How to get intended taste using baking powder instead of acid + baking soda?

If you use baking powder instead of baking soda in this recipe, you'll have an excess of acid.  That's not too bad (an excess of baking soda gives a soapy, bitter flavour).  The effect is likely to be as if your sour cream was slightly more sour. If you wish to tone that effect down you could  replace a small amount of your sour cream with cream or even milk.

The rise may be slightly affected but this should be minor; with or without the acid in the baking powder you're limited by the alkaline component. Baking powder is usally double-acting meaning some of the reaction is delayed until it gets hot. Sour cream plus baking soda is likely to start reacting immediately, so substituting the other way would be worse.


What can I use instead of butter for Jamie Oliver's steak recipe?

The butter is there for flavor, mouth feel, and to add some body to the sauce you make. I'd replace the butter with.... nothing at all. Many of the flavor compounds in garlic and rosemary are fat soluble and fat is not exactly in short supply when it comes to steak, so you should be able to run those on directly and still get some flavor. Alternatively you could steep some olive oil with the garlic and rosemary and brush a bit on, but I would just simmer them in the juices for a minute instead and then spoon them on the cooked steak.

I have a few comment's on Jamie's recipe:

Do not use olive oil when frying steak, it has too low a smoke point and may turn bitter. Use vegetable oil (canola/rapeseed, corn, peanut, sunflower, safflower, or blend) instead.
Do not pepper the steak before frying as pepper will burn and turn bitter. Add fresh pepper just after you remove it from the pan to rest. If you want a pepper flavor inside the steak use a marinade. Salting before is fine
The oil is not a seasoning, that's the salt and pepper. The oil's purpose is to help conduct the heat from the pan to the steak until the steak's juices come out
There flip repeatedly method works but it isn't the only way to do it, I prefer to flip once after about 65% of the cooking time has elapsed. Doing a 65-35 rather than a 50-50 flip will make your steak evenly pink in the middle and means you can turn your attention to other things. I also think you get a better sear when using a pan. I use the 1 minute flip over charcoal though as it keeps the steak from getting too crispy


If the fish is left with guts inside for a long time, the biliary fluids may seep from the gall bladder into the meat, causing a bitter taste, this can also happen if you break the gall bladder while cleaning the fish.


Remediation Methods for Rice Contaminated with Broken Glass

I would throw it out. The rice doesn't cost as much as a new digestive system.
Sure, it's a waste. And I'm sure you would look very carefully. But the risk of one glass splinter still in it is existent. Therefore, I wouldn't try it.

Good luck with cleaning that up though. :)


Shaping baguettes using three folds vs. rolling it up?

One of the key skills in dough making is forming a decent crumb and light texture. While the action of the yeast will go a long way to doing this, by folding the dough in such a way, more air is trapped within the pocket. It is the same way when making pizza, you should not press on the outer crust (or use a roller) on the pie itself, as this expels air or CO2 and could lead to a heavier and less bubbly texture.
While it is not essential, it is generally considered good form to have a light touch when finally shaping bread or pizza. By giving the bread this final forming, the baker is giving their dough every possible chance to achieve decent oven spring when baked.


What is the benefit of a tinfoil packet?

The packet keeps in most of the moisture, and also changes the way the food is heated - less radiation and convection, more conduction. These two factors change the taste of the food. It gets better heated throughout, less browning, and on the whole, it is more similar to what cooks call "wet heat" than "dry heat" despite being in an oven. This is what makes "packaged" recipes culinary different from the same food, simply roasted. It used to be even more important back in the age of wood fired ovens, which gave much less even heat. Note that tinfoil is just one of the options - you can wrap in other inedible substances like banana leaves, or edible ones, like making dolmas or meat pies.

A second very important difference is the matter of presentation, taking a piece of wrapped food gets perceived differently than taking a few spoonfuls of roasted vegetables out of a pan. Many en papillote preparations are more aesthetically pleasing than the ones that use tinfoil, but even the foil ones are, if not prettier, at least different.

Then you get into edge cases like the problem of baking a lump of cheese without losing all the fat, and so on. But for most foods, open roasting is an option, and wrapped roasting gets done because it is a different option, not because it is how it has to be done.


How do I make french fries that are crispy inside and out?

I rarely bother to deep fry fries. I buy them precut, blanched and frozen in the supermarket and bake them in the oven. If I bake them as intended, they are fluffy on the inside. If I forget them in there for about double the time, they become harder and crispier throughout.

I don't think you can imitate this with a fryer only, because you need a certain temperature there, else the fries soak up the oil. So maybe do your one-minute fry first, then put the drained fries in an oven for as long as it takes. Or just start with the convenient prepared kind and use the oven from the beginning.


Why did my soy (Silk) milk suddenly become as viscous as rubber cement?

Soy milk can spoil, just like ordinary cow's milk. That seems to be what happened.

While spoilage in cow's milk is usually souring, and the smell is unmistakable at fifty paces, soy milk spoils by turning gooey.
I'm not sure about the details, but it's something in how the proteins react to oxygen. In soy milk, if I'm not mistaken, they turn into longer, stickier chains.

As for why it spoiled, it was probably just open for too long. Even in the fridge, soy milk has a life of about 4-6 days once opened. The seal may have been damaged somehow even before you actually opened it, allowing air into the carton to cause the spoilage.


Do not hold your hands (and especially not your face) over the strainer. Hold the pot to one side, and don't turn it upside down, just tip it. If you need to look over to be sure the water is headed to the right place, pour slowly until you've established that, then move your head out of the steam and pour more quickly.
If you can't keep your hands away from the rising steam (because of the size of your pot or your sink or whatever) then wear oven mitts on your hands as you hold the pot to drain it.


What is the best type of wood for a French rolling pin?

