How long will fermented/brined pickles last?

The short answer is 1-2 years for traditional pickles, assuming a good recipe with adequate salt content and fermentation time (traditionally anywhere from a month to a few months).  For modern quick fermented homemade recipes, where the pickles are fermented in a week or so instead of months, I'd recommend using them up within a month or two.

Some representative sources (note the bolded bits about fermentation time):

"Fermented or processed pickles also have a very long shelf-life, about two years." (source)
"FERMENTED PICKLES: The oldest method of pickling, when a naturally occurring bacteria transforms the sugars present in the ingredient into an acid, preserving the food. These are called 'processed' pickles, and though they take as many as five weeks to cure, they last up to 2 years." (source)
"The product is completely fermented in 3-6 weeks.... In contrast to salt stock brining procedures [i.e., pickles removed from their liquid after fermentation and stored in a very heavily salted tank for future processing], genuine dill pickles do not require desalting and are often sold with the filtered fermentation liquor that is produced during the process.  The product must be consumed within 12 months." (source)

While these are common estimates, many books on the subject won't even give such shelf-life estimates (e.g., Sandor Katz's The Art of Fermentation), because there is so much variability depending on recipe and storage conditions during and after fermentation.

The other issue is that fermented brined pickles are "alive" in the sense that they continue to have microbial activity even after refrigerated.  Unless you "process" the pickles after fermentation by heating to a high temperature and canning, you should expect that pickles will change their taste and texture continuously.  You might like pickles that are "just finished," but dislike their flavor or texture after a month or two in the fridge (or the reverse).

Traditional pickle-makers often take advantage of these changes, for example by selling "half sours" which taste like something between a fresh cucumber and a pickle and have only been partially fermented.  "Half sours" and other pickles that have not completed fermentation before refrigeration have a much shorter shelf-life (usually a few weeks), because the lack of full acidity in the liquid and remaining sugars and other nutrients in the cucumbers may still allow other things to grow and for spoilage to occur.

Even after a longer fermentation, expect pickles to gradually get more sour and to soften in texture as the months go by.  However, with adequate salt content and full fermentation, and as long as you are not contaminating the storage container, there's no reason to expect they will actually "go bad" at refrigerator temperatures for at least a few months and potentially much longer.

Traditionally, long-storage pickled cucumbers were fermented in (and subsequently stored in) a cool place, like a root cellar or other underground compartment, which probably stayed around 50-55 degrees Fahrenheit most of the year.  At these cooler temperatures, pickles usually needed to ferment for at least a month and sometimes a few months before achieving full flavor.  Since the root cellar temperatures were often above refrigerator temperatures, they would then continue to get even more sour and gradually begin to break down as the months went by.  However, the purpose of storage was to have cucumbers available throughout the year, so last year's batch would be used up and then be replaced by the new harvest.

Today, most people tend to ferment homemade pickles faster (often at room temperature) and often with less salt than the season-long ferments of the past would use.  This produces pickles more quickly, sometimes in as little as a week or so, with pickles that are not as extreme in their sourness and saltiness as the long-storage pickling of the past.  The flavor profile can also be somewhat different, due to greater activity of some microorganisms at room temperature.  Depending on the recipe, they are often not as stable and should probably be consumed within a few weeks or months.  (For example, Alton Brown's relatively fast pickle recipe recommends storing the pickles no longer than two months in the refrigerator.)


Yes, cranberries freeze extremely well.

Since you will be macerating them with sugar, and since the texture of fresh cranberries is not that pleasant anyway, any slight softening from the freezing should not be a detriment--it might even be an improvement.


Homemade ice cream texture gritty, sandy?

It sounds very much like you didn't manage to completely dissolve the sugar. It's also possible to get a bad texture from ice crystals in your ice cream, but I don't think you'd describe it as gritty or sandy, just icy.

It can be rather difficult to dissolve that much sugar in liquid, especially if it's cold straight from the fridge. You might want to try heating it gently and stirring, and being careful to go until there's no undissolved sugar hiding at the bottom. That does make the chilling take a bit longer, probably more like 4-8 hours or overnight, not just 1-2 hours. But in my experience heating to dissolve is pretty much standard in ice cream recipes, presumably because it's about the only way to do it easily.

Note that if you do heat it, using only part of the liquid (say one cup out of a total of three cups) is probably best. That way there's still plenty of liquid for it to dissolve quickly, but you aren't heating it all, so you can add in two more cups of cold liquid and cool it back off so it'll be chilled enough to freeze sooner.


Seasoning a forged iron pan / cast iron pan - Is there any research about the process?

Try this link
Is there a difference in the ease of seasoning cast iron, forged iron, and carbon steel?

and the article it links to "that explains the science behind seasoning".

Another https://www.eatthis.com/season-cast-iron-tips/  "Unsaturated oils include canola and vegetable oil. They are chemically structured in a way that helps them polymerize to the metal, which helps create that non-stick surface on a cast-iron skillet."

And more on the science of it:
https://www.scienceofcooking.com/science-of-cast-iron-skillet-cooking.html


You really need to filter it first. If you wouldn't drink it, don't cook with it (also good advice re: wine). There seem to be sources on the internet regarding how to make rainwater drinkable, so I would start there.
(example: http://www.rain-barrel.net/drinking-rainwater.html)

If you're already drinking your rainwater, and haven't died yet, it's probably safe to cook with.

If you're planning on using it as an ingredient in baking, or any dish where the pH is critical, you may want to actually test the pH of the water you're putting in and try to balance the recipe accordingly (substitute some baking soda for baking powder, for example).


chicken shish kabobs the night before cooking

Having the vegetables and meat marinate or assembled together is fine, so long as the finished item is thoroughly cooked.

When grilling skewers, you cook long enough to have the meat to a safe temperature, so the vegetables should be cooked through by then.

For greatest safety, make sure there is a little spacing between the items on your skewer, and if this is not done make sure they are cooked through.


The strongest smells in mayonnaise should be vinegar and egg. There shouldn't be any yeast, and therefore any yeast smell, so that is a bit concerning. I am not sure what might imitate a yeast smell.

I don't know how to counter the smell since I am not sure what the origination of the smell is. Does it taste okay? Is the texture okay? I do find that homemade and store brand mayonnaises have pretty different smells in general.


Why does chocolate go grainy when I melt it?

When your chocolate goes grainy it's called "seizing". There are two main reasons for it to seize:

Water: water getting into the bowl of the double boiler, either because it wasn't dry in the first place, or because of condensation.
Overheating (burning).

Unfortunately, once chocolate has seized there aren't reliable ways to re-temper that particular batch.  Use it for baking or turn it into chocolate sauce, or something.


Conversion of liquid rennet to powdered rennet?

1 ml of liquid rennet is more or less equivalent to 0.12 grams.

So 1 tsp is 5 ml; which should equivalent to 0.6 g powdered rennet, or 1 rennet tablet.


How can I get even heat from consumer gas stovetop burners?

So this may not be exactly what you were looking for, but I purchased one of these cast iron heat diffusers to help "tame" the heat from the cheap-o gas stovetop in my college apartment. You have to take the time to heat it up, but it helps distribute the heat evenly.

Cast Iron Heat Diffuser on Amazon


Is an oil-based roux cooked the same as one made with butter?

A roux is just cooking flour in an equal amount (or thereabouts) of fat. If you've already done it in butter, you already know what you are doing. Butter is tricky because there is some water left in the butter and the fat itself has a low smoke point. After making a roux with butter, another fat is easy.

Butter contains water, but it's not so picky that the small amount of water matters as far as measuring the butter; it's more about compensating for the butter's behavior and not allowing it to burn.

Do the same thing with any oil as you have with butter, and you will be fine.

If anything, you will find it easier with another fat. Just go roughly 50/50 and take your time.


How long can I store open wine for cooking?

Wine has to be drinkable to be used in cooking, if it goes nasty you'll be adding the nasty flavors to your food! Don't cook with wine you wouldn't be happy to serve at your table.  Wine keeps for a long time in the refrigerator, so cap it back up as tight as you can and get it in there as soon as you can after using it.


Lots of bacteria aren't killed by wine or any acid marinade.
Anyway, if jars were sealed and content pasteurized they probably didn't grow any bacteria meanwhile. You can consider cooking it if you're unsure.


Kimchi not very fermented, did not expand or get juicy

Patience. Unless the weather is quite warm, a week is a more typical minimum fermentation time; three weeks if you use a refrigerator method.


That sounds like you allowed the bread to dry while it was rising.  And also that you allowed it to rise too long.  The latter will produce large air pockets, and the former will make them form just under the crust.  Cover your rising bread with a damp towel, don't let it get more than twice as large as it started, and you should be fine.


It depends.

If your current “sweet spot” percentage gives you a panna cotta that’s sturdy enough to hold up on its own, so that you can make clean “cuts” with your spoon, you are fine also in larger shapes.
If your preferred ratio is rather soft and creamy, so that the upside-down servings sag significantly, go up. Of course it won’t be as creamy and melty as before, you are making it more solid on purpose.

Only you know how your recipe turns out.


You could do that, but it would not save much weight and will be perishable.  The concentrate will have enough water to spoil.  If you want to take this course still, prepare a concentrate by using about 4x as much mate and steeping somewhat longer.  You can reduce it over low heat, but probably not enough to get a sludge without hurting the flavor.

If you're concerned about weight, I suggest light equipment. 50g of mate will make you about 15+ cups of it.  To steep it, I suggest getting a very light tea infuser, either a basic basket or cup with built-in infuser. This way you can enjoy fresh yerba mate.


After dumping out a couple of jars of failed not-quite-fermented fennel I wondered, "Could fennel have antimicrobial properties?"

<< facepalm >>

Why, yes. Yes it could:

An article on PubMed
Another on PubMed
One on Science Direct
One on Research Gate

Granted, these are about the essential oil and not the whole plant. So I can't be sure this is the problem, but it seems very likely.

Maybe a little fennel mixed in with something else won't muck up the fermentation process, whereas a whole jar of fennel can.

And though it's hard to know, I suppose there could be a safety concern. Lacto fermentation protects us through (1) salt, (2) oxygen depletion, and (3) acid production. Based on what I saw with the failed batches, (2) and (3) may have been below normal. If salt-tolerant critters were to survive... that could be bad.


