Frothed milk is not essential to Masala Chai, it's normally made with plain milk; the frothed-milk version is mostly a Western variation. But I assume you like it with that little extra. You might try using a milk frother, you can get them much cheaper than the deluxe model I've linked to here. If you're very particular about your frothed milk though, it seems from some quite detailed instructions I found, that a proper milk steaming attachment as found on espresso machines is the way to go. The author of the instructions states that “With a little care, you can create steamed milk that is velvety smooth like the texture of wet shaving cream. The bubbles will be so small that you can barely see them! This is the way it’s supposed to be, because this way, it will blend with the espresso, creating a harmony of the flavors instead of a dry, tasteless cap floating on top.” The same author provides instructions on how to make Masala Chai with or without frothed milk:

In its most basic form, chai is black tea that is brewed strong with a combination of spices and is diluted with milk and sugar.
The spices vary from recipe to recipe, but usually consist of cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, pepper and ginger. Chai tea is traditionally consumed hot and sweet. The sweetness is needed to bring out the full flavors of the spices.
How to Make Chai
Here is a simple recipe to make chai yourself at home. This is what you will need:
[...]
Chai Latte
I just love a good chai latte! A chai latte is just the spiced tea mixed with milk that’s steamed from an espresso machine. I love the soft foamy texture the steamed milk adds to the chai.
You can get these at coffee houses, or if you can make them yourself if you have an espresso machine. I have detailed instructions on steaming (or frothing) milk in the coffee section of this site.
You can follow the above directions just don’t add the milk. This makes a strong tea. Then add the steamed milk straight from the espresso machine.
Practice to make velvety steamed milk and use fresh ingredients. This will insure that you make the perfect chai tea latte.
Source: http://www.2basnob.com/chai-tea.html

You may also want to take a look at the page titled “Milk Frother Tips” on coffee-makers-cafe.com, which gives a comparison between different methods of frothing milk. But note that that page also states you will get the best results with an espresso machine's steam wand:

The only way to produce true microfoam is with a good quality steam wand that has enough pressure to swirl the milk and the ability to heat the milk to the correct temperature. You won't get microfoam with a frother. Microfoam is like a thick milk... like runny-yoghurt in consistency. If you swirl it around in the jug it has a shiny, acrylic-like appearance.


How to make your own Granary® flour from existing ingredients?

According to Waitrose:
https://www.waitrose.com/ecom/products/hovis-granary-bread-flour/476719-729900-729901
Wheat Flour (with added Calcium, Iron, Niacin, Thiamin), Wholemeal Wheat Flour, Malted Wheat Flakes (17%), Wheat Protein, Malted Barley Flour
So that's:

white flour, with vitamins for no culinary reason
wholemeal flour
17% malted wheat flakes
wheat protein because bread needs strong flour (high in gluten)
malted barley flour

The protein is 14.9%, which definitely qualifies as strong.
Note also:

62.9% carbs (of which 1.7% sugar), 1.8% fat, 7.5% fibre, 14.9% protein, hence 12.9% moisture/ash

The own brand product is not the same:
https://www.waitrose.com/ecom/products/waitrose-duchy-strong-malted-grain-bread-wheat-flour/430555-60573-60574 - brown flour, malted wheat flakes, barley malt flour, wheat bran

68.4% carbs (of which 3.2% sugar), 1.6% fat, 4.3% fibre, 13.5% protein, hence 12.2% moisture/ash

We might like to compare other bread flours:

white - 67.4% carbs, 14.9% protein, 2.8% fibre https://www.waitrose.com/ecom/products/waitrose-white-bread-flour/006224-2744-2745
Canadian very strong wholemeal - 57.0% carbs, 15.8% protein, 11.7% fibre https://www.waitrose.com/ecom/products/waitrose-stoneground-bread-wholemeal-flour/051804-25784-25785
brown - 72.3% carbs, 12.7% protein, 6.1% fibre https://www.waitrose.com/ecom/products/essential-strong-brown-bread-flour/666913-94660-94661

I think there is nothing at all special in any kind of way about 'Granary', it's just a brand name that Hovis license.
What you are looking at here is either brown flour (which has more bran than white flour, less than wholemeal) or a mix of white + wholemeal, malted wheat flakes, and malted barley flour
Hovis are helpfully specific about the % of malted wheat flakes - 17%. You can buy these in many countries, e.g. https://shop.kingarthurbaking.com/items/malted-wheat-flakes-2-lb
I believe that Hovis makes cheap mass-produced food as a first priority, and I believe that the malted barley flour is in fact a cheap-out. These should be malted barley flakes in fact. There are various forms of barley malt depending on whether they are sprouted or what not, but some form of barley malt will be available pretty much everywhere in the world.
Hovis protect their trademark, but 'brown bread with malt flakes' is nothing special at all, and anyone can make it....


I've had good luck substituting cashew cream for heavy cream in soups and curries. I've had a lot of people actually prefer it!

To make it, you follow the basic procedure for making nut milk, but skip most of the steps. Soak cashews in enough water to cover them for at least an hour or two, then puree in a blender until it's as smooth as you can get it. Add a little more water until it's the thickness of cream, throw in a pinch of salt, and you're done.

It's good for things where you need the richness of cream, but don't want other characteristics like sweetness or tanginess that other substitutes might have. I've even seen it used as the base for cheesecakes, and vegan cheeses and cheese sauces.


Is there a food that is halfway between a cheesecake and regular cake?

Perhaps you're looking for the soufflé cheesecake, which has a moderate amount of flour in it. This style is also popular in Japan.

The other style popular in Japan is the "rare cheesecake", which is set with gelatin instead of being baked. I think this is probably denser than what you're referring to, so I left it out of my first edit, but worth considering if the soufflé style doesn't match your expectations.

In Germany, some quark cheesecakes have flour in them as well, and those often have a more sturdy texture with a bit more air than the New York style.


How can I prevent pork from becoming tough while being held at warm temperature?

I think this is normal. I have heard of other empirical observations, for example tough sous vide despite controlling the temperature tightly.

The problem is that temperature scales assume that you stop heating the meat at this temperature. But what toughens the meat is not temperature, it is energy. Each joule you put into that meat is beating up a piece of protein, breaking up weak bonds, destroying the tightly woven kinks. It is a stochastic process which speeds up with temperature.

So, what you want to happen is that almost all actin is denatured, and almost none of the myosin is denatured. At room temperature, the energy of the average molecule part moving with heat energy is so low that only one in a gazillion actin parts and one in a kilogazillion myosin parts are breaking free per minute (I don't have the actual numbers, sorry). If you heat that up to 145, at a rate of 10 F per minute, it spends a minute in transition from 75 to 85 F, at which time a gazillionth of your actin gets cooked. The next minute, it transitions from 85 to 95 F, and maybe a thousand times more myosin gets cooked than in the last minute, as well as a thousand times more actin. Repeat that until you reach 145, and in the last minute, you are adding sufficient energy per minute to cook 99% of the myosin and 0.0001% of the actin per minute.

If you were to keep the pan on the high heat and let it get up to 155 in the next minute, this will be a minute during which you are cooking the meat at a speed of 99.9999% of the myosin and 1% of the actin per minute, for example. This doesn't matter for your myosin, because it is cooked anyway, losing its ternary structure, but the energy is not yet high enough to make it lose its secondary structure. But you get a lot more actin converted. And if you let the temperature climb for another minute, the energy in this minute will be sufficient to convert another 99.99999999% of your myosin (if it were still raw, which it isn't) and almost 100% of your actin. Now you have a shoesole steak on your hands.

This is why you are told to remove the steak from the pan when it reaches a certain temperature. It is not the reaching of the temperature which turns it, but the total amount of temperature which has gone into it since the start of heating.

In scenario two, you know enough to remove it from the pan at 145. In the next minute, while it is resting, it goes down a few degrees, and maybe another percent of your myosin is converted, but certainly not enough to get it tough. Everything is great when you serve it after maybe 10 minutes of resting.

In scenario 3, you keep it hot for a day. The temperature is high enough to not worry about food safety. Which means that there is still a significant amount of heat energy pouring into your meat per minute. It may only be cooking 0.1% of your myosin per minute (as opposed to a 5 degrees higher temperature which would be cooking the myosin at a rate of 10% per minute) but if you keep it there for 1000 minutes, you get 100% of your myosin converted, so you get a shoesole again.

This is a simplified description of what I think is happening. Again, none of the numbers denoting denaturing speed are accurate; I use them to illustrate the logic behind the physical process here, but the actual speed can be orders of magnitude off. And besides, there is more complicated stuff happening in heating meat, and more of it is still being discovered. But I think this is sufficient as an explanation of why you are getting tough meat. The "cook it to 145 F" rule is a gross oversimplification which only delivers good results if you really stop heating it then.


A new patina is vulnerable to scratches and even washing off into liquid boiling on it.  I've found that even a well-established patina is vulnerable to washing off this way.

If I were you, I'd would NOT bother to remove the remaining patina and start over.

Rather, I would re-season the wok on top of the existing patina at least once.  Actually, I'd probably re-season it about three times.

But that's just me.

Perhaps others will have more authoritative suggestions.

Good luck

nello


Alternative for Swenson condensed milk. I'm diabetic

There are actually many recipes for making your own sugar-free or low-sugar sweetened condensed milk. They generally involve combining non-fat milk or powdered milk and water with a sugar substitute like Splenda. Alternately, if it's sufficiently low in sugar, you can add Splenda or another no-calorie sweetener to evaporated milk.

We don't share recipes here but I encourage you to find one that works for you with your preference of milk product and sugar substitute.


How to lighten (or make less dense) pizza dough

You really need the dough to double in size for it to not be overly tough.

30 min might be enough time under some conditions, but it's not always; if you're in a rush, you might be better off making a biscuit dough rather than a yeast dough.

