Roti & chapatti are the same thing with a different name.
Both are made with only wheat flour (atta) & water - though some prefer to add a little oil, that's not really a part of the base recipe. If you add oil to the dough after formation, whilst rolling then folding you get a paratha instead. Milk & oil or ghee is going more towards a puri.
You can cook them in one of two ways. Dry-heat on a tawa or regular frying pan, then flame them, or just keep on the tawa. Personally I prefer flamed, but that's not too easy at home. The chefs I used to watch used huge tongs, like two wire table-tennis bats on a scissor to hold them over quite a wild flame. My gas range produces a very tame controlled flame by comparison & I have never been able to find those tongs anywhere.
The only other real difference, which may be area or even just family tradition related, is their thickness & pliability. My favourites growing up were always the ones that went soft & highly pliable after a few moments cooling; definitely best for picking up your food - we used to jokingly call them 'wash-leathers' but that was the type we liked & would return to establishments that could make them that way, rather then the dryer ones with a slight 'crisp' to them. Where I grew up most of the chefs were Bangladeshi, but I don't actually know if that variant is truly geographical.
I've moved away from that predominantly Bangladeshi-staffed area since my youth in Bradford & no-one around here (London) makes them that way, they're much more layered & dryer. Nowhere near as good imho.
Presumably, in the same way a plethora of various flavours, fillings & toppings have been added to the humble naan in the 40 years or so they're been widely available outside the sub-continent, you could add any other ingredient you like - but then it's not truly a roti any more.


How much dough will I need in order to fill a loaf tin?

Literally speaking, a 900 g (2 lb) loaf tin is designed for a 900 g loaf.  You'll be fine if you use that much dough.

Some mass does get lost during the baking process due to evaporation, so if you want to end up with 900 g and not less (as an actual bakery would try to do), then you want to plan for anywhere between 8% and 12% loss, depending on the kind of dough and how long you bake it for, as well as how quickly you cool it.

The standard figure for mass loss seems to be about 9%, plus whatever is lost during cooling - generally around 1-2%.  I would compensate 10%, meaning to use 1000 g (1 kg or 2.2 lbs) of dough.


Why do some recipes require or insist on the use of a wok over the use of a skillet / pan?

There are a couple of reasons, traditional and some functional:

The home cultures where these recipes are indigenous use a wok, so many recipe authors go the same way
Woks are usually made out of carbon steel, and are poor conductors of heat.  This means that the strongest heat from the concentrated heat source is in the center/bottom of the wok.  As you go up the sides, the level of heat decreases.

This permits staging ingredients up the sides of the wok to stay warm or cook slowly, while the ingredients at the center of the wok are being cooked intensely.

In practice, the real issue with woks is that they are properly used over a very intense heat source.  This permits the stir fry technique, and its unique wok hei flavor to develop in the food.   Note that it is this intense heat (and the carbonization of the seasoning layer on the wok) that actually create wok hei, not the shape of the wok itself.

Western home cooking equipment usually cannot get hot enough to do this, whether you use a wok or a flat bottomed skillet.  Still, over a standard electric burner or even a home style gas burner, using a flat bottom skillet may in fact let you get better heat transfer into the food, and come closer to genuine stir frying than you could with a round-bottomed wok.

Even for dishes that suggest you push food up the sides of the walk, you can use a skillet if you choose:  you cook the food in stages, removing it from the pan instead of pushing it up the sides. Combine the ingredients the end to marry and finish cooking, much as when they are tossed together in wok-based cooking.


In which kind of food items can Asafoetida be used?

I have only seen it used in dahl dishes, presumably because of it's claimed digestive properties. Asafoetida is incredibly pungent; anything more than a pinch seems too much and unpleasant.

I think of it as a flavour-enhancer, a natural, Indian MSG rather than a spice in the normal sense. It makes your mouth water quite intensely and seems to stimulate the savory tatse buds (umami). This is lovely when done subtley and kept in the background.

Therefore, I suspect you could add small pinches to all kinds of savoury food.


How do I make semisweet chocolate more liquid?

Ganache is made from chocolate and heavy whipping cream. You could add hot cream to the chocolate until you get the consistency you are looking for.


What is the minimum time for a decent meat marinade?

It depends on the meat and how it's cut. A 'solid' uncut piece like a pork loin will take longer to marinade properly than if it was cut into thin strips for stir frying, for example - I'd want to marinade the former at least 7-8 hours, while the latter could probably get away with 1.


(Note:  This answer assumes your recipe is calling for the product generally called "Italian sausage" in the US, i.e., this stuff.)
The soup should be fine using ground chicken or turkey instead of Italian sausage.  The only thing to keep in mind would be that both chicken and turkey are leaner than pork (the traditional filling for Italian sausage), so you'll end up with a slightly less rich soup.
The dominant flavoring in Italian sausage is fennel seed.  To substitute for a pound of sausage, I'd probably add about 2 teaspoons of fennel seed, crushed up in a mortar and pestle with some salt (no need to grind it all the way to powder, but crunching it up will distribute the flavor better than whole seeds).
Some Italian sausage also includes garlic and/or hot pepper flakes (the latter being the difference between "hot" and "mild/sweet" Italian sausage).  Adding a clove of garlic or a little bit of chili sounds good to me, but the soup will probably turn out fine without as well.


As alcohol boils away quite easily, perhaps you could try simmering it a while to remove some of the alchohol taste? Try it with a glassful first to see if it works.

You might try adding some passion fruit pulp (strained through a sieve to remove the pips) to increase the fruitiness.


Allergic to grapes, apple and cherry how to use recipes with wine

Getting the flavor without the classic source of the flavor, the fruit would seem difficult for an exact match.  For alcohol content a relatively neutral tasting vodka might work.  For the acid a mild vinegar.  In either case water to dilute to level of wine and match liquid volume.  Matching flavor without the fruit though will be tough.  Good results will probably depend on personal taste and the amount of wine the recipe called for and experimentation.


Why do my caramels turn out hard in the center?

The higher the temperature, the harder the caramel. That is basically the whole story. So I think what is happening to you is that the caramel in the middle is still going up in temperature due to residual heat, while the stuff at the sides cools down quickly because it can vent heat through the pan to the outside world. Have you checked the calibration on your thermometer? In any case, I think the things you can try are (1) cook to a slightly lower final temperature (back down a couple degrees at a time) and (2) set the pan over a tray of ice to cool it more evenly. Also, be sure to do a really good job of that final stir before pouring into the tray.


I just spoke with someone from Presto - apparently, the pressure is meant to be maintained by adjusting the heat source, and the weight provided with the canner is meant only to build pressure and not as a regulator. They also recommend against adjusting the weight in order to achieve in-between pressures. Not sure why on that last point - I'll follow up here with more info when I hear back from them.

They also sent me a separate recipe book meant to be used with the variable weight and I found that all of the 6 lb recipes are the same when used with the 5 lb weight.  And likewise, the 11 lb recipes are the same when used with the 10 lb weight. My best guess is that they are adding 1 lb to the recipes for use with the dial gauge to err on the side of safety, whereas the weight holds a more consistent and predictable amount of pressure.

UPDATE: Spoke with another rep at Presto who indicated that because there is a certain margin of error with the gauge that it would be unsafe to calibrate a weight by reading the gauge. I personally feel that you should be able to logically deduce the achieved pressure with a bit of trial and error using known weights, but I can understand the importance of safety and accuracy when it comes to knowing what pressure you are dealing with.


What is the difference between Atlantic and Steelhead farmed salmon in taste and how to cook?

Technically, steelhead is an ocean-going subspecies of rainbow trout (a term more commonly applied to fish who live only in fresh water).  They're definitely related, though; salmon, trout, and char (you can often find Arctic char in the fish case alongside salmon) are all members of the Salmonidae family.  As such they're pretty similar from a culinary perspective.

Personally, I find the flavor to be somewhat "fishier" and the texture less oily than Atlantic salmon, which is relatively mild.  Steelhead is a bit closer (as the color would indicate) to Pacific salmon varieties, with coho being the closest match in my experience.  But farmed fish are almost always milder, so don't expect anything close to really flavorful wild salmon.

The bigger difference is likely to be the physical size of the filets you get from steelhead.  They are smaller fish than the quite large Atlantic salmon, which means a generally thinner filet and a finer grain.  That in turn means they'll cook more quickly than thicker Atlantic filets.

Definitely an easy substitution, and not a bad difference in price (which is probably more due to where you're located in relation to the respective fish farms).


What would cooking chicken at 140 degrees F for a prolonged period do?

Well, on some level, this is exactly what sous vide cooking aims to do--very gently bring the food up to the target temperature and no further. In theory you wind up with something that's more or less perfectly cooked all the way through with no part overcooked or undercooked. But of course this is typically done in vacuum bags in a water bath, which is very different from doing it in an oven, because the bag keeps all the natural juices in contact with the meat, preventing drying on the outside.

When doing this in the oven, it's unavoidable that some of the outside will get dry. Even at temperatures lower than boiling, some evaporation will occur and the longer you cook (a side effect of low temperatures) the more drying you can get. Beyond that, about the only downsides are that the fat renders very differently so the skin doesn't get crisped, and there's little carry-over cooking that goes on after the bird is removed from the oven.

I think it's definitely a matter for debate whether this kind of method results in better taste. By not getting things hot enough for the Maillard reaction (browning, basically) I think you're leaving a lot of flavor potential untapped. However, it's undeniable that, ignoring possible air-drying that happens, you'll have little to no risk of overcooking. That alone will increase your chances of a good result because overcooking has to be the most common mistake people make.

As to why you got your 140 degree reading when the meat near the bone was still pink, I think there are two things at work. One is that I understand that the meat near the bone is just naturally more pink and that it's fine to eat in that state if the temperature is right--there's some science behind it but I just can't find the article right now. The other thing is that there's always some variability to sticking a thermometer into a roast, and you might not have gotten your probe into the least-done part.


How quickly can chicken stock turn sour?

Boiling stock for a long time will not make it sour.