I am not a wood expert, but I have done a fair bit of carpentry as well as cookery. I agree that the key is having nice hard wood with fine grain; you don't want to damage a delicate dough or provide places to stick. Bamboo "wood" is usually a composite material, with the thickness built with layers glued together and then carved/lathed down to shape; so, I imagine it would have little lines that might open over time with use. Oak seems too heavily grained for this application. My french pin is maple. It came from a wood turner who does primarily pens and pencils. He makes pens from a variety of wood but the rolling pins are all maple.


what to mix with milk other than sugar to give good taste

I spoke with a hospital dietitian about a study that concluded with the fact that as long as you are getting your vitamin D and calcium from other sources milk is unnecessary in the adult human diet.
She agreed and noted that lactose is hard for many people to digest and added the fats and calories can be best "spent" elsewhere.
...but if you insist...
Try making a smoothie with whatever fruits and veg you can have on this diet of yours.
If you can have cooked cereals you can either use the milk in cooking or pour over it when ready to eat.
There are recipes for puddings that are thickened with cornstarch (instead of eggs) and use cocoa as well....I have never tried this but it may be right up your alley.


Interesting question. My first thought would be to try just poaching the fish in the tea. That should transfer more of the flavour than, say, steaming it. Google finds this recipe where they use an unnamed green tea.


The most important things in cooking first aid kits to me are liquid skin, vitamin C powder, and cortisone cream. Obviously antiseptic and bandages are important too, but I assume those are standard.

Liquid skin (basically clear nail polish) is antiseptic and helps to seal up cuts so they stop bleeding faster. It also helps to prevent the effect that any kitchen worker will recognize where an otherwise insignificant cut keeps getting reopened and filling your gloves with blood.

The vitamin C powder is a miracle for burns. You put a pinch in some cold water and rinse the burn with it. It's very soothing and seems to help them heal faster.

Cortisone cream is primarily a bakery thing. Prolonged skin exposure to flour frequently causes rashes and cortisone cream helps to relieve the itching and get the rashes to go away faster.


Why doesn't oil burn and produce smoke at restaurants?

Restaurants have massive fans.

Commercial deep fryers have temperature control.
Example temperature control unit:

And massive heating elements (notice 4 temperature controls):

Massive heating elements allows for even delivery of heat. When you drop frozen fish it has to kick out some heat but it is careful not to get too hot via temperature control. The temperature gradient alone causes good mixing.  When you heat fresh oil you can see it stirring around.

If your oil is burning and producing smoke then your deep-fryer is too hot.  Even most home fryers have temperature control. Or you are possibly using the wrong oil.  A cheaper home unit will have a smaller heating unit so it will have more trouble with maintaining a constant temperature but a temperature controller near the heating element should prevent any oil from burning.


Why does my cupcake texture end up with a watery-scrambled egg texture, with a sulfurish smell

I wonder if perhaps you've made a typo in regards to the proportions of this formulation. Try to source a reliable and tested recipe and compare ingredient components to modify what you're trying to achieve.

Please note, baking soda and sodium bicarbonate are identical ingredients.
Also, it is good advice to not open the oven until the cake(s) are close to completion.

I'd love to inquire as to the reason you are adding titanium dioxide to butter/trying to "whiten" it.

As for the off-aroma, ensure the eggs you use are fresh.

I hope this is more PC of an answer.


What should I look for in an electric steamer for use to make tamales

I have never cooked tamales before, but when looking for something that needs to get hot (griddle, waffle iron, steamer)

Get something made out of metal. Plastic will not get as hot and will warp over time.
Avoid Low/Med/High dials, get something that will tell you the actual temperature.
Even heat distribution is key. Make sure the element/steam is not lopsided.

Some things that I would go for would be a glass top, a digital dial, and a safety power cord that detaches from the unit if yanked.


Are there disadvantages to storing bread in a vacuum box?

Bread gets dried out and stale through retrogradation which requires moisture.  Your vacuum bags are not keeping the bread fresh because of the vacuum, they are keeping it fresh by providing a very tight seal that prevents the bread from absorbing moisture from the atmosphere.  A larger vacuum box would provide the same protection from moisture but it might dry the bread out since the moisture in the bread would easily evaporate at the lower pressure.  Also keep in mind that neither a vacuum bag nor a vacuum box will prevent mold from eventually growing on the bread.

The biggest competition to a vacuum bread box is the freezer that most people already have in their kitchen.  Frozen bread can go for many weeks or even months without going stale and without any mold growing on it.  The only real risk to the bread is freezer burn if it is not sealed tightly.  Use vacuum bags to seal your bread tight and it can last a very long time in your freezer.


What is ganache, and how it is used in truffles? Does it differ from chocopaste?

Ganache is a mixture of cream and chocolate, made by heating the cream and mixing in the chocolate until smooth and fully incorporated.  Butter is then often added to give the final product a characteristic "shine".  Ganache can be used as a filling or as a coating/topping in truffles and is a frequent component in other desserts.

I've encountered "chocopaste" at an Indian grocer before, and it is essentially a homogenized mixture of chocolate and milk with other ingredients.  It has a similarity to ganache in that it contains chocolate and dairy combined.  The commercial chocopaste I've seen have also had other ingredients (added fats and/or sugars, stabilizers, preservatives, etc.), unlike ganache made at home which would contain only cream and chocolate.  In this way chocopaste is somewhat like Nutella, the chocolate-hazelnut spread.  In fact, the chocopastes I've seen came in similarly-shaped jars.

Chocopaste appears to be used as everything from a dessert topping or filling to a base for making chocolate drinks.

Here is an example of chocopaste, containing the following ingredients:

Sugar
Hydrogenated Vegetable Fat
Alkalised Cocoa Powder
Milk Powder
Permitted emulsifiers
Added flavors

In terms of substituting one for the other, the added stabilizers, sugars, and flavors in chocopaste may affect the final product.  Hydrogenated vegetable fat isn't the same as butter either, so mouthfeel and flavor will not be the same.

I would expect different chocopastes to potentially vary in terms of flavor and sweetness.  For uses as filling/topping/etc, I would just try out whatever products interest you and compare for yourself.


Is pressure canning, weeks after regular canning safe?

I can't come up with a way to do this that is not problematic.

First, no canning authority I can find provides instructions on how to re-can under pressure food that is already canned.  The closest instructions I can find are from the national center for food preservation, which basically say "don't do it".

Second, you're talking about a month between initial canning and then re-canning under pressure.  A month is plenty of time for botulism spores and other toxic microorganisms to germinate, which really only need a couple of days, so you'd need to keep the jars in the fridge.  Given this, it would be tempting to roast the peppers and not process them at all and just keep them in the fridge, but again in that amount of time they would get moldy (and certainly lose flavor).  Freezing them would destroy their texture.