To ensure a good rise, I'd recommend the following:

Make sure to use warm water.  I run the hot tap 'til it feels a little warmer than body temperature.  (I check it against the inside of my wrist).
If using a metal bowl, pre-warm it by filling it with hot water, then dumping it out.
Proof the yeast to make sure it's active -- Add the yeast to the warm water (possibly with a little flour or sugar) and wait 'til it foams up before adding the rest of the flour and other ingredients (especially the salt)
Allow to rise in a warm, but not too warm place.  Sometimes, a low oven is too warm and will kill the yeast.  In the summer, I leave it in a sunny place, in the winter, I put it on top of my radiator.  If you don't have radiators, but you have an electric heating pad with a low setting, you might try that.  Rather than turning on the oven, you can also put it in there, but rather than heat the oven, boil some water separately, and put it in the oven and pour it into a shallow tray to add some thermal energy.

If the dough has doubled, and it's still coming out too tough for your liking, you can try:

Add some oil (olive oil or neutral flavored oil) to the dough.  Try a tablespoon or two.  Add it before adding in the water, and just mix in what water you need for it to form a dough.
Switch to an all-purpose rather than a bread or strong flour, or a blend.  (or a blend of whole wheat and bread/strong flour)


Pizza Dough Ingredients too runny even after adding flour

Personal results, I have never been able to satisfactory save a yeast dough once it has gone wrong.  I have gotten them back to the point of almost seeming right, but it was an illusion, once cooked they were typically like a raw floured lump of baked brick.  Now, if I go wrong, I toss and start over.

Soupy to me sounds like something is likely off on the recipe and liquid is out of proportion would be my first guess.  Verify the units were right, no substituting cups for tablespoons (yes I have), and if you did not misread, try a different recipe.  Also, if you did not, try proofing your yeast first, which will help activate it and make sure it is still viable.  If after 10 minutes in warm water and a pinch of sugar you are not getting bubbles and a nice yeast smell it is likely dead and that is your culprit.


Dauphinoise potatoes: not fully cooked in cream?

You don't want to serve under-cooked potatoes, they will not be pleasant to eat and might give people indigestion. However, there's no reason you would need to as they'll cook in the oven, in fact that's the idea, if you cook them in the cream until they are done they'll break apart. You don't need that step at all really, when I make Dauphinoise potatoes I don't cook them in the cream, I layer them raw in a baking dish, then heat the cream, garlic and a bit of nutmeg in a pan until bubbling before pouring it over the potatoes and putting the cheese on top. Then I bake at 165 fan until a skewer goes through easily, about an hour, maybe longer. Budget 90 minutes in the oven if it's a deep pan. This gives awesome results every time and is less hassle then par-cooking them in the cream, frankly I see no benefit in that method although there's nothing wrong with it.

In your case as the potatoes are par-cooked then it will be less than 90 minutes, but it will take some time to get the dish up to temperature so it's very hard to say. Once you see the cream bubbling you'll  know it's cooking, check them in 20 minutes and then every 10 minutes after until they pass the skewer test.


I wouldn't bother keeping the skins, if they're hurting the texture.  Many recipes using tomatoes end up removing skins for this reason. My exec chef showed me an easy way to remove the skin from tomatoes (we were doing tomato concasse):

Wash tomatoes thoroughly, and slice a shallow cross in the bottom.
Bring a pot of water to a rolling boil, and also prepare an ice water bath nearby.
Drop tomatoes into the boiling water for 30 seconds to a minute, until the skin starts to crack.
Using a slotted spoon, transfer tomatoes to ice water to cool for a minute or two
Peel -- the skin should already be peeling back around the X-mark.


It's probably thickeners, such as carrageenan or xanthan gum, which are thickening/sliming up the whey. Draining off the whey or stirring it back in should be fine. A brand which doesn't have added thickeners (look for "strained" or "Greek-style" yogurt, then read the ingredients) won't do this.

I've had yogurt go off many times, and slimy whey isn't how yogurt goes off. The whey is nowhere near as tempting to microorganisms as the yogurt solids, so you'll see mold (or whatever) on the solids first, not the whey.


Minestrone is a soup made with whatever you have on hand; there is no set recipe even if the base of the soup is more or less the same everywhere.

If you put beans early, they will break and make the soup "mushy".
You can substitute with other kind of beans,
Parsley can be added early (especially the stems) and removed later on; imo, it does not taste good; add basil as the very end (or at serving time).
Don't know, you can use whatever you want and whatever you have on hand.
Sauteeing vegetables, and adding "color" to them will improve some of the flavor and increase some of the sweetness of the vegetbles.
Impossible to answer that one


Basa is in the catfish family (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basa_fish), so it shouldn't require any special treatment.

Buying frozen fish, even from different stores, you may be getting it from the same supplier.  Perhaps it's something the supplier is doing, some kind of preservative treatment or something of that nature that your husband can taste, but you can't.  Check the ingredient label on one brand that you've purchased before and look for what was used, if anything, to treat the fish.  Then, assuming something was used, seek out a different brand and check its label to see if they used something different.

Now, all that being said, I've purchased Basa from the seafood counter before.  Coming from Vietnam, it had to have been previously frozen, but it had no real scent at all.  After you defrost the fish, it should have very little scent.  A strong "fishy" odor just means you have old fish, and perhaps he's picking up on some funky compounds in the old fish (some people are much more sensitive to bitter flavors than others).


Is It Possible to make corn tortillas at home without a press?

Yes, you can do it without a press. Place a ball of dough between two layers of plastic wrap. Use at least twice the area of wrap that you think the final tortilla will be. Squish the ball flat with a pan, book, or your hand. Now use a rolling pin to roll the dough between the sheets of plastic. Make sure the thickness is even, and don't get it too thin or it will break when you cook it. Bonus: you can store the uncooked tortillas in the plastic until using and they won't dry out.


When making lángos, which is pretty much identical to fry-bread in every respect except the name, there are two keys to preventing an oil-logged outcome:

First, make sure your oil is hot enough, but not too hot. You want to achieve the desired toasty brown color on the outside in precisely the same amount of time as it takes to cook the dough all the way through on the inside, and not a second longer. (Well, OK, so that's exaggerating a bit; you do have a little leeway, but you shouldn't be frying a piece of dough much past the point of doneness just to achieve the color you want; and obviously, you also don't want the outside to be burnt but the inside still doughy.)
Second, when you remove the bread from the oil, blot the excess oil. As in, don't just put it on a metal rack and expect the oil to drip off. Go ahead and use that cookie rack or what-have-you, but line it with a couple of paper towels. Or half a dozen paper towels. Or an I-don't-know-how-people-made-fry-bread-before-paper-towels quantity of paper towels. And then use a second paper towel to blot the top of the bread.

(Important: to prevent sogginess, once you've blotted the bread, remove it from the paper towels, and either serve immediately, or put it in a suitable serving pan in as close to a single layer as you can manage.)

Another aspect that people often mention is how many times you flip the bread. Just like with hamburgers on a grill, there are advocates of the "flip exactly once" method, and advocates of the "flip many times" method, with very little middle ground. I tend to flip once, just because that's less work; I don't actually know if the number of times you flip has any effect on the oiliness of the outcome.


What's the Hungarian Ashkenazi Yiddish name for burned rice at the bottom of the pot?

Sorry, the best I could come up with is a partial answer.

Tah-dig is the Persian/Farsi/Iranian name for the equivalent of what you describe - the crispy rice crust left at the bottom of the pot.  It isn't usually "burned", per se, not carbonized, but rather golden brown and crisp, is only called overcooked or burned compared to the rest of the rice.  It is very highly prized.  The same technique, or texture, can also be found in some potato dishes, or even spaghetti, where the bottom-most layer is allowed to adhere to the pot after draining the cooking water, and become crisp and brown with added oil - very similarly to a western dish having the top deliberately browned in an oven, even if it was cooked stove-top previously.

The Iraqi version is named hikakeh.  This is served in pieces (unlike tah-dig, which is served as a single thick crust) and is a slightly looser layer.  The wikipedia article on hikakeh cites an encyclopedia of Jewish food, so it might be a starting place for to look for a yiddish version of the dish or name.

Beyond those two, I looked up and found Nurungji, the Korean version, Guoba which comes from the chinese, and cơm cháy for the Vietnamese, Okoge in Japan, and Cucayo (or pegao, concolon and others) along the Caribbean coast.  The translation of each dish tends to be something like scorched rice, or toasted rice, or bottom-of-the-pot rice, and refers to the the way the bottom-most layer of rice tends to overcook in traditional cooking (ie, over a fire), and which later becomes sought after in its own right - and can be extended to non-rice dishes with a bottom crust.

Unfortunately, I was unable to find a specific name for the Hungarian, Yiddish, or Ashkenazi versions of the dish.  If none of the above names are familiar to you, or you don't want to just pick one and go with it, they still might serve as a starting point for a) how to make the dish, if you want to recreate it, or b) how to ask for the name among the people in those communities (it's a bit easier to "translate" a dish name than to start from raw description, I found the above names because I knew about tah-dig).


Frosting kept melting when trying to frost cake

There are two things I would consider with the frosting. The first is that either the cake or the kitchen was too warm when you tried to frost the cake. It's happened to me a few times that I set the indoors temperature too warm in the winter and frosting keeps melting for me. Freezing the cake for about 20 minutes before attempting to frost it will usually make it easier to do a nice job too.

Otherwise, when you make a frosting recipe like that one, you want to mix all the ingredients except the liquid (in this case milk) together first, and the add the liquid, a little at a time until the frosting is the right consistency. Never add all the liquid at once. I don't think the butter was the problem, if anything you didn't have enough of it compared to the amount of milk.


Putting a solid chocolate bar inside cake dough: what's the outcome?

As other answers have said, the result will NOT be (3).  The chocolate may melt somewhat during baking, but it will solidify again as it cools.  How much it sinks will depend on the thickness of the cake batter -- in some cases it may end up on the bottom, and in other cases it may not sink very much.

To achieve your desired result (a "semi-liquid state"), you should probably begin with a chocolate spread or sauce or whatever that has your desired final consistency.  I've seen recipes that use everything from ganache to fudge or even a cream cheese-based chocolate filling.  But the majority of recipes out there intend to result in a fairly solid state when cooled.

