What's the difference between green, white, and red onions?

The most significant difference is between green onions, and other onions.  As you probably know, green onions are the stalks that grow from the bulbs of regular onions.  They have a grassy, vegetal flavor with a hint of pungency, but do not taste anything like the bulbs.  Green onions are often harvested from smaller varieties of onion than are cultivated for the bulbs, but can be from any variety.

Any recipe expecting green onions is going to specifically indicate this, and in that case, you should use them.  In this sense, green onions are a completely different item than "onions" which implies the root bulb.  This is much like the fact that coriander roots and leaves are very different, despite coming from the same plant, and are not generally substituted for one another.

Green onions are extremely popular in Asian cuisines, but are also used in many western recipes.

There are many varieties of culinary alliums, including garlic, scallions, leeks, shallots; red, white, yellow onions; and even the sweet onion varieties like Videlia.  Each of these varieties brings a subtle nuance or flavor.

Some recipes are traditionally made with a particular type of allium (such as leek and potato soup) and will call for that variety.

When just "onion" is specified, you can freely use red, white, or yellow, depending on what is plentiful in your region.  Where I live, all three colors of onion are readily available, but yellow are the most popular and least expensive.  As an overall generalization (and it depends on where the onion was grown, and what variety it is, so there is considerable variation and many exceptions):

Yellow onions are the basic, generic onion of Western European and North American style cooking (although in many French dishes, shallots are popular).   They tend to have the most "crying" factor, and the strongest aroma.  For onions that will be sweated, cooked down, or caramelized, this is often the onion of choice.
White onions tend to have a less sulfurous bite than yellow, and often have a somewhat milder flavor.  This is the traditional onion of Mexican cuisine, and performs very well in raw applications, and in salsas.  White onions tend to have the firmest, smoothest texture.
Red onions tend to have the most mild flavor, a slightly rougher texture, and are often used in raw or pickled applications, where their attractive red color stands out.

You will find that even different authors present different descriptions of the various onion varieties, which probably reflects more on what they have in their region, and the great variation than it does anything else.  For example:  National Onion Association,  The Kitchn, The Cooking Dish.

To a great extent, the type of onion used in a given recipe may be freely substituted; rarely, will you have a huge difference in flavor or outcome.   Most often, the choice is determined by your local market conditions—here in the Eastern US, yellow onions are the least expensive, so that is what we use the most of.

The best answer I can give to your question is:

Use green onions where they are called for specifically, otherwise use a regular onion.   Think of them as a different vegetable than plain "onions."
If you are cooking a North American or Western European recipe, and the preferred variety of "onion" is not specified, yellow is the default choice, but use what you have available to you at a reasonable price and there will be only minor difference in outcome.

There is no application I am aware of where you absolutely must use a specific onion or the recipe will fail.


What are the fundamental sauces that every cook should know how to make?

The next answer is a simple pan sauce.

After sauteing a protein in a pan, there are caramelized bits of fat, spice, and flesh that make for a great sauce base.

Getting those bits into a sauce takes a little work, but it's easily accomplished by adding an acidic liquid to the pan and allowing it to deglaze, or breakdown the fatty bits into the sauce.

You can deglaze with red or white wine, stock and lemon juice, or alcohol (be careful if it's high proof, since it will flame).  After adding the acid, stir to break up the bits and let simmer for long enough to reduce the liquid about 30 to 50 %, longer for thicker sauces.

Then add fat, either butter, oil, or cream, and whatever seasonings (tomato paste, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, etc. you want in the sauce). Simmer for just long enough to incorporate the ingredient (1-2 minutes max).

This is a good technique because it can work with any pan-cooked dish and whatever ingredients you have around.

The basic steps are the same, but the results are varied and quite tasty.


i have a mist twst can case but the date on the bottom of it shows dec 19 2016

Even if it is an expiration date, Dec. 19, 2016 is only a little over a month ago. If the cans are sealed, the soda inside can't possibly have gotten significantly more toxic than it was on the good-until date, just by aging for 34 more days. Go ahead & drink it.

stilltasty.com is a good reference.


Are my refrigerated pork chops & onions safe to eat?

This is not likely a botulism risk. It should be safe to eat assuming the following:

Refrigerator is functioning properly and keeps food below 40 F.
Food was not previously sitting out longer than two hours at room temperature.

The USDA provides a useful guide on Refrigeration and Food Safety. This section is pertinent to you:

There are two completely different families of bacteria: pathogenic bacteria, the kind that cause foodborne illness, and spoilage bacteria, the kind of bacteria that cause foods to deteriorate and develop unpleasant odors, tastes, and textures.
Pathogenic bacteria can grow rapidly in the "Danger Zone," the temperature range between 40 and 140 °F, but they do not generally affect the taste, smell, or appearance of a food. In other words, one cannot tell that a pathogen is present.
Spoilage bacteria can grow at low temperatures, such as in the refrigerator. Eventually they cause food to develop off or bad tastes and smells. Most people would not choose to eat spoiled food, but if they did, they probably would not get sick. It comes down to an issue of quality versus safety:

Food that has been stored too long in the refrigerator or freezer may be of lessened quality, but most likely would not make anyone sick. (However, some bacteria such as Listeria monocytogenes thrive at cold temperatures, and if present, will multiply in the refrigerator over time and could cause illness.)

According to their storage time chart, cooked pork is approaching spoilage after 3-4 days, i.e. it will start to taste/smell funky. So it should be fine to eat, but of course, use your best judgement — and consider finishing up those chops sooner than later.


What are the benefits of using a dedicated rice cooker, rather than just cooking rice in a pot?

Yes there are benefits! This is one of my most used pieces of kitchen equipments. Here is a list of benefits for a quality rice cooker:

Never burns rice
No guess measurements for all kinds of rice
Scheduled cooking
Keep warm settings
Uniform cooking

When I cook rice on my stove, even at the lowest of heats, I get a thin layer of rice that has overcooked stuck to the bottom of the pot.

For the record I have the Zojirushi 5-1/2 cup induction rice cooker. Best thing ever.


Reducing the moisture in cooked rice for making fried rice

Kenji López-Alt from Serious Eats dealt with the exact same issue (section Rule #2: plan in advance if you can, but don't worry if you don't). To sum up his findings:

Rice only need to be dry, not stale (hence making rice one day in advance is not necessary)
Drying the freshly cooked rice by spreading it on a tray and putting it under a fan for one hour does the trick. Kenji's recommends this method (even more than day old rice!)
If you don't have an hour to wait, you can spread still hot rice on a tray and let the surface moisture evaporate.
Day old rice makes excellent fried rice (stored at least 12 hours are ideal) but it tends to clump. Internally it is dryer than fresh rice which makes stir-frying at bit more difficult because you have to be faster to ensure the rice does not dry out.

Besides the time factor: Make sure to rinse the rice well to remove as much surface starch as possible to prevent clumping.

  But here's the thing: even freshly cooked rice worked great. In fact,
  it worked better than rice that had been stored loosely covered in the
  refrigerator for 1 to 6 hours.

  [...] Freshly cooked rice spread out on a plate will steam a great
  deal as its surface moisture is evaporated. That's the important part.
  It's the surface moisture that is going to cause your rice to rapidly
  suppress the temperature of the wok. It's the surface moisture that's
  going to cause your rice to stick together.

  That explains why fresh rice and rice that's been placed underneath a
  fan work well. With rice placed in the refrigerator, on the other
  hand, you slow down the evaporation process. Meanwhile, internal
  moisture from the grains will start to move outwards, adding moisture
  to the surface of each grain and making them more difficult to fry.
  Eventually that surface moisture will evaporate again and the rice
  will become easier to fry.

If you use much less water than actually needed to cook the rice, you'll rather end with dry undercooked rice than just with dry rice.


Does an induction stove require flat bottomed vessels?

Most reputable sources say that curved surfaces such as woks don't work as well on induction stoves. They even make special tools and cooktops for inductively heating woks.  This phenomenum could be because of the angled surface or the extra distance from the cooktop, but it's probably both.  It's not that these surfaces are immune to induction heating, just that they aren't efficient.

Angled surfaces won't respond as well to induction stoves since the maximum amount of energy is generated in a surface when it's flat with respect to the stove.  (Magnetic induction is proportional to the cosine of the angle between loops, for those of you who want to know the physics).

Distance is probably the biggest factor.  Induction works at a small distance from the stove (there are numerous examples on the web of induction heaters working through newspapers or a magazine.)  However, the design of these cooktops makes it so the magnetic field that drives the heating dies off over a very short distance (For example, the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health determined when studying their effect on pacemakers that the field is negligible after 10 cm or 4 in).

As far as what materials work, usually cookware that's induction cooktop compatible has a curly icon on the box to indicate this.  Common compatible materials include magnetic stainless steels (not austenitic steels), iron, and carbon steel.  The article on induction cooking on Wikipedia has a great explanation on what cookware works for induction cooking and why.

There common rule of thumb is that if a magnet sticks to the bottom of a pot or pan, it's compatible with an induction stove. Surface resistance is a more scientific measure, but to get the  complete picture of why certain things do or don't work would require a college course in material electromagnetics. For a more detailed analysis, see the wikipedia page I linked. For most cookware these are only minor concerns compared to the magnet test, until you accidentally leave aluminum foil on an induction stove and it starts to melt.

It should be noted that cookware needs some inductive metal in it, but not all of it needs to be an inductive metal.  Some cookware designed for an inductive stove has an iron bottom with aluminum sides because aluminum conducts the heat better for more even cooking. Clad cookware with a mixture of the right metals works too.


Adding Pulses (Legumes) in Powder Form to Bread

Start with dried fava bean flour, or chickpea (garbanzo) flour.  Best to buy the pulse flour pre-ground, as it tends to be difficult to grind finely with home equipment.  Use initially only a small amount (<5% of total flour by weight) for flavoring, and gradually increase to taste.  Some other pulses can be bitter, and also be aware that any larger quantities can reduce the gluten content, which is less critical for flatbreads, but essential for risen loaves.


How do I make my pizza crust go from limp to crisp?

