Are there dangers to using solid fuel on a propane grill?

Propane grills mix air with gas before burning it.  Ash from charcoal and other contaminants can clog the flue and produce inefficient burning of the gas, possibly produce carbon monoxide (poison) or even gas build up.

As long as the gas parts (igniter, flue, pipes, etc) are clean and unaffected, the charcoal, hickory stick, etc, should not cause any issues to my knowledge.

On the whole, this idea is more on the terrible side than great.  A charcoal BBQ is relatively inexpensive and with the aid of a hair-dryer can light up in little time :)


How long does it take to steam brown rice?

This is an impossible question because it depends on the rice you are using: Some rice cooks in 10' other rice in 20'. That's a huge difference.

Also, some people like the rice to be slightly undercooked and others like it very overcooked.

At any rate, if you are used to boiling one type of rice for some amount of time, try steaming for about 20%-25% longer and see what you get.

You can try the rice by taking a grain and looking at it. If it has a white dot in the middle it's not done. When the white dot disappears, take a bite and see for yourself whether you like it.


Why do the Japanese eat a lot of raw fish?

I did a little bit of digging on the topic and found this TapTrip blog post: A brief history of Sushi: why do japanese eat raw fish?
It also references a Cultura Bunka article in Portuguese called Uma breve história do sushi.
To quote:

During Muromachi Period (1336-1573), japaneses [sic] used to transport the raw fish inside of baked rice to keep it conserved during long trips. Then, they started to eat this meal which was called sushi.
[...]
But, making sushi was hard because took a long time and was a little expensive. Only during Edo Period (1603-1868) japaneses started to eat the raw fish freshly caught from the ocean with rice thanks to a sushiman called Hanaya Yohei.

So it appears the short answer is indeed "just an accident of culture" (or history) so-to-speak.
I will also quote from a short article Japanese Food Culture of Eating Raw Fish *

Raw fish dishses have been eaten since the Nara-era. At first,
people ate raw fish pickled with vinegar as "Namasu". Then, from the Muromachi-era, people
started to eat "Sashimi".

And a bonus small bit on careful preparation of Sashimi:

Sashimi is the main dish in the Japanese cuisine,
and the cooks consider carefully the best way of
cutting the fish, arranging the fish, shellfish and
squid, give importance to the proper use of
condiments, and the best combination of fish species when serving. The thickness of sashimi is
determined according to the collagen (main protein
in the connective tissue)
content of the fish
used.

* [Foods Food Ingredients J. Jpn., Vol. 212, No.8, 20]
Keiko Hatae
Wayo Women's University
2-3-1, Kohnodai, Ichikawa-shi, Chiba 272-8533, Japan


Baking bread - stainless steel or potless?

In my mind, bread baking containers are divided into two categories:

1- Pans for shape

Many bread pans are used only to give bread shape. These can very from "normal" loaf pans for sandwich bread to baguette pans.

These pans need to just stay out of the way of the heat as much as possible. Baguette pans are even perforated for this reason. They are usually made out of very thin steel and don't need to be expensive at all.

2- Pots for heat and steam

Artisan style bread needs high initial temperatures to produce steam that opens up the bread and builds the crispy crust. It also needs to have a steamy oven during that initial crust-forming period. Consumer ovens don't usually retain heat very well and are not built with steam injectors either.

Putting the bread in a pot helps with both issues. By preheating the pot, the bread will be exposed to a large, pre-charged, thermal mass right at the beginning of baking. Then as steam escapes the loaf it will be held close to the bread and give you a crispy crust.

Pots to do this need to be able to hold a lot of heat so cast iron or ceramic vessels are used. A stainless steel pot with a lid probably wouldn't do very well because it wouldn't hold much heat and would shield the bread from the high heat.

Since you mentioned no-knead bread, I would think that you are planning to make artisan style bread rather than soft, sandwich bread. If that is true then I don't think a stainless steel pot would be the best choice. Use either cast iron with a lid, or forgo the pot idea and bake the bread on a pizza stone and spray some water in your oven for steam.


The closest in terms of taste an texture would be another winter squash such as butternut, acorn, hubbard, etc. (As has already been mentioned.)

However, anything with a similar texture would work. If you don't care so much about the taste, you could substitute a tuber such as potato, turnip, rutabaga, carrot, parsnip, celery root, or parsley root.

Sweet potatoes or yams would be closer in taste, but might be mushier than you want.

I'd suggest experimenting with any single or combination of the above and see what flavor you like best.


Sounds like you're talking about this recipe.

Looks like some apple juice, cider, cinnamon,sugar, and some grain alcohol.


Soups: Can I leave bones in indefinitely?

I always leave bones in stews and stocks, even when freezing. I don't think there is anything in bones that would accelerate spoilage, specially after being cooked for so long in high temperatures.

Nutritionally, I think there are two factors to consider

Bones are composed by a matrix of proteins and minerals. Cooking denaturate some of the protein tissues adding flavour and nutritional value (amino acids) to the broth. The longer you cook, the more you extract, until reaching a threshold. Hervé This has interesting experiments where he weights a piece of meat after different times of cooking and measure the 'flavour' it delivers by seeing how much weights it lost over cooking time. His conclusion is that cooking over this threshold is worthless. The same is true for vegetables, and probably for bones, each with a different threshold.
What make bones hard is the mineral matrix, composed by calcium among others. The reaction between acetic acid (present in the vinegar) and the calcium produce calcium acetate which is soluble in the stock, weakening the bones and making them softer. Maybe someone can add on that, but I am not aware of the nutritional value of sodium acetate.

So I would bet that leaving the bones in the stew can be at most beneficial. If you have cooked enough, it will probably not make much difference. If you have not cooked enough, the process of reheating with the bones will bring additional flavour and nutrition.


Type of flour: rice
Liquid: soda (seltzer) water

Mix as little as possible. Lumps are okay. Dip quickly, drop into 350 veg/soy oil.


Can meat spoil outside the fridge if it's baked into bread as a filling?

There are two differences between your buns and a tin can.
First, your buns were heated to a core temperature of under 100°C. Yes, your oven was probably set way higher, but the water content in your filling prevents it from getting hotter than boiling water. Commercial canning is done in the vicinity of 120-130°C, which is possible because the cans are cooked under pressure. So unlike in a can, most pathogens were destroyed, but not necessarily all of them. For human consumption, that’s perfectly fine as long as the remaining ones don’t get the time-temperature combo to regrow.
Second, a bread dough may be dense (although the aim is usually something different), but by no means airtight. Interestingly, wrapping meat in dense dough was used as preservation method in medieval times - the “ancestor” of today’s pork pies and pastries. But while the hard flour crust (not intended to be eaten originally) did form a protective layer and usually extended the shelf life more or less, it was by no means food safe judged by modern standards - although some pies were stored for months. But your fluffy buns are truly not a protective layer. Which means you should refrigerate your buns, but also that you get to enjoy the whole dish.


Delayed Pressure Canning by 12 hours? OK? or no?

Two problems - 12 hours sitting out at prime growth temperatures (not refrigerated 12 hours nor kept above 140° F for 12 hours) in anaerobic condtitons (sealed jars) and putting jars of room-temperature beans (rather than hot-packed beans) in the pressure canner. What you should have done would have been to either not process them at all and hold them refrigerated, or put the blanched beans in the refrigerator, dumping them out of the jars first (since you had jarred them.) Then you could re-pack them with boiling water in the morning and process them.

Both of those will offer the potential for bad things happening. Hot packing is very important since thermal gradients inside the jar can prevent the heating of all the stuff being canned, and is a common error when folks opt to re-process stuff that did not seal - which can be done, but needs to be done by dumping it into a pot and reheating it before repacking it and reprocessing it, not just tossing the unsealed jars back in the canner to have another go.

Toss them. They might not make you sick, but then again, they might.


How to adjust baking time if I adjust the quantities in the recipe?

You would not half the baking time, but it might take slightly less time.  The best way to determine if it is done will be to measure the internal temperature.  Most bread is done when the internal temperature hits 190F (88C).


Will my food continue to cook on the warm setting?

It's still going to be heated, so yes it's going to carry on cooking.

However, the temperature on the "warm" setting is going to be lower, so it will cook more slowly, and therefore you might be okay.

It's difficult to say for sure, because it depends on what exactly the temperatures involved are.


Freezing live mussels is generally not recommended for long term storage, but if you plan to eat them in the near term it is not a problem.  The issue that I can see is that freezing kills the mussel.  So, unless you sorted them beforehand it will not be possible to tell if any were dead to begin with.  If it were me, at this point, I would sort through them and remove any with broken or empty shells and cook them up.


What to add if low-carb muffins don't rise and are crumbly

Your recipe has no gluten in it. Baked goods without gluten tend to have a crumbly texture; muffin batter usually contains at least some wheat flour, which contributes gluten toward the muffin's structure. The Kitchn has a good blog post about using vital wheat gluten, which can be added to a recipe that is in need of a more bread-like structure (assuming no dietary restriction on gluten). If you add too much, you'll have to adjust the other ingredients in the recipe to compensate (mainly liquids, but possibly fats as well) but a little goes a long way; for your recipe, one tablespoon might be a good starting point.

Vital wheat gluten does contain similar carbohydrates to those found in regular wheat flour, but much less; where regular flour is almost entirely carbohydrates, vital wheat gluten is mostly protein. Consult the nutrition info before you buy it if you're worried about adding carbs to your recipe.

Adding gluten can also affect how the muffin rises, so you might find that's enough on its own; but it's not directly a leavening agent. More good info here: What does gluten "do" in baking?


What kind of alcohol has least carbohydrates?

All distilled spirits have no carbohydrates at all. Vodka, whisky, whatever. Only alcohol, water and aromatic compounds can ascend the spiral in a distillation process.

So a standard alcohol portion (10g ethanol) from a distilled spirit has 0 grams carbohydrate.

Properly made table wine shouldn't conatin carbs either, as all the grape carbs should be fermented. Sometimes substances which aren't recognized in a food are counted towards carbohydrates, that's what a source claims is made with wine.

