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13946 | Workflow Planning Template
I am currently studying commercial cookery and need to prepare a workflow plan for a practical assessment, I am wondering if anyone has a good workflow template that I could use?
Dude, are you from ASTHM?
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24298 | Chocolate used for decoration
I melted once a chocolate bar and decorated with it my eclairs, while it was hot and melting, after putting them in the refregirator, they cooled fine, but they were a little bit sugary although the eclair's dough didn't contain any sugar.
If I melted a Dark chocolate, will adding some sugar work? Or is it preferred to melt the kind I want?
Melt the kind you want. Sugar doesn't melt at the temperature chocolate melts, and wouldn't dissolve in chocolate anyway. Commercial chocolate bars are smooth because they are conched. If you mix chocolate with sugar, it will be sandy.
Alternatively, you can glaze with a ganache, and dissolve the sugar in the cream first. But it is still better to make the ganache with the type of chocolate you want, instead of adjusting sugar or fat.
The most direct and easiest way would be to use the kind of chocolate you like to eat, that way you don't have to fuss with it too much.
If you do want to adjust the sweetness level to taste, try putting in a touch of a liquid sweetener - honey, agave, corn syrup, etc.
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28294 | Is it bad to use lids that do not fit on pot?
I was told it's bad to use glass lids on pots that don't fit because the metal against the glass could shatter it. Is this true?
In general (wrong size lid) isn't an issue ... the glass lids, however, could be.
The main issue is when you're boiling stuff, the lid jiggles as the pressure builds up and releases. This results in the lid getting hit over and over again. At the edge of most glass lids, there's a metal ring, so the metal can help to absorb some of the hit and spread it out; also at the edge, the shape of most glass lids will help it to take the force.
With it on a smaller pot, the hit's not on the edge where it could be more easily absorbed, and you have uneven heating (the stuff outside the pot not heating up) which would cause additional stresses in the lid ... and with enough repeated strikes could cause it to fail. Depending on the type of glass it's made of, it could simply crack, or if could completely shatter if it's tempered. And shattering is just a mess -- you basically have to scrap all exposed food, for fear that some glass bits might've gotten in there.
That's not to say that a glass lid can't shatter under normal usage, but most companies test them, and wouldn't sell them if there was a high risk of breakage under normal use. I don't know how much testing goes into mis-use, but they can always claim that's not their fault, and have a possible defense against lawsuits should anyone get injured from using the lid on the wrong sized pot.
.... all of that being said, I do have a pot with a glass lid ... and I have used it on the wrong sized pan before ... but it was an oversized pan. (if you're wondering how, it was steaming stuff in a wok), so the issues aren't the same as in using it on an undersized pot.
Yes. The glass can shatter at temperatures above 200° C. The metal covering the diameter prevents this on a pot that fits in. Cheers!
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37395 | How to turn over large number of items halfway through baking oven
What's the best way of turning over multiple items in the oven? For example when baking french fries or meat balls I turn them over halfway but it can be a bit tedious to rotate one at a time. Has anyone had luck just shaking the pan or is it really supposed to be a 180 degree flip?
Yes, it is supposed to be a 180 degree flip, you want both sides to be heated evenly.
If you are using a flat or low-rimmed baking sheet, and have a second one the same size: oil the second sheet with only a very thin layer of oil. Take the first sheet outside, cover with the first. Grasp at the two sides, flip both sheets with the food sandwiched between them. Bake in the second sheet (which is now on the bottom).
Of course, this has its downsides too. You cannot use baking sheets with too high a rim (else the food will slide inside too much), you have a second sheet to clean, and there is the danger of burning yourself while you wave a hot baking sheet around. But especially for large amounts of food, or multiple batches which are done in two sheets anyway, it might be less hassle than turning with a spatula.
another disadvantage : the new sheet pan is now cold, which might affect how things cook & brown.
The most effective method is simply not to flip the items. There are a couple of ways this can be possible:
Use a rack, so that the item can cook on both sides at once.
When it doesn't matter. In the case of meatballs, one side (in contact with the pan) will brown more, but by the time they are subsequently braised in sauce, the difference will be indistinguishable.
If you cannot avoid having to flip, a large spatula that can flip a lot of items at a time can help, assuming the items are not too fragile.
Again, if the food is not fragile, you can shake the tray, allowing the items to turn randomly. Doing this several times throughout the cooking period will allow the items to cook fairly evenly overall.
If you have fragile items (like a meatball) and feel you must flip them, patience and a good set of tongs will be your friend.
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37842 | Ground beef smells slightly sweet?
I opened up a package of ground beef today that I had bought the day before from a reputable grocery store. I left it out about an hour to warm up a little. It was grass-fed, which I don't normally buy but do sometimes. This time I immediately noticed a slightly sweetish smell--possibly like Worcestershire sauce, but hard to place. Not really bad, but slightly stronger than ground beef normally smells. Could it be something in the cow's diet, or have I bought meat that's too old to eat?
Update: I'm normally pretty cautious about this stuff (when in doubt, throw it out), but I decided to cook this because it really didn't seem bad. The taste was gamier than normal (a bit like lamb). It was actually pretty good. The smell if anything got stronger as the meat cooked (especially when the fat was initially escaping and hitting the pan).
Grass-fed beef does certainly smell different from corn-fed beef. I haven't noticed it smelling "sweeter", but it could smell gamey, earthy, or even sulfuric if the cow got in to some wild onions or garlic. And there's plenty of variation between different types of grass and even the same grass variety from season to season.
Corn-fed beef is not going to have that because, well, there isn't much variation in animal feed corn.
Rotten meat has a distinctive smell and it's going to be the same smell in grass-fed beef.
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37354 | Chicken Stock gelatinous
I made chicken stock recently from chicken thigh bones and skin (just needed the thigh meat and the bone-in-with-skin were cheaper). After cooling it in the fridge I ended up with gelatinous semisolid stuff underneath a layer of fat a few mm thick. I removed the fat, but am wondering whether the "stock" underneath it is useable for anything.
This is normal, expected, and desired. The long simmering of the bones will dissolve collagen in the connective tissue, creating gelatin, which will cause it to quite literally gel when cooled.
This gives the stock a body and texture that is considered a virtue in using it for soup or as an ingredient in other recipes. When heated, the gelatin will melt again.
Interesting--I suppose I accidentally created the best stock I've ever made, considering it's never happened before.
Now you know! When you use that stock, try to sense the difference. In some applications the improved "mouth-feel" is pretty dramatic. It can even replace a fair amount of fat in a lot of recipes, something I always appreciate.
As SAJ14SAJ said, chicken broth that gels is desirable. As a matter of fact, I break big chicken bones when I make broth to release as much collagen as possible and often add chicken feet because they're rich in gel causing collagen.
EDIT: America's Test Kitchen often uses "cheater" methods to skip some time-consuming steps but achieve the same, or very similar results. One such method I've seen a few times in their recipes is to add boxed unflavored gelatin (Knox or similar) to stocks and broths to achieve that luscious mouth-feel. What is Knox made of? Collagen of course, animal by-products. That's what makes Jello wiggle too.
Congratulations on your awesome broth! :)
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40725 | What's special about ahi tuna?
When I see tuna steaks, seared rare, on restaurant menus it's almost always Ahi tuna specifically. What's special about Ahi with this preparation method? Does it have different cooking properties from other kinds of tuna steak, like Yellowfin? Or is it an economic matter?
I ask partly out of curiosity and partly because I'd like to make this myself, so want to know if I should be preferring Ahi to other tunas that are sometimes at the fish market.
As Jolenealaska mentioned in his reply, Ahi is generally yellowfin tuna.
I believe you probably see it on restaurant menus a lot either because it is part of your local fish stock or possibly as part of marketing tactics used by the restaurants.
All of the true tuna fish species will be nice grilled, with some minor difference in flavor. Personally I would choose the tuna based on sustainability and freshness rather than specie.
Ahi generally IS yellowfin tuna. Ahi is just the Hawaiian name for it. Ahi can also refer to bigeye tuna, but you don't see that as often.
Oh, interesting! I've sometimes seen "ahi" and sometimes "yellowfin" at the same fish counter (at different times), so I assumed they were different. (Never heard of bigeye.)
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25855 | Lime on Fish tastes Bitter
I recently cooked tilapia in foil packets. I used Season All, and topped eached filet with guajillo salsa (flavored with lime) and lime slices. I noticed a bitter aftertaste when I was eating the finished product. It wasn't unbearable, but I didn't like it. I'm thinking it was the lime slices. I'm by no means a cooking pro, so I was wondering if anyone knows if lime slices add bitterness when cooked? And if so, how to avoid?
My internet research didn't come up with anything definite. (However, I discovered this website in the process!)
The pith of the lime (or any citrus) is quite bitter, but just cooking a few slices en papillote shouldn't be overpowering unless you ate the slices themselves. I'm not going to say it's impossible, as it's possible that it was an extremely bitter lime to start with. Lime and aluminum foil, however, especially if it's made in advance and had significant time in there, could cause some major leeching ... but I don't know if that would be bitter. You might want to try again using parchment paper, and see if it gives the same off-flavor.
I did not make the packets in advance. Cooked them for about 40 minutes. But after seeing the articles below, I think I'll definitely try parchment. (Or, not make packets at all.)
Do you mean bitter or sour (as in acidic?)
I like cooking parchment or oven bags (high temp plastic) for doing fish... Having said that, if I am in Brisbane instead of Melbourne (there's a banana tree in the back yard), a banana leaf serves as the best wrapper for fish as it serves as the protective foil, and it imparts its own moisture and aroma to the finished product.
I'd be a little concerned about mixing aluminum foil with acid foods. Aluminum acetate has an astringent taste. I'm not finding it on the internet, but aluminum citrate (from citric acid in the lime juice) likely has a similar flavor.
Here's a recent, and seemingly reputable look at cooking acid foods in Aluminum foil (PDF file): Risk Assessment of Using Aluminum Foil in Food Preparation
Using parchment paper rather than aluminum foil would avoid the possibility of producing bad tasting metal salts.
Holy crap, why did I never know this? I've been cooking in aluminum foil packets for a long time! I think parchment will be my new friend.
it was the wrong preparation of the fish. you have to be very extra careful when removing the innards specially the bile.
Welcome! The question says nothing about how the fish was gutted. Most tilapia in the US, anyway, is pre-prepared so that you get finished fillets and aren't doing that work yourself.
I think the -ve is a little harsh, I do have to agree that incorrectly cleaned fish does have a bitter taste from the bile and other fish offal; but this is my opinion as I do not have access to tilapia from your sources. But, it is most likely that your fish is suffering from a chemical reaction with the wrapper.
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25919 | How to unbake a cake?
I baked a cake and realized I added 1 less egg than I suppose to. I like to unbake the cake and add the egg. Then I like to bake it again. Please help. Thanks in advance.
Problem?
This sounds like an advertising campaign for the Norwegian yellow pages phone service called 1880: "We can help you with almost everything..." (with emphasis on the almost part)
Can you start over? I'm pretty sure the baking process is non-reversible.
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27258 | What can I do with dried chipotle chillies?
I have a bag of dried Chipotle chillies. All the recipes I see use chipotle paste. How can I make a sauce with them? Any good methods?
If you're looking for recipes for chipotle sauce, that's off topic here (see the [faq]). I tried to answer the question in your title (what can you do with them), and suggest how you could substitute for chipotle paste, not that I think you'll need to. I think you can probably find recipes for what you want with a bit of searching. Feel free to edit your question if I haven't told you what you want to know.
I'm not sure I've ever seen chipotle paste called for in recipes; I searched around a bit and what I found was consistent with my experience. I saw chipotle en adobo, ground chipotle, and even whole dried chipotle. I also easily found recipes for chipotle en adobo. I don't think you'll have any trouble figuring out what to do with them.
The most common way I've seen chipotles, both in grocery stores and in recipes, is chipotle en adobo. You can make your own by simmering dried chipotles in tomato paste with vinegar, garlic, onion (search for recipes if that's not specific enough). I suspect that most chipotle pastes you might find are something like this, but pureed, and possibly cooked until thicker.
The other common way to use chipotles is as a powder; that's as easy as grinding them in a spice grinder. If you're using them in something that gets cooked for a decent amount of time, I'd just do this and add them, instead of making chipotle en adobo or a paste out of them. Just think of them as a spice.
You can also simply rehydrate them and then use as you would undried chillies. Just soak in hot water for 20 minutes. For chilli con carne, I soak them in beef stock, then use both the stock and the chipotle themselves in the chilli.
You could grind them with freshly toasted spices to make a nice curry base.
Or throw them in the spice/peppercorn grinder grinder along with some dried porcini mushrooms and a bit of kosher salt to create a nice umami seasoning for steaks and other beef dishes.
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64107 | Storing Transglutaminase once opened
I have a sealed packet of Transglutaminase/Activa powder. However its much more than I need for this recipe. I know it deactivates quickly after being exposed to air. Whats the best way to store it for future use? Should I keep it as one mass of powder or split it into smaller packages?
"Transglutaminase should be stored in the freezer at all times. This will prevent the enzyme from becoming inactive"
According to
https://blog.modernistpantry.com/advice/troubleshooting-transglutaminase/
Answering this because I was about to ask about storage myself.
Still would like to know if freezer extends shelf life long enough to warrant commercial quantities ie 1kg = year supply for me.
Would vacuum sealing smaller quantities make any difference beyond freezing?
I had a look at laboratory supplier sites for stability at -20, but all the information supplied was only "store at -20". Given this it is likely that it would last at least ~6 mo at that temp. It is almost always better not to freeze-thaw enzymes, so aliquoting into smaller packets would be better. Your best bet is to buy a bunch and test how long it lasts.
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50352 | Best beef joint for slow cooker
I'm wondering what beef roasting joints will come out of the slow cooker best? I'd like to be able to slice it rather than pull it though. I've tried before with Brisket, it was delicious, but fell apart on carving. I'd like a cut that is soft but still sliceable.
You can cook Brisket to the point that it it is tender but sliceable, but that's tricky if you're slow cooking while at work or the like. Try topside, also often called salmon cut. It has a less a denser texture than brisket but still responds well to slow cooking.
You are looking for a lean cut.
The reason meat "falls apart" after a long, slow cooking process is that the connective tissues and fat dissolve/gelatinize.
You still risk this in any cut if the moisture level gets too high, but I've had great success with pork tenderloin in a slow cooker being still sliceable after 6-8 hours. I don't see any reason why beef tenderloin would be any different.
Another option is heart... It's a different type of muscle and it doesn't fall apart after cooking, but it's got a narrow window between great and shoe leather.
My favorite is the cheeks. This cut has a different fiber structure and thus does not easily get so soft it falls apart.
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64096 | Converting Pressure Cooker recipes for cookers with lower PSI
Most of the recipes I'm using (mainly Modernist; stocks, caramelized vegetables, confit) suggest cooking at 15psi. My pressure cooker has two settings 12psi and 7psi. I've always had success just using 12psi in recipes where it says 15psi. However recently the 12psi mode has broken on my PC. I can now only cook at 7psi. How can I convert my recipes to use this lower pressure?
For example I would cook a chicken stock at 12psi for 90mins, I presume at 7psi the cooking time would need to be longer but by how much?
Here's a table that claims to give time equivalencies for cooking at different pressures. (This is from a website dedicated to pressure cooking information, so it's pretty standard.)
It doesn't go down to 7 psi, declaring 8 psi to be the lowest acceptable pressure, but the time increase for 8 psi is listed as 47%. Therefore, I'd try increasing the times by 50% or a little more than the recipe states.
Keep in mind that although this chart looks precise, it's really not. Pressure cooking at lower temperatures will significantly change extraction rates for various flavor components in you stock, for example. Some things will still cook out at roughly the same rate, while others will take a lot longer at the lower temperature. I'd guess that increasing cooking times by about 50% is a good place to start, but you may find that's too little or too much, or even that the result in some recipes just isn't right. (Sometimes boiling for too long alters flavors or textures in undesirable ways, so the fast cook in a high-pressure pot may be okay, but a slower longer cook may end up with just a boiled "overcooked" result.)
Excellent, thanks for the link. I will get my PC repaired next week, just needed to cook a few things this weekend that I'd already bought the ingredients for.
There's actually very little difference in cooking times between 15 and 12 psi. So if you get that mode working again, you would only need to make small adjustments.
Here is a pressure cooking time table by PSI (use the cooking times in the "Electric Pressure Cooker 10-12 PSI" column even if your pressure cooker is stovetop) in the chart here - as you can see the difference is a matter of minutes for most foods.
As for the conversion between "high" and "low" pressure cooking times it's pretty easy.
High Pressure cooks foods three times as fast as conventional cooking
Low Pressure (your psi) cooks food twice as fast as conventional cooking
So, just multiply the given pressure cooking time x3 and then divide it in half. For example, Modernist Cuisine's' 12psi for 90 minutes would be equivalent of 270 minutes (90x3) of conventional no-pressure cooking time. The low pressure cooking time equivalent is 135 minutes (270/2).
So to figure out the cooking time at "low pressure" for a "high pressure" increase the recommended time by 50% or just multiply the high pressure cooking time by 1.5.
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74510 | What can cause honey to crystalize quickly?
Yesterday I opened a sealed jar of raw honey (blackberry). Over the course of a not-very-long meal (at which the honey was being used as a condiment) I watched it go from liquid to crystalized. I've had honey crystalize after having been opened for weeks or months, but I've never seen it happen in a matter of minutes before. Googling led to lots of explanations and rebuttals about why raw honey crystalizes slowly, but I found nothing that addressed what I saw.
I store my honey in an interior pantry cabinet, so it's at room temperature -- lately around 65-70F. (I specify interior because I've found that storing it in cabinets on exterior walls leads to faster crystallization, presumably due to winter cold seeping through the wall.) I have another unopened jar of this honey in that cabinet right now and would prefer to not have it immediately crystalize when I open it. I understand that crystallization isn't bad, but liquid works better for many uses. So I'd like to understand what happened and what I need to change to get a different outcome.
You can always warm honey to re-liquefy it. You should probably only warm what you're going to use immediately though. Deliberately crystallised honey is made by stirring in crystallised honey. So if you had a few crystals around the top of the jar, and stirred as you spooned it out, you could have replicated this process
@ChrisH thanks; I did not know that about stirring. While I wasn't aggressively stirring, I was spooning the honey out of the jar (not pouring).
Crystallization involves two stages: nucleation (the formation of the crystals, either spontaneously, influenced by solids like the walls of the container or a foreign substance, or influenced by existing crystals) and growth (where the size of crystals increases from microscopic).
Nucleation is most likely to occur when there are impurities in the honey around which crystals can form, or there are existing crystals of honey (which may be very small). Impurities could be introduced from the air or more likely on a spoon or stirrer, and existing crystals can easily form on the walls of the container or at the opening. Stirring brings these into contact with more of the rest of the honey, enabling more nucleation to take place.
As for the growth rate, my instinct is that this will depend in a complicated way on factors like the specific composition of the honey, the temperature, air pressure and perhaps even humidity of the surrounding air. In your case, it seems that the conditions were perfect for secondary nucleation and crystal growth, so as soon as an initial crystal appeared the whole jar quickly crystallized (similarly to how supercooled water will freeze suddenly when nucleation is triggered).
In terms of your second jar of honey, all I can recommend is:
make sure you use a clean utensil (preferably made of something with a smooth surface like metal rather than wood)
try not to let honey that you have spooned out rejoin the rest of the honey in the jar (in particular, if your spoon has been sitting out of the jar don't put it back in)
insofar as you have control over the temperature, don't do the whole exercise while the honey is especially cold
if you do notice any crystallized/dried honey around the rim of the jar, clean it off with a damp cloth rather than let it mix with the liquid honey
It's also worth saying you can get crystallized honey back to a liquid state by heating gently (I use a microwave for short bursts; be careful as it can get very hot and remains sticky – you do not want to get it on you!); because of the residual crystals on the container it tends to crystallize again within a few days but it's useful when you need it.
I should say, I'm answering the question as initially posed even though presumably we're nearly five years late for the second jar of honey!
Raw honey crystallizes quicker than processed honey. Also the type of honey, where the bees collect their nectar, determines how quick it will crystallize. Re heating carefully is fine, but honey will no longer be raw.
What sets the crystallization in motion -- opening the seal, stirring (as suggested in a comment), something else? If I don't want the next jar to insta-crystalize, what should I do differently?
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116852 | Can I freeze cinnamon buns in unbaked roll form
We’re traveling with friends and wanted to make cinnamon buns. I feel the most convenient approach would be to freeze the entire roll, then cut it while frozen when we arrive, then letting it rise. However nobody seems to take this approach when I researched the question. Typically you cut it then freeze, or parbake.
I’ve never tried, so can’t comment if it’ll work…. But I know that frozen dough is very hard. It’s likely going to be very difficult to cut when frozen. You might even end up chipping bits off more than actually cutting it
You can certainly freeze it in roll form, but it will be virtually impossible to cut while still frozen*. You'd need to completely thaw the roll in the refrigerator, slice, and then rise in a pan.
It would be far easier to slice and freeze. You can always reassemble the roll with the slices separated by parchment paper if you want to transport it as a roll. You can then separate them and they will thaw faster and rise more evenly.
I personally prefer to transport it as a tray (I use aluminum trays when I do this because I often make and freeze several trays at a time) so I can just pull it from the freezer and then let thaw, rise and bake. They pack more efficiently as well.
*They do this in some commercial settings, but it requires industrial power tools (usually bandsaws made for cutting through bone)
Thanks, I love the idea of cutting it then separating the slices with parchment paper. We’re traveling with bags and a dog in a car so I think we’ll need to stick it in a small cooler to protect it.
This is exactly right. Locally, french-style croissants are sold uncooked and frozen like this - you put them on an oven tray overnight to thaw and then they rise to ~4x their frozen size, ready for baking in the morning.
You can even buy croissants sold frozen, ready to rise overnight and bake in the morning: https://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/croissant/?pkey=cgalaxy%20classic%20croissants
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121782 | Do stocks made with less water lack the same flavor as a stock made with lots of water?
I am interested in knowing whether there is a difference in flavor between a stock made in a small pot, with just enough room to cover the ingredients, vs a large pot with the same amount of ingredients and double (or more) water. For the sake of comparability, they cook for the same amount of time, same heat, same yield (adding water to the smaller pot as it evaporates, but not doing so for the larger pot).
if they cook the same time, the pot with more water will be more diluted.
@Max even if the yield is the same?
I would expect the water to extract the same quantity of flavour compounds from the ingredients, if it is simmered for the same time at the same temperature. If the amount of water was very small it might extract less, but if there is enough water to cover the ingredients then additional water won't extract more.
My reasoning (armchair speculation, not experimental evidence) is that the difference in concentration between the ingredients and stock (however strong it is) is so big that changing the amount of water wouldn't make much of a difference to the extraction. As heuristic evidence, I've heard of chefs using a pressure cooker and lots of time to make better stock, but I've never heard of someone advising a huge amount of water, or to change the water half-way through in order to extract more flavour compounds, which is what I'd expect high-end chefs to do if that worked.
Therefore, the stock with double the water will be more dilute than the stock with less water: the flavour will be less strong because the same quantity of flavour compounds will be spread across a greater volume. You can concentrate it more by allowing water to evaporate over time depending on the strength you want at the end.
I've always wondered if evaporation occurs to water AND some of the extracted flavors (therefore losing some flavors with the evaporation). If so, wouldn't it be better to add the correct amount (or less) of water, put a lid, and add more if needed? Not only for stocks but also stews? In my head, it will cook better and have more flavor as less water is used and there is more concentration of heat and flavors.
@M.K I think there probably is some loss of flavour as volatile compounds float away with the steam, and I've always seen it advised to use a lid when making stock. Having said that, I think stock generally focuses on the flavours that survive long simmering; the flavours that are more volatile are best added at the end (think of fresh herbs for example) anyway.
The less water you use the more concentrated the flavor of the stock. Adding lots of water doesn't extract more flavor from the ingredients, it just dilutes it.
If you add too much water to the pot you'll have to cook it down much more to concentrate it, there's two effects to this:
It will waste energy, therefore money and be bad for the environment
The extra cooking time will cause a loss of flavor. The longer you expose it to heat the more volatile organic compounds will break down or evaporate
So, use only the amount of water you need.
Have you tried this experimentally? Your statement, "Adding lots of water doesn't extract more flavor from the ingredients" contradicts the chemistry of extraction processes - more water always extracts more "stuff". I don't actually know what the final result is in practice, so do you have observations or sources to confirm that the final effect in stock is not better with more water and then concentrating?
All things being equal, I'd guess that concentrating a stock down from a dilute base would extract more of whatever you're trying to get out of whatever is supplying your flavour - compounds will leave down a concentration gradient, so a dilute stock will provide a greater "pull" out of the chicken carcass or whatever you're using. That may not be worth the extra work, and depends on how thermo stable whatever you're trying to extract is.
@lupe and rumtscho yes, you both have identified the essence of my question. It is not about yield but about the pull/extraction process of a dilute medium vs a concentrated one.
@AlexMA My instinct (hence my answer) is that the difference in concentration between the ingredients and stock is so big that changing the amount of water can't make much of a difference to the extraction. As heuristic evidence, I've heard of chefs using a pressure cooker and lots of time to make better stock, but I've never heard of someone advising a huge amount of water, or to change the water half-way through in order to extract more flavour compounds, which is what I'd expect high-end chefs to do if that worked.
@dbmag9 thanks. if you're inclined, I would suggest folding this comment into your answer and suggesting the pressure cooker method as well. That would result in a comprehensive answer. The evidence you shared (what high-end chefs do) is also highly relevant.
@AlexMA I've done so.
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37692 | How to dethaw multiple pieces of steak when not planning to use them all at once
I had bought six pieces of steak and forgot to refrigerate them. They were in a bag overnight and the next morning when I realized what had happened I quickly put them all in the freezer. They are not individually wrapped. How can I thaw one out and leave the rest frozen? Or should I thaw them all out and keep them in the refrigerator and eat them over the next several days?
If you left them overnight at room temperature, you probably should not eat them at all. I know that is not something you want to hear, especially for steak, which can be very expensive. See: http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/34670/how-do-i-know-if-food-left-at-room-temperature-is-still-safe-to-eat
Under no circumstances should you eat these. Two hours is the limit for leaving raw meat at room temperature. Some may decide that they can tolerate some risk and stretch it to 3-4 hours, but overnight is just beyond the pale. There is no way they are still safe to eat.
@Aaronut What temperature was it over night in B.C.? Temp and time just increase the risk, they do not by themselves make food unsafe. In many cultures people hang meat to age at 'room' temperature without issue. Sure cut meat has even more chance of bacterial exposure, but they were in a closed container. To say "there is no way" is a little over the top
@TFD: They don't hang meat raw, it's cured. And it's also not room temperature, it's in a special cold-room. And it's also not small cuts, it's entire animals (small cuts are always put in a refrigerated, insulated "hot box" for aging). It's never safe to leave raw meat at room temperature for that long.
@Aaronut, yes in modern over-processed cultures they cure it, many traditional cultures do not, and survived fine. For comparison a similar climate to B.C. is Mongolia, they open air cure "Borts" (cattle and sheep) in the Autumn months
In your specific case I wouldn't eat them after being left unrefrigerated all night due to safety concerns.
However if I've frozen steak safely and later decided that I want single portion I've found found that a cold chisel normally used for metalworking does a good job of seperating them without defrosting the whole lot. The following image from Wikipedia illustrates what they look like:
I place the meat on a wooden cutting board on it's edge, press the chisel in between where the steaks are joined and give it a quick strike with a hammer. I've tried doing the same with a meat cleaver but the narrow edge on the chisel seems much easier and more effective.
Presumably the steel used may not be food grade in the usual sense but being tempered I can't see any realistic chance of anything nasty being transferred to the meat, assuming it's clean of course.
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35515 | When cooking meats such as pork chops in a toaster oven, is it better to use butter or some type of oil to coat the pan?
I often use a toaster oven where I line the tray with aluminum foil and coat it in something so the food doesn't stick. Is a difference between using butter or olive oil or some other type of oil to prevent the meat from sticking and make it taste rich?
Also depends on how hot your toaster oven gets. Butter burns at 350 F, most oils dont burn until at least 400 F.
Heres a list of temperatures at which different oils burn http://whatscookingamerica.net/Information/CookingOilTypes.htm
Usually Ill start with oil and add some butter towards the end for flavor if Im cooking on a high heat.
The choice of oil or butter is entirely based on your preference for flavor, and how how want the pork chops to come out.
With some seasonings like Southwestern seasonings, you might choose an oil. With others, for example if you were planning a french sauce with shallots and mustard, you might go with the butter.
Butter will have a very slightly greater tendency to stick, but it is probably not worth worrying about.
This has nothing to do with the toaster oven, by the way.
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62723 | How to tell when bacon is cooked enough?
I've been experimenting cooking bacon on the George Foreman grill. I'm trying it out a little less cooked and was wondering, how do I know if it's cooked enough to be safe to eat? Recently I've tried coating the bacon in maple syrup and it really makes it difficult to see when the bacon starts to brown.
The general guidance is to cook it until it is crisp. (USDA)
Recipes for maple candied bacon call for cooking the bacon until it is more than half done (edges will be curling, bacon will begin browning), adding the syrup, then finishing it. The sugars may over-caramelize otherwise. Bacon cooked this way is described as "golden brown" when done. The total time will be longer than non-maple bacon because the syrup will cool the bacon.
This is a possible duplicate of this question. The accepted answer is that, if bacon is properly cured, it is safe to eat raw.
Bacon cooks to safe very quickly. Once it's opaque it is safe to eat.
Raw bacon is itself pretty low risk, provided it has been properly cured. Even if it wasn't cooked through, you are unlikely to come to harm.
The Maillard reaction happens around 140°C/284°F, which is much higher than any bacteria, which can be found under reasonable circumstances, will survive. (There are some deep ocean bacteria that might survive, but no idea how they would get onto your bacon.)
The bacon I assume is a thin slice of bacon. These are usually around 1/32 inch thick. A 1-inch steak well-done (76°C/169°F) takes 8-10 minutes. Your thin slice of bacon will have a safe temperature after a minute for sure therefore and this will be way before it gets brown.
The benefit of the George Foreman grill is that it's a stable temperature every time, unlike a coal grill. Just measure the time for your bacon without maple syrup - you will need the same time with maple syrup. The bacon is too thin to store much heat and so there is not much thermal energy lost.
