Hello @Dudie and welcome to Seasoned Advice. Regarding the size of egg yolks in certain size eggs, you may find this interesting. Here is the link to the  page .

  A change in the feed given to chickens has resulted in healthier eggs but the trend for buying larger eggs has led to there being less yolk to white.
  This is because of the preference for bigger eggs now compared with 30 years ago. The size of the yolk remains the same in a large egg as in a medium one, with larger eggs simply containing more white.

Looking at recipes for Norwegian cookies, I think that the recipe you are using is more widely known as Norwegian Butter Cookies. I found several using the same ingredients and they seem to be pretty consistent. The variations I found were mostly in preparation. E.g., one said to cream the butter and egg yolks together while another said to sieve the egg yolks.

The recipes I found for Norwegian Crowns used both cooked egg yolks and raw egg yolks (with the exception of one recipe that was nearly identical to all of the butter cookie recipes except that it called for vanilla).

So, in light of the information, I would offer these suggestions:

Stay with the eggs you are using. If you think you need more, add more. If you think you need less, use less.
You might give a look to other recipes and try a different prep method, e.g. creaming the egg yolks and butter together.
As I saw in several recipes you can use a cookie press or use a drop method. If you use a ball or drop method you can use a fork to press in a criss-cross pattern. See pic below.


Does a colder refrigerator keep things fresh longer?

Your refrigerator should be set so that it maintains a temperature no higher than forty degrees F.  This means that you shouldn't be opening the door frequently or leaving it open longer than necessary.  If you are aging beef in that refrigerator, you want the temperature to be no more than thirty-five degrees F according to some sources, but these sources conflict.

Below 32 degrees F you are obviously duplicating the functionality of your freezer, but not as well.


What do you use to make tzatziki? Onions, garlic, or both?

Typically garlic is used.  If you prefer onions and garlic, go ahead but it's typically cucumber, yogurt, dill, garlic, lemon juice or vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper, and sometimes sour cream.


I don't think the type of milk you use would contribute too much to the fluffiness. The eggs in the crepes is what makes them fluffy in my opinion, the more eggs you add the fluffier the crepe. To make a lump-free batter, mix it in a blender till smooth.

Let batter rest for 20 or 30 minutes in the fridge to relax the gluten in the flour.  You should have fluffy crepes, just remember the more eggs you add, the more flour you will need, and don't make the batter too thick, it should be about the consistency of stirred yogurt.


How do you safely bring ingredients normally stored cold to room temperature?

Eggs are actually pretty safe to leave at room temperature anyway; supermarkets don't bother refrigerating them, and you can be damn sure they're not going to risk losing any money through spoilage. I keep mine in a ceramic bowl on the counter top.

In general, simply take the required ingredient out of the fridge a couple of hours before use, keep it away from heat sources and out of direct sunlight.


Can you prepare eggplant by salting, then baking, then finally rinsing?

I did the experiment complete with pictures, unfortunately I managed to to screw up the pictures, but luckily I took notes.

I started with two very similar eggplants, globe variety, Like this:

I sliced each of the eggplants into five slices of equal width, discarding the ends. I took one slice of each eggplant to make five pairs to treat differently as far as salting. I pre-salted three of the pairs and drained them for one-half hour prior to baking. One of those pairs was rinsed and dried before baking, another pair was not rinsed - just thoroughly dried with a paper towel prior to baking. The third pair was left salted for baking. The fourth pair was salted (not rinsed) just before baking. The fifth pair was left unsalted.

I baked all of the slices at 400F for 90 minutes, until they were just about done. At that point I rinsed one slice of each pair and returned all of the eggplant to the 400F oven for 10 more minutes.

I weighed each of the pairs at the beginning and end of the experiment.

After allowing the eggplant to come to "eating temperature", I invited a friend to join me in the tasting. We concurred 100% as to the palatability of each slice. Here are the results:

So, bottom line, at least for this variety of eggplant, pre-salting and draining is an unnecessary step, although rinsing is necessary. Rinsing can be done after pre-salting and draining, before baking, or the eggplant can be rinsed at the end of baking. The difference in weight loss is negligible. Unfortunately, I wasn't really able to gauge "bitterness", because the eggplant wasn't bitter to begin with.

Based on this experiment, if I were to bake something like an Eggplant Parmesan (unbreaded), I would salt the eggplant just before baking, rinse when the eggplant is nearly done, sauce, then continue baking until the final dish is done, cheese melted and slightly browned. As per Joe's comment below, breading would be a different ball of wax, but I would certainly consider par-baking the salted eggplant to eliminate the draining step, rinsing is really necessary either way. A few minutes in the oven after rinsing the par-baked eggplant would give you an ideal slice, ready to bread. As a matter of fact, I'm not crazy about eggplant, but my friend is. I'll update this answer in a few days with the results of modifying Eggplant Parmesan by par-baking the salted slices prior to breading instead of draining the salted eggplant then breading. I suspect the prior method will produce better results in the same amount of time with less sogginess of the breading, as the moisture loss continues during the cooking of the pre-salted and drained eggplant. For that continuation of the experiment I will make two separate casseroles, and weigh both the par-baked eggplant and salted and drained eggplant prior to breading.


How long should I cook pork for (at 100° C)?

100°C seems a little low. I've done a bone-in pork shoulder at 120 for 8 hours before now, I think the norm is 2 hours a pound (450 g) at that temperature.

To be safe you should really use a meat thermometer, trichinosis is not something you want to have.


Compensating for extra moisture from cold flour

No, it has nothing to do with atmospheric moisture. It is the temperature itself. You get much more gluten with cold dough, and it is also very sticky and inelastic. If this is the effect you want, continue doing it. In fact, some authors (e.g. Corriher) recommend making very high hydration doughs with substituting some of the water for crushed ice, to make them more manageable.

If you don't want this (and most recipes are developed for room temperature ingredients), then you can't get the standard condition of your dough except by using room temperature flour. If you don't mind the different gluten texture in the baked product, but want to make the dough less sticky so you can handle it better, you should be adding water, not removing it. This will dilute the dough, so it doesn't end up so tightly cramped. I can't give you a rule of thumb for how much, you'll have to decide for yourself what feels comfortable to you.


One of the most important factors in achieving a fudgy, chewy brownie is cooking time. Essentially you should be slightly undercooking the brownies so they don't dry out in the middle.

Use the cooking times given in recipes as a guide only, because each oven will vary. 5-10 minutes before they 'should' be ready, start testing the centre of the brownies with a toothpick or cake tester: unlike a cake, you want a good amount of sticky crumbs on the skewer (but very little liquid batter). Remember that the cooking process will continue even once the brownies are out of the oven.

Another factor that contributes to chewiness is the sugars you use: adding some sticky, dense, dark sugar will help create a fudgy brownie. The brownie recipe I use, which is pretty damn good, uses 1.5 cups of granulated sugar and .5 cup of packed dark brown sugar.


"Sushi grade" means that it is safe to prepare and eat raw.  In order to do that, it must be frozen to kill any parasites.  That means it either has to be:

Frozen at -20° C (-4° F) for 7 days; or
Frozen at -35° C (-31° F - "flash frozen") for 15 hours.

There aren't any official regulations about the fish itself or its quality, and most sushi/sashimi distributors have much more stringent rules of their own beyond the freezing guarantee.


There are a number of different bay leaves, and the description and picture are consistent with what I've seen called "West Indian" bay leaf.

Regarding price, bay leaves are absurdly expensive at retail... Buying from a local restaurant supplier near me, dried whole bay leaves around $11 a pound and those are not locally grown or processed, just wholesalers.


How to make a more apple-y apple cider yeast bread

I suggest that (in addition to using a reduction of the juice*/cider) you add some solid apple.

Personally I would get dried apple, of a tasty variety if at all possible, and put it through a food processor until fairly fine.  I dehydrate my own home-grown apples, selected for flavour, but would buy Cox or Granny Smith for this. Then add as you would other dried fruit.  If you get the really dry dried apple chips, you could partially rehydrate the pieces in spiced apple juice/cider to soften it a little, adding to the flavour.

* Where I'm from "cider" is always alcoholic, the unfermented juice is just "juice" even if cloudy, so I'll use  both terms, hopefully correctly.


What probably went wrong for the meat to turn hard is that it was overcooked and dried (which happens easily with chicken).

Having said that, you could experiment with reducing temperature/time for better results. Also, a trick I use with chicken kebabs (but I grill them, so this might not work for frying) is that I cover them in yoghurt, which works as a protective layer to keep the moisture inside while the meat cooks.


Looking for advice on making halva w/ allulose - first attempt came out gummy and taffy-like w/ oil separation

It's really better to work in weight especially when cooking with different types of sugar. Trying to change the fineness of sugar, and the sugar chemistry, and then make up for it with adjusting volumes is prone to failure.

Halva is easy to make but hard to get the right consistency. My last lot ended up too soft/sticky. But it's ill-defined: different cooks and different cultures aim for different textures.

So I'd find a recipe that's described as being the type you're aiming for, make it exactly, and only then start substituting.


To what temperature should you take candied citrus peels?

I don't think you are looking for a specific temp (i.e.; crack or soft ball stage) after adding the citrus since you have already "contaminated" the syrup.  My preferred recipe is from Epicurious.com (http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Candied-Citrus-Peel-107434).  I have used it twice with great results and am going to be making again very soon for the holidays.


Why do spring onions curl up when placed in cold water?

This happens because the inside of the stem soaks up water, increasing its volume. The outside cannot soak up water, and stays at the same volume. This is pure physics/geometry and happens in many other occasions - dandelions come to mind when thinking of plants, but the same happens in stockinette knitting. It is  because it is a shape similar to a flat sheet, but one side of the sheet is larger than the other one and tries to "expand".
The relationship to "how is cut" is minimal. Sure, if you cut it into a different shape, the effect may be so small that you won't notice it. For example, if you cut the onion stems into ringlets, the pull will be symmetrical in all directions and the outer layer will be too stiff to allow even the two cut ends to curl. If you cut them into small squares instead of long strips, you will get less curl and more of a saddle shape - but it is not that something different is happening, the same things are happening in all ways of cutting, and the geometry of it determines which effect will dominate the others.


