Try a magnetically stirred milk frother

They use a small jug sitting on top of a heating element, with a rotating magnet below the heater. A small magnetic stirrer dropped into the jug therefore spins, and froths the milk, nearly as well as a steamer does

The Nespresso one is crap


What makes oil stick to the pan so bad that it is so difficult to wash out?

As I understand it, when you combine high heat and vegetable oil you get a fairly stable polymer (much like a plastic or resin).  The polymer bonds with the surface (which is porous), and results in robust surface. This is what we use to season cast iron cookware, but it's less desirable on stainless and other lighter coloured hardware.

You can prevent the coating from forming by never allowing he oil to maintain a high temperature for long periods by itself.  Keeping food in contact with the pan will both help keep the temperature down, and reduce the chance of the oil bonding with the steel.

Cleaning the oil off once it's formed is usually pretty simple: add water (or soda water) and heat for 10-15 minutes. Often the oil will wipe out (or need mild scrubbing with an appropriate scrubbing pad).  You should not have to use steel wool (or a caustic cleaner), both of which can damage the smooth surface of many pans.


What's the benefit of chilling my cookie dough before baking?

Anecdotally, the difference is in the spread.

When tested, this is confirmed, along with it affecting the browning and the texture.

When you start with cold dough, the outer edges of the cookie start to firm up before the middle has warmed up a lot. This means it will start crusting (and browning) before the fat in the middle starts to spread out. The cookies are taller and have a smaller footprint and (if not overbaked) will be nicely chewy in the center.

There's a really nice guide about it on King Arthur Flour's blog.

  The cookies pictured above are the same size, weight-wise. But look at the difference in spread – the cookie dough that was refrigerated spread less.

  The cookie dough without refrigeration also browned less.

As you can see, there's a big difference even in only a thirty minute time in the fridge and again, a nice improvement after sixty minutes.

The author compared cookies as old as ten days but noted diminishing returns the longer they waited.

What's happening? Well, the blog states:

  1. Chilling cookie dough controls spread.
  Chilling cookie dough before baking solidifies the fat in the cookies. As the cookies bake, the fat in the chilled cookie dough takes longer to melt than room-temperature fat. And the longer the fat remains solid, the less cookies spread.
  In addition, the sugar in the dough gradually absorbs liquid. If you bake the dough immediately, before sugar has a chance to absorb much liquid, that liquid remains “free” in the dough, and promotes spread. Think of this in terms of thin vs. thick pancake batter: the more liquid in batter, the more it spreads, right? Same with cookies.

  2. Chilling cookie dough concentrates flavor.
  As the dough chills, it gradually dries out, concentrating the flavors of all the ingredients. Think of watered-down lemonade, vs. lemonade with less water: dull flavor vs. bright, tangy flavor. Same with cookies.
  Something else happens as the dough rests: part of the flour breaks down into its component parts, including a simple carbohydrate, sugar. Thus, since sugar is a flavor enhancer (like salt), the cookies may taste more flavorful, as well as sweeter.

  3. Chilling cookie dough changes texture.
  Again, it’s not really the chilling, but the dough gradually drying out, that’s responsible for texture change. The drier the dough, the more concentrated the sugar.  And a higher percentage of sugar creates cookies with chewy/crisp (rather than soft/doughy) texture.

So, allowing the ingredients to rest lets them absorb some of the liquid, gives you less spread, taller, browner cookies. Now, in your case, browning probably isn't an issue, but you do want a nice chewy texture, which chilling your batter will do. Based on the article, you probably don't have to wait the full four hours but it might be interesting to give it a try and see how your cookies change after baking at different times to see if you can only wait an hour rather than four.

Note, because it's not only the chilling factor that affects your outcome, it's not only about getting the dough cold, so it probably wouldn't speed up the process with identical outcomes if you shaped the cookies before chilling the dough. If the water absorption is a big part of it, the surface area to volume ratio isn't going to affect the speed (probably).

This blog was specifically about chocolate chip cookies... your cookies pose an additional concern when it comes to spread. If the dough is really sticky, rolling the dough into a ball and into the powdered sugar will be difficult when the dough is warm. Chilling it will make the dough more manageable.

Plus, with the powdered sugar coating, you want to reduce spread so that you get the nice crevasses without them being too huge. If the cookie spreads less, you'll get narrower breaks in the powdered sugar. It may also prevent the dough from absorbing the powdered sugar so that you get the good contrast you're looking for.


It is absolutely worth adding ground pork or veal. I usually use a leaner ground steak and compensate with a fatty ground pork (shoulder is good) - fat = flavour.

Another tip is to take your time. Many people try and cook bolognese in half an hour, but considering ground meat is usually made with tougher cuts, you end up with tough meat and under-developed flavours. Use plenty of onions and garlic, brown your meat well, use good wine, stock, tomatoes and herbs (thyme, rosemary and bay) and gently simmer that bad boy for at least 3 hours. For ultimate flavour, cook it the day before and let the flavours marry overnight.


I suspect that their banana pudding, even if made from off-the-shelf pudding mix, was made with significantly less liquid than called for on the box. The whipped cream will lend looseness to the mixture even if the starch gel in the pudding is quite thick.

Note the cleanly-defined scoops taken out of the bucket on the left. That pudding is thick.

BTW, I don't think it's necessary or advisable to use much cream in the pudding. The milkfat will break up the gel, but you want a strong gel to maintain the texture. Likewise, while I see your motivation for stabilizing the whipped cream with gelatin, I actually doubt it's necessary because of the starch gel. I could be wrong here, though -- I don't have very good instincts for these complicated emulsions.


Did extra insulation cause ice crystals in frozen mac & cheese?

Properly wrapped, the extra insulation would not have been the cause of higher than normal ice formation (freezer burn).

What I suspect might have happened here is that putting it outside in the cold caused all of the steam to condense on the surface of your mac & cheese, resulting in you bagging damper than usual mac & cheese.


Which BBQ grill is better: cast iron or steel

Assuming you are talking about different types of grill grates:

Choosing Grill Grates

In general, cast-iron gives you better heat retention (flip-side: slower preheating) and better non-stick behavior if well seasoned. However maintenance with cast-iron can be a bit of a hassle. You have to develop and maintain seasoning and also take precautions against rust.

Stainless steel does not rust and is easier to maintain, however it is less non-stick and won't give you the same grill marks that you get with cast-iron.

Ceramic coated cast-iron is supposed to be a good compromise, however, I really hated the ones I had as they were very hard to clean and the coating eventually cracked, rusted AND chipped off.

tl;dr - If you are willing to put in the maintenance, cast-iron is generally the superior choice. If you aren't, go for high quality stainless steel grates (like these) -- you won't be missing all that much.


What is the best temperature to roast a spatchcock chicken?

I use a fairly high heat of 500F (260C) to render fat and crisp skin (after chicken has been air drying in the refrigerator overnight). Most of the time, for me, a whole chicken takes about an hour and 15 minutes.  Depending on size, a spatchcocked bird will take about an hour.  Use a thermometer to gauge your preferred doneness.


Would ground "popcorn meal" differ from regular corn meal?

Interesting question. so I pulled out a hot air popper (you wouldn't want to use a oil popper to try this.) and put some popped dry corn into a food process and let-her-rip. I wouldn't call the results "masa" but it might be usable for an ingredient in a breading.

I call your attention to the book "POPCORN". It has a nice collection of recipes which include popcorn, and in no case does the author suggest reducing popcorn to corn meal, so I suspect the answer is, "Yes, ground popcorn meal would differ from ground corn."


Is kangaroo meat safe to eat raw such as kangaroo tartare?

It seems the meat is not farmed at all but entirely "harvested" in the wild
http://www.daff.gov.au/agriculture-food/meat-wool-dairy/ilg/industries/kangaroos.
So it should be treated as a game meat rather than a farmed one - i.e. best to cook it.

Here's advice from the Department of Primary Industries saying you should never feed raw kangaroo to your dog, so I'd err on the side of caution
http://new.dpi.vic.gov.au/pets/pests-and-diseases/health-care


How long do I have till my chili garlic sauce spoils?

This is absolutely unsafe - it's a botulism risk. This isn't a matter of it going bad in the sense of becoming obviously spoiled and unpleasant to eat, it's a matter of it being a safety risk - it could look totally fine, but send you to the hospital.

What you're making should not be kept unrefrigerated at all. It's safe for short periods refrigerated, or essentially indefinitely in the freezer. The FDA's ultimate conclusion in this document on vegetables and herbs in oil is 4 days in the refrigerator. They do say that 10 days in the refrigerator is safe if it's 3-5C, and the recommended fridge temperatures are indeed 40F/4C or below, but many fridges are warmer than that, at least in spots (nearly 30%, according to that paper).

We have a past question, Botulism, Garlic, Cold pressed Olive oil and mason jars, covers in more detail exactly why this sort of thing is a botulism risk. It is possible to make it safe with just garlic and oil, through a very specific process (see for example How to make garlic oil in a safe way...tomorrow), and the same also works with certain herbs and oil, but that won't help you with your chili-garlic sauce. As the PDF linked from there says:

  The acidification procedure was developed for garlic, basil, oregano, and rosemary. Do not use it with other vegetables or herbs until the
  appropriate research has been conducted.

When confronted with this sort of advice, people often point out that things like this have been made by people all the time in the past, and they never got sick. It's true, many people never got sick. But it's also true that people have gotten severely ill from this sort of thing. Unless you want to take that risk, you have to go with the strict guidelines.


Why are we frying in the oil, but not in any other liquid? (besides the temperature)

We do cook over 100C in a pressure cooker, but not enough to brown food, as this would take very high pressures. It probably wouldn't be safe or economical at home, and doesn't have enough of an advantage over ovens (which may use steam) for it to be worth doing industrially.

Solubility is a big factor, for example salt dissolves in water but not oil, and capsaicin (chilli heat) dissolves in oil but not water. Hydration is important to the texture of many foods (starch, for example). Cooking in oil reduces hydration, while cooking in water increases it, so I doubt you could make chips (fries) in water even at 200C. New techniques would need to be developed unless this extreme pressure cooking was just a way of speeding up existing methods.