Measuring Oven Temperature: Surface or Air?

Generally speaking ovens are controlled by a thermostat that (to a first approximation) measures the air temperature.  This is what recipes expect. It's also why for some very sensitive baking it's not sufficient to preheat until the thermostat says the setpoint is reached, as the metal inside (e.g. shelves) hasn't yet warmed up (and a reason for sometimes preheating a dish or using a pizza stone).  A lot of heat in the air is lost when you open the door, heat in solid contents much less so. Note that not all the air is at the same temperature anyway.

I would expect the temperatures of the air and a pan to converge over time, if you can avoid opening the door: the element heats up the air, the air heats up the pan. There may also be radiative heating of the pan from elements either visible or embedded in the walls/floor of the oven. For element you can also read "flame" in a gas oven.

If heat is mainly transferred through the air, the air temperature will rise faster than that of the pan (possibly much faster), but once the air temperature reaches the setpoint the pan temperature will catch up.

If radiative heating of the pan is significant, it could heat up ahead of the air and therefore exceed the setpoint, but once the setpoint is reached and the element switches off, it will cool to the air temperature.

If you keep opening the door to measure using the IR thermometer, all bets are off, so to track convergence you'd be best using two oven thermometers, one in the pan and one suspended from a rack.  Make sure you can read both without opening the door, and make sure they read the same.

Although it's the air temperature that matters, if coooking something sensitive you should preheat until the metal and air are close to the same temperature, and then the air temperature will recover quickly after you (quickly) put the bread in.


It's too risky for my tastes.  Cooked seafoods (fin-fish and shellfish) are nearly a perfect growth medium for bacteria, so they have a particularly short shelf-life even when properly kept refrigerated -- perhaps three days.  Here is a PDF from the Texas A&M Agricultural Extension Service with some useful guidelines.


Why does tea become bitter if brewed too hot or too long?

Tea contains a lot of flavinoid compounds notably tannins. Tannins are astringent and have a very strong bitter flavor.

The tannins are released much more slowly compared to the other flavor compounds. So when brewed for too long or too hot, much more tannins are released into the brew along and hence the resulting tea is much more bitter.


Acid and Salt are preservatives. A bag of fresh chillies will rot within a month even in the fridge, a proper chilli sauce won't.

Also acid and salt are part of the common taste profile of most savoury dishes anyway, and if the sauce is used as an actual sauce e.g. on protein, these are welcome seasonings too.

Some famous types are rather close to the basic recipe: Sambal Oelek, Sriraja Panich etc.


Can I make a pot roast in a foil roasting pan with lid?

If you follow proper cooling and food storage methods you should be able to treat this just like any other par-cooking method. I would suggest browning the meat and veg and then cooling it quickly by placing it in a large zip top bag with cold stock to rapidly cool the meat. This will enable you to quickly cool the meat and allow you to store/marinate the meat until you want to cook it at a later date. I would add the wine to the bag the day before you are planning on cooking the roast so you don't overdo it with the wine flavor.

Basically, as long as you rapidly cool the meat after browning and then store properly in the fridge you should be just fine.


Use food grade mineral oil
While one could use any edible oil (assuming frequent washing as many go rancid) to condition a wooden cutting board, food grade mineral oil or "butcher block conditioner," which is food grade mineral oil with waxes, is preferred because it will not affect the flavor of foods cut on the board.


Scientific results on which oils to use for pan-frying

I would also consider the health implications as there seems to have been quite a lot of medical research into the carcinogenic effects of repeatedly using oils. This may well run parallel to what you are looking for e.g. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28925728/ etc.


Can you buy plastic food containers like "Tupperware" in specific or custom dimensions?

The food and hospitality industry faces the same problem as you do: restaurants want to store food in a space-efficient manner, but for decades, a business model in which a mom-and-pop place gets a manufacturer to produce 15 containers of their perfect dimension was not viable. Nowadays mass customization is theoretically possible, but the industry has already solved the problem by a different way: standards.

Specifically, there is the Gastro-norm international standard for food container outer dimensions. (If you read German, click through to the German Wiki article, it is much more detailed). It is similar to the DIN paper sizes standard. Many manufacturers produce containers of these sizes independently of each other. Storage space manufacturers produce racks, cases and display systems designed to perfectly fit a given number of Gastro-norm sized containers. This might be the best solution you are going to find, as it is so widespread that I don't know of anybody trying to use a custom solution.

Note that I have seen these containers mostly used for display purposes in canteens. In this case, they were open stainless steel containers. So I don't know 1) if you can get them in plastic, and 2) if you can get covers for them, especially tight-fitting Tupperware style covers. I don't know if this is a deal breaker for you.

If they don't work, you can probably find a combination of plastic containers and storage cases which are close enough that you are only losing a minimal amount of space when fitting multiple plastic containers into a case, but it will need searching. Still, you're not losing more space than by, say, storing books on a shelf. If you get problems with transportation (containers shift in the box because they're not a tight fit), some reusable package fillers should take care of that.


The secret to hash browns / home fries / breakfast potatoes

It sounds to me like the issue may be that you're crowding the pan.

Basically, to get everything nice and brown and crispy, you need enough space for all of the steam to escape.  That picture you showed has potatoes stacked on top of each other -- that means as the bottom items cook, they're going to end up steaming the items above them.

At a diner, they have a large griddle to work with -- they can really spread things out.  You're not typically that lucky in a regular kitchen, as you don't have as much space, and you have a lip on the pans that'll hold the steam in.

So, either work in smaller batches, or consider recipes that use an oven -- using sheet pans instead of a pan on the stove solves much of the problem.

One other trick is that most diners don't start from raw potatoes -- maybe with hash browns, but not for home fries, you're not going to get the nice soft interior in a reasonable amount of time unless you start with a potato that's already been baked or boiled.  (If you're doing things in the oven, you might be able to, but not in a pan)

Just for reference ... I have a 14" cast iron skillet that I use for home fries ... and it's about the right size for cooking a single large potato, which might be two servings, maybe three for kids.  (I tend to cook carb-heavy meals).

update : I probably should've stated this directly -- you want the chunks of potato to form a single layer in the pan, with space in between them.


Should homemade lasagna be frozen cooked or uncooked?

I'd say freeze nearly all of them uncooked and bake when ready.  That way they go through only one cooking and maintain the fresh lasagna taste/feel.

The sauce and and the cheese will freeze ok.  Mozzarella is a pretty sensitive cheese and once it's been baked, it's not going to hold as well when thawed and re-warmed. In my experience it gets gummy and the fat runs off.  You have much better chance of enjoying a good meal with the cheese frozen raw.

Unfortunately, your noodles will likely take the hardest hit, but will likely fare better than going through two heat cycles.

The ground beef and sausage will also fare better that way.

The reason I suggested freezing MOST and not all, is that there are times when you're behind the 8-ball, hungry, and don't have the time to bake the sucker, and even ponder settling for dog-food.  At that point having a silver bullet in the freezer is a bonus ;) and you'll be ok with inferior lasagna.


What's wrong with if you only sharpen, and never hone, your knives?

A kitchen knife has two different structures of steel in it; hard steel in the edge so that it can be sharp, and soft steel in the spine so that it can be flexible and tough. The real danger of too much abrasive sharpening is removing all of the hard steel from the edge of the knife, at which point it will become impossible to give it a good edge.
Where I've seen this happen in practice is cheap stamped steel knives (many of which have a fairly thin layer of hard steel to begin with) sharpened using an electric sharpener for years. My mother has some that are basically butter knives now.  Forged knives tend to have more hard steel, so it takes a lot more over-sharpening to remove it (still, my mother-in-law has managed, after grinding off 4mm of the edge over 30 years).


Which type of charger for soda syphon batter

Most batters made in a soda syphon/whipper that I have seen, and used myself, use N20. Though, often, when the goal is aeration, CO2 is used.

A description of what you are making, and which brand of whipper, might allow a better response.


How can I improve my bread-scoring technique?

This is an annoying problem, you've gone through all the effort to make beautiful loaves and then the razor catches and makes an ugly mark, or even deflates the bread a bit.

This is most likely to happen on high hydration doughs as they tend to be stickier. The trick is to stop it from sticking in the first part of the cut. The best way to stop sticking is to oil the blade before each cut. I drop some on a paper towel and use that to apply it, some bakers use an oil sprayer. Water also works, you dip the blade in water before each cut.

Also, there's technique. If you cut with the tip it's much more likely to catch, you need to cut with the flat of the blade. Don't press in hard, let the blade do the work.


What type of flour is ideal for sourdough?

Tartine Bread by Chad Roberts (which is a wonderful book, by the way, and the bread is fantastic), recommends using a 50/50 mix of white and whole wheat bread flour.  He also says all-purpose flour is fine for a starter as well.

Self-raising flour would definitely not be appropriate, since it has baking powder in it.


How to classify the parts of a recipe ingredient?

This is an exercise in data modeling, more so than cooking.
What you are describing is the design of your database.
You are on the right track.

You will want to consider how many of each of the fields you need to have.  For example:

Quantity - Unique [there will be exactly one of these]
Quantity unit - Unique [exactly one]
Brand - Unique [optional] (either one or none)
Variation (or style, or preparation-note) - Non-unique [optional] (0,
1, or many)
Ingredient - Unique
Initial cooking temperature - Unique
I.c.t. Units - Unique

Preparation Instructions - (you have a decision whether to make one block text, or a series of fields which may or may not be used)
Cooking Instructions - (same as Prep. Instruction)
Cooling Instrutions...   et cetera

ADDITIONAL:

To your question about when multiple modifiers might be used with an ingredient:
You might have an ingredient which is expected to be prepared at the time of cooking.  So: "minced onions, blanched".  It would seem that order might be important to you here, as well.  As you see here, there are two styles (I just realized 'modifier' might be a more all-encompassing field-name).

So you might typically see the descriptive nature of the ingredient listed like this (although maybe not the exact verbiage - I'm not sure if this exact ingredient has ever been listed).  So you would have to make a decision as to whether you could have 0+ modifiers listed before the ingredient, format with a comma, then have 0+ commas after the ingredient.

Naturally the comma would only appear if there were >=1 modifiers listed after the ingredient.