Maillard reactions can happen at lower temperatures; it just takes longer. (It even happens very slowly at room temperature, which is one reason why old canned goods turn brown.) It's not relevant to this question, but I frequently cook bacon in a 250F oven for a few hours, and it browns nicely after a while.
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73009 | Started thawing but can't finish cooking meat: Time Sensitive
I took a large pack of ground beef out of the freezer and it has been in the fridge for no more than 10 hours. There are still ice crystals on the meat. I'm on call and turns out I won't have the opportunity to cook it until next week (the works in another city). I guess I have two options
put the meat back in the freezer and refreeze
thaw out the meat, quickly cook it, and put the left overs in the fridge.
Any advice?
Hi, the question was closed for a bit as a duplicate, but something kept gnawing at me. Then I realized that you were not asking for simply the safety of refreezing but for the choice between the two. So reopened - sorry for the mistake. Anyway, see http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/42968/rules-for-refreezing-food and similar questions about refreezing, and of course http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/21068/how-long-can-i-store-a-food-in-the-pantry-refrigerator-or-freezer for storing the leftovers in the fridge.
I'll offer a third option :
Cook the meat, then freeze it.
Holding it in the fridge for a week can be questionable, although there are some things that you can do to reduce the risk (eg, sterilizing the containers first, and pouring the fat on top to form a seal over the meat).
You can hold cooked meat in casseroles for quite some time longer than meat on its own; I suspect it's the other added moisture which helps to prevent freezer burn.
As such, I'd brown it, then moisten it with a can or two of crushed tomatoes (as it's something that I have on hand, and it leaves the meat so it could be turned into chili, a pasta sauce, or other things), then portion it out to reasonable sizes based on possible uses, and freeze those.
It's better if you can let it cool off before freezing, but if it's in smaller containers, you don't have as much of a problem with the center staying hot for too long. I've frozen chili and soups by laying them in gallon zip-top bags on a sheet pan, and putting that in the fridge. (2 bags per 1/2 sheet ... but I had a larger freezer back then)
+1 for cook and refreeze. It's the best option that will preserve both quality and safety.
I would highly advise against re-freezing, for safety reasons. However, I cook and then refrigerate or freeze the cooked meat on a regular basis without any problems.
If you are refrigerating the meat, it is best to use it within two days.
If you are freezing the cooked meat, remember that it has a lower moisture content than fresh meat and will freezer burn more easily. I pack it firmly into snap-lid glass dishes, right to the top of the container so there is little to no air. Then it keeps in the freezer for six months without any damage.
To very quickly thaw any kind of meat place it in a bowl that is JUST high enough to cover it in water; ground beef will need a zip lock or something to keep it from doing bad things in the water. Place the bowl with your meat under your faucet, fill it with water, then reduce water flow to a a pencil thin stream. This will defrost your meat within a few minutes as the water is a much, much better conductor of heat.
Remember, if you put the meat in the water without any kind of protection the flavor and texture may change. However, the more you put between the water and meat the longer it will take to defrost.
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75352 | What does it mean for a menu to be a "set menu"?
I hope this question isn't too off topic. What does it mean for a restaurant to have a "set menu"? The one I have in mine has three headings wit the descriptions: "starters...assortment as brought to the table to share family style"; "mains...each guest will chose their own"; "desert"...assortment as brought to the table to share family style". How does this work? I'm guessing it means you choose one from each category, and no matter your selection the price is the same? What does the part about family style or choose your own mean?
Collins dictionary gives a nice definition for a set menu:
A complete meal in a restaurant or café for a stated price with a limited number of options to choose from for each course [...]
The different serving options are
family style:
Like you would probably serve food at the family dinner table: every component in its own serving bowl or platter, to be passed round amongst the diners. In a restaurant, often a nice platter of various dishes to be shared.
individually plated:
This is what you are probably expect first when dining in a restaurant - each diner gets his or her choosen dish on his or her own plate.
So for your case:
For n diners you build a menu out of n appetizers or starters that get served on one (or a few) platter(s) and is then shared. Of course you can choose n different options or stick to larger quantities of fewer choices.
The main dish comes on n individual plates according to each participant's order and the dessert is again n servings of whatever you pick, like for starters.
And yes, if that is described a set menu, you'll pay a fixed price per person, unless some options are marked with an extra charge, but that would have to be stated clearly on the menu.
You can of course build a menu à la carte instead, then you pick the individual dishes from the à la carte menu - these have individual prices that make up the total cost of the meal.
This sounds like a UK restaurant from the terminology in which case a set menu is a fixed-price number of courses with either no choices or a few options. A starter is an appetizer, and in this case it's a platter for the entire table to share. Mains is the main course, and you will have a choice of 2-3 options typically, then dessert is another shared platter.
The term menu is used different ways in different places. In France a menu is a fixed price list of what is being served in what order, the menu is set in other words. Ordering a la carte means you are ordering dishes off the set menu on offer. In most english speaking countries a menu is the list of food that can be ordered in a restaurant, some restaurants offer a set menu or a prix fixe (fixed price) menu which is the same thing as french menu.
This is what I red when searched it, but don't understand. Aren't all menus fixed price?
See my edits @Celeritas, I hope that explains it.
@Celeritas It means that you are ordering a complete set, and cannot pick which courses you get. In a normal situation, you can get 3 appetizers if that's what you want. In prix fixe, you get one of each course listed.
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64065 | Add spice then oil, or oil then spice?
When I'm cooking chicken, steak or fish, I normally sprinkle on the spices first and then add the oil. Is this the right order, or would it be better to add the oil and then the spices? Also, does it make a difference if I rub in the spices as opposed to just sprinkle it on? What I'm aiming for is to try and have the spices stay on and not get rinsed off from the oil, or the juice seeping out of the meat.
I noticed some recipes actually say to add the oil onto the chicken. Does it matter if the oil is added to the meat or the pan? If relevant I usually use extra virgin olive oil and grape seed oil.
Well, this is rather complex. Let me break it down in two parts:
Oil on the meat vs. oil in the pan
There are two advantages to oiling your meat instead of pouring oil in the pan: Less splattering and typically less oil used overall.
But keep in mind which oils you use: For frying / searing you want something with a high smoke point. Leave your extra virgin for cold or only slightly warm uses.
Oil or spices first
Your meat should be dry before you put it in the hot pan or you will end up with possibly painful splatters, or at least a lot of extra cleanup (see 1.). So you should always dry your meat, e.g. with paper towels. This will mean your spices are less likely to stick to the surface. If time permits, consider placing the meat on a rack in a breezy area to allow it to form a pellicle for at least a half hour. Oiling the meat before applying the rub helps the spices to adhere better, rubbing them in or just sprinkling doesn't make much of a difference.
One important element is to differentiate salt from other spices. Salt (and to a much lesser extent sugar) will do two things that other spices won't: (1) it will penetrate more deeply into the meat, and (2) it will cause the surface to moisten temporarily before that moisture is reabsorbed.
If you want salt to penetrate the meat, you should apply it well in advance and without oil. Oil will make it take longer for the salt to be absorbed (and thus it may not penetrate as deeply). And salting in advance (preferably at least an hour ahead of time) will allow the surface moisture to be reabsorbed before cooking, avoiding splatter and "steaming" effects that will inhibit browning and flavor reactions.
For the remainder of the spices/herbs, timing and order doesn't matter as much; larger flavor molecules won't penetrate very deeply. Usually oil is used to help them stick, which mostly happens by moistening the spices/herbs. So it doesn't really matter much whether you put the spices or oil first, or whether you mix them together and make a paste that you then apply to the meat. (Some people use mustard, some other sauce, or even water to help the spices adhere.) The main time it can make a little difference is if you have spices in a fine powdered form that will clump together when mixed with oil. In this case, it often makes sense to rub them on the dry meat first to spread them evenly. Conversely, very large pieces of herbs or whole seeds/peppercorns may not adhere well to dry meat, so moistening the surface first could have an advantage.
Since your goal is to keep the spices on, rubbing will be more effective than sprinkling, again particularly with fine or powdered spices. The surface of meat is generally full of small uneven areas, and rubbing can push those spices into any small fissures or holes (where they're less likely to fall off). This is less important with larger pieces of herbs, whole seeds/peppercorns, etc., but you'll generally expect a lot of those to fall off during cooking anyway.
As for oiling the meat vs. oil in the pan, the main advantage to oiling the meat is when applying spices to create better adhesion. If you're not putting on spices, you don't need the "adhesive" oil on the meat. Some claim that you'll get a better crust when searing by oiling the meat, though if that's your goal, getting a better crust is even easier by using more oil in the pan. I'd also say that whether you'll use less oil or not depends on whether you're using a non-stick pan. For a standard stainless pan (or other pan that is NOT non-stick), some oil in the pan is going to be necessary to prevent sticking anyway. And in that case, oil in the pan is going to help any spices/herbs from sticking too (and coming off the meat), more so than the oil on the meat.
I heard salt and pepper aren't spices but sensations.
@Celeritas - I'm not sure what you mean by that. Regardless of what you call it, many people tend to add salt as part of a rub or a spice mixture, which is why I mentioned it.
Another take on this: this method works well for Indian curries, where you may have larger spices like clove, cardamom, peppercorns, that you don't want to end up in the dish. Heat the spices in a pan to release the volatile aromatics, then add oil to spread the flavor, remove the larger spices and then cook the vegetables, meat. etc.
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18036 | Preserving dehydrated fruits and vegs
We bought a food dehydrator to make dog treats with. Primarily we're dehydrating yams, apples and bananas. I'm not dehydrating these to crisps because I didn't think I needed to. The dehydrated yams that we buy as dog treats are still pliable and leathery, so I didn't think I needed to dehydrate them totally dry.
The problem I'm having is that these treats are going moldy in about 4 days. Again, the treats we buy never go moldy. I'm assuming they're adding something to the commercial version to stop this.
Does anyone have some hints on what I'm doing wrong or any idea what the commercial brand is putting on them to stop this. The apples seem to be the slimiest first... Should I be drying the apples to crisps?
I feel for your poor dog.
Have you ever given a beagle dehydrated yams? Our dog park has an office counter that has dog treats at dog eye-level. There are various meat by products, ears, hooves, bully sticks, etc... He always lunges for the crinkle cut dehydrated yams! Always!
That's interesting. They do have a lot of sugar in them and they're a lot cheaper than meat sources. I don't have a beagle but I'll have to see if my dog likes them.
yeah, we were suprised he prefered yams over dehydrated chicken or whatever also... Also we try to give him carrots and yams as he is prone to pack on the weight :) (We don't bother to dehydrate the carrots)
You get mold (and less visibly, bacteria) growth after 4-5 days because your water (humidity) content left in the deyhdrated food is greater than 5%. Typically dried apples (and other types of fiberous dried fruit) have humidity levels closer to 20% when you don't dry them to a crisp. That means the treats you make aren't shelf stable, but luckily this can be fixed with some experimentation.
Each food has it's own requirements for preservation. Here are some quick guidelines to try out on apples. For yams and bananas, I would try dehydrating them a bit more closer to being crisps.
Steps:
Wash fruits thoroughly before dehydrating. I don't do this, but you could try using a "fruit wash" (product for washing fruit).
Dehydrating isn't sterilization - the dehydrator isn't hot enough to sterilize the food, so some of these 'nasties' are left on there and waiting for their chance to grow. Commercial-grade food is always sterilized. Because a dehydrater isn't sealed well, I suggest you nuke the treats in your oven for 5-10 minutes on high heat AFTER you dehydrate the stuff, experimenting to make sure you don't dry them out too much in the oven. Also, be careful because the sugar is concentrated in dehydrated fruit, so it will burn easily. Wrapping the fruit in tin-foil before placing it in your oven is a potential trick because this effectively sterilizes the fruit in a steam bath. If you use foil, you'll need to cook them longer - start with 15 minutes.
After the treats are dehydrated and sterilized, try storing them in air-tight containers and always away from light in a cool/dark place. They need 7-10 days to "equilize" the moisture between each dried piece of fruit. Make sure to shake the containers every once in a while so they don't all stick together.
BEYOND THIS, there are more advanced techniques that you can easily try - including conditioning the dried fruits and a number of fruit-baths that preserve the fruits with harmless chemical solutions, like Ascorbic Acid (vitamin C). Try reading more on this link from UC Davis:
http://homeorchard.ucdavis.edu/8229.pdf
(Start Reading on Page 7).
That is just an awesome answer!
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28314 | Cream puff shell shaping
I am trying to figure out the best way to shape my cream puff shells into a volcano shape for baking. Any suggestions?
Thanks!
Welcome @Wendy! Have you made cream puffs before?
Sorry, this may be a language issue, but what are your shells made of? Pate a choux, puff pastry, something else?
My mother used a large cake decorating sleeve for her pastries. She would squirt out a mound, and then cut the middle out after it was finished baking.
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28523 | Stewing beef - how long is too long?
From what I understand, the cooking process melts the collagen, turning it into gelatin and making the meat more tender. However, the process also tends to cook the meat itself, making it tougher. So too long or too high and the stewing beef is too tough.
How long is too long? Say in a slow cooker on high, where is the inflection point where the meat stops getting more tender and start to get tougher? I googled the crap out of this but haven't found an answer?
If the piece of beef doesn't fit your largest suitable pot - IT IS TOO LONG.
@rackandboneman I think OP is asking about lenght of time, not lenght of the piece of meat - unless this is a joke and I'm not getting it
Yes, this is a joke.
I'm going to assume that you are covering your meat with liquid, because if you aren't that's the problem. Collagen needs heat plus water to break down, if you don't have liquid it will turn tough as old leather.
There is no point where meat gets tougher when being slow cooked, what happens first is that the collagen breaks down, then the proteins start to denature. Generally once the collagen is all broken down is the ideal time to take it out, any longer and the meat itself starts to break down.
Things to remember:
How long it takes for meat to get tender in a braise or slow cook method depends on the size of the cut, thickness of the cut, and the amount of collagen in it. Working cuts like chuck, rump, neck, shin, etc have lots of collagen and need a longer slow cook to break it all down. They also have more flavor. Non-working cuts like filet, sirloin, etc would need much less time, but to be honest you're wasting good money slow cooking cuts like that, roast them instead of grill them as steak! Bigger cuts and thicker cuts will need a longer slow cook as well as it takes longer for the heat and the moisture to get to the center
Some meat will never get tender no matter how you cook them. Low-quality, poorly processed meat that has been frozen and then quick-thawed is likely to be tough as old leather no matter how lovingly you treat it in the pan. It's the GIGO principle, Garbage in-Garbage out, you can't make bad meat good with technique. So it may not be that your meat toughened up after slow cooking, it may be that it never had the potential to be tender in the first place!
Moisture is critical with working cuts as it breaks down collagen, in a slow cooker the meat must be completely submerged in liquid. In the oven it's important to have a lid on your braising dish, or at least tin foil.
if the pot is covered, don't the vapors above the liquid break down the collagen? as per http://www.seriouseats.com/2013/09/ask-the-food-lab-how-much-liquid-braising.html
Vapor alone isn't enough. You couldn't steam meat and get the same results. You need to have the meat have some contact with the liquid, generally 1/3 to 1/2 way up the meat is fine. I shouldn't have said cover, that's too much depending on the sauce you want. If you cover it then that may be too much liquid and you'll get a thin sauce.
Based on this recommendation, I tried using less liquid, and turning the heat up a little higher than I have been. The result was spectacular. First of all, there was plenty of liquid to soften up the mean, but more importantly, the liquid cooked down better, and I had a thicker, more intense sauce after the braising.
Great @rbp, glad you got good results!
What's the function of the liquid? Slow cooking in sous vide is effective at breaking down collagen and there's no extra liquid apart from what's released from the meat
@Tom, with sous vide the bag keeps all the liquid given off by the meat in place, even a relatively dry cut will have plenty of liquid for collagen breakdown because there's nowhere for it to go. If you put the same in a pot with a lid the liquid will pool out and vaporize, you won't have enough in contact to break down the collagen.
You have some good answers here. I would suggest the following.
Always have plenty of liquid for slow cooking any meat. You can ensure this by cooking in a covered pot/wrapping in foil if in the oven or keeping the lid on for a slow cooker. Placing you meat on vegetables such as carrot or onion will add flavour and moisture. Look at it after an hour or so to make sure its not drying out and top up if required.
Secondly choose your meat - hard working muscles will develop more fibre so need slow cooking to break then down but that will also release the flavours. Cook slowly at lower temperatures 120 c for 4 hours or so for a regular family sized joint (longer for a larger item). Then for a further hour finish uncovered in a hot oven which will brown/crisp the outside. Test meat with a fork for tenderness so you don't over cook/dry it out. Let your meat stand/rest for at least 30 minutes before carving - it will absorb moisture back in making for better eating.
Hope this helps
There is a good guide to the different joints of beef and cooking methods here
I use a slow cooker to cook beef all the time. The general rule of thumb is that a high temp setting usually finishes cooking the contents in 4 about hours, a low temp setting is usually finished in about 8 hours. I've never had an issue with beef becoming tough in a slow cooker. Usually quite the opposite, it's so tender it falls apart.
In the oven, you can also slow cook beef, or any other meat for that matter, by adding a liquid (water, broth, beer, or wine), covering the pan with a lid or foil, and setting the temp to 225 fahrenheit (107 celsius).
Which ever method you choose, turn the meat every half hour to keep the top from getting too dry.
I've also found that if you pan sear the meat before cooking it locks in the moisture for a more flavorful meat.
Hope this helps :)
Cooking meat does not make it tough, it gets more tender.
Meat does get dry at higher temperatures, time does not matter that much.
The higher the temperature the more moisture is squeezed out of the meat making it more dry, I guess that it what you describe as tough.
See Baldwins write up at http://www.douglasbaldwin.com/sous-vide.html#Effects_of_Heat_on_Meat it looks like the moisture loss increases most at 60-65C/140-150F. A slow cooker have much higher temperature than this.
This is also a good answer http://www.douglasbaldwin.com/sous-vide.html#Tough_Meat, i.e. 100 hours is not to long!
I have cooked boneless short ribs sous vide at 130 degrees for 72 hours and it is extremely tender but not too mushy. At 140 degrees, 72 hours of cooking makes the boneless short ribs mushy, but 24 hours was not quite tender enough. More experimentation is needed to develop this texture curve, and it will likely be heavily dependent on the starting cut of meat as others have pointed out.
I just don't think this is true with the leanest meat.
I would like to politely disagree with the "cover w/ liquids" camp. No liquid is required to slow cook a beef chuck roast. Even if you are using it to make stew, as it will make it's own liquid. You can even short-cut and skip the searing (gasp) if you are so inclined. I grease crock lightly and slow cook two small grass-fed chuck roasts (2.5 lbs each) side by side in a Hamilton oval "travel" slow cooker. The lid has a thermometer hole and a plastic seal that I dislike, so I cover w a silpat silicone baking mat, lock the lid down & set on low for 7.5 hrs. Season, but do not salt. Disregard advice to turn meat periodically unless you are prepared to add additional hours of cook time. Taking the lid off defeats the purpose of using a slow cooker in my experience. Look for finely marbled cuts for best texture and flavor-you can always discard the fat. If you are using grass-fed, hormone-free, steroid-free beef ingesting some of the fat is good for you. Sorry, but there is no one size fits all answer about a specific time before which or after which any cut of roast is tender. Slow cookers are variable. Your cut, the cows's diet-all variable.
I disagree with the comment that the slow cooker does not dry out meats. I have to slow cook meat to breakdown the fibre due to digestive issues and both the sirloin and chuck cooked in a fair amount of water w salt after 7-8 hours on low have dried out the meat completely. This week I decided to slow cook each steak for 6 hours and the meat was completely tender. Big difference. And there is w a longer cooking time.
I am cooking a roast right now on the stove. I seared it with onions, garlic, oregano and olive oil however I made the mistake of not completely submerging it in liquid, I just added a bit of stock at the bottem. I figured the steam will be enough liquid to cook and still be soft, I was afraid more water would take away flavor but it doesnt if spiced correctly. After I sampled the roast it was tough so I decided to add water to the beef stock so now it is completely submerged on a low temp and the good news is, it is softening up. It needs to be surrounded by water to break down the fibers of the meat, steam is not enough on its own. I never had a problem over cooking the meat, its only tough if its not surrounded by mosture, thats the difference between pot roast and roast beef. Beer and wine are amazing at tenderizing meat and cook slow if not in a rush. I would have used a crock pot which comes out perfect every time but my husband was hungry.
Hello, and welcome to Stack Exchange. While interesting, this does not answer the original question.
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22986 | Should I add flour to dough if I already weighed the amount?
I am using this recipe for pizza dough, and I received some seasoned advice from other members of this site to use a precise kitchen scale for weighing the flour and water. The question is, if I already precisely measured for weight ie 1LB flour and 11 oz water - do I forgo following the direction to add more flour as needed?
As you knead, add more flour or water as needed to produce a ball of dough that is smooth, supple, and fairly tacky but not sticky.
@rumtscho - Sounds like a great answer! Convert from comment to answer please!
@dpolllitt done. Glad you liked it so much, it felt a bit "not deep enough" to me.
Once you have learned to recognize good dough consistency by feel, you might decide to add more flour. This is because even when you weigh, your texture can be influenced by small changes in the gluten content in your brand and batch of flour (it is a natural product after all, and the difference between 11 and 11.5% is already noticeable) and by the humidity of your storage room. Before you have learned to recognize the perfect texture by feel, only use additional flour to prevent sticking to utensils, unless it feels terribly wet and flows everywhere (but then you probably measured wrong).
You will need to add some flour, but not for the dough itself. It's for you.
Keep some flour on hand. You'll always need some to flour your surface, hands, rolling pin (for other ends) etc. This pizza dough is quite wet, so it's also quite sticky. To knead easily, a bit of flour on the outside can help you.
You won't need a lot, just a bit to ease the labour.
This is usual practice, but it isn't absolutely necessary. With enough kneading, even the wettest dough will stop sticking. The problem is that with small batches, dough can easily swallow up to 15% more flour just from dusting. So I knead on a silicone mat or in my hands and live with the stickiness until there is enough gluten to pull it together. Afterwards, it doesn't need flouring for the rolling pin. Bottom line: do whatever is easier for you, both ways work.
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28614 | How do I add guar gum when making ice cream?
My ice cream is great tasting but it gets very hard over time and has a lot of ice crystals. I realize that I have to freeze it faster to reduce the size of the ice crystals but it was suggested to me to use guar gum to help. I tried adding it but it clumped up (like gum not surprisingly, lol) so do I have to put in a little boiling milk to dissolve it or how should I add it next time? The ice cream was a little stringy or syrupy after adding it to the ice cream. Did I add too much? I used a tsp of guar gum for a home size Hamilton Beach ice cream maker. I am allergic to corn so I can't use xanthum gum unless I can find a corn free source. I'm hoping that I can get the guar gum to work.
related: http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/27545/softening-ice-cream-with-guar-gum
Also I doubt speed of freezing is your main problem - usually icy homemade ice cream is just because you have too little fat and sugar in your recipe. Compensating with guar gum should work though, up to a point. So does keeping it in a warmer part of the freezer like the door.
Where are people getting the idea that Xanthan gum comes from corn?It does not. It is harvested from bacteria (Xanthomonas campestris).
If you are using a cook-up custard to start with, your custard will thicken but will also get ropy or the term is snotty when you pour a spoonful out as you stir. That is definitely a good way to tell if you are using too much Xanthan gum so you need to cut your amount down. You sometimes see that effect in cheap, fat free salad dressings.
It takes less gum than a starch because a gum holds much, much more water than a starch. Where you might use a tablespoonful of cornstarch, you would only use maybe 1/8 teaspoon of gum and that might be a little too much. Gums go into liquid if they are mixed with other dry ingredients or they have heat treated to dissolve instantly. Those are usually only sold commercially so you would not be able to buy them on the internet.
My husband makes a "to die for" cooked vanilla and chocolate custard and freezes it. But it is as hard as a rock after freezing. I am still working on him to let me modify the formula to give us softer (not soft-serve) ice cream. I have a masters in food science but I am going to have to make a separate batch to prove it to him. To most people, anything other than flour or corn starch to thicken must be a chemical. Hope that helps.
The question asked about guar gum, not xantham gum.
@SAJ14SAJ The question included the claim that the OP couldn't use xantham gum because of a corn allergy. Explaining that it doesn't actually have anything to do with corn seems pertinent. The rest of the advice applies to guar gum as well as xantham gum, seems like, so I think this is still an answer.
Janet, we do prefer answers to be focused on, well, answering the question; the last paragraph doesn't really address the question, especially since the OP is clearly perfectly happy to use these kinds of ingredients.
Xanthan gum is the distilled bacteria grown on a carbohydrate source, this is often wheat or corn sourced, so those whom are very sensitive or extreme celiac should avoid as it will have slight contamination. The amount of contamination of course will be very small considering how little Xanthan gum is used in the first place
A teaspoon is too much. Most recipes I have seen make about 750g ice cream base. That's 0.66%, which is definitely in the thickening range. Try adding less than 0.1%, so 0.5 to 0.7 g guar gum for a 750g recipe. If you don't have a precision scale (they are available for about 10 Euros online, so if you use guar gum, dry yeast and similar ingredients often, it is a good investment), make it a small pinch, or the tip of a knife, but be prepared to have large measuring errors.
Against the clumping, just don't throw it into the mixture like that. Gums clump immediately when they touch moisture, much stronger than starch. It is best to first mix thoroughly the powdered gum into a tablespoon of your sugar, then mix this sugar into the whole batch of sugar, and then use the sugar as usual. If you decide to add gum after the mixture is ready, you should do it in the mixer. Put the mixer at a medium speed, put the gum into a spoon, and slowly tip the spoon into the wind caused by the beaters, so that the powder reaches the mass as a flurry of separate particles and is immediately dispersed by the beaters.
Changing to xanthan gum won't help much, as both have the same clumping problems and have to be used in similar concentrations. If you have an easier source for guar, it is not worth looking for xanthan, unless you want to use both at once for the synergy effect. But this gets interesting when you want to thicken with them, you don't need this effect in ice cream.
Locust Bean Gum can also be used for the same purpose.
These vegetable gums are classed as "stabilisers". Basically, the fat molecules and the water were blended at the (hot) making, but they want to migrate apart. They do so very slowly in the freezer.
Stabilisers such as Guar Gum, and Locust Bean Gum, and Xanthum Powder serve to reduce the speed of that migration. The effect is dramatic.
3 years ago, when starting our own ice cream production business, I wanted to see if we really needed to add the gums. I made a batch with, and a batch without the gums, and left them in the freezer for a month. We then tasted both. The one with gums seemed as good as the day after it was made, terrific. The one without gums had gone icy through and through.
The gums are best mixed with sugar, and dry-mixed at that point very well.Then add this mix to the still-cold milk mix. Do it slowly, or you will get lots of big lumps. Add when cold, as this helps as well, because the gums become more activated in their swelling as the mix warms. Be sure to blend very thoroughly once you have added the gums, and before heating the mix.
I think you're on the right track with the guar gum. It should help with the shelf life, and reduce large ice crystals too. The trick is to add it slowly while spinning the mix in a blender. That keeps it from clumping. Try adding a fourth of a teaspoon at a time, checking to see how thick it's getting. I know from using xanthan gum that you can see an immediate difference each time you stop the machine. Just get it thick enough that you can barely start to see a difference -- if you add too much, it'll start having a real sticky, gloppy, texture, and be somewhat chewy. I don't think it'll take much to make a difference with the problems you're having.
I made a raspberry sorbet once a few years ago with a little guar gum and I believe I just took a sharp knife point and and whatever I was able to pile on to the tip (up to about 1/8" from the tip) and added that to my mixture.
It turned out great; even that small amount made it a tiny bit "slimy" but was a great ice crystal inhibitor. I think a tiny bit goes a long way: 1 tsp. or even 1/2 tsp. would be way too much for my own 1 1/2 qt. capacity ice cream/sorbet maker.
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108526 | What are the differences between Coconut Milk, Coconut Water, and Coconut Oil?
I am wondering about the differences between these three products. There must be oil and water in the coconut milk, but what makes the milk more than the water and oil? Is it the fiber?
Is there oil in the water?
Is there milk in the oil?
Coconut milk:
is an opaque, milky-white liquid extracted from the grated pulp of mature coconuts.
Coconut water:
is the clear liquid inside coconuts.
Coconut water is typically extracted from younger coconuts. The milk contains both coconut water and ground-up coconut flesh.
Cocunut oil:
is an edible oil extracted from the kernel or meat of mature coconuts harvested from the coconut palm.
So, the milk also contains some coconut oil.
There will be little to no coconut oil in coconut water. The question "is there milk in the oil?" makes little sense given the above, as the oil is one of the components of the milk. This is like asking if there is milk in milk fats.
Products sold under the name coconut milk can have a wide variety of added ingredients including water, carrageenan, guar, Xanthan and locust been gums.
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24601 | Does an avocado seed help guacamole stay green?
My friend was telling me about a habit in the Spanish culture (I'm not sure if it's done elsewhere as well) of leaving the avocado seed inside when making guacamole. The claim is that if you leave the seed inside the guacamole, something in the seed prevents the guacamole from browning.
I'm a little skeptical - I thought that the browning was due to oxidization. If that's the case, then I don't see how a seed could help in preventing oxidization. Am I missing something? Is this true, or just a myth?
You're correct - it's a myth, as is adding something acidic to it like lemon juice--see explanation here. As you said, what causes it to brown is the oxidation, and that's just exposure to the air. If you wrap a cut avocado (or guacamole) in plastic wrap so there's no air space between the wrap and the avocado, then it will stay green longer than areas where air is getting to it.
Yes, it seems logical. But do you have any references? You mentioned that adding something acidic is also a myth - this answer seems to imply the opposite.
Also, I found a link that seems to provide evidence that the seed thing is a myth. It also seems to indicate that adding something acidic does help...?
The fact that exposure to air causes browning doesn't mean that adding an acid won't inhibit it. It definitely does help, just like it does with cut fruit. You're right about the pit, though - the only part it stops from browning is the part it's in contact with instead of air.
It's not any acid that prevents oxidation. Ascorbic acid from citrus does.
Hey now! A real brouhaha...
Actually, lemon juice does retard browning of avocado flesh.
