How do I make restaurant-quality white wine sauce?

What kind of sauce are you making ? a simple "beurre blanc" ? a gravy (with a roux) or a cream sauce ?

Can you describe the recipe you are using (ingredients, technique) ?

What I do (for beurre blanc):

Cook down the schallots slowly in wine; add a little bit of water and white vinegar, it should not be dry.
Use cold unsalted butter cut in small chunks
Mix in the butter with a whisk until the butter is well integrated.
Pass the mix through (sp) a fine mesh to remove the schallots.
Adjust seasonings.
...


For starters, you'll almost certainly need a food processor for anything you need to mix dry, unless you've also got a heavy duty coffee grinder that you don't mind cleaning inside-out thoroughly and frequently.  Conventional stationary blenders, at least in my experience, are terrible at this task, and immersion blenders aren't designed to be run dry (in fact, most of the good models come with stern warnings never to do this).

Examples of this are: Nut butters, fresh herb purées, meat purées, and homemade bread crumbs and flours.  Pesto sauce also sounds like a long shot, but maybe there are customized recipes.

I've also never had any luck making cheese sauces, cheese dips, or other cheese preparations in a blender, and haven't had much better luck with my admittedly cheap stick blender.  It's difficult enough with a food processor, but usually with them it's just a matter of scraping down the sides a few times.  Whenever I've tried to make a manicotti filling, a mayonnaise-based tonnato sauce, a blue cheese dip or a goat cheese mousse with a blender, I've been totally unable to get a vortex going and have had to resort to the food processor to thin it out (after which I might transfer it back to the blender, but I usually don't bother).

It's an issue of viscosity, I think.  Too viscous, and conventional/stick blenders are practically useless.

Now a lot of this might be possible with very high-end equipment.  A Vita-Mix or Blendtec can blend just about anything, and usually comes with a tamper so you can force dry or viscous food down into the blades without risking life and limb.  Also, some very high-end immersion blenders - and when I say "high end", I mean that they are labeled as "power mixers" rather than "immersion blenders" - can be run continuously and possibly even dry.  But I would not want to try this on a consumer-grade stick.

I've also heard that you can do some of these things with a Magic Bullet.  For those not familiar with the product or infomercials, it's basically a really tiny blender that you can pick up and shake around while it's running - ergo, much easier to do dry preparations.  But the effort required is still much higher than that of a food processor.

I think that pretty much covers it.  If you need to purée anything solid or even semi-solid, you'll likely regret not having a food processor.


Rule of the thumb for judging the leavening?

I think there's lots of things at play in your situation. Bread has many variables ("degrees of freedom"), and this is part of the reason that bread is so fun and so diverse (and so fun)! Experimentation is warranted here, I think. There's many sourdough enthusiasts around here, so you'll probably get many different opinions. Take the suggestions you like and fiddle around with them!

First to your first question about being happy with 2x growth: A volume increase of 1.5x-2x is about all that I would expect/want from any ferment/proof stage of dough. How much are you expecting or wanting? Does that amount of time work well for you? Are you happy with the result from 2x rise after 9 hours? What happens when you ferment for 25% less time?  25% more time?  Try it out! Make a big batch and divide into 3 chunks, then ferment/shape/proof and bake them individually, staggered in time: short, medium, long fermentation time.  See which you like best!

Nine hours seems like a fairly long fermentation time already, especially with so much starter and a high-hydration bread like focaccia. In my kitchen with my starter, for example, those ingredients would be very sloppy, very sour, and essentially impossible to work after 9 hours.  When I'm building my (~100% hydration) pre-ferment from my starter, it will double or triple in 6-9 hours at its point of peak activity; after 9 hours it's starting to peter-out. If I'm using fermentation times in the 9-24 hour range (San Francisco-style or so) I'll use a small amount of starter (~50mL / a few Tablespoons) and perhaps further retard the fermentation in the refrigerator.

Fermenting or proofing for too long could cause your dough to lose it structure -- either before baking or during baking.  This could yield uneven crumb and difficulty baking. In the case of focaccia, you might get a big air pocket in the middle or a collapsed bit of dense dough.  Sourdough will tend to aggravate this situation, because the acid produced by the bacteria will tend to cause the bread structure to break down over a longer period of time.  To me, sourdough is a delicate balance of quantity of starter and time.

Here are "rules of thumb" for fermentation time, hydration, and quantity of starter that I find to be the case; note that all of these are interrelated:

More starter will result in faster fermentation (shorter time) since there's more active yeast.
For higher hydration breads, use more starter to encourage faster fermentation, and/or stronger (higher-protein) flour, both help to maintain structure.
More assertive sour flavor results from longer fermentation time (and you'll need to use less starter).

Other ingredients will impact fermentation.  More salt will tend to retard (slow) fermentation.  Fat/oils can yield a finer crumb, but can have other effects depending on quantity and other factors.  More water (higher hydration) generally yields a chewier (more custardy) and larger crumb and can help the yeast act more quickly.  I don't know if protein content impacts fermentation time, but it will change the consistency of gluten development.  Whole grain and non-gluten (or less-gluten) flours (e.g., rye) will tend to impede gluten formation.

I don't know how long you've been sourdough'ing, but for anyone reading this who is new to the process, here's a couple of "primer" links.  For me, it was helpful to understand a little of the "science" and biochemistry at work while I was exploring the more "artful" topics of actual sourdough baking.

King Arthur sourdough primer
Sourdough Home sourdough primer

Look through the "Related" articles and in the sourdough tag for some other musings on the topic.

I'm interested to hear others' opinions of the nature of the universe, also.  Good luck!


Had a warped stainless steel pot I was getting ready to toss, but decided to give it one more use since I forgot it was warped until I needed to use it right away. Was making tamales so it was on a good simmer for about 3-4 hours. Placed a heavy cast iron Dutch oven on top while it cooked to try to get better contact with my ceramic top stove. Left it to cool and forgot about the pot until I went to clean it in the morning. When I did, I noticed the warp was all gone.  Pleasantly surprised and glad I did t throw it away. I will definitely be more careful with it in the future. Hope this is helpful to someone out there.


What is this palm like plant called? (Spoiler: leek)

That appears to be a leek, and not one in the prime of health either.

Trim off the root end. If it came from a farm, you might want to give it a traditional de-gritting by cutting it in half lengthwise and rinsing to get out any dirt between the leaves/layers  (typically around the border between white, which was underground, and green, which was above.)

You can bake or braise them, but most people slice them into half moons (because they were already in half lengthwise) and use them wherever you would use onions. Don't use any brown part, nor the really sad green part, but happy looking green part is fine.

Recipes that specifically call for leeks abound, of course, now that you have a name for it.


For a substance to burn, it must first reach its ignition point. For it to keep burning, it must reach its fire point. The ignition point of a 40% ABV liquid such as brandy is 26ºC/79ºF, and the fire point is approximately 10ºC higher than that.

What this means in practical terms is that you need to heat the alcohol a little first before you add it to the ice cream. The simplest way to do this is to put the alcohol in a ladle and heat it over the hob - it won't need much as 36ºC is not a great deal over room temperature. Then light it carefully with a long match, and pour it around your ice cream - if you've got it warm enough it should keep burning until the alcohol is consumed.


Are there culinary uses for the water left from peeling almonds?

Generally, there is no reason not to use it. However, I'm hard pressed to think of a good place, generally because good cooking prefers other, stronger flavored liquids instead of water.

An application where you can have the flavor on its own would be making ayran or a lassi. I think it would be an improvement over plain-water-ayran.

For other uses, just substitute plain water to get a slight nutty hint. I like to pair rice with nuts, so you could use it instead of pure water to cook rice. Or add it to a pot of stock you are making - with a complex stock of a meat and several vegetables, it will be too subtle a taste to register consciously, but will enrich the flavor as a whole. For a simpler stock (e.g. just chicken with classic mirepoix) the taste of almonds can get too strong, depending on the quantity you use.


Can soured raw milk be used to make yogurt?

Based on your edit to your question, and with some additional thought, I'm going to answer this differently.

Soured milk differs from what you called "spoiled" milk in only one way- what wild bacteria reproduced faster: bacteria with tasty waste products or bacteria with disgusting waste products. With that in mind the major potential problems with using this milk to make yogurt are:

If the wild bacteria crowd out the yogurt culture
If the yogurt culture is not able to work because the milk is too sour.

In making homemade yogurt neither of these should be a problem.

In making all yogurt- including yogurt made from raw milk in commercial settings- the milk is heated to 190F for some time to denature albumin proteins and to partially sterilize the milk so that the yogurt cultures will have the upper hand. This means that all yogurt has been pasteurized and the fact that the milk was purchased raw is a red herring. This will make problem #1 above unlikely. Not heating the milk will leave you with @rumtscho's answer- you can only guess what you might get by incubating it.

As for problem #2. Milk proteins begin to coagulate at a Ph of about 4.6. The target Ph for yogurt is usually 4.5. When making yogurt, Streptococcus thermophilus brings the milk down to about 5.0 and Lactobacillus Acidophilus takes over and brings it down to 4.5. Lactobacillus Acidophilus is active well below this Ph. Therefore, if your milk is not already thickened then it is, by definition, not too acidic for the yogurt culture to work.

Unfortunately, as the commenter from your first link indicated, heat combined with acid will cause the milk to prematurely denature. If you milk is too sour already then heating it to 190F may cause the protein to precipitate out and you would have paneer (sort of). I looked but was unable to find at what Ph milk proteins will denature at 190F.

http://www.foodsci.uoguelph.ca/dairyedu/yogurt.html
http://food.oregonstate.edu/learn/milk.html

If you can strictly verify the handling of your raw milk to have confidence that it has not been contaminated with harmful bacteria, and if the milk has only slightly soured so that it can be heated without breaking, you should be able to successfully make yogurt out of it knowing that the texture might vary from that of your starter.


Why is water often added to the eggs when making omelettes?

Eggs are already 3/4 water anyway!

