Pouring cold water on pasta after cooking it

I would strongly suggest not pouring cold or any other kind of water on pasta; it will rinse the delicious starches off its surface, which would otherwise help your sauce cling to it.

To counteract the negative consequences of overcooking due to remaining heat (which, as belisarius suggests in his answer, is the reason other stuff is often rinsed with cold water), just serve it immediately. You want to have the sauce (hot and) ready just before your pasta is, so you can drain the pasta, mix with the sauce, and put it on the table.


How do Crispbread manufacturers use so few ingredients?

All crisp-bread recipes use water (or at least some ingredient with a high water content), but the bread is baked and then hung from the ceiling to dry further until the water content is very much reduced.

The real mystery is how structure is introduced without leavening. Wikipedia has good information on this point,

  [...] bubbles are introduced into the
  dough mechanically. Traditionally, this was done by mixing snow or
  powdered ice into the dough, which then evaporated during baking.
  Today, the dough, which must contain a large amount of water, is
  cooled and mixed until bubbly.

  Another method is to knead the dough
  under pressure in an extruder. The sudden drop in pressure then causes
  water to evaporate, creating bubbles in the dough.

Presumably knäckebröd was only made during the winter months before its production became industrialised. For the modern home cook, the difficulty of introducing structure still remains, so it is unsurprising that you didn't find many recipes with very basic ingredients.

Some recipes for home cooks introduce structure in the form of seeds and whole grains. Others, as you noted use yeast.

Some Swedish crisp breads such as tunnbröd, have no leavening, no gas incorporated into the dough and are wafer thin. These can be made at home with a very short ingredient list, no specialised equipment and during any season :-)

At least some of the major Swedish manufacturers do use yeast. My favorite, Leksands knäcke, for instance uses,

  swedish wholegrain rye flour, fresh water from our own spring, yeast
  and a pinch of salt.

So if you are considering baking your own knäcke, you don't necessarily have to avoid recipes using yeast.


What ingredients (available in specific regions) can I substitute for parsley?

You might try Thai or European celery leaves as a substitute.


Why does my buttercream become runny overnight?

Meringue is a protein-based foam. The proteins form a semi-stable mesh with air bubbles trapped inside. The reason they are semi-stable is that they unravel a bit and hook into each other, Velcro-style. When you introduce fat, it lubricates and smooths the unraveled proteins, so they lose their hooking ability. If the fat is introduced before the eggwhites are beaten, there is a fair chance that you won't get a foam at all.

It is possible to mix the prepared foam with fat without destroying it, although it will lose some volume. This is usually done when the bulk of the mix is not the meringue, but some kind of creamy filling which gets lightened by the air added through the meringue. These fillings are usually set through baking (such as a cheesecake filling), or gelling agents (there are cremes which combine egg whites foam, fat-containing dairy products, and gelatine). As you did not set the icing in any way, the fat from the butter slowly worked itself into the formed hooks of the proteins, destroying the mesh and returning the eggwhites to their original form (a suspension of proteins in water). Eventually, if you overbeat the meringue a bit, you also got some weeping caused by the proteins slowly getting tight enough to expell some water from the structure, but if present at all, this is probably a secondary effect in this case.

Bottom line: the mix you made is inherently unstable. I wouldn't use it as an icing unless the food is eaten quickly. You should get a different recipe. If pure buttercream is too rich for your taste, you can try versions which add yolks or whole eggs (not foamed eggwhites). The lecithine in the yolks emulsifies the rest of the egg with the butter, so you don't get separation problems. Another option is to forego buttercream completely and use whipped cream, it still gives you a rich mouthfeel, but has much less fat per weight and whips to a higher volume.


In wine-making, at least, acidity is a function of three different types of acid.  Because those types of acid matter to the final product, wine making supply stores and websites provide several inexpensive ways of determining acidity.  Two described here are an acid titration kit and a pH meter.  When making wine last year I used an acid titration kit and it couldn't have been simpler.  You take a sample of your liquid, the indicator solution, and a reactor solution.  Based on how much of the reactor you have to add to change the color of the original sample you can get your acidity in a percent.
In my experience with the wine we noticed the acidity in our grape juice (that was on its way to becoming wine) more by the burning sensation on our hands where we touched the grapes as we crushed them or in our mouths when we drank - our solution started out seriously acidic.  It was hard to taste a difference between too acidic and just right.
If you have a liquid recipe and want to get the acidity exactly right, consider using acid titration.


I noticed the term "just washed" in the question.

My suggestion is -- don't wash them before peeling.  Wash them after peeling.

Water is what makes them slippery -- if anything, dirt adds traction as you're peeling.

(and I tend to do one end, then the length of it, slowly rotating, then the other end ... no idea if that's faster or less slippery ... but for carrots, I always do the fatter end first, as I find it'd harder hold a peeled skinny side while peeling the fatter end)


How is gelatine sold in U.S. grocery stores?

The packs typically contain the equivalent of 15mL of gelatine and are in powder form.  Each pack is measured to set 500mL or two cups of liquid.  As far as weight, it feels like about 6-7 grams of gelatin.

The dominant brand seems to be knox.

As for the bloom, I'm not really sure as I haven't seen it published on the label.  However, I have actually made marshmallow using the same Alton Brown recipe and it seemed pretty tolerant.  So slightly different bloom should be fine.  I also deviated with the corn syrup and didn't use it (I avoid corn).  The end result was still awesome.


What is the most energy efficient way to cook meat on an electric stove?

As @Jefromi says, there is no simple answer. Also depends on your definition of "cooked".

For water vs oil,  most likely oil is more energy efficient. Frying a 16 oz steak takes only ~5/10  minutes, whereas boiling 16 oz of meat in water will take at least double that time, even if you use exact same pan and exact same stove. If you cut the meat more strategically, you can save some energy, which brings me to 2nd point.
The shape of the meat will have a big influence. For example, a 1 inch thick tenderloin will take considerably more energy to "cook" compared to 4 tenderloin steaks of quarter inch, assuming you can lay all 4 steaks in a pan together.

There is a saying that in ancient China, stove fuel was hard to come by, thats why they always used to cut the meat as thin as possible so that the dish finishes cooking fast with minimum stove-time. Don't know if its historically accurate, though :)


Teaching Bread Making to a young student- need new reasources

Take a look at the Josey Baker Bread book. He is a former elementary school science teacher turned professional San Francisco baker. The lessons start with the simplest no-knead bread and progressively add to that foundation with new concepts and techniques.  In a number of ways it feels like an elementary school science textbook.  It might be the best match for what you are looking for.

http://www.joseybakerbread.com/the-book


Do different fat contents (skim, 2%, whole, etc) affect rate or intensity of milk spoilage?

No, there is no reason they should.

Bacteria feed on carbohydrates, not on fats. (This is why oil doesn't spoil outside of the fridge - it is pure fat). So it is the amount of milk sugar which is important for the bacteria, and it is the same regardless of the fat content. Also, the spoiled milk is not more or less sour at the end.

The other important factors are initial bacteria count and storage temperature. You can't do anything about the bacteria count, and can't know what it is. The storage temperature is, of course, your fridge temperature, which should be in the small range of 0-4°C.

The other factor is the type of pasteurization. Traditional pasteurization makes a milk with a shelf life of 7 days, ESL gives it a shelf life of 21 days, and UHT milk can last for months, uncooled. Once opened, each of these types spoils within 3-4 days. And then, normally pasteurized milk goes really sour, partly even separating into curdles and whey. ESL and UHT milks get slightly more bitter, but not much, and they stay liquid and don't change their odour or colour. Unless you pay lots of attention to the taste, you can't tell when ESL milk is spoiled. But this happens the same way no matter the fat content.


Are there safety concerns with cooking something with beer or wine in the oven?

This is a little speculative but too much of an answer for a comment.

We've had a few discussions here about the relative rates of boiling off water and alcohol. The result is that the alcohol vapour (starting from even pure beer/wine) will be mixed with quite a lot of water vapour so will be dilute even before it mixes with air.

Apparently you need between 3.3% and 19% alcohol in air for it to be flammable. A source of ignition is also required (e.g. the flame in a gas oven).  Gas ovens have to be fairly well ventilated for there to be enough oxygen to support a flame. So much of the alcohol would escape. Any that does reach the flame is likely to be consumed there unnoticed before much can build up.

An electric element (not the air in the oven) does get hot enough to ignite alcohol. It can ignite spitting fat and that doesn't cause a problem except a smoky kitchen. If you've boiled off enough to replace 3.3% of the air with alcohol you've also replaced quite a bit with water vapour too. An oven would have to be very well sealed to allow this buildup in the first place.

I have seen an old oven door fail when grilling. In that case the (forgotten) food itself ignited and was spitting flames at the glass, which burst. It didn't cause a fire outside the oven.

I haven't considered the case of strong spirits. There's probably a way to arrange pure/flambé alcohol to ignite in an interesting way.


How much could I safely heat a content-less cast-iron pan?

If it is completely empty, you probably can't reach dangerous temperatures with your stove. The iron itself melts at 1500°C. The seasoning can be burnt off at much lower temperatures, a self-cleaning cycle in the oven is enough for it (500°C). I have taken an iron pan to above 400°C without damaging the seasoning. (I don't know exactly how high it was, my thermometer doesn't go above 400°C). This was on an induction stove set at maximum, I doubt that any other kind of stove can produce such temperatures.

