Why don't they sell frozen tomatoes like other frozen vegetables and fruits?

Freeze one, thaw it and see.
The liquid separates out and leaves a pulpy structure behind.
Tomato sauce (no chunks) thaws much better and separated liquid can be stirred back in well enough.

Canned works as we all know so no one is bothering trying to grow a freezer-friendly tomato, yet.


Can an open package of sausage lead to contamination of other foods?

While there is some question as to the wisdom of keeping or eating long kept fresh sausage (which has a shelf life of a couple of days in the refrigerator), it cannot magically reach out and contaminate other foods unless it is in contact with the other foods, or dripping onto them.

This is one of the reasons food should be covered in the refrigerator--it minimizes the risk of getting dripped on (the main reasons are to prevent odor transfer and drying out).

You should also ideally have raw meats stored at the bottom of the refrigerator where it is coldest and they would not be able to drip on any other foods even by accident.

Micro-fauna and pathogens are everywhere, in the air, on surfaces, and so forth.  The presence of he questionable sausage, even older, doesn't change that fact.

If your other food is properly stored (covered, refrigerated below 40 F / 4 C), its shelf life is not going to change because the sausage is there; it is the refrigeration that protects it, although it will go bad itself in the normal course of events.

Now, as to whether you and your roommate should have a discussion on what you feel is appropriate refrigerator etiquette and usage, that is another question that cannot be answered here.


It is basically as simple as you say (soak, blend, strain) ... just that you should also boil it (for long enough - cca. 10 minutes) to get rid of the fresh bean (grassy) flavor (mainly caused by oxidation of polyunsaturated oils in the beans), together with some other unpleasant side effects of eating uncooked beans (like the infamous gas-producing effect of some oligosaccharides).

McGee, On Food & Cooking says:
The key to minimizing the development of beany flavor is to inactivate
the beans' enzymes quickly, before they have a chance to attack the
oils. This is done by soaking the beans to speed subsequent cooking,
and then immersing them in boiling water or pressure-cooking them.

There is a vast number of soy milk preparation instructions online ... this one has always worked really well for me: http://justhungry.com/milking-soy-bean-part-1-soy-milk with all steps and techniques described in detail, and you will also find some continuing posts on how to further turn it into tofu, if you wish so.
Depending on further processing steps and your personal preferences you might choose one recipe/preparation method over another, so I will not recommend any specifics, but in general this should set you on the right track.
p.s. I found that straining/squeezing through cheesecloth/cotton muslin/nut milk bag over a colander is a winning technique ... no need to go any fancier.


How dangerous is it to refreeze meat that has been thawed?

In theory you could thaw and refreeze as many times as you like, though the changes in temperature would definitely alter the quality of the meat's taste and texture.

What matters most is how long the meat has been in the so-called "danger zone" speaking from a temperature perspective. The "danger zone" is defined as being between 41 to 135 °F (5 to 57 °C).

Here is an excerpt from The Professional Chef, by the Culinary Institute of America:

  Foods left in the danger zone for a period longer than four hours are considered adulterated. Additionally, one should be fully aware that the four-hour period is cumulative, meaning that the meter starts running again every time the food enters the danger zone. Therefore, once the four-hour period has been exceeded, heating, cooling, or any other cooking method cannot recover foods.


domestic bread steaming -> will my stone be okay?

I would not go ahead and just toss water on the oven floor as this can both damage your oven, as well as lower its temperature.

Instead, I would use a baking pan with some boiling water, put it on the lowest rack. The temperature of the oven will keep the water boiling, and thus releasing steam throughout the baking.


If I'm freezing live clams, purge before or after freezing?

Here provides 2 methods to preserve clams:

If you will cook these clams within future 7 days, you could just refrigerate them, just put whole package in the refrigerator, and do purging before cooking. Put clams in 2~3% salty water about 2 hours for purging.
If you need longer preservation, you could freeze them, but remember to do purging before putting them in freezer. Clams will be no longer alive after freeze and unfreeze, and purging will become failed.

It's the experience from me and my friends who love culinary, hope it helps :P

Note:
If your clams are vacuum-packaged, both refrigerating and freezing should be OK (Prefer refrigerating, closer to clams living temperature).
No matter what method preservation, cook and eat these fresh ingredients ASAP always better.


Will my bread dough that has already gone through first rise be okay to bake after three days of refrigeration?

From experience... No, it will probably not be 'okay to bake'. It's not going to rise, the yeast will most likely be spent.

Try mixing more dough and incorporate a third of your dough into that as a starter. Then, when that dough is finished mixing, cut a third of it and put it in the fridge for the next time you make bread. Then you've got a heck of a nice starter going.


One tablespoon of apple brandy in a recipe of that volume is an accent; it may be nice to have, but it is not going to dramatically transform the outcome.

The obvious choice is to simply omit it.

Otherwise, some reasonable substitutions include:

Vodka.  While it doesn't bring a specific flavor, it will provide alcohol to help dissolve those flavor components that otherwise would not be as apparent, perhaps intensifying the flavor of the cake.
Bourbon.  Compliments the vanilla, and provides a counterpoint to the apples.
Brandy, either grape or another fruit like pear.  Another, similar flavor accent.

There is little point in reducing soft cider because it will not contain alcohol, and the quantity is not enough to matter, unless (and then only maybe) you make a syrup--in that case, however, you would be more substantially transforming the recipe.

Hard cider has some alcohol, so might work (after all, Calvados or apple brandy is distilled hard cider), but you don't want to reduce it, which would drive a significant percentage of the alcohol and volatile flavor compounds.   Freeze-concentrating it (as applejack was once made) would work but is probably excessive in terms of effort and reward.


The whole idea of using a cedar plank is to char the heck out of the bottom and produce lots of smoke and flavor. My roughly 1/4 inch planks are usually charred pretty well and I simply couldn't see using them a second time. At times, it seems that 1/8 inch or more of the bottom is gone.

If you find a good source for your planks, they should be pretty inexpensive so why push it? I found one of the best sources to be my supermarket right next to the fish counter. $3 - $4 / plank. Seems like a small price to pay when you are grilling a $30 piece of salmon on top of it.


Original baking time based on ingredients already being warm to hot

I think there is only one possible answer, if we don't know your recipe, volume, oven characteristics and cookery.

Stick a probe thermometer in the middle of the casserole and heat it at the normal temperature until it is bubbly, browned and internal temperature reading at least 140F˚ / 60C˚.


America's Test Kitchen did a segment on digital kitchen scales. Their judging criteria were:

Accuracy: Does the scale display the correct weight?
Button usability: Are the buttons in an accessible location? Can they be pressed without too much force?
Display visibility: Can you see the display when a large bowl is on the scale? Are the numbers large enough to read clearly?
Easy to clean
Stability: When you push the buttons, does the scale move?

To answer your specific questions:

None of the 10 scales they tested were waterproof - it seems like that may be a rare feature.
If you can detach the weighing platform from the rest of the scale, it will be easy to clean.
They did not have problems with the tare button biasing the weight.
A weighing platform separate from the main machine makes it easier to see the display and press the buttons, even when a large bowl is on the scale.


Is my microwave still safe to use after accidentally heating metal in it?

The spark was a voltage jumping over a gap somewhere. This may occur again, but so long as the magnetron survives, you should be okay.  The problem with sparks is they can leave a carbon trail deep inside which is conductive and may actually make the next spark occur at a slightly lower voltage. If this happens enough, you will eventually (or shortly) damage the unit and make it unusable.

I actually work as a product safety consultant and I can say, so long as you have an approved product (CSA, UL, ETL, or TUV) this sort of fault was actually tested. You should be a safe enough and not start a fire.


Your question seems to assume that the sour flavor is not how it's supposed to be. But that may simply be how the tea you've bought always tastes. If it's really sour, maybe it's just not a good tea; it could also be that you simply don't prefer this kind of tea. You could try to cover it up with a bit of sugar. But failing that, I think this is just not the tea for you. There are tons and tons of fruit-flavored teas out there, so I'm sure you can find some different ones to try.


Corn has husk, silk and kernels. In the middle there is the cob, which only becomes visible after you have eaten the kernels.

The husk is, botanically speaking, formed of leaves, but it has a different texture from the standard leaves and encloses the cob with the kernels snugly. It can be left on the cob during boiling, or removed before boiling. For grilling and other preparations, remove the husk. It is not edible, historically it was used for crafting. In the kitchen, it can be used for wrapping a tamale, although wider leaflike matter is more convenient, if available (such as banana leaves).

The silk is called that because it looks and feels like silk while young. The silk in ripe corn tends to be sun dried and brittle, at least outside of the "package" of husk. It is not usually eaten. See also Tips for Removing Silk from Corn?.

The kernels are what you want to eat. Most methods call for preparing them while still on the cob. If you need them removed, you can "shave them off" the cob with a sharp knife.

The cob itself is the dry semihard thing in the center. It has no culinary uses.

The leaves are used to feed livestock, but not eaten by humans.

An ear is the name for the whole package you pick off the plant, so the kernels on the cob with their silk and husk.

The stalk is something not generally seen in a kitchen. It is thick and tall, supporting the leaves and the ears.


Is it possible to repair damage to the non-stick surface?

no you cannot practically repair teflon damage. In theory you could probably spray more teflon over it, but you would likely want an even coating, which would mean stripping the pan anyway. Plus, the teflon would be very hard to get a hold of, you'd need spraying equipment, and then a curing oven to bake it at something like 400°C.
Personally I don't recommend spending a ton of money on frying pans. The expensive pans don't really offer anything worthwhile over cheaper pans. You can get tri-ply teflon (brand) pans from ikea for $30-40. if you want high heat cooking I'd recommend stainles/carbon steel or cast iron


Not sure about the acceptable fluctuations but probably the most common sort of sensor for those high termperatures is a thermocouple. There are three easy ways to get the data to a PC that come to mind:

Logging the data using a temperature datalogger with a thermocouple interface so it can later be downloaded to a PC. That might be good if getting your laptop / PC near the oven is a hassle.
A dedicated USB to thermocouple interface.
Using a multimeter with a USB interface and a thermocouple interface. That might have a bit of a learning curve to setup but might be useful if you see yourself ever using the other functions of a multimeter.