By mixing in a small quantity of extra water before you cook the eggs, you are slowing down the cooking process by making more water available that has be evaporated. This keeps the cooking temperature to less than 100°C (212°F) for longer, therefore increasing the the time for the egg proteins to foam and expand before setting

The amount of water you need to add depends on; personal preference, the type of egg, and how old it is. Older eggs generally require a little more water

Adding skim milk will enhance this process slightly too. Adding extra fat will generally not enhance this process

BONUS TIP To make even more spectacular omelettes place a loose fitting lid over the pan to increase the steam exposure all around, and let the egg fully develop


That recipe has a very old style problem - it predates modern definitions of "cup". Methinks the cup in your recipe is a small coffee cup.

If you are using 80g (3oz) of butter, that will make a good scone recipe with about 225g (8oz) of flour and about 150ml (5 fl.oz) of milk.

I just weighed a 250mL cup of SR flour, it contained about 155g.  The cup in the recipe is a "not quite full" 5oz coffee cup according to my calculations.

There's your trouble ... too much flour and milk. The fact that the adjusted amount of milk needed in proportion to the butter is very close to the customary ratios reinforces the points I have made. Another clue is that the recipe says "makes 16". If you get a lot more than the recipe says, that should ring an alarm bell.


Confusion about chicken leg & thighs nutrition facts (calories)

The numbers in the USDA are empirically derived. They take several pieces of raw chicken (or rather, find others who have done that) and measure the calories. Then they publish the average number of calories between these pieces. Separately, they find measurements for cooked chicken, and publish that average.

Empirical measurements are never exact. The chicken pieces vary in calorie content, the measurement procedure varies, the calibration of the instrument varies, etc. So, you can expect quite a bit of spread. And it seems that this is what you are seeing here. The measurements of raw and of cooked chicken don't match up - this can happen. You usually cannot say which factor was responsible.

This also is a good reminder that it doesn't make sense to calculate calories to the gram, since the piece of chicken you hold rarely has as many calories as given on the label or in a database. The exceptions tend to be highly processed foods which have little variation.


How do I make macarons de Paris in a neat shape and make them rise with the lip?

I was lucky enough to get a macaron session from a Michelin-starred pastry chef before Christmas and he gave me some invaluable tips.

Use an Italian meringue recipe. In
other words, pour warm sugar syrup on
to the egg whites instead of sugar
from the cupboard. The eggs will
already have been 'cooked' into
structure and will not require any
crusting. They will retain the same
shape that you pipe them out at. You
can bake them straight away, or in a
couple of hours - they won't be any
different.
When piping, use a moderate pressure.
Don't wring the bag out. Keep the
nozzle approx 2cm over the tray and
maintain that height while you pipe -
let the weight of the batter spread
the macaron out evenly. When there is
enough mixture in place (about 4cm
across?) stop squeezing and flick the
nozzle away in a controlled circular
motion to avoid creating a 'nipple'.

I wrote about this including his recipe on my blog here.

PS. I just remembered that adding further weight to the Italian meringue technique a very prominent French chef in the UK, Raymond Blanc, said that he always uses this method. On his TV programme this week he said it delivers far more consistent results.


What is this Asian dish made with boiled vegetables?

I think you mean a hot-pot stew (huǒ guō). There are many styles, Wikipedia has a fairly good article about it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_pot


Can I test my oven temperature without an oven thermometer?

First, buy a thermometer, they're cheap. This one topped America's Test Kitchen testing: Thermometer

Barring taking the plunge and spending $6 on an oven thermometer, this method comes straight from an online class I'm taking from Harvard through edX.org. Course Description

  To test the oven, you can either use an oven thermometer, or you can find a material that has a transition at some critical temperature, and then tune your oven near the critical temperature where the transition occurs -- to find out if it actually happens.

  Jeff Potters has suggested a wonderful idea in his excellent book Cooking for Geeks.  Namely, he suggests that oven testing can be done with melting sugar.  His protocol is here.

  The calibration is based on the idea that the melting point of table sugar (sucrose) is 366 F (186˚C), [google "melting point sucrose"] and so if you put the temperature just above 366, the sugar should melt. And if you put it just below 366 F it should not melt.  It is important when doing this procedure to not use a lot of sugar, as otherwise the heating time for the sugar could be too long.

  Materials:

  ~ 1/2 tablespoon granulated sugar

  Procedure:

  1) Preheat your oven to 350F (177˚C).

  (2) Place the granulated sugar in an oven proof dish or on aluminum foil

  (3) Place in oven for 15 minutes

  (4) If the sugar doesn't melt, raise the temperature of the oven by 10F (5˚C) and repeat the experiment.

  (5) Continue raising the temperature until you find the temperature setting where your sugar melts.  Let's call this temperature Tmelt.

  (6)  You have thus found that the sugar melts somewhere in the interval Tmelt-10, Tmelt. (i.e., if you found that the sugar melted at 400F, but not 390F, the melting temperature is between 390 and 400.)

  (7) Your measurement suggests that your oven has the approximate calibration curve

  T = Tdial + 366 - Tmelt     (if you use degrees Fahrenheit)

  T = Tdial+ 186 - Tmelt   (if you use degrees Celsius)

  where Tdial is the temperature of the dial. Note that if your dial says that sugar melts at 400, this formula states that the actual temperature in the oven is the temperature that the sugar melts (366F)."

Here is another method, this one is from Cook's Illustrated, AKA America's Test Kitchen. I copied and pasted the technique from Water Temp Test

  Preheat oven to 350F. Start with 1 cup of room temperature water and check its temperature with an immersion thermometer. Adjust the temperature with either warm or cold water to make it 70F. place in oven for 15 minutes. Check temperature again and it should read 150F. Adjust oven temperature accordingly.

Another way to check oven temp is to simply boil water. Put a couple of cups of water in an oven proof pan and set the oven temp to 200F or 90C, the water shouldn't boil no matter how long you leave it in the oven. Set the temp to 225F or 110C. Eventually, the water should boil.

All that said, buy a thermometer.


Does the colour of the olive oil say anything about its quality?

There are two main factors in quality of olive oil: the flavor, and the free fatty acid content. (Those are fatty acid molecules that are not bound up into oil molecules; they make the oil more unstable, prone to going bad faster.)

Neither of these has anything to do with color, which is provided by chlorophyll and carotenoids. The only exception is refined ("pure") olive oil, which is generally made from oil that already has higher amounts of free fatty acids; it's purified to remove those, and in the process the desirable aromatic molecules are also removed, so it loses flavor. This process would also tend to remove color. But as long as you're looking at unrefined (virgin or extra virgin) oil, that's not relevant.

I suspect time after harvest is not critical, but could potentially make a difference. The olives do need to be at the right point in ripening - underripe olives make bitter oil, and overripe ones make oil with less flavor. So if olives are left for too long after harvest before oil extraction, they could lose flavor from further ripening. Additionally, the flavors come from reactions between fatty acids and enzymes which are released during grinding and crushing, so I suppose this could take place much more slowly over time, especially if the olives have been damaged, and the aromatics produced at that point would be partially lost to the air. All of this said, presumably high-quality olive oils are produced correctly, whether or not they advertise details of the production. The labeling you've seen may just be marketing.

In any case, the surest way to discern quality is direct observation, so just try to find what you like! It probably won't be correlated with color, or any details of the labels.


What do you call eggs prepared with a broken yolk, in a skillet, with no char?

Where I come from, that would be called 'over hard.'

As a reference, the others would be over-easy (runny yolk), over-medium (soft, slightly runny), and the over-hard would be cooked solid.

Chefs will often break the yolk on an over-hard order, before flipping the egg, if it's not already broken.


What is the difference between marinara and spaghetti sauce?

Marinara is a style / kind of a sauce that originated in Napoli usually made with tomatoes, garlic, herbs, and onions. A spaghetti sauce only says where to sauce is used (obviously on spaghetti) but doesn't say anything about what the sauce is exactly like.

There are many dishes which are basically spaghetti + sauce:

Spaghetti alla marinara – which literally translates to "spaghetti mariner's style"
Spaghetti aglio e olio – "spaghetti with garlic and oil", originated in Napoli
Spaghetti alla puttanesca – "spaghetti whore-style"
Spaghetti alla Carbonara – "spaghetti coal worker's style"

and, uhmmm...

Spaghetti with meatballs – an Italian-American invention


What does meringue powder do in butter cream icing?

The crusting is important so that any flowers or other intricate decorations will fix their shape and not slump when left out in warmer temperatures.  (you don't want to refrigerate iced cakes, as when you remove them from the fridge, you'll get condensation).  An icing that crusts quickly means that you can use an icing that's not quite as stiff for your decorations, and after a few hours of decorating, you'll come to appreciate that minor difference.

The crust is also a benefit when trying to get a perfectly smooth cake.

Some other recipes will crust over time, and the recipe that I got from one of my instructors  uses more powdered sugar and cream of tartar, but no merangue powder.  I suspect it's the starch in the powdered sugar that ensures that it still crusts up.

As for shelf life ... I'm not 100% sure.  I believe that the eggwhites have been pasteurized,  and I've made flowers, let them dry out, then kept them stored for months at a time ... but I can't remember if those were made with merengue powder or not.  I suspect that some batches were.


This will work from a safety standpoint, unfortunately, freezing alters the property of the yolk.  So, you will likely not get the runny yolk that you would expect in a poached egg, it will be more solid, like a hard boiled egg.  Why not poach your eggs for the week and store them in the refrigerator, then reheat each morning?  According to The Food Lab you can poach eggs and store them, with no loss of quality, for 5 days.


I don't know if it'll be good, but assuming this time it did actually cook all the way through, it should be safe to eat. Food is safe for up to 2-4 hours in the danger zone, and it sounds like your initial cooking, refrigeration, and second cooking are still within that.

It does sound like something went pretty wrong with your thermometer usage, though. My guess would be that you just didn't manage to find that frozen spot, and need to be sure to try a couple spots and make sure you're getting the temperature-sensitive part of the thermometer all the way to the center of the meat.

It could also be that your thermometer isn't great, and the temperature-sensitive part is too big, so it was in contact with both the frozen part and plenty of warmer turkey outside of that, and sort of averaged out to 165. Or it could be wildly inaccurate! So you might want to test it on a few more things where you have a good idea what the reading should be, and get a sense of whether you can trust it.

And of course, for next time, defrost before cooking. It's hard to get good results cooking frozen food directly, unless it's small enough. (And as you've discovered, a turkey breast is not small enough!)