Edit I just heard an example showing that you can take a pan on a resistive stove to above 500°C with prolonged heating, so you should be measuring it if you plan to go that high. (and if you have a thermometer in this range, you can post your findings to further limit the range of 400° to 500°C, because I'm curious).

But if you say "no contents", be careful that it is actually just the pan. You cannot oil it, because the self-ignition temperature (of flash point) of vegetable oil is low, Wikipedia gives it at 327°C. It could just smoke terribly and throw a spark or two when you reach it, but it can also flame up and then you are holding a small brand in your hand.


The differences in quality between teas is usually down to the manufacturer and the product line. As far as I can tell, there is no discernible difference between Twining's English Breakfast tea (for instance) in bags or loose leaf. They are the same leaves, presented differently.

However, and this is the important part, there is a difference in how they infuse. Because of the limitations of the tea bag, and the flow of the water through the leaves, a loose-leaf tea is usually infused more quickly, and possibly better. That is, you get more essence of tea from the leaves into the water.
There are different bag designs (pyramid bags for example) which try to bridge some of this gap.

The advantage of the tea bags is that they are easier to work with, as you don't need to strain the leaves out of the water, you can just pick the bag up with your spoon.

There is a lovely essay by George Orwell about making "proper" tea. Some of it is a matter of taste, but his point about the infusion is spot on, in my opinion.


Are there any recipe ingredients that scale in a non-uniform manner?

Things applied in a non-linear manner do not scale linearly, i.e. when the 'Surface to volume ratio' matters, the recipe will not scale linearly.
See  http://kitchenscience.sci-toys.com/scaling for a discussion mostly on how the timings are affected.

One example is breading: You will not need to double the breading linearly on a single 200g piece of beef/chicken compared to a single 400g piece, since the surface area will not change with the same factor as the weight, i.e. the surface area will not double when the weight doubles.

On the other hand, if you use twice as many pieces of chicken, you will need twice as much breading.


You can store whatever you want in these bins - I regularly use one of mine to store bottled drinks.

However, depending where the cold air outlet is in your fridge, placing relatively fragile items such as fruits and vegetables on the shelves could cause them to freeze or form ice crystals internally, damaging the item.

Things like bags of apples or oranges tend to take up a lot of shelf space, so a bin helps contain them a bit by forcing them to stack vertically more-so than a flat shelf would.

So, pay attention to where the air vent is and your fridge overall temperature, as well as what's next to the items - otherwise it's OK to store fruits and vegetables on the shelf.


Seems like the bamboo mat used for making sushi rolls would be a good choice for this.  Line it with heavy plastic wrap or parchment paper, of course.


How to determine perfect pan temperature for steak?

I don't think there is any single answer to this question, because it would depend on:

The type and thickness of the steak
The starting temperature of the steak
How well you like it done (because the goal is to get enough browning and crust development on the outside, without crossing over into burning, while still cooking the steak through)
The peculiarities of your own equipment, including both your element and your pan (a thick heat retaining pan will have less temperature drop than a thin one, and so require less ongoing source of heat)

Even if we could give you a single answer, it would probably be in terms of the surface temperature of the pan before you put a steak into it, and unless you have an infrared thermometer (which have only become reasonably available in the last 10 years or so, and are not typical kitchen equipment), that answer would not be actionable to you.

So we fall back on less precise methods, saying things like the oil should just be smoking, or that it should be shimmering, or that a bread cube should brown in about 5 seconds.

Perhaps the best test also requires the most experience to apply.  Hold your hand, open, palm down, over the surface of the pan about 1 inch (2.5 cm) from the surface for a few seconds.  The length of time it takes for it to become uncomfortable tells you hot how the pan is.   It should be about 3-4 seconds, but again, requires experience to use this method, and everyone's perception varies.

In any case, you are going to have to employ trial and error as you learn the idiosncracies of your own burner, and your own taste in steak.

That said, there are a couple of methods that are more forgiving.  Possibly the best is cooking sous-vide, and only searing for browning afterwards in the pan, but not everyone has the equipment and wherewithal of that method.

A technique that anyone can do is to put the steak in a slow oven (about 250 F 120 C) until it is cooked through about 5 degrees F (2-3 C) below the doneness you like, as tested with an instant read thermometer.  IT will be wan and pale looking but this is okay.  You then sear it in a quite hot pan, until it is brown and delicious.  This should only take a couple of minutes, since the steak is cooked through; you are just developing the crust.  This shorter time should be much less likely to burn.

Note:  within limits, a thicker steak requires a lower temperature, but this is very limited.

Thick steaks truly require a two-stage cooking method, such as the ones outlined above, or traditional pan roasting (searing in the frying pan, then transferring to the oven).

In the end, though you will always have to come back to experience with your equipment, and your preferences on how you do your steaks.


How can you keep a stack of Swedish pancakes fresh?

You have this same problem with most fried foods that you want to serve fresh. Anyone who makes latkes for Hanukkah knows this problem well. So it's similar to this question What technique should I use to make latkes for a party so that I don't have to stay in the kitchen?

You can try what I do for latkes - I put them on a drying rack, sheet pan, skillet, etc. in the oven set at around 250°F. You may want a lower temp for Swedish pancakes, like 200, since they are less dense. They will not be the same as fresh from the frying pan, but they will stay warm and crisp.

For reheating, put them in a dry cast iron or non-stick skillet or in the toaster oven on 375-400 for 4-5 min, more or less time depending on thickness and initial temperature.

If you do this a lot you could also invest in a heat lamp/warmer set up like they use at fast food chains to keep the fries warm. Cheap one on Amazon - http://www.amazon.com/Home-HL100SV-Culinary-Heat-Lamp/dp/B0043M5N08

Many a Top Chef participant has been felled by this problem though - fried foods, blinis, etc. are never the same as when taken out of the fryer fresh, but they are still quite good out of the warm oven.


How thick should be the sponge for a swiss roll?

Personally when ever I do Swiss rolls or anything requiring me to roll or manipulate the sponge in any way I'll use a Genoise sponge recipe. It's a bit more effort to make than a bog standard pound cake recipe but worth it.

While still warm I've managed to roll it anywhere between 2mm thick and 3cm with little or no cracks or splits.

In my opinion the optimum thickness for a full sized Swiss roll is around 1cm thick, but obviously if making canape sized versions you'll be looking more towards the 2mm thickness.


How do I tell if my pasta is molto al dente?

How to see if your pasta is "al dente":

If your pasta cooks about in 10 minutes (for example), when you put pasta into the boiling water take one pasta after 8 minute (about 20% before the time of cook), bite it and observe the pasta: the external is more yellow than the internal that is white. When the internal white disappears the pasta has cooked "normale", when the internal white is small the pasta is "al dente".

Greetings from Italy

Everybody know cooking, not everybody speak english very well


What went wrong with these pots de creme au chocolat?

You've answered your own question. The water bath should have gone all the way up to just above the crème in your pots. I'd also bet that you had this on the top rack of your oven, this type of water bath should be on the lowest rack to keep the tops from cooking faster than the bottoms which is what looks like happened. I've had the same thing happen with crème brulee before.

  Once I removed the jars from the water bath, the layering was
  immediately obvious in all eight pots de creme. Interestingly, the
  bottom of the chocolate layer seems to roughly align with the water
  level in the bath.


Are cockroaches a usable source of protein?

http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/31/travel/china-cockroach-farming-food/

They should not be much different than crickets which are commonly consumed.  An insect which does not inherently produce a toxin should often be fairly safe depending on what they had been eating.  A sewer roach for instance would not be a good idea while a wood roach would likely be safe in a pinch.  I recall reality shows which would routinely make contestants eat giant hissing roaches something that might not be pleasant but which would not hurt the contestants.


What material is best for a pour over coffee brewer?

Ceramic will - if preheated - prevent some cooling of your water, but plastic filter-holders don't have much heat capacity so you don't lose much with them, either.  Plastic filter-holders and paper filters have the advantage of not costing much so you can have one at home, one at work, one anywhere else you want...

As with most coffee preparation, a good grinder is paramount and getting freshly roasted coffee is also extremely important.


Cooking French fries with strainer from IKEA's Idealisk

If the strainer fits your pot so that it works as a fry basket, then it's fine to use it as such.  As long as:

It'll sit flat in the pot so it doesn't spill all the potatoes out;
The handle is long enough that you can pick it up without burning yourself on the oil;
You're not concerned if the strainer gets burned-on oil which might make it less useful as a general-purpose strainer;
The strainer is all-metal, which that strainer is.

If any of the above don't work, consider just dumping the fries in the pot and using the strainer to fish them out, but not leaving it in the boiling oil.


Can I change the flour type of my sourdough starter?

Robert Cartaino's answer hits a main point: sourdough cultures are adapted to what they are typically fed.  When switching flours, it may take a while for the culture to adjust.  The starter may seem a bit sluggish at first.

That said, I would NOT recommend trying to start a wheat culture if you already have a healthy starter that began with rye.  There are two main reasons.

First, rye is particularly rich in certain sugars and food that natural yeasts tend to like, so rye starters naturally tend to look more "lively" than wheat starters, especially in the early stages of a starter.  Part of what you may be seeing in your transition to wheat is simply less activity produced because the food source is less rich in nutrients, not necessarily because the yeast and bacteria can't digest it.

Second, a lot of recipes to generate new starters recommend using rye at the beginning, regardless of what you ultimately plan to feed the starter.  Because it provides a strong food source for young cultures, it's usually a lot easier to begin with rye (perhaps this is why you did).  In my experience, it tends to take new wheat starters at least twice as long to get strongly established compared to rye, and there's a higher chance of failure if you don't use a good recipe.