Third, this means you would be running the full jarring process twice, which would almost certainly result in soft, mushy peppers.  You can't cut the time on either proccessing cycle, because without the full cycle neither would be safe.  I suspect that you'd also have a high ratio of jar/lid failure.

Let me suggest an alternative: package your peppers in a hot water bath, now, with added citric acid.  Raising their acidity makes them safe to be jarred at air pressure, and they will still be pretty good.  Save the pressure canner for next year.


Is it safe to cook pancakes on a copper surface?

Yes, copper is safe to cook on. The darker area around the edge of that plate is not an "original coating," it's just the area where the copper has tarnished over time.

The reason the copper has a "bare" look in the center is most likely because the cooktop has been maintained with a cleaning product specially intended to remove the tarnish. This is the appropriate way to maintain and use copper cookware. While copper work surfaces can be kept bare and allowed to tarnish, or intentionally colored through the application of e.g. particular acids and then sealed with a clear epoxy, copper cookware should be maintained with appropriate cleansers to keep the surface bright.
(NOTE: When I say "work surface" I'm talking about something that is not heated and usually doesn't come into direct contact with food. Commonly called a kitchen counter (AmE), countertop (AmE), worktop (BrE), or bench (AuE/NZE). When I say "cooktop" I'm referring to an appliance that produces heat for cooking, and when I say "cookware" I'm referring to the pots, pans, etc. that actually come into contact with the food.)
Natural and chemical weathering of copper surfaces can create a variety of different compounds, some of them dangerous. The only significant risk I'm aware of with naturally-weathered copper cookware is verdigris, the distinctive green patina seen on e.g. the Statue of Liberty. I manufactured my own copper countertops about ten years ago and did some research on safety to decide whether to seal the surface with an epoxy or let it weather naturally; I found only one notable incident of deadly verdigris poisoning, related to industrial cooking vats that were not cleaned and which developed a heavy patina that then leached into the food.
It's not difficult to remove patina from copper; anything acidic will usually do the trick, even ketchup. (Of course, you would wipe the ketchup away and dispose of it after using it to dissolve potentially toxic copper compounds. Better just to use a cleaner specifically designed for copper cookware. I do not recommend the readily available Bar Keeper's Friend products as they're designed more for SS and will produce a black byproduct on copper.)
All this said, I wouldn't recommend cooking on bare copper surfaces. They're a lot of work to maintain, we have better solutions in modern cookware that use copper as a conductive layer married with other metals for the cooking surface, and there is always the chance of an adverse reaction to the small amount of copper that does end up in the food.


Will using a knife sharpener reduce the lifetime of my knife?

You should use both. Knives have a very thin ragged edge (the burr) that is too small to see, which gets pushed over from use, and which makes the knife seem dull. A honing steel straightens this burr out. I use a honing steel before I cook every day.

Over time, the burr wears down, or can no longer be straightened. At this point, you will need to use the sharpener, which actually removes metal from the blade. One metaphor would be that if your knife was carpet, honing is like vacuuming, and sharpening is like steam cleaning.


How can I prevent egg casserole from deflating?

What you're making is basically a savory Dutch baby or popover. Not to discourage you, but it's going to be really hard to come up with any way to make them consistently stay puffed; pretty much all egg-puff baked items deflate after puffing.

One easy thing you can do is to use the same step one takes with cream puffs, and prick them with a skewer right after they come out of the oven.  This releases steam from the center; the cooling moisture is actually what causes rapid deflation. You also want the interiors of the puffs to be as dry as possible.

The other things to do are experiment with adding slightly more bisquick, and cooking them slightly longer.  The additional flour should make them "sturdier", but you don't want to add so much they don't puff properly.  Cooking them longer is aimed at drying out the interior.

Of course, if the centers of your puffs are moist and you like them that way, you're going to just have to live with them deflating.  Also, realize that, even after you achieve the best stays-puffed recipe, sometimes (due to weather or timing or oven wonkiness) they'll still collapse on you.


What is the difference between caramelized onions and "crispy onions"?

Both crispy and caramelized onions are cooked for a long time, and will be very brown.  However, they are cooked slightly differently.

Caramelized onions are usually cross-cut on the onion to release its moisture, and then cooked over very low heat in a crowded pan, stirring infrequently, so that they gradually release their sugars and liquid and it turns to caramel.  Depending on the onions and desired result, you may even cover them, an add a little liquid and/or sugar.  The end result is very soft and very sweet.

Arabic-style crispy onions are cut pole-to-pole in order to avoid rupturing cells in the onions.  They are then fried over medium heat in an uncrowded pan, stirring regularly.  This lets them dry out and become brown and crispy, even burning on thin ends.  These onions should be a mix of crispy and chewy, and more savory than sweet.


The price of genuine-sealed-and-certified parmagiano reggiano is quite high and fairly consistent, especially for more aged varieties.  I think your best bet to save money will be to use a similar parmagiano reggiano cousin, such as grana padano, romano, or a quality Argentinian reggianito.  As a second-tier approach, you might look at domestic Parmesan, but use caution as it may not have the same quality as a one of the Italian imports.

As for genuine Parmesan: you're buying at least a couple hundred dollars of cheese, and this gives you some bargaining power.  Buy or ask to taste a small sample of whatever you're considering, and try to negotiate; managers may be willing to offer you a bulk discount.  I'd gather a couple quotes from cheese shops, try prices at your local Costco/Sam's Club, and talk to the upscale grocery stores in your area.

As far as pricing goes, I've seen genuine-seal-and-everything Parmagiano Reggiano on sale at about $12-13/lbs at my local Southern Season.  I generally expect to pay $18-22/lbs at upscale grocery stores for Parmesan, with remarkably little variation between stores.  Your standard grocery stores tend to sell small blocks of inferior-quality and freshness Parmesan for similar prices.

In contrast, grana padano runs around $12-13/lbs on average at my local Trader Joe's, and might be available for under $10/lbs with a good sale.  I usually buy blocks of that for general cooking use, as it is close enough in taste and much cheaper.


How to prevent runny nose when eating spicy foods?

Basically you can't prevent this from happening as it is a physiological (part of your body's natural function) reaction to an irritant - in this case the chemical capsaicin in the chili fruit stimulating the trigeminal nerve.  There is such a thing as building tolerance, but I don't know if this will reduce the physiological effects, or just that you have more fun when eating spicy food.

