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78709 | Ridding cooked food of burnt particles
I am preparing some fried shrimp now. The recipe requires me to boil the shrimp in a pot until most of the water evaporates. I did that and the shrimp is cooked, but some of the ingredients seem to have got stuck to the bottom of the pot and got burnt a little, so there is a slight burnt smell.
My first instinct is to take the shrimp out little by little and wash it in salt water to get rid of the tiny burnt particles and then proceed with the second step of the recipe, which is to roast the shrimp.
So is washing with salt water the right way to go or is there something better?
http://malayali.me/non-veg/chemmeen-ularthiyathu-kerala-style-sauteed-prawns
My first rule of thumb in these situations is to not try to loosen the stuff that stuck to the pan. Save what you can, then depending on how much was lost, you might try salvaging the stuck stuff to another vessel, and tasting to see if it's worth keeping or not. (if it was garlic that burned, you definitely don't want to risk mixing it back in with the stuff that didn't burn)
I would think that would be fine, but keep in mind that rinsing is going to remove some of the flavor that you've cooked on to them. It is certainly safe, so long as the water is potable. I would even venture to say there's no reason specifically to use salt water. Looking at the recipe, it seems you're going to add more seasoning(and salt) after this step anyway. In addition to that, I always tend to cook with slightly less salt than a recipe calls for, so I can allow my guests to add salt as desired at the table. Always remember that you cannot remove salt from the food, and shrimp is no exception. That said, rinsing shrimp in cool/cold salt water is not likely to add a significant amount of salt to the end product, assuming you drain and/or dry them afterward.
*This is a segway to my answer, but it seems to me that the recipe is a bit misleading by telling you to boil them until "most of the gravy dries up". I would say you want to cook them until you have only a very thin layer of simmering gravy left in the pan. Continuing to cook until the gravy begins to dry up is what will result in greatly increased temperatures(hot spots) and charred particles. As long as you have water lining the bottom of the pan, the gravy should not exceed 212 degrees F(100 degrees C), and you should have a minimum of anything becoming charred. The shrimp itself would be likely to still undergo mild maillard reactions on the surfaces directly contacting the pan(which is a controlled precursor to charring).*
About the "boil them until most of the gravy dries up", I can now confirm that it's the right way to proceed with it. My family has done it for decades, and it not only turns out ok, you can also stop cooking it at that point of time, put it in a container and leave it as-is for upto ten hours without refrigerating it, and then refrigerate it and take it out for performing the rest of the cooking steps when you like. We used this technique when we needed to take a kilo of shrimp from Kerala (where it's very fresh) to another state in India when traveling by train.
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23355 | How to make boiled and partially fried vegetables palatable?
I boiled carrot and beans pieces till they were soft, fried onions and green chillies in a pan, added 1kg of the carrot and beans to the pan, few pinches of salt and some powdered spices.
Fried this for 20min and the taste of the veggies were still bland. No taste at all.
I was told to add red chilly powder to it, but I did not have any at 11pm in the night. Kept the pan in the fridge.
I can buy red-chilly powder today and try continuing to fry it.
Do you have any suggestions on what I could add to it, how much chilly powder to add, how long to fry it without spoiling it or any other precautions and tips to make it into a tasty dish?
How long did you boil them? Did you do this in plain water?
Yes, in plain water. Water reached boiling point (with veggies still in it) and then I let it continue boiling for about 5 min.
I would do two things to make them more palatable.
Boil the briefly (5-10 mins depending on how hard of a veg they are) in salted water. Something like a tablespoon of kosher salt per 4 quarts water (3.7L water).
After they are parboiled, I then will saute, simmer, or braise (depending on the recipe/mood/vegetable) in a highly flavored sauce or spice mix until they are cooked.
So if I was cooking the carrots and (green/string?) beans and wanted to use chili powder I would chop some onion and saute that in olive oil while the other veg parboils. Then, add 1-2 tablespoons chili powder to the onions (and maybe some garlic, because everything is better with garlic) and let those flavors meld while you drain the veg. Once you have the veggies drained add them to the onions and spice with a bit of liquid (wine, beer, stock; maybe 1/2 cup) and let them cook on low until they are as done as you would like them.
If I was frying vegetables like beans and carrots for twenty minutes, I wouldn't bother boiling them at all: you are simply boiling out the nutrients and flavour.
In point of fact, I wouldn't fry those vegetables for twenty minutes anyway. I would slice the vegetables so they were roughly the same size, on a diagonal to maximise surface area, then stir fry them quickly over a very high heat. Sprinkle in any spices in the last few minutes, and perhaps add a splash of water if you want a little sauce.
That's the first thing I thought - after soaking in water long enough to come to a boil +5 minutes boiling and then 20 minutes of frying those veggies are pretty overcooked
If you really need that extra cooking time (instead of just frying) you may want to consider steaming rather than boiling.
You can even do it all in the same pan if it's all getting cooked that way, such as in Alton Brown's glazed carrot recipe (which also uses chili powder).
For some vegetables, I'll do it the other way around -- eg, for brocolli, I'll sauté the sliced up stems, then add the florets, toss in a little water and slap a lid on it to let it steam for a couple minutes, then drain any excess water (hold lid on loosely, then tip the whole thing over the sink to let the water run out), then return to the stove w/ the lid off to evaporate the remaining moisture.
In this particular case, I'd go with what amedinasmith said, but steam rather than boil in the first step as it's faster (don't have to bring a large quantity of water up to temperature), and you'll retain more of the flavor as it doesn't leach into the water.
Thank you. I think it's the glazed carrot kind of dish my mom used to make, though she had said I'd have to boil the veggies. First time cook I am. A bit of trial, error and advice always comes in handy :)
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24185 | Purpose of condensed milk in mango ice cream?
Purchased condensed milk (so expensive!) to make mango ice cream as per this recipe.
After mixing up everything, the mixture seemed a bit softer in texture as compared to my Mom's way of simply mixing mango puree, milk and sugar to make mango ice cream.
Mom saw me making it and said that it's un-necessary to use condensed milk. I couldn't explain to her why it's necessary either, because the recipe doesn't mention it. I thought it was required to prevent crystals from forming in the ice-cream, but Mom says that crystals will form anyway. Even if I take the mixture out of the fridge and whisk it.
So what exactly is the purpose of condensed milk, and how can I prevent those crystals from forming so that my ice-cream is smooth and soft?
The ultimate goal of ice cream is a creamy texture. You could take those same ingredients and freeze them in a paper cup and make a fantastic mango popsicle. Popsicles and slushies are not nearly as magical as ice cream.
Creaminess in ice cream is achieved by keeping the ice crystals as small as possible. The bigger the crystals the more grainy the texture.
There are two good ways to prevent large ice crystals from forming: Reducing the amount of available water and mechanically destroying the crystals. The ice crystals are reduced mechanically by churning or in your recipe by blending- but this is an answer for a different question.
Reduce the amount of available water.
Many ingredients in ice cream will tie up some of the water and prevent it from coalescing into monolithic crystals.
Alcohol and sugar are used in sorbets
Gums, such as carageenan and xanthan gum, are used in commercial ice cream
Egg custards are used in French style ice cream
Starch gels tie up free water in Italian Gelato
Large quantities of fat
Removing water from the recipe, and sometimes replacing it with fat, will go a long way towards making creamier ice cream.
The condensed milk in your recipe is a convenience. Using milk that has had a lot of the water removed means that there will be more fat and less water in your ice cream. This will make it much easier to make your ice cream creamy.
You could use regular milk but you would be relying on your blender to chop up the large crystals that would inevitably form. If the canned milk is too expensive, and if you have some time, you could reduce your milk yourself and get the same effect.
It's possible the OP is also using sweetened condensed milk, so there's more sugar too.
Good explanation, however condensed milk != evaporated milk.
@Aaronut- I was wondering about that. Does condensed milk == sweetened condensed milk then?
See this question for (sweetened) condensed vs. evaporated milk: http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/3072/is-sweetened-condensed-milk-a-substitute-for-evaporated-milk
The OP says condensed milk and if you follow the link in the recipe it means sweetened condensed.
@ward- Thanks- but of course I know the difference between evaporated and sweetened condensed milk. Do they use the term "condensed" alone in Canada? It is always "sweetened condensed" here and in a general language sense "condensed" and "evaporated" are equivalent. Thus my confusion.
@Sobachatina It's always "sweetened condensed" here, too, but there are various places on the Internet (including here) where I've seen just "condensed." So far, condensed has always implied sweetened.
Yup, I've used sweetened condensed milk. Was surprised that even after keeping the icecream in the freezer for 24 hours, it didn't become hard as a rock. Mom was very surprised (and intrigued). I told her all of your explanations and she was satisfied. Thanks a lot! :) The ice cream was delicious, btw.
3 important ingredients why ice cream was creamy and smooth.
It contains : reconstituded milk not evaporated milk.(but some contries incorporate eggyolk,starch, and other thickening agent to bond water and to avoid crytallazation.
Lastly, cream or heavy cream and condensed milk. Condensed milk (means concentrated milk and sugar)in the other hand lesser concentration of water.
cream (cream is a fat mixture)helps in aeration and gives body or stabilize the mixture.
My recipe: home made good for 1.5 gal ice cream :
1 cn tall Alpine (available brnd
1 cn condensed milk(larger 1)
1 pouch nestle cream allp 250ml(chilled overnight)
variations:3 pcs cokies and cream, 1 puree mango and etc.
Simple lng ito whip ng hand mixer mo lng ang cold alpine sa mixing bowl with ice ibba nito amazing mag bubles and double na ang mixture. After you add mo ung cold condensed at chilled cream whip mo until (tremble?) creamy at double size. Color turns dirty white to pure whte means finish and you can add ur favorte flavor.
:I hope it helps..:) taste was the same with commercial ones.
Are you using an automated translator, or the garbage is there on purpose?
@belisarius : looks like bits of tagalog mixed in ... any filipinos who can translate to fix this?
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59339 | Does cooking nopales with a copper coin actually neutralize the mucilage, and if so, why?
While looking around at different ways of cooking nopales and okra that dealt with the mucilage, I found a few references to cooking nopales with a copper coin. Some people seem uncertain whether it's an old wives tale or not, and I haven't found an explanation of why it would work yet, but it seems pretty wide-spread. Does it actually work? And if so, why?
Have you tried?
The mucilage in nopales, or cladodes from Optunia cacti, is caused primarily by the presence polymerized galacturonic acid. This will make water gel quite quickly, and I'm looking for ways to use it to thicken soups, and ways to neutralize it for other recipes, like you. I've found the low moisture high heat method effective so far for producing tasty results with nopales. I'll post back here when I get results! Just giving you the mechanism of gelling as a thing to look into for possible solutions, not directly related to nopal or okra. I'll look at okra too.
Another thing to mention: nopal mucilage, has been found to chelate some toxic metals, such as lead and cadmium, so it may even be the case that cooking nopal with copper will reduce the bioavilability of copper ions dissolved into solution by cooking (a potentially toxic situation!)
@WillemvanRumpt, not yet - I'm on a quest for a grocery store that sells nopales at the moment.
@austinian, yikes, good to know! Might not want to try that right away :p
I'm suddenly wondering if boiling or steaming before spine removal would have the desired effect: non-mucilaginous wet cooking preparations. Dry cooking methods work fine on nopal and okra. I'm also wondering now about sous vide preparation after spine removal... The produce market around the corner from my house sells okra and nopal. I foresee acquiring some on my way home tonight.
Here's a good article on the topic at hand: Complex Formation of Copper(II) and Cadmium(II) with Pectin
and Polygalacturonic Acid in Aqueous Solution. It has data on how much copper is "sequestered" by pectate (polygalacturonic acid). I'm suspecting that the reason that copper may "neutralize" the mucilaginous texture of boiled nopal is that by chelating the copper ions from solution, the polygalacturonic acid loses its ability to increase the viscosity of water, due to losing its water retention capabilities and becoming more rigid.
As an aside: I'm going to start looking for literature on polygalacturonic acid forming similar conjugate bonds with Calcium ions, since that would allow us to use Calcium Chloride instead of Copper. Calcium Chloride is GRAS, and also used in canning to "firm up" vegetables. So, using Calcium Chloride in the boil water may lead to similar, safer, results. Also, it sounds like something I'm more likely to put in my mouth. Now I've got to find some Calcium Chloride, here's to hoping they sell it at the grocery store in the canning section!
That is really cool! This definitely has the makings of being the best of answers. Agreed that I'd much rather use something known to be safe than 'may be toxic, we aren't sure'. Let me know how it goes!
Let us continue this discussion in chat.
There are more than a few references to bare copper in a boiling situation being potentially very toxic. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19031/19031-h/19031-h.htm ... that text is ancient, but has a few examples of people ending up dead or sick from copper contaminated food.
