Would brining help the texture/flavor of ribs?

Brining pork—especially a thin cut like ribs—before barbecuing (in the low and slow sense) is not traditional.  To see why, you have to understand the functions (and myths) about brining:

It helps retain moisture.  This is true. Water enters the meat cells during the brining process.  Not all of this water will come out during the cooking process.  Additionally, due to the third effect below (delaying the final coagulation of the proteins), less water will be squeezed out at early phases of cooking.
It seasons the meat.  Absolutely true.  Salt will penetrate into the meat, providing a depth of seasoning throughout the cut.
It helps keep the meat tender.  This is sort of true for some cooking methods.  The salt which enters the muscle fibers helps by (per Kenji Alt's Food Lab):

  ... dissolving some of the muscle proteins (mainly myosin). The muscle
  fibers loosen up, allowing them to absorb more moisture, and more
  importantly, they don't contract as much when they cook, making sure
  that more of that moisture stays in-place as the turkey cooks.

This makes it more difficult to overcook the meat to the point the proteins seize up into tight little balls (well done meat, with its characteristic tough or rubbery texture).  This also helps retain moisture since less is squeezed out.

Salt helps mitigate this shrinkage

It flavors the meat (other than the seasoning from the salt).  This is a myth although many on this site will vehemently disagree with me.  Okay, it is sort of kind of a little true, but only in the weakest possible sense.

Any flavors that penetrate the meat due so at a pace of about 2-3 millimeters per day, which is trivial.  Flavors are big molecules, and don't cross cell walls.  At the small scale, muscle tissue is essentially a big bunch of straws (the cells) with essentially no inter-cellular room for brine to penetrate.  Any flavors in the brine are left at the surface for all practical purposes.

And there are some downsides of brining:

Added water weight reduces flavor.  Its simple, more weight of water means less flavor, simply through dilution.
Brining changes the texture of the meat, moving it on that spectrum towards "hammy" at the extreme end, if overdone.

So how does all of this apply to low and slow barbecue?

Moisture retention.  By the very nature of barbecuing, you are going to cook the food until it is meltingly tender.  All of the proteins will be fully coagulated, and at their toughest anyway!  The reason barbecue is not tough is the cuts of meat chosen:  they are high in connective tissue and fat.  The connective tissue, a protein called collagen, converts to gelatin over the long cooking period starting when the meat hits about 170 - 180 F.  This, together with the generous melted fat creates the unctuous texture of barbecue.

So brining will not help here.
Seasoning the meat.  It does.  However, you can apply highly flavored sauces, dry rubs, or so-called dry brines which do just as good a job, without adding to the water weight of the cut.  And that water weight does what water does:  reduce flavor intensity by diluting it.  Literally.

Brining might help season, but not better than other methods.
Keeping the meat tender.   As described above, preventing the protein from being well done is not a goal in barbecue.  It is the low and slow conversion of gelatin to collagen which is the hallmark of the tender barbecue.

Brining does not help.
Adding flavor.

Its just a myth. No help to barbecue or any other cooking method.

Overall, then, I would say you are better off looking at your dry rub, your sauce, and your smoke to create flavor and enhance your ribs.

A good dry rub, with salt, applied 24 hours, will serve as a dry brine, and give you all of the benefits of brining without the drawbacks, at least insofar as they apply to this method of cooking.  And it is less messy and less fussy!

One thing some advanced barbecue artisans do is inject brine or seasoning into the heart of a cut of meat using what is essentially a giant syringe.   Once inside the meat, the bring will begin to act normally, but from the inside: spreading seasoning over time, and flavoring at snails pace.  Since ribs are thin, this technique normally does not apply to ribs.  It does however, literally, get the flavor inside the meat.


Try lightly boiling them in broth or stock.  They won't caramelize (as long as you don't let the liquid evaporate completely); but they will soften and become translucent.


How to make my scrambled eggs more yellow?

Ah, we consumers and our expectations:
Egg yolks are yellow.

But in reality, yolks come in a range from pale yellow to deep orange. The colour is determined by the food (wheat makes lighter yolks than corn, for example) and can be influenced by feeding  "colourants" for a darker hue. Some regions allow even artificial dyes, but a pinch of paprika will do nicely. Apparently the "expected" or "preferred" yolk colour is also a cultural thing, I found a source claiming that European customers want more orange hues while US customers expect deep yellow.

Organic and free-range eggs typically have a greater variation than those from large agro-industrial production.

So if your scrambled eggs are sometimes lighter, sometimes darker, either accept it as "natural" or check the colour of your yolks when you crack the eggs and for pale yolks add a colourant like a small pinch of

turmeric (what makes curry powder yellow) or
paprika (for more orange eggs).

If you use only a very small amount, it won't influence the taste or only very slightly so. Stir the spice in, then proceed as usual.


From which culture did our North American meal progression (soup/salad/appetizer + meal + dessert) come from?

The basic principle of serving a dish at a time is called Russian Service by the French, who started using it in the early 1800s.  The particular order of the dishes has changed with the times and with theories of how meals should be served. The book Arranging the Meal by Flandrin describes the history of these changing fashions.

There has been a debate since classic Greek times of when to have, or even whether to have, a salad course.  The Greeks suggested eating after the meal to help with the ensuing drinking.  The British were having it before the meal in the 1600s.  By the 1800s French meals served à la russe placed the salad close to the end of the meal, a tradition kept up to today.  I remember reading that the starter salad, common in the US, is a simplified antipasto, but have not been able to find the reference, so for now it is just a guess.


How does one alter a recipe that calls for one fruit with another fruit of differing water content?

There's no trick, there's math. 100g of banana is about 75g of water (1g of water is 1ml, so easy to measure), 12g of sugar, and 13g of fiber and other stuff. A pumpkin is about 92g of water and 3 grams of sugar, leaving 5g of other stuff.

My banana bread recipe calls for 2 medium bananas, that's about 250g of banana. That's 188g of water and about 30g sugar. If you add 250g of pumpkin instead that's 230g of water and about 8g of sugar, so pumpkin would add 42g of water (42ml, a bit less than 1/4 cup), and take 22g of sugar. That's enough of a difference to really throw your recipe out, so you'd want to remove 42ml of water, milk or other liquid and add 22g of sugar (4g of sugar is about 1 tsp, so 22g is about 5.5 tsp, or just under 2 tbsp).


Why is there no pork on the Indian take-away menu?

In the UK you see lamb and chicken on "Indian" restaurant menus, but not beef or pork. I suspect that in the colonial era when the English wanted meat there were goats (near enough the same as sheep) and chickens because both are kept for food but not meat. So are cattle but they're special. There simply wouldn't have been a supply of pigs or the habit of rearing them - and English breeds brought by the colonists wouldn't do too well in the climate of much of India. Maintaining a supply of pork would have been hard. The English in India also used to exploit and increase religious divisions - at times and in places they relied on Muslims. Rumours of pig (and cow) fat being used as grease on rifle cartridges (which had to be bitten) were a factor in the rebellion of 1857, indicating the depth of feeling about forbidden food.

While many Indians are vegetarian, there are plenty who aren't, and that means there are plenty of dishes using the meats that are available.

Many if not most "Indian" restaurants in the UK are run by people of Pakistani or Bangladeshi heritage, who tend to be Muslims. This further explains the absence of pork as it's forbidden for Muslims (including just handling it I believe).

Goa is an exception in several ways. It was a Portuguese colony not a British one. Iberian pig breeds should tolerate the Indian climate better than British breeds. More importantly, Goa doesn't have a large Muslim population (8%, compare with the UK at 4%). Goa was ruled by the Portuguese before and during the Mughal empire, which had a huge influence on Islam in the rest of India.


Alginate gels are heat-stable up-to 150C. So you can easily serve them on a hot plate at the serving temperature.


Why do Asian savory recipes call for a few pinches of sugar?

First, there are plenty of sour ingredients in Asian cooking, that are de-acidified by a little sugar. Tomato paste, peppers and soy are examples that come to mind.

Second, and this is the Zen-style answer, is that the sugar is to sweeten the dish a little. One teaspoon of sugar in a sauce is plenty sweet enough, especially if you're not used to having 6tsp of sugar in a can of Coke daily. Sweetness, like saltiness and spicyness, is something we get used to easily.


Grinding melted latex off a pizza stone?

It won't suffer much from having a millimeter or two of material removed in one area, so I'd just go ahead with the Dremel and grind it down to clean stone rather than resorting to chemicals that may or may not work and may or may not impregnate the stone.  There's no substance made short of diamonds that can resist a grinding wheel.  Worst case is you end up with one side that's unusable for anything that requires a smooth surface, but otherwise it should be fine.  It's mainly just a rock, after all.


Why can't you susbtitute oat flour for wheat flour 1:1?

I don't know what you mean by avenin being "similar", but it doesn't behave like gluten at all. Oat flour behaves like any other gluten-free flour and is a poor substitute for wheat flour. You can only use it in recipes which are specifically engineered for gluten-free flours. If you try using it in recipes which rely on gluten, you will fail for certain.
It is somewhat interchangeable with some other gluten-free flours like chestnut or sorghum flour (also buckwheat if you don't need the flavor profile), but gluten-free recipes being fickle, you always run a risk of failure, unless you have a pretty forgiving recipe like crepes. It is not a good substitute for nut-based flours, and is a mealy, not waxy starch.


Is there a good way to cook a hamburger on a cast iron skillet?

The right way is simple and straightforward: preheat the skillet for about 5-10 minutes on medium, add a few table spoons of oil to coat the bottom, and continue cooking at this temperature.  Flip regularly, to allow the sides to cook evenly, and wait for the middle to become fully cooked.

Now I will tell you all the ways NOT to cook a hamburger with a cast-iron skillet!