Ascorbic acid (vit. C) is just better at it than most other food grade acids
I drop mine in water--there's no air between the water and the avocado
Ray's answer is right. My source for this one is the Serious Eats blog, and their resident food scientist Kenji Lopez (scroll down to "On Browning" and go from there: http://www.seriouseats.com/2012/01/the-food-lab-the-best-guacamole-avocados-science-browning-ripening.html
@franko: Sure, that works too. But all the discussion here is about your claim that acid doesn't help, not about immersing in water. (And... I'm not sure I'd want to store guacamole with a layer of water on top of it.)
@Jefromi -- well, please check out the Serious Eats article I linked. Kenji found that citrus didn't noticeably deter browning on his guacamole. In fact, he found that in some cases, it actually seemed to speed up the browning. You could also just press plastic wrap along the top of your guac, and smooth out any bubbles, to achieve the "no air" environment, too. No submersing is necessary.
Franko: Huh, interesting. Well, I bow to Kenji's expertise. I guess the reason why lemon juice + plastic wrap works for me is because the juice helps seal the wrap, not because it's acid. That'll save me some work next time, will just use water.
I have asked about this on Skeptics, and it appears the answer is, that citric acid can be beneficial, or detrimental, depending on the variety of avocados used. But Ascorbic acid should always work.
More and newer info here: http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/46494/which-acid-is-the-most-effective-against-oxidation-of-avocados-surprising-expe
Magic of magic of similars: https://books.google.com/books?id=h1LsCh68d7kC&pg=PA281&lpg=PA281&dq=%22magic+of+similars%22&source=bl&ots=Fwo1IupUd7&sig=hqMJRLLYeXvoMvFghloUrsEne-g&hl=en&sa=X&ei=TFdoVYSuLYqHyATOvYHgDw&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22magic%20of%20similars%22&f=false
This is not an old wives tale. Everyone knows that oxygen turns the guacamole brown. I have read everywhere that some chef did an experiment with a light bulb and the guacamole did not turn brown around the light bulb thus he concluded that it worked the same way as the pit..Wrong! If people would actually tried the pit trick instead of reading some crackpot ideas they would see that the a couple pits in the bottom keep it from turning brown. Oxalic acid is in the pits and absorbs the oxygen which turns the guacamole brown.
If you actually try this, you'll see that it turns brown everywhere that's exposed to air, and it's just the part in contact with the pit that stays green.
Similarly, if you press plastic wrap into the top of the guacamole, it doesn't brown.
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15912 | How do I cook minced meat faster?
I know how to cook it fine, with garlic, onions and some seasoning (olives and pepper some times). But the thing is, it takes too long for the water to evaporate (reduce) making it take long.
Is there a way to make it faster?
I'm a very novice "cook", so any tips would be greatly appreciated.
What kind of cookware do you use? The larger the surface area, the faster the evaporation.
Please also describe what you're doing. Personally, I think I'd throw the onions in first (with some salt and oil), let them sauté for a bit, then add the meat, then in the final seconds add garlic. It sounds like you're adding them all at once, and adding so much (or using too low heat) that your ground meat is being steamed (and overcooked).
Also, I would add that I tend to cook in batches, rather than overfilling the pan. So using a large deep skillet put enough in to cover about 2/3 of the base, and cook on high heat til browned etc.
Then I put it into a warmed bowl as I cook the next batch, until I have a full bowl of cooked mince, which I can then put back into the pan to simmer and turn into whatever the end dish is.
Use a large area pan to help the evaporation and use a higher heat with constant stirring to avoid burned meat.
Answers the question perfectly.
You can also just carefully tip some of the liquid out of the pan into a suitable receptacle.
Right you are. Why didn't I think of that?
What if I don't have a bigger pan? I don't want to use a Wok, it's too big (and clumsy). @ElendilTheTall wouldn't that "waste" some flavor?
Most of the liquid that comes out of minced meat is greasy water - not a great deal of flavour there.
@hexa: BaffledCook is probably thinking of a 12" fry pan, larger if your burner can support it. If you don't have a larger one, higher heat will still help (as high as you can go w/o burning) or alternatively I hear there are places that will happily sell you larger pans :-P
Of course, the constant stirring also prevents a Maillard reaction, resulting in less savoury meat. I tend to just let the meat sit there and just scrape off sticky bits to prevent burning. It’s not as easy (catching the moment just before the meat burns) but it’s worth it.
@KonradRudolph, good point for flavor.
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60400 | Can I use fat-free milk in béchamel?
Can I use a fat free milk to make the sauce? Should I add more butter to the roux if I do so?
I know I've done it with 1% and 2% ... I've likely done it with skim, but I've been off milk for years and can't remember for sure if I've done it.
related : http://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/9300/67
@papin this seems to be already an answer. We prefer people to add answers in answers, not in comments, because 1) they are more likely to be read where they belong, 2) comments are ephemeral and can be deleted at any time with no reason or warning, and 3) the voting system doesn't work with comments. Don't be afraid to post a very short answer as an answer. If it's sufficient, it's even better than a wordy one.
Yes. The important fat is the one the starch first goes into. The higher temperature reached by fats (as compared to water or milk) helps cook the flour, creating flavors. The liquid added later dilutes the mixture into a sauce. The liquid's fats are not as crucial for the sauce's thickness as the liquid's proteins.
I think of the cooked butter-flour mixture as a thickner that can be added to milk, broths, and even a saucy dish. The roux thickens way better than just a slurry of flour and a cold liquid.
Jack Lang has written a long post on Béchamel and Hollandaise and the science is summarized in chapter 4 of Vaclavik and Christian Essentials of Food Science
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19058 | What happens if I brine my turkey for 2 days?
I have a logistical problem that leaves me with no fridge room for 2 days before Thanksgiving... I always brine my turkey, so I don't have any questions about that, but typically it's only an 8 - 10 hour brine.
Is it possible to "over brine" a turkey? Lets assume I keep it covered and keep it cold (so that we're not discussing food safety as it relates to the turkey getting warm).
It is possible to over brine meat. If you leave it in too long it will get too salty.
If you use a more dilute brine it won't get as salty but you will wash out more of the natural flavor into the water as well.
You could submerge your turkey in its packaging in ice water in a cooler for a day before brining. You could even thaw the turkey in this manner if you made sure to keep it in ice water so it didn't get to 40F.
What happens if you brine something for a long time depends on the concentration of your brine, much like temperature affects what happens when you cook something for long.
Thus, you can apply equilibrium brining and brine your meat for a longer time in a less concentrated solution. I haven't tried it, but according to linked source you'll get desired results if you brine white meat in 1-1.5% salt for 20-30% longer than you normally would. Since the solution isn't saltier than you want your meat, you can basically leave in the brine for as long as you like (standard food safety issues apply, of course).
Equilibrium curing takes longer but enables flexibility of several days when taking it back out.
A dry equilibrium cure is less wasteful and saves fridge space if you use plastic bags.
Fast brined foods really should rest for a few days so that the outside of the meat is not more salty than the inside, so it ends up almost the same anyway.
There's even such things as brine tables which allow you do precise calculations with both the table salt and the pink salt. Mariansky brothers book 'home production of quality meats and sausages' has these but there's a lot on the internet too.
I have brined mine over night and also like 2 to 3 days. I have to say the majority of the recipies that I read all say to brine it over nite, but the turkey that I brined for 2 to 3 days was the best I have ever had. Same recipie that I used for the over night brine. A cup of kosher salt per gallon of water or liquid, (vegetable stock or chicken stock or both) half of cup per gallon of brown sugar, then a few sprigs of Rosemary, some sage, a few oranges quartered and squeezed, sometimes other things I will add to it. That's a quick summary. Also when I make my gravy, both instances, the over night and the 2 to 3 days brining, it is amazing, not salty at all. I do a combination of giblet gravy and pan drippings. I think it is important to mention when you remove the turkey from the brine, rinse it very well inside and out, then pat dry with paper towels. One last thing, a long time ago on Emerils recipie for bringing I read to never buy a turkey over 15 pounds, preferably 14 pounds, I usually make 2, and ever since that is what I have done, haven't had a dry or bad tasting turkey since. Hope this helps someone.
The meat will be moist and delicious, but the gravy you make from the drippings will be so salty it will almost be inedible. Anything over 48 hours will probably be too much. You can soak in water after over-brining to extract some of the salts.
I'm curious why this answer got downvoted? Is it just wrong? By osmosis it makes sense... I don't intend to brine and then un-brine my turkey, but that being said, was this guy's logic simply wrong or did it create a food safety hazard or anything?
I'm not the downvote but I make gravy out of my brined turkey drippings every year. It surely doesn't need any extra salt but it is delicious.
Nothing is wrong with making gravy out of the drippings of a brined turkey. My point was that if you brine for too long (more than 48 hours), the gravy will come out too salty as you reduce it. This is just my opinion based on experience, take it with a grain of salt ;)
I always brine my turkey for at least 3 days and it results in the best moist turkey I've ever had.
Using standard brine ratios, I can't see how that wouldn't be oversalted. What ratio of water to salt are you using?
Why downvote this answer? It's as good as many of the others.
To the over salty gravy issue....I would suggest, remove drippings from pan. Use a maderia or white wine you like to deglaze pan. Taste drippings to assess how salty they actually are. Make ahead a stock from the UNBRINED giblets and/or neck. Use that stock, and tied herbs, with the deglazed mixture in pan, and add the removed drippings a little at a time to get right salt balance.
I have read 1 hour per pound, and up to 48 hours for a whole big bird 20+ lbs, at different sites. One chef said up to 3 days!!! Another site said remove from brine 1 day ahead of cooking if you like crispy skin, and keep in fridge.
I brined my turkey for 48 hrs in a lrg cooler.used salt fresh herbs and lemon slices. kept adding ice to keep cold. this deluted brine alitle and gravey was very good
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56078 | Why is my cheesesteak meat tough?
I made Philly Cheesesteak sandwiches and the resulting meat was quite tough and hard to bite off and chew.
For the meat I used eye of round steak, cut into roughly 3in by 1/8th-1/4th in strips. I did not marinade the meat or season until salt and pepper during cooking.
To cook the meat I used a nonstick pan over medium heat for a few minutes.
Is my cut of beef to blame, my technique, or perhaps both?
While it's not the way the dish is made (but then, I've never liked it much, in part because of the way it's made) I'd cook the eye of round and then slice it, not the other way around. I never have good luck cooking thin meat - it goes from raw to overdone in no time flat.
That's a good point to note. I cut first, cooked second.
I think what you did IS the way they are "supposed" to be done. But I would ignore that, personally, based on my experiences to date.
How did you cut the meat? You need to cut across the grain, that is perpendicular to the muscle fibers, if you parallel to them then that's probably your problem.
You can also use a hybrid method: cut into thinner filets, cook those (this helps them cook faster) and then give them a further rough chop once they've finished cooking.
I'm not entirely familiar with American cut names, but IIRC eye of round is relatively tough in any case. It is more suited to a slow, moist cooking method like braising rather than a dry cooking method like pan frying. Use something like a strip steak and you'll have much better results.
My experience has shown that you need to slice the meat against the grain when preparing it for sautéing. The shortened muscle fibers make for a more tender piece of meat. After that, the quicker you can cook the meat, the better. Round steak tends to be best either quickly cooked or cooked for an extended period of time -- there's not too much of a middle ground for it.
And thin. 1/4" thick is way too thick for a Philly Cheesesteak. My grandmother (born & raised in Philly) would make them from deli-sliced roast beef. If you're working from raw meat, I'd be aiming for 1/16" (across the grain) ... which likely means cutting it into more manegable blocks, then putting them the freezer to firm up.
For a detailed explanation of meat toughness, see What makes a moist steak (or roast)?
As for your specific case: I also don't know about American cut names, so there are two possibilities. Either you chose a collagen-rich meat, or you chose a cut low in collagen.
Assuming that you want fry steak in the pan and not have it become tough, you should choose meat which is low in collagen. If you didn't, you have to change the cut (or not cook it like a steak, as Rorschach120 advises).
If you have tender muscle and it becomes tough, you have overcooked it. "A few minutes" sounds too much for such thin strips. They are cooked until they first show color (browned, not just grey). If they get tough until they show color, you need to increase the temperature, and possibly ditch the nonstick pan.
Another option is to fry it as thicker steaks or oven-roast it. Then you can use a meat thermometer and achieve your preferred level of doneness. Cut afterwards and sear or torch the newly exposed surface.
The toughness in meat comes from the amount of collagen in it. In order to break down this collagen so you are left with tender flaky beef, you have to either slice it very thin so it has an easier time in the pan, slow-cook the beef in a crockpot, or pressure pressure cook it (the best way IMO). After slow-cooking or pressure cooking, stick it in a KitchenAid mixer with the paddle attachment and run it for a minute.
When you cook it in a pan (really hot pan) stir it all around for about 5 seconds and then add some Worcestershire sauce or other liquid to quench a bit of the heat and then let it heat up again and it should be done by then. Happens very fast.
Eye of round is a relatively lean steak and not quite as good for cheesesteak unless you use the first method of slicing it really thinly before cooking it. I would use chuck or rib for cheesesteak.
Amusing. I've bought eye of round roast when I could not find a steak of reasonable thickness (everything in that store was about 1/2" / 1.2cm thick if it was "steak") and sliced it into 5-6 nice thick (more than an inch/2.5cm) steaks, and it's grilled just fine.
I'm talking about grilling well for cheesesteaks, which needs to be broken up somehow to be mixable with the onions and peppers. As a standard steak it's a good piece of meat. I've bought an eye of round roast and cut it the same way and it made for some goods meals.
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75306 | Why is my fresh pasta tough?
I picked up a Marcato Pasta Maker and followed the recipe included to make both fettuccine and ravioli. The instructions that came with the machine offer two basic recipes:
500g soft wheat flour
5 eggs
or
250g soft wheat flour
250g durum wheat (semolina flour)
5 eggs
I've tried both methods, using King Arthur All Purpose flour for the soft wheat flour, and Caputo Semola for the semolina. In both cases, I found the resulting pasta to be tough and have a considerable bite. I tried cooking both pastas for a bit longer than recommended with the same results. I am using the recommended thinness that the machine produces as well. The recipe notes to knead for 10mins or until the dough is smooth. I have been kneading it for 10-12 mins and still find that it isn't quite "smooth"; but I'm no expert on what that is.
I would prefer a more delicate, soft, and melt in your mouth type of pasta. Instead I am getting something with quite a bit of bite and that is quite tough. What can I do to improve the result to my liking?
Try using double-zero (00) flour, available from Italian specialty stores. You might also prefer a recipe that uses more egg yolks, or only yolks and not whole eggs. For example: https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/fresh-pasta.
Nice, I have 00 on hand for Neapolitan pizza already. Would I substitute 00 for all flour or use both 00 and semolina? I can easily add more eggs or yolks too and report back the results.
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19966 | When is it necessary to put foil over a pie's crust?
In the past, when I have made pumpkin pie, I have never put foil around the edge of the crust of the pie. Yesterday, I baked a pie with someone else, and they insisted that the foil was necessary to prevent the pie crust from burning. I have noticed the a lot of recipes for pies other than pumpkin (frequently covered pies like strawberry-rhubarb) explicitly call for aluminum foil on the crust.
When does a pie crust need to be covered in foil while baking?
Generally speaking, when the length of the cooking time required to cook the filling correctly is such that the crust would burn if it wasn't covered.
It is usually more necessary when you have blind-baked the crust, but I must say I've cooked a lot of pies in my time and never covered the crust because I'm always careful to par-bake the crust just enough to seal it and no more.
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17821 | What type of bowl is best for a fruit salad?
I am planning on making a fruit salad for coworkers and want to make sure that none of the fruit start to go bad because of the contact with the bowl.
I am planning on using apples, oranges, grapes, pine apple, and possibly bananas.
What would be the best type of bowl to transport and serve this in: metal, glass, plastic, etc?
The absolute best bowl would be a watermelon cut in a basket shape, right? ;-)
I don't think the bowl has anything to do with it, unless it is some sort of reactive metal, but you don't normally find food grade bowls made of a reactive metal?
To stop surface oxidation of non-acidic fruit (apples, bananas etc.) coat them with a suitable weak acid. See this previous answer How to Prevent Apples from turning Brown
A clear glass bowl of course. There are many materials available which would serve the purpose just fine, aluminum is a material I would advise against though.
You are making a beautiful, colorful, fragrant fruit salad - show it off in a nice clear glass bowl. All other things being fairly equal, go for the flavor/art/hunger/munch appeal, and serve it proudly.
If it's on display for any length of time it might be helpful to choose a bowl which allows air circulation to prevent detoriation (eg. a mesh type) or to be careful to arrange fruit so that they allow this.
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16257 | Cooking steak on the grill
First and foremost, I am a member of a few other Stack Exchange sites, and I haven't been this excited about one for a while. I'm basically a nerd that's trying to get into cooking, and I couldn't be more happy they made this :)
Onto the question,
Growing up, I've always grilled on gas grills. Recently, I've moved into an apartment with my girlfriend and we are only allowed to have a charcoal grill. It's a tiny one (I think), probably about 1.5 - 2 feet in diameter. I use the charcoal that are already covered in flammable material (the black ones), and they work pretty well. I basically follow the directions every single time I go to light the grill. I put about 30-40 bricks in the middle of the grill in a pyramid shape, light them in several places, and then watch it burn. I do this until the flame pretty much dies down and the bricks are about 80-85% covered in grey ash. After that, I put the cage back on the grill, let it heat up so I can clean it off with the brush, and then shake the bricks until they are even across the bottom.
Right after this I put the steak on (right in the middle where there's the most heat from all the bricks burning in the pyramid towards the top before I spread them out). Now at this point, I NEVER have any idea how long it should stay there, when I should flip it, if I should flip it more than once, what I should look for before I flip it, how fast it's cooking - I basically don't know anything. I'm a guy, I hate how I can't grill great! :(
I usually end up either over cooking it so it's tough, or under cooking it and it's still bleeding in the middle. I like my steaks right around medium, and I can never seem to get them perfect. I had a perfect one once, and it was 100% luck. I don't have a thermometer or anything to test the meat with (maybe I need to invest in one?), nor do I have anything that I can test how hot the grill is inside. The grill has a basic black cover with a little vent so I can control the air getting inside, but no thermometer or anything.
Can I get some tips? I'm cooking a steak on the grill for my girlfriend tonight that has been marinating for over 24 hours, and I don't want to mess it up!
P.S. And I almost forgot! The steak I am cooking tonight is a London Broil.
Thanks!
If you want a fast cook steak use a gas grill, if you want a slow smoky steak use a charcoal grill, with real charcoal or wood (lid optional). Fast cooking on charcoal is basically a waste of effort, as the smoky flavours and the fun of the fire are wasted in a sub-five minute process. Try a whole chicken or lamb roast in your charcoal BBQ to get the real feel of slow fire cooking. Also try some solid wood instead of just plain charcoal
Don't worry about the size of your grill. I've been gradually migrating to smaller grills. Currently I use a pair of grills that are each about the size of a mouse mat (6"x12"). The reasons are many: They are easier to light. They take less time and less charcoal to get to temperature. They hold the heat in better. They are cheap.
Here's a couple of hints:
Learn to judge doneness by feel. See this answer for a good guide to temp by feel.
Learn to judge grill temp by hand. Hold your hand palm down about 3-4 inches above the grill. If you can hold it there for a second or two, it's hot; 3-4 seconds is medium; 5-6 seconds is low.
Sear first. Start with a very hot grill. You want about two minutes per side. Do not move the steak while it is searing. Make sure you've given the grill grate at least 5 mins to heat up.
Use a two level fire. Once you've seared your steak, you want to finish cooking over a lower heat. Build a two level fire by putting the coals on one side of the grill rather than the whole thing. Then sear over the coals. Then move it to the other side to finish. If the grill isn't wide enough for a two level fire, you could try quenching the fire by cutting off air flow. That will cool it quickly.
Finish with the lid on. This helps cook by heating the air rather than just using direct heat.
Change your fuel. Stop using lighter fluid. Use a chimney instead. Hard lump charcoal is better than briquettes. It's easier to light, creates less left over, and burns hotter.
Rest your meat for a few minutes before eating. Be aware that it will continue to cook during this time, so you want to pull it off a little early.
Read up on cooking steak. There are a bunch of good questions on this site!
#6: Light the chimney with a bit of paper soaked in a few teaspoons of vegetable oil. That turns it into a mini torch that really helps light the charcoal faster.
This is definitely the most thorough answer I've gotten. On the plus side, I just cooked my steak. Out of these points, I would say the one I didn't perform correctly was #7. I didn't pull the meat off early enough therefore it become medium well instead of medium or medium rare. I had to use lighter fluid because I don't have a chimney, but it worked well for me. Everything else worked well also, thank you!
@tremmors, yeah, I actually don't use a chimney. I find that a paper towel soaked in oil works great. But I'm not sure how that works with briquettes vs hard wood, and I only use the latter, so I thought I'd leave it with the safer advice.
@slandau, you want to pull the meat off when it's about one doneness less than you want, so pull it at medium rare to end with medium. Switch your fuel when you get a chance. You'll get a better flavor if you quit using lighter fluid.
Sounds good. I'll look into a chimney. I'm assuming I won't need to already covered coal with a chimney?
@slandau, no, you won't need any lighter fluid at all if you are using a chimney. So you don't get that lighter fluid taste when you cook!
Sounds good. I will definitely invest in a thermometer and a chimney when I get the chance, and start looking into creating 2 level fires.
Does your charcoal grill have a lid? If so, your best bet is to make use of it. The lid allows for convection heat, and also controls the oxygen supply to your coals.
Your biggest enemy is flareups. So you will want to make use of a two-zone fire. Even in a smaller grill, this is possible. Keep the coals to one half of your charcoal grate, leaving the other half as a "cool" zone. Get your cooking grate nice and hot, and put your steaks on the hot side. Wait about 15-30 seconds, then spin your grate 180 degrees and put the lid on. This will let your steaks cook with indirect heat, and will also heat the other side of the cooking grate. After 2-4 minutes, flip the steaks back onto the hot side, wait 15-30 seconds, spin the grate, and put the lid back in place. After about another 2-4 minutes, your steak should be done. If your steak is thicker than an inch, add some time. If it's thinner, subtract some time. Use an instant read thermometer to be certain of the temperature you have achieved.
Also, don't forget to let your meat rest for 5-10 minutes, or nearly every drop of fluid will run out of your steak and onto your plate.
If you are doing a London Broil, you don't want to cook it much, probably to the low end of medium at the most. Otherwise, you will have a marinated piece of shoe.
I hope this gives you some guidance. It will take a little trial and error to get the hang of it, but this is a good basis with which to start.
Thanks for the advice, particularly with the shout-out to the London Broil. Not a great piece of meat, but cheap :)
I actually really like a London Broil, and not just because of the attractive price point. It has a nice, strongly beefy flavor, and is very lean. Unfortunately, the lack of fat and collagen just limits your cooking options.
Got you. Well I'll give everything a shot. Thanks again!
Somehow I've never come across this tip about spinning the grill grate rather than moving the food itself. This is great!
Small grills are like small fish tanks... Less is not more... They leave less room for error and allow you fewer options that a nice big charcoal (or gas) grill would offer (for instance the ability to raise or lower the charcoal bed to adjust heat)
So with a small grill I would approach it this way:
if (you can't get the coals at least 6 inches from the coals)
{
1) Bake the steak @ 400 for about 5 minutes per inch
2) Use the grill to get a nice pretty sear and that "grill" taste
3) Only leave the steak on the grill for about 2 minutes per side
// Not having enough room between the coals will make it very tough to
// cook it through without burning the outside
}
else
{
1) Cook the steak over a moderately hot area of the grill... Cooking over the
hottest spot will cause problems w/ burning (see above) and will put a bit of suit on
your steak.
2) Flip every 3 minutes until steak has a lot of give (med-rare), little give (medium),
or very little give (med-well).
3) Note that feeling the "give" of the steak **with your fingers** is going to be more
accurate than poking it w/ tongs
}
Also 2 more tips:
1) The baking thing: This is a cheat, but it works WONDERFULLY w/ things like ribs as well... It's easier to control an oven then a cheap grill
2) If you want to err on the side of under done, you can heat some nice oven-safe ceramic plates in the oven and serve the under-done steak on that... Ruth's Chris does this and they charge a lot for it.
The last few times I've done tri-tip has been with a mix of oven and the grill - the method is absolutely sound.
Thanks! Only problem is, I have nothing to determine how hot the grill is :(
Then I'd definately go w/ oven/grill combo... And I think w/ that method i'd amend my original post to only stay on the grill 1 min per side... You're just adding flavor and grill marks :)
I think this is one of those things that's really just about practice. In my experience, the thermometer isn't very useful: I like my steaks rare, and the fine line between rare and raw is thin enough that the thermometer just doesn't cut it.
For me, for steak, I use the finger test. The doneness can be determined pretty reliably by how firm the meat is. If its squishy, it's raw, if its hard as a brick, it's well done. If you routinely check, you'll see that the difference in firmness is noticeable, even just from raw to rare.
With practice, this is useful even for chicken, though, for bone-in breasts, I'll use a thermometer, or I'll pre-cook them and then finish them on the grill.
Thanks man. Gives me a little more confidence without a thermometer.
Although I can't answer all of your questions, one of the tips that seems to have made a big difference in the evenness of the steaks I grill is from Alton Brown: turn the steak a quarter turn (90 degrees) halfway between flips.
I can honestly say that nothing has made a bigger difference in the quality, or the consistency, of my grilling than a dirt-cheap instant read thermometer. There's nothing more important than knowing your food's temperature. I would recommend a better-quality thermometer though, so you don't have to replace it once you realize what a tremendous difference it makes. You simply must have one before you start grilling tonight!
After you know (because of the thermometer) what a perfect steak looks and feels like, you'll naturally start to depend less on it. But until then, there's just no substitute.
Good luck!
That makes sense. I definitely want to get a food thermometer. I've heard you can tell how well a steak is done by feeling the firmness of it, but I'm not sure if that would be a great tell or not. I will keep the rotation in mind as well. Thanks!
@slandau - you absolutely can, although I wasn't able to use/intuit that consistently until after I'd used a thermometer to be able to (re)produce a well-grilled steak.
Good point. Sort of like setting your own even point.
Agree 100% with using a thermometer. Different types of meat feel different to the touch. A rump steak will never be as tender as a perfect piece of tenderloin and they will not feel the same when you touch them, raw or cooked. If you get your hands on a dry aged, really tender piece of filet mignon it will actually be possible to poke your finger right through the raw steak without much effort. A steak like that, when cooked perfectly, is not going to feel the same as a piece of rump steak from the supermarket cooked to the same temperature. With a thermometer you do not have to guess.
What temperature would I look for on the thermometer to determine different types of doneness?
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74897 | How do I properly cut a bell pepper into a medium dice?
I often cut bell peppers up for uses in chili, stir-fry, salsas, salads, or any other similar use. What type of knife should I use and how should I cut it? I'm most interested in the techniques associated with efficiency and safety.
Here is an example of what I'm trying to achieve:
My favourite knife for this application would be a French Knife because they are large and have good finger room under the handle when doing chopping.
What I would do and always have done is start by cutting the top and bottom ends off of the pepper and remove the inside ribs and seeds from the pepper.
After you cut the tops and bottoms off, keep them and then make i slice through the pepper to open it up into a flat open position.
Lay the pepper down on the outer side UP and make 2-3 length-wise cuts across the pepper to make long strips of pepper also, do this with the ends of the pepper as well.
Next I would simply cut them together or separate, depending on sharpness and size of knife as well as your skill and comfort and cut across the strips and make consistent sizes cuts all the way down.
In my experience of cutting peppers this is my most desired and effective strategy. It also helps with efficiency and consistency of the cuts.
Cut the pepper into strips of the appropriate size, then hold a bundle of strips in your off hand while you cut across them into cubes.
As you're starting out, start with smaller bundles, then work your way to larger ones. (sharp knives make it easier to cut larger amounts at once, as they cut in rather than causing them to roll against each other).
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77486 | What are the keys to leopard-spotting pizza crust?
What are the most important factors to achieving leopard-spots on pizza cornicione? I've tried so many different things but still can't get to the level of consistent leopard spots that I've seen others create. I want a pale crust except very distinct charred leopard spots. I do not want the whole crust to be brown or charred spots >1". What am I doing wrong?
Recipe:
500g Antimo Caputo or KA Bread
360g-380g Water (72-76% hydration)
16-20g Salt
1g Active Dry Yeast
Process:
Day 1 Combine either by autolyse, stand mixer, or hand knead
Day 2 Ball into three equal parts ~300g/ea
Day 3-4 Hand stretch being careful to not push the cornicione much, bake at 1,000°F (dome), 800°F (floor) for 90-120sec in a Blackstone oven (yes it is possible in this oven)
This is what I've been able to achieve thus far, the pizza on the left is close but I ended up with 3 big burnt areas out of the frame that were undesirable:
This is what I'd like to achieve:
Images from pizza_jew and fortina pizza
How long do you wait between shaping and baking? From the bottom pizzas it looks like it is the air bubbles that cause the leopard spotting.
@Rick 31 - Between shaping and baking? As in forming the dough ball into a pizza shape/topping it to when I actually put it in the oven? About 1 min on average I would say. As soon as I can get the peel out of my kitchen and into the outdoor oven.
I am a very much a beginner, but my naive theory is that if the pizza is gently shaped in order to not disturb its air pockets, and then allowed to rest and relax some, that those air pockets would do a better job at expanding and charring.
I would guess the secret is having your dough be irregularly textured.
The spots have to be cooking, and scorching, before the rest of the crust is even browning. You might be able to achieve this by deliberately texturing your dough, but I expect the original reason was gas bubbles trapped just under the surface of the dough, which blistered and burned quickly due to thinness of the dough and heating faster than the rest of the crust.
So how to get this blistering? you would need very well developed gluten, to hold thin, fragile bubbles right on the surface. You would need very gentle handling for the crust - resting and raising again might let your dough puff up again from rougher handling, but it would probably tend to be smaller bubbles and even puffing, not great surface ones. And you would need very active yeast, to raise great bubbles on the surface.
How exactly you get these factors will depend on your recipe and your tolerance. You might make your dough from a preferment or a series of them, so the yeasts have time to develop better and will be more active, or you might use more yeast in general to make the dough rise more quickly to form bigger, irregular bubbles instead of small even ones. Kneading your dough better for good gluten development might help it trap the gas bubbles, even right on the surface. You could try long, cold rises for your dough, which should develop gluten and yeast activity better than shorter, warm rises. You might handle your dough very carefully around the edges, using your hands to stretch rather than a rolling pin or similar, to keep as much air trapped in the crust as possible.
