Molasses - “Full Flavor” vs “Mild Flavor”

Straight from the Rabbit's website: http://www.brerrabbit.com/questions/#7

Q: What are there the different grades of Brer Rabbit molasses?
A: Brer Rabbit molasses comes in three grades: Mild Flavor, Full
Flavor and Blackstrap.

• Mild Flavor: Lightest color and is the sweetest, is used to sweeten hot cereals, yogurts, or hot drinks, like coffee, tea or hot
cocoa
• Full Flavor: More concentrated and has a richer flavor than Mild, that is used in gingerbreads, cookies, pies, cakes, and glazes
• Blackstrap: Bold, robust flavor used in slow-cooked dishes, like such as baked beans or barbeque sauces. Blackstrap is also an
excellent source of Calcium and Magnesium and a good source of
Potassium.

I'd guess that the difference is the same thing, different words, as Crosby's "cooking" and "fancy" The fancy or mild is boiled down cane juice (without the sugar removed) and has more sugar and a more carmel-ish taste.

The highest grade of molasses available, fancy molasses is the pure juice of the sugar cane, condensed, inverted and purified. It is 100% natural and contains no additives or preservatives. It is a bit lighter in colour than the other molasses products, and the flavour is tangy sweet.
Blackstrap molasses is the highly-concentrated, final by-product of the refined sugar manufacturing process. As the sugar crystallizes, the residual cane juice thickens into a dark mass and is separated out through a centrifuge. The resulting molasses is very dark with a robust, somewhat bitter flavour. Like the fancy molasses, it is a pure product and contains no added sulphates or sulphites.
Cooking molasses is a blend of blackstrap and fancy molasses. It is thicker and darker than fancy molasses — less sweet, with a more “full-flavoured” taste.

http://www.crosbys.com/products/molasses-products/#!products


I have no clue what a "bacon roll" is... and if I had to imagine what it is, it would not be what you got. My mental image was a "sausage roll" but with bacon.

A sausage roll is like a pinwheel or "cinnamon roll" but with savory biscuit dough (American biscuit) and ground sausage meat:

(Image from here)

So, a "bacon roll" in my head is the same thing but with chopped bacon instead of sausage.

I can find no reference to what you've described... which sounds like a bacon omelet. It's completely possible that you confused the waitress with your fancy British accent and she thought that a "roll" was British for "omelet"... though how she turned "sandwich" into "roll" and then into "omelet", I'm not sure.

If you want a "bacon sandwich" in future (meaning a roll with bacon on it), you might try asking for a "BLT - with no lettuce or tomato".... though, you should be sure to remember that our "bacon" is what you Brits call "streaky bacon", I believe. The closest thing we have to British bacon is "Canadian Bacon" or simply "ham".

As to the potatoes, they were likely what are often called "home fries". Roughly chopped/diced potatoes, sometimes mixed with peppers and/or onions.

Here's an image of "Cajun home fries", which look a lot like what you've described:


What is the white substance floating in my fresh mozzarella brine?

Those are just milk solids.

Quality mozzarella is sold floating in whey, the leftover liquid from making cheese.  While most of the milk solids are gone from the whey -- that's what the cheese is made from -- not all of them are.  As such, some will coagulate in the fridge, floating on top of the whey.

Now, if the floaters were any color other than white, or if they were fuzzy, that would mean mold.  But those are really just cheese bits.


Making doughballs (dumplings) with strong brown flour and shredded suet

In the UK self-raising flour doesn't have salt in it, SR flour is just fine plain flour with baking powder in it. In the UK to make a substitution you'd use 150g plain flour plus 2 tsp baking powder mixed in, 100g would be 1 1/3 tsp. In the US most SR flour has salt in it for some reason, so for completeness you would use all-purpose flour plus 2 tsp baking powder plus 1/2 tsp of salt.

Strong brown flour (whole wheat bread flour) isn't ideal for your doughballs as it has a lot of gluten, and the flour is courser, but it should work okay as long as you:

Add a small amount of water to help bind the dough if they don't stick well
Work the dough as little as possible. SR flour is generally lower in gluten, strong flour is high in gluten, if you work the gluten in the dough it may make your balls stretchy rather. The fat should help to minimize that, but it still helps to stop as soon as the mix is combined
Cook the doughballs longer. Bread flour is courser so may need more time to cook. They may absorb a bit more water than SR flour as well, so be prepared to top up the moisture if you are cooking them in a stew


The optimal time to use your starter is at peak activity.  This could range from a couple of hours after feeding to 12 hours after feeding, depending of conditions.  The top should have a slight dome, it should be bubbly...just before it begins to settle back down.


inside dimension for homemade digestive cookie mold

The dough used in a mold has a lot to do with the end result. It's best to use a firm, non-sticky dough, that can be gently pressed into the mold to imprint the design.  Commercial digestives are not baked in a mold, but are machine embossed and cut before baking, using a rotary mold that incises the distinctive design (e.g., Digestives, Oreo). For your biscuits, you might consider creating a stamp or, if you're really ambitious, a rolling pin version.

Here's an example of a stamp sold at Jarrold (UK)

And a commercial roller manufactured by F&S Engraving (Mount Prospect, Illinois US)


How long will my homemade marinade with orange juice last?

2 weeks minimum. If it's in an air tight and sterilized jar which isn't constantly being opened and closed. I'd push more for a couple of months maybe longer.

All the acid in there, sugar and salt work as great preservatives and the spices also will help. The 2 things you need to be watching for are either the oil going rancid or the juice fermenting. Fermenting if probably the most likely. Both should be quite easy to spot.

Fermented sauce will start bubbling at the top, and if you shake the jar it'll fizz up like you'd expect from a bottle of soda. Also if the jar "pops" when you open it this is also a good sign fermentation has begun.

Here's a link for helping spot rancid olive oil the same rules apply pretty much to all oils http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/08/05/olive-oil.aspx


What can I use as an alternative sweetener for smoothies?

You could try agave nectar -- but I'm not sure if it will be that much of an improvement over honey. A tiny pinch of salt might also help make the smoothie taste sweeter.

Usually though, if I want my smoothies to be sweeter I just add more juice or fruit (e.g. ripe berries, peaches etc).


Can I use distilled white vinegar instead of white wine vinegar when making my own dressing for gifts?

The flavors are very different -- white wine vinegar is made from white wine, while white vinegar is made from a distilled spirit.

If you had to substitute white wine vinegar, I'd go with one of the following:

champagne vinegar (made from sparking wine; tends to be more mild than white wine vinegar)
rice vinegar (tends to be more mild / lower acid)
cider vinegar (more acidic, but has some sweeter notes that help balance it out)


There is no absolute conversion as egg sizes were not standardized back then.  For the USA, not England, the food timeline http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodeggs.html under the section "Egg sizes the USA" (about 1/10th of the way down) starts with (bolding added):

  What size hen's egg was used to make a cake in the 1840s? Excellent question with no simple answer. Today's consumers find eggs clearly marked with quality grades in different sizes. In the 1840s, many consumers found eggs under the chicken in the family coop. Pre-industrial American cook books regularly acknowledge the relationship between fresh eggs and best product but are silent on size. Cook books focus on identifying "good" eggs, proper storage, and preservation techniques. In those days, the size of chicken eggs depended upon breed, feed, season and cooping conditions.

Recreating old recipes with modern products always poses special challenges. When eggs are on the shopping list, think small or medium.

The section continues with various extracts describing approximate weights and other commentary.

From the above, I would go with Dorothy's comment and use medium, starting with two or three and adjust for consistency.  Don't forget to weigh what you use so that you can repeat your success with any eggs.


Any moisture left on the rollers/cutters is an issue in my experience, and if left can result in pitting or corrosion either of which will be difficult to overcome.  Qil I would think would not lead to corrosion, but might pit.  While present, it will definitely increase the tendency to stick in my experience.

With the rollers, I would dust it heavily including giving it a couple of cranks, then run some fairly dry dough through repeatedly to grab any liquid or oil it can.  Make sure to get all areas of the roller edge to edge.  I have had luck with this, particularly when my roller was new and for some reason they put some type of dry lubricant on that marked my pasta grey/black if it ran to the edge of the roller.  The same can be done if you do things like make flavored pasta or dough and think some residue may be left that will effect future projects for instance I make some cookies with a sour cream dough which are much easier to make with my pasta roller but I want to make sure no dairy is left on the rollers after so this is a cleanup run of some cheap four dough I will then discard.

The same should work with the cutters as long as they have not been pitted or corroded.  For them, I would suggest using the same dough, towards the dry and still side, and thick enough to get all areas of the cutter that might be holding residue.

Hopefully you can get it back to good behavior with this type of dough cleaning.  It happens to be the cleaning method that came recommended with my roller.  When done, dust the maker and put it away that way, yes, looking "dirty" with a dusting of flour to protect it from moisture getting on it and pitting or corroding the working surfaces.  Yes, some of that sounds contrary to normal kitchen cleaning practices, but it is what was recommended by my manufacturer and has worked well for me. It is clean, dry flour you are putting on which would not seem like a major safety violation, just a little unsightly.

PS, if you do not want to waste eggs, and I do not blame you, just mix up a dough with a bit of flour and water.  I still hate wasting any food, but at least flour is one of the cheapest things we use, and you do not need much.  Far less loss than needing to replace the entire pasta maker set.


Yogurt is a protein mesh that traps the rest of the milk components. Many of the trapped components are water soluble- in particular un-denatured albumin, residual lactose, lactic acid, and riboflavin. The water and these water soluble components are the whey.

Draining off the whey makes the yogurt thicker, and sweeter as some of the acid washes away.

Stir the yogurt well to break up as much of the protein mesh as possible and free the trapped whey.

Then do as Elendil suggests and hang the yogurt in a cloth to drain for a couple hours. I use sturdy mesh cloth from the remnants pile at the fabric store. Cheesecloth is too fragile to be used very many times. How many times can cheesecloth be reused?


My freezer is filled with ice - is it safe to to use it as is?

In regards of food safety the ice layer should not do any harm. But be aware that the ice layer is working as an insulater and thus increases the amount of electricity consumed by the freezer. So it´s advisable to remove it from time to time for this reason alone. For details see: here and here.