I just came across to this website looking for an answer related to sushi rice. Then I started to look around to find out what is all this about, so I found this question about nopal cooking. It happens that I am mexican so I wanted to give some advice about it. I have never seen a person here in Mexico cooking nopal with a copper coin. It seems to me like a way to do things on those days where people had only copper and "barro" pans and the so to cook. I am not saying there are no people out there who are not using them nowdays, of course, but they might be the least. As I have not done it nor seen it, I can not say if it works.
Maybe I can help by telling you the way I cook them, which is very simple actually. After the nopal has been peeled and washed, I put it directly in a hot pan just like that, let it cook for a moment at medium temperature, then turn it over to allow the other side to cook as well. That is it. No oil, salt, water, and nopal turns just mucilage free. I hope it helps.
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32155 | What makes ice shatter in icecube tray?
I have two identical ice cube trays. When I twist the trays to remove ice, sometimes the whole cubes pop out perfectly, but sometimes they shatter and I get lots of shards with bits of ice stuck to the bottoms of the molds.
What can I do to consistently get the whole cubes out?
Buy a flexible icecube mold. Problem solved.
@rumtscho: I have yet to find a flexible mold with a half-decent cover/lid. I personally almost always use the OXO trays, and although I haven't had a lot of problems with shattering, it's still useful to know how to eject the plastic trays. I think the shape may matter more than the flexibility; it's when the cubes freeze together that you usually run into trouble.
what i used to do for popping whole cubes is-take out the ice tray from freezer. Put it under running tap of normal temp water(for 2-4 secs) from both sides of ice tray,from top and bottom back of ice tray. then twist the trays to remove ice. It pops out shattered ice less frequently.
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39624 | When making filled cupcakes, is it possible to bake a custard filling in it?
I'm about to make filled cupcakes for the first time. It'll be this cupcake from Ming Makes Cupcakes. The filling is basically lemon curd, i.e. a custard. Most tutorials on making filled cupcakes mention either:
Spritzing it in with a piping bag, which I don't have. Also apparently it only allows for a small amount of filling.
Cutting a cone out of the cupcake, filling the hole, and then replacing the cone - this seems fiddly and I'm kind of a klutz and it sounds like a recipe (badoom-tsch) for having half my cupcakes fall apart.
One last how-to mentioned that it's possible to bake fillings that won't be absorbed into the batter (candy, an Oreo, etc) inside the cupcake. I'm wondering: would this be possible with lemon curd? Since it's a custard, I'm guessing it shouldn't dissolve in the heat.
Does this sound feasible or has anyone tried this? If so, any things I should be careful of? E.g. should I make the custard thicker so it keeps together inside the batter? Or thinner so it finishes cooking while baking? If so how to make it keep together until the batter sets? (I'm guessing chilling thoroughly? Freezing is probably a bad idea though.)
If you use a sandwich bag with a corner cut out of it, you now have a make-shift piping bag :). Just fill the bag, twist it, and then cut a corner out.
The problem I see with trying to bake a cupcake with a custard center, is this:
Even if you have the custard pre-made (and probably chilled) It won't be hard enough to "wrap" in the cupcake batter. Typically cupcake batter is not very firm, and you'd end up with a mess. This may work with a heavier dough, perhaps a pastry dough or something. The custard will definitely hold up just fine, it's just the act of somehow suspending it in the cupcake batter long enough for the batter to set into cake, that is slightly impractical.
The only other thing I could think of is perhaps making a gelatin custard and hope that it will hold up long enough for the batter to cook. The downside to this, obviously, is that you'll end up jello custard if the cupcakes aren't eaten warm, and on top of that, trying to hit the perfect gelatin amount would be VERY hard.
Freezing the custard will likely not work.
The piping bag method involved using a tip to actually pierce into the cupcake and squirt the filling into the already baked cupcake, which can't really be approximated with a plastic bag. Oh well, I guess assembly it is unless someone else comes up with something. (Thanks for the gelatin idea but the cupcakes will have to cool down for the glaze, so that's a nonstarter.)
I'm a bit late answering, but I make my own vanilla custard which is quite thick, and put some of the muffin mixture into the pan, then spoon a teaspoon of custard, or lemon curd then top up the rest of the muffin mix. Works well. You can make coconut lemon muffins (with lemon butter), or apple and custard muffins sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar. Banana muffins can have a tsp. of caramel Top N Fill in their centre, quite yummy.
Custard Recipe:
2 rounded tbsp.real corn flour, 2 tbsp. sugar, 9 flat tbsp. of full cream powdered milk, 1 large egg. Mix together in a microwave proof jug with 100ml cold water, then add a further 300 mls of water and mix well.
Microwave on medium for 3-4 minutes, stir well, then repeat on medium for a further 3-4 minutes. Stir well. If the custard hasn't thickened by this point, just continue for a minute each time till it does. Add 1 tsp. vanilla.
If the custard is lumpy, strain it through a sieve while its still hot. Leave it to cool, then use as above.
Banana Custard
Make as above and slice 2 or 3 bananas into the mixture while the custard is still hot. Pour into a bowl and sprinkle with dessicated coconut and nutmeg. Let cool. Scrumptious.
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40313 | How to approach making fruit custards?
I've recently enjoyed finally being able to reliably make lemon curd. Now I'm wondering: is there a way to use different fruit as the flavour?
Is there anything special about lemon that makes it uniquely suitable for this that couldn't be achieved with other fruits? The fact it only adds a small amount of liquid, or maybe the high acidity offsets that? My first idea was trying raspberries reduced as much as possible without burning, and maybe adding some lemon juice to brighten up the flavour and add acid.
As a baseline, the recipe I use for the lemon curd is:
2 eggs and 2 yolks
200g (1 cup) sugar
125g (1 stick) butter
juice of 2 lemons, zest of 1-2 (to taste)
I think you're on the right track. Curds exist with many fruits, but the most common are all very strongly flavored (citrus, raspberry, cranberry, etc). As long as you use a fruit that will add a lot of flavor before adding too much liquid (or reduce the liquid out), you should be fine.
You need a certain amount of acid to thicken the curd. You may have success with raspberry puree, but I would think blueberries, strawberries, and stone fruits will fail to set.
Provided that the curd is made with eggs, they will thicken with or without anything else present. There are lots of custards with no acidic ingredients at all.
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39627 | How much dried lemon zest to substitute for "zest of one lemon"?
Most recipes that use lemon zest call for "zest of one lemon" or some such amount. To avoid the bother of organic lemons that invariably go bad before I use them and having to fiddle with zesting I'd like to use dried zest soaked in lemon juice instead.
How should I substitute the amounts? I'm guesstimating that drying would reduce the volume by about half, but how much good fresh zest is there on a lemon in the first place?
Zesting is really easy if you have a microplane.
@user5561 The more pressing problem is I only have a use for the zest once a month or so, organic lemons come in bags of ~5, and they get moldy in a few days.
@millimoose I recommend that you go ahead and buy the bag of lemons. Zest as much as you think you will use in about 3 months, and put it in a little baggie in the freezer. Try to get it into a kind of even, thin layer as it freezes. That way it will be easy to take what you need when you need it and put the rest back in the freezer. Then juice all the lemons. Freeze the juice, refrigerate it for use within a few days, make lemonade, whatever. If you still have unzested peel left, how about Candied Peel?
@Jolenealaska I just grate the lemons and toss the zest into a little wide mouth jar, then freeze. Prying the amount I want out with a teaspoon is not difficult.
Use one teaspoon of dried zest for one tablespoon of fresh zest, which is about what you get from a lemon.
Most foods dry to about a third their original size, so I would use one third of the amount called for. Lemons vary a great deal in size, but the recipe probably means one tablespoon of fresh zest, which is normal for "medium" sized lemons.
Something to watch out for is that most cheap "dried lemon peel" products are actually made from the zest and a bit of the pith, which will both give you a bitter flavor and short you some of the lemon flavor you expect. Look closely at the zest you buy, if you can see that the individual pieces have two distinct layers, or a pale yellow or white color, steer clear of that brand. This is probably a "get what you pay for" situation, so spring for the higher end lemon zest.
I have also had great luck drying my own lemon zest. Unless your kitchen is humid, it will probably dry in a day or two just sitting on a plate on the counter.
Here's what I do. Zest all your lemons, measure out 1 Tbl. at a time and put it into an ice cube tray. Add a little bit of either water or lemon juice and freeze. When frozen you can pop them out and store in a zip lock bag or a freezer safe container. When you need some zest just grab a cube and defrost. Hope this helps.
Lemons and Limes will freeze (i would advise bagged with little air - seems the zest can get freezer burned...), and can be zested frozen (eg with a nutmeg grater, or said microplane).
....
If no such tool is available: A vegetable peeler can get the zest off in strips, it depends on the exact peeler whether there will be too much pith attached (can be shaved off with a sharp knife - careful!). Then mince with a knife. Will probably not work with frozen, though...
....
The kind of bagged grated lemon zest some brands sell has little to do with lemon zest. Seen ingredients lists on that stuff that would make the product potentially unsuitable for vegetarians. I know health discussions are OT, but such alterations IMHO make culinary qualities of an ingredient questionable...
Good idea, but answering this here might be a missed opportunity. Since it doesn't answer the question as stated, it could be more difficult for someone looking for this information as opposed to just the substitution. May I suggest you write a self-answered question that specifically asks "How do I preserve organic lemons i keep for occasional zesting?"
Approximately 1 teaspoon is 1 lemon.
The top answer already said this. It was the third paragraph; I moved it to the top so people won't miss it as easily. Might want to read a little more carefully before you write a snarky reply next time :) As for your answer... you'll probably find that your answers are better received if you add something new, and if you explain a bit.
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24739 | Cooking dried corn
I'm trying to cook some dried corn that normally is meant for popcorn.
I've soaked it 36 hours using bottled water and then rinsed it multiple times with tap water.
After that I cooked it for about 1 hour, yet the corn is still hard? What do I do?
I haven't done this myself, but if I remember correctly from how my grandma cooked it, an hour is nowhere near enough for dried corn. Try cooking it longer.
Thank you, however I've read that cooking corn too long will make the kernels hard, so I kinda was hoping someone will know the exact timing before I ruin the corn :p
Turn them hard? That's strange, I have seen overcooked (=very mushy) corn. They also don't have anything inside to turn hard, it is just starch.
Hmm oki, I'll be patient and see if anyone else here knows anything and if not cook the corn checking it every 30 mins. Thanks =)
Popcorn does not soften.
There are four main types of corn: dent, sweet, flour, and popcorn. These types vary slightly in their composition but they share a similar basic structure:
Dent corn is used almost exclusively as animal feed. Incidentally- it is the only type that I ever saw for sale in Germany which might explain why all the Germans I met thought we were crazy for eating corn on the cob.
Sweet corn has a soft hull and much more sugar in the endosperm- It is eaten as whole kernels.
Flour corn has a couple delicious starches in the endosperm and a manageable hull. Manageable in the sense that it can be ground to release the starches.
Popcorn is unique in that the hull is freakishly thick and not porous. When the popcorn is heated the steam inside the kernel forces the hull to shatter- releasing the steamed starches which instantly solidify in the air.
The hull is made out of cellulose and is indigestible to humans and insoluble in water unless treated with inedible amounts of acid (or acetone). Boiling popcorn might partially rehydrate the interior starches but it won't soften or remove the hull.
Popcorn can be ground into a course corn meal. In this case the starches are mechanically liberated for our polenta or cornbread enjoyment.
I have never heard of boiling popcorn and was intrigued that @rumtscho said that she had seen it. The only single reference I was able to find online for boiling popcorn was to make parrot food. This website at least recommends cooking the corn in a slow cooker for 10 hours. This is in line with times for cooking whole wheat berries. You might give it a try.
Amazingly detailed answer! Thank you very much! =)
Very interesting!
You can do it. My family has done it before, and I like the outcome. The texture is not the same as with vegetable corn, it is mealier, and the outer skins are much tougher. It is up to you whether you like it.
And for substitution, I don't know what is available where you live, but around here canned corn kernels are really cheap and available all year round. They are just cooked kernels, maybe some salt, nothing more. Pour out from the can into the casserole (maybe drain first) and you are done.
Soak in some lime (calcium hydroxide or similar) to soften the kernels first, then rinse and work as normal
Hard corns can be cooked the way native peoples cooked it. If it is dry then you must 'lye' it first. This is done by putting wood ash ( about 2 cups) from fully burned hard wood into a big pail of water . Strain the lye water into a cooking pot. Boil your corn kernels gently for about an hour. Thoroughly rinse the corn free of lye water. Now you can prepare the corn whatever way you want.
The corn must be freshly picked and undried to cook without 'lye-ing' it first.
I found this here:
https://forums.egullet.org/topic/34584-any-substitutions-for-slaked-lime/?do=findComment&comment=1982183
People, people people! If you don't have slaked lime, or don't want to burn your arms off with slaked lime, then just substitute BAKING SODA.
All you need to make hominy is an alkaline solution, which you can make by mixing any alkaline powder (like baking soda, quicklime or slaked lime -- or "cal" in Spanish) in boiling water. The effect of an alkaline solution is to break down the cell wall in the cells of the dried corn (since those cell walls of plant cells are soluble in an alkaline solution), which makes the corn kernals soft and the husks loose so you can remove them.
