Making Dough: Preferment + Cold Rise - Necessary?

I have not tried it but I suspect it is just as you say, the sponge phase allows gluten to develop and improves the texture of the resulting bread.  Brioche should not be fluffy like a cake but should have a little bit of stretch and chew to it, but should paradoxically not be tough either.  It also needs a sour element in the flavor to offset all of the fat and sweetness.  The best way to achieve this is with the long slow process, which internally creates long, supple strands of gluten rather than smaller, firmer ones.

Another trick with brioche is keeping all of the fat (usually butter) in suspension in the dough throughout the process so that it does not leak or sweat out during baking.  The sponge, fermentation and long overnight rest develops long strands of gluten which form an internal mesh that keeps the relatively heavy dough in suspension.  If the dough is prepared too quickly it will "sweat" or the fat will liquify and leak out and you'll lose all of that lovely butter.


Nope.. If you use self raising flour with yeast, the bread would come out like a cake..

Self raising flour already has baking powder added to it but if the recipe calls for self raising flour along with baking soda then add it...


How to make mint syrup with minimum water?

Well - not exactly. The reason that this technique works with lemons is that they actually do contain quite a bit of water. It's not so much "water-free" as it is using the residual water from the rinds and un-squeezed pips. Mint contains a lot less water by weight, so if you tried it in similar portions you'd wind up not with mint syrup, but with slightly-damp mint-flavored sugar.

However, that might actually work pretty well for your intended purpose. The flavorful oils in mint will dissolve very well in sugar or in something with a lot of fats, like cream. You could try gently muddling fresh mint in a small amount of sugar and letting it sit until the mint looks ragged, dissolve the mixture in cream, filter out any little bits of mint, and then using that to make your whipped cream.

You could also try breaking up the mint a bit and letting it sit in your cream for a while to extract the essential oils, but my suspicion is that you won't get quite as intense an extraction that way.

The other option that bears mentioning is using an essential oil or extract to flavor your cream or cream cheese instead.


Do blueberries affect gelatin's ability to set?

No, the fault isn't with the blueberries. Certain fruits contain enzymes which denature ("digest" or separate) the amino acids in gelatin. Pineapple with the enzyme bromelain is one example. Blueberries don't have any protein digesting enzymes. The likely cause of your partially unset gelatin is not thoroughly draining the juice from the peaches. Possibly there was enough juice clinging to the peaches to thin out your gelatin. Next time, add a little less water when you make it.


Like so many things, if you know what you are trying to do, fudge is not difficult to get right.

Fudge is a high fat candy. In the US chocolate is implied but the addition of chocolate doesn't change the process.

You want a solid, creamy candy with a smooth texture.

As Elendil wrote, it is important to ensure that you cook the candy to the correct temperature- but that is only half of the problem.

As the candy cools it will form crystals. In order to have a smooth texture you have to make those crystals as small as possible. The bigger they are the grainier the candy will be. The slower the crystals form the larger they will be able to grow.

For a smooth texture we want to form crystals as quickly as possible.

Crystals require a trigger to set them off- such as a seed crystal or agitation. If the candy is allowed to cool undisturbed and with no seed sugar crystals in the pot no crystals will form. It will be like a bomb ready to go off at the slightest provocation- this is what we want. After it is cooled we stir it like mad to form all our crystals all at once- fast and small.

Fudge is very forgiving in that it is easy to start over. Unlike an egg custard that when it breaks is unrecoverable- the sugar crystals that ruin fudge are easy to fix. You just add a little water, melt the candy back down, and start over.

Tricks to prevent premature crystallization

Prevent errant crystals!
A lid is placed on the pot for the last few minutes of cooking. This causes condensation to wash any errant sugar crystals off of the sides of the pot. A single errant crystal can ruin your fudge.
Don't agitate the candy
When the candy is cooling it can't be stirred or bumped.
Add distractions
I consider this cheating and it is unnecessary but some recipes reduce the risk of premature crystallization by adding things like corn syrup or marshmallow creme.


Bread maker - is this even a collapse or did it not get started?

That looks like a measurement error.  Not nearly enough liquid.


Reducing sauce or gravy always forms a skin

Not an expert at this, but I suspect the skin that forms on top is just the upper layers that gets slightly drier from being exposed to open air. By not being submerged like the rest of the sauce, fluids on top evaporate at a different ratio causing a more solid "skin" to form on top.

It can also happen on casseroles or sauce heavy dishes that go in the oven, and is probably an important part of gratin technique.

I don't think there is anything wrong with it other than potentially being unsightly. If you find it inaesthetic or unpleasant you can remove it at the expense of wasting a portion of the sauce.

You can however mix it back in without issues, or prevent its formation by stirring gently or from time to time so that the top layer never forms.

Math experts here can probably give you a more informed answer, but setting a ratio of evaporation per unit of time is hard because it depends on a lot of different factors, like the type of sauce, chemical composition, the total volume being cooked, area of exposure to air (wider or narrower recipient, lid/open air etc.), temperature/flame intensity, among others.


I can give you the Italian answer - first of all, normally we don't use tomato paste to make sauce, but rather to add a tomato "kick" to recipes. Tomato paste is simply tomato puree that has been cooked down to a high degree of concentration.

A basic tomato sauce is made by

making a soffritto with onion, carrot and celery (plus other flavors)
adding tomato puree, or "pelati", more rarely fresh tomato
cooking the sauce down until the taste and thickness is what you want

If you want to use paste instead of puree, the third step has to be omitted or greatly reduced in duration. Keep in mind that tomato paste has its own taste, and that taste will remain in the final sauce.


I can't imagine any reason why you couldn't.  There's nothing in there (like a delicate fish) that could possibly lose texture or taste from being frozen.


Is heating rate important with sugar syrups?

The limiting factor for how fast you can heat your syrups is how evenly that heat is distributed through the liquid. If you have a runny liquid, a thick pot that distributes well and you stir constantly, you can heat very fast. The heated liquid is immediately mixed throughout.

On the other hand, if your syrup is viscous it won't mix easily. If your pan is thin then there will be hot spots. The syrup will get too hot and burn at those points.

Another consideration is precise temperatures needed for candy making. If your syrup is destined for a denser candy then you want to hit a final temperature that is within about a 5F range. It might be hard to hit accurately if you are heating too fast.

Personally, I start my syrups on medium-medium low until the sugar is dissolved and then bump the temp up to almost high. If I'm making candy I'll go back to a medium high when it starts getting close.

As for reheating- just use a microwave. The syrup won't burn.

Some recipes need to be heated gently. Eggs, for example, are more likely to curdle when they are heated abruptly- even if they are only heated to the same temperature.

This does not apply to sugar syrups.


Does a sharpening steel ever need to be replaced?

Standard grooved metal steels don't ever really become unusable.  The ridges will get dinged up over time with abuse, especially with cheap steels that are not of good quality; however, I've seen some seriously (ab)used steels and they are still quite usable despite looking like Rocky at the end of a fight.  In the worst case, the steel will become smooth... which doesn't hinder its ability do its job and align the blade edge.

Smooth (ungroved) metal steels cannot ever wear out, since they're just a smooth piece of metal.

Ceramic sharpening "steels" will never wear out, but the surface can get clogged with removed metal particles.  This can be cleaned out with a scouring pad to render them as good as new.  If banged against things, the brittle ceramic can chip permanently, but that is not part of normal use.

Diamond sharpening "steels" are the only ones which ABSOLUTELY WILL wear out over time; the abrasive is made of tiny diamonds embedded in the surface, which will be dislodged by normal use.  Eventually enough diamonds will be scraped off that the tool ceases to sharpen.


What size disher makes "1 inch balls of dough?"

Well, a one-inch diameter sphere has a volume of 1.74 teaspoons, or 0.58 tablespoons.

It looks like the numbered sizes are in fractions of a quart, so if you could have any size you wanted, that'd be a a #110 disher. I assume that means you'll probably want a #100, which is 0.64 tablespoons, surely close enough for cookies. (From that same link, it looks like the sizes aren't that consistent to begin with, with examples often a few percent off.)

Note that this is based on the assumption that you care about volume, i.e. the amount of cookie dough per cookie. That seems right, but if you ever cared about the width of the scoop (something that doesn't spread, I guess) you'd need a larger scoop.

For general reading on scoops for cookies, this King Arthur blog post is good. They indeed suggest a #100 for smaller (2" to 2-1/4") cookies, where the recipe suggests a "teaspoonful" of dough - presumably a heaping teaspoon. For "tablespoonful" they suggest a #40 (4 teaspoons). They also mention using #30 and #16 for large cookies, but those don't correspond to common recipe instructions.

(The King Arthur scoops are also a great demonstration of the variation in size - they say their #40 is 4 teaspoons, when a #40 is nominally 4.8 tablespoons.)

For what it's worth, I took a list of standard sizes and did the same calculation as above to figure out what size sphere is equivalent to their nominal volume:

        Volume            Sphere diameter
        Tbsp    mL        in    cm
#4      16      236.59    3.02  7.67
#5      12.8    189.27    2.80  7.12
#6      10.7    158.22    2.64  6.70
#8      8       118.29    2.40  6.09
#10     6.4     94.64     2.23  5.65
#12     5.33    78.81     2.09  5.32
#16     4       59.15     1.90  4.83
#20     3.2     47.32     1.77  4.49
#24     2.67    39.48     1.66  4.22
#30     2.13    31.50     1.54  3.92
#40     1.6     23.66     1.40  3.56
#50     1.28    18.93     1.30  3.31
#60     1.07    15.82     1.22  3.11
#70     0.914   13.52     1.16  2.96
#100    0.64    9.46      1.03  2.62

Given the variability in scoop size across manufacturers, and the fact that you can scoop anywhere from level to heaping to full rounded spheres with the same scoop, this should probably just be a starting point.


Can you make orange juice with a blender?

Sure, you can juice with a blender, as long as (a) the blender is of reasonably good quality and (b) you're not expecting the same kind of yield or quality you'd get with a juicer (electric or manual).  You'll also need a very fine strainer, or cheesecloth if you're like me and hate any amount of pulp.