In my experience, high protein food will not go sour when it goes bad. It goes putrid. Sourness requires sugars. Either way, I agree that your stock would not have been given sufficient opportunity to go off.

I am forced to blame experimental error. Perhaps your utensils were not as clean as you thought. Maybe you just ate a spoonful of honey and your tongue was uncalibrated.


Ways for success on cast iron crepe pans without cooking spray

Enameled cast iron is indeed not as good as non-enameled, because you can't heat it as much. But it still should give you good crepes. If your butter burns, just use simple oil instead of butter - any oil will do, the more refined, the better (so the cheapest no-plant-named ones work best). It may burn to the point of getting dark brown, but you won't get the tiny coal particles you get when butter solids burn.

I'd like to use butter only.

it's hard to get the surface to be golden

These two wishes are mutually exclusive. No matter what pan material you are using, if you get the proper heat transfer rate for getting a golden crepe, butter will burn badly.


How to substitute eggs in homemade pasta?

Here is a complete flax seed pasta dough recipe for you (on allergickid.blogspot.com).

It uses the only egg substitute I've used: ground flax seeds and water. I've used it in several breads and cookies, but not pasta. I've found several different ratios online, you so may need to play with them, depending on the flax you use, but basically:

  To replace one egg: In a blender, blend 1 Tbsp flax seeds with 3 Tbsp water until thick and creamy.

You want the flax to be freshly ground, and it will add a nutty flavor.


What do I need to clean off before I season this cast iron?

Whilst the re-seasoning part could be considered a duplicate, that's not actually what this question asks. It's "What do I do with the existing surface?"
You sand it off, or you get it sandblasted professionally (or you get all chemistry class with lye baths & other potentially dangerous stuff;).
The cosmetic appearance is not vital, but your pan has built up a coating so thick that it can start to come off in chunks.
This is your opportunity to start afresh, so I'd try to get it as close to bare metal as you reasonably can, without being over-fussy about the last vestiges. As your start-point for the new seasoning you want an even surface, rather than a 'perfectly clean' one. New seasoning will stick just as well to remaining coating as it will to bare iron, so long as you re-season properly.
For that part I'd see some of the previous answers on this stack - but note, there appears to be no true consensus as to temperature, duration, oil type...


I once attempted to make Brussel Sprout Chips (in much the same way you can make Kale chips)... That worked... now if you can make a wasabi sauce/dressing or sprinkle freshly grated Wasabi so it bakes onto the sprout leaves you may have something...

Preheat the oven to moderate oven 180°C/350°F.
Remove the leaves of the brussels sprouts. This is tedious work, but it can be done. You want as many leaves as possible, and you may need to keep cutting away the stem as you get deeper into the sprout.
Place the leaves on a baking sheet and drizzle generously with olive oil, tossing to coat. Sprinkle with the sea salt/wasabi/whatever dry flavours.
Bake, turning every 5 to 7 minutes, until browned and crunchy, almost burnt, but not burnt.


There are three major things you can do:

Use a salad spinner
Dry the produce with towels (paper or cloth—something that doesn't produce lint)
Let the produce sit and air dry

The method you choose depends mostly on how sturdy or delicate the particular items are, and how much time you have.

Salad greens are difficult to dry, mostly because it is tedious to carefully dry each leaf or piece with a towel, although rolling the greens in towels and letting them sit for a while is very effective.   For this reason, salad spinners are very popular.

If you have time, letting your produce air dry is almost always effective, even for salad greens.  While they are damp, they will not wilt, so if you will use them without a reasonable period, this method works even for greens.

Otherwise, a salad spinner is good for greens; and a towel will suffice for almost everything else.


Use clarified butter.  It will handle considerably higher temperatures without burning/smoking.


Blanching is a necessary step prior to preparing vegetables for storage in the freezer.  Blanching deactivates the enzymes, present in fruits and vegetables, which are responsible for browning and potential off flavors during storage. Your blanched vegetables will look and taste better after being frozen.  They will also last longer.  Blanching is a quick process.  Bring a pot of water to a boil.  Add vegetables.  Allow the pot to return to the boil (cover on).  This should take about a minute.  Remove to an ice bath.  Drain.  Package.  Freeze.  If you are ok with boiling for a minute or two, this should not add much time to your process.


Fudge is a mixture of sugar, butter and milk/cream, made by slowly crystallising sugar at about 115C. You can make a caramel sauce by heating sugar and water to this temperature, and then adding cream (or maybe evaporated milk), followed by more gentle heating. So I think there is a chance it will work. You might want to add some extra cream for richness and texture.


Assuming they were canned safely (sounds like they were acid enough that this is likely) you can certainly dump them in a pot, add sugar (and possibly spices), stir a lot and cook  (and stir) more to make jam, then can that if you like. Be sure to stir well until all the sugar is dissolved, so it does not burn.

Making jam is a long cooking process, so "pre-cooking" won't bother it.

I have done this with a different variety of plum when there was a bumper crop one year and I was scrambling to preserve it as fast as possible before it could rot. I then made jam out of some of the quick preserves when there was more time.


Can I make my chips crunchy again after they have gone soggy?

Try spreading them out on a cookie sheet and baking them at low heat for 15 minutes or so.


It depends on how you define crisp.

You can definitely have a different texture on the outer side of a piece of chicken. In fact, you can't have the same texture as on the inside, unless you are making it sous vide. It will be browned, and drier than the inside. But you can't make it go "crack" when you chomp down on it. You can compare it to the outside of a good steak. So if you want the chicken to be crisp, you really need the skin.

If you don't insist on the chicken itself being crisp, and just need the texture, you can bread the chicken with breadcrumbs, or froth it with batter. Breading is the usual option and works well with pieces shallow fried in a pan, such as chicken breasts or boneless backs. If you are making a whole chicken, you'll have to be creative, and frothing may work better. In any case, a breading or batter cover needs fat to be crisp, so if you are removing the skin for the calorie content, you don't gain anything.


I haven't made jam in years and don't know first-hand, but this website suggests it won't scale as the jam won't cook as well.  This seems predicated on the idea that your cooking vessel remains the same size but the batch is larger.

From the linked site:

  Most jam recipes already call for you to use the widest pot you have, for maximum surface area. This large surface area leads to faster evaporation of water. Fast cooking leads to the freshest tasting, best textured jam.

  However, if you double the amount of jam in your pot, you greatly increase the cooking time, because there’s so much more product in the pot that needs to be cooked down. This can lead to rubbery batches, burning and jam that doesn’t set.

This is also supported by another site that claims doubling is difficult "due to inherently uneven heating of home cookware".

Per nico's comment, it sounds like doubling/scaling is possible - perhaps give it a try in cookware appropriate to the doubled batch size.


Grapefruit recipe substitute to avoid medicine interaction?

Two ideas come to mind:

Artificial grapefruit flavor. Clearly not the most desirable ingredient, but they make it and you can buy it online if you look for it.
Hoppy beer (IPAs) for aroma. Certain hop varieties have a strong grapefruit aroma. You can seek out West Coast-style IPAs for this (Lagunitas IPA or Lil' Sumpin and Ballast Point Sculpin are some that come to mind). Or homebrew your own beer with hops like Cascade, Amarillo, Centennial, Citra, and there are several others. You can google for grapefruit hops.

Otherwise, you might try meyer lemon. It's sweeter than a lemon, but still has some sourness, though not the same as grapefruit.


Dry measurement and conversion to weight

In general you can't convert volume measures (like cups) into mass measures (like ounces) without taking into account the specific thing you're measuring, because different substances will have different densities in a cup.

If you search online you can find conversions for different common food items but these vary. The website CookItSimply provides a conversion for cooked chopped chicken as 1 cup to 4.4oz; the website FreeFoodTips gives 5.22oz; TraditionalOven.com gives 4.94oz. Note that these are cooked weights, and chicken changes weight as it's cooked.

However, a recipe that incorporates shredded chicken isn't likely to be very sensitive to the exact quantity so I would take the recipe as just giving an indication of the rough amount of chicken to use: think of the amount that would fit in 2.5 cups and go for roughly that amount.


Atta usually refers to durum flour (often whole wheat) used in Indian/South Asian cuisine. It is  used for indian flat breads like chapati, roti and naan. Where it normally isn't self-rising, you can find special self-rising naan atta (that contains some kind of leavening agent), but it will be then labeled as self rising or at least special naan atta.

That said, like any durum flour most attas are well-suited for making dry pasta (which does not require eggs cause it has high enough gluten contents).

I have used atta flour for eggless pasta myself, it worked well and it was easy to roll it really thin to prepare lasagna sheets and ravioli.


I find when cooked, the skin retains a bit of bitterness and toughness, so in desserts, juices or when shaved/julienned , I'm inclined to peel them. In fast salads, quick application, I usually don't bother.


To make you pancakes spread more, and thus be thinner, increase the amount of liquid in the recipe.  This will make the batter less viscous, so that it will spread more before beginning to set, thus giving you thinner pancakes.

I would start slowly, perhaps a couple of tablespoons extra milk (or just plain water) until you find the consistency that you like.

You will also have to experiment to determine the appropriate cooking time, as the additional
liquid will somewhat need to be cooked off to get the best texture.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with using the bottom of your ladle to help the batter spread out a bit more.  This is normal, and will somewhat even out as the pancakes cook.


What are the major menu differences between Canadian and American Thanksgiving?

From my experience, there are no major differences between Canadian and Northern American dishes. We have most of the normal Turkey (or Goose/Duck), yams, potatoes, stuffing/dressing, pies etc... There are probably more differences with in the United States itself (southern vs northern), for example the cornbread you mentioned.

In other words, when I watch American Thanksgiving food/cooking show specials, the large majority of the dishes are very familiar and relevant to my experiences up here.

I would suggest that most variations come from families' countries of origin/culture.. For example, my mom usually cooked some special Chinese dishes, but clearly that isn't a Canadian thing. (Also, Southern influence, coastal influence, Latin influence etc..)


Since no one else answered, I'll give you what I can.

Disclaimer: I never brewed with kefir grains. I brew beer, ciders, sometimes yogurt, and kefir started from commercial kefir.