Then there is sweet dessert wine, there you have 3-4 grams of carbs per 10 grams of ethanol (70-100 ml depending on wine), because it has more sugar. I didn't find information on fortified wine, but as they have more alcohol than sweet dessert wine and probably about as much unfermented sugar, it is about the same or somewhat less.

In beer, expect something like 7-8 g carbohydrates per 200 ml (I am assuming an average ABV of 5%). A big comparison of American beers is given here

I can't help you with liqueurs, they typically are infusions of plants in distilled alcohol, but may have sugar and other stuff added. It depends on recipe.


Can you cut cucumbers when you make them in brine?

I don't see how it would change the process. Besides, I've seen the same pickled fermented cucumbers cut, although lengthwise. However you cut them, it will be fine.


Which products are recommended to clean and polish a cooking pot?

Aluminium rusts white but that looks like stainless steel which if it rusts will rust brown. Not sure what the residue is. Have you tried just simmering water for a while?
Either way, I would just scrub it with soap and steel wool. The scratches might cause you problems if you decide to scramble eggs in it but since it's generally going to be hot when in use and dry when not, it's not going to be a food safety issue.
If you really want to use a product then use something based upon sodium hydroxide and neutralize it with vinegar or something if it feels slimy when you're done.


Is Turkish coffee grinding finer than Espresso grinding?

Yes Turkish coffee grind is finer than esspresso grind.

Grinders are typically one of two kinds: Blade grinders, or burr mill/grinders. For a consistent turkish coffee or esspresso grind, it's recommended to get a conical burr grinder they can produce the fine grind you need without heating up the coffee and losing flavor.  Also, the better ones tend to not 'click' as you adjust the grind size. That way you can calibrate your grinder to the specific bean roast without making big jumps in grind size.

If you are going for the whole 8 oz, i'd recommend giving the grinder a break to cool down part way and prevent the grind from getting too hot and essentially roasting again.


Knife cleaning: safe to do without soap?

In order to "Sanitize" any surface you must wash that surface (in this case, knife blades) with water at no less than 190°F (~88°C) according to the (U.S.A) National Sanitation Foundation (NSF). Earlier this year the Conference for Food Protection recommended reducing that standard to 160°F (~71°C) as an "energy saving measure" citing a study at Ohio University that claims that it is equally effective. Additionally they recommended that the temperature could be reduced to 120°F (~49°C) with 'chemical additives' (soap).

So the question is "How hot is your hot running water?" According to "Wikipedia" (a dubious source at times, but I will accept it for this point) suggests that most home water heaters produce water at 104°F (~40°C) to 120°F (~49°C). This would suggest that to sanitize a knife blade something more than 'hot running water' is necessary. In fact since water over 131°F (~55°C) puts you at risk for scalding (Wikipedia, Ibid) and you certainly don't want a water heater putting out water that hot, I would have to disagree with your source and conclude that in household use soap is required to sanitize your knife blade.

note: in order to qualify my answer to the question of "safe", I have elevated the standard from "clean" to "sanitized", certainly you may 'clean' a knife with running water but that level of clean is not what I would consider 'safe'.


What is the use of this device? Perhaps a potato masher?

It is a potato ricer. You place boiled potatoes in the basket and push the lever down to squeeze the potato through the holes. They are handy for making very smooth mashed potatoes, though they can be tricky to clean - washing them immediately or at least putting them in water so the potato doesn't harden is advised.


How to determine whether oven thermometer is accurate?

Use a pot of water!

Find out the lowest temperature of your oven (needs to be at least below 212 F for it to work). Preheat the oven to this heat
Heat water on the stove to a temperature let's say, about 10 F below the oven temp. Use a candy thermometer and leave it in the water, but not touching the bottom of the pan.
Once the oven is preheated, transfer the pot of water to the oven, and leave the candy thermometer on the whole time.
Periodically check the temperature of the water. It should asymptotically approach the temperature of the oven. If the water temp closes in on the temp of the oven, the oven thermometer is calibrated!
You can verify by checking the temperature on the opposite end. Warm the water on the stove to 10 F above the oven temp, and watch the candy thermometer go down to the oven temp.

Note: it is very important to get the water on the stove close to the oven temp. Water has a very large specific heat capacity and will take quite a while to heat up in the oven, as it takes a large amount of energy to heat water.


Reducing acidity without creating "soapy" taste

I use Calcium hydroxide, (pickling lime, Cal, slaked lime), to raise the pH of my tomato sauces. It does not take much, and you don't get that nasty flavor that comes with using sodium bicarbonate. You can find the stuff in the canning aisle in a U.S. grocery store. Mexican and Asian stores  also usually carry it. The Latinos use Cal to nixtamalize corn prior to making tortillas. An eighth teaspoon, or 0.2g, is usually enough for 250ml  (a medium can) of tomato sauce. You'll have to play with that number a little. I've tried several different bases to neutralize the acid they add to tomato sauce. Only Calcium hydroxide seems to have no down side.
If you are adding the right amount of finely powdered CaOH, you shouldn't have to wash it out, as it will turn into Ca citrate, or some other soluble salt. You may well be using too much. The reaction does take time, so 10 min or more waiting is not unreasonable.


Which cooking method gives the leanest bacon?

It believe is more a question of temperature than technique. Low and slow typically renders more fat. When I want a maximum amount of fat rendered out I place thinly sliced bacon in a pan and cover with cold water. I then place over medium-high until the water has evaporated and then some depending on how crispy I want the bacon to be.


how to unstick dried pineapple chunks that are stuck together

If you want to separate while retaining shape of individual pieces, freeze then pry.

May cause small change in texture upon thawing


Food Timing: Keeping Bacon Warm While Cooking With Bacon Fat Made from Said Bacon

I render off the necessary fat over low heat, then remove the bacon strips, increase the heat, and fry using the rendered fat. When nearly done, I return the bacon to the pan to crisp it before serving.

Of course, you could also just save the grease from one batch to use with the next, thereby ensuring you always have both fresh-cooked bacon and (reasonably-fresh) grease to use without having to produce the former before the latter.


For Easter, a friend and I cooked rabbits.

We marinated for 72 hours in buttermilk, dijon, rosemary, and sage (NO SALT). Then boned them out and spatchcocked them (sort of a butterfly, with skewers to hold the flat spread out shape), seasoned, and roasted at 350 until done. Moist, flavourful. Served with parsnip puree, rosemary potatoes roasted in duck fat, and sorry but I forget the other veg we used.


Is there such thing as white wheat berries?

Sorry, my answer was incorrect (it used to say that there is no white wheat). The only defense I have is that such newfangled things like white wheat have not yet reached my part of the world (is Europe really that old-fashioned?). Big thank you to Jefromi for correcting me and teaching me something new.

"Normal" white flour is, as I described in the old answer, made from the inner part of the wheat berry, discarding the yellow-brownish hull. You can't make this at home. But it turns out that there is such a thing as white wheat. When it is used to produce whole flour, the result is a flour which is white in color (but behaves more like whole flour when baked, and has nutritional properties like whole flour). So if your definition for white bread is just based on color, it is probably possible to make white flour from white wheat. They say that the taste is milder than "yellow" whole flour, too, closer to the refined white flour. But from what I read, you probably won't be able to produce a fluffy soft baguette with it, just because it bakes differently.

If you want to make flour which is equivalent to the common white flour in the supermarket, you are still out of luck. The machines for removing the bran are too complicated, you can't do it in a grinder (look here for a patent for a bran removing device). But if "white whole wheat flour" is good enough for your purposes, I don't see a reason why you can't grind albino wheat at home.


Can I substitute olive oil for butter/shortening in pie crust?

The trick to incorporating olive oil into your crust is to freeze it first until it's opaque and congealed, "like the consistency of slightly melted sorbet." From the recipe for an olive oil double crust; it has a "surprisingly neutral taste... [and by freezing it] helps the fat blend into the dough in little pockets, creating the flakiness you crave (Moskowitz, Vegan Pie in the Sky p. 39)"


Used Metal Knife on Aluminum Cake Pan, is it Ruined?

Steel (as used in knives) will always scratch aluminium, which is really quite a soft metal. Glass and even some plastics can mark it quite noticeably as can storing aluminium pans stacked together. In other words it happens. Don't worry about it. The pan doesn't look as nice but it's not ruined. The main reason to avoid scratching it is to avoid getting fragments in the food.

I have a set of miniature pudding basins made of aluminium and if things don't just fall out, the only tool I can find that helps is a butter knife (they're too curved for any of my silicone tools or plastic pallette knife to get in nicely). But an old, smooth, worn one, and that doesn't scrape material off (though it does leave a mark.)


To finely spray a thin layer of warm liquid Coconut Oil?

(this is more a comment, as I haven't actually done what you're asking, but based on what I know ...)

I've used two types -- there are ones that you pressurize and then it works like an aerosol, and there are ones that are just your standard pump sprayers like you'd have on bottles of cleaning solutions where each trigger pull pumps a bit of liquid..

I prefer the pressurized ones, although over time they can get gummed up and may require a thorough warm soak to clean so they continue spraying well.  I also prefer the clear ones, as you can see what the level is inside and orientation of the feed tube as you get towards the end.

... but I don't know how well it would work with coconut oil if you're in a cold climate.  At the very least, I would treat it like a can of spray paint, and after using it, turn the container open and hold the spray button down until it's only blowing air.  This way, you won't leave (as much) oil in the areas where it'd be difficult to melt it.

I'd also look for one of the sprayers with a filter at the end of it, but that doesn't mean that you could just warm up the bottom of the oil to use it -- you'd need to warm up the sides sufficiently for the air pressure to transfer and you'd need to make sure that the intake tube in the center is warmed up.  (and the spraying mechanism, so it doesn't seize as you try to use it).


From the source (CAN)

  Fruit, Vegetable & Nut Allergies
  Associated with Spring Allergies  (due
  to tree pollen) FRUITS:  APPLE family
  (apple, pear) PLUM family (plum,
  peach, prune, nectarine, apricot,
  cherry) KIWI

  VEGETABLES: PARSLEY family (carrot,
  celery, dill, anise, cumin, coriander,
  caraway) POTATO family (potato,
  tomato, green pepper)

  NUTS:  Hazelnut, walnut, almond

  LEGUMES: Peas, beans, peanut

  SEEDS: Sunflower

  Ragweed allergy (which causes hayfever
  in August and September) can be
  associated with allergies to raw
  bananas, and the members of the gourd
  family (melon, watermelon, honeydew,
  cantaloupe, zucchini and cucumber).