You'll have to peel them first, and try to remove the pips as well (clementines shouldn't have very many, and might even be totally seedless).  The pith is less of an issue - some people remove it, some people don't, it's a matter of personal preference.  Once the oranges have been "cleaned", start blending them on the lowest speed and gradually bring it up to high.  Oranges should have enough juice to blend on their own, but regardless of what fruit you use, be prepared to add water if the blender doesn't seem to be doing much.

Once you've got a fairly consistent purée, pass it through the strainer and mash the pulp against it with the back of a spoon or the bottom of a glass jar.  There's your juice.  You can throw some pulp (purée) back in if you like that texture.

Fruit purée from a blender doesn't really have the best flavour - it tends to turn out somewhat bitter - so you'll probably want to add a small amount of sugar and/or citric acid to compensate.


Are Garlic cloves supposed to be put as whole or as chopped up pieces in a soup?

From my experience and what I've seen, garlic cloves are often applied to soup in un-chopped glove.

Overtime, the boiling will release the garlic's sweet to the soup without melting itself into the liquid or dissolving into tidbits that attached to the ingredients.

I have also seen people pan fry the garlic gloves to golden brown before dumping them into the water. I believe the purpose is to harden the outside of the garlic while getting more exotic flavor out of it.

Otherwise, I would chop/dice/smash garlic for dips and frying.


how to have fresh steamed bluecrabs in the late afternoon that I buy live in the morning

I think it's a fine question.  If I were in your position, I'd definitely go for option 2 - I think pre-cooked and re-steamed crab would end up a lot like oversteamed crab: mushy and gross.

As for keeping them alive, when I was a kid we used to go crabbing every weekend. Mom would just keep them in a cardboard box in the kitchen until we were ready to eat them for dinner (much to my dad's dismay).

According to Bluecrab.info:

  Crabs can live for several days out of water as long as they are healthy and are kept cool, moist, and stress-free. The optimal temperature is about 50° F., anything colder will ultimately kill them.

If I remember correctly, mom would keep a damp towel on top of the box.  But that may have been dad not wanting to look at them.


How to prevent my roux from sticking to the bottom of the pan?

There's already a question about roux/stock temperature (as well as a recent question that's probably a duplicate). Summary: yes, adding cold liquid to hot roux is good. Additionally, most of what I'm saying is already in the answers to "How to mix a roux with stock". I've gone ahead and tried to address your specific concerns, but I really think thoroughly reading rumstcho's answer there would help you.

Yes, it's also bad if the pan is too hot, and you rapidly cook the roux and boil off excess liquid, leaving something that was briefly wet enough to spread along the bottom of the pan, then a second later dry enough to cook onto the bottom of the pan. This is also one of the reasons it's bad to add too little liquid at once. If it ever dries out, you've messed up.

And yes, you should probably be adding more liquid initially, at the very least enough to wet all of the roux. It's fine if the first batch of liquid gets you something substantially thicker than your end goal, but you shouldn't be just trying to get a slightly wet ball of roux, then a slightly wetter one, and ten steps later have a thick slurry. You want to give yourself enough liquid to work with right away.

Once you've got all that, you need to whisk well. If anything is remaining sitting on the bottom of the pan the entire time, of course it's going to stick.

With respect to your other questions: Spices shouldn't hurt you, and a roux containing significant onions and garlic isn't a normal roux, but I've certainly made tons of thick sauces with all kinds of things mixed into the roux, and had no trouble. Bits of things are just, well, extra bits of things. They don't really interact with the liquid when you add it.


It's hard to tell from your photo but if the báhn xu xê cakes were cooked, the outer green part would be fairly translucent since it's mainly composed of tapioca flour. Tapioca cooks clear. Yours looks cloudy still.

Báhn xu xê cakes are steamed for 15 minutes and then cooled. I've seen places where they're steamed in plastic wraps and I suppose that's safe but not what I'd consider appetizing. I honestly can't say how well they would hold together without some kind of wrapping while steaming. Traditionally, they were wrapped in pandan leaf folded into a box shape. Pandan leaves are used for flavouring as well as wrapping. My best suggestion is to rewrap them in double thickness parchment baking paper if you don't wish to use plastic wrap and tie with string to hold together. The paper will get soggy, of course, but should hold their shape.

By the way,  báhn xu xê translates as "husband-wife cakes" and is traditionally served at weddings.


I'm no expert on flammables, but I've grilled a ton in my day on various equipment, and feel I've learned a couple things that may help here.  However, your mileage may vary, and take this all with a grain of salt.

Is this a known problem?

Depends on what this is.  I agree with your read that this likely isn't your equipment, and is likely something on the tank.  If so, it is not known to me, but I have a different approach on tanks than you.  More below.

Should the store I bought it from agree to just replace my tank for free?

Yes, I think they should do so happily; it leaks gas after all.  If they don't, you should insist (say something about how you were hoping to grill some steaks, not start a house fire).

Is there some reason this might actually be a problem with my equipment?

The only thing I could fathom is if your equipment had some significant downstream pressure, but even if it did, I believe that would cause propane to flow more slowly to your burners, not leak out the back of the tank valve.

Is this a pressure release value?

This doesn't sound like a pressure release valve issue to me.  If it were, the valve would open when the pressure increased inside the tank (usually a function of tank temperature increase), completely unrelated to when you opened the tank valve.

So then what is it?

If I had to guess, I'd say that the bleed screw is not tightened down well.  This screw is opened when they fill the tank (allowing the air to escape while LPG is pumped into the tank).  When they are done filling the tank, the bleed screw should be tightened, and perhaps that wasn't done when these tanks were filled.  With the tank valve closed, check the bleed valve on the back of the tank valve to ensure it is closed.

So what should I do?

For what it is worth, I've never been a fan of those tank exchanges for a handful of reasons:

Partial Fills. Most all of the tank exchanges only put in about 15# (~3.6 gallons) of propane.  Even in warm weather climates you should be able to get 20# (4.7 gallons) of propane into a 20# tank.
Beat-up Tanks. The tanks I see at the exchanges are usually pretty beat-up.  This could be part of what you are seeing, tanks with faulty valves (however, I have to believe they do some level of checking before they ship full tanks back to the retail stores, right?).
Ugly Tanks.  I hate seeing the tank exchange company's brand plastered all over the side of the tank.

I have had excellent luck in buying several new, empty tanks (from Home Depot or the like) and having them filled myself (usually at either a U-Haul, AirGas, or gas station).  It's slightly less convenient, but I get a longer effective tank life (usually 33% more gas in my fill vs. exchanged tanks), better value (the gas is cheaper!), and my tanks don't look nor operate poorly.


Making tomato mix thicker without surge in calories

Your primary option if you want to add a thickener, you can use any hydrocolloid you wish. I will not list them here again, since it isn't necessary that every single question on thickeners on the site gets the full list. You can download Martin Lersch's free reference book, Texture: a hydrocolloid recipe book, and start experimenting. I can also not tell you which one will be the best for your case - they all produce different textures, and it depends on your personal preference which one to use, and anyway, you have to see which one is accessible for you.
A second option for getting any tomato based liquid thicker is to either cook it down on your own, or to replace some of the fresh tomatoes by concentrated tomato paste.
The third option, deseeding, was already given in Keith Ford's answer.
And you already mentioned the fourth, bulking up with dry ingredients such as your soy powder.
I would say the four together give you a pretty wide range of alternatives, try them out and see which one you can best live with.


Proper temperatures for meats...foodie standards?

This is purely personal preference, this is no magic number

Some people like it very blue, some like it grey. Some like it cooked it a very hot pan, some people like it simmered or steamed. Cook what you like

If you are going to have raw, or rare meat cooked at below your local governments recommendations, you should know the quality of the meat, or be involved in it's preparation (Zuckerberg style)

This is my wife's ideal steak. From the farm, grass feed young beef. Sirloin cooked plain in a hot cast iron pan for 30 seconds a side


Can you freeze bread dough when it's done proofing to bake later?

Seth, I make pizza dough all the time.
I make about 4-6 rounds each time and then freeze them. It works just fine!

My method:
Depending on your dough, you need several stages of proofing. With pizza dough, I generally do the fast, slow, and extra slow method. Meaning it starts at the optimal temp for a fast rise within a warm and moist environment. The second is less warm and still moist. The moisture comes from a damp cloth or covered container/bowl. The third rise comes after. I roll the dough into small balls (or whatever shape you desire for bread) and then placing them in the fridge on a plate with some plastic wrap over the top.

Now, the third step is when I decide which pizza dough balls are the lucky ones. I'll freeze the rest that don't make it in the fridge. !!The important part is that the shape is intact when you freeze it.!!

This nearly stops or completely stops the proofing process of the dough. When I want to make more pizza, I take the dough out the night before and let the final proofing stage begin.

Note: I have found that this method works perfectly within 2-3 weeks of putting the dough in the freezer. I got mixed results after that time period where the dough would sometimes become thin and cracker-like. Still good pizza! But not the best.

Hope this helps! I've been making pizza dough for over 12 years. @Restaurants and @home.


Does black interior of a cocotte/dutch oven such as Staub create problems with accidentally burning ingredients/fond?

The color of the interior of a pan isn't going to effect how food cooks, but you are right that a dark pan does contrast differently from a light or metal pan. My own experience with pans of many types is that color doesn't make any difference in the end result, I can tell if onions are browning on a dark cast iron pan just as well as a light ceramic coated pan or steel pan.
If you are concerned about it just look at the food on the spoon as you sauté, the spoon is the same color no matter the pan you use.


How to prevent my wide rice noodles from breaking after cooked?

Two reasons I can think the noodle would break apart.

Your noodles are overcooked.
The noodles are sticking.

If you are stir-frying a noodle after cooking, likely I think the first would be the biggest factor. I would typically suggest undercooking the noodle first.

Cook it a minute or two shy of al-dente. It should be soft enough to stir-fry, but still "undercooked".
Drain and then stir-fry with enough oil to prevent sticking.
If the noodles at this point are still not al-dente, you can add some broth/water to the sauce and let it soften some more.