You might just cheat, and pinch up knobs, slice flaps, or inject air into bubbles (with a syringe, maybe, I know they're available for injecting marinades) to artificially texture the surface of your crust with thinner or upraised areas that will brown and blacken quickly - which will get your your dark spots with probably less effort than reworking your dough texture, but may not get as much of the texture or taste you're looking for, that happens to go with your spots. It's all up to you.
Its the fermentation that matters. Try cold fermenting in the fridge for 3-5 days. That will do the trick. Google that if you don't know how to do it exactly.
Andrej, welcome! Could you explain a bit more, what cold fermentation hast to do with the spots? And just a little side note: We are a bit sensitive when it comes to statements like “google it” - quite often people find us becaue they were actually googling first. In this case, it’s valid advice as it pertains to additional information, but in a more general sense, I’d rather discourage the approach. I also recommend you take the [tour] and browse through our [help], especially [answer], to learn more about the site works.
I found this answer confirmed by Masi/Romani/Coccia: The Neapolitan Pizza (p. 137). It seems the pizza also needs to be streched at a (too) low temprature. Interestingly they describe an overly pronounced leoparding to be a defect or flaw of the pizza.
By far the biggest factor is heat. Even VPN 905F temperatures do not produce leopard spots/blistering consistently. I love the leopard-look(!) but it is not essential for perfect crust. Attractive blistering mostly comes from high radiant dome heat. You can tell a lot from time. 90 second pies are all over the place in terms of leopard spots, but 60 second and shorter pies usually have good blistering.
I'd get your blackstone as hot as possible, then, after bottom is done, "dome" the pie with the peel to cook/char the top a bit more; rotating if necessary. The irregularities that get charred take care of themselves--I wouldn't worry at all about trying to directly create them.
Ill comment, even if it's an old topic. I find that an extensible long fermented dough (not too much elasticity, so not too much kneading), on the verge of overproofing, will facilitate the creation of little bubbles during oven spring - and I read somewhere, the burning of dead yeast cells- and thus will translate to leoparding, even in a home oven (with a good setup aka broil method + thick stone).
Leapord spotting factors:
The right flour. Type oo PIZZA flour.
The right amount of fermentation. Do a 48 hour bulk ferment, then let the dough sit for an hour and ball. then let proof for 5 or 6 hours before baking.
Heat. You need the high heat of a wood fire oven. Try an Ooni, or Blackstone or any of the high temp ovens out these days.
Leopard spots and chewy goodness are awaiting you. Ciao! Steve
Your pizzas looks fine. I would not worry about it if the taste and texture of the pizza cornicione is nice.
I'd suggest the leopard spots are from the bubbles near the surface of the pizza dough. The leaparding you want to achieve are larger air bubbles on the cornicione
Suggest that it is related to the rise during the cooking process, possible related to the heat from your pizza oven or amount of salt in the recipe. Probably half the amount of salt and adjust the fermentation time accordingly.
If this doesn't achieve the desired result, try borrowing a friend's Uuni 3 or Roccbox and seeing if gets the desired result.
Your crust is proper. The leoparding on the second row pictures is due to cold dough, that was not left long enough out from the fridge before cooking
I'm not quite clear what you mean. I personally desire the results from the second row. It sounds like you personally disagree. But either way, you are suggesting that the leopard spots are the result of cold dough?
Is this burn air pocket not due to the condensation of the dough after shaping and balling it ? That's why we cross stacking the trays to allow the dough to get cold and not make condensation in a closing tray ?
More you manage your dough ball temperature more you can manage to get this tiny air water drop.
I read this article from Tom Lehmann where he quickly speak about this.
https://www.pizzatoday.com/departments/in-the-kitchen/knead-to-know-sticky-situation/
That link is about preventing sticky dough. Can you describe how this relates to making leopard spots?
Try cold fermentation, then take the dough out one hour before cooking. You'll get the leopard spots.
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28889 | Proper cook times for mushrooms, onions, and peppers
One of my favorite meals is poached chicken cut into strips and stir fried with mushrooms, onions, and peppers and a bit of oil-based salad dressing for flavor.
However, most of the time I get the timing wrong and end up with over or undercooked veggies by the time the chicken is done cooking.
How long should I cook the mushrooms, onions, and peppers for? It seems to work best to add the onions first so that they cook down a little bit but I'm always guessing when to add the peppers and mushrooms to the skillet.
I am going to make the assumption that you're stir-frying in a really hot pan. The onions and peppers are going to take around 5-8 minutes to get good color but retain their snap.
I would cook the mushrooms separately - they're going to take a little longer 8-10 minutes, because they give off a bit of moisture.
So as you're poaching the chicken I would
Fry the onions/peppers - remove and keep warm
Fry Mushrooms
When the mushrooms are done, add everything else to pan to meld flavors.
You could also blanch the peppers in boiling water to the tenderness of your liking and use the stir-frying technique to finish them with a bit of coloring for flavor-sake. You should also specify what the "proper" texture your looking for in the dish, as this varies by taste. I prefer peppers and onions with a bit of snap. The last thing to note is the size of the vegetables, if you cut them thinly they will obviously cook more quickly.
Why not just start the mushrooms then in 2-5 minutes throw in the onions & peppers? Then your chicken at the end to reheat it? Personally I start my onions first because I prefer them slightly carmelized.
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28891 | Disposable cookware
So I am moving into a new apartment tonight but the movers do not get here until tomorrow and I just realized that I forgot to bring any of my kitchen stuff down with me.
I have a set of nice cookware at home so I don't want to buy anything new that will just take up more room in my cupboards. I'd like to surprise my girlfriend with a nice dinner when she gets here - any ideas for what I could use in a pinch and then not feel bad about throwing out after?
How about take-out?
Ah, well, I'd like to give her a nice home cooked meal to welcome her back and surprise her :) And I'd like to save a little money if possible!
So you want to cook, but have no cooking gear, and haven't described to us what you do have available so we can take a stab at helping? You could probably mix up a baked lasagnia (the noodles can go in raw, as long as the sauce is quite loose) and bake that in a disposable lasagnia tray. But I recommend ordering pizza, and wowing your SO when you have your stuff back.
Well, I didn't mention what I have because I literally have nothing :) But JoeFish's answer down there is a fantastic idea!
So how did dinner go?
We ordered pizza :) I'll surprise her this weekend - thanks for the help though :)
Assuming you don't want to do Uncle Ben's or Kraft Mac n' Cheeze in the microwave...
I would go with aluminum foil. For example, do a potato and root veggie foil packet. Add some fresh rosemary, thyme, oregano, whatever's on hand. Salt, pepper, garlic, oil, maybe a little wine, all wrapped up in foil. Throw in the oven and bake. I do it all the time on the grill and it works a treat.
You can even form tin foil into little dishes or sheet pans. Just fold up and roll over the edges like this, but bigger:
Then you could roast some chicken or cook some beef in the oven, as well.
For a main dish, maybe some sort of Fish en Papillote (sample recipe link). Some fish, wine, some herbs and veggies, some parchment paper, BLAM you're a hero. Cook it right on a homemade aluminum foil pan. An elegant, fancy dish without any pots or pans.
Image borrowed from here.
Good thought on the en papillote technique. This works well, and is very simple, as the answer indicates. Some people consider it fancy, especially if done in parchment. It is very dependent on the quality of ingredients, since not much is being done to them.
A stove plate gets very hot, and cooking on a stove involves stirring. Both require a pan made from hard, thick metal with a high enough melting point, so I don't think anybody makes disposable stovetop pots or pans.
But the oven is much more forgiving. Manufacturers know that and sell disposable aluminium pans meant for an oven (or sometimes for a grill). Use one of those and you can make a stew or a roast. If making a roast, you will have to roast some vegetables as a side dish. Use a cold sauce you can create with just a knife and a disposable cup, for example tzatziki. (Sorry, I don't think you can cook anything without a knife).
Alternatively, bake something which needs no dish, placed directly on the rack or on baking paper. You could do a filled bread or some other savory baked product, or roast filled vegetables which will hold their shape such as zucchini.
I like the roasting filled vegetables idea. Acorn and butternut squashes are excellent choices. Even just halved and rubbed with olive oil, salt and pepper. Mmm, mmm, good!
I think you can bake rice with an aluminum foil container,and then decorate it become a Christmas gift，I think your girlfriend will be moved.
Like these.
Image borrowed from here.
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28978 | What causes the sugar to turn grainy after I have cooked it for a glaze or cooking it with butter for carmelizing?
I tried several times to cook the glaze for a strawberry glaze pie and the sugar, water, and cornstarch would thicken but then the sugar would turn grainy. I have also tried to boil water, sugar, and butter to make a carmel type sauce to pour over corn curls and it thickens and seems to be fine but then turns grainy right after I take it off the stove.
It sounds like your syrups are crystallizing on you.
For a smooth glaze or caramel, you want tiny little sugar crystals. When you heat your sugar and water mixture, after a certain temperature the water becomes super-saturated with the sugar.
After this super-saturation point, things get dicey. If the solution is disturbed--say by stirring, or an undissolved sugar crystal or other foreign particle getting into the solution--the sugar can rapidly come out of solution and form big crystals. This could be why your confections are grainy.
There are a lot of resources online that have the science behind it and suggestions on preventing it (example, example, example). To summarize a few:
Always use a clean pot or pan.
Make sure the sugar is completely dissolved before it comes to a boil
Dip a pastry brush in water to wash away any sugar that sticks to the side of the pot or pan as the sugar heats.
Combine the sugar with a little water (it should have the consistency of wet sand) before cooking.
Avoid stirring the sugar when it comes to a simmer.
Cover the pan loosely with a lid or baking sheet.
Add a little acid (such as a touch of lemon juice) or corn syrup to the sugar-water mixture before cooking
I second the corn syrup tip. It can be a life saver when doing any work with sugar syrups.
I've not heard of using acid in sugar work. I'm guessing it breaks some of the glucose into sucrose and fructose.
I've been doing some candy work for Christmas, and both recipes I used called for acid (cream of tarter). So my guess was correct.
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11162 | What's the ideal coffee to water ratio for a French press?
What's the ideal amount of coffee to use per cup of water in a French press?
I've looked at various online resources, which all gave me a different amount. Some call for 2 tablespoons per 6 oz of water, others per 4 oz. Others said to use one or the other, and add water after brewing if it's too strong.
So what's the ideal blend for extracting the best flavor?
Are those 2 tablespoons of coffee grounded or whole beans?
The one that tastes best to you.
I don't know if there's an ideal ratio since this is really about how strong you want the coffee to be. It depends on the strength of the roast you're using, the grind, and how strong you like the coffee.
I generally use 2 tbs / 6 oz, but vary it to taste.
Watched Alton Brown on Good Eats do an episode about brewing coffee, and he agreed with you.
"Strength of the roast" doesn't really make sense. Roasts can be darker or lighter, changing the flavor profile, but this has little effect on the actual strength (amount of solubles dissolved into the water).
There's a whole, whole lot than can go into it, but a great starting place is a ratio of 17.21:1 water to coffee. That is, if you have 500 g of water, you should use 29 g of ground coffee. What the ratio really does is specify how concentrated the coffee should be. Once you've set your ratio, there are many other variables to play with to make the coffee taste wonderful including grind size and consistency, bloom time, brew time, filter type, pour method, etc.
I wish I could post hyperlinks to all the individual videos of different french press techniques, but you can find them all at the wonderful site http://brewmethods.com Specifically, please check out:
James Hoffmann's French Press technique
Mark Prince of CoffeeGeek demonstrates the Press Pot
Lastly, and please tell me if this isn't kosher, but I've made an iPhone app that will handle the coffee and water weight conversions automatically, as well as timing the brew and detailing a couple guidelines for different brew methods. It's available on the app store as Brew Control.
500/29 is 17.24. Bit overprecise, maybe? Can anyone actually taste the fourth significant digit?
great answer, I updated your post to include the relevant links, and you have enough rep now from upvotes to include as many links as you like now
Thanks so much, Jeff. I've updated the answer to reflect the changes.
I am always a bit wary when people give such precise answers about coffee making. At the end of the day they only thing that matters is if you enjoy the taste of it.
If you are really serious about it, the best thing to do is to define you own particular ritual around brewing your coffee. So for some bean, at some particular grind, you dose the same amount, use the same water temperature and volume etc ...
Once you think you can reproduce your drink consistently, vary one variable and see how it goes.
I have an espresso machine at home so my habit with my french press is to dose what looks like 14grams and use about 180ml water.
As many have said, the ideal brew ratio is what tastes best to you, and you can't experiment productively to find that ratio without controlling the other variables. Even then, unless you get unhealthily obsessive and start growing your own cloned beans hydroponically (and/or start producing cloned civets) you'll find things can change from batch to batch of beans.
That being said, research has been done into preferences and can provide both a good starting point and an idea of what to expect if you stray too far outside typical ratios. Americans prefer theirs weaker (www.mountaincity.com/brewing-1.html), Europeans prefer somewhere in the middle (graph below), and Norwegians tend to prefer theirs stronger (www.mountaincity.com/brewing-3.html).
Special Coffee Association of Europe brew chart
I'm going to press the point is that it's subjective and based also on the size of the ground coffee as well. Water quality will also affect flavor. I had to use the trial and error approach to find what I like and what my family likes.
But the advice to go strong is best because you can dilute it like a cafe americano.
Grind size is important for extraction and ease of plunging (and preferred sediment quantity).
No doubt there's a science to it, but it's really art so don't go all precise and make it a clinical experience or a scientific experiment all the time. Go Zen and not Einstein on coffee and tea.
The difference in both the variation in ratios and the variation in "cup" meaning which other answers here note, is the Atlantic Ocean.
2 tbsp per 6 oz of water is Americano (relatively weak). 2 tbsp per 4 oz of water is European (stronger, because it's the same coffee in a smaller cup). (Some places in the Caribbean seemed to use even higher ratios, perhaps reflecting European influence; but perhaps it was rather than the coffee was fresher.)
The variation in the word "cup" is of the same order: American machines typically provide measurements in 6 oz cups. So, if you have an 8 "cup" machine, that's 8 American "cups" x 6 ounces = 48 ounces, for which you might use 16 tablespoons - but is also 12 European "cups", for which you might use 24!
(Note that there are 16 tablespoons in a measuring cup. So, don't bother with tablespoons at all when making coffee. For 8 "cups" of water, use one measuring cup of ground for Americano, and 1 1/2 for, um... real coffee. ;)
The best way to do it is by weight, if you have a kitchen scale. 10 grams of coffee for every 6 ounce cup of water is a good starting point. You can then adjust up or down by say up to 20% from there depending on your preferences. A nice thing about doing it by weight is that it works if you are grinding your own beans; you don't have to grind a guesstimate amount and then end up with extra.
So the ratio would be: 1:17, right?
Yes, if you measure the water in grams (or ml) then indeed, 17:1.
The one I use, of course.
Seriously, though I would recommend starting a bit of the strong side, because strong coffee can be thinned with the addition of hot water, but weak coffee is unrecoverable.
This page (http://stumptowncoffee.com/brew-guides/press-pot/) advises "Grind 56 grams (about 8 Tablespoons) for the 8-cup French press." Just did exactly what it said and got myself a pretty good coffee. It is strong but not too strong, probably Starbucks level.
Is the 8 Tablespoons before or after grinding? The page is not at all clear.
It depends on so much. How strong do you like your coffee? How much is the coffee you're using roasted? How finely is it ground? (Finer grind = more surface area in contact with the water and therefore a stronger brew, but also means more grounds will find their way through the metal mesh of the press.) How long do you let it brew and do your stir it at the beginning? Again half way through?
Take anyone's suggestion here. Choose one at random. Start there. And tweak the variables until you find your favorite. It won't be exactly the same as anyone else's. That's why one takes at-home coffee making seriously in the first place.
I'm not going to be precise here at all. But for the coffee I use, which is ground a bit finer than french press is supposed to be, but courser than a cone filter grind, I find that three rounded scoops (using the round (semi-spherical) scoop that comes with every coffee maker -- not the conical one) for one French (32 oz) Press serves me quite well for my morning fix.
If I'm entertaining, I'll put in 5 rounded scoops, and water the coffee after it has been poured. I find this produces better fruity-winey notes, but is a bit of a hassle on the daily brew.
tldr: Brew it strong and water it for superiour flavour
I use 1/2 cup of whole beans (ground semi-coarse) for my 32 oz press. After adding the water I stir it up with a chopstick- then wait about 4 mins till press and first pour. I do let the balance of the coffee stay in the press and get bolder as the pour continues. Love every single drop-every single time!
I just do 3 scoops (the scooper it came with) to 4 cups of water. Came out Perfect. Used regular maxwell house coffee. No grounds whatsoever!
Do you know the measure of the scoop? Are the cups some of this standard? I'd like to make the conversion to metric units, as some people have no intuitive idea of what cups, ounces or tablespoons can measure, and the conversion in both systems will ease the legibility for most people.
Coffee scoops are normally 2 tablespoons. The 'cup' measure on coffee machines is 6oz.
@JoeFish there really is no standard for what a 'cup' means with respect to coffee makers. For example, the Technivorm uses 4oz for a 'cup'.
I use a 1/8cup (30ml) scoop for a medium coffee cup.
Three scoops to fill the press for 2 full mugs.
I drink a quart of coffee every morning from my Veken(tm) french press. I heat 32 oz of water to 200 deg f, Grind 1/4 cup (about level) of beans, and brew for about 4 minutes with a stir when I pour the water and a stir after 2 minutes. I pour it into a vacuum carafe and enjoy. I use starbucks(tm) house blend.
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27893 | Difference between conventional oven with fan assisted and convection with fan assisted?
For all my recipes I have been baking using convention plus fan assisted option and my bakes turn out to be good. But now I have moved to new house where there is a convection oven. I tried my cookie recipe with convection plus fan option, my bake turn out over cooked on the outside and undercooked on the inside. What is the difference between convention oven with fan assisted and convection with fan assisted?
After googling for the difference, I am really confused whether convention oven can have fan? But I am sure the SMEG model I used before says "Conventional cooking with fan assisted".
It looks like this answer may be helpful. Link
They're the same thing - convection ovens are also known as fan-assist ovens (see for example wikipedia), since they're basically an oven with a fan. Maybe what you had previously was marketed as a fan-assisted oven, and threw out the phrase "conventional cooking" to emphasize that you can still do everything you conventionally could. But it sounds like you're just talking about two different convection ovens here.
More likely, the problems you're having are to do with either the convection being more efficient in your new oven, or the temperature control being off on one of the two. Ovens aren't always perfect, so likely your new oven is hotter when you set it to a given temperature than the old one. It might also have a more efficient fan. You can probably learn to adjust by trial and error - reduce temperatures, and check things frequently until you figure out you've gotten it right. It might also be helpful to grab a thermometer and see if your new oven is lying to you about the temperature.
(If you were previously using non-convection recipes in a convection oven, without adjustment, then your old oven was probably either too cool or its fan wasn't doing much. If you were adjusting recipes for convection previously, then maybe your new oven is hotter than it should be.)
+1. Most ovens are inaccurate by very wide margins, last time a friend measured his oven it was 38°C off. Has nothing to do with oven technology, just with bad sensors.
My oven has two separate modes, so they are not the same thing. I think Aga cooker's answer covers the distinction my oven manufacturer draws between the two.
They are definitely not the same thing. My oven has convection, with a heated fan as well as top & bottom elements; & though it doesn't bother with a 'cold' fan+top & bottom mode, it does have a 'rotisserie' setting which is fan + top grill only.
They are definitely not the same thing. Fan-assisted conventional cooking blows air through the oven cavity, but the heat comes from the heating elements at the top and bottom of the inside of the cavity. Convection cooking circulates the air from the cavity over a separate heating element that is not inside of the cavity. This is an important distinction - Convection cooking results in dramatically lower cook times, while fan-assisted cooking reduces cook times, but not by as much.
Be careful with your terms:
Conventional/traditional cooking is using the top and/or bottom heating elements with no fan circulation.
Convection cooking is using a separate heating element with a circulating fan.
Fan-assisted cooking is using the top and/or bottom heating elements with fan circulation inside of the cavity.
I own a business that services industrial ovens and Furnaces. and have been doing this for 0ver 30 years
Your basic "home"oven is a true convection oven as was pointed above. The fan assisted oven (AKA mechanical convection oven) has airflow that increases the temperature accuracy up to 5-10 degrees in some instances as well as supplying greater uniformity of temperature throughout the oven interior The coolest places in an oven is at the 4 corners and air flow is a must to prevent this How important this is for cooking a pie I have no clue
Just a thought for you
Convection is using the temperature differential (differences) inside the oven cavity to circulate the hot air inside the oven. Heat rises, cool air sinks but the oven walls itself conducts heat away but the temperature will not be so even throughout the oven cavity. A fan assisted oven has a small fan to move the air around so the hot air is circulated quite well. But the shape and mass of the food as well as oven cavity design will affect how the air flows inside. The heating elements are in the same location as a convention oven. The bigger the fan the better. You food will be more crispy. A forced fan oven has the heating element(s) behind the fan so that the fan directs the heated air directly onto the food like a hot wind blowing on your face (but much hotter and with greater force. This is what an air fryer does essentially. I use one for roasting foods but not for baking. I use a fan assisted oven for baking and the fan is at the rear. The forced fan cooker has the fan and heating element at the top. It works great for what it was intended for and more akin to an active broiler but the heat is circulated with force all around the food as the food sits on a rack. Depending on your fan, and oven insulation, cooking times can be faster by 10-20%. The fan forced air circulating will accelerate evaporation so things get crisper faster. And yes you can put in a water bath.
There's a difference between a convection (traditional) oven with fan assist mode and a convector oven. In a convection oven there're heating elements inside the oven's cavity that passively heat the air, relying on natural convection to spread the heat all around. Since most of the heat will rise to the cavity's top and stay there, a fan assist option is offered to uniformely spread this heat around.
In a convector oven the heating elements are hidden and the fan is the principal heat source. You can tell that your oven is a convector because there are no heating elementes inside the cavity. If you turn the convector fan off, the oven cooking action will change from forced convection to natural convection, but it won't be the same because the heating elements are not inside the oven's cavity (negating most of the heating element's IR radiation).
I have a convection oven and it does not have a fan in it. Now i can't buy a oven with out it being a fan forced. There is a difference between the two. Plus when you see recipes they give both temperatures usually 20 degrees difference. So they are not the same.
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34341 | Could I add butter to single cream to make whipped/double cream?
I want to make some whipped cream for millefeuille but I only have single.
If I added butter to single cream and whipped it, would that add enough butterfat to it to make it suitable for whipping?
Thanks in advance.
I'm not confident enough in my thoughts to make it in answer, but I don't think it will work. The issue is that you'd need to get the new butterfat emulsified into the cream, not just drizzled in. Maybe it would work to spin the cream with an immmersion blender and drizzle the butter in, but my guess is that would just give you butter crystals.
No, it won't work.
Michael's comment explains why. Whipping cream is not just fat and water mixed, it is fat and water emulsified. This is a big difference.
If you had some special reason to do this on a regular basis, you could get it to work by adding emulsifiers. You can beat any fat with water and lecithine or xanthan and get a creamy result. As far as I know, this is how plant based cream substitutes work.
But if the issue is that you just don't have whipping cream right now at home, then it is easier to go buy whipping cream than to go find emulsifiers (I buy mine online, don't know if there are brick-and-mortar B2C stores which sell them). If for some reason you absolutely can't do it in time, I would suggest using a different filling. Pastry cream works well with millefeulle, buttercream can work too, lightened with whipped eggwhites if necessary.
Yes, this is possible but you need a high-speed blender like a Thermomix or Vitamix to do so. There's actually a recipe on the Thermomix website:
http://www.ukthermomix.com/recshow.php?rec_id=29
Ingredients
250 gm unsalted butter
250 gm milk (full cream or semi-skimmed)
Method
Weigh butter in pieces and milk into the Thermomix bowl. Cook 3 minutes/ 90C/ Speed 1. Blend 30 seconds/ Speed 8. This emulsifies the butterfat back into the warmed milk and makes a perfectly delicious cream. Chill in the fridge 4 hours to use as pouring or spooning cream. Chill in the fridge 8 hours or more to be able to whip the cream.
I presume you could tweak the ratio to account for the difference in fat between milk and cream to make your double cream.
You can buy attachments for the Kenwood mixer and buy hand operated cream makers which require warmed milk and butter. I must get one because the lower fat creams available in Germany where I now live just don't work in my recipes. You can buy cream that whipped but its very loose
You can also find vintage "cream makers" online: https://thevintagekitchenstore.co.uk/en/butter-cream-making/45-cr.html
I had the same problem. I bought single instead of double and needed it to whip as I was making cheese cake. I found vanilla angel delight in the cupboard added it to the cream and hey presto :-)
Adding both milk and butter will work in a batter. But it won't whip, and the OP explicitely asked for "whipped" cream to put on millefeuile, not for replacement for whipping cream in a cheese cake mix.
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29465 | How long is the life of a shot of espresso?
When pulling a shot of espresso, how long is its life before it is too bitter?
I know this might change by the bean, but what is a rough estimate?
I was doing some coffee tasting and some of the shots were left unused for about 5 minutes and the barista said that these shots were now "dead" and that they don't reflect what the true taste of the coffee is.
Do I really only have 5 minutes to drink espresso before its no longer drinkable?
It's quite possible that you'd be more stringent about these things in a taste comparison so that you don't compare a fresh shot from an older one. They're just trying to minimize variables that might influence the results; it doesn't mean that it's undrinkable after that time period.
This barista says no, you can enjoy your shot for a little while:
In reality, there are only a couple of things that happen to espresso
over the course of a few minutes. First, the crema or foam that sits
on top of the espresso reintegrates with the liquid. Crema, on its
own, contains some of the best flavors and aromatic qualities of the
espresso in high concentrations. Drinking it straight can be
overwhelming but, it stands to reason, that having the crema
reintegrate might actually be a good thing. Second, the espresso
cools down. The temperature of espresso has a lot to do with how we
taste the various flavors contained within it...
I am not an espresso fan myself--I like regular coffee, but not after it has cooled down, and never reheated. Many folks are perfectly content to microwave a cold cup and drink it.
I imagine that older, colder espresso is palatable to you to the extent that you are willing to tolerate it. A small shot of coffee--and lets face it, that is all espresso is, even if it is brewed in a fancy manner--is going to cool off much more rapidly than a full cup, or a full pot.
Let's not face it. Espresso is a small cup of coffee like whiskey is a small cup of beer. (Tangentially / admitedly not relevant to your actual points)
Shots die after only ten seconds of sitting. You can tell by the change in color. It goes from a nice pretty brown body with a layer of crema on top to a very dark brown/black color. If you have ever done the taste test and tasted both the dead shot and the good shot, especially if you're sensitive to bitter taste, you can absolutely tell the difference. That is why Starbucks stresses a barista not to allow your shot to sit out for longer than those ten seconds.
Barista
As I understand it, all brewing methods are subject to both oxidation and degradation of yummy acids and oils. I was first introduced to the 10-second rule for espresso as a customer at a Starbucks. According to the barista, if the coffee did not touch something (water, milk, syrup) within 10 seconds it would turn bitter and "burnt" tasting. I was highly skeptical of this claim, so the barista felt obliged to prove her point (which is easily testable, if you can stomach wasting a shot). She pulled a shot and immediately dropped in a teaspoon of cold water (so that I could drink it right away), then handed me the shot glass to try. Delicious. Then, she pulled another shot, we counted to 10 together, she added a teaspoon of cold water, and I drank. Bitter and burnt tasting. Not terrible, but nowhere near as complex and tasty as the first shot. The difference was marked. (Incidentally, she claimed that the temperature of the added water was irrelevant to stemming the bittering process.)
I have since tested this at home on my machine, with the same results. (And I've tested adding hot or cold water, both do seem to stem the degradation process, as she claimed.) If you are skeptical -- as you always should be -- test it (at least somewhat systematically) yourself.
Here is a site with more information about oxidation and degradation of acids and such:
https://scienceandfooducla.wordpress.com/2014/08/19/coffee-brewing-chemistry-hot-brew-and-cold-brew/
I suspect that an email to the author could easily shed more light on the how and the why.
For me, it is not bitterness or flavor, but temperature. When a shot gets cold, it is not good. So, I would say it could last a couple of minutes, but it is not a sipping drink anyhow. Pull it and drink it.
Espresso starts losing some of its flavour immediately so I'd say drink it within one minute. If made at the right temperature it should be cool enough to drink after a few seconds anyway and after a minute it will start getting too cold to enjoy. I'd also suggest stirring your espresso before drinking to mix the different layers and get a more homogenous drink.
This is correct that coffee flavour alters depended on temperature. However this argument of better is hard to say as its a matter of preference.
For coffee tastings you should try the coffee had a range of temperatures as the flavours alter you may taste something different.
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35213 | Would pre-sliced, pre-packaged fish be considered sushi grade if I freeze it for at least a week before consumption?
I'm planning a sushi dinner party for my birthday in a month and I'm trying to do research on where to get my ingredients and supplies.
I'm finding that trying to find "sushi grade" fish is the hardest thing to do, and the only place that I can find anything where the person working the deli knows what they are doing is at Whole Foods. But their price for their salmon and tuna is really high.
In doing research to see what sushi grade really means (and searching here on Seasoned Advice) is that it just needs to be Frozen at -20° C (-4° F) for 7 days.
I found this pre-sliced, pre-packaged smoked salmon at my local grocery store: http://www.vitafoodproducts.com/p-315-vita-wild-nova-salmon.aspx
I asked the guy at the deli and he didn't know if it would be considered sushi grade or not. But from what I'm reading, I don't see why I couldn't just freeze the fish in my own freezer for a week or so before my event.
Is this not the case? Should I invest the money on getting already-confirmed sushi grade fish?
Most home freezers don't reach -20 celsius even at the lowest setting. And whatever your freezer is graded at, the temperature in it won't be uniform. So, unless you have some kind of commercial-grade freezer, it probably won't work. Still, you can check your freezer manual and/or use a thermometer to see if you can reach the temperatures needed.
By the way, everybody I know considers the kind of smoked salmon found in the cured meat isle to be ready for consumption without further cooking. I have had it in restaurants too, so it must be OK according to local food safety legislation. If you are OK with smoked (as opposed to raw) salmon in your sushi, this will probably work.
possible duplicate of Can store bought salmon be used for sashimi?
