I've always done a layer of bechamel, pasta, meat, pasta, meat, pasta, meat, pasta, bechamel, cheeses (mozzarella and parmesan, from bottom to top). If you put the cheese in the middle the liquid in it (especially in the mozzarella) won't evaporate and you will have sloppy lasagne.

The other factor is the liquidity of your sauce - a thicker, meatier sauce is better for lasagne so it keeps its shape.


When you set the oven to the required temperature and then close the door and turn it on, pretty soon you will probably see the heating element begin to glow orange from the heat. When the oven is up to the selected temperature, the power to the element should then switch off for a while, and you should be able to see the orange glow diminish and start to fade. That is when the oven is considered "pre-heated". My "big" electric oven (regular size, really) takes about 10 minutes to pre-heat, so your little OTG should be quicker -- maybe 3 to 5 min.(?), but watch the element, or, as Jolenealaska mentions, the indicator light. If it has an indicator light, when the light goes out for a while, it's pre-heated.


One simple change you could make is to simply not mix the squash with the sauce, instead, plate the squash and then pour sauce over the top, the sauce will cool quicker which will reduce the amount that the squash cooks past the point you decided that it was ready.

If the squash still cooks too much on the plate, try starting your sauce earlier and letting it cool so it's warm but not scalding when served.

I wouldn't recommend just taking the squash out before it's done and letting it finish in the sauce, since as it's cooking, it releases water, which would be lost in the oven, but would thin the sauce if it's cooking in the sauce pan.

If you need mix it with the sauce before serving, let the sauce cool to the point where it won't cook the squash further before doing so.


It's called a dry pack canner and the hand crank's seal just as well as the motorized versions. Electric ones go faster and your arm doesn't get as tired.

They are very expensive, especially if you are wanting to seal #10 cans.
http://www.storeitfoods.com/page/drypack


forgot to turn on crock pot for less than 2 hours

When these things happen (and you're still within 2 hrs), you want to get everything heated up as quickly as possible, so it's out of the food danger zone.

See my notes at the bottom of an answer on prepping things the night before on heating things up faster.


Why does a portafilter machine take so long to warm up and a modern machine doesn't?

By portafilter I assume you mean the standard large coffeeshop espresso machine.

The Nespresso is only heating enough water for a single shot, which can be done pretty quickly. I'm pretty sure commercial machines take a long time for that first shot because they're preheating the large reservoir so it's possible to fully heat and pull shot after shot in fairly quick succession once you get going.

So the lag is because the bigger machine is heating a bunch more water--even if it doesn't superheat any more per shot than the Nespresso.

Somebody correct me if I have this all wrong, but that's what I was led to understand.


my 'nuclear option' for cast iron skillets is to put them in a basin of lye solution, and let the pan sit for a week or a month (depending on how fresh and how concentrated the lye solution is.) We keep a plastic basin out back for this. lye is bad stuff, so if you have kids or pets, do please be careful.  The lye, however, will take off anything organic, and bring the skillet back to bare metal (well, some scrubbing may be necessary. use a plastic scrubby). in this condition, the skillet will start to rust instantly. I work as follows: after the four weeks, take the skillet out of the bath, scrub it and hose it off, then immediately pour white vinegar on it: the acidity prevents rusting. Then put it in a 450 F preheated oven for half an hour. Then start the reseasoning process.

As I said, this is the method of last resort.

Here is a photo of a #3 cast iron pan, rolled back to 'year zero' after a few months in a lye solution, next to a seasoned #2 pan. The iron actually looks like metal. In this condition, you can check the surface for pitting, cracks, etc. The vinegar is on hand to prevent rust.


What happens when cheese is melted in a frying pan?

Milk proteins, mostly. And some sugars that have been caramelized.

This is an example of what one chef I know describes as "brown food tastes better," and is much like what happens when you sear a steak on the grill.


How to keep bags from floating in a sous vide supreme

Two things cause bags to fill with air during low temp cooking.  The expansion of air that already exists in a product (typical in vegetable cookery), and gas that results in bacterial growth (a problem with some cuts of meat).  For vegetable cookery weighting helps, but this is almost always an issue unless you compress a really hard vacuum with a commercial machine.  For most home cooks, the best solution is to use zip lock bags, monitor, and then release the air and reseal as it builds up.  For meat cookery, try pre-searing for 20 - 30 seconds per side...or dipping in boiling water to kill off any surface bacteria prior to bagging and cooking low temp.  Also the sous vide supreme comes with a rack to aid in keeping items submerged.  That can help too.


What is the difference between roasting, baking, and broasting?

Traditionally roasting used radiant heat to cook meat. This would have taken place over an open flame, typically on a rotating spit. In modern times this method is now called Rotisserie. Modern roasting refers to dry heat cooking that takes place in an oven, the food is cooked by convection. Until the late 19th century this method was referred to as baking.

Baking is essentially the same as roasting in modern times. Baking most often refers specifically to the cooking of "baked goods" (breads, pastries, etc.). However, the terms baking and roasting are often used interchangeably (baked chicken, roast chicken). There doesn't seem to be a hard and fast rule here as to which term is used. For example, you roast asparagus, turkey, chicken, but bake lasagna, casseroles, and also chicken.

Braising uses a combination of moist and dry heat to cook the food. This is what occurs in a crock pot, or in dutch oven/stock pot in the oven. Your meat will be cooked in an ample amount of seasoned liquid such as wine and/or stock.

Broasting I had never heard of before. According to Wikipedia it's a trademarked method of pressurized deep frying. I doubt this is what you were referring to.


Cooking "steak tips" on the grill - how to avoid making them tough?

Tough meat boils down to 3 factors:

The way it's cooked, the way it's cut and the quality of the meat.

I know this is an old question, but next time you encounter tough meat on the grill, perhaps try pan frying it. If its still tough as rocks, I would question the quality of perhaps that batch of meat, provided it was cut properly.


Purpose of condensed milk in mango ice cream?

The ultimate goal of ice cream is a creamy texture. You could take those same ingredients and freeze them in a paper cup and make a fantastic mango popsicle. Popsicles and slushies are not nearly as magical as ice cream.

Creaminess in ice cream is achieved by keeping the ice crystals as small as possible. The bigger the crystals the more grainy the texture.

There are two good ways to prevent large ice crystals from forming: Reducing the amount of available water and mechanically destroying the crystals. The ice crystals are reduced mechanically by churning or in your recipe by blending- but this is an answer for a different question.

Reduce the amount of available water.
 Many ingredients in ice cream will tie up some of the water and prevent it from coalescing into monolithic crystals.

Alcohol and sugar are used in sorbets
Gums, such as carageenan and xanthan gum, are used in commercial ice cream
Egg custards are used in French style ice cream
Starch gels tie up free water in Italian Gelato
Large quantities of fat

Removing water from the recipe, and sometimes replacing it with fat, will go a long way towards making creamier ice cream.

The condensed milk in your recipe is a convenience. Using milk that has had a lot of the water removed means that there will be more fat and less water in your ice cream. This will make it much easier to make your ice cream creamy.

You could use regular milk but you would be relying on your blender to chop up the large crystals that would inevitably form. If the canned milk is too expensive, and if you have some time, you could reduce your milk yourself and get the same effect.


Sous Vide Beef steaks look overcooked at 59°C and 56.5°C

If your sous vide machine is cooking to the right temperature then your steak is not overdone. That's the beauty of the process, your meat will go up to the temperature you set and no higher. You need to take the temperature of the center of the meat when you take it out. If the temperature of the meat is higher than you set the machine to then something is wrong with your machine. If the temperature is right then that is how the meat looks when cooked, unless you have marinated it or it's getting coloring from something in the bag. Maybe it's old, or hasn't been aged at all.

Different cuts of beef have different textures and colors before and after cooking, and depending on whether the meat has been aged or not, how it was aged if it was, and if it's close to spoilage. It's very hard to say in this case, what you need is data.


Is clouding of lime added water a sign of spoilage?

pectin and other molecules are in the fresh juice.  they clump and cloud the liquid.  it's normal

refrigerated, up to a few days, as long as it smells good, it is good.

that ratio of juice to water just won't give bad microbes enough to work with to hurt you badly

if you don't like the smell or taste, toss it!

there's good information on how to clarify fruit juices here https://www.foodandwine.com/fwx/drop-your-muddler-heres-how-and-why-clarify-your-fruit-juice


All things are poison, and nothing is without poison; the dosage alone makes it so a thing is not a poison."
(Paracelsus)

Like with so many things in life, it’s a question of willingness to take a risk and of personal health and individual metabolism.
The general rule is that raw elderberries shouldn’t be consumed because they contain cyanogenic glycosides, i.e. substances that can be transformed into cyanide and ultimately cause cyanide poisoning. As with all plant-based substances, the content can and will vary a lot depending both on the specific strain of plant and the environmental conditions, including soil composition, water or rain and change significantly during the life cycle and ripening stages. For elderberries, the content of cyanogenic glycosides decreases significantly in fully ripe berries, some researcher1 found as little as 0.0054 mg hydrogen cyanide equivalent per gram of berries, which is roughly 0.0001 mg per berry. Considering that a healthy adult human can safety ingest 0.02 mg per kg of body weight, a few ripe berries should be harmless enough. This is the same reason why eating a few apple pips (containing amygdalin, also a cyanogenic glycoside) is harmless.
The numbers above should also explain why individual reports of toxic effects vary so widely, from no effects at all to severe digestive issues.
If you want to consume unheated elderberries, I recommend you chose fully ripe berries and limit the intake to just a few initially (see the numbers above and go way below the statistically safe threshold because individual tolerances may be lower). Note that this post is not an endorsement, it’s just to help you make an informed decision.
The drying process is the same as for other berries - ensure good ventilation and place them on a cloth or fine netting, because the berries are so small. If you want to use a dehydrator, you may have to cover the trays with cloth or mesh if the slats are too wide. Consult the manual for settings.