If pickling destroys Vitamin C, how is Sauerkraut rich in Vitamin C?

Vitamin C is destroyed by heat and light. If you use a preservation method that relies on heating the sauerkraut at any stage (hot pickling liquid, water bath or pressure canning the jars) then some vitamin C is destroyed. Exactly how much depends on the process: not all vitamin C is lost immediately so different processes will have different amounts of vitamin C left. And if you use a preservation method that doesn't rely on heat like lacto-fermentation, no vitamin C is lost to heat (some may be lost to light, depending on how you store it).


Why aren't my macarons as soft as professional ones?

I believe this has more to do with different ingredients in the "professional" category.  Modern professional bakeries(whether industrial sized or not) often have access to a wide variety of additives, some of which are not even required to be listed on the "ingredients" list specifically.  This varies widely by country; common euphimistic examples of such ingredients in a very general sense include words like "spices", "emulsifiers", "softeners", "stabilizers", "anti-caking agents", or "preservatives".

I would suspect a hydrophilic substance first.  Commonly used "softeners" are various plant based gums and fiber.  Think guar gum, xanthan gum, inulin, cellulose, or psyllium husk.  A cookie which I know to be very high in one or more of these softeners is known across the U.S.A. as "Chips A'hoy Chewy".  These cookies tend to stay softer in almost any condition, from frozen to relatively dried out/stale, than home made cookies.

All of these potential ingredients are available for the home chef today(including many I have not mentioned), but would not be typically found in your kitchen or at your local grocer.  You would want to look at a shop or online vendor specializing in "molecular gastronomy".

One of the things I do with cookies in general(which would not work very well with anything frozen, but I feel the need to mention anyway) is to place a slice of bread into an airtight storage container with fresh cookies after the cookies have cooled to room temperature.  This will keep almost any kind of cookie softer than other storage methods, while the slice of bread will seem to have dried out significantly by comparison.  This precludes the use of additives entirely.  I suspect this probably also carries a higher spoilage risk, due to the addition of humidity, although I've not had any issues with cookies spoiling this way before they are eaten(usually within about 5 days).  Refrigeration would help tremendously if there was a desire to keep them far longer, although I would not recommend freezing.

All that said, I have little experience with macaroons, specifically, so your experience may vary.


Can one bake a cake with a cooked egg instead of a raw one?

I would say no. The function of the egg in the cake is to go in raw, mix with the other stuff, and once the raw egg has penetrated and coated the other ingredients thoroughly, bind it all together with that bouncy, sticky solidified eggy property which comes into existence as the egg cooks.

Cooking the egg first all by itself, then adding to a cake would be like drying some crazy glue, then grinding up that hardened crust and putting the resulting powder between two things you want to stick together. The gluing action is all over when the glue has dried.


Cryopacked pork (I am assuming that's the product you have) can stink when you open the package...apparently companies have lost a lot of money due to unnecessary returns of this product. If it was cryopacked, and the package's integrity remains unquestioned, AND if the smell is like eggs and that's your concern, well it's supposed to be safe...I however won't buy cryopacked pork again just because I don't want to second guess myself and wonder if I am going to make myself sick...

so as you can see, this is NOT a definitive answer really...

My answer is "it's supposed to be safe, but I still don't like it"


This is perfectly normal. Many people believe the flavor is most concentrated in those crystallized bits. Embrace it!

In fact, you want to avoid washing off the konbu before using it so as not to lose the white powder, which results from natural, slow, drying.

WiseGeek on Konbu
Practically Edible on Konbu


According to IndiaCurry, it should be stored in containers opaque to ultraviolet light for long term storage:

  The UV rays from sunlight, florescent lights, and other sources
  accelerate oxidation process. The storage container container for ghee
  must be opaque to filter out UV rays. Preferably ghee must be stored
  in a dark place

I was unable to find credible sources with more detailed information that indicate exactly how this affects storage life.  In fact, it was hard to find any references at all--most were far more concerned with keeping it from being exposed to air (oxygen).

However, as it is such an easy thing to arrange--just put the jar in a cabinet for example, or use an amber glass jar--that it seems worth doing.  My guess is that in practice, unless you are using your ghee very slowly, or have an extraordinarily large amount, that it makes very little difference, but again its easy, so why not?

I did find lots of references to using ghee in lamps--this is the power of Google! :-)


Is it safe to eat chicken that is still frozen?

Aaronut's answer is fine, I'm just coming at it from a slightly different assumption.

Sandwiches like these are common in gas stations and convenience stores in the US. You can buy them in multi-packs at grocery stores or places like Costco.

In multi-packs they are sold frozen, in convenience stores they have often been defrosted.

They're perfectly safe still frozen as they were fully cooked before being quickly frozen and presumably stayed frozen until they were defrosted in the refrigerator before sale (if they're purchased thawed).

The only way these would pose a food safety risk is if they were thawed and left in the "danger zone" for longer than 2 hours, either somewhere along the distribution chain (highly unlikely), or after purchase. That's being very conservative, BTW.


How can I put a hot dog in a bun without splitting the bun?

Steaming them will soften them up for your dogs. The quick-and-easy way to do that would be to microwave (as another user suggested), or just over a pot of water briefly until they're soft enough


Why did my thai curry have a bitter aftertaste?

Disclaimer: I have no experience with low FODMAP diets. But it seems quite a challenge to make a Thai curry without garlic or shallots in any case!

In Thai cooking, you typically want to have very strong flavours, and a balance of the basic flavours: bitter, sweet, salt, sour, and umami. So perhaps your problem isn't so much having a strong bitter taste (which isn't appreciated as much in western cuisine as it is in Thai cuisine), as a relative lack of the other basic tastes?

I would suggest that you may be missing out especially on salt and umami, because you haven't used any fermented fish sauce (which is typically very salty) for seasoning, nor fermented shrimp paste ("gapi", which is very umami) in the curry paste. One teaspoon of salt is not very much; in commercial curry pastes you may find as much as 25% salt.

Other things that come to mind (which may or may not be relevant to your issue):

Don't use lime juice in the curry paste; but do use a bit of lime zest. It's fine to use lime juice for seasoning while cooking the curry, though. I typically use a bit more than one teaspoon, perhaps two or three. But it all depends on the balance of the dish: as a rule of thumb, add (palm) sugar for sweetness, fish sauce for saltiness, and lime juice for sourness, until you can taste all basic tastes, without any one overwhelming the others.
Don't include the coriander leaves and top part of the stems in the curry paste, only the roots and lower part (about an inch) of the stems. You can use the leaves to garnish the dish.
Don't use spring onions in the paste, as they make a poor substitute for shallots; they're also better used for garnishing the dish.
Use galangal instead of ginger, if you can find it (if I can't get fresh galangal, I won't even bother trying to make my own curry paste).

Hope this helps!


Unless you are not storing produce in the vegetable drawer (aka crisper) you want moisture there. It keeps your produce from drying out. If there is excessive moisture in the crisper , make sure you are not putting in overly wet produce. You can line the drawer with paper towels to absorb excessive water and to help maintain a even humidity.


If you cover it well before refrigeration, it should be no problem.


Kneading bread with arthritic hands-any tips?

There are a few options:

Most bread machines have an option to knead/mix only - you can then take the dough out and shape and bake as you would if you were doing things by hand.

You can also get "dough hooks" for most stand mixers (e.g. Kenwood or Kitchenaid), these are a bent arm or corkscrew sort of shape designed to knead the dough, and are what is often used in commercial kitchens: here's a picture of a Kitchenaid one. Edit: Dough hooks also come with some hand mixers, but I can't imagine that this would be any better for arthritic hands than kneading unaided.

You can also make "no-knead" breads, these might be quick breads such as scones or soda bread, which basically you mix the dough, shape, then bake. Or they might be a yeast based bread, where all you do is mix the ingredients, incubate to rise, then bake. These last ones are a specialist area of bread baking, so I don't have any advice on good recipes. I would google for highly rated ones.

@Joe reminded me in a comment, there are also a ton of recipes for food processors, which basically mix and knead in the the processor. This does not require a special blade, just the standard sharp metal blade.


How to to prepare red deer haunch without using high temperature, so that its not dry?

As far as i'm concerned the secret is low temperature and patience. First of all, let's state that when cook a piece of meat as lean as red deer haunch, it is truly hard work to avoid a dry texture, given how little fat there is in your base product.

The way I handle this type of cut is to quickly sear it and then put it in an oven below boiling temperature for a LONG time. Just keep it at about 90 C and it will be good after about 5 hours (and still be good after 7)

Make sure the meat is covered in stewing liquid and there should not be any loss of moisture from evaporation. Give it that much time and the meat will become tender and moist despite missing the fat.

What I do to avoid watery flavour is to spoon some of the stewing liquid (about a liter) out into a separate pan an hour before serving and reducing it all the way down. You can then work it up to a sauce to have a creamy texture tasting like a concentrated versionof the stewing liquid. This will work regardless of the what you put in the stewing liquid, and does not require alcohol or sugar to produce a flavorsome sauce.


Baker percentage should help you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baker_percentage
For baguettes the baker percentage is between 73% and 80%. If you knead your dough too much or let the yeast proliferate too long then the gluten breaks down. Find a recipe that suits you.


In what situation could we use black garlic?

EDIT: Black garlic starts out as regular garlic and is put through a fermentation process that besides changing the color of the cloves to black, also mellows the flavor and reduces the sharpness associated with raw garlic.  The texture of the cloves become very soft, also.  While I have never used nor eaten black garlic, a website, linked below, is dedicated to everything related to black garlic, including how to use it in recipes.

Blackgarlic.com has a wealth of information on how this fermented version of garlic is made, its unique qualities including taste, texture and chemical properties, where to get it and...recipes!

http://blackgarlic.com/

NEW EDIT: And to balance out the linked info. so there's a non-commercial reference, I found this very in-depth article on black garlic's attributes that includes a reference to a scientific study: http://www.wellbeing.com.au/newsdetail/Black-Magic-Garlic_000553


My pizza dough has risen for a second time

It does that if it gets the chance. You can either roll it thinner again or (my preference) have a slightly thicker, fluffier pizza,which may take a minute or two longer to cook. If you knock it down with your knuckles after rolling it tends to spring most of the way back.