I'm a big fan of cinnamon. So what I tried:

Filtration bags from brewers store simply fail to keep cinnamon dust in.
Filtration bags, extra fine cinnamon dust and gunk glue them so good that you can't really taste cinnamon in the final product.
Muslin bags as one of the above, depending on how thick and dense fabric is.
Dense metal mesh like the one you use on frying pan - tried to use it in couple of ways but nothing really worked.

Now, what worked? The only thing that worked for me was to first brew without cinnamon, then get my yeast out for reuse, and only then add cinnamon. After a day or two I decanted my brew leaving gunk on the bottom. Sadly this probably won't work for milk kefir. Sure won't work for yogurt, it's too thick. For juice-based drink it might work. It worked for me with ales and ciders fermented with yeast. Note: I needed to pitch fresh yeast with priming sugar to get any carbonation.


Does type of starch used for thickening make a difference in a fruit sauce?

Per this page from  The Cook's Thesaurus  many starches can be used for thickening but some work better than others for certain applications. For the purpose of a fruit sauce arrowroot would probably be your best option.

arrowroot starch = arrowroot powder = arrowroot = arrowroot flour    This starch thickener has several advantages over cornstarch.  It has a more neutral flavor, so it's a good thickener for delicately flavored sauces.  It also works at a lower temperature, and tolerates acidic ingredients and prolonged cooking better.  And while sauces thickened with cornstarch turn into a spongy mess if they're frozen, those made with arrowroot can be frozen and thawed with impunity.   The downside is that arrowroot is pricier than cornstarch, and it's not a good thickener for dairy-based sauces, since it turns them slimy.
Arrowroot also imparts a shiny gloss to foods, and while it can make a dessert sauce glow spectacularly, it can make a meat sauce look eerie and fake.  To thicken with arrowroot, mix it with an equal amount of cold water, then whisk the slurry into a hot liquid for about 30 seconds.  Look for it in Asian markets and health food stores.   Equivalents:  One tablespoon thickens one cup of liquid.  Substitutes:   tapioca starch (very similar) OR Instant ClearJel®  OR cornstarch (Cornstarch doesn't impart as glossy a finish and can leave a starchy taste if undercooked.) OR kudzu powder OR potato starch OR rice starch OR flour (Flour makes an opaque sauce, imparts a floury taste, and can easily turn lumpy.  Use twice as much flour as arrowroot.)

The article lists each thickener with details on the best uses for each, downsides, and substitutions.


Can I shorten bean soaking time if they'll be slow cooked?

I use a slow cooker almost every time I cook dried beans, and I don't recommend cutting down on soaking.  I typically soak overnight (with a little bicarbonate of soda), and start cooking in the morning, so 10-12 hours soaking + 8-12 hours cooking, avoiding adding (much) acid/salt until towards the end.
It's possible your beans soften more easily than mine,  but with a much shorter soak (say 4 hours, and 10 hours cooking, because I forgot to soak them overnight) I've found several types to be barely edible - I ended up cooking down my chilli , blending it, and eating it as bean burgers.


Oxtail soup, what is the normal simmer time?

There is no single expected time when you are using agricultural products like oxtail.   Each one will be different.  They may be cut to slightly different sizes.  The animals may have exercised their tails more or less.  One may be younger or older at the time of slaughter.

Every recipe is a guideline.  You are looking for an outcome, not a duration.  You cook until done, not for a specific duration.

The test for oxtail soup mostly is that the texture of the oxtail has reached your desired level of tenderness.   Then you can stop simmering.

I suspect your two batches straddle the line, though; 3 hours is probably on the order of what you can expect most of the time, and 5 hours much longer than normal.   I surveyed the top google results for "oxtail soup recipe" and most indicate a simmering time of between 2 1/2 and 3 hours, with a couple of outliers.


Can I add more pectin at the end of the marmalade cooking process?

There's no problem adding pectin later in the process, you just have to be careful how you do it depending on the form. Powdered pectin can glob up if you just pour it in, mixing it with a bit of water or cooled marmalade from your pot will prevent this. Pectin sugar or liquid pectin mixes can be added without any issues.

The thing is you shouldn't need to add pectin as seville oranges are naturally very high in pectin, if you aren't getting a set then it's likely a problem in your technique or not enough sugar or acid. This very good article on marmalade has some good suggestions:

Soak the cut peel for 24 hours to release the pectin
When cooking keep the temperature below 220F/105C to avoid overcooking the pectin and damaging it
Keep the cooking time short to avoid damaging the pectin

Also, make sure you have enough acidity and sugar, you generally have to add some lemon juice to marmalade as there isn't enough in the oranges naturally. If you have overcooked the pectin you can add some in, just remember to keep the temperature down and not cook it to long. As soon as you get a decent set get it off the heat.


My induction stove does not evenly heat a frying pan. Is it broken or am I doing something wrong?

What I would do is invest in a $30 - $50 single induction hob that can be put on your counter, and see if the problem persists there. At the worst case, you just have an extra hob for stocks or something, but it could very well be that you'll have some success there, which gives you a hob that you could use for searing and such. It helps you to eliminate the range itself as the culprit.

The other thing you could do (again, any action here is going to cost money) is invest in some 3 or even 5 ply cookware from a vendor like All Clad. They have steel / copper / steel / aluminum / steel 'sandwich' pans that are tested to conduct heat perfectly evenly.

Given what you've tried, I tend to think the range itself is the culprit. Some induction ranges (especially earlier ones) just didn't perform very well for cooks that ventured beyond basic boiling and frying. This is why getting an extra hob might be the best course you could take.

If it is the range itself then high-tech / high-performance layered cookware is going to probably help a little, but it's not going to fix the fact that the rings aren't functional comparable to the dispersion of a flame (which modern hobs can mostly claim, even the cheaper ones).

While cast iron isn't guaranteed to be an even conductor and can have its issues, those issues shouldn't be nearly as bad as what you're seeing, which strongly points at the range itself as the likely culprit.

Good luck, unfortunately this is one of those problems that requires a little spending to figure out.


Achieving viscosity when making cocoa spread, without butter or coconut oil, with colza oil, without nuts

I would say that the "thicker milk" advice of the other answer is not bad. Instead of using evaporated milk, it might be mich easier to make it with powdered milk.
Beyond that, I wouldn't try to do whatever a commercial producer is doing. Their recipes tend to be very precisely tuned, created with a lot of effort and know-how, and require steps and technologies that are impossible at home. If, for example, they are hydrogenating their oil, or maybe using only done fraction of it, you will never be able to replicate that.


Can I sprout grains/legumes/seeds I buy in bulk from whole foods?

Yes organic raw seeds are safe to sprout.


Carrageenan is a natural thickening agent. It helps the cream beat more easily and stay fluffy. I have seen brands that don't have it but I agree with Marti that you might have to try a health food store.

Egg whites do not beat to nearly the same consistency. They are much more foamy. If beaten all the way they are more stiff. If you are using the whipped cream on a pie you can make a meringue topping instead. It won't be the same but it will serve the same purpose.

Another alternative is to make whipped cream with evaporated milk:
The first link from Google

This technique produces cream that is similar to whipped cream- it has to stay chilled and be eaten right away. It will melt unless stabilized with gelatin.


Like anything else food-related it's a matter of risk. If I'm picking raspberries straight off of my bush I often eat them without washing, but if I have a lot of them from the store I wash them as I don't know what they have been exposed to in packing and transit. Many people do not do this and get away with it just fine, occasionally someone gets sick. How much of a risk it is depends on the source of the berries, how they are packed, etc. and most of the time this is a complete unknown.
As for how to clean them it's important to be gentle, especially with very ripe raspberries as they can easily break apart. It's similar with blackberries, when I collect wild berries I accept that I will lose 5-10% of them in washing as some of them simply dissolve for lack of a better word. I minimize this by gently filling the container with water, soaking then for a few minutes, agitating them gently with my hand, then draining them. If they are good and solid you don't have to be this careful.
Raspberries don't absorb water, it's the cavity that gets filled up that gives that impression, so to drain them effectively I tilt them in all directions, letting the water run out no matter the orientation of each berry.


Converting kneading times from machine kneading to hand kneading

If I were to convert a machine kneading time to hand kneading time, I'd take the time and at least double it, perhaps between double and triple, depending on how strong/vigorous you are.

The odds of over-kneading by hand are pretty low, as compared to by machine.

I would guess that the flour substitutions or the coldness were more of an issue than the kneading.  I've not heard of this book or either of the flours mentioned, but I do know that mileage can vary a LOT with wholegrain flours, and even basic white flours depending on where you live, due to changes in protein contents for regional differences.


Can cooking or processing generate more natural sugars?

The comment you cite obviously means the second explanation. The total quantity of sugars within the apple is not considered to increase in apple sauce making. Its density, however, does increase. And the increase can be substantial, as fruit is mostly water. In fact, "table sugar" is nothing but processed (concentrated) beets or cane.

It is possible that some production processes will create new sugars, usually by enzymatic splitting of longer carbohydrates. This is where the fructose in high fructose corn syrup comes from. So you can't assume that the second meaning will be true for all cases where you start with a fruit or vegetable. It is just true for traditional applesauce recipes.

Whether it is possible to make jam "without added sugar" is a very murky question, as "added sugar" is not really definable in this case.

As for the healthiness of such products, this is both off topic and unanswerable. You should ask your grandmother's doctor. He's the only one who knows what he meant and intended when he prescribed the diet.


How to know when food grade plastic has melted?

Plastic is an amorphous solid. This means that it doesn't have a sharp melting point like water, but it goes through a state where it is softer and softer, until it turns liquid.

So yes, the plastic was in this state when you touched it. If you want to call this transitional state "melted", then it was melted. Unless you prefer to call it "softened". Everyday language is blurry enough to permit both.

If you are worried about melted plastic actually mixing throughout the soup, like vinegar would mix if you were to add it, that's not what happened.

As to "leeching", this is not well defined and not usually covered by food safety rules. Plastics do tend to have overheating restrictions over which they char, but as for "leeching", the only regulated one I know of would be melamine, and I'm pretty sure that's not what your box was made of. So throwing it out or not depends on your personal feelings about leeching.