Some bulleted advice without knowing your techniques and tools...I made pizza professionally for a little while (don't ask me where, it's embarrassing)

Use higher temps underneath the pizza, not just the air. If your equipment doesn't heat the bottom, get stones with feet so you can have a hot bottom.
thinner crust
let the pizza dough rise some more, or adjust your dough recipe to rise a little more.
don't over-knead the dough, or you just make it tough rather than crispy.
don't load the pizza up with too much stuff, it stays wet and cools the pizza down while it's cooking.
avoid center loading, the cheese pulls everything toward the center which makes the center more soggy, Leave a 1 inch hole devoid of cheese at the center and focus on even distribution of cheese right to the edge of the crust.


Is it possible to make a marshmallow that isn't sweet?

What about using mochi, an Asian pounded rice paste? It's a similar—though not identical—texture, it's available in sweet and savory forms, and it's held together by the starch in rice rather than anything gelatin, so it's vegetarian. You can get plain unflavored mochi at many Asian food stores; it may take some looking, as it's more often sold sweet and filled with bean paste in the US. I've had it in savory Korean dishes and I believe it's used in savory Korean dishes as well.


Soya sauce. Are they different for variety of dishes?

If you heard people talking about "thick" vs. "thin" soy sauce, they were probably actually referring to dark vs. light soy sauce.

Dark soy sauce does not actually refer to the colour.  It does tend to be darker than natural fermented soy sauce, but if you're comparing to the hydrolyzed kind (the most common sold in stores), it will look about the same in terms of colour.  What actually distinguishes dark soy sauce is that it is aged longer and has added molasses, which makes it thick, sticky and syrupy.

Dark soy sauce does taste quite different from light soy sauce, even when it's the same brand.  Dark soy sauce replaces some of the saltiness of light soy sauce with sweetness instead, and in general just has a "bolder" taste.  It's usually used as a cooking ingredient, not a condiment.  I've heard, but can't verify, that it is more common in Japanese cooking than other Asian cuisines (although I have used it with much success in Chinese and Thai dishes).

I've started to see a lot more ordinary grocery stores carrying dark soy sauce, but until recently it was difficult to find unless you went to an Asian grocery store, and may still be difficult in some regions.  Unless the bottle specifically says dark soy sauce, it is light soy sauce.

You should not directly substitute one for the other.

As for your comment about the one you bought tasting too "hot" - you must have bought a chili-infused soy sauce or something.  Ordinary soy sauce (dark or light) is never spicy-hot.


Deglazing is the easy way that I've found over the years:

Unplug the grill, but don't give it a chance to cool down.
Drip water along the top edge of the grill (squeeze from a sponge, or a soaked paper towel).
You should see the water turn murky brown as the stuff releases ... if it doesn't, add more water.
After 20-30 seconds or so, wipe it down.

It's a bit more difficult to clean the top ... you have to learn it back.  You can also wipe it down with a soaking wet paper towel.

You might have to scrub a little bit, but the water should get off the majority of the gunk.  Beware that you'll tear up paper towels on the little nubs at the bottom edge of the lower part ... I typically save that area for last, as anything to clean above it would drip back down there anyway.

Also, if the grill cools off too much, you might need to let it re-warm some.


Making my first big batch of Kefir, the milk went bad. Why?

I haven't made kefir myself, but this sounds very well explainable from a theoretical point of view.

The reason why the milk in the kefir does not go bad is that the microorganisms in the kefir occupy the ecological niche which would normally be free for pathogens (and plain untasty bacteria) to invade. Obviously, you need a sufficient microorganism density for that. If the kefir colony is too small to change its environment and adapt it to its needs, a colony of something else can win the tug of war and adapt it to its own needs.

I can't tell you an optimal ratio, you'll need to experiment a bit. Also, wash the salvaged grains and place them in the amount of milk which used to work. Only if that works, try gradually increasing the dose. If it doesn't work well, wait a bit to see if your colony is happy enough to grow, at which point you can try to up the milk. Or just get more grains from the seller.


Should I clean the pan between batches of browning

I don't think there is a definitive answer to that.

You could remove some of the fat and small residues between batches to prevent them from burning.

You can also lower the temperature, it will take a little more time to brown the meat.

This recipe suggest to deglaze between batches and keep the juices for later use in the recipe.

http://www.thekitchn.com/recipe-template-how-to-make-be-107019


No.  You run the risk of botulism by creating an anaerobic (oxygen free) environment.  It is possible that the garlic, chili and herbs could be the source of the spores that potentially produce the toxin.  Sterilization of the jars is irrelevant.  You can refrigerate and use the olives over the short term (4 days) but storage at room temperature is potentially problematic. For longer storage, you could freeze.  Frozen, this would be safe for several months (though freeze/thaw could potentially impact the texture of your olives).


Is it necessary to remove the seeds of Tinda before cooking Tinda sabji?

Tinda also called apple gourd, indian round gourd and most commonly Indian baby pumpkin is despite its name actually a gourd rather than an pumpkin. It is consumed when the gourd is very young so the seeds of this plant will be very soft.

When you are preparing Tinda, you typically peel it and then slice it in half. A huge majority of the time the seed should be very soft so you can use it without removing the seeds. However since these plants are harvested before its fully ripe, there will be discrepancy with exactly when they are harvested. Riper Tinda that was harvested later might have tougher seed in which case you want to remove them. You don't have to throw it out. It can be roasted in the oven and consumed much like pumpkin seeds.

Here is a photo of a Tinda dish where you can distinctly see the seeds still in the Tinda. The photo was from here.

Note: The photo is of Tinda Masala which is a type of Sabji. Sabji refers broadly as vegetables cooked in spices and curry flavors.


If by "fresh tomato paste" you mean you're starting with raw tomatoes, that's probably your issue. Most tomatoes you grow in your garden or buy from the store are salad tomatoes - they're not meant for cooking, and will result in a watery sauce like you describe.

You want a "sauce" tomato. Roma tomatoes or almost any plum-shaped tomato work well. There are others, but they're harder to find.


Tasting the peppers is absolutely the only way, short of a chromatography machine. This is especially true for jalapeños from grocery. This because, as stated on this site here and in other answers by myself and others, pepper spiciness can vary greatly even on the same plant. Accordingly, chiles mixed possibly from plants, even from different harvests or suppliers, cannot be expected to have any reliable consistency of spiciness.

My approach is to pre-dice and freeze in batches. I use baggies, but another approach mentioned on this site here.

NOTE: The applicable advantage to this approach is that if you cook using the chiles often enough to warrant this approach, the heat level will be more consistent batch-to-batch.

My preservation process goes something like this:

Purchase many fresh chiles at once depending on what you will use in 3-6 months. (I use 25 to 50)
Sample the heat of each pepper during the preservation process
Dice the peppers (de-seed beforehand if desired)
Segregate into three groups:

Mild / non-spicy
Killer-blazing hot
Normal (everything in-between)

Freeze into single-use sized baggies (~1¢ each, non-zip)

Place the smaller baggies into a larger gallon-sized zip-type freezer bag (~15¢ each) labeled with the spice level of pepper type, date processed, and heat level the contents.

Though I always keep seeds because I want the spice, this approach can be used with or without a de-seeding stage in the process. Another perhaps applicable note is that IME, without seeds, jalapeños spiciness falls within a narrowed range.

To reiterate in summary, one advantage here beyond preservation and availability is that as you have the three piles of diced chiles, the spice heat level of each batch segment tends to be nicely consistent.


How can I control the heat when cooking on a campfire?

The key is mostly to cook over coals rather than open flame if you want decent control. This is a principle you find all over slow smoking/BBQ. You start the fire with plenty of wood and let it burn down to a pile of red coals, which you then can cook over with nice control.

Personally, when I want to cook over an open fire, I treat the fire pit as 2 zones: fire and coals. I use the "fire" side for anything where I want an open flame, like roasting marshmallows or hot dogs. As a chunk of wood on that side of the pit burns down to coals, I move it over to the other side, for more controlled cooking.

Another way to handle the variability in campfires is to cook with things with a lot of thermal mass to even the heat out. In practical terms, that boils down to cast iron and clay/ceramics. Whether it's a dutch oven or a little "cave" of fire bricks, these materials spread the heat out so nicely you can often just bury them in the coals and "bake" or "roast" a lot of options that you might not have considered as "camping foods".

The same is true of other cast iron pans and much of the stoneware from places like Pampered Chef, meaning you can pan fry, saute, and do many of the other more typical "kitchen" tasks over a campfire.

One word of warning regarding this principle though is that it might seem like collecting rocks from a nearby stream to use as the thermal mass is a good idea. It is not. Rocks that have spent long periods under water can crack and/or explode when suddenly heated up.


Accidently reduced salt in pickling recipe - are these pickles still safe?

With that level of salt, I think it was more for flavor rather than curing properties. They'll be safe, but they'll probably taste somewhat flat.


Ate steak with the layer of fat kind of undercooked, is it dangerous?

It is not (immediately) hazardous to your health.  I say immediately because I would not recommend eating fat or gristle en masse.

I used to marinate my steak every time I prepared it.  I have gotten away from this habit.  Marinating breaks down the integrity of steak.  This is desired if you are cooking a less tender cut.  I eat steak less frequently now, and for that reason, I choose to get ribeye or strip.  If you decide to go this route, using dry rubs in concert with a good sear, or grilling, will offer you a very tasty meal.  Also, you will be able to gauge what fat and gristle really are - tasteless with a sickly texture.

As far as why eating steak like you mentioned isn't hazardous, given your description, it was cooked at least medium.  There is a large segment of the population which chooses to eat rare steak.  This type is deep red and cold in the center.  While it's not for me, I've never heard a Surgeon General warning that says rare steak should not be eaten.


Can I do anything to make my gas oven better?

I would suggest adding some mass to your oven but not in the form of a pizza stone but rather in the form of a 1/4inch thick piece of steel. This not only will hold the heat well but you can make killer pizza that way too.

Also, does your oven have a broiler? If so I would say see if that can help heat it further. On some models you have independent control of the broiler and can run the oven and the broiler at the same time.


How to reduce the sourness of homemade frozen yogurt?