Cook on "warm" for an hour or so.  Then realize it's not cooking, give up, and go to McDonald's.
Heat the skillet on maximum heat for a few minutes, and throw the burger on.  Just leave it there; it's not fully cooked if there's any hint of pink or moisture left.  After a while, your new charcoal-and-cardboard roofing shingle will be ready for use.
Preheat the skillet.  Don't throw in a burger or anything, just forget about it until the fire alarm goes off. Now you can learn how to re-season cast-iron!
For the storming-a-medieval-castle experience: throw a mostly-frozen burger patty into a frying pan with a half inch of exceedingly hot oil.  Dive for cover and a fire extinguisher as hot oil sprays everywhere.  When the barrage ends, maybe the middle will be edible?
Use pan as a bludgeon and steal a burger from an unsuspecting fast food customer. For particularly inept people this may be the only way to get a good hamburger using a frying pan.
Heat a frying pan full of oil on high heat.  When flames start, cook your burger over them using a metal spatula.  Accept the wails of the fire alarm as a little light musical accompaniment.
Microwave it.  Yes, that includes the pan.  When your microwave has finished burning, surely the burger will be cooked well-done!  For additional paddies, repeat with fresh microwaves.
Start cooking on high without preheating, realize the exterior is overcooking while the interior isn't done, then switch to low heat. It's still cooking too fast!  Take cast-iron skillet off burner entirely, and remove burger.  Allow pan to cool completely, and resume on low heat.  After 20 minutes, wonder why it's not cooking at all and the pan still isn't very hot, and try jacking up the heat again.  Ten minutes later, your burger is overdone outside and STILL raw in the middle.  Congratulate yourself that at least you saved yourself time on all that preheating nonsense.  Then look at clock and realize an hour has passed.

This message brought to you by the Hard Knocks Culinary Institute!


Why does storing bread in a plastic (grocery) bag keep it fresh longer?

Water, water-vapor or moisture can't penetrate the plastic bag. Nice tender bread contains a lot of moisture. That moisture, all of it, will evaporate into the relatively dry air in your kitchen if it can. Bread (especially a baguette) depleted of moisture becomes rock hard, as you know. If you cover your bread with a plastic bag, a little moisture still escapes into the air inside the bag, but it can't get out of the bag, and after that you get an equilibrium between soft bread and slightly moist-ish air, and your bread stays pretty nice for a little longer.

The down-side is if you keep it too long, you may get mold taking advantage of the moist conditions in the plastic bag, and you will get moldy bread. Mold doesn't tend to grow in a dry environment (rock-hard bread).


Safe to use pot that has a scratch inside?

I think this is the inside of a non-stick pan, on the side near where the handle is riveted (scratched rivet at the right of the picture).

It doesn't look like it's peeling from the scratches.  So the amount of coating getting into the food would be miniscule. Even the if it did peel, the result would be more unpleasant than dangerous (paper on the use of PTFE as an inert bulking agent for food); the main component of a Teflon non-stick coating is PTFE.


I've found that the crustiness of my challah is dependent on how long I leave it in the oven... If you want it less crusty I'd say you should just try taking it out a bit earlier. You can also try turning the oven temperature slightly lower.

(I bake my challah in tins, and find that the bottoms of the challah are often too soft when the tops are just the perfect crustiness, so I flip the challah and bake for another minute or 2 upside down to crust the bottom. If you're aiming for a soft crust, maybe you can also try covering the top with aluminum foil? I've never tried this though.)


what is the best vegan substitute for lard?

The best substitute in general for lard would be a combination of vegetable shortening - which is generally hydrogenated palm oil - and butter.

Since this is a vegan substitute, you'll have to just stick to the shortening.  That's OK - shortening was quite literally invented to replace lard - but you'll lose a lot of the flakiness and full flavour if you don't mix it with some butter.

For pastry crusts, you might also mix some coconut oil in with the shortening; the flaky texture essentially comes from saturated fats, for which coconut oil ranks pretty highly.  Just don't use too much, as it imparts a not-so-subtle flavour of its own.


I always stand them upright in a narrow glass, with a little water in the bottom. I the keep the glass either on the top shelf or the door of the refrigerator.


Do I need to adjust recipes when using hard water

The only food I know for certain which will be strongly affected by your hard water is dried beans.  At the level of hardness you describe, you may find that they never soften no matter how long you cook them; I've seen reports of up to 12 hours for cooking beans with very hard water.  So use soft water for cooking the beans.

There are probably other foods which are chemically affected by hard water, but several Google searches have turned up no general guides on the topic.


Can you make tandoori rotis with chickpea / green pea flour?

You can make a sort of bread with chickpea flour. It's a bit dense compared to a regular chapatti or roti & I'm not sure how much good it would be for picking up your main dish.

By volume, use 50:50 ratio flour to water, add salt to taste. Mix, pour onto baking paper on a flat try & bake at 200 until the sides start to brown. 15 - 20 mins.

Given the choice, I'd make pakora or bhajis instead. The batter fluffs up better deep fried than in the oven.

Chick pea flour is also called gram flour or besan &, at least in the UK, can now be found in any supermarket.
I've never used green pea flour, so can't really comment.


If you buy them hard, and put them in the refrigerator right away, you can probably get a month out of them. After having been refrigerated, they will take longer to ripen at room temperature. So check them two days before you want to use them. If they're still a bit hard, leave them in a paper bag on the counter for twice as long as you would unrefrigerated avocados of the same hardness.


(if I read the question properly)
" I would like it to mix with my cooking oil."

If you want cumin flavored oil, you can simply steep the cumin seed in a neutral flavored oil.

You will have to experiment for quantities and steep times.

I'd crush some seeds, put them in a pan and add some oil (whatever quantity, start small) and slightly heat the oil and turn off the heat; let steep for a while until cool.
Use a fine mesh sieve to remove the cumin seeds from the oil.


What nutritional differences are there between honey and table sugar (sucrose)?

I'd say yes, honey is a bit healthier than sugar, but this really depends on the type of sugar or honey. Raw honey is better than pasteurized honey. Highly refined sugar is less healthy than some less refined sugar.

Assuming you are talking about table sugar and raw honey, in general:

Sugar is sucrose.
You need some enzymes to split it into fructose and glucose, your body has to make these enzymes and can digest those mono-sacharides. When you eat honey, there is no need for such body-made enzymes, because the fructose and glucose aren't combined, but they appear there as mono-sacharides. So honey is less demanding for your body.
Honey is better for your blood-glucose level (this level raises more if you eat sugar than if you eat the same amount of honey).
Honey contains some vitamins and minerals, which sugar lacks.
As a consequence of all these points: If you use sugar, you have a higher risk of high cholesterol and obesity than if you use honey.

I didn't mention anything about the taste, since that is not health-related.

Source and more info: http://www.benefits-of-honey.com/honey-vs-sugar.html


What ingredients can you have in Hot Sauce?

Food safety doesn't work that way. It is impossible to predict the safety of a finished product from the ingredients. There are a few exceptions when the ratio of preservatives is known, but they are basically a variation of a known recipe, and then it doesn't matter much what the last ingredient is. For example, if you make a jam with 1:1 sugar/fruit ratio and without pectin addition, it's known that it will be shelf stable, no matter which fruit you choose. For a random hot sauce, it does not work at all.

Whatever recipe you develop, the final product has to be tested whether it's shelf stable. If you have solid knowledge in food technology, you can do some good guesses at what to try and what not to try. This is however impossible to learn by asking one question online. You could

just try recipes at random and have them tested
learn about food technology yourself (note that it's a standard B. Sc. university major, not something you can pick up from a random tutorial). This will lead to fewer bad guesses before you make a recipe which passes the test
hire a food technologist to do the development for you

In all three cases, it will be expensive. The testing process itself is likely to be legally regulated. As you are having other legal concerns, it is probably best to consult a source on legal advice, they will probably be able to tell you what are the requirements to get your sauce tested, beside telling you whether you're allowed to sell it at all.


Thicker tomato sauce on the pizza makes the cheese more slippery

If you have to trowel the sauce on the crust it is too thick.  There is a "right" consistency that will prevent the pizza from being too watery but will still have enough moisture to allow the cheese and sauce to fuse somewhat.

On the other hand, you could just ignore that the cheese isn't fusing.  I've eaten thousands of pizzas in Italy and most of them are more watery that what you'd get in the US and the cheese usually does not fuse with the sauce.  Probably because it's only in the 800°F brick oven for about 3 minutes!  Enough time to cook the thin crust, barely melt the cheese, and that's it.

If you really want that cheese to fuse, I would suggest a slightly more watery sauce, and more heat from the top.  Turn on the broiler for the last minute or so until the cheese starts to bubble.  This will also help evaporate some of the extra water in the sauce.


Why does the crust of a freshly baked loaf of bread become less crunchy/hard over time?

It is not absorbing water from the atmosphere, rather, moisture is migrating from within the bread.  Basically, as soon as a loaf of bread is removed from the oven, moisture migration begins to happen.  It doesn't take long (hours-days) for that moisture to impact the crustiness of bread.  Moisture migration accelerates staling (which turns out to be more complicated than simply drying out, but that was not your question).  The good thing is that heat can effectively and temporarily delay or limit moisture migration.  Just reheat your bread in the oven or toaster, and it should regain much of its crunch.


This is just fancy sounding talk for the myriad of techniques in good cooking that create good flavor in dishes.  It doesn't refer to any one specific thing.

Some examples of techniques used to develop flavor include:

Seasoning (properly salting)
Browning meats and other foods properly to bring out their flavor
Creating pan sauces or other uses from fond to enhance the flavor of a dish
Using herbs and spices skilfully to compliment the food
Balancing flavors with acidic ingredients like lemon juice or tomatoes
Cooking properly to allow the flavor of individual ingredients to shine through
Blooming or toasting spices to bring out their more aromatic qualities
Using alcohol to enhance certain flavors not soluble in water or fat

There are no doubt many, many more things that could be included in a list like this.

After all, it sounds far more professional to say "the flavor in this dish is not well developed" than to say "this dish is bad."


Not really normal to see it happen frequently, though I have seen it happen in commercial convection ovens when they attempt to recover to a high heat. Or, simply, the oven was at 200 - 220 celsius, then the doors were opened letting out all the heat while pans were rotated, then the doors closed and the oven started to recover and heat up again while the fans were spinning up. You ended up with little 'poofs' of gas that ignited.