I have done several sushi dinners at home: a lot of fun and also a giant saving! One thing that you need to consider is the amount of fish, sushi recipes call for small amounts and so, even if you are preparing straight sashimi, I found that as 'little' as two pound of fish will 'force feed' a team of 6-8 hungry adults. Wish sushi grade fish you obviously don't want to do it wrong and get sick, so I suggest you stay away from home sanitized cuts. The problem is not only the extended frozen period, but also the way the fish has been handled from the moment it's caught. After searching and talking to the best restaurants in San Diego, I found that http://www.catalinaop.com is one of the best suppliers available. I was lucky enough to be able to swing by their warehouse and avoid the shipping cost, but they offer next day delivery at a reasonable price. The quality and variety is outstanding and they are specialists that will answer every single question! Make it special! :)
Hope it helps :)
Also to piggy back on this answer, "sushi grade" is a marketing term and even though something may have been frozen, the real determining factor is the initial health and quality of the fish and how it was handled before it was frozen and reaches your door.
Raw fish is frozen before sushi/sashimi preparation in order to kill parasites. The thoroughness of this process is related to the same factors as actually cooking the fish - that is to say, time and temperature. That's why you only need 15 hours if you can get the temperature as low as -35° C.
Freezing the fish at 0° C or slightly below, which is exactly the temperature that most home freezers are, will do precisely nothing to guarantee food safety. It will keep the fish safe for cooking, but will not in and of itself kill any nasties. It is not a reliable or even semi-reliable way of preparing fish to be eaten raw. It is not safe to eat raw fish that's been sitting in a home freezer.
But don't get too upset about this, because you're talking about smoked salmon, and smoked salmon is not raw. It is cured, like a salami. That means it's safe to eat without any additional cooking, and that means you do not need to freeze it at all (except to keep it fresh if you're buying it well in advance).
So go ahead and make your sushi with smoked salmon bought from the grocery store. Just don't try that strategy on actual, raw fish.
I concur with mekdigital that you should not use self-sanitized fish (please!). People in Japan even rarely make their own sushi with raw fish by themselves at home. The belief that is that only a sushi chef has the experience, skills, and knowledge to accurately select appropriate fish to be used for raw sushi dishes. Factors include the source of the fish as well as its health based on visual/olfactory/tactile inspection. After a fish is approved, it must then be handled, stored, transported and filleted according to strict standards of safety, hygiene and cleanliness. The fish must even be filleted a certain way.
All these standards were implemented to ensure that the fish was safe to eat. I doubt that Whole Foods or their distributor goes quite the same length as sushi chefs in Japan do to pronounce a fish "sushi grade" but I'm sure it is safer to use their fish than buying some raw fish in a grocery store that has not been inspected/handled/stored for use in raw dishes. Better safe than sorry!
Smoked salmon is (more or less) a cooked product, so if you're fine with the smoked taste, it's fine for sushi without any further additions. Anything you would eat without further preparation can be used in sushi without problem: raw vegetables (assuming you're someplace with trustworthy vegetable handling practices), smoked salmon or lox (usually eaten without further preparation on bagels), canned tuna, cream cheese, et cetera. I have used the same type of product from my local supermarket when making sushi and it turned out tasty :)
Raw fish from the supermarket is another matter. I personally wouldn't trust random raw fish, since it's intended to be cooked and thus not necessarily safe to eat raw.
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29410 | Is there a method to pour espresso shots without damaging the crema?
My espresso machine (DeLonghi EC155) is really short and will only allow shot glasses / really short cappuccino cups (if I remove the excess coffee catch) which I don't have.
So, I need to pull my shots into a shot glass, then pour the shot into my coffee mug. But when I do, I notice that all that rich crema I just pulled gets left into the shot glass as I poured.
Is there a technique to pouring shot glasses that will keep the integrity of the crema?
Put a brick on your counter. Place your machine (without excess coffee catch) on the brick. Place a tall mug in front of the machine. Enjoy your crema.
^you need to see what the EC155 looks like. This won't work.
If you're drinking the espresso shot on its own, you could drink it straight from the shot glass - or, better yet, buy an espresso cup, which should be about the same height as your shot glass. (A double-walled espresso cup will help keep it warm.)
If you're pulling espresso shots to be used in other espresso-based drinks (i.e., if you're adding some sort of milk or water to it), you could try an espresso brew pitcher, which basically looks like the sort of small pitchers you'd use to serve cream; they're normally about 3 oz, small enough that it would probably fit under your espresso machine. You could brew the espresso into the pitcher, then pour into your mug; the spout/lip of the pitcher should help preserve the crema once you figure out what the optimum pouring speed is. It should work similarly to pouring steamed milk: pour too fast, and the foam and milk come tumbling out all at once and you ruin the foam, too slow and the foam gets stuck in the pitcher. But if you pour just right, you should be able to pour most of the liquid first, and wind up with just enough liquid left to slide out the foam so it lands on top of your drink.
I swirl the espresso in the shot glass to incorporate the crema, then pour immediately. This gets most of the crema - some is still left on the surface of the shot glass.
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29594 | What is a moist vanilla bean?
I'm trying to make a vanilla syrup for some flavored coffees, and the recipe I have calls for:
2 1/2 cups water
2 cups white sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 moist vanilla bean, preferably Mexican or Bourbon (Madagascar)
What does it mean by a moist vanilla bean? Do I soak the bean in water or something before use?
In this case, it means, quite literally, that the vanilla pod has not dried out. I won't call it fresh since it has been fermented, but it has been stored properly.
Grade B beans, used for extract, are generally dryer than Grade A beans, so you would probably want to use a Grade A bean for this.
Interesting point @user5561 I didn't know that before. This article http://www.vanillareview.com/vanilla-information/ provides lots of information on vanilla beans, including how they are graded.
This is not a precise term, you cannot go and buy "moist" and "dry" vanilla beans. But the pods can be prepared to different degrees of dryness, similar to prunes. And the ones with more remaining moisture have more taste and are generally higher quality. This is why they specify it. If you only have access to dry pods, I will still try out the recipe with them, just change the source for the next buy.
Regarding the comment above, I have never had vanilla beans with a grade denoted on the packaging. But I have had both moist and dry ones, so it isn't a case of only one grade being marketed to end users. It is surely better if you can distinguish them based on some kind of grading, but chances are, you won't know what grade you are buying.
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45333 | Raw milk curdling in microwave
Why is it that every time I try to heat raw milk in a microwave it curdles and becomes like ricotta after a few seconds?
Adjust power setting and/or don't place in centre of turntable
The problem you are facing is that your microwave temperature is too high and boils your milk too rapidly. The microwave does not heat food evenly and boils the milk too fast. Milk shouldn't be boiled too rapidly and doing this causes the casein in it to clump together and that curdles the milk. It should instead be brought 'to a boil' by heating on a slow heat for longer until it starts to boil.
So, you can try a couple of different options:
You can bring the milk to a boil in a pan on a stove on slow heat, which will take long depending on the amount of milk. And I can vouch for this method. I've seen my dad do this for years and as long as your pan is clean and the heat is low, you'll have a successful result.
I haven't tried this myself, but you can Pour milk into a microwave-safe container and microwave on medium-high (70%) power, stirring every 15 seconds, just until steam begins to rise from the milk. To scald milk for custards or yogurt, heat 250 mL (1 cup) on HIGH for 2 to 2 1/2 minutes. - Reference
I'll try using lower power and see how that works. If that fails I'll just heat it on the stove. It will be another week until I can get my hands on some more raw milk but I will keep you updated, thanks :)
I have the same issue and it is NOT because the milk has approached the expiration date when it's a day old or too high of a microwave setting when it dues thus randomly. What I've found is that it may be a chemical reaction with the rinsing agent in your dishwasher and milk.
I'm not sure if I buy that - the OP doesn't mention anything about what he's heating the milk in.
I doubt it's that. I haven't wash that particular container in a dishwasher for a very long time.
As other answer says, you need to lower down power of your microwave. But if the minimal power is still to high (it can happen if you trying to heat very small amount of milk) use the lifehack: additionally put a glass of water into the microwave, it will absorb sufficient part of power.
Check the temperature/heat rating that you are setting on the microwave. Very likely its a bit too high and that's the reason why it has a similar reaction as to when lemon juice or vinegar is added to milk.
Are you saying that high heat kills bacteria and within a few seconds a ton more lactose forms and curdles the milk? Or that high temperatures directly cause the same reaction as low pH? Those seem like two completely different explanations.
I am not sure about the rest of the explanation, but I do agree with the high temperature of the microwave. The microwave does not heat food evenly and boils the milk too fast. Milk shouldn't be boiled too rapidly and doing this causes the casein in it to clump together and that curdles the milk. It should instead be brought 'to a boil' by heating on a slow heat for longer until it starts to boil.
The mechanism suggested by this explanation is so strange, I can't even begin to unravel the wrong assumptions. For example, bacteria don't prevent milk from curdling. In fact, they do curdle it when there is enough of them, this is called yogurt. But the curdling is caused by the acid they secret acting on the proteins in the milk, and has nothing at all to do with lactose. And so on.
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39872 | What's the use of the hexagon bottom in braisers?
I have a few cast iron skillets and a dutch oven and I want to get an enamelled cast iron pan so that I won't have to worry about ruining the seasoning when using acidic sauces (tomatoes, lemon, etc).
I like this shallow Staub pan but I'm not convinced about the hexagon shapes. They say the hexagon bottom produces a natural non stick surface that is more resistant to scratches and chips. Has anyone used something similar to this or know what the hexagon shapes at the bottom are for?
The pattern on the bottom is to reduce sticking, as food is only likely to stick to the peaks and not the valleys.
It is also intended, with dubious effectiveness, in my mind to extend the non-stick lifetime of the pan as the non-stick coating tends to only wear off the peaks, and not so much from the valleys.
In my mind, non-stick is not a feature I would look for in a dutch oven, where you want fond development for braises and searing.
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55457 | Curing with smoked salt
I have a question about Ruhlman’s home cured bacon recipe. I do not have a smoker and I know the smoking step is optional but I was thinking that if I used Maldon Smoked Sea Salt Flakes instead of the suggested Morton or Diamond Crystal it would give the bacon a nice smoky flavour. Has anyone tried this or has an opinion?
I use smoked paprika in my jerky recipe to bring some smoke to the party. It never quite measures up to actually smoking it though.
You could use the smoked salt, but it would not impart that much smoked flavor and would be quite expensive compared to normal kosher salt. Since most wet-cured bacon available at the grocery store is flavored with liquid smoke, an easy alternative would be to rub the belly with liquid smoke prior to roasting as described at The Splendid Table.
As a side note, Ruhlman's recipe yields bacon that has a significant herbal flavor. If you were looking for something closer to standard bacon, try a simpler recipe like the one from The Splendid Table or this one from Salt and Smoke Food
Great, thanks for the tips. I used Ruhlman's recipe (without the garlic, thyme or berries) with normal salt. I've just ordered some liquid smoke so I'll use that before roasting.
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23840 | Oven Temperature: How to be sure the selected temperature is correct.
I suspect that my - fairly new - oven gets too hot, so I bought an oven thermometer, which confirmed this. So I called the supplier. They say that in order to obtain the correct actual oven temperature, for any setting, you take the highest reading on the thermometer, and the lowest, and then divide both readings. Is this correct?
The "correct" temperature is determined by using a properly calibrated thermometer. This will likely not match the 'setting' which you have dialed up on your stove because oven thermostats are notoriously unreliable. You should be able to arrive a correlation between the setting you use and watching the thermometer you bought. Remember that each time you open the oven a significant amount of heat is lost.
If you can place the thermometer where you can read it through a window into your oven and make note of the setting/actual you should be able to arrive at a useful guide to your oven.
That said, there is often very little difference between cooking something at 325F vs. 335F. But I would recommend you depend on time@temp less than internal temperature (using an instant read thermometer) to correctly gauge the 'doneness' of your dish.
Thanks, Cos. Reason why I am apprehensive about the response by the oven supplier is that my thermometer reading fluctuates (I bought a reputable German product). If, e.g., I set the temperature to 170°C - I'm from South Africa; we are using metrics - then my thermometer may move up to 185°C, then down to 165°C, then up again..... If this is 'normal', as the oven supplier insists, how would I know what the true temperature is I am baking at?
@Clara: Oven temperature always "fluctuates" - the heating element is sometimes on, sometimes off, keeping it in the neighborhood of the right temperature. 20C is a bit more than I'd expect, though, unless your thermometer is very close to the element.
Oh, ok then. So that fluctuation IS normal! Thanks, Jefromi! Clara
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21610 | Could rice or pasta be cooked without hot water?
I moved in a brand new house. I have no stove, microwaves or hot water for a week or two.
I'm vegetarian and I've already prepared fresh veggies wrap, salad, hummus, sandwichs, .. but I'm wondering if you could cook any kind of pasta or rice without hot water.
A long time ago I read pasta could be softened in cold water before boiling it to cook it quicker.
What about something like a coffee pot? Instead of putting coffee in the filter, just let it heat your water and then cook something like couscous which just needs to stand in hot water? Or you could use an electric kettle or hot pot. Alternatively a rice cooker would work for rice.
I don't have a coffee pot or a rice cooker :( I have a moka pot. I have no hot water at all.
If it's going to be a week or two you could just buy an electric kettle. There are some really cheap ones.
A small microwave is pretty cheap, too—somewhere around $50.
@simonmiller I suspect that the OP doesn't have an oven either if they don't have a stove.
@simonmiller : depending on the country, the norm might be that you take your appliances when you sell the house, including the stove/fridge/etc. In the U.S., it's typical that the large kitchen appliances transfer with the house, but not so much in Europe.
Wetted starch is not the same thing as cooked starch. If you want to see the difference in a simple experiment, make two starch slurries, boil one into a pudding, and leave the other one cold. Starch only gelates at high temperatures (I think it starts around 70°C, but needs even more to complete the process).
When you have a grain of rice, you have the problem that the starch is very closely packed together, and water can't penetrate into the center of the grain too well - the outside layers soak all the water they come in contact with, and so water only seeps into the center of the rice after the outer part has been hydrated. It is similar for pasta. In the worst case, when you cook rice, the time needed for cooking will be enough to heat the whole grain to the gelating temperature, but not enough for the water to hydrate the innermost part of the corn. This is fine if you want hardish-cooked rice, but if you want soft, mushy rice, you should presoak it so the inside is already hydrated when you start cooking it. I suppose you can do the same with pasta. This is the reason why some sources will advice you to presoak.
But, as I said, this is not the same as cooking. Yes, the rice or pasta will get soft, so you won't break your teeth if you try to eat it. But it will still be raw starch. I don't know if it is unhealthy to eat raw starch (my mother certainly told me so, but it could have been a myth; I asked a question about that and got no conclusive answers). But it will probably taste unpleasant, similar to raw potatoes or raw flour. I would try to get other sources of food for this time period. Or, as @justkt's comment suggests, it is easy to get an electric kettle in a brand new house before the kitchen is installed. You can use it to pour cooking water over "instant" versions of pasta and rice. These have been pregelated and then dehydrated, so don't need a prologned cooking. They are usually available as instant hot soup or rice meals in sachets and cardboard boxes, I haven't seen them as pure ingredients.
Thanks. I think you are right about the flour flavour.
I'll try it anyways with a little portion of pasta to see how it grows and taste.
I try it and the rice is still tough after 4 hours. The pasta was a paste after a few minutes. The pasta was pretty disgusting :S
The rice will need much longer, normally presoaking for rice is overnight (assuming you plan to cook it afterwards). But I doubt that it will taste much better than the pasta.
Ramen, or instant, noodles are usually precooked, so you ought to be able to get away with just a cold water soak. ramen "no cook" turns up many recipes, but I'm not finding how long a soak is needed for rehydration with cold water.
+1 for dry instant ramen. I will sometimes crumble up a pack before opening, open the pack and add a little bit of the seasoning, shake the pack carefully to distribute the seasoning, and chomp down on that. In a pinch.
You can make rice in a crock pot. There are 2 methods that I know of, one of which I use all the time.
(this is the one I haven't used, but have heard of it from reliable sources) An hour before serving your meal, fill a crock pot liner with the amount of water/salt/rice that you would normally use. Put it at the top of the pot, using the lid to keep it there (meaning to put both sides of the top of the bag over the lid of the pot and put the cover over the edges). Fluff with a fork before eating.
I take a pyrex or any other oven safe bowl that's big enough to hold the amount of cooked rice that I want, put the rice, water, and whatever else I want into the bowl, and put it in the crockpot at the beginning of the cook time for whatever dish I'm making. I put it to the side of the main dish that is already cooking in there. It comes out perfect every time.
This is, of course, assuming you have access to a slow cooker (which would probably be a good idea if you don't have access to hot water or a stove).
I have no crock pot or rice cooker. No hot water at all at home. I am in a hot weather place, so is not a big problem for having a shower ;)
Hmmm If you are in a place with hot weather, perhaps you can utilize the sun to boil water. I've seen sun ovens done before. I dont see why you can't utilize the same heat trapping concept to boil water.
@Jay you can, indeed its how some solar-thermal power plants work. Of course, this would be much more work than a $15 electric kettle, but could be more fun.
Camp stove. Sterno cans at sporting goods store--cheap. Or outside grill--but it will take a while.
Remember you only need to bring it to boil or very hot, then let it sit for a while.
Hi Steve. Welcome to Seasoned Advice! Contrary to a lot of the discussion on this page, the original question is about not using hot water (from any source.) I'm with you, I'd rather find a way to make hot water than attempt to eat lukewarm, uncooked rice. But it's not the question at hand.
It is true. A cup of near boiling water placed into a container, add some pasta, cover it and 20 minutes or so, it will be cooked. I think this is the best answer to the logical follow-up to this question, since pasta cannot be cooked without heat or a chemical reaction of some kind.
Two ideas come to mind. First, 'instant' rice or noodles are likely precooked or partially so, or otherwise processed so that cooking isn't required to be digestible (the hot water serving to rehydrate and warm the food instead). It is likely that a longer soak in cold water would be able to rehydrate them, and they would likely be much more digestible than attempting the same with an uncooked variety - the problems with witch are mentioned in rumtscho's answer. It might be helpful to set the soaking rice or noodles in the sun, the warmth will help the process along even if it never boils, much like sun tea.
The second idea might be technically correct but is less helpful, and I really do not recommend taking it seriously unless you can find a really reputable source/recipe/expert - but it might be possible to breakdown the starches of the raw foods in a way that makes it edible, by fermenting it. This is not totally unknown - dhosa or idli are sometimes made from fermented rice dough, and fermented flour (which raw pasta is made from) pretty much gets you to a sourdough situation. However, both of these require further cooking (either baking or pan-frying), and so are probably not safe to consume without that further step. Even such recipes as Taipei fermented rice-wine soup or lacto-fermented rice are boiled at some point before consumption. So while that further cooking doesn't have to require "hot water" specifically, thus fulfilling the question's requirements, hot water is usually trivial to produce if you have any other method of cooking. I suppose you might be able to sun-bake the results if you have some dark stone out in the sunlight that gets hot enough (in the spirit of cooking eggs on a sidewalk), or sun-dried then toasted over open flames (as in, say, a candle). But, again, I don't recommend it unless you've got a really good source for how to do so safely.
Rice is made to be hot. The chemical reaction happens through enough energy to allow the water in, otherwise, you get stale rice.
Hi MJO. Welcome to Seasoned Advice. There are some issues with your answer that are causing it to be downvoted. The first one that I see is that you mention a chemical reaction but do not mention what reaction you are speaking of. Since you do not include any reference to a source document it's hard to verify this claim. "Rice is made to be hot" is also kind of a weird claim. Rice is grown to live and procreate like anything else. We value precise wording and science above general advice.
@PrestonFitzgerald I don't think the idea here is that rice evolved or was created to be hot; it's just that in the context of cooking rice is meant to be cooked hot. It's circular, so it's certainly not a useful answer, but your response is a bit odd.
@Jefromi I thought my closing sentence would be enough to explain my pedanticism. Guess not.
@PrestonFitzgerald In that case, I completely disagree: we value useful answers above pedantry. You can always edit to address pedantry if you really have to, but if the answer's useful, it's useful, nitpicking or not.
I think this answer is referring to lectin in the rice and other agglutinins that have indeed been increased in modern rice varieties https://www.amymyersmd.com/2017/06/the-problem-with-grains-and-legumes/
Milkjuice's Own answer is perhaps worded incompletely or poorly but there is verifiable substance to it - modern rice varieties have had their natural antibacterial and anti-fungal properties engineered to be stronger and rely for edibility and safety on full high heat cooking.
Consider solar cooking, the sun can cook far more easily than most people think. Avoid the standard pizza box crap, build a solar funnel, look it up.
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45300 | Is there a technique to freeze gnocchi so they maintain their consistency?
I've made gnocchi, let them dry for 2 hours over the counter, place them in a plastic container with extra flour inside the freezer.
Two days later I take them out of the freezer. After an hour the gnocchi were defrosted but sticky and a little bit darker.
Should I use semolina instead of flour after the gnocchi are shaped so they don't become sticky?
Should I use more flour for the dough I want to freeze?
Should I cook them before freezing them?
I used potato+flour+salt to make the gnocchi. No egg.
Did you freeze them after boiling or before?
I froze the gnocchi before cooking them.
I typically use potato, flour and egg.
Make. Freeze. Then, go directly from freezer to boiling water. Do not defrost first.
+1 for no defrosting and boil after freeze. They will take a bit more time to cook from frozen; hopefully the texture is not adversely affected (try a double batch, freezing half!). The brief bench-rest and a little flour (from OP) before freezing will help to keep them from sticking together as much.
I scatter them on a metal tray thinly coated with flour. Once the tray is full, it goes directly into the freezer. After the gnocchi are frozen on the tray, I dump them into a freezer bag.
If you pile them to deep in the freezer before they are frozen (ie in a bag or box) they stick together.
Out of the freezer, directly into boiling water. Do not need to let them defrost first.
*I use richotta, but the same should apply to potato gnocchi
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23825 | What is the secret to baking bread with a very fine crumb?
I've noticed bread purchased from the local baker always has a very fine crumb. How is this achieved??
What do you mean by "fine" crumb? That the holes are small and regularly shaped, or that it is very soft?
I mean that the holes are small and regularly shaped. It would also be good to know how they make it so soft but that is probably better for another question.
A couple of things will help give you smaller holes:
Keep the hydration reasonably low (say, 60% with American-style bread flour).
Use some oil or butter. Try 10% (baker's ratio).
Knead very well, something like 10–15 minutes in a stand mixer.
After the first rise, normally you try to be gentle, and not press out all the air. Don't. Instead, press it out.
Bake in a moderate (say, 350°F) oven. You don't particularly want much oven spring here.
For even finer texture, part way through the second rise, you can press it out again, and let it start a third rise (but not to double).
Also, adding some whole wheat or rye flour will give a denser crumb. With different flavor, too, of course.
I wouldn't use bread flour for small holes, but AP flour. Has the side effect of tasting better at low hydration, too.
Agree they're probably adding fat of some sort. Also, there's probably no sourdough in there, and rising time is probably very tightly controlled for their baking environment. I think it's quite easy to get smaller holes at home but it's difficult to get a light texture and a small crumb.
Covers most of what I was going to post. A little sugar in the bread dough helps yield a tighter but more delicate crumb too.
a small amount of fat emulsifies, trapping multiple bubbles instead of a few giant ones
faster overall processing: a single rise
denser dough and worked til highly elastic.
Dough for a sandwich loaf would be portioned into three balls and worked til taut, lined up snuggly in pan and proofed to only half of its rising capacity then baked with a lid on to further compact the crumb.
My experience is that the drier your bread dough is, the finer the crumb and smaller the holes. Try using slightly less liquid or slightly more flour.
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27198 | How long will infused alcohol last?
I'm attempting to infuse alcohol for the first time, and I'm wondering how long the infusions will keep? I've read a few different (contradictory) opinions on this matter. One recipe for vanilla vodka said to store in the fridge and use within 3 months. I've even seen "use within a month" for some infusions. Others say, "it's alcohol, it will keep forever." I'd imagine the alcohol would act as a preservative allowing it to keep for a very long time.
In general, is there a reason to consume infused alcohol within a specific timeframe? Taste? Flavor? Safety? Would this differ based on whether it was infused with fruit, herbs, or spices? Is there a reason that you may want to store infused alcohol in the fridge/freezer instead of leaving it out?
Would there be any special considerations for what I'm infusing right now:
Vanilla vodka
Jalapeño tequila
Rosemary tequila
As below, you should be fine - anything infused in 80-proof vodka or tequila should have no problems with bacteria or mold. One exception to this, though, seems to be cream liqueurs, which should be refrigerated and used within a few weeks (or so I've heard - I've never tried them myself). Anyway, I have coffee liqueur over a year old and cranberry that's about ten months, and they both taste fine. http://www.guntheranderson.com/liqueurs.htm has some decent information.
I use "one step" to sanitize bottles and caps, like you would do for beer, and bottle my infusions in that, and they've lasted >3 years. I've done raspberry and cherry vodka. If the alcohol percentage is high enough, it will kill bacteria or mold, so it's pretty safe for long term storage. Probably depends on the final alcohol percentage though, like if you add enough juice that the percentage goes less than 10 or so percent, you have to have more precautions in sanitizing everything. I usually sanitize anyway because it can't hurt, and I already have the equipment to do so from homebrewing.
Alcohol effectively denatures germs at 60%-70% and can stabilize at concentrations as low as 30%. I would start off with a higher proof alcohol.
My parents have been doing this for a while with Gin and an open bottle will last over a year without any detrimental effects. Generally with spirits you'll drink it well before it goes bad unless you're intentially aging them.
Shelf stability generally lands at the 20% marker. Above that, and the contents should be fine for a long duration.
However, that can be heavily offset by sugar content. Sugar will begin to deteriorate after 6 months and higher alcohol content is needed to make sure it keeps. This includes natural sugars like those that come from fruit.
Additionally, you need to make sure that you strain out the items you used for the infusion properly using a coffee filter. Large particulates from fruit that are left behind can become a hot bed for contamination on a longer timeline.
I will usually do a water-vinegar rinse to fruits or peels that I'm going to infuse into any alcoholic drink.
I've made several bottles of vodka with fruit and raw sugar that have lasted over 5 yrs. Mostly because I can't drink and my family mostly doesn't but I like making them.
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92892 | Aging cheese contaminates levain
I took my levain from the fridge, fed it and put it in the counter, besides a cheese which is aging. The levain pot had no lid and the cheese has a cloth mesh over it. One day later the levain did not start, and was smelling like cheese. Would it be a good idea to recover the levain to benefit from this? If yes, how?
I'm afraid the only real answer to this question is "go and experiment".
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23212 | Make bacon less salty
I just finished a burger that I got at a local butcher/deli. The burger was half ground chuck and half apple wood smoked bacon. It was delicious. The only problem I have with it is that it was very salty. I do not know if the butcher added any additional salt, but assuming he did not, how would go about making my own version of a half ground chuck/half ground bacon burger less salty? This is assuming all of the salt is coming from the bacon.
There was also a slice of American cheese, lettuce, tomato and mayo on it.
Not all bacon is equally salty. Look at nutrition labels on the bacon when you go shopping, find the least salty bacon you can, and try that. You'll be best off if you cook a small amount of your meat mixture to taste, so that if you manage to end up with too little salt, you can add some back in. If it's still too salty, then all you can really do is add other, less salty meat. I imagine a burger made from 1/4 bacon would still have tons of bacon flavor.
Agreed. My first thought was to substitute half the bacon with ground unsalted pork.
Thanks. I think that is what ill try. Maybe even smoke my own bacon and cut down on the salt. :)
I didn't know if there was another ingredient I could add to the burger that would cut the flavor of the salt.
Try adding a sip of milk to the mixture and leave it for ~20 min. Then get rid of the excess moisture, and you're up to go.
Good luck with those burgers.
Soak the bacon in cold water in the fridge for 8-12 hours, then dry. Once the bacon is as dry as it would normally be grind it with an equal portion of beef.
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19576 | How to counteract excessive saltiness in dried fish?
My wife comes from a culture where preparation and eating of dried fish is very common (as long as one takes the proper measures to deal with the smell). She prepared for me recently a serving of dried mackerel, but it was sooooo salty that I could only bear to eat one or two bites. Can anyone recommend some sort of preparation method to counteract this excessive salty flavor?
Do you only want to eat it by itself? If you just want to experience the flavor, you could perhaps make dishes including it.
Generally speaking, by itself. However, I still have a good amount of that mackerel left, so I need to get rid of it somehow.
What culture is that ? What kind of recipes that this culture use to prepare salted fish ?
The standard way to cook salt cod for dishes where you want to really remove the saltiness, such as brandade, is to soak it (for hours) in a couple of changes of water, and then simmer it in milk for half an hour to an hour. This might work with the mackerel. Not sure what you'd use it for after that, though.
Brandade definitely goes beyond my kitchen experience, but it looks like it is worth a try. Thanks a bunch.
As FuzzyChef indicates in his answer, the standard way is to soak in abundant cold water. The number of hours depends on the thickness of the piece. Some cod can be soaking for 48h with a change of water every 8-12h.
But, there is no need for simmering the fish in milk. You can use the fish as usual once the desired saltiness is reached.
If you don't mind the texture you could rehydrate the fish by soaking it in water for at least an hour. You could add them to a soup as well or eat with rice to help dull the saltiness.
Sprinkling a little lemon juice or vinegar on dried fish will mask the saltiness.
Spiciness is always a great way to mask saltiness. If you like spicy food, try crushed red pepper flakes in boiling vegetable oil for a flavorless spicy addition to any food.
I lived in Japan for eight years and have a Japanese wife. The reason the Japanese cook rice with no seasoning is because so many of the preserved foods they eat are so salty. I developed the habit years ago of eating large bowls of unseasoned rice along with small servings of salt preserved fish and vegetables. I might point out that the Japanese are among the longest lived people in the world so perhaps there is merit to this eating system.
This is interesting, but it doesn't answer the question
Actually, if we accept that "add more water to an oversalted soup" is a good answer for other questions, I think that "serve it together with unseasoned rice" is a good answer to this one too.
Agreed, the question does kind of imply that the OP is trying to eat just the fish, but I think that pointing out that the best way to eat it is with bland things to dilute the salt is fair.
