sorry, but I think this is off topic. It is a very interesting question, but not one whose answer is known to cooks, it's more anthropologic. And with this type of question (I call them cultural whys), there is much danger of people writing down plausibly sounding speculations which can turn out to be completely wrong, but others nevertheless believe them. They are a seeding grain for urban mythology, so to speak. So I'll close the question - because I'm afraid we cannot give you an objectively true answer.
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37112 | Is unwrapped refrigerated cheese safe?
Is unwrapped, refrigerated cheese safe?
I usually have Australian or New Zealand cheddar cheese or similar cheese in my refrigerator. Recently I've been discarding the original wrapping which usually is not resealable and also not bothering with "cling wrap". I simply put it on a laminated disposable paper dish and refrigerate. Is this practice safe? A 250 gram block is usually consumed within 5 days if not much sooner.
consider why cheese was created in the first place...
It is almost certainly safe unless it was left out at warm temperatures to spoil, or has molded, or otherwise spoiled in a manner not directly related to being uncovered.
It may, however, be unpalatable due to:
Drying out
Picking up flavors or odors from other items in the refrigerator
Since you are eating it relatively quickly, if you are not experiencing these issues, your practice should be just fine.
My own personal preferred method is to put my cheese chunks in a zip lock type bag, which substantially cuts down on the drying, especially for moister cheeses like mozzarella or semi-firm cheddar.
I tend to find cheese gives flavour generously to the rest of the food if not sealed, rather than picking it up.
That could certainly happen as well...
My main concern would certainly be it drying out.
Some additional ideas against drying out: I just have a tupperware type of container in the fridge for cheese type things, or (if your fridge is a bit too big) you can also be fancy and use a stylish cheese bell =)
I know you've already accepted an answer, but this piece of information is missing: cheese, kept unwrapped (or uncontained inside something) in a refrigerator, easily picks up bacteria from other foods, particularly meats, raw or cooked, and from the fridge itself. Which is why it should be, preferably, loosely wrapped in cheese paper, baking parchment or greaseproof paper as a minimum safety standard.
What I'm saying can be backed up here: British Cheese FAQ, North Dakota University (go to page 14), WikiHow on Food Selection and Storage. I could go on, but really, I can't think why I should, it ain't difficult to find this info. Course, if you want to store cheese badly, don't matter to me, I ain't eating it anyway.
In practice, even if true, that simply is not relevant. There are mold and bacteria present on all foods nearly all the time (unless they are in a can). They are also in the air, inside and outside the refrigerator. The question is not whether they are present (they are), or how to prevent their arrival (they are already there), but rather how to prevent them from having an hospitable environment for growth.
I have a background in environmental health - what you say has some merit, but there are other bacteria which may be present in a domestic refrigerator which can contaminate cheese. I can only pass on standard Health & Safety Food Hygiene advice; whether you ignore it or not is entirely your choice.
Since you are saying this professional knowledge, please do us the courtesy of providing a credible reference.
It's not difficult it's all over the internet - when I've time tomorrow, I will provide a couple of references, but I'm off out now.
It is safe. In fact, my father only eats Gouda when it's old and hard. After my mother ate the fresh cheese, it would lie unwrapped in the fridge for 2 or 3 weeks until it was hard enough for my father to enjoy it.
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20438 | half-life of caffeine molecules
I am interested in the caffeine content in various coffees.
Will day-old coffee have much less caffeine? I am refering to espresso drinks such as the Starbucks Americano or the drip coffees also available there. Does refrigeration make much difference to the half-life? What about re-heating?
How about instant? I have seen charts comparing caffeine content in various fresh coffees but not instant. What is the typical caffeine content of instant coffee? What is the half-life of caffeine in instant coffee on the shelf as a room temperature solid?
I'm curious... It sounds like you mean the half-life of caffeine before it enters the body? It's not radioactive...
I mean the half-life before consumption.
@Max: a substance does not need to be radioactive to have an half-life...
@nico Yes, it was merely a flippant remark... Sorry about that. It's just that half-life is something I heavily associate with physics, so I read the question kind of funny :)
According to Sigma-Aldrich, pure caffeine has a shelf-life of four years at room temperature, or many years at 2-8°C.
A caffeine solution can be stable for months even at moderately high temperatures.
So, essentially, your day old coffee has still all its caffeine in it, although probably it does not taste that well, but that's caffeine unrelated.
As a side note, after drinking coffee/tea/Coke/etc. it will take ~1-2 hours for blood caffeine levels to peak. Caffeine half-life in the body is ~3-6 hours.
The delayed peak might explain why it's harder to start work than to keep working.
100% of the upvotes come from people who with one eye open looked at their old cup of coffee and thought, let me google and see if it's worth it.
For brewed coffee…after 6hrs there will be half as much caffeine in your cuppa. After another 6hrs, there will be half of that and so on.
At least that's the story that I heard.
Whole coffee beens store longer than ground beans so I imagine freshly ground coffee will contain more caffeine than ground or instant coffee brands.
Hmmm, I'm interested because I brew coffee the night before for iced coffee the next day. Do you have a source for this?
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21519 | What's the difference between broccoli from China and broccoli from Australia?
They look pretty similar except the Australia ones cost more than twice the ones from China. Taste-wise, there are only subtle differences according to my tastebuds.
Is there a reason Australia broccoli is more expensive? Is it a nutritional thing, a taste thing, or a supply thing (I supposed they grow more broccoli in China)?
EDIT: Forgot to mention, I'm located in Singapore, so that might make a difference :)
Fresh or frozen? Fresh broccoli degrades very fast
Are you sure they are the same...? Chinese broccoli is this: http://steamykitchen.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/broccoli-beef-noodles-8.jpg and "Australian" makes me think of this: http://www.dpi.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/image/0007/29761/broccoli.jpg
I would think it's a supply thing - Australia has relatively limited agricultural resources.
@Jay Chinese growers also grow traditional western vegetables specially for export
@ElendilTheTall where did you get that impression? e.g. they are the worlds second largest beef exporter, tenth largest wheat producer, etc. etc. And all from a modest population and water supply
@Jay, in China people eat broccoli as per your second picture. Your first pic looks more like spinach to me.
@TFD: According to the Australian government Australia produces ~40000 tons broccoli/year. China is the biggest producer in the world, at 8 million tons/year!
@nico Last time I check China had a slightly bigger population than Australia :-) Either way it's hardly "limited agricultural resources"
@Jay Yup that's Chinese broccoli (or we actually prefer to call it Kai-lan), which I'm not referring to. I'm referring to broccoli that looks just like your 2nd picture, but it's labeled as being from China.
@TFD: surely, I was just pointing out that being the biggest producer in the World, China is able to sell worldwide at a lower price. I remember when living in NZ that kiwi wine was often more expensive than French or Italian wine of similar quality for similar reasons (I assume).
I imagine that the following things make a vegetable more expensive:
quantity of supply (if a shop has more product to move in a limited time they make it cheaper)
quality of supply (eg organic)
distance to supply (if it costs more to move it from source to destination)
age of supply (products near expiration are cheaper because the shop needs to sell them)
I would look at the growing practices of China compared to Australia. Unless you are saying Organic then you don't have much regulation of how things are grown. Very little testing too with exception of the high risk items which get hit with ecoli every so often in California and other parts of the world.
Second is labour cost. What's the minimum rage in Australia for farm workers and what's it in China?
Third is transportation costs. Shipping vegetables in container ships without refridgeration means high losses so it might not make financial sense to export via ship so you're left with plane and that's even higher in cost. Looking at the map...you're half way between Australia and China BUT you have roads and warehouses all the way into China while Australia just has open Ocean.
It's generally cheaper to ship by ship, than by road
For non-perishables, yes.
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45789 | Coffee roasting, worth upgrade from popcorn popper
I've been roasting for about 3 years and have gone thru about 3 or 4 poppers for roasting coffee. The machines wouldn't stop working I'd just notice they slowly started taking longer and longer to roast my coffee beans.
I've been looking at the FrenchRoast sr500 and wondering if the $170 price tag is worth it over just getting another popper. I have no complaints over the coffee I roast from the poppers other than a few gripes over the actual roasting process.
Will the FrenchRoast produce a better roast over the popcorn popper? If not is it mostly convenience? I don't have to roast outside, it has a cooling function, etc. Anything else I'm missing that can sell me on the $170 price tag?
What kind of popcorn popper are you using to roast coffee? I'm intrigued. Is it one of those air poppers? Or a stovetop dealio with the crank? Oh! And where are you buying un-roasted coffee beans? Teach me your ways.
yes its the Toastess TCP-713 Hot-Air ($20 on amazon). I buy green beans from http://sweetmarias.com/
Very cool. I've never heard of anybody doing that.
How long do you keep the green coffee beans in the popcorn popper? What hallmarks do you use to tell if they are roasted enough for your taste? (I dislike Starbucks (other than Blond) because it tastes burnt.)
6 minutes for a little less than half a cup. 7 minutes tops, but that is just my preference. As for my taste, in roasting so many different types 6 minutes is where i start.
Domestic coffee roasters are usually 'fluid-bed', barrel or 'stirrer' type.
Popcorn poppers and most low-end purpose built roasters are fluid-bed. That is you agitate the beans by pumping hot air to roast the beans.
Barrel types have a rotating barrel with fins inside to agitate the beans.
Stirrer types have a pot and arms inside that are turned to stir the bean ensuring an even roast.
Upgrading from a popper to another fluid bed usually just buys you some convenience and increased roasting capacity. That being said, I had an iRoast 2 fluid-bed and that lasted at least 2 years. It was still functioning when I upgraded so it probably still works. So it may also be overall cheaper.
IMO, it's more worthwhile to upgrade to a barrel or stirrer type like the Behmor or the iCoffee. They take longer to roast, but you can achieve much better roasts and they have more capacity than fluid-beds.
Edit: Differences between roasters
Just a note between the differences in roasters.
Fluid-beds tend to roast very quickly. 10-15 mins total roast time. But this means that the outside of the bean roasts first and the inside is often lighter. The result is often a bit more acidic or 'bright'. The forced air however, does disperse smoke very quickly and it's a bit cleaner. It still has the capacity to set off your fire alarm.
More traditional designs tend to have longer roast times. I clock about 28 minutes. The slower process gives you a bean that has the same colour inside and out. Anecdotally, I would say most people prefer this. Many of the barrel type also produce a lot of smoke and not suitable for indoor roasting. However, the models I mentioned - the Behmor and the iCoffee - have after burners. This means they actively vent the smoke through a stage that burns up the access smoke and are suitable for indoor roasting.
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20605 | Made a ginger carrot soup with coconut milk but accidentally made it too salty, how do i fix it?
I made a ginger carrot soup with coconut milk but accidentally made it too salty, how do i fix it?
From some google searches - one said to put raw potatoes to absorb the salt. I am not sure if that will work for the soup as it is a thick carrot soup. Adding water would make it watery. Does anyone have any other methods that would work for me? I would like to keep the soup thick.
Thank You
Edit - the butternut squash worked for me!
Related: Soup is too Salty!
potatoes can usually help soak up some of the saltiness.
Steam a head of cauliflower, puree it. Add it to the soup. You might also consider some squash or sweet potato puree.
Or to keep the integrity of the original soup... just increase the amount of everything in your original recipe except the salt. If that's too much work, following the same train of thought as mfg, butternut squash would probably be a really great choice too.
@Jay I assume the OP is interested in looking to supplement the ingredients more gradually. If they are just looking for advice on addressing saltiness then this is a duplicate
I made chili recently and a tip was to peel a potato and let it sit in there and it would pull in the salt, then just remove the potato. Haven't tried the technique personally though.
I have done this before in some bean soups I've made where I went a little overboard with the bacon. I had to replace some of the broth/liquid after removing the potatoes
Sour cream! I just tried it, and it worked!
I once overloaded a little too much chicken stock in my homemade tomato soup. I found a good large tin of coconut milk made all the difference. plus it was creamy and highly delicious. Problem solved (with an added cup or two or water).Salt down to a minimum.
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37169 | Can soft-boiled eggs be reboiled and turned into hard-boiled eggs?
I recently boiled some eggs, then put them in the fridge. When I went to use them, they were not boiled all the way through. Can I reboil them or should I throw them away?
In terms of food safety, as long as the egg would have been safe to eat as it is (that is, it still is in its unbroken shell, has been cooled rapidly after cooking and then refrigerated), it is safe to recook.
In terms of quality, I am not sure that you will get a very palatable result. You are likely to end up with overcooked and rubbery whites at the very least.
I guess you could try to simmer them at a lower temperature so that the whites don't overcook too much, but unless you have a sous-vide setup I suspect you'd end up obsessing over a pot with a thermometer and it'd be way more trouble than it's worth.
You absolutely can. I boiled some eggs last night. Ran them under cold water and put them in the fridge. Went to eat them today and they were too soft, like, whites still runny too soft. Stuck them back in boiling water for a few minutes today and then ran 'em under cold water again. They were perfect! Delicious, perfect texture, perfect. You can absolutely re-boil them!
How long did you reboil for?
I just tried this and it seems to have worked out. I didn't really time how much longer I boiled it - I just kinda guessed. I suppose it depends on how under cooked your eggs are. The yokes were set on mine, but not the whites, so I didn't cook it that much longer. A couple of them cracked on the second cooking, so when I thought they were done I fished one out, cooled it off under the faucet, and opened it up to check.
I had cracked the whole dozen and started to peel them. Then I found them undercooked. I just brought a pan of water to a boil and dropped the cracked eggs in, boiled them for 14 more minutes, drained and cooled them, they came out perfect. Saved the day!!
I just boiled a dozen eggs following "the perfect boiled egg" recipe (which said bring to boil and cover for 17 minutes) but after cooling under cold water they were soft boiled. I put them back in pot reboiled the water and took them out after it began to boil and covered them (again) and cooled them with cold water (again). This time they were done but when I peeled them the shell broke off in small pieces that took twice (3x) as long to get off...but they were fine.
I did this today without a problem. Put cold/tepid water in the pan, took the half-done eggs out of their cold water bath, put the eggs back in the pan and brought the water up to a boil, left them in there about 15 minutes on low. Then put them in cold water bath again to make sure they would peel well. No problem at all. Eggs turned out fine.