How finely chopped should vegetables be when making stock?

I'd say it is a "matter of taste," literally, because what comes out will change depending on how you process the vegetables.  For example, despite the common use of carrots in stock, I feel like many chefs don't actually want a real "carroty" flavor in stock.  Quartering or roughly chopping a carrot is enough to give them plenty of "carrot notes" in their optimum flavor.  Thus, my theory is that chefs often follow their particular chopping pattern to produce the balance of flavor that they want.  If you chop things more finely, you may actually alter that balance.

Anyhow, if your goal is maximum flavor extraction, then you'll need to chop your carrot into finer pieces.  (You may then find that you need less carrot in your mix of vegetables.)  Other vegetables like onions don't necessarily need fine chopping, since they already exist in relatively thin layers to allow circulation.  If you quarter an onion, the liquid will already be able to infiltrate -- if you want even greater circulation, just break up those quarters into layers as you throw the onion in.  And things like herbs, etc. don't generally need to be chopped at all: just throw in whole sprigs, and they'll provide most of their flavor after simmering even for a brief time.

I would note that simmering time is also an issue here.  Most chefs don't cook vegetable stock for longer than an hour or so, since there's no benefit (as there is with meat stocks, where it can take hours for collagen to break down, etc.).  In fact, by simmering too long, you can actually break down some of the more subtle flavor components, lose them to evaporation, or bury them in the more generic "overcooked" vegetable flavors.  Thus, some recommend adding finely-textured herbs only briefly toward the end.  (That's also the reason why a small amount of fresh herbs are often added as a garnish to a finished dish; the flavor is greater and more noticeable than if they were cooked in for a long time.)

I'm therefore somewhat skeptical of the method that used a blender before cooking, since that would cause a very fast breakdown of the vegetables and potentially unbalance the flavors.  (Some people do puree the vegetables after simmering and add them back for a more hearty or thicker broth/soup.)

In general, I'd plan on simmering vegetable stock until the various vegetables are "done" (soft) and then going a bit longer, tasting it periodically until the flavor is rich and full.  Chopping finer will release more flavor faster, but there is a limit because things will rapidly get "overcooked."  At that point you'll be releasing less of the "bright" and "fresh" vegetable flavors that you get early on; these flavors may start to break down or get lost, and eventually you'll have more of a generic "vegetable mush" flavor.


What could possibly happen if I overmix the butter and sugar in a cookie recipe?

Your butter can melt through friction heat.

You said that you are used to melting the butter. There are cookie recipes which require this, usually chewy cookies. Creaming the butter with the sugar produces a different texture, and you should not change the method between recipes. If your recipe already asks you to cream, you should never cream so much that the butter starts to melt (which can happen at rather low temperatures), as you won't get the texture of fluffy creamed cookies. The problem only occurs with real melting, softened butter is OK. In my experience, it is actually best to leave the butter out at least overnight before creaming, instead of only leaving it out for about an hour to get soft to touch, or cutting cold butter to whippable pieces.

While melting butter is the "upper limit" of creaming, it is unlikely to run into this problem unless you forget a stand mixer turned on, or you softened your butter at high room temperature (above 30 Celsius). With 22-ish degree butter and a hand mixer on moderate speed, your arm will go numb before your butter melts.


I agree with @SAJ14SAJ. What I would add is that

yeast does not require sunlight in any way ... but as UV light can be harmful to microorganisms and might inhibit yeast growth I wouldn't brew it in direct sun.
for bottling beer it is normally suggested to leave the correct amount (1 - 1 ½ inch) of headspace (air) at the top of the bottle for carbonation and proper pressure. But I am not sure if the same conditions apply for soda - I would think it is not too different.
shaking gently occasionally might help to evenly distribute the yeast in the sugar solution, and expose it to more food resources (sugar).


The container of my food is domed/bulged, is it spoiled?

When your packaging has inflated over time, this is always a sign of bacterial activity. The bacteria start multiplying, and produce gases as a waste product, so your airtight packaging acts like a balloon. The pressure can get enough to bulge jar lids too.

For most foods, this is a clear sign of spoilage. You don't want bacteria in your food, especially in canned food! So, discard the food to which it has happened.

The major exception are fermented foods. They are supposed to have a thriving colony of known harmless bacteria in them. When the colony gets larger than you planned, it can inflate the packaging. Nowadays, it is unlikely to see it with storebought food, since they control the bacterial population, but it can still happen e.g. if you leave yogurt in a warm room for a long time, and of course food you have fermented yourself can do it frquently, if you keep it in a closed container. Fermented food is safe after bulging, but you have to check if you still like the taste, which will become quite sharp after overfermentation.

Also, this only applies to foods which changed their volume over time. Potato chips (crisps) are sold in already-inflated bags, but this is not a sign of trouble, it was done in the factory.

If you have no good reason to know that the bulging was caused by a safe process (overfermentation of fermented food, or factory-plump packaging), this is a sign of spoilage. The food is unsafe, no matter if other signs of spoilage are present, or if the typical storage conditions were present.


Best practices for using taps while avoiding cross contamination

I often use the method described in mech's answer - using food-grade gloves when handling raw meat. Both at work and at home.

A secondary option that I often employ is the overall cleanability of taps. Just grab those taps with your raw meat hands with impunity. Give your hands a quick rinse then lather them up with extra soap and scrub. Then scrub the taps. Then rinse everything again.

There are also taps that can be manipulated with elbows and I have heard of heat sensitive taps that respond to touch as well.

Just remember the raw meat can't hurt you if you just clean up afterwards.That might include the taps you used when cleaning up.


When conserving food in jar, why is the jar turned on its head when cooling?

Generally turning a jar upside down after filling is a alternative to a proper hot-water bath, not an addition to it.  This is known as the inversion method, and is used by many cooks of jams, jellies, mustards, and other very-low-risk canned foods.

The idea of inversion canning is that, by forcing the air in the jar through the hot liquid, you can kill and bacteria in the air (and on the inside of the lid).  It is not considered safe by experts, because there are numerous ways that bacteria can survive the process.

If you are doing "proper" canning, that is heating up the lidded jar to 85C or above, the sealing, inverting the jars is in fact a bad idea as it could result in liquid preventing the jar lid from sealing properly. The Ball jar corporation says “Do not invert. move or store jars while cooling, as this may cause seal failure.” At the least, it's unnecessary.


What is the impact of high heat on wine?

De-Glazing a pan with liquid (including wine) to make a sauce is a very common technique. It involves boiling the liquid to remove browned bits of food from the pan.

De-Glazing Instructions

This technique has been used for years and it seems move severe than what the recipe you mentioned is doing so I don't think you have anything to worry about.


how do I replace a heating element in the oven

I did that once and found when the first element failed , it had heated a copper spring contact and softened it so that it would not work . A new control was needed.


Can salmonella show up in a raw-egg product once it has already been made?

There is probably still some risk, so I wouldn't assume it was safe; however, ice-cream is frozen, so I wouldn't worry about ice-cream at all, unless the egg-mixture was left at room temperature for a significant time before freezing.

As far as I know, salmonella is in the faeces of the chicken, if present. Some faeces will often stick to the shell. In very rare circumstances, which I believe are negligible, the salmonella penetrates the shell and infects not only the white (less of a problem) but also the nutritious yolk, and then the whole egg is contaminated. But this chance is probably too small to encounter in one's average life time.

What has normally happened if the faeces are contaminated and people get sick, is that some of the salmonella present on the outside of the shell contaminates the egg when the shell is broken, or the extremely small number of bacteria present in the white get a chance to infect the whole egg (chance ca. 0.005 %, see below). (Note that in many countries the outside of the shell of supermarket eggs is supposedly sterilized.) At that very moment, however, the number of bacteria present in the egg white should still not be enough to make people sick. But if the egg is then left to sit outside the refrigerator for several hours, and enough faeces touched the egg white, the bacteria may have enough time to multiply and make you sick. If the egg is properly refrigerated, chances are much lower, but I do not know the exact numbers.

One often sees grey spots and smears on the outside of eggs; I believe this is normally chicken faeces. Even so, salmonella is quite rare, such that the healthy shouldn't be worried about making ice cream, mousse au chocolat, and such from unpasteurized eggs. But if a young child, an old person, a pregnant woman, or someone with health problems were to eat the ice cream, I would not take the chance and use pasteurized eggs. If the food is contaminated, the fact that people do not get sick who have eaten it immediately upon making it offers little evidence, because the bacteria haven't had the time to multiply yet. I believe you will normally not get sick from eating contaminated steak tartare, for example, because it is eaten immediately.

However that may be, ice-cream is frozen: as Derobert said below, salmonella probably cannot multiply below 5 °C, and certainly not below 0 °C, so ice-cream should be safe under all normal circumstances, that is, if it was frozen shortly after breaking the eggs. Normal temperatures in refrigerators slow down the growth of the bacteria as well: perhaps you shouldn't worry too much about anything that is kept at 7 °C anyway for a few days.

  The inside of an egg was once considered almost sterile. But, over recent years, the bacterium Salmonella enteritidis (Se) has been found inside a small number of eggs. Scientists estimate that, on average across the U.S., only 1 of every 20,000 eggs might contain the bacteria. So, the likelihood that an egg might contain Se is extremely small – 0.005% (five one-thousandths of one percent). At this rate, if you’re an average consumer, you might encounter a contaminated egg once every 84 years. — The Incredible Egg, Medicine Net


What are the main styles of pizza that are popular in America?

No.

Those are not common pizza toppings in America at all.

In America there are these (rather well known) pizza styles:

Chicago style

Chicago style pizza is a deep-dish pizza that is baked in a thick heavy cornmeal based crust. The toppings are also added in reverse order of a traditional pizza. First the cheese is added, then a pound or more of sausage is added in a dense patty layer, finally it is topped with sauce. You eat it with a fork and knife.

