You should use both sides. As Joe said make sure it is nice and hot for when you put the meat on, for 1-2 minutes, so it cooks the outer layer quickly and then reduce to med heat and cook for 4 minutes so you can keep a nice soft texture inside. Times apply for a 24 oz steak. Have a wonderful day!


If I mix rum, gin, vodka and scotch whisky, put it in a water bottle, and leave it for a month will it be safe to drink?

Gin, vodka, rum and whisky are all distilled spirits, so you'd be essentially mixing up essentially four versions of same thing and get to a different version of the same thing. Individually the alcohol content in these spirits more than high enough to prevent microorganisms from growing when stored for years in a closed container, including the the plastic bottles they're sometimes sold in. When mixed together this will remain true and there's nothing about any normal water bottle that would change this.


If you are going to do anything, do it when you are ready to put the pickles in the fridge again, not when canning - acid keeps the canned pickles safe.

So - leave them really sour as canned. When ready to eat a jar, open, dump the brine, add water (whether or not you salt it is up to you and the salt level in the pickles - I'd try plain water) - put it in the fridge. You might want to let that soak for a day or two, and you might want to dump it again and replace it again, depending on how things taste at that point.


Will meat taste okay if I cook it in a pan where the leftover fond seems burned?

I'd deglaze the pan after each pan and transfer the juices to a small bowl to make a sauce

I would wipe/clean (no soap) the pan after each batch.

After the last batch, transfer the bowl content and make a sauce with the last pan drippings and what you already have.


Your last couple sentences imply the chicken was defrosting in the fridge the entire time?  If so, then the chicken should be fine.  (This is, of course, assuming that the chicken was handled properly before it was frozen, etc.)

Large cuts of meat sometimes take a few days to defrost in the fridge.  (Turkeys can sometimes take a week.)  The only time I'd ever be concerned about a multi-day thaw is if I froze raw meat right as it was about to expire.

In any case, I'd just be sure to use the chicken quickly now that it's thawed.


Whenever you see a sauce separate, it's because you have an Emulsion, which is two or more immiscible liquids.  In cooking, these liquids are typically water and fat.

To stabilize an emulsion, you use an emulsifier.  The most common food emulsifier is lecithin, and the most common natural source of lecithin is egg yolk.  If you don't want the taste of egg or your food is not going to be cooked (i.e. a vinaigrette), then it you can actually go out and buy pure lecithin (soy lecithin is common to find).

As the wikipedia entry mentions, there are other natural emulsifiers such as honey and mustard, and often when you see recipes calling for mustard when it seems to be a strange ingredient to add (such as cheese sauce), the reason is to help stabilize the emulsion.

Additionally, the most common emulsifier used in packaged or processed foods is sodium stearoyl lactylate.  It sounds scarier than it is; you can buy it in the store just like lecithin.


How to prevent fish disintegrating in frying pan

I definitely like what @moscafj said "flip once".
I am going to stick to your statement of "pan frying". - which is indeed different from deep frying, shallow frying, sauteing, stir frying. Looking at your description you seem to be mixing pan frying and stir frying...
So let's stick to pan frying which uses minimum quantity of oil.

Get the cleaned fish fillet and marinate it with any herbs you want, adding a bit of oil and lemon juice.

Get a shallow pan that is not as deep as deep frying pan. Heat it up with a good fire. When it's heated only pour the oil (if you require)

Lay the fillet on the pan while it gives you that sizzling sound of meat touching the hot pan - what a delight

Don't poke your fish now - let it be for few minutes

Now flip it - just once. And leave it for another few minutes

As the oil comes out of the fish and pan is drying out, fish changes the colour...

Tip 1: Try not to get a fillet as thick as 1 feet (I am exaggerating). But really a standard 1cm-2cm kind of a fillet would be easier to handle & cook if you are novice.. (salmon can be particularly thicker)
Tip 2: When fish is marinated with a base of oil and lemon - it helps a lot by making the outer layer rougher, tastier since herbs are absorbed into fish and you may not even need extra oil to fry the fish.
Tip 3: Don't over-crowd your pan by adding a population of fillets into the pan at once. Add two fillets with a relatively good space between them - based on the pan size and fillet size you use. So the heat distributes evenly among them.
Tip 4: This is probably the cheapest non-stick pan I have ever used - lighter and durable even I want to throw it away. And it's like one of those old Beetle cars - no matter what you do - it just lasts... You can start with a pan like this and go up as you mature with the frying experience.
Tip 5: The most important out of all, get your fish-monger to give you fresh fish. If you are not aware how to choose a fresh fish, then you gotta do some research and get familiar with that. Personally I never ever use or recommend those frozen fillets (like "forgotten" dory fish) in hypermarket freezers. You get a good fish, you will enjoy a good meal.
Tip 6: Don't forget to use a Fish Slice kitchen tool that's made for pan frying - if you aren't using one yet.

Reference link for you to get an understanding of frying techniques:

Frying techniques vary in the amount of fat required, the cooking time, the type of cooking vessel required, and the manipulation of the food. Sautéing, stir frying, pan frying, shallow frying, and deep frying are all standard frying techniques.
Sautéing and stir-frying involve cooking foods in a thin layer of fat on a hot surface, such as a frying pan, griddle, wok, or sauteuse. Stir frying involves frying quickly at very high temperatures, requiring that the food be stirred continuously to prevent it from adhering to the cooking surface and burning.
Shallow frying is a type of pan frying using only enough fat to immerse approximately one-third to one-half of each piece of food; fat used in this technique is typically only used once. Deep-frying, on the other hand, involves totally immersing the food in hot oil, which is normally topped up and used several times before being disposed. Deep-frying is typically a much more involved process, and may require specialized oils for optimal results. Wikipedia


Should I par-boil my pickled potatoes before roasting them?

It shouldn't "de-pickle" them (I'm fairly certain there's no way to accomplish that) but you should definitely par boil them shorter than you normally would because they will be somewhat softened by the pickling already.


I think grilling is probably a bad plan for duck legs; the fat content is a real danger like you said, and duck legs are tough enough you probably want to confit them or braise them.

If you absolutely have to grill them, I would suggest confiting them at 200 degrees for three or four hours first (you could use veggie oil in a pinch) and then resting them in the fridge for a day or so in oil.

As for finishing them on the grill, rinse them off gently, re-season if needed, cook flesh side down on a medium heat portion of the grill for a while until mostly heated through, then flip them over on a high heat portion of the grill to crisp up the skin, watching out for flares.


button mushrooms turned red while frying in butter

According to this article, button mushrooms may turn a pink color if bruised while being stored or handled. This sounds very much like what has happened to you, as you've stated that the mushrooms were old and not stored properly. This is not poisonous or bad to eat by any means, but I understand that one would not want to take the risk, especially when it comes to a fungi such as mushrooms.

For more information on storage, see the article provided above. A short excerpt on storage taken from that source:

  Storage - Agaricus bisporus will last longer in your refrigerator than
  many other mushrooms, usually around a week. It's better to store them
  in a paper bag rather than plastic. They'll last even longer if you
  take the time to put them in paper!


Egg safety. When to eat and when to not eat

If the shell is undamaged, and the eggs are not past their expiration/best by date, they are safe to eat. Official source: your government's food safety agency, unless you live in a place with really really lax food regulation. But your profile says Australia - I'm sure things are fine there. If there are problems with salmonella outbreaks, it's not anything that you can detect. A salmonella-contaminated egg will look exactly like an uncontaminated one - that's why governments generally recommend you cook the egg, which will kill the salmonella and make it safe. If you're eating raw/undercooked eggs, you'll have to decide whether the risk where you are is low enough.

In practice, they're actually safe for a while after the best by date, just not as fresh, and if the shell is cracked without damaging the membrane or they were very recently cracked, they're also safe. But no damage and before the date is the most absolute guarantee you can get.

The two tests you mention will help you get some idea how fresh the eggs are. Neither has anything to do with good vs. rotten. As eggs get less fresh, they dry out a bit, forming a larger air pocket. So they'll slosh more, and start to float.

But it doesn't mean they're rotten. An actually rotten egg would be completely obvious by smell - they're sulfurous, a lot like the smell that's added to natural gas. If you're getting eggs that float in water on the day you buy them, with really obvious sloshing, yes, it means they're not fresh, so they're certainly not good as fresh eggs from a farm. So if that's the case, your supermarket isn't selling you good quality eggs. It doesn't mean they're unsafe, though.

As for "Why do most eggs have crap and blood on them?" ... "most" is a huge exaggeration, the places I've seen - they get washed. And as rumtscho pointed out in the comments, the eggs are coming out of a chicken, so some ugly stuff is natural. You never actually said what your eggs look like, but if you live in a place where they're not cleaned (even before selling in a supermarket??), then it still doesn't mean they're unsafe, just that you should probably clean them before cracking them.

And dark spots? Some eggs are naturally speckled - that'd be fine. If it's something else, I guess it would be helpful for you to provide a picture.


This article suggests that starch gives a significant increase, and oil emulsions a significant decrease.

The same principles should apply to any small nonpolar molecule (reduces surface tension) and large molecule (increases surface tension). Note that this generally correlates strongly with viscosity. Forces at the surface forces are generally related to forces in the interior of the liquid.


Made a ginger carrot soup with coconut milk but accidentally made it too salty, how do i fix it?

Steam a head of cauliflower, puree it. Add it to the soup. You might also consider some squash or sweet potato puree.


How to keep onions from sinking in a salad

This is physics.

There's an effect called: "Granular convection"
It's a phenomenon where if you have materials of different sizes in a container and vibrate or shake them, that the largest objects will move to the top and the smallest to the bottom.

To keep the onion from sinking, you should make the chopped onion pieces bigger relative to the other ingredients in the salad.

As you can see in JBentley's answer, in a salad where all ingredients are evenly chopped you won't get the sinking effect.


Is Foul Fair? (Or what is this mystery bean)

These are fava beans, the term "foul" (uncommon transliteration) on the pack hinting at a dish that these beans are typically used for:

A ful, a stew-like dish of cooked and spiced beans from the Middle East.


Is it safe to eat a dish made with vinegar if the vinegar lid had black stuff on it?