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25057 | Can I substitute Ener-G Egg Replacer with Orgran No Egg?
I'm interested in hearing any success (or woeful failure) stories on the behavioural differences between these two products. I've only found Orgran No Egg available for sale in my city, so my fingers are crossed.
In particular, I am curious to pursue this macaron recipe.
Unfortunately I don't quite have the budget to justify learning this by trial and error! Any input is greatly appreciated.
Based on their ingredients they should be pretty similar (Orgran: Potato starch, Tapioca flour, Calcium carbonate, Citric acid, vegetable gum (stabiliser): Methylcellulose vs. Ener-G: Potato Starch, tapioca starch flour, leavening (calcium lactate, calcium carbonate, citric acid), sodium carboxymethylcellulose, methylcellulose).
Do you have any bulk food co-ops / health stores in your area? Sometimes they sell Ener-G or similar products in bulk, that way you can just buy the few tablespoons that you need and try it out before investing in the whole box.
Wonderfully sensible. I'll give it a go with the guidance of my macaron-master friend.
I haven't noticed co-ops selling portions that way, but I'll keep an eye out.
Aside from requiring more powder to be practicable than the recipe advises, as your post suggested No Egg seemed to work just the same as Ener-G in this instance. End result looked just like the recipe's photos. Thanks for your hint!
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18085 | Where can I Buy Kaima or Jeerakasala Rice?
I'm trying to prepare an Indian Biriyani dish, and it calls for Kaima rice, also known as Jeerakasala. I understand that there are alternatives, like Basmati, but I really would love to try this particular variety. Where do you think I could purchase some (I live in the US, in NC, ordering online would be great)?
If nothing else, could you suggest a rice that is extremely similar?
Thanks in advance.
Where are you located? I haven't seen Kaima rice, but in my city (Houston, TX) there are several excellent ethnic food stores that would either carry it or find it for you.
You need to use Kali Jeera rice available in most Patel stores or big indian stores. We were also looking for this and avoiding Kali Jeera thinking it is some black rice whereas it is not. This is rice used in Nor Malabar chicken biriyanis.
And no need to mention that ghee rice or biriyani prepared with Kali Jeera rice tastes way better than normal Basmati rice.
Just search for the substitutes (they all taste more or less same)
Kaima(south india)
jeerakasala(south india)
ambhemohar(maharashtra)
Kalijira(bangladesh)
chinigura (bangladesh)
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16451 | Sourdough in Bread Maker?
Are there any bread machines that would allow making a sourdough rye bread?
If not, could a bread maker simplify the process of making a sourdough loaf?
Although I'm limiting my answer to the question asked, I think you're better off investing in a stand mixer capable of handling bread. It won't cost much more than a top-notch bread machine, and has a broader range of uses. Plus, if you really get into a baking you'll end up tossing the bread machine and getting a stand mixer anyway. Furthermore, Kitchenaid stand mixers retain most of their value on the resale market, so if you find you really do want a bread maker, you can recoup most of your investment. The same cannot be said of bread makers, which I often see in thrift stores.
There are three courses of action for producing sourdough with a bread machine:
Use the bread machine just for mixing dough, then rise and bake it separately. This will produce the best result, defined as the best texture and strongest sourdough flavor. In this case, you get to monitor the progress of the sourdough as it is rising, which gives you better control over the results. With this course, make sure to start preheating your oven early, because it has to be fully ready when the dough is. It's heartbreaking to watch helplessly as beautiful sourdough loaves collapse while your oven preheats. Also, you can throw a handful of icecubes into the oven a minute or two before the bread, to get steam, which gives maximum oven spring and a softer crust. This helps prevent the common problem of dense sourdough.
Do a "cheater" sourdough that incorporates both yeast and sourdough starter. This is the most hands-off approach, but it won't yield as strong a sourdough flavor results as option one. Basically, you take a standard bread recipe that uses a poolish preferment, and you replace the poolish with equivalent-hydration sourdough starter, but retain the yeast. So, you're getting leavening primarily from the yeast, but flavor from the sourdough. Up to half the flour can come from the starter. You can gradually reduce the yeast amounts and increase rise time until it's approaching a true sourdough. See recipe below!
Do true sourdough with a bread machine that allows you to program VERY long rise/proofing times. This is the worst option, because sourdough rise times vary greatly, even with the same starter. The leavening power of starters also varies from almost as fast as instant yeast, to over 12 hours for a full rise. I think you'll have a hard time finding a bread maker that can be programmed for the longest times, and because you're relying on a fixed timer, the dough will inevitably be either under-risen or collapsing. Sourdough can go from under-risen to over-risen and collapsing in as little as 30 minutes.
Cheater Sourdough Recipe derived from Pain Sur Poolish:
Ingredients:
425g/15 oz sourdough starter, fed the night before with equal volumes all purpose flour and water (or about 6.7 oz flour per 8 oz water)
227g/8 oz bread ("Strong") flour
227g/8 oz all purpose flour
200 g/7 oz warm water
1 tsp instant yeast (SAF Red Label)
2 tsp salt
Optional: 1 tsp diastatic malt powder
Optional: 1/4 cup dry milk powder
Procedure:
Mix together dry ingredients, then mix in wet ingredients until incorporated.
Knead about 8-10 minutes on stand mixer speed 2, or until the dough is soft and stretchy. It should be a little wet, but not too much.
Rise dough for ~45 min-1.5 hours, or until doubled. If using a bread machine, rise an extra 30 minutes or so, and skip to step 9.
If using oven: start preheating to 500F/260C with a pizza stone in the lower rack
Divide dough in half, and shape into two loaves, making sure not to handle too much as this will remove gas.
If using oven: coat an inverted aluminum 1/2 sheet pan with pan spray and corn meal, then transfer loaves to pan. Cover with plastic wrap with the bottom coated in pan spray.
Proof bread 45 minutes to 1 hour, until it stops rising and a finger leaves a dent in the loaf.
If using oven: throw a handful of ice cubes into the oven to generate steam, then slash the loaves and load into oven.
In oven: Bake @ 500F/260C for 5 minutes, then reduce heat to 435F/225C and bake for a further 15 minutes. In bread machine: bake at about 375F/190C for about 30 minutes. If not using diastatic malt, crust may still be somewhat pale.
This recipe (with slight modifications) is now my standard bread, which I bake frequently. I'm still tweaking the exact time to bake at the reduced temperature; if the top is browning excessively but the interior is underdone, it may help to flip the loves over for the last few minutes of cooking.
Well, you can find one that can be programmed for 12 hour rises, but for a price comparable to a stand mixer. Details in my answer...
@derobert: I think a bread machine is only a good investment if you make multiple loaves of sandwich bread per week. Otherwise, it's better doing loaves by hand/with a stand mixer.
Thank you @Bob. I already own a basic bread machine and use it 3-4 times a week for making a yeast bread - I like the fact that it is so easy to use and does not take too much of your time. The problem is that my favourite bread is really sourdough, and I can see now that preparing it will require a bit more effort. I will start with your advice of using the machine for just for mixing and if I find that I do it often enough I may look into investing in a stand mixer. Thanks again for an excellent advice.
@kristof: I've done a major rewrite, which includes a yeasted "cheater sourdough" recipe that is quite good. It's designed for use with a normal oven, but you should be able to do it in a bread machine at about 375F/190C for 30 minutes.
This is really old, but you can avoid so much time sensitivity at the end by doing some or all of the final rise in the refrigerator. Then the time it takes to preheat the oven won't be a big deal. You might not want to do this if you're in a big hurry or you want to do everything you can to minimize sourness, but otherwise it's generally the way to go.
The Zojirushi Home Bakery Supreme can be programmed for rise times up to 24 hours.
It comes preprogrammed to make sourdough, using the "commercial" (type 2) method. You could do the type 1 (traditional) method using its custom settings, especially since you can modify the program as its running (e.g., keep an eye on it, see that its ready after 10 hours, tell it to go ahead and bake now). An anonymous user says this works well for his/her whole-grain sourdough and that it takes about 11 hours total, including bake.
Details are in the instruction manual, starting at pp. 24 (PDF page 13).
That said, despite owning one, I personally make sourdough with a stand mixer and an oven. You'll also note the Zojirushi is comparable in price to a good stand mixer.
It's still a programmed rise time; unless you're in a professional bakery that uses, feeds, and stores the starter every single day in exactly the same way, the sourdough will demand different rise times with each batch.
thanks @derobert, I think I will stick with the basic machine that I own currently and follow Bob's advice of using it for mixing. Perhaps in a long run I may invest in a stand mixer as both you and Bob suggested
@BobMcGee: Yes, its a programmed rise time. But as I said, you can change it as its running, so you could set it to 24 hours (the maximum), then keep an eye on it as you would were it sitting on the counter, and then tell it to proceed when the dough is ready. Only advantage really is that it saves you from having to clean one piece of cookware and also that the Zojirushi has a controlled rise temperature.
I often make sourdough with just my starter. After feeding my starter and letting it double in size in the usual way I take what I need for the recipe add everything to the pan and put on a dough cycle. After about five minutes I check to see how wet my dough is. I often have to adjust the dough by adding flour or water a table spoon at a time until the consistency is good. I leave it to mix for five more minutes then cancel the program and restart a normal whole wheat cycle with the delay timer set to give me a total bread making time of 12 hours inclusive of the starter times. For example time for starter to double in size is four hours. Bread machine cycle set for 8 hours. I have produced good sourdough loaves and often get this ready at night so I wake to fresh bread. With a few attempts my timings got better and the bread was light chewy and sour. It's easier than people say and fits well with my shift work.
My Zojirushi breadmaker makes great authentic sourdough bread.
I want to emphasize the authentic reference, real sourdough bread uses a spectrum of wild yeast and bacteria while commercial yeast creates a very very different flavor and texture. I keep a tub of starter that is twice the amount that is necessary for a batch of bread, about 2 cups. My tub is twice that size so when it doubles during proofing, it doesn’t overflow.
Additionally, when I need to feed it I pour half down the drain and add another cup of flour and water to it. It keeps everything very simple.
My cycle time is just over nine hours because I have a very fast San Francisco starter. It took me a while to get the timing correct but it’s not hit and miss anymore.
One of the first lessons I learned was that the starter really needed to be very active in order to get consistent rises. It makes amazing flavored bread - I bring in a loaf for my employees at work and it disappears by mid morning!
1 tablespoon oil
3/4 of a cup of water
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon of sugar
1 cup of starter
3 cups of flour
Programming on my BB-PAC20 for SAN FRANCISCO sourdough (fast rising):
Rest: 05
Knead: 28
Shape: off
Rise1: 4:00
Rise2: 2:00
Rise3: 1:35
Bake: 1:02
I have the basic recipe memorized, and often customize by feel to make a variety of flavored breads. I can’t say enough good things about the Zojirushi bread maker; it’s worth the money to have the freedom in programming, especially for someone like me who is very busy, and can’t babysit the cycle timing. The long rectangular pan with two paddles allows for 2 pound loaves shaped as you would expect from a bakery.
My bread maker makes sourdough bread just fine. I made some tonight.
This would be much more useful if you could explain how to do it. Manuals for breadmakers usually come with instructions for yeast bread only.
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28770 | Why would heating left-overs in a ring heat them more evenly?
I just saw this tip on Reddit to heat leftovers in a ring.
Why would this only work with left overs?
How does this ring cause the heating to be more even?
Nothing there says it only works on leftovers, except the comment that about secret agreements and built-in sensors to detect whether or not the food is leftover, and I hope it's obvious how true that is.
I believe the unspecified context of this question is cooking in an oven or microwave. No matter what your cooking method, the heat is introduced at the outside of the food:
Microwaves only penetrate a short distance; the rest of the cooking through to the center is by conduction (or convection, if the food is liquid)
Conduction/convection in an oven only interact with the surface of the food
Radiant heat (infrared essentially), one of the main cooking modes in an oven, again only affects the surface
By creating a ring shape, if it is practical, you create more surface for the heating modality to interact with the food.
This is the reason for an angel food cake pan or bundt pan having a tube at the center--it allows more surface area to be involved in the cooking process.
Also, with the metal pan, the metal has a higher conductivity of heat than does air. This is why parts of the cake in contact with the pan (or a non-insulated metal cookie sheet, or whatever) generally brown more than the parts exposed to the air.
However, in practice except for things cooked in tube pans, I wouldn't really worry about this affect. If you can stir occasionally, it becomes close to moot.
Note that in pan frying or sauteing or or griddling or stir frying (depending on the term used in context), the main surface area that is relevant is the bottom of the food, that which is contact with the pan. A ring doesn't help much here, compared to spreading the food out.
I looked at the first part of that thread. It does not seem to be a hot bed of science and knowledge of cookery.
As SAJ14SAJ mentioned, this shape will be preferable to a simple heap when used in an oven. But actually, a spread-thin sheet of food will be better than both heap and ring when you are using it in an oven.
My guess is that this shape is supposed to be used on a gas range with a rather large burner, or on certain types of induction stoves whose induction coil is ring shaped, in combination with a thin pan. In both cases, there will be a ring-shaped area of pan bottom much hotter than the rest of the pan. Putting the food on that area will give you even heating in the bottom of the ring, and will work if the ring is not heaped too high. The higher the ring becomes, the colder the top part of it, and at some point, the food would get hot quicker if put in the middle and on the sides of the pan, in contact with the not-very-hot parts of the bottom, than high above the hot ring area. And of course, you can't really stir when you are using the ring.
Conclusion: it is better for the specific context of ring-shaped heater, thin pan, small amount of food and a busy cook (who can't be bothered to stir). If at least one of these conditions is missing, spreading it along the whole bottom is preferable.
I agree... but mostly it is plain silly :-)
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20151 | how long can i microwave microwaveable plastic containers for?
I've got a microwave container and no oven and looking to cook some stuff - is it possible to microwave a container that's marked as microwave safe for 40 minutes or so?
What do you need to microwave for 40 minutes? The longest I ever use the microwave is about 15 minutes for vegetables. Apart from that, I imagine that a microwave safe container will be ok - if I put the same container in the microwave for 3 minutes every working day for a month, then the container will have been inside for 75 minutes.
