How do you prepare a steak to be rare and very rare (blue)?

The only real bacterial problem you have to worry about with steak is e. coli, which lives on the outside. Since even in a blue application the outside is cooked sufficiently to kill any bacteria, you should be fine. (Presuming you are using fresh steak, naturally).

For blue: get a pan screaming--and I mean screaming--hot. Toss the steak in to sear, flip to sear the other side. Do edges if needed. Serve immediately.

For rare, just do the steak in a normal pan or grill, flip once, about two minutes per side (less if the steak is very thin).

For both blue and rare applications you will want steaks that are on the thick side, and with not much marbling (intramuscular fat), as the short cooking time won't melt the fats. I suggest tenderloin/filet.


How should I adjust the baking temperature?

The very first thing to do is to put an oven thermometer in your oven and find out if your thermostat is accurate. It will take a little while to do this test, because the oven will first overheat then cool then overheat, etc. After 20-30 minutes, you should get a good reading as the interior heats up and the temperatures fluctuations subside. If your reading on the thermometer is different from the t-stat setting, then you will be able to compensate.If it won't hold a steady temp, you should replace the thermostat Sometimes you can recalibrate a home oven t-stat, but it might cost more than it's worth as long as you allow for the discrepancy.


I have the giant box of Ener-G egg replacer sitting in my cabinet, but I've found that in most cases a flax egg will do.

   1 T flax seed
   3 T water

  Grind the flax in a coffee grinder or
  mortar & pestle and then mix in the
  water. Voila, you have one egg.


(Storage note: do not wash the bulbs before storing them; place in plastic bag in the refrigerator. Wash just before using.)

Young kohlrabi is great raw. Peel first, then

add to salads (sliced or grated)
serve as part of a veggie platter w/ dip
grate it and add to slaw (but after grating it, put some salt on it & let it sit, then squeeze the water out of it)
puree it - here's someone who really loves it pureed: http://foodiefarmgirl.blogspot.com/2007/11/recipe-what-to-do-with-kohlrabi-puree.html

Cooked kohlrabi can be steamed or boiled. Remove the skin after cooking.

You can eat the leaves, if they are still firm and green; use them within a couple of days.
Wash the leaves & remove the tough stem parts (ribs). Blanch in boiling water for a couple of minutes, drain, chop, and serve with a bit of butter, salt, and pepper. A little vinegar or lemon juice is good on them, too.


I don't have a large cutting board, but I do have a large table with a wood top

There's no reason to use a cutting board for making bread, in fact I would recommend against it. Cutting boards are not big enough for good kneading and they slide around. You are better off using a large flat surface which won't move around. As for what that surface is it doesn't matter much as long as it is clean and doesn't have materials which may come off on your dough. As an example many people use spray polish or furniture wax on their tables which would make the surface unsuitable for bread. You don't want to eat polish or wax!


As Aaronut said, it'd definitely be best to just find a pineapple cake recipe.

But if you have a pineapple upside down cake recipe that you're really attached to, you could always just try it, presumably cutting the pineapple into smaller chunks. Depending on the batter, though, the pineapple may tend to either sink or float.


Will the bean salad dressing that I made ahead of time still work?

It's fine. Vinaigrettes last pretty much indefinitely in the fridge.

If the oil was exposed to too much light or air it might have become a little rancid. Smelling and tasting it before using it on the salad is a good idea. I wouldn't expect anything like that after just a couple months.

Catija alluded to garlic above. Garlic in oil is dangerous because it has an elevated risk of developing botulism- however in a separated vinaigrette all the particulate matter is submerged in the vinegar portion. More than acidic enough to prevent any botulism.


In terms of food safety, temperature is the best and most reliable rule. 165F is good enough for duck, so yours is definitely all safe to eat. No need to pitch it, unless you think the texture is so bad you don't want to eat it.

Pulling away from the bone definitely isn't a perfect food safety test. You'll definitely be able to get poultry to a safe temperature without the meat pulling easily and cleanly off the bones. So yes, if by overcooked you mean cooked beyond the minimum safe temperature, or held at that temperature for a long period of time, that test will cause you to overcook it. (I don't think it goes the other way - it's not going to pull away from the bone if it's under the safe temperature.) But at the same time, you might prefer the texture when it's pulling away from the bone, so it doesn't matter if it's beyond the minimum safe temperature. If you love the results, it's not really overcooking, is it?

But it sounds like yours was perhaps all overcooked by any definition - both chewy and dry are generally signs of overcooking, and you got 10-15F above the minimum safe temperature too.


What's the purpose of adding water to a skillet when cooking solid food?

In this case, you are braising the apples.  The water is the braising liquid, which helps to cook the apples, reduces, integrates with the other ingredients, and becomes a sauce.  It also keeps the apples from sticking to the pan and burning.


How can I ensure food safety if my cooking utensils have touched raw meat?

It depends on where you live. Each country has different meat diseases and bacterium that you have to be careful about

Traditionally in many western countries most meats are relatively safe raw though poultry is often not. But the definition of safe is not universal. Fresh chicken may have some salmonella etc, but unless this is allowed to grow to large numbers of spore it will not be dangerous. There are some bacteria that are dangerous in even minute amounts, but these should be vary rare, and even the cleanest cook will probably still transfer them

So to answer question, when cooking meat (or anything for that matter), you have to consider the amount of food adhering to the utensil, and the time it is exposed to a temperature in which bacteria can grow etc

If there was a formulae it would be something like

  food type (risk of bacteria) * temperature * time

In general ground meat has been processed but not overly preserved, so time starts becoming a factor. How long has it been in a warm environment? Bacon is heavily preserved and not a great bacteria home, so you have more time before it becomes a risk. I small smear of bacon juice on a fork is not going to create a dangerous level of bacteria in the 20 minutes it takes you to cook the dish. But I wouldn't risk it for Chicken (in my country due to campylobacter still being a problem)

In the home environment I give anything that has touched raw food a quick rinse under the tap (Which just happens to be collected rain water and therefore full of bird poo :-) ) and sometimes a mechanical scrub with the dishes brush before using it again in the cooking process

There are lots of old wives tales on kitchen cleanliness, but the end result is that bacteria needs water, food, and temperature to grow. If you remove most of these they can't multiple to dangerous levels

From my experience in food technology laboratories, the often overlooked problem is surface oil and fat. These trap water, food and bacteria (the perfect storm). Simple mechanical scrubbing will remove vast amounts of these for short term (period of cooking) cleanliness

This of course does not apply to food that must be cooked for non bacterial reasons, and food known to be unclean. Chicken again is typical of this, and I would hot water scrub everything used with raw or partially cooked chicken


Why do cooked potatoes taste bland when they cool down a bit?

I see multiple possible reasons for this. Here are some tests you can run. Be sure to run each test on a separate day, so you have a normal appetite for every test.
The first two tests are to determine if the change of temperature is actually the cause of the loss of flavor. The last two tests are to examine some other possible causes.
Test number one
Cook a potato as normal, put it on your plate and let it sit for 10 minutes, as though this is your second potato. Eat the cooled potato, and compare to how you remember your usual second potato tasting.

If the cooled potato seems just as bland/boring as the second potato normally is, you now know that temperature is a significant factor.
If you enjoy the cooled potato as much as you normally enjoy your first potato, you now know that the temperature is not what makes the difference.

Test number two
In this test, you eat two potatoes. The first potato is cool, and the second potato is hot. Start cooking a potato. After 20 minutes, start cooking another potato of the same size. When the first potato is cooked, take it out of the pot, put it on your plate, and let it cool for 10 minutes (just like in the first test). Eat the cooled potato. When you're done eating the cooled potato, the second potato should be finished cooking. Eat the second potato.

If you enjoy the second, hot potato more than you enjoy the first potato, you now know that temperature was the main issue.
The solution is to cook your two potatoes sequentially. Start cooking the second potato ten minutes after you start the first one. Eat each potato as soon as it's ready. That way you can eat both potatoes hot.
Or, use an insulating wrapper to keep the second potato warm while you eat the first potato. An oven mitt would probably work well for this purpose. However, as Kat suggested in the comments, it's possible that the second potato is actually getting over-cooked while it sits. If that's the problem, insulating the potato to keep it warm would make the problem worse. So you could do another test comparing the two methods (staggered cooking times vs same cooking time + insulating the second potato).

If you don't enjoy the second, hot potato as much as you enjoy the first, cold potato, you know that temperature is not the main issue. Proceed to the next few tests.

Test number three
I always find my mouth feels quite dry after eating a potato. Perhaps you're not drinking enough water with your meal.  After finishing your first potato, get a full glass of water. Drink the entire glass (at a reasonable speed, not gulping it). Let it settle. Then eat the second potato.
Test number four
Sometimes the tastebuds get tired of eating a single thing. One solution is to introduce a small amount of a strongly contrasting flavor. So, try eating a palate cleanser between the two potatoes. Since potato is a very mild taste, you will probably want a sharp flavor, either spicy, sour or bitter. Some options include: pickles, pickled ginger, a slice of apple, bitter herbs, a dab of horseradish sauce, sauerkraut, chutney, kimchi, a slice of lemon or lime (eat the fruit and the rind for a combination of sour and bitter).
The palate cleanser doesn't need to be major component of the meal, but rather a garnish of something that will startle, surprise or shock your tastebuds. After a bit of this surprising flavor, returning to the potato should seem safe and comforting. Like how a chilly breeze makes you enjoy snuggling into a warm sweater.

Potatoes are actually known to have a high satiety index compared to nutritionally similar foods like pasta and rice. That means they give you the "physiological and psychological experience of fullness." Because of this, some people actually recommend potatoes as a food to help you eat less.
If none of the above tests helps you find a solution, it might be that your body is telling you not to eat the second potato. Perhaps it's telling you you've already had enough calories. Or, maybe you still need more calories, but your body wants them in a different form (such as green vegetables, protein and/or fat). It might be worth comparing your usual daily food intake to a recommended balanced diet, just to make sure you're actually getting the nutrition you need.


How do you store away freshly peeled and sliced potatoes?