Can I use fresh okara without cooking it?

Its been a while but I found this thread as I was wondering the same thing... Not much info on raw okara but I just googled raw soybeans....

"For human consumption, soybeans must be cooked with "wet" heat to destroy the trypsin inhibitors (serine protease inhibitors). Raw soybeans, including the immature green form, are toxic to humans, swine, chickens, and in fact, all monogastric animals."

From wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soybean


Can I adapt a baking recipe for a Dutch Oven to a Casserole Dish?

They are different terms for the same object, so yes.

In the images you have chosen the first is metal and the second ceramic; these would have different properties in terms of browning the food that comes into contact with the base and sides. But products branded as 'Dutch ovens' come in metal and ceramic, and products branded as 'casserole dishes' come in metal and ceramic too.

In addition, for the specific recipe you are using the author has added:

  You can use any 6 quart dutch oven, cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or
  ceramic bakeware (with lid) that can heat up to 500 degrees F.

So I would have no concerns about the equipment as long as it has the desired volume.


What do I do with leftover egg whites? How long are they safe for?

I can't really answer the question on what to do with the egg whites but the question how long the egg whites are good: two to four days.

Hmm, what about macaroons?


Most baked rolls are placed closer together to encourage rising, and limiting horizontal spreading.


Cider vinegar is generally a little bit sweeter and not quite as sharp as white wine vinegar. With the other flavors you're adding, the difference isn't likely to be major. A good approach might be to hold back about a quarter of the sugar in the recipe, taste, and adjust to preference.

One thing in the cider vinegar's favor is that most of the acid present in the rhubarb is malic acid, the same compound that gives green apples their tartness. Apple and rhubarb typically get along quite nicely and I see no reason why they wouldn't here as well.


The use-by dates on all spices are mainly hokum. Most spices last for six months in whole form, herbs can be dried and last about three, after that time the taste is going to weaken and change as essential oils leave the spice. If you keep your spices in an airtight dark container you can eek out a little more time, but I would highly recommend that if you want fresh spices you grind yourself and keep fresh herbs on hand (it's very little work to grow your own).

That said, bay leaves last me quite a while, and even after I know they should be retired I tend to just throw more of them in the pot to achieve the same effect.


Is it possible to have chocolate chunks in ice cream that aren't waxy?

I use dark chocolate chips (Whole Foods brand, vegan) when I make my own ice cream, and have not encountered any waxy texture. I can vouch for that but you can probably experiment with your favorite chocolate chips.

Somewhat OT but making mint ice cream isn't too hard if you have an ice cream maker, just follow the instructions for vanilla but use mint extract instead. Then add the chips when the ice cream is about 5 minutes away from being finished in the ice cream maker.


Bake brownies by 2 different ways, what changes?

Your first method -- beating eggs and sugar "to the ribbon" -- is a process of denaturing some of the egg proteins into a lattice that will help capture steam as the batter bakes.  Also, this method helps ensure your eggs will be well distributed in the batter, with no stripes of eggwhite anywhere.

Your second method -- beating sugar and softened butter to a pale yellow -- appears to be the creaming method, which uses sugar granules to punch millions of tiny air bubbles into the butter.  By using this method, when the batter bakes, you get a more even "crumb" (texture of the holes in the final cake).  Though you did not mention it, typically this method is used with recipes calling for baking powder/baking soda (you can use the method without a chemical leavener).  Also, I would expect the butter-sugar creaming step to take place before you add your melted chocolate.

Neither method is inherently necessary; if you simply stir all ingredients together at once into a uniform batter, you will still get a tasty product.  That said, each technique will tend to lighten the brownie into a more cake-like texture, rather than a dense, fudge-like texture.  You can do both, if you like, by dividing your sugar in half.


Refrigerate them.
When it comes down to meat, you should play it safe. Spoiled meat can develop salmonella and other forms of bacteria. Read more about it on the CDC website.
That said...
I believe the method of preserving you are referring to is confit:

In chilly European kitchens before refrigeration, it was common to salt meat, usually duck, goose or pork, and then to cook it slowly in the animal's own fat. The rendered fat was then poured over the meat in a crock, completely covering it and sealing it off from the air. In an oxygen-free environment, the meat would keep a long time without spoiling.

While confit is a real thing, people from back when it was popular had lower standards for food safety, and access to safer meat. There are probably current recipes for safe confit, but a homebrew experiment of "just cover with fat" cannot be considered safe if canned - it should be handled like any other unpreserved dish.

I'm not sure that there is a way to do that with sausages. I would suggest to make smaller batches more often instead, and keep them refrigerated or frozen. If you package them in small portions, say 1 or 2 sausages, it won't take very long to thaw them in the microwave.


I am happy to give you a brief idea, but you may have to tell me how much info you need

Get the lotus leaves from chinese shop and they are usually dried leaves, so you need to soak them in water for a night.  After that give it a wash and cut it to the right side
sticky rice is a type of rice, so that's what you need. Don't use any other rice as they won't stick. You will need to soak the rice in water for couple of hours and add couple drops of oil.
Prepare whatever you want to put in your rice like mushroom and meat
When u make the wrap, put a layer of rice on the leaf and then place the meat and mushroom on the rice.  After that put another layer of rice on top and wrap it up
Put the wrapped rice to steam and I cannot help you with the time, but it's between 10-20 mins

Good luck


It is a stove top griddle.   You set it across two burners (hobs for Brits), and heat it up.

You can use it for any griddled foods:  pancakes, hash browns, grilled sandwiches, hamburgers, steak, and so on.

The little track around the edge is to capture any juice or fat that run off the surface without making a mess.

You season it like any other cast iron pan.  It is probably easiest to do so in the oven.  You only need to season the cooking surface.

See also:

What's the best way to season a cast iron skillet?
How to clean and maintain cast iron lids
What oil is best for seasoning a cast-iron skillet


Is there any advantage to resting (banana) bread batter?

The leavening action of baking soda begins as soon as it is moistened - that is as soon as you mix your wet and dry ingredients your baking soda begins the chemical reaction that creates the carbon dioxide which causes the rise in your quick bread. Because of this I would say that there is no advantage, but in fact a disadvantage to resting a quick bread. Also, it is usually recommended to mix quick breads as little as possible and over mixing them can cause them to be tough.


From what I understand, the usual way to campfire-cook an egg (without pots'n'pans, I mean) is to pierce a little hole in it on one end, I think on the large end so the bubble of air leaks out before any egg does, and then partially bury it right next to the campfire so it bakes slowly-ish.  I've heard of burying in earth or in ashes, depending on one's setup.  You can cover the top with a leaf (just make sure you know what it is a leaf of) if you're worried about something dropping through the hole while it cooks.  it does take a while, like ten minutes or so, it is a tradeoff of a slower method of cooking for a higher chance of not blowing itself up.  I've seen it done, it works pretty well.

So I mentioned campfire cooking since you talk about hiking, and because it's the closest method I know of to what you're asking, but since you're talking about a barbecue setup... that will be a bit trickier, since there's no convenient heat-sink right there to leave the egg in to bake.

The solution would probably be the same, though, it needs to be buffered from the heat so it bakes slowly (suddenness of temperature shifts or physical expansion being very good for explosions).  Piercing might still be helpful, though, depending on how fast or how hot it is cooked.

Loosely wrapping in leaves or other, hm, disposable wrappings.  I've seen suggestions of using a hollowed potato or an orange peel, just anything thick, moist, slow-burning, and nonpoisonous you might have on hand.  Even foil might work, though it'd take quite a bit to get a proper loose thickness since it conducts heat much better.  This method will make the heating a bit slower, and slower is less likely to explode, etc.  Again, don't just grab any random leaf, make sure you know what kind it is, if it's going to be in contact with your food.  Maybe even a clay or mud coating (optional inner foil to keep the egg clean), I've heard of it being done for fish and the like.

If you can find or make somewhere conveniently nearby the heat where the egg can be left, that might work too (especially if it gets quite hot).  Some metal shelf or hanging container or even something tucked right up underneath might work quite well, though this solution might take a bit of rigging depending on your setup.

Third option would be, if you're eating anything else with your egg (like beans, or anything saucy) you can poach an egg right on top.  You can just crack it on and let it cook, it's a known technique (a recipe would be something like "eggs in purgatory" which uses a tomato based sauce though one can use anything wet or saucy).  If you're cooking something more solidish and not saucy, like chopped veggies, you may be able to plonk your egg in with them, in the shell, and just let them serve as a temperature buffer.


Indian Mango Pickle producing gas is that normal?

This is completely normal and expected.

Indian pickle is fermented. One of the by products of that fermentation is gas.
The salt keeps undesirable bacteria from growing.

In the future you should use a container that can be less tightly closed and allow some of the gas to vent as it ferments. You wouldn't want a bottle to burst.


By how much should I shorten the cooking time of a slow cooker recipe if I'm only using half the meat?

You should probably not reduce the cooking time by a lot, if at all. These recipes assume you are keeping the meet submerged in liquid at some constant temperature for several hours. Assuming your tenderloin is not somehow less thick than a 2 pound cut would be, nothing in the recipe changes. The core temperature of the cut won't take any less time to get up to temperature, and the lower thermal load from having less product will also not affect slow cooking.
Ideally, have some flexibility in when you expect to be done cooking and stop when you have reached the desired results, rather than after some arbitrary period of time.
Apart from that: if you are having problems with meats coming out dry, you might want to check out this question and answers. To summarize: cooking lean meat for long times is usually not ideal.


Experimenting with garlic, does cooking kill the flavour?

Garlic mellows pretty rapidly with heat. Dropping it 2 minutes before you've completed sautéeing your onions is enough to knock the raw edge off it - in fact that's the common deciding factor as to when to add your liquids, "Fry until the raw smell is gone".
After that, the longer it simmers the more 'relaxed' it gets.
If you want more punch, try adding some more fresh right at the end.
You'd be surprised, too, how much punch you can get adding dried garlic powder right at the end too. I use it in tarka dal to really give some 'front' to the flavour & aroma as it is served.