It takes ALOT less time to cook in the microwave compared to the oven. Please do not use the same time it would take to cook something in the oven and convert it 1 minute - 1 minute in the microwave. That would be disastrous. For example, it takes about 2.5 minutes to microwave a hot pocket while it takes about 20 minutes in the oven. If you microwave that hotpocket for 20 minutes, you're going to get a radioactive lump that will probably have a pulse of its own.
Potatoes, apparently - I gave it a go yesterday and haven't died yet so I guess 40 minutes is okay at least once - the container didn't warp or anything which is a start.
A microwave-safe container shouldn't be heated significantly by the microwave (only by conduction from the food it contains). So, it should be fine, so long as the food is, and as long as the food doesn't exceed its allowable temperature.
You can test fairly easily—put the container, partially filled with some water, in the microwave for a few minutes. Does the container heat up, possibly more so than the water—especially where its not in contact with the water? If so, I'd be reluctant to use it in the microwave for that long.
Some containers are microwave safe, but only for heating to maybe 160°F or so. A common example is LDPE (often used for plastic wrap). Some can't take boiling for more than a short time (e.g., HDPE). Polypropylene should be fine, even with boiling. Go any hotter (e.g., filled with oil, which is probably insane) and most will fail. If you're lucky, the container will have a resin ID code on it, LDPE is #4, HDPE is #2, polypropylene is #5.
Your microwave may not be fine with 40 minutes of strait microwaving, or with the steam buildup. You should probably check its manual.
I assume also you've read Jay's comment about converting recipes, and that you're doing something where 40 minutes won't result in charcoal.
make sure you are not cooking oily food in plastic for long - oil drops on plastic can form hotspots capable of melting a hole in!
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4977 | pork fillet cooking time
I have a pork fillet which I've cut in half and marinated in some honey and soy. I heated a pan, and seared it on all sides, then put the pan in the oven at 180 deg C. The question is, how long to leave it in the oven until it's cooked through? I suspect it's about 20 minutes for the average fillet (3-4cm in diameter). Any suggestions?
How "done" do you want your pork to be? See this question for more detail about how much to cook your pork: http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/2793/what-are-the-ranges-of-pork-temperature-that-are-flavorful-and-safe/2820#2820
Every Kitchen needs a meat thermometer. Little too late in this case but it would have saved you here. I never used one at home until after I started working in a restaurant that only had a flat top and a convection oven with burgers on the menu. I got a relatively cheap one for $5-10 at Wal-mart and it does the job. Another option for next time is to check your meat often and poke it with a spoon, once it feels firm throughout, like the skin on the back of your hand when you make a fist, it's done.
actually we (well my partner) have a meat thermometer, but he was away, and I didn't know what temperature to check for anyway.
There is no "done" or set temperature for any meat, it's personal taste, some like their meat raw, some like it like shoe leather. Sure, record the temp you like and go for that, but I find that most people find meat "done" by the physical appearance too. So it becomes a time/temp problem
Well, I can report that for this particular fillet, 20 minutes was probably a tad to long. It was a little dry, not overly so, but I think perhaps 15-18 minutes would have been better. However, without an accurate thermometer in the oven or a meat thermometer, it's not a particularly reproducible scientific experiment.
I adapted a similar recipe by placing the marinade and pork into a foil parcel, and wrapping it up loosely to seal. I left it in the oven for nearly an hour and it came out perfectly moist and tender. Great as an addition to a bbq when you can relax about the exact timings
The meat 'is ready' when certain temperature inside it is reached. For pork it's about 82C. The warming-up speed mostly depends on how much fat is there in your meat.
If you have fatty meat it'll be ready very soon, 10-12 minutes maximum or even earlier. If it's lean then the time is a few minutes longer. But in this case it's really worth to take the meat out of the fridge 1-2 hours before cooking and let it warm-up a little bit. Otherwise it's difficult to make it ready inside and not to carbonize the surface.
-1 because 82C / 180F is WAY too hot for pork. See this question for details: http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/2793/what-are-the-ranges-of-pork-temperature-that-are-flavorful-and-safe/2820#2820
@yossarian: those answer only shows that you and 4 more guys understand nothing in cooking meat. Assume that there's no anything 'nasty' in the piece of meat. Would you eat it raw as it is? No! Because the main goal with temperature is desctucturing proteins. The temperature I adviced is taken from the book of a very authoritative chef who specializes exactly on cooking meat dishes.
I disagree. What book did you get your temp from? A quick google shows most places in the 71C / 160F, but they all state that the temperature is for safety reasons. I find pork at 82C / 180F to be overdone and dry, particularly for a lean cut like the loin. Most restaurants in America will recommend their pork done Medium, which is below 160F. My experience, which includes some very precise sous vide cooking, is that 180 is leather and 140-160 produces a much better texture (although, I'll go hotter for Boston Butt / Picnic).
I'll also point out that On Food and Cooking backs me up, describing meat at 170 as dry and tough. It also addresses when the proteins in meat start to denature, which starts at 120F and most of which has taken place by 140F.
I can validate what @yossarian is saying - I've just done a whole fillet wrapped in foil in the bottom of an oven that was already cooking something else at >200C, adjusting cooking time accordingly, and it's still tough. It seems not to matter how short the cooking time if the external temperature is too high, it's going to ruin it.
15 minutes is way to long.
If the fillet was seared brown ( 5 to 8 minutes), then 8 to 10 minutes in the oven, 400 F, would be perfect for a nice juicy filet. Porkfillet should be slightly pink I the middle.If not then it is dry and basically ruined.
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29561 | What techniques and tips do you have for keeping an organized, clean work area while you cook?
I've heard of the Mise en Place principle in professional cooking which means literally "everything in it's place". Professional cooks applying this principle keeping their work area clean and organized. Translating this to home cooking, I'm thinking about how to make less mess resulting in less cleanup time and an overall cleaner kitchen.
What techniques and tips do you all use to be tidy cooks?
If you want one, simple technique -- put ingredients away as you use them.
When you start the recipe, take out all of the necessary ingredients, and put them on your counter (or somewhere nearby, if your kitchen is as tiny as the one in my first apartment). This gives you a chance to make sure that you're not missing anything critical.
As you use them, put them away ... this helps you keep track of what's already gone into the recipe, so you don't end up with twice as much salt (or none at all).
I find it's most useful with baking (eg, when you'd have a large container of flour or baking powder that you only need a portion of vs. other cooking where you'd just pull out those three carrots or two onions you needed from the beginning). It's also really useful when you have more than one person in the kitchen helping to cook a single dish (the most typical reason an ingredient gets doubled)
I actually don't like chopping everything in advance, as this means that I have to have place to put all of my prepared items (which means more bowls and dishes to clean afterwards). I do make the exception for stir-fry, but I use a few plates and keep things that cook in a similar time together on the same plate; I won't dump in the whole plate at the same time, but if a carrot ends up getting hidden under the stems of the bok choy, it's not as big a deal as if it went in with the greens of the bok choy.
...
My only other recommendation is in cutting board selection -- I really don't like the heavy, thick butcher block ones, because they're difficult to carry one handed. With a lighter board, I can pick the whole thing up, then use the back of my knife to push things into the pan, or into the trash as appropriate.
... and I guess one more recommendation, but this one's actually from America's Test Kitchen (I think it was in their Quick Tips book) -- when you're peeling carrots, potatoes or whatever ... put down a sheet of newspaper first, then after you're done, you can just fold it in on itself, and compost or trash as appropriate for your area.
Some tricks that I like:
Have something to put trash in right near where I am doing prep. A plastic bag from the grocery, an empty box, or if nothing else, just a steel bowl that is easy to clean. All of the trash, trimmings, and so forth go right into the trash container as they are produced, and when I am all done, that is emptied or discarded into the larger trash.
If you are a baker, switching to measuring by weight rather than by volume will substantially reduce the number of measuring cups, spoons, and so on you have to use and clean, which also helps keep things neat. Of course, its also easier, faster, and more accurate--what's not to like? :-)
If you are cooking something that requires periodic mixing or stirring, having a plate or bowl to rest the stirring spoon on is convenient. I like to use one that was previously used in prep when I can, so there isn't another item to clean--otherwise a saucer will do just fine.
Think about the order of preparation. Unlike a restaurant kitchen where they are optimizing time in prep or time on the line, not the number of pans or dishes used, at home we have to do our own dishes. You can often reduce the number of dishes or pans you need (and thus clutter and cleanup) simply by thinking about how things come together. For example, I like a two-bowl method to make muffins. I weight my dry ingredients into a bowl large enough to mix the whole batch, and measure the wet ingredients in a smaller bowl. The whole recipe can then be done with just two bowls (the smaller of which can rest the spoon or scoop...) . Similarly, with measuring spoons, if you measure dry ingredients before wet, you may only need one spoon instead of two. It just depends on what you are making.
I think you will get lots of answers, and lots of useful tips.
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8992 | How to stop oatmeal from sticking to the sides of my slow cooker?
When I cook oatmeal, I usually do steel-cut oats in the slow-cooker overnight.
They are tasty, etc., but invariably there is a layer of oats stuck/burned on to the side walls of the ceramic slow-cooker pot.
Given that each experiment is an overnight job, I am wondering if anybody else has had this problem, and if so, how you solved it?
Would it be worth greasing the sides with butter - or will that impart some taste as it cooks for so long?
Other ideas?
Try the butter: butter + oatmeal is good eats, a common topping a few decades ago.
Is there enough liquid left by morning? TFD's too long/too hot guess sounds likely.
Are you cooking too long or too hot?
Oats shouldn't burn; stuck oats should just soak off.
Crock Pot Tips:
Often the slow cooker's ceramic pot gets quite rough and can have cracks in the glaze. Try an oven proof glass pot inside the ceramic pot (or instead of it if it fits OK).
A hardware-store drill-speed-controller, or heater thermostat/controllers, can be used on slow cookers to reduce their heat. Also, a plugin timer can be used to time the cooking cycle.
Different Methods:
You can bring the oats to the boil and pour into a preheated thermos flask (with a wide opening) and leave overnight. Traditional oats or other grains were brought to the boil on the evening fire, and then the pot was put into a hay box* for breakfast and lunch the next day
Personally I cannot tell much difference between slow cooker oats and a serving of oats that were blasted in the microwave for three minutes. Just compensate with a little extra milk, and let stand five minutes before serving
* Large wooden box lined with dry straw or hay, with a cavity big enough for the lidded cooking, pot. More hay and a heavy lid placed on top (to keep the animals out)
The recipe, such as it is, calls for the low setting, which I am using. There does seem to be enough liquid (i.e. the oats are not dry). They do indeed soak off - so not a huge problem, just a fine tuning. I'll try the butter... :-)
@mfg nice edit, two years late though :-)
The question was just ahead of its time
"Personally I cannot tell much difference between slow cooker oats and a serving of oats that were blasted in the microwave for three minutes. " TFD doesn't appreciate steel cut oats then...
Two ideas:
1) From my own experience, not having the water/steel cut oats ratio correct results in it sticking more readily to the ceramic pot. What is your water/oats ratio? I do 9/2 in the slow cooker for about 8.5 hours.
2) After cooling the oatmeal in the ceramic dish, stick it in the fridge. When it is thoroughly chilled, use a plastic rice cooker spoon* to scrape the oatmeal out. It comes out quite cleanly. The little oatmeal that remains stuck to the inside is easy to clean out after a good few hours of soaking.
*The plastic rice scraper is perfect for the job because it will not damage the coating on your cooker, its design is perfect for scraping food out of round containers, and is robust enough to use some force without breaking.
For most crock pot cooking I don't use these, but oatmeal is a terrific candidate for a crock pot liner like these. They are probably available at your local grocers. When your done, you just lift out the liner and throw it away. I use them for queso and they work wonderfully.
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20669 | Selecting nuts for successful home oven-roasting
I have gotten into the habit of buying raw or blanched or otherwise unroasted nuts from the local co-op in bulk and then oven-roasting or skillet-toasting on the fly for recipes. For most types of nuts it is either cost-saving or provides a tastier ingredient.
In the course of doing this I have picked up a nasty habit of digging into my baking stash and oven-roasting nuts for ~ten minutes at about 400'F (typically in a dash of extra oil, salt, red pepper, paprika, garlic, etc) for a quick snack. So far walnuts and pecans have yielded tremendous results.
Today I tried some raw almonds (whole, roasted) and was less than impressed. Typically, and especially with walnuts, they produce more oil and develop a lighter texture and the flavor becomes more pronounced. The almond meats remained pretty much the same in texture and flavor profile, and only picked up the oil that I had tossed them in.
I assume the lower change was due in no small part to the fact that they were previously roasted, however other nuts that had been previously roasted still had a flavor and texture change.
Yet I am left wondering if there is perhaps a lower rate of return in making the effort to roast certain types of nuts. Is this the case?
For instance, will oilier nuts (i.e. brazils) produce better results when (re-)roasted?
Also, is it possible that I may have selected poorly in terms of the nuts chosen.
For instance, would slivered have worked out better?
Is it possible that pan-toasting versus oven-roasting would yield better results in certain scenarios?
Is there a better temperature to be roasting at? I have tried 375'F-425'F and, with a watchful eye, had good results regardless of the spot in that range.
I lack enough nut-specific information to give an answer, but my intuition says that between different types of nuts, there may be different ideal roasting temperatures. A couple of tricks I learned from baking: 1. use an oven thermometer (not your oven's built in thermostat) for better accuracy. 2. Allow the oven to remain at the set temperature after it's stopped heating for 5-10 min. The walls can take some time to heat up and can lead to inconsistent temperature ranges. 3. Something with large mass (i.e. pizza stone) can alter the cooking properties to use more radiation
For raw, harder, and bulkier nuts like Almonds try a slightly lower temperature, say 180°C (350°F), and for a longer time
For re-roasting previously roasted nuts use a microwave oven (I know...). Same recipe, but just a few minutes on high. Watch them the first few times until you find the magic time limit before they start to burn
Commercially more and more people are using continuous microwave roasting machines, so using the microwave at home is so bad...
Personally, I like nuts aged in their shells before roasting
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7571 | In general, can I substitute egg species for either egg-only or egg-centric dishes?
