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dqg6re | Why after baking, the pizza dough was very tough like a rock? So i wanted to keep my dough simple, thats why i use only flour, water and yeast, let it rize for 2 hours than i kneeded it again and let it sit for 30 min, than i rolled it out (the edges were a bit thicker) after that i put the ingredients on the dough, from tomato sauce and cheese, than i baked it in an electrical oven at 250 °C /480°F, i inserted it at the middle of the oven with both sides the upper and down side are on, and the fan is on cz i have no choice to turn it on, im not sure about the time it kept baking, but when i took it out, the dough where i have put the ingredients was soft but not well baked (thickness after baking was almost 3 mm), while on the edge it was hard as rock, and litteraly it broke one of my tooth (the thickness on the edge was like almost 2 cm, maybe bit less) So what happened back there? What mistakes i have done? Im thinking of 2 things, probably it is the problem of the dough, maybe it was too dry in the first place, (im dont know what a dry dough would result in baking) or probably it is the problem of baking itself, maybe the temperature was too high, or probably i should baked it from underneath first than bake it from above... what do you think Thanks in advenced | If you've overworked your dough it's gonna get tough | 5 |
73fvxs | I want to make some mexican dishes, but some mexican items are almost impossible to find. What would you suggest? So i live here in dubai, and i really want to make some mexican dishes like carne asada, tacos, burritos, etc(if you can suggest more please do :D). But i cant seem to find the right ingredients here. I want it to be as authentic as it can. Getting pretty sick of indian dishes in here already lol | Mexican here. Just want to say: Thanks for the love to our food! | 5 |
16e4s5 | Coq au Vin sans pork - Turkey Bacon or No Bacon? As the title says, I am looking for advice on whether to make this classic dish and just skip the bacon or whether I should use Turkey Bacon instead? Just to give a bit of background, my friend is allergic to pork (yes, we mourn for her often). I want to make Coq au Vin, and she'll be joining us for dinner, so I was hoping to get some opinions. Thanks! | Here in France, they sell small chunks of crispy duck fat bits from the rendering of the fat, called graton. I often used it to substitute for bacon when I have to cook for my Jewish friend. It's not as smoky as bacon, but the flavor is something else entirely. Rich and deep. If you can make some, it'll be worth a try. | 5 |
ww1yj | How do I keep my buttercream from having a grainy texture? It's delicious and I use confectioner's sugar, but it still isn't SMOOTH. Pretty straight forward. Any dissolving techniques or is that just what I'm gonna get...? | It's a pain, but true buttercream is made with a hot simple syrup, butter, and egg yolks. I remember making it in pastry class. I don't have the recipe any more (not that I can find), but, you'd make the syrup, whip the yolks into cold butter, and slowly drizzle your sweet napalm into your butter mixture. Do this slowly so that you don't melt the butter and create an oil slick with popcorn butter. If you get it right, its one of the best buttercreams you'll ever taste. | 5 |
rnrcua | 24th Annual Christmas Help Thread It's Christmas time and that means it's time for last minute scrambling and improvising and we here at /r/AskCulinary are here to help you. All the rules (except food safety and being nice) are out the window for this thread. Need to know how to substitute milk in your potatoes since your cousin is now vegan? We got you covered. Did the dog eat the roast and you need to make chicken instead? We can find you some recipes. Did your yorkies collapse? We can help you figure out why and get a new batch going. | I accidentally oversalted my meatball mix (equal parts ground beef and pork) so I added MORE ground beef to cut it, but spaced on upping the egg, breadcrumbs, milk, garlic and parsley. I am baking them now (they're jumbo sized), 3 hrs before we are due to eat because I didn't want the salt making the meatballs too firm. Will they be ok to simmer in sauce for an hour or two or have I fucked this all up and should I start over? Edit- sauce is store bought Rao's if that matters. | 5 |
6ywee0 | I have a lot of leftover spinach-ricotta gnocchi dough. Can I keep it overnight in the fridge? I made some spinach-ricotta gnocchi but have a lot leftover dough. It contains spinach, ricotta, grated Parmesan, egg, flour and garlic. Can I keep it overnight it the fridge or maybe even freeze it? They aren't shaped yet. Thank you in advance! | Yea gnocchi will hold fine overnight. It can be held in the right conditions for upto a week with no change in texture or flavour. Freezing also works well if you don't fancy it straight away. Lay the uncooked shaped gnocchi on a tray until frozen, then store in bags until needed. | 5 |
3lmqhz | I have an antique potato ricer (pic in text) that needs some serious cleaning, any suggestions on how to remove the rust safely? I got this potato ricer for $5 at a yard sale. I'm excited to use it, but I need to get rid of the rust and clean it up the best I can first. Any suggestions would be helpful. http://i.imgur.com/hfLCAsd.jpg Thanks in advance! | You paid $5 for that at a garage sale? That's like a 50c item. Maybe a dollar if you're feeling generous or don't want to deal with change. | 5 |
5e4auh | Thanksgiving help mega-thread! Are you cooking Thanksgiving dinner? Planning it? Bringing a side? Post all your Thanksgiving questions here. Ordinary /r/askculinary rules still apply - we still do best with specific inquiries; we won't say whether something is safe (but will talk food safety best practices), and of course, be polite! | For this Thanksgiving I have been tasked with making the green bean side dish for my family. However, some people in our group are strictly dairy free and I need to come up with a recipe that will not compromise on flavor. They are not vegan so pretty much everything other than butter, milk and cream is game for the recipe. My current idea is to mash up the following 2 recipes from Serious Eats, using the vegan cream of mushroom soup as the base for the other casserole recipe? Soup Base: http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2014/02/vegan-cream-of-mushroom-soup-food-lab-recipe.html Casserole: http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2010/11/homemade-green-bean-casserole-recipe.html Does anyone else have any ideas? I would like to stick with something that resembles a traditional green bean casserole because my family generally enjoys the combination of the mushroom, beans and crispy topping. | 5 |
serqnp | Gifted a cranberry orange conserve that is VERY tart. Any quick fixes/good uses? Recently I was gifted a conserve (had never heard of it until that moment) made with cranberries, oranges/juice, walnuts, sugar…very VERY tart. I mixed some with white country gravy and had on biscuits, which was ok. Looking to glaze a chicken thigh (or whatever you’d call it) using the conserve. What could I add to it before applying it to the chicken thigh to bring it down a little? Something like mustard? Does it need more sweetness like honey? Thanks. | Serve it with baked Brie Make oat bars and use it for the middle layer Use it in a layer cake. It would be good with chocolate. Layer with the buttercream. | 5 |
51wcyz | What is the best way to cook a lot of eggplant for BABA GANOUSH. I have a very small oven and I really don't like the grilled method. Would steaming or boiling work? Then draining excess water. | Char over a flame, then slice in half, Chuck on a baking tray, bake til soft, scoop out all the flesh. I must admit, it's disappointing how little baba ganoush you end up with, for the size of aubergines you start with. But I don't think there's much you can do about that. | 5 |
fsdz0z | Saffron question Hi All! Home cook hobbyist here! I reacently bought some saffron and I've never cooked with it before. Do you have a tips or any pitfalls that I should watch out for? Thanks! | Paella is one of my favorite dishes to make with saffron! | 5 |
59r4rt | How much time and at what temp should I reheat a hotel pan full of chili in the oven? I have two 3" deep disposable hotel pans full of chili that I'm going to reheat for a party. The chili fills the pans about 2- 2 1/2" deep. The pans are covered and I want to reheat them in the oven, and I won't be stirring the chili because it has a cute layer of ghost shape cheese slices on top. If I'm hearing both pans in the oven at once, what temp and for how long should I let them warm up for? My guess would be around 275-300 so that the chili doesn't start getting too crusty around the edges of the pan, and I'm guessing about an hour to reheat but I'd like to know everyone else's opinion. Also if possible I don't want the chili to get to boiling temp (too hot to serve and it could mess up the little cheesy ghosties :) ) | I would put the inserts inside a 6 inch deep full size hotel pan in a water bath, 300° for an hour or two, that way they won't burn around the sides. Those disposable pans are so thin. | 5 |
cff18r | What is the difference between braising and poaching meats? For example, if never heard of braised salmon but poached salmon is not uncommon. Poaching is used for delicate proteins but both poaching and braising require boiling. I've Googled quite a bit with no consensus that makes sense to me. THANKS | Pro Chef here. Not really any bad answers here so up votes for everybody. The thing that seems to me to be under emphasized in the conversation is that braising traditionally involves high temperature caramelization and maillard reactions on the outside of the protein for flavor development and color before invoking the lower temperatures of liquid based cooking. Braising combines the great caramel and maillard flavors that happen when you heat sugar or protein to around 325 f. (Without water which has a max temp limit of 212 f.) and THEN use the advantages of waters immutable temperature limits. (212 f. covered-180 f. ish. in the oven.) to control internal temp (See J. Kenji López-Alt for key info on lids, ovens and temps. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Food\_Lab) If you poach you use the advantages of the water/stock bath and the same kind of temps to avoid overcooking (salmon) or to dissolve collagen and make the meat tender (Old rooster in Coq au Vin) or tough beef cuts (Beef Bourguignon.) Poaching, in general is more suited to high protein, low connective tissue meats that do not need long cooking times.(Salmon poached in court bouillon, Chicken breast with fine herbs). It's similar to braising in that it uses the inherent maximum temperature of water, and its ability to convey heat evenly from all directions. Poaching won't keep you from over cooking the fish, but it will slow down and even out the heat distribution and give you, the beleaguered cook, a larger window for catching the low temperature done, sensitive to overcooking, expensive protein, BEFORE it turns into a large large salted pencil eraser with special sauce. Braising is a longer cooking method traditionally applied to cuts of protein that need the low temperature 181 f. to dissolve the tough collagen that holds meat, skin, and bones together, and makes those cuts of meat tough. The cooking time depends on the protein and your willingness to stay awake long enough to say, for instance, to tenderize a whole pig with low temperatures. This is one of the places where sous vide shines. You can have slow and low cooking without the constant physical presence required for slow cooked ribs, brisket, or pork shoulders. Temperature control was traditionally achieved low oven temps and lid / no lid to control temp.with limited, lidless oven cooking of previously caramelized chunks of protein. and finished internal temps maxing out around 181 f. (See Meathead:https://amazingribs.com/ratings-reviews/tools/books-and-magazines/meathead-book for info on the slow and low cooking methods and the BBQ, Poaching, Braising continuum.) Braising is most often used for ingredients that shine with caramelization: Mushrooms, Carrots, and dark strong flavored meats. Pork and Beef are traditional, but I could see a braised salmon or monk fish with precise cooking temperature controls (check out the sous vide subreddit.) Water is amazing stuff. Sous Vide puts precise controls on the temps and may be, with proper use of a smoke phase, the perfect combo of Hi Tech, Lo Tech cooking methods. (Experiments to come.) | 5 |