In any case, by using a thinner spread/sauce, you may be able to get close to your desired result.  But you might still encounter some problems:

The vanilla cake batter must be thick enough so the chocolate layer doesn't spread too much or sink.
The chocolate spread/sauce might behave erratically when baked, depending on what its ingredients are.  It could end up more solid than it initially was after baking (or otherwise change texture), it could partially mix with the surrounding batter (which may or may not produce desirable flavor/texture), it could disrupt baking by producing excess steam or bubbling (perhaps breaking through the surface or producing unstable "bubbles" that could cause the cake to collapse after baking), or it could have other unpredictable effects on the batter immediately surrounding it.
One option for a thinner spread/sauce, as mentioned in comments, might be to chill it beforehand.  This would likely also allow the filling to maintain a better shape rather than spreading unpredictably.  On the other hand, it could also cause further baking problems if the batter adjacent to the filling takes too long to bake properly.  You could end up with an underdone layer around the filling, or you could dry out the outer layers too much before the interior is done.
If you do try this, I'd suggest making smaller cakes (individual sized cakes, cupcakes, or perhaps a slightly larger cake with just a few servings).  A layer of filling in a large sheet cake is even more likely to disrupt baking and make it difficult to get the sides and center done at the same time.  I suppose it might also work in a bundt or ring pan.

In sum, fillings behave unpredictably during baking, and they generally make it much more difficult to achieve uniform doneness.  Interior fillings are thus best reserved for situations where the interior layer is intended to have a similar texture and doneness threshold to the cake as a whole.

For these reasons, professional bakers often prefer to fill cakes with soft or "semi-liquid" things after baking.  Obviously the simplest and most common solution is a layer cake with a spread in between the layers.  If you prefer something more elegant, professional bakers often slice a single layer in half, perhaps cut out some of the interior if desired, and add the filling before reassembling.  For smaller (individual-sized) cakes or cupcakes, a syringe can also be used to fill the interior, though how much filling can be inserted will depend on the interior texture of the final cake.  These techniques allow you to determine more precisely where the filling ends up and provides a better separation between the filling and the cake textures.  If the final cake is to be frosted, it is possible to disguise such things and make the process of filling fairly undetectable in the final product.

That's not to say your desired outcome is impossible to achieve, but it may take some experimentation and the result is likely to be temperamental or inconsistent in baking.  I'd personally try to find a reputable recipe to use as a starting point.

By the way, a "molten lava" cake recipe, as suggested by another answer, is also probably not what you're after.  Lava cakes are almost always chocolate cakes that are slightly underbaked, so the center does not set completely.  How "molten" they remain after cooling varies from recipe to recipe, but they are also usually meant to be served immediately after baking.  To achieve your goal, you'd need two cake batters instead of one: a vanilla cake for the exterior and a "molten" chocolate center batter.  It's difficult to get the proportions and timing right to succeed with a single "molten" batter; mixing two different batters together while trying to keep one liquid and the other cooked will likely be very difficult.  A quick internet search for "lava cakes" uncovered some recipes that claim to do what you want by inserting a piece of ganache or something into the center of a vanilla cake batter, but these recipes mostly seem to rely on being served warm to maintain that gooey center.


I went into some detail with this in my answer to What are the factors that affect the chewiness, softness, moisture of bread based desserts like cinnamon rolls?

To summarize my points there and add some more (simplified) detail on the chemistry:

Gluten is responsible for elasticity of dough, which is perceived as chewiness.  The difference between bread, quickbread (muffins/scones), and cake is largely due to the difference in gluten formation, with cake having the lowest amount and bread having the highest.
It does not directly cause rising - the leavening agent (yeast, baking powder, etc.) is responsible for that. What it does do is form a protein network by cross-linking, which not only results in the elasticity above but also traps gas and prevents it from escaping during the baking process. The "rising" in baked goods is essentially just stretching of the gluten network. This is why hydrocolloids such as xanthan and guar gum can mimic some of the effects in gluten-free recipes; although the mechanism is completely different - in essence, they're creating a very thin gel.
Gluten is also exceptionally good at both absorbing and retaining moisture; it can absorb up to 150% (1.5 times its own weight) in water. One thing you'll notice about typical wheat products vs. their gluten-free equivalents is that latter don't last too long and have to be frozen or consumed quickly. Part of this is due to preservatives in commercial baked goods, but much of it is also simply due to the gluten retarding moisture loss.  You can think of it as a kind of natural preservative.
It's activated by water and heat and is (relatively) slow-acting, which gives it a high tolerance with respect to time and temperature. This is why many people will tell you that bread is "forgiving" while cake and other low-gluten/gluten-free products are not. When baking without gluten, you will have to be very precise about all of your measurements.
Its coagulation action is actually very similar to that of egg whites, and pure gluten (AKA vital wheat gluten) is sometimes actually used as a replacement for egg whites. A meringue is just heavily aerated egg whites and specifically protein; gluten is basically doing the same thing inside of whatever you're baking.
Finally, it provides nutritive protein when eaten. Wheat gluten is about 75% protein and all-purpose flour is about 10% gluten. That means 7.5% of the flour you consume is actually protein. Of course that's nowhere near what you get from meat, but it's still a significant contribution to one's diet.

In short: Gluten does a lot of things. Keep in mind when doing gluten-free baking that a lot of the substitutes only replicate one or two of the effects.


From a seller's product description1:

  In der Backindustrie verwendet man Lupinenmehl als Zusatz zu Brotmischungen, da es das Brot aromatisiert, elastischer und länger haltbar macht.
  (The baking industry uses lupin flour as additive in bread mixes because it makes the bread more aromatic, elastic and increases shelf life.)

Another description2:

  Das Mehl kann in Brot, Kleingebäck und Teigwaren verarbeitet werden. Lupinen-Mehl bindet relativ viel Wasser.
  (The flour can be used in bread, pastry and pasta. Lupin flour binds comparatively much water.)

So it boils down to lupine flour being used as a dough enhancer, the content in your example being 1.5% or less of the total bread weight suggests that it probably is not really "tasteable", but influences either the manufacturing process or the texture of the bread. If lupine flour is used to alter the protein / carbs ratio, up to 15% of the flour is replaced by lupine.

So my guess is that the manufacturer benefits by being able to incorporate a tad more water (which is sold, too) and possibly a bit less gluten formation, making the dough easier to handle and giving it the "fluffiness" that a German customer expects from what is labeled as "American Sandwich" bread.


It depends on how you will store them ( individually wrapped, in a plastic box, vacuum sealed ?)
It can also depend on how dry is your fridge.
It also depends on how dry they are.
I'd say 2 weeks max; some say 1 month or more.
The Egg farmers of Canada advocacy group doesn't even say.
Don't make couple of dozen of them if you don't intend to use them relatively quickly or have access to vacuum seal equipment.
IMO, it's easy to cure 3, 4 yolks at a time and use them in that time span.
Anecdotal, I've kept vacuum sealed yolks (each one in its own little vacuum bag) for a couple of months with not issues.
(speaking of which I should do some today)


One possibility is that the meat was cooked in a crock pot. This would make sense on a few levels.

First, since it is a hospital and presumably they have a large amount of people to feed, cooking multiple steaks in a large crock pot at once would save time and still produce quality food.

Second, cooking the meat slowly in a crock pot (or in liquid) over the period of 10 hours will produce incredibly tender meat, especially if the steak was already of good quality to begin with. Similar process is used to produce various roasts and also pulled pork, for example, which will literally fall off the bone once done cooking.


This is one of the reasons I hate working with liquid lecithin - it's the most viscous and sticky substance I've ever had in my kitchen (or, frankly, anywhere).

Prevention seems to be the best approach; try not to let the lecithin directly touch any utensils or cooking surface. Grease up your spoons, preferably with something reasonably solid at room temperature like coconut oil, butter, or margarine. That makes the lecithin slide off more easily, and you only need to clean off the grease afterward (i.e. with soap).

The only way I've been able to clean surfaces or utensils coated with the lecithin itself is lots and lots and lots of warm water and paper towels. Warm water is important since lecithin does not dissolve very well in cold water.

Good luck - personally, on the infrequent occasion that I need lecithin these days, I just stick to the granules.


How can i decorate homemade dog biscuits?

You can use animal (hide) glue to make the sprinkles stick, similar to the adhesive on some envelopes that can be licked (or moistened otherwise) to activate the 'stickyness'. The content of the glue is not really that far off from the ingredients in dog food.

Any gelatinous based adhesive would also probably do. While they offer no nutritional value, they are edible.

Non toxic paste, such as used by young school children would also work, but I don't know if the color would ruin the presentation you're trying to achieve. I'd go with the animal glue if you're able to source it. Just melt it down and use a fine paint brush to paint the dog's name, apply the sprinkles and let dry, then shake / blow off the excess.


Size of holes for salt/pepper/seasoning shakers?

I don't think there is any set standard for the size of the holes. Most of the salt and pepper shakers I've seen sold to be used at the stove or grill don't necessarily have larger holes, but they have a lot more holes. They also hold more salt or pepper than table sets. This is an example similar to most I've seen:

If you look at the vast amount of salt and pepper shakers available, you will see that they come with very few holes, lots of holes, different size holes, etc. I think the key in what to use is to find what you feel comfortable with.

Also, consider what type(s) of salt and pepper you are using. Most shakers are sold for use with table salt and ground black pepper. But if you are using a more coarsely ground salt or pepper you would obviously need larger holes.

I, like most of the others who commented, don't use shakers while I'm cooking. The only time I would use shakers is perhaps when seasoning food before or after it is cooked. The real downside is that if you try to shake salt or pepper over hot foods while cooking, steam can cause the salt or pepper to clog the holes.


Edwards Hersheys creme pie made in 2013 ok to eat?

No question that it is past the expiration date for freezer storage. What does that really mean?  If it has remained frozen without any power outages, or thawed, refrozen kind of stuff.... then it stands to reason that the pie has never been exposed to a temperature which would breed (or encourage the growth of) bacteria. From that standpoint, yes, you can eat it.Here's the caveat: it might not taste the same as a "fresh one". Why? If you called Hershey they would tell you that they won't guarantee it. Basically the ingredients were not intended to be frozen for that long. Or, they never tested the stability of the ingredients to be frozen for such a long period. Either way, it's a gamble. Not a gamble in a "will I or won't I get sick?" kind of way. More of a gamble in a "is it going to taste good or not?" And there's really only one way to find out. (Let us know.)