The "black stuff" is most likely mold. I have found it under the lids of many foods I preserved and ate without suffering any adverse health consequences, including various vinegars.


Is there any substitute for saltpeter / sodium nitrate in corned beef brine?

Saltpeter is potassium nitrate, which does not directly cure meats. Bacteria convert nitrate into nitrite, which is the real preservative. Saltpeter can be replaced by a smaller amount of nitrite to get the same curing effect (most commercial cured meats do this), though a prolonged cure that converts nitrate into nitrite can develop more flavor.

Tender Quick is not a direct substitute because it contains mostly salt. I've heard that you can replace the salt in your recipe with Tender Quick, and drop the saltpeter, and have a success. You would have better luck finding a recipe that was meant to use Tender Quick, though.

It is definitely possible to buy (food-grade!) saltpeter. I would check online, or at specialty stores. It's a little more difficult than picking it up at your local grocery store, of course.

(Chemistry lesson, courtesy of McGee: nitrate (NO3) is converted to nitrite (NO2), which then reacts to form nitric oxide (NO), which bonds to myoglobin in the meat, which turns it pink and prevents oxidation.  Nitric oxide is also present in smoke, which gives that "pink ring" around the outside of smoked meats.)


Cake with ganache on top going to the freezer

Freezing a cake with ganache should be fine.
You can read more about freezing a cake with ganache here:
https://www.cakecentral.com/forum/t/680186/can-i-freeze-a-cake-covered-in-ganache


How can I recreate the Montgomery Inn "Cincinnati style" barbeque sauce at home?

Found this...

http://www.copykatchat.com/sauces/7118.htm

I've never been there, so I can't judge; but might be a good place to start.


How to properly sharpen Santoku and any other knife using a water sharpener/Japanese whetstone?

How often you sharpen depends on how often you use them and the type of steel. I use Globals and Mundials and the Globals require much less sharpening Mundials.

Here's a video from Chefs Armoury https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TPDgdo7jfM

1. Prep your stones

Depending on what stones you use, you may need to soak or not. I use the Naniwa stones that just need to be wet and don't require soaking. I keep a spray bottle for this. I use 400, 1000 and 3000 stones.

2. Make sure your stone is flat

You want a flat stone so that the angle between your knife and stone is stye same along the entire length of the stone. If your stone has a curve in it, get it flattened first. If there is a noticeable curve, ask a professional to flatten it. After this, maintaining a flat stone is easy.

3. Decide your angle

Usually 15-20 degrees. I find the Japanese knives are usually at around 15 degrees and European knives are around 20 degrees based on a bit of trial and error. You'll know if your angle is too low since you won't make progress after a few strokes.

4. Holding the knife & stroke

One hand on the handle (of course) holding the knife at the desired angle. The other hand, fingers on the flat of the blade. Wrists straight. The sharpening stroke is when the knife moves away from the edge.

So if the edge is facing towards you, push into blade as you push your blade away but release the pressure as you pull the blade towards you.

If the blade is facing away from you, push into the blade as you pull towards you and release as you push away.

Make sure you maintain the same angle on both strokes and always use the entire length of the the stone. If you only use part of the stone, that area wears away more quickly and you can't be sure of the angle.

5. Sharpening

Start with the coarsest stone. Pick a side, say edge facing towards you. I start at the tip of my knives. The tip is usually curved, so your hand position changes slightly. After a few strokes, move down the edge and take a few stokes. Keep doing this until you have done the entire edge applying water as needed.

Now pick up the knife. On the side that is not being sharpened, run a thumb or finger across the flat of knife from the spine to the edge. On the edge, you should feel a burr. When you can feel the burr along the entire length of the edge, that side is done, otherwise it needs more work. Now sharpen the other side until you can feel the burr on the other side. We'll address a complete lack of burr later.

 _  <- Burr
  \
  /\
 /  \
 |  | Just sharpened side
 |  |

Once you have done both sides, go up to your next stone and repeat.

As the stones get finer, the size of the burr gets smaller and harder to feel. On a 3000 stone, it gets very fine. If you cannot feel it, wash the blade of any material that you removed. This can sometimes help you feel the burr. I also find that dry hands work better than wet hands when trying to detect the burr.

6. Finishing

When you get to your final stone and have done both sides, you need to remove the burr. Just hold the knife at the same angle as you've been using with the burr side in contact with the stone, and pull the edge of your knife across it to remove the burr.

You can also strop your blade, but it is not necessary.

7. Reflatten your stone

You can do this with a special flattening stone, or a bit of very fine sandpaper. I wet some 600 grit sand paper and put it on my bench (flattest surface in my home). Then sand the stone down. It only needs a few strokes if you do this regularly.

Don't feel a burr trouble shooting

If you have been working at if for a while and cannot feel the burr here are a couple of suggestions.

Wrong angle

Your angle may be too low. Increase the angle slightly and try again. On a coarse stone, you should be able to feel the burr after only a few strokes.

Knife is too blunt

Detecting the burr only works if the knife is close to being sharp. If it is too blunt, you need to remove a lot of material before you are close to a sharp edge again. Don't do this. If you do, you'll end up with an asymmetrical edge.

  _
 / \                                      /\
/   \  Keep working one side and you get /  \
|   |                                    |   \

Instead, give a few strokes across the entire length of one side. Flip it over and do the other side. Make sure you do a similar amount of work so that the edge is symmetrical. The idea is to try and meet in the middle. Check after working each side and eventually you will get a burr.


What's the secret to getting restaurant-quality frozen drinks at home?

You might have better luck if you use ice that is composed of margarita ingredients (lime juice and water, I guess). Unless you're referring to margaritas on the rocks, many restaurants actually have something akin to a slushy machine that is used for margaritas, so there is no ice added to the drinks. Instead, the actual margarita ingredients are frozen while stirring to prevent adding anything that will water it down.


Is it better to wash eggs before refrigerating?

I would personally avoid washing the eggs.

The problem is that wet eggs are bad.  This goes for both Europe, where the eggs are sold unwashed, and in the US, where the eggs are pre-washed and refrigerated.

If you did wash your eggs, you need to get them thoroughly dry afterwards.  Otherwise, you will do harm to the eggs.

If you're buying unwashed eggs, you could use a dry brush on them before you stored them, but I wouldn't recommend anything more than that.


what's a good technique for freezing blueberries?

Lay them out on a tray in a single layer and freeze them flat first. Once they're frozen, pour the frozen berries into a freezer bag and store them that way. This has worked well for me.


How do I follow a recipe if my oven doesn't go as high as the recipe states?

How much longer depends on the type of bread, the size and the shape of the loaf. The solution I suggest is to obtain a probe-type thermometer (like a meat thermometer) and use that to determine if your bread has baked for a sufficiet time. Many breads are completely baked at around 195F(90C) though I have seen a couple of recipes that call for 205F(96C)


It's probably better to freeze it before baking.
When baking the pie some of the ingredients release their flavors, and those can be lost during the freeze. For that reason - the pie would probably preserve more taste if frozen unbaked (But will take more time to be ready for eating after removing from freezer)


How long will Tiramisú made with raw egg keep?

According to the USDA, opened eggs kept under 40 degrees F (5 C) will remain safe up to 3-4 days.  Acids and alcohols will slow bacterial growth, giving you another day or two, but bacteria are remarkably sturdy, such that I would not count on the Madeira or other liqueur to "sterilize" the food.  Also, bacteria are equally happy growing in most egg substitutes -- protein is protein -- so the same safety rules apply.  (If your egg substitute is purely starch-based, such as the one made by Ener-G, you might have an extra safety margin, but I don't know how good the tiramisu will be.)

One way to improve your chances of avoiding food poisoning from bacterial contamination is to cook (Pasteurize) your eggs.  Many versions of tiramisu use a cooked zabaglione, made by beating eggs and sugar in a double boiler, whisking in the alcohol, and stirring until the mixture thickens (at about 160-165 F; 71-74 C), then chill very rapidly.  Of course, this won't affect bacteria that get into your dessert through other means, like Aunt Marge sneezing on the cookies, but at least it will help ensure the eggs are not the source.


Silverside Beef Roast - tough to cut on the plate and chewy

Silverside is one of those cuts that varies a lot, I've had topsides and silversides that came out reasonably tender and juicy, and I've had ones where I need power tools to cut them, even when I do everything right. They're cuts I avoid as a result.

Silverside is a cut that comes from the rear of the animal, it doesn't have much marbling and does a fair amount of work, so has lots of connective tissue which toughens it. Cattle breed and how the animal was raised make a big difference in whether you'll get a good result. If you do want to buy it then be selective, look across the cuts the supermarket has for marbling. Stick a thumb into them to see which one is most tender, and pick that.

Tweaking your method would help you get a better result. 180C fan is too hot, you will overcook the outside before the middle is done, and you will have less time for connective tissue to break down and make the result tender. I like to start mine hot to get a good crust, but after 10 minutes I would turn it down to 150C at the highest, 140C would be even better. Next you need to rest it for much longer than 20 minutes. When you rest the meat it continues cooking, connective tissue keeps breaking down, and the meat relaxes. This takes time, especially for tougher cuts. Some professional chefs say you should rest it as long as you cook it, I'm not in that camp myself but I'd say wrap it tightly and give it at least an hour before you cut it.


I would wrap in freezer-safe cling wrap and then put that into freezer-safe ziplock bags. Use sharpie on the outer bags before bagging to write the date and what's in it (or put a sticker on it if this is more of a professional operation or if it's something the public will be buying directly). If this is something you'll be doing a lot you should get a vacuum sealer for the outer bag.


This is going to sound odd, but taffy is actually a great ingredient in sweeter coffee drinks like mochas.  It melts into the drink adding sugar and flavor.  I'm a fan of banana for this purpose.

In a similar vein, you could also use the taffy as a chip in cookies.  Chop it up and use it wherever you think banana flavor would taste good.  I could imagine the banana taffy going well in with macadamia nuts.  You might want to consider the taffy as a substitute for butterscotch or white chocolate chips in recipes requiring them.


I am flying to Macau from Michigan and would like to take a kilo of frozen Cured Canadian Bacon

Here is the customary seasoned advice answer: How do I know if food left at room temperature is still safe to eat?