echk1f | Can you help us help others on Christmas day For the last six years, /r/AskCulinary has had pretty successful live culinary holiday hotlines to help folks who run into last minute cooking troubles. This year's Thanksgiving hotline was our biggest, most successful yet with dozens of questions and 72,000 unique visitors. We're hoping for another big day this Christmas, and need volunteers to be by their computers to answer questions. If you know a thing or two about traditional holiday meals and would like to help, please comment here to let us know what hours you can cover. Starting early proved to be helpful last month, so we'd like to begin around 9 eastern time and go until 4-ish. If we can get a couple folks helping each hour, it should go well. Thanks! | my first post - would love to help with this! am available 8am pacific time - 11 am :) | 5 |
mvhab0 | Does heavy cream once whipped have a shelf life for how long it will stay whipped? I need to whip heavy cream and then fold it into some pastry cream for a dinner. Can I whip it ahead of time and fold in later? How far ahead, a couple hours? Can I whip it the day before? Or can I whip and fold it the day before or in the morning of if I’m not going to serve it till dinner? | I add gelatin to help stabilize it, but you could also add pudding and corn syrup | 5 |
3xzf68 | Can you help us help others on Christmas Day? The last couple years, /r/AskCulinary has had pretty successful live culinary holiday hotlines to help folks who ran into last minute cooking troubles. We'd like to do it again and need volunteers to be by their computers and answer questions. If you know a thing or two about traditional holiday meals and would like to help, please comment here to let us know what hours you can cover. We went 11:30 a.m. - 8:30 p.m. eastern time previously, but most of the questions came in during the first few hours. If we can get a couple folks helping until 3:00, I think we can make a go of it. Thanks! | I have eight years of restaurant experience and currently work in a restaurant and teach cooking classes. I am available all day! I always have my phone handy :) I'd love to help | 5 |
jprgpd | What are the consequences of making gumbo with clarified butter as opposed to vegetable oil? I usually make gumbo with vegetable oil but I'm curious to try it using clarified butter. What are the possible consequences of this decision? | The gods of Cajun cuisine will strike you down with a hail storm of the holy trinity) ​ Seriously, not that big a deal. | 5 |
mgsysh | My pizza stone stinks, literally Hi everyone! I really enjoy making pizza on my stone but when preheating it above 450 it starts to stink. I think long ago I got oil or butter on it and now, the smell just fills our home and it's awful. What can I do to reduce the smell? Would baking it at 500 for a number of hours help, windows open and fans blowing out the smell? Thanks! | If you plan to go the self-clean in a hot oven route, be prepared for a smoke fest. I will never self - clean my pizza stone in my tiny apartment kitchen ever again | 5 |
45nhnn | Why do we always stand when preparing food? For some reason, my roommate cuts all her food sitting before she cooks. Whenever I cut things, I always stand and I've never seen anyone sit when cooking. It just seems wrong and unsafe, but I'm not exactly sure why. What are the advantages to standing when you cook? | Cutting or peeling vegetables at the table isn't uncommon, but I mainly see it with older generations. Modern western-style kitchens have counters that are well suited to prepping standing up, but they're hardly available everywhere. Here are some traditional Indian cooking tools: * Kattipita (though it goes by a bunch of names), a hinged knife attached to a wooden plank for cutting hard things like green mangoes. * Again, a board with a knife. Known as vili, boti, and probably many more. You squat on this one for leverage, though. Used for cutting anything, and the round, serrated tip is used for scraping coconut. Comes in different sizes, not all of them for sitting on. * There are also plenty of heavy stone grinding tools, e.g. for grinding seeds grains and pulses or for spices. I'm sure there are other cultures where some of these types of tools are still in use, but I just happened to be familiar with one the vili. | 5 |
q7cy5r | How to make to make thin, crisp moisture-resistant cake layers? I make a dessert recipe with layers of moist fruit, then whipped cream cheese and cream, separated by layers of graham crackers. The recipe suggests it's even better if refrigerated overnight, but in my opinion the graham cracker layers get soggy and mushy. I'd like to try exchanging the graham cracker layers with something that will retain crispness, to make an even more interesting texture. Can anyone suggest a way to make thin, crisp layers that will retain crispness between moist layers, at least for a day? One forum suggested coating things with chocolate, but that would introduce a pronounced flavor which would intrude on the milder fruit and cream cheese flavors. Are there other alternatives? I like to egg wash and pre-bake pie crusts for moist pies, not sure how that could be applied to this question, or if there are other, better approaches. thx | Would white or ruby chocolate coating fit the flavor profile better? There are some recipes where the point is to soften the graham cracker layers, and this sounds like one of those. As another poster said, the best way to keep the crispiness is to assemble as close to service as possible. | 5 |
smoql | I find it very difficult to make a hummus that is both smooth, and tasty. What's the trick to this, and can you share a recipe/method that works very well for you? | (Jordanian mother's recipe) I'm surprised no one has said this - easiest way to get smooth hummus is to first simmer the chick peas for 5 to 7 minutes on the stovetop. That will soften them up. I put garlic and jalapeno directly into the food processor with kosher salt, and get that chopped up. Then I add the softened chick peas to the processor and puree for a good minute or two until smooth. Then and only then do I add in the tahini, lemon juice, and additional salt if needed and puree again until very smooth adding water to thin it out if it gets too thick. | 5 |
rr2ek | Culinary School? So I am going to go to culinary school after college to continue my life dream of cooking. My question to you is where are some of the better culinary schools? I was thinking about going to Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, but a chef friend told me that wasn't a good idea. | Any of the Le Cordon Bleu schools here in America are not worth the money right now. I'd recommend Johnson and Wales or Culinary Institute of America. I'm currently finishing up school at the Le Cordon Bleu in Orlando...which is apparently the best one in America, and everyone I've been in class with is furious with all the changes they're making. Its not worth the money. | 5 |
10y9nt | I've never used alcohol (beer/wine/etc) in my cooking, can someone explain to me in which situations I should be using them and the purpose of it? | I use alcohol quite a lot in my cooking. One of my favourite things to do at home is a beef and ale pie - sweat off some onions, carrots, a garlic clove, maybe some mushrooms, chuck in a knob of butter with the diced beef, when melted add some flour to make a roux, then a little tomato paste. Now comes the alcohol, I like using Old Speckled Hen (British Ale - no idea if you can find it in America, but Guinness works just as well) reduce slightly, then beef stock/demi glace, seasoning and a bay leaf an let simmer until the meat is tender. Then transfer to an oven proof dish and roll some pastry over it an bake until golden brown. | 5 |
9yk000 | Can you help us help others on Thanksgiving? The last five years, /r/AskCulinary has had pretty successful live culinary holiday hotlines on Thanksgiving and Christmas Day to help folks who run into last minute cooking troubles. We'd like to do it again and need volunteers to be by their computers and answer questions. If you know a thing or two about traditional holiday meals and would like to help, please comment here to let us know what hours you can cover. We went 11:30 a.m. - 8:30 p.m. eastern time previously, but most of the questions came in during the first few hours. If we can get a couple folks helping until 3:00, I think we can make a go of it. Thanks! | Pretty well versed in the kitchen. No plans on Thanksgiving, just give me a couple hours to cover (east coast time) and I'll be there! | 5 |
wzi6ur | Is fresh tagliatelle commonly dressed with tomato-based sauce? Hi all, I recently cooked some fresh (i.e wheat flour and egg dough) tagliatelle that I scooped up from a local vendor. I dressed/tossed it with a quick tomato sauce that I made. I typically finish the pasta by folding in grated ParmReg, off of the heat, before I plate it. A thought occurred to me while eating: Is fresh, wide noodle-style wheat flour-and-egg pasta typically dressed with tomato sauce? I feel like I've only seen this type of pasta dressed with bolognese or a cream-based sauce. Do dried pastas tend to hold up better to tomato-based sauces? Or is my experience set just narrow with this? | It's traditional to do tomato sauce, but I usually do a butter, wine, garlic, shallot and bacon base, and toss in some cherry tomatoes I've confited. It's a little lighter and doesn't need to cook out as long as a homemade tomato sauce. | 5 |
3u5wks | Roasted garlic and bone marrow injected into a turkey? So I made this amazing butter that I made from roasting a head of garlic and some bone marrow. Blended it smooth. Now I have a good bit left over and I had a crazy idea to inject it into my turkey before smoking it. Anyone ever tried or heard of this? I really don't mind "wasting," it on just an injection. | I don't know about injecting it. But what I do with my turkeys is make an herb/garlic/lemon/dijon paste and rub it under the skin. Then I make a deep slit in the breast with a long knife and spread the paste inside. So when you carve the breast (the proper way), you get a nice line of herbiness. You could probably do the same with your garlic/marrow. | 5 |
44llvy | Can anyone identify the purpose of this cooking pot with crank that I found at Goodwill? It was fairly hefty, and had a crank attached in the middle. Turning the crank rotated the inner 'paddles'. I've never seen something like this before and am curious. My theory: popcorn maker. Confidence: 10% Thanks! http://imgur.com/a/840KB | Would make a good little coffee roaster as well | 5 |
5gs0rk | What does gingerbread taste like and how should I make a gingerbread flavored pastry cream? Some of you guys might be in shock that I've never tasted gingerbread, but it's just not part of the holiday/christmas traditions we have here. Anyways, I'm planning to have a christmas bake sale with some holiday flavors. I'll be doing choux a craquelin, with 3 different "western holiday flavors": hot chocolate & marshmallows (I'm thinking of just doing a chocolate pastry cream and toast a marshmallow on top of the craquelin), peppermint (literally use peppermint extract), and gingerbread. I was thinking of baking a batch of gingerbread (if I can actually find all the spices here, or can you guys recommend me some ESSENTIAL spices/substitution that can be applicable?) and crushing them up in a food processor, and then infusing them in the pastry cream. Honestly, I don't know , which is why I need your guys' suggestions. Thanks in advanced and happy holidays :) | I see others are doing a great job of answering your question - I wanted to add that you need to use powdered dry ginger, not fresh ginger root. They have totally different flavours and applications. | 5 |