This "cake" is practically a souffle, and falls for the same reason a souffle does: it has nothing to keep it tall. It first rises because of the steam created during baking, but once the steam production is over, it deflates. Unlike real cakes, which include flour, there is nothing to create a persistent structure here.

There is nothing to prevent a souffle from falling when it has cooled, it is like expecting a punctured baloon to stay inflated. I would suggest using a different recipe. Alternatively, you can decide that you are OK with a moist, fudgy cake without much rise. To avoid a mishappen shape from first rising too much and then falling, whip the eggs less and combine them more thoroughly with the rest of the ingredients, while still keeping some air in.


term for the fact that's easier to mix 2 things if the amount are different

There exists a term in organic chemistry called miscibility which is the property of substances to mix in any and all proportions and form a homogenous substance. Now, I believe this word is a start in the right direction in our search for what seems is a highly specific and seldomly used term (if it even exists?), being it feels as it fits in the same scope.

Our instinct could now be simply to negate the word miscibility - immiscibility. But this isn't right either as it means that our substances will not mix.

I guess we could say that both of these terms are partially correct, meaning our substances are partially miscible, or better yet conditionally miscible - conditioned on the proportions used.

I realise that this isn't exactly what you were looking for, as it doesn't carry the desired connotation merely on it's own, but I believe it's as close as we can get.


What coarseness of japanese waterstones is ideal for cooking?

Oh absolutely, you certainly don't want to sharpen a kitchen knife on a 200 grit stone! You'll want one medium stone in case you ever need to remove a nick or something (but then you should probably take your knife to a pro at that point), and then probably like 2000-4000-6000 grits for routine polishing. (Note Japanese grit numbers are different than American oil stones).


What piece of veal should I ask a butcher/meat shop in the US if I want to do stew dishes like "blanquette de veau" or "veau marengo"?

Veal and beef cuts are completely different, the terminology is not the same at all. With veal the tendron is part of the breast, which includes the foreleg and the front of what would be considered the flank on a full-sized animal, in other words the part that does the most work. The tendron cut includes the lower-front part of the ribs. As for what to ask a US butcher for I'm not sure, I'd ask for veal foreribs and hope that they get what I'm after.

Here are some definitions that may help.


Does cooking break down both fibers in food vegetables and if so is are some cooking methods better for this purpose?

Visible "fibers" in food are structures composed of many, many cells. These structures can sometimes be softened, usually most effectively by low, slow cooking (e.g. braising), and sometimes not. For example, collard greens can be tough and a bit stringy, but will soften quite a bit when braised. On the other hand, long pieces of celery can stay stringy even after long cooking, so the main way to avoid unpleasant long strings is just to cut it into shorter pieces. This variability is because there are actually many different plant structures which you might consider to be a "fiber", with different compositions, i.e. different things that might need to be affected in order to disrupt the structure and soften it.

Those visible "fibers" are a completely different thing from dietary fiber (the macronutrient), which is a large family of molecules that's contained in the cells that make up the plant. There is sometimes a fair bit of dietary fiber in the visible "fibers", for example cellulose is a form of insoluble dietary fiber, and it's a structural component of plant cell walls (so plant that need to be stronger likely have more). Broadly, cooking isn't going to do a whole lot to dietary fiber molecules. It may loosen connections between cells, or even break down the cells a bit, but the dietary fiber molecules aren't going to be substantially affected.


It may have been baking powder but it doesn't matter what it was.
Cake methods produce a homogeneous batter. There shouldn't be lumps of anything.

The sugar is creamed with the butter until it is smooth. The dry ingredients are mixed together and most recipes call for sifting them into the wet to prevent exactly these kind of lumps. I will admit that, unless my dry ingredients are obviously clumpy, I will often skip the sifting step to save another utensil to clean.

Make sure that you scrape down the sides of the bowl to ensure there are no unincorporated ingredients.

Some baked goods, like pancakes or biscuits, intentionally under mix to keep things tender. Cake instead relies on low protein flour and lots of fat to keep things tender and the batter should be completely blended.


Triple cooked chips: Removing moisture by cooling

There are a lot of things going on to change the starches in the potatoes besides drying too; see rumtscho's answer for more on that. However, the drying matters as well, and these are indeed good methods of drying.

Refrigerators and freezers are notoriously good at drying things out. You might've noticed food drying out in your fridge if it wasn't well-covered, and freezer burn is a huge deal.

The air inside fridges and freezers is kept pretty dry, and it's circulating, pretty much ideal conditions for drying. Freezers really need to be pretty dry, since they're trying to prevent frost formation. But fridges are dry too too: the air is only a little above freezing, and the cooling coils are below freezing, so moisture is drawn out. Either way, it's still air-drying, just at a cool temperature.

Hot air is also good at drying things out, but I don't think you actually want the drying stage to further cook your food. Leaving it at warm room temperature with a fan would dry it pretty well too, but then you'd have a food safety issue.

The main alternative would presumably be a dehydrator, running at a bit over 140F, thus keeping things safe while avoiding further cooking. But that wouldn't accomplish the same changes in the starch, and that's not something most people have, so the fridge/freezer seems to make a lot of sense as a common, effective method.


When deep frying, the most important piece of equipment you can have is a decent thermometer--many candy/frying thermometers have a clip that can be positioned on the edge of a dutch oven so that you can keep watch of the temperature while frying (like this one).

Different oils have different smoke points. For refined peanut oil, the smoke point is 450°F / 232°C. It sounds like you got your oil too hot, and it reached the smoke point. This can be very dangerous. Just above the smoke point is when oil can actually ignite, causing a serious fire risk.

Generally, you would want to fry well below the smoke point temperature. Recipes generally will recommend frying temperatures of 300°F / 150°C to 375°F to 190°C, depending on what you're frying.

Trying to regulate heat simply by using the knob/setting on your stovetop is not a reliable way to maintain heat when deep frying. Using a thermometer will help ensure you are able to keep oil in the desired range.


Soft cheeses are best sliced using wire, which is easy to work with and avoids squishing the cheese. Hard cheeses, like Parmesan, are difficult to cut with a wire. These cheeses are often (as you say) scored and then split with a prying action. If the cheese is sufficiently dry, it will easily break apart in sections. You can do this with an ordinary knife, or use a specialized cheese knife such as these.

Gouda is kind of in a middle ground, being a semi-hard cheese. Some specimens may be too soft to pry apart, and others may be too hard to easily cut with a wire. That said, I would probably try the wire first (the prying apart method usually only works with very hard cheeses). The age of your cheese will give you a rough indication of how hard it is-- Gouda is usually aged anywhere from 1 month to 3 years.


What can be substituted for vinegar in sushi rice?

I would probably use diluted white cranberry juice, as being the flavour closest to rice wine vinegar. I am not sure if the acidity would be sufficient, however; you may need to add lemon juice. A substitute for soy you will not easily find, as the development of those sorts of flavours requires fermentation.


What's the secret for Chinese fried rice?

There are really only a few secrets to good fried rice:

Day Old White Rice (Make it the day before, let it cool, place it in the fridge)

This I'd say is absolutely, the main thing.
The texture will NOT be right if you use freshly cooked rice. There will be too much moisture.

HEAT!

Your Wok needs to be hot. You want everything to cook quickly.

Cook stuff separately.

This is a follow-up from 2. You want it all to cook very quickly, a crowded pan will hinder that.
Cook Meat to 80%, take it out, cook the other stuff, add the meat back in.

Don't touch it.

Unless you have a blazing professional burner, your food needs time against the wok. Put it in, leave it for a bit, mix it some more.

Fish Sauce & Chinese Sausage

They add great flavour.

If it all seems complicated, it really isn't. Use day old rice & give it lots of heat.

Here are a couple of recipes that give further detail and have great explanations:

Shrimp Fried Rice on Steamy Kitchen
Secrets to Cooking the Best Chinese Fried Rice on Steamy Kitchen
Chinese Fried Rice on Rasa Malaysia


Sure you can use it for other cooking.  They are pretty ballistic.


I'm no expert in the matter, but the only use I was really able to find is to make Koko Samoa.

This blog I found to be very informative on the subject: https://chocolateclass.wordpress.com/2015/05/13/koko-samoa-simple-recipe-complex-history/

Basically, you shave the cocoa in small pieces, and infuse in hot water, add some sweetness, and you get a nice drink that you serve hot!

Here's a video explaining: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3wjufJUBhI

And according to this company, that sells that product, you can make large batches and reheat the next day: http://www.kingkoko.com/recipes.html

Interestingly, their website have a "recipes" section containing only a single recipe for koko samoa. Which encourages me to say that product doesn't have a lot other practical uses.


Cured meat should not be emitting methane- or any other flammable gas. That would be an indicator of advanced spoilage and you would notice the smell.

A more likely culprit, in my opinion, would be fat.

Fat burns well, of course, and sausage is full of it. Tiny splatters of fat can become aerosolized and travel a good distance where they would ignite on the burner.


Since your recipe only calls for a tablespoon, I am inferring this is toasted sesame oil, which is used for its strong and lovely flavor.

There really are no good substitutes for this purpose.

I would recommend investing in the bottle, which kept in the refrigerator should last a long time, and will bring flavor to many dishes.

If you choose not to do that, I would simply omit the sesame oil, although your dish will lack certain depth and complexity the oil brings.


How much salt should I put in a vegetable stew?

Salt is very much an individual thing. Luckily, you can always add more if needed.

The only rule of thumb I can think of is to add a little, taste, and see if it needs more.

I would also suggest sweating the vegetables before adding water, with some salt on them. Brings out the flavours better, thus needing less salt overall for flavour.


Spoiled buttermilk wouldn't give a metallic aftertaste, but I wouldn't expect old baking mix to do so either.

I would suspect that your box of bisquick is either contaminated, or you may have gotten a bad box. Sometimes manufacturing processes don't go right, so it might be that your box got far too big a portion of baking powder, or some other component of the mix. In the manufacturing process all the ingredients are supposed to be well mixed but it isn't unheard of for a clod to make it through the process intact. I'd throw the box out.


