Unfortunately not. The Delonghi/Kenwood mixers have a different attachment interface than KitchenAid, with a hexagonal shank and a different mechanism for retaining the attachment.


Dried tofu - does it have another name, and where can I get it in the UK?

I wonder if it was bamboo tofu or "tofu skin": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tofu_skin


How can I keep a slow roasted pork belly roll warm while roasting potatoes?

It's normal to rest meat before carving, sometimes for quite a long time.

The oven will already be hot after cooking the meat, even if not quite as hot as you'd use for potatoes. so I suggest you parboil the potatoes (often recommended anyway) and put the roasting tin and fat into the oven to preheat when the pork is nearly done. Then take the pork out of the oven, put the potatoes in and turn it up. The pork should rest under cover on the container in which it was cooked. A loose (tented) foil lid with a tea towel or two over the top is good insulation. If you want to speed things up further, you could turn up the oven a few minutes before taking the pork out. The effect on the pork will be minor (in most ovens) but the potatoes will cook quicker and may be more crispy.  I doubt you'll get very crunchy crackling at that temperature anyway.


Parsley root is not the same as parsnip. It tastes more like parsley, which is not really a surprise. Parsley roots don't get as sweet and delicious when you roast them as parsnips do, in my opinion - I get plenty of both from my Community Supported Agriculture box and buy a lot of parsnips as well.

If you can't find parsnips you could use parsley root as a substitute rather than going without. On the matter of "baby" parsnips --  I just cut the large ones into more pieces. The centre of the largest ones are woody sometimes, but unless it's 4" or more across (which I have seen) you have nothing to worry about.


What's the best method for preparing a smoked cod roe breakfast?

Try using it as you would smoked Salmon and thinly slice or spread it over a bagel with cream cheese or slice it and stir it with scrambled eggs right before they are done or serving it with hollandaise egg


Cooking fishcakes for 1 year old---how to hold shape AND get soft juicy texture?

In my experience cooking for small children I've found that just because they like a set of ingredients doesn't mean they will like them combined if the texture changes. I child who likes chicken and vegetables won't necessarily like chicken stew. A child who likes fish won't necessarily like a fishcake as the fishcake has a very different texture.

That being said it could be that the particular type of fishcake you are making isn't to your child's taste. I think the reason is the breadcrumbs. Breadcrumbs are a good binding agent for ingredients that have lots of moisture and fat to release during cooking - as the mix cooks the breadcrumbs soak up the moisture and keep the mix together and retains some of the moisture. Fish and shellfish are pretty lean to begin with, and as they are usually pre-cooked when making fishcakes they will have already lost most of their moisture. If you use breadcrumbs to bind the mix there will not be enough moisture to wet them. You could add a bit of water but then you're going to get a soggy mess.

I would suggest making fishcakes with mashed potato instead of breadcrumbs as a binder. The potatoes are naturally moist and hold things together well. I typically use a 60-40 ratio of fish to potatoes by weight. You can coat the outside of the patty with breadcrumbs when frying them off to give the surface some crunch.


Based on the wikipedia article, it sounds like you want the pulp and skin as well.  It sounds like you won't get the same texture, consistency or sweetness by only reducing grape juice.

However, I found this cool how-to page on how to make grape must jelly.  I think the hand-crushing grapes part will be the most relevant to you.

You could use some kind of pressing machine, such as an OJ squeezer, to get the same effect without red hands.  I'd stay away from blenders and puree machines, as cutting foods doesn't have the same effect as crushing them.

I don't think I've had grape must, so you'll have to be the judge on how much or how little of the pulp goes into your final product.


This is an opinion answer, but and noted in the US "sushi grade" is a marketing label only, not a legal, inspected standard so unless you trust the vendor means very little.  Other places it has actual meaning.  In all cases you should likely go by what your local standards are, the reputation of the source and your own feeling.  Something may be safe, but if it does not feel safe to you, then don't trust it.

In general, my opinion on Ceviche but not backed by research is that it is an "acid cooked" item so is not raw but also has not had heat applied as we know.  This says to me that some potential pathogens have been eliminated, but not necessarily all.  As long as fresh, quality product is used, the main concern in sushi and ceviche of common proteins is usually parasites.  The curing with kill some, but quite possibly not all, so ceviche has less of a worry than sushi, but is not free from fear.

So, my opinion would be to avoid any fish even of high quality which might be prone to parasites, so I would use no fresh water fish.  Fish like salmon spend part of their life in fresh, part in salt which makes them more susceptible, so I would tend to use them only if they meet sushi standards.  In the US that means hard frozen to kill parasites while in  some other places that means well inspected.  I would always avoid any farm raised item myself as the crowding and often poor water exchange in the rearing increases risk.  Of salt water creatures, I would tend to go for ones which are deeper water, not ones which habit shallow or possible brackish waters which would in my mind increase exposure.  If it was an item that seemed more at risk, salmon as an example, then I would want sushi quality only.  Mahi Mahi though, a fast growing salt water fish I would just look for good quality from a reputable source.  My choices would vary by variety.


Cleaning plastic bags used for sous vide

I agree with @moscafj's answer to the linked question. As long as they are thoroughly washed and dried, the bags should be safe. However, you are still left with the smell.

Some plastics will absorb odors and it can be quite unpleasant. My go to for any issue with odors in plastic is baking soda. It works well in absorbing these odors and getting them out of the plastic material.

I would suggest placing some baking soda inside the bags and closing them up. Let them sit for a few hours or overnight. Discard the baking soda, then rinse well and dry thoroughly.  If there is a small amount of residual odor, you can repeat the process. At the most, twice should definitely take care of it.


The answer is simple: your test batches were less airy, and more dense.  The heat from the oil was likely unable to penetrate the dough as effectively and cook the interior.

If the recipe turned out properly the first time around, that's probably not the issue.  If your concern is with storing the doughnuts  (though how you would have any left is a mystery to me!) then you may want to check out more effective methods of storage.  There may be some helpful guidelines in this thread.


What was Indian food like before the arrival of the chili pepper from the Americas?

Hardly - pepper was exported from India before chillis were introduced. Some linguistic subgroups still use it in preference to chillis, and certain dishes use it in preference to (or in addition to) chillies.

Ginger's also native (or at least an early import) to India (and while not always used in 'traditional' cooking), I do believe that garlic and ginger were as well.

Many other spices - one of the cinnamon varieties, cardamom and quite a few other spices were native.

While fairly well known, chillis aren't essential to cooking.

Oddly enough, the 'source' I used to try to reverse engineer what are 'native' and what aren't is the traditional funeral anniversary or 'thevasam' menu. While essentially vegetarian, it would use mostly native produce and spices. You can find an example here, though specifics tend to differ with cultural groups or even families


Assuming a typical 1200 W to 1400 W microwave

For gold (skin and interior) sweet potato around 4 to 5 minutes per 300 g (large first size)

For purple (skin, and cream interior) sweet potato around 5 to 6 minutes per 300 g

Allow at least a minute sitting time before cutting or serving to allow for an even cook


How long should I let a tea with lemongrass steep?

An0r4k,

I assume that you're making a cup of black (?) tea and steeping some lemongrass in it. If so, perhaps you should make the black tea very weak as its tannins might be amplifying the (pleasant) slight bitterness of the lemongrass to distasteful levels.

Alternatively, if you are steeping the lemongrass in hot water, try removing the outer layers of the lemongrass stalk. If they are old or tough, this can increase the bitterness of the drink.

In any case, check that there isn't any dirt trapped between the layers of the lemongrass.

Some recipies call for putting the lemongrass into water, bringing it to a boil and then letting it simmer for 10-15 minutes. I haven't tried this. Even if it does produce a smoother taste, then the boiling might well degradge any health-giving nutrients from the lemongrass.


Using noodle cooking water to loosen sauce?

I always reserve a bit of pasta water to add it to the pan. The reason is simple: if you drain your pasta and add it to the sauce the pasta will suck up all the sauce and become a bit dry. Adding the pasta water ensures that your pasta will remain moist. Also yes, it helps thickening the sauce (this does not necessarily apply to tomato sauce).

Now, let's be clear: you DO NOT add your pasta water to the sauce when you are preparing the sauce. You only add it when you put your pasta in the sauce. It also helps if you don't drain the pasta, just take it out of the boiling water (using tongs, ofc) and put it in your sauce while still on the stove. A quick 30-50 secs stir and that's it.

Hope this helps.

PS: 1/2 cup seems like a lot to me. For two portions of pasta I usually add around 3 tablespoons.


Cake Cooking Time: Burning on outside - raw in the middle

This might have something to do with the amount of oil in your recipe. There is a lot of liquid - traditional pound cakes are traditional, but that doesn't mean that they're a good ratio.

Reduce ratio of oil to at least 1/4 and experiment from there - another factor is the type of oil that is being used. Certain types and qualities of oil have lower smoking points, and so burn at a lower temperature. I have tried recipes that use no oil (fat) whatsoever and remain successful.

Do you use any leavening agents? Baking powder/baking soda? If not, I would add 2tsp baking powder and 1/2tsp baking soda. As well as a pinch of salt.

Experiment by reducing the oven temperature to 160C or 325F, cook for an additional 15 - 20 minutes. To test done-ness, the traditional toothpick method is good (putting a toothpick into the thickest part of the cake and removing to check for crumb - crumbs mean more cooking) otherwise; if you press lightly on the surface of the dough and it 'springs' back, as well the cake should have pulled away from the outsides of the pan (I am a pastry chef and find this method most helpful).

If you continue to have difficulty, get that oven checked out.


Why does my 1 tablespoon of coffee grounds not equal 15 ml?

Your scale is measuring weight, not volume.

Some scales do have an option to "convert" to volume, but they have to do so based on density; they don't actually know what's on top of them. So unless yours is really fancy, and has a bunch of densities programmed into it, so that you can say "this is flour" and let it convert, it's probably just assuming everything is water, with a density of 1g/mL.

And this should be really easy to confirm. Just toggle it from weight to volume. If it says 13mL is 13g, then that's what it's doing.