New York style

New York style pizza is wide thin-crust pizza. The crust is made with a very high gluten bread flour and hand-tossed. Some say that it gets a lot of it's flavor from the NYC water. It is typically cut into only 8 slices for a large pie. You fold the piece in half to eat.

New Haven style

New Haven style pizza is a bit lesser known, and originates from New Haven, Connecticut. There it is commonly called "apizza". It is similar to a New York style pizza in that it has a thin crust, but it is always brick oven fired until crispy. You should not be able to fold a New Haven slice of pizza in half without cracking it. It should also be crispy enough to stand up to it's own weight when held by the crust.

In a New Haven pizza a "plain" does not have mozzarella. A plain pizza consists solely of sauce, oregano, and a bit of parmesan and romano grated on top. Mozzarella is considered a separate topping.

They are most known for their white pizzas. These have no tomatoes at all, the "sauce" consists of olive oil, oregano, chopped garlic, and grated parmesan. The most well known is the clam pie which has fresh clams as a topping. It is generally frowned upon to order this with mozarella.

Verace pizza napoletana style

Although this is the original Neapolitan pizza, it has become very popular in the Pacific Northwest (and maybe elsewhere?). There is a certifying organization, which has stringent requirements for the crust ingredients, oven and so forth. The pies are very thin in the interior, with a slightly puffy edge, and are typically lightly charred in spots, which contributes a lot of flavor. Toppings tend to be minimalist.


Are there cuisines that rarely use sauces?

Pilav-and-kabab-centric cuisines, such as Afghan, Uzbek, Tadjik seem sauceless. Of course I cannot prove that they don't have them, but I have never seen one.
Armenian (and perhaps Turkish) cuisine also deserve close inspection.


The amount of energy required to evaporate the water stays the same, no matter what the size of the pan is, but a bigger pan could potentially collect more energy since the area in contact with the cooktop would be larger. There is also a larger portion of the water in contact with the pot, making it easier for more energy to transfer to it.

This question on the physics stackexchange basically ask the same question you do here, and states that the surface area of the water will have a significant effect on the rate of evaporation if the stove transfers enough energy. Given that there is no change in the temperature of the sauce during the reduction, the rate of evaporation will be proportional to the surface area of the sauce (as stated in the final formula there).


How can I thin out my ice cream mixture?

Start with the milk and add ice cream till you reach the desired consistency. If you want to add 'bits' start when it is about halfway to the thickness you want


What are some of the best ways to shell an egg?

This is what we do where I work: dump them into a bucket full of cold water with the tap still running. We crack the side of the shell against the side of the sink & roll it til it's cracked all around, then peel. I am sure there are other ways though.
I think shocking them helps them shell easily, but also cools them down for foodsafe reasons.


Well, you are not going to get a maple flavour with anything other than maple extract (or maple sugar or syrup or some similar maple product).

That said, I've substituted rum for maple in some recipes and tend to think of it as a better approximation than vanilla.  The caveat of course is the amount; a tablespoon is fine to substitute, an entire cup is going to impart a pretty strong alcohol flavour that you probably don't want.

If you don't have rum or don't think it would work for your recipe, then vanilla extract is probably the next-closest thing.  However, it will change the flavour; whether or not that change is "too much" is really a matter of opinion.


I think most chocolate is already tempered when you buy it.  Assuming that's the case with yours, you just need to be careful not to break the temper when you melt it.  That means not letting it get too much warmer than its melting temperature.  If my memory is correct, you have to keep it below 125 deg. F to avoid breaking temper.

Coincidentally, I mixed pure cocoa powder and honey earlier this evening (in a glass of hot milk).  I found that to get it to taste good, I had to use about 3 Tbsp of honey to sweeten 2 Tbsp of cocoa.  Honey is usually about 17% water.  I don't know for sure whether that will cause a problem for you, but I suspect it would.  As you have already discovered, it takes a LOT of sugar to make chocolate sweet.  I don't think you'll be able to make it solidify using honey.

I'm curious why you seem to be avoiding sucrose (table sugar).  I guess there must be some reason why you got no-sugar-at-all chocolate.  Are you interested in stevia because it is lower in calories?  If so, you might consider pure sucralose.  It's not usually available in stores, but you can order it online.  I recommend pure sucralose instead of splenda so that you don't have the extra maltodextrin filler getting in your way.  1 gram of pure sucralose is enough to sweeten 250 grams of cocoa powder, so if you know the ratio of cocoa butter to cocoa solids in your chocolate, you can calculate the right amount of sucralose to use.  I guess if you're thinking of using honey, you must not be worried about calories, though.  If you're just looking to create a little more exotic/different flavor, you could use turbinado (e.g. Sugar in the Raw) instead of regular sugar.  I think it will solidify a lot better than honey.

By the way, how are you planning to coat popsicles in chocolate?  Won't the molten chocolate cause the popsicles to melt and turn the whole thing into a mess?  Maybe if you got the popsicles down to liquid nitrogen temperatures before dipping them it might work....


What are good references for Gluten free baking

This is a very subjective question. For example: I find the recipes on Gluten-Free Goddess to use excessive Xanthan Gum (bouncy balls do not make good cupcakes). That being said I highly suggest you start with the basics and make your own flour to learn the balance of how different flours effect the texture and flavor of baked goods.

A few good books with recipes (and discussions) about gluten-free flour are:

Gluten-Free Quick and Easy
The Gluten-Free Gourmet Cooks Fast and Healthy

Although I don't have personal experience with The Gluten-Free Gourmet Makes Dessert or The Gluten-Free Gourmet Bakes Bread, I do trust Bette Hagman enough to suggest them as potentially good resources.

There are also a number of gluten-free flour mixes available which can be used as flour replacements in regular recipes to achieve gluten-free results:

Pamela's Baking mix
Arrowhead Mills Gluten-Free flour
King Arthur Gluten-Free Multipurpose Flour

Just a warning: Be careful! Many mixes say that they are 1-to-1 replacements, however they contain baking powder and sugar, so can cause things to go wonky. Additionally you need to understand that most gluten-free flours don't hold moisture as well as typical wheat flour, and you have to replace the elasticity provided by the missing gluten (for some recipes the prepared flour mixtures take care of this for you, however you may still need to tweak things).

While I can suggest that you use meringue to help give cookies structure without having them crumble when picking them up, or that you use apple sauce in cakes to keep them moist. A lot of this kind of information comes from simply understanding the science of cooking (and baking). Suggested reading includes:

On Food and Cooking
BakeWise

Honestly there are a lot of resources out there and google is a great way to find them. If, however, you have specific questions about what went wrong with a recipe this is probably a better forum for that question than this current one.


I use a Cuisinart food processor to make almond butter. I once used a processor that was not very powerful and it burnt out (my brothers, so I had to replace it). You'll need a machine with significant wattage because it takes a bit of energy to grind up almonds unless you are making a very small quantity. Sorry, I don't think there is a way around that. The advantage of a food processor over a blender is a wider surface area so there is less of a need to add liquid to improve flow. I don't add anything to mine except a little salt, but if I did it would only be oil. Water may reduce its shelf life. BTW, even in the processor it takes about  15 minutes to make, probably less if the almonds are hot and freshly roasted.


What is a substitute for red or white wine in a recipe?

For white wine, try:

chicken broth/stock
vegetable stock
white grape juice
ginger ale
canned mushroom liquid
diluted white wine or cider vinegar

For red wine, try:

beef or chicken broth/stock
diluted red wine vinegar
red grape juice
tomato juice
canned mushroom liquid

A great list of substitutions for cooking with various alcoholic ingredients may be found here.


The smoke point of extra virgin olive oil is about 375F (190C), which is above the boiling point of water. Most likely the pan temperature is close to 350 or so for sauteing in the first recipe, or at least above 300F, so when wine (which is mostly water) hits the pan it starts to boil off, so what you are seeing is water vapor. When stock is added later it's still just water vapor. Once you add liquid the oil will typically sit on the top, which is the coolest place to be because of evaporation.

A big reason to avoid burning oil is that is creates off flavors which are undesirable, and the smoke itself is unpleasant smelling. For that reason if you want to do high temperature sauteing (think wok) or deep frying you would want to use an oil with a high smoke point, for instance peanut or canola (rapeseed).


I doubt anyone is going to touch this, because of safety issues. My mom used to do this before all of those salmonella cartoons in the 1970s. We didn't know we got sick from the food back then. We thought we got a cold or flu.

My brother once got really sick from this.


Cooking cakes with Pop Rocks / Space Dust

Never tried anything like this, but you asked for ideas...

Can you even frost the cake with them w/o them reacting? If they only react w/ water, you may be able to get them in a fat-based frosting. Especially if you use this for the middle frosting of a two-layer cake, this may work.

If you really want them in the cake itself, and they don't react with the baked cake (it has water still, I bet they do) you could make a double-layer cake, and insert them into the hidden surfaces (e.g., the bottom of the top layer and the top of the bottom layer). Just make some slits and put them in.


It is possible, whether it fits your definition of easily is questionable, though.

Whole grain flour is made by grinding whole wheat/rye/... berries until you get a fine flour, a technique used since the neolithic age. The method that is still in use today is basically "rubbing the grains between a firm base stone and a moving upper stone", either shaped like a rolling pin or round and flat like a millstone. (Increase the scale and you get a classic mill.) So your mortar and pestle will work, even if they are not made of the types of sandstone, basalt or limestone that have the "right" mixture of coarseness and durability to make good millstones.

The drawback? Scale and time. You will probably need a lot of time, to get enough flour for a bread. For a starter, it should be ok, though.

If you think about buying a mill because you decide your super-fresh flour is worth the effort and cost, note that good manual mills with ceramic stones are almost as expensive as electric ones, but are way less comfortable. I make a lot of things myself and by hand in my kitchen, but I would draw the line at cranking a mill for half an hour just to get flour for one bread.

For a very "kitchen hack" style of grinding flour (but obviously not "stone ground"), consider your food processor (but check the manual first!): Pulse a cup or two of wheat berries untill you see "flour" and "grits" forming. Sieve off the finer parts, return the coarser to the food processor, add more grains and continue. You can even use the coarser parts for some kinds of wholegrain bread - a question of taste and recipe.