Is it possible to do sous vide cooking in a crock pot?

Yes you can.  Some of the best sous-vide I've had has been in a crock-pot.

You'll need a crock-pot with a manual (analogue) dial. What you do is set the dial to maximum and use a PID controller (found ~$20 on ebay).

Take a look at this article about hacking your slow cooker:

http://www.cookingforgeeks.com/blog/posts/diy-sous-vide/

Update:

Sous-vide by definition requires control of the temperature (Beer Cooler does not control, but holds well).  However, you can still do this without extra logic.  All you need is a good thermometer and time:

Fill your crock-pot to 70% with room temperature water, set your Crock-Pot to the lowest setting, and leave it for 2-3 hours.  Thermo-dynamics laws dictate that you will reach an equilibrium with time.  If you're bored you can keep a log of the temperature change over time and stop when you notice it doesn't change much any more (it'll be helpful for next cooking session).

Measure the water temperature and check against where you need to be (125, 140, etc).  Adjust the dial and throw more time at it until the crock-pot reaches equilibrium again.  Repeat until you have reached and sustained your desired temperature.  Make sure your crock-pot is not near an open window with draft to mess with the crock-pot (i.e. keep the room temperature steady).

Weigh your food and put it in the rock-pot.  Take out the same amount of water from the existing water in the crock-pot so that the total weight of the crock-pot is the same.

This isn't hard if you use the metric system.  Each Millilitre of water weighs 1 gram.  So for 1lb, take out 454ml or essentially two cups.

Now you can use the same timing and temperature rules as everyone else.

PS: For the 'ballistic' method, I.E. the beer cooler, you can measure the temperature loss over time of water in the cooler to land you perfectly where you want to be. Chef Kenji says a 'couple of degrees higher'.  But you can predict the drop over your cooking time as well as the initial temperature.  And roughly speaking: Mass Of Food x Food Temperature + Mass of Water * Water Temperature = Total Mass * Final Water bath temperature.


24 quarts would be about 23 kilos. Xantham gum is generally used for thickening in an amount of .15% to .5% by weight. So the expected range would be 34 to 115 grams. Start small, thickening with xantham gum can get snotty. Work up slowly, mixing thoroughly, until you reach the thickening you want. You may find that a combination of cornstarch and xanthan gum is ideal.


I live in one of the largest cheese producing areas in the US. Freezing cheese is often frowned upon here, it often changes the texture of the cheese and can alter the flavor as well. Cheese, much like anything else, can freezer burn. Firmer cheeses typically are affected the least by being frozen. You'll probably see a lot of the whey separate out of the cheese upon thawing, and the texture will likely be different and much drier. Its completely possible to freeze the cheese, and it poses no health risks, but it will most definitely reduce the quality of your cheese.

A "best before" date is exactly as its stated, its best to eat if before the provided date with a concern for quality rather than health risks, however storage conditions make a big difference. As far as food safety, cheese tends to remain safe to eat until visible mold/fungi appears on the cheese. Though I say use your best judgement, and if you don't feel comfortable eating it then you should discard it, or to reduce waste compost it for your garden.


What am I doing wrong with my rice cooker?

Does your rice cooker have a scale up the inside of the bowl?

With mine, you add a number of scoops of rice, then fill with water up to the correct number on the side of the bowl. Maybe it is just that the manual is badly worded, and this isn't clear?

It's a long shot, I know, but just thought I'd mention it in case you hadn't noticed :)


Vegetable lasagna a bit too wet. How to adjust baking temp/time?

Mushrooms can throw off excess moisture.  I would suggest cooking them down a bit further and draining on paper towel before adding them to your lasagna.  You didn't mention how you baked your lasagna, but my process is to bake (and your temp is fine) covered for 40 to 50 minutes.  Then to uncover and return to the oven for about 10 to 15 minutes more.  I'll take a look, and often run it under the broiler to brown the top and crisp the edges.


What material is best for cast iron handle covers?

I would go with silicone or leather. I used fabric mitts before and the one I used became brittle with the heat.

If you can "obtain" a silicone sleeve for the handle, that would save you the effort of putting on mitts every time you need to handle it. Test the silicone before you purchase it by putting a fire to it. If it burns, it's not real pure silicone.

Good luck!


How many cups is 8 whole peaches equivalent to?

If I gave you any number I'd be almost certainly wrong - peaches come in many different sizes. (And personally I'm led to believe that any recipe that gives only a number like "8 peaches" is either crap because is's imprecise or tolerates a lot of difference.)

So I suggest you

either find a recipe with a weight
My first guess is jams that often use equal or specific-ratio parts (by weight) of ingredients.
or one that gives volumetric meassurement for the cut fruit
"add two cups of sliced peaches"
or choose something that can be imprecise because you add ingredients to taste.
Compote, for example. Less sugar for ripe fruit, more for tart ones...

And if all fails and you have only sliced your fruit, try to "build" a whole peach (sort of, you don't have to find the original pieces, this isn't CSI) and weigh that. The rest is simple math. If you want to be very precise you could weigh 1c sugar as well and subtract from the total amount, but for 1/2 bushel of fruit I'd probably ignore it.


Something I think most people are unaware of:

  Runny and set honey are made from different types of nectar.

For example, rape (which is grown a lot where I live) will result in very hard setting honey. We had to be careful to extract the honey as soon as the comb was full or it would set in the cells and is then impossible to extract.

This is often not known because most runny honey will crystallise when stored somewhere too cold.

Set honey (such as that made from rape nectar) will need to be constantly stirred whilst it sets to avoid the crystals forming too big and causing it to be solid - just like ice-cream!

Disclaimer: I have no idea if this will give you the result you desire, but theoretically it should work.

As I said, most running honey will set if stored somewhere cold, therefore I would suggest you use an ice- cream maker to set your running honey, or refrigerate it - but be aware that you will need to stir it often to avoid the aforementioned issues.

You will then need to keep that honey somewhere cold to avoid it melting again. It's pretty cold here in the UK so a cupboard is usually cold enough.

References: Beekeeper for 6 years and long time honey and bee enthusiast!

Also just to note that there is no set line for which flowers produce set and runny honey it's a sliding scale - most store bought honey is just a big mix from different flowers. I believe it's something to do with how saturated with sugar the necar was.


Simple: go to your local Japanese or Korean grocer.  They will have your "good", oily, brown-fatted mackerel in the frozen section: look for or, better yet, ask for しおさば (shio-saba) in Japanese or godeung-eo in Korean.  This is invariably filleted, salted, and quite cheap.

This is most commonly served grilled, which is ridiculously easy: pop in the oven/grill for 15-20 minutes skin-side down on foil and serve.  My wife cooks this all the time, most recently earlier today for dinner!  Sample recipe in English here, but you can skip right over steps 1-6 if you're using pre-salted fish.

And for avoidance of doubt, frozen salted fish is not suitable to be eaten raw.  However, the friendly grocer can most likely tell you where he buys his fish, and in better Japanese shops may even have sushi-grade mackerel on hand.


Can I freeze mashed potatoes I bought at the grocery store?

Yes, of course you can. You can already buy frozen mashed potatoes at places like Trader Joe's. I would either freeze them in a gladware type of plastic container or put in a freezer ziploc and squeeze out as much air as possible.


How to cook the food such that no acrylamide is formed?

Salt your food well.

See for example this article (paywall, but the abstract is sufficient). You are unlikely to have calcium chloride in your kitchen, so you probably can't use the divalent cations route. But "monovalent cations, such as Na+, almost halved the acrylamide formed in the model system". Now, a model system is not a pan, but they at least found that the calcium example transfers well to frying, so (wet) salt is likely to work too.

Acid also seems to help, as shown in another paper. But note that they had to lower the surface pH of the potatoes to 4.0, which you may not want to do.

Note that the literature seems to concentrate on frying potatoes. We can hope that the methods are applicable to other foods, but I have seen no evidence for it yet.


From Fishing Tips: How to Catch, Prepare, and Cook Bluefish:

  When you clean the fish, remove the skin and any dark-colored flesh. This part of the fish is especially strong tasting and somewhat oily.
  Check out these fish recipes to learn to cook bluefish.

Also see How Can You Cook Bluefish To Make It Taste Good for advices on improving the flavor (e.g. soak it in milk).


Bread from the machine always too soft, can't be buttered

I would leave out the bread improver, the olive oil, and the milk (use water) and see what happens. Both the bread improver and the fat make softer bread.

If this is not sufficient and/or you really insist on resilient bread, the next steps are

look at the gluten content of your flour and use a higher gluten content if yours is low. American bread uses bread flour with 12-13% for example. If you can't buy such high gluten flour, you can buy gluten powder and mix it in.
start with ice cold water
add a gram of vitamin C (crystals, not a pill) at the beginning.

All three make stronger gluten, to the point that if you do it all at once, the dough might even be too hard to knead.

Another thing to try is to make darker bread, as whole wheat flours add more body and also have a bit more gluten.


you can heat up a cup of water and dissolve sugar into it until you reach a thick consistency, and put then spread or pour it over your cookies as a glaze.


What is the meaning of reconstituted juice?

What they mean is that they took some grape juice and concentrated it by evaporating some of the water contained in it (a concentrate is juice in which the sugar content is increased at least of 50%).

This is good for producers because concentrated juice has a lower volume, is easier/cheaper to stock/transport etc.
When they bottle the juice, they then reconstitute it by re-adding the water to the concentrated juice.

24.7% means they originally removed 75.3% of the water to make the concentrate. Because they added it back, at the end you are back with reconstituted 100% juice.

EDIT: fruit juices are regulated by the Codex general standard for fruit juices and nectars (PDF) which lists the minimum Brix Level (=sugar content) for various juices. Reconstituted juices must oblige to these minimum standards, although local laws may vary.


Why do you need to refrigerate bread dough overnight?

The reason for doing delayed fermentation in the fridge is that the yeast development is slowed down, while still allowing the enzymes that naturally occur in the flour to do their work (converting starches to sugars, making a more flavorful dough).