So then it's telling you that your 2.5 tablespoons of coffee is 13g, not 13mL, because it's around 1/3 as dense as water.


When the dosa batter gets fermented, it doubles in volume and aereates well. To know if the dosa batter is over fermented, just taste a small part, it turns out sour.
To prepare dosa batter, be sure the temperature is not too hot. If it is, it won't take much time to ferment the batter (5-6 hours). Refrigerate the batter so that it does not get over fermented.


Why specifically use Passata, rather than tomatoes, in Ragu?

The primary reason is definitely convenience. If you don't want skin and seeds in your sauce, then you have to do some work to avoid it. Yes, it's possible, e.g. passing through a food mill, or blanching and peeling plus retaining only the flesh, but having it already done is a whole lot easier.

Passata is usually much thicker too, so it won't need as long a cooking time to reduce into a non-watery sauce as fresh tomatoes. On top of that, you don't have to worry about whether you can find good fresh tomatoes, e.g. if it's winter and they're out of season.

Your two cases for comparison seem to overlook this: if you just chop and cook, you'll have skin and seeds in your sauce, as well as excess liquid to cook down, while if you use passata, you won't. (Also, for what it's worth, you'd need pretty giant tomatoes to get the equivalent of 3/4 cup of passata out of one tomato.)

Of course, if you don't mind skin and seeds, it's also perfectly fine to simply cook fresh tomatoes and be done with it.

Note that you can often get similar advantages from other canned tomato products. In the US, crushed tomatoes are far more common, and a roughly similar texture. (Peeled whole tomatoes, diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, and tomato paste can also be useful depending on what texture you're aiming for.)


Should you ever add aromatic veggies to a dish without sauteing them first?

If the recipes were truly interesting in 'releasing the flavors', they'd be sweating the onions, not sauteing them.  Sauté is a higher-heat method that will cook the vegetables to create other chemical compounds, thus changing their flavor.

In the case of garlic and onions, this cooking makes them dramatically sweeter.  But sometimes you don't want that -- you may want the sharp bite of the garlic, and to do that, you need to add it near the end of cooking, without it having been cooked.

Also of note is that if you are cooking in an acid (such as tomatoes), the acid will slow or possibly stop the vegetables from softening ... so if you want your onions to dissolve into the sauce, they need to be cooked first.  If you them to add some chunkiness and the possible burst of onion when someone bites in, you want to add it later.

As others have noted -- in many cases, you'll add a given ingredient twice -- maybe some garlic to mellow out at the beginning of cooking, and then a crushed clove or two towards the end of the cooking.


What is the purpose of heavy cream in a mushroom duxelle?

The heavy cream is basically protein and fat, with some water which you're cooking off.

I think the cream is there to bind, as the mushrooms will probably not quite "stick" well enough.

It also adds to the volume of the completed paté.

Last, but not least, I have been told that cream is tasty. It's there, among other things, to add to the flavour.


How much star anise should I add to a stew?

Star anise is fairly potent.  For me, it is in the same category as cloves, in terms of potency.  I would use one "star" for starters.  Adjust from there.


My husband and I regularly grind our own meat. What we do is trim the meat before cubing. If any connective tissue / silver-skin is on the outside of the meat or running through the meat we are getting it off of a larger piece of meat, which is much easier because you can get a better hold on it.

We also use a filet knife for trimming the tough tissue. It allows you to trim much closer and with much more control, minimizing any waste.

And last but not least, chilling the meat helps also. While you don't want it frozen, firm is easier to handle.


This is the correct calculation. There is nothing going on in the yogurt to change its fat content. (You can't use a similarly easy calculation for carbohydrates, as the culture consumes some of them).

Your math is correct. Is it "extremely fat"? In yogurt-terms, not at all. I have regularly seen 10% yogurt from cow's milk; yogurts from other species can easily be fatter. So, compared to general yogurt numbers, it's just a normal yogurt.


Can I cook two types of dried beans simultaneously?

Most beans can be soaked and cooked together with two exceptions.

The beans should obviously have similar cooking times. For example I wouldn't cook chickpeas with other, harder beans because the chickpeas would be mush. Most varieties do have similar cooking times so this isn't often a problem.

Second, black beans shouldn't be soaked with any other beans because they will stain the other beans a very unappealing gray color. Admittedly this is cosmetic but I soak my black beans separately


Preheat or do not preheat an enameled cast-iron dutch oven?

With enameled cast-iron, I don't bother to heat the pot before adding the oil. For something that's open-pored, like plain cast-iron or carbon steel (like an old-school crepe pan), it's better to preheat the pan. I can't see any chemical advantage to preheating enameled, as it's inert and non-porous. Of course everything DOES need to be properly hot before you add the meat.

I can take or leave letting my roast get to room temp when doing a braise. It's going to be in the oven/pot long enough that it's going to be cooked to 200+ degrees all the way through no matter what. The only possible advantage of letting it warm up on the counter is that it will take marginally less time to cook. And by marginally, I mean you probably won't even notice, on the scale of pot roast cooking time. For a steak or a rib roast where you want the middle warm without the outside being totally dry and charred, room temp helps a lot.

The only real tip I can give on pot roast is to use the right cut of meat. You want something from the shoulder, which usually means chuck. It has an excellent mix of rich meaty flavor, collagen/connective tissue (which makes that gelatin thats critical to the silky mouthfeel of pot roast and BBQ), and fat. You can also use something from the leg (shank) or tail, which also have loads of connective tissue, but they're usually a little low on actual meat. If you get the right cut of meat and cook it low and long enough to get that collagen rendered, it's pretty hard to mess up the rest of it.


Can I ferment black garlic intermittently?

YES. Yes, you can. I just did.

My first attempt in my rice cooker had uncovered garlic heads in it for 10 continuous days-- the result was black but dried hard as rocks (and the process stank up the entire house the whole time).

My second attempt involved wrapping each head in two layers of foil, then putting the garlic in a much lower temperature warming oven (no thermostat at all, just a light bulb) for 10 days, which resulted in beige garlic. I then switched it over to the rice cooker for 2 days, turned it off, checked them, then another 2 days, turned it off, forgot about it for a day, checked them... another 2 days, turned it off, checked them... and found DELICIOUSNESS.

It needs more time, I think, it's not as sweet as I'd like yet and could be a little darker. I've seen some Koreans mention finishing the batch by just hanging the garlic in a bag for a week, so that's what I'm going to do.


When preserving food, safety is of top importance, so I would not recommend experimenting haphazardly with sealed jars and preservatives. Generally, cooked leftovers can be kept in the fridge for 3 to 4 days with no special treatment. If you need to keep your sauce for longer than that, we need to do something else.
Pressure canning cooked meat is feasible; however, it uses specialized equipment. It also requires some exactitude to do safely. Unless you are interested in diving into the rabbit hole of canning, I do not think this technique would be convenient.
Using acid to preserve your sauce is a bad idea. Although vinegar or another acid can prevent microbial growth (for example, in a jar of pickles) any significant quantity will make your sauce too sour as you already observed.
Freezing is probably your best bet, both from a food safety and a convenience perspective. Put the sauce in a plastic container, or even better a plastic bag. It can be safely frozen for weeks or months. When ready to use, there are multiple ways to safely defrost the sauce. But the easiest is just to reheat from frozen, either on the stove or in the microwave.


You should have no problem using good quality frozen cod for salt cod. Freezing breaks up some of the tissues and changes the texture, notably making it drier as freezing drives out some of its moisture, so you might not need as much salt to dry it to the same level.

In some places the "fresh" fish you see in the store has actually been frozen for the trip before being thawed and sold for more than the same fish still frozen, so whether you'd be getting fresh cod is debatable depending on your location.


A recipe calls for Brown Ale, I didn't want to use beer, are there any substitutions?

No beer!? Hmmm.

Well, I can't think of anything that would give you the same flavor, and as a component of the dish it looms quite large...3 day marinade in beer? No way to replace that, and brown ale is distinctive and nutty.

Beer and wine are natural tenderizers, which is what the marinade is for...They're some of the only ones that aren't acidic (buttermilk and yoghurt are others...Obviously not a good choice here) so filling that role without changing the character of the dish is going to be a serious challenge.

Are you looking for a non-alcoholic substitution, or just a non-beer one?

Since tomatoes and apples feature, you might try marinating in cider or tomato juice (depending on which flavor you want to push). You won't want to marinate for anywhere near the same amount of time: those two are acidic enough to digest your meat after 3 days. Might try apple cider and apple cider vinegar mixed. Vinegar marinated beef has an interesting twang to it.


I've used yeast that was even older than yours and although the taste of the resulting bread was fine, and it foamed up properly when tested, I found I had to use about 50% more of it to get the same density of the bread.  In the end, I threw it out because it was too much trouble to experiment with it every time.


It sounds like whey.  Evidently your block was insufficiently strained before being pressed into the mold.


Summary: The cure to hard or overly chewy fat is generally longer cooking, but you may also want to consider trying a different source for procuring steaks.

My guess, based on the description in the question, is that this is a collagen issue.  Beef fat will begin to melt over around 100F (~40C), and it will begin rendering in earnest by the time you hit the "medium rare" temperature.  (That's often why "medium rare" is considered ideal for steaks; it's not as tender as rare or "blue" meat, but the fat rendering makes it taste more succulent.)  If the steak is really done to "medium well," it should be plenty warm enough to get the process of internal fat melting going well.

[Sidenote: I'm not sure I understand the question description of the fat as "cold" or "uncooked" -- it's basically impossible for internal fat to have those characteristics when surrounded by muscle cooked to medium-well, unless you have a giant vein of connective tissue running through the middle of the steak.  However, fat has a different heat capacity than muscle, and it often seems to be at a different temperature when eaten.  I'm guessing that's what's going on here?]

So if the fat is still tough, the problem seems most likely to be collagen content.  Collagen gradually converts to gelatin during cooking, a process that speeds up as the cooking temperature gets higher.  While collagen is found in greater quantities in tougher muscles (e.g., the chunk or shoulder), it also helps to hold the structure together even in more tender cuts.  Often, the stuff we call "gristle" in fatty steaks isn't the true gristle of elastin and tendon which wouldn't be broken down with prolonged cooking, but merely fat or connective tissue with a higher collagen content.  In a pot roast cooked for many hours, this stuff would gradually turn into gelatin.