For both of these reasons, some people even recommend always feeding your starter with rye flour, even if you tend to make wheat-based bread.  Since many people have success doing that (and I have personally), I don't think you need to begin a whole new culture with wheat alone.

If your starter really is sluggish (and not just a little less active than it was with rye), you can help your starter to adapt to the new food.  I'm not sure what your typical feeding routine is or what the hydration level of your starter is.  But the general thing to do in these circumstances is to dilute your starter and feed it large quantities of the new food.  For example, if you maintain 200 grams of your starter normally, I would discard all but maybe 40-50 grams and then add enough new flour and water to get back to 200 grams in whatever your usual proportion is.  (Some people would be even more extreme in diluting the starter and cut the starter proportion even further.)

Within a few days of feedings like this, you will have strongly selected the yeast and bacteria that thrive on whole wheat and your starter should be strong again.  After a week of feedings like this, I doubt you could distinguish the performance of your starter from one that was begun on wheat.  (Note that the specific microorganisms may still be slightly different, but your starter should do a fine job raising dough and providing flavor.)


What is the best approach to cut carrot into thin strips?

The style of cut is called julienne.  True, a mandoline can make a julienne cut, as well as thin slices.  However, you can also use a knife to achieve a julienne cut.

First, cut the carrot into manageable lengths--2 or 3 inches.  Cut a piece into 1/8 inch slices lengthwise.  Stack several slices on top of one another and cut lengthwise through all layers to make "matchsticks" or julienne-cut carrots.  It works best to have a large slice on the bottom of your stack, not a small one or the round side of the carrot.  A large slice on the bottom is more stable, so you're not as likely to julienne your fingers.  Yes, cutting carrots this way is a lot of trouble, but this is the way to do it with a knife.

There are also other ways to get a similar result without a mandoline.  If you have a food processor, try the large grating disk.  You can also use a salad shooter or other slicer/shredder--there's even an attachment for the ubiquitous Kitchen Aid mixer.  Even a plain old box grater can be used to grate carrots.  Grated carrots may not be as neat and tidy as the ones done commercially, but they're still a good addition to a salad.

Oh, if all else fails, you can usually buy the shredded carrots in the produce section, near the bagged salads.


How to easily minimize waste using a potato smasher?

There is no need to remove potato from the holes on each stroke, which appears to be what you are describing doing. Just pick it up and smash it down on some un-smashed potatoes until there are no more of those. The potato already smashed through the holes will eventually fall back into the pot during this process.

Then, when done smashing, turn the tool sideways, knock it on the rim of the pot to dislodge most of the potato on it, and use a rubber spatula to scrape off what's left.

Or expand your shopping beyond wal-mart - I'd bet $20 I can find a wire-type masher at a thrift store nearby, probably for $1 or $2 at most, and certainly by using the same technology you use to post your question you can have one shipped to your house for a bit more money, if this type offends you. You can also mash them with a hand or stand mixer. Or, indeed, a fork.


Ruined balsamic salad dressing, how to recover?

Well, adding more of everything but xanthan gum would of course have the effect of diluting the xanthan gum. The problem is, it's possible that you used way, way too much xanthan gum (easy to do, the amount you need to slightly thicken a dressing is minuscule), so unless you've got a few 50-gallon drums of balsamic vinegar lying around, I wouldn't advise that you go that route. Instead, I'd suggest that you make a new dressing with no xanthan gum, then add the old dressing a bit at a time until you like the result.

As for finding an alternate use for (the rest of) your balsamic xanthan slime: I wouldn't. Xanthan gum is texturally quite unpleasant except at very low concentrations.


Do egg whites thin out when salt is added, which will make them easier to mix?

Salt, sodium chloride, is slightly chaotropic towards protein colloids, so it should loosen up the egg whites slightly by decreasing protein-protein interaction.

That should make the whites easier to mix, but I doubt you'll get a significant size increase out of it.


How much time and temperature do I add when making 140% of a quick bread recipe?

I agree with FuzzyChef's answer, though I'd emphasize in general that this is often a question as shape as well as volume.  A cake that is increased in size but also baked in a wider pan so its overall thickness is about the same as the original may not need much additional cooking time at all, or the increase might be small.  When one increases all dimensions (and thus increases the thickness too), it takes longer for heat to migrate to the center and thus may need a more substantial increase in cook time.

Also, I want to address the reference made to "increasing the oven temperature."  Generally speaking, when making a larger cake or quick bread, you don't want to increase the oven temperature, as it may very well cause excessive browning on the exterior (or burning, along with perhaps drying out near the edges) before the center is cooked.

If anything, larger cakes and quickbreads sometimes call for decreasing the oven temperature, to allow extra time for the interior to cook before the exterior gets too brown.  If the temperature is decreased, the time must be increased to take this into account.  (FuzzyChef's linked document shows these trends too.)

Unfortunately, there's no general rule that applies in all cases, as some quick breads may be prone more to excessive browning, while others may be fine if baked a bit longer at the standard temperature.  Sometimes adjustments in leavening or other ingredient adjustments may be necessary to take into account different time/temperature as well as to allow a structure that must rise higher.


What causes lemons to be bitter when cooked and how to avoid it?

You can try a few things.

Use just the zest from the peel, and then slice and remove the pith and use just the inside.
Pre-boil the lemon peels, then add them to your main dish.
Remove the lemons before the bitterness gets too strong (i.e. when you tasted the dish the first time) but while there's still a strong taste.

This works because the citrus oils (which are a major primary flavor contributor) are just in the top layer of the peels, while the acid is in the inside. The pith is just plain bitter.


Create hot "sauce" from capsaicin extract

There's no point in getting pure capsaicin and diluting it yourself when you can buy capsaicin in just about any strength you want with all the work done for you. If you want something truly, painfully hot then get capsaicin 1 mil and then measure it into your dishes with an eye dropper. Be real careful with it, use gloves and don't sniff it, even at 1M it can still seriously hurt you.

I second @Jolenealaska's warning that pure capsaicin is dangerous. In fact, you should not try to get the pure stuff even if it is available, get something somewhat diluted as it is safer and easier to work with. Pure capsaicin is used in industrial applications, you need to work in tiny quantities, requiring special equipment. It can also put you in the hospital, so just don't do it. As cool as it sounds "I made this sauce using pure capsaicin!", the reality is somewhat different.


One difference you'll find is that the sauce is not as hot with the green jalapeños, because fully mature red ones have more capsaicin.  However, spiciness does not affect their preservation qualities.

Mature, red peppers have a slightly lower pH than green peppers(paper behind paywall, sorry) -- about 1.0 points lower.  However, both are still considered low-acid foods that require additional acidifying (usually using vinegar or lime juice in salsa) in order to be canned safely at atmospheric pressure.  I wouldn't expect the difference in pepper acidity to have much of an effect on the final recipe in a salsa that is primarily composed of tomatoes, so I wouldn't adjust the acid in the recipe.


Why do fresh mandarin oranges get very bitter when baked?

The white, pithy part is a source of the bitterness. Either peel more thoroughly, or trim off with a knife.

The pulp of some oranges (of the navel variety), can turn bitter when exposed to air.
http://www.preparedpantry.com/CitrusQuickGuide.htm


Should I preheat my bread baking containers?

If you are using a additional containers or surfaces in the oven for baking, you should absolutely pre-heat it with the oven. Use an IR thermometer to measure the actual temperature of the container - a dutch oven or heavy stone will take longer to come up to temperature than the air in the oven will, so the oven will claim to be preheated sooner than it is actually ready.

Remember that temperature and heat are two different things - one of the benefits of using a baking stone or dutch oven or other "heavy" thing is that it stores a lot of HEAT. Air at 450F and Cast Iron at 450F contain very different amounts of heat, and it is heat that will bake your bread. You can tell that they have soaked up as much heat as they can when their temperature is close to your oven set-point, which will take a while.

The only possible exception to this would be if you are just using a thin sheet metal steam tray to cover your pizza stone to trap steam, since it has so little thermal mass. A thin tray could probably be put over the bread without preheating the tray since it won't absorb or store much thermal energy.

To prevent burning, choose containers with a good, solid handle, and get quality oven mitts, preferably with long-ish sleeves to protect your forearms.


What cut of beef can I use to make "sukiyaki beef"?

Your best choices would be top sirloin (#1 choice), tenderloin, or one of the other (less expensive) sirloin cuts. Those cuts will be tender, flavorful, and without pockets of fat or gristle to mar the appearance of your dish.

I don't recommend round because I simply don't like its flavor. Using round in this application might be one of the best applications to use up round, but for the best possible beef bowl, I'd go with the sirloin or tenderloin.

TIP: To thinly slice meat, put it in the freezer first until it just starts to get hard (not even close to fully frozen), or start with meat that is only partially defrosted. Partially frozen meat is much easier to neatly and thinly slice. For this application, thin even slices really are important, they make for a much nicer presentation.


As Jolenealaska mentioned in his reply, Ahi is generally yellowfin tuna.

I believe you probably see it on restaurant menus a lot either because it is part of your local fish stock or possibly as part of marketing tactics used by the restaurants.

All of the true tuna fish species will be nice grilled, with some minor difference in flavor. Personally I would choose the tuna based on sustainability and freshness rather than specie.


How do the batter and technique differ between crepes and pancakes?