The risk of doing it on the counter instead of the fridge is that the enzymes are working AND the yeast is working, which can over-leaven the bread, and they'll eat up the sugars you are trying to create with enzymes. Over-leavened bread isn't ideal, but it isn't the end of the world either. There is a lot to learn about bread baking if you want to really excel at it, but "just bake it, it'll be fine" is always present as you experiment - glad the loaf turned out well!

"No-Knead" bread is a great introduction to "rustic" doughs (very high water content), and to cold fermentation. Cold fermentation is about the best thing you can do for your bread as a home baker, whether or not you are using the no-knead recipe - I cold ferment nearly everything I bake.

If you want to learn more about the process and jump off the deep end, Peter Reinhart's book "The Bread Baker's Apprentice" is a great place to start. It is detailed without being pedantic, simple without being over-simplified, and oriented for the home baker without forgetting the reasons that professionals do things the way they do.


Best way to preserve excess tallow long-term

You can freeze tallow.  Dehydration and the freeze-thaw cycle of home freezers are the enemies of long term storage.  You can't stop the freeze-thaw cycle, but if you minimize exposure to dehydration (freezer burn) by storing full containers, or even vacuum packing, you can keep them that way for quite a while.

You added a picture, which is helpful.  I might not freeze glass jars.  You could risk expansion and breakage.


How can I toast rice without using an oven?

You could put it in a dry frying pan on medium high heat and stir frequently until perfectly toasted.


Bearnaise is based on hollandaise (hollandaise being one of the 5 French mother sauces).  Yes, it is an egg yolk-butter emulsion with the addition of herbs.  Personally, I would say that it is a version of a hollandaise.


Whole Chicken - why won't the breast cook even though thighs are done?

You are probably touching the bone with the probe tip


Some microwaves have racks so you can cook two dishes at once.  In fact, you can buy generic racks for this very purpose.  However, I also read that some hybrid microwave/convection ovens include metal racks that must be removed if you're using it in microwave mode.  You could check with the manufacturer if you want to know for sure.  They may recommend removing the rack if you're only cooking one dish at a time.


Making "long(er)-life" homemade mayonnaise

I make a pretty large quantity of homemade mayo and have never had a problem keeping it longer than that -- Good Eats uses a week for their recipe and for me it lives a month, easy, with no detectable reduction in quality. There really is enough acid and salt to deter most bugs if you like it strongly flavored (and let's be honest, mayo should be strongly flavored because it's a sauce made of fat and you might want to minimize the quantity applied). I'd also take the advice of stilltasty.com that while color, flavor, or texture may change it's generally still safe to eat refrigerated mayo even after it's notional "use-by" date.

In short, I strongly advise more salt and acid if you're worried (and also because it's tasty), but I also strongly advise a lack of worry.


Techniques and ingredients to make marinara sauce from canned spagetti sauce

If for some reason, you only have canned goods available in your area, I would start with canned tomatoes -- either crushed, diced or a mix, depending on how chunky you like your sauce.  (some people would argue that whole peeled have better flavor, but you end up with a can with a lot of juice in it so requiring more cooking (or reserving the juice for minestrone or some other purpose)

If canned spaghetti sauce is all that you have, or you're trying to use up a case, you don't necessarily need to cook it down for a long time.  You can instead pull the pasta early, and finish cooking it in the sauce; the pasta will then soak up some of the moisture thickening the sauce.  You may want to reserve some of the pasta water in case it ends up a little too thick by the time the pasta is cooked through.

As for spicing, yes you can modify things if it's bland, but if it's an off flavor ('tinny') or something too strong, it's more difficult.  Sometimes a little bit of sugar can help if it's a touch sour, but you can also cook down some onions or finely diced carrots and mix that in to get it some  extra sweetness (and texture, and other flavors)

And if the issue is price differences -- If you have a Wegman's near you, try their store brand sauces.  It's like $1/jar (about the same as what a can of sauce costs), and it's quite good.


How do I make paneer firm and chewy like in the restaurant?

If you are using UHT milk, that is your answer right there. It won't make proper ricotta or mozzarella, so I'm not surprised it won't make good paneer either. Something about the heat treatment makes it so that it will only produce grainy, tiny curds. I made this mistake myself once, in my excitement to try my new cheesemaking kit. Here is some reference info, including pictures, from cheesemaking.com.


How do I prepare ground flaxseed for consumption? (If needed at all)

If the flaxseed appears to be small brown pieces (like 'hundreds and thousands') then it has to be ground before it can be used. I use an ordinary food processor to do this - the same attachment for grinding coffee beans or creating sugar powder. The result is a light brown powder.

This should be stored in an air-tight container to prevent oxidation. The ground seeds shouldn't be kept for more than a week or so as they lose their effectiveness the longer they are kept.

There is no need to wash or cook the seeds. I add the powder to my morning yoghurt - it's supposed to help lower cholesterol levels amongst other properties.

I have heard that the stone of an apricot contains cyanide - but not flaxseed (otherwise I wouldn't be here to be writing this!).


There is nothing wrong with your recipe. This is not only typical, it can't be changed.

The human sense of smell is triggered by molecules floating in the air we breathe. When you make a chocolate sauce, some of its molecules are volatile - that is, not very attached to the sauce, ready to leave the surface and float off into the air like a helium balloon when a gust of wind tears its string - and others (most of them) are not, they stay put where they are.

The volatile molecules get into the air, we breathe them in and so we smell the chocolate. But after some time, all the ones which were volatile to begin with have floated away, and are not any longer there.

The other thing which is happening are probably some chemical reactions. I am not sure of the details, but with something as complex as chocolate, there has to be a bit of degradation going on. With chocolate being so stable over long periods of time, I'd say this contributes much less to the effect, but I am adding it here for thoroughness.

So there is nothing to be done. If you try to somehow "anchor" the smell molecules to the chocolate, they won't go away, but they won't be available for being smelled either. Either way, you cannot get the smell to linger. If you want sauce which smells fresh, you have to make it fresh.


How long can i cook a bone in Pork Shoulder?

Don't cook by time, cook it until it's done (you can slide a probe into all parts of the shoulder with practically zero resistance. That said, 16 hours for a 4.5 kg (10 pound) shoulder doesn't seem outrageous. In fact, at those cooking temperatures, I would be surprised if your pork was done cooking by then. Bear in mind, I am assuming that your intention is to make pulled/shredded pork.

I would suggest starting the shoulder in your smoker, and transferring it to your oven to finish, rather than vice versa. The reason you would want to do this is because you can kick up the temperature in your oven to speed cooking and get past the stall. Temperature control will be much easier in the oven, and it will be the latter part of cooking where you would want to vary temperatures. Otherwise, you are dooming yourself to being stuck waiting an extra 3-4 hours waiting for your shoulder to finish cooking.


When you microwave on full power you are likely boiling off all the water before it can be absorbed by the rice. When you cook rice on a stove a common method is to bring it to a boil and then turn it down to low, cooking it until the rice is done. I prefer this method as I like the texture you get and once it's cooked you can eat it straight away without any extra process. I would suggest you mimic this method with your microwave by starting on high until it boils and then turning the power way down until it is cooked. On the stove this method requires you cover the pot, not a practical option in the microwave so you need to add some water to make up for the moisture loss.

Another way to cook rice on the stove is to add much more water than you need to cook the rice and boil it until the rice is done, then drain the rice while discarding the extra water. You could also try this method in the microwave very easily. The drawbacks to using this in the microwave is that if it boils over you will end up with a puddle of water on the bottom you have to clean up, and you still have to drain it.

So my advice for dorm room rice is the first method, you just need to experiment with water levels and power settings.


how often is cleaning done in a professional kitchen?

I have worked in two professsional kitchens. The main kitchen itself (all the work tables, stoves, floors, refrigerator fronts and so on) is cleaned after each service, and very thoroughly each night with hot soapy water and sometime sterilizing solution. The insides of refrigerators and other storage areas don't need to be cleaned that often because everything in them is in sealed containers. They should normally be emptied and wiped out at least once a week, and of course immediately if there is any kind of spill.


What is the difference between chickpeas and garbanzo beans?

They're the same thing. About the only difference is that "garbanzo bean" is less common in British English than in American English, and chickpea is more common either way, but it's just a language thing.
There are indeed different varieties, with some smaller and some larger, but they don't have common language names like that.
Wikipedia mentions three varieties:

Desi, which has small, darker seeds and a rough coat, cultivated mostly in the India and much of the Indian Subcontinent, as well as Ethiopia, Mexico, and Iran.
Bombay (Bambai), which is also dark in colour but slightly larger in size than the Desi variety. They too are popular in the Indian Subcontinent.
Kabuli, associated with Kabul in Afghanistan. These are lighter coloured, with larger seeds and a smoother coat, mainly grown in Southern Europe, Northern Africa, South America and Indian Subcontinent, having been introduced during the 18th century to India.

Note that it says that one of the smaller varieties is commonly grown in Mexico, so the blog isn't really even quite correct to say "large Mexican chickpeas" (though I've certainly also seen large chickpeas from Mexican brands). I wouldn't lend too much authority to that blog post on that particular point. (A lot of the rest is subjective too, of course.)


Explanation of the phrase "Eye of Round Roast"

I think the Danish use the English style cutting and names not the US style, so direct translation is not really possible. The round is often just English "Roast Beef"

The main part of the round we would call topside, which is Danish is Inderlår og klump (topside and rump)

The top part we call Silverside is the "Culotte" (leg)

There are other untranslatable parts like Tyksteg, Lårtunge, and Couvette; these are referred to as just "Roast Beef"!


It does seem dangerous to me. You don't know where they have been before you bought them, so bacteria and other stuff can contaminate the eggs with their shell broken. You can safely eat the eggs that didn't break. Their shell and membrane protects them. The broken ones should be thrown away if you want to be sure you are safe.

This reference puts it this way:

  Cracks in the shells of eggs can allow bacteria or other pathogens to contaminate the egg and make you sick. While cooking does reduce the amount of most contaminants, it does not remove them completely.