Thermocouples come in several types (type J, K, T etc) but the main thing to check is that the datalogger you select is compatible with the thermocouple, that they have similar connector types so it's easy to setup and the thermocouple covers an appropriate temperature range.

There are quite a few places to buy that sort of gear but it should give you a few search terms to use. For example on Amazon a pair of products I found searching on "USB thermocouple" and "thermocouple sensor" that might be suitable are:

USB Thermocouple Measurement Device for Windows® Linux®, and Mac®

3 Meters 9.8ft K Type Thermocouple Sensor Probe -30 to 400C

Another thing to be aware of is that some thermocouple sensors (mostly described as probes) are only designed to be inserted into hot substances, the cables attaching them aren't rated for the same high temperature but you can check with the supplier if unsure and it's not mentioned in the specifications. Also I'm not sure of the food safety of thermocouples so I wouldn't use them for measuring the internal temperature of meat without checking into that side of things, but it sounds like that won't be an issue for you.


Why is my dry rub almost tasteless when the meat comes off the smoker?

Do you just sprinkle the dry rub over the meat and just throw it in the oven straight away? or let it marinate for few minutes?

I let the meat sweat a little and let it take in the spices into it. and surely I make cuts and incisions for the spices to get in the meat.

and there is old saying by my grans you heat the spices too much you lose aroma. so use the rub sparingly few times during cooking.


Yes, with any kind of 'stewing' sauce, the flavour improves the longer you cook it (provided it's a slow, gentle process). The longer you leave it, the more chance the flavours have to 'marry'. I have a recipe for a pasta sauce that calls for 6 hours of slow simmering!

You may also have noticed in the past that left over pasta sauce that you eat the next day is really good, for the same reason as above. Any stew, in fact, like bolognese, casserole, chilli, bourgignon etc, is really delicious when left overnight and reheated.


What is the black, slightly sweet, flavour in some Asian food?

Hoisin sauce, oyster sauce, and black bean paste seem to be the most likely culprits.  What is the texture of the sauce? If it's smooth, it's hoisin; but hoisin tends to be salty. If it's not smooth, it's black bean paste. Oyster sauce is a little oilier than the other two, and is used in almost every Asian sautee.


Here's your answer, directly from the creator of the recipe:

  This dish is terrific if left for an hour or so after cooking as it
  gives the saucy bit and the cakey bit some time to separate a little.
  I have devoured leftovers of this 24 hours later, after i left them in
  the fridge. In all honesty after being left for this time it's very
  different to what it's like warm - more like a gooey pudding than cake
  and a sauce, but absolutely delicious. I doubt very much that it would
  reheat as it would dry out (although you could try it briefly in the
  microwave if you have one).

  I hope that helps.

  By the way, the Guardian printed a version of this recipe which had
  one of the ingredients (milk) missing from the method. Hopefully the
  one you're using is the correct one, but if you do find the milk is
  missing, the correct version is on my website

  Best wishes

  Sue

(just to make sure: I'm not Sue, this a copy of the email she sent me in response to the forwarding of your original question)


How to make the marshmallow swirl for Chocolate Marshmallow Ice cream from scratch?

I have made marshmallows using Alton Brown's method; it works and is a lot of fun. If you don't form the individual marshmallows, but just swirl it into the ice cream while it's still a sticky mess, that should work for your swirl.

There is even a video in that link.

As ElendilTheTall mentioned in comments, you probably should reduce the amount of gelatin in Alton's recipe, perhaps by a third, to get a good swirl.


Can chicken be partially deep fried to fully fry later?

Stephie's answer covers the main issues.  I would add that you should probably check with any government regulations about food handling.  I don't know where you are located, but many states have guidelines about how commercial cooking operations must handle "partially cooked" foods, often requiring documentation of your process, temperature and time monitoring records, labeling of all partially cooked containers (and separation from other raw or cooked food), etc.  In the U.S., these are often closely related to the FDA Food Code.  (Partial cooking regulations are generally a little more complex than any "2-hour" or "4-hour" rule which is often brought up here.)

Particularly if you plan to try Stephie's 3rd method of partial cooking followed by cooling to refrigerate or freeze, there are generally very specific practices about the amount of time spent during partial cooking and the amount of time spent cooling (sometimes in specific temperature ranges).  Usually this method is best for bulk batches prepared in advance, so you have time and attention to monitor the process.  That's why most fast-food restaurants that use this method tend to do this as a large-scale industrial process in advance, then ship out the partially cooked frozen or refrigerated food to be simply heated and served.

And if you are going to try to implement Stephie's 2nd method (holding for short times without temperature control), you'll want to have logbooks to keep track of holding time and label every container of partially cooked food.  You'll also need to be absolutely certain to keep various batches separate to avoid cross-contamination between partially cooked food, particularly if some of the food may not have reached 140F before holding.

In general, the safest and easiest thing to do is generally to bring food to at least 135F and hold it there.  (I should note that the 2013 revisions of the Food Code say 135F minimum for holding, instead of 140F; this change has not yet been implement in most FDA consumer guidelines, but it's now the standard for commercial cooking.)  Trying anything else requires a lot more attention to detail to prevent potentially dangerous bacterial growth.  That's the reason behind the complex Food Code regulations covering partially cooked foods; there's a much greater likelihood of making people sick if you're not careful.


How do packaged cookies stay good for so long?

The sugar answers are spot on.

Also, let's give a shout out to modern packaging--particularly the vapor barriers in use today.  Light years ahead of the old days.  That vapor barrier is a significant contributor to the longevity of the modern packaged cookie.

Also impressive, is Modified Atmosphere Packaging. That allows products today that were unthinkable 20 years or so ago. Pre-sliced lunch meats, shredded cheeses, Lunchables, prefab sandwiches etc.


If you are 1) cooking the fruit a fair amount of time and/or 2) using not-too-little amount of fruit compared to sauce, there will , almost definitely, be difference in flavor, and yes, it should have more "fresh" notes, and it will also miss some of the cooked-fruit notes. If you are after fresh notes, may I suggest using frozen, or even fresh fruits?


Best way to keep bread for a long time, more than 1 day, especially burger buns, which are more fragile than regular bread is to freeze them.

Slice them open and freeze them as quickly as possible, but in a freeze bag.

(edit)
If your buns start having fungus after just a couple of days, maybe there is something wrong with your recipe; could you share the recipe?


How can I make the best use of chocolate peppers?

In general, you can roast peppers to develop a richer flavor.  Then skin the pepper and you can use it for salsas, sauces, or just slice/dice it up for a sandwich.


Why does adding commercial processed cheese to fondue change its consistency?

The magic is from Sodium Citrate

Most mass produced cheese it based on "cheddar blends". Basically large (50 Kg to 1 Mg) blocks of cheese are made in a milk factory. When a consumer product is to be made from it, the cheddar is shredded, flavour and/or culture is added, and then using heat and pressure it is re-packed into consumer sized packages

In some cases Sodium Citrate is added to improve the hold-together of the cheese

Sodium Citrate is an old additive for "cooking cheese", and it can be made at home with baking soda and lemon juice. Gently heat the juice of half a lemon in a microwave safe bowl, then add 1/2 to 1 tsp of baking soda and heat until fully reacted (bubbles cease). Add about a cup of grated cheese (hard or soft) and repeat a gentle heat and stir cycle until it forms a smooth "sauce"

This will remain liquid while warm

If you let this cool you can mold it, or form "slices"

http://modernistcuisine.com/recipes/silky-smooth-macaroni-and-cheese


To increase flavor extraction (and this applies to ALL flavors, not just ginger):

Simmer for a prolonged period (more time to extract flavor).
Puree or finely mince the ginger, then strain it out with a fine chinois or cheesecloth. Smaller pieces allow water to more easily penetrate, and allows flavor compounds to be extracted more quickly
Stir frequently; this greatly reduces the time you need to cook the ginger, by ensuring flavor compounds reach an equilibrium throughout the mixture, rather than being concentrated at the surface of the ginger pieces.
Cook the same ginger multiple times with fresh water each time.  This will extract more flavor than doing one batch cooked 3x as long, and also more than cooking the same ginger with 3x as much water.  Each batch will be less flavorful, of course, but after 3-5 batches, you should have most of the flavor out.
Reduce the ginger water after extraction to concentrate the flavor.  This will be especially helpful when combined with multiple batches.
Add alcohol to the water, as many flavor compounds are oils, and thus more soluble in alcohol than water.  This is excellent to combine with reduction, as the alcohol is easily evaporated.

All of these approaches are based both practice and the chemistry behind extractions, which is what you are doing here.


What can be used as a substitute for potassium nitrate as a preservative?

Nitrates and nitrites have very few practical substitutes. They work well as antimicrobial agents, have a not unpleasant taste, and are easy to work with. This is a surprisingly unique set of characteristics.

Using just salt as a preservative would work really well... as long as you are careful to keep the meat in a single piece, and are careful to cultivate the right bacteria. In the right conditions of temperature and humidity, these bacteria break down some of the meat into nitric oxide and, well, nitrates and nitrites.

Celery juice works really well.. except that it's high in nitrates that then break down into nitrites in the curing process. It's also hard to predict how much nitrites will be released into the final product.

If you are really worried about nitrates / nitrites, can safely omit them, but there are some important caveats. First, your antipasto will look... less cheerful. The hemoglobins in the meat will oxidize, and turn from red to grey without the nitrites. Nitrates and nitrites do create other flavors in meats besides just saltiness. You will also need to eat the antipasto fast- without the powers of preservatives, it'll spoil at the same rate as fresh meat. I would treat the final product as such, and would not leave it unrefrigerated for any amount of time

In short, without nitrates, you can make a delicious fresh sausage. Just please cook it, and don't call it a cured meat.


Oil substitution for butter in pastry recipe

Traditional Cornish Pasty pastry is made with 1 part strong bread flour, 1/4 part each of butter and lard, about 1/3 part water, and about 1% of the flour's weight in salt. The pastry is worked quite hard, almost like a bread dough, and left to rest for a good hour. The resulting pastry is leathery enough to withstand a miner's pocket, faintly crisp on the outside, (with an egg-wash), and slightly gooey where it meets the filling ingredients, which are introduced raw, and cooked in the pastry.