Anyhow, there are many different types of collagen too, some of which take much longer or higher temperatures to break down.  Depending on the diet of the animal, how it is exercised, how old it is at slaughter, and whether (and how) the meat is aged, the collagen around and within some sections of fat -- even typically "tender" fatty cuts like ribeye -- can be quite tough and resistant to breakdown.  The biggest factor is often age: as an animal gets older, the types of collagen networks get more complex and harder to break down.

If this is indeed the issue in your steaks, there are two solutions:

Try buying different steaks.  It could be your source.  I don't know where the OP is from, but in the U.S., grocery stores (for example) often sell ungraded meat under "store brands."  The meat isn't necessarily bad quality, but one reason to not bother to grade the meat is that the animal is a little older at slaughter, which automatically will disqualify the meat from the higher grades most people look for.  Or it could contain very little marbling, which tends to mean that the fat which is present has a higher concentration of connective tissue.  I've had plenty of grocery-store steaks over the years which had flavorful muscle, but most of the fat would never render and would remain tough, likely due to higher collagen content.  This seemed to be much more common in steaks from some stores, but not at others.  (Also, if you're in the U.S., be careful to note that graded steaks should specify USDA grading and generally carry the USDA seal -- it's actually perfectly legal for stores to sell an ungraded steak under a label like "America's Choice," even if the meat is not USDA Choice grade.)
If you can't change sources, or the problem still occurs, the solution is longer, slower cooking.  Perhaps a lot longer.  Collagen breakdown can occur at lower temperatures, but the higher the temperature, the faster it will happen.  If you want to cook for a long time but still maintain a medium or medium-rare steak, the ideal method is sous vide (i.e., sealed meat in a water bath held to constant temperature).  Alternatively, I have had success with a long, slow-roasting method cooking a steak in a very low oven (perhaps one that is barely heated to "warm" and then turned off; you'll probably need to monitor the internal steak temperature with a probe) for a couple hours, then searing very quickly before eating.  This latter method often gets me closest to the "steakhouse" experience at home, since the slow-roasting at low temp effectively does a bit of accelerated dry-aging, and the fat in a cut like a ribeye will often end up soft, buttery, and ready to burst with juices.  (However, even after a couple hours of slow cooking, I've still had some grocery store steaks where the fat remained tough.  I stopped buying steaks at those stores.)
Just as another note: I mentioned above that I didn't really believe the fat could still be uncooked and cold in a medium-well steak.  If, for some reason, I'm wrong, and that is actually happening here, the solution will still be longer, slower cooking to even out the temperature as the meat cooks.  You may not need to go to the extremes I mentioned in the previous point, but you'll perhaps want to slow down the cooking process significantly.

Of course, these alternate cooking methods will take long, and most people want to cook their steak for a few minutes and then eat.  In that case, I'd strongly recommend trying meat from a different source and see if your results improve.


Can I safely run the microwave for an extended time with just a bowl of water?

Sure you can - heating water is essentially what microwaves are built for. They heat food by heating the water inside. So skip the pizza and use plain old tap water.

You want to take two small precautions, though:

Use a microwave-safe container, e.g. a heat-proof glass or porcelain bowl.
Take precautions against overheating - a small stone or toothpick should do the trick.


What, if at all, is the difference of cooking an egg on high or low heat?

The proteins in egg white and egg yolk behave differently at different temperatures.  It is an ingredient that responds to very subtle temperature variations.  That is why it is a favorite item to cook for those of us interested in low-temperature cooking using an immersion circulator (sous vide).

However, predating the immersion circulator, the Japanese lowered eggs into the Onsen hot springs, cooking them low and slow, to produce a texture that was not able to be produced any other way. More recently,  Dave Arnold created a handy chart that illustrates eggs cooked sous vide at various temperatures.

Of course, when cooking in a pan, you have less precise control, however, you can certainly come up with different results by using high heat, medium heat, or low heat.  In fact, ChefSteps has instructions for a "fried" egg that they called the "emoji egg." It uses very low heat and takes several minutes.

All of this to say is that you are able to control the texture of the white and yolk with subtle variations in temperature. Also keep in mind that at higher temperatures, the browning of fat in pan and egg white will contribute to flavor. There is also an added bonus of lower temperature egg cookery for some people who experience, and are turned off by, the sulfur aroma that eggs cooked with higher heat have.  It turns out that cooking below 72.5 C (162.5 F) keeps these aromas at bay.


Can I remove frost from frozen chicken breasts and re-package?

I'd recommend just cooking them sooner rather than later. If you had to do anything, I'd consider cracking & brushing off the surface ice without thawing them, then vacuum sealing them ... but still try to use them quickly.

If the texture is a little off, or the flavor a little lacking, you can always use the rest in either soup or a casserole, where the texture isn't as much of an issue and there are other flavors to help compensate.


How many people would a bushel of average sized blue crabs feed?

There's no fixed number, as you have too many other variables:

How big are the people eating?  (athletes are going to eat more than kids or people on diets)
What are they being served with?  (If it's just a table filled w/ crabs, they're going to eat more than if you have other side dishes available)
How experienced are the people with eating crabs?  (Some folks are so slow at picking crabs they'll give up in annoyance.  Others are so skilled they'll wolf them down quickly.  In high school, some folks I know from the Eastern Shore would pick the backfin out then trash the rest, ignoring the flake and the claws)
How are they being served?  (very spicy will slow most people down.  And you have to remind the crab newbies to wash their hands before using the bathroom)
What temperature is it?  (on really hot days, people eat less)
How long is it going to be?  (if you're hanging out all day, people might get a second wind and go for more crabs)

I'm going to guess that if they're 'mixed', they're probably mediums, so maybe 7 or 8 dozen per bushell.  3 or 4 crabs per person is about typical, adjusting mostly based on the the factors above.  (large, physically active folks or experienced pickers might eat 6 or more ... inexperienced folks often give up by the second one ... but you'll want more if you're doing it as an all-day thing, or if it's almost all crabs and hardly any sides)

I guess just make sure you have plenty of drinks and some sides for those that give up on the crabs or if you run out.

...

And don't just go and pitch the shells afterwards ... you can generally get quite a bit more meat going them a second look through (the folks who skipped claws if nothing else), and picking whatever's left over.  Freeze that meat, then rinse the legs (most people don't crack and suck them) to get most of the seasoning off, crack them, and simmer them to make a crab stock for bisque.  If you have a really large pot, go for the rest of the shells, too ... strain, boil it down to concentrate it, then freeze.

You'd be tempted to add extra stuff to the stock besides the shells, but as we don't know how much seasoning's still on the crabs, you really need to wait 'til it's done, then add other stuff when using it to make the final dish.


How long is wheat good for after harvest?

I can give you the traditional aproach my local mill uses:

Harvest season is just a few weeks per year. The mill will during that time buy the amount of grain they need for one year - from harvest to harvest. The grain gets sorted, tested, dried and cleaned if necessary, and is then put into storage.

During the year, it gets milled. The two factors here are capacity and demand. A mill works year-round, it makes no sense to let the machines stand idle for a long time. So there is a maximum capacity they can process per year - and a good management won't buy more. Also, there are times of higher demand (think holiday baking) which need more flour to be milled in advance. The grain should rest for a few weeks after harvest for better quality. I'm no scientist, but I trust my miller on this.

A good mill will strive to sell the flour as soon as possible after it is milled, partly for economic, but mostly for quality reasons. While especially white flour won't spoil for months (recommended: one year), darker or especially whole grain flours get rancid quickly and quality decreases. (E.g. changes in taste and moisture content and enzymatic degradation which influence the baking process and results.)

The whole grains on the other hand can easily be stored for well over a year, multiple years in fact.

Big industrial mills work in a similar way, just on a way larger scale and the flour has a longer time from mill via stores to the customer.


How to interpret this recipe for walnuts harvested at a given time?

I wouldn't get too hung up on such a specific date. The date given is likely because of it's proximity to Midsummer's Day celebrations. In Italy and France the harvesting of green walnuts was traditionally tied with St. John's Day.

The keys for harvesting green walnuts are:

Bright green exterior as walnuts will turn yellow-ish as they ripen.
Before the hard wooden shell develops, the nut should cut in half easily. I've seen some recipes suggest putting a pin thru the nut to test if it's still soft enough.
When the size is between a large olive and small egg

The only issue I could see with harvesting too early was that the size of the nut may be too small. Harvest too late and the wooden shell will start to form.

You'll probably have a window of about 6 weeks to find green walnuts that fit the conditions above. If you have your own tree you have the benefit of being able to see the nuts as they grow and mature. Otherwise you could try asking your produce provider when they usually have green walnuts to get a good idea of what dates are common in your area. I'm guessing to closely match the recipe you'll want to be on the early side of that 6 week period.


My roommate and I have a Weber Smokey Mountain Cooker, and in general, we've found that smoking times can vary a lot based on a number of different factors that tend to be hard to control. We've done beef brisket about 8 or 10 times now, and we've had some go for 8 hours and some take as long as 14.

It seems to be a function of the amount of connective tissue you need to break down. You've probably already noticed the "smoking plateau" that occurs around the 165-175 degree internal temperature mark -- when that happens there is nothing you can do but wait until the temp starts rising again and hits your target final temperature.

So to answer your question -- for larger pieces of meat, just start early and allow for wide variances in cooking times (we usually start the night before for an afternoon BBQ party). Luckily, most smoked meats taste great 3 or 4 hours after you've pulled them off (if wrapped and stored correctly). Knowing when to put on smaller pieces of meat (e.g. chicken parts/sausages/fish) will just come with experience, but since they rarely take more than an hour or two to cook, you won't be off by that much anyways.


How can I prevent tea stored in a thermos from oversteeping?