The main problem with storing pre-cut potatoes is oxidation, where they start to turn brown from contact with the air.   To prevent this, store them submerged in water.  You can get about 24 hours, refrigerated, in this manner.

This is is how restaurants that do natural cut fries store the pre-cut fries.


Mustard seeds for tempering lentils brought out a little bitter after taste

There's quite some bitter components in there:

Fenugreek
Nigella seeds
Mustard seeds

In general to balance bitterness, you either add salt, fat, or sugar.

In yours case, maybe the addition of the mustard seeds pushed the bitterness just beyond what you like. So quite possibly you could also choose to reduce the amount of nigella seeds and fenugreek.


name of the process of heating butter to give it the special aroma

It's called browned butter or beurre noisette.  It is essentially heating butter beyond its melting point until the solids start to darken.  E.g.: a recipe is here at Kitchn.


I haven't specifically tried to save that variety of squash, but I've had good luck in general holding other varieties of winter squash for a few days by halving, sealing the cut side, and then refrigerating for.  A few notes:

If you have a large enough knife, just make a single cut through it.
Either place it cut-side down on an appropriately sized dish with a flat bottom (eg, a casserole dish), or cover the cut side with plastic wrap ... (of plastic wrap, then set in the dish, so you don't accidentally knock off the plastic wrap in the next couple of days).

When it comes time to use the remaining half, if the cut surface is dry, shave a little off.  Clean out the seed cavity when you're finally going to use it.  (this allows you to scrape back down to moist flesh, and reduce evaporative loss)

How long you can hold it will likely be affected by things like how often you open your frdge. I've never tried putting in the crisper after wrapping (as I tend to have too much stuff in there already).

If you're looking to get the longest possible strands out of the squash, I think to need to cut it from stem to blossom end ... but that would increase the cut surface area.  If that isn't a goal, it's probably better to cut it across the stem-blossom axis.


Can you substitute whole eggs for egg whites in baking?

It will definitely make a difference. Yolks contain various things like fats and emulsifiers that affect the flavor and texture of baked goods.

If you want more details, then tell us what you're baking.


Why do frozen foods that are fully cooked still need to be heated to the same temperature raw items require?

As a rule, frozen foods that are fully cooked do not have that requirement. If the label says "fully cooked", you can eat it still frozen if you want. Where have you seen "fully cooked" and "must be cooked before serving" on the same label?

Here is a typical example. The directions say "until warm" for esthetic reasons only. There is no need to reach 165F, which would be the USDA requirement for raw chicken.

EDIT: Wow, look at this, from the USDA

They're saying leftovers must be heated to 165F. There's overly conservative, then there is SOOO overly conservative as to strip them of credibility. I'm just flummoxed.


How to convert a recipe calling for active dry yeast into rapid rise yeast?

First off, it's good to understand the difference between active dry yeast and rapid rise yeast.  Active dry yeast is a larger granule of yeast in which the outer shell is composed of mostly dead cells entombing the dormant nougaty goodness inside.  It has to be proofed to seperate out all the cells and rehydrate the interior active cells.

Rapid rise yeast is a typically a combination of 2 different strains of yeast (so those with a very discerning palate might be able to tell the difference, I've never really tried).  The granules of yeast are smaller and dried slower to preserve more yeast cells. Ascorbic acid is also added to push the yeast into overdrive a little faster.

A great video that helped me a lot is http://how2heroes.com/videos/dessert-and-baked-goods/yeast-101  I have noticed before issues with Rapid Rise yeast not proofing very well the second time around.  Apparently it's designed to give you one really good proof and then die out (play hard and die young).  Instant yeast however is Rapid Rise yeast without the hardcore party attitude.  It's what they use at the King Arthur bakery test kitchen, so that's good enough for me!  They say to use them interchangeably, but many other sites I see show a difference of about 20%.

2 Tbsp Active Dry yeast ≈ 1.6 Tbsp Instant Yeast


Removing the skin from chicken before or after cooking?

Removing after will be much easier as everything will just fall apart when the collagen has been dissolved out.

The skin has a lot of fat that will have to be skimmed or separated if left on.


What is the yellow colour and what ingredients go into seekh kebabs fat?

Common sources of fat-soluble yellow colours are curcuma (curcumin as colorant, tends to give an almost fluorescent yellow), and chilli peppers (lycopene, tends more towards the orange in higher concentrations). But a lot of other carotene-containing items can give a yellow to orange colour (cumin among them, but it's less known as a colorant).


Are there ingredients I should avoid in a brine?

A brine serves two purposes: to make the meat moist and flavorful.

How the moist part works: "Brining makes cooked meat moister by hydrating the cells of its muscle tissue before cooking, via the process of osmosis, and by allowing the cells to hold on to the water while they are cooked, via the process of denaturation." (Wikipedia)

It makes the meat flavorful by acting the same way a marinade does. So you're pretty safe following "standard" marinating rules. Chief among those being that you want to avoid using too much acid or using acid for too long because it might make the meat mushy.

Avoid alcohol as well. "If your marinating anything with alcohol, cook the alcohol off first. Alcohol doesn't tenderize; cooking tenderizes. Alcohol in a marinade in effect cooks the exterior of the meat, preventing the meat from fully absorbing the flavors in the marinade." - Thomas Keller, the French Laundry Cookbook

Remember to use a nonreactive container (no metal) and avoid ingredients like olive oil that solidify when chilled.


Should I retire my scratched non-stick rice cooker?

There is no way to salvage it, no. The Teflon will stay scratched and flake into your food. Even after you remove the large flakes, it will continue shedding microscopic ones.

We cannot tell you anything about "should" or make decisions for you. If the risk of eating Teflon is acceptable to you, keep it. If it isn't, throw it out. Discussions on the long-term health effects of consuming Teflon in tiny amounts fall into the "is it healthy" category, which is unanswerable for us. As always, there are the people who say it's terrible, and the ones who say it's no big deal. You have to find other sources and decide whether you want to believe them.


Feta is very salty. Recipes I've used called for a brine of around 12%.

Water is fine. When making feta from scratch it helps if the brine is a little bit acidic so the surface of the cheese doesn't soften. It might not be an issue when replacing brine for finished cheese.

https://fankhauserblog.wordpress.com/2007/07/14/feta-cheese/

I've had my own still be good after a month in the fridge before it was all eaten. I would be surprised if it wouldn't keep for 6 months or more. It is a soft cheese and when it is removed from the brine it only gets about a week in the fridge.

This answer: https://cooking.stackexchange.com/a/24152/2001
Suggests that you can put feta in a brine or milk for up to 3 months.

Yours was partially exposed to the air and then will be re-submerged. My suspicion is that the brine will be strong enough to prevent spoilage but there are so many variables in your case that I doubt we'll find a definitive answer.


issues with mexican restaurant-style white cheesedip

If you want more flavour, add more flavour. That sounds like I'm being a smartass, but it's true. Starches absorb/obscure flavour, which is a large part of why both the nouvelle cuisine and the molecular (or whatever you want to call it; I hate that term) movements prize reductions and non-standard thickeners, respectively.

First of all, I'd echo Michael and suggest you not use a roux. That will instantly create more flavour (this is assuming you're keeping the roux blonde, and not cooking it darker for more intense flavour).

Second, you will want to introduce a liquid phase to the dip to keep it dippable as it cools while you eat it. I would suggest cream, or sour cream. Buttermilk would also be lovely for a nice tang. You won't need much, I would just substitute for the milk you are already using, and only use one cup to begin. Add more as needed to adjust consistency. Bring your liquid product to a slow simmer, and slowly whisk in your cheese until incorporated.

For the cumin, garlic, chiles, I would start by toasting the cumin in a hot dry pan, then add your olive oil, sautee the onions first (or even go so far as to caramelize, which would be lovely), then add and lightly cook the chiles and garlic. This will bring out more flavours.

I don't know what you mean by 'Queso' cheese; Queso is just Spanish for 'cheese.' Queso fresca? Queso blanco? But I would look for cheeses with more flavour. The ones you are using are fairly bland (comparatively) and will not provide an intensely cheesy experience.

Season at the end.

I would first, however, simply try making the same thing without a roux, and using half the milk. The flavour difference will be significant.


I don't think the dough formula is the issue.  Instead, you might experiment with par-cooking your pizza.  The first comment from @Sneftel has it right. Maybe start with a half-cooked pizza.  Adjust from there. Any fully cooked, then reheated pizza will likely over cook, or incur the problems you are trying to avoid.


Does a Steam Microwave with true Convection cooking use microwaves in the convection oven baking process?

Such things can be make and model dependent. What can give you a hint is what the documentation says about metal cookware being or not being permissible when using the convection mode. If in doubt, ask the manufacturer.


What can I use to replace white cheese in a roasted red peppers pate?

Well, there is white vegan cheese.  What I would recommend is that you make it prior to serving it to your buddy, and taste it with the new vegan cheese and see if that's the taste you're aiming for.  A super quick Google search found "white vegan cheese" with no problem.  You might even find some at your nearest grocery store.


It will definitely change some vegetables, specifically tender vegetables with large surface area (e.g. whole leaf ones). Have you ever tried making a complete salad including dressing, then storing the leftovers in the fridge for a day and having it limp the next day? That effect is due to oil.

The mechanism behind that has nothing to do with penetrating the vegetables or having the oil soak into them. It is just that it stops their perspiration, so they die off earlier than they should. (I know it is counterintuitive, but metabolically speaking, your raw vegetables are still alive in your fridge).

So I wouldn't describe the change as getting "soggy", especially because some kinds of vegetables won't change that much anyway. Especially those which are fruits or roots or tubers will stay mostly firm even when oiled. But e.g. spinach will be definitely different - whether you care for that difference or not is up to you.


Add your preferred level of salt and pepper
Seasoning usually refers to salt and black pepper, but occasionally to other flavor-enhancing ingredients in the dish such as acid (vinegar, lemon, etc.) and heat (red pepper, sriracha, etc.). "To taste" means to the degree you enjoy it.


Jello Shots Techniques: Alcohol Concentration

You are probably fine with the 1:1 ratio for your likely 80 proof liquors.  For weaker liqueurs just add more.  You probably want 2:1 if you can get it to work.