Doing the sums, that's about 450g of fat to a kilo of flour,and 380g of water. Bread flour is 12-15% protein, higher than yours. The stronger your flour mixture, the more pliable the result.. the more oil, the more prone to crumbling (pure oil> shortbread.. pure water>something like a salt crust which it might take a hammer to break)

If I was experimenting with oils, I would combine the oil with the flour first, (probably in a food processor - it doesn't matter if it's overworked) and introduce the water slowly, until a coherent ball is formed, bearing in mind the paste will become more pliable after resting.

For a Cornish Pasty, the paste is rolled quite thick, about 5mm, cut with a dinner-plate as a guide, back half flopped over the pin to be filled, then folded over, and crimped.

Forgive me if I've misunderstood what you mean by 'Pasty' .. but then, I come from that part of the world.. :)  But it might, anyway, be an informative parallel to the kind of pasty you're aiming for.


I had ripe bananas so I peeled them, put them in Rubbermaid cont and in the fridge. Are they still ok to use?

The fridge is  the best method to store ripe bananas, and should be fine for 5 to 7 days. Refrigeration will make the skin of the banana black, but the flesh will remain unharmed.


If it's spoiling frequently, you're using an unsafe process. (Maybe boiling water bath, no pressure?) That means you should not eat anything else you've canned with the same process, because it could've become dangerously contaminated without obvious signs.

The only safe way to can low acid foods is with pressure canning. You should precisely follow a recipe from a trusted source, like this meat stock recipe from the NCHFP.


When I'm separating egg whites, how much does it matter if a little yolk gets in?

Yes, it matters a lot. When you are separating egg whites, it is for whipping them into a foam. This foam is a protein-based foam, relying on protein ends hooking into each other. Even small traces of fat will prevent the foam from forming. Egg yolks contain high amounts of fat. Once an egg yolk breaks in your whites, you have to start the separation anew, because it can prevent your foam from forming. Also, don't use plastic bowls for whipping egg whites (their surface retains some fat molecules even after washing, giving you a less stable foam) and only whip with a cleanly washed whisk or mixer attachment (not one you have just used for something else, not even if you wiped it clean).

To prevent big mishaps, just separate each new egg in a teacup and only add the new white to the old whites after it has separated cleanly. Else you are in big trouble if you are separating a lot and the last egg contaminates the whole whites with yolk. And a single contaminated egg is easily reused for a quick egg-and-feta sandwich or something else.

Contamination the other way round isn't so worrisome. You still want to work as precisely as possible, as yolk-only recipes will often have somewhat worse texture if eggwhite is included, but small contaminating amounts are usually not noticeable in the finished product, even in foams (zabaglione, mayonnaise). This is because yolk foams are fat-based, and small amounts of protein don't prevent a fat foam from forming.


What is the optimal way to remove salt from cooked meat?

Boiling in a large amount of water is probably the most efficient method. The water should be boiling to avoid spoilage and to promote fast diffusion, and there should be a lot of it to maximize the rate of diffusion. (Alternatively, you could replace the water one or more times during the process) Cutting up the pieces will speed up the process, but if time/texture/tastiness are not important then you can boil the stuff as long as you like.
As for the cooking process having affected how much salt can be drawn out: Possibly a bit. Chloride ions are known to bind to certain muscle proteins during the brining and cooking process. I would expect this to be a very minor effect, though. If you've ever tasted the meat left over from a long-cooking stock, you'll note how bland it can get.


If you are loving cows in particular, because they are nice and give us milk, you could substitute some other hooved animal.

I cannot really tell the difference between farmed bison and beef.  You can get bison meat in a lot of grocery stores now.
Venison or elk can be ordered from specialty groceries and also have that serious meat taste.  Or maybe you know a hunter?  Or maybe you can become a hunter!  There are too many deer in a lot of places and it is a waste to just have them get hit by cars.  Some localities are practically begging hunters to come and help with the excess deer.
Goaty goaty goat meat is arguably the most environmentally sound big quadruped meat.  Goat curry Jamaican style is awesome and now I have a serious goat jones.  Thanks.
Horse meat is hard to come by in the U.S. but apparently polish horse meat was called beef and fed to British people and they were happy until they found out.  You would think after mad cow they would be happy for a beef substitute.
I had camel meat once in Australia.  It is very much red meat with a serious meat taste.  I see you can order camel meat in the states.  I am thinking of all these camel is the best solution for you.


Is it possible to (safely) make dry instant rice?

Typically dehydrated foods of this sort are freeze-dried rather than dehydrated by heating. This is a process of sublimation of the water out of the food in a controlled manner under very low temperature conditions. This is generally not practical at home due to the nature of the equipment needed.

However, it seems that the instant rice is dehydrated in ovens. I suspect that you could do it with quite a bit of experimentation by spreading rice out in a thin layer on some baking sheets and heating to around 60 Celsius until dried. This should be hot enough to prevent most bacteria from growing successfully. As you have used the commercially prepared versions before, you already know the texture and how you would prepare it after drying, so you could play around and see.

Personally I like to use instant couscous when hiking - it rapidly (1-2 min) hydrates on addition of just boiled water, and like rice is readily available, easily measured out into aliquots for pre-packaged meals, and can be transported in a package with salt and other dried ingredients for a rapid and filling meal.


What is the measure for scaling cinnamon if you double a recipe?

If you never prepared the recipe as written (which appears to be the case), you have no basis to tie the way it tastes when doubled to doubling it, rather than to the proportions of the original recipe.

Based on many years of making many things in many sized batches, if I double a recipe and want it to taste the same as the original recipe, I double the cinnamon.

I conclude that the most likely case here is that the original recipe had a lot of cinnamon, and that what you tasted is simply the way it tastes.

Depending what travels the recipe might have had before you met it, there's also a not-uncommon error that occurs with US measurements sometimes - the confusing (by some transcriber in the past) of T and t in hyper-abbreviated notation, which can make a factor of 3 difference (T = Tbs =Tablespoon = 15 ml, t = tsp = teaspoon = 5 ml.) The copy of the recipe you are looking at need not be hyper-abbreviated for this to have happened to it at some point in its past


What natural ingredients can be used to color food blue or green?

According to this blog, you can make blue dye from red cabbage, water, and baking soda. I don't know if it would specifically work on scallops, but I haven't been able to find any proof that alkaline dyes are detrimental to them. The article points out that they work for pastries, though.

Spinach or matcha (green tea powder) could work for green dye. Matcha is already used, primarily in Japan, to dye several kinds of foods and/or drinks and I've personally used spinach to dye Easter eggs.


how do I toast oats so that they are crispy?

We have succeeded!  The key was to use egg whites (for a vegan version, the liquid from a can of chickpeas works great):

2c. oats

1/4c egg white (or chickpea water)

(nuts and seeds if you want, but the oats will cluster and be crunchy without them)

2Tbsp peanut butter (nut butter of any kind would work, really)

Mix this all together well and lay it out on parchment in a baking sheet.  Bake at 300F for about 40 minutes or so, until things get brown and crispy.  Take it all out, put it into a bowl, and mix in spices.  I like cinnamon, vanilla, and allspice.  You'll need to let it sit (for some reason, honestly I don't know) for about a day in order for the spices to infuse into the granola, and you're golden.


How long would you keep this Caesar dressing?

I make a nearly identical recipe for caesar dressing, and have safely used leftover dressing up to a week later. I can't vouch for any "technical" food spoilage rates, only that my friends, family, and I have never gotten sick from eating salad with dressing in this age range.

I can't speak to anything longer than that, as the dressing never seems to last that long!

As a closing note: if you are in doubt, don't eat it!


I assume you're talking about understanding quoted manufacturer's dimensions of a drinking vessel (and not some measure of what an abstract "coffee cup" might be, as when people talk about a "4-cup" coffee maker or whatever).

To my knowledge, there is no standard at least in the U.S. for these sorts of measurements.  My anecdotal experience is that cups and mugs are often slightly larger in capacity than advertised when filled to the brim, probably to take into account people's expectation that they can put a drink of X ounces in a cup made to hold X ounces without spilling it.  However, that "error" seems to vary quite a bit.  Years ago, I tried filling a few different mugs I had purchased just to get a sense of their accuracy in size.  If they were supposed to hold X ounces, some would be full up to within about 1/16th of an inch of the top, while others had a gap of 1/2 inch or more below the lip.  (Beyond my own anecdote, I also found more people's anecdotes here describing a similar trend.)

If I recall correctly, for whatever reason, there didn't seem to be as much error with glass measurements as there were with coffee mugs.  Particularly if you see a very specific measurement advertised (e.g., "8.6 oz. capacity"), it seems more likely that the measurement is right up to the top.  Obviously if you have a cup or glass with a line printed on it, it's generally more accurate.  (This is more common in Europe.)

If you're asking about this to use a random cup as a "measuring cup," I wouldn't trust any listed specifications for capacity unless you actually measure the specific cup yourself.


Sure, but the rest of the onion gets mushy and unpalatable after they've grown for a bit. Some people eat the sprouts; they have a lot of protein, so they're popular with vegans and other protein challenged groups.


When smoking ribs what is the 3-2-1 or the 3-2-2 method refer to?

TLDR;

This method is used many professionals for smoking ribs.

Each number signifies the number of hours per phase.

Smoke as normal for 3 hours, followed by 2 hours cooking wrapped in foil, and finally 1 more hour unwrapped and finish with bbq sauce and/or on direct flame for appearance.

Unabridged version

Three

The first phase is the smoking phase. The meat should smoke for 3 hours to develop the right amount of smoke.

Two

This phase involves wrapping it in a foil. This phase is when one braises the ribs so that the texture of the ribs is tender. Usually a liquid is involved here. Typically, some use apple juice or vinegar. The braising liquid is typically an acid.

One or Two

The final phase is appearance. During this phase one cooks the ribs so they have this perfect char on it. This can last from half an hour to two hours depending on the size of the portion or one's preferred doneness. The purpose of it to simply get some char on it. Some finish this phase with bbq sauce on a grill.