The variables in your case:

you are starting out frozen (not refrigerated or room temp)
we don't know the temps of the cargo hold
or are you carrying it onboard (where temps are higher)

You could wrap in foil and make it within temp safety limits... but that can be foiled (pun) by airport security after x-ray, because they'll unwrap that foil to see what's inside.

Bottom line:

when in doubt throw it out, food poisoning is awful
leave the Canadian Bacon at home. It's not going to fly safely.


I expect it's just the water. Soaking in water, after at least cutting the base off the onion to expose the core, is commonly recommended as a way to reduce the potency of onions to avoid crying. It should also reduce the potency of the flavor. If you're giving it enough time to marinate or pickle, the effect will be even larger than the shorter soaks people use to try to avoid crying.

Edit: I'm not sure how thoroughly you're marinating and pickling, but very generally, adding one strong flavor tends to reduce our perception of others, so you may also have some effects just because you're tasting the vinegar.


A knife that has a painted blade is best thought oof as a 'gimmicky' knife. There will be limited uses before sharpening starts to flake away the paint on the face of the blade.

The paint itself is pretty chemically non-reactive in most cases (it has to be to harden and stick to the metal).

There are some cases where paints may have harmful compounds. This would have to be evaluated by looking at condition of the knife and the paint adhesion. So, evaluate whether the blade itself is worth using, then keep an eye on it.

In essence, a knife like this is perhaps used under low stress conditions, or as a decorative piece, but any serious cook will not use it for long.


Can I freeze stew made from leftover roast beef?

Yes, you can freeze and reheat the stew. Just keep in mind the total amount of time the meat is between 40°-140°F. If you make the stew and serve some and immediately chill and then freeze the leftovers then you should be fine. If you leave the stew out for several hours before freezing then it may be a little iffy.

Also, you don't want to be putting warm items into your fridge and freezer, so a good course of action is to chill in an ice bath (in the sink or beer cooler works well) and then put into the fridge or freezer. Otherwise you're warming the temperature of your fridge/freezer and causing everything else stored in there to spoil prematurely. Obviously don't put the meat directly into ice water, but put it into, say a glass storage container or if it's cool enough (below 190°F) a freezer zip-lock bag is great.


What is this plant that sometimes accompanies parsley?

I believe your mystery plant is....parsley.  This question was asked and answered here.
It appears that the best explanation is a leaf variant on the common cultivar "Italian Giant".  Having grown this cultivar in my home garden, I can attest to having personal experience with this leaf shape.  Chop it up and use it as you would the rest of the parsley.


Can the Black and Decker toaster oven, model TRO55, be used for baking?

Did you just buy this model and do you still have the receipt? If so, I'd return it, explaining that while it says you can bake in it, that it's not possible since it's not possible to turn off the top broiler element. Attempting to bake in it will only burn the top of your food. Explain you'd like to get another Black & Decker model - TRO2000 which does allow the selection of just the bottom element for baking.

On the other hand, if you've had this model for a while but never tried baking in it before, I highly doubt you'd be able to return it despite what I consider false advertising (since every site where I checked the model said it could bake - yeah, right)!

What I suggest is to experiment a little to see if it's possible to bake certain foods in it. No matter what you do, I'm sure that baking anything that rises high (such as breads, popovers or 'angel food' type cakes) won't be possible without the top being burnt by the time the rest is baked.

Next time you make a pan cake, choose a pan that will fit in the oven but with higher sides than normal. Since your model has a convection option, turn that on too. With the convection feature plus heating from both the top and bottom, keep an eye on your cake as it's quite likely to bake in less time than a conventional oven. I've never used one so I'm speaking from common sense rather than experience. When the cake has risen enough and the top looks properly browned, test the cake's doneness using a wooden toothpick or skewer inserting into the centre. If it still needs further cooking, loosely cover the top with aluminum foil to prevent over-browning.

I'd suggest keeping a pad handy and noting how long it took to brown, when you covered it with foil (if you had too) and when it was finished baking. That way, you'll know what to do next time. If it works for a pan cake, it may also work for cupcakes. If you need to cover them with foil if browning too fast, the tops should be sufficiently cooked so the foil won't stick. That's why I suggest a pan with higher sides.

It may be possible to bake foods like cookies and biscuits with no problem since they cook quickly. Always use the convection setting when baking so heat distributes faster and more evenly. For all baking, experimental or otherwise, use the lowest shelf possible.

If I'm right, you can select a temperature for your oven - the broil feature doesn't stay on the whole time but cycles on and off to maintain the temperature chosen. With your first baking experiment, set the oven 5-10 degrees (Celsius) lower as a test. If you're concerned about over-browning, it would mean the broiler element would be on a little less.

These are only suggestions and you'll need to test them yourself. If I had the model you have and really wanted to bake in it, it's what I'd do. Despite everything you try, it's possible you can't really cook any baked flour goods in it other than cookies. But give it a try if you can't return it.


Can I use the juice from pickles to make bread?

You don't have to use water as the liquid in your bread. Enriched breads use milk and/or eggs. We have recently had questions about breads which use orange juice.

On the technical side, you have to adjust recipe a little. Pickle juice doesn't have much dissolved solids, so no need to adjust for that. However, it is very salty, so you should reduce or completely leave out the salt. The acidity will help with gluten development and also with breaking down the starches in flour to make them available for chemical reactions which produce more flavour, so this is a good thing to have. However, yeast itself has some strong pH preferences. It grows best in a slightly acidic environment, but if the dough gets too basic or too sour, it will slow down or not grow at all. I think that the diluted vinegar in the pickle water won't oversour the dough, but it would be a good idea to make the poolish with pure water and only add pickle water for the dough itself.

As for taste, I can't say that much without ever having tried it, but my intuition says that you will get a whiff of pickles, but not a full-blown taste. After all, bread made with orange juice doesn't taste like biting into an orange. I think you will notice the difference, but you will still have to add pickles to your sandwiches for taste (and they are needed for the crunch anyway). As for horrible, it depends entirely on personal taste. I am not a fan of pickles or soured breads, and wouldn't eat it. There are people who drink the pickle water from the jar; I think they will enjoy the pickle-smelling bread too. If you are a pickle fan, I think it is worth a try, if it doesn't work, you only throw out under a dollar's worth of ingredients.


It is a common misconception that the shelf life of a cooked food (= mix of ingredients) is the same as the shelf life of the shortest-lived ingredient. I cannot stress enough how wrong this assumption is.

As with any cooked food, the shelf life of hot chocolate should be about 3 to 5 days in the fridge, with a cumulative stay in the danger zone of no longer than 2 hours.

An explanation of why the assumption is wrong: Food spoils when bacteria (or sometimes other organisms like mold) create a colony in it. For this to happen, the food has to offer all the conditions an organism needs for survival. Most cooked foods are nutritious enough to ensure the survival of simple organisms.

There are single ingredients which hold for longer. Bar chocolate is a good example. The reason for that is that they are not a complete medium. Chocolate does not have enough moisture for bacteria to grow in it. But as soon as you mix any ingredient with something else, you cannot know if the other ingredients have not added the factor the bacteria have been missing. So, if you mix for example water (practically indefinite shelf life because it has no calories) and flour (practically indefinite shelf life because it has no moisture), you get dough, which will have large bacterial colonies within 3 days.

Exceptions in the other direction (food that spoils sooner than 3 days) are foods which decompose on their own. For example fish - it goes bad quickly even at fridge temperature, but the reason is the fish's own enzymes, not bacteria. That's why it is normally held on ice, if not frozen outright.

As a side note, you cannot rely on the expiration date of milk anyway. It is OK for traditionally pasteurized milk. But the expiration date of ESL and UHT milk is only valid as long as the packaging has not been broken. Once you open it, it is again good for about 5 days.

Conclusion: For anything cooked, up to 5 days in the fridge is a good assumption. Make it less for food which is known for high risk of contamination (e.g. food containing raw eggs), but never longer, even if the expiration date of the ingredients is longer than that.


Why does blending blueberries, milk, banana and vanilla extract cause the mixture to have a yogurty consistency?

The pectin from the blueberries jelled in the presence of the calcium in the milk. The texture might be unexpected, but it is perfectly safe and tasty. It is the same process that thickens blueberry jam.

It shouldn't be curdled, that is the clumping of milk proteins in the presence of acid. Here, the milk proteins stay suspended in the milk as usual, it is the pectin that builds the "mesh" of the creamy consistency.


How can I cook the perfect potato for a potato salad?

First, potato is not the same as potato. Conventionally, potato salad is always made with waxy potatoes, because mealy potatoes' outer layers disintegrate when tossed with the sauce, much like making risotto. They are also less creamy in texture. But there is also the school of using mealy potatoes, because they absorb more seasoning, and also because some people like the soft texture. If you decide to go with mealy, use an acid in the cooking water (depending on your seasoning, choose vinegar, citric acid, or the neutral tasting cream of tartar). This will firm the potatoes. It isn't necessary for waxy potatoes.

Second, the cooking time depends strongly on size. You must cut them very evenly. Else you will have both undercooked and overcooked potatoes in the pot at any given moment (up to the time when you only have overcooked ones). Smaller pieces are easier to work with.

Third, you want to heat them as gently as possible. Start them in cold water, and cook them at a simmer, not at a boil.

There is no way to predict when the potatoes will be ready. Even if you cut them to the same size every time, the sort and the age of the potatoes will result in varying cooking times. When the time is near, you must look after them and try them constantly. Take out a piece, cut it in half, cool it in cold water, and chomp on the exact center. If it isn't crunchy, stop the cooking immediately and remove the water. The time window in which they are just right is quite short. Season them while they are hot, they will then absorb the sauce instead of just swimming in it the way cold potatoes do.


When a recipe calls for 'individually wrapped caramels', are these soft caramels (e.g. Jersey caramels) or hard candies (like werthers cream candies?)