This, by the way, is almost inevitable if you cook pizza with children as they slow down all the prep. If you really want a very thin crispy pizza you have to work rather fast once it's rolled out (and use a very hot oven so the yeast is killed as soon as it goes in).


Is there a way to forestall vanilla bean marrow falling to bottom of crème?

Personally the only way I've ever achieved a good suspension of vanilla in my Brûlée's is by cooking the custard over a bain-marie until thick and... custard like. Once it's nice and thick I'll then pour it into my molds and then bake them for 10-15 min at around 110°c just to finish off. Be very careful not to over cook them the last thing you want, after all that stirring over the bain-marie, is curdled eggs.

The extra thickness of your custard helps stop the vanilla seeds sinking to the bottom. However, you will still get a little sink-age.

The trick for Pannacotta, is to stir them as they begin to set. Or to whip them after they have set and then stick them back in their molds and chill again. This also helps make your Pannacotta lighter and aerated.


Sticky, tacky texture with less sweetness?

You could use corn starch.
People use corn starch to thicken thin sauces and get them to adhere better.  I add it to
try to rescue gravy when I have added more liquid than the roux can handle.  I add it to stir fry with lots of vegetables in an effort to get the liquid cooked off the vegetables to congeal into a sticky sauce that is not all left in the bottom of the pan / bowl.   When you cook down something with corn starch it gets gooey and tacky as you describe.  But corn starch is not sweet.
Try making a sauce with corn starch and the flavorings you like.  I have used a sauce pan for this.  Whisk in some and then some more.  When you get the consistency of the sweet sauces you are used to, try using it to coat ribs or chicken.
Note: taste it first.  The corn starch sauces look great but can be astonishingly flavorless.


Can I use a regular pan instead of a cast iron skillet?

The answer is that it depends.  Is the recipe for the stovetop or for an oven?  If it is for an oven, make sure that your pan is oven safe to the appropriate temperature.

While your recipe will likely work fine with a normal pan, it won't develop the same kind of crispy exterior that it might with cast iron.


What is the difference between a macaron and an amaretti biscuit?

According to this article the main difference is that French macaroons are usually sandwiched together and enjoyed alone while amaretti (pre-cursor to French macaroons) are used both as a cookie and often as an ingredient.  Both are prepared from almond paste and meringue.


The usual explanation given is that adding butter to the fruit and sugar before you cook it will reduce (or even eliminate) the foaming.

My guess is that the small amount of proteins in the fruits create the foam.  As you heat the fruit, the proteins open up into strands that get tangled up and help stabilize the bubbles into a foam. Adding the butter (a fat) helps prevent this tangling.


Why are there caraway seeds in rye bread?

Caraway seeds in rye bread is - in some parts of the world - a tradition.

Generally speaking, certain flavour profiles are traditional in different cuisines, not ubiquitous (see your baguette counter example), for many types of food. For rye bread, taking European areas into account where there is a "rye bread tradition", Northern Europe (Scandinavia, Northern Germany) uses caraway, Central Europe is undecided and Southern Tyrol (the German-speaking parts of Italy) would use blue fenugreek instead, other regional cuisines leave their rye breads plain.

The reason why particularly rye breads tend to be "spiced" - as opposed to wheat-dominant breads - is that rye breads can be harder to digest and needs a sourdough step to be baked into proper bread. And seeds like caraway, fennel seeds or the blue fenugreek mentioned above have traditionally been used to aid digestion.

If you are buying rye bread in other parts of the world, especially the US, the predominant group of immigrants from Europe may as well have brought their specific "rye bread flavour profile" with them.


Would it be possible to make a chili that drew its influence from eastern cooking and used curry as a base?

It sounds to me like a curry with beans, not a chilli with curry powder.
Apart from splashing in soggy nan at the end, which I don't think is going to work, it sounds like it would make a decent aromatic curry.

You don't mention quantities, but I'd go heavy on the onion & hold the stock back to give the end result a 'firmer' gravy, which would mean you have less mopping up to do. I'd also be tempted to get your spice blend in with or even before the onions to enhance the flavours. Maybe add a touch more towards the end to re-lift the aromatics, which will have sunk in a bit over a few hours' cook.

Serve in soup-plates [flat dishes] and use the nan to pick up the curry, rather than attempt to sit the whole thing on a rice bed. If your curry base is firm enough, you could lay out the nans/mini-wraps on the edge of the plate right at service, without giving them time to go soggy.


Legume-based pasta and phytohaemagglutinin

As far as I can see, phytohaemagglutinin should be mostly present in red kidney beans or fava beans. (from wikipedia and https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3153292/)

I looked at Tolerant Food product list on their web site and they only use lentils (red and green) and Chickpea products.

So, you should be good; but in any cases, if you feel unsafe, don't eat them.


Are any kind of wood-chips good enough for smoking?

You can't just pick up any old wood chips but you can get ones for cooking at the hardware store. Even Home Depot or Lowes should have wood-for-smoking available.

You have to be careful since if you get chips made out of treated lumber for example the resulting smoke could be poisonous. Probably not something you want to eat. You also want to avoid poisonous wood or trees.

Warnings aside, you can use just about any non-poisonous hardwood to make woodchips.  Just make chunks or chips out of nice dry seasoned logs.  Usually, people use wood with interesting favors to add such as fruit tree woods (apple, pear, cherry). Other popular woods are mesquite, hickory, or maple.


Should rice cooker bowls be refrigerated?

When I had one it was non stick aluminum which is something I'd happily put in the fridge. This seems to be common. The bowl is oversized for the amount of rice you'd want to chill, so it dries out. Anyway you should cool rice quickly, such as with cold water which would then need draining, at which point you might as well use a smaller container. I wouldn't usually have the fridge space for a rice cooker bowl.


Basically, you have to either pour the hot one over the cold one, or dip cold in hot.
Freeze the first solid section in the moulds, then set on a wire baking tray & pour over your second layer.  This method will bind to the wire if you're not careful.
Alternatively, dip the cold in the hot & lay on a non-stick surface. This method tends to spread out a bit, so leave plenty of room around each chunk. Alternatively, don't dip to full-depth to allow for some run-off.
DaringGourmet has a recipe showing both methods, though over a different substrate - Marzipan Truffles


I cooked a brunch for a fairly high end restaurant when I was younger. They had us cook the eggs in a buffet pan on top of the griddle/grill. We used pre-cracked eggs in a carton and folded constantly until they were done. Then we would transfer them into a fresh buffet pan before setting them out. They did it this way because it presented better than just baking in the oven. They look more like the scrambled eggs you get per order this way.


Is lemon rind supposed to feel sticky when being grated?

Limonene, a major component of lemon oil, is not very water soluble, and will leave a sticky residue on your hands til you wash with soap and water.


How to prepare a ginger lime drink mixer?

Not sure whether you will have a bartender or not but as a former Bartender here is how I would approach it.  You'll have to experiment in advance for the flavor you are trying to achieve.  Since everything you are working with is sharp I would make a ginger simple syrup. 1/2 water 1/2 household sugar and probably about a tablespoon of fresh grated ginger. Heat until all the sugar is melted and then let it steep until you are are happy with the ginger flavor. bottle it and keep it in the refrigerator.

I would start with:

1/4 oz ginger syrup
1 oz Whiskey
splash of fresh lime juice
garnish with a bruised basil leaf.

and adjust the measures until you get what you are looking for.

If you are looking for something sparkling try:

1 oz whiskey
2 oz ginger ale
1/2 oz Rose's Lime juice

with the same garnish.


Why did my bread bake on the top like spongs and higher than the bucket in the bread maker?

I couldn't say what exactly caused it, but yeast is a living organism, and recipes are based around average rising times and rising volumes. It could have been a fluke, or it could be that something in your particular combination of parameters is prone to cause this result regularly.

Luckily, you don't need to know the actual cause. You can just scale down the ingredients to make a smaller batch. Continue making half or 2/3 of the recipe to find out if it regularly fills your machine, and if yes, use that amount for a loaf. If it starts making very small loaves, it must have been a one-off event, and you could return to using more ingredients at a time.

Also, consider switching to weight measurements. Volumentric measurements are notorious for being very imprecise in baking, so they are much more likely to produce unwanted results.


This is called the "roe".  More on wikipedia: Scallop

  Red roe is that of a female, and
  white, that of a male.

It's optional if you want to eat it, personally it don't like the taste.

More on (ahem) Yahoo Answers


Most pure soap is safe to eat in small amounts, but the food won't taste great. Fairy Soap, from some brief research, is safe to ingest in small quantities, but I wouldn't recommend it. Bleach in very small and diluted concentrations won't hurt you, but it's very toxic if larger quantities are ingested, particularly undiluted. It is a very strong base. If you think you put (any) bleach in your food I would throw it away. If you think you put soap in your food, I'd also throw it away. The maxim I live by is: "When in doubt, throw it out."


You can call the manufacturers and ask them if it is "INDUCTION READY" The packaging & the insert with specifications & instructions should say that. Youu can ask the customer service at Amazon too, may be they will have the answer. But I also located  an answer on the internet, which I am including the link: amazon.com/H36009-Stainless-Steel-Stockpot-16-Quart/forum/Fx7ZGB2U7J21S8/-/1?_encoding=UTF8&asin=B008RF6310


00 is extra-fine flour, the most refined grade. Here's a useful page for more about the old flour grading system. Other than pasta I use it for thickening sauces, and I sometimes make pizza dough with it, although I can't tell the difference between using 00 and good quality bread flour. I'd use 00 for Gnocci certainly as the chefs do, but most home cooks just use plain flour and seem to get good results.

Basically, if you have it or can get it use it, if not plain flour is fine.


I think what happened here, and I've seen this with a few woks - is too much oil. You can see the pooling issues at the bottom where likely you've got some flakes that might come off.
The seasoning process is best not rushed, and when you apply the oil - if you can detect more than a subtle sheen - that's too much oil. It may take a few attempts to get a good seasoning but using more oil is not the solution. I'd give this a good scrub with maybe some steel wool or a scouring pad and try again but with much less oil. You can also rub the pot (carefully) with a paper towel while it's heating to ensure the very thin coating of oil stays somewhat uniform.
Woks, due to their shape tend to get some oil pooling and if you're wiping down while it comes to temp and polymerization occurs then you should get less pooling.