Throughout normal operation, however, it wasn't something you'd normally see. It worries me enough that my best advice is to discontinue use until you've been able to contact the manufacturer, or a repair place that's authorized by the manufacturer. You could have a faulty internal regulator which is something that can be pretty dangerous. It could also be a faulty part in your gas meter, which is a matter you'd need to discuss with your utility.

I'd turn it off, and get on the phone.


How can I prepare left over Stir Fry for the fridge?

I make stir fry all the time and do the same thing as you. I would make extra, enough for 2 - 3 meals.

The thing I do to prevent the vegetables from getting too mushy in the refrigerator is by cooking the stirfry about 75%(I make sure if I am doing this that the meat is fully cooked first) and then take out the portion that I intend to refrigerate. This allows me to either finish cooking it in the microwave if I am taking it to work or reheat it up in the stove if I am staying home.

Also since I am taking the portions from the upper part of the stirfry, there is less sauce that the vegetables will be steeping in so that should solve your problem of too much sauce.

Another thing you should remember is that the types of vegetables you use makes a big difference. If you choose all vegetables that turns really soft when cooked(onion, squash, peppers) then reheated stirfry using those vegetables will be not as unpalatable. The trick is to use a variety of textured vegetables.

Also I dont want to state the obvious but if your problem is your sauce, have you ever tried using a different(lighter) sauce recipe?


Deep frying without schnitzels sticking to each other

Sometimes it's better to say: Don't put them in the deep fryer: add some pepper, paprika and butter on top of them and put them in the oven at 175°C (350°F) for 20 minutes.

If you insist on using a deep fryer:

Ensure you have a fryer large enough so they don't touch one another

OR

Deep fry them one by one in a small fryer and then microwave them all together for 1 minute at 750W just before serving them.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯


Breadcrumbs or flour when greasing and dusting a cake form?

i only have one recipe that calls for breadcrumbs, which is my hungarian torte (uses almond meal) and I use fine purchased breadcrumbs. I've never really noticed them but the cake does come out nicely. There's no issue from a flavour perspective as they're often used in sweet foods (like strudel) to absorb the moisture in the fillings.
I would use flour unless the recipe called for breadcrumbs, but you only need a very light coating...shake around then tip out and tap well.


Doughs are docked to keep them from blowing up with steam while they bake.

Thus- you only do it in applications that you don't want blown up- like blind pie crusts. Puff pastry applications, for example, you usually do want to blow up so you will get a lot of light layers.

If you are baking a pastry with a filling then the filling will keep this from happening. If you are baking blind, even with pie weights, you should dock because the weights might not weight evenly and you might still get a bubble.


How to (cheaply) grind wheat berries for home bread making?

You can get a carona mill for under $50.  It looks like this:

But you are likely going to work pretty hard, and have to do plenty of sifting. I have one and it is fairly inconsistent, as the plates and mechanism are hard to dial in, and have a tendency to loosen. It is good enough to get you started with some experiments, though.


Can I save the seasoning on my cast iron skillet or do I need to strip it and start anew?

I've had success in restoring bald spots in my cast iron skillet.  After cooking and cleaning, I add oil when the skillet is warm.  Eventually the "bald" spot fills in.  Mine took about 3 months of 1-2 weekly uses.


What are the advantages of a Santoku over a French Chef's Knife?

Both the Santoku and French knives will work for the same types of things, so a lot of it comes down to preference. Santoku knives are lighter, so this can lead to less hand strain and quicker cutting. One thing that the Santoku are very good at is very thin slicing of vegetables, for two reasons: first, as you point out, you do not use a rocking motion, but rather chop down in one motion, which with practice can be quicker and more efficient. Second, Santoku knives usually have a much thinner blade angle (around 15 degrees vs 30-40 degrees on a French knife). This is because one side of a Santoku is flat, and the other side is beveled (like a chisel), so you only sharpen one side. To accommodate this thin blade the Santoku knives will be made with a harder steel, which helps maintain blade sharpness, but may increase the propensity for chipping if misused, and also makes them harder to sharpen.

Still, personal preference dictates which knife to use. Many people prefer the Gyuto style of knife, which (roughly speaking) combines features of both Santoku knifes and French knives. They are made of a hardened steel, are sharpened on both sides, but maintain edges around 22-26 degrees. The Gyutos, like the Santokus are fairly light. Gyutos also have a rounded belly but it is less pronounced than on a French knife.

There is much more to be said, but basically the thing to do is get your hands on some knives and start experimenting--see what you like!


Boiling Water For Pasta - With Lid On....Do I Have To Wash The Lid?

It depends. In a commercial setting - definitely not. In a private one, well, you have some leeway. However when cooking pasta you might want to add some salt and/or olive oil to the water, which might get on the lid. Also pasta might release some starch while being cooked, which might also stain the lid.

In your case I'd say it was as good as clean, however depending on how greasy your fingers are you might consider giving the top a little scrub while cooling it down with some cold water before storing it.

Also if if pot wasn't quite clean that might affect things, but essentially you've steam-cleaned the underside of the lid, and if you weren't cooking anything splashing grease around your kitchen even the top might be cleaner than when you started.

So in conclusion, it depends. Unless you can document the states of the lid and kitchen, and what criteria should be used for "clean", all any answer here can hope to achieve is give basis for opinions you and/or your roommate(s) still have to choose between =P


how to cook orange lentils in the microwave?

It sounds like you pretty clearly had too much water, and maybe cooked too long and too hot. As for what to actually do: using a microwave doesn't mean you can't be flexible. You can figure out how to cook them the same way you could figure out how to cook many things in the microwave.

Start just enough water to cover the lentils. Cook it on high until it's nearly boiling; then reduce the power until it can keep going without boiling much. (That depends completely on your microwave; on mine it'd probably be in the 20-50% range.) Every couple minutes, have a peek. Make sure there's still enough water; stir them and see if they're done.

If you keep track of the total time, and the amount of water you had to add as you went along, you should be able to do it without much trouble next time. (And if you like, leave out the initial heating on high; that just saves some time.)

Mushiness can be caused by cooking too long, obviously, but also by cooking too hot. A rapid boil can help disintegrate things. It's especially tricky to avoid boiling in a microwave, since reducing power just makes it go off and on. Pay attention to how much it's boiling while it's on; while it's off it'll still be plenty hot.


Can dried shrimp be used as a substitute for shrimp paste in a recipe for thai curry paste?

Your dried shrimp are fresh, then dried. The taste belachan imparts has more to do with the fact that it is fermented, than is shrimp. Fish sauce is fermented, so you really would be better off adding both :)

Rehydrating the shrimp in some fish sauce with water, then adding it to your mix for blending would work best. You may not be able to blend your paste properly if the shrimp is still dried.


how long can i microwave microwaveable plastic containers for?

A microwave-safe container shouldn't be heated significantly by the microwave (only by conduction from the food it contains). So, it should be fine, so long as the food is, and as long as the food doesn't exceed its allowable temperature.

You can test fairly easily—put the container, partially filled with some water, in the microwave for a few minutes. Does the container heat up, possibly more so than the water—especially where its not in contact with the water? If so, I'd be reluctant to use it in the microwave for that long.

Some containers are microwave safe, but only for heating to maybe 160°F or so. A common example is LDPE (often used for plastic wrap). Some can't take boiling for more than a short time (e.g., HDPE). Polypropylene should be fine, even with boiling. Go any hotter (e.g., filled with oil, which is probably insane) and most will fail. If you're lucky, the container will have a resin ID code on it, LDPE is #4, HDPE is #2, polypropylene is #5.

Your microwave may not be fine with 40 minutes of strait microwaving, or with the steam buildup. You should probably check its manual.

I assume also you've read Jay's comment about converting recipes, and that you're doing something where 40 minutes won't result in charcoal.


What's the difference between rectangular tea bags and pyramid tea bags?

The pyramid teabag allows for more effective and faster extraction. This is because the tea bag retains its 3 dimensional shape, so there is plenty of space for the tea leaves, and more of their surface area is exposed for extraction.

A conventional teabag actually becomes smaller, and there is less space and the tea leaves are pressed onto each other, creating a compressed little ball of tea. I think whoever invented the pyramid teabag had that in mind. I am not suggesting that the world was desperate for it though ;)


What part of oatmeal cookies are making them soft / chewy?

There are several ingredients and procedures that work together to determine the structure and texture of a cookie.  At the end of this recipe on ChefSteps, there is a very detailed explanation.  I am sure it is possible to make a savory version, you are just going to have to be creative in your approach.  If you search their site, they also have tips for making gluten free cookies more "cookie-like."  You might explore the use of different sugars, which have differing levels of sweetness.  You can shop Modernist Pantry, for example, as an online source of these ingredients.

In direct response to your question, and according to the information in the link I provided, the following ingredients contribute to the texture of a cookie: sugars, butter (its temperature...and how they are mixed), liquid-to-flour ratio, temperature of the dough when it is baked, and whether or not you choose to compact them after baking...so, there are a lot of variables that you will need to experiment with.

Alternately, for savory applications, you could use a tuille.


What is a good use for lots of fresh cilantro?

I've found it freezes quite well — I simply wash it, chop it roughly, and then freeze it in a small plastic bag.


Traditionally, snails are removed from the shell and simmered for an hour or so in stock or bouillon. Then they are placed back in the shell with a little of the stock, and the shell is 'sealed' with butter, which is usually flavoured with garlic, parsley and shallots.

They are then roasted in a hot oven until the butter has just melted.


What would be considered thick milk in old recipe

I am pretty sure she means milk which went sour naturally, or spoiled milk.

Before refrigeration and even after refrigeration but before ESL and UHT milks, a milk that got sufficient microbial activity would visibly curdle and get thicker and somewhat sour. Such milk is unpleasant to drink, but people used to not want to afford to throw this milk away, and took the risk of using it within something that gets baked. The reasons for baking it are 1) to hide the taste, and 2) to reduce the risk of food borne disease.