I'm afraid the frozen goods are a lost cause. Throw them away. The eggs in the fridge are probably fine. Break one in a dish and give it the sniff test. If it still smells clean and good, they are probably fine. But don't delay in using them. Make a souffle!


The long cooking and high heat from the oven will definitively kill most of the bacteria and inactivate some enzymes present in the apple such as the famous polyphenol oxidase
 responsible for the oxidation process that makes raw apples brown when sliced.

However, this won't stop the apples (and of course the whole muffin) to spoil on the fridge over time. Moulded apple can be particularly bad because of patulin.


One option is foregoing thickener entirely. I regularly make sauces with those proportions and no thickener and find them perfectly fine, texture wise.
Another option is substituting the half and half with full cream or even switch 1/3-1/2 of it for cream cheese. Or, similarly, add more parmesan or another cheese to thicken the sauce. All of those substitutes will make for a thicker sauce without any further additions.
Otherwise, xantham gum is keto friendly. You want to add about 0.2% xantham gum by weight to slightly thicken a sauce, so about 1.5 grams for your recipe (I recommend weighing your sauce on a kitchen scale and calculating the amount precisely). I would mix it well with a small amount of cream like for a cornstarch slurry, before mixing that into the rest of the liquid. Like Stephie pointed out in the comments, mixing any powder into a hot liquid is very difficult.


Leaving the loaf seam side up makes it easier for armatures like me, to roll the dough onto a baking stone or floured peel and reduce the chance of deflating your loaf.   Also, sometimes the dough can bulge/blow out during baking.  Baking the loaf with the seam side down helps support the structure of the bread while slashing the top gives the loaf room to expand while cooking and provide help to control the possibility of bulging/blow out.

The first pic shows expansion where it was slashed, while the second pic shows a blow out due to not enough slashes, deep enough or other reasons.  Imagine what it would look like if the seam side was up?  The loaf would look like it threw up.


will soup beans go bad during soaking period at room temp?48 + hours

It is normal for pulses to develop froth when soaked. Note that soaking dissolves lots of molecules contained in the beans. Some recommend to soak and throw out the soaking water in order to remove the oligosaccharides contained in most legumes, because bacteria breaking down these indigestible sugars produce gases as a side product, which is felt as bloating. Soaking also dissolves many of the micro-nutrients contained in the beans, and is adviced against the practice. If the beans are soaked (for shortening of cooking times), the soaked water should be used for cooking. If the eaters experience bloating, the beans should be cooked for a longer time, to give oligosaccharides time to break down under temperature. I would recommend that you soak in the fridge for much shorter period the next time - you don't need any fermentation to take place, so the low temperatures aren't a problem.


I don't know that type of rice, but it sounds like it ran out of liquid before it was done. Some types of rice can be done in about 10m, some take over half an hour. My tricks for risotto like dishes are:

wash the rice to remove loose starch
taste regularly so you can intervene as needed,
avoid stirring as much as you can (you can stir a few times to avoid burning),
fry the rice with the onions before adding water,
add liquid in small batches until it's done.

Try it with a few small batches to get the hang of it. It could very well be the wrong type of rice, so you may want to try other brands.


There certainly are proponents of brining beef to impact texture and flavor.  In my looking across the internets, it appears that dry "brining" is more common than wet, but both are used for steaks.  Whether or not the results are "spectacular" is up to you. So, I would give it a try to see if you like it.  For me, I generally don't prefer the texture of brined meat, with the exception of boneless pork loin chops.  Given their leanness, I think a couple of hours in a salt/sugar brine helps.  If you like the results, be sure to experiment with time in the brine.  As it is possible to over do it, negatively impacting the texture.


Why is mixing good whiskey with cola/ginger ale frowned upon?

It is about the same thing as putting A-1 on prime rib. Mixers, like cola or ginger ale, tend to mask the flavors of the whiskey, something which is understandable for an 'inferior' brand but is thought of as 'taboo' for a 'fine' blend. The drink that results from mixing your fine whiskey with the mixers is (roughly) 'the same' as if you had mixed a cheaper blend, having concealed the subtleties that aging and craftsmanship have worked to create.

That said...if you like it, it is your drink.


Homemade/DIY Frozen Vegetables: Can steaming be used instead of blanching?

The part about blanching that is important is that the vegetables are briefly cooked and then immediately doused in cold water to stop the cooking process. Processors use boiling water as it is easier to manage and you can put flavorings and other additives (preservatives, color enhancers, etc) to the water to get the effect desired. There's no reason you can't steam them instead as long as you dip them in ice water to arrest the cooking process. There's some things that steam blanching wouldn't be good for, like removing the skins from tomatoes, for that boiling water is the way to go, but for preparing vegetables for the freezer it will work fine.

Some considerations:

Industrialization of the process: it's easy to set up a line with a pot of boiling water and a bowl of ice water while using a basket to immerse. Steaming won't be as straightforward, and will be more time consuming. If you have a lot of vegetables you may want to consider boiling instead
Safety: You will need to be able to move the vegetables from your steamer to the ice water quickly without getting scalded, so think about your setup and tools


How does water behave in Dutch oven baking?

I think we need to deal with the two different elements of the question: first, I'll discuss better oven spring, and then I'll get to good crust formation.
Most oven spring comes from inside the bread.  Air is already trapped inside the bubbles in the dough which expands as the internal temperature rises.  Additional steam is released internally as the dough heats, adding to the pressure for expansion created inside the dough.  The only thing necessary for good oven spring in most breads is allowing these internal gases to expand and evolve.
The main thing external steam does to impact oven spring is prevent early crust formation (as alluded to in the first point in the question).  The mechanism is not only due to cooling, but due to humidity of the surrounding air.  For a crust to form, the dough has to be heated above boiling temperatures.  In order for the dough to get that hot, it needs to lose significant moisture (at least on the surface), effectively drying out.  If a section of dough has substantial moisture, it will continue to boil out.  With normal air pressure, water boils out around 212F/100C, which means that while water is boiling out of moist dough, the temperature of that portion of the dough will maintain a temperature around that boiling point.
By surrounding the dough with high moisture air, you slow the rate at which water boils out of the surface of the dough.  (Water will boil out faster in a low-humidity environment compared to a high-humidity one.)  So, filling your oven with steam will slow crust formation by keeping the outer layer of dough hydrated longer, which means it stays soft and doesn't harden (which would halt oven spring).
The same effect is still possible in a dutch oven, because there's a much smaller volume of air to fill with steam.  A significant amount of moisture escapes bread dough while baking, and there's enough in the early phases to create a fairly moist environment inside the dutch oven, effectively simulating an oven filled with steam already.  As long as a relatively high humidity environment is maintained around the dough, it will delay crust formation and aid oven spring.
The radiant heat from the dutch oven on all sides also may add to the oven spring by introducing more energy quickly into the dough.  (That happens even without the condensation mechanism discussed in the question.  I mean, some moisture may condense back on the cooler dough, though nowhere near as much as with an oven filled with external steam.  My guess is that the condensation mechanism to deliver heat is less important for oven spring than keeping the outer layer of the dough soft and hydrated.  Also, even without significant condensation, moist air will transfer heat faster than dry air.)
The previous paragraphs discuss where better oven spring comes from.  The good crust formation then is also aided by the third and fourth points in the question (extended enzyme activity, which aids in ultimate browning, and starch gelation), both of which just come from the high humidity environment.  In that sense, the "water layer" described in the question still can happen by simply being in a sealed container that keeps humidity relatively high.
It should be noted that most recipes for dutch oven baking state that the lid should be removed for the last portion of baking.  This removes the moisture (as when a steam oven is vented during bread baking), which allows better and more consistent crust coloration as the Maillard reactions can proceed faster in a low humidity environment.  Crust will still form with the lid on, but it may become somewhat thicker before it browns as much as is desired.  (A lot of this depends on temperature, time of bake, hydration level, etc.)  In my own experience, keeping the lid on too long can delay escape of internal moisture from the dough as well, which can sometimes give the crumb a more "gummy" texture even when fully baked.

By the way, do we really need to bake at that high temperature? What
would happen if we could bake at 100º C (212º F) to get the oven
spring and only after work on the crust color?

No, you do NOT have to bake at a super high temperature.  In fact, some people bake successful loaves of bread starting with a cold dutch oven.  See, for example, this blog post from King Arthur flour for some tips.  They ultimately concluded that one should use an enclosed container with a smaller base if starting from a cold temperature.  Although they don't explain why, my guess is that the long time it takes for the temperature to rise allowed a bit too much gas to escape before the bread solidified internally, leading to a slight collapse and a final loaf volume that was a bit smaller.
That said, I'd say that effect is somewhat recipe and dough dependent, as well as dependent on how long it takes for the dutch oven to heat up.  It's certainly possible that in some situations a bake started with a cold dutch oven could give an equal or even superior oven spring to a loaf started in a hot oven.  You're balancing two things: (1) crust formation can't happen too quickly, or the oven spring halts before the rise is complete, but (2) structure needs to set quick enough before gases migrate out of the dough, and the gluten isn't sufficient to continue to hold up the expanded dough (without the set internal structure).  Starting in with a cold dutch oven avoids the first, but could cause problems with the second.  If the timing is right, though, one could maximize oven spring and still get good crust formation and color at the end.  However, at some point, one does need to finish with a rather hot oven to get the browning and "crackling" element of the outermost layer of crust in a lean dough.


Some approximate figures

Energy efficiency while cooking

Induction 90%
Electric resistive 55%
Gas 50%

Energy efficiency while heating up

Induction 99%
Electric resistive 0%
Gas 0%

Time, total energy used, and cost to boil 2 l of Water

Induction 2:20, 0.2 kWh, $0.034
Electric resistive 5:00, 0.34 kWh, $0.058
Gas 4:00, 0.37 kWh, $0.016

Assumptions

Gas burner is clean and correctly adjusted

Costs are estimates based on USA high prices as of 2013

In many other countries gas will be much more expensive

Bottled gas will be nearly twice the gas price from town supply gas


Try removing the core from the cabbage completely. This can be done by slicing it in half and using a "v" like pattern for coring it. After the core is removed, all the leaves should flake off very easily. It is usually easier to fill more in a pot when you lay the leaves flat on top of each other. Alternatively, and with a bit more work, you can also just peel the leaves away from the core individually. This is a good way to get bigger leaves (especially useful when making stuffed cabbage).