However, there are some things you can do to lessen the effects:

Capsaicin is soluble in oils - which is why it gets taken up very effectively by the tissues in and around the mouth/nose - these parts contain essentially exposed cells covered in a mucus layer.

If you want to dilute this effect to some extent, you can use products with oils in them. Milk and milk products like yogurt are especially effective  as they contain oils that are very similar to those we have in our cells. This is one of the reasons milk products like Lassi are often served with Indian cuisine.

Apparently sugar can help too - the sugar undergoes a chemical reaction with the capsaicin and results in a lessening of the heat.


Neither.

The traditional instrument for making guacamole, and other Mexican mashed and ground preparations, is the mocaljete, which is similar to a mortar & pestle, but made with a shorter pestle and out of black basalt, a rough volcanic stone:

A regular mortar and pestle out of ceramic or granite will not work for a fat, squishy fruit like avocado; it will just squish around and out of the bowl.  You need the rough, pitted texture of the volcanic stone to "grab" the avocado pulp.

Personally, I find that the ideal tool for making guacamole or avocado salsas is actually a regular mixing bowl and a heavy pastry blender:

... but even a large metal serving fork will work fairly well.  Better than a regular mortar and pestle will.


How can I add an orange flavour without using orange?

It is difficult to be sure what will work without knowing more about the specific allergies in question, but there a few things you might check, if they may not trigger her allergy.

Orange flower water, also called orange blossom water, is one possibility - this will certainly be orange themed.  You might also look at orange blossom honey, which again gets the flavor from orange blossoms.  Since these are made with the flowers, rather than the fruit, it may avoid whatever is specifically triggering the allergy - on the other hand, since it is the product of the same tree (usually the bitter orange tree), it may contain the trigger anyway.

You might also look at other citrus fruit, if the allergy is limited to oranges - this will not be a perfect substitute unless you can find somethign within the family quite close to oranges, it will actually taste like the citrus you used, but it may be quite good.  I'm not sure if tangerines or clementines (mandarin orange, C reticulatata, varieties) will count towards an orange allergy, they are certainly connected, and will again give a very orange-like flavor, but might be different enough they may not trigger the allergy if it is specific to oranges, of the bitter (C aurantium) or sweet (C sinesis) varieties.  Likewise, you may look at pomelo (C maximus or grandis), the citron (C medica), or the papadea subcategory which seem to be the closest to oranges in the citrus family tree, to see if any of them might be suitible.

Going further afield, sweet lemon variants may make a fair subsitute - either limatta or sweet lemon or meyer lemon might give a good final product even if it isn't specifically orangey.

I saw a recipe that used carrot juice, apricots, and pineapple juice to make an orange-juice substitute, I don't know how the flavors, rather than the appearance, actually matches up - but you can look into it if you think it might work.

I hope you find something that works well.  Good luck.


Why should we not store onions and potatoes together?

As you can see at the Chapter 7: Storage of horticultural crops of the book PDF: Small-Scale Postharvest Handling Practices: A Manual for Horticultural Crops (4th Edition):

If you look p.166 (p.173 on the PDF), you can see that the onions need to be stored in this conditions:

between 0-5°C with a relative humidity (R.H.) of 65-70%

If you look p.168 (p.175 on the PDF), you can see that the potatoes have different needs:

Fresh market: between 4-7°C
Processing: between 8-12°C
seed potatoes: between 0-2°C
But must of all, potatoes need very highest relative humidity (R.H.): 95-98% versus 65-70% for onions

So, if you store them together, either one or the other will be in bad storage conditions.

Further, as you can see at Section 7: Storage of horticultural crops of Small-scale postharvest handling practices - A manual for horticultural crops - 3rd edition:

Dry onions (Group 3) are very sensitive to moisture, which makes their storage incompatible with the high R.H. needed for potatoes.
New potatoes (Group 6) may also produce ethylene, which will badly damage green onions (Group 2) if stored together.

Anyway, storage of horticultural crops cannot just be resumed by "don't put this or that together", as you may have seen:
it is important to consider R.H., temperature, and many other factors.

If the subject interests you, all this (and many other things) is pretty well explained in the following references:

PDF: Small-Scale Postharvest Handling Practices: A Manual for Horticultural Crops (4th Edition)
Web: Small-Scale Postharvest Handling Practices: A Manual for Horticultural Crops (4th Edition)
WEB: Small-scale postharvest handling practices - A manual for horticultural crops - 3rd edition

Ethylene is also a "critical factor", and this topic is more developped in the following resources:

PDF: Postharvest Ethylene: A critical factor in quality management.
Book: Postharvest Technology of Horticultural Crops (see Ethylene in Postharvest Technology pp.149-162)


Can I use a metal bowl with rubber bottom as double boiler?

Well, I think I found something this morning after starting to scour the internet again for an answer. I don't know if it applies to all bowls, but this link applies to my bowl at least. In the bottom left of the second page it straight up addresses using the bowl as a double boiler! Not sure how I never found this yesterday... Mission accomplished.


It is safe to eat, but not safe to serve.

Elaboration: Depending on your general cleanliness, there shouldn't be enormous amount of bacteria in the roasts: anything above 100°C (200°F) for an hour is sterilised and if you keep your pans and oven clean (with pyrolysing ovens: easy to do nowadays) it is perfectly safe for you, the dogs, the cat, and any other carnivores generally around the house.

However, it's going to be very dry and not very tasty, so I wouldn't actually serve it to any of my guests.  What I would do is grind it up, throw it in your biggest pot, cover it in white wine with some nice herbs, put a lid on top and turn a towel around it (so no moisture escapes) and boil it on very low heat until it soaks up a ton of the wine, then add tomato juice until it becomes tender again.  Freeze it in small batches so you can re-use it as pasta sauce...


How to modify a bread recipe to accomodate longer proofing times?

Aside from (or even instead of) lowering the temperature, you can drastically reduce the yeast; it will take time for the smaller initial yeast population to multiply to a similar population as the larger amount of yeast to start with, and this will reduce the activity of the dough.