1
Petra Demmer: Kapillarelektrophoretische Untersuchungen an cyanogenen Glykosiden. Inaugural-Dissertation zur Erlangung des Doktorgrades der Naturwissenschaften im Fachbereich Chemie und Pharmazie der Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftlichen Fakultät der Westfälischen Wilhelms-Universität Münster. Münster 2004, urn:nbn:de:hbz:6-28659388497.


Trying to predict when a roast is done based on time is a very poor method.  Many factors can change how long a particular roast takes to cook to your preference, including:

Size and shape of the roast--generally the thickest dimension primarily affects how long it takes
Initial temperature of the roast
What temperature you cook it at
The doneness you are aiming for (most important for beef or lamb)

Furthermore, there are two types of cooking commonly called roasts:  pot roasts, which are a more properly a braised dish, and regular roasts.   Finally, while not always called roasting, some oven cooked meats which are cooked for a very long time at low temperatures are in fact more similar in their chemistry to braising than to higher temperature roasting.

Short Answer

For braised dishes and low-and-slow barbecue type roasting, you can tell when the cooking is done because the meat is fall-off-the-bone tender.

For all other roasts, the best way to know it is done is to take the internal temperature with a probe or instant read thermometer.

The time guideline in recipes is to help you plan your cooking day logistics, and so that you know approximately how long to wait before checking for doneness.  As in all but a few forms of cooking, the recipe times are not the final arbiter.

Pot Roasts and Braising

Pot roasts are cooked with liquid in the roasting pan, typically coming up about 1/3 to 1/2 the height of the meat.   This is actually a type of braising, despite sometimes being called a roast dish, and is suitable for tougher cuts of meat like beef chuck, turkey thighs, or leg of lamb.

This is a moist cooking method intended to bring the temperature up high enough, long enough to convert the tough connective tissue to succulent gelatin.

These dishes are always well done.   You know they are finished when the meat comes off the bone easily, and (when appropriate) shreds with little effort.

These dishes often braise for 45-60 minutes for dark meat poultry, or for 2-3 hours (or even more) for pork, beef, lamb, goat, and so on.

Low and Slow Roasting

Low and slow roasting, done with oven temperatures of approximately 250-300 F (120-150 C) on tougher meats--typically pork shoulder, beef chuck, brisket, and so on--has the same purpose as braising:  it slowly converts the collagen to gelatin to create an unctuous dish.  The difference is this roasting is done dry, not in liquid.

The test for doneness is also the same:  when the meat comes off the bone easily, and shreds with little effort.  The internal temperature will be at least about 180 F (82 C) and as high as 205 F (96 C)  but this is not the primary indicator in low-and-slow.

The time to roast is very sensitive to the thickness of the cut, and the temperature at which the roasting is done.  The roasting times can be very long, as the heat transfer is not as effective as with braising, up to 12 hours and even more depending on the item.

Regular Roasting

The remainder of this answer will concentrate on regular, high temperature roasting (as opposed to low-and-slow).  In general the temperature will be at least 300 F (150 C), but usually 350 F (180 C) or higher.

In regular roasting, there may be a searing period of very high heat at the beginning or end of the roasting period to help brown and crisp the exterior of the cut.

The main indicator for when meat is done roasting is temperature.   This is because the highest temperature achieved in the meat indicates how well it is cooked.

How to Measure

To measure the temperature of the roast, use an instant read or probe type thermometer in the thickest part of the meat.  Try to aim the probe for the center, without touching bone.

For larger roasts, you want to aim for a measured temperature about 5 degrees F (about 2-3 degrees C) below your final target temperature.  This is because the outside of the meat will be much hotter than the inside, and as the roast sits, the temperature will even out, raising the temperature at the center--this is called "carry over cooking."

Some tips:

Take the temperature in several places, and use the lowest one as your result
Leave the thermometer in until the result stops changing--depending on the quality and type of thermometer you have, this could take from 2-10 seconds or so.

What Temperature should I look for?

The temperature you are looking for depends on the type of meat you are cooking.

Red Meat

Red meat, including beef and lamb, can be roasted to different donenesses depending on how you prefer it.

125 F    49 C    Rare
130 F    55 C    Medium-rare
140 F    60 C    Medium
155 F    68 C    Medium-well
165 F    74 C    Very well done

Poultry

Most people expect most poultry to be thoroughly cooked (with the exception of duck breasts).

White meat should be cooked to about 155 F (68 C).  Dark meat should be cooked, depending on your preference to at least 160 F (71 C) to as high as 180 F (82 C).  It is far more resistant to overcooking than is white meat.

Note that duck breast is very unique among common types of poultry, in that it is a very heavily worked slow-twitch muscle:  it is in fact, dark meat.  Many people prefer it cooked medium rare or so.   You can use the beef temperature chart above for duck breast.

Pork

Historically, especially in the US, pork has been cooked extremely well done because it was very fatty (which helps it seem moist), and to ensure it was cooked enough to prevent any food-born illness.

With leaner pork on the market, and far, far less risk of food born illness, it is becoming common to roast pork to lower temperatures.

It is safe after about 150 F (65 C), but many people find it more to their preference roasted to 155 or 160 F (68-72 C).

For more information, see:

What makes a moist steak (or roast)?


Assuming they are the same size as the other forks and spoons, they are most likely ice cream forks.

Other possibilities are a terrapin fork or a ramekin fork (both are more specialized, and possibly less fun, than an ice cream fork).


How to prevent homemade butter from melting/separating under hot conditions

You can't.

fat is fat and will melt under hot conditions.

Keep it cool, put it over some ice.


Is thicker Gai Lan less chewable and piercable?

Simple answer, the thicker the vegetable the older it is. The older it is the tougher and especially more fibrous, the skin and the stalk in general is. You'll see the same with any green stalky vegetable (eg: Broccoli). It's peeled especially with the older plant, as if it's old enough it could be quite fibrous. It looks like the first picture isn't peeled. Likely because it's young enough, that the skin is still very tender.


What exactly is the salt for when making oatmeal porridge?

There are several reasons to use salt in cooking. From that source, the UK Salt Association (yes, that is apparently a thing!), salt is used as:

Seasoning
Preservative
Binding agent (in meat products)
Color Controller (in meat products and baked goods)
Texture aid (in meat products, baked goods and cheese)
Fermentation controller (in baked products and cheese)

The only one of these that applies to your recipe, is seasoning.
Note that apart from tasting 'salty', salt is also a known flavour enhancer which can improve the taste of food and drinks without making them salty. This is why salt is often used even in sweet applications, and occasionally even in cocktails.


What’s the definition of “cultured butter”?

We're not all going to agree on a definition of cultured butter, so these answers are going to be subjective.

Culture distillate (https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/CFRSearch.cfm?fr=184.1848) and lactic acid are both used for flavoring.  Is cultured butter butter that tastes a certain way, or butter that's been prepared a certain way?

How about a more common food: would you call it smoked salmon if it hadn't really been smoked, but only flavored with liquid smoke?  There are reasonable arguments on both sides.  Perhaps you consider smoked salmon to be a dish made with salmon that tastes smokey, regardless of how it's prepared.  Perhaps you consider smoked salmon to be salmon that has been smoked, and you aren't really concerned with how it tastes.

Personally, I like to know what I'm eating (not just the flavor of what I'm eating).  Calling something cultured butter suggests something about how it was made (fermented with live bacteria cultures), so calling cultured-flavored-butter "cultured" seems a bit dishonest for my taste.


When a recipe calls for brown sugar, could I use white sugar instead?

Yes!

Brown sugar is nothing more than white granular sugar plus molasses. That's it!

1 Tbsp molasses per cup of granular sugar = light brown sugar and 2 Tbsp molasses for dark brown sugar. There is no need to waste your money buying either, or worse, both.

Omitting the molasses and just using plain white sugar in a recipe will however change the taste somewhat in the finished product. You'll need to experiment to determine if that flavor change is acceptable to you and those you cook for.


How to make "white" jello using aloe vera jelly pack for broken glass dessert

I have not seen this "aloe vera jelly" you describe, but from its behavior (clumps milk, needs a boil), it seems to be a pectin based thickener. If it is HM pectin, it will need enough acid, and this will clump the milk.

The simple answer is that you will not be able to make a milk jelly with this thickener. Your options is to either use a different white liquid, or to use a different thickener. There aren't that many white liquids, but a nut milk might work. Especially if it's stabilized, it might not curdle under acid (but I'm not 100% sure). As for thickeners, you could try LM pectin, it will even get its calcium from the milk. Other thickeners are available, but the thickened texture will not be as gel-like, but have a somewhat different texture. Agar might work.


Cooking custard for crème brûlée macarons

I think your flavor ideas seem fine, I'd advise against a custard filling for two reasons. First, custard is squishy, even if you make it harder it's going to squish out when the macaron is bitten into, which isn't the result you want. Second, the excess moisture in the custard could make the macarons soggy, also not the result you want.
Almost all the macaron fillings I know of use chocolate ganache or butter cream fillings because they have the right combination of spreadibility and resilience, and their low moisture content will keep the macarons from getting soggy. I would suggest you change your approach to use one of these two options. You could try making a vanilla butter cream with toasted white sugar to get a caramel flavor, it's an extra step but makes a big difference flavor-wise.
If you want to try a custard then a cornstarch (aka cornflour depending on where you are) thickened custard is likely the way to go as you can get a thicker set than an egg yolk custard, and it's easier to modify through experimentation to find out how much you will need to get the consistency you want when cooled. You will also want to give the inside of each half a thin layer of white chocolate to prevent them from absorbing moisture from the custard.


How does the process of tempering in indian dishes generally work?

The general rule of thumb is to put spices that burn easily in the end. Black mustard seeds are often added, in which case add the mustard seeds to hot oil first. Once the mustard seeds stop popping, turn the heat down, add urad dal (white lentil), dried red chillies, cumin, and turmeric. Of course, your tadka may not have all ingredients that I've listed (or may have others that I haven't). I generally add turmeric last because it burns the most easily. South Indian tadkas often add fresh curry leaves. Those can be added right after the mustard seeds (they splatter, so one has to be careful).