(Prompted by an interesting radio show on ducks and duck eggs).
For general uses, in either an egg-only dish, or an egg-centric dish like a custard or quiche, can I use eggs other than chicken eggs?
Other than the obvious that the volume of the dish will vary, and perhaps the cooking time, can I make a fried quail egg on toast, or a duck egg quiche? Or for that matter, to echo another recent question, a soft-boiled ostrich egg - presumably with lots of dipping toast!
More or less, yes. Just know that eggs of different species have different "flavors." There may be some issues with substituting in dishes due to varying fat content of the yolks and such...
I've had duck and goose egg quiches. I've had fried quail eggs on toast. I have yet to try an ostrich or emu egg.
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10661 | How do I season my new pizza stone?
I just bought my first pizza stone. The instructions that came with it recommend that I wash it thoroughly with plain water before using it for the first time. Is there anything else I should do to it to season it so it lasts and performs optimally?
You season it by cooking pizza on it.
Nope, there is nothing you need to do to prepare a pizza stone for use, other than giving it a good cleaning to remove any residue from the factory.
While you don't have to pre-season most stones these days, you can speed up the natural process by:
Wipe the new pan with a wet cloth (no soap)
Dry in oven (low heat)
Apply a very light coat of neutral vegetable oil with an old towel (I find paper tends to snag on new stones)
Bake on med-high (400) as you would a cast iron pan (but not upside down).
Once the stone is seasoned, you'll find things don't stick as badly (or at all). After normal use, just wipe the stone with a wet cloth (if soiled) and use a gentle utensil for scraping off anything that might stick (it should pop right off).
Both of my stones are a much darker colour after both seasoning and using for a few years. This is normal.
eeek! when mine got thoroughly oiled-up from use it stopped absorbing moisture from the dough and was no more useful than a cookie sheet; tossed it out.
Mine get pretty oily anyway, as I usually store dough in my fridge oiled up (they crisp up nicely this way, and it prevents the fridge crust).
After your first pizza-making experience you'll learn they are hard to clean-- cheese likes to glue itself to the sandstone, oil soaks into it, etc.
A common piece of advice I found on the internet is to leave the pizza stone in the oven all the time. This has been working for me as it means what ever I can't get off the stone is constantly being re-baked and turned into something other than mold.
You can stick a pizza stone in the oven on a self clean mode. The super high heat of the cleaning cycle will burn off 90% of stuck food. Don't put it on a rack though, just put on the bottom. The racks get destroyed in the cleaning cycle.
Ceramics do just fine in high heat; that's how they make your plates and cups - by firing them in high heat. Just make sure you don't expose the stone to temperature extremes, let it cool down by itself.
And yes, don't use soap on a stone. The porous nature of the stone will suck up the soap and is impossible to get out.
You don't have to do anything to season it. If you do need to clean it, it's ok to use PLAIN warm water on it (never soap) and a scrub sponge (again, no soap) after it cools completely, but make sure you let it dry thoroughly before you heat it up again or it may crack.
Our electric self cleaning oven did the trick. I was afraid the stone might crack, but it cleaned completely, so the advice above about just leaving it in the oven is probably good also.
We use cornmeal on the peel. It doesn't burn like flour.
Do not oil a pizza stone. Oil will be absorbed and will likely go rancid.
Do NOT season your pizza stone, EVER!!! Simply dust it with flour or corn meal before you put it in the oven to get hot and once its up to a nice hot temp of your choice, ( I prefer 450 ) using a pizza peel slide pizza onto your stone and let it do its magic and once its done remove pizza from stone using the same utensil you used to place it on stone in the first place. Once stone has cooled wash it with water and dry it and keep in safe place until next time.
BTW this info was directly from pizza stone manufacturer...
ENJOY!!!
Aehm, I'd even not dust it separately, because the flour will likely burn if left on the stone for a longer period of time. You will need to dust the underside of your pizza and the peel anyway and that should be enough.
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1773 | Does putting knives in a wooden block blade down wear out the blade?
I'd always wondered. The blocks usually seemed designed to have the knives go in blade down, so that the blade touched wood coming in and out. But I know that when I whittle, cutting the wood wears the blade of a knife down very, very quickly. I'd always wondered if that regular contact with the wood from sliding into and out of the blocks could be wearing my knives down. Does it? If so, does putting them in blade up (against the design of the block - it would seem) do any better for them?
Check your knives too, mine are weighted so that when inserted into the knife block, the non-blade side presses against the top of the slot. This means the blades don't touch the wood.
Wooden blocks are ideal for knife storage because they keep the blades dry (the wood absorbs some of the humidity in the air), preventing rusting.
The motion of inserting and withdrawing blades over wood will not noticeably dull them, because you're not actually cutting the wood or indeed even applying any pressure as you do so.
A good tip is to use a good quality steel to sharpen your knives with just one or two passes on each side before each use. Wash them with hot water by hand, avoiding dishwashers unless you like replacing your knives annually, then return them to the block once they're fully dried.
I'd like to point out that it's a honing steel you use before each use. It hones, and does not sharpen. There is a significant difference. If you were sharpening a knife before each use it would quickly erode to nothing.
Very good point, thanks for the clarification. I'd suggest that if you hone regularly from new then sharpening should be something you have to do very rarely.
Just put the knifes in up side down blade up. Easy problem solved.
Technically, yes. While wood is a preferable surface to many others for drawing your blade across it will still cause wear. If you're using a block, the slots should be horizontal.
Your knife block is poorly designed. I have a Shun knife block, the blades go in sideways. I just searched for J.A. Henckels and Wusthof blocks on Amazon as well, all horizontal.
Is this worth buying a new block over? Probably not, as the other answers in this thread indicate, it's not that big of a deal. It is less than ideal however.
We have two knife blocks. One has vertical holes, the other has horizontal holes. The horizontal block gives us all the advantages of wood, without the big disadvantage you just pointed out. The cutting edges don't rest against wood all the time, and are less likely to be in contact with said wood when being placed/removed.
It's much better to put the knife in a wooden block than to put it in a drawer and have it rattle around with other metallic objects. Most pro knife sets come with a wooden block so I would assume that is the preferred storage method.
If you are concerned that pulling the knives out along the wood will dull the blade than as you pull out, also pull away from the blade side so the knife blade doesn't rub against the wood.
I'm not a whittler, but I think that what causes the blade to wear is pulling it across the wood. The blade should be fine as long as it is drawn lengthwise (like you are cutting something in half). Blades are very strong this way, but since the edge is very thin, it can easily be bent by having things pull across it.
Since wood is much softer than metal, I suspect there would be very little impact on the integrity of the blade. It it were pushed very hard into the wood, it might bend, but under normal use, I can't see any problems.
Frankly, I think the constant up and down and sliding across the maple cutting board will do much more to dull my knives than storing them in a vertical slot block.
Yes, they can wear a bit in a vertical block, but only if you store them point-side down. When I had a vertical block, I stored them points-up. Assuming there's a little extra room in the slots, the tip should touch nothing when you remove the knives.
It shouldn't matter all that much. I prefer a magnetic strip on the wall, though.
As Chris Cudmore stated, actual use of the knife on a wood cutting board will dull the blade far more. My guess would be that one average knife use dulls as much as 100's of in and outs of the block. And if you carefully pull the knife out and replace it so the edge does not even slide on the wood (as I do), then no block damage at all.
I put my sharp knives in my block (vertical) with the blade pointed inward and toward the center. I have found that when they are put in facing outward, my blades when sliding them out, have more resistance and dull more quickly.
I believe that some blocks are designed in a way that demands you insert them in a particular and that my block may be one of them. Knives are pointed towards the center because they drag on the wood when you withdraw the knives, they come into contact with the wood, which dulls them. The bottom line is that when I find my blades needing more sharpening when positioned one way over the other, the logical conclusion is that it does matter how you position the blade when in the block.
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1363 | How dangerous is it to refreeze meat that has been thawed?
I've often been told by people that I shouldn't refreeze meat (particularly hamburger meat) once it has been thawed. However, this seems a little silly to me. I can't imagine how meat that hasn't been bought fresh and local could find its way to my kitchen with out thawing and being refrozen a couple of times. How much damage can one more thawing and refreezing really do? Can it really be that dangerous disease wise? Or is this just one of those urban myths?
http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/2642/what-do-i-need-to-know-about-temperature-and-food-safety has more about food and temperature safety.
I know this is an old question, but I just wanted to let you know that it helped me. We were affected by Sandy -- our power was out for two days. We had frozen bottles of water in our stand-alone freezer to keep it cold, and didn't open it. When our power came back, the freezer's temperature display said it was only 34 degrees inside. So I know that my meat is safe, but could lose some texture. One of the reasons I love this site!
In theory you could thaw and refreeze as many times as you like, though the changes in temperature would definitely alter the quality of the meat's taste and texture.
What matters most is how long the meat has been in the so-called "danger zone" speaking from a temperature perspective. The "danger zone" is defined as being between 41 to 135 °F (5 to 57 °C).
Here is an excerpt from The Professional Chef, by the Culinary Institute of America:
Foods left in the danger zone for a period longer than four hours are considered adulterated. Additionally, one should be fully aware that the four-hour period is cumulative, meaning that the meter starts running again every time the food enters the danger zone. Therefore, once the four-hour period has been exceeded, heating, cooling, or any other cooking method cannot recover foods.
Except then meats are adulterated from the moment you buy them in the grocery store. They spend a full eight hour day - sometimes much longer - sitting in the cooler. They aren't frozen then, they're in the danger zone! According to that, meat from the grocery store is already spoiled from the moment you buy it.
The cooler at the grocery store should be around 30°F. If its above 40, you should call your local health department.
It isn't an enclosed cooler. At every grocery store I've ever been in has been the same. Open topped cooler for the meat and the contained meat is clearly nowhere near being frozen. The cooler may be set to 30 degrees F, but I doubt the meat is below 40 degrees F.
@DanielBingham The meat is the temperature of the cooler, which, as derobert said, should be well below 40F. And if it's not then call the health department who will promptly shut them down. The fact that the cooler is open is irrelevant. (Cold air sinks, remember?)
As the water in the muscle fibers freezes it expands and creates a mushy texture. The reason that commercially frozen meat has less degradation of texture is due to the speed at which they can freeze things. The quicker that freezing takes place the smaller the ice crystals will be. Home freezers are best at keeping frozen foods frozen but take much longer than commercial freezers to do the actual freezing.
If the food was properly thawed, re-freezing once will probably have a minimal impact on texture but it's going to depend on the item. Ground meats such as ground beef probably won't be noticeable vs. a steak or other cut that normally has a fairly tight muscle structure.
In addition to freezing altering taste and textures by damaging cells and co, there are safety reasons to avoid refreezing. In France at least, all commercial frozen food have to display the "never refreeze unfrozen products" warning on the package.
The official explanation (I didn't look for scientific studies) is that when you defreeze on the first time, frost-proof bacterias will have few competitors because the initial freezing has killed most of other bacterias, they will have easy-to-digest food because the initial freezing has dismantled cells, and they will have further ideal development conditions because of the slow increase of temperature. So at first, it's likely to find more bacterias of a single kind in unfrozen food than in never frozen food with the same unfrozen lifetime (of course you may have more bacterias in the never frozen food, but of many species, I guess), though not at a dangerous level. Then, unless you have industrial equipment or your dish is packaged in very thin layers, the refrozing is slow, so bacterias have even more time to develop in such good conditions. So after being fully refrozen the product will have much more bacterias (of each surviving frost-proof species) than the original, possibly at a non-safe level. Of course it will be even worse next time, since bacterias follow an exponential growth (I guess once they're not in the exponential phase anymore, it's way too late already…).
So it seems not only the danger zone issue is hidden (one wrongly assumes that once in the freezer, the food is not in the danger zone anymore, but it takes some time to freeze, depending on the size), but there are specific issues because of conditions generated by the freezing.
On a side note, it's surprising how safety advices depend on the country (I guess). People on cooking.SE usually strongly advise to follow the US agencies "2 hours in danger zone" recommendation (interesting to note that the quote on JYelton's answer mentions 4 hours instead of 2). French (European ?) agencies recommend the same, but insist much more (it's my feeling at least) on the refreezing issue, and I'd bet much more French people are aware of the latter than of the former (probably because of the mandatory mention on packages).
Disclaimer : I'm no physician or food or health or food safety specialist, just reporting informations gathered on trustable (IMO) websites.
The reason why you will see both 2 and 4 hours as reference for the "danger zone": It is 4 hours total, e.g. when a restaurant gets it straight from the butcher. When a consumer buys meat from a supermarket, it is conservatively assumed that on its way from the butcher to the supermarket, and from the supermarket to the home, it spends 2 out of the 4 hours in the danger zone, so it only has 2 hours "left".
Do you have a reference for the singletype bacteria explanation?
@MarcLuxen : As mentioned I did not look for "reliable" sources (i.e. digests of scientific works) but only reported the French "official explanation", which you can find e.g. on the website of the French ministry of agriculture, if you read French.
The answer depends on how the meat was thawed. If you read any of the health and safety documentation it tends to stipulate that meat thawed in a refrigerator can be safety refrozen. Meat thawed by other methods, particularly if the temperature reaches 40°F–140°F (4°C–60°C) should be cooked before refreezing.
It's not dangerous but it significantly impacts the quality of the meat. Most noticeably, it's ability to hold onto moisture.
Frozen food should be consumed quickly after it is defrosted. Do this within 1 week after the first defrost and 24 hours after the second. Red meat is the fastest decaying food and it's already been frozen before getting into your freezer.
I take issue with those who say there is no danger. There is ...
Leaving for a trip, I bought frozen foods - vegetables and sausages - and kept them in a freezer bag on the train journey, imaging they would not unfreeze ...
Wrong - they did.
On arrival, I immediately refroze the defrosted foods, then cooked them properly (and very thoroughly) the next day, straight from the freezer (the meat correctly thawed in a microwave) and ate them straight away ...
I am lucky to be alive to tell the tale.
I had very bad food poisoning, tingling at the extremiites, trembling, and other syptoms, but, unfortunately, was unable to retch and get rid of the food that way. I had to wait for it to pass.