To make hominy with baking soda, use proportions of 2 to 1 water to dried corn, and use 2 tablespoons of baking soda for every quart of water. I do the boil-and-wash thing twice to make sure they're good and soft and all the pieces of husk are off. Don't forget to prepare the dried corn before this process by soaking it in water overnight.
It's just CaOH, pickling lime. I use 1/2 tsp it to up the pH of tomato sauce when the manufacturer gets a little too generous with the citric acid. Nice thing about lime is that it does not add the bad taste that too much bicarb will. Plus, you get a handy source of calcium.
Not really: popcorn is made from a special variety of corn which has very low moisture, and is very dry and hard. Corn meant to be eaten as whole kernels (as oppposed to ground into meal, or as popcorn) comes from sweet corn varieties, which are not suprisingly, higher in sugar, and harvested prior to their drying.
Instead, you want canned or frozen corn kernels.
@SAJ1fSAJ Could I boil it for a really long time then?
You might, but the outcome would be... I think the technical term is... icky.
I think that if you managed to boil it until the kernels were edible, you would have some kind of really disgusting porridge rather than cooked kernels.
The outer husk may soften a bit after being boiled for a long time, but the best you'll achieve is to convert it from crunchy to rubbery; it's pretty much pure cellulose. The germ of the kernel (the part that pops up white and fluffy) will have turned into a starchy soup long before that happens, though. Per @rumtscho, apparently some people enjoy that... but I very much doubt that it's what you have in mind.
If you are trying to make Pennsylvania Dutch style dried corn, be aware that this is dried sweetcorn, and not a hard corn like maize, dent or popcorn. It was a popular method of preserving sweetcorn before the advent of freezing and canning, and the dish remains popular to this day because the reconstituted corn has a significantly different flavor, robust and nutty, that makes it suitable as a winter dish.
You can dry sweetcorn yourself in a dehydrator, warm oven, in the sun (pdf) or a smoke-house (for a New Mexican twist on the dish), or you could purchase it online from John Copes, which has been in the business of drying sweetcorn for more than a century.
I cook dried corn with wood ashes at a 1:3 (One part ash and 3 parts corn) in a pressure cooker for about 40 minutes. It works great. Then thoroughly rinse.
I also cook the dried corn with wood ashes by boiling the corn for one minute and then keeping it in a insulated box for 12 hours. It's usually self cooked soft. If not boil it once more for one minute and return to the insulated box for a few more hours.
That should do the job on regular dry corn. I'm not sure about popcorn. It's weird stuff, expensive, so I've never tried it.
Nixtamalization!
You can try doing it like the Native-Americans and use Lime (not the fruit).
Cook it in a pressure cooker for 40 to 50 minutes.
Maybe you could say some more about how popcorn turns out once you have pressure cooked it. Does it taste good? Do the hulls fully soften?
There are different types of corn. Maybe you are using the corn for popcorn; that won't do it. You need the kind of dry corn for boiling: that won't take that long to cook.
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19985 | Does adding oil to pasta water reduce the tendency to boil over?
I know that adding oil to pasta water doesn't keep the noodles from sticking--much better to do that after cooking. I also know that there's no need to cook pasta at a rolling boil. My question is purely that in the title, does adding oil in any way inhibit boiling over? Scientific answers please.
Not significantly. The idea behind the technique is to reduce surface tension, thus reducing bubbling. Oil isn't very good at doing this. Oil is, however, very good at coating your pasta, which can reduce the ability of the pasta to absorb the sauce. Better idea: Use a bigger pot and more than enough water to let the pasta move about freely.
Even if you wanted to coat the pasta, adding oil to the cooking water would be a very inefficient way to do it, compared to tossing it with some oil after cooking and draining the pasta. About the only thing it really accomplishes is to waste oil.
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37100 | Can you recommend a good shop to get spices from in Derby?
Can anyone recommend a good spice shop in Derby / Nottingham?
I am after some Allspice berries, I've seen some online but I just wondered if there was anywhere local I can go and get them.
Thanks
This question appears to be off-topic because it is about specialty knowledge of a small geographic region, better suited to local business directories or phone books.
This is absolutely begging for a meta question. (Too localized was explicitly removed as a close reason, and I have no idea whether to interpret that as SE saying this kind of question is generally okay or just saying that we need to come up with another rationalization...)
I almost want to say it's a shopping question, where the "product" is a store.
I think this goes back to our never-fully-at-concensus question on sourcing: http://meta.cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/1292/what-types-of-sourcing-questions-should-be-allowed-revisit-march-2013-plea
@Jefromi: One important difference between this question and the subject matter discussed on meta/MSO is that this isn't asking how to find a specific ingredient, but rather a very broad category of ingredients. Lots of stores sell spices including most grocery stores, so in effect, it's actually searching for a specific type of store which is better served by sites like Yelp/Google Places, local forums, etc. So I vote in favour of off-topic. If there was a specific hard-to-find spice being asked about here, I would have left it open.
A friend of mine from Nottingham buys a lot of exotic ingredients/spices in Pak Foods market, and I searched a little and saw you have one in Derby too (here is a link with a review). But probably many asian/international markets will cary a large variety of spices. Also, allspice is not super exotic to English cuisine, so you might find it in better stocked supermarkets (like Waitrose, Sainsbury's or a big Tesco for example).
Anyway, when we were living in the UK we ordered stuff from Steenbergs most of the time (and most of my friend also get spices from them) - the quality of their spices is just astonishing (much better than anything I found in most stores). I still order stuff from them to my friends house and pick it up when I visit =)
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78799 | How long will a bread ferment last before it is no good?
I have a bread recipe that I would like to try, but it requires a ferment using Guiness. The recipe says to leave it for 4 - 6 hours to get it going.
All of this is fine, but what I would like to know is how long can I leave the ferment fermenting before it becomes no good? Can I start it the night before and use it the next day?
Thanks
I sometimes start a Sunday pancake batter on Thursday or so. Granted some folks may not like something that sour...
Guinness will add to the final flavor, but I don't thing it contains active yeast for the bread fermentation.
It's hard to say exactly how long it will take to overprove because there are many variables involved - the amount of yeast, salt and enrichment in your dough, and the room temperature for example. However, it should be fine to ferment overnight, if you cover it well and put it in the fridge.
Slow fermenting in the fridge will greatly improve the flavor of your bread. You do not say what other ingredients (leavening agents in particular ) are in the preferment (PF) and also in the final dough.
If it is the only leavening agents than letting it go to long could exhaust it and it will not have the power to leaven, if there are other leavening agents then you have a little leeway but is best to use it at its peak activity. Also, as well as time, the hydration level of the PF will determine how quickly it reaches peak activity.
Doing some test will help you to have better understanding of this PF and the bread. (this is true of all bread formulas.)
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23834 | Is there a discernible difference in taste between aeropress and chemex / pour-over?
Using the same coffee beans with the same grind, I can definitely tell a difference between cups of coffee made by drip-machine, chemex, and french press. Chemex is my favorite, as it has more flavor the drip-machine, but without the grit of a french press. I want to purchase a pour over solution for home use, and can't decide between a traditional Chemex pot, or an Aerobie Aeropress. Aerobie claims that it's press method is far superior to a chemex pot, but of course they are going to say that.
Has anyone done a side-by-side comparison with the same coffee? And if so, is there a huge difference?
I believe the Aerobie is essentially a french press with a filter added (to remove the "grit" you mentioned that can occur with a normal french press). I think that what matters is what tastes best to you and as you said "Chemex is my favorite" then that is what I recommend you go with.
Thanks for the comment. Chemex is my favorite of the 3 methods that I've tried. The issue is, I've never tried an Aerobie - which claims to be superior to both french press and Chemex, so I don't know if I'd like aeropressed coffee better. Price is not a factor either, since an aeropress and chemex pot are both around $30.
What the heck is a Chemex? (Whatever it is, it doesn't sound appetizing. There's something about the combination of those two syllables that makes it sound like it would be a very, very bad idea to ingest the output of such a device.)
Not sure where you're located, but in my neck of the woods (midwest, flyover country), there are 3 coffee houses I know of that have an Aeropress and Chemex (plus other devices) on hand. They'll easily brew a cup on each for your pleasure.
Alas, I'm in Memphis. Haven't seen any coffee shops around here that use anything other than drip machines.
Well, if you ever road trip up to St. Louis, you should go here - http://www.sumpcoffee.com/
I haven't done a taste-test (so I won't post an answer), but I will tell you that an aeropress is a lot more fussy, difficult to use, likely to make a mess, and less durable than a chemex. Personally, I'd get the Chemex, those things last until you drop them on a tile floor. Also, the Aeropress is really intended to be a replacement for the moka pot, not for cone-filter coffee.
I have made coffee using many devices - a large Chemex (6 cups), Technivorm (10 cups), AeroPress (1 cup), and a Hario dripper (1 cup). If your choices are the AeroPress and the Chemex, it sounds like you only want one cup at a time. I recommend the Chemex over the AeroPress - less messy and simpler.
Thanks @RickG and you are correct, I'm after 1-2 cup servings. Did you notice any significant taste difference between your various devices?
@eterps - Sorry, I was on vacation ... There is definitely a difference. The Hario dripper gives the best results, but the Technivorm is close behind. There is a huge cost difference between these two. The Technivorm is preferred when you need to make a full pot.
Thanks. I´ll have to look into the Hario as an option as well.
I'm guessing that there will be some difference in taste, depending mostly on the amount of time the water spends with the coffee grounds. Depending on how long you let the water sit with the grounds before the press part of the Aeropress will increase the bitterness of the coffee you pour off and drink. Similarly, the more water you pour over your grounds in the Chemex, the more bitter your coffee will be.
If you only use one cup of water in both methods, and don't let the Aeropress steep very long, the more similar the taste of the cups of coffee will be. But if you pour a second and third cup of water through the Chemex without changing the grounds, the third cup will be significantly more bitter than the first one. Similarly, if you let the water in the Aeropress sit in the water for 5 minutes before pressing the grounds down, your coffee will be more bitter than one that sat for only 1 minute.
You are right to taste a difference! As Jennifer S says, time plays a big role in how the end result tastes. However, there are other factors: temperature (hotter = more bitter), pressure (time, temperature and pressure are all required in some combination, so for a particular technique, increasing the pressure can mean that the working temperature and/or time can be decreased), amount of coffee (Aeropress generally takes a lot more ground coffee compared to a French press, but you will get a much richer flavour IMO), and coarseness of grind.
You can vary all of the above for any method, but different methods will be better suited to different 'values' of these, or at least will give different results.
Finally, there's filtering, and how the grounds are removed from the end product. A French press will leave more sediment in the coffee than an Aeropress/drip, as the metal filter will let more grounds through than paper.
My advice would be to trust your taste, but also think about practicality. I like the taste of Aeropress best, so I use that if making 1-3 cups, and it's great for travelling. If making more, I'll probably use a French press, or if I want to make a lot of 'espresso', I have a huge moka pot.
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32562 | What are 'quick cook' beans?
I've been looking at recipes to prepare in bulk and store in mason jars for a few weeks. A company called Honeyville Farms sells a bunch of freeze dried stuff for this purpose, as well as 'quick cook' beans in different varieties. They claim that the beans are dry, but can be fully cooked in 20 minutes. Sounds great, but they are also quite expensive. Are these actually cooked and then freeze dried beans? If not, is is possible to prepare 'quick cook' beans myself without buying the expensive cans online?
According to this video on Youtube, which is one of the few references I could find:
They are essentially fully cooked beans that have then been dehydrated for long term storage. Therefore, they will "cook" again quickly as they are already cooked, and are essentially just being rehydrated.
If you listen to the video (it is mostly narration, and a few still pictures, and are very, very, very patient in listening), the narrator will describe how she creates them which comes down to:
Pre-soak the beans
Pressure cook them
Dehydrate them
Note that the first two steps are probably not that critical—you could cook the beans by whichever method you prefer.
Multiple windows was the key :-)
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21181 | Is there a way to keep chocolate chips from melting in chocolate-chip waffles?
My memory might be playing tricks on me, but I swear I've had chocolate chip waffles (or maybe pancakes) where the chocolate chips were still somewhat hard - in other words, not completely melted. Every time I try, even if waiting for the batter to start cooking before adding the chips, they always seem to melt completely. Waiting for the chips to harden would also mean the waffles get cold. Any solution?
You could use cocoa nibs, instead of chocolate chips. Same flavor, or nearly so (though less sweet, of course), but they won't melt and can give a bit of texture if you want.
Although I can't fathom why you would want unmelted chocolate chips in your waffle or pancakes, some things you can try is:
Using darker chocolate. Dark chocolate will has a slightly higher melting point than milk chocolate or semi-sweet chocolate. And since pancakes and waffles are usually eaten with syrup and other sweet toppings, it shouldn't be a problem that the chocolate is less sweet.