Crepes do not contain baking powder or baking soda for leavening.  They also typically use melted butter vs. oil in pancakes and have a higher liquid to flour ratio.  Basic crepes contain only eggs, milk, water, a pinch of salt and flour.

You can however make them more sweet or savory by adding chopped herbs or a bit of sugar (not too much or you'll have too much browning), cocoa powder, spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, etc.

For additional help & recipe for Black Forest Cherry Crepes:  Tips for Successful Crepes


There are a number or styles of soy sauces used in Japanese cuisine.  Saishikomi shoyu is sometimes described as sweet compared to regular Koikuchi shoyu. Additionally there are soy-based sauces available in the US that have added ingredients such as corn syrup or MSG to enhance specific flavors.

Kikkoman makes an "enhanced" soy sauce that they call Amakuchi shoyu that is sweetened with corn syrup, as well as another call Umukuchi shoyu that has added MSG for savoriness.  Teriyaki sauces, especially those made for use as a marinade, can be as liquid as standard soy sauce and are sweetened with sugar or corn syrup.

A traditional dipping sauce for shabu shabu is a 1:1:1 mixture of shoyu, dashi, and mirin reduced by 1/3 with rice vinegar added to taste. If you wanted it even sweeter, you could just add sugar to taste once it has reduced.


What are the advantages of seasoned cast iron vs enameled cast iron?

Enameled and seasoned cast-iron cookware share a number of properties; they're very heavy, not terribly conductive of heat (leading to hot-spots when over a high flame), and capable of storing an enormous amount of heat energy. Cast iron itself is very reactive and tends to rust easily, which is why it is seasoned or enameled to protect the metal with a coating of either polymerised fat or fused glass, and these two processes lead to a number of differences:
Non-stick properties
Properly seasoned cast iron has a quite good non-stick finish - it won't be as smooth as a Teflon pan, but at the same time, the seasoning is much harder to scratch off and can be safely brought to searing temperatures that would cause the Teflon to begin breaking down and releasing toxic compounds. Enameled cookware, on the other hand, is about as non-stick as stainless steel, i.e. not at all non-stick. This means that many frying applications prefer seasoned cast iron over enameled, where getting a smooth release from the pan is important to the dish. For example, I'd much rather fry eggs in seasoned cast iron than enameled.
Setup & initial seasoning
Enameled cast iron is ready to go right out of the box; give it a rinse to remove the dust of storage and travel beforehand, but otherwise it's usable as is. For bare cast iron, and even the pre-seasoned stuff you often find nowadays, it's wise to put a couple layers of your own seasoning on it before cooking anything. This process has been described in many other places, so I won't repeat it here, but it involves washing off any protective coating from the factory before spreading a very thin layer of fat or oil over the entire surface of the pan before bringing it up to a high temperature on the stove or, for evenness, in the oven. Some people recommend flaxseed oil, but I would steer you away from it; the resultant seasoning has a tendency to flake off. Any fat with a high smoke point should do: vegetable, peanut, canola, coconut, even (relatively pure) lard.
Washing & storage
Seasoned cast iron has a reputation for fussy maintenance, and while it does take more respect and diligence than most pan materials and coatings, it's not as bad as it's sometimes made out to be. Maintaining seasoned cast iron involves not letting it stay wet after washing, avoiding particularly harsh detergents or abrasives in the washing process and, if it's not getting enough incidental seasoning from regular use, periodic manual re-seasoning. Meanwhile, enameled cast iron is coated in a layer of what is effectively glass, and it could not care less about your detergents or being allowed to air-dry. Scrubbing with literal steel wool might be a bit much, but anything you'd do to anything made of glass in the sink should be safe for enamel.
Reactivity
Some folks warn against using seasoned cast iron for acidic foods for the same reason they warn against aluminium; the acid in, say a tomato sauce, or Filipino adobo, can leach metal out of the pan and into the sauce. In iron, at least, this can be either good or bad for you, depending on your iron levels otherwise - nutrition isn't on topic here, so speak to a doctor if you're concerned. A heavier layer of seasoning, less liquid foods, and less acidic foods are all ways to minimise this effect. Enameled cookware, meanwhile, is still covered in a layer of nonreactive glass, and won't exchange anything but heat with the food you're cooking.
High heat
Cast iron is often held to be an ideal material for searing food in; its respectable specific heat capacity and very high mass give it an enormous amount of thermal mass, meaning the temperature of the pan won't drop too sharply when food is added, and giving it time to pre-heat for searing can even out the hot-spots caused by its middling-to-poor conductivity. Of the two varieties of cast iron in this question, seasoned can take a somewhat higher temperature that enameled; while it is possible to burn off the seasoning layer, it takes a higher heat than damaging the finish on an enameled pan. This isn't a huge difference, but it does exist. One thing to note is that if your pan or pot has plastic or other non-heat-proof handles, removing these can leave you with a pan usable in a much hotter oven. Indeed, some companies manufacture and sell heat-proof knobs and handles for their products to replace the default ones.
Overall, while both varieties can be used quite well for both frying and stewing operations, the properties of seasoned cast iron lean it towards those frying and searing applications, while enamel is geared towards stewing and braising. This is why it's so much more common to find a seasoned cast iron skillet and an enameled dutch oven than the reverse; the opposites do exist, but they're much less common.
Incidentally, I'd be somewhat skeptical of a cast iron pan sold as a paella pan; my understanding of paella pans is that they're typically thin, light, and made of stainless steel. It's entirely possible that what they're selling as a paella pan is a perfectly reasonably cooking vessel, but I don't know that it's what you'd want to make paella in.


What are the fundamental differences between citrus fruits that necessitate different cooking techniques?

There are three (to the best of my knowledge) main factors at work here:

Pectin.  This is a gelling agent, a bit like gelatin.  Fruits such as apples and plums are very high in pectin; citrus fruits are not that high in pectin but citrus peels are incredibly high, so if you're using any of the peel, you're getting tons of great pectin.
Obviously, the more pectin, the faster and firmer it's going to gel.  If the fruit doesn't contain much pectin then you're going to have to cook it down a lot or just add actual pectin (you can buy it in stores).

Acidity, as you suspect, makes a big difference.  It's not just acidity, it's the relationship of acidity to pectin as above.  For more details read The Role of Acid in Jelly Formation.  Basically, pectin gels best at a pH of 2.5 (almost exactly the pH of lemon juice) to 4.5 (about the pH of sweet grapes).
It's best to hit the sweet spot in the middle rather than the extreme ends, so you won't generally be using pure lemon juice, you'll be adding some sugar and other ingredients.  Which leads me to the final factor:

Sugar.  As described in The Role of Sugar in Jelly Formation, sugar precipitates the pectin, basically making the pectin molecules less soluble which mimics the effect of a higher concentration.  Therefore, more sugar makes the jelly set faster.

So: Pectin-rich fruits + high acidity + high sugar content = fast setting.
There are actually various other factors that affect the pectin (which is pretty much the only gelling agent at work when working with natural fruit jellies) like salts and even alcohol, but in the vast majority of recipes, it's acidity and sugar that are your primary concerns as well as the actual pectin content of the fruit itself.


french press vs. chemex - oil absorbed by chemex filters?

The Chemex process does absorb oils, and also reduces the total time the coffee grounds stay in direct contact with hot water. But the issue is less about better-vs-worse, and more about your preferences wrt the characteristics of how you like to drink your coffee.

French Press yields, assuming all else is the same, an earthier, more viscous brew with more pronounced bitter notes that many people prefer. This is related to the presence of oils and suspended microparticles, much of which the Chemex filter removes.

Assuming the same grounds-to-water ratio and the same bean, a Chemex process will yield a coffee infusion with relatively sharper high notes, enhanced acidity and lowered bitterness. For coffee varietals and roasts that have more delicate, perfumey elements, Chemex can be a preferred method. Many coffeeshops prize these more floral, wine-like elements in their coffees and want their customers to experience them.

Besides choosing to showcase the more delicate elements of the coffee beans, many high-end coffee houses also have logistical concerns facing them as they work to assure the same coffee experience cup after cup. Assuming the patron receives a ready-to-drink (or ready-to-lighten/sweeten) cup of coffee, Chemex offers a process that is easier to measure, time, brew and dispose/clean up than French Press when presented with a stream of customers. While, French Press is easier than Chemex if you give the press to the customer to press and pour when they wish, that means the coffeeshop cannot control the final brew quality, which is often what they prize. Assuming the French Press is poured into a carafe, this problem can be ameliorated, but dumping, rinsing the pot, then unscrewing, rinsing and rescrewing the press is more challenging under time pressure than simply lifting out the Chemex filter and discarding.

Personally, I prefer French Press. I like the heavier, more viscous brew that the process yields, and I lean towards Half-City or medium roasts, which are lower in bitterness in the first place.

Here's a good example of a method very similar to what I do:
http://stumptowncoffee.com/brew-guides/press-pot/


In bread baking, you do each step until you recognize that you achieved the correct end result for each step, then stop, wait until the appropriate changes have happened, then continue with the next step. An expert baker would work from a much more abbreviated recipe than the one you posted, and if something doesn't happen as expected, he or she will have an idea how to troubleshoot.

The recipe you chose seems to be aimed at a beginner baker. It not only explains what the intermediate results should look like ("until cohesive dough starts to form and no dry flour remains"), but gives approximate time amounts, mostly for the eager newb who starts kneading and at some point asks "is this already silky?". These are basically signposts to make sure you are still on the right path.