Overly sour yogurt is a sign of inconsistent inoculation

Check the type of culture you are using, and ensure you are keeping the yogurt above 37C for more than six hours. The yogurt should finish as a solid lump that resists pouring, not a thick liquid, or a lumpy paste

Pouring off the whey and straining the yogurt makes it more creamy and taste sweeter

Thickeners are not required, just complete inoculation

For sweet yogurt dishes I mostly use sour berries (blackberry, raspberry etc) so it is expected to be somewhat sour anyway


When you refer to cooking Bulgur wheat, do you boil it in a pot of water? Admittedly the only thing I have ever done with Bulgur wheat was Tabbouleh, where you just reconstitute the dry Bulgur wheat by pouring boiling water on it and letting it soak that way until it softens and fluffs up real nice & golden with every grain separate from the others. I.e. not sticky or gluey.

One time, on bad advice, I bought "cracked wheat" which is, I gather now from Wikipedia, not the same, even though some people think the two are identical. On that occasion, my "Bulgur" wheat did soften but was grayish in color and the individual grains stuck together kind of like oatmeal.

Wikipedia says that Bulgur wheat has been parboiled already, so you wouldn't need to boil it a lot to cook it, but merely re-hydrate with just the right amount of boiling water. So ... if possibly you are using "cracked wheat" like I did, maybe this info can help with the stickiness problem.


Ok, sweetening bread without changing the texture overmuch.

Most natural sweeteners - including honey, maple or agave or corn syrup, or raw, palm, date, or coconut sugars, all of that - will tend to change the texture of bread in ways similar to (even if not identical to) white sugar.  Even if the texture changes aren't the same, they still exist.  You can use them as part of the sweetening in your bread, as well as or instead of white sugar, but they won't "not act" like sugar does in changing the texture.  You can look at the previous link to see some of the textural differences, and maybe some will be more appealing to you than others - but substituting natural sweeteners, are not recommended for trying to keep bread's texture unaltered.  I would suggest looking at date sugar especially, the test recipe (a cookie) stayed firm, and didn't smooth out or change texture in baking the same way as other sweeteners did, but I don't know how it might effect a bread recipe.

One possibility is using something like stevia for a sweetener - it doesn't chemically affect the recipe much, and it also has a low bulk for the amount of sweetening it adds.  For the same reason, baking blends with stevia use percentages of real sugar, because it won't give the same effects on its own.  I can't tell you how much to add - it will, among other things, depend on the brand you use - but you can try some stevia powder or granules to add sweetness to your bread.  You might also be able to find other herbal sweeteners like licorice root, Azetec sweet herb or Katemfe, miracle fruit or serendipity berries, and others.  I have also heard of monk fruit sweetener being available recently, you might have some luck with that.  Obviously, some of these sweeteners will be easier to source than others, depending on location and popularity - but you might be able to find online sources if one of them really catches your fancy and your local stores don't carry it.

Other artificial sweeteners might do as well, as long as you don't grab the brands specifically formulated to work like sugar in recipes (baking blends) - but I have less experience with these, and it will depend on your tolerances for the sweeteners in question - some can have different aftertastes or effects for some people, being bitter or saccharine, and others don't hold up very well to heating.

As a final note - if you are using herbal or artificial sweeteners, I would recommend actually sweetening your dessert bread with natural sweeteners to the extent your bread can bear (that is, until the texture change is too much), then adding artificial for the extra sweetness you want, the better to avoid off tastes or textures in your bread.  Having all the sweetness provided by the artificial or herbal sweetener runs a greater risk of not having the textural changes you do want (being a little softer or more tender), or having off tastes appear from the varying tolerances or experiences people have to the specific sweetener.

Alternatively, you might try something like fruit - adding raisins is a classic way to make a dessert bread, or variations on dried fruit, fresh fruit, or fruit sauce, puree, or paste.  The more available your fruit is, the more likely you will change the texture since the inherent sugars will be more mixed in, more available to your bread dough - so fruit juice rather than dried fruit will give very different results.  But, in general, the sweetness can be more locked up in your fruit than interfering with your gluten formation in the dough, and release the sweetness while being eaten.

Another possibility is to segregate your sweeteners somehow.  Swirl breads are one example, where the sugar (and spices) are trapped between layers of dough, not mixed in.  Another way is having pockets or clumps of flavor (using pearl sugar, or chocolate chips, or something mixed in like that).  The sugar interferes in gluten formation when it's running free in the dough when the gluten is developing - if it's locked in clumps somehow, or if it is added after the gluten is already formed, it can't interfere in the development.  You will want to think about texture at this stage, though, having something crunchy (like pearl sugar), will give a different overall effect from something like chocolate chips, which range from cool and firm to liquid when heated, and different again from a sweet swirl, which will pull apart more and tend to be softer to the tooth because the texture differences are spread out more, not clumped.

Another possibility is sweetening the bread after it has cooled.  I will assume you have thought about glazes or frosting, or brushing with syrup or dusting with powdered sugar or even serving with jam or something.  However, you might also think about piercing the loaf and letting a syrup soak into the bread after it has baked (a technique I saw used for cakes, but should moisten and sweeten a bread just as well).  Or injecting some kind of sweet filling in patterns - again, a cake technique, but I see no reason why it couldn't work for a sweet bread.


Which cheaper cuts of beef are suitable for steak tartare?

What makes them suitable - You'd want to focus on cuts that are especially lean, without a lot of connective tissue or fat, marbled or otherwise.  Raw fat is probably unappealing, flavor-wise, and that's what often causes meat to go rancid, so focusing on cuts with just muscle tissue, and minimal marbling is what makes it good (and safe) for tartare, I'd think.

Cheaper cuts that are good for stews or slow-cooking often have a good bit of connective tissue in them, which would make them poor choices.  Unless you like a gristly tatare.  :D

Probably round or rump, and sirloin - all already mentioned by you -  would be decent choices for those reason.  I'm not sure you'd need to look further.  Of those, sirloin has the reputation for having more "beefy" flavor, but round and rump are often among the cheapest cuts.

EDIT - UK and USA cuts by the same name are not, apparently, identical cuts.  Please see the comments to this answer.


At least some cucurbit leaves are edible, and here.

The genus isn't known for producing toxins, but there may be a few wild cards in there.
Proceed with caution, if you proceed at all.
I'll stick with Habanero, Bell, and Jalapeno pepper leaves cooked in butter and lemon juice.

There are books with titles like "Edible Plants of the Tropics" or perhaps even "Edible Plants of the Philippines", that can probably tell you about your particular gourd, but you'll probably have to go to a college botanical library to find them.

Later, while cleaning out old files:
The book I was thinking of is called Edible Leaves of the Tropics by Martin, Ruberte and Metzner.
The third edition came out in 1998, so if your library doesn't have it, there are now lots of places to buy it.


How are black beans cooked for Mexican dishes?

Dried legumes, including black benas, are generally soaked in water for at least 8 hours (or overnight) to begin softening them, then drained and simmered in fresh water until tender (usually at least 60-90 minutes). You can add stock or other seasonings during the cooking portion, or add the plain cooked beans into a sauce you've prepared separately.


Wouldn't this cake batter be too runny? Would the coffee affect the texture?

Compare that recipe to this very similar one from Ina Garten (complete with handy video) Chocolate Buttermilk Cake. Watch her pour. No question, that is a wet batter. Apparently it works fine, Ina's recipe is very highly rated.

Both recipes use volumetric measurements (ugh), so I'll use cups.

Ina's recipe (sugar is wet (sort of), subject for another question) - Wet ingredients (2 + 1 + .5 + 1 + .5 (eggs) = 5 cups wet to 2.5 cups dry (flour plus cocoa) 5/2.5 = 2

Your recipe: Wet ingredients (2.5 + 1.5 + 1.33 + 1.5 + .75 (egg) =  7.58 cups wet to 4 cups dry (flour plus cocoa) 7.58/4 = 1.9

So they're very close, Ina's actually a bit "wetter".

I am not aware of anything special the coffee would do to the baking chemistry here. It's got some acid, but I don't think that is relevant. As far as the "wetness" of the batter, it's the same as water as far as I know. The temperature might help dissolve the sugar, but that would be a minor thing at best.


Why are the blueberries in my blueberry muffins not melting?

Honey versus sugar has nothing to do with your berries bursting or not.

Assuming you are in the northern hemisphere you are getting out of season fruit as it is winter. Your blueberries are either greenhouse grown or have travelled halfway around the world from somewhere warm enough to grown them. Out of season blueberries tend to have less flavor and have thicker skins because they are not ripe.  They cannot be ripe when picked because they will rot before they make the trip from wherever they are grown, so they are picked while still underripe.

I would suggest buying frozen instead. Frozen berries are picked when ripe and then frozen right away, so usually taste better than fresh ones you get in the middle of winter. Freezing also weakens the skins, so they burst more reliably. Frozen are also much cheaper. In fact that's what I would suggest doing to fresh ones to make their skins burst when baked - freeze then thaw them, so you may as well save some cash and get a better tasting result by buying them frozen in the first place.


Why is acidic cooking problematic for cast iron pans but not BBQ plates?

Iron is a very reactive metal, responding to many different influences. Heat, acidity, moisture, even the oxygen content of its environs cause reactions.  Barbecue plates are manufactured with enough other metals (zinc, aluminium, etc.) and via a tempering process that keeps the metal chemically stable in reactive environments. Cast iron is usually pure iron, and it just follows its nature when provided with a reactive environment.


For this type of Italian recipe, you want a Mediteranian style basil, often called simply "basil" or "sweet basil".

Ones called holy basil or thai basil have a much more aggressive and extremely perfumed flavor which would be jarring in this dish.


Microwave oven first time use — "10 minutes with water"?

The directions are in fact asking you to place a bowl of water in the Microwave Oven and run it for 10mins.

The reason is, it allows things to "break-in" and assures that you don't have any direct issues with the device and that all nasty solvents are given proper time to "burn off." This is so you don't end up with nasty plastic smells and flavors in your first meal.

For safety reasons, I would recommend placing a wooden spoon in the bowl. This provides plenty of nucleations sites and will prevent "super-heating" of the water.

Always use microwave appropriate containers, and allow the bowl to come to reasonable (warm to room temp) prior to handling.


Oil vs butter in chocolate sponge cake cake

You have attempted one of the most precise baking exercises of all... The Victorian sponge. I personally prefer to use Delia Smith's recipe. It make for a super light sponge. To make it "right" ensure that your butter and your eggs are at room temperature. My ingredients (pardon my metric) are as follows...