Why can't I use toaster oven instead of real oven?

Possible reasons:

Horrible temperature control - this is simply a problem of cheap
construction.  One could theoretically build an excellent toaster
oven with precise temperature control, but why would you?
Low
thermal mass -  If you get an oven to 400F and open it for long
enough to put in food, the result is an oven at very slightly less
than 400F, and which will quickly return to 400F.  Do that with a
toaster oven, and who knows what temperature you'll get, or how
quickly it will get to your desired temperature (if ever, see #1).
This is not a slam at toaster ovens, this is just due to them being
approximately 2% of the volume of a standard oven.
Closeness to
elements.  It's easy for toaster ovens interiors to vary by nearly
50F from middle to edge, simply based on distance to elements

Now don't get me wrong, I once made some kickin' Oysters Rockefeller in a toaster oven, when I thought that they would be the difference between serving an appetizer and being allowed to serve breakfast the next morning (wink, wink).  If you know what you're doing, and watch carefully and continually, a toaster oven can be an excellent source of high(ish) direct heat.  But they are extremely difficult to control, and extremely unforgiving of errors.  I can't think of a circumstance where a toaster oven would be my first choice of cooking tool (and that includes microwave, campfire, plumber's blowtorch).


It depends upon the strength of your brine, for boneless chicken breasts I recommend a 5% brine for 30 minutes to an hour.

Ideally, salt for brining should be measured by weight, especially since volumetric measurements for the same weight of salt will vary depending upon the coarseness of the salt. A 5% salt solution means you should use 20 times by weight the amount of water to salt. That's easy and foolproof if you have a scale. If you must use spoons or cups to measure salt, Morton's Kosher salt is very close to two tablespoons equaling an ounce, so 20 ounces (2.5 cups) of water to 2 Tablespoons of Morton's Kosher Salt would be a 5% solution. Use about 65% of the volume measurement if you must use table salt and measure by volume.

Incidentally, for larger, bone in pieces brine in a 5% solution for 3-5 hours, a whole chicken for 12-16 hours (roughly).

Also, be sure that your chicken does not have water added, as many frozen, bulk pieces do. In effect, those chicken pieces are already brined.


I have halved cake recipes before without issue. The most complicated thing to worry about is halving an odd number of eggs, but this question addresses that. The finished product was indistinguishable from the full recipe.

Edit

One thing to note. In your specific case, because it's a two-layer cake, halving is simple because you're only cooking a single layer. Halving other cakes, such as a pound cake, or a bundt cake involves adjustments to the cooking time. A halved cake will cook much quicker, and could possibly need a lower temperature as well as a decreased cooking time.


How long should I cook sliced russert potatoes for mashing?

I think you are overthinking this somewhat on the starch front, I don't think that soaking and rinsing overnight, or the mandolin cut will reduce glueyness. It's the choice of potato and how you mash it that makes it gluey or not. If you use a ricer and non-waxy potatoes you should be fine. Just add lots of butter and they'll love it!

Slicing the potatoes thinly will make them cook faster due to the higher surface area, it also removes any room for error - the difference between undercooked and overcooked is all of a minute. Thin slicing can also be a problem for water circulation, leading to the potatoes on the bottom being mush and the top ones being raw, putting them in the pot vertically will prevent this. You are using 1/2 inch slices so you should be fine, but if you go thinner be aware of it. If you are doing thicker slices on a mandolin keep in mind the curvy end pieces will cook faster than the middle cuts. As for how much of a cooking time you'll save I think it may be a couple of minutes over cutting them into quarters, but it's hard to say exactly.


How can I make my Chocolate Mousse fluffier?

The dessert pictured above definitely, definitely has gelatin in it.  That will change the mouth feel on the mousse slightly, but it might be what you are going for and will provide some of the stability that you are looking for.  To have it hold a form like this you will need a recipe that requires gelatin; I would recommend gelatin sheets if you can find them at a local baking/cooking supply store or order them online.

The fluffiness will also be determined by several things.  How were the whites whipped (too much, too little) or how was the cream whipped (again too much, too little)?  There are recipes that call for both.  How you incorporate all of the ingredients into one another really matters and in what order, this is called tempering.  You want to fold until the mixtures are just combined; no more.

Temperature is of key importance for all of the ingredients - some you want very cold while others (ie chocolate) you want to be room temperature but not too cool or it will seize up the mixture and the mousse will taste grainy.

Also chocolate mousse texture can definitely be affected by the percentage and quality of chocolate you are using.  If is is of a higher percentage it can create a denser mousse and deflate the whites and cream more easily.


Should I keep the meat boiled off of bones when making beef broth?

Taste the meat and if it still seems edible to you then there is no reason to throw it out.

When I make stock, I keep it on a simmer for much longer than three hours and any meat is completely tasteless by the time I'm done. Three hours, however, is about how long you would cook meat to make a stew, so it's quite possible that you could eat it.

On the other hand, not all cuts of meat stew well and I'm not familiar with this cut. If the meat has plenty of connective tissues (i.e. collagen) to gelatinise it shouldn't dry out too much. But the proof is in the pudding: taste it.


What does it mean that a pan is "anti jamming"?

These pans (sometimes called chafing dishes) are designed to fit into a frame above water and a heat source to keep food hot. They are advertising that their pans won't get stuck (jam) in the frame.

As evidence, see this video (and this), which shows how even after pressure is applied the pan does not require effort to remove from the frame. (I found the video here, on a tradeKorea page advertising a similar pan, and it was produced by an account called 'ChefPro'.)


Sniffing out a rotten egg from the dozen

Yep. Rotten eggs float, fresh eggs sink.

This is because eggshells are porous, so over time water vapour and gases leak out, reducing the egg's mass.

A fresh egg will lie on its side on the bottom of a glass of water. The older the egg, the more it sits up, until it's floating.


Can a blender be used to make emulsified sausage?

I think your issue, using a high powered blender, is that the friction in such a blender produces quite a bit of heat. You will need to account for that.  Secondly, your grind might be too thick for the blender to circulate effectively.  You want your meat near freezing for the initial grind, so you will want to pre-grind for sure.   However, then, some heat helps with the emulsion.  I could see it working, with some pulsing, then maybe some time in the refrigerator, then a return to pulsing.  It depends on your blender, the amount of mix, and your patience.  It could work.  This might help you consider the variables.

Upon further investigation, heat might not be your biggest issue if you choose to use a blender.  In the case of emulsified sausage, "emulsification" is a bit of a misnomer. A blender, however, could cause a problem by over-processing the fat particles, leading to a less stable "emulsion."  According to the source I just linked:

  Fat emulsification involves, as mentioned previously, the reduction of fat to a small enough size that the extracted protein can coat or entrap the fat. Of the fat particles are too large we will not get a smooth, stable emulsion but if the fat is chopped too much the surface area may be too large or too many fat cells may be broken to yield a stable product.

Again, you might be able to make this work with care and patience, but a high speed blender is probably not the best tool for the job.


In Britain golden syrup is used in a lot of things, Lyle's brand is the one people know, though there are a few other minor brands. They tend to vary in thickness and strength of taste, but usually have fairly similar tastes. It is partially inverted sugar syrup, which has a fairly complicated chemical process to manufacture from byproducts of the refining industry. I doubt it's very easy at all to make at home.

Buy a whole tin, it is quite versatile, excellent in cakes and best of all on porridge.

Quick tip: If you need to add a large amount to a recipe which asks you to heat it, which is quite common, it is far easier to place the tin (with the lid off!) in the oven for a few minutes and carefully wearing gloves pour from the tin, as the heat makes it thinner and thus pourable.  Same thing works for black treacle.


Why does processed meat contain preservatives, while canned fish needs not?

These are two different ways to preserve food.

The canned salmon was boiled and then sealed into a can while it was still boiling sealed into a can and boiled under a specified combination of time and temperature that has been empirically proven to kill enough bacteria. All the bacteria in the can are dead, and no more can get in, so it's sterile and won't rot until it's opened.

The ham is preserved differently: instead of being sterile, it has enough preservatives that whatever bacteria get in can't grow, or at least grow very slowly.

The difference is between canning and curing, not between fish and meat. It's also possible to can meat (in which case it doesn't need preservatives) and cure fish (for example, smoked salmon).


I have a theory about your omelette (and sadly, no means to test it). But I think it is plausible, please feel free to point out logical errors.

I think that the unappetizing coloring is due to the creation of sulfur salts in your pan. Egg whites are rich in sulfur, as are all alliums (including chives). If you heat them enough (you don't mention whether you overcooked the omelette, but it happens often enough), the heat changes the molecules in which the sulfur is bound, and the sulfur atoms (or sulfur containing ions) are free to react with whatever they find around. If they happen to find iron or copper, they form sulfides and sulfates with them. These sulfides and sulfates have colors ranging from blue to green, and pure iron sulfide is black. A mixture of them with the yellow yolk can easily look gray, especially when the color is desaturated through the addition of white cream cheese.

You say you used a coated pan, but there are still possible sources for the iron and copper. First, nuts contain trace elements, including iron and copper. Second, yolks too contain iron (in fact, the bluish coloring on the surface of a hard boiled yolk is an iron sulfide created when the proteins in the egg white denaturated from the heat). Third, you can't exclude contamination of the ingredients (plants sometimes store metal ions from the environment).

I have no way to prove any of the above, but at least it sounds like a good working theory. But I will understand if you aren't eager to reproduce in order to investigate the effect closer.


Is sour milk, soured milk, and milk that has gone sour, all the exact same thing?

Yes, it is the same. It refers to milk which has been left out until it has gone sour with whatever wild bacteria it has managed to catch, be they pathogenic, healthy, or neutral. It curdles a bit and changes in smell and taste.
If you find a person or author who makes a difference, then you have discovered either some regionally restricted distinction which is not widespread (maybe even restricted to that one author), or a too-literal translation from some other language.