892ydo | Why do recipes recommend adding eggs one at a time when making pate a choux? I see it in every recipe, but I've never heard an explanation. Anybody know? | It's easier to incorporate them into the proper consistency that way, it's the same reason why a cake or bread recipe might tell you to slowly pour in the water and/or the milk, if you just dump it in you're more likely to get a big overly wet spot in the middle surrounded by dry flour and it's much harder to incorporate that into a consistent consistency than it would've been if you would've slowly added it evenly. | 5 |
4bhlzc | What can be made with whole wheat pastry flour without any use of any all purpose flour? | Graham crackers. | 5 |
5lb2p1 | I panicked and bought bone-in prime rib instead of boneless. Is it easier to remove bone pre or post cooking? I've only ever cooked boneless roasts. I'm pretty nervous as I'm serving 8 people tonight. What's the best method for dealing with the bone? | My wife cuts it off before cooking then sears the meat and bones she then ties the meat up and cooks it on top of the bones like it's a rack. You have to let it warm up on the counter for a few hours. It is the best thing I have ever eaten in my life. | 5 |
1wwbp0 | Why did my arrabiata sauce not thicken? I was following this recipe to make an arrabiata sauce. I *think* I followed it faithfully. What I ended up with was a reasonably pleasant watery tomato soup instead of a sauce. What am I doing wrong? Disclaimer: I'm extraordinarily incompetent, apologies in advance :D | Simmer until thickened? | 5 |
2ltsme | I'm going to Japan and would like to return with a nice slicing knife. I know about the Japanese brands sold in America, for the most part. Are there any others I should keep an eye out for? I'm hoping to stay sub $200. | I just bought a knife at the Aritsugu shop in Kyoto a few hours ago. If you're headed to Kyoto, the shop is in the Nishiki Food Market, towards the east end. The sales lady I dealt with spoke English so she could help you find a nice sujihiki or yanagi. They run around 15,000 - 30,000 yen, which is still a much better deal you'll find in the states. If you're not using it for sushi, you can easily get a lower cost knife. They had western style knives as well. Plus, they'll engrave it for you for free. Nice shop, good knives, good service. Otherwise, try the Masamoto shop in Tsukiji Market in Tokyo. I plan on getting a sukihiji there next week. Good luck! | 5 |
2p3ken | Left a pork tenderloin in a 1.75% brine for 42 hours... Is it toast? I just realized I forgot to remove my pork tenderloins from their brine last night, and by the time I get home from work it would've been about 42 hours since they initially went in. The brine is just water and salt. Thank you! | Is it toast? No, it's mildly salty pork. | 5 |
1ahgco | How to keep egg yolks runny when making Shakshuka? Hi all, I followed this recipe for Shakshuka but in order to get the egg whites cooked through I had to cook it covered for longer than I thought I would and the yolks set to the consistency of hard-boiled eggs. I did carefully baste the whites in the tomato sauce like the recipe mentions, which I thought would make the whites cook fast enough. I know it would be much tastier with a runny yolk, please help. Thanks | I've just started experimenting with the dish myself. Near as I can tell, the yolk will cook slower if you make sure it's surrounded by the slower-cooking whites. The yolks that got separated into the sauce are usually the harder ones. | 5 |
1mjgih | Is there a reason I shouldn't use different types of bones for stock? I really enjoy making my own stock. To me there are few things as satisfying as making soup entirely from scratch. Is there any reason I shouldn't use a mixture of pork, chicken and beef bones for stock? I tend to save all the bones I have after cooking for the family all week long, and it would be extremely easy and convenient to just use a mixture of bones for my Sunday soup. Also thanks to all of you. My cooking has really improved thanks to your tips. Edit* Sunday soup can be anything from a chowder to chili, and anything in between. | Its not really part of the french tradition as I know it, but a lot of broths are made this way, a few kinds of Ramen broth come to my mind first. If you want to get fancy, I would pay attention to the extraction times for the different bones, to get the freshest flavors you would want simmer beef bones, then later add pork bones, then add chicken bones in the last 6 hours or so, but I don't think thats what you're looking for. I assume you're looking to use your scraps to get a little more flavor and nutrition to make a big hearty end of week stew (this is the true root of all great home cooking). It makes a hell of a lot more sense than throwing them away, and will taste fine. | 5 |
22hams | Please help me figure correct measurements to make this Salmon Salad (sour cream / cream cheese based) Hey AskCulinary! My local grocery has an amazing smoked salmon salad and I'm trying to mimic the recipe but replace the sour cream and cream cheese with fat free versions so that it's healthier (I realize I'll sacrifice some taste). The ingredients on their version are listed but I can't seem to get the right levels of all the ingredients so I'm hoping someone can help me figure out what might be close in regards to ratio. I'll use about a .5lb piece of salmon so hopefully that helps. Here's what I'm working with and my 2nd attempt results which wasn't terrible but I can tell my ingrediets are off: http://imgur.com/a/efFWf This is seriously the best tasting stuff I've ever ate that didn't come from a nice restaurant and could have the perfect macros for a healthy meal if I can get my own version down. | The first thing to know is that the ingredient list is in decreasing order by weight, if it complies with FDA requirements. That does not tell you how much decrease there is between each ingredient, but is a helpful bit of information, especially with the dill and horseradish. Second, you can make the base without salmon pretty cheaply to get that balance worked out, then add a bit of salmon to some of the base to check on the overall flavor. Soften and mash a 8 ounce block of cream cheese, then add about 1/3 as much sour cream mixed in well and my guess would be about 1 tablespoon of lemon juice as well. Taste that combination to see if the sour/creamy balance is right. Too sour, beat it into some more cream cheese (measure how much you add); not sour enough, add some more sour cream or lemon juice (measure how much you add). You should taste both your sour cream and your fresh lemon juice to have in mind the differences between the kinds of sour they produce. You should also have a scratch pad to make notes about everything you are adding or noticing. Once the creamy base is good, move on to the seasonings. I am surprised that the fresh dill out weighs the horseradish, but am willing to believe them. Taste some dill weed, then add 2 teaspoons to your cream base and taste the base to see if it is as dilly as what you have bought. Remember that you do not have the salmon or the horseradish going on yet. It would be helpful to have a carton of the store bought stuff available to compare side by side. If you are not sure about the dill, add prepared horseradish in half teaspoon increments twice, mixing and tasting, then start adding additional dill until you get the right balance. Make all the flavors pop with S/P. Then add your salmon, but I would take half of the cream base you have made and seasoned and add salmon to the visual consistency of what you have been buying. Eat some of that and fix any obvious errors, then chill the rest at least a few hours to let the flavors blend. Taste again, comparing to your bought sample. If it is right, mix up the rest of your cream base and salmon, if not fix what you do not like. Note that you can add salt and pepper to your cream base as early as you like because there are no competing sources of heat or salt, but I find it easier to account for S/P absence in my head than to add them early and discover that another flavor element affects the decision. YMMV. | 5 |
rulx34 | Can I sub sparkling wine for white wine? I have some leftover sparkling wines but no white wine. For recipes that call for white wine (e.g., bolognese, seafood marinades and sauces) can I just use sparkling wine? Will there be any difference in flavor? | Yup, totes. I did this with a scampi on Christmas Eve and it turned out great. But, obviously depends on the grape and style. Mine was dry & Pinot Grigio based, worked fine. | 5 |
5yqliw | Making dough in a bread machine vs. by hand? I have a young child, a bread machine, and a desire for us to make different types of dough (mostly sweet doughs or pizza dough). The bread machine has a 'dough' setting. If we make the dough in the bread machine, and then let it have a day or two to rest and rise in the fridge, will we end up with something close to what you get when making dough by hand or using a mixer with a dough hook? Or is bread machine dough always going to be inferior? | I've been making bread for 30 years, by hand & hook, never by bread machine, but I see no reason it shouldn't provide the same kneading, unless you're going for uber-artisanal. Retard it overnight if you want more flavor. | 5 |
22owo1 | Does anyone have any experience with carbon steel fry pans? I was recently looking into the Lodge carbon steel pan. Not sure if they are worth it considering I have stainless steel, cast iron and a non-stick pan already. | I got a carbon steel wok and it's definitely one of my favorite frying pans. Seasoning was quick and easy. It gets really got for stir fry. It does cool down quick though when adding a ton of ingredients to the pan, but it's not a crippling problem. Food always comes out great. If it had a little more heft, it'd probably solve the one problem I have with it. I think it was $15 or something, so there's room to spend a little bit more. Especially for how much use it gets. The surface blows away my Teflon & cast iron frying pans. You can use metal utensils and cleaning is a matter of heating up and brushing it off with paper towel. Tougher stuff you can boil some water and it'll fall off, though I haven't had to do that in a while. I've had it for 3 years now and the seasoning has survived multiple attempts at ruination from uninformed roommates. | 5 |
3qxjwd | Do you boil or soak pumpkin seeds before roasting them? Is there a difference in results? If soaking, do you add salt? Do you lose nutrients with either method (shown scientifically)? | I've rinsed them off and brined them, with good results. | 5 |