And from the USDA:

  Bacteria can enter eggs through cracks in the shell. Never purchase cracked eggs. However, if eggs crack on the way home from the store, break them into a clean container, cover it tightly, keep refrigerated, and use within 2 days. If eggs crack during hard cooking, they are safe. Remember that all eggs should be thoroughly cooked.


Is it possible to make yogurt and cheese from spoiled milk?

Even if it is possible, it is a very, very bad idea as you don't know what cultures or pathogens are in the already spoiled milk.

Fermented dairy products should only be made from fresh milk in good condition—and in most cases, that milk should be pasteurized while fresh absolutely as soon as possible from the source cows.


Effect of flour/fat/sugar/egg ratio in a sponge pudding

Michael Ruhlman talks about cooking in terms of ratios in his book: Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking.

He says the basic Sponge Cake (close cousin of Sponge Pudding) is (ratios by weight):

1 part egg
1 part sugar
1 part flour
1 part butter

And it works. This BBC recipe is along those lines.

To your Q on ratios, to make or more dense cake you could:

decrease an egg
and/or increase flour

You have other options as well.

you could reduce leavening agents, if any
at the point you are combining butter into another ingredient, be careful not to over do it, this introduces more air into the final product.


Will different kinds of sugar or coffee affect coffee syrup flavor?

Coffee syrup, like anything else cooked, will taste of the ingredients used. If you use brown sugar it will syrupy and have a molasses flavor, if you use floral honey it will taste of it. If you use a richer coffee bean it will have a richer coffee taste.


Pizza crust too hard in home oven, how to make it softer?

You can try high hydration flour. go to 75 percent hydration dough. It will be harder to handle but will be more fluffy. Another thing, heat your oven as high temp as possible. use around 2% yeast as well.


What's the safest shape for homemade hard-candy

Spherical or spheroidal foods are indeed the most likely to be implicated in choking - grapes are well known. But you're unlikely to get sufficient statistics to answer fully. Most of the medical literature I've seen is at least as concerned with size, and of course that changes as you eat the sweet. You'd have to start unusually small for size to be much help.

Hard edges are much less of a concern. You'd struggle to get them sharp enough to do any actual damage, and the corners dissolve fastest, meaning they blunt almost immediately. This also means that the corners of something like a cube will go fairly fast, and you'll be left with a near-spherical blob.

You might be best off with something like a coin shape - a flattish disc or oval. This is a traditional shape for barley sugars, and I've also had hard fruit sweets that shape. While coins do show up in the choking statistics, they're very common items for children to investigate, including by taste and when not supervised.


Can I leave boneless chicken breast flat in freezer overnight?

Other food will get contaminated if they come into physical contact with the chicken, but as long as you keep the food separate that will be fine. It's not that good for the chicken, putting meat and poultry into the freezer without protection will damage it, however if it's only overnight it's no big deal. I'd still put some plastic wrap over the tray to protect it.


I have friends from Hong Kong who always use steel woks in their take-away.

A cast-iron wok would require a different technique for stir frying. It would be slower to heat up and retain heat when you didn't want the food to continue cooking.

Stick with the one you have ...


The big difference between panko and "regular" breadcrumbs is that panko is more like flakes, so it creates a much different texture when used as a breading.
It's more similar to using cracker or cereal crumbs than regular bread in terms of shape, but the texture is more bread-like.
For a picture comparison, and explanation of how panko is made, see UpperCrustents's how panko is made.
The difference is lost when using it as a binder in something like meatballs ... similar to using flake salt vs. other shapes of salt.  So in some cases, using it might be considered pretentious.  (or just using whatever's on hand).


Is it a problem that the same flipper that touched raw blood touches the finished meat?

Depends on how paranoid you are.

Technically: Yes, you should be using a different utensil once the meat is cooked. Any contact with raw meat carries a contamination risk, and you can't guarantee the utensil will be heated enough to "cook" it.

If you want to be as safe as possible, reverse the cooking order you're using - stir-fry the veggies first, set them off to the side, then cook the meat, then mix the veggies in again and use a fresh utensil to finish (or wash the current one.) This ensures that the veggies and second utensil only have contact with cooked meat.

Personally? I don't worry about it beyond the obvious - I make sure I rinse the utensil off somewhere in there with some hot (and usually soapy) water, immerse it in the cooking liquid for a bit if applicable, etc. It's not the safest way of going about things, but it strikes a good balance (for me) between risk and convenience. YMMV, obviously.


Tearing is NOT worth the extra effort, tested experimentally.

Others have explored the theoretical reasons behind this, so I decided to test it in real life.  I did this like so:

Green leaf lettuce from the local CSA
Cut one leaf with a sharp knife (stainless), and tore the second leaf carefully by hand (fast, clean tears)
Pieces were both wrapped in moist paper towels and left out at room temperature
Photographs were taken at 30 minute intervals

After 2 hours, the 2 leaves still look identical (picture below).

Cut (on the left), Torn (on the right):

Provisos: knife was sharp and leaves were fresh and kept moist.  A dull knife or more abusive handling of the leaves may yield bruising and faster browning.  I am currently repeating this on a longer time scale, and may attempt with a dressing.

Practical take-away from the experiment:

I have found that in real life, it doesn't matter how you divide your leaves, as long as you don't apply dressing before storing for a prolonged period.  The acidic dressing will wilt leaves and cause discoloration, and leading to a limp, soggy salad.  The experiment supports that neither method leads to unacceptable browning within a short timeframe.  In practice, I've only seen browning when lettuce is left overnight or longer, or when it is stored with dressing.

Cook's Illustrated confirms this with their experiment to see if plastic lettuce knives are worth it. They found that:

  Though all lettuce began showing some browning on the ribs after 10 days, none showed any signs of browning on the cut or torn surfaces. After 12 days, the heads cut with metal knives showed faint signs of browning on these surfaces, and the lettuce cut with the plastic knife followed a day later. The torn lettuce was last to brown on its ruptured edges, starting to turn at 2 weeks.

Given that lettuce is browning on the ribs before it does on cut edges, the difference between cut and torn is no longer important.  You're only adding 20% to the time before browning appears on cut surfaces.  Most people will agree that after 2 weeks lettuce no longer has its full flavor. I have found that to get the freshest, best taste it should be eaten no more than 4 days after harvest.

So, if there difference between cut and torn is insignificant, why cut rather than tear?
It's faster and more consistent, especially if you have good knife skills and a sharp knife. You can cut a head of romaine in under a minute by knife, versus several times this by hand.  You also don't have to worry about bruising leaves or making irregularly shaped pieces by accident, and you can choose to do large pieces or fine, fluffy shredded mixture.  In my time in professional kitchens, I came to rely on the knife as an extension of my body, and you should too.


There is no way for us to give you absolute cooking times. There are too many variables, among them:

How do you like your meat cooked?
How hot is your fire?
How far are the kabobs from the fire (since kabob cooking is essentially 100% radiation heating, distance is a huge factor)
What is the size of your meat chunks?
What is the starting temperature of your meat chunks?

You will note that the number of kabobs is not a factor.

Instead, you need to learn to check for when they are done to your liking. This will come from experience.  Kabobs are generally too small to use a thermometer on; you would need a very high quality one like a Thermapen in order to get a reasonable reading.

All that said, it is likely that you want something on the order of 2-3 minutes per side, but there are far too many factors to make that a concrete recommendation.

You can start by cooking just one kabob, or even one chunk.   When you think it looks good, try it.  Of it is overcooked, do the next one for less time; undercooked, cook a little longer.  After a couple, you will know about how long you will need for your particular set of circumstances.


Even for 12 servings, the total quantity of herbs is small; so, in my opinion, the best way to chop it is with knife.

Maybe you need to improve your technique.

Use a big sharp knife, on a big cutting surface.

Get all the herbs aligned and press them together with your left hand (or your right hand if you are lefty like me) in a tight pile over the surface.

Lean the side of the knife on your fingers, placing the tips of the fingers away from the cut.

Practice and you'll see that it's fast and easy and the results are the best.


What is the equivelant of 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract in Organic Vanilla Bean Paste, is it teaspoon for teaspoon?

1 tbsp pure vanilla bean paste = 1 vanilla bean
1 tbsp pure vanilla bean paste = 1 tbsp vanilla bean extract

From experience I'd say the extract and the paste are equivalent in flavour.
The vanilla bean paste has the added texture of the seeds, which I prefer.

Of course neither of them leave you with a bean case to use as a garnish when your done creating!
We use both the paste and beans a lot!


What is the best variety of rice or preparation of rice to use in soup?

I've found that the most consistent way is to use short grain rice that is prepared much like it is in Indian cuisine. I was taught to rinse it repeatedly until the standing rinse water runs clear. That seems to remove most of the starch that causes that sticky breakdown.

Also, I've found that making rice soups in a slow cooker can be made less sticky by adding the rinsed rice after the other ingredients have settled in and become well heated. I've only dealt with this a couple times, so I definitely recommend experimenting if you prepare your soup in a slow cooker. Good luck!


Higher temp and lower rack for thicker crust in brownies?

Use your normal recipe and then leave the brownies in the oven with the heat turned off!
Start with 10 minutes and next time increase the time until you've reached the crust thickness you desire.
Why?
Leaving them in the oven with the heat turned off will keep on drying the crust (thus thickening it) until the oven cools down completely. (Don't leave them that long or you'll have a brick instead of brownies)
;-)


From my experience, sugar syrups don't last too long (a month tops in the refrigerator). You may be able to prolong their shelf life by adding something acidic, or anti-microbial (I think some spices may work) but not by much. As for jams, I don't think it's the sugar that preserves them so much as the acidity or heat from canning/preserving.

Sucrose is actually something I've used in a laboratory to culture microbes. Many, including a lot of ones we're familiar with contributing to rotting foods in our kitchen, can use sucrose as an energy source.

That being said, if it passes the smell test, doesn't look cloudy (more than it initially was) it's worth trying a little if you're a home cook. I'd say the cloudiness is the best indicator, especially if it looks like there are strands/strings of cloudiness in the liquid.


This could be either just soot - but assuming you clean your wok well between uses, it might be that the anti-sticking layer is coming off. If it's the latter, replace the wok - this stuff is pretty toxic when ingested.