As posted in comments by members of the community (and adding my own), several tips can help you get good warm tea in your thermos at wake-up:

Choose loose leaves instead of tea bags to avoid tea dust that would overinfuse your tea in the thermos. The small amount there is in tea bags, is heavy enough to sink to the bottom very quickly, so if you pour the tea slowly into your thermos, you can discard it. You can also rinse the tea before brewing with cold water to help expel any excess dust, or (as done in many tea-drinking countries) throw out the first cup of tea made with new tea leaves.
If you're just using tea bags, why not just keep the thermos bedside and then toss the tea bag in in the morning?
You could try heating cold-infused and strained tea in the evening and put it into the thermos; it has a brewing time of 8 to 12 hours, so you'd have to start this around noon. If you have a microwave close enough to your bed, you could also use cold infusion to make your tea during the night and then give it a blast in the microwave in the morning.


How do I eliminate a lingering smell of fried food?

Was the deep fryer below anything?  Cabinet, Vent Hood?  Those areas could be probably be cleaned to help.

This happens to me in my house when I fry up bacon.  The only solution is fresh air and ventilation.  I open a couple of windows, get a nice cross-breeze and it should dissipate over a couple of hours.


What should I look for when choosing tomatoes for pasta sauces?

From a production standpoint, you might actually be better off asking this question on the gardening site.

In general, however, for canning purposes you'll want to select a 'determinate' variety -- they tend to have all of their fruit ripen around the same time, rather than having it be spread out across many weeks.  Indeterminate tend to be better for tomatoes that you might want to use for salads or other purposes, as you won't suddenly be stuck with a glut of tomatoes that you can't use all of.

Your other gardening considerations are if the plant is more bush-like, or more vine-like, as it'll affect how much you need to do to manage them.  The vine ones you have to keep checking them every couple of days to make sure the vines are fed back through the tomato cages so they don't start drooping against the ground when they're laden with fruit.

In general, you're going to want to select a plum-style tomato.  Sometimes they also label tomatoes as 'sauce' or 'paste' tomatoes.  Other varieties of tomatoes tend to be a bit more wet and can require more cooking down, although other varieties may have some advantages.

As for the specific variety, San Marzano and Roma are two well known varieties, but there are now a large number of hybrids that I'm just not familiar with.  I would personally select for varieties that do well in your local climate, and can deal with the specifics of your garden (eg, how much space you have to work with) ... but again, ask that on the gardening site.

In the article that I linked to above, they actually recommend blending multiple varieties, but this is more difficult in a home garden unless they all ripen at the same time.  You could always plan for the bulk to come from a determinate variety, and blend in some from one or more indeterminate varieties, or plant a couple of determinate varieties, or stagger them some to try to get batch sizes that will be easier to deal with.


Use sterilised glass jar/s similar to jam making and pickling, you can place some plastic wrap (cling film) over the top of the jar before sealing as an additional air/moisture barrier.  Also think of possibly dividing into smaller portions.


Will chopped up dried fruit still be fine to use after it's been sitting in the fridge for about 3 weeks?

The process that preserves fruit in a drying situation is the significant reduction of water activity in the product, which inhibits bacterial growth.  It is impossible to know how much you re-hydrated the product, but you certainly increased the water activity significantly.  Then, you added other ingredients.  All of this increases the potential for bacterial growth.

Of course, refrigeration also slows bacterial growth, however, for me, there are too many unknowns here, from the source and condition of the fruit, to the nature of the additional ingredients and the time between re-hydration and refrigeration.  Three days is probably fine.  Three weeks would concern me, and I would not recommend use.


What is a good side dish for a freshly boiled lobster?

You will want side dishes that will not overcome the taste of the lobster.  Steamed or grilled asparagus with just the barest drizzle of olive oil and coarse salt immediately come to my mind. Add a nice risotto (mushroom?) then send me an invitation.


What temperature to freeze meat at to preserve quality?

Summary:  think of the so-called 'soft freeze' as an extension of your refrigerator, not of your freezer.

The major things that happen to frozen foods that degrade their quality are:

Expansion of ice crystals during warming and cooling cycles of the freezer, degrading the texture of the food item (making meats, for example, exude more juice or even appear weepy)
Enzymatic or chemical changes over time.   These are slowed more and more the colder the freeze.
Fats become rancid due to interaction with oxygen, again slowed the colder the freeze
Freezer burn, as water sublimates from the food, again exacerbated by warming and cooling cycles and the freezer, and proceeding more quickly at warmer temperatures

You will note that almost everything that degrades the quality of the food items proceeds faster at warmer temperatures (even when those relatively warmer temperatures are below freezing).

So, in general, the colder you can keep your freezer (within reasonable limits), the longer the quality life of the food products stored within it.

As reported by the University of Illinois Extension, food is safely stored at 0 F, -10 C. All (relevant, before someone points out cryophiles) bacteria are dormant at these temperatures.  The University of Nevada Las Vegas indicates

  Most foods will maintain good quality longer if the freezer
  temperature is -10 to -20°F. At temperatures between 0 and 32°F, food
  deteriorates more rapidly. Fluctuating temperatures, such as those in
  self-defrosting freezers, also may damage food quality. Do not plan to
  store frozen foods for the maximum suggested time if your freezing
  unit cannot maintain zero degree temperatures.

The soft freeze temperature of 23 F / -5 C simply does not meet these standards, and is not useful for long term freezing.

So given all of this, what is the point of the soft-freeze feature of your new refrigerator?  It is to allow you to keep food ready to use fairly quickly, as meats will not generally freeze completely solid at these borderline freezing temperatures, and are quicker to warm for preparation.   It allows you to hold them for longer than you could at normal refrigerator temperatures, but not to store for the long term as in freezing to the recommended temperatures.

This is in line with the information given by Samsung:

  The Soft-Freeze temperature helps keep meats or fish fresh longer.


After baking, bread coated with shiny residue

It looks indeed like the Sourdough and the anti-stick disagree with each other... though the extent of it is something I have neither seen nor heard about yet! May be the non-stick version you do have. If the dough was left in the pan to rise for a while, that may have been part of it.
But I have to say, except for the issue with your pan, the bread looks amazing!!!


Yep, it's perfectly safe. The only time you should discard it is if mold has formed, or if the roots give easily when you squeeze them.

You can store them in the fridge in an airtight container along with a desiccant pack to prolong shelf life, but much like any other root they're at peak flavor within a few days of purchase.


Why do light and dark roux have different effects when thickening sauces?

You can visualise it like this: starch is the way that plants store energy, you can see it like long chains of glucose molecules. If you have these long chains, they lock in water at high temps (gelatinisation), and so they bind sauces. If you burn them, what you do is break those chains into glucose (or maltose), and that glucose you caramelise..that is what makes it brown...and the proteins are in the Maillard reaction..that is "caramelising" of proteins instead of sugars, but that is less relevant for the binding power of starches. So, you are  breaking and burning the chains that you need to catch water, basically. (and please do not correct this text from UK to US spelling, thanks...)


Can you slow down the time it takes for dough to rise?

Yes, you can easily slow down the rising time by lowering the temperature of the dough ("retarding" it, as the pros say). You can either put it in a cool place or refrigerate it; the colder it is, the slower it will rise. Dough can even be frozen and proofed later, though sometimes that will make it a bit wonky when it thaws.


Why does whipped Cream sometimes sink in warm beverages?

Heavy cream should be lightly whipped, still in a somewhat pourable state. If it is over-whipped, it will have more of a tendency to sink.

The beverage should be at least slightly sweetened with white sugar or brown sugar. The dissolved sugar in the beverage will help to keep the cream afloat.

So, the problem could be over-whipped cream, no sugar, or both. Inconsistencies in either of those areas may be why your results varied.

Lastly, I have always been told that unwhipped or whipped heavy cream should be poured gently over the back of a warm spoon. That is supposed to ensure a gentle addition of the cream around the sides of the cup/glass that will make it float. (It's a useful technique for adding the cream.) I have seen many people do this, but I have always been successful without using a spoon.


1/4 cup of whiskey in cupcake batter substitute what type of liquid? And use the same amount?

The whiskey is there to add flavor. If it were in the praline centers it might have some texture effect too, but in the batter, especially in this small an amount, it's really only going to matter for flavor.

You should be able to substitute water, plus an appropriate amount of some kind of flavored extract you do want - vanilla, rum, or anything that sounds good to you. (If alcohol is a problem I guess you'll need an alcohol-free one.) You could also simply find another recipe that doesn't use it.

That said, if it's just that you don't want to buy a whole bottle of whiskey, you can likely get a tiny bottle to use just for this recipe, and not have a ton left over. If you suspect you wouldn't like the flavor, do keep in mind that a quarter cup of whiskey is a pretty small amount of alcohol when spread across a whole batch of cupcakes, so it could be worth giving it a try. But if you really just don't want to consume any alcohol, water should be fine.


What am I doing wrong during the seasoning process of my cast iron skillet

You're using way too much oil. "A thin coat" really means thin--apply a small amount of oil, spread it around, and wipe it ALL off, leaving nothing but the shine.


corned-beef cure/brine: viscous, snot-like substance - is this safe?

Unfortunately I dont have a concrete answer for you but both the gassing and the snot would make me lose confidence that it was safe to eat. However, in this question they person answering said it might be sugars breaking down. Another commenter also lists spoilage signs for corned beef brining:

White slime and foam on top.

Milky color with or without foul odor. Cloudy is ok, milky is not. If it’s milky but has no odor, it’s still bad. The odor will come if given more time.

Brine turns blue in color or has a bluish hue/tint.

Brine becomes very tacky (gluey) to touch. There is a difference between being gluey and being slimy. Slimy is ok, gluey is not.

There are certainly other bad signs, but in general, these are far and away the ones most encountered.

Another commenter here says the slime is normal.
I've seen lengths of brine time span from 5 to 10 days, but if you're worried you could cut it down to 7 days in the future. The USDA seems to be in agreement about the 5-7 days in the fridge at 40F or less.
In summary, I would be a little nervous with your current situation but in the future, maybe a little clear slime after 5-7 days would be fine. 10 days seems to be stretching it, and it seems like you've got a lot of slime in your video.


How can goat milk be prepared to reduce the 'hairy' after taste it has?