Since I have thought about how infrequent you might see minced onions, blanched...you might instead see shredded red potatoes, salted and peppered.  There are many considerations with respect to how modifiers could used, to be sure.

One more word - in database design, you'll want to take as much time as you can to develop pre-authoring/programming.  Any minor change to the database schema could cause you to have to start all over again.  :)


How do you make sure the roast chicken and the sides are done at the same time?

Simply put the sides in before or after the meat for an appropriate length of time such that everything is ready at once.

For example, say my roast chicken takes 1.5 hours to cook including resting. Roast potatoes take 1 hour. Therefore I put my roast potatoes in the oven 0.5 hours after I put the chicken in, and they are both done at the same time.


Defrosting approx 3.5kg of pork, and then cooking more than once?

Your proposed method is possibly dangerous, you'd be warming it enough for botulism to thrive, but not enough to kill it. When you cook it, cook it properly and all at once. What I'd suggest is simply cooking it on Friday, then re-heating it saturday, or getting up early enough to cook it through on Saturday. As for when to thaw it if it's a truly heroic size I'd thaw it in the fridge starting 48 hours before you want to cook it.

As for how long I'd usually do 20 minutes per pound plus 20 minutes as long as the meat is room temperature to start with, so for 7.5 lbs, so that's near enough 3 hours as makes little difference. Not that long really, if you wanted to serve at 1pm you'd want to get it out of the fridge as early in the day as you can, get the oven on at 8:40 on 350F (375 F on a conventional oven), get the meat in at 9, roast till 12, then rest it for an hour. Crank the oven up to max for the last 20 minutes to get the crackling extra crispy.


What can I do if I forgot to cream the butter and sugar in my cookie recipe?

meh; I have used the “reverse” mixing method for sugar cookies; which is essentially what you did; just need to add more butter and/or cream cheese to pull together now.

The only thing you can't recover from is if you over-mix the flour; if your cookies are glue'y then you over-mixed and you need to throw away.

I find that the details are much more important in sugar cookies; type of flour, type of sugar, butter, ratio; etc...

Letting the dough sit over night will allow autolyseae to happen; as a added bonus.

My recipe:
2 1/2 cups flour; sifted
3/4 cup supppppeeeerrr, superfine sugar (usaully blended in ninja)
1/4 teaspoon salt
16 tablespoons (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into 1/2″ pieces & softened
2 tablespoons cream cheese, softened
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Blend dry ingredients; add butter cubes until desired consistencey; cream cheese to pull dough together.


UHT (Ultra High Temperature) processing kills all the pathogens in the milk, so it can be conserved for a long time. However to make yogurt you add bacteria (lactobacillus), so if there aren't other microorganism it should be even better.


Great question.

First off, the mold. This is nothing to worry about, you should be skimming it off but as far as Vinegar creation it's normal and to be expected.

These "worms" have a name :-) Turbatrix Aceti (a.k.a Vinegar Worm) you can read more about them here -> wiki/Turbatrix_aceti

Why is that mold there? Well if you think about the fermentation process. It's just thousands of bacteria 'eating' your 'mother' now they have to produce something as a byproduct which is the mold you see on the top. Get rid of it and leave it to carry on.

  If you see a scum forming on top, don’t disturb it; this is the
  mother. Eventually the mother will sink toward the bottom and continue
  its work. However if you see mold forming on top, by all means skim
  that off. Mother isn’t moldy; it’s scummy.

Source: http://www.rural-revolution.com/2013/07/making-fruit-scrap-vinegar.html <- Well worth a read since you're making vinegar :-)

Mold = Bad (Clean it off)
Froth = Good (Leave it alone til' it turns to mold.

Question: Is the vinegar batch completely spoiled?
Answer: No.


How about a good website? http://www.kingarthurflour.com/ Be aware that the brand of flour that website stresses measures and behaves slightly differently than other brands of flour, but they are usually interchangeable. In other words, a recipe on that site will always say such and such amount of a particular type (bread flour, all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour) of King Arthur Flour. 99 times out of 100 another brand of the same type of flour will give the same results.

I love that the recipes convert from volumetric to weight with one click of the mouse. Also, the reviews are very helpful.


Which method of preparation would produce a more tender and juicier steak, grilling or broiling?

If by 'grill pan' you mean something heavy (cast iron) like:
 OR

then it would be your choice as to whether you want to heat them
on top of your stove or under your broiler. If your 'grill pan' is less heavy duty (say aluminum) then it is unlikely to be capable of with standing the heat required to 'best' cook a steak. When the weather here does not favor outdoor grilling I get great results out of placing my cast iron griddle/grill (similar to the second picture) inside of a half-sheet pan and under the broiler to preheat. Once the iron reaches 500F I will add the steak for about 3 minutes per side (for a med-rare) I would also suggest wiping the iron with a little oil first.


How to make my chicken noodle soup thicker?

I don't see any starch on the list.  Starch is generally how you thicken stocks and sauces.

Corn starch is probably the most common and the easiest to find, and you should see results with no more than a tablespoon.  Just be sure to add it while the soup isn't too hot and stir very thoroughly, otherwise you'll end up with lumps.

A more reliable approach is to use a roux, although that will give you a more "creamy" end product.  If you just want a little thickening, use a starch like corn starch or tapioca flour.


Frozen bread dough that has been thawed out in the refrigerator for five days

Safe, yes.  Some recipes call for intentionally keeping the dough in the fridge for at least several days.  However, keep in mind that the flavor may be altered.  The yeast makeup of the dough may change over time.  Generally the dough will become more sour the longer it sits.


First time cooking/eating asparagus, what's the best way to cook it?

Snap the hard part of the asparagus, bend the asparagus and it should snap at some point near the harder part.

Use a peeler to peel the out skin of the stem, the outer skin is tougher, more fibrous.

In all situation, be careful not over cook them, then should still have some bite to them.

Steam or boil, use them whole in this situation.
Pan fry in oil and/or butter, I prefer cutting them in smaller pieces.
BBQ or grill them whole (my preferred way).


It sounds like there's going to be some time between when it is cooked to when it is served, in which case the last thing you'd want to do is pre-carve it as it will dry out. Beef should rest after roasting, some chefs recommend roasting it as long as you cooked it, so don't worry if it takes 2-3 hours.

The important thing is to make sure you keep it warm and as moist as possible, so what I would do is wrap it in foil and put it in the bottom part of a tupperware container. The foil will keep it warm while the container will catch any drips. You can put the container at the bottom of a bag for transport, just keep the bag open. It's not going to overcook as long as you take it out 10-15 degrees F below the target temperature.

Just today I made a 2 rib roast and rested it by wrapping it in foil. The temperature climbed about 12 degrees after I took it out, and an hour and a half later it was still warmer than when I took it out of the oven, so the method works.


One thing to be aware of with many commercial vegans cheeses is that these work much better for melting over pizzas or casseroles if mixed with some additional liquid (eg by soaking the grated cheese substitute in some soymilk or soy cream and applying both together).

If looking to make your own meltable vegan cheeses, use recipes using plenty of fat and a combination of agar and tapioca starch as a starting point for experimenting.

Be aware that the mouthfeel of melted cheeses is quite a complex matter: It is more or less defined by a set of textures achieved at different temperature points (and probably the delay in texture change!) throughout enjoying a portion (which will cool down during doing so. Body temperature also plays a role here...).

Be aware that cheese melted over casseroles has a functional role in cooking them - once it is melted (melting temperature plays a role here..) it acts as a partial vapor seal, and probably also gives off or binds moisture/salt/fat.

Be aware that the melting behaviour expected of conventional cheese has regional subtleties to it: Somebody used to american-style processed cheese in these roles could be put off by the liquid separation/curdling/firming/hard stringyness effects you get from using natural cheeses, while somebody expecting the latter behaviour would probably consider the more homogenous result from processed cheese as mealy/stodgy/gloopy.


A couple of suggestions to help maintain constant heat.

Time it such that you are only adding a little fuel at any one time.  Adding half new fuel will cool down considerably as it has to catch, burn, etc.  Adding 10% fresh at one time is much better, for example.
Conversely, if you're lookin' you ain't cookin'.  Open as little as possible.  Remember there will be a lag to any specific change.  If you change the vent, look at the temp after 5min then after 10min to see if the trend is up or down, and if it is accelerating or slowing.  Use that as a guide to your next change.
Thermal mass is your friend.  Get yourself some appropriate stones, bricks, etc.  If you have any room left over from your fire and meat; fill the space with the bricks.  They will help to smooth out the heat from open/closing as they take up space that would otherwise be taken by "cold" air when you open to refuel.  Obviously you need to not block actual ventilation.

Overall the kettle is a nice grill; but leaves a little to be desired for smoking.  The offset firebox style where you can refuel without disturbing the cook-box has a definite leg-up primarily for the refuelling reason; but with some practice you should still have wonderfully edible results with the kettle.

Happy Eating!


What is the safest way to acquire non-alkalized cocoa powder?

Without actually being able to access the ConsumerLab report you mentioned, it's difficult to know what meets your definition of safe.

Scharffen Berger natural cocoa is one option. It has 1g fat per 5g serving, which I believe should meet your definition of "full fat". It is natural (non-alkalized) cocoa powder. It's quite expensive, and I believe normally considered "high quality". Scharffen Berger is now owned by Hershey's, which is definitely a major producer in the chocolate industry.

I highly doubt that Scharffen Berger and Hershey's cocoa are now identical. This is partly based on personal experience (10 years ago, which is not current), but also on the nutritional information for Hershey's (0.5 g fat per ~5 g serving), which I believe does not meet your "full fat" criterion.

Another option is Ghirardelli unsweetened ground cocoa, which is also a large producer.

  Not processed with Alkaline/not Dutch processed.

I have no affiliation with Scharffen Berger, Hershey's, Ghirardelli, or any other chocolate producer.


Which type of chilli peppers for which cuisine?

Each variety of chile has a subtly different flavor, but generally the kind to use is determined by how spicy you want the dish to be; spicier dishes need hotter peppers, otherwise you end up with a dish dominated by the peppers.   For this reason, most people sort chiles by their spiciness, measured in Scoville Heat Units (SHU). The exact same papers can be used for Mexican and Indian cooking, as long as you want similar spiciness.