Why does mass-produced cheddar cheese vary from package to package?

Depends on how large the production is. You would expect extremely large scale production to be tightly controlled, but something that is quite large might just be made from a series of large batches. Large batches, particularly in dairy production, can allow very high levels of variance between the beginning and end of a batch.
Your issue sounds like a quality control problem though. Contact the manufacturer.


What do you have for breakfast during camping

Oatmeal. Before you leave, mix the oats with whatever you like: brown sugar, spices, a little salt, nuts, dried fruit, even powdered milk. Boil water and mix it in your bowl so that's all you have to wash; you can boil extra water and get tea or coffee at the same time. (Other fast-cooking hot cereals would work too - I know of instant grits and instant cream of wheat, though I can't vouch for quality.)

I'm not sure if you're trying to avoid ice chests too, but there's always yogurt, or milk and cereal (something more solid like granola). And of course, fresh fruit is also always good with any meal.

For hot meals, I think baka's suggestion of premade pancake mix is probably the next best. If you're a more do-it-yourself type, you can make the mix yourself (using powdered eggs and powdered milk), but storebought will probably serve you quite well - and again, you can premix with extra ingredients like nuts, or spices for gingerbread pancakes, if you want something more exciting.


What are things like Bread, Rice and Cereal collectively known as?

There are several terms which you can use, depending on the context of writing (or speaking).

A very simple one is "the starch". It is mostly used in the context of meal planning, such as "What starch are we going to serve tonight" or "When planning a vegetarian meal, it is best to first decide on the starch and then select sides that complement it".

"Grains" or, mostly interchangeably, "cereals" is what academic specialists for nutrition and diets use in their jargon. If you read a textbook on nutrition, that's where you will find breads, etc. There, the context makes it clear that the word doesn't mean simply uncooked kernels. The nonacademic literature on dieting is more likely to use "carbs" - see Chris H's answer for more detail on that usage.

In legal language, for example rules and regulations about food product labelling, or import and export regulations, you will frequently find phrases like "grain products".

Since none of these terms is unambiguous, outside of these genres of writing you will probably have to go for something more descriptive, for example "foods made from grains" in a colloquial conversation.


Some microwaves (not many) include a temperature probe. If yours does not, no luck there.

Don't just stick in a thermometer, it will probably result in arcing and damage.

So, you're back to the olde-fashioned methods where the various stages (soft ball, hard ball, soft crack, hard crack) got their names from - drip some into cold water and see what happens to it, then microwave for some additional time, or don't - or use a stovetop and a pan and a thermometer (the microwave is a challenging heat source for candy-making.)


How to grease a parchment paper for SugarVeil?

If you want to use parchment paper, you'll need to use Crisco, not butter. The downside of Crisco is you may end up with a small amount of undesired flavor/texture on your SugarVeil.

Alternatively, you can purchase SugarVeil Mats, which are basically silicon mats with imprints of various designs on them.


Does adding salt when soaking dry beans toughen or soften the skin of the bean?

Soften.  Other things that typically are added with salt will tend to toughen the beans, but it isn't the fault of the salt.  For decades, chefs have circulated the oral tradition that adding salt hardens beans, but it's a myth.

Several scientific studies verify that adding salt to the soaking water for dried beans will reduce the cooking times.  The first and most cited article, originally published in 1977, can be found here.  As mentioned in the first answer you cited, the fine folks at Cooks Illustrated found in 2008 that 3 TBSP per gallon of water produces soft skins while not over-salting the interior of the beans.  Since you can't see the full article, here is the science according to CI:

"Why does soaking dried beans in salted water make them cook up with softer skins? It has to do with how the sodium ions in salt interact with the cells of the bean skins. As the beans soak, the sodium ions replace some of the calcium and magnesium ions in the skins. Because sodium ions are weaker than mineral ions, they allow more water to penetrate into the skins, leading to a softer texture. During soaking, the sodium ions will only filter partway into the beans, so their greatest effect is on the cells in the outermost part of the beans."

Harold McGee's NY Times blog (August 9, 2008) also notes that adding salt early enough will allow complete penetration of the bean, which improves flavor.

On the other hand, things typically added with salt -- particularly sugar and calcium-rich products -- tend to toughen beans (and the salt gets the blame).  This toughening effect is most notable in baked-bean recipes using things like ketchup, molasses, and BBQ sauce. You can bake these beans for days, yet the beans will stay whole and firm.  The actual mechanism for this effect is not clear; one hypothesis currently circulating seems to be that these products stabilize the cell-cell "glue" (e.g., Shirley Corriher says so on Good Eats "Pantry Raid III - Cool Beans", transcript online here), but I could not find any peer-reviewed study specifically verifying that hypothesis.


I always limit any refrigerated leftovers to 3days...any thing beyond that throw it out. The ingredients you mentioned are all safe for consumption during that time as long as the egg is thoroughly cooked to an internal temp of 160


How is Pâté made? What are the ingredients?

For a good introduction for the home cook to trying something as ambitious as a Pâté I've found this book to be excellent resource:  Charcuterie:  The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing.  Pâté is not the singular focus of the book, but about a fifth of it is dedicated to it.

The general method involves grinding or pureeing the meat, while taking special care to not melt or break any of the fat from the animal in the process.  (Keeping the blades cold is always key concern.)  Cooking the pâté should also be done gently by either poaching in water, or placing in a water bath in the oven.


I've seen Lagostina pressure cooker recipe booklets from the 1930's that contain pressure cooker pasta recipes.  So it's been done for a while.

I make pressure cooker pasta in sauce at least twice a week - we cook all of our short pasta this way so I came up with a technique to address some of these problems.

1) the pasta pieces are sticking together and to the bottom of the pot because there is not enough water (or cooking liquid like stock).  The pasta is absorbing all of the cooking liquid before the cooking time is finished.

2) since you're using less water in pressure cooking pasta, the starch will not leach out into the big pot of boiling water and then be thrown down the drain through the strainer.  So this extra starch remains and creates a more chewy "al dente" texture.

My technique uses low pressure, water to cover the pasta and half the recommended cooking time on the package.  If your pressure cooker only has one pressure (and its the oldy-kind like the one pictured with Davide Scabin) then you only have to pay attention to the cooking time - those pressure cookers already operate at "low pressure."

Here are all the details of my pressure cooker pasta technique.

All of my online pressure cooker pasta recipes.


How to keep the surface of the cake from splitting?

I have read and heard that to minimize the cracks you should tilt the batter back and forth in the pan prior to baking. If you let the batter climb the walls about 1/8" - 1/4" it supposedly helps with not only a consistent rise, but keeps the batter from clinging to the wall while rising and stretching the surface of your cake while it rises.

I have done this with white cakes since I began baking a few months back in a springform and had good results, however I have never not done it.


Preparing/Storing freshly made noodles/pasta

I spread on a floured plate in one layer (usually multiple plates), place in freezer, then, when frozen, move to freezer bags. You may have to tap plate on counter (I use plastic plates) to loosen pasta that may have frozen to plate. It will last at least a month in the freezer in this state.  When ready to cook, simply put in boiling water directly from freezer.


Caulk gun-like dispenser for whipped cream

My suggestion would be to use a piping bag. You can get various tips so you can change up the swirls and lines as you like.

Added by Jolenealaska:

I hope you look at the comments and all of the answers here. I have used both pastry bags (many times), and a caulk-gun thing once before I threw it away.

Disposable bags are not expensive unless you use a lot of them. And there is no clean up, 'cause you just throw them away.

The caulk gun looking thing is cumbersome and a pain to clean, pastry bags are a much better option. I realize that is a subjective thing to say, but there is a reason you never see pastry chefs using the caulk-gun thing.

Different tips give different results.

A coupler makes it easy to change tips or to use the same tip for different bags (colors).

Then you just throw the bag away and wash whatever tips you used.

Disposable Pastry Bags, 100 count

You can even just snip the end of the bag and not use a tip at all. You can do that with a baggie too, but a pastry bag will give you more control.


Does it make sense to vacuume brined meat? Why not sous vide in water directly?

Theoretically, there is no problem with your logic. In fact, during the early days of restaurant sous vide adoption, when chefs were using the same immersion circulators that scientists were using, it was not uncommon to poach fish directly in oil using an immersion circulator.  Those original tools could handle that job. However, most home sous vide devices of today are designed only to circulate water.  The biggest issue I see is the mess (at best) or the destruction of your circulator. Also, it is possible to over-brine a product.  So, you may not want to cook in a brine for that reason as well.


How long is too long for sous vide steak

When cooking low temperature, over time the texture of the protein that you are cooking changes.  For a tough cut, like a shank, or short rib, this is desirable, and where you would see cooking times of 12, 24, 48 hours...or longer.  Most people want to enjoy a steak that chews like the traditionally cooked product.  After 3 to 4 hours, the texture of your steak will change.  It will become more mushy.  That is why it is recommended that you only cook until done (1 to 2 hours).  So, overdoing it, as you describe it, would be cooking it too long so that the texture becomes undesirable. For a steak, I think 4 hours would be pushing it.


How much of the oil will stay in french fries?

There's too many factors to have a set percentage of oil that will stay, but lets cover a few common things that determine the oil in your final product.

Heat of the oil:

Your oil needs to be plenty hot enough to actually fry in.  For fries, you'll typically want to shoot for between 350-375 F.  If you don't have a thermometer, then get one!  If you really don't want to get one, a white bread cube will fry brown in about 60 seconds at the right temp - but a thermometer is best.  If the oil isn't hot enough to fry in, it will start to absorb the oil.  So before you ever fry anything, get that oil up to temp (and make sure its that way between batches!).

Coating of the fry (or other fried food):

A batter coating is just going to hold more oil than a plain french fry.  If you're trying to be health conscious about french fries (but then again, why are you eating french fries!?!), avoid batter coating them and go with a 'plain' fry.