Storing Self-Made Cookies/Brittles/etc longer: ingredients and techniques

I would freeze it. Crumble will defrost pretty much instantly when you take it out of the freezer, so you can just pour it straight from the freezer container onto your yogurt. If you freeze it on a tray and then dump it into a container, it should stay crumbly rather than freeze into a block so it's easy to handle.


If you add egg and breadcrumbs, you aren't cooking a burger, you're cooking meatloaf.

Try using just good beef with plenty of fat (80% meat, 20% fat is the ideal ratio, lean mince is not good for burgers), and pepper. Get the pan good and hot, salt the burgers well (don't add salt beforehand), brush the burgers with oil, then whack them on the pan, 5-6 minutes a side (depends on thickness) and you'll get a nice brown crust.

A couple of other tips: make the burgers plenty ahead of time so they can sit in the fridge for a good few hours. And never press the burger down with your spatula, you just end up losing all the juiciness.

Check out The Burger Lab's Top Ten Tips for a Better Burger for more tips.


If they are crunchy cookies with a fatty icing, you can probably smash them up (to crumbs), fatty component and all, and make a crust out of them for some kind of cream-pie or cheesecake. Sort of like a chocolatey "graham cracker" crust. Not clear on the exact composition of your cookies, but this works perfectly with "Oreo"-type cookies. If you make crumbs out of the whole cookies, you don't need to add any other ingredients to a pie crust. If your cookies are less sweet, or more sweet, or less fatty, etc. you might need to tweak the "recipe" a little, but I think you could work something out.

On the other hand, if your family don't like the cookies, they may not care for stuff made out of them either. Maybe you should give them to a neighbor, or local food-bank.


White wine substitute in potato leek soup

Why substitute anything? Cooking is all about tasting, if you like how the soup tastes without the wine then there's no need to add anything to replace it. The white wine supplies acidity, which you may not actually want if you've already added sour cream. It also supplies fruitiness which again may or may not be to your taste. If you want more acidity then squeeze some lemon juice into it, if you want fruitiness add maybe 1/8 cup of white grape juice. Add a bit at a time, tasting as you go to make sure you don't overdo it.

If you decide you like the soup without the wine then don't add anything, your recipe won't miss the 1/4 cup of fluid.


Canning cheese may carry with it a risk of botulism, according to Clemson University Extension and the National Center for Home Food Preservation. Soft cheese is of particular concern.

This practice has not been scientifically validated and we cannot recommend it. Cheese and cheese milk can potentially be contaminated with Clostridium (C.) botulinum, the botulism-causing bacteria. The pH of cheese qualifies it as a low acid (pH 5.1 to 5.9) food and thus is in the canning danger range. Although uncanned hard cheeses (Asiago, Cheddar, Edam, Feta, Gouda, Parmesan) will not support growth of C. botulinum, the canning process may add available water to them. How much water is added by canning has not been tested. Increased available water may allow C. botulinum to grow and make canned hard cheeses unsafe. In addition, boiling waterbath canning processes kill the competitive “good” bacteria that help prevent the growth of C. botulinum. It is the dryness (low available water), salt content (lowers available water), acidity (produced by lactic acid bacteria) and competitive “good” bacteria that provide safety for hard cheeses; because of these factors, they can be waxed and stored for aging for years on the shelf without safety problems.
The incorrect assertion that it is possible to safely can soft cheeses such as cream cheese is of major concern. Soft cheeses are higher in available water and must be refrigerated to delay spoilage. They contain sufficient available water to support the growth of botulism-causing bacteria. A boiling waterbath canning process does not kill spores; therefore, canning soft cheese clearly raises the potential for serious health problems.

So, until more testing is done by a very reliable source, I would consider canning cheese to be unsafe. At least I wouldn't consider it to be shelf stable.


Can I use thicker pastry dough in place of fillo / wonton wrappers / lumpia wrappers?

Phyllo dough, in particular, comes in several thicknesses, from the thinnest which is used for baklava up to horiatiko (country) style which is used for rustic pies. You can substitute, but there is definitely a noticeable difference and I think you'll appreciate why a good traditional recipe calls for a specific type. Saveur has a nice reference chart.

Also, keep in mind that although phyllo is very thin and tends to tear, in many cases a small amount of tearing is no problem. You are making multiple layers and any small imperfections will disappear. Just be sure to keep the pieces you aren't currently working with covered so they don't dry out too fast.

For wonton wrappers, they are also often available in at least two thicknesses in good Asian groceries. Again, there are traditional uses for each. When using them in a non-traditional context such as ravioli, you'll have to decide for yourself which you prefer.


How can I preserve an orange (peel) for as long as possible?

Speaking of dehydration, it is possible to dry out a piece of orange peel. If you do it properly so it does not rot or get moldy, it will last for years, although it will gradually use its aroma. The problem is that it will shrink when dehydrating, resulting in a worse-looking surface and possibly distorting the signature. A largish section is also practically impossible to flatten, so you will have to live with a curled piece-of-sphere shape. The end product is very stiff and somewhat brittle, with irregular surface whose color is a darkened, somewhat dirty looking orange, not the bright hue of the fresh peel.

You can find instructions for drying orange peel for use in teas or as ground spice. The way we used to do it at my parent's home was to put a single layer of peel pieces on a high shelf and let them sit there for a few weeks. This will not work if your climate is humid, so you might prefer a method using a dehydrator or a low oven.

This site has not only instructions, but also a good picture of the end result. They remove most of the pith (the white part) to prevent bitterness, but in your case, it is preferable to leave 3-4 mm to ensure structural integrity. You can leave all of it if it is a thin-peel variety, but remove some if it is very thick, because you risk rotting and bad texture and geometry.


Homemade soups should last 3-4 days in the refrigerator, which is a good estimate for almost any cooked food.

If you want longer storage, most soups freeze pretty well, unless they contain pasta, which gets very mushy.  On the other hand, it is easy to leave the pasta out of the main batch, and add it later at the time of service.

See, for example:

StillTasty:  Chicken Soup   Vegetable Soup


You are correct.  The graininess that occurs if you agitate the candy while it cools comes from sugar crystals.
You are correct again.  The stirring creates crystals, which are what causes the change in texture.  Stirring at this point in time in particular ensures that they are micro-crystals (too small for the human tongue to feel) rather than big grainy crystals.
The high and low temperature are needed to remove enough water from the syrup so that the cooled liquid is super-saturated with dissolved sugar.

Here is the nerdy, science-y explanation.  When you heat sugar + water to a high temperature you are first dissolving all the sugar crystals (maple syrup's sugars are all already dissolved at room temperature), then creating a more and more saturated solution.  The higher you take the solution above 100°C, the more saturated the solution gets.  Then by cooling without agitation to a lower temperature, you are create a super-saturated solution.  A super-saturated solution is an essential step in these types of candies (the same basic technique is used for fudge and fondant as well as maple creams).

At the point where you have the solution cooled down enough for it to be super-saturated, that is when you need to start agitating it.  This agitation allows crystals to start forming, but as you guessed in your second question, it also prevents them from getting too large. The precise temperatures used also contribute to the final possible crystal size. This candy is ultimately going to be made of micro-crystals suspended in syrup.  If you don't heat it high enough to begin with, the solution won't be saturated enough and the crystals will just dissolve back into the syrup.  If you don't cool it enough before starting to beat it, the instability before the solution is super-saturated will cause larger crystals to precipitate out of the solution, causing the graininess (like how rock candy works, but at a much smaller scale).

While I haven't made this recipe before, I suspect that because the end result of this recipe is still liquid, that you could wait until it's even cooler before beating it.  I am also pretty certain that if you did cool it for longer, that the whole "beat manually for 20 minutes" step could be replaced with a quick spin in the food processor (if you have one).  By comparison, fondant is traditionally made in a similar way by cooling on a marble slab and then agitating it manually.  This method that uses a food processor gives identical result (or better, to be honest) with much less physical effort.  I suspect your maple butter recipe could have a similar labor-saving update made to it.  The one thing you don't want to mess around with is not heating it enough initially, which you've already found by testing, or not cooling it enough before starting to agitate.

The grade of maple syrup has nothing to do with this crystal formation.  I can only guess on this specification in the recipe, and my guess is that because the boiling will concentrate the flavor, they suggest starting with a lighter syrup so the end result won't be too dark.  I also use amber grade in the boiled maple candies I make, with no issues.  I've personally never thought that "too maple-y" could be a problem.

Reference: Chocolates and Confections by Peter J. Greweling.


Is it okay for cork to look a bit "moldy"?

The cork is normal.  Over time, some of the pigment chemicals will embed themselves in the surface of the cork, starting by the edges.  To my eye, the resulting zone has a bluish brown color.  For a full red, the cork will turn a brown-purple, and eventually black.  All of this should have no relationship to whether the wine is still good.

Some things to look for that will signal a bad bottle:

A change in color of the wine (e.g., pale yellow turning deep gold)
Indications that air entered the bottle or wine leaked out
The smell or taste of wet cardboard in the wine
An ammonia-like smell from the wine
A vinegar taste

Hopefully none of these applied to your wine.


Exact difference between demi glace and bordelaise?

Demi glace is usually used as a base to make other sauces, it can also be used by itself.

Demi glace is used to make Bordelaise sauce.

Roux is not used in either cases.


What are the possible substitutions for Cumin in Indian cuisine?

You know, I don't think you need to overthink this too much. If you look at a typical Indian curry recipe, it might have 10 spices in it. Just leave out the cumin, and maybe bump up the other spices a little to compensate. It won't be exactly the same, but it will still be delicious. You are correct that you'll have to be careful to avoid pre-packaged spice mixtures unless the ingredients are spelled out. Here is my Chana Mushroom Masala, from which you can safely omit the cumin: http://www.herbivoracious.com/2009/09/quick-chana-mushroom-masala-chickpea-curry-recipe.html


Pressure cooking Sun chokes (jerusalem artichokes)

As far as I can tell, cooking jerusalem artichokes in a pressure cooker won't help much if the cooking liquid is not acidic.