Soak it in starchy water for 4-5 hours
Granny to the rescue:
Depending on the recipe this is how my grandmother got rid of excessive salt in soup (so if boiling, this will be of great help)
Add potatoes cut in 4 lengthwise to the water: as they have a large surface-to-volume ratio, they will soak up lots of salt.
You can serve them both with the meal or you can keep them in the fridge to make potato salad next day.
The best way to extract salt from mackerel is to soak overnight in sea water and then was in plain water. The chemical composition of the processed salt in the mackerel and the sea water are different and therefore neutralizes each other.
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16528 | Expiration dates of food items
Is there a general place (database) where I can find expiration dates of food products sold by retailers like Walmart, Albertsons etc?
are you looking for 'how long cottage cheese lasts after being packaged' question, or 'how do I decode the date code on the bottom of the cup' question?
Unfortunately expiration dates change frequently, and regularly (or at least they should) as stores change their stock, so there isn't a database that keeps track of that. If you're looking for a 'shelf life' or how long a product should last after it's production date, a lot of times you can find that information on the manufacturers' websites, or by calling them.
Hmm, just got my answer kicked for too few letters, trying again: No there isn't.
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32910 | Enameled cast iron vs stainless steel for acids
Are enameled cast iron pans or stainless steel pans better for cooking with acids like tomatoes? I am wondering if I can use all cast iron/enameled cast iron pans, or if I need a stainless steel pan also.
Welcome to Seasoned Advice. Great first question!
Here's a related thread: http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/20153/does-ceramic-non-stick-cookware-fail-and-if-so-how
Enameled cast iron usually means porcelain enamel, a type of glass. It's resistant to both acidic and alkaline foods. It is fine to cook and even store tomato sauces, etc. in enameled cast iron.
Stainless steel is also resistant to acidic foods, but not as much as porcelain enamel. Storing tomato sauce in it may eventually discolor the pot.
Both stainless and enameled iron are perfectly good options for cooking with acids. Whether you need a stainless pan depends on what cooking you're doing. In brief, cast iron has very slow heat response (e.g., you raise or lower the burner, it takes a while for the pan to cool or heat); stainless is much faster. That's a drawback too, iron gives a very nice steady heat, perfect for braising.
Stainless is also almost always lighter. I have a 12 qt stainless stock pot, its several pounds. My enameled iron dutch oven, at less than half the capacity, is closer to 15 lbs.
Thanks for the thorough answer. Are there skillet applications where a stainless steel pan would be preferred over enameled iron, or vice/versa?
@Kevin Personally, I don't have any enameled iron fry pans/skillets. I have stainless and plain iron. I prefer the plain iron for very-high-heat browning (e.g., before/after sous vide) because it has a very high heat capacity and is basically indestructible. I use the stainless when I know I'll be adjusting temperatures (because it actually responds) or when I need it very even (the heat distribution is much better in the clad stainless pan).
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100767 | What stage of cooking chicken to use milk cream?
I originally purchased packaged fresh cream to make butter chicken, but then cooked a normal chicken curry in a pressure cooker and after it cooled, added around 200ml of the cream to it. But after one and a half days in the fridge, the chicken curry got spoilt (could make out from the smell). I assume this happened due to bacteria in the cream.
I kept the remaining cream in the freezer and plan to add it to some freshly purchased chicken before closing the pressure cooker lid to start cooking. I'm worried that the cream will curdle. So what is the general rule of thumb when using milk, cream or even coconut milk to thicken the gravy? At what stage of the cooking can it be added and does it need to be heated before adding? Can the curdling really be prevented? I've added milk while making mixed vegetable curry in a pressure cooker, but couldn't make out if the milk curdled.
I know this isn't your question, but...while helpful, smell is not a useful indicator of food spoilage. How long between the time that the food was cooked and it was refrigerated? I doubt that food which was cooked and chilled appropriately, then stored in the refrigerator, spoiled in a day and a half.
I dont remember exactly, but I may have left it outside the fridge for an hour or less to allow for cooling. The food was not cooked and chilled. After opening the pressure cooker it was left on the counter for half hour and then the cream was added.
By packaged fresh cream - was it Pasteurized? If so it is unlikely that the spoilage came from the cream, it is more likely that it was accidentally contaminated. Rancidity of the fats in the cream can make it smell bad, these can result from heat and/or acids altering the chemical composition.
Are you asking about curdling or spoiling? Because curdled milk products can be unpleasant texture-wise, but it's not necessarily spoiled in the sense that consuming it will not make you sick. Spoiled means that it contains dangerous levels of bacteria or other contaminants.
My question isn't really about spoilage. It's just about whether it's ok to add cream on top of the chicken pieces before closing the lid of the pressure cooker, and allowing it to cook until 2 whistles. The packet mentions nothing about pasteurization. It just says it's medium fat cream. 40% milk fat.
You don't want to pressure cook with the cream added. You should add the cream at the end after it's done cooking (in pressure cooker), and then let it cook for a few minutes to incorporate.
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100345 | Taste-wise, is there a difference between tomato from a blender vs. chopped tomato?
A chicken curry recipe and a mixed vegetables recipe require chopping tomatoes and frying them immediately after the onions and ginger-garlic paste are fried. But since this causes the tomato skin to be left behind as thin spindles, I considered making the tomatoes into a paste in a blender.
Although it formed a nice gravy, I noticed that the tomato taste was more prominent, and the taste of the green chillies, pepper and few other spices were not very noticeable.
I'm not sure if it was the blending of the tomatoes that caused this or whether I added too many tomatoes (I added just enough of them that the recipe required). So I wanted to know if blending tomatoes can actually make such a difference in taste that it can overpower the flavour of other spices? If anyone knows about this, I'd just like to know the technical difference between using blended tomatoes vs. chopped tomatoes. Being Indian, I enjoy the "hotness" of chillies and spices, and don't want the tomato to hide those flavours and tastes.
Besides the issue with seeds and jelly that have already been mentioned, there's also the simple issue that the liquid tomatoes just coat everything else.
This means that when bits of food come in contact with your tongue, they've already been coated in tomato juice, so the flavor is going to be more noticeable. When you have chunks, the flavors don't meld quite so much, and you have bursts of tomato flavor when you bite into a tomato chunk, but you don't necessarily coat the other chunks of stuff in tomato flavor.
If you're only dealing with a couple of tomatoes, you can fillet the skins off rather than having to boil water to loosen them.
It may depend on how much blending they got.
I find that if you blend them for too long or too fast, you strip the 'jelly' part from the seeds, then the seeds themselves start to break up. That tends to make it bitter, & I suspect that could be what you're tasting.
My standard trick to homemade sieved tomatoes is first I rough chop them - you really don't need much more than cutting them in half [If you do them whole, they tend to go pop]. Then I microwave them just long enough to heat them through & start to soften - depending on quantity you might need to give them a bit of a stir a couple of times. This doesn't need to be very thorough & they don't need to be completely evenly heated.
That should soften them up just enough that you can blend them for just a few seconds & not risk starting to grind the seeds.
Push through a sieve with a ladle & you're good to go.
I would really only tend to go to this kind of effort if my recipe needed a kilo of tomatoes, rather than 3 or 4. For just a few, I'd simply chop them finer & no-one will ever spot the rolled up skin segments.
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23731 | What does it mean in a Recipe to "steep the gelatin"?
I'm making macaroons and I wanted to know what exactly this means and for how long generally do I need to steep gelatin?
I've never heard the term "steep" - are you sure it didn't say "soak" or "bloom"?
Why are you putting gelatin in macarons?
@nico: Macaroon is not to be confused with Macaron.
@Aaronut: my bad, I didn't read correctly. But, the question still stands, why are you putting gelatin in macaroons? :)
Steeping the gelatin is the same as just soaking it in cold water. Because the structure of the gelatin is now changing, an other word for this is steeping.
You need to steep the gelatin until its softened (when using leaves). This will normally not take more then 10 minutes, but just look at the package the gelatin comes in to see what they recommend, and compare with what the recipe tells you. (I don't have experience with powder gelatin).
Gelatin comes normally in two forms, as sheets (2gr) or powder. The sheets have to be hydrated in cold water for about 10 to 15 minutes, then taken out of the water and put into a hot liquid.
The powder has to be hydrated in a cold liquid and then heated.
You can calculate the amount of powder by multiplying the number of sheets by two (2 gr).
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121273 | How does the idli or dosa preparation process help in ensuring it is cooked and the bacteria+yeast are killed?
Background:
If I use two or three cups of rice to prepare rice in a pressure cooker, I have to add plenty of water, pressure-cook it until one whistle and wait for around 1.5 hours until I open the pressure cooker. However, for idli or dosa, the raw rice + urad dal is ground to form a paste and allowed to ferment. Then it's either steamed (for idli) for 10 minutes or poured onto a surface or flat pan, and cooked for just a few minutes.
The primary questions:
I don't understand how this gives the batter enough time to get cooked fully. Compared to how much time and extra water it took to cook rice grains in the pressure cooker.
Also, won't such a process prevent a lot of the bacteria and yeast from
getting killed?
Does it make more sense to partially or fully cook the majority of
the rice grains in a pressure cooker, before mixing it with the raw
urad dal and a tiny bit of raw rice ground in a mixie or stone
grinder (to bring in the bacteria and yeast)?
Reason for asking:
I used a mixie to prepare the batter (so had a slightly coarser texture). Fermentation only began a little, since the ambient temperature here is 21 degree Celsius. The idli and the dosa I prepared with this batter, didn't seem to get cooked fully. It still had a bit of rawness to it.
Some initial searching I did revealed:
Bacteria: Leuconostoc mesenteroides, Streptococcus faecalis,
Lactobacillus fermentum and Bacillus amyloliquefaciens help in
souring and leavening. Yeast: Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Debaryomyces
hansenii and Trichosporon beigelli produce flavour, enzymes and
helped in the saccharification of starch. source
Batter ferments best at 28 degree Celsius and an initial pH of 4.5.
source
Mixie has a lesser chance of causing starch damage, compared to a
stone grinder. source
The aerobic bacterial count increases in 16 hours. source
I'm going to address another part of your question, which is rice cooking time.
Normal cooking time for rice via the absorption method is about 20 minutes. I'm not at all clear on what you're doing with the pressure cooker; presure cooker rice should require only about the same amount of time -- 10 minutes cooking time plus 10 minutes cooling time. So your 90 minute rice cooking time is way outside of the normal range.*
So, given that the time required to fully cook whole rice grains is about 20 minutes at a simmer, you can see where cooking finely ground rice at a slightly higher (hot steam) temperature would take less time -- around 10 minutes.
(* there are rice techniques that require an hour to cook, but those use very little water and are slow-steaming the rice)
There are a great number of methods for cooking rice, each with its advantages, and I would never criticize someone’s rice cooking method unless they were unhappy with the result. But yeah, I would not have the patience to wait for rice for the better part of two hours, even if the result were really good rice.
I agree with Sneftel. In my experiments, contrary to the popular belief of using 1 cup rice and 2 cups water, I have needed 4 or 5 cups water (and drain the excess water). It's not about presentation or keeping cooked grains separate, the way chefs are taught. It's about cooking it upto the point that it gets fully cooked. I know nobody will agree, but this is from a decade of experience of improperly cooked food resulting in sleep loss and uneasiness (due to a weakened digestive system, which can also happen with elderly people). I know the health angle isnt encouraged here so I'll stop.
I'm just pointing out that your personal definition of "fully cooked rice" is way longer cooked than most people's. So using your definition, Idly probably aren't fully cooked either, even if most people would consider them so.
@Sneftel given that one of his questions is "rice takes 90 minutes to cook, how can idly be cooked in 10 minutes", the fact that 90 min rice is unusual is relevant.
@FuzzyChef: the 90 min is because I wait for the pressure cooker's pressure to reduce on its own. If the cooker can be opened before that because rice takes 10min to get cooked, I'm willing to correct myself. I've eaten idlis that have caused me no issues. Fully cooked, in my definition. The ones I tried making, ended up a bit uncooked. But that batter had barely begun fermenting. So I also wondered if aeration during fermenting helps the steam's heat reach inside the idlis & cook it fully. And whether more moisture in the batter helps the dosas get cooked better.
Depends on your pressure cooker. Mine only needs 10 min to cool off. I don't know yours.
Aeration, no. Soaking, yes.
You're using multiple inconsistent definitions of "fully cooked".
Both idli and rice are safe to eat once they've been heated to around 65 degrees celsius for a few minutes. At that temperature, all the microorganisms which are found in dry ingredients and normally contribute to food-borne infections have been killed; remaining ones pose no threat if the food is served promptly.
Of course, heating rice to 65 degrees for a few minutes is not going produce good rice. You can safely eat it, but you wouldn't want to do so, because there won't have been enough time/temperature for the grains to fully hydrate and gelatinize. And you wouldn't want to eat idli batter which had only been cooked to 65 degrees. It wouldn't be firm, and the bits of rice in it would still be hard. But once idli is up to cooking temperature, it cooks quickly because the rice in it is in little bits which hydrate quickly.
So for both idli and rice, the cooking time is not selected to ensure food safety. With the time and temperatures used, it's just not going to be an issue (again, assuming the food is eaten promptly after cooking). Cooking times are selected to make the result taste good.
It's not clear what you mean by "rawness", but I'm assuming you meant "hard bits", like with the undercooked rice. The larger the bits of rice in your batter, the longer the idli will take to cook. And that means you're at risk of overcooking the idli, by getting it too hot.
As for including precooked rice: Sure, if you like. That's murmura idli, after all. But the solution to your problem is to grind the rice more finely, or to start with idli mix instead of rice grains.
The original question is confusing, but for idli or dosa there is a fermentation step that helps clear a food safety hurdle. I think this is more about fermentation than cooking, but certainly could be clarified by the OP
@moscafj: I was asking about how to ensure that it gets fully cooked. But as you guessed correctly, I was also wondering if fermentation helps in "pre-cooking" the starches in any way.
No, it does not.
@moscafj I can’t really see how the fermentation would help with food safety, compared with unfermented batter. The batter isn’t generally acidified enough to inactivate harmful microbes, and it’s used before harmful microbes would grow much in any event. It differs from sourdough in that one doesn’t (normally) propagate a stable culture.
@Sneftel...the main point is that the question is confusing, and addresses more than one issue. Idli batter can range in pH from 4.2 to 5.9 (far as I can tell from a quick search)...pH below 4.6 is a c. bot. safety hurdle.
@moscafj Fair enough. But by the time idli gets enough botulism to make you blink, it’s got enough aureus to kill your whole cricket team.
Primarily, I'm asking about the batter going from a raw to fully cooked state, and whether fermentation aids in taking it to cooked state faster. The secondary concern was the microorganisms. For example, would 10 minutes of steaming really kill the ones in the middle of the idli.
@Nav it takes very little time at those kinds of temperatures to kill pretty much all bacteria. 10 minutes is definitely more time than that. And since you are defining "fully cooked" differently than most chefs (which define "fully cooked" as safe and tasty to eat), you will have to be a lot more specific about what that means if you expect people to be able to answer that.
@Esther: I was asking about the steam penetrating to the middle of a dense idli. I assume fermentation would introduce more aeration. About "fully cooked", could we discuss it in a chatroom? I dont know how to create one here.
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126237 | What are complimentary baking items for a small 22L Oven Toaster Griller (OTG) without a convection fan?
This is the kind of 22L OTG I'm referring to. Many videos exist, which can give you an indication of it's size:
It has three baking racks. Operates at 1200W. Has a baking tray, wire grill cum barbecue tray with 4 Skewer rods, crumb tray and a rotisserie skewer rod with 2 forks. Two heating elements on the top and two heating elements at the bottom. No convection fan. The top and bottom heating elements can be switched on or off independently.
Question:
Since it consumes a good amount of electricity, and since baking items separately takes a lot of time, I wanted to know what items can be baked simultaneously in such an oven. Items can be placed on the baking tray, rotisserie and the wire rack. I'm hoping the crumb tray can be used as an extra baking tray.
Searching I've done:
On searching the internet for "How to Cook Multiple Dishes in the Oven at Once" it appeared to give me answers suited for a much larger oven. Answers given were about baking cookies, sheet pan meals, pizzas, assorted pastries, muffins, bread or rolls, vegetables, and brownies or blondies. Precautionary points mentioned were about similar sized items, adding items later in the baking process based on how much baking time is required, rotating the tray halfway through, and ensuring there's enough space for air circulation. An old question here was also a bit different.
We used an oven approximately this size when our full-sized oven failed at the beginning of the year. I would not attempt to bake multiple things in it at once.
Even though there are three rack positions, there isn't enough room to stack multiple trays for anything taller than cookies. I wouldn't suggest even doing cookies, because there isn't really air circulation in the oven and the elements and heating are designed to heat a single tray. For example, if you tried to cook two trays of cookies stacked, what I would expect is that the cookies on the bottom would get burnt on the bottom with the top raw, and the cookies on top would be the reverse. Yes, you could try swapping top and bottom halfway through cooking, but is it really worth it to save 15min of heating time?
So, that's my answer for you: there aren't any foods such that cooking multiple dishes/trays in an oven that size will work well.
Yes; some racks being too close to the heating elements was my worry too. Perhaps the rotisserie could be used to cook chicken while a pizza bakes in the middle rack. I wouldn't mind liquid from the chicken dripping onto the pizza.
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40973 | How to remove pizza pan from oven without a peel?
I was given a set of mini-pizza pans for making personal sized pizzas, but I noticed these pans don't have handles or ridges around the edge like my larger pizza pan to grip with my oven mitt. I don't have a pizza peel, so I'm wondering what the best alternative method for getting the pizza out of the oven with equipment I probably already have around the kitchen?
I wouldn't use a pizza peel anyway, it may not take the weight and it's too slippery.
You can use a spatula or tongs to pull pizzas off of a pizza pan/stone in the oven onto an upside down baking sheet, cutting board, or even a plate, assuming your pans are just flat surfaces, like a pizza stone.
You can also assemble pizzas on the upside down baking pan and slide them off it onto the stone in the oven.
If you are cooking on the pizza pan, you can simply grab the edge with tongs and slide it over the front of the rack onto a larger pan or plate.
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45152 | Off taste from refrigerating cheese?
Every time we get a extra large block of cheese, by the time we get to the end of the brick, what's left gets an off taste, from being in the refrigerator so long after opening the package. The price per pound is much more economical for the large blocks of cheese, so if it's possible, I'd like to know how to prevent or undo the off-taste that comes from being in the fridge too long once the package is unsealed vs just buying smaller bricks. Even if I leave the original wrapper around half of the block that doesn't seem to help. Usually I store the open block in a freezer-weight ziplock bag.
this happens most with medium cheddar.
You can put a small dish of baking soda in the fridge to absorb odors, so that the cheese doesn't.
First, don't wrap your cheese directly in plastic. There is such a thing as cheese bags, and for what it is worth, they're highly recommended by America's Test Kitchen, AKA Cook's Illustrated. The same company makes flat paper for wrapping. Expensive stuff, but you may find it worth it.
From the the kitchn, an article written by an author with impeccable bona fides:
• Place the parchment or waxed paper flat on your counter with the wedge on top, and then bring the edges of the paper up and around the cheese, creasing as you go to make neat, clean folds. You can use tape to secure if you'd like.
• Label the paper with the cheese variety and date.
• A loose plastic wrap or a plastic bag over the paper generally keeps things tight (and keeps out fridge odors).
• Keep your cheese in the warmest part of the refrigerator, like in your cheese or vegetable drawer. An even better method is to designate a large tupperware container as your cheese home, where all of your cheese pieces can live.
As you specifically mention that it's an 'extra large block', you might want to consider re-packaging your cheese when you first open the package. Divide it up into 2 or 3 more manageable portions, so that when you're using it, you're not re-exposing the whole block.
If you don't want to shell out for cheese paper specifically, and don't have butcher paper or similar, you can wrap firmer cheeses in a paper towel, and then place that into a plastic bag or wrap with plastic wrap -- this avoids the issues with wrapping the cheese directly in plastic.
Dairy tends to "catch" odors from other food in the fridge, although cheese rarely shows it, you must be buying some mild variety. The other possibility is that something is growing on your cheese.
It is impossible to remove the smell once it has settled in. If it is really the "stale refrigerator" variety, then the only thing you can do is to protect the cheese from the odorous air. If the ziplock isn't helping, you can try a tupperware style container with an airtight seal. Also pack everything else in the fridge, so the odors don't mingle; don't keep anything open inside.
If it's the cheese itself which is getting musty, because it caught a mould or a bacterial culture, there isn't anything you can do with a fridge. Cheese is not a product which is supposed to be stored in a fridge; it is a product optimized for a root cellar at 12-15 Celsius, with sufficient air movement. Weeklong storage in a fridge is not good for it. You have the choice between enclosing it airtight (which stops it from taking in odors from other foods, but makes it wet enough to enable the growth of moulds and bacteria, and also to change its texture unpleasantly if it is sitting in a puddle of its own condensation), or wrapping it in cheesepaper, which allows some air exchange. In the second case, it will soak up odors from outside.
If you are already packing it airtight, try packing it in permeable packaging. If your packaging already exposes it to fridge air, try using an airtight packaging. Removing one odor source will expose it to the other. You will have to check and see which is less offensive for you.
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41676 | How to get instant pudding to come out smooth?
How can you make instant chocolate pudding come out smooth and even consistency instead of having little chocolatey clumps in it? Could something be wrong with my technique? The box says to beat pudding mix into cold milk and then whisk for 2 minutes, should be simple, right? Whisking longer doesn't seem to remove the lumps, so it must be something else.
What kind of milk are you using? I noticed a significant difference between skim (fat free) milk and 2% or whole milk. Something about the milkfat helps the pudding blend better.
We always use whole milk
I like to put the pudding mix in the bowl first and add the milk a little at a time, stirring or beating well after each addition, until you have smooth emulsion. Once the pudding mixture is smooth, add the rest of the milk and beat with your whisk as usual. Of course an electic mixer will help smooth it out as well.
I use this same method (though I rarely use an electric mixer - just not worth the hassle). Adding a little liquid to dry ingredients first almost always turns out smoother than the other way around.
This works for adding liquid to almost any powder. Work a little at a time, because once you have lumps in a large amount of liquid you just end up pushing them around the liquid instead of breaking the lumps up
Many chefs and home cooks will push a variety of sauces and custards through a strainer or sieve to achieve a smooth consistency. They same technique can be applied to pudding.
It could be a bad quality pudding mix, improperly stored pudding mix, or a wrong ratio of mix to milk.
In the case of badly dissolving powders, you want to be more careful. You should use the proper amount of liquid - start out with around 1.5 times more liquid than powder by volume, and make a slurry. When the slurry is smooth, mix it under the rest of the liquid. This frequently helps.
Also don't store your pudding in humid places, because it can start clumping a bit in the pack. A cabinet above a stove is not a good place. You might want to find a glass jar or a tin container with a tight lid and refill from the paper package into such a container for storage. If the pudding mix is packed into individual sachets, you can place the sachets themselves in an airtight container.
Finally, it may be the brand you are buying. Food industry has means of making powders which are very easily dissolved, e.g. by using modified starch in puddings. If yours clumps too easily, they probably chose a bad type of starch. Try another manufacturer.
If you still get clumps, whisking won't get rid of them. Use a blender to break them up. An immersion blender does the job with less hassle, but a standard blender will work as well.
I had this problem - I used an immersion blender to break up the clumps and it worked like a charm!
You need to warm up the milk on in the stove
Before it boils put on medium low and start whisking in the pudding mix.do so slowly.after which you can use the electric mixer for a very smooth consistency!
I don't know much about instant pudding but if it says to use cold milk, it's possible that hot milk will be problematic for the pudding mix content.
Yeah, don't do this for instant pudding: it won't work with warm milk.
The classic method (which will work satisfyingly even if using pure cornstarch instead of pudding mix) is to whisk the mix (or starch) into a PART of the milk (or substitute) that you leave cold, then heat the remaining milk/liquid (including sugar and other additions), then slowly add the cold mixture to the hot liquid while at the same time whisking the combined liquid like it owes you money. This can often work even with mixes that are designed to work with shortcuts (like adding everything to cold liquid).
The question is about instant pudding. Cooking instant pudding would be a terrible idea.
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35261 | Cooking in a Gas Oven?
I've recently moved into a home with a gas oven, but I've never used a gas oven before. What general differences might I expect compared to cooking in an electric oven? Humidity? Cook times? What rack setting to use? What temperature to use? Different cooking characteristics? Etc.
My experience with gas ovens is that they are much more susceptible to heat 'zones'. The top of the oven is markedly hotter than the bottom, and the back, nearer the flame, is hotter than the front. Other than that they are pretty similar to electric ovens.
Gas ovens may use gas mark settings rather than a temperature scale - converters abound online if so.
"Gas mark" is I think I UK thing; in the US, gas ovens have temperature dials or controls, of course marked in Fahrenheit since that is what we use here.
Gas mark settings are a UK-ism, I think. Here, they're marked in °F (which is, of course, a US-ism). Probably everywhere else in °C.
In almost all respects, cooking in a gas oven is the same as cooking in an electric oven.
Some differences you may find:
Some gas ovens have a broiler (or grill, in UK parlance) at the top of the main oven chamber. When using this, you may need to have the door partially opened—see the manual of your particular oven.
In most gas ovens, the actual flame elements are beneath the oven floor (except for the broiler element described above), so you don't want to block the floor with a pizza stone or similar.
While it is technically true that gas ovens are less airtight, and slightly more humid (due to water produced as a byproduct of burning the natural gas) than electric ovens, in practice this makes little difference at all.
You still want to cook by temperature, not by "mark" or "dial" setting. You should get an oven thermometer if you don't already have one, to calibrate that setting shown on the dial or control matches the actual temperature inside the oven, at least to within 25 degrees F (or about 10 degrees C) or so.
You will actually find more differences just as variance from one oven to another—some bake a little hot, or a little cold. Others have different hot spots or heat circulation patterns.
Baking some simple cookies or sheet cakes that you know well, and monitoring the results should help you get used to any adjustments you need to make for your new oven. Of course, so will the oven thermometer!
"slightly more humid...in practice this makes little difference at all."
Are you sure about that? My air fryer crisps food much better than my gas convection oven, and humidity seems like the main difference.
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34505 | How to scale chicken recipe that requires cooking in a single layer?
There's one adapted recipe I like a lot, but I've been struggling with how to make it scale better so I can double the recipe to make more leftovers/feed more people. The basic technique is to cook chicken breast tenders uncovered over medium/medium-high heat in oil and balsamic vinegar (and dry spices), adding some apricot preserves about halfway through. So in the end you end up reducing the sauce into an balsamic apricot glaze/sauce, and the chicken having marinated the whole time in the sauce imparting flavor on the chicken compared to making the sauce in a saucepan and adding after the chicken is cooked.
But in order for the chicken to cook evenly and well, the chicken needs to be laid out in a single layer in the pan, which is a bit of a limiting factor in how much chicken I can fit in the largest pan we own. Short of just making it in multiple batches, are there ways I could modify the preparation technique to come up with fairly similar tasting chicken, but in a way that I could scale the quantities larger? Would baking the chicken in the marinade achieve a similar result? Cook the sauce first, and pour over the raw chicken that's not in a single layer in a pan with the lid on? Something else?
I'd try it once in the oven, and see how it comes out, and adjust from there.
A few considerations :
the oven itself is a closed system; this means that liquids aren't going to evaporate as quickly, and the sauce won't reduce the same.
ovens cook from all directions, so the chicken will cook from the top without requiring turning. (sometimes good, but might throw off your cooking time in this case.)
If it were me, I'd likely try a pan in the lowest rack of the oven, with a sheet tray or sheet of heavy aluminium foil on a rack above it to help shield from radiant heat. You might also need to crack the oven door slightly. If the recipe calls for browning the chicken before adding the glaze, I might do that in the pan first, or use the oven broiler, depending on how large of a batch we're talking about.
so perhaps cooking the liquids in a saucepan to partially reduce them before putting in the oven would help the finished consistency of the sauce if I cook it in the oven?
@Jessica : Yes, but I'd be inclined to try reducing after cooking, so the liquid penetrates further. You might also try a pre-marinade, but you need to then either change the sauce, or boil it for sufficient time as it's been next to raw meat.
Short answer, no. If you're going to saute something in a pan it's going to have a different flavor than if you were to bake it in the oven (and you don't get the same reduction effect that you'll get by using a pan over a medium-high heat). that said, there's nothing that says you can't bake it, it just won't taste exactly the same, and will be thinner. If you want identical results, you need an identical process. You could always put another pan on the stove
Cook the chicken in bite size pieces. This is how I've gotten the best result for larger scale saute dishes. You will need to use multiple pans or batches to increase after this. You can deglaze and create the sauce after each batch.
I have not had good luck with cooking chicken breast in the oven, I would try a few attempts on the stove top before going to the oven.
Can you adapt the recipe to go in the oven instead of on the hob? If so, you could use big roasting tins (bigger than any pan), and as many of them as your oven will hold.
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29811 | If you don't cure a ham and just brine it, is it just considered a pork roast?
I brined a ham over night and then slow baked it. Then topped with an apricot honey glaze. It looked and tasted just like pork tenderloin and was white meat and not pink.
I know curing it gives it a salty taste and pink meat. Is what I made just a pork roast?
Techincally, ham is the cut of meat (the rear leg of the pig)--so what you prepared was a fresh ham roast, or just a pork roast. You happened to brine it preparation.
The term ham has also come to mean the cured pork product--or now, with so-calle turkey ham and whatnot on the market, similar cured meat products. "Fresh ham" emphasizes that you have the non-cured cut.
The thing is: as long as it was delicious and you enjoyed it, why worry? :-)
Thanks. It did come out well. I did a apricot, honey Jack Daniels and pineapple juice reduction and glazed the entire thing. OMG. The video came out great. It just wasn't pink. I might cure the meat next time to be a ham and not just pork.
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29967 | How long can you safely cure using Morton's Tender Quick?
Morton's Tender Quick says to cure for hours, but the curing recipe I am using says to cure my ham for 4 days. I am wondering does Morton's Tender Quick cure so fast that it only needs hours? Or can I cure with it as long as 4 days? or is that only for insta-cure and pink salt?
I am way confused. I can only find Morton's and I really just want to get started curing.
as far as i know tender quick is a premixed cure and includes salt already whereas instacure is something that you add in small proportions to whatever cure mix you would be using. I would look into the percentage of nitrites/nitrates in the tender quick and then compare that to what the recipe calls for and make your determinations/adjustments that way.