Is Nattou safe to eat when it has white dots on it?

Yes, those spots are normal, they form as the nattou ages. They are amino acid crystals, and they are perfectly safe. Here's a picture.

They're a bit crunchy, which you may or may not like. If you don't like the dots, get young nattou and consume it before the crystals form. If you do like them, get more mature nattou. With younger nattou, you should be able to store it opened in the fridge for a few days before the crystals start to form. As you have experienced though, once they start, they grow quickly.


How can I break an emulsion making carotene butter?

Chill it.

The butter will solidify and upon remelting the emulsion will be broken.

I've never had a butter emulsion not break after chilling.


it all “boils down” to setting the sauce at the right temperature. To make it fool-proof, you need precise temperature control, which you can achieve with a sous-vide setup.

To make sous-vide hollandaise, you just need to combine all your ingredients together and cook at 75°C for 30 minutes (these figures are from a chefsteps recipe, you can play with the numbers to get to your desired consistency), and blend them while they are hot to finish your sauce.


It depends entirely on how traditional you want to be.

In England many, many restaurants put demi-glace on their menus which in reality has no resemblance to the traditional method. I've worked in these places, with 2-3 rosettes and one with a star. Yet even at that level we still use a "cow boy" method.

If you take the words literally.

Demi = half/inferior
Glace = shine

Though my taking on this may be a little skewed I regard it as half a real jus. So instead of reducing your meat stock all the way down from 100 litres to 1 litre (little exaggerated I'll admit). So it's nice and thick and sticky. Take it half way so you end up with 50 litres. Then thicken it in order not to have brown water.

Traditionally roux is used, but in reality most kitchens these days will use gravy powder. Why? It's easier & tastier.

I watched a program by Heston a year or so ago where he was talking about roux when used in chicken pie or cheese sauce. He raised the fact that you make this wonderful tasty sauce then mask it with flour. As soon as you put flour in a sauce in binds to all the flavours and mutes them. Adding gravy powder (good stuff not bisto) with all its meaty flavours in just enriches your sauce rather than toning it down. So he used corn flour instead for his cheese sauce and ... I can't remember the chicken pie (cream I think)

So in answer to your question. Yes there is a way. Just make veal stock reduce it till it tastes good add tomato paste and thicken it  with a meat based powder. It'll taste as good as a traditional demi-glace if not better.

BUT

It's a cowboy way and it is far from the traditional method.

You'll just have to weigh your time and resources against your need to do it right. Which is why professional kitchens often cheat.

Disclaimer: not all kitchens cheat but all but 1 of the 11 kitchens I've worked in, have.


Are my gas stove burners clicking due to high elevation?

While trying to find other resources for you question (looking at the effect of elevation on pilot lights in furnaces, hot water heaters, etc) it was mentioned that elevation does in fact play a role in the pressure of the gas being ignited and could theoretically create a problem. In most responses though, there was debate about whether the theoretical effect was effective.

Anyway, while elevation could be causing the difficulty, if your furnace and water heater are working I might suggest that either the pilot or the burner might need a bit of cleaning. Pilots will frequently tick when they are clogged or the jets around it are not making a whole circle.

If you clean it and have no result, you might want to look into ways to increase the pressure of the gas jets without increasing the overall output. Perhaps this is one of the Vikings with sealed burners? There are varying reviews on whether this helps/hurts air to fuel ratio at higher altitudes|elevations. If this is the case, your gas company may be of some assistance.


Which side of the baking paper should face up?

Baking paper has a silicone coating to prevent sticking. If yours is only coated on one side (the waxy side), this side should touch the food.


How to cook rice in an electric oven meant for baking cakes?

I make rice in the oven if I'm making a large meal and don't have a burner to spare for the rice. I bake it in an enamel cast iron Dutch oven (you can also use aluminum or stainless steel trays / hotel pans covered tightly with aluminum foil) using the same water-to-rice ratio (2:1) as when I make it on the stove. Cook at 350°F / 177°C for approximately 20-30 minutes, remove from the oven and let it sit, covered, for another 10 minutes. Fluff with a fork and serve!

(Note: The cooking time will depend on whether you pre-soak the rice and also how good your oven is at maintaining a constant temperature. You can check if it needs more time by wiggling the pot/tray a little; if you hear water sloshing around, it needs more time, but if it feels like a solid mass, it's probably done.)

The only problem you might have with this: sometimes the rice on the bottom of the pot gets dried out and sticks to the pot. You can avoid this by boiling the water before you add the rice (on the stove, but I guess you could do it in the oven, too. If you have an electric kettle and you're making a relatively small amount of rice, you can heat the water in the kettle and just pour it over the rice, too).


How do I make the ingredients in a burrito evenly distributed?

To assemble a burrito:
Traditional method

Lay your tortilla down on a flat surface

Spread a layer of the first filling (perhaps rice) down the center of the tortilla in a little row, about 1/4 the width of the tortilla, leaving about 1/4 tortilla width on both ends for the folding.  Something like this:

Spread a layer of the second ingredient (such as beans) on top of the first ingredient.

Repeat step 3 with each subsequent ingredient.

Fold up the tortilla.

Obsessive Method

Combine all filling ingredients in a bowl and toss, as you would a salad, until they are uniformly distributed.

Spread down the middle of the tortilla as indicated in the diagram above.

Fold up the tortilla.

Tips for Success
Make sure the filling ingredients are suitable for being uniformly distributed.  For example, don't use large slices of avacado, use a dice.
Folding

Take one side of the tortilla (as indicated in the diagram above) and fold it over the the edge of filling towards the other side.  It can overlap the filling and other side a bit.

Fold both the top and bottom of the tortilla over the filling at the edge of the filling.

Starting with the previously folded side, roll the burrito until it is a single role.

Place seam side down on the platter or pan you will heat it on, top with sauce or cheese as desired, and bake.

Consuming Burrito
Eat it.  However you want.  Enjoy the variety of flavors and textures the distribution of the filling provides.


Dashi (だし) is a class of stocks, and while katsuodashi (かつおだし) made with bonito flakes is the most common type, there are plenty of alternatives.

The most common purely vegetarian one in Japan is kombudashi (昆布だし, こんぶだし) made from kelp.  You can try to make your own, but well-stocked Japanese grocers will have powdered instant versions of this in stock.  Here's one from Ajinomoto:

Note the green packaging to differentiate it from the red/pink katsuo versions.  We use kombudashi often at home, and in miso soup etc the taste is not noticeably different from katsuodashi, although it does lack the strong "fishy" notes.


There are many kitchen utensils which will work. My favorite will be canning jars, filled with some water so they don't float, and sealed. Food safe, can withstand the temperature, easily cleaned. One may be enough, if you find the perfect size.

If you don't have them and want to try it with something else first, look in your kitchen for metal or ceramic vessels which can stand upright and are several centimeters taller than the sauce level after displacement. This can be a thermos flask without the cap, or even a tall mug. Just put it there, again fill with some water, and fill the sauce around it. The biggest risk is that it topples over, and you end up with a somewhat watery sauce.


Biscuits with Egg and Butter - how long will they keep?

Basically once cooked and if stored in a dry container cookies will keep for a couple of weeks at room temperature and several months (perhaps a year) in the freezer.

The biggest problem with these cookies will be degradation of the fats in the almonds and butter resulting in rancid tastes - these are not dangerous, just unpleasant.

There are few risks with food safety regarding cooked cookies as the temperature of cooking is enough to kill all potential pathogens and typically lowers the water activity within the cookie to a point where few pathogens are capable of growing. It is hard to say what the exact water activity of your cookies will be, but I suspect fairly low.


I have some old smoked nuts- can I make anything with them?

Chopped coarsely, these could be well used as a textural addition to various kind of mock-minced-meat dishes, eg in a vegetarian bolognese, lasagna sauce, mapo dofu sauce...


Questions about making hard kefir cheese

Welcome! According to  this site , you should refrigerate the kefir while draining and pressing. (See excerpt below.)

While I can't find a specific reference to an exact PSI for the draining and pressing  process, everything I read says to start with a plate on top and add more weight every few hours for the length of the process.

  Place the colander and bowl in the refrigerator for 48 hours to allow all of the whey to drain. Set a plate on top of your cheese and allow it to sit for a few hours. Continue to add more weight every few hours by putting another plate on top of your cheese to press out the remaining whey.


Apple Crumble doesn't turn out okay and takes forever

It took more than an hour and a half for the top to begin to brown

I take away that this is what you are looking for as a sign of done-ness, but when you get it the rest of the thing is overcooked.

You can get the top to brown faster either by adding some extra sugar to the top (sprinkle it on) or toasting it under the broiler for a minute or two once the rest has baked.

It is also possible your oven is miscalibrated.  Maybe it is cooler than you think.   Bake an oven thermometer and see if it agrees with the temperature you think your oven is set at.


The ideal storage for potatoes is approximately 42 to 50 F /  5.6 - 10.0 C in a dark space, with good humidity.  This is historically what root cellars were for.  With proper storage you should be able to get them from one harvest to the next—but ideal storage is rare at home.  Nonetheless, at least a few weeks is more than reasonable.

Burying them in clean sand can be effective.

For more information than you ever wanted to know, see this article from Options for Storing Potatoes at home (PDF) from the University of Idaho extension.


From the manual:

  The control wheel on the front of the worktop adjusts the inter
  nal fridge compartment temperature.  The internal temperature should be 5 °C
  or colder although some sections, such as the salad bin, will be slightly w
  armer.
  The setting of the control wheel will depend on the location of
   the fridge, the room
  temperature and how often the door is opened.  The normal set point (marked by a 3
  and N on the dial) is usually suitable.

(emphasis mine)

Of course, the best way to find out is to put a themometer inside and check if it indicates 5 °C.


Finishing Sous-Vide Chicken Thighs en masse

You could use a searzall with the chicken on a large baking sheet (make sure you have adequate space to do this without accidentally setting anything else ablaze).

I usually use one in conjunction with pan-searing, so I'm not sure it could do the total job for you, but you certainly could use the broiler method and then finish up with the searzall (or, slower, any culinary torch) to get the sear that you want.

Outside of that, a gas grill would probably be your best bet.

Bonus: It's a torch. Torches are fun, and possibly a neat way to entertain your guests.