I spent a grisly few hours, and am convinced I survive because of an iron constitution : I am rarely ill, never suffer from food- poisoning, and eat all sorts of things which would flatten a mere mortal.
Take it from me - whilst it may be possible to safely refreeze under certain conditions, don't risk it ... ever !
Better safe than sorry !
Ian
You don't indicate what temperature the food got up to; there's a huge difference between thawing something in the refrigerator and letting it come up to room temperature for a few hours. Also, it's not clear from your story, but most people tend to associate food poisoning with the last thing they ate, which is completely natural and almost always wrong since most foodborne illnesses have an onset of at least 1-3 days. I'm the last person on this site to suggest cavalierness about food safety, but the accepted answer here is correct, and this one is anecdotal, not scientific or authoritative.
I do it all the time and I have never been ill once :)
food safety needs larger numbers than 1 person to make any conclusions.
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4574 | How to measure egg boiling time?
Which factors influence the moment of soft-into-hard egg during the boiling?
size of the egg
putting egg to cold/hot water
colour of the egg
atmospheric pressure (water boiling temperature)
How to accurately find the point when egg turns hard?
The easiest way to achieve a specific consistency of egg is to use the Sous Vide technique. Using a water oven you can precisely control the temperature of the egg. You can also create your own water oven or other hacks.
Personally, I just bring the temperature of a normal pan of water and eggs to slightly more than my target temperature (specific amount over is based on experimentation with water levels and temperature), then turn off the range, and let it sit for ten or so minutes.
When using Sous Vide, time doesn't matter only temperature.
obviously time matters in the sense that the egg has to be in the water for enough time to cook through, but excess time doesn't matter as much as with traditional cookery methods. The eggs at temperature should be the same after an hour or a few hours. what they would be like a week later would need to be investigated.
I know you're probably interested in what's going on inside the egg too, but if you have practical goals, you could try one of those egg "timers" that you toss in the water with the eggs. It won't compensate for differences in egg size, obviously, but hot vs. cold starting water and water boiling temperature ought to be pretty well-eliminated as variables.
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99750 | Can I safely mix beef tallow and canola oil in a tabletop fryer with a submersible element?
I'm working on Belgium-style frites at home and would like to get as close as possible to the traditional recipe.
I know that they would traditionally be double fried in beef-tallow, but I have a tabletop fryer with a submersible element and I've been cautioned against using any oil that would solidify at room temperature.
Can I safely mix beef tallow and canola oil? If so, will I get enough of the flavoring from the beef tallow?
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539 | Daikon in place of pasta
I remember seeing somewhere that one could use daikon in place of pasta, but I can't seem to find how one would prepare it.
Have you done this? If so, what should I be aware of when I try it out?
I think that someone was pulling your leg. You might be able to turn daikon into long, stiff, strands for decoration, but I don't think that any cooking process will yield something mistakable for pasta.
In fact, the recipe that the OP posted in an answer describes the situation as 'daikon posing as pasta.' The texture is not claimed to be even slightly similar; it's a visual pun.
I managed to find this recipe, I think this is where I got the idea.
http://us.dk.com/static/cs/us/11/features/morimoto/daikon.html
I haven't tried this, but I've heard summer squash makes a good substitute as well. You could try the recipe here.
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7250 | How do I modify sourdough recipes for use with my small starter?
I have a 125% hydration starter that I got from some chef friends of mine, but I've been instructed that if I care for it properly I should be using no more than 90g of starter from the base culture at a time. Lots of recipes I've seen suggest using much more starter than this (multiple cups at a time). How should I go from my small amount of starter to a larger one? Is it correct just to use a preferment to increase the volume? If so, how long should it be?
Increasing the volume of your starter is easy. Just add flour and water and let it sit at room temperature for until it becomes ripe (you can tell because the mixture will be very bubbly). The time depends on how much flour/water you add, what temperature you are fermenting at, how active your starter is, and what percentage of water you are using. Wait a few hours at least if you are significantly increasing the volume.
If you don't want to store the larger volume for your recipes, just increase the fermentation time for the recipe. The only caveat is that you shouldn't try to increase the volume of your starter by more than a factor of three at any one time (and keep in mind you'll need to reserve some sponge for the next batch of bread). Thus if you have very little starter, you may have to triple it, wait for eight hours, then double it, wait, then use, for example.
So how fragile is this? Just forge ahead and don't worry about it too hard? Extremely precise measurements required? Or is it one of those "you gotta feel it" things that just takes experience with your particular starter?
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8041 | Should I remove the foam when cooking chickpeas?
Whenever I boil chickpeas aka garbanzo beans, I usually scoop up and discard the foam that rises to the top of the pot. Is there any reason other than for aesthetics to remove the foam?
As a secondary question, has anyone tried using this foam as an ingredient? It seems like it contains a lot of protein because the bubbles are stiff and resistant to popping. The flavor is pleasant, and the texture is unique.
I would say the only reason to remove it is to avoid it getting over your beans at the end (you get it with pretty much every other kind of bean).
And I have never tried using it as an ingredient.
For some reason I feel like I get more with chickpeas, but you're right, it does happen with other beans. With regard to getting it on the beans: most things I use chickpeas for (hummus, falafel, curries), I feel like the foam would just sort of blend in and not be noticed. Maybe not, though.
This foam now has a name: Aquafaba
Oh my god, I can't believe this didn't have a name until just now. Sea foam is just protein foam just like bean foam, though protein from mostly sea creatures rather than from beans. I still can't believe it has never been named before.
According to a quick search it appears that your notion about it being protein-based is correct. Most of the recipes I've seen say to skim it; the above-linked site says that adding a little oil will keep the foam down.
I personally wouldn't do anything with it as an ingredient unless I had a truly massive amount of it to experiment with--I don't know enough about the properties to make anything other than wild guesses about how it would work. The only similar material I can think of would be beaten egg whites, but unless you were desperate for a vegan alternative and were already boiling up vats full of chickpeas I'd just use the eggwhites.
Well I am vegan, and I actually do boil up vats at a time--when I cook beans I always pressure can 12-14 quarts of them. I might save some and try them for an egg white substitute and see how it does.
Well, there you go, then. ;-p Let me know how the experiment turns out.
A little late answer but one time I experimented with using the foam from cooked chickpeas. I mixed it with a little sugar, put it on a pan and popped it in the oven. It hardened up, browned and came out somewhat similar to a meringue with a nice sweet taste, but I waited a bit too long, so the foam wasn't quite as fluffy as beaten egg whites. I'm not sure how you would get enough or be able to use it fast enough before the foam starts deteriorating.
Yes, it seems that this can be used: (2minutes 30s) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UZmP1OzWRQ&t=495s
I find that occasionally there will be chaff in beans after boiling them. As a result, after draining I rinse the beans before using them, which in turn rinses away the foam. If you scoop away the foam I suppose that is one way to try to experiment with it; but if you're planning on draining without rinsing I would advise against it as you may end up with chaff in your hummus.
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1927 | How can you measure the caffeine content of a liquid at home?
I saw a question on here about cold brew vs hot brew caffeine content and was wondering what is the easiest (or best) way to measure this at home (if possible)
If you can find Ethyl Acetate (some nail polish removers), you can probably do this.
this is exactly the kind of hacky stack overflow answer i was looking for... since you can measure the caffeine as a solid left afterwards, you can actually compare results... or rub it on your gums.
I wouldn't eat it. I doubt it is too pure (bicarbonate, sulfate, and impurities in NP remover), but do whatever makes you happy.
The experiment you link to doesn't mention ethyl acetate. It does however require dichloromethane, sodium sulfate, and a fume hood, which you may or may not have lying around the house.
I don't think anything short of HPLC or extraction and purification will give you a precise result. If you'd be ok with more of a rough idea of whether something has a lot or a little caffeine, there are test strips available.
I've done simpler extractions than that... I'll have to find the procedure.
Test strips - nice!
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49137 | Why is delivered pizza often oily?
Forgive the heresy, but I've recently had some pizza delivered. I noticed it was quite oily, and I have seen and heard horror stories of pizza basically drowning in oil.
This does not happen when I make pizza myself, even with salami on top the amount of oil is small, and certainly not soaking through and through.
Is the oil added intentionally? Some (e.g. Asian) delivered foods are put in oil to keep them hot, but that does not seem to be a viable option for pizzas.
It's often a sign of inferior cheese. (or cheddar, which some people might not consider inferior, except in the context of pizza)
They are probably using ingredients of lesser quality (i.e. more fat in the cheese and the salami).
It should not be soaking.
No heresy. Pizza is a staple, meant to be obtained and consumed by whatever means necessary.
I have had a pizza with a drizzle of olive oil on top (in addition to some basil, pesto, and something else). As best I remember, it did not end up looking, feeling, or tasting particularly "oily", although it was visually apparent (olive-green lines).
However, that was a high-end pizzeria; I've never seen oil on a delivered pizza, at least not any that was intentionally added as a separate ingredient. Oil that is orange or yellow comes out of the cheese (and salami or other fatty ingredients) during cooking. Inexpensive ingredients often have much more grease than higher-quality alternatives.
Delivery pizza is oily because it's been kept hot. You can see this in New York-style lunch counter pizza that's kept under a heat lamp as well.
Melted cheese is primarily a mixture of casein (a protein) and fat. The casein in mozzarella is worked and stretched, like the gluten in bread dough, but is stabilized by being cool and containing congealed fat. Over time, if allowed by sufficiently high temperature and softened fat, it will tighten up, squeezing out the fat.
It'll even happen to your own pizza. Try making a pizza, then keeping it in a 150°F oven for half an hour. Oil will appear and pool on top of the pizza.
Oils can often be emitted from the cheese, pepperoni, meats, etc. Basically anything that is animal-based can have oils that seep out at high temperatures. Better pizza establishments will tend to use higher-quality (or at least more predictable) ingredients to manage the oiliness of their products.
Overly greasy pizza is caused by baking it too hot too quickly. The high heat makes the butter fat in the cheese melt, causing a moist pizza.
Neapolitan pizza is cooked from raw to piping hot in less than 2 minutes, and doesn't get oily. Butterfat melts at under 100 degrees Fahrenheit, so by your definition only a raw pizza is not too hot.
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7606 | How do "frozen fresh" herbs compare to fresh?
I noticed my grocery store has "frozen fresh" chopped herbs (basil, cilantro, oregano I think, among others) in the freezer section. How would these compare to fresh herbs?
The texture of frozen herbs is going to be totally different after thawing. In my opinion frozen herbs are fine for using in cooking, but they don't work well as a garnish or as an addition to a dish at the end of cooking.
The taste is definitely better than dried, though.
Right, and many herbs will turn black as they thaw, which is fine if they're in a stew or something, but terrible as garnish!
Agree with this they are better than dried and especially good as the winter comes up as fresh becomes very expensive. Frozen herbs are perfect in soups, stocks and casseroles.
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6762 | How can I replace canned tomatoes with fresh?
I have a tomato sauce recipe that calls for 1 can (28oz) of diced tomatoes (including the liquid). How can I replace the can with fresh tomatoes? I'm not sure if there is a particular type of tomato I should use or how many of them to use. Also, what can I do to replace the liquid?
If you are really set on doing this, just use the same amount by weight or volume, preferably peeling the tomatoes first. (Cut an x in the bottom, dip in boiling water for 10 seconds, pull off the peel). You'll have plenty of liquid coming out of the tomato, don't worry about that. But honestly, I don't recommend doing this. Fresh tomatoes that are any good are so good uncooked that it is a waste, and fresh tomatoes that aren't good won't get better by cooking them. Even Mario Batali says you should use canned tomatoes for cooked sauces.
If you're growing tomatoes in the volumes that some of my family members do, cooking them for sauce is just one of the ways to use them; it not be much better than canned, but saves the money. Of course, there may be some small difference - a friend of mine claims that sauces made from canned tomatoes just taste canned to her. Maybe it was just a bad brand of canned tomatoes. My grandmother's canned tomatoes taste just fine to me.
Tomato Sauce made from fresh garden tomatoes can be very much more flavorful than canned tomatoes. If you have an abundance, it can certainly be a delicious improvement. I would follow the directions given in the previous answer for peeling the tomatoes, with the additional suggestion to plunge them in ice water immediately following the boiling water bath. They are much easier to handle that way. The recipe may call for reduction of the sauce, and this can be done with fresh as well as with canned tomatoes. I have also made tomato sauce from fresh tomatoes by cooking down the unpeeled tomatoes until they are soft, and then pressing them through a food mill. After that you can reduce the sauce with additional ingredients - olive oil, garlic, onions, herbs as desired.
Whenever you can, use mature fresh tomatoes for sauces. Try tomato concassé. That's the same method @Michael describes:
Cut the bottom out of the tomato.
Cut an X into the top.
Dump it into hot water (nearly boiling).
When the skin breaks, dump into ice water to stop the cooking.
Remove the skin.
Cut through the equator and take out all the chamber filled with seeds.
Pass the liquid through a sieve to take out the seeds.
Measure the flesh from the tomatoes.
You can add a few tomato leafs for added flavor (according to McGee)
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1045 | Are there any reasonable substitutions for lemon juice?
In the past I cooked myself into a corner when I realized mid-recipe that I didn't have any lemons or lemon juice available. Nor did I have any limes.
I can't remember the exact recipe, but I believe it was some baked fish dish. What are some possible substitutes for lemon juice in this application? I ended up using a dash of apple cider vinegar. It didn't turn out bad, it just was distinctly not lemon.
That depends; is the lemon there to help balance out the spice in a hot dish, or is it part of a recipe with the word "Lemon" in it?
I don't remember exactly. I'm pretty sure that if it had "Lemon" in the title that I'd be out of luck, so I think it was just there to add some flavor. It was actually a rather sleepy "healthy" dish when I was on a diet.
Your story is one of the advantages of 'mise en plas' -- I don't measure out everything, but taking 'em out of the cabinet/fridge at the beginning lets you know if you're missing something. (and when it's still on the counter when you're done, it's a sign you forgot to add something)
@Joe: Interesting, I've always done that, but didn't realize it had a formal name. I just always found it more convenient.