Variances

Baby back ribs on the other hand sometimes utilize a 2-2-1 method; because of the size of the portion. It's not an exact science.

Sources:

About.com
Youtube - Traeger 3-2-1 ribs
Youtube - 3-2-1 explained


Are there any ingredients I should not add to a no-knead dough with an extended proofing time?

I don't think there's anything specific to worry about with bread dough.  The important point is the temperature: if you're considering adding an ingredient that you normally wouldn't let sit out at room temperature for 18 hours for food safety reasons (and/or because it might start tasting "off"), you probably should add that ingredient toward the end by folding it in before shaping or something.

Most no-knead bread recipes that sit out at room temperature for a long time are quite flexible.  You likely won't cause any problems by folding in an ingredient late in the first rise.


What considerations are there when using powdered or pasteurized eggs in baking cake?

Pasteurized liquid eggs should work 1:1 as a substitute for whole eggs.  Obviously, at this point, you cannot separate the yolks and whites, so you cannot use them for recipes which require separation.  You would use approximately 1/4 cup of pasteurized egg per large egg in the original recipe.

Similarly, you can use reconstituted powdered egg, although the flavor may not be the same.   I wouldn't do this in a yellow cake whose flavor is dependent on eggs, but in a chocolate cookie, it might be perfectly acceptable.  Again, reconstitute the powder first according to its directions, so it is liquid, and then use about 1/4 cup per large egg from the original recipe.


An actual culinary application for used grounds:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Gourmet-mushrooms-in-an-old-coffee-cup/

Grow mushrooms in them.


There are many different kinds of "an" paste. Left unspecified, the generic type is "red beans", specifically azuki. I've found it pretty easy to find azuki beans in Germany, the US, Japan and Korea, so I can't imagine it being terribly hard anywhere else; in the US and Germany it was often sold by natural foods shops when there wasn't an Asian market nearby. The name was sometimes spelled adzuki.

One reasonable alternative is white navy beans, sometimes called cannellini beans in the US, or perhaps lima beans. Either one can be used to make "shiro-an", or white an. Mixed with salted cherry blossoms, shiro-an becomes sakura-an. Alternatively, it could potentially be flavored with sesame or something like the herb yomogi.

Another alternative is uguisu-an, which, as far as I understand, is made from green peas and generally has an improbably bright green color. The word comes from the Japanese word for nightingale, supposedly due to the visual similarity to nightingale poo. In the Japanese sources I have checked, it's not 100% clear to me whether one should be using dried or fresh/frozen shelled peas. It looks like there are precedents for both.

Fresh green soybeans (or frozen ones), known as edamame in Japanese, can be used to make zunda, which is from Sendai. I don't know how well zunda would stand up to baking, though, as I find zunda better suited for serving with mochi or shiratama dumplings.

In China, lotus seed paste, made from boiled ginko nuts and sugar, is also popular, and could be used in baked goods.


Why hot pack when raw pack is just as fast?

According to Pick Your Own, the main reason is that in raw packing, more air is introduced into the jar.  This may lead to discoloration over time, which is an aesthetic issue, rather than a safety issue.

Regarding hot packing, they describe the benefits:

  This practice helps to remove air from food tissues, shrinks food,
  helps keep the food from floating in the jars, increases vacuum in
  sealed jars, and improves shelf life. Preshrinking food also permits
  filling more food into each jar.

They provide the following guidelines regarding which method to use:

  Use the hot-pack method, especially with acid foods to be processed in boiling water rather than a pressure canning method.
  The Raw pack method is fine for pickles and for vegetables to be processed in a pressure canner.

See also:  National Center for Home Preservation describing the differences, benefits, and reasoning in great detail.


Why is my yogurt sour at the top and non-sour at the bottom

There could be a few things that are going on here.

My best guess from what you have said would be the temperature or mixing is a little off.

Let the mixture cool a little more before combining with the yoghurt. Also, do this gradually, adding a small part of the cooled milk to the yoghurt each time, mixing until smooth.

Hopefully, this helps.


I would not use any vinegar. You will not want the sour taste that vinegar will leave.  You will have a better final result if you just omit the wine.  If you feel like it needs a little acidity at the end add a light squeeze of lemon (or even a couple of drops of vinegar).  However, I've made risotto plenty of times without wine or extra acid...no problem!


The important temperature would be what temperature it was at when the power was turned back on.

The official recommendations are to keep high risk foods out of the 'danger zone' of 40°F to 140°F for longer than 2hrs (cumulative).  If portions of the pot were at 140°F after being heated for an hour, and there was the time for it to cool down.  (and the time for it to have heated up initially), from a health department perspective, it may not be safe.

Personally, if it were me, I'd have turned it up to high to try to get it back up to ~200°F (about where most crock pot's 'low' setting is), and then depending on how close it was to done, either switched it back to low, or left it on high so it might be ready in time for dinner.  (however, I've also been known to eat raw beef and things that have been in the fridge for longer than the health folks recommend)


Wikipedia differentiates between "rolled fondant" and "sculpting fondant": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fondant_icing


Best way to remove seeds when making jam and still have it called jam

I use a cheesecloth.  you can get the seeds out of the berries


(Survival Salt) Extract Salt from natural sorces (In the wild) without the Ocean

One option I know of is hickory salt, also found as hickory tree salt or hickory root salt.  (not to be confused with hickory smoked salts, which does require salt to make)

Hickory salt is made by digging up the roots of hickory trees, shredding them, and boiling them to a dry, black, salty and mineralish powder.  You may be able to get salt from hickory limbs, I saw a reference but only one, so no guarantees.

One recipe is here, another is there

Hickory seems the best bet (for me, anyway, for volume acquirable per plant, identifiability, local to my area etc)

However, it seems there are some other plants that can yield salt - including a source citing coltsfoot, and (having heard of) wild parsnip or wild carrot roots, or stinging nettles, but that source has no experience with either.

Lambs's quarters is another potential source - it's in the comments of the coltsfoot source, and mentioned here (as having mineral salts, not really "extracting them as salt source")

Another possibility is called saltbush, which is apparently used as a salty seasoning in australia.

Many of these sources are assuming a survival knowledge context, so these sources may be what you're looking for.

And of course it may be possible to find mineral salt deposits, from salty or brackish water or animal salt licks... this would involve observing larger animals (like deer, for example) to see where they're getting their salt from... it is essential for life for them as well.

It may, potentially, be possible to source salts from animal sources, since they must be sourcing salt somewhere, but I don't know anything about that or how to tell if any such preparation has it in sufficient quantities or whatever (vs perhaps other undesirable salts or mineral concentrations).  Sorry.


You shouldn't have kept adding flour. Baking powder recipes don't get kneaded, so they don't stop sticking.

For troubleshooting, do follow the recipe exactly as given. Don't do any substitutions until you can recreate the original well. Even after that, if you want fluffy bread, the whole wheat flour will be a disappointment.

And I doubt that you should be rolling it out at all. 1/2 cup of flour is 60 g, and 1/2 cup of yogurt is almost 120 g, resulting in 200% hydration. This sounds like a liquid batter more than like a formable dough, which is also consistent with the usage of baking powder. So, just pour it into a wide tin (well oiled, or lined with paper) and bake that way.

If you really insist on rolling, you have to live with the fact that it is a very wet dough with little gluten development and it will stick a lot. So use techniques for rolling sticky dough, instead of adding more flour.


Are Turkish Bay Leaves "Normal" Bay leaves?

Are there even different types of Bay Leaves?

There is the California Bay Laurel  Umbellularia californica.

Turkish Bay is Laurus nobilis

(https://nicholsgardennursery.wordpress.com/2008/06/20/laurus-nobilis-the-true-bay/)

We have an California Bay Laurel (AKA Oregon Myrtle) growing in our yard. While looking the same and smelling like normal store bought bay leafs like from Spice Island, it is 10 times more pungent. I used it once and that was the last time.


Why is honey and mustard mixed together runny?

I'm no chemist or anything, but the sugar is probably at fault.

Honey is a saturated sugar solution. So saturated, in fact, that it tends to crystalize over time.

Mustard is a mix of solids (mustard seeds) with liquids (water, vinegar and others). Its consistency is determined by how much liquid the solids can absorb.

By mixing both together, you add lots of sugar to the mustard. Sugar pulls liquid out of solids by osmosis. The concentration of sugar outside of the solid mustard particles is much higher than inside. To even out the concentration, water is pulled from inside the solid particles and dilutes the mix, making it runny.

You can observe the same effect if you sprincle fresh fruit with sugar. The sugar pulls the juice out of the fruits. In an industrial scale this method is used to produce dry fruit: substances like sucrose, invert sugar, corn syrup and of course salt draw the moisture out of the solid fruit or vegetable and leave a relitively dry product behind. (source)


What does the clock-like symbols under plastic containers mean?

This is the date the item was manufactured. The upper dial gives the year, the middle one, the month.

The bottom indicator could be a mold identifier, and in some cases, it might be a shift indicator (although this would typically be a clock going from 1 to 3, 4, or 6 depending on how shifts are allocated rather than the example showing 0 to 5).

See e.g. this manufacturer's datasheet on mold indicators: http://www.plastixs.com/pdfs/datecodeti.pdf


If I need one, I usually use guar gum as thickening agent in raw dishes. The result is similar to using corn starch, it is more or less without flavour, but does not need heat to activate. I would probably dissolve some in the orange juice and then mix with the other ingredients.


Is there a substitute for tahini in hummus?

Sort of.

If you have sesame seeds on hand, grind some up. You could also use toasted sesame oil, and even combine it with the ground seeds.

You can also use all-natural peanut butter. Don't use mass market crap with sugar and other additives. The ingredients should list only: peanuts, salt. Obviously, this will taste like peanuts. It will still taste good in a hummus, but it will be a distinctly different hummus than with tahini.


Do yellow lentils sprout after submersion for a few hours?

First off, no they are almost certainly not dead worms.

What you are looking at inside the lentil seed is the embryo of the future lentil plant. Soaking makes the whole seed expand as it takes up the water, and sometimes the two halves of the seed come apart so you can see these little plant embryos better. But they are contained in the seeds all the time, even before you start soaking them. When you eat peanuts (also legume seeds, just like lentils are), if you look at the inside of a split open one, you can see the embryonic plant really well because they are so big.