Why does my ricotta cheese go bad in a few days?

Pasteurized ricotta should last 2-4 weeks in the fridge, unpastuerized 1-2 weeks.

So, A Few Possibilities:

Your fridge is way too warm, like close to room temperature.  Ricotta will spoil if left out at room temperature or warmer in a few days.  Have you checked fridge temp?  Where in the fridge are you storing the ricotta?

You have a lot of spoiled milk bacteria in your fridge.  If you've had dairy products go "off" many times in your fridge (or only once, but you spilled it), and not cleaned it, then you may have cultures of dairy-eating bacteria living in your fridge.  Do other dairy products spoil quickly for you?

Your ricotta vendor is contaminated.  If you've been getting all of this ricotta from the same store or the same maker, it's possible that their equipment/storage is contaminated.  Try a different source/store.

You are buying ricotta which is already old. When was this ricotta made?  How close is it to the expiration date when you buy it?


Is there no use for high temperatures in ovens?

There is lots of use for high temperatures. Especially pizza is the first thing that comes to mind; there is no home oven which can get to the proper temperatures for a Neapoletana (which are above 500 Celsius), but more is always better.

Of course, the salesman will tell you what you need to hear to buy his product, don't listen to him. This still doesn't mean that you should only buy the oven with the highest max temperature; there are badly built ovens which claim to reach 300 Celsius but can't actually do it, in this case you are probably better off with a better quality oven with a lower nominal maximum temperature. It is probably best to compare reviews made by independent test organizations.


It's an egg poacher.  Looks like this exact model.

Note that these don't really actually "poach" eggs, the result is more like a coddled egg. They do essentially work like double boilers.


Why do Vietnamese dishes feature cut-up meat with the bone in?

Yes, those bones make a huge difference for flavor. If you just cook meat in water, you won't have anywhere near the rich meatiness that you get from a good bone broth.

Sure, you could get similar flavor by deboning the meat, then cooking with the bones and removing them before serving. But that's definitely more work, and in some cases it's pretty much impossible. (Want to try deboning a chicken neck?) Note that cutting through bones is not actually that hard; a sharp cleaver goes through a lot. It's one simple action, easier than deboning even for simple cuts of meat.

As for eating, you can just put the whole piece of meat (with the bone) in your mouth, then spit it out once you've gotten all the meat off. It's a lot easier than trying to hold onto the bone and bite it all off. That may not be common etiquette in Western cultures, but with cuisines that serve all kinds of food with small bones in it, I believe it's pretty normal.

In the end, there's of course still room for personal preference. Pieces of bone-in meat is easy for the cook (cleavers go through bones pretty well), and may or may not be pleasant for the eaters. If you don't like it, don't cook that way, just make a good bone broth instead. But it doesn't ruin the dish for everyone, and it's possible that if you just eat bone-in meat for a while you'll get used to it.


ziplock-type gallon bag to store my sour dough starter in the fridge.

One week is fine. I keep my starter also for one week in the fridge and feed it once a week:

20g starter
50g water
50g rye flour

If you want to do it for a longer period, I'd exchange the plastic for glass which is 100% safe from leeching nasty stuff into your starter.


Assuming you mean something like a wing-sauce when you say hot sauce (where butter is added to pepper sauce near the end of the recipe):
It would make only a slight difference, and many tasters will find no flavor difference. A clarified butter is a butter with milk solids and water removed---it changes the richness to some extent, but this will be mostly masked by the pepper sauce. The hotter and sharper the pepper sauce, the less the flavor of rich butter comes through.

If the recipe calls for a mild pepper sauce and large amounts of butter, then it may boost the flavor of the final sauce.


Substituting vegetable oil for canola oil

Short answer is yes, you can almost always substitute vegetable oil and canola oil for each other.

Vegetable oil is made predominantly from soybean oil but it usually is a blend of oils from vegetables such as corn, olive, pumpkin seed, grape seed or even canola oil itself.

Canola oil is made from pressing a plant that is a hybrid of the rapeseed plant. It has the lowest levels of saturated fats out of all the vegetable oils.


Are there food combinations that are dangerous?

Basically everything at all normal is safe.

There is a mushroom that gets toxic if combined with alcohol, but alcohol itself isn't 100% safe and if you're gathering wild mushrooms you need to be safety conscious, so it's not really something you could run into by accident or with storebought ingredients.

Relevant paragraph from Wikipedia

  Consuming Coprinopsis atramentaria within a few hours of alcohol results in a "disulfiram syndrome". This interaction has only been known since the early part of the twentieth century. Symptoms include facial reddening, nausea, vomiting, malaise, agitation, palpitations and tingling in limbs, and arise five to ten minutes after consumption of alcohol. If no more alcohol is consumed, they will generally subside over two or three hours. Symptom severity is proportional to the amount of alcohol consumed, becoming evident when blood alcohol concentration reaches 5 mg/dL, and prominent at concentrations of 50–100 mg/dL. Disulfiram has, however, been known to cause myocardial infarction (heart attack). The symptoms can occur if even a small amount of alcohol is consumed up to three days after eating the mushrooms, although they are milder as more time passes. Rarely, a cardiac arrhythmia, such as atrial fibrillation on top of supraventricular tachycardia, may develop.


Should I add vegetables and spices in the stock-making stage of pig-knuckle soup?

If you are going to cook a stock for 4 hours, the flavor of the vegetable will contribute to the overall flavor of the stock...but not be so great in vegetables themselves...and their texture will be very soft.  I would strain and de-fat the stock... then use the stock you created to build your soup.  Add vegetables at this point and cook just until the vegetables are cooked through.  This would provide both the best flavor and texture of the vegetables.  Use the same process if you want to puree some or all of the soup.


No this not ok to cook because it looks like that it is rotten.


Soaking liver in milk: in or out of the fridge?

Yes, you can safely soak it at room temperature, but why would you?  There's no reason not to refrigerate.

Meat is safe for about 2 hours in the temperature danger zone of 40F/4C to 140F/60C. Beyond that, it should be cooked or refrigerated.  So, if you do decide to soak at room temperature you should cook or chill it promptly.


Using light cream instead of milk in crepes?

In that recipe, there are 2 cups of milk, and 2 tablespoons of butter.

The difference in fat from dairy in going from milk to light cream at 15% fat is about 3 tablespoons of fat (and therefore, about 3 tablespoons less water).

You are almost quite likely going to get a quite similar outcome if you eliminate the butter, and maybe add a tablespoon or two of water.


Am I using my knives for the correct jobs?

Well your chef's knife should constitute about 90% of your usage I'd say. It should be used for slicing, dicing just about anything. Your paring knife is actually the 3-4" one you describe. Paring knives are typically used for delicate tasks like, coring apples, peeling, and some people use it for mincing garlic because it's so small.

I've never seen a 2" serrated knife before, so I'm not sure what I'd use that for if anything. If you're using it because it seems to do a better job on the vegetables, then that's a sign that your chef's knife is dull. I have seen tomatoes sliced with a 6" serrated utility knife due to their tenderness. However, you generally don't want to use a serrated knife on an onion, this will cause a lot of the gas to be released that makes you cry.


Why are olives always better at the restaurant?

Assuming that you are buying from supermarket shelves,(and not, say, from olive bars that some supermarkets have) there is a quality difference between shelf-stable canned and jarred olives vs. olives available in olive bars like Whole foods or in a Mediterranean deli. These come oil cured or submerged in water, and cannot be stored for long term, and they taste much better.


A decent grill.  Yes, really.  If your park has one of those crappy little close-to-the-ground ones (instead of the great giant cast-iron ones in the national parks) you're in for an afternoon of heartbreak and frustration as you try to grill on it.
Quality charcoal.  Hardwood is more expensive, harder to light, slower to heat up but burns hotter and tastes good; briquettes are easy-lighting but don't add much to the food.  Best results: half and half.
Handi-wipes to get the charcoal off your hands.
A "chimney"-style charcoal starter, and some newspaper to use in it.  "Easy-lighting" charcoal isn't.
A "fireplace" lighter.
Long-handled metal tongs and a long-handled, wide, heavy metal spatula.
Oven mitts or thick leather gloves in case the handles aren't long enough.
Spray bottle full of tap water for putting out flare-ups, clothing, and hair.
Meat, fish, chicken, and/or vegetables, preferably some which have been marinated in a sauce or rub for a while (several hours for meat) beforehand.
Serving plates and eating plates and other picnicware.  No, you can't put the cooked meat back on the dish the raw meat was marinating on.
Chips & dip or salsa for while everyone is waiting hours for you to get the charcoal going.
Bread and side-dishes to go with the barbecue, or more likely to be eaten instead while everyone waits for the meat to be done.
Headlamp flashlight for you to use while it's getting dark because the charcoal isn't ready yet and you can't see if the food is done or not.
Beer.


Is this kebab roll ingredient referring to the seed, outer star or both?

This likely refers to the ground spice, and probably the whole thing.  Spices used on an industrial scale are usually sourced economically.  In other words, the most inexpensive ground star anise.  It is likely that this is the whole thing ground up.


How to avoid cooked pasta soaking up sauce when stored?

If I plan on storing my pasta in the fridge with the sauce, I take the pasta out of the boiling water and immediately rinse it in cold water. I rinse until the pasta has cooled completely. Make sure to drain it well. Afterwards, I either mix a little sauce in the pasta to help keep it from sticking or just put the sauce on top.
Basically I'm trying to stop the pasta from continuing to "Cook" in the sauce.


Should I use raw turmeric that turned rubbery?

This is very common, I store my turmeric and galangal in the freezer and they always come out a bit floppy. This isn't a problem if you plan to grind, puree or grate the turmeric as you are breaking down its structure anyway (grating may take a bit more effort than harder turmeric but it's very doable).

If your recipe requires shaping the turmeric in some way, like cutting fine strips, you may have some trouble as it won't cooperate with you.


Cayenne stripes inside fried chicken strips how is it made?

Good luck pinning them down on that trade secret! ;-) KFC claims their chicken strips are in fact strips of whole chicken, not ground and formed meat. If there are stripes inside, they are almost certainly injected into the meat. If you wanted to make them at home, you can buy meat injectors pretty cheaply. Remember, it's not just cayenne in there– there are other spices like smoked paprika, black pepper, and other things to buffer the spice so you don't just burn your face off without a whole lot of flavor. I'm sure you could fry up a delicious approximation of the real thing at home.