Post frying treatment:

Shake, shake, shake!  Give the basket a good vigorous shake.  Don't have a basket?  Use a strainer or at least a cooling rack with a mesh-type grate.  You're trying to physically shake as much oil off the fry as you can.  Additionally, I like to lay them on paper towels and then fold the paper towels on top.  See all that oil? Simple math, if its on the paper towel, its not in the fry anymore.

Crowding the pan:

If you crowd the pan you fry in, you'll lower the temperature of the oil and give the oil not enough circulation.  This means longer to fry and more time not at the right temperature.  This means more oil in the final product.  Its better to do some smaller batches than to try to cram it all in one batch.

The right oil:

The main thing here is that you need an oil that can fry hot enough without smoking.  This goes back to the right temperature.  (In case it hadn't sunk in yet, temperature is important!)  If you can't get it hot enough, then you're going to absorb a lot of oil.  Olive oil is a bad choice.  I usually use peanut or canola oil.


There are plenty of technical scientific papers out there that show how the main components of sourdough cultures respond to temperatures, but there's not an easy formula that will distill this down to a simple calculation.  The problem is that feeding schedule can depend a lot on the hydration level of your starter (i.e., how much water per how much flour), the type of flour used for feeding, the unique microorganisms in your particular starter, etc.

Since you apparently haven't worked much with sourdough yet, you should know that 10 degrees Celsius is a bit low for more sourdough cultures to function continuously.  Instead, most bakers will bring their sourdough up to room temperature (around 20-25C) for feedings periodically.  Bakers who make bread on a daily basis may not even refrigerate their starter at all, merely feeding it each day to prepare the preferment for the next batch of bread on the following day.  Those who bake on a less frequent basis will use a cooler storage location, generally bringing the sourdough culture up to temperature for feeding and growth before mixing a batch.

All of that said, it is possible to grow sourdough starters at a constant 10C range, but in that temperature range, you tend to risk producing a more sour flavor (as the lactic acid bacteria that produce the sour flavor will grow better than yeast at such low temperatures).  That can be mitigated somewhat by using a very low hydration firm dough and diluting the starter culture with multiple feedings to build up a final dough, but that's rather complicated and time-intensive for someone just starting out.

Instead, to start I'd recommend instead bringing your sourdough up to room temperature, feeding and growing a bit, then removing what you need for a batch of bread, and storing the rest at a cooler temperature until you need to feed it and bake some more.

Edit: From a comment, I remembered that it is possible to maintain a starter continuously even under refrigeration.  I don't know much about that process, though I remember seeing such techniques mentioned.  Most standard sourdough starter feeding techniques I know of usually involve removing the starter from the fridge, feeding, then leaving the starter at room temperature for at least a couple hours before returning to the fridge.  In my experience, it does lead to stronger yeast growth to do so, but perhaps those with more experience keeping starters continuously at cold temperatures can give better answers.


How does buttermilk affect a waffle recipe?

The role of buttermilk in most recipes, including waffles, is to provide acid into the reaction with baking soda to cause it to 'rise' more. The thickness helps the batter retain the air pockets that the acid + baking soda creates when heat is applied, resulting in a 'lighter fluffier' waffle.


How to add flavouring ingredients to steamed or boiled veggies?

Adding flavors to the water will not transfer to the vegetables. Steam is a poor medium for flavor as water carries almost nothing with it when it becomes gas. There are a few very good methods to add some flavor to steamed veggies, so you can just use one of those!

You can add herbs and other aromatics to the veggies This works best with fresh herbs, but a few sprigs of rosemary or a few leaves of basil in contact with your steamed veggies will get some good flavor action. Alternately, mixing them in right after you take the veggies off the steam will let the residual heat of the veg to bring out the flavors in the herbs. Other things that work well is cooking your veggies on a bed of orange peels or lemon peels to add some citrus flavor.

Add oil, plus any flavors you want to infuse into the oil Once you have steamed your veggies, hit them with a light drizzle of oil. I make a chili-infused olive oil that I toss my steamed carrots in that is always a huge hit. There are wide array of lipid soluble flavors that you can infuse your oil with.

Compound butters are great, but so is just butter Animal fats added after cooking almost always turn ho-hum into yum-yum. Butter has long been the french way to add a bunch of subtle flavor to a side dish. You don't have to use a ton, normally a light toss is enough to make a difference. Compound butter is just butter with herbs chopped in and it gives you the double whammy when you use it.

Any ground spice You can also just shake some ground spices on. Pepper, curry powder, cinnamon, pretty much anything that sprinkles and fits the profile you are looking for will work. If your spices are fresh ground, you will get even more taste for your buck.

If you are boiling your veggies, your options open up. Most root veggies will take on the flavor of whatever you cook them in, so using stock or vegetable broth can add some flavor. Vegetables that you cook with each other in a pot of boiling water will also get some transference among themselves. That's the basis for a large number folk dishes like New England Boil and the reason Cajuns always throw some taters and corn in with the crawfish.


Why does my tofu keep turning out brittle?

This recipe uses more coagulant (1 tablespoon for 3 cups/600g of dried soy beans + 750g of water) and more weight (2.5 pounds), so I think you could also increase one or both of these factors in your next batch.


Where to locate thermometer in my Weber charcoal grill

Per Amazing Ribs Thermometer Buying Guide:

The best method is a probe thermometer.  Position  the tip of the probe  at the level where the food rests, about 1 inch above the grate or rack, and one inch from the food.  You don't want it closer because of the cooling effect of the food itself.

You can suspend the probe above the grate with a clip if it comes with one.  Otherwise, make a ball of aluminum foil, and simply poke the probe through it for an improvised offset stand.

Picture from Amazing ribs article linked above

Note:  the referenced article is very long, and a wealth of detailed information.  Search the page for the headline "I'll tell you where to stick it" (about half way down the page) and start reading there (okay, read the whole thing, but that is the section that is directly applicable to your question.)


traditional italian pasta: with or without eggs?

Although nowadays both are ubiquitous in Italy (and abroad), dried pasta and fresh egg pasta are traditionally associated with different regions of Italy.

Dried durum-wheat pasta originated in the old Kingdom of the two Sicilies, which encompassed the entire Southern Italy, including the island of Sicily, and had its capital city in Naples. Oldest historical records associate the production and consumption of dried pasta with Sicily, but one of the best renowned home of pastifici (artisanal pasta production places) from time immemorial is the town of Gragnano, in the province of Naples.

Still today, the humble spaghetti with tomatoes and basil is one of the iconic food of Naples.

Fresh egg pasta ("fresh" here is referred to pasta, not to eggs, as in "not essiccated") is linked to the historical region of Emilia, part of the River Po Valley.

It is worth mentioning that from a historical point of view this is the reason why spaghetti alla bolognese, one of the best known Italian dishes abroad, is actually a fake one: "bolognese" means "from the city of Bologna", which is the largest city of Emilia. For this reason it was always supposed, from its very own "design", to go well with tagliatelle, which is a classic fresh pasta format.


What are some clear honey and chili sauces in Chinese cuisine?

Could it be a standard sweet and sour sauce, but with Chili's / Szechuan peppercorn added?

Perhaps experiment with this sauce with various chili blends (using both fresh and dried).

https://thewoksoflife.com/sweet-and-sour-chicken/

Chinese peppers aren't usually insanely hot.

The below recipe has some pictures of peppers that I often see in Hunan food, and the fermented sauce might add a certain something to your dish.

https://www.chinasichuanfood.com/chinese-fermented-chili-sauce/

Another possibility is the inclusion of Szechuan flavors, such as mala, from various types of Szechuan peppers. Let me know if you need more information on this. Szechuan peppercorn powder lack the punch and are just floral.


What are the proper steps to add the vermicelli in making dessert shemai?

I have not made this dish but I will attempt an answer based on the recipe I found and linked to in my above comment.

  Melt butter in a 4 qt pot. Break vermicelli into 3" pieces. Over low heat stir vermicelli into butter until it turns light brown. Pour in the milk and stir over medium heat until it boils. Put in the raisins, almonds and sugar.
  Continue to cook under low heat for 10 minutes. Add whipping cream and continue to cook for a couple of minutes. Remove from heat and, when cool, chill in the refrigerator before serving

According to this recipe, the vermicelli is added before the milk (whipping cream), so it looks like it begins to cook with the butter at the start of the cooking process, and continues to cook with the heated milk portion of the recipe. Hopefully this answers your question.


Crisp skin of meat in the beginning or end of roasting and meat in aluminum foil

Short answers:

Browning after cooking through works better because the surface is already dry;
Its to speed the cooking.

Both of your questions are all about the water, so it is important to understand how water influences the way that meat cooks.

Water, as is well known, boils (at sea level, anyway) at about 100 C / 212 F.  What is not well known is that the amount of energy to take liquid water at just at 100 C to steam just at 100 C is comparatively very large.  This energy (required to break the inter-molecular hydrogen bonds as water is a polar molecule) is called the enthalpy of vaporization.

In order for a water molecule to jump from the liquid at the surface of the food, into the free steam above its surface, it must absorb enough heat to "pay for" the ehnalpy of vaporization.

This means that when water evaporates, it actually cools the surface (which is why sweating works for people).  Conversely, when steam condenses on the surface of the food, it warms the surface because the enthalpy of vaporization is metaphorically paid back.

This process ensures that as long as their is liquid water at the surface of the meat (including being replaced from the interior as fast as it evaporates), the surface temperature of the meat cannot exceed 212 F / 100 C.

In order for steak or any other meat to brown, it must be brought to temperatures on the range of 250 - 300 F, at least, for the Maillard browning reactions to happen at a reasonable pace.  This cannot happen when there is free water left on the meat because the temperature will be too low.

So the best way to brown meat is after cooking it through at low temperature.  The low temperature cooking will have dried the surface, and it will be relatively easy to brown the surface for good flavor.  This will also lead to less over cooking at the surface.

A roast in the oven that is uncovered cannot obtain a surface temperature higher than 212 F so long as moisture from the interior flows to the surface and keeps it wet.  The evaporative cooling will ensure this.  This means that the heat conducting into the center is also limited to 212 F, and it may take a while to bring your roast to its desired temperature.