Use cold chocolate chips. Leave the chocolate chips in the refrigerator prior to making the pancake/waffles.
Freezing the chips before adding them may slow the melting process while they are inside the waffle batter that has already been poured into the iron. Thermal trip from frozen to melted is longer than room temp to melted. Although 3-5 minutes inside a waffle iron will most likely melt regular chocolate chips from any temperature.
Bigger chips might partially solve the problem, they'll take longer to melt since they have more mass for the heat to work through. In the US, Ghirardelli chocolate chips are a little bigger than, say, Nestlé chocolate chips. Chocolate chunks would also function as "bigger chips."
The chocolate chips you see inside a pancake are added after the pancake has cooked fully on one side and just before flipping to finish off by browning the other side so the chocolate chips have spend much less time in contact with heat.
You can use the tips Jay gave you, or you could try to put in modelling chocolate 'chips' instead of chocolate chips. Modelling chocolate is a paste, so those chips won't be hard, but I've heard it doesn't melt, so it wouldn't be as soft as melted real chocolate chips. Since it's just (light corn) syrup and chocolate, I guess the flavour would be fine in waffles.
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90244 | How to make sorbet from fruit like watermelon?
I've been playing with my - very cheap - ice cream maker and want to try sorbets. Already had some success with a strawberry-black pepper one, but I hear some berries and stone fruit are very forgiving because they're pulpy and the fiber acts as a stabilizer helps prevent ice crystal formation.
How would I go about improving my chances with lemon or watermelon or other fruit that's mostly juice? I've heard using corn syrup helps, but I'm not sure if the closest product we have here is the right kind - it has about 53% water, which I don't want to add too much, and added honey flavour to serve as a cheaper honey substitute. (While also being overpriced for sugar syrup.)
I can however easily get powdered fructose and glucose, which are available for baking for diabetics and such purposes. Would that get the job done if I blend them 1:1?
I've also looked into thickeners, but if I'm looking at what's available in grocery stores, it's either gelatin and pectin, and both require cooking to work which affects the flavour of the fruit. Could I mitigate that by only preparing the thickener in say 1/4th of the juice, and then stirring it into the rest?
Possible duplicate of How can I make sorbet without a recipe?
see also: https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/24639/how-do-i-make-my-sorbet-thicker?rq=1
The first one doesn’t address the techniques I’ve brought up, and doesn’t tell me anything new besides. I’m not looking for a general guide on sorbet, I’m looking for clarifications on the specific techniques I’ve already found in my research for this situation. Same for the second one really; it’s all things I’ve done and even with “forgiving” fruit gave me slightly suboptimal results.
Possible duplicate of How do I make my sorbet thicker?
@Cindy From the accepted answer “if your recipe is sane” - I assume it is, it suggests corn syrup or stabilizers for sorbets made from fruit lacking body, but I do not have access to the exact ones the recipe suggests, which is why I’m here asking for clarification/substitution advice.
This is frustrating, I believe the content of my question makes my specific issue clear, yet it seems people are just duping this with any tangentially related sorbet thickness question there is, and neither of them actually discuss stabilizers in any depth.
@millimoose if you have specific issues, it is better to ask specific questions. People usually give equal weight to title and text when understanding what a question is about. If you want answers just about "can I use powdered glucose or fructose instead of glucose syrup in sorbet" and "can I use sorbet by thickening only 1/4 of the base with gelatin and mixing into the remaining base", then let us close this one and ask these two as separate questions. As long as you are unifying everything under a single generic title, people will try to give yoiu generic information.
@rumtscho gives very good direction in her comment. I was just about to suggest that you edit the title and body of your question to focus on a specific issue. I'm sorry but, as it stands now, it does seem like a duplicate.
Serious Eats has covered this :
By contrast, watermelon and pomegranate juices are thin with no body, so they need some special handling to make their textures as thick and creamy as berry or stone fruit sorbets. It's even trickier with citrus like lemon, lime, and grapefruit; not only does their juice lack pectin or fiber,** they're so tart they need extra sugar to balance their flavor, and even when you add enough, the resulting sorbet isn't as rich.
** Whole citrus fruit has plenty of pectin but it's all in the rind, not the juice or flesh.
...
The master ratio above works great with any fruit purée that has some body and viscosity. But what about thin juices like watermelon, pomegranate, and citrus? Without any fiber or pectin they tend to produce a thin and icy sorbet, even when made with the correct amount of sugar. What's more, they're less forgiving than berry or stone fruit sorbets, because there's nothing in them besides sugar to inhibit the growth of big ice crystals.
If you're dealing with citrus juice you have another problem: the juice is so tart it needs to be diluted and sweetened with care. Go ahead: try making lemon sorbet with four cups of lemon juice and one cup of sugar: you'll get something so lip-puckeringly sour you'll barely be able to choke it down.
The solution to both of these problems is an alternative kind of sugar, one with different sweetening and freezing properties than sucrose, a.k.a. table sugar.
Sucrose is fairly sweet and doesn't add much body to a syrup. That's why pastry chefs look to liquid sugar like invert sugar, glucose, or dextrose, which all make sorbet creamier when used properly. The easiest alternative sugar—the one you can find in any American supermarket—is plain 'ol non-high-fructose corn syrup. Trust me: it's lemon sorbet's best friend.
I've written a whole article on the benefits of corn syrup in sorbet, but here are the Cliff's Notes: 1) corn syrup is highly viscous, so it makes for richer, creamier sorbet; and 2) it's only one third as sweet as sugar, so you can use three times as much of it as sucrose—making your sorbet three times as creamy—without over-sweetening the end result. In a blind taste test, tasters almost universally preferred lemon sorbet made with corn syrup compared to sugar. You can see the difference in texture here.
Lemon sorbet made with different proportions of corn syrup to table sugar. The more corn syrup you add, the smoother and creamier the sorbet becomes.
Even small amounts of corn syrup (or other liquid sugars) can add body and creaminess to a sorbet made with sucrose. How much you use, and in what proportion to sucrose, will vary from fruit to fruit, but this lemon sorbet recipe is a good starting point for super-sour citrus.
Oh, and because I know you'll ask: no, honey, agave nectar, and maple syrup aren't good alternatives. For one, they bring strong flavors of their own that may or may not jive with your other ingredients. They're also not very effective; honey has more body than sucrose, but it's so sweet you can't use much of it; maple and agave don't have much body at all.
The article also talks about other ways to soften it (e.g., alcohol), but oddly, only links to a lemon recipe, nothing for watermelon.
Right, so the suggestion seems to be “sub some or all of sugar for alternative sugars”, corn syrup being merely the common one in the US and not somehow specifically suited to making sorbet.
@millimoose : the advantage of corn syrup is that it's less sweet than other sugars, so you can use more of it as a thickener before the sorbet becomes sickeningly sweet vs. gloucose syrup or invert sugar. And it's (relatively) flavorless, so you don't have the issues if you used molasses or honey where it masks the fruit flavor
Some suggestions in the event that the questions doesn't get closed as a duplicate...firstly, get a copy of McGee's book, as suggested in the first possible duplicate. It is an excellent resource with too much information to reproduce here. Referring to McGee, you will want to decide what kind of texture and what level of sweetness you desire. The proportion of sugar in the mix and how fast it is frozen impacts the final consistency. It's not really about pulp content. Again, this is all outlined in McGee's excellent book. What McGee calls "moderately sweet ice" (20% sugar) becomes rock hard when frozen, and needs to be used before that state...or allowed to temper after. Sweet ices contain about 35% sugar and need little, if any thawing. Creating the desired texture is a matter of balancing acid and sweetness given a specific ingredient. Watermelon and lemon will behave very differently, and McGee has a table that helps to see why. The ratio of sugar to acid in lemon is 0.4. For Watermelon it is 45. For example, he suggests the following for a sweet lemon ice: 1 C juice, 14 TBS sugar, 1 cup water.
Hm, this is at odds with the suggestion on Serious eats that says to aim for 20%-30% sugar. If the simple answer is “just use more sugar”, then I suppose what I could try is actually pure glucose - which is less sweet than saccharose - to aim for about 35% total sugars by weight.
@moscafj please clarify (and perhaps provide a link to) "McGee's book"
@CosCallis Referred to in the question I suggest as a duplicate, but I'll add a link to my response.
@millimoose there is not a simple answer, that is what I was attempting to point out. It is a matter of acid, sugar balance, along with choice of texture.
Since it turned out the store had neither glucose or fructose in stock, I ended up doing some more research that lead me to what I ended up trying, which I'm offering as a supplemental answer to the other good ones:
Apparently it's possible to make invert sugar syrup at home by cooking sugar with a bit of acid. The basic process is to take 2 parts sugar, 1 part water, 1/500th part citric acid or cream of tartar, simmer this syrup without stirring until the temperature reaches 114C. (E.g. 1000g sugar, 500g water, 1g acid.)
For 1kg of sherbet base (sour cherries and evaporated milk) I ended up adding 375g of the syrup, which, accounting for some of the water boiling off during the cooking, should have landed me somewhere north of 20% added sugar by weight of the mix. (I started with 250g syrup and added an additional 125g to taste, hoping that the additional water binding power of the invert sugar will offset whatever is lost by not knowing the exact sugar percentage - especially since recipes mention that substituting even part of table sugar with corn syrup that's less concentrated than my invert syrup.)
Subjectively the texture was an improvement over my first sorbet attempt, which used strawberries that yielded a distinctly thicker puree than sour cherries, so I'll tentatively call this a success.
Instead of using a normal ice cream maker, it's possible that you might be able to get away with food-processor sorbet, as the blades break down the ice crystals:
1 lb of frozen fruit
1/4 tsp xanthan gum
syrup (optional; can be a flavored syrup, heavy syrup or corn syrup)
juice (about a cup)
Place the frozen fruit in the food processor, and pulse it a couple of times. Sprinkle the xanthan gum on top and pulse a couple more times. With the food processor running, add the syrup and liquid until you get a good flavor & texture.
If it's too soft for your liking, you can put it in the freezer to firm up.
Blend Watermelon till smooth.
Add sugar, stir until you're pretty sure the crystals dissolved.
Stir in the lemon.
Let it sit in the fridge for about 10-15 minutes.
Pour it into the Ice Cream Maker
Marmiton suggests 500g watermelon to 75g sugar with a tablespoon of lemon juice.
This simple recipe is right on the money, I've made watermelon sorbet many times and it always comes out great. Not quite one cup of simple syrup to 4 cups pureed watermelon.
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68031 | How to make mint syrup with minimum water?
Serious Eats recently ran a recipe for essentially water-free lemon syrup.
Is there a way to achieve something similar with mint as the flavour? The quality I'm ultimately looking for is "can be used to flavour whipped cream / cream cheese without making it break."
Well - not exactly. The reason that this technique works with lemons is that they actually do contain quite a bit of water. It's not so much "water-free" as it is using the residual water from the rinds and un-squeezed pips. Mint contains a lot less water by weight, so if you tried it in similar portions you'd wind up not with mint syrup, but with slightly-damp mint-flavored sugar.
However, that might actually work pretty well for your intended purpose. The flavorful oils in mint will dissolve very well in sugar or in something with a lot of fats, like cream. You could try gently muddling fresh mint in a small amount of sugar and letting it sit until the mint looks ragged, dissolve the mixture in cream, filter out any little bits of mint, and then using that to make your whipped cream.
You could also try breaking up the mint a bit and letting it sit in your cream for a while to extract the essential oils, but my suspicion is that you won't get quite as intense an extraction that way.
The other option that bears mentioning is using an essential oil or extract to flavor your cream or cream cheese instead.
"Mostly damp mint sugar" would actually work well now that I'm thinking about it. I'm planning this for a mascarpone-ricotta strawberry tart, and mascarpone is liquid enough to strain when heated a bit.
My preferred method would be to juice the mint in one of those juicers meant for wheat grass which can get a ton of moisture even from a dryish plant, then use this juice pure or dissolved in sugar.
The second thing you can try is maceration. This is usually done with fruit, and means you cut it up and mix with sugar, then leave to stay for several days. With fruit, lots of juice flows out, but with mint, I'd suggest simply adding a little water. It won't split the cream if the amount is small enough. You'll get an even better extraction if you add a bit of vodka. Make sure that you use enough sugar to not have the stuff go moldy or ferment.
Logophobe's idea for infusing the cream also sounds good. David Lebowski has several herb ice creams which involve transferring the flavor to cream, then discarding the plant matter. He calls for boiling the herbs in the cream, and this works very well - almost too well for me, the sage ice cream turned out to be an acquired taste. The taste changes during cooking, but if that's OK for you, cooking up a sugar syrup with mint, or making a strong mint tisane and then cooking a sugar syrup with it, may turn out to be the easiest way to prepare that. The advantage is that sugar syrup is boiled to supersaturation, so you get no free water afterwards to interfere with your cream whipping.
Right, so instead of a simple 1:1 syrup, if I just add as much sugar as the solution will take?
If you cook it, you don't have to add sugar, the cooking process evaporates the water. If you are not cooking, don't add "as much sugar as the solution will take", mix plants and sugar and add a bit of water, it's OK to have undissolved sugar for maceration.