225 g    Butter (8 oz)
225 g    Caster Sugar (8 oz)
4 x      Medium Eggs
175 g    Self-Raising Flour (6 oz) Sieved
50 g     Cocoa Powder (2 oz)

If I deviate from this I am sure to end up with pancakes... Make sure that you sieve your flour well... It needs lots of air.

Chocolate cake on the other hand is a completely different monster.

150 g    self-raising flour, sifted
50 g     cocoa, sifted
220 g    caster sugar
80 g     butter, softened
125 ml   milk
2 x      eggs lightly beaten

Its a much heavier recipe; less SR Flour, more mechanical integration (4 minutes instead of one; more moisture in the form of milk; less eggs...


Try 3 eggs instead. I know that on the back of brownie mixes, it states "to make cake like brownies add 2 eggs, for fudge like add 3 eggs"


If you set it to high humidity (no air flow) and add plenty of water fruits, f.e. water melon halves, then moisture will gather on the bottom of the box, where it leads to mold, where the fruits and vegetables touch it.

So you keep the slider somewhere where you have great greens/fruits without too much moisture on the bottom and sides of the box.


Does a pressure cooker really cook food evenly?

As a couple of commenters already mentioned, the base of the pressure cooker gets hotter than the rest, and chicken is no homogeneous size.

I would like to add that besides the size difference between pieces of chicken, there is also a difference in tenderness.  Breast meat is more tender so it will pressure cook faster, while legs and wings will be tougher and take longer.

There is actually a way that you can take advantage of this knowledge to have evenly cooked chicken - by stacking the chicken pieces.

Place the darker, tougher, chicken pieces at the bottom of the pressure cooker (closer to the hottest part) and lay breasts and any other tender meat on top of that.  Add just enough liquid to meet the cooker's minimum requirement (usually 1 - 2 cups).  The breast will steam on top (and cook more slowly) while the legs & ect. will boil on the bottom (and cook faster).

Stacking chicken for even cooking is a technique that I published five years ago, as part of my pressure cooking lessons series.


I was going to try a recipe for Ceviche - are there any fish varieties not recommended?

In general, you want to avoid "oily" fish, because it will tend to go rancid rather than curing properly.  By oily fish I'm referring to sardines, mackerel, bluefish, and similar "fishy" fish.  Farmed salmon is also generally a bad idea because it's so fatty; in general, you would only make salmon ceviche if you had a specific recipe for it.  Farmed trout and true sole also don't work very well, as they're too delicate and tend to fall apart into a fish mush while marinating.  Finally, cartiligenous fish, such as shark, skates, and chilean sea bass will be horribly gristly and difficult to chew as ceviche -- and you shouldn't be eating them anyway, they're endangered!

Pretty much, you're looking for a lean mild-flavored white-fleshed fish: tilapia, flounder, rockfish, cod, John Dory, mahi-mahi, and similar fish will work in any "generic" ceviche recipe.   There are specific recipes for tuna, swordfish, shrimp, squid and octopus which are also excellent, but only if your recipe calls for it.


Why should I put a whole onion in the turkey fryer?

Having done this several times in the past - it is to make the oil flavoured. Like the comments have said that one onion doesn't seem to be enough, and frankly it isn't. I typically use 2, and remove the skins as well as score them allowing the juices to weep out a bit. Additionally, I know some people who toss a de-seeded bell pepper or two in as well, and it turns out well.


Can I RE-freeze chicken soup after it has thawed?

Yes, you can, assuming that the total time the soup (which is very perishable) has spent in the danger zone (40 F to 140 F, 4 C to 60 C) is less than 2 hours for the entire lifetime of the soup and its ingredients, from raw, and through all of the cooking, heating and cooling cycles.

If you have boiled the soup after thawing it, any new pathogens will have been killed.  The conservative recommendation above is because some pathogens leave behind toxins that are not destroyed by simple boiling.  In practice, these recommendations may be extremely conservative, but you will have to assess your own risk tolerance.

Of course, the quality of the soup, especially if it has noodles or potatoes, may suffer during the heating and cooling cycles.

See:  How do I know if food left at room temperature is still safe to eat?


Thai beef meatballs, how to get chewy texture and how corn flour and baking powder function in recipe?

Baking soda or baking powder? Powder will produce gas bubbles.

Both baking soda (but not baking powder) and corn starch are prevalent in chinese cooking and its derivatives elsewhere in Asia. I am reasonably sure that they are used even in home cooking.

Corn starch is used as a binder and texturing agent in minced or finely chopped meat. I have also seen it used in home cooking on sliced meat in stir frying for texture, mainly to capture the meat juices and allow that to become a thin coating of sauce adhered to the meat.

Baking soda is used as a meat tenderiser, more often in commercial cooking and less so in home cooking from what I have seen. Again, this is used commonly in sliced as well as minced meat.

As for meat balls (and fish balls/fish cakes too), the bouncy/chewy texture comes from kneading a meat paste (just ground beef if not fine enough) and also the way they are formed, effectively by extrusion - a pinch of meat in the palm of your hand, form a fist and squeeze it out through gap between your curled index finger and thumb. These are always cooked immediately, I suspect for hygiene because of excessive handling.

addendum

Though I have never seen it used, I can see how double action baking powder could produce those little bubbles in the puffier fish balls that you sometimes observe. This would certainly justify keeping everything cold and a hot bath immediately after extrusion. Much if not all of the tenderising function of the soda inside baking powder would be lost however.

I do not know any more today. The only other idea is that some sausages have a very similar bouncy texture. Perhaps someone can chime in with that know how.


How to set yogurt in the room temperature between 20 to 16 degree Centigrade?

You can make the yogurt in an insulated container, like a thermos bottle. A wide-mouth bottle will probably be best. Pour hot water in and let it sit for a minute or two to warm up, then pour it out. Heat and add your milk and starter culture as usual.


Is it normal for hot mustard oil to foam strongly when ingredients are added, and why does it?

This is because all the Indian brands I know use the cold press method. In that process, some moisture is left in the oil that makes foam while heating. It's absolutely normal, and it's good that it has no chemicals. Hope this will help.


'Caramelization' of tomato sauce in slow cooker

Short answer: if it doesn't get heated to the caramelization temperature then it does not caramelize. The science is here, and it says you need at least 110 °C for fructose.

Browning in your case is probably not caramelization, but a Maillard reaction, which

  is a chemical reaction between an amino acid and a reducing sugar, usually requiring the addition of heat.

Maillard reaction can happen at lower temperatures if given enough time.

Lifted directly from this very useful answer that cites the excellent Harold McGee's book On Food and Cooking (emphasis mine):

  There are exceptions to the rule that browning reactions require temperatures above the boil. Alkaline conditions, concentrated solutions of carbohydrates and amino acids, and prolonged cooking times can all generate Maillard colors and aromas in moist foods. For example, alkaline egg whites, rich in protein, with a trace of glucose, but 90% water, will become tan-colored when simmered for 12 hours. The base liquid for brewing beer, a water extract of barley malt that contains reactive sugars and amino acids from the germinated grains, deepens in color and flavor with several hours of boiling. Watery meat or chicken stock will do the same as it's boiled down to make a concentrated demiglace. Persimmon pudding turns nearly black thanks to its combination of reactive glucose, alkaline baking soda, and hours of cooking; balsamic vinegar turns nearly black over the course of years!

So in your temperature range:

~212-300 °F (100-150 °C) - Maillard gets slower as temperature goes lower, generally requiring many hours near the boiling point of water
~130-212 °F (55-100 °C) - Maillard requires water, high protein, sugar, and alkaline conditions to advance noticeably in a matter of hours; generally can take days


Oil should last several months before becoming rancid - olive oil specifically is supposed to last minimum 15 months if properly stored.  Being played with is not "properly stored", but oil that is expected to be regularly opened for use might be exposed to air a comparable amount to a dough played with for longer but on fewer occasions, and otherwise held in an airtight container.  Flour is shelf-stable, especially since it isn't meant to be eaten.  Without water in the mix, I don't think there will be enough moisture to spoil badly.

The olive oil may become rancid faster, especially if is is exposed to the open air a lot (I would still expect months).  However, olive oil gone rancid from oxidation is not supposed to be dangerous, merely unpleasant.

Obviously you can replace the dough when you notice the difference, if you're worried, better safe and all that.  But a taste of rancid oil while playing shouldn't be harmful, maybe not enough to panic over in a small exposure while playing - and may be unpleasant enough discourage the taster from trying to eat any similar playing dough in the future.


Can I include carrots in Tortilla de Patatas and can I use a casserole dish to make it taller?

If you would like to add carrots, make sure you cut them small enough (since it takes quite a while to get them soft). I'm not 100% sure it would be a good fit, but that's up to you.

You certainly can make a tortilla in the oven, I've done so in a spring form. I think I did it for about 45 min in an oven of 180°C/350°F. But this depends of course on how much food you use and how big your form is. Just keep an eye on it, the egg should be fully cooked and the potatoes soft.


What is the New Zealand white sponge cake, is it a white cake here in the U.S?

The New Zealand Edmonds cook book has a sponge cake recipe something like this. It's the only cook book we are allowed to use :-)

Ingredients

3 eggs, separated
3/4 cup caster sugar
3/4 cup Edmonds Fielder's cornflour
1 tablespoon Edmonds plain baking flour
1 teaspoon Edmonds baking powder
2 teaspoons golden syrup
1 tablespoon boiling water

Method

Beat egg whites until stiff
Beat in sugar then yolks
Sift cornflour, flour and baking powder into egg mixture
Add golden syrup dissolved in boiling water and mix gently with a metal spoon
Pour into two greased and lined 20 cm sandwich tins
Bake at 190°C for 20 minutes or until cake springs back when lightly touched
Leave in tin for 5 minutes before turning out onto a cooling rack


How would I go about home smoking a ham joint?

Always hot smoke pork. Unless you know what you're doing. In which case you'd know that.

Look at this for ideas on how to make a cheap home smoker that will work for you.

In general, you need:

a heat source (hot plate works well)
container for wood chips/sawdust (skillet works and helps modulate and spread heat)
housing (any kind of box thing: cardboard, wood, ceramic, an existing grill... it just needs to seal and maintain a bit of heat)
a rack for the food to be smoked (or you could use rope and hang food as in smoke houses)
thermometer (poke it into the top or the side to keep an eye on things)

Put it all together, put the sawdust into the skillet, turn it on, and adjust for desired temperature. I'd recommend 200-250 for pork.