Update, since you seem to be asking about the exact meaning of Stephie's comment. What she means is that back in the day, when milk went sour, the actual risks were lower than when today's milk goes sour. (not to speak of the perceived risks and of the implicit risks/reward calculations people make by gut feeling). The difference in her comment is not between "sour milk" and "soured milk", but between "milk that was freshly milked from a single healthy cow and left at room temperature until it went sour" and "commercially produced and processed milk which was distributed to me and left in the fridge until it went sour". There are no terms in the English language which make this distinction, both are called "sour milk" or "soured milk" - so the product is probabilistically different, but the words are not.


Temperature and Duration for Baking Sweet Potatoes

Based on everything you provided in your question, the best thing to do is for you to do at least a series of timed trials and ideally timed trials at different temperatures. There is not enough to suggest a cooking time. As for temperature, you already have a range.

While I do not have an answer to your question on cooking time, this is what I would do next time I cook sweet potato for sweetness:

Cook a sweet potato at 160C in the oven as control
Sous vide 12 sweet potatoes at 57C
At 10 minute intervals, take out one potato, plunge it in ice water for 5 min and taste, compare its sweetness to the one cooked at 160C and also to an uncooked one. Repeat until all the potatoes are taken out and the last one would have been cooked for 2 hours.
You can repeat the entire trial at higher temperatures.

You can of course do this using an oven and over a range of temperature settings. I suggest starting from around 60C, and you need to take an additional measurement of the inside temperature of every potato you take out before putting it into ice water to quench.

If your objective is to maximise enzymatic sugar conversion, then using an oven is not going to give you much control. It is just too hard to calculate heat diffusion rates and determine when to take them out of a hot oven. The most reliable method would be sous vide, seal your sweet potatoes in a bag, and immerse the bag in a 57C to 75C water bath for quite a long time (please bear with the lack of quantitative time for a moment).

Many cooking science articles focus just on qualitative descriptions with the most useful quantitative parts missing. The piece you quoted is just like that, interesting read but with no practical value. Beta-amylase hydrolysis of starch to maltose is interesting and like most enzymes, beta-amylase works at a fairly typical temperature range, nothing especially helpful or fascinating here. The most useful bit is missing, it is all about reaction kinetics, the rate of reaction and which factors change the rate by how much, that is how much time will it take to cook the sweet potatoes at the stated temperature range. All the bits that would allow a someone to calculate cooking time. The absence of quantitative parts in too many cookery science writings (there are enough pleasant exceptions) is frustrating.

Amalyse hydrolysis of starch does not happen instantaneously and it is relatively slow compared with say baking soda reacting with creme of tartar. Not only is reaction rate affected by temperature and not linearly, concentration of starch affects it too (I am unsure if maltose concentration also plays a part) as does pH. Their effects on reaction rates are easy enough to measure and calculate that you can actually do that in your own kitchen. Ok, measuring maltose concentration is hard, but tasting for sweetness which is what is important after all is very easy. Besides, sensation of sweetness is also not linear to sugar concentration. The rest involves a clock, and a thermometer.


Keeping noodles from absorbing all the soup

If it were me, I'd cook the pasta seperately (possibly in some of the broth), and only combine them just before it was to go out in the buffet.

You might also want to take a look at How do canned soup companies keep their noodles from absorbing all the liquid in the can?


Anybody know where I can get some Stanley spatulas?

Having looked online and using the excellent Google image matching facility, this appears to be an antique item, circa 1950. The closest match I could find was on an auctioneers valuation site, which suggests not only are they rare, but valuable as well [1].
I can't recommend these spatulas enough [2], they are not cheap, but they are a joy to use.
[1] https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/maid-honor-spatula-slotted-spoon-1854740164
[2] https://www.dontwasteyourmoney.com/products/di-oro-heat-resistant-nonstick-silicone-rubber-spatula-3-piece/


What does it mean when a chef says a dish is a "rustic" dish eg. a "rustic pot roast"

There's no standard definition - it's a descriptive term, not a standardized culinary one. In practice, it's often used in fine-dining contexts to denote a deliberately less subtle or carefully assembled dish. Stews are often considered "rustic", in contrast to highly precise cuisine like sushi. A loaf of irregular sourdough bread might be called "rustic" in contrast to a croissant. It's often meant to imply a focus on flavor, simplicity, and familiarity rather than on appearance, originality, or technique.

It's a somewhat disingenuous term in that it's often used by and applied to professionals who focus overall on fine cuisine. It implies something that could have been made with much finer precision and presentation, but was kept deliberately rough. A Michelin-starred chef's chili con carne might be considered "rustic"; your grandmother's chili made with ground beef and tomato paste probably wouldn't be. A roadside barbeque shack's brisket isn't necessarily "rustic", but the same beef cooked and plated in a high-end restaurant would be.

That all said, it bears repeating that this isn't a consistently applied term. It's used in the same way as words like "classic" or "artisanal" - because it sounds good to diners and conveys an impression of simple quality, not because it means anything specific in regards to preparation.


Why do French macarons need two types of sugar?

As this answer was originally downvoted for not being helpful answering all 3 questions in that one single question separately:

a. Powdered sugar contains additives to ensure it doesn't re-crystallize into a big hard rock of sugar under normal atmospheric conditions and only using that one would give the macarons a powdery taste.
b. Using granulated sugar only would change the texture of the macaron as all of the sugar cannot be dissolved in the egg withes.
a. Yes: the undissolved powdered sugar gives the macaron its stickly sweet taste while munching
b. the dissolved granulated sugar gives it it's first hit of taste while biting down.
Making macarons is as much Black Magic as it's a science: even when carefully measuring everything and doing things perfectly, they sometimes don't turn out perfectly, so:

No! Please! Don't change anything!


I bought Cod fish on Sunday afternoon and cooked it Tuesday night.... It was a little chewy, was that because it was bad?

Cod tends to be fairly firm as compared to other white fish (tilapia, etc.) though it can vary a bit in texture depending on the variety.  White fish in general will also tend to overcook fairly easily and will lose moisture quickly.

Typically recipes that specify cooking times "per side" mean top and bottom - i.e. you flip the food over rather than cooking on 4 sides.  That would mean cooking for about a total of 4 minutes which sounds right to me for cod, rather than your 7 total minutes.  That's enough of a margin to result in overcooked fish.

2 days is just about the maximum for safe storage per our generally recommended guidelines (assuming you stored it properly wrapped and refrigerated) but Whole Foods does pretty well with rotating their stock, so it's not especially likely that the fish was significantly older than that.  If you didn't notice any sliminess, offensive or fishy  odor, or other outright signs of spoilage, you are likely safe.  In any case, this sort of decline probably wouldn't cause a change in texture - you'd notice the effect more in the flavor.

Now, unfortunately, since you've already consumed the fish, you might discover for yourself whether it had gone bad, but I think that's unlikely.  The most likely culprit is that it was moderately overcooked.


How shall I arrange my slowly-eating plan and preserve a box of 5Lb frozen eggs over a long period?

I would thaw one pound, and make something with it that I can freeze. For example. I bake quiches in leek and chard season - each quiche uses three eggs. They freeze beautifully once cooked (I slice them into servings before I freeze them) and it's easy to remove one slice, warm it in the microwave, and enjoy. So make three quiches and freeze them, you could eat two slices a day if you wanted to.

You could experiment with a variety of egg dishes that are not just "one egg, scrambled", or "one egg, fried" to use 9 eggs at a time. The internet is full of recipes for frittatas, quiches, soufflees, egg casseroles, and the like. Just remember to cook your creations before freezing, and to partition them for serving.


Is there a substitute for port wine in a dessert risotto?

Please do not use a cooking wine. Those are awful. Pick a juice, any juice. I'd say cranberry. You probably don't want anything too sweet.


There is enough variation in maple syrup that grading systems (regionally different) have been introduced, treating each grade as a separate kind of merchandise. Actually, the more expensive stuff (grade A/AA) is subtler and might appear weak to someone used to the more flavourful and darker B/C grades.


Does it matter if I start boiling hard eggs in hot or cold water?

It depends on how fussy you are about your hard boiled eggs. If you wait until your water is boiling and then add the eggs for the same amount of time, every time, then you will get consistent results. If you add the eggs to cold water a variety of circumstances (actual starting water temp, stove setting, size/style of the pan) will make your results 'inconsistent'.

If you know you like a 12 minute hard boiled egg then you need to start with boiling water or you will get runnier eggs. Once the water reaches 212°F (100°C) it will remain there so long as the same amount of heat is being used. The boiling point of your water (based on other chemicals in the water and altitude) becomes a constant temperature to cook your eggs.

For 'consistency' yes, it matters.


Is it possible to make dough with no water or milk? Please see details for specific ingredients list

The ingredient list usually skips water, unless it's a liquid product (juice, drink). That doesn't mean water wasn't used, or is absent, but often the product after being dried contains very small amounts of it (and difficult to measure, and changing with air moisture and small changes to technological process, and so on). Water being mostly nutritionally neutral is not essential in ingredient lists, and the ingredient list is not a recipe. Also, sometimes the water comes from other sources - e.g. egg, or some syrup, or even butter/margarine. I believe some doughs may be based entirely on fats as liquid too (e.g. clarified butter), but a liquid in one form or another is a must.

As for 'liquid glucose', in common syrup form it's just a water solution (and of course can be used as the binder.) Liquid dehydrated glucose (or sugar) will be extremely hot - to the point of scorching other ingredients, plus it solidifies into hard glassy substance once it cools down. This process is used to make some sweet, in particular mixing with seeds, like sesame, where the heat brings out extra flavor in the seeds. But that's definitely not dough.


There is no way of knowing, from your picture, if there is E. Coli present in your burger, nor is there any way for us to let you know if you will get sick.  However, we can identify the risks and what increases or decreases the risk of infection.  If E. Coli is present, it is typically present on the exterior of a whole muscle.  So, you can decrease your risk of infection by purchasing quality whole muscles from a reputable source, and grinding the beef yourself.  Purchasing pre-ground beef, or pre-made patties, increases your risk, because you don't know the quality of the original cut, or how it was treated during processing.  You can, of course kill E.Coli by cooking, however, you need the relatively high, and generally recommended temperature of 160F (71C), and we now know that some E.Coli survive that.  I don't enjoy my burgers that well done, so I purchase quality whole muscle and grind my own.  Since we don't offer health advice, I can't comment on whether or not you should vomit.