Inulin's chemical stability will decrease by heating in an acidic environment where pH <= 4. Simply cooking the jerusalem artichokes in an acidic liquid will help reducing the flatulence caused by inulin.


can light beer be used as substitute for white wine vinegar in marinade recipe?

The answer to this is: No, beer won't substitute, but another vinegar could.
The main reason here is flavour - beer tastes completely different to vinegar, and would change the flavour profile of your marinade substantially. This may work out, but it may not, and the only ways to tell would be to test it and/or look for recipes with the same ingredients as your marinade but beer instead of vinegar.
Another reason beer might not work work is that beer is not generally acidic, whereas vinegar has a substantial amount of acid (acetic acid in the case of vinegar from grapes) in it. The acid will help macerate/soften the tissue so that it is easier to eat. Having said that, beer will contain enzymes that break down protein, that might do the equivalent of the acid, but these may not work in the presence of other substances in your marinade recipe.
Interestingly, if you are going to marinade with beer, use a canned pasteurized beer or a fresh brew of unpasteurized beer as the proteolytic enzymes in the beer are broken down in unpasteurized beers (warning: PDF, possible paywall).


What are some easy methods to cook a top blade steak without stock or wine?

water, seasonings, aromatics vegetables (carrots, celery, onions garlic... ), tomato paste and/or canned tomatoes
Brown the meat in oil in a dutch oven type pan, remove and set aside.
Brown the vegetables in oil, when good you have coloring (not burning), add tomato paste, mix and cook well for a few minutes.
Add meat back to the pot, add water and canned tomatoes to nearly cover the meat.
Reduce heat, cover with a lid and cook until meat is tender, adjust water level so it does not dry out during cooking
You can do it on the cooktop or in the oven.


You don't even need to cook them, let alone soak them.
They form the bulk of most mueslis, to be eaten raw.

However, if you're going to be making porridge...
The basic recipe has as many variations as there are people who cook it, but take any or all of

Water
Milk
Salt
Sugar [or honey or anything sweet]
Oats

Use approx 300ml liquid to 50g oats per person as a start point. Bring to the boil, simmer for 5 - 7 minutes depending on your desired consistency.  Very "old fashioned" jumbo oats will still boil down to nearly mush if you leave them long enough, though most people want that bit of bite left to them.

Some make it thin, some make it thick. Some make it thick but then add cold milk to their dish. Some make it smooth, some leave it less-cooked still with big bits in. Some cook with the sugar in, some only add it at the end.
Some leave out the salt, though personally I think it's essential.

There is no hard & fast rule; make it how you like.

From comments...
The bigger & less refined the oat, the longer it will take to cook right down to a 'paste' - but often the entire idea of using big rustic oats is not to overcook them, but leave some bite.
I wouldn't dream of pre-soaking them, there's absolutely no need. If you want them cooked to paste, cook longer, or change back to a more refined brand. Some of the outer part will probably not cook right down anyway with very 'rustic' oats.

The Guardian - How to cook perfect porridge goes on at length about various methods, but comes down to pretty much what I've already written above, with no pre-soak [not one single mention of rinsing, btw, just don't do that].


What country are you in? Is this Philadelphia Brand Cream Cheese? Is the package unopened? Does it have a Julian date on the package? Has it always been refrigerated?

As a very general rule, you can safely use unopened, always properly refrigerated cream cheese from a reputable source for 1 month past the sell-by date (this from Still Tasty and other reputable sources). In the US, packages that have a date are supposed to also specify whether that date is a "use-by", "sell-by" or "best-by" date. Eggs are an exception.

Personally, I have used unopened cream cheese far beyond 1 month past the date on the package, but as far as that goes, it's your call. Use your common sense, assess your risk, and make a call for which you are ultimately responsible. No responsible person can tell you that unopened cream cheese is really good for 6 months past the date on the package, because that would make that person responsible if your cream cheese is an exception.


Is it safe to par-boil chicken legs, (unthawed), then finish cooking them later?

It is safe, as long as the chicken doesn't stay more than 2 hours in the danger zone (40-140* F / 4-60º C). These 2 hours include preparation, cooking time and storage.

For further information: Is a partially frozen chicken safe if not immediately cooked at the proper temperature? and Can chicken not completely cooked then cooled be fully cooked later?


What is the simple method to avoid the scab from hand after pealing colocasia roots.?

The colocasia root (also known as the taro root) has calcium oxalate near the surface under its skin. This makes it toxic to eat uncooked and can irritate the skin.

Common methods to avoid skin irritation are oiling the hands (which isn't working for you), peeling them under running water, which rinses off the irritants quicker, and lastly is wearing gloves.

I would recommend getting a box of food grade latex gloves, that should keep your skin from coming into contact with the irritants. Doing it under running water also wouldn't hurt.

Source


First off, try and check the temperature more carefully. By far the most common reason people have trouble with their oven is that the temperature isn't what they think it is, and burning is a really good sign of that. It's very likely that when you set your oven to 350°F, it's actually hotter than that.

Ideally, you should check the temperature the bread is actually experiencing: put your oven thermometer next to bread while baking it (or an empty bread pan in that same position). The pan can disrupt the air flow, so the temperature the bread experiences might not be quite the same as the temperature in an empty oven set to the same temperature. You should also check more than once, in case it's just unreliable.

And yes, smaller ovens can exacerbate this. Baking sheets/pans will take up more of the oven, so they'll disrupt air flow more. The other thing that can happen in small ovens is getting too close to the top or bottom of the oven, so that the edges burn even if the temperature in the middle is okay.

If none of that is an issue, then I'd look elsewhere:

You might've changed something in the recipe. For example, a different pan size will result in a different baking time.
The recipes might be bad, suggesting too long a baking time, because the author's oven was too cool. Try more recipes!
You might be relying too much on time. Even if you've followed everything carefully and the recipe is good, maybe your pan is a different material that tends to bake a little faster. Be sure to check periodically for doneness.


Does ketchup belong in the fridge, or the cupboard?

Anything can spoil eventually, refrigerated or not. Keeping something under a lid and refrigerated restricts the number of airborne colonizers that might get access to it, and the cold temperature means that even if they get there, they will grow much slower than at room temperature.

For something to spoil, it needs to be colonized by bacteria or fungus spores, and it needs to contain some nourishment to support their growth, not too much chemicals that prevent their growth, and not too much competing life forms already present. So, things with a high concentration of salt or sugar tend to be unhospitable to bacteria and fungi growth, because they are hygroscopic (they draw the water out of cells). Extreme high or low pH (eg acidic) also retards growth. Think of things like ketchup, mustard, jelly with labels that say "refrigerate after opening" but most people ignore them. Alcohol is unfriendly if the concentration is too high, and of course natural fermented foods are already occupied by human-friendly bacteria.

Ketchup is sealed in a bottle, usually with no fingers or utensils inserted into it, so it stays pretty sterile. It is also protected by being hygroscopic (due to high concentration of sugar and salt) and its acidity. Ketchup as a word and concept is descended from an Indonesian fish sauce, and has been around much longer than refrigeration. I think you can leave it out with no worries unless you see obvious mold growth.


What do I need to know about coffee machines and grinders to get started making good coffee at home?

You need to know what coffee you want to drink. Your question is like asking "What do need to know before buying meat cooking tools". If you want to eat your meat as BBQ, you need a grill and tongs. If you want to eat it as meatloaf, you need a meat grinder and an oven. Similarly, with coffee, you need to know what coffee you want to drink. Different types of coffee are made with different processes, and each process needs different tools. You need a dripper and filters for drip coffee, an espresso machine for espresso, and so on.

Your decision will be probably based on

taste and caffeine content. Coffee produced with different processes tastes differently. It also delivers different amounts of caffeine per ml of drink (although this can be tweaked within the same process). Espresso, drip coffee, Turkish coffee, mokka pot coffee, French press coffee, Aeropress coffee, instant coffee, Nespresso coffee and cold brewed coffee all produce a basic coffee drink (and this is not an exhaustive selection). If you are into mixed coffee drinks like mocha, latte machiato, cappucino, etc., you will need a combination of a tool which can produce the right coffee for your mixed drink and a tool which can create the drink (e.g. a way to foam milk).
The money you want to invest. Many people love a good espresso, but a professional Italian machine costs several thousands of Euro, guzzles energy and takes up space. Home espresso automates offer a somewhat inferior result for a few hundreds of Euros. Or you can make Turkish coffee with a 2-Euro sieve and whatever small pot you already have in the kitchen. Most people go neither for the expensive espresso machines, nor for the Turkish method (which leaves dregs in the cup - most people in the West want their coffee clear) and choose some method which is affordable but still produces coffee of a type they find agreeable.
The time you want to invest per cup. Nespresso has a devoted following of people for whom coffee making has to be convenient above all. There are methods which produce much better coffee for a fraction of the cost, but you have to 1) invest time in learning how to brew well, and 2) take the time to brew. It is mostly in the range of several minutes per cup, plus overhead for assembling and cleaning utensils.

If you are confused by the wide range of coffee methods and think "I don't know how each of these coffee types tastes like, how do I know which one to choose?" I would recommend to start by the second criterion (money) or third criterion (effort), depending on which one you are more pressed for. As an example, if you are a middle class person to whom it doesn't matter if they will spend 100 or 200 Euros on a tool which will be used as a part of their daily routine, go by effort. Look up what it takes to make coffee with the different methods, and think which you can imagine yourself doing. Then try coffee made with this method (if you need special tools for it, maybe you have a friend who has the tools?). If it is good enough for you, get the tools and start brewing. If not, move on to the next method on the list. Money-first would work similarly, but you rank the tools by price rather than effort per cup.

The first criterion - taste - is probably the one which is most likely to result in personal satisfaction, but you would have to know what you want before settling on a method, and it would be very difficult to find a way to taste all the different types of coffee and to develop a taste for each. Note that, if you are just starting out with coffee, your taste is also likely to develop and shift over time. So, I wouldn't recommend taste-first for people going for their first set of tools.


Why are non-orange coloured carrots so uncommon?