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84397 | How to preserve herbal syrup or herbs that will be used to make syrup?
I want to preserve my windowsill herbs before the plants die back, and my idea is to make herbal syrups for lemonades or cocktails. (Possibly even meat sauces.) The method I'll use is a cold, dry maceration - bruising herbs in sugar and leaving them in the fridge for a day or two for the sugar to absorb the flavour, and only using enough heat to dissolve the sugar later.
While this makes for superior flavour, the lack of boiling makes this prone to spoiling - my previous batches had weird gunk floating in them eventually.
I've read in other questions that freezing herbs alone can diminish their flavours. Can I, say freeze 1:1 or 2:1 syrup without this happening as well? Or maybe just freeze the sugar-herb mush once it's done macerating? (I'm hoping the flavours being bound in the sugar might help.)
I've heard that freezing the herbs in water helps w/ the flavor, but I've never done a side-by-side comparison. The water won't be a problem in most soups, and shouldn't think it'd be a problem with syrups if you adjust for the added water.
Remember that whatever method of preservation you use you will always lose some flavor, there's no way to keep it all.
If you want to make a syrup for long term preservation then freezing them is your best bet unless you want to add preservatives which you don't really need to do if you have a freezer. A smart way to do it would be to pour the syrups into ice cube trays, then once frozen pop them out into zip lock freezer bags so you can use the trays for other things, and keep the ice from sublimating. I'm in favor of straining the syrup first, that way the cubes are ready as soon as they come out of the freezer.
Depending on the herb it may be more efficient to simply freeze the herbs directly. Thick herbs like sage, rosemary and thyme will do just fine while others like basil and parsley will turn to mush and you'll lose flavor.
Have you considered drying them? It's not hard to do, and there's plenty of how-tos out there, may be the best solution for thin herbs.
Really, my primary motivation for the syrup is that I want to experiment with cocktails. Dried herbs are readily available for other cooking even though they might not be as good quality as homemade; herbal syrups are not, and it's not really possible to flavour a cold beverage with dried herbs; and processing dried herbs into syrup is a world of difference in flavour from a cold-process syrup. Basically I want to bind the flavours in something while also trying to minimize processing steps that cause a loss of flavour to this end..
In that case frozen syrup cubes sound ideal.
For cocktails, not mentioned in the other answers is the tincture, or preservation of some amount of the herb with some amount of alcohol (of some percentage alcohol). This may be noted as a ratio of for example 1:3, which means 1 part herbs (by weight) to 3 parts alcohol (by volume).
Consult a book on herbs for suggested ratios and what percentage the alcohol should be. (I've only read "alchemy of herbs" by Rosalee De La Forêt, which is where the above information comes from.)
Probably there are more ways to preserve herbs (you didn't specify what herbs and not all herbs are suitable for this treatments), but here are some I have done in the past:
Dehydrate (on air, on the oven or on a dehydrator)
Freeze
Make herb butter
Make herb flavoured vinegar
Make herb flavoured oil
Make herb paste (Pesto)
Make herb seasoned salt
And answering your question, yes, frozen herbs lose some flavour. Some dehydrated herbs usually have more concentrated flavours.
How to Store Fresh Herbs
How do “frozen fresh” herbs compare to fresh?
How much dried herb to use when substituting for fresh herbs?
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84915 | Is there a reason to not just cut chestnuts through before cooking them?
Most instruction on cooking chestnuts (I'm going to boil them specifically) tell you to score them with an X. I know this is so the steam from the inside has somewhere to escape.
If I'm fine with just having halves/quarters of flesh, is there a reason why I shouldn't just cut through them entirely? Seems like it'd be less persnickety to do, especially with a sharp chef's knife designed for chopping/slicing in the first place. (I have a pound and a half to process and scoring is a silly amount of work.)
You will lose a lot of flavor if you boil chestnuts. Is there a particular reason you are not baking/roasting them?
I've only ever roasted them, and there, you do want to score them at least enough to create a weak spot, since heat above boiling temperatures will come into play and they will burst. In roasting them, I think they'd be more prone to drying out if halved first.
A small serrated knife is a better choice than a big chef's knife for that task, in my experience. The score does not have to be all the way through, either.
I would think that halving them before boiling would tend to leach flavor (making "chestnut tea" from the boiling water) and that would reduce the flavor left in the nut.
I'd also think that if boiling them, scoring beforehand might not be needed, as I can't imagine them managing to steam to the point of exploding in a boiling water bath. But I would probably try it with one nut, just in case I was wrong, before loading up a pot-full.
Mostly I'd be happier if the darn things were less prone to be moldy, which is really disappointing.
When I saw the question, I googled for recipes specifically for boiling, and many did not mention scoring. Recipes for roasting, on the other hand, seem to always mention scoring, sometimes the X, sometimes just a single long slit. So it does seem probable that it's unnecessary or at least less necessary.
I hoped to not have to heat up the oven but tbh it ended up just as much work because it’s harder to get rid of the inner peel when boiled, go figure. (Cutting through neither helped nor made things worse there.) The flavour loss is there, but if it’s in just enough water to cover it’s not too bad, and it’s easier to season them. It did make it easier to get rid of the duds though. Dryness isn’t an issue for this batch, they’re going into a pumpkin soup. I might try toasting the leftover halves in a pan to see if I can improve flavour and get rid of the peel though.
I use the edge of a file to score. It's safer than a knife.
When roasted a chestnut steams inside its shell, cutting a slit allows enough steam to escape while trapping enough to cook the chestnut inside. If you cut the chestnuts into pieces the steam will all escape and you will have to cook them longer, and the result will be hard and dry.
You can see the same thing at work with a potato, if you cut a potato in half and bake it you'll find it takes longer to cook, and the result is quite hard instead of being soft and fluffy.
And if you don't cut them at all, you end up with exploding chestnuts (and they continue to explode from carry-over when you remove it from the oven ... luckily, I wear glasses)
True, I've had ones where I didn't score them enough and they do go boom.
If boiling a chestnut, you do not need to score them. They will not explode in water like they do during the baking/roasting process. There is no need to cut them in half unless you want flavorless mush. You will lose a lot of flavor by boiling them as it is.
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110384 | Will gum arabic stabilize a watery sorbet?
I’ve been struggling with getting an iced tea based sorbet to not end up as a chunk of ice; I believe the canonical answer here is “use a stabilizer.”
I grabbed some gum arabic (mastic to be specific) recently to play with gomme syrup for cocktails, which gave me an idea: will it stabilize a sorbet? It should have the nice advantage of not requiring cooking the way gelatins do, AFAIK it can be activated by blending.
Will this work to make a sorbet less icy? If so, what concentration should I use?
The base recipe for a sorbet is normally sugar water and fruit puree. Sorbets can also be made with juices or beverages like herbs or tea. The main cause of the "icy" texture is the high water content. To avoid that, you don't necessarily need a thickening/emulsifying agent (rather than a stabilizer per se). Normally those kind of additives are put in the base recipe to avoid the splitting of the sugar that may occur if the sorbet is kept for a long time, especially if it's made with a really watery juice (as lemon for example). On the market it's possible to find some sugar syrups made specifically for sorbet that contains pectin.
But even with a thickener introduced in the recipe the main things that keep a sorbet smooth and airy are sugar (for its anti-freezing properties, the higher the sugar softer the end product will be) and the air that gets incorporated in the sorbet during the mixing in an ice cream machine. Plus the trick to the perfect ice cream or sorbet is to mix it in the ice cream maker until it feel "dry" to the touch, this way it'll keep the proper texture longer.
Great, now assume I already know and follow all of this and consider answering my actual question.
the plain and simple answer will be u don't arabic gum to solve your problem just more sugar and an icecream machine, and if you don't wanna end up with something that is super sweet substitute part of the sugar with glucose and dextrose
I use invert syrup at around 20%-25% weight of the total base, as well as a little honeydew melon puree and it still ends up icy with my machine. I don’t want to add more sugar or because that would need more citrus to balance, threatening to overwhelm the jasmine green tea+rose+star anise base - i.e., flavours that are subtle, not bold. Same goes for diluting with more fruit. The taste is already where I want it; it’s the texture that’s the sticking point.
the sugar percentage is too low for a green tea sorbet, it should be aroud 40%, for this reason inverted sugar is not the best choice because is as sweet as saccarose, glucose and dextrose are way less sweet so u can use more of them wiithout altering the flavour
I also do use an ice cream churn that works fine with these ingredient ratios for fruit purees; and I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen pectin syrup anywhere. (Unless I can make it using the pectin sugar used for canning - I don’t know whether pectin is effective when it’s not cooked with all of the base. Although I suppose that’s not an issue for a base that isn’t fresh fruit to begin with.)
I was under the impression that invert sugar is basically glucose+fructose syrup but I’m not 100% confident in that, I mainly use it for the stronger thickening power. I might be able to get powdered fructose and glucose but I’m not completely sure of that either; I’ll try if I see them.
that ratio if fine with fruit purees because the overall water content of the puree is less (due to the pulp and fiber of the fruit) plus fruit contains fructose that is a type for sugar, green thea does not and it's basicalle flavoured water, the syrup that i was referring to is a type of professional base. inverted sugar is made combining sugar with an acid
I’m also curious for other bases than the tea because of some more persnickety fruits I wanted to try, where I’d prefer avoiding either dilution with a watery syrup or cooking the fruit. But if pectin is used this way professionally, I’m going to try substituting canning sugar cooked with some of the tea, it seems like there’s a reasonable chance that will work, and it’s an ingredient I know I can get in a regular grocery run. (It’s also cheap enough that I can do a test run with just water to make sure I don’t end up with a set jelly when chilled.)
another good alternative that is cheap and easy to find either on amazon or in some health food stores is xanthane gum, it doesnt need cooking is water soluble and u only need a stick blender to mix it. with pectin u don't need to cook the fruit u can simply cook the syrup in advance and add the fruit once is cold
I usually try to avoid either adding water or cooking fruit insofar as that’s possible; that said, it probably won’t make a lot of difference to briefly boil a cup of store bought OJ out of a quart of sorbet, compared to doing that for fresh fruit.
water is not a bad thing in sorbet in the place where i work i normally use this kind of ratio 50% fruit 25% water 25% sugar ( for all the sweet fruit sorbet like stawberry banana peach etc...) and 60% liquid and 40% sugar for tea or herbs sorbet , for lemon sorbet 25% juice 35% water and 40% sugar
I suppose it’s a preference thing; I usually make berry sorbets at home and I like those to be intense and on the tart side, so closer to like 75-80% raspberry and 20-25% invert syrup cooked with strong hibiscus tea as the liquid to pack it with flavor
Okay, having done the experiment it seems that adding 50g gelling sugar (with 1.8% pectin content) to 500g water and 50g table sugar and a pinch of citric acid gave me a thick but still flowing liquid. I’ll make a whole batch of the stuff to verify but it seems that about 1.5g added pectin for a litre of tea or other watery sorbet base - or subbing around ten percentile points of the total sugar with this type of gelling sugar - might do the trick for watery sorbet bases and/or anybody who wants to keep sugar content on the low end for whichever reason.
(One of my previous questions was about using xylitol instead of table sugar to lower calorie content of berry sorbet, and I should revisit that. Using xylitol instead of invert sugar gave me the similar texture problem, and since I can get pure pectin and have access to a precise scale I could give it another go.)
another good substitute for sugar in "sugar free" ice cream is sorbitol
As usual I go by “whatever the heck I can get at the Lidl around the corner” :D I think xylitol is trendy these days because the name “birch sugar” sounds more natural, and I think it’s less laxative than sorbitol. (IIRC erythritol is best for that but: not on the store shelf.) In that question I ended up self-answering my findings, and it seems to be about as thickening as table sugar, which isn’t enough with my $30 churn; using all invert sugar is what helps my berry sorbets go from “sandy” to creamy.
Of course stone fruit season is pretty much here, and all of those are loaded with pectin and benefit from a little heat, so I’ll be free of lab work for a few batches :D (The bf’s grandma sent me a bag of plums which are one of my absolute favourite sorbets along with blackcurrant+star anise; and just so happen to be very forgiving.)
pastry in general is a lot like science, learning the chemistry of some of the modern ingredients is really helpfull, plus if you can find a store that sells professional ingredients in smaller packets for home use is very helpfull and very interesting
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33981 | Refreezing already thawed bread
I bought a loaf of bread some weeks ago, which the lady behind the counter explained was frozen (because it was leftover). This was okay for me. The bread was still frozen when I bought it and I let it defrost on the counter overnight.
Then we didn't eat all the bread (just about 50%) and I decided to put the leftover half back in the freezer (before it would spoil).
Now I'm wondering: Is it ok to rethaw and eat the bread? I know there are several threads/questions regarding freezing - thawing - refreezing, but they don't handle bread (which I would believe to act differently than i.e. meat).
Thanks.