In US recipes "individually wrapped caramels" will always mean the soft variety. If the writer of the recipe wants you to use hard, the recipe will say "hard". Recipes that ask for "individually wrapped caramels" are looking for this:


Cooking two pieces of meat in pressure cooker

There is a complicated formula for calculating cooking time based on energy input, surface area, thermal conductivity of food etc. Smaller pieces with a larger surface area will cook slightly quicker than large single pieces

In general for roasts (large slabs) just add the weight of the pieces and cook for the minimum time recommend by your pressure cooker for that (or from your experience). Then test using an accurate thermometer and cook some more as required. In my experience most people overcook meat anyway, so try it a little more undercooked for a change. Remember to let it stand at least 5 minutes per 500 g too

There are too many variables to give a blanket answer (stove energy, pressure in pressure cooker, meat type, fat content etc.)


How long and at what temperature do the various parts of a chicken need to be cooked?

Ochef.com answered this question.
Here are some quotes from the webpage.

  According to the USDA:

  Round chicken/turkey: 165°F / 74°C
  Whole chicken/turkey: 180°F / 82°C
  Poultry breasts, roasts: 170°F / 77°C

  Additionally, the USDA says the thighs
  and wings of poultry should be cooked
  "until the juices run clear."

Although the following temperatures will make the meat safe to eat, you might want to drop the temperature by 3-5°C for more flavor.


Vegan egg substitute in sweet roll dough

You can use either chia seeds or ground linseed.
Mix a tablespoon of chia/linseed with 3 tablespoons of water and let it sit on the counter for about twenty minutes.

That mixture will replace the egg in almost any recipe for bread/mixed cake.

The rest period is important, as it allows the water to soak up the sticky proteins from the linseed/chia.


Are semi-frozen meat and vegetables safe to cook?

Sure. What would make them unsafe?  We freeze to preserve food all the time.  More importantly, this freezing will likely impact the quality, especially the vegetables.  I am guessing there is likely some freeze and thaw, which is not good for storage, as the ice crystals damage the cell structure of foods.  However, as long as you cook the chicken properly (to the appropriate internal temperature), there is not a safety issue.  Maybe adjust your refrigerator settings so that this doesn't happen...or store vegetables in an alternate location in your refrigerator.


Mary,

Everything I see online does indicate that souffles can be problematic at altitude, so you're right to seek advice.

Here's two resources for help:

Cooking At High Altitude Blog: http://cookingathighaltitude.blogspot.com/2008/11/chocolate-souffle.html
Pie in the Sky Cookbook: http://www.powells.com/biblio/62-9780060522582-0


An acid in a stew serves much the same purpose it would in a marinade. It aids in the tenderizing (typical 'stew meat' is cut from inferior cuts of the beef and can be tough) and balances the flavors. (As such I would disagree with @lspare about adding it "at the end", it needs time to do it's work)

Browning is a separate issue. Browning is the result of the Maillard reaction and should occur when stew meat is seared prior to being incorporated into the stew. In a stew the 'cooking temperature' is never above 212°F (100°C) and this will not 'brown' the meat.


Chinese Chilli Oil for high heat cooking

I've done plenty of experimentation with chili oils in the past, my experience was that chili suspended in the oil seems to be able to stand up to high heat, but any solids will smoke and add off flavors. Filtering my chili oils worked well, however there's a lot of variation chilis, oils and how much heat your stove can produce and you aren't going to really know until you cook with it. I'd start with something simple like green beans and work your way up from there.


Usually plastic wrapping doesn't burst from freezing, since its somewhat stretchable (unlike, say, glass). Even if it does burst, it's going to tear a seam or some weak spot—there shouldn't be an explosion.

There is an easy safeguard to take though—just put a gallon freezer bag around it (squeeze out as much air as you can). Or sit it in a container to catch any drippings.


If you use a different strain when you make your gummies, that can affect taste and dryness for sure.


What temperatures should I keep my refrigerator and freezer set at?

Daniel is spot-on with his answer. I'll elaborate on it a bit here.

As indicated by his bottled water in the freezer trick, a full freezer is a happy freezer. The same applies to the refrigerator too. While I wouldn't put random bottles of water throughout my refrigerator, it's important to know that the fuller your refrigerator is, the more it holds its temperature when opening/closing, and the less energy you'll use. However, you don't want to jam pack it so full that there isn't any airflow around your stuff, because this can hamper the cooling efficiency as well.

The ideal refrigerator temperature is 35°F (1.6°C). You're not hugging the danger zone like you would be at 40°F (4.4°C), and you're distancing yourself sufficiently from 32°F (0°C) that you don't freeze half the stuff in your refrigerator. That said, the temperature within your fridge can vary rather significantly with normal usage.

The coldest parts of your refrigerator are the back, and the bottom. The back because the cooling element is there, and the bottom because warm air rises. If items you don't want frosty are getting frosty, then move them away from the back of the fridge. I would avoid putting items in the door of your fridge that are particularly sensitive to spoilage. The items in the door of your fridge can easily get as high as 59°F (15°C), and do so often. Putting milk and eggs in your door will significantly decrease their shelf life. Butter is OK in the little covered section in the door, because the door actually helps keep it's temperature a little better. You also generally don't want rock solid frozen butter.

So, put your meats on the bottom shelf in the back, your condiments (mayo, ketchup, mustard, etc.) in the door, and put everything else where it fits.


My mom says to knead bread doutgh after rising

It isn't "rising". It's autolysing. What she's doing, knowingly or not, is letting the flour absorb all the added moisture which will let the dough stretch and trap expelled gas from the yeast. If one just starts kneading without autolysing, it's just stickier and messier until this happens sometime during the kneading process.

An hour is the longest I would let that happen and you can probably speed things up by kneading after 30 minutes or so. Check it by grabbing the dough and pulling. If it stretches without breaking, it's ready to go.


In order to save your fudge, you need to rehydrate it.

One way to do so is to place the fudge in an airtight container with some source of moisture and leave it to absorb overnight. This could be:

A bowl of water
A damp paper towel
A slice of non-stale bread

You could also gently heat the fudge with some moisture. This could be done:

In the microwave - microwave in short increments with a glass of (warm) water, which creates steam for the fudge to absorb, until the fudge no longer feels/looks dried out
In the oven - wrap the fudge in foil with a tiny bit of water, perhaps 2-3 teaspoons and bake at a low temperature (120-140C or 248-284F) for 10-20 minutes, or until the fudge no longer feels/looks dried out


Does soaking dry beans before cooking prevent flatulence?

Love this question. I was vegetarian for a few years, so I too thoroughly researched this question, and I guess you could say I spent many hours "running experiments" as well...

I see you posing two questions:

Does soaking beans (possibly with added bases, acids, salts, etc) reduce flatulence?
What are other ways to reduce flatulence?

Some background on my method:
When I cook beans, I always soak them for over 24 hours, and sometimes as long as 3 days. I always soak them in the fridge - just because they will start getting funky if left on the counter for over 24 hours - and I usually change the water once a day. I only ever salt them after they are finished cooking, because I am a believer in the old wives tale that salt breaks apart bean skins.

Does it work?
Because I always soak my beans, I don't have a control to compare my experience to. So I cannot confidently say whether soaking reduces flatulence. The scientific articles you cite would probably better answer this question.

That being said, a method of reducing flatulence which I am fairly confident works, is to just eat more beans! Back when I was a vegetarian, I could easily go through over 2lbs of (dry) beans a week. This did not prevent me from having a social life, and I didn't notice any difference in amount (or is it technically volume?) of gas compared to when I didn't eat beans. I remember reading somewhere this is a result of how our stomachs adapt to what we eat over the long term.

And in the end, maybe flatulence isn't something we should be trying to avoid. As the old ditty goes,

  Beans beans, the magical fruit
  The more you eat, the more you toot
  The more you toot, the better you feel
  So let's have beans with every meal!

Words to live by indeed!


Yes, if you consider some kosher sausage to be a sausage, and therefore a substitute for a non-kosher sausage.

No, if you want a sausage which is "like" blood sausage. It's pretty much like itself, and not much else, other than "it's a sausage", in which case, see above.


What is the difference between Milk Chocolate and Dark Chocolate?

Short answer:  yes, milk chocolate differs from chocolate by the milk its manufacture.

Real chocolate (as opposed to many other confections) is made from chocolate liquer, which despite the name, is not alchoholic, or even liquid at room temperature.

The fruit of the theobroma cacao tree contains seeds, known as beans.  The harvested fruits are allowed to ferment, bringing many flavor and chemical changes to the beans, as well as removing the pulpy fruit.   The beans are then husked for the seeds inside, the nibs.

The nibs are the first true chocolate product, although they are not sweet.

The nibs are roasted, and then ground.  This is chocolate liquer, a solid colloid of cocoa fat and solid particles.  It would be solid at room temperature, but the grinding process melts it.

The cocoa liquer can be pressed to separate out the cocoa butter (as for use in the cosmetics industry), leaving cocoa powder, but that is not the point of your question.

Instead, to manufacture chocolate, the liquer is conched, a mechanical process that makes the suspended particles much smaller, part of what gives chocolate its smooth mouthfeel.

Various products can be made from chocolate liquer, or cocoa butter, including:

baking chocolate - essentially, just chocolate liquer, hardened and tempereded.  May or may not be fully conched, so may not be as smooth as chocolate intended for eating.
chocolate or dark chocolate - Chocolate liquer, possibly extra cocoa butter, and sugar.  Minor optional ingredients often included are vanilla or other flavorings, and lecithen, an emulsifier.
milk chocolate - Same as dark chocolate, with the addition of condensed milk or milk solids, depending on whether it is made via the Swiss method or the Hershey method
white chocolate - cocoa butter, plus sugar and other flavorings
chocolate chips - Another form of chocolate in a particular shape.  Many manufacturers don't make these from true chocolate, but rather substitute another fat which doesn't melt as easily as cocoa butter, for economy, and so the chips hold their shape in the oven
chocolate bunny - Chocolate molded into the shape of a bunny, then tempered and cooled
German's chocolate - A brand name of quite sweet dark chocolate

Chocolate labels which list "cocoa percentage" are saying what proportion of the chocolate is cocoa liquer or additional cocoa butter or cocoa solids--that is, stuff from nibs, as opposed to sugar or other flavorings.  The cocoa percentage for milk chocolate tends to be much lower than that of dark chocolates, although not every milk chocolate has a lower percentage than every dark chocolate.