  Grass allergy can be associated with
  allergies to orange, melon,
  watermelon, tomato, kiwi, peanut.

Explaining about the allergy and ways of combatting it:

  These allergic reactions usually occur
  only when the food is raw. People who
  are allergic to the raw food can eat
  it cooked, canned, microwaved,
  processed or baked. For example,
  someone allergic to raw apples can eat
  apple sauce, apple jelly, apple juice,
  apple pie and dried apples. However,
  nuts may cause allergic reactions
  whether raw or cooked. This problem is
  usually life long. Allergy tests to
  these foods may sometimes be negative
  unless a fresh fruit is used for the
  test (instead of a commercial allergy
  extract). The allergic reaction to
  these foods can occur anytime of the
  year when eating the foods but can be
  worse during the pollen season and
  especially if hayfever is very
  troublesome that year.

  The allergic reaction is not due to
  pesticides, chemicals or wax on the
  fruit. Howeve,r because the more
  allergic part of the fruit may be in
  the skin, some people allergic to
  fruits, e.g., peaches, can eat the
  flesh without reaction if the skin is
  peeled away. Similarly for apples,
  some brands of apples cause more
  allergic reactions than others.
  Freshly picked apple, e.g., straight
  from the tree or an unripe apple, may
  cause fewer allergic reactions than
  one which is very ripe or one which
  has been stored for weeks after
  picking.

To this, I'd like to add that, in The Netherlands at least, the Santana apple is available as a special anti-allergy apple, and, for me at least, it works!

Also, as a technique, (deep)freezing the food may also offer benefits, or cooking the food in acid(ic) substances.

  Other alternatives:

  Substitute Raw Fruits Berries*
  (strawberry, blueberry, raspberries,
  etc.), citrus* (orange, mandarins,
  etc.), grapes, currants, gooseberries,
  guava, mango, figs, pineapple, papaya,
  avocado, persimmon, pomegranates,
  watermelon*.

  Substitute Raw Vegetables MUSTARD
  family (cabbage, cauliflower,
  broccoli, watercress, radish GOOSEFOOT
  family (spinach, swiss chard)
  COMPOSITE family (green onions)

  Substitute Nuts Peanut*, cashew,
  pistachio, brazil, macadamia, pine
  nut.

  *May occasionally cause Oral Allergy Syndrome.

For me, this list indeed works, as I have a milder version of OAS. The substitue nuts work for me as well (walnut and almonds are terrible to me: the above are fine). When using pine nuts, try to use the European version, as the Chinese one can be horrible (which is a general problem with Chinese pine nuts)


Is there ever an advantage to using a light-bottomed pan?

Firstly, light-bottomed pans exist partly because they save cost and weight (the latter being relevant for, say, taking a pan when hiking). However, there are applications for which a light-bottomed pan can be preferable. These are when you need responsiveness to external heat more than heat retention and evenness. Taking a light pan off the stove will more quickly halt cooking, because it has a lower thermal mass. The pan will also heat up more quickly, but this is less relevant when compared to a properly preheated, thicker pan.
This article goes into some detail on considerations for pan selection. Crucially:

For sautéing and other cooking that calls for quick temperature changes, a pan should be responsive. This means that the pan is doing what the heat source tells it to, and pronto. For example, if you sauté garlic just until fragrant and then turn down the flame, the pan should cool down quickly so the garlic doesn’t burn. Responsiveness isn’t as crucial for boiling, steaming, or the long, slow cooking that stocks and stews undergo.

Additionally, as mentioned by @Blargant in a comment, while responsiveness is less relevant in situations where a relatively large amount of water is used, the positive properties of a thicker pan are also less useful in those cases. Thus, cost becomes a concern, which is why commercial stock pots and the like tend to be thin.


Something wrong with pizza dough - 3rd time in a row

There is not enough information here to give you a solid answer.

There are two things to consider:

Have you proofed your yeast?  Active dry yeast needs to be proofed, and while instant yeast does not, it cannot hurt.   Dissolve the yeast and sugar in warm water (about 105 - 110 F, 40 - 43 C).  After 10 to 15 minutes, it should be quite foamy.

This demonstrates that your yeast is alive and well, and will be ready to raise your bread or dough.
In the winter, rising will be slower, possibly by a lot, depending on how much cooler your kitchen is.  You may wish to create a friendly proofing box for the rise, with a warm hand humid environment.

My favorite way to do so is to boil a microwave safe container of water (a couple of cups or a liter) in the microwave, and then push it to the back of the cavity.  Then use the microwave as a place to let your dough rise. The microwave has to be turned off while proofing, if you turn it on, the dough will fail.


French bread falls after scoring, how can I achieve a tall loaf

If bread falls after you score it, it's because the bread is overproofed. Basically, the bubbles of carbon dioxide have reached the largest size that the structure of the dough can support and the stress of scoring causes it to collapse.  They key is to either score it earlier and let it continue rising a bit, or to score & bake it earlier (this works great if you have a very hot oven and can find a way to get some steam into it).

If your neighbor came over with bread and it flattened in your oven, it's possible that hers also overproofed in the time it took to transport it (or the extra jostling of transportation caused them to fall).


Why am I failing to sharpen my WÜSTHOF Classic Ikon 8" Cook's Knife, on my Shapton Glass Stone 1000 Grit 5mm?

It looks to me like a three--fold problem

The angle is constantly changing.

The action is bi-directional. You should only push.

You need to push the knife at about 45° to the direction of travel so you offer up the entire blade in each sweep, rather than just one end of it at a time.

oh, & a late 4… I don't think 1000 grit is going to be coarse enough to get the edge back on it once you've badly messed it up. I think you'll need 400 or so to get it back in the ballpark before refining it.
Having been rubbish myself at this for years, I'd honestly either give up now & get a decent electric, or at least try an angled clamp at the correct angle for a euro knife, 20°.
I also really really would advise against practising on a good knife.
Some images of blade edge profiles.

These are all "correct" profiles for different usages… however, let's just look at the top row first.
You really want one of the compound bevels [I think centre is Japanese, right is European]. To achieve these by hand you need some serious skill & practise. The best you'll really get is going to be closer to the V, if you're good &/or have a clamp system.
What you probably have right now is something closer to the convex on the 2nd row. In the right circumstances this could be a good thing [bushcraft or an axe-head]. In the hands of someone like me, it will barely cut cheese, let alone a soft tomato.
There is a lot of remedial work to be done to get back to one of the top row profiles.


Turning Left Over Broth From a Roast Into a Soup Or Stew

The broth can be used for pretty much any soup...if the soups says to add in stock, use the broth instead.

I use broth from ham for making lentil soup, and from a roast use it in pretty much any kind of soup!

Sounds tasty :)

Enjoy!


Appropriate process for bulk sauteing onions?

You simply need to ensure sufficient area/a max thickness of the onion layer. You can let them simmer first in their own juices, but I have never had good results that way. You really need them spread out for sauteing.

In practical terms for a home kitchen, this means cooking in batches. Of course, nothing stops you from using multiple burners at once, and maybe even some kind of external burner if you have one, like a paella cooker going off its own gas canister. As far as I know, there is no other way around it.

If you don't need them sauteed but are OK with merely softened onions (no caramelization, no residual firmness), filling a pot with them and keeping them on low flame for a long time is a good option which frees your attention for other tasks. Don't forget to add sufficient fat on the bottom against burning, butter makes them especially tasty.


All potato cells contain starch. When you cut or rupture the cells, the starch is released

So grating a potato will release some starch, but only as much as the cut surface cells contain

Industrial potato starch processing use very large macerating machines and hot steam to break all the cells open, and release most of the starch


How can I turn my muffin batter into the natural blue color from blueberries?

The story is more complicated than SAJ tells it. Blueberries, like many other purple foods, are colored by a pigment called anthocyanin. It changes its color from red at very low pH to real blue at very high pH. At the blueberry's natural pH, the color is a purple with more red than blue in it.

What you can do is to juice some blueberries separately, then add lots of baking soda to the juice. It will turn a dark blue. You can then mix it into the batter.

The problem is that you will be changing the taste of the muffins, and some of their rising behavior. If you use little enough blue-turned juice to not make a major change, you will get dirty greenish muffins, as the batter itself is yellow-beige, and that will mix with the blue. If you use enough to color them, you will have pretty display muffins (provided they don't stay flat because you turned the batter too alkaline for the baking powder to work) which will taste like soap.

Personally, I will stick to food coloring. "Natural" coloring is an unachievable utopic for most foods, as natural pigments are finicky and almost never concentrated enough to color a food flavor with them. The only time they work is when a food is made predominantly from the coloring food, e.g. blueberry sorbet is indeed red-purple from the blueberries contained in it.

This is an example of naturally colored shortbread cookie dough. The lavender dough was colored using elderberry fruit juice with lots of baking soda. It was very noticeable in the taste, I wouldn't do it again. Ironically, the slightly soapy taste fit a bit with the lavender aroma, it was just weird eating the stuff.


Sous vide pasteurization for pregnant wife

Pasteurization is the process of heating food to kill pathogenic bacteria, rendering it safe to eat. Pasteurization is a function of temperature and time.  Using sous vide, one could easily have a pasteurized rare steak, or even a "raw" egg. So, yes...pasteurized food is able to be consumed more safely by people who are immunocompromised or pregnant.  These guides will be helpful.


Can steaming cans of jams be safely used instead of boiling to sterilise?

The key issue is getting the contents of each jar up to the requisite temperature for the necessary time, all the way through to the center of the jars.  It would be conceivably possible to use steaming to do so, if the requisite controlled temperatures and times could be regulated, and appropriate recipes developed.

However, according to the USDA as reported at the National Center for Food Preservation:

  Steam canners are not recommended because processing times for use
  with current models have not been adequately researched. Because steam
  canners do not heat foods in the same manner as boiling-water canners,
  their use with boiling-water process times may result in spoilage.