According to the History of Carrots page from the World Carrot Museum:

  The current yellow/orange varieties (containing carotene) through
  gradual selection in Europe, now form the basis of the commercial
  cultivars around the world, mainly through their superior taste,
  versatility, nutritional value and cultural acceptance.

It is clear that until as recently as 1500 or so, carrots were cultivated in a variety of colors such as purple, yellow, and white, but orange was not among them.  Dutch carrot growers, who were among the most prolific, created the orange hybrid:

  The orange colour did not become popular until the 1500's when Dutch
  growers developed the mutant vegetable by selective breeding to make
  it less bitter than the yellow varieties, and then it was said to be
  adopted it as the Royal vegetable in honour of the House of Orange,
  the Dutch Royal Family, although there is no documentary evidence for
  this latter "fact". The first carrots were grown for medicinal
  purposes, perhaps the medicine tasted good!  The main reason why cooks
  and housewives preferred orange carrots was because they kept their
  colour after cooking and did not leave cookware with an unpleasant
  colour. — Carrot Museum's Carrot Color page

There are actually many orange cultivars (in addition to the many other colors), which come in a variety of shapes from long and skinny (the Japanese carrot) to shorter and stubbier (more like a radish).


Does heavy cream "go further" than light cream or milk in soup

For soups like this also consider evaporated milk.  It contains only about 8% milkfat, so it has significantly less fat even than half and half, which contains between 10% and 18% (cream of course has more).  Evaporated milk also comes in a can, so its easy to keep handy.  Texture-wise, because its so much thicker than regular milk, it makes an excellent replacement for cream.  As far as taste goes, I think in soups and other strongly flavored dishes where the cream is present only to provide creaminess you won't notice a difference.  In something more delicate or where the cream itself is a flavor component you may need to do a little experimenting, but generally I would say you could substitute it 1:1 for cream.

For your original question: "will the flavor be the same if I use, say, a 1:2 substitution for heavy to light cream. That is, can I use half as much and still get the same flavor?" I think it would depend on the quantity.  Generally, the larger the quantity called for in the recipe, the less heavy cream you might need to achieve the same result.  So, if the recipe calls for 1-2 tablespoons, I would bet that you would want to use the full amount.  However, in something that calls for a cup of light cream, you may be able to get away with 1/2-3/4 cup of heavy cream, depending on the dish and your taste.


Short answer: store mayonnaise has less yolks per volume oil, and yolks give most of the yellow color.

Mainly the reason is that store mayonnaise adds water, rather than relying on the moisture in the egg yolks and vinegar.  To quote On Food and Cooking, page 634:

  Though cookbooks often say that the
  ratio of oil to egg yolk is critical,
  that one can only emulsify a half-cup
  or cup of oil, this isn't true. A
  single yolk can emulsify a dozen cups
  of oil or more.  What is critical is
  the ratio of oil to water: there must
  be enough of the continuous phase for
  the growing population of oil droplets
  to fit into.

This means you can use less yolks and just add water to get your volume.  Since yolks impart most of the yellow color (from plant pigments called xanthophylls), this reduces color considerably.

Store mayonnaise also uses some whole eggs, not just yolks, which do not emulsify as well, but are cheaper.  This further reduces the amount of yolk in the result. Note that while home mayonnaises use yolks, store mayonnaises can get away with including egg whites by using very powerful machines to emulsify the mayonnaise, and in some cases add emulsifiers such as lecithin to help stabilize it.

The Experiment!

One whole, very jumbo egg, with a little white wine vinegar (around 15 mL). For oil, I used vegetable oil with a small splash of olive oil.  The total amount of oil used was 1.5 cups, or 350 mL.

First, I tried to create mayonnaise by hand whipping with a mini-whisk.  It turned out a pale yellow, and thickened some, but refused to thicken fully.  This confirms that making a homemade mayonnaise by hand requires yolks or some sort of mechanical beating/blending; whole eggs just don't emulsify well enough.  It's fair to say that the result is quite yellow when it isn't fully blended.

Next, I gave it a shot with my immersion blender:

See how much lighter and paler the mayonnaise is! I can only speculate that the blender created a much finer emulsion, and incorporated more air, reducing the impact of the oil and yolk color on light scattered off the micro-droplets.

Finally, I went ahead and added flavorings (a little dijon mustard, a ton of paprika, salt, pepper, and more vinegar). In this comparison against commercial mayonnaise, you can see that the result is now darker and more orange, courtesy of the paprika.  It is also clear how close the color was before adding paprika.

Clearly, the use of whole eggs is the biggest part of the equation.  It is clear that by adding more water to thin the emulsion and then adding oil to achieve the proper consistency, I could make this even paler, very close to store mayonnaise. The use of mechanical blenders may assist in the process, producing a finer and paler emulsion.

Recipes that include paprika also yield a more yellow-orange result; I think it is for this reason that my commercial mayonnaise uses "paprika oleoresin" in place of ground paprika.

Finally, the use of more heavily colored olive oil appears to darken the resulting mayonnaise. Given how bland my mayonnaise was with only a touch of olive oil, I would encourage you to blend in water and additional oil, rather than avoiding the olive oil.  Ideally, the water would be added about a tsp at a time, when the mayonnaise is still somewhat liquid.


I doubt that your meat is really greasy. If it is really overly fat, you will notice it when buying it, your meat will be marbled through and through. But it is difficult to get such meat nowadays at all, since it is rather expensive to produce.

The mouthfeel you describe is more likely to come from the gelatine. When you make pulled pork in the pressure cooker, you are converting the connective tissue to gelatine, leaving the overcooked muscle fibers swimming in it. When warm, it is really slippery, and the meat slides around in it - this is exacthly what makes for proper pulled pork that shreds. And making gelatine from collagen is not that easy. Traditionally people tried to convert as much as possible by very long cooking times, but using high pressure is much more efficient. So it is likely that you are ending up with more gelatine, or better hydrated gelatine, than with traditional cooking.

The first thing you can try to do is to just learn to like it. There is nothing inherent in greasiness which makes people sick eating it, that's a learned aversive reaction, which can be unlearned. With the knowledge that it isn't actual fat, that reaction can subside or disappear. You can try some mindfulness meditation on some bites of the meat to get accustomed to the mouthfeel too.

If you insist on reducing the sliperiness, you might have to make your process less efficient. This means going to a more traditional stovetop recipe without pressure. I don't know if your exact InstantPot model can cook in slowcooker mode without pressure, but if it can, you can keep the convenience of set-and-forget. You will probably have to live with other changes in texture though, not getting such a nice separation.

Gelatine loses its gelling strength with low pH. So you are on the right way with sour sauces. You can try to marinate it with them, and keep a sour sauce in the pot while cooking it, not just adding it at the end. But then you will end with more of a braised meat, which you might not like.

In general, it is difficult to give more advice, because this is exactly what makes your pulled pork good pulled pork. Anything you do to disrupt it will lower the quality of the texture you get.


Can frozen (fresh) flower petals be used in baking the same as unfrozen fresh petals?

If you're baking them I think there is a strong chance the color will change no matter what. But you might consider sugaring them first.
To do that separate an egg or two and whip the whites to frothy. Paint the petals with the whipped egg whites and coat with superfine sugar. The trick here is to reduce the water in the flowers as well as the water activity in the eggwhites. What I used to do was set the sugared flowers on a cooling rack. When done with all of them I'd dump them into a locking plastic rectangular container. Basically an upside down Tupperware cake container. It had about 1/2 inch of sugar in the bottom and the flowers on top. I put them in the fridge. I knew others that left them out still others just put the sugared flowers on cookie sheet and left them in warm but off oven overnight. I'm not sure it really matters.


Precooking sweet potato fries for quick warm/serve day of party

As user36802 noted, cooking fries normally requires blanching the fries beforehand, which will par-cook them.

You can also check out this Food Lab article; in it, Kenji Lopez suggests parboiling the fries, then drying them and frying them once, followed by cooling and freezing them overnight. His recipe continues to fry the fries a second time before serving, but you could theoretically reheat them in the oven instead. I would assume that most of the moisture has escaped the fries after the first fry, so ideally you wouldn't notice much of a texture difference between twice-fried and fried-then-baked fries, but I haven't tried that method myself.

Also good to note that his recipe is for regular-potato fries; however, the technique should work just as well for sweet potato fries (in fact, I'd assume that since sweet potato fries tend to be more moist than regular fries, any texture difference from frying then baking should be less noticeable).


Does "American" Food exist around the world?

The "big chain" type certainly exists basically everywhere by now. There is a reason why the Big Mac Index is suitable as an economic indicator: you can calculate it for almost all countries in the world, because you can buy a Big Mac in almost all countries in the world.
A second type of "American restaurant" is much harder to find. It is the kind of small diner which serves grilled cheese sandwiches, thick pancakes and other American style food, without being a chain. I have seen this in places with large expat populations, but most Europeans will probably spend their lives without ever having been in one. I can't talk about other continents.
A third category of "American food" would be American homemade food. Chicken pot pie, eggplant parmesan, Southern biscuits, that kind of stuff. I have not seen it served in any restaurant in Europe. I have never seen an "American home food restaurant", nor an "American fine dining restaurant". They could exist, but as I've visited many large European cities and lived in places with a large number of American expats, they are likely to be quite rare, or maybe clustered somewhere I haven't been.
What I have seen more in later years seem to be fancy burger places - they are sometimes chains, sometimes not, but I would distinguish them from fast food chains because they tend to have things like mushroom-and-arugula burgers on sourdough bread. Also, you nowadays see more burgers in restaurants which are some sort of middle tier without special relation to a specific cuisine - more of a nonfrench equivalent of a bistro. Also, Starbucks style chains (including Starbucks itself) are pretty established - while Europe had an extensive coffee culture before them, the type of drinks served there is pretty distinctive.
American packaged food such as marshmallows or pumpkin pie filling can be also found in specialized grocery stores selling American products, and as a seasonal article in large European supermarket chains like Lidl, who tend to have "American week", "Greek week" etc. in rotation. A few selected American products are also found as staples in most stores, such as Snickers bars or Coca-Cola, or are less available but still within easy reach, such as Jelly Belly candy.