f0vfnw | Commercial style halva at home? Hi all! One of my favorite sweet treats is halva, the kind you find in giant loaves/cakes that is flakey, light, and crumbly. I've tried making it at home a few times based off a few different recipes, but each time it is not quite as delicious as the great commercial ones I've had. For "at home" halva, the recipes always seem to include heating sugar or honey up to a certain temperature, then slowly mixing them in to tahini in a mixer, then letting that cool in a cake or bread pan. However this always yields a halva that while delicious is not nearly as light and flakey (more dense and gritty). I've read that to make halva truly great, it really has to be made at a large scale (which I'm totally fine doing since I seriously am addicted to the stuff!) and I've found some videos in my research of it being made on a large commercial scale and it always seems to come out with the qualities I am looking for. BUT their process of making it is COMPLETELY different than any recipe I've found (of course don't actually have a recipe or any instructions in the videos). Videos for reference: One Two Three First of all, it's obviously not just sugar or honey heated up to a 240-250F syrup, it's like a fluffy white mixture that to my western eyes looks almost like marshmallow fluff (which I know it's not) that has been whipped/mixed before adding it to the tahini. What is this and how do you make it? Second, instead of being mixed in a mixer, the sugar/fluff stuff is incorporated into the tahini my hand kind of more like folding it in and kneading it. When would you know the kneading is done (the point it is over/under kneaded)? Then how do you go about incorporating other flavors/ingredients and at what stage? How long do you let the halva sit and how is the best way to store it? Thank you so much to anyone who can help me crack the halva code! | Hah, just watched this video a couple of days ago: https://youtu.be/KYk\_-w6r3lw?t=280 I put the timestamp before he talks about overmixing. He's going for a more solid halva, but says that it gets crumbly if you overmix it, so maybe do just that? Add the syrup and then mix for a long time. | 5 |
2llq40 | How do you make crispy japanese style crepes? As opposed to the softer french kind? I've tried many different recipes, and none seem to work. | not sure what you mean by crispy crepes (seems a bit of an oxymoron since i've never had japanese style), but cooking with dog has their version of it. hope that helps. | 5 |
8eyotd | Eggs in baked Mac n cheese? Bacon? Out of stuff to cook I was going to make boxed Mac n cheese and mix it with the eggs and extra cheese and put it in the pan with bread crumbs on top. Should I add the eggs or leave it how it is? Also should I cook the bacon with the Mac n cheese or before I put it in the oven? Sorry if it’s confusing! Thanks guys | Yeah definitely want that bacon crispy, right? If you're feeling adventurous I suppose you could temper the egg at the end of cooking like a carbonara. | 5 |
edti8d | Using altoid tins for a way to give fudge? One of my coworkers pranks me by leaving altoid tins all around my desk. I find them in the weirdest places. Occassionally, I'll loop in others by hiding the tins around their desk, and of course, blaming him. It is a silly, harmless prank that everyone laughs about... so, we have 20 - 30 of the tins floating around our work area. I was thinking of bringing them home, running them through the dishwasher to get the mint smell out, and pouring fudge in them. Then giving them back to my team members as gifts. Is this something that is realistic, or would it be too messy to try any pour into the small boxes before the fudge cools? I'd like to try this recipe... https://thesavvyage.com/original-fantasy-fudge-recipe-soft-food-recipe/ Thank you. | Be careful of the holes on the back of the tin where the lids meet the base! But yeah otherwise a quick rinse / dry out, reline with some parchment / baking paper, pour. To be even safer, grease the paper OR tin with some cooking spray (just in case the fudge sticks to the side.) | 5 |
41qyom | Best way to cook chicken to be shredded? I'm going to be making a recipe later today that calls for two cups of cooked, shredded chicken. (It's a chicken tortilla soup, for the record.) I've never had to shred chicken before- whenever I make something with chicken in it, I typically cut it up and sautee it in oil and garlic- so what's the best way to cook chicken with the intention of shredding it? Should I just sautee the whole chicken breast and shred it after? Should I cut it up first? Should I bake it? Boil it? I feel like this is a dumb question but I'm sure someone out there knows what I mean. | I always poach then let the kitchen aid shred it. | 5 |
gdpjqd | I added lime slices to my soup stock because I’m stupid. How do I make this less bitter? | You might be able to turn it into a Thai coconut broth, like in a Thai Hot Pot. Got any lemongrass, coconut milk, chili paste, and fish sauce? | 5 |
owi4zo | How do I keep my ricotta creamy in lasagna (aka not curdling?) So basically, I like my ricotta to stay super creamy when I make my lasagna - as in not dry and crumbly. I add in two egg yolks to a 32 oz container of whole milk ricotta. I have also read that you can add corn starch to keep from curdling? I also noticed that when I cooked it at a higher temp, the ricotta curdled faster. Tips?!? | The stabilizers in most commercial ricottas make this pretty much impossible. I've had great luck using homemade ricotta instead (which is much simpler than you'd imagine). https://smittenkitchen.com/2011/06/rich-homemade-ricotta/ | 5 |
35r3ag | Can I use coconut oil instead of butter to make a roux? I was planning to make fettuccine alfredo tonight with my mom's bechamel recipe and it occurred to me that I could replace the butter in the roux with another fat. My preferred cooking fat is coconut oil, and it is a great replacement for butter in a lot of dishes. Is this possible for a roux meant for a cream sauce? | On a completely different note, coconut oil is by no means a "great" replacement for butter. "Acceptable" at best, no matter the dish. Butter has deep flavor and nuances depending on region, diet, and breed of cow. Coconut oil tastes like... neutral oil. Would you want to take the time to mix/ knead/ proof/ bake a loaf of bread at home and dip it in coconut oil? How about some good butter? Would you want to saute some morels in rich, complex, foaming butter or would you rather have them taste flat and two-toned with coconut oil? Shit. Eggs cooked in butter compared to eggs cooked in coconut oil? No competition. Coconut oil is good for the skin and bullet proofing coffee and thats about it. Outside of a dark roux for gumbo. It'd probably work pretty well for that. | 5 |
3ha09e | Non-alcoholic substitute for sake and mirin? | There's a non-alcoholic version of mirin. | 5 |
f5xjl3 | Using an old cake recipe that calls for 2 squares of baking chocolate. Barker's brand changed their packaging a few years ago. How many ounces were in 2 squares before the change? | Look up black cocoa ....great to sub in 1/2 the quantity of chocolate. They use it in Oreos | 5 |
dnktqi | How do I stop my roast vegetables from sticking to the pan? I’ve tried a few different variations when cooking my roast vegetables, turning them frequently, only turning them once, lots of oil, less oil, higher temperature, lower temperature. Without fail my roast vegetables stick to the bottom of my roasting dish, I’ve tried putting baking paper on the bottom of the roasting dish, but the paper isn’t wide enough for my roasting dish - do I suck it up and use the smaller dish? Which is another worry because then you have issues around crowding which I know steams the vegetables instead of roasts them. At the moment I’m chopping vegetables into various medium sized pieces, tossing them in oil making sure all the vegetables are coated with oil and whatever seasoning I’ve decided to use that day, setting the oven to around 210•C (letting it preheat) and chucking in the vegetables for around 30 minutes, turning twice. Any troubleshooting tips would be highly appreciated, if possible I would like to continue using the equipment I have, roasting dishes, pots, stainless steel pan. I don’t own a pressure cooker, deep frier, or sous vide. Thanks! | I thought they were supposed to stick so they could develop a bit of a crust or browning which adds flavor. I use a sheet pan and turn them half way through with a spatula. Potatoes, carrots, parsnips, onion, butternut squash. I heat the pan in a 425f oven and then put the veggies tossed in olive oil on the hot pan then in the oven. | 5 |
qh8nul | What types of fruit and vegetables (other than pears & Napa cabbage/carrots/radishes) can I safely use for kimchi, and how does it affect the flavor? I'm just starting out making kimchi, and I've only seen basic recipes with the same constituents, but I've heard you can make it using many different ingredients. I want to experiment without spending days and dollars to create something potentially dangerous to eat. Hoping for both general guidelines and any interesting combinations with different flavor profiles. | My mom puts fuyu persimmons in her kkakdugi(same size as the radish, not pulverized into the marinade). *chef's kiss* She also makes Jerusalem artichokes kkakdugi. | 5 |
2ep7fg | Resources to improve culinary skills I am a home cook, cooking for 5 years. Cooking is my passion and hobby. Did a stint at a local restaurant for 3 months before entering college. Have been learning new techniques and skills off youtube videos and some cook books. (By heston blummenthal and Gordon Ramsay.) I feel as though my knowledge and skills have plateaued and am wondering whether anyone can point me in the right directions to learn more. I am currently in college so it would be pretty difficult for me to be working at a restaurant. | There are so many tacks in the culinary world you could spend years learning (and why not?). Figure out what you are really interested in. Baking? technique? sauces? ethnic foods? Work on that. find a few basic recipes and master them. Over and over. If you like bread you can learn a few formulas and they will form the foundation of hundreds of recipes. Once you start looking you'll see that you can easily make many kinds of bread based on just a few basic formulas. Flavor profiles will also help. Once you learn the seasonings in a few you can adapt them to many dishes. Italian seasoning, Jerk, barbecue, Greek etc. Pick up The Flavor Bible by Dornenberg, it has so many flavor profiles and pairings. A real helpful book to make any sauce or seasoning blend work after you learn the basics of the 5 mother sauces. IF you like breads pick up Bread Bakers Apprentice, or Bread by Hammelman. Pay attention to the formulas. There is usually a "base" formula (that you can easily memorize) that is adapted to many different kinds of breads. If you're into the more involved cooking techniques you can find Modernist Cuisine at Home as a pdf online. Hop in and play. Food is such a great art medium to work with. Just have fun. Learn some basics really well and you will see how it gives you a foundation to make some awesome foods with little effort. | 5 |
rv6fig | Proofing dough for 24 hours Hi guys, I was thinking of making donuts, but a few days back when I made cinnamon rolls it took a lot of time to proof and it did not double up even after more than 2 hours and I had wrapped the bowl in a blanket. So, should I proof my dough for 24 hours ? The temp here is about 13°C or 55°F, thinking of leaving it on the counter and not refrigerating it. | Things will take a LONG time to rise/ double at 55deg, if you set the bowl on the counter next to the preheating oven it'll probably go faster. Can set it on top of the stove/ oven too, would just have to be careful about it overheating and killing the yeast that way. You can ferment/ long rise/ rest your dough at 55 deg for 24 hrs, but after forming you'd probably be overproofed at that time. | 5 |
84ze28 | What's going on with this avocado? Image There was no smell and it wasn't squishy. Would it have been safe to eat? If not, what happened? I've never seen this before. | They're vascular tubes. They're safe to eat and more prominent in avocados picked earlier in the season and/or younger trees. | 5 |
km009f | Leftover Rissoto as Binder in Meatballs? I'm going to make meatballs. I have about 12 oz of leftover mushroom risotto. I was planning on using eggs and panko as a binder for the ground beef (2 lbs). There's not enough risotto to do much with, but hate to waste it. How crazy would it be to dump it into my meatball mix? Was planning on baking the meatballs and serving the marinara sauce. | My mom is famous for making “porcupine meatballs” with leftover cooked rice. I think risotto would be an awesome substitute! Edit: basic Porcupine Meatball recipe here! *We’ve always used cooked rice for this. You can also make these as basic or as wild as you want. | 5 |