It happens more-or-less naturally. Most legumes have a seed structure with two large cotyledons that serve as storage reserves for the developing embryo, which is nestled between them at one edge of the whole structure. This is easily visible in the peanut (which is botanically a legume and not a true nut):

The outer pod that splits open serves to protect the seeds. Each of the "nuts" inside is a whole seed. On the left is one with the outer coat intact (very thin and papery for peanuts, but often substantially tougher for other beans) and on the right is a split nut. This is a single cotyledon or "lobe" with the small embryo (which looks almost like a separate seed) visible at its left tip.

If you look closely, other culinary legumes share this same structure; even lentils have a tiny seed visible at one edge. The lobes meet against each other with flat edges and will separate easily once the legume is dried. They can still be held together by the outer skin or coat, which varies in thickness; beans tend to have thicker coats, lentils much thinner ones. Once the coat is removed by peeling or rubbing, the dried legume will separate easily into halves with additional quick rubbing or tumbling. This in turn increases the surface area and allows the legume to cook more quickly.


How do I pick artichokes for deep frying?

Although they may be using a different variety of artichoke, the results shouldn't vary too drastically. Ones descending from the italian varieties are often also purple in colour and will have a similar flavour

Selecting artichokes

Squeeze the artichoke. You're looking for it to be firm and dense, indicating it is moist inside.
You actually want the centre leaves to be compacted, indicating they are freshest.
Try and break a leaf off, if it snaps satisfyingly then the artichoke is most likely fresh.
Rub the leaves and check that they squeak, another sign they are moist.
During winter, try and find ones with white blisters on its leaves as the slight bit of frost causing this improves the flavour.


Leave the caramel to cool further, as the thickness should increase as it cools.  Once it is at the required thickness, you can drip ropes of caramel on to the apple to make a drip effect.  Alternatively have a separate thicker caramel to make the drip effect.

This is can be seen as a sugar work/pulled sugar technique.  Also it woudl be recommended to do this in advance to allow the caramel to fully harden.  Note: temperature and humidity can affect the caramel.


What's the best pasta, and cooking approach, for making pasta salad?

I mostly use spirelli in pasta salads, but other thicker pasta works as well. I just cook them in a good amount of water (with salt/oil), nothing fancy really. But don't cook them too long or they will be too soft and not tasty.

I don't know about the packages in your country, but here, the time is always too short (you hardly can call it al dente), so if you cook it the time written plus one additional minute, you have the perfect time for pasta salad pasta :)

But it is of course a question of taste, so I would recommend to vary cooking times and see what you like best.


It would be helpful if you would post a full recipe as that would eliminate fruitless suggestions. Two things come to mind:

If the onions are included raw, you should wrap the chopped onions in a towel and wring the 'juice' out.
Acid of some kind could help too, either exchange sour cream for the cream cheese or find a way to incorporate lemon/lime juice.


What is a better-tasting substitute for baking powder?

You might look at what the specific chemical agents are in your baking powder; it's possible that you have one that uses sodium acid pyrophosphate, which can leave a bitter taste.

Some people avoid the various aluminum based ones, as they can give a metallic taste, but it's likely preferable to bitter.

You can use baking soda and an acid, but it'll then be single-acting (it won't give a second rise when heated), which might affect your baked goods, particularly if you don't get it straight into the oven after mixing.


Making pickles using dill weed: ideas for containing the particles?

The tea filter idea works well and is exactly what I would propose.

You can buy ready-made paper or fabric tea filters that are smaller than coffee filters and more porous. If you want to use metal filters, make sure they are not reactive (like stainless steel) or they can influence the taste of the finished product.

Put your herbs in a filter bag, tie off the opening and put it into the container of your pickles. If you need a lot of herbs, you should use several tea filters, each filled with 2 teaspoons of herbs.


Using a food-processor to beat scrambled eggs is going to over-beat them. Over-beaten eggs will turn rubbery.

  The American Egg Board describes well-beaten eggs as "frothy and evenly colored." This generally takes about 20 to 35 seconds of beating - do not over beat. You want to get them to a uniform color and texture with minimal amounts egg white showing. A fork works as well as a wire whisk but requires a slight bit more time and more energy. Use a bowl that is deep enough to support vigorous whisking.
   - What's Cooking America

To make the perfect French omelet, America's Test Kitchen counts (yes, at that even I rolled my eyes) precisely 80 turns of the whisk. The object being to thoroughly mix the eggs while allowing the curds to be creamy when formed. Over-mixing the eggs makes the curds dry and rubbery.

Tell your uncle that sophisticated cooks use a whisk or a fork. Once the eggs are in the pan, you can look really sophisticated by stirring with chopsticks.


How to make crispy chicken wings like KFC?

Some general tips.

Use a deep fryer ( or a large cast iron skillet with less oil; have a proper thermometer to help you keep the oil temperature stable (250°-300°F)

Don't overcrowd the skillet, 2, 3 pieces max per batch.

The chicken should not be too cold when cooking it (because the time the inside will be cooked, the outside will be burned) get it out of the fridge a little bit in advance.

Prepare a simple egg-wash and a mix of flour and spices and salt/pepper (experiment to find what you like)

Put the chicken pieces in the egg-wash, transfer to the flour mix, coat well, remove excess flour ; then back again in the egg-wash and again in the flour mix.

Then you can let it rest a little while (10 minutes) while the oil gets hot.

Fry the chicken 10, 12 minutes until the exterior gets to a nice golden color; take one piece out and check the doneness (temperature and/or visual clues).

Transfer to paper to absorb some of the excess oil.

eat it.


What quantity of baking powder satisfies a mass of size x?

About 5g baking powder per 150g flour, or about 1tsp of baking powder per US Cup of flour (Source: Michael Ruhlman's Ratio app.) That will work for most chemically leavened batters, quick breads, pancakes, etc. This is a guideline, not a rule.
Sometimes more leavening is desirable— you might want a slightly puffier quick bread and you're using a dough with enough protein to handle it. Maybe you want less because you've got a batter that doesn't stay together on something you're frying.

Unless you're planning on doing some workshopping, I recommend using an existing proven recipe to get a good ratio of ingredients. After a while, you'll get a better idea of how much leeway you've got with each variable in the technique.


What type of sherry is typically used when cooking?

Cream sherry is very sweet - likely too sweet for most recipes that don't explicitly mention it.

If a recipe simply calls for "sherry", it usually means dry sherry, as that's the most common kind of available.  In fact, I don't think I've ever even seen "very dry" around here.  So I would definitely stick with the dry.

As for brand, if you see several different bottles all labeled sherry, I don't think it matters too much which one you pick - at least if you're using it for cooking and not drinking.

P.S. If you're using this as a substitute for rice wine, the commonly-accepted substitute is indeed dry sherry.


Components:

sweet -> sugar+mirin (rice wine)
salt -> soy
savory -> soy+mirin+eel bones

At home, you probably won't be able to manage eel bones boiled down into stock. Ignoring that, it's all a matter of mixing and reducing.

Sugar+soy+mirin, reduce to 1/3, revel in the joy of caramel and salt and sharpness.


Legend has it that the inventor of the ring shaped donut with a hole came up with the idea because he was dissatisfied with the raw centre of regular donuts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doughnut#History_in_the_U.S.

Having done quite a few doughnut experiments recently, it's true that having shapes where the distance from the centre to the surface is smaller increases your chances of properly cooked doughnuts. So toroids make sense, but then so would thin cylinders.

You can however, fry up donuts will no hole, that are cooked all the way through. Look at Berliners or jam-filled doughnuts.


You say you know what to cook in a Hot Pot and confirm that this product is identified on the body as a 'Hot Pot', but I think the issue may be that 'Hot Pot' means different things in different cuisines.
Where I come from a Hot pot is a lamb, potato and onion dish which is slow cooked in an oven. In East Asia it is a soup that simmers on the table while you cook morsels of ingredients in the broth. In India/South Asia, it is a vessel designed to keep cooked food warm until it is needed some hours later.

I suspect you were looking for a vessel suitable for the East Asian Hot Pot but what you have is an Indian Hot Pot.

This short advertising video includes a model called a ‘dome hot pot’ which looks very similar to the one you have., and the video description call these ‘insulated casseroles’.

I can’t find explicit product details for an insulated hot pot with a ‘foot’ design, but insulated or double walled hot pots are for keeping food warm, not for cooking it. As an example here’s a Q&A for a flat based version on amazon.co.uk

Also from Attila brand hot pot on Amazon:

  Do not place the Attila Hot Pot on hot surfaces or near open fire

So, if I am correct and you have an insulated casserole, I would recommend you only use it to keep food warm, and do not place it on a stove.

Indicators that it is an insulated casserole/hot pot would be:
- Indian origin
- lock/clip lid to keep food tightly sealed
- thick side walls and lid indicating two layers of metal with vacuum or insulation between.


Liquid made with cream and penicillium roqueforti?

I honestly doubt that growing blue mould in cream for a few days will have much effect, but why not try, it won't harm you either.

Why is it not going to work? Mould needs oxygen to grow. When making blue cheese (or generally cheese with "internal" mould), holes are punched through the curd to create air channels to supply the mould with oxygen. A Wikipedia image of Gorgonzola clearly shows how the mould grows around one of these punch holes. You can also see how the mould only grows around other natural cracks in the curd, while there are large solid areas of cheese with no visible sign of mould at all.

If you don't do this and the curd is without naturals cracks, the mould will only grow on the cheese surface, like for example on a Camembert.

If you soak a piece of blue cheese in cream, some spores may of course dissolve and reach the surface, but they will only be able to grow on the cream's surface. Another problem is that Penicillium roqueforti is not growing particularly fast. Roquefort is for example ripened at least four months under ideal conditions, so just a few days will not allow much growth.

Why is it not going to harm you? Using harmless or perhaps even beneficial moulds like Penicillium roqueforti to prepare food is not only done for the taste, but also for their preserving functions. Or more precisely, different species of mould tend to fight each other, so seeding food with a "good" mould will prevent the growth of "bad" mould. Anyway, cream will get sour and taste bad long before dangerous amounts of mould would grow.