If purpose built steam canners are not recommended, I would strongly urge you not to improvise with other devices.

You should only use recipes and methods for canning that come from highly reputable sources, such as a University Extension.


What is the rate of loss of vitamin C in fresh vegetables?

To put it simply, it's lost exceedingly rapidly. Can we scientifically measure the exact amount of the reduced form of vitamin C in produce over time? Yes, we can. Have there been studies and papers published that have done this? Yes, there have been. Are these results relevant? Yes and no.

These results allow us to draw certain conclusions about the loss* of vitamin C after produce has been harvested. We know that plant cells are constantly biosynthesising vitamin C (through a chain of biochemical reactions involving glucose) and at the same time using it in oxidative processes. By harvesting crops we're taking away a part of this natural oxidative loop and plant cells begin oxidative changes leading up to oxidative stress. The results of these studies confirm the theoretical knowledge we posses about oxidative cell cycles but there is no deterministic way we can deduce or even estimate with high precision the exact percentage of vitamin C that gets used up in the processes we observed. The loss rate is too specific to individual crops and the conditions in which it was harvested and since preserved. You could try to extrapolate the results of such studies (as the one linked below) to the produce you keep in your fridge but you would most assuredly get highly varying results.

*Please note that vitamin C is not lost, it is just transformed into a different form (oxidative form) during the oxidative processes that take place inside plant cells.

What we know for sure is that by reducing the temperature we slow down the oxidative processes that change the plant cell's biostructure, molecules and function. We can take cold inhibition to an extreme by deep freezing produce which virtually stops these deteriorating processes.

This answer has already run a bit longer than I originally planned but I thought giving you some background to the biochemical processes that take place might be useful. Lastly I'd like to give you a practical example of exactly how vitamin C oxidation (even visually) deteriorates produce.

Half an apple, where the left side has been artificially treated with vitamin C:

Relevant links: (1)


Self-raising flour shouldn't leave any off flavors, and the recipe looks fine. I suspect the flour, maybe you got a bag that got too much leavening agent in it. Manufacturing processes aren't perfect, sometimes the agents are not distributed. I would suggest trying again with a new bag of flour.


Conversion rule: how to switch oil and butter?

Butter and cooking oil are not interchangeable in every recipe.

Butter actually has water in it, while oil is a pure lipid.  This can cause problems with water-sensitive preparations, for example a choux paste (where the proper ratio of water to flour is extremely important) or anything using melted chocolate (where the water in butter can cause it to seize).
Butter can also be whipped; oil definitely cannot (except coconut oil).  You normally wouldn't use olive or sunflower oil in, for example, an icing.
Butter is a solid at room temperature, while oil is a liquid.  When making something that needs to be relatively solid - for example, bread or pie dough or anything requiring a beurre manié - you do not want to substitute butter for oil.  Shortening is a better substitute.
Butter has a much lower smoke point and will scorch at temperatures that oils are often subjected to.  You have to be very careful when frying anything in butter, and you'll need to watch carefully if baking with butter at very high temperatures.

You have to understand the recipe you are making if you want to know how to do the conversion (or if a conversion is even possible).  If the recipe is fat-dependent, you need to use more butter than oil.  If it is water-dependent, you generally should use less butter.  If it is both, you likely can't do a direct substitution and will have to add or remove something else.  And if the recipe relies on the solid/liquid state of the fat, then you simply cannot substitute.

Muffins just happen to be one of those things where it really doesn't matter much.  Like all quickbreads, you can vary the amount of fat substantially and all it will do is change the texture of the final dish; quickbreads with more fat tend to be richer, more moist, and less dense.  The Joy of Cooking recipe for waffle batter recommends anywhere from 1/4 cup to 1 cup of butter, which is a pretty wide margin of error; in recipes like that, you can usually play fast and loose with the substitutions.


Veloute consistency after being refrigereted

The sauce will thicken when cooled. And as for consistency... It really depends on individual taste. The usual test is "When you did a spoon into the sauce, does the sauce coat the spoon upon removal?"

However, I like my sauces a bit thicker. Tempered choco. is about my tastes, however alot of people would like it a bit thinner. It's all a matter of taste.

Also note, the sauce will thicken on cooling, but will return to it's chocolatey consistency upon reheating.


In what proportion should the given ingredients be combined to form a cookie?

It is nearly impossible to reverse engineer an industrial cookie recipe from its ingredient list directly--especially without the final product to compare to.

Some of the ingredients may be unique to the industrial process (such as "glucose" or "emulsifiers"), hard to obtain, or proprietary.  Some of the steps may require special processing or equipment.

Furthermore, your local labeling laws may be different than other places, so we would not know how to interpret this list of ingredients.  For example, in the US, the ingredients would have to be listed in order, by weight.

Instead, you should search for recipes that produce the kind of cookies you want that are designed for the home kitchen.

I cannot speak to local products in India, but here in the US there are many web sites or blogs where authors try to recreate recipes of popular commercial food products.  These recipes are designed for the home kitchen, and may not have the exact same ingredients or techniques as the commercial product on which they are modeled, but are instead designed to have similar outcomes.  I don't know if such sites exist in India, but I would suggest searching to see what you can find; failing that, I would search based on the name of the cookie for recipes for this type of cookie.

In terms of some of the specific questions:

What sugar should be used? White or Brown? If this was the US, it would always be white unless otherwise specified, but your local labeling laws may differ.
Can vanaspati be replaced with anything (clarified butter)?  Probably, but that will affect the taste and texture of the cookie.  Many industrial recipes use ingredients which are less expensive than the ideal ingredient, to keep costs down.
Custard refers to custard powder or the custard which is ready to eat? That would depend on your local labeling laws; here in the US custard would never be listed as a single ingredient without parenthetically describing each of it's ingredients as well.  I would guess powder if I had to guess... but listing it like this may be part of how they keep their actual recipe secret while complying with local labeling requirements.
Why is glucose needed when the sugar is already there? It is almost certainly present to alter the texture of the cookie in some way, either interfering with crystal development of the other sugars at some part of the process, or for its hydroscopic properties to help retain moisture.  This is the kind of ingredient that is often used in industrial recipes, but far less commonly used in home recipes.
What should be added as Emulsifier Agents?  Again, it depends on what your local labeling laws permit, and these may be ingredients that are rarely used in home cooking.  The most common emulsifier in home baking is egg yolks, which contain significant quantities of lecithin.
Water isn't mentioned here but should I assume that it is needed? Maybe, but there was also that "custard" listed, and we don't know what it means or contains.


Yes, it is possible, and in fact usually results in better bread, because the yeast has more time to work and develop flavour. It depends on the recipe, but you should usually reduce the amount of yeast being used to prevent overproofing. You can keep most doughs for a couple of days in the fridge, depending again on the amount of yeast and how often the fridge is opened.

Simply mix and knead your dough as normal, cover it tightly with plastic wrap over the bowl, then put it straight in the fridge. You will usually need to allow a couple of hours the next morning for the dough to 'wake up' and finish a full proof, but if your dough has fully risen in the fridge (ie it has grown 1.5-2 times) you can go straight to shaping.


What is the name of the sauce served with fried rice in Indian restaurants

Normally I would say this question is too vague- however a common sauce, found in practically every Indian restaurant, fits that description.

Mint chutney:

It is basically mint leaves and peppers blended with garlic, lemon and seasonings.

It is ubiquitous in Indian cuisine (in several regions) and every Indian restaurant I have been to.


Judging from the picture, the knife gets thinner towards the spine after reaching a point of maximum thickness somewhere in the middle of the blade. This means a straight piece of sticky food cannot stick to all of the blade face at once unless it actually bends to conform to its curvature - and marzipan is a rather stiff medium. Also, since the food will not be stuck flush to the blade face at spine height (levered away from it by the thickest section of the blade), it will be much easier to grab and detach from it.

Also, it appears the surface finish has intentionally been left somewhat rough, further preventing adhesion effects.

If the spine is actually sharp, package this diligently when transporting it in public - a double edged knife tends to be interpreted as a weapon and not as a tool under some countries' laws.


Is the liquid I get after pressure cooking a whole chicken a "complete" stock?

If you are cooking the chickens whole, and I think you are from your description, then your cooking liquid has not had sufficient contact with the bones to extract the available gelatin. You should absolutely be able to make a stock with the carcass later.

As you say, even with the nice gelatinous cooking liquid you have from your first step, you don't have a whole stock without the aromatics. My advice is to make your stock with the carcass as usual, but add your cooking liquid too for a nice boost.


Can grocery store chocolate be used as chocolate coating?

Cocoa butter crystallizes into various types of crystals depending on the temperature at which it cools. If the butter cools into an ad hoc assortment of crystal types then they don't arrange themselves uniformly and the chocolate will be dull and sticky.

The process of melting chocolate to encourage proper crystal growth is called tempering.
You will find quite a few questions on the subject here.

You can use any chocolate that contains cocoa butter. However, if you are going to be putting that much work into tempering your chocolate you might spring for the nicer quality chocolate and not just plain Hershey's.

Alternatively, if it meets your needs, you can either serve your chocolate still melted or make a thick syrup/fudge dip that stays soft and doesn't need to be tempered.


What cut of short rib do I have, and how do I prepare them?

Do they look like this?

If so, the traditional preparation is to braise them for a good long time at a low temperature (use a slow cooker, and keep it just simmering) in beef stock and onions.  When they fall off the bone, take them out and remove any gristle, and re-assemble (for appearances sake).

Take your braising liquid, strain it, and boil it until it starts to thicken up. Add acid to taste (balsamic or wine).

I like to serve it on a bed of barley, and pour the sauce over.

This is tough meat, but very flavourful and it needs to cook slowly at a low temperature to soften the fibres.


Raw sugar vs. refined sugar in making kombucha

Absolutely you can.  I typically use a Turbinado sugar when making mine because it's what I buy in bulk and because I like the robust flavor.