My own family has this kind of recipes, and I still remember my mother using them in this way when I was a child (it was in the 90s, but food safety rules hadn't reached us yet). Also, this is how names like the German Dickmilch (which literally translates as "thick milk") came to be. So I think it's plausible that this must be the case here, given that your recipe is old. Also, if the recipe really has no flour, using soured milk improves your chances of getting something firm and custardlike (albeit grainy), as opposed to the much more finicky flans made with fresh milk. Although I must admit my mothers' recipes wouldn't be for a completely flourless cake - she had some that were used as filling for baked pastries, and a savory one which contains just a little bit of flour, gets poured into a pan and baked. It doesn't form a doughy texture, but rather something like a pie filling, or a quiche without crust and vegetables.

For recreating the recipe nowadays, I would suggest that you use the stuff that American supermarkets sell today as "buttermilk". This is milk soured by known-harmless bacterial cultures, somewhat similar to yogurt. If you live in a part of the world which uses the term "buttermilk" in its original meaning (the watery liquid that is left after butter has been beaten out of the current-american-meaning-buttermilk) try searching for similar cultured products under a different name, maybe "cultured milk" or "soured milk". If you cannot find any, appropriate substitutes would be kefir or yogurt thinned with milk, even creme fraiche thinned with milk for a creamier result. I am not a fan of adding acids to fresh milk as a substitute, in my experience this creates the wrong texture and it is difficult to get the acidity right. Do not let your own raw milk out, this is unsafe by modern standards, and our grandmothers were wrong in assuming that it will become safe by heating.


Is it safe to eat off of partially tarnished silver?

If it's pure silver, it's fine. Silver isn't toxic. Well...if you get some colloidial silver, and you dose yourself with it every day, you'll have some disturbing symptoms. The same is true of almost all metals. Iron pills, for example, are worse, but we commonly cook with cast iron. Metallic silver is sometimes used as a chelating agent, so it can purge your body of other metals you may have absorbed.

If its heirloom electroplated silver, it's probably still fine. If it's heirloom pewter, coated in copper, then electroplated with silver, its still fine (because pewter doesn't tarnish, so the tarnish is either silver or copper) but I wouldn't eat anything acidic with it, because it'll leech lead into your food.

Note : There is no way you have pewter. That was a joke.


Dry stuff : vaccuum cleaner or broom.

Liquid stuff: rag, mop, paper towels,

Chunky stuff: rags, paper towels.

For chunky spills, you can use a food scrapper to help pickup the solid part of it, and after that use a mop to clean up the liquid part of it.

After that, just clean up floor with floor cleaner.


Mixture of ingredients has a bitter taste

Likely the bitterness has nothing to do with this particular combination of ingredients. Rather, the blending process can break down the structures of each of the ingredients far more thoroughly then chopping and allows bitter compounds to leach out and saturate the overall mixture. Garlic in particular can be bitter if it's been pulverized, but it gets milder as it cooks. Did you notice that the bitterness ruined the dish after it was cooked?

Also, is there a reason to blend these ingredients? It's often preferable to chop ingredients by hand, or even use a food processor.

Also, I'd warn against cooking all of these ingredients at the same time anyway. They all cook at slightly different rates. For example, if you put onions and garlic in the pan at the same time, the garlic will burn long before the onions are done. EDIT: The warning against cooking them at the same time only applies if you are indeed intending to sweat or sauté them. If they are buffered with a liquid, then they won't burn. However, some of the ingredients might get mushy or even dissolve completely before the other ingredients are finished.


Should brussel sprouts ever taste like chemicals?

Brussels sprouts are in the brassica family, so you can get that family of strong cabbagey/spicey/sulfurous flavors and aromas. You probably know what that tastes like though, so I'm assuming it wasn't that. I've seen those black spots plenty of times, and I generally trim them, but I don't think they would be likely to give off a strong aroma. Once I had a situation like this where a vegetable tasted of kerosene, which I assumed was a cross-contamination and dumped it. That's what I would recommend if this ever occurs again. If in doubt, throw it out.


Oil soaked lettuce leaf found on counter - food safety issue?

I think you over did it (2 bags and gloves!!).

Just pick it up, throw it and clean with your regular cleaning routines.


Is there such a thing as "food grade CO2"?

According to The Brewing Network, industrial and food grade CO2 generally come from the same plants:

  The slight difference between industrial-grade CO2 and food-grade CO2 is the type of tests that are done to qualify CO2 as beverage or beer gas-grade compared to industrial-grade. Currently, the FDA's requirement for food-grade CO2 a 99.90% purity rating. The other .09% is made up of impurities such as hydrocarbons or nitrogen. Industrial grade CO2 is 99% pure CO2, also containing impurities such as hydrocarbons or nitrogen.

However, the nature of those impurities extremely important.  They go on to suggest:

  One impurity that all homebrewers should be aware of is benzene. Benzene is a no-no for homebrewers. If the CO2 that you are purchasing has high benzene levels, it will leave you and fellow drinkers with terrible headaches. When I say high levels, we are not talking about much. Benzene is usually an impurity that is referred to in PPB. The benzene level should be around 20 PPB.

They suggest you ask for a profile of the impurities, although I suspect that Dick's will be unable to comply.   You will have to assess your own tolerance for risk, but you may better off seeking a more appropriate local vendor.


Is nigella oil (black cumin or black caraway) aromatic?

I bought a bottle some time ago and wanted to share my experience. The nigella oil has turned out to be one of my favorite oils. I don't have any other like it.

It has a very strong aroma, more similar to fresh carrot than to black caraway seeds. It is slightly bitter, and also slightly hot. The hotness is weak when compared to most hot spices, but it is there. The bitterness is very pleasant. It doesn't have the fatty, clingy quality of flaxseed oil bitterness (and has no fish taste at all). All in all, it is a very green, fresh taste, more like a herb than like an oil. "Robust" style olive oils taste this way, but the nigella oil is much stronger.

It is too strong for combinations, but it is easily made the main star of many dishes. Frying an omelette in it completely changes the taste, no need for other spices at all (it does get more bitter at low frying temperatures, but does not lose the strongest part of the flavor, just the overtones). It is also very good for dipping a rustic bread. It is also economical in the sense that a little bit of it goes a long way (using too much of it makes it really overwhelming). Conclusion: a great thing to have in the kitchen.


It's going to depend on the Masa itself. If it is just the fresh ground corn, then you still need to mix in your other ingredients, lard, stock, baking powder, etc, whatever recipe you decide to use.  Some places will sell fresh masa for tamalas already mixed up and ready to go, but it's typically labelled or sold as prepared masa.  Whether you have fresh masa, or masa harina, you will still want to whip your lard and make a light and fluffy texture before mixing in your dough, so an electric mixer is always a good thing to have on hand, or Popeye arms.

Fresh masa goes bad pretty quick, so make sure to use within a few days or freeze.


Are residues from seasoning coating harmful when using carbon steel pan?

Just a note that if you use flax seed oil to season, it is notorious for flaking later. Also you may be seasoning with too much fat/oil when you heat it to create the polymerized surface.

The way to season carbon steel, woks, and cast iron is to wipe oil in the pan then wipe it out so that you can barely see a sheen of remaining oil. THEN heat it to the smoke point and let it fully dry and repeat, repeat, repeat! Again, when you first put in the oil/fat, you MUST wipe it out. That will allow for the polymerization to work as intended and not leave a surplus, sticky, or exessive quantity that doesn't complete polymerization with the pan in full.

Bon appetit!


The cheese failing to rise and being hard are definitely related, but it's more likely that there was a problem in the cheese chemistry (particularly, in the culture), than cooking it longer in the whey would have helped.  In other words, the most likely problem culprit is your starter/culture being poor quality or somehow added improperly.  You are using non-chlorinated water, correct?

This is, of course, assuming that you followed Carroll's recipe exactly.  If you cooked the curds at too high of a temperature, or for too long, or if you re-cooked the cheese in the whey at too low of a temperature, those would also cause similar problems.

While it's not uncommon to need to cook halloumi in the whey for longer than expected (for example, see Gavin Webber's cow-milk Halloumi video; he has to cook it for twice as long as the recipe specifies), Carroll's cooking time of an hour is already very long for finishing the cheese.  Other recipes specify more like 15 minutes to 1/2 hour.


If your solution grew mold, it would indicate that either the container wasn't sufficiently sterilized before sealing or (probably and) the solution wasn't sufficiently acidic. This can usually be ensured by following a recipe that is known to be good, which should have factors like acidity and water activity accounted for.

As for kahm yeast, it seems that this occurs more frequently on cultured vegetables which would spend some of their time in a less acidic environment (while the culture develops and acidifies). I suppose you could culture it and test it, but when in doubt I'd just toss it.


Infusing orange into tea while avoiding bitterness

Try to remove as much of the pith as possible before drying peels or using them fresh.  You can use a microplane or zester to remove rind without cutting into the pith.

You can remove even more bitterness if you boil the rinds for one minute, drain, add fresh water and repeat.  Do this several times.


Is it safe to fully cook a stuffed turkey the night before thanksgiving?

If it was fully cooked properly the first time there shouldn't be any problems at all. You may have an issue with reheating the turkey - not that it would be hazardous to your health, just difficult to do without drying it out or burning it. It might be better to fully carve the turkey and then reheat the meat you want to eat instead of trying to reheat the entire thing.


What are the mechanics of raw milk and products made from it?