I think I understand what you mean about "hairy" taste; I think of it as a "goaty" taste. Unfortunately, the diet of the goat contributes much more to the flavor of the milk, than sheep or cow diets/milk. This is one of the reasons that goat milk is a favorite when it comes to cheese making. It adds a little funkiness to the cheese.

Now all that said, how are you drinking your milk? I love goat yogurt and cheese, but I'm not crazy about goat milk in my coffee. Part of this has to do with the temperature at which your consuming the milk. I usually eat my yogurt cold, and the goatiness is noticeable, but not as much as when I try to drink it in my coffee. Warm/hot foods tend to "taste" stronger, while cold foods kind of numb your taste buds.

I know that I haven't answered your question. I think if you drank it for a while (say two weeks), you'd notice it less and less. Kind of like moving from whole milk to skim milk.


It looks to me like you have a couple of things going on here:

You are worried about the safety of undercooked beans
You want your beans to be palatable

To address the safety issue, I think we'd need to know more about the kind of beans you're using. Kidney beans are the ones most well known to be toxic if they are undercooked. Other beans, say, great northerns, or pintos, wouldn't have the same problem.

Then again, you still want a chili that is edible.

You certainly can cook dried beans, but there are a few factors getting in your way.

They do take a while. I cook beans fairly often in our house. Even after an overnight soak, they still often take (depending on the kind of bean) 2 1/2 hours at a low simmer.
Then you have the acid issue. Most chili is tomato-based, and even those that aren't usually have some other sort of acid. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that yours does. Acid does inhibit the softening of beans, and this can work for you or against you. Many (non-texan) chili cooks find that the acid keeps the pre-cooked beans from turning to mush. On the other hand, the amount of tomatoes in most chilis means that you could boil for weeks, and those beans will probably remain hard.
Lastly, I'm guessing that you don't cook with dried beans too often. I don't mean that to be an insult--I've actually done the exact same thing as you, and found myself coping with a pot of chili full of hard beans that I owed to a football party. The reason that I bring this up is that, believe it or not, dried beans actually go stale. If they're old, they may never soften.

As I mentioned, I did have this same thing happen to a pot of my chili. If memory serves, I sat there fishing out each bean for probably longer than it was worth.


You had too much air in your batter. This isn't a result of beating to much, but rather insufficient macaronage after folding in the sugar and almonds. The excess air expands in the oven and creates a hollow shell that then collapses.

The macaronage is really the trickiest thing about macarons - it is very hard to convey in recipes exactly what the texture of the batter should be after the process. It just takes practice and experience. It is hard to get out of the sponge-making mindset of gently folding ('must retain air, must not overdevelop gluten!'), but you must in fact beat the air out of the batter like nobody's business. Knowing when to stop so you don't end up with batter puddles is the key.

For what it's worth, I have tried many macaron recipes over the years, all with varying degrees of fussiness regarding age of the egg whites, texture of the almonds, stiffness of the peaks and so on, but the best recipe I have ever used is the one that does away with most of that nonsense - you can find it here.


How do Blue potatoes differ from Yukon Gold potatoes?

There definitely is a difference in flavor, although it is rather subtle. I find that the blue potatoes are a touch richer or more "potato-y" than Yukon Golds. However, in cooking with them I've had plenty of success doing direct substitutions. Other than the blue color being a little odd-looking in some recipes I think you'd be safe just swapping one for the other in most cases.


Why would a blended salad dressing change its color?

It seems I was looking in the wrong direction here. It seems to have been the Mozzarella cheese. After pouring the dressing over the salad, the cheese started to leak some white liquid, which changed the colour of the dressing.

This was something I hadn't on my radar, since I had always used the same brand of cheese, and it had never happened before. I only found out because last week I did a shaken dressing, and this caused that behavior too. So it's nothing to do with the blender ...


This is something that can happen during the manufacture of porcelain. It is due to iron particles in the clay used to make the porcelain, they get this look after being fired. It is part of the mug itself and cannot be removed.

Customers don't like isolated black dots on white porcelain, so high end manufacturers only sell items without these dots. But if you bought something in the mid- or low-price range, or B-ware from the high end brands, these specks are common enough.

It is only an optical defect, the mug itself is clean and you don't have to do anything more about it.


Optimizing for efficiency: boiling frozen salmon without defrosting

The problem will be one of temperature difference. The outermost mm of your salmon will thaw immediately but the innermost one will still be raw.

Some meat thermometers will work in water but i doubt that they will be accurate in a thin filet as they are mostly for use in large chunks of meat.

So the only good way to check fore done-ness is to cut the filet in two and check the texture yourself. If it starts to "flake" (i.e. the meat fibers start to separate) it is done. Ideally you will be able to "break" a filet cleanly in two. But do that too often and you'll end up with salmon soup.

So my recommendation: oven-roast your salmon. There will be two advantages: one is that you can easily check the inside and pop it back in the oven if you are not satisfied. On the other hand its easier to make tasty salmon in the oven. You can even work in a herb-crust or something like it.
Health-wise they are exactly the same as long as you don't start drenching the fish in oil.

Another option could be to poach the fish in a ziplock bag. It will take a bit longer as the heat circulation will be slightly worse but locks in the flavor, gives you the option of adding some herbs and the option the measure the done-ness without creating a mess.


Yes, you can do this and it is not unheard of in continental European-style cake recipes that tend to be on the dryer side than many American cakes. A good example of this is Sachertorte, which has a coating of apricot jam topped with a chocolate ganache.

If you have a firm-crumb cake (Sachertorte or pound cake or similar), this would work well, especially with a poured frosting or glaze. If you have a moister, crumblier cake it may (probably will) lose structure. In either case, the temperature of both the Jam and the cake matter. The cake should be fully cooled and the Jam glaze should be warm. Chill the glazed cake before attempting to frost it.

You can make a glaze by warming jam or thinning preserves slightly and cooking until it makes a thick sauce, then cooling slightly. Epicurious has a Sachertorte recipe including glaze if you want an example.

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/apricot-glaze-231044


My mother used a large cake decorating sleeve for her pastries. She would squirt out a mound, and then cut the middle out after it was finished baking.


Would boiling make escargot safe if they were carrying parasites or bacteria?

I think you're a bit unclear what meningitis is. It isn't something like smallpox or salmonella, which are caused by a specific pathogen. Meningitis stands for an inflammation of the membranes covering the brain surface, and it can be caused by a number of pathogens. There is bacterial meningitis, viral meningitis, parasitic meningitis, and even meningitis where it isn't possible to find out what caused it.

As such, it is just wrong to say that a food can be a "meningitis carrier". If you want to say that every organism contaminated with a pathogen which can potentially cause meningitis is a "meningitis carrier", then everything is a meningitis carrier, including the lips of your significant other. If a significant proportion of contacts with a "meningitis carrier" lead to meningitis, humanity would have died out before it discovered fire. So first, you can't react to such news as to a statement like "escargot can carry salmonella". Second, if "meningitis carrier" was the real wording of your source, this is  a red flag for its credibility.

If the material which you read says that "escargot is sometimes contaminated with bacterium X, which has been known to cross the blood brain barrier in a big percentage of infected people and cause meningitis", you should look up the combinations of time and temperature required for a 6-log10 reduction of this bacterium (the USDA publishes such data) and make sure that this temperature has been maintained at the core of the food for at least the time indicated. Just throwing into boiling water and waiting isn't enough, because you don't know when the core of the food reaches the temperature prescribed.

If your source doesn't mention the type of pathogen, you can't assume that boiling will kill it. There are bacteria on Earth which proliferate in hot geysers, and while it is unlikely that they can both live in escargot and cause meningitis, making the assumption that boiling can kill any pathogen is reckless. If the source was credible, you need to hunt more information, until you know which pathogen is meant, then follow the previous paragraph.

If your source wasn't especially credible, something like a tabloid saying "A child ate escargot and landed in hospital with meningitis! We will all die with our brains converted to swollen puss if we eat escargot!!!", then it was some common pathogen which happened to somehow reach a victim's brain in a single case. Disregard the meningitis scare, look up the guidelines for cooking escargot, and stick to them in order to eliminate the common pathogens contained in it.

edit: now you have updated your question, it was possible to do some research. The parasite was the easy one.

This paper is used as a basis for the safety guidelines of some government organs, e. g. the public health agency of Canada: link. As it doesn't say how the 2-3 minutes are measured, I'd wait until the core of a snail is at 55°C, and measure at least 3 minutes after that (or more, for added safety). This will make you safe from the parasite infection, which sometimes causes meningitis (and is probably unpleasant even if it doesn't reach the brain).

As for bacteria, I didn't find any special information about escargot or any kind of land snails. As all the mentions of escargot and meningitis together I found pointed to the parasite as a cause, there probably isn't an escargot specific bacterium which causes meningitis or other unusual illness. So the usual food safety guidelines apply. Sadly, the various food safety organs of different countries don't seem to have published specific guidelines for escargot (maybe the French have, but I don't speak French). You can use the guidelines for seafood, because for food safety purposes, escargots count as mollusks Foodsafety.gov is a good place to start for the home cook - even if you don't live in the USA, you can trust them to have chosen good guidelines. The FDA site also contains good information, it lists 145°F internal temperature for seafood, but, strangely, no time period.


Mother of vinegar is a the bacteria acetobacter, which produces vinegar from wine, beer, or any other alcoholic source. In vinegar production, if the mother eats all the alcohol, it will then eat the vinegar and convert it into carbon dioxide. Vinegar mother will turn vinegar cloudy, and will form a film on the surface of the liquid. My guess is some acetobacter found its way in to your vinegar. It is harmless, but will lessen the strength of the vinegar over time. Vinegar mother also likes to live in warm places. It's best to store vinegar in a cooler place, like a pantry.


Should whole coffee beans be stored at room temperature, the fridge or freezer?

If you use your whole beans within a week it's probably not worth storing it in the refrigerator or freezer. Coffee beans should be stored in a cool, dry place. They can last 1-3 weeks in your pantry. Ideally you should store them in an airtight opaque container. They degrade quickly in the presence of light, heat, or oxygen.