Morton's Tender Quick is a fast cure salt meant to be mixed in with ground meats or used for curing thinner cuts (or fish). Hams must be brined for days in order for the salt solution to penetrate deeply through the flesh and prevent spoilage. It is important to follow good curing protocol and use the amount of salt as requested in the recipe.
Sodium nitrate, or pink salt #2, is not essential from a food safety perspective for whole muscle curing but is for dry-curing various salumi.
If you're in the United States, you can buy curing salts from Butcher and Packer (www.butcher-packer.com). What kind of cure are you trying to do (what end result are you looking for)? If your recipe says to cure for 4 days, I don't think you want to do so for just hours.
I'd suggest that you find a book with good cure recipes (such as Salumi, by Ruhlman and Polcyn, or Charcuterie by Ruhlman and Polcyn, for example), and avoid the Morton mix.
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30262 | What is the difference between cheesecake and NY cheesecake?
I believe it's density but I'm not sure. What make cheesecake a NY style? Is there different ingredients. Some people call their recipe NY Cheesecake and they are not.
I can tell you what's not a NY cheescake -- Italian cheesecake (which we never qualified as anything other than 'cheesecake' when I grew up. It's made with ricotta cheese, and often had wheat berries or candied citron in it for Easter.
New York-style cheesecake, made famous by Lindy's and Junior's Deli, relies upon heavy cream, cream cheese, eggs and egg yolks to add a richness and a smooth consistency. Also called Jewish-style, it is baked in a special 5- to 6-inch tall springform pan in many restaurants. Some recipes use cottage cheese and lemon for distinct texture and flavor or add chocolate or strawberry to the basic recipe.
New York style cheesecakes are cream cheese mixtures baked without a water bath and are unique because the baking starts at a high temperature (that's quickly dropped down) producing a rich interior and light brown exterior. A NY cheesecake is high, dense, and firm.
or refer this link : http://www.crumblycookie.net/2010/09/12/cheesecake-comparison/
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23757 | KitchenAid Pro mixer clicking noise
I have a KitchenAid pro mixer that is making a slow clicking noise. It gets faster as I turn up the speed. I first noticed it after replacing a stripped worm follower gear. It sounds like it's coming from the motor. I have checked/cleaned/and re-greased all the other gears several times, and I am confident they are all working properly. Everything looks fine. As far as I can tell. It is not a huge clicking noise, but almost sounds like the fan is hitting something as it goes around. Is this something I should worry about? If I should worry about it, how do I fix it?
Did you reinstall the motor-brushes in the correct orientation? Brushes tend to wear asymmetrically, and can produce a clicking sound if you get them in wrong.
Is it cyclical with the movement of the paddle/whisk? Is it possible that you need to adjust the position of rotating element over the bowl?
Does it only do it under higher load? Mine clicks a little bit when kneading dough, and I determined that it was actually the bowl moving a bit. I have a lift-bowl model, but it could be either that or the hinge on a tilt model.
If it is under load, try pushing on the bowl to eliminate movement. If it happens even when empty, this isn't it.
Happened to me after replacement of lower gear housing.
It's caused from having the two motor mount screws too tight. I realized that could cause a bit of stress on the harmonics of the motor operation. Loosened and reinstalled just barely over a light snug, that did the trick.
After I changed the nylon gear, I missed a small piece of the striped nylon gear that was hiding in all the grease. After running it for a few seconds it started clicking. I tore it down and spun the gear with a punch until i found a spot that would catch, and found 2 VERY small pieces of the stripped nylon gear in the teeth of large planetary? gear. After removal it's running like new. If it happens again i will change the grease, and find the piece in the gear. Very small, hard to see pieces in the back of the gear teeth.
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74855 | What is the difference between bún tươi and bún khô?
There are two versions of Vietnamese rice noodles available. I'd like to know what is the difference, if any. They seem almost identical.
bún khô
bún tươi
@Cindy is correct, that both are made of rice flour. Similar to pasta, the difference is that one, bún tươi (fresh noodle), has just been made and cooked, and that bún khô (dry noodle) has been dried, as in the packaged product in the image.
Just FYI, I found both dried and in packages.
@Cindy :-) go figure ... would that be freshly dried ?
@Cindy at my Vietnamese market, I buy bún tươi which is flexible and the packaging is somewhat shrink wrapped. If the answer is incorrect, I'll delete to keep SE clean.
Same here. I don't doubt what you're saying. I'm just wondering, based on what I was able to find out, if the terms are sometimes used interchangeably.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that there doesn't seem to be a difference in the two. They are both rice vermicelli noodles.
While I found very few search results in English, they appear to be the same. I also searched images and found that there are packages of each but there are also packages labeled like this:
So I came away thinking it's more semantics than anything.
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62276 | How do I use fridge's super cooling properly?
My fridge (Whirlpool BSNF 8152 OX) comes with "Supercool" or "Fast cooling" feature. It's supposed to somehow improve the process of cooling newly stocked fridge/freezer. I am unsure about the way it works and I failed to find any information about how am I supposed to use it.
In my understanding, when turned on it slightly lowers the temperature in the fridge and "prepares" it for cooling of the newly stocked food. But am I supposed to use it when stocking the freezer or the fridge or both? How long should I leave it on?
The manual states:
The use of this function is recommended when placing a very high
quantity of food in the refrigerator and freezer compartments. Using
Fast Cool function it is possible to increase the cooling capacity in
the refrigerator and freezer compartments. Note: Fast Cooling function
should be also switched ON before placing fresh food to be frozen in
the freezer compartment, in order to maximize the freezing capacity.
These functions usually turn off after about 3 hours or when the set temperature is reached again. As the recommendation is to turn it on before stocking, it's safe to assume that it's a simple time-based "heavy duty" mode. As there is only one button for the fridge and the freezer, it has only one cooling circuit. So you turn it on when stocking the fridge or the freezer and so one compartment is "fast cooled" in vain.
The purpose is not to further lower the temperature, this is merely a side effect. It would be kinda silly to lower the temperature and then open the door, let room temperature in while stocking and let all the cooling effort dissipate. I would give it ten minutes for the cooling circuit to prepare and then start the stocking.
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76165 | Is it correct and safe to assume that "use by" dates are less precise the longer in future they are?
When there is some food (like cheese or ham) that has roughly a week "use by" date, I assume that it's safe to eat it a day after it's "use by" date.
For other food that has approx. half year "use by" date (like olives in glass or pesto) I think it's safe to eat it for anything up to a month or so.
And for canned foods having years it should be safe to eat few months after "use by" date.
My thinking is that it's harder to pinpoint the exact date the further the date is in the future. I would even expect that "use by" dates are something around the half time the food is still actually edible.
Am I correct in this line of thinking? Do you know of any reliable resources on this? I couldn't find anything.
And also a recent questionon the date terminology, though this of course varies with country and language.
"Use by" dates are pretty imprecise to start with. They're designed to be conservative, and they have a huge amount of leeway.
To the degree that they mean anything at all, I'd say that their precision is proportional to their duration. They might be conservative by, say, a factor of 2: eggs that are good for "1 week" are likely to be good for at least 2, and a box of cake mix good for "6 months" will be good for at least a year. And so on.
The fudge factor may well be closer to 4, or even 10. I've certainly kept a lot of things much, much longer than the expected dates. The only things for which expiration dates even come close is meat and fish, followed by milk. Those are things that "go bad" in obvious and unpleasant ways. Everything else just kinda gradually degrades, rather than suddenly becoming toxic.
I do agree. I hoped that there would be some reliable source beyond common sense.
There are too many variables for real precision. Common sense, and your nose, are really the best guides.
Of course, the best diet generally involves lots of foods that spoil very quickly and should be eaten within days, or ideally the same day. There's nothing wrong with preservation, per se, but the processing that goes into it tends to concentrate calories and often removing the most nutritious parts.
Still, any good pantry has a lot of things that you can keep on hand for a long time. Just use it judiciously.
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119492 | What are the best practices when making chapathi like a pancake or dosa?
Normally, chapathi/roti is made by kneading wheat flour, letting it rest a while, then making balls of them and rolling them into flat circular shapes and then heating them.
This answer describes how letting it rest, allows gluten linking and the transformation of starches into sugar.
After many years of making chapathi, I felt this process of kneading and rolling is time-consuming and cumbersome. Besides, the middle layer and some edges often do not get cooked fully and many people end up overheating it, so it gets burnt spots. Since the process of making dosa's and pancakes are simpler, I wondered if flour can be used similarly. Turns out there are indeed recipes for doing this.
If I may call this a way of making chapathi like dosa (chaposa), it involves taking equal proportions of water and flour, mixing it while ensuring there are no lumps, and simply spreading them on a heated pan, and preparing it like how a pancake or dosa would be prepared. I prepared one today, and it turned out ok. It was soft enough and seemed properly cooked. I figured that this may be a good way to make aaloo parathas too, by throwing in mashed potatoes, onions, coriander leaves and other ingredients. Kinda wish even puri-making could be made this simple.
In terms of the gluten linking and starch converting to sugars, are there any best practices that need to be followed for preparing it? Time allowed for resting etc?
Since this is a recipe you invented, I'm not clear on how anyone else would best practices advice?
I didn't invent it (although you could say it was an idea that independently came up in my mind). A search for "chapathi like dosa" will show you recipes. I figured there would be an understanding of the chemical reactions that a chef here could help with. Or at least some tasteful suggestions from anyone else.
Maybe be more specific on what things you're looking to answer, then?
Ok, so I tried making aaloo paratha using this method, and it worked out a lot better than the conventional method.
Some best practices:
Once water is mixed into the flour and whisked, let it rest for at
least five to ten minutes. It allows it to thicken a little. If not
allowed to thicken, the disc tears easily while flipping.
Use a low flame when spreading the batter on the pan. It helps
spread it out properly before it solidifies due to the heat. Then
use a medium flame to cook it.
During the cooking process, you'll notice brown spots. It does not
mean that it has got cooked fully. If the middle layer feels
slippery/mushy, you should continue cooking it until it gets cooked
through-and-through. Don't worry; the outer layer won't burn very
early like it would in a chapathi/roti, because it has a lot of
moisture.
Advantages of preparing chapathi/aaloo-paratha this way:
Any salt, chilly, coriander leaves, onion, ghee, oil or masalas you mix into the
batter, blends in well with the flour and gives a better flavour.
It's a very forgiving batter. When spreading out the batter on the
pan, you can continue adding batter to the sides and spread it out
well even a minute or two after you spread it out initially. If it
tears, you can apply more batter on the torn area like glue, and the
end result will be a seamless flat-bread. I believe the extra water content helps cook it evenly too.
It's a lot less time consuming and less messy to prepare the batter.
I made a few parathas and left the batter at room temperature for two
hours, returned and made a few more parathas, and it worked out
perfectly fine. Unlike kneaded dough, I didn't need to do anything
extra to make the batter retain moisture. It didn't get thicker and un-workable either.
Disadvantage:
It takes more time to cook.
This is really quite similar to pancake or Yorkshire pudding mix, just without the egg. That should also be rested - for several hours - before cooking, for similar reasons. I cheat with my chapattis by mixing them in a big Kenwood Chef with a dough hook, then flattening them in a tortilla press ;))
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120369 | How to retain the saltiness and spicy flavour of biryani rice?
When preparing chicken dum biryani, the chicken and rice are first partially cooked separately. The steps for cooking the rice go like this:
Wash the rice.
Soak the rice in water for 30 minutes.
For each cup of rice used, take two cups of water and boil it.
Add some whole spices to the water, and add some ghee or oil to the
water.
Add just enough salt to the water that it tastes like sea water (one
recipe actually mentioned this 'sea water' bit).
When the water starts boiling, take the rice and add it to the
boiling water. The water will take some time to get to a boil again.
Once it does, cook the rice for 8 minutes or until it is cooked 80%
(al-dente).
Switch off the flame.
Immediately strain the rice in a colander or pour cold water to cool
the rice and stop it from getting cooked further. Drain the water from the rice.
For step 8, one recipe was ok with washing the partially cooked rice further, to get rid of any extra starch floating around.
My questions:
Question 1. When I cooled the rice by pouring cool water in step 8 and then drained the water, the rice lost the saltiness that's crucial to the biryani taste. The end result was a bland biryani. Even the spiciness of the whole spices added to the water was missing. What exactly is the point of adding salt, spices and ghee to the water, if the water is to be thrown off? How can the salty taste be retained?
Question 2. If I do not drain the water, the rice tastes good (because the salt and spices are retained), but it ends up getting cooked further and becomes mushy or sticky. Is there a way to cook the rice without it become mushy, but also not having to drain the water? The rice should get fully cooked eventually though.
None of the recipes I checked, mentioned the details of how to retain the taste and flavour while still ensuring that the rice does not get mushy or sticky. I primarily use jeera rice, but sometimes use basmati rice too.
From all the biryani recipes I've followed, I agree that it seems strange that after you par-boil the rice that it is rinsed in cold water. This would wash off any flavouring on the outside of the rice, but shouldn't affect any flavour absorbed by the rice. If the stock the rice is cooked in is well flavoured with spices, it will change colour slightly and this should be reflected in the colour of the partially cooked rice, which is a good indication the flavour has penetrated. This is the method I use, and is pretty much common in all biryani recipes.
Wash your rice well in cold water to get rid of any excess starch. You need at least 3 good changes of water to do this, you will not manage to get the water completely clear but it should not be milky. Some recipes call for the rice to be soaked for 15-30 minutes in cold water, I avoid this as some varieties of rice can easily overcook. Place the rice in a sieve or colander to drain well.
Bring a large pot of water to the boil with salt, hard masala (e.g. bay, cinnamon, cloves, mace, coriander seeds, cumin seeds, cardamon etc.). After about 10-20 minutes gentle simmering with the lid on, the stock should be salty and well flavoured with the spices. Apart from taste, the stock should have taken on the colouring of the spices and not be completely clear, it should have a slight greenish-brown tinge to it.
Add your rice, return to the boil and reduce the heat so it is just simmering and cover. This is where you need to be careful, different varieties of rice will take different times to cook, even the same brand across batches can differ slightly. You need to wait until the rice is partially cooked through, but the outer layer has not burst, which causes the stickiness. You can tell this by breaking the rice apart with your thumbnail, if a tiny white spot is present in the middle, it is perfect. If you can easily squash the rice between your thumb and forefinger, you have gone too far. You could cheat by adding a little turmeric or food colouring to the water before adding the rice, you can then tell how much stock has been absorbed into the rice by how far the colour has penetrated inside.
One the rice has reached this point, drain immediately, and it is important that you work quickly here as the rice is still cooking. In a pre-prepared pot with some oil or ghee smeared on the inside, add a small layer of rice on the bottom, but do not push down. Add your meat and or vegetables etc, and repeat with more rice until all your ingredients are used. Finally, cover the pan with some tinfoil (dough or dum was traditionally used), place a lid on top and ensure there are no gaps to let the steam escape, and place on the lowest heat possible for 30 minutes. The rice will continue to steam, and will absorb the juices from the meat etc. Take off the heat, empty onto a large wide plate to prevent the rice continuing to cook.
The critical part is point 3. How long will this take? It all depends on many factors, your variety of rice, how high your burner is, how freely the rice can move in the stock when cooking etc. I try to use 4-5 times the volume of stock to rice, but this allows the rice plenty of room to expand and any excess starch to go into the water rather than stick to the rice.
Using this method, I've not had a sticky, flavourless biryani yet. Provided the rice is not too raw at step 3, you can always err on the side of caution and add it to the pot a bit harder than you think is right, you can always steam it for longer with the foil on provided the meat or vegetables have sufficient liquid to generate some steam.
The idea is to par-cook the rice so when cooking the biryani in the final step with protein, onion and spices, it ends up being cooked perfectly. I make it often. Par cook the rice in lightly salted water (not sea-water salty, at least for me). Drain completely. However, rather than rinsing, I just spread it out on a sheet pan to cool so I can work with it, and so it is not lumped together continuing to steam. Seems to do the trick for me. If you find it is overcooking in the final preparation, par cook for less time.
But when it is drained completely, all the oil/ghee, spice flavour and saltiness goes off along with the water.
When I make biryani, the rice is simply par-cooked plain. There is no oil/ghee, or spices at that point in the recipe. My process= lots of onions caramelized in plenty of ghee that has been infused with spices...remove onion mixture draining well and saving the ghee. Then layer plain parcooked rice, marinated chicken (yogurt and spices), caramelized onion, cilantro. Pour leftover ghee on top. Seal and bake.
I recently realized that it is not necessary to do the "water draining".
Source: this duck biryani recipe. I used jeera rice.
Meanwhile you can cook the rice. So heat a vessel and add ghee. Add
the cleaned, drained rice along with the raw spices and fry the rice
in a low flame for 5 minutes. When done, add 6 cups of boiled
water (double the amount of rice). Add some curry leaves and required
salt. When it starts boiling, add lemon juice and close the lid. When
the water is completely dried, keep the lid open and do not stir the
rice when hot or immediately. Let it cool.
The important points here were:
Frying the rice for 5 minutes on low flame in oil or ghee. I'm not
sure why. I assume it's so that the grains remain separate.
Using 2 cups of water per cup of rice.
Adding only just enough salt to make the rice edible. The recipes
that advise adding more than the requisite amount of water and then
draining the water, require use to add enough of salt that the water
should taste like sea water. Adding so much salt is not required when
you add only 2 cups of water per cup of rice.
Cooking only until the water is absorbed by the rice.
Leaving the lid open at the end to allow for faster cooling.
Not stirring the rice after the water is absorbed. You have to wait till it cools.
This allows the ghee, salt and spice taste to remain and helps avoid wastage. Once the meat is cooked separately, one should ensure that there's sufficient amount of moisture present with the meat gravy, so that when the rice is layered over it and the dumming (steaming) is performed, the meat should not get burnt. Adding quarter or half a cup of water extra helps if the meat is too dry. It's important to allow sufficient steam to further cook the rice. I simply do the layering in a pressure cooker and seal it with the pressure cooker gasket and weight. Heating it on a low flame for 20 to 25 minutes was enough to generate sufficient steam.
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30498 | Is it ok to store open cans in the fridge?
I'd been taught growing up that you should never store canned food in the fridge in the open can. Is there any scientific basis to this, or is it just an old wives tale?
What types of foods should not be stored in their can once open? Would olives, for example, be harmed from this sort of storage? Or only more acidic foods like tomato paste or pineapple be affected?
You seem to assume that it is a matter of food safety. I was taught that you should close cans because else the smells will mingle and you will get olive-smelling milk. Also, solid food like cheese will dehydrate. I can attest to both, but also curious whether there are other reasons too.
Seems everybody has a different explanation for this; I've always understood that refrigerating open cans - or just generally speaking, using the cans for food storage - is ill-advised because the cans themselves are reactive (some more than others, depending on material) and become oxidized by all the available oxygen, which of course affects the food. Not sure if that's authoritative, though.
The materials cans are made from are reactive (since they are usually made of aluminum or steel, despite the phrase "tin can"); but the cans are lined. The lining is obviously able to stand up to the canning process itself, then the long shelf life--it is unlikely to be in danger from a few days in the refrigerator. I think the "no good way to close them" story is more likely to be closer to the heart of the idea.
@Aaronut what I was taught is to not store anything open in the fridge. For preserved vegetables, it doesn't matter if they are in a tin can or in a non-reactive glass jar. Cheese went into tupperware, batter/dough got a foil cover over the bowl, etc. I don't close plastic-cup-closed-with-foil containers for yogurt, cream, etc., but if they stay open for a few days, the contents get a stale smell, slightly reminiscent of more smelly fridge contents (which have some smell leakage through the container).
@SAJ14SAJ To cover a can you can buy plastic lids specifically designed to fit standard size cans. They make a nice, airtight seal. They're commonly used to cover dog food cans, so can usually be found where pet supplies are sold.
Plastic wrap works just fine too or a shower cap for your hair. I guess I have always thought about this being a matter of not wanting things to dry out since the cold dry atmosphere in there isn't friendly to most things.
Short answer: storing food in an open can is normally safe for a short period, but inadvisable.
Longer answer:
There are three main issues with storing foods in an open can. They are metal oxidation, contamination, and funk.
Oxidation. As commenters have observed, cans used to be made of tin, which is toxic. Modern cans are made from either steel or aluminum. If the contents of the can are acidic, cans are lined with a polymer (plastic) inner layer. If that layer is broken -- say, by a major dent in the can or by using a knife to scrape out contents -- then the acid can get to the metal and, over time, corrode it, and some of the now-oxidized metal will dissolve into the food. As far as we know, the oxidized metal is not toxic, but it tastes horrible.
Contamination. Any open container of food can become contaminated when an airborne water droplet (tiny -- microns wide) containing a nasty microbe drips or settles into it. The major biological culprit here is Listeria, which can grow in any moist environment, including spaces refrigerated below 40F (5C). Also, if juices from your raw meat drips onto an upper shelf, which later gets wiped inadvertently into your container of ready-to-eat food, you are likely to get Salmonella or E coli. This risk can be mitigated if you keep your raw meats on the lowest shelf, but not eliminated. Also, it is worth noting that contamination through this pathway is a relatively rare event -- but even so, it is not worth the risk.
Funk. Have you ever put an ice cube in your beverage and notice your beverage tastes strange? The chemical compounds that give food their flavor tend to be volatile (meaning they will readily leave the food into the surrounding air). Also, the mustiness of a refrigerator/freezer is due to volatile compounds produced by mold and mildew. Foods that are wet and/or fatty can be molecular velcro to these compounds.
Now clumsy-dancing white folk are going to put open cans of food into their fridges in a futile attempt to get da funk. I won't down-vote you for it, though.
Am I correct in my reading that (1) is an issue only if the lining of the can is broken, and (2) and (3) are issues for any uncovered container of food, but not for cans covered in plastic wrap? If that's the case, it seems that storing food is a convenience that entails a small amount of risk, and it's not necessarily inadvisable.
I have the same question as @Patrick. #2 and #3 apply to storing food in the refrigerator in general and don't seem to have anything to do with cans in particular. Just cover the can.
Also, re #1: Wouldn't a major dent in the can be a problem regardless of whether it was stored in the fridge? If so, the scrape of a knife on a lined can seems like the only issue ... since it is introduced by the consumer after the can is opened. Since this is non-toxic and easy to detect by taste, it seems like an extremely low risk. I'd love to know if my thinking is correct on this.
Okay... I've done some more research. Here is what I now believe: (1) Opening the can introduces oxygen which in combination with any acid in the can, will react with the metal of the can. (2) In a lined can, opening the can exposes the metallic top edge of the can to the acidic contents which will oxidize over time.
For short periods, cover the can with a plastic sandwich bag and secure with a rubber band. Keeps air out and moisture in.
I've been storing food in opened cans in the refrigerator for years, and have never had a problem, other than mold, which will occur over weeks in the fridge. I think people are over worrying over this question. As long as it works for me, I will do so. I do use plastic lids if it's to be stored more than a couple of days.
Newer side edge cut can openers make a lid for resealing the can for fridge storage, so I do it from time to time. I think its an old wives tale at this point, as said people were more concerned with the bpa in the plastic liner than anything else.
The refrigeration system/components will prematurely fail due continued exposure to acidic "vapors" released into the closed environment. Every appliance tech is well aware of the correlation of messy food storage and higher system problems.
Do you have a citation for this claim? I don't know any appliance techs to ask, and I'm pretty sure you didn't ask all of them.
I've been told that lead or tin, used to solder/seal the side seam of a can, would oxidize when exposed to air and lead to (mild) lead poisoning. But cans are no longer sealed with lead these days, so: an old tale but not an old wives tale....
I was taught that keeping opened canned food in the fridge leads to botulism.
Long-term, perhaps, just as it could lead to other bacteria growing. But it's not any more dangerous than storing other cooked food in the fridge.
The seal of the seam is done by soldering to make air tight. Once the can is opened with the can opener, it start getting oxygen and start the process of lead oxide formation. This becomes a poison after a few days. The food poisoning can happen consuming any acidic food from the open can in the refrigerator. This should be stored in a plastic container with the airtight lid.
Lead oxide? In modern cans? Now I'd be very interested to see a source for this claim.... The earliest cans were soldered with a lead alloy, but that was back in the 19th century.
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18561 | Differences between heavy and light whipping cream?
What is the difference between light and heavy whipping cream, and for what purposes would one want to use one over the other? What effects does the difference have on flavor, texture, etc.?
They differ in fat content. Wikipedia has a table: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cream
Also see: What is Light Cream
I made a recipe for alfredo sauce that called for whipping cream. It was much TOO sweet. Making the same recipe with half-and-half cream (less fat content than whipping cream) and more salt makes a wonderful sauce.
Heavy Whipping Cream (at least in the States I believe) has a fat content of 36% or greater. Light Cream generally sits between 30% and 36%. Heavier cream generally will have a "richer" taste. Light Cream will also not whip quite as thick and not hold it's form as well. That said, for most cases, I've successfully managed to use them interchangeably. I guess it might make a difference if you were doing something where holding a rigid structure for extended periods of time was important.
Note: What various grades of cream/dairy are called varies by region... Here in Canada we have Whipping Cream 35% and Heavy Cream ~40%. If I were somewhere where "Light Whipping Cream" sat closer to 30%, I might grab something a little higher.
More info.
30% is the highest fat content you'll see for light cream. It's normally 18% ("single cream") compared to 36% ("double cream"). They're definitely not interchangeable; light cream generally does not whip.
Apparently in some places there is such things as Light Whipping Cream which is 30-35%. It seems to vary by locale. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cream
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21383 | Crunchy vs Chewy dried apples?
When making dried apples, how does one control for whether the apples come out crunchy or chewy? Is it a matter of equipment (eg: dehydrator vs oven vs sun dried), the type of apples, additives, something else?
It's just how long you dry them. Thin apple slices work best for crunchy chips and then just dry them till they're crunchy - sometimes as much as 18-20 hours. Soft, chewy dehydrated apples just go for a shorter time.
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23951 | How to bake Frozen French Fries
I bought a couple of packets of frozen fries and I absolutely can't fry them. My only option is to bake them. I have access to oil if necessary.
How do I bake the fries to make them resemble (as far as possible) the McDonald type fries ?
What I have tried:
Preheating oven to 250C, throwing them in (on a baking tray) till they look golden. Didn't work, they tasted weird and were soggy-ish. Maybe lack of oil? Citation Here
Same as above but with an added step before throwing them in : gently pouring oil over them and mixing them by hand. Result was not very different.
Similar question: http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/14600/how-can-i-bake-normally-fried-foods
I take a piece of aluminum foil, crumple it up then smooth it out somewhat still leaving slight concave and convex angles for the fries to crisp evenly without the need of flipping halfway through baking.
That's a really cool trick that could be used for a lot of different foods. Thanks for sharing.
It's also what ATK recommends. See http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/78898/when-making-french-fries-can-i-precut-them-before-baking-or-frying-them
The problem with baking frozen french fries is that they lie on their side on the baking sheet, and the side that touches the sheet never gets a chance to become crisp. To solve the problem, make sure that you lay the fries out in a single layer on the baking sheet. Pull the sheet out of the oven about halfway through the baking process and give 'em a good toss. That will turn enough of the fries over that you shouldn't get too many soggy spots. If your diet allows, toss the cooked fries with salt to taste.
Frozen french fries will have already been fried once at the factory. They may not have the same hot-from-the-fryer coat of fat that you get from deep-fried fries, but a bigger difference is probably the moisture content. The hot air in an oven tends to dry fries (and anything else) out. The hot fat in a fryer pushes against the steam inside the fries, not exactly trapping it, but keeping more moisture inside the fries while still crisping the outer surface. Frying and baking are simply different processes that produce different results.
I've also noticed that using a hotter oven helps with making fries crispy, say around 450*. I've done this with left-over deep-fried french fries and it re-crisps them nicely, and I've also done homemade baked fries and they come out nice and crispy. Not sure if the pre-made frozen fries will react the same way, but maybe you can tweak it some. :)
The hotter oven makes sense to me since deep friers at places like McDonalds and Burger King tend to run about 350-365*. Recipes that you can find online for baked fries also suggest higher temps: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/baked-french-fries-i/. I suspect that using higher heat helps trap in some of the moisture because the outside crisps up more quickly, but I could be wrong about that.
OP said 250 C which is approximately 480 degrees Fahrenheit, which I presume you're using.
as well as laying the chips out in a single layer on a baking tray, try heating up the tray first too and also the last 2 or 3 mins of roasting leave the tray in the oven but turn the oven off and leave the door open, this often helps crisp them up too.
frozen french fries are handy, but not necessarily tasty. try partially thawing first, patting dry, put in large bowl (gently), add a little olive oil, sea salt, toss gently, then put them on a baking cooling rack (the type w/ little squarishish grids), on top of a cookie sheet, this allows air to circulate, and get all sides - preheat oven to 400-425F, depending on whether you have fat or skinny fries (fat ones on higher temp.). cook for 15 -25 minutes...keeping checking, it just depends on the size of the fries. it's worked for me, although real french fries are just still the best.mc in oakland
DO not use olive oil for your fries. in a deep fryer fries reach best crispness at 160+. olive oil has a smoke point of 120* the lowest of all the cooking oils. Special deep fryer mixes are available which have a high smoke point, Best results is no cover the fries in oil and salt then put them on a griddle in layers in the oven. You can criss cross them to get more on but this just seems like a lot of work for something that is supposed to be quick and easy and all that work for not graet results seems a waste.
Could you please check: do you mean "no cover" or "to cover" (in the middle of the text). I suspect a typo but hesitate to edit... Welcome to the site!
I had some frozen hashbrowns one time which had different preparation instructions and were great. The next time I got frozen fries, I tried the same method. Every time i prepared frozen french fries according to the standard instructions, they tasted like cardboard.
I like Cajun fries so I used the seasonings.
Put the amount of frozen fries you will use into a freezer box.
Add the Cajun seasonings and toss.
Thaw in the microwave.
Heat a non stick skillet or griddle plate.
Add some butter or other type of fat as you prefer.
Toss the fries around with a couple of spatulas until brown.
Add salt to taste and enjoy what tastes just like freshly made fries.
This is the one exception I make to following the instructions, since I do not enjoy cardboard for dinner.
What is a freezer box?