Maybe technically speaking, your lentils are sprouting in some microscopic way from the moment they hit the soaking water, but usually when people say "sprouting", they are talking about when the little root of the plant has started to develop and starts poking out of the seed in a visible way. This wouldn't happen in just 3-4 hours. Maybe at the very least a couple days.

As far as the age of your lentils, 30 months isn't too long at all as far as edibility goes (as long as you kept them dry and in decent conditions), so don't throw them out. If you bought them intending them exclusively for sprouts, sorry, I don't know whether 30 months is long enough to diminish their "sproutability" significantly. But I'd be surprised if at least some of them wouldn't start to sprout after a few days.

Also, sorry I can't answer about sprouting more readily depending on the season. Certainly beans will sprout all times of the year, but maybe someone with more experience can say if they do it quicker in the spring or not.


Smoked a chicken and the skin came out like boot leather

Take cheesecloth and soak it in melted butter and drape it over the bird before you put it in the smoker. This will protect the skin during the long slow smoking process. You may want to pull the cheesecloth off about 30 minutes before you are done. This will give you a nice golden brown skin that is not leathery.

I first read of doing this with a smoked turkey, but tried it with a chicken and it comes out great.


As many people here have noted, these "sell by" and "best by" dates are not very consistent, accurate or well defined. If your broccoli looks fine and smells fine, chances are it's fine.

Signs of spoilage to look for are: sliminess on the surface, mushy areas in the broccoli flesh, small dark areas dotting the "canopy" or the tops of the florets, or furry moldy areas anywhere on the broccoli.

In addition, there was a recent question here  I bought a bag of Brussels sprouts that looked fine but smelled exceptionally bad, even for sprouts    where the vegetables looked great but smelled horrible. I have never experienced that myself, but certainly if your broccoli begins to stink, toss it.

If it starts to look limp and wilted but fine otherwise, it's still ok to cook.


If I have too much fresh pasta, should I cook it up or store it as is?

I make a lot of fresh pasta, both filled and non-filled.  I always freeze immediately, even if I am going to use it a few hours later. Uncooked, fresh pasta (filled or not) freezes very well.  Do this in a single layer.  Once frozen move to zip top bags or other container.  I freeze because fresh pasta, especially filled, can get sticky...sticking to the plate it is on, or to itself. It's just easier to work with if you freeze it.  Quality is not compromised, and you can toss in boiling water in its frozen state when you are ready to cook it.


Only two elements are necessary for shirred eggs:

Fat to grease the baking dish, so that the eggs do not stick unduly
Eggs

I would suggest a touch of salt is the only one that is truly important, as it is in almost every dish.

The rest—cream, spinach, ham, cheese, and so on—are simply to add flavor.  They are only as important as your enjoyment of their flavor, or the pressure to use up leftovers before they go bad.

For the dish at its most basic, see Julia Child's recipe at WGBH:  it consists of nothing but eggs, butter, salt and pepper.  Of course, it is immediately followed by suggested variations with garnishes.

I suspect you will never find a single canonical version of a dish this simple.  It is like asking "What is the classic version of an omelette?"  At its heart, an omelette requires little more than eggs, fat, and dairy—but more than this, it is a foundation on which generations of cooks have wrought their creativity, or just used up their leftovers.

Shirred eggs, much the the same way, are a foundation on which flavors can be built, or leftovers expended.  The basic recipe, for both shirred eggs and omelettes, is the starting line, not the finish line.


Dough is super springy and sticky. Tears while stretching

Are you resting in the fridge? 24 hours is a long time to leave a yeast dough at room temp. Try letting rise for a shorter time or in the fridge a max of 12 hours.


Personally I have had varied results when freezing bread. I have had some that came out wonderfully after a couple of months. I have also had some that after a couple of days came out very dry. Note that when freezing bread, I only freeze fresh, and in a very short amount of time after getting it home. I find that results vary depending on the type and brand of bread.

All that said about freezing, I don't think how you keep the bread for the one day period will affect anything as much as the conditions you describe after leaving home. Bread in a bag in a hot car can be bad but bread in a bag sitting in the sun can be really bad. (Even on a short trip to the market I will not place bread in my car where sunlight can hit it.)

What I would recommend is to use a cooler. When preparing to leave for your trip, line the bottom and sides with frozen ice packs and cover the ice packs with a heavy towel to keep them from direct contact with the bread. Cover the items in the cooler with a towel (a little more insulation). The idea is to keep the bread at a moderate to cool temperature.

I do this whenever I carry foods that I want to keep cool but not in contact with ice packs. It works well for bread, perishables (great for salad greens), etc.

I also learned that a couple of layers of bubble wrap can be used in place of the towels. I can't take credit for the bubble wrap idea though. When ordering perishable items I noticed that this is how they were shipped.


Can adequate heating transform spoiled food into safe food?

That'd depend on the exact microbes involved in making it unsafe (or, since you probably don't know, the short answer is "no").

There are basically two ways microbial growth makes food unsafe: either by the presence of the microbes themselves, or by toxins the microbes create. Sufficiently heating the food will kill enough microbes, so those ones will be taken care of. Unfortunately, some of the toxins are heat stable, and it just isn't possible to heat the food to a high enough temperature to destroy these toxins without turning the food to charcoal.

The FDA's Bad Bug Book gives details about specific pathogens and their heat-stable and heat-labile toxins.


Assuming it’s chicken liver pate, have you tried adding butter, cream or other saturated fat? This can thicken and so firm pate quite well. Or you could use some kind of meal - oat flour or matzo meal, breadcrumbs etc  that would absorb the liquid. Difficult to know without the recipe - many use mushrooms but I find livers, leeks and herbs and spice plus some good sherry or port and a tablespoon or so of melted butter /and / or thick cream makes lovely pate which spread very easily and thickens nicely in the fridge. It freezes well too.


I can't help but think this will be a winner. Buffalo tastes very similar to beef, but has a richer flavor, almost (but not exactly) like what you get when you dry age a steak.

Buffalo is much leaner, obviously, but I honestly don't think that will make much of a difference in a rib roast. If it were a Chuck or brisket cut, I might feel differently, but a rib roast should not give you any problems, given that you are only roasting it for 1.5-2 hours.

Take it for what it's worth (not much, because it's a totally different cut of meat) -- I had a braised buffalo short rib at Ted's Montana Grill, and it was surprisingly excellent. It was very tender, but was so much more flavorful than a beef short rib.


How to make a New York cheesecake with a super creamy, silky texture?

Okay, I undeleted my OP to this question (to be honest, not sure how similar the two are...., never checked that closely).  The most important thing to watch for in terms of the 'silkiness' would be the mixing and ingredient temp. When all ingredients are at room temp, they homogonize much quicker, and require far less mixing, therefore less air is incorporated, making for a denser product. I think this should help.

Short of that, it could be recipe. A perfect cheesecake recipe is hard to find (luckily, I have one). Can I post it here? I don't think it's allowed.....

Answer I typed yesterday (sorry if it is essentially a dupe)..... I' @ work, don't have time to check too closely...

I have made thousands of cheesecakes. My pastry chef taught me how a method that has always worked:

Always use room temperature ingredients. NEVER overmix,
incorporation of air is your enemy Set your oven to 300 F (sorry, in
Canada we are metric, but use Farenheit for baking).
Place your cheesecake in a water bath. Bake for 30 minutes.
Turn off the oven and open its door, allow the cheesecake to rest for 30 minutes, sitting in the oven in this state.
After the thirty minute rest, carefully close the door, and set the oven to 300 F again. Bake another 30 minutes (I have sometimes had to go to 40 minutes depending on oven).

And that's it. Works every time. I am so thankful he taught me this. As an added bonus, you will get a cake that is flat like a board, with no cracks.


How do I keep an egg from cracking while being boiled?

I see two possible solutions here:

Very slowly increase the temperature of the water. This way, the
water currents will be much tamer, and the egg is much less likely to
move around.
You could also try either cooking the egg in a heat-resistant spoon to minimize its movement, or fill the pot with many eggs, so they have less room to move around and gently bump each other rather than the walls of the pot.


@ElendilTheTall's answer would probably make some pretty badass Mi Goreng, but the whole point of packet Mi Goreng is to be a 2 minute meal in the least work possible.

The way I make Mi Goreng is to cook the noodles in a small pot until they're just cooked (a little firmer than you prefer to eat them).
Quickly drain them, throw them back in the same pot and add all the seasonings except the fried onion.
Put the pot back on the hot briefly (or just use the residual heat from the element) and stir the noodles all around. Basically stir frying them within the pot.
Tip them out into a bowl and add the fried onion sachet (or just eat from the pot).

This always works pretty well for me, I get a result that isn't too far in consistency from the real thing.

PS. Mi Goreng are Indonesian, not Thai :)


If you were to cook meat in just water (possibly after browning it) you could call it a braise. In order to be a stew it probably needs some other ingredients. If you don't like or don't have onions, there's no need to use them. Use whatever vegetables you feel like using. They aren't serving a chemical purpose, such as leavening or thickening or browning; they're just for taste and to make a filling meal by adding things that cost less than meat.

You can of course add a variety of spices, which may make your stew qualify as a curry or a chili. And if you intend to serve it over rice or noodles, you may want to thicken the liquid a little. There are many ways to do that, but white flour, predissolved in a little cold water, is a popular one. This is, for some people, a key discriminant between being a soup and being a stew: that stews are thickened with flour and soups are not. But you can find plenty of people to disagree with that.

Why is it important to you that you make something called a stew?


Is there a big difference between Yellow and Yukon Gold potatoes?

They are often used interchangeably.  The truth is, yukon gold potatoes are a type of yellow potato.  They were developed in Canada.  You will definitely see them on store shelves here in Canada, but it can be seasonal, depending on your location.  I am in Winnipeg, and I find YG about six months of the year.


How can I separate fresh rice noodles that are stuck together?

I think those are chow fun noodles, cut them to the desired size if not already cut, soak it in cool water for about 7-15 mins then hand unroll them. That how I was taught anyways.