What makes this hot sauce last half a year in the fridge?

Nothing

Your instinct is right, there is nothing that would prevent botulism or other bacteria from growing at room temperature. This is a classic “but we’ve always done it that way, so it must be ok” case. Looking at the protagonists in the videos, I would assume that those are simply family recipes.

The problem is that there is a fundamental difference between safe food and not spoiled food. We can clearly define what makes food or a preparation method safe, but once something is not longer safe it doesn’t automatically become spoiled.

In (traditional) cooking, unsafe methods are used often enough, for many reasons and sometimes on purpose, just think of steak tartare. And in many (I am tempted to say “most”) cases, with no ill effect. It’s often statistics that work in favor of the users. Consider botulism: The absolute risk of the bacteria being present and finding favorable conditions to grow is low, but the consequences of ingesting the toxin (not the bacteria) are dire. Refrigerator temperatures will slow down the growth, still I would assume 6-12 months too risky (considering that the official recommendation for garlic in oil is less than a week in the fridge).

As always when getting recipes from random sources, use common sense.


Have you seasoned the pan yet?

https://www.southernliving.com/food/how-to/how-t0-season-a-cast-iron-skillet

I think the oil you use for seasoning will fill up those holes.  The other thing about a pan is that it gets hot and it is going to be hot in the holes.  No germs will survive down there.


Search for recipes for 'cake release', which is typically a mixture of equal parts solid shortening, flour and oil.  You can then paint it on with a pastry brush.

You also don't always want items to cool fully before removing from the pan; you might need to warm the pan back up some for the item to release.


Why some vegetables are good to fry, and not others?

Stir-frying a vegetable is quite different (in my mind) than what's viewed as frying by American and British standards. I can't really speak for what's considered 'fried' in most parts of Europe since I've never been there to truly sample different 'European' foods - which varies greatly anyways.

Stir-frying in the Asian sense of the method means quickly and briefly (from 30 seconds to perhaps a minute) cooking smaller pieces of cut vegetables by stirring in a small amount of oil over very high heat. Oil with a high smoke point temperature is preferred. Peanut oil smokes around 450° F (230° C) which is why it's used more often though there are some fats with higher smoke points. After this brief exposure to very high heat, some liquid is added and a lid put on for a couple minutes more cooking but with a drop in the temperature to just under 212° F (100° C). To mY mind, that's not what people refer to as frying.

In the Western sense of frying, usually a lot more oil/fat is used. The temperature isn't as high since the food will only be cooking by frying, not a combination of methods. Plus the food is cooked for a longer period of time. It also depends on what kind of frying you're meaning. Shallow frying (pan frying) or deep frying? When you fried tomatoes, if they were ripe, I'd consider that more similar to stewing than frying.

I've stir-fried larger cubed pieces of cucumber and julienned white radish (daikon). I've briefly stir-fried quartered medium sized tomatoes when making Cantonese tomato beef. But with those vegetables, the high temperature and hot oil barely sears the outside of the pieces and only a little. Now imagine frying them Western style. They'd be limp and soggy. They'd release their juices as well. (Think what happens when you try to sauté too many mushrooms at one time -  which I've done.) The results would be more like boiling with the addition of fats. Unappetizing!

Vegetables that are normally fried Western style seem to be those that are starchy (such as potatoes or sweet potatoes) or have enough sugar and some protein in them that Maillard reaction occurs which adds to flavour (like onions).

There are any number of vegetables that don't contain enough starch to gelatinize or no browning occurs from Maillard reaction but they're still fried. In these cases, the vegetables are normally battered coated, then fried. If they maintain their structure during frying, I think the only hindrance to frying them is a person's taste. I've never heard of anyone frying beets or carrots but why not? Some vegetables like beets probably need some pre-cooking though.

So in answer to your question, I don't think it's only the water content of a vegetable but whether it has enough starch to gelatinize when fried or the needed combination of sugars and protein for Maillard reaction. That precludes some vegetables like lettuce and cucumber.


My tea bags are expired, can I still use them?

Tea bags will be fine for at least a year in the pantry, but even long after that, they're still safe to consume.  They just might change colour or flavour.

If your tea has an expiration date then it's just for best quality, not safety.  I've personally found tea bags sitting at the back of the pantry that were more than 3 years old, the packaging had even started to fade, and the tea was still fine.  I just had to steep it for a little longer.


Is there a way to make ham in a casserole less salty?

You need to add bulky things with no salt, so that it'll average out to a saltiness you're okay with.

Although cream of mushroom soup sounds like a nice easy way to add some goopiness, it's probably pretty salty. If you can find low- or no-sodium soup, that'd be a much better choice. That kind of thing might be easier to find in fancy/organic/"healthy" brands. If you're willing to make your own soup/sauce, you can easily make it salt-free, but it sounds like you're looking for quick and easy options.

You could also try adding more vegetables and noodles without salt. (Starchy things like potatoes can also work well, but maybe you prefer noodles since they're already in there.) If you end up needing more goopy stuff to hold it together, again, try to find something sodium-free or low-sodium.

But there's not really any avoiding the main issue: you have to add a bunch of stuff without salt, so you're kind of going to have to turn your casserole into a bigger casserole.


It's the baking and packaging.

These dark rye breads are baked for a very long time (effectively pasteurizing them) and then sealed in their packaging. If you do this in a commercial setting that can ensure a mostly contaminant-free environement, such breads can last a long time.

Once you break the seal by opening the pack, your bread will get moldy like all other breads.

The very dense crumb structure and compounds in the whole-grain rye used might to a certain degree inhibit the growth of mold, but not enough to make the bread last for months.


Are there unnoticable effects of cooked food going bad?

Yes, some bacteria do not produce immediately visible results, and molds are not visible until they reach the stage where they begin to produce their fruiting body (the part you see, is actually the organ they use to reproduce).

There are of course some signs that the food is irreverably compromised including:

Off smells, especially fermented or putrecent odors
Off tastes
Sliminess
Visible mold
Bubbles

Still, you cannot count on one of these signs being apparent.  You will have to assess your own tolerance for risk.


How to prepare rice in a very real emergency - no boiling (no electricity or alternatives)?

Do not eat raw rice, you might get very ill. From LiveStrong:

  Lectin is a protein that serves as a natural insecticide with a strong affinity for carbohydrates. Found on uncooked rice and beans, this protein is one of the top 10 causes of food poisoning and can lead to nausea, diarrhea and vomiting when eaten in abundance.

There are also Bacillus Cereus which is a bacteria that can be poisonous in a similar way and cellulose which is indigestible fiber. All of these make cooking rice a very important step for consumption.

Even if you wanted to ferment it, you'd still have to cook or steam it first. So I'd say you either pack pre-cooked rice or choose something else to eat.

On another hand, if you have access to electricity you can cook your rice in the microwave almost the same way as with conventional heat. Add rice and water to cover in a microwave-safe container, put a lid on it (leave a small opening so steam can escape) and turn it on for 10 or 15 minutes.


Why is the handle of sauce pans tilted and not horizontal?

The answer from the 'Product Manager - Cookware' of Zwilling, translated to English:

[Snipped introduction]
Different factors  influence the design of the handle during the product creation process. At the first step there are optical reasons. This is the phase of the first design drawings.
As soon as we decide internally on a draft, we craft plastic prototypes that are attached to the corresponding pan body to see the size ratio "live" and verify the look and feel. If we feel that one of the two factors is not optimal, we do another design round.
Stability does essentially not play any role for the tilt angle, more decisive are the handle connection and material thickness.

[The last paragraph was likely in reference to my question about having a certain tilt angle for better hanging on a handle. "Better" was interpreted as 'more long lasting'.]

The answer from the 'Consumer Service WMF', translated to English:

[Snipped introduction]
The pan body shapes and the handles are only attributable to the design. As every human has a different taste, we have an assortment of different designs. There is no other technical reason for the handles and shapes of sauce pans.

Summary:
An aesthetically pleasing hanging on a handle is at least not such a concern during the design process at Zwilling that it was mentioned. WMF flat out says it's just design.
If the premise of the question is actually true, that there was indeed a change over time, which is questionable, then at least these days such issues play no longer any role for large companies.


salmon + microwave = BLAM, any suggestions?

You can simulate steaming in a microwave. First defrost the salmon. Put it in a glass dish. Put some soy sauce on the bottom of the dish, say half a cm deep. Add some chopped ginger. Cover the dish with plastic wrap. Microwave for 5 minutes or so. Tastes great and healthly too.


I have seen the same phenomena with cooked hamburgers and steaks.  My research led me back to part of your question having to do with duck meat being characterized as red meat.

What differentiates red meat from white meat is the amount of myoglobin in the meat which absorbs oxygen from the air.  All red meat, when exposed to air, will turn bright red.  I have only observed this with raw or relatively rare cooked red meat so if your duck was not cooked beyond medium, that could be the answer.  Like you, however, I did not find any material that cited the exact scenario you described.

Here are my links to the articles on myoglobin in red meat:

http://scienceline.ucsb.edu/getkey.php?key=1859

http://m.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-difference-between-white-meat-and-dark-meat.htm


How can I adjust oven temperature correctly

It sounds like you need to buy an oven thermometer.  Put it on the same rack you'll be using for baking, and it will tell you what "hi," "lo," and in between (if available) settings really mean.


Shrimp skin color depends on the presence of several pigments, the main ones are blue and pink carotenoids. That make shrimps to have a wide variety of shades depending on the subspecies, feeding, location, etc.

When cooked, blue carotenoids dissapear, leaving just the pink pigments wich transform to orange shades.

The final color of the cooked shrimps depend on the original pigments.


Is it safe to use a stainless steel pan after making salt and vinegar brine in it?

Your pan is fine, the vinegar and salt just dulled it visually but it is safe to use.