What is the difference in flavour between the zest of an orange vs lemon vs lime

If you can't taste it, but others can, chemical composition of the essential oils might prove a useful guide for you.

Ingredients of Orange, Lemon and Lime oils:

First line shows components common to two or more of the fruits. Second line shows components unique to each fruit.

lemon oil

a-pinene, b-pinene, myrcene, limonene, linalool, sabinene, neral

camphene, a-terpinene,  b-bisabolene, trans-a-bergamotene, nerol

–––––––––––––––––––––––

Lime oil

a-pinene, b-pinene, myrcene, limonene, linalool,

terpinolene, 1,8-ceneole, borneol, citral and traces of neral acetate and geranyl acetate.
––––––––––––––––––––––––

orange oil

a-pinene, myrcene, limonene, linalool,  sabinene, neral

citronellal, gerania

–––––––––––––––––––––––

Looking up the flavors of the unique ingredients should provide a better, more useful answer than
"full flavour with sweetness" or "sharp and sour". Looks like the Handbook of Fruit and Vegetable Flavors would be a good place to find this information, but it's a bit on the pricey side.


There is no general safety rule against reusing canned food in a new batch of food-to-be canned. For example, I have seen recipes for home-canned tomato sauce based on tomatoes bought in a commercial jar. So, that would not be a limiting factor.

What is a limiting factor is 1) the safety of the original canning process, and 2) the suitability of the new product for canning. The first one is simple: if the first batch was unsafe, for whatever reason, you can't turn it back into a safe one.

The second is that you have to use a recipe that is safe for canning. For example, you cannot thicken it with flour, as flour- and starch-containing recipes are not safe for canning. Since you will not be using a known-safe recipe, but "inventing" your own (e.g. by reducing the older one) you will have to measure the pH with a reliable method (not strips) to make sure it is acidic enough for water-bath canning.


How much do dry beans expand when soaked?

Typically dry beans expand 2-3 times their original volume when soaked, depending on their age (fresher beans have more moisture left than older ones and expand less).
I usually put them in a large pot and cover them with at least 5-6cm of water above.


What can be used as an alternative for Applesauce?

Applesauce has little flavor and almost no nutritional value. It is added to baked goods for the one thing it does have- pectin.

Pectin interferes with gluten in a similar manner to fat although by a different mechanism. For this reason applesauce is often used to replace some of the fat in recipes for health-conscious bakers. See this question.

Other banana bread recipes are very similar to cakes and rely on a huge amount of fat- often creamed with a large amount of sugar.

Your options are then to:

Replace the applesauce with some other oil substitute. Another puree of high-pectin fruit would work.
Switch to a recipe that just uses the fat and enjoy a richer banana bread.


I should have spent a bit more time searching. One of the searched results that looked like a fear video was actually the opposite. Here is some stuff from that video and comments.

First: Lead boils at about half the temperature that iron melts. So even if you start out with a mix of lead and iron, it won't last long. Second:

  A bit of arithmetic: - Cast Iron Assay can expect Lead content to be 0.001 to 0.15%. (By weight or volume is not significant, see below) My 26.5 cm Chinese skillet, as yet unused (which is why I am researching) weighs 2.1 kg. At 0.15% that is a total lead content of 3.15g. Realistically, how much of that can ever get into the food? Cast iron density is around 6800 - 7800 kg/m3. At the higher figure this works out to a volume for my skillet of 2.1/7800 m^3 = 2.7 x 10^-4 m^3= 270cc. Ignoring the handle and sides, let us consider only the flat cooking surface diameter 20cm, and assume a depth of say 1mm available to leach the lead. Volume of a cylinder = pi r^2 x h = 3.14 x 10cm^2 x 0.1 = 31.4cc. Thus 31.4/270 x 100 = roughly 11.6%. 11.6/100x3.15 = 0.37g = 370μg of lead available. Lead toxicity is at about 10 μg/dL of blood. Average human blood volume is 500dL. So, if ALL the available lead in the pan was taken out AT ONCE, and you managed to absorb it ALL, just into your blood, , you would have a blood level of 370/500 = 0.74μg/dL, about 1/14th the toxic level, before your system kicked it out at around half per 30 days. Go figure.

--flamencoprof

So no, I don't need to worry.

edit: Hmm. The video's figures were wrong. Iron melts at about 1811K and lead boils at about 1749. Close but not quite. Still, from this source it seems that a typical blast furnace should still boil lead.


What to add to the batter of the cake to avoid hardening when the gluten formation can't be avoided?

Milk won't help you - it's mostly water, and gluten develops from flour (more accurately, specific proteins in flour) and water.

The way to reduce gluten development is to incorporate more fat into the batter. Lipids are hydrophobic and will prevent further hydration of the glutenin.

Using a lower-protein flour will also help. If you're not already using cake flour, the reason it's called cake flour is because of the lower protein content.

That being said, have you actually tried leaving the batter coarse? Just because the batter is lumpy does not mean that the cake will have big lumps. The entire mixture is wet, so unless you leave huge lumps of dry flour in the batter, you won't end up with a lumpy cake. There's a difference between "don't overmix" and "don't mix" - you're supposed to mix enough to incorporate, just don't try homogenize it.


Which kind of mortar and pestle replaces a blender?

As usual, Serious Eats has an article for this, covering what type of M&P to buy.  They recommend a large granite model for most purposes, but an olivewood or marble one for certain special foods, like pesto.

Your question is specifically "replacing a blender", though, and "even make some soups".  An M&P will never replace a blender for pureeing liquids.  First, you can't put much liquid in even the largest countertop M&P, no more than a liter.  Second, M&Ps do not work for pureeing liquids, but rather for grinding dry ingredients.  If you were to put a chunky soup in, and try to pound it, the soup would just splash all over the counter.  And forget trying to make frozen drinks like daquiris in one.

All is not lost, though: you can pretty much handle almost all foods if you combine an M&P with a stick blender. Yes, it's still a blender, but it's smaller, quieter and more economical.  The only thing you won't be able to do is the frozen drinks.


It's a bean flour, so substitute another bean flour - chickpea/garbanzo is perhaps the most commonly available one, IME.

Beans bring protein, fiber and fat to the recipe. Soy has considerably more fat (oil) than chickpeas, so you might need to add some oil (or higher-oil things like nut or sunflower seed butters.)

"Fermented soybean powder" is available, and would presumably be more or less equivalent to soy flour.


I used evaporated milk instead of sweetened condensed milk in a fudge recipe. How do I fix this?

Add 1 to 1/4 cups of sugar for each cup of evaporated milk. Put it on top of a stove and stir until the sugar is dissolved. If the state of your recipe is such that you cannot put it on top of a stove then use icing sugar instead and mix until the sugar is completely incorporated.


How can I judge the extra amount of water to use if I am cooking rice with extras in in my rice cooker?

There shouldn't need to be any variation in the water at all, since the things that you are adding are already hydrated and are not taking in any water.  Indeed, it would be possible that some vegetables might even give off water.

I would be more inclined to look to whether you are measuring accurately every time you use the rice cooker (just asking) and then, if so, whether your rice cooker is consistent.  I had an inexpensive rice cooker that I liked for the convenience, but it was inconsistent on turning off, so the results were a little too varied, OK for me, but not when I was serving other people.

The only other thing to consider is that many rice cookers work on a temperature principle...when the temperature starts to rise (meaning the water has been absorbed) the cooker shuts off.  If the ingredients you are adding are raising the temperature of boiling (as in a lot of salt, say) then it is possible that you cooker is shutting off before the rice is cooked, and then the water is absorbed or evaporates, but the rice cooks no further.

I would pay very close attention to your measuring (rice and water) for the next couple of batches and see if that fixes the problem.


How does invert sugar reduce crystallization in ice creams?

Simple crystals generally form when you have a lot of a particular chemical with the same shape, and a tendency to bind together. If you stack them as close as possible, you usually get a regular three dimensional array, a crystal. Invert sugar, glucose plus fructose, does not look like or pack like sucrose (glucose-fructose). It does however Hydrogen bond to sucrose. If that sucrose happens to be part of a crystal, that binding introduces a flaw into the crystal structure. This flaw impedes binding of more sucrose to the crystal, hence, smaller crystals.
This phenomena is true not only in ice cream making, but in much of chemistry, where if you want nice big clean crystals, you have to start out with a pretty pure mother liquor i.e. crystallization solution.


If you want to try to manage with the existing scale, it sounds like all you can do is try to measure larger quantities. For example, you could measure 1-pound or 2-pound pieces, then eyeball cutting them in half repeatedly until you get the 4oz pieces you want. When you eyeball things, it's often a good idea to try to get it into a uniform shape before you cut; we're a lot better at drawing a line down the middle of something symmetric than we are at cutting an irregular blob in half.

But a new scale would probably be pretty cheap and useful for other things, so it's not a bad idea if you aren't happy with the accuracy of what you have.


See Stock vs Broth - What's the difference in usage?

Like most cooking words there is no global definition. Fat content varies by ingredients and recipe. Some fat is retained in suspension, and some will be chemically attracted to components of the stock and be difficult to remove

Some people stir in the fat, most people skim it off

Commercial stock may have been centrifuged to get the fat content down to zero. This is not that practical to do at home, but can be done


Why did my Zwilling Aluminium pan cookware surface corrode just after 1 month?

This is not corrosion, this is damage to the non-stick surface.
Overheating the pan can damage non-stick coatings. As these marks are in the centre of the pan I suspect that there are two possibilities:

The pan was heated too hot and damaged the coating
The "corrosion" is actually damage to a layer of polymerized oils/fats analogous to seasoning on a cast-iron pan.


Can I use parchment paper for all cookies

The short answer is yes.
Parchment cannot be used as muffin/cupcake paper, (this actually goes without saying).

Parchment paper can be used for virtually anything, unless it is extremely oily and/or in a near liquid state.

Good luck.


Is it safe to remove the rings on jars for long-term storage of home-canned goods?