7cs86n | Steel cut vs rolled oats Hi folks! What’s the difference in a recipe between rolled oats and steel cut oats? Can I sub in steel cut for rolled in overnight oatmeal recipes or would they require extra cooking? | To answer your question directly, the difference is that the steel cut oats still have the germ intact. Technically, all oats are steel cut, its just that with rolled oats, the process removes the germ, rolls out the interior, and steams it. Rolled oats are a partially cooked and processed grain. Steel cut oats are two steps (roughly speaking) less processed, thus have more fiber and take longer to cook, with a nuttier flavor and overall most people like them more on their own. However rolls oats are super convenient and also are much better for something like a no bake cookie. I can't imagine even using steel cut for that. They cannot be substituted in general. Find a recipe specifically for steel cut overnight oats. Its clever marketing if you think about it. What if brown rice was called steel cut rice instead? | 5 |
lmmkrh | Weekly Discussion: Cookbook MEGATHREAD Weekly Discussion: Cookbook MEGATHREAD We get many questions about cookbooks for various methods, cuisines, food science in this sub, and it's about time to collect a bunch of these in one place. So, if you have a cookbook question, post it as a top level comment, and the community can help you find books to check out! If you have a favorite cookbook you liked mentioned, post a top level comment with the type of cookbook, and respond to your comment with the cookbook. Please be specific and detailed about your cookbook recommendations. Top level comments that repeat a previously mentioned topic will be removed, and mentions of a cookbook name with no further information will also be removed. Note: This discussion is for cookbooks and cookbooks only, youtube channels and cooking websites have been done in previous discussions. | I routinely make recipes from Anthony Bourdain’s Les Halles Cookbook. His salt cod brandade is great, for example, as is the Provençale daube. And very nicely laid out directions for complicated many-step recipes. Although the recipes are based on his restaurant, it’s more for home cooks than professionals. But the selling point is unsurprisingly the anecdotes, jokes, and commentaries. | 5 |
3b061z | Need advice on slow cooking chicken for another dish I make stir fry quite a bit and after utilizing my slow cooker to make chicken soup the other day I thought it might be an interesting idea to slow cook my chicken in some hoisin sauce for my stir fry. Generally I cook my stir fry meat in another pan anyway so it wouldn't be too much trouble to figure out. There are a couple of factors that make me not sure if this is a good idea or not though and I'd like to get some opinions: I'll be using chicken quarters (thigh and drumstick) on the bone. I can remove the skin so I don't think this should be too much of an issue. However, I'm not sure I want to use so much hoisin that I completely submerge the chicken (because that would cost a fortune and nix the point about even trying it). Can I just add water in? Stock? What are my best options here to flavor up the chicken in the slow cooker without breaking the bank on sauces. | The chicken will exude so much water during the cooking that the hoisin will be overwhelmed, being better when put on already-cooked food, not used as a braising sauce, and will contribute nothing to the finished product other than a vaguely darker color. If I was going to cook my chicken meat separately from the stirfry, I'd use boneless skinless thighs, cut them up into bits, and saute them, because then you get lots of brown crispy bits. Or else I'd grill or oven-roast whole drumsticks and thighs, then pick them apart to add them, brown crispy bits ditto. | 5 |
4dtlss | Will a 12" straight-sided saute pan be TOO big for an 8" coil element? I regularly use pans with a 10" bottom without much of a problem, but will 12" heat evenly enough if I let it preheat for a bit? The pan in question is tri-ply, so I assume it probably won't warp even though it's a little big for the element? Sorry to ask such a dumb question. I found a 12-piece set of Tramontina Tri-Ply Clad stuff (12" saute, 10" and 12" frying pan, 2qt and 3qt saucepans, 8qt stockpot, and 5qt sauce pot, with lids) for a greatly reduced price at a local surplus store, and since a family member was looking for some new cook wear, I bought it for us to split up between us. Wasn't sure whether I should keep the 12" saute pan or whether it won't be much use to me until I get a different range. | If you are buying the pan anyway, why not test the heat distribution before deciding whether or not to give it away? Just heat it up with a thin dusting of flour or some paper, and see what parts get browned first. | 5 |
5xyl7k | What are the best ways to use fruit honey? I have a small jar of blueberry honey (pure honey, not fruit mixed with honey) and I'm not quite sure how to use it. It has a mild and distinctive taste compared to the store bought standard stuff and it seems like a waste to use it in something like a marinade where that flavor would get lost under everything else. I've tried looking online but the most I could pull up was "sauces and baked goods" from a tiny blurb on honey.com . Anyone have tips or suggestions for reading material? | My wife says spoon. Seriously though pastries or other light things which will highlight the flavor. Cheese isn't a crazy idea either. Perhaps in some light teas. | 5 |
dppkuf | Cant get floury taste out of bechamel no matter how long I cook the roux They say to cook the roux until it loses the flourly smell. But for me I never seem to get that floury smell away no matter how long I cook the roux. The bechamel that comes after always tastes floury. What could be the problem? | I've been browning my flour in a dry pan as a first step to making things that require browned flour. Fastest way to brown flour is to brown it dry. You have to keep it moving, but it's hard to beat the speed and evenness of browning because dry flour circulates quite freely when you stir or toss it in the pan. Browning in already hot fat is faster, but you get a pasty roux that is harder to stir. It's easier to get some goop at the bottom burned because you hadn't stirred it enough. Keep it moving, toss the flour occasionally to make sure that it is well circulated. I wouldn't toss the flour if I was cooking over a gas stove though. I think it could be a flour air combustion hazard over a gas stove. Anyways I find that dry flour browns quite quickly compared to after it's been mixed with wet ingredients. I stir it around somewhat frequently at med-high heat, tossing occasionally, until it just starts to brown at which point I drop the heat down to low-med or med depending on what kind of hurry I am in. Once flour starts to brown, you have driven off all of it's moisture which means that it will start to brown more quickly which is why I like to back off on the heat and toss the flour more frequently. I'll toast the flour until I get a tone that is a bit lighter than I want the roux to be. I find that the addition of liquids darkens things a bit so I aim for a bit lighter when toasting dry flour. If you've got the time, pour the flour out into a bowl and let it cool down a bit. It doesn't have to be cold, just not very hot. When it's cooled a bit, whisk in fridge cold milk and chuck you butter into the pan if you want to let it brown it a bit. Cold milk in not terribly hot browned flour whisks together very well with nary a lump. Don't dribble the milk in add it all and whisk it together. Pour the whole lot into your hot pan and browned butter and reduce. Flour browns at a temperature that is higher than the boiling point of water. The water in your butter will inhibit browning of the flour until it is driven off. I suspect that you may be browning the milk proteins in your butter before you achieve sufficient browning in your flour when you are making your roux. It is possible to decouple the browning of the flour from the browning of your butter by toasting the flour before removing it to a bowl and then browning your butter. Someday I should toast some flour then put it in a mason jar to see if it keeps as a shelf stable ingredient for me to add to a sauce in a pinch when I don't have time to make a proper roux or brown flour. | 5 |
ycslnc | Cow share ground beef for burgers - how to make it work? I have this type of beef from our cow share, it’s vacuum packed so how can I make this beef work for burgers? They are never great despite how little I handle them. Any tips? | When I buy "cow" burgers from my rancher it's usually not from a cow grown for beef, such as a milk cow that has lived past it's breeding years, like 5 years. Beef cows are usually harvested around the time they hit marketable weight (the folks I work with pasture for 2 years/ the hang weight is 700-800 lbs). The breed is also going to play a role in the fat content and overall flavor of the meat. Angus is stout and cultivated to pack on muscle, but a jersey or guernsey tends to have less muscle mass. Age and breed can be factors. My rancher discounts "cow" burger because it's still good eating but it needs to be used for things like tacos or Bolognese where the flavors are strong and the texture isn't going to stand out. It definitely cooks out differently than the "hamburger" I get from them. Adding some fat, like beef trim or bacon may help some, but it may just be the nature of the beast ETA I read this around 3am while up with an infant, I live in rural Idaho where we do/ label things different hence the differentiation between beef and cow. If it's not an age/breed factor it could be myosin binding at play. Great for sausage, terrible for burgers. Depending on how the butcher is grinding and packaging the meat could be essentially overworked by the time it gets to you. At the grocer it's like little ribbons as it hits the tray whereas the butcher for your share may be grinding into a big bin and using an auger type machine to fill chubs or form 1#blocks for vacuum seal. | 5 |
3txty2 | How/when to use garlic/onion powder/granules? Ive heard of them before but never cooked with them. I've seen American tv shows where they'll go into a rub/marinade. So when should they be used, when would be ok to use if you don't have fresh, but fresh would be better and when should you definitely use fresh? Also how much do you use in the substitution? | Keep in mind that garlic and onion granules have been dried and pasteurized, so their flavor profile more resembles *roasted* garlic and onion. If a recipe calls for garlic or onion to be served raw, the granulated form is unlikely to work well. Also think about texture. Though garlic is usually used in small enough quantities that it doesn't contribute significantly to texture, onion is not. If the dish requires onion texture, onion powder is not going to work. Both powders are not quite as flavorful as the fresh varieties, but they have their uses. They're finely granulated making it easy to distribute over a larger surface area. And they're dry so they don't add more liquid to the party. In particular, they're very useful for rubs. Try coating the outside of a pork butt with fresh onion :) | 5 |