By wrapping the roast in foil, the steam evaporating from the surface is trapped close to the roast.   Eventually, the vapor pressure inside the foil will be such that water condenses back onto the roast almost as fast as it evaporates, essentially shutting down the evaporative cooling, as condensing water returns the energy lost in the enthalpy of evaporation.

So the surface temperature of the meat can now climb above 212 F, and thus allow conduction of heat into the center of the roast more quickly, allowing it to cook through to the desired temperature more quickly.

Of course, this is at the cost of keeping the surface moist, so won't develop crust as well.  This is why the foil is usually removed towards the end, so that the surface (which is quite hot) can now dry, and allow the delicious browning to proceed.

See also:

Does water boil faster with the lid on?
Amazing Ribs article Understanding and beating the stall


What (if anything) Does Superfino Indicate on a Package of Italian Arborio Rice?

Italian rice is graded according to length, shape, size and the amount of broken or whole grains.
Commune or originario is the least expensive and most basic.
Semifino is medium length, maintains firmness, not typically used in risotto.
Fino is relatively long, large and has tapered grains...Stays firm when cooked.  Can be used in risotto...a "fine" rice.
Superfino is the top grade...the most fat and largest grains.  They take the longest to cook because they absorb a large amount of moisture, but still remain firm.  Look for rice from Arborio or Carnaroli.  This is what the best risotto is made from.

Citation


Unopened Canned Food in Spare Commercial Fridge - Safety & Storage for Prepping

If you're talking about commercially canned food, like from the supermarket, then at 60°F [15°C] You've pretty much got until the cans rust.

Practically, no limit. Sensibly, 2 - 5 years.

'Best Before' dates on cans in the UK are typically between 1 & 2 years - but 'best before' is only a guide as to how 'like new' the product will be, with full flavour & texture as designed. It is not a guide as to when it would become unsafe.

I can't think in Fahrenheit, so I hadn't realised how much of a swing -10 to 110 actually is, so the next part doesn't really work anymore, until you get to 'bury it underground'.

I don't think even small temperature fluctuations would affect shelf-life, but as you can control it, I would do, just to be doubly-certain… although if 90 days is going to be your top limit, then I'd probably not even power up the fridge, just keep the door shut. If you think internal temperatures may still exceed the USDA's limits, invest in a high/low [max/min] thermometer.

From comments - if this really is some kind of 'survivalist' thing, then forget the power & bury it deep enough that temperature fluctuations will no longer affect it critically. [I'm only half joking there; if there's no food, what makes you think there's going to be power… once your generator runs dry].

From Wikipedia - Shelf Life

  According to the USDA, "canned foods are safe indefinitely as long as
  they are not exposed to freezing temperatures, or temperatures above
  90 °F (32.2° C)". If the cans look okay, they are safe to use. Discard
  cans that are dented, rusted, or swollen. High-acid canned foods
  (tomatoes, fruits) will keep their best quality for 12 to 18 months;
  low-acid canned foods (meats, vegetables) for 2 to 5 years.

Anecdotally, I once opened a can of condensed milk which we estimated had been forgotten in a cupboard at nominally 15-20°C for twenty years. It had solidified to a kind of jelly with huge sugar crystals in it, but smelled just fine & was still roughly the right colour. No, we didn't try eating it to see.

Late Edit:
Since the subject cropped up of fridges condensing & potentially corroding the cans, or additionally keeping the correct temperature at an ambient temperature below that it is supposed to be internally, I decided to look into this.
No fridge is good from -10 to 110°F [-23°C to 43°C]
No fridge is good below the temperature it is supposed to be keeping.

Fridges have Climate Classes, temperature ranges they can operate in.

SN (Sub Normal) +10°C - +32°C
N (Normal) +16°C - +32°C
ST (Sub Tropical) +18°C - +38°C

That's it. That's all there is.
Fridges are designed to be used "indoors" in already climate-controlled conditions, not in the garage nor out in a shed exposed to massive temperature fluctuations.
You might depend on its insulation to hold off a few hours of the extreme at the sun's zenith, or a sharp frost overnight, but you are going to have to put it underground to prevent that massive heat swing from having a seriously deleterious effect long-term.


I believe that there are two major options:

Wood cutting boards
Plastic cutting boards

Either of these will provide a perfectly appropriate surface for you to use your knives against.

From a food safety point of view, both can be excellent, although they have different pros and cons.

There is some evidence that wood cutting boards actually inhibit pathogen growth.  They can be sanded down for maintenance, and sanitized with a light bleach solution, but should not be placed into the dishwasher, which may be an inconvenience for your lifestyle.  Some larger wood cutting blocks are also a very nice aesthetic statement.

Plastic cutting boards can be very effective, and can be placed in the dishwasher, and are easy to sanitize.  Some people are concerned that once they get deep cuts within them, this can harbor pathogens even through cleaning cycles, so they have a limited lifetime.  They also are not as pretty as wood, although often far lower in cost.

Most sanitation guides will recommend that you reserve one cutting board for meat (or in a large kitchen, one for meat, one for poultry, and one for fish), and another for vegetables.  This is often easiest with color coded cutting boards, which plastic makes easy.

My personal preference is for the very thin, flexible plastic cutting boards.  They are inexpensive, easy to move around, dishwasher safe, and can be rolled up to easily dump the product into a pot or container.   They may not have an infinite lifespan, but they are very inexpensive.

Since you do not wish to use your good cutting block for chicken, I recommend the thin, flexible style of cutting board--you can use your block for vegetables, bread, and so on.


Can I separate cream from powdered whole milk?

I don't think you can get cream out of your milk - it would be homogenized by the process, and people would want their milk to be smooth and not separate out so they would take precautions against such a thing in the manufacturing.  Also, a lot of the powdered milk I see sold is skim milk powder, you should be very sure you're getting full fat powdered milk even to try.

You might be able to get butter, but as far as I know butter from whole milk would be a lot of work for a relatively low yield (one reason cream is preferred, and butter was historically often made from soured milk - it was easier to get butter after culturing).  Though it looks like powdered milk can be used in cheese-making (according to CMB92's link), for increasing yield of cheese or making fresh cheese (your mozzarella could qualify).

On the other hand, if you are buying in bulk, you might contact the seller and see if you can't get some packages of powdered cream along with the milk.  They are likely made by the same manufacturers, and same processes, so it might be possible to substitute for part of your bulk order or else purchase additionally, or even inquire about other powdered products (buttermilk, sour cream, butter powder, etc).  I've used powdered cream before...it can be a bit tricky to work with but, at least with the brand I got, you can make even whipped cream, and also butter - we almost did, from overwhipping the cream.  And manufacturers recommendations usually include uses for ice cream and baking, although you will want to check by the brand you buy, since some recommendations differ.  You can fortify your powdered milk for making cheese with, if you want higher fat.

And, heavens, I think it would be easier to have two or three packages to scoop out of rather than trying to reconstitute and separate the cream out of your milk (and store it up for separate uses).  You might even be able to make skim milk powder work, if that is what is available, by supplementing it with cream powder to make a "whole milk".


...mix into ice cream...dry in low oven or dehydrator and use as "breadcrumbs"...use as struesel topping on another cake....??


How long does grease take to go bad/rancid when sitting out?

Fat doesn't spoil like other foods. No bacteria can live in fat. Going rancid is a chemical reaction in which the fat molecules break down. So "leaving out" is not a problem.

The major factors in going rancid are light and air. The more light hits your fat, the sooner it goes rancid. Also, rancidity occurs when the fat is oxidized, meaning that if you prevent contact with air, your fat will last longer.

Both factors are minimized by transferring the fat to a tightly closed opaque container. With liquid oils, you use a dark colored bottle. As bottles are impractical for solid fat, just strain your grease into a jar, close it, and put it in a cupboard. The shelf life should be many months, probably more than a year.

Also, don't worry that you can get something nasty when the grease goes bad unnoticed. Rancid fat isn't a big safety risk, and ingesting it in small amounts is not problematic. If it stinks, throw it out. Before that, there is no problem eating it.

The above assumes pure, well-strained fat. Pieces of fried meat left over in the fat are a safety risk, even tiny ones.


How could I use liquid flavorings to make a version of a jelly-topped cookie?

Fruit preserves have a lot going on. They have a lot of sugar and pectin and sometimes fiber from the fruit. They have already been boiled for a while and the fruit flavors that are left are there to stay.

Liquid flavorings are mostly alcohol with volatile flavoring compounds. They are added late to a recipe because they boil off easily- at a lower temperature than water boiling.

I don't know of a way to prepare liquid flavoring so that it will be less volatile. I can't think of a time that I've seen that done. Perhaps if you mixed it into another jelly that would buffer the heat during baking. Perhaps an apple jelly with your flavoring mixed in. I suspect most of the flavor would still boil out unless you added the jelly right at the end of baking.

I think you would have more success with making a topping that you can add after the cookies are baked. It would be a different texture without the candied edges but it would still be good. Pectin NH glazes are used commercially for this kind of thing.


Any other flour which can be used to replace Maida flour for chewy cakes?

Flour labeled as Cake flour usually is weak flour: low W value, or less formally "low protein" or "fewer gluten". This is somehow weird, as some cakes will require weak flour, whether others nedd strong flour (for yeasted dough cakes, if they add lots of fat/oil to the dough, if they add lots of sugar, pieces of fruits/nuts, etc).

I specifically don't know whether Maida is strong or weak flour, despite this answer and it's comments.

Wheat plants has been selected for several milleniums to get more productive varieties, and, yes, grains that give stronger flour.

Substitutes as weak flour

Trying to get flour from a more "primitive" variety of wheat, such as spelt, emmer or einkorn. These are expensive where I live, and usually sold as bio, but maybe spelt is easily found in India. As they have not been so "genetically selected", they still have less gluten than today's "normal" flour. They also tend to have more and better taste than "normal" flour.

Another flour with low gluten content is rye. It has a different taste than wheat, but I thing it fits really well with cakes. This grain grows better in colder climates, so I'm not very sure how hard will it be to get it where you live.