Basically the processes are those that have been used for 1000's of years. Components of the milk along with some bacterial species that are commonly found in milk can, under the right conditions, produce some or all of your products.
First off, the online article is completely wrong, milk can and does "rot" - introduce some fecal coliforms (e.g. from off the often unwashed udders; see page 2 in pdf here, and table p 13 and references therein for prevalence of contamination, see also here for more detailed information) and you will certainly know about it within a few hours at room temperature.  You will know this also if you have ever come across an old container of milk full of lumps and a horrific smell. There is a reason why large scale dairy industry keeps the milk cold from milking the cows to delivery to the factory - it's to stop the milk going off. Always store your milk at fridge temperature to slow bacterial growth. Note that fermentation of the milk products into soured forms generally selects against pathogenic bacteria and often enables longer storage and greater food-safety because of this. However, never assume that it is safe for consumption just because you have fermented the milk to make a different product. Correct storage is incredibly important for food safety with milk products.
For any of the cultured products - yogurt, cheese, sour cream etc., it is best to add cultures of the specific type of bacterium associated with the product. This ensures that you have the right one in there and are less likely to waste your raw milk by having overgrowth of unwanted microorganisms, some of which may be pathogenic and can make you very sick. Do not rely on your sense of smell or taste to detect pathogens. Many do not produce smells or tastes and can have very high bacterial loads before you can detect them from taste/smell alone.
From milk, skim the fat that floats to the surface and you have cream. Take the cream and churn it and you will have butter - you need lots and lots of cream for this. Buttermilk is technically the water component left after you remove the butterfat from the cream, but you can also add cultures to this one to produce the soured version more commonly seen commercially today. Incidentally cultured butter is also a thing: see the Types section in the linked page for butter.
Sour cream is cream with some culture added, usually Lactobacillus species that produce acid to make the cream "sour" thereby precipitating a lot of the proteins in the cream and making it thick and creamy. The same process happens for milk to yogurt.
The rest of your list are generally made from milk, often whole milk, but not necessarily. The exact product depends on how long you ferment it and what you do with it once it is fermented (and usually what you inoculate it with, in the case of cheeses).  From whole milk the easiest cheese you can make is essentially mozzarella. Mozzarella doesn't require fermentation, but does require rennet, which most cheeses use somewhere in the manufacturing process anyway. You can also make quark by heating soured milk (add acid - lemon juice or (white) vinegar, or ferment) and straining off the whey.
For yogurt, which then can be made into soft cheese, you can inoculate with any plain, unpasteurized yogurt from the local store. Incubate this in a warm place for a few hours and the yogurt will be ready. Incubate for a couple more to make it thicker. With thick yogurt, place it into a cheesecloth and strain overnight in a cool place to produce a soft cream cheese like product called yogurt cheese. Yogurt and yogurt cheese products are probably the easiest milk based processed products to generate for a beginner.
Harder cheeses take a bit of work and know-how - you need to know how to culture, add rennet, slice the curd, pack, store to mature etc to produce each one. There are many many varieties of cheese out there, each one is slightly different in production and often take specific bacterial species, and sometimes a milk from a specific type of animal (e.g goat cf. cow) or variety/breed of animals (e.g jersey milk cf. holstein/friesian milk)  or pasture type to produce its distinctive flavour.


How does amount of flour affect cookies?

A general answer, because a concise answer would need an entire recipe.

(all ratios that follow are by weight not volume measures)

Flour gives the cookie structure. The commonly followed ratio is:

  Cookie dough = 3 parts flour, 2 parts fat, 1 part sugar

That 3:2:1 ratio results in the most common cookie texture.

Adding more flour give you a hard cookie like: ginger snaps, short bread, etc.

Reducing the flour, like a 1:1:1  flour-fat-sugar will give a drop cookie and often chewy.

I Googled, and found this informative piece How to Invent a Cookie Recipe.


Correct temperature to serve a chocolate gateau (cake)

Most cakes should be served at room temperature, to maximize their flavor.  This one does not sound like an exception.  The ganache and buttercream should both hold well at room temperature on the day the cake is assembled (from its description, this is not a gateau that should be stored for a long time).

Don't take the common restaurant practice of serving cakes chilled as an indicator of good practice.   They do so because they don't want to store it at room temperature, and they usually wait to take it out of the refrigerator until the portion is ordered.


I don't see how refrigerating the wings before steaming them could possibly make a difference. They were initially refrigerated as he toyed with the idea of frying them or baking them directly, but then he was inspired to steam them to remove some of the fat before baking. It's artistic licence to tell a better and slightly longer story, nothing more.

If you go to the official recipe, you'll see that it skips this step:


What are the pros and cons of coarse and fine coffee ground?

Mainly the grind types have to do with how long the grounds are going to be in contact with the water during the brewing of the coffee. Finer grinds for espresso (quick brewing) and medium grinds for drip, etc. This chart will give you an idea of what grinds go with which preparations http://www.ineedcoffee.com/03/coffeegrind/


In sausage, meat is "stuck together" by a network of cross-linked myosin, a rather "sticky" protein present in meat.1 This network of proteins can be developed by kneading, much like the gluten in bread. However, myosin only develops properly given enough salt. Thus I see two mistakes you could have made:

Insufficient salt. You need about 2% of the weight of the sausage in salt. Your recipe measured salt by volume. This can be problematic as different salt products are more or less dense. If you have a scale, try using weight the next time around.
Insufficient kneading. You say in your comment that you mixed the meat by hand. However, you need a lot more than mixing. Give it a good knead, either in a mixer or food processor, or by hand, until it becomes tacky, sticky, and slightly more homogeneous.

In addition to these factors, I am a bit concerned by your recipe. Breadcrumbs, apples, and cider won't really help make sausage: these fillers will only disrupt your myosin network. Try a more basic recipe of meat, salt, and any herbs and spices you like. After you master that, you can try to introduce larger mix-ins like apple pieces. But whatever recipe you follow, remember salt and kneading. Without them, your "sausage" will be nothing more than seasoned mince.


What caused my meringue to fall after adding cocoa?

It was timing.  If you want to make chocolate meringues, add the cocoa powder to the liquid egg whites, and then whisk it all together at once.

Beaten egg whites are bubbles.  Don't add things to an already-formed meringue, as they will just cause the bubble structure to collapse.

Ever sprinkled sugar or cinnamon powder on a cappuccino?  Notice how the milk foam immediately collapses?  The same thing happened to your meringue.


Soaked chickpeas overnight 12 hours not plump

Chickpeas can get old, however, after an overnight soak, though they may be hydrated they are still not yet cooked.
That means they will still be firm, possibly very firm.

Rather than trying to guess at this point whether or not they are old, just cook them to instructions & see how they come out.
It's really not that easy to tell old beans/pulses before you cook them. Even if a bit old, you can often cook them down given sufficient time.


Is it bad to be a 'board tapper', i.e. to tap your knife rhythmically when you're cutting vegetables?

I know, this isn't really an answer, but it's a bit long for a comment:
There are people in this world that get annoyed by different things that don't bother other people.  For some of those people, it's noise ... someone tapping their foot, chewing gum, etc.  It's possible that there's a legitimate reason for this pet peeve, but sometimes it's something really odd like 'I had a friend who used to do that, and my partner left me for them, and so when I hear it reminds me of that' ... but it's subconscious, and they couldn't explain it without a year or two of therapy.  I've also known people who were sensitive to sound (and he complained that I spoke too loudly ... but he always spoke loudly, and I'd subconsciously match my levels to his ... and he hated wearing hearing protection).
For reasons that most other people would understand:

The person may be using sound cues in their cooking (how something sizzles as it hits the pan, or how the sound changes as something is frying), and if there is too much noise, they can't hear those cues.
The person may have difficulty concentrating (possibly even ADD), and they find the noise distracting
In a noisy kitchen, people have to talk louder, which means that other people have to talk even louder ... and after a while, the noise is just unbearable, and in the US, can actually become an OSHA violation.
A noisy kitchen may cause people to not hear or mishear instructions, resulting in slower or bad service.

Of course, if the chef is also shouting at people all the time, then it's difficult to accept the above items as good justification.  (except maybe #4).
There have been a number of articles on noise levels in restaurants in the past few years and most focus on the patrons (and there are even apps for patrons to track noise levels, but many of the observations about lack of sound dampening still hold true:

https://www.vox.com/2018/4/18/17168504/restaurants-noise-levels-loud-decibels
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2019/may/09/great-food-but-please-do-something-about-the-noise-the-battle-for-quieter-restaurants

Sometimes, we have to factor in multiple considerations when deciding how to do something.  In project management, there's the adage of "good, cheap, fast.  pick two", in how you have to sacrifice quality, cost, or speed and can't have all three.  Some chefs will cut off the top & bottom of bell peppers so that they can make equally sized sticks.  I cut off the sides and bottom so I waste less.  Neither way is "bad", but we just have different priorities.
In your particular case, the chef has decided that the noise level (or at least, lack of tapping noise) is more important to them.  Someone else might optimize for speed and be okay with a certain level of noise.  Someone else might have space for you to do your prep further away so you're not bothering them.  There are just different trade-offs to try to get to the optimal solution for a particular situation.  And it may not even be constant with a given chef -- someone who would otherwise prioritize speed might have a hangover and have a day when they'd prefer quiet.


What are some good substitutes for salt for those on low sodium diets?

There is no substitute for salt. Sorry. It has effects on the tastebuds and the body that cannot be replicated.

However! They can be approached to a degree that most people will find interchangeable. Acids can mimic the flavour-enhancing qualities of salt in a big way. The more acid you have in a dish, the less salt you will need. Beware of going too far, of course, as too much acid is just unpleasant and will need salt to counterbalance.

Heat--as in capsaicin, chili peppers--can produce much the same effect.

Echoing papin's information above; NA and K (sodium and potassium) exist in balance in the body. Too far in one direction and you have a heart attack (too much K), too much in the other and (if memory serves; I could be wrong) you essentially drown (or is it edema? I can't remember). If avoiding sodium is related to a health concern, please speak to your primary healthcare provider before adjusting your diet in this way.


Pickling without Sterilization - Is It Safe?

The recipe appears to be close to a standard Summer Pickle recipe.
It's about a 9% brine with 3.75% acetic acid, which should effectively discourage human pathogens.
It is not a fermented product.
They're meant to be refrigerated for at most a few months, not stored on some dusty basement shelf.
Refrigerated properly, I'd eat them without concern.


How to choose an upright, self-defrosting freezer?

From my own experience, watch out for the following pitfalls.

Size. Very wide or very long items don't fit, so shop for the most interior space available.
Plastic doors. Check that these are secured and don't fall out easily. Check if spare parts are available and affordable. If you can, buy one with
Only drawers.
Auto-defrost is nice. Check how and where the drain-water goes. Plan for it.
Buy the most energy-efficient you can afford.


Can you thicken a pudding just by reducing?

This will only thicken by reduction if you leave it on for a really long time. At least 8 hours of simmering, but better to use more than 16, and then you'll get a flavored kaymak.