What's is the internal temperature of pancakes?

The typical internal temperature at which most bread products are "done" is between 175-200˚F.  For a normal pancake batter that is enriched with butter, milk, and/or egg, it would likely fall at the lower end of that range.  However, the browned outer crust has likely reached significantly higher temperatures, in the 250-400˚F range.


How many peppercorns to a 2 litre Beef Casserole?

There's no real right or wrong answer here, it's totally subjective as I have no idea what you'd consider "too peppery". I like pepper so too peppery for me is a lot, whereas some of my family can't tolerate any heat, so too peppery is basically the merest hint. I'll try and scale it for you depending on how much heat tolerance you (or your guests) will have:

Likes it hot, real hot. Eats spicy food often and adds hot sauce to everything: don't just add peppercorns, add chili peppers as well. Probably not you
Likes a bit of heat occasionally, gets spicy dishes when going out to a mexican or thai restaurant but doesn't subscribe to hot sauces weekly: 7-8 whole peppercorns plus one whole chili. You pick the chili out whole, and try to keep it from bursting. Adding a whole chili gives a bit of chili flavor but without the heat
Occasionally will go out on a limb and have medium salsa on a chip, but that's where it ends: 5 peppercorns
Mild salsa only, picks the jalapenos off nachos and gives them away: 2 peppercorns
Won't touch anything that even has a chili in the same proximity: 0 peppercorns

I like pepper and spicy food, but I don't like dishes with too much pepper flavor, it can be way too strong. I stop at maybe 7-8 peppercorns and if I want more heat add chili.


How can I make Shepherd's Pie without tomatoes?

The tomato in shepards pie provides acid and is the main coloring agent of the meat portion of the dish. Any other acid will work in place of it, although which you use will entirely depend on how much you want the flavor profile to stay the same.  Adding lemon juice will give your pie a Mediterranean taste, adding others will result in other flavors coming to mind.  You could just leave the tomatoes out and use a roux instead of the flour, that should give you about the same mouth feel just tasting onions and lamb.


How Can One Safely (in a Manner That Rids of Toxins) Cook Red Kidney Beans in a Pressure Cooker?

I think you're conflating two different cooking methods here. Slow-cooking and pressure-cooking are two opposite ends of a spectrum, with boiling in the middle.

Slow-cooking maintains a temperature below the boiling point (100°C/212°F) for an extended period of time. Boiling occurs at, clearly, the boiing point of water. And pressure-cooking makes use of a sealed vessel to raise the vapor pressure inside, which raises the boiling point above its normal temperature and allows for higher-temperature cooking.

The FDA's recommendation relates to the temperature at which the toxin (phytohaemagglutinin) breaks down. 80°C/176°F simply isn't high enough, but the normal boiling point is. It can be safely assumed that even higher temperatures inside a pressure cooker will be sufficient to reduce the toxin to safe levels if cooked for the same amount of time.

Anecdotally, many instructions I've seen recommend a boiling time of 10 minutes (which is sometimes followed by extended slow-cooking). As with many other topics, the FDA's recommendation may be a bit conservative, but it's best to err on the side of caution.

I will comment that in my own judgment about 15 minutes at pressure is likely to be sufficient, because the temperature will spend some time above the normal boiling point as pressure builds, and will again remain above that point as the pressure falls again (especially if you're not venting the cooker, and letting the pressure release naturally). Keep in mind that a big advantage of the pressure-cooker is that it speeds up cooking, to the point where you can cook kidney beans without any pre-soak. If you are soaking, this much time in a pressure cooker will reduce the beans to mush, and you may as well simply boil for the recommended 30 minutes. If you go with a no-soaking method, it'll take at least 30 minutes under pressure (usually more like 45-50 in my experience) for the beans to cook through anyway, so you're fine from a safety standpoint.


What ingredient or method causes a mixture to be a bread versus cake?

Multiple factors give cake and bread its distinct attributes:

Fat/sugar content: a bread is generally very lean. Most traditional breads do not have any fat or sugar in it at all. Cake will generally have a high fat content from either butter, oil, or milk. Breads will taste "drier" than cake because it lacks this fat content. Cake will also have a large content of sugar compared to bread. Often case the sugar is creamed with the butter to give the batter some of its structure. The more air that is incorporated into the sugar/butter mixture the "lighter" the cake will be.
Leavening: Cakes will be leavened using baking soda and/or baking powder. This type of chemical leavening is very quick and will result in lots of little holes within the dough resulting in uniform "soft" texture. Bread on the other hand is primarily leavened using yeast and requires time for the yeast to eat the simple sugars in the dough and produce carbon dioxide which creates the bigger and uneven holes in the bread.
Preparation of batter/dough: Cake will very often use AP or Cake flour which are low in gluten. These cake recipes will generally ask you to "mix until just incorporated." This is to insure that the batter is evenly mixed but not over mixed. This is to prevent gluten formation. Bread on the other hand want this gluten formation so it uses a flour with high gluten content such as bread flour. The kneading and working of the bread dough will align these gluten strands and give the bread the dough structures that make it chewy and "bready."

Note that breads like banana bread, and zucchini bread fall under the category of quickbreads which  is actually more a cake than a bread.


Olive wood cooking utensils: Seasoning, care, and maintenance?

How might I detect varnish?

No utensil intended for real use (other than perhaps as a salad scoop or bowl) should be varnished.

It may be difficult to distinguish a varnish from an polished and oiled surface, but look for a clear shiny type of appearance where the grain of the wood is completely masked.

Are there other steps to seasoning this type of spoon?

Just rub it with mineral oil, as described below, if it is dull and untreated.  If it is already seasoned, there is no need.

You may want to repeat the process two or three times, for a brand new utensil.

[I]s there anything to watch out for when washing/drying?

The main thing, as you have already mentioned, is to not use the dishwasher.  Don't soak it in water.   When you wash it, give it a quick towel dry and then let it air dry.

You don't want water soaking into the grain, which will help raise the grain and may eventually lead to splitting or cracking (at which time the utensil should be discarded).

Is there an upper temperature limit or hot surface type that should be avoided in cooking?

I don't know a specific one; use your good judgement.  Wooden tools are often used in scraping up the fond from a pan after deglazing, which is probably the hottest treatment they would normally be exposed to.

As you happen to have a ladle, you are unlikely to be using it on the bottom of scorching hot pans in any case.

Wood is actually quite fire resistant, and while one may show a few scorch marks at the tip from a very, very hot pan, in general, routine use is not going to harm it.

Should it be maintained by say rubbing it down with some type of oil once in a while?

Yes, occasionally you will want to rub it with a little food grade mineral oil (which resists rancidity).    This will help prevent liquid from soaking into the spoon.

When you see signs that the last treatment is wearing off, wipe it down with just a bit (maybe a half teaspoon or even less for the whole ladle), let it sit an hour or tow, then rub off the excess.

This will help you get a longer life from the ladle without splitting or cracking.

See also:

WiseGeek How Do I care for Wooden Spoons and Cutting Boards


How to shell macadamias without a special tool?

I've used C-clamps before.  You set the macademia in it, then tighten it down 'til it cracks.

You can keep a gloved hand around the nut while turning the screw with the other hand to avoid the risk of flying shell bits.  (but you should be turning slow enough that it doesn't crack explosively)

It does take some time, but it's less than a minute per nut.  It goes faster when they're all similarly sized, so you're not adjusting the clamp signicantly to fit the next one.


How to cook Brussells Sprouts and sweet potates in one oven?

I have this problem frequently of needing to cook different things at the different temperatures in the oven at the same time. I tend to get around it by choosing the average temperature of the two (in your case ~390F) and adjust my cooking times appropriately. At 390F, I would cook for roughly the following times for your foods:

Brussels Sprouts    35"
Sweet Potatoes      70"

They should could in a pretty similar manner to your recipe, but I'd keep an eye on them to ensure they come out perfect.

Hope that helps!

Mike


Does allowing apples to brown before long cooking affect the final flavour?

Browning is oxidation. Oxidation has a distasteful affect to the flavor of many fruit where the star flavor profiles are acidic in nature. In apples, the two acids are malic acid and tartaric acid. Oxidation in combination with these two acids gives apples an artificial candy flavor.

Now I realize this isn't an apple example, but it is a good way to really taste what oxidation can do to fruit and fruit flavors. If you can, find some good strawberry wine (yes it does exist), and then try some cheap strawberry wine. Cheap strawberry wine tastes like strawberry candy, while good strawberry wine tastes like the refined version of the fruit. The difference is the amount of care given to avoid oxidation of the fruit and wine at all stages of the process. Strawberry wine is so easily oxidized that you need to fill chambers with nitrogen gas to keep air away from it. Cheap winemakers don't go to the trouble or additional cost since they are selling at a thinner margin.


What is the difference between expensive wine and regular wine?

There are several factors that increase price. Some are related to the objective quality of the wine, some indirectly linked, other are rather disconnected from quality (but not necessarily irrelevant, as we'll see).
It's also worth noting that being of high quality doesn't necessarily mean being appealing to the average consumer.

Apart from the stuff listed below, mass-market wines tend to be made in a non-challenging, easily accessible style. Lower tannin levels, less acidity and a generous amount of residual sugar (say 10-30g/l) makes for easy quaffing but little complexity or elegance. They can be very well-made, but the agriculture may not be very sustainable, and the fruit probably isn't of the highest quality. (If you visit a winery at harvest when they bring in the bulk wine fruit, the meaning of "quality" becomes rather apparent.)

Wines targeted at connoisseurs, wine snobs and wine geeks (such as yours truly) tend have more structure (tannins, acidity) and are more often completely dry (although there are of course high-quality off-dry, semi-sweet, and sweet wines).