I love tossing them with a ranch packet with canola oil. Do not use olive oil it is not made for crisping it will just make them soggy. Also do not let them thaw; that's the worst thing you can do. Just coat with plenty of seasoning and oil. Cook about 15 minutes longer than instructions tell you to, but at the same temperature. Pull out after 3/4 of the baking time, pour in a heat resistant bowl, shake well, then continue baking. Nice and crisp with great flavor.
Well, I'm sorry to say that Baked french fries rarely have the same texture of freshly deep-fried ones. One trick you may want to try is an egg white wash. This helps lots of baked goods brown and crisp as they bake. Try beating 1 tsp water with 1 egg white and brushing this on your fries before they go in the oven.
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23990 | chestnut puree quantity
My recipe called for 250g of chestnuts, blended with 125ml of cream and 125ml of milk that you then blended together to make a puree. When i went to the supermarket I discovered they had tinned "Chestnut puree" so I grabbed that instead I am now wondering how much of that I should add ?
Assuming the chestnut puree is just chestnuts, well, use 250g of it.
If it has other ingredients... I guess you'll have to try to figure out how much of them. You might be able to deduce it from the nutrition facts and the nutritional content of the chestnuts themselves, especially it's just chestnuts and water.
Edit: To be clear, I'm telling you how to replace the chestnuts. You still need the rest.
Given that it's chestnuts and water, it's trivial to figure out how much of it is chestnuts. (It would be difficult if there were other ingredients providing nutritional content.) Just use enough paste to account for 250g of chestnuts, then remove a mL of milk for every extra gram of paste you've added. If it's a substantial amount, replace some of the remaining milk with cream to keep it as rich as the original, if you like.
For example, according to the data I linked to, chestnuts are about 10% sugar, so you want enough paste to provide the 25g of sugar your 250g of chestnuts would've provided. So if the paste contains only 8g of sugar per 100g of paste, then you'll want about 300g of paste, and you can remove 50 mL of milk to balance the extra water you'll have added as part of the paste. (At that point it probably wouldn't be worth bothering to rebalance the milk and cream, since it's such a tiny difference.)
ok thanks for that, the "tinned" puree is made of just chestnuts and water like you said its difficult to know % of water and now I am now wondering about the "cream/milky" flavour that will be missing ? I guess I should just have bought whole Chestnuts and done the puree myself . I'll see how it goes though.
@scottishpink You would still have to add the cream and milk to the already puréed chestnuts.
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25800 | Does using flaked salt make a difference when using it in cooking?
I have a few recipes that call for flaked salt, I can only seem to buy it in bulk 1kg bags here. I want to know that if you use "salt" in a recipe does it really matter to the final taste what kind of salt you use. I do understand that for example when I use it on top of a foccaacia bread or something similar it does create a nicer texture, enhancing the taste, but this is in the final stages of cooking. When its used through the initial stages of the cooking process, like in a stew, bread dough etc does it make any difference ?
Salt (Sodium chloride) is salt. As a topping, flakes are commonly used purely for presentation purposes only. The taste is the same, but gets more intense as the salt particles get finer, so use less if the salt is in powder form
As an ingredient, use any form you are happy with, and is economical to use. Once salt is dissolved into water it will be identical to any other form of salt
For health reasons, finely powdered salt is preferable as much less is required to impart a salty taste
While this is 'mostly true', some 'specialty salts' (particularly sea salts) that will contain other 'trace elements' that will impart a slightly different flavor.
@Cos Callis While I would like to agree with you, have you ever blind tasted this? Once you have enough "containments" to make a difference, it's not salt any more!
but it is packaged and sold as "salt"
I agree that the tastes are negligible for most salt varieties but there can also be smoked salts and other aromatic variants that aren't necessarily full of "contaminants"
Harold McGee described some studies that showed people could differentiate between types of salt in solution even if they had the same sodium content: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/27/dining/27curious.html?_r=2&partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all&
Something else to keep in mind is the volumetric measurements that the recipe is using. If they are referring to a "teaspoon" of flaked salt to create the desired salinity, that will be a very different measurement in, say, kosher salt or table salt. I have pushed more and more towards weighted measurements of ingredients for that very reason. 5g of flaked salt is going to be just as salty as 5g of kosher salt (pound of bricks vs a pound of feathers anyone?).
So while the saltiness factor is all the same with sodium chloride, the amount you use can differ.
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120739 | Is it advisable to cook cilantro or mint leaves and store them, instead of blanching them?
The problem:
The grocer only agrees to give a large bunch of cilantro (coriander) or mint leaves, and I need it to last a month or more, because I don't use the herbs as frequently.
What I've tried earlier:
I've poured some water into the plastic bags containing the cilantro
or mint, so that their roots (and leaves) were wet, and this was
stored in the fridge. (turns out, wet leaves tend to rot faster)
I've blanched cilantro leaves, placed it in a plastic zip-lock bag
and kept it in the freezer. When I took it out and let it thaw, it
looked like greenish yellow seaweed, and a good amount of water had
collected in the plastic bag. The cilantro didn't smell too good
either.
What I'm asking about:
I want to know if it's advisable to chop up fresh cilantro or mint leaves, boil some water or oil in a thick-bottomed container, and simmer the chopped cilantro or mint in it until it gets fully cooked. Then I could store it in the fridge or chill-tray (or if it's cooked in oil, I guess I could store it in the freezer). I'm hoping this would make it last longer and preserve the flavors too. One thing I'm worried about is, whether cooking it in this manner will make the cilantro taste bitter. When making mixed vegetables curry or chicken curry, whenever I've added cilantro before adding the chicken or vegetables, the curry ended up having a slightly bitter taste.
ps: From this answer, I see I can store them in the freezer without blanching (but it needs to be kept within a paper towel). It is said to mess with the texture though.
Since your grocer gives you the roots, it would be worth trying to store them in the fridge with the roots wet but the stems/leaves dry; this might avoid the rotting problem.
is getting a plant still in soil a possibility? That may be your best bet of maintaining freshness for a whole month
@Tristan: I've tried growing cilantro using grow-bags. From planting the seed to until when it's ready to harvest, it takes about a month. Once it flowers, it withers off. They also tend to catch a powdery fungus. Mint grows into a little jungle too fast, and then the soil gets mossy. Moreover, cats stomp the cilantro too. Not worth it (at least for me).
@Nav in the UK at least you can buy a reasonably sized herb plant already in a pot that can be kept in the kitchen, not a seed and grow bag. It'll take tending (pruning flower buds before they have time to bloom might help prevent it withering), but I've seen people keep such plants for several months and it's usable from the get-go
@Nav For the cilantro, let it flower and set seed, then take it out (properly cleaning it out before it withers should help ensure any new plants in the pot are healthier) and plant the seeds back in the pot with a bit of fertilizer. If you can have four or five going at a time started at different times you can generally make sure you have some all the time (also, you want to keep it away from the cats for other reasons, namely that it’s toxic to cats).
No, it is certainly not advisable.
Cooking reduces the fridge life of plants. If you cook your herbs, they will only last 3 days in the fridge. Besides, you will also change the taste, and not for better.
The advice you found on freezing is indeed the only way to keep herbs for a month. They do indeed look unappetizing when thawed, but you are supposed to use them in soups and other hot dishes, where the change in texture won't be noticeable. You should just throw them in without thawing, it is not only less work, but all that juice leaking out will go into the dish, instead of getting thrown out with the bag.
If this does not work for you, the only other methods are to either switch to cooking with dried herbs (much more convenient, but very different taste) or to grow you own. But you cannot preserve the picked herbs in their fresh state by any method.
If you want a "fresh herbs" taste, then freezing herbs without first cooking them is the way to go. Cooking herbs longer won't make them taste any fresher than blanching them did.
In my local grocery stores and supermarkets, they sell "frozen herb cubes", something like These cubes from Dorot, although they are made by other brands as well. They taste pretty good when defrosted, and last a while. The ones you can buy in the store are made with minced herbs, water, oil, and a bit of acid and salt (I'm guessing to maintain color, but I don't really know for sure).
However, a bit of googling for "frozen herb cubes" showed all kinds of methods for freezing fresh herbs mixed with water or olive oil, which can then be defrosted (or just put into food while frozen) and used for various purposes with only a little bit of decreased taste. For example, these instructions from America's Test Kitchen seem pretty reasonable.
I have never tried freezing herbs myself, but most of the articles and instructions I found say that it works very well and the frozen herbs taste more fresh than dried herbs. I also have seen some reservations about freezing delicate herbs like basil, but many of the store-bought brands do have basil available (and it tastes fine), so it might just require a bit more tweaking and care.
The problem with freezing herbs yourself, as well as most vegetables, is that a household freezer isn't really cold enough to do it quickly. Slowly freezing causes big ice crystals to grow that break the cell walls and thereby reduce everything to a mush, which in case of herbs also means the aromas won't stay contained. I suppose freezing with oil can help with this, but a better solution would be flash freezing. Those herb cubes are made with that technique. If you can get your hands on some liquid nitrogen, that would do the trick very well.
I actually think you can keep most herbs in the fridge for a month.
For cilantro or parsley, treat them like a bouquet of flowers. Put them upright in a jar with water so just the stems are submerged, then loosely tent a plastic produce bag over top.
For herbs that don't have long enough stems for that method, try moistening a paper towel so it's damp but not dripping, fold the paper towel around the herbs, and placing in a sealed plastic bag.
If you're intent on longer term storage, I agree that freezing them uncooked is the way to go.
The best treatise on how to store fresh herbs (particularly more tender ones like cilantro, parsley, mint as opposed to say, rosemary, which I would just freeze) I read comes from Kenji López-Alt over at seriouseats.
It boils down to two main techniques:
(0. wash the herbs and spin them in a salad spinner or pat them dry)
store more hardy herbs in a damp paper towel, and wrap that in plastic wrap or a ziplock bag
store more tender ones like parsley by snipping the stalks, remove any already wilted leaves, and store them upright in a mason jar with a bit of water in the bottom and a lid or plastic wrap over the top of the mason jar.
I have used slightly more lazy variations on this (as I usually go through a small bunch of herbs pretty quickly) with great success, particularly for cilantro.
You programmer? ("0.")
I'll say! That's a good observation. Looks like John remembered that arrays start at position 0 :-)
Haha not really, although I dabble with code from time to time. I meant 0. as more of a "do this in both cases" kind of way.
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86848 | Is it sensible to add steamed vegetables to a vegetable curry to reduce cooking time?
The objective is to make an Indian mixed vegetable curry like this one. However, the last time I tried it, I had used more vegetables than what the recipe specifies, and needed to cook it for around 40 to 50 minutes until it got cooked.
Since pressure cookers are able to cook vegetables faster, I considered doing that, and found a recipe which steams vegetables in a pressure cooker. So it made me wonder if I could follow the mixed vegetables recipe as-is until the step where they add vegetables to the pan, and instead of adding uncooked vegetables, I add the steamed vegetables, then that'd reduce the cooking time drastically. I'd assume it'd take a total of:
10 min to steam the vegetables in the pressure cooker.
10 min to sauté the onions, spices and tomatoes in the pan.
5 or 10 min to cook the vegetables after transferring them from the pressure cooker to the pan.
Does that sound like a sensible plan or is the steaming of vegetables meant to be an entirely different recipe?
I‘m sure you could do this.
But the gain may be less than you calculate and the results will not be exactly the same:
If you are (pre-)steaming the vegetables, your are keeping their individual flavor whereas by cooking in the curry sauce you get a more evened out flavor as the various ingredients contribute to the overall flavor and absorb the spices. This may or may not be what you prefer, but it’s how your first recipe is designed.
If you are using a pressure cooker, you might reduce the overall cooking time, but you are doubling the washing up: two pots instead of one. And most pressure cookers need hand washing.
Another aspect:
If your vegetables took significantly longer than you expected, it’s likely that you used bigger chunks than the recipe author. So if you want to save cooking time, consider cutting your vegetables smaller. Unless your stove has serious problems, the amount of veggies shouldn’t be too much of a factor.
Bottom line:
It’s up to you which approach you choose to reduce the cooking time, as both can work. I personally would just cut the vegetables a bit smaller.
I agree. Chopping them to smaller pieces reduced the cooking time. I just fried the spices in the cooker itself, put in the veggies and water and pressure cooked it until two whistles. Turned out fine. Thanks.
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103515 | For Boiling Water Canning (not pressure canning) can you use other glass jar other than Mason Jar?
Does these type of glass jar (some may even refer to it as jam jar) works with boiling water canning? I asked a question about these glass jar for pressure canning and got answered it will not work for pressure canning. But will it work for boiling water canning.
Most commercial pint- and quart-size mayonnaise or salad dressing jars may be used with new two-piece lids for canning acid foods. However, you should expect more seal failures and jar breakage. These jars have a narrower sealing surface and are tempered less than Mason jars, and may be weakened by repeated contact with metal spoons or knives used in dispensing mayonnaise or salad dressing. Seemingly insignificant scratches in glass may cause cracking and breakage while processing jars in a canner. Mayonnaise-type jars are not recommended for use with foods to be processed in a pressure canner because of excessive jar breakage. Other commercial jars with mouths that cannot be sealed with two-piece canning lids are not recommended for use in canning any food at home.
That is from the National Center for Home Food Preservation which is basically a clearing house for USDA rules. They have a lot of good, tested, authoritative info and are well worth bookmarking.
As a practical guide, you can use most any jar that the two piece canning lids will fit correctly. The rubber sealant and canning lids, both one piece and two are no longer made with a film that is at all reliable for more than one usage. Attempting to reuse them, especially the commercial one piece shown in the question is not safe and will lead to high numbers of seal failure. But if the jar is the correct size for a 2-piece, even, and undamaged, it can be used.
Know though that these recycled jars are not the same as years ago. The thickness and quality of the glass is less to save the packers money and weight and since most will be trashed anyway. They are far more prone to breakage even with tiny scratches you may not even notice. They even can be used in pressure canning, but only if you are prepared to lose some and you will get breakage and failures. It will happen with hot water bath too, just not as often. Use caution though, because sometimes the sizes are not exactly the same as mason type and the slight difference will cause a higher seal failure rate.
dlb, I planned on starting a side business (small scale) selling chile salsa (without acid) hence needing pressure canning. I’m not planning on recycling the glass jar, new one and sealed only once and after I’m sure the buyer will store in fridge
Yes you can use these. My mum has been using all types of glass jars for her jams and she always seals them with water boiling. :)
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103578 | For safe boiling water canning, can I substitute acidity requirement using lime juice instead of lemon juice?
is lime juice as acidic as lemon juice and therefor uses 1:1 substitution with lemon juice to ensure low acid food is acidic enough for boiling water canning?
In the US, most canning recipes produced by authoritative sources use bottled lemon juice not fresh. Bottled lemon and lime juices are produced with a standardized acid level. pH in fresh lemons and limes can vary considerably , depending on freshness, storage method, variety and growing conditions.
That being said, the pH of fresh limes on average is slightly lower than fresh lemons, so you could substitute fresh lime juice for fresh lemon juice 1:1 without a problem.
Bottled lime and lemon juices can be used interchangeably 1:1.
Yes, for the most part, limes and lemons can be used interchangeably in recipes. However, it's important to note that lime juice is more acidic than lemon juice, so you may need to use a little less of it than what your recipe calls for. The general rule is 3/4 cup of lime juice substitutes for 1 cup of lemon juice.
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103577 | How can I make my sauces shelf stable, other than adding acid into it since my recipe doesn't include much of it?
I would like to be able to can and sell my own sauces (brown gravy sauce, chile paste sauce). There isn't much acid in the recipe of the chile paste, and Mason Jar for pressure canning is cost prohibiting in my country. Is there any other way to preserve my food products and make it shelf stable? Can I use the jar as on the picture if I were to use boiling-water canning?
About the jars you show, I assume you want to use new jars ? not old ones ?
I suspect that the lid is more important than the jar. (the two-part lids for canning jars allows air to escape, then seals itself as it cools) Factory made products use one-part lids, but I don't know what's required to get them to seal. The closest that I can think of that you can get without two-part lids at home is parifin sealing, but that's only for short-term storage (of low-sugar items), and I suspect that most health inspectors wouldn't be happy with that for commercial products.
There is no way at all to do that.
If you made up your own recipe, pressure canning is out of the question. It is only safe for recipes which have been developed and tested with pressure canning in mind.
Water bath canning is generally also only advised with recipes which have been developed and tested for canning, in order to ensure that you have both the proper acidity and proper thermal behavior. If you have the skills and tools to measure pH, you might decide to go with that and do water-bath canning of your own recipes with testing each batch before and after canning. This might do it for you personally, but 1) you will have to develop recipes that taste pretty sour (which you don't want to), 2) you will still have to use proper canning jars (as answered to your previous questions, both pressure and water bath canning require Mason or Weck style jars, jars with twist-off lids as in your picture are not safe) and 3) if you are selling, your local food safety authority might not agree that it is safe just because you say you measured it.
The only feasible storage option available to you as a home cook is freezing, which makes it almost impossible to operate as a cottage food producer - you would have to ensure that the jars stay frozen the whole time until they reach the customer and the customer would have to consume them within 3-5 days of defrosting, plus it is likely to mess with the texture of some sauces.
You would need to pasteurize it or can it to sell it safely and not have issues with bacteria or botulism ..
It is absolutely possible to do this however it is not simple. Your microorganism control toolkit consists of:
water activity
temperature
ph
salinity
oxygen levels
enzymatic activity from beneficial microorganisms
preservatives (not recommended by me)
The more types of control you use the less of any type is required, but there is no magic formula. You need to educate and test.
There is type of sous-vide bag suitable for canning called a retort bag
I would be buying (or "borrowing" from the library of genesis) a number of books ranging from home-canning, to modernist cuisine, to proper food science books targeted at manufacturers.
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33311 | using coffee filters to filter home pressed olive oil
I have recently made some home pressed olive oil but it is quite cloudy and I wanted to filter it so it will keep longer and be a bit more pleasing to the palate and the eye. I initially used a muslin (ham) bag in a steel colander over another steel bowl and weighted down with 70kg of gym weights to press. I was wondering if it is effective to try running it through paper coffee filters to get rid of the fine particles?
I have picked and processed hundreds of kilos of olives for oil. I store the cloudy oil in plastic water bottles in a dark cupboard and wait. The sediment will fall and then you just drain off the clear oil. The remaining oil with the sediment in it I use for tools, hinges etc and other DIY uses.
This site http://www.ehow.com/how_6673045_build-olive-oil-press.html
offers help.
The raw oil can be filtered by through a coffee filter or fine mesh strainer to remove particulate matter. Filtered oil is less likely to burn during cooking.
Also check out this from http://www.ehow.com/how_7767059_make-oil-processing-equipment-home.html
The oil is not ready to use after pressing. It needs to be cleaned and filtered. This requires only buckets, water, a funnel and coffee filters.
You may also want to read this before you decide if you really want to filter your oil.
http://www.livestrong.com/article/523058-what-is-the-difference-between-filtered-unfiltered-olive-oil/
Have you done any of this? Sometimes the stuff on ehow can be a bit dodgy.
no .. i havent.. we dont home press olive oil.. But many sites suggest using cofee filter..
Coffee filters work great for filtering oil. Restaurants routinely use giant ones to filter deep fryer oil at the end of service. You'll lose a little to absorption, but the results will be very clear.
The livestrong link seems to be talking about heat-treating, not filtering through a coffee filter
Paper coffee filters? Cold oil will not go through that very fast... Still-warm deep fryer oil is another matter....
Your other choice is to let gravity do its work. Let the oil rest until its particles sink to the bottom (probably a long time), after that extraction is simpler.
I don't think that is practical in realistic kitchens, and it would not help with particles small enough to remain suspended.
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33501 | How to fry an egg without a burnt thin crust around?
Sometimes I fry eggs (1-3 pieces). But they are spread out (blurred) on a pan and where thin egg white burn up. The size of my pans average.
Perhaps you can take a picture and show us...
@SAJ14SAJ now I can not add a picture.
@Apostle If you mean it won't let you because of rep, I think you should still be able to upload one somewhere and paste a link to it.
Your pan is probably too hot, so the edges burn before the middle. Try turning down the heat some.
I definitely agree with turning the temperature down so I upvoted that answer - I always assumed they should be fried on maximum heat but after some epxeriementing, heating up the pan on maximum heat, adding the egg and immediately turning it down to a bit below the middle setting on my hob works best.
I wanted to add another answer though, because you can also buy egg rings (google for "fried egg ring" or similar and lots come up) which help keep the egg together so you don't suffer from the varying thickness of different parts of the white.
You can also baste the hot oil over the egg while it is frying to help it cook through.
From my own experience, it works best to fry an egg in a thick-bottomed, small pan (so it distributes heat evenly and your egg doesn't run too much) over VERY LOW heat. I have an electric stove, which can be somewhat unreliable, but I usually cook my fried egg on heat settings "2-3" -- which is about low to (maybe) medium-low. I flip the egg once, and the whole thing takes about 5 minutes, though I haven't actually timed it so that is only a guess.
Mostly, though, it helps to do it over nice, low heat. To help keep them from spreading so far, I have two tips: 1) Use fresh eggs, as was mentioned in another answer. They hold up better. 2) As soon as you crack the egg into the pan, tip the pan so the egg runs to one side. Let the whites cook a bit like that (30 seconds or a bit more) and then lay the pan back down flat.
This recipe from chef Alton Brown helps to explain a bit more: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/eggs-over-easy-recipe/index.html
It sounds like possibly your eggs aren't very fresh. Fresh eggs hold their shape a bit better when frying, while when they're less fresh, they tend to spread out more, get thinner, and are more prone to those burned edges.
Over time, grade AA eggs will -> grade A -> grade B. Nice diagram here: http://www.hickmanseggs.com/sales/faq.html
Have you considered a smaller pan? When cooking 2-3 eggs for one person, I use a non-stick 5 1/2" (inside bottom) pan. It keeps the eggs contained in one area and can be flipped over in one piece. If all other recommendation aren't acceptable, try using an egg ring. You can make your own using a tuna can, opened at both ends with a smooth edge opener.
pour egg white into oiled pan. allow some depth of white to solidify; thereafter pour egg yellow onto the solidified white from a small height
I have been wondering about the same problem. Couple of things I learnt from watching how professional chefs do in hotels
(preferred way) Make sure your pan isn't too hot - about medium heat. Crack your egg and then cover the pan. After a couple of mins, you will have a cooked fry egg that isn't burnt, but still has a runny centre.
(this is a over kill) You have a pan with lots of oil and the amount of oil is about couple of centimeters deep. Leave the pan at about medium-low heat and crack your eggs to the pan. What it does will cook your egg through and you will have perfect shape eggs that isn't burnt. I can see lots of skills in this way too as you have to control the temp of oil and you have to be careful when you take the eggs out.
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40758 | How to brown ground beef so it comes out uniform and not chunky?
How do you get even small pieces when you brown ground beef? It always seems to come out chunkier than I would like.
To help get uniformly broken up ground beef:
Choose an at least moderately fatty (say 80-85%) grind, as very lean ground beef will tend to stick to itself more.
Don't compress it when you are bringing it home, as by setting other groceries on top.
Don't salt the meat before cooking, as salt tends to help it bind to itself.
Break it up into chunks with your finger as you put it in the pan to brown.
Don't raise the heat too high, which leaves you less time to break it up as it browns.
While it cooks, frequently break up chunks with your spoon or spatula
The real key is the last one.
There is always going to be certain variability in the size of chunks, unless you are very vigilant in breaking up the pieces fairly continuously.
If you cook it in water, as per Cincinnati chili, you can get it very broken up, but it will be a different texture.
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41017 | Is Bisquick the same as self-rising flour?
Is Bisquick the same thing as self-rising flour? or if not, what differences are there? Is it a good substitution if a recipe calls for self-rising flour?
Self rising flour consists of flour, salt, and baking powder.
Bisquick contains all of these ingredients plus hydrogenated vegetable shortening.
Per Wikipedia
One cup of Bisquick can be substituted by a mixture of one cup of flour, 1½ teaspoons of baking powder, ½ teaspoon of salt, and 1 tablespoon of oil or melted butter. Optional: to the above mixture add 1/2 cup buttermilk powder.
so while it is fairly easy to convert a recipe from using self rising flour to Bisquick (by also reducing the fat from the recipe), they are not quite a 1:1 substitution.
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16893 | What kind of sandwich can be made with Shredded Beef?
it's my first time asking here so I am not exactly sure if this question is off-topic or not. So here's the question. My mother made something with shredded beef. I contains a little amount of greens and is quite tangy. It's been in the freezer for quite long now and whenever I look at it I vision a sandwich. Thing is, I don't what to make it with.
The most daunting part about it to me is finding a right binding agent that'll keep the beef from falling out of the bread slices.
Any ideas people?
Also any sauce you could recommend with it would be great. Thanks.
A shredded beef sandwich (you asked)
Don't know what the flavor profile of the shredded beef, but a nice flavorful hummus (Sabra is my favorite brand) is one of my favorite alternates to mayonnaise in beef sandwiches. Sounds unusual, but it's a great textural and flavor compliment.
@Katey: you're talking about a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shawarma
I've never had a shawarma with beef and hummus, only with lamb / tahini and yogurt sauce, but I am not surprised at all that I didn't invent this sandwich. I also dip these roast beef / hummus sandwiches in Annie's Goddess dressing, which is a dressing made of tahini and cider vinegar.
Binding agent? What you describe sounds to me like it'd make a good pulled beef sandwich ... you might need some soft rolls and a lot of napkins, but you likely don't need any binder if the flavor's already good.
If you're concerned with it being overly messy, buy some unsliced rolls, cut 'em yourself, and don't go all the way through, so there's still a sort of hinge on one side. This will help to slow down the filling from ejecting when you eat it.
If you really insist on a binder, I'd look to some sort of thick sauce ... like some barbecue sauces, but you'd have to find something that matches the flavor of what you already have.
Maybe a mayonnaise would be good with beef.
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65726 | Leather flavour
A long time ago (ten years I think) I had leather, mint and tobacco chocolates at the Fat Duck.
I've made pretty good tobacco ones, and I've been trying to work out how to do the leather ones.
My first instinct is to get some leather and isi infuse it into booze. Gold standard would be to rotovap that to get the flavor on its own, but unsurprisingly I don't have a rotovap.
1) Does anyone have any thoughts on how to do it?
2) what about the safety of leather. Eating chrome tanned leather is probably like using a plutonium fork. But what about veg tanned stuff?
3) is there a way to skip the leather completely and get the flavor some other way?
Perhaps rawhide dog chews?
The vegan version, made by cooking out pleather, turned out just as bad as the healthier version made by throwing in an e-cigarette...
How about using Adam from Hair of the Dog beer? It is noted especially for its taste of fine leather. Honest and not kidding.
It is also noted that it's tastes great with chocolate and cigars, so I bet you could somehow make use of it.
Adam - Hair of the Dog
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98804 | Does it help to allow veggies to lose moisture before frying?
Frying gets rid of the water in food, and salt is added to remove water from onions while frying. Since getting rid of water is the objective, if one has sufficient time, will it help reduce frying time or reduce the amount of oil sputtering if veggies like onion or bitter gourd are thinly sliced and left in the kitchen at room temperature for an hour or two to dry out a bit? I've noticed they get a bit wrinkled, which probably means they lost some water. Alternatively, chopping them and leaving them in the fridge in an open container seems to produce slightly similar results, but is it useful to prep it like this before frying?
Yes, it helps to dry veggies before frying them.
In fact, many recipes for fried and deep-fried vegetables contain explicit instructions for drying them, including salting, blotting between paper towels, or wiping down and dusting the surface with starch.
The reason why simply leaving veggies out on the counter is not a frequently seen instruction is that (a) that's a very slow way to dry them, and (b) it may cause them to oxidize or otherwise develop undesireable flavors or colors. But if you live in a low-humidity environment, there's no reason it wouldn't work.
Putting them near a fan might also help to dry the surface.
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99902 | What does the ash content of broken wheat really mean?
I purchased some broken durum wheat (also called lapsi or daliya in India) to make upma and was shocked to find that it contained ash.
It seemed silly that someone would deliberately mix ash into broken wheat, and this site says it's not mixed in the flour, but is just a measure of the percentage of non-starch parts the wheat has. But as per this website:
The ash content of white pan bread flour has increased over the years
from 0.45% in the 1950s to the current level of 0.50-0.55%. This has
undoubtedly resulted from negotiations where the miller has agreed to
the flour buyer’s price but only if he can raise the ash content of
the flour a couple of points (0.02%).
How can anyone raise the ash content at will? This almost sounds like someone is adding 0.87g ash per 100g of wheat, but I reasoned it speaks of the amount of residue produced by the milling process. Am I right? I was just concerned about "ash", since when I tried washing the broken wheat, I had to wash it more than double the number of times I wash brown rice (that's at least 7 times for brown rice), for the water to finally become clear (I hope it isn't necessary to wash it so many times). Everytime I poured in water to wash it, the water turned a whitish grey, which made me think it was ash :-)
What you were washing off was surface starch - 'flour dust' in effect - not 'ash' of any sort.
That's good to know. So I dont have to wash it until the water is clear. Just washing it and draining the water two or three times would suffice?
tbh, I never wash rice, bulgar or anything like that - I just cook it as is, so I imagine you'd be fine with a lighter rinse, sure.
The "Ash" is not an ingredient in the flour
To be clear, the "Ash" is a measure of what you'd get left - if you burned the flour. It is not an ingredient in the bag of flour.
More specifically if you had 100g of flour - the "Ash" number is literally how much the Ash would weight if you burned all of it. As starch burns readily, what you'll be left with is mainly minerals.
Some people will determine various properties of the flour based on this Ash number. For one, a higher Ash number generally means more of the wheat's non-endosperm parts were included in the flour.
As milling is generally the process of separating the endosperm from the rest of the wheat; a less effective milling process will result in a higher Ash figure. So in a way, you can consider it to be a quality measure. But in other ways, it's just another indicator of "what exactly is in the bag".
Some useful sources:
Joe Pastry
Ash in the flour
NDSU
Just beat me to it. Another source - https://bakerpedia.com/processes/ash-in-flour/
@Tetsujin Ah perfect, I've added that to some sources at the bottom in case your comment goes missing. Thanks!
Cool - I thought it pointless us both saying exactly the same thing in different words, but that looked 'scientific' enough for me :) The last link, btw, is the one from the OP's ref.
Note that the "ash content" is used as a classification system for flour in many countries, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flour#Type_numbers . Generally, lower ash content means whiter flour, higher ash is darker, i.e. closer to whole-grain flour.
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