The way it thickened is much more likely to have been raspberry pectin. Many berries have sufficient pectin to thicken when they happen to be used within the optimal sugar and pH range. The calcium in the cream will also activate the second type of pectin.

I have had raspberry juice make a jelly by itself, and I have made a recipe which thickens a gooseberry-cream mix, relying on the gooseberry pectin. I haven't made a cream based raspberry thickened dessert, but it's very likely to work.

You can use the gooseberry recipe to get an approximate range for the sugar amount involved, http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1415683/gooseberry-cream-and-elderflower-jelly-pots.


My chicken soup always ends up with bones

I generally make chicken soup in two phases. Phase 1 is chicken stock, simmering (roasted) bones with aromatics for a long time (often, overnight), followed by straining. Phase 2 is chicken soup, combining the strained stock with chicken meat, vegetables, and other ingredients.

Because the stock is strained, it has no bones, big or small. There can be vegetables in the stock as well, which will be cooked until they are mushy, giving up their flavor but no longer something you want to eat; they are also strained out. If you're using very meaty bones, or even whole birds, you can salvage the meat by picking it off the bones, and adding it to your soup (though most of the flavor will be cooked out of it.)

The bones and the meat don't have to come from the same bird. You can take bones leftover from a roast chicken or other meal, and make stock out of that. You can even save the bones in the freezer, accumulating them from a number of projects, then make one big batch of stock. Freezing the stock means you'll have it on hand any time.

Then you could make chicken soup by buying drumsticks (or whatever part you like), and removing the meat. That will turn into soup fairly quickly: it will take just half an hour or so to cook vegetables to the right point, and just a few minutes to incorporate the meat. The bones you removed can go into the freezer, and the process continues.


How to extract the most flavor out of vanilla beans?

Getting the Vanilla from the bean to the taste bud takes time. While many will advocate the use of fresh vanilla beans (as you have tried), I have always preferred the flavor that is granted from a good vanilla extract. In my opinion it is stronger and better distributed throughout the dish. Whether you buy or make your own extract I think you will get a more consistent and rich flavor that way.

(note: thanks to @rfusca for providing the extract link in a previous question)


I definitely think buttermilk is required. If you don't want to invest in a whole jug, you might be able to find some plain kefir instead, or even yogurt will work in a pinch.
Sourdough starters (like the preferment like here) contain a combination of yeast and bacteria. It will definitely have a sour and somewhat funky smell, but generally speaking we've evolved to recognize good funk smells from "I'm not going to eat that" smells. It's not perfect, but it's helpful.
Yeast and bacteria are naturally present.... Everywhere basically. We get yeast infections on our skin and in embarrassing places because they are literally everywhere. Ever had dandruff? That's a yeast thing too. But there are lots of varieties of yeast. Beer and wine yeasts have been cultivated to produce/tolerate different amounts of alcohol for example. So even though yeast is everywhere, you added bread yeast to your preferment because you wanted that one. you didn't want some weirdo yeast chilling under your fingernails or something.
The thing with the milk and lemon juice substitute for buttermilk is that it only mimics the acidity and sweet-sour flavor for baking. But the bacterial profile is not the same. It could be anything! Some bacteria naturally present in milk produce iodine, which is bitter. For all I love my ferments, I can't predict whether my milk will become a delicious mesophilic buttermilk or a jug of bitter sadness if I let it spoil naturally..... But that's kind of what you did here.
Your milk and lemon juice both contained bacteria in small amounts to start, and nobody knows what they were. After several days, those bacteria multiplied by a lot, and your nose told you that whatever they were, they did NOT make something delicious. I think you were right to toss it.
So, while you might not have to use buttermilk, I would definitely use some kind of cultured dairy. Buttermilk or kefir would be best because those are room temperature mesophilic ferments. Yogurt will work in a pinch, but they're typically predominantly thermophilic cultures, meaning they flourish in a warmer environment.


Air bubbles in semi liquid chicken sausage

Since it’s quite thick and in liquid form, the process inevitably causes air introduced into the product.
if you can’t change your recipe, you might want to consider applying vacuum to the mixture in a chamber, that should help dissipate the bubbles.


How can I adjust my recipe for étouffée to prevent the addition of okra to it from making the dish too gummy?

More liquid will dilute the okra's thickening tendency. But then your dish will be more liquid than perhaps you want. You could perhaps cook the okra separately and add it right before serving.

Editing to add: your other option is to skip me.


Is there a bread you can mix in the evening, leave overnight, and bake in morning?

It seems the main thing you're trying to do is avoid any work in the morning before bake.  As suggested in comments, the easiest way to do that is to get a mechanical bread-maker.  Since you say you're inexperienced in bread-making, you can dump everything in the night before, program it with a time, and voila -- fresh bread in the morning.  (I don't tend to like the loaf quality that comes out of most home bread-makers, though; but if you find one that makes good bread, this is the best solution.)

That said, if you actually want to make the bread yourself, you can do what you want.  It's just going to require a lot of work the evening before.  Many recipes can be adapted to do this, though it tends to work best with sourdough loaves.  Basically, the technique works like this:

Mix dough
Knead
First fermentation (1-3 hours, depending on yeast quantity and bread type)
Shape tightly, preferably with a pre-shaping and bench rest (another 15 minutes)
Second fermentation, generally takes place entirely in fridge
Place in fridge overnight
Remove and bake immediately

Jeffrey Hamelman suggests this for a number of sourdough recipes in his book Bread: A Baker's Book of Techniques and Recipes.  He also notes that it's not necessary to let the dough come to room temperature before baking: assuming it has risen enough, you can remove it directly from the fridge and bake with little consequence.

(Also, just to reply to one notion in comments -- it is possible to bake bread starting from a cold oven.  Many people prefer to do it that way, though the results tend to be a little less consistent and oven spring is generally a little less.  If you do so, it might be easier to bake in a pot.  But it would be possible to get up in the morning, turn your oven on, throw the bread in immediately, and have it baked maybe 30-45 minutes later, depending on the size of the loaf.  For those who don't believe me, here's someone who did a comparison of cold oven start vs. preheated and found little difference.)

My experience trying shaping before overnight retarding long ago is that it can work well for sourdough (see method #2 here for more details), since the yeast tends to rise much more slowly in the fridge.  The danger with normal baker's yeast is that most recipes use too much yeast to make this method work -- what will happen is that your bread won't cool fast enough in the fridge, then the dough will overproof and collapse a bit in the oven, often with poor crust formation.

Normally, when professional bakers retard pre-shaped dough in the fridge, they do so for only a couple hours, which tends to add flavor.  For detailed instructions with illustrations and a recipe showing this, see here.

Basically, what you want to do is a similar thing to that recipe, but with less yeast, so you can refrigerate overnight.  Unfortunately, that will tend to make your bulk rise go slower, which means a longer wait in the evening between steps.

For more information and recipes online, I'd try instead searching for something like "retarding after shaping," which is the kind of recipe you're looking for.  You just need to find one that allows retarding for 8 hours or more, rather than just a couple hours.

The other option is obtain sourdough cultures and try those recipes.  Usually with them the pace of the yeast rise is appropriate for an overnight final proof in the fridge.  Still, the results will be a little more finicky (i.e., harder to get a "perfect" loaf every time) than using a more standard method.

Also, I just noticed you mentioned rolls in your question.  Those would be a lot easier than trying to do this with an entire loaf, and it's pretty standard to refrigerate overnight before baking.  If the recipe is one that depends on removing from the oven for a while before baking, then just delay putting the dough in the fridge for maybe 1/3 to 1/2 of that time (varies by recipe) the night before.  Then you should be able to bake straight from the fridge to the oven the next morning.  Again, it may take a bit of experimentation with a specific recipe to get this perfect.


Does this product represent a dish in Korean cuisine or is it a fusion variation? If I could find a name I could find a recipe.

It does not appear to be a korean dish, rather a version of the chinese pork jerky, which has been seasoned with a korean bbq style.

  How could I both cook and preserve my pork?

If you are trying to replicate the product, it doesn't appear to be a cooked and dried product.  Unless you are trying to extend shelf life of your cooked meat.

  The options that come to mind are:

Smoking until dehydrated (requires much more effort as I think it would have to be a cool smoking over a long period of time)
Grilling briefly for flavor and then dehydrating until done. (does partially cooked meat still dehydrate?)

You could hot smoke the meat to be completely/partially cooked, before considering a preserving process.
Similarly grilling/broiling/roasting, before preserving.  Of course you can dry/dehydrate most things that have water content.

  Is there some other method that I haven't thought of?

If following the chinese jerky process I have seen, either:

Raw meat is cooked, then brined/marinated in a meat tumbler
Raw meat is brined/marinated, then cooked

You also need to consider whether you wish to have mince & reform the meat, or slice the meat thinly (eg meat slicer).


What are techniques to make homemade pasta without a pasta machine?

Many pasta shapes can be made without a pasta machine--home cooks have done it for generations.   The only pastas that are really difficult to make without a special machine, I think, are the extruded pastas like buccatelli or macaroni.

One common method, which leads to a lot of different shapes, is to roll the pasta dough out into a sheet with a rolling pin.  It can then be cut into a variety of shapes, with a knife, pizza cutter, or even a cookie or biscuit cutter:

To make tagliatelle or linguine, you would first roll out a sheet.  Then, to make it easy to cut into strips, roll the sheet up, as if you were rolling a jelly roll.  Use a very sharp knife to cut it into ribbons.
Cut wider strips for lasagna noodles.
Cut into rectangles for homemade cannelloni.
Use a biscuit cutter to make circles, and you can fill them and fold them into tortellini.

Some more interesting shapes, like orecchiette, can be shaped by hand as well.  You create a small cylinder of dough, and then cut it into coins, then flatten these into the final shape.  The linked article has detailed instructions and pictures.

I have not tried to go into a huge amount of detail, because you are going to want to read specific recipe and technique articles, and watch videos of the techniques, all of which you can easily search for.  Each of the links above is to a recipe that has lots of helpful pictures and detail.


Why do some rolling pins only have one handle?

As Megha says above, this kind of rolling pin is rolled by pressing on the pin itself, as you can see in the video.  I have two such rolling pins in different sizes.  The knob is not used when rolling out dough.