To give options, I like to keep 3 kinds of dried peppers: a mild paprika, a standard hot pepper, and a ground, smoked one. The sweet paprika is for savor, the hot pepper to add spiciness, and ground, smoked peppers bring that distinctive smoky flavor to dishes.  I usually use de Arbol pepper flakes (about 30k SHU) to add heat, and smoked hot paprika for smoked stuff.  When I have a dish that showcases the flavor of a specific pepper, it's time to get fresh ones from the store.

For general purpose cooking, many people use mild paprika to add sweet, smoky flavors to Italian, French, Spanish, and Balkan cuisines.  Generally these are of the Capsicum annuum species.

Indian, Szechuan Chinese, and Central American cuisine normally use moderately hot peppers, in the 10-30k SHU heat range.  Cayenne, tabasco, and de Arbol peppers are good examples.  Thailand (and some parts of India) use very hot peppers up to 100k Scoville, called Bird's Eye or Thai chiles.  These peppers may be either Capsicum annuum (normally milder) or Capsicum frutescens (normally hotter).

Finally, Mexico and northeastern India use the hottest peppers of the Capsicum chinense species, including habaneros and the naga jolokia, which go from 100k SHU to 750k SHU.

Mexico is a special case, because many varieties of pepper are mixed to get the desired flavor. Everything from bell peppers to habaneros gets regular use, and may be used smoked or dried.


How to make the pasta in this TV show (Anthony Bourdain in Rome)?

You'll need 2 recipes:

Cacio e Pepe ... just do some searches for that dish, and you'll find a bunch of recipes.
Pecorino/Parmesan Cheese Shell. Try grating fresh Parmesan and sprinkling it over a silicone baking mat. While it's still warm, drape it over an upside-down bowl to shape it. Once it cools, I think you're all set. I plan to try this!  EDIT: I'd only heat the cheese just until it gets melty... otherwise it'll stiffen up too soon.

Note: I have never made either of these... just trying to give you a starting place. In the video, I heard the guy say that the dish was called Cacio e Pepe, so I started hunting. It sounds great, though.


I tend to be kind of lazy and store my vegetables in plastic produce bags from the supermarket.  I have found two things that help the produce keep longer:

Put a dry paper towel in the bag to absorb moisture.
Leave some air in the bag when you tie it, so the plastic is not resting right up against the vegetables.

Also, I'll sometimes put the produce right in the crisper drawer without a bag or container.


In the oven at about 340/350 F, bake high quality/real white chocolate chunks or chips or buttons until evenly but lightly golden brown, moving it around with a wooden spoon or spatula. By doing this, you are caramelizing the sugars in the white chocolate = your caramel component.

Remove from the oven and place into a container. Heat 35% whipping cream to a simmer and just cover the caramelized white chocolate. Less cream will make a thicker emulsion (more ganache style) and more cream will make a thinner emulsion (spreadable). While hot, add some sea salt or salt of choice. With a hand blender, whizz up the mixture until evenly combined and whipped.

At this point you could use it as is (may need to heat slightly to use or spread), or you could opt to whip it further for a lighter, more mousse-style finish.

This filling can be used in macarons, cake layers, thinned out as a sauce, a pudding, etc etc. I highly recommend this.


The only place I've ever seen flavored oil for cooking is in a friend's kitchen.  I got mine from the wonderful internet...

http://www.amazon.com/Wilton-1913-1029-Candy-Flavoring-Set/dp/B001205FI4/ref=sr_1_2?s=grocery&ie=UTF8&qid=1293115217&sr=1-2

Also if you were making it a batch at a time you might want to use flavored gelatin to increase the flavors power.


Probably not the kind of answer you are hopping for, but in my case what my dad  (he loves fish, mom and sisters dont) ended up doing was buying a second electric toaster-oven and just use an extension and cook it in the backyard... :S  I guess you could use an electric or gas camping stove too. If there is no backyard... maybe rooftop?

Other than that its just fish fest whenever my mom is away got a trip or something :/


I accidentally froze a carton of Half and Half. Is it ruined?

I store frozen milk for emergencies all the time... Once defrosted in the fridge, I shake it for a couple of minutes and it returns to normal. It even taste the same. Australian carton and bottled milk is slightly richer than half and half; and the water to fat ratios are lower... This doesn't seem to split badly after it is frozen. As I said, defrost for 24 hours in the fridge, shake and serve.


Can you store frozen dinners in the refrigerator for up to a week before eating them?

I wouldn't recommend it for a couple of reasons:

Food in general degrades much faster in the fridge than in the freezer, so you risk spoilage during that time.  Most prepared foods are not recommended to be stored that long in the fridge.

Most "do not thaw" meals are designed to be cooked from frozen.  So you're not only left guessing what the correct cooking times are, but there may be elements such as a sauce that placed in the container as a puck that's intended to no interact with the other item in that compartment, but that would now have a week to get soggy from the sauce and dramatically change how it cooks up.


Cooking sirloin steaks with Anova sous vide gave me leather tough steaks

If you think of tenderness on a scale, sirloin and tenderloin are nearly on opposite ends of the scale. Sirloin, in general is not a tender cut of meat.  Your result has little to do with seasoning or location in the water bath...or even cooking method. Sirloin is a lean and tough cut.  Often sous vide can be used to make tough cuts of meat more tender, but sirloin doesn't really have the collagen or connective tissue that will break down like, say, a short rib.  If you like the tenderness of a tenderloin, you will never match it with a sirloin.  Don't blame your circulator, it is akin to blaming your stove when things don't go well there.


Does room temperature affect rising time for bread dough?

You probably aren't doing anything wrong. The times in recipes are approximate, and often vary enormously from reality, you should always work towards a result, not a time when it comes to bread baking. I've had bread take 2 hours to rise more than once, there's no problem with it. In fact, you get better gluten development and flavor in your bread with a longer rise. So, if don't rush if you can avoid it, take your time and get better bread. If that's not an option you can speed things up.

The temperature of the room is one variable, 70°F is perfectly normal for rising, and putting it in the sun will heat it up a lot, so temperature of the room doesn't seem to be a problem. There are a few other variables that come immediately to mind:

Yeast, if it's old many of the organisms will be dead, if it comes into contact with salt it will retard the yeast. Instant yeast is milled finer and gets to work faster, so use that, and put the yeast and the salt on opposite sides of your flour when you mix it in. You can also make a sponge using 100g of flour, 100ml of water and they yeast from your recipe, mix it all and let it sit for 30-40 minutes. It gives a perfect environment for your yeast to get active and healthy before you mix in the rest of the ingredients. It may seem like it will slow you down but it actually speeds up the process as rising is much faster
Ingredient and equipment temperature: if you start with cold water, flour etc you will slow your rising as the dough will be cold. If you put your kneaded bread into a cold bowl to rise it will cool the dough. If you want things to go faster make sure your ingredients and equipment are at a decent room temperature, or slightly warmer
Enrichment ingredients: butter, oil and sugar all enrich dough, and enriched dough will rise slower than non-enriched
Adding more flour than the recipe calls for: a common mistake is to think dough is too sticky and keep adding extra flour when kneading. Don't do it! It takes time for the flour to absorb all the water and the gluten chains to unravel, just deal with the stickiness. If you keep adding extra flour your bread will get too dense and rise much slower and have a tight, crumbly structure.

There are several questions on bread on this site which might be worth a read, for instance this, this, and this.


How can I make a homemade latte taste like a restaurant one?

I find that the milk/foam is the thing that makes all the difference. Most of the domestic coffee machines make a poor job of frothing the milk for Lattes and cappuccinos. I use a steel milk frothing pan like this one:

http://www.saltandpepper.co.uk/cook_shop/brand/Judge/Milk+Preparation,195/2507

I bought mine in Italy 10 years or so ago but I have seen them on our high street since then. It goes on your hob where the milk, UHT or Semi skimmed seems to give the best foam, is heated till it is hot but not boiling and then you use the hand pump to force air through the hot milk and make it thick and foamy, this takes about 15 seconds. I then sugar my black espresso and pour it through the milk to make latte.


As you may already know, meat becomes tender when cooking because collagen (which is chewy) breaks down into gelatin (which isn't chewy), and the longer it cooks, the more collagen is broken down.

Having said that, if the bag in the conventional oven was in for closer to 4h and the bag in the steam oven was in for closer to 6h, it's kind of obvious why the steam oven meat was more tender (50% more time does make quite a bit of difference!).

If the bags were in the oven for the about the same time, the steam oven bag probably cooked longer anyway as steam transfers heat more effectively than dry air - by the time the meat in the conventional oven reached 180F, the meat in the steam oven had already been sitting at that temperature there for a while, and so, more collagen had time to break down. Steam should also provide a more even heat, with less fluctuations (having greater thermal capacity).

Lastly, it could just have been that the meats were a bit different - the tougher from an older animal, a different breed, or one of a thousand other reasons.


I burned some sweet potatoes in my new microwave- is the microwave ruined?

I think most people don't realize a microwave oven is just a radio transmitter. The cavity you put your food into is part of a tuned area for this transmitter. Instead of feeding the output of this transmitter into an antenna, the power is contained within the cavity and, thus, warming the food. Note: extremely simplified statements.

Mistuned transmitters can cause a mismatch with their antenna. The same thing happens when there is little to no food inside the microwave cavity. Such issues can cause the magnetron, the microwave's "tube", to overheat and cause damage to itself. However, by not being a solid state device, and by being more of a mechanical device, it can withstand mismatches and overheating for a more extended period of time whereas, a semiconductor device (transistors and integrated circuits), could fail within seconds.

This is why manufacturers warn not to run the microwave without anything in the oven. But you did not do that. For most of the 12 minutes, you had potatoes in there. The quality of this "load" on the microwave element deteriorated over time but it wasn't zero. If you had left it like that for half an hour or more, I could claim there would be a deterioration of the magnetron tubes "quality" but it is not anything I would concern myself with and I don't think it would even be measurable.

Source: me. Electronic engineer but haven't dealt with transmitters in a long time.


Why does some frozen food puff up when defrosting?

That's just the air in the package expanding, as it goes from freezer temperature to room temperature.