As a generally salt-avoiding person, I hesitate to say, but will, that additional salt also slows things down, ferment-wise. It will impact flavor, of course, and at some point become effectively inedible, so don't overdo that.

If your recipe uses any sugar, you can reduce or remove it...but that will also affect browning and flavor.

You may find that the refrigerator slows things down too much to get a loaf risen in the course of a day - or you may need to go the opposite direction on the various yeast-retarding things I just mentioned to overcome the refrigerator temperature on your timescale. Or you can extend your timescale to suit, as needed.


There really is no practical difference; the dictionary definition of a soup is:

  a liquid food made by boiling or simmering meat, fish, or vegetables with various added ingredients.

Which also applies to any stew you can conceive of.

The technical, highly-nuanced difference is that of emphasis and intent. Stewing is a method of cooking the solids (specifically, a slow, moist-heat method). When you make a beef stew, you are stewing the beef, which says nothing about what you're stewing it in. On the other hand, when you make a chicken soup (or a chicken stock or broth which is the base of a chicken soup) then your objective is essentially to make chicken-flavoured liquid - to extract the flavour of the solids into the liquid. If some flavourful solids remain, then that is incidental as opposed to intentional.

In practice, some flavour extraction is going to happen with a stew as well, it just so happens that the principal aim is to cook the meat/veggies. A soup is more likely to contain raw or barely-cooked ingredients, and a stew is more likely to preserve the original flavour of the solids and/or liquids, but that's a very broad generalization and what it boils down to (ha ha) in practice seems to be largely dependent on the culture and the dish itself.

A stew is not simply a thick or chunky soup, despite the fact that a lot of people think of it that way. As above, that seems to be more common with stews, but it's not part of the definition, and the French have half a dozen categories for thickened soups that could easily be described as having the overall consistency of a "stew".


Why does Phillips Crab taste like chemicals, unlike M&S's Orkney Crab that tastes natural?

A quick comparison of the listed ingredients shows only crab meat for the M&S products (clearly visible in the photos in your question), whereas the Phillip’s website of the pictured product says:

  Ingredients: Crab Meat, Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate (SAPP) added to prevent the formation of struvite crystals.

Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate is also called Disodium pyrophosphate and the Wikipedia article states:

  Disodium pyrophosphate can leave a slightly bitter aftertaste in some products,

In short, you taste something because there is something other than just crab meat. If SAPP tastes unpleasant to you, avoid products with it and choose ones without a preservative or with a different one (if a taste test is ok for you). In a pinch, masking the off taste may be possible, but not necessarily what you are looking for - you’d also be masking the crab flavor.


*Roughly* how many tomatoes go into a 24oz jar of pasta sauce?

Tomato size varies, so number of tomatoes is going to be so rough as to not be globally useful. Weight is pretty good, though.

The NCHFP's tomato sauce page says you need an average of 6.5 pounds per quart of sauce, so for 24 fluid ounces you'd need 4.875 pounds (4 pounds 14 ounces, or 2.2 kg).

I've found nutrition data saying 62g for a plum tomato, and Wikipedia says 57g (2 oz) for a roma tomato, so that'd be 35 to 39 tomatoes. But the roma tomatoes I often see in US grocery stores could easily be twice that size, so with those you might need more like 15 to 20.

Of course, how much you cook it down has a huge effect too, but without trying a specific recipe, it's pretty much impossible to know where you are on that scale.


What is this grilling utensil with two wire mesh panels?

A grill basket perhaps?

I've no luck finding the term for your specific description, but that seems to be an umbrella term for utensils that basically hold something so you can more easily grill it.


Why do my egg whites separate after whipping?

This is the nature of meringue: they will start to fall apart as soon as you stop whipping.  There are a few tricks to help it hold longer, but in general you want to have EVERYTHING ready to go as soon as the meringue is whipped.

To help stabilize the meringue you can:

Use a copper or SILVER-plated bowl to whip, or add a tiny amount of powdered copper supplement from a health food store
Acidify it slightly: add 1/8 tsp cream of tartar or 1/2 tsp lemon juice per white, before beating
Let the bowl warm to room temperature, which increases the ability of the whites to take in air
Ensure there is absolutely no yolk in with the whites.  The fat greatly destabilizes the foam.

Now for WHY these tricks work:

I'm going to quote heavily from Harold McGee's "On Food and Cooking", as it does a wonderful job explaining meringues and other whipped egg whites:

  Like the head on a beer or a cappucino, an egg foam is a liquid--the
  white--filled with a gas --air-- in such a way that the mixuture of
  liquid and gas keeps its shape, like a solid.  It's a mass of
  bubbles, with air inside each bubble, and the white spread out into a
  thin film to form the bubble walls.  And the makeup of these liquid
  walls determines how long a foam can stand up.  Pure water has such a
  strong surface tension--such strong attractive forces among its
  molecules--that it immediately starts to pull  itself together into a
  compact puddle; and it's so runny that it puddles almost immediately.
  The many nonwater molecules in egg white both reduce the surface
  tension of the water they float in, and make it less runny, and thus
  allow the bubbles to survive long enough to accumulate in a sizeable
  mass.  What gives the mass of foam a useful kitchen lifetime is the
  white's team of proteins.

Whisking unfolds these proteins, primarily globulins and ovotranferrin, which bond to each other and stabilize the bubble walls.  Cooking will evaporate the water and unfold ovoalbumin, creating a rigid and permanent protein network.

However, the same proteins can ALSO destabilize the foam if they bond too tightly. "The protein network begins to collapse when too many of these bonds accumulate and the proteins cluster together too tightly" (page 102). In the case of egg proteins, one of the strongest bonds is a disulfide bond between the sulfur-containing amino acids, cysteine and methionine. Eggs contain copious quantities of these amino acids, which are why they produce such a potent stench when they spoil; the sulfur is converted to malodorous sulfur compounds, particularly hydrogen sulfide.

Copper, silver, and acids stabilize the egg foam by preventing the formation of these disulfide bonds. To quote Harold McGee (page 103):

  It turns out that along with a few other metals, copper has the useful
  tendency to form extremely tight bonds with reactive sulfur groups: so
  tight that the sulfur is essentially preventing from reacting with
  anything else.  So the presence of copper in foaming eggs whites
  essentially eliminates the strongest kind of protein bond that can
  form, and makes it harder for the proteins to embrace each other too
  tightly.