FYI, since we're learning a new term, it's spelled "mise en place." Like a lot of French terms, the pronunciation can cause spelling problems. Pronounced "meez ahn plahs."
Bottled lemon juice keeps for weeks if not months in the fridge. Is it available in your country?
When you find cheap lemons, buy a lot. Squeeze half a lemon in each of the cavities of an ice tray. Freeze. Within a day, remove the frozen slivers from the tray to a ziploc bag in the freezer. You now have measured units of fresh lemon juice you may use for cooking and will keep for months. The frozen lemons are a bit less acid than fresh juice, but full of flavor. You can do the same with limes.
This is a good way to always have lemon juice available, but it doesn't actually answer the question that was asked.
Agree with Marti. This doesn't answer the question at all. Specifically if one is "mid recipe" and doesn't already have lemon juice, advice to buy cheap lemons ahead of time and save them will do no good. I don't get why this has so many votes up for not helping whatsoever in this situation described.
This doesn't answer the question and would be better suited as a comment.
Based on this site you can substitute the lemon juice for either an equal amounts of lime juice, an equal amount of white wine or half the required lemon amount of mild vinegar (like you mentioned)
Interesting, I didn't think about white wine. I don't remember if I had any on hand that day, but I bet it would have been better than the vinegar.
There's no way white wine is as acidic as lemon juice, but some white wine combined with white wine vinegar might yield good results, depending on the recipe...
If you're doing it for the acid (i.e. to cut the heat in a spicy dish), you might try cream of tartar if you have it lying around. I've never actually tried to substitute tartar for lemon juice, but lemon juice is the most common substitution for cream of tartar, so it stands to reason that it works both ways. (Note: You would use about 1/3 as much cream of tartar as the amount of lemon juice that's called for).
If it's for general flavouring, this may sound insane, but if you happen to have any cherry brandy or even regular brandy lying around, try that. A solution of sherry and cider vinegar is an OK substitute but doesn't quite have the tartness and strength of lemon juice. While cherry brandy obviously doesn't taste the same as lemon juice, it's often just as good or better in recipes that call for it.
Cherry? or Sherry?
@hobodave: No, cherry brandy. If you want to go the white whine/vinegar route then sherry is an easy choice since there's always some around (at least in my kitchen).
if your using the lemon juice for the acidic aspect then you can use 1/2 as much vinegar. However if it for flavoring I would substitute another juice such as lime or orange. Sometimes you can also you lemon extract for flavoring.
Whenever I have to substitute something I have to remember I am no longer making the same thing as what was in the recipe or that I had started with. With that in mind I am more free to create then to agonize over trying to recreate.
I have had some great success with this, and some that should best be left in the past :)
As a substitute for lemon, I think I would try a different direction, rather then try and recreate the lemon, go with salty. Like a soy sauce, and perhaps simmer some apples in the soy sauce, or reduce apples in a little water then add soy. You have done something similar to the lemon but yet entirely different.
Recreation is very hard, and you are always left with the unmet expectation of what should or could have been.
In the Middle East, a common substitute for lemon juice in salad dressings, hummus or other savory dishes is citric acid. 1/4 teaspoon citric acid equals 1 tablespoon lemon juice.
Welcome to Seasoned Advice SE :) I've seen bottles of lemon/lime juice (in the US), but never "citric acid". How is it packaged?
@JanDoggen most citric acid I can buy is food grade. Dr Oetker sells it in tiny sachets for food related purposes, drugstores carry it in more reasonable amounts for people who like descaling kettles with it, and online shops are full of it. It is indeed a decent substitute, although the flavor is much less complex.
Two UNreasonable substitutions are alum (toxic in large doses) and citric acid.
Citric acid can actually work, but you have to use LESS of it than seems reasonable.
I just made some humus and half way through, realized I had no Lemons. ARRRRRGH!!!!
I did have some rice wine vinegar and some frozen Orange Juice. So I went with that. But now, thinking about it a bit, maybe it should have been rice wine vinegar an worcestershire sauce.
Lemons are Sour, Acidic and bitter. A bit of bitter might have been better.
Note: I did not use the Pinot Noir. I drank that. Hence this silly comment.
Most of the recipes where you need to add acid, it's about the acid. Either balancing out the salt, or the flavor, or to help chemical reactions. Lemon juice and vinegar are different acids, but if you are from countries where lemons are not the fruit of origin, use what is in your country. Nice apple cider vinegar and use as substitute mentioned above. Vinegar has two forms. Both are present in your bottle of vinegar. One is liquid and one is very volatile and needs to be cooked off (that means using vinegar in cooking you want to cook off the vapors a bit. So in cold dishes, before adding vinegar is good to heat it up for 20 minutes if needed).
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5021 | Can raw eggs be frozen?
If raw eggs are nearing their expiry date, can they be preserved in the freezer? Would there be any issues with them after taking them out of the freezer?
I'll freeze just about anything, but I've never thought about egg whites. I just set my egg whites in a Tupperware on top of the egg carton in the refrigerator & hope I'll remember to use them. Thanks!
@hobodave: yeah that was what I was implying. I knew about how egg in shell + microwave = explosion, but wasn't aware the same happens in the freezer! :)
@hobodave: I think it's ambiguous regarding the shells. I don't see anything that implies leaving them in their shells.
On a related note: How do you halve a recipe that calls for 1 egg =D
Yes, but not in shell (they explode, often spectacularly).
See http://www.ochef.com/56.htm for some more information. In general, whites are better to freeze, although you can freeze yolks as well.
What if you poked the shell like some do when steaming them?
My wife is going to kill me for attempting to spectacularly explode an egg in the freezer tomorrow.
I really can't imagine it being a big explosion. It will be frozen, that's why it breaks the shell. Let us know.
My eggs froze outside at ~3 degrees F; unspectacular, just one or two cracks each - and the membrane inside the shell remained intact; when they thawed there was no leaking. I asked a question about what to do with these, though, because the egg yolks were indeed gelatainous. http://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/10280/3418
You have two options for freezing egg whites:
Use an ice tray and place one egg white in each of the wells
Gently mix the whites (don't whip) and place the mixture, either into ice trays or freezer bags.
Approximately 2 tablespoons of egg white mixture equals a single egg.
You can freeze egg yolks but you need to add something to the mix, otherwise the yolks become gelatinous and unusable. Typically adding a small amount of salt or sugar to the beaten yolks should prevent this from happening.
So there is no way you can freeze the yolks as little balls?
Eggs can't read calendars and so the expiration date is only a guide. Properly handled, they will keep just fine for several weeks or longer past their expiration date. Their quality will slowly diminish primarily due to water loss. You can judge the age of an egg by placing it uncooked in a glass of water. The larger the air cell, the more internal water has been lost, and the egg will stand more upright at the bottom of the glass. If the egg is rotten, it may float. Don't leave the egg in the water, of course.
An egg that's been around a little while (it's usually long enough by the time you buy them at the grocery store) will make peeling boiled eggs easier than if you use eggs fresh from the hen.
There may be some recipes that are more sensitive to an egg's age, but I wouldn't use frozen eggs in them anyway.
Milk, on the other hand, is quite adept at calendar reading.
If you're going to use the egg yolks without freezing them you'll typically need to use them the same day. I sprinkle a little water over them before covering and putting in the fridge to help keep them from drying on top.
You can freeze them but you'll need to add corn syrup (or make a simple syrup of sugar and water) and stir it into them before freezing. You'll need to use about 1/4 teaspoon per egg yolk.
Egg yolks cannot just be frozen on their own because the water in them freezes and causes the proteins to form tight clumps. The result is that when they are thawed they have firm gelatinous texture. I've tried the salt and sugar recommendations alone and find that they don't work, probably because neither has a chance to really dissolve and act to keep the water and proteins combined.
Using the corn syrup will ensure that it is evenly blended through (provided that you stir it in well). When I make an angel food cake I will do this by adding 2 tablespoons of corn syrup to a cups worth of egg yolks (about 12). Divide it into smaller containers though as you'll just waste it if you freeze it in batches bigger than you're likely to need. 1 tablespoon of the mixture is roughly equivalent to 1 yolk. You'll of course have to use it in recipes that would be sweetened such as custards, ice cream, etc.
Thanks for this answer! I frequently have yolks left over from angel food cake. This will be very useful!
Yes.
Freezing raw eggs in the shell will cause them to burst the shell though.
Yes, egg whites freeze fine. There's nothing special you need to do - just put them in a freezer bag. Some people freeze them in an ice-cube tray first, for easy measuring later.
I made a perfectly good sabayon (zabaglione) with unbeaten frozen egg yolks that I hadn't mixed anything into - I just put them in a cup and into the freezer. But maybe I got lucky, as I've also read elsewhere that adding sugar or a bit of corn flour (corn starch) helps.
I saw a chef's video podcast thing where he said that egg whites should last in the fridge for many weeks. I haven't tried that myself, though.
With properly pasteurized eggs, and good handling when separating and storing your egg whites, yes they can. I actually buy tubs of real egg white that lasts for several weeks. I do think they do an extra pasteurization step, so home results will likely be inferior.
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16326 | Charring veg without gas burners/grill
Without having a gas burner or a grill, is there still a way I can char vegetables such as a red pepper or corn on the cob? I have a glass-ceramic range and an oven - would I have to do it under the broiler?
As well as andleer's suggestion, you can also do it on a hot griddle pan, preferably cast iron.
Coat the vegetables with a bit of oil and then place them in a hot oven. Your broiler should also work.
The broiler is probably a good way to go for peppers; turn them a few times and you can easily get most of the skin charred and the flesh cooked nicely. For corn, unless you want it cooked very little inside, you'll probably want to roast at a high temperature for a while rather than broiling.
I frequently get a nice char on loose corn kernels on the stove top starting with raw or frozen kernels and a bit of olive oil. Add some green onions or garlic at the end.
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12526 | How can I add meat into a completed tomato sauce?
Yesterday I was cooking for someone and was planning on making a bolognese sauce, but when it came to start cooking (ie. after doing my mise en place), she asked if I could leave the meat out of it, so instead I ended up with a meat-less tomato sauce with various veggies in it (onion, garlic, green pepper and carrot; I'm not sure if there's a "proper" name for this sort of sauce) -- essentially, my bolognese recipe minus the meat. I mixed my pasta into the sauce a couple minutes before serving.
Today I have plenty of leftovers (that have been sitting in the fridge for about 24 hours), and would like to add my meat (ground beef) into it. I realize that instead I could do something like make meatballs, but I'm not looking to do something like that.
Would just browning the meat now and mixing it in work well? Is there something I should add to my meat to better incorporate it into my sauce? Also, I'm not sure if putting the sauce back on heat will be the greatest idea because the pasta unfortunately got cooked more than I wanted (to the point where it's okay as-is, but further cooking will probably push it to overdone).
While it would probably work in terms of edible meat, it wouldn't have the same flavor, since the meat didn't get to simmer in your sauce for any length of time. And since you don't want to cook the pasta longer, I'm afraid that it's not going to be terribly effective. I'd just enjoy it as is, and use the meat for a future sauce.
As the others have mentioned, it won't quite be the same ... however, it can be done, it just won't quite have the same flavor as there isn't a chance for the meat juices to transfer into the sauce, and some issues regarding mixing it back in with the cold pasta.
If I were going to try it, I'd brown the meat, remove some of the fat if it's a really fatty grind, then add some extra sauce (or even other liquid ... maybe dairy, for a classic bolognese) to let it simmer for a bit ... then toss the pasta in with it to reheat.
The extra sauce is the key, otherwise, the meat isn't going to blend in with sauce on the pasta, If you reheat the pasta in the fresh sauce, it should hopefully mix together more completely.
... but if I were to do it, and wanted to add a meat to an already cooked pasta, I'd probably not choose ground beef as a first choice; I'd probably cook up some sausages, cut it down to an appropriate size for the pasta you're dealing with, and mix that in, possibly adding some extra liquid when reheating the pasta.
I made the sauce myself (as opposed to out of a jar), so I don't really have more to add into the meat as it's browning, per se. I have tomato paste, and I could open another can of tomatoes, but that's not really sauce for one thing and I don't want to end up with another whole batch of sauce at the moment... I guess I could get a store-bought jarred sauce but that seems wasteful.
@Daniel : I was afraid of that. If you were to add crushed tomatoes or even watered down tomato paste, you're going to have a raw tomato flavor, which wouldn't be ideal ... I might go for wine, broth, or a little milk to wet it down ... water if you really had to.
I do have wine, I'll give that a try tonight. Thanks for the advice! :)
You can brown the meat, while you heat the sauce and pasta in a pot. Make sure it's not cooking. If the meat is brown, add it to the heated sauce.
Normally, this should be fine.
Since you've lost a lot of water (sauce was heated two times), you can add a bit of water if necessary, but I don't think this will be the case.
Unfortunately you can't do much with it, since you already added pasta to the sauce.
Had you stored the sauce separately, you could have browned the ground beef in olive oil and some onions, added the sauce, covered everything with an inch or two of water and let it boil.
In your case, this would obviously overcook the pasta. So probably the best deal is to eat it as-is; adding meatballs now would just result in eating two dishes, pasta with tomato sauce and meatballs, at the same time.
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2793 | What are the ranges of Pork Temperature that are flavorful and safe?
USDA guidelines for Pork state that you should cook it to 160F. I have heard over the years that you can undercook from that, which seems desirable, as 160F is going to be pretty dry.
I know the general temperature safety rules, but I'm curious about texture. Does anybody have a range of temperatures and descriptions, a-la beef for Pork? Are there other, non-bacterial concerns for keeping pork up at 160F?
Update: As of May 24, 2011, USDA now recommends 145°F with a three-minute rest.
The main goal with temperature is to kill anything nasty. Those nasties die based on temperature and exposure. Much like a human could live forever at 95 degrees, for a long while at 110, shorter while at 150, and would die instantly at 750, so for all the stuff in Pork. 160 is considered a safe temperature because at 160, everything dies instantly. The FDA has a chart for all this, here. You'll see that even 120 degrees is safe IF you cook it for 21 hours!
I cook a lot of sous vide, so these temperatures and times are easy to get and be precise about. The thing you need to be careful about is that the time table shows the amount of time that the whole piece of meat needs to be at a given temperature, so make sure you heat it through before you start counting.