Yes, it is safe to freeze and rethaw bread, although it might not help with the quality. Toasting it when you are finally ready to eat it will help bring out its best qualities.
If the quality of your bread was compromised by its time in the freezer consider using it to make french toast.
As already explained in the accepted answer, this might compromise the flavor of the bread. It will tend to taste stale.
What I usually do with bread like this after thawing, is to make bread crumbs with it (if I don't decide to make a bread pudding with it). There is always breadcrumbs in my freezer, and they last for months. Here is how
STEP 1
Break the bread into managable size to fit into a food processor
STEP 2
Blitz the bread until the desired texture is reached. I tend to keep mine quite course
STEP 3
Spread these crumbs evenly on a oven pan and place in the oven at +/- 100 degrees celsius until the crumbs goes golden brown (or to your own liking)
STEP 4
Let the crumbs cool down. I usually give them a quick blitz in the food processor before storing them to break them apart again as they usually clump together in the oven
Transfer them to an airtight vessel and place in your freezer. They will last for months.
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30794 | Vanilla Extract Vodka Quality
Most of the recipes and guides I have read for making vanilla extract say to use cheap vodka or whatever is available; however, if I am going to have it on my shelf for the next few years, I want to make the best extract I possibly can. Is there any benefit to using good vodka over the cheap stuff, or am I throwing my money away?
Also, I don't drink, so I have no idea what the best Vodka is. I did some searching and the consensus seems to be that Russian Standard, Grey Goose, and Skyy are the top 3 mid-range vodkas. What do you recommend?
the basic premise is to get a very neutral flavored alcohol to infuse the vanilla flavor. More expensive vodkas may be more rounded in their taste and are likely better filtered but IMO it won't be worth the money difference. You should be concentrating on getting the best vanilla beans possible that will make more of a difference.
I ordered a half of a pound each of bourbon and tahitian vanilla beans off of amazon. They both had 5-star reviews so they should be pretty good (I hope).
You should probably be aware that numerous blind taste tests demonstrate pretty clearly that the "premium" vodkas are all bupkis, a lot of them are widely perceived as terrible when people don't know what they're drinking, and at best it seems to be (surprise!) largely a matter of personal taste. May or may not apply to vanilla extraction, but I say don't waste your money.
@Aaronut If you want to get down to double-blind studies, several (including America's Test Kitchen and many others) say they prefer the taste of vanillin (artificial vanilla extract) to the alcohol based extracts anyway... primarily in baked goods. Just saying. wink
Do you have any preference of distilled over filtered vodkas?
@RobertCartaino very true, and further evidence of how closely personal preference is tied to familiarity... most people I know also seem to prefer the artificial liqueur flavours over actual rum, amaretto, Grand Marnier, etc. - as long as they're not specifically told that it's fake! Artificial extracts are great, although I do know just a couple of connoisseurs who seem to reliably prefer the real stuff. Know your audience, obviously.
I have family in Reunion Island - one top seller of bourbon vanilla. The only vodka they have there is imported, and rhum (or rum if you prefer to spell it that way) is readily available.
Personally I would recommend:
150 ml / 5 oz. of neutral alcohol (e.g. rhum, vodka, eau-de-vie)
2 beans
8 weeks (6 min) without light, occasional shake
You can also use syrup instead of alcohol, but concentration / flavor will be different.
5 oz agave or sugar cane syrup
2 beans
AFAIK:
vodka is not mandatory
use any vodka you like (e.g. could be in your cupboard already)
So you're saying that it doesn't matter whether the vodka is any good or not?
@Jefromi, I'm saying "quality" is subjective. Use any vodka you [actually] like
What does 2 beans mean? Two pods/stalks, or two small seeds from the inside?
not homeopathy :D, two pods.
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20868 | Can I put other vegetables in a manual wheat grass juicer?
I'm thinking about buying a wheat grass juicer, but the fact that it only juices one thing gives me pause. Are they adequate at juicing vegetables such as spinach, kale and carrots?
As it turns out, wheatgrass juicers are simply masticating juicers with smaller gears. They work on the same principle as commercial masticating juicers, but with one 'chewing' gear instead of two, and a hand crank instead of a motor. I read several reviews on Amazon about the Hurricane Stainless Steel wheatgrass juicer, and many indicated that it would juice leafy greens perfectly, but isn't so great with fruit or hard veggies (carrots). This sounds good, as my main juicing concerns are for spinach, kale, wheatgrass, and turnip or mustard greens.
Some juicers are better than other kinds for different things. A dedicated wheat grass juicers probably isn't going to juice spinach, carrots, and kale well.
A centrifugal juice usually doesn't handle wheatgrass well and in general isn't supposed to be as efficient as some other kinds for leafy greens.
A single-gear or double-gear masticating juicer works great for leafy greens, but isn't supposed to be as efficient for softer fruit.
If you're looking for something that will do wheatgrass, leafy greens, and a variety of other things - consider something like the Omega 8004. Long warranty, easy to clean, and gives good quality juice. If you need to make juice for a lot of people though, it is kind of slow for large quantities.
I've had my eye on the Omega 8004, but it's just too far out of my budget range. Plus, I like the compactness of the wheatgrass juicers, and that they don't require electricity.
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19056 | Can I substitute store-bought puff pastry dough for phyllo in pumpkin pastry?
I want to make a pumpkin filled pastry for a potluck thanksgiving. I found a great recipe for pumpkin & feta pastries, but it calls for filo/phyllo dough. Can I use puff pastry dough instead, to make it more 'turnover-like'? If so, how will it alter the preparation?
Looking at this recipe I don't see any reason why you couldn't use puff pastry as the container.
The only ways that the preparation would be different is:
puff pastry doesn't dry out as fast as filo so you don't have to worry about the wet towel in the instructions.
You wouldn't want to do multiple layers of puff pastry as the recipe calls for. You would just form a single pouch to hold your filling and seal it well.
Know that the texture will be different of course. The filo will be a bit more crisp and the layers larger and more distinct- filo is also a lot more work. You may find that the baking time needs to be adjusted a little but I don't think it will be very different if at all. Cook them until they're golden using the recipe's time as a starting point.
This recipe is in a Mediterranean style and filo would be more traditional but puff pastry would produce something tasty.
Thanks, just the info I was looking for. I'm not too worried about it being a Mediterranean style dish since it is for Thanksgiving :)
I have successfully made strudel using puff pastry, so I see no reason you couldn't make the same substitution for your recipe. Suggested changes:
Roll out the puff pastry sheets at least a little bit, because the pastry is much thicker than even 8 or 10 layers of phyllo. Aim for about 1½ to 2 times as big as the size you started with.
Don't use multiple layers of puff pastry. Instead of strips, cut it into squares, put the filling in the middle, and fold it in half diagonally.
I generally have better success making the edges stick using water rather than butter. You definitely don't need to brush the entire dough with butter; puff pastry already contains plenty of fat.
You don't need to bother with the whole damp towel part. It takes a whole lot longer for puff pastry to dry out than it would take to prepare, fill, bake, and eat the pumpkin pastries.
Puff pastry is much more liable to stick to the pan than phyllo, so I would strongly suggest using parchment paper to line the pan.
The baking time will probably need adjusting, so check after 15 minutes, and keep checking periodically thereafter until you achieve the right golden-brown look.
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20930 | What can I add to veggie burgers to make them less brittle?
I have a bunch of veggie pulp left over from juicing, and it is packed down into little patties. After mushing in some black beans, it conforms to a hamburger shape, but is still very brittle. Is there anything I can add that will make it stickier, so it won't fall apart while cooking or eating?
I don't know about veggie burger from pulp, but I save all mine in the freezer and make veggie stock.
Yeah, that seems to be the common use, but I thought the burger idea would be a nice experiment.
Wheat gluten.
Buy some powdered wheat gluten at a health food store. Add it to the mix, add some water if necessary, and stir it around in the same direction for 30 to 50 strokes. The gluten will bond and start forming long chains, and bring the whole mixture together. Nothing else really works as well.
Eggs and cheese will also help hold a veggie burger together, but only gluten really gives it cohesiveness and a springy texture.
FWIW, I can't imagine that veggie burgers made from juicer pulp will be even remotely appetizing.
Being mainly veg pulp, you need lots of binders to form it into a patty that won't be crumbly and brittle. I would make it by first frying the onions in some olive oil, then I would add the black beans and off the heat I would sprinkle on 1/3 cup of bread crumbs, an egg yolk and 1/4 cup of grated cheese (gruyere say). Then I would mash it all together and combine it with the veg pulp.
Hopefully this would bind it together and give it a perhaps more meaty texture. Hope this helps.
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30829 | Baking 'Master' Recipes
I have a question for the seasoned bakers out there. In a nutshell, I'm wondering if there are 'master' recipes for cakes, muffins, etc. Perhaps it's a little bit complicated, but here goes the explanation...
In bread baking, as I understand it, it's all about the hydration when it comes to the actual recipe.
Basic White Bread:
Flour | 100
Water | 66
Salt | 2
Yeast | 1
Varying the amount of water in the recipe (along with some other factors, of course--in preparation, for instance) will yield different types of bread. Now, my question really stems from the idea that this 'master' formula for bread has existed for a long, long, time and yet it doesn't really exist for other things. I got to thinking, though, that perhaps there are recipes for cakes and whatnot that are 'master' recipes. Cakes have some general guidelines, for instance.
I'm not talking about necessarily with specific ingredients, because sometimes the bakers prefer shortening, real butter, oil, etc. What I really want to know is if anyone has any ideas about whether or not these recipes really exist.
Sponge cakes and pound cakes do, bread does (sort of), things like carrot cake do.
Does anyone know about anything else?
don't read these formulas as scripture rather as shorthand. good jumping off point that a professional has at fingertips or -mostly- committed to memory. Your oven your bakeware your preferences and experience count far more
It sounds like you're essentially looking for Ratio by Michael Ruhlman. It has plenty of what you call master recipes - ratios of ingredients for various recipes. It's not just baked goods - also batters, stocks, meats, sauces, and custards. And it doesn't stop with the ratios; there's a lot of additional discussion of actual recipes to make on top of the plain base, as well as discussion of how varying the ratio will affect the result.
There are of course plenty of reviews on Amazon and elsewhere online, but if you like perspective from members of this site, yossarian also reviewed it in a blog post a while back. I also own it and think it's pretty great.
There's also an app based on the book for Android and iOS (thanks, Stefano). I haven't tried it but it looks like the reviews are mixed to positive - not the shiniest app but it does contain a lot of the basic information.
Ruhlman has also created an app based around the concept. I've not used it though: https://itunes.apple.com/en/app/ratio/id345119718?mt=8
@Cascabel, I ordered it today from Amazon. I'll let you know if it's exactly what I was looking for once I get it and sneak a look at it. Thanks for the recommendation!
I wrote some code last year to average out a large number of recipes in the hope of finding something akin to your 'master recipe'. If I collected enough data, I figured I would be able to pin-point ideal recipe ratios with a high level of statistical confidence.
Instead I proved to myself that there is no such thing as an ideal recipe ratio. The reason is that recipe ratios are tightly coupled to a particular context. Among other things I mean context to include cooking technique, cooking equipment, cultural preferences and accompaniments.
Technique
Take the bread ratio in your question, for instance. The flour to water ratio there is roughly 5:3 (the same as in the Ruhlman book). In a very simple sense, this ratio is coupled to a particular bread making technique: kneading. I recently discovered, thanks to this question, that when applying a stretch-and-fold technique, I much prefer a ratio of 4:3; a level of hydration that is hardly possible when kneading.
Equipment
In another question I did some research into the differences between Swedish pancakes (Pannkakor) and Crêpes. I originally imagined that the difference between the ratios was due to cultural preferences. While there may be some truth in that, what I forgot to consider was the different equipment used in making Pannkakor and Crêpes.
Swedish pancakes are made in a cast iron pancake pan. The batter is swirled around to give the pan a thin, even coat and so a relatively thin mixture is needed.
Crêpes are made using a Crêpe maker and a batter spreader so a relatively thick batter can be used, unlike the Swedish pancakes that rely on gravity to spread out the batter.
Once again, each ratio is only ideal in its correct context.
Cultural preference
When I researched the Pancake question, it turned out that, not only were the average ratios for Pannkakor and Crêpes different, but also the recipes written in English were different to those written in French or Swedish. In both cases the recipes in English asked for more egg and butter.
Although it is only possible to speculate about the reason for the ratio differences, it is not unreasonable to believe that they are due to cultural preferences or traditional expectations. The ideal recipe changes with the setting.
Accompaniments
The very first time I attempted to find an ideal recipe ratio was in search of the perfect crumble ratio. I posted the question on this site setting myself up to write an answer that I had already calculated from 116 individual recipes. There turned out to be a better answer. Here's what Kate Gregory had to say,
There is no single ideal. More sugar and butter will mean a more
crunchy crumble top [...], more
flour will make it more sandy - they each have their place. [...]