Is it okay to boil milk (making steel cut oats)

Yes, it's fine to boil milk - or at least to simmer it. Milk gets really foamy when it boils, and tends to boil over, so you probably don't want to actually boil it, but rather quickly turn the heat down when it shows signs of boiling, and let it simmer. It does develop a film on top sometimes, but nothing that can't just be stirred in and dissolved, and you should be stirring your oats reasonably frequently anyway so they don't stick to the bottom.


According to the Keurig website:

  K-Cup® and Vue™ packs do not contain BPA and are constructed using FDA-approved food safe materials. We also use FDA-approved food safe materials in our K-Cup® and Vue™ brewing systems, and neither system contains BPA within its water paths (as of January 1, 2010 for our K-Cup® system).

I therefore would definitely say you need not be concerned, and if you are worried about BPA consumption, make sure you have a newer machine!


Why do purple snap beans turn green when cooked?

This is another case for anthocyanins, the same compound that causes garlic and ginger to turn blue. Anthocyanins are pH sensitive, only appearing blue or purple when in the presence of acidity. As you cook the beans, the cells begin to rupture and lose water, which causes the acid around the anthocyanins to be diluted. As this happens, they lose their color allowing the green chlorophyll (which was always present) to show through.

The Science Behind Purple Beans


What is the proper way to use polysorbate to create an emulsion?

From what I have read, the process is to mix polysorbate with the essential oil, in a 1:1 ratio, until a clear solution is achieved.  Then, add that mixture to your water or flavor syrup. As I understand it, there are several variables, such at pH, temperature, and the other ingredients that might be part of your final product, which could impact the effectiveness of polysorbate.

You could also look into soy lecithin as a potential emulsifier for your situation.


is there a blender/food processor combo still made?

Yes, several companies are selling these blender/food processor combos. A quick search found this Oster and this Cuisinart, as well as several others.


How bakeries do a soft crust breads and making the same at home will result in a crisp crust?

In a commercial bakery Pain de mie would be baked in a sealed tin. I think it is a similar bread to the `Pullman loaf', which is baked in a special Pullman tin. (Easy to find a picture on the web.) This minimizes crust formation.

More generally, domestic ovens, particularly fan ovens, are designed to cook food in a dry environment. Low humidity means heat gets transferred quickly to the exterior of the food. This is good for roasting meat etc. For bread it means you are likely to get a thicker and darker crust than in a commercial bakery. You can try to counterbalance this by putting a tray of boiling water into the oven just before the loaf, or (more successful in my experience) using a preheated Dutch oven inside your oven.


Used Sweetened yoghurt in savoury dish - how to correct?

You cannot disguise or remove the sweetness, once it is in there it isn't going to go away. You can balance it out with acidity, however if it is very sweet then you will need to add a lot of acid, and then the dish will be intensely sweet and sour, which probably is not what you want.

You aren't going to be able to regain the character of the dish, but you might be able to produce something tasty. I would try to add some bitterness, like fenugreek if you have it, and see if that makes it work. There is a point of diminishing returns where you can spend more time and effort adding more and more ingredients to rescue a dish than it's worth, at that point it's better to start over or feed it to people and tell them it's your grandmother's recipe - nobody will ever tell you it's bad then.


How to prevent eggplant having a tough or rubbery texture

Make sure your initial cooking is reasonably fast and hot, and from there just cook it until it's soft enough for your tastes.

Many vegetables firm up when cooked at lower temperatures, especially in the presence of salt. From On Food and Cooking:

  It turns out that in certain vegetables and fruits - including potatoes, sweet potatoes, beets, carrots, beans, cauliflower, tomatoes, cherries, apples - the usual softening during cooking can be reduced by a low-temperature precooking step. If preheated to 130-140F/55-60C for 20-30 minutes, these foods develop a persistent firmness that survives prolonged final cooking. ... Firm-able vegetables and fruits have an enzyme in their cell walls that becomes activated at around 50C (and inactivated above 70C), and alters the cell-wall pectins so that they're more easily cross-linked by calcium ions. At the same time, calcium ions are being released as the cell contents leak through damaged membranes, and they cross-link the pectin so that it will be much more resistant to removal or breakdown at boiling temperatures.

Eggplant isn't on that list, but I believe the enzyme in question is pectinesterase and is present to some degree in many vegetables, and I've had eggplant that stayed fairly tough through longer cooking, so I suspect it's a possibility here.


How to make rice crispy treats with no marshmallows, eggs or gelaten

Aquafaba

Aquafaba (/ˌɑːkwəˈfɑːbə/) is the name for the viscous water in which legume seeds such as chickpeas have been cooked.
Due to its ability to mimic functional properties of egg whites in cooking, aquafaba can be used as a direct replacement for them in some cases, including meringues and marshmallows. Its composition makes it especially suitable for use by people with dietary, ethical, or religious reasons to avoid eggs.1

Aqua Faba features heavily in Vegan cookbooks. You can get it by capturing the liquid when you drain a can of chickpeas.
Here's a recipe that might get you started.


All cook top safety is the same:

Keep it clean and pay attention!

Glass ranges aren't inherently any more unsafe than a gas or normal electric range. Ranges are just a tool, one that generates a large amount of heat in a small area. Like any tool, you can hurt yourself or others if you don't follow the basic rules of use. Luckily, those rules are pretty easy to follow once you train yourself.

Keeping It Clean

When you are cooking, there is no reason to have anything around the range that you don't need to cook. No papers, no cutting boards, no wine glasses, no anything else. Anything extra is an invitation to spill or something to catch on fire. Nothing good can come of it. Cook with a towel and when you spill, clean it immediately. A clean range can't catch on fire because there is nothing to burn!

Paying Attention

Don't walk away from a range that is on! Almost every kitchen fire could be stopped by the simply having someone looking at the range when the fire started. You should be prepared with the failure signs for the type of cooking you are doing (like if your oil is smoking, you need less heat, or an open flame can ignite even low alcohol content if it's boiling).

If you follow those rules, you will almost never actually need this last one. I've worked professionally in kitchens for 14 years and I've only dealt with one fire that wouldn't have been stopped by the rules above. The final rule?

ALWAYS HAVE A FIRE EXTINGUISHER  But it sounds like you already have that one covered.

In case SAJ in the comments is correct and I misinterpreted the question, your range is safe to continue using as long as you didn't crack the cook top or short the burners. The top is sealed, so you shouldn't see any particulate under the glass. If you do, you need to clean the burner assemblies before running current to them. That means wires and the infrared bulbs. Some brands will require this to be done by a trained technician. If the top is cracked, you need a new top, as the crack can redirect the heat or shatter.


Why do whole chicken recipes advise rinsing the chicken?

The theory is that washing the chicken (or any fowl) removes all of the contaminates from the surface and cavity of the bird (ie salmonella, etc.). People will be in one of two camps - 1. those that have been told to do all of their lives, so they do it, and 2. those who don't because it is really not necessary. You cook your birds to a certain temperature internally for a reason, that is to kill all of that stuff.

Really, the truth of the matter is that there are far higher risks in washing the bird and spreading all of those juices all over your sink (thus contaminating the sink and possibly some work surfaces).

There is no increase in flavour, there is no practical reason to bother. Professionally, it is not done.

However, having said that, the one time I do rinse and pat dry is when I am applying a rub. It ensures that the chicken is dry and I can effectively rub, instead of the rub turning to a paste.


Making espresso correctly - rerunning hot water several times through an espresso puck to fill an Americano

Most coffee shops use about 20 grams (18-24 grams in my experience) for a double shot of coffee, and 12-16 grams for a single shot. If you see a cafe using 20 grams for a single shot, its only because they are using double ristrettos (2 half-shots of espresso) instead of a single shot. Some people prefer the flavor profile of a double ristretto.
As you pull hot water through your shots, you extract different compounds from the coffee. Most people stop their shots when they've extracted all the tasty compounds, and I'll usually try to stop my shots before the coffee starts to taste bitter.

If you prefer your coffee a bit more bitter and full-bodied, as well as with whatever other flavors you're extracting at the end feel free to pull extra shots from the same coffee, however I would normally reccomend just adding extra shots to the americano instead.

All that being said, Barista Champion Matt Perger reccomended during his world barista run a process similar to what you're doing. He reccomended using a coarser grind and running the shots for way longer to achieve a coffee similar to a filter coffee or americano. However he also has the benefit of expensive professional machines that are highly tuned, so your experience may vary.

Summary

My reccomendation if you are going to pull the shots more than once is to use a coarser grind for your coffee. Otherwise feel free to pull the shots as long as you like until you dont like the taste. You could also try pulling the separate shots into separate cups to taste them before mixing them together.


Add Cocoa Butter to Chocolate Chips to Temper?

Keep in mind that if you mess up tempering of 'fine chocolate', you can always heat it back up and do it again.

All you are doing is trying to make one of the three types of chocolate crystals the dominant one, and form the crystal lattice.

This article chocolate alchemy describes it.  In practice, having a fast digital hand thermometer is really helpful since you can actually see the changes at the critical temperatures.

As far as the Nestle stuff goes, try practicing with them as they are.  I'm afraid I can't advise to throw good cocoa butter into it.  You may be able to get chocolate ice cream mileage from your 8lbs. Otherwise, just go ahead temper your favourite chocolate.  Worst case, a badly tempered good chocolate still tastes great.


Will egg whites still whip after being in the fridge overnight?

Certainly yes. In fact, aged egg whites can whip better - sensitive applications like macarons will frequently prescribe holding the separated egg whites for a day or two before using.


Split beans and peas are tricky to pressure cook and you should not be attempting this if you're new to pressure cooking.  That's because you first need to learn how to regulate heat so that it's not too high at the beginning (which will shoot the beans through the vent, muck it up, and cause a dangerous situation) and during pressure cooking.  Any over-pressure situation will be dangerous.