The packaging looks tight too so possibly cut the sides off too, should help it stop from clumping and allow the water to penetrate and separate them.


Do I leave the meat thermometer in the meat the entire cooking time?

My experience with metal probes left in meat for the cooking period, if it is not a short cooking time, can give higher than accurate readings unless the item is large enough to bury a high percentage of the probe and still hit that optimal middle of thickest area without hitting bone.  If too shallow, the metal can transfer heat itself to the measuring point so give a higher than true internal temp.  This tends to happen more often for me with less dense meat. When this is a concern, I would suggest using the probe initially to get to temp, then moving it to a new location when it reads that you have reached temperature.  It this thermal transfer via the metal is what is occurring for you, then the new positions should quickly drop to the true temperature and you will know you need addition time.  The 2nd point is usually used for less time, so does not tend to have the same false rise.

All of this is predicated on using a calibrated device of a type of probe designed to allow leaving in as mentioned in answers and comments, i.e. not plastic, not instant read, etc.  Those designed to remain in are often the ones with flexible cords to an out of oven base for reading and some wireless models.  There are those that the readout is not remote, but those have the disadvantage of needing to open the oven.


Can I fit normal kenwood bowls in the major series

I've put regular ceramic bowls under my mixer before (also a Kenwood, but that doesn't really matter.)

The only things you have to look out for are:

Does the paddle scrape the bottom? If so, raise it up until it doesn't (paddle height is adjustable.)
Does the paddle hit the sides as it rotates? If so, your bowl is not wide enough. Get a wider bowl.

If you were mixing a very small amount, you might find that, due to the angle of the curve of the bowl, it is not optimum in getting everything amalgamated, but for the most part, a bowl is a bowl. Just like with the supplied bowl, you probably have to scrape sides every now and again to make sure everything's mixing together anyway.

TL;DR: a bowl is a bowl, just don't let the paddle hit it, because, well, the paddle is hitting it (if you needed a reason.)


How is pasteurization different from sterilization?

Basically, pasteurization is a process that kills most bacteria. Sous vide is a method that you can use to pasteurize food (eggs for example) which will kill most, but not all, bacteria. Sterilization is a method of killing all bacteria (e.g. by irradiation or heat). Sterilization would be what you'd want to use for canning, for example.

Milk is pasteurized by the manufacturer and can use lower heat for a longer period or higher heat for a shorter period.


How long before steak is at room temperature?

According to Serious Eats, a 210 gram steak in sitting in a 21° C room managed to go from 3° C to 10° C... in 2 hours. For a larger steak going up all the way to 21 degrees, it would take longer. The take-away from that article is that it's not worth it and does not affect the resulting steak.


How to differentiate normal potato from the potato that has sweetness?

Though there is not a perfect way you can differentiate them except tasting, but you can try following ways which are kinda based on experience as we used to run a grocery store.

1. By smelling them

You can smell them while purchasing. If you smell some sweetness, it will have sweetness. Though, it'd require some practice.

2. By texture and color

You can differentiate between them by looking at color.

For eg., this one has sweetness.

While this one doesn't have.

There is one more, but it works after boiling.

If you boil potato with sweetness, it will get glue-ish.


Why did apple filling in the pie turn to mush?

Hold back a bit on the lemon, or toss 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda in the filling. I don't see any other cause for the apples to have completely macerated in your recipe other than the acid content to cooking time. 90 minutes is a rather long time, but I'd expect them to hold up quite a bit better than 'mush'.

You could also try blind baking your bottom crust for 15 or so minutes so the final cooking time is shortened, which presents less opportunity for the apples to soften. Ideally, you want to be in the 45 minute to one hour range.

If it were me, I'd probably try both. Keep trying and experimenting, bringing a fresh pie to the table is one of the most satisfying ways to delight your friends and family :)


What is the difference between baking soda and baking powder?

Baking soda is pure sodium bicarbonate, while baking powder includes an acidifying agent (cream of tartar) and a drying agent (starch).

You can substitute baking soda for baking powder if you already have an acidifying agent in a recipe (like buttermilk).

http://chemistry.about.com/cs/foodchemistry/f/blbaking.htm


Cheese like slime on potato, but no pinkness

It rotted - that's about all you can say from this. Most likely a bacterial rot rather than a fungal rot. If you bought them recently, it was probably already rotting.
This is a form of soft rot, which is a common disease of potatoes world-wide, and can even destroy whole crops in the field. There are a range of bacteria that cause these rots, but Pectobacterium is a common genus for this form of rot.


My stock made from leftover rotisserie chicken is very gelatinous. I thought only uncooked chicken bones made stock gelatinous. Any explanation?

Fat will thicken a stock, but will not make it gelatinous. Gelling comes from collagen which comes from the bones or — in my opinion — even better from the joints.

My experience is that this is easier to achieve from a cooked bird than a raw one rather than the other way around.  The gelling may have locked up some of the fats, but you also may not have had as much as you expected even with the added skin just because rotisserie chicken tends to have some cooked out or rendered.

My anecdotal experience is that the longer you simmer with bones and cartilage, the more collagen is released and cooking down concentrates it more giving more gelling to the stock. I tend to call mine consomme, but that is really only correct if it has been clarified.

If you really want a rich, well gelled one, get some chicken feet and include it in your stock pot!  For the opposite, if you want no gelling, my practice is to increase the amount of meat, limit the bones and cartilage and do not simmer long, and I myself would normally do that with raw poultry rather than cooked, simmering for minutes, not hours.


Opened, at room temp: A week or two without serious flavor changes.
Opened, but kept in the fridge: a month, at least.  (I'm still working my way through a bottle of dry vermouth with no noticeable degradation in flavor in ~3 months, ymmv of course).
Unopened: A year+ at room temp.

Source: Serious Eats experiment


Nobody is telling you "or you'll get sick"

What they are telling you that it's unsafe. This is a completely different thing. You can eat unsafe food if you like. The people who publish unsafe recipes do it too. They just count on not getting sick.

2 hours vs 4 hours

The actual "danger zone" time is 4 hours. For foods you buy in their final, perishable state, it's down to 2 hours, because it's assumed that the first two hours got "used up" between producer, transport and seller. So it just so happens that 4 hours for a homemade guacamole (whose clock started ticking when you cut the avocado) is still safe. But this is a coincidence, you probably can find recipes somewhere which say to keep it out longer than 4 hours before serving.

let it sit out for 2 then serve it (and it sits out for 2 hours)

That's not what a recipe assumes. It assumes that you let it sit for 2 hours and then serve it and it gets eaten. The recipe creator assumes that you know enough about food safety to make your own decisions if your process is different.


Can I make drinking milk with evaporated milk?

You can make something approximately 'milk-like' though it will taste more like that revolting UHT stuff they put in hotel rooms with the tea & coffee.
It will never go back to being 'fresh milk'.

Try it & see.


Is there any danger to letting food cook in a slow cooker for a very long time?

It's safe. All that matters for safety is that the food stays out of the danger zone (above 140F).

But it sounds like a pretty reliable way to overcook things. Perhaps that's why it sounds absurd to you? Slow cookers tend to be somewhere between simmer and light boil (probably at least 180F), and there's very little that won't be fully cooked after half a day at those temperatures. If you cook for days, you'll start turning beans and vegetables to mush, and may manage to make meat tough from overcooking. So at best it's pointless, and at worst it's going to mess up your food.


Why does oil reduce the effectiveness of Japanese waterstones?

Japanese style whetstones made of natural material, also known as "waterstones", rely on water to make a paste from the material, and this paste is abrasive and aids in sharpening. Oil is not as effective as water in making this "mud" as the stone material isn't as soluble in oil.

Further, once you have used oil on any type of whetstone, water may no longer be used as a lubricant, as it will be shed by the oil that has soaked into the stone and be ineffective in carrying away the swarf (metal abraded from the blade by sharpening).

Here is a FAQ on natural waterstones from an online retailer.


How does the "Suicide Sauce" from Hot Licks rate on the Scoville Scale

I am Adrienne Fay, Merchandise Manager for Hot Licks, Maker of Suicide and XXX.
I just discovered this post. Unfortunately even I can not give you the Scoville rating because we have never had our sauce rated on the Scoville scale for two reasons:

The rating system is intended for peppers and even two peppers on the same vine will have two different ratings.
Everyone's perception of hot is different. So for some people,even a drop of Suicide sauce will destroy them, where some customers buy the product by the case load.

Most companies will estimate the Scoville rating by ingredients we know, but frankly we just set out to make a sauce with capsaicin extract that had flavor.  Hopefully you find the taste and heat level to your liking.

If you have any further inquiries you can email me at adrienne@2hotlicks.com


How to bring eggs to room temperature fast while baking?

Serious Eats recommends three minutes in a bowl of hot tap water. The article doesn't mention any unfortunate effect on texture - and given that the whole article is based on making the textures of baking projects work, I think it's safe to assume there's no problem.


Putting strong spirits in the freezer should not harm them. The solubility of air gases increases at low temperature, which is why you see bubbles as it warms up.

Drinks with a lower alcohol content will be affected in the freezer. There is potential to freeze water out of anything with an alcohol content of 28% or lower. Many people use the freezer to increase the alcohol content of their home brew in UK, by freezing water out of it - the alcohol stays in the liquid portion.


The method I used in the past (which might not be the best way) is to lightly fry the food initially, drain it of all oils, and put it in the refridgerator until it is almost time to serve the large amount of food. Then you can finish deep frying the batches. The initial frying will dramatically reduce the time it takes to refry each batch. I found this was the best solution for myself as I was able to serve hot and (almost)fresh out of the deep fryer food to a large group of people at lot faster. I think the result is way better than if you had to store the fully deep fried food for 2 hours and had to reheat it up somehow.


Do I need to pre-cook bacon when adding it to a quiche?

When I make quiche (and for a while at an old restaurant I was baking them almost daily) to which I am going to be adding anything other than the actual custard and flavouring, I look for three things: will these other ingredients release a lot of water when cooked? Will these other ingredients release a lot of fat when cooked? Will the other ingredients be fully cooked (if desired) in the final product?