Does anyone know how to make a Sous Vide style cooking vessel?

You could probably do it on the cheap, but the temperature precision might suffer in the process:

($0-$3) A container for water that can handle being warmed up a bit. (recycle something or buy a 5 gallon bucket)
(~$20) A small submersible garden pump.  (I have no idea what temperature they're rated for, but I use one in my greenhouse hydroponics systems, and it gets rather warm in there in the summer)
($10-20) An immersion heater
(~$65) : a thermostat control unit

Total : ~$100

If you're comfortable wiring up your own circuits, you could likely make your own temperature control unit for less, as that's the bulk of the cost.

If you're not comfortable with all of this, then the Anova Precision Cooker is under $200. (currently $25 off, bringing it to ~$155).  You'll have to supply your own water container.

Update :  Ecnerwal got me thinking -- vessels with thermostat controls.  (heater is easy, it's the thermostat that's expensive).  Crock pots have the unfortunate problem that they only have one to three present temperatures (low, high and warm).  There are, however, a few things that might be useful :

a deep-fat fryer.  Preferably cleaned, or one that can be disassembled to clean.  They tend to have very powerful heating elements, so you may need a screen to ensure that the pump and the food don't get to close to it.  You'll also want to check the dial for the lowest temperature that it can maintain.  (it might not go below 200°F)
electric skillet.  They're quite shallow, but if you're just cooking a steak for 1 or 2, it might work.  (again, check the dial to see what the minimum temp it'll hold is).  Depending on he size, it might be possible to put another container inside it to hold more water.
Coffee urns.  They can be much larger, but they typically just have one setting, so you'dd need a termostat on it.


The importance of leaf grade differs mainly between tea types and to a lesser extend between regions. For green tea picking is the most important. And the finer the pluck the more expensive it is. Anything between just a bud up to one bud and two leaves are considered premium.

However, for oolong and pu erh tea this is less important. For example with pu erh, you sometimes buy very expensive tea that consists of very large leaves, yet they may be expensive as they're from old arbor trees from famous regions. There's a grading system for pu erh though when it comes to blends. For more info you can read this post: pu erh tea grading system. Still, the higher the grade of the raw leaves, doesn't mean that the is better or more expensive. In fact, many prefer pu erh teas made from bigger leaves. When such leaves go through fermentation, it results in a sweeter flavour, while small leaves and buds result in more complexity. The latter is less durable though when it comes to the amount of brews.

As for oolong, I rarely see oolong teas made from just one bud one leaf, as it's far from optimal for the taste (this is due to a more intensive processing methodology applied relative to green tea).

At last, for white tea and yellow tea the grade of the leaves become a more important determining factor.


Why do different brands of butter taste different?

Cook's Illustrated (AKA America's Test Kitchen and Cook's Country) has done taste tests of various brands of butter, salted and unsalted, cultured and not cultured.

They found that the single most important thing in unsalted butter was how it was wrapped. Butter wrapped in foil doesn't pick up off flavors from its environment. Land O Lakes (incidentally my go-to brand) treats the parchment it wraps its butter in, and that parchment does keep out off flavors. Butter wrapped in regular parchment not only picks up off flavors, but over time loses moisture. The wrapping is an issue in salted butter as well, but not as big of one.

Secondly, obviously some butters are cultured and others are not. In the United States, most cultured butter is imported and is significantly more expensive. In the tastings, most people preferred cultured butter to uncultured when used as a spread. When used in baking, they found no difference.

The third issue they found was whether or not the cows were grass fed. Some tasters picked up what they called "barnyard notes" in the grass fed. Some tasters liked that, others did not.

In salted butter, the amount of salt varies widely. For use as a spread, most tasters preferred brands with more salt. For baking and cooking they almost always recommend unsalted butter.

Just FYI, Cook's Illustrated recommends keeping butter in the freezer until just before the stick's first use. Even foil wrapped butter will pick up some off flavors from long storage in the refrigerator.


The skin is thick and waxy. If you've got a vegetable peeler which takes off very thin slices, you could peel them. If you have a Brûlée torch or something similar, you could also just burn the skin off while keeping the flesh uncooked.


What happens to an acorn squash when its skin turns orange?

As long as it doesn't have soft spots, and when you cut it open there is no mold or rot inside, it is still fine.  I've often used acorn squash that have partially turned orange, and yes, that is just further (but unneeded) ripening.


Can I add unsweetened cocoa to a store-bought white cake mix to make chocolate cake mix?

A small amount will be fine, but if you try to add enough to make it significantly chocolate flavored, you'll throw off both the wet/dry ratio and the acid chemistry of the mix, and probably end up with an unsatisfactory cake.


Is it safe to wrap food in aluminum foil before baking it?

Not only is it safe but there are entire collections of recipes developed around "foil pack" cooking. Mostly centered around 'campfire' cooking, where one prepares all of the ingredients, wraps them tightly in aluminum foil and places the whole pack in the fire (or oven) to cook the dish.


What is the measurable difference between dry basil and fresh?

In addition to the great answer by M.K: Most industrially dried and fresh herbs are not even of the same exact kind.

Taking basil as an example: Most basil species don't preserve their aroma well during the drying process. So while you can use any kind of basil for fresh use, you can maybe only use certain kinds for drying, because they preserve the aroma a little bit better. This will of course lead to a different flavor profile, because they are different kinds of basil.

You can basically divide herbs kind of into "hard" and "soft". "Hard" herbs would be something like rosemary and thyme, which are quite dry and hard, even when fresh. They preserve very well during the drying process and can be used almost identical fresh and dried. "Soft" herbs, on the other hand, wilt easily and many of them become almost tasteless during the drying process. This includes basil, chives, certain kinds of oregano, and to a certain extend parsley. For these herbs freezing is a better preserving method!

Fun fact: there are plants that only get fragrant when dried. Woodruff is a common example of that (although, no one would call that a herb as far as i know). It starts giving of its distinct flavor only when wilting.


What temperature should a crock pot slow cooker cook at?

I, like you, assumed that a slow cooker would have a temperature regulator. I took mine apart, in a bid to find the thermostat and adjust it -- and discovered that it does not have one.

Cheap slow cookers contain an heating element which delivers a constant low heat, and all you can do is choose between two or three levels of power. It does not stop supplying that heat when the contents reach a particular temperature. It just keeps pumping that heat into your food.

This means that -- as long as less heat is lost out of the cooker walls/lid than the element is putting in, the contents will keep getting hotter until they reach boiling point, whereupon  the energy will instead go into turning liquid into steam.

I don't know whether more expensive slow cookers have a proper thermostat. It would be good to know.


Some vegetables are aromatics for infusing flavor without changing the underlying base, and certain combinations become known for cuisines.  Onion, celery and carrots make mire-poix.  Onions, garlic and tomato make sofrito.

Turnips and parsnips are not those kinds of vegetables, usually.  Parsnips get very sweet (a good thing usually) as do onions and carrots.  You just combined a lot of the ones that get sweet and intensified it by roasting.

If you are looking for a more neutral broth, stay with onions, celery and carrots and simmer, don't roast.


Why do the best pan-and French-frying potatoes differ?

Well, from those lists anyway, I think you've overlooked shape and size.

The "pan-frying" potato list is largely of varieties of round potatoes and/or rather small potatoes.  They won't produce very satisfactory french fries because of the simple fact that they aren't very big.  Or, if they are big and round, you're still bound to get a lot of very short fries when slicing near the edges.

For "french fries" you want a potato that's somewhat large and long.  Or at least oblong-shaped, so you don't end up with lots of clumpy short fries.  I'm assuming that for "pan-fried" potatoes, the site your list is from considers that you might dice them or make them into shapes other than long, thin strands.


Replacing quick-cooking oatmeal in a two-ingredient cookie recipe with cooked steel-cut oats - why doesn't it work?

If you want to use steel-cut oats/oatmeal, you'll probably want to start with a recipe that calls for it. You can substitute old fashioned oats instead of quick-cook oatmeal in most (possibly all) cookie recipes but you can't substitute cooked oatmeal without making major adjustments.

In this case, old fashioned oats are specifically called out in the recipe as a substitute with the note that quick cook oats will give the best result:

  Quick oats give the best results, however you CAN use rolled oats. Use Gluten Free Oats for gluten free cookies.

Oats are a dry ingredient. There's no water in them so they absorb moisture from the other ingredients to cook. In this case, the banana. When you cook the oats first, you're introducing a lot of extra water and it's likely to make them take much longer to cook and change the texture.

In a recipe for cookies made from instant steel cut oats, I found this substitution note:

  If you’re using traditional steel cut oats (not quick cooking), you’ll want to cook them first, just like when you’re making oatmeal. To use cooked oats, simply substitute one cup of cooked oatmeal for the instant raw oats listed in the recipe, and add an extra half cup of flour (or more as needed to achieve a non-runny dough consistency).

You might be able to salvage this recipe by doing something similar but if you really want to use steel cut oats, you'll get better results by finding a recipe that actually calls for them. If you want to use this specific recipe, use old fashioned or quick-cooking oats.


Are British curd, Cottage Cheese, Indian Chena the same thing?

Short answer: no.

'Curd' is the generic name for the solids obtained from coagulating milk.

Cottage cheese is a type of curd cheese that is unpressed, and not entirely removed of whey, so it stays creamy and wet, with soft lumps

Chhena is a curd cheese that is strained to (almost) completely remove the whey, and gently pressed to firm it up and form a more coherent mass of curd


Is there a non-recipe specific, nonalcoholic, universal substitute for white wine?

Yes. White grape juice with a splash of vinegar or lemon juice in it (optional). You can typically use stock/broth or water as well, depending on the application.


What is the difference between boiled vegetables and stewed vegetables?

The distinction is not so much what you add as what you do with the liquid. If I am making boiled carrots, when they're done I drain them, throwing the water away or possibly saving it to make soup with some other time, and serve the carrots. If I am making a vegetable stew then not only do I add things to the liquid (to flavour or thicken it, or both) but I keep the liquid, and serve the vegetables and liquid together in a bowl.