Learn to use your pressure cooker very well first, and then if you'd like to attempt this follow these precautions:

Ensure the gasket and valves of your pressure cooker are good working
order.
NEVER fill the pressure cooker more than half-full with split
peas and their cooking liquid.
Use at least a tablespoon of fat.
ALWAYS release pressure using ONLY Natural Release (do not use the
valve, don’t use cold-water quick, don’t use base immersion).
Clean the lid and pressure valves thoroughly after pressure cooking
Supervise the rise to
pressure closely to make sure the cooker does not go into
over-pressure.
Please note that since the booklet advises against it, should you pressure cooker be damaged or you be injured attempting to do this, the manufacturer is not responsible.

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Mysterious bitter taste from tropical fruits and coconut

The culprit is the pineapple.

Raw pineapple contains bromelain, an enzyme that breaks down the protein in your milk, making it bitter. The same principle is applied when bromelain is used as meat tenderizer, either as powdered additive or as fruit-based brine.

This process takes a short while, so if you used pineapple in your cereal and eat it right away, it will not be bitter (unless the enzyme content in your fruit is excepitonally high), but after 30 minutes it will be noticeable.

Bromelaine will also keeping gelatine from firming up. Heating destroys the enzyme, so canned pineapple is perfectly "safe".

Other fruit with similar properties are papaya (papain) and kiwifruit (actinidin).

This article explains it a bit more in detail.


You could try Maldon Sea Salt, or similar supermarket sea salts. While not identical to kosher salt, they can be used in a similar way. Maldon is also is much cheaper in the UK than it is in the US (where it's an import).

It's not a product I can recall seeing in many UK stores.


Increasing my pancake recipe..Are soda and salt in a different ratio than the other ingredients?

In a pancake recipe, it is unlikely to be a practical concern.

The reason these ideas get started is because:

Small recipes have intentional rounding-off errors to make measurements simple (1/2 tsp for example, instead of .4321 teaspoons)
Scaling up may magnify error
In yeast raised doughs, where yeast grows exponentially over time, scaling yeast up linearly can have some complex feedbacks with proofing times and temperatures given how long it takes to work on a larger volume of dough.  Because salt interacts with the yeast, it is also a crucial ingredient for scaling.  That doesn't apply here.

Pancakes, in particular are very forgiving and flexible.   They should scale linearly, in practice.

If you are exceptionally concerned, you can find a commercial recipe (often called a formula) which is expressed by weight and is much more accurate.   These should scale quite effectively.

One issue you may have is how long it takes to cook the larger batch of pancakes, and that you will be losing leavening from the batter during that time.  Unless you have four people working four griddles, you may be better off just making a large batch of dry pancake mix (everything except, typically, fat, eggs, water, and dairy depending).  You can then mix in the liquids in smaller amounts as you go along, essentially continually creating fresh batter for yourself.


How can I remove the peel and pit of an avocado without the whole thing turning into mush?

The California Avocado Commission recommends this (safe but wimpy - see below for a better way) three-step process:

Start with a ripe avocado and cut it lengthwise around the seed. Rotate the halves to separate.
Remove the seed by sliding the tip of a spoon gently underneath and lifting out. The other common seed-extraction method - striking the seed with a knife and twisting - requires some skill and is not recommended.
Peel the fruit by placing the cut side down and removing the skin with a knife or your fingers, starting at the small end. Or simply scoop out the avocado meat with a spoon. Be sure to sprinkle all cut surfaces with lemon or lime juice or white vinegar to prevent discoloration.

Source: California Avocado Commission

Notes:

Another (and my favorite) way to remove the pit is by holding the half with the pit in one hand and striking the sharp edge of the knife used in step one into the pit, then twisting to remove. This is the "pro" way to do it, but takes a little practice. The video Nate referenced in the comments shows how to do it, it's not that hard.
If you're going to be chopping the avocado up, you slice it up using the tip of the knife still in the shell, then scoop the sliced avocado meat out with a spoon.


Ideas:

Veer into pesto.  You could add walnuts or pine nuts and basil pesto style.  This would be a good pasta sauce.  I would eat it right now.
Stretch it out with chopped spinach or arugala.
Thin it with cheese.  A dip with your tapenade and feta cheese or a mild blue cheese 50/50 would be dynamite.  Or just with plain yogurt, which is very unsalty.
Top a pizza with it.


There are dozens if not hundreds of kinds of cheese in the world.

Several kinds of non-shelf-stable cheese do not contain any added salt, just the natural salt content of the milk. Quark is a prominent example, paneer can also be made without salt. Of course paneer will reflect the taste of the acid that was used, for example lemon juice - it is up to you whether you consider it to be a seasoning or not.

Cheeses that have a ripening time need salt for conservation purposes, so they are all salted. If you want to taste a low-salt cheese of this type, try Emmentaler - the traditional ones go as low as 0.5% salt, and I am not even sure if this is added or not, so maybe it doesn't even fall under your definition of "seasoned".

In addition, there are cheeses which also contain seasoning specifically meant to change their taste, for example wild garlic cheese or pepper cheese. These are added to the curds before pressing. Other types of cheese, like some cream cheeses or American cheeses, have seasoning added in an additional processing step. The seasoning in this step is highly varied, and can include not only the traditional herbs but also things like fungi or bacon pieces. And quarks are frequently seasoned with fruit at this step.

So, there is a huge variety, and you can have seasoned or unseasoned cheese as you prefer.


What are some ways to reduce the bitterness of chicory?

First and foremost, for both types remove the white core, which is the most bitter part. Some recipes omit that bit of instruction, assuming the reader knows this.

Next, the bitter compounds are water soluble, so soaking the cut leaves for half an hour or - if applicable - blanching will remove excessive bitterness. (Yes, you will leach out vitamins, but it's either one or the other.)

Good produce matters in this case, too: fresh chicory / endive is only slightly bitter. If the heads have been exposed to light and warmth, they turn increasingly bitter. So if you can, buy them from stores where they are kept in dark boxes and choose firm, plump ( = fresh ) heads, then store them in the fridge at home. I would assume a similar mechanism for red chicory / radicchio, but it's not kept dark. But again, pick firm heads.

And then there is preparation: A quick stir-fry will keep the bitter compounds inside the leaves, long braising will tend to extract them into the sauce, making the whole dish being percieved as more bitter. If that's too much for you, blanch first.
Also, adding sweet or caramelly notes (a generous pinch to a spoonful of sugar in the frying pan) or aceto balsamico can mitigate the bitter taste.


How much baking powder or soda can I add to cookies without the taste being affected?

Your question is based on several misconceptions, I'm afraid. The very short answer would be, "don't do it".

First, you cannot add more baking powder without affecting the taste, baking powder is already there at levels that affect the taste in standard recipes. If you add more, it'll be noticeable.

Second, my first point left out baking soda on purpose. Just adding baking soda is unlikely to change the leavening, since you probably won't have enough acid in the recipe.

Third, even if you have enough acid to react with your baking soda, or are adding baking powder, this doesn't mean you'll get more leavening. Recipes which need a lot of leavening and use chemical leavening are already optimized to get the most leavening that the baking soda (or baking powder) can provide. A greater amount won't give you more leavening.

Fourth, I can't imagine a situation where this makes sense. The typical things people mean when they say the word "cookies" without further qualifiers, say American chocolate chip cookies, are not egg-leavened. Other types which are egg-leavened, such as French macarons, are generally not doable without eggs, and adding baking soda won't change that.


Are bonded stainless pans safe to use if they make knocking sounds?

Are they safe? Sure. I think you might be thinking of thermal stress in something like a glass casserole dish, where a temperature gradient can cause the thing to violently fracture, exploding in all directions. (Trip report: It was surprising, and terrifying in retrospect!) That can't happen with a metal pan, which will deform rather than fracturing.
Moreover, the stress on your partially separated pan is less than it would be on a non-busted pan. The sounds you're hearing are the sounds of stress being released little by little, rather than being stored up.
A bonded pan bottom comes off bit by bit over a large number of heating cycles, and in my experience never comes off completely (unless pulled off). But once the separation starts, thermal conduction goes way down in the separated areas, leaving uneven hot and cold spots. So these pans aren't going to kill you... but they're likely to disappoint you.


Does the size of chilli pieces affect the hotness

It really does depend how you're cooking them.

  Logically, smaller pieces would expose a greater surface area, however, I have experienced greater heat from a dish when using larger pieces.

The small pieces give an even heat that permeates the dish, but the big pieces give a burst of heat when you encounter them.  Even using both wouldn't be unreasonable.

The difference will be reduced in long slow cooking, especially with some fat in the sauce, as the capsaicin (i.e. the heat) will have more chance of dissolving and spreading into the rest of the food.


Can I substitute condensed milk for evaporated milk in icing?

Yes you can.

If you have unsweetened condensed milk, that is another name for evaporated milk and they are interchangeable.

If you have sweetened condensed milk, you can use one 14 oz can to replace one cup of evaporated milk and one cup of granulated sugar.


I just realized that you said 'minutes after' before you said 'as soon as I take it out'.

If it's as soon as you take it out, it's a problem with it being undercooked.

If it takes a few minutes to deflate, it can be an issue with cooling them too quickly.  You can get around this problem by taking a sharp knife or skewer and poking a couple of holes in the top of each one.

This will allow any built up steam to escape (which will unfortunately cool it off), but it will prevent the trapped air from creating a vaccuum as it cools, causing it to collapse.


Assuming this is a meat fondue (AKA fondue bourguignonne), using oil instead of cheese:

There is no best or correct oil to use - each type of oil has its own characteristic flavour.  However, a meat fondue generally involves heating the oil to 350-400° F (175-200° C), so you'll want to treat this more or less like deep-frying and use an oil with a relatively high smoke point.

That means, no unrefined olive oil, sesame oil or walnut oil, and be extra careful if you want to use butter (clarify it first).  Canola, sunflower, peanut, grapeseed, etc. are all good choices, or any of the refined versions of olive/sesame/walnut with higher smoke points.

Personally I'd either use refined olive oil or a flavour-neutral oil like peanut or sunflower.  Most of the time you don't want to be imparting any "foreign" flavours to meat, although I suppose you could go with refined sesame oil for a moderate Asian twist.


How well does freshly baked sandwich bread fly?

About the same time it fares not flying.  Flying is not something the bread is aware of.