I'm going to assume that you are smoking with charcoal as electric smokers don't really have trouble with fluctuating temperature.

Plan on needing to add charcoal every couple of hours during the entire smoking period. I start mine at unwholesome hours of the morning and set alarms to get up and stoke the fire. It is nice if you can stoke the fire without letting out all the heat but that depends on the shape of your smoker.

Keep in mind that you only need to add your smoke producing wood for the first couple of hours. After that all you need is heat, no more smoke flavor will be absorbed.

It is very helpful to use high quality, lump charcoal. Lump charcoal burns longer and produces much less ash. Charcoal briquettes are filled with clay. Not only do they burn out more quickly but they leave mounds of ash that you have to clean out several times during a 10 hour smoking. Around here I can find lump charcoal in large bags at the hardware store and sometimes at Costco for much cheaper.

Another alternative:
If you aren't a purist who needs to be able to say that the turkey was cooked only with coal, you can always finish it in the oven. I've read that meat will soak up all the flavor that it is going to in the first hour and that matches my experience. After that it is just slow cooking which is much more conveniently done in a low oven.


How to get the most chili flavour out of a chili pepper?

One technique, especially in Mexican foods, for recipes that use dried chilies, is to toast the pods before using them.
Toast them over medium heat until the pod blisters, but don't blacken too much. They are very thin, so going from done to ruined takes only a few seconds of in attention. Be careful!


You should still use two rises if that's what the recipe calls for.  The main differences are that instant yeast does not require proofing, and you can use a bit less of it because more of the yeast is viable.

The full article is behind a paywall here (https://www.cookscountry.com/how_tos/6140-yeast-101), but here's a short excerpt summarizing the substitution (instant and rapid-rise yeast are the same thing):

  Active dry yeast must be activated (or proofed) in warm liquid before
  using; rapid-rise yeast can be added directly to the dough and does
  not require proofing, but the test kitchen has found that doing so
  does help to speed up its rise. Rapid-rise and active dry yeast may be
  substituted for each other if you follow this formula: 1 teaspoon
  active dry yeast equals ¾ teaspoon rapid-rise yeast.

And, though you refer to active dry yeast as "proper," I find I get better and more consistent results with rapid-rise yeast.  And a pound of it is really inexpensive at my local grocery store, too.  It keeps for months in the freezer.


Your chocolate is seizing. There's a nice discussion of exactly what's happening at the molecular level here:
What happened to my melted couverture?

The usual fix for seizing is to add more liquid, but I think you've got so much liquid in there that you can't agitate it well enough to break up the clumps. So you get lumps of seized chocolate swimming in liquid.

A better solution is to dissolve your chocolate in a small amount of boiling water, over medium temperature rather than in a double boiler. Since there is no milk in it at that point, you don't have to worry about overcooking the milk proteins. Then you can add the dairy to the hot chocolate syrup, then heat through. Because the chocolate is already dissolved, it will distribute evenly through the milk.

It shouldn't need any thickening agent. The chocolate is starchy enough on its own to thicken the dairy. (If you do like it with the starchy mouthfeel, you can add a small amount of cornstarch with the cold milk.)

The recipe I use runs something like this:

Put 1 ounce of bittersweet chocolate, 1 tbsp sugar, and a quarter cup of water in a small pot
Cook over medium heat, stirring until it becomes a thickened syrup
Add 8 ounces milk
Heat through, stirring
Add 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

I like to whip it with a stick blender. You can also use half-and-half for a richer result. You may want more sugar; you can add that at the table.

Similar recipes are also made in a double boiler, e.g. www.food.com/recipe/angelina-s-hot-chocolate-334398. I don't think the double boiler is necessary.

Note: it's better to use eating chocolate rather than unsweetened. Unsweetened chocolate isn't as thoroughly "conched", since it's usually used for cakes, where that doesn't matter as much. In a drink it'll be slightly gritty. (I'm also told that they use lower-quality beans, but I haven't done a taste test.)


Why does chocolate tempering requires reaching temperatures where "bad" crystals can be formed

This YouTube video from America's Test Kitchen doesn't exactly address your question, but I think it hits it on the periphery towards the end.

Summary: Dan (the chef) goes over the traditional way of tempering chocolate (much like the method you link to / describe).  Then, he goes over their shortcut version.  In the shortcut, most of the chocolate is heated until it just melts in the microwave, then the remaining chocolate (having been very finely chopped) is added in (and microwaved in 5 second bursts, if it doesn't melt with the residual heat).  The result is close to, but not exactly the same as the traditional method.

My take-away and guess as to why: In the traditional method, a mix of type IV and V crystals are formed, but, I suspect that there are also some quantity of type III as well (in small pockets that are not the same temperature as the rest of the mixture).  I suspect that the creation of the different types helps keep crystal sizes small - which is one of the desired conditions of tempering.  By allowing the mix of small crystals to form, then melting the undesired ones, you may be allowing more smaller crystals a chance to form, instead of larger one.  If this is true, it might explain why the second method produces a slightly inferior temper: the seed crystals might be too large (from the just recently melted chocolate), and their initial growth is uninhibited by other crystal types.

I've just checked with my BakeWise book (tempering chocolate p 104-107) by Shirley O. Corriher (Amazon link).  On pg 106, she mentions that cooling dark chocolate to 82F/27.8C ...

  allows some undesirable crystals to form, but it gets good
  crystallization of the Form V crystals started.

She also mentions stirring constantly several times over.  This is usually an indication that one is trying to A.) keep temperatures uniform throughout a mixture and/or B.) promote small crystal growth.  (It's why ice cream makers constantly churn, instead of just chucking the mixture into a freezer.)

So, I'm going to stick with: formation of lots of small type V's, even with some type IV's, is more desirable than the formation of fewer type V's, but with no type IV's.


I left kimchi at room temperature for 7 hours. Can I still eat it?

Kinchi is a fermented food, then, let out for some time doesn't damage it, except if this is too much time, like days. May be you will experience more vinaigrette flavor, but it is a good indicator and depend of your preferable taste. Also Sunja's kimchi made a statement that they use only fresh and natural ingredients without any additives, and it is a good signal.


There are two ways to define nuts, one botanical and the other culinary.

Botanical: It is a dry fruit containing one or two seeds, where the fruit does not open to release the seed. So, only indehiscent fruit are considered true nuts. eg. Walnut (image), pecans, chestnuts.

Culinary: A lot of seeds are called nuts even when they do not conform to the botanical definition. eg. Almonds, cashews(image).

Cocoa beans fall in neither category, so it is correct to say that the bag is nut free. Cocoa beans are harvested from a cocoa pod which is fruit like (image of cocoa pod with the seeds), so they definitely fall into the category of seeds and not nuts.

So the labelling on the bag is correct. As for the allergies, there may be people allergic to cocoa beans, but they wouldn't necessarily overlap with people who are allergic to nuts.


Crouque-Monsier or the similar "Hot Brown" sandwich is perfect for my needs. That will use up the sauce in a completely different way. It will also make a great lunch. Thanks SAJ14SAJ for the tip.


I believe you meant "Jaggery" (aka Panela) a unrefined cane sugar product.  If so, I would suggest a "Muscovado" sugar, as it is whole or partially unrefinued cane sugar.  You may need to experiment and blend between dark and medium muscovado to get the taste you desire.  I suggest either try a medium brown muscovado or a 1:1 ratio of dark and medium brown muscovado sugar.


The whole quote is

  Cooking the leaves with soda can make them more poisonous by producing soluble oxalates

I can't tell you if the claim as a whole is true. But if it is true for the leaves, it is true for the stems too.

Rhubarb contains oxalic acid and its salts which are created by the acid reacting with different metal ions such as calcium and magnesium. It's true that these salts have different solubility and bioavailability. And both the leaves and the stems contain oxalic acid and salts, just in different concentration.

So, if cooking the leaves in soda turns the insoluble oxalates in them to soluble ones, then the same will happen when cooking the stems. For the metal ions, it's irrelevant if they are reacting with an oxalate ion which used to "live" in the leaf or in the stem. Anything which makes the leaves worse will also make the stems worse.


In this Gordon Ramsey scrambled eggs video he uses a "knob" of butter. It appears to be about 2 Tbsp.

I don't think it's intended to be a specific term. You'd never see "knob" used for baking, where exact amounts matter. When cooking, recipes tend to be a general guideline rather than a strict set of instructions.


How much salt should I use for dry brining a steak?

I've seen reference to 1/2 tsp kosher salt per pound.  For a steak, I'll do a few hours at most, but more often salt right before cooking.  For a roast chicken, I salt and leave uncovered in fridge for up to two days.  For the steak, salting far in advance leads to a more "cured" texture that I don't enjoy.  For the bird, salting in advance gives me a more enjoyable texture, flavor, and crisp skin.
Perhaps semantics for some...but it is not brining, which, in my book implies a liquid environment...it is simply salting.  I do realize that good folks will differ on my interpretation, but all you have to do is look up the definition of "brine."


How can I test my extracts for strength?

Mix your extract with sugar in half of the proportion as in your candy recipe and start from there. For instance, if your recipe calls for 1 tsp of vanilla extract and 2 cups of sugar, try 1/16 of a tsp of your extract mixed with 1/4 cup of sugar. Add extract by 1/16 tsp until you get the flavor you want. If you like the flavor after you've added 1/16 of a tsp 3 times, that means you want to use 1.5 tsp in your candy.


Looking for a good text on science of grilling and barbecue

Although it isn't extremely detailed, there is some good information on this topic in Nathan Myrhvold's Modernist Cuisine: Vol. 2 Pages 7-17 are dedicated to grilling and there is some relevant information in the sections on smoking in both Vol. 2 and Vol. 3 as well.

Harold McGee's food science classic On Food and Cooking has most of the information on this topic that can be found in Myrhvold's tome at significantly less cost.  Most of the information specifically about wood and flavor production can be found at the end of chapter 8 "Flavorings from Plants"


What is the best knife/sharpener setup for an active cook?