So, what you should do is to stop when the described stage has been reached, and not by the clock. Only if you are not entirely sure that it has been reached, and you are taking much longer than the clock, you should stop, take a step back, and think whether you might be interpreting the description wrongly, or maybe made a mistake somewhere along the way, so that there is not a chance of ever attaining the proper end stage. I agree this may be frustrating for a very new baker, if you have no idea why the recipe says 5 minutes, but it still looks entirely wrong after 15 minutes, but at least it gives you enough information when to abort your attempts. It is not feasible to do more within a single recipe - if you want to be an effective troubleshooter, you need both lots of practice and sufficient theroy (which can fill whole books).

The opposite case you are suggesting - "what if the dough was smooth and slightly sticky when I started?" should basically never happen. You are making the step in order to achieve that state. If it were achievable without that step, the step wouldn't be in the recipe in the first place.

So, all I can suggest is to try to follow the recipe as stated, and if a discrepancy occurs, play it by ear. I won't try getting into each of your questions separately, since some of them are not practically relevant, others need whole questions of their own here, and yet others are not really answerable in such a generic question. For example, if your bread really doubles in size in the last rise, but the dough is totally sticky, the diagnosis of the likeliest problem cause alone will require a detailed description of what happened until that occured, how you treated it, etc, and may still not be diagnosable from afar. And the appropriate reaction will depend on why it happened in the first place.

Bottom line: these hypotheticals are unnecessary. Just bake, and see if you will run into any of the problems you described. If you do, come ask a specific question on the exact problem. But if the recipe is well balanced, you will likely not encounter any of them in the first place.


Your altitude won't matter in your baking. Whatever reason your cakes have for not rising, it's not that you are a tiny bit below sea level.
First of all, some personal observations on altitude: I've baked frequently at about 750 meters (let's round it to 2500 feet) and also in my current home at about 130 meters (about 425 feet). The same recipes work without noticeable differences in rising. A reduction of over 2000 feet doesn't bring much visible difference, much less the difference between "working perfectly" and "falling". Even if your recipes were perfected for 0 feet (which they aren't, cooks don't do it that precisely), a reduction of only 600 feet will be unnoticeable.
Second, what could the theoretical effect on rising be? Well, the air has less pressure due to altitude, so you'd expect slightly higher density; the thousands of air bubbles in the cake won't expand as much. How much is this "slightly"? Don't forget, air density depends on both pressure and temperature. For comparison, I calculated the air density at different heights and temperatures: It is the same density if your air is at 600 ft below sea level, heated to 175 Celsius (a common cake baking temperature), or sea level at 165 Celsius.
Now, our ovens have nice knobs graded in small intervals, but they are actually very bad at keeping temperature. It's not only that their mean temperature is badly adjusted (I've frequently seen ovens running 40 Celsius low), but also that their temperature fluctuates all the time with an amplitude much higher than these paltry 10 Celsius. And this is only the temperature outside of the cake; the air inside the cake (which does the expanding) never reaches 175 Celsius. A cake is ready at 100 Celsius internal temperature at the latest (all starches have gelated by then), frequently below that.
So, to summarize: A cake's height will change a lot more during a bake due to random factors than due to your altitude. Even if you had a perfectly controlled process, you'd need vernier calipers to measure the difference in height. But when using an only reasonably controlled process at home (ingredients at room temperature, measuring weight with a digital scale, controlling oven temperature with a thermometer), you will already see fluctuations larger than the effect of 600 ft altitude difference.
Appendix
My calculation (formula and gas constant from Wikipedia, air pressure at different heights from engineeringtoolbox):


Why does my spinach pasta break when I run it through the cutter?

In terms of the science of the dough, there are three probable culprits to consider:

Insufficient hydration.  That is, your dough either doesn't have enough water (from any source, including for example, any eggs) to form a cohesive dough, or it has not rested long enough for the water to be absorbed into the starches of the flour.

The symptom for this is that the dough is in general crumbly and frangible, and doesn't want to hold together.

If this is the case, the remediation would be simple:  add more water, and let the dough rest about 30 minutes.
Insufficient gluten development.  Gluten is what gives pasta its strength.  It needs both enough water (see issue number 1), and enough kneading to develop.  You may need to knead your dough more.

If this is the case, knead by hand until it is cohesive enough to go through the rollers.  The first rolls not only thin the dough, they continue to knead it, further developing the gluten.

The symptom for this is that it holds together when pressed, but not when worked, compared to the first issue.
Excessive interference.  There may be too many other ingredients (such as the spinach powder) getting in the way of the gluten formation (see point number 2).  They can physically impede the gluten from developing.   You only want to add an accent of non-flour/water ingredients.

This would be the hardest case to recover from, as you essentialy would need a new recipe with a new balance.  You could try making a second batch without the interfering agent, and combining them, but probably not worth the effort.

It is hard to tell if this is the case, versus number 2, unfortunately.  If you are using a quality recipe, this is unlikely.


I see two questions here that are connected.

The right height of a kneading surface.

As a rule of thumb, the surface for kneading should be about 10 cm / 4 inches lower than for chopping. You want to be able to ever so slightly lean on your dough, using your body weight to support your hands and arms. Too high means you will inadvertently pull up your shoulders and are more likely to put pressure on your hands and wrists at a bad angle.
I, being on the shorter side, have occasionally used a small step, especially when working with heavier or lots of dough.

Good technique to protect your joints.

If you knead with the part of your hands where the fingers meet the palm, you are putting a lot of pressure on a piece of your anatomy that is designed for finer tasks. Plus you are likely splaying out and bending your fingers more or less backwards, which you will also feel in your wrist.

Imagine yourself leaning on a table, for example during a conversation with a coworker who is just telling a captivating story. You will almost certainly use the base of your palm, near the wrist. And that's roughly what you should use for kneading as well.

Apart from that, don't bend your wrists to far backwards. Even with a lower surface, I aim for 45 degrees (give and take) between my forearms and the counter and I keep my hands on the same axis as my forearms, never turning them in- or outwards. If I need to adjust, I will work nearer to my body or keep the dough a bit farther away to compensate for the height.

Keep your back mostly straight and your shoulders down - most of us sometimes go "hunchback-style" after a while, so check yourself. (You don't want to have an aching back instead next time!)


A question on the level of water when making tea in an electic kettle?

You should completely cover the metal ring, otherwise you risk burning the element out. You should only boil as much water as you need above this minimum though, to save electricity. Check inside your kettle, they often have minimum and maximum levels marked somehow.


Damage to freezer food after a power outage

If this was an upright freezer with cooling coils in the shelves, there was frost on the shelves before your trip, and after you came back there was still frost on the shelves, then you can intuit that things never got above freezing. Otherwise, there's almost nothing you could be sure of, except perhaps by pulling the plug, waiting 70 hours, and then testing the temperature.


Sponge cake with only three ingredients - will this work at all?

The key to this cake is the whisking of the eggs and sugar to the ribbon stage.  This incorporates a significant amount of air into the batter.  You didn't mention it, but I imagine the flour is then folded in.

The cake will work mechanically.

However, I cannot imagine it will taste very good:  there is no salt to enhance flavor, no fat (other than from the eggs), and no flavoring such as vanilla.  So the only significant flavor will be from the eggs themselves.

As to how long it will keep, I imagine it would freeze well; it will probably keep at room temperature for 2-3 days.

Update: I see from the link added to the question that these layers are intended to be used in layer cake with other flavors and components, where its neutrality is actually a virtue.  I still think it needs about 1/2 tsp of salt, and maybe a touch of vanilla or even pistachio extract if you can get it, but the neutral flavor makes sense in context.


What if anything make a liquid a good candidate for a reduction?

The most important reason reductions exist, is because they intensify the flavour, so that's the first point you should pay attention to. Will the flavour accommodate the rest of the dish? White wine is often used in reductions for fish, red wine more often for meat. Everything that you think will fit, can be a good fit (other (stronger) liquors, vinegars (but don't use too much), ...). That's why you won't see liquids as coffee appearing in reduction recipes.

Wines and fruit juices give a fruity, softer taste, so they are a good fit with a lot of things. They also are largely water, so easy to combine with.

I must confess that I don't know how sugar content or acidity level will effect the reduction, but I do know that sugar and vinegar/lemon juice can be a component of reductions.


Fixing Sticky Seasoning on Cast-Iron Pan

You don't have to re-season from scratch, just get rid of the sticky residue and make sure that the next layer of seasoning is very fully cooked on.  The easiest way to remove the sticky residue is to scrape off what you can with a spatula, scrub off the rest with kosher salt and baking soda, and clean that up. Then give it a couple more passes of seasoning to even out the layer, making sure to leave it in the oven extra-long for the next seasoning.  The extra cook time helps avoid having a sticky spot reappear.

What causes this?
This happens when the oil pools in one spot, and doesn't get heated long/hot enough to form the seasoning layer.  If you resume seasoning without removing the sticky residue, it will form a bubble of uneven seasoning that flakes off, exposing the less seasoned stuff below. I learned that the hard way.


Substituting cream of tartar in turkish delights?

You've certainly got the right idea - cream of tartar is nothing more than an acidifier and so any acid can be used as a substitute. It combines with water to create tartaric acid.

Two important characteristics of cream of tartar are that it is (a) dry and (b) mostly flavourless. Vinegar, lemon juice, etc. are all wet and add some flavour of their own.

The substitution ratio most often cited for baking is 3:1 - that is 3 tsp vinegar or lemon juice for every 1 tsp cream of tartar. Don't use the 1:1 ratio typically given for egg whites (meringue) - the whole point of this in candy is to actually lower the pH, not just stabilize a foam. Again, pay close attention to how much liquid you're adding, and if it's significant, adjust the water content accordingly.