In the first instance, most vegetables will release a significant amount of water when cooking. This has two unpleasant side effects: first, it creates steam pockets around the vegetable, preventing the custard from adhering and leaving empty spaces. Second, the steam itself can mix into and loosen the custard, preventing it from setting properly. Neither of these, as Brown would say, are good eats. Of course some vegetables let off more water, e.g. tomatoes, than others.

Second, dealing with fats, we generally have meats. Many meats will release fats while cooking, a process known as rendering. Bacon is of course the fattiest of meats you are likely to use; sausage would be similar. The release of fats into the custard will have many of the same effects as the release of water. In addition, quiche is often served cold, and excess animal fats feel unpleasantly greasy in the mouth when cold; unpleasantly oily and greasy when hot. Cheeses are not, for reasons I do not fully understand, generally a problem when the release their fats into a quiche. That being said, I have never tried baking a quiche with very fatty liquid cheeses such as brie or camembert; cream cheese and the similarly textured soft goat cheeses present no problem at all.

Finally, we must consider whether the ingredient(s) will end up cooked in the final product. Custards set at quite low temperatures, so this is an important safety consideration when dealing with meats. It is less important for safety with vegetables, and becomes an issue mainly of texture; do you want your vegetables to be crisp and crunchy or soft and limpid?

For all of these reasons, I always cook meat before including it in a quiche, unless it is charcuterie which is relatively low in fats and is safe to eat without further preparation, such as prosciutto (but not, I'd point out, jamon Iberico, if cut traditionally by hand, as it so often includes so much glorious fat that just melts lusciously... I digress). And I almost always cook vegetables; tomatoes, spinach (and other leafy greens) are always fully cooked to remove as much water as possible. Other vegetables depend on what I feel like. I generally will only blanch broccoli long enough to set a vivid green colour, as I like the contrast of soft custard with the crunchy broccoli. Your tastes may vary, of course.

Short version:

Meat: always cook! render out excess fat!

Vegetables: always blanch at least! cook out excess water!


Are there accurate meat scales which interface easily with a computer?

What would a network-attached scale even do?  You'd have to configure it to report to something, or have something else poll for it (and then you'd still have to configure it, either via DHCP, BOOTP or similar to set its IP address).  It'd be a security nightmare, as it'd be like a network attached medical device (or old printer) that never gets updates to deal with security vulnerabilities.  Some sort of a serial connection like RS-232 or USB is just plain safer in this situation.

... and there are plenty of USB digital scales, as they're used by companies to weight packages & print out postage.

The only reason to not go with USB might be distance limitations (5m for USB 2), but you can get USB over Cat5 'extenders'.  (which would then meet your 'cat5' cable requirement ... but you can also get DB9 (or DB25) to RJ45 adaptors, if you just want to run 232 over cat5)

(I'm a programmer/sysadmin at a US government agency so it's possible that my security concerns are a little higher than most other people's.  Even if you keep it on an isolated network to only talk to the terminal, odds are that the terminal is going to need to be updated at some point, and you risk it getting infected.  Even if they exist, it's just not worth the trouble.  And yes, I do know about the attacks via USB devices)


Are you looking for grain or flours? If the latter, just track down your local mills (most farms don't mill their own flour). If the former, ask the millers or other farmers who nearby is growing grains. It might be an inconvenience to farmers to sell very small quantities, but then again, you'll be paying a premium on what they normally charge, so it's worth asking.


The idea is to clean the cooking surface.  I typically fire up the grill, then, just before placing product on, use a wire brush to clean the grill surface.  No reason that you couldn't do this at the end of a cook, preparing for the next cook.  The advantage to cooking on a clean surface is that there is reduced chance of food sticking to the grill.


What sushi-like dish consists of various fish in a light sauce?

In general, slices of raw fish or other meats are called sashimi.  These are often served un-sauced, but occasionally they are served brushed with any number of soy-based sauces.

From your description, you could also be describing a Japanese-inspired version of a dish very common in Hawaii called Poke.  Poke is most often made with tuna, but could also be made with other fish or seafood.  The other ingredients included in Poke are highly variable.


Does adding brandy to whipped cream make it fall quicker?

Anything that dilutes the cream is going to make it less firm/stable - whipped heavy cream can last for hours, while whipped light cream (such as Reddi-Whip) won't last more than five-ten minutes. I've never had any whipped cream last for days, however, unless it contained a stabilizer such as gelatin.

1 tablespoon brandy per cup of cream does sound a bit much - just for comparison, you'd use maybe a third that much vanilla extract for the same amount of cream. (You were probably using much less Amaretto, and Bailey's contains cream so it doesn't dilute things as much.) If you can't get the flavor you want with a reduced quantity of brandy, you could try making a hard sauce (butter + alcohol) to serve with your dessert, in addition to or instead of plain whipped cream. Or you could try a whipped cream stabilizer - either the stuff you can buy specifically made for the purpose, or unflavored gelatin carefully dissolved in a part of the cream.

Note that for best results, you should add the sugar and flavorings to the cream before starting to whip. It sounds like you already know to keep everything as cold as possible.


If the substance was soft and smeared easily, as you describe, it was most likely mould - sometimes cells die in a part of the fruit, often through exterior damage, and these rapidly start to decompose. Left long enough, the whole fruit would have gone black. Harmless so long as you don't eat the section that's got black in it, and even if you consumed it, it's only a bit dodgy to eat for people who are mould sensitive.


Have you seen this piece and the Bouillon strainer mentioned in it? There is no information on mesh size unfortunately.


my black garlic cooking in a rice cooker went brown and hard before black any ideas?

To make black garlic, you're trying to break down the sugars in the garlic. It sounds like you're dehydrating it, rather than giving it time for the enzymes in there to do their work. You need to somehow prevent the moisture from escaping. Covering the vent hole may be sufficient, but I'd suggest putting the garlic is in an airtight container to be sure - perhaps wrap it tightly in plastic wrap to keep the moisture in there. Once the sugars have converted, you could then unwrap it for a little while to dry out the skin further if you liked.

There's an interesting article that talks a bit about what's going on inside black garlic here


Could I possibly tell imitation lobster from real lobster?

If it is high quality imitation lobster and you are not amongst the highest skilled tasters (few of us are), you won't be able to tell the difference by yourself.

Imitation seafood is made from surimi, which is made from various whitefishes (most often Alaskan Pollock). The surimi is mechanically formed, colored and flavored to look like whatever species they are trying to duplicate. Sometimes the results are amazing. Behind the curtain, this is for crab, but I'm sure lobster is similar:

  Handbook of Food Science, Vol 4: For the production of crabmeat analogs the Surimi paste containing the desired additives (with the exception of red colorants) is sheeted in a thin layer and then heat set. After this first heat set, the sheet is scored with the device that looks like a large comb. the sheet is not cut completely through. The scoring forms a long thin strips that resemble crab muscle fibers. Several of these strips are rolled together to form "muscle fiber bundles." These are set and then a portion of the outside surface is colored red with a blend of Surimi and food coloring. The ropes are then cut into logs (approximately 4 inches in length) or into small cylinders or diagonal cut product for salad chunks.

And if the cook lightly shreds the immitation crab, it's extremely hard to tell the difference.

I googled "detecting surimi" and learned that it is not an easy thing to do. There are people trying to do it with mass spectrometry and other complicated lab methods.

I'd say the lobster roll meat is one of:

it's real (guessing from their reaction to your inquiry, unlikely)
it's a high quality immitation lobster
it's canned real lobster (I never tried it)

If you like the sandwich, consider keeping it in your routine.

(a timely question, a surplus of pollock/surimi is on the market, we'll see more of these surimi analogs)


I expect the "crust" will puff up significantly since it has chemical leavening agents in it, unlike traditional pastry crust.

Using pie weights would help. Docking the crust (poking with a fork) would help, but might not work with a liquid filling.

If you prepared the pudding separately, chilled it to semi-firm, then poured it in that might work better.

If all is a failure, a cup of pudding, with a crumbled cinnamon roll topping sounds pretty good too!


What plant-based (non-dairy) milk do not separate when making caffe latte?

A good plant-based milk I've had success with is hemp milk. I'd say try coconut and almond milk, but these two are thinner in my experience, and tend to be less creamy. Hemp milk foams well, and is quite tasty. Like most things, don't get it too hot, or it'll break and be less desirable. That said, I never have problems in this regard with soy milk, but using non-soy is probably better for many other reasons.


Do I need to autolyse quick-breads like scones?

Quick breads are not primarily defined by the richness or fat content of the dough, but by the leavening method:
While “regular” bread uses yeast - and has a long resting time, quick breads use baking powder or soda - and are baked more or less immediately. (Although some recipes have some extra resting time.)

While yeast has no problem with raising a dough with a strong gluten network, baking powder can’t do that.  For quick breads, the same rules as for pie crusts and similar short pastry applies: the fat prevents the liquid from reaching the flour and inhibits gluten formation, giving you a light and crumbly texture. “Diligent” kneading would counteract that, leaving you with a dense product.
And yes, this can mean a certain “mashed potato” texture, depending on your recipe, which is perfectly ok. If you insist on a smoother surface, gently roll out the dough instead of flattening it with your fingers and consider a wash: make-up for baked goods ;-)

Making an autolyse step would even aggravate the gluten-density issue - what is an excellent idea for yeasted breads is quite destructive for quick breads.


What is the name of a dish where meat is doused with brandy and lit on fire?

Steak Diane

I first had Steak Diane at the Brown Palace in Denver long ago. I have made it several times and found the brandy flavor is overwhelmed by the other flavors.

If you want the liquor flavor, I have found a smoked or grilled Bourbon Chicken on Food TV that has a lot of flavor. The chicken is brined overnight in soy sauce  brown sugar and bourbon, etc. but doesn't include flambe. Chicken might not be festive enough for your anniversary, though, but congratulations.


Bread making, lightly oiled bowl covered, why?

The bowl is simply to contain the dough.  You can use any container you like.  Depending on the type of bread you are making, you often need to build gluten strength, this ends with pre-shaping and shaping.  Shaping matters at this point. With kneaded bread, the "ball" is simply an artifact of kneading or stretching and folding.  Covering reduces the chance of the surface drying out, and helps maintain temperature.  Oil in the bowl is not necessary in most situations, and is not part of "every recipe."