It sounds like you're thinking of the fact that water expands when it freezes (and shrinks when it melts) but that's not what's happening here. The air warms up long before the ice starts melting.

Some freezer packaging has small holes in it (or not so small holes, if you're unlucky), which prevents this from happening.


Do roasted and unroasted peppers taste different after slow cooking in soup all day?

The roasting process doesn't just heat the peppers, but the high, dry heat also causes a bit of both scorching and carmelization of the sugars, so I would expect there to be a bit of different flavor, even if both get cooked to the same consistency in a subsequent process.


Is cooked chicken brought to work but left unrefrigerated for 5 hours safe to eat?

Probably not, as you left it at danger zone temperatures (Between +40F and +140F [4.4C and 60C])  for so long).

What are the odds of food poisoning? You'll need decide


The problem you will have is cooking the meat without burning the breadcrumbs and/or the breadcrumbs absorbing lots of oil. You could get around this by baking the schnitzel rather than frying them.

However, you don't necessarily need a hammer to thin the meat - a heavy saucepan or rolling pin will do just as good a job.


I refrigerated fresh baked chocolate chip cookies over night. Will they recover?

The reasons I know of to avoid refrigerating cooked cookies (there may be more):

Odors: If there are stray smells, like savory aromatics, the cookies may grab these and hold them.  Some may dissipate, but in general, if you absorb unwanted flavors you are stuck with them.
Hardness:  Chewy, jelly, candy, and oily cookies may turn hard when cold.  This might well apply, but should normally go away when you return to room temp unless it causes something to actually set up.
Chocolate Bloom: Chocolate that has been heated, cooled, change humidity, etc. can be subject to bloom, discoloration from sugar crystals forming.  You all three of those with fresh baked to cold chocolate chip.  It might not occur that fast and you might not even notice it for cookies, but I have certainly seen it in fudge for instance.  Mostly just unsightly though.
Moisture: This is a bad one for cookies and will be worse if they are not fully cooled before going to cold.  But even going from room temp to cold you are likely to get condensation giving you anywhere from a cooking that may stale more quickly to one that is soggy.  This one is unlikely to be fixed and would seem like the biggest caution.


I can get soy beans in two varieties here: As dried beans and as edamame.

Edamame is a particular type of soybean that is harvested when it is still young. The pods are cooked (usually boiled or steamed) and then served with salt. The beans are popped from the pod and eaten. The pod is discarded.

Edamame is sweet and a little grassy because it is young.

Dried soy beans can be cooked like any other bean. Their hulls tend to come free and have an unpleasant texture so it is nice to skim most of them off. The flavor is good but not unique. It tastes like a normal white bean. The raw beans have a very strong "beany" flavor but cooked beans should not.

Soymilk is made from dried soybeans. The beans or the milk are cooked to remove the very strong beany flavor. The finished milk does have a hint of sweetness and bean but not strong at all.

Tofu, made from soymilk, tastes the same as the milk. Besides being sweet and a little beany, it can be a little nutty tasting. It can get chalky if it isn't fresh.

All of these soybean preparations are very bland. They tastes fresh and clean but there shouldn't be any overly strong flavors. Strong flavors in these products are often a sign that the product is past its prime.

Some soybean preparations ferment the beans. These have a wide range of flavors and textures.


What can I use instead of paddle attachment for a stand mixer?

For some brands of stand mixer, the paddle attachment is the sort of default attachment for basic mixing, and for creaming.  It does not excel at whipping egg whites, or stiff bread doughs, but these brands come with a separate whisk attachment for that purpose.

Of the two sets of beaters pictured in the image you have shared, the ones in the machine are your standard beaters.  You would use them for almost every task--they are general purpose, although perhaps not ideal for everything.  This includes mixing, creaming, and whipping egg whites or whipped cream.

The kind of corkscrew shaped ones are intended for kneading stiffer bread doughs.


What are the four cheeses generally used in"four-cheese" pizzas?

They all seem to use different cheeses depending on the brand.

The most consistent cheese is definitely mozzarella, which makes sense as it's the default cheese on most pizzas.
Second to that is some sort of hard grating cheese like Parmesan or Asiago... which also makes sense as it's a traditional pizza condiment.
Other Italian cheeses also seem popular like fontina and provolone
But non-Italian cheeses like cheddar certainly show up.

Below are some examples. I don't recommend any of these products, they just came up in web searches and specifically describe which four cheeses they use.

Amy's uses: Fontina, provolone, Parmesan, mozzarella:

Frontera uses: Mozzarella, white cheddar, smoked provolone, asiago.

California Pizza Kitchen uses: Mozzarella (apparently more than one kind), fontina, gouda

Lean Cuisine uses: low fat mozzarella, Parmesan, asiago, romano


Coffee can be used for a variety of things BESIDES drinking straight.  Off the top of my head, you can use less-than-perfect beans for:

Chocolate mousse and cakes: brew into coffee, and add to the chocolate mix for a richer flavor
Ice cream and sorbets.  Coffee ice cream is awesome, and the cream will mask defects
Chocolate-covered coffee beans.  These make a great pick-me up snack for mornings, sweet and caffeinated.
Coffee-flavored simple syrup, for baking and cocktails.  Use equal weights coffee and simple syrup.
Compost.  Grounds compost very well, especially if used

In a pinch, stale beans also make great projectiles.  Got squirrels on your bird feeder?  Coffee bean slingshot!


Unfortunately...I think that other answer gave some dangerous information.

Sticking a raw pepper in oil and letting it sit out is dangerous.  Not only could the moisture cause mold apparently but sticking something like that in oil runs the risk for botulism.

You could reduce the risk of mold by using dried peppers, but botulism is still there.


Why are my cookies spreading too much? More flour?

It looks to me like you could be using too much butter. My recipe for chocolate chip cookies has this:

2 c flour  (this is ~240g)
1 c butter
1/2 c sugar
1/2 c packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp b soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
1 or 2 c chocolate chips

Melted butter is supposed to make the cookies chewier than using softened. I'd reduce the butter to 1 stick + 2 Tablespoons (or even just 1 stick) and see how that works.

I'm also using twice the salt and twice the baking soda.  If reducing the butter doesn't work then I'd try increasing the baking soda.

The only other thing I can see is maybe the vanilla, which is 3 times what my recipe uses, adds too much liquid, but given that you're using 1 egg + 1 egg yolk compared to my 2 eggs, I think it's unlikely.


Will adding yogurt whey to homemade mayonnaise make it keep longer?

This is generally referred to as "lacto-fermented" mayonnaise.  The whey is assumed to have active bacteria, and most recipes insist on a room temperature rest for at least several hours.  During this time, I suppose the assumption is that the bacteria from the whey will ferment and produce sufficient acidity to act as a preservative (as in sauerkraut or something).

The idea is not completely without merit.  As discussed in my answer to this question, there is a well-documented and validated food science procedure for killing off harmful bacteria in homemade mayonnaise, which involves sufficient acid content and a rest at room temperature before refrigeration.  Mayonnaise that follows this advice should be roughly as shelf-stable as commercial mayonnaise, and its acidity will make it a poor growth medium for most harmful bacteria.  It will generally deteriorate in quality not due to spoilage bacteria, but due to oils going rancid and other such processes that will degrade texture and flavor over a period of weeks.

On the other hand, I have serious doubts that a few hours at room temperature with a tablespoon of whey is going to produce a consistent level of acidity to ensure safety and longer preservation.  You simply don't know the bacteria count and activity in the whey, how well it may grow (if at all) in the mayonnaise, and how much it will lower the pH.  (In a quick search, I couldn't find comparable food science research on using lactofermentation to achieve safe homemade mayo, but it may be out there.  It sounds implausible to me, not least because of the lack of sufficient food in mayo for the lactic fermentation to produce a lot of acidity.)

If you want to make safe homemade mayo, you need sufficient acidity.  Usually that comes from lemon juice or vinegar.  It's that simple.  And with adequate acidity, it will likely have a reasonable shelf life of more than just a few days.  There is further advice and thoughts on that issue in another question.  But I would not recommend this whey-based technique to ensure food safety.

EDIT: Despite the huge number of recipes online for lacto-fermented mayonnaise, I've been unable to find any reputable food scientist vouching for even the possibility of significant fermentation occurring in mayonnaise.  Nobody reputable even discusses it (probably since, as I said above, it doesn't make a lot of sense).  Anyhow, I did manage to find this, in a list of fermentation "myths" maintained by a prominent fermentation Facebook group:

  MYTH: Mayonnaise can be fermented by adding a bit of whey or
  sauerkraut juice and letting it sit on the counter for [x] hours.

  FACT: Oil cannot be fermented, and mayonnaise is primarily oil with a
  small amount of egg yolk emulsified into it. All bacteria have an
  absolute moisture threshold necessary for their survival and function,
  which mayonnaise doesn't provide. . . . The amount of moisture that is available for use is called
  the Water Activity level, or aW. Pure water has an aW of 1.0. Lactic
  acid bacteria require a minimum aW of 0.94, but not much activity will
  occur below 0.95 and a level closer to 1.0 is needed for vigorous
  growth. Mayonnaise has an aW of 0.93 or lower. . . .

I wouldn't say this qualifies as a reputable source for food science (and I haven't checked the facts), but the reasoning is plausible, as bacteria simply don't grow well in mayonnaise.  If anyone can find any better food science on topic, I'd be interested.


White pizza sauce isn't nearly as defined as red sauce.  It's largely whatever you want it to be.

It's literally any sauce you top a pizza with that is white.  It is often dairy based (cream or cheese added), but it could also be a thin parsnip puree.  It may contain herbs, it may contain butter, its up to you.  Again, thickness is up to you and whatever works for your dish.


You can slice it thin, cut it into pieces, dip into flour and fry it in oil or butter according to your preference.  Or use it as a base for something with a sauce like chicken cacciatore.  Enjoy!


Can one get sick from drinking too much home made Water Kefir?

Like most fermented beverages made at home, water kefir is safe to drink as long as you take proper sanitation precautions. If mold is growing, don't drink it, throw it out, and sanitize your vessels. Learn to look for signs of mold.

Fermented beverages like kefir and kombucha can become quite acidic and leech minerals from their container. Store them in glass.