How to get Garlic & other strong Spices' smell out of my Zojirushi Flask/ Thermos acquired via a herbal Immunity decoction?

Wash out with warm soapy water. A toothbrush could help in the scrubbing. While still wet, add baking soda into the flask and scrub.
Pour an inch or two of white vinegar into a clean carafe, then fill most of the way with hot tap water.
Not tried this one, but seems a few people have had good results. 4 Alka-Seltzer tablets with water.
Adding freshly ground coffee, which will help to mask the smell if it is still there.

Edit:
Just read through the manufacturer's instructions, and have updated my advice as a result.


What size pan should I use if I want to split a recipe in half that calls for a 13x9 inch pan?

I have a couple of 8.5" x 6.5" pans (designed for toaster ovens) that I use for exactly this. The height is about the same as a standard 13" x 9" pan. I've split solid dishes like carrot cake or Spanish Bar Bread and looser ones like Spinach Marie or macaroni and cheese successfully. Just remember to check on the dish earlier than usual as the smaller portions will bake quicker.


What is the hottest part of a chili/chilli/chile pepper?

The Wikipedia article on Capsicum reads, citing a FAQ on a page of the ollege of Agriculture and Home Economics of the New Mexico State University:

  Capsaicin is present in large quantities in the placental tissue (which holds the seeds), the internal membranes and, to a lesser extent, the other fleshy parts of the fruits of plants in the genus Capsicum. Contrary to popular belief, the seeds themselves do not produce any capsaicin, although the highest concentration of capsaicin can be found in the white pith around the seeds.

Cisneros-Pineda et al. measured via gas chromatography the content of capsaicin and dihydrocapsaicin in the pericarp, placenta, and seeds of seven cultivars of chili peppers and the results confirm this:

For dihydrocapsaicin, the difference is not so large, but the placenta still has a higher concentration.

In terms of concentration considering fresh mass the difference won't be as dramatic because while the seeds lose around half their mass by drying, the placenta will lose 90%.


Does the oven door need to be toughened glass?

You can't use just any sheet of thick glass for your oven door. Glass for your oven has to be tempered to resist high temperatures. Untempered glass will likely crack pretty quickly with regular use. Moreover, an oven door usually made of glass which breaks into "rough pebbles" rather than sharp shards if it breaks, to decrease the risk of injuries if the glass does crack. If you replace it with a regular thick glass pane you run the risk of (worst case scenario) very sharp, very hot shards of glass exploding all over your kitchen one day.

Like @M.K. stated in the comments, your best bet is to contact the company and ask about replacements, or a reputable company that repairs appliances. They can easily secure an appropriate piece of tempered glass to replace the broken one.


What icing will stay stiff (even in tropical heat) after the cake has been decorated?

The ingredients that make icing creamy and give it the bulk for piped decorations, tend to be items that will go softer in heat (butter, shortening, egg whites, whipped cream).  A glaze might set up if you made it sufficiently thick, but it wouldn't allow you to do anything like pipe borders.

While I know it's not really a solution to what you want, your best options are probably to decorate with non-icing items like fruit or candy.  Probably the closest imitation would be to try using marzipan, which can be molded and coloured and I think would probably hold its shape better under heat.


I've used agar agar before with this recipe. Although I've never tried it myself with coffee beans, the trick might be to use instant coffee, which is what I find is almost the case with other desserts with coffee flavor. I also add 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence right at the end, which lifts the flavor and also sieve before letting it set. I generally put it in the fridge and speed up the setting process.


They do count that, yes. Food safety regulations are targeted towards the worst case scenario. If the meat in question is old enough that the store is about to throw it away, and the store's refrigerator wasn't quite as cold as it was supposed to be, and it sat in a hot car on the way home, and your refrigerator is not quite cold enough either, then 1-2 days should still be okay.


Butter Substitutions in the Quiche dough

According to the title of the video, which is all I looked at (my French not being that good), you are making a pate brisee which is a particular kind of pastry crust.

This pastry relies on solid fat in its construction method, so that it can be in little clumps in the dough.  Then, it melts during baking forming a crumbly crust.

You will not achieve ideal results with any liquid shortening such as olive oil.  Some viable options (which may actually achieve better results, depending on your desires) to substitute for all or part of the butter include:

Hydrogenated vegetable shortening (such as the US brand Crisco)
Lard
Beef tallow

Basically, any fat which is solid at room temperature (almost always animal fats, since typically only saturated fats are solid at room temperature) will do.

If you google "olive oil pastry crust", you will find recipes such as this one from Fuss Free Cooking which are not based on butter or solid shortening.  You will get a different texture and outcome, but depending on your goals, you may find such as recipe to your liking.  I cannot vouch for their quality, as I have not tried them.  Obviously, they will have a different flavor from the oil rather than butter...


What is this plastic handle that is used for corn and watermelon called?

They're just called corn holders, or corn skewers. I've never seen them holding watermelon before. As a matter of fact, they don't seem to me to be appropriate for watermelon. I don't see how they would make watermelon easier to eat and they're quite sharp. Especially for a kid, that seems kind of dangerous.


Cooking meat/fish without Maillard reaction(a.k.a. browning)

I agree with Joe: wet methods are generally good for preventing browning.

The general policy is just to use temperatures which are as low as possible (while ensuring food safety and cooking until "done").  The other thing you want to avoid is very long cooking, since browning reactions can still occur if you cook something long enough at a low temperature.

Wet methods are often best both because they naturally keep the temperature of the food below boiling, and the circulating liquid helps to raise the food's temperature faster (which tends to allow quicker cooking).  Compare that to roasting (or similar techniques) at a very low temperature -- in that case, it will often take much longer for the food to get up to a "done" temperature (which can sometimes be a food safety issue, particularly in large hunks of meat).

Acids can also inhibit browning a bit, though low temperature and shorter time are most important.

The sous vide technique is perhaps the optimal method for preventing browning, since you cook the food in a sealed bag to a low temperature (and usually one specified to ensure food safety).  You also contain all the juices, etc. of the meat, rather than other wet methods where they tend to be lost to the surrounding liquid.  (If you are going to consume the liquid as well, that can be good, though.)

The main problem with all of these techniques is that some meats are considered much less appetizing without any browning.  For example, many people love a steak cooked to a perfect "medium rare" inside, but they brown the exterior -- and even that thin layer of browned bits is enough to give a lot of flavor to a bite of even a thick steak.  If you didn't brown the outside and just had the whole thing "medium rare," it would be a different experience.  Think of the interior of a medium rare prime rib -- in that case, many people often tend to use some salty flavorful "jus" or another kind of sauce to add flavor while eating the meat.  So in some cases you might look for recipes that add a sauce or other complementary flavorful foods to go with the meat (and replace the missing flavor from browning).


Use double or triple that volume of spices, and gentle dry roast them first

Use ghee (clarified butter) instead of oil

Use loads of cream to finish the gravy


Replacement for pasta that is natural and fairly low carb

The classic example would be spaghetti squash.  It has the unique property that when you cook it, it can be pulled apart into long, thin, pasta-like strands.

You can then sauce it or use it in a manner analogous to pasta, but its nutritional profile is far more similar to squash, because, well, it is squash.


What flavor (if any) do ti leaves impart? How about substitutes?

it has to do with moisture. The ti leaves are to help with the internal steaming. You can use dried corn husks you can get in a Mexican super market. Soak them for 10 minutes and then wrap your item with it. It works well. I've done this for lau lau before and should work with your turkey.


Beer is made from malted cereal grains. These can be corn but more commonly malted barley. The malting process turns the starch in the grain into sugars then the fermentation turns the sugars into beer. To get a strong dry beer, first start with a sweet malt and the ferment until as much sugar as possible becomes alcohol. For a non alcoholic beer, you need to remove the alcohol so you start with a low sugar malt and ferment just long enough to get the flavour but not too much alcohol. Since the fermentation is short, even through the initial sugar content might be low, there is sugar left in the beer thus giving you a sweet taste.


Best way to preserve a meat without using refrigerator

Meat spoils because it is packed with water and all the nutrients microorganisms crave.
To make meat not need refrigeration you have to make those things unavailable.

Dehydration is essential. Salt is also helpful. Salt the meat heavily and dehydrate it on a fan or in the oven. You end up with jerky which, if sealed from humidity, will stay good indefinitely. Look for proven recipes.

Salt by itself, without dehydration, isn't good enough. Corned beef, for example, is salted heavily and will still spoil if not refrigerated.

An alternative to drying is to pressure can the meat. By heating a bottle of meat in a pressure canner, the boiling point of water is increased to the point where botulism spores are destroyed. The bottle seals out further contamination. Bottled meat will stay good for years.

While I think that preserving food is a valuable skill- I totally agree with GdD that it is not important for international travel. You will enjoy yourself much more and be more productive if you learn to eat what the local people eat and don't spend your free time drying meat and carrying it with you when you travel.


Stainless Steel Pan -- gray bottom. Why?

bikeboy definitely has it right, but just to be a little more specific:

What you're seeing is scale, also referred to as fouling and several other terms.  In all probability, it is specifically limescale that you're seeing, and it's very common in hot water taps, kettles, and on air-dried cookware.

If you have hard water (or even if you don't) it will tend to contain small amounts of dissolved calcium bicarbonate, which is completely harmless by the way, but when you boil the water it breaks down into calcium carbonate, which is still harmless but has low solubility in water and precipitates out into solid salts at lower temperatures.

This can also get mixed up with other salts you use in cooking to create more scale.

As you've noticed, soap and detergent do not remove the scale.  Nor would you expect them to; those things are intended for the extraction of oils and grease (and sometimes killing bacteria), and the above salts are even less soluble in oil than they are in water.

Acids such as vinegar or Barkeeper's Friend work because the acidity helps to dissolve those salts.

Bottom line, the mineral build-up is normal and harmless (to both you and your cookware).

If you want to prevent the build-up in the future:

Try not to use more heat than necessary in your cooking (high heats speed up the mineral breakdown).  Simmer, don't boil.
Always thoroughly dry your stainless steel cookware instead of letting it air-dry.  You'll wipe off the salts instead of letting them bond to the metal.
Rinse with a dilute vinegar solution after washing.