See this question for information on tempering chocolate, which gives its snappy mouthfeel.

Edit:  On dairy products in dark chocolate:

I was very surprised at Lemontwist's comment, so I did some googling and found this article at Go Dairy Free:

  A good quality dark or semi-sweet chocolate will only have sweetener /
  sugar in some form added, and may also include a touch of soy lecithin
  as an emulsifier. These brands are milk-free by ingredients, but keep
  in mind that most brands of chocolate are made on shared equipment.
  That is, an inherently milk-free dark chocolate may be made on the
  same equipment as milk chocolate. See below for my note on
  cross-contamination issues.

  The complications arrive as some brands of dark and semi-sweet
  chocolate do include milk ingredients for a “smoother” end result.
  This is particularly true in mainstream brands like Hershey’s. Some
  ways that you may see milk listed in the ingredients include milk
  solids, milk, milk powder, whey, butter oil or butterfat (see the Ask
  Alisa post on butter oil), or even casein. If milk is in the
  ingredients, it should be listed in a clearly identifiable manner per
  the labeling laws, but still, use caution.

This is still in line with the information I provided, as I did mention "other flavorings" in dark chocolate, and it is not a universal or even common practice as far as I know.

For people with strong allergies, the cross-contamination issue may be more of an issue.

Vegans would have more of an issue, as lecithen is a very common ingredient in chocolate of all types, and may be animal sourced.  Vegans would specifically need to reseearch and obtain chocolates that meet that standard.   Googling will find many such products, but I did not find an easy single reference list.


In general, metal is much more thermally conductive than paper (see http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/thermal-conductivity-d_429.html).  The heat is very likely not making its way through to cook the bottom of your fruitcake as quickly as it would with metal.  I would suggest extending the baking time by about 25%, but also dropping the temperature about halfway through to prevent drying out or burning.

That, or go back to the metal pan that you've had success with in the past.  If it ain't broke...


Make fresh or refrigerate for up to 1 week is what is generally recommended for garlic-in-oil mixtures.

Marketed garlic oils are extremely controlled as garlic generally represents a risk of Clostridium botulinum presence in the food.

According to this link,

  The FDA recommends that if you want to make your own infused garlic oil, you should prepare it fresh and use it right away. If you are saving any leftovers, you must refrigerate it right away and use within a week.

A link to the FDA document PDF download containing the following:

  "Oil products that can create anaerobic sites of sufficient aw favorable for C. botulinum growth and toxin production are problematic; for example, the addition of fresh garlic to oil. The moisture surrounding the garlic fragments coupled with no acidulant creates the conditions necessary for C. botulinum growth and toxin production. To maintain a pH that precludes growth and toxin production, an acidulant is required in these products"

This spore-forming anaerobic bacteria is known to be extremely dangerous and lethal in small doses.

I am not saying to not play with garlic-in-oils at all, or trying to scare you out of it, but it is definitely a topic in culinary pleasure that requires research and preparation.


As per your additional comment it's very probably a slice of olive skin and as high-quality olives are preserved in virgin olive oil, this will most likely not make any difference to the food safety nor taste of your product.

Having said that, without a biochemical analysis of the speck we cannot be 100% sure and it could be a speck of Black Nightshade, but the odds against that are enormous.

Though not zero...


Molasses cookies - Do I need to start over?

You do not need to start over. The texture will be a little different than the original recipe but mixing the dry ingredients is not a huge mistake. Go ahead and bake the cookies according to the remaining recipe.


What is the best gelling agent for gummies?

I believe the key element that you are missing would be corn syrup. The recipe I work with (in a link below) uses

1 box Jell-o gelatin
2 packages unflavored gelatin
1/4 cup corn syrup
1/2 cup of COLD water (the cold water is important to the consistency as
well)

If you want to skip the packaged "Jell-o", in favor of more gelatin, your own flavoring and sugar, do use extra fine sugar (caster) as this will also improve the texture of your finished product.

When I first started trying to make gummies I found "The King of Random" with this video.
I've made several batches since then and found them to be very good. (Even got the lego molds from Amazon, although he also shows you how to make the lego molds too...). Do watch the video as it contains several good tips beyond just the recipe.

Some of the tips include:

allow the syrup to rest to remove some impurities.
add ground up vitamin c to add a sour edge to your candies (and make them 'healthier')
use a condiment bottle (squeezable) to pour the syrup into your molds
allow the syrup to completely gel once and remelt (after cutting away the foam) for and even cleaner/clearer result

(note: as an added bonus this was how I discovered "The King of Random" and his collection of remarkable videos...only some of which are 'food related')


The problem with quick caramel recipes is that they aren't reliable due to the variations of water content in the butter and brands of condensed milk. Butter can vary between 15-30% water, if your butter has more water the caramel will be looser.
The way to fix it it to simply cook it down longer. I personally think the microwave method is a bit gimmicky, all the opening and closing of the door and stirring doesn't save much time or effort. I use the same ingredients and cook them on the stove as it is the condensed milk which is the secret to the quick caramel, not the microwave. Cook it high to get the color, then low to thicken it until you get the right consistency. A wide pan helps with this as it increases the surface area for evaporation. It really doesn't take that much longer, just a few minutes in my experience.
If you are in a hurry reach for the cornstarch and add in small amounts of milk cornmeal slurry until you get the consistency you want. This will do the job but won't have the same strength of flavor as if you cook it down to thicken it.


Is it possible to mature shop-bought hard cheese?

Yes you can mature cheeses, most hard cheeses can be matured either in the refridgerator or elsewhere.  Remove from the plastic packaging, the cheese will need to breathe, but not dry out - a cardboard box, paper towels, parchment paper would work.  Just be careful on the amount of moisture & bacteria/mold growth.

You'll find a lot more helpful information if you search on "maturing cheeses" or "maturing cheeses at home".


Recreating New York street vendors' "halal chicken over rice"

My guess is that the chicken is a variation on chicken kebabs. These are often made by marinating the chicken in yogurt with garlic and turmeric. The same technique can be used for chicken on the bone.

I'm not sure for the rice -- maybe someone else can help out?

The hot sauce is most likely harissa. This is a generic term for a number of spicy sauces used in the middle east and northern Africa. The basic recipe is dried chilies, other spices, and olive oil. Here are some variations.

There is also a Yemenite hot sauce known as skhug or zhug. (It may also be known in Israel by the generic name Harif, which means spicy or sharp. Note the same root as Harissa.) This can be green or red or even brown, depending on ingredients. Green zhug is often made with cilantro, while the brown one includes tomatoes. The red one includes red peppers.

The white sauce is probably a variant on yogurt sauce, such as labneh. This is often combined with garlic and a green herb such as parsley.


DIY Finishing Salt (Maldon, Fleur de Sel)

I boiled 2 cups of regular sea salt to completely dissolve in 1 cup water then put it in a flat tray in the dehydrator on the jerky setting - the next day I did have a load of big crackly crystals and some dust.


It's impossible to say for sure as senses are subjective, however there may be nothing wrong with it. Sichuan pepper comes from a completely different plant than black pepper, it's actually in the citrus family, and is more aromatic than spicy. You should get more of a spicy, slightly citrus note rather than it blowing your mouth out with pepperiness. If you aren't tasting much they're most likely old, spices do lose potency over time. Keeping spices sealed well in a cool, dry place helps slow degradation, but eventually the flavor will go.


The trick was in playing with the thickness and the application of the egg wash. On the second attempt, I kept the springform pan filles to only about 2-3 pasta in the layer (pushing awy from the loaf idea, more toward a flatbread).

After adding 2 1/2 cups mac 'n cheese to the springform (sprayed and dusted), I baked fifteen minutes at 425'f, pulled it, sprinkled herbs on top, poured 60 ml egg wash (1 egg: 1 T aq) mostly-evenly around, baked another fifteen minutes.

This resulted in a reliable flatbread crust for the grilled cheese sandwich that balances the quiche-y-ness with the pasta pretty well. Basically, the baked egg wash acts like a kind of cement. I followed up with another wash on bottom, flour, cornmeal and saute in canola on a cast iron skillet.


Repairing the Seasoning on a Cast Iron Pan

So, just answering the new part of the question:

You can simply season "over the top" of the existing seasoning.  To do this, you'd go through the normal seasoning process, wiping the pan with oil, heating in a 500F oven, wiping again, heating again.  This will fill in the "holes" in your seasoning and you'll be able to use the pan again.

However, you will also end up with somewhat rough, uneven seasoning on the bottom.  This will make things more likely to stick than if you completely reseasoned the pan.   You can improve this by scrubbing the bottom of the pan with a mixture of course salt and oil.  This will "sand down" the seasoning without completely removing it.

You should also ask yourself if maybe the original seasoning of the pan wasn't faulty, given that some of it already scrubbed off.


It's largely preference, and sets may include both to seem like better value, but there are sometimes reasons to choose one or the other.

Slotted: allows more fat (or water) to fall off the food; more flexible for the same thickness/material so can slip under things better.

Solid: supports crumbly or loose foods better (e.g. lifting out finely chopped veg). Extra stiffness allows it to be used to break things up in the pan and to support heavier foods, without being overly thick.


How can I susbtitute unseasoned rice vinegar for seasoned?

For each cup of vinegar, add 3 tablespoons of sugar and one tablespoon of salt. You may also add a piece of kelp or a pinch of kelp powder. And of course, all of these proportions can be adjusted to taste.


Circular bed of sticky sushi rice, topped with a drizzle of spicy mayo as the sauce and chunks of sashimi. cut into pizza slices.


Does addition of tomato puree make the oil component of sauce less lubricating?

I think you're getting a little caught up on minutiae.

True, oil & water [or tomato purée] don't mix - however, oils & water can be emulsified. In other words you can create a mixture that appears to be a single liquid - like a solution -  even though one is actually suspended in the other rather than being permanently intermixed.

You can 'fix' this emulation in a pasta sauce by adding a little cornflour [or any starch] a couple of minutes before the end. It effectively binds the two together, certainly for longer than it takes to eat it; and in fact semi-permanently in food terms.
Some people [including me] don't like to do this because it removes the glossy sheen that the oil imparts to the sauce, & though it certainly helps adhesion to the pasta, makes for a slightly more homogeneous look to the sauce itself.