Why does ice form mostly on one side of frozen sliced bread?

Your freezer causes this, as your experiment has shown.

Freezers don't magically cool down their contents, like ovens have a heat source, freezers have a "cold source", so in your case the back cools / freezes first, encouraging condensation and subsequently the formation of ice crystals on the colder parts. If your freezer has an auto-defrost cycle, this may contribute as well.


Without knowing what you have available, it's difficult to give a recommendation.  The common substitutions are:

a blend of all purpose and cake flours (either 50:50, or 5:3 favoring the cake flour)
a blend of all purpose flour and cornstarch.  (2TB starch to a scant 1 cup of flour)

The first one will give you closer to what you're looking for.  The second one might not be quite as tender.


why is cooking in oil or fat considered dry heating?

Oil is dry heat because oil contains no water.  Wine does.

The "moist" in moist heat really means water.  In moist heat cooking, water acts as a solvent and actually dissolves much of the solid matter in the food - hence the reason why steaming and boiling tend to make food rather soft or even soggy.

Oil, on the other hand, is very rarely a solvent.  There are certain food compounds that are fat-soluble, but most are water-soluble and oil, being hydrophobic, actually blocks any contact with water, thus preventing any dissolution, and generally making the food crispier as well as promoting the Maillard reaction (which can only occur with dry heat, due to the low boiling point of water).

It may seem counterintuitive, but oil isn't wet.  It just looks that way.


What are the differences between using whole wheat flour vs. all purpose flour in batter for frying?

Just as with kneading, stirring develops the gluten in the flour. over-mixing batter is a culinary no-no (fr. non-non). Batters are frequently rested in the refrigerator so the gluten can relax. Foods fried in batter that has been overworked and deprived of adequate rest is like a chef exposed to the same conditions–tough and tired.

Whole wheat flour has considerable difficulty developing its gluten potential because when the outer coat (bran) is ground up and combined with the starchy endosperm, sharp particles of bran chop up the strands of gluten as they attempt to form. So the very quality that makes whole wheat flour such a 'pain' in the ass for bread making makes it highly useful for batters.

Whole wheat has practically become my default flour. It's fine for dusting food articles on their way to the sauté pan, and for making roux. But bear in mind that you may need to use a little more roux than before to achieve a given degree of thickening. That's because the bran coat displaces a small portion of the starchy endosperm.


Used Pan.... Old Oil.... Can this pose a risk before washing?

It is highly unlikely that your pan will pose danger of botulism.

The botulinum bacteria doesn't live in oil, it lives in plant matter which is cut off from air. This is why storing plants (garlic, spices and the like) for a long time under oil is dangerous. But the oil by itself is not the medium in which the bacteria can grow, it is only needed as an airless buffer between their actual medium (the plant) and the environment.

Even if you had fried plants (e.g. potatoes) in that oil, it wouldn't have been much of a problem. The bacteria's spores can easily survive home canning temperatures, but they are only slightly higher than 100 Celsius, even in a pressure cooker. But when you fry in that oil, you use at least 180 Celsius; in my experience, home cooks (myself included) are prone to letting the temperature get a bit too hot, frequently over 200 Celsius. Combined with the fact that any crumbles left after frying are probably charred, so too low moisture to support the bacteria, I can't imagine a colony establishing itself.

Lastly, the toxin itself is much easier to destroy by heat than the spores. In the very unlikely event of contamination, the spores will die on your sink and other dishes, because they will be in contact with air. If you are still nervous, fill your sink, together with the dishes, with just-boiled water. The toxin itself is neutralized after 10 minutes at 80 celsius.


Is there a general algorithm for calculating the amount of yeast while making bread?

There are many variables that determine how fast bread will rise: The type and quantity of yeast, how much of that yeast is viable, temperature, water content, water availability, acidity, etc.

A Note about water availability
Some ingredients, especially sugar, compete with the yeast for the water in the bread. Dough with a lot of sugar will rise more slowly compared to a less sweet dough with the same quantity of water.
While I have not read that fat affects water availability, keep in mind that butter is 16-17% water.

If you wanted a chart or algorithm it would need to include all these variables for a desired rise time. Even then, it would be difficult to control all the variables and the rise time would not always be identical. It would be difficult to predict without experimentation. I have seen charts for a single variable vs time but these are intended for understanding the variable- not predicting rise time.

Bread making is more flexible. Recipes will call for the dough to double in volume- no matter how long that takes.

However,

As you noted in your question, there is no correct quantity of yeast. More yeast will simply act more quickly. You may want to finish a bread faster and use more yeast. On another day, you may want to maximize flavor, use less yeast and ferment for longer. Either can produce excellent, but different, bread.

Besides tested recipes, there are charts that can be used as a starting point when you are creating a new recipe.
For example from Cooks.com:

I would consider this chart reasonable, however, in my standard sandwich bread recipe I use approximately half this much yeast. In my regular, overnight-risen, artisan recipe I use even less than that.


I suggest you avoid putting hot liquids in any of the Ninja blenders that do not allow air to leave the blending vessel. Models like Nutra Ninja Pro, for example. When you blend a hot liquid in a closed system, it creates a lot of pressure and you can easily make a mess or injure yourself with flying hot liquids.

We are not health experts, so I cannot comment on leeching chemicals beyond pointing you to fact that Ninja claims their products are BPA free. For details beyond that, I suggest contacting the manufacturer and asking for their recommendations in regards to hot liquids.


Why does my bread ferment in the middle?

I have marked George M's answer as the accepted answer, but I thought I would post a slightly expanded answer.

I can confirm that the following ideas that  were raised in the comments did not work:

Hotter oven
Cooking longer
Cooling completely

What has worked is to wrap the bread completely in a tea towel or two until completely cool. Then, the bread stays really fresh for at least a day.

I also found that bread thus cooled can be placed in the bread bin still wrapped in the tea towel, and it doesn't rot.


How to make a chocolate fudge/syrup sauce that does not freeze?

Alcohol Sugar Fat. Your recipe needs to be more of those and less of water; just like an ice cream.

I had luck with agave syrup as a base (maple or cornsyrup?) that I tested by freezing; when I was satisfied by my choice, I melted in chocolate and additional fat (good coconut oil I think).

Certainly won't be fudgy outside of freezer so finding a recipe is tricky...

Have a look also at that ice cream topping chocolate hard-shell. It has a super low melting point with its high fat content. Wouldn't take much more sugar in the form of a syrup to make it fudgy.


Can you estimate how long it takes to reduce a liquid?

If you're boiling something rapidly, and it's not in a terribly deep, narrow pot, then essentially all of the heat output of the burner is going into turning water into steam. The latent heat of vaporization of water is 2260 kJ/kg, so if you want to reduce something by a volume V, and your stove has power P, the time required is:

t = V * (1 g/mL) * (2260 J/g) / P

If V happens to be in mL, and P is in W (J/s):

t (s) = V / P * 2260

This would be modified slightly if you're using a really tall, skinny pot, since the convection within the pot, from the bottom to the top of the liquid, would be less efficient, with more heat transferred to the sides of the pot and out into the air, but I doubt you're actually going to try to reduce something like that. The P here is the effective power; for example, a gas burner wastes a lot of heat out the sides, so the advertised power will be higher. See TFD's answer for approximate efficiencies.

If you don't know the power of your stove, in all honesty, the easiest way to measure it would probably be to just see how long it takes to boil away a given volume of water, and work backwards. To get an accurate result, you should not boil a pot dry - once the water is a thin enough layer, the heat transfer might start working differently, with the pot itself heating up more, and water splattering. So you could, for example, put in a liter of water, boil away at the stove setting you intend to measure until it's substantially reduced in volume, record the time, then pour it out to measure how much you boiled away. At this point, knowing the power output might be overkill, though; you can really just measure the time per volume reduction, and use that, unless you care about the power for other reasons.

Trying to deduce the power of the stove from, say, the temperature of an empty pot or of the burner without a pot on it (assuming it's electric) would be difficult; you'd have to deal with the heat transfer between metal and air, and the convection in the air.

Dependence on ingredients shouldn't be significant - you're still just boiling water, unless there's a substantial amount of alcohol, in which case the latent heat of vaporization will be different. Pure alcohol has a latent heat of vaporization of 841 kJ/kg; I haven't found a good table for mixtures.

For solutions, as I noted in the comments, the latent heat of vaporization should be that of water, plus/minus the heat of solution of the solutes (I forget which direction that's measured in). The most common solutes are probably salt and sugar, which have heats of solution of 70 and 16 J/g, respectively. (I found this table, and converted.) The next most common thing I could think of that might be present in substantial concentrations is citric acid; this paper reports a heat of solution of -57 J/g. In all these cases it's small compared to the latent heat of vaporization of water, so pretending the liquid is water should be a good approximation. It's possible that things change if you're reducing really far: heat of solution does depend on concentration. That is, things are different thermodynamically (statistical mechanically?) in a nearly-saturated sugar syrup than in slightly sweet water.


Does saturated fat result in crispier fried food?

Having looked into this a bit, I have some hints for an answer. I'm still not convinced I understand the full mechanism, so any feedback is welcome here.
I think some of my sources might be paywalled; apologies for anyone unable to access them.

Reading a few studies on the effects of different variables on the outcome of deep frying (specifically potato chips), I found the following information.

Oils higher in saturated fats are more 'stable', that is, they show less change in chemical composition when heated (3).
Hydrogenated vegetable oil in one test (1) provided the crispiest results when compared to refined soya bean and groundnut (peanut) oils. The difference got bigger with increasing temperature, suggesting the stability of the more saturated oils has some effect.
This last point is corroborated by (2), who showed that the difference between different oils is biggest at higher temperatures.

The results from (1) in particular support the idea that more saturated oils result in crispier foods. The question why still remains unanswered, however.

Side notes:

While (1) found that the hydrogenated vegetable oil produced the crispiest results, people on average preferred chips fried in peanut oil.