If you need to clean the build-up, use Barkeeper's Friend (which is what All Clad recommends using) or a boil some concentrated vinegar as bikeboy says.  Don't just use any old stainless steel cleaner, as not all of them are safe for cookware.


What does it mean for a flour to be "strong" or "reinforced"?

Strong flour does mean higher gluten flour. I can't really find much info out about the Rinforzato flour. My guess would be that that could mean "enriched" but since another question (Red and blue Antimo Caputo 00 flour) seems to indicate that it has higher protein, it may just have some added vital wheat gluten to make it stronger.


Basil Pesto Vinaigrette - what kind of vinegar?

They likely used white balsamic vinegar which is not cheap but has the kind of taste that sends people searching on the net ;) In character, it is sweeter than white wine, rice wine, and normal white vinegar and less acidic.

btw, you can easily make your awesome own pesto in your blender using fresh basil, pine nuts, and olive oil.  If you blanch the basil, it'll stay bright green and pretty for the life of it.


Vermouth for use in Drinks - can I freeze it?

Water freezes at 0° C (or 32° F), but ethanol freezes at -114° C, so you can guess your vermouth with freeze somewhere in between those two temperatures.

Noilly Prat is 18% ABV, or 15% alcohol by weight, which means it would freeze at around -6° C to -7° C, or 19-21° F. Your freezer may or may not be tuned to be that cold, but if not, you should be able to crank it a bit and get your Noilly Prat just frozen.

That said, I would not really recommend leaving an ice cube tray full of vermouth hanging out in your freezer. You may notice that old ice tastes funny. Even though you may not notice your freezer smelling, that's partly because the cold blocks smells. Just because you don't notice them doesn't mean the odors aren't there to ruin your Noilly Prat. I would recommend leaving them for a day until just frozen (covered if you like), and then moving them to a Ziploc for long term storage.

All that said, freezing will not halt oxidation altogether, but it will help, as only the exposed surfaces areas should be able to be oxidized. Since ice cubes by design have a relatively high surface area, you may consider minimizing the exposure to oxygen by other means.

If you have a vacuum sealer, using that would be a fairly simple means to limit that exposure, but a similar effect can be done with a simple Ziploc bag, as described here (note this link is focused on using this technique for cooking, but it is translatable to your scenario). Drop your ice cubes in a bag, and then slowly lower the bag into a container of cold water (the colder the better, here, to minimize melting), leaving the seal exposed. I sometimes clip things onto the bag to weigh it down as well. Then begin closing the seal, and lower the bag further into the water as you continue sealing, so that only the unsealed portion is exposed. Finally complete the seal and you should have a reasonably low-oxygen environment to mitigate further degradation of your vermouth.


Can I boil a yogurt marinade if I add cornstarch?

Good news! There is no reason to bring the marinade to a rolling boil as a simmer will siffice. Chicken and other items that have been in contact with raw chicken are considered safe at 165 degrees (See http://www.foodsafety.gov/keep/charts/mintemp.html). A simmer is generally about 180. If the sauce breaks however, you are correct that a cornstarch slurry should pull the marinade back together no problem. Happy cooking!


A quarter sheet pan is tiny ... 9 x 13.  You'd have problems fitting a large chicken on that.  If you don't have a place to buy a half-sheet pan, look for places that do appliance repair, and get a broiler pan ... they're of a similar size, and have plenty of uses.  (they just don't work for cookies)
In the comments of a Serious Eats post on spatchcocked turkeys  was this exchange:

ColoradoTommy ; 12:59PM ON 11/06/12 :
Kenji, what is the maximum size bird you would recommend spatchcocking (sp?), before going with the two bird approach?
J. Kenji López-Alt ; 1:01PM ON 11/06/12 :
@ColoradoTommy
Unless you have an oven large enough to fit a full-sized sheet pan, you won't be able to do more than a 12 to 13 pounder, max—it'll overhang the edges.
Even with a bigger bird, you'll have a few problems since it takes longer to cook. You'd have to reduce the oven temp by 25 to 50°F, and allow it to cook longer. Just use a thermometer, keep an eye on it, and you should be fine.

I'm not sure if his recommendation is for a 1/2 sheet (13"x18"), or a 3/4 sheet (15"x21") ...  I know it's not for a 1/4 sheet.
As for cutting out the backbone -- shears would be the standard way, but for chicken I've often just gone in with a sharp knife and slowly cut through everything.  It doesn't slice through easily, but if you keep one hand on the backbone to keep the chicken from moving, you can slowly saw your way through the ribs.  (mind you, I've never tried on a turkey).
If you do get sheers, I like the ones that separate to clean and that have a little notch near the pivot to make sure bones don't slip as you cut them.  The ones I have were sold as 'kitchen shears' not 'poultry sheers' (which are spring loaded (ie, more places to worry about gunks), and tend to be $70+, while my kitchen sheers were closer to $20).


Two identical dishes - how do I adjust temp and time for two 9x13 pans instead of just one?

Likely no adjustment is necessary if they fit in your oven with good circulation.  If it is a tight fit, you might want to add a few minutes, and/or rotate them halfway through the cooking.  Your best approach is to simply measure the temperature of your product around the 45 minute mark and adjust from there.


Can I re-heat Ricottta that hasn't seperated into whey fully yet?

Yes, you should be able to, if it's still liquid.  The worst that will happen is that you'll end up with a more dry, farmers-cheese curd, but that will still be fine in ravioli.

Incidentally, this is why a lot of folks use granulated citric acid instead of lemon juice.  Juice acidity can vary quite a bit.  Otherwise your quantities look correct.


Can ricotta cheese be frozen? If yes then how long it keep in freezer?

I would not recommend freezing ricotta as-is. My concern is the freeze-thaw cycle would deteriorate the lovely delicate texture of the curds.

However, freezing a ricotta filling (example: a spinach ricotta filling for a pasta shell or cannelloni) seems to work well (bound with egg, breadcrumbs, parmesan, spinach, etc).


Why did my coppa get spicier after being microwaved?

The microwave caused heat which released oils from the coppa's spice blend, including capsaicin.


How to make Chinese-style cornstarch coating stick

The key in a stir-fry is that the ingedients can at all times move about freely. A spatula shouldn't really be needed, the way it is in sautéing, rather you use a spoon/ladle to just, well, stir the loose mixture. In fact even that isn't ideal: arguably, it should rather be called toss-fry, because vigorously moving the pan is the best way to keep everything apart, while minimising damage to items like coated tofu.

A proper wok is certainly the best utensil for doing this since its round shape keeps the tossed-up ingredients best from flying out of the pan. I don't actually have a wok, but I find non-stick aluminium pans to work well too, as they can be controlled easily and conduct heat quickly. (Purists will probably disagree here...)
At any rate I wouldn't care to do a stir-fry in a heavy traditional european cast-iron pan. Way too inert.

Apart from that, a couple of conditions are important to allow for easy enough movement:

Not too much finely chopped material or viscous liquid should be in the pan, as both hinders movement.
Nothing can be allowed to start sticking to the bottom.
There needs to be sufficient heat, and enough heat transfer, so you actually get the cooking done quickly.
Not too much water to absorb/vaporise away heat, at least at the beginning. Rather more than less oil helps though, but of course not as much as in deep-frying.

Again, all of this is clearly best accompished with a wok over an intense gas flame, but can also be done without.


Most home kitchen immersion circulators advertise that they are accurate in the .1 to .3 degree F range.  Practically speaking, if you were considering a home-made device, you can easily get away with less accuracy than that.  So, .5 would be just fine.  In a pinch, I've used a pot of water and a thermometer, turning the gas on an off.  Not very convenient, not very accurate, but it can work with close monitoring.  By the way, I do sometime set my circulator to .5 degree increments, but, honestly, that's probably more obsessiveness than is required.


How far ahead of time can I make or bake a bread with fruit and honey in it?

Refrigerating bread promotes rapid staling, do you do not want to do that.

However, ironically, breads in general and challah in specific will freeze very well.  You just want to be sure it is well protected against freezer burn.  For a few days, a zip lock bag should do quite well; for longer storage, wrapping tightly in film wrap, and then putting in the zip lock type bag would be better.

Do make sure the bread is fully cooled before freezing.

You can optionally slice before freezing as well, should you want to, which can be convenient.


According to StillTasty, you should get at least one year, refrigerated.

They note it may become cloudy and solidify, but that this does not affect quality.  Allowing it to come to room temperature will bring it back to a liquid state.


What is the difference between "mince" and "dice"?

Mincing produces smaller, more irregularly-shaped items than dicing.

Dicing is generally uniform, usually 1/8 to 1/4 inch on all sides, kind of like a tiny cube.

The best way to explain the size difference is visually, check out this link for a great picture near the top.


Sous vide top side beef joint - set temperature lower than it should be

You should be ok.  You could err on the side of a longer cook.  Your main concern between 50C and 52.3C is Clostridium perfringens, which, according to Douglas Baldwin can grow at up to 52.3C (other pathogens of concern stop growing at 50C). He further points out that listeria is the most difficult pathogen to kill, but it takes less salmonella and E. coli to make you sick.  So....

  most experts recommend that you cook your food to reduce: Listeria by at least a million to one; Salmonella by ten million to one; and E. coli by a hundred thousand to one. You can easily do this when you cook sous vide: you just keep your food in a 130°F (54.4°C) or hotter water bath until enough bacteria have been killed.

When have enough been killed?  It depends on the temperature and the thickness of your product.  Baldwin provides the information.   Raise your temp and cook on, but read Baldwin.


i have a friend who has 8 ostriches, and he eats their eggs all the time. the taste is (apparently) different from a chicken's... richer somehow, but not different in a bad way. he has hard-boiled them, but as roux says, it takes a LONG time to do it. i think he boils them for an hour, but don't quote me on that one. his most regular method is to drill a hole in it, drain it into a big bowl, blend it, and then makes scrambled eggs a cup or so at a time. he has found that he can freeze the leftover egg for eating later. as roux also said, one ostrich egg is about 2 dozen or so chicken eggs, so be prepared!