Editing - Adding from comments, heating the wok upside down is a great idea. To be honest I often do this on the stovetop, inverting the wok over a red hot element - ymmv.


Proper proportion of cream of tartar to baking soda for snickerdoodles

If they're tangier than you'd like that would be due to the acidity of the cream of tartar.  While most recipes for Snickerdoodles do in fact us cream of tartar and baking soda for a homemade form of baking powder (most likely due to the fact that snickerdoodles are fairly "old"-style cookie), a few I looked at are using baking powder and no cream of tartar.

Here are a few things to know and a suggestion:

Acidic doughs do not spread easily and do not brown easily.  Using the combination of cream of tartar in the 2:1 ratio w/ baking soda for leavening not only causes them to puff but with the higher acidic ratio it is also likely to help in keeping them more "cakey" and prevent them from browning as much.

You could try cutting back the cream of tartar slightly and seeing if that helps (possible drawback could be the soda making a more pronounced bitter soapy taste if there isn't enough acidity).

Or

Replace the cream of tartar and baking soda with baking powder.  Baking powder by volume isn't as powerful as baking soda because of the fact it contains soda, two dry acids, and cornstarch.  1 teaspoon of baking powder will leaven 1 cup of flour (vs. 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda to leaven a cup of flour).  If your recipe calls for 2 cups of flour then use 2 teaspoons of baking powder and cut out the cream of tartar and baking soda.


Your 4 observations:

Quick evaporation first showed up when finely divided particles entered into the situation
The finer the frozen food was crushed the faster the evaporation
Not grinding particularly aggressively (i.e. probably friction-heat from grinding not generated faster as the experiment progressed)
Toward the end of the experiment evaporation completed before any grinding even took place

sound like your speculation: "Maybe something to do with the effective surface area increasing as the frozen food is ground into smaller and smaller pieces?" is on the right track.
The particles of frozen banana & peanut butter provide lots of places for the boiling of the LN2 to occur, just like if you dump a bunch of salt into almost-boiling water, it suddenly boils up like crazy where the grains hit the water.


What is the most effective method to mince candied ginger?

Tried a lot of ways, grating, cutting with knife and food processor.  Huge fails.  This worked, use thinner pieces of ginger.  Cut with clean scissors half way up in small rows.  Do not cut all the way to the end.  Turn the ginger and cut on the side (criss crossing).  Clean your scissors with warm soapy water and a brush often (tried oil, didn't work as well).  Also add some sugar to cut ginger to keep it from re-sticking.  Works like a charm.


Which mode for baking cake in microwave?

There is not a straight "yes" or "no" answer to your question.

First, an oven which cannot turn off its microwaves cannot replace a normal oven. Any recipe meant to be baked in a real oven will fail if it is exposed to microwaves. So alternatives 1,3 and 4 are out. Option 2 also won't work, even if the microwaves are truly turned off, because the cake will not rise and stay raw in the middle. You cannot bake a cake without a bottom coil.

For the "yes" part, there are recipes which are specifically designed for microwaves. They are more muffin-like, and most of them have to be eaten while hot. Also, if you are making them, you have to give up on the whole variety of texture which is possible with cakes and make this one specific type. But if that's enough for you, do it. You will have to search recipe databases for "microwave cupcake". Just don't try to take a random cake recipe and bake it in the microwave.

If you try a microwave specific recipe, then the pure microwave setting will be the correct one. The power choice will be given by the recipe.

For some more detail, see also this question, this question and this question.


How can I make my cheese sauce creamier?

I know it seems that mac 'n cheese should be a simple thing for a beginner cook to make. It isn't. Without a solid recipe, even experienced cooks can royally screw up mac 'n cheese. Generally it starts with a bechamel, also known as a white sauce. You're right, that starts with a roux which requires flour, or at least some kind of starch. Once you've got a good white sauce, then you add the shredded cheese. You're right again, pre-shredded cheese is not a good idea. Pre-shredded cheese is covered with cellulose so it doesn't clump up in the bag. That doesn't make for smooth melting.

Alton Brown's stovetop recipe is about as simple as homemade mac 'n cheese gets. I would recommend mastering this then moving on to (written and highly rated) recipes that start with a bechamel. And grate your own cheese. AB's Stovetop Mac 'n Cheese.

One more thing - Cheese sauce for mac 'n cheese is one application for which high quality (read that "expensive") cheese may not be your best choice. High quality, expensive cheeses tend to be aged, making them melt with a texture you might consider grainy. Some people go so far as to use (gasp) American cheese or even (double gasp) Velveeta for smooth melting. I'm not sure that I'd recommend going that far except for pre-teen palates. For me a happy medium (so to speak) is store-brand medium cheddar. AB's recipe calls for sharp cheddar, but he has other ingredients that ameliorate potential graininess.


What is the sous vide botulism risk if storing meat post-cooking at home?

I'm not sure about your question 3, but as I thought about 1 and 2, I figured the swings would not be too big if you don't open your fridge for extended periods of time: how much air is really exchanged between the inside and the outside if you open your fridge door for 5 seconds - which already gives you plenty of time to get something out?

I figured the internets would have to know something about this so I set about searching for some graphs. Turns out Berkeley has a class that includes an experiment where students measure the temperature in their fridge over a 24 hr period. Most graphs look somewhat like the one on this page, where indeed the swings in temperature from the hysteresis window are larger than occasional increases because of opening the door.

I found two outliers. The first one is from a fridge catering to a large group of students, and the article suggests someone might have put a warm dish in the fridge. The second one is potentially very interesting - the author says she thinks the big upswing is from a wall defrosting cycle in the attached freezer, but that meal time opening of the fridge door didn't do anything to the temperatures.

So it looks like there are only two potential causes for raising the temperature of your fridge by more than a degree or so:

putting hot or warm food in your fridge;
having your fridge do a wall defrosting cycle for the attached freezer.

Other swings are negligible when compared to the natural operating cycle for your fridge.


Is there a non-penetrative method for checking cake doneness?

If the reason you don't want to use a toothpick is that it leaves a big hole, you can buy a cheap little item called a cake tester that is just a thin piece of wire with a little handle. It leaves such a small hole that as to be unnoticeable. As a bonus, it is quite useful for checking the doneness of vegetables. This is the one I use.


Cooking pizzas using two stones/steel vs one stone/steel in consumer oven

Having 2 stones/steels in the oven is totally workable, the top one would cook a bit faster than the bottom one but that's not a dealbreaker. 2 steels will take longer to get up to temperature than one, whether an hour is enough in your oven is not something I could say. I would suggest you get an infrared thermometer so you can take measurements and know for sure, they are cheap and take the guesswork out of it.


I dug around a bit, and most people seem to agree that this is normal caper behaviour, though no one has made any real assertion as to why, other than that capers have varying density, and the brine does not.

The usual tests for freshness (do they look/smell/taste okay?) are recommended. Brined capers should last ~9 months from the time the jar is opened, or 3 years in a dark pantry unopened.


Air Gaps In Molds Creating White Patches On De-molded Chocolate

These are not air gaps. When chocolate sets, it will shrink a little bit and bend the mold, thus creating these gaps as it sets (they are effectively vacuum gaps). This can be avoided by using a more rigid mold, that wouldn’t bend as it sets.


What are those black fibers in my mango?

It's an indication that the fruit has started to rot:

When dark spots start appearing on the side of a mango, it's starting to rot. A mango can rot from the pit, the skin, or from the non-stem end. Any black fibers also indicate that the fruit has started to rot, and at that point, you need to toss it into the trash.
From: Student's Vegetarian Cookbook For Dummies, page 301

Edit: Yes, the above is probably being overcautious in stating “any black fibers? → trash!” It's from a “Dummies” book after all. ;) I couldn't really find another good reference. But I'm sure you can make the distinction between a piece of fruit that has a small brown spot and one that's black and shriveled. Still, the color of the fibers is a result of the late ripening/rotting process of the mango, rather than a result of an earlier stage in its growth. But having eaten this mango with the one, tiny black fiber shown in her picture, I don't really expect to read Mien's obituary on this site tomorrow. ;)


Reheat it like you should reheat a pizza, in the oven in a pan with the tempurture at 325F (162C)

Regarding it being too big that it might not/will not fit into your oven because 1t is 40cm in diameter, just cut it in pieces to fit (half, quarters, etc., whatever works)


What is the lowest temperature possible (of water) to cook meat in?

The answer depends on the type of meat as well as the thickness. There are different things you need to worry about killing in different kinds of meat, and it takes a different amount of time for everything to get hot enough for long enough depending on the thickness.

Note that you generally don't want to put the meat straight in the water, since you'll lose flavor into the water (unless your goal is to make broth or soup); you'll want to put it in a sealed bag in the water. This method of cooking is called sous vide. (Yes, that means "under vacuum", but you don't actually need vacuum-sealed bags; airtight with most of the air removed will suffice.)

The best single resource I know for this is Douglas Baldwin's "A Practical Guide to Sous Vide Cooking". There are tables for fish/shellfish, poultry, and beef, pork and lamb, as well as a lot of other great information. To give you a rough idea, the temperatures in the tables go down to around 55C, and at that temperature, the times cover a huge range, from 2 hours for thin (5mm) beef, pork, or lamb, to 9.25 hours for thick (70mm) fatty fish.

That 55C is the lowest safe temperature I know of. The government-published pasteurization time tables don't go below that. It's possible lower temperatures can work too, but you'd have to start digging into published papers.

Note that there may also be thickness/size bounds. Those tables only go up to 70mm so that's all I'm confident about. It's possible you can go even thicker, but I don't think you can go on forever. Eventually things will be sufficiently thick that the amount of time spent at too-low temperature in the center of the meat before it's totally heated up can't be compensated for by time holding it at a higher temperature once it's fully heated. This would be especially true if you try to cook anything that's not totally solid, since there's more contamination on surfaces than inside meat. For example, cooking a whole chicken like this doesn't sound like a great idea.


Is it more effective to add yeast before or after kneading?