If you have top quality knives, I generally discourage the use of any do-it-yourself sharpeners.  I take my knives yearly to a professional knife sharpener who puts that amazing 17 degree edge back on my Shun knives.

In between sharpening you should be using a quality honing steel every time you use your knife.

Additionally, your knives shouldn't need routine sharpening. Unless you intend routine to mean every 6-18 months. If you're sharpening knives more frequently than that, you're doing it wrong. From what I've seen the quality sharpeners on the  market are just too expensive to justify their space in my kitchen. Maybe if I charged friends for sharpening services?


What will happen to my Pecan tassies if I use too much butter?

I'm assuming your stick of butter is 8 tablespoons, right?  So you used four times as much butter as the recipe calls for, which is probably enough to make it into a buttery mess.

I think your two best options are: 1) increase all other ingredients by the same amount and make a lot of tassies, or 2) start over.


Why is my Pizza Dough always too sticky to knead?

I am an Indian and we make dough for everyday bread at home. It's easy to knead dough; you just have to take care while adding water. Do not add all the water you have, and add water slowly and steadily. For pizza dough I follow these steps:

Mix yeast in warm water, add sugar to this water. Observe this mixture - as soon as you see bubbles, it is ready to be used for kneading dough.
Add oil and salt to flour along with the yeast you have prepared.
I use a spoon to keep mixing the flour and add spoonfuls of water, I keep some flour handy in case I have accidentally added too much water.

I keep kneading the dough gently and add water or flour as needed. This does require some practice.


Brick is one of those cheeses that should get more distribution. It's slightly soft and melts well, with a slight butteriness and tinge of acidity. Aged brick gets a slightly ripe flavor and smell. The closest cheese I can think of to a decent aged Brick is an aged Havarti. Similar softness, and not far off in flavor compared to other cheeses, and it should be widely available.


What is the proper technique for torching a creme brulee?

There are good videos on the internet showing how to properly caramelize the sugar; are you doing things differently ?

Most of them just have the torch a couple of inches facing down over the sugar and in a slow side movement, caramelize the sugar.

The torch flame needs to be "blue" so that it is at its hottest.


This is a basic chocolate custard filling.

The one thing I would suggest is changing out the whole eggs for egg yolks only, at a ratio of about 2-3 yolks per cup of dairy, so 3-4 egg yolks in this recipe.  This should yield a more tender and silky custard, as the whites tend to contribute a more rubbery or resilient texture.

Even so, the original proportions do not look that far off.   A custard pie like this one should be able to be sliced when cool, and the slices should hold their shape without slumping.  That does require a certain amount of strength in the custard.

You might wish to look for recipes based on a mousse filling, which is not baked in the shell, such as this one from Epicurious.


How can I freeze excess peas from my garden?

According to the Ball Blue Book of Canning & Freezing:

  Scalding is a critical step in preparing vegetables for freezing and must be done carefully.  (This is a "must" for all vegetables to be stored frozen for more than four weeks, except those used exlusively for their flavor such as green onions, hot peppers and herbs.) Scalding cleanses the surface of dirt and organisms, brightens the color, helps retain vitamins and reduces the action of enzymes which would otherwise destroy the fresh flavor after about four weeks.  It also shrinks the product, making packing easier.

The recommended scalding time for fresh green peas is 2 minutes.  Be sure to have your ice bath prepared for shocking them before starting the scalding to avoid overcooking them.
Once shocked, remove from the ice bath to avoid leaching nutrients, flavor, and color.


What are food additives that help popsicle/shaved ice melt slower?

You could experiment with decreasing the sugar...higher sugar means quicker melting.  However, if you want to eliminate all melting, you could try making a fluid gel using low acyl gellan (typically 0.5% to 1.25%...so, it doesn't take much). Then freeze that. It is more freeze/thaw stable than agar.


Can you freeze fruit pies after baking - Will this ruin them?

I've done this both ways and prefer to freeze my fruit pies before I bake them.  You have to bake them longer (20 min to 1/2 hour) and will need to use foil to be sure the crust doesn't come out too dark. No soggy crust this way.


Chick peas (garbanzo beans) are amongst the slowest of pulses to soak and cook I find.

It depends what is happening to them afterwards and how old they are as to the required process.  If you need them in a canned state, then I would suggest a long soak, 24 hours is not unreasonable and I think at least an hour and a half cooking time.  Longer soaks do bring down the cooking time till soft, if you only soak them for a few hours they would need a lot longer cooking.

An issue is that they tend to split if overcooked heavily, so it may be worth trying a few towards the end of cooking time, at least in your fingers for texture.

Certain dishes like falafel I have seen asking for slightly undercooked chick peas, but generally you want them holding their shape and providing slight resistance, not mushy.

Some people advocate adding bicarbonate of soda to the soaking water, as this speeds up the process.  It does, you can get away with 12 hours, but imparts a bitterness to them which I think is worth avoiding with a longer soak.

As for salt, there are many schools of thought on this, most people advocate adding salt right at the end to avoid undue hardness.  That's all very well, but then they do not benefit that much from it.  I would suggest a happy medium, half way through cooking perhaps.  As I say, it depends what you are doing with them, sometimes a more firm bean is desirable with chick pea dishes.

Having said all that, chick peas are one of the beans that I almost always buy tinned, though it is worth trying different brands to find a good one.


What is the danger in cross contamination?

Whilst you'll probably be fine using the same knife and chopping board to prepare everything that's going in an "all in one" meal such as a stew, here's the reasons I have for never doing so:

It's a bad habit to get into. It's very easy to slip-up and forget that you're not making an "all in one" meal and thus chop some lettuce on a board you've already used for slicing raw bacon when making a salad, if most of the meals you make are "all in one" and you usually don't have to "worry" about cross-contamination
It doesn't take that long. Washing your chopping board down with hot soapy water and a clean sponge/scourer takes literally a few minutes, the same can be said for a knife. If you're pressed for time you could turn the board over and use a fresh knife. That assumes that the work surface was clean beforehand and the food being prepared on the "first" side was dry and thus won't have liquid run-off that's contaminated the underside of the board
It's not worth getting wrong. If you make a mistake and get food poisoning, or worse - give someone else food poisoning, you'll really wish you'd done your utmost to prevent cross-contamination.


Flour/Instant Dry Yeast Ratio in Thin Pizza Dough

Pizza dough is basically a bread.  So, like other bread formulas, can be developed and expressed using a bakers percentage.  For a Napolitan pizza most pizzaiolos use .1 to .5 percent yeast.  This is the percentage as compared to the total amount of flour (usually tipo "OO" for this style).  So, your initial research is a good starting point.  You will have to adjust for local conditions (and ingredients) from there. This might also help you. He makes use of fresh yeast, so that is likely why his percentage is on the lower end.


Black paint chipping of electric grill: is it still safe?

The rust is going to be harmless, except to the extent that the grill will eventually corrode all the way through and the coals fall on the surface underneath.

It's not possible for anyone on SA to tell if the paint will be harmful; you would have to get it tested.  Once you fill that tray full of hot coals, some of the remaining paint will almost certainly burn away, and whether or not that results in harmful smoke really depends on what it's made from, and how much actually burns.

FWIW, that looks too shallow to make a good charcoal grill, regardless, and it's likely that the steel is thinner than you'd want as well -- likely to warp or even crack. You'd probably be better off finding a secondhand charcoal grill.


How can I make yeast- and gluten-free pizza dough?

I've tried making pizza crust w Garbanzo bean flour (Besan or Gram flour) with some success.
Starting w a recipe similar to this: Chick Pea Tortillas. Leave the fried onions in, and add some olive oil. Fry until nicely browned, and use as crust for pizza. First time I tried, I left the batter too thick, and pizza was overly bready, almost pancakish. Up'd the water on second try and result was crispier, but too flimsy. Perhaps an egg. and some spicing? Haven't tried adding baking powder to the thin batter, but it seems there might be a workable recipe in there somewhere.


It's been a while since I did the research before writing the answer you quote, but based on my recollection (and what I know about the science) is that sugar is not required.

Sugar is mostly used to maximize flavor extraction in some cases where a sugary final product is desired, as in traditional production of some liqueurs.  But since extracts are not generally "sweetened," there's no sugar requirement.

However, it may serve various functions when present, perhaps including:

speeding up the extraction
balancing flavor of the extract (as you suggest)
slightly changing which flavor components get extracted or their proportions, due to varying solubility in a sugar solution (though I imagine this effect is quite minor except where there is a large amount of sugar involved)
increasing the amount of extracted flavor overall (this is particularly useful in situations where the ingredients have a high water content, such as fruits; in other cases, the effect is likely small)

A quick web search brings up a number of recipes for the kind of extracts you mention which involve no sugar.  So it's definitely feasible.

On a related note, most commercial liqueurs are generally manufactured by steeping the other ingredients in alcohol first, then adding sugar after steeping and straining.  (There are various processing and convenience reasons why this is done, and the minor flavor extraction loss is generally not considered significant enough to require sugar to be used in the steep.)  So it's definitely possible and common to extract significant flavor without sugar, even if you planned to add sugar later.

Will there be some flavor differences in the resulting extract?  Possibly, but the extract should still be fine.


Short answer is - you can't avoid the little particles like the hairs from the flower bits when you cut a pineapple. Washing is the quickest way to get these residual pieces off the fruit - and yes, you do wash a little of the juice away, but this will be generally replaced by more juice in a short period of time, from where you cut the fruit (assuming the fruit is a juicy one and ripe).

Other options : a gentle scrape of the pieces off with a knife or other edged implement - but this requires you to closely observe the whole fruit and generally to pick them off a few at a time. You can also pat down with a paper towel, but this often doesn't work very well.


Storing eggs in high temperatures and low humidity will speed up the ageing process and cause whites to become watery.

Try sourcing some eggs from another producer as another coop may have better conditions and therefore better quality eggs. In the summer, hens may lay eggs with watery whites even though they are kept in good conditions. The older the hen, the more likely the egg whites will be watery.