Scotch bonnet is very similar, if they're available.


What's the difference between fajitas, enchiladas and tacos?

Enchiladas are normally shredded meat and/or cheese rolled in corn tortillas, covered in red (or green) enchilada sauce and cheese, and then baked.

Fajitas are normally strips of meat either grilled or sauteed (often with onions and peppers). They can be used in tacos, burritos, or served on their own or with tortillas on the side (corn or flour depending on preference).

Tacos can be either hard or soft shelled and are usually meat (shredded, ground, grilled etc) with some sort of cold veggies (like lettuce, raw onions, pico de gallo, etc) and perhaps cheese etc.


How to measure the temperature of a pan?

You can get a remote-sensing thermometer (they have a laser that shines on the object to show you where you're pointing it). They read reasonably accurately without touching the heated object, and come in various sensitivities. Mine reads as high as 700 degrees F, but there are cheaper ones that don't go as high.

Apart from that, I would think you'll always be just estimating and not very accurately at that.

Don't forget also that the temperature of your cooking surface must be higher than strictly required for the Maillard reaction. If the meat needs to get to 155C for it to occur, you will probably need to heat your pan higher to account for heat lost to the meat on contact.

And for killing bacteria, you may also need to get the entire piece of food to the required temp, so a regular food thermometer is a better bet than trying to measure the heat of the pan.


My egg roll wraps smell sour. They expire in 2 days. Are they still okay to use?

The dates provided on packaging are not precise. They make excellent guides but too many factors can alter the timeline (as mentioned by @Joe, being mishandled in the market or being previously opened among other things).

As a general rule, if something smells unusual and off, it probably is. I would personally throw them out.


What is the secret to avoid bitter-tasting rapini?

To get the best out of rapini, you need to blanch it first. Use well-salted water. Detach the thickest stems from the leaves (these can be peeled and used).  Add to boiling water and cook for 3 to 4 minutes. Remove from the water and chill (if using later), or add to a pan with plenty of olive oil and garlic to finish cooking. Remember, though, that bitterness is a characteristic of this vegetable, so you will not completely eliminate it.


It sounds like the one you got may not have been of good quality. I don't remember them being terribly expensive ($40?), so I'd take yours back. If you get a good one, it should last you for years and years, so don't be afraid to invest a little. Your new one should NOT be splintering.

And don't put your new one in the dishwasher.


Is the pouring method of beer really important?

The release of aromatics is most certainly part of the reason for producing a head when pouring beer. You're creating a buildup of bubbles that contain carbonated gas coming out of solution; that gas can carry aromatic particles created during the brewing process. The more there are, the more aroma is released.

The "cap" theory is pretty dubious, on the other hand. The head isn't solid, it's just composed of gas bubbles that can be pushed aside by other bubbles as they escape out of solution.

Another reason not mentioned is that pouring a head allows one to carry a full glass more easily without beer splashing out. The bubbles in the head keep the liquid level below the edge of the glass, and they also provide a cushioning effect as the glass is moved around. It's odd, but from working behind a bar I can tell you that glasses with a decent head are easier to transport without spilling.

The specific pouring method described works consistently with most any beer, thanks to a moderate amount of contact with nucleation sites, which give the carbonated gas dissolved in the liquid somewhere to "grab" and form bubbles. Pouring the beer down the side of the glass provides contact and some (but not too much) agitation; straightening the glass then prevents any accidental spills as the level rises. Again from time behind the bar, I can tell you that this takes a little bit of feel and practice to do smoothly, but it's by no means difficult. You'll have to pour a few beers to try it for yourself.


How to cook oily fish whilst minimising odour?

My experience is that techniques which cause the oils to become aerosolised, microscopic droplets suspended in the air, are the most problematic.Those techniques tend to be those that use higher temperatures and shorter cooking times.

On that basis I avoid frying fillets of oily fish or cooking them under the grill/broiler. Instead I look for recipes where the fish is cooked more slowly and is enclosed or covered to reduce the degree to which aerosolised particles of oil can circulate in the home.

Techniques include:

poaching
Cooking en-papillote
roasting at lower temperature over a veg base.


Tool/shears for cutting the backbone out of turkey

The brute force aproach

Typically when shears don't cut it, you bring in a saw:

Butchers use them to halve cows or pigs, cut through large bones and generally chop down an animal in short time. For the home cook, the larger versions (bandsaw, hand-held circular saw, ...) are certainly overkill, but smaller ones are quite useful.

A hacksaw is in every butchers' toolbox (figuratively speaking) and available at every Home Depot or similar. Ask your shop assistant for the recommended sawblade and other details. The ones sold as tool might not be fully compliant with local food safety regulations, but if you don't plan to sell your food, a good scrubbing to remove oils and other residue from fabrication should suffice.

If you plan to do some butchering - at least for small-to-medium sized animals - on a regular basis or love electric gadgets and have a few extra dollars, I found a small hand-held, cordless electric bone saw plus a video showing it in action. As I see it, it should be possible to operate it even with limited strength and dexterity.
 (Source)

The surgical aproach

My first impulse when reading your question was to approach it as a surgical problem - if your existing tools can't cut through the bone, you can always use a scalpel or similar knife to dislodge the ribs from their joints one by one. You don't get a nice clean cut, but can always trim a bit afterwards. This procedure shouldn't require much strength, a tremor might be a problem, though.

The completely different aproach

You might not need to remove the backbone at all, unless you insist on a traditional spatchcooked bird. the kitchn features an article on how to spatchcook a turkey "the Latin American way".

In short, you bend the bird's legs outwards, slice towards the hip joint and dislodge the tighs. Cut towards the wings until you can flip the breast part up, then finally cut through the backbone:

(More details and step-by-step instructions here.)

This means you are only dealing with some thin lower ribs and one cut through the backbone. You get two pieces, the breast (plus wings) with the whiter meat and the legs with the darker meat. It should be easy to procede from there.


Prunes are made from specific varieties of plums which are different than many plums eaten fresh, though they are also often available and eaten fresh.  When picked as fresh fruit however, they are often picked much less ripe than for prunes to allow for shipping and sitting before eating.  If they are ripe, sourness is definitely a matter of taste, I for instance find a fully ripe prune plum to be very slightly tart near the skin, the least ripe part of the fruit.  I also find that same fruit to be very off-putting and near rotted tasting.  That is simply the nature of that fruit.  By the time the outer part is fully ripe, the inner flesh has already started to brown, but has not been dried to prune like nature yet.

The acid does not vanish, though some is converted to other compounds including sugars as the fruit fully ripens, the bigger factor is that more sugar forms.  Once dried and more concentrated, the sugars simply overpower the acids and dominate the flavor.


How can I extract color from food ingredients that won't add flavor when making mocktails?

It is basically impossible to do that in home conditions.

Assuming that you are starting with the whole vegetable (or fruit, or flower...), the closest you can do is to turn it to juice. Actual extraction is almost always futile - the solvents in the kitchen are limited to fat, water and alcohol. Fat is completely out of the equation, both because it won't extract much color and because it won't taste good in a cocktail, a water extract would be inferior to a juice (which is already water-based), and for alcohol extracts, look at traditional homemade liqueurs - besides getting a lot of taste along, you will also get colors in the brownish range. Pale pinks or yellows could be possible too.

The juice method will give you a decently colored liquid, but with the caveat that you won't be able to concentrate it or preserve it. So, if you want a green cocktail, you may have to mix it with equal parts spinach juice to get a good color. Also, you will face an unpleasant tradeoff between color and texture - the more you filter the juice, the paler your color. Also, expect a shelf life of minutes to hours before the juice starts browning.

If you are really OK with something industrially produced, such as the powders Megha mentioned, you can of course try them, but then again, you could just go for industrially extracted food coloring.


Can I bake 2 small cakes at the same time?

As long as you monitor each cake for doneness individually, there is no reason not to bake them  together—assuming they both need the same temperature.

If the sizes are radically different (in terms of the thinnest dimension, which is usually the depth) you may need to adjust temperature to control crust formation during the time it takes the cakes through to the center.

If the cakes are close in depth, they should bake in approximately equal times.

You may wish to use cake strips or aluminum foil to protect the thing easily burned permiter of a hemispherical cake.

Note that 150 C (300 F) is an atypically low temperature for baking a cake.

See related:  Additional Cooking Time When baking more than one loaf of quick bread


Why are my roast potatoes not coming off crunchy?

Your result looks like too much water, and too high a roasting temperature for an even, golden crust. (The ones illustrated in the recipe don't look as if they achieve that, either).

My way: Choose a floury, not a waxy, potato variety.

Par-boil from cold in salted water, until 3/4 cooked, a skewer should meet resistance before reaching the middle. (about 9-10 minutes, your size.). Drain in a colander, and leave to dry completely, but not cool.

Pre-heat your fat in the roasting tray, a thin layer. Transfer the potatoes to half-fill a dry bowl, pour over the hot fat, and shake gently to break up the surface. The roasting tray should be big enough to give the potatoes room to breathe, they shouldn't be crammed in.

Roast at about 180C (fan) for 40 minutes or so, turning once or twice. If your oven gets steamy, open the door a crack every now and then to let the steam out. Before serving, keep warm, uncovered, somewhere that doesn't trap steam, on paper towels to wick away excess fat.


Is refrigerated seafood fresher than seafood displayed on ice but uncovered?

Based on your other post, I am assuming you are in Canada. And in Canada, fish have to be labeled previously frozen or fresh based on its storage history. So assuming we are only talking about the ones labeled fresh. Here is what I have experienced.

Between choices above the "fresher" option doesn't really exist both options the fish have been sitting for some time. As a result that "shore-side" freshness is lost. However, a more optimal tasting fish would be from the covered ones because it is chilled and has not exposed to room temperature air for as long. This helps preserve the moisture and texture of the fish.

The other thing to consider is, were the fish (or other seafood) farmed or naturally caught. Because, and this is especially true for fish, the taste will differ greatly, as will even the colour of the meat.