In my searches, I did come across this article indicating that you shouldn't use such raw sugars because they're more difficult for the scoby to digest, but as long as you start with a healthy one you should be fine.  Maybe just don't go as far as using a brown sugar, or something very raw like muscovado.


How can I remove whole peppercorns from a sauce after cooking?

Strain it, or put the peppercorns in cheesecloth which you can easily remove. Obviously both ideas would work better if the sauce was thin then thickened after the peppercorns were removed.


Corn starch (aka cornflour) will usually work and is more readily available, but it won't work well for acidic sauces, where you'll want to use tapioca starch.  (aka. cassava flour; if all you can find is tapioca in granule form, grind it up first).

For a more thorough list of starch based thickeners and their alternatives, see Cook's Thesaurus: Thickeners


Meat in stir-fries is often velveted. That makes for a supremely soft chunk of meat, and it can be done with any type of meat. This answer actually addresses chicken: How to cook extremely soft chicken?, but it applies just as well to beef. It's usually done with egg and cornstarch, but sometimes it's done with a small amount baking soda instead, as in this recipe for Beef and Broccoli.


The best advice anyone can give you is to please stop experimenting and use tested recipes.  Particularly for acidified pickles, there are huge numbers of resources out there with tested recipes verified by scientific protocols.  (That is, they tried them many times under many conditions and tested stored versions for microorganism growth to verify they are safe.)

The National Center for Home Food Preservation is one place to start for both general information and many specific tested recipes.  Many states (particularly agricultural ones) have similar resources online.  The Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving and the Bernardin guidebooks are also classic resources for such information.

From your description, it sounds like you have left unprocessed, unsealed containers out at room temperature.  No, this is not a safe storage method.  Yes, the acid and salt will likely inhibit botulism growth, but without using a verified recipe and procedure (as mentioned above), you can't guarantee this.  Large chunks of food, for example, may not acidify fast enough to prevent botulism growth, or depending on your recipe, some of the vegetables may release a lot of water when placed in brine, which could dilute the salt and acid to the point that nasty bacteria could grow.  That's why there's no magic formula that will guarantee safety by telling you X amount of salt or Y amount of vinegar for all foods.  Individual recipes need to be developed and tested.

Botulism is certainly not the only dangerous bacteria, though -- Listeria, for example, is a common bacteria that can grow even in mildly acidic conditions and can cause illness in improperly processed foods.  Surface mold can also easily grow in situations like you describe, sometimes with serious toxic effects if eaten.  With less acidity or sufficiently diluted conditions, all sorts of things could grow.  That's why processing with heat is absolutely necessary for safe room temperature storage, to pasteurize and seal the foods from spoilage agents.  (Food stored in the refrigerator is a bit different: without processing, acidified pickles may still be safe for several days or weeks, depending on the recipe.)

Use of a verified recipe is also essential for preservation that will include room temperature storage, as you can't guarantee sufficient acidity, salt, etc. without microbiological tests.  Food scientists have worked hard to develop such recipes over the past century, since before that canned food made many people sick.  If you really want to store food at room temperature, please don't trust any recipe on the internet or even from some book that doesn't come from an organization which actually does testing.

As to what happened with your current batch and what you should do with it -- first, it is possible that some lacto-fermentation went on during room temperature storage, even despite starting with an acidified recipe.  Obviously with all the fizzing, some sort of fermentation has happened.  Unfortunately, without microbiological testing, you have no idea what sort of stuff you may have grown or whether it is safe.  Lactofermentation usually depends on a higher salt content in the initial phase to select for the right sort of bacteria, which then grow and acidify the mixture to the point that nothing bad will likely grow.  However, without knowing exactly how acidic your initial mixture was (again, taking into account possible liquid released from the vegetables you added to your brine) as well as actual salt concentration, it's impossible to know whether you had a good "healthy" fermentation or whether you grew something that could make you sick.  Many types of dangerous spoilage bacteria don't necessarily produce a smell or taste sufficient to warn you that they could cause illness.

The only 100% safe recommendation at this point is to throw this batch out and start again with a reputable recipe.  And if you plan to store at room temperature, please process with hot water accordingly and seal properly.  It's possible (given sufficient acidity and salt) that your current batch may still be edible, but no one here can guarantee that.


It should be fine. These sorts of foods are commonly sold frozen in the USA and other countries and are easily reheatable in an oven or fryer. They should keep for some time sealed in a plastic container or bag when frozen

Freeze by placing in a single well-spaced layer on a tray, once frozen transfer to a more convenient container. To reheat/cook, heat fryer to correct temperature and fry for approx 5 min. An oven will take longer to cook.


Can deglazing a cast iron skillet remove the seasoning?

If it's properly seasoned, and affixed well to the pan, there shouldn't be any problem.

In fact, it's what I typically use to clean my pans even if I'm not making a sauce.

If you're reducing a sauce that's highly acidic, you might have cause for concern, as you don't want to have acids in the pan for long periods.


Sticky dough has the tendency to climb the dough hook. This is actually expected behavior and might only indicate that the dough has been kneaded properly and is done.

Whether the dough needs to be sticky or not does not correlate with its tendency to climb up the hook. Adding more flour to make the dough less sticky might create a dry product at the end.

Overall, kneading with a machine tends to need less time than with a hand, so if your recipe calls for a certain time and your dough starts to climb sometime in between, it just might indicate that you can stop kneading. The recipe should tell what the consistency of the dough should be.

Professional and semi-professional dough mixers have a mechanical baffle to prevent the climbing of the dough.


What is the purpose of using ping pong balls on top of a Sous Vide Bath?

It is to lower the water evaporation from the bath, and keep the temperature of the bath even.

The concept has been used in chemistry labs for years! But normally, the balls are smaller and made of polythene - those are a bit big.


Baking cake in one pan instead of splitting into two

That is highly unlikely to work in your case. Summing up all ingredients, I came to 1600 ml. I don't know what exact density cake has, but it is a foam full of air, so being twice as light as water seems plausible, which would make your single layer 3 inches high. And the pictures in the article pretty much agree with my guess, the cake pieces are 1.5 times as long as they are high.

If you try to bake a 3 inch high cake layer, there is basically no time and temperature at which you can get it baked, you will always end up with a raw middle or with dust-dry, if not burnt, outer portions.

If you insist making it a single piece, you may try a bundt pan instead of a cake pan. Alternatively, make half the recipe (assuming that your pan is indeed 9 inch - if it is 28 cm, you can make 2/3 of the recipe to get the same height) or really go with the two layers.


Describing the taste of Illy coffee and similar brands

I don't know anything about Illy coffe but you may find these can answer the question I think you are asking. Here is a flavor wheel for coffee: http://www.flickr.com/photos/visualthinkmap/2741624371/ and here is a link and a great website for pretty much everything coffee: http://www.wholelattelove.com/articles/coffee_tasting.cfm.

Also just to be complete here is a direct quote from the site above, Whole Latte Love, about Illy coffee:

  "The world’s coffee of choice."
  Discover the extraordinary pleasure of illy, the celebrated Italian espresso coffee served in the finest restaurants and cafés and enjoyed by coffee connoisseurs worldwide. A blend so popular, it is served in Italy alone over 2 million times a day. Prized for its full, rich body and smooth, balanced flavor, illy's signature blend is meticulously selected and is 100% sustainably grown Arabica coffee. Espresso at it's finest!


Anything that you can put through a fine mesh strainer will likely not be too much of a problem in a whipper.  In fact, the ISI website has a recipe for pumpkin mousse. You should find lots of advice on the web, as this technique was quite popular for a few years.


Does adding un chopped garlic add any flavor at all?

Garlic is an ingredient whose impact you can fine tune, depending on how you handle it.  A clove used unpeeled, peeled and left whole, crushed, sliced, chopped, minced, or turned into a paste, all yield slightly different results, and depend on the impact you are looking for.  So, yes, a whole, peeled clove, cooked in some olive oil, for example, does impart flavor (as well as cooking the clove of garlic...which changes its flavor).  It really depends on the desired impact of the garlic in your dish. In general, the more surface area, the stronger the flavor...but also the easier it is to burn and ruin the flavor of the whole dish.


Do I need to season a stainless steel saute pan?

I've never heard of doing anything other than giving it a good cleaning, as you would with any new item before first use.

I've only heard of seasoning used for cast iron and carbon steel, not for stainless steel.  Looking online, I did find instructions for seasoning stainless steel, but I'd be inclined to look at the paperwork that came with the pan -- if the manufacturer recommends doing something, follow their instructions.  If they don't, just give it a good wash.


"Mineral B" and "Carbone Plus" are two brands of carbon steel cookware manufactured by De Buyer. The main difference between the two is the shape of the handle, and the secondary handle on the larger "Mineral B" pans. "Mineral B" additionally comes from the factory with a thin coat of beeswax, but that isn't going to make a significant difference after seasoning.
If you want to get one of those, pick based on the handle.


Why are there white spots appearing on segments of canned tangerines?

Following quote is the abstract of a 1981 article, "The nature of freeze-induced white spots on orange segment walls," Raymond D. Bennett and Roger F. Albach, Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 1981 29 (3), 511-514
DOI: 10.1021/jf00105a019 (full article is behind a paywall)
Emphasis mine:

Exposure of oranges to freezing conditions causes formation of white spots on the walls of the fruit segments. The spots are actually located in the tissue comprising the separation zone between segments; when two adjacent segments are pulled apart, each white spot is split in half. The chemical nature of the white spot material was previously in dispute, but it has now been shown to be microcrystalline hesperidin coating the walls of cells in the separation zone. Freezing causes damage to cell membranes, and a soluble form of hesperidin located in the cell vacuoles is thereby released and crystallizes.

Hesperidin is a flavanone glycoside (naturally occurring flavor chemical) found in citrus fruits, so according to that 1981 research, the spots are caused if the orange was frozen. It can appear on oranges or tangerines.


I used to use "bakers secret" ("Grey non-stick silicone based coating" on a steel pan) but my sloth always caught up with me eventually (left too long in the sink they will rust) - once the coating is toast those are still (IME) as good as a regular steel pan of the "use lots of grease or grease and flour" variety.