There's a limit to how much a producer can spend to increase quality, a limit which varies with location (because of salaries for workers etc) but around $100 per bottle is probably in the right order of magnitude. This does not mean that all wines above this magical limit are equally good, though.

A dirt-cheap wine will also have a cost associated to it which will be payed for by someone else, like under-payed harvest workers, the environment around the vineyard, etc.

Below are some factors that have a more or less direct link to wine quality and/or character:

Yield per acre: Limiting the vineyard's yield per acre (which can be achieved by sparser planting, thinning/green harvest, old vines, etc) increases the quality of the fruit, but you will produce less wine with more or less the same amount of work, which means you'll have to adjust the price.

Number of harvesting tries: At harvest, you can pick all the fruit of one vineyard at the same time and be done with it. Unfortunately, not all bunches ripen at exactly the same time, so to avoid over- or under-ripe grapes, you can make multiple tries (French, pronounced "trees") over several days and pick each bunch at optimal ripeness. More tries inevitably means more work, and so, price increases.

Selection: When the harvest is brought in, you can throw all the fruit into the press, or you can select the best grapes to make your wine (and make brandy or a second wine of the discarded grapes, or sell them on to a bulk wine producer). Being picky reduces the amount of wine produced, and so, prices increase.

Drying: Some wines, like Amarone and straw wine, are made from partially dried grapes, and drying decreases the amount of wine you produce (apart from being extra work) which means - more expensive wine.

Sparkling: Sparkling wines made with the traditional method - like Champagne and Cava - need to be disgorged after bottle fermentation, which leads to a certain amount of waste (a Cava producer I talked to said that around 10% of the original wine is lost in disgorgement).

Oak aging: Many wines are fermented and/or aged in oak barrels, which greatly affects the character of the wine compared to other types of containers, like concrete or stainless steel vats. (More oak doesn't mean better wine, of course.) Oak barrels are horribly more expensive than the alternatives (and European oak is more expensive than American, and they impart different character), and so, the more oak you use, the more expensive the wine gets.

Aging in general: Most high-quality wine receive a bit of aging before consumption to let all components integrate; some designations of origin even require aging prior to selling. Rioja Gran Reserva, for example, must be aged at least three years, with at least one of those years being on oak, while vintage Champagne is mandated to rest three years on the lees, etc. Apart from time being money, you also need a suitable storage location (cool and humid but not too cool and humid, secure but accessible to yourself, etc) which is far from free. The price increases.

Other factors aren't causally linked to higher quality, but tend to be connected:

Reputation: If you're an unproven winemaker you will be able to charge more if you're operating in a district of high repute than if you're working in an area where no-one has made quality wine before. Conversely, a well-known, high-quality producer expanding their operations to a somewhat less proven district will likely be able to charge more than their new neighbours.

Brand: Marketing can take many forms, such as it advertising, tailoring wines to suit influential reviewers, and tends to push prices up. Wineries can even try increasing prices just to seem more exclusive. You can also be lucky and find some great, undiscovered producer (don't tell anyone! except me, that is) selling their wines at more-or-less cost price (which probably still won't be dirt cheap, though).

Land prices: Some spots are better for growing grapes. If you're in unexploited territory, you might find a great spot and pay next to nothing, but if you're in a region with an established wine industry, odds are all the good spots are taken... and it'll cost you to buy an existing vineyard.

Know-how: Making wine is hard. Unless you are good at it yourself (or a friend, or perhaps your nephew, or your sister-in-law, is), you can hire some hotshot consultant œnologist like Michel Rolland to help you make the most of the fruit you produce... but the consultants will cost you lots of $$$, and your customers will need to pay.

Vintage: Vintages vary in quality and quantity. If a vintage is high quality but low in quantity, we will see less supply and likely higher demand. Having said that, a good year isn't always a guarantee for a good wine (if the winemaker screws up the quality of the fruit doesn't matter), and in a hard year, auspicious microclimates and competent vintners can produce great wines anyway. Furthermore, some years can be very good but have an even better "sibling" year, and don't receive their due hype. For example, 1995 was a very, very good year in Champagne, but 1996 is perhaps one of the greatest vintages evur, so the 1995s can be something of a bargain compared to 1996s.

Some things might not increase quality at all but still have an effect on price (and some of these may still be worth the price!):

Use of pesticides: Using pesticides to counter disease, parasites, pests, etc can increase yield without affecting quality negatively, which lowers the price, but on the other hand you spew out poisons into nature and expose your vineyard workers to them. (The residues left in the finished wine tend to be negligible, though.)

Labour: Paying decent wages to your harvest workers means a costlier wine. Find some illegal immigrants you can pay less than minimum wage and the wine gets cheaper.

Taxes: Some countries have different alcohol taxes for for different ABVs. For example, in Sweden (where I live) the tax is relatively lower for a 15% ABV wine than it is at 16% ABV (which isn't very common, but for example Zinfandels and Amarones can reach that amount). Furthermore, in some countries the alcohol tax depends on the alcohol content solely (which favours expensive wine, as alcohol tax will end up being rather negligible), in others it may be a percentage of the retail price (which favours cheap wine).

Price regulations: At least historically, some districts have regulated the minimum price (and sometimes also the maximum) price a farmer can charge for their fruit when selling it to a winemaker, which inevitably affects the end price.

Export/import: If you buy wine from far away countries, not only are you paying for the transport, but you may also be paying import/export tariffs.

Organic certification: Organic farming doesn't necessarily mean organic certification. The organizations issuing certifications charge a fee, which can be quite hefty for a small producer, so some organic producers aren't labelled as such since they can't afford the certification fees.

Adding gold: Yup, there are wines with actual gold added to them. I can't see that affecting quality in any way, but it'll surely affect the price!

So, to conclude - quality costs, but not all costs impart quality, and quality doesn't equate appeal.


How do you clean and season a cast iron pot?

First I would highly recommend getting the food out of the pot as soon as its cooked. Letting the food sit in the pot for several days is the main problem. The sooner you clean the pot the better. I would scrape the pot (i use a polycarbonate scraper) to get it clean and then heat the pot on the stove to make sure is dry, then finally add the oil after you're sure the water has evaporated. When you apply another layer of oil it is not exactly seasoning the pot unless you expose the oil and pot to very high heats. I would recommend making sure the pot is clean and seasoned well, then try to follow the cleaning above.


Why was our garlic butter made in France, much nicer than garlic butter in England?

The UK supermarkets have the opinion that British people like milder garlic, so most of the garlic you find in the UK supermarkets, even organic garlics, are of a very mild variety. Also, they are bred for yield, in softer soils, so they produce bigger bulbs but less strong.

Garlic found in most French and Italian stores is much stronger, as that is what people demand. It is usually hardneck, rather than softneck garlic, and hardnecks tend to be much stronger. French garlic is usually grown in stronger soils, so it produces a stronger flavor.

My solution is to grow my own, 3 bulbs planted usually yields a years' worth of garlic for me, and because I have clay soil it has a strong flavor. It's by far the easiest and most rewarding thing I've ever grown.

If that's not your cup of tea then ask a greengrocer to stock a stronger variety of garlic, or order it from an Isle of Wight supplier. Of course, you could just use about 4 times as much to get more flavor.


Will lowfat cream cheese keep filling from setting?

Yes, using lowfat cream cheese could be the reason.
Most of the fat content in cream cheese is saturated. Using the right amount of saturated fat in fillings or baking helps them to set or solidify better. If you use Lowfat cream cheese which has about half the fat of regular cream cheese, you are lessening from the solidifying agent of the formula.


Can I fix butter (for a sauce) after putting too much mustard in?

Simply do not use the butter for this dish. Cordon bleu does not require butter, only cheese and ham.

EDIT:

@Joe thinks you mean a mustard sauce to go with the chicken cordon bleu. Is that correct?

OK so in the absence of your verification or any other feedback, the answer is:
you need increase the other ingredients so the ratio butter : shallot : mustard is back in proportion.

For example the recipe calls for

1 Tbsp butter
1 shallot
2 tsp mustard.

but you put in 4 tsp mustard by mistake?

You increase the butter and shallots so it is all double quantity:

2 Tbsp butter
2 shallots
4 tsp mustard.

1 : 1 : 2

2 : 2 : 4

3 : 3 : 6 etc.

On the other hand you can simply just ignore the extra mustard. It may need a little more liquid for the right consistency because there is more starch than usual, but basically the sauce will be just fine. Do not add extra salt before checking the seasoning. The Dijon mustard I use is very salty so I never add any anyhow, but YMMV.

It would be nice if you could acknowledge our various replies, Linda.


Adding beer to my chili gave it a spoiled taste. How can I salvage it?

I doubt you can salvage this dish. Once you add flavors you can't take them out, you can try to compensate and balance using other ingredients, which you have tried. Beer adds sweetness, bitterness from hops and sometimes acidity depending on the type of beer, you would need to judge which one you need to balance and add an ingredient to do that. However, you added baking soda, which is bitter and has a metallic taste, flavors which are unpleasant. Adding more ingredients at this point are unlikely to help, I would suggest you start again.


How deeply will the flavors in a brine penetrate chicken?

I am answering this question, but I am not going to accept this answer, at least not without further research and/or experimentation and editing this answer to reflect that. I am hoping that somebody with a greater knowledge of chemistry and the nature of brining can add to or even credibly contradict the science of what I am saying here. My conclusions are based on the evidence from one experiment. My theory as to "why" barely actually reaches the level of "hypothesis".

THE EXPERIMENT

Making the Brine

For this experiment, I wanted a very strongly flavored brine with a lot of different flavors. I filled a stock pot with water, brought it to a boil and added whole spices in a concentration four times as high as I used in a recent pho (star anise, cinnamon stick, cloves, fennel, broken open cardamon pods). I let that simmer for a few hours and set it on the porch overnight to cool.

The next morning I strained the flavored water and made a 5% salt brine (10 cups flavored water to 4 ounces kosher salt or 3 liters water to 150 grams salt) and included 4 ounces of brown sugar. I brought that to a simmer and proceeded to add just about everything flavorful I had that wouldn't clash. Finely chopped preserved lemon, a full third cup of Ras el Hanout, lots of harissa, lots of grated ginger, an entire head of crushed garlic, about a half cup of dried minced onion (I knew I'd find a use for that) and enough cayenne and red pepper flakes to make the brine about three times as hot as a good hot and sour soup. After adding all that the brine actually measured 12.5 cups so I added another ounce of salt. I'm sure that brought the brine up a little over 5%, but fine for this experiment. I simmered the whole mess for an hour, then set it outside again to cool overnight.