How do I prevent mold growth in homemade chili-infused olive oil?

You should make small slits in the chilies so they fill will oil, or just cut them in half.. This will enable them to sink. If the Chilies (or anything you are preserving in oil) stays above the surface you will get mold or worse. It's also a better idea to store in the refrigerator.


Is this siphon based recipe for mousse au chocolat trying to whip the cream?

This is an expected outcome. Foams made with a siphon are not especially stable over time.
If you are making a siphon recipe without stabilizers, you should prepare it in time for serving, not plan to store it.


How to adjust stewing time for different weights of meat?

With lamb (and stews in general) it's not a great idea to adjust cooking times to account for quantity of meat. I have found some useful information on this Chow.com article:

  The key to cooking any tough cut is slow simmering over low heat—lamb shoulder could take upward of two hours to reach the tender zone. Don't be alarmed if the meat seems quite tough after it's cooked for a while, sunshine842 says. The muscle fibers seize up, then relax into a state of tenderness after more cooking. Just keep simmering.

So if you reduce your cooking time to 30% then the meat will have 70% less time to relax and become tender. I suggest to instead stick with the original cooking time and just check it now and then. You can't really over-cook shoulder over low heat.


Why does tilapia and swai fish taste like catfish?

Swai and catfish are biologically related, but Tilapia is a Cyclid and as such quite far removed. I think the biological relation is not all that critical to their similar taste which you dislike though.

The taste of fish relies on a few factors such as:

Their living environment (Fresh, brackish, salt water)
The type of soil on the water bottom (silt, sand)
The diet of the species (other fish, water based plankton or bottom dwellers)

Catfish is a bottom feeding freshwater species and likely to have a relatively similar taste to other species that share their living environment and diet. As such I'm willing to bet you also don't like the taste of Carp very much.

Perhaps the solution lies in finding a fish that has a similar texture to Catfish but is a sea dwelling fish eater. That way you might get the appreciation from your eaters while being able to enjoy your own dishes more.


Not very long. Steaming is a better choice over boiling, but that can be kinda tough in a home environment. Here is the method I have used successfully with lobster for years, with a slightly shorter cooking time.

Defrost your crab legs first, of course. Gently, in the fridge overnight.

Arrange your defrosted crab legs in a heatproof container. Bring enough water to a hard rolling boil to completely cover all of your seafood. (Ensure that the water is salted, of course; as a rule of thumb it should be approximately as salty as the ocean.) After you are at a hard rolling boil, pour the water over the crab legs, cover tightly with foil (or a lid) immediately, and leave alone for seven minutes, eight if the legs are particularly thick. Remove from the water and eat.

You may optionally add other ingredients into the container with the crab: dill, fennel fronds, roughly sliced lemons (or any citrus; I love lime with crab), peppercorns, bay leaves, tarragon... the possibilities are functionally endless.


Convert grill recipe to convection toaster oven?

The conversion depends on what the recipe says to do for a grill.

If the recipe says to preheat the grill to high (for gas) or create two beds of charcoal under both halves (for charcoal), then preheat the broiler on your convection toaster oven and broil the food items on a rack set in a pan or on a grill insert.

If the recipe has a specific temperature, lower that by 25 degrees and use the convection cycle.

If the recipes doesn't give a specific temperature but instead suggests indirect grilling (where one side is higher and the food is on the low side or using a higher rack), use a lower temperature in your oven, perhaps 325, and cook as suggested.  That kind of recipe will probably take the most trial and error.


How to prevent/slow down fava beans from turning to darker color?

Your observation is interesting in that fava beans contain high levels of oxidants.  Persons with genetic susceptibility can get very sick from eating them.  This illness is called favism.

https://www.hematology.org/Thehematologist/Diffusion/8304.aspx

  The problem is that the bean’s protein content can include as much as
  2 percent vicine and convicine, which are converted in the gut to
  divicine and isouramil. These highly redox proteins are likely to
  retard rotting of the bean, but produce reactive oxygen species (ROS)
  including the superoxide anion and hydrogen peroxide, which rapidly
  oxidize NADPH and glutathione. These molecules are normally detoxified
  by catalase and glutathione peroxidase, in enzymatic reactions that
  depend on NADPH. Because NADPH levels are very low in G6PD-deficient
  red cells, these undergo severe oxidative damage. A characteristic
  feature of favism is that intracellular and extracellular hemolysis
  coexist.

Let us assume that color and flavor change described is due to these oxidants acting on the bean.  How to prevent?  I can think of one of 2 ways.  1: add antioxidants  2: prevent exposure to air.

The antioxidant that comes to mind would be lemon juice.  The experiment is easy: a batch of fava beans, then treat half with lemon juice and the other leave alone.  Does lemon juice prevent the color change?  Lemon juice works to prevent browning of sliced apples by this mechanism.

The other method would be to exclude air.  One could do this by tossing the fresh cooked beans with olive oil, which should produce an air barrier on each bean.  Submerging beans in oil would be a surer way to achieve the same purpose.  A third method would be to contain them in an airtight bag or container and exclude air first before sealing.  Again, testable.

*Note that submerging cooked beans in oil is not a way to keep them indefinitely.  Different and possibly more dangerous types of spoilage can happen.  Both of the above ideas are to keep your beans good for a couple of days at most.  Both sound delicious to me.


There are a couple of specific cases where you may have some luck rescuing a portion of the dish.  THis is not removing the burned flavor, but rather removing the unburned portion:

For a large pot of something like chili or spaghetti sauce, if you realize it is burned on the bottom, you may be able to scoop off the unburned portion at the surface.  Don't stir and don't scrape the bottom.  You want to leave the burned portion on the bottom of the pan.

It still won't be as good as unburned, as some of the flavors will penetrate, but it may not be totally horrible.
For a large cut of meat, like a roast, you may be able to cut off the burned portion, and rescue the remainder.

However, in general, once something is burned, the smoke and acrid flavors will penetrate it pretty thoroughly and there is no real way to remove that.  Masking the flavor with additional spices would be extremely difficult, and almost certainly require an unacceptably large quantity of spice (unless you are a fan of Dave's Insanity Sauce, in which case you may not care).

You have to decide if the food is unpalatable enough that you just have to discard it.


Will vegetables and fresh herbs last longer in the refrigerator in a plastic bag?

Drying herbs and lettuces before storing them in plastic is a good idea.  You can also lay them in the bag on top of a paper towel if you aren't able to remove all the water droplets from those pesky nooks & crannies.


Actually, you should leave it as it is. The outer coating has a much higher concentration of natural yeasts which is what you want. You'll have a better chance of getting a successful starter if you use all of the ground berry.


To address a few points:

palatability, taste

There's not much taste to the "skin."  As with ginger, it's more of a texture thing.  For larger/more mature pieces, the skin can be thicker and perhaps create more of a texture contrast.  I think most people tend to peel it, but it's not strictly necessary.

food safety or hygiene

No significant food safety issue.  Hygiene is about the same as any root/rhizome vegetable.  That is to say: anything in the dirt will likely be on the skin, so if you don't want to eat the dirt (and what may be in it), scrub well or peel.  If you are concerned about possible pesticides or something else in the dirt, peeling is likely efficient for removing any on the exterior.

As for nutrition, after a few searches, I haven't found good information that implies any significantly different nutrients in the skin.


How do I keep a hot meal fresh for several hours?

Refrigeration! They should be cooled to refrigeration temperature as soon as possible after pick up.  You can do this in a cooler with ice, if you don't have a refrigerator.  A portable cooler will allow you to take the dinners home on the bus.


Bao are very forgiving.  Food truck aside for a moment, as I don't know what kind of equipment you are carrying, bao can be prepared, steamed, cooled, then frozen.  They can be re-steamed directly from the freezer prior to service with no problem.  You can also make them on the day they will be served. You can steam, cool/refrigerate, then re-steam...or time it so that they are in the steamer during service. Depending on your volume, you can just keep a steamer stocked with the right number of buns.  They can hang out there for a while with no problem.


What's wrong with keeping frozen vegetables in refrigerator?

After a few days, they're almost certainly still safe. Most fresh vegetables will last a few days to a week in the refrigerator.

The quality might not be amazing, though. Frozen vegetables tend to get limp and soggy when they thaw; after a few days of being in the refrigerator, they might very well turn to mush once you cook them. But the chances of food poisoning are remote.


The purpose of pie weights (or improvised equivalents) is to keep the shell from bubbling up and warping when blind baking (baking without filling).

If you dock the shell well, and are lucky, it may not buckle, but the weights give additional assurance of a good outcome.

See also:  How to use pie weights?


How apart did you take it? There are 2 o-rings, 1 inside the spray mechanism and 1 on the outside of the larger plastic tube where it connects to the oil container. Losing either of these would pose a problem.

The nozzle on a Misto does not push down very far at all, maybe 1 mm at most. When not under pressure it is hard to detect any up or down movement.

It is possible if you pumped it up, tried to spray and nothing came out, that it is clogged. The answers to this question may help How to clean a clogged misto oil sprayer/spritzer.


You typically want to bloom the spices by cooking it over high heat for some period of time.  But if you cook it for too long, you risk burning the spices.
If you're trying to brown meat, the moisture in the spices both make it more difficult (because of the spices burning first), and throw off the color to let you easily tell when it's cooked properly.
When you're making a dish that cooks quickly (like fish) or that you want to stew more than brown, I'll cook the spice paste first, then add everything to it.
In general, my procedure for using spice pastes is:

Cook down onions or other veg that needs to soften and/or brown meat (optional)
Add spice paste
Cook for a minute or so (optional)
Add whatever remaining ingredients
Cook for another minute or so
Add liquid
Simmer until cooked through

I'm actually more surprised that your paste didn't mention cooking the paste for a minute or so, or letting it cook with the vegetables before you add the coconut milk ... but it's possible that it contained an ingredient that doesn't like high heat.
It's also possible that the goal for the red curry dish is for the individual ingredients to maintain their own distinct flavor with there being a sauce at the end, rather than it being more like a stew where the flavor meld together.