Whether you use any type of starch binder at the end or not, so long as you have your actual water quantity low enough by the time it's served that it doesn't drain through to the plate [allowing for a little last-minute absorption by the pasta itself] then your sauce to all intents & purposes will be 'a single entity', with the oil & water sufficiently mixed that no-one is going to spot it isn't actually a solution, but an emulsion.

The flavours will balance, no matter which component each herb or spice is technically dissolved in.


How do I get the flaky top on ooey gooey butter bars?

With the recipe you mentioned there is no indication as to what temperature the cream cheese and butter should be at and I'm guessing that's one possible item making the difference.  Since it looks a little like a creaming or foaming (sponge) method for whipping ingredients, I'd try to make sure my butter, eggs, and cream cheese, but especially butter, were around 70 degrees F.  You want them to be able to incorporate air.  The first link talks about how to get things crispier or fluffier based on how long you cream, etc.  Then you will want to play around with batter temperature when it hits the oven.

Also note that more fat in a cookie recipe, at least, is equivalent to crispier.  Are you subbing nuefchatel cheese or low fat or no fat cream cheese for the cream cheese?  If so, don't.  Moisture in sugar has an impact so make sure you aren't subbing any other sugar for powdered.

Real gooey butter cake is a yeast cake rather than the rip-off versions that use cake mix and not really all that much more complicated, although more time consuming.  You may want to try doing a more authentic recipe, or at least one that uses a yeast cake.  I have had success with the one linked.


That is Classic Series Guava Candy made by HongYuan. You can buy a 14oz bag on Amazon, here.


The short answer is: No.

The more elaborate answer is that certain bacteria are anaerobic and food needs to be heat treated to ensure it can be safely stored. Especial mention: Clostridium botulinum which leaves deadly toxins.

The tealight inside the jar will not produce the heat needed for pasteurization.


Have to preserve a cake for decoration purposes

The first thing would be making it as hollow as possible (probably eating the removed matter) ... the less massive it is, the easier it will be to treat.

Just spraying something on will not help unless the inside mass is either very dry (water activity) or sterile (won't be unless it was heated through to >120°C ... no it wasn't during baking!).

You would need to either replace ALL water in it with something else, or make sure ALL water is bound up or poisoned - all even harder to do without making it dangerous to a misguided person (children and animals! "Looks like food but is poison" is always an accident waiting to happen) mistaking it for an edible cake... it might be possible though, if you can get it down to a thin inner layer close to the icing - and manage not to damage the icing. A massive amount of salt would be the most obvious agent (and if someone eats it by accident, they will quickly realize they cant eat it) ... but would need to be sealed in too in order not to attract more moisture that will dissolve salt and icing.

Sealing the cake in and treating it with ionizing radiation to the point of sterilizing it would be rather impractical, heating it to the point would discolor, crack or melt it.

If you are lucky, the bare icing and decoration (if you can get it that hollow while preserving structural integrity long enough to backfill it with something inert) is dry enough/can be dried enough to be microbe and mold-proof, like lump sugar would be - even then, do not forget to deal with insects that would go for dry sugar.

Sealant? Maybe, just maybe, sodium silicate, since it has historically been used near food (egg preservation).


Yes. If they're not mouldy, rotting, or unpleasant-smelling, carrots, parsnips etc. are safe even quite floppy. When parsnips go bad you often get very soft brown areas that grow quite fast - avoid.

Mashing or stewing root veg that's past its best texture is a good way to use it up.


what kind of meat is used at carving stations?

Most buffets serve "steamship round" which is whole round, or the top round--because they are relatively inexpensive.  I have no experience with the particular restaurant named.

However, the question IS vague and there is a lot of variation.  Restaurants serving prime rib at the carving station usually make it quite evident.


Baking great chewy oatmeal cookies with Quaker Instant Oatmeal Fruit packs

You probably could, but it'd be a little difficult to get right.

You'd want a recipe that calls for instant oats, since that's what's in your packets. And they're also close to 1/3 sugar by weight, so you'd need to reduce the sugar in the recipe. Depending how much of the sugar that ends up being, that could cause additional problems, because creaming sugar and fat together is an important part of many cookie recipes. If most of the sugar isn't available to cream with the fat, you'll get a different texture than the recipe intended.

So I'd suggest searching for "instant oatmeal cookie recipes" or similar, to try to find recipes that are actually intended to be made with instant oatmeal packets. You'll probably have a harder time finding really good, reliable recipes than you , but I'm sure you can find something that's good enough.


If you don't want to use the unripened avocado right away, according to this site

  Store Cut Unripe Avocados - If you have cut open your... avocado and found it to be unripe, sprinkle the exposed flesh of the avocado with lemon or lime juice, place the two halves back together and cover tightly with clear plastic wrap before placing in the refrigerator. Check the avocado periodically to see if it has softened up enough to eat. Depending on firmness when the fruit was cut and temperature conditions, the ripening process will vary

Another user suggests to use vitamin C powder instead, as her experiments show the vinegar would darken the avocado.

Ironically enough, there's a solution to ripen the avocado (almost) instantly if you want to use it right away. This link talks about "instantly" ripening a foil wrapped avocado by baking it in an oven preheated to 95°C/200°F oven. Cooking time can start as low as 10 minutes. Keep checking every 10 minutes until it's soft enough for your use. After it's been in the oven, let cool and unwrap.

Note: that the taste and texture would be changed after thus heating the avocado, but it should be usable right away after baking.

There's also uses for the unripened avocado seen here


One of the main differences from sourdough to standard bread yeast is that it is composed by a complex fauna of bacteria and yeasts that do lactic fermentation as well as alcoholic fermentation. Therefore acidicity is indeed a positive sign of activity in your sourdough.

The tricky part is that as the pH of the dough lowers, it triggers the digestion of the gluten network, 'destroying' the protein structure that holds the air and making the dough look like pancake dough. So when baking with sourdough one needs to be careful with how long you ferment.

This will depend on the initial quantity of sourdough you use, the temperature of the place you leave it resting, the strength of your flour (protein/gluten content) and the humidity of the flour (typically 15%).

If you are in a very hot place I would recommend either letting the dough in a colder spot (e.g. top part of your fridge, or a wine fridge) or using a smaller quantity of sourdough. By trial and error you can gauge the initial quantity for the time you want to leave it unattended.


Why does pressure cooking of chicken eggs make eggs easier to peel?

Yes, I wrote a post about this a few years ago - the first to describe the method in a home pressure cooker.  The theory goes that the pressure difference inside and outside the egg PLUS the shock of the cold facilitates the detachment of membrane from the shell.  The Kitchn tried and confirmed my method and many of my readers will no longer hard boil an egg any other way but Serious Eats had different results - I don't know why.


I have successfully made it with agar agar and I serve it at my restaurant in Lucknow, India. I call it Soup Burst Momo (TM) It stays liquefied if consumed within 5 mins of steaming. After that it slowly starts to thicken. Carageenan will give you better results.

The only problem I've faced is that you have to steam it instantly after folding it, otherwise te pastry gets wet due to osmotic movement of water from gel to dough.

Although, it could possibly be addressed by using frozen gel and then against flash freezing the folded dumpling instantly.


Well to clean the pressure cooker,Immediately after use, fill the pressure cooker with warm water and add a small amount of washing up liquid, and allow it to soak for an hour or two hours. This prevents any cooked food from becoming embedded around the inner regions of the cooker .
Then wash the pressure cooker by running it under hot water and using a cloth or a sponge and apply some washing up liquid cleaner. Rinse the cooker and dry it, using a dishcloth, to ensure that no excess water is left that could cause water stains.This way you can clean the cooker after daily use.

But to remove permanent stains you can use cream of tartar which is a spice along with lemon juice.
To that boil one litre of water in a container by adding 3 tablespoon of cream of tartar and 3 tablespoon of lemon juice. And pour this solution to the pressure cooker and allow it to stand for an hour or two.

Then using a plastic scouring pad or sponge clean the pressure cooker, avoid the metal pad as it might damage the cooker.

Hope it might help you and enjoy cooking.


This is something of a complex question, but to be short: I think the sous-vide cook before marinading is denaturing too many proteins up front, and the intense marinade is just damaging those further.

What you're doing in the first step could be considered a form of brining: using salt to season the meat, and to denature some proteins in an attempt to get the meat to retain more water later.  By sealing the bag, you've done this without adding any additional water, which is fine.  You're also cooking it at the same time, denaturing further proteins.

The only problem is that acidic marinades also denature proteins, so when you add the acidic marinade, you're repeating that action yet again and breaking them down even further.  It's not entirely surprising that by the end of this process, your meat has broken down so much that the texture is unpalatable.

My suggestion is to back off.  In a sense, this does work "better" than a traditional marinade, but it's working too well.  Reduce the amount of acid and salt that you're using.  You can do this by quite a lot because the flavors will pair with one another and strengthen both in the finished dish.  Additionally, I see no reason to separate these steps.  If your goal is to season using the salt and add flavor using the marinade, do that at the same time, during the sous-vide step.  Keeping them separate does nothing more than add time and complexity.  It's the overall amount of action on the meat proteins, not the order of events.

EDIT: After thinking on this a bit further, I realized that something else was probably going on too.  Cooking the meat sous vide with salt is also a little bit like braising: the combination of temperature, moisture and salt is breaking down and dissolving some of the connective tissues and collagen too (also a lot like making stock).  So that's even more you're doing to your poor meat.  I think my original conclusion stands but I would add a further caveat that you probably shouldn't even attempt this for relatively tender cuts (like beef tenderloin) as it's just too much.  Maybe a tougher cut with a lot of connective tissue could stand up to all this treatment, but it's a lot to ask..


It’s cocoa butter and colour. Probably powdered colour for best results.


Cooking Chicken meat with bones in soup is better than cooking Chicken bones in soup?