(Note: Technically, lemon juice would normally have a lower pH than 5% white vinegar, but the actual pH of these is so variable that it usually ends up being pointless to worry about it. Consistency is one of the advantages of using cream of tartar.)

You could also use citric acid or ascorbic acid (vitamin C). Citric acid is far more concentrated than lemon juice, you would only need to use 1/4 (25%) of the amount of lemon juice. That ends up being about 3/4 tsp citric acid for 1 tsp cream of tartar. It's a much closer substitution and doesn't change the flavour much. I believe that ascorbic acid is the same. Both are normally sold in anhydrous (powder) form, similar to cream of tartar.

All that being said, cream of tartar really isn't hard to find, it's sold in the spice section of any grocery store. One little tin will probably last you many years, so just buy one next time.


Fish always giving bitter/unpleasent taste/smell

Start with a fish stock instead of water. Cook that with whatever vegetables you want to put in it, add seasoning and get the broth to the flavor that you want.

During the last 3 - 4 minutes of cooking, add your cut fish and just allow it to poach in the broth for a minute or two, cut the heat, let it sit for a few to finish poaching gently, then serve.

It sounds like you're trying to extract flavor from the fish as you cook it, that's not going to work, you'll just overcook the fish which is what's giving you that awful taste.

Fish stock is made from the very gelatinous bones of the fish, skin, scales, heads, etc - then strained. You can buy it in most grocery stores, just read the label to see how much sodium it contains (go for the least amount, add salt yourself).


Is it safe to sous vide chicken to less than 74°C for a longer amount of time?

The USDA gives detailed guidance on time and temperature to kill salmonella. For cooking chicken at 60°C (which, to me, tastes undercooked) at a pessimistic level of fat, that's 35 minutes; at 65°C (tastier) it's 5.4 minutes. Note that these are holding temperatures: they refer to time once the target temperature has been reached, not from the beginning of cooking. And keep in mind that the chicken will never quite reach the temperature of the liquid it's in.


Should you layer Greek yoghurt on porridge oats or mix it in with the porridge oats?

The point of overnight oats is to allow the oats time to hydrate slowly at a cool temperature, rather than cooking them in water. So it's best to have them well-mixed with the liquid they'll be absorbing. If you put them in (sufficiently thick) layers, it's likely that some of the oats will be less hydrated than others.


What are the types and pros/cons of electric and manual spice and nut grinders available? What qualities should be looked for while purchasing them?

No one device, manual or electric, is ideal for all of the tasks that you have enumerated.   Many cooks will have more than one tool, depending on the job at hand.

Some spices, particularly cinnamon, are very difficult to grind effectively at home without leaving fibrous bits that may give an unpleasant mouth feel.  Of course, when infusing flavor from a whole stick of cinnamon, this is not an issue.

Bottom Line

I would recommend having at least a Microplane type grater for ginger, garlic, and so on, and a rotary type electric grinder for most hard spices.

For the specialty task of making peanut butter, a blender is probably your best tool.

Morter and Pestle

Also known as a molcajete, is probably the most versatile, but most labor intensive spice grinding tool.

Can grind, mash, or mix both dry or wet items, so it is suitable for garlic and ginger; still it is most effective on very hard, frangible spices which can be crushed, or soft items like garlic which can be mashed.  Fibrous spices like cumin can be very difficult to do.
Lots of work
Only suitable for small quantities

Microplane style grater

A grater with very fine, usually etched, openings is suitable for some tasks including:

Garlic, gingner, galangal and the like
Nutmeg

Nutmeg Grinder

A specialty item, just for nutmeg.  Most nutmeg grinders actually make very fine shavings, but it is essentially the same thing.  They also have storage for nutmegs.

Blender

Electric blenders are suitable for some grinding tasks:

Making peanut butter
Grinding soft spices or making wet spice mixtures, as with garlic, ginger, capiscum type peppers

Some high quality blenders may also do a decent job with softer seeds like cumin seeds.

Electric rotary grinder

These are often marketed as coffee grinders, but they are extremely effective as spice grinders—however, due to lingering flavors, you want to devote one to either coffee or to spices.

Suitable for dry spices, such as cumin, black pepper, allspice, mustard seeds, and so on.

Not very effective for the hardest spices, such as cinnamon.

Note that clove oil (also found to some extent in nutmeg) can cloud plastic parts over time.

Pepper Grinder

As the name implies, ideal for black pepper, but also effective on other small spices that can fit through the mill such as mustard seeds.  Also provides a small quanitity of storage.  Most permit the grind size to be adjusted.

Specific Questions

Which kind of grinders allow water in them for making a paste of the spices?

Mortar and pestle, and blenders are suitable for pastes.  However, you can also grind your dry spices, and then add them to a wet mixture to create a paste.

Is there some maximum and minimum capacity for each of the type of grinders?

Most home style devices are suitable only for very small quantities.  The nutmeg and pepper grinders are good for teaspoon type quantities, and rotary grinders up to a few tablespoons.

Blnders have much higher capacities, but may not be effective except with very soft or frangible items.  Peanut butter is one application that they do well with in larger quantities.

What are the types of manual grinders which do not require too much amount of manual power/effort?

They all require significant effort.  For spices used in very small quantities, such as black pepper, that may not be noticeable.

Which kind of grinders allow us to have a fine powder of spices rather than bits?

None of the home methods will produce the very fine, even powder that you might expect from a commercial spice house.  They have extremely high quality, sometimes specialized equipment, and they also sieve or screen the resulting product to ensure it is uniform, and to exclude larger bits.

Some spices are more suitable for home grinding than others.  Ones that you should have little trouble with include black pepper, nutmeg, allspice, mustard seed.

Spices that are very difficult to grind at home include cinnamon.

Cumin, one of the most popular spices, is easy to grind, but difficult to get a perfectly smooth and uniform powder.  It tends to have little threads and fibrous bits.  In many applications this is not noticeable.


Can I use reverse osmosis water for cooking?

A good RO system costs about $100,000 as advised to me by a hydrologist.  You may be better off with a good 3-filter (10 micron) setup.  RO is usually used for high volume of consumed water and doesn't get everything out (unless you have the $100k system).

Before you spend the money, I would recommend consulting a local hydrologist and lab about other local tests they've performed over the recent times and what they've found in the water.

You can also walk into the nearest Starbucks as ask them about the filters on their lines.  Regardless their coffee taste, they are usually strict about their water being good.  You may be able copy their set up and be happy with it.

As far as cooking and brewing with 'over filtered' water goes, it may be a better problem to have than unwanted stuff in the water left behind.  Some bottled waters such as Dasani have everything removed, then they add back some minerals to satisfy taste profiles [sales].

For cooking and brewing, you're unlikely miss the taste of the minerals in the water and more likely be happy about crispness.


New York strip roast came out like beef jerky

You made 2 mistakes.

A pressure cooker (like InstaPot) relies on water to make steam to create pressure.  You should not put a roast in the pressure cooker without adding liquid.
A pressure cooker is ideal for breaking down collagen in cheap, tough cuts of meat to make them tender.  NY Strip is a premium cut that is already tender - just roast it in the oven.


What are the key differences between brats in Germany and the USA?

I'm sure it's down to how the meat is ground (if the issue is texture), and what spices are used (if the issue is flavor). It's less likely that the meat is totally different--though you never know.

There are about as many variations on any given type of sausage as there are people that make them.

Your best bet is to either keep trying to find a place that makes them the way you like them, or learn to make your own (fun and easy). There are a lot of books out there on sausage making, and it's not hard to do.

You will still need to learn to identify the characteristics of the wurst you liked so that you can, over time, learn to tell which sausage recipe will get you close, and so that you can adjust or combine recipes until you get the taste you're looking for.


How to separate fats from liquid and where do unsaturated fats go?

Saturated fats (eg the white part of a steak or chop) are generally solid at room temperature while unsaturated (eg olive oil) are not. Generally the advice for getting fats out of soups and stews is to chill it so it all solidifies. Since it floats whether it is solid or not, there are also techniques like skimming, absorbing with a paper towel or bread, etc. (See How can I remove excess fat from stews or soups without refrigerating? for examples.)

The temperature at which something solidifies is a poor way to test whether a fat is saturated or unsaturated, and it's not an important distinction really. If it's important to you to get all the fat from something, then chilling and waiting is probably the most effective way. If you don't have time for that then you either eat a little fat (which for most people is fine) or you make a different dish.


A lot of dairy products become watery or start to separate if they've been frozen or defrosted: pastries with cream fillings, cream cheese, sour cream.

The USDA says does not recommend that eggs or canned foods be stored frozen. Eggshells can crack easily, and even if the shells remain intact, the consistency of egg yolks makes them difficult to use for anything other than hard-boiling. Canned foods that are frozen accidentally could pose health risks, so the USDA recommends inspecting to see if the can has rusted or burst. If the can is swollen, thaw it but check to make sure it doesn't look or smell off before eating.

The FDA also has a useful chart (pdf) on which foods don't freeze well and how long you can freeze other foods. (Note: when there is a recommended limit on how long a food should be frozen, it indicates when the quality of the food will decrease - NOT when it will "expire". You could theoretically freeze most foods indefinitely.)

The only other thing I would avoid freezing is any sort of raw green (lettuce, spinach, etc.). Greens wilt and turn brown when you freeze them. (If they're cooked, they should be fine to freeze and thaw.)