Quite some time ago I bit on full-silicone pans. I wish I could recall exactly how long ago, as the heavily used ones are just starting to crack now (Just one pan cracked so far, and still usable, but the writing is on the wall), but it's been more years than it took me to ruin the "bakers secret" version, for certain. Likely more than 10 years.

They are (or the ones I have, from however many years ago, are) wicked floppy. Plan on using a cookie sheet under them. You won't get away with putting them right on the oven rack, IME. Properly supported on a sheet, they are fine despite that. Current designs look a bit different (perhaps more solid) than what I have, but they are not a rigid pan...

They work best with a little oil on them - does not take much - manufacturer recommended oiling them if they had been run through the dishwasher, otherwise not bothering. You can get stuck stuff unstuck if you don't do that, but there's the potential of tearing the pan if you get stuff REALLY stuck and are not careful enough removing it. I put a bit on if they don't feel oily.

Cooking-wise, they are fine - I have not seen any odd marks from the "support legs" molded into the sides of my pans and things seem to brown fine in them. Shape can be a bit bulgy between supports, but not distressingly so.

When they finally crack beyond use I'll get new ones. For me that's high praise for something that cracks in use, even if it does take 10 years or more. I prefer stuff that lasts forever, but these have enough advantages that occasional replacement seems worthwhile.


Can one preserve food by periodically heating it?

YES!  If food is quickly heated and kept above 140F/60C, microorganisms can't grow in the food.  Professional kitchens use steam tables to keep food warm at this temperature throughout a day's service.  If the product is cooled quickly (generally using an ice bath), then it can be used for more than one day.

Another approach is often used for stocks and soups: heat them to 165F/75C daily or every two days, to kill microorganisms, then cool them quickly with an ice bath to under 40F/5C.  This can be done 2-3 times to extend the fridge life of the product.

The most important part of both approaches is to use a food thermometer to verify that food is fully heated/cooled, and to make sure that heating and cooling is done QUICKLY.  For food safety, you do not want food to be in the 40F/5C to 140F/60C range for more than an hour if possible, or two hours tops.

Another trick to extend the fridge life of food is to immediately transfer it from a still-hot pot to a cool container, and then leave the top of the container open to allow steam to escape.  This greatly reduces cooling time; even in a refrigerator, a sealed container may take over an hour to cool down to a safe temperature.


The frozen ones are just like fresh, only softer and they drip their juice out - but that's OK when you are going to bake them anyway. Canned cherry pie filling is sweetened and spiced, so it is going to taste the way the canner made it, not like homemade. If I go to the trouble of baking a pie, I always go all the way and make my own filling, not using the premade stuff - then I could just go out and buy the whole pie.


They may be too thick. You can try placing several pieces of paper or thin cardboard into your tortilla press to get thinner tortillas. (If you aren't already using plastic or wax paper to press the tortillas, then you'll have to start, so that the paper doesn't stick to the tortilla.) Experiment with several different thicknesses until the cooking is more uniform/faster but they're still thick enough to support the food.  (You'll also need to modulate the heat.)  Once you find the right thickness you can just leave the extra sheets of paper/cardboard in the press for future pressings.


What is the lowest temperature at which botulism spores are killed?

In all good conscience, the only recommendations I could follow would be USDA or an equally authoritative source, and they only recommend pressure canning at a minimum of 240F.  At 4000-6000 feet, that requires 13 lbs pressure for dial or 15 for weighted (as the weights are normally only 10 or 15 lbs).  They make no allowances for increasing time as you can for most cooking as they will not accept killing below that temperature.  Are they being overly cautious?  Possibly, but they are the ones which for years have done the scientific tests.

Now, I cannot find the articles, but I do recall that a couple years ago the USDA ordered a recall of a pressure canner built similar to an instant pot.  That canner was only rated to 2500 feet, and had a misleading label stating it was USDA compliant or some similar wording.  It was order recalled because the USDA statements were to the effect that it had never been approved, or even submitted for testing, and further, if it had been it would have failed.  That the USDA would not approve that low of a power supply as being able to maintain a consistent pressure and temperature to match what a heavy pressure canner on a stove burner can do, nor did it have a high enough heat reserve to meet those requirements.

I own both a pressure canner and an instant pot, not not for a minute would I personally think the instant pot could do the job I am afraid, and I also would not want to put that much strain on its heating element.  And frankly, except for the space it takes up, my pressure canner was cheaper so would not risk the more expensive tool that is not up to the job.


Is core temperature a good indicator of bread doneness

I'm not certain from the question about what "doneness" means.  Is the bread still "raw" inside at 95C?  If so, I'd guess something is wrong with the calibration of the thermometer.

Failing that, my guess is that this has to do with either various other external factors (e.g., the bread may be "set" inside, but the exterior is not browned sufficiently, or the crust dried out enough) and/or things having to do with moisture.

Once you get to 95C and above, the structure of the bread is definitely set.  It's not going to collapse if you pull it out of the oven.  It shouldn't taste "raw" or overly "doughy" inside.  The bread should be "done," at least in the sense of fully cooked.

But to my point about moisture: what generally happens to bread once it reaches a high internal temperature is that the internal structure gradually dries out.  It takes a long time for moisture to migrate out from the center and through the increasingly hard crust.  The interior of the bread will change from a spongy and "moist" texture to an increasingly dry and stiff one as time elapses in the oven.  The retained moisture when the bread is pulled from the oven also can have significant effects on the outcome: a dough that is very moist before bake and which doesn't expand much will often remain moist internally, and that moisture will likely rebalance itself during cooling, some of it going to the crust, which will soften.  If you want a crisp crust, you'll have to bake longer.

Some of it may have to do with the recipe.  For example, a quick hot bake may give good oven spring, but may not allow sufficient time for moisture migration.  So a crusty bread baked too fast may display a high internal temp, but then soften as it cools.  Turning the temperature down during the bake may allow for the desired texture with a longer bake (and without burning the exterior).  If your bake time is off from the recipe, the internal temperature may not be as reliable an indicator.

Some of it may have to do with loaf and dough characteristics.  As hinted above, oven spring and size of holes inside the interior plays a significant role in how moisture migrates internally.  If your bread isn't rising as much as the recipe assumes (or rising too much), you might need to change your bake time/temp as well as your assumed final interior temperature for the loaf.  Extra humidity absorbed or lost due to kitchen conditions at different times of the year can also play a role -- I've baked the same recipe under different humidity and temperature conditions with precise measurements and gotten significantly different results.

Lastly, of course your personal taste concerning doneness may vary from the person who wrote the recipe.  Sourdough breads can vary inside from everything from a kind of "creamy" and somewhat moist interior to a very dry and tough/chewy interior.  Personally, I like the former, but if you like the latter, maybe you are most satisfied with a result different from the one the recipe intended.

Bottom line is that internal temp is a guideline just like anything else.  But I personally have found it more useful than other guidelines (like the "hollow sound" test, browning level of exterior).  You may need to tweak according to your own experience and preferences.


For Pizza cooking at home. What is the best alternative to the pizza stone?

Unglazed quarry tile. Preferably 3/4" to 1" thick.


What does "serving" and "serving size" mean?

Servings/serving sizes are simply an amount that is "customarily consumed". There is no implication about what you should consume, about how much to eat per day, how often, or what part of the meal. It's just about what people tend to eat.

The FDA has put a fair amount of effort into coming up with some sort of guidelines for all this. If you care to see details, you can read this part of the Code of Federal Regulations (Title 21, Part 101, Subpart A, Section 101.12). Essentially, they have amounts for categories of foods, so that ideally if anyone makes a new product, there'll already be an applicable entry in the tables.

But obviously generalizations only work so well. There are foods in any categories where those serving sizes will be unrealistic. There's personal variation. There's variation in how large a part of a snack or meal a given food provides. There are manufacturers trying to make high-fat high-sugar high-calorie food look less bad, and picking serving sizes as low as possible within the guidelines. So you'll frequently find that they're wildly off from the amount that you'd eat for a single snack or single meal, and they'll more likely be too small than too large.

A better way of looking at serving sizes is that they're intended to be of the right order of magnitude, so that you can reasonably easily estimate the nutritional content of the amount you actually eat. For example, if your cereal is in the category with a 30g serving size, and for your particular cereal that's one cup, then whether you eat half a cup or two cups of it, you'll be able to do the math.

So for that purpose, what matters is the rough amount that people tend to eat, hence the notion of "customarily consumed" amounts. That does mean that as you say, "staples" which people tend to eat as a large part of a meal will tend to have larger serving sizes, while things typically eaten as snacks will have smaller serving sizes. But that's not a judgment about how you should eat them, just how people typically do eat them.

The parts of nutrition labels that are intended to provide some guidance about how much they think you should eat are the % daily value column, for the individual nutrients, not the serving sizes. So to see whether your mixed nuts or refried beans are an "appropriate" amount to eat, you have to look more carefully, and possibly adjust for differences between your dietary needs and the generalizations made by the FDA to pick the daily value numbers.

It's not too hard to find things where one serving provides more than the recommended daily intake of some particular nutrient, and it's also not hard to find things where ten servings would be well below the daily value for everything. So the serving size itself definitely doesn't indicate anything about number of servings to eat; it's just a sort of arbitrary but hopefully convenient unit.

That covers most of your numbered questions. As for "what is a cup"... it's a standard measurement. In US stores you should be able to find 1-cup (or fractions/multiples thereof) measuring cups. It's equivalent to 236.6 mL. It's not just the contents of any arbitrary cup, so the measuring cup that comes with your rice cooker is probably not the same - likely 180 mL.


Cook one layer, pour it into the shell, and chill until firm. When it's firm, cook and add the second layer. You don't want to add the curd while it's still super hot. Let it cool a bit, but pour it before it begins to set. Repeat with the third layer.

That procedure should give you very clean and lasting layers.


What's the difference between jam, jelly, and preserves?

according to the Ball canning book (paraphrasing)...

JAM is made by cooking crushed or chopped fruits with sugar, and is made of one fruit or a combination of fruits, is spreadable, and is firm but will not hold the shape of the jar.

JELLY is made from juice strained from fruit, usually prepared in a way to keep it crystal clear, and is gelatinized enough to hold is shape when removed from the jar, yet is still spreadable.