If you want to store them longer, then they will last 3-4 month in the freezer.

Source:

http://stilltasty.com/fooditems/index/16941


Should I default to higher or lower power when the recommended power is not an option in a microwave?

One way to approach the problem is to ask the question in a slightly different way: how do I generate the same amount of energy in a 750 Watt microwave that would be produced in a 850 Watt oven over four minutes?

Watts times time will give energy, and since we are not in a Chemistry or Physics forum, let's throw units out the window.  850 Watts times 4 minutes will give us 3400 units of energy (W min to be picky).  To get the same amount of heat from a 750 Watt oven, solve the equation 750 * min = 3400 which is 4 minutes 32 seconds.  In the 950 Watt oven that would be 3 minutes 35 seconds.

Since the power button on microwaves simply cycles the oven on and off (e.g. 80% does NOT mean that a 1000 Watt oven is operating at 800 Watt, but that it is only on 80% of the time), then we can include that in the equation as well for more general problems.  So we have

WATT * time * power = energy

This equation should allow one to determine the time or  % power to use to get the same amount of energy when cooking in an oven with a different power rating than the recipe calls for.


Cream Cheese vs Yogurt Cheese: what / how much difference does the bacteria make?

Just as important as the bacterial culture is the use of rennet in cream cheese, which aids in the removal of liquid whey.  When making cream cheese, the point is to drain much of the whey, resulting in a semi-solid texture.  Rennet helps encourage the solids to curdle and squeeze out liquid.  Yogurt doesn't necessarily include the draining step, though it can be done if you're looking for a thicker Greek-style yogurt.  In this case, the acid produced during fermentation while making yogurt aids curdling and helps produce the final texture.

In fact, it's possible to take the draining process even further with yogurt, resulting in what's often called yogurt cheese or labneh.  The final texture can vary a bit depending on how long it's drained, and whether you use weights to encourage the process.

In my experience labneh still never gets quite as solid as cream cheese, but it's pretty close when sufficiently weighted and drained.  Labneh also retains yogurt's tangy flavor, which is mostly an effect of the bacterial culture.  Though I haven't measured, I would expect that the pH of labneh is lower, so it's probably not always appropriate as a direct substitution for sensitive applications like baking.  In other places, you could definitely use labneh instead of cream cheese.  If you're having difficulty locating cream cheese cultures, this would be the easiest tack to take.

I haven't tried (or seen) both rennet and yogurt culture used together, but my suspicion is that it would take the curdling action a bit too far for the result to be smooth and spreadable.

So, tl;dr: the major difference is that yogurt culture is calibrated to produce a higher level of acid, resulting in a tangier flavor and reducing the need for rennet to curdle the solids.  If you follow the same procedure, varying only the culture used, you'll have a reasonably similar end result.


How is Kiwifruit used to tenderize Meat?

Yes Kiwifruit contains Actinidin, which is a great meat protein tenderiser

But it tastes crap, it is not a good accompaniment for meat, especially chicken. It is way too sweet tasting, sort of like serving chicken with fruit jam (preserve), if you like that, go for it!


Is this chicken safe? silkie chicken edition

Firstly let me note that I have never prepared this breed so I can't speak from personal experience, just what I've come to hear and see.

From what I've learned about silkies they're tremendously different to the regular breed of chicken we're used to. They're not well suited for roasting or frying and should rather be braised or prepared sous-vide (I imagine a silkie avgolemono would be quite exciting).

Getting back on-topic now, this blue/blackish breed being mostly raised free range does have a bit of a gamey note to it once rendered, but definitely not unpleasant or reminiscent of egg, and the skin should certainly not be slimy.

That being said I personally wouldn't take the risk on this one.


I've done something similar, although not with coconut cream. I'd cook the nuts in whatever flavored mixture (with extra salt and sugar) for about 5 min, then leave them soaking for a few hours. After that I'd bake them in the oven with low heat, like 170 C (otherwise you'd burn them very easily). Check every 5 min and toss them around a bit to even up, and depends on how moist they are, take out when brown and crisp in the center.


You'll want to look for one of two products either lait fermenté or lait ribot.

Lait fermenté is a cultured buttermilk. This is homogenized and pasteurized milk which has been cultured with lactic acid bacteria. This is the de facto standard buttermilk in modern times. If you go to an American grocery store and buy buttermilk you are buying cultured buttermilk.

Lait ribot is traditional buttermilk. It is the fermented liquid leftover from churning butter. This is not commonly found in the US and other western countries.

See also: Buttermilk


What are the preferred uses for different sharpness of cheddar cheese?

Milder cheddars are for melting. They get used in things such as grilled cheese sandwiches, grating into chili, nachos, or in quesadillas.  In these uses, they don't need the full-bodied flavor of a sharp cheddar, but they do need to melt down into soft, gooey, creamy deliciousness.

Sharper cheddars are for flavor.  I commonly see them in sandwiches, macaroni and cheese, topping salads, and as part of cheese boards.

The reason it works like this is that "sharper" cheddars get their bite from additional aging, which develops a richer flavor but makes the cheese drier and increases the melting point.

That said, there are no hard and fast rules for how to use mild vs. sharp cheddar. In my house we always use extra sharp cheddar because even everyday cheese should be a gustatory delight. It's a little trickier to make into a quesadilla or melt on a cheeseburger, but the extra tang is worth it!


Yellow tail tuna (hamachi) -- is it possible that the sweet taste comes from sugars present in the fish's flesh?

Meat/fish do not contain significant carbohydrate - glycogen is the sugar found in meat, but it is stored in the liver, which DOES contain carbohydrate, though not necessarily sufficiently for liver to be perceived as sweet.
Fish tastes sweet because of free amino acids.

Free amino acids are not to be confused with protein, which is tasteless. Protein is amino acids bonded together. Most amino acids are bound.
This provides total amino acids: https://www.healthbenefitstimes.com/yellowtail-fish/
But it does not list free amino acids.
This appears to be a paywalled study of yellowtail FAA https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-2621.1982.tb05006.x
You could buy that and study.
82% of crab body meat free amino acids are glycine + alanine https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/33721749.pdf
This explains why crab meat tastes sweet. The sweet taste of yellowtail (which is not tuna) could be best evaluated by comparing the FAAs with fish that don't taste sweet. You might also consider the LACK of other flavours in the fish - as something that contains a lot of bitterness might not taste sweet, even with the same amount of sweet-tasting amino acids in it.


Conversion rate in volume of freshly picked beans as opposed to dried beans

if by "fresh" you mean as in cooked canned beans, the general rule of thumb is one part dried beans equals three parts cooked beans, so you should be looking to use 3kg of canned beans. This is, of course, after draining.


How can I keep food hot for extended periods without an active heat source?

The long drive is easy. There are 12 volt cooler/warmers available that would cover that need. But you have to do your homework. I found several that say they heat to 140° F or above, but I did see a couple that don't go over 135° F. There are also reusable hot and cold packs that can be used in an insulated cooler or carrier that will keep food safe for 4 - 6 hours.

There are several other options that could be used for a long drive or camping, etc.

Instant, disposable ice packs or heat packs; don't require a heat or cold source and can be replaced as needed.

Hotpots - Transfer hot food to the hotpot and it keeps hot for several hours.

Hot pot casseroles - Food can be cooked in and carried or stored, staying hot for several hours.

Other ideas for camping:

A chafing dish type setup.
A camping stove.

*Both have certain time limits and shouldn't be left unattended.

If you use the 12 volt cooler/warmer you can plug it in as needed. However you need to be sure that you don't run your car battery down. You can avoid this by running the vehicle while heating/cooling. (Not the most efficient.) Also, in some cars (like mine) the plugs will not work unless the car is on.


What is the difference between using nibs or liquor for making chocolate bars?

Chocolate liquor is the result of grinding and heating cocoa nibs. It's then mixed with other ingredients to form the final chocolate. So it's not really one or the other: nibs are produced in one stage of the process, and chocolate liquor is produced at a later stage.


It's the tomato paste. Many brands of tomato paste can have a bitter, almost metallic flavor if it isn't fried off first. I don't use it in crock pot recipes for that very reason unless I saute it in some oil for a minute before adding it. You can add some sugar but that doesn't counteract the bitterness.

Also you are adding too much of it, 2 tbsp for 1 cup of wine is very, very tomato pastey for lack of a better term. You could try half that and see how you get.

So try a bit less paste, fried off first or use a good thick canned tomato sauce instead.


The problem is your putting all your cheese in at once. These cheese is going to settle on the bottom which would cause to clump up and be gloopy.

you need to stir small portions of the cheese at a time until it is melted. rinse, repeat and continue.

of course this is a crock pot recipe....

your probably best to make the cheese sauce portion on the stove first, then combine in a crock pot after.


What can I substitute for vegetable oil in a recipe?

On first blush, you will probably want a fat or oil with similar qualities as the "vegetable" oil you're replacing, such as olive oil. Butter has a much lower a smoke point, however, cornbread recipes exist that use butter or lard. I'd be willing to experiment, particularly if you're used to cooking with butter. (Just be careful with heat.) As far as quantity, I'd use a bit less than 1/3 of a cup, but that's me being defensive as I don't know the recipe you're using.


Frozen supermarket coriander/cilantro is perfectly good to use whilst cooking. Very similar to adding stems for flavour. You'll never get fresh looking leaves to finish the dish from the ice blocks, but stir it in and you will get that background flavour. Delicate leaves, Basil is similar, are either fresh or they aren't.

Don't worry too much about the look and you'll be fine. Bear in mind that you're adding water to the recipe, and put a pot plant on your windowsill for the finishing touches.


Is it okay for preserved lemons to float?

While traditional recipes do not (apparently) use weights, other fermentation texts highly recommend submerging the material being fermented ("Fermented Vegetables", Christopher Shockey and Kirsten K. Shockey) and I had also observed possible mold problems when fermenting lemons myself. Therefore, standard advice would be to weigh the lemons down with something acid resistant (glass would be typical) as the high salt content and shape of the lemons makes them prone to rise above the brine.


How can I keep hot food hot when transporting it?