The longer the fruit needs to cook, the more resilient to
cooking the topping needs to be. And of course for a tart fruit like
rhubarb, you might like more sugar in the topping to balance it
There are many more examples like this. Is the batter ratio for Blueberry muffins and Vanilla muffins the same? Apparently not. After answering the linked question, I fired up my ratio averaging code and found that the following batter ratio for Blueberry muffins,
1:0.3:0.6:0.3:0.7 (flour:butter:granulated sugar:egg:milk)
And this ratio for plain muffins.
1:0.2:0.3:0.3:0.9 (flour:butter:granulated sugar:egg:milk)
Blueberry muffin batter needs less liquid due to the water content of the Blueberries. Twice as much sugar is used in the Blueberry ratio to balance the sourness of the fruit.
So the ideal ratio changes according to what else you put in, or eat with the recipe you are making.
What to do when there is no Master recipe
If all you need is a starting point, then pretty much any recipe from a dependable source will do. The Ratio book recommended in another answer is fine in this regard although Ruhlman doesn't make it clear how he finds his ratios. I assume he used a mixture of experience and experiment, but we don't get to read about that. A much better book in this respect is The New Best Recipe. Here you get recipes together with a description of experiments and adjustments attempted in order to perfect them.
Master recipe as comparison point
In answer to @Jefromi's comment, I agree that there is some utility in comparing recipe adjustments to a baseline. If someone were to take Michael Ruhlman's Ratio and make a study of the effects of altering the amounts of individual ingredients, that would be a book worth reading.
What I object to is selecting a baseline and then calling it a master recipe. I see problems with this however a baseline is selected. If I were to find a central tendency for Bread ratios (irrespective of context), I don't see why that would result in an ideal ratio. It may give me something mediocre, or unworkable.
You could select in favour of simplicity, choosing, for example, plain sponge cake as a baseline for all other variations. User @Athanasius' Amazon review of Ratio (which has shaped my opinions here) suggests some problems with this,
[...] take Ruhlman's sponge cake formula of 1:1:1:1 for eggs, flour,
fat, and sugar. [...] Compare Ruhlman's ratio to a chart of ratios for
sponge cake alone in Bo Friberg's "Professional Pastry Chef." Friberg
gives ratios for eight different types of sponge cakes, all with
different ingredients and vastly different techniques. For the weight
equivalent of 12 eggs, flour varies from 5 to 21 oz. [...], fat 0-12
oz., and sugar 6-24 oz. [...] Lest you think that Friberg's table is
only for professionals, I need to point out that over half of these
sponge cake types are found in standard home cookbooks, and only two
are rather advanced types generally only used by pastry chefs.
Once again, this points to how recipe ratios are tied to a context, and while it is certainly possible to choose a particular technique/ratio combination as a baseline, I don't see how it can be done objectively.
Yet another option is to embrace the fact that ratios are contextual and accept that a 'master recipe' can only be considered such in a very narrow sense.
Another way of comparing recipes as plotted datapoints is attempted in this github repository.
While this bypasses the idea of a master recipe, I'm not sure of its utility.
My conclusion? With regards to recipe comparison, you can establish a baseline, but there is no reason to consider that baseline a master recipe.
I disagree somewhat with your conclusion that there's in general no ideal recipe ratio. Yes, there are some things that are totally subjective (oats vs flour in crumble topping) - for those, there's not much point talking about ratios. But when it's added ingredients that affect ratios (blueberries add liquid to muffins), there's still an ideal base ratio from which you're adjusting. And when there's a range of ratios within which things are subjective but with clear effects (different varieties of crepes), there's still effectively a master recipe.
Ratio includes discussion of the effects of altering the ratios in many cases. And it sounds like if we just change the terminology to something sounding less authoritative (I'm saying master recipe because the question says it), a lot of your criticism might fall away.
@Chris, I did the same thing you appear to have dome to attempt to calculate the ratios for cakes specifically. I found that some cake recipes do follow a particular ratio scheme, but like you point out, it all depends on the type of ingredients and the desired effect. I converted countless ingredients from volume to weight, compared moisturizers to tougheners to everything else. The generic cake rules (http://www.finecooking.com/articles/ratios-for-great-cakes.aspx) didn't apply in many cases due to these variations. Amazing answer. Really, if I could vote this up more, I would.
What I'd like to point out though, is that there could be some generic calculation of tougheners, moisturizers, emulsifiers, etc. That is more what I'm interested in if there is no ratio of flour:sugar:oil:eggs, for example.
With respect to wide variations and outliers, there are two big things going on: some recipes out there (especially on the internet) are just bad, and some recipes are really just different things. For example, there's a baseline ratio for what most people think of when they think sponge cake, but then there are a lot of other things that are actually a good bit different for which the best name is sponge cake. There just aren't enough names to cover all the possibilities.
@adam Cookwise provides such base ratios for different styles of cakes.
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30848 | How can I get rid of garlic breath?
I personally do not enjoy eating garlic, but some people in my family do. I really dislike the smell, and I care for them. I do not want to be rude, but if I can have some help on how to get rid of the smell, that would be great! Thanks!
Offer them after dinner mints?
Drink coca-cola. But the CO2 burp would stink.
I think given Daniele B's answer this question should be reopened since he shows that this question has answers that fall within the realm of food preparation.
In particular:
If you make the garlic boil before using it, the high temperature will inibite the production of the smelling agent, and you'll not have this killing smell.
Before answering directly to the quesiotn, a little forword is needed:
The garlic contains allicina (alliisina , glucoside solforato), an enzyme (alliinasi), vitamine A, B1, B2, C and niacina (another vitamin in B complex).
What happens is that there is a serie of chemical reactions when you chew the garlic, with the result of creating allile disolphour, which is what have the typical garlic smell.
The latter substance is very volatile and easily get in solution in liquid and gases.
So.... (this is the interesting part) when you ingest it, the propagate almost everywhere in your body. That's why you can smell it thorugh the organs which eliminate this substance, that is to say lungs, kidney, skin.
Hence, in conclusion, when you eat garlic, it is not only a problem of your breath, but your whole body smells of garlic (in fact if you make sport and you sweat, you'll see you smell of garlic).
This said, here are some remedies for the breath:
Chew sage leaves or prasley
Chew cofee grains
Drink a liquorice or mint decoction
Chew liquorice stick
Chew anice grains
Eat slowly a honey spoon
Eat slowly an apple
Drink slowly a grappa
Drink some milk or some yougurt spoon
Chew slowly some lemon slices
Drink some sodium bicarbonate.
last, use mouthwash prepared with cloramine solution at 1%; the clorite will get in contact with your body tissues, mitigating the garlic essential oil effect.
In any case, after a while (maybe hours) the smell will come up again.
So, apart from not eating it, another remedy is in the cooking:
If you make the garlic boil before using it, the high temperature will inibite the production of the smelling agent, and you'll not have this killing smell.
References:
http://www.placidasignora.com/2011/01/14/chi-laglio-mangia-daglio-sa-rimedi-contro-il-puteolare/
http://benessere.atuttonet.it/consigli/rimedi/alito-aglio-rimedi.php
Sometimes its not just a matter of brushing your teeth to get rid of the smell of garlic. Actually the smell of garlic in your breath even after you have brushed your teeth after eating, it comes from your stomach.
To get rid of the garlic smell, try one of the following methods 1, 2:
Try drinking some green tea.
Drink lemonade, or eat a lemon. This helps sometimes. Use home made lemonade because store-bought lemonades tend to have very few actual lemons in them.
Run a stainless steel teaspoon all around inside your mouth, touching all the skin surfaces, including the entire tongue and the sides! Turn the spoon upside down to get your tongue all the way back!
Exercise immediately after eating a meal that contains a lot of garlic. This will speed up the excretion of the garlic and make the body odor less prominent throughout the rest of the day. Be sure to shower and apply antiperspirant or deodorant after exercising.
Drink an 8 oz. glass of milk with your meal or eat 6 oz. of yogurt after the meal. The live cultures in yogurt will prevent the bacteria from remaining in your mouth. Milk inhibits the growth of bacteria.
Eat an apple, orange, lemon or slice of melon after eating a meal with garlic. The citric acid will keep the mouth moist with saliva, preventing the growth of bacteria that causes bad breath.
Wow! I had no idea! Thanks! I will make sure to politely tell one of my family members to do one of the following after eating a meal with garlic.
Though it's not just stuff left in your mouth, it's also not coming from your stomach, it's in your bloodstream, and so it ends up in the air you exhale from your lungs - this is even in the Wikipedia article.
Not necessarily related, but assuming you're cooking with cloves of garlic, cutting them in half and removing the heart (the little green bit in the middle), and then adding them to whatever recipe significantly cuts down on the smell it gives your breath.
Thank you so much! I will make sure not to do that next time.
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30870 | How to clean utensils used to cook raw ground beef that have been left in the sink overnight?
I cooked some ground beef yesterday and by the time evening came was too zonked to do the dishes. Now it's the following evening and they are still in the sink. How do I clean the stainless steel pan, plastic spatula and dishes they are touching to prevent bacteria (and the sink!). The pan is handwash only. Is very hot water and a good scrub with soap...perhaps even twice sufficient?
As an aside, I noticed that some advice to use a 10% bleach solution to clean utensils after they touch raw meat...is it safe to spray bleach on cooking utensils?
Thank you!
I'm sorry, but my reaction to this is: oh come on now! What's with this deathly fear of bacteria? Just wash your dishes and be done with it already. You won't get cooties, I promise.
The fact that they were left out doesn't really have much bearing on safety - you just need to completely clean them, just like you do if you wash them right after use. SAJ14SAJ's answer is really just telling you "this is how you wash dishes".
@Jefromi Well, yes :-) Except I have never actually made the bleach sanitizing agent.
If you used the pan and utensils to cook the beef, then I wouldn't really think of them as having touched raw ground beef. They touched cooked ground beef. They got more than hot enough to kill most of the bacteria and are about as safe as any leftover meat you've got. You should still wash them, of course, because they've been sitting around at room temperature breeding more bacteria, but they're not toxic or anything - it would be no worse than reheating a cooked chicken breast on a plate and leaving the plate in the sink for a while before rinsing/washing it.
How is this any different than washing dishes any other day of the week? This question baffles my mind.
@Brendan What is obvious to you and me may not be obvious to everyone.
Wash everything in very hot water, with dish soap, and rinse thoroughly. Unless there are at risk people in your home, this should be sufficient.
If you are very concerned, you can make a sanitizing agent by diluting bleach. The ratio would be about 1 tablespoon of bleach to one gallon of water, per this Oklahoma State University shared from UC Davis:
[...] about one tablespoon (1/2 fluid ounce, 15 ml) of
typical chlorine bleach per gallon of water is the maximum that
should be used for sanitizing food contact surfaces, according to
federal regulation. If higher concentrations are used, the surface
must be rinsed with potable water after sanitizing. Contact times of
one to five minutes are usually sufficient to achieve a thorough kill,
depending on chlorine concentration and organic load.
Good, solid advice but I think the sanitizing is overkill - with the exception of what is missing from your answer - the disenfecting of the sink - where a bleach-based powder or solution would be the right tool, IMO. :-)
@KristinaLopez I agree on the overkill, as I think the "if you are very concerned" hints at... but I wanted to answer the question as asked :-)
Good point - I upvoted your answer in any event.
bleach pits porcelain with strong solutions, and over time with weak ones. Can end up defeating purpose by giving bacteria an easy foothold. If I mean business, I boil.
+1 for the advice to wash as normal with soap and water.
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31904 | What helps against astringent mouthfeel from spinach or chard?
Spinach and chard dishes, if prepared from fresh veggies, have a somehow astringent mouthfeel, that can be unpleasant. Does anybody know what exactly causes this mouthfeel chemically and/or knows a good counter substance that makes the astringency go away?
possible duplicate of What counters astringency?
While there is overlapping information, I don't think it is an exact duplicate per the standard, since it is talking about cooked applications, not smoothies, and is asking what the underlying chemistry is.
"Exact duplicate" doesn't mean the two questions have to be the same word-for-word; the other question already has an answer talking about the chemical composition, specifically tannic and oxalic acids, and I'm not seeing any apparent difference in the answers between raw vs. cooked applications.
Blanching briefly does an excellent job of neutralizing bitterness, or more precisely, astringency, even if the blanched spinach is recooked.
Basically, boil water, add washed spinach until submerged (5-30 seconds depending on preference; chard could go up to a minute or so depending on the target texture desired). Drain quickly. Submerge drained spinach in a bowl of ice and water to rapidly chill. Press spinach to remove excess water.
Recooking, even in applications like quiche, will do a very nice job of retaining the bright green color and generally astringency, if present at all, is minimal. If I am not recooking in some way, I often just dress simply in something like fresh ginger and soy sauce or a ground sesame, mirin and salt based sauce without reheating.
Spinach and Swiss chard contain small amounts of oxalic acid.
This is the same substance that makes rhubarb so tart--in fact, it is the active ingredient in some cleaning chemicals, like Barkeeper's friend. While toxic in large quantities, you would have to eat a lot of greens (on the order of pounds to kilograms) at once to have any issues other than the unpleasant taste and mouth feel.