The single knob is there for picking up the pin, both by itself, and for transporting rolled pasta, pizza, and tart crust dough.  In the video, you can see Sra Simili rolling up the dough around the pin, and using the pin to move it.  If the dough has been stretched large enough to be the length of the pin, then you use the knob handle so that you can still pick it up.

The knob is also a useful handle when you use the pin to chase children out of the kitchen.


What are the chemical contents of beef stock?

There seems to be a good number of scientific papers on what's in beef broth.
I'd say, take all this with a grain of salt (pun) and enjoy your cup of broth as is.
Minerals : https://honey-guide.com/2014/01/21/bone-broth-mineral-content/
Amino acids : https://www.westmont.edu/sites/default/files/users/user1231/V19No4/Nick%20Flynn_final.pdf
Collagen(ish) : https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29893587/
Collagen : https://journals.humankinetics.com/view/journals/ijsnem/29/3/article-p265.xml
"Bone Broth Unlikely to Provide Reliable Concentrations of Collagen Precursors Compared With Supplemental Sources of Collagen Used in Collagen Research"


A lot of foam while cooking a cod with steam

This sounded quite normal. Steam condensing on your fish is washing small amounts of protein into the steaming water below. It is quite harmless. As mentioned in my comment above, most of us have experienced that when boiling cold eggs too quickly causing the shell to crack and some egg white to leak into the water. That always make at least a bit of foam and often enough to overflow that pan.

There are a couple of things you can do to minimise that:

pat dry the fish before steaming
use a container under the fish to catch any juices so that none of it goes into the steaming water

More water in the pan and a gentler boil might help too


Non-fermented vinegar substitute for Dijon mustard

Another allergy sufferer claims you can swap in pure vitamin C & water for the vinegar.  It wouldn't be Dijon mustard, which strongly depends on the flavor of white wine, but it could be a strong, fine-grained mustard.

If the flavor isn't quite right, you can also experiment with citric acid crystals (sour salt), or a mix.  For a bit more wine flavor, consider adding a small amount of white grape juice.  Saba (concentrated unfermented grape must) would be even better, although it's difficult to find in some countries.


Should sweet potatoes be peeled when preparing them?

Candied Yams, I would peel first.
However, for mashes and other similar soft dishes, I find it best to bake them until soft and then remove the peels when cool.


Pasta: is simmering equivalent to roiling boil?

Actually you're all wrong. The twin myths that we must use a rolling boil and abundant water have been rather soundly disproved. Most recently by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt over at seriouseats, an MIT graduate who later became a chef.

http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/05/how-to-cook-pasta-salt-water-boiling-tips-the-food-lab.html

is the article in question. I have used his method at home with great success. Have not yet been brave enough to try it at work, as chef doesn't much like it when that sort of dogma gets challenged. But that's all it is, dogma.


Nitrogen factor role in calorie calculation

Nitrogen factor appears to be a method of estimating protein content in a specific foodstuff based on the amount of nitrogen (since proteins are nitrogen rich).  It is not exact, and there are different factors for different types of foods, to provide better estimates based on the ratios and types of proteins in those foods.

This 1931 USDA document gives an excellent background, even though it is somewhat of a bad scan, and challenging to read.

See also, for example, the FAO Conversion Table showing different factors for different foods.

As proteins are a calorific food, the nitrogen factor correlates with calories from protein because it helps you estimate the amount of protein in a food, and therefore the number of calories from protein based on the fact that protein has about 17 kJ or 4 kcal per gram.

Therefore, if you know you have g grams of a food, with a nitrogen factor of f, the estimated number of calories from protein c is:

  c = g * f * 4

I was unable to find a definitive clear meaning of the phrase "protein factor" as it is a common phrase in biochemistry, evidently.


There has been quite a bit of back and forth among chefs on whether to salt meat well-before cooking (up to 24 hours) or immediately before cooking.  You might find this interesting. The article points out, according to Harold McGee, that a large amount of salt (typically the amounts used for curing) does indeed draw out moisture, however, the small amount of salt used for seasoning allows the cell structure to retain water.  The author goes on to test several proteins, none of which are stew meat.  My interpretation of this work, for your situation, would be to salt ahead of time.  Further, I might try two batches of stew, one where I salted the meat 24 hours in advance, and another where I salted immediately before browning.  Why not add the salt later?  Well, I think you have a greater chance of drying out your stew meat if you don't salt first.

In addition to salting the meat, you will want to adjust the seasoning of your stew at the end, as water will evaporate and the flavors will concentrate.  Seasoning is generally not a one step process.

Pepper is another story.  Some people have an aversion to the flavor of cooked pepper, which can take on a bitter note.  In this case it can be added at the end of the cooking process.


Most likely, your issue is that your fries don't freeze quickly enough!
First of all, potatoes are VERY tricky for freezing anyway: their cell-structure takes REALLY badly to freezing, making them change texture and sometimes taste a lot.
The problem is reduced, but not removed, by cooking them first, but even then, they tend to react badly.
Now, what do commercial fries have that you don't? They can actually do shock-freezing! This means they can freeze their fries REALLY quickly, which highly reduces the damage to the cells. So, sadly your best shot may be: buy some dry ice to use for freezing your fries.


There are a couple of (potential) issues here.

First, sourdough starter doesn't involve store bought yeast, so I'm not sure I'd call what you have a sourdough starter-- I would call it more of a poolish or a biga.  What makes it a sourdough starter is the cultivation of wild yeasts (this takes time, usually on the order of one to two weeks), but if you were to take care of and feed what you currently have for long enough, I would imagine that it would become a proper starter, although I would expect that to take more like months for the store bought yeasts to die off and be replaced with wild ones.

Second, two teaspoons of yeast for two cups of flour and two cups of water sounds like an awful lot of yeast.  If I were baking something right away that called for that much flour I don't think I'd use that much. Related, thirdly, you don't mention anything about the size of your container, but I suspect its too small. Typically expect yeast related things to double in volume, so if your container couldn't hold at least that much it is too small.


Batters full of starches and sugars are always sticky, how you prevent it from sticking partly depends on the plan. Some pans have coatings which while called non-stick aren't, but do reduce sticking somewhat. On pans like these often buttering is sufficient, and 'normal' cake pan shapes allow you to loosen the sides by running a knife around the side, so even if they stick you can free the cake. Putting a piece of baking paper on the bottom of a flat bottomed pan is a sure-fire way of preventing issues.
When you have an odd shape like a bundt, paper won't work, and you can't afford anything sticking, so the best way to ensure it frees is to generously butter (not oil or spray) the pan and then flour it. You can also make cake release, which can be sprayed or brushed on, using equal volumes of flour, oil and shortening.


Use the one at five o'clock. It should be the normal baking mode for most recipes anyway.

The way I read the markings is:

12 o'clock, a zero: Turned off.
1 o'clock, a lightbulb: Light on, but no heating. Alternatively, it could be a preheat function.
3 o'clock, a dripping fan: looks like some kind of defrost setting, in which the fan is on, but the heat source is not indicated.
4 o'clock, two horizontal bars: Heat from above and below.
5 o'clock, two horizontal bars: Heat from above and below, with fan assist.
7 o'clock, a horizontal bar on the bottom and a fan: Heat from below with fan assist.
8 o'clock, three shark teeth: Looks like some top-only mode, probably a broiling/rotisserie mode.

I don't have good ideas about the 10 and 11 o'clock modes, wavy lines without and with a fan - if Stephie is right in the comments and this is a combi oven, these are probably microwave modes. Else, it must be something producer specific.

For most food, including pizza, the upper+lower heat with fan assist will give the best results.


Does anyone know why when we add vinegar to rice its texture changes? I would like to understand "chemically" what happens

Acids lower the pH, making amylase less effective in breaking down starch into sugar. I believe with rice it helps remove the starch from the rice as well, so adding vinegar to rice will make it less sticky. Rinsing the rice well before cooking will also make it less sticky (because you're rinsing off the starch).


Can salted butter be used for yellow cake recipe?

Yes, you should be able to get away with it, but it does depend on how salty the butter is. Might be worth making one batch and seeing how it turns out.


The lower (first) temperature actually cooks the potato so that it is tender, the hotter temperature (second) is what gives the crispy golden coating.

If you just did the lower temperature, your fries might be too soft. If you just did the hotter temperature they would be too too tough.


Why does the kneaded dough form a skin when exposed to air and what are the possible ways to prevent the skin formation?

The skin forms because water evaporates from the surface of the dough. The middle doesn't dry out because the drier dough skin is less porous, and so the rate of moisture loss slows down as the skin forms.

It's perfectly okay to eat it, it's just the same dough but drier. Whether it is pleasant to eat is another matter of course. It won't become unsafe until it's been sitting around long enough for moulds and bacteria to grow on it to significant levels and that's not going to happen in an hour.

You can prevent it by preventing the moisture loss from the surface. You've got some options here. For my bread dough I cover the bowl with cling film, which provides a fairly good moisture seal. Moisture still evaporates from the dough, but reaches equilibrium with the air trapped inside the bowl and so doesn't continue to the point where a skin forms.

If cling film is likely to touch the dough itself, it's going to stick to it, so it or the dough need to be oiled to prevent that.

You could also cover it with a clean damp towel. The water in the towel helps create a moist environment around the dough surface, thus discouraging drying of the dough and the formation of the skin. This method is also commonly seen in bread recipes.


Is it possible to make yoghurt directly in the milk carton using sous vide?

No, you can't do that. The inside of the carton is not cardboard, it is covered with a thin layer of a paraffin-like substance. If you hear the carton to 82 Celsius, you will melt the paraffin into the milk.

There are methods where you heat and ferment in the same container, but I don't like them. With traditional heating, you end up with a layer of milk proteins stick to the bottom. Sous vide somewhat relaxes the problem, but doesn't eliminate it completely. And then there is the skin formed on top during cooling. It's more tender of you do it in a closed container, but it still exists, and pieces of it spread through the container when you stir in the culture. So the yogurt is much better if you put the milk through a sieve after cooling and before adding the culture, and ferment it in a clean container.