You may also want to put a second hotplate in with boiling water, or splash a bit of water in the smoke pan on occasion to keep the inside moist when smoking for long periods.

Before smoking anything, brine it and let it sit uncovered in the fridge for a day. This allows the surface protein to dry, and this helps to develop the smoke flavor.


Is there a cholesterol-free substitute for egg noodles?

While I found many references to Chinese egg noodles, I did not find much information on Japanese egg noodles.

Digging into the edit history of your question, it appears that the actual product you would like to substitute for is Plain Tops Noodles.  Their website is parsimonious with information, but does call the product vermicelli, and only indicates that they are made with wheat, and does not mention egg.

Kikkoman, a producer of Asian ingredients for the US market, suggests using suggests substituting Italian style fettuccine or spaghetti for Chinese egg noodles.

Putting this all together, you should be able to substitute dried Italian vermicelli, spaghetti, fettuccine or angel hair in the your recipe with good results.   Check the package to ensure that the ingredients are only semolina (and water), as some Italian pastas are made with egg (this is most likely with the fettuccine shape).

Any non-egg based semolina pasta will be completely cholesterol free.

See also: Asian pasta reference from Recipe Tips.


According to CA Wine Merchants and Ask Meta Filter, you simply open it with a corkscrew, as per regular wine.

Evidently, it is not so effevescent or pressurized that it needs the special cork that true champaign requires.


Baking powder contains both a chemical leavener (baking soda) and the acid required to activate it. It is normally used instead of baking soda in recipes where there isn't enough acid to activate baking soda. Cocoa powder is very acidic. What may have happened is that the combination of cocoa powder and baking powder contained too much acid for the baking soda, which produced too much leavening, inflating your batter so much that it then fell, resulting in the dense, brownie-like product you got.


I don't think that this would be unsafe, as you do see unpeeled garlic used in some applications, but it wouldn't be particularly pleasant and you probably wouldn't end up with a great paste. Garlic skins can be pretty tough and woody depending on the particular bulb; you'd probably end up with hard, fibrous bits in your paste.

If you're willing to accept this negative impact to the final texture, then I suppose you could try it. But as @Joe points out, you're better off working on an improved method of peeling your garlic, which will serve you well no matter what you're cooking.


Short answer? Not a damn thing. The term is pretty much meaningless in the US; at best it only means that the product doesn't have added colors, artificial flavors or synthetic "stuff". From the FDA:

What is the meaning of 'natural' on the label of food?
From a food science perspective, it is difficult to define a food product that is 'natural' because the food has probably been processed and is no longer the product of the earth. That said, FDA has not developed a definition for use of the term natural or its derivatives. However, the agency has not objected to the use of the term if the food does not contain added color, artificial flavors, or synthetic substances.


How do I become more time efficient in the kitchen?

Chefs, professional cooks (and experienced home cooks) do a LOT/MOST of the preparation in advance.

They prepare all vegetables in advance (clean, cut, blanched (if necessary).
They prepare all meats and fish in advance (clean, cut...)
They do all sauces in advance.

They have all ingredients at hands and know what ingredients to use for each dish they prepare.

They know how long each ingredient takes to cook (by virtue of experience).

If you have the chance to go to a restaurant with an open kitchen (where you can see the cooks cooking), you will see that they most assemble ingredients prepared in advance; they will usually cook the "protein" and re-heat the vegetables and assemble that on the plate.

The preparation time can be time consuming at first, but with experience you can more or less reduce that to nothing;
You can cut and chop vegetables as you go in order of cooking time (for example, cut onions, put in pan, cut garlic, put in pan, cut tomatoes put in pan...)

The cooking part is the most important, either hot and fast or not so hot and slow; again, this is dependent on what you want to do; For example, a steak takes a few minutes, while a stew can take up to hours to cook.

For that, recipes are a good starting point; most of them do well in telling you how long it takes to prepare and cook the recipe.

Same thing for the cleaning part; if possible to it in parallel of other tasks, while the tomato sauce is simmering, clean bowls, boards and cutleries; wipe counter tops...

Don't wait up and let dirty dishes pile up (unless you have a nice boy/girl friend that will do the dishes and clean up after you :-) )

Good luck with that.


Cuisinart frozen yogurt recipes confusing

I read that as 2 cups of Greek yogurt made from whole milk (ie not low- or non-fat yogurt).  The comma does make it confusing, however.


This is not harmful to the pan; the sound is just steam escaping from between the element and the pan body.

Good pans can be heated up to deep frying temperatures and higher; a few seconds of having water evaporated to dry the bottom of the pan will not hurt it.


How can I create this coconut milk, fruit, and veggie snack at home?

Ok I'm going to give this a shot by helping you understand why the ingredients are in there. At it's core this seems to be a very aerated meringue with stabilizers to help avoid using dairy products and eggs.

  organic sweet potato, organic apple puree concentrate, organic sweet
  pea, organic white grape juice concentrate

These ingredients are your base flavors, they seem to be a pretty simple mix of naturally sweet ingredients to bring the sugar content up.

  organic coconut milk, organic guar gum, organic tapioca starch, xanthan gum

These ingredients are going to likely be added together first to hydrate the gum and the tapioca starch is going to act as a bulking agent to make it have more volume without being dense. The guar gum and xanthan gum are going to give a more consistent mouthfeel and flavor release and add some stability to the meringue. These two hydrocolloids together have a synergistic effect and will strengthen the overall product, allowing it to take on more air without collapsing.

  organic spinach, natural flavor, malic acid, ascorbic acid (vitamin
  C), B. coagulans, pre and probiotics, organic kiwi, organic cinnamon

These final ingredients appear to be flavor enhancing or balancing. Malic acid is very tart as is kiwi, the cinnamon likely helps to balance this. Ascorbic is likely in there as an antioxidant to prevent discoloration and the rest look to be the pro-biotics that are touted in the packaging but really probably play very little part in the making of the food.

I believe the process of making this will be very similar to this recipe here
http://blog.ideasinfood.com/ideas_in_food/2007/04/whipped_yogurt_.html


Why did my grandfather-in-law salt his beer?

I can think of several reasons why you might salt beer:

Salt is a natural flavor enhancer, so you'd be able to taste the hops and malt more
Salt reduces perceived bitterness, so overly hopped beer would taste less bitter
The salt crystals may nucleate bubble formation, giving the beer more head (briefly)

I've heard of it being done before, but never with good beer, only low quality swill.  But then, since there were more quality problems with cheap brews at the time, this was probably a lot more common.


How to stuff and/or spice the chicken BELOW the skin?

It's a tradeoff: salting (and using herbs or spices) a chicken under the skin, rather than on the surface of the skin, will result in a better-seasoned bird but it will make the presentation of the whole bird a bit less attractive, since the skin is no longer exactly where it should be. I've also noticed that the skin gets crispier when you salt it between the skin and the meat.

You can use a spatula as BaffledCook says but I find it easier to just use my hands. Just find a spot on the bird's breast where the skin and meat are a little separated, like the chest cavity opening, where it's been cut during butchering. Slowly slide your fingertips in between the skin and the meat, separating the two, and work your way all over the breasts with both hands. Go slow so you don't tear the skin. If possible, leave the skin attached at the breastbone and near the wings, that will keep the skin relatively in-place for presentation and there isn't much meat that needs seasoning in those spots anyway.

You can work your way over to the thighs and drumsticks this way too, though if you do, the skin will be quite separated from the carcass and your presentation will suffer more. Also, thighs and drumsticks aren't quite as thick as the breast, so salting them on the surface of the skin is more effective.


Cover it!

The secret to omelette not having a runny middle, and being able to handle it without it breaking is to use a loose fitting lid (or another pan, upside down) as a cover for most of, if not all of the initial cooking

This in effect steams the top of the egg, ensuring it is cooked before the bottom burns

This also increases the fluffiness of the egg :-)

You will then be able to fold or flip with ease


What is this white, non-fuzzy, substance on my kimchi?

That's mold, and you should discard it.

Kimchi keeps forever (well, years) if and only if it's not exposed to air, meaning there's always enough liquid in the pot to cover the cabbage.  If you have bits poking up into the air and you leave them there for days/weeks, they'll dry out and start growing mold.


Best practices for baking experiment 'design'?

It is no different from other prototyping processes or exploratory research. You are not confirming a scientific hypothesis here, you are actively searching. So the most important thing is: fail fast.

So, for the question of mini batches vs. large batches, you certainly need mini batches. And in cooking it is more important than in other fields, as humans have a very poor ability to remember or record sensory qualities. In tasting two muffins side by side, you will notice differences which would not be obvious from notes from previous batches.

Another thing which people find hard to remember: beat the Not Invented Here syndrome! There is a lot of information out there about which ingredient does what, which ratios are good for a given type of baked good, etc. It is boring to research them if you could be baking instead - but in the end, experimenting alone in your kitchen without theoretical background will never give you results as good as those created by teams of specialists who have been doing this their whole life, and using other information sources beyond primary experimentation.

So, as with any good research, formulate your question first, and be specific. Then search for answers to this question. Only after you have found the theory, experiment how it applies to your recipe. Randomly changing things and hoping that you will hit gold is what many people do, but it is the opposite of a best practice.


Frozen raw beef patties vs cooked refrigerated patties?

Freeze them raw.

Prepare/portion/shape all the patties then put them on small square of parchment paper (or waxed paper) square in a single layer on a baking sheet and freeze them as fast as possible in your freezer.

Once they are frozen, stack them an put them in a resealable bag.


Sponge cake - Why mix milk and butter instead of folding?

I can't say why you'd want to do this in general for other types of sponge cakes.  But in the linked recipe it's very clear.  The reason is because the milk/butter mixture is heated "to just under a boil" and according to the instructions should still be at least "hot (about 150F)" when added.

In this case, you take out a small portion of the batter, then add this hot liquid mixture to it.  If you don't mix rapidly while doing so and if the temperature is a little off and too hot, you run the risk of coagulating the eggs in the batter (which would obviously not result in a desirable texture to add back into the rest of the batter).