The whole idea of adding the yeast before kneading is to be able to mix it uniformly. By adding the yeast after the dough is formed, it will be mechanically more difficult to combine it and you might end up with lumps of yeastless dough. Those lumps won't rise.

I suspect your bread will have a denser, non uniform crumb.


Is it possible to cream clarified butter with sugar? Will it have the same benefits as shortening and oil?

Is it really possible to cream clarified butter [with sugar]?

Sure, why not?

  And considering that clarified butter is 100% fat, am I correct in assuming you'd get the taste of butter and also the leavening benefits of shortening if it was creamed with sugar?

You would get the taste of clarified butter (and sugar, of course), but that's somewhat different from the taste of regular butter. The "leavening benefits" of creamed butter are pretty minimal, but they'd still be there.

  And when melted, would it work just like oil?

Well, like melted clarified butter with sugar on the bottom, sure. The creaming wouldn't really have an effect here.


In the interests of science I gave this a try. Used a can of carbonated water, boiled in my kettle. There was no boiling water explosion, although I more than half expected one. It seemed to maybe boil a little faster, but that's more likely due to the fact that it's less liquid than I usually heat.

Being a tea fanatic I have a lot of flavored teas but I opted for PG Tips, figuring I would taste any difference a little more easily. I caught very little flavor difference from usual, maybe a little stronger but that could be chalked up to any number of things besides using carbonated water.

So yeah, I think carbonated water would probably work in a pinch. Probably don't put too much of it in the kettle, though. (A small part of me still suspects that had it been full it would have shot boiling water everywhere).


Panna cotta is the closest thing I know to custard that is egg-less.  Sugar, cream, milk, gelatin - should be acceptable.


Is it safe to store unopened metal cans in the refrigerator?

There's nothing wrong with storing unopened metal cans in the refrigerator. But it's pointless in terms of food safety - the whole point of canning is to make the food safe to store at room temperature. Don't waste the fridge space unless you're actually trying to chill the contents of the cans.

Now, if the cans are open, sure, that's a problem. You should transfer the food to a sealed container for storage, whether it came from a can or a pot or anywhere else.

But none of this has anything to do with acidity. Acidity doesn't make you sick, and in fact, it can help keep bacteria from growing and keep food safer. That's why a lot of canned goods have a bit of acid added, and why we pickle foods.


Pound cake sticks to pan - need alternate solution

What can I do to prevent this?

You can line the pan with parchment, including folding it into the corners, so that the pound cake never even touches the pan.
You can liberally lube the bottom of the pan and/or use parchment just in the bottom. When you remove the cake from the oven, run a knife between the pan and cake on all four sides to release it.
Before adding the batter, you can make sure the pan is very clean, i.e. no burned on bits, solidified oils, caramelized sugars, etc. Conversely, if it's a cast iron pan, you could try to season it again by coating in a neutral oil and baking it (empty) at high temperature for an hour or so.
You can use a different, possibly non-stick pan. Loaf pans often get scratched up when people use knives to cut slices of loaf cakes right in the pan, and those scratches can make it hard to get the cake to release. And just switching to a different material might make a difference for your recipe.
You can use a different recipe. Proteins and sugars both like to stick to surfaces, and moisture level plays a role too; fats should help to promote better releasing.
You can make sure you're baking at the right temperature and not under- or over-baking the cake. If the cake isn't sufficiently cooked it may be too moist on the bottom, which can prevent it from releasing. If it's overcooked, it may start to burn or at least really stick to the pan.
You can lower your standards a little. Cakes and quick breads made in loaf pans often have trouble releasing from the pan without help. Unless you want to present the cake outside the pan, it's often easiest to slice them in the pan. (Just avoid using a knife with a sharp point so you don't scratch you pan. ;-)


Split Pea Soup, but peas aren't dissolving

I make split pea soup (with a hambone, which is an unavoidable source of salt - I don't add any extra salt until the very end) pretty regularly. I don't soak the peas. It takes more like 3 or 4 hours for the peas to dissolve. It's not a gradual process either - for ages and ages there are little peas floating in broth, and you can eat one and it's soft, but they don't lose their shape, and then the next time you stop by the stove, it's a uniform puree without having done anything. Just keep simmering, is my advice.


How much overrun do I get with a compressorless home ice cream machine?

I have a 1.5 qt cuisinart prefrozen-bowl style ice cream maker.

I haven't measured it specifically but eyeballing it I would say that my overrun is 50-75%.
I know that is a wide range but it seems to change depending on recipe, additions, and how long I let it churn.

My ice cream maker has performed well for 3 years now and I recommend it.

I suspect your instant melting problem may be because you are freezing the mixture on a flat surface it has too much surface area when you scrape it off. The serious eats experiment used ice cube trays which would help reduce this problem.

Personally I haven't done experiments to try and reduce overrun because I like overrun. The air gives a nice buffer that makes the product melt more slowly, gives a smoother texture, and makes it easier to taste added flavors.

It also makes the ice cream less rich so I can eat more of it.


Can dry aging beef and curing/fermenting/drying meat be done in same environment?

No, you can't do both in the same environment because the two need very different temperatures. Dry aging beef requires a cold environment (34-38°F or 0-2°C). Curing salami needs a higher temperature (42-60°F, 6-16&dev;C) and slightly higher humidity (70-80%). Beef would rot in the temperature range you'd cure salami.


Braising boneless skinless chicken thighs?

Asking if something is worth it is opinion based, so I will address the differences between the results you get braising chicken thighs skin on and off as I've done both many times.

Chicken thigh skins have a lot of fat, when you braise the fat stays in the end result because there's nowhere for it to go, which can make it too greasy for some tastes. The chicken skin takes on a very limp consistency, which is also not to everyone's taste but you can pull it off before serving to cater to preferences. The chicken flavor is a little stronger with the skins on

Skinless gives a less fatty result, the chicken flavor is a bit less but still pretty strong. I've tried browning the meat directly, I personally don't like the result as the texture changes aren't worth the flavor you get from doing it, but you'd likely want to try it yourself.

I personally find leaving the skins on ends up being too greasy, but I like the flavor you get from browning the skins, so I've come up with a hybrid method. I skin all the chicken, then I fry off 4 skins in the braising pot until they get nice and brown, remove them and discard before adding all the chicken pieces, stock and everything else. This gives a good balance.


Can I use Chocolate Chips in place of Semi-sweet baking chocolate?

Yes, you can use the choco. chips.  One square of chocolate is normally one ounce.  Half a cup of chocolate chips is usually around three ounces.  If you are looking to use 8 squares (8 ounces), you will need about 1 and a quarter cups of the chips (maybe just a tad more).
Some folks may come on and say that the chips are sweeter, less intense in flavour, etc., but when you are in  a pinch, you can sub them out just fine.  Doubtful you will notice any difference.


Black stains on aluminium+teflon griddle

Its not ideal, but it's fine. It's burned on oil or grease. If you haven't used it for a while, it can impart a slightly musty flavour to your food.

A suggestion for cleaning - heat the pan whilst dry, then lightly spray with a cleaner & use a bristled brush to clean it whilst very hot.


Should I finish teriyaki sauce with butter?

I would not recommend doing so.

The technique you describe is known as monter au beurre, which as you might guess from the name is a common finishing method for sauces in the French culinary tradition. It translates literally to "mount with butter" and is used to provide a rich, velvety mouthfeel to both white and brown sauces.

By contrast, teriyaki sauce originates in Japanese cuisine, which is a whole different tradition. Like Chinese cuisine and other east Asian cooking, Japanese cuisine doesn't make use of much dairy, possibly due to a higher prevalence of lactose intolerance. Teriyaki sauce is generally a glaze that gets its richness from a high proportion of sugar and can be thickened with cornstarch (as seen in this fairly representative recipe).

You could try mounting a teriyaki sauce with butter, but my suspicion is that you might cause some of the sugar in the glaze to seize and crystallize by introducing cold butter (as typically recommended when mounting) and it would not be common in the culinary tradition that teriyaki comes to us from. So you can skip this step without causing any harm to your sauce or offense to any French or Japanese bystanders.


Is there a typical ratio for Herbes de Provence?

Wiki's cited entry on Herbes de Provence is interesting. The ready-made spice blend "Herbes de Provence" did not come into existence until the 1970's, as a product marketed by the French company Ducros. If there's a standard blend ratio, it would therefore be what's in the Ducros' product - though since it is a generic term rather than a trademarked one, other manufacturers and cooks have their own recipes and interpretations.

Ducros' own blend breaks down like this, according to the "My French Cuisine" blog (who also has the McCormick blend breakdown and a home-made alternative blend sourced from a French cookbook):

Rosemary (romarin) – 26%
Savory (sariette) – 26%
Oregano (origan) – 26%
Thyme (thym) – 19%
Basil (basilic) – 3%


How many calories does 8oz of de-fatted homemade chicken broth contain?

Homemade chicken stock can have a variety of densities, from being almost thick enough to cut into cubes at room temperature, to being a very thin broth, depending on the volume of chicken solids you used in making it, and how much you reduced it.   The variation is mostly going to be from gelatin.

With this level of variability, there is no reasonable way to give you a specific calorie estimate.

Live Strong estimates 75 calories per cup, but don't detail the nature of the stock they are assessing.  Still, this probably a good baseline; your product is probably in the 50-100 calorie per cup range.


Why use both milk and cream in a waffle recipe?

I can't say with absolute positivity on this, but I suspect it's because butter in Europe is often cultured, i.e. made using partially fermented cream, which changes its flavor and makes it a bit acidic. Cream is not cultured, so it has a 'neutral' flavor, the ratio of butter to cream is balanced to give the right flavor profile.


A few fly traps can help matters tremendously. Take a plastic bottle, like for water or soda, and slice it in two just below the neck. Now take the neck of the bottle, invert it, and place it inside the base of the bottle. Add a few centimeters of "bait". When I had a terrible fly problem last year, I learned that flies really like the energy drink "Rock Star". Go figure.

After a couple of days with three traps in my kitchen, I no longer had a problem.


The webadress "www.ufs.com" and the text "This unit not labeled for retail sale" tell you that this is the tea mix Unilever delivers to restaurants, senior homes etc. The rainforest alliance logo is used for coffee and black tea, so it's not herbal tea. (That the menu lists both, only means both are available, typically for the same price; without qualifier a server will always assume "tea" = "black tea".)