McGee also notes that silver has the same property of inhibiting disulfide bonding. Acid achieves the same goal of reducing disulfide bonding, but works slightly differently:

  The sulfur bonds form when the sulfur-hydrogen (S-H) groups on two
  different protein molecules shed their hydrogens and form a
  sulfur-sulfur (S-S) connection with each other.  The addition of an
  acid boosts the number of free-floating hydrogen (H) ions in the egg
  white, which makes it much harder for the S-H groups to shed their own
  H, and so slows the sulfur bonding down to a crawl.


How does a coffee bean get its smokey flavor?

It's all about the roasting process.  The beans themselves have a much subtler flavor, a bit closer to tea really.

Try tasting a light roast coffee compared to a medium roast or dark roast at your local coffee house.  The differences are readily apparent.  The coffee you describe was most likely a dark roast which generally has a quite smoky and even burnt character.


What is this discoloured patch in my smoked prosciutto?

It looks like lard to me. The cut side of a ham is covered with lard to prevent drying out when curing, often mixed with spices. I wouldn't worry about it. Smoked cured ham is called speck in Italian, and mainly produced in the north, notably in Alto Adige.


The best I can offer you comes from Functionality of Proteins in Food:

  The gelation of egg yolk can be partially reversed by heating after thawing.  This treatment improves the functional properties of proteins.  The stiffness of the gels obtained after frozen storage can be reduced by more than 50% and become pourable at 21° C by heating up to 45° C for 1 h.

Eggs don't actually start to set until you hit 63° C, so if I had previously-frozen eggs, I would heat them as the above paragraph suggests.  Just be very careful not to use too much heat.

You won't get perfect eggs, but they'll be edible.


Lard (or other fat) as a subsitute for butter in desserts for someone with a dairy allergy?

Recipes for which you can substitute margarine for butter can have non-dairy margarines substituted instead - you have to check the ingredients list, most margarines contain milk solids. Here in Australia, my dairy free friends and I use Nuttelex, but that's not available in the USA.


Does the drying out of vegetables affect the taste after cooking?

8 hours in still air is probably not going to be enough to thoroughly dry your vegetables.
If you live in a very dry climate and the veggies were sitting uncovered in front of a fan the entire time then you might have actually dried them.

So your title is asking a different question than your description.

Description:
If you live in a very humid climate then you might be more concerned about spoiling than drying. They may have become a little limp so it makes a difference how you plan to cook them. If the veggies are going to be diced and sauteed and used in something else then they will probably be fine. If they are going to be their own side- like steamed asparagus- then the texture may be decidedly un-fresh.

Either way- the flavor will be normal or close to it.

Title:
Actual dehydrated veggies are different altogether. They have had most of their water removed. This concentrates flavors and changes them. They are sweeter and more intense. Their texture is also firmer and ranges from crisp to rubbery to almost normal depending on how much they are rehydrated.


If I'm understanding your question correctly (please let me know if I'm not), you want to know if the air inside the oven would carry flavor from one just removed dish to another since no time would pass for the aromas in the air to dissipate?

The answer to that question is usually no. One exception might be if the first dish created a lot of smoke in the oven.

As a matter of fact, you could bake a delicately flavored white cake on one shelf of the oven while cooking fish on another shelf, and the cake would not taste like fish. Assuming no chance of the fish in my example dripping, I would place the fish on the shelf above the cake, since aromas being carried by the hot air would travel up.

Perhaps someone else will come along to better explain the science here. I am only answering from experience, like cooking several Thanksgiving dishes at the same time. Which leads me to one more thing I would like to say. If you can fit the casserole and the pork in the oven the same time, you could cook them simultaneously.


What method can be used to remove the seed from a peach other than just trying to pull both sides after cutting it?

If you have the right kind1 of peaches (freestone, ripe), cutting around the stone along the side seam and further on will be enough to let you separate the two halves and lift out the stone. In all other cases, this is where the fun begins.

When working with peaches and nectarines, I always start with that initial once-around cut and try turning the halves.

If that fails, I cut a “wedge” parallel to the first cut and lift out that first slice.

Repeat. Just imagine cutting like meridians on a globe and you get the idea.

As the slices are connected at only a slim strip to the stone, they will either come off with just some pressure from the knife or can be cut off with the tip of your paring knife.

The first one is usually the most difficult one, here I often cut with a slight “slant” to minimize the area on the stone.

This method minimizes the amount of flesh stuck to the stone and gives you neat slices that look good if served like that or can be easily cut into uniform pieces.

The harder or clingier the fruit, the narrower should your slices be to still get them off the stone easily and without breakage.

If you are planning to mash/puree/cook the fruit anyway, you can of course just hack away...

————-

1 Peaches, like plums, are classified as freestone or clingstone (sometimes a third type, semi-freestone is mentioned), depending on whether the stone separates easily from the flesh or not. Most, but not all cultivars in stores are freestone peaches, but clingstones are sometimes described as more flavourful: They are often sweeter, less juicy, so have a more “concentrated” flavour.

Note that even for freestone peaches, the stone will separate best with ripe fruit. Underripe fruit will also cling.


The peel is certainly edible, it's up to you whether you use it or not. If you choose to not peel them, try using large, juicy guavas.
The seeds are edible as well, but perhaps a bit annoying in juice. So perhaps you could put it through a sieve after it's juiced (when using a juicer). If you don't find them annoying, there is no problem in leaving them in.
Some varieties of guava have a strong odour. If you dislike this, you can boil them first, to reduce this.

As for the blender, I've never tried it myself, I've found this website that gives a good how-to.
It says to chop up the guavas, put them in the blender with some extra water (the amount needed will depend on how juicy your guavas are, so don't put too much with them in the beginning), blend, put everything in a clean towel or a cheese cloth and try to press out the juice, so the pulp and the seeds stay behind. There is nothing wrong with the pulp, you can let it in if you don't want to do the towel-step. But your juice will be more like a smoothie.

A juicer would be less work, but it's more expensive. Perhaps try making juice with a blender, and if you really really like it, you can always buy a juicer if you know you like it.

And just a side note: you surely can can or freeze the guavas, so that you don't have to throw them away.


When *brewing* Irish coffee in a drip coffeemaker or French press, do I need to use more Irish whiskey?