I doubt there is any safety hazard from drinking too much if it is properly prepared. I suppose if it's acidic enough and you drink too much you could get a stomach ache.


Can I decrease salty flavor after brining a turkey?

If you make good turkey gravy with little or no salt, and simmer and store the turkey in that, I think that's the best you can do. The hard part is making good gravy with low enough salt, since low salt turkey flavor is hard to find.

You might consider a bit of an odd idea. You can make milk gravy with ground turkey, much like what in the Army we called SOS. Use the bare minimum of salt.

Serving the turkey with that, perhaps in an open-faced sandwich, could be good. Consider that with slightly under-seasoned mashed potatoes.

Good Luck! Let us know what you end up doing and your results.


How to get rid of Garlic taste in tomato sauce

If "strange" means like the garlic paste is rancid (or otherwise spoiled), then throw it away and start over. If "strange" means too garlicky, then your best bet is to add more tomatoes to dilute the recipe, then adjust as needed with other ingredients. You may want to take half the sauce and freeze it for another use then add another can or two of diced tomatoes.


At what point is a beef stew being overcooked?

If you're cooking low and slow, with enough liquid, you'll end up with a style of stew called ragoût.  The trick is to not add the vegetables during the cooking, unless they're either something that you want to break down, or you've added enough acid to the cooking liquid to prevent onions and potatoes from fully disintegrating.

Personally, I prefer to take pot-roast to this stage, as it's what I grew up with.

You might not get the 'cooked to rags' quality of the meat, as you may not have agitated the meat before cooling.  In the Good Eats episode 'Stew Romanace', Alton Brown cooks the meat, then lets it cool so it'll firm back up.  It's possible that this might happen in your case (although in his, he drains the liquid before cooling).


Is it possible to make homemade yogurt using chocolate milk?

There is no reason why you can't turn chocolate milk into yogurt.  Now, much commercial chocolate milk has carrageenan added as a stabilizer.  If you get issues with  carrageenan separating out, you can also use  Torani chocolate syrup (intended to flavor coffees) to add the flavor to normal milk.


Can I use red wine instead of white wine for chicken scallops?

I would avoid using red wine in a recipe that calls for white. Whites and Reds taste different, so you should expect a switch from white to red to be reflected in the finished dish. And, it will also change the color/presentation.
I was taught that white wine can be substituted with water and vinegar mixed in equal amounts, along with a small amount of sugar in recipes. I think they taste better with the vinegar/sugar combo than with actual white wine. Here's why: When you add alcohol to a recipe that is cooked, the heat evaporates the alcohol. In the case of white wine, the remaining flavor is tangy and tart. When you use vinegar/sugar in your recipe as a substitute for the wine, your recipe tastes like there is wine in it.  Now, we know that white wine isn't made from vinegar and sugar - so there isn't any alcohol in finished dish. It just has a flavor similar to the white wine. Whether you are out of white wine, or prefer to cook without alcohol, (and IMHO) the best substitution is vinegar and sugar.


How do I remove bitter flavor from lime rind in soup?

You might be able to counter-balance it with other flavors (salt, sour, sweet, hot), but you're likely still going to have some bitter notes come through, it's just a question if it's tolerable or not, and some people dislike bitter more than others.  (I can't understand how people can drink beers other than lambics)

In looking at a similar thread on Chowhound, one of the recommendations is a bit of milk or cream.  If you're not lactose intollerant, it might be worth a try.

This could also be a chance for an experiment -- ladle it into a bunch of glasses, try some different things (sugar, vinegar, soy, hot sauce, milk, worcestershire, combinations of them, etc), and report back to us with what you think worked best.


Which end of the cucumber should I save for later?

There's no difference between the stem or blossom end, you should save the end which looks and feels in the best shape.


Alternatives suggestions to apples and bananas

For an applesauce substitute you could make any other fruit sauce using the same method as you would make homemade applesauce - pear sauce, peach sauce, etc. In my experience applesauce is always a bit of a variable in recipes depending on if its store bought or homemade given the different sugar and water content. Baked goods made with homemade applesauce turn out sweeter and have this wonderful soft sticky crust. This happens because I cook down my applesauce, thus increasing the sugar content.

Along the same line I would use a very reduced fruit sauce for a banana substitute for baking. Bananas have tons of sugar in them, so the high sugar content is ideal.

With either replacement you should play around with how much you cook down your fruit sauce and experiment with different fruits. Water and sugar content of fruit is never exact by recipe standards, so you shouldn't have too much of an issue swapping fruits.

If bananas are primarily used raw as a sweetener, like in smoothies, try dates which have a similar sweetness.


Being Zingerberales it may be hard to track that information down, as it could be either production of toxic or unpleasant tasting compounds or lack of useful features.

However, what I did find is that this species (Canna indica, also known as C. edulis) has large rhizomes, which are the main agricultural component, though you can also eat the flowers and seeds. C. indica has been extensively cultivated and most likely selected for rhizome size during its agricultural history. It would seem that the other species have much smaller rhizomes, so might not yield much that is worth eating, and so C. indica is the only species that is commonly eaten.


Mystery ingredient in cookies with cream tartar

It's "spry"... which is actually what it looks like.

Spry was apparently a brand name shortening.

This related question "Is there anything special about "homogenized" shortening?" recommends simply using any type of vegetable shortening, like Crisco.


How do I make black rice turn out better in a rice cooker?

Perfect black rice in a rice cooker - I just cooked 2 cups of black rice, after a single quick rinse using a wire strainer in my Zojirushi rice cooker (fuzzy logic).  I used a standard American measuring cup. I added 3 and 3/4 cups of water (vs. the standard straight 2 waters for every one unit of rice - I do this for ALL rice types as I like a fully intact rice kernel with texture remaining - that fluffs and separates as you expect ).

I also added a crumbled organic vegetarian bullion cube (just one) it adds just a little seasoning (still neutral) but I think also provides a little coating on the finished rice that makes it fluff and separate better.

The rice came out perfectly - tender, with just the right kernel bite, fluffed and separated as expected.

One other note, I NEVER use the keep warm function and always pop open the cooker at the first bell signaling cooking is complete, unplug, and I fluff immediately - I leave the cooker open a minute or two to allow steam to escape, then I close it. The rice stays perfectly warm after that for a very long time, long enough for a leisurely meal and warm rice for second helpings.

I can't say enough great things about the Zojirushi rice cooker. It is worth every penny. In addition to rice it cooks wheat berry, rye berry, millet , barley, and many other grains ( including perfect oats) automatically ith zero fuss. I have owned two in 22 years and replaced the first only because the bowl was list and the model was discontinued so no replacement bowel was found.

Many blessings in your rice cooking journey!


Microwave scrambled eggs will never be like real scrambled eggs.

That said, I've obtained decent results when only a microwave is available by beating the eggs first, microwaving for 30 seconds, stirring, and then microwaving in 10 second bursts, stirring after each one until desired doneness is achieved.

If you are just looking for ways to cook eggs in the microwave, and you don't care about the style, try doing a microwave poached egg:
Put 1/3c of water in a mug. Crack an egg into the water. Stab the yolk with a fork/toothpick/etc (shouldn't break the yolk, just pierce it. This is so that it won't explode, which apparently is a risk, although I've never had it happen, personally.) Microwave for about a minute, remove egg with slotted spoon. Adjust timing up/down 5 seconds, depending on your microwave and how you like your egg (e.g. I like mine kind of runny: in one microwave I use, that's 55 seconds, in another it's 1min even.)


Storing water after reconstituting dried mushrooms

For one day, I would think keeping it in the fridge is ok; use a covered container.

For more than one day, I'd freeze it;

Heck, I would freeze it from the start just in case I don't use it a day after.


Some soya flour in a recipe helps to replace the eggs as soy has more fat than regular flour. I don’t know about lupin flour. You could use aquafaba to keep it moist etc, it replaces an egg in a cake recipe.

Try google for ingredients and quantities as we can’t give them here.


From Google:

  While you probably won't die from eating fungus, keep in mind that foods that are moldy may also have invisible bacteria growing along with the mold. The colorful mold you see on the surface of food is just the tip of what is going on inside. Most molds are harmless, but some are dangerous. Some contain mycotoxins.

My suggestion is that unless you are trying to make penecillin, throw them away. The risk is not worth it. Italy is still there.


Storing (freezing) spare falafel: cooked, shaped, or just the mix?

The best way to freeze felafel batter really is formed into small balls, but not cooked.  Then you can toss the partially thawed balls into hot oil without further fuss.  Because the balls are fragile, as you noticed, that means lining them up on a cookie sheet and freezing them that way, which you may or may not have room for.

I have not tried freezing a mass of felafel batter, so I don't know if that still works when thawed.  I'd be concerned about water separating out of the ground chickpeas during the freeze-and-thaw cycle.  If you do this anyway, and the batter doesn't want to hold together afterwards, I suggest adding a little dry chickpea flour to it.


What's happens at temperatures in both the 'pasteurisation' and 'danger' zone?

What you need to understand is that making raw proteins safe for consumption is not simply a function of temperature.  It is a function of time plus temperature.  Because of the precise temperature control of sous vide, one can cook at lower temperatures IF one understands that a longer time at those temperatures renders food safe.  There is no better explanation than the work of Douglas Baldwin.  I would recommend reading that for starters.
Most food pathogens stop growing at 122F (50C).  However, clostridium perfringens can grow up to 126.1F (52.3C).  So, in general sous vide cooking is done above these temperatures.  However, there are exceptions to that.  You would likely not want to cook a steak at that temperature.


Are there any situations where untempered chocolate is better than tempered?

Tempering is a process used to give solid chocolate a uniform appearance and texture, as well as to insure that those qualities are shelf-stable. Most commercially available chocolate is already tempered to some degree so that it has a pleasing appearance and texture for customers to enjoy right out of the box/bag.

Tempering is required when the final product will be made of solid chocolate or the chocolate is a component in an unadulterated state, especially in candies that will sit at room temperature. These would include molded and enrobed chocolates such as chocolate bars, bonbons, leafs, and nests.

Recipes that add chocolate to other ingredients such as dairy, flour, and sugar can be made with either tempered or untempered chocolate because the structure of the chocolate fat crystals is no longer the dominant source of structure and texture.  Examples of this include cookies, brownies, ganache, ice cream, and cakes.