Sources:

M. Rani and G.S. Chauchan, Effect of intermittent frying and frying medium on ihe quality of potato chips; Food Chemistry, 51 (1995), pp. 614-617.
A. Kita , G. Lisińska and G. Gołubowska, The effects of oils and frying temperatures on the texture and fat content of potato crisps; Food Chemistry
Volume 102, Issue 1, 2007, Pages 1-5.
E. Choe AND D.B. Min, Chemistry of deep‐fat frying oils. Journal of food science 72.5 (2007): R77-R86.


Yes, your honey started to ferment.
I assume the fermenting process is still fresh as you mention the honey taste didn't changed (later it change taste to beer-like). With time yeast can produce alcohol or vinegar from carbs in honey.

You can still use this honey for baking or making mead. Unfortunately the only way to stop the process it to heat honey to 80C to kill yeast.

The fermentation in honey can be due to gathering honey too soon so there's to high amount of water in it or not properly creaming it.


How should the smoke appear in the exhaust in a kettle charcoal grill

I don't usually pay attention to the color of the smoke. Just don't put anything on the grill/smoker until the charcoal has turned white or gray. This allows them to reach proper temperature as well as burn off and chemicals used to start the fire. If smoking, soak the wood chips or chunks first. They will burn slower and give off smoke longer, which is a good thing for consistent flavoring. A thick white smoke will be given off after first putting on the wood, then slow as the wood burns off. I prefer to keep the smoke less and cook at lower temps for longer periods, as the smoke gets deeper into the meat as opposed to thick on the outside.


Why does unsweetened tea get colder, faster than sweet tea?

TL;DR = The sweet tea takes longer to cool down because there is a lot more stuff in it to get cold.

When cooling unsweetened tea, you are cooling almost pure water (the tea solids are negligible). A 12 ounce glass of unsweetened tea has about, you guessed it, 12 oz (by weight) of liquid to cool, or 340 grams (mass).

Southern-style sweet tea (if this is the "sweet tea" you are referring to), has a 2:1 ratio (by volume) of tea to sugar. A 12 ounce glass of sweet tea has 12 oz (by weight) of tea, and 5-6 ounces of sugar (by weight - 8 oz of sugar by volume = ~7 oz by weight). This puts the total weight of the beverage at 18 ounces or 510 grams (by mass).

The sweet tea, in this example, has 50% MORE mass than the unsweetened tea! This extra mass will take more time to cool down, because there is a lot more STUFF to get cold. It occupies the same volume, but there are a LOT more molecules to chill.

Compounding factors:

Heat Capacity vs. Specific Heat: A detail to this is that a solution of sugar and water has a lower specific heat (by MASS unit) than pure water, so the total heat capacity of the sweet tea is not quite 150% of the heat capacity of the unsweetened tea, but somewhere between 100% and 150%. Intuition would put it somewhere in the 130%-140% range. Read the physics.SE question linked above for some details on that calculation. Rest assured, however, that the heat capacity of the sucrose solution is higher than pure water.
Conductivity: I've ignored the thermal conductivity of the solution, since I'm assuming that the stirring in the tea makes the small conductivity differences between the solutions negligible, but that calculation could be done as well.
Convection: Unstirred sweet tea will experience less convection than unstirred unsweetened tea. In the unstirred sweet tea, dense sucrose solution will remain at the bottom while the cold water from the melting ice will sit on the surface (you can actually see this visually if the tea is sufficiently colored). This slows cooling by slowing the mixing of the cold liquid with the warm liquid. In unsweetened tea the cool liquid will sink the bottom, promoting convection and self-mixing. However, convection is a side-issue to the primary point, the total heat capacity of the beverage.

And as a final note, explanations like this really make it obvious how annoying it is that US measurements use ounces for both volume AND weight.


Why should i add the butter after i knead the main ingredients when making a bread?

In a yeast-risen bread, like the banana bread video you linked to, it's important that the liquids in the recipe are allowed to properly hydrate the flour particles. This is so that the gluten proteins present in wheat flour can start to develop the gluten network needed to contain the gases produced by the yeast. If you add fats such as oil or butter along with the other wet ingredients, they can coat the flour particles and prevent them from getting the moisture they need.


Corn (Maize) is clearly a cereal grain, and not any of the other things you mention. Even the farmers and agricultural agencies consider it a grain - it's one of the "official grains of Canada" and regulated by the Canadian grain commission.

I'm not sure when or why it started being called a vegetable, but as far as the culinary definition goes, it has far too much sugar and starch to fall properly into that category. The typical culinary definition of a vegetable is savory, not sweet.

Botanically, the kernels can be considered a type of fruit called a caryopsis (AKA a grain), although it's not normally eaten as fruit (for one thing, it's normally cooked).

It may accompany vegetables reasonably well, just like rice or many other grains. But it is a grain.


How to make a passion fruit mousse without gelatin?

There are two things you can do to make the mousse stiffer:

Reduce the water from the fruit. So use some kind of concentrate instead of the pure fruit. For example, you could cook down a syrup or jam and add it to the mousse. Or see if dehydrating juice gets you somewhere.
Use more fat. Instead of whipping cream at 30 to 35% fat, you could use double-cream at 45%, or a mix of cream and mascarpone. Or fold whipped cream (for aeration) and some cooked down passion fruit into something even stiffer. Maybe base it off a whipped white chocolate ganache.


Can I turn my marinara sauce recipe into "pizza sauce"?

You will need to be careful about extra liquid in your sauce.   Your base recipe should be adaptable.  Go ahead and use the garlic and onion, but I would omit the white wine.  If you are using canned whole tomatoes, drain liquid before using them.  Simmer it to reduce it down until it is "spreadable" rather than "pour-able".

We make a lot of home-made pizza sauce with canned whole San Marzano tomatoes, drained and puree'd in blender.  Salt, pepper, garlic and a few spices.  My husband loves bright red color in the sauce so a bit of citric acid does the trick.

Enjoy your pizza.


This was covered in one of the early episodes of Good Eats, Crustacean Nation.  From the transcript of the episode :

  As soon as they are off the boat, shrimp tails—called 'green shrimp' in the biz.—are sized or sorted into various weight counts. The higher the number, the smaller the shrimp. Sixties-seventies, for instance, have 60 to 70 tails per pound, which is pretty small. A pound of 26-30s contain at least 26 but not more than 30 tails. Twenty one-twenty fives are larger and 16-20s larger still. The biggest have a U in front of the number signifying that there are less than that number per pound. There are, for instance, 12 or less shrimp in a pound of U-12s.

  Now, there are still a lot of shops out there selling on adjectives like jumbo, medium, colossal. Not only are these terms not standardized or controlled, it's tough to even find 2 fishmongers who will agree on them. So, if your market doesn't sell by the weight count feel free to quote Mr. Big who told James Bond in Live and Let Die, "Names is for tombstones, baby."   Of course, I guess those are tombstones, aren't they?


Mustard can be used, but it might have a lot of vinegar in it and can clash with whatever you are doing.

Maybe try doing something with mustard powder instead of prepared mustared.

You could try, if you are luck to get some real fresh Wasabi roots; that would be close to the perfect substitution.


Making yogurt I put the yogurt in before heating the milk

Add more yogurt. When you heated the mix up, you killed the bacteria that was going to ferment your milk for you, so, they should be inert. Then, you just add another shot of bacteria to start the culture after your mix cooled down.


Can I use mascarpone as a substitute for cream cheese?

Yes, that should be fine, but bear in mind that cream cheese has a sharper, subtle cheese taste whereas mascarpone is more or less triple cream, and thus milder. If you want that sharp taste, perhaps add just a little lemon juice with your mascarpone.


You have overcooked the seasoning. I have done this once or twice too. Especially smooth surfaces (e.g. carbon steel) are very prone to this problem, unlike rough cast iron.

What you want is not a dark layer. The layer will darken with time and start looking like usual. But on a freshly seasoned metal utensil, the layer should be yellow-brownish. The stove may be too hot for this, especially a gas stove, I do my pans in the oven, for maybe an hour at 200 Celsius or somewhat lower. A burner under thin metal can cause hot spots of much higher local temperature, where the oil chars instead of polymerising.

There is also the type of oil you use. Generally, unsaturated oils polymerise easiest, but the final layer stays somewhat sticky. Saturated fat can give you some more trouble, but will have a smoother finish. I do multiple layers, starting with 1-2 layers of flaxseed oil - this gives a good basis, it is so unsaturated it can practically dry out by itself in the air - and finishing with cocos fat or lard, again 1 or 2 layers. For the first few time in a new pan, I try to fry with saturated fat too, for your wok you will probably find that the taste of cocos fat has a good harmony with Asian dishes.

And a word to the cleaning before: Vinegar was not such a good idea. Woks are made from reactive metals (that's why they need seasoning) and metals react with acid. Using acid to clean naked reactive metal will result in invisibly small pockets of reaction products on the surface of the wok, mostly rust. You can do this as an early step in cleaning, but afterwards you have to use something to make sure you have removed this too. To peel off the seasoning before reseasoning, you are much better off using a base, as it does not react with the metal. This will ensure that the new seasoning sticks to the metal itself and not to impurities which can be dislodged over time.


Altering cake batter amount- how to adjust oven temp/baking time?

Whenever you make a cake deeper you risk of a denser cake for a couple of reasons. The first is because the lift you get from the action of the leavening agents and expansion of air and steam will be partially offset by the increased weight that needs to be pushed up. Second, you may lose more lift than a thinner cake because the center of the cake will take longer to crystallize - it may start to sag back down before it hardens up.

Because it takes longer to cook the center of a thicker cake the outside of your cake might be more overcooked than it would with a thinner cake.

How much of a difference this actually makes is very hard to say, it depends on the recipe and other factors. Most cake recipes are pretty flexible, so there's no reason you can't make it thicker and get a good result. You'll want to reduce temperature and increase cooking time, how much is hard to say, I'd try decreasing your temperature by 15F, and as a guide add at least 10 minutes to the cooking time.

To take the guesswork out of it I would suggest using an instant read thermometer to check if it is done rather than a toothpick or skewer, the cake will be done between 205-210F.


Can I purify / kill germs in a water to make it drinkable by putting it in a freezer?

The answer, briefly, is no -- freezing will not make your water safe to drink.