I don't think you'd need to increase the proportion.  You could, but I'd probably advise against it mostly because of sobriety concerns.  It's much easier to over-serve someone with a more potent cocktail than it is a milder one - especially after the first couple.

This is kind of an interesting method, and I think the key to success is the gentle heating of the whiskey over the heating element before the coffee is dripped in.  Ethanol is pretty potent stuff (ever seen a Molotov Cocktail in action?) and will evaporate more readily than water will.  This is why when adding wine, vermouth, etc. to a dish, you can drive off most of the alcohol at stovetop temperature well before the water evaporates.  Adding the whiskey to a warm carafe is likely driving off a small percentage of the alcohol, reducing its bite (and its punch as well, but this seems like a reasonable tradeoff for something generally considered a dessert drink).

Some of the depth of flavor could also come from volatile flavor compounds (things like esters which develop as spirits age) being driven off or changing composition.  Heating spirits or setting them on fire isn't a common trick these days, but historically bartenders often used it to transform how the flavor of spirits is sensed by the drinker's palate.  It's the flip side of chilling and diluting drinks through stirring or shaking, and it's a good substitute for those in the middle of winter, when more ice is the last thing you want.

I think it's also worth pointing out that the brand and variety of both coffee and whiskey will do a lot to change the end result.  Coffee obviously has a huge number of origins and roast levels, plus myriad other factors that can affect its flavor.  Irish whiskey varies too; it's often seen as a monolithic category, but it'll differ as much as scotch or bourbon depending on the quality of the mash, how it was distilled, and the aging process.  Powers is unapologetically brash and spicy; Knappogue Castle is a much more subtle product that would be really well-suited to this type of application.


Depends on the method by which you plan to reheat the meat.  The end result should be that the meat is slightly warmer than mouth temperature.

The most precise method is to heat a large pot of water to 90-100F/32-37C, and hold the temperature strictly in that range.  Put your meat in an air-tight bag and suck out the air.  Submerge the meat in the water and leave it there, stirring occasionally, until the meat reaches 90F/32C -- the more meat, the longer it stays (a steak would probably take about 20 minutes, while a big, solid hunk of the tenderloin may take an hour).  Of course, you have to mind your water carefully, to keep it at the right temperature, so this method is a pain unless you have some specialized and expensive equipment.

If you are reheating your meat by oven or microwave, don't rely so much on the settings on the equipment as on the readings of a good thermometer taken from the center of your meat.  Still, you want gentle heat only, to avoid overcooking the outside while the inside comes up to temperature.

For me, however, I simply allow my leftover tenderloin to lose its refrigerator chill, then "heat" it by dipping each bite in very hot sauce or gravy.


Tasting while in progress is trial and error and a learned skill.  If a sauce needs to cook for an hour or more to meld favors together, it will not taste the same early in the process as the finished product.  Some ingredients mellow during the process, others concentrate.  Garlic as an example may taste strong to begin with, or be undetectable in other areas until it has melded with the other ingredients.  Salt will often become stronger as the product cooks towards completion.  The art is learning that at the half way mark knowing what the salt or other ingredient should taste like and how forward it should be to have it where you want in the finished product.  If you cannot taste it at all at the half way point, there almost certainly is not enough, but if it tastes like what you want at the end, then you may have too much and need to make other adjustments.

For me, this comes only with experience and you will get that only by consistently tasting and learning what it tasted like in progress when it turns out the way you want in the end.  You will definitely make mistakes, the key is remember and learn from those.  In the long term, you final results will tend to be better if you go by taste in many products than trying to go by one pinch in this dish, two dashes in this, and so on.  Meat is especially notorious for one piece taking more spice than another, but many vegetables are the same way, especially things like onions that can vary in strength, tomatoes that vary in acid, etc.

In learning on some dishes, like sauces, you can even consider dividing into two sauce pans.  One you spice a bit heavier than he other, taste side by side, and proceed.   Then compare the end product and see which was closer to what you wanted.  If both  are OK, but one better, you now have a better idea of what the mid point target was, combine them for serving so no loss and remember the lesson.


From what you have described it sounds like Santon sauce may be a variation of Shandong sauce which is often served in Chinese restaurants alongside Crispy Skin Chicken. Here is a basic recipe that can be found on many internet sites. Perhaps it can be a starting point for you.

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 chilies, finely chopped (I finely strip them rather than chop)
2 scallions, finely chopped (I thinly slice them)
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp sesame oil (I always use the light version)
2 1/2 Tbl chicken stock
Pinch of MSG
3 tsp dry sherry
2 tsp wine vinegar

Heat a wok and add the garlic, chilies, onions, sugar, and sesame oil. Stir fry for 1 minute. Then add the chicken stock, MSG, sherry and vinegar.
Bring to a boil and then simmer for 20 seconds.

I have found that the flavor varies depending on the type of chilies, sherry, and vinegar used. You can try different types of each to get the particular flavor profile you are looking for.

If you try this and get the taste you want I would be interested to know the final ingredients.


Turmeric is a rhizome that contains some starches. Those starches will hydrate and gelatinize like any other starch and thicken liquid.

I don't know how its thickening power compares to other starches like flour or corn starch. This paper has a chart of vegetable starch sources that would imply that turmeric's starch content is fairly high at 76%

In many cuisines turmeric is used for color and flavor and isn't present in enough quantity to have this effect. As you have observed in Indian curries enough is used to thicken a sauce.

I add turmeric early when frying all the other spices to toast them. As with other fine powders, frying it early also makes it a bit easier to incorporate without clumps.

The only reason I can think of to add it later is if you are adjusting the flavor/thickness of the curry.


There are really two issues here. First is temperature, second is time, and they are somewhat inversely proportional to each other. Looking at AmazingRibs, one of my favorite online references, you can see some of the simplified data regarding both general information and elsewhere there are some venison specific cooking recommendations. The neck, in the second reference, due to the connective tissue is recommended to be cooked to a much higher temperature, similar to smoking a pork butt or brisket. So you either cook to a high internal temperature for a relatively short time (still many hours), or cook to a lower internal temperature for a very extended time.