7d0bcy | Planning a holiday meal for friends, what do you think of this menu? Hi AskCulinary! First time posting in this sub but I read it all the time and I'm hoping I can get some help with a menu. I'm planning on hosting a holiday lunch for friends, most likely between 8 and 12 people. Basically there are two things that I'd really like to do, but I'm not sure what would go nicely with them. The dishes I'd really like to try are 1) pumpkin ravioli from scratch and 2) a mousse cake with mirror glaze for dessert. Except for dessert, I'd like to serve everything together. I was thinking of some kind of salad and some kind of meat, possibly this pork belly and this salad with pomegranate. I like this idea because salads are quick and the roasted pork can go in the oven and not take up stovetop space. I've not made mousse cakes before, although I have made mousse. I was thinking of trying this matcha mousse cake recipe and then glazing with a dark chocolate mirror glaze. Any tips on decorating the top of the cake? I was thinking maybe red and green macaron halves, or maybe dusting with matcha powder, or making another color of the mirror glaze, but given that I've never tried the mirror glaze before maybe I can't count on that working out. Do you think the flavors work? Any tips on making a mirror glaze for the first time? Does the mirror glaze keep well (could I make the cake and decorate it the evening before and serve it for dessert after lunch the next day)? How well does making fresh ravioli ahead of time work out? (ie could I make it day ahead and then cook the following day)? Any feedback is appreciated! Thanks a bunch. :) | It honestly sounds fabulous. It sounds like you have a good understanding of how to operate in a kitchen so you should have no problem (well maybe some small ones but that's par for the course-ha!) navigating through some new techniques. Do your research (not all recipes are created equal!) and trust your instincts when problem solving. I'm sure your friends will enjoy themselves so have fun with it! Good luck and let us know how it comes out! | 5 |
3ouutx | A little help with chocolate lava cake please Ok, so this is a two-question post. I attempted to make lava cake last night and it did not go well. i used this recipe. 1. How can i reduce the sugar ? it was incredibly sweet. I would add even less than half, but since the caster sugar is almost all the dry ingredient, i'm concerned about how it will affect the ratio of the recipe. 2. None of the 4 cakes came out of the ramekins. i used butter instead of spray oil (because that's what i had on hand). Could this be the cause? I used a decent amount, but still, none came out. Neither the one i tried 1 min after removing from oven, nor the one i attempted this morning (cold) | What shape of ramekin are you using? For lava cake I use small pudding basin shape ones. I butter them, then throw in some cocoa powder, shake it all around until the butter is coated and then tip the left over cocoa into the next buttered one and continue. When the cake is done, they slide right out onto plates. | 5 |
2jah7m | "Catfood" like smell from canned coconut milk? The last couple of cans of canned coconut milk (all bought at the same time) I've opened up seem to have an odd smell that I can only describe as somewhat like wet catfood. The cans I've used so far don't seem to taste bad (though I do cook with the milk, I don't consume it straight out of the can) and I haven't gotten ill but the smell is a little off-putting and I'm not sure what it means. I can't say if this is new, I can't remember that smell being there previously when I've used coconut milk before. Has that always been there and I've just now noticed? | When in doubt, throw it out. | 4 |
3z7auv | I have lots of questions about living without a microwave. How do I re-heat food? I'll be temporarily living without a microwave and I know it's possible, but I've never lived without one so I have no foresight as to how to handle it. I'm living as a student so normally I cook food a week or so in advance. How would I reheat this food up? My tastes don't vary much so normally I have some variation of white rice, egg noodles, and either chicken/beef/sausage/egg (or any variety of), along with vegetables like broccoli/asparagus/etc. My main concern is that drying out my foods. I've seen some people use an oven. For the noodles and veggies I can probably use the stove top. Do I need to add more oil? Or anything as I do it? For meat, is it inevitable I'll dry it out? I have very minimal material. Thanks all. | Depending on the food, toaster ovens work pretty well. | 4 |
zfbvs1 | Teriyaki Jerky always comes out bland Hello, I am trying to make a hot teriyaki beef jerky but I keep running into the same problem. The Jerky always comes out too bland. This last batch I used this marinade: 1c teriyake sauce 1c Soy sauce 6tbsp jalapenos 1tsp paprika 4tsp liquid smoke 1tbsp hotsauce 4tbsp brown sugar I left them for 24 hours to marinate, and then dried them for 8 hours in a dehydrator. The marinade tasted about right, but the meat in the end just didn't have much flavor or kick. Is there something I'm doing wrong with the marinade? do I need to cook it down or rub the jerky with some spices. I'm just puzzled about why the final product has no where near the flavor of the marinade. | How much meat are you adding to that marinade? Less meat will make it stronger. Are jalepenos seeded or unseeded? Keeping the seeds is hotter. How hot is the hot sauce? A habanero sauce is ten times hotter than a chipotle. Teriyaki sauce is mostly water, soy sauce, and sugar, so I'd suggest omitting it and only adding in the 1/2 tsp garlic powder. And maybe 1 tbsp kosher salt. Are you slicing or dicing the jalepenos? Dicing is hotter. And finally, just double the paprika, 1 tsp is nothing. It's mostly color even at 1 tbsp. | 4 |
2azch8 | Osso bucco - leave marrow in bone or use for risotto alla Milanese? I got hold of a couple of high quality osso bucco pieces and thought I'd do it in classic Milanese style with saffron and parmesan risotto, but am unsure about the bone marrow. Classically you leave it in where it becomes soft and delicious, but a classic risotto alla Milanese uses bone marrow too so I am wondering if i should remove it before cooking and use it there. Anyone have experience cooking this? My gut feeling is the benefit to the risotto will be fairly minor compared to the deliciousness of a chunk of pure marrow in bone plus how it will flavour the sauce. | I made ossobuco for the first time ever a few weeks ago and the main event of the dish was the freaking marrow. So juicy and tasteful (and it surely flavoured the whole meal). If you take it out my Mediterranean soul and Norwegian being will revolt in disappointment! Bones are dirt cheap, no need to be stingy with them. | 4 |
i3bm6i | using duck fat instead of olive oil in spaghetti sauce? i have a nice jar of rendered duck fat sitting in my fridge. i wanna make a nice beef bolognese sauce today, and am thinking about either using duck fat instead of olive oil, or use a bit of both. or should i just save the fat for something else altogether?? | The problem with duck fat compared to olive oil is that it has a heavier mouth full. The other problem is that it becomes solid at room temperature so that if your sauce is not really hot, it will start to become less liquid and the texture will not be pleasant. | 4 |
t1a6b0 | Missed a big step in a recipe for miso marinade. Have I ruined my fish? I mixed the ingredients and just popped the fish in without realizing that I needed to cook off the sake. Argh. The fish has been marinating for two days so far ... Did I ruin it? https://hikarimiso.com/recipes/miso-marinated-black-cod-recipe-by-chef-nobu-matsuhisa/ | Nah, alcohol won't ruin meat. Will break down the connective tissue and make it more tender. May not have to cook it as long so give it a poke a little short of cooking time. | 4 |
1wuakm | Trying to make a Northern Thai style stir-fry. Is it better to crust the chicken with something or just stir-fried as is? About to make some Thai stir fry... and wondering about the different pros and cons of crusted with cornstarch/flour/etc, or not to use a crust at all. What's the tastiest and/or most authentic way to do it? It seems there are recipes that go both ways... but giving a protective coating to the chicken makes it easier to crisp up. Does anyone have a factual and helpful answer to this? | Dusted with a bit of corn starch, then fried in enough oil to be submerged. Then remove from the pan and the excess oil in the pan is put back to its container. Proceed to cook the rest (caramelize the onion, add the curry and coconut milk, etc) then add the chicken back. Even if you drench the chicken in curry you'll retain the crisp of the fry. | 4 |
53do6p | Why is this chicken fried rice like this?http://imgur.com/Twa6jcf Last night I went to my favorite (legit) Chinese restaurant and got Chicken Fried Rice to go. It was fine last night when I ate it when I got home, but, now it has this gooey stringy stuff all over it.. http://imgur.com/Twa6jcf | There is a bacteria that specifically is seen a lot on fried rice Bacillus Cereus. Could be that! | 4 |
ln1pqw | Crispy skin on roast chicken? I usually put my chicken in a dutch oven with the lid on when I roast it... is this what’s hindering my ability to get crispy skin? I like to roast it with a bunch of veggies chopped up in the bottom & sides so I thought lid on would help with flavouring them but now I’m questioning if it’s not worth it since I don’t get crisp skin at all. I typically roast it around 375 for however long the weight calls for. I put butter & seasoning under and over the skin, I was told honey can also help crisping the skin but it didn’t do much for me last time. Any tips to help me achieve the crispy roast chicken of my dreams? | Leave your salted bird (dry brine) uncovered in the fridge on a wire rack for a day before you cook (1/4 sheet pans are the perfect size). I prefer to spatchcock mine, but you do you. Also, bang that heat. Chicken isn't something that benefits from low and slow. I usually spatchcock, season/salt, put on a wired rack over a sheet pan in the fridge for a day, and throw in a 450F oven until the breast hits about 150. Kenji (Serious Eats) recipe says to go at 500F and turn it down 50 degrees if it's getting too dark. Moist chicken and super crispy skin. | 4 |
92l9wa | Does cookie dough really need to be refrigerated before baking? I found this recipe for chocolate chip cookies with sea salt here on Reddit and it said to refrigerate for 24-36 hours. Is that necessary once the dough is prepared before baking it? If so, what effect does it have? | Not sure about the flavour/browning everyone else is mentioning but cold dough is a hell of a lot easier to work with. | 4 |
2q4s8t | How to make large amount of scrambled eggs Whats the easiest way to make a large batch of scrambled eggs? Enough for 25 people. How do they make those large chafing dishes of eggs you see at buffet brunches? | Put liquid eggs into a hotel pan in the steamer. When they are cooked through, go to town with a potato masher to break the eggs up into a "scrambled" texture. Requires almost no attention. Will be fluffy. | 4 |
hl068m | When submerging limes in brine vietnamese style to preserve them, what are the salt to water ratios i should follow? Is it pretty much just the same as brine used in lacto fermentation? (2%) | All the recipes I run across are seat of the pants and have you eyeball the salt. They do rely on using the citrus juice as a liquid rather than a water based brine. Almost forgot to mention that these certainly use more salt than the 2% I use with sauerkraut and such. Ninja edit cause I'm still finishing my first cup of coffee. | 4 |
8f3zrj | Has anyone heard of "Vienna Squares"? I used to work in a bakery in high school, which has since closed. They used to make these things that were like a complicated layered bar cookie, and I think they were called Vienna Squares. I'm pretty sure it was a misnomer, because the bakers were German and Polish respectively, and they were cut into triangles. The bottom layer was like a sugar cookie, or maybe shortbread. A thin layer of raspberry preserve went over the crust. The layer above that was a very dense buttery stuff, not as sweet as marzipan, but the same consistency and yellow. Over the top, was a shell, almost. It was a sort of soft crack candy mixed with sliced almonds, almost like a florentine cookie. This was then cut up, and half was dipped into chocolate. They were amazing, and this is seriously the only thing they made that I still miss, these twenty years later. If I had any idea of what that yellow layer was, I might be able to fake it, but I would like to know if anyone else has ever seen something like these. I would love a real recipe for them. | I used to make something like that at my last job. First layer was sweet dough, second layer raspberry jam, third layer frangipane. Then bake. Then you would cook on stove a caramel, stir in pecans and then spread over baking sheet and let set. | 4 |