So in short - the covered one is more "fresh" and neither is truly fresh.

Hope this helps.


Some pierogi recipes include sour cream in the dough; they also often have more egg than a typical basic pasta dough.


Don't take anything that costs much:

You may have it taken away from you by border controls. In some parts of the world being able to confiscate nice things is a perk of the job. You want to enter (or leave) the country, you part with the knife. It could also be illegal to bring in knives over a certain size
Hostels are famous for being rife with theft. Having some nice folding knife just begs for someone to take it
Traveling is hard on equipment
It doesn't really matter anyway: who cares about the knife, anything will do. Ingredients and technique are what matters

If I were you I'd get a cheap, short cooking knife from some hardware store. Also make sure it looks like a cooking knife, you don't want anything that could be mistaken for a weapon! If you lose it, or it gets stolen, or broken, or you give it to someone who needs it more than you do then you just buy another cheap knife at a market somewhere. If you have an expensive piece of equipment it's just another worry.


Is there a difference in how to store something that was frozen that has been cooked versus how to store something that was fresh and has been cooked?

If I'm understanding your question correctly, there is no difference in storage time. Regardless of whether the food was fresh or frozen & thawed, once cooked, storage time is the same.


Is it possible to replace the sugar in Tapioca Meringue pudding with stevia?

In meringues sugar is important mainly for the final texture, much more so than for it's sweetening effect.
Since Stevia is much sweeter than sugar, one would have to use far less in order to not ruin the taste.  ("collectively, they give stevia 100 to 300 times the sweetness of sucrose")
Yet even taking half as much normal sugar than the recipe calls for will result in a vastly different meringue (not as stiff and less stable over time). The same problem stands for other  sweeteners.

I'd therefore try using a sugar alcohol that has comparable (or even lower) sweetness to sucrose, so you can use a similar weight of material and get the texture just right (after some experimentation perhaps). Then, if that ends up not being sweet enough, you can still add a tiny bit of stevia solely for sweetening.

For meringue, the following properties seem especially important in sugar substitutes:

similar hygroscopicity to household sugar
less or comparably sweet than household sugar (so that bulk quantities may be used without ruining the taste)
low laxativity (because rather high amounts might be consumed)

Have a look at this list.
Erythritol won't work well because it is not hygroscopic enough, all the other options have a laxative effect.

I'd therefore advise against using sugar substitutes if you  don't absolutely need to.

If you want to just sweeten the pudding itself separately with stevia, go for it. Pudding gets it's texture mostly from starch (or gelatin) so the lack of sugar won't have a detrimental (or even positive, in the case of starch) effect on texture.

Having said all that; it seems possible to get decent meringue without adding any sugar at all if you get the technique just right otherwise (and add cream of tartar and perhaps starch). See also this answer. Personally, I've been dissatisfied whenever I used less than a ratio of 1/3 of sugar to egg whites and find 1/2 best for swiss meringue.


I've always cooked it on top of aluminum foil, at 350°F (~175°C) for 20 minutes. Flipping it once at about the half way point. If you prefer crispier, go for 25 minutes.


Try straining it out through a fine mesh strainer.


How long can you keep tuna in jar with olive oil

No, it is not safe anymore.

The scombridae family of fish (mackerels, tunas, bonitos) decay in a way that does not necessarily cause a bad smell, as the bacteria just convert amino acids of the fish into a harmful version. The bacteria that does this is unfortunately facultative anaerobic, which means it prefers oxygen, but will do without, too.

So, the safety of the tuna can relies on the initial heating and keeping bacteria out with the airtight can, not so much on the oil.


You made something what in Poland we call tincture Nalewka . But we usually use 160 proof spirit.
Fresh fruits in alcohol will infuse it with it's taste and sweetness. Very good with clean alcohol. Not so great with one that already have some aroma in it. May produce strange things as whiskey wood may not go well with some fruit freshness (for me anyway).

But the first things may be a red flag. First, what was the pickle made of? Vinegar, sugar, herbs, salt? If yes you may get something close to Smokey Martini.

Or did your pickles are type of polish ones? Not pickled but, you know, fermented, more salty, acidic ones?

The best way to check on how the infusion is going is to check bottom of jars, there should be some "dust/mud" at the bottom, this show that the alcohol is filtrating through the fruits. that bottom dust should not be drank. Also the nalewka should be more dense and sticky at it will absorb sugar.

You can open them and check the taste (I usually us syringe as not to stir the slime). And I would do that on the pickled ones.


Which types of apples are considered to be "quick-cooking" apples?

One of my favorite topics, having grown up close to two apple orchards...

Most likely, by "quick-cooking," the recipe intends you to use a pie or sauce apple, i.e. one that softens readily with heat.

Sauce apples. Use these for a pie if you like VERY soft pie contents. Personally, I prefer applesauce that has some chunks in it, so I don't use "sauce apples" for sauce; however, the standard is to list for sauce those apples that practically dissolve (like McIntosh).
Pie apples. An apple listed for pie is typically one that retains its shape but softens well (like Cortland, Mutsu, Empire, Jonagold, or Fuji).
Consider the taste. Some apples (Gala, for example) lose a lot of flavor when cooked, and are best for eating raw. Others gain tremendous flavor when cooked (Empire).

Which apple to use is certainly a matter of preference. Some people like their pie apples to remain quite firm (using, say, Granny Smith), while others like them to be VERY soft (and thus use a "sauce" apple).

Here's some apple lists/charts ... I'd say look up the varieties readily available to you, and see which ones are listed for sauces or pies.

http://www.baumanorchards.com/chart/index.htm
http://www.recipegoldmine.com/kitchart/kitchart71.html

Look up the website for your local orchard - they may link to a usage chart for the apples they grow!


What do I have to worry about when using a cast iron skillet as opposed to nonstick?

Arm fatigue.

They're heavy enough that you'll need to consider how you hold them as you're dumping food out of them.  You'll often see chefs on cooking shows grabbing the handle in a strange way, where the grip is from underneath, and then they hold it with the handle at the top and the pan almost dangling below.

Learn this technique, and you won't end up straining your wrist from trying to hold the pan out in front of you as you scrape the food into a serving dish.

... Also in a similar fashion -- if you're used to being able to flip your food without needing a utensil ... it might take a little bit of strength training before you're ready to do that with cast iron.


Methods, from best to worst (assuming the bread is in a sealed plastic bag):

Freezing
Room temperature
Refrigerating

According to the FAQs for Dave's Killer Bread, which does not use preservatives:

Q: How should I store my bread?
A: The best way to store your bread is on your counter or in a bread box at room temperature. Take care to keep your bread away from sunlight, heat, and high moisture levels, they can cause the bread to mold early. Yuck! To store bread for extended amounts of time (up to three months), put a second bag around the original bag, seal it tightly, and place it in your freezer. Thaw slices as you need them. Storing bread in the refrigerator will keep your loaf from molding; however it may also dry out your bread. We recommend freezing bread if you can't possibly eat  it all, but good luck with that.

Refrigerating doesn't slow down the starch recrystalization process that causes bread to stale. According to "Does Refrigeration Really Ruin Bread?":

When bread is stored in a cold (but above freezing) environment, this recrystallization, and therefore staling, happens much faster than at warmer temperatures. Freezing, however, dramatically slows the process down.

Presumably moisture is lost during the starch recrystalization process.

Actually, moisture retention or loss has very little to do with bread staling:Simon Field, Culinary Reactions, ch. 11 "Heating":

Heating starches changes crystallized starch molecules into gels. Bread becomes stale when the starches crystallize, and warming the bread returns them to their soft gel state, making the bread taste and feel fresh. Stale bread is not dry; it just feels that way because of the crystallized starches. In raw potatoes, the starch is compact, but heating makes the starch granules swell and absorb water, becoming soft and easier to digest.


Which knife is best for somone just learning to cook?

The difference between a santuko and European chef's knife is mostly a matter of personal taste and style.

However, if you live in North America, Europe, or anywhere else with a European cooking tradition, most of the resources and videos that you see to help you develop knife skills will assume you have a chef's knife.  For this reason, I suggest you start with a good basic chef's knife.  Secondly, you will want a paring knife.

With these two knives, you can do 95% of kitchen tasks very well.

As you develop your skills, you can try santukos and other style blades and determine if the work for you.


As covered on wikipedia, raw garlic has a number of sulfur-containing compounds, among them allicin, which are responsible for the burning feeling raw garlic imparts to a dish. When cooked into food, these flavors mellow and the compounds are boiled off or denatured. Other enzymatic and non-enzymatic transformative and browning processes also take place as garlic is cooked.

Roasting garlic produces these changes in garlic before-hand, and in a more controlled way. As the garlic heats up and starts browning, the raw garlic character is lost, while sweetness from melanoidin (a product of the reaction of amino acids with sugar, per the Maillard reaction) and savoryness (from the denaturing, concentrating amino acid content) are gained. The extreme example of this is Black Garlic (discussed at some length on my blog), in which the sweet and savory content of the garlic has been processed and concentrated over the course of a month, with the flavor resembling non-sour Balsamic vinegar.

With that said, the inclusion of raw or pre-processed garlic will depend on the proportions of the two above-noted sets of flavors that are desired in a dish. If added raw to uncooked food, it will add very little savory or sweet, and plenty of aroma and burn. If added roasted to that same food, it will add mostly savory and sweet, with very little of the burn. Any further cooking that takes place after garlic's addition to a recipe will further discourage the raw flavors and aromas.


Is there a way to tell if dry malt is diastatic or non-diastatic?

The main difference between diastatic and non-diastatic malt is that diastatic malt has active enzymes which help break down starch into sugar.

To test if your malt is diastatic:

Take two bowls.
Add a tbsp of flour and 2 tbsp of water for each bowl and lightly mix it.
Then put a small amount of yeast in each bowl. Make sure they both get the same amount.
Then put a small amount of malt powder in one of the bowls.

If the malt is diastatic, the bowl with the malt will start bubbling much earlier than the bowl without the malt. The malt will break down the starch into simple sugars which the yeast consumes. As the yeast consumes the sugar, it release carbon dioxide which are the bubbles you see.