Other flours, as rice or corn / maize have no gluten. It means gas bubbles won't be trapped in, and will result in a much too dense crumb. You might search some gluten-free bread tricks to solve this.

Substitutes as strong flour

Any bread flour will probably work. Maybe it won't rise as much and you'll get a crumb with a denser consistency, more similar to a "chewing gum" than a "soft cake". But if you are ok with this, you can go on.

Note(Thank to @Anisha for the suggestion):
Notice that different flours have different absorption, so some readjustment on hydration should probably be made to the original recipe.


No, not really.  There are plenty of curing recipes for pastrami that do not use curing salts and you can use Himalayan for them.  It is really just rock salt with some iron oxide (rust) in it.  Some people claim an improved taste, others say it is imaginary, but it is a substitute for table salt, not curing salt.

As said, plenty of recipes do not use curing salt, and you can make a pastrami you may really like.  But the more vivid pink color will not be there.  That color comes specifically from the reaction with the curing salt nitrates and/or nitrites, not the pink coloring added to many of the salts.  That coloring is added as a warning that this is not table salt, don't confuse it and use it as table salt.  The current popularity of Himalayan is confusing some people and could cause accidents that need to be avoided.


Looking to start cooking....but I'm a total noob. Where should I start?

What @ElendilTheTall suggests is indeed the usual way, and has worked for countless hobby cooks. But the way you describe it, your problem comes from lack of motivation rather than the difficulty of cooking. So you probably need to change your attitude and discover a side of cooking which is fun for you. Then everything will be easier. I, for example, have always been fascinated by cooking as a creative process, but there are different types of cooks.

A book which is likely to help you is "cooking for geeks". You don't need to fit the media stereotype of a geek to like it. It just has a very systematic approach to cooking, explains things like the way meat changes under heat on pop science level, and deviates into this special kind of experiments a down-to-earth person like my grandma doesn't get, but a typical tinkerer/engineer/geek loves. Prime example: cooking fish in the dishwasher. It starts with the very basic things and is chock full of useful everyday advice. It also has some recipes, although it will probably a good idea to also get a recipe collection book for beginners after you've got started. If you are a stackoverflow user, chances are that you'll like the book. Still, it is a very specific style, so make sure you can leaf through it or have a return right before you buy it.

Of course, the usual motivation advice counts for cooking as with everything else. Start small, with simple things. Promice yourself a schedule, e. g. "Cooking once a week" and stick with that until you have worked yourslef into a habit or enthusiasm. No sense in declaring "I have to cook dinner every day so I can save XXX until Christmas" and then getting tired of it after a week.


What can I do with Hazelnuts and Walnuts?

A great idea is to make nut butter. Mix it with chocolate--and you've got Nutella!


It depends what the recipe is, but I've successfully replaced brandy with orange juice or apple juice in the past. It's not a direct replacement for the flavour, of course, but gives a similar strength of flavour, if you see what I mean.


How does the way chicken is cut affect the taste (if at all)?

The way meat is cut can affect it in a few ways. The most obvious is cooking time, a thinner cut of meat with more surface area will cook much more quickly than a thicker cut with less or equal surface area. Thus unevenly cut meat will cook unevenly, with thicker portions remaining raw while thinner portions are cooked through or overcooked. The way the meat is cut can also affect how well spices will stick to the surface of the meat, where again a higher surface area will lead to more spices sticking. This can be further increased by cutting the chicken in a jagged manner, which provides more area for spices or rubs to stick. The way it is cut can be especially important with chicken as it tends to cook and dry out very quickly, and so an unevenly filleted chicken breast will become very dry in areas while possibly remaining unsafe to eat in others. Thus, rather than cutting the chicken in a jagged manner to get spices to stick better, it is generally a better idea to make shallow cuts in the surface of the chicken breast and place seasoning or whatever you like inside (you have likely seen this before, called hasselback chicken, though it is more commonly done with steak), as the jagged cuts lead to differing thickness across the cutlet. Ideally when filleting a chicken breast you would make a single cut resulting in two evenly sized pieces of meat, then if you would like more surface area for your seasoning to take hold make shallow cuts across the grain of the meat. Here is a website that goes more in-depth on the proper method for fileting a chicken breast into cutlets.


Baking Turnips But are coming out burnt or soggy

To be honest you are going to seriously struggle, it's possible but hard. I've had similar issue's trying to make sweet potato mash.

To begin with you are going to need to run the sliced turnips under cold running for a little while (20mins) not sure why but it does help. (also helps with potato and beetroot crisps.

Instead of going in the oven full wack from the start you'll want to start low (130c) for 20-30 to help dry off excess moisture. Then remove the tray from the oven. Turn the oven up to 200c let it get to temp. Now toss the crisps in oil,  season with quite a lot of sea salt (a lot of it will fall off so don't be tight throw it on) and  return the crisps to the oven. Check ever 5min turning each time until they start to colour. Initially while still warm they will still be a little soft but once they cool down they will start to crisp up.

Also worth considering is a product from msk called 'crisp film' which really gives this kind of thing that "walkers" style crunch.

Side note: I think I used the word crisp far too many times ...


When cooking steak should the fat inside be cooked?

If there really is fat inside the steak, it is terribly undercooked. But this is unlikely to happen.

Animal fat is a saturated fat which melts somewhere around 35°C. If your steak hasn't reached 35°C internal temperature, it will be very visibly raw on the inside, with no apparent difference from the cold steak from the fridge. It will still be oozing blood-like liquid even after resting for over 10 minutes, and the liquid will be thicker than the juices of cooked steak. It will be deep red and slimy, and cold to the touch. Even the rarest steak you can buy is taken above 40°C.

But not everything white inside meat is fat. Connective tissue/fascia are white too. They are not really lump-shaped, but I don't know how precise your description is. Try cutting through one of the lumps. If it is tough and rubberlike, it is connective tissue (and if there is lots of it, your meat is not meant for roasting, but for a slow cooking method). If the knife goes easier through the lump than through the meat, it is fat, and your cooking method is seriously wrong.

In any case, the best way to know when steak is done is to use a meat thermometer. Stop when it shows around 61°C, the remaining heat transfer after removing from the heat will give you a medium steak.


What is the best way to filter Turkish coffee?

I think you got something mixed up there. It is normal to have noticeable particles while drinking Turkish coffee. Everybody uses a strainer for it, and it does result in a slightly "muddy" drink.

I guess you could pass the prepared Turkish coffee through a paper coffee filter before drinking, but this would be a very unusual way to do it. People who don't want to taste the particles just use a different brewing method in the first place. Making it with particles and then removing them is twice the work, and I can't imagine it giving you any taste advantage.

If you do any filtering, the coffee will end up less strong, both in taste and caffeine. It is the particles you taste which are the actual coffee. Another method which achieves strong coffee is true espresso. It needs an expensive machine which passes the water vapor through the grounds under pressure though.


Not clear what you mean, terminology is non-standard.

I'm going to guess you mean what the rest of us call resting or relaxing the dough when working/forming it.

If you overwork dough, the gluten strands that hold it together will tear and break. If you stretch and work the dough until it's springing back, but has not torn, and then let it rest for 5-10 minutes, the gluten strands rearrange themselves such that you can stretch or work the dough further, without it tearing.


In order to get crispy-crunchy fried onions, you need to deep-fry them at a high temperature. Pan frying just won't get them crunchy, they'll just get softer and softer as they get browner and browner. I don't know where you are from, but we have a product in the US that is ubiquitous in late fall, particularly on the Thanksgiving table. Perhaps something like this could give an effect more like what you want?

Here's an Amazon search that shows similar products from all over the world.

You say you know that supermarket-spatzle can't be super good, so I am not even going to go there. I'm sure you could find highly rated recipes yourself.

As far as cheese having crunch, the key there is to not stir it while it is getting a bit brown, either under the broiler or on the stovetop (or both, to get crunchy surfaces on both the top and bottom). Also consider using aged Gouda instead of young. That will reach a crunchiness faster, and the flavor will be more intense, allowing you to use less, which will also make it easier to get crunchy.

EDIT: Another thing you can do to get crunchy cheese is to bake it into crisps first, then crunch them up and sprinkle them onto (and into) your completed, or nearly completed, dish. That way you can get melty (with the same cheese baked in) and crunchy if you'd like. That will work with any hard, aged cheese like Parmesan or aged Gouda.

That picture is from Giada De Laurentiis's recipe for Parmesan Crisps.


cooking is not about working like a chef! Chefs learn to peel, chop and cook quickly because they have to work against time limits. A customer walks in the restaurant, sits down and orders some food that he wants to eat before he officially becomes a senior citizen. The chef's aim is to provide food in a short timescale.

You want to learn to cook, you need to learn how to cut things into "small dice", medium dice", strips, whatever - doing it fast like a pro doesn't make you a better cook.

Get a good knife, like Elendil suggested, in any case. That's a good idea. Then when you step into the cookery class, "check your ego at the door", as the notice said on the studio entrance when they made the BandAid singles. This is not a competition, this is learning to cook, personal skills - or is it?

Let me tell you that if you're hoping to hit it off with your classmates, you stand just as much chance of success in that sphere if you need their help ...


How do I prevent filled pretzels from blowing out?

I would suspect that it's steam from the filling causing your pretzels to split during baking. I would try freezing small globs of the filling before cooking, hopefully then it won't get hot enough to steam and split. This is a technique they use in the Momofuku Milk Bar cookbook to make "Bagel Bombs". http://www.amateurgourmet.com/2012/04/everything-bagel-bombs.html


Getting the lighter fluid taste out of burgers, after the fact

Make sure you don't squirt the fluid all over the grill.  Keep it on the charcoal.
If you have to apply more fluid after you've lit it, you're doing it wrong.  Douse the charcoal then wait a few minutes for it to soak in.  This is a common mistake.  People often pour on the fluid and immediately light it.  It then burns away before the charcoal can ignite and they have to try again.  You end up putting more fluid into the grill than is necessary.
Let it burn long enough to burn away all the lighter fluid.  It sounds like you aren't letting the charcoal burn long enough before putting the burgers on the grill.