If you are trying to bake with the watery eggs, try reducing the liquid ingredient by a tablespoon for each egg in the recipe.


Accidentally baked flatbread with oxygen absorber -- is flatbread safe to eat?

Given that you have identified the oxygen scavenger as a ZPT-type AGELESS device, I believe the active ingredient is mainly iron oxide, rust, which isn't inherently harmful.  However I do not know what the packaging material is made from.

AGELESS ZPT-type:

I did find some data on the Mitsuibishi website for AGELESS, stating that some types are alright when microwaved, but there were no direct references to direct heating.

If it were me, I would remove the area around the patch and eat it, but I am not an expert and I would recommend that you contact them directly to be sure.

Tel: 212-687-9030 (US)
Email: AGELESS@mgc-a.com


If you can fit all four into one oven and you use convection, just use the instructions for one. Like for all foods, you will want to monitor the progress and possibly decide to give it a few extra minutes or to pull it out a moment sooner. But that is a general advice that takes different oven calibrations etc. into account.

If you use a top & bottom heating element without convection, you might have to do some juggling as you will probably have two lasagnas on an upper and two on a lower rack. This means they will heat / bake unevenly and you should swap upper and lower at about half the given baking time. You might also have to extend the time by a bit, I'd guestimate perhaps ten minutes or so. But the rule of thumb is bubbly = done, so just have a look. Likewise for the final browning step, plan to swap once, watch to make sure nothing burns.


Why isn't my espresso coffee nice and strong?

You do not tell us too much about your equipment, so I guess that you are in the same situation me.

I was in the same situation when I bought my machine. I purchased a Rancillio Silvia, without a grinder. I blamed it on the coffee at first, but it turned out that all the pre ground espresso coffee I was buying in shops was simply not made for such a machine. I was so lucky that I got to grind the my beans at a local coffee shop, using the same find grind as they did in their machines. Only then I got the crema and punch that I wanted from my espresso.

Symptoms to look for:

Do your espresso come out too thin?
Extraction time less than approx. 25 seconds for a double espresso?

It didn't take me a long time to understand that I needed a own grinder to get exactly the espresso I wanted.

If your grind is just a little too coarse it is possible to counter this by increasing the tamper pressure. But from what you explain you need more than this.


Which parts of a chicken are used to make chicken soup?

The lowest-cost option is definitely bones, assuming you don't actually need or want pieces of meat in the soup.

When I say bones I'm referring to the parts that are normally thrown out as waste products, especially the necks, feet, and carcasses.  If you can't find them at a supermarket, talk to a butcher.  They are sold for next to nothing - usually less than $1/kg, sometimes as low as $0.50/kg.  That is even less than the per-unit cost of a whole chicken.  Some butchers (no promises!) will even give them away for free, or at least haggle a little bit, especially if their business is small.

You can roast these and simmer (not boil) them over a period of several hours to produce a very rich stock.  Usually you would do this with a mirepoix and/or bouquet garni for flavour.  When it's done, you strain it, and then add fresh or frozen vegetables, noodles, etc., to stretch it into a full meal or at least a hearty soup.

If I really wanted meat in the soup, I'd opt for thighs, as they are inexpensive and (once butchered) you can throw the bones in with the rest.

Other than pure bones, the "budget" option for chicken is almost always the whole chicken, if you can use it all.  That means doing your own boning and butchering, then using the bones and trimmings for stock/soup and finding ways to use the offal (combs, hearts, livers, etc.)  The offal really isn't any good in soup, so if you just want chicken soup, then stick to just bones and one inexpensive cut (over here it's thighs, but this may vary by location).


How do you make a cake with soft fillings baked inside?

I have a few recipes that are made like that, and the general technique is:

1) Fill the cake tin with half of the batter you would use for a cake;
2) Spoon or pipe the required quantity of filling;
3) Fill the tin with the rest of the batter;
4) PROFIT!

It doesn't work with all fillings, considering that you need to have a filling that is heat resistant (buttercream is a no-no) and that doesn't expand when heated (nothing too airy).

The recipes I have call for brigadeiro (which is a kind of chocolate fudge made with condensed milk, powdered cocoa and butter, previously cooked), dulce de leche, fruit jam and one of them uses a mix of cream cheese, sugar and Bailey's, and all of them work very well.


How many jumbo double yolk eggs should I substitute for large eggs?

The formulation I use;
1 jumbo double yolk egg = 2 yolks + 1 white


Smoothie - water as base liquid, originally?

Generally people don't use water, because they don't want watered-down flavors. Fruit juice, milk, and yogurt all provide some flavor, so people tend to like them more.

But you certainly can use water if you want. It'll probably work best if you have some good flavorful fruit, and you might end up wanting to add extra sweetness, but it's possible. (I personally don't mind using ice, to get it extra cold with more icy texture, but that's not universal.)

In any case, it's not a strictly defined term; if you have a frozen drink that tastes like it's made out of actual blended fruit (and dairy and whatever else), I'm sure people will call it a smoothie.


Is there a significant difference between French press coffee and Moka pot coffee?

Yes there is a significant difference between the two. I would put them at pretty close to opposite ends of the coffee spectrum.

French Press: Generally made with a coarse grind, longer steeping time. Result is a weaker (less concentrated) more typical American style coffee. This will likely be consumed in the same way as a typical filtered, drip coffee would.

Moka Pot: Made with a much finer grind. And while many will argue it's not true espresso. It is much closer to being an espresso. I don't really care what you call it, but it'll be a much stronger more robust coffee. The same amount of coffee will be extracted to a smaller quantity of water. This would be consumed in the same way as an espresso would. You can water it down to make an Americano, etc...


Can I make Chocolate Chip Cookies last for months by adding preservatives?

I don't know enough about this to give you a good answer, and since no one else has chimed in, I think your best bet may be to try to contact some commercial packaging operation and see if they have suggestions.  Your quantities probably won't be big enough to interest them, but maybe they can point you in the right direction.

I think packaging is going to be your biggest hurdle.  A complete air seal does amazing things for cookie shelf life -- a traditional tin often seems to double or triple the shelf-life of my cookies compared to other less sturdy or air-tight containers.  Even things like the plastic trays that packaged cookies come in are no accident: they often keep the cookies well-spaced (no mass of them sticking together) and won't absorb or give off moisture.

As for the recipe, I don't think you'll need to go as drastic as dried eggs, etc. if you have proper packaging.  The recipe may require some tweaks or preservatives, particularly for soft-baked cookies.  The earliest packaged cookies were generally dry and hard -- think "animal crackers."  At home, I can make cookies like that which last for a couple months stored in a tin.  But I think "soft-baked" cookies only became common in commercial packages in the 1980s or so.  (However, the texture of those "chewy" cookies was generally horrid.)  I imagine one reason for that may have been the increased use of hydrogenated oils at that time, which would have allowed higher fat content without the fats going rancid at room temperature during storage.  Rancidity is probably your next problem to solve after achieving a good air-tight seal and packaging.  (Lecithin in very small quantities might be a little helpful too, but it can impart a strong flavor.)

You might need to tweak the recipe a bit if it's too moist, and that should help to avoid microbial problems or mold.  (Yes, cookies -- particularly moist ones like soft-baked -- can grow mold, but we generally never see it because the oxidation causes staleness and rancidity long before we generally see mold growth.)  Aside from lowering moisture, increasing sugar and/or salt content might also help.

Those should be the main concerns.  Other preservatives may add a bit longer, but the biggest hurdles are packaging (including a real air-tight seal), rancidity, and mold.  Conquer those, and you may already looking at a shelf-life of at least a month, maybe a few months.  Beyond that, and you'll probably need to start experimenting with recipe tweaks like the big cookie companies do.  Unfortunately there aren't that many "magic" preservatives that will push staleness off forever: a lot of it just has to do with getting the recipe with the right fat content, moisture content, etc. and packaging them well.


Sponge and pound cakes contain fat. Therefore, they are not usually made with pure egg leavening. Egg leavening relies on a protein-based foam (whipped eggwhites), and fat deflates protein-based foams and/or prevents them from "curing" at high temperatures.

If you found a sponge cake recipe without chemical leavening, this is a sign for a bad recipe. The best would be to search for a better recipe, especially if you are a beginner baker. Troubleshooting baking recipes is an advanced skill which requires both experience and theoretical knowledge - certainly attainable for the average home baker, but unnecessarily hard for beginners. With the tons of recipes available at your fingertips for free, it makes more sense to search for a better one. It will give you correct ratios and temperatures and save you failures and frustration.

And a small pedantic part: what you are making here is not a sponge cake, but a pound cake. They have the same ingredients, but sponge cakes are made using the creaming method, while pound cakes use melted butter. The upside: both of them are tasty :)


No, soap does not kill germs in general.  It facilitates washing foreign matter, dirt, and so on (which may host pathogens) from the hands.  There are some soaps with antibacterial agents added, but I won't go into whether they are effective, or even a good idea, as this is not the forum for that.

Typical food service sanitation standards (that is, the health codes) require either sanitzing agents or certain heat and time requirements (or both) in dishwashing to ensure proper sanitation.  See this typical regulatory summary from one jurisdiction.

This FDA document may fall into the category of Too Much Information, but the point of hand washing in food service (as important as dishwashing) is to control fecal bacteria.

Even these requirements do not kill all germs, but are intended to get to a reasonable level of cleanliness and safety for the average population for the types of threats typically related to food preparation.

Hospitals and other labs that require all pathogens or microfauna to be killed must use much more stringent measures to sterilize, rather than sanitize.

Edit:  Note that the referenced question about cleaning knives also has temperature standards (the time required is not mentioned in the post, but is important)--that is the real factor that provides sanitation, not the soap.  With the reduced temperature, not that the post talks about the need for "chemical additives" which would be sanitizing agents of one sort or another.

I believe the part of the referenced answer that concludes in the author's opinion that should use soap to sanitize is... well... its not quite correct.  There is more to cleanliness than sanitization (reduction of pathogens).  Its just that soap doesn't help with the sanitization part other than removing foreign matter which may provide a place for the pathogens to grow.