EDIT: Apparently, some spices become bitter when frozen, including pepper, cloves, garlic, green pepper, imitation vanilla, and onions, paprika and celery taste different.


Can I take off the gas deflector on my stove for cooking with a wok?

I've never heard of anyone trying this. I think its very unlikely though. Those gas deflectors are actually specially designed to pull in the appropriate amount of atmospheric air for a proper flame. This is why the flame you see is so blue and has very little orange.

I'd look into seeing if there is some way to get a replacement deflector that is better suited for wok cooking.

You could also do what Alton Brown does and use the bottom half of a turkey deep fryer, outside preferably, and not over any pipes or electrical wiring or gravel.


Seasoning advice for seitan to replicate gyro meat

Bury it in bread. A meat-substitute burger or kebab meat that has obvious textural or flavor flaws when served bare will often appear near perfect in a pita or bun. Also, you can keep a lot of oil/sauce on it that way, which carries seasonings and juicyness.

Start with baked seitan, made from vital wheat gluten (and 10-20% of another protein flour like lentil or chickpea optimally), and season both in the dough and when sauteing the cut up seitan later - experiment with which seasoning is best added at which time.

Try strong soy sauces (eg chinese light), cumin, smoked salt and/or smoked paprika, sugar, nutritional yeast/msg, flavorful chile pepper powders (eg turkish chile flakes - not just cayenne pepper powder!), garlic, onion. Also add something acidic, eg sumach or lemon.


how to mix wine into cream sauce (or cream into a wine sauce) so it doesn't curdle

The curdling effect is produced both by alcohol and acidity.

The alcoholic part is solved pre-heating the wine for a while until most alcohol evaporates.

The acidic reaction is a little more difficult to stop: As wine canonically has 3g/l TA (total acidity), a little Potassium Carbonate (KCO3) will neuter the thing. Experiment from 1 to 3g/l depending on your wine. Filter with care the resulting liquid as it may contain little crystals.

Always remember to pour the wine on the sauce and never the sauce on the wine (not a joke, the milk will curdle instantly).

Some related material and here

You may also try to avoid curdling by adding only small quantities of low alcoholic content and low acidity preheated wine only.


Cooking raw chicken beside heating quesadillas

Of course you can.  The question is whether it is a good idea or not in terms of food safety.

What you don't want to have happen is for raw chicken juices to splatter onto the quesadilla, especially after it has been flipped so that the side where the juices splatter will not be cooked again.

In actual practice, you have to assess the risks:

How much juice will splatter, and how far?
Will the quesadilla still be hot enough (or be turned) to kill any pathogens anyway?
Will enough settle on the quesadilla to have any significant chance of being a real risk?   (The risk of infection increases with the quantity of pathogens present.)

In practice, unless you are serving at-risk populations like the immune-compromised, elderly, or very young children, the risk is probably quite low as long as the foods are far enough apart that the juice is not flowing from the chicken to the quesadilla.

In a professional food service environment, you probably should not do this; at home, you must assess your own tolerance for risk.


How to prevent beef muscle meat losing water during storage in the refridgerator?

You can't prevent it, that's how it works. It will always lose some liquid, no matter what. This is why supermarkets sell packaged meat with "diapers" on the bottom.
As mentioned in comments, you can buy dry aged beef. It has already lost that moisture, so you won't have the liquid to deal with, if that bothers you. This doesn't mean, of course, that you will somehow "save" the liquid, it will still have flown out.
Another theoretical option is to buy better quality meat. Mass-produced meat from young animals who don't exercise tends to lose more moisture than the meat from traditionally raised animals, especially if you are looking not at tenderloin but at stewing meat from old cows. I am including this information here more for completeness' sake. If you find a supplier for this type of meat (which is difficult in itself), you will save part of your 5% weight loss, but you will pay 4-5 times more per kg, if not more, so it doesn't give you an economic advantage.


Does ornamental cabbage make decent sauerkraut?

Apparently, it has been done. According to this website, the flavor will be strong compared to sauerkraut:

  The flavor is strong; hard to describe — not just simply more acidic but strong, and the texture is a little tough... I also find that kale ferments accentuate the salty flavor, no matter how carefully I salt and I have no idea why. Mirror this with bold flavors. Ferment kale with lots of garlic, chiles, smoked salts, chipotle, curry or other unflinching spices.

So the proposed solution is to make kale kimchi mixed with other vegetables, or add kale to a normal sauerkraut to dilute the harsh flavor.


I used to grow them years ago so I could have some summer fruit in an area with little fruit other than strawberries (that I also grew) and crab apples in an empty yard. I had hoped to grow enough to make jam and pies but we ended up eating the fresh. The nearest grocery store with fresh produce was over 1 1/2 hours away.

Since you grow them, you'll know they're similar to tiny tomatoes but their skin is very thin. I've found that with soft fruits (vegetables which are technically fruit too), the thinner their skin, the less keeping quality they have. I left our ground cherries on a large shallow bowl on the kitchen counter and never refrigerated them. They were never heaped in a pile the way grapes are naturally since they were soft.

I can't see why they couldn't be refrigerated for a few days (2 or 3 only). But I can see a couple of drawbacks that might increase the chances of them rotting though.

Did you wash them first?
Generally softer fruits/vegetables shouldn't be washed until you're ready to eat them. Most already have some natural waxes or such (?) on their skin to protect from fungi.  Mind you, I always wash grapes I buy from the store to remove dirt and possible/likely pesticides. But they're thoroughly rinsed after and then laid on a towel for a couple of hours til completely dry. They last much longer that way for me.
Did you put them in a container where they'd be 4 or more layers thick?
The weight of the top layers could easily have broken the skin or crushed the bottom layers. Even a small break or bruise would be enough to start decay, especially if any already had a small unnoticed break.

If your ground cherries are yielding lots, faster than you can eat them, you could try drying them instead. There are videos on YouTube showing how to as well as multiple blogs and different sites explainin. I had no idea ground cherries were now so popular. I grew them simply to have fresh fruit.


What is this metal utensil tool with wooden handle?

I'm fairly confident that the tool is in fact a grill scraper. The handle matches the wooden one shown below. I can't think of any other explanation for the one indent on the tool that is like a hook. You ban see it matches the one in the two metal scrapers. The idea behind the design is to scrape both sides of the grill rung at the same time.


Why are my stir fried pea sprouts too stiff, and turn into lumps?

I don't make the Hong Kong recipe, but I often cook Thai-style pea shoots in the spring.  And for that matter I often made them when I lived in California, so origin is not your problem.
One thing I did find is that there's a huge difference in pea shoots based on age. Tiny, 3-day old pea shoots, also called "pea sprouts", are the kind you want to flash-fry:

Pea shoots that are a bit older, like a week or two old are also eaten:

However, these are a lot more fibrous, and need to be blanched before frying.  I don't know what you bought, but it really sounds like you got older pea shoots.  Species might also make a difference; the ones that Asian markets sell are usually snow pea shoots.  If you got some other kind of pea shoot, like English peas, it's possible that those are also more fibrous.


Adjusting an instant-rice recipe for regular rice

Instant rice is just parboiled rice made to cook faster. Since brown rice takes a significantly longer time to cook than minute rice, you might try cooking your rice first until its 1/2 to 2/3 done, then transfer it to the sauce to finish cooking and absorb the flavor.


How to increase flavour intensity in this recipe?

try adding some green, yellow and red peppers with the added vegetables. I believe these peppers give a strong taste.

Also you could try to add some paper laurel when cooking, then remove it upon serving, it gives a good taste and smell too.


Where can I buy borosilicate (Pyrex) bakeware in the U.S.?

I believe the following companies advertise that they produce bakeware made out of borosilicate available in the US, :

Luminarc
Arcuisine Elegance

I can't speak to the boron/boron plus/zero boron debate, but those are the two I would investigate.

I know that Bodum also advertises borosilicate products, but I'm not sure if they make bakeware.


using crumbs mixture multiple times [is it safe?]

In my mind, salmonella is not the issue here. I would be generally worried about who knows what growing in the crumb-and-egg mixture over the course of a week.

Whole eggs, uncooked and in the shell, take a surprisingly long time to expire (even longer if you have farm eggs that haven't had the cuticle washed off). But once you crack them open and mix them with other ingredients, you drastically increase their capacity to serve as a growth medium for microorganisms.

My advice to you is do not reuse such a mixture after the cooking session during which it was prepared. Is it going to hurt you to put it in the fridge overnight, and then use it to make some cutlets for breakfast the next day? I doubt it. But we're not talking about caviar and saffron here; bread crumbs are cheap, and a little egg and seasoning is easy to throw together next time you need it.

If you're concerned about convenience, season the bread crumbs and put them in a resealable bag. Store this bag in a cool place and take just as much of the bread crumb mixture as needed each time you want to make a breading. Use a new egg each time and throw away the excess.


In many electric pressure cookers, you have (at least) two options: "High Pressure" or "Low Pressure".  This effectively controls the heat at which your food is cooked.  That's due to how a pressure cooker operates.  It cooks by raising the temperature of water to create steam, and then continues creating steam, which raises the pressure inside the vessel, thus raising the temperature at which water boils significantly.  (See this article for some information about the science behind pressure cooking).