I'll regularly do pork chops in the 135 range, and it's lovely and moist without the stringy overcooked texture you get when well done.
Thanks Yossarian, those charts are excellent. Feel free to contribute them to http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/2642/what-do-i-need-to-know-about-temperature-and-food-safety
Chart link is dead, but I found something that appears similar here: http://www.foodhandler.com/cooking-pasteurizing-safer-foods/
"stringy overcooked texture" ... How does someone manage to get stringy pork? I didn't know that was possible.
I make pork chops and pork tenderloin roasts almost as much as most people make chicken and for both, I tend to pull it off heat at 135F and let it rest a bit.
In the years I've been doing that, I've repeatedly been asked "what kind of meat is this?". When I respond with "pork chops", the response is disbelief. A startling number of those people have told me that they thought they hated pork chops or that mine were the first pork chops they ever liked.
The dominant reason that people started cooking the hell out of pork was Trichinosis. The reality is that, today, Trichinosis infection has actually dropped to about 12 cases a year in all of the United States.
Compare that to the 540 people expected to be injured by *lightning" in a year.
For other contaminants, like e coli, the dominant source of infection is contamination on the surface (umm, that means someone got animal feces on the meat). Things like hamburger are such an e coli problem because that surface is then ground up and spread around the entire batch.
However, for whole cuts of meat like pork chops and pork tenderloin, that's not spread around. As such, proper searing (the kind you're likely to do for proper flavor) is so likely to take care of the problem that I'd come up with a long list of other things to worry more about and start enjoying tender, flavorful pork.
For instance, I'd worry more about spinach and other greens that regularly get contaminated with salmonella and e coli, yet are often eaten raw. But that's just me. I am not a government agency who's job is safety. I'm just the guy in this house responsible for making food we enjoy eating.
It's worth noting that the USDA has changed the cooking temperature guidelines for pork following industry changes that have reduced the chances of contracting trichinosis.
It's now 145F / 62C like other meats.
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49951 | Roasting multiple turkeys (cooking time estimation)
We tend to aim for large Thanksgiving gatherings, and thus tend to roast the largest turkey we can find. Last year, we ended up roasting a couple extra turkey legs so we had enough meat.
This year, at the suggestion of a local butcher, I'm considering roasting two smaller birds. He suggested smaller birds are younger, and would have more tender meat. Depending on exact sizes, I could possibly get both birds in a large roasting pan, or two smaller roasting pans into one oven.
This leaves me with an odd question, though: How do I estimate the cooking time for multiple birds? Do they cook like their combined weight, or more like their individual weights?
This looks like an excellent answer to almost exactly the same question, found here.
Tuxman
Nov. 26, 2013 11:01 am
I am trying to get a clear answer on cooking 2-15 lbs birds in
different pans/same oven. what would the cooking time, same 20 min per
lb on 325 degrees? for convection oven?
dae
Nov. 27, 2013 12:43 pm
@Tuxman: Each bird cooks separately. So it is like cooking one 15 lb
bird. Start at same time. If one is bigger, it will take longer than
the other. Allow max space between them. Put a digital probe deep in
the thigh of the smaller one (avoid contact with bone), and take out
when it gets to 165 take it out. Put probe in larger one, into thigh,
take out when it gets to 165.
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2827 | Is there any way to sous-vide without a machine
I live in an apartment and have limited space to store kitchen gadgets. I don't really like the idea of having a machine that is dedicated to one specific task.
I particularly want to get into using sous-vide as a cooking technique, but I don't really want to buy a machine specifically for this task.
Is there any way to get a similar cooking method? I know that there probably isn't a way to get the exact temperatures like you get with a sous-vide machine, but I'm looking for some kind of alternative.
Also see : http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/1959/advice-for-low-temperature-cooking and http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/488/slow-cooking-without-a-slow-cooker
I have succeeded using this beer cooler method described by Serious Eats.
Fresh Meals Solutions makes a couple DIY sous-vide add-ons. The FreshMealsMagic submersion heater goes into a pot of water and creates air bubbles to circulate heat. The company's SousVideMagic temperature controller claims:
It instantly turns rice cookers, slow cookers/crockpot, and many other cookers/heaters into a constant temperature bath for professional sous vide cooking.
I think the FreshMealsMagic is probably your best space-saving device (as it requires just an additional pot). I have not used either of these. I do however use my Sous Vide Supreme 2-3 times a week. It's awesome!
You can also use the beer cooler idea described by Serious Eats. Or you can do sous-vide on the stove top if you have a good thermometer, but that requires constant tending rather than set-and-forget.
If you experiment with those last two ideas, you can use regular ziplocs. Put your food in the bag and then submerge the bag in water just to the zip. The pressure will expel all the air. Then zip the bag up as you pull the closed portion underwater. This gets results comparable with a home vacuum sealer, I think, with the added benefit that you can include liquids easily.
In all cases, you will need a precise thermometer.
For short durations, different hacks like the beer cooler method can work. But for extended cooking times (8 hours, or days), I'd recommend investing 40$ towards a pot that can do basically anything: the Presto multi cooker. Find a 10$ aquarium pump to create bubbles and thus create water circulation and you're set.
I have the real stuff (an ancient immersion circulator bought on Ebay) and I use the Presto as a second unit when I need more than one. I estimate that you can be precise to about ±0.7°, which might matter or not depending on what you are doing.
Update: For very long cooking, nothing beats a dedicated machine like the Sous-vide supreme, because there is no loss of water. With all other methods I had to make sure I refilled it twice a day. Beef ribs for 2-3 days at 58° are just so amazing...
Do you have a rice cooker? If you do, and it's not too fancy, you could inline a temperature control and save gadget space. This is the most space efficient solution I'm aware of. See how Popular Science turned a rice cooker into a DIY sous-vide machine.
Okay ... so we have sous-vide, steamer, rice cooker, slow cooker, deep frier ... all just containers with a heater ... why the hell hasn't anyone made a unit that just does them all yet?
@joe The instant pot is a rice cooker, slow cooker, and pressure cooker.
Before you use a cooler bin for sous-vide, make sure you're aware of a few necessary precautions.
For thin cuts of tender steaks (1" or less NY Strip or Filet Mignon) or other tender meats (i.e. fish) that will safely cook in under two hours, the cooler bin can be a safe and inexpensive alternative.
But b sure to seal the cuts individually and allow enough room for water to circulate around each cut, or else risk dangerous temperature variations in the bath since there is no active heater or circulator.
Thicker cuts of meat require long term cooking. Famous sous-vide expert Douglas Baldwin notes that if you double the thickness of a cut, you should quadruple the time to ensure cooking safety. Since cooler bins lose 1-2°F temperature per hour, they may not hold the desired temperature long enough to properly cook a really thick cut of meat.
Cooler bin limitations affect other areas of sous vide cooking. You can not do long-term tenderization of meat at a specific temperature such as required for 72 hour sous vide short ribs.
Finally, food that is not sealed in food grade plastic may not be safe depending on the container you use. For example, cooking "cooler Corn" in cheap plastic beer coolers can leach toxic chemicals into your food. The websites out there promoting the awesomeness of "cooler Corn" neglect to mention that you can only make this technique safe if you have a large "food grade" styrofoam container (i.e. the same stuff that is manufactured to hold boiling water for tea or very hot coffee).
I'd advise against using a cheap plastic cooler without sealing your food "sous-vide" or you will risk contaimination.
You can do it with a thermometer clipped to the side of a giant pot of water. I've used a candy thermometer and a lobster pot. When you have enough the water, it's easy to keep the water at a constant temperature without messing with the burner too much.
This is the technique I use which works great so long as you can babysit it. 22 quarts of water is quite a good buffer for mistakes so long as you're not doing anything pinpoint accurate. I get my steaks to 130 all year long.
I have a turkey roaster that goes down to 160F on its temp dial. It provides a nice, even temp to water when it's filled. Same is true of my electric skillet, though that doesn't go quite as low.
There are also devices sold that will hook a thermometer to the electric supply of similar devices and cycle them precisely to maintain the temp.
Either way, you get a device you can use for other things, but it can be used to create the temp-controlled water bath that sous-vide requires.
If you want to get a feel for sous-vide cooking, you could try following a recipe developed by Andreas Viestad, a cookbook author and food science writer for the Washington Post. His idea is to create a flavorful broth and then place a piece of cod in the hot broth and let it cook off the stove burner. As the water cools, it cooks the fish. The full article is no longer available (I still have a copy), but the recipe may be found online.
I have adapted the recipe to work with frozen white fish. Thin fillets work better and having a scale helps a lot. I do everything Viestad does, but I measure the water carefully. If you have f grams of frozen fish to cook, then use w grams of water, where w is given by:
w = 3.5 f
or if you use ounces for the weight and cups to measure the water
w = 0.42 f
Bring the broth to a boil, then take off the stove, dump in the frozen fish, cover, and wait 20 minutes or until the water temperature is 60°C. Not quite sous-vide, but close.
This is not sous vide cooking per se though, it's just controlled poaching. This isn't going to give you a feel for SV cooking because it isn't giving you any of the true benefits of the process, namely precise cooking to a specific temp and control of texture by cooking at that temp for a significant amount of time.
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18091 | How can I keep chopped fruit fresh for 2-3 hours?
I need to cut up a large amount of fruit for use in a pavlova dessert tomorrow night - although the same question would no doubt apply to a fruit salad or other fresh fruit item.
Anyway, I won't have time to do this between dinner and dessert, so I'll need to prepare the fruit a few hours in advance, and I'd like to keep it looking and tasting super-fresh.
What can I do to preserve the appearance, texture, and flavour of the fruit for as long as possible after it's been cut up?
The fruits in question are apples, kiwis, and possibly a few bananas. I'd also be interested in knowing how to preserve strawberries, raspberries, and similar items.
I'd especially appreciate a complete breakdown of the process, i.e. is the freshness after a few hours going to be affected by how it's cut, storage vessels, air flow, temperatures, etc.?
I've preserved cut fruit for at least 6 hours before using just lemon juice. Lemon juice inhibits the oxidation of the fruit which prevents browning as well of a loss of crispness.
One lemon should be enough juice for a 1.5 quart bowl of cut fruit. Simply squeeze it over the fruit and toss gently to prevent bruising.
Since you'll be working with apples, kiwis, and bananas I think your best bet will be to keep them separate. The lemon juice will benefit both the apples and bananas, but might only be marginally effective if unnecessary for kiwi -- since kiwi brings plenty of its own citric acid to the table.
The fruit should be stored in the refrigerator to additionally inhibit oxidation. In my experience covering it with plastic wrap with a few holes poked in it works great. Aluminum foil should be fine as well. I find that the covering is primarily to protect your fruit from picking up other odors from within your fridge, and the holes permit the fruit to "breathe" releasing the buildup of ethylene gas that will occur if it is completely sealed.
If lemon juice is undesired you can use other citrus juices including: lime juice, orange juice, and pineapple juice. Obviously they will all bring their own flavors. If this flavoring is altogether undesired, then you should consider getting a commercial product called Fruit-Fresh. It's basically a powdered citric-acid, and kosher to boot.
Is this method useful for chopped vegetables as well?
In addition to lemon or other citrus juice, you can use Vitamin C - ascorbic acid - crystals. I don't, however, have any suggestion for how much to use. For a small bowl (about a cup), I've used just a pinch and it will actually reverse the browning of apples. For the amount of fruit you're dealing with, I'd mix some crystals and water and use it much the same way as lemon juice.
It is often best to use a less noticeable acid source such as fresh orange or pineapple juice. Using lemon juice or ascorbic acid will be very noticeable
Lightly brush the acid source on to the exposed fruit surfaces, do not soak the fruit in it or it will become too wet, and not very useful for Pavalova decoration
Let the fruit drip and dry on a rack for a while, and then cover (mesh netting etc.). Keep in a cool area. Avoid putting the fruit in the fridge if you can, unless the ambient temperature is just too warm
Fruit should not go in the fridge, it's is just too cold for it. Fridges cause discolouration, flavour, and texture loss. Remember fruit often grows in a very warm climate; kiwi fruit and berries grows at 20+°C, bananas often at 30+°C
You don't need much fruit to decorate a Pavlova, just enough for a little taste contrast with each slice. See the picture in What is the best way to making a great pavlova base?
It is common to use soft fruit. Hard fruit such as apple maked it difficult to eat combined with the very soft texture of the Pavlova base
What about just diluting some lemon juice, say with 2 parts water? Not sure if I want orange-flavored apples.
@Aaronut Use whatever citrus you like. Probably best not to dilute lemon juice, in general it has less ascorbic acid than oranges! Lemons have a stronger taste than orange or pineapple (the least noticeable), but that is not just ascorbic acid causing that. Also some Pineapples have a very low ascorbic acid content and may not work well
Lemons are more acidic than oranges, it's just citric acid, not ascorbic.
@Aaronut Yes lemons are more acidic that oranges. Ascorbic acid is generally a better preservative than citric acid (by volume and therefore bitter taste level). So you will find orange juice generally performs better at this
@Aaronut Not all fruit are the same, so best to check you local supplies. Cut some apple and banana slices and brush with you local fresh lemon, orange, and pineapple juice. Let dry and taste and visual test after a few hours
I've used ascorbic acid to prevent browning of fruit and never had it be at all noticeable in the finished product (or even just eating the cut fruit later).
Put the fruit in cold water keeps it from going brown AND helps it stay fresh.
Or put vinegar and sugar, or suger syrup over the top. Both works well but I recommend the suger syrup as the fruit will taste a bit sweeter as opposed to the vinegar solution
Lemons. Just lots of freaking lemons.
This isn't a good answer - part of the question asks about preserving the flavor of the fruit, and if you use "lots of freaking lemons", you'll just wind up with everything tasting like lemons instead of all the varieties of fruit you cut up. (Additionally, this answer would be better if it explained how/why lemons would keep the fruit fresh)
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18228 | Freezing Mashed Potatoes - any way to prevent drying out?
I am making shepherd's pie soon for freezing, and have been given conflicting advice regarding freezing the mash potato topping. I've been told both to freeze only the mince base and make the mash fresh (but as these meals are neede for quick heating and cooking that might be counter -productive) or to freeze the whole thing, but that the mash will be drier once defrosted. Has anyone any tips on freezing mash potato, or reheating it, that would prevent this? would cooking straight from frozen rather than defrosting first, make any difference?