If the jars are properly sealed the vacuum in the jar and the waxed edge will hold the lid safely sealed. Undisturbed those jars will remain sealed until they are opened. The ring will reduce the risk of "unintentional" opening and that is really all the ring does. There are two real advantages to removing the ring once the seal is set.

If something spoils in the jar it is likely to pop the lid open. Spoilage would give off gasses that would increase the pressure inside the jar and break the seal. This is more obvious if the ring has been removed.
When it comes to juices, unintended fermentation is an issue. Even if raised to a temperature that is expected to kill yeast sometimes some of the little buggers get through and will ferment juices. Without the ring the fermentation breaks the seal. This prevents jars from exploding under pressure (yes, it can happen). I had a grandmother who would can grape juice, but did not want 'wine'. When the lids popped it identified the jars that had fermented, and which could be disposed (sometimes not the way grandma intended).

I prefer to leave the rings on as when the jars get stacked up in the pantry jars can get jostled and a lid may get accidentally opened, but there is nothing "wrong" with taking them off.


Will seasoning cast iron skillet with vegetable oil leave trans fats?

Trans fats, as in hydrogenated fats, are not created by heating oil.  The process of seasoning a pan involves polymerizing, drying, and carbonizing the oil, which is different from hydrogenation of the oil (how trans fats are created).

Per @craPkit, there are confusing references to trans fats and overheating oil.  However, overheated oil is oxygenated, not hydrogenated.  These oxygenated oils are confusingly referred to as trans fats in some literature for technical reasons, but they are different from what is meant by "trans fats" in health literature (that is, partially hydrogenated fats).  That said, oxygenated oils are probably bad for you, just in a different way (primarily for your cholesterol level).

Additionally, if you have seasoned your pan properly, oil shouldn't be coming off into your food in any significant quantity.  The whole point of seasoning is to create a hard non-stick surface on the cast iron that doesn't come off; if it is coming off, you did it wrong.


Something dark gray coming off of sheet pan after scouring

It is oxidised aluminium (Al2O3). This is formed by oxidising with the oxygen in the air to form the aluminium oxide. Al2O3 forms a very thin (4 nm) impermeable layer on your Al, which prevents further oxidation and appears as a dull grey on the surface. Polished Al is shiny and can be highly reflective.
Al2O3 appears as a dark grey/black colour when you scrape it and some of the underlying Al off the sheet with your steel wool. It is likely that your "steel" sheets are actually aluminized steel, as the steel itself is not rust-resistant. The aluminium coating on the steel prevents corrosion from the air by forming the aforementioned oxide layer.


I believe what you have there are almonds...or "the fruit of the almond tree".


Colour is a fairly inaccurate method of determining if a protein is safe to consume. I would recommend getting a thermometer to determine if the chicken has reached a safe internal temperature.


How do I prevent cream puff shells from deflating?

hobodave is on the right track with his multi-temperature cooking suggestion: you really need that burst of high heat right away in order to get sufficient rise out of the dough (your aim is to create steam inside each pastry while the dough is still soft). In fact, I go over 400°F: try 425-450, depending on your oven, and aim to have the heat increasing during the first stage of baking. Then you need to cut the heat, or they'll burn rather than crisp.

However, I don't bother with a final slow-cooking phase: for one, it limits the use of your oven! If you're trying to produce more than a single batch of cream puffs, this is unacceptable... But also, it has not (in my experience) produced reliable results.

Instead, leave them to cook until they're a deep golden brown, and them immediately remove them from the oven, place them on cooling racks, and take a bamboo skewer (or thin pencil, or equivalent - a toothpick is far, far too small) and poke a hole in the very top of each pastry, making sure you penetrate to the center. This allows the steam to escape without softening the pastry, and is crucial to maintaining the shape and texture. As a bonus, you can pipe in filling through the same hole...

For the first batch, pay close attention to how they're cooking. You'll want to reduce heat as soon as they've risen and start to set, and remove them from the oven before they scorch. Exact times will vary based on your oven and on the size of your cream puffs.

Finally, don't make them too big - I aim for maybe a tablespoon of dough per cream puff at most. Remember, when properly cooked they puff up and are hollow inside - you just need enough dough for the shell! If you're ending up with webby, doughy centers, you're just wasting dough (and making them harder to fill later on).


Why add salt to the water when cooking rice?

For rice it depends.  Cooking any starch in water will first cause the starch granules to swell and eventually tangle up with each other (the gelatinization).  Dissolving sugars or salts in the water slows down the process by raising the temperature the swelling starts.  While few prefer pasta as a stuck blob of strands, the same is not the case for rice.  I like my Basmati loose, but my risotto and sushi sticky, so salt may be required for Basmati and optional for Arborio.

There are many techniques for controlling the starch for rice.  To control the starch gelatinization of rice:

cook it like pasta with lots of water, then drain; or
par cook it

Method 1 won't avoid the grain surface starch gelatinization, but it will help with stickiness (you may oil coat it after draining).  Method 2 delays the starch release allowing you to finish a risotto in seven minutes.  Cool for parties or for restaurants.


Generally there is no distinction, other than that the variety for eating the sprouts may be a special one developed for taste.

Having said that there is another consideration: Seeds for sowing often (not always, depends on the supplier and type of seed) are coated with anti-fungals and things to make them less attractive to pests. These seeds should not be eaten, nor should the sprouts from them!


Would the same mixing principles that apply to paint work for Food Coloring variations?

Yes, the principles are the same as for paint. It is subtractive color, meaning each new color you use subtracts out all of the colors except the ones it reflects. The other kind is additive color, when you are mixing lights like on a stage or out of a television set, and doesn't have much application to food that I can think of.


Is risotto or paella rice a better substitute for my Japanese dish?

There is a QA about the differences between paella and risotto rice on this very site, but it doesn't really answer your question.

For your purposes any arborio rice will do, the secret is to make it sticky using technique. Firstly, don't rinse the rice, you want to keep the starch, not wash it off. Next this you want to first put the rice and water into a pot and let it sit for a couple of hours, this will loosen up the starch on the outside of the rice. Then cook the rice as normal in the same water you soaked it in, letting it sit for 10 minutes after it is done. Don't stir, you want to keep the starch on the outside of the grain as much as you can.


What's a gluten free alternative to farro?

Farro is essentially a variety of wheat, and I assume your recipe is using it in whole form, rather than milled in some way. Therefore, you'd want to substitute another grain that will provide at least a similar texture.

Farro

Rice is gluten-free, so you could use any kind of whole grain rice as a substitute.

Brown Rice

You could use wild rice, although its particular texture is quite different and may or may not compliment the soup.

Wild Rice

It's useful to know that there are actually four different kinds of gluten:

Gliadin in Wheat
Hordein in Barley
Secalin in Rye
Avenin in Oats

Because farro is a kind of wheat, it contains Gliadin, which is the form of gluten people are most allergic to. However only one in five people who are sensitive to wheat are allergic to the Avenin in oats.

If you're cooking for others and don't want to take a chance, then don't even consider using oats. However, if for yourself or someone who wants to try oats*, they have a nice flavor that would be delicious in the soup.

Oats

Specifically, you'd want whole kernel oat groats — not cracked or rolled. Look for a package that says "gluten free", which really means they've taken precautions to keep the oats from being contaminated with gluten from wheat or other grains.

If you find you can tolerate oats with no problem, you may also be able to use rye and/or barley.

* Consult with your physician before trying any of these alternative grains.


What is the shelf-life of store-bought commercially-produced jam?

Jam and jelly have VERY long shelf lives both in the cupboard, unopened as well as in the refrigerator. The acidic environment and concentration of sugar make it an inhospitable environment for bacterial growth.

Typically the only changes you'll see are darkening of color (unopened in the cupboard) and possible "sugaring" in the refrigerator (development of sugar crystals).  Flavor can diminish over time too.  There's very little need to be concerned about it being safe for consumption....mainly palatability will be affected with age.


Induction cookware is only that which has enough steel or iron in it to have a magnet stick to it.  As was mentioned in the comment, it is usually the other way around.  Stainless steel and cast iron are great for cooking on most any type stove top... Or a grill or a campfire!  They are the epitome of versatility.


I have a theatre-style popcorn machine that lets the steam escape (ever so slightly) as the pot is overflowing.  When I want to make a smaller batch, I do it the old-fashioned way: in a fully covered saucepan on the stove.  When both are preheated properly, oiled and salted properly, it's hard to tell the difference.  I do know this: a tightly covered pot will heat up more quickly (because it's retaining more heat), resulting in the kernels popping a little faster.  That's simple science.

From the time the popcorn starts popping until it's removed from the heat, it's only a very short time.  The average popped kernel is probably in that environment for a minute or less.  Whatever steam the popcorn absorbs in the covered pan it quickly lets off when poured into the open bowl.

There might be a minor difference, but if you have to ask, you are probably better at making nearly perfect popcorn than anyone you're likely to ask.  Getting the heat, oil, salt, and other flavorings right along with having fresh kernels of a variety that pops to your liking are going to have far more effect on the finished product than minor venting of heat and steam during the popping process.  Once you have perfected the rest of the process, you'll be able to tell for yourself whether to cover tightly or not has much effect.

The great thing about figuring it out for yourself is all the popcorn you get to eat. :-)


Days kept after opening mentioned in packages and how valid are they?

It's probably a "best before date," which means the pita bread will lose quality after that date.
Pita bread tends to dry out and get stale quickly.


This is a good question about differentiating between burned and 'browned', if you will.

Browning meat, which is often searing, is a way to introduce great flavors from the Maillard reaction, is the holy grail of meat cookery.

There are other techniques, such as 'Blackening' which provide a very spicy sear to food, but that is a different animal.

In essence, the answer to your question is 'Does it meet the criteria you are going for?

Braised short ribs are browned, often hard.

Brisket is smoked for a loooooong time, and get a big smoky, burny flavor?

Ultimately, is the effect unpleasant?

Blackened catfish, a filet of fish seared under high heat in certain spices is a prize dish,but not 'burnt.'

Does the technique want the char flavor?

If no, then burnt = not good.


How does rub or marinade actually seep into meat?

Some of this has already been said briefly in comments and the previous answer, but since the question is interested specifically in chemical mechanisms, here are a few more details.