Now, in a stovetop pressure cooker, if you follow the instructions you'll find out that exactly what you're asking does happen: you need to reduce the heat on the stovetop once your cooker has come to the pressure you're aiming for in order to stay at that pressure.  Your pressure cooker's manual should cover how to tell this; exactly what that heat is will depend on your stove's capacity.  Your pressure cooker should have some variety of pressure gauge; most will have at least a ball that sits in the steam exhaust vent which, when it is at pressure, sits at the top of the vent.  Once that's at the top of the vent, you are at low pressure; then you lower the heat as low as possible such that the ball stays at the top of the vent, and that's cooking at low pressure.  If you need to cook at higher pressure, which will cook faster (and is necessary for some foods), you have the heat up some from that (and make sure to include enough water to produce enough steam).  Here is an article that covers these basics.

For beans, you don't have to cook them very long - a couple of minutes - and you should use high pressure (whatever the 'high' pressure is for your cooker).  Assuming you pre-soak, one or two minutes is long enough to cook them (at high pressure) - so you won't really need to lower the heat for very long, and in my experience it's usually hard to be there at exactly the right time to lower it (if you have a couple of toddlers underfoot in particular); don't worry if you forget or miss it, as long as you stop the cooking at the right time; overcooked beans are no fun.  The higher heat isn't going to burn them (as long as you included plenty of water), it's just going to waste energy, as your pressure cooker will just give off the excess steam.  (This is based on normal ranges - if you have something unusually heat-additive, including an induction burner, I don't know if it's reasonably possible to do something dangerous in one or two minutes.)

You're basically right, though, that 'simmering' is roughly what you're doing when you are using the pressure cooker; reducing the boil from high rolling boil (which produces lots of steam) to a lower boil (which produces just enough steam to offset the loss from the exhaust port).  It's just a higher heat setting than normal simmering, since pressure is increasing the temperature at which water boils.

Your manual should cover how to do this; I'm not sure which product you exactly have, but look here for one example.


The entire seed pod is edible. With a coffee grinder, you may not be able to reduce the husks to powder (that’s more of a job for a burr grinder), which may affect the mouth feel of the final dish slightly but should be fine. The cardamom taste comes from the seeds, so you can remove the husks if you want, but I wouldn’t bother.
If you do decide to remove the husks, the easiest approach is to squeeze each pod along its longest axis (so, trying to make it shorter). This will tear the sides of the pod and expose the seeds. For fresh cardamom they may be in the form of a slightly sticky cluster. Either push the seeds out with your fingers, or scrape them out with the tip of a knife.


What can I substitute for pineapple in punch?

If this recipe from Fine Cooking is typical, it looks like pineapple is as much garnish as flavor.

The things it adds to the punch are:

Fruitiness with a complex floral quality
A somewhat tropical feeling
Some acidity

I would suggest trying instead some mango, with extra lemon juice to compensate for the acidity.

Another choice might be really nice red grapefruit supremes.


(simple answer) I suggest finding a lasagna recipe without pumpkin in it.

Lasagna is a simple recipe and easily adaptable.

You can add and remove ingredients to your liking as long as you keep the basic structure of the lasagna (pasta/sauce layers).

Make certain that if you add ingredients to the lasagna, that they will be already cooked or can be baked in with the lasagna.


Fennel is a fairly delicate flavor.  I can see how caramelized onion and tomato would easily over power it.  The bulb actually provide the most delicate flavor of fennel.  If you want a more pronounced flavor, I would suggest fennel seed.  I would further suggest you toast them first.  They can then be used whole, or, if you want an even stronger flavor, grind the seeds.  You could also garnish with the frond, but still that is rather delicate compared to using seeds.


Water is not infinitely shelf-stable. No matter what you store it in, it keeps for a short time. The Brita instructions for their water filters say 1-2 days, and this sounds reasonable to me for normal use.

But because you are asking specifically about baby food, I would recommend to not let it stay at all. The reason why you are supposed to boil water for baby food is to kill any bacteria present in it. The moment the water's temperature falls to survivable temperatures, bacteria from the environment can start colonizing it. So if you let water stay around after boiling for a few hours, it will be as dangerous as water which has never been boiled. If you let it sit for longer, it becomes much more dangerous than just using tap water without boiling.

Bottom line: Boil the water fresh for each batch of formula, and use it as soon as it has cooled down to baby-acceptable temperature. If you leave boiled water stay around, it is worse than not bottling it at all.


I've been able to shake and strain cocktails with two cups pretty easily.  Ideally one cup should be slightly smaller than the other, though this isn't absolutely necessary if you're careful.

Put the open ends together and shake as necessary (if they're slightly different sizes as described, you can get a real nice seal and shake vigorously).  Now, place one cup on the counter, and the other on top of it upside down, ideally still "inside" the other one.

You want to tilt the top cup about 5-10 degrees to the side, which will "break the seal" between the two cups and leave a very small opening.  That's where you'll strain through.  Now all you have to do is tilt the entire contraption 90 degrees and pour!

This is more easily explained with images...I will try to find or make one for you ASAP.

edit: Couldn't find a good example, so made one for you with what I found around the office:


What does Joy of Cooking mean by "canned spaghetti"?

Canned spaghetti unfortunately is still something that can be bought at supermarkets. A common brand for canned pasta is Chef Boyardee. They have ravioli, spaghetti and sometimes even canned meatballs inside the spaghetti.

These spaghetti will have a very very soft texture similar to what you would expect the spaghetti texture to be if you overcook it by at least 10 minutes.


For how long can you let dough sit there to rise without yeast?

I am not sure where you read this and it is a reasonable expectation that it would work. This is however a classic example of recipes authored by someone that worked in a certain climate, season, location and other specifics that are not always going to work everywhere else.

As already pointed out by @kettultim, natural yeast count in your environment is not something you can take for granted. It is entirely feasible for a dough to sit around for a couple of weeks, get moldy and not rise even though you had tried the exact recipe before at another time or place.

If you had it working before and you liked what you had, keeping a bit of the fermented dough and nurturing that as a starter for later use is always worthwhile.


What is the emulsification power of 1 egg yolk?

Surprisingly high -- something like 6 gallons of oil can be emulsified by a single egg yolk.  In addition to the site linked, I've seen similar experiments by Kenji Lopez-Alt and James Petersen.

So if your mayonnaise refuses to emulsify, it's NOT because it doesn't have enough egg yolks.


Can I eat cheese which has been "infected" with blue cheese mold?

Well, first off, mold grows from spores, and your Pyrenean cheese was likely already "contaminated" with Penicillium roqueforti, Penicillium glaucum, and Penicillium candidum spores at the cheese shop (it'd be surprising if the cheese shop isn't covered with them!). So, if you keep it in a environment habitable to them, they will grow. I suspect that you'd get the same results even if you put them in two different plastic containers.

As to its safety, if it was indeed one of the used-in-food Penicillium molds, it should be safe to eat—you can make sheep's milk blue cheeses (e.g., roquefort) after all. But the problem is that the same humid environment that encouraged the Penicillium colonization also encourage other molds—many of which you don't want to eat. Also, I'm pretty sure there are blue-green molds you don't want to eat.


Why do recipes call for the vanilla to be added last?

It's not the alcohol specifically - the reason alcohol is used to make extract is not because it contributes any flavor itself, but because it dissolves specific desirable substances from the vanilla pod. When the alcohol boils off (or whatever solvent is used in the artificial flavoring), you will also lose some proportion of the flavoring compounds dissolved in the extract.


Does adding sugar to tomato type sauces affect acidity?

Weak organic acids such as those found in fruits and vegetables (citric acid, malic acid, tartaric acid) don't react with sugars. 1 There is no change in acidity, which you correctly defined as measured by the pH.

At the same time, sweet and sour are two tastes which are real antagonists - adding something sweet actually reducess the sourness we perceive, as opposed to just distracting us from it. So the sugar changes the sourness (the taste), but not the acidity (the chemical property). Hearing it otherwise comes from the fact that most people don't even realize that there is a difference between the two terms, and use them interchangeably.

1 They can partake in reactions as catalysts, for example to create invert sugar when cooking up sugar syrup, but the acid itself does not react away.


Will pizza dough stick on steel platform in conventional oven?

I ended up skipping the parchment paper. I had 6 small-medium pizza worth of dough, and padded all pizza-dough with semolina, as well as padded peel with semolina prior to each slide-in-to-oven.

Prior to first pizza I put some semolina on the steel in the oven (though it might've been unnecessary... yet to confirm)

All 6 pizzas turned out great, with quality crust.

It wasn't really messy, might've been two three burnt spots, simply before the steel cooled off, I grabbed a wooden cooking spoon, lightly scratch, and pushed it out onto another plate.

 Update

Confirmed you don't have to add anysemolina flour or anything to the steel, pizza won't stick.


This is a reasonably common practice in South Asian cuisine. Some reasonably credibly information can be found in the Wikipedia article on vark. Quoting from the section on safety:

  Gold and silver are approved food foils in the European Union, as E175 and E174 additives respectively. The independent European food-safety certification agency, TÜV Rheinland, has deemed gold leaf safe for consumption. Gold and silver leaf are also certified as kosher. These inert precious metal foils are neither considered as toxic to human beings nor to broader ecosystems

and

  The total silver metal intake per kilogram of sweets eaten, from vark, is less than one milligram.


Does it look like this?  I have some in my pantry now.  (Don't tell anyone.)

By request, the box contents: inside a cellophane sleeve, 4 foil-wrapped cubes.  Here's one:

Texture is very much like a boullion cube - hard, with a bit of sticky give when pushed.  Salty, as expected, but also sweetish with a distinct flavor of caramelized onions and star anise.