3c7njh | Good substitute for tomatoes in recipe: Roasted Sweet Potato Wraps with Caramelized Onions and Pesto Here's the recipe: http://www.thekitchn.com/recipe-roasted-sweet-potato-wraps-with-caramelized-onions-and-pesto-lunch-recipes-from-the-kitchn-167367 Unless tomatoes are in pasta sauce, I hate them. What should I replace them with? What would go good w/ the flavor profile of the existing ingredients? | I would do roasted red peppers. | 4 |
jn289x | Can you make a huge batch of pizza dough and freeze it? Would it mess with the yeast? Once thawed, would it still have the fluffy property? Does it matter if you want thin crust or Detroit style? | Most of the raw pizza dough you find in the grocery store that’s ready for use are shipped frozen. | 4 |
12bahv | I am a high school teacher, and have been given the opportunity to teach a food science class. Ideas? In the kitchen, only a hobbyist at best, but some basic skills. I will be teamed with the chem teacher, so any foods with a somewhat immediate (within the course of a single class) scientific results are cool. My only ideas thus far are Moz or Farmers cheese, and an emulsification, like mayo or whatnot. Any ideas you may have would be much appreciated! | Demonstrate pressure vs regular cooking. Definitely yeast action through bread baking. Candy making is also a good suggestion as it teaches fine temp. control. Emulsification (mayo or aioli). Fresh cheeses. I'll try to think of more but it's my bedtime... | 4 |
l9vzix | American Long Grain White Rice vs Jasmine White Rice Tldr: I just realized there's a difference and wonder if that's what been messing up my non-Asian recipes? (also cross-posted in r/Cooking if this looks familiar - I tweaked a bit to be more culinary focused) Full story: After over a dozen years of cooking, I only just came to question why my non-Asian recipes that use rice always seemed to turn out extra mushy - jambalaya: mush; hoppin' john: gummy; Spanish or Mexican style rice: too wet for a burrito; don't even get me started on a rice based casserole...! Growing up in a Chinese family in the US, our default rice has always been Jasmine and I never questioned it. I'd dutifully buy the 25lb bag with three ladies or Phoenix or elephant or whatever my parents recommended at 99Ranch and be on my way. 99% of the time, I'd use a rice cooker and have no issues with either too dry or too wet rice. It was always great plain or used as a constant with a range of my favorites from my standard Chinese dinner dishes to curries to a side to steak (steak juices over rice... omg). Of course, I had thought, a long grain rice is a long grain rice - shouldn't I be able to use Jasmine in ANY recipe...? As I explored more recipes, I realized that my rice always seemed to turn out extra wet/mushy/gummy. I always figured the recipes ask for too much liquid and that I was probably doing it wrong and vow to use less water and (almost always forget) end up with another mushy dish the next time around. Or maybe it was me messing up cooking rice in anything other than a rice cooker. But I would never question the rice. That said, I'm not totally dense. I do know the difference between basmati (when making pilaf or rice that I want to be nutty/extra dry), arborio rice for risotto, bomba for paella, med/short grain for sushi or chinese sticky rice... but I never questioned the my default use of Jasmine for long grain rice until tonight (the hundredth time of cooking another mushy Southern style rice dish). Now I feel like an idiot... But also wonder if that's been the main culprit. I'm raring to go find some real "American" long grain - which leads to my question: what is the most common long grain rice for different types of recipes? Should jambalaya use different long grain white rice than a hoppin' john? Does Spanish or Mexican style rice put into a burrito or as a side dish use a different type? When is it OK to sub Jasmine other than making good ol' white rice to go with Chinese dishes? I feel like my cooking of rice dishes is going to change drastically from today forward... | I think that if you really want the authentic American long-grain rice you'd need Carolina Gold. https://ansonmills.com/products/23 Not sure how it cooks up and haven't had a chance to try it. According to Wikipedia, Jasmine rice is 3x sticker than American long-grain rice so this could be the reason for the texture of your dishes. Spain has a few specific varieties of rice for different dishes so I think it would recipe specific for what variety of rice you'll use. In Mexican cuisine, Rick Bayless notes in "Authentic Mexican": *“Though most Mexican cookbooks printed in the United States call for long-grain rice, what I’ve found in Mexico is closer to medium-size grains. Either one works, though I like the meaty texture of medium-grain rice.”* Most Chinese people I know will favor Jasmine rice due to it's texture and aroma for eating but I know Cantonese favor the short-grain for making congee. | 4 |
12ky7i | Do any of you nice food people recognize this recipe? My dad and I made it when I was a kid and it's delicious. I want to make it again, but, not entirely sure how. I think it's an old Swedish recipe. We called them "Lead Balls." What I remember is peeling and boiling a bunch of potatos, then, *I think* added flour to form a kind of dough. Flatten the 'dough' out into circles the size of a pancake and set a couple tablespoons of chopped salt pork on top and form into a watertight ball. If it's not watertight then it will be ruined. Then gently boil for 4-5 hours. The result is an **ugly,** grey ball that, when sliced and fried in some butter is absolutely yummy. They're even better the next day. It's definitely a peasant food. Anyone ever heard of anything like this? | The dish is known by many names in several countries, but appears to be of Scandinavian origin. It's covered as the Norwegian dish Raspeball on Wikipedia. | 4 |
22iofg | Delicious rich chocolate icing, but always turns out too runny... Hi! I traditionally bake David Lebovitz's German chocolate cake for my partner for his birthday. It's unreal how good this cake is, but I always have problems with the icing being too runny. This is how it turned out last year—it's melting! It looks like this every year. I looked around the internet to see if anyone else had needed to adapt the icing recipe, but no one else seems to have this problem. This makes me wonder if it's a problem with my technique. Here's the icing recipe: >For the chocolate icing: >* 8 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped * 2 tablespoons light corn syrup * 1 ½ ounces unsalted butter * 1 cup heavy cream >1. Place the 8 ounces of chopped chocolate in a bowl with the corn syrup and 1 ½ ounces of butter. >2. Heat the cream until it just begins to boil. Remove from heat and pour over the chocolate. Let stand one minute, then stir until smooth. Let sit until room temperature. Does anyone know how I might be screwing this up? Are there any common errors with any of those techniques/ingredients? Or, do you have a suggestion for a way to solidify the icing? While the above cake (which was compared by friends to the botched Ecce Homo painting) was indeed delicious, I'd love to have something a bit more presentable this year. | I'm no culinary expert but my family has always made a chocolate frosting that is similar to this.. sometimes it would come out too runny and others it would become this incredible tasty chocolate shell on the cake (which we all die for). In order to guarantee a hardened frosting, I did a little research a while back.. Chocolate can easily be overheated to the point where it loses it's ability to return to solid state, even if it is refrigerated and then brought back to room temperature. Odds are you don't need to heat the cream to even a near boiling temperature. Here's a link I found really helpful for Melting/Tempering Chocolate. It has a section for melting chocolates with liquid which I think is exactly what you are looking for. Another tip: If you do overheat your frosting, have extra chocolate on hand to add in (about 2 ounces at a time), it will help the frosting to thicken. | 4 |
7als16 | What's the difference between "sausage meat" and "ground pork"? So i want to make sausage rolls (pastry/sausage).. Ingredients call for sausage meat. Obviously i can buy some sausages and take the meat out of the casing and get sausage meat, or buy packages of sausage meat (no casing).. But I'm wondering, what is the difference between sausage meat and ground pork? I mean sausages are made from ground pork... And some sausages are completely raw.. So is a sausage just seasoned ground pork in a casing? And if i removed it from the casing, isn't sausage meat the same as if i take ground pork and season it up? So those packages of "sausage meat" (no casing) in the grocery store (like this http://www.johnsonville.com/products/mild-italian-ground-sausage/image/16oz_Frsh_MildItalGrnd.png), is that just simply seasoned ground pork? Or is there any other process I'm unaware of? Basically, to make sausage rolls, can i start with ground pork, or do i need specifically "sausage meat"? | I'm going to disagree with the other replies here and posit that the difference between sausage and ground pork is **salt** and **time**. Seasoned ground pork won't behave like sausage, and unseasoned sausage wont behave like ground pork. Before I grind, I cut into 1 inch cubes then add 2% salt by weight. Wait at least four hours. This can be done after grinding as well, though you still need to wait at least 4 hours before the next step. Next, work the sausage gently with either your hands or an electric mixer. It will begin to bind up into a gooey sticky mass (keep it cold though!). Regular ground pork won't do this. What's happening is that the salt damages the ends of long chain proteins in the pork. Think of it like a bunch of cables that are now frayed at the end. After mixing, the frayed ends of the proteins will bind together, giving sausage its signature texture. Note that this applies to your basic ground pork sausage (like bratwurst). Emulsified sausage (like hot dogs) is another beast. | 4 |
3f72p2 | Is there such a thing as a smoker with very little extra smoke? I live in an apartment complex who doesn't allow Charcoal Grills or Smokers because of the possible annoyance to our neighbors. I've tried looking online for maybe a self contained bbq but I am not finding anything - does anything like this even exist?? I am craving barbeque and there really isn't a good bbq place around where I live. | One kitchen I worked in, we had **one of these** type of smokers (a little bigger, I think) because there was rarely anything smoked on the menu. It produced almost no extra smoke, and you could probably use it on your stove with almost no complaint, at all. | 4 |
4udcid | How to cook cheese properly on a pizza? (Not actually a pizza) I'm trying to make a peynirli. It's kind of like a Greek pizza except it's boat shaped, has no tomato and has a whole bunch of butter. The problem I'm having is that the top layer of the cheese is really hard and becomes almost solid, even though it appears to look well-cooked. The cheese underneath the hard layer cooks perfectly. I'm using a fan oven by the way. | You can try: * Turning the fan off (if possible) * Using a lower heat * Add the cheese half-way through cooking * Cover the peynirli with foil for most of the cooking time * Using a different cheese Also, after some google-ing I found out that Kasseri comes in soft and hard varieties. I dunno which kind you're using, but the softer one would probably melt better. | 4 |