There is no normal application where untempered chocolate is required and tempered chocolate could not be used.  The only application I have been able to think of where untempered chocolate would be desired/required is something made for the express purpose of training and/or testing chocolatiers or chocolate tasting professionals.


How to finish sous vide carnitas without drying them out

Make sure not to break up the meat too much. In particular, try not to smear it between the fork and the dish... You want chunky pieces, not spread-out strands. The more broken and strand-y the pork gets, the greater its surface area and the faster it dries out. You also want to crowd the pieces in the pan as much as possible while browning. It's better to have a bunch in the middle of the baking pan, than individual pieces spread around the pan.


Difference in cookie texture if we use melted vs softened butter

There are many factors in play such as the type of sugars, amount of eggs or other sources of hydration, amount and type of leavening and so forth, but as an overall generalization:

Melting the butter will lead to chewier cookies
Creaming colder/room temperature butter with sugar will lead to cookies with a higher, more cake like texture.
Refrigerating the dough before baking will help inhibit spread because the butter is colder, and takes longer to melt.  It is also gives time for the liquid in the recipe to hydrate the flour.   See What does an overnight chill do to cookie dough, that a 4 hour chill doesn't?

See the transcript of Alton Brown's Three Chips for Sister Marsha episode for a good treatment of chocolate chip cookies and their variations.


Does pasta boiled in tap water absorb chemicals?

Yes, as a chemist i can assure you that whatever chemicals are in the water would tend to get absorbed into the pasta.

In general the public is lousy at assessing risks. Did you drive to store to buy the pasta? You're at a more significant risk of a car accident than a serious problem from chloramines.


What accounts for Dutch Oven price variation?

I have owned many brands of cast iron and ceramic coated pans, here's the factors I've seen that effect the price:

Quality of materials: better quality coatings last longer and give better results
Refinement: some brands are more aesthetically pleasing, better designed, and have better finish than others. Some of these refinements may improve the cooking experience, some may just be looks
Name: This is a huge factor these days, some brands like Le Creuset have hiked up their prices enormously in the past decade to the point they are absolutely eye watering, yet their products haven't changed in design or quality

Of all these it's name that seems to have the biggest effect on price. I have some Le Creuset that I bought or got as gifts some time back, and I have since bought some department store branded ones (Linea, House of Frasier's own brand) which are 1/3 of the price. The department store ones look good, deliver good results and wear just as well as the Le Creuset ones. There are many brands to choose from, it's worth doing some research on what's available around you before you spend money.


Planting will get you a better return. Cut the potatoes up into sections with a sprout each, let the cuts callus at 70 F/21C for a few days, and plant.

If you remove the sprouts and the potatoes are not green, or any green parts are removed, they should be safe, if not of particularly good quality.

Planting the sprouted ones and buying others to eat would be your best bet, better quality, and not too costly. Next year, put some apples in the root cellar with the potatoes to help prevent/reduce potato sprouting during storage.

In the well-managed root cellar we're supposed to somehow find time to to go through every couple of weeks to check for and remove the various sprouting or spoiling food before the process gets too far along. I can't say I have arrived there myself yet...but if you at least look for the sprouted ones when you are grabbing tubers to use, you can remove small sprouts from firmish potatoes and use them up, and be aware if the whole batch is sprouting away and needs to be used up soon, before it gets to this point.


How to add paprika flavor to mayonnaise without paprika color

My personal method for adding flavor to homemade mayonnaise is to include some flavored oil in addition to the vegetable oil. I like just a touch of chili oil (a teaspoon or so -- too much, and it gets too spicy and/or weirdly red).

Paprika-infused oil can be purchased or made at home (Google search) -- this may meet your needs, or inspire you to try other flavors. (You can also try infused vinegars!)


What is the brown sauce in authentic Chinese fried rice?

If it really is authentic, then it is soy sauce. Some recipes also use oyster sauce but I would not call that authentic or traditional.

Soy sauce can mean many things; it might just be a different soy sauce from what you're used to. There are light vs. dark soy sauces, and also fermented vs. hydrolyzed kinds. A naturally fermented light soy sauce would probably be (a) mild and (b) slightly brown.

Some other common types of sauce that I've seen used in stir fries are hoisin and satay. But, as with oyster sauce, I wouldn't call those authentic or traditional. That "some sort of brown sauce" is almost certainly soy sauce. It might include XO sauce, although you would notice a seafoody taste in that case.


They are not that much meltable. Also, there is some chance they will become actually more pleasant, since the unstable crystals tend to turn into the next higher type over time.
So, I would just keep them at room temperature and not worry much. If milk chocolate (or worse, bad quality milk chocolate) doesn't spontaneously bloom in your place, your untempered chocolate shouldn't melt either. And it does melt slightly and then re-sets, it won't be that much worse for eating than plain untempered chocolate, maybe it will just have some added fat bloom. I have eaten many advent calendars in that state.
The fridge is also best avoided for great quality chocolates into which you invested lots of money or effort, but if they are already in the "I'll eat it so I don't have to throw it away" state, it doesn't matter that much. You can therefore use the fridge, if you prefer it over the room storage. They won't actively soak up any kind of moisture while they are cooled. What will likely happen is that you will see some condensation when you get them out for consumption and they warm up again. They are perfectly edible in that state too.
Bottom line, people tend to pay great care to perfectly-tasting chocolate, but once it is less than perfect, it is unlikely that you can make it significantly worse by storing it in the wrong place.


heat chicken breast in a pan with no oil - ok for the pan?

Doing this will not harm the pan, assuming you do not heat the pan to absurd temperatures (which is no different than if you used oil).

It may not give you ideal results for your chicken, though.  Oil in the pan serves a couple of purposes.  In traditional (as opposed to non-stick) pans, of course it helps prevent sticking.

It also provides a thermal coupling between the surface of the pan and the surface of the food, conducting heat from the one to the other (much akin to the way thermal paste helps your processor cooler work better).

Without this effect, you may get spottier and less reliable or uniform cooking of the chicken.


Red sweet and sour cabbage...drain or not?

Red cabbage is usually braised, not boiled.  Following the instructions listed in your recipe, you're going to lose the flavor of the caraway as well.

For German-style sweet and sour red cabbage I typically saute some diced onion and apple in sugar and butter until just golden, add the shredded cabbage and then cook a little until the cabbage is glazed.  Add some beef stock along with red wine vinegar, bay leaf and salt and then braise lightly covered until cabbage has softened. Sprinkle some flour over the top and add add'l beef stock and red wine to this.  At the end, remove from heat and stir in a couple of tablespoons red currant jelly just to mix in and balance the sweet/sour flavors.


Is Serrano an acceptable substitute for jalapeno

Jalapenos vary widely in heat, but, yes, Serrano is usually thought of as a bit hotter.  If it were me, I would use one.  I would also remove the seeds and the internal membranes to cut the heat further.  Maybe even start with 1/2...you can always add more.


The clumps come from too much liquid on the glass when applying the sugar.

The way I learned to salt a glass was to dip the glass upside-down in a shallow plate or bowl of water, let it drip for 5-10 seconds, then dip it into an evenly layered plate of salt.  I think this should work for sugaring a glass.


It's a natural process in homemade peanut butter (and in 100% peanut butters). The fat from peanuts is stratifying from the rest. This is assuming you keept the mixture in the machine for longer time. So A) you squished the fat and b) mixed the fat in again.

If you stopped blending right after you "buttered" it then the fat is still not homogenised. Just toss it again in blender and blend for another few minutes. The mixture should be homogenous but when you take  little on finger or spoon and shake it off the oily film should be left.


How can I relably work out the largest cut size of vegatables X and Y so they roast in the same amount of time?

First, there are two approaches. I like to cut things into the size I want to serve (for roast potatoes each piece about 2 or 3 bites), and cook them differing amount of time. This lets me prep veggie #1, get it into the oven, and start prepping veggie #2. Or you could take your strategy of prepping them all at slightly different sizes and putting them all in at once.

Either way, you'll start with a decent guess [*], and monitor as they cook. Some things will be ready too soon - you can just pull them out and have them wait for the others. Some won't be ready when everything else is and will get some time on their own at the end. Either way, you need to update either on paper or in your head that veggie X needs to be cut smaller (or put in sooner) or cut larger (or put in later.)

* hardest need to be smallest or first: I would try Potatoes, Winter Squash, Pumpkin, Swede, Beetroot, Parsnips, Brussels Sprouts, Carrots, Leeks, Onions, Red Cabbage. Watercress I would barely cook and you can't change the size. Toss in for the last minute or so.

Next time, use your adjusted sizes or times. Repeat until it's perfect every time.


Interpreting recipes from a different culture (specifically India)

OK, 'recipe requests' are off topic here, but as a guide to searching…

There are thousands of 'British' chefs, whose ancestry is not British.
If you look for a recipe on a site ending with .co.uk [or .de or .dk or .se or anywhere except .in] rather than .com then you are likely to find one who's ancestry is 'Indian' but whose upbringing is 'Western'.

To balance this fairly, you are equally likely in this day & age to find some guy called Jock McStereotype*, ginger-haired & Glaswegian-accented, who has spent the past 20 years working as a chef in an Indian restaurant… but that aside…

Those chefs will all know how to do measurements, temperatures, definitions, etc for their 'home' country's target audience.

Alternatively, chefs write books - from Khalid Aziz way back in the 70s/80s [Khalid was an Asian newsreader for the BBC, who was also an accomplished chef in his spare time.] to more modern authors such as Atul Kochar, or even the 'king' of restaurant curries in the 90s, Pat Chapman.

I just checked books on my shelf by all 3 authors - Khalid has a dahi recipe, for a British audience, in 'British' terminology… dated 1983 - so this has been information, easily available to westerners, for over 35 years.
I managed to google that book here - Eat Your Books - The Encyclopedia of Indian Cooking by Khalid Aziz
You can browse for free, or buy the whole thing.

*Though he would hate it if I gave any details [so I won't], one of my favourite Indian restaurants has a chef who fits this appalling 'McStereotype'… just to show it is no longer important where someone came from, only how they cook.