What should a good cookie dough look like?

Cookie recipes vary. There is no single consistency that all doughs should have. The proof is in the finished cookie.

Some of my favorite recipes produce doughs that are sticky enough that I can't "drop" the cookies onto the sheet without using my finger to scrape the dough out of the spoon. In these cases, it's easier to use an ice cream scoop with a triggered blade that will clear the dough from the scoop. Another trick is to refrigerate the dough for four hours, overnight, or for as many as three days. This will give the flour a chance to absorb more of the liquid ingredients. In addition, chilled dough is easier to work with, and produces a superior texture in the finished cookie. I add this step to nearly every cookie recipe.

I want to address, though, your concern that the dough you make doesn't match what you're seeing in pictures or videos. This could be due to the way you measure flour. There are several ways to measure flour, and each of them can produce a different actual amount for the same called-for measurement. Not only that, they may produce different actual amounts each time you measure. I assume that most modern recipes are tesed with a "scoop and level" method, unless something else is indicated. However, measuring by weight is more accurate. I convert all my cookie recipes to weight measurments. That way, I can ammend or reproduce them with complete accuracy. Lastly, I want to address the integrity of the relationship between written recipes and the pictures or videos that accompany them. Over many years of experience, I have found that relationship to be rather loose.


jdev is right about the USDA's cooking temps, but I would be very surprised if a warmer setting got your food above 140 degrees F (60 C).  When food is under that temperature, bacteria reproduce almost geometrically.  Later cooking will reduce your risk but not eliminate it.  In your case, if you didn't spend quality time in your bathroom last night, you dodged a bullet.

Most of the bugs that make us sick don't grow well below 40 degrees F and are killed when heated above 140 degrees F.  In particular, E coli, Salmonella (various types), Vibrio (various types), and Listeria monocytogenes, which are the most common of the bacteria that give us food poisoning, are all killed by heat.  We tend to get sick from them mainly because we ate raw/undercooked food or the bugs got into the food after the cooking is done.

There are a few nasties, however, that can leave behind heat-stable toxins even after they have been killed -- most notably, Staphylococcus aureus.  Staph a is a very common bacteria, the source of many illnesses.  If your food was contaminated with Staph a before you cooked it, and they had time to multiply, then even though the bugs themselves would have been killed by the cooking, their toxins would still be in the food -- and you would have gotten to know your toilet very, very well (symptoms at both ends of the GI tract begin within about 1-6 hours after eating and are severe, but they resolve in 48 hours).

As a general rule, don't eat or use meat, dairy products, or cut fruits/vegetables that have been in the "danger zone" (40-140F) for over 4 hours, even if you planned to cook it later.  (Obviously, there are a lot of exceptions to this rule, but that's another long post.)


Using frozen/cooked frozen blood in black pudding

The frozen blood (once it is thawed) would be the better option.  I would not consider the cooked and coagulated product to be interchangeable with the thawed product.


Spring forms are not entirely liquid-proof, so anything liquid can leak out of the form while baking. I personally set off the fire alarm a month ago trying to make potatoes au gratin in a spring form. In my experience, what tends to leak from a cheesecake is fat from the crust. Many recipes recommend baking a cheesecake in a water bath, which both helps the cake bake evenly and neatly prevents anything from leaking onto the bottom of the oven.
I will say that using beaten egg whites for an oven baked cheesecake is somewhat unusual. Most recipes include whole eggs, and you would try to avoid beating any air into the batter to prevent cracks from forming.


From this site I found that there are two major benefits to using a pie bird

  Prevent the pie from boiling over in
  the oven by allowing the steam created
  when the fruit filling or other
  contents are cooking to escape from
  inside the pie

  Support the pastry crust in the center
  of the pie, so that it did not sag in
  the middle

Based on the site it seems that they can be put in any type of pie.


What cooking techniques can be used on a barbecue?

First off, you can use a gas grill as a gas burner, and cook anything you could on the stove. It won't be very efficient, and won't be as pleasant as using a stove, but it'll work. The one big inconvenience is that since the burner won't be appropriately sized to the pan, or directly beneath it, you'll need pots and pans that can handle heat all around - in particular, you can't use anything that can't take the heat on the handle. Cast iron might be your best bet. But from there you can do whatever you want - saute, sear, etc. You're not really limited to one technique.

You can also essentially use the grill as an oven if you want to. You won't have precise temperature control like you would in the oven, and the temperature will vary more from side to side and top to bottom than it would in an oven, but it can reach the same kinds of temperatures. If you get a thermometer with a probe that can be left inside the grill, then you'll be able to adjust the heat as needed and get a sufficiently precise temperature to do most things you could do in the oven.

You'll want to use indirect heat to do this, so that whatever you're cooking isn't incredibly hot on the bottom. If you have three burners, you can use the two on the sides and put the food in the middle; if you have two you'll have to use one on one side and put the food on the other, resulting in somewhat less even heating.

Here again, you're not really limited to one technique. You can do braised things inside a dutch oven (like a pot roast). You can wrap things up in foil and roast them. You'll have a bit more trouble with things that are meant to cook open and care more about even heating, so for example thinner slices of meat (or fish filets) on a baking sheet might not be a great idea, but there's still plenty you can do.

All-in-all, I wouldn't think of this as learning a list of techniques. I'd just look for recipes you're interested in trying, and see if they seem like they'll work on the grill given all that.


How long can chicken stay out raw at room temperature before becoming unedible?

Chicken that has been defrosted in the fridge can be kept for an additional 1 to 2 days in the refrigerator before cooking; chicken that was thawed in the microwave or in cold water should be cooked immediately to be safe, but up to 24 hours or so should be fine.


grams of fat on nutrition facts label don't add up

There are different compounds included in the "total fat" calculation, which do not belong to any of the three classifications. Most probably, the larger part of the missing 0.5g are some kinds of phospholipids.


How is it that (temperature) heat makes some seasonings and foods (spicy) hotter, but mellows others?

I expect that you have already considered the most probable answer. For some spices, the aromatic compounds are released by some heat, but are not destroyed. Thus their effect is heightened. For other compounds, even a small amount of heat will destroy them and thus reduce their effect - see Mischa's comment.

I believe that the difference essentially lies in at what temperature a flavoursome compound starts to degrade.


Do I have to peel red potatoes before baking them?

No peeling is needed.

A good wash and proper cooking will handle all of your food safety needs.


What can you surmise about coffee beans that have oil on them at the time of purchase?

Coffee beans have a natural oil in them. Often beans that have been roasted longer will have more visible oil on the surface. Not really an indicator of quality, though, but a longer roast will be darker, have a stronger flavor, and (paradoxically to some) less caffeine.

(At least, this is what I learned when slinging Cappuccinos at a Canadian coffee chain during my college years a long time ago. Someone correct me if I'm mistaken.)


How can I get breaded chicken to stop from sticking to the frying pan?

You might also use a well-seasoned cast iron skillet. This will have the double benefit of a high thermal mass so the temperature won't be down, and a surface that discourages sticking.


How can I bake bread using a mother culture?

There is a good blog post on the Al Dente blog that talks about getting started with a sourdough starter. They use a starter from King Arthor Flour that is supposed to be 250 years old. :)


Do German or Japanese knives hold their edge longer?

The reason you're seeing conflicting opinions is because there are a number of factors (including steel composition, grind angle, grind profile, and usage) that contribute to a knife's edge-holding ability.

German/European knives are made of a softer steel than Japenese knives - they need sharpening more often but are easier to sharpen because of the softness.  Since the steel in Japanese harder, it needs to be sharpened less often.

The other factor is the angle of the edge - the German/European angle is flatter than the Japanese knives.  This means the German knives take 'abuse' better on the edge and requires less sharpening because of that.  You can see below that there are two different angles:

As far as which requires sharpening less, I'd say it depends on how general purpose your knife is going to be.  If its going to be going through bone and all sorts of things, the German edge will probably stay a bit better and the softer steel will re-hone better.  If you're mainly cutting veggies, breads, cheeses, and other soft items - the Japanese knife will last longer because the difference of edge doesn't matter as much as the steel here.


How can I dice vegetables on a small cutting board?

If you can't get a bigger cutting board, here are a couple pointers to getting the most done  CLEANLY in a small space (mostly tricks from my kitchen manager):

Use a sharp knife.  It's easier to control, and when you chop, pieces don't move as much.  Hone it at least daily to keep the edge aligned.
Organize your work on the board.  If you're right-handed, keep raw ingredients on the left side, and finished, cut product on the other.
Keep the spot you're using to cut clear.  It may only be 4-6 square inches, but it shouldn't have anything to get in the way.  I like to use the bottom middle of the board for cutting and the corners & top to organize stuff in various stages of cutting.
Remove trash (trimmings, ends, unusable vegetable scraps) from the board.  Either keep a trashcan next to the counter, or use a bowl to collect garbage.  This frees up space on your cutting board.
You can use additional bowls to store uncut material, and finished results.  This frees up more cutting board area.

All of these tips help, but I'll tell you what my chef told me:  the bigger your cutting board, the more room you have to work, and the faster you can go.  As your knife skills improve, you will be able to work in a smaller space without problems.  But first, start off with plenty of room.  As you you gain experience, your cuts become more precise, you organize your space, and work faster and cleaner.

With this advice in mind, you should move to a larger cutting board.  The extra space to work make it much easier to develop proper knife skills, because you're not trying to cramp yourself in.  I suggest the largest board that you can comfortably fit in your sink for cleanup.  With  professional knife skills, I can handle prepping multiple items on an 8.5" x 9.5" cutting board; however, I find that my 11" x 14" board provides a lot more room to organize my work, and is more comfortable to use.  At work, I use the biggest board I can fit on my station.


If we cut ourselves when preparing food, unless that food is going to be cooked thoroughly, should it be tossed?

There are a couple of things to consider here but it shouldn't be too difficult to cover them all.

If it is just you that is eating it. No problem. You are already exposed to your own pathogens. We've all tasted our own blood. There shouldn't be any real risk here.