The general process to think about first is diffusion.  This is part of a general physical property of systems to move to a state of equilibrium.  Suppose you had a container with a wall in the middle and filled the one side with plain water and the other side with brine.  If you remove the wall, you'd expect the solutions to mix -- the salt would diffuse into the plain water, and eventually the whole solution would be equally mixed.

When you place food into a solution which has higher concentrations of additives than the food itself, the additives migrate into the food to attain equilibrium.  In porous food and meats, these additives may move far into the meat due to simple diffusion.  For example, if you marinate fish, the larger openings between the muscle fiber will allow the marinade to seep deep into the meat.  To a much lesser extent, this same process also happens in the outer layers of other kinds of meats (beef, pork, chicken), though the muscle fibers are so dense that this simple diffusion doesn't generally get very far.

Marinades can make a limited use of osmosis.  Going back to our container example with two sides, osmosis is like replacing the wall with a barrier that has very tiny holes in it (technically known as a "semipermeable membrane").  Cell membranes (and for vegetable matter, cell walls) allow only certain small molecules to cross the membranes.  (The reference in the question to living processes is only applicable to so-called active transport processes in cells, which require energy from the cell to power them.  Osmosis, on the other hand, is a simple physical process of molecules moving through pores from higher concentration to lower concentration.)

Technically, osmosis is about a membrane equalizing concentration by allowing a solvent to cross the membrane while other (usually larger) molecules don't, and the most common solvent is water.  As Jolene's experiment in comments shows, this process is mostly effective with small molecules that can "piggy-back" on this water motion, like salt.  It's a little more complicated than that, since cell membranes also can selectively permit or deny travel based on water or fat solubility or whether a molecule is polar or not.

With both simple diffusion and osmosis processes, for deep penetration into the meat, tiny molecules will move much faster.  It's not that some larger molecules can't penetrate the meat -- many of them do get into the surface layers.  However, diffusion works through the random motion of vibrating molecules, and with all molecules at the same temperature, large molecules vibrate and move much more slowly.  So it may take days, weeks, or even longer for large molecules to move an appreciable distance, and the meat would spoil and break down long before you get appreciable penetration.

(Note that besides size, another reason for slow penetration of other flavors is the low concentrations of these molecules.  Whereas salt and sometimes other things like sugar can be highly concentrated in a brine or marinade, a concentrated solution of most other flavor components would be incredibly powerful and unpalatable.  Without high concentrations, any diffusion or osmosis processes will be much slower.)

In terms of typical food additives, salt is the fastest traveling, but other less common additives (e.g., certain phosphates) also move relatively quickly.  Sugar, once it is broken down into its simple components like glucose, will also move deeper into the meat, but more slowly than salt.  (Note that some more complex sugars like table sugar, sucrose, can naturally break down in an acidic solution, but it's a slow process at room temperature or lower.)

But even when we say salt travels "fast," it will typically only go somewhere around 1" in 24 hours (depending on type of meat and concentration of brine).  If you have a very large hunk of meat, you're unlikely to get full penetration even over the course of a couple days, so if you want full salt flavor throughout, your best bet is to cut up the meat into smaller chunks.

A dry rub with salt works in a similar way to a brine.  (Some people actually call it "dry brining.")  The only difference is that salt -- which is hydrophilic -- will initially attract molecules of water from the cell and even the air to dissolve on the surface.  At that point, it becomes mobile and will use diffusion and osmosis to move into the meat just as above, just as it would in a brine or a marinade.

Aside from salt and a few other small molecules (e.g., simple sugars), most of the flavoring elements stay near the surface of the meat, typically the outer millimeter or two.  In this outermost layer, certain elements in marinades may help to break down the outer cells and denature/dissolve proteins.  Ingredients like acid, alcohol, and various natural enzymes (which can come from fruit juices or purees) will help to break down this outer layer.  This process will allow deeper penetration of other flavors than would happen without such ingredients.  So, instead of the flavors only going a fraction of a millimeter, some might get in as much as 1/8" or so.  Acids and alcohols are also small molecules and can penetrate more deeply over time, but they will be more destructive to the cells as they move, leaving the outer layer of the meat mushy.  For stewed meat or something like that, this is not an issue (and may actually be desirable); for meat that is meant to be roasted or grilled, long marinades in strong acid and/or alcohol may breakdown the meat too much.

It should be noted that some molecules (such as alcohols) can navigate the world between water-soluble and fat-soluble flavors, which may be helpful in some marinades.  While water readily diffuses through into the outer layer of meat and can carry some larger flavor molecules with it, the same is not as true of oils and fat-soluble flavors.  Essentially, part of a good marinade mix is choosing molecules that can "piggy-back" on each other to help move the flavors into the outer layer of the meat.

One final thing -- some people hold to a rigid division between "brining" (with salt) vs. "marinating" (which, to some people, by definition contains no salt).  This arbitrary distinction has probably led to more ineffective marinating than anything else.  It probably comes from the observation that salt will "dry out" meat, as in long-term meat preservation.

But when the meat is fresh (as most people who practice brining know), after the first hour or so, salt will actually draw water into meat.  Yes, salt is hydrophilic and will draw some water out of meat initially, but as the salt diffuses into the meat, it disrupts proteins in the muscle fibers and causes some of the to dissolve.  These changes then cause the cells to want to dissolve more water, so any water that may have left initially is then reabsorbed.  In a brine or salty marinade, the weight of meat may increase by 10% or more due to brine moving into the meat (which leads to the well-known "juiciness" of brined meat).  Along the way, many dissolved flavor components in the brine can "piggy-back" on this water moving into the meat, increasing the effectiveness and penetration of the marinade.  Again, most of the bigger flavor components will remain in the surface layers, but you'll absorb more of them faster (and slightly deeper) with salt than without it.

To summarize for the specific case of a rub mentioned in the question: Especially if it contains salt, letting the rub sit for a day or two will allow much better penetration of the salt (and perhaps sugar and a few other small molecules).  The other flavors won't move much more beyond the surface whether you wait an hour or a couple days.  Without salt or another hydrophilic compound (like sugar) to get the "water flowing" and move dissolved compounds around, the dry rub is truly a surface feature, and you might as well apply it just before you cook the meat.


Once the meat is cooked, there really isn't a way to turn it into minced meat without there being a noticeable difference in texture. However, it is not unusual to see fully cooked meat getting finely chopped (in fact) to become, for example, filling, and used in ways sort of like how one would use fried minced meat.
Also, from The BBQ BRETHREN FORUMS:

You can grind cooked meat, no problem. Some sausage recipes, actually call for ground cooked meat.

You best bet is to cook the raw minced meat as you would usually cook it, and dump in the cooked meat, that's all chopped up, at the last moment to heat it up.


Food Safety: Do I have to boil pork and then fry it?

No, you do not. A pork chop can be safely cooked by only frying it. That doesn't mean that if you fry a pork chop it's guaranteed to be safe. You can use a meat thermometer to see if the inside has reached 63 (or whatever recommend temperature you're aiming for), and don't take it out of the pan until it does. (Note you are not cooking it at 63, you are cooking it to 63.)

When the chop is very thick, you might find it too seared on the outside by the time it gets to temp in the middle. A way around that is to sear both sides and then put it in the oven. Again you use the thermometer to be sure it is cooked.

I won't say that no-one ever boils pork. Many people boil (or more accurately, simmer) ribs for a long time, to break down the connective tissue, before quickly glazing them on a grill. But boiling a pork chop is pretty unusual.

I don't rinse pork before I cook it. Many cultures have a tradition of rinsing meat with water, vinegar, or lemon before cooking it. Modern advice is that this isn't needed. It won't hurt the pork if you do, but it's possible you could spread contamination through your sink or wherever the water ends up. That's why people advise you to skip any kind of rinsing.

As a final note, I don't add oil when I fry a pork chop. I don't "toss it into the oil" I put it in a pan - nonstick, or a heavy stainless steel. Don't turn it too often: it will release from the pan as it cooks.


Can this shrimp paste be used to make kimchi?

You don't need the shrimp paste to make kimchee. I don't think you would notice the difference if you left it out. Better to leave it out than use the paste you bought, which has a very strong and distinctive flavor.


Canning applesauce - water bath after the fact

They can be reprocessed, but you will need to at least double the processing time, and you should be prepared to sacrifice one jar of preserves. If you have a pressure cooker, that is the most preferable way to go. If you don't, then a large double-boiler will do. Time your first batch of jars. As you water bath them, allow them to boil for an hour, then open one jar to check the temperature with a cooking thermometer. You need to be sure that the very center of the applesauce gets hot enough to kill bacteria. Once it reaches that temperature, keep boiling the jars for at least another twenty minutes to ensure a complete kill. Your temperature-testing jar should not be kept, so that's the one to use right away.

If, like me, you recently broke your thermometer in an unfortunate accident with a wildly enthusiastic stick-loving canine and haven't replaced it yet, water-bath your jars for at least three hours to make sure they have reached the sweet zone for temperature.


Is there a searchable food catalog of USDA Organic products?

The USDA Organic Integrity Database people search for Organic certifications and the foods lists the foods they were certified for.

https://apps.ams.usda.gov/Integrity/


First of all- glucose is a different sugar than table sugar. Corn syrup in the US is similar but has a few extra compounds. As far as I can tell it is used for similar reasons as liquid glucose in the EU.
http://www.ochef.com/784.htm

It is used for a couple reasons:

it is thicker than sugar syrups.
when making candy a little corn syrup can be added to the sugar solution to prevent crystallization.
in the US at least, it is much cheaper than cane sugar.

You can buy it in stores here- I can't say whether you can in Belgium.

I have, on occasion, been forced to use a very thick sugar syrup in place of corn syrup. The recipe used the syrup for reason #1 above and turned out well. If it had been in there for reason #2 it would have been less successful.

In general, if you can find it, it is probably better to buy than to make a substitute because of reason #3.


Chicken breast sous vide: Time in fridge matters?

According to the Douglas Baldwin pasteurisation tables for poultry a chicken breast of that thickness would be pasteurised after 55 minutes so you are well within that range.