Now, the issue is what cooking technique do you want to use? Smoking? I'd Traeger it at 225 until it hits 195-ish degrees like pulled pork. The meat itself will definitely be well done but the connective tissue will have broken down sufficiently. Sous vide? How about 135-140 degrees for 72 hours like short ribs?

From the food safety standpoint, cooking to less than 140 degrees requires much more care and preparation, and it does require you to understand a lot more about the potential risks in order to make an informed decision since you are the one putting the food into your mouth. Do I think everyone should cook sous vide? Absolutely not. You have to be willing to accept a certain degree of risk, or learn ways to mitigate that risk. In this particular case, unlike store-purchased meat the cut you have may or may not have unusual pathogens (parasites) that cooking (or freezing) techniques would have to account for.


How do you make sure your salmon is cooked through?

Laws of physics dictate that if you roast / bake a side of salmon (or other fish or meat) with different thicknesses using traditional methods, you will reach different levels of doneness.
This can actually be a good thing, e.g. I have a group of guests who prefer their beef anywhere from rare to well-done and I serve whatever each one prefers.

But of course there are methods to minimize or even completely avoid this, namely those where the fish / meat is exposed only to the target temperature or slightly above, thus eliminating the danger of overcooking.

Sous-vide
Using a carefully tempered water bath to bring your food to the desired temperature over a rather long time. As the water bath is exactly at the target temperature, you can't over cook.
This method alone won't give your any "roast" flavours (no maillard reaction), if those are desired, a quick sear or some torching must follow the sous-vide process prior to serving.
The disadvantages are a quite long "cooking" time (sometimes hours) and the need for special equipment like special bags, a vacuum sealer and the heating pump. Home equipment is available for around 200$, pro tools can quickly exceed 1k.
Low temperature cooking in an oven
Either first searing the piece of meat and then slowly bringing it to the desired core temperature in an oven slightly warmer that the desired core temperature or heating first and then searing to finish it off (reverse low-temp).
Needs no special equipment, is a bit faster than sous-vide but there is the risk of the fish / meat drying out a bit in the oven. Not all ovens run low enough, forcing you to use a slightly hotter than ideal process.
Forgoing the "one big showy piece"
You can of course cut the fillet into portions and adjust cooking time for each piece individually, either by putting the thick pieces into the oven or pan first and the thinner ones later or by removing the thin ones earlier.
This of course means that you need to judge the doneness for each piece individually.


Brisket been cooking for 4 hours and rock hard -- what am I doing wrong?

Brisket takes a long time as it's so tough to begin with, just keep cooking it. It may take another 2 or more hours to get tender. Just be patient, with brisket you have to cook for a result not a time.


What are the vertical-edge plates called?

With Duarte's help, I found the plates are:

Raised edge plate
The divided scoop plates.
Dignity plates.
High sided plates.
Hi Lo plates.
Manoy plates.
Inner lip plates.

There are also lipped edge plates, but it doesn't always satisfy the requirement of food not going off the edge.


is frozen hamburger ok to eat after the sell by date?

Assuming you didn't buy it frozen, the sell by date is for when it's just in the fridge. As long as you froze it before that date, and you use it immediately after thawing, it'll be safe to eat. If it was already frozen when you bought it, the sell by date is just for quality, not for safety.

In either case, if it wasn't wrapped tightly it may have lost some quality. Things do slowly dry out in the freezer if the packaging or container isn't airtight, so the texture can deteriorate, and they can also take on odors from the rest of the freezer.


There isn't a direct conversion, and certainly not one applicable across a multitude of dishes.  The toaster oven supples dry, radiant heat that starts from the outside in, and the microwave supplies "wet" heat that starts 1" inside the food.  The only case where the two devices are interchangeable is if you just want to warm up some leftovers.

For mochi specifically, you don't want to use the toaster oven at all.  If not using a microwave, you want to use a steamer, and steam it for around 20 minutes.  Your goal is to make the dough wet and pliable and not dry it out.


Can infrared light in electric / induction cooktop hurt eye?

Induction cooktops do not use lights to cook/heat. They use magnetic induction, which means there's a coil with electricity passing through it in the stove, which causes (induces) eddy currents to flow in the pan sitting on it, and as those dissipate the energy is turned into heat.

All of this is completely safe, and in fact safer than other types of cooktops because there's no open flame like gas, and because the stove itself doesn't heat up as part of all this. It'll still be somewhat hot, because it has a hot pan sitting right on it, but not like a regular electric cooktop where the element is hotter than the pan. This also means an induction element won't heat up at all if there's nothing on top of it.

If there are any lights on an induction cooktop, they're visible light only, because the entire point of them is to let you know when the cooktop is on.

All hot things do emit some amount of infrared light, simply because they're hot, but it's completely safe to look at. This is what happens with non-induction electric cooktops: the element heats up so much it glows visibly red, and it's also emitting some infrared that you can't see. All completely safe, just what hot things do, not really different from looking at some glowing coals in a fireplace.


Do both fit in the microwave at the same time ?

Start at the recommended 9 minutes, test the temperature, nuke it for a few more minutes (2, 3 ) and test again.

If you have a rotary table inside, it will make thing easier, if not, move the 2 meals every couple of minutes.


The thickness is coming from the ratio of oil to water. Like mayonnaise, bearnaise is an oil-in-water emulsion, and will get thinner the more water is in it. (Consider the relative thickness of moist sand and mud; the butter in the bearnaise is like the sand.) Adding a bit of hot water will work well to thin it, but do so a bit at a time, stirring well afterwards, as a little bit of water will go a long way.


You take a small amount out, cook it and taste it. It is the classic way, for instance, to know if sausage is going to be good after it is cooked but before you put it into casing.


How can I wrap fish for freezing if you don't have a vacuum seal?

If you wrap the fish (or any meat you're freezing) with a layer of plastic wrap and a layer of aluminum foil, it will keep out air out and moisture in as much as possible without vacuum sealing.

Make sure you wrap with plastic wrap first, then aluminum foil.  The taste of aluminum can leech into the food and supposedly there are health risks associated with aluminum/meat contact as well, though I haven't heavily researched them.  Better safe than sorry, though.

Then I also recommend using a straw to suck out as much air as possible, as chris suggests.

This article has some great guidelines on freezing meat and minimizing freezer burn.  While it only calls out meat and poultry, I use the same methods for fish with great success.