If it isn't just you: Stop!

Under no circumstances should you feed me something I have no reasonable reason to suspect is in the food. I am not okay with this even if you do cook it. Are you willing to go into the other room and ask your guests how they feel about human blood in the chicken marinade? If it sounds like an awkward question that you don't want to ask, then throw it out.

That said, there are many foods out there with blood in them. Blood sausage, blood pudding, blood soup and more. I'm not certain of any risks that are peculiar to human blood specifically being consumed. There isn't a lot of research from credible sources out there. I personally would not rely on it being safe just because it can be done safely with pigs blood.

In short, if you cut yourself prepping a salad and don't notice til you've tossed it all together, throw it out. This unequivocally falls under the when in doubt, throw it out clause.


How much salt, add to tap water to purge bivalvia?

If you want to simulate seawater, you need 35g per 965g (more or less 1 liter)  of fresh water.


What is the purpose of cooking byriani in stages?

A risotto and a pilaf are very different dishes from what is happening during the cooking process. In a risotto, you want the starch to come out of the rice to make the "sauce", whereas in a pilaf the rice is generally soaked, washed, then pre-fried in oil or butter to prevent excess starch causing the grains to stick together, or indeed a sauce forming. While both can be cooked in one pot, the risotto will be more liquid and starchy than the pilaf, which should have clearly separate, dryish, but buttery, grains.

The same applies to a Byriani. If you were to add uncooked rice to the pan, the meat, veg, juices etc. and then seal and cook, the result would be more like a risotto and the rice stodgy. Byriani generally uses partially or fully cooked rice for this reason, resulting in more separate grains.


How to dry out mash - added too much milk

I keep a box of instant mashed potato flakes in the house. I use it only for two things: one is a super-quick pantry chowder and the other is to thicken over milked mashed potatoes. While I wouldn't want to eat a bowl of instant mash, a quick shake in this circumstance takes care of the problem and no-one's the wiser.


Keep temperature at exact 62C/143F for an hour

Are we talking liquid or solids? Water has a high specific heat, meaning you need a lot of energy to change their temperature. That being said, I'd either go for a sous-vide approach, seal whatever you want to keep at that temperature in bags and toss it into a pre-warmed 62° C water bath, or buy/rent a medium/upper quality range dehydrator. These usually work for temperatures between 50-90° C, and are quite accurate.


Why does canned mango pulp have no vitamin A?

The vitamin loss is due primarily to the puree'ing. The viramin A in mangoes comes from beta-carotene, and beta-carotene breaks down easily due to oxidation. On a similar note, I've seen recommendations that carrots (another good source of beta-carotene) not be chopped into small pieces before canning to preserve their vitamin content.

Lots of vitamins are also destroyed by the heat of canning, but beta-carotene is not as susceptible to this problem because it is fat soluble.


What kind of meat to use for Wiener Schnitzel?

The real, original Wiener Schnitzel is veal. Definitely. I can't link to a web source now, but I have some German cook books at home, including one solely about different kinds of schnitzel.

From the veal, you use parts 6, 7 and 11 for any kind of schnitzel, 7 being the best and highest-prized choice. I don't know the English names, maybe somebody can supply them. Also, try using leaner meat. I think that in the US, the fat marbled beef is considered higher quality. But in Europe, lean beef is preferred. A good beef schnitzel has maybe 3% fat.

This said, there are lots of places which cook pork schnitzels in the Wiener style and call them Wiener Schnitzel. It isn't traditional, but if you like the taste, there is nothing against doing it that way at home. They come from the same parts of the pig as the veal schnitzel: the ham and the lower back. Again, they should be very lean. And in both cases, unlike a steak, a schnitzel is always boneless.


How much salt does brining a turkey add?

I suggest starting with this Cook's Illustrated brining article for more information on brining.

Much of what would be transferred into your turkey is liquid from the osmosis, but some salt, and sugar if you choose to use it, would be added as well.

If you purchase an "enhanced" turkey that has already been injected, you don't want to brine it.  The injection has a similar effect.  If you've made an enhanced turkey in the past, you've already eaten a bird with added sodium.

Harold McGee states that the turkey will gain 10% of its weight in a combination of water and sodium.  Your brine comes out to about 3.9% salt, so your 12 lb turkey will gain ((12 lbs * .1) * .039) = .0486 lbs = 21 grams of salt from a 3.9% brine.  Your average soda has 55 milligrams of salt per serving.  The total amount of salt from your brine will be spread over the entire turkey, so divide that amount by the number of servings you expect that turkey to provide to get the number of additional milligrams of sodium per serving of turkey from brining.

If at the end of the day you don't want to brine, in that same article McGee also suggests a way to keep turkey moist without a brine.

EDIT: I did my math wrong above, and have corrected the formula and results.


how to make "Creme Caramel" coffee flavored?

Your question suggests you want to make the caramel syrup part coffee-flavoured.  I'd simply replace the water used in making that with espresso (if you can get real espresso).  You don't need much so if you can't make it at home, perhaps get a takeaway from a coffee bar. If you can't get real espresso, something close like aeropress espresso  or moka (stove-top espresso), in both cases using a lot of coffee to the amount of water.  Instant espresso powder is a last resort, or for reinforcing the flavour if it turns out too weak.
If you want to make the custard part coffee flavoured, I've had success in the past infused hot milk with ground coffee before filtering.  I was going for very strongly flavoured to make a latte buttercream, but you wouldn't need to.  Instead as the milk starts to warm, stir in ground coffee, continue heating, then filter (through a coffee filter paper, which you can put in a sieve for a one-off if you don't have a filter cone) before you add it to the egg.   Again, avoid instant coffee.  Strength will be hard to get right.  My best guess would be something like a tablespoon of ground coffee to 250ml of milk, but I'd suggest aiming for subtle rather than overpowering on the first attempt, and use a little less.
I referred to this recipe; you may need to modify my steps slightly if yours works differently.


With regards to the grit, if they aren't farmed mussels (which generally are fairly clean) you may want to give them a soak for a while. This will give them the chance to expel any further sand/grid they may contain. There are varying theories of whether to use tap water, salt water, sea water or various other concoctions. And admittedly there are those who say any form of soaking will do all sorts of harm to the flavour. But if the alternative is disappointing gritty mussels, why not give it a try.

And as always, ask your fishmonger for advice. They will know the origin of the product, and whether or not you need to take extra steps in preparing them.

As for discarding opened mussels, don't just discard them when they seem open on arrival. If the shell is not cracked, give them a light tap (on the counter or with a knife) and see whether or not they will close in response. If they close in response, they are fine. If they don't close or tell you to stop it, then discard them.

And if two thirds of the batch really are dead ... I personally would not necessarily trust the other third to be in great shape.


What is it in frozen food that makes chefs so mad?

I like chef Ramsay, he can be snobbish and course at times but he knows food and he's a straight shooter and tells it like it is.

Sometimes he's just saying the food isn't hot or even warm in the middle, but some times he is referring to frozen vs fresh ingredients. Most food is better when it's fresh, because freezing destroys cell walls and breaks down some materials. For everyday cooking that may be just fine, but when you are charging a premium for your meal, he expects top notch and I agree with him.

Just to put a foot note on it, try this at home. Steam some broccoli, side by side, use fresh broccoli and frozen and see what the difference is. It's quite a huge gap.


No creme brulee should not resemble butter in any way. Not in taste nor in texture. Its consistency should be like that of a thick custard where the eggs determine the firmness of the custard.
We tend to use single cream with 15% fat for our creme brulee. This works very well and leads to a lighter and less fattier result.


Can a failed cupcake be incorpated into a new cupcake?

I don't think "twice-baked" cupcakes would work out well. I think you would need a lot more than one extra batch to blend with it to get a decent texture. Mixing them directly into the batter would probably just make some odd texture in places. It might not be that noticeable but I think it is going to degrade your new batch of cupcakes and risk having even more unfortunate cupcakes to figure out what to do with.

Instead of mixing them into the other cupcakes, I think you could crumble them and use them in another way. They would make a good crumb topping (for ice cream, muffins, some of the new cupcakes or a fruit cobbler), or use the crumbs with some binding agent (chocolate, peanut butter, cream cheese, jam, honey etc) and perhaps some dried fruit or nuts to make no-bake ball or bar cookies. A lot of those recipes start with something like vanilla wafers or shortbread cookies and you could replace those with the cupcake crumbs. I think these crumbs would be a little less firm than the cookie crumbs but it should still work.


What are some good homemade foods that are the easiest to prepare?

Usually cheap and fast don't go together. For example the cheapest cuts of meat can be the most delicious if cooked slowly for a long time. Root vegetables (potatoes, carrots, parsnips, turnips) are delicious roasted, especially in olive oil (frankly everything is, even large summer squash that is almost tasteless transforms in the oven) but they need about an hour. If you have an oven and a microwave, I suggest cooking in the evening (perhaps after eating) and then reheating that the next day for you your lunch and dinner.

The other direction would be pasta (bought or made; it takes time to make it but you can make it one evening and cook it the next) or rice with a sauce made from canned (or cooked by you the previous day) ingredients. The sauce should either have a little meat, or have something to complement the grain protein: that will be either legumes (beans, lentils etc) or dairy (cheese, yogurt etc).

I think your best bet will be to do something each night after dinner that works towards your next night's meal. That will give you quick meals when you're hungry, but with the yumminess that time-of-cooking can provide.


Yes, you absolutely can eat turkey eggs. They are somewhat like duck eggs in that they are richer and creamier in taste. However, turkeys don't lay nearly as many eggs as chickens - perhaps 100 a year as opposed to a hen's 300, so don't expect to enjoy them too often.


Cakes that can be cooked whilst camping?

I'd look towards a dutch oven and cake-like items:

upside-down cakes
cobblers / crisps / grunts / bettys / slumps / etc.

In all of these, the fruit on the bottom helps to protect from the bottom of the cake-like-item cooking too quickly.  You can either cook directly in the dutch oven, or drop another pan inside the dutch oven to speed on cleaning if you're going to be cooking a few of 'em.