PRESERVES are fruit preserved with sugar so it retains its shape, is transparent, shiny, tender and plump. the syrup generally has the consistency of honey, and a true preserve will not hold its shape when spooned from the jar.

to add to the confusion, i'll also add their descriptions of...

CONSERVES, which are jam-like and made of a combination of one or more fruits, nuts and raisins, cooked until it rounds up on the spoon.

MARMALADES are a soft jelly containing pieces of fruit and peel evenly suspended in a transparent jelly. similar in structure to jam.


Additional Cooking Time When baking more than one loaf of quick bread

See:

Additional Time Needed for Baking Two Loaves of Bread at same time?

Banana bread and beer bread are the same in this aspect.  Multiple loaves will not require a change in baking time if your oven has reasonable total heat output.


How long can a pitcher of tap water be left out, and still be drinkable?

If you have a clean glass pitcher, the length of time we're talking is months, as mentioned by Tom's answer.

I think you have a few questions that I can clear up:

The bubbles that form over time are dissolved gases. From the faucet (or pitcher), the act of pouring will force some air into the water. Over time, it will warm up and you'll see bubbles form along the glass. This is absolutely harmless.
Flies laying eggs? Well, I wouldn't leave a glass pitcher out and uncovered, but I highly doubt this. Flies want to lay eggs in places where the hatching egg can live. For example, trash, spoiled fruit, the gunk in your drain, etc..
Chemical reactions with dissolved ions? Since most water in the US is fluoridated, there will be some very slow etching of the glass by fluoride ions. The amount of this will be very, very small, since it's a slow process. I think you'll easily be safe over the timescale of days to a week or two.

So what happens to water left at room temperature over a few days? Mainly the dissolved gasses come out. I find this water to taste "flat" even if I cool it again. But there's not much that will happen to the water.

More than a few days and I'd suggest making sure the water is capped or closed to avoid dust or other things falling into the water. Maybe find a closable glass container?


Why are my cheese curds not well-knitted after pressing?

Several possible reasons...but without seeing the recipe, your make notes, pH markers it is rather hard to say.
However, I would say that most likely would be too much moisture left in curds due to:

initial curds cut too large
too much rennet, meaning that more moisture was locked into the curd, resulting in the cut being made later than it should be (did you use the flocculation method to determine when to cut the curd?)
pH was too high at various periods during your make, resulting in a "sweeter" curd
too much time between addition of rennet and the cut of the curd (see 2...related)
lack of or insufficient cooking of the curds prior to cheddaring, resulting in too much whey (moisture) left in the curds.
insufficient salting
insufficient pressing (unlikely, since the previous 6 control moisture much more than the pressing)

Any, some or all of the above.


Depending on the dish, maybe duck confit.  It works really well in tacos. It has the nice unctuous fat and goes well with tomatillo and avocado.  But it'd probably be hard or expensive to get in large quantities.


Hello Justin,
First of all, a question like this should be answered by an expert in materials science, and I’m not. Bear that in mind when you read the following.
Generally, you should not take it for granted that coffee mugs are oven safe. Quite simply, some are and some are not.
However, high quality coffee mugs produced for the catering industry; especially the white ones with no decor, are normally oven safe. Nevertheless, I will not give you any guarantee.
Basically, coffee mugs cannot be regarded as oven safe, unless the manufacturer have stated so with a stamp underneath or otherwise have published some kind of guarantee, and the manufacturer is a respected and well-known entity within the industry.
Why coffee mugs aren’t always oven safe
A coffee mug isn’t always what it seems. Coffee mugs come in many varieties, are made from different materials, differ in decoration, and so on.
Moreover, coffee, tea, hot chocolate, and other hot drinks commonly served in mugs, are seldom; read never, served at temperatures above 100 ºC / 212 ºF. However, due to competition, special on sale items, and so on, coffee mugs of low quality might not be able to withstand temperatures much higher than this. The reason is simply that manufacturers, or the manufacturers’ customers, want to save a few pennies to gain a market advantage. There might also be a consumer demand for cheap low quality coffee mugs.
Materials
Most coffee mugs are made from some kind of ceramic.  Others are made from wood, plastic, clay, pewter, steel, and a long list of other materials. Obviously, some of these materials will never be reckoned as oven safe. To keep it simple, I’ll stick to ceramic for the reminding part of this answer, although other materials might be oven safe.
Ceramics commonly found in a kitchen environment include Earthenware, Stoneware, Porcelain, and Bone china. Of these Earthenware and Bone china are seldom, read never, reckoned as oven safe, although this isn’t completely true as far as Bone china is concerned. Nevertheless, only a complete idiot would use a Bone china mug to make French Onion soup au gratin, cup cakes or any other kind of food.
That leaves us with Stoneware and Porcelain. Both Stoneware and porcelain are normally oven safe, unless decor elements have been added after the finale glaze is applied and the coffee mug is baked in a furnace.
One final remark needs to be added about coffee mugs made out of thin porcelain. Although these mugs might very well withstand the heat, it’s advisable to ensure that they are not exposed to any other kind of force while hot, e.g. handled without care.
Further information about Coffee Mugs, and links to other resources, can be found at Wikipedia: Coffee Mug.


Can any custard be made into a frozen custard?

There are a variety of frozen desserts which are all related.  The main difference between ice cream and frozen custard is the amount of eggs used to thicken the base mix.
Philadelphia style ice cream is made from a base mix of milk and/or cream, sugar, and flavorings.
French (or simply plain) ice cream is made from a base mix which is essentially a very thin custard or creme anglaise:  milk and/or cream, sugar, and flavorings thickened with egg yolks or whole egg.  The base mix is cooked to thicken, and then chilled prior to churning.
Frozen custard is very similar to French style ice cream, but with a greater ratio of eggs or egg yolks to dairy or liquid in the mix.
With this information, you can adapt nearly any custard recipe to be freezable as ice cream or frozen custard.
My survey of frozen custard recipes indicates a ratio of eggs to dairy of about 5 egg yolks to three cups (700 mL) dairy, or 6 whole eggs to 4 cups (1 L) of dairy.
To adapt any custard recipe for freezing, then:

Adjust the ratio of egg yolks to dairy to no more than about 5 yolks per 3 cups dairy.
You may also want to adjust the total yield to be based on no more than 3 cups dairy depending on the capacity of your ice cream maker.  Many home ice cream makers have a 1 quart (close to 1 L) capacity, but you need to leave room for the air which will be incorporated as the mix is churned.
I recommend not using whole eggs for frozen custards, as the yolks facilitate a better texture, and create the rich eggy custard flavor.

Frozen desserts are served colder than custards normally are, so the flavors will be more muted.  You may need to compensate by increasing the ratio of flavoring ingredients.
This will be hard to judge until you have made the frozen custard/ice cream at least once.

Cook the custard until it thickens on the stove top, per the normal custard method.

Chill it rapidly for safety, and then hold it for at least 4 hours (overnight is even better).  While I cannot explain the science, empirically, allowing the mix to mature lets the flavors meld and produces a better frozen dessert.

Churn it into a frozen dessert according to the instructions of your particular ice cream maker.

Note that you can even convert a custard recipe into a Philadelphia style ice cream by eliminating the eggs completely, and simply creating a dairy/sugar/flavoring mix.   These still benefit from overnight maturation before churning.


I wouldn't describe it as an "off taste", for me it is the tasty flavor of pork fat, commonly known as lard. But yes, it is certainly not taste neutral. It only gives a slight to moderate hint in baking (e.g. in pie crust) and gets really strong when you heat it more, e.g. when you fry in it or baste a roast.

For a comparison of the smell, think bacon.


How much turkey should I plan per person?

Unless you're feeding 20, chances are you want the smallest bird they have. It doesn't really matter if you should have 1 lb per person or 1.5 if you have 8 people and their smallest bird is 12 pounds - and I'm willing to bet that's the case.

That said, I generally allow 1 lb per person and don't count the smallest children (say, haven't started school yet.) I also tend to send a lot of leftovers home with other people. Our feasts are very veggie heavy, but as I mentioned above you may have less control over this than you think.


Can I use live yoghurt to kick-start fermentation?

My advice would be to see if you cannot find a cheese hobby shop that will not sell  you a strain of the bacteria and simply cut out the  middleman. You can inoculate sausage  with bacteria very much like you do with cheese so there really is any need to do the diary.


Should I reshape refrigerated pizza dough into ball again when taking it out of the fridge?

You don't need to take them out 8 hours before cooking, that's too long. 1-2 hours is long enough as it gives your dough time to come back up to temperature before baking and get active again. If your gluten is well developed before you put it in the fridge you don't need to work it further, a bit won't hurt anything but won't help either, and too much could make your dough tough. If anything you want it to relax a bit as it will make it easier to shape into a base.


Any way to make mashed sweet potatoes less stringy?

I peel and cook sweet potatoes with butter or oleo in a crock pot, about a half pound for 6-8 pounds of sweet potatoes, then use an electric mixer to pull out most of the strings - mix for a few minutes, lift up the mixer to spin off the sweet potatoes, turn it off and wash the strings off. Do that until only a small amount of strings are collected. Then to make it essentially string free, push the hot sweet potatoes through a good quality kitchen sieve with the back of a large spoon.


Cut the tomato in half at the midsection or equator (stem end being the "north pole") to expose the seed cavities.  Holding the cut side down over your garbage bowl or trash can, gently squeeze to remove the seeds. You can easily pry out stubborn seeds with your fingertips.

Place the tomato half cut-side up on the cutting board (Cutting waxy skinned vegetables is much easier when the skin is on the bottom so the force of the knive cuts cleanly through the skin with less effot) and cut in half again.  After doing this with both pieces the tomato will be in quarters.

If you want evenly diced pieces of just the exterior flesh (such as for sprinkling on a plate for a garnish), then use your knife to cut out the interior portion so that just the tomato "shell" remains.  You can then easily dice the exterior shell.

Otherwise, after cutting into quarters just gently push down to flatten each quarter and cut into strips lengthwise and then cut cross-wise to finish the process.