Freezing does damage living cells, mostly because water expands when freezing, and ice crystals can break the cell walls.  Thus, some bacteria will be killed by freezing.  And many larger organisms (e.g., parasites, pests) will often be killed by freezing.  Long-term freezing can increase the number of bacteria killed further.

However, freezing does NOT sterilize food or liquids.  It may decrease the number of bacteria present, and it will generally prevent them from multiplying.  But it is not an acceptable way of purifying water acquired from an unsafe source, because many harmful bacteria will generally still survive.  Also, many microorganisms have spore forms which can survive freezing much more easily and reactivate when thawed.

If your goal is to kill off most microorganisms, boiling may be an easy alternative (and may even require less energy use than freezing).  However, be aware that boiling will generally not affect the levels of any dissolved chemicals that could also render the water unsafe.


Why does a white sauce (bechamel,veloute) sometimes turn grey?

Cook ware is the number one item to look at.  Aluminum pots/pans will cause a greying to your sauce if they are not clad in stainless steel.  You'll get a reaction with acids and the aluminum that will cause disclouration to a light coloured sauce.

Aluminum gives great heat conduction for the dollar but is reactive.  That's why you'll see so many present day aluminum pans will be aluminum cored with a steel outer to stop that reaction but give the rapid heat transfer.


How does one know if one can eat raw saltwater fish?

Because you know you have previously frozen the fish.
A lot of shop bought "fresh" fish is likely to have been frozen and defrosted, before sale. Often there is legislation about freezing fish if it is to be eaten raw.
Note that home freezers may not be as effective as commercial freezers and blast freezers so you may need to keep the fish frozen for a few days and it may help if it is sliced thinly so that it cools faster.
Some background info

FDA Detailed Advice That is an 8 page pdf download on parasites in fish. It does open as a viewable tab in my browser (Firefox).
How to Enjoy Sushi Without Getting Infested With Parasites A shorter general answer. Includes reminder you may need to freeze it for a week to be safe.
Rules in my country [England] requiring freezing of fish intended to be eaten raw.


What's the recommended temperature for chocolate to set?

The recommended temperature is 20°C. This is 12 to 13 degrees Celsius difference to the actual chocolate temperature. 1-2 degrees deviation will not be a problem, but more than that and you will get subpar results.

This temperature should ideally be the same on all sides of the new chocolate shape. This means, if you are covering something in chocolate, you also have to balance the temperature of the surrounding air, the covered thing ("core"), and the chocolate. In this case, you also ideally have 20° covered thing, 20° air and 33° chocolate. But if you really have a deviation, you should try to at least have air and core at the same temperature, so 22-33-22 is better than 18-33-22.

I also once wrote an answer which adds detail from an article on tempering truffle couverture, you can find it at this question.


Will mechanical blending denature alpha amylase / glucoamylase?

There are three ways in which a protein can be denatured:

Chemically (for example, the 'cooking' of protein like fish by acid, as in ceviche).
Through heat.
Through mechanical force.

I will assume that in your situation, chemical denaturation does not occur.
From a quick search through some scientific literature, mechanical protein denaturation is a fairly new research topic. I found an MSc thesis that lists three experimental techniques for mechanical denaturation: optical tweezers, magnetic tweezers, and force mode AFM (atomic force microscopy). All these methods act on a single protein molecule, grabbing it at two ends and 'stretching' it, which denatures the protein.
While it is possible that your stick blender denatures some proteins mechanically, but it seems unlikely to have a large effect. It seems much more likely that the blending is causing your mixture to heat up above the denaturation temperature through friction. This could also explain your inconsistent results, if you do not always reach this temperature.
A good test is given in mbjb's comment: blend the oats first, let the mixture cool down if it has warmed up, then gently mix in the amylase. You could measure the mixture's temperature throughout the process if you want more information, potentially comparing it to amylase's denaturation temperature (which I could not quickly find, but you might be able to).
PS. in response to your comment: the enzyme reaction process will be sped up by temperature (where warmer means faster, until you get to the denaturation regime) and proper mixing. I see no other mechanical advantages of blending in the amylase using a stick blender.


Are mung beans grown in Japan or North America?

I don't know any sources in Canada, but you can buy mung beans grown in Oregon or California fairly easily.


Troubleshooting Soft and Mushy Oven Fries

I would guess that the rice flour is the culprit. The flour is absorbing the cold olive oil before the oil is able to fry it. If you were deep frying, the hot oil would crisp the flour before it was able to absorb the oil.

Whoever wrote the recipe was probably adapting a recipe for traditional fries to work in an oven and forgot to leave out the flour. Luckily rice flour is completely flavorless, so doing away with it shouldn't affect the taste at all.


How can I get a very thick or viscous paste (e.g. caramel, ganache, thick mayonnaise) into small-necked squeeze bottles without heating it up?

What about a piping bag?  Fill the bag with a spatula, pipe into the bottle.


How to effectively drain frozen vegetables?

You can't drain them while they're frozen.  If you need to use them quickly, consider thawing them in the microwave, then draining them.

As for how to drain them, it depends on the type of vegetable.  Greens like spinach should be squeezed out.  Chunky vegetables should be drained in a colander and then dried with a towel.

Some of the water you get may be coming from inside the vegetables, though, in which case it's still going to come out only when cooking.  In that case, the only solution is not to overcrowd the pan.


Can adding too much sauce and ingredients to fried rice make it too salty?

Yes, absolutely! Sauces can have loads of salt, it all depends on how much you added. You have to look at your ingredients to find the source of the salt in your dish, and then reduce one or more of them:

Rice: often rice is cooked with salt, if your rice is salty to begin with then adding other salty ingredients could make it too salty. If you plan to add salty ingredients you can reduce the salt in your rice to compensate
Sriracha: looking at the ingredients on my bottle it has .7 grams salt per 25 grams of sauce. That's almost 3% salt, which may not sound like much but is actually very salty
Hoisin sauce: again looking in my fridge I see that hoisin sauce has 1.6% salt, which is also very salty
chili garlic sauce: this varies but they can be pretty salty

Sausages could be heavily salted, but they wouldn't make the rest of the food salty, and okra isn't a factor.

So it sounds like you added a lot of salty sauces to the rice, next time cook the rice with less salt, reduce the amount of these sauces you use, buy reduces salt versions, or use different spices or sauces.


Difference between Vietnamese and Moroccan preserved lemons?

There's probably not much difference.
There is a fair amount of variation in preparation methods for Vietnamese preserved limes and lemons (chanh muối). The Garden Betty recipe you linked is probably the most common technique - soaking nearly-quartered lemons in heavily salted water for a few weeks - but that may not be the same method used for the $3 jar you found. Sometimes sugar is used in addition to the salt. Like your Moroccon recipe, sometimes no water is added and the salt instead draws juice out of the fruit to supply the preserving liquid. Boiling the lemons before jarring them is very common. I've also heard of other pre-jarring routines like scrubbing them with salt, sugar, and even tea, or letting them partially dry in the sun first. They may also be jarred in different forms, such as thin slices or left whole.
There is also the obvious case of what actual fruit to use. Because of the nature of citrus fruits, there isn't really a clear divide between limes and lemons in the first place, and there are quite a lot of varieties and hybrids that make classification difficult. I live in the US and use Meyer lemons and Key or Persian limes (which themselves are actually lime-lemon hybrids). The Moroccan recipe calls for doqq and boussera, but suggests Meyer lemons if the traditional varieties can't be found. In Vietnam the fruits are called chanh tây and chanh ta, but I'm not actually aware of a definitive conclusion on which one is technically a lime and which one is a lemon.
Overall, I'm not familiar with different spins on the Moroccan approach, but I assume there's a similar range of variance. That said, it seems like it's basically the same process. Besides the choice of fruit - which, outside of Morocco or Vietnam, is probably going to be the same anyway - I think it's safe to say that any differences between the two cultures are indistinguishable from differences between variants within the same culture.
Of course, the easiest thing to do is just spend the $3 and find out how they taste!


As you see from the variety of advise from reputable sources, many combinations of hot/cold roux and liquid will work.

From a convenience point of view, you want at least one of them hot in order to speed the integration.  If you started both of them cold, it would probably work but take a while to warm up to melt the butter in the roux, and free the flour particles to integrate and create the sauce@mdash;and it will won't fully thicken until the mixture is at a boil, so this is inefficient.  You would probably also have to mash and stir more frequently to prevent local burning.

If you start with both hot, it will also work, although you might have to whisk relatively quickly—but who has both a hot base and a hot roux sitting around?  Usually, at least one was prepared in advance, even if only by a few minutes.  Batali is recommending this method, but note that in the professional kitchen, where he lives, time is the most constrained resource, so this is his method of choice.  His line cooks probably have hot roux ready at all times.

A hot roux is easier to scoop and measure.

A hot liquid will quickly melt and dissolve the roux.

But in any case, if the roux is properly made, the starch granules are surrounded by fat, and so are not going to cause lumping in any case, despite Ramsay's advise.  As soon as the mixture is warm enough to melt the butter, the particles are going to move away from one another, and won't be able to clump together before they are hydrated.

So I would not worry about this in the slightest.


Kneading dough with long nails; latex gloves?

Long nails will puncture smooth thin latex gloves (the surgical type) very quickly, especially during something like kneading where the gloves slide against your fingers all the time. Thick latex gloves, like the one for washing dishes, will be more durable, but they are also grippy and a lot of dough will stick. Also, they are usually not food safe.

If you really need something, I guess clear wide plastic gloves, like the ones in hair colorant packs, will work better, but I don't know where you can get them as explicitly food safe.

Personally, I would just knead barehanded. The underside of long nails can be washed just as easily as the upper side, and nobody finds it unhygienic to have the upper side of nails (short or long) touch dough. The real problem would come if you keep short nails and cannot remove the dirt which sticks between the nailtip and the meat of the finger. Long nails are much easier in that regard.


How do I infuse cappuccino with real vanilla bean during brew?

I would go with cutting a small piece of vanilla bean then scrap seeds in milk add vanilla bean skin in with milk as well and steam, the steam will bring out the vanilla flavor.