The third consideration is that frequently, small containers are more convenient for using the yogurt rather than spinning it out of a big container, where you get contamination and whey buildup. So, it is even better to hear and cool in a large container, but ferment in small containers. So my own preferred method is heating and cooling in one large container, sieving into a second large one where I add the culture, then ladling into individual jars.

To sum it up, a single-container method gives inferior results. If you want to try it, it works, but not with the milk carton. At best, you could buy milk in glass bottles and use the bottle, but you'll have a very hard time getting it out. Better find a different container.


Will storing spices on the oven affect flavor or anything?

I would keep them away from that area for 2 reasons - one is the heat, and second is that it's a dangerous location for the spices since the edge of most oven panels is generally very thin and not designed flat to be a shelf making it more likely for your spices to accidentally get knocked off than if you put them elsewhere.

Here is a link to a similar question answered by an expert: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_should_be_the_storage_temperature_for_spices


Why is putting hot milk in a thermos not recommended?

The cleaning is one thing (there are flasks without hidden crevices that can be easily cleaned), but there’s also another point to consider:

A thermos flask that is doing its job will keep food warm, or rather, slow down the cooling process. Even if you fill it with fairly hot liquid, it will slowly cool. If you do that with a perishable food like milk, you will easily create an environment in the upper range of the danger zone, where food will become unsafe after as little as two hours.

Yes, you can argue that you are filling hot milk in a clean container, but in the end, it’ll be not safe by food safety standards. (What you make of that is obviously your choice.) The manufacturer’s warning will protect the end users from food poisoning.


How do you wash fruit and veggies effectively?

Pesticide reduction by simply rinsing with tap water is significant, but doesn't remove everything. Of those tested 75% were removed with plain tap water. http://www.ct.gov/caes/cwp/view.asp?a=2815&q=376676

You can quickly blanch your fruit or vegetables to sanitize the outer skin.  http://nchfp.uga.edu/how/freeze/blanching.html

A mild vinegar solution can help fruits and vegetables last longer in the fridge. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14540742


How do smaller but good restaurants keep/reheat roasted meat, particularly Prime Rib?

I've no idea about a standard, but a 90-seat restaurant where I used to work served a veal chop intended for 2-3 people by cooking it sous vide to 130F, then finishing on the grill to medium.  We could thereby get a piece of meat that would have to grill or roast for at least 45 minutes to the table in around 15, and the sealed chops could be kept in their bags for 2-3 days.

Treating a whole prime rib roast this way might be a bit difficult, but perhaps you could use smaller slices, sous vide to very rare, and finish quickly in a hot oven (or get all French Laundry and use a freaking blowtorch on the edges).  Or perhaps the other way around - roast, slice, seal, and keep hovering just outside the danger zone until needed, at which time you bring up to temp.  A bit questionable if an inspector catches you, and a bit tough to deal with carryover,  but some enterprising chef might have tried it.

I would venture a guess though that this is why you don't see too many smaller places serving prime rib.  I typically see this featured as a nightly special or only in larger steakhouses, and it often seems to be gone by the time I get there.


What is the name of the sauce which is made of Yoghurt and fresh Cucumbers?

Sounds like a Cucumber Raita to me. It's quite a common accompaniment to spicy food as the yoghurt element really helps ease the burn.

Very simple to make and often contains fresh mint along with the cucumber to give it a really cool, fresh taste.

Example recipe here: Good Food Channel


Will ground sealed pepper have lost it freshness?

Ground pepper begins to lose it's flavors very quickly.  You can try this yourself by grinding your own, then tasting over the course of a couple of days.  I find it is always best right after I grind it.  Sealing a container of ground pepper might help, but who knows how long between grinding and sealing? Then, once you remove the seal, flavor is degrading further. Again, just compare this pepper to some you have freshly ground.  There really is no comparison.  If you are a black pepper lover, buy whole and grind in small amounts.


Why did people start using CO2 (instead of e.g. oxygen) for carbonated drinks?

CO2 tastes good! Carbonated water is actually a weak carbonic acid solution; this is what you taste. It's like "salt and pepper", but for water.

Slightly acidic water is usually popular, hence lemon juice is sometimes used to taint a jug of water in times when no carbonated water is available.

Carbonated water releases CO2 bubbles for many minutes after pressure is released (dissolved carbonic acid reforming), which is an important presentation effect that other gases do not generally have.

In many countries the local water supply is slightly alkaline (due to limestone rock being very common), and this can leave a bad after-taste, and make food in your mouth taste soapy. The addition of weak acids to water helps with neutralising this effect.

Around the world, some lucky towns have natural springs with effervescent water (carbonated water), and man-made carbonated water is just imitating this. In history people have often travelled great distances to try effervescent water, so its popularity is well recorded.

Nitrogen is used for water pressurisation in brewing and cooking as it leaves little or no taste, and generally does not form other chemical compounds. It's used mainly when bubbles are required, but not an acidic taste.

Oxygen is unsuitable for water pressurisation as very little can be dissolved at normal soda pressures, and it has no taste, but may readily form unwanted chemical compounds.

In the 18th century, Joseph Priestley was the first person to document this manufacturing discovery. He noted precisely that it tasted good, and that it was similar to the German Selters water. He was discovering "airs" (gases), and uniquely identified quite a few different gases. CO2 was the only one he listed as tasting good. His cheap source of CO2 was the fermenting grains from the nearby brewery.


Does microwaving destroy nutrients in food?

Anything that breaks down due to heat is going to break down no matter HOW you cook it. Boiling only "destroys" nutrients by leaching them away into the water, which is the same reason that other people say that steaming/microwaving is better.

Thiamine, for example, is highly water soluble, so boiling is out. But it also breaks down at 100C, so you can't really cook it either. Niacin, on the other hand, leeches into water, but it's not heat-sensitive, so you can cook the hell out of it, as long as you don't get it wet. Folate is so fragile you can't leave your leafy greens in the sun without it breaking down (common with acids).

Basically, almost everything is better uncooked, but a lot of things are impossible to eat if you don't cook them enough to break down the cellulose. So eat a balanced diet, and stop worrying about the microwave.


Coat the outside of the cake with a moderate layer of icing to bind the stick cookies.  This is analogous to the mortar behind facade bricks in building a wall.

You could also put a drop of icing underneath the bottom, but that probably is not necessary.

Update:  I just noticed in the photo you can actually see some of the icing between the cookies, showing this is exactly how the show case cake in the photo was done.


What's the best approach to get runny-yolk sunny side up fried eggs?

Moderate heat, eggs at room temperature, non-stick egg pan (8" is good, with gently sloping sides) with a tight lid. Melt butter in the egg pan until it stops foaming. Crack your eggs into a bowl so you've got more control when you add them to the egg pan. Cook uncovered until just the bottoms of the white are set, the tops of the whites should still be transparent. Add 1Tbs water for two eggs, cover, check after 45 seconds and give the eggs a jiggle to be sure they will slide neatly out of the pan. They may be ready at this point, they may need another 30 seconds to a minute.

EDIT: I'm hungry anyway:

My pan isn't ideal, I'd rather have 8", this one is 10" but it has a lid. My eggs are at room temperature, I have butter ready and a tablespoon of water. A heat-proof rubber spatula is nice to have, but if everything goes right you don't even need it. I turn the heat to 1 click out of 10 below medium (YMMV [Your Mileage May Vary]). After giving the burner and pan a couple of minutes to heat up it should take room temperature butter about 10 seconds to fully melt and another 5 seconds to stop sizzling.

One thing that I like about cracking eggs into a bowl first is that it allows me to better center the yolks.

The whites should start to become opaque almost immediately, but they shouldn't take on any brown color or be sizzling hard, just gently. Once the bottoms of the eggs are completely opaque (this should take less than 30 seconds), add the water and cover immediately. Now the eggs are steaming.

Fortyfive seconds and a jiggle later they're just about there! (This is when I'll add salt and pepper, I'll wait until they're plated for the hot sauce I can't live without.)

10 more seconds under the lid, slide onto the plate. Voilà, completely set whites, completely runny yolks.  OOPS, I forgot the tiny bit of white on top. That's easy, using a spoon, give the eggs a quick baste of the hot butter before adding water and placing the lid.

You can also just steam the eggs until the yolks have a bit of opaque white on top with or without basting them. With practice you can control just how done you get your yolks on a scale that runs between totally runny, to creamy, to still translucent looking but nearly solid, to dry and crumbly (after piercing the yolk, usually).

Flipping is a different technique to get a very similar result.

One more quick note: You may notice that I used quite a bit of butter. That's just personal preference when my jeans are fitting just fine. You may use much less butter if you prefer, another type of fat, or even just a spray of non-stick spray (Pam). If you use a minimum amount of fat, or even none, the "check and jiggle" step becomes even more important. Make sure you can slide the eggs around in the pan. If they're sticking at all, this is when the heat-proof rubber (silicone) spatula can be very helpful.


There's nothing wrong with the way you cooked those mushrooms, you fried them to give them some color and seasoned them, which is perfectly fine. You didn't mess them up, you just don't like them. No matter how you prepare them you probably still won't like the flavor, there's nothing wrong with that, it's just how you are.


How can I reheat oats in the minimal time without microwave?

No, I don't see how you can do better.

To heat something quickly, you need quick heat transfer. Water is the most efficient liquid in the kitchen to use for that, and its maximum temperature is 100 C. You're already using water -> oats heat transfer at its maximum speed.

If you were to use a liquid which can be heated to higher temperatures, you'd need to switch to oil. But then you'd be deep frying the oats, which is not only messy, but also changes the flavor a lot.

Then you could just try radiant heat + convection: an oven. But if you want the oven to work quicker than boiling water, you'll have to have a very hot oven, like a commercial pizza oven or an Aga, already running at full temperature before you stick the oats in. It's not practicable in most home settings.

There is one possibility: that you are already using the most efficient method available, but are using it wrong. I didn't understand exactly why you are adding extra water and then waiting for it to evaporate. Have you tried using less water and waiting for shorter time? Is it that your oats were cooked with too little water the first time, or parcooked to too early a stage, or what's the problem there?