Once you've added the mash to the pie, let it cool completely then add grated cheese and a few cubes of butter. Cover tightly with tin foil and freeze. When you're ready to cook it, defrost it and cook as normal. The cheese and butter will melt into the potato, remoistening it.
You may also want to leave the mince a little wetter than usual so that the liquid can be absorbed into the mash from underneath during cooking.
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87723 | Chocolate layer cake tears easily
I really like the chocolate cake recipe that appears on Hershey cocoa boxes. It's very rich and moist. It uses oil and boiled water to give you an idea of the type of recipe.
I always make it in a rectangular pan for a single layer because when I bake two round layers and try to stack them, I find that the cake is too tender and the top layer splits and the pieces slide off. This is without any handling other than assembling the layers. Note that it's not cracking/splitting in the pan during baking.
How can I prevent this? I've tried cooking the cake well after it's done, which it seems to tolerate, but that hasn't helped.
I've also considered adding less water, beating the batter longer or adding more eggs but haven't tried these ideas.
I guess this probably isn't the only problem, but from "the pieces slide off" it sounds like the bottom layer might be domed?
As cascabel mentions, it sounds like the bottom layer may be domed - if so, that uneven surface can encourage splitting by having uneven tension along the bottom.
One possible remedy, then, is to level the bottom cake. you'll end up with scraps, from cutting to smooth the cake top, but it should help keep the level from splitting and sliding.
Another possible remedy is, flipping the bottom cake over before stacking the upper layer. This will give a smooth top, and the pressure should even out the rounded bottom without need for cutting. I've only heard of this, not tried it, so I can't say for sure it will work - but it was mentioned as a possibility for a for soft tender cake, which this is (I can see it not working for a denser or sturdier baked good).
One outside possibility... you might try cooling the cake before stacking. Hot, or even warm, cake tends to be more fragile, and warmer icing more slidy. If you are already waiting until the cake is fully cool before trying to stack, you might try going even further and chilling in the fridge (or even freezing) before assembly with the idea it can come up to temperature before serving - it'll be more likely to stay put warming up when already stably affixed, under the theory an object at rest likes to stay at rest :)
AFAIK it's standard practice among pros (I'm not one) to mercilessly slice off the top of the layer and then flip it over in order to have a structurally sound cake. You can of course eat the scraps, but as far as the assembled cake is concerned they are part of the cost of doing business.
My mom always does the "flip over the bottom cake" trick and it has always worked pretty well. She flips it as soon as it's cool enough to slide out of the pan.
Magi-cake strips do a nice job of preventing doming: they let the sides rise longer before setting. They're kind of a pain in the butt to work with, but they do produce nice high layers (on that cake in particular, which I'm also very fond of).
@0xFF: another nice thing about the flip-over trick is that it gives you a very smooth layer that produces fewer crumbs. If you do level the cake, you will almost certainly need a crumb coat.
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100870 | Fried gnocchi with spinach, bacon, cream sauce in a single pan
If I only have 1 hot plate and 1 pan, what is the best order of cooking these ingredients.
The tricky part is the spinach.
We need more information. What type of gnocchi? What type of spinach (fresh baby spinach, fresh full leaf, or frozen), and are you just adding cream or are there other ingredients in the sauce?
I suppose I should precursor this with
"I'm really, really fussy about fast-cook Italian food. I will almost never eat in Italian restaurants [in the UK] because they simply fail to get something as simple as this right, every single time.
I won't eat anywhere that I can out-cook."
I'd forget all the 'putting aside', you can do that in one pan, no savers.
10 mins start to finish.
I'd add one extra ingredient, though
Start with a hot pan, full burn. Use the ingredients as you add them to knock the heat back.
Chunk the bacon, fry in a good slug or 3 of olive oil until it starts to brown on the edges.
From comments - if you actually want a sear on your gnocchi, drop it here, but make sure you don't kill it by the end. Over-cooked is not good.
The extra ingredient - a good splash of white wine. You can do without, but it will a) taste nice & b) deglaze the pan.
(Depending on how practised you are at dropping cold wine into hot fat, you might want to lift off the heat for a second to do this ;)
Drop the spinach & gnocchi in together, keep turning & stirring for a minute or so, until the pan is getting back up to temperature [Don't over-do this part, you're only getting the gnocchi started here, not 'cooking' it. Overdo it here & you'll get squishy, slimy gnocchi at the end]
Drop the cream sauce.
Season to taste, then a quick stir, until it first shows signs of bubbling. Reduce the heat to minimum & put the lid on.
Let it steam 2 mins.
One more quick stir, check seasoning, & serve.
This is very much a staple menu item at my house. Slight differences, but I've modified this to suit your stated ingredients.
I would normally use a large chef's pan or a wok to do this, it's easier to keep everything moving so you don't catch anything. Keeping it all moving until the lid goes on is an important part of the process. Stops burning, spreads heat evenly & makes the gnocchi shed surface starch, which helps the sauce.
For quantities, I'd say just enough cream sauce to glaze but not enough to run in pools underneath once served. It will all thicken slightly between serving & table, as the gnocchi takes on more water, so allow it to be served slightly wetter than you want to eat it.
Oh… one more [important] thing. I'm assuming fresh gnocchi.
If it's dried or that peculiar 'half-alive' vac-pack stuff you find near the pasta but not in a fridge at the supermarket, pre-cook it according to the instructions, but leave it slightly under what they say.
…and next time get fresh, it's night & day.
I'm also assuming fresh spinach, if frozen defrost it first. For this recipe you can treat fresh or defrosted the same. Fresh will need time to wilt, defrosted won't change apparent state at all really, but you don't need to make allowances either way. it will just work.
Another option - nutmeg goes really nicely with spinach - a good pinch [¼ - ½ tsp] in at the same time as the spinach & gnocchi might be an interesting twist.
Other alternatives - mascarpone makes a great 'instant' cream sauce. Add some proper [freshly-grated, not that powdery stuff] parmesan to add some interest.
Advantages of this method…
It's fast, one pot.
No slimy, re-heated gnocchi. It doesn't deserve that treatment. It should be just done, not left around to go gooey.
Bacon will still have a little bit of bite left because you browned it at full-tilt & didn't give it time to relax.
Late Edit:
As this has attracted a fair bit of attention, let me add some twists & tweaks you could use.
If it comes up too 'wet' grate some parmesan* [or even at a push, cheddar] right at the end & stir it in. That will help bind the sauce. It will also add salt, so be careful of your seasoning.
Substitute sausages [links] for the bacon - sicilian are ideal, but any you like - chopped into 1.5cm chunks whilst cold. Get some good colour on them but remember they'll get another few minutes to finish cooking after the fry-off.
Mushrooms & onions instead of the spinach, 2-3 mins before the wine goes in; no more, you don't want them soggy at the end [& leave out the nutmeg].
Garlic goes well too, crushed or finely sliced; drop it just before the wine.
If you use the 'cheese trick' at the end, you can even leave out the cream sauce/mascarpone. The starch from the gnocchi & the wine will already be giving the sauce some body; you use the cheese at the end to perfect the sauce texture & thickness.
Because this is a quick-cook & relies on the fresh flavours of your ingredients I tend not to add more than salt & fresh-ground black pepper to any of these alternatives - but no-one will complain if you add a little of your favourite herbs with the wine. Thyme, oregano, or even some fresh basil right at the end.
*Parmesan - Fresh, fresh & above all… fresh. This cannot be over-emphasised ;-) That powdery stuff in a tub will not do, ever.
But that's not really fried gnocchi. Frying gives each piece a lovely golden crust, which stays crisp even after sauce is added. Fresh gnocchi can be fried without any precooking. And now I want some tonight
If you drop the gnocchi before the wine you could, I guess, but I'd be worried it would over-cook by the end. I actually am not a fan of that crisped texture, nor what it does to the flavour. Maybe it works better on dried/boiled. it doesn't work for me on fresh, which is maybe why I push that function onto the bacon… or maybe it's just a 'like/don't like thing' ..who knows. I'm actually having Caprese & garlic bread tonight - almost zero-effort food, I'm feeling lazy ;-))
@ChrisH - I added an alternative timeline to the answer.
I'm having fried potatoes wirh an omelette. The fact I like that might affect my interpretation of the OP's question!
@ChrisH - That makes me want tapas!… tortilla, chorizo in red wine, padróns [Asda now sell fresh padróns!!], patatas bravas [my bravas sauce I have in mini tubs in the freezer]… but that's not a 10-minute meal, that's an hour… I'll wait til next time it's actually sunny… British summer, hmph!
The bacon should have plenty of fat to fry not just itself but the gnocchi too. Why add oil?
@Tetsujin not a tortilla, but I fry onions and peppers, reserve, then put in the omelette with cheese before folding. Potatoes were the of my 2nd earlies, and the green beans on the side were also home grown. I'll shut up now!
@Kevin - might depend on which bacon or just because it's faster, with less chance of catching, tastier & will make a better sauce by the end.
@Kevin You are right, but oil transfers the heat faster. Perfect bacon is made much like you roast a duck breast - start with the pan cold and nearly full heat. Tetsujin is picky about the pasta, I am picky about bacon - get proper dry salted & smoked, not the nasty injected-with-smoke-flavored-salt-water stuff. Look for water content, it should be low.
"I won't eat anywhere that I can out-cook" lol then I'd eat out maybe once a decade.
@MikeTheLiar - LOL, yup. I don't eat out much, these days, tbh. Indian, yes, because I can't get the nuances of a 'damn good curry' [close but no cigar] though since I moved to London, that's tempered by "Why can't you get a damn good curry in London?" ;) Popularity has brought out far too many pretenders, compared to my youth back in Bradford, where it was hard to get a bad one.
I got inspired by this recipe and I made this for dinner yesterday. It was great! I just added a little bit of garlic in step 2, mushrooms in step 3 and lemon juice and thyme in step 8.
@Belle-Sophie - thank you. That's actually one of my common alternatives in this meal. Inspired by that, I've added some more twists & tweaks to the end of my answer.
Just wanted to add that if defrosted frozen spinach is used, as much liquid as possible should be squeezed out before using.
I've never bothered, tbh. Fresh spinach 'wets up' as it wilts. I just balance out my liquids as it cooks usually, though if I'm premiering a new recipe I'll take more care. Once I've made it a few times I'm a consummate, if flagrant & reckless guesser ;)
What exactly is "cream sauce"? (in European terms if possible, since you are from the UK)
@WoJ - You'd have to ask the OP that one;) I was assuming some kind of supermarket 'pour & stir' next to the pasta in the fridge - one reason I suggested substituting fresh mascarpone &/or parmesan/cheddar, or even low-fat milk, or forget the diet & use actual cream. The gnocchi & wine alone will almost make the sauce for you & doesn't really need much else. This is definitely one dish you can substitute to your heart's content.
@Tetsujin: thanks, I had the same impression but thought that this is maybe the name of some specific sauce. I will try the plain cream version (or the mascarpone one, it is quite unexpected as I am rather used to see mascarpone in sweet dishes)
Mascarpone itself really doesn't lean either way. It's fully dependant on what it's in, imho. I just personally think it goes really well with spinach. Neither buries the other - & the [sparing] nutmeg adds a tiny little zing to them both
This is what I would do; The strategy is to have all the "put aside" plates or bowls ready when you start cooking.
The bacon and spinach we be re-heated in the last step.
Fry bacon; put aside.
Cook spinach in some of the bacon fat; put aside.
Cook gnocchi in water; quickly strain and then fry in some of the bacon fat.
add spinach and bacon to gnocchi and add cream to finish the sauce.
I cook quite a lot with one pan, and the trick is often to take things out and reserve them. When cooking for just myself I use the plate/bowl in going to eat from for reserving cooked elements.
If the bacon is likely to give enough fat to fry the gnocchi, I'd start with the bacon. When cooked, remove with a slotted spoon and fry the gnocchi. Fresh spinach can be added and stir fried or just wilted; frozen may be better put in boiling water for a couple of minutes and drained: use a jug, bowl or even mug, and water from the kettle; a stove-top kettle can be boiled before you start frying, or water boiled in the pan you're going to fry in, but dry it before frying the bacon. When the spinach is done, return the bacon to the pan, and finish with the cream.
If the bacon is very lean, you could still follow this sequence, or you could fry the gnocchi first in oil, and take that out. It will keep hot better than the bacon, but bacon will get back up to full heat almost instantly.
Reserving warms your dish nicely as well.
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13198 | Cooking corned beef brisket for maximum slice-ability
I want to prepare a nice corned beef meal, but I don't know the best way to do it. Last year I did it in a crock pot. It was delicious, but the brisket feel apart so much that the presentation was very lacking. I was unable to slice against the grain (probably had something to do with the subpar knife I was using, but still). I want good looking even slices of beef, so how should I cook the roast?
I found a nice related question here by browsing the tag: http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/8773/how-do-you-keep-corned-beef-from-falling-apart-in-the-crockpot
After your brisket is cooked, refrigerate it overnight. This will help it stay solid when you slice it, and will also improve the texture and flavor. Reheat it before serving. If you have time, this will improve many slow cooked foods.
Good idea. I am wondering, will this compromise the moistness of the meat?
Not if you wrap it tightly in plastic wrap.
I would say skip the plastic wrap. Cool it in the container you cooked it in, with the liquid. The act of the meat cooling without it being cut will make the meat moister than if it was eaten immediately. As the meat cools, it draws moisture in. This is why it is recommended that meat rest before serving.
Once it's been brined for a week, I simmer my corned beef in just enough water to cover it, for about 2 1/2 hours, or until it's tender to the fork. I then leave it to cool for at least half an hour before slicing, though it cuts better when cold.
I don't have the recipe handy, but I have done a baked corned beef with an orange and spice glaze. It came out tender but sliceable, just the right amount of chewiness, and was perfect for sandwiches the next day. It was probably on allrecipes.com.
I would recommend the center cut for that. Roast fat-side up, cut across the grain, etc. I think the only thing the tips are good for is chopping up for hash.
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