How can I reduce the sliminiess of okra?

If you're simmering it in a decent amount of liquid for a while, like curry, the slimy stuff (mucilage) will all go out into the curry and end up just thickening it. The okra itself won't be slimy. This is one of the traditional ways to thicken gumbo! Even just stewed okra, with a decent amount of tomatoey goop, usually isn't very slimy.


Blowing out happens because the extra expansion of the bread in the oven, called oven spring, expands further than the skin of the bread can accommodate.

The protein sheets that make up risen bread can toughen when they dry out. When the bread is introduced to the sudden high heat of the oven the water and alcohol vaporizes, filling the loaf with gas. If the outer gluten sheets were allowed to toughen or if the spring is just to great then the sheets have to tear to make room. The tear will happen wherever the sheets are weakest. This seems to be usually in the ugliest spot possible for a blowout.

It would be possible to reduce the spring by baking at a lower temperature but the spring is desirable and results in a lighter texture. The solution must come, therefore, in softening the gluten or controlling the expansion.

Fat softens bread so this problem happens mostly with lean doughs. One possible solution for some breads is to increase the amount of fat in the dough.

Keeping the surface of the dough moist will also help. Keep the dough covered while it is proofing and spraying it with water when it goes in the oven, and, if possible, having a humid environment in the oven will keep the proteins from drying out.

The traditional solution with lean doughs is to allow the blowout to occur but control the direction. In this way the loaf can be both light and attractive.

Slashing the surface of the loaf releases some of the pressure and allows the baker to have some control over the direction of expansion.


Would raw soy sauce marinated chicken be more salty when cooked the next day?

If you leave it marinating overnight, definitely, as it will absorb more soy sauce. Otherwise, probably only a small amount saltier, if at all as nothing has been added.


What way to incorporate sugar into dough for millefeuille is better?

Typically, puff pastry dough is not sweetened. Instead puff pastry desserts generally rely on added ingredients or fillings to provide sweetness, and the pastry is just a flaky base or case.

The simplest example I can think of is a palmier, which is basically just puff pastry and sugar -- the sugar is sprinkled on finished dough, and it is then rolled and baked right away. If left to sit, or if the sugar is incorporated earlier (such as during the pastry folding process), it will end up dissolving into the pastry. The overall sweetness level will be about the same, but there is a loss of texture from the sugar crystals and less caramelizing during baking; the finished product wouldn't really be the same.

In a millefeuille, which has other sweet elements (frosting, custard filling), changing the sweetness of the pastry by adding sugar during folding or to the dough will change the overall taste of the assembled pastry.


Sous vide air bubble, still safe to eat?

Air in the bag can be a result of two things: (a) you did not properly eliminate it, or (b) bacterial growth.  The main problem is that the portion of the protein that has floated above the water will not be at the same temperature as that which is under the surface. We don't know what portion of the meat was above the waterline, nor for how long. So, I won't make any guesses about safety or quality. Given your description it is difficult to determine whether your issues is related to (a) or (b)...or maybe even both, if you did not notice floating immediately.  In the future, firstly make sure you seal properly, by using a vacuum machine, or barring that, submerging your bag, which has been sealed most of the way, in water to force the air out.  At the last moment, seal the rest of the way. You can inhibit bacterial growth on long cooks at low temperatures by either giving the protein a quick sear on all sides, or a 10 second dunk in boiling water.  If you are using sturdy vacuum bags, you can dunk in boiling water after you bag the meat.


When you mention that you've specifically cooked it down until the onions are brown and the tomatos have lost most of their liquid, I'd say that you might be near a jam  ... and there are plenty of recipes out there for tomato & onion jam.  Most call for adding a bit of extra acid to it and/or extra sugar.

If you search for 'crostini con pomodori e cipolla' (Italian for "toast with tomato and onion"), most of the recipes have some other added salt component -- anchovies or hard cheeses were common ... but you specifically mentioned vegan.

If it were me, I'd lean towards olives -- they'd hit both the acid and salty notes.  Or maybe pickled hot peppers.  Or even just a pinch or two of pepper flakes.

As for the problem of it being too dry -- just cook it less.  So long as the bread's toasted, and you're eating it shortly after assembly, a little extra moisture won't hurt.  You can adjust the cut of the toast (if you're slicing it yourself), or cut it in half, so that it's less likely to flex if it starts to sog, or add some barrier (eg, olive oil) to the bread first so the liquid can't soak in.

You could also try roasting the tomatoes to dry them out and help activate their pectin to gel the remaining liquid.  (or add extra pectin)


Substitute peanut butter for cookie butter?

Peanut butter and cookie butter are quite different in taste: your end-result will be very different as well.

To make your own cookie butter, take 66% gingerbread cookies, 33% unsalted butter (left out of the fridge) and mix into a paste.

That being said: if you really like peanut butter and you're making this for yourself: go for it: the texture is about the same.  I would add a bit of honey or jam to the peanut butter as well as cookie butter is a bit sweeter then peanut butter.


Individual eggs may have large air cells and still be fresh, but in general large air cells equate to old eggs, and possibly eggs that were stored at too high of temperatures.  At higher temps, the air cell grows faster.

To test, use a small flashlight and shine it through the egg, and you can find the outline of the air cell.  It is a bit more difficult with colored eggs, and you may have to use shadows to see the air cell in bright conditions.

For the record, eggs are often stored incorrectly.  Properly stored eggs should be placed with the air cell up, not down.  The rounder side of the egg should have the air cell, the more pointed side should be placed down.  The reason is, the air cell breaths through the porous shell as nature designed.  Putting the air cell down, slows this breathing.  Not only does this slow the growth of the air cell, sometimes making the egg look fresher than it really is, it also increases the chance of the egg trapping gases and going bad.  Stored flat is also fine as again, the egg can breath, it is in cartons and such that orientation matters, and for some reason many believe the pointed side goes up and that seems to me the more common orientation when put in randomly.


How do you prepare fresh fennel for cooking?

Sometimes the outer leaves are a bit leathery (especially if the quality isn’t too god). When that’s the case I remove them first.

Next, I remove the green stalks – but Jefromi is right, the tiny leaves are delicious.

The kernel in the middle near the base of the fennel bulb is very hard. I usually cut it out by halving the bulb along its length and making two incisions with a sharp knife on either side of the kernel.

I chop the rest of the bulb so that it yields thin concentric slices.


What can I do to stop hot sauce from separating?

It's normal for some separation to occur, especially based on the makeup/composition of the sauce is.

If it's a regular long-cooked vinegar and water hot sauce, then there would be very little separation that would occur.
If it's a vinegar and oil based hot sauce, then there would be quite a lot of separation.
If it's a vinegar based hot sauce, but made with peppers that are very oily (habanero, hungarians, etc) and it was not made in a long-cook format, then there would be a slight separation if left unshaken for a few days.

Remember that most hot sauces are vinegar based, with either water, juice or oil as an accompaniment, so some separation is expected, and is typically not indicative of a hot sauce gone bad.

As an example, back when I was still producing hot sauces, I had two long-cooked hot sauces (each about 4 hour simmer). One was an apple-juice and vinegar based sauce with jalapenos and lots of spices (more of a flavorful sauce than an extremely spicy sauce). The other was a vinegar and olive oil based sauce with bhut jolokia and habanero peppers. The juice and vinegar sauce suffered from nearly no separation whatsoever, as the peppers and spices were extremely well incorporated into the liquids by the long simmer time AND all the solids being ground and liquified as much as possible. The vinegar+water and oil based sauce suffered from quite a lot of separation, as the ingredients were not only not liquified, but the base by their nature tended to separate.


Can I use this dutch oven on a grill or camp fire?

If you get an enameled cast iron pot too hot, you can soften the enamel enough to damage it.  My brother ruined one when we were younger on an electric stove, set on high (was making ramen, forgot about it, turned off the stove after the water had boiled off, when it cooled it fused to the burner)

The thing about camp fires is that they burn at different temperatures depending on the fuel and how much air's getting into it.

As you're using a dutch oven, I assume that you're doing something that requires low and slow cooking ... so you should be okay. If I were doing this, I'd try to pay attention to the fire (put the palm of your hand near the coals -- if you can't keep it there for a few seconds, it's too hot; move it somewhere else).   And make sure that you have enough liquid in there that it won't risk going dry.  If necessary, you can make a flour & water dough to use to seal the lip of the pan shut, so steam can't escape.

I'd also soap the bottom of the pot -- take a liquid dish soap, and rub the bottom and lower edges of the outside, so that when soot starts to deposit, it's depositing on the layer of soap, and not the pot itself.  (it makes cleaning so much easier).

I'd also beware of grills for another reason -- many manufacturers are making lighter weight grill parts to save materials (so it costs them less to make).  Many are so thin that I doubt they'd take the weight of a heavy cast iron pot.  (I've broken one using a cast iron griddle)

It's also worth mentioning that what you have isn't quite ideal for campfire cooking, as it doesn't have the little legs to stand if off the ground a little bit, or the lip on top so that you can put coals on top, but be able to lift the lid without the ashes falling in your food.  You can get around problem #1 with the grate, and might able to do something about #2 with some creative use of aluminum foil.


Where does the green part of the scallion start and the white part end?

If you want to be really, really picky, then the 'green' is each individual leaf as it breaks away from the cylindrical whole.
That leaves you with the decision as to whether to pick off each leaf, giving you a bit of extra 'white' or just make some relatively arbitrary decision after you hit that first leaf 'node'.
So, unless you want to pick off each leaf, then it's 'about here… ish… '

Personally, if I'm being 'a bit picky' I will unwrap the outer layer for the first couple of nodes, where they go unattractively lumpy, purely for aesthetic reasons & include the rest in my 'white' distinction. Once I get far enough I [that I can't be bothered any further] then I pick out any remaining 'white' bits & go all-in for the rest  of the greens, until I hit the raggy ends, which join the roots in the compost bag.
Once you've actually cut to the green line, separation for 'fussy distinction' reasons does get easier, as you're no longer dealing with the entirety of the onion & its reluctance to part layers without ripping down to the root - you can just pull bits off & deal with them separately.