While cumbersome to explain in text, it's much safer and quicker than cutting the tomato into slices and then trying to dice from there.


Increasing the amount of yogurt and/or banana mash should work best, the former having a more noticeable difference. You might have to experiment to get the amount right, but I'd suggest starting with an additional 1/4 cup of yogurt or banana mash. You could try more date puree as well but that might make the muffins too thick.


Which part of a cow does UK "frying steak" come from?

According to this site the frying steak is cut from the thick flank.


What's the difference between tangzhong and levain?

Tangzhong (water roux) and levain are two fundamentally different things.

The roux does not contain any leavening element, it is simply a method to bind water, effectively increasing the amount of water that can be used in a dough and therefore making a light, soft, moist bread.

A levain (sourdough) is the part that is responsible to create the "lift" due to the CO2 of the yeasts' metabolism and, in case of rye breads, deactivate some enzymes that hinder the development of good bread.

You can leave out the roux, but should not leave out the leavener, you need sourdough and / or yeast.


Liquid soy lecithin vs sunflower lecithin

As long as you know the lecithin content (in the liquid) you can substitute sunflower lecithin with soy lecithin.
It’s more or less similar molecules. I use them interchangeably. (Even make mine at home from sunflower seeds ;))


What is the name for a round flaky pastry that has a chocolate cream filling in the middle

That sounds a lot like a Czech Kolache, except that usually has fruit in the middle rather than chocolate.  I suspect a lot of European regions have something similar.  Some bakeries have made variations with different fillings

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolache)


Sounds like you want Nutraloaf.  If you search google you will undoubtedly find recipes for this abomination.  It is designed to meet nutritional needs while minimizing the need for utensils.  You did say taste and texture weren't important.


How can a burned sugar caramel icing be doubled?

There is no reason a recipe like this can not be proportionally increased or decreased.  Just figure out how much you need and adjust from there. So, in your example, increase everything by 1/3. ...but I don't see how doubling poses a problem.


What substitutes are available for sugar?

The following are sugar substitutes that are not considered "artificial sweetners."  The links provide interesting information that should be pondered before using any of them.

Agave nectar
Stevia
Honey
Maple syrup

For actual unrefined cane syrup or sugar (considered healthier than sugar by those who consider less refined to equal more healthy), look to

Rapadura
Sucanat

For artificial sweeteners, you could consider:

Splenda (you can get this in quantities suitable for baking at most grocery stores)

If you're looking to lower your sugar, before going to artificial sweeteners don't discount just teaching yourself a lower sugar diet by eating smaller portions of sweets and making your own sweets with a lower sugar content.


how to grind pistachio nuts so that they stay dry

The more liquid texture is a result of the oils in the nut being released as it is crushed. To avoid releasing the oil, start with cold nuts and shred or grate rather than crushing. Any kind of blunt trauma will squeeze the oil from the nut, making it gloppy. Keeping the nuts cold will cause the oil to solidify, keeping the final product fluffy.


How can I cheaply cook a bratwurst that is similar to a grilled brat with only access to an oven or stovetop?

Most ovens have a 'broil' setting (where the top element is on, and not the lower element).

You'll likely want a 'broiler pan' so that you can drain the grease away from the food (and catch it so it doesn't light on fire).  They're under $20 online.

Set the rack of the oven so that the food will be about 2" from the upper heating element.
Heat the broiler on its hottest setting, but leave the door to the oven open.
Place the food in the oven, but again, don't close it.
Turn the food occasionally until it's cooked to the level you want.

As for the bit about not closing the door :
If you close the door to the oven, it might heat up too much, and shut off.  You need the element actively heating, so that you have radiant heating, not convection or conduction.  (this is also why you want the food really close to the heating element).  Note that this is for electric ovens -- I don't think gas ovens have the same issue.


Is my wok carbon steel (it is magnetic)and how do I proceed - seems I am ruining it

Dollars to doughnuts, the film you have been fighting so valiantly to get off there is polymerized vegetable oil - aka "seasoning." The odds that it was coated with anything else are quite low.

Since you're well into having destroyed whatever seasoning it had, go ahead and burn off whatever is left (place in oven on "self-clean" cycle, or place in a wood fire) or else attack it with abrasives such as steel wool or sandpaper (stick to fairly fine sandpaper or you're going to need to run through several grades of finer sandpaper to get the surface back to usable/smooth if you scratch it up with coarser stuff).

You can also try running it through the dishwasher - harsh dishwasher detergents will often strip seasoning.


Brown Basmati rice -- How to prevent mushiness?

The basic differences between white and brown rice is explained below (as written here):

  An important first question to ask about all rice-and for that matter, most foods-is how much it has been processed. In the case of rice, processing usually involves milling and polishing. The outermost layer of rice, called the hull, is removed to make brown rice. Brown rice is rice with the whole kernel intact and the kernel is still surrounded by all layers of bran.

  To produce white rice, the bran layers of the rice have to be milled off. Most of the rice germ is also removed during this abrasive grinding process. At this point in the process the rice is called milled, unpolished white rice. Finally, a wire brush machine is used to remove the aleurone layer that remains on the rice. This step is called polishing. As polishing is not an all-or-nothing process, semi-polished rice may still contain parts of its aleurone layer.

Additional information about brown rice (here):

  [Brown rice] has a mild nutty flavor, and is chewier and more nutritious than white rice, but goes rancid more quickly because the germ—which is removed to make white rice—contains fats that can spoil. Any rice, including long-grain, short-grain, or sticky rice, may be eaten as brown rice.

So, because they are processed differently and have different parts of the grain intact or removed, your method of cooking is going to vary.

I have used this method of cooking brown basmati rice with pretty good success. It includes washing the rice a number of times prior to cooking and adding salt. This method advises adding oil after the cooking process, but I typically add it into my rice while it cooks, or even sauteeing the grains in oil then adding water to the pot to cook.

It is also suggested that leaving your brown rice to soak for 15-20 minutes (and sometimes even longer) can be beneficial as well.

All of that aside: if you're looking to stick with a flavor and texture similar to that of white rice then brown rice may not be your thing. I know that as a jasmine rice eater I do not particularly care for the texture of brown (even brown jasmine). As mentioned above it does have a "nutty" flavor and is "chewier" regardless of how well/properly it is prepared. It changes the flavor and feel of every dish I serve it with. Just a heads up.


How do reduce the sourness of pasta cooked with peppers?

Most likely the peppers. Jalapeño & Banana Peppers are usually canned as a pickle, so yes, it is sour.  You added some of the pickle liquid as well; I feel your dissatisfaction with the results. =-)

I love peppers (pickled or otherwise) in noodles. What I do to cut down on the sourness is drain the peppers of it's liquid and rinse with cold water once.  Then the results will be much more delicious.


How do I stop my Crispie/Crispy cake from going stale?

I usually store them in an airtight container, with wax paper underneath each layer. They keep very dry stored like this. It could be that your bag is not sealing 100%


The best I can guess is that this dessert is, in fact, a layered flan.
(or other free-standing baked custard, I suppose).

There are a lot of recipes for fruit flans, including passion fruit (with or without lime juice), lemon, raspberry, and others.  In that case, the individual recipes would be the key to search for, rather than the whole confection - once the custard mixtures were made, it would not be impossible to somehow layer them into individual molds before setting, for a similar effect as you describe.  Very impressive in a restaurant, and efficient enough in time and effort when they can make full batches of each custard, since they end up making many individual portions.

In any case, you would likely have to find recipes for passion fruit flan (you can check for lime juice, or not, as you prefer), and either simply find a recipe you like, or slowly tweak to match the taste you remember.

Just to give examples - here is one for passion fruit and lemon flan, here is a softer but tasty looking no cook version, This one claims an intense enough flavor to not need vanilla (quite the claim), Here's one with lime in the recipe.  This is completely different flavors, but shows an example of a layered flan jelly.  A pastry case can be omitted (or inversely, added), the flan can still be cooked and set.  Caramel can be omitted, possibly replaced by (fruit) syrups after cooking if desired.

Of course, how close this comes to your expectations depends on which recipe you start with and your desired results, but I had some thoughts on tweaking recipes to match your description - no guarantees, it's mostly speculative.  It sounds like this dessert of yours was fairly stiff if it was comparable to a brownie - a higher proportion of egg will make a flan stiffer, obviously liquids will make it softer and looser.  Using a recipe witch includes pulp (smoothly pureed, for consistency) will probably make a thicker end result than one only flavored with juice.  Using cream vs condensed milk vs cream cheese or egg yolks vs whole eggs should help tweak rich and soft versus firmer and drier.

Some recipes are thickened with gelatin, and it may be possible to further thicken the recipe with starch or even flour (if it ends up well cooked) to make a batter, which will get you a bit further afield from most flan recipes, but might help if the texture is not quite what you wanted.


Do products derived from coconut need to be kept cool?

No need of refrigerating. We routinely use various forms of coconut oil for cooking and traditionally even for use as hair oil. Same applies to coconut manna. I'm speaking from experience. If you need more proof, there's this and this.


Is there a way to tell if a pumpkin is going to be good for cooking?

Many of the varieties of pumpkin sold in US stores in the fall are decorative -- they're grown for their appearance and size, not for cooking with.

Ask for 'sugar pumpkins' or 'pie pumpkins' at your grocery store, farm stand, or farmer's market, and you should be able to find them -- they tend to be smaller, more squat than round (although, some farmers markets might have other varieties of "pie" pumpkins).

If you can't find them -- I'd go with acorn squash, instead of using one of the decorative pumpkins.


Is it okay to use stainless steel in oven?

When you ask "can I put it in the oven?" you're actually not asking a whole question. Can you put it in the oven? Of course you can. Will anything happen to it and your food that you don't like? Ah, that is the other half, right? What might happen?

the pan might warp (if it is thin)
the food might scorch or burn (again, more likely if the pan is thin)
the pan might stain (especially if there are areas of it that have only oil on them - for example if you're roasting a piece of meat)
the food might stick to the pan and not come out well

If the pan is thick, and not a lot of it will be empty and exposed, then it should be fine. Another thing to consider is how you're going to get it out again after cooking. I don't see any handles.