While you could chemically neutralize it, as with baking powder, the results would probably be hideous on many levels, including strange color changes.
I would buy only young spinach leaves for short, fast cooking methods; or use one of the longer braise type preparation methods.
saag paneer....
A remedy I would recommend would be a bit of butter or oil, just enough to give a bit of a coating. You could do classic with a bit of butter, salt, and pepper. You could do Italian with some olive oil and garlic. Or Asian with some sesame oil and soy.
Though the adding-fat answer is the correct one in my mind (have had plenty of puckery young-spinach sauteed), funnily enough vinegar or lemon replace one pucker feel for another. Growing up, vinegar was always on the table with greens.
I particularly like Chinese black vinegar (from Shaanxi) for tougher greens and balsamic for tender ones
I learned a little trick for this while living in Italy. When you are cooking the spinach, add a bit of milk or heavy cream, just enough to coat it lightly and cook off. I use about 2 tbsp for about 6 oz of raw spinach. Alternatively, I have soaked spinach in milky water before cooking. Rather than patting it dray or straining it, I use tongs to pull the spinach out of its bath, which leaves just the right amount of the milky water on it. This solves the aftertaste problem every time for cooked spinach. I'm at a loss for raw!
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31918 | How to make semi-hard, unripened brined cheese
I want to make semi-hard, unripened brined cheese, kind of like Nabulsi or Halloumi.
I already know how to make "fresh" cheese from cow milk, rennet and salt.
But, in my attempts, the resulting curds is far from being hard or semi-hard, unless I strain the curds many hours, but in the process I loose the freshness and fresh milk taste, and the cheese develop other more complex flavours, wich is usually good for a cheese, but not for the kind of cheese I want to make :)
I think I read somewhere that the curds in this kinds of semi-hard, unripened cheeses, just like mozzarella, needed to be cooked?
Is it possible to do this cheese with cow milk instead of goat milk?
For the brine, can I use the (in process produced) whey, in wich I add salt?
Can someone post a complete step by step procedure, or direct me to a web site with this procedure?
Thank you!
I find your question somewhat contradictionary. Brine is a method of conserving cheese; brined cheeses are not meant to be eaten fresh or taste like fresh cheeses. While not all of them need a lengthy ripening process, a production time measured in "many hours" (as opposed to "many weeks" for ripened cheeses) is normal. Have you had the kind of cheese you are describing, where, and what was it called?
Ok, I am sorry for the confusion about my use of the word fresh. Probably due to my lack of experience in cheese making :) I guess what I mean is: a simple, mild or milk taste cheese, as opposed to complex flavoured or strong cheese. And, in my experience, a ripening process as short as 48h at room temperature (to let the curds strain enough to be able to mold the cheese), is sufficient for the cheese to loses its milk taste and starts developing complex flavors. As for the kind of cheese, like I said in the first sentence of my question: Nabulsi or Halloumi for example.
I've made halloumi with goat's milk (and cow's milk), and I found the goat's milk version to be preferable. Halloumi is traditionally made with a large percentage of goat's milk anyway. It's definitely one of those cheeses that needs the curds cooked - it helps the texture & helps it achieve that "resistant to melting" consistency it's famous for. It helps to be sure your milk is VERY fresh (and unpasteurized, if possible), to help achieve the firm curd you're looking for. Also, I wouldn't use the whey for a brine - make your brine fresh. here's help: http://www.cheesemaking.com/Halloumi.html
Thank you @franko for sharing your experience and pointing to me this great web site. I guess that one of my problem with cheese making is that I do not have access to unpasteurized milk, so my curds always end up too soft to be mold early. I will try to add Calcium Chloride, like they sugess. Anyways, if you create an answer with your comment, I will mark it as accepted.
I'm glad you find it helpful. I have made cheese with pasteurized milk, but I have had the best success with unpasteurized milk. When I have had to use pasteurized milk, I have found it helps to buy it from a local dairy. It seems like the further the dairy has to ship it, the more they tend to cook it beforehand to make it safer for long-term delivery. A local dairy doesn't have to be so heavy-handed. Calcium chloride will help you a lot! [EDIT: typos]
I've made halloumi with goat's milk (and cow's milk), and I found the goat's milk version to be preferable. Halloumi is traditionally made with a large percentage of goat's milk anyway. It's definitely one of those cheeses that needs the curds cooked - it helps the texture & helps it achieve that "resistant to melting" consistency it's famous for. It helps to be sure your milk is VERY fresh (and unpasteurized, if possible), to help achieve the firm curd you're looking for. Also, I wouldn't use the whey for a brine - make your brine fresh. here's help: cheesemaking.com/Halloumi.html
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31945 | How do I season an iron griddle on an induction hob?
I have an induction hob but no oven, how do I season a new cast iron pan I'm thinking of getting?
You don't.
I've tried to do this. It doesn't work.
The problem is that the induction hob heats a cast iron pan to very hot temperatures, even on the lowest setting. And when it doesn this, it doesn't heat evenly, you get a coil-shaped hot spot.
We have had a question about seasoning cast iron on stovetop, and somebody reported good results provided that it is done "low and slow". I can imagine this working. But on the induction, there is no way to go low and slow. The pan gets too hot after half an hour at the latest, the oil burns on the hot spot and stays liquid outside of it.
The easiest version might be to season it at somebody else's place (parents, friends) and then use it normally at home. Once the seasoning is done, there is no problem with that. I haven't done that; I started seasoning in my toaster oven. Even when the pan is too large to close it, the results are still better than on the induction hob.
I am confused... if the induction method creates such hotspots while trying to season, would it not have the exact same problem when trying to cook with the griddle, making the griddle very unsuitable for induction cooking in any case?
@SAJ14SAJ of course you get the coil-shaped hotspot during cooking too. It just doesn't make so much problems as during seasoning, because 1) you can stir and 2) you don't hit burning temperatures.
another option would be to season it in a gas grill.
that's interesting, i've never heard of this uneven heating before on induction cooktops. I wonder if a diffuser plate would make this more viable.
@Brendan a diffuser plate counters the advantages of induction. The hot spot is not worse than the hot spot on a gas stove. It is probably less of a problem with bigger coils, mine is rather small.
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37954 | Preserving Onions
Here the onion prices shoot up to exorbitant (1000% increase) levels every year and this year it has hit a crisis level , hence it would be nice to preserve them when they are cheap. One way is to caramelize and preserve them, how long such caramalized onions would last and most importantly what are some other ways to preserve onions upto a year or so?
My sympathy; it appears this is an extremely challenging problem.
Preserving onions and retaining their qualities is a very difficult challenge.
Most known effective methods require freezing, which requires reliable power.
The main problem is that well tested recipes for preservation (pickling or canning) from trusted, research-based sources like government agencies or university extensions are extremely difficult to locate. You will have to assess your tolerance of risk in using recipes that you do find.
Freezing
If you have reliable power to maintain a freezer, onions can be frozen. The University of Nebraska Extension recommends washing, peeling and chopping the onions into about 1/2 inch (1 cm) pieces. Freeze in single layer freezer bags, making it easy to break off a portion.
Frozen onions are best used in cooked dishes.
Should last 3-6 months (in terms of quality; they will be safe indefinitely if continuously frozen).
Canning
Onions are a low acid food, and so require pressure canning for preservation. Make sure to locate a trustworthy recipe.
Canning and Preserving for Dummies offers a detailed recipe online, but I cannot verify that it is backed by quality safety research.
Properly canned onions should last a year, and will be best suited for cooked dishes.
Caramelized or Made into Jam and Canned
Again, onions are a low acid food, safe preservation requires pressure canning and a safe recipe from a qualified source such as a university or government agency.
If you can find a recipe you trust, they should last a year, but will of course have a substantially different flavor and texture from raw onions.
The problem is that I am unable to find a single recipe whose pedigree I would trust as showing that it is backed by the proper research to indicate its safety.
Pickling
It is difficult to find reliable shelf stable pickle recipes from a trustworthy source for full sized onions. Most are intended to tiny (1-2 cm) onions.
If you can locate a trustworthy pickling recipe (a true canned pickle, heat treated, or a true fermented pickle) from a reputable source like a university or government agency, this may be an option, but the onions would of course be pickled, and have a different flavor and be much more acidic.
Properly pickled onions should last a year, but the challenge is finding a safe recipe, and pressure canning is a must.
Dehydrating
Dehydrating should be a good option in theory, but with home equipment, you are unlikely to desiccate the onion to a safe level for shelf stability. The National Onion Association recommends freezing dehydrated onion, which may or not be an option.
Cool Dry Storage
Onions can naturally be stored, if properly cured (dried and prepared for storage), for many months. Unfortunately, you may not be able to control how well they were cured after being harvested.
Properly cured onions, if kept in a cool place (around 40 F, 4 C) should last 10-12 months (which is how they are stored commercially for sale at retail year round). Again, this may not be feasible.
I have done some refrigerator pickling of onions and they lasted quite a while (of course, then you have to have room to refrigerate them). Bonus, you get all the delicious pickled onion brine.
Here in the US, I get to my nearest India Bazaar and buy a huge bag of fried/caramelized onions. They will last me more than a year. I don't need to refrigerate them. I throw them into the soup and they expand back by absorbing the water.
Before there were India Bazaar, I had to caramelize onions myself. Which I learned from my mom. It is a slow process done on a large flat pan on a very slow fire to dry the onions but avoid cooking them as much as possible. For just an onion or two, the drying would take about two hours on the pan, with the onions spread out and a thin layer of oil.
But I read that you could sun dry the onions first.
The other way is to dry it in a baking oven at 100-120F for a day or two. http://www.ehow.com/how_3905_dry-onions.html.
I would sun dry them, if I had the place to do it.
When the onions are mostly dehydrated and crisp (a little moist and not brittle), fry them in whatever oil you are comfortable with, again with low heat. I would fry them in a mixture of sesame and olive oil. Sesame oil also has preservative effects.
I normally could not resist frying garlic slices together with the onions. You do not need to dry the garlic slices first. Also, not being experienced in caramelizing onions, I use the garlic as an indicator when to stop the heat - when the garlic starts to get brittle and toasty.
I know my technique and timing would not produce perfectly caramelized onions due my lack of experience, but the procedure is correct and simply needs further trial and error to fine-tune it.
Perhaps, you should start with a handful of sun dried onion slices first.
Experiment:
In fact, in the summer, I hope you could even experiment with caramelizing onions right under the hot sun, by soaking them in oil after they are dried.
So it would be a two step sunning. First to dry it and then to fry it.
At the frying step, tilt the pan a little so that you could drain the oil and reuse them. You should know that you need your pan to have a surface to be as dark as possible to absorb as much heat from the sun as possible. You should also place a piece of glass over the pan to retain the heat and reduce evaporation of the oil. I am thinking that sun cooking this way, will ensure your onions will not get burnt.
Instead of the glass covering, I am wondering if Saran wrap would do. Would the plastic wrap melt in the heat?
I am sure those are great techniques, but are they suitable for year-long storage?
Sun drying is great for longer storages, if it is viable where you live. It requires that you live in a warm climate with strong sunshine, drying recipes which my grandma does regularly fail here in Germany.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T13:25:00.270890 | 2013-10-28T08:45:05 | {
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56887 | Cooking vegetables with butter and water
I have been cooking vegetables, such as pea, green beans, broccoli, etc, and even eggs, by placing some butter and water in a fry pan, then cooking the food with a lid on to steam until the water evaporates.
Is there a term that describes this kind of cooking?
It sounds a bit like a risotto
Risotto has rice in it @YohannV.
@GdD I am talking about leaving a liquid evaporate while cooking. Just pointing that it may be a track to follow.
That's not what really happens in a risotto @YohannV., the water is absorbed by the starches in the rice, only a bit evaporates.
Oh o-kay. My bad then.
I do that often for a variety of vegetables.
The word you are looking for is glazing.
Quote from source:
Glazing, a technique taught in culinary schools but underutilized in home kitchens, quickly renders root vegetables (like the yellow beets and carrots pictured) sweet, tender, and glossy. Start by cutting vegetables into uniform pieces and arrange them in a single layer in a sauté pan. Add a few tablespoons of butter, a dash each of salt and pepper, and a pinch of sugar. Add water to nearly cover the vegetables; lay a piece of parchment paper on top; and simmer. As the water cooks off, fat from the butter combines with the vegetables' starches and sugars to form a rich glaze; a shake of the pan distributes it throughout, transforming humble vegetables into elegant side dishes.
You can also do it without adding sugar.
You can, but a bit of sugar enhances most veggies quiet a bit :). No idea what the chemistry behind that is, but the difference can be tasted.
People are primed to like sugar, and I imagine the sweetness emphasizes the natural sugars in most root vegetables. No need to invoke chemistry!
I'm definitely not doing it with sugar. I eat a low carb paleo diet - hence the reason I'm using butter and cooking it this way.
+1. Excellent guidelines, we enjoyed our glazed carrots this dinner :)
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