Here, as the recipe notes, you're using this portion of the batter as a liaison, which is a fancy word for a mixture the serves as an intermediary temperature between something hot and something cooler.  By adding the hot milk/butter mixture to a small portion of the batter (rather than the whole batter), you cool it enough so that it won't risk coagulating eggs in the whole batter.

But in the process, you need to whisk rapidly to avoid small egg bits forming curds and becoming solid, so you're sacrificing some of the bubbles in this portion of the batter to create an appropriate intermediary temperature mixture, which then is presumably supposed to be gently folded back into the rest of the batter.

Now, the question is why you're heating the milk in the first place.  There is a whole genre of cakes called "hot milk cakes" or "hot milk sponge cakes," which seem to have originated in the early 20th century.  They use this rather unusual mixing method, where you beat the sugar and eggs for a long time first, then add flour and dry ingredients, and then add liquid and fat at the end.

I'd speculate that the hot milk serves two purposes: (1) it helps melt the butter, which both allows the liquid butter to combine easier with the existing mixture and causes it to coat the flour better which results in a tender crumb (less gluten network formation), and (2) it raises the temperature of the batter above room temperature, thus shortening the time before the cake structure starts to solidify while baking.  My guess is that this is helpful because the sugar/egg foam is less stable than, say, a sugar/butter "creamed" foam (as in a pound cake), and if you don't get the eggs to coagulate fast enough, the whole thing might collapse.  (Again, that last part is just a guess.)  The goal is to end up with a very light and tender cake.


Is there any reason why I should not cook my veal stock for 8 hours and then right towards the end pop in the vegetable?

No, and there are many reasons why what you are doing is what you should be doing!

It seems so intuitive for me but I have literally NEVER seen it done.

Well, I can find many sources that advise you to add the vegetables towards the end of the cooking time. For example, from The Kitchn:

Adding the vegetables too soon.
Vegetables cook a lot quicker than beef, so there’s no reason to add them to the pot at the same time. Add them too soon, and you’ll be left with mushy (and unappetizing) veggies.

And it makes total sense. At my household, we make bone & vegetable soup about once a week, and are pretty familiar with the timing of each ingredient. We usually just put in the "soupable" vegetables that are lying around in the house, so the recipe is always changing.
Here is our rule of thumb as to which sort of ingredients go into the pot before others, though other household may vary:

Bone and meat.

Medicinal aromatic ingredients *(like dried shiitake mushrooms) and salt.

Root vegetables (like carrots) and vegetable stalks (like cauliflower stems).

Leafy greens (like lettuce) and herbs.


Should I season my sushi rice before or after cooking?

You should add the seasoning at the end of cooking the rice.

Actually normally I let my rice cool down for 10-15 minutes and transfer it to a large mixing bowl before mixing the seasoning with my rice.

I do not think it matters when you add the salt BUT the wet ingredients (including sugar) should be added after the water has been absorbed by the rice.


What are the small yellow things on my cooked bacon

This looks like your meat was discovered by a female fly (probably something like a blow fly) who thought that the protein-rich “carrion” would make a great spot for her offspring and subsequently laid a cluster of eggs. During summer, it may take as little as a few minutes for an uncovered piece of meat to become a fly nursery. Especially in the height of summer, the females will sometimes be so desperate that they will lay their eggs on about everything that is available.

The eggs are just one to two mm long, opaque white to pale yellow and are laid in clusters, often dozens in one spot. If left at room temperature, they can hatch in as little as eight hours, giving you a wriggling pile of maggots. I am not sure whether the eggs can still hatch after their stint in the fridge, but just leaving the “unknown objects” out for a while could confirm my answer.

As far as food safety is concerned, I recommend you discard the rest of your meat. Flies do carry pathogens and transfer them to food by simply walking over it. (Remember, they consider dog poop, the decaying squirrel in the forest and your dish equally attractive and visit them indiscriminately.) And that’s not even including the “yuck factor”.


What is the difference between various types of flour?

There are actually quite a few differences between the different types of flour. The number of different types you store will really depend on your particular requirements.

All purpose (or plain) flour is a blend of different types of wheat and has a relatively low protein content.

Bread flour is typically made from a single, high protein wheat. It also has a higher gluten strength. It may also contain ascorbic acid (vitamin C)

Cake flour is also typically made from a single type of wheat (different from the wheat used in bread flour) and has a high starch content, it also has the lowest protein content.

There are many other types of flour, all of which server specific purposes, for example;

Self raising flour, Whole wheat flour, Chick pea flour, Rice flour, Semolina flour

And others.

Essentially it's important to use the right type of flour for a give recipe.


A microwave heats pretty unevenly — most of the heating goes into the outmost portion of the food, and even that isn't always even (e.g., bottom probably gets fairly little). That's not unique to a microwave; a pan mainly heats the bottom; an oven...

Mostly, the lower power settings give more time for the heat to even out by inside the food. Depending on the food, you could run at a higher power setting and keep pulling it out to stir, rotate, etc. Often quicker, but much more work.


What is a good ratio (range) of nut flour in Mandelkipferl dough?

Note that Vanillekipferl use almonds or other nuts - so Mandelkipferl would be a specific kind of (Vanille)Kipferl. They are dusted with or rolled in a mixture of confectioners sugar and vanilla (vanilla sugar or scraped/ground bean, not liquid extract) while warm. The term "Kipferl" denotes a crescent-shaped bakeware, in this case a traditional Christmas cookie from the Austrian and German cuisine.

After checking multiple sources, amongst them Luise Haarer: Kochen und Backen nach Grundrezepten1, the 1:2:3 (by weight!) approach for Vanillekipferl seems about right:

  1 part (confectioners)/ sugar
  2 parts butter
  3 parts (flour and ground nuts combined) minus a bit

The highest ratio of ground nuts2 (sources vary whether almonds should be peeled or not, other nuts are also possible) I found in my trusted sources is around 1/3 ground nuts and 2/3 flour. Many recipes use less. Note that the flour/nut part is usually, but not always slightly less than a full three parts (more like 2.8 or 2.9 parts) for the shortcrust pastry listed above.

I found one quote that vaguely claimed equal parts of nuts and flours as good ratio, but without giving a recipe. As I couldn't verify this with other sources, I'm questioning the feasibility.

Now note that to accieve the full crumbly mouthfeel of the "Kipferl", the pastry is made without egg3 and the "Kipferl" shaped by hand out of little lumps of dough. Chilling them again before baking is optional, but I usually do it.
Rolling the dough and using a cookie cutter requires careful resting, chilling and handling of the dough which may lead to overworking, especially if scraps are re-rolled. The ground nuts cause less stability than a flour only dough and can cause crumbling during the cutting.

Adding up to three yolk per 300g flour/nuts leads to a more pliable dough and many recipes for Kipferl recommend this. Still they often suggest shaping the cookies by hand.

Luise Haarer gives a very similar recipe explicitly for cutout cookies with the same ingredients, but one egg and a slightly skewed ratio, here the pastry consists of:

  250g butter
  200g sugar
  125g ground almonds
  450g flour
  1 egg

1 German cook book that was in use for decades in schools in SW Germany. My trusted source for "basic" recipes and techniques.
First edition from 1932, now (2015) 32th edition in print.

2 Note that I use the term "ground nuts / almonds", not "nut flour", which is ambiguous and can mean either "(very finely) ground nuts" or "the leftovers from extracting oil from the kernels". While the latter is a common ingredient in gluten-free baking, we want the former for our cookies.

3 The choice of nuts and the egg / no egg Kipferl is much debated in many households in Germany and Austria. Just like with many recipes the quest for the "right" version may resemble a religious dispute. Do not get involved, unless you mean it. ^_^ Apparently the oldest written Vanillekipferl recipe was egg-less. (in German).

Someone who really is devoted to the Vanillekipferl and made a very elaborate website (in German, sorry), is Reiner Bernhardt, a professional baker.


What would be good preservatives for chili to give it a longer shelf life?

The only way that I know to put up chili for storage other than freezing is pressure canning.

The National Center for Home Food Preservation has a recipe for pressure canning, in which they process it for 75 minutes (which doesn't include the ramp up & pressure release times), so you're looking at close to 2 hrs per batch, when you include the time to set all of the cans in the pot, remove 'em, etc.

I've never tried it, so I have no idea what pressure canning ends up doing to the texture and flavor of the chili.  I also don't do pressure canning, so I have no idea what all of the issues are (eg, if acid levels are as significant as with normal canning) and thus how much you can vary a recipe without risking problems.


Water repellent-like residue on pot when cooking vegetables

I get a greasy residue in the water used to wash broccoli before cooking and in the blanching water before I freeze it. It literally only happens with broccoli so I make sure to wash it as many times as possible before freezing so it shouldn’t have any residue left when I want to cook it. I can only think that it is some sort of pesticide or preservative which is slightly worrying as I don’t want chemicals on my food! Organic is so expensive in comparison though.


This kind of thermometer is intended to remain in the piece of meat (or whatever) and delivers an accurate 1 reading during roasting without further procedure. Just stick it in the part of your roast that will heat up slowest, typically the middle of the thickest part. Avoid the bones, this may give false readings. If you have an oven with a glass door, you can even check the temperature without opening the door. Opening the door can lower the oven temperature, especially if you want to take multiple readings when getting close to the desired temperature. They are usually a bit slower than those instant-read ones you use for a quick reading, so if you want to use them for a “poke-and-read” measure, give it a moment to adjust.

The values on the scale are what the manufacturer deemed appropriate for a certain type of meat, in your example 170 F for lamb, pork and well-done beef. If you disagree with them, simply ignore the labels and go by the numbers. (Which I personally would do in this case, they seem a bit on the “safe” - or dry - side.) And remember to factor in carry-over cooking during resting.

————

1 It’s always a good idea to test a new thermometer, but here the boiling water method won’t work. If you have it, do a cross-check with another calibrated thermometer.

Not part of your original question, but addressing the comments:

There’s a third type of thermometer combining the ease of use (“stick it in and watch the temperature rising during roasting”) with a few extras modern electronics can bring: The electronic temperature probe that is connected to some other device, sometimes the oven itself, sometimes some external alarm/timer thingy (I have one and like it), or even connected to a smartphone app (random example), so that you can even leave the kitchen and still can check the temperature. The simpler ones are in the same price range as your fully mechanical specimen.