Most home folks will never truly sanitize without the use of a dishwasher as the water from the hot water heater is simply not hot enough, and most homes don't have three compartment sinks where the middle sink is used for a sanitizer dunk.


What results can I expect from egg and sugar variations in spritz cookies?

Powdered sugar would produce a smoother textured dough than granulated sugar, I think, as it would more easily be incorporated with the other ingredients than the larger grained, sandy texture created by granulated sugar.

Egg yolk only would have a higher fat content than whole egg, and the lack of egg white might produce more rich taste, but likely more tender cookies than those with the egg white, as protein in the egg white would hold crumbs together better.


Can you hone a knife properly by using another knife?

Absolutely not. A honing steel is significantly harder than the blade of a knife and is specially textured for honing.

Rubbing two knives together is more likely to dull or knick the blades than anything else.

The blade of a knife should never touch anything harder than a wooden cutting board. Not glass, not granite, and certainly not steel (except for honing/sharpening).


Why do Chinese grocers advise cutting and discarding flowers in Chinese vegetables?

When a plant arrives in the kitchen, the ecological perspective doesn't matter any more. Any insect  present on a plant destined for human consumption is considered a pest by the consuming humans and by the cooks preparing the food for them, no matter what the plant considers it to be (pollinator, parasite, whatever). The average person dislikes consuming insects, and people who enjoy eating insect-based dishes frequently object to consuming insects of unknown species that are not part of the recipe. This is a cultural thing of course, my own great-grandfather always laughed at people cutting out worms from apples - for him, the worm was as much a part of the apple as the pips. But the average westernized cultural setting today views that insects are disgusting and should not be eaten.

So the seller won't tell you which insects these are - they don't know and it doesn't matter to them. They just assume that you don't want to eat the insects, like the overwhelming majority of their customers. And so they tell you what method to apply - cut away the flowers - to avoid eating the insects. I suspect that they may have had outraged customers returning vegetables as "defective" if they found out they have insects in their food, and have taken to preemptively give advice how to get rid of the insects.

As for the objective harm, that's highly unlikely to happen. There are very few insects which can damage your health, and these tend to be human or animal parasites, not the kind of insect which lives on a vegetable. So if you eat the flowers and swallow the insects unnoticed, no harm done. If you notice them, there can be emotional harm or not, depending on whether this is a disgust trigger for you or not.


Weird Smoke Coming from Stock Pot on Stove

Did the water from your pasta overflow the previous times you cooked? If water from cooking pasta spills and then dries, the residue left behind after evaporation can smoke or even burn. Alternatively something could be stuck on or under the burner itself, and it can be hard to notice depending on the type of electric stove. For example on my ceramic cooktop it's hard to notice residue stuck on the burner unless I look at it from a really shallow angle to get light to reflect off of it.


Warning! The plant and tuber may be poisonous and must be cooked by experts. See comments.

Some Thai friends had eaten this tuber when they were young and helped me surf the Internet for it.

It is pronounced glooi (กลอย).

Scientifically it would be
Dioscorea hispida Dennst
http://www.thaicrudedrug.com/main.php?action=viewpage&pid=14

My dictionary translates it as wild yam, but that is probably a wide definition. It is definitely different from other yam that resembles sweet potato and  is sometimes purple. (Yam in Thai language is "man".)


To what extent is curcumin destroyed by boiling?

Googling, I found this report, presenting a chemical and technical analysis of curcumin. Skimming through it, it seems that degradation of the substance should not be a problem due to temperature, although the report doesn't say much about it except that it shouldn't be a problem:

Curcumin is stable in dry food. It is relatively stable to heat so it can be used in thermally treated foods.

However, it warns about using it in solutions of a high pH, without stating which of the degradation products may be unfortunate to ingest. Furthermore curcumin is sensitive to light, so if you want as little as possible of it to degrade it is probably a good idea to keep a lid on the pan while you're heating the solution and consume it fairly quickly afterwards:

In native form curcumin is not suitable as a colouring agent in aqueous solutions of pH > 7
The principal colouring components of curcumin are not particularly stable to light, especially in solutions. After the photo-irradiation of compound 1, a cyclisation product was detected, as well as decomposition products, such as vanillic acid, vanillin, and ferulic acid (Sasaki et al, 1998). Commercial formulations of curcumin are available that are designed to minimize the inherent light instability.

With regards to the pH of your solution I don't think that should be a problem, as it is probably fairly acidic from juices of the lemon.


Overheating oil causes it to break down, which, at minimum produces off flavors and poor performance.  There is some concern about adverse health effects, depending on the type of oil, but in a cursory search, I found nothing definitive. Most do recommend discarding the oil.


Cook's Illustrated recommends storing lemons in the fridge in a tightly sealed ziptop bag with the excess air removed. I would imagine that the same applies to limes. As I understand it, the idea is to prevent air circulation in order to reduce the rate of dehydration.

Ref at thekitchn.com


Pizza stone or firebricks to fix uneven cooking

Bricks in the oven are an old breadmaker's trick. They do increase thermal mass, and thus temperature consistency.
I've kept 3 regular, not fire, bricks on the bottom shelf of my gas oven for years, and they work well. Plus they're always handy when I need to press some eggplant.
If you go with something other than firebrick, you need to be sure the things are real clay all the way through. There are modern composite 'bricks' with a clay coating over something else. Those'll likely break if you bake them. The way to tell if a brick is solid clay is to break one in half and have a look.
Whether regular brick, or fire brick, the first time you heat them up, you'll want to do it slowly. Say 80°C (175°F) for a couple hours before heating above boiling. That'll minimize chances of potentially violent cracking.


Spätzle originates from a region spanning Austria, Switzerland and southern Germany. I can tell you that here in southern Germany, Spätzle is definitely considered a sort of pasta. You can buy premade, prepackaged dried Spätzle, and it is always on the pasta shelf. So I'd say it is correct to refer to it as pasta, at least for historical/traditional reasons, even if it doesn't meet some technical criteria for pasta (or does meet some for dumplings).

As for technical criteria, I don't know of any decision criteria for either category both are loosely defined in my head by enumeration of their elements. Maybe there are some official criteria, but kitchen taxonomy isn't as hard defined as e.g. biological taxonomy, and it varies by region/country. Consider for example, the German word Braten, which is generally translated as a roast. But while a German cook may consider a piece of meat cooked in a dutch oven on a stovetop a kind of Braten, any cook from the Balkans will tell you that this is not a roast, as it wasn't made in a "real" oven, but in what is, in his eyes, a pot. So would you define the meat as a roast or not? I'd say that here regional tradition is best. If it was a German recipe, you are free to call it a roast. If it was a Balkan recipe, you'll have to call it something else, depending on the exact recipe. Similarly, for Spätzle, I'd say just go with the tradition and call it a pasta.


Can i substitute frozen berries when the cheesecake calls for fresh?

The raspberries should work if you strain them thoroughly and fold them in very carefully so they don't break apart. Adding the liquid to the cheesecake will noticeably alter the texture, probably making it mushy; note that there aren't any water based ingredients in the recipe which you could substitute raspberry syrup for. I wouldn't recommend it. If you wanted to add raspberry flavor to a cheesecake, your best bet would be a raspberry pastry flavoring oil. If you didn't want to waste that liquid (and why would you,) just drizzle it on top of each slice as you serve it.


This technique—searing or marking on the grill or stove top, then finishing in an oven—is called pan roasting.


What will happen if I leave out hardboiled eggs in water for four weeks?

If you boiled the eggs but left them in the pot of water, you may be in luck. The shell should keep the rotten egg safe from cracking and exposing the apartment to the truly rancid smell of spoilt eggs, assuming they haven't cracked during boiling.

  You will know a spoiled egg when you crack open the shell. Whether raw or cooked, a spoiled egg will have an unpleasant odor. No question about it: throw it out.
  - Net Wellness

What you will probably find when you get home are unmolested eggs in a stagnant pot of water.  Throw the eggs out if they haven't cracked.  They WILL be spoilt. This answer describes why.

  According to the USDA (similar information can be found from other food agencies):

    Why do hard-cooked eggs spoil faster than fresh eggs?

    When shell eggs are hard cooked, the protective coating is washed away, leaving bare the pores in the shell for bacteria to enter and contaminate it. Hard-cooked eggs should be refrigerated within 2 hours of cooking and used within a week.

  Simply put, you're damaging the shell, and that expedites spoilage.

If you're unlucky and the eggs did crack...well, the water might absorb some of the scent, but after four weeks, you're still likely going to have some odor.  Throw the eggs out, pour the water out, throughly clean the pot, and try to air your apartment out as best you can.


Remove tannins from tea without removing caffeine

In response to the answer posted by @James, I've run the following experiment:

Ingredients:

Black tea by "Tea Merchant", flavor = "Ship Ahoy"
Colorless and flavorless gelatin powder, bought from the baking isle in a supermarket.

Process:

1) I made 4 cups of tea, each with 1 tea spoon of tea leaves straight into the cup:

Control cup, no addition
1/4 teaspoon of gelatin powder
1/2 teaspoon of gelatin powder
full teaspoon of gelatin powder

2)  I thoroughly stirred the tea and left the cups to sit for 4 minutes.

3)  Poured each cup through a strainer into a fresh receptacle to remove the tea leaves.

4)  I left the tea to cool, such that I could take large gulps at a time in order to maximize tannin taste.

Results:

a) The colour was noticeably lighter the more gelatin was added.  Below is a photo, where each label indicates amount of gelatin in each cup (as fractions of a teaspoon, where left is full spoon, right is control).

b) A large gulp of the control tea was unpleasantly bitter.

c) Each subsequent concentration removed more bitterness, indicating that a relatively large amount of gelatin is required to completely remove all tannins.

d) 1/4 teaspoon was sufficient to remove the unpleasant sharpness

e) The full teaspoon removed most of the tanniny flavor, allowing the more subtle flavors to be tasted.

f) Although I find the full teaspoon left the tea a bit bland as well.  I prefer the 1/2 teaspoon ratio.

g) I am slightly disappointed that I did not create tea-jelly.  Will just have to add more.  For science.

h) I cannot comment on the effect of gelatin on the caffeine levels since I am quite caffeine insensitive.