Preventing white sugar from clumping in the canister

You can still add rice, just wrap it in some cheesecloth first, so it doesn't get mixed with your sugar.


I disagree with Daniel, you can absolutely eat the "vein" in a shrimp.  Whole un-peeled shrimp are called peel-and-eat and that's exactly what you can do.  Basically, when you are first cooking the shrimp you get the make the shells on/shells off decision and if you go with shells off, you should de-vein, otherwise you just serve as is.

As for preparing already cooked shrimp, you can heat the butter then toss the shrimp in that off the heat.  You won't get them hot, but you can knock the chill off while at the same time adding the flavors you want to the party.

I agree that already cooked shrimp is inferior to raw, but you can still make it taste amazing.

The fact that the intestine contains waste matter is a non-issue to your digestive tract, de-veining is mainly a presentation decision and not a health one.


Is it advisable to season a chicken with salt after having brined it?

I agree with @rumtscho that you should not need to salt after brining. However, I totally disagree with the accepted answer. There are simply too many reputable sources that say otherwise, not to mention my own experience.

First, please see  the accepted answer to this question   which is from Cook's Illustrated.

Secondly,  this article from Stella Culinary  gives a very detailed description of what brining is and how it works. Please see excerpts below.

  What Is A Brine and Why Should I Use It?

  In its simplest form, brine is a salt and water solution that food products, most commonly meats, are soaked in for a given period of time to improve the product’s overall quality.

  When food is brined correctly, the process yields three major benefits:

  Textural improvement, especially when brining proteins.
  Brines can and will enhance overall flavor. Not only does the salt contained within a brine help to season the food product (assuming the brine is applied correctly), but brines also commonly contain secondary flavor profiles such as herbs, spices and aromatics, that are chosen specifically to enhance the overall flavor of the food product being brined.
  By far the biggest reason food is brined, and that’s moisture retention. Especially when it comes to cooking lean proteins such as chicken breast, pork tenderloin and even fish, brining allows proteins to retain more moisture throughout the cooking process resulting in a moister finished product.

  How Do Brines Work?

  The most conventional explanation of how brining works describes the movement of salt and water into proteins through a process called osmosis. This however is incorrect. Brining actually works through diffusion, not osmosis, and it’s important to make that distinction if we are to truly understand how a brine works.

This is a very good article and gives an in-depth look at brining. I personally use a gradient brine (5%) or dry rub and I can personally attest that the salt does get into the meat.


tl:dr; Do another batch.

It is not expected but not a full indication of a failure, but -  There is a lot of colours in the picture which is suspicious.  Also beyond vinegary after two days is suspicious. That kind of separation is indicative of the flour no longer having feed for their bacteria, which might explain the sour smell (not good).

What kind of environment did you leave it in? covered and cold?

I'd try another batch. It should smell nutty and just a tad sour. You might just have been unlucky with the dominating bugs in your starter.

Anecdotal:  I have had long-lived primers separate a little bit and brought them back to life with some careful feeding.


Cooking kidney beans in a slow cooker, how do I make sure they're safe?

I found this question interesting because I'd never heard of poisoning from red kidney beans before, and have certainly cooked them solely in the slow cooker without ill effects that I can recall, so I did a little internet research. Here's the most authoritative opinion I found:

The US Navy Medical Corps thinks that cooking even at 80C/175F is insufficient, and may be more toxic than even eating the raw beans.

Particularly, I found this specific advisory in at least 4 internet sources, including this one:

  Beans cooked at 80 degrees Celsius, which is common in some of these
  cooking methods, increase the toxicity potential 5 times higher than
  eating raw beans.

This startling theory is never sourced anywhere; all of the sites I can find that mention it provide the information without attribution, even the serious medical ones.  Many use the exact same words.

So it's up to you whether or not you believe this; personally, with a possible night of stomach cramps on the line, I would probably choose to dump them in a pot for a quick boil.  On the other hand, I might consider what % of the soup is kidney beans and chance it.


I wish to do pickled onions but am unable to get Brown vinegar only Apple Cider Vinegar

Pretty much any type of vinegar works.

update:
Responding to comment below, I guess I would stay away from distilled white vinegar and and any "heavy" types such as balsamico, jejiang, shanxi and so on. Apple cider vinegar, white or red wine vinegar, sherry vinegar and so on would all work well.


If I shun molasses and sugar, can I still copycat Outback Steakhouse's bread?

The taste will change. It will not taste sweet at all, so it wouldn't really be a copy cat recipe any more. It will rise slower. Yeast feeds on sugar, so if you omit the sugar it will only feed on the carbs from the flour and hence rise much slower. And it will likely be less dense. In my experience, adding molasses to a dough makes it denser. It may also become too dry. The molasses especially is a large enough ingredient that omitting it will affect the hydration level of the dough.


I would not expect chicken wire to be food-safe.

According to the FDA, to be considered food-safe, a material must meet several conditions:
It must not allow the migration of “deleterious substances or impart colors, odors, or tastes” to food
Be “durable, corrosion-resistant, and nonabsorbent”
Possess sufficient “weight and thickness to withstand repeated warewashing”
Be “finished to have a smooth, easily cleanable surface”
Have resistance to “pitting chipping crazing, scratching, scoring, distortion, and decomposition”

-marlinwire.com
Now a lot of that might not be much a concern if you only plan to use it once, but still, I'd recommend spending a few extra pennies for stainless steel or aluminum wire, which you should be able to find in any large hardware or home improvement store.  The link above goes on to say specifically that grade 304 and 316 stainless steel and aluminum are food safe.
Another option that might work for you is a grilling basket.


I'd do one or more of a few things:

Treat it like the dough in Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, in which you sprinkle flour on top, then pull off a portion you need, then shape quickly into a ball, developing the outer skin, keeping the freshly floured side out.
Chill down the dough, so it's firmer and easier to work with.  (and then do #1 while it's still a bit cold)
Put it into muffin pans or similar for baking, so you don't have to worry about it holding up on its own or even attempting to shape it.  (if you can shape it a little bit, you can then put it into a pan with enough of a lip to give them some support as they rise; they might spread into each other, but you can typically break them apart after they're baked)

In general, I find that kneading dough in a mixer (unless specifically called for in a recipes) always needs more flour.  Basically, when you're kneading normally, you might work in 1/2 cup or so of extra flour.  And there are the issues with knowing what the proper way to measure flour for a given recipe if the measurements are given in volume (cups) and not by weight, which will easily throw off any bread recipe.


How do I ensure my cooked meat turns out moist?

The way to ensue moist meat is to make sure that you don't overcook it.  It is really just that simple.  Variations on cooking method are to achieve certain effects on the meat, i.e. searing to develop more flavor due to the maillard reaction, sous vide to allow you to cook to a specific temperature, ect.  In the war against dry meat, a thermometer is your best foxhole buddy.

That said, some cooking methods allow you to hit that temp mark easier than others.  Typically, the slower heat enters the food, the closer to the specific temperature you will be able to get.  Thus things like a braise more often result in a meat that is moist as the window between cooked and over-cooked is much larger than on something like a grill.


its harmful to eat not very well cooked beef?

I am not a doctor, and this is not medical advice--just my view of the current best practices recommended by sources I trust.

It depends on the kind of bacteria or parasites commonly found on the food in question. Chickens are often infected with Campylobacter or Salmonella, and those bacteria can get into the flesh of the meat. So cooking chicken thoroughly is strongly recommended. And in my opinion, raw chicken isn't that palatable anyway so there's no reason to take the risk.

It used to be common for pork to be infected with Trichinella (a parasite) which also made its way into the meat, so it was recommended that pork be cooked well. Nowadays that's actually pretty rare, and you can even find irradiated pork that is free of parasites and thus safe to eat semi-rare.

Fish harbor parasites. Sushi bars kill them by hard-freezing the fish to kill the parasites before thawing and serving the fish raw (at least in the US--Japanese often just take their chances). It is not recommended that you try this at home--cook your fish thoroughly and save sushi for a night out at a bar you trust.

Beef contamination (such as E.Coli) is generally found only on the surface of the meat and not on the deep interior. So a steak well-seared on the outside and rare in the center is generally safe (and delicious--rare beef is juicy and flavorful while well-done beef is leathery and bland). Grinding moves all that surface around, so ground beef should be cooked well, unless you take special precautions like irradiation or sear-then-grind.

Lamb is similar to beef but current recommendations are to cook to 145, which is distinctly medium. I personally like my lamb a little pinker than that, but that's my choice--I don't have a lot of information on the specific risks there.

Fruit and vegetables are similar to beef, in that contamination is generally found only on the outside. Some are washed with chemical disinfectants; others can be simply peeled. Pre-packaged pre-cut fruit mixes and salads are notorious for being overhandled and contaminated by grocers. Buy whole, and make the salads yourself.

If by "very well cooked" you mean "charred to death on a grill", there is some evidence linking over-charred meats to some cancers, but it's not definitive at this point.

Of course nothing is completely safe, and food-borne illness can happen regardless of best intentions and practices. You must decide your own practices based on your health and level of comfort.


Can I / should I keep spices & dried herbs in the fridge?

Most fresh herbs do quite well in the fridge, so long as they're prepared appropriately.

I would not put dried herbs and spices into the fridge, especially if they're in a hard-sided container.  (unless maybe if you were in a really arid area)

There problem is that if you're in a warm, humid environment, you'll be trapping a little bit of moist air in there each time you use some ... which will condense in the fridge, which could result in rot for the herbs ... and I'm not sure what for the spices.

If you really wanted to pack them in the fridge, I would put them in a bag (vacuum bagged, if you can), and leave them there, with another container outside the fridge with enough for a month or two.  In this way there's less moisture trapped in there, and you're not opening it frequently.


Can I eat beans that have had weeevils in it?

Per Alan Munn, Quora, and Iowa State, grain weevils are medically harmless and carry no human diseases.

That said, most people find the thought of eating weevil larvae in their beans disgusting, and beans are pretty cheap to replace.  So unless you're on a ship or a camping trip, just throw them out and start over.

If necessary, you can use the 1-hour hydration method for your beans to cook them today.


Solution for uneven heating on an electric coil stovetop

A copper diffuser plate will help spread the heat more evenly.

Is it possible the coils are not all touching the bottom of your pot?