If you create a soup with a whole chicken, the soup will be much better.
The chickenflesh could be used to create a vol-au-vent (this is a french dish) and is made with these ingredients

250 g meatloaf
250 g Parisian mushrooms
60 g butter
80 g flower
1 egg
1 big spoon of breadcrumbs
1 clove of garlic
1,5 l chickenstock
1,5 dl cream
a bit of sherry
lemonjuice
pepper and salt

Mix the meatloaf, egg and breadcrumbs together and spice it of with pepper and salt.
Divide the meatloaf into small balls and bake them in a pan.

Cut the mushrooms in 4 and bake them in hot butter in a pan. Crush the garlic and put it in the same pan. After the backing leave them a side.

Now get all the meat of the chicken and cut it in not to large pieces.

The sauce:
Create a roux, put the butter in a pan, add the flower and make it bake (it should smell like cookies). When you get the cookies smell, add the chickenstock (half of it).

Keep stirring to avoid clots, when the sauce thickens, add more stock.
You could optionally add a bit of sherry to give the sauce a nice taste.

The sauce should be like a thick soup. After that add the meatloaf, chicken and mushrooms.

It's a very nice dish.

For more info on this dish, see http://www.een.be/programmas/dagelijkse-kost/recepten/vol-au-vent
It is in Dutch but the movie is very clear.

Enjoy


What do you get when you reheat and cool clotted cream?

From your description and re-reading the instructions for your version: yes, what you had on top was still clotted cream.

They liquid on the bottom should be whey, which gets separated from the rest during the clotting-process. Re-heating did start the same process you used originally, and left-over whey separated again.


Is there a way to add shine to a chocolate coating after it has hardened?

What you're looking for is 'tempered' chocolate.   Tempered chocolate has that sheen and snap to it.  When properly heated and cooled, the cocoa butter in the chocolate formed the correct crystalline structure for this to occur.  When the process is uncontrolled, you get dull chocolate that doesn't snap quite as well.

There's a few (1,2,3) different ways to do it.  But overall the easiest way - in general terms, is to heat chocolate to the correct temperature (check the links for correct temperatures for your type of chocoloate), stir in *pre-tempered chocolate (from the store or such) as it cools, and then slightly reheat.

Or, buy a tempering machine.

This should give you that gloss your after.

*Store bought chocolate is pretty much always tempered and the dull gray of the chips doesn't mean its not tempered - just scratched up.  You can use this to stir into your cooling chocolate at step 2.


Since my wife is on a low-cholesterol diet, I often substitute egg whites for whole eggs in may recipes.  I have never had the rising issue you describe; if anything, egg whites have more rising power than egg yolks.  Think of a souffle; it's mostly egg whites.

So if your pie isn't rising, it's for some other reason.  Given that you cooked it for 2 hours without it being completely done, I suspect that in addition to not pre-heating the oven your oven never really got up to the right temperature -- or you got the recipe wrong, or it's just a terrible recipe.


Do people add onions when cooking meat via sous vide

I tried @thrig's idea of making caramelized onions first and adding them to the bag and it worked wonderfully.


Take them to a professional. Nothing you can affordably buy in your home will work well.

Personally, I don't buy quality serrated knives. I buy cheap and replace when dull. Only my normal blades are quality, and these I have sharpened yearly.


Name of an herb or spice that is small, dark spines

The description as "black or dark green" makes me think this is a leafy herb, rather than a darker brown spice. Many dried herbs start out a dull green when they go into the sauce, but after cooking for a while they darken and become dark green or nearly black.
I assume you've already considered and rejected basil and oregano, which are the most commonly used herbs in spaghetti sauce. Both tend to have fairly flat pieces of leaf, which are usually approximately square or circular, or at least not very much longer in one dimension than another.
Other, less commonly used herbs in spaghetti sauce include:

Marjoram
Tarragon
Thyme
Rosemary

Marjoram
 (image source)
Marjoram looks a lot like oregano; the pieces are usually flat and round, so it's not a great candidate. But if you have a poor quality batch of marjoram with lots of stems in it, those could definitely get caught in your gums. Or if your mom put a lot of marjoram in her sauce, there might end up being a noticeable quantity of stems. It has a fairly mild flavor, so you could get away with a pretty large amount of it without overpowering the other flavors of the sauce.
Tarragon
 (image source)
Tarragon tends to come in pieces that are longer than they are wide, but usually still flat. It looks a bit like dried grass clippings, if the grass blades dried flat, without curling at the edges. But the edges could certainly curl in on themselves while cooking, which would give you more of a needle-like shape.
Thyme
 (image source)
Thyme leaves are pretty close to round when fresh, but once dry they do become rather skinny and pointy. I often notice them as a slightly annoying texture in finished dishes. They could definitely get stuck in your gums. They tend to be a fairly light green in color, but maybe they would darken when cooked in tomato sauce, which is both acidic and quite dark in color.
Rosemary
 (image source)
Rosemary leaves look a lot like pine needles, but they also tend to be thicker that what I would expect to get caught in the gums. The end of the leaf that was attached to the stem is much pointier than the tip of the leaf, so it could be the stem end pieces that got stuck your gums. It's not a very common addition to spaghetti sauce so it might be something you overlooked. A spaghetti sauce with rosemary in it has a distinctly different taste from a "normal" spaghetti sauce seasoned with just oregano and basil, but if you add only a very small amount it's difficult to tell that the different flavor is rosemary. Certainly rosemary by itself has a more herby and aromatic smell than the final sauce, so if you haven't tried adding it to a sauce you should try that.

Since memory is rather malleable, it's possible you're combining the memory of several different herbs and spices. You might be remembering the smell or flavor of one herb/spice, but that's not actually the one that got caught in your gums. If that's the case it will be very challenging to narrow down. But you can expand your search parameters, eg, maybe the spice you remember wasn't actually green. If that's the case, consider long skinny seeds, like cumin, fennel or anise seed.
If you're remembering the smell/flavor of multiple herbs, you can test for that by sniffing two different jars of herbs at the same time; just hold them next to each other and inhale while moving them back and forth under your nose.


What's the FDA recommended sous vide temperature for in-shell egg pasteurization?

Here's an answer from the FDA website for pasteurizing whole eggs:

Egg pasteurization uses a water bath and motion to ensure that whole eggs are pasteurized without cooking the eggs.
Egg whites coagulate at 140 °F. Therefore, heating an egg above 140 °F would cook the egg, so processors pasteurize the egg in the shell at 130 °F for 45 minutes.


how do you thicken cheese fillings so it doesnt melt when baking

The question doesn't really have a clear-cut answer. Cream cheese melts, and if there was a way to change it so much that it doesn't melt when hot (AFAIK there isn't), it would have an entirely different texture when cold too. So just magically keeping everything as it is, but without melting, is not an option.
What you can do is a filling which is made with cream cheese, but is not only cream cheese, and not just "thickened cream cheese".  Or alternatively, use something other than cream cheese (the other answer suggests ricotta). There, the possibilities are endless. You can search for recipes and choose something that is to your taste.


What is the ratio of molassas and pineapple juice for a non-alcoholic rum substitute?

The common "flavor profiles" in rum is molassess, pineapple, and almond. You will commonly find sites offering "molassess thinned down with pineapple juice" as a substitution tip. It's not a coincidence that all these sites don't offer exact ratios.

Rum when used in baking is primarily for flavoring purposes. Substitutions will therefor not be very strict. Take some molassess and thin it down a little bit with pineapple juice. Do a tasting with each new addition of pineapple juice until you personally think it tastes the "best."


You have three options:

Prepare for drippage.  If you're doing a lot of small items in particular, you set up a wire rack over a sheet pan, and just let it drip down.  For the small items, you can dip into the glaze, then invert and place on the rack, like you would glaze a donut.
Add a barrier.  Make a thicker icing that won't flow, and pipe right at the edge to give it a little bit of containment, then flood the top with the thinner icing.  You'll need the cake nearly level for this to work well.
Pipe it on.  You need an icing that's just thinned to the point where it will slump and flow back together, but not so thin it'll flow off.  Use a piping bag (or plastic bag with the corner cut off) to make lines close enough together so the icing forms a solid covering.  You may want to start at the outer edge and make a ring like #2, then work inward.  This can work for more uneven cakes, as it doesn't need to be perfectly level, but it's more effort to get the consistency right.

Exact technique and consistency is going to depend on how thick (depth) you want the icing.  It's always easier to thin it (doesn't take much added liquid) than to stiffen it back up.


I am looking for a vegan substitute for cream cheese for use in a white chocolate/cream cheese icing

I would suggest tofutti or follow your heart vegan cream cheeses which are excellent substitutes in terms of taste and texture. They work great in baked goods.


Why do tomatoes react with sourdough starter?

Apart from the pH and sugar your tomatoes bring (as mentioned in the comments), I think there's a third part to the explanation - you're likely adding more yeast!

In Wild Fermentation by Sandor Ellix Katz, there's a section on how to get a sourdough starter started. They suggest that if your starter never gets going, you put some pieces of fruit - like apples or grapes - in it, and the wild yeast which almost invariably inhabit the peel of the fruit will get the fermentation going. There's no reason why tomatoes wouldn't be likewise inhabited.

I suppose you test this hypothesis by making two doughs, one to which you add fresh tomatoes, and one where you add tomatoes from the same source which have been cooked.


How can I prevent the cheese on my homemade pizza from hardening too soon?

The easiest solution is to use different cheeses.

Most commercial pizzerias, like Domino's or Pizza Hut do not use expensive cheeses like Parmesean or fresh mozzerella... they use crappy cheese designed to be stretchy and to stay that way when warm instead of hot. In general, they use part-skim mozzarella, which is often sold pre-shredded and in hard blocks like you'd find cheddars. This is addressed in another answer, here.

Hard cheeses like Parmesan are unlikely to melt at all and, when they do, they will firm up quickly as they lose heat. You should rarely expect a hard cheese to melt well. Most of them don't. They also lose a lot of oils when they melt, causing unsightly separation. They're great for a burst of salty cheese flavor but they won't behave like Domino's cheese. This is why it's common to top a completed pizza with shredded Parmesan but you wouldn't want to use it as your primary base cheese for the unbaked pizza.

Fresh cheeses like ricotta and mozzarella have the opposite problem. Their high moisture content will often make pizza unappetizingly soggy.

In contrast, the part skim mozzarella used in pizzerias is specifically chosen because it has low water content.