What you describe sounds like a Jamaican Patty. From  Explore Costa Rica.com :

  A Jamaican patty or pattie is a pastry that contains various fillings and spices baked inside a flaky shell. Technically, it is a beef filled turnover. As its name suggests, it is commonly found in Jamaica, and is also eaten in other areas of Costa Rica, especially on the Caribbean coast. It is traditionally filled with ground beef, however, fillings now include chicken, vegetables, shrimp, lobster, soy and cheese.

They are quite tasty!


Difference between Maida and All purpose flour

Maida is wheat flour similar to what is sold in the US as cake flour. Like cake flour, maida is finely milled, and it has less protein than all purpose flour. You can use it for bread and cakes, as well as chapatis, parathas and puris.
To achieve a flour more like all purpose or other flour types, you can add gluten to maita. According to The Fresh Loaf, maida typically contains 7.5% gluten (if anyone can find a more authoritative source, please edit accordingly).
Cooking for Geeks has a good article about the gluten content of other flours:

High gluten flour and bread flour is produced from hard wheat. High gluten flour has a gluten percentage of about 12-14% while bread flour contains about 10-13% gluten. Both flours are almost completely made of hard wheat, but some high gluten flours are treated to reduce starch content, raising the gluten content to around 14%. These flours are generally used for making breads. High gluten flour is reserved for breads that are extra elastic such as bagels and pizza.
Cake flour is produced from soft wheat and is low in gluten content (8-10%). This flour is used for making delicate cakes. Baked goods made with cake flour has a tendency to crumble because of the low gluten content.
All purpose flour is made from a mixture of hard and soft wheats. The gluten content ranges from 9-12%. This is the most versatile flour because it can be used to make both cakes and breads. However, breads won't be as chewy and cakes won't be as tender as if you used bread or cake flour.
Pastry flour is also a mix of hard and soft wheat flours with an emphasis on soft. Generally, the gluten content is 9-10% and is often recommended for pie crusts.

So, again according to The Fresh Loaf:

Then if you're interested in the details of the math, start out with a formula like (100parts/100parts * 7.5%) + (Nparts/100parts * 75%) = 10.5% [or 9.5% or 12.5% or whatever your desired result is], then solve for N. Skipping intermediate steps, simplification gives N = ((end-percentage-goal * 100) - 750) / 75 (Even this math is actually an oversimplification that's not quite right. It takes the not-quite-correct shortcut of directly adding percentages without accounting for the total being more than 100 grams. Hopefully though it's "good enough" ...)
The bottom line is: for every 100 grams Maida, add somewhere between 2.6 and 6.6 grams GlutenPowder. Adding 2.6 grams GlutenPowder will give a result with about 9.5% gluten, adding 4 grams GlutenPowder will give a result with about 10.5% gluten, and adding 6.6 grams GlutenPowder will give a result with about 12.5% gluten.

According to the original author of this answer, "You might find that bread and cakes made with maida don't keep as well as the same things made with all-purpose flour, but home baking never stays around for more than a day in my experience."


Can I grill a chicken/turkey breast in the night and eat it 12:00 and 18:00?

Any kind of cooked meat or fish and most perishable foods in general are safe as long as they are fully cooked and refrigerated within 2 hours (although the quality will deteriorate rapidly with fish).

If you plan to eat the leftovers twice then refrigerate two individual portions. Reheating the same item multiple times raises the risk of bacterial contamination. That is really the only thing you need to concern yourself with for short-term storage.

For more information see the USDA Basics for Handling Food Safely.


Would love to see what others think, but I think I found a solution that works for our palate! Used a tiny bit of cocoa powder, 1/3 the usual chili powder. Just a little black pepper for hot, but we don't like hot generally. I used the usual stewed and diced tomatoes, but eliminated the tomato paste to allow the cinnamon musty to dominate. This also allowed me to skip the honey too. And I used richer flavored beans than I usually do - pintos instead of white kidney beans.


Can I use a pint/ 500ml whipped cream canister for small volumes?

You can (to some extent) fill it under the max line and still get good results.

The standard 500 ml whip has an internal volume of 750 ml actually. If you fill it up to the max-line, you’ll have 250 ml left for the gas in the cannister.

Ideal Gas Law states that, pressure changes inversely proportional to the volume of the container.

So... say that you’ve filled up to 250 ml, you’ll extend the volume of the gas twice; thus the pressure will drop twice.

Henry's law on the other hand, states that amount of dissolved gas is proportional to its pressure.
So, the amount of NO2 you'll get dissolved will be also halved.

50% less gas should be your lower-limit I would say. You'll probably have less volume also on your whipped cream as well. If that's something ok with you...

But this approach will signifacantly lower your yield too. As the leftovers in the cannister will be constant, not proportional to your starting amount.


Most of the cooling from ice comes from the melting anyway. That's why ice makers, which don't freeze as cold as freezers, are still useful.

It takes 334J/g to turn ice at 0C into water at 0C, but only 2.03J/g to warm ice by 1C. So to halve the amount of ice you use to get the same cooling you'd need to freeze it to around -150C. If you're going to do that you may as well use the liquid nitrogen directly, because that's the most likely way to get ice at -150.

If you use dry ice or liquid nitrogen in the kitchen, you need to look into the precautions (and regulations if it's commercial) that you need to take.

You should be able to cool the sauce by transferring it to a bowl sitting in an ice+water bath (this cools faster than sitting it in a bowl of ice because of contact area). If that's not enough, here are some ideas that can be used as well

This is done with wine and cocktails - it might work with your sauce:

make a batch of the sauce (or a base without cream/egg etc.)
freeze it
use the frozen sauce (base) to cool the final sauce. It may dilute ingredients you couldn't freeze but this will be much less noticeable than diluting with water.

Sitting a bowl inside another bowl, with the gap full of ice+water, then frozen, should get you a very effective cooling device for moderate quantities. It should scale to a litre or so per vessel if there's plenty of room for ice in between. The inner container should have decent thermal conductivity and/or thin walls - a stainless serving dish would be ideal.

Another approach is to use an ice/salt bath for freezing point depression. This can be used to make ice cream so gets really quite cold. You could precool a bowl in that and then put your sauce in it.


Sauté meat then vegatables, or vegetables then meat?

Generally, browning meat is done at high heat, with a preheated pan well over 400°F, and will leave a bunch of tasty brown stuff (fond) stuck to the bottom of the pan. Vegetables contain a lot of water, which will dissolve the fond off the bottom of the pan, bringing its flavor in to the dish.

If you did it in the other order, you'd have maybe have some fond from the vegetables (depends on how long you cook them and how hot), which would burn as you brought them pan to temperature to brown meat.


How to determine the alcohol content of a mixed-drink?

To a first approximation, you can just calculate the volume of pure ethanol in each of the alcoholic ingredients (total volume * %ABV = volume of pure ethanol), add those up, and divide by the total volume of all ingredients.

For example, a margarita with 35mL 40% ABV tequila, 20mL 40% ABV Cointreau, and 15mL lime juice would have alcohol content of (35mL*40% + 20mL*40% + 15mL*0%)/(35mL+20mL+15mL) = 31% ABV.

That's an approximation because the volumes are not strictly additive: mixing 50 ml pure ethanol with 50 ml water will actually give you something like 95 ml of the mixture. To get a truly accurate answer, you'll need to measure the volume of the final drink, and divide your total alcohol content by that.


Why do my fried eggs start browning very fast?

Your pan is too hot. To perfectly fry an egg--without browning--you want medium to medium-low heat; what you want is the heat at which butter will juuuust sizzle. And don't use oil.
The easiest way to ensure that the residual white is cooked on top (assuming you want sunny side up) is to put a lid over the egg when it's almost cooked. Optionally splash a tablespoon of water into the pan (but not on the egg) immediately before putting the lid on.


How much water is needed for flour dough when making chapati

When making chapattis, the recipe might give a quantity of water, but it will probably also say you might not need it all. So you should add it gradually.

For example, the recipe I use says for 225g (8Oz) of flour you use 110ml of water "very approximately"  and add it gradually "until all the flour is incorporated and you have a soft, pliable dough". Then the dough rests for 15 minutes. I actually have my doubts about the conversions in this recipe, but the method is more important so it always works.

Quotes are from The curry secret -- Kris Dhillon


Worried about raw eggs, Salmonella, and pasta maker.

You are worrying too much.  Pasta has been made with egg for hundreds of years.  While the tools may have changed a bit, the process remains the same.  There has been some actual scientific research on the amount of time salmonella can survive on stainless steel and other dry surfaces.  You can google specifics.  It is generally assumed that moist environments are more favorable to growth and sustainability.  So, if you use a wet sponge from your sink, you are more likely to contaminate a surface from that, for example.  In any event, the general consensus is that salmonella survives 1-4 hours on dry surfaces.  One study in the International Journal of Food Microbiol. 2003 Aug 25;85(3):227-36.Survival of foodborne pathogens on stainless steel surfaces and cross-contamination to foods. Kusumaningrum, Riboldi, Hazeleger, and Beumer, transferred salmonella to stainless steel using a kitchen sponge. Salmonella enteritidis was recovered from surfaces for at least 4 days at high contamination levels, but at moderate level, the numbers decreased to the detection limit within 24 h and at low level within 1 h.

Practically speaking, you are going to make pasta then freeze or cook, rendering it safe.  You'll dust off your pasta roller and put it in the closet for a while. It will be safe.  Don't let this keep you from making your own pasta.


I've never tried this in baking before, so I did some poking around.  Here are a couple of the more helpful articles:

SUBSTITUTING HONEY FOR SUGAR

Ask the Experts...About Baking with Honey

These and others seem to agree on a couple major points:

For larger quantities (not applicable here) you'll want to add only about 3/4 the volume of honey in place of sugar.  You'll also need to reduce the water in the recipe to compensate.
Lower the baking temp by about 25 degrees; honey seems to accelerate browning.
Add a very small amount of baking soda (1/4 tsp per cup of honey) to compensate for the honey's natural acidity.

Since you have such a small amount, probably only #2 applies here, but you may want to exercise some caution if making a larger batch.


How can I keep my blueberry pie firm without the flavor of corn starch?

you could try some other thickeners, like xanthan gum, tapioca starch, arrowroot, or the like. not certain of the proportions, though, but i'm betting google knows.