You'll also want to look for dutch ovens that are made for baking -- they have a lip on the lid, so you can put coals on top and pull the lid without the ash falling into what you're cooking.


Is there any difference between chopped and crushed garlic in cooking?

Chopped and crushed garlic have different flavors in dishes. The smaller the pieces the garlic is made into (with crushed being super small), the more pungent and bitter the flavors.  Several food bloggers have reported their experiments on testing the differences.

This sounds surprising, but members of the Allium genus (which includes garlic, onion, leek ...) are booby trapped: around the cells there is a liquid that when combined with a chemical from the cell's interior creates a series of nasty sulfur compounds.  The more the cells are damaged and exposed to oxygen by cutting or crushing, the more of these sulfur compounds are generated.

If the garlic is fried, the size of the pieces also determines how much of it browns.  For crushed garlic this can happen before one has a chance to add more liquid to the dish, essentially burning the garlic and imparting a bitter taste to the dish.


From Asian supply shops you can often find small packets of powdered fruits. Check the packet but many are made from actual fruit!

I have seen Apple, Cherry, Coconut, Lime, Mango, Pomegranate, Strawberry etc.

Google for powdered fruit and you'll find a variety of online sources

My favourite is Lime powder (99% Lime, made in Malaysia)

Add Aloe Vera powder to make a thickened drink

Add Arrowroot or instant custard powder to make a cloudy "juice"

Add Ascorbic acid powder (Vit. C) as a preservative (be careful not to exceed RDI)

Add Citric acid to make it more citrus like

Add sugar (real or fake) to bulk it out so a simple measure (e.g. one tea spoon) makes a glass of drink

Experiment with the quantities, but you don't need much of anything to get an effective result


What to look for when choosing a dutch oven?

I'd say there are basically two material options. Plain (seasoned) cast iron or enameled cast iron. I prefer enameled, because you don't have to worry about keeping them seasoned--just wash as you would any other pot--and the enamel surface is easy to get clean. But they're also more expensive by a significant margin. A properly maintained plain cast iron one will be awesome too, and do everything enameled will do for less money, so don't rule it out.

What you should consider:

The foremost thing you want to look for is a heavy pot. Heavy bottom AND heavy sides and lid. You want something that holds a lot of heat when you need it to, and heavier often means more even heating and better searing (crucial for braises and pot roasts).

Consider the lid. It should fit well, without gaps or sliding around. Some have loop handles on the side or on the top, some have a knob on the top. All are fine, but keep in mind that a metal lid handle will be more durable with all the oven time your dutch oven will likely see. They say the plastic ones are OK (Le Creuset, a trusted brand, uses them so they can't be that bad) but I'm not 100% convinced. Whatever handle you get, think about how easy it'll be to grasp wearing an oven mitt.

Handles on the pot itself are a potential issue. Some plain cast iron pots will have a bucket-style bail handle, which I don't think is that great for the kitchen, especially the oven. These are really intended for campfires and camp stoves, so I'd avoid them. Sturdy, compact but easy-to-grip handles of any type are good. It'll be heavy, so make sure you feel secure holding on.

Size is another consideration, and it's a tough one because it's so individual. I think between 5.5 and 6.5 quarts is pretty standard and works for most cooks. A dutch oven isn't like a stock pot, where big is always good. You want one big enough to cook the things you want, but you don't want it to be too huge for what you have in there, or you'll give up a lot of cooking liquid to evaporation too fast. This is less crucial for soups and stews (I'd do soup in a regular stock pot), but for a braise it's kind of important. So I would resist going too small, but don't go too far, especially if you're always cooking for two people. Also, bigger = heavier, so don't let your eyes get bigger than your muscles!

Another option is shape, as they generally come in round or oval. Oval sometimes helps people who can't decide how big to go. With roasts being generally oblong, an oval pan can fit a proportionally larger roast without getting really huge. With a round pot, your whole pot needs to be at least as big around as your roast is long. Ovals are a little less common, however, and generally don't come as big as round ones. They're often more expensive too.

Finally, don't compromise too much on size or cost. Any halfway decent dutch oven, properly looked after, will last much longer than you will. Make sure you're getting what you want, because you'll be living with your decision a long time.


Why did my eggless cup cake prepared with condensed milk get charred in a convection microwave?

It's probably best to make this cake in an actual oven (even if the recipe specified a microwave oven) as the heat will be more even. Anyway, ovens can be remarkably inaccurate in temperature so perhaps although you set your oven at 200 C it may have been actually at 225 C say. The batter may have also been quite thick and so have a higher tendency to burn unlike a thinner, wetter batter, if you pair this with the inaccuracy of the oven temperature then it's not surprising that it burnt.

Hope this helps for next time!


Cooking Turkey Legs and boneless Turkey breast in an electric roaster

Use a probe thermometer.  Cook the turkey breast to 160F.  Roast the leg/thigh until the temp reaches 180F.  Make sure the thermometer is not touching bone. The legs are more forgiving and won't dry out as readily. So, you might want to start the legs 40 minutes or so before the breast so that they are done around the same time.


You can add Mascapone Cheese to a plain italian tomato sauce. The sauce can take on quite a different feel to it from the normal pasta sauce which can make a nice change.


In Chinese cuisine, are the black beans fermented in Black Bean sauce?

I'd say a resounding no.
ermm... or yes, depending on whether I'm answering your topic title, or the question in the question ;)

You cannot use substitute beans, because the key ingredient for black bean sauce is fermented black beans. Everything else is an aromatic additive; easily substitutable depending on recipe & intended result.

Leave out the Szechuan pepper, sure; more garlic, why not; different vinegar, yup: different soy, whichever you prefer...
leave out the black beans... it's no longer black bean sauce.

You can, if you're lucky, get fermented black beans in "the West".
I'd recommend a trip to eBay, Amazon, local Asian Supermarkets, etc, if you want to make your own.
Once you have those, recipes for home made black bean sauce are easily available on the web.

I'm not sure I'd tackle the fermentation myself - I'd leave that to the experts.

On a 'shopping' note - if you're in the UK look for makes like Lee Kum Kee which have a London distributor but are as 'authentically Chinese' as you can get. I have no idea whether they are comparatively good bad or indifferent to a Chinese person, but they at least have a definite origin on the labelling.
[no affiliation, just what I can find a lot of in my local Asda & it tases alright to me.]
As a rule I avoid the 'foreign food for Brits' aisles* when shopping for foreign food - but your local market forces will dictate how much footage a supermarket will devote to 'real' vs 'friendly English substitutes' stock.

*Apologies if this may be considered 'inverse-racism' against my own culture - no prejudice intended except in flavour terms - but I prefer imported to 'made in Milton Keynes' when shopping for foods from other areas of the world.


How to scale a recipe for Neapolitan Pizza?

In general bread formulas are proportional, and can be scaled as necessary.


What is this Kenwood food processor attachment for?

I will assume the other end of the attachment is not for cutting. It looks like a tool for emulsification. You can make sauces like mayonnaise using the attachment.
Edit:
The comment of @steve-chambers confirms that it indeed is an emulsification tool.


Where does the shape of pretzels come from?

According to the Wikipedia article, the following is a likely story (or something similar to it, anyway) but may not be exactly right:

The very beginning of this youtube video of Alton Brown's Good Eats explains it rather well:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZR_evWiDbY

Essentially, it was created by a monk as a reward for children who did their daily prayers.  The shape looks somewhat like a person folding their arms across their chest, which is an older way to pray.

There is also the possibility that the loops make it practical to hang on sticks, more for display than for keeping the food safe.

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


All cutting (slicing, chopping) knives should be as sharp as you can get them, really. A dull knife is much more likely to cause an accident and cut you. Dull knives are more difficult to use properly and any knife used improperly is likely to lead to accidents. The duller the knife the more pressure you need to apply in order to cut your food, leading to a higher chance of slipping and hurting yourself


How to combat odor from pickled radishes inside refrigerator?

Since you didn't heat the glass after adding the newly chopped radishes, any bacteria on the radishes weren't killed. The solution (sour and salty) should reduce growth of bacteria, but
in this case this wasn't enough. Next time remember to heat the picles according to standard pickling instructions.


What is the way to make a powder of red chilies?

Chilies are dried before grinding.  There are several ways to dry them:

Leave them in an exposed part of the fridge for several weeks. There should be a lot of open air around it, to allow moisture to escape.
String them up outside.  To do this, poke holes and run strings through them and tie the strings up so they're spread out.  For best results, you should do this during hot, dry weather, and ensure they get plenty of sunlight.  Expect it to take several weeks.
Oven-dry them at low temperatures.  You want temperatures to be under 150°F/65°C so as not to cook them, and it will take several hours to a day or two.  Reduce the temperature if you see the peppers darkening or turning black.  Rotate the peppers regularly to allow even drying, and leave the oven door slightly open to allow moisture to escape.  If you wish to have a little more roasted flavor, increase the temperature.
Use a freeze-drying machine or dehydrator.

Discard any peppers with rotten spots, both before and after drying.  Before grinding, remove stems and seeds.

Grinding:
I've successfully used a blade-type coffee grinder to grind dried peppers into flakes. A blender or food processor should also work, assuming you are handling larger quantities.
I must confess puzzlement about what exactly a "mixer-grinder" is, even after consulting the link.  I believe the appliance may not have an exact equivalent in Europe or the United States.  However, if it is suitable for blending or grinding it should work fine for dried peppers.

I should add that you ought to wear gloves when handling the peppers, and beware of the fumes from the dehydrator or oven, as they may be very pungent. In extreme causes, protective goggles may be a good idea.


Bagels: Alternative to cornmeal on the baking sheet?

I wouldn't use corn muffin mix, as that has baking soda in it, might not be tasty! Use some flour. This works fine for pizza, so it should be good for bagels as well.


If you want tender ribs there's no substitute for time. Ribs are full of connective tissue, which makes them tough. Connective tissue breaks down in the presence of moisture and heat over time. The only way I know of to speed it up is to use a pressure cooker.