Thickness   57°C    58°C    59°C    60°C    61°C    62°C    63°C    64°C    65°C
   20 mm    2¾ hr   2 hr    1¾ hr   1¼ hr   1¼ hr   55 min  50 min  45 min  40 min
   25 mm    3 hr    2¼ hr   2 hr    1½ hr   1½ hr   1¼ hr   1¼ hr   60 min  55 min
   30 mm    3¼ hr   2¾ hr   2¼ hr   2 hr    1¾ hr   1½ hr   1½ hr   1¼ hr   1¼ hr


There is no way to be certain, but I would blame the margarine.

Margarine is not pure fat like an oil, nor a simple fat-water emulsion like butter. It is a rather unstable emulsion, and it uses all kinds of industrial tricks to achieve a smooth, soft, spreadable consistency. It is not just emulsified, it generally contains all kinds of gums too. This is especially pronounced in reduced-fat margarine products.

You shouldn't heat margarine, as you never know how it will behave under heat. It is a bit less of a problem in baking, if you are willing to accept large differences in texture; but as you noticed, it can be very problematic in foods where the correct texture has low tolerance.

If you want to reduce your butter consumption but still make roux-based sauces, use any liquid oil. You can use a cheap vegetable oil for strongly flavored sauces, or an oil with its own taste for milder sauces which can profit from more flavor.

The ratio of fat to starch in a roux is not very tolerant to fat reduction. You should always use at least 1:1 fat to flour. A little deviation (such as using 1:1 butter to flour, which makes it 0.83 fat to 1 part flour) will still work, although it is recommended to up the fat a bit when using butter. But you cannot reduce the fat in a roux-based sauce by choosing a fat-reduced product (assuming you could find a gum-free one) instead of fat and keeping the overall ratio the same. So, if you are looking to reduce your total fat consumption during Lenten and the use of 1:1 oil to flour ratio is not acceptable to you, you will have to do it by some other means.


What's a good bible on vegetarian cooking?

I'd recommend Mark Bittman's "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian", I use it all the time. It's certainly what I would call comprehensive; besides containing tons of recipes for everything from entrees to breads to soups, the sections are prefaced with tips on how to improvise or switch up the recipes as desired, including vegan alternatives.


Generally speaking you can serve pheasant a little pink, but not as rare as you can duck. This is more a textural thing than a safety thing though, I believe. Pheasant is quite lean so cooking it completely makes it very dry.  Cooking any meat anything less than well done is technically 'risky'; you have to weigh the risk with having an enjoyable meal.

Incidentally, pork is generally considered safe to serve a little 'blushed' these days, provided it's from a reputable source.


Update: Yes, it is possible.
After a note in the comments, I tried researching and had to go no further than Wikipedia to see how it is done commercially: The incubation happens in the presence of glucose and continues for 7-8 days. I checked their source too, an article in an encyclopedia on food technology, and the information was correctly transcribed.
Method
I decided to try it out. As I didn't have glucose, I poured in a random amount of agave syrup (a mixture of glucose and fructose). Indeed, at 8 hours (my standard incubation time for Lactobacillicus Bulgaricus yogurt) it was still completely liquid. But after 24 hours, it started looking good, and now, at hour 36, it has firmed up as normal yogurt.
Result
The Shirota yogurt turned out to be quite interesting.
Visual
It looks like normal yogurt, with a small layer of whey on top, which looks somehow different from typical yogurt whey. The top slightly-fatty layer that builds on top of other yogurt is on top of the liquid layer and not below it. The colour is very slightly off-white, but nowhere near as orange as Yakult drinks.
Taste
The yogurt tastes differently from standard yogurt. It has a fruity smell, and is more sweet than sour, with bitter notes mixed in. I didn't notice acetic acid smells, the sourness must be predominantly lactic acid. The smell is rather subtle. The texture is unremarkable, just like standard Lactobacillicus yogurt.
Verdict
At first, I was afraid that the long incubation time and the need for dextrose might mean that L. Shirota is difficult to grow, and might not work well under not-so-precisely controlled conditions, producing spoiled milk instead of yogurt. Now, having smelled the yogurt, I am pretty sure that there is a lot of the original Shirota culture growing there. My new hypothesis is that they need long growth times to achieve a very high concentration, so they can dilute it to make the drink and still get a strong taste.

Long-term results
I left the yogurt to incubate somewhat longer than a week. I was not happy with the result.
Some of the glasses got a band of light-reddish colour, reminiscent of commercial Yakult but slightly paler, while others got no such band. Those who had it had the band in the top third of the glass, but it was not the top layer.
The yogurt smelled quite sour. I tasted just a little bit, the taste was sour, but not as much as over fermented L. Bulgaricus yogurt. I didn't smell much acetic acid if any. There was a bit of sweetness in the taste, but no more than at the beginning, it felt. The Shirota-typical smell was subtle, not much stronger than at 36 hours.

After some more resarch, L. Shirota is sensitive to the absence of certain nutrients, mostly aminoacids and vitamins. See https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lwt.2019.108735 for details. But note that even without nutrients, they reached a good (for typical yogurt, not for yakult) concentration after 31 hours.

You can use most yogurts as a starter, no matter the brand. The only requirement is that they contain live culture, and all the ones marketed as a probiotic should have it.
It should give you normal yogurt, not a yogurt drink. You will have to follow a recipe for a yogurt-based drink if you want it liquid - just water and sugar to taste should do, of you want to mimic  Yakult, or you can branch or into more interesting stuff.


What is the difference between a Jus, Sauce and a Gravy?

What’s the difference between gravy, jus, sauce and coulis?

  Will says...

  •    'Gravy is made from the juices of oven roast meat, thickend with
  a starch such as corn flour.

  •    Jus is made from the same juices
  that has been refined and condensed to get a clear liquid naturally
  thickened.

  •    Sauce could be made from the same juices with other
  ingredients added such as wines or spirits to compliment the food.
  Sauces can be served hot or cold.

  •    Coulis is a thin fruit or
  vegetable purée, used as a sauce. If the purée is too thick, you can
  add some water and sometimes sugar'.

Source: http://www.41portlandplace.com/news/116/send-head-chef-will-carvalho-your-questions-about-the-kitchen

My personal feeling for sauces is they can be made from anything. Parsnips, Mushrooms, Celeriac etc when 'Gravy' and 'Jus' must have Meat juices as their base.

On menu's you'll often see 'Gravy' on pub menu's where they aren't trying to sound to posh, probably using some sort of packet mix. Jus' on French style menu's OR people trying too hard. Finally you'll see something like "Beef and Juniper Sauce" on my menu and many others because... Gravy sounds too common and Jus sounds too poncy.


How to make yogurt without any existing yogurt

There are various bacteria that can make yogurt. They ferment milk at warm temperatures and are called "thermophilic" for that reason.

These bacteria were cultivated by millenia ago. I assume by having milk accidentally spoil to something that didn't kill the starving person who ate it.

Tasty thermophilic lactobacilli do exist in the wild but so do plenty of other very untasty bacteria that would love to eat the lactose in your warm milk. You can't just let warm milk spoil and hope you get yogurt bacteria. The only way to be sure is to not get sick when you eat it.

Getting yogurt starters is very easy.

Any yogurt from the store that contains "live active cultures" can be used as a starter. Yogurt starters can also be purchased dried online.

Once you have some yogurt, and won't be making more for a long time, you can save a little dried or in the freezer.


Savoury equivalent of choco-cornflake cakes

Similar to a macaroon, whip egg whites with cream of tartar and season with whatever savory spices and herbs you might like before folding with the corn flakes, corn chips, or crushed tortilla chips, and then bake at a low temperature until crisp and dry but not browned.


Should enriched doughs pass the windowpane test?

Yes it should - sort of.

Your observation is right on point, a very rich dough will tear more easily. (I did the same experiment once myself.) But it will still show some characteristics of the windowpane test: it will stretch smoothly and the "pane" should be very even, not show streaks of thicker and thinner areas. Note that the temperature of your dough and thus the consistency of your fat may have an influence as well. While warm doughs with soft fat will be very stretchy, cool doughs (made with cold ingredients and little yeast for an overnight cold raise) can be less cooperative.

If you are familiar with how a "ready" non-enriched dough looks that passes the windowpane test, you will probably recognise the same smoothness in an enriched dough anyway, without performing the test.

For this specific recipe, I guess it's the very low hydration that makes the windowpane test difficult and the dough prone to tearing, not the fat.


Can Guava seeds be used to make a coffee-like drink?

I tried making some today with seeds I collected by blending, straining and separating with water. Then roasting using a method I have seen used with coffee beans. Honestly was not that great, it was very weak, I tried a drip method and also french press, but both were very watery. Here Is a short video of what I did, not including the seed separation process. I am sure some coffee roaster is turning over in his grave, I am by no means experienced in this so you may be able to produce better results. https://photos.app.goo.gl/yVKNpwnF5Dpl91fm1 (sorry about vertical video.)


Portable ways to daily grind & powder/ paste 8-9 overnight soaked & peeled Almonds while traveling?

Use a small mortar and pestle, so you're not dependent on electric outlets, batteries or such. With this small amount, the required manual effort is very low, and you can use a very small mortar and pestle, so you can pack light. Also, you can soak the almonds in the mortar itself. And it is also possible to add other ingredients directly to the mortar after the pressing is done.

You will end up with a paste rather than ground almond flour, but I don't think you can get almond flour with soaked almonds in a food processor or a mill either.


What is the purpose of vermouth in potato leek soup?

Vermouth is a fortified white wine that has been infused with herbs, spices and fruits. You should expect it to add those flavors to your dish.

Have you tasted the vermouth on its own? Are you sure you can't identify it? If you still think you can't, I'd suggest tasting your soup as you add each ingredient and concentrate on what flavors each ingredient adds.

For what it's worth, Cooks Illustrated has reviewed Martini & Rossi Extra Dry and classified it as "not recommended" due to tasting medicinal and harsh.

Gallo Extra Dry California and Noilly Prat Original French were both recommended, in that order.

They used a pan sauce as well as straight tasting for their reviews. Perhaps you could try that yourself and see what flavors vermouth gives to a pan sauce, as compared to a white wine. You might find out that you're overpowering or masking a flavor in your vermouth with some of your various herbs & spices.


Why did my roasted pumpkin soup smell foul and seem sour after only 1/2 day?

Were there a lot of onions in the soup? My uncle was a chef and he said that you should never put onions in soup as it would add a sour flavour.