New potatoes in pressure cooker with salt: how to optimize water amount and cooking time?

The only time I've ever heard of something similar is Salt Potatoes

www.nytimes.com/2008/08/22/travel/escapes/22rNYfood.html

allrecipes.com/recipe/syracuse-salt-potatoes/

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_potatoes

but I've never seen them done in a pressure cooker. However, most pressure cooking charts (http://fastcooking.ca/pressure_cookers/cooking_times_pressure_cooker.php for example) list the cooking time of whole new potatoes at about 5-8 minutes. If it was me I would try one of the salt potato recipes and just cook them for less time.


Is spaghetti and bechamel sauce an authentic Italian dish?

In Italy, besciamella is usually only used on pasta when it's going to be cooked in the oven: pasta al gratin, pasta al forno, or as part of lasagne.

As for your question - is it authentic to just toss some pasta with it? I would use the same method I'd use to answer the infamous "is X a sandwich?" questions: if somebody asked for a plate of spaghetti at a restaurant and they came covered in besciamella, I think basically every Italian would be baffled. I've never seen it on a menu, never seen it on a table at anyone's place and never heard it discussed until I read this discussion, which makes me inclined to say it's not authentic. It could still be delicious though!


The eggs whites in traditional meringues are used to spread the sugar into a thin foam that is then dried in the oven (or dehydrator) leaving behind the sugar structure and some proteins from the eggs. To make a meringue you need something that dissolves to tangle up with those proteins. I would guess that the beet meringues from Café Atlantico are made with beet powder replacing the sugar with the goat cheese in the middle adding to the sense of savory.

I have never made savory meringues, but if I were to experiment I would mix freshly whipped eggs whites with sugar to those created by reducing a savory liquid and then adding powder egg whites to it.


Is baking powder the same thing as baking flour?

If you're talking about "cake flour" or generally flour used in baking, no. In fact, I don't know of any product that is called a flour that would be the same as baking powder.

Baking Powder is a leavening agent; it makes things rise, much like yeast. It leavens by combining an acid (like Cream of Tarter) with an alkaline component (usually Baking Soda), and also usually contains an inert starch like cornstarch to prolong shelf life.

If your recipe is calling for cups of something, it's probably not baking powder :)


Adding cold water during cooking of beans and cooking time

If you want to speed up the cooking time and need to add more water, heat it on stovetop or in microwave till steaming, then add.  Cook at lower heat just at or below simmer to keep beans more intact and with a cover on to avoid water loss in the first place. NEVER add salt at the beginning of the cooking process, only once desired doneness has been reached.  If they just won't get soft (really hard water), add a tablespoon of baking soda to the cooking water, but then they will get soft really fast so watch carefully.


Do you use paper or cloth towel for patting a meat dry before frying?

I was not familiar with advice to pat meat dry, so I asked a chef what was going on.  The answer was...  complicated.

First, if you're working with meats that were frozen, you're going to want to remove any moisture which comes from the freezer (frozen humidity, which is essentially water).

For un-marinated meats, you want to be careful how you pat them.  The important distinction, in all cases, is not to remove any natural fluids (blood) from the meat.  This would remove both moisture and flavor, resulting in bland, dry cuts of meat.  So, do not press the meat when patting; this will squeeze moisture out.  You should lightly touch/brush the surface, so excess moisture wicks away.  That's it.

For marinated meats, it can depend a bit on the marinade, and how much your supposed to keep for flavor.  Otherwise, stick with the "remove excess moisture, but nothing else" idea.

So, long story short, if paper towels are sticking to the meat, you're removing too much moisture.  Maybe try this the other way around: set a paper towel on your work surface, hold the meat in some tongs, and touch the meat to the towel as you're putting them on to fry.

As to how professional, large scale kitchens do it; they don't.  They'll take a large sheet pan, place a drip rack in the pan, and place the steaks on the rack.  This allows excess juices to flow off naturally, and everything is easily washable and reusable.  If the meat is not cooked quickly after set to dry, you can baste drippings, marinade, or oil onto them just before cooking.


Why stuff a roast chicken with lemon, onion, and thyme?

Lemon, herbs, onions, and garlic too are all aromatics that infuse into the chicken as it cooks giving it a lovely flavor. It doesn't absorb the flavors enough to call it a lemon chicken, but gives the chicken some flavor depth and acts as an enhancement. Stuffing the chicken helps these flavors to infuse better into the meat than spreading them around. Salt and pepper,too, should go in the cavity.


Is it okay to freeze fish at home, after it was only refrigerated in the supermarket?

This is a relatively common practice in my household, no harm has come from it to date, but do it at your own risk.

One may say "Why buy fresh fish and freeze it, just buy it frozen instead, it is probably a lot fresher", but at least where I live (Portugal) there are a few reasons to buy fresh fish and freeze at home. Just to list a few:

It is still generally relatively fresh even compared to pre-frozen packages, and you can get a lot more different varieties and species than you could from the pre-frozen selections alone.
You get to see the whole fish "live" and unspoiled and easily assess it's quality, size, freshness, and characteristics etc.
Unfrozen fish can also be cleaned up a prepared at the supermarket by the staff to your desire, which is unavailable for frozen items, and saves some trouble and mess at home, while being prepared by professional, or at least trained staff.

Flavor and texture should be well preserved, suitable even for more delicate preparations like grilling, as long as you don' take too long before freezing it, or store it for very long periods in the freezer.

Just make sure it is actually fresh fish, here local supermarkets specifically label store thawed fish for immediate consumption, and often verbally advise the customers at the moment of acquisition to not re-freeze.


Using an electric deep fryer does the food need to be totally immersed?

Based on the comments, it sounds like your fryer has a fill line for just the oil, calibrated so that if you use that much oil then add a reasonably-sized turkey, you'll end up with the oil still safely below the top of the fryer. You'd never actually use 22 quarts of oil; then it'd be completely full of oil, on the verge of overflowing, with no room for food.

In that case, your chicken test doesn't really tell you very much. A turkey will fill the vessel more completely, so it may well take less oil to cover it. If you end up able to put your whole turkey in, and cover it with liquid, without getting dangerously close to the top of the pot, then you're okay. I would hope your fryer has another line closer to the top to tell you what a safe margin is there.

Do note that testing with wrapped birds also is misleading. That keeps the liquid from getting into the cavity, so it'll take less liquid to fill and cover that way.

And if the turkey is too big, then filling it to that 8 quart fill line then adding the turkey could cause it to overflow. So it really seems like you need to test with the turkey first (not wrapped!), to be sure it'll fit safely.

With all that said, supposing you do actually end up in the situation you mention in the question - not enough oil to cover the food - that's not good.

If your food is sticking out of the oil, it's not really cooking. It'll be in contact with hot air over the oil, but that's nowhere near actual hot oil.

Along with that, it'd indicate you've overfilled it, which is asking for trouble. The manual for your fryer almost certainly has some really strong warnings against that sort of thing. And even if the oil stops at the fill line, you have a huge turkey in there just waiting to shift or settle a bit, displace more oil, and push the oil above the max - it's still overfilled.

Doing something like that would make it really easy to splash hot oil out of the fryer, especially while you're putting the food in and getting that burst of boiling water and steam, which is incredibly dangerous. It's probably a fire hazard even with an electric fryer. And even without a fire, it's nothing you want splashing on you.

And in general, I'd strongly suggest you look at general safety guides before you attempt to deep fry a turkey, especially if you're not sure about part of the process.


Need help identifying 2 ingredients in homemade chicken biryani

That looks like "Black Cardamom".  You can probably find it in an asian grocery. I'm not sure what the pink thing was.


Your recipe is a bit short of flour for a classic 3:2:1 flour:butter:sugar ratio, counting both the flour and cornstarch with the flour. You have 1298 grams of flour and cornstarch combined, it needs to be closer to 1386. A bit more flour will certainly help, but your method should also be considered. I would recommend cutting the butter in rather than mixing in order to deliver the best crunch.

Last, if you're cutting them into fingers then it sounds like it's pretty thick. I've found it's hard to get thick shortbread to be crunchy without overcooking it, I'd suggest thinner is better.

When baking use the touch test to detect when it's ready, you want to bake it until it firms up some, a few test batches will give you an idea when it's reached the point.


Fenugreek is one of those flavours that you can't really substitute.
However, I've been cooking Indian for a couple of years now, and I get by fine without it.


Can I use whole milk instead of powdered milk?

Can you? Yes. But you will need to offset a liquid (water?) and powdered milk. You will need to work backwards from something like this: http://www.hillbillyhousewife.com/reconstituting.htm to remove X powdered milk and Y water to use Z milk.

Say your recipe called for 1 cup water and 1 1/2 tablespoon of powdered milk. Because one would normally use 1 1/2 tablespoons of powder with 1/4 cup water to get 1/4 cup milk (this may depend on the brand of powder, but this is a good general rule), working backwards you would remove 1/4 cup of water and replace that with whole milk, and then add 3/4 cup water.


What methods are there of getting fresh local meat & produce?

You can look for a CSA in your area, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community-supported_agriculture:

  CSAs consist of a system of weekly delivery
  or pick-up of vegetables and fruit in
  a vegetable box scheme, sometimes
  including dairy products and meat.

You can use http://www.localharvest.org/csa/ to try to find one in your area.


Does unopened whole wheat flour have to be refrigerated?

Whole wheat flour will turn rancid faster than AP flour because the germ contains oil. For best baking results you should use the flour within one month (opened and unopened) (source: 1 and 2). You can use the flour even longer but it will taste rancid and the gluten won't work as well as in new flour (source: 3). As far as I know there are no health concerns if older flour is used.

Flour can be refrigerated and be freezed. This will slow down the oxidization. If you want to use the previously chilled flour, make sure that the flour is warm then for good baking results. (source: 1).

Sources
1: Does white whole wheat flour need to be refrigerated?
2: How long can I store a food in the pantry, refrigerator, or freezer?
3. How to store flour


How to make flavoured salt for potato chips

To make seasoned salt, just put salt and dry spices into a spice grinder.

A lot of times they have an additive that makes this salt/powder stick to chips.  Also if you are frying them salt and seasoning will stick to them for a few moments after they come out of the fryer.