As this paper wrapper does not give details, you could ask your server (tip generously...!) for package details or check the ufs website. My gut feeling is that it's the standard Lipton black tea:

... or at least a very similar blend.


what noise is the water boiling pot making when boiling water?

cavitation noise - The noise produced in a liquid by the collapse of bubbles that have been created by cavitation.


What happens when you bake Winesap apples?

I went to the farmers' market last week and bought a variety of apples.

After cooking, here's the order from softest to firmest:
McIntosh, Cortland, Winesap, Yellow Delicious.

The McIntosh of course practically dissolve. If you want to make quick apple sauce, or if you like really squishy pie, they're the best.

I typically prefer Cortlands for pie, b/c they don't totally dissolve but neither do they keep their shape. I think I'm going to try Winesap, though; I think they'd work great for pie.

The Winesap apples I used got very soft, but they still held their shape. Think of it like a ripe banana or pear - it has shape, but you can squish it really easily. After 30 minutes in the oven (making apple crisp), they got soft enough that lightly pressing with a fork would squish them down. They did not stay as firm as the Yellow Delicious did and definitely not as firm as Granny Smith would.


How can I make a stable olive oil and vanilla ganache?

Disclaimer: I've never tried to make a ganache with olive oil, so take that into consideration as you read the following.

First, I have to assume that you're trying to use olive oil to replace the cream that's normally used in making ganache, perhaps to make a non-dairy ganache. If that's not right, please clarify your question.

Ganache is essentially an emulsion of cocoa butter (usually from chocolate) and cream, plus vanilla and/or other flavorings, that is allowed to cool to the point where the cocoa butter solidifies. It's the solidified cocoa butter that gives ganache it's firm texture. The greater the ratio of cocoa butter to cream, the firmer the ganache will be. If you want to replace the cream, you'll need to make sure that you replace all the components that have an effect on the emulsion. Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking explains the structure of ganache:

  The continuous phase of this mixture, the portion that permeates it,
  is a syrup made from the cream's water and the chocolate's sugar.
  Suspended in the syrup are the milk fat globules from the cream, and
  cocoa butter droplets and solid cocoa particles from the chocolate.

He doesn't say it, but I'd guess that the milk proteins from the cream might act as emulsifiers to help stabilize the emulsion, much as they do with butter.

The melting point of olive oil is obviously different from that of butterfat, but since you heat the cream in order to make ganache anyway, olive oil might still work. Given what McGee says, you'll need to make sure that you add an appropriate amount of water so that there's enough syrup to suspend the butterfat, cocoa butter, and solids. How much is an appropriate amount? Cream is usually 20-40% butterfat, so starting with a 1 part oil for 2 parts water seems reasonable. You might also need to add something that'll act as an emulsifier, like lecithin.


How do you dry homemade lollipops so that they are no longer sticky?

As far as I know, drying is not necessary the option.
In general, lollipops from the industry are coated with some edible powder, like starch. This prevents the sticking part.


Deep frying is certainly an easier way to get things crispy, but there are things you can do to get crispy batter without it.

First off is the bread crumbs. Ideally the bread should be relatively stale and therefore dry. If you blitz your own breadcrumbs, leave them out for a few hours to thoroughly dry out before you pane. You can also try using panko, which are pre-packed Japanese breadcrumbs that are very crispy. You can usually find them in supermarkets these days.

The other thing you can do is double-crumb the chicken, so flour, egg, breadcrumbs, egg, breadcrumbs. This double layer of crumb should make for a really crunchy crust.

Finally, you can pseudo-deep fry using a wok. Rather than a full pan of hot oil, just put an inch of oil in a wok and fry in that: safer and less waste. A good way of knowing when the oil is hot enough is to use a wooden chopstick. Simply put the tip into the oil and if bubbles immediately gather around it, the oil's hot enough.

Set your oven to about 120 degrees F/50 degrees C, pop a plate with some kitchen paper on it in there, and fry in batches, placing the chicken on the plate while do you the rest.

If you use this method, you could try a tempura style batter. Take 100ml of chilled soda water and mix with 140g of self-raising flour and mix well. Dust your chicken with cornflour (cornstarch), then into the batter and straight into the oil. Turn a few times to ensure even cooking - when the batter is a nice golden brown it should be done, about 5-6 minutes.


What adjustments are needed to change a pie recipe to a turnover recipe?

You may want to scale up the thickening agent, if present, should the filling be too runny. Adjustments are not typically necessary to the dough itself. From my experience with turn over or pocket pies in Vegan Pie in the Sky, they rely on the same dough recipe as the other pies (pastry crust style dough), they just get cut into a different format.

Basically speaking it is just a different format but the dough will hold together and brown appropriately. I would recommend baking on a pizza stone, but baking on a cookie sheet (with/out parchment paper) would be equally effective depending on your preference for the bottom.

You will likely follow the same baking instructions depending on the filling. Some recipes may call for a longer cooking time that extends beyond the crusts ability to bake without shielding (probably once you pass the forty minute mark). In this case, although standard pie shields won't work, you can cover the pie with aluminum foil once it has browned lightly.


Recipe calls for shortening, I want to substitute butter. Do I need to melt the butter?

No, shortening is a solid fat. This means you have to substitute another solid fat, else the recipe won't work. So, use the butter as it is.

You probably will have to bring the butter to room temperature to be workable (shortening hardens less in the fridge). Don't use the microwave, it will produce melted spots. Leave it out overnight or longer, or, in the worst case, shave it into small sheets and leave these out for an hour or so.

Your texture will differ somewhat from the original. Lard might be the better substitute for shortening.


Considering the results you're getting with medium or high heat, I would suggest you try low heat.  If it skips past the stage you're looking for, it's probably cooking much too quickly - you might occasionally take it off the heat as well, to further draw out the window of when you can find it to be just toasted, not burnt.

In addition, look for other indicators of when it's done.  If there's a time component in whatever recipe you're using, (ie, the recipe says toast 6 min) try keeping to it, even if it doesn't look golden brown yet.  Maybe keep checking throughout for that nutty scent, and pull it off the heat when you do find it.  Some foods keep cooking for a while after they're off the heat, and I'm not sure how 'brown' toasted rice can be expected to look (one of the recipes I saw mentioned "pearly rather than browned").  If the color is paler when 'done' than you're expecting, it will be very easy to overshoot.

Depending on what recipes you're using it for, you might try using rice that has been toasted for only a few minutes, see how it affects your recipe, and working your way up the amount of time you're toasting it for to get the results you want - after all, under-toasted rice should still be usable, while over-toasted sounds unpleasant.


Yes, you can mix red and white fondant to make pink fondant, red is just white that's dyed so mixing red into white will dilute the red dye. It takes a lot of dye to get a strong red color but very little to get pink, so start with 10% red to 90% white first and see how you get.


The FDA recommends cooking poultry for 15 seconds at 74°C/165 °F

This though, is a ridiculously high temperature. The food safety of chicken and turkey has long been a subject of concern because poultry can harbor Salmonella and other pathogens. There is a big gap, however, between the best scientific information on safe cooking temperatures for poultry and official guidelines for cooking poultry published by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Scientific research as of 2010, finds that poultry meat is safe to eat when cooked to 60 °C / 140 °F and held at that temperature for 20 minutes; shorter holding times are sufficient at higher temperatures.

For best bets, The Modernist Cuisine recommends cooking chicken wings sous vide at 65 °C / 150 °F  for 1 hour.

You mentioned that your current method experiences a loss of weight and hold?

It's recommended to brine wings in an alkaline salt solution before cooking sous vide. This technique - similar to that traditionally used in Kung Poa chicken - will tenderize the meat and enhances Maillard reactions (the crisping and browning).

Brine solution:

| Ingredient  | Weight | Volume          | Scaling |
|-------------|--------|-----------------|---------|
| Water       | 500g   | 500 mL / 2 cups | 50%     |
| Salt        | 35g    | 3.5 Tbsp        | 3.5%    |
| Baking Soda | 5g     | 1 tsp           | 0.5%    |
|-------------|--------|-----------------|---------|
| Wings       | 1kg    | 20 - 24 pieces  | 100%    |

Procedure:

Stir together to make brine.
Combine brine and chicken in a zip-top bag. Refrigerate for 3 hours.
Preheat water bath to 65C
Drain wings. Pat dry with towel.
Place wings, single layer in a new zip-top bag. Remove air. Cook sous vide for 1 hour.
Remove chicken. Pat dry.

From here you can season and fry your wings as you have been.

References:
FDA Food Code: 3-401.11
Modernist Cuisine at Home: Page 245, 249, XXV


What influence does the properties of fat in vegetable oil affect emulsification of oil?

Fatty acids are not the emulsifiers here. Long chain fatty acids are excellent for emulsification, if they are deprotonated.  But then they would be called “fatty acid salts”, and their flavor would be soapy - bitter.  If they're neutral fatty acids, they're not ionized enough to retain a sphere of water around the micelle, and block aggregation of the droplets of fat in an emulsion.

Note that the term “fatty acid” is often misused. It is used to describe structural components of triglyceride fats, but in that form they are esterified, and not in their acid forms.  They only become free fatty acids after the saponification (breakdown) of a fat, which can happen when cooking fats at high temperature.  It's convenient to talk about them as fatty acids when they're still inside triglycerides because of their roles in nutrition (saturated vs. unsaturated vs. polyunsaturated, etc.).

An emulsifying agent like lecithin has two non-polar (electrically neutral), lipophilic (fat soluble) “fatty acid” (but still esterified) hydrocarbon chains, and a polar head consisting of a phosphate/choline (-/+) ionic structure that is very hydrophilic (soluble in water) due to having both positive and negative standing charges.  Because of its net electrically neutral structure, the flavor is mild and fatty, not soapy.  Phospholipids like lecithin are available in all cells, since they form the lipid bilayer that defines each cell.