Conclusion:

Gelatin definitely reduces tannin concentrations which removes the sharpness out of black teas.
I am unable to comment on caffeine levels from "feel", however, this paper models caffeine release from a gelatin matrix.  I only gave the paper a quick scan, and I find no mention of gelatin reacting with the caffeine in any way.

EDIT:

Over the course of the weekend I was able to feed a caffeine sensitive friend some tea.  Everyone was weirdly suspicious.

Process:

5)  I created two 1l batches containing 3 teaspoons of tea leaves, soaked for 10 minutes.  The control batch was left untouched and gelatin batch contained 10g of gelatin.

6)  Saturday morning at 10 am the subject was given the control tea.  He finished it by 10:45, and by 11 am his symptoms were:  Elevated heart rate (110 bpm compared to 60 at rest), headache, shakiness and a general feel of ill ease.  By 11:30 the symptoms seemed to have passed.

7)  Sunday morning at 10 am the subject was given the gelatin tea.  To my great pleasure the tea had partially jellified.  The subject was not pleased.  He finished the tea by 10:45 and reported no symptoms at all, apart from feeling "a bit better".  It seems that the subject had somehow ingested some alcohol the previous evening, thereby bringing these results into question.

Results:

f)  The gelatin heavy tea didn't really taste that great.  The control was expectantly very bitter.

g)  We created tea-jelly!

h)  Based on the results from subject Friend, gelatin does in fact seem to lower the caffeine levels.  Although it may be possible that the jelly caused the caffeine to be released slower (or something).  Will have to repeat with much less gelatin, and again with much more gelatin.

i)  This would make a really good masters research project.


How to make a mustard sauce for salmon steak?

Gravlaxsås is a mustard sauce for salmon, made with dill.

The one I bought reports the following ingredients:

mustard
vegetable oil
sugar
water
wine vinegar
dill
modified cornstarch

On this site, the ingredients reported for gravlaxsås are the following:

6.5 tbsp. oil
2 tbsp. vinegar
2 tbsp. prepared mustard
1 egg yolk
0.25 tsp. salt
0.25 tsp. dill

Preparing the sauce seems quite easy:

Mix all ingredients in a jar and fasten lid.
Shake vigorously until the ingredients are well mixed.

Gravlaxsås is the sauce used for gravlax, a dish prepared with raw salmon, cured in salt, sugar, and dill.


What is the name of this Chinese Fish Soup where guests cook their own fish in broth?

Sounds like hot pot.

There are a zillion variations, with different kinds of broths and different things to cook in it, so I don't think there's any one recipe name you could search for to duplicate exactly what your friend had. It's possible that knowing the region he was in would allow some informed guesses from folks with some local knowledge (not me). Note that it's common to cook a lot of different things in the broth all at the same time, not just one thing per meal.

So if you want to try to make something similar without a lot of work, I suspect you'd just want to a broth you like (or a soup base from a Chinese grocery store - hot pot is popular!) and whatever simple fish sounds good to you. If you want more elaborate things, try Google; there's too much variety for us to try to cover it here.


Substitution in preserved foods are generally considered unsafe. Food chemistry is a complicated affair, and cooking is inherently imprecise. Sure, you can find a way to reduce the pH to that of the original recipe. But a salami is a fermented food. Your pH might be the same, but other things will change, for example the composition of the available sugars, and you can catch a different strain of bacteria. Safe preservation recipes have either been extensively tested in a lab, or used for centuries. Making a small change can destroy the delicate balance which leads to a tasty, safe food.

The solution here is to look for another recipe, one which is safe but does not contain wine. For something as risky as cured meat, I'd suggest not getting some random recipe off the Internet, but choosing from a book, or maybe from the blog of a known, respectable author. This way, you get both good taste and safety, things which are hit-and-miss when making your own substitutions.


Does it still smell of turmeric… or more like cardboard? Many herbs & spices don't 'go off' so much as eventually taste & smell of almost nothing.
Test.
Heat a couple of tablespoons of oil, drop half a teaspoon of turmeric into it. Stir briefly. Don't burn it.
Can you smell it properly?
Pour out & let it cool.
Once cooled try dipping some plain white bread into it & tasting.
Does it still taste of anything?
My guess would be it's now little more than yellow powder. Great as a dye, not so much as a spice.
I'd think its saving grace, if there still is one after all this time, is that you bought it close to source. Supermarket spices can be as dead when you first open them as good ones at 2 years.
2 years is really about as far as I'd ever try to stretch though. 10 is more than pushing it.


How to prevent calzones from getting soggy on steam table?

Sorry no good answer to keeping calzones dry and crisp on a steam table, even if you wrapped it in foil.  You may need to look at other equipment, such as heat lamp, food warmer or a food merchandiser/heated display (eg Pie, pizza display box )


Converting kneading recipe to no knead recipe

I am not an expert by any means, but my understanding of the no-knead process is that it really is just TIME that makes all the difference. I do not think you would need to alter the amount of liquid in your recipe. The time is just for the yeast to do its thing and develop flavor in your dough. Kneading accelerates the process, but if you have the time to allow the dough to sit, you can achieve the same thing with less hands-on work.


When to add seasoning to oven-baked french fries?

Dry seasonings can be added either before or after cooking French Fries. However, for oven-baked potatoes, you want to avoid adding wet seasonings before cooking, as it may impair the crunchiness of the final product.


Restaurants quite often cook pigs cheeks 'sous vide', but unless you have, or fancy investing in a water bath, you can do things the old fashioned way.

How you prepare the cheeks for cooking will, to some extent, depend on which part you're cooking. If you're going to cook the whole cheek, you really should think about soaking in a brine of sugar, salt, vinegar and spices for 24 to 48 hours. If you're just cooking the 'pad' that part can be skipped.

The thing to remember with cheeks, is they are quite a fatty meat and the muscle fibres are very dense, so whichever method you choose, it's going to take time.

One classic method is braising the cheeks with a variety of vegetables and something slightly sweet and sharp as a counter for the fat and cook in the oven for 2 to 3 hours at around 180c (350f)

Basically dust the cheeks in a little flour and season, then brown in some olive oil. remove form the pan and lightly sauté your vegetables, use leeks, baby onions, carrots, apples, garlic etc. add the cheeks pack to the pan, add some stock or stock/cider mix and cook. You could also do this on the hob (cooker top) in a heavy bottomed pan, but cook for 4 hours on a low heat.


Are areas filled with an oily texture common in jamon serrano

As I don't have the necessary points to comment I will make one or two assumptions.

Spanish Jamon is a salt cured ham. I suspect, if you got your ham bone-out, then the residue oil is where the meat closest to where the bone was did not cure as well.

Make sure you buy your Jamon ham from a reliable and recognized source (Denominación de Origen). Even if you saved a little on price, with food, it is not the greatest plan.

As I live in the US I only enjoy that delicacy when I travel to Spain. I do not trust any of the US imports.

You just haven't lived until you have tried Jamón de Guijuelo!!!


Depending on the size of kitchen, the length of time you need it for and the number of people you are catering for etc., many community centres, pubs and large churches are willing to hire their catering facilities out and dining space as well if need be.


Even easier than Michael's way:

Quarter the pomegranate. Hold it over a bowl of water, seeds down, and spank it repeatedly with the flat of a large knife. Done. (The water makes separation of pith and seeds easier; the latter sink and the former floats).


How do you prolong buns/rolls/scone/crumpet softness?

I am living in a new location and must buy onion rolls from the local supermarket.  No matter how fresh the date stamp, the rolls are dry and to my taste, taste stale.

I discovered that if I pop them in the microwave for 5 - 10 seconds the moisture is somehow redistributed and they soft, and moist, and almost taste like bakery rolls (ahem).

If they are too hot to handle you have microwaved them too long. If they are soggy, you have microwaved them too long.

With the sugar topping, I don't know if it would work without also melting the sugar. Give it a shot for 2 or 3 seconds.

Good luck.


I freeze cheese all the time, mostly mozzarella. It keeps longer. (If I keep mozzarella or similar cheeses too long in the fridge it gets moldy, often even before its expiration date.) However, I usually use frozen cheese only for cooking - i.e. if it's going to be melted. Freezing cheese does change the texture. Parmesan, though, being a hard, aged cheese would probably be less affected by freezing. However, on the same token, aged cheeses keep very nicely in the fridge, so I wouldn't see much benefit in freezing it.


Keeping an aluminium dish in a convection microwave

A combo oven acts no differently in each separate mode, than they would as single separate appliances. Metal in a microwave = light show and ruined oven. Metal in convection oven is perfectly ok. Just don’t use any microwave AT ALL when cooking in any metal pan


The "acid test" is to buy some of the suspect product (first examining its listed ingredients and rejecting if they are obviously wrong) while you also have the "real thing" on hand and make two batches of something, identical except for the rosewater or rose flavored water.

Tasting should tell you whether you need to make the long trip, or not.

For a very simple test product, I will reveal that rosewater is the "secret ingredient" in my lemonade (unless it's overdone to the point of not being at all secret, but I prefer it at the "keep them guessing" level.) No precise measurement/recipe for that, I do it by tasting as I mix.


Did at any point you crimp the puff pastry? If you press the layers together too hard you will cause the dough not to puff. I don't think temperature was the issue here if you said it cooked all the way through.


Difference between ground cloves and clove powder?

No, spices are commonly sold as "X powder" or "ground X". As far as I can tell, they are likely the same thing. The only thing I might imagine would be different would be the size of the grind.