Another poster had shown me pictures of a cross-section of meat that had been brined in a brine that had been colored. That photo was intended to show that the brine barely penetrated the meat. Indeed the color was only visible in the outer few millimeters of meat. That inspired me to do the same, I added two bottles of food coloring to the brine. (A funny aside - I bought food coloring for this experiment. My intention was to use a perfectly appetizing red/orange. I didn't realize that boxes of food coloring came in other than standard colors. I got home with "neon", giving me the options of purple, pink, blue and green. That's why my chicken you'll see in later pictures is fuchsia.)

Brining and Cooking and the Chicken

I used a completely defrosted, 6lb, Foster Farms Chicken. I submerged the chicken in the brine and also lifted the skin as much as I could to get the brine under the skin. I got as much brine as I could under the skin, but I took care to not pierce the meat.

I left the chicken submerged in the brine for 36 hours, refrigerated, flipping and pouring brine under the skin every few hours. Upon removing the chicken from the brine, I rinsed it thoroughly including under the skin, patted it dry with paper towels, and left it uncovered in the fridge for 12 hours to air-dry. I put it on my "set-it-and-forget-it" rotisserie, basting for the last 15 minutes in Mr Yoshida's. Would you believe it? It was one of the best chickens I've ever made! But that's beside the point.

RESULTS

I carved the chicken in layers. I washed the knife after every slice to be sure that I wouldn't carry flavors with the knife. Once the bird was carved, I asked a friend to join me in the tasting. We started tasting at the very inner layer and moved out. At each layer, I asked him what he was tasting but I didn't tell him what I was tasting until we were done. While it was in no way over salted, salt was evident to both of us all the way to the bone. Neither one of us were sure about sugar, it kind of seemed a little sweetened, but if it was it was just too subtle to say for sure. The outer-most layer below the skin was the furthest "in" either of us could sense heat or any other specific flavors other than the salt and possibly sugar already mentioned - with one flavor exception which I'll cover in just a moment. The skin and outermost layer were deliciously flavored, the rest of the chicken was also very good, very juicy.

As you can see in the above picture, the food coloring didn't penetrate at all. I don't think it even would have penetrated the skin if I hadn't separated the skin from the meat to get the brine in-between. That surprised me a bit, especially since I had seen the results of a colored brine on pork, and the color at least penetrated a few millimeters.

Beyond the salt and possibly sugar, there was one very subtle flavor and effect that I noticed in every slice, all the way to the bone. I couldn't put a name to it, so I asked this question a while ago: The name or chemical compound responsible for a specific quality of some spices (numbness) Very quickly, AllisonR gave me the answer I needed. It was eugenol that I was sensing all the way through the chicken. My friend/guinea pig said that he sensed it too, but only after I specifically asked him. Further research into eugenol confirmed something else that I was thinking. Beyond the effect of a subtle numbness, eugenol has its own mild aroma and flavor. That leads me to a theory...

MY THEORY (and a question within an answer)

How the salt in brine penetrates meat has been covered here ad nauseam, so I'm not even going to touch upon that. What I will address is the flavors beyond salt that can be added to brine, as many chefs advocate.

If brine can carry flavors with it into the interior of the meat, why didn't the food coloring penetrate? One of my colors was made of Red 40, AKA Allura Red AC. The molecular formula of Red 40 is C18H14N2Na2O8S2. Blue 1 was another of my colors, molecular formula C37H34N2Na2O9S3. The other colors in my box were Red 3 and Yellow 5. They are similarly huge molecules.

As I said earlier, my brine was very spicy hot. There was some heat evident in the skin of my chicken and the outer layer of meat. Interior of that, there was no heat in the chicken. The molecular formula of capsaicin is C18H27NO3. Now that molecule isn't as huge as the food coloring molecules, but it is still a pretty big molecule.

Of all of the flavorful "stuff" I put into my brine at very concentrated levels, there was only one flavor/effect beyond the salt and (possibly) sugar that I could perceive deep into the meat. That flavor/effect has been identified as coming from eugenol. The molecular formula of eugenol is C10H12O2.

Relative to the food coloring and capsaicin, eugenol is a small molecule, and eugenol was perceptible in my chicken all the way to the bone.

The molar masses of the relevant molecules are: Sodium chloride: 58.44 g mol−1, Sucrose: 342.30 g/mol, Red 40: 496.42 g mol−1, Capsaicin: 305.41 g mol−1, Eugenol: 164.20 g/mol

So my question within an answer is this: Can the size of the molecules explain why most flavors don't seem to penetrate and food coloring definitely does NOT penetrate chicken, but eugenol does?

CONCLUSION

I will continue almost always to brine poultry (and pork for that matter). There is no question to me that brining improves the texture and flavor of the meat. The fact that I could absolutely sense the eugenol in my brine all the way to bone of the chicken concretely supports the idea that brine does, in fact, deeply penetrate poultry. There are advocates here for dry-brining and I'll certainly give that a shot.

Considering the huge variety and the strength of the concentration of flavors in my brine, it is significant to me that none of the flavors (besides the eugenol) seemed to penetrate the chicken. I am now convinced that adding flavor to the brine is a waste. In the future, I will save my spices, fruits and garlic for rubbing the chicken, basting the chicken and adding to sauces. They do nothing for the brine. The one exception seems to be eugenol, and that is a nice (if very mild) flavor, so spices high in eugenol might be worthwhile in brine.

I will continue the search. If my theory that small molecules can travel with the brine is correct, maybe there are other small molecules that can be responsible for nice flavors in chicken. But the straight 5% salt solution seems to be what matters. If I find another flavor that actually flavors the chicken, I will update this post.


Japanese term for when the Sushi chef prepares meal for you


What's the best way to keep cover of a pan slightly opened?

Tilt the lid.
It will stay where you put it… approximately.
 See pan top left & pyrex bottom right; they will stay like that all day if needed

If it really refuses to stay, then wedge a spatula [or any other bit of wood or plastic (& of course, not metal if it's going in the microwave) of any appropriate size]* in it, either from the edge, down the handle, as at bottom left, or right the way across then balance the lid on top of that, as at top right. The latter will also go in a microwave.

*This is physics 101 - put something in that's big enough to hold the lid ajar, yet not big enough to get in the way of anything else & not small enough to fall in & get lost in whatever you're cooking…


What difference does oxygen content of tea water make?

All moving water has dissolved oxygen in it. That is what fish breath

Dissolved oxygen is reactive, and will most likely extract more substances from the tea leaf, than without it. If these are the good flavour parts of tea, I do not know?

When you heat water it starts to release the dissolved oxygen. The more you heat water the more oxygen escapes

You can buy tea making kettles that bring water up to 95°C (203°F), but not boiling, so as to decrease the amount of dissolved oxygen lost, but still making the water hot enough to brew tea. They also save energy :-) I use one of these, and am happy with it

Example Kettle

Some people "watch" their kettle, and switch it off just before the water boils!

It is a personal taste preference if tea tastes better when brewed in water with more dissolved oxygen or not


What are food combinations that trick your taste buds into tasting sweet?

Though your yogurt was unflavored, it almost certainly still contained lactose (milk sugar), so it should still taste a bit sweet regardless of whatever was added to it. And as Catija points out, "unflavored" doesn't apply to added sugar, of which there can be quite a lot in yogurt (and almost every other prepared food).


Is there something wrong with this scallop residue?

Comments in this blog comment could offer a clue to the blue color. The most relevant part says:

  The blue color in the liquid is due to a change in the natural
  chemical composition of the scallop meat during spawning.

That doesn't explain the hard white stuff, but maybe it'll put you on the right track. If there's a state or university agricultural extension near you, they might be able to shed some more light on the mystery.


What's the difference between Santa Cruz Rum and Jamaican Rum?

The difference seems to have been smaller than that. (I'm not an expert on the subject, but I did read this page.)

You can probably use any aged rum here; light rum would probably have too little flavor and spiced rum probably wouldn't fit. Of course, it depends on the specific recipe.


How can I clean white burn marks in the center of my glass top burner?

I've heard of people having luck using a razor blade (like one for scraping paint from a window). Just be careful, as the glass could probably scratch easily.


How to substitute butter with combination of butter and shortening in cookie/biscuit making?

The texture of a cookie is based on much more than the fat used, shortening or butter.  In fact, within some basic limits, they are fairly interchangeable in most cookie recipes, flavor not withstanding.

Switching to part or all vegetable shortening will not yield a flaky texture.

The method by which the ingredients are combined, and how the cookies are treated, mixed, or rolled is a dominant factor in the final texture.

As Sourd'oh points out, your variation is more likely to be a result of over-cooking or under-cooking.   The individual size of each cookie can make a considerable difference, especially with very small cookies.

If you are getting inconsistency within the same tray, you may not have uniformly sized cookies.  A cookie scoop or disher can help with that, as can practice.

To get a truly flaky texture, you would need to use a recipe and method specifically designed to create flakiness.  These cookies are often built with a variation on the laminated methods used for biscuits, where butter is cut into the dough, and then moistened.   When they are rolled out, the pieces of butter flatten into layers, separating the flour layers, and providing the flakiness.


Is there really such a thing as a muffin scoop?

Cookie Scoop, Muffin Scoop, Disher.... They come in all sizes and are useful for a whole lot (except I don't like them for ice cream). See here:
http://www.kitchenconservatory.com/Dishers-and-Scoops-C461.aspx

Alton brown frequently uses these scoops for all sorts of things on "Good Eats", including his episode "The Muffin Method Man" where he uses a #20 scoop:
http://www.goodeatsfanpage.com/Season7/Muffin/MuffinTrans.htm

Another example of using scoops for muffins.
http://www.goodlifeeats.com/2010/10/kitchen-tip-trick-for-filling-muffin-tins.html