Depending on what it is I am transporting I use different methods, and I use the same methods for both hot and cold transport.

The easiest is the towels in a box; lay four towels down in a shallow box, hanging the other ends of the towels out each side of the box, then put your dish or bread or pot or whatever in the box and fold each of the four towels over the food.  If you have hot food, lay some more insulation material over the top, as heat rises.  If you have cold food, put the box on the seat, not the floor, as the floor will conduct heat from your vehicle up into your food.

I always have a sleeping bag in my rig and I will sometimes wrap food well with towels and then open the sleeping bag and shove the food into it, wrapping the rest of the sleeping bag over the top if hot food and under the bottom if cold.  This has worked a lot for frozen foods when I go bulk shopping in the city, holding food frozen food for 4 hours and more.


Why did mold develop on the top of my sourdough?

There shouldn't be any significant difference between an established homemade sourdough culture and one that's seeded from something you bought (I'm assuming like the culture that King Arthur Flour Co sells online).  In fact, no matter where you bought your starter culture, over time the local bacterial flora would crowd out the bacteria that was in the culture you bought.  But, I'm sure the mold infection had nothing to do with rogue bacteria.  (Bad bacteria can spoil a starter too, but that would be a different set of symptoms from the green carpet on top.)  It could be that your starter didn't get well established, but it doesn't sound like that was the problem if you successfully made some bread from it.

In a sourdough culture, the acid produced by the bacteria and alcohol produced by the yeast make an environment that's somewhat resitant to bad bacteria (like salmonella) or mold.  But the culture needs to be fairly active to maintain its resistance.  After two weeks in a warm fridge, your yeast would be dormant and the bacteria would probably have run rampant for a while (after the yeast went dormant) and then started to also die off.

In a warm fridge you could maybe go a week without feeding the culture.  At room temperature it's one day optimally and two days max.  The best way to avoid infection is to have two small covered containers about 1½ to 2 cups in size.  To make a new generation of your starter, begin with a clean container, add equal parts by weight of the previous generation of starter, flour and water.  So for example, 25 grams of starter, plus 25 grams of flour and 25 of water.  Mix it up and put it in the fridge.  In one week, get the other container, clean it out, and do the same thing over again.

I always keep the old generation in its container as a backup (in case of a mold or other infection).  You just need to keep track of which container has the fresher starter, so you can clean out the old one when building the next gen.  I did this for more than 3 years with no infections of any kind.


Generally..no.  There's a very, very minimal advantage...if any.  They chop certain things 'ok', but many things require a knife anyway.

Most large objects will have to be cut anyways to fit in which means you'll need a knife and a cutting board just to use the chopper.
Their blades tend to dull and then they mash, rather than chop.
It takes about 10 seconds to wash a knife and just as long to disassemble one to go in the dishwasher.
Its very limited in the objects it does reliably.

Some are better than others, but even the best doesn't even begin to compare with a decent knife.  Learning a few knife skills will go much, much longer and ultimately be much easier.

No one can reasonably speculate on how long they'll last - it greatly depends on its use.  If you use it daily to chop nuts, don't expect a sharp chopper for as long as you would if you chop lettuce monthly with it.


Need help I made this recipe and I doubled the recipe and it looked dry

You're starting from the same ingredient list as Nestle Toll House Cookies but are rolling it out? Please add more information to your recipe: how are you preparing and mixing the ingredients? Do you let the mixture sit for a time at one or multiple stages? How are you doing the rolling? How big are the portions? The baking? What is the final product? How long did they sit and under what conditions before you tested them and found them too dry and crumbly?

It's hard to give good advice without more detail, but if you're ending up with dryer, crumbly product, things you might try:

Increase your brown-to-white sugar ratio (keep the total amount of sugar the same),
Instead of two eggs, use one egg and one (or two!) egg yolks,
Make sure your baking soda is still OK.

If you're shooting for something cookie-like, Dan might have some advice for you.


How to prevent sticking and get a nice searing on scallops

Most likely, you're not heating your pan enough before placing the scallops in.  Without knowing your exact method it's hard to say what's going wrong, but 1-2 tbsp of oil should be enough for a normal amount of scallops.

To learn about properly heating your pan, I recommend this link:

http://www.houseboateats.com/2009/12/on-properly-heating-your-pan.html


A chinoise will not--I speak from daily experience--filter out vanilla seeds. A coffee filter would, but my question is: why on earth would you bother? It's annoying to do (and depending on what the product is, filtering through a coffee filter would ensure you lose other things), and seeing actual vanilla seeds in the final product tells your guests that you are using real vanilla beans, not extract.

Professional kitchens do not, generally speaking, attempt to remove the seeds for the reasons noted above.

@stephenmacdonald, most dessert recipes that call for a fine mesh strainer do so because there is the possibility of chunky things ending up in the product. In the case of that recipe, I would guess it is to prevent chunks of undissolved gelatine from ending up in the final dessert.


Incorporating capsicum oil into a chicken breading

Breading chicken usually involves three stages:

Dip the chicken in flour to provide a uniform surface for egg to stick to
Dip it in an egg mixture
Dip it into bread crumbs or some other coarse, dry coating that will be the final texture.

Obviously the oil would not work in stages 1 or 3 because it could not be well distributed and would clump.

It is easy enough to add wet flavoring agents to the egg mixture. You should beat it well enough to partially emulsify the oil into the eggs so it doesn't all separate out on the first piece.

As Joe commented above, this seems like more trouble than it's worth. Mixing any kind of dried, ground or crushed peppers into the 3rd stage is much simpler. I use dried, crushed chipotles for this purpose.


There's nothing stopping you blitzing a mirepoix in a food processor, but what tends to happen is that the onions especially release a lot of water which can prevent them, and the rest of the mix, browning nicely.

For this reason, a nice small dice is usually the best way to proceed.


When can artificial vanilla extract be used in place of real vanilla extract?

Wikipedia has a nice  link explaining a study in which real and artificial vanilla are compared:

It explains why and where it is possible to substitute one for another without losing flavor.

The gist of it is that real vanilla has a lot of flavor notes apart from vanillin, but these begin to bake off at around 280-300 degrees. So cookies with artificial vanilla tasted better than with real vanilla whereas cakes (which rarely exceed 210 degrees) ranked better with real vanilla, as did other uncooked or cold items.

The article also deals with the amount of alcohol present in pure vanilla extract and in artificial vanilla, and explains how that affects flavor.
Based on that, I would suggest artificial vanilla for baking/cooking at high temperatures and real vanilla otherwise.


What happens to the heat/capsaicin content of a pepper when you roast it?

I don't believe roasting will reduce the 'heat' of the peppers, only make them tastier and more easily digested.

Only removing the seeds and the white membrane inside will reduce the heat, as far as I know.


What happens to dough when sugar is added?

The sugar competes with proteins and starches (read:flour) for water. With less water available for the flour, fewer gluten chains are able to form resulting in a more tender dough.


What pH range is suitable for cooking on teflon?

We shouldn't cook acids, alkali and concentrated salts on teflon.

This is incorrect.  Teflon (PTFE) itself is one of the most non-reactive substances you can use on cookware, in some ways better than ceramic.  To quote Wikipedia:

  It is nonreactive, partly because of the strength of carbon–fluorine
  bonds, and so it is often used in containers and pipework for reactive
  and corrosive chemicals.

So why is there so much advice on not cooking high-acid foods in teflon pans?  As far as I can tell, it's because teflon pans scratch easily, and acids can get into scratches.  This has two potential effects:

On pans with poor bonding between teflon and the backing metal, the acid can dissolve some of the adhesion between PTFE and pan, causing it to flake off.
Many teflon pans have the teflon backed by aluminum, and aluminum gives off flavors to acidic foods.  So even the small amount of aluminum exposed by the scratches can cause the high-acid food to taste "off", especially if it is slow-cooking.

Given the above, however, I think you can see that there is no specific pH that's bad for teflon pans.  The lower the pH the worse the two above effects can potentially be, but a lot more depends on the manufacture of the pan, how scratched or abraded the teflon is, and even how long and how hot the food is in the pan.  And if your teflon pan is brand-new and high-quality, it's one of the best vessels for making high-acid foods you have.


Use chia seeds to help thicken a pot pie

If your problem is that a pie with 3 cups of liquid (750 ml) was runny with 2 tbsp of corn starch and some water sucking ingredients such as potatoes, and you say it tasted like corn starch, then you probably just didn't thicken the starch. You should try cooking the original recipe correctly before deciding whether to change it to something exotic.

Starch needs to be cooked to almost 100 Celsius to thicken. It is certainly above 90 for all types of starch. After thickening, it practically has no taste. Use a thermometer to ensure that it happened, 96 should be a good temperature to aim for.

You can probably thicken it with chia seeds instead of the starch, although I can't tell you the exact procedure and would like to see somebody posting an answer which explains how to do it. You might or might not like the result, which will be very different from a starch thickened pot pie.


Could plastic or metal cans damage my oven?

You are taking me way back here. Back in my teens I used to do this as a fun project - I used Plexiglass (acrylic glass) instead of old vinyl records (people still used record players back then!), but the principle stays the same.

No, your oven won't suffer if you are careful.

The metal can / bowl / heat-proof object underneath must be something that can withstand the heat. Yet 200F isn't that hot.
Always put a sheet of parchment or foil between your tray/rack and the can/vinyl setup.
Watch carefully. As soon as it shows signs of drooping / bending, take it out. You may always put your future bowl back in the oven to heat it more.
It might stink, so make sure you have a window open and air out the oven afterwards.
Do not try to bake cookies and this at the same time ;-)


I don't have the exact same experience, but I did have some egg pasta noodles I'd already rolled out in the fridge for a couple days, and they discolored like yours did. I cooked them anyway and really didn't detect any difference. I felt, if anything, the pasta might have been a bit firmer than if I'd cooked it fresh, but I'd think that has more to do with partial drying or gluten formation/relaxation in the fridge than anything. I didn't taste any difference through the sauce, or notice a change in appearance.

That said if you only roll it now, I don't know if you'd have the same, slight textural difference I did.