I would imagine yes, you can substitute one for the other.

eg:
http://www.livestrong.com/article/497275-cinnamon-powder-vs-ground-cinnamon/


Making a stew without browning is relatively safe since the prolonged cooking should kill off most pathogens. This is especially true if you are careful about your kitchen cleanliness and cut the meat down from a larger piece yourself instead of buying pre-cut "stew meat" or ground meat. Whole cuts of meat such as steaks or roasts usually only have E. coli on the surface, which makes the E. coli easier to kill by cooking. When the meat is ground or mechanically tenderized, E. coli on the surface can be transferred to the inside of the meat. This is why ground meat and mechanically tenderized meat are more likely to cause illness than whole cuts of meat. Like ground meats, prepackaged "stew meat" can contain tissues from multiple individual animals, thereby increasing the chance that there is E. coli present in the package. Each additional surface is another place for E. coli to grow while that package is sitting at the store or in your fridge.
Browning, however contributes a significant amount of flavor to the stew, which will be lost.  The good news is that you don't have to brown every single piece... One alternative that I use is to buy the quantity of meat I plan to use as a whole roast (instead of pre-cut "stew meat") then sear the entire roast before cutting it down to stew-size chunks.  You get the flavor benefit of the Maillard browning with less time spent browning little pieces and less overcooked meat.  If you use a lidless, oven braise technique, as suggested in Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking, you will get further browning on any pieces that aren't totally submerged as well as flavor concentration from evaporation.
Check out these previous posts on similar topics:

Should I brown meat for stew?

Can I put raw ground beef in the crockpot when making chili?

Chili/Stew - Is it necessary to cook all the meat before adding to the rest of the ingredients?

http://www.healthlinkbc.ca/healthfiles/hfile02.stm


How to hand-select the perfect coffee bean?

If you are hand selecting than you might refer to AA standards for the chaff, etc.

Also discoloration from the median color of the other beans can lead to irregular roasting intervals (if you have a mix of colors they may "crack " at different ranges of time). Similarly you should prefer the beans to be approximately the same size.


Why don't we make coffee in the same way we make tea?

I do make coffee the same way as tea.  I just did this morning, in fact.  It's called a "French press".  Which can also be used for tea ...


How to roast garlic on low temperature grill

Just do the same thing - cut the ends off, drizzle on some oil, wrap in foil, and leave them.


Spicy soy, seed bitterness and placental capsaicin

It's not that they contain no capsaicin - they do contain some - about 5 mg/g dry weight, compared to 7 mg/g for the main pericarp (the fleshy part that you eat), but most of it is in the placenta/veins (64 mg/g).

The spiciness is attributable to the presence of capsaicin and other polyphenolics in the seeds, and probably some placental contamination too. I have no reference for this, but I doubt that many industrial methods of extracting the seeds will remove all of the placenta from the seed or work so carefully that some of the juice from the placenta isn't coated onto the seeds in some manner.

It is also likely that you are adding a relatively high amount of seeds to a small volume and infusing from there. In addition you are breaking the seeds up a little so you will be able to extract more of the heat than you might with intact seeds.

Normally when I make the chili/soy sauce, I add some sesame oil to help extract the capsaicin and act as a vehicle to enhance the flavour/heat - perfect with some Jiaozi/potstickers.


Arabic coffee can refer to black coffee, similar to Turkish coffee or the lighter, greenish-brown coffee drunk in Saudi and the UAE. Both are commonly flavoured with cardamon.

There isn't any specific type of coffee bean that needs to be used, as long as it's only been lightly roasted.


Does a long marinade time matter for chicken, shrimp, etc?

No marinade penetrates very deeply in unless:

The marinade is quite salty, as the salt can diffuse past cell membranes into the meat
The marinade contains an active enzyme or acidic component which will denature the meat over time, allowing deeper penetration

Marination is by its very nature a surface treatment, although one that can add considerable flavor.

Kenji Alt at Serious Eats says (in regards to flank steak):

  In reality, a marinade is mostly a surface treatment, and not much
  benefit lies in marinating for more than half a day or so. If you'd
  like the flavor of the marinade to completely coat your meat, your
  best bet is to reserve some marinade and simply toss your meat with it
  after it has been cooked and sliced.

I am more partial to the dry rub or wet rub myself.

See also:

Washington Post article
New York Times Article
UGA Thesis on Vacuum Marination Penetration
Amazing Ribs with experiment showing limited penetration into beef


It is not good to use a dutch oven in a... conventional oven. It hurts the pot way too much.

I think what the OP may be mentioning is a 'potjie' Which has legs and is usually used in South African cuisine outside on a charcoal fire.

The common notion is that the smoke from the fire does not penetrate the pot to flavour the food but rather it is the cast iron pot and the very slow cooking that give this type of cooking its distinct flavour.


If you're making a no bake cheesecake, as I usually do, make sure you use full fat ingredients as they will help it firm up. You can also add gelatin to make it firmer


Are ladyfingers and Genoise made the same way?

Delicious variations abound, so it is hard to make absolute statements of what is "officially" a ladyfinger.  In my pastry class, we were taught that the classic recipe for ladyfingers is close, but not identical, to genoise.  Store-bought ladyfingers can be anything from, essentially, a meringue to a shortbread cookie.

Foam-based batters -- i.e., those that do not use chemical leveners or yeast -- can be divided into two categories: whole-egg and separated-egg.  The main difference in results is that the latter tend to be stiffer and can better tolerate being overcooked a little.  The primary example of whole-egg batter is the genoise cake.  Because the whites are whipped together with the yolks (and sometimes extra yolks are added), it is a finicky batter, requiring more skill to assemble properly than others, but when it works, it is more tender.  Separated-egg batters are far more common, as they are easier to assemble; the key is that you whip the whites into medium-to-stiff peaks, then fold it back into the rest of the batter.  Examples include chiffon, dacquoise, and the French "biscuit" cakes.

Most recipes for ladyfingers use a separated-egg batter; others use a simple meringue.  The meringue version will make a crisp cookie, the version with with the yolk, soft.  Either will work well for uses like tiramisu or trifle.

Here is a recipe for ladyfingers from Allrecipes.com and a recipe for genoise from Epicurious.  For my ladyfingers, I add a pinch of salt and some flavorings, such as vanilla or nut extract, but the base recipe is essentially the same.


Use a sugar substitute of your choice added after heating and cooling (all you need is for it to dissolve), in an amount meant to replace 3/4 cup of sugar, or just adjust it until it's as sweet as you'd like.


What type of cheese is used on Patsy's Old Fashioned Margherita Pizza

You can buy firm, sliced [or grated, of course] mozzarella in supermarkets for sandwiches or pizza topping.
[I've never tried it, I can't imagine it would be to my taste] but I see no reason it couldn't be some commercial application of 'firm' mozzarella, as opposed to trying to slice the good stuff, supplied in its own whey, which I use for everything from tricolore/caprese to pizza topping.
Wikipedia describes this as "Low-moisture part-skim mozzarella" which sounds… ermm… delicious ;)

Low-moisture part-skim mozzarella, widely used in the food-service industry, has a low galactose content, per some consumers' preference for cheese on pizza to have low or moderate browning. Some pizza cheeses derived from skim mozzarella variants were designed not to require aging or the use of starter. Others can be made through the direct acidification of milk.


It appears to be a 'Meat/Cheese Press':
https://picclick.co.uk/Vintage-Mason-Cash-Cast-Iron-Ceramic-Meat-312233238612.html
I'm not sure why you'd press meat, but you'd use it with cheese to press the whey out.


The best method depends on what you're trying to do with the cream (adding it to a recipe or eating it plain, serving hot or cold, etc.) but here are some general tips:

Mix some cornflour (cornstarch in the US) in a bit of cold cream (or milk) and then gently heat until thickened, much the same as you would to thicken a gravy or sauce. Then stir the thickened mixture into the cream.

The amount of cornflour you should use depends on the amount of cream you're trying to thicken of course but 1-2tsp is normally plenty.

Other methods that work:

gelatine powder/leaves (careful not to add to much or your mixture will end up too gelatinous)
egg yolk heated in cream (think custard) - careful not to heat too much or you'll end up to scrambled egg


Which meringue is safe to eat without baking?

As you're in the UK, they're all safe.  Raw egg is safe according to the NHS

Because of improved food safety controls in recent years, infants, children, pregnant women and elderly people can now safely eat raw or lightly cooked hen eggs, or foods containing them, that are produced under the British Lion Code of Practice (regarding hygiene and especially salmonella).

This doesn't apply to all other countries, but it's worth checking in many EU countries, where dishes containing raw egg are traditional (such as chocolate mousse and tiramisu).  I've failed to find a single reliable source covering many countries, but Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Norway are essentially salmonella-free.   I read enough French to make sense of some sources, but can't find anything definitive more recent than 2013 in which products made from raw egg are advised against for high-risk groups, but generally acceptable; in particular recipes assume that pregnant women will be avoiding raw egg.


All sharpeners remove steel. When sharpening a knife, you ideally want to remove as little steel as possible to get a very specific angle on the blade edge.

If you were getting a blade sharpened professionally, they would typically go through different grits to get it smoother and smoother and eventually a polished edge. For a home pull through sharpener, you're using a single grit that will do most of the work. Ideally it would be something in the middle that will maybe take a little longer to remove nicks in your blade & grind the edge down, but not pull off too much steel.

There are two dangers with a cheap sharpener, that I can think of:

It removes too much. If the grit is too rough, it'll burn through your knife, destroying your blade quicker than necessary.
It sharpens unevenly/angle is wrong. If the angle is wrong, it could either make the blade more prone to chipping by making it too narrow, or not sharp by making it too wide, thus wasting your time. If it's really bad, I guess it could produce an uneven edge too.

Hard to say what is exactly happening in your case. That all said, if it's a cheap blade and your knife is sharper, then use it maybe? Without knowing what it was, I don't know that I'd gamble with a good blade. "Cheap plastic board with a in-built sharpener" is probably a clue that it's cheap though.


Does anyone know the name of the knife this ice cream seller is using?

I also believe the style of knife you're looking for is called an "ulu" though the OP pix look to be a ulu cleaver.
Here is an ulu more similar to the OP pix: https://www.kitchenknivesonline.com/products/12-ulu-chef-knife-walnut