Check out the two questions linked here for a ton more info.

You should consider doing some research into which cheeses melt well as opposed that separate into an gross mess. Note, this list, like many others includes Asiago but it's important to notice that the list refers specifically to fresh Asiago, not the Parmesan-like aged sibling.


Is bacon fat supposed to congeal at room temperature?

To answer what I think is the question (you put all of the grease into a container and there's a residue at the top), bacon drippings are not 100% fat.  There are also solid pieces of bacon in there and other "impurities" from the curing process.

When rendering bacon fat, you should line the container with a paper towel first (or cheesecloth if you have it).  Pour the bacon drippings onto the paper towel and the fat will drain out the bottom; the solids will be left behind and you can dispose of them.  You'll be left with (mostly) pure fat.

The rendered fat will most definitely congeal; the vessel, once cooled, should contain only a solid, off-white substance.


Which lasts longer: ground or unground coffee?

That's correct. The greater surface area of ground coffee allows more trapped carbon dioxide to be released, taking aroma compounds with it, as well as making way for oxygen in the surrounding air to oxidize the aroma compounds and coffee oils.


Is there a general rule as if should bake something at 375 or 350 degrees, or does it really matter?

Experimentation is the key in any recipe development, informed by the effect of the variable under investigation.

In baking cookies, the affect of the oven temperature will effect:

Spread.   Cooler temperatures will allow the cookie to take longer to set, and so it will have longer to spread before it sets.
Height.  This is the compliment to spread; cooler temperatures will allow the cookie to spread more, so it will have less height.
Drying.  Cooler temperatures will allow the cookie longer to express steam, providing a somewhat dryer cookie.  At its extreme, you can make quite dry, wafer type cookies.
Evenness of cooking.  Cooler temperatures cook allow the to cook more eveningly from the outside to the inside.   Hotter temperatures may allow, for example, browning at the edge or surface while the interior is under-cooked.

In most cookie recipes, the difference between 350 and 375 F may actually be smaller than other uncontrolled variables like the type of oven, individual oven variance, type of cookie sheet, size of individual cookies, and so.   Additionally, within certain limits, there is a trade off between time and temperature.

For these reasons, you will need a high degree of consistency if you are doing dry runs to try  to determine the optimal temperature.


We have a pizza stone that makes the finished pizza taste so much better. In addition we add more toppings to the pizza. For instance sliced mushrooms, pineapple, olives, peppers and cheese. The sky is the limit. And this way you can have a 5 topping pizza for the price of the toppings and a cheap frozen pizza.

For the pizza stone you don't want it to make a drastic change in temperature otherwise the stone would break. So for the oven I put the stone in the oven then preheat it. So the stone heats up with the oven. During this time I prepare the toppings. When the oven is hot enough you take out the stone, careful it is hot, put the pizza on, throw the toppings on then put back in oven and cook.


Reducing Canned Pumpkin (as per America's Test Kitchen)

ATK's method, while it may reduce the canned taste, has two primary outcomes:

It heats the pumpkin puree
It reduces the water volume

The flavor intensification is due to the reduction.  If you are not willing to change the water ratio of your base recipe, there is litte point to doing it, and then adding the water weight back.

So the question is:  does bringing the pumpkin up to a simmer in a pan actually signficantly reduce the canned taste?  While I suspect it doesn't at least when the final cooking stage is included, it is a pretty easy step to do, and won't cause you much trouble other than an extra pot to clean.

While you may need some trial and error, increasing the percentage of pumpkin solids in your swiss roll recipe will reduce the structure of the cake; it may tolerate a small increase (perhaps to the 1 full cup or even more, reduced slightly if you want to) without becoming too soft to roll.

While raw pumpkin is about 90% water I suspect the Libby's product is already reduced, to probably 70 or 80% water (I was not able to find a definitive answer), you may want to reduce your total pumpkin down by 2/3 to 3/4 of the volume above the base 3/4 cup called for in the recipe to keep the total liquid close.  So if you add 1/2 cup of pumpkin, for a total of 1 1/4 cups, reduce it by 3/8 of a cup; this would be easiest done by weight where it is 3 ounces.

Pumpkin and eggs are the only signficant water in that recipe, so you cannot substiute out another liquid to allow you to bring in more pumpkin.

Finally, consider that product vendors are especially motivated to write recipes that show their products in good light, and are reliable.  There is almost certainly some margin of error in that recipe for experimentation to account for the variance of their customers' cooking habits, but it quite likely close to ideal already or they would not have published it.


We had an older (1950's) gas oven for a decade which had very uneven heating and used a large pizza stone ( 13" by 16" ) to even out the heat.  We did this by putting the stone on an oven rack in the lowest position, and making sure to give the oven at least 25min of heat-up time so the stone would be as hot as the oven.  This did, indeed, help even out hot spots in the oven and decrease its tendency to burn delicate foods like cookies.  It also eliminated the requirement to remember to take the pizza stone in and out of the oven.

You do not want to put the pizza stone directly on the oven floor.  Three reasons:

It could block hot air vents from the flame into the oven chamber;
The oven floor is generally not designed to support weight and could
be damaged;
The pizza stone is liable to crack or even explode from thermal
shock due to rapid heating if it's in direct contact with the metal over the burner.

Also, do be aware that your pizza stone will accumulate crud from food dripping/dropping in the oven, which burns into a black carbon powder.  We turned the stone upside down every few weeks limit accumulation.


I've had this happen with other types of spices as well. I put it in the blender or coffee grinder to loosen it up again. Works well for me.


Coconut cream pie needs more coconut flavour

Maybe your tastebuds are getting saturated by all that coconut, and your receptors failing to register the coconut sensation since they have become acclimated. I wonder if it is time to work on contrast. I.e. make the filling very coconutty (and it seems you are doing that already), but keep the crust & whipped cream topping "plain"  (i.e. don't bother coconutizing them at all). Would the extra coconutty filling then stand out more in contrast to the "background" parts of the pie? The crust and topping might give your sensory receptors a chance to re-calibrate in between bursts of coconut overload.

Just an idle thought, but I can't see how there is room for any more coconut intensity than you have already put into this pie. Your answer to Spagirl's question also supports the idea that you may have reached coconut maximum. [as to whether you have ever had a sufficiently intense coconut pie?..."Not really."]


Is it safe to eat frozen flatfish with brown color?

As long as your fish has been handled and stored properly, there shouldn't be any safety issues.

Most all flatfish have a dark side and a light side. (There are only a couple that don't.) Their eyed side would be the dark side and their blind side is the light side. This doesn't just apply to their skin, but to the meat as well. So, if you filet a flatfish, the meat on one side will be white while the meat on the other side will be dark. Typically the dark side will be thicker.

There is a slight difference in the taste and texture between the light and dark meats. What I see served most often in restaurants is the white meat.

All said and done, taste is subjective. Some people prefer the white meat and others prefer the dark. Personally, I find the white meat to be a little more delicate in both flavor and texture. But I like both. I use the white meat for more delicate recipes, e.g poaching, serving with sauces, etc. I tend to use the dark meat when frying or in heartier dishes.

My answer is based on the experience of catching, cleaning, filleting, and cooking flatfish. For anyone interested, PBS has an interesting and informative article about flatfish.


It's really a matter of personal preference.  I like using a pastry blender, but not all pastry blenders are worth using.  It needs to be sturdy.  And you really don't want a handle that might rotate when you push down on the dough, so pay attention to how the handle is fastened to the blender.  When the dough starts to build up in the blender, just use your other hand to knock most of it back into the bowl.

The other method I was taught was to use two butter knives, one in each hand, and slide them against each other while cutting through the dough.  This method works, but it takes longer.

I haven't tried using a pair of dough cutters.  It should work, but it's going to require a flat work surface.  The other two options (blender and knives) work well in a mixing bowl.

Regardless of which method you choose, it's going to be a bit awkward until you get some practice.  Anyone with near-average dexterity should be able to master any of them with time.


The fact that the microwave malfunctioned clearly indicates that a damage is done. Judging based on symptoms that you're describing, this a typical short circuit. Now that things have dried up a bit, it might just keep working fine.

Chances are, corrosion caused by residue liquid will eventually destroy the circuit. But that's not the worst part.

Damage made to electric circuits by liquid can be unpredictable. By all safety standards and guidelines, your microwave is not safe to use. Fair enough, the chances that something really bad would happen are slim, but consequences can be brutal as well (think deadly electric shock or a fire). For your own safety, please, either find a technician and service your microwave, or buy a new one.


This coating, which wipes right off and is indeed harmless, is called the "bloom" of the grape or sometime the "blush". As described here, (the wiki for Fermentation in winemaking), it contains trace amounts of natural yeast, though thought to be the result of ambient yeast rather than the result of growth process proper.

Here we find a more thorough answer,

  It’s mostly harmless wax, says Kay Bogart, a winemaker who works in
  outreach for the University of California at Davis’s viticulture
  program. The grape plant produces it to protect the berries from
  moisture loss. It’s also often just plain old dust, adds Jim LaMar, a
  professor of wine sensory evaluation at California State University,
  Fresno. Until recently, winemakers believed the white stuff was
  yeasts, responsible for wine fermentation. Now they believe such
  yeasts are airborne. In any case, that white stuff isn’t pesticide
  residue. Which is not to say that there isn’t pesticide residue on the
  grape, so wash it anyway before you pop it into your mouth.

In the book Caravaggio: A Life Sacred and Profane by Andrew Graham-Dixon, we find of Roman mythology the following statement regarding Bacchus, the ancient god of wine and intoxication,

  The bloom on the grapes, which dusts them with a layer of whiteness
  and dulls the reflected light caught in their opalescent skins, is
  echoed by the dry and whitish lips of the god himself.


How can I recognize peaches with split pits?

This problem is made by flies, they lay eggs inside fruit. The end where the stem is you can see a scab with long puckering, avoid these. Go to a different seller, or tell farmer to put out fake red apples with sticky stuff on them when the flowers are out this will attract the flies and catch them and save their fruit from damage


Where is a good place to buy food coloring in bulk?

School art and craft supply outlets sell colourings safe for children's consumption in liquid and powder forms

Powder based colour works fine in many bakery products