Neither vinegar nor lemon juice would act as an effective emulsifying agent.  Acetic acid, citric acid, etc., are all too water soluble, and wouldn't stick to the surface of the fat droplets in an emulsion. Rather, components of the soy milk, particularly soy lecithin, would fill that role in this recipe for vegan mayonnaise. In traditional mayonnaise, of course, egg yolks are a rich source of lecithin.  The vinegar has little effect other than flavor.

The degree of unsaturation in the non-polar tails of a phospholipid would not significantly affect the stability of an emulsion once formed. Unsaturation of fatty acid esters in triglycerides does affect the texture of a fat, and how it varies with temperature.


There's two (positive) reasons I'm aware of:

Aesthetics - those grill marks evoke fond memories for a lot of people, so the food looks better.  Studies have shown that when food looks better, people think it tastes better. This is why plating is so important in fine dinning. However - if grill marks don't evoke fond memories or you grew up with a griddled burger - then frankly these just don't matter.
They rise the meat up out of the oil that its releasing.  This gives a burger, for example, more of a grilled texture and flavor as its not sitting in its own fat.  On a flat pan, the burger will release fat and then start to fry in the fat.  Its just a different taste.  No better or worse to me, just different.

There's (at least) three negatives that I'm aware of too:

There's less browning from a Maillard reaction because there's less surface area exposed to the direct blazing hot metal.  And frankly, the crust from the Maillard reaction tastes goooooood.
They are a serious PITA to clean.  If you've got one with fairly high, narrow ridges like the cast iron Lodge grill pan - if something gets stuck between the ridges it is really, really, REALLY hard to clean.
They smoke like crazy and you're indoors.  If I don't set off the smoke alarm with my grill pan, I know I'm probably not using it right.  Generally, you're trying to replicate the high heat of a real grill and you're often cooking something with enough fat to drip down and create wicked amounts of smoke.

For steak, I've really come to appreciate the taste of more crust from the Maillard reaction of a flat pan actually.  Not to mention then you can do great stuff like basting it in butter!

Since getting better with my flat pans and griddles - I rarely use my grill pan.


What's the best way to remove a light coating of rust from a carbon steel paella pan?

I would start with Barkeeper's Friend. That has worked for me in the past.  Use it with a synthetic scrub pad.  As you know, once you get it in shape to use it, after cleaning, a light coating of oil wiped on with a paper towel will keep the rust from reappearing during storage.


Are roasted nuts nutritionally different from raw nuts?

Discussion of the long-term health effects would be little more than speculation; however, there is a specific nutritional claim which can be tested, and has been tested in the commercial food-processing setting.
See: Formation of Lipid Oxidation and Isomerization Products during Processing of Nuts and Sesame Seeds:

The aim of the present study was to quantify some nutritional and safety quality parameter changes that take place in nuts (roasting) and sesame seeds (dehulling, roasting, milling, and sterilization) during processing.
...
All these parameters were significantly affected by the different processing stages, especially by roasting and sterilization (tahina). Nut roasting and sesame heat treatment increased the primary (hydroperoxides) and secondary (aldehydic compounds) lipid oxidation products, with the p-anisidine value reaching 6−11.5 and thiobarbituric acid reactive substances 3−5 mg/kg (equiv of malondialdehyde) in the different end products. In addition, roasting led to the formation of CML (between 12.7 and 17.7 ng/mg) and tFAs (between 0.6 and 0.9 g/100 g) in nuts and tahina, which were absent in the raw material. Roasting parameters appear as the critical factor to control to limit the CML and tFA formation in the final product.

You'd have to read the whole study for a detailed analysis of how roasting affects the lipid oxidation products, which are the same products seen in rancid or overheated fats, but there is going to be some effect.
This is really more of an issue in a food plant because they use big machines designed to roast huge quantities of nuts (we're talking 200 kg/h for a low-end, $5000 gas-fired machine).  The heat characteristics of one of these machines is going to be completely different from the comparatively slow roasting of a tiny quantity of nuts in a home oven, so don't panic.
To be any more specific, you'd have to specify the kind of nut.  The oils from different nuts peroxidize at different temperatures; some unrefined nut oils start to smoke at around 160° C / 320° F (peanut/walnut), others go well into the 200° C / 400° F range (e.g. almonds). In any case, it's very rare that you'd actually be heating the nuts up to these temperatures unless you left them roasting too long, and they'd smell very burnt at that point.
Just don't eat hundreds of pounds of roasted nuts every month, and don't burn them when you roast them, and you'll be fine.


Name for a master "cook plan" that describes how you prepare and serve all courses of a meal

Recipes or formulas lead to a prep plan or a daily prep system in a restaurant or commercial kitchen.  This plan is used to delegate work, ensure ingredients for individual recipes and dishes are prepared in an efficient manner, and to minimize waste.


Gluten is what makes doughs chewy, and gluten is associated with high protein flour, so you should try and get low protein ("soft") flour.  Also, the colder your fat (i.e., butter) the flakier and crispier your crust will be.  You also may want to substitute some of the butter for lard or shortening; the lack of water in the lard will also help the crust become crispy and avoid gluten formation associated with hydration of the flour.  Note that you cannot substitute lard/shortening for butter in an equal ratio; you should try and find a recipe that specifically calls for it to get the ratio correct.  As rumtscho noted, you can also blind bake the crust to start its cooking process (but as ElendilTheTall warns, you may not be able to call it a "pie" after that!).  Finally, it may be the case that your pie filling is too moist and therefore makes the interior of the crust very soggy.  I've found that almost all good apple pie recipes call for pre-cooking the apples to remove a lot of their moisture before putting them in the crust.


Brined cheese behaves almost as if carbonated

This cheese sounds completely off.  I urge you to discard it.

There are no cheeses I know of that should generate pressure like that, nor have an acrid odor.


What size are small, medium and large tomatoes?

USDA requirements for measurements used by the Fresh Market  tomato industry

                **Size**           **Size**
                No Pass            Pass
                inches             inches
                see note #1        see note #2

Small           2 1⁄8 inches       2 9⁄32 inches
Medium          2¼ inches          2 17⁄32 inches
Large           2½ inches          2 25⁄32 inches
Extra Large     2¾ inches

note # 1. Will not pass through a round opening with this diameter when the tomato is held with its greatest diameter parallel to the plane of the opening.

note # 2. Will pass through a round opening of this size; the tomato may be held in any position for the test.


How do I calculate the final acidity of homemade vinegar?

This is actually a great chemistry question! First off, you need the density and molecular weight of the acetic acid (1.039 g/mL, 60.05 g/mol) and alcohol (which is ethanol — 0.709 g/mL, 46.07 g/mol). Assuming 100% conversion of ethanol (y) to acetic acid (x), you will end up with the same number of moles of acetic acid as the amount of ethanol you started with.

So if you started with y mL ethanol, you would have 0.709/(46.07 * y) moles ethanol.

Since we are assuming 100% conversion to acetic acid, we end with the same number of moles acetic acid, which we can then convert back to mL. mL acetic acid = 60.05/(moles acetic acid/ethanol * 1.049).

If we condense all that into one calculation, you end up with: mL acetic acid = 1.753 * mL ethanol.

If you add the volume of acetic acid you made in the fermentation process and the amount you started with, you have the total volume of acetic acid in your vinegar. Simply divide this by the total volume of vinegar to get the % acetic acid!


How do I tone down the flavor of garlic in spaghetti sauce

The punchy, raw flavor of garlic is very volatile, and it'll change as the sauce cooks. Garlic (like all alliums) gets a lot more mellow as it cooks, and the extremely intense flavor you're tasting now will fade into the background.

So you simply may not need to do much now - taste the sauce again in a couple hours and re-evaluate. There's not a lot that you can do to target the garlic flavor specifically, other than adding more of the other ingredients to restore the overall balance of the sauce. If your overall cooking time is, say, 6 hours, and you check in another 2, that still leaves you a decent amount of time to add more of everything else for the last few hours of cooking.

But don't panic immediately; give it a little time and see how well it mellows out. It's likely fine and you have ample time to make more corrections.


Keep macaroni cheese creamy after refrigerating

Having made this dish again recently and experimenting with it based on the comments here can report the following:

A good creamy texture in the pot after the initial preparation will become a single hard lump in the fridge. Adding more milk before refrigeration will:

Prevent it from solidifying
Reheat (e.g. in a microwave) to a close enough texture to the original

The amount of milk that needs to be added is about the same quantity as went into the dish originally, i.e. if you used 1 litre in the dish before serving it (assuming only a small quantity removed) add another 1 litre of milk before refrigerating. If you served half of it, only add half a litre of milk, etc. The only downside is that the extra liquid separates slightly in the fridge, leaving watery pools on the surface of the food. This extra moisture can simply be stirred back into the dish before reheating.


How do you apply colored sugar just to the raised image on a cookie

Basically, there are two options:

Use a stencil.
This means, your design can be only slightly raised (or not at all), because the sugar will create a 3D illusion. There are plenty  of examples online, here is one from Martha Stewart (in honour of upcoming St. Patricks Day). This can be done befor baking or afterwards by sugaring an image stenciled with thin icing.
Dip the cookie upside down.
You will need a rather distinct raised image for this. Dip the cookie upside own into a bowl/plate of sugar, making sure to touch the surface only with the raised parts. Depending on your dough you might have to use some water first to make the sugar stick better. You will need a rather thick and well-cooled cookie that can keep its shape while handling.
If you want to decorate baked cookies, brush very little thin icing on the raised part, then dip. Make sure to use the absolute minimum of icing, because otherwise it will start running down either when turning the cookie or while drying, taking the sanding sugar with it in the worst case...


Achieve the same consistency as 8 hour slow cooked inside skirt steak in a fraction of the time?

Tough beef becomes tender because the connective tissue breaks down into gelatine in the presence of heat and moisture. This can be sped up considerably using a pressure cooker, so that's your solution.

There are considerations to this: a pressure cooker that could take 15 lbs of skirt steak all at once would be very large, hard to handle, and possibly expensive. You would likely want to do it in smaller batches in a smaller cooker to make it manageable, but then you are creating a load of work for yourself. Whether the time saved versus the extra effort is worth it is something you'd have to think about.


How can i make food have a more desirable smell?

In general, cold and room temperature food need more seasonning as the volatile compounds that make up odor (what you smell) will not be as, erm, volatile.