....You could perform a simple experiment, pinch some off, roll it into a sheet, cook and see what you think. Since my pasta, eggy though it was, might have had more salt (or something), there's no guarantee my experience would be the same as yours.


How should I incorporate oil into focaccia?

In the real "focaccia genovese" oil is mixed in the dough and added on top of the focaccia.

It is a tricky procedure, there is a video and photo sequence here; unfortunately is in Italian, but you can easily translate it with Google and video and images could help anyway.

I did many times focaccia using this recipe and it's the closest thing to real focaccia genovese I can get


How to know when to remove lemon squares from oven?

Custard without any flour or starch should be baked to about 83 Celsius internal temperature. Below 80 is underbaked, above 90 it curdles, so you have a very small window of good texture. It may be even narrower, it depends a bit on the other stuff you have in there, sugar gives you wiggle room but acids (including lemon juice!) will make it harder to get right.

If you have starch or flour, you need to reach almost boiling temperatures. 95 Celsius should be OK.

If you want high confidence, you really need to measure the internal temperature. External signs are not reliable, and time even less so.


Yes, you should be fine with a mixture of sugars as it is mostly for flavoring. The main point is to make sure the sweetener is fully dissolved in your pickling liquid.

One user asked a similar question about using honey, and searching the web also produced recipes for how to use sugar substitutes in place of sugar for pickling.


Slice the pod in half, long ways, carefully.  Run your knife blade down the length,scraping the tiny seeds (very tiny) from the inside of the pod.  What you collect will be sticky and not look like much, but it is very potent.  Place what you collected into your pudding mixture while cooking.  One pod should be plenty.  You can also toss in the whole pod at this point, but then remember to take it out before the pudding sets up.  Alternately, toss the scraped pods in a jar of sugar to create vanilla sugar for other uses.


Xmas Pudding put in microwave by mistake for 5 minutes

Christmas puddings can be cooked in the microwave, so the best thing is to fully cook it immediately (either in the microwave or by steaming) and then reheat tomorrow.


Alternative to cream for fried chicken recipe

In the case of the breading recipe that you have mentioned, I believe that you can continue to use soy milk (or almond milk, or even water) mixed with the egg in your breading.  Instead, a small change to technique should give you a thicker and crunchier coating.

You may need to increase the amount of egg/soy milk mixture you create.

Try adapting the breading method as follows:

Dip the chicken in the egg/soy milk mixture.
Sprinkle your flour mixture with droplets of the egg mixture, and mix so that begins to form small clumps, as if you had already been using it for many chicken pieces.
Dredge the chicken pieces in the flour mixture again, creating a second layer with bits and clumps sticking to the chicken pieces.

This should provide a crunchier, more satisfying crust than a simple single dredge in pristine flour due to the lumps and clumps which will fry up and be crunchy and toothsome.

This advise is based on a the method described by Cooks Illustrated and Kenji Alt of Serious Eats Food lab among others.  This picture is from the Food Lab article on replicating Chic-Fil-A chicken sandwiches at home:


How to stop burning raisins in my fruit scones

Since raisins are a type of dried fruit, they don't have a lot of moisture left in them. Heat from baking with just make them drier, eventually resulting in that chewy, not particularly pleasant lump. The internal raisins are more protected from the heat, so they stay the same consistency.

One solution may be to soak the raisins in water, fruit juice, or even wine (boozy scones!) before cooking. The extra liquid will help prevent that drying effect; you'll still have some consistency difference between "outside" and "inside" raisins, but none will be inedible. I soak raisins as well as dried cranberries and cherries before using them in muffins.


You could put them in the fridge, and hope they stay good, or you can blanch them and freeze.

Blanching:

Prepare the pears just like you would for canning (peel & cut).
Dip the pear in hot water (or water with sugar) for about a minute.
From the hot water, dip into an ice-bath.
Plastic bag/container and into the freezer.


How should I control the time and temperature when baking two dishes?

The ham should rest for at least 15 minutes after cooking, and probably longer than that.  So you could put the potatoes into the oven when the ham has 20 or 25 minutes remaining, and then when you take the ham out, increase the temperature to 350-375F and continue cooking the potatoes while the ham rests for 15-20 minutes.


It's not hard: First milk cow :-), then let the milk settle in the fridge for a day or two. Skim the cream off the top

Use a food processor, or hand shake in a cocktail mixer or similar sized jar (only about a 100 ml at a time)

First you get whipped cream (2 to 5 minutes), then another minute of shaking and suddenly butter appears

It should separate very cleanly, with watery whey (save for soft cheese making), and lots of rough yellowish fat globules. If it still looks smooth it needs more shaking

If you want to keep the butter for any length of time you will need to wash it a few times with clean water, and squeeze the water out of it after each wash

The colour you get depends on what your cows have been eating. It can be quite white

There is no need for heating, or any other additives


How do I avoid rice cookers emitting strange goo on my counter?

Some rice cookers have a vent on the side, and there's a little cup with it that clips in there to catch the starchy moisture that might escape during cooking.

If your rice cooker came with a small plastic cup (I say 'cup' as it's a container, but it's usually pretty flat so it doesn't stick out very far) that you couldn't figure out what it was for, this is likely your problem.  It usually attaches near the hinge.

Not all rice cookers have them, though.  My 10 cup does, but the little 2 cup that I got at a thrift store doesn't.  (it vents from the top, and the lid lifts off completely)


Why is my muslin (cheesecloth) sticking to my seitan?

The cheese cloth is porous enough for the seitan to expand through during the cook process. Try a looser wrap with the cheesecloth. If you steam it in the cheesecloth it will absorb less liquid and not expand as much.
When this has happened, I have had limited success removing the cloth and preserving all of the outer layer. If the seitan is not too embedded, let it cool on a rack 5 minutes and then try to slowly peel off the cloth. More than 5 and it is a hardened mess.


I would recommend against gatting the models below 325 watt. The 325W models is easily strong enough for breads, cakes, and cookies. Although it does sound a bit tortured on heavier dough and doesn't like mixing tough stuff for extended lengths and gets warm.

The higher power models tend to have a different release mechanism where the bowl lifts into position and the mixing head doesn't tilt. This is generally handy (less dripping, and no wobbling of the mixing head). If you plan on using it multiple times a day, the pro models with higher wattage are the way to go.

I personally find the metal dough hook just fine, I believe the other one you refer to has a spatuala attached to scrape the dough off the sides during mixing.  Sometimes useful, but not the end of the world without it.


Why are salt and pepper the "classic" dinner table seasoning?

Salt is perhaps the most basic and effective flavour enhancer, and so it's fairly obvious why we have it on our dinner tables.

The popularity of pepper is down to the Romans, who were crazy about it. Thanks to the longevity of the Roman Empire, pepper was imported for hundreds of years, helping to establish it as the most popular spice, and keeping the price high.

Bill Bryson reports in At Home that:

  When the Goths threatened to sack Rome in 408, the Romans bought them off with three thousand pounds of pepper.


How do I press avocadoes to make avocado oil?

The cold process is easy.Just blend the fresh pulp using a kitchen blender to make a thin and smooth pulp.Heat the pulp in low heat and maintain a 50 degrees celcius heat for about an hour and a quarter.This is called malaxation which enables the oil molecules to collect into globules visible by eye.Then after malaxation,take the warm malaxed pulp and strain it into a cheese cloth or a muslin cloth and press by squeezing out the oil as it collects into a container beneath.There you have pure virgin avocado oil.I never buy cooking oil at home.I use this for deep frying,baking and desserts making.Its very health and pocket friendly cooking oil especially if you live where avocado is grown in plenty like my home area of Meru in Kenya.I have 20 avocado trees which i make use of.You can try this too at home and enjoy your cooking.


You seem to have gotten the process backwards. You don't culture the buttermilk. You culture the milk, then whip the butter, and the rest is cultured buttermilk, at least if you are going for traditional buttermilk. If you want modern buttermilk, you don't whip anything, just culture the whole milk and consume the result.

The original method would include "self culturing", so you just leave your freshly milked milk at room temperature until it is done (soured). This is not considered acceptable by modern safety standards, even if you have your own cow. If you are starting with milk you bought somewhere, it is not even likely to work. So your best bet to get buttermilk culture is either a package of storebought buttermilk with live cultures, or to look if some specialty store sells the culture itself, possibly online.

I cannot comment on the perfect temperature/time conditions for buttermilk, they are also likely to differ between strains just like they differ between yogurt strains. Maybe somebody else can post the usual ones in another answer.


Why does the sour taste in yogurt increase with time?

Lactic acid is produced by 'probiotic' bacteria breaking lactose into lactic acid. Over time, more lactose is converted, producing more byproducts, thus more sourness.

The byproducts of this reaction are responsible for the distinctive flavor of yogurt.

See a more complete description here: Lactic Acid Fermentation


Sausage roll pastry - how do I achieve a smooth shiny effect?

No, this is not puff pastry at all. It is a rich yeast dough, similar to the dough for an unsweetened brioche. The dough has a low hydration (around 50% or maybe 55%), so it can be rolled out into a sheet, similar to a pizza base, without being sticky. In Europe, these are made with AP flour, not bread flour, they are supposed to be soft and not chewy. If you are looking for a recipe, search for brioche recipes with a low amount of sugar which are intended for kneading by hand instead of a mixer.

From the rolled dough, you have to cut a stripe, maybe 1 cm wide. You also need molds for baking. They look like a long cone, maybe 8-10 cm in height and 2-3 cm in base diameter. (You can roll your own from tin halfcircles, if you have the tools to cut a tin sheet into halfcircles). You wind the strip of dough around the cone and bake it with the cone still inside. Afterwards, you have to remove the cone with care, and so you have the hole where you can put the sausage.

I haven't made or seen the variation with eyes. Obviously, you have to add the pips before baking. I am not sure how the white/dark blob is achieved. It looks like something was piped on before baking, maybe normal and colored eggwhite "snow".

The shiny effect of the crust of this picture seems to be due to baking with steam in a commercial oven. You can't replicate it at home, if you want them to be shiny, you may consider using a glaze or wash.