3cg7fc | Pizza Dough Too Sticky to Slide Off Peel We've been making the Roberta's dough about once a week, with moderate success. The dough is just always a bit too sticky and we have a hard time getting it off the (steel) peel onto a pizza steel in the oven. We've been building the pizza on the peel, and keep wiggling the dough as we add toppings to try and stop it from sticking... and just generally try and work as fast as humanly possible. It's a 66% hydration recipe, we've been experimenting by adding a bit more flour (which just made it harder to stretch but did make it less sticky). We've been fermenting it in the fridge for 24 hours or so. We've also tried cornmeal on the peel, which does help slightly, but I don't particularly care for the texture it adds to the bottom of the crust. In the video on NYT, the dough looks super smooth, but ours is just a sticky mess. I thought we needed to kneed it more, but even after 5-6 minutes it doesn't get any better. A light dusting of flour on the balls doesn't seem to do much, and adding a heavier dusting of flour makes the ball a bit too cakey after cooking. Maybe this is the only solution though? I will say that the Serious Eats broiler method has really been working out. The pies have been coming out delicious with some awesome leopard spotting on the bottom of the crust. If we could just dough off the peel without cursing up a storm we're in great shape! Any help would be thoroughly appreciated! | You could put some baking paper underneath. You can then remove it after the crust firms up a bit in the oven. | 4 |
4vme5a | Differences between free range chicken and store bought whole chicken My family and I keep hens in my yard primarily for eggs, however we occasionally slaughter one for meat from time to time. As you might expect, there are some obvious differences when compared with a standard store bought chicken, like meat toughness, bone hardness, organ size, and fat quantity and distribution. The most striking difference that I found, was the color of the fat, which was yellow in our hen, but which is typically white in all other poultry that I have seen elsewhere. The aroma and taste of the stock is substantially more flavorful as a result. Does anyone here know why that may be? | I've twice roasted heirloom variety chickens raised by a family friend who has a very serious hobby farm. His main poultry business is raising chicks for other farms who bulk them up to adulthood, but he has a small side business of raising birds to adulthood for meat. Probably about as far from high volume industry chicken as one can get. His density is only something like 1 chicken per square meter which is pretty loose as chicken farms go. They're kept outside in big moveable cages that lift up on wheels a few inches (not enough gap at the bottom for the birds to get out of) so they can be moved to a new patch of grass a few times a day. There is a feed tough in the cage too so they get a mix of boring feed to bulk up and whatever they avidly forage. They sure get excited when the cage gets shifted to new area. The fat was fairly heavy and yellow and the meat was a fair bit tastier. The difference wasn't huge like the difference between well aged steak and commodity steak, but the free ranged bird was certainly tasty. Meat grain seemed to be finer and firmer than what I'm used to seeing. The skin was quite delicious when it crisped up. I'm guessing it got a good basting from the heavy layer of fat. One downside was that they were not big birds. I reckon it makes it harder to render the fat before the meat starts to overcook. I did ok by starting the oven at a very high 500F for the first 10min or so before dropping it to maybe 370F for another 20min, then much lower (maybe 250) until my temperature probe read what I wanted. I resoned that the hard hit gets the fat melting quicker before the meat starts to cook. My times are approximate. I winged things based on what I was seeing on the meatomometer. The stock was excellent. Bugs and worms sure make chicken delicious. Our friend had a funny story about how he cleared one of his large areas of small roots buried everywhere. He buried small bags of corn feed here and there and let the pigs go out there to root around for it. Apparently pigs go apeshit for corn and are willing to tear a place up for it which raised all the roots which made them easy to gather and remove. Pretty cute trick. | 4 |
31r172 | What is the difference between cooking with salted and unsalted butter? When should I cook with one and cook with the other? Are there recipes that specifically call for one of them? Why? | I dunno, this is one area where I find myself disregarding the conventional wisdom (which is to always use unsalted). Unless I'm making a very persnickety recipe or one I've never tried before, I find it's a pain to keep one kind of butter for toast and another for cooking. Unlike, say, commercial chicken stock, which almost always has too much salt, and is often reduced on top of that, I find that salted butter has just enough salt to season itself. So it's salt-neutral when added to most dishes. Salted butter has about 1/4 teaspoon of table salt per stick in it (technically, 1 1/4 teaspoons per four sticks), and there are *so many recipes* that call for one stick of unsalted butter plus 1/4 teaspoon of salt. So it's a super simple substitution to make. YMMV depending on the brand and the recipe, but 85% of the time I just use salted butter and reduce the salt in the recipe by a corresponding amount. Even hollandaise, which someone in this thread pointed out as an example of a bad thing to use salted butter in, I find works fine. I made two batches this weekend, one with salted butter and one without, and the only difference was that I had to adjust the unsalted one more. (For what it's worth, one batch was just a practice run with a new recipe, I didn't actually have occasion to eat hollandaise twice in as many days.) That said, I do like to have a bit of the unsalted stuff around. Like, if I've got a pan sauce that's already getting too salty (thanks to other salt-added ingredients), then it's nice to finish it with unsalted butter and thereby reduce the overall saltiness of the salt. | 4 |
5ws4hx | When should I be adding turmeric when making rice? Sorry for the obviously stupid question but I see recipes that use turmeric with rice are using pre-cooked rice and they are mixing it all in a wok but what about when I'm boiling the rice on the stove should I be mixing the turmeric in with the rice before putting it in the water or will that not work and I have to use pre-cooked rice like these recipes say? | Are you making something like Dominican rice? I heat a bit of olive oil in a pan and add minced onion and saute a bit. Then add turmeric, garlic, white pepper. When it's very aromatic, add the rice. When the rice is a bit toasty, pour in chicken stock. Cover tightly, reduce the heat. | 4 |
r1i7rj | Why exactly does balsamic vinegar thicken when reduced? My guess is that there are quite a bit of natural sugars in specifically balsamic vinegar which causes the thick glossy mouthfeel when reduced/chilled. This would also be in line with f.e soy glazes where you would add sugar to the reduction to get the same texture. However, this is pure speculation from my side. If above is not the case, does It mean that you could reduce any kind of vinegar the same texture? | There's a *lot* of sugar in Balsamic vinegar, when you reduce it, the water evaporates and creates a caramel like liquid/sirup. Other vinegar with the same amount of sugar will/should reduce the same way. In my experience, other types of vinegar do not have the same amount of sugar and will completely evaporate before creating a sirup. | 4 |
rtu9nr | Risotto with a little bit of short grain rice? I've got the bottom of a bag of arborio rice and the bottom of a bag of sushi rice. I'm less than 1/4c short on arborio to make my usual risotto, but the recipe was already a little scant for my household to begin with. What would happen if I mixed some sushi rice in? Would it come out weird and crunchy, or just a little less starchy? | If you're doing it at home and not a restaurant then go for it. | 4 |
3dohz7 | I'm trying to recreate an Albanian dish I had a delicious dish in albania. The dish translates to: oven baked dish of mashed potatoes, cheese and village sausage /salami. Essentially it was served in a caserole dish, consisting of mashed potatoes with a feta like cheese, and sausage meat although the consistency of this was more like minced meat. I haven't been able to find a recipe although have asked for this on the albanian sub to no avail (https://www.reddit.com/r/albania/comments/3dnd8f/food_question/) Would anyone be able to give me an idea as to how to go towards recreating this? | From my research... 1. Albanian Tavë Dheu 2. There is also Turli Tava. Here's a video. 3. There's also Thracian Clay Pot. A lot of times, people just substitute what is on hand so what you ate may be a derivative of the original dish. | 4 |
138tgs | I understand that sushi rice is hard to get right the first time. Any tips on what I should do? I can cook most rice just fine (well, fine enough for an untrained amateur), but I'm curious what tips /r/AskCulinary might have specifically for cooking sushi rice. Does the technique/process differ for different kinds of sushi? Tips on washing the rice? Cheers! | My rice cooker has a sushi setting which has a slightly shorter cooking time and requires slightly less water for a firm, less fluffy grain that can absorb the vinegar. The rinse and soak advice others are giving are worth doing for any rice you're cooking to ensure it's fully cooked and not sticky with starch. For sushi rice particularly, all the stickiness should come from the vinegar, not the rice so give it an extra rinse or two to be sure. | 4 |
3wuigv | For those of you who sharpen your knives yourselves, what system/stones do you use? | I have Japanese carbon steel (blue and white) knives, for which I use Japanese waterstones / whetstones to sharpen. I use 250 grit to get rid of any small chips quickly (rarely used, mainly use it on my old, soft Henckels knives), then refine the edge on 800, 1000 and 6000 grit stones. | 4 |
aiof6t | Hot and Sour Soup: Questions I am going to try the recipe below for Hot and Sour Soup. I will include link to video which has all the ingredients and directions written out. I have two questions: 1) I can not locate Dark Soy Sauce in any of the stores I have tried. I find Soy Sauce and Light Soy Sauce. What can I use as a substitute for Dark Soy Sauce so that I can avoid having to purchase online? 2) Once everything is prepped, there is very little cooking time. Will the pork cook in this short amount of time? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D78r9jvLliA | hot and sour soup here’s another recipe in case you wanted to compare. I made this the other day and it was super easy! Definitely can sub regular soy sauce for dark (deal helps to just add color) but should be easy to find at an Asian grocery store in your area. | 4 |
8445na | How can I fix my roasted potatoes/oven fries? They always puff up and some of them are a bit starchy in the middle. I use culinary type B potatoes (cotoneaster) when baking. I tried 2 techniques (i cut and let them sit in cold water for about 1 hour before baking on both methods): 1) boiling them in salted water for couple minutes, then tossing with oil and seasoning and baking for around 20-25 minutes at 220°C 2) tossing with oil and seasoning then baking for 20-25 minutes at 200°C and 10 more at 220°C Result was very simmilar for both of them. I also tried with purple and sweet potatoes. Purple puffed up, but weren't starchy and sweet were just as they should be. I couldn't find Russet and Yukon Gold potatoes in Poland, maybe they are named different here. | Could try making sure that your oven is getting hot enough. Most ovens are not giving the temp that you actually set it at. | 4 |
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