There is not set rule on how much to add; experience plays a big role here.

When cooking your ingredients, in your case, chicken, you can add a little bit more seasoning, herbs, spices, salt.

Just be careful not to add too much as some herbs and spices can become bitter in larger quantity.

For your specific case, I would add cilantro and lime to the wraps.

(In my taste, ) I would skip the carrots and cucumber as they are not that flavorful and add water to the end product; make a side salad with them.


I boiled sliced yellow squash with ravioli, and it turned bluish-green -- why?

Probably the same reason why garlic turns blue sometimes when you cook it.
http://www.foodsafetysite.com/consumers/faq/?m_knowledgebase_article=14

its a reaction with sulfur + copper which can naturally occur in foods.


What should I do with a turkey after roasting but hours before dinner?

If this happened to me, I probably would not refrigerate it, since I think it would tend to create both food safety and quality issues.  Basically, one should not attempt to make two extra trips through the "danger zone" of bacteria growth for 20 lbs. of food unless it's absolutely necessary.

You should NOT refrigerate a large whole hot turkey; that is a serious food safety hazard.  It will take too long for the interior of the turkey to cool in the fridge, which could potentially make it unsafe to eat.  You absolutely should NOT attempt to reheat a whole bird like that; you'd have to carve it into pieces before reheating anyway.

You could carve it into pieces before refrigerating, separate them in the fridge (put in shallow containers) so they can cool quickly, and then reheat relatively quickly (no more than 2 hours maximum to reheat to 165F), but that could lead to drying out if you're not careful.  You could carve it into smaller pieces and reheat in gravy or something, but that's not ideal unless your plan was to have "leftover turkey"-style dinner, instead of "roasted turkey."

Another viable option, from my perspective, would be to hold the turkey above 140F until ready to serve.  Remove the turkey from the oven immediately (if your probe is reading 160F, the turkey will continue to "coast" upward to at least 165F), and cover tightly with at least a couple layers of foil.  Turn the oven off, open the oven door, and let the oven cool as quickly as you can (which may only take a few minutes with the door open).  Once the oven gets below 200F or so, place the turkey back into the oven, and turn the oven down to its lowest setting -- which should always be at least 140F, but probably will be in the 150-175F range.  Also, place a pan of water in the oven to keep the humidity high.  Then just wait for 12 hours or whatever until serving.  As long as the turkey stays above 140F, it will remain safe to eat.  You will not need to rest the turkey, since heat will be evenly distributed when it is removed from the oven.

(Important note: do NOT just turn the oven off.  You need to maintain the turkey temperature at a minimum of 140F; the safest course is to monitor the turkey temperature periodically to ensure this, and turn the oven up a few degrees if necessary.  Most ovens are designed so that their lowest setting will safely maintain food above 140F, but it's always good to double-check.)

Turkey kept in the 150-160F range will generally not dry out with prolonged holding.  Instead, the meat will gradually get softer and softer, while connective tissue and fats will break down, giving the meat a very tender and succulent texture.  It may even taste "juicier" at the end than it would if you ate it right away, due to further breakdown of the meat, like a well-done pot roast.  (Those store-bought roast chickens which fall apart when you try to carve them are often held for many hours in low ovens just this way.)  The main problem with the texture is that it may actually be "too" tender, for those who like firmer poultry.

It's better to hold a turkey this way when it was already cooked slowly, but you have no option now.  No matter what you do, you're going to dry out the meat somewhat and change its texture.  Carving, cooling, and reheating -- if done in a safe manner -- may preserve texture somewhat, but it will be easy to dry out and will taste more like "reheated" meat.  Holding above 140F will soften the meat texture significantly, but I think it's more likely to preserve flavor and perceived juiciness.


You can scoop baked potato flesh out of the skins and press it through a sieve using the back of a spoon. This creates a similar effect to a ricer.
The potato flesh needs to be hot/warm to push through the sieve well.
You don't need to use too much pressure to get the potato through and be careful doing this as it does put rather a lot of strain on the sieve.


Why does horseradish paste "curdle" when cooked?

Not sure what else is in your marinade that could be reacting to the horseradish, but since it's an imitation wasabi paste it may have things like corn starch or arrow root in it which will clump if not mixed well and then heated. You might want to just try whisking the heck out of it while it's cooking or using an immersion blender on it when it's done.


Is there a name for incompletely-sliced potatoes?

Potatoes that have been sliced almost all the way, buttered, spiced and then roasted until they fan out often go by the name Hasselback Potatoes.

Reputedly they were invented by a Swedish chef in the 1950s and the name is based on the name of the Swedish restaurant, Hasselbacken, in Stockholm.

I don't think there is a specific culinary term for "slicing almost all the way".


What is more difficult to make: beer or wine?

I haven't done it myself, but I guess making beer is more difficult for one good reason: safety!

Grapes will ferment by themselves and will produce either wine or vinegar. The fermentation process is violent, so there's no risk. Added meat will be fermented as well!

Beer needs to be sterilized before a yeast is added and there's a risk for butulism.

Now, making a good wine is something else. I guess that making a good wine is far more complicated then making a decent beer, once you overcome the safety issues, as there are a great number of steps involved in making good wine. For instance: aging in oak.

Commercial wines start by sterilizing the grapes and afterwards adding a certain yeast strain, but hey...


There is no way to safely can dairy products to be shelf stable, without using industrial equipment and processes. If you plan on refrigerating it, the best by date on the dairy you use should be good. You need to check with your local health department for specific requirements.


No, bartenders do not shake carbonated beverages.  I was a bartender for years and I have never known this to happen or be part of a recipe.  The carbonated sodas are always put on the top of the glass after pouring.  The foam comes from the sugar or egg whites in the sweet n sour mix.  You can find that recipe on line.  Here is one that is overly complicated, bars rarely (never to my knowledge) use fresh lemon or lime juice. However a good bar uses separate lemon & lime mix for different drinks, or they used to anyway. I personally use limeade or lemonade at home.  You can use one of the other or mix them together.  Throw that in a shaker & you will get some foam, it works in my blender.


Can I used induction ready cookware with traditional stoves?

The answer is almost certainly yes. In 99% of cases, you can use that cookware on your normal stove. In the remaining 1%, you can't, but being induction-ready is not the reason why you can't, it just so happens that there are some designs which won't work on a normal stove but will work on induction.

Being induction-ready means that it is made of a ferromagnetic material (or, for sandwich-bottoms, contains a sheet of ferromagnetic material). If you can stick a magnet to it, then it will work on induction. So, in reality, many pots and pans were induction-ready long before there were induction stoves. They were made of stainless or enameled steel, or of cast or forged iron, and that made them suitable for induction. While not every traditional material works with induction, every induction material works with traditional.

The last small percentage that won't work with a traditional stove is not due to material, but due to shape. Take for example a cast iron pan in a shape that is very widespread in the US, with a short iron handle, tiny spout-like indentation on both sides, and a 2 mm high lip circling the bottom. This lip is what makes the pan terrible on an electric stove. It creates an enclosed space between the hob and the pan, into which the hob blasts heat. Not only do you have trouble with properly heating the food (because you now have a thin layer of great insulator - air - between the pan bottom and the heat source), it can also heat up so much that it can melt a ceramic hob. In some other specialized cookware, there is no such enclosed space, but the surface curves away, for example in some induction woks. Since induction heats contactless, that's not a problem, but the electric stove won't manage to heat properly the parts which are not in direct contact.

So, to summarize: If you have a standard pot or pan with a flat bottom that comes in contact with the stove, everything is fine. It will always work on the standard stove, including those which have an induction-ready label. If you have a bottom shape that leaves gaps between large portions of the bottom and the stove, you will have to find out more about the consequences of using it on an electric stove.


Yes, quick yeast and instant yeast are the same thing.  It doesn't have to be proofed in warm water before being mixed into the dough.

SAF instant yeast is a good product, so personally, I wouldn't spend so much more for a specialty brand.  Both brands contain yeast and an emulsifier, and SAF also contains ascorbic acid (which acts as a dough conditioner).

Resources:

SAF Instant
Doves Farm
Ascorbic Acid


Stir fry - garlic burns if I put it in first, what am I doing wrong?

You have a few options, as you're dealing with high-heat cooking

Only fry the garlic for a few seconds before adding something else to cool down the pan.  You don't want it to cook 'til it shows color ... just a few seconds then toss in some onion or other high-moisture items.
Add the garlic with something else (eg, ginger), to keep it from burning quite as quickly.
Leave the garlic in larger bits, so it'll take longer to burn (as the moisture doesn't cook off immediately).
Really crush the garlic well.  Not chopped, but pulp it into a paste before using it, so it both holds together as a mass, and releases all of its moisture.
Move the garlic to the edge of the wok after cooking it (use a wok scoop or rounded spatula to make sure you get it all) ... then add your next ingredients, but don't bring the garlic back down 'til plenty of other stuff is in the pan.

And of course, make sure that you've cut up everything before you add the garlic -- you're cooking over such high heat that you want to be able to quickly add other things, otherwise you risk cooking the garlic for too long while you're dealing with some other ingredient.


Moussaka freezes fine, some would say it improves the flavor, and shouldn't damage the texture.

Spanakopita I would not freeze whole, you will likely lose all the crispness and texture from the pastry. You could make the filling in advance though, and then put the pastry on the thawed filling on the day and bake it. Just be sure the filling is completely thawed, and getting close to room temperature. Also, freezing may force water out of the filling, drain it out before you bake or it could get soggy.

Dolmades I'm not sure, I would expect they'd freeze fine, although you may get some sogginess. I'll defer this to another answer.


How to keep biryani hot and moist for a long time

A Holding Cabinet

I'm assuming by your supplier being far away, you mean you can only get a delivery once per day. Keeping food overnight and then serving it all day is probably unfeasible.

While 8 hours might be a stretch, it sounds like your best bet would be a warmer cabinet. Here's an example. They're temperature and humidity controlled.

  The Hatco Flav-R-Savor® Portable Energy Efficient Holding Cabinet is capable of holding an array of hot foods at optimum serving temperatures for extended periods of time, saving you money through increased energy efficiencies, and allows for advanced preparation ahead of peak-serving periods.